Sally Armstrong

Charlotte Taylor lived in the front row of history. In 1775, at the young age of twenty, she fled her English country house and boarded a ship to Jamaica with her lover, the family’s black butler. Soon after reaching shore, Charlotte’s lover died of yellow fever, leaving her alone and pregnant in Jamaica. In the sixty-six years that followed, she would find refuge with the Mi’kmaq of what is present-day New Brunswick, have three husbands, nine more children and a lifelong relationship with an aboriginal man. Using a seamless blend of fact and fiction, Charlotte Taylor's great-great-great-granddaughter, Sally Armstrong, reclaims the life of a dauntless and unusual woman and delivers living history with all the drama and sweep of a novel. Excerpt from fromThe Nine Lives of Charlotte Taylor: “Every summer of my youth, we would travel from the family cottage at Youghall Beach to visit my mother’s extended clan in Tabusintac near the Miramichi River. And at every gathering, just as much as there would be chickens to chase and newly cut hay to leap in, so there would be an ample serving of stories about Charlotte Taylor. . . She was a woman with a “past.” The potboilers about her ran like serials from summer to summer, at weddings and funerals and whenever the clan came together. She wasn’t exactly presented as a gentlewoman, although it was said that she came from an aristocratic family in England. Nor was there much that seemed genteel about the person they always referred to as “old Charlotte.” Words like “lover” and “land grabber” drifted down from the supper table to where we kids sat on the floor. There were whoops of laughter at her indiscretions, followed by sideways glances at us. But for all the stories passed around, it was clear the family still had a powerful respect for a woman long dead. We owed our very existence to her, and the anecdotes the older generation told suggested that their own fortitude and guile were family traits passed down from the ancestral matriarch. For as long as I can remember, I’ve tried to imagine the real life Charlotte Taylor lived and, more, how she ever survived.”

The Nine Lives of Charlotte Taylor

The facts are indisputable. When women get even a bit of education, the whole of society improves. When they get a bit of healthcare, everyone lives longer. In many ways, it has never been a better time to be a woman: a fundamental shift has been occurring. Yet from Toronto to Timbuktu the promise of equality still eludes half the world's population. Award-winning author, journalist, and human rights activist Sally Armstrong illustrates how the status of the female half of humanity is crucial to our collective surviving and thriving. Drawing on anthropology, social science, literature, politics, and economics, she examines the many beginnings of the role of women in society, and the evolutionary revisions over millennia in the realms of sex, religion, custom, culture, politics, and economics. What ultimately comes to light is that gender inequality comes at too high a cost to us all.

The Longest Revolution

Power Shift

Sima Samar

I have three strikes against me. I am a woman, I speak out for women and I'm Hazara, the most persecuted ethnic group in Afghanistan. Sima Samar has been fighting for equality and justice all her life. Born into a polygamous family, she learned early that girls had inferior status and had to agree to an arranged marriage to go to university. By the time she was in medical school, she was both a mother and a revolutionary. Samar's work as a doctor for those most desperate for help – namely women in far flung, mountainous regions – put her in grave personal danger. After her husband was disappeared by the pro-Russian regime, she faced a choice: accept the injustices she saw around her or keep driving for a better Afghanistan. Despite numerous death threats and decades of catastrophic warfare, Samar has worked tirelessly for the dream she is convinced is achievable: justice and human rights for all citizens of Afghanistan. From selling her own hand-embroidered bed quilt to pay for her education to becoming Minister of Women's Affairs and thorn in the side of the Taliban, Samar has witnessed the internal and international political failures that have engulfed her country at every level. In this poignant and inspiring memoir – the first inside story of Afghanistan by a woman – Samar provides an unparalleled view of her country's past, present and fragile future.

My Fight for Freedom and Human Rights in Afghanistan

Outspoken

Racers

"Ascent of Women will describe the perilous journey that brought women to this point. It will tell the dramatic and empowering stories of change-makers and examine the stunning courage, tenacity and wit they are using to alter the status quo. It is the story of a dawning of a new revolution, whose chapters are being written in mud-brick houses in Afghanistan; on Tehrir Square in Cairo; in the forests of the Congo, where women still hide from their attackers; and in a shelter in northern Kenya, where 160 girls between 3 and 17 are pursuing a historic court case against a government who did not protect them from rape." -- publisher website.

Ascent of Women

In this groundbreaking book, an award-winning humanitarian and journalist, breaking new ground in the global fight for women's rights, introduces us to the women all over the world whose courage, tenacity and wit are altering the status quo. 30,000 first printing.

A New Age Is Dawning for Every Mother's Daughter

Uprising

Have you ever imagined what it would be like to work 11 miles above the Earth and on the edge of space, travelling at twice the speed of sound, serving champagne and caviar to passengers as they enjoyed their supersonic experience? Concorde was the aviation icon of our age and the ultimate in luxury air travel. Even the most frequent flyer felt the sense of occasion flying aboard Concorde and joining what became a very elite club. Sally Armstrong recounts her experiences of meeting the rich and famous, the royals and superstars, and flying private charters to exotic places. Her account documents a unique era of flight with all the adventure, glitz and glamour that it entailed. Reflecting on Concorde's heady beginnings during its first operations all the way through to the tragic Air France crash in 2001, the author tells the story of Concorde through the eyes of the cabin crew. Not just an aircraft, Concorde was a way of life now sadly consigned to the history books.

The Supersonic World of a Concorde Stewardess

Vintage Champagne on the Edge of Space

"Eight years after the Taliban was ousted from government, an insurgency rages in Afghanistan, drug barons and war lords rule the turf, and the truth remains unspoken. In Bitter Roots, Tender Shoots: The Uncertain Fate of Afghanistan's Women, author Sally Armstrong confronts unspoken truths and unravels the threads that are strangling Afghanistan's attempts to join the twenty-first century. A veteran reporter, Armstrong interviews women and girls from all walks of life, focusing on the change-makers—the women activists, journalists, politicians, and lawyers who have taken on the dangerous task of altering the status quo and yanking Afghanistan out of its primitive past. Combining the personal stories of women with the analysis of experts and the grassroots efforts of Canadians, Bitter Roots, Tender Shoots is an accurate and impassioned portrayal of the contemporary lives of women and girls in Afghanistan."--book desc. 2009, amazon.ca.

The Uncertain Fate of Afghanistan's Women

Bitter Roots, Tender Shoots

In 1997, Sally Armstrong, then editor-in-chief of Homemaker's magazine, wrote an article about the women of Afghanistan and their lives under the misogynist Taliban regime. More than 9000 letters poured in from readers demanding that something be done to get these women out of bondage. Recently named as UNICEF's special representative to Afghanistan, Armstrong has an insider's view of the terror, abuse and misogyny the women and girls of Afghanistan have faced for more than two decades of civil war and, in particular, when the Taliban took over. Veiled Threat begins on September 27, 1996, the day the Taliban seized power and put women under house arrest. Armstrong introduces us to several women--among them the commissioner of human rights for Afghanistan, Dr. Sima Samar--who describe their rapid-fire descent into the waking nightmare of life under the Taliban. Armstrong then steps back to describe the centuries-old history of misogyny and the way customs such as honour killing found their way to Afghanistan. She also highlights the extraordinary work women around the world were doing to rescue their sisters in Afghanistan while venerable bodies such as the United Nations were virtually silent. Leading us through the fractured history of Afghanistan, Armstrong examines what Islam actually says about women. She assesses the monumental impact of September 11 and ends with intriguing conclusions drawn by Afghan women. Based on first-hand experience that includes Armstrong's own unexpected stay with the Taliban and years of passionate involvement in the struggle for women's rights in Afghanistan, Veiled Threat brings a humane and informed view to the lives of women in this tragic and awesome land.

Sally Armstrong

About

Books

Join the club