Weekly Standard: First, Third And Real Worlds Meet

Women paint during the International Day of Action for Women's Health on May 28 in Medellin, Antioquia department, Colombia. Hundreds of women protested for the construction of a health clinic for women. Around the world, more attention has been focused on the rights of women and their access to health care causing debate on how involved the U.S. should be.

Women paint during the International Day of Action for Women's Health on May 28 in Medellin, Antioquia department, Colombia. Hundreds of women protested for the construction of a health clinic for women. Around the world, more attention has been focused on the rights of women and their access to health care causing debate on how involved the U.S. should be.

The good news about the conference earlier this year titled "Driving Change, Shaping Lives: Gender in the Developing World" was that no one said, "Women hold up half the sky." The bad news was that someone might as well have uttered this chestnut, reputed to be one of Mao Zedong's favorite Chinese proverbs and a perennial favorite of feminists.

The subtheme of the two-day event, sponsored by the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, the women's studies think tank that occupies what used to be the campus of Radcliffe College before it merged with Harvard, was how colorful, if chronically impoverished, the developing world can be, especially its women. The conference program was illustrated by photographs of developing-world people clad in ethnic costumes taken by a Harvard freshman who had been lucky enough or rich enough to take trips far abroad while still in high school: a veiled female crusher of argan nuts in Morocco ("She works at a women's co-op," the text read), a child beggar in India tricked out like the god Krishna, a Buddhist monk in China working a cell phone (an illustration of what the Harvard-freshman photographer called cross-cultural "hybridity").

Most of the panelists at the conference and nearly all the audience of 150 or so was female. Indeed Asim IJaz Khwaja, a public policy professor at the Harvard Kennedy School and a rare male panelist, declared self-deprecatingly, "I take such pleasure in being a minority and being stymied by the intellectual ferment here." Some of the women wore hijabs, saris, and towering sub-Saharan headdresses that announced their developing-world provenance​ — ​but most of them wore the uniform of First World women in academia: sensible slacks, puffy vests, and backpacks. All but a few of the former group were government officials, parliamentarians, and NGO activists from the countries that their ethnic dress denoted. As for the latter group, they were mostly what they looked like: professors and graduate students in such fields as politics, international relations, and, of course, women's studies.

Greene County Daily World: Local News: Women's Health Conference ...

The Greene County Tobacco Prevention and Cessation Coalition will be sponsoring a Women's Health Conference Saturday, Oct. 15 at Bloomfield First Baptist Church.

And they are looking for some help.

Registration fee will be $10, and will include a healthy lunch provided by Middle Way House Food Works. The conference will touch on many health and personal topics.

"Our desire is to reach adult women of all ages and backgrounds, by providing a variety of topics," Nancy Cummings, coordinator of the planning team for the conference, said.

Registration and a healthy continental breakfast will be served at 7:30 a.m., which will be provided by Greene County General Hospital.

Free health screenings will be available for participants. There will be workshops, or break-out sessions, that will cover various topics.

"There will be break-out sessions covering everything from physical health to financial health," Christa Turpin from the Greene County Middle Way House said.

Some of the break-out sessions consist of healthy cooking (gluten free, vegetarian, and diabetic foods), age appropriate behavior -- tots to teens, heart and stroke health, recognizing substance abuse in your family, coping with chronic illness, and several more.

Individuals can choose which sessions they would like to attend.

"We are going to have a vendor hall where organizations and businesses can set up booths with information geared towards women's issues and family stuff," Turpin explained, noting that there will be a booth for the Middle Way House.

Event coordinators are looking for sponsors for the event.

"This is our first time doing this (conference). We are really excited, and I think this could be the start of something more, too," Turpin said, adding that coordinators hope to have more events stem from this one.

Cummings said the goal for this conference is to inform and empower women about their health and their families health, provide a holistic environment that addresses women's needs, spark interest for special interest and support groups, connect health-related organizations in Greene County, mentor one another and show Greene County women what they can accomplish.

The keynote speaker will be Assistant Commissioner of Tobacco Prevention and Cessation Karla Sneegas, MPH, from the Indiana Department of Public Health.

If you would like to participate in the sessions, be a sponsor or set up an information booth in the vendor hall, call Cummings at 384-8769. Vendor registration forms are currently available at the Middle Way House in Bloomfield, and brochures for the event will be available soon.

Women's Health Conference, cardiovascular and general women's health symposia : Saturday-Tuesday, June 16-19, 2007. Obstetrics and Gynecology Symposium : Tuesday-Thursday, June 19-21, 2007 : Kohala Coast, Hawaii

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