In defense of the sanctimonious women's studies set || First feminist blog on the internet

Category: Health

Give Me Abstinence, or Give Me Death

The New York Times reports that a new, highly-effective cervical cancer vaccine could be available as early as next year:

If it were widely used, the vaccine could save many lives. Worldwide, there are about 500,000 new cases of cervical cancer a year, and 290,000 deaths. Most of the cases and most of the deaths occur in poorer countries where women do not have regular Pap tests, which can detect cancers or precancers early enough for them to be cured. In the United States, where Pap tests are common, 10,400 new cases are expected in 2005, and 3,700 deaths.

“A lot of people are really excited,” said Dr. Deborah Saslow, director of breast and gynecological cancer at the American Cancer Society. “This is the first major cancer prevention vaccine. The potential, particularly in the undeveloped world, particularly if they can overcome the logistics and get the vaccine to those women, could be enormous. It could prevent 70 percent to 90 percent of those deaths.”

Sounds great, right? I mean, the fact that we have a vaccine to prevent any kind of cancer is fantastic. Getting vaccinated should be a no-brainer.

But of course, there remain those in our society who seem to operate without brains.

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Bike Seats May Have Sexual Side Effects

I’m tempted to make a “banana seat” pun right now, but I’ll refrain.

A raft of new studies suggest that cyclists, particularly men, should be careful which bicycle seats they choose.

The studies add to earlier evidence that traditional bicycle saddles, the kind with a narrow rear and pointy nose, play a role in sexual impotence.

Well. We’ll get to the “especially men” part in a second.

The area in question is the perineum, between the external genitals and the anus. “When you sit on a chair you never put weight on the perineum,” Dr. Schrader said. “But when you sit on a bike, you increase pressure on the perineum” sevenfold.

In men, a sheath in the perineum, called Alcock’s canal, contains an artery and a nerve that supply the penis with blood and sensation. The canal runs along the side of a bone, Dr. Goldstein said, and when a cyclist sits hard on a narrow saddle, the artery and the nerve are compressed. Over time, a reduction of blood flow can mean that there is not enough pressure to achieve full erection.

In women, Dr. Goldstein said, the same arteries and nerves engorge the clitoris during sexual intercourse. Women cyclists have not been studied as much, he added, but they probably suffer the same injuries.

(emphasis mine)

So… why should “particularly men” be careful? That’s right, because women haven’t been studied as much, even though we might suffer the exact same injuries.

Why am I not surprised? The fact that it may cause sexual dysfunction in men garners a dozen studies and a two page article in the New York Times; the fact that it may cause sexual dysfunction in women gets one sentence. The rest of the article discusses the health effects for “cyclists,” all of whom, apparently, are proud owners of progressively limper penises. And before anyone starts accusing me of being anti-man, I’m not saying in any way that the article shouldn’t have been written or that the studies shouldn’t have been done. I’m glad they were; now I know not to date bicyclists*. It’s a big deal that a common recreational activity could lead to impotence and sexual performance problems, so I’m happy to see it’s being covered. I just wish they would have included the ladies, too. We like our wee-wees to work as much as you like yours to.

And as a final, general bitching point, I’m sick of women getting the short end of the stick on all the sexual dysfunction studies and solutions (and medical studies in general, but that’s another post). Guy has trouble keeping it up, drug companies pour millions into creating Viagra and other similar drugs. A substantial percentage of women have never orgasmed in their lives, and they get… I dunno, KY, to at least make the process less painful? It’s a crock.

UPDATE: Well, not everyone is ignoring women’s health. But, seriously, Crisco? Thanks to Jess for the link.

*Just kidding, numb-nuts.

Hey Cancer: Fuck You.

Fuck. I know it wasn’t her intent, but I’m still crying after reading this. Not the greatest reaction, I know, but sadness and anger will do it. I blame the patriarchy for that, too. Send your thoughts and well-wishes to Twisty. She seems like a pretty tough broad, so I have great faith that this spinster aunt will do what she needs to do. As for you all out there, go do a self-check right now. Get a mammogram. And if you can, make a donation.

Hypocrites at the U.N.

Kristof is right: The leaders of the most developed nations in the world are not doing enough to help the poor. A few points:

-The world’s richest 500 people have the same income as the world’s poorest 416 million.

-If the U.S. and other wealthy nations spent $7 billion every year for the next decade to provide 2.6 billion people with clean drinking water, 4,000 lives a day would be saved. Americans spend more than that on cosmetic surgery.

-Annual world spending to fight AIDS, which kills three million people a year, equals military expenditures for three days.

-In India, girls between the ages of 1 and 5 are 50 percent more likely to die than boys — that’s 130,000 girls a year who, as Kristof says, “are discriminated to death.”

-“the gap between the current trendline on child mortality and the one the [U.N.] leaders committed themselves to amounts to 41 million children dying before their fifth birthday over the next decade.”

University of Ottawa professor Amir Attan has more.

NYC Women Have The Sex, Use Protection

From Ryan at Liberal Serving comes this odd little story, that New York City women have 23% more sex than women elsewhere in the country, and 93% use protection during their first time with a new person (and the other times?). This information was gathered by the condom company Trojan using a super-extra-scientific web survey.

As Ryan sez:

So apparently, wrapping condoms in pastel colors and soft, flowing shapes (and anorexic figures – take a look) will get them to buy more condoms. Well, can’t get too down on promoting condom use, even if it is through the inefficient filter of weird marketing. Sex ed would be a nice start. Maybe calming the hoards of condom-haters debating failure rates would help. Empowering individual women to take control of their sexual lives… well, I’m the last to know how to do that, though lesbian erotica is a gift of choice for me (giving – to others!). Regardless of the intent, pro-sex, pro-condom messages are good – even if creepy, and I’m anxious to see how this will all pan out.

Unfortunately I can’t see the article at the NYPost, so we’ll just have to take his word for it. Anyone who thinks Midwestern girls aren’t having enough sex to make the baby Jesus cry needs to come for a visit.

No pun intended, I swear.

Quiet War On Abortion, Plus Dems

The Dems are signing on for their support of national Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers (TRAP laws). If the acronym is new to you, here is a background:

For years, the anti-abortion movement has pressed its case with noisy demonstrations that blocked clinics, with high-profile legislation that directly challenged the U.S. Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade, and in some cases with violence, including the assassination of physicians. But 28 years after Roe, with public support of abortion rights running high, the movement has adopted what might be called a stealth strategy: to chip away at abortion rights, slowly and discreetly, with low-profile legislation and lawsuits that stop short of trying to outlaw the procedure.

The new tactic is to bombard providers with a barrage of costly rules. In addition to the civil-liability law, Louisiana has tried to slap abortion providers with extra-stringent building codes that regulate everything from the width of hallways in clinics to the angles and jet types for drinking fountains. Abortion opponents want to create small, expensive obstacles that cumulatively make it harder for clinics to offer services—or, in the words of one right-to-life leader, to create an environment “where abortion may indeed be perfectly legal, but no one can get one.” Not only does the tactic have the benefit of generating little public attention, but it also allows anti-abortion activists to couch the issue in terms of a woman’s welfare—for example, the right of a patient to sue her physician for unlimited sums.

“This is certainly one campaign that’s gaining increasing popularity as a way to hammer at abortion providers: to do it under the guise of caring about women’s health,” says Linda Rosenthal, a staff attorney at the Center for Reproductive Law and Policy in New York. “That’s a pretty palatable starting point. Of course, everybody cares about women’s health. But the way these regulations translate is onerous.”

The stealth strategy is being deployed nationwide, from Utah to Connecticut. But it’s Louisiana that serves as the incubator for the rest of the nation, the state where anti-abortion activists develop innovative measures to test on a state legislature where Catholics and Southern Baptists predominate.

An attempted example includes a “civil-liability” law that would have allowed any woman who regretted her abortion to sue the providing doctors any time within the ten years afterward, not only for any emotional or physical damages she may have faced, but also for “damages occasioned by the unborn child.” With no limits to the amount doctors could be ordered to pay, one big judgment in favor of a woman who regretted her abortion could drive an entire clinic out of business. In some cases they exempt abortion providers who perform less than some specified number or percentage of abortions in their practices, thus exempting private practices and faulting free clinics.

Other examples that have passed include excluding midwives and nurse practitioners from those qualified to perform abortions, even though their training with abortion is that of a physician. In other cases, they require all private and free clinics that provide abortion to have facilities comparable to a hospital, which are unnecessary to the procedure and often too expensive for clinics to procure.

Plenty of Democrats are in support of these measures, in part because it doesn’t look outright anti-choice to voters undereducated on anti practices, and in part because it sends a coded message of “morality” to anti-choice voters who might vote Democratic. If you’ll notice, all of these Democrats pictured are men, perfectly willing to sacrifice women’s rights and autonomy for political gain.

All of this is so maddening — morality exists in the hearts and minds of people, it cannot be legislated. Keep this in mind as the John Roberts nomination moves toward confirmation. He is no friend of women, no friend of minorities.

via Media Girl