Women News Nov 24, 2009
Women News December 1, 2009
Jane: Last Wednesday was the International Day of Elimination of Violence Against Women. In honor of the 10th anniversary of the founding of this day, the UN unveiled a network of men leaders who are to act as male role models in a campaign opposing violence against women. The UN urges all men to join the campaign, saying about 70% of women experience some form of physical or sexual violence from men.
The 14 men currently in the have all demonstrated a commitment to oppose violence against women. Mr. Ban, the UN secretary-general called on men and boys around the world to "Break the silence. When you witness violence against women and girls, do not sit back. Act. Advocate. Unite to change the practices and attitudes that incite, perpetrate and condone this violence."
Joan: The Stupak-Pitts Amendment is not the only issue concerning women and reproductive rights in the House health care bill. There is a provision affecting Medicaid recipients who are pregnant for the first time or who have a child under two years of age. Section 1713 allows states to use Medicaid funds for non-medical home visits by nurses to improve maternal or child health and pregnancy outcomes or to increase birth intervals between pregnancies, reduce maternal and child involvement in the criminal justice system, increase economic self-sufficiency, and reducing dependence on public assistance."
To me, and I have read the relevant parts of Section 1713, the home visitation provision appears supportive of women. In fact I think they are something women have pushed for and have found an attractive benefit of certain European Health Plans. But, in an article published on StopFamilyViolence.org, Gwendolyn Mink and Dorothy Roberts say that they believe the goals of the home visitation program have nothing to do with providing health care but are "eugenicist, deceptive, discriminatory against low-income women, and utterly inappropriate to the medical work of nurses."
To me this says how important it is that we read the references and really come to our own conclusions.
It is their interpretation that "The House health care bill codifies some of the worst stereotypes of low-income mothers, suggesting that bad reproductive choices and misguided family practices make their families poor. Similarly, the provision blames low-income mothers for raising criminals and accuses them of maintaining unstable and neglectful home lives for their children". "Section 1713 interprets literally the language of "pathology" from the welfare debate in its plan to "cure" the putative effects of poverty by curing poor mothers' fertility and motherhood". They urge lawmakers to "support a vision of reproductive justice that extends beyond abortion and respects the childbearing decisions and mothering of all women.
To me this interpretation is somewhere up there with the notion that a Living Will and Medical Directives are the equivalent of Death Panels--that is., I think they are a lot of agitation and uproar seriously misreading the section. What the section does is provide the State with the funding to provide home visits by nurses to those pregnant women and new parents who want them. Then it gives a variety of ways to evaluate whether the visits are worth the money. They need satisfy only one criterion. And improving maternal and newborn care are right there at the top. Other criteria do include those that upset the writers at StopFamilyViolence. But let’s look: Medicaid is for people living in poverty. This section doesn’t say those issues are problems for the poor only, they are simply saying that Medicaid can address issues among the poor. These issues do exist across all of society and perhaps Health Insurance providers will pay for them and evaluate them in the same way. But again, Medicaid doesn’t say the problems it tries to solve exist only with the poor just that they sometimes do exist among the poor. Remember Susan Smith who killed her children, as I recall in an altered state which they attributed to post-partum problems. That certainly resulted in child abuse and an encounter with the criminal justice system. We were all saying “If only someone had been dropping in on her regularly to see that everything was okay.” But the real goal of these visits is to help improve health care. But that is just what I think. I wonder what our listeners think, and what do you think Jane?
Jane: Sarasota recently had a Maternal Health Care Forum and one of the solutions for improving maternal health was having post partum nurse visitations. Seems like the intent of the bill is to help new mothers. Thank you for your interpretation of that article.
There is a lot of controversy about the new Florida State University campaign to promote its women's basketball team. Featuring highly stylized glamour shots of the players, the campaign is designed to highlight the players' "beauty." But this issue is not sexism as you might expect since beauty has nothing to do with sports. Instead, the controversy is about homophobia aka fear of lesbians.
Often women basketball players appear big and muscular. The photos of the FSU players show them dolled-up in satin dresses and make-up, presumably to sexualize the players. Actually, probaby hetero-sexualize them! But the Seattle Times basketball columnist Jayda Evans says, "I'm just concerned the sexualized look continues a different, damaging constant in women's hoops -- homophobia."
What is disturbing is the press release by FSU coach Sue Semrau who defends the marketing campaign saying, "We feel it is important to set ourselves apart as much as we can... We wanted to have a product that would stand out to the people we are trying to reach." To her, the team is now objectified, a "product" to be promoted to its viewers. This FSU campaing is another example of women being objectified and sexualized, sex sells.
Joan: I understand the concern, but sometimes I feel as if people are looking a little too hard for undercurrents of sexism, but, awareness is important. According to AVWeb/Insider women make up only about 6 percent of the total U.S. pilot population. Amazingly women have made no gains in this area since 1935 when there were about 800 women flying, and that was also about 6 percent of all pilots.
There are multiple factors keeping women out of the aviation world some sexist, some societal (women don't want to be away from their families that much). Most likely, it stems from the lack of teaching science, technology, engineering and math to girls. Hopefully with the promoting of these disciplines to young women, we will see more female pilots.
Jane: According to the London Telegraph, women are now better with gadgets then men. A poll commissioned by the retailer Comet found that "48 per cent of women now feel comfortable tackling technological tasks around the home, compared to 47 per cent of men." Amazingly, the report continues, "85 per cent of men no longer considering themselves the most competent member of the household."
Joan: There law that prohibits employers from hiring or firing based on a person's genetic makeup took affect last week. The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act signed by President Bush in May 2008 also disallows health insurers from considering a person's genetics -- such as predisposition for Parkinson's disease â “ when setting insurance rates or denying coverage. Stuart J. Ishimaru, acting chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, said, "No one should be denied a job or the right to be treated fairly in the workplace based on fears that he or she may develop some condition in the future
Jane: According to Caryl Rivers a commentator at WeNews, "women are still shut out of the world of ideas. She came to this conclusion after looking at three areas: The Publishers Weekly, or PW top-10 list, news anchors, and Sunday "egghead" shows. PW came out last week with a list of top 10 books that was all male. This is in a year that saw new books by Margaret Atwood, Louise Erdrich, Alice Munro, Jayne Anne Phillips, Helen Benedict and Barbara Ehrenreich.
Even thought Diane Sawyer will soon be network news anchor at ABC and Katie Curic is at CBS, the purveyors and arbiters of "important" information on both networks and cable are still predominately white men.
The watchdog group Media Matters for America finds that on the Sunday talk shows, men outnumber women 4-to-1. On cable, Media Matters found that of the 35 hosts and co-hosts, 29 were men, and all were white. Women did not make up at least half of the guests on a single one of the three cable networks, and on some networks they were as scarce as 18 percent.
Joan: Accrording to the Washington Times,| Virginia Military Institute (VMI) is being accused of having policies that are "sexist and hostile" toward female cadets. Though VMI says it has recruited women, women remain a small minority. Of the 1,500 cadets only 126 are women. In June of 2008, the Education Department complained that "The language and terminology that is used and considered acceptable by VMI in the barracks reflects a climate and culture that is derogatory and discriminatory toward the women that are required as cadets to live in the barracks."
Jane: On Nov. 23rd, the District of Columbia agreed to pay $13.7 million to settle a class action suit brought by protesters wrongfully arrested during an April 15, 2000 demonstration "the prison industrial complex". The plaintiffs alleged that police officers detained nearly 700 people attending the march, which was timed to overlap with an IMF / World Bank meeting. Mara Verheyden-Hilliard of the Partnership for Civil Justice, which filed the suit in 2001 said, :It sends a message to every city and every law enforcement officer that there is going to be a steep price to pay for violating protesters' First Amendment rights."
The case is the second major protester suit the District has settled in recent weeks. It agreed earlier this month to pay $450,000 to eight individuals who were allegedly interrogated by police during a 2002 demonstration related to the Iraq War.
Joan: Men have Viagra (which generated nearly $1.8 billion in sales last year in the United States) and women may soon have Flibanserin, a prescription medication poised for review as a sex enhancer by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Although Flibanserin received major hype last week at international scientific conferences held in San Diego and Lyon, France, after the drug tested well in clinical trials in North America and Europe , some health experts question the safety of having to take the medication every day. Opponents of drug therapy said the medication has such seemingly narrow benefits that women should look for help outside the realm of medication.
Studies are still required and it is not clear when and if the company, Boehringer Ingelheim will seek FDA clearance for flibanserin.
Jane: Last Wednesday was the International Day of Elimination of Violence Against Women. In honor of the 10th anniversary of the founding of this day, the UN unveiled a network of men leaders who are to act as male role models in a campaign opposing violence against women. The UN urges all men to join the campaign, saying about 70% of women experience some form of physical or sexual violence from men.
The 14 men currently in the have all demonstrated a commitment to oppose violence against women. Mr. Ban, the UN secretary-general called on men and boys around the world to "Break the silence. When you witness violence against women and girls, do not sit back. Act. Advocate. Unite to change the practices and attitudes that incite, perpetrate and condone this violence."
Joan: The Stupak-Pitts Amendment is not the only issue concerning women and reproductive rights in the House health care bill. There is a provision affecting Medicaid recipients who are pregnant for the first time or who have a child under two years of age. Section 1713 allows states to use Medicaid funds for non-medical home visits by nurses to improve maternal or child health and pregnancy outcomes or to increase birth intervals between pregnancies, reduce maternal and child involvement in the criminal justice system, increase economic self-sufficiency, and reducing dependence on public assistance."
To me, and I have read the relevant parts of Section 1713, the home visitation provision appears supportive of women. In fact I think they are something women have pushed for and have found an attractive benefit of certain European Health Plans. But, in an article published on StopFamilyViolence.org, Gwendolyn Mink and Dorothy Roberts say that they believe the goals of the home visitation program have nothing to do with providing health care but are "eugenicist, deceptive, discriminatory against low-income women, and utterly inappropriate to the medical work of nurses."
To me this says how important it is that we read the references and really come to our own conclusions.
It is their interpretation that "The House health care bill codifies some of the worst stereotypes of low-income mothers, suggesting that bad reproductive choices and misguided family practices make their families poor. Similarly, the provision blames low-income mothers for raising criminals and accuses them of maintaining unstable and neglectful home lives for their children". "Section 1713 interprets literally the language of "pathology" from the welfare debate in its plan to "cure" the putative effects of poverty by curing poor mothers' fertility and motherhood". They urge lawmakers to "support a vision of reproductive justice that extends beyond abortion and respects the childbearing decisions and mothering of all women.
To me this interpretation is somewhere up there with the notion that a Living Will and Medical Directives are the equivalent of Death Panels--that is., I think they are a lot of agitation and uproar seriously misreading the section. What the section does is provide the State with the funding to provide home visits by nurses to those pregnant women and new parents who want them. Then it gives a variety of ways to evaluate whether the visits are worth the money. They need satisfy only one criterion. And improving maternal and newborn care are right there at the top. Other criteria do include those that upset the writers at StopFamilyViolence. But let’s look: Medicaid is for people living in poverty. This section doesn’t say those issues are problems for the poor only, they are simply saying that Medicaid can address issues among the poor. These issues do exist across all of society and perhaps Health Insurance providers will pay for them and evaluate them in the same way. But again, Medicaid doesn’t say the problems it tries to solve exist only with the poor just that they sometimes do exist among the poor. Remember Susan Smith who killed her children, as I recall in an altered state which they attributed to post-partum problems. That certainly resulted in child abuse and an encounter with the criminal justice system. We were all saying “If only someone had been dropping in on her regularly to see that everything was okay.” But the real goal of these visits is to help improve health care. But that is just what I think. I wonder what our listeners think, and what do you think Jane?
Jane: Sarasota recently had a Maternal Health Care Forum and one of the solutions for improving maternal health was having post partum nurse visitations. Seems like the intent of the bill is to help new mothers. Thank you for your interpretation of that article.
There is a lot of controversy about the new Florida State University campaign to promote its women's basketball team. Featuring highly stylized glamour shots of the players, the campaign is designed to highlight the players' "beauty." But this issue is not sexism as you might expect since beauty has nothing to do with sports. Instead, the controversy is about homophobia aka fear of lesbians.
Often women basketball players appear big and muscular. The photos of the FSU players show them dolled-up in satin dresses and make-up, presumably to sexualize the players. Actually, probaby hetero-sexualize them! But the Seattle Times basketball columnist Jayda Evans says, "I'm just concerned the sexualized look continues a different, damaging constant in women's hoops -- homophobia."
What is disturbing is the press release by FSU coach Sue Semrau who defends the marketing campaign saying, "We feel it is important to set ourselves apart as much as we can... We wanted to have a product that would stand out to the people we are trying to reach." To her, the team is now objectified, a "product" to be promoted to its viewers. This FSU campaing is another example of women being objectified and sexualized, sex sells.
Joan: I understand the concern, but sometimes I feel as if people are looking a little too hard for undercurrents of sexism, but, awareness is important. According to AVWeb/Insider women make up only about 6 percent of the total U.S. pilot population. Amazingly women have made no gains in this area since 1935 when there were about 800 women flying, and that was also about 6 percent of all pilots.
There are multiple factors keeping women out of the aviation world some sexist, some societal (women don't want to be away from their families that much). Most likely, it stems from the lack of teaching science, technology, engineering and math to girls. Hopefully with the promoting of these disciplines to young women, we will see more female pilots.
Jane: According to the London Telegraph, women are now better with gadgets then men. A poll commissioned by the retailer Comet found that "48 per cent of women now feel comfortable tackling technological tasks around the home, compared to 47 per cent of men." Amazingly, the report continues, "85 per cent of men no longer considering themselves the most competent member of the household."
Joan: There law that prohibits employers from hiring or firing based on a person's genetic makeup took affect last week. The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act signed by President Bush in May 2008 also disallows health insurers from considering a person's genetics -- such as predisposition for Parkinson's disease â “ when setting insurance rates or denying coverage. Stuart J. Ishimaru, acting chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, said, "No one should be denied a job or the right to be treated fairly in the workplace based on fears that he or she may develop some condition in the future
Jane: According to Caryl Rivers a commentator at WeNews, "women are still shut out of the world of ideas. She came to this conclusion after looking at three areas: The Publishers Weekly, or PW top-10 list, news anchors, and Sunday "egghead" shows. PW came out last week with a list of top 10 books that was all male. This is in a year that saw new books by Margaret Atwood, Louise Erdrich, Alice Munro, Jayne Anne Phillips, Helen Benedict and Barbara Ehrenreich.
Even thought Diane Sawyer will soon be network news anchor at ABC and Katie Curic is at CBS, the purveyors and arbiters of "important" information on both networks and cable are still predominately white men.
The watchdog group Media Matters for America finds that on the Sunday talk shows, men outnumber women 4-to-1. On cable, Media Matters found that of the 35 hosts and co-hosts, 29 were men, and all were white. Women did not make up at least half of the guests on a single one of the three cable networks, and on some networks they were as scarce as 18 percent.
Joan: Accrording to the Washington Times,| Virginia Military Institute (VMI) is being accused of having policies that are "sexist and hostile" toward female cadets. Though VMI says it has recruited women, women remain a small minority. Of the 1,500 cadets only 126 are women. In June of 2008, the Education Department complained that "The language and terminology that is used and considered acceptable by VMI in the barracks reflects a climate and culture that is derogatory and discriminatory toward the women that are required as cadets to live in the barracks."
Jane: On Nov. 23rd, the District of Columbia agreed to pay $13.7 million to settle a class action suit brought by protesters wrongfully arrested during an April 15, 2000 demonstration "the prison industrial complex". The plaintiffs alleged that police officers detained nearly 700 people attending the march, which was timed to overlap with an IMF / World Bank meeting. Mara Verheyden-Hilliard of the Partnership for Civil Justice, which filed the suit in 2001 said, :It sends a message to every city and every law enforcement officer that there is going to be a steep price to pay for violating protesters' First Amendment rights."
The case is the second major protester suit the District has settled in recent weeks. It agreed earlier this month to pay $450,000 to eight individuals who were allegedly interrogated by police during a 2002 demonstration related to the Iraq War.
Joan: Men have Viagra (which generated nearly $1.8 billion in sales last year in the United States) and women may soon have Flibanserin, a prescription medication poised for review as a sex enhancer by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Although Flibanserin received major hype last week at international scientific conferences held in San Diego and Lyon, France, after the drug tested well in clinical trials in North America and Europe , some health experts question the safety of having to take the medication every day. Opponents of drug therapy said the medication has such seemingly narrow benefits that women should look for help outside the realm of medication.
Studies are still required and it is not clear when and if the company, Boehringer Ingelheim will seek FDA clearance for flibanserin.
Posted by Women Matters at 12/1/2009 10:16 PM 
Categories: Women News
Tags: FSU photo shots Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act Flibanserin International Day of Elimination of Violence Against Women Female U.S. pilots sexism at VMI Section 1713 Stupak-Pitts
Categories: Women News
Tags: FSU photo shots Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act Flibanserin International Day of Elimination of Violence Against Women Female U.S. pilots sexism at VMI Section 1713 Stupak-Pitts
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