Yes, it’s heartening that cutting the genitals of young girls is on the decline in Kenya.  Yes, it’s wonderful that Julie Burkhart, the woman who runs the sole abortion clinic in Kansas won her harassment case against the man who has been stalking her for years. And yes, it is c

Recently, Virginia became the 38th state to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). People rejoiced and slapped one another on the back, forgetting that when the provision was introduced in the 1970s, it had a 7-year expiration date. No matter how good it felt, the ratification of ER

Nancy Pelosi’s stunning leadership of Democratic house members during the recent presidential impeachment process will serve as a template for women who seek management positions in the future.  What she exhibited during the procedure was experience, direction, and a firm hand. A f

A few months ago, I changed my Facebook photo. No big deal. The one I’d been using was 10 years old.  I read somewhere that a person’s features change significantly every 10 years, so an update seemed timely. A number of people noticed the switch and posted a thumbs-up, responses

The human race seems to be on a collision course with itself and women will play a critical role in the outcome. On the one hand, population growth poses an environmental question. How long can the earth sustain us?  “Already we have consumed more resources in the last 50 years tha

I saw no mystery in it.  When I was a child of 5 or 6, I made perfume by gathering sweet-smelling flowers, roses, daphne, and honeysuckle, and dropped them into a bowl of cold water.  Next, I crushed them with a wooden spoon and after a few minutes, I had perfume for my moth

The easiest way to affect social change is to affect the flow of money.  Talking about women’s rights and equal pay may get lip service from politicians and civil rights groups but it won’t move the pay needle a jot until Wall Street sees a reason to respond.  Universal

I love sinking into a new book from Alexander McCall’s First Ladies’ Detective series. Set in East Arica’s Botswana, the area around which I lived for two years, I am well acquainted with the rhythms of life in that part of the sub-Saharan desert.  Each new book is like a t

Georgia O’Keefe, “…laughed at the idea that anyone would care what she ate for breakfast, yet she understood that the mythology surrounding an artist’s practice was useful material.”  (“Self-Made Woman,” by Rachel Syme, New Republic, July 2017, pg. 59.)  Ernest

I may have told this story before, but it bears repeating.  When I headed a teacher’s union, years ago, I defended a black member whom the school district longed to dismiss.  Her hair, greying enough to appear dusted with ash, surrounded a leathery face that seemed incapab