Angelina Jolie: How the Pandemic Is Hurting Women in a World That Already Didn't Care About Them
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- Published on Sunday, 18 October 2020 15:36
- Written by Angelina Jolie
The UN Secretary General’s latest report on COVID-19 contains a chilling statement: “gains on gender equality risk being reversed by decades” by the pandemic. The numbers paint a stark picture of a possible 2 million additional cases of female genital mutilation globally by 2030, 13 million additional child marriages, an additional 15 million women and girls subjected to gender-based violence for every 3 months of lockdown, and a further 47 million women forced into extreme poverty.
The prospect of “decades” of progress in women’s rights being undone by the pandemic is intolerable and ought to be unthinkable. It is over half a century since the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights promised equal rights for all women, yet basic rights, protections and freedoms are still non-existent in some countries. In others, they are built on such fragile foundations that it seems the pandemic might sweep them away.
These problems cannot be blamed entirely on the coronavirus. While the virus has inflamed inequities in societies, it did not create them. Humans — not disease — are responsible for unjust laws and systems, and racial and social inequality. The coronavirus is just the latest excuse for all that we didn’t fix ourselves.
Even before the pandemic, which has led to a shocking rise in domestic violence, more than three women a day on average were murdered by their husbands or boyfriends in America. Globally, an estimated one in every three women faced being beaten, raped or otherwise abused during her lifetime, with in most cases, the abuser being a member of her own family. There were over three times as many female victims of intentional homicide in 2017 worldwide than victims of terrorism — and over half of them were murdered by a family member.
We live in an era of artificial intelligence and quantum computing. Yet the basic rights of women to an education, the vote, control over their bodies, equal protection under the law, equal pay and full representation in society, are still debated in terms that would be familiar to early campaigners for women’s rights, with much of the same old unrepentant misogyny, worn out excuses, and outright violence. In our world, the existence of an entire hospital in the Democratic Republic of Congo largely devoted to treating victims of brutal rape — among them babies and young children — is taken as normal.
Less than 1% of all international humanitarian assistance goes toward sexual and gender-based violence programs — a clear signal that preventing such crimes is not accorded high priority by governments. And previous pandemics such as Ebola have shown that more women are likely to die from a lack of services to respond to violence and illness than from the disease itself, yet international efforts to meet the needs of vulnerable women remain underfunded and subject to political backlash.
With hindsight, we’ve accepted or congratulated ourselves on progress in women’s rights that has been incremental, painfully slow, and all too easily reversible. The younger generation — including those voting for the first time in the upcoming U.S. election — should not be as patient or accepting of compromises.
The possibility of a setback in women’s rights globally ought to provoke a tidal wave of anger and concern, and pressure on governments to guarantee that they will not countenance this unjust and dangerous outcome. Continued suppression or reversal of women’s rights would lead to a more insecure and divided world, with greater numbers of refugees and increased conflict. It is as much a threat to our interests as it is an affront to our values. Women shouldn’t be the main voices in this fight. Men must take a stand.
This should not be a partisan issue. Yet it has emerged as a dividing line in next month’s Presidential election. The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) was allowed to lapse in February 2019 and has yet to be reauthorized. Only Joe Biden has committed to the authorization of VAWA in his first 100 days in office and to America leading in the fight against gender-based violence globally.
But we need more than a return to the status quo before the pandemic. At home, we need a far greater focus on safety: the prevention of domestic violence, greatly increased support and services for survivors including children exposed to violence and trauma, and a system that provides accountability.
Abroad, we and other powerful countries should acknowledge the blatant inconsistencies in our approach to foreign policy: our willingness to turn a blind eye to human rights abuses when they are committed by allies or partners with whom we want to do business, or when we simply decide that our own political priorities have shifted. Doing so makes it all too easy for others to shirk their responsibilities.
In Afghanistan, for example, after an invasion we justified in part on the grounds of the Taliban’s treatment of women and two decades of efforts to support Afghan women in their demands for an equal place in society, we have knowingly taken part in a diplomatic process that side-lined Afghan women. America is stewarding a peace agreement that may not even require the Taliban to guarantee the basic right of all Afghan girls to go to school, without exception. Equal rights should mean just that, not equal rights where expedient.
Not to use our influence to defend and promote women’s rights at a time when they are threatened would betray the fundamental principles of our democracy. It would also send a message to young girls everywhere — already conscious of growing up in an unequal, unjust world — that even though we could see their horizons narrowing during this pandemic, we didn’t care enough to try to stop it.
(source)
Medical Schools Usually Don't Teach How Conditions Look on Different Skin Tones. Malone Mukwende Is Trying to Change That
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- Published on Thursday, 24 June 2021 06:53
- Written by Angelina Jolie
When Malone Mukwende, 21, started medical school in London, he identified a fundamental problem: almost all the images and data used in its teaching were based on studies of white patients. But medical symptoms can present very differently on Black and brown skin, leading to misdiagnosis, suffering and even death. Still a student, he has recently launched both a handbook, Mind the Gap, and Hutano, a new online platform intended to empower people with knowledge about their health. I asked him what he hoped to achieve and the wider lessons for all of us.
AJ: For people who don’t know your work, would you explain Mind the Gap?
MM: I got to medical school and noticed there was a gap in our teaching. If we learned about a particular type of rash or disease that manifests on skin, it would always have white skin as the reference. I would ask “what does this look like on other skin tones?” just for my own learning. Often people told me that they didn’t know. I decided that something needed to be done. Some members of staff at the university and I then started collating pictures and descriptions of different conditions on darker skin, and we compiled them all into a handbook that we called Mind the Gap.
AJ: The gap isn’t just because there haven’t been studies on Black and brown skin. It’s because it wasn’t considered important, right?
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MM: Yes, that’s right. After the publication of Mind the Gap, someone reached out to me who is a student in Zimbabwe. They said that all the books and reference images they use are also from white skin, even though the population [is] predominantly of darker skin. It really shows you that the legacies of colonialism are still living in 2021. A lot of the textbooks that they get are the ones we in the Western world have discarded, after a new edition has come out. It makes you question and wonder how come in the continent of Africa—I would assume the same thing is happening in much of Asia—there isn’t an established [local] source or resource.There are so many people locally on the ground who know this stuff. But from a wider perspective and a teaching perspective, it’s not being transitioned from individual knowledge into textbooks and resources to help to teach people.
AJ: I have children from different backgrounds, and I know when there was a rash that everybody got, it looked drastically different depending on their skin color. But whenever I looked at medical charts, the reference point was always white skin. Recently my daughter Zahara, whom I adopted from Ethiopia, had surgery, and afterward a nurse told me to call them if her skin “turned pink.”
MM: That’s the kind of thing I started to notice very early on. Almost the entirety of medicine is taught in that way. There’s a language and a culture that exists in the medical profession, because it’s been done for so many years and because we are still doing it so many years later it doesn’t seem like it’s a problem. However, like you’ve just illustrated, that’s a very problematic statement for some groups of the population because it’s just not going to happen in that way and if you’re unaware you probably won’t call the doctor.
AJ: Now that there is so much online, it should be so much easier. So what is your new digital platform, and why is it called Hutano?
MM: Hutano, in my native language, Shona, translates directly to ‘health’. It’s a health social platform, where people from all over the world can connect to form communities and really discuss these different conditions.
AJ: What do you hope it will achieve?
MM: We want people who are living with these conditions to have a platform to be seen and empower their health care literacy. For example, someone who has been struggling with eczema can come onto Hutano and join or even create an awareness group around their condition, and other people from all over the world who have that condition can join in and maybe discuss, “oh I’ve recently been diagnosed with eczema, does anyone know how I can find some clothes which won’t irritate my eczema?” or “I’ve used this cream, does anyone have any experience in how it has worked?” We want to give people the platform to be able to discuss these things. We need to start empowering the individual, and that, I hope, will start to reduce some of the health care disparities that exist.
AJ: Do you have some examples of the consequences of these disparities?
MM: In the U.K. there was a case in the early 2000s, and even though it was a while ago now it shows how serious these things can get. There was a little girl, Victoria Climbié, and she was undergoing abuse from her great aunt and her boyfriend. She presented to the hospital, and she had visible injuries on her skin. A doctor concluded that she was suffering from scabies and accepted her guardians’ story that she had inflicted the wounds herself by scratching the scars. Eventually they realized that this was a potential social-services case and a case of neglect. Unfortunately she did end up dying due to abuse at the hands of her guardians. From a health care perspective there had been an opportunity to be able to intervene and fully alert social services quicker. In the report on her death it said she had 128 different injuries. We missed that many different signs on darker skin to be able to identify that this was actually a problem. This is a common problem with bruising and injury in domestic violence and abuse cases.
AJ: And this goes beyond just looking at skin, doesn’t it? There are wider problems with our medical knowledge and our evidence and our measurements?
MM: It’s the politics of medicine, for so long. For instance if you read an old medical textbook it will tell you from a European perspective that a 70 kg (154 lb.) 25-year-old male is the reference point, and if you are above that you are obese, if you are below that you are malnourished, and who came up with this scale? We like to say medicine is evidence-based, but we need to question where our evidence is coming from. A lot of the studies only included people from Europe and America. We’ve got all these data sets but actually we only tested 30% or 40% of the world.
AJ: So how do we recalculate?
MM: I can’t say I have a solution because if we decide to group by age that will also open a can of worms; [the same is true] if we group by race, if we group by income. It just depends on individual circumstances a lot of the time. If [individual] people are empowered they will have an adequate amount of information or an adequate ability to ask the right questions about their health care.
AJ: What amazes me is that you’ve managed to publish this handbook and created this new platform while you’re still a medical student.
MM: I’m a big believer that age shouldn’t be a barrier. If there is a problem that needs to be fixed it doesn’t matter if you’re a doctor who has been qualified for 25 years or if you’re somebody who has just walked into the doors of medical school, as long as you are committed to the cause.
—With reporting by Madeline Roache
credits : Times Magazine
ANGELINA JOLIE'S COOL STORE
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- Published on Saturday, 24 August 2024 08:57
- Written by Super User
Angelina Jolie's store Atelier Jolie opened last year.
And this month the actress' New York City shop has been buzzing with classes on how to be creative with clothing.On Thursday there will be a session on 'upcycling,' which means reusing old items. On August 28 a class is offered called Experimental Drawing with Andrew Castrucci.Before that there was a class on intimates 'where you can learn how to create designer-inspired intimate apparel.' And there was another gathering with Giancarlo Cipri on how to silkscreen and Mimi Plange on using appliqué through felting.Jolie has also hosted a conversation with artist Ferrari Sheppard. The mostly brown and beige 6,600 sq ft space has an inviting café and an art gallery. It's located on 57 Great Jones Street as if open Tuesdays to Saturdays.'The place is bustling and has a very smart vibe, I like it in there, it's amazing,' said a fan of Atelier Jolie. 'It's a cool place to hang out.' 'It definitely was a labor of love for Jolie to highlight artists. And the coffee is good, the café is fun,' the source added.'Everyone there seems genuinely interested in not doing what The Gap sells - there is a lot of hand crafting. The classes are cool. And people do talk about how incredible Angelina is for opening the shop. They adore her. A lot of Jolie fans there.'Angelina does come into the Atelier, and so do some of her kids.'
Inside the store hangs clothing from sustainable brands from all over the world, Atelier Jolie’s own collection, art, and a café run by refugees called Eat Offbeat. It is in New York’s NoHo neighborhood that was formerly the studio and home of Jean-Michel Basquiat, per WSJ.Last year Jolie told WSJ that she will 'probably lose money, maybe even for a while' on her store.'If I can eventually put into practice some things that I think are improvements and I just break even, that’s a huge victory,' said the Salt star.Earlier this year they put a call out to creators. 'To all creators-Everyone can join one way or another. 'Every customer will be part... And anyone who visits or participates online, or at the many events will be a part… But today we are focusing on one part of our Atelier family.'The Tomb Raider star added she was looking for 'skilled tailors.''The first atelier is going to be in NYC, this post is for skilled tailors living there. We hope there will be others soon, as we build a global family.
'We are looking for tailors who understand quality and creativity. Atelier Jolie will curate a few up-and-coming skilled tailors who have a strong point of view on design. 'This collective’s purpose is to collaborate with customers, supporting them with tools to design and create. You will also have a chance to develop your own line and sell in the shop under your name, to help launch your own new sustainable brand after leaving the residency. 'We understand because of financial reasons that you may not have been able to touch on sustainability, so we are here to support that endeavor.'Soon, we will be looking for artisans—with a focus on embroidery, fabric painting, fabric manipulations, etc... There will be different calls for talent submissions. Some in-house… Some for special events and salon dinners... Some are to be featured in tutorials online. All to help share your creativity.'As you fill out the submission form below, I encourage everyone as artists to always protect your creations. You should never submit confidential designs… share what you have shared with the world already. We will see the work with respect and integrity.'We look forward to reviewing them. Remember, if you don’t hear from us this round, there will be many more rounds and other opportunities to come.
'Thank you in advance for sharing your creativity. Be bold.
'Love, Angelina Jolie, Founder.'
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