SheKos: "By Empowering Women, We Can Achieve Anything in the World"

NOTE: Congratulations to SheKos editor Kaili Joy Gray aka Angry Mouse on her promotion to Contributing Editor! We love ya, Mouse!

Inventive Vision Creates Prize-Winning Tool for the Blind

by LeanneB, SheKos editor

If you're a regular reader of the SheKos series - and really, why wouldn't you be? - you may remember my story from a few weeks ago about three Palestinian teenage girls from a refugee camp in Nablus on the West Bank who invented a revolutionary electronic cane for the blind.

At the time I wrote that, the girls were excitedly preparing to show their invention at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in San Jose, CA, which took place last week.

They didn't win the grand prize, but they sure didn't lose, either.

The electronic cane won the "special award for applied electronics," netting each girl a cash prize of $250, as well as public praise from U.N. secretary general Ban Ki-moon. But the real prize undoubtedly was the act of proving that Palestinians have positive contributions to make to the world and that good things come from educating girls.

The three 14-year-olds - Aseel Abu Aleil, Aseel Alshaar and Noor Alarada - are students at Askar Basic Girls School in Nablus, a UNRWA-run school. They traveled to San Jose from the West Bank with their (also female) science teacher, Jamileh Khalid. They produced two canes for the project, each costing the equivalent of about $200. But that doesn't really convey the hardships the team faced in trying to take their theory and science from design to production.

Finding the parts needed to produce a cane that uses infrared sensors to detect obstacles required travel from impoverished Nablus to Ramallah every day. It meant hours-long waits at checkpoints and submitting to repeated searches by Israeli forces. Once in Ramallah, the team made the rounds of electronics stores in a search for needed components.

Even the trip to get to the science fair was a struggle.

Their recent international travel was equally fraught. Their accompanying science teacher, Jamileh Khalid described "bad treatment" from customs officials, whose prolonged searches of the vibrating cane led to missed flights.

But in the end, the young women had achieved victory. They had proven to their people and the international community that Palestinians have positive motivations and important contributions to make to the world. And they proved that educating girls is critical to leveraging the intellectual resources of a disadvantaged population.

Chris Guinness, speaking for the UNRWA, used this opportunity to stress that his agency was facing dire shortfalls in funding, which threatens the continued success of other Palestinian children.

"Let all the high-powered peace-makers take note of these individual contributions as real-life human examples of what can be achieved if the refugees, some of the most disadvantaged, are included and empowered," he said.

"In a region like the Middle East, where firepower tends to be used more than brainpower, they are proof that resolving problems rationally through creative interaction is a major contribution to peace."

This sentiment was touched on by Ban Ki-moon, as well, in a more inspirational expression.

"This is a story about brain power not fire power. You are not only helping the blind, but helping the world to see," Ban said. "I am very impressed by your brilliant idea. This is the truth that I repeat every day. By empowering women, we can achieve anything in the world."

What else can I possibly add to that? Nothing but this video.

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 THIS WEEK IN WOMEN'S HISTORY: Two Weeks in One!

      by joedemocrat, SheKos contributor

• This week in 1847, Linda Gilbert was born. She was an American prison reformer. As a child, she would walk by the Cook County Jail on her way to school. She developed a friendship with one of the inmates, and discovered there were no books in prisons. By age 17 she established the first county jail library. In 1876 she established the Gilbert Library and Prisoner's Aid Society. This agency did work such as providing prison libraries, and meeting prisoner family needs.
• This week in 1886, Emily Dickinson passed away. She was an outstanding American poet. She also lived a very socially reclusive lifestyle. By her late 20's, she spent the majority of her time alone in her room writing poetry. She kept her poetry writings private. Most of her poety was not even read until after she died. Some of her poetry can be found here.
• This week in 1937, Madeleine Albright was born. She was appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1996 to be the 64th U.S. Secretary of State. Prior to that, she was the U.N ambassador. She was born in Czechoslovakia, and her family escaped the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1939 eventually arriving in England. As U.N. Ambassador, her biggest regret was not doing more to prevent the genocide in Rwanda. She stated "My deepest regret from my years in public service is the failure of the United States and the international community to act sooner to halt these crimes." Her accomplishments as Secretary of State include developing U.S. foriegn policy in Bosnia and the Middle East.

And because we missed last week:

• Last week in 1429 Saint Joan of Arc led French troops to capture Orleans. As a young girl, Joan of Arc said Saint Michael, Saint Catherine, and Saint Margaret appeared to her in complete beauty and instructed her to drive out the English. She asked and was put at the head of the French army, and helped the French win an amazing military victory at siege of Orleans. Unfortunately, she was captured by the  Burgundians and then sold to the English. She was then put on trial, accused of heresy, and then burned at the stake. She was retried years later and declared innocent. To this day, she is considered a French hero and a Catholic Saint.
• Last week in 1840, Elizabeth Cady Stanton married Henry Brewster Stanton. She insisted the word "obey" be omitted from the ceremony. She was one of the prominent women's suffrage activists and abolitionists in the 19th century. She organized the first women's rights convention in Seneca Falls. She was a well known author, and her esteemed works included books and articles such as Declaration of Sentiments (1848), History of Women's Suffrage (1881), and The Woman's Bible (1895). The Woman's Bible was especially controversial in those days due to its liberal interpretation of the Word of God. But Stanton was no stranger to controversy or courage, and openly supported interracial marriage, another radical idea in those days. In addition to women's voting rights, she talked about property rights, divorce laws, and birth control. However, following the Civil War the suffrage movement split as some including Stanton opposed ratification of the 14th and 15th amendments to the U.S Constitution to give African American men the right to vote because the amendments did not also include women. She died in 1902 approximately 20 years before passage of the 19th amendment which gave women the right to vote.
• Last week in 1914, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson declared Mothers Day to be a national holiday.
• Last week in 1928, Barbara Ann Scott was born. She was a Canadian figure skater. She also won a gold medal at the 1948 Winter Olympics. She was also Canada's Top Athlete of the Year in 1945, 1947 and 1948. In later years, she became a professional skater and was selected to carry the Olympic torch during the 1988 Winter Olympic Games.

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 WOMEN IN THE WORKPLACE: Summertime

      by pat of butter in a sea of grits, SheKos contributor

For working moms with school-age children, the school year comes as a welcome relief from the problem of child care. If your kids are in a school that you and they like, you are comfortable that they are somewhere during the day where they are learning, happy and safe. For those who work full time there may be after school care complications, but at least during the school day you've got it covered.

And then comes June and it's all a big mess once more.

I spent numerous hours during March and April trying to get this summer's schedule figured out. My younger one previously was in a day care center which was open year round, but he started kindergarten this year so this summer I have two schedules to juggle. There are summer camps on various topics, but often they take only kids of certain ages or grade levels and mine are not terribly close in age, so frequently a camp the older one likes won't accept the younger one. The hours of the camps are often pretty short (such as 9-12) which is not enough time even if, like me, the parent only works part-time. And, of course, if the camps occur in different places, that means two separate dropoffs and pickups.

And this is the situation for a working parent in a place where there is relatively speaking a lot of support for working parents. In our town there are several day camps run by the city parks and recreation department, as well as sports camps of various kinds, camps run by a local science museum, ones run by a local arts center, music camps, camps run by the school-based after-school programs, and various other options. I talked to a working mom recently who lives in a fairly small Southern town. Her town basically doesn't even have camps available because most families have a stay-at-home parent, so there is not much demand for them.

Every family I know that does not have a stay-at-home parent is facing these same kinds of difficulties. Do parents in other countries that have more support for families have the same kinds of summer challenges? Perhaps not if you live somewhere like France where you get to take all of August off.

Shouldn't family values mean we actually value, and support, families?

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 IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

      by Oke, SheKos contributor

• In The Iowa Dept of Public Health having trouble with marriage equality, desmoinesdem writes about the difficulty in getting ful equality for same-sex couples.  Even though Iowa is ahead of most states in permitting gay marriage, the Iowa Department of Public Health has come down in the wrong side of a related issue, by not allowing the non-birthing parent of a couple to be listed on the child's birth certificate.  A reminder that the fight is not over, even in Iowa.
• In Marisa Tomei reprises plaintiff in Proposition 8 Trial, jpmassar diaries about a novel campaign to show the wider public key scenes which took place during the Prop 8 trial earlier this year.  As a reminder that the pro-Prop 8 forces tried to stop the trial from being televised, the campaign makes smal clips available on Youtube and other web sites, and is a wonderful attempt to keep the fight alive.
• In Urgent: Tell Charlie Crist to Veto HB 1143, LaurenMarie30 asks us all to help defeat this anti-women's rights bill that was put on the Florida Governor's desk by a group of ultra-conservative Republicans.  The bill, if passed, would require any woman seeking an abortion to obtain an ultrasound, at her own expense, and listen to the doctor described the fetus's condition.  In addition, any business offering health care including abortion services would lose tax credits.  Help take action at the link in the diary, today!
• In How an American Woman Won Equal Rights for the Women of Japan, The Book Bear writes about the situation in post-WWII Japan, a time when the constitution of the country was being re-written by a group of Americans, including a woman by the name of Beate Sirota.  The story of how Sirota, raised in Japan, helped women in Japan to obtain equal rights, is fascinating as a story of a woman who was not a hero, but did so much for others.

And from outside the Orange:

• New Discoveries Suggest That Sexual Objectification Is More Damaging to Women Than You Might Think 

  Guys, here’s something to consider the next time you ogle an attractive woman: Your desirous gaze may be reducing her capacity to think.

  That’s the startling implication of a research paper titled "My Body or My Mind," recently published in the European Journal of Social Psychology. It suggests some women who are objectified by men internalize this perception and think of themselves as "a sexual object to be scrutinized." For reasons that are not entirely clear, this process appears to undermine their cognitive ability.

• My Middle-Class Existence Hangs by the Thread of Subsidized Childcare

  One Thursday morning last month I took a break from my job as a journalist and freelance writer and, after dropping off my 2-year-old at his subsidized daycare, drove myself and my 10-week-old daughter across town to a cupcake shop. Our mission? To decorate Cupcake-grams that momsrising.org, a national non-profit that targets family and children's issues, planned to deliver to every last member of the Washington State legislature along with a note about the critical importance of early childhood care and learning. I didn't do this just for the fun or the frosting. I did it because my livelihood was at stake.

• Telegraph FAIL: The Pill's "devastating impact" on women's lives

  Once again, the Telegraph has managed to misinform the shit out of its readers. It's almost like the Fox News of the UK.

  We've seen plenty of pieces come out over the last month about The Pill's 50th anniversary, but none of them were as quite as confused and baseless as this one. (But then again, the Telegraph has a history of publishing inaccurate bullshit regarding feminist issues.)

• My Mother's Day Gift to the Planet: Not Having Kids

  It was Mother's Day, and the staff of the independent-living community where my mother resides had arranged a nice luncheon, with roses for all the mothers. When a cherubic child with golden ringlets pressed a flower into my hand, and I politely refused it, she became confused. No wonder, since it was assumed by everyone, that of course all adult women in attendance were mothers.

  At fifty-something I am an adult, but not a mother. And though some will gasp in horror, I consider that to be my greatest achievement as a conservationist, although finding the first saw-whet owl ever reported in my part of Virginia ranks pretty high, too.

• 9 Reasons Sex Fantasies Are Good For You

  The following is an excerpt from Private Thoughts: Exploring the Power of Women’s Sexual Fantasies by Wendy Maltz and Suzie Boss, 2008. Copyright Wendy Maltz and Suzie Boss. The beauty of fantasy is that we can tap this wellspring of creativity at any time, in any place, with no one else privy to our thoughts. ‘‘A major advantage of fantasy as an aid to physical sexual stimulation,’’ wrote Lonnie Barbach, Ph.D., in For Yourself, her 1976 classic about female sexuality, ‘‘is that it requires no equipment and is always available.’’ Temporarily and vicariously, fantasy allows us to sample highly charged sexual scenarios that exist in a world beyond what real life allows. Not surprisingly, women use fantasy most often to increase sexual desire and to facilitate sexual functioning, especially orgasm.

• Men, Women May Respond Differently to Vaccines

  Gender can trigger different immune responses and different side effects to particular vaccines, a new analysis suggests.

  The finding, reported in the May issue of The Lancet Infectious Diseases, stems from a review of prior research concerning vaccines that target a range of diseases including yellow fever, influenza, measles, mumps and rubella, hepatitis and herpes simplex. Hormonal changes that occur during pregnancy were also tracked during the review for their possible effect on vaccines.

• Study: Women Only Rehab Curbs Depression

  Depressive symptoms improved among women with coronary heart disease who participated in a motivationally-enhanced cardiac rehabilitation program exclusively for women.

  Depression often occurs with heart disease and is more likely to affect women than men. Depression interferes with adherence to lifestyle modifications and the willingness to attend rehabilitation.

• Elizabeth Hasselbeck's 'Erin Andrews' Comments Reveal 'Blame the Victim' Mentality

  The idea that if a woman dresses "a certain way" she's "asking for it" is an ugly concept from the past that still lingers today. This argument was once routinely used against women who attempted to pursue legal action in cases involving rape or sexual assault. Introduced in a courtroom, it was meant to intimidate, humiliate, and cheapen the woman who'd been violated; and all too often it worked on juries that decided against her.

  This "blame the victim" mentality belittles the seriousness of sexual assault and harrassment.  And on ABC's popular talk show The View earlier this week, Elizabeth Hasselbeck was its latest practitioner.

  Hasselbeck took issue with the costumes worn by ESPN reporter Erin Andrews as she competed on the show Dancing With the Stars. Citing Andrews' recent humiliation at the hands of a peeping Tom who took nude videos of her in a hotel room and released it on the internet, Hasselbeck said, essentially, that it was inappropriate for Andrews to compete "wearing next to nothing.