Did you know that most of the medical research that informs what we know about health, well-being, disease, and medicine has been the result of research studies conducted primarily on men? (All those shifting girly hormones make it easier to 'control for variables' when doing research with male subjects.) While there is much to be learned from these studies, by not including women there are large gaps in medical knowledge as it pertains directly to women and girls and our health. (And I mean our health in general, not just our reproductive health. Research is showing more and more that sex has an impact on all areas of health, not just reproduction.)
"A number of important differences exist between men’s and women’s experiences of health and illness. Some diseases occur more commonly among women, while others disproportionately affect men. Further, men and women frequently experience different symptoms of the same underlying problem or illness (e.g., heart disease), and they often respond differently to the same medications or therapies."
But -- happy day! -- there are researchers across the country (and probably around the world) who are working to expand what we know about women and women's health. And their goal is that someday all people will have access to healthcare and health-related information that recognizes that our identities, including our sex, play an important role in our overall health.
The Registry is a database that gathers longitudinal data from women in Illinois about their health and well-being. I've taken part in the Registry for the last three or four years, and it's really simple. Once a year, I hop online and take 30 minutes or so to complete a confidential health survey. (They send me email reminders, so it's not like I have to mark my calendar a year out to be sure I get it done.) The survey asks questions about my demographics info, health conditions, symptoms, diseases, family history of disease, environmental exposures, and stress.
My (de-identified) data is then pooled with that of thousands of other women to track trends in women's health in Illinois over time and to help identify health needs and priorities for our larger community. In addition, the database serves as baseline data for health researchers. AND, it can be used to identify women who match eligibility requirements for current research studies and clinical trials. (If you match a study, you are invited -- but in no way pressured -- to participate.)
And the Institute sends you emails and/or mailings about once a month with info and research related to health issues as they pertain to women. (You can, of course, opt out of these mailings if you choose.)
Every year when I update my info I think, "Dang, this is such a good idea!" So, now I'm encouraging you (women 18 or older living in Illinois) to join. It's easy and is a simple way to contribute to the health and well-being of all women.
To participate or to get more information about the Illinois Women's Health Registry, go HERE.
There are days when I wonder if anything is safe to eat. (Like yesterday when the prepackaged garden salad I got from the school cafeteria looked as if it hadn’t even been washed. The lettuce had weird dusty black ick all over it. And it wasn’t dirt. And it didn’t stick like mold. I don’t know what it was, but it was disgusting. And dirty. And don’t mock me; you wouldn’t have eaten it either.)
On an increasingly common basis I think about ways I can become more closely connected to the source of my food. I want to KNOW the conditions in which it was grown; how it was altered chemically, genetically, or environmentally; and frankly whether it’s safe for me to eat. In many ways, it’s a hard balance. Living in a very urban space on a below-the-poverty-line income, I have limited options. (BUT, I do have options, AND I have the cultural capital to know about those options and how to access them, so really I’m not in the same bad situation as many, many others.) But, in the process of feeling safe about the source of my food, I have rarely felt that the government had my best interests (aka – my health and well-being) at heart.
Slow Food USA has created a video and a petition they hope will help change that. They're asking Congress to better regulate the food industry and thus help ensure the health of all Americans. So we're talking about making corporations accountable for actions (or the lack of actions) that produce/protect a healthy food supply; demanding that the USDA and FDA communicate better with one another; and supporting legislation that simplifies food safety regulation.
Sounds good to me. Here's the video:
And, if you're interested, you can look at and/or sign the petition.
We're in a sad, sick state of affairs in Illinois, and this is one of those situations where we CANNOT just sit on our hands and expect things to turn out well in the end. This is battle that needs champions fighting for our beliefs and our rights. Folks like you and me.
Here's the skinny:
On May 31, 2009 the Illinois General Assembly passed a partial year budget for FY 2010 that created a $9.2 billion funding gap, which is forcing drastic cuts in community- and state-provided fundamental social services ($5 billion in cuts for community-provided services and $4.2 billion in cuts for state-provided services, says Governor Quinn). (This issue is the "Current Focus" on the www.illinois.gov website.) We're looking at severe cuts in mental health services, addiction prevention and treatment programs, violence prevention programs, family planning services, child care and youth services, and education programs. The budget is set to go into effect July 1 (next Wednesday) and will be devastating to the people of Illinois unless we demand that our legislators return to Springfield and work out a budget for the full fiscal year that includes new revenue to support these critical programs in our communities (which can be achieved by a 2% tax increase).
When considering the breadth of the budget cuts, here are just a few of the numbers (and their sources) to give you an idea of how this budget vote could affect the every day lives of Illinois citizens. The budget cuts would result in:
the elimination of all community care program services for 20,000 lower-income seniors not eligible for Medicaid and reducing benefits for 55% of the remaining 35,000 Medicaid eligible community-care clients (Governor's Office - Department on Aging)
the elimination of the Communities of Color Prostrate Cancer Initiative and Communities of Color HIV/AIDS Initiative, together providing services to over 375,000 people (Governor's Office - Illinois Department of Public Health)
a 75% cut in state family planning funding, resulting in nearly 6,500 women not receiving their annual medical exam, pap smear, or supply of oral contraceptives. (Planned Parenthood of Illinois)
a lose of $9 million in funding to the YWCA, which would lead to the closure of 1/3 of their facilities (Planned Parenthood of Illinois)
the forced layoffs of more than 10,000 state workers (Governor's Office)
the estimated lose of $2 billion in federal matching funds to the state of Illinois (Governor's Office)
the endangerment of up to $3 billion in federal stimulus funds over the next two years (Governor's Office)
Brutal. And the potential to be utterly devastating. And, it can't go without noting the ways in which these budget cuts unproportionately affect folks already dealing with issues of systemic inequality: the poor and working-class, people of color, women, children, the elderly, and those will mental or physical disabilities. The budget would pile additional hardship and discrimination on those who already carry its heaviest weights.
And to make it a bit more real, if you need even more concrete evidence of the budget's destructive potential, every week for the past two and a half years I've hung out with three and four year olds at the St. Vincent DePaul Center, which provides (in addition to other things) NAEYC-accredited child care and early childhood education. We have 25 classrooms, serving infants through kids in full-day kindergarten, plus before- and after-school care for school age children. The proposed budget cuts would entirely eliminate the child care and youth programs, affecting more than 800 Chicago children and families at this one site alone. Plus, all of our education staff will be cut, contributing to the statewide increase in forced layoffs. Many families the Center serves will literally be forced into the position of choosing between buying food for their family, paying rent and utilities, or paying for child care.
The proposed budget cuts would destroy our Center, spit in the face of our 94 year history, and devastate the lives of families with whom we partner.
But such tragedy is not the only option. With the passing of an as small as 2% tax increase, the citizens of Illinois can save the programs that support our communities. A 2% tax increase would raise our taxes from 3% to 5%, which for the average Illinois family is roughly $14 a week. While $14 a week, and thus $56 a month, adds up, it is a worthy sacrifice to maintain the programs that support the health and well-being of all Illinois citizens. This budget cut stands to hurt all of us and together we must be willing to tell our elected officials that we won't stand for it, that we believe alternatives to the budget cut are possible, and that we rely on their leadership and ability to represent our views by funding education, health care, and human services across the state.
To take action, you have numerous choices. You can:
Call your state representatives and voice your opposition to the “General Assembly’s 50 Percent Budget Cut.”
To locate your state representative, visit here. (It's easiest, I think, to provide your zip+4.) You can also call the Illinois State Board of Elections Chicago Office at 312-814-6440. Let the operator know that you need contact information for your state representative. You will need to provide your home address.
Before calling your representative, consider visiting Illinois Action for Children for suggestions on what to say to your state representatives. You may also want to see how your representatives voted in the original budget vote, which you can do by looking at the "House Roll Call on the Tax Increase" (pdf). IMAN has also provided a nice telephone call protocol you could use. Here's their suggestion:
Call your representative and senator along with the governor and say:
"Hi, my name is ______ and I live in ______. I would like to speak to Representative ______/Senator ______/Governor Quinn."
You will probably be told that he/she is not available. If so, ask to leave a message:
"I am calling to ask Representative ______/Senator ______/Governor Quinn to work with others in Springfield to resolve the current budget crisis. I support an income tax increase from 3% to 5% and an expansion of the sales tax base in order to fund education, health care, and human services across the state. I am counting on your leadership in this important effort!Thank you for your consideration."
Please call your state representative (Illinois House) first and then call Gov. Quinn (217-782-0244) and your state senator all this week. Ask five other people to do the same.
You can also utilize a number of online email formats to voice your concern. Planned Parenthood of Illinois has an editable form letter that focuses on the budget cuts' consequences for women and children.
And the National Association of Social Workers Illinois chapter is sponsoring a more general but still editable email in which they use your address (or zip+4) to pull up all your elected officials' contact information. Then they allow you to choose to whom you would like to send your email. They also give you the option of sending a copy of your email to a large number of media organizations. It's a quick and easy way to go.
Please take action. Immediately. You can do it. It's important that you do it. It's makes a huge difference for the future of our communities.
(photo credits: These are some of my kids from the Center. These are the kids who stand to lose childcare if the budgets is implemented next week. The consequences to their families may be dire.)
In some states the last day to register to vote is TODAY. (If you want to know the rules where you live, find out here.) If you aren't registered, please, please, today's the day. It takes two minutes. You can do it online right now.
I think what you have to say is important. Don't you?
Okay, so I'm supposed to be finishing my last final of the quarter. (Thank God, but I'm not done yet, so cross your fingers.) But, I need a momentary pause to go on a tirade.
It's a little after midnight and I just opened a brand new bag of my favorite, locally manufactured tortilla chips. Yummy, yummy, right? Well, I am an obsessive nutrition facts label reader. (It's sick, I know.) But, my favorite thing about these chips, besides their oh-so-yummy taste, is that they are made with only three simple ingredients: corn, lime, and corn oil. Woohoo for simplicity! So, tonight I'm munching away and habitually start to read (uh... reread) the label and to my surprise, there is a new ingredient I've never seen before: "tHBQ as an oil additive." What on earth?!?! So, I hop on the internet and do a little research, only for my dismay, disdain, and general sadness to grow in sickly measures.
tBHQ, or tertiary butylhydroquinone, is a petroleum-based food additive being used to replace partially hydrogenated this, that, and the others which are known for their contribution to high trans fat numbers (also yucky). The glorious thing about tBHQ is that numerous studies have linked it to bladder and kidney cancers and it’s been used to predictably induce tumors in test animals. And, just as an added bonus, it's a member of the same family as BHA and BHT, both of which have been banned in England, because they have been proven to be carcinogenic. I am totally lucking out here. And the FDA lets them put this shit in my food!
Plus:
According to A Consumer's Dictionary of Food Additives, "tBHQ is a form of butane (i.e. lighter fluid) the FDA allows processors to use sparingly in our food... which is probably just as well, considering that ingesting a single gram of tBHQ can cause 'nausea, vomiting, ringing in the ears, delirium, a sense of suffocation, and collapse.' Ingesting five grams of tBHQ can kill."
So, my delightful tortilla chips, once prized so highly for their natural ingredients, could now contribute to my getting cancer and/or tumors. So excited about that.
And thus, I must now bid farewell to my favorite tortilla chips (seriously the best I've had in my whole life), write a nasty letter to the company (El Ranchero Food Products/2547 S. Kedzie Ave./Chicago, IL 60623), and seek simpler times, when a girl could count on corn, lime, and corn oil to be all she needed. I am so disappointed...
Hey y'all. It's been a bit. I hope the new year is bringing good things your way. As for me, I've had a bit of a bee in my bonnet as of late (honestly, when do I not?). So, back in June I shared a short digital video I really dig -- Dove's 'Evolution.' (It looks like the original link is outdated. Here's where you can check out the video.) As part of their Campaign for Real Beauty, Dove released a follow up video a little while back entitled 'Onslaught.' Here it is:
Essentially the film highlights (subliminal-speed style) the advertising industry's common portrayal of women -- a highly sexualized version of womanhood -- and they close with the message “Talk to your daughter before the beauty industry does.” Rock on, right?
In and of itself, yeah, maybe. But, here's the part that gets my goat (not that I have a goat to be gotten, but for the sake of literary flow...): Dove's parent company is Unilever who, as we'll get to, seems to have some conflicting intentions. In describing the Dove brand, Unilever say things like:
In a world of hype and stereotypes, Dove provides a refreshingly real alternative for women who recognise that beauty comes in all shapes and sizes.
and
Our ground-breaking campaign for our new Dove Firming lotion, which features women of all shapes and sizes, ... underlines our commitment to breaking down stereotypes and enabling you to celebrate your beauty.
Yay! A brand that cares about me as a REAL woman -= no supermodel, no 100 pound, flawless youth decadently pretending the world is mine because of the body I've got to master it with. A company that believes women are more than boobs and asses. Finally. Woohoo! Raise a flag, do a dance, sing a song, and for the love of all that is good, buy Dove! Right? Perhaps not...
Unilevel is parent to a large number of brands, including Slimfast, Bertolli, Pond's, Country Crock, Hellman's, Knorr, Sunsilk, Vaseline, and Axe. You know Axe, right? It's the world's most popular brand of male grooming products (sold as Lynx in the UK, Ireland and Australia). On the Axe website, they describe the 'work' of their brand as follows:
The Axe Effect is the internationally recognized name for the increased attention Axe-wearing males receive from eager, and attractive, female pursuers. Regardless of where you live (shout-outs to Cindy and Diane in Dawson City, Yukon!) you can "get you some" Axe Effect by going to a store near you and purchasing one of our fine products.
With its coolly seductive fragrances and packaging, the brand has established itself as the world's top male grooming brand by coming up with a constant stream of new ideas to keep guys a step ahead in the mating game.
Um, uh, what? Axe is body spray (and other products for men) to help the male members of our species get a little leg up on the "mating game." You got that "get you some" innuendo, right? Yeah. Thought so. Hard to miss. Axe is a brand that's sole purpose is to help men get into girl's pants. Awesome. I feel so clean and wholesome now. And a bit objectified. Just a bit.
And, just to stress the point, if you visit the Axe website, you get an even clearer image of their view of women. After you get through Flash loading, oh, excuse me, I mean "Your mojo is loading," you have a couple options. You can watch a video about The Axe Vice Naughty to Nice Program designed to 'rehabilitate' all those unfortunate sweet women who have fallen victim to the irresistible lure of Axe products and as a result committed crimes. (It's the 'good girl gone bad' scenario, 'cuz really, does anyone want a bad girl who's already been bad? Seems not.) You can watch The World's Dirtiest Film. (I'm sure you get it. What more do I need to explain about that?) You can play the Dirty Rolling game to see 'how much dirty fun you can get into.' Mind you, if your digital giggling self and lip-locked partner roll over women to join your rolling trout in the mud you get bonus points. If you roll over men, you lose points. We only want one guy per dirty game, apparently. Or, and this may be my 'favorite,' you can download a "Long Lasting Axe V.I.X.E.N.S." (Very Interactive Xtremely Entertaining Naughty Supermodel) for your online pleasure. Is it fair for me to say yet that I hate these people?
(Okay, and for my own satisfaction, I also have to highlight that Unilever introduces Axe saying, "In the film The Matrix, Keanu Reeves is given two choices. He can either take a blue pill and wake up in the morning as if nothing has happened or pop a red pill and enter the unpredictable 'wonderland' of the Matrix. As millions of guys around the world know, Axe has taken the red pill." Just so we all know, The Matrix was inspired in part by a book written by Jean Baudrillard called Simulacra and Simulation. Simulacra and Simulation, like Baudrillard's other works, is a critique of contemporary consumer society, suggesting that our obsession with material things and the societal meanings we ascribe them (example: body spray makes you irresistibly sexy) leads to our own apathy, nihilism, and eventual destruction. We live in a world of constructed lies -- false images obscuring the truths of our existence. Essentially, everything we come to believe is in a falsehood. In The Matrix, Neo's acceptance of the red pill doesn't take him to a 'wonderland' where deodorant makes him every woman's sex dream; it takes him to a reality stripped of the images we place upon it -- exactly the opposite of the result Axe suggests. Just needed to point that out. Yeah, I'm a nerd. And I'm cool with that.)
And, just to make it more fun, Axe has fronted this 'band' called The BomChickaWahwahs who taut themselves as "the world's naughtiest band." And who are they? Well, a group of four lingerie-clad Axe minions whose theme song (uh, only song?) includes the lyrical anthem:
Bom chicka wah wah. It’s the labido’s mantra.
Yeah it goes bom chicka wah wah. Mmm, baby come to mama.
The scent goes up through the nose and then into the brain
Attacks the common sense, whose always super lame...
It invades a woman’s mind. Her limbic region goes insane.
She’ll start aching for a man and acting so profane.
It’s a sexual turrets. Strange words break out your mouth.
We’re here to warn all you girls: there’s a monsoon headed south. ...
How to explain this sensual feeling,
Somehow my panties end up on the ceiling.
Even guys we cannot stand have us eating from their hands. ...
Bom chicka wah wah...
(There is also a music video, which I can't quite bring myself to post here, but if you want to see it, go here. It's also on the band's website.)
Have I highlighted enough examples yet to demonstrate the demeaning way women are portrayed by the Axe brand? So, then how do we (you, me, whoever cares) reconcile the reality that Unilever actively promotes Dove, a brand claiming a desire to break from the traditional messages of women as sexual objects and promote a more realistic view of women, while also pushing Axe, a brand centrally grounded in the promotion of women as sex-objects to be mastered/owned/conquered (whatever language you prefer) through the purchase of products? (This is the stuff that keeps me up at night, folks. Seriously.)
So, what do we do about it? Do we deny the value of Dove's messages? Well, no. If they impact positive growth or change, I wouldn't deny them that power, nor would I want to. But, recognizing the purpose-serving motives of advertisers is important as well. Unilever, through Dove, promotes 'real' women as a marketing ploy, just as Unilever, through Axe, promotes women as sex-objects as a marketing ploy. They create the same material they warn us to save our daughters from. Unilever's mission says
Our mission is to add Vitality to life. We meet everyday needs for nutrition, hygiene and personal care with brands that help people look good, feel good and get more out of life.
And regardless how it is framed, the company's purpose is to stay in business, to make money. And apparently it doesn't matter whether you do that by portraying me as a 'real' woman or as a sex object. Whatever sells. And it's too bad, really, because I've got this soft spot for companies that are interested in serving real people, not the almighty dollar. And my cash follows my interest.
P.S. - If you'd like to do something about Unilever's hypocrisy, one option is to join a letter writing campaign being led by the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood. You can encourage Unilever to consider the mixed messages they endorse in their expressions of concern for girls' and women's well-being while also positioning women as sexual objects.
i don't know what i am anymore, and i think that's just fine. i've returned to academia, taking the good with the bad. if you ask me what i do, on the bad days i'll say i'm a "slave to an instituationalized oppressive system." on the good, i'll say i'm a "student who is an adventurer in the art of learning" (P. Freire).
