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This Week In The War On Women, 1/22-28/23: VP Kamala Harris Edition [1]

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Date: 2023-01-28

In Other News

Work

Women scientists at famed oceanography institute have half the lab space of men: The gap can’t be “explained away” by funding or seniority, says Scripps Institution of Oceanography report:

The report was commissioned in May 2022 by the university chancellor, executive vice chancellor, and SIO director after SIO faculty raised concerns. Its findings are likely to resonate in other institutions. American Geophysical Union President Lisa Graumlich, a paleoclimatologist at the University of Washington, Seattle, says that at major research universities she has visited nationwide, faculty from marginalized groups have told her they don’t have enough space for their research and that space allocation policies lack accountability. She is “sadly not surprised” by the findings at SIO, she says.

medical

Deaths in pregnant or recently pregnant women have risen, especially for unrelated causes such as drug poisoning and homicide:

The mortality rate of pregnant and recently pregnant women in the United States rose almost 30% between 2019 and 2020, according to a new study. -snip- “One of the main messages, I think, from this is really that there’s a much bigger societal problem facing pregnant women and new mothers who are in that postpartum period where, you know, that’s a very stressful time of life. What this points to is that there’s particular vulnerability in this population to some of these other social factors,” said Jeffrey Howard, an author of the study and associate professor of public health at the University of Texas at San Antonio. -snip- As for racial and ethnic disparities, experts say these findings are consistent with research showing that Native American and Black women are at significantly higher risks of pregnancy-related death and that structural issues must be addressed. Note that main causes of death are accidental poisoning, motor vehicle accidents, and homicides. And that when women are isolated with their partners, there is a lot more domestic violence. And that women are often disconnected from healthcare once the baby is born, despite multiple postpartum health issues. CBC: White Coat, Black Art: Women are suffering needlessly through menopause transition, physicians say: Misconceptions about hormone therapy, lack of qualified doctors are barriers to care 'Who prepares women for this?' Physicians say lack of information and poor access to doctors who have received specialized training on menopause have left most women without the tools they need to manage what can sometimes amount to debilitating symptoms. It's a systemic problem that needs a solution, starting with a whole lot more conversation about it, said Dr. Iris Gorfinkel, who helps patients with perimenopause symptoms at her Toronto family medical practice. "Who talks about it? Who prepares women for this? For most of us, it comes on as a big surprise," said Gorfinkel, who counts herself among those who have found the menopause transition unexpectedly difficult, despite being a female physician. Ableism

Vulnerable woman lay dead in Surrey flat for more than three years

Laura Winham, 38, had severe mental illnesses and was ‘abandoned’ by NHS and social services, family allege. Multiple contacts without response did not result in follow-up visits.

https://www.theguardian.com/...

Abortion And Poverty

Guttmacher - Originally published in the American’s Bar Association’s Human Rights Magazine

“Above all others, women lacking financial resources will suffer from today’s decision,” wrote Justice Elena Kagan in her dissent, joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Stephen Breyer, in the June 24, 2022, U.S. Supreme Court case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization . Dobbs overturned nearly 50 years of precedent protecting the right to abortion.

-snip-

Wealth inequity shapes every feature of the landscape of abortion in the United States, starting with the chasm between those who have the resources to plan for if, when, and how to become pregnant and those who do not.

-snip-

A multitude of additional intersecting factors are also at play: poor access to medically accurate sexuality education, biased treatment in the health care system, and divestment from communities and social supports that would allow people to raise children in healthy, sustainable environments—all fueled and compounded by the full spectrum of social drivers of health and systemic racism... [such that] the unintended pregnancy rate among women with incomes below the federal poverty threshold [is] more than five times higher than those with incomes at or above 200 percent of poverty. These dynamics also underpin that people with lower incomes are more likely to need abortions: women with incomes less than 200 percent poverty experience an abortion rate six times that of women with incomes more than 200 percent above poverty.

There are ways we can all help at the link. Especially if you have legal training!

Jessica Valenti's weekly reproductive-rights roundup:

Texas is criminally investigating a miscarriage.

Kansas spokesbirther wants forced birthers to “die for what they believe in.” Any resulting deadly attacks will “not”, of course, be in any way his fault.

Utah, where injunctions have stopped abortion bans, the GOP wants to stop injunctions — leaving people in need of emergency protection orders without options.

West Virginia & North Carolina are being sued over bans on medication abortions.

Florida is demanding that girls who participate in sports provide detailed information about their menstrual cycles to the school, with of course concerns over privacy rights (note that athletes can miss periods for a variety of reasons, myhealth.alberta.ca/.… and these should be followed by her doctor; but in all likelihood, FL wants to claim that these girls are pregnant).

And California is putting up billboards in anti-choice states, advertising how to access an abortion in California.

Indigenous Women

’Murder in Big Horn’ shines a light on missing and murdered indigenous women

https://www.vulture.com/...

Guardian UK

The daughter fighting to recover her mother's remains from a landfill:

In recent decades, at least 4,000 Indigenous women and girls have been murdered – or simply vanished, a reality described in a landmark 2019 report as a “genocide”. And against a backdrop of systemic inequity and injustice, vulnerable Indigenous women continue to be victims of neglectful policies and state indifference. Since murder charges were announced against suspected serial killer Jeremy Skibicki on 1 December, police in Winnipeg have highlighted the challenging nature of the investigation, which spans two landfills around the city: the Brady landfill, where the remains of Rebecca Contois were found and the Prairie Green landfill, where investigators believe Harris and Marcedes Myran, 26, are buried. But police who are also still trying to identify one of the victims, do not have the resources to search the refuse at the Prairie Green facility, much of which is buried under tonnes of clay. For victims’ families, the speed with which local authorities appeared to rule out a thorough search of the site has only added to the pain. www.theguardian.com/...

Listen to radio:

Mitchell Museum of the American Indian: How the Mitchell Museum gave a voice to missing and murdered Indigenous women

wgnradio.com/...

#SayHerName

Guardian UK (investigating violence in the US):

An unspoken epidemic: Homicide rate increase for Black women rivals that of Black men

Five Black women and girls were killed each day in 2020, most of them with guns. Gender violence must be at the center of the gun debate, advocates say www.theguardian.com/…

And: Five findings from their investigation, www.theguardian.com/… Black women and girls in the US are four times more likely to die by violence than white or Hispanic women The national homicide rate for Black women and girls in 2020 was eight homicides per 100,000 people. That’s the highest rate among American women, and represents a risk of violent death that is four times higher than white or Latina women. Indigenous women and girls face the next-highest risk, at 5.8 homicides per 100,000 people. Even though American men make up the majority of homicide victims, both Black and Indigenous women and girls face a homicide risk that is higher than that of white men and boys (4.7 homicides per 100,000 people). Nearly 250 women have been fatally shot by police since 2015

Like Breonna Taylor, 89 of them were killed at homes or residences where they sometimes stayed https://www.washingtonpost.com/… Officer involved in Breonna Taylor shooting responds to outrage over video played at GOP event in Kentucky Not going to give this a lot of play. Basically, he claims it didn’t happen. And most venues won’t host him as he is a controversial person. So of course it did. But the link is here for those of you who followed the original story and might be curious. news.yahoo.com/… Military Sandhurst cadet was victim of ‘gross sexual misconduct’ before she died, inquest hears

Body of Olivia Perks, 21, was found in her room at Berkshire military school on 6 February 2019; likely suicide after upset from sexual assault; again, mental health red flags ignored.

https://www.theguardian.com/… The Hill: It’s been 10 years since [US] women were allowed to serve in combat. There’s a lot left to accomplish: Since 2013, we’ve seen a slew of historic firsts, from the first female graduates of the Army Ranger School in 2015 to the first female Marine to lead an infantry platoon in 2018. By 2019, more than 600 female Sailors and Marines were serving in combat arms units previously restricted to men, while more than 650 women held Army combat roles and over 1,000 had accessed Army combat specialties. -snip- Failure to address practices that perpetuate discriminatory and unsafe working environments, as well as policies that create tradeoffs between women’s career prospects and their health care and child care options, will continue to frustrate efforts to recruit the best and the brightest of women, in all their diversity, to serve this country. The fight continues. MAss murder Not a surprise, but: a new report by the US Secret Service finds that nearly half of mass attackers have a history of misogyny and/or domestic violence. Only half? Welp, other grievances included workplace issues, anti-government and hateful (i.e. racist) ideologies. And of course there’s the possibility that the Secret Service didn’t look back far enough to uncover all the domestic abusers. The 19th: From ballroom dancing to bloodshed, the older AAPI community grapples with gun control: The 19th reached out to nearly a dozen older Asian-American women in the area to ask for their thoughts after the Monterey Park attack. The majority either declined to comment or did not want to be identified, citing concerns about their privacy and a discomfort with potentially publicly saying the “wrong thing” and being misconstrued by outsiders. -snip- Gun ownership rates soared during the pandemic, with millions of people becoming first-time owners, including Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders (AAPI). According to a peer-reviewed study from the University of Michigan and Eastern Michigan University, Asian Americans were likely to buy firearms for “self-defense” and more than half of those who did were first-time owners. Gun sales to Asian Americans are estimated to have increased by 43 percent in the first half of 2020, according to the data from the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), a trade association for the firearms industry. According to a 2021 study from the Violence Policy Center, the gun industry specifically targeted Asian Americans as first-time gun owners amid the rise in hate crimes against AAPI people and fear. -snip- “We need better education in our communities about safe storage, and we must acknowledge that the increase in gun purchases amongst AAPI communities is directly as a result of the justified fear of encountering racist violence,” Nikore said during the virtual press conference. “There are consequences to the increased availability of guns in our communities. AAPI youth have the fastest-growing firearm suicide rate of any racial or ethnic group, with a 71 percent increase over the last decade.” Religion Muslim Matters: Hijab And Niqab In North America: Politics, Identity, And Media Representation This article looks at the hijab and niqab in North America through four lenses:—identity, commerce, media, and politics…. Although the article is focused on the current situation in North America, it mentions the history of the veiling debates that go back to nineteenth-century colonial occupation of the Middle East. Section one summarizes findings of sociological studies about why Muslim women wear the hijab/niqab. Section two looks at the rise of the commercial industry that supports these sartorial choices, called modest or pious fashion. Section three briefly summarizes the largely negative representations of Muslim women in the mainstream media. Section four considers the bans against hijab/niqab in politics and in North American courtrooms. The article concludes that such bans are illogical and based in psychological reactions to the veil like those of the colonial era: a fear of and fascination with the cloth that obstructs the gaze, making the observer feel powerless. Ordination in Jerusalem belies slow progress for Christian women in the Middle East Religious affiliation regulates everything from inheritance to divorce. ReligionNewsService Speaking after her ordination at Lutheran Redeemer Church, in the Old City of Jerusalem, 26-year-old Rev. Sally Ibrahim Azar [a Palestinian Christian and council member of the Lutheran World Federation] told the packed crowd ... steps from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, that she never expected to be the first Palestinian woman to be ordained or to break a glass ceiling for other Arab women in Jordan and Palestine. -snip- The ordination of a woman in the Arab Lutheran Church completes a push begun under Bishop Munib Younan, the elder Azar’s predecessor, who heralded back in 2006 the transformation of the church in regard to gender. Though the church is small in numbers, the Lutheran Church’s equality policy has already opened doors for women beyond Azar’s ordination. It has meant that, unlike for other Christian families throughout the Middle East, men and women receive an equal share in inheritance and have equality in all personal status issues. Sally Ibrahim Azar in Palestine (photo by Middle East Council of Churches) South Korea NY Times opinion: Women in South Korea Are on Strike Against Being ‘Baby-Making Machines The trend is killing South Korea. For three years in a row, the country has recorded the lowest fertility rate in the world, with women of reproductive age having fewer than one child on average. It reached the “dead cross,” when deaths outnumbered births, in 2020, nearly a decade earlier than expected. -snip- President Yoon Suk-yeol, elected last year, has suggested feminism is to blame for blocking “healthy relationships” between men and women. But he’s got it backward — gender equality is the solution to falling birthrates. Many of the Korean women shunning dating, marriage and childbirth are sick of pervasive sexism and furious about a culture of violent chauvinism. Their refusal to be “baby-making machines,” according to protest banners I’ve seen, is retaliation. “The birth strike is women’s revenge on a society that puts impossible burdens on us and doesn’t respect us,” says Jiny Kim, 30, a Seoul office worker who’s intent on remaining childless. Making life fairer and safer for women would work wonders toward reducing the country’s existential threat. Yet this feminist dream seems increasingly far-fetched, as Mr. Yoon’s conservative government champions regressive policies that only magnify the problem. Like the US, South Korea is busy bringing the country a backlash against feminism no matter what it costs. And like the US, the obvious solution for needing a larger population, in the face of women not wanting to make babies, is rejected — encourage immigration. Horses — cool! “Woman Up" - African American Horsewomen at africanamericanhorsestories.org Black horsewoman (downloaded from Max Pixel)

I am having technical issues with my photos! I hope the captions will look OK. Thanks, DK5!

As always, TWitWoW is a group effort! Many thanks to Tara the Antisocial Social Worker, Angmar, mettle fatigue for links and discussion this week!

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/1/28/2149777/-This-Week-In-The-War-On-Women-1-22-28-23-VP-Kamala-Harris-Edition

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