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Between You and Me

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By Leah S. Dunaief 

Leah Dunaief,
Publisher

Cancer. Half a century ago, it was a word only whispered, so dreaded was the disease. It was considered a death sentence. People who had it were often shunned, as if it were contagious. And hospital treatments were demonic. As one cancer specialist at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston put it, “We were kind of just pushing poisons and hoping for the best.”

But cancer deaths have plummeted in the last 30 years, as scientists and physicians have greatly improved their understanding of the pathology, and treatments now target some cancer-causing genes. Likened to diabetes, cancer might be thought of as a manageable chronic disease.

What exactly is cancer?

An excellent article in this Tuesday’s issue of The New York Times science section tackled that question. “Every day, billions of cells in our body divide or die off. Once in a while, though, something goes awry, and cells that should stop growing or die simply don’t. Left unchecked, those cells can turn into cancer,” writes Nina Agrawal.

Why that happens and how to treat the problem still puzzles scientists and doctors, but there has been great progress in understanding the disease in its various forms. While they used to think that mutations of genes caused all cancer, that has turned out to be only part of the story. Some mutations lay dormant an entire lifetime and never lead to cancer.

Separate from DNA code mutations, there are epigenetic changes, changes due to our environment in the way genes are expressed, that play a huge role. These may be caused by aging, dietary and environmental exposures, and chronic inflammation.

Some chemicals have long been known to cause cancer, like asbestos and those in cigarette smoke. Air pollution is now thought to increase risk, especially for lung and breast cancers, triggering inflammation. So does eating an unhealthy diet, which “can upset the balance of our microbiome, allowing certain bacteria to grow unchecked. Scientists think this may cause chronic inflammation, which can lead to colon or pancreatic cancers,”  Dr. Davendra Sohal, a gastrointestinal oncologist, told The New York Times.

Interestingly, malignant tumors are made up of cancer cells, as well as normal cells “that have been recruited to support their growth,” according to The NYT. “Many of these normal cells are the same type of immune cells that will flood the site of an injury or infection to help heal that wound—by helping new cells multiply, generating blood vessels, stimulating new connective tissue and avoiding attacks from other parts of the immune system. These are capabilities that cancer cells can co-opt indefinitely to support their own growth.”

Epidemiologists estimate that 40 percent of cancers and cancer deaths can be caused by controllable risk factors. These include cigarette smoking, sun exposure, alcohol use and excess body weight. Some infections, for example, caused by hepatitis B and C viruses, human papillomavirus and H. pylori bacteria, can also cause certain cancers, according to the article.

Understanding better how the immune system works has opened up a new treatment field called immunotherapy, using T-cells, immune system fighters produced or processed by the thymus gland that kill cancer cells in lungs and skin, among others. Engineered by doctors, T-cells, forming CAR T-cell therapy, have been most effective against blood cancers, the reporter said.

Can cancer be cured?

While physicians are reluctant to use that term, newer treatments like stem cell transplants and CAR T therapy make for optimism, especially after a number of years elapse when a patient is in remission.

Research further to develop prevention and treatments must continue.

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By Leah S. Dunaief

Leah Dunaief,
Publisher

The articles I’ve read recently call it “financial infidelity” and blame it on some percentage of all couples, but especially on Generation Z. “It” refers to hiding money from each other, or if not exactly hiding, then not sharing either the money itself or its existence. And since money seems to be the primary issue couples argue about over the long term, the question of how much to share is highly relevant to any relationship.

A survey by consumer financial services firm Bankrate indicated that 67 percent of 18 to 28- year-olds hide money information from each other in committed relationships. That drops to 54 percent of millennials, 33 percent of Gen Xers and 30 percent of baby boomers, according to Newsweek. For some reason, older than baby boomers aren’t in the survey. I can try to offer that perspective since I am in the older group.

“Hidden debts, undisclosed spending, or secret accounts can, as well as undermining a partner’s trust, disrupt shared financial plans, such as saving for a home, retirement or children’s education, causing long-term financial strain,” according to the article.

Some 40 percent of couples in the United States have kept secrets from each other about money, according to the study involving 2217 adults. These secrets may include spending more than a partner would approve of (33 percent), keeping hidden debt (23 percent), having a secret credit card (12 percent), a secret savings account (15 percent), or a secret checking account (13 percent).

Yet these figures exist despite 45 percent of those surveyed disapproving of what is termed financial infidelity and even equating it with actual unfaithfulness. If a secret financial situation is discovered, it tends to disrupt the trust that relationships are built upon and perhaps cause speculation over what else might be hidden 

One senior industry analyst, Ted Rossman, maintains, “Money secrets can undermine a relationship. It’s hard enough to meet your financial goals when you are pulling in the same direction. It’s almost impossible when you’re pulling in opposite directions.” 

Rossman goes on to say that being open about your finances doesn’t mean you need to combine all your money. A yours-mine-ours is a possible arrangement for those who feel more comfortable that way.

Despite the importance of money in a marriage or committed relationship, half a century ago, when I was married, money was the last thing on our minds. We were entirely caught up in the romance and didn’t consider the business aspect of lifetime coupling. So when the time came to buy a house, my husband and I counted our pennies and came up a little short for the down payment on the mortgage.

“I’ll take a loan from the bank, using my stocks as collateral,” I said.

“Stocks?” he responded with surprise.

“Yes, I think I have just enough to bridge the difference between our savings and what we need,” I said. “I have been buying a couple of shares of stocks each year with my allowance since I was a child,” I explained. 

It had never occurred to me to tell my husband. Needless to say, he was delighted to discover this mysterious side of me. Marriage arrangements were traditional at that time. The husband was the breadwinner, the wife the homemaker. The husband’s paychecks went into a joint bank account and  both drew from that account for expenses. 

Husbands may have laughed at the saying, “What’s mine is hers and what’s hers is hers,” but they subscribed to it. What we brought to the marriage financially was of little concern since we were young and generally without any serious assets, and we didn’t think of pooling those. We wives were advised then, in women’s magazines for example, to keep a little stash on the side for personal expenditures that needn’t be discussed.

Many couples are older now when they marry, and both work, thus the landscape is different. So I don’t know what to advise. Maybe that’s why we elders weren’t polled.

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By Leah S. Dunaief

Leah Dunaief,
Publisher

There is a place called Ramsey, where they have banned cellphones during class. Perhaps you have heard of it? It’s in New Jersey. Ramsey High School has banned students from using cellphones and electronic devices during school hours, except at lunch. The idea was to reduce distractions and improve mental health.

No doubt you have been reading or hearing about how cellphone overuse is ruining our kids’ moods and minds, not to mention how hard it is for teachers to reach the students if the latter are plastered on their cellphone screens. 

Well, a San Francisco company called Yondr has stepped into the breech with a lockable pouch for each student that keeps phones out of reach until the pouch is tapped on an unlocking base.

There are 741 students in the high school, and upon entering the building they put their  cellphone into the small holders that they carry with them but cannot open until lunchtime. They can then check their messages, text with friends, play videos, and otherwise use their phones until they return to class, where the procedure repeats itself. At the end of the school day, they reclaim their phones and can jump back on them as they go home or wherever they go next.

How did they do it? 

The district was able to put the policy together, after board approval, by sending three letters: one to parents, one to students and one to teachers and administrators, explaining the program. Communication was good, and the policy was helped by New Jersey’s Governor Phil Murphy endorsing the idea for all 600 school districts in his State of the State address.

How is it working for them?

Many of the students have responded positively to the change. They point out that they are actually happy to see their friends in the hallways and talk with them, whereas before, they were all in their cellphones while changing classrooms. So better socializing has been a plus.

Grades have improved, according to some of the students and teachers, as student attention is now directed to the lessons. Teachers undoubtedly find it more satisfying to teach less distracted kids. And cyberbullying seems reduced.

Concerns about safety have subdued. Should emergency messages need to be sent, having clear bandwidth to the police or whomever would be an advantage. The investment for the district was $30,000.

UNESCO is advocating cellphone bans in schools, arguing that the devices are distractions from learning, are bad for teens’ mental health and may be an obstacle for students’ privacy, as some digital education tools can survey the children using them. The recommendations come from the 2023 Global Education Monitoring Report, which analyzes global policies on technology use in classrooms.

“Only technology that has a clear role in supporting learning should be allowed in school,” the United Nations agency for education and science stated, according to the publication, Global News. 

In fact, one in four countries has already implemented full or partial cellphone bans in schools, according to the report. “Incoming notifications or the mere proximity of a mobile device can be a distraction, resulting in students’ losing their attention from the task at hand,” the report states. One study showed  it can take students up to 20 minutes to refocus on learning once their attention was drawn away.

Data from a 2018 study showed that young people 11-14 on average spent 9 hours in front of a screen, down a bit to 7.5 hours for 15-18 year-olds. The report further pointed to an American study that showed higher screen time was associated with “poorer well-being; less curiosity, self-control and emotional stability; higher anxiety; and depression diagnoses.”

If this has a familiar ring to it, for those of a certain age, the same concerns were expressed in the early years of television. How did we deal with the problem? 

Less television.

P.S. Just woke up yesterday to learn that Gov. Hochul is advocating the same idea. She must have heard of Ramsey.

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Damage to a home and vehicle from the Eaton Fire in northern Altadena, California in January 2025. Photo from Wikimedia Commons. Public Domain

By Leah S. Dunaief

Leah Dunaief,
Publisher

It may have started as a new year filled with hope, but this is a difficult week. The terrible fires in Southern California have burned entire neighborhoods to the ground, from mansions to mobile homes. We already know about the displaced and the deaths, but more destruction may yet come. Weather forecasts from the National Weather Service are predicting fierce winds ahead that may drive the fires into new areas.

The end is not in sight.

While this horror is on the other side of the country, it is not remote. Many of us have friends and relatives who live, work, study or are retired there, driving the tragedy right into our midst and into our hearts in a deeply personal way. These are not only abstract numbers of people and homes about which we would feel a humanitarian empathy. These are our people. These are our forests and our lands. The dreadful irony of it all, remembering the 1972 Albert Hammond song, “It Never Rains in Southern California.”

While there was already a serious homeless population for Los Angeles, the newly displaced are trying to figure out what to do next. The lucky ones have relatives or friends with whom they can seek shelter. It may be long weeks, even months before they can return, if their homes miraculously are still standing. What if they are not? Will the insurance companies hold up to enable rebuilding, or will some of them declare bankruptcy, as they have done in similar cataclysmic situations, like the one in the Caribbean Island St. Croix? Can FEMA bear the entire load?

Private citizens can be counted on to respond generously, as we have with virtually every disaster in the world. With such an enormous catastrophe, the entire national economy could take a hit. How will the new administration respond? 

Speaking of the government, we have less than a week before the new administration is sworn into office. The change of political parties may in itself contribute to some emotional reaction this week, regardless of one’s party affiliation.

Many Dems are worried, while many members in the GOP are optimistic. There has been much talk of changes to come, from buying Greenland for its exotic minerals to changing the name from the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. Perhaps more seriously, there may be a tax cut in the future, some change in immigration policy and new tariffs imposed or at least threatened.

Some good news did emerge this week. There may be a truce in Gaza after 15 months of violence, with some hostages to be exchanged for Palestinian prisoners and specific movements of Israeli troops. While the atmosphere surrounding the peace talks remains tense, according to media reports, there now seems some hope.

According to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, the negotiators are only awaiting Hamas’s sign off. Perhaps the imminent changeover of presidents from Biden to Trump in the United States hastened the deal. The governments of Qatar and Egypt have also directly participated in the talks.

Perhaps now the fighting in Ukraine and the fires in Southern California can also be brought to a halt. Then we could return to hope.

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By Leah S. Dunaief

Leah Dunaief,
Publisher

They weren’t really New Year’s resolutions but rather goals I set out for myself during the holidays when the office would be closed and we would be on a staycation. Did I meet them? Even though I was ill with a nasty upper respiratory infection for the entire time off, I did manage to accomplish the desired result.

What were they? I wanted to read two unusual books, recommended by The New York Times, over the 10 day period. And I did.

Now that may not sound like such a challenge to most people, but my reading, because of my job, is to keep up with the news. After all, I am a newspaper publisher and newspapers provide the first draft of history

So reading books, for me, is a luxury, and I’d like to tell you what two books I read because I found them engaging and would, in turn, readily recommend them. One was the beautifully written, “Horse,” by Pulitzer-prize winning author, Geraldine Brooks. I should tell you that my favorite reads are historical fiction and biographies. Those are, for me, effortless ways to learn history and any other subject with which the characters are involved.

“Horse” is indeed about a four-legged animal named Lexington, probably the most famous American racehorse in our history, who lived in the mid-1800s and about art. The horse is the literary device that ties the characters, who live in three different centuries, together. Some of them live before and after the Civil War, some in mid-century 1900s and the rest in the 2019. With that temporal range, Brooks touches on key themes: class, race, regional cultures, war, and the intelligence and loyalty of animals. The book, to a remarkable extent, is based on real people, as evidenced by the extensive research provided by the author in the coda called, “Lexington’s Historical Connections,” and it has a riveting plot.

Now I happen to love horses, always did from my earliest memories, when I was enchanted by the horses and riders on the trail in Central Park and begged to join them. I believe that’s a passion handed down through our genes. My mother’s father, I was told, was something of a horse whisperer, and my father was persuaded to take time from his work, something he almost never did, and accompany me one afternoon on a horseback ride through the park when I was about six years old. Since he had grown up on a farm, riding was familiar for him, although he did ask the stableman where we rented the horses if he could ride bareback rather than on what he called the “postage stamp” English saddle. The groom leading out the horses for us was stunned. Surprisingly he let us ride away toward the park.

But back to the book. It is not only the tale of the remarkable horse that engages the reader of this beautifully written novel. It is the rendering of the time and place in which each character lives, the deftly drawn personalities of the people who populate the stories, the challenges and tensions of their times, and ultimately how much and also how little times have changed.

And if you are an animal lover, the true heroes of the book are the animals.

The second book, which I happened to read first, was “The Wildes,” by Louis Bayard. While it doesn’t have the runaway narrative of “Horse,” it is more of a look back in time at the way Victorian England viewed homosexuality. The theme is developed through the lives of Oscar Wilde’s wife, Constance, and two sons. We meet them half a dozen years before his infamous trial in London, when they seem to be living a luxurious and loving pastoral existence. He is highly regarded as a famous author, playwright and witty companion, and she is involved in feminist causes.  Enter the aristocratic young poet, Lord Alfred Douglas, and the reality of life at that time begins to change the narrative. Ultimately it is Douglas’s provocative father, who causes Wilde to sue for libel, throwing his life open to titillating and legal inspection that brings ruin to the whole family.

The book is both witty for its clever dialogue and sad for all the shadows it reveals about the Wildes, society at the end of the 19th century, and what might have been in modern times.

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By Leah S. Dunaief

Leah Dunaief,
Publisher

Many people in their pajamas are now summoned to get dressed, leave their homes and work full-time in the office. The working-remotely imperative is being phased out as COVID-19 fades and the new year begins. No more pajamas in front of the computer, disguised with a proper work shirt as far as Zoom revealed. Remote work is becoming a unique chapter of the pandemic past.

Or is it?

Let me take you back to July 1965. I had just given birth to our first child in a Westchester County hospital, just north of NYC, and was in something of a new mother daze when my supervisor from work appeared at my bedside. I had been employed as a researcher in the editorial department at Time Inc until that past weekend, and the baby coming a little early surprised us all, apparently including my boss.

She was an attractive woman in her 40s, trim and almost six feet tall, and she supervised some 20 staffers. For a couple of seconds, I thought I might be imagining her, but she pulled up a chair, as if this visit was an ordinary occurrence, and we had the following conversation.

“Hello, Leah, congratulations to you and your husband.”

“Hello, Bea. What’s happening?”

“Oh, I thought I would drive up here to congratulate you properly, see the baby, and ask you if you would like to continue working.”

“What?”

She laughed. “I know you live in the Bronx, about 30 minutes from the office (which was in the Time-Life Building at 50th and Sixth Avenue) and right on the D line (subway). We could bring you the material and the books you need by messenger. Then, when you finish each batch of work, we could repeat the process. For questions, we could call you and discuss by phone. What do you think about that?”

I blinked. Was this really happening?

“I think I will be taking care of the baby,” I offered after a long pause.

“We thought about that. Mia (a staffer in the department) no longer needs her nanny, and she could  continue her work with your baby in your apartment. She is from Haiti and speaks little English, but I believe you speak French, yes?”

“A little.” I was now in a different daze.

“Then this could work. You will be able to stay at home with the baby and work comfortably in your apartment while the nanny takes care of your son from 10-6 (our business hours) in the next room. She will come Mondays through Fridays. She is very responsible. She has five sons of her own.”

Then she said those prescient words without knowing she was 60 years ahead of her time.

“You will be working remotely.”

And so it went. A few days after we brought our son home, the first batch of work arrived from the office via a cheerful messenger, and I was set up at a desk in the bedroom to continue my job. 

The nanny, Madame Bayard, also arrived and lovingly greeted and cared for our baby until I would appear. This unusual arrangement continued for almost two years. I would return to the office perhaps once a month for meetings and to touch base with my editor of the moment, but otherwise I did indeed work remotely, even from my parents’ bungalow in the Catskill Mountains the following summer. We gave Madame Bayard the time off, and while my mother cared for our son, I worked on a comfortable chaise in the shade of a tree, driving to the office only a couple of times in two months.

This idyllic arrangement ended when my husband finished his residency, and we moved to Texas, where he served at an Air Force base during the Vietnam War.

I finally left the employ of Time-Life. It was now too far for even a messenger to reach me. But today, my grandson and his wife both have satisfying jobs that call for working remotely.

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Photo by Andrea Piacquadio/Pexels

By Leah S. Dunaief

Leah Dunaief,
Publisher

A couple of my favorite restaurants will only accept payment in cash or check. My doctors’ offices will only take credit cards. Perhaps the next thing is that we’ll have to pay in beads, like the Europeans for Manhattan Island.

Those who only take credit cards explained to me that they are preventing robberies. They put up signs saying, “No cash” to dissuade potential thieves. And I suppose those who only take cash are refusing to share their revenue with the credit card companies. I can understand that, especially if the profit margin of the business is only a couple of percent.

But the swinging back and forth is taking its toll, especially on older consumers, who tend to use only cash and are hardest hit in a cashless situation.

“A Fight to Preserve the Value of Cash,” was an article in The New York Times by Paula Span this past Tuesday that addressed the subject.

“Some no-cash practices date to contagion fears after the outbreak of Covid; others are intended to discourage robberies,” explains the reporter. “But such policies are a disadvantage to several groups, including low-income people who don’t have bank accounts, people who have accounts but don’t qualify for credit or debit cards, the homeless, undocumented immigrants and older adults,” she goes on to say. 

Additionally, anyone can have a problem with electronic payments when it comes to paying, which can cause delay and frustration. Natural weather disasters can disrupt electricity and telecommunication networks that fail immediately disconnect a cashless society. Even international thieves can hack bank accounts on the internet. “With cash, a thief has to be within striking distance.”

Another disadvantage of credit cards is that consumers spend more when they are using them because it delays the “pain of paying” until the bill arrives at the end of the month.

And privacy concerns enter into the picture due to “middlemen facilitating digital transactions-credit card companies, banks, the tech giants behind mobile apps-(…) then sell consumers’ data.”

According to Pew Research, only 79 percent of people over 65 have a smartphone, which is often used in cashless systems, compared with 97 percent of those between 30-49. Those over 55 paid in cash 22 percent of the time last year, compared with 12 percent among younger groups, according to the Federal Reserve, as quoted by The NYT. 

And according to a federal survey, 85 percent used the internet for financial services in their 20s and 30s, but the percentage drops as the groups age. For people in their 60s, the number becomes 70 percent, for those in their 70s it is  64 percent, and in their 80s, it’s only about half.

Cash is so simple: no buttons, no passwords, no problems other than the possibility of counterfeit bills.

“Older adults are far more likely than younger ones to lose money to tech support fraud, lottery and sweepstakes swindles, and family impersonations”, according to the Federal Trade Commission and cited in The NYT. Losses to investment and romance cons continue to climb, too.

As a result of an experience I had some years ago, before plastic became so prevalent, I could personally attest to a cashless society working, at least for a few days. 

On my way out the door to my limo ride, I forgot my wallet. I realized half way to the airport and confessed to the driver. “No problem,” he said. “I take credit cards  Do you have one?” Fortunately I did. I then realized that I would depend solely on that card for all my expenses getting to, and from, and while I was at the convention. It was going to be an interesting experiment, I said to myself.

During those four days, I was able to manage quite well with only the card. The future for payments became clear to me.

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By Leah S. Dunaief

Leah Dunaief,
Publish:

This one just passed was my favorite weekend of the year: Thanksgiving. It started last Wednesday night, as all good weekends should. We, the Dunaief Clan, have managed to extend it into three, even four days. We deserve no less. Like many American families, our immediate members are stretched across the entire continent, from the California coast to Pennsylvania, and from below the Mason-Dixon Line and the Florida Peninsula to the Gulf of Mexico. They need that much time just to get to Grandma’s house and back.

What’s waiting for them when they arrive? Food! All kinds of favorite foods. And love. Lots of love that bridges three generations with mighty hugs. Why, it even takes a good part of that long weekend before all the members of the family finish hugging each other, at which point we sit down to eat. We get back up some hours later, only to regroup for the next meal. We know we are among the fortunate in that regard and give thanks.

Food means so many different things. There are the traditional historic dishes that symbolize the meal reputedly eaten by the Pilgrims. But we have added more to the basics. And each person has a favorite that tickles them when they look at the offerings on the laden table and know it was prepared especially for them. Food is love, and special foods carry that message.

It still amazes me to be surrounded by the many members of my tribe. Some 60 years ago, before I was married, there was just I. Then, three months later, there were the two of us, my husband and me. And then there were children and children-in law, and their children and now, their new daughter-in-law and my first granddaughter-in-law. Together we populate the dining room and fill the house with chatter and laughter.

One of the high points of the weekend follows dinner, when we are still sitting around the table, digesting sufficiently until we can have dessert, and we tell each other what we are most thankful for that occurred in the past year. In that way, I get to catch up on some of the events in my loved ones’ lives and they on mine.

Speaking of dessert, the pumpkin pies were an issue again this year. For almost all the Thanksgivings we have celebrated here, 55 to be exact, we have enjoyed the classic finale from The Good Steer. Their pies pleased all our taste buds, from my offspring to my parents, who would join us from NYC during those early years. Alas, the restaurant on Middle Country Road in Lake Grove is no more; the owners having closed the business. 

So, faced with this significant void, I have done some research and have come up with replacements over the last couple of years. We did a scientific taste test between the offerings I procured this year. I’ve had a number of friends offer suggestions, and I thank them kindly because they understand how important it is to find an alternative source. After all, no two differently made pumpkin pies taste the same. 

The result here hung in the balance until the celebrations ended. My reputation as the Best Thanksgiving Grandma, I am relieved to tell you, is secure. We found a satisfactory replacement. In fact, there was a partisan divide between the two choices, so we will have one of each next year. 

This year, we had a first to celebrate. My oldest grandson had asked the woman he wants to spend the rest of his life with to marry him, and she accepted. The wedding was this past spring, and we welcome her enthusiastically into the tribe. I give thanks for the blessing of seeing our family continue to grow.

I hope all of you, Dear Readers, had a Happy Thanksgiving with the foods you enjoy and the people you love, whether they be relatives or close friends or perhaps those you recently met and with whom you have chosen to share this celebratory meal.

On this day, we give thanks for the special people in our lives.

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Pexels photo

By Leah S. Dunaief

Leah Dunaief,
Publisher

According to several articles in the media, including in The New York Times, the election of Donald Trump as President is viewed by many women as a setback to the efforts toward gender equality, and they are angry, even distraught.

Gloria Steinem, the feminist activist who is now 90, doesn’t see the defeat of Kamala Harris as a result of her gender. “We don’t know what’s in the heart of each woman” who voted for Mr. Trump, she is quoted in The Times as saying. She goes on to point out the huge gains that women have made over the last half century. 

“It is within my memory that it was not possible in many states to get a prescription for birth control unless you were married and had the written permission of your husband, and not possible to have an abortion without some access to an illegal network. Those are huge [advances].” 

Looking back to the 1960s and 1970s, few women were decision makers in government, boardrooms or families, according to The Times. “Women had trouble getting a driver’s license or passport or registering to vote, unless they took their husband’s last name. Marital rape was legal. Most could not open credit cards in their own names until the mid-1970s.”

The election has revealed a divide among women. Exit polls indicate that 45 percent of women voted for Trump, including far more white women than black women. For some of those female voters, that suggests ”liberation from feminism.” Others blame those women for  betraying the sisterhood by voting for a man who makes sexist and also racist remarks.

All agree. Womanhood in the United States has fractured. Or perhaps the idea that women stick together because of gender is a myth. There have always been women who argued against the right of women to vote and  legalization of abortion. Pop culture, personified by Beyoncé and Taylor Swift celebrating the advances of women, apparently does not translate to political culture. The “tradwives” movement on social media, advancing the return of women to submissive wives, has apparently picked up steam. 

Perhaps what we can all agree on is the right to choose and live a self-actualized life.

What some women have chosen is an interesting individual choice: to sideline men from their lives. 

The Times points out that there has been an explosion in the number of women that say they are deleting dating apps, taking vows of celibacy, identifying as “self-partnered,” writing divorce memoirs and expressing profound disillusionment with heterosexual marriage and “decentering men” to focus on self-improvement and platonic relationships.

South Korea’s 4B movement, which “encourages women to reject dating, marrying, having sex with and having children with men,” as explained in The Times, has attracted attention among women who didn’t vote for Trump. “Online women are exhorting one another to abandon men as self-protection; [to] buying a vibrator; or even a gun.”

“Disappointed by the defeat of another female nominee, some feel numb resignation, while others—particularly young women online—are channeling their disappointment into anger against men as a whole.”

Almost sounds like a movie plot, doesn’t it? Except, as Times’ reporter, Marie Solis, states, “Peering into the vast gulf between the political views of men and women, the latter group isn’t so sure it has much in common with the former.” That doesn’t make for a good society in which to live. One book on the subject: “The End of Men,” subtitled “And the Rise of Women” by Hanna Rosin.

Steinem offered a bit of advice as a coda. ‘Focus on equality in the workplace, and treat daughters the same as sons,” to which she added, “The lesson is less in the national and world atmosphere and more in the home and employment atmosphere in which we have some control. We shouldn’t give up the power we have.” 

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METRO photo

By Leah S. Dunaief

Leah Dunaief,
Publisher

This is an invitation for you, readers of our newspapers, viewers of our website, followers of us on social media and listeners to our podcast. We encourage you to send us nominations for our special edition, People of the Year.

Many of you know that we publish People of the Year, filled with the exploits of local “heroes,” who go the extra mile to make our communities the wonderful places they are, between Christmas and New Year.

These are people who live or work or in some way directly affect our lives here. They don’t just do their jobs well. They go far beyond what is expected of them, and in so doing, improve our lives.

We solicit these names from you because you know who they are, whether from the cohort of government workers to the unstinting volunteer on your block. By putting the spotlight on them and their unselfish efforts, we make their work a little easier.

Plus, no matter who they are, it feels good to be appreciated.

So think about who helps our villages and towns the most. They can be in any field: healthcare, the economy, elected officials, business people, the arts, science, civics, historical societies, service organizations, education, sports and more.

 And don’t tell them you told us. We like to surprise them when we publish their stories the last week in December.

Thank you & Happy Holidays!

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