Women’s March Cleveland at one of its marches in Cleveland, led by Black women. Photo by Cleveland Plain Dealer/Cleveland.com Photojournalist David Petkiewicz
WASHINGTON, D.C.-The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday heard oral arguments in a case that reached the country’s highest court that could end the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) longtime approval of mifepristone, the nation’s most widely used abortion bill.
Primarily at issue is whether the FDA’s two-decades approval of the pill is safe with justices seemingly skeptical of such assertion during Tuesday’s proceedings in Washington, D.C., pundits said afterwards. And whether the justices can step in for federal agencies to determine the safety of the pill is at issue too, lawyers for proponents of the pill argued to the nine-member , 6-3 conservative-leaning court comprised of three former President Donald Trump appointees.
The justices focused on whether the group of anti-abortion doctors who brought the lawsuit even had legal standing to bring the claim, with the plaintiffs represented by the Alliance Defending Freedombarguing that the FDA failed to adequately access the drug’s safety risks.
Whether the doctors could show that they were directly injured merely because they object to abortion also raised skepticism among the justices.
The case is being watched nationwide, particularly by women’s rights activists in key states.
Abortion rights groups in Ohio where voters enshrined the legal right to abortion and other reproductive measures into the Ohio coalition via the passage of an Issue 1 referendum at the ballot box in November, say they are fed up and intend to further voice their displeasure at the ballot box in November.
“After this same anti-female U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June of 2022 and handed authority over the issue to the states, women won at the ballot box on Issue 1 in Ohio only to continue to face continual attacks on our constitutional right to abortion access at the state and national levels by the GOP,” said Women’s March Cleveland head organizer Kathy Wray Coleman, a seasoned Black Cleveland activist, organizer and local journalist. “Northeast Ohio women and women across this land must rise up before the November presidential election and take to the streets to protest the attack on choice and our reproductive freedoms in general.”
Picture:Women’s March Cleveland at one of its reproductive rights marches in Cleveland, led by Black women. Photo by Cleveland Plain Dealer/Cleveland.com Photojournalist David Petkiewicz
WASHINGTON, D.C.-The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday heard oral arguments in a case that reached the country’s highest court that could end the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) longtime approval of mifepristone, the nation’s most widely used abortion bill.
Primarily at issue is whether the FDA’s two-decades long approval of the pill is safe with justices seemingly skeptical of such assertion during Tuesday’s proceedings in Washington, D.C., pundits said afterwards. And whether the justices can step in for federal agencies to determine the safety of the pill is at issue too, lawyers for proponents of the pill argued to the nine-member, 6-3 conservative-leaning court comprised of three former President Donald Trump appointees.
The justices focused on whether the group of anti-abortion doctors who brought the lawsuit even had legal standing to bring the claim, with the plaintiffs represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom arguing that the FDA failed to adequately evaluate the drug’s alleged safety risks.
Whether the doctors could show that they were directly injured merely because they object to abortion also raised skepticism among the justices.
The case is being watched nationwide, particularly by women’s rights activists in key states.
Abortion rights groups in Ohio where voters enshrined the legal right to abortion and other reproductive measures into the Ohio Constitution via the passage of an Issue 1 referendum at the ballot box last November say they are fed up and intend to further voice their displeasure at the ballot box this November.
“After this same anti-female U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June of 2022 and handed authority over the issue to the states, women won at the ballot box on Issue 1 in Ohio only to continue to face continual attacks on our constitutional right to abortion access at the state and national levels by the GOP,” said Women’s March Cleveland head organizer Kathy Wray Coleman, a seasoned Black Cleveland activist, organizer and local journalist. “Northeast Ohio women and women across this land must rise up before the November presidential election and take to the streets to protest the attack on choice and our reproductive freedoms in general.”
“This was legitimately one of the best friends I’ve had in my entire life — he was in my wedding party, we vacationed together, our kids grew up together — and I didn’t know his name.”
New Jersey native Jen Pawol has been umpiring spring training games over the past month in the Florida Grapefruit League. This season, she hopes to become the first woman ever to call a regular-season Major League Baseball game.
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.
Errekunda, Gambia — Lawmakers in Gambia will vote Monday on legislation that seeks to repeal a ban on female genital mutilation, or FGM, which would make the West African nation the first country anywhere to make that reversal. The procedure, which also has been called female genital cutting, includes the partial or full removal of external genitalia, often by traditional community practitioners with tools such as razor blades or at times by health workers.
Often performed on young girls, the procedure is incorrectly believed to control a woman’s sexuality and can cause serious bleeding and death. It remains a widespread practice in parts of Africa.
Jaha Dukureh, the founder of Safe Hands for Girls, a local group that aims to end the practice, told The Associated Press she worried that other laws safeguarding women’s rights could be repealed next. Dukureh underwent the procedure and watched her sister bleed to death.
A woman shows the camera the tools and techniques she uses to perform female genital mutilation (FGM), which she learned at the age of 15, in the courtyard of her home in Hargeisa, Somaliland, a semi-autonomous breakaway region of Somalia, Feb. 7, 2022.
Brian Inganga/AP
“If they succeed with this repeal, we know that they might come after the child marriage law and even the domestic violence law. This is not about religion but the cycle of controlling women and their bodies,” she said. The United Nations has estimated that more than half of women and girls ages 15 to 49 in Gambia have undergone the procedure.
The bill is backed by religious conservatives in the largely Muslim nation of less than 3 million people. Its text says that “it seeks to uphold religious purity and safeguard cultural norms and values.” The country’s top Islamic body has called the practice “one of the virtues of Islam.”
Gambia’s former leader, Yahya Jammeh, banned the practice in 2015 in a surprise to activists and with no public explanation. Since the law took effect, enforcement has been weak, with only two cases prosecuted.
On Monday, a crowd of men and women gathered outside Gambia’s parliament, some carrying signs protesting the bill. Police in riot gear held them back.
Gambia’s parliament of 58 lawmakers includes five women. If the bill passes on Monday’s second reading, it is expected to pass a third and final review before President Adama Barrow is expected to sign it into law.
The United States has supported activists who are trying to stop the practice. Earlier this month, it honored Gambian activist Fatou Baldeh at the White House with an International Women of Courage Award.
Fatou Baldeh, center, a survivor of female genital mutilation from the Gambia, talks with first lady Jill Biden, left, as they stand with Secretary of State Antony Blinken, after Baldeh was presented with the 18th Annual International Women of Courage (IWOC) Award during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House in Washington, March 4, 2024.
Susan Walsh/AP
The U.S. embassy in Gambia declined to say whether any high-level U.S. official in Washington had reached out to Gambian leaders over the bill. In its emailed statement, Geeta Rao Gupta, the top U.S. envoy for global women’s issues, called it “incredibly important” to listen to the voices of survivors like Baldeh.
The chairperson of the local Center for Women’s Rights and Leadership, Fatou Jagne Senghore said the bill is “aimed at curtailing women’s rights and reversing the little progress made in recent years.”
The president of the local Female Lawyers Association, Anna Njie, said the practice “has been proven to cause harm through medical evidence.”
UNICEF said earlier this month that some 30 million women globally have undergone the procedure in the past eight years, most of them in Africa but some in Asia and the Middle East.
More than 80 countries have laws prohibiting the procedure or allowing it to be prosecuted, according to a World Bank study cited this year by a United Nations Population Fund Q&A published earlier this year. They include South Africa, Iran, India and Ethiopia.
“No religious text promotes or condones female genital mutilation,” the UNFPA report says, adding there is no benefit to the procedure.
Girls are subjected to the procedure at ages ranging from infancy to adolescence. Long term, it can lead to urinary tract infections, menstrual problems, pain, decreased sexual satisfaction and childbirth complications as well as depression, low self-esteem and post-traumatic stress disorder.
ALBANY, N.Y. (NEWS10) – 70 federal, state and local law enforcement agencies looked to hire at the 2nd Annual Recruiting Women into Law Enforcement event. Many agencies, like the F.B.I. and New York State Police, have pledged to increase the percentage of female recruits to 30 percent by the year 2030.
Agencies from around the Capital Region, central New York and Vermont were present at the Albany Capital Center to answer questions for interested candidates. Some were on the fence when they walked into the building, like UAlbany student Jaya Dixon.
“I’m kind of leaning toward it now. Once I came here, I was kind of influenced by, especially, all the women on the panel. It was very important seeing women, especially women of color, in law enforcement knowing that it’s a kind of male-dominated area,” said Dixon, who is a junior majoring in communications and minoring in Spanish.
One example was New York State Police Lieutenant Treneé Young, who spoke on the panel.
“I am very, very honored to be able to let them know that there is a path forward in law enforcement, if it’s what you choose,” said Young.
On Thursday she will blaze the trail as the first African American woman to become a captain for the New York State Police.
Young will be the first African American woman to rise to the rank of captain for the New York State Police on Thursday.
“It feels great. I can’t believe that my journey is playing out this way and I’m really excited. I look forward to setting an example and being a role model for all the people who are going to come behind me,” said Young.
She certainly made an impression on Dixon, who said Young’s story inspired her.
“I was really influenced and I think now that I’ve seen and heard their stories, I’m more interested in it now. I think it’s kind of confirmed but I’m still just exploring for the most part,” said Dixon.
If you’re thinking about pursuing a career in law enforcement, organizers recommend you start by researching the agency you’re most interested in, then go for it.
Judging by recent headlines, young men and women are more politically divided now than ever before. “A new global gender divide is emerging,” the Financial Times data journalist John Burn-Murdoch wrote in a widely cited January article. Burn-Murdoch’s analysis featured several eye-popping graphs that appeared to show a huge ideological rift opening up between young men and young women over the past decade. The implications—for politics, of course, but also for male-female relations and, by extension, the future of the species—were alarming. A New York Times opinion podcast convened to discuss, according to the episode title, “The Gender Split and the ‘Looming Apocalypse of the Developed World.’” The Washington Post editorial board warned, “If attitudes don’t shift, a political dating mismatch will threaten marriage.”
But nearly as quickly as the theory gained attention, it has come under scrutiny. “For every survey question where you can find a unique gender gap among the youngest age cohort, you can find many other questions where you don’t find that gap,” John Sides, a political-science professor at Vanderbilt University, told me. “Where we started with this whole conversation was that there’s this big thing happening; it’s happening worldwide. Then you just pick at it for a few minutes, and it becomes this really complex story.” Skeptics point out that, at least as far as the United States goes, the claims about a new gender divide rest on selective readings of inconclusive evidence. Although several studies show young men and women splitting apart, at least as many suggest that the gender gap is stable. And at the ballot box, the evidence of a growing divide is hard to find. The Gen Z war of the sexes, in other words, is probably not apocalyptic. It may not even exist at all.
The gender gap in voting—women to the left, men to the right—has been a fixture of American politics since at least the 1980 presidential election, when, according to exit polls, Ronald Reagan won 55 percent of male voters but only 47 of women.
Some evidence suggests that the divide has recently widened. In 2023, according to Gallup data, 18-to-29-year-old women were 15 percentage points more likely than men in the same age group to identify as liberal, compared with only seven points a decade ago. Young men’s ideology has remained more stable, but some surveys suggest that young white men in particular have been drifting rightward. The Harvard Youth Poll, for example, found that 33 percent of white men aged 18 to 24 identified as Republican in 2016, compared with 41 percent in 2023. This trend has begun appearing in new-voter-registration data as well, according to Tom Bonier, a Democratic political strategist. “Believe me, as a partisan Democrat, I would prefer that it’s not the case—but it appears to be true,” he told me. “We’re still generally arguing about if it’s happening, which to me is silly. The conversation hasn’t moved to why.”
Why indeed? Several factors present themselves for consideration. One is social-media-induced gender polarization. (Think misogynistic “manosphere” influencers and women who talk about how “all men are trash.”) Another, as always, is Donald Trump. Twenty-something-year-old women seemed repelled by Trump’s ascendance in 2016, John Della Volpe, who heads the Harvard Youth Poll, told me. They were much more likely to vote for Hillary Clinton. Then there’s the #MeToo movement, which emerged in 2017, soon after Trump took office. Daniel Cox, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a free-market-conservative think tank, argues that it durably shaped young women’s political consciousness. A 2022 poll found that nearly three-quarters of women under 30 say they support #MeToo, the highest of any age group. The Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade also seems to have been a turning point. Going into the 2022 midterm election, 61 percent of young women said abortion was a “critical” concern, according to a survey conducted by AEI. “Young women increasingly believe that what happens to any woman in the United States impacts their lives and experiences as well,” Cox told me. “That became really salient after Roe was overturned.” Gen Z women are more likely than Generation X or Baby Boomer women—though slightly less likely than Millennial women—to say that they have been discriminated against because of their gender at some point in their life.
Not so fast, say young men. Gen Z men are also more likely than older generations to say that they’ve been discriminated against based on gender. “There’s this kind of weird ping-pong going on between Gen Z men and women about who’s really struggling, who’s really the victim,” Richard Reeves, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, told me. Reeves, who founded the American Institute for Boys and Men, argues that although men still dominate the highest levels of society in the U.S., those on the lower rungs are doing worse than ever. They are far less likely than women to go to college or find a good job, and far more likely to end up in prison or dead. These young men feel—rightly, in Reeves’s view—that mainstream institutions and the Democratic Party haven’t addressed their problems. And, in the aftermath of #MeToo, some seem to believe that society has turned against men. Survey data indicate that Gen Z men are much less likely to identify as feminists than Millennial men are, and about as likely as middle-aged men. “I really do worry that we’re trending toward a bit of a women’s party and a men’s party in politics,” Reeves told me.
But if young men and women really were drifting apart politically, you would expect to see evidence on Election Day. And here’s where the theory starts showing cracks. The Cooperative Election Study, a national survey administered by YouGov, found that nearly 68 percent of 18-to-29-year-old men voted for Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election, compared with about 70 percent of women in that age group—the same percentage gap as in 2008. (The split was larger—nearly seven points—in 2016, when Trump’s personal behavior toward women was especially salient.) Catalist, a progressive firm that models election results based on voter-file data, found that the gender divide was roughly the same for all age groups in recent elections. In the 2022 midterms, according to Pew’s analysis of validated voters, considered the gold standard of postelection polling, the youngest voters had the smallest gender divide, and overwhelmingly supported Democrats.
Many of the polls that show a widening gender divide ask about ideology. But research shows that many people don’t have a clear idea of what the labels mean. Gallup, whose data partly inspired the gender-gap frenzy, notes that only about half of Democrats identify as liberal. Ten percent describe themselves as conservative, and the remainder say their views are moderate. The ideological lines are only slightly less scrambled among self-identified Republicans. “Everything here hinges on what characteristics or questions we are trying to measure,” Sides told me. “When you ask people if they identify as liberal or as a feminist, you learn whether people believe that label describes them. But you didn’t ask how they define that label.” People might dislike the term liberal but still support, say, abortion access and high government spending. Indeed, 2020 polling data from Nationscape, which assesses people’s positions on individual issues, indicated that young men and women are no more divided than older generations. In every age group, for example, women are more in favor of banning assault rifles and providing universal health care than men are, by a comparable margin.
Or perhaps the unique Gen Z gender divide just hasn’t shown up electorally yet. Most 2024 election polling doesn’t break down different age groups by gender—and even if it did, trying to draw firm conclusions would be foolish. Twenty-somethings are just hard to study. Young people are less engaged in politics, with high rates of independent and unaffiliated voters. Their worldviews are still malleable. Many of them are reluctant to answer questions, especially over the phone. Under those circumstances, even high-quality polls show wildly, even implausibly divergent possibilities for the youth vote. A recent USA Today/Suffolk University poll found that, in a hypothetical 2024 rematch, Trump beat out Biden among registered voters under 35—an almost-unheard-of shift within four years. In October, a New York Times/Siena poll suggested that the youngest generation is equally split between Trump and Biden, whereas last month’s Times survey showed Biden winning young voters by double digits even as he lost ground overall.
Whatever is going on inside all of those young minds, the old people studying them have yet to figure it out. The biggest chasm, as always, may be not between young men and young women, but between young people and everyone else.
Wisconsin Republicans, too, have struggled to weather that particular political storm. In January, a group of them proposed a bill marketed as a way to find consensus: a 14-week abortion ban that would have to be approved by voters before taking effect.
The bill would scale the timeframe for legal abortions in Wisconsin back from 20 weeks and is currently sitting with the state Senate after passing the Assembly Jan. 25.
Though the bill was ultimately amended to include exceptions for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest, it didn’t have them initially.
When asked during an Assembly committee hearing on the bill why it didn’t include those exceptions, state Rep. Amanda Nedweski, R-Pleasant Prairie — who co-authored the bill — said 14 weeks should be enough time for a person to be aware of a pregnancy and decide whether to continue that pregnancy.
In fact, Nedweski said, “we have technology and medical advancements today that can tell you if you are pregnant the day after conception.”
Medical experts disagree.
Pregnancy hormone can’t be detected right after conception
Nedweski’s office did not return a request for the evidence she used to make the claim. We’ll break down the science here.
A pregnancy test detects the presence of the pregnancy hormone human chorionic gonadotropin, or hCG, in a person’s body. But the body doesn’t produce that hormone until several days after conception.
Fertilization, which happens when the sperm and egg unite, is what most people refer to as “conception,” said Dr. Abigail Cutler, an OB-GYN at UW Health and assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.
About five to 10 days after fertilization, the fertilized egg implants in the lining of the uterus. HCG is produced shortly afterward, Cutler said, first in low levels which rise rapidly over time.
“The very earliest someone can confirm whether they are pregnant is following implantation, the timing of which varies but can take a week or more,” she said.
Pregnancy tests that people can buy over the counter, which detect the presence of hCG in urine, often aren’t sensitive enough to pick up those lowest levels of the hormone when it first appears, she added. An hCG blood test can detect the hormone as soon as it’s being produced, but that kind of test isn’t as readily accessible because it must be ordered by a health care provider.
Other medical information supports that hCG doesn’t show up immediately after conception, though its timing can vary.
According to the Cleveland Clinic, hCG can be found in a person’s blood around 11 days after conception, and it takes slightly longer to show up in urine. Johns Hopkins Medicine says it can be found in urine five to seven days after conception. Mount Sinai Health System says hCG can be found in the blood and urine of pregnant people as early as 10 days after conception.
Cutler also noted that confirming a pregnancy by any means requires having a reason to suspect pregnancy in the first place.
According to SSM Health, some people may begin noticing early symptoms of pregnancy a week or two after conception. But others may not realize until their period is noticeably late — which can be hard to determine for people with irregular menstrual cycles — or even further into the pregnancy. Some people feel no symptoms at all.
With that information in mind, Cutler said there are many reasons why someone may not suspect a pregnancy until it is several weeks along.
Our ruling
Nedweski claimed that there are “technology and medical advancements today that can tell you if you are pregnant the day after conception.”
But pregnancy tests are looking for a hormone that doesn’t get produced right after conception. It could take a week or more to be produced in high enough levels to show up on a pregnancy test, even one done by a health care provider.
HOUSTON – March is Women’s History Month, and it’s the perfect time of year to learn about some of Houston’s iconic female figures!
The Heritage Society at Sam Houston Park has put together tours to highlight women who have made a lasting impact on the history of Houston.
The tour includes four historic houses, all telling the stories of famous women who once lived in them. The house tours are followed by a bus tour that explores specific landmarks in Downtown Houston where women have left significant footprints, including Houston’s first hospital and one of its first churches and schools. After the bus ride, the tour concludes with a wine and cheese reception at the museum.
Mister McKinney, a member of the Heritage Society Board of Directors, and Alison Bell, the Executive Director of the tour, work closely to make sure the walkthrough and bus elements of the tour combine to form a truly insightful opportunity.
“It’s a very impactful tour,” McKinney said. “Both experiences, hand-in-hand, just make it something very different. If you want the ultimate women’s experience and history experience, joining us both is something really special.”
The society offers four tours per day: two in the morning and two in the afternoon. Guests are encouraged to make reservations at heritagesociety.org or by calling at 713-655-1912.
Copyright 2024 by KPRC Click2Houston – All rights reserved.
But when unicorns and hearts make an item more expensive than one with dinosaurs or space ships, her mother draws a line.
“I started buying more gender-neutral colours for my children,” said Maharaj-Dube, who also has an eight-year-old son. “The black, the greys, the reds, orange and yellow—colours that are a bit more gender neutral (and) both my son and my daughter can use.”
Products marketed toward women and girls such as razors, shampoo and even children’s clothes can cost more than their equivalent for men or boys, a phenomenon that’s been dubbed the “pink tax.”
What is the “pink tax”?
“Pink tax was a term coined in the ’70s to describe the difference in pricing between men’s and women’s products,” said Calgary-based Janine Rogan, a chartered professional accountant and author of the book, The Pink Tax.
Disposable razors have been a representative example for years—the same product was priced higher when it came in pink.
Some of that discrepancy has improved in recent years. Along with companies adjusting their prices to become more equal, some jurisdictions around the world have eliminated actual taxes on necessary health products such as menstrual pads and tampons in a bid to level the playing field for those who use them.
However, corporations and marketers still find ways to raise prices for products aimed at women and girls such as shampoos and lotions, Rogan says.
Amrita Maharaj-Dube, second left, is shown with her family, daughter Annapoorna, husband Vishal Dube, and son Aadhavan in this undated handout image from their home in Elmira, Ontario.
Pushing back against the pink tax in Canada
Maharaj-Dube says her daughter is often disappointed with her money-saving choices, so she’s turned to a solution that works for her bank account and keeps her child happy: thrifting.
MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. — A line along the building, bagpipes and a first pitch all welcomed opening day at A Bar of Their Own Friday morning.
The new bar is set to showcase all women’s sports, all the time.
For many, it’s been a long time coming.
“I played hockey for about 12 years and we had to beg to get ice time,” said Colleen Woodley from St. Paul.
People of all ages packed the bar before lunchtime.
The Seward neighborhood watering hole is taking the space of the former Tracy’s Saloon and Eatery.
“Absolute madness, but in the best way possible,” said owner Jillian Hiscock.
Hiscock said the goal was to create a space dedicated to women’s sports and fans, after visiting a sports bar last year that was lacking.
“I think people have been ready for this and waiting for this for a really long time, and so to have it here and to have folks inside means so much,” said Hiscock.
It all comes just in time for the Big Ten women’s basketball tournament in Minneapolis.
“This is incredible. I love the atmosphere, I love that we finally have a place like this in Minnesota,” said Jami Cooper from Minnetonka.
A place so popular Friday, Hiscock and her staff really had to work to keep up, with people waiting outside for their turn to come in.
“Our team has been really busy getting ready for it. We’re doing our best to get everything out as quickly as we can, but it’s just really fun to have folks here,” said Hiscock.
A Bar of Their Own is open Wednesday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 11 p.m.
Thanks for reading CBS NEWS.
Create your free account or log in for more features.
Women tech entrepreneurs are taking it upon themselves to help close the gender health care gap by designing medical devices specifically for women. Meg Oliver takes a look at some of the innovations.
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.
As I type this, just one browser tab over is a menacing spreadsheet. Impossibly long, it’s crammed with numbers and notes. I’m dreading returning to it–and wondering if I have the resolve to untangle the logic and probability problems within.
I’m a senior advisor for artificial intelligence (AI) at Mozilla and VP of AI and machine learning at Workday. But this spreadsheet has nothing to do with my day jobs, or even computer science. I’m doing something a bit more difficult: Signing my three kids under 10 up for summer camp.
It’s an incredibly complicated, convoluted, and time-consuming process. Parents often need to begin six months in advance–when we’re just getting our first snow storms here in Boston. And even then, it’s challenging: Earlier today I was placed in a 47-minute digital queue just to access a registration website. So why don’t I simply outsource this to an AI assistant?
I can’t. And that should tell you something about the hype you hear about AI–especially the consumer-facing variety.
About a year ago, when ChatGPT launched, AI came close to passing the Turing Test, the famous thought experiment devised by English mathematician Alan Turing in 1950. If AI could converse in a manner indistinguishable from a human, Turing said, it would truly be “intelligent.”
Not long after this milestone came the hype. Tech leaders sounded off not only on AI’s unlimited potential but also its existential danger. Now that we have intelligent machines among us, they argued, we are just a few lines of code from utopia–or dystopia.
In reality, that’s not the case.
Tools like ChatGPT and the large language models (LLMs) that power them are an impressive feat of computer science. They can be incredibly useful, too. But all-powerful? Just ask any harried parent trying to get a head start on summer camp registration.
As many parents know, figuring out a schedule for the eight weeks that school is out is an odyssey. You need to find the right programs, at the right times, in the right places, at the right price. And those are just the basic logistics. Then come the deeper questions: Where are the kids’ friends going? Is the camp’s vibe right? Is admission competitive? Can we carpool? How much sunblock is required?
Just last week, Boston Globe correspondent Kara Baskin detailed this challenge perfectly in her column titled “Parents, prepare for battle: A memo from your favorite cutthroat Boston summer camps.”
Right now, this odyssey can’t be outsourced to the AI assistants on the market. It still takes a human being to navigate the quantitative and qualitative complexities of summertime extracurriculars. Even Sissie Hsiao, Google VP and General Manager for Google Assistant and Bard, has lamented AI’s inability to solve the complications of summer camp registration.
That’s lesson number one: AI isn’t about to take over the world; it can’t even solve summer camp. So take AI futurist doomsday hysteria with a grain of salt. Let’s worry when AI passes the Summer Camp Test, not the Turing Test.
Often, AI hype claims the tech will level the playing field, eliminating disparities that have long plagued society. Yet AI assistants are being tailored for the people who need them least: professionals ensconced in the corporate realm.
Growing up, my mom–who had limited English, limited tech literacy, and a job that paid less than minimum wage–could have really benefited from an AI assistant when navigating things like summer camp registration. She didn’t have 47 minutes to wait in a digital queue. But tools like ChatGPT still aren’t advanced enough to untangle the actual, hard problems for people with less means and access.
The Summer Camp Test hints at what we need more of in AI: Systems built to solve real problems, from the mundane (like summer camp logistics) to the game-changing (like novel pharmaceutical research). What we don’t need? More hype about omnipotent AI.
Kathy Pham is a computer scientist, senior advisor at Mozilla, VP of AI and Machine Learning at Workday, and a visiting lecturer at Harvard Business School. Opinions here are not representative of any employers, and only of her most critical role as a parent.
More must-read commentary published by Fortune:
The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Fortune.
Subscribe to the new Fortune CEO Weekly Europe newsletter to get corner office insights on the biggest business stories in Europe. Sign up for free.
Newswise — JACKSONVILLE, Florida — Su riesgo de tener cáncer de mama aumenta con la edad, especialmente después de la menopausia. Alrededor de 8 de cada 10 casos de cáncer de mama ocurren en mujeres de más de 50 años.
La Dra. Stephanie Faubion, directora de Mayo Clinic Center para Salud Femenina y directora de la Sociedad de Menopausia, comenta que es importante mantener la salud de las mamas, por ejemplo, con mamografías regulares.
Es común tener cambios en las mamas durante la perimenopausia o la menopausia.
“Algunas veces nuestros niveles de estrógeno se disparan y esto puede causar cierta sensibilidad en las mamas. Normalmente nuestra densidad en las mamas suele disminuir un poco con la menopausia porque perdemos estrógenos”, indica la Dra. Faubion.
Afirma que es normal que ocurran algunos cambios en las mamas relacionados con la edad, y que el cuidado de las mamas es vital.
“Cuando estamos en la menopausia, es importante recordar que debemos seguir con los exámenes de detección de cáncer de mama con la misma frecuencia que cuando estábamos en el período premenopáusico”, dice la Dra. Faubion.
Se recomienda empezar con los exámenes de detección de cáncer de mama regulares a los 40 años.
“Recomendamos una mamografía todos los años. También hay mujeres que tiene mayor densidad en las mamas, a las cuales les recomendamos exámenes de detección complementarios ”, comparte.
La Dra. Faubion dice que el 50 por ciento de las mujeres estadounidenses tienen mamas densas.
“Es importante comunicarse con el equipo de atención médica para saber cuáles pueden ser las mejores opciones para hacerse algunos controles adicionales si se encuentra en esta categoría”, advierte la Dra. Faubion.
Reduzca los riesgos de cáncer de mama, optimice la salud de las mamas
Algunos factores de riesgo para el cáncer de ovario y de mama, como la edad, los antecedentes de salud reproductiva y la genética (por ejemplo, los antecedentes familiares o los cambios en el gen BRCA) no pueden modificarse, pero si hacemos ciertos cambios en el estilo de vida podemos ayudar a reducir los riesgos.
Cómo reducir los riesgos de tener cáncer de mama:
Mantener un peso saludable.
Hacer ejercicio regularmente.
Limitar el consumo de alcohol.
Para obtener más información sobre cómo garantizar una buena salud de las mamas, hable con su equipo de atención médica para buscar otras maneras de reducir sus riesgos y saber cuándo es mejor hacerse los exámenes de detección del cáncer de mama.
###
Información sobre Mayo Clinic
Mayo Clinic es una organización sin fines de lucro, dedicada a innovar la práctica clínica, la educación y la investigación, así como a ofrecer pericia, compasión y respuestas a todos los que necesitan
Join Juliet and Callie as they break down the Maria vs. Sydney confrontation (8:46), admire Joey’s ability to handle drama and tears (15:00), and laugh at the ridiculous yet entertaining game of capture the flag (28:27). They discuss Joey’s chemistry with Daisy during their one-on-one (31:17), and break down the final Rose Ceremony (38:24). Finally, they discuss updates to Season 2 of The Traitors, including Pilot Pete’s development, their favorite contestants, and much more (41:01).
To say Donald Trump is a misogynist isn’t exactly accurate. He likes women, but only a very specific type of woman. He likes the kind of woman who is malleable, who is compliant. He is absolutely allergic to outspoken women. Which is why women like E. Jean Carroll (and Nikki Haley) have really gotten under his skin by standing up to him.
When Carroll first came public with her sexual assault allegations against Trump back in 2019—for which we was found liable last year—the former president subjected her to a smear campaign just as he did with his others who have spoken out about him (like Stormy Daniels) and with his political rivals (like Hillary Clinton). Trump accused Carroll of fabricating everything: He claimed that she was a “wack job” orchestrating a “con job”—and even insisted, as a quasi-defense, that she was “not my type.” Carroll then filed a subsequent defamation lawsuit alleging that Trump tore her reputation “to shreds.” In the end, a jury agreed: Last week, in an incredible culmination of the multiyear ordeal, Trump was ordered to pay her $83.3 million in damages. And yet, even after the dust had settled, Trump had the gall—or foolishness—to spew yet moreinvective at Carroll, calling her case a “hoax” and claiming it was a miscarriage of justice.
I have a connection to this case: I introduced her to attorney George Conway, who eventually helped her find legal representation.
If Carroll’s trial revealed anything, it was that women—and particularly outspoken women—trigger Trump. From Megyn Kelly and Rosie O’Donnell to Kamala Harris and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, women of all stripes have felt the wrath of the ex-president’s sexism. As Sophie Gilbert wrote last month in The Atlantic, “The misogyny that Trump embodies and champions is less about loathing than enforcement: underscoring his requirement that women look and behave a certain way, that we comply with his desires and submit to our required social function.” You can, in other words, be a woman in Trump’s world—but only if you’re the kind of woman Trump likes.
Which is why former UN ambassador Nikki Haley, who is continuing a long shot presidential bid against Trump, is fast becoming his new bête noire. Trump has openly critiqued one of her dresses; has mocked her given name, Nimrata, and has taken to calling her a “birdbrain.” Trump even attacks Haley when he doesn’t mean to: Last week, during a speech in New Hampshire, Trump confused her with Nancy Pelosi while repeating a baseless conspiracy theory about the January 6 attack. “Nikki Haley…do you know they destroyed all of the information, all of the evidence, everything, deleted and destroyed all of it?” he said, suggesting that Democrats deliberately turned down security at the Capitol. “All of it, because of lots of things, like Nikki Haley is in charge of security. We offered her 10,000 people, soldiers, National Guard, whatever they want. They turned it down.”
Despite his incessant insistence on being mentally sharper than ever, Trump has, in fact, conflated Pelosi and Haley seven—yes, seven—times. And Haley, for her part, has jumped on the opportunity to highlight this point of confusion. “Last night, Trump is at a rally and he’s going on and on, mentioning me several times as to why I didn’t take security during the Capitol riots,” as she told a crowd in New Hampshire earlier this month. “Why I didn’t handle January 6 better. I wasn’t even in DC on January 6. I wasn’t in office then.”
Though they might sit on different sides of the aisle, Pelosi and Haley do have one commonality: They are both women who have successfully gotten under Trump’s skin. They have weathered the costs of being chief Trump antagonists, and they are not alone. Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis, who is bringing a RICO case against Trump for attempting to interfere in Georgia’s 2020 election, has been subjected to death threats and racist slurs from Trump’s supporters. The same can be said for New York attorney general Letitia James, who is bringing an enormous civil fraud case against Trump. (James, like Carroll, has actually gotten Trump to appear in court—which may speak to how much he prizes his family real estate business, no doubt a cornerstone of his billionaire mythos.)
International Shooting Union barred women from shooting with men in 1993 after Zhang Shan won the gold medal in Skeet Shooting in the 1992 Barcelona Olympics.
Warning: This article contains graphic descriptions of sexual abuse.
It was after the daily 9 p.m. head count at the California Institution for Women in Chino when she was taken out of her cell by a correctional officer she thought was her friend.
She was 21 and not even 100 pounds and the officer, who stood about 6-foot-7, was twice her size. “It was unheard of to be popped after the head count. I knew something was up,” she said. “He told me the lieutenant wanted to see me.”
But when she got to the office, it was dark. “He started to kiss me and put his tongue in my mouth,” the woman said, recalling the 2014 incident. The Times is not naming her as she is a sex crime victim. “He put his hand in my pants. I tried to pull back, but he was persistent. Then he put his fingers inside me.” The next day, she said, he acted as if nothing had happened.
The woman is one of 130 former inmates at California’s women’s prisons at Chino and Chowchilla, suing the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and more than 30 current and ex-correctional officers who they say abused them in prison. They are seeking unspecified damages for sexual assault, battery, negligence, infliction of emotional distress and violations of civil rights.
Correctional officers at the California Institution for Women in Chino and Central California Women’s Facility committed widespread sexual abuse against the female detainees whom they guarded, according to a lawsuit filed last month. In many cases, the officers targeted and allegedly isolated the inmates and forced them to perform sexual acts, the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit documents graphic incidents of sexual abuse stretching back a decade and reveals that the women, when they were at their most vulnerable, were punished and sometimes the victim of further abuse and punitive actions if they reported their assailants.
“Every woman’s worst nightmare is being locked inside a facility filled with sexual predators with no means of escape,” said Doug Rochen, an attorney at ACTS Law who is representing the women. “And that’s exactly what each of these women, and likely thousands more, were subjected to for decades. California paid no attention to their well-being, left them to suffer at the hands of the worst kinds of sexual deviants, and made them relive their pain daily while being locked behind bars.”
The lawsuit accused one sergeant at the Chino prison of more than 40 rapes — incidents of violence that often caused bleeding — and sexual misconduct involving a female inmate in 2015. Out of fear of retaliation and further confinement, one plaintiff, identified only as Jane CL-1 25 Roe, never reported the sexual misconduct, assuming the complaints would be “unanswered, dismissed, ignored, and buried without investigation or redress, thereby allowing the sexual misconduct to continue.”
One of the women is a victim of an accused serial-rapist correctional officer, Gregory Rodriguez, who is charged with 96 counts of sex crimes involving nearly a dozen women at the Chowchilla prison during his tenure, the lawsuit alleges. The 27-year-old woman in 2014 was allegedly forced to perform oral sex acts on the guard at a time she was pregnant, according to the lawsuit.
Another woman alleges she was sexually abused by then-correctional officer Israel Trevino in 2014 when she was 25. Trevino was terminated in 2018 after other allegations of sexual abuse. Several pending lawsuits accuse Trevino of abusing numerous victims. Trevino has since died.
That same former inmate, identified as Jane MS0 8 Roe, alleges she was also victimized by two other correctional officers, one who groped her and another who groped her and penetrated her vagina, according to the lawsuit.
Sexual abuse would occur in areas throughout the prisons, including cells, closets and storage rooms, the lawsuit alleges. In one alleged victim’s case, she was sexually abused in a cleaning supplies cupboard five times and eventually reported it to another correctional officer, who declined to take action. Rochen said it was part of a pattern of prison officials who systematically ignored complaints of sexual abuse.
California prison officials didn’t reply to a request for comment on the litigation.
Sexual abuse of incarcerated women is a widespread problem in facilities nationwide, with government surveys suggesting that more than 3,500 women are sexually abused by prison and jail workers annually.
In addition to the sexual misconduct by prison workers, the lawsuit alleged the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation had inadequate hiring practices, procedures and training to prevent the sexual abuse and conduct.
The lawsuit is the latest in a series targeting sexual abuse in California’s female prisons. Last summer, another law firm filed litigation involving more than 100 other plaintiffs, including victims of Rodriguez.
State law gives victims of sexual assault by police and correctional officers up to 10 years after their assailants have been convicted of sexual assault or a crime in which sexual assault was initially alleged to sue. Victims can also sue up to 10 years after their assailants left the law enforcement agency they were working at when the assault occurred.
Disclaimer: This isn’t therapy, and Dr. Audrey’s advice is for the general audience, meaning it may not always work for everyone.
“Is it possible to help my Mom with mid-term dementia to be set free from narcissism? Or would it just be better [if] I seek out healing from the abuse myself? Thank you.” – H
Thank you for sending in your question. Although I have never met nor diagnosed your mother, when you mentioned narcissism, my graduate training kicked in. The psychologist in me wondered if your mother might qualify for what the DSM-5-TR labels as Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD).
In case you’re not a mental health geek like me, DSM is the go-to book we in the profession utilize to diagnose mental illness.
On the one hand, just because someone exhibits narcissistic traits doesn’t mean she fits an NPD diagnosis. On the other, you don’t need a doctor to formally assess her when you live with the pain of having your needs disregarded—again and again—because your mother continues to act in a self-absorbed way and dismiss your reality.
As though a possible NPD diagnosis wasn’t bad enough, it sounds like your mother is also suffering from dementia. The combination of these two makes it very difficult—if not impossible—to “set her free” from narcissism.
Short of a miracle, that is.
Let me explain why.
The first roadblock we face is willingness. Narcissists don’t think there’s anything wrong with them. Because they believe it’s everyone else who needs to get their act together, getting your mom to agree to receive help for this personality issue already feels like fighting an uphill battle.
And then there’s the second—and even more entrenched—barrier. Narcissism happens by necessity, not choice. I’m not privy to your mother’s backstory, but I’m 90% convinced something must have significantly hurt her earlier on. Perhaps, instead of a loving or caring authority figure, your mother grew up with a caregiver who repeatedly belittled, shamed, or neglected her.
Which then caused a part of her to overcompensate and exaggerate her importance.
It takes intentionality and hard work to help narcissistic personality parts abandon their tried-and-true ways of behaving. And that’s presuming the person still has a decent level of cognitive functions. When we throw memory loss and impaired thinking into the mix, the chance of having this individual recover from narcissism is pretty dismal.
But if God can miraculously heal physical illnesses—which He has definitely done—there’s no reason He can’t do the same for mental illnesses.
Good news! There’s something you can do despite this seemingly depressing discussion. Seeking your own healing from whatever abuse you have received from your mother is a viable option.
Here are 5 things you can do to that end:
1. It’s a Part
The theory I practice, Internal Family Systems (IFS), normalizes humans as having different parts. But let me back up. God created humans as tripartite—a fancy word that means we’re born with a spirit, soul, and body. The real you is your spirit. Your soul is the one with multiplicity inside. Don’t be alarmed—having many parts within your soul doesn’t make you a weirdo or having Dissociative Identity Disorder (which used to be called Multiple Personality Disorder).
Having parts just makes you human.
While not all of our parts are burdened, some are. The ones that are burdened tend to act out in problematic ways even when they don’t intend to inflict harm.
Like your mom’s narcissistic part.
When this particular part shows up again, tell yourself the behavior you abhor is most likely due to your mom’s part. However, that’s not all there is to her. There are other parts of her that may feel badly about how she has behaved toward you, even if they may never have the chance to voice their opinion.
The problem is, your mother most likely doesn’t know how to reel in her parts. (The majority of people don’t. The prevalence of emotional and behavioral problems in our world testifies to this fact.)
May I encourage you to view your loved one’s troubling behavior through parts language? Remembering that the problem represents a part and not the entire person can promote patience and compassion for that individual.
2. Validating Yourself
Difficult individuals demand a lot from us. Narcissists insist on having others cater to them and their needs, which is exhausting.
But that’s not all. Being around your mother’s narcissistic part may provoke doubts. Maybe I’m not worthy of her attention. Was I imagining things? Am I just fishing for someone else’s approval? Great. Am I really that needy?
Listen to these inner monologues. These—and similar thoughts—likely originate from your parts. Please listen to their musings and, as sincerely as you can, offer them a comforting word. Assure your parts they’re valuable and that their version of the story matters. Offer them the validation they need.
You have the power to serve as the empathetic voice that can soothe your hurt parts. While your mom may never have the capacity to empathize with you, much less apologize, you always have the choice to offer the listening and validating service for your own internal system.
Don’t underestimate the healing that emerges from this step.
3. Double Boundaries
The need to set boundaries has inspired many to publish their thoughts. (You can skim through mine here and here). Without learning to establish and then enforce our boundaries, we are bound to keep experiencing interpersonal hurt—which is the occasional offshoot of being in a relationship.
It’s okay to set firm boundaries with your mom. It’s also okay to explain to her the consequences for violating said boundaries. You’re allowed to enforce those consequences without feeling guilty.
But here’s the kicker: you can also apply boundaries to your own internal system.
This is what I mean. Parts of you that get riled up by Mom don’t have to be present whenever you’re visiting her. I don’t understand the physics behind it—which is why I can’t really explain it to you—but whenever we ask our parts to give us space, they typically will, especially if they believe we’ll still be safe.
So, ask your parts to trust that even when they give you a wide berth (when you’re with Mom), you’ll be fine.
One way to tell whether or not they have acquiesced is by checking your heart. Does it feel a little more spacious inside? If so, these parts have indeed agreed to your request.
If your parts are willing to give you space, even if Mom’s narcissistic part shows off again, you won’t feel as affected.
4. Individual Psychotherapy
And then there’s the gold standard—psychotherapy.
Confession: “gold standard” is my word. It’s not as though there has been a study proving the superiority of psychotherapy above medications or vacations or anything else we do to heal our souls. At the same time, psychotherapy or “talk therapy” has been known to alleviate many issues. One statistic shows that 3 in 4 people who seek therapy find it beneficial.
Having provided therapy for 15+ years, I can attest that not all therapy modalities are helpful. One of the more effective ones is IFS. Now that I’ve practiced and taught this modality myself, I wholeheartedly recommend therapists who are certified in it. Find the ones near you on the IFS Institute website.
IFS therapy will help you coexist with your mom, as well as complete the next step below.
5. Spiritual Strategies
Have you forgiven your narcissistic mother yet? If there’s a superior way to stimulate emotional healing, God would’ve disclosed it in the Bible.
But if your parts are like mine, forgiving someone who doesn’t seem sorry at all is a tough sell. Which was why I wrote a small book to facilitate forgiveness when you’re locked in a lifelong relationship with someone difficult.
Hint: you’ll encounter IFS in that book.
Aside from forgiving your mom, you can also pray for her—that God would give her the wisdom to corral her parts. Pray also for yourself and your parts so you won’t end up despising your mother (Proverbs 23:22).
Our prayers are powerful and effective (James 5:16).
And because I believe in the power of prayer, I’ll say a prayer for you too.
Audrey Davidheiser, PhD is a California licensed psychologist, certified Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapist, and IFSI-approved clinical consultant. After founding and directing a counseling center for the Los Angeles Dream Center, she now devotes her practice to survivors of trauma—including spiritual abuse. If you need her advice, visit her on www.aimforbreakthrough.comand Instagram @DrAudreyD.
