Hope Yancey

March, recognized as Women’s History Month, is drawing to a dreary and demoralizing close. To many women, it hasn’t appeared there was much cause for celebration lately. Women’s reproductive freedom – and it with it our potential for full and equal participation in society – has been under near-constant assault recently by some lawmakers and religious groups.

For part of 2010 and much of 2011 I worked as an archaeologist, of sorts, sifting ancient relics of the past – my family’s past – in my childhood home. No, I wasn’t a professional archaeologist, but I imagine some of the feelings of discovery were the same. And OK, maybe the “relics” weren’t exactly ancient either, but they definitely were old.

Recent news headlines about protests by domestic workers in Chile offer lessons to us in this country about employment. You may have heard the story.

My email inboxes have recently been bombarded with spam excitedly pitching custom-made university diplomas, fake college degrees and transcripts purportedly belonging to “world famous” people. If that wasn’t enough, there are also spam mails meant to entice with offers of “high-end” Rolex replicas for gift-giving. As we celebrate the winter solstice, the holidays and a fast-approaching new year, it’s an appropriate time for reflection on what is false and what is real.

The mini van in front of us threw on its brakes and came to a dead stop directly in front of us in the middle of a darkened interstate highway on Thanksgiving night. No emergency blinkers flashed an alarm. Before my husband and I could register what was happening, the front passenger-side door of the van swung open, and it looked as though someone was about to get out, though nobody emerged. At one point, we made out what appeared to be a woman’s purse being hurled from the vehicle into the roadway.