Women Affairs

JANE E. BRODY To women who were taught that it is unladylike to express anger, the presumably therapeutic yelling and cursing of the current let-it-all-hang-out generation is often shocking. But now a major new study has strongly suggested that both the old style of keeping anger in and the newer tendency to release it explosively are equally poor ways of expressing this fundamental human emotion. Both responses can catch women in a vicious cycle of low self-esteem and depression and can worsen anger because the issues that provoke it are never resolved, the study findings indicate. Far more effective, the researchers found, is to calm anger through physical or mental activities and to discuss angry feelings, preferably with the person who touched them off. The study involved 14 researchers and 535 women from 25 to 66 years old, most of them white married mothers who work full time outside the home. The women, who chose to participate, were recruited from work sites, educational...

Cross-border female genital mutilation / cutting (FGM/C) is on the rise in West Africa according to the UN, spurring the need to impose a region-wide law banning the practice, say experts. Experts from the region met this week to discuss how to eliminate FGM/C across West Africa, at a conference sponsored by the UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) in the Burkina Faso capital Ouagadougou. A study sponsored by UNIFEM to be released in late October 2008 said circumcisers or girls who undergo circumcision are increasingly crossing borders to perform or undergo the procedure to operate in countries with weaker FGM/C laws, and border police can do little to stop the flow. "There is a lack of collaboration among governments across borders because the issue is so politically sensitive to manage," said Dieneba Ouedraogo, coordinator of the International Centre for Research Training and Action (CIRFA). As a result, she said governments have shied away from collaborating on policies...

Herman Meza, Shinyanga A mob brutally killed Nhumba Nolelaga, 38, and Mwanandama Ndama, 55, at Idahina village in the district last week. The mob implicated the two in the death of a seven-year-old boy, Maduhu Masunga, who was bitten by a black mamba while sleeping and died instantly. Rumours had spread during the funeral of Masunga that he did not die, but was rather mysteriously turned into a ghost to work in the women's farms. Information had it that the boy was seen alive under the deceased women's beds, leading to the mob to demand the truth from the women, lest they be killed. The acting Shinyanga regional police commander,Mr Charles Nyanda, confirmed the incidents. Another woman who had disappeared mysteriously from her home only to be found unconscious at a paddy field in the same village alleged that she was superstitiously kidnapped by Nolelaga and Ndama. Fed up with allegations leveled against the duo, the Idahina villagers killed the suspects and burnt their bodies....

Dan Mosekaphofu KANYE: They continue to be victims of gender stereotypes that have corrupted the minds of the world. Their capabilities continue to be doubted despite the fact that they have proven their worth for all and sundry to see. The world unfortunately judges them harshly and prefers to categorise them as males in the event that they are recognised. From conductors, they have slowly but surely progressed to be the "queens" behind the steering wheel. But instead of applauding them for such an achievement, the world shuns them. These are the women taxi drivers who unfortunately are also given the famous tag of 'Botaxi man or combi man'- a clear sign of the brainwashing that our society is still reeling from. Kanye's 26-year-old Keabetswe Rabasimane is one of the women taxi drivers in the sprawling village. She reveals that this trade continues to prove to be a menace for her and her colleagues in this male-dominated sector. "I don't know why the soc...

Women suffering from obstetric fistula in Malawi received free medical care to reverse their condition during the country's Fistula Week. Between Oct. 12 and 18, the Malawian government, with technical and financial assistance from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), treated more than 130 destitute women who have no or little access to health care services. Lausi Adamu, from Makanjira in Malawi's lake district of Mangochi, who does not know her exact age, has suffered from fistula for the last 25 years. Her affliction came to an end last week, when she received an operation free of charge to stop her ailment. Adamu told IPS reporter Pilirani Semu-Banda about her life with the disease as she recuperated in hospital after the operation. How did you develop fistula? It was 25 years ago, when I was in labour for three days while giving birth to my first and only child at home. I received no medical care throughout pregnancy, and it was only my mother who was with me during ...

In the past year, Michelle Obama has been on the campaign trail, often standing in for her husband, Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama. In doing so, the potential first lady has put her own career on hold. Trained as an attorney, Michelle Obama left the legal field early. She has spent most of her career in the public and nonprofit sectors. And like many working women, Obama says she has struggled to balance her professional and family life. At a recent luncheon in Chicago, the applause swelled as Obama, taller than most in the room at 5-foot-11, strode to the podium. "[I'm] always living with the guilt that if I'm spending too much time at work, then I'm not giving enough time to my girls," she said to the mostly female audience. "And then if I'm with my girls, then I'm not doing enough for work — or you name it. It's a guilt that we all live with in this room. Can I hear an amen?" Her Early Career Michelle Obama's maiden ...

HOPING YOUR MAN IS A MIND-READER It may be a feminine game, but it won’t get you what you want. Men just don’t think that way, and it’s disrespectful to later blame them for something they could never figure out from such indirect communication. Drop the games and be direct. Effective communication is what will hold you in good stead. If you’re embarrassed to ask what you want, use language which makes your meaning clear. Though you may find it difficult to express your emotions, he’ll need feedback to make sure he carries on enthusiastically. Losing your self in your bliss and not saying anything will make him wonder if you’re asleep, dead or uninterested, at which point he is most likely to stop. RESENTING HIM WHEN HE DOESN’T GET IT RIGHT If you want more foreplay, then you need to say so. If he charges straight into your erogenous zones after a few minutes’ of petting and kissing, then you need to educate him about what you want. Men are much more quickly aroused than women on the w...

EDITH M. LEDERER Actress and United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) Goodwill Ambassador Nicole Kidman speaks Tuesday during a news conference at U.N. headquarters, urging world leaders and ordinary people to join the global fight to end violence against women. The actress, seven months pregnant and passionately committed to her role as a goodwill ambassador for the U.N. Development Fund for Women, said the violence was probably the "most widespread human rights violation of our time." "One in three women will encounter violence in some way, shape or form against them in their lifetime," Kidman told a news conference at U.N. headquarters. "That's an extraordinary statistic. Yet do we ever hear it?" The 40-year-old Australian star became a goodwill ambassador in January 2006 for the U.N. Development Fund for Women, known as UNIFEM. Its acting executive director, Joanne Sandler, said Kidman wanted to focus on an issue "where she could mak...

Kristy Lee Cook's American Idol run was marked by a number of stays in the bottom three and, as it turns out, a secret engagement. Cook's boyfriend popped the question in the sauna of her Idol apartment on March 15, days after she survived her first elimination round as a finalist. The country-inclined singer was able to share this detail with reporters Thursday because she did not survive Idol's latest elimination round Wednesday night. After an especially Byzantine results show, Cook, 24, was revealed to be the odd singer out, exiting in Mariah Carey week with the inaptly titled "Forever." "I was kind of upset that I went home because I thought I was getting stronger and stronger," Cook said. "I thought ["Forever"] was my best performance so far. I thought I had at least another week in me." Cook said her goal was to make the top five. In the end, she finished seventh. No stranger to the bottom three—she was there four out of the la...

1. Ms. Gold-Digger Advantages a. You have some one to manage your money. b. She always looks good. c. She makes your other homeboys jealous. d. She makes you look good. Disadvantages a. When you get broke she'll be gone and take what you have left. b. She makes sure she has a child by you to sue you for child support. c. Once your homeboy comes up she'll be on his arm the next day. 2. Ms. Freak (secret lover) Advantages a. She knows all the right positions. b. She'll try everything more than once. c. You're never unsatisfied. d. She'll do all the things your girl won't do. e. She doesn't mind being your freak, as long as she catches one too. Disadvantages a. Eventually, b/c she's a female, she'll end up catching feelings. b. She starts to act like she's your "main". c. She fools around with ya boy and act like you in the wrong for telling her that she's a freak. d. Eventually her sex gets old. And you need a replacement. 3. Ms. Inde...

Cherry and Kay Kay walk into room Number Two of a Rangoon karaoke bar, where a man waits alone for them on a brown leather sofa. "Come on, girls. Sing, please," he says, as they flick the karaoke machine to a Burma folk song they hope he likes. The scene may not be uncommon in many parts of Asia, but was until recently rare here in isolated Burma, where economic desperation is increasingly pushing young women into a sex trade that hides behind the facade of karaoke bars and massage parlours. At the bars, known locally as KTVs for "karaoke television," young women in their late teens and early 20s entertain clients in private air-conditioned rooms furnished with sofas and karaoke equipment. Waiters enter only when customers order food and drinks, or if the women ring a bell to alert the management that a client is getting out of hand. Workers at KTVs say sex is not necessarily on offer, but they add that in the private rooms boundaries can be vague. "It's ha...

Changing attitudes about love and marriage in rich Asian countries such as Taiwan, Japan and South Korea are pushing many desperate bachelors to seek out brides in other, poorer nations around the region. Many Asian men, particularly those in rural areas, tend to seek traditional wives who will stay home, doing chores and raising children, says Mika Toyota, a research fellow at the National University of Singapore's Asia Research Institute, and other experts who study the region. An economic boom in recent decades means women have options their mothers didn't. Better educated, they can have careers - and opt to stay single until Prince Charming shows up, if he ever does. "Most Japanese women would prefer to live and work in the city," says Jeff Kingston, author of Japan's Quiet Transformation. "A guy out there in the boonies . has a tough job selling the wonders of being a farmer's wife." Instead, the men increasingly seek women from countries such a...

According to the UN, 50 per cent of young women in the violent shantytowns of Haiti have been raped or sexually assaulted. Of the handful of victims who seek justice, a third are under 13. Alex Renton reports from a Caribbean hell crippled by poverty and torn by gang violence, and talks to the women who live in daily fear of sexual abuse Cité Soleil is called the worst slum in the western hemisphere. It's an ant hill of a third of a million people that seethes and swelters on the salt marshes between the blue Caribbean and the outskirts of Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince. Soleil lies, as third-world slums so often do, next to the international airport, under the irony-laden roar of jets taking off to leave the country. One of these, a small passenger plane, crashed into the slum in September, the day we arrived. No one died, but it was front-page news in Haiti's daily papers. They told how, within an hour of the crash, everything had been stripped from the plane: the luggag...

In a way, Sueanne Winn has already won Saturday night’s Miss America pageant. In fact, she’s all the runnersup — or at least on them. Winn’s custom-swimsuit company, Winnwear Designs at 9242 S. Sheridan Road, is the national swimsuit sponsor for Miss America 2008. And you can see her suits for yourself during “Miss America Live 2008,” which is broadcast from 7 to 9 p.m. Saturday on TLC, cable channel 56. Winn has a history with pageants, she told us recently before leaving for Las Vegas, where the new Miss America will be crowned at Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino in Las Vegas. She’s been designing swimsuits for 13 years, she said, but her background in fashion goes back farther than that. While a student at the University of Tulsa, she competed in pageants and, of course, wore the required swimsuits for each one she competed in. For 10 years, she operated her own store, specializing in pageantry attire, prom and special occasions. During that time, she developed her own line of s...

Pierre Coda Bobby from Gainesville, Florida, writes, "I am pretty sure that I am a victim of my wife's adultery. I haven't made an effort to catch her. I have tried to talk to her about it and she denies it. Despite the fact that I'm not perfect, I feel I give her the things that she needs emotionally and physically. She has also admitted that I completely satisfy her. How can I find out why she is committing adultery and what should I do about it?" Adultery can have disastrous consequences on the relationship, particularly the impact it will have on your children, if you were to get a divorce. Thus, you are doing the right thing by trying to find what the reasons are so that something can be done about it. While you feel that you are doing everything that a good husband is supposed to do, there are still several reasons why a woman might resort to adultery: 1. She lacks moral values 2. While you feel that you provide her with what is needed, she feels otherwi...