Dear Dorothy, I’m heartbroken and confused. My wife and I have been married for 18 years and we have three kids. Last week while my wife was away visiting her parents, I stumbled on her private journal, which she has kept over the years. I have never bothered to know what she writes in her journal but that day, curiosity got the better of me and I sat down to flick through it. I wish I had not. In one of her entries, she said she missed not marrying her first love, the man she lost her virginity to. She…
Author: Pride Team
Bertie Vidgen, University of Oxford The deadly attack on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, in which 50 people were killed and many others critically injured, was streamed live on Facebook by the man accused of carrying it out. It was then quickly shared across social media platforms. Versions of the livestream attack video stayed online for a worrying amount of time. A report by the Guardian found that one video stayed on Facebook for six hours and another on YouTube for three. For many, the quick and seemingly unstoppable spread of this video typifies everything that is wrong with…
Nox Makunga, Stellenbosch University Children’s ideas about what their gender means for their intellectual capacity are formed before they have even turned six. One idea that’s particularly pervasive and dangerous is that, only boys are good at maths and science. Popular media only exacerbates the problem. Research has shown that girls hardly ever see adult women doing jobs that involve science, technology, engineering and maths on television programmes. Children’s programmes also rarely feature women doing anything scientific. These early stereotypes may lead to young girls developing a “fear” of these subjects throughout their schooling. This ultimately limits their career aspirations.…
Ruthellen Josselson, Fielding Graduate University The individual story told in the former first lady’s bestselling memoir is emblematic of the best-case version of women’s development and fulfillment. Penguin Random House Michelle Obama’s “Becoming” can be read in many ways: as a political memoir, as a story of being black and aspiring in America or as a Cinderella story that transports an ambitious black girl from a 900-square-foot apartment to a home with “132 rooms, 35 bathrooms and 28 fireplaces spread out over six floors, and a staff of ushers, florists, housekeepers, butlers and attendants for her every need.” As a…
Claire Smith, Flinders University and Jordan Ralph, Flinders University The destruction of Notre Dame cathedral is lamentable. A wonderful icon has been largely destroyed by fire. However, we should not despair. Part of the reason this loss is so upsetting is because we are immersed in a Western way of thinking that equates authenticity with preserving the original materials used to create an object or building. But not all societies think like this. Some have quite different notions of what is authentic. Iconic buildings such as the Catherine Palace in Russia and Japan’s historic monuments of Ancient Nara have been…
Holy Humour Enough for one Martin arrived at Sunday school late. Miss Walter, his teacher, knew that Martin was usually very punctual so she asked him if anything was wrong. Martin replied no, that he had been going fishing but his dad told him that he needed to go to church. Miss Walter was very impressed and asked the lad if his dad had explained to him why it was more important to go to church than to go fishing? Martin replied, ‘Yes he did. Dad said he didn’t have enough bait for both of us.’ Sunday Quote I…
I was shocked, confused, bewildered as I entered Heaven’s door, Not by the beauty of it all, by the lights or its decor. But it was the folks in Heaven who made me sputter and gasp– the thieves, the liars, the sinners, the alcoholics, the trash. There stood the kid from seventh grade who swiped my lunch money twice. Next to him was my old neighbour who never said anything nice. Herb, who I always thought was rotting away in hell, was sitting pretty on cloud nine, looking incredibly well. I nudged Jesus, “What’s the deal?…
Reading 1ACTS 10:34A, 37-43 Peter proceeded to speak and said: “You know what has happened all over Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John preached, how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power. He went about doing good and healing all those oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. We are witnesses of all that he did both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree. This man God raised on the third day and granted that he be visible,…
Dillon Thomas Browne, University of Waterloo; Nicole Racine, University of Calgary, and Sheri Madigan, University of Calgary Researchers, doctors, public health officials and parents are all trying to make sense of the impact of screen time on children. Some historians argue that every new technology has been vilified — from the printing press and television to digital technology. Others argue that the accessibility, intensity and desirability of digital media is different. And research shows that 98 per cent of children are now living in a home with an internet-connected device, with kids spending a considerable amount of their time online.…
Simon Phipps, QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute and Md. Al Amin Sikder, The University of Queensland Asthma is a chronic inflammatory disease of the lungs where the airways become so obstructed the sufferer struggles to breathe. It’s vastly more prevalent in Western societies, and usually develops in childhood. But what do we know about what causes it? Given asthma is about five times more common in Western societies, this suggests lifestyle plays a major role. And as it usually develops in childhood, many studies have attempted to look at the events that transpired in infants who did or did not…