OBOB readers may have heard about nonsociety.com, a site developed by internet celebrity Julia Allison and friends (if you haven’t, you’re doing just fine — really). I normally wouldn’t point to it, but Mary Rambin’s post — titled “My Body, My Botox” — deserves mention, if only to note that this is what passes for reasoning when it comes to cosmetic surgery. Fortunately, Amelia at The Frisky pretty much has the outrage covered.

On the subject of acceptance, Mary, who admits to starting Botox at age 23 for forehead wrinkles (she is 26 now), writes that while breast implants once had a stigma, today “women are proud to not only admit to this procedure, but some women will also rave about their doctors and ask you if you would like to feel his/her handiwork. Furthermore, as the NY Times pointed out the other day, boobs are now a standard high school graduation gift (and in my experience they have been for years now). Breast implants are now socially acceptable. ”

And to what do we owe thanks for this advancement? Here, with all its glorious typos, is the answer:

I site Roe v. Wade because it serves as a marker of people accepting (maybe not respecting) a woman’s right to choose. Although abortion is still an issue at the forefront, it’s notable the Supreme Court recognized women should be able to do what they feel is right for themselves.

Cosmetic procedures should be viewed in the same light. Not to mention the procedures are in no way effecting another human being, so the severity of the issue is considerably less. But as with breast implants, time will have to pass before others view cosmetic procedures as acceptable. I won’t say “the norm” because I do think artificial enhancement should carry with it serious consideration before you undergo any sort of procedure. Other things like manicures and pedicures, dental work, highlighting your hair, are all “procedures” that are completely unnatural but we consider normal.

And may God bless the United States of America!

(Commence head-banging.)

The first daughters have hit the market.

For just $9.99, you can own your own set of “Sweet Sasha” and “Marvelous Malia” dolls.

“They’re such adorable girls,” Ty Inc. spokeswoman Tania Lundeen said Wednesday of the Obama sisters — Sasha, 7, and Malia, 10. “How can we resist?”

But by the end of the week, Ty Inc. — the company that created Beanie Babies — announced the names were chosen because “they are beautiful names,” not because they resemble the first daughters.

Whatever. Sadly, these dolls lack agency in their own world. Malia doesn’t even have her own camera.

Instead, they “come with a password to an online ‘virtual world’ where real girls can decorate their dolls’ room, change their clothes or go shopping,” reports the Chicago Sun Times.

Michelle Obama is not impressed with the 12-inch pseduo-replicas.

“We believe it is inappropriate to use young private citizens for marketing purposes,” Obama’s press secretary, Katie McCormick Lelyveld, said in a statement today.

Also this week, Mattel announced it will launch its first complete line of African-American Barbie dolls.

Plus: There’s a new blog on girls as media producers. Mary Celeste Kearney writes that she created Girls Make Media “because I’ve been researching girls’ media production for over a decade now, and wanted to pull together in one place information about girl media producers, as well as programs for and research about girls’ media-making.”

Kearney — an associate professor of radio, television and film, and women and gender studies at the University of Texas at Austin — is looking to link to other programs (in and outside of the United States), so let her know if you doing something interesting in this field.

cross-posted from PopPolitics

Who Decides? A State-by-State Analysis: NARAL Pro-Choice America has released its 18th edition of “Who Decides? The Status of Women’s Reproductive Rights in the United States.” The report summarizes the state of women’s access to reproductive healthcare nationwide, including legislation considered and enacted in 2008. This year’s edition also examines attacks on choice in the states and in the courts and highlights pro-choice legislative and non-legislative victories, including NARAL’s Prevention First initiative.

Trading in “Barefoot and Pregnant” for Economic and Reproductive Justice: “The relevance of barefoot and pregnant remains central to an inclusive and just America,” writes Gloria Feldt. “Economic parity and reproductive justice are still intertwined, not only in the lives of individual women; they are indivisibly connected to our economic recovery as well.”

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Clinic …: That’s the title of an essay in Exhale’s latest issue of its bilingual abortion zine, “Our Truths/Nuestras Verdades” (download the pdf). Yes, it’s the humor issue. As Exhale founder Aspen Baker writes in the intro to the issue:

Abortion is a serious personal issue that is hotly debated in public while real women have abortions in private, often in secret, and with little social support or understanding.

What could possibly be funny about that?

In this issue of Our Truths, we aim to find out. We witness funny women who use humor to get through tough times, truth-tellers who bust ridiculous myths about women who have abortions, and discover laughter that heals the soul. We also question humor that hides what’s real, judges or hurts others.

Check it out.

Massachusetts Adopts Breastfeeding Law: Massachusetts this month became the 48th state to offer legal protection to women who breastfeed their children in public. The Massachusetts Breastfeeding Coalition will provide mothers a “license to breastfeed” card with details of the new law and instructions on how to report violations, according to the Patriot Ledger.

The state Legislature passed the bill, “An Act to Promote Breastfeeding,” in December, and the governor signed it into law Jan. 9. Up to this point, women could have been prosecuted for indecent exposure or lewd conduct.

North Dakota and West Virginia remain the only states without breastfeeding legislation.

The Cutting Edge of Opera: “Skin Deep,” a new production opening in the UK, looks at the work of an unscrupulous fictional plastic surgeon: Dr. Needlemeier. At this BBC video slideshow, composer David Sawyer describes the opera as a story about “fear of death, vanity and the wish for immortality.” The “Skin Deep” website is far from superficial.

NABJ Conference on Health Disparities: The National Association of Black Journalists is hosting a conference on health disparities Jan. 30-31 at Morehouse School of Medicine.

The purpose is to “give journalists insight into health disparities affecting the African American community, resulting in significantly higher mortality rates. Learn how to cover major health and medical stories that make an impact. Topics include obesity, heart disease, stroke, HIV/AIDS, mental health and the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.”

IVF Doesn’t Restore Fertility in Women Over 40: “A study involving more than 6,000 women who underwent the treatment at a large Boston clinic found that while [in vitro fertilization] could give infertile women younger than 35 about the same chance of having a baby as women typically have at that age, it could not counteract the decline in fertility that occurs among those older than 40,” writes Rob Stein at the Washington Post.

“Even as effective as IVF is, it can’t reverse the effects of aging,” said Alan S. Penzias of Harvard Medical School, who led the study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine. “We cannot reverse the biological clock.” Here’s the study’s abstract.

Kidney Transplants Less Likely to go to Women: A new study indicates that women over 45 are significantly less likely to be placed on a kidney transplant list than their equivalent male counterparts, even though women who receive a transplant stand an equal chance of survival. The study appears online in the Journal of the America Society of Nephrology.

“As woman age, that discrepancy widens to the point where woman over 75 are less than half as likely as men to be placed on a kidney transplant list,” said lead researcher Dorry Segev, M.D., a Johns Hopkins transplant surgeon. “If the women have multiple illnesses, the discrepancy is even worse.”

Fosamax Linked to Two Diseases: “Two recent reports have linked the osteoporosis drug alendronate (Fosamax) with rare but serious side effects,” reports the L.A. Times.

“In a letter to the New England Journal of Medicine published Jan. 1, a Food and Drug Administration official reported that since Fosamax was first marketed in 1995, 23 cases of esophageal cancer in patients taking the drug — including eight deaths — have been reported to the agency. And a USC study published in the January issue of the Journal of the American Dental Assn. reported that nine patients who were taking Fosamax suffered osteonecrosis of the jaw — a bone-killing infection — after having teeth extracted at USC dental clinics.”

Job Bias Bills Pass the House: The House on Friday passed two bills related to sex discrimination and workers’ pay. From The New York Times:

One, approved 247 to 171, would give workers more time to file lawsuits claiming job discrimination.

The bill would overturn a 2007 decision by the Supreme Court that enforced a strict 180-day deadline, thwarting a lawsuit by Lilly M. Ledbetter, a longtime supervisor at the Goodyear tire plant in Gadsden, Ala. Three Republicans voted for the bill.

The other bill — passed 256 to 163, with support from 10 Republicans — would make it easier for women to prove violations of the Equal Pay Act of 1963, which generally requires equal pay for equal work.

President Bush threatened to veto both bills, saying they would “invite a surge of litigation” and “impose a tremendous burden on employers.”

The sentence that follows the Bush quote is the best: “Congress will not give him the opportunity.”

That’s because in less than two weeks there will be a new president in town who is enthusiastic about signing both bills.

Plus: Jill Miller Zimon has a good wrap-up and points to this NWLC page, from which you can contact your senator and urge support for these bills.

Health Issues at the Top of the List: Women’s eNews looks at the to-do list of the Congressional Caucus for Women’s Issues. In addition to reintroducing a bill to address heart disease in women, the Caucus intends to focus on human trafficking, sexual and domestic violence against women, women in the military and the backlog of DNA evidence in rape cases.

Lesbian Health Day & Summit: Jan. 5 was Blog for Lesbian Health Day. In response, Jane, a community health nurse and nurse practitioner student who blogs at Fallacy Findings, wrote an excellent post that includes discussion of “lesbian neglect” — which “refers to the fact that many lesbians fail to get Pap smears, do not get them regularly, and/or do not think they need to get them” — and lesbian health as a much-needed topic in nursing and medical schools.

The blogging event was organized as a lead-up to the National Lesbian Health Summit 2009 taking place March 6-8. Organized by the Lesbian Health & Research Center at the University of California, San Francisco, among other groups, the summit “approaches health issues from the perspective of those who face disparities and discrimination and who also generate health and resilience everyday. We will engage in deep thinking and extended discussion to create new responses and innovative programming that reflect our lives.”

Should a TV Doctor be Surgeon General?: Well looks at what health and science blog are saying in response to the news that Sanjay Gupta, a neurosurgeon and CNN’s chief medical correspondent, is Obama’s pic for U.S. surgeon general. Rachel weighs in with some concerns. Here are more links from Shakesville.

The Easy-Bake Oven in My Vagina: Over at Womanist Musings, a reflection on motherhood, race and class includes this gem:

How many of you have run across the vagina equals Betty Crocker syndrome? If you have not, then you probably soon will.  The education system seems to think that this is still 1950 and that mothers are at home with tons of time on their hands to participate in bake sales.  This request is never gender neutral, even though Daddy has two perfectly good hands himself.  Why is this still the norm when most women work a double day?  Even if a woman is a stay at home mother how does a vagina translate into the ability to bake? Do I have an easy bake oven stashed somewhere in my vaginal opening that I was not aware of?

Pull Up a Chair: On my to-do list was to write about the blog The Kitchen Table, a dialog between Princeton University professors Melissa Harris-Lacewell and Yolanda Pierce. Miriam beat me to it and sums up why it’s an essential read.

In this post, Harris-Lacewell discusses violence against gays and lesbians, in the context of the movie “Milk” and the brutal gang rape of a woman who may have been targeted because she is openly lesbian. She writes:

As much as I appreciated Milk, the story has the unfortunate effect of reinscribing an image of gay identity as primarily white, male, urban, and childless. The American imagination of “gay people” as childless, white, men living in cities can render invisible lesbian mothers of color like the woman attacked in Richmond. [...]

Harvey Milk understood that “straight folks” needed to feel our interconnections with gay men and lesbians. We have to know that our destinies our intertwined. We cannot be a great and free country while we sanction violence against and degradation of our neighbors. I consider it a sacred and politically necessary task to speak out for the rights and equalities of others, because they are not truly other. We are all one.

Information on sending contributions or cards of sympathy and solidarity is also provided. Four suspects in the case were arrested last week.

Eye-Rolling Quote of the Week: Ann Coulter refers to single motherhood as “a recipe to create criminals, strippers, rapists, murderers.” Remind me again why she is considered a suitable interviewee?

The Deeper Truth: A new study that looked at the five most popular women’s magazines in Canada found that articles commonly portray cosmetic surgery as an empowering option that improves women’s emotional health, even though there’s no scientific consensus that it does anything of the sort. Here’s Reuters’ take, and the abstract:

Content analyses show the articles tend to present readers with detailed physical health risk information. However, 48% of articles discuss the impact that cosmetic surgery has on emotional health, most often linking cosmetic surgery with enhanced emotional well-being regardless of the patient’s pre-existing state of emotional health. The articles also tend to use accounts given by males to provide defining standards of female attractiveness.

Inside the Medicine Cabinet: Chicago Tribune health writer Julie Deardorff lists essential items to keep in your medicine cabinet (courtesy of the American College of Emergency Physicians) and chemicals found in personal care products that you might want to consider keeping out.

Look Your Best in the New Year: Writing in The New Yorker, Amy Ozol reveals her secrets to “a trim and attractive physique” in just nine easy steps. She spent years perfecting this system, as you can tell. A sampling:

Step 5: Surround yourself with thin people. This will naturally encourage you to emulate their healthy habits. Weigh your friends on a regular basis, then weigh yourself. Do you have a friend who weighs less than you? If so, consider gastric bypass surgery.

Well, it Wasn’t All Bad: “Although the number of uninsured and the cost of coverage have ballooned under his watch, President Bush leaves office with a health care legacy in bricks and mortar: he has doubled federal financing for community health centers, enabling the creation or expansion of 1,297 clinics in medically underserved areas,” reports The New York Times. Kevin Sack writes:

For those in poor urban neighborhoods and isolated rural areas, including Indian reservations, the clinics are often the only dependable providers of basic services like prenatal care, childhood immunizations, asthma treatments, cancer screenings and tests for sexually transmitted diseases.

As a crucial component of the health safety net, they are lauded as a cost-effective alternative to hospital emergency rooms, where the uninsured and underinsured often seek care.

Despite the clinics’ unprecedented growth, wide swaths of the country remain without access to affordable primary care. The recession has only magnified the need as hundreds of thousands of Americans have lost their employer-sponsored health insurance along with their jobs.

In response, Democrats on Capitol Hill are proposing even more significant increases, making the centers a likely feature of any health care deal struck by Congress and the Obama administration.

(Another) Survey Says: Abstinence Pledges Ineffective: “The new analysis of data from a large federal survey found that more than half of youths became sexually active before marriage regardless of whether they had taken a ‘virginity pledge,’ but that the percentage who took precautions against pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases was 10 points lower for pledgers than for non-pledgers,” reports the Washington Post.

“Taking a pledge doesn’t seem to make any difference at all in any sexual behavior,” Janet E. Rosenbaum of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, whose report appears in the January issue of the journal Pediatrics, told WaPo. “But it does seem to make a difference in condom use and other forms of birth control that is quite striking.”

Abortion Battle Brewing in South Carolina: “Abortion foes in the Legislature have sown the seeds of what could develop into another battle over regulating abortion in South Carolina,” reports The State. “Seven S.C. House lawmakers have prefiled a bill that would require women seeking abortions to be given a list of clinics and other facilities that provide free ultrasounds. That list could include pregnancy crisis centers — many run by antiabortion groups — that actively discourage abortion and encourage women to choose other alternatives.”

Genetic Testing and Ambiguity: “‘Information is power,’ has become a common mantra. But for many people seeking answers through genetic testing, all the DNA probing ends in this twist: Less certainty, not more,” begins this NPR report. The story focuses on Nashville novelist Susan Gregg Gilmore, who sought testing for mutations in the genes BRCA 1 and BRCA 2, which are associated with an increased risk of breast and ovarian cancers.

Cut Costs, Not Care: The L.A. Times has published the first installment of an ongoing feature on reducing health care costs. Part one covers drugs, doctor visits, surgery, flexible spending accounts, preventive care and insurance. Scroll down for links to online resources.

The Year in Medicine A-Z: Time magazine offers its annual alphabetical roundup of health stories and breakthroughs that made the news. (Ed. note – reading through it all requires clicking through 37 pages. “Single page” feature, anyone?)

Don’t Blink: Via Feminist Peace Network: “As we come to the final stretch of 2008, plagued as we are with the usual collection of horrors–Gaza burning, Tennessee buried in toxic ash, women and children being raped and killed in the Congo, and on and on, I’m sure y’all were just as relieved as I was to know that the FDA is considering approval of a glaucoma drug for eyelash enhancement, an idiocy I would have previously thought would be confined to the cable shopping networks.”

Missing on TV: GLBTQ Women: “Though 2008 comes to a close with word of possible new queer female characters on the horizon in the coming year, the prospects for lesbians and bisexual women on television over the last twelve months have been somewhat grim,” writes Karman Kregloe at AfterEllen.com. “This has been particularly true for lesbians, whose numbers on scripted network television have now dwindled to zero.”

Deep Thoughts for the New Year: “As the country plunges into recession, will financial hardship demote the pursuit of physical perfection?” asks The New York Times. A classic response:

“There comes a point when you are putting too much time and money into your vanity,” said Peri Basel, a practice consultant in Chappaqua, N.Y., who advises cosmetic doctors on marketing strategies. “For me, the vanity issue is: Where does it stop? If you are going for buttock implants, do you really need that?”

Dear readers, I am home, taking a bit of a vacation with a stack of library books. I have also been watching an unseemly amount of television. As a result, I’ve noticed that post-holiday weight-loss advertising is in full swing, primarily featuring and targeting women with commercials for “improving” your abs, mail-order diet food, and other products you don’t need.

This is the usual follow-up to the pre-holiday news about avoiding overeating — now they assume you ignored all of that annual advice, something is wrong with you, and buying stuff will fix that. Harumph.

Yesterday morning, a more specific warning against this post-holiday marketing came in the form of a post from The F-Word that alerts us to an FDA warning about a number of “weight loss” pills.

According to the agency:

An FDA analysis found that the undeclared active pharmaceutical ingredients in some of these products include sibutramine (a controlled substance), rimonabant (a drug not approved for marketing in the United States), phenytoin (an anti-seizure medication), and phenolphthalein (a solution used in chemical experiments and a suspected cancer causing agent). Some of the amounts of active pharmaceutical ingredients far exceeded the FDA-recommended levels, putting consumers’ health at risk.

The FDA alert includes a list of the products and additional details.

To remind yourself that you’re not alone in rejecting the advertising onslaught, you may also want to check out our content on body image and media, and bookmark some blogs such as The F-Word and Shapely Prose.

Oprah may never read this letter written to her (fingers crossed, a devoted assistant will leave it on her desk, with a bouquet of flowers), but you should.

Kate Harding, always a delight to read, has written one of the best posts ever about body image, diets and fat acceptance.

Bonus: Harding spoke with Oprah. Kinda. Hopefully she will again.

What are you still doing here? Seriously, go. Read it now.

Women’s Health Activist Newsletter: Check out the November/December issue of the Women’s Health Activist newsletter, a publication from the National Women’s Health Network, and you’ll see some familiar names.

Fellow OBOB writer Rachel Walden discusses the American Psychological Association’s report that found no solid scientific evidence that abortion causes mental distress in women. And OBOS Executive Director Judy Norsigian and Web Manager Kiki Zeldes explain why OBOS added a new title, “Our Bodies, Ourselves: Pregnancy and Birth,” and its relevance as an advocacy tool as well as a practical resource. Find those and other great articles here.

Love and Violence: “Even though India legalized inter-caste marriage more than 50 years ago, newlyweds are still threatened by violence, most often from their families,” writes Emily Wax in the Washington Post. “As more young urban and small-town Indians start to rebel and choose mates outside of arranged marriages and caste commandments, killings of inter-caste couples have increased, according to a recent study by the All India Democratic Women’s Association.”

Lost in Translation?: PAL, the Prescription Access Legislation Blog, praises the move by pharmacy chains CVS and Rite-Aid to offer spoken and written translations of prescription information, as required by New York state law. But PAL raises some good questions, such as: Who is responsible for the content and accuracy of the translated label? And how do small independent and community pharmacies fulfill this obligation?

Senators on Our Side: Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Patty Murray on Thursday introduced legislation to block the “provider conscience” regulation that Health and Human Services is expected to propose any day now.

“In the final days of his administration, the President is again putting ideology first and attempting to roll back health care protections for women and families,” said Sen. Clinton in a statement. And in a piece published at RH Reality Check, Clinton writes:

As many of you know, the rule being proposed by the administration would limit patients’ access to basic reproductive health care services and information. The Protecting Patients and Health Care Act would prevent HHS from implementing this ill-conceived, midnight regulation.

Senator Murray and I have been speaking out against this rule since July when word of this regulation first came to light. The rule, as it was then proposed in August by the Department of Health and Human Services, is a serious threat to patients’ access to information and care.

Then in September, Senator Murray and I had a very frank conversation with Secretary Leavitt about how this rule could create a slippery slope leading to patients being denied access to contraception and other important information or care. However, despite the important concerns we raised to the Secretary, a recent news report indicated that HHS is planning to release a final regulation in the coming days.

Plus: With all Clinton has done for women’s health as as senator, what might she do for women worldwide as secretary of state?

Timing Right for Healthcare Overhaul: “When Barack Obama steps into the Oval Office in January, healthcare reform will join a list of priorities crowded with two wars, a ballooning budget deficit and an economy mired in one of the worst slowdowns since the Great Depression,” reports the L.A. Times. “But the bleak environment may paradoxically spur the kind of costly, sweeping overhaul of the nation’s healthcare system that has eluded policymakers in Washington for decades, many political strategists, industry leaders and economists say.”

Plus: “Seizing on the momentum of the presidential election and the promise of change on a historic scale, a grassroots ‘conversation’ about health care reform under the Obama administration began Thursday with town hall meetings around the nation, including several in the Bay Area,” reports the San Francisco Chronicle.

When Mom’s a College Athlete: “Last week the NCAA unveiled their new handbook on how to deal with pregnancy. No, it’s not a sports version of Our Bodies Ourselves, but rather a much needed policy. Stories about a pregnant woman on the basketball team pop up now and then in the press, but with no firm rules, each woman was pretty much on her own,” writes Veronica, who goes on to note that the “guidelines are gender-neutral to allow for men to take leave, if their school provides any leave for new moms, as well as prohibiting punishment to women for having premarital sex if men aren’t also equally punished.”

Continue reading for a smart take on pregnancy and women’s sports.

Enlisting Salons in the Campaign Against Domestic Violence: “The privileged, often therapeutic relationship between hairdressers and clients has long been the subject of magazine articles and movies,” writes Leslie Kaufman in The New York Times. “A growing movement in New York and across the nation tries to harness that bond to identify and prevent domestic violence, a pervasive problem that victims are often too ashamed to reveal to law enforcement or other public officials.”

Plus: Many women separated from abusive partners still experience high-disability chronic pain after almost two years, according to Canadian researchers. Their article was published in The Journal of Pain, the peer review journal of the American Pain Society.

In Search of the Female Ideal: “The sexualization and ‘adultification’ of girls is a troubling enough trend. But it’s bookended with an equally disturbing phenomenon: the extreme ‘youthification’ of older women,” writes Anne Ream in this Chicago Tribune op-ed. I really liked the ending and want to read the book mentioned:

In her groundbreaking book, “The Body Project: An Intimate History of American Girls,” Cornell University researcher Joan Jacobs Brumberg examined the diaries of adolescent girls in the U.S. over the past 100 years to better understand how they discussed self-improvement. While girls of earlier eras focused on improving their studies and becoming better-mannered, the diary entries of contemporary young women showed an almost exclusive emphasis on improved or changed physical appearance.

Feminist firebrand Elizabeth Cady Stanton, in her renowned work, “Our Girls,” once wrote, “I would have girls regard themselves not as adjectives but as nouns.” It’s a hopeful sentiment that feels, right now, more nostalgic than ever before.

Scaring by Example: New York Times writer Lisa Belkin, who pens the Motherlode blog on parenting, recently invited her former editor, Catherine Saint Louis, to guest-blog about her baby’s birth. Saint Louis gave birth via c-section following the diagnosis of severe preeclampsia. Belkin writes in the intro:

Until she left on maternity leave and I began this blog, Catherine was my editor in Thursday Styles. She has long been the healthiest, strongest person I know, so it was particularly jarring when she called last week and told me the story she is about to tell you. She called on the day an article ran in Styles about how home births are on the rise. Catherine had thought of delivering at home. As she writes, her decision to head for the hospital may have saved her life.

In response to the implication that a planned home birth would have been a fatal decision, a number of readers note that midwives who do home births are trained to recognize trouble and would have transferred  the mother to a hospital.

DNA Backlog: In response to the nationwide backlog of rape kits awaiting DNA analysis, The New York Times calls on lawmakers “to address this ongoing insult to women and the intolerable loss for effective law enforcement.”

Girls Not Exactly Gone Wild: “Fewer girls were arrested last year for violent crimes than a decade earlier, according to new government research prompted by a surge in female juvenile delinquency in the 1990s,” reports USA Today. The U.S. Department of Justice found that arrests for aggravated assault by girls younger than 18 fell 17 percent between 1998 and 2007.

This week, Time magazine published an article on genital cosmetic surgery,
“Plastic Surgery Below the Belt,” focused on women getting procedures such as labiaplasty, vaginoplasty, and “G-spot enhancement.” It notes that the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists issued a statement that these procedures may lead to “scarring, chronic pain, obstetric risks or reduced sexual pleasure,” and that many are calling for more research on the procedures. In fact, ACOG noted this very problem in their statement, explaining that “No adequate studies have been published assessing the long-term satisfaction, safety, and complication rates for these procedures.”

Featured in the article are protests from the New View Campaign, which has at its goal to “to expose biased research and promotional methods that serve corporate profit rather than people’s pleasure and satisfaction. The Campaign challenges all views that reduce sexual experience to genital biology and thereby ignore the many dimensions of real life” and in general to “limit the medicalization of sexuality.” The group protested New York City’s Manhattan Center for Vaginal Surgery on Monday. Time reports that some attendees held signs referencing the normal variation in female anatomy that read “No two alike;” a visit to the group’s website reveals other messages as well, such as “stop marketing discontent.”

The piece also covers the (mis)conception that cosmetic surgery is an adequate solution to relationship or self-esteem problems. LeLaina Romero of the New View Campaign noted that, “Promoting a very narrow definition of what women’s genitals ought to look like — even for those women who don’t want surgery, it harms them.” Similarly, last year’s statement from ACOG suggested “a frank discussion of the wide range of normal genitalia” and “exploration of nonsurgical interventions, including counseling.”

Along these same lines, I just recently learned via a post at Mom’s Tinfoil Hat about the “MENding Monologues,” an all-male performance inspired by the Vagina Monologues conceived as “a love letter to women, a healing for men, and a call to end violence in all its forms.” One of the monologues is a somewhat humorous character, “Dr. Vaginsky,” who challenges the idea that women aren’t fine just the way they are.

For related OBOS content, see Female Sexual Dysfunction: A Feminist View as well as our previous blog posts, Marketing Female Sexual Dysfunction: The Search for the Pink Viagra and Selling Women Unsupported Health Messages and Insecurity about Their Vaginas.

Always Carry Protection: Lucinda Marshall has the goods on the Palin condom.

And did you know that as of Sept. 26, Planned Parenthood took in more $802,678 in donations from 31,313 people made in Sarah Palin’s name?

Donations poured in after an anonymous email was circulated urging donations in any amount and recommending that the personalized thank-you card from Planned Parenthood be sent to Palin at the McCain-Palin campaign headquarters in Virginia.

L.A. Times columnist Patt Morrison took credit for the fundraising, recalling how she first made a similar suggestion after President Bush took office in January 2001.

Every donation generated a “thank you card.” I envisioned a scene out of “Miracle on 34th Street,” sacks and sacks of thank-you cards from Planned Parenthood, delivered to Bush in the Oval Office.

It worked. Boy, did it. Ultimately, more than a million dollars, I was told, was generated for Planned Parenthood in Bush’s name. George Bush became one of the biggest money-generators in Planned Parenthood’s history. The idea won me an award from Planned Parenthood, and a splash in Ms. Magazine. So I am delighted that my ”Mother of All Ironic Donations” notion has been revived for Palin.

Jenny McCarthy v. Amanda Peet: Nothing like turning a disagreement over the safety of vaccines into a male fantasy. Seriously, why/how did this get published?

Chicago’s Toxic Air: Proving real journalism still happens at the Tribune, here’s the intro to a special report on toxic air pollution:

People living in Chicago and nearby suburbs face some of the highest risks in the nation for cancer, lung disease and other health problems linked to toxic chemicals pouring from industry smokestacks, according to a Tribune analysis of federal data.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency spent millions of dollars to assess the dangers that air pollution poses but has failed to fulfill promises to make the research more accessible to the public. So the Tribune is posting the information on its Web site, where users can easily find nearby polluters and the chemicals going into their air.

Those who look up Cook County will see it ranked worst in the nation for dangerous air pollution, based on 2005 data. The Tribune also found Chicago was among the 10 worst cities in the U.S.

Plus: The Trib also published a searchable database of health-risk information (based on the EPA’s Risk-Screening Environmental Indicators (RSEI) database) and the health effects of long-term exposure to various industry-produced chemicals.

Bioethicists Challenge Reticence to Include Pregnant Women in Medical Research: A paper to be posted online and later in print in the November edition of the International Journal of Feminist Approaches to Bioethics (IJFAB) argues why more pregnant women must be included in medical research.

“As a society we are ethically obliged to confront the complex challenges of pregnant women in research, otherwise we relegate all expectant mothers to second-class medical citizens,” said Ruth Faden, director of the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics, in this press release about the journal article.

“One of the key messages of this paper is that progress will not happen until we shift the burden of justification from inclusion to exclusion and to an explicit commitment to studying the effects of drugs in pregnancy,” Faden added.

Midwives Fight AMA to Provide Black Maternal Care: “Shafia Monroe’s sixth annual International Black Midwives and Healers Conference, taking place in New York’s Harlem neighborhood Oct. 10-12, comes in the middle of a showdown between home-birth midwives and the American Medical Association,” writes Malena Amusa at Women’s eNews.

The AMA wants to bar licensing to certified professional midwives, who specialize in out-of-hospital births (births at home and in birthing centers) and is backing state legislation that restricts licensing to nurse midwives who have additional nursing training and certification required to work in hospitals.

“Certified professional midwives are a critical component to meet the growing maternal health needs in the black community,” said Monroe, noting that every sort of midwife is needed to reduce maternal morality rates among African American women.

Read more about the history of black midwives at the International Center for Traditional Childbirth. Here’s the description of the conference (PDF), which takes place in Harlem.

Top Psychiatrist Didn’t Report Drug Makers’ Pay:  “One of the nation’s most influential psychiatrists earned more than $2.8 million in consulting arrangements with drug makers from 2000 to 2007, failed to report at least $1.2 million of that income to his university and violated federal research rules, according to documents provided to Congressional investigators,” reports Gardiner Harris in The New York Times. “The psychiatrist, Dr. Charles B. Nemeroff of Emory University, is the most prominent figure to date in a series of disclosures that is shaking the world of academic medicine and seems likely to force broad changes in the relationships between doctors and drug makers.”

Cancer Research Briefing: Bloggers recently had a chance to discuss the current state of cancer research and biotechnology with Dr. Gil G. Mor, an associate professor at Yale Medical School and director of Reproductive Immunology and Translational Research in Gynecologic Oncology, and Lori Lober, who was diagnosed with stage IV breast cancer in 2000 and has maintained a diagnosis of “no evidence of disease” for five years.

Treating Vascular Disease in Women: Arterial vascular disease is underdiagnosed and undertreated in older women, according to studies. Earlier this year, medical experts met to discuss the differences between men and women when it comes to the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of vascular diseases such as heart attacks and strokes. Out of that symposium came newly released recommendations for improving research on sex differences.

Losing the Weight Stigma: The Idea Lab section of The New York Times Sunday Magazine questions the “war on fat” and offers examples of how academics and activists are emphasizing health over weight. Robin Marantz Henig writes:

This is a core argument of fat acceptance: that it’s possible to be healthy no matter how fat you are and that weight loss as a goal is futile, unnecessary and counterproductive — and that fatness is nobody’s business but your own.

Many fat-acceptance activists prefer a new approach to dieting that focuses on nutrition, exercise and body image. A new book out this fall, “Health at Every Size,” by Linda Bacon, a nutritionist and physiologist at the University of California at Davis, outlines this approach, which is less about dieting than a lifestyle change that emphasizes “intuitive eating”: listening to hunger signals, eating when you’re hungry, choosing nutritious food over junk. It encourages exercise, but for its emotional and physical benefits, not as a way to lose weight. It advocates tossing out the bathroom scale and loving your body no matter what it weighs.

The philosophy is migrating slowly into mainstream programs, like a spa in Vermont that focuses on “acceptance of ourselves and our wonderful sizes.” But the spas and other programs have trouble with the bottom line of fat acceptance — rejection of weight loss as a goal. Weight Watchers, for instance, uses some of the same slogans, and while it promotes its program as “not a diet,” it still tracks weight loss down to the decimal point.

Last week, some of us received PR materials for a “therapeutic vaginal cleansing system” (or douche) complete with a “just add tap water” headline. As we note in this piece on vaginal infections, routine douching isn’t recommended because it can upset the natural balance of your vagina. 4women.gov has additional information on why douching is a bad idea. Naturally, then, I approached this product, “WaterWorks,” skeptically.

The WaterWorks website is pretty much standard as far as selling products based on an idea that vaginas are somehow dirty. The site claims that “regular use of WaterWorks will safely and effectively reduce or eliminate vaginal odor,” and goes on to suggest that it may reduce the risk of infection, helping women to be “fresher” and “cleaner.” It also reinforces worries that vaginal odor is embarrassing and may affect women’s love, social and professional (?!) lives — along these lines, many of the testimonials report increased “confidence” with use of the product.

The company reports that the product is “FDA approved” and “clinically proven.” The device does have FDA approval, through the premarket notification system — this means that it was substantially similar to something already on the market and so the company is allowed to advertise and sell it. The description as “clinically proven” is apparently the result of one published study on the product — an open label, non-randomized case series, which means that there was no comparison group, and everybody knew what they were getting.

The study only included 10 patients who complained of strong vaginal odor, and they were instructed to use this tap water douche daily. At the end of the study (four weeks of using the product), there was no difference in vaginal pH or the level of healthy bacteria. Vaginal odor was measured according to the patients’ perceptions — whether they thought odor was reduced — and half the subjects thought their odor problem completely went away after using the product, but there were no objective measures to report.

In short, it’s a very small study with a fairly weak design, and yet is touted by the product website as having “astounding” results, with a pitch designed to play on women’s insecurities about their bodies.

What is it, though, really? WaterWorks is a stainless steel hose and nozzle that you hook up to your shower so you can squirt water into your vagina, and it looks like a dildo. No, really. When I did some online searching for this or similar products, I found that the majority of the hits were for online sex toy shops.

Perhaps, then, it’s approval as a “therapeutic” device through the FDA might allow this item to sneak past laws such as the one in Alabama, which forbids the sale of sex toys unless they have a “medical” purpose. It strikes me as rather along the lines of the “massagers” sold in department stores, and while the marketing is troublesome, the other possibilities of this device and others like it may be something else altogether!

The blogger at Body Impolitic also has a hilarious take on this product — check it out.

A new study published Monday confirms that body weight isn’t an accurate indicator for certain health risks.

Researchers found that almost one-quarter of adults who were classified as “normal” weight, or approximately 16.3 million people nationwide, have indicators for one or more of the risks usually associated with being overweight — such as elevated blood pressure or higher levels of triglycerides, blood sugar and cholesterol.

And slightly more than half of overweight adults, or about 36 million people, and almost one-third of obese adults, 19.5 million people, were deemed metabolically healthy. (Weight classifications were determined by body mass index, a height-weight ratio that is criticized for not distinguishing between fat and muscle.)

In both “normal weight” and “overweight” or “obese” groupings,  older adults, people who smoked, and those with greater waist circumferences were more likely to have health risks. Physical activity levels also were a factor.

“We’re really talking about taking a look with a very different lens” at weight and health risks, study author MaryFran Sowers, a professor of public health at University of Michigan, told the AP. Lindsey Tanner reports:

It’s no secret that thin people can develop heart-related problems and that fat people often do not. But that millions defy the stereotypes will come as a surprise to many people, Sowers said.

Even so, there’s growing debate about the accuracy of the standard method of calculating whether someone is overweight. Health officials rely on the body mass index, a weight-height ratio that does not distinguish between fat and lean tissue. The limits of that method were highlighted a few years ago when it was reported that the system would put nearly half of NBA players in the overweight category.

A number of experts say waist size is a more accurate way of determining someone’s health risks, and the study results support that argument.

Dr. Robert Eckel, a former American Heart Association president and professor of medicine at the University of Colorado, said the new research may help dismiss some of the generalizations that are sometimes made about weight and health.

Study co-author Judith Wylie-Rosett emphasized that the study shouldn’t send the message “that we don’t need to worry about weight.” That’s because half of overweight people do face elevated risks for heart disease, explained Wylie-Rosett, a nutrition researcher at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York.

But, for those without elevated risks, losing weight “might be important only from a cosmetic perspective,” she said.

Given that body weight is an emotionally complicated issue for women — and that fat people are blamed for everything, including rising health care costs, the study is an important addition to the research, though as Kate Harding notes — “GEE, YOU DON’T SAY” — the findings aren’t exactly new.  (Also be sure to read one of Kate’s previous posts about fat and health).

Sigh. Changing public attitudes may be as much of an uphill battle as changing beauty standards.

“The Obese Without Cardiometabolic Risk Factor Clustering and the Normal Weight With Cardiometabolic Risk Factor Clustering” was published in the Archives of Internal Medicine. The study included 5,440 adult participants in the government’s National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys (NHANES), conducted between 1999 and 2004. Smoking, physical activity, alcohol intake and use of medications were assessed by self-reporting.

On the Road: I’m posting from Kansas, on the way from Chicago to South Lake Tahoe … If anyone has suggestions for good food/must-see stops convenient to I-70, I’d love to hear from you! (My recommendation for Kansas City: Blue Nile Cafe and a super funky coffee house in the Crossroads Arts District — argh! what was the name! — that made our morning with a yummy veggie breakfast sandwich.) Rachel will be doing some extra blog posts next week, and I’ll be back Aug. 7. Have a great end of July!

Botox for Bridesmaids: Seriously …? The New York Times has found a new “skin deep” trend: “It is no longer sufficient to hire a hairstylist and makeup artist to be on hand the day of. Instead, bridal parties are indulging in dermal fillers and tooth-whitening months before the Big Day,” writes Abby Ellin.

Some brides pick up the tab for their attendants, replacing the pillbox inscribed with the wedding date with a well-earned squirt between the eyes. In other cases, bridesmaids — who may quietly seethe about unflattering dresses — are surprisingly willing to pay for cosmetic enhancements. “Most women, when they come in here, they want it,” said Camille Meyer, the owner of TriBeCa MedSpa. “They know they’re aging.”

For Karen Hohenstein, who held her party at the Tiffani Kim Institute Medical Wellness Spa in Chicago, convincing her friends was as smooth as a Botoxed forehead. “It wasn’t me saying, ‘Hey, we all could use a little something,’” she said. “It was, ‘I want to do this,’ and a couple of people said, ‘I do, too.’”

But for every accommodating pal, there’s another who feels going under the knife is beyond the duty of bridesmaid. Becky Lee, 39, a Manhattan photographer, declined when a friend asked her — and five other attendants — to have their breasts enhanced. “We’re all Asian and didn’t have a whole lot of cleavage, and she found a doctor in L.A. who was willing to do four for the price of two,” said Ms. Lee, who wore a push-up bra instead.

Plus: Why Brides-to-Be Are Starving Themselves Skinny

Hospitals Work to Get Healthier With New Design: “With hospital-acquired infections claiming more American lives each year than AIDS, breast cancer or automobile accidents, it seems the very facilities built to heal us have themselves become dangerous places,” writes Lisa Zamosky in the L.A. Times. “Two million patients each year suffer from a hospital-acquired infection, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say, and nearly 100,000 of them die as a result. Architects believe that doesn’t have to be the case.”

No More Trans Fats in CA: California on Friday became the first state to ban trans fats from restaurant food, following the lead of cities like New York, Philadelphia and Seattle, reports the AP.

The legislation signed by Schwarzenegger will take effect Jan. 1, 2010, for oil, shortening and margarine used in spreads or for frying. Restaurants could continue using trans fats to deep-fry yeast dough and in cake batter until Jan. 1, 2011.

Trans fats occur naturally in small amounts in meat and dairy products. Most trans fats are created when vegetable oil is treated with hydrogen to create baked and fried goods with a longer shelf life.

Stephen Joseph, a Tiburon attorney who was a consultant to New York City in developing its ban, said trans fat is a larger health risk than saturated fat because it reduces so-called good cholesterol.

A 2006 review of trans fat studies by the New England Journal of Medicine concluded there was a strong connection between consumption of trans fats and heart disease. Studies also have linked trans fats to diabetes, obesity, infertility in women and some types of cancer.

Gaming’s Big Picture: Blogging at Feministe, Holly, who designs video games for a living, writes about the reaction to and defenses of the new game “Fat Princess.” While the narrative is a send-up of damsel-in-distress games, “there are a lot of ways you could send up that cliche, but of all the possibilities, Titan chose to make the princess FAT,” writes Holly.

“The joke here is also obvious: LOL who would want to rescue a fat chick? It’s a shtick that’s been used in animation and film plenty of times; the dashing hero thinks he’s rescuing a beautiful damsel in distress, but the ‘joke’ is on him because it turns out she’s larger than acceptable! And therefore unattractive and a horrible burden for him to rescue, of course.” Read more.

McCain’s War on Women: “McCain’s campaign has been making a clear play for women voters in recent weeks, hosting conference calls with Republican women and touting that his policies on national security, the economy and healthcare appeal to women voters,” writes Kate Shepard at In These Times. “But the suggestion that women — and feminist women, at that — will be lining up behind him is a fairytale. At least, it should be. McCain’s record and policies on issues of importance to women are neither moderate nor maverick.” — A very good round-up of McCain’s voting record.

What We Want to Hear: In this well-crafted video, RH Reality Check’s Amanda Marcotte surveys attendees of the 2008 Netroots Nation conference about their views on reproductive health and politics. Yes, it’s a self-selected group of progressives, but it’s still nice to hear smart talk on the topic.

Plus: View highlights of the Netroots Nation panel featuring Marcela Howell, Amanda Marcotte, and Eesha Pandit discussing ways to use language to overcome the powerful framing devices commonly used by opponents of reproductive health.

Health Care for All: Progressive Democrats of America is seeking signatures for its Statement in Support of Universal Health Care as a plank in the Democratic Party Platform of 2008. Rep. John Conyers, co-author of the statement, was the first Democratic National Convention delegate to sign on.

Domestic Violence Memo: Over a thousand U.S. women are killed each year by a current or former intimate partner. Two million a year are injured. A sexual assault occurs every two minutes. Read the “memo” — fifth in series on the status of U.S. women that Women’s eNews wants to deliver to the candidates.

Test of Justice for Rape Victims: “Every year, more than 200,000 rape victims, mostly women, report their rapes to police. Most consent to the creation of a rape kit, an invasive process for collecting physical evidence (including DNA material) of the assault that can take up to six hours. What most victims don’t know is that in thousands of cases, that evidence sits untested in police evidence lockers,” writes Sarah Tofte, a researcher at Human Rights Watch, in this Washington Post column.

An article in today’s New York Times describes a “medical spa” in Manhattan described as the first facility “dedicated to strengthening and grooming a woman’s genital area.”

The facility’s own website refers to its services as addressing “feminine fitness.” The physician running the “spa” stated, “If you can vote and you have a vagina, you should do these. It’s the dental floss of feminine fitness.”

To be clear, “feminine fitness” is a made-up phrase with no standard medical meaning, and the definition of physical fitness in general can be variable and subjective. Never mind that, though – I’m still hung up on “if you can vote and you have a vagina.”

Dr. Romanzi, the founder of the facility, was no doubt trying to suggest that regular pelvic exercises (such as Kegels) served a preventive, health-preserving purpose, although this may not actually be the case. I did a quick search of the medical literature for any evidence of long-term benefits or protective effects of pelvic floor muscle training, and did not turn up any relevant studies of the topic. There does seem to be some support for pelvic floor muscle training related in improving symptoms of urinary incontinence, but as one physician interviewed for the article stated, “If this is being recommended to women who have no symptoms, then there are no medical organizations or literature that support that that is necessary.”

Indeed, the “spa” also offers other services such as labiaplasty and “wrinkle reduction” – referring to them as “rejuvenation” – that have little to do with actual health. Perhaps appropriately, the article was published in the “Fashion” section of the paper’s website, rather than in “Health.”

This one little facility in the big city probably shouldn’t garner so much attention, but the unsupported selling to women of this as a “health” issue – not to mention the implications about what is acceptable for women’s bodies – really bothers me. The Times reporter seems to get the issue just right – “The advent of the pelvic spa, however, takes body fixation to a new level, furthering the idea that there is no female body part that cannot be tightened, plumped, trimmed or pruned.”

It’s that time of year again … when women’s magazines trumpet how to get a bikini-ready body in just eight — no, six! no, four! — weeks.

We found a much healthier countdown plan: 28 Days to a Bikini Mind, written by Marina Wolf Ahmad and published at Shapely Prose.

Ahmad is the founder of Big Moves, which describes itself as “the only producing, training, and service organization in the world dedicated to getting more people of all sizes into the dance studio and up on stage.”

As she parodies women’s health magazines that are heavy into guilt and one-size-fits-all expectations, Ahmad’s essay is all about getting more women of all sizes to feel comfortable no matter what they wear.

If you’re a one-piece kind of woman hankering for a bikini-ready body, I’ve got news for you: EVERY body is bikini ready! Got tits of some sort? Got a crotch to cover? That’s what a bikini is for! When fashion magazines talk about “a bikini body”, they’re just selling you more insecurity. If you want to wear a bikini, all you need is a Bikini Mind.

Here’s a plan designed to shift those pesky mental blocks that all the dieting and the exercise in the world won’t. Don’t worry — if a string isn’t your thing, and you’re more of a tankini kind of gal, or you’re simply hoping to feel better in a suit with a daring back or a few strategically-placed keyholes, this mental workout’s for you! [...]

These exercises will strengthen and tone your bikini mind. To feel even better in your own skin, try to eat intuitively from an assortment of foods and drinks that you actually derive pleasure from, and move about in ways that are enjoyable and comfortable to you. If you stick to the plan, in as soon as four weeks you’ll be more at home in your body, and that’ll help you feel great in whatever bathing suit you choose!

Make sure to read the full training regimen, which includes handy technique and safety tips — just like those “fitness” articles.

Plus: Check out Big Moves’ performance calendar. Readers lucky enough to be in Montreal next month can catch the dance troupe at the annual Fringe Festival.