What’s Speaking To Us: Upcoming WSFT News!


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This week’s What’s Speaking to Us is abbreviated while the staff at WSFT prepare to launch the rebrand of our parent organization. Many of our longtime followers may be familiar with the Chiaroscuro Institute, but starting next week the Chiaroscuro Institute will have a new name and look. We’ll be rolling out new features and asking for your help in spreading the word, so stay tuned!

Also, in the next few weeks we will be releasing our application for the 2018 WSFT Media Training in Washington DC. Featured below are two recent articles from women we trained in 2017.

If you want more confidence and skills to effectively speak out more in your local media and communities, consider applying for this two-day training, with presentations from some of the leading media professionals in DC. More information coming soon!

What The Gates Foundation Has Wrong Concerning Women’s Flourishing

On World Contraception Day, WSFT media trained member Natalie Hattenbach was published at The Federalist objecting to Bill and Melinda Gates’s push for more contraception in developing countries. From Natalie’s article: 

“Women in more than a few countries resist Western family planning overtures. According to the Guttmacher Institute, approximately 85 percent of married Nigerian women do not use birth control, but only 16 percent report an unmet need for it. As mentioned in The Economist, rural Nigerians value the fact that larger families enable greater productivity in farming communities. About 50 percent of married Indian women and even fewer African women use contraception, because they do not feel the need for it. Many women in Nepal and the Philippines do not feel a need for contraception because their partners are working abroad much of the time.”

The Sex Talk With Teens Needs To Cover A Lot More Than Birth Control

WSFT media trained member Dr. Robin Pierucci draws on her experiences of working with young, teen moms to challenge the new guidelines from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) concerning teen girls. From Robin’s article: 

“In ACOG’s newly published recommendations, the theory is that if physicians would just inform more girls about contraceptives “before they become sexually active, or early on in their sexually active life,” then they would choose a contraceptive lifestyle and be better off.

In the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), I’ve seen a different reality. One of my patients’ mothers, who was in high school when she gave birth, was the latest of her multiple sisters to become pregnant prior to graduation. She knows all about contraception. She does not know for sure who the baby’s father was.

Another teenage patient, who also knew all about contraception, quietly sobbed on my shoulder, simply saying she hoped this baby was someone who would love her.

Early instructions from a physician about how to engage in uncommitted sex did not “empower” these young women. Providing more instructions even earlier isn’t likely going to help either.”
Are we missing something? Send us a note at: Editor@chiaroscuroinstitute.org

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