Lawtitudes: Women’s Issues

What are women’s issues:

Women’s issues run the gamut, from sexual harassment and discrimination and equal pay in the workplace, to the quality of medical care women receive, and the toxic substances to which they are exposed through the use of common household products, cosmetics and pharmaceuticals often with deadly results.

In this blog, I will focus on developing trends and newsworthy/noteworthy events which directly impact on the female demographic.

In just the last month, while we have watched in horror the impact that the assault on the Ukraine has had on the women and children of that beleaguered nation, we have also endured the endless criticism of actor Will Smith about his behavior at the Oscar’s which has sparked debate about the appropriate ways for black men to publicly defend and protect black women.

At the same time, the New York Times has reported on the dearth of obstetrical care for pregnant women in rural America and recent research which suggests that medial care of women in general is wanting, suggesting that “diagnostic errors occur in up to one out of every seven encounters between a doctor and patient, and that most of these mistakes are driven by the physician’s lack of knowledge. Women are more likely to be misdiagnosed than men in a variety of situations.” The author continues: “Patients who have felt that their symptoms were inappropriately dismissed as minor or primarily psychological by doctors are using the term “medical gaslighting” to describe their experiences”

Women’s productive rights are being challenged here and worldwide, so much so, that according to a report on March 30, 2022 published by the UN’s sexual and reproductive health agency, UNFPA, half of all pregnancies, totaling 232 million each year worldwide, are unintended with nearly 60 percent of those resulting in abortion, and of which nearly 43 percent of those are unsafe, resulting in countless injuries and death. As Executive Director of the UNFPA, Natalia Kanem maintains the “staggering number of unintended pregnancies represents a global failure to uphold women and girls’ basic human rights.”

This, as the “Me Too” Movement continues to gain momentum.

Watch this space.