First I found two scientific papers:

Coovadia, H., et al., 2007, Mother-to-child transmission of HIV-1 infection during exclusive breastfeeding in the first 6 months of life: an intervention cohort study.

Coutsoudis, A., et al., 1999, Influence of infant-feeding patterns on early mother-to-child transmission of HIV-1 in Durban, South Africa: a prospective cohort study.

Then I found a news article that contained a quotation from Professor Coovadia which very nicely explained the (first) paper.

Exclusive Breastfeeding Protects Newborns from HIV/AIDS

First, ‘exclusive breastfeeding means the babies are fed only breast milk and no solid foods, formula or even water’. Exclusive breastfeeding is typically encouraged for the first 6 months of a baby’s life.

Thereafter, Professor Coovadia explains that:

The argument is that if you give a very small baby more solid stuff to ingest, it damages the baby’s gut (stomach), which is at a very early stage of development. And the gut is a really protective organ…. And then the HIV that’s in the mothers’ breast milk goes through the baby’s damaged gut and into it.

Interesting eh?

Yes, it happened once, a week before I submitted my Master’s dissertation (on recovery from sexual abuse), that I felt I couldn’t read any more incest stories, so I closed the booked, decided my dissertation was finished, printed and submitted it.

It’s shocking and disappointing to say, however, that it is not the sexual violence stories themselves that bother me – it’s what goes on in society in response to sexual violence that makes my blood boil. Which simply fuels my motivation for continuing doing research on the topic of sexual violence.

‘The Senate decided last week to keep in place a policy that denies abortion coverage for military rape victims who became pregnant as a result of their sexual assault’.

Conservative Women’s Group Applauds Senate Decision To Deny Military Rape Victims Abortion Coverage

 

‘Abstinence-only, contraception-hostile CWA are big proponents of the purity myth that reduces a woman’s value to the number of penises that have touched her vagina. Your average service woman suffering a rape has probably had consensual sex outside of marriage before, so in the eyes of CWA she was already worthless. But even if not, the rape renders her not-a-virgin by their strict accounting, terminating any moral value she has

[...]

Of course CWA sees no reason not to force them to bear a rapist’s child. Unless you can find the “cure-all” of going back in time and un-raping the victim, she has no value and deserves no real care, in their blatant estimation.’

Concerned Women for America’s Condescending Treatment of Our Female Troops

“Boys Will be Boys” and Other Minimizing Comments

It’s a short (so yes, you can be bothered reading it) blog post taking the piss out of silly comments about sexual harassment and it’s hilarious!

I haven’t had a chance yet to explore the rest of the blog but the page on Rape seems really full of interesting articles (Jim, the blogger, is a writer apparently) and other resources. And my eye just caught this website which seems really cool as well:

Men Can Stop Rape (MCSR)

So go read and have a laugh. And then have a think. A deep think.

It’s called the PTSD Coach. Check it out by clicking here.

Basically, the PTSD Coach is a mobile app, created by the Veterans Affair’s National Center for PTSD, and it ‘can help you learn about and manage symptoms that commonly occur after trauma’.

So those who suffer from Post-Trumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) can now download this app and thus always carry with them:

• Reliable information on PTSD and treatments
• Tools  for screening and tracking symptoms
• Skills to help handle stress symptoms
• Direct links to support and help

Unfortunately, it’s a US app so the support and help contact details may not be of much use to people outside of the US but the rest should be fine.

Gotta go try it now…

Therefore, I want to encourage people to read it.

Kitzinger, C., & Frith, H., 1999, Just say no? The use of conversation analysis in developing a feminist perspective on sexual refusal.

It basically discusses why it may be problematic for females to simply just say ‘no’ to sexual invitations, and how insisting on females to just say ‘no’ to do sexual refusals is socially not the most appropriate method. They argue that refusals in other areas of life are not done by simply saying ‘no’. You seldom witness:
- Do you wanna come over for dinner?
- No.
The situation is more likely to unfold as:
- Do you wanna come over for dinner?
- I’d love to but I can’t.

They, therefore, argue that:

‘[b]y contrast, we would suggest that young women are communicating in ways which are usually understood to mean refusal in other contexts and it is not the adequacy of their communication that should be questioned, but rather their male partners’ claims not to understand that these women are refusing sex’ (p. 309).

My favourite point in the article must be when they say that:

‘[i]f there is an organized and normative way of doing indirect refusal, which provides for culturally understood ways in which (for example) “maybe later” means “no”, then men who claim not to have understood an indirect refusal (as in, “she didn’t actually say no”) are claiming to be cultural dopes…’ (p. 310).

‘Cultural dopes’. Love it. Wonder if I can use that somewhere in my thesis?

Reference: www.phdcomics.com

OK, maybe not step 3 and 4 but definitely the source of the problem and then step 1 and 2…

Reality though is that I have 66 interviews to analyse. If I found 1 unique feature in each interview that’s 66 analytical points to make. If I then write 2000 words about each unique feature… That’s TWO PhDs instead of one!! I guess optimally I would find a repetition of 3-4 interesting features, and perhaps 1-3 ‘sub-features’, across my 66 interviews. That’d make a good 3 empirical chapters in my PhD. Yeah.

On a slightly different note, the analysis, i.e. reading through all the interviews, is making me miss South Africa and Cotlands. Even though I was sad to leave Cotlands (and South Africa) I was, nonetheless, ready to leave and come back home. But now I am finding myself missing the two tremendously That’s the story of my life though, and has been for many years: no matter where I am, I am constantly missing a place or a person. Regardless of what country I am in, I am always missing the other countries where I’ve lived. I know it’s my own fault but yeah…

Back to analysing!

Well done Judge Simon Newell. I’m sure you sleep very well at night. I’m glad I’m not your daughter.

If you would like to see a change in the law that allows these things from happening, then please take the two minutes to sign the below petition.

Petition

MailOnline: ‘Why was ex-boyfriend on rape charge freed to kill our daughter?’

BBC: ‘Jane Clough’s family in court demo over “freed killer”‘

I am hoping to be able to find a home within the next week. I have at least received a new office; tucked away on the very very upper floor, I feel like I’ve been put in the naughty corner together with the few other naughty kids. But it’s cool. It’s got a skylight and there’s only two desks in here, as opposed to my old office which I shared with nine other people – which I liked so it didn’t really matter. (I asked for an office with sea views and bean bags upon my return but since I failed to bring our Buildings & Facilities Officer the vuvuzela he had asked for then obviously I didn’t get my sea view office.)

Anyhoo, as soon as I have a home, and NVivo on my laptop, I shall start my data analysis properly… Keep me in your prayers.

Anyhoo, I’ve had lots of nice experiences in my last month. One of our volunteers plays the violin with the Johannesburg Youth Orchestra so we went to one of their concerts, which was awesome. Then we had Cotlands’ AGM where Loyiso, one of Cotlands’ ambassadors, spoke. Last night I also had the brilliant idea that, since Cotlands’ ‘theme’ is Heroes, then Loyiso should do a cover on Mariah Carey’s song ‘Hero’ Yeah! I know I know, my brain’s brilliant when I go to bed. Wish it was brilliant the rest of the day as well…

We also went to Gino’s for a welcome (we have a group of new volunteers) / goodbye (I wanted to go there one last time since I’m leaving soon) dinner. Me. Loves. Gino’s. Pizzas! If only I had remembered to have the Tiramisu Although I was very full so I probably wouldn’t have been able to manage anyway. But I could’ve gotten take away…

Last, but definitely not least, we had some birthday/farewell celebrations today Our HR Director had made a lovely apple cake (I can’t remember the proper name of it) and a lovely chocolate cake. And there was delicious fruit salad. I felt very very spoiled. I had so much cake and fruit salad I forgot about lunch and when I finally realised I should eat some food there was none. Luckily a lady in the kitchen managed to spare me two slices of bread so I had a peanut butter sandwich for lunch. And yesterday I had a burger for lunch. And the day before I had chips for lunch. I seriously need to start cooking food again…

I am going to miss Cotlands and all the people here I feel so comfortable here it’s almost scary to go back home again. It’s been a very good year and I have been very blessed. I will always keep Cotlands in my heart.