Wear Denim

Ways to Wear Denim-on-Denim

Image and Article Source/Credit:  Leah Melby / http://www.glamour.com/

Wearing denim with denim was a no-no for so long that putting pieces together can still have a taste of the forbidden. Now, the combo is a total Do in our books, and can range from the super casual to something much more polished. For someone just starting to mix, consider these expert tips from Madewell's Head of Design, Somsack Sikhounmuong. "The best head-to-toe denim look is when the washes and the tones are close or the same," he explained. An easy outfit idea? "A light chambray shirt with a faded skinny jean," he offered up.

Avoid the biggest denim-on-denim pitfall by skipping anything too costume-y. "I'm always a big proponent of context and juxtaposition," says Sikhounmuong. "A whole denim look with sandals or heels is going to be much more interesting than a cowboy boot."

If you want to shake up things in the double denim department, mix in white denim to feel extra summery or add darker washes to create something more professional. "A black rinse bottom, denim shirt, and blazer with black flats is a cool and unexpected, but refined, option," offers the designer. For even more outfit ideas, see how everyone from Rihanna to Emma Stone rocks denim-on-denim style.

Behati Prinsloo, with inky jeans and a tailored trench, is a perfect example of pulled-together double denim.

Denim-on-denim doesn't have to just involve jeans: Emma Stone and Chrissy Teigen are both perfect examples of teaming cutoffs with a denim shirt.

Jean skirts are set to have a comeback (especially the to-the-knee length). Like your regular skinnies they'll match with almost anything, but look especially rad done the Rihanna way.

For a polished, yet casual travel outfit try black and blue denims, plus laid-back accessories, à la Gisele.

Divorce Women

Image Credit : http://www.lng.jetzt/

So it turns out women who are divorced are at more risk of having heart attacks, even if they remarry, than those who are continuously married.

According to the new study by Duke Medicine, a woman who has been through two or more divorces is nearly twice as likely to have a heart attack when compared to their stably-married female peers.

Study's lead author and associate professor Matthew Dupre, Ph.D., said that the study was one of the first to look at the cumulative effect of divorce over a long period, and they found that it could have a lasting imprint on people's health.

The findings were based on the responses of a nationally representative group of 15,827 people ages 45 to 80 who had been married at least once. Participants were interviewed every two years from 1992 to 2010 about their marital status and health. About one-third of participants had been divorced at least once during the 18-year study.

Although men are generally at higher risk for heart attack, it appears women fared worse than men after divorce, although the differences were not statistically significant. Men who had been divorced had about the same risk as those who stayed married. It was only after two or more divorces that the risk for men went up, the study found.

The study also found that men who remarried also fared better than women. These men experienced the same risk of heart attack as men who had been married continuously to one partner.

The study is published in Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes. 

Article Credit : http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life-style/

Periods

                A majority of women have the problem of getting irregular periods. This is the most common health problem of women who commence menstruation or are in their menopause stage. The normal periods last for 3-5 days whereas the menstrual cycle can vary from 28-30 days. A menstrual cycle is measured from the first date of periods in the last month till the next periods. However, unhealthy lifestyle, smoking, drinking, excessive exercise, medications and drugs lead to irregular periods. When you suffer from irregular periods, the date of the period delays or come before time. This also leads to less or more menstrual flow and severe menstrual cramps. Many women complain that due to irregular periods, they get periods once in 2-3 or more months. So, having the right diet and a healthy lifestyle can help induce periods. Protein, vitamin and omega-3 fatty acids rich foods can induce periods and help get rid of irregular periods. Check out the list of healthy foods that induce periods.

Broccoli This green vegetable is very effective to induce periods. To maintain a regular menstrual cycle, include broccoli in your diet.

Fennel seeds Fennel seeds decoction if consumed empty stomach every morning can help get rid of irregular periods and have a healthy menstruation. Soak fennel seeds overnight and have the water in morning.

Salmon This food is a rich source of calcium and vitamin D. Apart from strengthening bones, salmon improves and stabilizes the hormones. This helps get rid of irregular menstruation problems.

Green vegetables You must have the healthy and nutritious green vegetables in your diet. Spinach, asparagus, broccoli, brinjal are few healthy vegetables that helps get periods on time.

Fish or fish oil Fish is rich in Omega-3 fatty acids and mercury that is good for your body. Omega-3 fatty acids protects the blood vessels in the ovaries from any damage that can delay periods. Eat fish or use fish oil to get regular periods.

Almonds The nuts are healthy and nutritious. Apart from helping you get regular periods on time, almonds are rich in fiber and proteins that helps in balancing hormones in the body.

Sesame seeds It is said that eating sesame seeds can help get periods on time. Have in moderate amounts as it increases body heat.

Yoghurt Dairy products are rich in calcium and proteins. You can have yoghurt every day to stay cool and also get periods on time.

Soy milk If you have milk intolerance, you can have soy milk. It is nutritious and filling too. Dieters can have skimmed soy milk.

Egg Hard boiled eggs are rich in proteins, calcium and vitamins. The protein rich eggs helps in getting over menstrual problems.

Red grapes A glass of red or green grape juice every day can help get rid of irregular periods naturally.

Tofu The healthy and low in fat alternative to paneer (cottage cheese), tofu is a calcium rich food that can be a great food to get periods on time.

Article credit : http://www.boldsky.com/

Women's Rights Movement

The Nineteenth Century

During the Colonial era and the first decades of the Republic, there were always women who strove to secure equal rights for themselves. Some assumed the business interests of a husband after his death. A few women challenged male domination of religious life, though they met with criticism from their communities—or banishment, as in the case of Anne Hutchinson. Women were also active in the fight against the Crown and organized boycotts of British goods. During the struggle for independence, prominent females such as Abigail Adams wrote and spoke privately about the need for male leaders to rectify the inferior position of women, promising rebellion if their words were not heeded. But only later, over the course of the nineteenth century, did women's demands for equal rights change from a series of isolated incidents to an organized movement. This movement was far from unified, however; strife and division often arose as activists faced the difficulties of meeting the diverse needs and priorities of the women of America.

Enormous changes swept through the United States in the nineteenth century, altering the lives of women at all levels of society. The country moved away from an agrarian, home-based economy and became increasingly industrialized. Beginning in the 1820s, many white single women found work in the mills that opened across the Northeast, where they often lived in boarding houses owned by their employers. As working-class women and men of all classes began to work outside the home, middle-class women were increasingly associated with, and confined to, the domestic sphere. Prescriptive literature defined the ideal middle-class wife as pious, pure, and submissive. Her main responsibilities consisted of creating a haven away from the harsh workplace in which her husband toiled and raising virtuous, productive citizens of the Republic.

The new century saw changes in the lives of female slaves as well, when on 1 January 1808 the importation of slaves into the United States was outlawed. In response, slaveowners placed increased pressure on enslaved women to produce children. They also subjected these women to sexual advances against which they had little defense.

The changing nature of women's lives helped create the circumstances that allowed them to begin to act politically, on their own behalf and for others. "Mill girls" often worked long hours under dangerous conditions. By the 1830s female workers were organizing protests in an attempt to improve their work environment and wages. Middle-class women's role in the home, on the other hand, led them to develop a sense of themselves as members of a cohesive group; this consciousness would later translate, for some, into the idea that they could collectively demand rights. Concern about the urban poor, moreover, allowed middle-class women to engage in charity work and temperance campaigns, in which they saw themselves as working toward the "moral uplift" of society in the same way that they cared for the moral wellbeing of their families at home. While coded as domestic and benevolent, these campaigns gave women a public voice and significant social power.

Women's work in the abolitionist movement played a particularly important role in the creation of an organized women's rights movement. Early organizers for women's rights began by working with black women who had escaped slavery and wanted to learn how to read and write. The women who first spoke in public about slavery and female abuse were viciously attacked, and those who organized schools in the early 1800s met with incessant harassment. Black women, such as Sojourner Truth and Harriet Jacobs, fought for the rights of both their race and their sex, while also fighting the often condescending attitudes of white activists who saw themselves as the sole liberators of passive, childlike slaves.

For white women like Lydia Maria Child and Sarah Grimké, campaigning for abolition made them aware of their own lack of rights, and the sexism they found within the abolitionist movement sharpened this awareness. In 1840 the organizers of the World Antislavery Convention in London refused to seat female delegates, including the American activist Lucretia Mott. Before leaving England, she and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, whose husband was a delegate at the convention, decided to launch a campaign for woman's rights on their return to the United States. On 19 and 20 July 1848 Mott and Stanton's plan reached fruition, as they staged the country's first formal women's rights convention (see Seneca Falls Convention). Three hundred people gathered in Wesleyan Chapel in Seneca Falls, New York, where they ratified the Declaration of Sentiments. Based on the Declaration of Independence, the document proclaimed that men and women were "created equal," and that women should therefore have legal and social parity with men, including the right to vote. The declaration was greeted with a storm of criticism in newspapers and from religious leaders. By 1850, however, activists had organized similar gatherings in Ohio and Massachusetts and established an annual Woman's Rights Convention.

The campaign for dress reform became closely associated with the women's rights movement, as advocates such as Amelia Bloomer argued that the tight clothing women wore—especially whalebone corsets—was unhealthy and restrictive (see Bloomers). Many early women's rights advocates also became involved in spiritualism, a belief system based on direct communication with God and the dead, which offered women a greater voice in their religious life than did the male hierarchies of the Christian churches.

The events of the Civil War and Reconstruction dramatically affected the women's rights movement. As tensions between North and South intensified in the late 1850s, many women activists decided to devote themselves purely to abolition, until slavery had ended in the United States. After the Civil War, many women returned to the fight for women's rights, but new tensions soon split the movement. Radical Republicans lobbying for black male suffrage attacked women's rights advocates, believing that to demand the vote for women hurt their cause. Some women's rights activists, including Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, turned to the Democratic Party, portions of which supported white woman suffrage in order to stop black men from securing the vote. In 1869 Stanton and Anthony formed the National Woman Suffrage Association, which focused on enfranchising white women; they insisted on female control of the organization and focused their energies on action at the federal level. Soon thereafter, the American Woman Suffrage Association formed as a rival group, turning to

Republican and abolitionist men for leadership and agreeing to place black male suffrage ahead of votes for women, white or black, and to work at the state level. Both groups chose suffrage as their main issue, stepping back from an earlier, broader based agenda.

The women's rights movement continued to transform itself and to weather divisive tensions. In 1890 the two rival suffrage associations merged, forming the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). Both constituent groups, despite their differences, had originally based their case for woman suffrage on the argument that men and women were naturally equal. Even as the two groups consolidated their strength, this view lost political ground, and older advocates found themselves replaced by younger, more conservative suffragists. The Woman's Christian Temperance Union, the Young Women's Christian Association, and hundreds of other women's clubs began to focus on winning the vote, as they came to believe they could not accomplish their goals without official political power. The National Association of Colored Women, formed in part due to the exclusion of black women's clubs from the General Federation of Women's Clubs (formed in 1890), became a central player in fostering the black woman suffrage movement. While these clubs had different agendas, many of their members believed that the vote would allow women to bring their moralizing influence to bear on the problems of society; in other words, women should have the right to vote not because they were the same as men, but because they were different.

Despite the new interest from clubwomen, the last decade of the nineteenth century and the first decade of the twentieth proved disappointing for advocates of woman's suffrage. Although there were some victories early in this period—by 1896, women in Colorado, Idaho, Wyoming, and Utah could vote and a few Midwestern states had enfranchised women in school and municipal elections—the suffrage movement would not enjoy another major victory until 1910. Racial and ethnic prejudice continued to haunt and divide the movement. As Southern women became more involved in the suffrage issue, many white suffragists began to court Southern politicians by portraying woman's suffrage as a method to secure white supremacy. African American women, in response, formed their own suffrage organizations. Some advocates also argued that female enfranchisement would allow educated native-born women—and their middle-class concerns—to overrule the growing immigrant vote.

As suffragists fought amongst themselves, they also fought an active anti-suffrage campaign. Because many feminists were also socialists, and because women workers often earned minimal wages, business interests solidly opposed the women's movement. The liquor industry, alarmed by the coalition between temperance advocates and the suffrage movement, campaigned particularly vigorously against the vote for women. Many females joined the anti-suffrage forces as well, arguing that women did not desire the vote.

In early decades of the twentieth century several suffragists introduced new approaches that both reinvigorated and once again divided the movement. Elizabeth Cady Stanton's daughter, Harriot Stanton Blatch, founded the Equality League of Self-Supporting Women in 1907, bringing females from all classes and backgrounds together to work for suffrage. The League organized large, lavish suffrage parades that brought publicity and respect to the cause. Carrie Chapman Catt, who served as the president of NAWSA between 1900 and 1904, recruited both college-educated professionals and socially prominent women to the campaign. In 1912, Alice Paul and Lucy Burns took over NAWSA's Congressional Committee. The movement had employed a state-by-state strategy since the 1890s, hoping eventually to secure woman suffrage nationwide, but Paul and Burns believed only a push for a federal constitutional amendment would bring about victory. The two women also believed in more aggressive tactics than those employed by their parent organization, including picketing the White House and hunger strikes. Eventually Paul and Burns broke with the NAWSA, forming the Congressional Union (later the National Woman's Party) in 1914.

Despite the split, the woman's suffrage movement had become a vital force. When Catt returned to the NAWSA presidency in 1915, she emphasized the importance of both state and national activity. Women in Arizona, California, Kansas, Oregon, and Washington had secured the vote by 1912; by 1913, Illinois women could vote in presidential elections. In January 1918 the House of Representatives passed the Nineteenth Amendment, sometimes known as the Anthony Amendment; a year and a half later, the Senate passed it as well. Suffragists worked tirelessly for the next year to obtain ratification by the required 36 states. On 26 August 1920 American women finally had the right to vote.

While the women's rights movement focused its energies mainly on suffrage after 1869, it both fostered and was fed by other changes in women's lives. Women's access to higher education expanded, as both single-sex and coeducational institutions opened their doors (see Education, Higher: Women's Colleges). As a result, females could begin to enter, at least in small numbers, traditionally male professions, becoming authors, doctors, lawyers, and ministers. Women also became involved in other political causes, especially labor issues, and opened settlement houses to aid the poor. Although American women had not achieved equality, by 1920 they had traveled far.

Article Credit : http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Womens_rights.aspx

Sudan

Sudan: Mass Rape by Army in Darfur

 (New York) – Sudanese army forces raped more than 200 women and girls in an organized attack on the north Darfur town of Tabit in October 2014, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. The United Nations (UN) and African Union (AU) should take urgent steps to protect civilians in the town from further abuses.

The 48-page report, “Mass Rape in Darfur: Sudanese Army Attacks Against Civilians in Tabit,” documents Sudanese army attacks in which at least 221 women and girls were raped in Tabit over 36 hours beginning on October 30, 2014. The mass rapes would amount to crimes against humanity if found to be part of a widespread or systematic attack on the civilian population.

“The deliberate attack on Tabit and the mass rape of the town’s women and girls is a new low in the catalog of atrocities in Darfur,” said Daniel Bekele, Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “The Sudanese government should stop the denials and immediately give peacekeepers and international investigators access to Tabit.”

Allegations of mass rape first surfaced in a November 2 report by Radio Dabanga, a Netherlands-based station. Sudan denied the report and refused peacekeepers access to the town. On November 9, it gave the peacekeepers brief access, but security forces prevented them from carrying out a credible investigation, Human Rights Watch said.

In November and December 2014, Human Rights Watch spoke to over 50 residents and former residents of Tabit by telephone due to access restrictions. Others interviewed included local human rights monitors, government officials, and staff of the AU-UN Hybrid Mission in Darfur (UNAMID). Despite the lack of access, Human Rights Watch was able to cross-reference and verify many individual cases and allegations.

Sudanese army forces carried out three distinct military operations during which soldiers went house-to-house and looted property, arrested men, beat residents, and raped women and girls inside their homes. Human Rights Watch documented 27 separate incidents of rape, and obtained credible information about an additional 194 cases. Two army defectors separately told Human Rights Watch that their superior officers had ordered them to “rape women.”

Tabit is largely ethnic Fur and has been under the control of rebel armed groups in recent years. Human Rights Watch found no evidence that rebel fighters were in or near Tabit at the time of the attacks.

A woman in her 40s described the attack on her and her three daughters, two of whom were under the age of 11. “Immediately after they entered the room they said: ‘You killed our man. We are going to show you true hell,’” she said. “Then they started beating us. They raped my three daughters and me. Some of them were holding the girl down while another one was raping her. They did it one by one.”

Another woman said that soldiers beat her severely and dragged her out of her house. When she returned, she found that they had raped three of her daughters, all under 15. The soldiers “beat the young children and they raped my older daughters.… They put clothes in [my daughters’] mouths so that you could not hear the screaming,” she said.

On two nights, witnesses said, soldiers forced large groups of men to the outskirts of Tabit, leaving the women and children vulnerable to attacks in their homes. The soldiers threatened and beat the men throughout the night.

Since the attacks, the Sudanese government has blocked UN investigators from entering the town to try to prevent victims and witnesses from sharing information about the crimes. Multiple victims and witnesses reported that government officials threatened to imprison or kill anyone who spoke out about the attacks.

Authorities have also detained and tortured residents of Tabit for speaking about what took place. One man, who was overheard talking to a relative and taken to a military intelligence prison, told Human Rights Watch: “They said if I talked about Tabit again that I was going to be finished.… They kicked me. Tied me and hanged me up. They beat me with whips and electric wires.”

Authorities have also prevented free movement in and out of the town. One Tabit resident told Human Rights Watch that since the attacks, people have been “living in an open prison.”

The attacks on Tabit occurred in a wider context of a rise in government attacks on civilians, Human Rights Watch said. A newly created government force, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), consisting largely of former militias, led a spate of attacks on villages in 2014. In January 2015, the UN Panel of Experts on Sudan reported that over 3,000 villages were burned in Darfur in 2014, predominantly in government-led attacks. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported that almost half-a-million people were displaced by attacks in 2014, and 70,000 in the first three weeks of 2015.

Sexual violence has featured prominently in recent attacks on civilians by Sudanese forces not only in Tabit but elsewhere in Sudan, Human Rights Watch said. In November 2014, Human Rights Watch documented widespread sexual violence, often by the RSF, against communities with perceived links to rebels in Blue Nile state. Human Rights Watch has also learned of many other accounts of sexual violence by the same forces in Darfur in 2014.

The UN and AU should both press Sudan to allow peacekeepers unfettered access to Tabit and to ensure that medical services are available to all those in need. The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights should create a team with expertise in sexual and gender-based violence to conduct an investigation into alleged abuses in Tabit, and the AU should support this effort by providing investigators with expertise in sexual and gender-based crimes.

Human Rights Watch also urged the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate the incident to the extent possible. The ICC has charges pending against five people, including President Omar al-Bashir, for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide in connection with atrocities in Darfur, but Sudan has refused to cooperate with the ICC and has obstructed its work. The ICC prosecutor told the UN Security Council in December 2014 that she needed substantially more support from the council to address Sudan’s lack of cooperation with the court. The council referred Darfur to the ICC in 2005.

“Sudan has done everything possible to cover up the horrific crimes committed by its soldiers in Tabit, but the survivors have fearlessly chosen to speak out,” Bekele said. “The UN Security Council and the AU should demand that Sudan stop these attacks, urgently act to protect Tabit’s residents, and conduct a credible investigation.”

Article credit : http://www.hrw.org/news/2015/02/11/sudan-mass-rape-army-darfur

Bra Types

The Best Bra for Your Breast Type

Just as the right clothes help you look and feel your best, the right bra could be the missing puzzle piece to perfecting your outfit.

Especially because, according to Tomima Edmark, HerRoom’s founder and a bra-fitting expert, women aren’t as great at finding bras that fit their breasts as they are at choosing clothes that fit their bodies.

 “The most common mistake women make is buying a bra where the band is too large and the cups are too small,” Tomima says. “My goal was to look at the subtle differences in bras and find out what works for which breasts. You’ll be a better consumer if you know what to look for.”

1. Shallow: About 10 percent of women. Picture a ski slope: You start at the top and go down to the nipple. You can be born with breasts like this, or they can turn this way after breast-feeding.

2. Semi-supported: About 30 percent of women. You don’t quite have the fullness of a 16-year-old girl who just got her breasts in, but it’s a nice look.

3. Self-supported: Sixteen percent of women. This would be a code word for implants. Anyone with augmentation would fall into this category. With or without a bra, breasts are supported.

4. Conical: About 6 to 7 percent of women. Generally, a woman who is a C-cup or smaller. The breasts are cone shaped rather than round.

5. Uneven: Forty-two percent of women. This is when one breast is larger than the other. Most women have uneven breasts simply because if you’re right-handed, that muscle makes the breast on your right side smaller.

The best bra: Always fit your bra to your largest breast. Look for bras that are contour-cupped. A bra cup with a thin layer of foam can act as a nice filler to mold the smallness of your other breast.

6. Settled: Twenty-seven percent of women. This is a nicer way of saying that your breasts are deflated or hanging. You need support and you need to pull those girls up! As you age, breasts are not as firm, but they are malleable, so you can form them into any shape you want.

7. Thin: About 5 percent of women. If you look in medical journals, this shape is referred to as “tubular breasts.” What that means your breasts are not as wide as the traditional underwire of bras.

The best bra: Bandeau bras. By “smooshing” the breasts together, you make them less “long,” if you will. A contour cup will also work.

8. Splayed: Twenty-seven percent of women. Splayed means your breasts go east-west, so you want to bring ‘em in toward the center.

Article credit : http://www.shape.com/blogs/shape-your-life/best-bra-your-breast-type

8 THINGS EVERY MAN NOTICES IN A WOMAN

Whether a man considers himself as intellectual or a roadside Romeo, things he notices in a woman are mostly the same. You know a man is lying when he says breasts are the last things he notices in a woman. We’re men and proud to be. There is a specific way in which our brains function. We bring to you a list of 8 things every man notices in a woman.

Hair

How a girl does her hair says a lot about how she keeps herself. If they’re too ornate or have been tied in a complicated fashion, you know she’s high maintenance.

Poise

Nothing makes a woman stand apart more than her body postures. It doesn’t take a second to distinguish a confident woman from a submissive one based only on her body language.

Lips

Of course the lips! One of the first things that attract men towards women are her lips.

Smile

A beautiful smile can totally floor men and they know it, which is why a man would always notice a woman’s smile.

Shoes

It may be hard to believe for most women that men do notice their footwear, but it is very true. There is something extremely sexy about a woman wearing heels. A man always scans a woman for what she wears on her feet.

                

Eyes

Be it a steely glance, or a flirtatious bat of an eyelid, a beautiful pair of peepers can do more damage to a man’s heart than anything else.

Attitude

A woman’s demeanour and personality makes her stand apart from the crowd. Different men have different preferences. That is why it is almost impossible for a man to miss out on her attitude.

Breasts

Let’s accept it, we all notice a woman’s breasts. It is just how we are made to be.

Image and Article credit: http://www.mensxp.com/relationships/understanding-women/21715-8-things-every-man-notices-in-a-woman-p8.html

HABITS OF WOMEN MEN DON'T GET

1. Going to the ladies room in groups

‘Seriously, what is that all about?’ is what all men think and discuss when all the ladies at their table get up together to visit the ladies room. We, like many others, have tried to decode this habit of women in the past, but there still remains an air of mystery around the ladies room saga.

2. A dab of powder here & a touch of lipstick there

Most women carry mini make-up stores in their bags. When going to a party, women leave home all decked up. A 15 minute car ride later, they ‘touch up’ their faces before entering the designated venue. And at this exact instant men wonder, why is she doing that? Didn’t she spend an hour getting ready anyway?

3. Giggling

All women giggle. In fact, all women love to giggle. There is nervous giggle, excited giggle, I’m-hiding-a-secret giggle and so on. Women giggle out of habit, but not without reason. And the reason behind the giggle is hardly ever known to the confused man.

4. ‘Am I fat, honey?’

To be honest, women ask this question more out of habit. Yes, they are conscious about their weight and their looks, but many-a-times this question is thrown at a man just because their subconscious says it is time to do. So, the next time she asks you this question, make sure you give an answer that she is habituated to listen to.

5. The face pack

Yes, men know that the face pack promises to give women a glowing, well moisturised skin. But I haven’t met a single man who has genuinely noticed a considerable difference in the way his woman looks after the application of a face pack. In fact, I’m yet to meet a woman who 100% believes that the face pack did ALL that it promised to better her skin. The desire to look better almost always results in the formation of a senseless habit; hence, the once a month face pack routine.

6. Try 5 outfits; Decide to buy a new one

All women do this. Before going to a party they try everything their wardrobe has to offer, and then ceremoniously declare they have no clothes and need to go shopping ASAP. As a man who can spend a week in two pairs of trousers and two shirts (and rock an office and party look in them), he only left wondering and emptying his pockets.

7. Clutches

The only thing a clutch can hold is one pair of keys and a lipstick. The rest – comb, phone, tissues, powder, etc – are all stuffed in the dashboard of the car or a man’s pocket. In spite of knowing the uselessness of a clutch, women carry it with them, always. Why?

8. The BIG bag

Obviously women need to carry a bag around. But do they need to carry a bag big enough to fit the Taj Mahal in it? Probably not.

9. Foot / nail lotion

A cream for the face, hair, body is one thing. But the habit of buying a separate cream for the foot, toes, and nails is something men never understand. The question that crosses a man’s mind is: foot and nails are a part of the body, so why a separate cream for them?

10. Ribbons

Women love ribbons. They like to tie them to their hair, use it to hold paper together, add them to gift packaging and perhaps use them to decorate a hat. Ribbons are a part of every woman’s collection and it is one thing they cannot do without. Creatures of habit?

11. Greeting cards

It is the day and age of e-cards and text messages, but women cannot get over their greeting card obsession. And men cannot understand why! A greeting card needs to be made or bought for birthdays, anniversaries and any and all events of celebration.

12. Cleaning and arranging

For most women, cleaning and arranging things in their proper order is a hobby, let alone a habit. They cannot rest till all the blues are lined from light to dark, till the cushions are puffed up right or till the already clean mirror is further cleaned. All men wonder how women go from interesting and zappy in the first date to domestic devils post marriage.

13. Crockery and Cutlery

Women love both these items. The kitchen is well stocked with a fruit fork, a dessert spoon, a salad bowl, a serving dish, an eating dish, a small plate, a…. OMG! By the time the man figures out in what plate he is to eat using which fork, he is sure to lose his appetite.

14. Change of clothes

Women love changing clothes. If possible, they would have separate morning, afternoon, evening, night and late-night clothes and go about changing their looks 5 times a day for every day of their life. Alas! Budget and space constraints stop them from following this habit to the T.

15. Yes means No, No means Yes

ALL men agree that they cannot fathom this particular habit of women. For the love of God, why do women have to say yes when they mean no and vice versa?! Maybe, they are just genetically engineered to be this way. Maybe.

16. Frenemies

You know that habit, when women hug each other when they meet but then bad mouth one another behind the back? Yea, that one. This frenemy concept is one which men fail to understand. Coz in the man world, you’re either a buddy or not. Simple.

 17. Trick questions

“So, who is hotter? Your ex or the one you were staring at 2 minutes ago” THIS right here is a trick question. She doesn’t care about your ex, she doesn’t care about the other woman, she is mad at you for staring but she won’t tell you that. Instead, she will put you in a spot and absolutely agonise you. And she is doing this out of habit.

18. Shopping

This one is a centuries old issue and men have made peace with it by accepting the fact that women love to shop. Still, if you dig deeper you will know that men simply cannot fathom how women can love shopping so much? How can they make a habit out of a rather tiresome experience? HOW?

19. Ask questions, yet don’t seek answers

Of course women love asking questions. In fact they are habituated to asking ones they know they don’t want an answer to. Yet, they trouble a man till he answers and then yell at him for answering. Women and their habits!

20. Gossip

Men gossip too. But they don’t understand how women can live on gossip; day-in, day-out, 24 hours, 7 days of unadulterated gossip. Truth be told, this is one habit that is passed down generations. It is an important evolutionary concept and men shouldn’t break their head trying to understand it.

21. Carrying flats around

Women love heels, even when they cannot walk in them. Yet, they will wear them and, as an alternative, carry flats around. When you see a woman switching her heels with her flats, you will spot her companion (standing right next to her) rolling his eyes in exasperation.

22. Texting

“What will you eat?” “What time will you come?” “If you are reaching in 5, should I heat the food?” Women have found a way of turning texting into question-asking. And men are yet again at a loss of words at a woman’s ability to turn a helpful tool into a tiresome habit.

23. To eat or not to eat

Women don’t want to gain weight and yet they dream about chocolates and cakes. Why not eat and be happy or not eat and be happy? But then again, women never liked to keep it simple.

24. Screeching

Women screech. They don’t shout or yell, they make that shrieking noise that can burn a hole in a man’s ears. If you don’t know what I am talking about, think of the way in which girls screech when they see their favourite celebrity or pair of shoes they love. Got what I am saying now?

25. Pouting and posing

Women love to pout and pose. All you have to do is stand with a camera in front of them and they will start their performance. While men are perfectly happy to make do with an awkward smile, women feel it imperative to unleash their inner model. Yet again, to do so is their habit and men don’t understand head or tail of it.

26. Cross-checking

Women like to verify facts and stories. And they do so even at the risk of irking their man. Women may cross-check out of habit or doubt, but this behavioural trait is one they got to do away with.

27. Sharing EVERYTHING with her BFF

Men have never understood and perhaps will never understand why women share everything with their girlfriends. They also cannot comprehend what it is that woman can talk about for hours and hours non-stop. Guess, it’s just a girly thing after all!

28. Last minute arrangements

Women will work and arrange and decide and organise till the very last minute. So much so, that sometimes, all the preparations make the man not want to go to wherever it is that they are headed.

29. The silent treatment

Either they talk too much and ask too many questions or they don’t talk at all. Using silence as a weapon when they’re upset is typical of a woman. This is one habit that *scares* men and puts them into uncomfortable, damage-control zone ASAP.

30. XOXO and

Women love using symbols and emoticons to express their feelings. While it is good sometimes, most of the times most men think it is downright funny and unnecessary. What’s this excessive need to blow air kisses and hugs in the first place, they wonder.

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wife

The former model Susan Sangster has already been awarded around £18million from three divorces, and is looking for another payout when a judge in the High Court next month rules on her fourth divorce.

Whatever would Caroline Norton have made of her?

Caroline was a moving force behind one of the most emancipating pieces of legislation in our history, the Marriage and Divorce Act, which became law 150 years ago this month.

By the time the Bill passed, she had experienced first-hand the suffering and despair which were the lot of many married women at that time. Attractive, witty and intelligent, Caroline was the grand-daughter of the playwright Richard Sheridan.

She had everything going for her, except money. The family was not rich, and to help improve their prospects, she agreed to marry, in 1827, the younger son of a peer, the ambitious George Norton, MP for Guildford.

It was a fraught marriage from the start.

They disagreed about everything: Caroline favoured social reform; George was a hard-line Tory. In those days, a wife did not openly disagree with her husband.

George beat his wife. Sometimes their servants had to intervene to protect her. Twice, Caroline left her husband. Each time she came back for the sake of their children.

By the 1830s Caroline was an acknowledged society beauty with a flourishing political salon.

She was close - some said intimately so - to the Home Secretary and future Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne.

When George Norton realised that Melbourne was not going to help him up the greasy pole, he sued him, citing adultery.

It was a spurious charge which the court soon dismissed through lack of evidence, but in his fury, George barred Caroline from the family home and forbade her access to their children.

Caroline began to realise that she was helpless in the eyes of the law.

In the early Victorian era, a woman entering upon marriage had almost no rights. All her property automatically became her husband's. Even if she had her own land, her husband received the income from it.

A husband had the right to lock up his wife. If he beat her, she had no legal redress. The law mostly removed itself from marital relations.

Married women were put into the same category as lunatics, idiots, outlaws and children.

Even her children were not hers, according to the law. And if a woman left the home to take refuge elsewhere, as Caroline did twice, her husband could lock her out, without needing a court order.

As for divorce, there were only three ways of applying for a separation, 150 years ago, all of them under the control of the Church of England, which regarded it as an offence against God's will, each of them with a heavy penalty.

One was if the marriage was a nullity, through impotence, insanity or potential incest.

In those cases, the Church permitted the divorcees to remarry, but rendered their children illegitimate.

A second was available in cases of adultery, sodomy or physical violence: it did not let the petitioners remarry, but permitted a separation.

A third was to get a separation and then sue the spouse for adultery. If successful, Parliament eventually allowed the couple a proper divorce which did not make their children illegitimate.

Yet this long, expensive process was out of reach of nearly everyone, as the Church intended it to be.

Caroline was not a suffragette, nor even a feminist, but she was enraged that the divorce laws should be so unjust.

So with the help of a sympathetic MP she persuaded Parliament to pass a law allowing mothers who had not had adultery proved against them the right of custody of their young children.

It was the first small step on a remarkable campaign that would transform marriage - and society - for ever.

Caroline continued to dash off pamphlets enlisting MPs in her bid for further liberalisation of the law.

She was 50 when, in 1858, largely due to her unflagging efforts, the Bill she had fought for was passed into law.

But it was only after George died, in 1877 that Caroline, now aged 69, could re-marry - this time to Sir William Stirling-Maxwell, who gave her three months of happiness before her death.

The new Act transferred jurisdiction from Church courts to a new civil court - a principle which gave rise to the divorce courts of day, and which set in motion the social revolution that has ended in today's statistic that 40per cent of marriages end in divorce.

It permitted men to be divorced on the grounds of adultery and women to be divorced on the same grounds so long as there was also physical cruelty, incest, rape, sodomy, bestiality, bigamy or two years' desertion.

It also gave women control over money from bequests and investments, and was the first crack in the wall which barred women from sexual and financial equality. Traditionalists were outraged.

There was still a long way to go. Infant Custody Acts of 1873 and 1886 built upon Caroline Norton's measure. The Married Women's Property Acts of 1870 and 1882 gave married women the same rights over property as unmarried women: they could retain their capital, possessions and wages.

But no grounds for divorce other than adultery were recognised: women were still second-class citizens. Well into the 20th century, women had no remedies against abusive husbands.

A solicitor defending a husband against an application for separation could argue that, "in Blackburn and in Wigan it is the usual thing for the husband, when he comes home at night, to give his wife a kicking and beating".

The children were still legally the husband's, and if a couple separated, the husband had first claim to them, unless he had a conviction for assault.

Divorce was still the preserve of the rich - among the peerage, one-third of the marriages of the 1900s ended in divorce.

In Edwardian times only one politician held the torch for reform of the divorce laws.

Earl Russell in 1902 spoke up in the House of Lords for allowing trial separations, making the legal position of men and women equal and giving the poor an equal right to divorce.

He argued that the law was illogical and unjust, that it encouraged immorality by denying unhappily married people release.

The Lords reacted with horror, moving that his Bill be rejected, not least because they believed Russell "had form".

The elder brother of Bertrand Russell, the earl was a distinguished barrister who had been thrown in jail, after being convicted of bigamy.

He had married a harridan, who in the Lord Chancellor's words "had poisoned the whole atmosphere in which he lived".

Having - as he thought - divorced his wife, after getting a decree of judicial separation, Russell went to Nevada where he married an American divorcee Mollie Cooke.

But his British wife had successfully appealed against the decree, and when Russell returned to England he was found to have been in defiance of the law.

He was sentenced to three months in jail - although at the end of it his divorce went through and his marriage to his second wife was made legal.

The divorce issue would not go away.

While Russell continued his campaign in the Lords, a Royal Commission was appointed to consider reforms in the divorce laws.

The mood was changing. On the throne, in place of prim Queen Victoria, was Edward VII, whose succession of mistresses gave a lighter tone to public life. But the Church still objected.

The Archbishop of Canterbury abhorred divorce as unChristian, also expressing his alarm at "extending those facilities to classes other than those who take advantage of them now".

The Suffragette movement and the rise in the use of contraception sharpened fears that women and the lower classes were getting out of control.

After three years of hearings, the Royal Commission delivered their report. The majority, comprising social, medical and legal experts, favoured reform.

The minority, the Church militants, resisted. The Prime Minister, Herbert Asquith, shelved the issue, and it didn't return until after World War I.

It re-emerged into a different world. The war had made people aware that life was for living.

Promiscuity was no longer associated with the upper-classes: it was down to tennis-club level.

A kiss no longer signalled an engagement. Young people smoked and drank, and women put on lipstick in public.

They talked about "companionate marriage" which amounted to living in sin but being faithful to one partner.

It was rumoured that in Los Angeles and New York one girl in 10 carried a contraceptive in her vanity case. Gradually, at least among the Bright Young

Things, the American view prevailed that marriage was a social habit, not a sacrament.

In 1918 there were more divorces than ever before; in 1919 there were half as many again.

Divorce still held a social stigma in stuffy circles, and it was still a matter of honour for the man to take the blame in adultery lawsuits - even if they had to spend a weekend with a "woman unknown" in a hotel to gather the necessary evidence from a chambermaid.

But divorces only truly proliferated after the 1923 Matrimonial Causes Act which established equality between the sexes in divorce cases, and made divorce more accessible to poorer people.

Divorce numbers rose, and the most telling drawback to divorce was newspaper publicity.

Papers revelled in the 1921 case of Archdeacon Wakeford, accused of committing adultery at the Bull Hotel in Peterborough, in which the verdict appeared to stand or fall on chambermaid's evidence of whether the Archdeacon was wearing pyjamas or a nightgown.

Despite his assertion that he had never worn pyjamas, Wakefield lost his appeal and soon after died.

The most gripping high-society divorce case concerned John "Stilts" Russell, heir to Lord Ampthill, whose wife Christabel, refused to have a child or to use contraceptives.

Though this meant Russell could not have full sexual intercourse with her, a child was born - due to what she claimed were his "Hunnish practices". The Press had a field day.

They reported on her appearance (Christabel's "ribbon-edged black hat hid most of her hair, and its broad rim cast shadows over her pale, girlish face"), her love of ballroom dancing, not shared by her husband who preferred dressing in women's clothes, and the clairvoyant who had detected the pregnancy.

The mystery of this immaculate conception remained: had her husband been sleepwalking?

Russell simply claimed that his wife had committed adultery with one of the 30 or so men she claimed to have been in love with.

Yet none of the men could be produced and Christabel won her case, whereupon she set up a Mayfair shop which was wildly successful.

Meanwhile, the public cogitated on what the 'Hunnish practices' might have been.

For the next 40 years, churches continued to preach the sanctity of marriage and the sin of fornication.

Yet the men and women of Britain tended to respond to different imperatives, affected by war and peace, depression and plenty.

Divorce rates peaked in 1928, then plummeted 40per cent lower in 1933 at the height of the Depression.

At the Divorce Division of the London High Court, 1841 cases were brought in the Easter term of 1949.

In 1941, during the Blitz, they fell to 802.

Petitions to the divorce courts were five times higher in 1945 than in 1939, a sign of the sexualfreefor-all which began when the GIs landed in Britain and ended with couples realising that their separation during the war had ruined their relationship.

(The 12 months after 1945 saw 38,000 divorces in England and Wales - a number that rose to 60,197 by 1947.)

What had been for many an unthinkable social disgrace had now to be accepted in every community, whatever was said behind neighbours' backs.

A poll in 1949 found that 57 per cent "more or less approved" of divorce as a regrettable necessity.

Not until the 1960s were the last strictures against free and fair divorce finally dumped.

The doctrine of "the guilty party" was abandoned and desertion of one's spouse after two years was made a cause for divorce.

Finally, in 1969, the Matrimonial Property Act declared that housework should be regarded as a financial contribution to the family.

The impetus for this Act, which provided Britain with the most humane divorce laws in the world, came from the most unlikely source - the Church of England.

At last, Caroline Norton had been vindicated. Women were now recognised in their own right.

"Why write? Why struggle? You will do no good!" she wrote in one of her pamphlets, "but if everyone lacked courage with that doubt, nothing would ever be achieved in this world."

Caroline's campaign was a remarkable achievement, granting women equal status in marriage and no longer obliging them to endure life with a loveless, unfaithful or cruel husband.

And yet one cannot help but feel that were Caroline able to survey the social landscape today, where divorce has become so commonplace and so readily available that it scarcely raises an eyebrow, she might well think her legacy had been cheapened.

Above all, she would be horrified to hear of those "career divorcees" for whom the divorce courts are not a lifeline out of misery, but a very profitable enterprise.

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