Here’s what we were up to over at the V Word besides taking care of women and being distressed about the state of our (almost-not-shutdown-anymore?) country.

 

READING

Governor Cuomo signs Reproductive Health Act into law! “Today we’re reaffirming that women have a voice and women have a choice.”

The actual law states: “ A health care practitioner licensed, certified, or authorized under title eight of the education law, acting within his or her lawful scope of practice, may perform an abortion when, according to the practitioner’s reasonable and good faith professional judgment based on the facts of the patient’s case: the patient is within twenty-four weeks from the commencement of pregnancy, or there is an absence of fetal viability, or the abortion is necessary to protect the patient’s life or health.” Listen to our upcoming podcast to hear our discussion!

Supreme Court Allows Trans Ban to go into effect (Bust Magazine) This is terrible. “The Trump policy specifically bans, with limited exceptions, those who are undergoing “gender dysphoria.” They claim that transgender individuals who don’t have gender dysphoria can serve, as long as they present as the gender assigned to them at birth.”

How medical training makes it harder to be a mom  (TIME) Oh let us count the ways… “Even those of us who love to control everything in our lives must surrender to the reality that we cannot control fertility.”

New research links Sexual Harassment and Poor Health (including poor sleep) (JAMA) Unsurprising, but good to see attention on this important connection.

IVF myths busted.  (MotherMag) Myth #7: Infertility is a female problem.  Busted: “It’s a common misconception that women are most effected by infertility. In fact, men and women are equally affected. In heterosexual couples, 40% of infertility cases are attributed to men, 40% to women, and 20% are unknown.”

Women of Color and protecting abortion rights: More than Roe (Colorlines) “In essence, our lived experiences are different—sometimes drastically so—from White women, creating varying degrees of agency over our bodies, our lives and our communities.”

A four day work week / Questioning the value of “full-time” (Quartz)

Breastfeeding discrimination costs women their jobs (Fortune). “In addition to the two-thirds of employees in these discrimination cases who ended up losing their jobs through firing or being forced to resign, another measure shows that three-quarters of workers in that group experienced some kind of economic penalty, whether by working reduced hours or going unpaid during their 15-minute breaks.”

 

We just downloaded Medical Bondage: Race, Gender, and the Origins of American Gynecology by Diedre Cooper Owens and are excited to get started.  It’s so important that we never forget that this field was started by white men in a racist, sexist society and continue to push back against how that systemic racism and sexism persists today.  Stay tuned for a review!

 

LISTENING/WATCHING

Sex Education. (Netflix) UK comedy about a kid who learns from his mom’s sex therapy practice and starts giving out sex advice… sort of (see rave review by Bust for more)

Dr. Jenn on BoldTV talking about the Reproductive Health Act  “I’m there as a physician to provide compassionate care to a person when she needs it”

*image source: IG @melquino