Enter a female hostel and go sit on one of the public toilets first before confidently announcing that women can’t get infections from toilets. 😂
Every time this conversation comes up, a lot of male HCPs rush to say, “There’s no such thing as a toilet infection” or “You can’t get a UTI from a toilet seat.”
The problem is that many of you hear women describing a real experience and immediately start looking for ways to dismiss it instead of trying to understand what they’re actually saying.
Women are not claiming that every toilet seat is a magical infection portal. What we’re saying is that poorly maintained public toilets can be unhygienic, can expose people to bacteria and other microorganisms, and can create conditions that increase the risk of infections (which happens often btw). Women’s anatomy also makes us more vulnerable to UTIs than men.
The bigger issue is the pattern. Women say, “This is what happened to my body,” and instead of listening, many (read male) HCPs immediately reach for a textbook to explain why the woman couldn’t possibly be right.
We’ve seen this happen repeatedly across women’s health. For years, women complained about symptoms that weren’t being taken seriously. Women with conditions like PCOS spent years describing their experiences before the medical community fully appreciated many of the metabolic aspects of the condition. Our experience with pain management is another example.
Healthcare works best when clinicians combine scientific evidence with patient experiences. The textbook matters. Research matters. But listening to patients matters too.
Women live in these bodies every day. Maybe stop assuming we’re confused every time we tell you what we’re experiencing.
Two of this farmer's workers had already died from his beatings. The missionary holding the camera knew that. He'd reported the farmer to the police, and he was photographing these wounds for court.
Ludwig Cramer was a failed coffee merchant from Hamburg. He moved to German South West Africa in 1906 and bought a farm. He tied workers up for days, whipped a pregnant Herero woman until she miscarried, and beat workers bloody. His wife Ada helped by cutting the clothes off female victims so he could strike harder. Two of his workers died.
In August 1912 a German colonial court sentenced him to 20 months in prison. On appeal the next year, the sentence was cut to 4 months and a 2,700 Mark fine. It was one of the only times any German settler was punished for any of this. And the worst was already over.
Between 1904 and 1908, German forces had killed an estimated 65,000 to 80,000 Herero, about 80% of the Herero population, and 10,000 Nama, around half of theirs. Historians now call it the first genocide of the 20th century. It started when Chief Samuel Maharero led a rebellion against the seizure of Herero land. General Lothar von Trotha's October 1904 extermination order declared every Herero in the territory was to be killed.
Survivors were driven into the desert to die of thirst, or shipped to concentration camps. Shark Island killed between half and three-quarters of its prisoners. Women there were forced to boil the heads of dead inmates and scrape them clean with shards of glass. The skulls were sent to German universities, where researchers tried to prove white Europeans were biologically superior to Africans.
One of those researchers was a scientist named Eugen Fischer. In 1923, while Hitler was in prison, he read Fischer's textbook on race hygiene. He cited Fischer in Mein Kampf. Fischer's work later helped shape the 1935 Nuremberg Laws, the Nazi race laws that stripped Jews of their rights. When Hitler took power, he made Fischer head of the University of Berlin. The institute Fischer ran trained the next generation of Nazi race scientists, including Josef Mengele's PhD supervisor. Mengele went to Auschwitz, where he experimented on prisoners and sent body parts back to the same institute.
Germany formally apologized in 2021 and offered Namibia €1.1 billion (about $1.3 billion) over 30 years in development aid. But the agreement avoided the words "reparations" and "compensation". Those words could be used against Germany in future lawsuits. Most Herero and Nama leaders walked away from the deal because they were shut out of the talks. Many of the skulls are still sitting in German universities and museums.
Cramer himself died in 1917 in a blasting accident on his farm. His wife Ada wrote a book defending him, arguing that Africans needed to be beaten for their own good. Historians now read it as an early blueprint for the "master race" thinking. That thinking would become Nazism.
The absolute worst sin you can commit as a Nigerian woman is having audacity. Literally refusing to be a mumu, standing up for yourself in any way, not pretending that you don’t peep rubbish. This society must punish you for it
A corp member last year cried over the current economic hardship she's had to face to survive as a Nigerian, calling out the government.
NYSC was swift to respond, and the news was all over.
Fast forward, a corp member was kidnapped, tortured and killed, NYSC is still asleep.
Full story and the monster that did this
I’m honestly so angry and heartbroken watching this 💔
Fem thrift is crying out for justice after a horrific alleged assault connected to a supposed work opportunity.
No one deserves to be violated or silenced while trying to earn a living.
Fem deserves justice. Please share widely and demand accountability.
A teenage girl has no power over you both physically and socially, there’s no consequences for rejecting advances from a minor, infact you’ll receive praises from people for doing the bare minimum. So I ask, how is it the “biggest challenge”?
AN URGENT APPEAL TO THE X COMMUNITY: Help My Sister Marycynthia Win Her Battle Against Lymphoma
This is the part of life that nothing prepares you for. One day you are healthy, strong, and full of dreams; the next, everything changes because of a few signs on your body. My sister, Marycynthia, and I are just two young women trying to find our way in the world. I am a 25 year old graduate, and she is a 23 year old student at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN). Marycynthia has always been the brilliant one, my parents rarely had to pay her school fees because she constantly won scholarships. Even from her hospital bed, she was recently awarded another scholarship sponsored by NNPC. She was supposed to resume this January as a 400-level Law student, but this illness has already taken two years of her life. I am reaching out to ask for financial assistance for her treatment. For those who know the medical reality, chemotherapy alone is often not a permanent solution for advanced-stage cancer. She was being managed by the Haematology department at the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital (UNTH) before the NARD strike worsened our situation. Now, her best chance at survival is a Bone Marrow Transplant. Despite having anemia, low neutrophil and platelet counts, her kidney and liver functions remain stable. This shows that while her situation is critical, it is not hopeless.
We have been recommended to a hospital in Benin. The cost for the transplant is ₦45,000,000. We don't know for sure how many courses of chemotherapy she is going to receive, scans (PET, CT, ultrasound), concentrated platelets, neutropenia care, transfusions, and private hospital bills, we summed a total of ₦62,000,000 ($44,000).
At first, I felt like my world was crashing. The amount is overwhelming. But thanks to the support of friends and kind-hearted strangers, we have raised ₦18,400,000 ($12,900) so far, which allowed her to begin chemotherapy.
No one can watch their loved one waste away without doing everything possible. I am here again soliciting your support. Balancing her care and fundraising has not been easy for me, I need your help. We still need roughly ₦44,000,000 ($31,780) for the bone marrow transplant.
From one Nigerian to another, one African to another, and one human to another: please help my sister survive Lymphoma. It is treatable if the right care is given.
Help Marycynthia survive cancer!
Tell someone about Marycynthia today!
Keep Marycynthia in your thoughts and prayers!
https://t.co/BHTzlvXUXr
1473988747
Okoro Marycynthia Chinaecherem
Access bank
#HelpsaveMarycynthia🤲
Before. Now
Dear ladies never forget that: The same world that shames me for being a single mother also shames you for not being a mother and shames another woman for having too many children..lt shames one woman for having a child at the age of 19 because she's too young but also shames another for having at 36 because she's too old..lt shames a woman who marries young as well as the one who marries old..It shames women who don't have beautiful bodies and shames those who go under the knife to get the bodies. This world shames all women, not a single one of us is spared, not a single one. So love and make yourselves happy.
Here are platforms that offer free short courses & certification.
Google digital skills for Africa, Great Learning, Alison, Udemy, & LinkedIn learning (They reward you with 5k when you pass top of your class for that month)
Learn a new skill & improve your CV‼️