Deborah J. Ross's Blog, page 3

Reprint: Transgender Saints!

 

Christianity has long revered saints who would be called ‘transgender’ today Sarah Barringer, University of Iowa

Several Republican-led states have restricted transgender rights: Iowa has signed a law removing civil rights protection for transgender people; Wyoming has prohibited state agencies from requiring the use of preferred pronouns; and Alabama recently passed a law that only two sexes would be recognized. Hundreds of bills have been introduced in other state legislatures to curtail trans rights.

Earlier in the year, several White House executive orders pushed to deny trans identity. One of them, “Eradicating Anti-Christian Bias,” claimed that gender-affirming policies of the Biden administration were “anti-Christian.” It accused the Biden Equal Employment Opportunity Commission of forcing “Christians to affirm radical transgender ideology against their faith.”

To be clear, not all Christians are anti-trans. And in my research of medieval history and literature, I found evidence of a long history in Christianity of what today could be called “transgender” saints. While such a term did not exist in medieval times, the idea of men living as women, or women living as men, was unquestionably present in the medieval period. Many scholars have suggested that using the modern term transgender creates valuable connections to understand the historical parallels.

There are at least 34 documented stories of transgender saints’ lives from the early centuries of Christianity. Originally appearing in Latin or Greek, several stories of transgender saints made their way into vernacular languages.

Transgender saints

Of the 34 original saints, at least three gained widespread popularity in medieval Europe: St. Eugenia, St. Euphrosyne and St. Marinos. All three were born as women but cut their hair and put on men’s clothes to live as men and join monasteries.

Eugenia, raised pagan, joined a monastery to learn more about Christianity and later became abbot. Euphrosyne joined a monastery to escape an unwanted suitor and spent the rest of his life there. Marinos, born Marina, decided to renounce womanhood and live with his father at the monastery as a man.

These were well-read stories. Eugenia’s story appeared in two of the most popular manuscripts of their day – Ælfric’s “Lives of Saints” and “The Golden Legend.” Ælfric was an English abbot who translated Latin saints’ lives into Old English in the 10th century, making them widely available to a lay audience. “The Golden Legend” was written in Latin and compiled in the 13th century; it is part of more than a thousand manuscripts.

Euphrosyne also appears in Ælfric’s saints’ lives, as well as in other texts in Latin, Middle English, and Old French. Marinos’ story is available in over a dozen manuscripts in at least 10 languages. For those who couldn’t read, Ælfric’s saints’ lives and other manuscripts were read aloud in churches during service on the saint’s day.

Euphrosyne of Alexandria. Anonymous via Wikimedia Commons

A small church in Paris built in the 10th century was dedicated to Marinos, and relics of his body were supposedly kept in Qannoubine monastery in Lebanon.

This is all to say, a lot of people were talking about these saints.

Holy transness

In the medieval period, saints’ lives were less important as history and more important as morality tales. As a morality tale, the audience was not intended to replicate a saint’s life, but learn to emulate Christian values. Transitioning between male and female becomes a metaphor for transitioning from pagan to Christian, affluence to poverty, worldliness to spirituality. The Catholic Church opposed cross-dressing in laws, liturgical meetings and other writings. However, Christianity honored the holiness of these transgender saints.

In a 2021 collection of essays about transgender and queer saints in the medieval period, scholars Alicia Spencer-Hall and Blake Gutt argue that medieval Christianity saw transness as holy.

“Transness is not merely compatible with holiness; transness itself is holy,” they write. Transgender saints had to reject convention in order to live their own authentic lives, just as early Christians had to reject convention in order to live as Christians.

Literature scholar Rhonda McDaniel explains that in 10th-century England, adopting the Christian values of shunning wealth, militarism and sex made it easier for people to go beyond strict ideas about male and female gender. Instead of defining gender by separate male and female values, all individuals could be defined by the same Christian values.

Historically and even in contemporary times, gender is associated with specific values and roles, such as assuming that homemaking is for women, or that men are stronger. But adopting these Christian values allowed individuals to transcend such distinctions, especially when they entered monasteries and nunneries.

According to McDaniel, even cisgender saints like St. Agnes, St. Sebastian and St. George exemplified these values, exhibiting how anyone in the audience could push against gender stereotypes without changing their bodies.

Agnes’ love of God allowed her to give up the role of wife. When offered love and wealth by men, she rejected them in favor of Christianity. Sebastian and George were powerful Roman men who were expected, as men, to engage in violent militarism. However, both rejected their violent Roman masculinity in favor of Christian pacifism.

A life worth emulating

Although most saints’ lives were written primarily as morality tales, the story of Joseph of Schönau was told as both very real and worthy of emulation by the audience. His story is told as a historical account of a life that would be attainable for ordinary Christians.

In the late 12th century, Joseph, born female, joined a Cistercian monastery in Schönau, Germany. During his deathbed confession, Joseph told his life story, including his pilgrimage to Jerusalem as a child and his difficult journey back to Europe after the death of his father. When he finally returned to his birthplace of Cologne, he entered a monastery as a man in gratitude to God for returning him home safely.

Despite arguing that Joseph’s life was worth emulating, the first author of Joseph’s story, Engelhard of Langheim, had a complicated relationship with Joseph’s gender. He claimed Joseph was a woman, but regularly used masculine pronouns to describe him.

Marinos the monk. Richard de Montbaston via Wikimedia Commons

Even though Eugenia, Euphrosyne and Marinos’ stories are told as morality tales, their authors had similarly complicated relationships with their gender. In the case of Eugenia, in one manuscript, the author refers to her with entirely female pronouns, but in another, the scribe slips into male pronouns.

Marinos and Euphrosyne were also frequently referred to as male. The fact that the authors referred to these characters as male suggests that their transition to masculinity was not only a metaphor, but in some ways just as real as Joseph’s.

Based on these stories, I argue that Christianity has a transgender history to pull from and many opportunities to embrace transness as an essential part of its values.

Sarah Barringer, Ph.D. Candidate in English, University of Iowa

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Reprint: Why we fall for fake health information – and how it spreads faster than facts

 

Why we fall for fake health information – and how it spreads faster than facts Should you share that health-related Instagram post? Catherine McQueen/Moment via Getty Images Angshuman K. Kashyap, University of Maryland

In today’s digital world, people routinely turn to the internet for health or medical information. In addition to actively searching online, they often come across health-related information on social media or receive it through emails or messages from family or friends.

It can be tempting to share such messages with loved ones – often with the best of intentions.

As a global health communication scholar studying the effects of media on health and development, I explore artistic and creative ways to make health information more engaging and accessible, empowering people to make informed decisions.

Although there is a fire hose of health-related content online, not all of it is factual. In fact, much of it is inaccurate or misleading, raising a serious health communication problem: Fake health information – whether shared unknowingly and innocently, or deliberately to mislead or cause harm – can be far more captivating than accurate information.

This makes it difficult for people to know which sources to trust and which content is worthy of sharing.

The allure of fake health information

Fake health information can take many forms. For example, it may be misleading content that distorts facts to frame an issue or individual in a certain context. Or it may be based on false connections, where headlines, visuals or captions don’t align with the content. Despite this variation, such content often shares a few common characteristics that make it seem believable and more shareable than facts.

For one thing, fake health information often appears to be true because it mixes a grain of truth with misleading claims.

For example, early in the COVID-19 pandemic, false rumors suggested that drinking ethanol or bleach could protect people from the virus. While ethanol or bleach can indeed kill viruses on surfaces such as countertops, it is extremely dangerous when it comes into contact with skin or gets inside the body.

Stopping to check the facts helps stem the spread of misinformation. World Health Organization adaptation from Siouxsie Wiles and Toby Morris in The Spinoff, CC BY-SA

Another marker of fake health information is that it presents ideas that are simply too good to be true. There is something appealingly counterintuitive in certain types of fake health information that can make people feel they have access to valuable or exclusive knowledge that others may not know. For example, a claim such as “chocolate helps you lose weight” can be especially appealing because it offers a sense of permission to indulge and taps into a simple, feel-good solution to a complex problem. Such information often spreads faster because it sounds both surprising and hopeful, validating what some people want to believe.

Sensationalism also drives the spread of fake health information. For instance, when critics falsely claimed that Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the chief medical adviser to the president at the time, was responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic, it generated a lot of public attention.

In a study on vaccine hesitancy published in 2020, my colleagues and I found that controversial headlines in news reports that go viral before national vaccination campaigns can discourage parents from getting their children vaccinated. These headlines seem to reveal sensational and secret information that can falsely boost the message’s credibility.

The pull to share

The internet has created fertile ground for spreading fake health information. Professional-looking websites and social media posts with misleading headlines can lure people into clicking or quickly sharing, which drives more and more readers to the falsehood. People tend to share information they believe is relevant to them or their social circles.

In 2019, an article with the false headline “Ginger is 10,000x more effective at killing cancer than chemo” was shared more than 800,000 times on Facebook. The article contained several factors that make people feel an urgency to react and share without checking the facts: compelling visuals, emotional stories, misleading graphs, quotes from experts with omitted context and outdated content that is recirculated.

Visual cues like the logos of reputable organizations or photos of people wearing white medical coats add credibility to these posts. This kind of content is highly shareable, often reaching far more people than scientifically accurate studies that may lack eye-catching headlines or visuals, easy-to-understand words or dramatic storylines.

But sharing content without verifying it first has real-world consequences. For example, studies have found that COVID-19-related fake information reduces people’s trust in the government and in health care systems, making people less likely to use or seek out health services.

Unfounded claims about vaccine side effects have led to reduced vaccination rates globally, fueling the return of dangerous diseases, including measles.

Check it out before you share.

Social media misinformation, such as false claims about cinnamon being a treatment for cancer, has caused hospitalizations and even deaths. The spread of health misinformation has reduced cooperation with important prevention and treatment recommendations, prompting a growing need for medical professionals to receive proper training and develop skills to effectively debunk fake health information.

How to combat the spread of fake health information

In today’s era of information overload in which anyone can create and share content, being able to distinguish between credible and misleading health information before sharing is more important than ever. Researchers and public health organizations have outlined several strategies to help people make better-informed decisions.

Whether health care consumers come across health information on social media, in an email or through a messaging app, here are three reliable ways to verify its accuracy and credibility before sharing:

Use a search engine to cross-check health claims. Never rely on a single source. Instead, enter the health claim into a reputable search engine like Google and see what trusted sources have to say. Prioritize information from established organizations like the World Health Organization, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, United Nations Children’s Fund or peer-reviewed journals like The Lancet or Journal of the American Medical Association. If multiple reputable sources agree, the information is more likely to be reliable. Reliable fact-checking websites such as FactCheck.org and Snopes can also help root out fake information.

Evaluate the source’s credibility. A quick way to assess a website’s trustworthiness is to check its “About Us” page. This section usually explains who is behind the content, their mission and their credentials. Also, search the name of the author. Do they have recognized expertise or affiliations with credible institutions? Reliable websites often have domains ending in .gov or .edu, indicating government or educational institutions. Finally, check the publication date. Information on the internet keeps circulating for years and may not be the most accurate or relevant in the present context.

If you’re still unsure, don’t share. If you’re still uncertain about the accuracy of a claim, it’s better to keep it to yourself. Forwarding unverified information can unintentionally contribute to the spread of misinformation and potentially cause harm, especially when it comes to health.

Questioning dubious claims and sharing only verified information not only protects against unsafe behaviors and panic, but it also helps curb the spread of fake health information. At a time when misinformation can spread faster than a virus, taking a moment to pause and fact-check can make a big difference.

Angshuman K. Kashyap, PhD candidate in Health Communication, University of Maryland

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Short Book Review: A Romp Through Lovecraft's Arkham

 The Ravening Deep (The Sanford Files), by TimPratt (Aconyte)

I’m a long-time fan of Tim Pratt, from his imaginative sciencefiction to his thoughtful, accessible novels set in gaming worlds. I quite understandwhy he undertook an adventure that’s part of Aconyte’s Lovecraftian “Arkham Horror”series—it’s a hoot! While it helps to have a superficial knowledge of themythos, it’s not necessary. Pratt guides us into this world of mysteries andcults, the superficial normal, and the deeply horrific reality beneath.

Poor Abel Davenport! First, his fishing business dries up,then in a drunken stupor he unwittingly becomes the chief priest of a long-deadgod (a gigantic, planet-devouring starfish, I kid you not), and before he knowsit, the spirit of the aforementioned god has cloned him into extremely not-nicedoppelgangers in its scheme to recover the last bit of its mortal flesh. Thenthere’s Diana Stanley, a shopkeeper who joined Arkham’s Silver Twilight Lodgein the mistaken belief it was a service club, only to learn, once it’s too lateto back out, that its rituals are far darker…and bloodier. Ruby Standish, catburglar par excellence, joins forces with Diana and Abel to pull off aheist at the Silver Twilight Lodge. Now the three of them must convince CarlSanford, master of the Lodge, where the true danger lies. Part horror novel,part thriller, and very much part tongue-in-cheek romp, The Ravening Deepis a quick, delicious read that left me wishing for the next adventure…and justa wee bit wary of my seafood.

Verdict: Great fun, even for those not familiar withLovecraft’s Arkham.

Article Review: Women Viking Warriors!

Recently, I came across this article on the widespread misconceptions about Vikings. 
7 myths about the Vikings that are (almost) totally false

Misconceptions abound about Vikings. They are often depicted as bloodthirsty, unwashed warriors with winged helmets. But that's a poor picture based largely on Viking portrayals in the 19th century, when they featured in European art either as romantic heroes or exotic savages. The real Vikings, however, were not just the stuff of legend — and they didn't have wings or horns on their helmets.

This article sparked an online discussion about the myth that all Viking warriors were male. A friend posted:

A myth they didn't cover is the one that says all the Viking warriors were male. Archaeology is finally recognizing that finding weapons and even a horse skeleton in a grave cannot ensure that the buried person was a man. (It was a myth nurtured by XY archaeologists, convinced they knew it all.)

By sheer coincidence, I saw the article below and mentioned it to my friend. I imagined her grinning as she responded:

Yes - Birka shook everything up in the field, and is making them reevaluate conclusions about a number of earlier excavations.
Weapon-filled burials are shaking up what we know about women's role in Viking society

In Birka, Sweden, there is a roughly 1,000-year-old Viking burial teeming with lethal weapons — a sword, an ax-head, spears, knives, shields and a quiver of arrows — as well as riding equipment and the skeletons of two warhorses. Nearly 150 years ago, when the grave was unearthed, archaeologists assumed they were looking at the burial of a male warrior. But a 2017 DNA analysis of the burial's skeletal remains revealed the individual was female.

Across Scandinavia, at least a few dozen women from the Viking Age (A.D. 793 to 1066) were buried with war-grade weapons. Collectively, these burials paint a picture that clashes violently with the hypermasculine image of the bearded, burly Viking warrior that has dominated the popular imagination for centuries. And it's possible that, due to gendered assumptions, archaeologists may be systematically undercounting the number of Viking women buried with weapons.

Archaeologists often guessed the deceased's sex based on grave goods, such as mirrors, weaving tools and brooches, which archaeologists assumed were typically buried with females, and battle-related weapons, which archaeologists thought were typically buried with males. If a Viking Age sword was the only item recovered, for example, it was nearly always assumed to be a male grave.

Even with that potential bias, there is strong evidence that some women were buried with war-related objects across Scandinavia. Norway has several of what have been nicknamed "shield-maiden" burials, after the women warriors of Scandinavian folklore. One is the Nordre Kjølen burial in Solør, which had a young adult — likely a female, based on a skeletal analysis — interred with a sword, an ax head, a spearhead, arrowheads, a shield boss, a horse skeleton and tools.To put the burials of women with weapons into context, archaeologists have looked at historical texts.

The Vikings left behind only a few thousand runic inscriptions. So most descriptions of warlike women and "shield maidens" come from semihistorical works written during the post-Viking medieval period. For instance, in "Gesta Danorum," a semifictional history of Denmark by Saxo Grammaticus (who lived circa 1150 to 1220), the warrior woman Lagertha travels with a group of women dressed as men, marries a Viking king who later divorces her, and still fights with him in a pivotal battle.

And some sagas, such as The Saga of Hervör and Heidrek, describe Norse women taking up arms to help protect family property, according to a 1986 analysis. Only men could inherit property, so if a man had only daughters, one was sometimes compelled to step into the role of a warrior as a "functional son" who could protect the family's interests, according to the study.

The Icelandic sagas, written by people who were likely the Viking's descendants in the 13th and 14th centuries, include stories about "women leading troops and engaging in acts of violence," Moen wrote in a 2021 article.

But are these stories evidence that Viking women were warriors in real life? Or did some stories have other mythical or mystical significance? Some evidence points toward the latter. Sagas in which women wield weapons like axes often have magical overtones. In the Old Norse Ljósvetninga saga, for instance, a cross-dressing Norse sorceress strikes the water with an ax to see into the future. Axes are frequently associated with magic in folk traditions from Scandinavia, Finland and Central Europe, Gardeła noted in a 2021 article.

And this:Hårby Valkyrie: A 1,200-year-old gold Viking Age woman sporting a sword, shield and ponytail

This cast silver figurine of a Valkyrie — a mythological maiden who assists Odin, the Norse god of war — is a unique example of Viking Age metalworking that provides clues about the role of armed women during the time period (793 to 1066).The naturalistic female figure was discovered by metal detectorists in the Danish village of Hårby in 2012 and is currently on display at the National Museum of Denmark.

The tiny female figurine is just 1.3 inches (3.4 centimeters) tall and weighs 0.4 ounces (13.4 grams). Its body is partly hollow, and much of it has been covered with a thin layer of gold. A black metallic alloy called niello has been used to highlight and decorate the object.

The female figurine is depicted with her hair gathered up into a ponytail that cascades down her back. She wears a V-neck dress that ends with a pleated skirt, and a pattern of intricate knots runs around the back and sides. Her left arm is protected by a shield, while her right hand clutches a short double-edged sword.

Because the figure is of an armed woman and likely represents a Valkyrie, Mogens Bo Henriksen, archaeology curator at Museum Odense in Denmark, and Peter Vang Petersen, curator of prehistory at the National Museum of Denmark, wrote in a study of the figurine in the periodical Skalk in 2013.

Valkyries were responsible for choosing which soldiers should die on the battlefield. These assistants to the Norse god of war then accompanied the dead warriors to Valhalla, where they served them plenty of alcohol to tide them over until the end of the world, when Odin needed the dead soldiers' support to defeat the giants at Ragnarok.

The decorative style of the figurine suggests it was made around A.D. 800, or the early Viking Age. It was found in a field where archaeologists and detectorists discovered other metal objects, including Arab coins, silver ingots and discarded jewelry. Experts think the area may have been a noble's farm in the Viking Age, complete with a metal craft workshop.

Armed female figures have been found elsewhere in Denmark and in England, but they are typically two-dimensional pendants or brooches. The partly hollow Hårby Valkyrie, however, may have adorned the top of a magical staff, Henriksen and Petersen wrote. According to the Norse sagas, divination women, or völvas, used similar staffs in their rituals. One of the female residents of the farm may once have owned the Hårby Valkyrie and used it as a symbol of power.

But it is also possible that the statue is not a Valkyrie at all but rather a depiction of a real woman. Norse sagas and poems mention that women sometimes took up arms, and the Oseberg Viking ship textiles also depict women carrying swords and holding spears, archaeologist Leszek Gardeła noted in his book "Women and Weapons in the Viking World: Amazons of the North," (Oxbow Books, 2021). In addition, about 30 Viking Age burials across Scandinavia hold the remains of women who were buried with war-grade weapons, such as swords, spearheads and shields — clues that some elite women from this time may have fought as warriors.

Book Review: Beware the Real Neverland

 The Adventures of Mary Darling, by Pat Murphy (Tachyon)

Peter Pan: We’ve all read the book, seen the play, orwatched the animated film, so we know the drill: In Victorian London, threechildren are swept away to Neverland by PeterPanSpiritOfYouth, where they havemany adventures battling pirates led by the dastardly Captain Hook. They leavebehind a frantic, ineffectual mother, a bombastic, equally ineffective father,and a drooling dog nanny. Author Pat Murphy asks, Is that really what happened?What if Mary Darling had once been spirited away to be a “Mother” to the LostBoys, despite her insistence that she is not a Mother? What if sheunderstands all too well the deception and peril of the place and its capriciousleader?

In Murphy’s retelling, after emerging from the first horrificshock of finding her children missing, with only one place they could have gone,Mary Darling determines to rescue them herself. Under the innocuous facade of aVictorian wife lies a powerful woman who has fought her way free of Neverland withconsiderable piratical skills. Of course, she encounters opposition, first in herhusband, George, who is loving but befuddled by her “independent ways.” A moresignificant barrier comes from her uncle, Doctor John Watson, who enlists hisfriend, Sherlock Holmes, in determining what ails her. Holmes decides that Maryis the prime suspect in the disappearance of her children.

As Mary embarks on her quest to rescue her children beforethey either starve to death in Neverland or fall prey to Pan’s carelessdisregard for human life, her past reveals itself in layers. In past andpresent, we meet old friends and allies, people whose lives have been foreveraltered by their contact with Neverland. We also discover the reality behind J.M. Barrie’s imperialistic misrepresentation of indigenous peoples, the role andpower of women, and the importance of memory.

The Adventures of Mary Darling is a brilliant re-imaginingof a familiar tale, laying bare its folly and portraying the ingenuity, skill,and heroism of Mary and a host of other characters, invented and glossed-over. Myfavorite was James, a sweet gay boy, one of a series of Pan’s “Toodles,” and wholater as Captain Hook proves to be one of Mary’s staunchest and most able supporters.It should come as neither surprise nor spoiler that Mr. Holmes never appreciateshis loss in insisting that logic is the only reality.

Highly recommended.

 

Book Review: Victorian Detective Thriller Noir

 The Nightingale Affair, by Tim Mason (Algonquin)

A deliciously twisty Victorian detective thriller focusingon a serial killer with a sinister signature targeting Florence Nightingale andher valiant nurses, first in 1855 Crimea (“the Beast of the Crimean”) and twelveyears later in London.  Nightingalehas dedicated her life to improving the wretched conditions in the Britishmilitary hospitals in Turkey, despite fierce objections from the male doctorsaround her. When young women start turning up dead, their mouths sewn shut withembroidered fabric roses, Inspector Charles Field (the real-life inspirationfor Charles Dickens’s Inspector Bucket in Bleak House) is dispatched fromEngland to Turkey’s famous Barrack Hospital to find the killer. The suspects abound:doctors, military men, journalists, and others, most of whom would gladly seeNightingale and her uppity women packed back to London. The death of the primesuspect closes the case.

In the second timeline, the killings have begun again justas a movement to enfranchise more voters—men for now but women in the future--isgetting underway. As Field gets drawn into the current investigation, hewonders if he’d gotten the wrong suspect back in Crimea or are the new killingsthe work of a demented copycat.

Along the way, Field encounters real figures of the day, fromBenjamin Disraeli and John Stuart Mill to novelist Wilkie Collins and, ofcourse, Florence Nightingale herself.

I found The Nightingale Affair to be a fast, absorbingread. The story moves swiftly from present to past, past to present, with charactersI cared about, plot twists, chases, and intrigue.

Trigger warning for gore and misogyny-related violence.

Reprint: Lower Suicide Rates in Teachers and Librarians

 

Teachers and librarians are among those least likely to die by suicide − public health researchers offer insights on what this means for other professions One reason teachers have a low suicide rate may be that they find meaning in their jobs. Digital Vision/Getty Images Jordan Batchelor, Arizona State University ; Charles Max Katz, Arizona State University , and Taylor Cox, Arizona State University

Where you work affects your risk of dying by suicide. For example, loggers, musicians and workers in the oil and gas industries have much higher rates of suicide than the rest of the population.

But on the flip side, some professions have very low rates of suicide. One of them is education. National and state data shows that educators in the U.S., including teachers, professors and librarians, are among the least likely to die by suicide.

We’re a team of researchers at the Center for Violence Prevention and Community Safety at Arizona State University. We manage Arizona’s Violent Death Reporting System, part of a surveillance system sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention with counterparts in all 50 U.S. states, Washington D.C., and Puerto Rico. We collect data on violent deaths, including suicide, thanks to agreements with local medical examiners and law enforcement.

When public health researchers like us look at suicide data, we often focus on high-risk populations to learn where intervention and prevention are most needed. But we can learn from low-risk populations such as educators too.

Why some professions have higher suicide rates

Over the past 25 years, the suicide rate in the U.S. has increased significantly.

The age-adjusted rate in 2022 was 14.2 suicides per 100,000 people, up from 10.9 a little over two decades earlier, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. Epidemiologists often adjust data for age to allow for a fairer comparison of incidence rates across populations with different age distributions.

But not all populations are affected equally. For example, military veterans die by suicide at higher rates than civilians, as do men, older adults and American Indian and Alaska Natives, to name a few demographics. In 2022 the suicide rate for men, for instance, was 23 suicides per 100,000, versus 5.9 for women.

The rate of suicide among the working-age population is also growing. Over the past two decades it has increased by 33%, reaching a rate of 32 suicides per 100,000 for men and eight for women in 2021. And workers in certain occupations are at higher risk of dying by suicide than others.

The reasons why are complex and diverse. Workers in construction, an industry with some of the highest suicide rates, may face greater stigma getting help for mental health issues, while people in other fields such as law enforcement may be more exposed to traumatic experiences, which can harm their mental health.

In short, some explanations are directly tied to one’s work, such as having low job security, little autonomy or agency, and an imbalance of work efforts and rewards. Other factors are more indirect, such as an occupation’s demographic makeup or the type of personality that chooses a profession. Together, factors like these help explain the rate of suicide across occupations.

Teachers, professors and librarians

Educators, on the other hand, have relatively little suicide risk.

By educators, we mean workers classified by the Bureau of Labor Statistics as “educational instruction and library,” which includes teachers, tutors, professors, librarians and similar occupations.

Nationally, about 11 in 100,000 male educators died by suicide in 2021, with the figure for women being about half that, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. By contrast, the rate for male workers in arts, design, entertainment, sports and media was 44.5 suicides per 100,000, and the rate for male workers in construction and extraction was 65.6.

Data from our state of Arizona follows the same pattern. From 2016 through 2023, a total of 117 educators died by suicide, mostly primary and secondary school teachers. This works out to be an incidence rate of 7.3 suicides per 100,000 educators − one-third the rate for all Arizona workers and the lowest among all occupations in the state.

Why educators have a low suicide rate

So why are educators at such a low risk of suicide? After all, educational professions certainly present their own challenges. For example, many teachers experience high amounts of burnout, which can cause physical and mental health problems such as headaches, fatigue, anxiety and depression.

A good place to begin is the profession’s demographic composition. A disproportionately high share of educators are women or are married − traits associated with lower suicide rates. Educators also tend to have high educational attainment, which may indirectly protect against suicide by increasing socioeconomic status and employability.

Another factor is workplace environment. Workplaces that offer increased access to lethal means such as firearms and medications are associated with higher suicide rates. This helps explain why workers in law enforcement, medical professions and the military tend to show high rates. The comparatively low availability of lethal means in schools may help keep educators’ rates low.

In addition, educators’ workplaces, typically schools and campuses, offer rich opportunities to form strong social relationships, which improve one’s overall health and help workers cope with job stress. The unique, meaningful bonds many educators form with their students, administrators and fellow educators may offer support that enhances their mental health.

Finally, based on more contextual information in our Arizona database, we found that a lower proportion of educators who died by suicide had an alcohol or drug abuse problem. Alcohol or substance abuse problems can increase suicidal ideation and other work-related risk factors such as job insecurity and work-related injury. In short, educators may live a healthier lifestyle compared with some other workers.

Improving worker health

So, what can workers and employers in other professions learn from this, and how can we improve worker health?

One lesson is to develop skills to cope with job stress. All professions are capable of producing stress, which can negatively affect a person’s mental and physical health. Identifying the root cause of job stress and applying coping skills, such as positive thinking, meditation and goal-setting, can have beneficial effects.

Developing a social network at the workplace is also key. High-quality social relationships can improve health to a degree on par with quitting smoking. Social relationships provide tangible and intangible support and help establish one’s sense of purpose and identity. This applies outside the workplace, too. So promoting work-life balance is one way organizations can help their employees.

Organizations can also strive to foster a positive workplace culture. One aspect of such a culture is establishing a sense of meaning or purpose in the work. For educators, this feature may help offset some of the profession’s challenges. Other aspects include appreciating employees for their hard work, identifying and magnifying employee strengths, and not creating a toxic workplace.

It is worth noting that continued research on occupational health is important. In the context of educators, more research is needed to understand how risk differs between and within specific groups. Despite their overall low risk, no person or demographic is immune to suicide, and every suicide is preventable.

If you or someone you know is experiencing signs of crisis, the free and confidential 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline is available to call, text or chat.

Jordan Batchelor, Research Analyst at the Center for Violence Prevention and Community Safety, Arizona State University; Charles Max Katz, Director of the Center for Violence Prevention and Community Safety, Arizona State University, and Taylor Cox, Program Coordinator, School of Criminology & Criminal Justice, Arizona State University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Book Review: Rain as a Luxury of the Very Rich

 The Rain Artist, by Claire Rudy Foster (MoonstruckBooks)

In a dystopic future, the Earth is so polluted that purewater is a luxury enjoyed only by the ultra-rich. Rivers have run dry and theseas have become so heavily saline that whales are extinct. Quadrillionairesthrow artificially generated “rain parties,” complete with handmade bespokeumbrellas created for each occasion by Celine Broussard, the last umbrella maker.The front of her workshop is rented by a florist, who seems to be a gentle soul,happy to arrange artificial flowers, but who is actually a far darker, far moredangerous character. And that’s before we learn just how dark and dangerous hereally is. As a result of a dynastic power struggle, Celine finds herselfframed for the patriarch’s murder. Soon she’s on the run across a devastatedlandscape, along with her terrifyingly competent tenant and a young woman desperateto terminate an illegal pregnancy.

I loved the gorgeous, sensually evocative prose that drew meinto each setting through the direct experiences of the character. I loved eventhe unlovable characters and how the author portrayed their crimes andshortcomings in a way that allowed me to change how I felt and make up my ownmind about them. I loved how the characters changed, finding both courage andfellowship on their flight.

In many ways, The Rain Maker doesn’t fit the usualdystopian-thriller genre. With sureness and skill, the author draws the readerinto the world and its inhabitants, beginning with very accessible scenes andprogressing, layering subtle details upon details, into a world like and unlikeour own. She doesn’t hit us over the head with bizarre elements as she slowlyand carefully creates a world in which they are plausible. In this way, thebook is generous with its welcome to readers who are familiar with the genre aswell as those who are new, naïve.

Gorgeous and unsettling and ultimately filled with hope.Highly recommended.

Short Book Reviews: Another Fun "Laundry Files" Novel

 Season of Skulls (A Novel in the World of the LaundryFiles), by Charles Stross (Tor)

I’ve loved “The Laundry Files” by Charles Stross since the firstadventure, a delicious blend of spy action adventure and Lovecraftian horror,with a dry sense of humor and a touch of romance. The series begins in apresent-day world where magic is a branch of computational mathematics (i.e.,if you get sufficiently powerful computers, they tap into magic, often withresults you really, really don’t want, like awakening ancient powers andopening gates to other dimensions). Now, many volumes later, Britain is under “NewManagement” and the Prime Minister is an Elder God of terrifying power. EveStarkey, once the hyperorganized assistant to an unscrupulous magician, is justtrying to get her life back and stay under the radar…and fails at both.

This latest installment has all the tension, wit, and quirkyimagination of its predecessors, but with a bit more, very satisfying romancethrown in. Poor Eve has been through so much, and her ex-boss, perhapsnot-so-ex-husband is such a loathsome toad, she deserves a little happiness in theend. Stross delivers all this and more.

Great fun for lovers of the series

Reprint: Legal Ethics and the Constitution

 

Justice Department lawyers work for justice and the Constitution – not the White House The U.S. flag flies above Department of Justice headquarters on Jan. 20, 2024, in Washington. J. David Ake/Getty Images Cassandra Burke Robertson, Case Western Reserve University

In the 1970s, President Richard Nixon tried to fire the Department of Justice prosecutor leading an investigation into the president’s involvement in wiretapping the Democratic National Committee’s headquarters.

Since then, the DOJ has generally been run as an impartial law enforcement agency, separated from the executive office and partisan politics.

Those guardrails are now being severely tested under the Trump administration.

In February 2025, seven DOJ attorneys resigned, rather than follow orders from Attorney General Pam Bondi to dismiss corruption charges against New York Mayor Eric Adams. Adams was indicted in September 2024, during the Biden administration, for alleged bribery and campaign finance violations.

One DOJ prosecutor, Hagan Scotten, wrote in his Feb. 15 resignation letter that while he held no negative views of the Trump administration, he believed the dismissal request violated DOJ’s ethical standards.

Among more than a dozen DOJ attorneys who have recently been terminated, the DOJ fired Erez Reuveni, acting deputy chief of the department’s Office of Immigration Litigation, on April 15. Reuveni lost his job for speaking honestly to the court about the facts of an immigration case, instead of following political directives from Bondi and other superiors.

Reuveni was terminated for acknowledging in court on April 14 that the Department of Homeland Security had made an “administrative error” in deporting Kilmar Abrego Garcia to El Salvador, against court orders. DOJ leadership placed Reuveni on leave the very next day.

Bondi defended the decision, arguing that Reuveni had failed to “vigorously advocate” for the administration’s position.

I’m a legal ethics scholar, and I know that as more DOJ lawyers face choices between following political directives and upholding their profession’s ethical standards, they confront a critical question: To whom do they ultimately owe their loyalty?

President Donald Trump speaks before Pam Bondi is sworn in as attorney general at the White House on Feb. 5, 2025. Andrew Harnik/Getty Images Identifying the real client

All attorneys have core ethical obligations, including loyalty to clients, confidentiality and honesty to the courts. DOJ lawyers have additional professional obligations: They have a duty to seek justice, rather than merely win cases, as well as to protect constitutional rights even when inconvenient.

DOJ attorneys typically answer to multiple authorities, including the attorney general. But their highest loyalty belongs to the U.S. Constitution and justice itself.

The Supreme Court established in a 1935 case that DOJ attorneys have a special mission to ensure that “justice shall be done.”

DOJ attorneys reinforce their commitment to this mission by taking an oath to uphold the Constitution when they join the department. They also have training programs, internal guidelines and a long-standing institutional culture that emphasizes their unique responsibility to pursue justice, rather than simply win cases.

This creates a professional identity that goes beyond simply carrying out the wishes of political appointees.

Playing by stricter rules

All lawyers also follow special professional rules in order to receive and maintain a license to practice law. These professional rules are established by state bar associations and supreme courts as part of the state-based licensing system for attorneys.

But the more than 10,000 attorneys at the DOJ face even tougher standards.

The McDade Amendment, passed in 1998, requires federal government lawyers to follow both the ethics rules of the state where they are licensed to practice and federal regulations. This includes rules that prohibit DOJ attorneys from participating in cases where they have personal or political relationships with involved parties, for example.

This law also explicitly subjects federal prosecutors to state bar discipline. Such discipline could range from private reprimands to suspension or even permanent disbarment, effectively ending an attorney’s legal career.

This means DOJ lawyers might have to refuse a supervisor’s orders if those directives would violate professional conduct standards – even at the risk of their jobs.

This is what Assistant U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon wrote in a Feb. 12, 2025, letter to Bondi, explaining why she could not drop the charges against Adams. Sassoon instead resigned from her position at the DOJ.

“Because the law does not support a dismissal, and because I am confident that Adams has committed the crimes with which he is charged, I cannot agree to seek a dismissal driven by improper considerations … because I do not see any good-faith basis for the proposed position, I cannot make such arguments consistent with my duty of candor,” Sassoon wrote.

As DOJ’s own guidance states, attorneys “must satisfy themselves that their behavior comports with the applicable rules of professional conduct” regardless of what their bosses say.

Post-Watergate principles under pressure

The president nominates the attorney general, who must be confirmed by the U.S. Senate.

That can create the perception and even the reality that the attorney general is indebted to, and loyal to, the president. To counter that, Attorney General Griffin Bell, in 1978, spelled out three principles established after Watergate to maintain a deliberate separation between the White House and the Justice Department.

First, Bell called for procedures to prevent personal or partisan interests from influencing legal judgments.

Second, Bell said that public confidence in the department’s objectivity is essential to democracy, with DOJ serving as the “acknowledged guardian and keeper of the law.”

Third, these principles ultimately depend on DOJ lawyers committed to good judgment and integrity, even under intense political pressure. These principles apply to all employees throughout the department – including the attorney general.

Recent ethics tests

These principles face a stark test in the current political climate.

The March 2025 firing of Elizabeth Oyer, a career pardon attorney with the Justice Department, raises questions about the boundaries between political directives and professional obligations.

Oyer was fired by Bondi shortly after declining to recommend the restoration of gun rights to actor Mel Gibson, a known Donald Trump supporter. Gibson lost his gun rights after pleading no contest to a misdemeanor domestic battery charge in 2011.

Oyer initially expressed concern to her superiors about restoring Gibson’s gun rights without a sufficient background investigation, particularly given Gibson’s history of domestic violence.

When Oyer later agreed to testify before Congress in a hearing about the White House’s handling of the Justice Department, the administration initially planned to send armed U.S. Marshals officers to deliver a warning letter to her home, saying that she could not disclose records about firearms rights to lawmakers.

Oyer was away from home when she received an urgent alert that the marshals were en route to her home, where her teenage child was alone. Oyer’s attorney described this plan as “both unprecedented and completely inappropriate.”

Officials called off the marshals only after Oyer confirmed receipt of the letter via email.

Elizabeth Oyer, a former U.S. pardon attorney at the Justice Department, speaks at a Senate hearing on April 7, 2025, in Washington. Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images Why independence matters

In my research, I found that lawyers sometimes have lapses in judgment because of the “partisan kinship,” conscious or not, they develop with clients. This partisan kinship can lead attorneys to overlook serious red flags that outsiders would easily spot.

When lawyers become too politically aligned with clients – or their superiors – their judgment suffers. They miss ethical problems and legal flaws that would otherwise be obvious. Professional distance allows attorneys to provide the highest quality legal counsel, even if that means saying “no” to powerful people.

That’s why DOJ attorneys sometimes make decisions that frustrate political objectives. When they refuse to target political opponents, when they won’t let allies off easily, or when they disclose information their superiors wanted hidden, they’re not being insubordinate.

They’re fulfilling their highest ethical duties to the Constitution and rule of law.

Cassandra Burke Robertson, Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Professional Ethics, Case Western Reserve University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.