Tag Archives: women

This Is Why You Crave Sugar When You’re Stressed Out

by LeahShowers Posted on April 23, 2015

Mother Jones

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Here’s something that won’t come as a surprise to anyone who has ever devoured a pint of Rocky Road after a miserable day at work: Researchers at the University of California-Davis recently found that 80 percent of people report eating more sweets when they are stressed. Their new study, published in the the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, offers a possible explanation.

Sugar, the researchers found, can diminish physiological responses normally produced in the brain and body during stressful situations. With stress levels on the rise, this could explain why more people are reaching for sweets.

The three-phase study involved 19 women, ages 18 to 40, who spent three days on a low-sugar diet at the research facility. Saliva samples and MRIs were taken and stress was induced through timed math tests. After being discharged, over the course of 12 days, the women consumed sweetened drinks three times a day. Half had beverages sweetened with the artificial sweetener aspartame, while the rest had drinks sweetened with real sucrose. This phase was followed by an additional three-day stint at the facility during which MRIs and saliva samples were taken again.

After the 12-day period, the group that had sucrose-sweetened beverages showed higher activity in the left hippocampus (an area of the brain responsible for learning and memory that is sensitive to chronic stress) and significantly reduced levels of cortisol (the hormone released in response to stress) compared to those who had artificially sweetened beverages.

While this study was one of the first to show that sugar can reduce stress responses in humans, it followed up on previous studies that found similar conclusions in animal subjects. The researchers noted the need for future research—especially on whether long-term sugar consumption has the same effect.

“The concern is psychological or emotional stress could trigger the habitual overconsumption of sugar,” lead author Kevin D. Laugero told Science Daily. Not exactly great news for those of us who enjoy eating our feelings.

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This Is Why You Crave Sugar When You’re Stressed Out

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Book Review: "Under the Bus" by Caroline Fredrickson

by KatheriONeill Posted on April 22, 2015

Mother Jones

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Under the Bus

By Caroline Fredrickson

THE NEW PRESS

Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg encourages women to “lean in” and become leaders while former State Department official Anne-Marie Slaughter insists we “can’t have it all.” But what of women who lack the luxury of leaning in or opting out because they’re struggling just to get by? They’re the focus of Under the Bus, which unpacks the history of the racism and sexism that has left so many working women and people of color without adequate protections. Author Caroline Fredrickson explains how sloppily written laws have made women, particularly in domestic and service jobs, vulnerable to low wages, long hours, and sexual harassment, and then offers up fixes for this broken, exclusive system.

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Book Review: "Under the Bus" by Caroline Fredrickson

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3 disturbing facts prove sexual harassment is a big freaking deal

by YukikoQ52ojac Posted on April 16, 2015

3 disturbing facts prove sexual harassment is a big freaking deal

By on 16 Apr 2015commentsShare

Hello! On this spring-shiny day, are you thinking about street harassment? No? My guess is that that’s probably because you’re not a woman, but no big deal — I am here to make you think about it. Gotcha!

A new study from researchers at Cornell University, with the cooperation of Hollaback!, surveyed over 4,000 American women on their experience of sexual harassment in public spaces. This is, according to Hollaback!, the largest study conducted on street harassment. No big surprise here, but the results are pretty disturbing. These, in our opinion, are the three most arresting:

The majority of women surveyed reported having experienced some type of harassment, from verbal to physical, in the past year. Half (!) had been groped or fondled in the past year.
Eighty-five percent experienced their first instance of harassment before the age of 17. Let’s think about this: If you absorb at an early age — keep in mind that 12 percent of women reported experiencing harassment for the first time before the age of 11 — that your body is subject to the words and hands of strange men in public spaces, wouldn’t that potentially have an effect on how you understand your right to exist outdoors?
A full 70 percent of women have elected, at some point, not to go out at night based on an incidence of harassment, and 73 percent have opted out of public transportation to avoid harassment. Harassment has the power to keep women inside, and unwilling to interact with their streets and cities.

I’m tired of repeating myself when it comes to the need to change attitudes toward women, particularly in public spaces, so I’ll just let Janelle Monae say it (perfectly) for me:

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3 disturbing facts prove sexual harassment is a big freaking deal

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The Feds Are Investigating 106 Colleges for Mishandling Sexual Assault. Is Yours One of Them?

by BrianneJessep Posted on April 8, 2015

Mother Jones

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Last May, the Department of Education released a list of 55 colleges and universities under investigation for possible Title IX violations for mishandling sexual-assault cases. As of April 1, the number has grown to 106 institutions, according to new data requested by Mother Jones.

The DOE provided the updated list Monday, a day after the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism published its report on the widely discredited Rolling Stone article about sexual assault at the University of Virginia. The controversy around the piece has served as a reminder of the ongoing national debate about how colleges and universities should handle sexual-assault allegations. Recent research shows that 1 in 5 women in undergraduate programs experience sexual assault, even though just 1 percent of assailants are punished.

UVA has been on the federal radar since June 2011, joining five other Virginia area schools under investigation. Meanwhile, several schools have agreed to make changes in how they handle sexual-misconduct complaints following the federal probes:

In 2011, before the DOE made its list of institutions public, the Office for Civil Rights looked into complaints of a sexually hostile environment at Yale, in part due to an October 2010 incident in which fraternity pledges chanted “sexually aggressive comments” outside the campus’ Women’s Center. Yale agreed to alter its policies in June 2012.
Both the Department of Justice and the DOE investigated procedures at the University of Montana-Missoula, once described as the nation’s “rape capital.” (Between January 2008 and May 2012, Missoula police received more than 350 sexual-assault reports.) The university agreed to make changes in May 2013.
Last May, the DOE’s Office for Civil Rights found that at the Virginia Military Institute, “female cadets were exposed to a sexually hostile environment” and that the institute violated Title IX for requiring pregnant and parenting cadets to leave the school.
The DOE’s Office for Civil Rights found that Harvard Law School failed to “appropriately respond” to two sexual-assault complaints, including one complaint that was dismissed more than a year after the university took up the case. The law school agreed to make changes in December 2014 as part of a university-wide overhaul of its policy for handling sexual-assault and harassment cases. A group of Harvard law professors objected to the tougher policy in a Boston Globe op-ed, noting that the procedures for deciding cases were “overwhelmingly stacked against the accused.”

Here’s the most recent list of schools under federal investigation:

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106 Universities, Colleges Title IX Investigation Department of Education (PDF)

106 Universities, Colleges Title IX Investigation Department of Education (Text)

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The Feds Are Investigating 106 Colleges for Mishandling Sexual Assault. Is Yours One of Them?

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Arkansas Will Force Doctors To Tell Women Abortions Can Be "Reversed"

by JosetteSeely Posted on April 7, 2015

Mother Jones

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As conservative lawmakers pass a record number of anti-abortion laws, it is staggering to consider how many require doctors to tell patients information that has no basis in science. Five states now require abortion providers to inform women about a bogus link between abortion and breast cancer. Several states mandate that doctors say ending a pregnancy can lead to mental health conditions like clinical depression—another falsehood, in the eyes of most mainstream medical groups.

Now there’s a new crop of legislation to add this list: laws forcing doctors to tell women planning to take abortion-inducing drugs that they may be able to change their minds mid-treatment.

On Monday, Arkansas became the second state to pass such a law, just over a week after Arizona’s Republican governor signed a similar measure. A spokeswoman for Americans United for Life, the legal arm of the anti-abortion movement, confirmed that both laws are based on the group’s model legislation.

Critics have slammed these bills as propagating a lie based on “junk science.” According to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), “Claims of medication abortion reversal are not supported by the body of scientific evidence.”

Americans United for Life has not only backed the bills, but has enthusiastically endorsed a new procedure pioneered by George Delgado, a pro-life doctor who claims to have reversed abortions.

Most drug-induced abortions require two pills taken a few days apart. The initial dose, of mifepristone, blocks the progesterone hormones that help sustain the pregnancy. The second dose, of misopristol, causes contractions that flush out the pregnancy. Delgado says he’s stopped abortions by injecting supplemental progesterone between the two rounds of medicine. The evidence backing his discovery, however, is incredibly thin. As Olga Khazan writes for The Atlantic:

Women who only take the first pill already have a 30 to 50 percent chance of continuing their pregnancy normally, according to ACOG. The progesterone advice is based on a study by Delgado in which he analyzed six case studies of patients who regretted their abortions and were given progesterone. Four out of the six patients went on to deliver healthy infants. In other words, the limited evidence we have suggests that taking progesterone does not appear to improve the odds of fetal survival by much. The abortion pill binds more tightly to progesterone receptors than progesterone itself does, one reproductive researcher told Iowa Public Radio, and thus the hormone surge is unlikely to do much of anything.

As Cheryl Chastine, an abortion provider at South Wind Women’s Center in Kansas, put it recently, “Even if these doctors were to offer a large dose of purple Skittles, they’d appear to have ‘worked’ to ‘save’ the pregnancy about half the time.”

That’s why, on the small chance that a woman does regret her abortion midway through, ACOG-affiliated doctors say they would simply tell her not to take the second pill.

The injections might not only be useless—large doses of progesterone can actually be dangerous: “There can be cardiovascular side effects, glucose tolerance issues, it can cause problems with depression in people who already had it,” Ilana Addis, a gynecologist who opposed the Arizona measure, told The Atlantic. “And there are more annoying things, like bloating, fatigue, that kind of stuff. It’s an unpleasant drug to take.”

The new Arkansas law requires the state’s health department to write up information on abortion reversal for doctors to make available to patients, and it’s not yet clear if the health department will promote Delgado’s specific method. Meanwhile, Arkansas Right to Life is already promoting the services of doctors who are “trained to effectively reverse” abortions, and more than 200 physicians around the country have told pro-life groups that they are willing to conduct the procedure.

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Arkansas Will Force Doctors To Tell Women Abortions Can Be "Reversed"

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This New Country Blues Compilation Is the Best Kind of History Lesson

by TameraT93qf Posted on April 6, 2015

Mother Jones

Various Artists
The Rough Guide to Unsung Heroes of Country Blues
Rough Guide

There are any number of ways to approach this fine 24-track compilation of performances from the ’20s and ’30s. First, it’s an intriguing history lesson, showing how ragtime, jazz, folk, and other styles were blended to create the music that would ultimately become the blues. If that seems too much like eating your vegetables, instead consider it an exploration of the roots of more celebrated artists. The Lovin’ Spoonful covered Henry Thomas’ “Fishing Blues,” while Cream updated Blind Willie (Joe) Reynolds’ “Married Man Blues” and Muddy Waters turned Hambone Willie Newbern’s “Roll and Tumble Blues” into a landmark of the genre.

It’s easy to imagine the Stones cribbing from any of these songs. But the best way to appreciate The Rough Guide to Unsung Heroes of Country Blues is on a strictly musical level. There’s infinite variety and subtlety to be found in the artful singing and inventive acoustic guitar playing of the men—and a handful of women, including the elusive Geeshie Wiley—represented on this excellent set. Start with Lane Hardin’s spooky “California Desert Blues,” or practically any other song, and prepare to be hooked.

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This New Country Blues Compilation Is the Best Kind of History Lesson

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Friday Cat Blogging – 20 March 2015

by LavadaGrattan Posted on March 20, 2015

Mother Jones

Appearances to the contrary, I might be getting better this morning. Cross your fingers, and we’ll see how things go tomorrow.

Our hummingbird babies are fully mobile! I took some pictures of them this morning, and when I carefully edged in for a slightly closer angle they took off like a shot. This was plainly not their maiden voyage. They’re all grown up now. Sniff.

In other news, longtime readers will remember that I once blogged about Louis the cathedral cat after a visit to Wells Cathedral in 2008. He was very friendly. However, in one of those inevitable town-gown controversies, Louis is now being accused of attacking dogs in the nearby area. But it might just be a case of mistaken identity: “I’ve heard there is another ginger cat around at the moment,” said one witness, “and it’s quite possible that it’s him attacking dogs. We don’t know for sure whether or not Louis was involved. Louis had definitely been in the shop just before the incident happened outside, but it could have been a different cat.”

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Friday Cat Blogging – 20 March 2015

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Thursday Hummingbird Blogging – 19 March 2015

by LakeshaDQZ Posted on March 19, 2015

Mother Jones

Sorry for the lack of blogging yet again. In the meantime, here’s the latest pic of our baby hummingbirds. They look perilously close to flapping their wings and leaving the nest.

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Thursday Hummingbird Blogging – 19 March 2015

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My Stake In the 2016 Election Is Way More Personal Than Usual

by UTQAlexand Posted on March 18, 2015

Mother Jones

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Ed Kilgore:

I’m increasingly convinced that by the end of the Republican presidential nominating process the candidates will have pressured each other into a Pact of Steel to revoke all of Obama’s executive orders and regulations. The post-2012 GOP plan to quickly implement the Ryan Budget and an Obamacare repeal in a single reconciliation bill will almost certainly be back in play if Republicans win the White House while holding on to Congress. Republicans (with even Rand Paul more or less going along) are all but calling for a re-invasion of Iraq plus a deliberate lurch into a war footing with Iran. And now more than ever, the direction of the U.S. Supreme Court would seem to vary almost 180 degrees based on which party will control the next couple of appointments.

This is more personal for me than usual. Scary, too. There are no guarantees in life, and there’s no guarantee that MoJo will employ me forever. If I lose my job, and Republicans repeal Obamacare, I will be left with a very serious and very expensive medical condition and no insurance to pay for it. And I feel quite certain that Republicans will do nothing to help me out.

Obviously lots of other people are in the same position, and have been for a long time. But there’s nothing like being in the crosshairs yourself to bring it all home. If Republicans win in 2016, my life is likely to take a very hard, very personal turn for the worse.

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My Stake In the 2016 Election Is Way More Personal Than Usual

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So What’s Next For Israel and Palestine?

by SophiaGalvez Posted on March 18, 2015

Mother Jones

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I thought all along that Benjamin Netanyahu was going to win this week’s election in Israel. I never wrote about it, but Mark Kleiman is my witness. My reasoning was simplistic: the polls were pretty close, and Netanyahu is a survivor. In a close race, he’d somehow figure out a way to pull out a win.

But yikes! I know Israeli politics is tough stuff, but I sure wasn’t prepared for the sheer ugliness of Netanyahu’s closing run. His speech before Congress turned out to be just a wan little warmup act. When things got down to the wire he flatly promised to keep the West Bank an occupied territory forever, and followed that up with dire warnings of Arabs “coming out in droves” to the polls. Even by Israeli standards this is sordid stuff.

I don’t follow Israeli-Palestinian politics closely anymore, having long since given up hope that either side is willing to make the compromises necessary for peace. But even to my unpracticed eye, this election seems to change things. Sure, no one ever believed Netanyahu was truly dedicated to a two-state solution in the first place, but at least it hung out there as a possibility. Now it’s gone. This will almost certainly strengthen Hamas and other hardline elements within the Palestinian movement, which in turn will justify ever tighter crackdowns by Israel. Is there any way this doesn’t end badly?

I just don’t see the endgame here for either side. Can someone enlighten me?

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So What’s Next For Israel and Palestine?

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