As 2019 draws to a close, we have as many urgent issues as ever! Climate change is a growing problem, disasters descending upon us faster than anticipated (I suspect not really, but scientists haven’t wanted to sound like alarmists). Women and girls have been in the forefront of fighting against climate change and for a more sustainable world, and hopefully will continue to be. As Besame has pointed out in her excellent WOW column, many women and girls are and need to be on the front lines of the battle against climate change.
Nairobi Summit: Women's empowerment a 'game changer' for sustainable development. https://news.un.org/...
The global goal of a sustainable future for all cannot be achieved until women, girls and young people gain control over their own bodies and lives, UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed told world leaders meeting in Nairobi on Tuesday.
So let’s review a couple other climate leaders, h/t officebss and her team, our herstorians:
Chai Jing (1976-present): Chinese broadcast journalist, author and environmental activist; she began her broadcast career in 1995 as a radio host in Hunan province. She was an investigative reporter for China Central Television (2001-2013). In 2012, she published her autobiography, Insight, which sold over 1 million copies.
In 2014, she began an independent investigation into China's environmental problems, which culminated in a self-financed documentary, Under the Dome. By March, 2015, the film had garnered over 150 million views in China, sparking widespread discussion about pollution and environmental policy in China. The film was then blocked on Chinese websites by the authorities. In 2015 she was also named one of Time Magazine's 100 most influential people.
Considering she put her career on the line, and spent quite a bit of her own money to produce her documentary, she is very brave! I could not figure out which if any Twitter account is hers, so had to settle for another’s quotes:
Maria Telkes (1900-1995): Hungarian-American physical chemist and inventor, who was a pioneer in the application of solar energy to water distillation and home heating. She immigrated to the U.S. in 1925, worked as a biophysicist (1926-1937), and became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1937. As a civilian adviser to the U.S. Office of Scientific Research and Development during WW II, she worked out a solar heated water distillation system to make sea water potable. In the late 1940s, she designed a system of chemical storage of solar energy for the first solar-heated house, a project of MIT constructed in Dover, Massachusetts. She also developed a solar-powered stove, and in the 1970s, experimented with an air-conditioning system that stored cool night air for use during the heat of the next day.
There are of course many more, but all I have time for today!
Children in cages are still a thing, despite the obvious horrific conditions and likely long-term PTSD and problems the children will have establishing trusting relationships. Human Rights Watch is one of several legal groups working on their behalf that can use our help. Other ways to help are detailed in my previous diaries on the subject. By my count, we are now at day 556 since *Rump signed his executive order “stopping” the child separation policy. Perhaps it will take many more women and men engaging in civil disobedience like Patricia Okoumou has.
In Other News:
peacekeeping?
With "peacekeepers" like this, who needs enemies... UN Peacekeepers Fathered Hundreds of Babies With Girls in Haiti as Young as 11:
Girls as young as 11 were impregnated by peacekeepers and left 'in misery' to raise their children alone.
United Nations (UN) peacekeepers charged with protecting disaster-struck Haiti have fathered hundreds of babies with local women and girls before leaving them behind in poverty, according to a new study.
Peacekeepers also gave Haitians cholera, for which they could not be sued! https://www.wbur.org/...
They've been trying to get justice at least since 2016, https://www.cbsnews.com/...
and 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/...
and things are still unresolved in 2019, https://www.reuters.com/...
abortion battles:
"Michigan Republicans poised to bypass Whitmer, ban abortion procedure": https://www.bridgemi.com/...
Michigan’s Republican-led Legislature is likely to criminalize the most common form of second-trimester abortion early next year if initiated legislation reaches the Capitol.
That would bypass Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who has promised a veto, but spark a legal fight.
"The abortion war goes local as ACLU lawsuit seeks to thwart town’s ban": https://www.washingtonpost.com/...
The ACLU of Tennessee filed a lawsuit against a Nashville suburb Wednesday to stop a zoning ordinance that effectively bans surgical abortions within the city’s borders, an antiabortion tactic that is putting town councils on the front lines of one of the most polarizing issues in American life.
From Reuters https://www.reuters.com/... "Argentina's new government moves to guarantee access to abortion in rape cases"
science:
From Medscape Medical News https://www.medscape.com/...
Physicians on Twitter noticed a job advertisement for a hospitalist position in Bullhead City, Arizona, that sparked outrage.
"Tough facility & medical staff- must have back bone and be diplomatic, excellent customer service skills," read the job posting on ZipRecruiter.com, which has since been taken down. It continued: "Women don't do well here."
Thais Coutinho, MD, is division chief of cardiac prevention and rehabilitation and chair of the Canadian Women's Heart Health Center at the University of Ottawa Heart Institute:
caribbean:
Global Voices has a series going on Caribbean women - this is Part Two, but there's a link to Part One - at the end of Part Two, there's a bit about the unaffordability of sanitary products for menstruation for many women.
https://globalvoices.org/...
miscellaneous war:
Suicide rate for teenage girls is now higher than that for boys, increasing at a higher rate over the past decade or two.
https://www.cnn.com/...
Strange way to show contempt for being unelected:
Kentucky's outgoing governor pardons convicted child rapist because he decided the child wasn't injured "enough" to prove rape.
https://www.mercurynews.com/…
a note on christmas:
It has been the season of the “Virgin Birth,” a big part of what I was taught as a child. Like many parts of the Christian tradition, this idea of an “unsullied” birth is not new:
Could Mary (and her mother) be cases of social desirability bias? https://www.thedailybeast.com/...
What about Isis, Coatlicue, Athena, Juno, Jiang Yuan, or an innocent bystander during the American Civil War? https://www.livescience.com/…
Interestingly, whether or not babies are regarded as “pure enough” seems to depend upon whether or not they had a human father, even though whether or not they are regarded as “worthy of protection” by Reptublicans seems to depend upon whether or not they’ve been born under any circumstances. Just a thought.
2020: A Bit of Better News
Next year is the 100th anniversary of the passage of the 19th amendment to the US Constitution guaranteeing women’s right to vote, so expect to see much lip service being paid! Pardon my skepticism that we’ll have anything other than a real fight on our hands for any real change. I know you all understand.
A Google search for “Women 2020” led immediately to this, Board Diversity Initiatives, Life Science Research. It’s their advertisement, but since corporate boards are ridiculously over-represented with men, I decided to include it here, for those who may be interested in being part of the remedy in 2020 (note that many board positions are volunteer, but may have perks).
In the 2020 election, a historic gender gap is possible. Women will kick *Rump to the curb. I’m including this even though they misspelled “eleciton” because they didn’t use “an historic”. [It’s the editor police in me, I can’t resist.]
Women will “rule” the box office in 2020. Interestingly (somewhat disappointingly), by “rule,” they mean we get 50% of the top 10.
The Women in the World Summit will be the beginning of April, 2020 in NYC:
Tina Brown founded Women in the World in 2009 to discover and amplify the unheard voices of global women on the front lines of change….
The three-day Women in the World Summit, presents powerful new female role models who... range from CEOs and world leaders to artists, activists, peacemakers, and firebrand dissidents. The Summit’s vivid journalistic narratives, high-impact video, and fast-paced staging have made it the premier platform to showcase women of impact. Increasingly, Women in the World also includes the participation, onstage and in the audience, of men who champion women.
Previous speakers have included Stacey Abrams, Adwoa Aboah, Waad al-Kateab, and many more. I hope there are lots of videos posted online and they make a lot of news.
Women’s March January 18, 2020: A major march in DC, no doubt with sister marches around the country: Organizers are hoping for record numbers. I hope particularly in the capitals of states with these ridiculous anti-abortion anti-woman laws they’re trying to pass.
I’m sure there will be much more news as 2020 opens and beyond, but now you have a bit of a head start!
As always, many thanks to the WOW crew — Besame, SandraLLAP,Tara TASSW, officebss, mettle fatigue, and ramara! This column would not be possible without the sisterhood!
updated schedule: please volunteer in comments!
Jan 4 — Tara TASW
Jan 11 — angmar
Jan 18 —
Jan 25 —