Women:

Domestic violence
An Our Town 50 Series.

Poll Finds Domestic Violence is Women’s Main Concern

Ninety-two percent of American women rank domestic and sexual violence as one of their top priorities. One out of every three women experiences at least one physical assault by a partner during adulthood, according to a 1996 study by the American Psychological Association. The full extent of such victimization is not known, however, it is estimated that only one in seven domestic assaults come to the attention of the police. So perhaps it is not surprising that the overwhelming majority of women polled in a new survey by the Center for the Advancement of Women indicated that domestic violence and sexual assault are their main concerns. The survey, entitled “Progress and Perils: New Agenda for Women,” is based on two national telephone polls of 3,329 women aged 18 and older.

Juley Fulcher, Public Policy Director for the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence (NCADV), is not surprised that domestic violence is emerging as such an important issue for women today. “Domestic violence is more prevalent than people realize and this concern needs to be recognized on a national level. Politicians should take note, seeing that at least 50% of the electorate deeply cares about this issue.” Juley Fulcher works in NCADV’s Public Policy office in Washington D.C educating the general public about the plight of domestic violence in America, as well as testifying before Congress about legislation and appropriations on behalf of victims around the country. One of NCADV’s recent concerns has been advocating for the full funding of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) and its reauthorization in 2004, which has positively impacted the lives of hundreds of thousands of battered women and their children.

With National Domestic Violence Awareness month in October and the upcoming presidential primaries, the NCADV hopes that the results of this poll are an indication of the increased awareness and involvement of women and men in the movement to eradicate domestic violence.

NCADV is a nationwide network of approximately 2,000 domestic violence shelters, programs, and individual members working on behalf of battered women and their children. It serves as a national information and referral center for the general public, media, battered women and their children, allied and member agencies, Congress and the Administration, as well as a driving force to impact public policy and legislation for battered women and their children.

Woman's Club of Sarasota celebrates 90 years

Ann A. Shank, historian

Sarasota County History Center

One hundred years ago, the women of the new Town of

Sarasota Women's Club making a presentation, circa 1915

Sarasota decided to organize. Although they were without the right to vote, they -- first as the Town Improvement Society, and later as the Woman's Club -- set in motion changes that were to help mold the character of Sarasota today.

The Town Improvement Society was short-lived, but within a few years had begun to beautify Sarasota. They lobbied for sidewalks along Main Street and accumulated $40 for the establishment of a library. In 1913, with an area population fewer than 2000, more that 60 women attended the first meeting of the Woman's Club of Sarasota. Alice Gunther led the group through the first eight years, during which time the town emerged from a fishing village to a city on the brink of "exploding" during the 1920s Florida Land Boom.

The Woman's Club quickly became the cultural center of Sarasota. Building on the base left by the Town Improvement Society, the Woman's Club built a library into their new clubhouse on Palm Avenue. It would serve the community until the City of Sarasota took over complete sponsorship in 1940. Lectures, concerts, and dramatic productions took a prominent place among the weekly meetings. Dance classes were offered for youth as well as adults.

The members' interest in the well-being of children was reflected in the club's work from the beginning. Neal Chapline led the Graysonian Club, in which 12- to 16-year-olds studied nature and the writings of David Grayson. The Club lobbied for compulsory education and Rose Wilson, a charter member, printed the Club's position on the front page of the Sarasota Times, which she published.

The Club organized a local PTA and introduced medical and dental inspections in the schools. Members built a playground for the school on Main Street and supported a kindergarten for black children. The latter interest later continued with participation in the development of the Newtown Day Nursery.

Civic interests and community service activities abounded. When the women's suffrage movement was pushing for the passage of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the Woman's Club sponsored a debate on the merit of a woman's vote.

When the Amendment passed, Rose Wilson and Alice Gunther were the first two women in Sarasota County to register. The club sponsored educational programs for women, and men, to prepare them for their responsibilities as voters. The club lobbied the following year, 1921, for the formation of Sarasota County from Manatee County.

During World War I, the club organized the local chapter of the American Red Cross and rolled bandages for military hospitals. Members sold war bonds in both world wars and opened their homes to away-from-home soldiers who trained at the World War II Sarasota Army Air Base. In the 1920s, the club's Welfare Committee began the drive for a public hospital.

As the community grew, many of the club's projects took on a life of their own and spun off to become separate entities. The evidence is visible throughout the community today.

Next week, the Woman's Club will celebrate its 90th birthday and acknowledge the full-grown institutions that came from the seeds it planted. The celebration will take place in the original clubhouse, now Florida Studio Theater, a building which has hosted theatrical productions since it opened in 1915.

Women should act before menopause to reduce heart risk

Women may benefit in the long-term if they make an effort to lower their cholesterol before they reach age 55.
It's well known that a woman's chances of developing heart disease increase quite sharply after the menopause. This is at least partly due to a fall in levels of estrogen.

A new study suggests that if women take action to reduce their risk factors before they reach menopause they will benefit more in the long term. Researchers studied a group of 1,349 women of varying ethnic origin and aged between 42 and 52. Overall, these women were healthy, with normal cholesterol levels, though they tended to be overweight. The researchers calculated the percentage in each group who could benefit from lifestyle changes and/or cholesterol lowering drugs. This range from 19 per cent of Hispanic women to five per cent of Chinese women.

Given that all heart disease risk factors tend to increase - sometimes very sharply - as a woman reaches 55 or so, it may be worthwhile targetting modifications to women who are younger than this, the researchers say. Source
American Heart Association Conference 7th March 2003

Men have Bigger Brains than Women, but faster burnout

Younger men have bigger, heavier brains than
women, giving them a slight advantage in hand-eye coordination and mathematics, but men also burn out their brains faster, which  means they could die an average of ten years sooner than women, latest research has revealed.

Also, despite the physical differences in men and women's brains, the way boys and girls are raised continues to have a major influence on their involvement in such fields as engineering and competitive sports, the research says.
According to Dr Ruben Gur, a professor of psychology and psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania, though men, at a young age, have bigger and heavier brains than girls, they lose brain tissue at almost three times the rate of women as they age, particularly the frontal lobes responsible for planning and inhibition.

Using a test that studies the metabolism rate of the brain and also uses magnetic imaging to measure brain volume, Dr Gur concluded that ''women have a mechanism whereby they can reduce the rate of neuronal activity in proportion to the tissue that they lose, while men continue to overdrive their neurons at the same rate as when they had all the marbles.''

Speaking at the American Association for the advancement of science annual meeting, Dr Gur said that men seemed unable to relax their brains as well as women, who tended to have an advantage in that they indulged in largely verbal and social skills. It is this tendency among men to overwork their brains that could account for
the fact that men are likely to die an average of ten years sooner than women, he said in a report by U.S-based Scripps Howard News service.

Explaining his findings, Dr Gur said, ''when the cells of the body are active and the waste products of metabolism are not cleared away efficiently enough, they build up and can further contribute to the death of cells.''

Dr Gur said this could also explain why, biologically speaking, older men are less useful than older women. ''Perhaps this process is a built-in mechanism to ensure that they won't hang around,'' he said. Simultaneous research by other scientists, presented at the meeting, has also shown that sex differences in brain sizes could itself be partly due to several social factors like a division of labor among men and women in ancients times and parents' attitudes
towards their daughters participating in physical sports or going for physical disciplines like engineering.


According to Dr Jacquelynne Eccles, a University of Michigan psychologist, ''it is no longer a question of nature vs nurture. Its pretty well accepted that both play a role.''
She said that the differences in cognitive and physical abilities between boys and girls are small, between two to five per cent, yet girls are less likely to take part in team competitive sports.

''When we test kindergartens and first graders, we find that the boys run just a little faster and throw balls a little more accurately than girls, but why does this account for girls shying away from most organized sports?'' ''The parents attitudes seem to be the most decisive factor,
although girls themselves seem to quickly conclude from peer pressure that many sports are socially off-limits to them as well,'' Dr Eccles said.
 

* Bo Diddley raps rap music in a talk near Gainesville where he

  lives. He says rap is vulgar and degrades women. "I'm talking about this rap crap," he says.

New approaches to
 aging skin

There are many new products that help rejuvenate an aging skin, many by using anti-oxidants.
Dr Patricia Farris of Tulane University, New York, discusses the various products - known as 'cosmaceuticals' - which claim to help the skin age more gracefully. Skin aging, with its characteristic wrinkles and sagging, is due mainly to the action of free radicals on skin cells. If the free radicals can be neutralised by anti-oxidant ingredients, then aging may happen more slowly.

Aging skin naturally has fewer anti-oxidants than young skin, but they can be provided by a skin cream, used regularly. Vitamin A, or retinol, has been proved beneficial to aging or sun-damaged skin. But there are also newer ingredients, says Dr Farris. For instance, alpha lipoic acid (ALA) is a naturally occurring anti-oxidant said to have dramatic effects - although there is currently little hard data to back these claims.

Copper peptides are compounds that were first recognised for their ability to promote wound healing. They're known to help synthesis of collagen and elastin, two proteins in the lower layer of skin that keep the surface firm and youthful. Research does slow that copper peptides have real benefit - reducing wrinkling and the thinning of the skin. Growth factors are a new category of anti-aging ingredient, said to improve fine lines - and there is some evidence this may be so.

Another popular ingredient is dimethylaminoethanol (DMAE) which may help reduce sagging. 'Split face' studies - where one half of the face is treated with DMAE, the other not, shows subtle lifting of the eyebrows, jowls and cheeks. Further studies of all these ingredients are underway, so keep watch for new and more effective skin products. Source
American Academy of Dermatology Derm Update October 23 2002

Natural progesterone causes fewer problems in hormone replacement

A form of hormone replacement therapy containing natural, rather than synthetic, progesterone causes fewer unwanted bleeding episodes.
The reason why most women give up on hormone replacement therapy (HRT) is that it sometimes leads to unwanted and unpredictable uterine bleeding. In a new study, researchers at the University of California, San Diego, found that varying the form of the hormone progesterone in HRT may help.

They used an estrogen and micronized progesterone (MP) combination, and compared it to the most widely used formula. This consists of estrogen in combination with medroxyprogesterone acetate (MPA), a synthetic progesterone. The MP combination was associated with significantly less bleeding. Further research is needed to show whether it is also linked to fewer adverse effects, such as those which have been reported recently in a large HRT trial (The Women's health Initiative, WHI). This found that HRT containing MPA increased the risk of breast cancer, heart attack and stroke, in certain circumstances at least. A safer version would surely be welcomed by women put off by the WHI report. Source
Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology November 2002