Women And Finances Quotes

Women fake orgasms and men fake finances.

Some women would not cheat, and some would not have cheated, had they each married a man whom they love … or at least like.

It really is something ... that men disapprove even of our doing things that are patently good. Wouldn't it be possible for us just to banish these men from our lives, and escape their carping and jeering once and for all? Couldn't we live without them? Couldn't we earn our living and manage our affairs without help from them? Come on, let's wake up, and claim back our freedom, and the honour and dignity that they have usurped from us for so long. Do you think that if we really put our minds to it, we would be lacking the courage to defend ourselves, the strength to fend for ourselves, or the talents to earn our own living? Let's take our courage into our hands and do it, and then we can leave it up to them to mend their ways as much as they can: we shan't really care what the outcome is, just as long as we are no longer subjugated to them.

Financial Empowerment is the new feminism. Women can't be fully empowered until they are financially empowered.

...when women gain control over spending, less family money is devoted to instant gratification and more for education and starting small businesses.

Budgeting has only one rule: Do not go over budget.

Of all the art forms, poetry is the most economical. It is the one which is the most secret, which requires the least physical labor, the least material, and the one which can be done between shifts, in the hospital pantry, on the subway, and on scraps of surplus paper. Over the last few years, writing a novel on tight finances, I came to appreciate the enormous differences in the material demands between poetry and prose. As we reclaim our literature, poetry has been the major voice of poor, working class, and Colored women. A room of one's own may be a necessity for writing prose, but so are reams of paper, a typewriter, and plenty of time.

They had studied law, information technology and art history as part of their beauty treatment, they had let Norwegian taxpayers finance years at university just so that they could end up as overqualified, stay-at-home playthings and sit here exchanging confidences about how to keep their sugar daddies suitably happy, suitably jealous and suitably on their toes.

...you can ruin your credit in one seemingly responsible afternoon, but rebuilding it takes years.

If you ask me I think the greatest breakthrough each and everyone of us need is not on finance, marriage, work, relationship, own house, car but self. The first breakthrough should start from being selfish.

If a woman makes a unilateral decision to bring pregnancy to term, and the biological father does not, and cannot, share in this decision, he should not be liable for 21 years of support... autonomous women making independent decisions about their lives should not expect men to finance their choice.

To emphasize how truly backward our society is...let's finish with a little quiz. Let's do it like Jeopardy. In 1990, this government required companies to give a new mother a year's leave at 90% pay. Answer: What was Sweden? This country provided nurseries for most children over eighteen months. Answer: What was Sweden? Nearly half of the children under three in this country were in publicly financed nurseries, and nearly 95% of children three to six were (and are). Answer: What is Denmark? In this country, 95% of children aged three to five are in preschool. Answer: What is France? This country provides care for one quarter of children under three in wholly or partially subsidized nurseries. Answer: What is France? In 1984, this country gave workers twelve weeks of maternity leave with pay. Answer: What is Brazil? (Yes, Brazil!) This country mandated eight weeks of maternity leave WITH PAY. Answer: What is Kenya? (You heard us, Kenya!) This country provided none of these things; instead, to help mothers and small children, its magazines featured profiles of rich celebrity moms who could show women how to do it all. Answer: What was the United States?

A reporter once asked me why I think progressive men who earn significantly less than their breadwinning wives still won't quit their jobs to take care of their children. Why do they still hold on to their careers, even if taking care of the children would make more financial sense because the cost of childcare is higher than their net salary? I think I know the answer to that now, and it sucks. Women are not expected to live a life for themselves. When women dedicate their lives to children, it is deemed a worthy and respectable choice. When women dedicate themselves to a passion outside of the family that doesn't involve worshiping their husbands or taking care of their kids, they're seen as selfish, cold, or unfit mothers. But when a man spends hours grueling over a craft, profession, or project, he's admired and seen as a genius. And when a man finds a woman who worships him, who dedicates her life to serving him, he's lucky. But when a man dedicates himself to taking care of his children it's seen as a last resort. That it must be because he ran out of other options. That it's plan Z. That it's an indicator of his inability to provide for his family. Basically, that he's a fucking loser. I think it's one of the most important falsehoods we need to shatter when talking about women's rights.

It's neither safe nor practical to assume that man in your life can be counted on to take care of your finances.

How can you be more responsible? Not necessarily by doing more work. You become more responsible by knowing your deepest purpose, and then arranging your finances and spiritual life from that knowingness.

How to build and fund a fair and just world isn’t only a question for the key men and key women who work in business and finance and dine with prime ministers in Davos. Most important, it’s a question for you.

Church history is not made by well-financed, well-resourced individuals and institutions. History is made by men and women of faith who have met with the living God. Without faith it is impossible to please God.

She found it quite easy to interpret builders' estimates and do VAT calculations. She'd got some books from the library, and found finance to be both interesting and uncomplicated. She'd stopped reading the kind of women's magazine that talks about romance and knitting and started reading the kind of women's magazine that talks about orgasms, but apart from making a mental note to have one if ever the occasion presented itself she dismissed them as only romance and knitting in a new form. So she'd started reading the kind of magazine that talked about mergers.

Winning the vote required seventy-two years of ceaseless agitation by three generations of dedicated, fearless suffragists, who sought to overturn centuries of law and millennia of tradition concerning gender roles. The women who launched the movement were dead by the time it was completed; the women who secured its final success weren’t born when it began. It took more than nine hundred local, state, and national campaigns, involving tens of thousands of grassroots volunteers, financed by millions of dollars of mostly small (and a few large) donations by women across the country.

As soon as I had believed that financial security purchased emotional security, I'd lived a dependent, conditional life. Now I realize that rather than mortgage myself for a dream life on a layaway plan, I prefer the rather nice kind of life I've stumbled into. My desire for a double oven has less to do with signaling that I belong to a certain class or have reached a type of perfection and more to do with the fact that I haven't figured out how to make a pot roast and an apple pie at the same time. So I make the pie ahead of time and reheat it. I think it was Mark Twain who said, 'Happiness is wanting what you have, not having what you want.' I tell my kids this, hoping they will learn to balance the act of pursuing with the act of savoring.

The way you relate to your woman’s chaos reflects the way you react to the chaos of the world. If you are the kind of man who needs everything placed neatly in its nice little box, then you will also try to box your woman’s emotions. If you are the kind of man who would rather hire other people to take care of the chaos in your attic, or the chaos of your finances, you would probably also rather leave it to someone else to take care of the chaos of your woman.

Dear Black Women… Save, Invest, and Spend Less. Save because you just never know what will come up. This will save you from having to borrow from friends, family, or going to get a payday loan. Invest so that you’ll have something of value to show for. Investing also helps in building WEALTH. Spend less so that you’re not broke, living paycheck to paycheck, and/or in a lot of debt. Don’t allow money to control you. Take charge! Keep, and/or get your finances in order. Value your money and be mindful of how and what you’re spending.

There are now skin products supposedly created with 24-karat gold extract. I guess if financial times got really tough, you could always pawn your own head.

Never depend on a single income. Make Investments to create a second source.” - Warren Buffet

As is true for financial markets, total transparency between the sexes would go a long way towards eliminating irrational exuberance.

The less you have, the less time there will be keeping it organized and clean.

Men want a woman who is a virtuous wife, a good mother, and can do all the housework like a maid. Outside the home, she should be attractive and cultivated, and be a credit to him. In bed, she must be a nymphomaniac. What is more, Chinese men also need their women to manage their finances and earn a lot of money, so they can mingle with the rich and powerful. Modern

Zofia's heart remained splintered over how people weren't treated equally, depending on their finances. If the world functioned on love rather than on monetary value, all would benefit

When a man's value is no longer measured by what he does, by his finances or social standing, how does he determine his worth? In our world, a man's presence--his depth of awareness--is his most valuable asset.

If a woman can by careful selection of a father, and nourishment of herself produce a citizen with efficient senses, sound organs and a good digestion, she should clearly be secured a sufficient reward for that natural service to make her willing to undertake and repeat it. Whether she be financed in the undertaking by herself, or by the father, of by a speculative capitalist, or by a new department of , say, the Royal Dublin Society, or (as at present) by the War Office maintaining her ‘on the strength’ and authority under a by-law directing that women may under certain circumstances have a year’s leave of absence on full salary, or by the central government, does not matter provided the results be satisfactory.

The story of women taking over the duties of their husbands in factories and homes during times of war is a familiar one. While he was deployed overseas to stop a foreign dictator from world conquest, she was placed in charge of the household. In the past, she depended on her husband's paycheck for all their material needs. Now, for the first time, she was solely in charge of the family's finances. She was also responsible for new duties such as simple home repairs and overseeing improvement projects.

The consequences of treating generations of women as economically illiterate are that women have been unable to educate their daughters about money, women have been shut out from one of the main sources of power in capitalist societies (money), and few girls have grown up believing that finance is a career for them.

I think that the media and its influencers send out a negative message to young girls these days, when it comes to the relationship between power and money. The message that young girls receive these days, from watching reality t.v. shows and such, is that the more money you spend, the more powerful you are. But I'd like young girls everywhere to know that it's not about the money that you spend; but what it's really about is the money that you have! Financial power lies in actually having money and your intelligence is determined by how you spend it. And it's not even about buying only what you need, because we should have the things that we want, too, not only the things that we need! But it's more about knowing the value of material things because without the knowledge of the value, things aren't going to make you happy, because there's always something more that you can buy! So you've got to know how to buy what's really going to make you happy and not just buy things for the sake of spending.

Eva and Anne Morgan, one a niece and the other a daughter of J. P. Morgan, the most powerful financier in U.S. history, used their family’s money to finance women workers who were protesting before and after the Triangle Shirtwaist fire, even putting up a Fifth Avenue mansion as security for bail when those protesters were arrested. The

But even if men wanted to read the truth about their condition, women would still be the decisive factor. Though both men and women read, women are in addition the big consumers. Since women do most of the buying, most advertising campaigns are aimed directly or indirectly at them. Since most Western papers are financed largely through advertising, they cannot risk displeasing women by their editorial content; the day on which they do so, they would hear from their advertisers in no uncertain terms. Men would not stand a chance, even if they wanted to publish independent opinions about women, of being published in any medium addressing both sexes, as the great majority do. The same is true of television, financed as it is in most Western countries by advertisers, promoters, publicity aimed at consumers. Here too the editorial content must pass female censorship. It is not pre-censored, of course, but subject to a censorship which functions on the principle that the producer is done for if the product does not sell. The producer is therefore motivated to avoid catastrophe by censoring himself.

The boredom of spinsters and of women who can no longer find joy and fulfillment in marriage stems from an awareness of a barren, spoiled life. By embracing a holy cause and dedicating their energies and substance to its advancement, they find a new life full of purpose and meaning. Hitler made full use of “the society ladies thirsting for adventure, sick of their empty lives, no longer getting a ‘kick’ out of love affairs.”1 He was financed by the wives of some of the great industrialists long before their husbands had heard of him.2 Miriam Beard tells of a similar role played by bored wives of businessmen before the French Revolution: “they were devastated with boredom and given to fits of the vapors. Restlessly, they applauded innovators.

Delegate judiciously: This is another incredibly important lesson for leading. A finance billionaire once told me that to scale a business you have to know how to delegate: “A great employee will do something 80 percent the same way you would do it. The last 20 percent is their personal take on the deliverable. There’s a 50 percent chance that your way would be the right way and a 50 percent chance that their way is better. They’re not going to do it 100 percent the same way you would, but you have to hope that you hire people who will do things better than you would, who will try things that are smartly conceived. You have to get comfortable with people doing things 80 percent the way you would have done them in order to scale a business.” The ability to delegate smartly is critical.

Under the Iranian code, the worth of a woman’s life equals half of a man’s, a point that often leads to grotesque legal judgments that effectively punish the victims. In this instance, the judge ruled that the ‘blood money’ for the two men was worth more than the life of the murdered nine-year-old girl, and he demanded that her family come up with thousands of dollars to finance their executions.

A diamond may be forever, but terrorism, promiscuously funded, will be too. Let's make the connection clearly by tracing the path of the diamond. Diamonds start out in the earth, and eventually that earth is part of a country, like Sierra Leone, Angola, or the Democratic Republic of Congo. In those countries, desperate battles for control have been going on for decades, and the armies that fight the battles finance their ambitions with diamonds. Villagers are forced to mine the diamonds by ruthless rebels who maintain order through terror: by raping women and hacking off the limbs of the children, something, by the way, you never see in the De Beers ads. The rebels then smuggle the diamonds into neighboring dictatorships in exchange for guns and cash. There the diamonds are sold to the highest bidder--whether they be terrorists or "legitimate" dealers--and finally they're laundered in Europe, shipped to America, and end up in jewelry stores where they're purchased by men and given to women in exchange for oral sex. In the feminized world we live in, it's practically national policy that women are more evolved that men--but if that's so, how come they're still so impressed by shiny objects?

The Republican and Democratic parties have sadly morphed into one large, Wall Street–financed political establishment in which no matter which party gets elected, the erosion of our civil liberties continues and we pile up more debt, levy higher taxes on working people, and engage in endless foreign wars where America’s interests are sometimes vague. The close alliance of the Bushes and Clintons shows that party is meaningless in today’s political system.

Operating from the idea that a relationship (or anything else) will somehow complete you, save you, or make your life magically take off is a surefire way to keep yourself unhappy and unhitched. Ironically, quite the opposite is true. What you really need to understand is that nothing outside of you can ever produce a lasting sense of completeness, security, or success. There’s no man, relationship, job, amount of money, house, car, or anything else that can produce an ongoing sense of happiness, satisfaction, security, and fulfillment in you. Some women get confused by the word save. In this context, what it refers to is the mistaken idea that a relationship will rid you of feelings of emptiness, loneliness, insecurity, or fear that are inherent to every human being. That finding someone to be with will somehow “save” you from yourself. We all need to wake up and recognize that those feelings are a natural part of the human experience. They’re not meaningful. They only confirm the fact that we are alive and have a pulse. The real question is, what will you invest in: your insecurity or your irresistibility? The choice is yours. Once you get that you are complete and whole right now, it’s like flipping a switch that will make you more attractive, authentic, and relaxed in any dating situation—instantly. All of the desperate, needy, and clingy vibes that drive men insane will vanish because you’ve stopped trying to use a relationship to fix yourself. The fact is, you are totally capable of experiencing happiness, satisfaction, and fulfillment right now. All you have to do is start living your life like you count. Like you matter. Like what you do in each moment makes a difference in the world. Because it really does. That means stop putting off your dreams, waiting for someday, or delaying taking action on those things you know you want for yourself because somewhere deep inside you’re hoping that Prince Charming will come along to make it all better. You know what I’m talking about. The tendency to hold back from investing in your career, your health, your home, your finances, or your family because you’re single and you figure those things will all get handled once you land “the one.” Psst. Here’s a secret: holding back in your life is what’s keeping him away. Don’t wait until you find someone. You are someone.

Liberal feminism’s ethos converges not only with corporate mores but also with supposedly “transgressive” currents of neoliberal culture. Its love affair with individual advancement equally permeates the world of social-media celebrity, which also confuses feminism with the ascent of individual women. In that world, “feminism” risks becoming a trending hashtag and a vehicle of self-promotion, deployed less to liberate the many than to elevate the few. In general, then, liberal feminism supplies the perfect alibi for neoliberalism. Cloaking regressive policies in an aura of emancipation, it enables the forces supporting global capital to portray themselves as “progressive.” Allied with global finance in the United States, while providing cover for Islamophobia in Europe, this is the feminism of the female power-holders: the corporate gurus who preach “lean in,” the femocrats who push structural adjustment and microcredit on the global South, and the professional politicians in pant suits who collect six-figure fees for speeches to Wall Street.

One of the few stable statistics in our fast-changing world is our rate of divorce, which has hovered between 40 and 50 percent for the last thirty years. Any two people who marry face a grim 50 to 60 percent chance of survival. And if that weren’t sobering enough, one needs to ask further: Of those who remain together, how many do so happily, as opposed to those who stay for external reasons, like their children, finances, religion, or fatigue? Conservatively, we can estimate that at least one out of three, perhaps one out of two, of those couples left standing do not relish their lives together.

Almost every woman had a primary role in the “female-dominated” family structure; only a small percentage of men had a primary role in the “male-dominated” governmental and religious structures. Many mothers were, in a sense, the chair of the board of a small company—their family. Even in Japan, women are in charge of the family finances—a fact that was revealed to the average American only after the Japanese stock market crashed in 1992 and thousands of women lost billions of dollars that their husbands never knew they had invested.23 Conversely, most men were on their company’s assembly line—either its physical assembly line or its psychological assembly line.

Countries measured their success by the size of their territory, the increase in their population and the growth of their GDP – not by the happiness of their citizens. Industrialised nations such as Germany, France and Japan established gigantic systems of education, health and welfare, yet these systems were aimed to strengthen the nation rather than ensure individual well-being. Schools were founded to produce skilful and obedient citizens who would serve the nation loyally. At eighteen, youths needed to be not only patriotic but also literate, so that they could read the brigadier’s order of the day and draw up tomorrow’s battle plans. They had to know mathematics in order to calculate the shell’s trajectory or crack the enemy’s secret code. They needed a reasonable command of electrics, mechanics and medicine in order to operate wireless sets, drive tanks and take care of wounded comrades. When they left the army they were expected to serve the nation as clerks, teachers and engineers, building a modern economy and paying lots of taxes. The same went for the health system. At the end of the nineteenth century countries such as France, Germany and Japan began providing free health care for the masses. They financed vaccinations for infants, balanced diets for children and physical education for teenagers. They drained festering swamps, exterminated mosquitoes and built centralised sewage systems. The aim wasn’t to make people happy, but to make the nation stronger. The country needed sturdy soldiers and workers, healthy women who would give birth to more soldiers and workers, and bureaucrats who came to the office punctually at 8 a.m. instead of lying sick at home. Even the welfare system was originally planned in the interest of the nation rather than of needy individuals. When Otto von Bismarck pioneered state pensions and social security in late nineteenth-century Germany, his chief aim was to ensure the loyalty of the citizens rather than to increase their well-being. You fought for your country when you were eighteen, and paid your taxes when you were forty, because you counted on the state to take care of you when you were seventy.30 In 1776 the Founding Fathers of the United States established the right to the pursuit of happiness as one of three unalienable human rights, alongside the right to life and the right to liberty. It’s important to note, however, that the American Declaration of Independence guaranteed the right to the pursuit of happiness, not the right to happiness itself. Crucially, Thomas Jefferson did not make the state responsible for its citizens’ happiness. Rather, he sought only to limit the power of the state.

The atmosphere in Washington was different. President Reagan remained popular, despite having committed crimes far worse than those that had brought Nixon down: financing terrorism in Nicaragua, trading weapons for hostages with Iran, and turning women and girls into mangled corpses on the streets of Beirut. Reagan’s collaborator Vice President George H. W. Bush looked likely to become the next president. Somehow—and Jasper could not figure out how this trick had been worked—people who challenged the president and caught him out cheating and lying were no longer heroes, as they had been in the seventies, but instead were considered disloyal and even anti-American.

If you can kill it in the bedroom, chances are you can kill it in the kitchen, too—and studies have shown that men who help out more with the chores have more sex with their wives (really!). We know, gender roles run deep, which is why women in hetero relationships still end up doing the vast majority of the domestic work despite being the breadwinners in two-thirds of American homes, leaving them burned out, resentful, and, nope, not really in the mood. But it doesn’t have to be this way—and, in fact, we might want to borrow a page from our LGBTQ sisters and brothers (or those who identify as neither): research shows they split chores, decisions, and finances more evenly

How common is resource infidelity? One survey of a thousand individuals in New York City revealed that 40 percent of married women and 37 percent of married men had a secret bank account.12 A Harris survey found somewhat lower numbers, but nonetheless 31 percent admitted lying to their spouse about some aspect of finances—58 percent of those who did hid cash, 30 percent hid a bill, 15 percent hid a bank account, 11 percent lied about earnings, and another 11 percent lied about debt.13 Another study found that 80 percent of respondents admitted to hiding money from their spouse.14 Regardless of the exact numbers, which vary from study to study, sample to sample, and method to method, financial infidelity is clearly not uncommon.

In the 1980s, the Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceauşescu banned contraceptives and abortions for any women who had not yet given birth to five children. Soon institutions filled with thousands of infants and kids abandoned by impoverished families (many intent on reclaiming their child when finances improved).* Kids were warehoused in overwhelmed institutions, resulting in severe neglect and deprivation. The story broke after Ceauşescu’s 1989 overthrow. Many kids were adopted by Westerners, and international attention led to some improvements in the institutions. Since then, children adopted in the West, those eventually returned to their families, and those who remained institutionalized have been studied, primarily by Charles Nelson of Harvard.

Incidentally, those who were shocked by Bush the Younger’s shout that we are now “at war” with Osama should have quickly put on their collective thinking caps. Since a nation can only be at war with another nation-state, why did our smoldering if not yet burning bush come up with such a war cry? Think hard. This will count against your final grade. Give up? Well, most insurance companies have a rider that they need not pay for damage done by “an act of war.” Although the men and women around Bush know nothing of war and less of our Constitution, they understand fund-raising. For this wartime exclusion, Hartford Life would soon be breaking open its piggy bank to finance Republicans for years to come. But the mean-spirited Washington Post pointed out that under U.S. case law, only a sovereign nation, not a bunch of radicals, can commit an “act of war.” Good try, G.W. This now means that we the people, with our tax money, will be allowed to bail out the insurance companies, a rare privilege not afforded to just any old generation.

Pointsman is the only one here maintaining his calm. He appears unruffled and strong. His lab coats have even begun lately to take on a Savile Row serenity, suppressed waist, flaring vents, finer material, rather rakishly notched lapels. In this parched and fallow time, he gushes affluence. After the baying has quieted down at last, he speaks, soothing: “There’s no danger.” “No danger?” screams Aaron Throwster, and the lot of them are off again muttering and growling. “Slothrop’s knocked out Dodson-Truck and the girl in one day!” “The whole thing’s falling apart, Pointsman!” “Since Sir Stephen came back, Fitzmaurice House has dropped out of our scheme, and there’ve been embarrassing inquires down from Duncan Sandys—“ “That’s the P.M.’s son-in-law, Pointsman, not good, not good!” “We’ve already begun to run into a deficit—“ “Funding,” IF you can keep your head, “is available, and will be coming in before long… certainly before we run into any serious trouble. Sir Stephen, far from being ‘knocked out,’ is quite happily at work at Fitzmaurice House, and is At Home there should any of you wish to confirm. Miss Borgesius is still active in the program, and Mr. Duncan Sandys is having all his questions answered. But best of all, we are budgeted well into fiscal ’46 before anything like a deficit begins to rear its head.” “Your Interested Parties again?” sez Rollo Groast. “Ah, I noticed Clive Mossmoon from Imperial Chemicals closeted with you day before yesterday,” Edwin Treacle mentions now. “Clive Mossmoon and I took an organic chemistry course or two together back at Manchester. Is ICI one of our, ah, sponsors, Pointsman?” “No,” smoothly, “Mossmoon, actually, is working out of Malet Street these days. I’m afraid we were up to nothing more sinister than a bit of routine coordination over the Schwarzkommando business.” “The hell you were. I happen to know Clive’s at ICI, managing some sort of polymer research.” They stare at each other. One is lying, or bluffing, or both are, or all of the above. But whatever it is Pointsman has a slight advantage. By facing squarely the extinction of his program, he has gained a great of bit of Wisdom: that if there is a life force operating in Nature, still there is nothing so analogous in a bureaucracy. Nothing so mystical. It all comes down, as it must, to the desires of men. Oh, and women too of course, bless their empty little heads. But survival depends on having strong enough desires—on knowing the System better than the other chap, and how to use it. It’s work, that’s all it is, and there’s no room for any extrahuman anxieties—they only weaken, effeminize the will: a man either indulges them, or fights to win, und so weiter. “I do wish ICI would finance part of this,” Pointsman smiles. “Lame, lame,” mutters the younger Dr. Groast. “What’s it matter?” cries Aaron Throwster. “If the old man gets moody at the wrong time this whole show can prang.” “Brigadier Pudding will not go back on any of his commitments,” Pointsman very steady, calm, “we have made arrangements with him. The details aren’t important.” They never are, in these meetings of his.

Nevertheless, you can float many a hefty tax scheme on the back of a righteous-sounding and energizing war. Wars focus the attention; people don’t want to feel or even appear disloyal at such times. Scare them with the thought that they themselves may be looted and pillaged by bands of slavering, subhuman barbarians who will roast and eat their children and ravish and eviscerate their women, don’t laugh, it’s happened, and they’ll fork over with remarkable docility, if not eagerness. Just to remind you: the income tax was begun in Great Britain in 1799, to finance the Napoleonic Wars. In the United States, it began in 1862, to support the Civil War. In Canada, in 1917, incomes were first taxed as a temporary measure to finance the First World War. And taxes are like zebra mussels: once they’ve been introduced, they’re very hard to get rid of. The wars the income taxes were meant to pay for have come and gone, but the income taxes themselves persist. Oh well, it’s better than a tax on windows, or beards, or bachelors, all of which have also had their day.

The history of HRT use dates back to 1966 and the success of Dr. Robert Wilson’s best-selling book Feminine Forever, which he promoted vigorously. The premise of the book was that it was as natural and necessary for a menopausal woman to replace estrogen as it was for a diabetic to replace insulin. Dr. Wilson preached that doing so would keep a woman young, healthy, and attractive. He went so far as to declare that the lack of eggs and decline of reproductive hormones in a menopausal woman was a “galloping catastrophe”5 that could only be averted by taking estrogen supplements. He explained that with estrogen supplements, “Breasts and genital organs will not shrivel. Such women will be much more pleasant to live with and will not become dull and unattractive.” According to Dr. Wilson’s son, Ronald, all of his father’s expenses to write Feminine Forever were paid for by Wyeth-Ayerst, the maker of the synthetic estrogen supplement Premarin. He also said that Wyeth-Ayerst financed his father’s organization, the Wilson Research Foundation, which had offices on Park Avenue in Manhattan.

Not long ago, Malthusian thinking was revived with a vengeance. In 1967 William and Paul Paddock wrote Famine 1975!, and in 1968 the biologist Paul R. Ehrlich wrote The Population Bomb, in which he proclaimed that “the battle to feed all of humanity is over” and predicted that by the 1980s sixty-five million Americans and four billion other people would starve to death. New York Times Magazine readers were introduced to the battlefield term triage (the emergency practice of separating wounded soldiers into the savable and the doomed) and to philosophy-seminar arguments about whether it is morally permissible to throw someone overboard from a crowded lifeboat to prevent it from capsizing and drowning everyone.10 Ehrlich and other environmentalists argued for cutting off food aid to countries they deemed basket cases.11 Robert McNamara, president of the World Bank from 1968 to 1981, discouraged financing of health care “unless it was very strictly related to population control, because usually health facilities contributed to the decline of the death rate, and thereby to the population explosion.” Population-control programs in India and China (especially under China’s one-child policy) coerced women into sterilizations, abortions, and being implanted with painful and septic IUDs.12

The cheerleaders of the new data regime rarely acknowledge the impacts of digital decision-making on poor and working-class people. This myopia is not shared by those lower on the economic hierarchy, who often see themselves as targets rather than beneficiaries of these systems. For example, one day in early 2000, I sat talking to a young mother on welfare about her experiences with technology. When our conversation turned to EBT cards, Dorothy Allen said, “They’re great. Except [Social Services] uses them as a tracking device.” I must have looked shocked, because she explained that her caseworker routinely looked at her purchase records. Poor women are the test subjects for surveillance technology, Dorothy told me. Then she added, “You should pay attention to what happens to us. You’re next.” Dorothy’s insight was prescient. The kind of invasive electronic scrutiny she described has become commonplace across the class spectrum today. Digital tracking and decision-making systems have become routine in policing, political forecasting, marketing, credit reporting, criminal sentencing, business management, finance, and the administration of public programs. As these systems developed in sophistication and reach, I started to hear them described as forces for control, manipulation, and punishment

While amassing one of the most lucrative fortunes in the world, the Kochs had also created an ideological assembly line justifying it. Now they had added a powerful political machine to protect it. They had hired top-level operatives, financed their own voter data bank, commissioned state-of-the-art polling, and created a fund-raising operation that enlisted hundreds of other wealthy Americans to help pay for it. They had also forged a coalition of some seventeen allied conservative groups with niche constituencies who would mask their centralized source of funding and carry their message. To mobilize Latino voters, they formed a group called the Libre Initiative. To reach conservative women, they funded Concerned Women for America. For millennials, they formed Generation Opportunity. To cover up fingerprints on television attack ads, they hid behind the American Future Fund and other front groups. Their network’s money also flowed to gun groups, retirees, veterans, antilabor groups, antitax groups, evangelical Christian groups, and even $4.5 million for something called the Center for Shared Services, which coordinated administrative tasks such as office space rentals and paperwork for the others. Americans for Prosperity, meanwhile, organized chapters all across the country. The Kochs had established what was in effect their own private political party.

It is untrue that I or anybody else in Germany wanted war in 1939. It was desired and instigated exclusively by those international statesmen who were either of Jewish origin or working for Jewish interests. I have made so many offers for the reduction and elimination of armaments, which posterity cannot explain away for all eternity, that the responsibility for the outbreak of this war cannot rest on me. Furthermore, I never desired that after the first terrible World War a second war should arise against England or even against America. Centuries may pass, but out of the ruins of our cities and monuments of art there will arise anew the hatred for the people who alone are ultimately responsible: International Jewry and its helpers! As late as three days before the outbreak of the German-Polish War, I proposed to the British Ambassador in Berlin a solution for the German-Polish problem -- similar to the problem of the Saar area, under international control. This offer cannot be explained away, either. It was only rejected because the responsible circles in English politics wanted the war, partly in the expectation of business advantages, partly driven by propaganda promoted by international Jewry. But I left no doubt about the fact that if the peoples of Europe were again only regarded as so many packages of stock shares by these international money and finance conspirators, then that race, too, which is the truly guilty party in this murderous struggle would also have to be held to account: the Jews! I further left no doubt that this time we would not permit millions of European children of Aryan descent to die of hunger, nor millions of grown-up men to suffer death, nor hundreds of thousands of women and children to be burned and bombed to death in their cities, without the truly guilty party having to atone for its guilt, even if through more humane means.

I'll bet My. Pinter knows his way around a rifle. She scowled. He probably thought he was a grand shot, anyway. For a man whose lineage was reputedly unsavory, Mr. Pinter was so high in the instep that she privately called him Proud Pinter or Proper Pinter. He'd told Gabe last week that most lords were good for only two things-redistributing funds from their estates into the gaming hells and brothels in London, and ignoring their duty to God and country. She knew he was working for Oliver only because he wanted the money and prestige. Secretly, he held them all in contempt. Which was probably why he was being so snide about her marrying. "Be that as it may," she said, "I'm interested in marriage now." She strode over to the fireplace to warm her hands. "That's why I want you to investigate my potential suitors." "Why me?" She shot him a sideways glance. "Have you forgotten that Oliver hired you initially for that very purpose?" His stiffening posture told her that he had. With a frown, he drew out the notebook and pencil he always seemed to keep in his pocket. "Very well. Exactly what do you want me to find out?" Breathing easier, she left the fire. "The same thing you found out for my siblings-the truth about my potential suitors' finances, their eligibility for marriage, and...well..." He paused in scratching his notes to arch an eyebrow at her. "Yes?" She fiddled nervously with the gold bracelet she wore. This part, he might balk at. "And their secrets. Things I can use in my...er...campaign. Their likes, their weaknesses, whatever isn't obvious to the world." His expression chilled her even with the fire at her back. "I'm not sure I understand." "Suppose you learn that one of them prefers women in red. That could be useful to me. I would wear red as much as possible." Amusement flashed in his eyes. "And what will you do if they all prefer different colors?" "It's just an example," she said irritably.

23 When He Carries a Heavy Burden Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. GALATIANS 6:2 SOCIETY PUTS A LOT OF WEIGHT on a man’s shoulders. It is his burden to earn the finances to support his family. He is expected to do well at his work and on his job. There are so many expectations of him in that regard that he feels the pressure of it constantly. That’s why you read about so many men committing suicide when they are in serious financial trouble. The burden is too great. Few women commit suicide for financial failure. If you or I fell into financial ruin, we would just sell everything, pay off all the debts we could, get a job, and start over. Men can feel the burden of failure in life-threatening ways. That’s why your husband needs your prayers to keep his burdens lifted. One of the best ways to bear your husband’s burden is to pray for him about whatever heavy load he is carrying. Every time you do, pray especially for what burdens him the most. One of the most effective things you can do is let him know you are praying for him and ask him to tell you what his burdens are. He may reveal something you didn’t even know was bothering him. God’s Word says that sometimes our burden comes from the oppressor. The children of Israel had an oppressor, and they were overtaken by this oppressor because of their own disobedience. But God promised that the burden the oppressor put on them would eventually be broken by the power of His Spirit. “It shall come to pass in that day that his burden will be taken away from your shoulder, and his yoke from your neck, and the yoke will be destroyed because of the anointing oil” (Isaiah 10:27). The anointing oil refers to a work of the Holy Spirit. Your prayers can invite the Holy Spirit to break any burden of the oppressor off of your husband’s shoulders. You will be fulfilling the “law of Christ” every time you pray like that, not to mention how it will secure your husband’s devotion. My Prayer to God LORD, I pray my husband will be able to fully release his burdens to You. I know that when we cast our burdens on You, You will sustain us and not allow us to be shaken (Psalm 55:22 NASB). Help me to bear his burdens in prayer and in any other way You reveal to me. Show me what his greatest burden is and what I can do to lighten it. I ask that You would relieve him of his heavy load by Your presence in his life. Enable him to understand that when he yokes up with You, You will carry the burden for him. I pray that when he is oppressed by the enemy, whatever prayer or supplication is made by him—when he acknowledges his own burdens before You and turns to You for help—that You will hear him (2 Chronicles 6:29-30). I also pray that as You take his burden from him, he will know it’s You doing the heavy lifting. In Jesus’ name I pray.

On alimony: "Why should it be your ex's responsibility to give you a lifestyle that you yourself cannot afford?

We can't help our families, our communities or the world if we don't understand how money works

There is a secret society of seven men that controls the finances of the world. This is known to everyone but the details are not known. There are some who believe that it would be better if one of those seven men were a financier. There is a secret society of three men and four women that controls all the fashions of the world. The details of this are known to all who are in the fashion. And I am not. There is a secret society of nineteen men that is behind all the fascist organizations in the world. The secret name of this society is Glomerule. There is a secret society of thirteen persons known as the Elders of Edom that controls all the secret sources of the world. That the sources have become muddy is of concern to them. There is a secret society of only four persons that manufactures all the jokes of the world. One of these persons is unfunny and he is responsible for all the unfunny jokes. There is a secret society of eleven persons that is behind all Bolshevik and atheist societies of the world. The devil himself is a member of this society, and he works tirelessly to become a principal member. The secret name of this society is Ocean.... Chesterton said that Mankind itself was a secret society. Whether it would be better or worse if the secret should ever come out he did not say.

He argued that a woman should have equal rights in family property and should be educated, especially in matters of law and finance: “it will be like providing the women of civilized society with a pocket dagger for self-protection.”27 Most important, though, Fukuzawa encouraged an independent spirit.

Humanity has always been controlled by two sides and never did its accomplishments been ignored but overseen and manipulated by those in power. The truth, however, is never accepted by those who keep on paying the price for the untruth they embrace. In doing so, they keep the most important truths hidden from themselves, for their level of consciousness cannot go beyond their ego — the belief that they have not been massively fooled. These high truths can only bypass the filter of the ego and mass media control when found in a book. And yet, you may never finish such book, or find it, if you cannot handle the truths found within it and reflecting within yourself. Among such truths, is the fact that what you believe to be a postmodern world, did not liberate anyone, but rather imprisoned mankind furthermore within the mind — the only physical center, for now, where control can be operated from an external source: The real purpose of the feminist movement was to force women to give away their children earlier to the state, as the earlier they are indoctrinated, the more easily controlled they'll be as adults; the real purpose of the LGBT movement and the women's liberation movement is to increase the levels of depression in society; and these, among other tactics, massively increase the profit of those in control, for they are the same behind the financing of Universities researching humanity at a psychological, biological, and chemical level.

Keynes cut a magnificent figure: six feet three, and superbly tailored; an authority on wines, fine foods and beautiful women; patron of the arts, and master of the English language which he only distorted by design. He, too, posed as the possessor of elusive secrets, key to the Higher Mysteries of economics and public finance…. An alchemist who succeeded in substituting paper for gold, a mystifier who claimed that money multiplied itself in the spending, Keynes compelled bankers to do his bidding and imposed his schemes on the highest personages in an age of political unreason. (Martin, 1966, p. 323)

Cheaters make unilateral decisions about their victim’s health, welfare, and finances. And they act in secret, because chumps have value to them—value they want to continue extracting. Chumps can waste years in a marriage not knowing the truth about being defrauded. And so much of our culture wants us to think these costs are frivolous. Infidelity is the jolly subject of romantic comedies or women’s magazine articles about the naughty fun of being a mistress. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge. Victimless crime!

It’s never going to be over, so stop waiting for the good stuff. As of now, spend a minimum of one hour a day doing whatever you are waiting to do until your finances are more secure, or until the children have grown and left home, or until you have finished your obligations and you feel free to do what you really want to do.

Refusing to acknowledge the contracts of women in pornography places them in the same legal category as children or mental incompetents. In Indianapolis, the anti-pornography ordinance argued that women, like children, needed special protection under the law: "Children are incapable of consenting to engage in pornographic conduct.... By the same token, the physical and psychological well-being of women ought to be afforded comparable protection, for the coercive environment ... vitiates any notion that they consent or `choose' to perform in pornography." [2] This attitude of "I'm a helpless victim" could easily backfire on women who may be required to prove they are able to manage their own finances, or to handle custody of their own children. Moreover, the idea of men "emotionally or verbally coercing" women re-enforces the concept of men as intellectually and psychologically stronger than women. It is the old "Man of Steel/ Woman of Kleenex" myth.

freedom from finance. Freedom from male-dominated, misogynist corporate America. Freedom from how women ought to behave in the workplace. I stormed out of my office that day, sweat drenching my armpits and the power source between my legs. ‘Fuck you, and fuck the Greenwich office, too,

I had always found it intriguing that people viewed finance as the purview of a handful of experts, almost exclusively men. Yet no matter what the men in suits who guarded these secrets wanted everyone to believe, I knew finance was just a mixture of estimates, human psychology, and educated guesses about the future.

The internal slave trade became the largest enterprise in the South outside of the plantation itself, and probably the most advanced in its employment of modern transportation, finance, and publicity. It developed its own language: prime hands, bucks, breeding wenches, and fancy girls. Its routes, running counter to the freedom trails that fugitive slaves followed north, were similarly dotted by safe houses - pens, jails, and yards that provided resting places for slave traders as well as temporary warehouses for slaves. In all, the slave trade, with its hubs and regional centers, its spurs and circuits, reached into every cranny of southern society. Few southerners, white or black, were untouched. In the half century following the War of 1812, planters and traders expanded and rationalized the transcontinental transfer of slaves. During the second decade of the nineteenth century, traders and owners sent an estimated 120,000 slaves from the seaboard to the west, with the states and territories of Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, and Louisiana being the largest recipients. That number increased substantially during the following decade and yet again during the 1830s, when slave traders and migrating planters uprooted almost 300,000 black men, women, and children. By this time, though most of the slaves still derived from the Upper South - particularly Maryland and Virginia - their destination had moved further west. Alabama and Mississippi had become the largest recipients, with each receiving nearly 100,000 slaves during the 1830s. The Panic of 1837 and the subsequent decline in cotton and sugar production deflated the price of slaves and the trade slackened for a few years. But prices soon revived and with them the demand for slaves. Nearly one quarter of a million slaves left the seaboard for the interior during the 1850s, with more than half being taken west of the Mississippi River. The 'mania for buying negroes' easily overwhelmed periodic bans against slave importation and did not cease until the arrival of Union troops.

He gravitated toward women who were free and independent, sassy and high-spirited.

In 1990 a congress of indigenous peoples met outside of Quito, Ecuador, to discuss the Columbian Quincentenary, a celebration by immigrant populations of the arrival of Christopher Columbus to the western hemisphere on his financed expedition to find a trade route to India. Tribal people came from all of the Americas and met to discuss the destructive and monumental changes since this European explorer’s arrival. We met together to gain insight and strength and ponder how we would continue to move forward past the massive destruction and disrespect of the earth mind, body and spirit, and to continue our sovereignty as Native nations. In the women’s circle, a striking Bolivian Indian woman in a bowler hat stood up. She welcomed us, and noted that she was surprised at all of the Natives attending from the United States. “We thought John Wayne had killed all of you.” (This was not a joke.)

If you have $10,000 sitting in a savings or checking account earning only 1.0 percent annually when it could be earning 4.5 percent, you are cheating yourself out of $450 a year in interest. The way I see it, that's a plane ticket to Hawaii or a fancy dream night out on the town or more money in your retirement account! In other words, that so-called free checking account at the bank really isn't. Quite the contrary, it's costing you a fortune.

There is nothing that will "fix" a bad credit report except the passage of time and a consistent record of responsible bill-paying, and you contacting the credit-report companies and working with them to get your credit record clean.

Rose was in existential distress that fateful winter when her would-be earthly master, Robert Martin, passed away. The place: coastal South Carolina; the year: 1852. We do not know Rose’s family name, or the place of her birth, or the year of her death. Such is the case with the vast majority of African and Indigenous American women who were bought, sold, and exploited by the hundreds of thousands. But we can be sure that Rose faced the deep kind of trouble that no one in our present time knows and only an enslaved woman has seen. Rose knew that she or her little girl, Ashley, could be next on the auction block, the cold device enslavers turned to when their finances faltered.

Many of the issues affecting people of color in the United Kingdom originated in the heart of the British establishment—the institution of the monarchy. It was Queen Elizabeth I who legitimized slavery in 1562 when she allowed naval commander John Hawkins to kidnap Africans in his ship’s cargo hold and sell them in the Caribbean. And, during the reign of King Charles II, the Crown financed the African slave trade by founding and maintaining the Royal African Company of England, a trading operation that shipped more enslaved African men, women, and children than any other single institution during the entire period of the transatlantic slave trade.

Women are told we’re risk averse, but we’re not. We’re just risk aware.

Of the Five Fatigues, three specifically target women: fatigue from grief brought on by losing a child or husband, fatigue from worry about finances, a wayward husband, or an ailing child, and fatigue from trying to lift her family to a higher status. If women are prone to the Five Fatigues, then men are apt to fall victim to the Four Vices of drink, lust, desire for riches, and anger. Now, tell me about the Five Deaths.

In the end, the proceeds that actually went to Girls Inc. amounted to $2.2 million, thanks to a timely switch of the bet’s collateral from US Treasury bonds into Berkshire stock—highlighting how human discretion can still play a valuable role. The money helped finance a Girls Inc. program for vulnerable young women at a converted convent on the outskirts of Omaha, now appropriately renamed Protégé House.

Banco Popular helped to finance a global network of so-called vocational schools that targeted young women, many of them still children, from poor backgrounds and coerced them into a life of servitude for Opus Dei. Many were trafficked around the world to meet the needs of the movement. Robert Wilkinson / Alamy

Nelly Schleicher from Zurich was born in 1927 into difficult circumstances. “We lived in a small apartment in District 4. Finances

England of 1840 expected its young, affluent women to be literate and culturally astute, but it provided no real occupation for women with energy and vision. Fields of endeavor that were open to energetic, ambitious men—the military, finance, law, medicine, manufacture—were effectively closed to women.

Through centuries and across cultures, women were intimidated and coerced into marriage through horrible means-kidnapping, physical violence, even gang rape. In eighteenth -century England, the doctrine of coverture dictated that a woman had no legal rights within a marriage, other than those afforded her by her husband. Early American laws replicated this idea, and did not change until the 1960's. Before then, most states had "head and master" laws, giving husbands the right to beat their wives and take full control of family decision making and finances, including the woman's own property.

Well, Peter,” said Jesus. “Do you know of any men who will provide as much?” Peter felt like a scolded child. “No, Rabbi.” Jesus said, “We are certainly in need of finances.” Peter muttered, “I think Judas is pilfering from the treasury.” Jesus said, “Nevertheless, I see no reason to reject the help of such beautiful and resourceful women.” Jesus reached out and hugged Joanna. Another moment of discomfort for Peter. Simon thought of another comment. “What a funny irony to have Herod on the one hand hunting you, and on the other, funding you.” He immediately looked to Mary to see her reaction. She giggled. Simon felt on top of the world.

recognize that many do not have that luxury and I respect the choices they have to make in similar circumstances. All I can do is encourage them to rejoin work if they truly wish to. One of my colleagues took a break for seven years when her children were very young and spent her time baking cakes and organizing birthday parties. Now back at work, she is one of our most valuable people. Another colleague from our finance team said that she needed to quit as her son was in the tenth standard in school and needed attention, but we convinced her to stay on and work only half-day for the next one year, till the exams were done with. On

Most men are not picky enough.  Most men marry the woman who was most available to them for sex.  Men typically don’t care about the woman’s educational level, finances, or social ability. 

men thinks women are stupid about finance ,about science and politics. otherwise they think themselves super intelligent. no . I am not saying this from hate or anger ,I am saying this because I have seen such persons around me . if a woman weak in finance ,with a limited budget how they manage households ? or in crisis come up with reserved fund ? they understand loan ,as equal overdraft ,they understand where her signature can protect her respect where might insult . they just pretend to be stupid much time ,that their loved one may feel safe and can be relaxed that their tricks are still unknown . funny . like let them win

One of the most effective ways to empower a group is to help them get finance. Yes, money. Whether it be women, minority groups etc. Without economic independence, freedom is a hoax

As a rule, men feel they are supposed to know what they're doing when it comes to personal finance, so even when they don't, they often pretend that they do and resist asking for help. As a result, many men wind up making wrong turns onto bumpy back roads that wind up stranding them (and you) 100 miles from Wayne's Kountry Kitchen. Women, on the other hand, have relatively few hangups about admitting it when they don't know something. That's why they can make better investors than men. It's because they don't have any trouble with the idea that they have to have an education in order to be successful. Women are comfortable not only learning and studying but also asking questions—and by asking questions, of course, they learn more

Looking across the restaurant table, I could see the sadness in my mother's eyes. A good friend of hers had just gone through a bitter divorce. Suddenly, after more than three decades of marriage to a wealthy surgeon, the friend now found herself living in a tiny apartment, struggling to make ends meet as a $25,000-a-year secretary. Like many formerly well-o women, she had never paid much attention to her family's finances, and as a result her estranged husband was able to run rings around her in the settlement talks. It was a terrible thing—all the more so because it could have been prevented so easily— and it made me wonder if my mother was similarly in the dark

Everyday i meet with clients including widows and divorcees who have the same fears about money and it's my role to empower them, and women in general, to take control of their finances and create a plan.

Stop praying to God to change your marriage or your finances because you might end up seeing that you are the one that need the change not your marriage or finances.

Mr.s Kennedy toiled as a domestic servant and used her savings to start a notions and stationery store, which she gradually and skillfully expanded. Bridget's hard work and sacrifice, making her way as a widow in a strange land, established the funds her son P.J. Kennedy used to finance his liquor business. This enterprise was to become the basis of the family's future progress and put Bridget's descendants on a path that dazzled America and forever changed the political scene.

When I Need to Be Delivered from Bad Habits For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do…But now, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. ROMANS 7:15,17 AT ONE TIME OR ANOTHER in our lives, we women struggle with some kind of habit or behavior we don’t like, don’t want, and don’t know how to overcome. We usually know when we are doing something that is not good for our body, health, finances, or marriage, because after we do it we feel guilty to the point of self-flagellating regret. We beat ourselves up all day long about it. In the verses above, Paul describes our situation when we don’t do the things we know we should, and we do the things we know we shouldn’t. It happens when sin gets control over us, or our flesh cries loudly for what it wants, or the enemy takes advantage of our weakness and we don’t resist him. If we attempt to handle this on our own without God’s help, even if we do well for a time, we may eventually fall back into the same bad habit. Paul, however, gives us reason to hope, because a few verses later he asks, “Who will deliver me from this?” And he answers his own question saying, “Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 7:24-25). Jesus can set us free from all that is destructive in our lives, including our tendency toward any bad habits. The best news is that even though our own strength fails, the power of the Holy Spirit in us never fails. Ask God to set you free from any bad habit or craving that you know is not God’s will for your life. Thank Him that because of Jesus, you don’t have to give in to the dictates of your own flesh. Jesus has not only set you free, He can also help you walk in the freedom He has given you. My Prayer to God LORD, I pray You would expose any bad habits I have to Your light. Burn them out of my life. For the habit I struggle with most that I would like to see broken, help me to gain control over it so it cannot control me anymore. Show me how to rise up in the power of Your Spirit and resist this weakness head on. Take away whatever is in me that draws me to do anything that is not Your best for my life. Fill what is missing in me with more of You so that I stop trying to fill any empty place in my life with something that turns into an undesirable habit. Destroy the conflict in me that causes me to do what I don’t want to do and not do what I do want to do. Enable me to be strong and not give in to weakness. I release to You all my desires and needs, and recognize that my true need will always be for more of You. Thank You, Jesus, for setting me free from captivity to sin and delivering me from all that is not good for me, and therefore not good for my husband and children. Protect me from anything that would drive me back into old habits that only destroy my peace, health, security, and future. Lift me above my weaknesses so that Your strength will be clearly manifested in me. In Jesus’ name I pray.

We need to pay as much attention to the MEANS, as to the END! This is the biggest principle of SUCCESS..The END is so enticing, that we lose sight of the details altogether..Success lies in the DETAILS!

While King Ahasuerus has been rotating his guests during these six months, these seven princes have most likely been with him the whole time as well. To Ahasuerus, it may have seemed that these were the right men to go to for advice, but Ahasuerus is not at his sharpest after these six months of celebrating. We can only imagine that these advisors are as bored and as drunk as King Ahasuerus, even though earlier in this chapter (verse 8) the historian makes a point of telling us that the guests were not required to drink. These men may have been “partying” right along with Ahasuerus for these six months, and their judgement may be hindered by the atmosphere as much as the king’s judgement has been hindered. On a more personal note, can you think of any time when you sought out the wrong person for advice or counsel? I sure can! You would not seek advice on your finances from someone who filed bankruptcy yesterday, nor would you seek advice on marriage from a child. When you need wise counsel, you need to find someone who has experienced victory in the same situation in which you are experiencing difficulty. Of course, when I catch myself looking to the wrong people for advice, many times I realize something: I am not really looking for advice, I am looking for support. Sometimes we seek out people that we expect will be sympathetic to our cause. Ahasuerus may have done this very thing in choosing these men. Maybe Ahasuerus has already determined what he wants to do with Vashti, and now he is looking for validation. Big mistake! Here is a lesson we can take from Ahasuerus: there are situations in our lives when we should seek an opinion from an objective party. The Bible encourages us to seek wise counsel. We should use wisdom and choose someone with more experience and wisdom than we have ourselves. If Ahasuerus wanted approval, he found it in these seven advisors. If he merely wanted a decisive opinion on what course of action to take, he has found that. And Memucan answered before the king and the princes: “Queen Vashti has not only wronged the king, but also all the princes, and all the people who are in all the provinces of King Ahasuerus. For the queen’s behavior will become known to all women, so that they will despise their husbands in their eyes, when they report, ‘King Ahasuerus commanded Queen Vashti to be brought in before him, but she did not come.’ Esther 1:16-17 When Ahasuerus asks for advice, one of the advisors speaks out quickly. Memucan answers Ahasuerus, and apparently he has taken Vashti’s refusal pretty personally himself. Perhaps Memucan’s wife is among those women that Vashti is entertaining. Memucan exaggerates this situation to make it seem like a very serious infraction indeed, and he wants the king to see it his way. Memucan says, “Queen Vashti has not only wronged the king, but also all the princes, and all the people who are in all the provinces” (v. 16). He suggests that the queen’s refusal will make all women despise their husbands (v. 17). … Is Memucan taking this situation a little far? This very day the noble ladies of Persia and Media will say to all the king’s officials that they have heard of the behavior of the queen. Thus there will be excessive contempt and wrath. If it pleases the king, let a royal decree go out from him, and let it be recorded in the laws of the Persians and the Medes, so that it will not be altered, that Vashti shall come no more before King Ahasuerus; and let the king give her royal position to

We are also governed by the Seven Emotions of elation, anger, sadness, grief, worry, fear, and fright. Of the Five Fatigues, three specifically target women: fatigue from grief brought on by losing a child or husband, fatigue from worry about finances, a wayward husband, or an ailing child, and fatigue from trying to lift her family to a higher status.

Let me be clear: if you found a love like that, I would expect you to marry. I would expect it for your own good. But as long as our finances permit it, I could never ask you to yoke yourself to a pale imitation of what your mother and I had. I don’t expect it of myself, either. Certainly not when we could be writing books instead.

A Note on the Text This is a work of fiction based in no part on any individual or individuals. Ireland’s last Magdalen laundry was not closed down until 1996. It is not known how many girls and women were concealed, incarcerated and forced to labour in these institutions. Ten thousand is the modest figure; thirty thousand is probably more accurate. Most of the records from the Magdalen laundries were destroyed, lost, or made inaccessible. Rarely was any of these girls’ or women’s work recognised or acknowledged in any way. Many girls and women lost their babies. Some lost their lives. Some or most lost the lives they could have had. It is not known how many thousands of infants died in these institutions or were adopted out from the mother-and-baby homes. Earlier this year, the Mother and Baby Home Commission Report found that nine thousand children died in just eighteen of the institutions investigated. In 2014, the historian Catherine Corless made public her shocking discovery that 796 babies died between 1925 and 1961 in the Tuam home, in County Galway. These institutions were run and financed by the Catholic Church in concert with the Irish State. No apology was issued by the Irish government over the Magdalen laundries until Taoiseach Enda Kenny did so in 2013. Acknowledgements