April Reign

Speak your mind even if your voice shakes

feminism

Day 5 (Dec. 6th Action)

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Pregnancy and childbirth.

What romanticized and fetishistic notions we have of them.

Many women in the world have no access to medicine and help and others are over medicalized.

From an article from the UN News Service;

The initiative is being carried out in collaboration with more than 20 regional and international agencies, including the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the World Bank.

They are fighting what is widely viewed as an “invisible epidemic” in poor countries, where the risk of dying in childbirth is over 100 times higher than in rich nations. WHO says these figures do not tell the whole story because as many as half of all maternal deaths go unreported. Over 60 States don’t even track statistics on the problem.

“If dead women are not even counted, then it seems they do not count,” Joy Phumaphi, WHO’s Assistant Director-General on Family and Community Health, said at a meeting today in Nairobi.

The manual delves into the question of why women die from complications related to childbirth, and spells out how to avoid them through methods which can be used in even the poorest settings.

The main causes of maternal deaths are well-known: haemorrhage, infection, hypertensive disorders, obstructed labour and unsafe abortion. But WHO and its partners are trying to remind the world that the crisis continues because care for pregnant women is either unavailable, inaccessible, or inadequate.

[Read more…] about Day 5 (Dec. 6th Action)

Day 4 (Dec. 6th Action)

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I don’t know what to write today to introduce you to this video.

It covers many subjects and it is of course up to the viewer to make their own interpretation.

If you think the voices sound familiar, it is Judy Collins and Joan Baez.

*some images are graphic*

For some reason the embedded player was cutting out half way through, it is fine on the youtube site.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqewiVEemww

Day 3 (Dec. 6th Action)

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Today I would like to pay tribute to some women I have known.

My mother. Who taught me never to unquestioningly accept authority. Never to expect less of myself, or accept less for myself because I’m a women. Never to assume you know why others make the decisions they do. To accept other races and cultures and learn from them. To accept that each person has the right to control over their own body, because in the end it is all we really have. To always share what I have and be willing to take from others.

My birth mother. I could focus on the negative but instead I’d like remember how she taught me about fun and laughter and not taking the world too seriously. She taught me to accept myself at any size and since I have been many sizes this has come in handy.

skdadl who I have come to know over the past 5 years from blogs, boards and emails. I’m sure there were times she despaired of me, however, I have learned so much from her. And there have been times we argued but I’ve gone and considered her arguments and often amended my position because of her words. She has taught me about strength, friendship, kindness and good grammar. (though I fail miserably at the grammar)

Although there are too many to mention one by one, I also pay tribute to the women at Bread and Roses all of whom have taught me about having a strong voice, standing up for myself and others and being gracious in disagreement.

Though I don’t know them personally I’d like to pay tribute to the women that were brave enough to go against the religious and conservative voices of the day and fight for women’s rights.

To the women who continue to fight for a women’s right to choice. To the women who brave those who say the are pro life (and yet not adverse to threatening or taking life that is born) in order to exercise that choice.

Tribute to the women who live daily with violence yet manage to get their kids to school or hold a job and care for others while their own bodies and spirits are need of care.

Tribute to the women in war zones in constant fear of death, rape, loss of home, family and life. No quiet moment, no putting your feet up at the end of a hard day knowing that tomorrow may bring rest. No putting children to bed confident that tomorrow they will play carefree. Wondering where the next meal, or next mortar is going to come from.

Tribute to the women living in poverty, fending off questions from their children as to when they can get the cool toy or cool outfits the kids at school have. Wondering how to tell them Santa might not be coming. Having to go to food banks for dented, expired cans of food. The seniors living in poverty not knowing who will care for them should they become unable to care for themselves. To the widows who are romanticized in story and victimized in reality.

Tribute to the women whose fears cause them to live lives that destroy their spirits but who cannot make that next step. Who spend their lives pleasing everyone and lose their selves and their dreams in the process.

Tribute to those dealing with the pain of sexual assault. Many who have never been able to share their pain. Whose fear of being shamed, or ostracized kept their secret to be expressed only as nightmares.

My love and heartfelt wishes to each and every one of you, that you may see yourselves as the strong, smart, influential, sacred people you are.

Day 2 (Dec. 6th Action)

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The word childhood evokes thoughts of lullabies, carefree days, playing, friends….

For too many this is not the childhood they know. Too many are dying.

Dying from poverty, disease, war, crime and abuse.

While these problems may seem insurmountable when taken together, when addressed individually the solutions are often simple, easy and affordable.

Case in point Spread the Net

Imagine the difference you could make in the life of a family by buying a sanitation kit, a goat or a chicken. Simple things to us, perhaps the difference between life and death for others.

And don’t forget the children next door. The girl who may need a mentor, the boy who is too ashamed to come right out and ask for help, the children who go to bed hungry.

You are only one person but, one person CAN make a difference.

Update on Nicaragua’s abortion ban

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The let women die law abortion ban has not even officially passed and yet it is already taking lives.

After 19-year-old Jazmina Bojorge bled to death in early November at a public hospital in the Nicaraguan capital due to complications from pregnancy, her family appeared on local television and tearfully accused doctors of delaying her treatment for fear of being prosecuted under the nation’s abortion ban.
Bojorge, five months pregnant, arrived at the hospital with painful, premature contractions. After staying the night, she was sent to a different medical center for an ultrasound because hospital equipment was inadequate. Doctors tried to stop the contractions, but they were unsuccessful and the fetus died. Efforts to induce labor to expel the fetus failed and Bojorge went into shock. Her placenta had separated from the uterine wall and her uterus filled with blood. She died two days after arriving at the hospital.

It was Bojorge’s second pregnancy. She left a young son behind.

Poor women in particular will suffer from this law as the better off will be able to travel or to attend private clinics.

n a nation where 8 of 10 people struggle to live on less than $2 a day, poor women with limited access to maternal health care will be most vulnerable, say activists and health workers.

“Women who can only go to public health services will die,” said Blandon, of Ipas.

Surely it is preferable to save a woman’s life than to leave her young child/ren motherless.

“The new penal code doesn’t just go against basic human rights: It goes against fundamental principles of humanity,” said Jose Miguel Vivanco, the Washington-based director of the Americas for Human Rights Watch, headquartered in New York.

Those involved in the religious effort to deny women their rights are still saddened by the loss of life.

“It is a prosperous business,” said Max Padilla, a Catholic activist who helped organize a lobbying effort and massive public demonstration in favor of the ban. “Now the people involved in that business are defending their livelihoods, presenting false cases.”

For women who still have the choice of birth control and the luck that their method doesn’t fail, not getting pregnant seems to be the answer to this law.

In May, Chevez had an emergency therapeutic abortion two months into her pregnancy when doctors discovered the fetus was forming outside the uterus and had ruptured a fallopian tube, causing severe internal bleeding.

“I would like to try again, but I’m afraid to get pregnant. That operation saved my life,” Chevez, 28, a swimming teacher, said in an interview at her home in Leon, where she lives with her two children, 9 and 11, from a previous marriage, and her second husband. Her husband wants a child, she said. “But he is afraid of losing me.”

Women will still demand control of their bodies. It may be through illegal abortion, it may be through suicide, it may be through methods of birth control, but all women deserve, want and have a right to control their reproduction.

You are a human being. You have rights inherent in that reality. You have dignity and worth that exists prior to law. ~Lyn Beth Neylon

Dec. 6th Action

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Recent events and news stories bring very sharply to mind that women still have not achieved equality and that there are factions who wish us to be divested of those rights and freedoms we have achieved thus far.

Bearing that in mind, and the toll it took on 14 young women as well as women around the world, I would like to propose an action.

Starting on Nov. 23 and culminating on Dec. 6th.

14 days to represent the 14 women whose lives were taken that day.

If you have a blog or a website write one thing each day in recognition of women.

It could be about abuse stats, it could be about the work your local women’s group is doing, it could be about the wonderful woman in your life. Friend, mother, girlfriend,teacher…

It could be the goat you bought for a woman half way round the world.

It could be about other actions people can take to change the world.

One thing a day to recognize women’s lives.

On Dec.6th every participant will create an entry called Dec. 6th Memorial with only a picture of a candle as the post.

For anyone who would like to participate but who doesn’t have a blog, you can sign up at Rose’s Place and I will set you up to be an author and you can post there or you can sign up at Bread and Roses and take part in the thread there.

If you take part please send me the name and url of your blog and I will put your link on my blog under Dec.6th Action.

(debrascot@gmail.com)