While I’m an elder, I hadn’t given a lot of thought to dying, that is until my brother, who’s 20 months younger, announced in...
Women Making A Difference
Trailblazing Women We Lost in 2021
JANUARY Mary Catherine Bateson, 81 Bateson was born to two famous parents, Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson. She is remembered for her 1989 feminist classic, Composing A Life: eye-opening interviews of five women who describe the challenges of being a modern woman, balancing work and family. Cicely Tyson, 96 This beloved actress lay the groundwork [...]
Pat Taub
Notable American Women of 2020
While most of us struggled to stay afloat during 2020, there were women who didn’t take a back seat, who stayed focused on making a contribution for a better world. They were the light that pierced the darkness. Nurses on the Covid Frontlines Nurses treating Covid patients worked under impossible conditions: risking exposure for themselves [...]
Pat Taub
When You Long For an Apology . . .
Eve Ensler’s groundbreaking new book, The Apology opens with these words: I am done waiting. My father is long dead. He will never say the words to me. He will not make the apology. So it must be imagined. For it is in our imagination that we can dream across boundaries, deepen the narrative, and design alternative outcomes. Ensler [...]
Pat Taub
Peggy Akers: A Vietnam Truth Teller
For most Americans the Vietnam War has been reduced to a historical footnote. For those who served, it is not easily forgotten. Many Vietnam vets continue to suffer from PTSD or, for the truly unlucky, from crippling wounds or from Agent Orange. Other vets, like Peggy Akers of Portland, Maine, bemoan the fact that the lessons of Vietnam continue [...]
Pat Taub
What’s a “Bad Feminist”?
In her bestseller, Bad Feminist, 40-year-old Roxane Gay calls herself a “bad feminist” because she likes Hip-hop music with sexist lyrics, “Law and Order” (which abounds in rape plots), anything pink, and Vogue. I assume Gay, a third wave feminist, consulted the second wave feminist playbook when drawing the conclusion that she’s [...]
Pat Taub
Alexandra Merrill: Aging Meaningfully
“I’m not done with my transformation.” Alexandra Merrill, on the cusp of 80, quoting Stanley Kunitz in his poem, The Layers, which he wrote upon turning 90. Zanda, as she is called, embodies aging meaningfully. I’m proposing substituting “aging meaningfully” with the commonly used phrase “aging successfully,” [...]
Pat Taub
The Women of Standing Rock
Native American women are the heart and soul of the almost eight-month-old protest against the Dakota Access Pipeline. The Standing Rock movement was birthed on April 1st by a small group of women from the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. They set up a tent on the proposed pipeline route to protest its construction on sacred Native American burial [...]
Pat Taub
Col. Ann Wright: Peace Warrior Extraordinaire
Ann Wright is a lightening rod for peace and justice. Name a political hot spot and Ann has been there, leading one to suspect that she holds the record for frequent flyer miles on the peace and justice circuit. In the past few months alone Ann has joined in protests at Jeju Island in South Korea protesting the construction of an American [...]
Pat Taub
Women’s Protest Marches Are Rocking the Globe!
Let’s face it, our current Presidential campaign sucks big time. It’s been reduced to cheap entertainment where misogyny and red-baiting are the order of the day. I can’t wait for this campaign to end so serious political engagement might seep into our news stories. Hungry for hope, my spirits soared reading recent accounts of women-led [...]
Pat Taub
Celebrating Four Pioneering Women Artists
There are countless remarkable women who came before us who deserve our attention and respect, but history often obliterated them. The current special exhibit at the Portland, Maine Art Museum (Women Modernists in New York) is helping to correct this omission by resurrecting four early 20th century women artists, who, aside from Georgia O’Keefe, [...]
Pat Taub