Author Louise Armstrong at Women Against Porn press conference

General note: Title and date provided by Bettye Lane.

Florence Rush, author of "The Best Kept Secret" about child molestation, speaks at Crimes Against Women conference

General note: Title and date provided by Bettye Lane.

Robin Morgan at Women Against Pornography Rally

General note: Title and date provided by Bettye Lane.

Author Phyllis Chesler speaks at Women and Health conference

General note: Title and date provided by Bettye Lane.

Tatyana Mamonova holding her underground unpublished book on Russian Women and feminism

General note: Title and date provided by Bettye Lane.

Maya Angelou and Coretta Scott King at International Women's Year conference in Houston

General note: Title and date provided by Bettye Lane.

Writer Susan Sontag speaks at conference on older women in NYC

General note: Title and date provided by Bettye Lane.

Usual medical treatments or levonorgestrel-IUS for women with heavy menstrual bleeding:long-term randomised pragmatic trial in primary care

Background: Heavy menstrual bleeding (HMB) is a common, chronic problem affecting women and health services. However, long-term evidence on treatment in primary care is lacking. Aim: To assess the effectiveness of commencing the levonorgestrel-releasing intrauterine system (LNG-IUS) or usual medical treatments for women presenting with HMB in general practice. Design and setting: A pragmatic, multicentre, parallel, open-label, long term, randomised controlled trial in 63 primary care practices across the English Midlands. Method: In total, 571 women aged 25–50 years, with HMB were randomised to LNG-IUS or usual medical treatment (tranexamic/mefenamic acid, combined oestrogen–progestogen, or progesterone alone). The primary outcome was the patient reported Menorrhagia Multi-Attribute Scale (MMAS, measuring effect of HMB on practical difficulties, social life, psychological and physical health, and work and family life; scores from 0 to 100). Secondary outcomes included surgical intervention (endometrial ablation/hysterectomy), general quality of life, sexual activity, and safety. Results: At 5 years post-randomisation, 424 (74%) women provided data. While the difference between LNG-IUS and usual treatment groups was not significant (3.9 points; 95% confidence interval = −0.6 to 8.3; P = 0.09), MMAS scores improved significantly in both groups from baseline (mean increase, 44.9 and 43.4 points, respectively; P<0.001 for both comparisons). Rates of surgical intervention were low in both groups (surgery-free survival was 80% and 77%; hazard ratio 0.90; 95% CI = 0.62 to 1.31; P = 0.6). There was no difference in generic quality of life, sexual activity scores, or serious adverse events. Conclusion: Large improvements in symptom relief across both groups show treatment for HMB can be successfully initiated with long-term benefit and with only modest need for surgery.

Nasalance scores for typical Irish English-speaking adults

The aim was to establish normative nasalance values for Irish English-speaking adults. Thirty men and 30 women with normal resonance read aloud 16 sentences from the Irish nasality assessment protocol, the Zoo passage, and the Rainbow passage. The speech samples were recorded using the Nasometer II 6400. Results of a mixed between–within subjects ANOVA indicated no significant gender effect on nasalance scores. The speakers showed significantly higher nasalance scores for high-pressure consonant sentences than low-pressure consonant sentences, and for the Rainbow passage than total test sentences. There was no significant difference between high-pressure consonant sentences and the Zoo passage. Compared to previous studies, the Irish young adults had lower nasalance scores than Irish children and than young adults with North American dialects.

In two minds about screening: an investigation of cervical cancer prevention among Irish women

Cervical cancer is the second most common female cancer worldwide. Cervical screening programmes can reduce the incidence of cervical cancer by up to 80 percent if the invited women participate. Previous Irish research has associated screening attendance with subjective norms, anticipated regret, higher socio-economic status and education. Greater perceived screening barriers and lacking knowledge were associated with avoidance. These findings support a variety of expectancy-value theories of behaviour. They also suggest that expectancy-value theories could benefit from the inclusion of affective predictors of behaviour, like anticipated regret. In 2008 the Republic of Ireland introduced the National Cervical Screening Programme (NCSP). This research seeks to identify the predictors of participation in the NCSP. A systematic review of reviews showed that predictors of screening participation clustered into environmental and psychological influences. There is a gap in the evidence synthesis of associations with personal characteristics and health beliefs. Thematic analysis of focus group interviews confirmed the validity of many screening predictors identified by the systematic review and expectancy-value theories. A survey of these predictors suggested that reduced screening barriers might encourage first-time participation, while regular attendance requires greater endorsement of screening benefits and stronger subjective norm and intention. Positive attitude, rather than knowledge, appeared to be crucial for strong intention, so the final study piloted an experiment comparing the utility of positive attitude in strengthening intention to the utility of information provision. Despite lacking significant differences between conditions, content analysis of participant comments suggested that a full trial would be worthwhile, given purposive sampling and improved sample retention. These findings agree with previous Irish research on the importance of screening intention, although its association with attitude appeared to be stronger in the present research. The findings further indicate that future screening promotion should consider interventions based on patients’ experiences of screening.

Maternal-Fetal Attachment and Health Behaviors among Women with HIV/AIDS

Background: Mothers with HIV often face personal and environmental risks for poor maternal health behaviors and infant neglect, even when HIV transmission to the infant was prevented. Maternal-fetal attachment (MFA), the pre-birth relationship of a woman with her fetus, may be the precursor to maternal caregiving. Using the strengths perspective in social work, which embeds MFA within a socio-ecological conceptual framework, it is hypothesized that high levels of maternal-fetal attachment may protect mothers and infants against poor maternal health behaviors. Objective: To assess whether MFA together with history of substance use, living marital status, planned pregnancy status, and timing of HIV diagnosis predict three desirable maternal health behaviors (pregnancy care, adherence to prenatal antiretroviral therapy–ART, and infant’s screening clinic care) among pregnant women with HIV/AIDS. Method: Prospective observation and hypothesis-testing multivariate analyses. Over 17 consecutive months, all eligible English- or Spanish-speaking pregnant women with HIV ( n = 110) were approached in the principal obstetric and screening clinics in Miami-Dade County, Florida at 24 weeks’ gestation; 82 agreed to enroll. During three data collection periods from enrollment until 16 weeks after childbirth (range: 16 to 32 weeks), participants reported on socio-demographic and predictor variables, MFA, and pregnancy care. Measures of adherence to ART and infant care were extracted from medical records. Findings: Sociodemographic, pregnancy, and HIV disease characteristics in this sample suggest changes in the makeup of HIV-infected pregnant women parallel to the evolution of the HIV epidemic in the USA over the past two decades. The MFA model predicted maternal health behaviors for pregnancy care (R2 = .37), with MFA, marital living status, and planned pregnancy status independently contributing ( = .50, = .28, = .23, respectively). It did not predict adherence to ART medication or infant care. Relevance: These findings provide the first focused evidence of the protective role of MFA against poor maternal health behaviors among pregnant women with HIV, in the presence of adverse life circumstances. Social desirability biases in some self-report measures may limit the findings. Suggestions are made for orienting future inquiry on maternal health behaviors during childbirth toward relationship and protection.

El Estado y las mujeres, concepciones en clave feminista

Pensar el Estado sigue presentando cierta urgencia en Argentina pues no ha dejado de tener una gran centralidad como interlocutor de las demandas sociales. Específicamente, procuro recuperar los aportes sustantivos de algunas pensadoras feministas. En particular, y aún a riesgo de que mi recorte pueda encasillarse en el de la colonialidad discursiva, retomaré las contribuciones de la politóloga inglesa Carole Pateman y la jurista estadounidense Catharine MacKinnon. Luego, estableceré algunas consideraciones sobre las derivaciones de sus propuestas y la forma en que otras autoras han aportado con particular eje en la ciudadanía tanto en su faz activa como pasiva. Finalmente, volveré a pensar nuestra práctica y nuestra teoría en el proceso de devenir feminista...

El Estado y las mujeres, concepciones en clave feminista

Pensar el Estado sigue presentando cierta urgencia en Argentina pues no ha dejado de tener una gran centralidad como interlocutor de las demandas sociales. Específicamente, procuro recuperar los aportes sustantivos de algunas pensadoras feministas. En particular, y aún a riesgo de que mi recorte pueda encasillarse en el de la colonialidad discursiva, retomaré las contribuciones de la politóloga inglesa Carole Pateman y la jurista estadounidense Catharine MacKinnon. Luego, estableceré algunas consideraciones sobre las derivaciones de sus propuestas y la forma en que otras autoras han aportado con particular eje en la ciudadanía tanto en su faz activa como pasiva. Finalmente, volveré a pensar nuestra práctica y nuestra teoría en el proceso de devenir feminista...

El Estado y las mujeres, concepciones en clave feminista

Pensar el Estado sigue presentando cierta urgencia en Argentina pues no ha dejado de tener una gran centralidad como interlocutor de las demandas sociales. Específicamente, procuro recuperar los aportes sustantivos de algunas pensadoras feministas. En particular, y aún a riesgo de que mi recorte pueda encasillarse en el de la colonialidad discursiva, retomaré las contribuciones de la politóloga inglesa Carole Pateman y la jurista estadounidense Catharine MacKinnon. Luego, estableceré algunas consideraciones sobre las derivaciones de sus propuestas y la forma en que otras autoras han aportado con particular eje en la ciudadanía tanto en su faz activa como pasiva. Finalmente, volveré a pensar nuestra práctica y nuestra teoría en el proceso de devenir feminista...

A Space of One's Own: Women's Magazine Consumption Within Family Life

This is a study of women's magazine consumption in the home. It explores issues of time and space, and addresses the importance the women who took part in the study place on magazine consumption in their lives, given the 'juggling' lifestyles experiences by most of them. The study reveals family life to be a landscape within which these women carve out what they perceive as valuable and rare time and space for themselves. The authors argue that in contemporary life women's magazines play a key part in the quest for me-time and time away from others, in both a tangible and experiential sense.