May’s day: A woman takes the U.K. helm

July 14, 2016

When Barack Obama was elected president of the United States, the satirical newspaper The Onion ran an article that said the country was now badly mucked enough to be run by a black man. (Actually, the word The Onion used rhymed with “mucked,” but then I think you knew that.)

To which we might add that the world is now badly mucked up enough – again, still – to be run by women. Tomorrow Theresa May, home secretary of the United Kingdom, will become only the second woman in that country’s history (after Baroness Margaret Thatcher) to become prime minister. Already, she has distinguished herself from Lady Thatcher by announcing that half her cabinet will be made up of women. ...

Will this be the century – the millennium – of women?

July 5, 2016

I boldly predicted to a publicist-friend the other day that Theresa May would be the last man standing, so to speak, in the Brexit scandal and become the new PM. I also believe Hillary Clinton will be the next president and Elizabeth Warren, her secretary of state.

You never want to make bold predictions, because they have a way of not coming true. But what is clear is that we’ve been moving toward an era of greater female political power and why not? As Brexit continues to demonstrate, there’s nothing quite like a man when it comes to mucking things up. And women – bless their little detail-loving hearts – would seem better-suited to the day-to-day nitty-gritty of governance.

Perhaps more important, they’re less likely to let their egos get in the way of doing a job. ...

Crouching tiger, hidden dinosaur

June 18, 2016

There’s a lot of sports stuff we could talk about this week – including Andy Murray reuniting with former coach Ivan Lendl in an attempt to stop Novak Djokovic’s bid for the Grand/Golden Slam. (Nole fan though I am, I’m all for the “It’s the eye of the tiger,; it’s the dream of the fight, rising up to the challenge of a rival” attitude Murray has adopted. Nothing worthwhile comes easily. There’s no point in lying down for an opponent. And no champ worthy of the name would want a competitor to roll over. I think Nole knows the Grand/Golden Slam will mean nothing if he doesn’t earn it.

But there are two ways to think about sports. Like the arts, they can take us outside ourselves. And there are moments when they simply pale in the wake of tragic events. ...

‘SHE’ and ‘the woman’s card’

May 2, 2016

With apologies to Dickens, this seems to be the best of times and the worst of times to be a woman.

At a moment when women dominate higher education and professional schools, they stand on the threshold of one of their own achieving for the first time the highest office in the United States and becoming the most powerful person on the face of the earth.

On the other hand, Hillary Clinton’s opponents seek either to demonize her and her sex, ridiculing her for playing “the woman’s card” (Donald Trump), or to throw chivalry into sharply false relief by confining women to the gilded cage of the pedestal (Ted Cruz) and the nostalgia of the kitchen (John Kasich).

And that’s the good news. Murder; rape; genital mutilation; sex slavery; child marriage; forced conscription into terrorists squads; a lack of access to education, employment, health care and reproductive rights; cyber death threats to and bullying of female sportswriters (a subtheme of my forthcoming novel, “The Penalty for Holding”) and, that old standby, unequal pay for more-than-equal work: The challenges and atrocities that women face are staggering.

All of which makes the incandescent “SHE: Deconstructing Female Identity” – at ArtsWestchester in White Plains, N.Y. through June 25 – a most timely exhibit indeed.

Organized by Kathleen Reckling, the brilliant gallery curator and an avowed feminist, “SHE” considers that identity and the woman’s card through what have traditionally been three power centers for women – their bodies/nature, the home/domesticity and fashion. ...

Equal pay for equal work in tennis – second set

April 19, 2016

It’s an issue that’s not going away any time soon, because it’s not easily resolved. In the wake of a wage-discrimination suit brought by several women’s soccer players against U.S. Soccer, tennis has been held up as an equal opportunity sport. But that was debunked in a recent New York Times article that explored not only the gap between male and female players’ pay but the disparity in the attitudes of the sexes on the subject.

Noting that the Grand Slam tournaments – Wimbledon and the Australian, French and US Opens – have equal prize money, Billie Jean king, who fought long for that equality, said, “To have equal prize money in the majors sends a message. It’s not about the money, it’s about the message.”

Trust me, it’s about the money. Because the money is the message. ...

Greek to me: Met opens “Pergamon,” unprecedented Hellenistic show

April 13, 2016

“So,” a publicist at The Metropolitan Museum of Art asked teasingly, “are there enough Alexanders for you?”

She knows me only too well. Lover of the ancient Greeks that I am, there can never be for me enough images of Alexander the Great – the Greco-Macedonian king whose conquest of the Persian Empire in 331 B.C. ushered in 300 years of Hellenism (Greek culture) in Asia, reversing the course of cultural influence from East-West to West-East, and underscoring a tension between East and West that is still with us.

And yet, there I was in the first gallery of “Pergamon and the Hellenistic Kingdoms of the Ancient World” (April 18 through July 17), surrounded by Alexanders. ...

Equal pay for equal work – in sports and life

April 9, 2016

This has not been the best moment in the relationship between the traditional sexes. (And we have to say “the traditional sexes” when talking about men and women, because we are moving toward a time when people will define themselves as something other or by no gender at all.)

The situation between the sexes has gotten tense on the campaign trail – as we have practically daily proof – but recently the battle shifted to the sports world as five veterans of the U.S. women’s soccer team charged the U.S. Soccer Federation with pay discrimination in everything from per diems to compensation for participating in exhibitions. This despite the women’s superior achievements to the men’s team.

“We continue to be told we should be grateful just to have the opportunity to play professional soccer and to get paid for doing it,” Hope Solo told “Today.” “In this day and age, it’s about equality. It’s about equal rights. It’s about equal pay. We’re pushing for that.”

This comes on the heels of a misogynistic rant by Raymond Moore, then CEO of the BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells, Calif., in which he said that the women rode the coattails of the men in tennis and that they should get down on their knees in gratitude. ...