It does make you think...

I read Salon on a fairly regular basis I think it's gone through a few shifts - it had times when it was terrific - now it's in a not-so-terrific phase of its life. They mess with the layout all the time and it gets irritating. Isn't the fact that an online magazine changes everyday satisfying enough without having to change the layout every five seconds as well? Are people bored that easily?
Anyway, in Salon is a section called Broadsheet with which I have a love/hate relationship - there is a very smart-arse tone to the writing which I can appreciate at times but at others I find annoying (Pot? Meet Kettle) and the section is rife with "thinking women's"-style stories. They include a lot of crap but often a "I can't believe that happens anymore" piece comes along and then, every once in a while, they'll make mention of a story that just makes my jaw drop in wonder. Not always good wonder but wonder nonetheless.

Today they had one of those stories.

It references a op-ed piece in The New York Times by Thomas Friedman - I think you need to be a paid subscriber to access the full story - ya can't get nothin' for free anymore - but here is the blurb as posted in Broadsheet:

Life-changing Maxi-pads?
New York Times: Here's a no-nonsense approach to quickly improving the lot of Kenyan women and girls: Provide them with Maxi-pads. Thomas L. Friedman's Op-Ed suggests that access to sanitary napkins is much more than an issue of comfort or convenience. Naisiae Tobiko, a native to Kenya's Masai region, told Friedman that around puberty she started to notice some that some girls would miss a few consecutive days of class each month. Friedman writes, "When she finally asked, they confided that they did not come to school when they were menstruating -- because their parents could not afford sanitary napkins." Some tried to make due with "rags or soil or mud," says Tobiko. But, ultimately, many of her classmates dropped out of school because they had already missed too many days of school.

Wow.

WOW.

This planet houses so many different worlds. There is my world in which I can buy anything I want (and I mean pretty much anything, if I took full advantage of every credit card offer that came in the mail - I send 'buy', not 'pay for'). And then there is a world where girls don't go to school because they still have to use "rags or soil or mud" - RAGS! SOIL! MUD! to deal with their period. I mean - wow. I am a spoiled, privileged, RICH RICH RICH person compared to so many people on this planet. I kind of knew that on some level, but that story - knowing that those girls are halting their education every month, because they are still dealing with an age-old phenomenon in an age-old way. The thought of these girls at least being able to pursue an education is wonderful. The fact that they're staying home because of lack of pads or tampons is heartbreaking. What a juxtaposition for them. A 20th century right hampered by a 21st century wrong.

Don't it make your brown [hair] blue...continued

Isn't it amazing what relatively normal people will do for money?


Thanks for all the monetary and emotional support as I now navigate through life with blue hair.

I could say that it hasn't made all that much of a difference to my life but I'd be lying. I have had to question myself at length. I thought I had the kind of personality that would be able to take the stares and finger-pointing but I really don't. I am a bit freaked out to be honest.

When I think of why I did this, I feel better. Better to have blue hair than none at all. Unless you're my brother. And then you've just been screwed by genetics, not cancer.

All I'm saying now is that with my HUGE fundraising efforts (AUD$1300 and counting) they had better find a damn cure!