One of the ways of starkly illustrating an aspect of the gender divide is DeBecker’s quote: “At core, men are afraid women will laugh at them, while at core, women are afraid men will kill them.” I think there’s a class and mothering parallel here: Middle-class women are afra...

Premier Colin Barnett made a speech about funding cuts yesterday at a “business luncheon”. The full transcript is here; it was also reported in the Australian. Barnett was speaking at the CEDA-hosted 2009 “Economic and Political Overview”, billed as “Australia’s p...

Those who’ve been following some of my recent discussions about breastfeeding and civil liberties might be interested to note this symposium poster. Parenting, Gender, and the Law is a symposium sponsored by the Stanford Journal for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties. The poster icons are a feed...

OK, a selection from the last week of memorable and topical posts that have turned up in my feed-reader. There’s quite a few links, so I’m putting them behind a cut so as not to clutter up the front page of the blog. Add your own links to posts you recommend in comments: Violence Against...

Alrighty, we can all rest easy now can't we!? Thirteen more dollars a week! Whew!!! Lordy I'll be rich!! Yippeeeeeeee! I don't know what I would have done without that $13 more. The Associated Press reports : The $500-per-worker credit for lower- and middle-income taxpayers that Obama outlined durin...

Below is a very brief bio from an Australian government site on Civics and Citizenship: Caroline Chisholm (1808–1877) Caroline Chisholm was born in England. She arrived in Australia in 1838 and set up a home for other women who had come to live here. She worked to improve life on the ships bringin...

Another for-profit childcare corporation, CFK Childcare Centres Limited, has joined Eddy Groves’ ABC Learning in collapse. CFK has (had?) 43 childcare centres across New South Wales. 4000 children and 500 staff join the 1200 staff and 120 000 children whose fate is up in the air after the ABC ...

"Achoo!""Bless you.""Achoo!""Gezundheit!""Achoo!""Damn it, you better not be getting sick." Tomorrow evening, I'm attending a fundraiser in support of the Ohio Healthy Families Act, which would guarantee full-time workers 7 paid sick days a...

You know, if the worst thing that’s happening in your life is that you caught a glimpse of someone else’s breastmilk in the work fridge last week, maybe you should thank your lucky stars and go do something useful in the world with all that spare energy. The Boston Globe’s “M...

Last month, I asked for questions to pose to Ariane Hegewisch about her report on cross-national perspectives on workplace flexibility.  Here, at last, are some answers.  The delay is entirely my fault -- she was extremely prompt in responding when I sent them to her. bj had wondered, &quo...