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No means no
***Trigger warning*** The following Blogpost includes a discussion on sexual harassment, which might be disturbing to some. If you believe that the content will be traumatizing for you, you might want to forgo it. Sexual harassment is a very critical topic that I debated talking about on this blog for quite some time now. Nevertheless, since 1 in 3 women and 1 in 6 men experience sexual harassment throughout their lives, I feel that I need to pay attention to this topic. What I think is often forgotten about is the fact that there are two sides of sexual harassment, one in which a man harasses a woman…
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Bloody hell
450. This is the average number of periods that a woman goes through in her life. For some it is no problem at all, but the majority of women experiences some sort of physical or mental issues during her period or menstrual cycle, which in fact might lead to a grumpy or moody behaviour. So, let´s have a look at the menstrual cycle, how it impacts women and what can be done to ease the pain. First of all, let´s make sure we understand the difference between a period and the menstrual cycle. The period is the first phase of the menstrual cycle in which a woman bleeds,…
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Dora Maar
For women to be successful, it is necessary to have role models that they can identify with. Nowadays, such role models start to appear more often – take Michelle Obama or Oprah Winfrey as examples – but actually, female role models were there long before the 21st century. Bettina Storks´ novel “Dora Maar und die zwei Gesichter der Liebe” (English: Dora Maar and the two faces of love) is only available in German and was published in 2021 by atb. It tells the story of Dora Maar, who was Picasso´s only beloved and able to compete with his talent in art. She was not just an incredible photographer…
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Abortions in the 21st century
Each year, 4.7% – 13.2% of maternal deaths are due to unsafe abortions. Around 45% of all abortions are unsafe. This leads to physical and mental health issues as well as financial and social burdens for women, nations and health care systems. So how come we are still debating when it comes to safe abortions? Before we start, let´s continue with some facts. Abortion is when a pregnancy is ended so that childbirth is prevented. Globally, about 73 million induced abortions take place each year. Regarding unintended pregnancies, 6 of 10 end in an induced abortion, when including intended pregnancies, that number shrinks to 3 of 10. Some individuals…
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Gender quotas: Boon or bane?
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Medical research gap: Why men and women cannot be treated equally
What are the symptoms of a heart attack? If you answered chest pain and a pain in your left arm, you are right for about 50% of the population. The other half experiences difficulty breathing, a pain in their right arm and back pain – and these 50% are vastly overlooked (again, I know it´s tiring). I am talking about the medical research gap, that negatively impacts women’s health and thus threatens their life. Let´s start from the beginning. In the past it was known that many diseases impact men and women differently, however, it was (and often still is) assumed that male bodies represent the norm. Of course,…
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Bombshell
Have you heard about the sexual harassment scandal at Fox News in 2016? Whether you have or not, there is a fantastic movie out there that tells the story about how women were harassed by Fox News founder Roger Ailes and discriminated at work. “Bombshell” was released in in 2019 and is directed by Jay Roach. The movie did not just receive an Oscar but has an all-star cast as well. Nicole Kidman plays Gretchen, a former Fox News journalist who initiates the lawsuit against Ailes; Charlize Theron plays Megyn, a successful journalist who debates to risk her career in coming forward and talking about the…
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Gender quotas: Boon or bane?
Introducing gender quotas really is a difficult topic that is still debated fiercely. Don´t they prevent male talent from being hired just because a quota needs to be fulfilled? Or are gender quotas necessary for visibility and transparency when it comes to reaching gender equity? Some might wonder what gender quotas are. Quotas set a certain minimum percentage of how many women (or men, in some rare cases) need to be represented in a company´s management, the parliament as well as other departments and institutions. Hence, they try to help achieving a gender balance. Since June 2021, public companies with four or more board members need to have at…
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Abortions in the 21st century
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Angry White Men
There are a lot of books on gender equity, and most of them are from a female perspective. And whilst these books are important and valid, I also wanted to shed light on the male perspective to truly understand their point of view on gender equity. Michael Kimmel´s “Angry White Men – American Masculinity at the End of an Era” accomplishes this very well. It was published in 2017 by Bold Type Books and is essentially about how increased gender equity has left (traditional) men feeling betrayed, as most of them were taught to expect social and economic privileges. A very interesting term Kimmel introduces is “aggrieved…
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Do women talk more than men?
The title of this blogpost represents what most of us think: Women talk more than men. This is of course not fatal at first sight, but many of us associate too much talking with negative aspects, such as being annoying. So even if the stereotype is used as a humorous expression, it is still good to know whether women actually talk more than men or not. So let´s get right to it. In her book “The female brain” (2006), Louann Brizendine, M.D., explains that women use around 20.000 words per day whereas men use 7.000 only. Can that really be? Diving in deeper into the research, it is…
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What is internalised misogyny and why is it important?
Internalised miso – what? This complicated term might be hard to pronounce but actually refers to something that almost everyone of us does: projecting female biases against other women and oneself. I like to call this the “women against women club”. You are part of the “women against women club” as soon as you want to separate yourself from women who are “dramatic”, when you comment negatively on their outward appearance or behaviour (“she is only wearing that skirt to climb up the career ladder”), or when you say that boys are much cooler since girls are so “annoying”. Other examples of female biases include to believe that women…
