Global Female Condom Day, September 16

WHY DO WE NEED FEMALE CONDOMS?

• 222 million women in developing countries who wish to avoid a pregnancy have an unmet need for contraceptives.
• According to the World Health Organization (WHO), more than 1 million people acquire a sexually transmitted infection every day.
• UNAIDS reports that in 2013, an estimated 2.1 million people became newly infected—the majority through sexual transmission.
• A UNAIDS 2014 report estimates that young women 15–24 years old in sub-Saharan Africa are twice as likely as young men to be living with HIV.
• According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Black women in the U.S. are disproportionately impacted by HIV, accounting for approximately two-thirds of women living with HIV.
• The CDC reports that young Black gay men and other men who have sex with men comprise the overwhelming majority of new HIV infections in the U.S.
• Globally, gay men and other men who have sex with men are 13 times more likely to be HIV-positive than the general population.
• Female condoms can be used by women and men living with HIV to meet their family planning needs and claim their rights to healthy, mutually respectful, and fulfilling sexual relationships.

10 FACTS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT THE FEMALE CONDOMS

1. Female Condom is a sexually transmitted Disease prevention tool and a contraceptive tool which prevents unplanned pregnancies
2. It is 17 cm long which is about the same length of the unrolled male condom and wider than a male condom
3. Female Condom shouldn’t be used together with male condom because it could be damaged during sexual intercourse due to the friction
4. Female Condoms are made of polyurethane or nitrile, which make them strong and durable. There is no need to store it in a special storage conditions as it is resistant to humidity and high temperatures
5. It gives women the opportunity to share responsibility for the condoms with their partners. It also provides the alternative if the partner is unwilling to use a male condom due to personal, cultural, religious or other reasons
6. The female condom is safe, simple, and convenient
7. You can insert it ahead of time or as part of sex play
8. Globally, female condom distribution increased by 10 million between 2008 and 2009.
9. Today the female condom is available in over 90 countrie
10. In 2008, donor countries supplied 18.2 million female condoms globally, compared to nearly 2.4 billion male condoms

On Global Female Condom Day, Sept. 16, we’re showing the world that women and men want access to female condoms by dancing for demand! Anyone can participate, alone or with a group!
Get started: www.femalecondomday.org. #Dance4Demand

Sunday is the day when #GirlsDecide: Odeta

#Girlsdecide

We close the #GirlsDecide series with Odeta's* story.

She shares her journey that involves her partner and a decision to not to use a condom... several other decisions will have to be taken afterwards, with the information, support and advice available.

Sunday is the day when #GirlsDecide: Halimah

Halimah's* journey takes us to Indonesia and through the difficulties of taking an informed decision about a pregnancy when your culture and your family might not be entirely with you.

And how comprehensive sexuality education could change the entire picture...

Condoms, condoms, CONDOMS!

This is a public service announcement:  Following the educational example of The Golden Girls,  I ♥ Being a Girl reminds you that using condoms is the socially and ethically responsible thing to do. So is talking about them, promoting their use and challenging the weird people who would not mention (and/or use) them while having no idea about their sero-status!

+ Going on a condom buying mission is a good way to star your SRHR/feminist activism. Figure out how good are the salespeople in your neighborhood. 

If you find a especially nasty place that make people uncomfortable, go again and again (with your friends to make it a rave-like party) until they do sth about it. Make inquiries about the types of lube they have. Write angry notes in their "Customer suggestions" book. 

Make the access to supplies your little rebellious mission!

IPPF ♥ for #IPPF60

#IPPF60 #SRHR

  

"IPPF started its journey in 1952, when 8 family planning associations joined together to fight for a cause.

60 years later and the organization is nearly 20 times larger. It works in 172 countries, delivers millions of services all over the world. And drives major changes in global policy.

Together, IPPF’s family makes up the largest sexual and reproductive health and rights organization in the world. None of this would have been achieved without the untiring efforts of IPPF’s staff and volunteers, and our partners in government, civil society and business.

There is so much the Federation can be proud of: it continues to improve the health of millions by contributing to health systems strengthening around the world. It provides services where no government facilities exist, it trains health workers, reacts rapidly in emergency situations and provides expertise that others can learn from."

LET'S EAT CAKE!

This is the cake that IPPF Western Hemisphere Region enjoyed!

Girls + pregnancies

In the SRHR community, we spend a lot of time talking about maternal morbidity and mortality, about the need to insure access to health care services and supplies. We insist on need for access, real access to education for girls. We advocate for mandatory Comprehensive Sexuality Education since very early in one's life.

But the curious thought that sums it all up, as presented by Hugo Schwyzer, somehow surprised me

"Sperm kills.* For hundreds of millions of women over the course of millenia, the riskiest action they ever took was having sex (consensual or otherwise, married or not) with men. As medical historians will tell you, until the 20th century, childbirth was the leading cause of death for all women of childbearing years; in some societies that maternal mortality rate may have reached 40%, while other researchers prefer a lower figure of 1 in 5. Given that many women in the developing world still have half a dozen children or more, as they did in previous centuries, the overall risk is compounded by the sheer number of pregnancies carried to term. (1 in 7 Afghan women today die in childbirth.)

To put it even more bluntly, men have killed far more women by ejaculating inside of them than they have by any other method. Semen has killed more people than any other body fluid."

He concludes that, culturally, as a collective unconscious knowledge, it might be one of the reasons to fear the patriarchy-wise channeled male (hetero)sexuality even in places where the feminist fight is not anymore about the legal right to say "no".

A thought-provoking read, anyways.
 

Sista Queen "Try Being A Lady"

"Try being a lady?
Use me as your trophy so you can parade me...
Use my vagina to only birth babies...
Be your damsel in distress so a brother can save me...
[...]
If my tongue was a trigger, you'd have been shot...
Get real - I'm gonna stay inappropriate until I fucking rot...
I don't talk about love,
I don't talk about sex,
I don't talk about things that'll put your dick on erect"

Sista Queen

"I wasn't expecting much when a 19 year old newcomer from Atlanta with the cliched name of Sista Queen was announced. Well, this performer blew me away, and I hope that anybody who wants to see Def Poetry at its best will find a way to catch her three minutes. She's an intense, loud, fast talker with an endless supply of breath. Her piece is about the self-cheapening of womanhood, and as her performance built to a crescendo she shot back and forth between mocking poses of cute fawning femininity and furious denunciations of the same poses, switching so quickly you were still catching up with the last change as she shot off into the next one. This is the kind of performance I want to see when I turn on this show. I don't know how Sista Queen got so good at such a young age, but I'm pretty sure we'll be hearing more from her." (Levi Asher on July 25, 2005)

Inspirational movies: Precious (2009)

Here, in I ♥ Being a Girl, we always try to look on the bright side of being a girl. Nevertheless, Precious, our first movie suggestion in section Inspirational movies, is not rosy at all.

It's harsh and it will take you to experiences you wish nobody would ever live. Imagine being a illiterate, overweight teen in Harlem, phisically and sexually abused who is pregnant with her second child... and, despite all that, she is trying to get out of the misery.

Quoting the tagline of the movie, "Life is hard. Life is short. Life is painful. Life is rich. Life is... Precious".

This is by no means your popcorn-night romantic comedy, it will touch you deeply, it will hurt and that's the way it's supposed to be.

the Girl Effect, still

girleffect.org

Girls & Contraception (Decision by H.E.R.A.)

A short on girls and myths and truth about contraception produced by H.E.R.A.

Girls & Contraception (Renata)

"It's easy now to choose your method of contraception what you want to use because there is lots of information – researches online, but… when it come to talking about it… its not so easy. I can talk with my closest friends about contraception, I can explain almost everything, but when I have to talk with others – strangers, like writing here… mmmm… it becomes a bit uncomfortable… because it's personal, some people can look at you very negatively… it is still a taboo, and that refrains many girls from talking about contraception openly.

We live in 21st century and it shouldn’t be like that. It is sad but not all girls can access internet to read about different methods or get the prescription from doctor because they live in small communities or they are scared of something. But Sex happens! We have to protect ourselves, It’s our bodies and we have to love it! So it’s much better play this game securely, than have big headache after that. Girls let's talk about Sex, and let's talk Contraception!!!"

Renata

Girls & Contraception (Marius)

"I asked some girlfriends “what’s the first thing that pops to mind when they hear the word contraception?”. To be more exact I asked 57 girls this question.

• 22 said “condom”
• 25 said “sexual protection”
• 7 said “the pill”
• 3 said “no babies”

Those 7 girls that said “the pill”, they’re all in a relationship. They trust their boyfriend so they consider this being the best contraceptive method for their sexual relationship.

From the 22 girls who said “condom”, 13 of them have a boyfriend, but they prefer this method of contraception. When I asked why, 4 of them told me because “taking the pill can get you fat” and they don’t want that. The others said they haven’t discussed the subject with their boyfriend, they just started with the condom and kept on going with it.

Myths exists, and they influence peoples decision. Taking the pill doesn't get you fat. It's true some of them can increase your appetite for food, but that can be controlled.

I asked the girls who said “sexual protection”, what do they mean by this? The majority said protection against STI’s and unwanted babies, but there were 6 that focused only on the unwanted babies, on the STI’s part, they weren’t very concerned. They had the idea that "it won’t happen to me. I don’t know anyone who had/has an STI.”

The thing is that you can't tell if a person has an STI just looking at him/her, and sadly people lie. Ignorance it's not the way.

The 3 girls that said “no babies” are concerned in both ways, unwanted pregnancies and STI’s, but they said no babies, because getting pregnant would complicate their life a lot more. As what contraceptive they use, they all said the condom.

Contraceptive methods are there, and if you're informed enough you can decide which method you want to use, which one is best. They don't necessary take the pleasure away, they can even change the mood sometimes. From different condoms to pills, you can decide which one you want to use, but always take in account the risks that you are putting yourself to if you don't use one."

Marius

Girls & Contraception (Ada)

"Girls have very different experiences and stories to tell when it comes to when they first find out about contraception. Often times these stories come from learning about the pill and not so much about emergency contraception or negotiation to use a condom. Being able to feel comfortable to admit that, as a girl/young women, we have sex and then to be able to feel comfortable to talk about which contraceptive methods we would like in order to prevent pregnancy or an STI still seems like an ideal situation for girls.

We aren’t having sex to prevent these outcomes of sex, we are having sex for other reasons. Still, it is important that girls have contraceptive knowledge and choice and that girls can feel comfortable to talk about this.

I come from a family of all girls, and I asked my sisters the question, “when did you first learn about contraception?” Interestingly, we all had different answers and different stories around this question. Here’s my slightly funny and a little depressing story of my first memory of learning about contraception:

My school sex education (not about sexuality at all), similar to many young people, focused on abstinence only scare tactics as well as the biological/anatomical background of sex. During sex education we were shown huge pictures of STIs to know what some STIs, i.e. chlamydia and warts looked like. We ended up saying things like ‘eww gross’ and shielding our eyes and in utter disbelief that that could actually happen to someone. The message from this was supposed to be to either not have sex or wear a condom. The teachers never really thought that young people will never admit to having an STI if there is so much stigma around having one. For some reason, the school decided to address this topic in the same week as wearing a safety belt when in a car – the pictures for this one were major trauma car accidents on what has happened to people who don’t wear their seatbelts…. The message was clear: never have sex and never get in a car!

Luckily for me, talking about getting on birth control was an easy discussion to have. I do remember girls saying “yes, but I’m only on the pill to prevent acne and so my menstrual cramps aren’t so bad”. We still have a lot of work to do to help support girls who want to have sex, feel good about their choices and live healthy sexual lives that protect themselves."

Ada

Girls & Contraception (Maya)

"Contraception gives me control over my life and future, over my health, family status or work aspirations. And what is most important about it - IT GIVES ME A CHOICE!

How and when to protect myself it all up to me. And remember, there is a method for everyone. The pill and the female condom offer girls the chance to be independent and make their own decisions while the condom can help generate trust and security between partners. So make good use of your right of choice and enjoy yourself safely!"

Maya

Girls & Contraception (Luīze)

"I find so weird to be the one insisting that it’s going to
be either with a condom or nothing is going to
happen. Why would it have to be a fight and negotiation?
As if it would be only about me..." (Luīze)