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The Birth of the Pill: How Four Crusaders Reinvented Sex and Launched a Revolution by Jonathan Eig was a fascinating and very readable look at how oral contraceptives -- otherwise known as The Pill -- came to be. The Pill changed the world. It was the first contraception that was nearly 100% effective, easy to use, did not interrupt or alter sex, and crucially, controlled by the woman who used it. It was also the first option to be both effective and reversible; pre-Pill, the only completely effective birth-control was sterilization. The advent of oral contraceptives, and later, the availability of safe and legal abortion, liberated millions of women from the fear of unwanted pregnancy, and in doing so, lifted millions of children out of poverty, by giving women the ability to limit the size of their families. Eig tells the story through the lens of four people -- all iconoclasts, all rebels, and none of them saints. Safe, effective, reversible, female-controlled, non-barrier birth co...

Today is International Safe Abortion Day. Because without access to safe, legal abortion, women can never be free. In North America, you can help ensure that women are able to access safe abortions by donating to abortion funds. The National Network of Abortion Funds (N-NAF) can show you how.

Also: Why is Greta Thunberg so triggering for certain men , Jennifer O'Connell, Irish Times Canada's #climatestrike day is Friday, September 27.

Reading David Blight's monumental Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom , I learned some facts about both Frederick Douglass and Susan B. Anthony that were very unpleasant and, at least in Douglass' case, baffling. This brought me back to a topic I've revisited several times on wmtc: the rejection of art or culture or historical admiration, based on some moral or ethical failing of the individual. I only want to know about perfect people I was amazed to learn that Douglass himself could be racist! In his speeches, he used the stereotype of the drunken Irish immigrant to bolster his case for universal suffrage: if this lout is allowed to vote, why not the Negro? Douglass also had a huge blind spot regarding Native Americans. He would contrast the civilized, educated Negro with the Native American who preferred their own savage and backwards ways to that of the white settler. Douglass did (verbally) to Native Americans what white oppressors were doing to African Americans --...

Tl;dr? Learn about the National Network of Abortion Funds , and give generously. * * * * Right-thinking Americans and Canadians are reeling at extreme anti-abortion laws sweeping through at least a dozen states: Alabama, Missouri, and Georgia, are the worst offenders, but Ohio, North Dakota, Kentucky, Mississippi, Iowa, and others are not far behind. Most of these laws are blatantly unconstitutional, and are designed to force SCOTUS to overturn with  Roe v. Wade . These latest lethal weapons are the logical progression of the War on Women that's been going on for at least 30 years. Democrats and most liberal Americans sat idly by while anti-abortion-rights forces took over one state legislature after the next, setting up obstacle after obstacle designed to prevent access to safe, legal abortion, thereby limiting the human rights of great swaths of American women. While all anyone could talk about was Roe v. Wade , that poorly-written law became irrelevant for millions of women. Ame...

During the Ontario provincial election, after a hack from the Toronto Sun drew attention to an unpopular view that I had expressed some years earlier, I was the object of right-wing attacks by email and on social media. Many of these wingnuts referenced my weight in various disgusting ways. This shocked me because, although I am overweight, I'm not unusually heavy, not large enough to be remarkable. No matter. Total strangers mocked me for being overweight, using a whole slew of pejoratives and curse-words. I had never experienced that before. I confess that even though I couldn't possibly care less what trolls think of me, each time this happened, I felt a brief pang of humiliation and embarrassment. I've always been impervious to right-wing bullying; if anything, I wear it with pride. But these taunts hurt, if only for a split-second. I wish this weren't true. I'm embarrassed to admit it. I thought of this experience as I read Roxane Gay's powerful book, Hung...

Are you writing for rights? I almost gave myself a pass this year. I'm living out of a hotel room and I don't have easy access to a printer, and... what the hell? I'm one of the most privileged people on the planet. Surely I won't skip Write For Rights because it's a bit inconvenient! On December 10, 1948, the newly-formed United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights , the first document of its kind in history. Every year, on and around December 10, people who have human rights use them to help others whose human rights have been violated or negated. Here are the 2018 Write For Rights cases. Notice anything different? Join me and thousands of others. Join the biggest human rights event on the planet. By giving 15 or 30 minutes of your time, you can join thousands of others who believe that all humans have rights, no matter who they are, where they live, and what they believe. The right to peaceful protest. The right to inform others. The right ...

I recently read these somewhat old, but still relevant, letters to the New York Times Book Review. Cost of the Crash To the Editor: In his review of “Crashed,” by Adam Tooze (Aug. 12) , Fareed Zakaria asserts that “the rescue worked better than almost anyone imagined.” He notes there was no “double-dip recession” and growth returned “slowly but surely.” But this misses what was the major criticism of the “rescue.” It merely hit the re-set button — keeping the big banks solvent. Meanwhile, the stimulus did little to put people back to work. It was not the double-dip recession that critics feared but a long sluggish recovery that failed to affect the majority of the people. For example, it took six years (2009-15) for the unemployment rate to return to the pre-recession number. The share of income received by the top 1 percent had been 23 percent before the recession. After falling to 18 percent in 2010 it jumped back to 22 percent by 2015. Meanwhile, as late as 2015, the bottom 99 perc...

While this blog was offline, an amazing and incredibly important thing happened: the people of the Republic of Ireland affirmed the human right to control our own bodies. In a referendum to "Repeal the 8th" -- so-called for the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution of Ireland, which gave equal legal status to women and embryos or fetuses -- the overwhelming majority of Irish people voted yes  to repeal the total ban on abortion. For me, the way this happened was almost as important as the result: it was a true grassroots organizing campaign. Person to person, street by street, town by town, Irish people talked and discussed and declaimed and debated. The vote was overwhelmingly in favour of repeal: 66.4% voted to repeal. With this, Ireland has at last " stepped into the light ". One of the most touching details of the #RepealThe8th campaign was #HomeToVote , which saw Irish citizens living all over the world traveling to Ireland to cast their vote to repeal. Reading...

Visit We Own It for all the facts on privatization. When public services are privatized, everyone loses -- except, of course, shareholders of a private company, who increase their wealth with our  money. But did you know the pain of privatization hits women disproportionately harder? As this excellent article by Jane Stinson in Canadian Dimension says: Privatization is not gender-neutral. It threatens advances toward women’s equality in the labour market and in the home. In the labour market, privatization usually means lower wages for women workers, fewer workplace rights, reduced health and welfare benefits, no pension coverage, less predictable work hours, more precarious employment, a heavier workload and generally more exploitative working conditions. In addition, in a society where women are still the primary caregivers for both children and the elderly, when services become both scarcer and more expensive , women's burdens grow -- often while their wages are shrinking. Th...

Today's Revolutionary Thought of the Day is very unusual, in that it belongs to a member of government. This thought should not be revolutionary. It should not even need to be uttered. Nevertheless, it is and it does. It has come to my attention that there are young girls here in Canada and other parts of the world who are removed from school or shamed because of their hairstyle. Mr. Speaker, body-shaming of any woman in any form from the top of her head to the soles of her feet is wrong. Irrespective of her hairstyle, the size of her thighs, the size of her hips, the size of her baby bump, the size of her breasts, or the size of lips, what makes us different makes us unique and beautiful. So Mr. Speaker I will continue to rock these braids. For three reasons. No. 1, because I’m sure you’ll agree, they look pretty dope. No. 2, in solidarity with women who have been shamed based on their appearance. And No. 3, and most importantly, in solidarity with young girls and women who look ...

I've been scanning some old photos -- some of Allan and me through the years, others with my siblings at various ages -- and have been posting them on Facebook. This experience has led to two insights. The thoughts themselves aren't new, but this walk on memory lane has recalled and reinforced them. Insight number one: my self-image was extremely distorted throughout my life.  I thought I was fat and ugly. Yet there is evidence that that was not the case. I am now overweight, but that's a different story. This was a girl well within a normal, healthy weight and size range, thinking she was seriously overweight. It was no surprise that many of my female Facebook friends related to this. We came up with the following list of reasons. The reasons are not ranked in order of importance; it's a big mix, a preponderance of evidence, as the legal phrasing goes. 1. Media. We are constantly barraged with images of what is supposed to be beauty perfection; most are completely unre...

On the 100th anniversary of the Easter Rising, these Revolutionary Thoughts of the Day are brought to you by the great Irish socialist, James Connolly. The day has passed for patching up the capitalist system; it must go. (1910) This speech, from 1897, is recreated in the excellent Ken Loach film "The Wind that Shakes the Barley": If you remove the English army tomorrow and hoist the green flag over Dublin Castle, unless you set about the organisation of the Socialist Republic your efforts would be in vain. England would still rule you. She would rule you through her capitalists, through her landlords, through her financiers, through the whole array of commercial and individualist institutions she has planted in this country and watered with the tears of our mothers and the blood of our martyrs. England would still rule you to your ruin, even while your lips offered hypocritical homage at the shrine of that freedom whose cause you had betrayed. Nationalism without Socialism –...

Today is Equal Pay Day in Ontario. Why? It's the day that, if you're a woman, your earnings have finally caught up with what men were paid the previous year . Women doing the same or equivalent work still earn, on average, 30% less than their male counterparts. The higher up the food chain a woman works, the greater the gap in pay. Ontario’s highest paid women earn an average of 37% less than the highest paid men , translating into a whopping $64,000 less in annual average earnings.  “Over the course of a working lifetime, these pay gaps can grow into a mountain of lost earnings,” says Cornish. “For instance, a middle-income woman could find herself earning, on average, $315,000 less than men over a 35-year period. The highest paid 10 per cent of women could earn an average of $2.24 million less than highest paid 10 per cent of men over a 35-year period. The Canadian Centre of Policy Alternatives has collected the data and done the rigorous study . No further study is needed. ...

The continuing liberation of transgender people is a marvel to behold. We are witnessing history, as trans people and their issues become part of the mainstream. From Chelsea Manning to "Transparent" to Laverne Cox, and of course Caitlyn Jenner, transgender people and issues have never been so front and centre. I don't do celebrity gossip so I don't know anything about the lurid lead-up to Jenner's coming out, but when the woman who cuts my hair asks me what I think about transgender people, I know something big is going on. There is more than one out trans person in the larger circle of my own life, something most of us never could have said throughout human history. Of course the Vanity Fair cover reflects the reality of most transgender lives the way the Cosby Show reflected most African American lives. This New York Times article is a good wrap-up of where things stand - and where they don't - in the mainstream. Naturally I consider myself an ally of tr...

As part of the NXNE concert series in Toronto, rapper Action Bronson was slated to perform a free concert in Dundas Square. Bronson is apparently known for lyrics and videos that degrade women and glorify rape. He has also bragged about assaulting a trans woman. Many people felt that this performer was inappropriate for a headliner act and a free event in the heart of Toronto. A petition was circulated calling for NXNE to cancel the Dundas Square show. Eventually they did.  Their statement says they will try re-book Action Bronson as a ticketed event in a different venue. That seems like a good decision. However, I was less disturbed by another misogynist shock act than by some of the reaction I read on Facebook, from friends and their contacts. It seems that many progressive people believe that what Action Bronson does should be illegal. Others believe that even speaking in support of such expression should be illegal. I find that deeply troubling. The people in this discussion s...

"The Pink House", the last abortion clinic in Mississippi. The owner painted it pink so it would stand out, in defiance. I've thought a lot about heroes, that tremendously overused word, about who my heroes are and why I love them. Moral courage, as you may know, is my highest value. Now, reading this story in Esquire about Dr. Willie Parker, the last abortion doctor in the state of Mississippi, I realize there's another ingredient shared by all my heroes: an abundance of compassion. Dr. Parker, a committed Christian, embodies both physical and moral courage, refusing to run despite the knowledge that others who tread this path have been murdered. Dr. Parker fills a vital health and social need by performing abortions in Mississippi. But he does more than that. He offers compassion (along with education) to every patient. Dr. Parker not only wants women to decide for themselves whether and when to bear children. He wants to help free them of the guilt and shame that ...

Cover of 1943 Random House edition with woodcut illustrations Emily Brontë published Wuthering Heights in 1847, under a pseudonym. Brontë died the following year, at age 30. It was the only book she would ever publish. How did an isolated young woman, a parson's daughter from a remote area of Yorkshire, who never married, rarely left home, and hated travel, come to create this story of ferocious passion and violent revenge that would shock her contemporaries, and enthral audiences into its second century? The existence of Wuthering Heights  is one of the great arguments against that wrongheaded advice to writers: "write what you know". ( Remember this the next time someone tells you that Shakespeare couldn't have written his plays, because he was working-class, and had never been to Italy.) How did Brontë create it? With her talent and her imagination. * * * * Wuthering Heights is one of my most beloved novels; sometimes I think it is my favourite b...

Soraya Chemaly places Dylan Farrow's claim in the context of rampant child sexual abuse, and the persistent myth of false rape claims. Dylan Farrow is in a situation that thousands deal with every day. In general, people want to look away, muttering some variant of "he said/she said." But, that phrase implies an equivalence where we have a gross imbalance, because "he" is more trusted, virtually always, in every capacity, than "she." There is a substantial body of research documenting our preference for thinking of men as more competent and moral. Researchers who studied gendered speech patterns found that people expect different kinds of lies from men and women and that women are considered more trustworthy, unless lies include another person, in which case, confidence in the veracity of what women say plummets. . . . That everyone "knows" girls and women lie about sexual assault is a dangerous and enduring myth. A survey of college student...

Wmtc friend and reader Dharma Seeker writes: Some of my discussion groups have been blowing up since Dylan Farrow's open letter to actors in Woody Allen films. My brain is muddled trying to sort out the various issues. I'd love your thoughts and hoped you might blog about it, although if you've not read it yet Dylan's open letter should come with a trigger warning. If the allegations are true, does that mean that actors have a moral obligation to boycott his films? Do movie lovers have a moral obligation to boycott his films? Where do we draw the line that separates the personal failings (to put it mildly) of the artist and appreciation of the art they produce? I really would love to know your thoughts. I don't want to "support a pedophile" but I can't help thinking it's not that simple. I know you and Allan love Woody Allen films, your enthusiasm for them actually put me on to them. In particular I love Whatever Works and Vicky Christina Barcelona...