"No woman is born a prostitute"

I've been so disheartened lately by news of female journalists and broadcasters being murdered in Iraq and Afghanistan, "honour" killings, a "wife-fattening farm" in Mauritania, etc. etc., that I was thinking of giving up on this blog in despair. After all, I'm the first to criticise people who rail and wail and winge about injustice but do nothing but wring their hands. Therefore (a word that should be unknown to poets, according to André Gide), I was pleased and heartened to see this article on the BBC website today:

---

Argentine prostitutes fight back

Prostitutes in the Argentine capital, Buenos Aires, have launched a campaign to raise awareness about the difficult circumstances in which they work.

---

Read it and smile.

I think I'll make female heroes the theme of this blog from now on, and take the word heroine back from the druggies while I'm at it.

XXX