Israel Non Profit News » Women and Their Bodies

Women and Their Bodies

Pamela Deutsch — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 15:21:02 +0000

In spite of Israel’s high standards of health care technology, the health status of Israeli women’s health is relatively poor: For example, international comparisons show that the prevalence of cardiovascular risk factors such as diabetes, hypertension and obesity, as well as the risk of breast cancer in Israeli women is high, and the trend is increasing. Despite the fact that Israel is the world’s record holder regarding use of assisted reproductive technologies, there is a serious lack of information available to allow freedom regarding reproductive choices.

Surprisingly, we see that many women’s experience with the medical practitioners is of lack of cooperation or explanation, as part of patronizing and devaluating attitudes. The Israeli health care system addresses mainly physical illness and high-risk aspects of women’s health, while the concept of wellbeing and informed use of the medical options is lacking. There is limited accessibility of Israeli women, Jewish and Arab, to information necessary for the promotion of their health.

Founded in 2005, Women and Their Bodies (WTB) is a unique women’s NGO working to promote comprehensive social change in the health attitudes of Jewish and Arab-Palestinian women who reside in Israel. WTB is a member of the “Our Bodies Ourselves” (OBOS) international network of women’s health organizations, focusing on all aspects of women’s health in areas of conflict, with particular focus on sexual and reproductive health rights.

Our Bodies, Ourselves to be Released in Hebrew and Arabic

Pamela Deutsch — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 15:05:59 +0000

Women and their Bodies is working on the massive and vital task of creating local and culturally adapted Hebrew and Arabic editions of ‘Our Bodies, Ourselves’ (OBOS). Women and Their Bodies is fortunate to have an unbelievably generous network of over 300 devoted women volunteers who give of their time and their skills towards the writing, editing, and researching of the book. The women, from all over the country, are from a wide spectrum of Israeli society, religious, progressive and secular, of different religions, Muslim, Christian and Jewish and have a wide range of backgrounds and specializations: psychologists, facilitators of women’s groups, gynecologists, midwives, sexologists, gender and social studies researchers and more. All are activists, each in their own way, promoting women’s equality, justice and human rights.

After 4 years of hard work, out of the 32 Hebrew chapters, 20 are complete and 12 are in various stages of preparation. Ten Arabic chapters are complete and 22 are in various stages of preparation. The book in Hebrew should be published in June 2010. Initially, we intended to publish the Arabic edition a year later. Instead, we have decided to publish the Arabic version in three parts. The first part, including 10 chapters will also be published in June 2010. We feel that it is essential to get this information out due to the general lack of accessibility to information of this kind within the Palestinian community.