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

Month: October 2005

Mr. Bush, This Is Pro-Life?

kristof

ZINDER, Niger

When I walked into the maternity hospital here, I wished that President Bush were with me.

A 37-year-old woman was lying on a stretcher, groaning from labor pains and wracked by convulsions. She was losing her eyesight and seemed about to slip into a coma from eclampsia, a complication of pregnancy that kills 50,000 women a year in the developing world. Beneath her, cockroaches skittered across the floor.

“We’re just calling for her husband,” said Dr. Obende Kayode, an obstetrician. “When he provides the drugs and surgical materials, we can do the operation,” a Caesarean section.

Dr. Kayode explained that before any surgery can begin, the patient or family members must pay $42 for a surgical kit with bandages, surgical thread and antibiotics.

In this case, the woman – a mother of six named Ramatou Issoufou – was lucky. Her husband was able to round up the sum quickly, without having to sell any goats. Moreover, this maternity hospital had been equipped by the U.N. Population Fund – and that’s why I wished Mr. Bush were with me. Last month, Mr. Bush again withheld all U.S. funds from the U.N. Population Fund.

The Population Fund promotes modern contraception, which is practiced by only 4 percent of women in Niger, and safe childbirth. But it has the money to assist only a few areas of Niger, and Mrs. Issoufou was blessed to live in one of them.

Nurses wheeled her into the operating theater, scrubbed her belly and administered a spinal anesthetic. Then Dr. Kayode cut open her abdomen and reached inside to pull out a healthy 6-pound, 6-ounce boy.

After removing the placenta, Dr. Kayode stitched up Mrs. Issoufou. Her convulsions passed, and it was clear that she and the baby would survive. For all the criticism heaped on the U.N., these were two more lives saved by the U.N. Population Fund – no thanks to the Bush administration.

Even when they don’t die, mothers often suffer horrific childbirth injuries. In the town of Gouré, a 20-year-old woman named Fathi Ali was lying listlessly on a cot, leaking urine. After she was in labor for three days, her mother and her aunt had put her on a camel and led her 40 miles across the desert to a clinic – but midway in the journey the baby was stillborn and she suffered a fistula, an internal injury that leaves her incontinent.

Village women are the least powerful people on earth. That’s why more than 500,000 women die every year worldwide in pregnancy – and why we in the West should focus more aid on preventing such deaths in poor countries.

Mr. Bush and other conservatives have blocked funds for the U.N. Population Fund because they’re concerned about its involvement in China. They’re right to be appalled by forced sterilizations and abortions in China, and they have the best of intentions. But they’re wrong to blame the Population Fund, which has been pushing China to ease the coercion – and in any case the solution isn’t to let African women die. (Two American women have started a wonderful grass-roots organization that seeks to make up for the Bush cuts with private donations; its website is www.34millionfriends.org.)

After watching Dr. Kayode save the life of Mrs. Issoufou and her baby, I was ready to drop out of journalism and sign up for medical school. But places like Niger need not just doctors, but resources.

Pregnant women die constantly here because they can’t afford treatment costing just a few dollars. Sometimes the doctors and nurses reach into their own pockets to help a patient, but they can’t do so every time.

“It depends on the mood,” Dr. Kayode said. “If the [staff] feel they can’t pay out again, then you just wait and watch. And sometimes she dies.”

A few days earlier, a pregnant woman had arrived with a dangerously high blood pressure of 250 over 130; it was her 12th pregnancy. Dr. Kayode prescribed a medicine called Clonidine for the hypertension, but she did not have the $13 to buy it. Nor could she afford $42 for a Caesarean that she needed.

During childbirth, right here in this hospital, she hemorrhaged and bled to death.

Somewhere in the world, a pregnant woman dies like that about once a minute, often leaving a handful of orphans behind. Call me naïve, but I think that if Mr. Bush came here and saw women dying as a consequence of his confused policy, he would relent. This can’t be what he wants – or what America stands for.

It is quite possibly not ok that I just posted that whole article, since it’s Times-Selected. Hopefully the New York Times won’t sue me. I think Kristof’s message is important enough that it needs to be reproduced far and wide.

In Repro Health This Week

A fabulous op/ed from my former haunt, the opinion pages of NYU’s Washington Square News. Kudos to writer Lucas Keturi for taking on the tough issue of prostitution, sexual health and international moralizing at the expense of women’s health. Read the whole thing, it’s fantastic. My favorite part:

The anti-prostitution pledge, buried in the Global AIDS Act of 2003, is characteristic of the Bush administration’s approach to any issue broaching the subject of human sexuality, be it sex education, abortion rights or same-sex marriage: intolerant, unrealistic and religiously-charged denunciations of the existence of a sexuality outside of the bounds of marriage, and a feigned innocence in creating conditions that make acts of sexual victimization possible.

More from Lucas, this time about sweatshops in New York City, is here.

A simultaneous yay and nay for NYC.

Yay: Public schools here now have improved sexual health education — before this year, 75 percent of city schools were in violation of basic health ed policies, and all of them were using curriculum that hadn’t been updated since 1991.

Nay: The new curriculum isn’t that great. First, it allows teachers to choose not to teach sex ed to their students. It also cuts out conversation of sexual orientation, abortion and masturbation, all of which were included in the old curriculum (sexual orientation is now only discussed in the context of STIs). Information about contraception is only given to high schoolers, which seems a bit irresponsible considering that 1 in 5 people become sexually active before the age of 15. Further, the curriculum was produced in Tennessee — the pictures of people featured in the books and the stories told therein don’t exactly match up to the lives of students in New York City public schools (Smiling blonde girls exclaiming, “Abstinence is cool!”, narratives about Mom driving us all to the mall after school, etc).

Relatedly, abstinence-only isn’t education. We’ve all heard it before (and before and before and before), but let’s play again. Here’s what young people are “learning” in their anti-sex-ed classes:

Read More…Read More…

Trying to Get Reproductive Health Care on Medicaid

It’s not that easy.

Shelea Mayo, 16, was embarrassed when her mother sat Shelea and her then boyfriend down one afternoon and gave them “the talk” about relationships and responsibility.

Beverly Mayo admits her children sometimes try to cut her off, interjecting with “TMI,” for too much information, when the conversation is getting too personal for them.

Mayo was looking out for her daughter in that same way a few weeks ago when she tried to get Shelea an appointment with a gynecologist.

Mayo said she was surprised when obstetrics-gynecology offices she called would take Shelea as a new patient if she were pregnant but would not accept her just for basic gynecological care.

It’s disturbing that low-income women lack access to basic healthcare, and when they are trying to avoid pregnancy are told, come back when you’re pregnant and we’ll take care of you. Reading this reminded me of this post by Amp, about how pregnant low-income teens may be rational actors.

In Memory: Rosa Parks

rosa

At 92, Rosa Parks has passed away. There’s probably nothing I can say about her that will do justice to what a remarkable human being she was, and that will fully capture her contribution to the world we live in today. I know many people take issue with Jesse Jackson, but I thought his reaction was appropriate: “She sat down in order that we might stand up. Paradoxically, her imprisonment opened the doors for our long journey to freedom.”

Shy and soft-spoken, Mrs. Parks often appeared uncomfortable with the near-beatification bestowed upon her by blacks, who revered her as a symbol of their quest for dignity and equality. She would say that she hoped only to inspire others, especially young people, “to be dedicated enough to make useful lives for themselves and to help others.”

She also expressed fear that since the birthday of Dr. King became a national holiday, his image was being watered down and he was being depicted as merely a “dreamer.”

“As I remember him, he was more than a dreamer,” Mrs. Parks said. “He was an activist who believed in acting as well as speaking out against oppression.”

She would laugh in recalling some of her experiences with children whose curiosity often outstripped their grasp of history: “They want to know if I was alive during slavery times. They equate me along with Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth and ask if I knew them.”

I’m sure there will be many more things written about her in the coming days. Feel free to leave additional links in the comments. While I doubt it will be a problem, any rude, innappropriate or off-topic comments on this post will be deleted.

Thanks to Sumeet for the immediate IM and the enthusiastic “I love that woman!” when it was posted on the Times website.

What Does Your Birthday Mean?

A fun little thing from my mom. I was conceived around November 10th, 1982. I am 11,690,733 minutes old. My birth tree is Cypress, the Faithfulness: Strong, muscular, adaptable, takes what life has to give, happy,content,optimistic, needs enough money and acknowledgment, hates loneliness, passionate lover which cannot be satisfied, faithful, quick-tempered,unruly, pedantic and careless. All true, except that I’m a lazy cow who doesn’t go to the gym enough, so I’m not really muscular (I wish I was, though!). I’m also not that unruly, although again, I wish I was.

Why am I posting this? I don’t know. But it’s fun, and probably more productive than arguing about whether or not I’m a racist moron (answer: not so much on the first adjective, quite possibly on the second).

Nazis, You Suck

…but Doug Giles kind of understands.

Sure, he’ll take a strong anti-Nazi position — look, Nazis, you guys failed to take over the world, so clearly the movement is a loser. Better luck next time. Pick up a Marvin Gaye record and move on. But, as much as Doug dislikes people who follow dead movements (Communists, for example), he dislikes people who more actively dislike those people even more. Black people, for instance, whose constant, unending looting makes them appear “sub-human” to folks like Doug (Nazism, what?). Mr. Giles lives in fear of these folks, who inexplicably become angry when a group of neo-Nazis show up in their neighborhood to protest their very existance.

I mean . . . what’s going to set them off next? Long lines at Taco Bell, sold out tickets to Snoop’s concert, no booths available at the Olive Garden, a two-week waiting period for 22” rims?

…Because being angry at Neo-Nazis who tell you you’re sub-human is sort of like being angry when you can’t get your Taco Bell fast enough. And, really, the Olive Garden? Wouldn’t something about fried chicken and watermelon be a better racist reference? Jeez, Doug, get it together…

The cherry on top of this multi-layered, dysfunctional cake is that we’re told we have to understand the plunderers . . . yea, feel their pain. Look, I understand getting ticked off and wanting to mess someone up. I feel that way at Starbucks every morning when I’m standing behind a JLo wannabe who uses nine words to order her coffee. It’s all I can do to keep from pile driving her skull with a big French coffee press from their display rack for eating into my schedule and for polluting the atmosphere with her preening self-love.

Dude, you’re in Starbucks. If you don’t want to hear someone use nine words to order their coffee, get a 50-cent cup of black from a cart on the street (50 cent! Black! What am I thinking??). And what was that snide comment earlier about black folks getting mad about long lines at Taco Bell? Pot, kettle, etc etc.

And is anyone else disturbed that the simple act of a woman ordering her drink at Starbucks is enough to send Doug into such a rage that he wants to pile drive a coffee press into her skull? That is genuinely frightening, and it sounds like Mr. Giles needs some help.

Since this great land is still the land of opportunity, my suggestion to the violent ones “without” is this: Why don’t you take all the energy you normally exert in choosing which bandana you’ll wear to hide behind, what moving vehicle you’ll pelt with a fist- sized rock, how much crack you’ll smoke before breakfast, determining what alley has the best bottles for Molotov cocktails and what hole you can slink into post-riot and focus that get-up-and-go into getting your GED, going to college and giving your life to Jesus, Moses, Buddha, Tony Robbins, Oprah or someone of higher power?

Right. Because Doug gave his life to Jesus, and now he only fantasizes about breaking the skulls of young women who have the audacity to waste his precious time by ordering their coffee. Particularly when those women are Puerto Rican, or otherwise resemble JLo (perhaps it’s the amazing ass that infuriates him?) That, my friends, is far more productive and laudable than reacting when Neo-Nazis show up on your doorstep.

The Rich Get Smarter

My apologies for the lack of posts. This weekend has been a real bitch, and I’ve generally lacked the motivation to do much of anything. I’ll try and be better this week, starting now, with this great op/ed in the LA Times about access to higher education.

And so another gap widens in a nation where the annual cost of attending some top liberal arts colleges and private universities surpasses the U.S. median household income of $44,389 a year. The annual bill for tuition, room and board and other expenses at the University of Southern California is about $44,580. Northwestern University charges $44,590. The costs at New York University and Washington University in St. Louis are a couple of sweatshirts and textbooks short of exceeding the median household income. The bill at 75 schools in the U.S. now exceeds $40,000.

Students admitted to these and similar schools are by definition high achievers. Yet some pay far less than the sticker price because they receive merit scholarships. Many of these students’ families can afford to pay, but schools give them money because the students’ high SAT scores help the schools rate higher in college guides, including the U.S. News rankings.

The more selective schools do offer financial aid to needy students, but there’s less space for them as wealthier students, who generally score higher on the Scholastic Assessment Test, take the merit scholarship bait. According to higher-education analyst Thomas G. Mortenson, the percentage of low-income students attending 32 of U.S. News’ 50 top national universities fell between 1992 and 2001. Low-income enrollment at 33 of the magazine’s top 51 liberal arts colleges dropped as well.

My experience is based soley on being an undergrad and law student at NYU, but it’s certainly the case that low-income students have a much harder time getting through four years of school. I knew a lot of students who had to leave NYU after freshman year because their families just couldn’t afford it anymore. NYU also gives some of the lowest levels of financial aid in the country — on average, it only meets 68% of its incoming students’ financial needs. Of top 50 schools, only BYU and St. Louis University (both of which have tuitions that are significantly lower than NYU) meet less student financial need.

Last week, University of Pennsylvania President Amy Gutmann labeled merit scholarships “a big culprit” in colleges’ arms-race-like competition to outrank each other. “Colleges and universities are fighting for students who have high SAT scores. It’s a fight to the bottom, and the only people who gain are affluent families,” she said.

Gutmann said middle-class families with incomes between $50,000 to $100,000 a year suffer. They are less able to afford the enhancements that help build a student’s credentials for a merit scholarship: a house in a top-end school district, a private school, tutors and college counselors or comprehensive SAT prep courses.

Read the whole thing. The writer doesn’t even get into graduate education, which, as far as I can tell, is even more limiting, particularly for students with undergraduate loans. My parents paid for my undergraduate education, but I’m paying for law school myself. It’s daunting enough to take out almost $200,000 worth of loans for three years of graduate school — I imagine it would be completely unmanagable if I already had tens or hundreds of thousands of loans outstanding from my undergraduate education. And NYU Law is definitely not great with financial aid in the form of loans.

That isn’t to say that it’s impossible for low-income students to go to undergraduate or graduate school. But attending the country’s most elite universities — the ones from which a degree will likely land you a higher-paying job, particularly if you’re looking for work in a competitive area — remains an option for relatively few.

UPDATE after the fold:

Read More…Read More…