No Images? Click here Greetings, friends! Welcome to Your Life, Better for July 14, 2017. Here are five things you need to know this week to make your life better at work and at home: Pre and Postnatal care: Not a Laughing MatterSimply put, we need prenatal care because mothers die without it. The 2016 Health of Women and Children Report finds 19.9 maternal deaths per 100,000 births nationwide. In fact, Vox reports that relative to other advanced economies, women who give birth in the U.S. have a greater risk of dying. If that isn’t shocking enough, another article by Vox finds that black mothers in the U.S. are 3.5 times more likely to die in childbirth than white mothers, and that the racial gap is widening in every state except North Carolina. Why? Partly because doctors in North Carolina take prenatal care seriously. Medicaid financial reimbursements incentivize North Carolina doctors to screen for issues that might make pregnancy high risk, and care managers make sure patients can actually follow their doctor’s recommendations. After a child is born, mothers and newborns need additional support to stay healthy. NPR finds 90% of new moms have trouble breastfeeding at first and some are never able to breastfeed. Our recently released brief, Paid Family Leave: How Much Time Is Enough?, reports that approximately 76% of women in the U.S. experience symptoms of fatigue 8 weeks after giving birth, which is associated with postpartum depression and breastfeeding difficulties. The Affordable Care Act mandated workplaces to provide women break time and spaces to express milk, and health insurers provide equipment to pump. While some health insurers cover certified lactation consultants who teach how to properly use a pump, position a baby, and massage your breasts, many mothers don’t have the support they need to breastfeed. When arguing about such maternal health care benefits, some Republican men jokingly question why it is needed if they (men) cannot have babies. One might wonder if they laughed in utero or while they breastfed?
Undo the period taboo.The year is 2017, and yet, periods–like many women’s health issues– are still misunderstood, stigmatized, and shamed. Periods, especially when unexpected, may prevent women, including transwomen, from carrying out their day as normal. Whether at work, school, or the subway–we’ve all been there before. Most women aren’t lucky enough to afford a pair of Thinx period-proof underwear. In fact, unbenounced to most politicians, not every woman is lucky enough to afford proper feminine hygiene products. A year’s supply of tampons and pads, which are not covered by SNAP benefits, costs upwards of 70 dollars. For the millions of American women who live in extreme poverty that price tag represents a choice between buying dinner or a box of tampons. What’s worse? Being on your period behind bars. In America’s jails, feminine hygiene products are often in short supply and rationed-- as if incarcerated women should be further penalized for having to bleed. Congresswoman Grace Meng asks, “Can you imagine being told you can't have any more pads even though you still have your period?” In February, Congresswoman Meng introduced the Menstrual Equity for All Act, which would increase funding for feminine hygiene products in America’s prisons and homeless shelters in attempt to eradicate these humiliating, degrading stories. The Huffington Post reports that Senators Elizabeth Warren and Cory Booker are fighting for these women through their Dignity for Incarcerated Women Act. And in America’s public schools, girls often experience frustration and embarrassment when their periods come unexpectedly. Cordeilia Longo, a brave eighth-grader, stood up for her fellow classmates and demanded that her school offer free tampons and pads. She succeeded! *Bows down to Miss Longo*. It would serve American lawmakers well to invite Miss Longo, along with groups like Girls Helping Girls and #HappyPeriod, to the discussion table. So, is access to menstrual hygiene a social justice issue? Refinery29 says yes, Scotland says yes, and so do we! When all women have equal access to feminine hygiene products they are able to participate equitably in society. Well...America is trying? One step forwards two steps back. Cat’s out the bag, Americans don’t always get it right. Recent efforts to work towards equality in America seem good, but they do not always pan out as expected. In terms of income inequality, states are taking divergent approaches to the minimum wage. CNN reports that over the Fourth of the July weekend, many cities, especially in California, raised the minimum wage to over $10 an hour. Missouri is busy pushing wages in the opposite direction. St. Louis was set to have their wages reach $11 an hour by 2018, but their state legislatures had other ideas overriding their minimum wage law and lowering it from $10 to $7.70. In terms of free speech, Facebook is taking a stab at equality by creating an algorithm designed to defend all races and genders equally, specifically pertaining to hate speech. Selected “categories” of people are protected based on race, sex, gender identity, religious affiliation, national origin, ethnicity, sexual orientation and serious disability/disease. Sounds like a great step towards progress, but Pro Publica explains that the algorithm is not all it seems. It does not protect subsets of these categories therefore, black children are not protected but white men are, failing to protect those who most need it and reinforcing the idea of color-blindness. Our own Elizabeth Weingarten emphasizes on Slate that color/gender-blindness ignores how valuable experiences - tied to gender, race, etc. - shape us, and how ignoring those differences acts as a barrier to equality. Putting Sexist Behavior to Bed. The recent uptick in news reports that expose gender discrimination in the workplace is alarming. Frankly, we’ve lost count of new sexual harassment claims at Fox Business Network, and we’re tired of reading these headlines. How many women have to come out and share their stories of enduring sexual harassment in tech companies for things to change? More than two dozen, according to the New York Times. As more stories surface, some perpetrators, like David McClure, feel pressured to apologize and step down. Yet sexism isn’t unique to Silicon Valley and unfortunately plagues workplaces across the U.S. Results from a New York Times study confirm that Americans are wary of being alone with the opposite sex. And when men avoid these one-on-one interactions, it puts women at a professional disadvantage. Female doctors, despite wearing the same white coats, are subject to sexist attempts to discredit their accomplishments. A group of Mayo Clinic doctors studied how female doctors were introduced, whether by formal title or first name, at professional conferences. Their research found that women were less likely than men to be introduced by formal title when men did the introducing. When women are undervalued professionally the pay gap comes as no surprise. And AEI found the pay gap in Trump’s White House has tripled. Evidently, the White House is not leading by example. Putting these uncalled for, sexist behaviors to bed will take more than storytelling alone, it will take direct action-- like one working mom’s edits to her daughter’s sexist homework worksheet. Enough is enough already! ICYMI
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