STEP UP, STEP OUT

 Photo: Roy Chemmanur’s Post – Womania

 Can you believe it?

In Florida, a state college is forcing women to undergo public sonograms as a part of their curriculum. Or to state it plainly, if they want to be part of a medical diagnostic sonography program, get ready to get your vagina spiked.

When I was in nurses training, we used to take blood from each other, give injections to each other, draw blood, start IVs on each other, plus many other procedures to learn the necessary techniques you would be using as a nurse. The last thing you want to do is end up making patients suffer because of your lack of skill or stupidity. So I get the idea that when you perform tests on yourself you can learn to have more compassion, more empathy for the people you will be dealing with.

But public viewing of your vagina is so invasive and unnecessary it makes me want to throw up.

I think the best way to learn this sonographic technique might be to get that teacher down on the table in the classroom and have everyone probe her vagina. After all it’s a learning experience. At least she can give honest evaluations of each student ability and their technique.

Valencia College exhibits another example of how women, en masse, are being used and abused. The good thing about it, these students got together and is suing the college.

Good for them!

Women have to learn to say no, together. Standup and stop the horrible treatments we undergo. Whether it’s from our schooling and the way we’re treated generally, to stoning us to death for being raped.

We, as women, have to acknowledge once and for all:  What they do to one woman, is what they do to all of us. It’s time that we face reality and accept that an affront, whether to one or ten women, becomes a personal assault to each and every one of us. All of us. All women.

That’s the only way we win!

Below is an article from an on-line newspaper that brought me to this particular issue.

 The Daily Kos

STUDENTS AT VALENCIA COLLEGE ARE FORCED TO UNDERGO VAGINAL PROBES IN CLASSROOM

Students at Valencia College are suing, claiming they were forced to undergo transvaginal probes in front of their classmates as part of their instruction in a medical diagnostic sonography program:

“Valencia positioned these transvaginal probes as voluntary, but its actual policy and practice was that they were not,” according to the lawsuit.

The suit also describes weekly probes for students in the program, saying they “endured these invasive probes without a modicum of privacy. Plaintiffs would disrobe in a restroom, drape themselves in towels, and traverse the sonography classroom in full view of instructors and other students.”

“A student would place a condom over the probe and then apply generous amounts of lubrication to the probe. In some cases, the student would have to sexually ‘stimulate’ plaintiffs in order to facilitate inserting the probe into plaintiffs’ vaginas,” the lawsuit alleges.

Although they were billed as voluntary, students say otherwise:

When the students expressed concerns to program chair Barbara Ball, she told them “they could find another school if they did not wish to be probed,” the suit says.

And:

“The college’s instructors retaliated against them by saying they would reduce their grades, they would blacklist them within the medical community, and they would not be able to get a job,” Dillingham said.

            As you can imagine, with allegations this serious and a lawsuit in motion, the teachers and administrators are the ones who’ll face a very public probe now.

 Winner! The 2014 Stellar Sci-fi Contest For Science Fiction Dystopian Novel.

A damning evaluation of a system that puts technological advancements ahead of human rights, and protection of the environment.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00R51DMKC

http://www.bettegoldenlamb.com