Forbes is set to release their list of the World's 100 Most Powerful Women. In honor of the women who will appear on that list, we put together our own roundtable to discuss what it means to be a powerful woman today, as well as who they think should be topping the list. Sarah Palin? Tina Fey? Angela Merkel? Oprah?

Our guests: Anna Deavere Smith, the Tony Award nominated actress, playwright and current Artist-in-Residence at the Center for American Progress; Faye Wattleton, former president for Planned Parenthood and current president of the Center for the Advancement of Women; and Carol Jenkins, president of the Women’s Media Center.

It's Friday movie review day at The Takeaway, and we cover Judd Apatow’s latest film, "Funny People," starring Adam Sandler, Seth Rogen and Jonah Hill. Joining The Takeaway to talk about the "dudeness" of the film and how Apatow treats his female characters is freelance film critic Michelle Orange.

Watch the trailer for "Funny People" below.

Of the 110 U.S. Supreme Court justices in history, only eleven have been Catholic. But if Judge Sonia Sotomayor is confirmed as the newest member on the bench, there will be six Catholic judges on the bench at once. That begs the question: What does diversity on the Supreme Court mean? Is it about race, religion, or gender? Or should it be about something bigger? The Takeaway talks to Nadine Strossen, the former President of the ACLU who is currently a professor at New York Law School. Also joining the conversation is John Allen, the senior correspondent for the National Catholic Reporter.

Things have changed since the 1970s, especially for women. But a new study published this week in the National Bureau of Economic Research indicates that those changes may not be making women more content. In fact, the research reveals that women are less happy now then they were in the 1970’s. With all the gains that women have made in the past three and a half decades, why is happiness on the decline? The Takeaway talks to the co-authors of the paper, “The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness", Justin Wolfers and Betsey Stevenson. Both are assistant professors in public policy at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business.

Warren Buffett invests like a girl. He’s patient and does thorough research. He doesn’t take huge risks. He waits for the right price to buy, and he hold onto stock a long time. All of which, according to a survey of financial analysts and investment advisers, is generally how women investors behave. The study found that women felt it was much more important than men did to avoid incurring large losses, falling below a target rate of return or acting on incomplete information. In short, women are more risk-averse than men. And that can make them better investors than men. The study found that women’s portfolios gained 1.4% more than men’s portfolios did. (Single women did even better than single men, with 2.3% greater gains.) Now that the economy is showing some faint signs of recovery and many of us might be considering jumping back into the market, we turn to Dr. Ellen Peters, a psychologist from the University of Oregon, who was involved in the original study, for some ideas on what investment strategies will work for everyone.

President Obama consults today with Senate leaders on his pick to replace Supreme Court Justice David Souter; he hopes the nominee can be through the confirmation process before Congress breaks in August. Should his nominee be female? Black? Latino? Joining us is Judge Judith Kaye, counsel with Skadden Litigation Group. Judge Kaye was the Chief Judge of New York Court of Appeals for 15 years until her retirement in 2008, and served longer than any judge in New York's history. She joins The Takeaway with her thoughts on what makes a good judge.

Military marriages are suffering as Americans in uniform continue to fight two ongoing wars. In 2007 more than 13,000 marriages failed among active duty soldiers and marines. In her latest memoir, I Love a Man in Uniform, author Lily Burana gives these statistics a human voice. Although her marriage has survived the military stress test, she and her husband were in no way immune to the trials and tribulations that came with living on a military base, living through a deployment, and the awkward emotional fumbling that accompanied her husband’s return from combat in Iraq. Burana’s acclimation to the military world was exacerbated by her and her husband’s cultural differences. Burana, a former stripper and punk with a penchant for writing alternative prose fell for a straight-laced military man. She joins us for a look into the military world and what it means to be a modern-day military wife.

Justice David Souter's retirement gives President Obama the chance to start reshaping the Supreme Court. Who's on Obama's short list? And what are the quialities that make someone a high-impact justice? Joining the Takeaway are Adam Liptak, Supreme Court correspondent for the New York Times and Dahlia Lithwick, senior legal correspondent for Slate . They discuss what role the new justice could play.

For more, read Dahlia Lithwick's and Hanna Rosin's article, An Unnatural Woman: The secret life of a Supreme Court short-lister and Adam Liptak's article, Souter’s Exit Opens Door for a More Influential Justice in the New York Times.

In the last five years, Liberia has made the transition from Charles Taylor, a warlord accused of hate crimes, to Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the first woman democratically elected to lead an African nation. It's a change that has made Liberia a focal point for the advancement of women in Africa and worldwide. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is now coming to the U.S, and releasing a book about her life, This Child Will Be Great. She's also just been interviewed by Lynn Sherr, special correspondent for World Focus on PBS.


For more, head to worldfocus.org

Here is a 2007 tribute to President Sirleaf created when she was honored at the Africare Bishop Walker Dinner and received the 2007 Bishop John T. Walker Distinguished Humanitarian Award.

As America has become more diverse, its law schools and firms have followed suit. But the pipeline to the judiciary is blocked—white males are overrepresented on state appellate benches by a margin of nearly two-to-one. Ciara Torres-Spelliscy, one of the authors of a Brennan Center for Justice study on making the judiciary more diverse, and Kim Cocroft, a newly appointed judge in Columbus, Ohio, join John and Jerome with a look at the issue.

Women are prohibited from doing many things in Saudi Arabia, among them driving and being alone with a man they are not related to. How do women there decide what freedoms are worth fighting for? Reem Asaad, a finance lecturer at Dar al-Hikma Women's College in Jeddah joins The Takeaway with the story of an unusual campaign she is leading to defend the right of women to buy their lingerie from other women, because currently only men can sell women's underwear. Ms. Asaad joins us now from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

As a result of the wave of job losses, we are about to hit a milestone in gender roles in that women will soon hold more payroll jobs than men. Catherine Rampell, who writes about economics at the New York Times, is here to talk about what this shift will mean in the lives of American families.

For further information, read Catherine Rampell's article, As Layoffs Surge, Women May Pass Men in Job Force, in today's New York Times.

Filling President-elect Barack Obama's vacant senate seat has turned into such an incredible drama that it is easy to forget that there are other empty seats in the U.S. Senate. Vice-president-elect Biden's seat was quickly filled, but more drama is roiling over the soon-to-be vacant senate seat from New York. Caroline Kennedy has made her claim on the seat once held by her father and no one is quite sure whether or not she is qualified. The coverage of that issue has raised quite a few eyebrows, too. Here to discuss all sides of the issue are Nick Confessore a reporter in the Albany bureau of the New York Times, and Lisa Belkin, a writer for the New York Times Magazine whose piece in this Sunday's magazine is called “The Senator Track.”

Read Nick Confessore's article on Ms. Kennedy in today's New York Times. (You'll have to wait for Sunday for Lisa Belkin's!)