Swiss women stage mass strike demanding overdue equality

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GENEVA/ZURICH (Reuters) - Hundreds of thousands of women across Switzerland held a strike on Friday to highlight their wealthy nation’s poor record on female rights, recreating the passion of the last such walkout 28 years ago.

In Zurich, the financial capital and the country’s biggest city, tens of thousands of protesters clogged the streets, blowing whistles and banging pots and pans. “Men, go do the ironing,” one sign read.

“It’s not just about wages. The equal opportunity is not there. At least for the next generation it needs to be there,” Zurich city councilwoman Karin Rykart said as hundreds of municipal workers and police officers demonstrated.

Despite its high quality of life, Switzerland lags other developed economies in female pay and workplace gender equality.

Friday’s event echoed a strike in 1991, five years before the Gender Equality Act came into force. That banned workplace discrimination and sexual harassment and protected women from bias or dismissal over pregnancy, marital status, or gender.

But more than 20 years later, women still earn less than men, face routine questioning of their competence, and encounter condescension on the job, they say.

Organisers say the strike draws attention to wages, violence against women, and the need for greater representation in positions of power and more equitable family policy.

Christine Lagarde, the first woman to lead the International Monetary Fund, joined in while addressing an event in Geneva.

Protesters carry banners and placards at a demonstration during a women's strike (Frauenstreik) in Zurich, Switzerland June 14, 2019. REUTERS/Arnd Wiegmann

“At this point in time if I were true to my colors I would actually turn my back to you and express in that way the fact that I am actually on strike - but you might be disappointed,” she said.

“So instead of this I am actually wearing this (lapel pin) out of solidarity with the Swiss women who claim equality in terms of salaries and a few other things.”

The SGB labor union federation estimated 100,000 people joined the strike by midday, with more participating from 3:24 p.m., when women technically work for free given wage discrimination.

“THINGS DIDN’T CHANGE”

Swiss women earn roughly 20% less than men. While that is an improvement from about a third less in 1991, the discrimination gap — meaning differences that cannot be explained by rank or role — has actually worsened since 2000, government data show.

On June 14, 1991, women blocked trams during a sit-in in the heart of Zurich’s financial district and gathered outside schools, hospitals and across cities with purple balloons and banners to demand equal pay for equal work.

That came a decade after basic gender equality was enshrined in the Swiss constitution and less than three months after women for the first time were allowed to participate in a regional vote in the canton of Appenzell Innerrhoden.

“We have realized that even after this first strike in 1991, things didn’t really change. Equality is enshrined in the constitution, but real, material, effective equality doesn’t exist for all women,” said organizer Tamara Knezevic, 24.

Slideshow (32 Images)

The World Economic Forum found Switzerland ranked 34th for economic participation and opportunity and 44th for wage equality in a 2018 study of 149 countries.

See Factbox on 9 leading Swiss women

Additional reporting by Denis Balibouse in Lausanne and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne and Raissa Kasolowsky

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Mesh implants work for bladder leakage, long-term safety unclear

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(Reuters Health) - Several different types of mesh implant surgery may be effective for treating bladder leaks, but the long-term safety and effectiveness of the procedures isn’t yet clear, a new analysis suggests.

Researchers examined data from 175 clinical trials that randomly assigned a total of 21,598 women with stress urinary incontinence to receive different types of surgical treatments.

Over the short-term, three types of surgeries appeared most effective at curing the incontinence. Two newer procedures using slings to support the bladder had cure rates of about 89% and an older abdominal surgery to suture the bladder had a cure rate of about 77%.

“With regard to surgical treatments, there is limited evidence to suggest that there is one ‘best’ option for the treatment of stress urinary incontinence. Rather there are several trade-offs and risks that women need to be aware of and consider alongside their clinician when making their treatment choice,” said study co-author Dawn Craig of Newcastle University in the UK.

“Based on our findings, the jury is still out on the long-term risks of vaginal mesh for stress urinary incontinence,” Craig said by email.

Up to half of adult women experience stress urinary incontinence, when the pelvic floor muscles are too weak to support the bladder. As a result, urine leaks during coughing, sneezing or exercise. Childbirth is a common reason for weak pelvic muscles, and obesity worsens the problem.

Surgical treatment for stress urinary incontinence has evolved over the past two decades from open abdominal operations to support the bladder with sutures to less invasive procedures that insert mesh slings instead. Recently, however, the safety of mesh implants for stress incontinence has come under scrutiny due to reports of severe complications, litigation and product withdrawals, researchers note in The BMJ.

One of the more effective mesh sling options in the study was a traditional suburethral sling, which involves placing a sling under the urethra and using one of a variety of techniques to secure it in place.

The other mesh sling option with similar effectiveness was the midurethral sling, a newer minimally-invasive procedure that enables surgeons to insert a narrow strip of synthetic mesh without the need to secure it in place.

In contrast, the older type of surgery known as an open coloposuspension requires cutting through the abdomen to reach the bladder and then using sutures to support the neck of the bladder, the group of muscles that connect the bladder to the urethra. These muscles tighten to hold urine in the bladder and relax to release urine.

Most of the available safety data was for the newer mesh sling procedures.

Mesh procedures done with one vaginal incision and two groin or thigh incisions - known as transobturator midurethral sling surgery - had more repeat surgeries and groin pain but fewer vascular complications, bladder or urethral perforations, or voiding difficulties than so-called retropubic midurethral surgery done with one vaginal incision and two abdominal incisions.

“We do not have good long-term follow up data for any of these surgeries as the trials analyzed lasted up to five years at most and mesh can cause problems many years after insertion,” said Rufus Cartwright of Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust in the UK, who co-authored an accompanying editorial.

Some women might be able to address stress urinary incontinence without surgery, previous research has found. Lifestyle changes like avoiding caffeine, drinking small amounts of fluid, using the bathroom at scheduled times throughout the day and doing exercises that target the pelvic floor muscles can improve bladder control.

“Women should consider surgery for incontinence if their symptoms are severely affecting their quality of life, and they haven’t responded to conservative treatment (pelvic floor exercises),” Cartwright said by email. “The choice between the different procedures should be based on a process of shared decision making with the surgeon.”

SOURCE: bit.ly/31w78Jv and bit.ly/2KeSIIt The BMJ, online June 5, 2019.

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Female soldiers wanting to suppress periods face barriers

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(Reuters Health) - Military women wanting to stop menstruating while they are deployed may face a number of barriers, a new commentary suggests.

The majority of surveyed military women say they would like to suppress menstruation during deployment but very few are doing so, according to the paper in Obstetrics & Gynecology that explores why more military women are not accessing that option.

One answer may be that not enough military women and their health providers even know that hormonal contraceptives used continuously will suppress menstruation.

“Women are counseled to stop taking contraceptives before deployment and that negates all the valuable health benefits, including suppression, that come with them,” said the commentary’s author, Sheena Eagan, an assistant professor at the Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina, and a specialist in military medicine ethics. “There’s a recurring theme in surveys: women want to access cycle control and they want to suppress menstruation before they are deployed.”

Unfortunately, there are many barriers blocking women’s access to menses suppression in the military, Eagan said, including the instructions to stop taking contraceptives before deployment because there is a rule against sexual intercourse while deployed. “I wanted to highlight the misconception I saw throughout the literature that equates contraceptive use with pregnancy prevention,” she said.

After reviewing the medical literature on the topic of menses suppression in the military, Eagan found that 66% to 86% of women surveyed wanted the ability to stop menstruating during deployment. In contrast, a mere 7% reported having done so.

Part of the problem may be lack of education among both the women and their health providers, Eagan said. A 2009 report found that only a third of service women had received any pre-deployment counseling on menstrual regulation and suppression. Moreover, nearly 70% of women reported that their primary healthcare providers were medics or corpsmen. Although training varies depending on the branch of service, these types of providers normally do not hold professional or graduate degrees, Eagan noted.

Eagan said she isn’t suggesting that menses suppression be mandated for all female soldiers, but “it should be part of women’s autonomous choice.”

The issues of menses regulation and control aren’t limited to military women, said Dr. Charles Ascher-Walsh, director of gynecology for the Mount Sinai Health System in New York City. “Obviously, when women are deployed it’s more convenient not to be menstruating,” he said. “But there are many women who would have the same kinds of benefits, such as when they are traveling for work.”

In general, Ascher-Walsh said, “there’s a lack of education among women and their doctors that this is a possibility - and a safe possibility. And doctors don’t offer it as much as I think they should.”

Still, the article may have made the process sound more straightforward than it sometimes is, Ascher-Walsh said. “It’s not as simple as: do this and you are guaranteed not to bleed,” he explained.

That’s because not all women will stop cycling on hormonal contraceptives, Ascher-Walsh said. With some methods, “you can end up with spotting every day and that’s worse than having your period,” he added. “So you don’t want to do it right before you are deployed since that can make it worse rather than better.”

The best option if a female soldier wants to try a method to halt menstruation is to experiment with it well before deployment, Ascher-Walsh said. Among the possible options, continuous birth control is “the most likely to stop a woman’s periods and be reliable,” Ascher-Walsh said.

SOURCE: bit.ly/2F89nsS Obstetrics & Gynecology, online June 11, 2019.

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Two married women disgrace themselves by falling from 3-Storeyed Building during fight

Two married women living in the same flat in Onitsha reportedly engaged in a serious fight and sustained severe injuries after falling off the 3-storeyed building where they live during the heat of the fight. According to reports, the two women never got along even though their husbands were friends.

According to a post shared on Facebook by Aba Times News, an eye witness recounted that the fight broke out after their husbands had left the house for work in the morning. The women eventually fell from the storeyed building and sustained serious injuries.

The post reads;

“This sad incident happened yesterday at Awada in Onitsha. The 2 women are living together in a flat because their husbands share a flat in one compound. Even though their husbands are friends, the wives never got along and were always quarreling but nothing prepared us for what we saw this morning. When their husbands left for shop this morning, another round of fight began and this time it was different. we heard screaming and then a huge thud and then wailing and crying ensued.

I rushed to the veranda and discovered to my dismay that the women fell from their 3rd floor flat and both of them shattered many bones in their bodies. Both couldn’t stand but i suspect that the other may have broken her spinal cord because she couldnt move a limb and her head was severely bashed and she was bleeding heavily. They have been rushed to Toronto hospital to ascertain the level of their injuries while we called up their husbands.”

 

Allow Your Men To Eat Your Pvssy And Lick Your A$$ - Lydia Forson Shamelessly Advises Women

Lydia Forson has advised ladies to allow their men to eat out their Vijay and not only that, they should be allowed them to bury their faces in their a$s and also fvck them as machines so that if the men brag that they have slept with them, they can confidently say “yes, he did”.

According to Lydia Forson, some men go out bragging after sleeping with women without recognizing that the women also slept with them too.

To Lydia Forson, women should make the best out of such se*xual encounters by getting the most pleasure of it so that when the men brag they can be okay with it.

Lydia Forson tweeted:

Ladies, Let your men eat you out, bury their faces in your as*s and machine gun fck you. So when they go out and brag that “I chop am”, you can proudly say “he sure did”. ? *FYI, as you chop, am, she chop you too, so

The tweet garnered a lot of reaction with the men applauding her for preaching to the women. Most of the men, however, explained that if such service is rendered by the women, they won’t go out bragging.



Source: ghpage.com