A Quote of the Day

My first week of law school has for the most part involved pouring over a lot of legal texts and cases. While most of them are interesting, they don’t exactly roll of the tongue eloquently. Then I came across this gem:

“A legal system is a living organism; it breathes, it grows, it evolves, it is the part of the life of the people for whom it functions” – Joseph Dainow, from The Civil Law and the Common Law: Some Points of Comparison

Sunday Ted Talk: Our century’s greatest injustice

One of my favourite writers, Nicholas Kristof, and his wife, Sheryl Wudunn wrote a book a while ago called Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide. This book left quite an impact on me and it was recently brought to my attention that the book is going to be released as a documentary in October by PBS. Here’s the trailer for Half the Sky:

And here is a great Ted Talk by Sheryl WuDunn from 2 years ago in which she constructs a great narrative on women’s rights as they pertain to education, economics, and epidemiology. Take a look here:

“The central moral challenge of this century is gender inequity. In the 19th century, it was slavery. In the 20th century, it was totalitarianism. The cause of our time is the brutality that so many people face around the world because of their gender.”

“Sit at the table, make your partner a real partner, don’t leave before you leave”

A couple of weeks ago, Ann-Marie Slaughter published a very provocative piece in the Atlantic titled “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All“. (While it’s a very long article, it raises exceptionally interesting and thought-provoking questions. I’m pretty sure the article has saturated the internet, but if there is a slight chance that you were stuck in a cave in eastern Mongolia when it erupted, read it. Now.)

This post isn’t in response to Slaughter’s article; she provides so many profound and interesting arguments that I couldn’t even fathom analyzing it with the due diligence it deserves. But in short; I whole heartedly agree with her.

What I would like to bring your attention to is a phenomenal Ted Talk that Slaughter cites in her article by the COO of Facebook, Sheryl Sandberg. I finally got around to watching this TED talk today and I think you should too. Here are some excerpts from her talk that I found particularly interesting:

“Women systematically underestimate their own abilities.”

“Success and likability are positively correlated for men and negatively correlated for women.”

And here is the talk in its entirety for you:

The only question that arises when I see these women whom I whole heartedly admire preaching these messages of social equity based on gender is: who is the intended target of the message? Is it all women? Young women? North American women? Sandberg, for instance, graduated at the top of her class at Harvard with a degree in economics and then again at the top of her class with an MBA from the Harvard Business School. She’s married to the CEO of SurveyMonkey. Slaughter received her JD from Harvard Law and her Master’s from Oxford.

I wonder if the messages from these high functioning women can really penetrate the consciousness of women of subsequent generations without alienating them. Can women who don’t have the luxuries of elite education at elite schools afford to sit at the table? I’d like to hope so, but I’m starting to think that it may not be entirely possible.

Happy Birthday to The Ambivalent Leviathan!

Tomorrow, the Ambivalent Leviathan turns 1-year-old. I think the only thing I’ve nurtured for longer has been my bamboo plant (which will be turning 6 years old in September, by the way. Is my penchant to anthropomorphize things a symptom of some sort of neuroses?)

After a year of writing, reflecting, critiquing, and churning out 56 blog posts, I have to say that it’s been one heck of a year for the blog and for myself. Thanks to all of you, my readers and followers. Having an audience for my soapbox has definitely been an exhilarating experience.

My vision for the future of the Ambivalent Leviathan is two-fold. First, I am eager to change the name of my blog. I started writing the Ambivalent Leviathan because at that time one year ago, I felt like I was stuck in a nebulous place where my passions were formless. Now, 1 year later, I feel like I’ve reclaimed my interest in the world; thus “ambivalence” just doesn’t seem to adequately fit the essence of this blog anymore.

The second vision I have for this blog is to narrow the scope of discussion. Upon starting law school, I plan to use this blog to discuss topical issues on law and public health. I think it’ll be a great way to narrow my niche in the blogosphere as well as gain a finer appreciation for the Black letter of the law by forcing myself to apply concepts on my own while making my posts “consumable” and comprehensible for all of my readers.

Again, this year would not have been possible without you, the readers. Thank you for your time, your eyes, and your interest.

Since a recurring topic in my blog posts this past year have surrounded issues of women’s rights, I’ll leave you with this great picture that I think perfectly (and metaphorically) encapsulates  the upcoming era of women’s rights we can all look forward to:

Monday, Fun-Day: Back to Work!

Today is a PhD comic kind of day. I’m sure all of my grad student friends can relate:

(Via: PhD Comics)

The Nexus Between Health and Law. (Wait a sec…is there a nexus?)

When my peers ask me why I’m making the “jump” from medical research to law, I usually find myself caught between feeling frustrated and defensive. Sometimes it seems that, perhaps, the intimate entanglement between law and health is evident only to me. In truth, you really have to look no further than your newspaper or television screen to see how intertwined the two domains are.

Just last week, our neighbours to the south celebrated passing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act into federal law. (If you enjoy reading dense legal language or if you’re simply interested to take a gander at this document, here is a link to the PPAC – all 906 pages of it!) This law essentially mandates that all Americans not covered by employer or government provided health insurance maintain a minimum form of health insurance (with certain exceptions, of course.)

I really can’t think of anything that illustrates the beautiful marriage between health and law than the fruition of Medicare acts like this. When legislators, policy makers, and health professionals come together to create laws and policies like the PPAC or the Canada Health Act, expertise from all sorts of domains should ideally be instituted.

Here in Canada, we’re grappling with a range of health policy issues of our own. The topic on the front burner right now centres around Bill C-31 (formally titled, An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, the Balanced Refugee Reform Act, the Marine Transportation Security Act and the Department of Citizenship and Immigration Act). This Act seeks to save the Canadian government $20 million annually by providing only basic medical care to refugees who arrive to Canada from countries that are deemed to be unsafe. In an earlier version of the Act, refugees with more complex health issues, such as pre-natal complications, were not eligible for those corresponding medical services and would lose all the supplementary benefits, including prescription drug coverage — unless the medication was for a disease that poses a “risk to public health.”

Ottawa has very recently backed-down on the health care cuts and made a distinction between re-settled refugees and asylum seekers. I’m still trying to stay abreast of the issue, but the crux of what is going on is an issue of access to health care that is contingent on one’s legal status in Canada.

This issue is wrought with medical, policy, legal, epidemiological, and public health implications. Since refugees, by their very nature, are fleeing some sort of persecution or harm, their health is generally poorer than that of the general population in which they are seeking to settle into. “On arrival, refugees have a high incidence of infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, syphilis, hepatitis B and gastrointestinal parasites, as well as mental health concerns.” (source: CJPH)

By actively limiting the access to medical care of an already disproportionately unhealthy population through such a policy, the ramifications can extend quite far. Issues of human rights, ethics (for example, health professionals disregarding policy and providing medical care to these populations “illegally”), and public health and safety (among a slew of other issues) are bound to arise. To me, this issue of refugee health is a battle cry for professionals to reach into other interdisciplinary domains so that policy makers do not continue to work within their ideological silos.

If this issue wasn’t already on the radar of Canadians, it certainly was after a press conference at the North York General Hospital where a doctor and a medical student aggressively confronted Minister Joe Oliver on the issue. You can see a video of this show-down below:

As I embark on a journey into a completely new academic domain this fall, my hope is that I’ll be able to carve out the niche that I’m envisioning in which public health and law not only co-exist, but also develop symbiotically. There are already some great scholars in the field from whom I can take notes; Jonathan Mann, Colleen Flood, Jennifer Leaning, and Nancy Krieger (among many, many others.)  Institutions in the nexus between health and law are even starting to pop up, such as Harvard’s Francois-Xavier Bagnoud Centre for Health and Human Rights. The FXB Centre is a prime example of a place where legal and medical scholars can collaborate. Even the World Health Organization now has a working group on health and human rights.

While I wait for this relatively young field to grow,  I’ll try to develop a more concise and satisfying response for my friends who will inevitably continue to ask me about my departure from epidemiology. In truth, it’s not really a departure from epidemiology at all! Ideally, health policy should be premised on  evidence and research rather than rhetoric and politics. But I usually can’t even muster out that phrase before I thrust my palm to my forehead and walk away from my well meaning friends, already flustered by their question.

The City of Angels

After 30 hours of travelling, 8 crying babies, 2 grueling layovers, and 1 incident of hilarious miscommunication with a Japanese woman, I have finally arrived in Bangkok. Within a couple of minutes of stepping out of the Suvarnabhumi Airport, I decided I wanted to come back here for much, much longer. Bangkok (which means, “City of Angels” in Thai) is not just a city – it’s a living entity. I got into the city quite a bit after midnight on Monday and the streets were bustling with music and people in the streets. I find Bangkok to be quite reminiscent of New Delhi and very stark in contrast to Lusaka. But one thing is certain; this is my kind of city.

For some reason, the world insists on thrusting my hotel locations (unbeknownst to me) into prime sex worker territory. The location of my lodging is completely safe and the women are completely harmless, but the experience is anthropologically mindblowing. Red light districts have always fascinated me, but nothing has really prepared me for the overtness of what I’ve seen in Bangkok. What I find particularly interesting here are the number of (what appear to be) Westerners. I’ve been in Bangkok for less than 24 hours, but literally every caucasian man I have passed here has been accompanied by a significantly younger Thai woman. I find this…curious.

I’ve also seen — firsthand — ladyboys! Lady boys (also known as Kathoey in Thai) are transgendered females. I find these women to be completely elegant with a hint of androgyny or masculinity that I think adds to their compelling mystique.

Hopefully I’ll be able to post more updates while I’m here. In the meantime, this talk of sex workers naturally goes hand in hand with the topic of women’s rights in general. Trust Law, an organization which connects lawyers, NGOs, and social entrepreneurs working on issues of legal rights and justice , recently did a study in which it examined the best and worst countries of the G20 to be a woman.

The infographic is below. India is the worst country to be a woman and Canada is the best. You can check out the methods section to see how the results were derived.

As an Indo-Canadian woman, these results simultaneously intrigue and sadden me. It confounds me that Indian is often touted as being a rising super power and emerging economic market, yet hundreds of millions of its population are still facing draconian practices that seek to systematically undermine and oppress them. I’m self-aware enough to know that at times I can sound like an over-idealistic, anti-oppressionist broken record. But I think when it comes to India’s national and foreign policy, women’s rights have become a giant elephant in the room that are often ignored but are ultimately going to have enormous implications that will preclude the emergence of the nation to its forecasted superpower status. Perhaps this is what Amartya Sen was getting at in his article from the nineties called,  More than 100 Million Women are Missing.

I’ll continue to ruminate on this issue with some Thai food and conversations with my newfound ladyboy friends.

Monday, Fun-Day: What Speed Do you Read?

Staples came up with this awesome marketing gimmick that tests the speed at which you read and then compares your results to the rest of the population. Reading comprehension is also an important part of this quiz, as you are asked some questions after reading the excerpt.

The results are SUPER cool. You are given an average words per minute score and then this is transformed to indicate how much better or worse you are than the national average (percent-wise). Based on your results, you are then placed on a spectrum of reading abilities ranging from a 3rd grade student reading level (150 words per minute) to the World Speed Reading Champion (4700 words per minute.)

THEN, based on your score, you can see how long it would take you to read some of the classics, like Tolstoy’s War and Peace. For me, it would take just over 21 hours of straight reading to finish War and Peace based on my score.

The marketing gimmick kicks in at the end where the quiz provides a breakdown of how each of the biggest e-readers on the market would perform for you based on your reading score.

Happy Monday!

Monday, Fun-day: Mother’s Day from Two Ends of the Spectrum

The Obama and Romney campaigns respectively released Mother’s Day “tribute” videos this weekend. I watched the two of them in quick succession and found it fascinating to see how each campaign has attempted to pander to their respective electorates through a narrative that has the strong current of each of the party’s ideologies.

1.) President Obama’s Mother’s Day Video

In President Obama’s video, we see a narrative being woven of three very distinct women from three different generations, each of whom faced their own obstacles but were ultimately able to attain success not only as mothers, but also as professionals and/or strong independent women. After the revelation of these stories, President Obama takes the opportunity to emphasize the idea that the rights of mothers impact everyone. He uses Democrat policies instituted during his tenure (like affordable child care and equitable pay for work) as examples to illustrate the idea that “mother’s rights are human rights”.  Even the broad spectrum of images representing diverse women in the video (young women, old women, women with disabilities, and women of different races) gets to the core of the Democrats’ general principles surrounding equal representation.

2.) Mitt Romney’s Mother’s Day Video

The Mitt Romney video, in stark contrast, only tells the story of one mother; Lenore Romney. This video by the Republican party weaves a narrative that (in my opinion) seeks to reinforce the sanctity of the traditional family structure. The five Romney sons talk about their mother, their childhood, and Lenore’s success as a mother and wife. The video is filled with childhood stories and images that, in my mind, has traditionally pervaded Western thought about what the setup of the nuclear family ought to look like. No mention of Republican policy is made, but I think what is not said makes a greater statement.

Before you accuse me of being biased in my brief analysis, I’d like to point out that these two videos are intended to be campaign videos. They are not solely meant to be heart-warming stories about mothers. While Mitt Romney’s video makes no mention of policy, I think the implications of what he shows in his video speaks for itself and can be extrapolated to the general Republican ideals. His video is not intended to be an innocuous depiction of his childhood. The same can be said about President Obama’s video.

I think the twisted part in all of this is that the personal stories of these politicians are intentionally being used as a tool to rally the support of various segments of the population.

Take a look at these videos and decide for yourself if you think certain political ideologies have infiltrated the messages being put forth by the respective candidates.

The Working Mom

As I prepare over the next couple of months to finish up my graduate research, embark on even more school in September, and then begin a career known to be notoriously demanding, a question has started to reverberate in the back of my mind. It started off quiet, but  has started to increasingly resound. Well, I guess it’s not really a specific question per se, but more of a confusion of sorts. In light of mother’s day, I’ve started to wonder when the pursuit of fulfilling professional desires wanes and “real life” kicks in.

My generation has really had the fortune of being indoctrinated by preceding generations with the idea that “we can have it all!” I’m definitely not disputing that people can have it all. I’ve seen a great number of men and women who seem to be effortlessly able to balance fulfilling careers and also have other more interesting things going on in their personal lives. But I wonder if there is a cost associated with this balance.

A great article in the Globe and Mail takes this addage of “having it all” (and the cost associated with having it all) and turns it on its head. Judith Timson says in an article called What my mom taught me about being a working mother that women don’t need to work for the sake of working and earning a salary, but rather, can find value through working. In other words, seeking out professional interests don’t necessarily have to have an associated cost, but could arguably viewed as a return in itself. Timson says about her mother,

She taught me valuable lessons about the role of work in a woman’s life: I learned that work can be a solace, a refuge, a turning point. It can boost your mental health, give you pride and self-sufficiency, and make you feel necessary in the wider world. And yes, it can rescue you when your marriage goes belly up.

That is one way you can end up with what we elusively call self-esteem. You can do it through work. [My mother] valued her own contributions and in return was valued.

I find this idea so very profound for both men and women. I find it especially interesting when other women pervade the media and social consciousness with ideas that categorically counter Timson’s thesis. Ann Romney (the wife of Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee for the U.S. Presidential election) said in a speech not too long ago that she had the fortune of not working. This baffles me. I can’t imagine leaving school now and not having the opportunity to stimulate my cerebral side. But to each their own, I guess.

I think I just generally find the impact of gender differences on different facets of life to be fascinating. I constantly find myself wondering how much of these differences are inherently predisposed, conditioned, or a combination of both.

In any case, I’d like to take the opportunity to wish all the mother’s out there (working or otherwise) a happy mother’s day!