Why have intelligent women who defied convention been silenced from the pages of history?

I have just watched the BBC production of the Secret Diaries of Anne Lister. I recommend that you watch it because it finally gives you a woman who did what we do in our power circles, lived life on her terms. I agree with Sue Perkins, the narrator, that it is sad that bright, capable, strong, independent women have been wiped from the pages of history. Jack Holland's book "Misogyny" is full of independent women being killed just because they didn't do what women were expected to do during their day. And this is still happening. I feel that my struggles in publishing "The Silent Female Scream" is part of the "conspiracy of silence" as Sue Perkins put it. Women who write about, speak about, and do it their way, regardless of what others think get silenced, and if they scream in protest, they get silenced even further. During Anne Lister's day they would've been locked up in an asylum or in the attic away from society.  Today they get guilt tripped or just ignored.

Claim some time to watch this remarkable woman's story and draw from her energy of entitlement to live life your way!

We need to debate Oliver James's book on Mothering

Hello Everyone - I am making an official call to debate Oliver James's book on Mothering that is coming out today I think. I'm going to read it and we need to talk about it, debate it, because it is time the mothering got taken from behind the curtain and debated in a new light - one that views mothers as women, as people, with rights and lives of their own, and one that views fathers as parents, with just as much responsibility for children as mothers do. Who's with me?

Mother Blaming is back and its recruited Oliver James

Well I am clearly a BAD MOTHER judging from Oliver James's new book "How Not to F*** Them UP"! (Article in The Times, 22/5/10) I had time out for my preschool children, the equivalent of the naughty step which is apparently one of the three big no nos. I also had a strict sleep routine, another way to F*** them up apparently. I didn't put them in nursery, except for one morning a week. Does that count? Am I let off? I guess pleading that I would've gone mad without time out and sleep is futile!!?? I need sleep in order to function!! and the time out was more for me than for them.

I despair that the backlash against mothers claiming their needs, claiming their lives, claiming equal parenting responsibilities is back with a vengeance. Please please tell anyone who reads Oliver James's new book to read The Silent Female Scream. This is not a plug for my book, more a scream in the dark that is frustrated that too much media attention, visibility and credentials are given to the voices that think that its okay to tell mothers that they are the primary nurturers and that they still should judge themselves again the "Good Mother" test. Have we gone back to the 1960's?