What’s even scarier than the scariest of Halloween costumes? How about the labor abuses suffered by women and children in third world countries?

This year, little Hannah Montanas and Harry Potters can have a treat up their sleeves as they get out the word about beneficial Fair Trade sales to the homes they visit on October 31st.

It’s called Reverse Trick-or-Treating and allows participants in the U.S. and Canada not just to receive candy from neighbors but also distribute Fair Trade certified chocolate donated by companies. The participants are …

Tags: children , Chocolage , fair trade , Halloween , labor , Third World , women

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Imagine a world without women. No, it’s not the tagline for some gloomy successor to Atwood’s feminist dystopia in The Handmaid’s Tale – it’s about us. We live in a world where women are dying, frequently, at ages above and beyond expected natural mortality rates. Women live longer and often healthier lives than men but only in Western societies. Elsewhere, that’s simply not the case. Throughout Asia and North Africa, women are in need of our help.

Indian economist Amartya Sen, writing in The New York Review of Books …

Tags: developing countries , gender discrimination , missing women , mortality rates , women

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Osteoporosis is a big deal for women. But there’s more involved in keeping your bones strong and healthy than just eating plenty of calcium. Weight-bearing activity (exercise on your feet that works your bones and muscles against gravity) is crucial to building and maintaining optimal bone mass. Here’s why:

Bone density refers to your reserve of stored calcium. This is what determines the strength and health of your bones.
Bones are living tissue and need to be used to be strengthened….

Tags: care , fitness , guide , health , personal , wellness , women

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People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) does not see fit to extend the same moral courtesy to human animals, specifically the female kind. In the organization’s latest sexist campaign for vegetarianism, an overweight woman in a bikini is faced with the emboldened slogan: “Save the Whales”. Beneath the words runs a helpful tagline: “Lose the blubber: go vegetarian.”

Come on gals, take a joke. What’s a little fat-shaming in pursuit of a good time?

There’s no shortage of adjectives (or profanities) that come to mind to describe such a …

Tags: animal rights , marketing , misogyny , peta , sexism , vegetarianism , women

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I like life’s special little surprises: a dozen roses mysteriously appearing at the doorstep, some birds nesting right outside the living room window or a phone call from an old friend I’ve been thinking about all week.

But there’s one thing I don’t like to be surprised by: my period. This is something I want to have planned out with the right, comfortable clothes and all my supplies at hand in the secret pocket of my purse. A camping trip, the third date, that beach vacation – not exactly welcome times …

Tags: alert , care , cycle , email , hack , period , personal , reminder , women

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Shop till You Drop, a dead end job mystery is a humorous detective novel about a woman who uncovers crimes while employed at an ultra-exclusive boutique in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. But there is much truth to the title of this fiction. It is also the real-life saga of more and more women during the recession.

Conspicuous consumption seems to be the remedy for what ails many money-strapped UK women, as found in a new survey by researchers at the University of Hertfordshire.

Some 700 women were asked about their emotional responses to their …

Tags: affluenza , anxiety , depression , fashion , recession and shopping , retail , shopaholics , women

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I never in my life thought I’d have a baby. Seriously. I was always one of those people who spouted about overpopulation and my own independence – motherhood was just not on my list of things to do.

But when I found out I was pregnant, and in a stable relationship and a good place in my life, I was overjoyed. The timing was perfect. And as I approach the final month of my pregnancy, what I’m struck by most is how regular an occurrence this whole pregnancy thing is (after …

Tags: birth , children , eco , health , parenting , pregnancy , vegetarian , women

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Perfluorochemicals (PFC), found in many common household items, have been linked to female infertility in a recent Danish study. Research has shown that PFC is toxic to the liver, immune system and reproductive organs. In this case, it looks like infertility is nature’s way of saying “Your environment is way too poisonous to sustain healthy life – this is not the time or place to reproduce the species.”

The most common PFC-containing items are nonstick pans, the grease-resistant coating on microwave popcorn bags, and water and stain …

Tags: children , environment , health , infertility , parenting , perfluorochemicals , PFC , sex , women

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Fuller breasts, a smaller tush, flatter tummy – all without a diet or breaking a sweat. That’s what cosmetic surgery can do, and mainstream magazines are happily filling pages in their publications with information about it.

A recent issue of  Women’s Health Issues, a Canadian-based medical journal, took a closer look at what the media is sharing with their readers. The study, entitled: “Representations of Cosmetic Surgery and Emotional Health in Women’s Magazines in Canada”, examines how popular women’s magazines portray cosmetic surgery and associated emotional health.

Five English-language women’s …

Tags: body image , cosmetic surgery , emotional health , feminism , media , medicalization , self esteem , wellness , women

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