On January 18^th, 2011, the LGBT community was awarded a right that should have never been denied! The United States Government put new rules into effect, called federal regulations, that say that patients – regardless of sexual orientation, can be visited by anyone they want while staying in a hospital. This victory, however, begins with a bittersweet story.

Janice Langbehn and Lisa Pond were lesbian partners taking their family on a Caribbean cruise. At the beginning of the trip, Lisa collapsed and was taken to Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, Florida after suffering from a brain aneurysm (An abnormal, balloon-like bulging of the wall of an artery or blood vessel). Janice and their children were not allowed to visit her for the eight hours she lay dying in her hospital room.

Why were Lisa’s family members denied access? Until January 18^th,same-sex couples and domestic partners had no legal right to be with a hospitalized partner because they were not a blood relative or what the law recognized as a spouse.

Janice spent the three years after Lisa’s death speaking out about the injustice she and her family had experienced. In April of 2010, President Barack Obama contacted Janice and personally apologized for her suffering. He directed the Department of Health and Human Services to develop regulations that would make sure this never happened again.

This became effective a little over a week ago!

Janice, although still hurt from her experience in the Miami hospital, is glad that something positive could come from Lisa’s death. In an interview Janice said “I believe that this will be Lisa’s legacy, that she didn’t die in vain.”

Patients now have the power to decide who may visit them and, hopefully no person, no matter their sexual orientation, will ever again have to sit in a waiting room as their loved one dies alone.

How would you feel if you weren’t allowed to visit someone you care about when they were sick? Do you think the regulations are a good idea?

Have you ever spoken up when you felt something was wrong or unfair? What happened?

Leave your thoughts in the comments below!

Kristen

New Moon Intern

Last week, Sasha Obama, President Obama’s daugher, spoke Chinese. At first, this may not seem like anything out of the ordinary.  Sasha is a 10-year-old girl who is learning a language in her school– just like you and I may be, and we all know that practice makes perfect. This, however, was not an everyday conversation. She spoke Chinese with Hu Jintao – the President of China!

Hu Jintao has been the President of the People’s Republic of China since November of 2002. He joined the Communist Party of China when he was 20 years old and has been climbing the political ladder ever since.

The United State’s relationship with China has been growing, and on January 19^th there was a welcoming ceremony for President Hu Jintao at the White House. Sasha attended the ceremony with her friends and stood with the crowd of people that had gathered to see the President of China with President Barack Obama.

At her school, Sasha has been studying the Chinese language and she was able to try out her first phrases with the Chinese President himself when he stopped to speak with her.

Are you learning a language? What do you think it would be like to speak a different language to one of the most powerful people in the world?

What do you think of Sasha Obama’s once-in-a-lifetime opportunity?

Leave your thoughts in the comments below!

Kristen

New Moon Intern

Have you heard of Geena Davis?  Geena Davis is an extremely talented Academy Award-winning actress but also, perhaps more importantly, a feminist!

Davis began her acting career in the early 1980s. She is most famous for her roles in Beetlejuice, Thelma and Louise and The Accidental Tourist. You also may have seen her as the mother in Stuart Little! She is also in one of my favorite movies of all time, A League of Their Own, a story of a women’s baseball league that came to be during World War II.

Outside of her acting career, Geena is also an activist for women in media!

In 2004, whiles watching children’s television programs and movies with her daughter, they noticed that there were moremale characters than female characters. Because of this, Geena went on to raise funds for the largest research project  on gender in children’s entertainment.

The research showed that, in the most popular G-rated films since 1946, there were three times as many male characters than female characters! After thinking about what message this is sending to girls, Geena launched the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media in 2007.

The Institute does research on gender inequalities in media and Davis takes the research to studios and networks to present them with the facts.  These are four recommendations that the Institute lists on its website:

G-rated movies need:

• More females as main characters, minor characters, narrators, and in crowds.
• More characters of color, especially female characters of color, as main characters, minor characters, narrators, and in crowds
• Create more female characters with aspirations beyond romance
• Create more women and girl characters that are valued for their inner character, too.

Happy Birthday Geena! Thank you for the work that you do on behalf of girls and women everywhere and good luck!

Have you ever counted the number of male characters in your favorite shows or movies, and then counted the number of female characters??  Do you notice a big difference between the two?   Try it and see what you find!

Leave your thoughts about Geena Davis and her work for girls and women in the comments below!

Kristen

New Moon Intern

Do you play a sport that is an important part of your life?  As 2010 came to a close, women and girls were encouraged to share their stories about the role that sports played in their lives.

The 8^th of December was named “Rally for Girls’ Sports Day” by the National Women’s Law Center. A rally is an event where people come together to show support for a cause. This was an online rally, and women from all over the United States submitted blogs about their experience with sports and the influence it had on their development.

One woman who submitted an entry wrote about her sport of choice: cheerleading. She described how she tried other, more widely acceptable sports, such as soccer and basketball and softball. She said that she ”always felt like she was faking it a bit”, that she always felt out of step. In high school she tried out for cheerleading and never looked back. She threw her teammates into the air and loved inspiring crowds and creating school spirit. She told readers that “Cheerleading made me feel confident (despite the fact that we were hardly the “cool girls” pop culture would have you believe we were). It made me feel strong (I developed a rock hard six pack and triceps of steel). It made me feel that elusive magic of the athlete, at long last.”

Her one complaint, however, was participating in an activity that many people claim isn’t a “sport”. For her, Cheerleading is hard work – it requires memorization of complicated routines, strength and acrobatics. The common description of Cheerleading rarely seems to include these traits.

Many people think of Cheering as exposed midriffs, tiny shorts and dancing, all to support the “real sport” that is going on behind them.

The author argues that if we look past the stereotypes, “cheerleading can and does bring the same benefits that sports bring to all girls – self-esteem, fitness, a positive body image, and leadership skills.”

How have sports impacted your life?  What would you say to someone who stereotyped cheerleaders or put them down?

Leave your thoughts in the comments below!

Kristen

New Moon Intern

From 1996 until 2001, the Taliban ruled parts of Afghanistan. The Taliban is an Islamist militia, group, a rebel military force, that is mostly made up of members of the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan, the Pashtun. The Taliban believes in a very strict version of Sharia law. Sharia law is the sacred law of Islam and is believed by Muslims to be God’s law.

This strict way of seeing of God’s law put severe limitations on women’s lives. Women were forced to wear the burqua in public, a long garment that covers their entire bodies and faces. They were not allowed to be treated by male doctors unless accompanied by a male chaperon, which led to illnesses remaining untreated. Women could not work and, perhaps worst of all, women could not be educated.

Over the past two years, The Afghan Girls Financial Assistance Fund has raised $250,000 in donations and $1 million in scholarships to help Afghan women, who were unable to attend school under the Taliban,  study in the United States. With the degree that they earn in the U.S., these women will be able to return home and help in the rebuilding of their country. They are currently studying at private U.S. colleges and schools in Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Vermont.

Shamila Kohestani, now studying at Duke University, believes that with the right opportunity she can make change.

“Each one of us can go home and have a positive impact.”

School officials say American students are benefitting too. The headmaster of Blair Academy, T. Chandler Hardwic, believes that this is important too.

“It is so important for our kids here to have someone in their class say: ‘You don’t understand how important it is to be free, to have the opportunity to study, to walk around campus, to be free from fear, to speak freely, to disagree, to say what you want.”

The goal of The Afghan Girls Financial Assistance Fund is to give women the opportunity for education that they deserved, but were not given.

As Akbar, a freshman at Dickinson said, “Afghan women are survivors,” not victims, and are capable of great reform and change.

What do you think it would be like to not be able to work,go to school, or go outside by yourself just because you are female? How do you feel about the work that is being done by The Afghan Girls Financial Assistance Fund?

Leave your thoughts in the comments below!

Kristen

New Moon Intern