To all those who care about women’s rights, I have a favor to ask: Please stop spreading The Handmaid’s Tale memes. You know, those ones where women are dressed up in burgundy frocks and white bonnets that hide their faces? Although I admire Margaret Atwood’s brilliant novel, the last thing we need in the world are more images of women who are oppressed.
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The Muslims have Mecca, where millions gather every year for the Hajj. The bulk of Christianity has the Vatican, overflowing with believers at Christmas and Easter. And the world has…
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My husband’s grandfather, Louis Lipsky, immigrated from Slavuta, Ukraine 117 years ago. He left his native land for the US to escape violent pogroms, poverty, and war. Forty years later,…
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When I started this blog, I promised myself I wouldn’t use any lightning-rod words that tend to send people scampering off to their narrow cultural corners. That included names of…
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I hope everyone is enjoying the season of gratitude & light, despite the challenges all around us. This post is a break from the usual theme of Becoming Better People…
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At the height of the 2020 BLM protests, I commented on a thread in an Italian-American Facebook group that sparked fury. Statues of Christopher Columbus had been vandalized across the…
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I’m not a fan of using militaristic terms and even try to avoid using gun terminology that’s woven into idioms. But ironically, it’s motherhood—or at least the push to become…
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“Liam got his period,” my middle-school-aged daughter casually mentioned. That was about five years ago, and it was the first time my brain circuitry fritzed around gender expression. When I…
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Overheard at the doctor’s office recently: “Do you identify as Caucasian or non-Caucasian?” A secretary was screening a patient over the phone with what’s become a common question—one I hadn’t…
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In my recent post (Don’t Box Us In), I explored a subtle way our society perpetuates a sense of racial division, which had me wondering how we might accelerate systemic…