cà phê sữa

This one is for my Mum.



How To Make Vietnamese Coffee from High Beam Media on Vimeo.

by Eric Slatkin

via Life: The Atlantic

Reclaiming the F Word

The New Feminist Movement
by Catherine Redfern and Kristin Aune

Sometimes I argue with a few people whether feminism is the right word to use anymore. By continuing to call myself a feminist, does this only further the confusion around what that really means? For me, it used to elicit images of the mother in Mary Poppins, while Mary Poppins cared for her children Mrs. Banks (Glynis Johns) rallied for the vote for women.

But that's certainly not entirely what it means, is it?

From the book's website here

I picked up this book for the shelf of the Northern District Toronto Public library (my current favourite for content) a bit by happenstance. It had a curious cover and the titled rubbed me the right way, right away.

"I'm not a feminist, but..."
Redfern and Aune start by pointing out that despite claims that either feminism is dead or the other extreme that feminism has gone way over-the-top, most people do align with feminist values, it's just that they don't call it like it is. They consider that "rather than thinking that feminism has failed because 'only' 25% of women are feminists, we need to keep in mind that being an active feminist was never a popular choice, even in the 1970s. And 25% is a very good support base for a social movement."Furthermore, the methods might be a bit different now to show one's feminist stripes.

So why do people shy away from the word feminism? Redfern and Aune speculated that some may not consider themselves "active" enough to take on the label, while others are men who avoid it on the basis of their sex.  Some may also associate it with a particular feminist that they did not like or thought that it predominated with white, middle-class women's issues. Really, it seems obvious that the problem is in the definition of feminism.

Is feminism no longer needed?
No. Certainly things have come a long way in terms of women's rights, precisely as a result of earlier feminist movements, but there remains a lot to do! As Redfern and Aune say, "women's visibility  in popular culture doesn't mean women are valued, safe from violence or equal."And later in the book, "Women are still being raped, paid less than men, and access to abortion is restricted."

Defining Feminism
Through this book, Redfern and Aune sought just that, to identify what feminism is up to today. Perhaps one of the biggest challenges in feminism today is the "how"and "what" of equality, and debates certainly rage even among feminists over issues like pornography, the sex industry and men's role in feminism. As a disclaimer, Redfern and Aune note, "Not everyone will agree on the issues we've highlighted, and everyone will prioritise them in different ways. Even if you are a feminist, you certainly won't agree with everything you read here." But is that not part of feminism? Challenging the norm and embodying different beliefs in an open debate. In seeking to be liberated from oppression, it would be quite silly for feminists to then oppress others.

Feminism is...
... an individual survival mechanism: "It assures that you have the right to live your life the way you want and imagine a brighter future for the world. It prompts you to question the status quo, rather than assuming that the way things are is the best they can be."

... collective action: "Feminism assures you that you're not alone, that the problems you experience are shared by others, and that, as a woman or a gender non-conforming person, your concerns are important." and  "Feminism provides you with a support network for your interests and campaigns. It enables us to band together on issues we agree on."

... collective impact: "Feminism encourages us to consider the wider impact of our actions. In other words, it's not just about us, but is about ending sexism and liberating everyone from centuries of oppression based on gender."

Chapters
1. Liberated bodies
2. Sexual freedom and choice
3. An end to violence against women
4. Equality at work and home
5. Politics and religion transformed
6. Popular culture free from sexism
7. Feminism

French Toast!

Sunday brunch French toast!

My mother had given me some lovely bread which I had somewhat forgotten about and had become a bit hard in the fridge. One was a walnut loaf and the other hazelnut and raisin. I sliced each into thick slices and, for the first time, made French toast! The recipe is from Allrecipes.com (see it here), thanks Jan Bittner. The house smells delicious.

Ingredients
 6 thick slices bread
2 eggs
2/3 cup milk
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon (optional)
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg (optional)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (optional)
salt to taste

Strawberry topping: 1 cup of frozen strawberries (pre-sliced), big spoonful of brown sugar, 1/4 cup of water; bring to a boil and simmer to thicken for the duration of the cook time of the French toast.

Icing sugar topping (optional)

Directions
 Beat together egg, milk, salt, desired spices and vanilla. Heat a lightly oiled griddle of skillet over medium-high flame (as if, my elements took a little longer to heat, and I'd say my pan was medium-ly oiled). Dunk each slice of bread in egg mixture, soaking both sides (if I were to do this again I would probably soak them a bit longer, especially for thick and dense bread). Place in pan, and cook on both sides until golden. Serve hot.

FAM Step 1: The Menstrual Cycle

FAM: Fertility Awareness Method

This is a follow-up to the post on myths about contraceptives.

As recommended by the instructor of that talk, I picked up the book "Taking Charge of Your Fertility: The Definitive Guide to Natural Birth Control, Pregnancy Achievement, and Reproductive Health" by Toni Weschler (book cover from their website, see it here). I tried with all my feminist might not to feel awkward finding it and buying it from the bookstore, but alas, it was awkward.

The first couple chapters were essentially about the myths about contraceptives and widespread misunderstandings that were further perpetuated by ignorant health professionals (like me). The third chapter was about the reproductive anatomy of both men and women, parts of which I'll touch on in this post.

The chapter I wanted to discuss, however, is this one.



Chapter 4: Finally Making Sense of Your Menstrual Cycle

You'll be perhaps a bit shocked to know that I have been reading this book aloud in the evenings and that both P and I have been enjoying it. It's well written, comprehensive, and even pretty funny at times.

FELOP
Most of us have seen this diagram before. Lots of lines, very little concrete meaning.

The menstrual cycle has two phases -- Follicular and Luteal -- with ovulation as the dividing line. FELOP is an acronym to help with the order of the hormones.

Folicular phase
This phase starts at the first day of menstruation (menses) and lasts a different amount of time for different people, averaging (but not set on) about 14 days. F is for FSH (Follicle Stimulating Hormone), as it surges at the far left of our chart, 15 to 20 lucky eggs start to mature in each ovary. Each embedded in their individual follicles, they race to grow the biggest to be the one egg that is released that month.

This process is fairly sensitive to lifestyle or physiological factors (e.g. stress or hormone insufficiencies), that cause a delay in the release of the winning egg. It takes whatever time the body needs to reach the threshold of (E is for) estrogen to cause ovulation (it make take 14 but it may also take 30 or any other number, prolonging or shortening the length of that person's cycle that month). At the threshold, estrogen opens the floodgates of LH (L is for Luteinizing Hormone) which cause the egg to burst through the ovarian wall (O is for Ovulation) within a day or so.

The unlucky remaining eggs disintegrate (atresia). The winning egg, ironically the size of a period at the end of a sentence, "tumbles out into the pelvic cavity, where it is quickly swept up by the fingerlike projections of the fallopian tubes, called fimbria... the fimbria reach over and draw it into the adjoining tube. Occasionally, the fimbria do not retrieve the egg, and therefore pregnancy would not be possible that cycle."

Left behind, the follicle that the winning egg was sitting in becomes the corpeus luteum, hence the name of the cycle from this point on.

Luteal phase
Unlike the follicular phase, the luteal phase is more defined in length, because the corpeus luteum has a finite lifespan of about 12 to 16 days (averaging just over 12 days). In blue on our chart, it's role is to release (P is for) Progesterone which
- prevents the release of another egg (thank goodness that twins is not the norm, but on occasion two or more eggs are released and if fertilized by sperm will be fraternal twins)
- cause the lining of the uterus (called endometrium) to thicken and get ready for a potential pregnancy
- cause the 3 primary fertility signs to change: waking temperature, cervical fluid and cervical position

The egg only lives for 24 hours.

Conception
If one of the very numerous handsome sperm travels up meet and fertilize the egg in the fallopian tube, the two are bonded, preventing other sperm from coming in. They travel for a week down into the uterus and plant themselves into the endometrium.

If conception does not occur and send feedback to the the corpeus luteum to hang in there, it lives out it's life span and menstruation finally occurs starting a new cycle.

A nice animation by Felix Meyer, Pascal Monaco, and Torsten Strer via The Atlantic.


Hitch from Pascal Monaco on Vimeo.

Bisphenol A

Bisphenol A (BPA) is found in epoxy resins and polycarbonate plastic. Translation: it's found in virtually everything and everyone.

What do I use that has BPA?
You might be aware of the campaigns against plastic bottles, as see in the comprehensive videos of the Story of Stuff (source of the line-drawing images, see the comprehensive video here).

We are largely exposed to BPA by ingestion of food from cans (inner lining), plastic-packaged food and bottled drinks. It especially leaches into food/drinks when they are warm or acidic.It is also found in other products that we touch all the time, such as thermal paper (e.g. receipts, event and cinema tickets, labels, and airline tickets) or carbonless copy paper, where it may be later ingested when hands come into contact with food.

The sad unethical reality of it is that for those who cannot afford to buy fresh food as a primary source of nutrition, packaged goods and canned goods may be the only way to eat enough. Better to eat something rather than nothing? But the health consequences are doubly felt by those who depend on food banks and are living in poverty. Green consumerism is a privilege in our society.

What health consequences?
BPA is one of many compounds that are known to have endocrine disrupting effects. Endocrine is just a fancy word for messenger molecules, among the most commonly known are hormones. In the case of BPA, it mimics estrogen and interferes with estrogen receptors, which are found all over the body, in men and women, and not just in the reproductive organs. This causes widespread problems, especially when exposed during periods of accelerated growth (e.g. fetal, early years, puberty, pregnancy). The concern was great enough that our government has banned the use of BPA in baby bottles. But what about everything else? As it stands, it would be a HUGE overhaul to remove BPA from all the products its found in and the government has declared that the quantities are negligible. Though really, these molecules are very effective at low doses, that's precisely how they work!

There is a long list of health problems that are suspected to be related to BPA exposure, here are some: neurological deficits, disrupts thyroid function, sexual organ anomalies, and certain types of cancer (particularly breast, prostate and brain). There is also a growing concern in the potential relation between BPA exposure and the increasing rates of obesity.

Myths about Contraceptives

Last Thursday I had some time to spare before this talk about contraceptives so I was trying on a dress in the changeroom. I looked up and noticed that my glasses were crooked. This always drives me nuts, so I went to try to adjust them and SNAP. Fuck. I think I might have said that out loud. The glasses, which are the rimless kind, had snapped right through the lens, hanging on by a plastic thread. I didn't buy the dress.

The point is, that this lecture was so well presented and interesting that I forgot all about this momentous event that had happened only moments before and even stayed around for a few minutes afterward to talk to the speaker.

Wikipedia

Amy Sedgwick will tell you that it is from her own bad experience with popular birth control that lead her to where she is today, as one of the sisters of the Red Tent Sisters (see them here). Named after the book the Red Tent by Anita Diamant (an excellent read, I recommend it), this is one of the few, if not only, places that offer non-religious affiliated support in Fertility Awareness in Toronto as an alternative to hormonal birth control, more on that later.

In a small, warm room in the Women's Healthy Environments Network's floor of the Centre for Social Innovation, about two dozen women filed in, sneaking through the café as the doors had been locked out front by mistake.

Myth #1: There are no serious health risks
Birth control places you at higher risk for migraines and, likely related, stroke. Add to that if you are a smoker or have a family history of stroke and the risks are quite significant. For cancer risk, it varies in protecting or contributing depending on the study and the combination of hormones. Sedgwick recommended to consider your family risk and then look up one that is most suited to that risk. Birth control is also known to cause an increase in mood disorders, particularly depression and hindered libido.

(a) Normal, (b) With birth control
Green (LH), Yellow (LH),
Blue (Estrogen), Red (progesterone)

Myth #2: It helps regulate cycles
Technically, a birth control cycle is not really a cycle at all. It keeps your body stagnating at one level of hormone for 3 weeks and then allows for a withdrawal bleed for the 4th week (more on how contraceptives work here). The withdrawal bleed is hardly even necessary, but when marketing the product, it was found that women responded better to this false bleed as confirmation that they were not pregnant and also mistook this for a sign of their continued fertility.

Sedgwick also cautions on the use to regulate cycle because it is often the rationale for putting very young women on birth control before their bodies have even begun to regulate their own cycle. It also, of course, ignores the underlying problem and it is likely that, when taken off the birth control, the problem will persist, causing undue distress.

Myth #3: It has no environmental impact
In order to reach the peak amounts of birth control in the blood stream to prevent ovulation, more than normal amounts of the medication must be taken, particularly because the oral route is not entirely efficient at absorbing the medication. So where does the excess go? You either excrete it through your feces or pee it all out. As one of the most widely prescribed medications, it flows in tremendous quantities back out into our water supply, into our ecosystems. The feminization of fish populations is only the beginning of this slippery slope of environmental pollution.

Sedgwick also points us toward thinking about the ethics of pharmaceutical companies, at their abuses of the environment but also in the ways they tailor their ads to feed misconceptions to the public about the positive aspects of pharmaceuticals and birth control.

Myth #4 and #5: Only form of reversible birth control and has no effect on future fertility

Sedgwick reminds us that it takes on average 9 months to regain fertility after cessation of the birth control pill, heavily based on length of time of use and time of initiation (e.g. how young). The intrauterine device (IUD) is one method, which can be found both with or without hormones. She does warn though, that it places the uterus in a permanent state of inflammation and has the risk of puncturing the uterus wall, and considers that this may cause some issues. Her personal favourite, and a big reason she got into this business, is Fertility Awareness. This is basically getting to know your own body's day to day signs of fertility (mucous consistency, body temperature). Essentially, an egg is only fertile for 15 to 24 hours and add to that, the lifespan of a sperm, 3 to 5 days, you're only able to get pregnant in a period less than a week. It starts to seem absurd then, to be taking hormones daily for something that is so contained to a certain time. And let's not forget that birth control does not protect against everything.

I think that birth control has transformed the lives of women but, and this seems to be what Sedgwick was getting at as well, we need to move on to better things now. Young girls need to be encouraged to get to know their own bodies, whether or not they are having sex. The information that they get out of Fertility Awareness also serves as an indicator of general health, such as nutrition or pinning down food allergies and intolerances.

Global Enviro. Change & Human Security

An Introduction

by Jon Barnett, Richard A. Matthew and Karen L. O'Brien


I read the intro to this book as a pleasure read after some questions arose from my work assignment on summarizing gender and climate change. The words used in dialogues of climate change and action were ambiguous and I wanted to shed some light on social justice in this area.

Oddly enough, I've already returned this book to the Toronto Public Library but a good portion of this chapter is available on google books.

Firstly, the authors define what is meant by "global."

These environmental changes are "global" because they are ubiquitous and because some pollutants such as greenhouse gases and radioactive wastes have global consequences. They are also "global" inasmuch as their origins lie in the consumption of resources in markets that are often very distant from the sites of resource extraction [...] "Global" in this sense does not mean that responsibility for environmental change is shared equally among all people, or that the impacts of these changes are uniformly distributed among all places. Instead, global refers to the linkages between environmental changes and social consequences across distant places, groups and time horizons.

Security, though it seems to hint at the more traditional view of military security, in this book is defined much more broadly to represent energy security, economic security, environmental security, food security and so on. Unfortunately, it is along the military and strict immigration policy fronts that governments have been securitizing their boarders in the face of global environmental change. Though perhaps, what books like this one are trying to point out is that global environmental change knows no boarders, and those who are already marginalized suffer more from shifting funds into military/securitizing actions and away from sustainable development, including development to promote social justice.

From their website (see it here), they define human security as such:

a state that is achieved when and where individuals and communities have the options necessary to end, mitigate or adapt to threats to their human, environmental and social rights; have the capacity and freedom to exercise these options; and actively participate in pursuing these options. As with most definitions of human security, the focus is on security for individuals and communities, rather than on states.

It is about needs and rights. It is about how current violations of needs and rights can only get worse for many communities and individuals. Perhaps it is important to consider, for a moment, that feelings of security, certainly at a personal level are merely perceptions. I perceive that I live in a safe neighbourhood with good access to food, etc. , but compared to what? Without digging myself too deeply into relativism, I am trying to say that perceptions are important, pointing out the strengths and weaknesses of communities and individuals to environmental change is important in shaping their needs and wants. If led to feel too secure, some feel that their input is not needed and what will be will be, without further regard for the needs and wants of their neighbours and neighbouring communities. It is in shaping human security as global that we must take responsibility and culpability for the lack of human security and the threats we pose on others' human security in the world we share.

Evergreen Brick Works

Had a lovely visit to the Brick Works with an old friend last week (she took the picture of me).

What a lovely place. A fine mix of grungy, modern and ecological. Every little detail is thought out with new and innovative ideas toward sustainability and community development.

We walked from St. Clair station, taking, at a pretty comfortable pace, about 45 minutes to an hour. The walk, at first a bridge over David A Belfour Park, into a residential area, and through Moore Park Ravine to the Don Valley Brick Works Park.

Built on the remains of an old brick factory, the place is a bit of a sanctuary from the don valley parkway, although you can still hear a bit of a whirr of traffic. It sits on top and beside a swamp, with a nice path that they've laid out beside it. What is, in fact, the difference between a swamp and a bog? And a marsh, for that matter.

Anyway, the location is lovely and the place for some quite ritzy events as well as some more grassroots and not-for-profit programmes. They have a great website, check it out here.

It's much closer to Sherbourne station, but I highly recommend the walk down the valley. You can take a bus from St. Clair to avoid the lesser nice part of the walk.



Evergreen Brick Works logo from their website.

Challenges in Global Maternal & Child Health

How Can We Contribute?
Global Health Discussion Forum, Sept. 9th
Speaker: Prof. Zulfiqar A. Bhutta

In the Hollywood Theatre of SickKids Hospital, I sat between a WHO infectious disease policy writer and a PhD candidate in bioethics and theology. Humbled by the impressive members of the audience, I actually felt quite at home.

This was a wonderful talk. An update on where we're at with two of the following Millenium Development Goals (more on those here):

#4: Reduce Child Mortality
#5: Improve Maternal Health

Simple enough. Statistically, we have seen some improvements, but what I really appreciated about Bhutta was when he presented the quote by Albert Einstein:

"Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted."

There is great truth to this. Though it is important that programmes are accountable to their funders and to the people to whom they provide a service, sometimes it is difficult to portray quality and outcomes in statistical reports. Certainly, if you have to present your outcomes of a project within a few years of initiation, it is also difficult to foresee future positive impacts. Statistics have no meaning without considering the lived experiences, without considering them as real people. The fact that 70% of countries, according to Bhutta,  are not on track to the Milenium targets is huge. That 350 000 women and 8 million children under 5 die a year is overwhelming.


The second thing I loved about this presentation, was that Bhutta pointed out that there is a lack of consideration for maternal targets/outcomes in much of the research and projects underway. Why is this when maternal health is so closely related to neonatal and child health? This hit me especially, because just that day I had been struggling to come up with any data on maternal outcomes of exposure to toxic chemicals during pregnancy, while there was an overabundance on child outcomes. Why is pregnancy not considered a key developmental stage for both the mother and fetus? The mother's  body undergoes tremendous changes, it grows at phenomenal rate and is hit by a flow of hormones that simultaneously strengthen and weaken it. Increased fat stores, meant to feed the developing fetus and later allow the mother to breastfeed, are a great opportunity for lipophillic (fat soluble) compounds, such as drugs, to settle in the woman's body, for example.

Poverty

Few will deny that what it comes down to is the causes of the causes for global maternal and child health. The needs in maternal health often match with some of the other millenium goals. According to Bhutta, these are:
- Empowerment (social, financial)
- Hope
- Access (breaking the socio-economic gradients down)

Later, Bhutta talked of Family Planning, that this was criminally underfunded. He vented his frustration that, though he felt it was part of the parcel, abortion had created an atmosphere futile to other aspects of Family Planning. This is something that the "Because I am a Girl" campaign has argued as well (see it here), choosing to be non-partisan in the politics of pro-choice/life. Though I can understand where this is coming from, I have much more to say about this, another time...

In terms of innovations, Bhutta spoke of:
1. Conditional cash transfer to remove financial burdens
2. Community health workers and women's groups
3. Use of technology (specific treatments, information and communication e.g. cell phone tele-health nurse)

And so, when answering the question "How can we contribute to change?" he says:
- Evidence Based Practice across continuum of care
- Do things right (consider delivery, especially to women)
- build collaborations
- focus on incremental gains
- advocacy

Back to the Start by Johnny Kelly

via We Love Stop Motion (see them here), they say that "Both the film and the soundtrack were commissioned by Chipotle to emphasize the importance of developing a sustainable food system."

Gender and Climate Change

Lately, for work, I have been reading articles on the sex (biological) and gender (social) implications of climate change. As it stands, if you're one of those deniers, you might as well stop reading here (for shame!).

Anyway, a few of them caught my fancy. I particularly liked these next two.

Climate Change—And The ‘Other Footprint’
by Ariel Salleh
Published in The Commoner (UK) you can read it here.

and

A Stranger Silence Still: the Need for Feminist Social Research on Climate Change
by Sheilyn MacGregor
Published in the Nature, Society and Environmental Crisis (UK).

Salleh starts by arguing that women generally tend to have a smaller ecological footprint than men, especially considering they tend to be shopping for two ore more family members, she says:

EU statistics show that it is mainly women who travel by public transport or on foot. When women do use private cars, it is for multiple short journeys meeting several purposes on the one outing. The reason for women’s complex activity pattern is that even among those in the waged workforce, most undertake reproductive or domestic labour for husbands, children, or elderly parents. The double shift, as feminists call it.

Where government initiatives pass on the responsibility for a sustainable future to individuals, it tends to be women who pick up the slack, Salleh continues:

Today, globalised economic scarcity and ecological stress extract more time than ever from women’s lives. But under pressure, they are found to meet their reproductive tasks with fewer resources by using good organisation and time management. This “internalised” response to environmental conditions contrasts with the accepted public political practice of “externalising” or displacing problems on to less powerful sections of the community.

MacGregor adds to this, commenting on movements of green consumerism, saying:

[...] governments and environmentalists place emphasis on the role of individuals as consumers to tackle climate change by conserving energy, taking public transit, recycling waste, growing food and foregoing flights [...] unrealistic, punative and possibly counterproductive [...]. A feminist objection is to point out that there are unfair gender asymmetries involved in greening the household, which stem from the traditional division of labour.

and later, she continues

Women have internalized the sense of responsibility to 'do their bit' for the environment and have taken up the duties promoted by the 'green agenda' quite willingly and publicly.

As for their share, governments childishly try to pull the "not-in-my-backyard" technique and dump their problematic waste in marginalized communities. Double marginalization, as it is, for some countries developing from colonialist oppression to a phase of paying off debt using their natural resources on the climate exchange market.

Women are not, in case you may not know, a homogenous group. Nor are they all vulnerable princessed waiting to be saved by prince charming. They have been developing their own sustainable systems, as seen in small businesses and farms worldwide (land and ownership rights are key), while supporting their families, acting as breadwinners, caretakers and community leaders. Women represent a sad minority of decision-makers in climate change. And climate change action, well it reeks of overzealous security policies (planning to block out of flood of climate refugees) and overdependance on scientific models. When things are most dire, cities crumble, resources dwindle, how will your walls help you?