Travels: Girls and Boys in Denmark

During my last days in Århus, I went to Legoland, probably the most famous Danish tourist attraction after the Little Mermaid statue. At the Legoland gift shop you can buy Lego sets, spare Lego body parts, and these silicone ice cube trays.

Legoland gift shop. July 2010.

The gendering of toys is a worldwide phenomenon, it seems. Even in Scandinavian countries with some of the most impressive levels of gender equality in many areas. It's also a popular subject of Sociological Images, a sociology blog. It runs a series on gendered toys and used this Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal webcomic as illustration of childhood socialization via boys and girls toys.

(source)

A window in Copenhagen. February 2010.

Travels: Not so wonderful thing about Istanbul

I had some warning that traveling alone in Istanbul may be more difficult than doing the same in Spain. My Rough Guide to Europe had the following in the Culture and Etiquette section on Turkey:

Single female travelers may experience some harassment. A common approach is being stopped to answer a quick question. Be aware that a quick question is never a quick question and you could find yourself embroiled in a desperate attempt to solicit your phone number or arrange a dinner date. 

I wasn't sure if I would encounter the described harassment in Istanbul since it is more liberal than elsewhere in Turkey. In fact, I thought it would be rare because I find that cosmopolitan cities seem to have more with each other than smaller towns in the same country. I also thought that because I'm not white or blonde, that

Unfortunately, I was harassed a lot in Istanbul. Their tactics were just as described in my guidebook. As I walked by, the most common conversation opener was "Where are you from", which was often repeated if I ignored them. Some of them would say something about the sights near us like "Oh you are visiting Aya Sofya". But I did ignore them and just kept walking.

I'm not sure what their intentions were or where the conversation would lead if I even made eye contact. I never responded to their calls. I just kept walking. I suppose some would eventually try to sell me something. Or that's what I hope because that it gives them a reason to me, for the lira in my pocket. But according to The Rough Guide, it sounds like some of them want to have dinner with a random non-Turkish tourist woman.

These "friendly" men were in particularly high concentration at the square between the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia, middle-aged men just hanging around the square while tourists criss-crossed in front of them. This only happened when I was by myself in the historic quarter of the city where the main tourist attractions were: Blue Mosque, Hagia Sophia. This didn't happen to me when I was elsewhere in the city that were less touristy and I was accompanied by a Turkish friend. I don't know if it was because I was alone or because I was in a particular part of the city.

I can tolerate friendly haggling with a souvenir T-shirt vendor but I became uncomfortable when he started to say he broke up with his girlfriend "yesterday." And proceeded to have me stay for a cup of tea with him at his stall. I paid for two t-shirts and practically ran away.

The harassment was enough to make me really cranky and suspicious of men walking my way on the sidewalk. I know that people will tell me that that's just the way (a certain) Turkish men and foreign women interact, I'm a tourist, I was alone, blah blah. But none of those circumstances is an excuse. This behavior gives me the creeps. It rubs me the wrong way. It's just not an appropriate way to treat women.

But my time in Istanbul also included many fond memories such as -- like I recalled in a postcard to a friend -- having tea on the top of a parking lot overlooking the city and the Bosphorus glittering in the evening sun. That moment made me want to stay in Istanbul forever.

Kvindemuseet

On Saturday a few exchange student friends and I finally went to Kvindemuseet, the Women's Museum at Århus. I had been thinking about women's rights on this weekend before International Women's Day.

 

Women organizing for equal pay for equal work. Poster from the Danish communist party

It's a pity International Women's Day isn't recognized enough in the States. It's because of its origins from the socialist party. You know that if there's anything we don't like in America, it's socialists. Can you hear it in the scary campaign attack ad stage whisper...

I found most interesting the items about the second-wave feminist movement, in particular the collection of posters from that era about sex, abortion, and contraception. Well, I can't actually read them so I had to use the dictionary to piece together the meaning. I'm still not sure what some of them mean but I find them visually striking nonetheless.

 

P-piller is the oral contraceptive pill

The top corner of the left-most poster reads: Make Love! Not Babies!
Fri Abort: Free abortion If you get infected with the red dog, you can get a legal abortion. Maybe red dog is a slang term for pregnancy?

Love, Not Infected
Many people have STDs but do not know it. Committee for Health Education



Something about voluntary motherhood -- ønskebørne means a wanted child.

I can't figure out if this poster is advocating for the right to abortion. The red paint font looks rather menacing.

The museum is small but I'm glad I went though some of the displays seriously lacked English explanations, like there was an exhibit about women's participation in government that was all in Danish. I managed to take away this graph illustrating women's representation in local and national government.

Percent of females in the Danish Parliament (red) and Århus municipal council (blue) 1909-2006

Almost 40% of members of Folketing, the national parliament, are women in 2006.

Afterwards I went to a coffeeshop with an rooftop patio. We soaked up the sun and looked out on the orange-tiled roofs in the city center of Århus.

Notable dates in Danish women's rights:
1915 Women gain the right to vote
1970s Red Stocking women's movement begins
1973 Abortion is legalized
1989 same-sex marriage is legalized
1999 A cabinet-level minister for equality is created

I do not have a boyfriend

On the first day of Danish language class, I learned the relationship statuses of my dozen or so classmates.

The purpose was to practice the letter æ. We learned the word kæreste, meaning boyfriend or girlfriend. Then we practiced saying:

Ja, jeg har en kæreste. (Yes, I have a boy/girlfriend.)
neg, jeg har ikke en kæreste. (No, I do not have a boy/friend.)

Combine this with expression for saying one's name and the expression "to miss", my teacher then proceeded to make us say the name of our boy/girlfriend and if they were missed. This was all very educational.

On a more serious note, I found it interesting that boyfriend and girlfriend are the same word in Danish: kæreste. I wonder if this has any implications for gender roles in Danish society. But it is perhaps too much speculation because husband and wife are two different words, if Google Translate is to be trusted.

Safe explorations

Yesterday I pulled together several critiques of the Twilight series. Because of the reasons describe there, I don't enjoy the series. However, I think it is important to acknowledge the appeal of the books for young female fans.

It is important not to dismiss the enjoyment that young girls who love the books and who feel swept up by the characters. We already too easily dismiss nascent feelings of love that girls grapple in the process of becoming adults. I think we've all heard older people tell young people that they "don't know what love is". Heather Corinna of Scarleteen writes about this dismissal of a young person's experience of love: "You felt the double-whammy of having what you know to be the truth of your feelings discounted and of being deeply patronized all at once." I feel sometimes the criticism of Twilight becomes criticism of its fans and I don't want this to be so.

Personally, if I were 12 when the Twilight books became popular, I think I would have liked them too, if not fanatically, at least partly. I don't like the books, but I still feel very close to the feelings Bella has, to the feelings the fans of Twilight have about the characters. I know the giddy feeling of having crush, even if its directed toward a fictional character or an actor playing the fictional character. These feelings that 12 year-olds have aren't the same love that a 21 year-old or a 41 or 71 year old woman would feel. But when you are (and when I was) 12 that is as close to romantic love as we have known. I've felt those feelings before, so I very much empathize with fans at the same time that I'm critical of the gender and race in the Twilight-verse. I see the appeal of Twilight, but I can't get past its treatment of a lot of other things.

(On a similar note, I see the appeal of Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita as a masterpiece of modern literature, but I just can't get past the icky-ness of pedophilia and into the novel.)

The reason I empathize with Twilight fans, the reason I would have liked Twilight as a girl, is correctly identified by Neesha Meminger as the need for girls to safely explore their burgeoning sexuality. She writes:

Stephanie Meyer has capitalized on the one niche that Disney and women’s romance novels left open: the hunger for teen girls (and their mothers) for a safe place to explore the wonder and excitement of their own sexuality.

The key here is safety. There is good reason to take refuge in Twilight. The sexual exploitation of women and images of women is pervasive. We see them everyday: scantily-clad women on TV, women peddling cosmetics, weight-loss treatments, and ways to keep our men satisfied in bed.

Safety and security become difficult in adulthood have but we still desire and deserve it. When we're little, it was easy to be safe and to be protected. And as we grow up, the world opens up its possibilities but also its risks. I want to explore new places, new people, and new feelings but I still want to be held and to be cuddled. And it's okay normal to want that.

Meminger writes:

The final scene, with Edward lifting Bella onto his feet and dancing under the lights of the gazebo at her prom, is the ultimate little-girl-in-daddy’s-arms fantasy — safe, protected, cherished…still innocent.

Yes. Enter Edward. While Edward carries a persistent undercurrent of danger, the readers also know that he won't bite (or have sex with) Bella. There's a paradoxically safe and controlled sense of danger, like the weightlessness of being in roller coaster all the while the bar is firmly across your lap. Bella's virginity and "innocence" is not actually in danger, but the reader is allowed the temporary vertigo of intense infatuation. Twilight provides its readers with a safe universe in which to swoon over a really good-looking boy. The character of Bella is criticized for being ... really bland but her lack of distinguishing traits facilitates connection with the reader because the reader easily inserting herself into the story as Bella. A blank canvas of a character isn't a writing classes teach to build character, but it makes a lot of girls feel like they are Bella.

Now about the older fans of Twilight, the young adult women, the moms of tweens:

The desire for safety never goes away. Relationships are tricky at any age. Sometimes it's nice to take refuge somewhere where the rules are clear and there's a happy ending waiting. I sometimes think it's rather nice to be in middle school where everyone seemed to know the rules of "going out". It meant telling someone you liked them, "going out", and dancing with each other at Fun Night.

And nor should it. Girls and women at any age confront challenges to their safe space. For college-aged women, it can be the sexual coercion at parties from strangers, acquaintances, and friends. Or it can be just figuring out what you want, which is still really confusing!

The popularity of Twilight doesn't spell the doom feminism, even though the critiques may seem like that. The girls on Team Edward or Team Jacob can grow up to be on Team Feminism. When I was little, I did all the girly things. I pretended to be a princess, dressed my dolls, watched Disney movies and was swept away by the prince charmings. Twilight won't become the model relationship for most its readers just as I don't  believe in Disney movies anymore. As we grow up, we'll inevitably be exposed to different relationships, different kinds of love. Twilight will not be the only model on which to base our relationships.

My hope for the Twilight books, and by extension for crushes, infatuations, relationships that never get off the ground, and boyfriends is that they allow girls to explore their budding sexuality, to grapple with some really confusing feelings in a safe and healthy way.

---

A note from me:

I've been blogging prolifically of late, a new post almost every day for the past two weeks. I put much time and thought into blogging, mostly for my own pleasure, but it would be nice to hear an echo coming back. So...  I'm encouraging lurkers to de-lurk. If my writings generate some discussion in you, I'd appreciate it if you leave a comment. I'd like to hear your take too. You don't need a Blogger account and you can also  make it anonymous.

Thanks.

More about Sparkly Vampires and Chaste Kisses

It's no secret that I am critical of the rabid infection cultural phenomenon that is the Twilight series, as I have written about them here and here. Others too have written -- more eloquently and more in-depth than I -- about its problematic treatments of gender and race. The relationship between Bella and Edward has raised the ire of many readers, both female and male. I thought I'd highlight some of the discussions of the Twilight series that I've read.

An assemblage of writings in the blogosphere (and in print too!) raises many of these issues:

Their relationship is unhealthy. Edward is abusive and controlling, in the name of protection. Edward restricts Bella's access to her friends. Edward locks her in the house so she can't leave. Edward dismantles her truck. Oh also, if they had sex, Edward could kill her. Literally. I'm not looking to get injured or killed during sex, thankyouverymuch. Oh, see the signs of an abusive relationship.

When they finally consummate their marriage -- "consummate" sounds so antiquated--- Edward is gives Bella bruises, which she hides from him.

Edward, lost in his own lust, “makes love” so violently to Bella that she wakes up the next morning covered in bruises, the headboard in ruins from Edward’s romp. And guess what? Bella likes it. In fact, she loves it. She even tries to hide her bruises so Edward won’t feel bad. If the abstinence message in the previous books was ever supposed to be empowering, this scene, presented early in Breaking Dawn, undoes everything.
 (Bitch Magazine)

Bella's most prominent trait is low self-esteem.
Ms. Magazine "Taking a Bite Out of Twilight":

But few young readers ask, “Why not Team Bella?” perhaps because the answer is quite clear: There can be no Team Bella. Even though Bella is ostensibly a hero, in truth she is merely an object in the Twilight world."

The obsession with Bella's virginity. Bitch Magazine calls this "abstinence porn". It really is porn, since Bella and Edward's relationship is completely unrealistic, just like porn is.

The Twilight series has created a surprising new sub-genre of teen romance: It’s abstinence porn, sensational, erotic, and titillating. And in light of all the recent real-world attention on abstinence-only education, it’s surprising how successful this new genre is. Twilight actually convinces us that self-denial is hot.

Interestingly enough, the movie Twilight was altered to be more feminist friendly, according to Carmen Siering, which only seems to prove that many people find their relationship uncomfortable.

Director Catherine Hardwicke’s film version of Twilight remains true to the novel, but there are subtle changes that make it much more feminist-friendly. Kristin Stewart’s Bella is more outspoken and forthright, and Robert Pattinson’s Edward is much less condescending and overbearing. Their relationship seems to be built on equality and friendship, and includes scenes of mutual sexual frustration and restraint.

Now Bella and Edward have finally had sex, of course Bella gets pregnant. Anna N. of Jezebel critiques the depiction teen motherhood and the antiabortion overtones surrounding Bella's pregnancy.

This creepy antiabortion allegory quickly gets literal, as the half-vampire fetus (actually an interesting metaphor for any pregnancy) starts killing Bella from the inside out. Even as it breaks her ribs and sucked the life from her, she proclaims, "I won't kill him." But does she have to face the consequences of this choice? No, because vampire magic suddenly allows mother and father to hear the fetus's thoughts, and to discover that it already loves them!

Because she is now a vampire, Bella is even hotter than she was before pregnancy, and after a short recovery period she's able to have all-night sex sessions with her husband while the extended family takes care of the perfectly behaved, telepathic baby. In the Breaking Dawn universe, teen motherhood just makes your life rad.

This is the first time I've heard that you can have all-night sex as parents of a newborn. Yay. And it's alright morally because they're married. Maybe I should pop out a few kids.

About Jacob, the Quileute werewolf: Many readers were pleased with the inclusion of Jacob as a major character in the series, but still found his characterization problematic. According to Latoya Peterson at Racialicious, Jacob means "people of color are exoticized and sexualized – and often dangerous" and Bella's use of racial slurs, calling Jacob a mongrel. 

I am particularly fond of this description of New Moon, the new Twilight movie.  

Have you ever heard something along the lines of “dating someone who is [insert ethnic/racial group] ok, but you’d better not marry one!” or “Native Americans are so in touch with nature!”? Have you ever seen a film or tv show that relegated the person of color as the trusty sidekick, loyal friend, or temporary romantic plaything, only then to have the white hero enter in medias res and get all the praise and attention? Have you ever seen a piece from an ad campaign or historical policy discussions in which non-white people are portrayed as animalistic, in both their behavior, thought processes, and athletic ability? Have you, as a person of color, or if you are not, any of your POC friends, ever complained of feeling that their societal value was reduced to their physical appearance or a specific body part? If you answered “yes” to any of the above, you have already seen New Moon.

This guy has a sense of humor as he review Twilight.
"Younger people seem to love this book, think it's brilliant and everyone else says that it's shit."


I think actually I'm going to split this Twilight entry into two parts. I'll end it here for now. Next I want to acknowledge Twilight's appeal.

Choice Words: Women's Work

Originally appeared on July 27th, 2009

Over the weekend, one of the most read articles on the BBC News website was The Women Who Clear Sudan’s Minefields.

Jamba Besta had planned to be a secretary, hoping to find work in an office as her homeland of South Sudan emerged out of a 22-year long civil war. Instead, the pregnant mother heads an all-female team of de-miners, removing dangerous explosives from former battlefields.
“I never thought I would be doing this,” says Ms Besta, welcoming her six-woman team back from the danger zone they are clearing.
“But it shows those people who think that women can’t do jobs like this that they are wrong.”
The team’s members say they work better as an all-women team – supporting each other against often critical comments that de-mining is work only for a man.
Similar all-women teams work elsewhere in the world, including Kosovo and Cambodia.

I have no illusions that mine-clearing is dangerous work, but this makes me feel so proud of women around the world, women who are taking an active role in rebuilding their communities, supporting each other, and challenging views of what work is appropriate for women.

Mixing metaphors

"She remembered Nana saying once that each snowflake was a sigh heaved by an aggrieved woman somewhere in the world. That all the sighs drifted up the sky, gathered into clouds, then broke into tiny pieces that fell silently on the people below. As a reminder of how women like us suffer, she'd said. How quietly we endure all that falls upon us."
- Khaled Hosseini A Thousand Splendid Suns

Earlier this evening swept away by this book. I picked it up from the bookstore intending to skim the first page and I was wrapped up in it for the next several hours, neglecting the homework I had spread out before me. It's a little bit like being out of control because I wanted to continue reading the book but I also had a lot on my to-do list. I would have finished A Thousand Splendid Suns in one sitting if the Barnes &Noble didn't close at 10pm.

The feeling captured in this quotation (and in much of A Thousand Splendid Suns) reminds me of a Chinese expression 命苦，literally a bitter life, as in to have a bitter life. This meaning of bitter is endurance through a lifetime of pain, grief, and harshness is used a lot in Chinese. I guess it's also used to some extent in English, though I think bitter more often describes cynical and rancorous outlook on life.

I admit Hosseini's plotlines are rather melodramatic but I can't deny that I was moved by stories of women against the backdrop of violence, political turmoil, and the snow-capped mountains.I think this is what drew me to A Thousand Splendid Suns rather than The Kite Runner, which explores the relationships among men, fathers, and sons.

It hasn't snowed yet this winter though I think it will soon. And when it does, I will think about the snowflakes. 

I love Nick Kristof

I have a crush on Nick Kristof, the New York Times columnist, because he consistently highlights the importance of women and girls in bettering societies, domestically and abroad. In particular, he always makes a strong case linking the importance of women to the most pressing, most challenging issues of the day. And I’m publicly declaring my love for him today because he and his wife Sheryl WuDunn wrote the cover piece for this past weekend’s New York Times Sunday Magazine, a special edition on women, that perfectly explains his view of the relationship between women’s empowerment and development.

From The Women's Crusade:

In many poor countries, the greatest unexploited resource isn’t oil fields or veins of gold; it is the women and girls who aren’t educated and never become a major presence in the formal economy. With education and with help starting businesses, impoverished women can earn money and support their countries as well as their families. They represent perhaps the best hope for fighting global poverty.

“The world is awakening to a powerful truth: Women and girls aren’t the problem; they’re the solution,” writes Kristof and WuDunn. Aid to women is not a pity cause, a pet cause, or a charity case. But I think sometimes these problems are perceived as such. The developed world, as individuals and as nations, give money to social causes as “charity”. “They” are poor and “we” are going out of our way to do a good deed. In contrast, money for, say, investment in developing markets is business and both sides are business partners. There is occasional hubbub — charity concerts and the like — over social programs, but they are generally given lip service. The bulk of global development efforts are devoted to political and economic issues. But Kristof and WuDunn very eloquently show that aid to women benefits everyone. Women will lead their families, their communities, and their countries to prosperity.

Like Kristof, I have always believed that treating women right is a vital part of any country that wants to security, stability, and become a player in the global community. But I don’t think many of those in power in this country and elsewhere share this belief because the more I have learned about world politics, the more I have come to see the gulf separating “hard” issues like security, arms control, trade and “soft” issues like education, nutrition, child and maternal health, and social issues. At times it makes me mildly embarrassed even, to say that I care about women’s issues because I think it pigeon holes me as idealistic and naive. Like I want to “help people” but have no understanding of national governments and global institutions. So I’m all the more glad to see Nick Kristof using his position as a widely-read journalist to explain that women’s rights is a vital part of the solution to global problems.

There is “hard” evidence now that helping women does help the whole society. It often happens that men who control the family finances don’t spend it well. And when you have very little to spend, you must spend wisely.

One reason involves the dirty little secret of global poverty: some of the most wretched suffering is caused not just by low incomes but also by unwise spending by the poor — especially by men.

When women have control of money, they spend less on entertainment — alcohol, tobacco — and more on the family — food, medical care. So giving women greater financial power also helps families prioritize their spending.

The economist Esther Duflo of M.I.T. found that when the men’s crops flourish, the household spends more money on alcohol and tobacco. When the women have a good crop, the households spend more money on food. “When women command greater power, child health and nutrition improves,” Duflo says.

Terrorism is one today’s most pressing issue today and women’s empowerment is a key part of it. Kristof concedes that the precise mechanism of this is unclear, but societies in which women participate are less likely to breed terrorism.

Yet another reason to educate and empower women is that greater female involvement in society and the economy appears to undermine extremism and terrorism. It has long been known that a risk factor for turbulence and violence is the share of a country’s population made up of young people. Now it is emerging that male domination of society is also a risk factor; the reasons aren’t fully understood, but it may be that when women are marginalized the nation takes on the testosterone-laden culture of a military camp or a high-school boys’ locker room.

The piece opens with a Chinese saying that women hold up half the sky. It is a saying that I like very much and am familiar with. For now it seems that women should not peek through the cracks of a world that men have built and run. But a few good people, Nick Kristof included, know that they should be leading the world.

What Makes a Family, Part Two

After my post a few days ago on my personal feelings on family and children, I found this article about motherhood and marriage on the population level: “Out-of-Wedlock Birthrates Are Soaring, U.S. Reports“. The data are interesting in that they reveals the changing composition of families but the measures feel a bit antiquated and leave me wanting a better survey of families.

First, the stats: The Center for Disease Control released analysis of data collected in 2007 shows that 40 percent of all births in 2007 were to women who were not married. (Original data is here.)

Furthermore, parsing out the data reveals interesting trends in pregnancies and family composition. Teen pregnancies do not make up the majority of

Before 1970, most unmarried mothers were teenagers. But in recent years the birthrate among unmarried women in their 20s and 30s has soared — rising 34 percent since 2002, for example, in women ages 30 to 34. In 2007, women in their 20s had 60 percent of all babies born out of wedlock, teenagers had 23 percent and women 30 and older had 17 percent.

Lots more stats on nonmarital births through the decades, by race, by mother’s age, and compared to other industrialized countries.

But these data are interesting in what they measure and what they leave out. It keeps track of “nonmarital births”, birth to a woman who has never been married, or is widowed or divorced. It’s a question asked when a birth is registered. But the terms “nonmarital birth”, “unwed mother” and children “born-out-of-wedlock” have gradually lost the same meanings they did when these studies were originally done. That is, it is becoming more mainstream and less … shameful that marriage is not a requirement for motherhood. I suppose being “born-out-of-wedlock” is one step up from being “illegitimate.”

My feelings on this were confirmed by a New York Times news commentary piece about these stats. I think one commentator sums it up very well:

The fact that 40 percent of American children are now born out of wedlock is yet another example of why policymakers and researchers need to discard one-size-fits-all generalizations about the causes, consequences, risks and benefits of different family forms. Average outcomes from married and single parenting hide huge variations.

There is great variation among mothers who are not married. It did used to be that teenagers made up the majority of nonmarital births, which means that we could have a whole host of assumptions about the kind of life the children of teenage moms would have: probably low-income, low-education, no father, etc. But unmarried moms are now in general older and their lives are far more complicated. They could be cohabiting, could have other children, etc.

I’m not exactly faulting the CDC for the results because they are, by themselves, interesting. Their data come from birth registrations, so it really shows that even our data collection is antiquated. It is less and less meaningful to only know whether or not a mother is married. It would be even more interesting to read about a comprehensive sociological study of the state of motherhood.

x-posted at Choice Words

Prioritizing Aid - More Questions Than Answers

There are many worthwhile causes to champion, injustices to fight, both financially and through other actions. Should I donate to an organization that, say, helps fund the education of girls, clean water, or HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment? Should I fund a domestic or international cause? Should I lobby for environmental issues? Universal healthcare in the U.S.?

I feel that I am prioritizing one condition over the other by devoting my efforts to a cause. Of course we should contribute toward solving all the world's problems, but I recognize that our resources -- money, time, political will -- are limited, so we can only give publicity to some diseases and not others.

Now expand this on the scale of national governments, multilateral aid organizations. We all have to make choices about how much to fund for what. Each foreign aid budget, domestic health budget, and NGO has to prioritize what it will spend the most money on.

I often read about how easy and cheap it is to cure a certain disease but there's no effort to do so. No global funds, no rock star benefit concerts, no massive whatever-color-ribbon campaigns. There is no publicity, funding, and political for very urgent needs with simple solution. I've heard that with just a little more push we can eradicate the last few pockets of polio, or with some cheap drug we can save lots of people from something terrible.

The latest example of this is Nick Kristof's column about pneumonia published on Mother's Day (The Killer No One Suspects). According to Kristof, a course of antibiotics to treat pneumonia costs only 27 cents, but pneumonia registers on few people's consciousness as a widespread, emergent disease.

This leads me to ask why some diseases or conditions get more attention than others. Is there some general fascination with the new and incurable disease that plagues all of us? Is it only greed and fame of politicians, drug companies, and scientists that set funding priorities?

I checked categories to which this entry belongs, I'm selecting many of them. This is because that at some level, these health, gender, environmental, and social issues are interrelated, cycles of poverty, environmental degradation leading to health effects, tuberculosis exacerbating AIDS, etc. But most organizations have one or several focuses, some of which leave other behind. Inevitably, aid organizations or lobbies will be fighting for the same funding, the same piece of the pie so to speak. Expansion of one program may see cuts in another. Am I second guessing myself too much? Is this the activists' curse of caring too much?


x-posted at Choice Words