Month: July 2020

“Beware the danger of what I call Feminism Lite.”

“Feminism Lite” is the idea of conditional female equality, where men believe they are superior but should be expected to “treat women well.”  It can be disguised as real feminism when men behave in an equitable way – but believe it’s optional and provisional. You hear it in phrases … Read More

“Wasn’t memory, that bully and oppressor, supposed to become soft and spongy?”

What if you found out that many of your memories were either wrong or incomplete? Maybe you would have the same disconcerted feeling that I had when I first saw the cover of this book.  It’s a picture of someone diving head-first into a large body of water – but … Read More

“What my father wanted to cast from me wasn’t a demon: it was me.”

To say that Tara Westover’s dad demanded complete obedience to his rules and doctrine would be an understatement.  When one of his children disobeyed, he assumed it could be due to one thing only: the work of the devil. He is a person most of us would dismiss … Read More

“And I know that I must go on doing this dance on hot bricks till I die.”

The brilliant novelist Virginia Woolf used this metaphor to describe her ongoing struggle with mental health in her diary on March 1, 1937, which was 42 years after her first nervous breakdown and four years before she drowned herself. What is most astonishing to me is how she was able … Read More