Mum’s gone to Iceland. Creatista/Shutterstock The traditional picture of Vikings is one of boatloads of hairy men pillaging their way along the coasts of Europe. True to some extent, they and Norsewomen were also explorers and settlers. By Dr. Daniel Zadik / 12.16.2014 Postdoctoral Research Fellow University of Nottingham The traditional picture of Vikings is one[…]
By Dr. Jenna Tonn / 03.15.2018 Visiting Assistant Professor in Science and Technology Studies Boston College The Museum of Comparative Zoology (MCZ) at Harvard University hired Elizabeth Hodges Clark as a specimen sorter in 1873. The energetic Swiss naturalist Louis Agassiz founded the MCZ in 1859 as a center for natural history teaching, research, and exhibition in the United[…]
Josephine Baker | AP By Chauncey K. Robinson / 03.01.2018 It seems only fitting with Black History Month closing out, and Women’s History Month beginning, to highlight a Black woman who exemplified strength and resilience in the face of discrimination and oppression. Famed entertainer Josephine Baker was not only a pioneer in breaking color barriers[…]
Searching for role models in the math world. ImageFlow/shutterstock.com By Dr. Jennifer Ruef / 03.12.2018 Assistant Professor of Education Studies University of Oregon When I was teaching mathematics in the 90s, before the internet, I had a book of “women mathematicians.” This was helpful for sharing inspirational stories with my middle school students, but there were[…]
Cornelia Africana / Wikimedia Commons By Dr. Peter Kruschwitz / 03.08.2018 Professor of Classics Fellow of the Pontifical Academy for Latin (Pontificia Academia Latinitatis) University of Reading In 195 B. C., Rome’s women had had enough. It had been for almost exactly twenty years that, due to a decision taken in 215 B. C., at the height of the Second Punic[…]
For 45 years, Susan B. Anthony traveled the U.S. relentlessly, stumping for women’s rights. She endured ridicule, was hanged in effigy and faced many horrid meals on the road. Nevertheless, she persisted. / Corbis via Getty Images By Nina Martyris / 03.08.2018 She was hanged in effigy and mocked in cartoons; laughed at by Congress for demanding[…]
Brooklyn Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm ran for President in 1972 By Dr. Kimberly A. Hamlin Associate Professor of History and Global and Intercultural Studies Miami University in Oxford, Ohio On June 7, 2016, Hillary Rodham Clinton secured enough delegates to become the Democratic nominee for president of the United States. As everyone knows, this will make Clinton the first[…]
The 8th Quinquennial Council Meeting of the ICW in Vienna / Public Domain By Dr. Leila J. Rupp / 06.16.2011 Professor of Feminist Studies University of California Santa Barbara Introduction This article traces the formation of a first wave of transnational organizing among women from the late 19th century through the Second World War. The[…]
Members of the Grand Rapids League of Women Voters organized a city get-out-the-vote parade in 1924. Grand Rapids Herald, Sept. 9, 1924. Image courtesy of the Grand Rapids Public Library By Dr. Liette Gidlow / 01.26.2018 Associate Professor of U.S. Political and Women’s/Gender History Wayne State University The first year of Donald Trump’s presidency has inspired[…]
This group portrait monument to the pioneers of the woman suffrage movement, which won women the right to vote in 1920, was sculpted from an 8-ton block of marble in Carrara, Italy.The monument features portrait busts of three movement leaders: Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony and Lucretia Mott. / Architect of the Capitol By[…]
St Lukes Hospital, London: patients case book 1912-1916. Wellcome Library reference: H64/B06/015. What did it mean for a woman to be diagnosed with hysteria? By Charlotte Whittingham / 01.12.2016 Medical Student, Imperial College London Tour Guide and Volunteer Marketing Assistant, Freud Museum London A 1916 casebook from St Luke’s Hospital (then to be found on Old[…]
“Saint Catherine in Prayer,” by the 16th century painter Plautilla Nelli, was restored in 2008. Nelli was featured in 2017 as part of the Uffizi’s new focus on women artists of the past. / Advancing Women Artists Foundation By Anna Bensted / 12.22.2017 When it comes to art, the term “Old Master” is with us for a[…]
Elizabeth Bisland at the time of her trip, from the frontispiece to In Seven Stages / Author’s own scan. Exploring the life and writings of Elizabeth Bisland, an American journalist propelled into the limelight when she set out in 1889 – head-to-head with fellow journalist Nellie Bly – on a journey to beat Phileas Fogg’s fictitious 80-day circumnavigation[…]
Women and children participate in a drum circle in El Cajon, California. Studies have shown that recreational music-making in general and group drumming in particular can decrease stress and change the genomic stress marker. / Photo by Ari Honarvar How music is helping women from war-torn countries express grief and loss. By Ari Honarvar / 12.05.2017 More than three[…]
Women shipfitters working on board the USS Nereus at the U.S. Navy Yard in Mare Island, circa 1943. Department of Defense By Dr. Samuel Redman / 11.29.2017 Assistant Professor of History University of Massachusetts Amherst For many American families, the Great Depression and Dust Bowl struck like swift punches to the gut. New Deal work relief[…]
Fisherwomen have played a significant role in Iceland’s history, and yet their contribution has been, for the most part, overlooked. / Michelle Jones, Sapiens Many Icelandic women fished in the 18th and 19th centuries, but their work has been largely unrecognized. Why did these female seafarers fade from the country’s memory? By Roberta Kwok /[…]
Frances Glessner Lee working on one of her 19 Nutshells By Hillary Moses Mohaupt / 09.14.2017 When Frances Glessner Lee died in 1962, the New York Times obituary called her “a great-grandmother who became an authority on crime” and “a wealthy widow with a consuming interest in real-life mysteries.” The obituary goes on to note that Glessner Lee[…]
Baxter Engine, Souvenir of the Centennial Exhibition (1877), by George D. Curtis. (Google Books | Public Domain) By Robert Davis / 07.20.2017 Professor of History Wallace State College In 1876, the Centennial Exhibition, the first United States world’s fair, opened in Philadelphia to celebrate the nation’s 100 year anniversary. With its mission mandated by Congress to showcase “the nation’s progress in[…]
Maryam Mirzakhani, YouTube Screen Capture By Mehrdokht Poumader / 07.17.2017 Lecturer in Operations Management and Organizational Behavior Macquarie Graduate School of Management On July 14, Maryam Mirzakhani, Stanford professor of mathematics and the only female winner of the prestigious Fields Medal in Mathematics, died at the age of 40. In just a few hours, her[…]
Simone de Beauvoir in Paris in 1949. / Photo from Elliot Erwitt, Magnum By Dr. Skye C. Cleary / 03.10.2017 Lecturer Columbia University, City College of New York Simone de Beauvoir is rightly best known for declaring: ‘One is not born, but rather becomes, woman.’ A less well-known facet of her philosophy, particularly relevant today, is[…]
The Intervention of the Sabine Women (detail), by Jacques-Louis David, 1799 / Louvre Museum, Paris By Dr. Katherine Huntley / 04.24.2017 Professor of Archaeology and Ancient History Boise State University Protesting was a key part of Roman political life. And protesting was fueled by the fact that the Roman Republic, from its founding in 509BCE[…]
Indonesian female Muslim students read books in a library. Dadang Tri/Reuters By Dr. Rachel Rinaldo / 06.06.2017 Assistant Professor of Sociology University of Colorado Recent terrorist attacks such as the one in London inevitably lead to coverage of Islamist ideology, Muslim culture and Muslim women’s rights. What is often missing, however, in my view is[…]
Detail from greek vase showing women preparing wool. Diosphos Painter. / British Museum, London By Dr. Ann Bergren Professor Emeritus of Classics University of California, Los Angeles The Speech of the Muses[1] The Nine Muses, by Lodewijk Toeput, c.1585 / Artnet via Sotheby’s, Wikimedia Commons At the start of the Theogony, Hesiod describes his poetic[…]
By Danika Kimball / 08.23.2016 When Julia Chase-Brand was growing up, women didn’t run. Born in 1945 in Groton, Connecticut, Chase recalls being surrounded by four active brothers, in a time where girls couldn’t run, play soccer, and if they were to play basketball, it was at the half court line. Inspired by local distance[…]
Grace Dalrymple Elliott by Thomas Gainsborough, 1778. © Metropolitan Museum of Art By Joanne Major and Sarah Murden / 09.13.2016 The infamous eighteenth-century courtesan Grace Dalrymple Elliott’s birth has not been recorded, but she was certainly born in Scotland, most likely in Edinburgh around 1754. She was to grow up to achieve a scandalous notoriety[…]
By Ginny Brown / 08.22.2016 Are You Giving Up Your True Self for Intimacy? As a woman, it’s taken me a long time to figure out what rights I have in relationships. Like many women, I was trained by my family and culture to always put others’ needs first. I was taught that sacrificing my[…]
By Miranda Garno Nesler / 08.03.2016 Following the death of queen Elizabeth I, Queen Anna of Denmark became England’s first queen consort in over 40 years. As the wife of reigning King James I, Anna’s royal position differed vastly from Elizabeth’s. Anna after all did not have governing powers, and her position as James’ “wife”[…]
Queen Nzinga Mbande was a ruthless and powerful 17th century African ruler of the Ndongo and Matamba Kingdoms (modern-day Angola). Nzinga fearlessly and cleverly fought for the freedom and stature of her kingdoms against the Portuguese, who were colonizing the area at the time. By KeriLynn Engel Around the turn of the 17th century, the[…]
Photo of Zitkala-Ša by Joseph T. Keiley, 1898. National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution. By Dory Nason / 06.13.2016 To tell the history of Indigenous feminism, we have to acknowledge that such a history can’t be easily distilled down to a few pages or simply based on the origins we think we know and understand about[…]
A view of the state capitol in Montgomery, Alabama / Brendan Smialowski, AFP, Getty Images Authorities could no longer charge a pregnant woman with child endangerment for taking a drug prescribed by her doctor. By Nina Martin / 05.04.2016 This story was co-published with AL.com. Pregnant women and new mothers using legally prescribed medications may[…]