At twilight, when the sky was a faint wash of blue, my mother sometimes caught me sneaking out of our apartment for one last game of hide-and-seek with neighborhood pals.  “It’s not safe, after dark,” she’d scold, shaking her finger at me. “But mama, plenty of kids are arou

Last Tuesday, I poked a stick at a gnarly question: why have women submitted to patriarchy over the centuries? I wondered if, being child-bearers, they benefited from the system. Papers on the subject no doubt exist. Even so, as a layman, I did a little “googling” on my own and ca

  Pericles, an Athenian statesman born in 495 B. C., credited much of his medical knowledge to witches.  (Man Made God, by Barbara G. Walker, Stellar House Publishing, 2010, pg. 278.) As women historically have been keepers of hearth and home, it’s reasonable to suppose their

“I don’t care if you are a Christian… you don’t get to dictate the way I live my life based on your religion.” The rant about abortion rights appeared on my Facebook page and as an atheist, I was sympathetic.  Because Christianity is the dominant religion in this country, s

The punishment for women who fail to assume a submissive role in society can be rape and death.  That has been the mode since Biblical times. In India, recently, a case of rape and death made national headlines. The victim was a 19-year-old girl from the  Dalit community. (Untouchab

The matter was small, yet I was annoyed by it. Even a little despairing.  After fifty years of fighting for women’s equality, what did I have to show for it? Or others of my sex who had faced jail time and forced feedings to champion women’s rights? That afternoon, as I visited m

I’m beginning to wonder how far I can roll my eyes to the back of my head before they fall out. After watching the ABC Democratic Presidential debate I begin to despair.  As a whole, I thought it was the best of the series and that the exchange between the candidates shed more ligh

A week ago, I sat down to lunch with two women who are notable because they’ve dedicated themselves to advancing gender equality. The two had never met, so I brought them together to see what synergism might evolve. The meeting went well, a perfect example of women reaching out to s

When one woman raises her voice to push forward the boundary on women’s rights, other women stand ready to play whack-a-mole with her head. (Blogs 2/3/27, 11/7/17)  Most recently, two former French sex goddesses of the 1950-60s, Catherine Deneuve and Brigitte Bardot,  (Click)  ha