public policy reform – The Midwest Courier

We Need to Talk about Rape

*Special Note: I try to include images in my blog posts to help illustrate points for readers, and because I am a visual learner. However, there were no true images I could use for this post, because there are no depictions of rape, either in classic art or modern culture, that are not sanitized fantasies.Continue reading “We Need to Talk about Rape”

Disability Only Allowed to Those Who “Earned” It

I am not legally seen as “disabled” despite my clear history, because, according to federal law, I did not “work enough” before my body broke. If I want to qualify for SSDI (Social Security Disability Insurance), I must return to work.

I Have Cancer

It’s a frightening thing to say; to admit. And on Valentine’s Day 2019, I learned at my local ER that I have cancer. Chronic myeloid leukemia, to be precise. The same cancer that killed my husband’s grandmother; a version of the cancer that plagues my grandmother now; a cancer that allegedly isn’t hereditary; a cancerContinue reading “I Have Cancer”

Mansplaining is the Biggest Threat to Women’s Healthcare

“You think you have mastered it, but just as you get well underway in following, it turns a back –somersault and there you are. It slaps you in the face, knocks you down, and tramples upon you. It is like a bad dream.” Just as it was in 1892, when Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote herContinue reading “Mansplaining is the Biggest Threat to Women’s Healthcare”