Women's Health Archives

Grantmakers for Girls of Color Gives One Million for COVID-19

The Love Is Healing COVID-19 Response Fund is providing one million dollars in grants to resource organizations and efforts addressing the immediate impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on girls, fem(mes), and nonbinary/gender expansive youth of color. The grant-making initiative represents Grantmakers for Girls of Color’s first grantmaking effort as an independent entity.

(Photo Credit:) *Credit: Grantmakers for Girls of Color*

Monique W. Morris, Ed.D., newly appointed executive director of Grantmakers for Girls of Color (G4CC), notes, “In this moment and beyond, philanthropy must address the lack of diversity, quality, and responsiveness of capital directed to support girls of color at the intersection of their complex identities and experiences.” Morris adds, “Even before this pandemic, girls and gender expansive youth of color have faced interlocking forms of oppression that prevent their full participation in our country’s future.”

May 14 Webinar: Feminist Giving for COVID: Strategies and Models

What can feminist giving do to help alleviate the COVID-19 crisis?

We’re seeking to answer this question in “Feminist Giving for COVID: Strategies and Models,” the first ever webinar event from Philanthropy Women. Join Editor-in-Chief Kiersten Marek and special guests Marianne Schnall, Surina Khan, and Emily Nielsen Jones to discuss key strategies to support women and girls through COVID.

COVID 19 is presenting humanity with extreme challenges and hardships, and particularly for women and girls, the impacts are, and will be, profound. This 45 minute session will feature expert insights on how to apply a gender lens not only to your funding, but also to your everyday life in COVID, in order to improve our collective response to this unprecedented health crisis.

New Report Shows How Comfortable Harvard Made Jeffrey Epstein

Time for a break from COVID and a return to a discussion that was a big deal in the land before pandemics: Jeffrey Epstein, and the way he simply glided through high society as if there was nothing wrong with being a convicted sex offender.

*Harvard University’s General Counsel, in consultation with an outside law firm, has produced a 27 page report on Epstein’s involvement with the university. (Image Credit: Boston Globe)* Read the full report here.

A new report from Harvard discussed in today’s Boston Globe tells of how Epstein “had his own office in a Harvard University department and visited there more than 40 times after he was released from jail in 2010 up until 2018.”

Shifting From Conflict to Connection During COVID

I: An Opportunity for Connection and Transformation

Second wave feminism, building on the accomplishments of the first wave suffrage movement, proclaimed that gender equality and justice should be the ethic of every culture in the world. In the tragedy of Covid-19, many of us are quarantined at home with our spouses, partners, and families. What my husband, Harville, and I are doing at this time is distributing a process called Safe Conversations which fosters mutual respect and equality. We hope to bring as many people as possible into the community of Safe Conversation and offer it as an opportunity to transform our domestic relationships and help actualize this feminist vision.

from conflict to connection — Helen LaKelly Hunt shares about how Safe Conversations can help families stay connected during COVID. (Image credit: Tim Mossholder at Unsplash)

For the first time in history of the world, the relational sciences are teachable due to advances in neurosciences in the 1990s. Safe Conversations allows anyone in a relationship to shift from judgement to curiosity, from conflict to connection, and from criticism to wonder.

Addressing COVID DV Surge: NNEDV Teams with Donors, Shelters

Cindy Southworth knows how it feels to be at the center of the fire. As the Executive Vice President for the National Network to End Domestic Violence (NNEDV), Southworth has found herself, like many nonprofit and crisis aid workers, pivoting almost daily to meet the needs of victims of domestic violence around the country.

Speaking to Women Moving Millions during a webinar session in early April, Southworth laid out the organization’s mission, as well as the deep plea for help from domestic violence organizations around the country.

“We want to get the message out that domestic violence shelters are still open,” she says. “What we’re all working to do is create a world where the idea of domestic violence no longer exists, where it doesn’t even seem fathomable that somebody would use violence and control to harm their partner. And in the meantime, we want to make sure that, until we create that new world with different gender norms and different social and cultural expectations, that we are serving every single survivor who needs and wants to reach out for help.”

Sustainable Solutions: Debbie Chang on Blue Shield of CA Foundation

During a class at the Harvard School of Public Health, Debbie Chang’s instructor showed a picture of a tractor in the middle of a field in Africa. Rusted away, with weeds growing through its seat and tires, the tractor stood forgotten and ignored, the last remnants of some well-intentioned but badly thought out campaign for change.

“The point was that you can’t force social change upon people,” Chang says. “It may work in America, but it won’t work in Africa. It really made me think about how you can’t solve problems in a top-down model. You’ve got to focus on the local people and their culture, and solve problems with the community, not for the community.”

Radha Ruparell: What No One Tells You About Having COVID

I am a 39 year old woman living in New York and I have been battling COVID-19. Today is Day 16. This disease is like nothing I have ever experienced in my life. What no one tells you about having the Coronavirus is that it is a rollercoaster ride, not just physically but also emotionally.

Over the past few days, I have felt haunted, scared for my life, in pain, confused, anxious, angry, alone, worried that I am losing my mind, and terrified of others getting this. I have also had: the most profoundly moving experiences of connection with loved ones and strangers; gratitude for the life I have lived; presence in moments I had once taken for granted; awe for those on the front lines; and an experience of slowing down and letting go.

Free Virtual Therapy for People of Color Affected by COVID-19

The COVID-19 Free Virtual Therapy Support Campaign is a Boris L. Henson Foundation (BLHF) effort to raise money for mental health services for communities of color.

According to the BLHF, “the campaign was developed to cover the cost for virtual or tele-therapy services by licensed, culturally competent clinicians in our network.” Up to five sessions are covered, and those seeking COVID-related virtual therapy can register with BLHF. The Foundation is seeking donations to support the program (Text NOSTIGMA to 707070), as well culturally competent providers to provide services.

The BLHF was founded in 2018 by actor and mental health advocate Taraji P. Henson and is led by Executive Director Tracie Jade Jenkins. It has seen strong interest in the tele-therapy program since it debuted on April 15. In a Today Show interview, Henson, who most recently has appeared on the television series Empire, said, “We had to shut the server down … that’s how big the need is.” She argues that for many, the hardships imposed by COVID-19 are “added trauma,” and that mental health services are helping “thousands stay alive.”

Women Lead Better in COVID: 5 Reasons Why

The question is being asked all over the internet: why, oh why, are we following men?

For the sake of humanity, the only sensible thing to do right now seems to be to turn off the toxic male leaders, like literally stop broadcasting the President’s updates, and turn on the women leaders of the world who can get us through this crisis.

women lead better — The Right Honourable **Jacinda Ardern**, 40th Prime Minister of New Zealand. (Photo Credit: Wellington Government, 2018)

Unfortunately, it’s not that easy to pivot away from men’s leadership, especially here in the U.S. They are entrenched at the top, and seem to become more teflon as they ascend to higher levels of authority.

Why are women better leaders for this moment in human history? Let me count the layers of experience that result in women being the better leaders during COVID or any health crisis:

The Entrenched Pandemic of Gender-Based Violence

We have a problem.

We have known about gender injustice for centuries, yet only over the past one hundred years have we been more publicly working to end this vast inequality. The rights women have claimed, from voting rights to reproductive rights, have been hard fought and hard won. Undergirding all of those public battles, there has been the ongoing battle for a woman’s right to safety at home. Gender-based violence has plagued people for as long as we have written history, yet even during our current health pandemic, this social problem continues to be defined as a private issue.

pandemic of gender-based violence — Indrani Goradia shares her expertise on gender based violence during COVID. (Image credit: Sharon McCutcheon, Unsplash)

One reason for this is that governments and those who create policy insist on spreading false narratives, such as the one recently sent out by the Malaysian government: Don’t nag your husbands during quarantine and social distancing. This form of misinformation does nothing to help women be safe. It allows violence against women to be blamed on women. Home is the most dangerous place for a woman, and violence against women is about power and control.

Category: Women’s Health