Join The 2012 Project for an exciting webinar

Tuesday, March 27th

1:00 – 2:00 pm ET

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Women make up more than half the population yet hold only 17% of the U.S. Congressional seats, less than a quarter of state legislative seats and only six governorships. Of those, women of color constitute only 4.5% of the total members of Congress and 3.5% of state legislators. This under-representation has a profound impact on policymaking.

The 2012 Project, a national, non-partisan campaign to increase the number of women in Congress and state legislatures by leveraging the once-in-a-decade opportunities of 2012, aims to change this. In collaboration with The Association for Women in Communications, and the co-sponsors listed above, The 2012 Project will explain why it is essential for women to throw their hats in the ring in 2012. This webinar will highlight the experiences and insights of two 2012 Project faculty members who will share what it takes to be a candidate, the difference women make in government, and why it is important for more women (like you!) to run. Filing deadlines have not yet passed in many states, so it’s not too late!

The following is a guest post by Karen Kahn who is the director of Communications for PHI, a national, not-for profit organization that works to improve the lives of people who need home and residential care—and the lives of the workers who provide that care.

By Karen Kahn. When it comes to ensuring elders are safe, healthy and independent, it takes a village. We want our loved ones to be able to live at home in their communities, but often, we can’t be there to make sure Mom doesn’t fall getting out of the shower, or Dad doesn’t get confused by the bills.

When adult daughters—the primary caregivers for parents and other loved ones—can’t be there as often as needed, we often rely on paid home care aides. An often invisible workforce, home care aides make it possible for millions of elders and people with disabilities to remain in their homes—and for their children to have a little peace of mind.

Across the nation, our families employ about 2.5 million home care workers, and these jobs are expected to grow by about 1.3 million between 2010 and 2020. In fact, according to the latest occupational projections from the Department of Labor, home care jobs are the fastest-growing jobs in the nation.

Home care workers provide an array of critical services such as bathing, dressing, food shopping, meal preparation, medication management, and transportation to medical appointments. Yet, largely because they are women doing the work expected of women, these hardworking home care aides are undervalued. Half of them earn wages at or below 200 percent of the federal poverty level and rely on public assistance like food stamps and Medicaid to take care of their own families. (more…)

Last week, on the heels of Disruptive Women’s focus in February on leadership, Newsweek and the Daily Beast hosted the 3rd annual Women in the World Summit.  Leaders and activists from around the globe such as Nobel winner Leymah Gbowee, Angelina Jolie, Madeleine K. Albright and IMF chief Christine Lagarde gathered in New York City for this thought-provoking and inspiring event. Below are some great summaries of some of the discussions that took place. Enjoy, we did!

• Tina Brown Aces a Women’s Summit
• Women in the World 2012 Summit Rivets With the Stories of Fearless Women
• Women In The World Summit 2012: Highlights From HuffPost Women

All your life you’ve heard the common cliché “it only takes one person to change the world” and you believed that it was possible. But, with all our daily tasks and burdens, sometimes the dreams we once had for changing the future are put on the back burner in order to focus on the task at hand. In a recent list by Women Deliver, 50 inspiring ideas for women’s advocacy and change were put forward as a reminder of the power of an individual.

Women Deliver is a global advocacy organization that brings together voices from around the world to call for improved health and well-being for girls and women. The organization focuses on changing the lives of women in all realms: health interventions; technologies; educational initiatives and leadership programs were all featured as innovative ideas.

Two terrific examples of organizations that are empowering the lives of women are:

• Girls Not Brides, Global: Launched in 2011 by The Elders, Girls Not Brides is a partnership among 80 global non-governmental organizations working to end child marriage. Girls Not Brides brings community leaders and activists together to raise awareness and galvanize action to address the scale and impact of child marriage around the world and ensure that girls everywhere can reach their full potential.

• Aawaaj, Nepal: Aawaaj, which means “voice” in Nepali, aims to break the silence around sexual violence in Nepal. Aawaaj works with both women and men in rural communities to establish support networks that help eliminate sexual abuse and violence against women and children.

All of the wonderful solutions on the list started with one person’s brilliant idea “to change the world” and prove you can change the world too if you put your idea into action. For a complete list of ideas that are empowering women, please visit Women Deliver.

The following is a guest post by Saralyn Mark, MD. Dr. Mark is the President of SolaMed Solutions, LLC, a world renowned leader in women’s health, an endocrinologist, geriatrician and women’s health specialist, was the first Senior Medical Advisor to the Office on Women’s Health within the Department of Health and Human Services and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).  She designed the first women’s health fellowship in the Nation, helped create the National Centers of Leadership in Academic Medicine, the National Centers of Excellence in Women’s Health in academic and community health centers across the country and landmark educational campaigns on critical health issues.

By Saralyn Mark. Have you ever been asked a question that makes you smile? Sometimes, the best questions come from the mouth of a child. Sheer innocence and curiosity propelling the boundaries of inquisitiveness. Now imagine being asked that question in a classroom in the upper northeast part of England in a small town blanketed by verdant hills and rolling rivers.

A few weeks ago, I was invited to talk to 90 students near Durham, England about the importance of science and space. Soon after I entered the classroom with walls covered by drawings of planets and stars, 7 year old students obediently marched into the room and stood in rows until their teachers told them to sit down. Some had chairs, others had the floor. With military precision they quickly took their places. I immediately bonded to my new audience. Their wide smiles and eyes filled with wonder warmed my heart.

I was in England to give a lecture on medicine and exploration for a space technology conference sponsored by NETPark -an incubator for technology and innovation in Durham. It was also the launch of my new book, Stellar Medicine: A Journey Through the Universe of Women’s Health (Brick Tower Press). The day before, I gave a book reading nearby for a lovely group of women who were on the other end of the age spectrum from this classroom. Following my reading, I entertained questions and found them be provocative and personal.

My new book is a part memoir/part guidebook on controversial health issues. I explore the political and social environment which shapes these decisions while weaving in many of my experiences on all the continents and with the space program to illustrate my points. I know that many of the topics would generate heated discussions. I believe that we may have different views on issues, but there is generally some common ground if we take the time to find it. (more…)

Sadly February is drawing to a close which means so is Disruptive Women’s series on leadership, but we cannot end the month without naming our Man of the Month.

As much as we here at Disruptive Women would like to think women are where they are in leadership positions solely because of women, that is not the case. There have been and continue to be men who stand up for women, often against societal norms and values. We couldn’t just point to one, so in true Disruptive Women fashion, we are going to have several February Men of the Month. These men in the ways described below all believed that women deserved a place in leadership roles. In turn we are thanking them by recognizing them as Disruptive Men of the Month.

• Franklin Delano Roosevelt appointed the first female cabinet member Frances Perkins
• Teddy Roosevelt was a huge proponent of woman’s suffrage
• Senator Aaron Sargent of California introduced the first amendment in Congress that would give women the right to vote
• John Kennedy created the President’s Commission on the Status of Women to review, and make recommendations for improving, the status of women

In honor of these men and their efforts, we urge both men and women to continue to challenge the status quo because as we pointed to in previous posts this month, women still aren’t where they should be in leadership.

The following post ran on The Kaiser Family Foundation’s Notes on Health Insurance and Reform on February 21st.  It was authored by Alina Salganicoff and Usha Ranji.

The last several weeks have been a roller coaster ride for those interested in insurance coverage of contraceptives. In this post, we answer some of the key questions about the new contraceptive coverage policy generally, and more specifically, how it will be applied to religious organizations.

Why is contraceptive coverage part of health reform?

When the Affordable Care Act was passed, it included considerable attention to preventive care, for the first time stipulating that new private plans cover a wide range of recommended clinical preventive services to plan holders without cost-sharing. Specifically, this section of the law (2713) requires that private plans cover services that receive a strong recommendation from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF); vaccines recommended by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP); preventive services for children recommended by Bright Futures guidelines for pediatric preventive care; and “with respect to women,” new services that will be identified by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA). In 2010, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) requested that the Institute of Medicine (IOM) convene a committee of experts in women’s health and prevention to identify gaps for women in the current preventive recommendations.

The IOM committee identified eight new preventive services for women, including screening for intimate partner violence, well woman visits, breastfeeding supports as well as the inclusion of contraceptive services and supplies, including all methods approved by the Food and Drug Administration. These recommendations were adopted by HHS in August 2011. Contraception is also recommended as a part of health care for women by the nation’s leading health care professional associations, including the American Medical Association, the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the American Public Health Association.

This new provision has significant implications for access to contraception and affordability for millions of women. It is estimated that half of pregnancies in the U.S. are unintended, among the highest rate among developed nations. The vast majority of women in the U.S. have used a contraceptive at some point in their lives to prevent unintended pregnancy, plan future pregnancies, or space childbearing. Cost-sharing requirements, such as co-payments and co-insurance, have been shown to curtail utilization of preventive services. (more…)

The following is a post by Annekathryn Goodman, MD who  is an Assistant Director, Vincent Gynecologic Oncology Division, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston; Associate Professor, Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Biology, Harvard Medical School and a resident of Boston.

By Annekathryn Goodman, MD. The loss of one loved soul punches a hole in the fabric of our universe. We experienced sadness and tragedy this past week when journalist Anthony Shadid died while reporting on the horrors of Syria’s war against its people.

Shadid was known to those of us who work at Massachusetts General Hospital in a small way – through his daughter, Laila. We know her through MGH’s own Marcela, ex-partner of Anthony’s first wife, Julie. Marcela is one of my work partners in the gynecological oncology department here. She and Julie broke up last year but Marcela has been an important part of Laila’s life since she was a baby, and remains so.

I am struck with how I can grieve for a man I have never met because I grieve for the people who love him. His death will now be a part of Laila’s identity. Growing up fatherless starting at the age of 10 will be part of the lens through which she views the world. We cannot protect her from that reality. But we can support her and the others who are impacted by this new hole in the universe. There is a circle of grief and meaning that radiates out from each death. In my imagination, I see this whole cloud of connection and meaning, sympathy and love that vibrates with each loss.

Of course as oncologists, we are all too familiar with that cloud. Now, one could imagine that these clouds of loss, familiar and sometimes daily, could bring us down. Maybe we should all be on anti-depressants. But, paradoxically, most of us are empowered by the work we do. The losses are unavoidable when dealing with cancer, but our reactions to it are completely in our control.

Reacting with love and support empowers us all. When Marcela called to tell us of Anthony’s death, John — the division chief of our department — immediately signed out her beeper so he could answer all of her calls. Whit, another doctor in our division, took on all her surgeries so she could be with Laila. Dr. Schiff, the chief of obstetrics and gynecology who no longer performs surgeries, donned scrubs and came down to the OR to ensure we were all okay. Texts and emails with words of support flew. We are a big village. Acknowledging this terrible pain honors the meaning of the life lost and how that life affected everyone else.

There was another, more personal, loss on Friday – my dog, SammyBear. I put him to sleep that evening after a two month illness with renal failure. Again, John helped me finish my last surgery so I could have time with SammyBear. I felt surrounded by love. (more…)

Disruptive Women in Health Care and the
Healthcare Businesswomen’s Association (HBA)
invite you to:

Miss Representation

Watch the trailer to the film Entertaintment Weeklycalled “Inspring.” 

A film screening and panel discussion with women leaders:

Miss Representation, which premiered at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival,
is a documentary film that explores women’s under-representation in
positions of power and influence in America and challenges
the limited portrayal of women in mainstream media. 

February 23, 2012
National Press Club

$45.00 discounted rate includes food, drinks, film, and panel discussion

Click HERE to RSVP

Use the Disruptive Women registration category when registering

Carrie Winans, Social Media Intern
Carrie is a junior studying Political Communication at The George Washington University. During the course of the semester, she will be working on bolstering Disruptive Women’s social media presence as well as covering events and writing posts — including a weekly health care news roundup on Wednesdays (see this week’s here.)

Carrie recently returned from a semester at the Danish Institute for Study Abroad in Copenhagen where she studied European Mass Media and Danish. In the past, she worked for Planet Forward of PBS Nightly Business Report and Manhattan Place Entertainment. Her specialties include social media and social networking plans.

Elita Wong, Global Health Policy Intern
Elita has degrees in Public Health and Fine Arts from U.C. Berkeley and is currently a nursing student at New York University. She is going to be researching, writing, compiling and producing materials to form an eBook around the topics related to international nursing, social entrepreneurship, mobile health and the intersection of these various topics as they relate to global health and global health policy. Stay tuned for updates on Elita’s work and the global health eBook, as well as ways you can get involved in its production.

As a public health professional, Elita has worked for a number of community and government organizations in the San Francisco Bay Area. Formerly an intern for the City of Berkeley’s Department of Public Health, Elita conducted research on placed-based initiatives to address health disparities in South Berkeley. While in school, she was also the primary health advocate for the Berkeley Student Cooperative, a large non-profit organization committed to offering affordable housing to bay area students. She was a co-developer of C.R.E.A.T.E., a program that provides free dance, art, theatre, and cooking after-school classes in East Bay K-12 schools. C.R.E.A.T.E. has grown to work with chronically ill children and is designing a new math-art curriculum to be taught in all Berkeley middle schools. After graduation, Elita completed a yearlong internship with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in the Office of the Regional Administrator during historic health care reform. She performed analysis on the Affordable Care Act and worked closely with the external affairs team to organize outreach events.