World Heart Day 2012 : Focus on Women and Children

 
 This year our efforts will focus on protecting the hearts of women and children through heart-healthy actions. 

 This year, World Heart Day is even more significant given that at the 65th World Health Assembly in May 2012, governments from 194 countries agreed to the first-ever global mortality target on non-communicable diseases (NCDs – including CVD, diabetes, cancer and chronic respiratory diseases) and made a commitment to reduce premature NCD deaths by 25 per cent by 2025.
  Since CVD accounts for nearly half of the 36 million deaths due to NCDs, we have a major role to play in achieving this target. 

This year in continuation from our 2011 theme of home heart health we will make 2012 the year of cardiovascular disease (CVD) prevention among women and children because:

Faith Complex: Islamic Feminism and the Blue Bra

Muslim feminist Asra Nomani visited Faith Complex to discuss how the infamous “Blue Bra” video has reversed honor/shame categories in the Islamic world.

During the Tahrir Square uprisings in Cairo, onlookers captured this extremely disturbing video of Egyptian military police brutalizing a female protester, dragging her along the street so that her blue bra becomes visible in the course of the beating. The incident sparked a wave of solidarity across Egypt and the unnamed “blue bra girl” has become an icon and rallying cry. Crucially, the Blue Bra Revolution also turns the spotlight on what the role of women will be in the regimes arising out of the Arab Spring.

8 March - International Women's Day

EMPOWER RURAL WOMEN –  END HUNGER AND POVERTY.

“Invest in rural women. Eliminate discrimination against them in law and in practice. Ensure that policies respond to their needs. Give them equal access to resources. Provide rural women with a role in decision-making.”

                                                                                            Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon

     Recognizing the critical role and contribution of rural women, the theme of International Women’s Day 2012 is Empower Rural Women – End Hunger and Poverty.
     Key contributors to global economies, rural women play a critical role in both developed and developing nations — they enhance agricultural and rural development, improve food security and can help reduce poverty levels in their communities. In some parts of the world, women represent 70 percent of the agricultural workforce, comprising 43 percent of agricultural workers worldwide.

Vandals Attack Canadian Salon Over Battered-Woman Ad

       The owners of a hair salon in Canada have received death threats following an ad campaign featuring battered women, with a promise of making them look good again.
      The Daily Mail reports that Fluid Hair in Edmonton has been vandalized, as people are outraged that it would dare to use domestic violence to advertise its services.
Graffiti was found Thursday morning (Aug 25th  )on the back entrance of the Fluid hair salon. Lavender paint was splashed across the door. A message stenciled on paper and pasted to two back windows read, "This is art that is wrongly named violence, that was violence that was wrongly named art." The two sections were connected by a hot-pink arrow.
       The salon came under fire this week over an ad from February depicting a woman, elegantly dressed, sitting on a couch with a black eye. A man stands behind her holding a necklace. The ad's slogan reads, "Look good in all you do."

Killing Us Softly 3 : Advertising's Image of Women

"As timely and important as ever. . .A must for everyone who cares about media literacy and gender equity." -- Susan Douglas | author, Where the Girls Are: Growing Up With the Mass Media

    Jean Kilbourne continues her groundbreaking analysis of advertising's depiction of women in this most recent update of her pioneering Killing Us Softly series. In fascinating detail, Kilbourne decodes an array of print and television advertisements to reveal a pattern of disturbing and destructive gender stereotypes. Her analysis challenges us to consider the relationship between advertising and broader issues of culture, identity, sexism, and gender violence.

Includes a bonus 25-minute interview with Jean Kilbourne.

Sections:
Does the beauty ideal still tyrannize women? |
Does advertising still objectify women's bodies? |
Are the twin themes of liberation and weight control still linked? |
Is sexuality still presented as women's main concern? |
Are young girls still sexualized? |
Are grown women infantilized? |
Are images of male violence against women still used to sell products?

Jean Kilbourne

Jean Kilbourne is internationally recognized for her pioneering work on alcohol and tobacco advertising and the image of women in advertising. Her films, slide lectures and television appearances have been seen by millions of people throughout the world. She was named by The New York Times Magazine as one of the three most popular speakers on college campuses today.

Book: >> Look Better Naked

Look Better Naked is a diet, exercise, beauty, and self-confidence plan from the editor-in chief of Women’s Health, the magazine that knows how to s ...more            
Look Better Naked: The Six Week Plan to Tighten, Tone, and Shapen Your Best Body Ever

Biography:

MICHELE PROMAULAYKO is editor-in-chief of Women’s Health, the fastest-growing women’s magazine in the country. She is an outspoken expert on women’s issues and has appeared on the Today show, CNN, Fox News, and The Tyra Banks Show.

Hardcover, 320 pages

 Synopsis:

Look Better Naked is a diet, exercise, beauty, and self-confidence plan from the editor-in chief of Women’s Health, the magazine that knows how to speak to women in a smart, inspiring way. The book offers expert tips and simple plans for reshaping a woman’s body quickly and easily. It reveals the powerfoods a woman should put on her plate every day and has a workout plan that delivers results in just 15 minutes a day. The plan also helps a woman:
• flatten her belly
• tone her legs
• tighten her butt
• improve her skin and hair
A woman’s posture, her pride, her personal power —they all go together. Look Better Naked shows a woman how to be the best possible version of herself that she can be.

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