the digital giraffe

All About Women
Our Woman of the Month Award for December, 2025, goes to every Woman, all Women, all who identify as Woman, for their strength and resilience. We will not be silenced. We will not be written out of history. We claim our place at the Head of the table.

"Woman, Life, Freedom" in Iran is a poetic and moving tribute written after the death of Mahsa Amini by the religious morality police. It honors those who refuse to tolerate violence against the innocent anywhere in the world.

A study at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, reveals that women have a higher lifetime risk than men for developing both Alzheimer's and mild cognitive impairment. The researchers have developed a new method to estimate a person's risk, based on decades of data from the Mayo Clinic Study of Aging. Both women and men carry a higher risk if they have the common genetic variant, APOE e4. The technique can predict the likelihood of disease within 10 years.

South Africa has declared violence against women to be a national disaster after statistics revealed that some 15 women are murdered every day in that nation. Women were asked to "withdraw from the economy for one day" and lie down for 15 minutes in protest. The lie-downs occurred in 15 locations across the country.

Australia has successfully implemented a national preterm birth prevention program for babies born before 37 weeks. The system has lowered the rate of early and preterm births by roughly 7 - 10%, or about 4,000 fewer early births annually. The program focuses on prevention and education rather than treating complications after they occur. Interventions like progesterone treatment, low-dose aspirin, and cervical screening are offered for free or at minimal cost.

Heart attacks are the number one cause of mortality in the U.S. but identification of causes and treatment methods have been concentrated more on men than women. Women, for example, have smaller hearts and blood vessels, the latter often not appearing on angiograms. Men tend to develop heart disease in the large coronary arteries, whereas women develop the disease in those oftem-missed smaller blood vessels. Women with endometriosis are 3 times more likely to develop heart disease. Women with preeclamsia or gestational diabetes also seem to be at higher risk. Women may also develop flu-like symtoms, including dizziness, nausea, vomiting, and shortness of breath. In addition, almost 2/3 of women who die suddenly of a heart attack have no prior symptoms.

From Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health we learn that prenatal exposure to a commonly used pesticide causes brain damage like abnormalities and poor motor skills among children and adolescents in New York City. This damage seems to continue for years after birth. The pesticide has been identified as CPF, or chlorpyrifos.

A new book, "The Missing Thread", looks at the ancient world through the eyes of its women. Rather than repeating the misogynistic comments of men at that time, author Daisy Dunn unveils the shuttered opinions of women. The poet Sappho. for example, describes the emotions of lust and passion. In the 3rd century B.C., a female poet named Nossis praised a piece of art, noting that it was funded by a sex worker. Many of the women realized they were destined to anonymity and used papyrus to express their feelings: "A woman", one wrote, "should cast off her shame together with her clothes when she enters her husband's bed. She can put both back on together as soon as she has stood up again." A Greek poet wrote books offering sex tips to other women. The toxic comments of men at that time are all too familiar, so it took Dunn some time and effort to locate what the women thought.

A new group called Women in TechWorks has been founded to celebrate and encourage women in the high-tech industry. The goals are to provide pathways for advancement, break barriers, and convince younger women that they can succeed.

The Getty Reaearch Institute is exhibiting, "How to be a Guerilla Girl". Based on the archives of the Guerilla Girls theselves, the exhibit reveals the steps that the group took to promote their activities and their committment to equity for women and artists of color. Tactics included data gathering, anonymity, protests, grassroots distribution. Remember, for example, their poster asking "Do women have to be naked to get into the Met Museum?".

A group of nuns in Austria finds themselves called "the rebellious sisters". Three of them recently ran away from a nursing home where they had been sent against their will. They broke into the convent that had been their home but was shut down. Parishioners rented a U-Haul to help the sisters re-establish their previous home. Their male superiors, who were not at all pleased, hired a PR firm to do damage control. Late update: the nuns were told could stay in their convent if they stopped posting on social media.

An Israeli firm called Pulsenmore has developed the world's first home ultrasound device for pregnant women. It has now received FDA approval to enter the U.S. markets.

According to Perplexity AI, nearly 1/3 of women world-wide have experienced violence at the hands of a sexual partner during their lives. We also learn that AI has intensified the scale and speed of digital violence against females. The U.N. and other nonprofit groups are urging a shift in online culture toward safety and equality.

A dramatic new film called "Hamnet" looks into the wife and child of William Shakespeare. The young boy apparently died of the Plague, after which the dramatist wrote "Hamlet". The facts in this drama cannot be verified, in spite of centuries of academic research, but the imaginative story spun around the few known facts make for intriguing theater.

The U.S. Department of Transportation has displayed the first crash-test dummy modeled on females. The new dummy is expected to be included into federal vehicle crash testing once a final rule is published. Men seem to be the majority of car-crash victims, but women are more likely to die in comparable collisions. Women also suffer more often from severe injuries like pelvis and liver damage.

The Trump administration has just announced that it plans to eliminate nursing from professional degrees. This action could sharply reduce the amount that students could borrow for their training. The decision resulted from the "one big beautiful bill", which produced new caps on borrowing for higher education.

Italy's parliament has just made femicide a criminal act after increased attacks on, and murders of, women. France has also added consent to its definition of rape.

Be sure to email giraffe@giraffe.com with your suggestions, be they articles, videos, images, cartoons, music, or comments, so that we can share our celebrations and our concerns with each other.

Last updated December 1, 2025 - 31 years of monthly Web publication

Corinne Whitaker - Artist, Editor, Author, Poet, Sculptor, Publisher, Composer, Betaphysician, Chief of the Newanderthal Tribe

Best of Foster City 2016
Best of Palo Alto 2013

Golden Web Award, 2001 and 2000

Artist of the Month, Artisan Bazaar, 2000

Best in Cyberart Award, 1999

winner of BATech's "Catch of the Day"

winner of Fractal Design's "Artist of the Month"and "Image of the Day"

Featured Master Artist, Shadowart Galleries, 1997 and 1998

Guest Artist of the Month, Hampton Click Salon Online
Exhibit below from Virtual Gallery online