“Mr. Thornber,” his name spilled involuntarily from her lips.
“What the blazes are you doing in here, Miss Roth?” demanded the gentleman. “You should be outside taking a turn in the garden. It is a very pleasant afternoon.” In a few strides he closed the distance between them. He stopped abruptly beside her, facing the fire, removing his gloves and warming his enormous hands which seemed to fascinate her at the moment as she replied to his inquiry.
“I was out in the garden earlier , Sir. And yes, it is a very pleasant afternoon. I was rather reluctant to come back inside but my duties to my pupil demanded that I do so.”
He turned to look at her and she met his stare, wondering if he had any idea of how delighted she was to see him. The days he had been away had dragged. The house seemed so empty and boring without his presence. She had no idea that he would return today. She hadn’t heard a carriage arrive and perceived that he had probably come by way of his horse. She had seen him once on the black steed and thought what a fine figure he made…
“What have you been up to while I was away?” his inquiry jolted her back to the present moment. She could feel her face grow red and hoped that he would attribute it to the fire. She moved away from the fireplace and went back to the chair she had vacated before he came in. She sank thankfully down into the soft cushions. She hoped he did not think her rude from walking away like that. As he crossed the room to where she was, she saw nothing in his countenance to indicate that he did.
He promptly took a seat in the chair nearby, his arm resting casually on the book on the table beside him, his head turned slightly to the right so he could look at her.
With her hands clasped in her lap as she returned his gaze, she replied, “Nothing outside of the ordinary. When I am not teaching, or outdoors, I spend most of my time here reading.”
“What sort of books do you like to read?”
“Fiction, mostly but I like History and Philosophy__”
“Philosophy?” He looked surprised. “Why should you like Philosophy?”
“Sir, do you wonder that I should like Philosophy because of my gender?”
“My surprise in your choice of discipline has nothing to do with your gender, Miss Roth. You just don’t seem like the philosophical type.”
“I beg to differ, Sir. Philosophy is an activity that I like to engage in. I like to question assumptions, beliefs and current presuppositions.”
He looked intrigued. “I suppose you are familiar with Plato, then?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Tell me, Miss Roth, do you agree with his claim that ‘until philosophers are kings, or kings have the spirit of philosophy, cities will never have rest from their troubles’?
Before she could answer, he got up from his seat. “I should be very interested in hearing your answer. After you have had your dinner this evening, I should like for you to join me in here.”
Did she detect a tender expression on his face? Before she could be certain, he was gone as quickly and suddenly as he had arrived.
Sighing, she reached for her book but didn’t open it for several minutes. Her mind preoccupied with their conversation and his question about Plato. She would have to think about it. She looked at the clock. Three hours before dinner. She longed for the time to advance quickly so that she could enjoy his company once again.
Photo: British (English) School; Portrait of a Gentleman; Royal Albert Memorial Museum; Sources: Art UK ; CUNY Education; American Art
Upon his arrival at Rome, Paul was placed in a gloomy dungeon, there to remain until his course should be finished. Accused of instigating one of the basest and most terrible of crimes against the city and the nation, he was the object of universal execration – Acts of the Apostles, p.490
Day 4 of the Great Controversy Tour. She had decided to come on it with her friend.
A lover of Christian history and travel, it was an opportunity she could not pass up. Today’s focus was on The Early Christian Persecutions. After a buffet breakfast, they visited the Colosseum, the Arch of Constantine, Titus’ Arch, the Roman Forum and Mamertine Prison. The ancient prison is located at the foot of the Capitoline Hill in Rome. According to the travel guide, the Mamertine Prison had two gloomy underground cells where Rome’s conquered enemies were imprisoned and died, of starvation or strangulation. It was where the apostle Paul was confined. She paused to take some photos before going inside. She took a photo of the sign which read the “prison of the Saints and Apostles Peter and Paul.”
As she began to descend into the dark coldness, she thought of Paul being a sick, old man, cruelly thrown in there and friendless, except for Luke and Onesiphorus whose frequent visits cheered him up. Luke was a great comfort to him because he enabled him to communicate with fellow believers and the outside world.
It was indeed a very gloomy place. She shivered. It was from there that Paul was taken to Nero’s vast judgment hall where he pleaded not for himself but for all the people who could still be reached by the Gospel. From there he was taken to his execution. It is believed that Peter also spent his final hours in the prison before he was taken to his execution.
As she listened to the tour guide, she tried to imagine what it would have been like for her to be in prison for her faith. Would she languish and lose hope or would she be like Paul who wrote such encouraging letters from the prison here in Rome to the different churches. In his letter to the Philippians, he was rejoicing as he shared his experience. He wrote, “But I want you to know, brothers, that the things which happened to me have resulted in advancing the gospel, so that my imprisonments in Christ have become known throughout the entire palace guard and to all the rest. And a great many of the brothers in the Lord, having become confident because of my incarcerations, have dared to speak the word without fear” (Philippians 1:12-14). He seeing the positive side to all of this. His adversity brought more people to Christ and his attitude encouraged others.
Could she be like Paul who, although he was in chains, was not chained to his circumstances? Would her faith hold up? Then she remembered his words to Timothy: “At my first defense no one stood with me, but everyone forsook me. May it not be charged against them. But the Lord stood with me and strengthened me, so that through me the preaching might be fully known, and that all the Gentiles might hear” (2 Timothy 2:16, 17). Paul was never alone. God was always present.
Would God be there for her as He was for Paul? As if in response to her lingering doubts, Isaiah 43:2 came to her mind, “When you go through deep waters, I will be with you. When you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown. When you walk through the fire of oppression, you will not be burned up; the flames will not consume you.” Peace and comfort filled her heart. She had the assurance that no matter what she will face, God will be there with her just as He was with Paul.
Today, Mary Tyler Moore, one of Television’s favorite icons passed away at the age of 80 after being placed on a respirator the previous week.
One of my favorite things about the Mary Tyler Moore show was its theme. It encourages a single woman in her thirties to step out on her own and start living. The best part was when she tossed her hat up in the air. That showed a woman of confidence. A woman who knew that she was going to make it after all. Incidentally, the hat toss was ranked by Entertainment Weekly as the second greatest moment in television.
Before she was Mary Richards, Mary Tyler Moore played the role of housewife, Laura Petrie on The Dick Van Dyke Show. Carl Reiner recalls casting her for the part. “I saw 26 girls!” He told Conan O’ Brien in 2013. He was won over by Mary’s reading. “I grabbed the top of her head and said ‘Come with me.’ I walked her down the hall to [series producer Sheldon Leonard] and said ‘I found her!’” I was a big fan of The Dick Van Dyke Show.
I was surprised to hear that initially the Mary Tyler Moore show was not an immediate hit. It failed in its test trial. People thought Mary was a loser and that she wouldn’t succeed. However, show began to resonate with feminists because it was the first to mention the pill. And that it was ok for a woman not to have a date on Saturday night. The show also tackled issues such as equal pay for women, pre-marital sex, homosexuality marital infidelity and divorce, infertility and addiction to sleeping pills. The show went on to become one of the most acclaimed television programs in US television history. It received high praise from critics during its run, garnered Emmy Awards for Outstanding Comedy Series three years in a row (1975–77), and continued to be honored long after the final episode aired. In 2013, the Writers Guild of America ranked The Mary Tyler Moore Show No. 6 in its list of the 101 Best Written TV Series of All Time. It was the first American show to feature as its central character a never-married and independent career woman.
Although she became famous and was well loved for her role as Mary Richards, the epitome of modern feminism and received an Oscar nomination for her serious turn as a cold, emotionally withdrawn mother in Ordinary People, acting wasn’t Mary’s first choice of a career. At the age of 17, she decided that she wanted to be a dancer. Her television career began with her dancing in TV commercials. She modeled anonymously on the covers of a number of record albums and auditioned for the role of the older daughter of Danny Thomas for his long-running TV show but was turned down. Much later, Thomas explained that “no daughter of mine could have that [little] nose.” Mary appeared on several shows before she was hired for the role of Laura Petrie for which she won an Emmy. The idea for the Mary Tyler Moore Show was Mary’s and her husband’s. And the rest, as you know, is history.
Mary Tyler Moore was active in charity work and involved in causes such as animal rights and diabetes. At the age of 33, Mary herself was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. In 2011, she had surgery to remove a meningioma, a benign brain tumor. In 2014 friends reported that she had heart and kidney problems and was nearly blind.
Ironically, Mary Tyler Moore who became an icon for the feminist movement turned down Gloria Steinem’s invitation to join the movement because she did not believe in Steinem’s view that “women owe it to themselves to have a career.” Mary believed that that women have an important role in raising children.
Notes to Women salute this amazing, accomplished and classy woman who became the American sweetheart of television. She was an inspiration for housewives, career women and single women. She was an inspiration for all women.
Take chances, make mistakes. That’s how you grow. Pain nourishes your courage. You have to fail in order to practice being brave.
You truly have to make the very best of what you’ve got. We all do.
I’ve always been independent. I’ve always had courage. But I didn’t always own my diabetes.
More than 50 million people in India suffer from a mental illness. In 2011, India recorded the highest rate of major depression in the world at 36 per cent. According to doctors, roughly 10 per cent of India’s population suffers from depression – MGMH
Women with mental illness are treated as less than human. They are dumped, abandoned and abused. If there are any signs of mental illness, a woman is put in a mental hospital with no chance of getting out. Men can go back home while women are there for life. In the following video, we meet a woman whose husband had her institutionalized although she had no history of mental illness. Here’s a story of a mentally ill woman whose husband built a case against her so that he could get custody of their children after divorcing her.
It is not surprising that women suffer from depression at higher rates than men. They have to deal with gender inequality, violence, lack of paid employment, lack of education, excessive spousal alcohol use and poverty. Mothers are blamed for the birth of a female child and many face pressure to have male children. Women are diagnosed with schizophrenia later in life, oftentimes, following the birth of their children. The children are often removed from the ill mother’s care and this results in further distress for her. Indian women have higher rates of suicide than women in most developed countries and a higher rate of suicide compared to men in India. Depression is one of the most common reasons for suicide among Indian women.
Mental health in India carries with it a stigma, especially if the person suffering from mental illness is a woman. According to MGMH (Movement for Global Mental Health), in rural India, it is common to see people taking their children to temples and faith-healers instead of hospitals and doctors, especially in cases of mental health. Mental health was something that was talked about in hushed tones. Thankfully, it is no longer being swept under the rug. People are coming forward. Deepika Padukone stunned her fans last year when she admitted that she suffered from anxiety and depression.
At the time the news broke, she was one of the most sought after actresses in Bollywood. It took tremendous courage for her to disclose her illness, especially since people diagnosed with mental illness face discrimination. Deepika has since launched the Live Love Laugh Foundation to raise awareness about mental health issues and as a result many celebrities were inspired to come out in the open and address the need to talk about mental health. Varun Dhawan admitted that he was depressed during the making of Badlapur and Honey Singh revealed that he has been undergoing therapy for bipolar disorder.
Sadly, those living with mental illness are victims of a cruel fate. They are often locked away and stripped of their basic human rights in state-run institutions that are under-staffed. In an article, titled Mentally Ill Suffer a Horrible Fate in India posted on the site for Deutsche Welle (DW), most state run mental hospitals are in deplorable conditions. The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) reported that out of the 43 government mental hospitals in India, less than half a dozen are in a “livable” condition”.
There are doctors in charge of these hospitals who have no business being there. “These doctors don’t understand the intricacies of a psychiatric illnesses and the comprehensive care the patients require,” said a psychiatrist working in a state-run mental hospital in Uttar Pradesh.
And in the midst of the crisis of hospitals not providing the conditions and care the patients need, are quack healers who are profiting from this. According to a study by Dr. Shiv Gautam, former superintendent of Jaipur Mental Hospital, 68 per cent of the mentally ill are taken to faith healers before a psychiatrist. “The reason, besides superstition, is that most general medicine doctors fail to diagnose psychiatric illness,” Gautam said. “A mentally ill patient displays symptoms which superstitious people believe are paranormal,” he added. “Such patients are tortured, chained and used for extracting money from their families.” Hema, who was suffering from Schizophrenia was believed to have an evil spirit. Her family took her to Datar Sharif Dargah where she spent a year locked up. It wasn’t until her condition deteriorated that she was brought to Dr. Gautam. In 15 days, she began to improve and a month later she was normal.
In other cases, the mentally ill are subjected to one of these horrific ordeals: whipping, caning, inhaling burnt chili smoke, having their eyes smeared with chili paste or having their eyes branded with red, hot coins. There are laws banning this practice, however, many dargahs and temples keep the patients chained. Some of them spend the rest of their lives like this. In 2001, 26 patients perished in a fire at a dargah in a coastal village because they couldn’t escape the blaze since they were chained. What a horrific and senseless tragedy.
Families of mentally ill people opt for dumping them. This means that they are dumped into an asylum where the conditions are not fit for a human. When an illegal asylum was raided, they found thirty-five men and six boys living in inhuman conditions. The stench from their unwashed bodies and the excrement drove neighbors to alert the health department. Naked and chained inmates were discovered, dumped there by their families after they paid the asylum owner. Some of these poor souls were found crawling in their excrement, some even consuming it. On their bodies were marks of torture. Some had surgical scars on their backs, leading to allegations that the asylum had links to kidney theft. 78 patients had entered the asylum but only 41 were found during the raid.
Other patients are dumped in jungles or forests ranges. Their families pay lorry drivers to drop them. Women and children are among these victims and in some cases, the females are raped by the drivers before being dumped. Social activist Murugan S. who has rescued countless mentally ill people from the streets, cautions us not to judge the families by calling them cruel. Instead we are to examine what forced them to take such extreme measures. He believes that system needs to change.
Part of the solution is raising awareness. The suffering of the mentally ill has been brought to our attention. It is out in the open. The next thing that needs to be done is to show the superstitious and fearful society that mental illness is nothing to run away from or to be ashamed of. The person suffering from mental illness needs love, support and most importantly, proper care so that he or she can live a normal life.
The government needs to put something place to ensure that patients are placed in reputable, sanitary facilities that will provide the care that they need and to ban the operation of illegal asylums and the practice of dumping. Quack healers should be banned from profiting from other people’s suffering. Husbands should not be allowed to institutionalize their wives if there is no record that they have mental illness.
No one wants to be mentally ill but it is a reality for many people and what they need is to know that they have a platform where they can talk about what is happening with them. Here in Canada, we have Bell Let’s Talk, a wide-reaching, multi-year program designed to break the silence around mental illness and support mental health all across the country. It has done so much to fight the stigma of mental illness and encourage people to get involved in educating themselves and others.
It is my sincere hope and prayer that something will be put in place in India so that attitudes toward mental illness would change and those suffering from it will have a platform where they would not be judged, dumped, abandoned or discriminated but supported and be treated with dignity and open minds. In the meantime, let’s keep talking and raising awareness.
Talking is the best way to start breaking down the barriers associated with mental illness – Bell, Let’s Talk
I never expected any sort of success with Mockingbird. I was hoping for a quick and merciful death at the hands of the reviewers but, at the same time, I sort of hoped someone would like it enough to give me encouragement. Public encouragement. I hoped for a little, as I said, but I got rather a whole lot, and in some ways this was just about as frightening as the quick, merciful death I’d expected. – Harper Lee, quoted in Newquist, 1964
Just found out that Harper Lee, author of To Kill A Mockingbird, died this morning in her sleep at the age of 89.
I never read the book but loved the movie. Scout’s friend, Dill Harris, was inspired by Harper’s childhood friend and neighbor, Truman Capote. Capote mentioned that the character Boo Radley was based on a real man who lived down the road from where the two friends lived. “In my original version of Other Voices, Other Rooms I had that same man living in the house that used to leave things in the trees, and then I took that out. He was a real man, and he lived just down the road from us. We used to go and get those things out of the trees. Everything she wrote about it is absolutely true. But you see, I take the same thing and transfer it into some Gothic dream, done in an entirely different way.”
To Kill A Mockingbird was an immediate success, winning the Pulitzer Prize. Through the eyes of two children we see racism in Alabama during the Great Depression when a black man goes on trial for the rape of a white woman. Harper dealt honestly with the issues of tolerance and justice in a divided Southern society. One of the scenes that I remember was when Atticus and his children faced a vicious lynch mob in the middle of the night.
The novel is renowned for its warmth and humor, despite dealing with the serious issues of rape and racial inequality. The narrator’s father, Atticus Finch, has served as a moral hero for many readers and as a model of integrity for lawyers. One critic explains the novel’s impact by writing, “In the twentieth century, To Kill a Mockingbird is probably the most widely read book dealing with race in America, and its protagonist, Atticus Finch, the most enduring fictional image of racial heroism.” – Wikipedia
Notes to Women salute Harper Lee who was not afraid to address serious issues such as rape and racial inequality.
The book to read is not the one which thinks for you, but the one which makes you think. No book in the world equals the Bible for that.
From childhood on, I did sit in the courtroom watching my father argue cases and talk to juries.
Notes to Women congratulate Victoria Kaspi for being the first woman to win the Gerhard Herzberg Gold Medal, Canada’s top Science award in its 25 year history. This long overdue win is a reminder that gender inequality is prevalent in Canadian Academia.
Mario Pinto, President of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council who hands out the prize, acknowledged that this was a very important moment. “It signals to girls and young women that Science is exciting and it’s possible to achieve the highest honour.”
It is unfortunate that it has taken this long for a woman to win this prestigious prize but Dr. Pinto believes that the reason for this is women account for only 14 per cent of the scientists who receive funding from the Research Council at the full professor level and only 9 per cent when the life sciences are excluded.
Dr. Kaspi was born in Austin Texas. She spent her earliest years in the United States and Israel before the family moved to Montreal, her mother’s hometown. Growing up, Dr. Kaspi did not have a particular interest in space or Astronomy. She loved hockey and had an avid interest in logic and mathematical puzzles. Her love for Science came when she was a teenager and took her first course. She studied Physics at McGill and it was at Princeton University where she became interested in the work of Astrophysicist, Joe Taylor who would later win the Nobel Prize. Dr. Kaspi worked at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology before eventually returning to McGill and Montreal where she feels most at home.
Life is busy for Dr. Kaspi who is raising three children with her husband, cardiologist David Langleben which leaves her little time to do much else. As a result, she has to work late into the night when she is better able to concentrate on her research. It would be a tremendous weight off the shoulders of female faculty members if the universities would do more to support them so that they don’t have to choose between their professional success and family life. When it comes to her research, Dr. Kaspi needs more flexibility. “Research is not a 9-to-5 job. You get inspired, you have an idea, you’re dying to solve it, and within the confines of all these constraints that are imposed on you, it’s hard.” At 48, she considers herself lucky that she was not a victim of the overt sexual harassment as a young researcher but is aware of the gender issues on campus.
We share the sentiments of Christine Wilson, a McMaster University Astronomer and President of the Canadian Astronomical Society who praised the selection of Dr. Kaspi as this year’s gold medal winner. “The fact that she is the first woman ever to receive the Herzberg Medal is the icing on the cake for me.”
Let us hope that it will not take another 25 years for another woman to achieve this honour.
