Hi everyone - it's time again to pull out your red shoes (or, if you're like me, share the news about rocking red shoes because you don't own any) and use fashion to raise awareness for how much HIV/AIDS is still disproportionately affecting women of color. (And women in general, but really, really affecting women of color.)

Some Facts

• There are approximately 1.1 million people living with HIV/AIDS in the U.S. and almost 280,000 are women.
• 1 in 139 women will be diagnosed with HIV/AIDS at some point within their lives.
• Among those who are HIV positive, 35% of women were tested for HIV late in their illness (diagnosed with AIDS within one year of testing positive).
• HIV/AIDS is the 5th leading cause of death in women in the United States, ages 25-44.
• High-risk heterosexual contact is the source of 80% of these newly diagnosed infections in women.
• HIV/AIDS disproportionately affects minority women in the United States. According to the 2005 census, black and Latina women represent 24% of all US women combined, but accounted for 82% of the estimated total of AIDS diagnoses for women in 2005.
• HIV is the leading cause of death for black women aged 25–34 years. The only diseases causing more deaths of women are cancer and heart disease.
• The rate of AIDS diagnosis for black women was approximately 23 times the rate for white women and 4 times the rate for Latina women.
• Teen girls represent 39% of AIDS cases reported among 13–19-year-olds. Black teens represented 69% of cases reported among 13–19 year-olds; Latino teens represented 19%.

How to Rock The Red Pump

• Share the hotness by uploading your pics on March 10 to your favorite spot (Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, your blog, etc.) and tag them with #RockTheRedPump.
• Sign up to blog about #RockTheRedPump.
• Read 5 Easy Ways to Rock the Red Pump
• Get tested. Here's a tool to help you find a testing center in your area.
• Educate yourself and your extended family about sexual health and disease transmission.
• Retweet, share and support your red-pump-wearing friends.

Idaho Representative Vito Barbieri asks if a camera women can swallow to show the state of their colons after colonoscopy could be used to prevent abortion.

Apparently, he does not understand the differences between the digestive system and the reproductive system.

YOU'RE FIRED, VITO.

By now everyone with media access knows the Komen Foundation defunded Planned Parenthood this week. I wish I could say it leaves me shaking with anger at Komen, but what it does more is underscore my belief that the private sector cannot be depended upon to be fair to people across income levels -- and therefore healthcare should not be run by the private sector.

We need universal healthcare, defined as:  a term referring to organized health care systems built around the principle of universal coverage for all members of society, combining mechanisms for health financing and service provision.

If we don't have universal healthcare, organizations like Planned Parenthood that provide services -- of which abortion is only 3% -- depend on private donations. So private donations by wealthy people determine whether or not a woman like I was immediately post-college gets to have a pap smear or a STD test that year. Private donations determine whether someone like your mother gets her mammogram if she doesn't have health insurance. Private. Donations. Other people's generosity. 

People are fickle.

Private donors can be influenced by politics or emotion. They can decide no one's taking care of them, why should they take care of other people? They can get swayed by religious beliefs about when women want to have children -- and don't get me started on why women's health can be influenced by religion but not men's -- and decide because they don't agree with what's happening with 3% of an organization's legal health care services that they'll defund 97% of the cancer screenings and women's health services provided to women who can't afford to go anywhere else and will otherwise go without health care in the richest country in the world.

And the only one -- unless things go as intended in 2014 -- without universal  health care: 

Thirty-two of the thirty-three developed nations have universal health care, with the United States being the lone exception [1]. 

People got so upset about "Obamacare." I got upset with the people who are upset, because it's completely clear to me when one women's health organization can defund another's so easily that all health -- but especially women's health, the only health tied to religious issues -- hangs completely in the balance unless it's universal. Women are held captive by their reproductive organs, which like any organs can get cancer and you know, kill you. Women can be held back from medical care for those organs if they're too poor to afford to go anywhere but Planned Parenthood and then Planned Parenthood doesn't have the money to help them because the private sector got honked off about something and refused to fund them. 

This whole Komen/PP issue reinforces for me so clearly all the problems I have with pure capitalism: People can be selfish fools who only care about themselves. I believe when we live in a First World country, we don't get to behave like prigs. When we hold ourselves up to a higher standard and pass judgment on other countries and step in to "help" them see the error of their ways, we have to be a shining example of democracy and capitalism and freedom ourselves, or why the fuck are we telling anyone else how to behave?

AND WE ARE NOT.

We don't take care of our own very well. We argue over "the food stamp president." We deny our women healthcare because their reproductive organs got tangled up in religion, whether we or they follow those religions or not.

We have to change!

We can't depend on the generosity of the private sector for something as important as our health care. It is clear, and I hope the events of this week make it crystal clear for anyone questioning why we need universal health care.

What if it was your cancer screening, your mother's, your daughter's -- because it could be, anyone's, any time. Everyone under this current system is one health nightmare away from poverty. And that's ridiculous and scary and this is America and it has to change. Part of the luxury of living in this country with all its shining highways and FDA regulations should be contributing to the health and safety of every single citizen. We neglect each other, we neglect America, we neglect our future.