According to the 2025 Compassion Report from Sanford’s School of Medicine, only 1 in 3 Americans feel compassion for all groups of...
The Collapse of Compassion
According to the 2025 Compassion Report from Sanford’s School of Medicine, only 1 in 3 Americans feel compassion for all groups of marginalized people. Lindsay C. Gibson, author of Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents thinks [...]
Pat Taub
Feminism10
Struggling to Find Balance In A Deeply Troubling World
Chaos is a seductress, but peace is the real power.—Diamond-Michael Scott Chris Hedges, the Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, contends that Trump is intentionally creating chaos to unmoor us and advance his oligarchy agenda. The more we are stuck in shock and awe, the easier it is for Trump to advance his Right-wing agenda. Caitlin Johnstone [...]
Pat Taub
In Memory of Cecile Richards (1957-2025): Guidelines for Trouble Makers
Cecile Richards died on Monday, January 20, 2025. She was the courageous President of Planned Parenthood from 2006-2018, when the organization was under sharp attack by conservatives. She helped fend off attacks to cut its funding and efforts to restrict access to abortions. In her memory I’m reposting my May, 2018 WOW post, which [...]
Pat Taub
Home Alone
If you live alone, if your family is scattered far and wide, if you recently lost a partner or spouse, if you can’t afford the plane fare to visit family or to enjoy a holiday escape, you may be feeling miserable and lonely, making you a prime candidate for the holiday blues. No one wants to feel left out, but don’t fall prey to [...]
Pat Taub
Admit! Adapt! Adjust! Accept!
GUEST POST by MARY LOU SMITH I will be turning eighty-five in January. I work hard trying to admit, adjust, adapt, and accept what I can do. Easier said than done at times! I am an independent, active, creative and compassionate woman who left a forty-three-year abusive marriage in 2005 at the age of sixty-five. I have never looked back. [...]
Pat Taub
Thank You’s I Never Got to Deliver
What if you had a chance to pose lingering questions to important people in your life who are now deceased? Poet Victoria Chang did this very thing, writing letters to her deceased parents, which she compiled into the book, “Dear Memory.” Chang, in trying to come to terms with her sketchy knowledge of her parents’ upbringing [...]
Pat Taub
Growth Through Vulnerability
Being vulnerable is generally defined as speaking and acting in a way that involves a risk where the outcome is unpredictable. For this reason, many take pains to avoid being vulnerable rather than chance receiving disapproval and rejection. This limited perspective overlooks the enormous benefits of being vulnerable. Abigail Thomas, the [...]
Pat Taub
Listening to Elders
The passing down of elder wisdom is an honored tradition among cultures like the Natives Americans and the Japanese where elders are sought out for their sage advice. Unfortunately, this intergenerational exchange rarely happens in America’s youth-obsessed culture, which devalues elders and their lived experiences. But as more Americans [...]
Pat Taub
I’ve Closed Up Shop Down There
When she turned 80, Jane Fonda told a Vanity Fair interviewer, “”I’ve closed up shop down there.” She was referring to her decision to forgo sex, elaborating that she had a full, contended single life without sexual relations. Fonda isn’t alone. Many older single women have joined her chorus of living into the sunset without [...]
Pat Taub
Three Cheers for Feisty Old Broads
Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day. These immortal words of Dylan Thomas are a suitable motto for Feisty Old Broads, older women who reject the stereotype of the accommodating old lady. The FOB’s are women who are fearless in their individuality. They speak truth to power, laugh a lot, have [...]
Pat Taub
What I Hold
This past weekend I hunkered down with treasured artist Maira Kalman’s latest book, Women Holding Things, a collection of playful drawings of women holding things accompanied by Kalman’s witty commentary. This delightful book prompted me to make a list of some of the things I hold along with those that will free me up if I stop holding [...]
Pat Taub