maternalmortality

posts about #maternalmortality more →
AIDS Leading Cause Of Death For Women Worldwide
Bedside Manner
Far Away, So Close
On Maternal Mortality, Sexism In Medical Care
"He Knew I Had No One To Protect Me": Violence Against Women In Afghanistan
Mark Penn Defends Men, Idiocy
Maternal Mortality Plagues Sierra Leone — And The United States
Midwife Nurses In Mozambique Fight Maternal Mortality

Your version of Internet Explorer is not supported. Please upgrade to the most recent version in order to view comments.

Dsmvwl Admin Promote to frontpage Approve user Ban user ×

maude_flanders
11/09/09

In reply to AIDS Leading Cause Of Death For Women Worldwide
And somehow, despite the availability of this information....the Church, arguably more of an influence in poor countries where women are most affected, speaks out against contraption and education funding/awareness.

It undermines any worthless commentary they have on uplifting human rights for women in other ways. It's criminal. It's terrifying. It reminds me of why I am both a deeply embittered ex-Catholic and why I am more afraid than ever. I don't know the nature of God (what a blessing it would be, if there are scientific proof that there wasn't one, at least, not like the versions of God used as weapons over policy or authority figures' moral accountability in the present; the thought of an afterlife would not weigh over me).

That's their idea--the U.S. Council of Bishops will invite a warmonger to the Alfred E. Smith dinner but not John Kerry, because one of them supports family planning. They're not grotesque hypocrites, undeserving of a voice over public policy and matters both complex and important (war, abortion, the death penalty, I don't really give a shit what the Church thinks, whether they're on my side or not).

They have a channel to the immortal that the rest of us (lay people, and worst of all, baby eaters, heathens, etc.) don't. So that shit is okay.

I suppose people could argue that throughout history, religion has been one of the few lonely voices protecting the poor from violent or greedy government. Great. (Uh, if anything, not only do I think that idea is a little outdated....it's just a sign that the country is probably a God-forsaken, unbelievably poor, desperate, chaotic, borderline-anarchistic/despotic hellhole and organized religion is on the scene for rock bottom, but I suppose that's beside the point.) I can't really give them credit for it if they simultaneously work to conceal or stall progress in medicine or women's health.

There is nothing so foul as religion when its doctrines or authority contribute to the suffering of humanity (only in this life though, I guess, so it doesn't count!), and the hierarchy promoting fatal ignorance come to their audience as effective mouthpieces for the cosmic decision-maker of mortal destiny. #aids
Reply

maude_flanders was starred maude_flanders was unstarred

Laines
11/09/09

In reply to AIDS Leading Cause Of Death For Women Worldwide
I read this and all I can think is that I really really hate the Pope. There's my not nice nor rational thought for the day. I try to limit myself to one but some times are more trying than others. #aids
Reply

maude_flanders promoted this comment Laines was starred Laines was unstarred

miyamyo
11/09/09

In reply to AIDS Leading Cause Of Death For Women Worldwide
The other day I saw an advertisement for a walk in my area for heart disease research, I believe, and it cited it as a the leading cause of death in the US. The person I was with started talking about how silly that was, since there "will always be a leading cause of death". I was horrified! Yes, there will always be leading causes of death, but people should still do all they can to help! Everyone will die, yes, but people should do what they can.

I bring it up because I'm sure there will be a lot of people (not on this site, I hope) that will probably see this, shrug and be like "yeah, but everyone dies of something." People's lack of compassion is really horrifying sometimes. #aids
Reply

Kivrin promoted this comment miyamyo was starred miyamyo was unstarred

thesciencegirl
11/09/09

In reply to AIDS Leading Cause Of Death For Women Worldwide
AIDS deaths in women are a sort of barometer for how women are faring in a given society. Most HIV cases worldwide are contracted via sex, and this puts women at higher risk when they lack the power to demand condom usage or fidelity from their partners (not to mention non-consentual sexual encounters). When you then consider that women are often unable to achieve economic independence and often lack access to or money for care, you can understand why women may not only disproportionately contract AIDS (e.g. 60% of HIV+ people in Sub-Saharan Africa are women), but also disproportionately die from it.

The WHO has an interesting publication on HIV and gender inequality, if anyone wants to read more than just my ranting. :)

[www.who.int] #aids
Reply

thesciencegirl was starred thesciencegirl was unstarred

maude_flanders
11/09/09

@thesciencegirl: Wish I could promote you but you already have a star #aids
Reply

maude_flanders was starred maude_flanders was unstarred

KaneBaker
11/09/09

@thesciencegirl: Your comment made me think about this issue from another angle. That being that HIV/AIDS are not the disease in this case when looking at the bigger picture. They are the symptom of a greater social condition. Let's say we cure HIV, it won't fix the other problem that causes this disproportion of power.

Lastly this is not intended to trivialize the importance of fighting HIV in the first place. #aids
Reply

thesciencegirl promoted this comment KaneBaker was starred KaneBaker was unstarred

thesciencegirl
11/09/09

@KaneBaker: You should check out the work of Paul Farmer. He writes about how inequalities in health (and specifically infectious disease, which is his specialty, and mine) are indicative of imbalances of power in society and greater issues of structural violence. He focuses specifically on the poor, but his theories are also relevant to gender inequality. #aids
Reply

thesciencegirl was starred thesciencegirl was unstarred

KaneBaker
11/09/09

@thesciencegirl: Makes you wonder why and how the people that would benefit the most from socialized medicine in the united states seem to be fighting the hardest against it. (A strong and successful campaign of misinformation I assume). I live in Canada and have considered living in the US on many occasions, but it worries me that I am one sickness or one accident away from landing in debt and on the street. I'm relatively safe here. It's not all roses and sunshine here for the under privileged, but at least healthcare and emergency treatment is available to everyone that walks in off the street. I took it for granted through my childhood and young adult years. Now I appreciate it more than ever. #aids
Reply

KaneBaker was starred KaneBaker was unstarred

Sophie needs to study...damn
11/09/09

In reply to AIDS Leading Cause Of Death For Women Worldwide
I got tested last week. It was a rapid HIV test and takes about 20 minutes. Longest 20 minutes of my life. And I've gotten tested 1-2 times a year for the past 4 years. I haven't prayed that hard since...well, my last HIV test. Get tested! #aids
Reply

Blackagar Boltigon
11/09/09

In reply to AIDS Leading Cause Of Death For Women Worldwide
what i find so heartbreaking about this story is, i was trying to figure out why they had used 15-44 as the age range -- i understood wanting to put a lower threshold on womanhood, but 44 seemed like an arbitrarily low number. then i remembered that globally, many women with aids probably die long before they reach 44 -- in fact, that's older than the generally life expectancy in many countries. #aids
Reply

Kivrin promoted this comment Blackagar Boltigon was starred

Raised-byHeathens
11/09/09

In reply to AIDS Leading Cause Of Death For Women Worldwide
But wear your pink ribbon and drink out of your Susan G Komen water bottle while wearing your Save the TaTas tee shirt and doing a 5k survivor walk because in America breast cancer is the only disease we'll get serious about spreading info about and raising money for. #aids
Reply

Kivrin promoted this comment Raised-byHeathens was starred

Kivrin
11/09/09

@Raised-byHeathens: To be fair, AIDS is not a leading cause of death for women in the United States; the WHO study was worldwide. But I take your point. #aids
Reply

Kivrin was starred Kivrin was unstarred

Kivrin
11/09/09

@Kivrin: BTW, here is the info on leading causes of death among U.S. women (as of 2004): [www.cdc.gov] #aids
Reply

Kivrin was starred Kivrin was unstarred

Armed with Vitriol
11/09/09

@Kivrin: American Indian women are the only ones who have suicide on their list. This is disturbing and depressing to me. #aids
Reply

Kivrin promoted this comment Edited by Armed with Vitriol at 11/09/09 4:01 PM Armed with Vitriol was starred

miyamyo
11/09/09

@Raised-byHeathens: I don't think diminishing another horrifying disease is really the best response? Obviously, it's wrong that a lot of people are only focusing on one disease when HIV/AIDs is so horrible and needs more awareness, but I wouldn't target those people as the problem. I'd target the people who don't really give a flip about any cause. #aids
Reply

Kivrin promoted this comment miyamyo was starred miyamyo was unstarred

Raised-byHeathens
11/09/09

@miyamyo: I'm not diminishing another disease, but it seems like breast cancer is a fall back- you don't really have to do anything, every October rolls around and you buy a tee shirt or some other piece of disposable plastic crap and "hey look everybody! I CARE about women's health issues!"
It's not that simple- there are so many health issues out there, but you never hear about them. Why isn't there as big of a push for prostate cancer? High cholesterol(that's not attached to a statin commercial)? AIDS? Uterine cancer- the list goes on. It's hard to read about how there still aren't effective treatments for pancreatic cancer because there isn't enough research money out there. It makes me very angry that breast cancer has gotten so "popular"- and it seems like it is because of the sexualized nature of boobies, we don't care about women who are affected by breast cancer, nor do we care about women's health, we care about sweet sweet titties. #aids
Reply

Raised-byHeathens was starred

miyamyo
11/09/09

@Raised-byHeathens: Oh, okay. In that case I agree! A friend's mother is most likely going to die in the next 6 months of breast cancer, so I am defensive on their behalf of the Breast Cancer Awareness backlash, but there is a point to it.

My personal favorite are the people who get the Save The Tatas or Feel Your Boobies flair on Facebook. If anyone can explain to me what good that does to anyone, I'm all ears... #aids
Reply

miyamyo was starred miyamyo was unstarred

Kivrin
11/09/09

In reply to AIDS Leading Cause Of Death For Women Worldwide
Hey, silver lining: People who work in HIV/AIDS prevention probably don't have to worry about losing their jobs anytime soon.* In this economy, that's something to celebrate.

*Unless governments decide to cut funding, but we'll just pretend that won't/can't happen. #aids
Reply

Kivrin was starred Kivrin was unstarred

J.D.Regent
11/09/09

In reply to AIDS Leading Cause Of Death For Women Worldwide
Sex = death. I'm so ready to drop out of humanity today. #aids
Reply

J.D.Regent was starred J.D.Regent was unstarred

morninggloria
11/09/09

@J.D.Regent: Little Deaths Add Up To Big Deaths #aids
Reply

morninggloria was starred morninggloria was unstarred

Rooo sez BISH PLZ
09/21/09

In reply to Far Away, So Close
That's the most pointedly evocative editorial photo I think I've seen in awhile.
Reply

Rooo sez BISH PLZ was starred

morninggloria
07/30/09

In reply to On Maternal Mortality, Sexism In Medical Care
I wouldn't want women or men to be shouldered with the physical burden of having babies. I wish that whenever sex occurred, there was a 50/50 chance that the man or the woman would get pregnant. Equality!
Reply

Edited by morninggloria at 07/30/09 2:08 PM morninggloria was starred morninggloria was unstarred

rmric0.wedding.photographer.and.manny
07/30/09

@morninggloria: What if there are twins? I think both parents should have to carry one, then we can do better psychological experiments about the effect of things on the developing fetus.

Also these "if (blah) had (blah) then (blah)" statements always strike me as insane. I mean I'm sure you could argue it's raising awareness about privelege, but these statements are just patently ridiculous the healthcare industrial complex is full of greedy vampires, they don't want to give anything free.
Reply

J.D.Regent
07/30/09

@morninggloria: I wish you were in charge instead of baby Jesus.
Reply

J.D.Regent was starred J.D.Regent was unstarred

RisaPlata
07/30/09

In reply to On Maternal Mortality, Sexism In Medical Care
Am I the only one getting sick of the whole "if men were women" thing? The real hypothetical is "if women had all the power." Which is not even what any of us are looking for, and is just another way to discuss the ways that women's rights still need to progress without doing anything about progressing them, and in fact degrading the whole conversation to a really childish level. It's like saying, "if women had penises, we'd be in charge of the world!" which is faulty precisely because it puts the source of a man's power in his literal dick, and not the figurative one where it belongs.
Reply

RisaPlata was starred RisaPlata was unstarred

milominderbinder
07/30/09

In reply to On Maternal Mortality, Sexism In Medical Care
I never understand these arguments, if men had uteruses they'd be women. If men were like women, they'd be treated like women. If the power structure is overthrown, a new one would just spring up in it's place, hopefully a better more fair one but not necessarily. Or perhaps Animal Farm has just turned me into a pessimist...
Reply

colormeroutine promoted this comment milominderbinder was starred milominderbinder was unstarred

morninggloria
07/30/09

@milominderbinder: I know exactly what you mean. Babies are the real jerks here. The weaker sex is the one that has to tend to the babies. In conclusion: shut up babies. You're assholes and I blame you for centuries of female oppression.
Reply

morninggloria was starred morninggloria was unstarred

thegogglesdonothing
07/30/09

In reply to On Maternal Mortality, Sexism In Medical Care
The best part about counterfactuals is that there's no possible way to contest or discuss them, because they're not based in objective reality whatsoever! Let's join the fun:

"If men had wheels for feet, improper disposal of nails would be punishable by torture, chrome rims would be distributed by the state, and there's be an international coalition dedicated to turning the Atlantic Ocean into a paved skate park." - thegogglesdonothing
Reply

stealthird promoted this comment

J.D.Regent
07/30/09

@thegogglesdonothing: Sometimes these things ring true for me but not this one. It is something different to say maternal mortality is exacerbated or caused by the low status of women than it is to say, "if men had babies there would be no mortality." But it could be my persistent irritation with Nick Kristof creeping in.
Reply

J.D.Regent was starred J.D.Regent was unstarred

stealthird
07/30/09

@thegogglesdonothing: If men were horses, they would ride YOU...in Soviet Russia. Oiy.
Reply

stealthird was starred stealthird was unstarred

kithkin
07/30/09

@J.D.Regent: Right on. Since women are subjugated in large part because we are the sex class, if men became the sex class instead they would lose a substantial part of their power. Even if women were still expected to be caretakers after a child was born, this would still force men to carry children and therefore endure the same stigma pregnant women do.

Unless Kristof means that one day two dozen Senators and scores of hospital directors and insurance company executives found themselves unexpectedly pregnant. Then, perhaps, some hasty legislation might get pushed through, because they're currently in power. That leaves the question of how long they'd be able to stay in power open, though.
Reply

kithkin was starred kithkin was unstarred

thegogglesdonothing
07/30/09

@J.D.Regent: Yeah, this one feels to me like either an applause line for a speech or a lead-in to a cocktail party pick-up attempt.
Reply

J.D.Regent
07/30/09

@kithkin: I think it is just the level of moral reasoning he operates on. As in the famous "save a sex slave by BUYING HER" project. I think it has to do with his need to inject himSELF into every human rights abuse. As with this issue, it's really not about his male guilt and it's not helpful.
Reply

J.D.Regent was starred J.D.Regent was unstarred

MilointheMeadow
07/30/09

In reply to On Maternal Mortality, Sexism In Medical Care
And tampons/pads would be subsidized by the government (or at least tax-deductible).
Reply

MilointheMeadow was starred MilointheMeadow was unstarred

Earlier discussions Other discussions Show all discussions Show featured discussions only Start a new discussion

SUBSCRIBE TO Jezebel

Login

Reset Password

Register

Submit Your Comment