The left and ‘rural issues’
Posted by admin on Apr 27, 2009
Rowenna Davis made a very decent stab of calling the Left to address rural issues more seriously, on Libcon recently . However, the example she chose to show how these ‘rural issues’ should be natural matter for Left concern and action is reflective of much of the Left’s basic misunderstanding of rurality and rural campaigning. Yes, the campaign against pesticides is an important one, and Rowenna is correct to say that it should be a leftist struggle because it is about the abuse of power
I am writing an essay on the topic of Women’s Health, in reference to Feminism. What have I left out?
These are some of the issues I am touching on in my essay. The essay question is: "Are 'feminisms' still needed to further the interests of women?"
Are there other areas of "Women's health" that I should cover? What do you suggest?
1.medicalization
2.cosmetic surgery
3.ru486
4.contraceptives
5.disabilities and rural disadvantage
6.steralization
7.pro life vs choice
8.abortion laws
use of synthetic hormones vs bioidentical hormones
that's a huge raging issue
birth control pills (synthetic) lower libido in many women and may lead to cancers if used over decades
correct use of bioidenticals may prevent cancer and auto-immune diseases
Women still are overlooked by doctors who often decide that a woman's real pain is "in her mind". Being treated this way by a physician is reason to have mental and emotional pain on top of your untreated physical pain.
Look at how many unnecessary uterine and ovarian surgeries are done!
References :
gender discrimination in health care. Over done hysterectomies , etc.
References :
The whole abortion issue is the one place where someone could argue that feminism is needed. (I'm pro-life, so I sharply disagree, but to represent all view points.) Typically, feminists are all for abortion being unconditionally legalized and provided, so those who agree with that ideology might argue that feminism is necessary to bring it about (if they also believe that abortion's illegality is a hindrance on women's rights).
Sigh. The future will remember us as primitive savages.
References :
In the area of sterilization, men are reluctant to have vasectomies done and the woman usually lands up getting her tubes tied. Circumcision of girls in some communities is a disgusting practice which is often meant to decrease the pleasures she feels to discourage her so called tendency for promiscuity- and this often leads to mutilation and all sorts of complications specially in rural areas of the countries it is practiced in.
References :
Women not being taken seriously by male physicians or by the medical establishment in general:
Until only a couple of years ago the CDC, despite much evidence, refused to accept that Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS/CFIDS/ME) and Fibromyalgia were real diseases, and not "in our heads". The CDC had received grants to study CFS and the funding was used ELSEWHERE. It was a huge scandal, and it happened because the overwhelmingly-male medical "establishment" dismissed us as a bunch of hysterical crazy women.
CFS and FM strike considerably more women than men, but men do get the diseases also.
"In an extraordinary turn of events, a noted CDC scientist has publicly charged his own government agency with improperly diverting funds away from authorized CFS research. Since those charges were leveled, the HHS Office of Inspector-General has confirmed them with its own audit, and now Congress's General Accounting Office is launching its own separate investigation. The Director of the CDC has proposed major reforms to preclude such errors from happenning again. The scandal has recently been the subject of Congressional hearings (Feb. 2000).
Dr. William Reeves, the Center for Disease Control's pointman on CFS research, filed a complaint with the U.S. Health and Human Services Inspector-General in July 1998 to demand an investigation of the diverted funds. CDC administrators then canceled a scheduled study of CFS in youths. Dr. Reeves claimed in a written statement that he was told by another CDC official that when there were fiscal shortfalls in other programs, CDC administrator Dr. Brian Mahy "always made up such deficits with CFS and other similar monies". Reeves detailed that in recent years as many as half or more of the millions of dollars specifically earmarked for CFS research had been secretly diverted to other programs. Reeves claims that the CDC's reports to Congress about these expenditures were in fact false statements. Reeves has filed for protection under the "Whistlerblower's Act", a law that protects the jobs of government employees while they report government waste, fraud or abuse."
References :
http://www.cfs-news.org/scandal.htm