The Alice Network, a highly decorated web of World War I French spies led by a female master spy, has been turned into an enthralling piece of historical fiction by Kate Quinn. Within the first few pages, Quinn plants a question in the reader’s mind that drives the story, demanding an answer. Quinn takes genuine […]
General
Miss Period badges: another bad idea
A women’s health store in Japan came up with the idea that its staff would wear “physiology badges” when having their periods. Thank goodness there was backlash when the public got word of it. Now the store is reconsidering its menstruation labeling, euphemistically called Miss Period. This is a country where some companies forbid their […]
Pachinko: Koreans in Japan struggle to control their destiny
In the mid-1970s, when we were adopting our eldest son, I read that Koreans did not like the Japanese, because Korea had once been a Japanese colony. Understandable. Min Jin Lee, author of Pachinko, a National Book Award finalist, sees it differently: The Japanese do not like Koreans. Covering several generations from 1910-1989, Pachinko describes […]
Women helping women victims of war
War. The penchant of some people to dominate others by violent means is an ancient habit that glorifies warriors and makes many people rich. Victims of war are an afterthought. But not to Women for Women International. Since 1993, the organization has assisted more than 478,000 marginalized women in nine countries affected by war and […]
Will Carli Lloyd kick her way into NFL?
“There is no reason why a woman could not do this.” Two NFL teams have contacted Carli Lloyd, 37, a star on both the 2015 and 2019 U.S. Women’s World Cup championship teams after seeing a video of her nailing a field goal from 55 yards out. Lloyd was just playing around at the Eagles’ […]
Celebrating a 70-year struggle to vote
It took seven decades of steady, often brutal, campaigning to get United States women the right to vote. The activism began in 1848 when Elizabeth Cady Stanton and friends shocked the local patriarchy by getting together in a church to tell their menfolk what they expected out of life. At that point, men should have […]
