Thursday, June 21, 2012

Women's Views on News

Women's Views on News

Shortage of Indian women blood donors because of poor health

Posted: 20 Jun 2012 07:00 AM PDT

Laura Bridgestock
WVoN co-editor 

Reports about the huge gender disparity among blood donors in India have highlighted the poor health of many women in the country.

According to ZeeNews, India needs between eight and ten million units of blood every year, but donations currently provide only 5.5 million units.

There are a number of reasons for the deficit, including insufficient numbers of blood bank facilities, and a lack of public awareness about the importance of donating blood, or misperceptions about the risk involved.

However, the most startling fact about India's blood donation deficit is that so few women donate – not because they don't want to, but because poor health disqualifies them.

World Health Organisation statistics from 2011 revealed that just 6% of blood donations in India are made by women.

Dr Anju Verma, Chief Medical Officer at Rotary Blood Bank, Delhi, said, "The percentage is low as they are deferred due to physiological problems. Most of them have low haemoglobin count and fail to meet the minimum requirements to donate blood."

Medical professionals interviewed for an article in The Hindu agree that it's not that women don't want to donate – but that they face greater health barriers to doing so.

College students comprise the country's largest group of donors, and both male and female students are coming forward, but women are more likely to be turned away.

One student, Aaditya, said: "Some do not take precautions like having breakfast and end up fainting after donating blood, which scares the rest. I had a classmate who was not allowed to donate as she was underweight. She worked on it and came back to donate this year."

India is not alone in having a large gender disparity among blood donors.

The WHO data released last year showed that 70% of blood donations worldwide were made by men.

Of the 100 countries for which data was available, only a quarter reported more than 40% of donations from women.

Meanwhile India was joined by 15 other countries in which less than 10% of blood donations are made by women.

India was recently voted the worst G-20 nation to live in as a woman (see WVoN story).

Woman with anorexia can be force fed, says High Court in UK

Posted: 20 Jun 2012 05:30 AM PDT

Alex Morgan
WVoN co-editor

The High Court has ruled that a 32 year old woman from Wales, who suffers from severe anorexia, can be fed against her will.

The former medical student, known only as E, for legal reasons, signed forms twice last year which stated she did not want to be given further lifesaving treatment, a decision which is supported by her family.

Justice Peter Jackson, sitting in the Court of Protection, defended his decision to allow force feeding, by saying that while she currently does not want to live she might one day come to see that she is a "special person whose life is of value".

He also said that "it is lawful and in her best interests for her to be fed, forcibly if necessary.”

The former Liberal Democratic MP, Dr Evan Harris, who is also a member of the British Medical Association's ethics committee, called the decision controversial, especially as the woman may need sedation or restraint in order to be fed.

He also stated that "It might not succeed and is itself life-threatening. To impose that on a patient who might be competent in refusing treatment is a very major step."

While Justice Jackson also said that the woman had only a 20 per cent chance of recovery even if she is force fed, he explained his ruling by saying:

"I would not overrule her wishes if further treatment was futile, but it is not. Although extremely burdensome to E, there is a possibility that it will succeed."

The ruling is likely to reignite the debate on assisted suicide for those at the end of their lives and whether the state can step in to impose treatment.

The woman in this case is highly intelligent and once had ambitions of becoming a doctor before becoming seriously ill with anorexia in her 20s and understands that she will die if treatment is withdrawn. It is understood that she has refused solid food for a year and is close to death.

Nuns kick off protest tour against budget cuts

Posted: 20 Jun 2012 04:00 AM PDT

Heather Kennedy
WVoN co-editor 

A group of nuns accused of 'corporate dissent' and radical feminism by the Vatican have gone on tour to protest against social spending cuts in America (see WVoN story).

The Leadership Conference of Women Religious, which hales from Washington DC, was criticised in a recent Vatican report which said they were too focused on social and economic justice rather than preventing abortion and same sex marriage.

The report concluded that the nuns who are closely associated with the social action group Network, had undermined traditional Roman Catholic doctrine with 'radical feminist' themes.

But parishioners came out in support of the nuns, saying they continue the Christian tradition of  'women of courage'.

Mary Ann McCoy, of Des Moines, who attends St. Ambrose Cathedral said: “they want to bully these nuns and shut them down and tell them: ‘Get back in your place, ladies.’ No, it’s not going to be that way anymore”.

On their two-week tour of nine states, the nuns will be supporting health reforms which are being widely opposed by leaders within the Catholic church because they will provide some abortion services.

Sister Simone Campbell, executive director of the Washington, DC group, said the tour was not organised to counter recent criticism of social activism by the Vatican – the timing was instead in response to the federal budget in Congress.

“We’re doing this because of what’s happening on the Hill,” she explained. “We’re desperate to get the word out, that’s why we’re doing it now.”

Women need “cheerleader” husbands

Posted: 20 Jun 2012 02:28 AM PDT

Natalie Calkin
WVoN co-editor 

The chief executive of the Girls Day School Trust in the UK (GDST), Helen Fraser, caused a stir last week when she suggested that girls need to be educated to choose supportive husbands.

Not only should they pick men who do the household chores and cook the dinner, they should also be the "cheerleader" champion of the girls’ careers.

Making the comments at the Trust’s annual conference, she told delegates that educators should be preparing girls to achieve a balance in their personal and professional lives so that they could "have it all" – career, marriage and motherhood.

Girls should, Fraser said, be taught "to find partners who will make space for their own career in a relationship", and be just as ambitious about their relationships as they are in, say, "aspiring to go to the best universities.”

There have been mixed reactions to Fraser's speech.

Journalist Jan Moir in the Daily Mail was scathing, stating that: "Husband catching and lessons in love are usually the mainstay of Swiss finishing schools, along with the correct way to glaze an éclair and get out of an E-type without flashing your gym knickers.”

Hannah Betts in the Telegraph commented that encouraging young girls to embrace marriage and children in an age when fewer people are getting married  and almost half end in divorce, was a rather antiquated path for women to pursue.

She asked: "it is Fraser's notion of a cheerleader that gives the game away. Are modern women so fragile that they require someone to spur them on from the sidelines?”

She did, however, acknowledge that Fraser's views represented a step forward since her school days, when the advice she received was to put community and service above boasting about her intellectual capacity.

Surely Betts, Moir and even Fraser are missing the point entirely. The fact that men "having it all" – career, marriage, fatherhood – is never raised or contested demonstrates that it is not just girls who need educating. Boys also need to play their part.

Marrying or choosing a supportive partner – male of female – is not just a career choice but a choice that reflects self-worth and mutual respect of each others’ needs and ambitions.

Why do men hate Sarah Jessica Parker?

Posted: 20 Jun 2012 01:16 AM PDT

Sarah Jessica Parker

Heather Kennedy
WVoN co-editor 

Trends change, government rise and fall, but being rude about American actress Sarah Jessica Parker (SJP) never seems to go out of fashion.

Voted the Ugliest Woman Alive by readers of Maxim in 2007, she was called a  "dog" by Fox News anchor Oliver Tull this week.

The remark came after Tull showed viewers the now infamous clip of Fox presenter Gretchen Carlson abandoning co-host Brian Kilmeade live on air after he made a sexist comment.

Viewers have frequently complained about Kilmeade, who on the show 'Fox and Friends' said to Carlson: "Women are everywhere. We’re letting them play golf and tennis now. It’s out of control.”

Carlson walked off, telling Kilmeade: "Go on, you read the news if men are so great. Go ahead. Take them away.”

Alone on set, Kilmeade told a stunned audience and camera crew: "She's gone. She needed a shower".

Fast forward a few days and Tull decided to reinforce Fox's allegiance to the good ship sexism. He played the clip of Carlson and Kilmeade before introducing the next segment, about pro-Obama dog clothing with the words: "Is a dog campaigning for Obama? No, not Sarah Jessica Parker."

This comment has attracted considerably less publicity, presumably because SJP’s unattractiveness is a fact on which all sane men can agree?

Everyone is entitled to their subjective opinion but why does she attract such widespread loathing?

Is it because these men think all women in print or on screen exist purely for their arousal?

As the star of the long-running TV series, Sex and the City, SJP is still closely associated with an explicit and confrontational form of female sexuality. I’m not saying the show was a feminist trailblazer, but it was a rare show in which male sexuality didn't call the shots.

Sex on our screens means one thing for too many men: erotically compliant 20-somethings, portrayed for their pleasure. Anything else, they get confused, irritated and critical.

So although SJP is clearly an attractive woman, whose success isn't built on pandering to male desire, she is seen as fair game for the most vitriolic kind of abuse.

I'll leave you with a few comments from some outraged onlookers, shocked at the audacity of a sex icon who doesn't have them reaching for the Kleenex:

"Sarah Jessica Parker – the fashion icon whose message is "ugly girls can be pretty, too."

"How the hell did this Barbaro-faced broad manage to be the least sexy woman in a group of very unsexy women and still star on a show with 'sex' in the title?"

"There's nothing wrong with Sarah Jessica Parker that couldn't be cured by wart-removal surgery."

Now, that's what I call ugly.