(1) This story from USA Today about pay gaps between men and women makes me a bit depressed. Makes me wonder about places I’ve worked and where my female friends have worked.
(2) Pole dancing a new brand of feminism….??!?!
I find it interesting how whenever anything slightly subversive, like pole-dancing, is proven to actually help women gain confidence it is suddenly branded as “feminist.” Does feminist = subversive?
I found this below on the web the other day. Its from a website about health for teenagers:
The menstrual cycle doesn’t have to be a drag, it actually shows how complex your body is and a sign that it is functioning properly! Congratulations, you are a woman and being a woman is terrific!
Reuters reports that “Painful sex common after giving birth”
A year after giving birth, many women are plagued by urinary incontinence, pain during sex and other problems, UK researchers report.
Eighty-seven percent of mothers who responded to a survey complained of at least one health problem. Problems were particularly common among women who had delivered with the assistance of forceps.
Anyone else not completely shockec by these findings? But curious as to why we haven’t really heard about a study like this in mainstream media?
‘’It’s terrible, because these are students who are working very hard to pay for their tuition and books at a time when tuition costs are edging up as well,'’ said Linda Lekawski, director of the university health center at Texas A&M, where the old price for birth control pills of about $15 per month is expected to triple. ‘’This is one thing they’ve been able to benefit from for years.'’
According to a International Herald Tribune article:
Rome has found a way for mother to abandon babies they can no longer care for in a safe way:
The baby, who is white, was deposited in a small structure equipped with a heated cradle and life-saving instruments, including a respirator. As in bygone days, it is possible for a woman to leave a baby without being seen, but the moment the child is abandoned an alarm goes off in the hospital’s emergency room, ensuring that the baby receives immediate first aid from a team of specialists.
I think this is a great idea to ensure that women won’t get stigmatized while knowing their infant ends up in safe hands.
It would be great if we started something like that here so we could avoid some headlines like:
Baby found dead at Shreveport apartment
Baby Found Dead In Bed With Parents
Police look into infant’s injury
Just a thought…
Long over due:
Top story: A History Department Bans Citing Wikipedia as a Research Source
I first saw an earlier version of this story when I was reading a blog a few weeks ago. I don’t know what I would have done if wikipedia was a commonly searched source when I was in undergrad or grad school. I finished that part of my education right before wireless connections took over. I used google all the time but it was before google blogs, google maps–before many people “blogged.” The people I knew only had “online journals” at that point.
Sometimes, I do feel like I’m missing out out on a huge revolution in the way scholars are researching, citing, and using all these internet based sources. Simultaneously, I am glad that I do understand the value of a book. I know many students do understand this but relying on the internet to find an answer to a question can be a slippery slope. I am guilty of this arguably lazy dependence as well but one cannot deny the advantages of the web and all of the well-founded resources available. It just takes that discerning eye to comb through all of the links.
Other Stories:
(1) Teaching our young girls: “Being a sexual person isn’t about being a pole dancer”
(2) High school students in the Mexico given dolls to try to bring down the state’s soaring teenage pregnancy rate.
(3) Vietnamese women and Korean men make it work.
(4) The title of this piece made me look twice: Vagina Monlogues are part feminism, part fun.
Right because something can’t be feminist AND fun. A dude wrote and his article was pretty funny:
A reoccurring theme in “The Vagina Monologues” is the idea of women not really “paying attention” or “thinking about” their essence. “When was the first time you noticed your vagina?” they ask. There again, this would be impossible to ask a guy.
When was the first time you noticed your penis?
You mean the dangling appendage that hangs off of my body? Oh I’ve always been pretty freakin’ aware of it.
I mean you’re born with it, and then they cut part of it off. As I’ve written before, it’s like its own independent city-state down there.
But I’m still lost on the writer’s point with the title.
(5) And finally, there has been a lot of media given to the soap opera lifestyles of two blonde women, one recently passed away and the other “losing it.”
Sure some of it is entertaining, but as the dooce said:
I would hope that other women and other mothers are looking at her with a little bit of compassion right now, if only for the sake of those two baby boys who are innocent in all of this. She is their mother.
I was curious about the history of pap smears today, so I (idiotically?) went to wikipedia (I know when will I LEARN my lesson).
Um, there is no history of how the procedure was medically developed.
But the page does provide this info:
Two stories that provide a fascinating parallel:
From the article Pressing to look closer at blood clots and the Pill:
“Originally there was some hope that third-generation pills would be more effective,” said Dr. Sidney Wolfe, director of Public Citizen’s Health Research Group, which filed the petition. “In fact, they turn out to have unique risks and no benefit over second-generation contraceptives.”
Learning that more recently developed birth control pills offer more risks and NO benefits over slightly older pills enrages me. I also learned that several tests that looked into potential side affects and effectiveness of the drug usually only include women who are considered average weight and are of a younger age than 40.
Perhaps more important, the panel wants the F.D.A. to ensure that it gathers data on the safety and efficacy of oral contraceptives from real women — older, overweight, forgetful even — living in a real world where contraceptive choices have real consequences.
A very alarming part of the research that the University of Washington found was that overwight and obese women were 60 percent more likely to become pregnant than women who weighed less on low dose pills.
Another article about sexual health that appeared the day before concerned popular pharmacies in the UK. Pharmacies to sell Viagra to patrons without a prescription on Valentine’s Day. Don’t get me wrong I think men who suffer from ED deserve to have medicine to help them. Modern medicine is a wonderful thing but the vibe I am getting from the media is that the development and marketing of drugs that enhance sexual desire takes precedence over drugs that inhibit women’s ability to become pregnant.
A few years ago I saw a pharmaceutical advertisement that said men could receive their third prescription of Viagra for free. Near that same time, I heard many stories of young women having a hard time securing birth control pills for an inexpensive co-pay price from their insurance companies. Attitudes toward pills intended for sexual use differ drastically between those inteded for men than for women.
Clearly, women suffering from potentially life threatening problems from birth-control pills isn’t considered sexy news, but it is real news that deserves to be heard. Attitudes toward women and birth-control have always confused me. Pharmaceutical companies are quick to market them and present a world where women who take the Pill are carefree and fun-loving BUT without proper media coverage and assertions that is ok to discuss the Pill’s benefits and drawbacks many women will suffer needlessly.
Not only do easy-bake ovens teach little girls (AND boys) gender stereotypes…
Toymaker Hasbro is recalling nearly 1 million Easy-Bake Ovens, because nearly 30 children have been hurt by them, including a Twin Cities, Minn. girl.
Alex Grundhoffer was operating the toy so that his daughter could watch, but when he looked away from the oven for a moment, his daughter was burned.
“By the time I turned my head around, she was screaming and she had her hand stuck in there,” said Grundhoffer. “So she couldn’t extract it herself so I actually put one hand on the oven and one hand on her wrist and pulled her hand back out of it.”
Thank God my mom never bought me that toy!
