Women's History - Blog Posts
Sutematsu Oyama (1860-1919): Japan’s First College-Educated Woman
Full entry (with footnotes) here. Patreon here. Art notes behind the cut.
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My great grandmother got pregnant when she was 15. This was in early twentieth century Canada. She was sent to a home for unmarried mothers to have the baby. I read her journal entry about it recently. She says that she didn’t realize it at the time, but she’s since come to understand that during the actual delivery, the doctor and the lady who ran the house didn’t give her all the support she needed, and it was absolutely intended as punishment for what she did. Even though the encounter that led to her pregnancy sounds dubiously consensual based on her journal.
fiona apple is releasing a new song next week about the impact of pre-trial detention on especially Black mothers.visit lethergohome to learn about to learn about the injustices perpetrated against the 160,000 women and girls incarcerated in the united states every day and see a preview of fiona's upcoming song.
feminist silkscreen posters from See Red Women’s Workshop (1974-1990)
today I learned that a Chinese woman named Chien-Shiung Wu proved quantum entanglement before anyone else. have I ever read about her in the pop physics books I read? no. this makes me so mad but also that's fucking awesome
“young adult dystopian novels are so unrealistic lmao like they always have some random teenage girl rising up to inspire the world to make change.”
a hero emerges
Fulvia
(c. 83 BCE-40 BCE) The first non-mythological woman to appear on Roman coins. She was married three times (Publius Clodius Pulcher, Gaius Scribonius Curio, Mark Antony) and actively involved in all her husband’s careers. She testified against the murderer of her first husband, and inherited several street gangs. She unsuccessfully plotted against Octavian in retaliation for divorcing her daughter Clodia. She was exiled to Greece and died. One of her sons by Mark Antony, Antyllus was executed after the Battle of Actium, while the other Jullus committed suicide after participating in a plot with Julia (the daughter of Augustus).
She’s not as well known, due to being overshadowed by both Livia Drusilla and Cleopatra (who was also involved with Mark Antony).
Women’s History Month Book Recommendations
-Invisible: The Forgotten Story of the Black Woman Lawyer Who Took Down America’s Most Powerful Mobster by Stephen L. Carter
-Radium Girls by Kate Moore
-The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
-All Night Party: The Women of Bohemian Greenwich Village and Harlem, 1913-1930 by Andrea Barnett
-Bessie Perri: Queen of the Bootleggers by Rose Keefe (Available as E-Book and on Absolute Crime’s website)
These are some of my favourite classic female authors.
Two of them are czech, as you can see. The first one is Květa Legátová who wrote Želary and Jozova Hanule. The film Želary, based on Jozova Hanule (i know, the situation with the names is kind of messy), was nominated for the Oscars in the early 2000's.
The second one is Gabriela Preissová who was a czech writer and playwriter and two of her best known plays are Její pastorkyňa and Gazdina roba.
Both of them wrote about women and their lives. Gabriela is realistic writer and Květa is very poetic.
Especially Květa Legátová is just brilliant and I think that it should be possible to find a copy of her books translated into English. If you find it, read it. Please. I need people to know about her.
favourite female authors | requested by @shirewalker
when virginia woolf said "who shall measure the heat and violence of the poet's heart when caught and tangled in a woman's body?" i felt it in the deepest corners of my soul i didn't even know existed.
Stack Saturday | Fiction or Nonfiction?
I’m usually more of a fiction reader, but lately I’ve been drawn to a few nonfiction titles, most of them related to history. Maybe with all this extra time I can actually put some time into absorbing all of this new information - I’ve always been interested in learning about lesser known figures so this might be the perfect opportunity. Which do you prefer?
"Women only started working very recently so a woman's place is the house-" shut up and feast your eyes at old photos of women from around the world doing physical labor only for them to return home and solely care for 5-10 children and the elderly parents of their husband.
Greek women represent:
These photos show Greek women doing the type of physical labor they would perform more often than not. At the luckiest working conditions for rural women (aka most of the country) they would start working the fields as children and when they got older they would work the same fields with their own babies on their backs.
On the way home from the fields, sometimes the women would carry the wood and the mule would carry the man so he could rest.
Of course, we can talk about the manual labor that is rubbing cloth and metal for hours on end, chopping and carrying wood to light a fire for a large cauldron your size, and stirring it for hours.
But we can also talk about how it wasn't for them to break and carry rocks in baskets for the making of new roads. They would gather salt, olives, and grapes and carry them on large baskets filled to the brim. For salt they carried thirty kilos each trip, doing fifty trips each, stepping shoeless on the grains of salt.
Carrying water was also their job, often moving large barrels with all the water a house of 10 needed upon hills that horses and mules had trouble ascending.
(more photos for salt mining and carrying here)
It's no hyperbole to say these women carried their incomes and households on their backs. "The good she-housekeeper is a slave and a lady" the old Greek saying goes. A "good woman" was a woman who could be strong and work at home and in the field, often described with the qualities of a mule. Men took their wives out in the fields so much that some who were a bit more educated had to make their husbands sign that they wouldn't ask them to work alongside them in the fields! (source in Greek)
Some of these photos are also from 1970. I'm missing a photo from Leukada showing women carrying baskets of the stones they broke, and I'll add it here when I find it.
Basically, women were out of the house forever. A woman who got to stay home and never perform any labor had some type of privilege (wealth, status etc). Same as the many privileged men around the world who didn't perform any labor at all.
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Things women created and discovered!
All men
Francium (elemental)
Torpedoe radio guidance/navigation systems
Dishwasher
GPS
Wi-fi
Structure of the Milky Way
Kevlar
The Earth's inner core
Aciclovir - an antiviral drug used for the treatment of herpes simplex virus infections, chickenpox, and shingles
Azathioprine - an Immunosuppressive drug used in rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis, and in kidney transplants to prevent rejection
Flossie Wong-Staal was the first scientist to clone HIV and map its genes.
Pyrimethamine was initially developed by Nobel Prize winning scientist Gertrude Elion as a treatment for malaria.
Disposable diapers
Child carriers
Vaccine for whooping cough
The galaxy rotation problem - important to the discovery of dark matter
Radio astronomy - Type I and Type III solar radio bursts
That stars are primarily composed of hydrogen and helium
The new outer arm of the Milky Way - In 2004, astrophysicist and radio astronomer Naomi McClure-Griffiths identified a new spiral arm of the Milky Way galaxy
Radiation
Radon (elemental)
Kinetic energy
Heavy elements in cosmic radiation
Beta particles are electrons
Nuclear shell
Astatine (elemental)
Nuclear fission - helped in the creation of nuclear weapons
Rhenium (elemental)
Seaborgium (elemental)
Polonium and radium (elemental)
Scotchgard
Structure of vitamin B12
Carbon Dioxide
Bioorthogonal chemistry - the concept of the bioorthogonal reaction has enabled the study of biomolecules such as glycans, proteins, and lipids.
Central heating
Square-bottomed paper bag
Correction fluid (white-out)
House solar heating
Wrinkle-free fiber
Windshield wipers
Car heater
Airplane mufflers
Underwater telescopes for warships
Written computer program
Written (programming) language
Chocolate chip cookies
Pizza saver
Mint chocolate chip ice cream
DNA structure
Sex chromosomes
Lactic acid cycle
Transporsable elements
Gap genes
Myers - Briggs Type Indicator
Assembly language, various coding languages, and compilers were also invented by women!
Coding was also female-dominated in the start because men thought it wasn't worth much so they let women work on it. Oh... how wrong they were lmao
"women didn't invent anything"
today I learned that a Chinese woman named Chien-Shiung Wu proved quantum entanglement before anyone else. have I ever read about her in the pop physics books I read? no. this makes me so mad but also that's fucking awesome
A Historical Deep Dive into the Founders of Black Womanism & Modern Feminism
Six African American Suffragettes Mainstream History Tried to Forget
These amazing Black American women each advanced the principles of modern feminism and Black womanism by insisting on an intersectional approach to activism. They understood that the struggles of race and gender were intertwined, and that the liberation of Black women was essential. Their writings, speeches, and actions have continued to inspire movements addressing systemic inequities, while affirming the voices of marginalized women who have shaped society. Through their amazing work, they have expanded the scope of womanism and intersectional feminism to include racial justice, making it more inclusive and transformative.
Anna Julia Cooper (1858–1964)
Quote: “The cause of freedom is not the cause of a race or a sect, a party or a class—it is the cause of humankind, the very birthright of humanity.”
Contribution: Anna Julia Cooper was an educator, scholar, and advocate for Black women’s empowerment. Her book A Voice from the South by a Black Woman of the South (1892) is one of the earliest articulations of Black feminist thought. She emphasized the intellectual and cultural contributions of Black women and argued that their liberation was essential to societal progress. Cooper believed education was the key to uplifting African Americans and worked tirelessly to improve opportunities for women and girls, including founding organizations for Black women’s higher education. Her work challenged both racism and sexism, laying the intellectual foundation for modern Black womanism.
Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (1825–1911)
Quote: “We are all bound together in one great bundle of humanity, and society cannot trample on the weakest and feeblest of its members without receiving the curse in its own soul.”
Contribution: Frances Ellen Watkins Harper was a poet, author, and orator whose work intertwined abolitionism, suffrage, and temperance advocacy. A prominent member of the American Equal Rights Association, she fought for universal suffrage, arguing that Black women’s voices were crucial in shaping a just society. Her 1866 speech at the National Woman’s Rights Convention emphasized the need for solidarity among marginalized groups, highlighting the racial disparities within the feminist movement. Harper’s writings, including her novel Iola Leroy, offered early depictions of Black womanhood and resilience, paving the way for Black feminist literature and thought.
Ida B. Wells (1862–1931)
Quote: “The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them.”
Contribution: Ida B. Wells was a fearless journalist, educator, and anti-lynching activist who co-founded the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Her investigative reporting exposed the widespread violence and racism faced by African Americans, particularly lynchings. As a suffragette, Wells insisted on addressing the intersection of race and gender in the fight for women’s voting rights. At the 1913 Women’s Suffrage Parade in Washington, D.C., she famously defied instructions to march in a segregated section and joined the Illinois delegation at the front, demanding recognition for Black women in the feminist movement. Her activism laid the groundwork for modern feminisms inclusion of intersectionality, emphasizing the dual oppressions faced by Black women.
Sojourner Truth (1797–1883)
Quote: “Ain’t I a Woman?”
Contribution: Born into slavery, Sojourner Truth became a powerful voice for abolition, women's rights, and racial justice after gaining her freedom. Her famous 1851 speech, "Ain’t I a Woman?" delivered at a women's rights convention in Akron, Ohio, directly challenged the exclusion of Black women from the feminist narrative. She highlighted the unique struggles of Black women, who faced both racism and sexism, calling out the hypocrisy of a movement that often-centered white women’s experiences. Truth’s legacy lies in her insistence on equality for all, inspiring future generations to confront the intersecting oppressions of race and gender in their advocacy.
Nanny Helen Burroughs (1879–1961)
Quote: “We specialize in the wholly impossible.”
Contribution: Nanny Helen Burroughs was an educator, activist, and founder of the National Training School for Women and Girls in Washington, D.C., which emphasized self-sufficiency and vocational training for African American women. She championed the "Three B's" of her educational philosophy: Bible, bath, and broom, advocating for spiritual, personal, and professional discipline. Burroughs was also a leader in the Women's Convention Auxiliary of the National Baptist Convention, where she pushed for the inclusion of women's voices in church leadership. Her dedication to empowering Black women as agents of social change influenced both the feminist and civil rights movements, promoting a vision of racial and gender equality.
Elizabeth Piper Ensley (1847–1919)
Quote: “The ballot in the hands of a woman means power added to influence.”
Contribution: Elizabeth Piper Ensley was a suffragist and civil rights activist who played a pivotal role in securing women’s suffrage in Colorado in 1893, making it one of the first states to grant women the vote. As a Black woman operating in the predominantly white suffrage movement, Ensley worked to bridge racial and class divides, emphasizing the importance of political power for marginalized groups. She was an active member of the Colorado Non-Partisan Equal Suffrage Association and focused on voter education to ensure that women, especially women of color, could fully participate in the democratic process. Ensley’s legacy highlights the importance of coalition-building in achieving systemic change.
To honor these pioneers, we must continue to amplify Black women's voices, prioritizing intersectionality, and combat systemic inequalities in race, gender, and class.
Modern black womanism and feminist activism can expand upon these little-known founders of woman's rights by continuously working on an addressing the disparities in education, healthcare, and economic opportunities for marginalized communities. Supporting Black Woman-led organizations, fostering inclusive black femme leadership, and embracing allyship will always be vital.
Additionally, when we continuously elevate their contributions in social media or multi-media art through various platforms, and academic curriculum we ensure their legacies continuously inspire future generations. By integrating their principles into feminism and advocating for collective liberation, women and feminine allies can continue their fight for justice, equity, and feminine empowerment, hand forging a society, by blood, sweat, bones and tears where all women can thrive, free from oppression.
White Men to avoid: History Edition
1. The one that’s obsessed with ww2. Makes edgy jokes about Jewish people and constantly depends Hitler in a “joking” way. Focuses way too much on guns
2. The white guy that took a black studies course to attempt to disprove racism. Will willingly misinterpret information to build a flimsy case
3. The American ™️. Will not shut up about the revolutionary war. Glosses over American actrocties and constantly wants to pretend they’re heroes.
