What Are the Rhythms of A Woman's Life?
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This is Women’s Health Week. I’ll be posting about this on all my blogs during the week, starting with this guest post by Suzanne Mathis McQueen. Suzanne has been a lifelong women’s advocate as well as an entrepreneur in the salon/spa industry, working with thousands of women individually as employer, associate, mentor, business leader, instructor, and hairdresser (aka confidante), for nearly 30 yrs. She is currently writing a book on the natural monthly rhythm of women, basically re-writing society’s version of the female cycle, called Four Seasons in Four Weeks: the new female experience. She lives in Ashland, Oregon with her 14-yr. old daughter, Myan (who was born on International Women’s Day and will also begin blogging, any day now, for teens on the website). I appreciate her sharing this post called “Your Natural Monthly Rhythm”:
When it comes to “periods” Mother Nature doesn’t care whether you’re black, white, purple, or polka-dotted, Republican or Democrat, Buddhist or Atheist, straight or gay, as long as you’re a human female and somewhere between the ages of 8 and 55-ish. Minus pregnancies, nursing, hysterectomies, or some unusual health challenge, women cycle day in and day out for approximately 40 years of their lives. Yet this basic premise of what makes me female is an uncomfortable, if not taboo, subject. Due to lack of information, embarrassment, or violence against them, women worldwide often suffer in silence from its sometimes chaotic effects, which influence their lives in every way – including parenting, friendships, and their sexual relationship.
As an employer, instructor, longtime mentor and women’s advocate, I continue to observe that young women don’t feel well on a consistent basis. The majority of women I talk to say their monthly cycles disrupt their lives in some large or small way, yet they don’t know how to tame the lion. I see most women going 24/7 no matter what is happening with them personally. Often they are quietly dealing with heavy bleeding, on-going fatigue, extreme breast tenderness, or headaches while working and taking care of the family. It would help a lot if their guy could understand.
Read MoreBye Bye, Abstinence Only, Part 2 — So What Do We Do About It?
Just want to clarify that Congress now works over the president’s budget, so the end of abstinence only isn’t necessarily nigh absent some activism on our part. To show your support for ending federal expenditures on an education methodology that has been shown to be ineffective at best and dangerous to the health of young people at worst–and to show your support for medically accurate and comprehensive programs–you can click here. Advocates for Youth will provide an easy way to communicate your thoughts to your members of Congress.
Read MoreEncouraging Words and Leaders Who Encourage
Do you ever have a day when you know you need some encouraging words? Today is one of them for me. So may irons in the fire, anxious with waiting for them to come to fruition, feeling like sometimes hard work doesn’t pay. You know. We’ve all been there.
So I want to share two antidotes that are encouraging to me. First is Women’s eNews big fundraising dinner tonight honoring 21 Leaders for the 21st Century. This event produces enough positive energy to levitate our spirits to the sky and fuel our collective passion for bettering the lives of women everywhere. Be sure to read all these amazing, inspiring women’s stories.
One especially close to my heart are my friendMaria Luisa Sanchez Fuentes, head of the Mexican reproductive rights advocacy group GIRE that has led the successful effort to decriminalize abortion in Mexico City based on human rights legal principles
Read MoreBye Bye Abstinence Only
Yesterday, Bristol Palin was all over the media talking about her own teen pregnancy and that prevention is best. Though she focused on abstinence, she acknowledged teens need to know about birth control.
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
Today, the president’s budget (.pdf) says in clear terms that the U.S. government won’t be wasting our tax money on abstinence only ineffective sex non-education any more if he has anything to do with it. Who would have thought that conservative abstinence-only proponent Gov. Sarah Palin’s splash onto the political landscape would have helped created the impetus for this sweeping policy change? This is what makes politics so eternally fun! Here’s the relevant language from the budget-now we have to keep the pressure on Congress to follow suit:
Read MoreMarilyn French, 1929 to 2009
Reprinted courtesy of the Women’s Media Center Exclusive by Carol Jenkins, WMC president.
A brilliant feminist theorist, her 1977 novel, The Women’s Room, connected with millions of women who had no way before of claiming their anger and discontent. And, as Carol tells us, Marilyn French was a tender and caring friend.
My friend Marilyn French was a rare blend of genius and grace. A Queens, New York, girl of modest beginnings, she became one of our leading feminist theorists, her work read worldwide. Both as a scholar and novelist, she brandished a razor sharp writing instrument on the patriarchy, but privately she was gentle and funny. And, oh my, was she smart.
The first time I saw Marilyn French—in the late 70s—we shared the stage at a women’s event on Long Island, both of us invited to deliver remarks. She was a bona fide international celebrity—famed for her novel The Women’s Room, which perfectly captured the quest of the modern feminist movement. I was a local news anchor, still new in my career, a new mother. She was breathtakingly brilliant, vibrant and sharp—and outspoken in a way that was unusual in those days. Then, there were still many women who muted their opinions, smiled often, and perfected the skills of “getting along.” I may have been one of them. Marilyn, on the other hand, was among first women I’d met who were “having none of it.” The “it” being a reflexively submissive attitude. Marilyn definitely left an impression.
It was some years between my first introduction to Marilyn French on that Long Island stage—and becoming her friend. That happened in the late 80s when our mutual friend Gloria Steinem invited Marilyn, Esther Broner, the writer and ritualist, and me to dinner. We sat down at seven—and when at four in the morning we realized we didn’t want the conversation to end, formed what we soon named “The Coven.” For the next 20 years we met at least four times a year—on the days of the solstice and equinox—to tell each other about the state of our lives and have it reflected back to us. We created some rituals of our own: waving magic wands and tribal feathers. It was fun, but it was also serious work.
Read MoreFor the President’s Suggestion Box: Nominate a Woman
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg says she’s lonesome being the Court’s only woman. The New York Times pointed out that President Obama will have no lack of highly qualified women to consider when filinghis first vacancy because of the stunning advances women have made in the legal field during the past generation. This Guest Post is…
Read MoreTo Run the World (Better), Power Up Feminism
In the Spring ’09 edition, On The Issues Magazine writers and artists discuss feminist and progressive values that transcend politics — our Lines In The Sand. I’m pleased to have been asked to contribute this article to the mix.
Were you thinking we were done with elections and could take a few minutes to celebrate a pro-woman administration and a Democratically-controlled Congress that appears ready to embrace pro-choice and pro-equality measures? Sorry, my Sisters. Elections are never over when they are over.
Candidates are already gearing up for 2010 and 2012. It’s critically important that feminists review the lessons of 1992 and its parallels to 2008 so we can avoid repeating mistakes—and more urgently, so we can charge ahead with strategies that advance a bold vision of gender equality and justice.
After all, men have been making America’s political decisions for over 200 years now, and I don’t need to tell you it’s not a pretty picture. Women, especially those not afraid to identify themselves with the F-word, are the change we need. But whether women will be the change we get depends on whether we use the power we have.
For the one constant in politics is that every victory sows the seeds of the next defeat and every defeat sows the seeds of the next victory, unless eternal vigilance is applied. This means using a movement mentality that continually advances bold new ideas and keeps its grassroots watered.
Read MoreHow Do You Grade Obama’s First 100 Days?
Tired of the routine 100 days analyses? Salon asked a wildly diverse compendium of opinionated pontificators, including me, to grade the president’s foreign policy, economic policy, and overall performance. Oh, in 200 words. Check ’em out.
How do you grade him? Please share your thoughts by clicking on comments below Here’s the report card I sent to Salon; they cut my last, and best (IMHO), paragraph:
Read MoreAfter Obama’s Presser: “Simply” Forward to the Next 100 Days
Really I’m not single-minded.
I watched every minute of President Obama’s 100 Days Press Conference (transcript here). I was enchanted by the reporter who asked Obama what had “enchanted, troubled, surprised, and humbled” him since taking office. Even though a quick wit said that sounded like a Facebook quiz, I thought it livened up the other, more predictable questions.
The answer I liked best was what surprised him, as reported in the Los Angeles Times:
“I am surprised, compared to where I started, by the number of critical issues coming to a head all at the same time.” When he first starting running for office, Iraq was dominant. The economy was an issue. “Obviously I did not anticipate the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.” So unlike new administrations that deal with three big issues, he says, his has about eight to address.
It was delivered with a sense of humor, making light of the many problems on his plate and eliciting gentle laughter. The laughter at these events always sounds gentle. No big guffaws. More of a gentlepersonly acknowledgment that something humorous has been said that makes the president more human.
Obama observed that every generation faces challenges and we will meet ours. This reminded me of the late Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir’s observation that every generation finds it necessary to negotiate compromises with its own values. That thought was still in my mind when Obama was asked the inevitable torture question and he invoked Winston Churchill’s objections to using torture because it wasn’t in keeping with Britain’s values. Waterboarding is torture, he said, and he acknowledged that the U.S. had waterboarded. This is huge. No compromise there.
I was about to turn into a little puddle of warm butter over this amazing man–his intellect, grasp of the issues, candor, sense of ethics.
But then came this exchange with Ed Henry, and I snapped out of it. Really, I’m not single-minded but old habits die hard, and I couldn’t help but pay special attention:
Read MoreSee Red, Be Red for Equal Pay Day, Today
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Red happens to be my favorite color. I’m an Aries after all. A classic one according to my sister (maybe that wasn’t meant as a compliment? Pioneering, passionate courageous, dynamic they say, but also selfish, impulsive, impatient, foolhardy.). Even my planet, Mars, named for the god of war, is red.
So I laughed when tweets from AAUW and National Women’s Law Center (NLRC), two organizations that have been pushing for the Paycheck Fairness Act and have declared this Blogging for Fair Pay Day, told me to wear red today.
No problem. I’ll just close my eyes and pull something out of my closet. It’ll more than likely be red.
There are many fabulous people blogging today about the fact that women make on average 78 cents to every $1 earned by a man, and women of color earn even less: African-American women earn 62¢, Latinas earn 53¢ for $1 earned by white, non-Hispanic men. NLRC can tell you how the comparison shakes down in your state.
Rather than write a long diatribe, I want to link Heartfeldt readers to some sources I’ve found particularly compelling or useful.
Read More