Inspirational Blog For The Empowerment Of Women
“If you want to reach a state of bliss, then go beyond your ego and the internal dialogue. Make a decision to relinquish the need to control, the need to be approved, and the need to judge. Those are the three things the ego is doing all the time. It’s very important to be aware of them every time they come up.”
-Deepak Chopra
Glenda Bailey has been Editor-in-Chief of Harper’s Bazaar in The Hearst Corporation since May 2001. Prior to joining Bazaar, Ms. Bailey served as Editor-in-Chief of the U.S. edition of Marie Claire beginning in June 1996. In the nearly five years under her editorship, she built Marie Claire into the best-selling fashion magazine on the newsstand and one of the fastest growing magazines in the industry. She has in-depth knowledge of fashion and trends, along with a sense of originality and personality. While at Marie Claire, she created many unique features and initiatives, including the cover celebrity “challenge”, where celebrities agree to do such amazing tasks as live in an igloo, travel to Africa, and survive in the desert in lieu of giving a typical boring interview. In addition, she was instrumental in producing Marie Claire’s What Women Want event in November 1999. Prior to her move to New York, Ms. Bailey served as Editor of British Marie Claire, which she launched in 1988. Under her editorship, Marie Claire became the biggest-selling fashion magazine in the United Kingdom and earned virtually every publishing honor. She served as Editor of Honey since 1986 and then went on to successfully launch Folio, a quarterly fashion magazine before being appointed as launch editor of the British Marie Claire. In the eight years she was Editor-in-Chief of British Marie Claire, she won three Magazine Editor of the Year Awards, five Magazine of the Year Awards and two Amnesty International Awards. In August 1995, she was made International Editorial Consultant of all 26 editions of Marie Claire. Before embarking on her career in magazine publishing, in 1983 she produced a collection for Guisi Slaverio in Italy. Ms. Bailey has received many industry accolades during her career. In March 2001, she was named “Editor of the Year” by Adweek for her “innovative, expansive and democratic approach” to editing a fashion and beauty magazine. In addition, during her tenure as editor, Marie Claire was named one of Adweek’s Top 10 Hottest Magazines in 1997, 1998, 1999 and 2000 and as Best Publication by industry newsletter The Delaney Report in 2000. The title was one of Capell’s Circulation Report’s Best Circulation Performers in 1998. During her time at Marie Claire, the title was the recipient of the Community Action Network Award in 1998 and 1999 for its feature stories on women and AIDS and genital mutilation and was the first magazine in the United States to be given the Amnesty International Award for Journalism in September 1997. Ms. Bailey earned a Degree in Fashion Design from Kingston University. She was born in Derbyshire, England.
Two years after the Navy decided to allow women to serve as officers aboard its submarines, the integration of women into the submarine force appears to be going smoothly.
That’s the word from some of the first women selected to become “submariners,” who say the challenges they have faced during the last two years of training have had nothing to do with gender, but with the overall challenge of becoming a junior officer in the elite submarine force.
“It’s a challenge to be a junior officer on a submarine, in general,” said Ensign Abigail Holt, who is currently serving aboard the USS Wyoming. ”Outside of being female on a submarine, all of us are trying to qualify, all of us are trying to support the ward room and trying to be a team member. That is challenging, in itself.”
Holt was among several of the first 24 female naval officers selected to serve aboard submarines who participated in a Navy news conference held Thursday in Washington. They were joined by male junior officers with whom they are currently serving with aboard submarines.
The first female officers began serving aboard submarines last November after completing the rigorous 18-month educational and training requirements required of all naval officers who set their sights on becoming submariners. Serving aboard the submarines provides them with the real-world experience they need to earn the insignia known as the “dolphin” pin, or “fish” that sets them apart as fully qualified submarine officers.
All of the officers at today’s news conference are in the qualification phase of their service.
Two of them brought a unique perspective because they are a married couple serving on separate submarines.
Lt. j.g. William Strobel, who served deployments on the USS Wyoming before and after female officers came aboard, said, ”there wasn’t much of a difference, it was a very smooth transition.” He added, “As far as being a male on a submarine, it wasn’t really much of a change at all, honestly.”
His wife, Lt. j.g. Tabitha L. Strobel, serving aboard the USS Georgia, agreed that the transition had gone well aboard her vessel and that she was focused on getting her “fish.”
“At the end of the day,” she said, “what we want to do is drive a submarine and the chances that we get to do that are extremely rewarding and definitely a lot of fun.”
The current program allows female officers to serve on large ballistic and guided missile submarines, but not on the smaller, fast-attack submarines. Participating via phone link, Vice Adm. John Richardson, commander, submarine forces, said no decisions have been made about whether to allow women to serve on the attack submarines or to expand the program and allow enlisted women to also serve in the submarine force.
He said those decisions would await the feedback and lessons learned from the current program. Richardson described the feedback that’s come in so far as “very positive and very encouraging.” He added that the way the transition has been set up so far “seems to be working pretty well, so if we’re going to expand it we want to preserve that same approach if wanted to open it up” to fast-attack submarines.
Richardson said that, beginning in 2013, the Navy hopes to add about 20 additional women a year under the program.
Lt. j.g. Emma Larena noted that her fellow sailors had been properly trained and readied for the arrival of women to the submarine force.
“I think that they’re so prepared, whereas at other commands you show up and you’re just another sailor,” she said.
She added that whatever novelty may have existed shortly after her arrival to the USS Wyoming wore off quickly and it was ” just like normal business, there’s nothing different … we’re just going to do our jobs.”
By Michelle Castillo
Mom’s weight, not blood sugar levels, may lead to birth of large baby
(CBS News) A mother’s weight before and during pregnancy may be more of an indicator that she will give birth to a big baby than her blood glucose levels, new research reveals.
According to the study, slightly high blood glucose levels — not enough to diagnose the mother with gestational diabetes according to Canadian standards — had no association with having a larger bundle of joy once weight was taken into an account.
The new study, published in the May 22 issue of the Canadian Medical Association Journal, contradicts some current thoughts on why babies are born overweight. Many experts believe that gestational diabetes is the most common cause of macrosomia, the name for when a fetus is “abnormally large” and weighs 8 pounds, 13 ounces or more at birth, according to the NYU Langone Medical Center. For the purposes of the study, a large baby was defined as one who placed in the 90th percentile for his or her race, size and weight according to gestational age.
The ADA recently lowered its blood sugar level threshold for gestational diabetes because it said previous standards only accounted for women’s risk of developing diabetes in the future and didn’t include risks to the mother or baby, including a overly heavy birth weight, according to Science Daily. According to a Feb. 2010 report in Diabetes Care – a journal of the American Diabetes Association – mothers who had gestational diabetes according to the lower standards had a 50 percent chance of having an overweight baby. They estimate that 18 percent of expecting mothers have disease according to the lower threshold.
However, the U.S. and Canada have not adopted the ADA’s levels yet, and the American Collegeof Obstetricians and Gynecologists is holding off on their decision until a conference in October 2012 on the issue, according to Reuters. The World Health Organization (WHO) is also debating whether to accept the new regulations.
Researchers analyzed data on 472 pregnant women. Out of the group, 368 had normal glucose levels and 104 had slightly elevated glucose levels or gestational impaired glucose tolerance.
Sixty-eight of the infants born to these women were large for their gestational age at delivery. The mothers who were overweight before they got pregnant or gained excess weight during pregnancy were 12 to 16 percent more likely to have large babies. The subject’s glucose levels and levels of fatty acids in the blood did not seem to factor. The study did not rule out that gestational diabetes may cause the birth of a large baby because none of the people tested had gestational diabetes.
“Lowering the criteria (for gestational diabetes) might not be targeting the appropriate problem,” study author Dr. Ravi Retnakaran, a diabetes researcher at Mount Sinai Hospital in Ontario, told MyHealthNewsDaily.
“The rate of obesity has increased so much that maybe glucose levels aren’t as big a factor as they once were,” he added.
Having a large baby, otherwise known as macrosomia, comes with its share of risks. For the mother, there’s an increased risk of perineal tearing and blood loss, according to Medscape. More than likely, mothers will have to undergo a cesarean delivery. The baby may get stuck behind the pubic bone — otherwise known as shoulder dystocia — a serious yet rare situation. In that case, doctors may have to break the baby’s collarbone or clavicle to get it out, which should eventually heal.
LadyRomp 