Lost in the diversity controversy at the Oscars Sunday night was this: The only woman of color who won was Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy. Who? That’s the problem. Very few people in America know who she is. But they ought to. Obaid-Chinoy, 37, has two Academy Awards to her name; her latest was in the best documentary short category for “A Girl in the River: The Price … Continue reading Moment of desi pride at the Oscars
Many years ago, I walked through the Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto, mesmerized that the history of mankind could be told through footwear — from caveman to Christian Laboutin. I was fascinated, given my penchant for shoes. (Yes, I have way too many.) So when I stumbled upon the Tassen Museum Hendrikje in Amsterdam recently, I had to go in. Housed in a beautiful old … Continue reading Purse paradise
Hasan Zeya used to boast about how he was still practicing medicine into his early 80s. But at 84, he no longer is happy about his age. His daughter, Rena, passed away last week, days shy of her 52nd birthday. “She did a bad thing. She cut ahead of me in the queue,” he tells me at her funeral Sunday. Tears well in his eyes, … Continue reading Rena
“All citizens are equal before law and are entitled to equal protection of law. There shall be no discrimination on the basis of sex alone.” That’s what Pakistan’s constitution says. But the plight of women in Pakistan today is grim. Last year almost a thousand women were murdered in honor killings, according to the Pakistan Human Rights Commission. The real number is feared to be much … Continue reading Killed in the name of honor
Two people of note died this week without fanfare or blazing headlines. The first was Mary Daly, a rip-roaring feminist who touched my life deeply when I was a student at Florida State University in the early 1980s. She came to speak there but would not take the podium unless the men in the room left. It caused an uproar, of course, because her trip … Continue reading About men and atom bombs
