Every year in January, National Stalking Awareness Month (NSAM) educates our nation to fight against this horrible crime. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, one in 12 women will be stalked in their lifetime for an average of two years. Additionally, 76% of female homicide victims are stalked prior to death, and more than half of these victims report stalking to the police before being murdered by their stalkers. Due to this alarming information, our nation needs to address this problem in order to “KNOW IT, NAME IT, and STOP IT.” There are numerous ways to promote stalking awareness. Such as putting up posters that have various statistics and facts printed, typing social networking status updates, creating buttons, logos, magnets, developing stalking awareness events at schools and in the community, and the list continues in order to spread the message across the country. Americans need to stay and remain informed about stalking.
This month, The UMKC Women’s Center will have information tables on campus providing information about National Stalking Awareness Month. Look for us on January 15 at Royall Hall and on January 26 at the Oak Street Residence Hall. For additional information about how you can help promote this month, please visit the National Stalking Awareness Month website at http://stalkingawarenessmonth.org/promote.
Women have made great strides in the history of medicine. As a medical student myself, I have been challenged by entrance exams and maintaining a high degree of academic achievement. But I never really thought about my gender restricting me from my dream to enter the medical profession.
A recent article about the history of women in medicine helped me really appreciate what the pioneering women in medicine did for me and the other women in medical school right now. The article highlights the achievements of Elizabeth Blackwell as the first woman accepted into medical school at Geneva Medical College over 150 years ago. I admire her for her courage to apply to medical school when all the other applicants were male. By opening the door for all women, including her own sister, she sent the message to society that women belonged in the medical field. Consequently, this led to the opening of The Women’s Medical College of Pennsylvania in 1850, the first of several institutions devoted primarily to the medical education of women. And in 1857, the Blackwell sisters, along with other pioneering women, founded the New York Infirmary for Women and Children.
Now, 45.6% of medical school entrants are female in the United States. It’s good to see that women count for almost half of the medical school entrants; however, it could be better. I am so grateful that I was born at a time when the opportunity to even apply to medical school was there for me. And I am forever grateful to Elizabeth Blackwell and all the other pioneering women in medicine that I was even accepted to medical school so that I can achieve my dream of becoming a doctor some day.
The holidays are upon us, and even though I’m a bit of a humbug when it comes to the holidays, there is one thing that still excites me about this time of year: TOYS! I’m a big fan of toys (mainly giant robots), and during this time of year I like to stroll down the toy aisles at department stores to see the new items that kids will be bugging their parents non-stop over the next few weeks. I also like to check out any new editions to toy lines with which I am already familiar, especially new giant robots. What I also become a bit nostalgic for are toy commercials. Lately, I’ve been spending a good deal of time watching old toy commercials on YouTube (no worries, I won’t be linking to any giant robot commercials; although, it is honestly taking lots of self-restraint).
When watching some commercials from the 1970s, I came across this 1972 commercial for the Betty Crocker Easy Bake Oven. Check this out:
What gets me about this commercial is the part where the little girl says, “It’s the most beautiful oven I’ve ever seen.” I kept thinking of how many young girls might have been potentially horrified by the thought of being tethered to an oven the rest of their lives, as if it was every young girl’s dream to bake cakes. I then got to thinking about how, aside from giant robots, one of my favorite toys was actually the Easy Bake Oven. Unfortunately, I didn’t have one, but I grew up in a very large family where most of the others around my age were female…there was always an Easy Bake Oven around (which actually went great with my Snoopy Snow Cone Machine). In fact, most of my male cousins also loved the Easy Bake Oven. Okay, maybe it wasn’t so much the oven, but that we all loved cake. So, why haven’t we seen boys in Easy Bake commercials? I guess we can ask similar questions about most toys, and we know the answer.
I’ve been keeping up with Transformers commercials for over 20 years (yes, very sad indeed), and have never once seen a girl in one of those commercials. Of course, if Transformers baked cakes (I actually love that idea!), that may have all been different.
One recent article on a Social Images Blog comments on a toy website that shows girls playing with “boy” toys, and then asks the pertinent question: Why don’t they also have images showing boys playing with “girl” toys? One commenter, I feel, gave a great answer: “Unfortunately, we don’t see boys as being treated as unfairly when they don’t get to do ‘girl things’ because girl things are considered inferior. It seems natural to people that girls and women want to do boy/men things because we see these activities as worthwhile. But a boy or man doing girl/women things is seen as somehow deviant because they are seen as wasting their time doing something useless.”
It’s eerily ironic that some might consider it questionable for a boy to play with Barbie because he is fascinated by, and wants to act out, domestic scenes, but yet it is considered completely “normal” for a boy to spend untold hours engaging his G.I. Joe dolls (or even giant robots) in scenes of violence. In fact, it’s very twisted: young boys are encouraged to romanticize acts violence, but are taught to treat domesticity as feminine and inferior. What?!?! Make cakes, not war!
And just to show that for every step forward we take on this issue, we take a few steps back, check out this blog post from Miriam at Feministing. It’s basically the 1972 Easy Bake Oven commercial all over again, except this time it’s from “Girls Only” and it’s called “My Cleaning Trolley.” I’m still waiting for a “Boys Only” version…maybe it could be called “My Janitor Cart”.
This is a very stressful time of year for many of us. The holidays and finals can add a lot to our already very full plates. A recent article that I read stated that stress has a different affect on women than on men. Women are more likely to become stressed because they deal with many high stress situations all at once. Many women have to balance motherhood, families, and careers so they are prone to spreading themselves too thinly to get things done; oftentimes, neglecting themselves. Too much stress on women can cause sudden weight gain or weight loss, body pain, and even heart disease. Stress can also manifest itself physically through skin rashes, eczema, or hair loss. I was unaware of the seriousness of stress. I have recently been experiencing lots of stress because of finals so this really scares me. However, I do have good news. The article also provides helpful tips on how to relieve stress and how to prevent it in the future. Here are a few:
Talk to friends
Listen to relaxing music
Exercise
Go to the spa
Help someone else
Count the great things in your life
Watch a comedic film
Try something new
After finals, I’m going to try some of these tips out. Hopefully, I will keep the stress at bay, so it won’t lead to some serious health problems later.
This weekend I took my 10-year-old daughter and 8-year-old niece to see Disney’s The Princess and the Frog. I’ll have to admit, we were pleasantly entertained. As a feminist, I have always had issues with Disney’s princess movies and their portrayal of women as helpless, beauty-obsessed, females whose ultimate dream is to find a prince charming to rescue them from their life of boredom and meaninglessness. But in Disney’s latest full-length princess movie, they finally gets some things right by giving us an atypical princess and a story line that teaches our young girls (and boys) that it takes more than waiting around for Prince Charming and wishing upon a star to make your dreams come true.
From the movie trailer for The Princess and the Frog you see that Disney has finally recognized the diversity of their audience and given us a Black princess. Tiana isn’t really a princess, but rather a working-class waitress with two jobs and a dream to one day own her own restaurant. Contrast her with Snow White, Disney’s first animated princess who debuted some 72 years ago, and many people would agree that Tiana is the atypical princess by Disney standards. Unlike Snow White, whose dream that “someday (her) prince will come” created the standard for many subsequent Disney princesses; Tiana is a strong, intelligent, and independent, heroine. She takes charge of her own destiny, wishes upon a star not for a man, but for entrepreneurial success, and doesn’t have time for the handsome, yet lazy and self-absorbed prince.
Through hand-drawn animation that is visually stunning and a sound track that brings together jazz, zydeco, and gospel music, the culture of Jazz-era New Orleans and Cajun-country Louisiana are laced throughout this movie. Against this backdrop, Disney delivers a princess movie that seems to be more culturally aware than any of their previous features. Tiana is much more relatable for a broader audience of little girls and the lesson that the movie sends treats women in a more respectful way than ever before. Although, this movie isn’t perfect, and there are some missteps (I’m still undecided on whether or not I was offended by the representation of the Cajun firefly, Ray), I’m not going to nitpick at this movie; but rather, applaud Disney for finally bringing some real diversity and gender equity to their movies.
I recently read an interesting article about the higher costs women pay for products used by both sexes. Being a man, I never really gave much thought to this, but began noticing it after I got married in 2003. I always figured that people invested about as much of their income on hygiene and beauty products as I did: less than 2% (it would be less, but I have to use special soap and shampoo). Of course, I learned very quickly that I wrong, and my wife was paying considerably more for products similar to those I was using like shaving cream, soap, shampoo, and so on. The article includes graph comparing men’s and women’s shaving cream from the same manufacturer, with the product for women costing $0.80 more, and containing 2.5 fl. Oz. less product. Seriously?!?! That’s insane! What’s worse is that the trend is not at all likely to change.
Since brands are able to assign gender to certain products, and convince us of that gendering, are people going to bother to check the label to see if the product advertised for men contains the same ingredients as that advertised for women? I doubt it. Why would they if the packaging already tells them the products are different? So, how can this psychological hold be broken? What if there was a law passed that a company could not charge more for a given product just because it was packaged and marketed differently? This seems like a very unlikely possibility in the U.S. This doesn’t leave very many options open as long as demand is also still extremely high for such products. It would take a concerted effort, such as a boycott, to put some real pressure on the companies that produce these products. Perhaps, when appropriate, of course, women should try to purchase the product packaged for men. If the demand for products packaged for women fell enough, and for a long enough period, companies might rethink their pricing strategy.
Hello everyone! My name is Jerina Cleveland and I just joined the Women’s Center staff. I am a senior here at UMKC. I am working on obtaining a Bachelors of Liberal Arts degree, with a minor in communication studies. I transferred to UMKC from Wayne State University where I was majoring in Social Work. I enjoy learning new things, traveling, helping people, and meeting others. I feel that the Women’s Center will not only be a job, but a place where I can learn new things, get involved, and meet new people in a diverse setting.
Many people are aware of the serious nature of eating disorders, but sometimes stereotypes and myths can distort our perception of the illnesses. We think that individuals with eating disorders should look or act a certain way because of what we see or read in the media or what is most often discussed in conversations. Although, some of this information can be true, oftentimes, they are just myths that can lead us away from completely understanding the illness.
A recent article addresses some of the myths and stereotypes that are perpetuated about eating disorders. One common misconception is that all people with eating disorders are women. Although women make up the majority of the cases, an estimated 5-15 percent of people with eating disorders are men. Another common myth is that people who have eating disorders are really thin. We often envision emaciated images of young women when we think of someone with an eating disorder. These images are extreme and unfortunately have created a stereotyped image of a person with an eating disorder. In reality, people with eating disorders come in all shapes and sizes. Finally, many people often blame the media for causing and perpetuating eating disorders by advertising images of idealized beauty. While this is certainly a problem and something must be done to educate advertiser of the damage they are doing, we cannot forget that an eating disorder is a mental illnesses and the individual’s psychological and social problems must be addressed through intense therapy and intervention. Helping an individual overcome their own negative body image and low self-esteem gets to the root of the illness and will have better solutions for someone who already suffers from an eating disorder than simply removing distorted advertising images from the media.
Eating disorders are serious illnesses that are difficult to understand. But by dispelling the common myths and stereotypes, we can better understand the illnesses and how to help the people who are suffering from them.
On December 1st the world celebrated World AIDS Day, an international day of unity that brings awareness to the fight against HIV/AIDS. HIV/ AIDS has had a dramatic effect on people all over the world since the early 1980’s. But the statistics about its effects on women are alarming.
A recent study shows that at the end of 2008, about half of the approximately 31.8 million adults living with AIDS were women. This includes the 146,692 women and female teens living with AIDS in the United States, 80% of whom are African American or Hispanic. About 72% of the women in the US with HIV contracted the disease through heterosexual intercourse and around 26% contracted it through injecting drugs and/or sharing needles. Worldwide, women are twice as likely as men to contract AIDS during heterosexual intercourse. Tragically, because of rape and poor of preventative education, such as proper condom use, women in developing countries make up around 98% of all women living with AIDS.
From these staggering statistics, it’s obvious that HIV/AIDS affects millions of women each day. Because there is still no cure today, hundreds if not thousands of women die each year. It is extremely important for everyone to know their status, as well as the status of the person with whom they choose to have intercourse. The key to fighting this global killer is education and awareness. It’s good to have days like World AIDS Day to remind us about the severity of HIV/AIDS, but unless a cure is found, millions more mothers, daughters, and sisters will become affected.
Finals are coming up fast and everyone is ready to start downing that caffeine. We all know that too much caffeine can be bad for you, but is it really as bad as everyone thinks? Moreover, does caffeine affect men and women differently?
There are positive and negative effects from caffeine for both men and women. However, according to a recent article, women are more sensitive to caffeine than men. The negative effects that caffeine can have for women can include an increase in the severity of pre-menstrual symptoms, increased risk for osteoporosis, and low birth weight babies and heart palpitations for pregnant women. Too much caffeine can also bring on the process of aging and menopause earlier. On the other hand, another study in the same article found that women who regularly drink caffeine decrease their chances of getting diabetes by thirty percent. Furthermore, moderate caffeine consumption can help improve memory, provide relief for headaches and asthma, put people in a better mood, and inhibit the development of cavities.
So as you reach for that second or third cup of coffee to help keep you awake while studying for finals, remember, it may help your memory, but keep in mind what it may do to you later in life.
Every year in January, National Stalking Awareness Month (NSAM) educates our nation to fight against this horrible crime. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, one in 12 women will be stalked in their lifetime for an average of two years. Additionally, 76% of female homicide victims are stalked prior to death, and more than half of these victims report stalking to the police before being murdered by their stalkers. Due to this alarming information, our nation needs to address this problem in order to “KNOW IT, NAME IT, and STOP IT.” There are numerous ways to promote stalking awareness. Such as putting up posters that have various statistics and facts printed, typing social networking status updates, creating buttons, logos, magnets, developing stalking awareness events at schools and in the community, and the list continues in order to spread the message across the country. Americans need to stay and remain informed about stalking. 
