‘Well, No, You Don’t Have To Have Children’: What African Women Over The Age Of 60 Have Learned About Life

Sylvia Arthur recording the thoughts and recollections of Fatou Jabang and Awa Senghore, in Kartong, in the south of the Gambia. Photograph: Sarjo Baldeh/AWOHOWA/National Geographic Society

BY SYLVIA ARTHUR

Women across west Africa have a life expectancy of 59. In a rare project, Sylvia Arthur set out to give voice to those who have lived beyond expectation, whose experiences have been largely overlooked

Addra insists that his aunt, Anyessi Dossou, does not have a story to tell. “She’s just an old woman who’s never left the village,” he says, as he guides us along dirt tracks in fading light to her home in Avlo, Benin.

When Dossou, in her early 80s, emerges from her room in the compound house she shares with generations of her extended family, the conversation begins hesitantly. “I told you,” Addra says.

Then the levees break. Asked about her husband, Dossou recounts the impact of being widowed at a young age and raising five children. She speaks of small joys and triumphs, and of the intense heartbreak of losing a son. She describes her life now as an older woman and the loneliness she feels in her bones. Dossou clearly has a story. “I’ve never heard her talk like that,” Addra concedes.

At 59, life expectancy of women in west Africa is the lowest of any female population in the world. In 2023, I started to chronicle a history of the region through the experiences of older women, largely overlooked in official narratives.

In 100 interviews with women over the age of 60 in villages and towns on the coasts of Benin, Togo, Sierra Leone and the Gambia, covering how they live, love, survive and thrive, there were many stories. The commonality was in almost all having defied stereotypes, not just in terms of age but in breaking social and cultural barriers.

These are women who are farmers and traders, teachers and seamstresses, businesswomen, mothers, trade unionists and community leaders.

Marie-Thérèse Fakambi, 70, Benin: a midwife

As one of eight siblings from her father’s four wives, Marie-Thérèse Fakambi was her mother’s only child. She enjoyed a bucolic childhood in a large polygamous household in western Benin. Under her mother’s guidance, she left for the commercial capital, Cotonou, to study midwifery, and graduated three years later.

“When I started, on 25 January 1980, the place where I was assigned had no electricity. We worked using a small oil lamp called a luciole during deliveries and even to stitch women up when there were tears.”

Although she has never married or had any children of her own, Fakambi sees herself as a mother to the 5,000 children she delivered throughout her 18-year career, many of whom she still knows and who now have children of their own.

Of her own mother, she says: “She cried all the time until she died. The fact that she didn’t have any more children, and that I didn’t have any, hurt her.”

Fakambi saw things differently. “At one point, I told myself, ‘Well, no, you don’t have to have children.’ My sister has children, my brother has children, and they treat me well. So what’s the problem?”

Now retired, Fakambi is able to indulge her other passion: organising traditional marriage ceremonies, known as dots. She takes pride in bringing together young couples embarking on marital life. “I love it!” she says. “Since I started, I’ve done about 18. It brings me great joy.”

During the Covid-19 pandemic, two of her brothers died in quick succession, Fakambi was appointed head of her extended family, a position traditionally held by men. “People have developed a certain trust in me, which allows me to lead them, but men are difficult, and it’s not easy.

“Everyone has their gift,” she says. “This is mine.”

Méwounèsso Tchetike, 74, Togo: a woman who broke the cycle of child marriage

As a child in Koumaye, Togo, Méwounèsso Tchetike had her life mapped out for her. Born into a farming family, as the fourth of five children, she would help on the land as soon as she could walk, assist her mother in selling the produce at market, and be initiated into womanhood at about 13 before being married off and having her own children, repeating the cycle of generations of women before her.

Despite a significant decline in child marriages over the past 30 years, one in four girls in Togo become wives before the age of 18. Kara, Tchetike’s home region, has the second-highest rate of child marriage in the tiny country.

Tchetike’s father betrothed her to the son of a neighbour before she was born. The price was a dowry of grains to be paid annually until Tchetike was ready to be given over to her husband’s family. When that time came, although Tchetike had reservations, she could not go against her father’s will.

“It would bring shame on my family,” Tchetike says. “Everyone in the village would ostracise us and accuse us of stealing our neighbour’s grain over the years.”

Six decades later, and now living in the capital, Lomé, Tchetike is still married to the man she was pledged to; his “senior wife”. But now about 74 (she does not know her exact age) and a mother to five, including two girls, she will not be repeating the patterns of the past.

When asked if she would ever arrange a marriage for her daughters, Tchetike breaks into a throaty laugh. “Never! Never, never, never! They wouldn’t stand for it, and I’d never do it.

“Let them choose their own husbands,” she adds. “I don’t want any trouble.”

Isatou Jarju, early 80s, and Isatou Madeline Jarju, 69, the Gambia: women who rule the river

“Around this creek, from where we are standing to the other end,” Isatou Jarju says, pointing across the Hallahin River, “there is no one who can beat me when it comes to oyster farming.”

She does not know her exact age – Jarju says she was “crawling when the Burma war started”, which would put her in her early 80s – but she knows: “Around this creek, there is no one who can swim better than me.”

Fishing is traditionally done by men, but women run the physically demanding oyster trade in Kartong, in the Gambia’s south, from harvesting in mangroves to processing and selling.

Jarju has been exerting her authority for decades, training young people in how to navigate the river and teaching them methods that have been handed down over generations. “I educated my children from this creek. I had 12; one is a doctor. Each one has something to hold on to after graduating.”

Several years ago, Jarju delegated leadership to her younger sister, Isatou Madeline Jarju, president of the 200-member Women’s Oyster Association. “I didn’t go through formal education, but Isatou did. I told her, ‘You are going to be our clerk, and you will be our go-to person whenever we are in need of support.’”

Isatou Madeline Jarju has travelled across Africa and Europe, learning about and teaching oyster farming and securing funds to develop the village, including the installation of toilets.

A divorced mother of five, she fosters local children at risk of abandonment. “In my home, I’m the husband,” she says. “I do what a man should do. Nowadays, it’s difficult to feed the children, but I’m happy because I’m in nature and working with the women.”

“Don’t talk about men,” the older sister says when asked about the role men have played in Kartong’s development.

“Men are just a hindrance,” she says. “They are the definition of driving a vehicle backwards. When I stand here, they will all say that the owner of the creek is back. That is who I am.”

Yetunde Adwoa Sillah Beckley, 73, Sierra Leone: a woman rebuilding history

Yetunde Adwoa Sillah Beckley’s life is rooted in remembrance. Born in Ghana to a Nigerian mother and a Ghanaian father, whose ancestries can be traced back to Sierra Leone, she is a proud Creole, a descendant of freed enslaved people from the Americas who established the capital, Freetown, in 1792. “My people were pioneers,” Beckley says. “Everything I do is in their memory.”

Based in the village of Kent on the Freetown peninsula, in the house her great-great-great-grandparents built, Beckley felt compelled to expand on their legacy. Notable within the community for the well they dug on their land, which supplied the purest water in the area, it sustained generations of her family and many others.

During Sierra Leone’s civil war, which lasted from 1991 to 2002, the well was destroyed and Beckley fled to Freetown. But on her return she committed to rebuilding her ancestors’ well. “I wanted to do something that would last,” she says. “It took some time, but I’m happy I was able to do it.”

Beckley’s daughter, who is in her 40s, also lives on the family land with her own children. She helps her mother run the small community grocery shop at the front of the main house, which sells oil and fresh produce. She has plans to complete an outbuilding her grandparents started before she was born, which has fallen into disrepair.

Meanwhile, Beckley’s dream is to return to Ghana to reconnect with her relatives, whom she lost touch with during the war. “I’m west African,” she says. “My people are everywhere.”

Addra did not give his first name

This project was supported by the National Geographic Society. A Women’s Oral History of West Africa is a five-part podcast series that tells an alternative history of postcolonial west Africa through the lives of women over 60, in their own words. It is available on awomensoralhistory.africa

This article was amended on 4 August 2025. Méwounèsso Tchetike is about 74, not 70, as an earlier version said.

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The Oyster Farmers Paving The Way For Women In West Africa

Oysters are sorted and measured for size and quality Credit: Jason Florio

BY JESSAMY CALKIN

Known as ‘the smiling coast of Africa’ the Gambia is a lively little country which wriggles through the middle of Senegal like an intestine. The river after which it was named starts in Guinea, and runs 700 miles directly through the Gambia to Banjul, where it joins the Atlantic Ocean.

It is not somewhere one might immediately associate with oysters, yet oysters are one of the mainstays of the Gambian diet – high in protein and essential nutrients, they grow prolifically on the roots of the mangroves that border the many tributaries of the river.

We are not talking about raw oysters served on an elegant dish with a slice of lemon and Tabasco and a glass of Picpoul; these oysters are shucked, cooked and sold in the market for 60 dalasi (about 60p) for a large cupful; tiny little things that look like mussels and are often served in a stew.

But oyster harvesting is a tough job, and 98 per cent of the people who do it are women. During the designated oyster harvesting season – which is four months of the year, from March to June – the women take canoes out on the water at low tide, and chip the oysters off the roots of the mangroves with small axes.

They then have to be sorted, shucked and cooked, before being sold at the market. It’s an arduous job, especially because many of the women can’t swim – there is no swimming culture in the Gambia, the river is something to be afraid of – so drowning is not uncommon. They have only very basic facilities where the preparation is done, with limited access to fresh water, and they have to rent canoes.

But thanks to an initiative called Fish4ACP, which was launched in 2022 by the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organisation) and partly funded by the EU and Germany (and, until recently, USAID) support and resources are on hand for the women: swimming lessons, lifejackets, canoes and new cultivating initiatives which will increase productivity and improve standards of living.

An unlikely sounding player in this is the founder and owner of the very successful Whitstable Oyster Company, James Green, who has been employed by the FAO since 2022 in an advisory capacity, to improve oyster productivity. Using coupelles and grow bags means that oysters can be cultivated in parts of the river where the water is at its purest. Cooking the oysters kills the pathogens and algotoxins, but the eventual aim is to be able to sell raw oysters to Gambia’s many tourists. Hopefully, this will come to fruition next year.

Green, who studied marine biology and has a Masters in Aquaculture, has been here several times over the last three years. “It takes 12-18 months for an oyster to grow here in Gambia, because it’s warm. In England it can take up to three years. My part of the project is to source a fresh oyster product: a quality individual oyster that people can have on the half shell, with a bit of lime or lemon juice.”

Another new initiative of the oyster industry, to supplement income, is a handicrafts and jewellery project, using the shells of oysters and other shellfish, which are painted and laminated and crafted into jewellery. The idea behind this is also to attract younger women into the business (known as ‘the young ones’) who might be put off by the hard grafting of hacking and shucking, but are interested in the creative side.

So we begin with a visit to Lamin, a village south east of Banjul in Tanbi wetland. Development is frenzied in Banjul and its surrounding areas and the roads are fringed with multitudes of unfinished buildings.

Traffic has dramatically improved thanks to a new three lane road, which was years in the making. There used to be only one traffic light in the country, our driver tells us, and people would use it as a landmark: ‘Go right at Traffic Light.’ And there was also only one roundabout, which was known as Turntable. “When it was first built, people didn’t know what it was and drove over it.”

At Lamin Lodge there is a lot of activity: women are cleaning oyster shells and painting them. Around the hut – indeed all over every beach we saw – are huge piles of discarded oyster shells like shingle, often with tiny goats climbing all over them. (The shells can be burned and reduced to lime to make paint, but that takes a lot of wood and costs more than it’s worth in labour and fuel.)

Profit from the sale of the jewellery is reinvested in buying materials and infrastructure for the handicrafts project, which is the initiative of TRY Oyster Collective, a community-based organisation with about 600 members (which is one of the beneficiaries of Fish4ACP) working to improve livelihoods and raise standards of living.

A lot of women in West Africa work in the shellfish sector; I am told that men tend to think that harvesting oysters is not worth their time; they stick to fishing, which is responsible for 12 per cent of the country’s GDP. But fishing here, like in many other African countries, has been vastly depleted by Chinese-owned trawlers and fishmeal factories, making it harder and harder for the local fishermen to make a living.

Fatou Jahna Mboob is the director of TRY, which she founded in 2007; a formidable and warm-hearted woman who has devoted herself to empowering the oyster women, and protecting the local ecosystem.

One of her goals is to get the younger generation on board. “One mother told me that harvesting oysters is very hard and they are only doing it in order to get a better education for their children – it is not how they want their children to end up, struggling in the water. But their children can do both – go to school, and work in oysters. Once you’ve been educated, and learned to swim, you can contribute a lot more.”

Thanks to Fatou, TRY now has exclusive harvesting rights in the Tanbi wetland complex, which covers about 6000 hectares, over two thirds of which is mangroves. Previously the women would cut the mangroves to remove the oysters, now they chip them off, which is arduous but more sustainable.

Further east along the river, at Kubeneh, the oyster harvesting is in full swing. Supervised by James Green, the women are removing rubber spat collectors (known as coupelles) from a wooden rack in the river, in the intertidal zone, where they have been languishing since October – to be stripped of their bounty. When oyster larvae attach themselves to a surface, it is known as spat, which will grow into adult oysters.

These oysters will be transferred to Kartong, where the water has been tested, to be put in the river to grow. “We take them off the spat collectors and put them into floating bags,” says Green, “and then you have to maintain the stock to keep the oysters individual – they’ve got a propensity to settle on other oyster shells and you don’t want oysters clumped together like on mangroves because you can’t sell those as a fresh product. The bags are secured to anchored floating lines where they stay for another year to grow into a market sized oyster.”

There is a gentle breeze as the women sit underneath the neem tree, shucking cooked oysters. Their hands are covered in callouses, but they are very lively and cheerful. Any excuse for shouting and singing. Lunchtime – spicy Pempem – soon turns into a song and dance session, with James and Khadija Diallo, project co-ordinator of the FAO, dragged in for good measure.

“We couldn’t find the right guy until James came along,” says Diallo, “but it was clear that he knew what he was doing; he listens to the women, and guides them – he’s been here several times and he’s like family to these communities. He understands the culture which is very important.”

There are 16 separate oyster gathering communities on the west coast of the Gambia. Fatou Sambou is the president of the Kubeneh community, which has grown from 15 members to 44 in the last two years (the youngest being 21 and the oldest 70) and has a backstory which is fairly typical: now aged 54, she never went to school and her parents were farmers.

She started working in oysters after she got married. She works on the oysters during the season, the rest of the time she picks up crabs and cockles; anything to help feed her six children (one of her own and five nephews and nieces who she has adopted.) Her husband lives in Senegal, where he has two other wives. “The oyster community is like my family – we look after each other and respect each other.”

The following day, in Kartong, we are beside the Allahein river on the border with Senegal, one km from the sea, and James and the oyster women are fixing plastic fasteners to the special bags that the oysters which we have brought from Kubeneh will be placed in to grow – about 300 oysters to each bag.

Marie Demba is 44 but looks much younger. She never finished school as both her parents died when she was young, and she has worked in oysters ever since leaving school. How has the oyster business changed since then?

“We had no money and struggled – we used to only be able to charge 10 dalasi (10p) for a cup – now it’s 60 dalasi. We are like a family now, this association.” The season finishes next month, and for the rest of the year she is a fish smoker, which is very bad for the lungs, and she has been hospitalised. “Others do gardening – grow okra, sorrel, onions, and sell them in the market.”

We wait until the tide is out and then climb in a boat. The boat trip is a rowdy affair – the women are wearing life jackets, special footwear and gloves. They take the bags and attach them to specially constructed floating racks; then check the cuprolles that are already in place there.

The following day we go to another site – Old Jeshwang, so I can see what the oyster harvesting in the mangroves is like. While we wait for the tide to be right, I talk to some of the women about their lives, and meet Alice, who is 26, a young man called Lima Manga, who does data collection for TRY, and Andrea, a volunteer and self-confessed ‘oyster nerd’ from Maine, USA who is researching the benefits of oysters for the environment.

Alice was studying to be an accountant but had to give up her studies when her father became sick; now she is involved with the handicrafts and helps her mother with shucking. Her mother wants her to continue her education, and not be an oyster harvester. “My mother says, ‘Look at my hands! Do you want to look like this?’”

Fatou tells me that TRY has helped the women manage their finances; and taught them how to save. Everyone keeps their own profits, but each community contributes a small amount to a central fund which helps out if someone is sick or needs a loan. “Before they didn’t use banks – sometimes they would bury their money under piles of oyster shells.” The involvement of the young will help, she thinks, they all speak English learned at school, for a start, and they know how to use technology.

Our boatman takes us out on the river to follow the women in their canoes who are headed for the mangroves. After about a mile we find a place where the oysters are deemed big and plentiful enough. The women use a small axe to hack the oysters off the mangroves and they all sing as they do it and shout, and tease each other. They have a way of making everything into a party here. When one of the women drops her axe in the water they all stop to help her

It is clear that being able to swim is crucial. “Believe it or not, most of these women never knew how to swim,” says Khadija. “There have been incidents of drowning that are never reported – they’ve seen family members washed away. It’s not our culture here in the Gambia, but we explained the benefits – to keep safe, and how it would boost their productivity.

“However we had to get permission from spouses and community leaders in order to implement the training programme. We have seven female instructors in the navy. Some women did not mind being trained by men. Others were very conservative – so we divided them into groups accordingly. Some of the women are elderly, and the Navy trainers – who are all young – showed them respect and earned their trust before they started to teach them.”

Several members of the Gambian Navy are waiting for us at Lamin the following day, for a swimming lesson, along with a medical team of three, who take people’s blood pressures and listen to their hearts, to make sure it’s safe for them to go into the water. If they find a problem, they will prescribe medicines. All statistics are carefully noted in a ledger by an army sergeant.

In the river, a man and his children are washing the family goat. After the First Aid session about 20 of the the women – aged from 26 to 72 – all get ready for the river in a bizarre assortment of outfits, and the Navy instructors – mostly men but a couple of women – put them through a quick aerobic work out, led by 42 year old Ibrima Colley, who is extremely tall and fit.

They jump in. Firstly they do floating exercises (the water is warm and buoyant and slightly salty as we are only three miles from the sea) looking like a bunch of slightly unruly synchronised swimmers, then there is some general stroke practise followed by a lifesaving demonstration and then a quick race. Funded by Fish4ACP, it’s a six week programme, with four sessions a week. So far, 150 women have been trained – and more sessions are scheduled for October.

Colley has been in the Navy for 19 years. “We’ll work whenever there is funding to employ us because we feel it’s our social responsibility to share life saving skills with the people who are seafarers.” This reduces the demand for one of the Navy’s other jobs – rescue operations.

“When I was a kid if we swam in the river, we would get flogged when we came home. Most of our parents couldn’t swim so they were afraid of water. We would sneak to the river, then find some fresh water in a well and rinse ourselves so when we got home they couldn’t tell that we’d been swimming.”

Oyster season is about to draw to a close and James is preparing to leave. The goal is to be able to serve up the first raw oysters to tourists next year – on newly established National Oyster Day in May. In a country where the fish supplies have deteriorated and the population is growing, the oyster sector is increasingly important to the economy and the livelihood of women, and the Gambian model is paving the way in West Africa.

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Chimamanda To The Fore, As Black Writers Look For Positives From Sales Rise

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Manny Jefferson)

BY ALEX CALL

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has just pipped children’s author Rachel Renée Russell to the top of the list of the UK’s bestselling Black authors, according to data from NielsenIQ BookScan’s Total Consumer Market (TCM). Ngozi Adichie’s books have earned £834,615 across the first 24 weeks of 2025 – largely thanks to her latest novel Dream Count, which was published at the beginning of March and accrued £648,011 across 43,823 copies.

Such is the dearth of Black authors at the top end of the TCM data that even stripping out Dream Count – which is the 109th bestselling book of the year so far – the Nigerian-born author would still be in seventh place in the Black authors Top 20, an increase on her ranking of 18th in the equivalent period in 2024.

A note about the data – NielsenIQ’s data does not include ethnicity data on the authors in its charts, so a manual sift-through has led to the compilation of this data. And while every care has been taken to compose an accurate list, we may be missing an author or two.

To give some context to the size of the task, in the Top 250 ranking of all writers, there are just four Black authors. We have had to look through the Top 1,000 authors to find the first 19 on our list, with Benjamin Zephaniah just outside that list of 1,000. Interrogating that statistic reveals that a mere fraction of the UK’s book sales are generated by Black authors: taking up 1.8% of the slots in the Top 1,000, this Top 20 only accounts for 1.6% of the money spent.

Meanwhile, the 2021 census estimates that 4% of the UK’s population is Black, with a further 1.3% describing themselves as Mixed White/Black African or Mixed White/Black Caribbean – suggesting that, with all things equal, we should be seeing at least another 30 Black authors in the Top 1,000.

Just under half of the £5m that has been spent on those authors comes from the top three alone, with Russell and Percival Everett appearing alongside Ngozi Adichie in the overall Top 100 bestsellers of the year thus far.

It is Everett who has the bestselling title from a Black author in 2025, setting aside Benjamin Dean’s World Book Day (WBD) title This Story Is a Lie for a moment. Everett’s James – which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2024, won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2025 and last month, perhaps most prestigiously, was awarded the Nibbie for Fiction Book of the Year – has sold a total of 77,473 copies in mass-market paperback since its end-of-February launch and is one of only three Black-authored titles to appear in the overall UK Top 100.

The other two slots are taken up by the previously mentioned Dean and his WBD stable-mate Joseph Coelho whose All Poems Aloud (illustrated by Daniel Gray-Barnett) interested 20,000 fewer children than did Dean’s offering.

At this point in 2024 there were also three books from Black authors in the TCM Top 100, however in this instance they were all £1 WBD titles – given away by booksellers in exchange for the WBD voucher handed out to children across the country. It is not until position 126 on the chart that we find the first non-WBD Black-authored title – The List by Yomi Adegoke – which sold 40,465 copies, just over 37,000 units fewer than Everett’s James.

So far in 2025, £5.1m has been spent on the Top 20 Black authors – that is roughly the same amount of money earned by Sarah J Maas’ titles, significantly less than the amount spent on Dav Pilkey, Rebecca Yarros and Julia Donaldson, respectively, and roughly half the amount generated by revision guides from CGP.

Still, one glimmer of hope is that figure is up 11.9% on the bestselling Black authors in 2024, when the list could only take 1.4% of the total pie. At this rate of growth, the market sales will reflect the UK-wide demographics in just under two decades.

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Labor Women Make History By Overtaking Men In Cabinet. So Is The Job Done?

Anthony Albanese’s full ministry. Lukas Coch/AAP

AUTHORS:

ELISE STEPHENSON

DEPUTY DIRECTOR, GLOBAL INSTITUTE

FOR WOMEN'S LEADERSHIP,

AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY

BLAIR WILLIAMS

LECTURER IN AUSTRALIAN POLITICS,

MONASH UNIVERSITY

The Albanese government has achieved a striking gender equality milestone following its election for a second term.

For the first time in Australian history, there will be more women than men in federal cabinet.This comes more than 120 years after women were first allowed to stand for federal parliament, and decades after Labor established its gender quota strategy.

Taking into account the full caucus, women will comprise 56% of the Labor party room, a clear record.

Across all parties and the crossbench, women now make up a record smashing 49.1% of parliament. As recently as 2021, the Inter-Parliamentary Union ranked Australia a lowly 73rd out of 193 countries for women in ministerial positions in national parliaments. The influx of women at this election should see us rise to equal seventh place.

Looking beyond gender, the 48th parliament is shaping up to be more diverse than ever before, driven in large part by the scale of Labor’s win at the election.

Women’s place

Labor women now easily outnumber the men in both chambers: 54% in the House of Representatives and a likely 63% in the Senate, once results are finalised.

Anthony Albanese’s new cabinet – the very top of the decision making process – is made up of 12 women and 11 men.

By contrast, Liberal prime minister Tony Abbott could find space for only one woman – Julie Bishop – in his cabinet in 2013.

The numbers improved under his successors Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison, whose first cabinet comprised 26% women.

Despite the historic number of current women cabinet ministers, the key positions of leader, deputy leader and treasurer are all still men.

Problem solved?

Albanese’s new cabinet is certainly a win for women’s representation. But have we achieved equality? Can we go home now? In short, no.

That’s because the other side of the chamber has a very different record.

Women are critically underrepresented in the parliamentary Liberal and National parties. They make up just 28.5% of the former coalition across both chambers – a slight increase on the previous parliament.

However, women comprise just 21% of Liberal and National MPs in the lower house, a decline of three percentage points. This has sparked renewed calls from some conservative quarters to introduce quotas.

Sussan Ley has made history as the Liberal Party’s first female leader. However, there are already indications she has inherited a “glass cliff” position, given she was elevated after a catastrophic failure at the ballot box.

Further, having more women in parliament does not guarantee substantive representative or inclusive policy-making. While some research shows women tend to advocate on female issues, a higher number of women politicians does not automatically mean more feminist policy.

Full ministry

Taking into account other characteristics, Albanese’s first ministry was the most diverse in Australia to date. But he hasn’t made advances with his second frontbench.

The retirement of Linda Burney cuts the number of First Nations ministers to just one – Malarndirri McCarthy.

The demotion from cabinet of Ed Husic — the first Muslim elected to federal parliament — and Mark Dreyfus, who is Jewish, reduces the cultural and linguistic diversity of ministers.

Penny Wong is still the lone “out” LGBTQIA+ minister and there are currently no openly disabled people in the ministry.

The average age of frontbenchers is 51. Only two ministers are under 40 – Communications Minister Anika Wells and newcomer Sam Rae.

Of the 42 frontbenchers who make up the full ministry, 23 are men and 19 are women.

Across the parliament

Beyond gender, almost one quarter of Labor members in the lower house identify as culturally and linguistically diverse, 1% as LGBTQIA+, 2% with a disability and 2% as First Nations. In the Senate, almost one in seven identify as culturally and linguistically diverse, 6% as LGBTQIA+, 6% as First Nations and none with a disability.

This is the first election where Gen Z and Millennial voters made up a larger share of the electorate than Baby Boomers. Yet only three Labor parliamentarians are younger than 35.

Charlotte Walker is expected to win the third ALP senate spot in South Australia. This would make Walker, who turned 21 on election night, the first federal politician born in the new millennium.

More work to do

Despite the progress, it’s clear from a deeper analysis that parliament as a whole still doesn’t mirror the people it represents.

Roughly one quarter of Australians are born overseas, yet we’re not seeing this same diversity filter through to parliament.

Eight First Nations MPs and senators will sit in parliament, down from 11 in the previous parliament.

People with disability are underrepresented. They comprise over 20% of the population but are not yet elected to parliament in similar numbers.

Pinning all our hopes and dreams for better disability policy on the one or two people with disabilities in politics is unfair.

Diverse candidates

The Global Institute for Women’s Leadership assessed the number of candidates from diverse backgrounds – women, self identifying LGBTQIA+, CALD, disability and First Nations – who were preselected by the main parties for the election.

The results were:

Greens 30%
Labor 26%
Coalition 24%
Others (independents and minor parties) 12%

Parliament falls a long way short of reflecting the diversity of the electorate because not enough diverse candidates are being chosen to run for seats.

But for future elections, inspiration can be taken from Labor’s strong gains achieving, and surpassing, gender parity.

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Woman-To-Woman Marriage In West Africa: A Vanishing Tradition Of Power And Agency

BY BRIGHT ALOZIE

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR,

PORTLAND STATE UNIVERSITY

Marriage in west Africa has played a central role in shaping aspects of society, and has evolved over time. While traditional heterosexual unions dominate discussions, a lesser-known but significant practice – woman-to-woman marriage – has existed for centuries.

In my research, I examined this institution, which allows a woman to assume the role of a husband by marrying another woman. There’s evidence of woman-to-woman marriage in more than 40 societies across west Africa, including the Igbo of Nigeria, the Frafra of Ghana and the Dahomeans of present-day Benin.

How it works is that a woman – often wealthy or of high status – pays a bride price and takes on a wife who is expected to bear children. A male relative or chosen partner, known as the genitor, fathers the children. The children will legally belong to the female husband and are considered part of her lineage. This reinforces kinship structures, or family ties within traditional communities and clans, vital to west African societies.

Unlike romantic same-sex unions, these are social contracts. They aim to preserve lineage, secure inheritance, and enhance a woman’s economic and political agency.

Female husbands gain significant control over property by assuming the role of head of household. This enables them to own and manage assets independently, a right typically reserved for men.

Securing heirs through their wives ensures the continuation of their lineage and the inheritance of their property and status. It solidifies their long-term agency and influence within the community.

The union also grants them more legal standing – they can enter into contracts, resolve disputes, and represent their family in legal matters, further empowering them in a patriarchal society.

This all translates into considerable influence. Female husbands can hold positions of authority, and command respect. They challenge traditional gender roles.

Colonial distortions and modern misconceptions have obscured the meaning and function of this historically prevalent practice. Despite its important role, it has declined over time. With growing stigma, the old customs have become less common.

My research seeks to underscore the historical value of woman-to-woman marriage. It offers a lens for understanding the complexities of African gender systems, female agency and social structures.

Tradition rooted in kinship and social stability

Using a combination of oral interviews, archival research and literature reviews, I found that there are various scenarios in which woman-to-woman marriage is practised in west Africa.

In Okrika, in Nigeria’s Rivers State, for example, I was told how a married woman who has no male child in her family is allowed to marry a woman so that a male child can be born into the family. If her marriage does not produce a male child and she has money, the culture allows her to marry more than one wife as long as she can take care of them and the union can produce a male child to carry the name of her family.

In my interview with Chief Nkemjirika Njoku, of the Mbaise Igbo in Nigeria, he described another scenario. He explained that if a man died without male heirs, his daughters could pay a bride price for a woman to bear children in his name. This ensured his lineage did not disappear.

Similarly, among the Frafra people of Ghana one study shows how:

a wealthy woman may marry one or more women for her husband by providing the bride wealth. These women bear children in her name in the event of her being childless or to offer extra labour.

These accounts illustrate how marriage and kinship complement each other and how this practice provided women with economic influence and social mobility, often rivalling men’s.

Colonial disruptions and modern challenges

Despite the tradition’s important role, during the 19th century European colonial officials and Christian missionaries misunderstood and condemned the practice.

Viewing it through a Victorian moral framework – rigid and conservative values of 19th-century Britain which emphasised strict gender roles, sexual restraint and moral purity – they mistakenly equated it with homosexuality and sought to outlaw it. For instance, in 1882 British colonial authorities in Ghana criminalised same-sex relations. These laws included woman-to-woman marriages, despite their deeply rooted cultural significance.

The practice persisted in various forms, however, but did become less prevalent.

In some cases, the unions were subtly restructured to avoid colonial scrutiny. Participants framed them more as business partnerships or familial arrangements rather than marriages. For instance, many prominent traders would use the unions to expand their wealth and business networks. Among the Hausa-Fulani textile traders of the Sokoto Caliphate, for example, a wealthy widow could marry a woman to manage her trade. This ensured that children born within the union inherited her wealth.

Subverting or reinforcing patriarchy?

Today, woman-to-woman marriage remains misunderstood. Some argue it reinforces patriarchal structures, while others conflate it with lesbian relationships.

The growing influence of Christianity and Islam has led to its stigmatisation. Meanwhile modern legal systems fail to recognise the unions, leaving female husbands and their children vulnerable in inheritance disputes.

Advancements in reproductive technology provide alternative means for childbearing, reducing the need for these marriages.

In my opinion, though, this tradition remains a valuable and powerful system. It highlights the ingenuity of African societies in creating alternative structures of power, kinship and economic security – especially for women.

Based on my research I concluded that woman-to-woman marriage is an example of flexible African gender constructs. Gender is not strictly tied to biological sex but to social roles and responsibilities. African societies have creatively adapted marriage and kinship to meet economic and social needs.

More than a marriage practice, woman-marriage has been an assertion of female agency, an economic strategy, and a means of preserving lineage.

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The FACE Act Was Enacted To Protect Reproductive Health Clinics − Here’s Why Its History Matters Today

People attend the annual March for Life rally on the National Mall on Jan. 24, 2025, in Washington, D.C. Kent Nishimura/Getty Images

BY MICKI BURDICK

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF 

WOMEN & GENDER STUDIES,

UNIVERSITY OF DELAWARE

Soon after taking office for a second time, President Donald Trump pardoned anti-abortion activists who had blockaded and restricted access to the entrance of a reproductive health clinic in Washington, D.C., in October 2020.

These protesters were convicted of violating the federal Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act. Protesting outside clinics is a way for conservative anti-abortion activists to directly influence access to reproductive health care.

The FACE Act prohibits the use of force or threat toward people trying to obtain or provide reproductive health services. It was created to limit the anti-abortion movement’s tactics outside clinics, requiring that protesters cannot physically stop patients from walking into clinics and receiving care.

But demonstrations outside of clinics are still common. My own research has shown the effectiveness of the anti-abortion movement in influencing the landscape and language of reproductive health care and politics in the U.S. through actions such as protests outside clinics.

In Trump’s second term, the Justice Department has said that it will not prosecute demonstrators unless there are “extraordinary circumstances” or in cases involving “significant aggravating factors” such as “death, serious bodily harm, or serious property damage.”

In this post-Roe v. Wade moment, I argue that it is important to know the history of the FACE Act.

History of protests against abortion

The FACE Act was signed by President Bill Clinton in 1994 to guarantee access to abortion and reproductive health care that was, at the time, protected by the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision under the 14th Amendment.

Clinics that provide abortions have been subject to public harassment since the early 1970s, particularly following the expansion of access to abortion and reproductive health care more generally.

After the passage in 1970 of Title X of the Public Health Service Act, which authorized federal funding for reproductive health services, abortion opponents began staging protests. But public support for reproductive rights, including abortion, was growing – along with the relaxation of government restrictions on the procedure.

Abortion foes also protested the legalization of abortion in New York state that same year. Following the legalization, the first Planned Parenthood health center to provide abortion services was established. The legalization in New York eventually led to the Roe v. Wade decision that protected abortion at the federal level.

By the 1970s, the movement against abortion had become a cohesive coalition of conservative Catholics and Protestants. They argued that providing reproductive health care was immoral because they believed that life begins at conception. The white evangelical anti-abortion movement, which followed, pursued many of the physical blockade and other tactics of early Catholic groups.

Operation Rescue, founded in 1986, was one of the largest evangelical groups that protested outside of clinics. During its protests, the movement’s members held up signs with images of aborted fetuses to scare patients into leaving the clinic. They also sat or lay down in front of clinics, using their bodies to physically block patients from entering.

About 1,000 people were arrested for blockading clinics through Operation Rescue on Oct. 30, 1988. Evangelical and Catholic groups working together, such as the Pro-Life Action League, still use these same tactics today.

FACE Act to protect clinics

The FACE Act protects clinics from being physically threatened, blockaded or damaged. It also protects patients going into clinics from being physically or verbally harassed.

Before the FACE act, protests frequently turned violent. In March 1993, David Gunn, an abortion provider and clinic director, was shot and killed by an abortion opponent outside a clinic in Pensacola, Florida, as he was walking in to work. Since 1993, at least 11 people have been killed in abortion clinic attacks in cities across the country, including Buffalo, Birmingham, Wichita and Boston.

The FACE Act was one of the first laws to physically protect reproductive health clinics. Several state and local laws created “buffer” zones around clinics, which were upheld by the Supreme Court decision Hill v. Colorado of 2000. This case upheld a Colorado law that prohibits individuals from approaching a patient within 8 feet of a health care clinic to protest or distribute educational materials. However, only three states and five municipalities have successfully passed buffer laws so far.

There continues to be pushback. In February 2025, the Supreme Court refused to hear arguments challenging existing local buffer laws. However, many anti-abortion advocates continue to bring related cases, citing their rights to protest under the First Amendment.

Tactics of protests

A key aspect of these protests is the concept of “public witness.” Public witnessing draws from the evangelical belief of witnessing – testifying about God’s message to save people’s souls. Protesters outside clinics believe they are sharing God’s truth through acts of disobedience, including singing, praying and reciting scripture loudly during clinic hours.

Contemporary activists in the anti-abortion movement call these tactics “sidewalk counseling,” believing they are counseling patients walking into reproductive health care clinics about the dangers of abortion while standing on the sidewalk in front of the clinic. These activists tell patients that abortion causes infertility, mental health disorders and cancer – claims that have been medically debunked.

Today, anti-abortion activists often congregate outside clinics on days they know a doctor will be on site to provide abortion care. I’ve interviewed many of these protesters, some of whom scream and cry as they lay prostrate on the sidewalk; they blast Christian music to distract and disorient patients seeking medical care.

Protesters sometimes also use violent tactics near the clinic. In 2012, protesters set fire to a Planned Parenthood clinic in Wisconsin; in 2020, they threw a Molotov cocktail at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Florida; and in 2022, they attached locks to the gate of a New York clinic and poured glue to seal it.

What happens if the FACE Act goes away?

At the annual March for Life national anti-abortion demonstration on Jan. 24, 2025, one of the major celebrations was Trump’s pardon of anti-abortion extremists. There was also a call to repeal the act that imprisoned them in the first place and a bill introduced in Congress that would repeal prohibitions related to the FACE Act.

If the FACE Act is repealed, I argue that this will empower anti-abortion advocates to continue clinic blockades and other direct actions that will prevent patients from seeking reproductive health care.

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Butchers, Bakers, Candlestick-Makers − And Prostitutes: The Women Working Behind The Scenes In Papal Avignon

The papal palace in Avignon, where the pope’s court was based for much of the 14th century. Jean-Marc Rosier from http://www.rosier.pro/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA

BY JOELLE ROLLO-KOSTER

PROFESSOR OF MEDIEVAL HISTORY,

UNIVERSITY OF RHODE ISLAND

In the medieval church, women’s roles were limited – usually some form of enclosure and celibacy, such as becoming an anchoress walled up alone for life, or a nun in a classic convent. On the other extreme were a few dramatic examples of women who made history for the church while flying in the face of gender norms: heroes such as Joan of Arc.

The full truth, though, is more complicated. Medieval women were there all along, even in priests’ own houses. In her book “The Manly Priest,” historian Jennifer Thibodeaux reminds us that while celibacy was always the church’s ideal, it was not truly enforced until later in the Middle Ages. At least until the 11th century, some priests had wives and children who were not considered illegitimate. Even after the 14th-century Black Death, clerical households with wives and children thrived in Italy.

As the church’s notions of illicit sex and illegitimacy hardened, however, its attitudes toward women did, too. Medieval scholars – all men – defined women’s temperament in negative terms: Women were libidinous, frivolous, unfaithful, capricious, unpredictable and easily tempted. They required constant surveillance and were kept away from clerics, at least in theory. They certainly could not hold overt positions in the pope’s court unless they were his mother or sister.

Still, another reality emerges. The church may not have seen women as equals, but nevertheless, their work was key to the workings and finances of the papal court and its surroundings. The fact is made obvious in the archives by simply following the money. It was hardly glamorous work but necessary for the functioning of the papal court.

Vatican payroll

The Vatican Archives’ account registers make it possible to trace who was paid and for what at the medieval papal court in Avignon, where the papacy was based for most of the 14th century. Amid the tedious task of deciphering various medieval shorthand systems, which organize expenses into categories such as “extraordinary wages,” “liturgical ornaments,” “war expenses” or “wax account,” I encountered surprises: Women appear in the lists of salaried employees at the medieval papal court.

Furthermore, they were involved in tasks that “touched” the leader of the church. Even a pope’s clothes need making, mending and washing. Women crafted an ornate style highly appreciated by the pontiffs – glorifying them with pure white linen and gold embroidery. The Vatican Apostolic Archives’ Introitus and Exitus, medieval financial records, provide substantial evidence that women made sacerdotal ornaments and garments.

Between 1364-1374, the registers recorded the pope’s launderesses – women otherwise lost to history. Among them were Katherine, the wife of one Guillaume Bertrand; Bertrande of St. Spirit, who washed all the papal linens upon his election; and Alasacie de la Meynia, the wife of Peter Mathei, who did the pope’s laundry for the Christmas festivities of 1373 and is mentioned again in 1375.

These women were all wives of officers at the papal court. Records identified them by their full name, which was not the case for everyone on the pope’s payroll. This is important: The records gave them real presence, unlike most female laborers.

Later records were less clear. Between the 1380s and 1410s, liturgical garments were made and washed by various women, including the unnamed wife of Peter Bertrand, a doctor of law; Agnes, wife of Master Francis Ribalta, a physician of the pope; another Alasacie, wife of carpenter John Beulayga; and the unnamed wife of the pope’s head cook, Guido de Vallenbrugenti – alias Brucho.

Only one woman, Marie Quigi Fernandi Sanci de Turre, appears without a male relative. As time progressed, women’s names were not systematically recorded.

Most of these later women, too, were married to curial officers who maintained rank at court by working in trade, medicine or the military. Women were never paid directly; their husbands collected their salaries. Still, this was not “unseen” labor but a salaried occupation, explicitly recorded.

Working day – and night

Many other women immigrated to work in Avignon. According to a partial survey of the city’s heads of households in 1371, about 15% were women. Most had traveled far and wide – from elsewhere in present-day France, as well as Germany and Italy – to reach the papal court and a chance at employment.

Of the total female heads of household, 20% declared an occupation. The range of these women’s trades is staggering. There were fruit-sellers, tailoresses, tavern-keepers, butchers, candlemakers, carpenters and stonecutters. Women in Avignon worked as fish-sellers, goldsmiths, glove-makers, pastry-bakers, spice merchants and chicken-sellers. They were sword-makers, furriers, booksellers, bread-resellers and bath-keepers.

Bathhouses, the “stews,” were often brothels. Prostitution was considered a legal occupation in Avignon and controlled by the church. Marguerite de Porcelude, known as “the Huntress,” paid an annual tax to the diocese for her lodging. Several prostitutes rented tenements from the convent of St. Catherine, and Marguerite Busaffi, daughter of a prominent banker, owned a brothel in the city.

In 1337, the marshal of the Roman court – the highest secular judicial officer – taxed prostitutes and procurers two sols per week. Pope Innocent VI, scandalized by the practice, annulled it in 1358.

Still, because of the general taint associated with the sex trade, the church attempted to reform prostitutes and convert them into nuns. The Avignon popes locked them up in a special convent, the Repenties, set up far from the center of town.

Eventually, the establishment became a form of prison for “unruly” women – those who were pregnant out of wedlock. But for some hundred years, groups of ladies of the night took vows and lived as nuns there, controlling the affairs of their own convent with an iron fist.

In the 1370s, Pope Gregory XI offered the nuns and their donors a plenary indulgence, a forgiveness of sins. They followed a rule emphasizing that regardless of their pasts, abstinence and continence could make them spiritually “chaste.”

The ladies of the convent left detailed records of the properties they acquired. In 1384, its leaders petitioned the papal treasury, demanding arrears they were owed from a priest’s donation – and received what was due. Few medieval women had the chutzpah to petition a court for past dues, much less the pope’s. The Repenties did.

READ ORIGINAL STORY HERE

An Average Of 140 Women And Girls Were Killed By A Partner Or Relative Per Day In 2023, The UN Says

People take part in a march marking the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, in Lima, Peru, Saturday, Nov. 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Guadalupe Pado)

BY EDITH M. LEDERER

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The deadliest place for women is at home and 140 women and girls on average were killed by an intimate partner or family member per day last year, two U.N. agencies reported Monday.

Globally, an intimate partner or family member was responsible for the deaths of approximately 51,100 women and girls during 2023, an increase from an estimated 48,800 victims in 2022, UN Women and the U.N. Office of Drugs and Crime said.

The report released on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women said the increase was largely the result of more data being available from countries and not more killings.

But the two agencies stressed that “Women and girls everywhere continue to be affected by this extreme form of gender-based violence and no region is excluded.” And they said, “the home is the most dangerous place for women and girls.”

UN Women’s Deputy Executive Director Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda told a news conference launching the report that women have been killed by their loved ones for a long time and the trend is continuing because underlying issues haven’t been addressed — especially gender stereotyping and social norms.

“This is killing which is associated with power over women,” she said, and it continues because of the continuing impunity for violent attacks against women.

Gumbonzvanda, a Zimbabwean and longtime advocate for women’s rights, said there is “a lot of perpetrator anonymity” when it comes to the killing of women by partners or family members because “it means the family members have to bring justice against another family member.”





UN Women is campaigning for those with economic and political power and for leaders in various traditions not to use their power to perpetuate violence. “Power should be used to facilitate options for prevention,” she said.

According to the report, the highest number of intimate partner and family killings was in Africa – with an estimated 21,700 victims in 2023. Africa also had the highest number of victims relative to the size of its population — 2.9 victims per 100,000 people, it said.

There were also high rates last year in the Americas with 1.6 female victims per 100,000 and in Oceania with 1.5 per 100,000, it said. Rates were significantly lower in Asia at 0.8 victims per 100,000 and Europe at 0.6 per 100,000.

According to the report, the intentional killing of women in the private sphere in Europe and the Americas is largely by intimate partners.

By contrast, the vast majority of male homicides take place outside homes and families, it said.

“Even though men and boys account for the vast majority of homicide victims, women and girls continue to be disproportionately affected by lethal violence in the private sphere,” the report said.

“An estimated 80% of all homicide victims in 2023 were men while 20% were women, but lethal violence within the family takes a much higher toll on women than men, with almost 60% of all women who were intentionally killed in 2023 being victims of intimate partner/family member homicide,” it said.

The report said that despite efforts to prevent the killing of women and girls by countries, their killings “remain at alarmingly high levels.”


“They are often the culmination of repeated episodes of gender-based violence, which means they are preventable through timely and effective interventions,” the two agencies said.

Survivor Brings Awareness To Link Between Alcohol Consumption And Breast Cancer

BY JIM ALKON

It might be shocking and humbling to learn that a nice glass of Pinot Noir at the end of a stressful day can be related to cancer activity, but I’ll Have a Double by Juliana Hastings is a brave and honest eye-opener about self-sabotage by women diagnosed with breast cancer. In this bracing, instructive and inspiring work, Hastings takes women who have been diagnosed with breast cancer on a journey of self-assessment to acknowledge the degree to which they are creating a hospitable environment in their bodies for the disease to recur.

In this Q&A with the author, readers get more insights into Hastings’ own experience and what she learned along the way.

Q: Your book highlights the connection between alcohol and breast cancer. What do you think are the most common misconceptions women have about the safety of moderate drinking, and how do you address them in your book?

A: It’s astonishing to me that there is so little awareness of the causal link between alcohol consumption and breast cancer, and especially breast cancer recurrence. Women, including breast cancer survivors, just don’t know. If they have knowledge, they can make better decisions. My book shares my own learning journey and presents an easy-to-read summary of some of the latest scientific findings that are compelling in the story they tell: alcohol causes breast cancer.

Q: How did your own journey shape the advice you offer about lifestyle changes?

A: Like all women who experience a breast cancer diagnosis, mine was a complete shock. I was leading what I thought was a healthy life. At my first consultation, my oncologist asked me how much alcohol I typically consumed … hmmm, 7-10 glasses per week? She sternly told me that I was indulging in very unhealthy behavior, and to cease immediately. I was taken aback. So being a “why” person, I began my own research process. I found the science that demonstrates the causal relationship between alcohol and breast cancer immediately — and then more about how lifestyle choices regarding food, drink, exercise and sleep can exert a positive relationship on cancer and other conditions. The journey continues.

Q: What were some of the most surprising findings of your research?

A: The surprise is the clear and irrefutable nature of the causal relationship of alcohol to breast cancer and breast cancer recurrence. I also found that sugar is fuel for cancer cells. So if you have cancer, stop the alcohol and sugar! I’ve studied research papers and reports from all over the world, from multiple health centers and hospitals and universities. They are all in agreement. So there’s a second part to this surprise, that this knowledge is not more widely disseminated or broadly understood.

Q: Many breast cancer survivors face ongoing anxiety about recurrence. How do you suggest balancing a proactive approach to health with the mental and emotional challenges that arise from living with this fear?

A:There’s a positive mindset for breast cancer survivors: that we can improve our post-diagnosis and post-treatment life both physically and emotionally. I had to admit that my body was hospitable to cancer. But there is the possibility of changing that: making our bodies inhospitable to recurrence. We can take charge and take responsibility. We can dedicate ourselves to the purpose of making our future health better than our past health, of gathering the knowledge about how to make that possible, and making lifestyle decisions about alcohol, diet, exercise and demeanor. There are no guarantees, but plenty of reasons for a bright outlook.

Q: What role do you believe medical professionals should play in encouraging patients to adopt healthier lifestyle choices after a cancer diagnosis?

A: I was so lucky that my oncologist gave me the alert that triggered my investigation and uncovered for me all the research I present in my book. And there’s plenty more that there just wasn’t space to include. I understand that doctors might sometimes be reluctant to urge lifestyle changes on patients who might be in a fragile condition. They might feel like they’re overstepping their boundaries or applying too much pressure when reassurance is more indicated. I’d like to see all medical professionals do what my oncologist did — make women aware of breast cancer risk factor information that’s available to them and to consider recurrence probabilities in treatment and post treatment decisions. Patients need that information!

Q: What words of inspiration can you offer women who may feel powerless in the face of such a complex disease to take control of their health?

A: There’s a section toward the end in my book about the Impartial Spectator — it’s a power of your inner self that’s always at hand, observing your behaviors, your decisions, and always knows the right thing to do. Sometimes we ignore the Impartial Spectator, but it’s always there to guide us with the best advice. I urge all women to locate and nurture their own Impartial Spectator, give it the knowledge that’s available and rely on this inner strength as the best guide. It can cut through all complexity and bridge all uncertainty. The Impartial Spectator will be honest with us when we are lapsing in our drive to make our bodies inhospitable to cancer and will get us back on the right track. It’s there for everyone, and never fails us.

Juliana Hastings embodies the role of a fiduciary for women navigating the challenges of breast cancer. In this capacity, she takes on the profound responsibility of advocating for their best interests, even when the choices she proposes are difficult or unconventional. Like a fiduciary in the financial world who safeguards a client’s assets, Juliana is committed to protecting the health and well-being of women facing the uncertainty of a breast cancer diagnosis.

Her advocacy is rooted in a deep understanding of the physical, emotional and psychological challenges that come with breast cancer. Juliana’s “anti-cancer mindset” is not just a philosophy; it’s a framework designed to help women make informed, empowered decisions about their health. She champions tough but necessary choices — like eliminating cancer-promoting substances such as alcohol and embracing proactive self-care — not out of convenience, but out of a steadfast commitment to their long-term survival and quality of life.

As a fiduciary, Juliana recognizes that her role involves more than just sharing information; it requires leading with empathy, courage and unwavering support. She understands that the path she advocates may be challenging, but she stands firm in her conviction that these choices are in the best interest of the women she serves. Through her guidance, Juliana ensures that women with breast cancer are not alone in their journey — she walks alongside them, fiercely defending their right to a healthier, more resilient future.

READ ORIGINAL STORY HERE

‘Childless Cat Ladies’ Have Long Contributed To The Welfare Of American Children − And The Nation

Katharine Bement Davis (Wikipedia)

BY ANYA JABOUR

REGENTS PROFESSOR OF HISTORY

UNIVERSITY OF MONTANA

Parenting, single people and the U.S. birth rate have assumed a greater place in the 2024 presidential campaign than any race in recent memory.

Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance was widely rebuked for criticisms he lodged in 2021 against “childless cat ladies,” saying they have no “physical commitment” to the country’s future.

In August 2024, Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, also a Republican, piled on, saying Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris has no children to “keep her humble,” even though she’s stepmother to two children who call her “Mamala.”

As a historian of women, families and children in the U.S., I see these biological definitions of motherhood as too narrowly conceived. The past can serve as a reminder that other forms of mothering are important, too.

My research offers a broader perspective on women’s experiences of mothering and a deeper understanding of how women without biological children contribute to the nation and its future.

‘Mothers of all children’

One such woman was Katharine Bement Davis, the subject of my current research.

Born in Buffalo, New York, in 1860, Davis was a member of a generation of “new women” who pursued higher education, built professional careers and fought for political rights.

Other women of this generation included Nobel Peace Prize winner Jane Addams, public health nurse Lillian Wald, prison reformer Miriam Van Waters, child welfare advocate Julia Lathrop, social work pioneer Sophonisba Breckinridge and first lady Eleanor Roosevelt – to name just a few.

Of this group, only Roosevelt had children of her own. But all of them saw themselves as “mothers of all children,” as one historian has described juvenile justice advocates. Accepting responsibility for the nation’s welfare, they used their identity as public mothers to shape American politics.

In a 1927 letter to her college classmates, Davis whimsically reflected on her life choices:

“First, I am still an old maid; therefore, I cannot write interesting things about my husband and children, (and) how I have treated him and how I have raised them. First and last, however, I have had a good deal to do in the way of looking after other people’s husbands and children.”

Indeed, Davis’ life illustrated the many meanings of motherhood.

Like many ostensibly childless women, Davis was a doting aunt. With her unmarried sisters, Helen and Charlotte, she helped care for her only niece, Frances, whose mother died when she was just a toddler. In the mid-1920s, Frances lived with all three aunts while attending school in New York City.

Black feminist scholars call this sort of arrangement, long practiced in African American communities, “othermothering.”

Davis and other white women of her generation also engaged in the practice of caring for children, whether through formal adoption or informal caregiving. For instance, Breckinridge helped raise her nieces and nephews, while Van Waters legally adopted a daughter.

‘Maternalism the coming great force in government’

Throughout her life, Davis used what she called “the methods of motherhood” to promote public welfare.

After teaching school in western New York , establishing a playground in a working-class neighborhood in Philadelphia and supervising young offenders in upstate New York, Davis became New York City’s first female commissioner of correction in 1914.

Only months into her term, male inmates at Blackwell’s Island Penitentiary staged a major riot. Davis quelled the rebellion and established her own authority by addressing the refractory prisoners like wayward children. “You fellows must behave,” she pronounced. “I’ll have it no other way.”

After successfully using “motherly methods” to regain control of “the bad boys of Blackwell’s Island,” Davis proclaimed that “maternalism” was “the coming great force in government.”

Echoing her colleagues in the suffrage movement, Davis used the language of maternalism to promote women’s voting rights. Like other feminist pacifists, she believed that women were “the mother half of humanity.” Finally, like many women activists in the U.S. and Europe, she believed that all women – whether they had children of their own or not – were responsible for all children’s welfare.

Insisting that “wise motherhood” was essential to better government, Davis argued that women needed the vote – and that the nation needed women voters. Maternalist activists also promoted juvenile justice, parks and playgrounds, health care programs and financial assistance for needy families and children, laying the groundwork for the modern welfare state.

Giving women the right to choose

While she promoted public welfare and demanded political rights, Davis also advocated for what she and her contemporaries called “voluntary motherhood” – the idea that women should be able to control their reproductive lives.

Davis supported efforts to overturn the Comstock Act of 1873, which defined contraception and abortion as obscene and made distributing birth control information or devices through the U.S. postal service a federal crime.

States followed federal precedent by adopting “mini-Comstock Laws” criminalizing birth control. By the 1920s, however, some states permitted physicians to prescribe contraceptives – such as diaphragms and spermicides – to protect the health of their female patients.

When she surveyed 1,000 married women for a study of female sexuality in the 1920s, Davis found that most of her study subjects used contraceptives. In addition, nearly 1 in 10 reported having had at least one abortion, even though the procedure was illegal in every state.

And when Davis asked the women about their views on contraception – or as the survey put it, “the use of means to render parenthood voluntary instead of accidental” – she found that about three-quarters of them approved of it.

When the childless take charge

So-called childless women like Davis have shown that they have a stake in children’s welfare, women’s welfare and the nation’s welfare.

Over the past century, maternalists and feminists often have worked together to achieve their aims. Indeed, sometimes they were the same people.

But today, it seems that Republican politicians are attempting to drive a wedge between mothers and others. As a recent New York Times article put it, “the politics of motherhood” have become a “campaign-trail cudgel.”

However, as Davis understood, many issues that affect mothers are important to all women. Moreover, Davis believed that everyone – not just biological mothers – shares the responsibility for the health and welfare of future generations. Finally, she insisted that women should control their own destinies.

So, was Davis a childless cat lady?

Well, a grainy photo of her cuddling a kitten suggests that she did love cats.

As for her childless status, when you consider the full range of her work on behalf of the nation’s children, the answer becomes a bit more complicated.

READ ORIGINAL STORY HERE