Daughter of No Comment -- June 2001

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As we enjoy our Summer we know that we have to gear up for the very important Fall elections. We need to send a message to the rest of the country that women's issues and political goals are important and that politicians who aren't paying attention to us will be defeated. Country music singing star, Reba McEntire said that she wants to teach her son, Shelby, to respect women. "I'm trying with all my heart to teach him to respect women." She would make a good role model for any woman raising a boy. Until women feel good about themselves they can't pass on the message of equality. Children learn from our actions, slowly day by day. 40,000 Americans are infected with the preventable disease, HIV each year. Adult females account for 30% of new infections and black women are 64% of those. Some of the infections are jail related and when men who have had sex with men in prison get out they may infect their partner. Georgia Foster, Exec. Dir. Of Positive Images (FL) a group that does testing and provides services to disadvantaged women says "He comes back out and has sex with women, but never divulges to them that he had sex in prison." The taboo in the black community about homosexuality also keeps people quiet about their non hetero relationships. An anonymous 24 year old man says "It is preached in church that homosexuals go to hell. So it's why I got married and had kids-it was something I didn't want to deal with." He is an outreach worker with an AIDS prevention agency and says he uses a condom when he has sex with men but not with his wife because she might become suspicious. "I feel like I have something to lose if my wife were to find out." Daughter can only imagine what his wife might lose. While we are all concerned with breast cancer and other reproductive health issues, the bottom line is that our greatest killer is heart disease. Heart attacks present differently in women, often mimicking the flu, stomach pain or extreme fatigue. One New York woman recently had a "bad day" only to discover she had already had a heart attack. She didn't want further tests done because she was planning her daughters wedding shower. Nieca Goldberg, chief of the women's heart program at Lenox Hill Hospital says "The problem that happens to women is they put everyone ahead of themselves." Dr Goldberg has lots of info on women and their hearts which daughter will share in a separate article. Liked Maya Angelou's idea that young people need to seek inspiration from heros and "she-roes" in their own families. Linda Giles first started driving long haul trucks in the 70's when potential employers would throw her job application away in front of her. "It was enough to make me good and mad." Now as women enter one of the last male-dominated workplaces, the Teamsters union and freight carriers have begun a joint campaign to stop sexual harassment. "It's not even acceptable on the freight loading dock," says Tim Lynch, president of the Motor Freight Carriers Assoc. Dana Stockton, a shipping company clerk, says "Girls, you have to get together and get involved." Daughter couldn't have said it better. Bodyperks anyone? Bodyperks are about the size of a Susan B. Anthony dollar and look something like raw chicken tenders. They are meant to be placed inside your bra "to show off a woman's natural assets in a new and sassy way." says inventor Barghini who perfected her nipple enhancers on her kitchen counter with a blowtorch and lots of wax and plaster. They are selling well at $19.95 a pair although many women are offended. The inventor says "One group suffers from TMBA -too much boob attention- and they aren't interested in drawing any more interest to their breasts. Then there is the group which has no interest in being sexy anymore, and the third group are the snotty women who thought that what they already had was perfect, and they didn't need to resort to such a distasteful thing." Barghinin says " I've been married three times and I know what men want." Nipple enhancement gadgets remind daughter of a quote from movie star Esther Williams who was talking about thong swim wear. "God, we've spent our lives trying to keep our underwear out of that spot, and all of a sudden they want to put a fish line there?" Sounds like an opportunity to market a product women may not have known they needed. Daughter can only wait with great anticipation for the next chapter in breast liberation. Marriage is a more fragile institution now than it was a generation ago. Nearly half the marriages in which the bride is 18 or younger end in separation or divorce within 10 years says the National Center for Health Statistics. When the brides are 25 and older, 25% of the marriages break up in that time. Currently one in three marriages fails before the 10 year mark. 25 years ago it was one in five. What will the statistics be in another 25 years? And how are our communities meeting the challenge of change? Many women's magazines are carrying the ads for mifepristone (RU-486) after years of controversy. The ads are being paid for by the National Abortion Federation, (D.C.) They are set to start running in July. The ads are low key, soft sell, and call it the "early option pill" and don't mention the brand name. The one hold out magazine, Redbook, which refuses to run the ad because their ad-sales representative says they want to avoid provoking "negative reader and retailer reaction." Paul Luthringer, a Redbook spokesman says "While Redbook prides itself on an open dialogue about sex, we must also walk a tightrope to satisfy regional mores that if engaged would negatively effect (sic) our business model." So far only four states, New York, Illinois, Minnesota and Washington have finalized policies that allow Medicaid coverage of Mifeprex with some restrictions. Other insurers have said they will cover these medical abortions only if they already cover surgical abortions. Family physician, Linda Prine says these are only some of the obstacles to the drug's widespread acceptance. The patronizing idiots who publish Redbook need to be told how stupid they sound to thinking women and men. Pregnant illegal immigrants aren't entitled to prenatal benefits even though the babies become eligible for Medicaid at birth, so ruled an appeals court in New York. Congress cut the benefits in the 1996 welfare overhaul. Fathers raising children alone made up a fast-rising segment of the population in the 1990's, census figures show. The number of single parent fathers rose 62% to 2.2 million and now account for one household in 45. Daughter wonders if this will change the public perception of the worth of parenting. Ever wonder why the Washington Post seems so "boys will be boys" in its reporting? Editor Meg Greenfield said "If liberated I will not serve." She is also a woman who hates to be called Ms. Women in the early movies were permitted to be anything they wanted to be, amoral, gritty or sensual, so these films from the 20's and early 30's are much sought after by film buffs today. Their freedom (free love and flying innuendo) enraged the powers that be and the Catholic Church whose Legion of Decency railed against, and condemned films to weed out blasphemy and fornication. The Production Code was a Catholic document. It was written by Father Daniel Lord, a Jesuit priest and Martin Quigley, a Roman Catholic layman. Since all mainstream studio films had to be approved before production there was a sudden emergence of honest women instead of the brazen hussies and women had to adapt to a new and very restrictive roles. Women incarnated temptation in men's (censors) minds so they had to be dealt with, while men's roles, as violent as ever, were not changed. Male brutality got off lightly, as if it were just a brisk way of conducting normal business. Daughter would rather be in the company of the temptations of women than the violence of men any time. Violence is killing us and diminishing our spirit. Women's Growth Capital Fund, a D.C. based venture capital fund for women owned business, is made up of 85 members. They range in age from 27 to 73 and two are men. Their fields are marketing, finance, law and other professional areas. They study companies (over 600 so far) business plans, listen to presentations and then make the decision whether or not to invest. The group is so popular that another one has been started and they hope to branch out to other cities soon. Managing Director, Patty Abramson says that because of some of the recent business reversals, things that venture capitalists criticized female entrepreneurs for in the internet heyday--not spending, not hiring, or growing fast enough, and being too careful and methodical with decisions--are much, much more appreciated these days. A related group is WomanAngels.net Do women judges have a different approach than men? Women's judging style has been studied now that there are more women judges, and if Texas is any indicator, toughness goes with the territory. 24% of judges in New York are women and 21% in California are women, so it has been suggested that they would bring a kind of compassion to the bench. In Texas, women judges have enforced the criminal law in general and the death penalty in particular with a greater ferocity than their male predecessors. Jeffrey Toobin's research shows that the increase in the number of women judges in Texas has coincided with the surge in executions in the state The upside of Viagra is that the seal harvest off the coast of Canada is way down from the usual quarter million killed each year. Seal penises are believed to be an aphrodisiac in many Asian cultures and a Canadian government report cites "the increased use of Viagra as a substitute for seal penises." They sell for more than US$100 ea. and need to be boiled which is smelly and then added to soup or wine. Much easier to see a doc. and pop a pill. Sounds like a win/win and a small step toward a kinder world. An outbreak of severe itching, hives and rashes among Boy Scout campers in New Mexico was traced to a caterpillar, the fur tussock moth. Seems the little darlings have a game where they put the creatures on their forearm, allow them to crawl on to the index finger, then flick the insects into a fire. Gratuitous killing of anything doesn't sound like a learning pathway to responsible adulthood. Wonder what the badge for this "sport" is called? Style production editor, Kathryn MacLeod said in describing a shoot with Jane Fonda said "you forgot you were looking at a 62 year-old grandmother until she started talking about needlework." Daughter hears the seniors roar in their many defiant ways. It is the sound of our future.