Women Are Hard To Animate. Thoughts on Representation of Women in Movies, Television and Games, Echidne, Echidne of the Snakes, June 12, 2014
My point is that these stories are picked from a certain angle, an angle of traditionally male heroism, and even when that is not the case most of us are lulled into believing that a handful of women in a large list of participants is a mixed gender setting in a movie or television series. Just think of the Noah’s Ark (which also consisted of all white characters). Probably a fifty-fifty distribution of men and women in some movie reads as a chick flick to many viewers.
One reason for all this is that we tend to see women portray womanhood in their roles, not play roles of individuals who have different temperaments, characters and so on. That’s why having a handful of women in a movie looks like inclusion, even if they all play the role “women,” because that role might be subconsciously compared to the number of dentists or gamblers or whatever in the same movie, never mind that most of the rest of that list are played by men.
Who Owns Your Womb? Women Can Get Murder Charge for Refusing C-Sections, Michelle Goodwin, AlterNet, June 13, 2014
Decades ago, refusing to undergo cesarean surgery was not a crime. That’s another matter now in the wake of recent “fetal protection” enactments that make it a crime for a pregnant woman to engage in any conduct that might threaten harm to a fetus. Some doctors believe this applies to how a woman gives birth.
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Cesarean births have skyrocketed in the United States, though a growing number of academics speculate that too many pregnant women are delivering by cesarean surgery and that it may be unhealthy. In 1965, only 4 percent of all births in the US were performed by cesarean surgery; currently that figure is closer to 33 percent. The World Health Organization recommends that no more than 10-15 percent of all births be by cesarean surgery. Importantly “the proposed upper limit of 15% is not a target to be achieved but rather a threshold not to be exceeded.”
The high frequency of c-sections in the U.S. indicates a disturbing medical and legal trend. Cesarean surgeries are risky medical procedures; they are painful post-operatively and can render the patient vulnerable to infection at the point of incision in the abdomen or uterus. Women can suffer blood clots in the legs or lungs, heavy blood loss, and drug side effects such as migraines, nausea and vomiting. Cesarean surgeries can result in weak spots in the uterus, making subsequent vaginal deliveries risky. The dramatic rise in cesarean surgeries shows not only a disregard for the medical evidence, but of pregnant women’s legal rights.
Weird ways of thinking, PZ Myers, Pharyngula, June 12, 2014
Breatharian crank Jasmuheen believes she doesn’t need food or water to live — she claims to absorb nutrients from sunlight and air. She was rather easily exposed, as are all these breatharians, by putting her up in a nice hotel with people to monitor her eating, and observing the subsequent quite rapid deterioration as she failed to thrive and wasted away quite dangerously.
The people who were testing her terminated the experiment to avoid risking her health. Breatharian claims are absurd and trivially debunked, but what is fascinating is Jasmuheen’s logic as she is gradually falling apart. She has to know that in her day-to-day life she is regularly drinking and eating; she has to know that she’s hungry and thirsty during the test; she has to know that she’s physically suffering from dehydration and starvation. Yet she denies it all.
