I always marvel at the rituals women engage in to attain an unrealistic image of beauty from the expensive to the strange to the torturous. From the grueling workouts that can last hours (often several times a day), the diet pills that elevate the heart rate and, often, gift the woman with hemorrhoids, the laser facials, chemical peels, microdermabrasion, incisions, suctions and stitches. From removing digits from one’s toes to fit into pointy toed high heels to anal bleaching to “vaginal rejuvenation,” women “voluntarily” pursue new ways to maintain their youth, size and beauty.
The recent article from the Mail Online introduces another option for women to employ in maintaining radiant, youthful skin: injecting skin cells from babies’ foreskins into the face. It claims to be permanent and does not need “maintenance” fillings like Botox and Restylane.
I can’t help but flash on that scene in Fight Club where Tyler Durden recycles the fat liposuctioned from women’s fat and sells it back to them in soap. As the article points out, the baby foreskin is simply discarded so why not use it? Blech.
I have no doubt that once women get wind of this option that they will pursue as part of their “beauty regimen.” After all, women are sent thousands of messages daily that they must maintain a youthful appearance or risk losing value in the culture.
The following quotes cited in the article speak volumes:
Certainly Karen Mollison is thrilled. ‘It has made a huge difference to me. I jumped at the chance to take part in the trial. I had the first treatment in May and the second in August.
‘I feel wonderful. After years of embarrassment, I feel free. I’m even dating again and I never thought that would happen.’
A report on NPR this morning discussed the dangerous scenario that many Russian women face today: human trafficking, forced prostitution, sever beatings at the hands of their captors and husbands. As indicated in the report by Anne Garrels, “According to government estimates, one Russian woman dies at the hands of her husband or partner every hour, but police don’t respond.” And, in reliably crude fashion, women are blamed and experience secondary trauma or revictimization in the criminal justice system. The recent film, “Eastern Promises,” examines the global sex trade and it’s ramifications. Jarring and disturbing.
Garrels:
Russia has become a prime source, transit point and destination for trafficking in women — what the U.N. defines as abuse of women involving force, fraud, coercion and deception.
While numbers are impossible to pinpoint, a new survey suggests at least 90,000 women currently living in Russia have been the victims of trafficking. But the Russian government has done little to deal with the issue.
The Russian city of Chelyabinsk is just the kind of place traffickers look for women — on the edge of Siberia. It’s remote, relatively poor, and the women have white skin, which is prized in Asia and the Middle East. So far, given the lack of government action, traffickers have been able to operate there with impunity…
…There is no government assistance for the victims — the very young women the Russian government needs if its goal to improve the birth rate can be achieved. This reflects a bigger problem — there is a lack of help for all abused Russian women. According to government estimates, one Russian woman dies at the hands of her husband or partner every hour, but police don’t respond.
Under pressure from women activists in Chelyabinsk, the local government has finally set up a crisis center to deal with domestic abuse. It wasn’t easy, and the center is understaffed. It can’t offer 24-hour service, there’s no shelter, and psychologist Inna Martynov says police are more often a hindrance than a help.
“Police blame the women,” Martynov says. “I just had a case where the police made it worse, and I had to deal with secondary trauma as a result. We have not been able to build good links with the police.”
She fears that with the growing economic crisis in Russia, women will be increasingly at risk, more may be tempted to take potentially dangerous jobs abroad and more may be victims at home. She also worries the fledgling crisis center, already overwhelmed, will be cut back.
Amy Poehler makes me laugh and makes me happy. I love her. Unabashedly. She’s brilliant, she’s hilarious and she’s all about being herself and inspiring other women to do the same and that is the premise of her new show, Smart Girls at the Party. Be fabulous, be funny, be smart, be yourself and take pride in it.
That’s an awesome message for girls and women of all ages in an era that promotes the dumbing down of the American female. After all, smart girls have more fun.
The most recent episode features “7-year-old Ruby, who Amy describes as a “feminist, activist, deep thinker and artist”, who gives her own perspective on feminism, stating matter-of-factly: “I think that boys and girls are of equal value” and sings a feminist anthem she wrote.” Fuck yeah!
Beyond the celebratory message of self acceptance, the interview with Amy, Meredith and Amy emphasizes the importance of female solidarity and friendship. Like many women, I used to proudly proclaim that “most of my friends are guys.” The suspicion, envy, competition and trash talking among women and girls is a debilitating disease that impairs the development of enduring, meaningful and nurturing relationships. The importance of female bonds counters the individualistic, me-first, narcissistic version of “feminism” that has been mass marketed in the last decade. I’m stoked!
With her booming, classically trained voice and spare guitar, Odetta gave life to the songs by workingmen and slaves, farmers and miners, housewives and washerwomen, blacks and whites.
First coming to prominence in the 1950s, she influenced Harry Belafonte, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and other singers who had roots in the folk music boom.
An Odetta record on the turntable, listeners could close their eyes and imagine themselves hearing the sounds of spirituals and blues as they rang out from a weathered back porch or around a long-vanished campfire a century before.
“What distinguished her from the start was the meticulous care with which she tried to re-create the feeling of her folk songs; to understand the emotions of a convict in a convict ditty, she once tried breaking up rocks with a sledge hammer,” Time magazine wrote in 1960.
“She is a keening Irishwoman in `Foggy Dew,’ a chain-gang convict in `Take This Hammer,’ a deserted lover in `Lass from the Low Country,’” Time wrote.
Odetta called on her fellow blacks to “take pride in the history of the American Negro” and was active in the civil rights movement. When she sang at the March on Washington in August 1963, “Odetta’s great, full-throated voice carried almost to Capitol Hill,” The New York Times wrote.
She was nominated for a 1963 Grammy awards for best folk recording for “Odetta Sings Folk Songs.” Two more Grammy nominations came in recent years, for her 1999 “Blues Everywhere I Go” and her 2005 album “Gonna Let It Shine.”
Flashback to the Spitzer scandal. Ah, the long standing conversation about why men cheat. No surprise, women are blamed for men’s infidelity. Women, wives and mothers, specifically, have been blamed for problems and “failures” in relationships for decades. After all, emotional work has been characterized as women’s work. Women have been relegated to the maintenance and security of the domestic sphere and this includes cultivating and nurturing relationships. It has been viewed as an inherent, “natural” female skill.
We have vaginas. Vaginas are empathetic, compassionate and loving. Because women have been in charge of this emotional work and providing emotional satisfaction, women have been blamed for men’s indiscretions, the “failure” of a relationship and blamed for the potential abuse/violence inflicted by men on to women.
The question has long been, “What did SHE (I) do wrong?”
Move on, Dr. Laura. There’s so much wrong with your argument, don’t even know where to begin.
Cecile Richards on the implications of Hillary Clinton’s appointment:
For the past eight years, the Bush administration has enforced a global gag rule, an executive order that prevented thousands of health care entities around the world from providing women with birth control. In some parts of Africa, women have a one-in-10 risk of dying in childbirth. And as Nicholas Kristof wrote in the New York Times in October, the result of the so-called “pro-life” policy has likely been tens of thousands of additional and avoidable abortions each year. In addition to implementing the gag rule, each year the Bush administration has denied funding to UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, at the behest of the far right — money that would have paid for the provision of critical reproductive care.
Today, the incoming administration will generate another celebration by women all around the world when President-elect Obama names Hillary Clinton as our next secretary of state. The selection of Senator Clinton represents an important first step down a new path for American foreign policy — an enormous shift represented by the selection of a champion of women’s health and rights to be in charge of America foreign policy.
As first lady and as a U.S. senator, Hillary Clinton visited more than 80 nations, but for a majority of the world’s population, her unique quality may be her gender. Senator Clinton understands that improving the status of women is not simply a moral imperative; it is necessary to building democracies around the globe. Improving the status of women is key to creating stable families, stable communities, and stable countries. Women’s ability to control the size of their families, regardless of economics, nationality, or culture, has a direct impact on their economic well-being and that of their children. Senator Clinton understands that women’s quality of life directly affects the major issues confronting the globe: national security, environmental sustainability, and global poverty.
In a speech that, by the standards of the Bush administration, sounds positively radical, Clinton addressed the Cairo Plus Five Forum at the Hague in 1999, saying, “Women’s reproductive health and empowerment are critical to a nation’s sustainability and growth … we now know that no nation can hope to succeed in the global economy of the 21st century if half of its people lack the opportunity and the right to make the most of their God-given potential. No nation can move forward when its women and children are trapped in endless cycles of poverty; when they have inadequate health care, poor access to family planning, limited education.”
