There’s no shortage of explanations for the tragic death of Yeardley Love, University of Virgina lacrosse player at the hands of George Huguely, a player on the men’s lacrosse team, with whom she had recently broken off a dating relationship. It’s human, after all, to search for some reason in what appears to be such […]
Month: May 2010
How Family Courts Punish Abused Women
“The dirtiest little secret in America” is that family courts, in deciding custody, often wreak devastation upon mothers and children. So argue Mo Therese Hannah and Barry Goldstein, editors of the new anthology Domestic Violence, Abuse, and Child Custody, which brings to light what many familiar with the family court system have long known: Designed […]
Rape Victims at Federal Prison Settle with Catholic Church
Thanks to two courageous women, the Catholic Church is poorer by multiple-thousands of dollars once again. But both say that no amount of money can compensate them for what they suffered: rape and sodomy by a priest entrusted with their physical as well as spiritual care. The women, who have asked for anonymity because they still live […]
Why Don’t Doctors Listen to Women?
I hear it all the time: Why don’t doctors listen to women? Who would know their own bodies better? Yet time and time again, women tell their doctors how they are feeling only to have the doctors make the leap to diagnosing the women as depressed or overreacting, or give some other dismissive response. Why? How do […]
3 Main Ways Right-Wing Legislators Control Women’s Bodies
In the last two months, an onslaught of anti-choice legislation has been proposed, passed and challenged. Since it’s National Health Week, let’s remember whose bodies all this legislation is landing on. To my mind, there are three main ways talking heads are ignoring women’s bodies when discussing reproductive rights these days. First, when referring to […]
No Comment Goes to High School
During my first college Women’s Studies class, I kept thinking, “Why couldn’t I have learned this in high school?” Turns out some lucky high school students get to: Ray Salazar’s English class at Jones College Prep in Chicago brought women’s studies into the classroom when they embarked on a project inspired by a “No Comment” […]
Health Tips from the Safety Godmother
For National Women’s Health Week, Ellen Snortland — the Safety Godmother — wants everyone to receive the gift of personal safety. She uses her magic wand to grant the gifts of boundary-setting, mandatory personal safety classes starting in grade school, fallacy debunking and women’s empowerement.
Women’s Chronic Pain Goes Ignored, Unresearched, Underfunded
Much of America can recall with a chuckle the first-season Sex and the City episode in which Charlotte’s vagina becomes “depressed.” However, this “depression”—called vulvodynia by those outside the Sex and the City set—is far from chuckleable. Vulvodynia’s guest-starring performance on SAC provides hardly a glimpse of the pain, frustration, anxiety, and turmoil that results […]
Treating Rape Survivors in Post-Earthquake Haiti
During National Health Week, we might take a few moments to think about health issues of women beyond U.S. borders–such as in Haiti, where I’m stationed with the U.N. humanitarian response. As residents of the poorest nation in the Western hemisphere, women in Haiti have always struggled with health concerns, and those have only been […]
To (Pap) Smear or Not to Smear, That’s the Question
During the first National Women’s Health Week since the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) announced revised Pap test guidelines, many are wondering whether or not to have a Pap smear as part of our annual exams. Not enough questions have been asked about how the under-publicized (and under-scrutinized) new guidelines are impacting the health […]