Just a quick hit!
Sam Beam (better known as Iron & Wine) is playing with Glen Hansard at the Paramount July 27th to benefit the Midwives' Alliance of North America.
Tickets pre-sale this Saturday, June 20.
Here's the event page on the Paramount website!
Showing posts with label healthcare. Show all posts
Showing posts with label healthcare. Show all posts
10.15.2008
Babies.
Whatever supreme being is up there is convinced to make it rain on little 'ol me and my broken-down car with the non-functioning windshield wipers, making so I can't drive to Planned Parenthood to turn in my application today (or get to class, for that matter... hrmph) for fear of killing myself on the road. Weather: 1. Me and my volunteering prospects: 0.
Oh, well. I can stay nice and dry inside and continue to fill this blog, which I'm really excited I've finally created. Even though I've kept a personal online journal since I was thirteen (wow, I just ever so slightly aged myself- that's six years!) I've always felt the need to have a separate space for this sort of thing. Even though feminism does play a significant role in my personal life, I feel like a frequently updated public blog solely about feminist topics would do the job better than trying to mush it together with my personal life.
Here's the trailer of the 2007 documentary The Business of Being Born- an amazing movie for anyone who is unfamiliar with the health care crisis and how it affects women, specifically addressing problems in the area of childbirth.
It made me angry to watch at first, but it really switched on a light for me and made me wonder about my own conditioning. I know I'd be terrified to have a home birth (actually, I'm terrified of birth in general) and I think that says something in itself. That I've been conditioned to view birth as a life-threatening thing, instead of something that, well, makes life possible. It's so disheartening that if I don't want to have a home birth, it seems my only other option is going to a hospital where I'll be given pitocin to speed up my labor, maybe given an episiotomy, or scared into a caesarean because my doctor wants to go home for the evening. I know it sounds brash when I put it like that, but.. it's true. No matter how frightening a home birth sounds to me, my personal convictions about I could possibly endure during a hospital birth far outweigh that fear!
Besides, I already have a "baby" :)
Oh, well. I can stay nice and dry inside and continue to fill this blog, which I'm really excited I've finally created. Even though I've kept a personal online journal since I was thirteen (wow, I just ever so slightly aged myself- that's six years!) I've always felt the need to have a separate space for this sort of thing. Even though feminism does play a significant role in my personal life, I feel like a frequently updated public blog solely about feminist topics would do the job better than trying to mush it together with my personal life.
Here's the trailer of the 2007 documentary The Business of Being Born- an amazing movie for anyone who is unfamiliar with the health care crisis and how it affects women, specifically addressing problems in the area of childbirth.
It made me angry to watch at first, but it really switched on a light for me and made me wonder about my own conditioning. I know I'd be terrified to have a home birth (actually, I'm terrified of birth in general) and I think that says something in itself. That I've been conditioned to view birth as a life-threatening thing, instead of something that, well, makes life possible. It's so disheartening that if I don't want to have a home birth, it seems my only other option is going to a hospital where I'll be given pitocin to speed up my labor, maybe given an episiotomy, or scared into a caesarean because my doctor wants to go home for the evening. I know it sounds brash when I put it like that, but.. it's true. No matter how frightening a home birth sounds to me, my personal convictions about I could possibly endure during a hospital birth far outweigh that fear!
Besides, I already have a "baby" :)
10.14.2008
Health care is a women's issue
When I started this course, I wasn't sure I could connect my passion for women's health with a feminist objective through my service-learning. I know that there is very limited federal funding for family planning (the Bush administration cut funding 30% in the 2009 budget plan) which is a problem in and of itself- but past that, I hadn't really considered how sexism, which has already permeated our society, also affects women's health care negatively.
Some interesting links:
Provider Ignorance, Bias Turn Lesbian Patients Off Healthcare (@ RH Reality Check)
Go Ask Alice: Should I tell my gyn I'm having lesbian sex? (Short answer: "YES!")
Transgender Health: Overview, Guidelines, Gender Identity Disorder (LGBT HealthChannel)
Gender Inequalities and HIV (World Health Organization)
Insurance May Not Cover Preventive Surgery for High-Risk Women (American Cancer Society)
I'll add more later... but you get the picture. If you're a woman (even worse, a lesbian, transgender, or of color) you're probably receiving less-than-perfect care. Ain't that a bitch?
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