In over half of US states, employers can ask in interviews if a woman has kids - and discriminate accordingly. "Maternal profiling," as it's known, is illegal in the UK, but in reality it is flourishing
By Viv Groskop
The unlikely new face of radical women's activism in the US? Meet Kiki Peppard, a 53-year-old switchboard operator and grandmother from Pennsylvania who claims she is one of millions of victims of "maternal profiling." Defined as "employment discrimination against a woman who has, or will have, children," feminist groups say that maternal profiling has reached epidemic proportions - and is getting worse. In essence, it involves employers building up information on a woman's age, marital status and family commitments to determine whether to hire her, how much to pay her and how much responsibility to give her. Is she likely to have children and need maternity pay? Will she want to work shorter hours?

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Malian star Toumani Diabate is part of a musical dynasty that began in the 13th century. A master of the kora, both African spirits and Pink Floyd have influenced his music
By robin Denselow
Toumani Diabate is sitting under a tree in his moonlit front garden, down a dusty dirt road in Bamako, the Malian capital. He is picking out a melody on the kora, the West African harp of which he is a master, and talking about what it means to be descended from a long line of professional hereditary musicians, known as griots. "The first role of the griot is to make communication," he says. "The griots are like an archive. They know the histories and the stories. I'm playing a griot instrument and taking it outside Africa."

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NEW YORK TIMES
FICTION [ FULL STORY ]

Though Mak Erot, Indonesia's expert phallic enlarger, has left the building, her children and grandchildren keep the family business going strong
By Sebastien Blanc
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The Dragon's Gift: The Sacred Arts of Bhutan puts artifacts previously unseen in the West on display in Hawaii
By Susan Emerling
Some 110 Bhutanese objects and 330 films of the country's ritual dances never before seen in the West will go on display in The Dragon's Gift: The Sacred Arts of Bhutan at the Honolulu Academy of Arts.

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'The Monsters of Templeton,' Lauren Groff's debut novel, starts off spellbindingly, but the ensuing complications (and illegitimate children) are seemingly endless
By Janet Maslin
There is a lake in the town of Templeton, where Lauren Groff's debut novel is set. In that lake there is a dead 15m prehistoric monster. This may sound like a sufficiently major plot point on which to hang a story, but for Groff it's just a teaser. To the extent that anything so casual is possible, Groff's gigantic dead beast is a throwaway. And an opening salvo. The creature surfaces not at some dramatic climax, but in this book's very first sentence.

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Benazir Bhutto's autobiography, completed days before she was assassinated, makes the case for democracy and tolerance, but comes down hard on the US
By Michiko Kakutani
Benazir Bhutto called her 1989 autobiography Daughter of Destiny, and when she was assassinated in December at 54, she became the fourth member of her immediate family to die violently against the backdrop of Pakistani intrigue and politics: her father, former prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was hanged in 1979 on charges of having ordered the murder of a minor political opponent; her younger brother, Shahnawaz, mysteriously died of poisoning in 1985; and her other brother, Murtaza, was gunned down outside his home in 1996.

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