As many of you may be aware, I attended the International Women’s Health Symposium in Calgary this past Wednesday, as part of the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists’ 64th Annual Clinical Meeting. I enjoyed it for the most part, and it opened my eyes up to a lot of international problems women face.
I really don’t think it’s necessary to go over each and every one of the sessions, but if there’s one you’d like comments on specifically, just ask in the comments or email me. I’ve listed them here.
My overall view of the symposium is positive. It’s the first time they’ve introduced it into their schedule, which should probably be taken into consideration. The speakers they had varied: Some were very good, and others I wasn’t so fond of. One had a slide of a picture of a woman and her name, and under the name was “wife of …” I know it doesn’t have much to do with the whole day, but it bothered me. I digress, though. I learned a lot of information I didn’t know before, or, at least, statistics of issues I wasn’t aware are as bad as they are. For instance, I knew HIV infection for women internationally is bad, but according to one presenter, in some countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, the HIV infection ratio between girls and boys is 8 to 1.
There was some talk on selective abortion, the topic I was perhaps most captivated by. It’s troublesome when something feminists advocate for is used as a tool to reinforce the oppression of women. Of course, it’s not abortion that’s the problem, but rather the sexism that oversees the decision to abort female fetuses. Karina Marceau, a Québec journalist, showed us clips of her film, Daughters of Gardeners, and it was shocking, to say the least. If you can get a hold of the video, I highly recommend it.
Some of the presenters focused on what can be done to help these women, but I found many of them didn’t. I just think it’s such a lost opportunity when a presenter has roughly an hour, explains the problem, but doesn’t offer any plans or suggestions for change. It was also such a feminist conference, but feminism was mentioned twice: By myself and by one of the speakers. Maybe I shouldn’t be bothered by that, either, but international women’s issues (well, any women’s issues) are feminist issues, and I feel by not even mentioning it, it feeds the backlash by missing a perfect opportunity to challenge it. Maybe I’m being too hard on the conference and its organisers, though; it was their first attempt, and it was a pretty good one.
I know this was a rambling post, but I’m not a huge fan of summarising events. Again, though, if you want to hear about one session in particular, just email me.
Posted by Derek
