Medieval Mothers Had to Marry and Murder to Get Their Way

Love this article from the Smithsonian:

In the rough-and-tumble setting of medieval England, royal mothers were expected to do far more than just ensure their children, the future monarchs, were healthy and well-educated. She had to wield all her influence and patronage to keep her son in power—and keep her husband from killing him.

Before the Norman Conquest of 1066, royal succession was not fixed. The inheritance rights of young children were often passed over to ensure that an experienced warrior was on the throne. It provided the perfect recipe for royal intrigue, and mothers with sons to defend often faced down tradition—and their own husbands—along the way. Queens were supposed to value their roles as both wives and mothers, but when forced to pick between the two, their children always came first.

By the 13th century, an orderly law of succession began to take shape in England. These days, English royals must fend off the paparazzi instead of Vikings. What remains the same for royalty is the experience of parenting in the public eye—one that’s always trained on mothers of children who will wear the crown.

read entire article here @ the Smithsonian

'The World's Oldest Profession'

'The World's Oldest Profession' May Not Be What You Think

Next to prostitution, wet-nursing (being hired to breastfeed another woman’s child) is perhaps one of the world’s oldest professions for women; nearly every advanced civilization employed some version of it. There are countless examples: a Sumerian lullaby from 3000 BC makes mention of a nursemaid suckling; King Tut built a lavish tomb to honor his own wet nurse; Islamic law views two children having suckled milk from the same woman as a lifelong form of kinship equal to that of a blood relative; ancient Romans could bring their hungry infants to the Columna Lactaria for a nursing; and in the medieval kingdom of Castile, wet nurses for royal children were hired for one or two decades and became governesses after weaning.

Continue reading Huffington Post article by Jennifer Grayson

Sorry State of Women In India

Tragic tales of violence against women and children has emerged from India.  Here are just a few of the headlines that have appeared this week:

From the Guardian:

Indian PM Manmohan Singh: women's status and safety a growing concern...  India must make vast improvements to protect women, says prime minister amid protests over rape of five-year-old girl.

From the Times of India:

CPM politburo member Brinda Karat on Sunday called for the need to amend the criminal law to protect tribal women against the atrocities by officials and guards of forest department.Expressing concern over the increase in crimes against women, Brinda Karat said the issue of atrocities against tribal women should also be addressed. 

From The Hindu:
Even as protests against the brutal rape of a five-year-old girl in the Gandhi Nagar area of East Delhi snowballed into widespread public outrage, the 22-year-old casual worker accused of the crime was brought here on Saturday.

From The Siasat Daily:
The brutal rapist of the five-year-old girl had met his equally vile partner-in-crime during a chance meeting aboard a train earlier this year, sources claimed on Sunday. Identified by sources as one Pradeep, the man in question is now ‘officially’ the second accused in the case which took place precisely a week ago. “Manoj Kumar Sah, the main accused, kept twisting facts, changing his statements and putting the entire blame on Pradeep as soon as he was arrested,” said an officer.

Also from The Siasat Daily:
Second Delhi child rape accused arrested from Bihar .....One more person allegedly involved in the rape of a five-year-old girl in New Delhi a week ago has been arrested, police said on Monday. Pradeep, the second accused, was apprehended from Bihar in a joint operation by Delhi and Bihar Police, Delhi Police Commissioner Neeraj Kumar told PTI.

And this again from The Siasat Daily:

Delhi rape accused Manoj raped wife before marriage .....In another shocking revelation it has been reported that rape accused Manoj Kumar, who was arrested by police yesterday had also raped his wife before marriage.

From Huffington Post:
Women's groups here are hailing a new law, passed March 21, that stiffens punishments of sexual violence in the aftermath of the notorious gang rape last December that left a medical student dead.

And then this tragic story from The Siasat Daily:
A 22-year-old mentally challenged woman was raped allegedly by a ward boy at a nursing home whose doctors have been arrested on charge of trying to bribe the victim's kin to hush up the matter. The incident occurred at Walhekarwadi in Chinchwad town near hear on April 16 in the nursing home run by Dr Vishal Sonawane (34) and his wife Dr Varsha (31) where the victim was undergoing treatment, police said today. Police arrested the accused, identified as Subhash Modad (22), on the charge of rape and the doctor couple for trying to hush up the matter and bribe the victim's kin to not report the incident to police as it would bring bad name to their hospital.

From Opposing Views:

Gruesome footage surfaced today of four men relentlessly beating an Indian woman in Ludhiana, a city in the northwest Indian province of Punjab. The woman says she was beaten because she asked to be repaid a sum of money that she had lent to one of the men. The amount is reported to be 20,000 rupees, the equivalent of about $370 USD.

From CTV News:

But exotic ancient India has run headlong into the rapidly growing economic powerhouse, where women have stepped out of traditional roles, resulting in harsh questions about their treatment which is considered to be among the worst in the world. Rape is common. Sexual assault goes unreported. The victim is often blamed, which the perpetrator walks free.

Tribal Tradition Broken In Bihar

From NDTV:

Santhal tribals in a Bihar village have added a new chapter to their ancient custom of young men and women living together - allowing an unwed mother to marry her dead partner's body to make her children legitimate and give them property rights.

Gotul - practised in the tribal regions of Bihar and Jharkhand - allows young adults to cohabit till they are sure that the partner he or she has chosen is good enough for marriage.

Breasts: A Natural and Unnatural History

Environmental journalist Florence Williams says that "Breasts are bellwethers for the changing health of people.”

It was after reading a news article about the effects of chemicals on breast milk that Florence set out to  investigate the natural and unnatural history of breasts.

Her book presents the findings of her forensic investigation of the evolutionary, social, sexual and historical knowledge on breasts.

From The Independent (Ireland):

They are, says Florence Williams, author of new book 'Breasts: A Natural and Unnatural History', "bikinied, bared, flaunted, measured, inflated, sexted, YouTubed, suckled, pierced, tattooed, tassled and in every way fetishised".

Myth: Women & Children First

From the Boston Herald:

According to a recent study by two Swedish economists, that brand of gallantry is not only dead, it was buried at sea long ago.

Keen to test humanity’s capacity for selflessness in times of scarcity and duress, the students of the "dismal science" reviewed survival data for some of history’s worst shipwrecks.

What they found was that women and children were only half as likely as crew members and captains to survive maritime disasters.

Instead of "women and children first" and "the captain must go down with the ship," the rallying cry seemed to be "every man for himself," the authors wrote.

From KARN News Radio:

Economists at Uppsala University have turned on its head the idea that women and children are attended to first by investigating 18 shipwrecks that occurred between 1852 to 2011.  Two of the most famous examples of sinking ships, Titanic and Lusitania, were also taken into account.

Other than the Titanic, where three times more women than men survived the disaster, the study finds that the captain, his crew and male passengers were generally saved more often than women and children.

In fact, crew members were 18.7 percent more likely to get out alive than everyone else on board.

And from Newser:

If you ever find yourself on board a sinking ship, you'd better hope you're an adult male. Researchers from Sweden looked at 18 of the most disastrous shipwrecks and found that women and children are far less likely to survive compared to their male counterparts, the Los Angeles Times  reports. What's worse, captains and crew members had higher survival rates than all passengers, shattering the notion that captains must go down with their ship. In fact, there is no maritime law that requires captains to remain aboard their sinking vessel.

Crew members fared the best, with a survival rate of 61%, followed by captains at 44%. Men were the next most likely to survive (37%), then women (27%) and lastly children (15%). Researchers say men and crew members have greater knowledge of the ship, making it easier for them to get to life boats—and they aren't as keen to sacrifice themselves as some may believe. But don't let this distort your sense of history. There were some exceptions to the rule, including the famed Titanic voyage, in which women's survival rate was three times higher than other disasters. 

"Napalm Girl" Photo Turns 40

From KTUL:

It only took a second for Associated Press photographer Huynh Cong "Nick" Ut to snap the iconic black-and-white image 40 years ago. It communicated the horrors of the Vietnam War in a way words could never describe, helping to end one of the most divisive wars in American history.

But beneath the photo lies a lesser-known story. It's the tale of a dying child brought together by chance with a young photographer. A moment captured in the chaos of war that would be both her savior and her curse on a journey to understand life's plan for her.

"I really wanted to escape from that little girl," says Kim Phuc, now 49. "But it seems to me that the picture didn't let me go."

Les Enfants X - The Sous X Law

From the Independent:

The rights of a child to know its parents are written into international law, but in France that doesn't mean very much.

Here is one of the few countries in Europe where children can be born without officially having any parents. The result is generations of Les Enfants X, and enough sorrow to fill the Seine.

The roots of the tradition of women having the right to give birth in secret lie deep in French history. The practice was codified during the Revolution, which introduced the principle that abandoned infants would become charges of the state, or pupilles de l'état.

For most of its history, the law has been aimed at shielding the mothers of illegitimate children, and at discouraging infanticide, abortion and the use of any sort of contraceptive practice.

Lucy Anne Ward (1856 - 1935)

Founder of Outback Maternity Home

Lucy was born six years after her parents first arrived in Australia from England. She became a milliner and operated a shop in North Adelaide, South Australia. Aged 22yo Lucy married Henry Ward. She left city life and travelled by horse and buggy to Willachra - 400km away. She and her husband had to clear the land, fence it and build their house - times were hard so they both took extra work wherever they could.

For the birth of Lucy's first daughter Lucy Evelyn (1880) there was probably no doctor and only assistance from her mother-in-law. She gave birth to another daughter (1882) who died (1885). She adopted her baby niece after the death of its mother but it later died aged 5yo - Lucy was aged 33yo. She had no more children of her own but adopted two more babies.

When relatives in the Hawker district decided to leave, Lucy and Henry bought the house. Lucy was not a trained nurse, but she acquired considerable practical knowledge through her own experiences and in the homes of other women. Lucy began to take in women far from any kind of help. With the difficulties of travel, many of these women from outlying areas often needed to stay for several weeks, and often brought their other young children with them. Since the ability to pay was never an issue, finances were not easy. Lucy cooked, cleaned, carted water, washed, and supplied milk and butter from her own dairy.

Soon the demand became greater than the house could accommodate, and so Henry built extra rooms, and "the Gables", as the house became known, was registered as a Lying-in Home (1909) under the State Children Act (1895). When a severe influenza epidemic struck (1910), Lucy set up tents to accommodate the many local people who fell ill and sought her help.

Three years after the opening of the Hawker Hospital (1928), as the Gables had become, 72yo Lucy recorded her last patient. Over 30 years, she helped deliver between 400-500 babies.

Samurai Mothers & Lead Poisoning

From Live Science:

Lead poisoning isn't just a problem for post-industrial city kids — the children of samurai suffered from it too, a new study suggests. An analysis of bones of children who lived as many as 400 years ago showed sky-high lead levels, which scientists now think came from their mothers' makeup.

At the castle town of Kokura, in the modern city of Kitakyushu, samurai and their families were buried in large clay pots at a local Zen Buddhist temple. A team lead by Tamiji Nakashima, an anatomist at the University of Occupational and Environmental Health in Kitakyushu, studied the remains of 70 samurai men, their wives and children. The researchers sampled the lead in rib bones, and X-rayed some of the children's long arm and leg bones looking for signs of lead poisoning.

Breastfeeding Battleground

From News.com.au:

The Federal Government last year released its National Breastfeeding Strategy 2010-2015, but there has been little action.

It took two years to get a breastfeeding helpline set up following a recommendation from a parliamentary inquiry in 2007. Run by the Australian Breastfeeding Association (ABA), the helpline receives 1600 calls a week.

Carey Wood, ABA spokeswoman and midwife, says women need to persist with breastfeeding.

“Give breastfeeding a go and if it doesn’t work, it’s not the end of the world,” she says. But opponents say formula is full of chemicals and additives.

Your body, your baby, your choice.

Canada: Asian Women Fight For Rights

From the Star:

“We immigrant women made great sacrifices to come here,” Jahangir says. “But we did not come here to be idle and beg. We did not come here to be baby machines. We came here to work, and we want to be part of building a nation.”

The group held its first public meeting in the fall of 2007. In early 2008, it became a registered non-profit organization. In its first year, with $750 in seed money from COSTI immigrant services and a small grant from the Freedonia Foundation, the group ran 40 workshops on settlement services, each attended by about 50 women.

By 2009, the women had raised about $60,000 from the United Way and several other foundations and began renting office space on the main floor of Jahangir’s apartment building. In the winter and spring of that year, they knocked on 1,200 doors and interviewed 400 women about their experience in Canada. They found that 80 per cent of the women had university degrees, and most were angry about the lack of child care.

They rented buses to protest at provincial poverty-reduction forums and federal standing committee hearings. And they wrote letters, signed petitions and met with area politicians to demand action.

UK: Girl Guides Petition Against Airbrushing

From Children & Young People Now:

Young members of Girlguiding UK have launched a petition today (4 August) urging Prime Minister David Cameron to introduce compulsory labelling of digitally altered images in magazines and adverts.

Girlguiding UK will use the petition to lobby the government to enforce tighter control on the media’s use of airbrushed images. It believes that young girls who see these images are subjected to "unrealistic pressures" which can seriously damage their self-confidence.

The last annual Girlguiding UK Girls Attitude Survey published in July 2009 revealed that out of more than 1,000 girls half of those aged 16 to 21 would consider having cosmetic surgery to change their appearance. The survey also revealed that 42 per cent of girls aged 11 to 16 have tried dieting or cutting down on certain foods to improve how they look.

Natalie Fontaine, a Girlguiding member, warned: "Most of us have no idea how significantly these pictures are altered and young girls are shocked when they realise that the images they have of celebrities and models are not a reality. We think it is really important to highlight how serious this issue has become and demand action to protect all girls and young women."

Girlguiding UK has raised concerns that the use of airbrushed models and celebrities exposes young girls to body shapes that are "unobtainable" and that a more realistic picture of women’s bodies would make a big difference to young girls’ self-esteem.

Lucie Russell, director of campaigns at mental health charity YoungMinds, echoed this. "Girls and young women need to grow up feeling good about their bodies," she said. "Airbrushed images create an environment where girls are constantly comparing themselves to something that isn’t real and can’t be achieved. It only serves to make girls and young women feel bad about who they are, rather than secure and content. Compulsory labelling will help young women to see models’ and celebrities’ bodies as they really are and not the fantasy created by the industry."

Women and Fertility

From the Telegraph:

Women living near an ancient fertility symbol produce the most babies in the country according to new figures.

The naked 180ft Cerne Abbas Giant though to be thousands of years old - is carved out in the chalk downs in North Dorset.

Women living near him have three children in their lifetime which is a national record.

They are the highest for anywhere in the country for more than 40 years.

Standing erect for locals to see the giant could be having an inspirational effect on couples in the area say locals.

And from Times of India:

A woman, as everyone knows, usually gives birth to a baby after nine months of pregnancy, but in Bihar 298 women claim to have delivered two to five children in a span of 60 days - at least that's what records of incentives amount given to new mothers under a government scheme show.

A woman gets around Rs.1,000 when she gives birth under the government's Janani Suraksha Yojana but a total of Rs.6.6 lakh was paid as incentive to 298 women who claimed to have delivered two to five children within 60 days under the scheme, says a report of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) that exposes corruption in the state.

Ireland: Justice For Magdalene Women

From the Irish Times:

THE NATIONAL Women's Council of Ireland (NWCI) is to write to all female TDs, Senators, and local councillors calling on them to support calls for justice for survivors of the Magdalene laundries.

Susan McKay, director of the NWCI, has written to the women public representatives reminding them that "justice must be done and a clear and resounding message must emanate from Government that the treatment of these women and their children was a severe violation of their human rights".

According to a statement yesterday from the Justice for Magdalenes (JFM) group, the NWCI passed a motion at its recent annual general meeting supporting the JFM campaign to bring about a formal apology and a distinct redress scheme for all Magdalene survivors.

Mari Steed of JFM said they were pleased to receive NWCI support "to correct a historic injustice, one that targeted women and young girls exclusively".

Ms McKay said the NWCI "stands firmly behind those seeking justice for women incarcerated in the Magdalene laundries and supports their call for the establishment of a distinct redress scheme for Magdalene survivors."

Over recent weeks the JFM campaign has received the encouragement of the Catholic primate Cardinal Seán Brady while cross-party TDs, including those in Government, have tabled six separate parliamentary questions on the issue of justice for the Magdalene women.

Rise in Trafificking In China

From VOA News:

More than three decades after it began, China's one-child population control policy has some unintended consequences. Because of a traditional preference for boys, thousands of couples abort female fetuses, and the Chinese government says that last year, 119 boys were born for every 100 girls.

The shortage of young women is pushing some families turn to human traffickers to find wives for their sons. The traffickers often go to neighboring Burma, Mongolia, Vietnam, Laos and North Korea to buy or kidnap women.

Members of Burma's Kachin Women's Association comfort three young women sold to Chinese families by human traffickers. The women, aged between 16 and 18, came to China with the promise of a better life. But they found themselves sold as brides to men in rural areas for as little as $700, and kept as virtual prisoners.

Iraq: Grim Potwar Future For Widows

From Associated Press:

Three decades of wars, massacres and sectarian killings have left Iraq with as many as a million widows, by Iraqi government count. Hameeda Ayed is one of them.

At 45, with three children, she is part of a vast sisterhood in a tortured land, and for the more than 100,000 who lost their husbands in the U.S.-led invasion and violent aftermath, the struggling postwar government is of little help.

Ayed is entitled to 150,000 dinars (about $130) a month from the government, plus 15,000 dinars (about $12) for each of her children. But after two years of chasing after official papers and signatures on her application, having no friends in high places to grease the wheels for her, she says she is giving up; the endless standing in line was making her neglect the children, aged 10, 12 and 15.

New deal for women & children in Taraba, Nasarawa

From the Nation:

THE health of women and children has come under focus across the country. The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), in collaboration with state governments, is seeking to reduce deaths among pregnant women and children under age five.

Expectant mothers and even those breastfeeding have been receiving medications to boost their health and that of their children. Newborns too have been getting inoculation against the deadly poliomyelitis. The one-week programme has been successful in both Taraba and Nasarawa states.

Apart from Vitamin A supplements administered on children from zero to 59 months (that is, below five years) to de-worm them against killer diseases, the kids were also given OPV or Oral Polio Vaccine to protect them against poliomyelitis. For ante-natal care, pregnant women were given fersolate, folic acid (ion tablets) and Tetanux Toxoid (TT) to increase their haemoglobin (blood) that would sustain them during childbirth, in case of huge blood loss. The programme also featured health education on key care practices such as breastfeeding and hand-washing.

The entire 16 local government areas of Taraba benefitted from the free healthcare programme, also known as “Maternal and Child Survival Week.”

Norway: Best For Mums

From USA Today:

Which country is best for mothers and their children? Norway, according to an annual report by Save the Children. And the United States? Way down the list at No. 28, below Estonia, Latvia and Croatia.

In compiling its 11th Mothers' Index, the charity analyzed factors that affect the health and well-being of women and children, including access to health care, education and economic opportunities. That's why Norway came out on top: Women are well paid, have easy access to contraception and are entitled to generous government-mandated maternity leave.

Following Norway in the top 10 are Australia, Iceland, Sweden, Denmark, New Zealand, Finland, the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany.

Afghanistan sits at the bottom, behind Niger, Chad, Guinea-Bissau, Yemen, Democratic Republic of Congo, Mali, Sudan, Eritrea and Equatorial Guinea.

Taiwan: Rise of Single Women

From the Wall Street Journal:

With one of the world's lowest birth rates, Taiwan faces the prospect of a rapidly aging population without a young workforce to support it. The government is scrambling for solutions, with experts pushing measures such as workplace day care, tax breaks for parents and generous maternity leave. But for a generation of Taiwanese women who embraced higher education (more women than men have college degrees) and demanding careers, the age-old stigma of being unmarried has given way to a celebration of single life that government incentives won't easily overturn.