The Globe’s Women’s Problem

 

By Talia Carner

 (This article was published in Digital Journal in November 2011)

            On November 25, the U.N. again commemorated International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon again urged nations “to help end this pandemic of violence… [in order to] have a more just, peaceful and equitable world.”
            What has changed since 1993 when the U.N. General Assembly adopted resolution 48/104? In 2011, across the globe, women are not only subject to violence, but are still positioned as far inferior to men in every public sphere—political, religious, legal and economic.
            No country is free of “a woman’s problem,” be it full legal rights, maternity care, religious representation, political leadership, education opportunities, or pay equality.
            In South America, under military regimes, poverty is feminized with the highest rate of teenage mothers. In some African nations, maternity death reaches 2,000:1 maternity death in Europe. In the U.S., mothers are disenfranchised and discredited in our courts.
            And what happens in third-world nations stuck in the seventeenth century?
            In the film, The Stoning of Soraya, a man in contemporary Iran wishing to divorce his wife concocts an allegation of infidelity. Using false witnesses in a trial that Soraya is prohibited from attending, she is sentenced to death. As her lower body is buried in the sand, her male relatives and neighbors are her delighted executioners—starting with her own father. The viciousness in which her adolescent son is the first to throw a stone that hits her forehead reflects the misogyny indoctrinated into boys’ minds. It is also linked to global terrorism: Bloodthirsty societies such as Afghanistan, Iran and Saudi-Arabia that are obsessed with women’s bodies’ “purity” are also the countries that produced most terrorists and terrorist acts of the 20th and 21st centuries.
            A child-bride forced into sexual slavery in the Middle East, Asia or South America may dream about fleeing the marriage into which she was sold. But the world outside is more cruel toward an illiterate women. Courageous girls who flee the rice fields of Vietnam or the steppes of Siberia for the promise of jobs abroad, are likely to fall into sex trafficking rings. Every year, one- to two-million girls and women are ensnared into brothels from Berlin to Calcutta.
            The atrocities visited upon women are highlighted in mass rape used as a tool of war. From East Timor to Sierra Leone, wars between nations are won by breaking women, shattering nuclear families, tearing apart villages and wrecking a nation’s spirit. But when people crawl out of the ashes, mores are shattered. In African nations, men expect sex simply by overpowering a female, making gender violence common even in schools.
            Then there is the burning of brides in India, the mass gendercide of girls in China, and clitoridectomy of two million girls a year in Africa and Muslim nations.
            What is the answer for this bleak state of global gender discrimination that results in female misery and death?

            Education.
            When women are educated, they delay marriage age, have fewer children, seek to educate them, present role models for their daughters and a fresh view of women for their sons.
            When women are educated, their earning capacity increases, they are more likely to start their own business ventures, and have a better chance to pull out of poverty.           
            When women are educated, they help better other women’s and children’s lives, seek leadership roles and run for political offices. They use the Internet to reach beyond their narrow world and begin to resist extreme forms of religious fundamentalism.
            Women are not the problem, but rather than solution. Had society heeded the 1993’s resolutions of eliminating violence against women, women, one-half the world’s population would have helped society double its forward move toward development and prosperity.

            # # #
            Author Talia Carner’s most recent award-winning novels often deal with social issues and the plights of women and children. Please check www.TaliaCarner.com .

THE THIRD DAUGHTER has reached the top!

The Jewish Book Council announced its winners....

2020 National Jewish Book Award
Finalist

THE THIRD DAUGHTER  reached a finalist spot in the Book Club category. (It's an honor to lose to Alice Hoffman....)

This seal will be appear on the cover of the novel as of the next printing.

In her letter to my publisher, HarperCollins, JBC Executive Director wrote: "We recognize and appreciate your editorial decision to publish a book of such high quality.... one that contributes to informed living, understanding, and entertainment for the entire English-reading world."

Yes, once again with my fiction writing, I've stepped into an arena few have ever dared entered. It took compassion and maturity on my part, but it was my fabulous editor, Kate Nintzel, who has had the courage and wisdom to support the project and then to publish THE THIRD DAUGHTER.


WOW again!

Two days after the JBC announcement, BookMovement, which serves tens of thousands of book clubs, posted its choice of the "Historical fiction of the month!" It has selected THE THIRD DAUGHTER, and is offering a giveaway of copies of the book!

Click here to enter BookMovement giveaway for book clubs.
(And please don't forget to mail me a photo of your meeting for a monthly drawing of a beautiful shawl, replica of the one worn by the protagonist on the cover--at AuthorTalia@aol.com .)

 

After months and years of toiling alone, it's such a pleasure to share my work with you....

 
 After spending long days, weeks and months ladling words out of an ocean of emotions and empathy, it’s a great feeling to take my work to the public and to discuss the social issues that fire my imagination--and to find such receptive readers.

* I Skype with book clubs, joining the second part of the meeting, after members have had a chance to discuss the book, to exchange opinions and even to disagree. That's what makes a meeting more thought-provoking. (Please contact me to check my availability to Skype at AuthorTalia@aol.com, not this newsletter gmail account.)
* My book tour is in full swing, with over 30 keynotes and presentations in the first part of 2020 alone!  (Please join me if you can.)
* I have given numerous written interviews.
* I have spoken at radio and podcasts. (Please listen to one broadcast here.)
* Most importantly, I get to educate readers about sex trafficking, and through the humanity of the protagonist, to gain understanding and compassion. In a call for action, I direct audiences to my activism page and show them what they can do to fight this scourge in their own backyard.

 The shameful secret readers are most surprised to learn.... 

 Set in the late 1800s in Buenos Aires,  THE THIRD DAUGHTER is a story of a young Jewish woman lured under false promise of marriage from Russia to South America, where she's forced into prostitution. With faith and fortitude, she struggles to free herself, while trying to bring down the powerful traffickers' ring.

Historically true, THE THIRD DAUGHTER was inspired by Sholem Aleichem's short story, The Man from Buenos Aires,  that appeared in the same collection as Tevye the Dairyman. I invented the story of one of Tevye's daughters after the family flees a pogrom (--a sequel to Fiddler on the Roof.) They meet this mysterious, shady man, who lures the daughter from Russia to Argentina with a false promise of marriage--only to force her into a brothel. 

Zwi Migdal was a legal union of traffickers headquartered in Buenos Aires, that operated with impunity for 70 years. THE THIRD DAUGHTER is a tribute to the estimated over 150,000 Jewish girls and women whose haunting voices impelled me to tell their truth....

But as the iconic  Phyllis Chesler writes in her endorsement, the novel has "a satisfying, redemptive ending!"

And readers echo it:  "This book will be on my mind for the rest of my life, "The best book I've ever read," and "I can't begin to describe how good it is...."
(Please click for more reviews.)

On the personal side....

More often now interviewers ask me “Who are you?” “What else do you do besides writing?”  They read my [extensive] bio on my website, yet still wonder about me.

Yes, there is life outside writing, publishing, activism, and book touring. In fact, I have a very large family—a husband, Ron Carner, and four grown children, all married with kids of their own…. We all love to spend time together, and make a point to do that often, but are okay when we don’t, when each goes their own way, involved in their own busy lives. Ron and I are very proud that our children are all well-adjusted, productive adults that carry our Jewish values forward.

The 19 of us, with me on the top step next to Ron

Ron and I travel internationally a couple of times a year. This spring it will be France (where I am researching novel #6,) and in the Fall it will be Japan. We have a busy cultural and social life of theater, concerts and friends.

I study French online daily, and exercise most days (jazz dance alternate with weights or Pilates.) When my schedule permits, I join a Mah-Jongg game. I particularly like nature walks, and whether in New York or Boca Raton, I always find a park or a nature preserve to listen to the birds….

How do I find time to write? I don't require a lot of sleep....

Please join me for an engaging literary event:  

In my presentations, I do not do "readings," but rather deliver thought-provoking talks about the social issues behind each of my novels. Audiences and event organizers find them "enriching," "extraordinary," "engaging," "superbly performed," "eye-opening," and "unforgettable." 

In the coming months you'll find me in New York area, New Jersey and Florida. Please check my Book Tour page and meet me there!  
 

Hadassah Cascades (FL) January 2020

 
I would like to single out one upcoming event, my presentation about sex trafficking on Friday, March 20th, at the UN, at the Commission of the Status of Women. For the second time I get to broadcast my novel's message on the international arena. (The previous presentation, on March 2007, was about infanticide in China and its platform was my novel, CHINA DOLL.)

To schedule an event with me, please contact my event coordinator, Lisa Bernard at MecoxHudson@gmail.com or (203)919-8406 

Thanks--and more....   

Thank you all for your interest and support.

I would like to ask you to help spread the word. One way is to post a review on Amazon and/or GoodReads. Even a couple of lines will do, but it helps to get the word out.

Thank you for your friendship in the real and cyber worlds--and I am looking forward to hearing from you!

Talia

www.TaliaCarner.com



P.S.  You may read the first chapter of THE THIRD DAUGHTER on my website--and of course, order at your local indie store, on B&N,  Amazon, and iTunes.

P.P.S. The novel is available also in LARGE PRINT!