The Girl Effect

International Day Against Homophobia IDAHO

IDAHO is coming up. On May 17 IDAHO 2011 will be here again. May 17 is a symbolic date for gay men and lesbians. Once long considered an illness, homosexuality was removed
from the list of mental disorders on May 17, 1990, by the World Health Organisation (WHO).

What will you do to celebrate? How will you show your support for our GLBTIQ communitites?

Go to http://www.homophobiaday.org/ and have a look at what is happening in the international community. Or you could go join the Idahosa facebook page.

Love Control

JESS3 x Economist: Women's Economic Opportunity from JESS3 on Vimeo.

Thanks to Informed Decisions twitter account for this link

Girls Decide

Girls Decide launches this week with six short films that share the stories of six girls from around the world and their journeys to make informed decisions about sex, pregnancy, abortion and relationships. The initiative will be launched at an event in London on 16 February attended by UK Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Development,

Go here to read more:

Sexual health is everything

I want to remind all of the readers of this blog that sexual health encompasses ALL aspects of our lives. The World Association of Sexual health ( WAS) has a document that explains this in wonderful detail. The document is the Millenium Declaration of sexual health rights which has been designed to fit into the World Health Organisation Millenium Development Goals. Below are the rights in brief. Please click on the link if you would like more detail.

Recognize, Promote, Ensure and Protect Sexual Rights for All

Sexual rights are an integral component of basic human rights and therefore are inalienable and universal. Sexual health is an integral component of the right to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health. Sexual health cannot be obtained or maintained without sexual rights for all.


Advance Toward Gender Equality and Equity
Sexual health requires gender equality, equity and respect. Gender-related inequities and disparities of power deter constructive and harmonic human interactions and therefore the attainment of sexual health.

Condemn, Combat, and Reduce all Forms of Sexuality Related Violence
Sexual health cannot be attained until people are free of stigma, discrimination, sexual abuse, coercion and violence.

Provide Universal Access to Comprehensive Sexuality Education and Information
To achieve sexual health, all individuals, including youth, must have access to comprehensive sexuality education and sexual health information and services throughout the life cycle.

Ensure that Reproductive Health Programs Recognize the Centrality of Sexual Health
Reproduction is one of the critical dimensions of human sexuality and may contribute to strengthening relationships and personal fulfillment when desired and planned. Sexual health is a more encompassing concept than reproductive health. Current reproductive health programs must be broadened to address the various dimensions of sexuality and sexual health in a comprehensive manner.

Halt and Reverse the Spread of HIV/AIDS and other Sexually Transmitted Infections
Universal access to effective prevention, voluntary counseling and testing, comprehensive care and treatment of HIV/AIDS and other STI are equally essential to sexual health. Programs that assure universal access must be scaled up immediately.

Identify, Address and Treat Sexual Concerns, Dysfunctions and Disorders
Since sexual concerns, dysfunctions and disorders all have an impact on quality of life, general and sexual health; they should be recognized, prevented and treated.

Achieve Recognition of Sexual Pleasure as a Component of Well-being
Sexual health is more than the absence of disease. Sexual pleasure and satisfaction are integral components of well-being and require universal recognition and promotion.

2 examples of media gendered sexism

While reading through one of my favourite websites http://about-face.org/ I came across these two examples of media gendered thinking. Both of them annoy me in different ways. They BOTH go to show the struggles that we and the young people we live and work with face in terms of maintaining our awareness of the manipulation that we are subject to daily.


Please have a read and discuss widely.

What We Think:
Svedka has come out with a new wave of "R. U. Bot Or Not?" ads, including a TV commercial. The Svedka Bot is a woman who has been broken down to the most "essential" physical features. She is branded with SVEDKA down her leg. As an animatronic woman, she is designed to serve and she has no needs of her own. Her singular body type leaves no worries of men having to put up with a woman who falls outside the body ideal of 2033 (and today). The "R. U. Bot or Not" tagline has three levels of meaning. First, it asks if women have achieved the body type of the Svedka Bot. Second, it asks if women have been claimed by men who have bought them a (Svedka) drink. Lastly, if men can purchase a Svedka Bot in 2033, the ad also asks if women have literally been purchased by men. (by Juliet Weintraub)

THE NEXT BIT OF MEDIA IS THIS:

The New York Times offers an image of a man and woman in the thick of the recent protests in Egypt, the man has his arms around the woman. The caption begins, “A protester consoled a woman during a demonstration.” What we want to know is WHY wasn't the caption something like " 2 Protesters celebrate during demonstaration. Certainly the woman didnt just accidently end up in the middle of thousands of people. ANYWAY go here to read more and see the picture.

Condom App for your phone

Yes it IS possible: In New York an application for your iphone will tell you where the nearest free condoms are located. Sounds cool to me.
Go here to read more. Makes me wonder what other types of applications could be developed in support of sexual health? Do you have any ideas? Or know of any?

The New Neurosexism

This is a great article about a book written by Cordelia Fine exposing the sloppy studies that pass for scientific evidence about gender differences. I found this link in the 'Diversity in Organisations, Communitites and Nations' website

Wandering wombs, an anatomically conferred destiny of penis envy and masochism, smaller brains, smaller frontal lobes, larger frontal lobes, right-hemisphere dominance, cross-hemisphere interaction, too much oestrogen, not enough testosterone – all have been invoked to explain why women are intellectually inferior to men, more emotional, less logical, better at asking for directions, worse at map reading, hopeless at maths and science, and ever so much better suited to jobs involving finger dexterity, nappies and dishes. Today we look back with amusement at the efforts of nineteenth-century scientists to weigh, cut, split or dissect brains in their pursuit of finding the precise anatomical reason for female inferiority. How much more scientific and unbiased we are today, we think, with our PET scans and fMRIs and sophisticated measurements of hormone levels. Today’s scientists would never commit such a methodological faux pas as failing to have a control group or knowing the sex of the brain they are dissecting – would they? Brain scans don’t lie – do they?

Go here to read more about this facinating book.