Women's Voices For Change

Barbara Corcoran, Positive Thinker—The Secret Sauce of Success

By Cecilia M. Ford, Ph.D.

Striving to do your best is a worthwhile goal, but perfection in all things is impossible. Worse, it is a destructive goal.

Film & Television

‘My Cousin Rachel’ — Black Widow or Frustrated Feminist?

By Alexandra MacAaron

'My Cousin Rachel' offers up a fascinating, if unfinished, portrait of a woman’s attempt to buck a system that affords her less autonomy than her intelligence and sensitivity demand.

Health

Heat Exhaustion and Heatstroke: Awareness, Prevention, Diagnosis and Treatment

By Patricia Yarberry Allen, M.D.

Every year on average, extreme heat causes 658 deaths in the United States—more than tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, and lightning combined.

Poetry

Poetry Sunday: “Nothing Gold,” by Ethna McKiernan

By Rebecca Foust

Today’s poem is a sad one, but in it the speaker’s great love for her father shines through, and that makes it beautiful. In telling her story, the speaker shows how well she has been taught by her father, and his great love for literature lives on in her person and writing, a living legacy and a wonderful poem for Father’s Day.

Lifestyle

Molly Fisk: Naked Lady Pearsauce

By Molly Fisk

Until I moved to this house, I didn't know what to do with a plethora of pears, but last fall some friends and I decided if you could make applesauce then you could certainly make pearsauce, and we spent a weekend in a steaming kitchen proving this.

Money & Careers

Channeling Your Career Narcissism

By Phyllis Cohen

There’s a fine line between disruptive narcissism at work that breeds distrust, and healthy narcissism that spawns the creation of ideas and productivity.

Health

Psychiatric Medication Improves Lives

By Cecilia M. Ford, Ph.D.

While many people may be too quick to turn to psychiatric medications, there are many others who let prejudice and misconceptions keep them from a valuable source of help, and that is a shame.

Film & Television · Health

‘Orange is the New Black’ Season 5: Inmates Running the Asylum

By Alexandra MacAaron

Season five picks up at the precise moment we left off, and the tension doesn’t really abate. The thirteen 60-minute episodes transpire over the course of just 72 hours or so, during and immediately after the high-stakes riot and prison takeover.

Health

Summer Sun and Skin Health

By Anetta Reszko, M.D., Ph.D.

Now that we finally had some summer weather this weekend, it is time to think seriously about sun protection and other ways to maintain healthy and glowing complexions. We know that over 70 percent of UV radiation exposure occurs in the summer months so sun protection is essential.

Poetry

Poetry Sunday: “Quotidian,” by Bonnie Wai-Lee Kwong

By Rebecca Foust

The simple everyday things—having a house to repair, a child who is alive and cooing, a glass of water to drink—here become paramount so we see them afresh for the gifts they are.

Lifestyle

Molly Fisk: In the Details

By Molly Fisk

Part of my work is to remind us all, myself included, that the details matter. They have made us who we are, and will be with us through to the end.

Health

Women and the Opiod Epidemic: A National Emergency

By Cecilia M. Ford, Ph.D.

Women have been particularly hard hit by the opioid epidemic. Across America, they are dying more often, and at younger ages, than ever before. This is especially true for white women—death rates for blacks and Hispanics are continuing to fall. There has been a 400 per cent increase in overdose deaths among middle-aged white females from 1994 to 2014.

Film & Television

‘Wonder Woman’: Saving the World, One Woman at a Time

By Alexandra MacAaron

It’s thrilling that less than a week into its run, 'Wonder Woman' is enjoying the critical and commercial success that it is. But, in some ways it’s also unfair. There is more weight than one film by one director about one woman should bear.

Ask Dr. Pat · Health

Perimenopausal Heavy Bleeding: Is It Normal?

By Patricia Yarberry Allen, M.D.

Physiological change in the menopausal transition will cause many alterations in hormonal, physical and emotional aspects of life, but it is not the cause of every symptom in a woman past age 40. New symptoms must always be evaluated.

Poetry

Poetry Sunday: “Let Them Not Say,” by Jane Hirshfield

By Rebecca Foust

Whether or not we share the chagrin and distress felt by the speaker in “Let Them Not Say,” we are all undeniably part of a generation that will be judged by future generations. We all have skin in this game. That is a powerful message, regardless of which side of the current political controversy you now occupy.

Lifestyle

Molly Fisk: Choosing Community

By Molly Fisk

One way I support the community is to go to weddings and funerals. Weddings used to make me jealous or cynical, and funerals made me too sad. But I've changed.

Books

Elizabeth Strout’s Luminous Short-Story Collection, ‘Anything Is Possible’

By Cecilia M. Ford, Ph.D.

Interrelated stories by the most acute observer of human behavior writing fiction today.

Film & Television

‘Paris Can Wait’: Travels with Diane

By Alexandra MacAaron

How refreshing to find a smart woman d'un certain âge as a romantic central figure in a mainstream movie.

Family & Friends · Health

Memorial Day: A Day To Remember Those Who Died In Active Military Service and Those Left Traumatized

By Patricia Yarberry Allen, M.D.

There are those of us who mourn those who returned to lives that were never fully lived due to post traumatic stress.These men, in their 80s and 90s, still talked about the recurring nightmares, the unexpected flashbacks, the isolation that they had endured after the war was over.

Poetry

Poetry Sunday: “End of the Line,” by Kate Peper

By Rebecca Foust

If literature and poetry are ways to remember our beloved dead, they can also be ways of mourning the unborn. Who will remember us after we are gone? It’s a question this poem asks and to which is itself its own answer.

Lifestyle

Molly Fisk: Unmatched Windows

By Molly Fisk

So I wanted lots of windows in the new house but new windows, as you know, aren’t cheap.

Menopause

Suddenly, Menopause: Dealing With the Psychological Impact

By Cecilia M. Ford, Ph.D.

A large-scale study conducted in Britain in 2008 concluded that “women who undergo hysterectomy at a young age are a defined group who may require more support than other women to maintain good psychological health.”

Film & Television

‘The Lovers’ — What Goes Around, Comes Around

By Alexandra MacAaron

Some of these middle-aged rom-coms (I call them,“mom-coms”) are pretty good. Some are pretty bad. But, at this point, they’re all pretty predictable. 'The Lovers' is anything but.

Health

Surgical Menopause Before 40: What to Do When Standard Treatment Fails

By Patricia Yarberry Allen, M.D.

It is best to start with the lowest possible dose for control of menopausal symptoms both for safety of use and to minimize the side effects that some patients have.