Monthly Archives: July 2006

Feminism

Fear for the women of Afghanistan

July 23, 2006 – 10:25 am

With state of the whole country bring described by a British general as close to anarchy, there’s more bad news specifically for women:

AFGHANISTAN’S notorious Department for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, which was set up by the Taliban to enforce bans on women doing anything from working to wearing nail varnish or laughing out loud, is to be re-created by the government in Kabul….
President Hamid Karzai’s cabinet has approved the proposal to re-establish the department, and the measure will go to Afghanistan’s parliament when it reconvenes later this summer. The conservative complexion of the assembly makes it likely to be passed.
“When we talk of ‘vice and virtue’ . . . the one introduced by the Taliban comes to our minds. But it won’t be like that,” insisted Mohammad Karim Rahimi, a spokesman for the president. …
Nematullah Shahrani, the religious affairs minister who will oversee the department, claims it will focus on alcohol, drugs, crime and corruption. But critics point out that Afghanistan’s criminal laws already address these issues and say that once the department has been re-established, it will be easy to misuse.

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Feminism Science

Good news on the Pill

July 23, 2006 – 10:18 am

There’s still an awful lot of misinformation and unnecessary fear around about the contraceptive pill, as evidenced by a debate that I got into recently over on Blogcritics.

So a very interesting report in the Independent today:

The contraceptive pill saves the lives of up to 3,000 women a year in the UK and Europe, according to new medical research.
A number of studies now suggest that the Pill reduces the risk of ovarian cancer significantly. One study, reported in the British Journal of Cancer this week, found a protective effect of up to 50 per cent for Pill users, while another, reported in the European Journal of Cancer Prevention, found a similar effect after analysing data on the use of the Pill since its introduction.
According to the studies, women who use the contraceptive pill reduce their risk of developing ovarian cancer by more than a third, and the longer they take it for, the greater the protection …
…The report says women who used the Pill at some time are 30 per cent less likely to develop the cancer. The protection increases with the length of time a woman takes the Pill by around 5 per cent a year, to about 50 per cent protection for long-term use. The reduced risk was seen in women both with and without a family history or genetic predisposition to ovarian cancer.

Of course there are other potential problems – this is only focusing on one form of cancer, but I fear a lot of the knee-jerk “it must be bad for you” reaction has an underlying moral focus of – “it makes your life easier, frees you to sleep with whoever you want, so there must be a big negative in there”.

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Friday Femmes Fatales

Friday Femmes Fatales No 64

July 22, 2006 – 5:15 pm

Yep, it’s Saturday. Again. Sorry. Should I rename this feature? Well, no, hopefully after this week my life will get a bit more back in balance. That’s the theory anyway…

So, 10 great sites from 10 new (to me) women bloggers.

I’m feeling the need to start with a laugh today (even if it is a laugh with an edge). Science + Professor + Woman = Me is making a start on collecting excellent comebacks for stupid responses to women in science I liked: “Q: So they had to hire a woman… A. It was inevitable. Eventually they were bound to run out of mediocre men, and now the qualified women are finally getting a chance.”

Staying on the scientific side, Amanda M. on Imagine Bright Futures (nice title) chiefly blogs about issues around the liver condition biliary atresia. And she has reason to celebrate: “there are now more families with kids who have biliary atresia (or transplants due to biliary atresia) and who are still alive than ever before in history.”

Carlotta on Dare to Know sets out an argument – as part of a broader defence of creative homeschooling, for children as rational beings.

Time for a bit of light relief – can’t imagine why I haven’t found this blog before: Womenfolk is “the song blog dedicated to women in music. I’ve pointed to the whole blog with that link, for there seems to be quite a range of music – so pick your own favourite.

Then for something completely different, La Journelle Nouvelle de Katherine de Swyneford covers much the same ground as many personal blogs but is written in (if I’m getting my terminology right) Middle English. Great fun – and not at all hard to understand – if you’re having trouble try pronouncing it out loud.

Clothilde on Chocolate & Zucchini has been on a US road trip – as you’d expect, food features highly in the commentary. Ronda Harben on OhMyNews (if it isn’t a blog it is certainly very like one), is meanwhile off to Korea for a site conference, and takes the chance to think about what it is doing and the whole concept of the “citizen journalist”.

Moving off to Europe, on The Armenian Odar (read down the blog to understand the title), Myrthe is writing about Armenian attiudes to people with disabilities. In short, not great.

Turning overtly political to finish, the blogger on Villa Villekulla offers some thoughts on men’s choices, in the context of pornography. And finally, in the read it and weep category, on Joy Unexpected, a mother shares her pain about the changes to her body after pregnancy.

If you missed the last edition, it is here. (If you’d like to see all of them as a list, click on the category “Friday Femmes Fatales” in the righthand sidebar. That will take you to a collection of 640, and counting, women bloggers.)

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Please: In the next week if you read, or write, a post by a woman blogger and think “that deserves a wider audience” (particularly someone who doesn’t yet get many hits), drop a comment. It really does make my life easier. Or don’t be shy – nominate yourself!

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Feminism Science

The hysterectomy butchery goes on

July 22, 2006 – 8:18 am

For at least a century, women have been subjected to unnecessary hysterectomies – a serious, painful operation with broad effects. This now far less common than it used to be, but it seems about 5,900 unnecessary hysterectomies are still being done in the UK each year.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, there are more operations in poorer, socio-economically deprived areas of the country than in wealthier, more educated areas.

But wherever you are, there’s a strong cautionary note down the bottom of the story:

He said that a study in the United States had found that 55 per cent of care was appropriate to patients’ needs, adding that there was “no reason to suspect” the situation was different in England.

“Doctor knows best” the majority of the time, but it is only a very slim majority.

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Blogging/IT

Who’s blogging? Who knows?

July 22, 2006 – 8:12 am

Interesting summary of the state of quantitative knowledge about the blogosphere on a Telegraph blog: 27 per cent of UK internet users have their own blog, or 5 per cent do; 75 per cent of Britons have visited a blog, or 62 per cent have never visited a blog.

As ever, it is all in how you ask the question, and how you classify the answers. I for one would call MySpace sites and MSN Spaces blogs (although they can often be hard to navigate and link to).

On the subject of lies and damn statistics: Matthew Parris is trying to work out just how much power having appliances on standby uses. The short answer, on something that should be more quantifiable, is, that no one knows. Doesn’t means that you won’t still save yourself a bit of cash by switching things right off, however, but debates such as this would certainly benefit from a solid bit of basic research.

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Feminism

Women of Libya

July 21, 2006 – 1:24 pm

This month’s Le Monde Diplomatique has an interesting piece on Libya that, while focused on international relations, also has some interesting social commentary, particularly on the position of women.

One thing that has really changed in the past three years is that you see women in the streets after nightfall. They go shopping in the new boutiques that stay open until midnight, or stop in a cafe,” said an Algerian expatriate.

Gaddafi, for all his many faults, has frequently been a supporter of women’s rights, claiming headscarfs to be “an invention of Satan”, but he is up against powerful conservative social forces. One woman interviewed explains how being divorced is a problem for women because it is not socially acceptable for them to live alone, but often not practical for them to return to the “family home”, which may have been taken over by a brother and his wife. But still the fact that it is being comtemplated is an encouraging sign.

Unfortunately this piece isn’t free on the web, but there is a lot of good free stuff on the monthly’s website.

(Declaration of interest – it is associated with The Guardian Weekly, for which I work, and with which it is available.)

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