During the pandemic, teenage girls took on more caregiving at home, extra shifts at work and the burden of organizing racial justice protests. In many instances, it upended their lives.
Black and Hispanic teenage girls were also more likely than white girls and their male counterparts to shoulder care responsibilities at home, according to a report by the Institute for Womenâs Policy Research. At the same time, they were leading racial justice demonstrations across the country, most notably last summer, channeling their energy into confronting and changing systemic inequities.
âBlack girls were on the front lines of racial justice movements, they were essential workers and they were primary caregivers,â said Scheherazade Tillet, a founder and the executive director of A Long Walk Home, an organization that empowers Black girls in Chicago. âThereâs no other group that was all three of those things at once.â
All of this has taken a psychological toll. In June, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported a sharp spike in emergency room visits after suspected suicide attempts by girls ages 12 to 17 in the first months of 2021 compared with 2019. This is possibly because of âmore severe distress among young females than has been identified in previous reports during the pandemic,â the report said, though the study didnât break down the data by race.
A survey of over 2,000 young people, published in June by the nonprofit organization Americaâs Promise Alliance, found that 78 percent of girls ages 13 to 19 reported in the past 30 days at least one sign of decreased mental health, such as feeling distressed or being unable to sleep, compared with 65 percent of boys. A Long Walk Home found in a survey of about 30 girls that nearly 70 percent reported increased anxiety and an inability to sleep in the last year. Twenty-seven percent reported having suicidal thoughts. Crittenton Services, an organization based in Washington, D.C., and Maryland that supports girls of color, found that out of the nearly 400 girls in its network, 63 percent felt stressed, and half had trouble sleeping, according to an internal survey that was shared with The Times.
Jair Bolsonaro is backing a legal move to open up large tracts of indigenous territory to commercial exploitation â denounced as an âextermi
More than 5,000 indigenous women have marched through Brazilâs capital to denounce the historic assault on native lands they say is unfolding under the countryâs far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro.
Female representatives of more than 170 of Brazilâs 300-plus tribes have gathered in BrasĂlia in recent days to oppose highly controversial attempts to strip back indigenous land rights and open their territories to mining operations and agribusiness.
On Friday morning those guerreiras (warriors) trooped south from their encampment wearing bright-coloured headdresses made from the feathers of parrots and macaws and clutching banners condemning growing anti-indigenous violence under Bolsonaroâs âgenocidal administrationâ.
Two demonstrators clasped an effigy of the embattled Brazilian leader whose presidential sash bore the words: âFora Bolsonaro!â (Bolsonaro out!).
âWhat they want is to take away our land,â said Alessandra Korap, an activist from the Amazonâs Munduruku people, deploring a slew of political initiatives she said threatened indigenous lands and lives.
Foremost among those threats is the âmarco temporalâ or âtime frameâ argument: a legal challenge to indigenous land rights that is being considered by the supreme court.
Opponents say that, if successful, the suit â which Bolsonaro has championed as a way of stopping Brazil being âhanded over to the Indiansâ â would nullify all indigenous claims to land they were not physically occupying when Brazilâs constitution was enacted on 5 October 1988.
âThis is illegal. This is unconstitutional. They want to tear up our roots and we will not allow it,â Korap said on the eve of Fridayâs march.
Speaking at the protest camp, organized the Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil, Korap said a ruling in favour of the thesis would effectively legalise the theft of indigenous land.
âThe time frame thesis indicates that we have only existed since 5 October 1988. But this isnât true. The whole of Brazil is indigenous territory â all of it. Unfortunately, it has been taken away, bit by bit â and now they want to take away those pieces that were left for us,â she said.
As well as Bolsonaro, under whose administration deforestation has soared, the legal challenge is backed by congressâs powerful ruralist caucus, whose members are simultaneously pushing a bill that would have a similar impact. That measure, known as PL490, would restrict indigenous land claims and permit infrastructure building and the commercial exploitation of native forests, without requiring indigenous occupants to be consulted.
SĂŽnia Guajajara, another prominent indigenous leader, said: âThese are all highly orchestrated measures which are designed to take away the land rights of indigenous people and open these lands up for exploitation ⊠Itâs all about profit and money. We champion biodiversity, keeping the forest standing, which is precisely what ensures us life. All they think about is development built on destruction.â
Supporters of the time frame thesis argue that setting a date-limit for indigenous land claims will help avoid conflicts and legal uncertainty for landowners. âShould we protect indigenous land rights? Obviously, yes. But we must also protect the rights of property owners, farmers, who are essential for Brazilâs development,â prosecutor Alisson de Souza said during a recent hearing.
Guajajara said the indigenous women were mobilizing to repel the latest chapter in a centuries-long attempt to wipe out the descendants of those who inhabited what became Brazil when Portuguese colonizers arrived in 1500. âWhat weâre living through now isnât any different from what weâve always faced when it comes to this extermination effort. Weâve seen centuries of violence, spilled blood, rape and enslavement â and now all of this is being officially professed by the government.
âOur march is about defending Mother Earth,â added Guajajara, 47. âMore and more we women are taking the frontline in the defense of our sacred Mother Earth.â
As well as the time frame thesis judgment and the PL490, activists are also concerned about the imminent expiration of a series of land protection orders barring the development of areas inhabited by uncontacted tribes. Advocates are urging Funai, the indigenous protection agency, to renew those orders restricting access to remote territories inhabited by the Piripkura, Pirititi, JacareĂșba/Katawixi and Ituna/ItatĂĄ peoples. The Piripkura territory, in Mato Grosso state, is among the most affected by illegal logging, and its protection will expire this month.
Korap said indigenous women would continue to fight despite the onslaught: âThis government will last just four years â we have been resisting for more than 520.â
âOur struggle is for survival, for life, for the forest and for our children. So we will resist. In spite of all the attacks from the government, we are resisting and we will continue to resist,â she vowed.
Daydreaming of the alternate reality in which Yahoo successfully acquired Google in 1998 and Facebook in 2006, thereby destroying both companies due to their incompetence and ultimately saving the internet.
considering that all the other dishes for masked samples contain some bacterial growth and the 2 coughs doesn't contain any??? highly sus. or maybe there's just slightly in the middle, but still, i'd say it's not proportional. either that dish is actually clean, contains some antibacterial stuff, or they failed the contamination.
This is just one sampling ffs. Itâs not going to have a perfect distribution every time, but it IS a very close representation to what youâd expect on average.
This is why scientists repeat experiments, to find the mean distribution, but again, this is just a demonstration. A good demonstration that shows close to what youâd expect!
And yes, when talking and singing, you do expel more water droplets than you would expect. That is what theyâre trying to show here.
I did one little google search (thanks to the picture including source info) and found the news article and the following article by the hospital that this is from:
KHQ Investigates: How effective is a mask?
The power of masks (Providence Medical Center)
Do your damned research, listen to the experts when it comes to public health, and wear a fucking mask.
I will start by saying that I'm neither anti mask nor anti vax, however I am against bad scientific communication. Which this picture in my opinion is.
Thanks for the sources, but I'm not gonna read them, because I can't be arsed. My question tho is that if they wanted to emphasize how much we expel water droplets when talking and singing compared to sneezing and coughing, why is the visual emphasis on the 2 coughs Petri dish?
And how can you say that one sampling is a good representation of average? It most certainly is not, because there is always the risk of outliers, for whatever reason, which I thought the last Petri dish is, since the level of contamination doesn't seem proportional compared to others.
A womenâs rights history moment: Helen Hulick was called to court as a burglary witness in November 1938. The 29-year-old â an innovative educator who pioneered auditory-verbal approaches to working with deaf children â arrived in her usual attire of a top and slacks.
But seeing slacks on a woman so greatly offended Judge Arthur S. Guerin that he would not allow Hulick to testify. Instead, he rescheduled her testimony and ordered her to wear a dress at her next appearance.
She refused. As the Nov. 10, 1938 issue of the L.A. Times reported, she stated: âYou tell the judge I will stand on my rights. If he orders me to change into a dress I wonât do it. I like slacks. Theyâre comfortable.âïżŒ
When she appeared in slacks once more, the judge chastised her for both attire and what he perceived as problems with her demeanor. âThe last time you were in this court dressed as you are now and reclining on your neck on the back of your chair, you drew more attention from spectators, prisoners and court attaches than the legal business at hand,â Guerin said. âYou were requested to return in garb acceptable to courtroom procedure. Today you come back dressed in pants and openly defying the court (âŠ)
âThe court hereby orders and directs you to return tomorrow in accepted dress. If you insist on wearing slacks again you will be prevented from testifying (âŠ) But be prepared to be punished according to law for contempt of court.â
The Times quoted her response as follows: âListen, Iâve worn slacks since I was 15. I donât own a dress except a formal. If he wants me to appear in a formal gown thatâs okay with me. Iâll come back in slacks and if he puts me in jail I hope it will help to free women forever of anti-slackism.â
Hulick returned wearing slacks, but this time, she also brought with her Attorney William Katz. Katz was armed with citations supporting her argument that she had the right to appear in the attire of her choice.
Judge Guerin held her in contempt of court nevertheless, sentencing her to five days in jail. There, she was forced to wear a denim prisonersâ dress. She was quickly released on her own recognizance, however, after her attorney declared they would be appealing the sentence.
As Hulickâs story garnered attention, hundreds of supporters sent letters of protest to the courthouse.
Finally, the Appellate Division overturned Judge Guerinâs contempt citation.
She continued to do amazing work throughout her career: In 1985, Lafayette College awarded her an honorary Doctor of Humanities degree "for her work as teacher, scientist and pioneer in the field of auditory therapy,â and in 1988, when she was 80, the Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf awarded her the organization's highest tribute, Honors of the Association.
âThe disciplining of childrenâs voices is gendered. I found that girls were told to be quiet or to repeat a request in a quieter, ânicerâ voice about three times more often than were boys (see Table 3). This finding is particularly interesting because boysâ play was frequently much noisier. However, when boys were noisy, they were also often doing other behaviors the teacher did not allow, and perhaps the teachers focused less on voice because they were more concerned with stopping behaviors like throwing or running. Additionally, when boys were told to âquiet downâ they were told in large groups, rarely as individuals. [âŠ] Girls as individuals and in groups were frequently told to lower their voices⊠The girls learn that their bodies are supposed to be quiet, small, and physically constrained.â
â Karin A Martin, from Becoming a Gendered Body (1998)
