Until now, advertisers have largely focused on the first, aspirational scene as a way of drawing more women into exercise, but it is the second you are more likely to see if you actually show up. And it is the woman with the tampon who features in a new This Girl Can TV ad from Sport England, launched yesterday, and who made me cheer from the bottom of my soul. It argued women are less likely to be included in studies about exercise in part because of their periods. When recommendations are made about sport and the human body, the studies have simply not accounted for the fact women menstruate, with all the changes in hormones and iron levels that come with it. Here was one of Britain’s Olympic golden girls explaining how menstruating affected her performance as an athlete, and it felt like she was breaking the fourth wall, allowing us to peek into a part of a woman’s life we should not be allowed to see.
Making love is an experience between two people which should bring intimacy on both a physical and emotional level. But many women suffer with pain during or after sex and are too embarrassed to seek help. The pain robs them of the pleasure that both parties are meant to experience while love making. The taboo around speaking about pain during sex prevents many women from even the knowledge of how to get help. Three out of four women experience sexual pain at least once in their lifetime, according to the American College of Obstetrics and Gynaecology. Medication: some medications can reduce sexual desire. Pain disturbs the sexual cycle of desire/arousal and sexual response: When the body anticipates pain it causes the unconscious tightening of the vaginal muscles, which in itself makes sex painful. Should you experience frequent or severe pain during or after sex consult a healthcare professional . Try sexual activities that do not cause pain. Take pain-relieving steps before sex: empty your bladder, take a warm bath, or take an over-the-counter pain reliever.
On the 47th anniversary of Roe v. Wade last Wednesday, Planned Parenthood and We Testify premiered a short film aiming to combat the stigma and misconceptions surrounding abortion. The film’s mission echoes the tagline of We Testify , an organization empowering people to discuss their experiences to end stigma: «Everyone loves someone who had an abortion.» As one in four women will have an abortion by the age of 45, it’s likely we all know someone who has undergone the procedure. With Ours to Tell, she hopes those who’ve watched the film and have had an abortion, or are considering having one, will think, «Wow, I feel empowered that someone else can be this example, and I feel more comfortable owning my truth.» Even the subjects in the film were moved to open up after hearing about people they know sharing their own abortion experiences. Left to right: Melanie Newman, Planned Parenthood’s senior vice president of communications and culture; Renee Bracey Sherman, executive director of We Testify; Rayka Zehtabchi, director of Ours to Tell; and Natasha Rothwell, narrator of Ours to Tell speak at the premiere. We worked with We Testify, an organization dedicated to the leadership and representation of people who have had abortions, and Planned Parenthood, the leading provider of reproductive health care in this country, in order to gain access to storytellers who were authentic and ensure that our film shared their stories in an inclusive and non-stigmatizing manner. Planned Parenthood Federation and America and We Testify, directed by Rayka Zehtabchi and produced by Ventureland in association with PRETTYBIRD Period.
Five years on the award-winning campaign is seeking to move the dial again by embracing some of the most taboo subjects in women’s sport. «This Girl Can won awards for the trailblazing way it portrayed women in 2015, with true-to-life imagery which had rarely, if ever, been used as part of marketing campaigns for sport and physical activity,» he told the Observer. «In 2020 many of the same fears still exist even though, thanks in large part to the impact of This Girl Can, more brands feature more relatable imagery than ever before and there is a far greater awareness in the sector of how to help and support women to get and stay active.» Insiders say the central theme of the campaign is that in 2020, it is time that women stopped having to feel judged, defined, and told what to do by a society that is still uncomfortable with them talking about issues that genuinely affect their activity levels. «And This Girl Can in 2020 will reflect that and be a bold, supportive voice, standing right alongside women, provoking debate and shining a spotlight on the issues that need to be seen and talked about.» Sport England has also found it helps when sports create an environment where women can feel comfortable, such as offering women-only sessions.
Researchers in Japan developed new mathematical models to understand what conditions produced traditional community structures and conventions around the world, including taboos about incest. We think this is the first time cultural anthropology and computer simulations have met in a single research study, said Professor Kunihiko Kaneko, an expert in theoretical biology and physics from the University of Tokyo Research Center for Complex Systems Biology. In the 1960s, cultural anthropologists documented social networks of indigenous communities and identified two kinship structures common around the world. Anthropologists have documented kinship structures all over the world, but it still remains unclear how those structures emerged and why they have common properties, said Kenji Itao, a first year master’s degree student in Kaneko‘s laboratory, whose interdisciplinary interests in physics, math and anthropology motivated this research study. Itao and Kaneko designed a mathematical model and computer simulation to test what external factors might cause generations of biologically related families to organize into communities with incest taboos and direct or generalized exchange of brides. When the computer simulation pushed communities to cooperate, generalized exchange kinship structures arose.
With her cheerful demeanour and boundless energy, Wilde became a fan favourite and parlayed her popularity into a lifestyle website and podcast called Healthy Is Hot, which discusses topics like post-partum depression and body-shaming, along with fitness and nutrition tips. Sometimes it doesn’t happen and we’ve got to talk about that and figure it out together.« Why is mental health such a big focus for you with Healthy is Hot? »Mental health issues have been in my family for a long time, and a lot of the people I love the most struggle with it, but I thought I was immune to it. Back then the women that we saw in the media then all looked the same, and I think beauty and hotness are going in a new direction now; it’s not just one thing anymore, it’s many things.« Do you see Healthy Is How as part of the movement toward openness, as people share more about personal things?
Hollywood‘s Menopause Problem: The Silence Around It Perpetuates Silence Among Women While the industry has tended to shy away from discussions of menopause, Gwyneth Paltrow, Taraji P. Henson and Pamela Adlon are addressing the still-often-taboo topic: This is probably one of the best times of my life, says 55-year-old ‘Sharp Objects’ creator Marti Noxon. Gwyneth Paltrow was feeling moody and would unexpectedly break into a sweat. »This silence around it in popular culture just perpetuates the horrible silence among women,« says writer-producer Marti Noxon , who broached hot flashes on her Bravo show Girlfriends’ Guide to Divorce. Sex in the City House of Cards Steely Claire Underwood lingers in front of an open fridge; when her friend knowingly brings up hot flashes and night sweats, Claire adroitly changes the subject.
Remarkably, this breakthrough came in a region where some 25 per cent of menstruating women still use old clothes and periods are considered a taboo! Promotion In a praiseworthy move, close to 700 women in Muhamma, a village in Kerala’s Alappuzha district, have publicly renounced the use of synthetic sanitary napkins during menstruation. Check out a range of menstrual hygiene products, from eco-friendly pads to low-cost menstrual cups, here. It took less than a year for the Muhamma Gram Panchayat to achieve this extraordinary feat under a menstrual hygiene project called ‘Muhammodayam.’ The project was started in March last year by Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and Environment , a non-profit organisation in collaboration with the gram panchayat. Instead of giving the menstrual cups and cloth pads for free and expecting them to adapt, ATREE first organised an awareness workshop with 30 local ASHA workers and local women in March last year.
Last month, Parbati Buda Rawat, a 21-year-old woman, was found dead in a remote district of far-west Nepal after being removed from the family home to a shed while menstruating in which she suffocated after lighting a fire to keep warm. Chhaupadi or menstrual hut used by women during menstruation in Surkhet District, far West Nepal. Recent research found 77 per cent of adolescent girls in Achham, far West Nepal, practiced chhaupadi each month. Research shows women who observe chhaupadi are more likely to report health problems during menstruation than those who do not practice exile, including infection, anaemia, caloric insufficiency and being underweight. Studies have found girls and women who observe significant menstrual taboos or exile report feeling ashamed, worthless, lonely and embarrassed. The news of Parbati’s death is the 15th reported death of a woman while observing chhaupadi in just a decade. It’s the middle of winter now in Nepal, one of the most dangerous times of the year for a woman to practice chhaupadi.
Pope Francis on Wednesday breached Vatican customs by naming the first woman to hold a high-ranking post in the Secretariat of State, the male-dominated Vatican’s diplomatic and administrative nerve centre. Italian lay woman Francesca Di Giovanni, 66, will assume a newly-created post in a division known as the Section for Relations with States where she takes the rank of under-secretary, effectively one of two deputy foreign ministers. However, women’s groups, including the International Union of Superiors General , an umbrella group of Catholic nuns, have long called on the pope to appoint more females to senior jobs within the Vatican bureaucracy. A Vatican statement confirming Di Giovanni’s appointment said she would oversee multilateral relations in the Secretariat where she has worked since 1993. She told the official Vatican website Vatican News that her appointment was »unprecedented« though »the responsibility is connected to the job, rather than to the fact of being a woman«. Despite the pope’s promises to appoint more women to decision-making jobs in the Vatican, Di Giovanni joins only about half a dozen others holding them.
As you might expect, we had observed the level of psychological distress among our patients in clinical practice and wanted to have evidence to quantify this.» Most miscarriages happen in the first three months of pregnancy, so many people decide not to announce they are expecting until after their 12-week scan, leaving them without support if they miscarry. Julia Bueno has personal experience of recurrent miscarriage, which led her to retrain as a psychotherapist to support others who have lost a baby and to write a book about miscarriage, The Brink of Being. I had flashbacks for years.« Anxiety and depression after miscarriage Breaking the taboo of miscarriage is vital if we are going to improve things for couples who lose a baby.
Standing outside a cow pen in an east Kenyan village, six-year old Kasiva Mutua started to notice rhythms. Mutua, now 31, felt she had a special relationship with sound and tempo – one that propelled her to become Kenya‘s leading female percussionist in a country where drumming was long considered taboo for women. Like when people say the lord has called them – it called me in that manner, said Mutua, who has a gap-toothed smile under short black dreadlocks and a silver hoop nose ring. She began performing gigs in Nairobi, but found it challenging – most of the men who dominated the industry offered little support. You need to sit like a lady,’ Mutua told Reuters after a gig in the Kenyan capital. For three years, the Nairobi-based collective has offered lessons and mentorship to women interested in drumming. Group member Evelyn Githina said she had been searching for something like Motra for a long time.
Campaign needs voices of men as well as women, duchess tells Women of the World festival The »taboo« subject of domestic abuse should be brought out into the open and discussed, the Duchess of Cornwall has said before International Women’s Day. Speaking at the launch of the 10th annual Women of the World festival at the Southbank Centre in central London, the duchess said domestic abuse was everyone’s problem and the solution must be, too. This silence is corrosive; it leaves women, children and men carrying the burden of shame. And at its worst it can be fatal.» Camilla, who has been president of WOW since 2015, said that as well as changing the law, talking about the issue was vital in shifting attitudes away from a culture of silence and shame to one where «survivors should no longer feel any shame or any blame» and felt they could get help. «We will all benefit from building a society which will simply not tolerate this heinous crime any longer.» Camilla also stressed that domestic violence is a complicated issue that affects men as well as women and that society has a fundamental part to play in changing behaviour. «The dial is moving forward, but last year, two women a week were killed by a current or former partner in England and Wales alone.» Young people, she added, «don’t set out to become abusers.
Many of today’s social media influencers are empowering girls and women to embrace all the natural aspects of their bodies, including the historically-tabooed body hair – ‘go old-school, grow out the fur!’, numerous Instagram posts are shouting. There are various reports on how much time and money we spend/waste managing unwanted hair – Refinery29’s recent inquiry, for example, revealed that women spend between £400-1,200 a year on hair removal products, along with 22-59 hours of time that go with that. After a month, I can officially say that, yes, even in this day and age, you will still get odd looks if you flash a bit of armpit hair. This is because they are ingrained in our minds due to the lack of body hair shown in the media. I felt even more afraid to open up about it now, having observed the look of revulsion that crossed my friend’s face at seeing a picture where the focus was not even of body hair, but of a complex, impressive yoga pose.
Writer Anna Maxted in 2001, before her hair loss and happy in 2018 after getting help. Samantha, 50, a teacher from Surrey, was distraught when she started shedding her long, curly hair three years ago, and was diagnosed with telogen effluvium. Ricki Lake with heavily treated hair for Hairspray , at a 2018 event and in February, after shaving her head. Part of the problem is that the triggers for hair loss can be complex, ranging from physical stress such as crash dieting and sudden drastic weight loss, to emotional stress, which can cause more hairs to move into the ‘shedding phase’ of the cycle. For some women, hormone replacement therapy can help prevent further loss and potentially improve hair density by restoring oestrogen levels. But, says Dr Wong, ‘It’s important to choose the right one.’ Six months before I began losing my hair, I’d started HRT to offset my aching joints and woolly brain, the creeping signs of perimenopause. It had always been fine, but had gone fuzzy and lost volume in recent years, and I’d hoped that HRT would boost its thickness, having read that oestrogen was a ‘hair-friendly hormone’ that helps prolong the growth phase. I stopped taking HRT and testosterone .
One taboo which is not talked about much is of women being forced to marry the Holy Quran.The term, traditionally known as Haq Bakshish, literally means giving up the right to marry. This tradition is as inhumane as anything else in the world where women are forced off their rights to marry, and live in isolation. To link something so selfish and inhumane with religion is questionable itself, but to do it for the sake of money only makes it worse.Under Pakistani law, the Haq Bakshish tradition is punishable by a seven-year prison sentence, but no one dares to report such cases. Since it is mostly practised by Syeds, it is believed that the issue should be kept in secrecy, due to the nature of their shajra.Although Islam allows women to marry whoever they want, it seems that the hidden taboo in Pakistan will claim a few more brides before it is addressed publicly.Alyna AslamPublished in The Express Tribune, March 12, 2020.
Nurses have told the Royal College of Nursing that young women tell them they’ve had to steal sanitary products, or improvise them from socks. The European Commission is aiming to bring in a zero rate of VAT for sanitary products and the UK government has legislated to allow this to happen as soon as tax rules change. When the RCN – where I work – discussed period poverty at its annual conference last year, it was pointed out that razors and many other personal hygiene items are given to patients free of charge in hospitals. Last summer, the testimony of our members, the arguments of doctors and other healthcare professionals convinced NHS England to make sanitary products available free to all hospital patients. Asylum seekers, people experiencing homelessness and women with disabilities, still won’t be able to access the sanitary products to which hospital patients are now entitled. Groups like The Red Box Project and Bloody Good Period want to see a more comprehensive education about female sexual and reproductive health so everyone knows periods are normal.
International law firm Norton Rose Fulbright ‘s head of human resources, Asia, Yvonne Sin shed light on typical questions around women and workplace diversity and inclusion. In 2014, the firm set itself a public and voluntary global target of achieving 30% female representation by 2020 across the partnership and global executive committees and boards. In February, the firm announced its new gender diversity targets: A minimum of 40% women, a minimum of 40% men, and 20% flexibility to be fully inclusive . To improve the number of women reaching partnership, we are focusing our efforts on active career development though our global talent development programme for high performing female lawyers aspiring to partnership. Finally, we will continue to work collaboratively with our clients by sharing practices and collaborating on the advancement of diverse lawyers, leveraging the diversity of the firm in pitches and how we allocate work and by building our brand as a leader in diversity and inclusion.
Yet when Katharine Hardie succeeded Richard Masters as chair of the firm’s Scottish and Northern Irish business last year, there was one area in particular she could see still needed to be addressed: menopause awareness. »When we talked about them we realised they were probably menopause symptoms that none of us recognised because we’ve never had the menopause.« Those women got together to form a menopause support group in the firm’s Edinburgh office to both give themselves a place to come to discuss their concerns and to raise awareness among colleagues about the impact the menopause can have. Though the pace of change remains slow – in Pinsent Masons and the rest of the profession – the creation of Fan Club highlights that things are moving in the right direction. For Ms Hardie, though, educating colleagues will never be enough if those people experiencing the menopause are not given the space to talk about their experiences too, which is why Fan Club has already expanded into Glasgow with Birmingham and London groups in the offing too.
It’s not immediately evident how showcases of donated syringes, medication schedules and infant-sized sheepskin slippers tie-in with a living room setting, but the message soon hits home. In her artistic practice, Barkun has always focussed on her personal experiences, whether as a sufferer of Crohn’s disease or as a woman unable to conceive a child. Then, hopefully, we can have a larger conversation with visitors.» Also vital to these conversations is that viewers come to challenge a society that diminishes the value of childless women, a society that demeans «what it means to be a woman if you’re not a mother and the role of such women in society.» Barkun will host a discussion tea on March 21 in the living room section of her installation modelled on «a consciousness-raising group.» Visitors will make themselves comfortable on armchairs belonging to her late grandmother. «Yes, the artwork talks about failure and mourning but it also talks about resilience and liberation, and about new ways of happiness,» Barkun says.
Night sweats, mood swings – language around the menopause is all rather negative and even, some might say, derogatory. And even for those going through menopause, it has often felt pretty taboo to talk about the daily problems – especially bladder weakness. Take Gwyneth Paltrow, for example, who released a video for her wellbeing site Goop, saying: «I think menopause gets a really bad rap, and needs a bit of rebranding.» Her video Madame Ovary spoke about mood swings and sweats, while British actress Emma Thompson has joked how hot sweats mean she’s not cold on the red carpet. OK, so the conversation is shifting – just like we can now see a tampon string in a TV ad , women are no longer sitting quietly while they deal with the side effects of menopause. Why is it the one part of menopause women can’t talk about? Women who have bladder weakness and might have an accident during sex are likely to close off to their partner, so worried they’ll spoil the intimacy that they don’t have sex and even make up excuses, or «blame» menopause.
«Pelvic floors become a hot topic in pregnancy when women are told to do their exercises and later in life when there can be more continence issues, but it appears that often the understanding of the pelvic floor stops here,» says Rochelle Herz, a physiotherapist. Being overweight can increase your risk of problems, too.« But the other big obstacle when it comes to keeping our pelvic floors healthy is that we don’t talk about them. »Most women don’t give their pelvic floor any thought unless they have incontinence or prolapse, but that needs to change,« says Tania Adib, a consultant gynaecologist at the Medical Chambers Kensington in London. »We need to break down barriers and create more open conversations about the role of our pelvic floor so that women can not only recognise problems and get the help they need, but know what can prevent problems in the future. And pelvic floor exercises are proven to work, not only helping to protect you against future problems but also to send nagging symptoms packing. I have seen the impact it has had on the women here and even some men, she said, explaining that in the past women didn’t want to spoil good cloth for use during their periods, but now they realize that not doing so can lead to infections.
The fact is, losing control of your bladder can happen for all kinds of reasons, from simple timing issues, ie finding yourself locked out of the house and not being able to find your front door key, to suffering from various medical conditions that affect bladder control. The fact is that all bladders are different, some resemble oversized leather footballs, while others, like my friend Nina’s are thimble sized and made from gossamer. Of course in the olden days women would rather die of shame than talk to anyone about bladder weakness, but one of the great things about being a 21st-century woman is that we know this kind of thing is common. So remember girls, incontinence is not a moral weakness, it’s not laziness, it’s a fact of life for millions, so whatever you do, keep laughing and don’t let a little bit of wee spoil your fun.
news, latest-news, The recently reported rise in the number of unplanned pregnancies as a result of COVID-19, highlights an already inadequate support system for women and their families when dealing with unplanned pregnancies. The three options for a woman dealing with an unplanned pregnancy are adoption, abortion and to keep the baby. Assuming the woman decides to terminate her pregnancy, whether through surgical or medical means, a great deal of support, guidance and information should be available to her so she can make the best decision for herself with plenty of education on the process involved and the many feelings she may encounter afterwards. In Queensland, the Children By Choice organisation provides free counselling and financial support for women who experience an unplanned pregnancy. In Canberra, women facing difficulty with their decision can contact the Sexual Health and Family Planning for free, non judgmental counselling and then referral for those seeking an abortion or to adopt.
This post is a part of Period, a campaign by Youth Ki Awaaz in collaboration with WSSCC to highlight the need for better menstrual hygiene management in India. It is an expression of ritual purity and the caste identity by dominant caste Hindus. Menstrual taboo is nothing but a temporary defilement that dominant castes suffer. In fact, observing menstrual taboo is an expression of this Brahminical superiority/ritual purity and a way of distinguishing oneself from the perpetual untouchables, namely Dalits. Since Dalit women are not allowed into dominant caste Hindu household, their menstruation would not defile them in any way. The-three-day taboo neither takes away Savarna women’s privileges of caste such as economic and social capital nor make them equal to Dalits. By and large, the contemporary debates on menstrual taboo are centred upon dominant castes. The dominant castes still keep a separate cup and plate for their servants.
New research looking into taboo, stigma and superstition surrounding menstruation in 21st century Poland, conducted by the Kulczyk Foundation, a private family foundation fighting against discrimination and inequalities affecting women and girls around the world, has revealed that one in five women in Poland have inadequate financial resources to buy appropriate sanitary products, and that they live in a society where common taboos and myths exclude and humiliate women during their monthly cycle. In 2007, the European Union allowed countries to amend the so-called Tampon Tax, but only half of its member states have considered this change. I was using what I could,« says one of the women interviewed by the Kulczyk Foundation. Period poverty does not only mean lack of access to sanitary products, but also poor knowledge of menstruation due to financial constraints or, as in the case of Poland, a generally negative environment composed of harmful taboos and misconceptions about periods. Despite menstruation being a natural fact of life and a monthly occurrence for women and girls globally, 42 per cent of women who took part in the study admitted that menstruation has never been discussed in their family home. In some cases, lack of access to sanitary pads means that girls do not go to school when they have a period, which may affect their education as well as their career opportunities in the future. »All we have to do is give a girl a sanitary pad and you can change her life,« says Dominika Kulczyk, president of the Kulczyk Foundation.
For most Indian girls life changes at adolescence, that is at the onset of menstruation. Have you ever wondered how much do these young girls known about this physiological process before they come face to face with it? Madhulika Khanna through her research paper The Precocious Period: Impact of Early Menarche on Schooling in India explores how early onset of menstruation affects schooling, and if girls are more likely to dropout of school after menarche. SheThePeople speaks to Madhulika who is pursuing her Ph.D. in the Department of Economics at Georgetown University and talk to her about her research, how if certain policies have helped adolescent girls to continue schooling, what are the factors which influence parents decision to discontinue schooling and why she decided to study Economics. In this study, I drew on the existing literature to understand adolescent girls’ experiences as they reach and go through menarche. Kishori Shakti Yojana, a component of the integrated child services scheme, among other things, provides sanitary napkins to young girls.
At last, scientists and engineers and marketers — many of whom are women — have contributed to the emergence of femtech, an industry that encompasses the category of software, devices and services using technology to focus on women’s physiological and reproductive health. After a decade working in public health at various NGOs and the United Nations, women’s health expert Tania Boler launched London-based femtech startup Elvie in 2013. I didn’t have a plan to start a business or develop a tech product, but I saw a really important problem in women’s health that needed a solution, says Boler, who holds master’s degrees from both Stanford and Oxford. It was all about bringing together the best engineers who don’t normally think about women’s health and giving them a new problem to solve, to come up with a different type of solution, says Boler. The product that was screaming out for a redesign — and that in some ways epitomized everything that was bad about women’s health technology — was the breast pump. Elvie is also internationalizing: With a team of 120 people, the company now operates offices in Shanghai and New York City in addition to its London headquarters — as it were for what aims to be the first-ever global women’s health tech brand.
For women who access digital technologies, period tracker apps are part of a fast growing femtech product market. »The user becomes, in essence, a ‘prosumer’ – producing as well as consuming the data…« Using PTAs requires personal data about one’s body to be given away. As Karlsson explains: »…to gain knowledge about one’s own body entails giving away access to data generated from that same body.« The PTA user becomes, in essence, a »prosumer« – producing as well as consuming the data . Professor Dweck, another G & O expert, suggests that »the longer you are tracking your cycle, the more data the app’s algorithm has to work with, and the more likely it is to be correct.« Data accuracy and reliable user information input are essential to maximise the usefulness of PTAs. »There may be value in technology that allows the conversion of ‘…seemingly useless excess, the waste of the bodily system, into useful, exchangeable data’…« PTA users tend to be unaware that when a user inserts personal information into a PTA, that information may also be sent to third parties.
In addition, women with PCOS have also been known to suffer from eating disorders, decreased sexual satisfaction, mood swings, hair loss, memory loss and sudden weight changes. They do this by treating women with PCOS not as patients with a serious health syndrome but as vessels who will be future mothers, and in order to be future mothers, their femininity and sexuality has to be preserved. Image Source : Vice Sanjana, who has a history of PCOS shares, »I started gaining weight when I was 11. There is so much emphasis being given to my body being able to reproduce and also to lose weight that even the consequences that doctors warn of reflect the patriarchal gaze. Ashmita, who has been experiencing symptoms of PCOS since she was 11 says, «I can’t share the pain or the mood swings I deal with in my family because no one wants to talk about periods.
At the Music Home School of Art, imported instructors have taught hundreds of Riyadh residents, from would-be rappers to older Saudis who missed out on music lessons when they were young. While these high-profile acts in a glitzy mirrored concert hall in the desert may capture headlines and Instagram feeds, they are just one small part of sweeping changes underway in Saudi Arabia as the leadership reverses a decades-old ban on cultural outlets and attempts to open up the kingdom to art, music, cinema, and theater. Heavy metal Few have experienced this rapid transformation more profoundly than Fawaz Al-Shawaf, the frontman for the underground Saudi heavy metal band Creative Waste – underground, that is, until 2019. At the base of a sleek glass building in the heart of Riyadh’s financial district, dozens of Saudis mill through an exhibition of replicas of the last artist one would expect to see in the country: Banksy, a British graffiti artist. Taylor Luck Saudi visitors mill around the social protest works of Banksy, an anonymous British graffiti artist, at an exhibition in Riyadh that not long ago would have been scandalous – even dangerous – to stage in the religiously conservative country.
Finally, Tina Opie joins the Amys to share their experiences with managing symptoms at work. Every woman’s transition is different, but it’s a shared experience worth talking about. These and other menopause symptoms can cause many women to feel less confident and competent, but being able to talk about your symptoms with colleagues and asking for the support you need can ease that anxiety. AMY GALLO: It was a squirmy moment me too, a bit, though it made total sense to talk about menopause if we’re talking about the aging at work. HEATHER HIRSCH: So the idea that menopause is just this one point in time, or this one year is a myth that can really harm women because when you’re postmenopausal or even after menopause, you can have symptoms that last a really long time, affecting your social life, affecting your life at work and just every arena of your life. Other women, other men at my company to say, OK, so I may be one of the examples of more dramatic symptoms of menopause, but I felt like by sharing which is one of the keys to making workplaces more open and accepting of menopausal symptoms that I was actually furthering a culture of openness and change and transformation around women’s issues, and then this being a big one for many of the people in my company potentially. And I think about talking about it at work and I’m fine thinking about sharing it with my Women at Work colleagues, but then when I think about mentioning it to men, I have to say, I sort of get uneasy about it.»The economic impact of COVID-19 forces many women and girls to prioritise other basic needs over safe menstrual products. Learn more on #MHDay2020: https://t.co/vz6ay7JeZQ — UN Women May 28, 2020 On the issue of persisting period stigma and taboos, the website stated, «Lockdowns intensify the impact of household-level taboos and stigmas on women and girls and make it more difficult to manage menstruation, without shame and discomfort in often confined spaces.» As we know, bodily functions don’t stop even for pandemics which makes it critical to include menstrual considerations in the COVID-19 emergency response interventions. The interventions include tackling period stigma and providing access to information about periods on radio, local TV, and free platforms like Facebook.Also, important to add in these interventions is access to menstrual products and safe water, soap and period-friendly sanitation facilities at home and in health centres, so women and girls can manage their periods safely, hygienically and with dignity – wherever they are.
For women in Madagascar, having their monthly period is more than just an inconvenience.
Women are at the top of their game and are making the world listen every day, in sport and in life. In India, cultural beliefs have led women to be judged, preventing them from having freedom to express and be themselves towards realizing their ambition and success. At the Mumbai marathon, these runners wanted to empower women through sport, to defy convention and break through judgement. Among them was Shaleena Nathani, a leading celebrity stylists in India and a member of Nike running club. This is something that was very personal to me when I started running. Wearing a sports bra is a necessity, it gives you the most imp support that you need. It’s extremely necessary to wear a sports bra, you can harm yourself if you don’t and it adds such a cool quotient as well – you can wear just a sports bra or club it with a t-shirt, so yes, it is essential.
The boys and girls share uncomfortable glances, shifting in their seats. “The awkward silence is longer in the unedited film,” says Rayka Zehtabchi, the Iranian-American director of “Period. End of Sentence.”, a new documentary about women in rural India fighting the stigma of menstruation. Indian women can be barred from entering the kitchen and handling food, kept away from family members and shunned from offering prayers during what is sheepishly referred to as “that time of the month”. A school dropout from Tamil Nadu, a state in south India, he was horrified to discover that his wife was using dirty cloths and so set out to make sanitary towels at a fraction of the cost of the branded ones sold by multinationals. His mission, he says, in a brief appearance in the documentary, is to turn “India into a 100% napkin-using country”. But the main characters in “Period.
KATHMANDU, Nepal — When Amba Bohara’s period came this week, she followed a familiar routine in western Nepal. Considered impure in her village because she was menstruating, Ms. Bohara barricaded herself in a tiny hut, built a fire and braced for an icy winter night with her two young children. By Wednesday morning, all three were dead. “It seems they died from suffocation,” said Uddhab Singh Bhat, the deputy superintendent of police in the area. It was very difficult to breathe.” Ms. Bohara and her children were the latest victims of a centuries-old tradition of banishing menstruating women and girls from their family homes. Though Nepal criminalized the practice last year, many villages in the country continue to follow the taboo, known as chhaupadi in Nepali. During their periods, women living in places where chhaupadi is followed are unable to visit temples, use other villagers’ kitchen utensils or wash in communal water sources. Some religious Hindus consider it bad luck to touch menstruating women and girls.
As the Oscar nomination voting window opens, suspense is building across all the categories including Documentary Short Subject, where 10 films remain in contention. “The second trip we went on , it was six months after the machine had been installed,” she notes, “and all of a sudden we see these women who are working on the machine, running around with pads in their hands in the village and really feeling empowered because a lot of these women had never worked in their lives before.” The taboo explored in the shortlisted documentary End Game involves end of life decisions faced by terminally ill people and their loved ones. The title character, Zion Clark, was born with a rare genetic condition in which the lower body does not fully develop in utero—in Zion’s case, leaving him essentially without a lower body. “The second day of our search and rescue operation we were faced with three thousand people floating in the middle of the ocean,” Fitzgerald recounts.
While my husband is still very active and wants to try all different styles and methods, on the other hand, I am bored and at most times not aroused. Push away birth control and anti depressant pills off the cupboard Research done by an European organisation in 2010 found out that women who use hormonal contraceptives are highly likely to battle with sexual dysfunction later in their lives as compared to those who do not use the hormonal birth control pills. The use of antidepressants have not been spared either as it has also been linked with women not getting easily sexually aroused. These drugs have been linked with lowering the sexual desire in women as well as making it hard to achieve orgasm once they start using them though they were able to achieve climax before. Kick sexual myths out of the house We live in a society where when a woman shows tendencies of arousal, they are understood to be vulgar, whorish and all sorts of dirty adjectives.
Mara Altman’s “Gross Anatomy” asserts that women should never be ashamed when it comes to addressing societal taboos about women’s bodies. Fear not, because Mara Altman is here to reassure you that everything is perfectly normal — especially those parts you don’t want to talk about. Her book “Gross Anatomy” delves into the taboo, those unmentionable bits where, if an issue crops up, you only worry about it privately, or maybe confide it to a friend, or occasionally disclose it to a health professional. Dividing the book into “The Top Half” and “The Bottom Half,” Altman embarks on a head-to-toe tour of the human anatomy, confronting topics like chin hair, head lice, warts, belly buttons, camel toe, PMS and hemorrhoids. The day will come when my body will resemble those that Altman encounters at the nudist resort she visits with her mother — thighs dimpled with cellulite, skin dripping from upper arms, stray patches of hair sprouting up in places I didn’t even know contained follicles.
Anurag and his team were at a village in Rajasthan, far away from the bustling noises of the city, trying to educate women and young girls on menstruation and menstrual hygiene — a topic of discussion which at best takes places inside closed doors under hushed tones. With its headquarter in Dehradun, Anurag’s hometown, this self-governed and self-funded project has been running for about three years now. After Dehradun, Delhi and Rajasthan, WASH has stepped into Maharashtra with its unique initiative. Marking International Women’s Day, United Nations human rights experts called on the international community to break taboos around menstruation, noting its impacts on women and girls‘ human rights. Even in the human rights community, it is either thought of as not so important or people did not understand how much discrimination exists still, she said. Chhaupadi, a practice still common in Nepal, restrict women and girls from entering her home, touching her parents, or going to school or temple. Radačić noted that the documentary was timely and a good way to raise awareness to people in Western countries who may be unaware of the inaccessibility of hygienic and sanitary pads for many girls and women. I think it is a great time to really push this issue forward, Radačić told IPS. Radačić highlighted the need for countries to abolish laws where women are excluded or restricted on the basis of menstruation, ensure access to hygienic products and gender-sensitive facilities, and teach comprehensive sexuality education to help break the taboo around periods.
A British colonial-era law is being exploited by men attempting to force their spouses back into unhappy marriages. Lahore, Pakistan – Six weeks after her husband threw her out, Amber* filed for divorce in Islamabad. “The moment women file for divorce, maintenance, or a dissolution of marriage, men’s first response is to file an RCR,” said Hadiya Aziz, an Islamabad-based civil lawyer and prosecutor. Laleen Sukhera, author “Out of the 100 odd divorce cases I have handled in my career, restitution was filed 30 times, and only two of the complainants were women,” says Chaudhry Muhammad Umar, a barrister experienced in family law. My ex-husband did his best to intimidate me in court, from accusing me of insanity to filing an RCR against me,” said Sukhera. Family law related courtrooms are overcrowded as the backlog of cases keeps growing Daanika Kamal, a lawyer working with legal aid centres across Punjab, said the RCR is used to delay divorce proceedings, further intimidating women.
The misconceptions tied to mental disorders result in the fact that people consider mental illness a weakness, a defect, and a sign of disability. The widespread stigma tied to mental disorders jeopardizes the development and implementation of mental health policy. Unfortunately, many Afghan women attempt suicide, mainly due to mental disorders, domestic violence, or social and economic hardship. Mental health services are almost non-existent and there is little domestic capacity to prevent or treat mental illness in Afghanistan; this is a remarkable weakness in the health policy of the Ministry of Public Health in Afghanistan. There are some cultural and social barriers that deny most victims access to mental health services, such as inability to pay for treatment, lack of support from family members and friends, and self-stigmatization due to people’s negative and inaccurate believes about mental illnesses. It could help people to get fast and easy mental health services, especially in rural areas.
Parenting requires a tough balancing act. She tells us, “And she said — I’ll never forget – ‘It’s just not something you want to say to a mother that’s having a baby for the first time’.” It can be lonely having a baby and that’s one taboo no one talks about, according to the couple. And astoundingly, 22 percent said they would hide a miscarriage from their spouse.” Talking about her personal experience, Volkman shared, “I really wanted to crawl into a hole, and I didn’t really know how I was going to work my way back into my surrounding community.” She talked about stumbling into this “secret society” of women whose stories she came across. And I think, with a death, you have a funeral, you celebrate the life, and there’s a lot of community support, and it’s something women don’t have with miscarriage.” Go ahead and listen to the enlightening talk that breaks parenting taboos!
And the Internet even got a drop-of-blood emoji to represent periods. That’s money walking out the door, says Claire Coder, founder and CEO of Aunt Flow, a company that stocks business and school restrooms with period products. Coder compares tampons and pads to toilet paper — and as she points out, you’d never expect an office to ask employees to supply their own toilet paper or pay a quarter to obtain some. But often, Coder says, the person managing the facilities budget in an organization hasn’t themselves experienced menstruation. When Andrew Fingerman, CEO of PhotoShelter, first crunched the numbers, he was shocked at how affordable it was to provide period products in all nine restrooms. In the last year, Photoshelter has since labeled each restroom as an all-gender restroom . In many ways, it could act as a recruiting tool for female employees or a sign of a company’s gender equity.
However, I’m often met with very inquisitive eyes when I ask for pads which again goes on to show the lack of sensitivity prevalent among men with respect to this,” said Ronit Chowdhury, a student pursuing Chartered Accountancy. Taking the Sabarimala conflict for instance, despite the Supreme Court’s verdict to allow women of all ages to enter the temple, scores of people took to the streets to stop women from doing the same. There are more and more people talking about periods and their associated taboos, there are films and documentaries being made on the issue. Either women do not have access to sanitary pads or they do not have access to sanitary conditions. The prevalence of the taboo even in the 21st century can be attributed to low awareness about menstrual hygiene in both men and women, low levels of education and understanding of puberty and reproductive health. Despite years of education teaching us to respect women and believe in equality, a lot of people’s orthodox mentality does not seem to have changed after all.
Implementing a supportive workplace fertility policy is good for business and employees, yet nearly two thirds of firms in the UK do not have such a policy to support employees going through fertility treatment, according to Fertility Network UK research. The demand for workplace fertility support is there. Critics argue the regulations would affect low-income people, communities of color, the uninsured and rural residents the most. Today’s ruling ensures that clinics across the nation can remain open and continue to provide quality, unbiased healthcare to women, Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson said in a news release. Trump’s ‘gag rule’ would have jeopardized healthcare access to women across the country, Ferguson continued. Title X clinics, such as Planned Parenthood, provide essential services — now they can keep serving women while we continue to fight to keep the federal government out of the exam room.
During 20 years of shepherding 12-year-olds through the bar/bat mitzvah experience, I can’t think of one instance when a family rejoiced when their child received Tazria and/or Metzora as their Torah portion. And yet, on this Shabbat HaGadol, the closing section of Metzora offers a possibility for conversation and reconciliation through the very current subject of increasing access to feminine hygiene products, tampon taxes, exclusion from holy places for women in childbearing years, and the insensitive and often cruel practice of “period shaming.” “When a woman has a discharge, and the discharge in her body is blood, she shall be in her menstrual impurity for seven days, and whoever touches her shall be impure until the evening. India is a lightning rod for this topic, where courageous activists are openly challenging bans on women entering worship sites during their period days, or even, at some shrines, during all of their childbearing years. On this Shabbat, as we count the final days to the Festival of Freedom, let’s declare ourselves free from stigmas and shame, and commit ourselves to giving full respect and honor to the miracle that prepares a woman’s body to conceive and give life.
At infertility clinics, doctors examined women’s fallopian tubes and ovaries and tested their hormone levels. In one paper, two doctors proposed five psychological conditions that promoted sterility: stress, doubt about the ability to be a good parent, belief that sex is dirty, yearning for a baby because of “neurotic loneliness,” and “the women who resents her role in society because she perceives restrictions.” As an example of that last issue, the authors pointed to a female lawyer who became pregnant after switching to a part-time schedule: “As her attitudes toward herself changed, her pelvic physiology underwent change and pregnancy then became a delightful anticipation rather than a hateful obligation.” In another widely read case study, a psychoanalyst worked with “Sylvia,” a woman whose menstrual cycle had stopped as a result of restricted eating. Epstein writes that the case was seen as proof that “infertility was the sad product of a personal battle against accepting women’s true role in society.” Weekly Digest Get your fix of JSTOR Daily’s best stories in your inbox each Thursday.
Using lube isn’t a bad thing, but it often feels like the idea of adding something else into your sex life can be thought of as an indicator that things aren’t alright as they are, and this just isn’t the case.” According to recent research by condom brand Durex , three quarters of sexually active British women have experienced sexual discomfort, and because of it, almost one in 10 have faked an orgasm to make sex end more quickly, while one in five stop having sex completely. The fact that the vast majority of women accept pain to be a normal part of sex is disheartening enough, but even worse is the fact that only a third would use a lube, despite nine in 10 saying that sex feels better when they do. For all the good the sex positive movement has done, giving lube a complete PR makeover is still on the to-do list, but convincing people to change the way they have sex takes years of advocacy .
In 2015/16, the last year for which data is available, 892,000 women invested in the government’s stocks and shares Isas as against 1.1 million men. Yet at Interactive Investor, an online service where you can research and buy shares and funds, only 28% of the customers are women. Moira O’Neill, head of personal finance at Interactive Investor, says men are more likely to favour the higher-risk world of stocks in small companies on the Aim market – a sub-market of the London stock exchange – while women, with their traditionally cautious approach, are more likely to chose FTSE 100 shares. “The FTSE 100 has trounced the Aim market, which needs particularly careful stock selection.” And if you need convincing, consider this: if you had invested £1 in the FTSE 250 10 years ago, it would now have grown to £2.53, once inflation is taken into account, according to figures from investment firm Hargreaves Lansdown.
No thought is too private and no subject too taboo for Vicki Michelle , Josephine Partridge and writer and comedian Julie Coombe. This no-holds-barred comedy navigates a catalogue of women’s bits: weight gain, weight loss, mood swings, housework, homework, electrolysis, men, sex, working out, staying in, going out, celebrity gossip, a lot of chocolate … to name just a few. I think our audience is primarily women; I want them to feel they’ve all come round to Josephine’s house for a night in with a bottle of wine and some good chat. Julie says audiences should feel like they are the extra character . The beauty of this show is that they should feel they can offer a comment or a shout out from the audience – with comedy it’s always about the audience being the extra character.
18 million Urban and 24.7 million Rural using sanitary napkin. One of the primary reasons for this, is the cultural taboos and myths that accompany menstruation. Till very recently, very few Indian women had much choice in sanitary napkins, or even knowledge of the impact that these have on their health. As education and awareness levels improve, women are getting better access to menstrual health. Once the taboo around the subject is removed, we can have more conversations around menstrual health and acknowledge it as necessary as any other health concern women might face. It’s also important for the brands to increase overall conversation and awareness on menstrual hygiene.
The text of this article was generated by the Breaking The Silence system that collected 408 news articles posted on the web from January 2019 to September 2020 and clustered for the taboo subjects related to women
