Are you saving for your retirement? No? Wish you were? Will get round to it eventually? Time to start thinking about the future: The Women's Institute for a Secure Retirement (WISER) says that millions of US women may run out of retirement savings.
A report published by the Society of Actuaries, and sponsored by WISER, concludes that men and women generally perceive the risks associated with retirement in a similar way, but that there are significant differences in how they experience those risks. Because women live longer than men (at least 5 years on average), there is a greater risk of exhausting assets: put simply, they are going to be retired longer. Women are also not giving enough thought to the costs of long-term care in their older years. Married couples need to give more thought to preserving benefits for a surviving spouse, and not just thinking about their joint plan for retirement. Today, one third of women over age 62 are collecting social security benefits based solely on the earnings of their spouse.
To see a paper summarizing the the survey findings, go to http://research.soa.org/WomensShortReportfinal.pdf
Read more about the Society of Actuaries complete survey at http://preview.tinyurl.com/39zsaq
It ain't sexy, but it's important. Think about it. Do you want to be poor when you are old, ladies?
Friday, September 21, 2007
Monday, September 17, 2007
Did You Know USA is Doing Well in Women's Soccer World Cup? No? No Surprise.
The FIFA Women's World Cup is taking place in China during the month of September. Here's the official website - http://www.fifa.com/womenworldcup/index.html - which will tell you all you need to know about the standing of different teams in the competition. At the time of writing, USA ties top of Group B, England is second in Group A, Australia ties with Norway at top of Group C, and Brazil is top of Group D.
With this big event going on, you might expect to see some news coverage of the US team's success thus far. I had no idea it was happening till I was chatting with a "Soccer Mom" at a match this weekend. So I checked out some internet sites. Not on Fox News. To give credit to CNN, it includes the World Cup on its soccer landing page (though below and smaller than a story about a men's soccer tournament that hasn't even started yet). New York Times also features it, below a story about (men's) college football. In contrast, the Guardian newspaper (UK) features a story about the England team's success in the competition on its homepage as its leading sport headline; though the Times of London buries it on the sports page. (And that when the story is about England beating Argentina which, just a few years ago, in the post-Falklands War world, would have been a leading headline). (All pages accessed on 9/17/07.)
This highly unscientific sampling suggests that we can't conclude that the failure to highlight the women's soccer competition is just cultural: that the US media outlets aren't interested because soccer is still a young sport in the USA, whereas the UK media outlets are accustomed to covering soccer as one of the main national games. Alas, it seems that our media outlets are still inclined to neglect the achievements of our professional sportswomen.
Well, now you know about the competition, you can look out for the coverage!
It is a well-researched fact that involvement in sports is good for girls' self-esteem and all-round success - hence the passionate support that Title IX gets from women in the sporting world. I've recently become aware of a new media outlet which aims to promote a greater presence of healthy images of women and girls, aimed mainly at middle and high school girls: Athletic Girl Productions. Check out their website at www.girlsarechampions.org. Founder and President Lisa Izzi, a former gymnast and Stanford Coach, has created this organization with the aim of presenting healthy, positive images and role models to counterbalance the prevailing "be thin", "get your appearance fixed", "skinny is glamorous" culture.
It may be an uphill struggle, but I applaud Lisa and her colleagues for taking this on.
With this big event going on, you might expect to see some news coverage of the US team's success thus far. I had no idea it was happening till I was chatting with a "Soccer Mom" at a match this weekend. So I checked out some internet sites. Not on Fox News. To give credit to CNN, it includes the World Cup on its soccer landing page (though below and smaller than a story about a men's soccer tournament that hasn't even started yet). New York Times also features it, below a story about (men's) college football. In contrast, the Guardian newspaper (UK) features a story about the England team's success in the competition on its homepage as its leading sport headline; though the Times of London buries it on the sports page. (And that when the story is about England beating Argentina which, just a few years ago, in the post-Falklands War world, would have been a leading headline). (All pages accessed on 9/17/07.)
This highly unscientific sampling suggests that we can't conclude that the failure to highlight the women's soccer competition is just cultural: that the US media outlets aren't interested because soccer is still a young sport in the USA, whereas the UK media outlets are accustomed to covering soccer as one of the main national games. Alas, it seems that our media outlets are still inclined to neglect the achievements of our professional sportswomen.
Well, now you know about the competition, you can look out for the coverage!
It is a well-researched fact that involvement in sports is good for girls' self-esteem and all-round success - hence the passionate support that Title IX gets from women in the sporting world. I've recently become aware of a new media outlet which aims to promote a greater presence of healthy images of women and girls, aimed mainly at middle and high school girls: Athletic Girl Productions. Check out their website at www.girlsarechampions.org. Founder and President Lisa Izzi, a former gymnast and Stanford Coach, has created this organization with the aim of presenting healthy, positive images and role models to counterbalance the prevailing "be thin", "get your appearance fixed", "skinny is glamorous" culture.
It may be an uphill struggle, but I applaud Lisa and her colleagues for taking this on.
Saturday, September 15, 2007
Ultra Thin Models: To Ban or Not?
This week is London Fashion Week. To mark the occasion, its organizer, the British Fashion Council, has issued a report stating that fashion models should be at least 16 eyars old, and be regularly screened for eating disorders. The report estimates that up to 40% of models may have eating disorders, compared with 3% of the population.
Last year, two extremely thin models died, prompting the Madrid Fashion Week shows to ban ultra-thin models; however, the British Fashion Council's report does not recommend that the excessively thin should be kept off the catwalks. The British government had been pressing for that. Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell is reported (at www.telegraph.co.uk) as commenting: "The fashion industry is hugely powerful in shaping the attitudes of young women and their feelings about themselves," she said. "Teenage girls aspire to look like their role models. If their role models are healthy it will help inspire girls to be the same."
Last year, two extremely thin models died, prompting the Madrid Fashion Week shows to ban ultra-thin models; however, the British Fashion Council's report does not recommend that the excessively thin should be kept off the catwalks. The British government had been pressing for that. Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell is reported (at www.telegraph.co.uk) as commenting: "The fashion industry is hugely powerful in shaping the attitudes of young women and their feelings about themselves," she said. "Teenage girls aspire to look like their role models. If their role models are healthy it will help inspire girls to be the same."
The Hairless Adolescent
The New York Times (9/14/07) ran an article about Nair's new hair removal product aimed at young teens: "Nair Pretty". This is what the website has to say in introduction to the product - its the "why you have to do this" sell:
"So you're at an age when the childhood fuzz is becoming thicker and coarser hair. It's time to give some serious thought to removing it. If you've never dealt with hair removal before, it's natural to feel a little bit nervous. But you'll soon see, getting smooth, silky skin with Nair® depilatories is simple – and a fun way to treat yourself right!"
According to the NYT article, the product is aimed at middle schoolers, from about age 10. Why should a 10, 11 or 12 year old be giving "serious thought" to removing body hair? Like the vast majority of women, I've done a bit of hair removal here and there in my time, so I'm not a po-faced opponent of it altogether; but why are we so keen to start encouraging our girls to focus on the way they look, and to spread chemicals over their skin in an attempt to retain the outward appearance of younger childhood, at such an early age?
I see that the Teen Health section of the Palo Alto Medical Foundation's website has an in-depth article comparing seven different ways to remove hair from your legs - http://www.pamf.org/teen/health/femalehealth/hairremoval.html. I was a bit surprised to see a hospital website covering this in such a ra-ra way. Incidentally, you consumers out there, it concludes that using the Nair products is one of the least effective ways of maintaining hairlessness. Hot wax at a salon wins. Of course, that costs more money than a tube of "Nair Pretty". Maybe this is an opportunity to encourage teens into saving their allowance... deferred gratification... and all that.
There doesn't seem to be a lot of research out there on this specific subject: if you know of a good article, let me know. In the meantime, you could try Marika Tiggeman and Sarah J. Kenyon, "The Hairless Norm: The Removal of Body Hair in Women" Sex Roles: A Journal of Research, 39 (11-12) December 1998 pp. 873-885. Tiggeman and Kenyon's study looks at the hair removing practices among 129 female university students and 137 female high school students. It found that 92% of them were removing hair, and that they removed hair regardless of whether they self-identified as feminist or not. The writers conclude that hair removal is so common as to be hardly worthy of comment, but that it reflects on the stereotyping view of women's bodies as unacceptable in their natural form.
There is a thoughtful posting on this subject/Nair announcement at the Feminist Law Professor blog (see link on left). As the writer, Bridget Crawford, says, "you can be unstoppable — at any age — and have hairy legs."
"So you're at an age when the childhood fuzz is becoming thicker and coarser hair. It's time to give some serious thought to removing it. If you've never dealt with hair removal before, it's natural to feel a little bit nervous. But you'll soon see, getting smooth, silky skin with Nair® depilatories is simple – and a fun way to treat yourself right!"
According to the NYT article, the product is aimed at middle schoolers, from about age 10. Why should a 10, 11 or 12 year old be giving "serious thought" to removing body hair? Like the vast majority of women, I've done a bit of hair removal here and there in my time, so I'm not a po-faced opponent of it altogether; but why are we so keen to start encouraging our girls to focus on the way they look, and to spread chemicals over their skin in an attempt to retain the outward appearance of younger childhood, at such an early age?
I see that the Teen Health section of the Palo Alto Medical Foundation's website has an in-depth article comparing seven different ways to remove hair from your legs - http://www.pamf.org/teen/health/femalehealth/hairremoval.html. I was a bit surprised to see a hospital website covering this in such a ra-ra way. Incidentally, you consumers out there, it concludes that using the Nair products is one of the least effective ways of maintaining hairlessness. Hot wax at a salon wins. Of course, that costs more money than a tube of "Nair Pretty". Maybe this is an opportunity to encourage teens into saving their allowance... deferred gratification... and all that.
There doesn't seem to be a lot of research out there on this specific subject: if you know of a good article, let me know. In the meantime, you could try Marika Tiggeman and Sarah J. Kenyon, "The Hairless Norm: The Removal of Body Hair in Women" Sex Roles: A Journal of Research, 39 (11-12) December 1998 pp. 873-885. Tiggeman and Kenyon's study looks at the hair removing practices among 129 female university students and 137 female high school students. It found that 92% of them were removing hair, and that they removed hair regardless of whether they self-identified as feminist or not. The writers conclude that hair removal is so common as to be hardly worthy of comment, but that it reflects on the stereotyping view of women's bodies as unacceptable in their natural form.
There is a thoughtful posting on this subject/Nair announcement at the Feminist Law Professor blog (see link on left). As the writer, Bridget Crawford, says, "you can be unstoppable — at any age — and have hairy legs."
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