Tag: Women History

Female Heroes–WW2

Happy St. Patrick’s Day for all you Irish minded people.

It is Women’s History Month and I try to bring women out of the shadows to show that they are just as capable as any man.

Ever heard of Josephine Baker or Marlene Dietrich? How about Virginia Hall or Lee Miller or Nancy Wake?

These women all have something in common….they we serving during World War 2.

For instance Josephine Baker was used as a spy in France….Marlene Dietrich work for OSS….

Here are five stories about remarkable women who defied prejudices based on race, gender, disability, and religion during World War II.

George Santayana wrote in 1905 that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. This universal truth is specifically poignant when we think about World War II and the pivotal role that many women played during this difficult time. Most countries banned women from being involved in physical combat, but this didn’t stop plenty of iconic women from finding ways of playing pivotal roles in logistical and tactical initiatives.

https://www.thecollector.com/female-heroes-world-war-ii/

Women that should have a prominent place in the history of World War Two but have had to take a back seat to personalities like MacArthur, Patton or Monty.

They did their part and should be remembered for the part they played in our victory over that slug Hitler.

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History’s Evil Women

Women’s History #6

It is women’s history month and most posts are about the accomplishments of women like Rosa Parks, Susan B. Anthony, Gertrude Bell, etc…..but who has ever mentioned those women that were just plain damn evil?

Let me one of the first to bring you the 10 most evil women in history….

Number 10…Mary Queen of Scotland

Mary was the only child of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon to live past infancy. Crowned after the death of Edward VI and the removal of The Nine Days Queen-Lady Jane Grey, Mary is chiefly remembered for temporarily and violently returning England to Catholicism. Many prominent Protestants were executed for their beliefs leading to the moniker “Bloody Mary.” Fearing the gallows a further 800 Protestants left the country, unable to return until her death. It should be noted that Elizabeth I shares position 10 on this list for her equally bad behavior.

Number 9….Myra Hindley, a murderer….

Myra Hindley and Ian Brady were responsible for the “Moors murders” occurring in the Manchester area of Britain from 1963 to 1965. Together these two monsters were responsible for the kidnapping, sexual abuse, torture, and murder of three children under the age of 12 and two teenagers, aged 16 and 17. A key found in Myra’s possession led to incriminating evidence stored at a left-luggage depot at Manchester Central Station. The evidence included a tape recording of one of the murder victims screaming as Hindley and Brady raped and tortured her. In the final days before incarceration, she developed a swagger and arrogant attitude that became her trademark. Police secretary Sandra Wilkinson has never forgotten seeing Hindley and her mother Nellie, leaning against the courthouse eating sweets. While the mother was obviously and understandably upset, Hindley seemed indifferent and uncaring of her situation.

There are more waiting for you to learn about their lives.

https://listverse.com/2007/09/09/top-10-most-evil-women/

This ends my women’s history series….hopefully my readers learned something and will retain what they learned.

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Women’s History #4

If you are a fan of foreign films then I bet you have watched the Japanese classics about the samurai….all the main characters were male but during the upheavals on the island there were so much more than dudes running around sword fighting and cutting off heads.

The year is 1868 and the Onna-Bugeisha are participants in the great Meiji restoration.

Her formerly snow-white clothes were stained red. She had cropped her long hair and tied it into a knot above her head. Her hands held a heavy halberd. Kawahara Asako had just killed her mother-in-law and young daughter to prevent them from falling into the enemy’s hands. Drenched in their blood, she marched onto the battlefield, ready to die defending her home.

Kawahara fought in the Battle of Aizu, named for a region in the northern part of Japan. It was one of the deadliest conflicts of the Boshin War, the civil conflict that shook Japan from 1868 to 1869. It saw the Imperial forces of Emperor Meiji face the Tokugawa shogunate, the military regime that had governed Japan since 1603. The shogunate, to which the Aizu were allied, wanted to preserve Japan’s insularity, its traditional way of life, and curtail Western influences. The emperor, on the other hand, was spearheading the country’s transformation into a modern nation-state in a revolution from above.

The Meiji Restoration ended Japan’s seclusion policy and opened the country up to foreign powers, hastening change in almost all areas of life. But fundamental societal transformations rarely go smoothly. At stake was nothing less than the very soul and future of Japan.

When the imperial forces invaded the Aizu region in 1868, they did so to cement their control of Japan. That October, the emperor’s troops, outnumbering the shogunate soldiers and in possession of better supplies, made quick progress in taking settlements. After sustaining heavy losses, the Aizu population was ordered to barricade themselves in nearby Tsuruga Castle.

Onna-Bugeisha, the Female Samurai Warriors of Feudal Japan

I have always been amazed at the samurai dedication to Bushido, the code of the warrior, where honor and duty are paramount something we Americans should learn and hold dear.

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Women’s History #3

Ever hear about Mary Edwards Walker?

Of course you have not for teaching about a tireless worker for women’s rights might turn your daughters gay.

It is a Friday so let us learn something.

Back in the days when women had very few rights Walker was an up and coming leader….

Let’s go to the year 1873….

January 1873, hundreds of women convened at the National Hotel in Washington, D.C. It was the fifth convention of the National Woman Suffrage Association and a 44-year-old Susan B. Anthony had taken the floor. She spoke of unity, forming a national women’s newspaper, and the vote. But few people were paying attention to Anthony. Even suffragist leader Elizabeth Cady Stanton was distracted, verging on annoyed. Because there, just to the side of the podium, an imposing woman stood in pants and a slimming man’s coat, waiting. Her name was Mary Edwards Walker. The first female surgeon in the U.S. Army and a prisoner of war during the Civil War, Walker, who flouted the day’s rigid gender norms, was something of a celebrity. As more and more of the crowd noticed her, they began to murmur and whisper, “she’s here!” But still Walker stood, patiently waiting for Anthony to yield the floor. When Anthony finally did so, Walker launched into a scathing critique of the NWSA, and Stanton and Anthony with it. They had abandoned the cause of dress reform, she said, giving up the fight for women to renounce health-damaging corsets. Anthony and Stanton lacked courage, she said. At a later suffrage convention, Anthony and Stanton called the cops on Walker. After narrowly avoiding arrest, Walker shouted at the pair, “you are not working for the cause, but for yourselves!”

Following the January 1873 convention, Stanton forbid any mention of Walker in the event’s official summary. Stanton and other critics derided Walker as a “she-man” and a “ghoul.” Years later, when Stanton and Anthony wrote the History of Woman Suffrage, they erased Walker and her involvement almost entirely. “They deliberately sought to conceal the queerness of the suffrage movement,” writes historian Wendy Rouse of San José State University. Rouse, who has written a new book on the topic, Public Faces, Secret Lives: A Queer History of the Women’s Suffrage Movement, uncovered many stories like Walker’s. From queer relationships known as Boston marriages to publishing radical newspapers about free love, the women’s suffrage movement was full of individuals “queering the norm,” as Rouse puts it—individuals history consciously deleted. Atlas Obscura spoke with Rouse about these queer suffragists, the female cavalries they led, and why so many of their stories have gone untold.

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/trans-queer-womens-suffrage

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Women’s History #1

It is March and Women’s history month…..so the Old Professor wants to drop some history on my readers….history that may not be commonly known about the women I feature.

Since the Baseball season is about a month away let’s start with that…..

Who is the only woman inducted into the Baseball Hall Of Fame?

(I’ll wait while you run to Google to do your thinking for you)

There are currently 268 male baseball players who have been inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, but did you ever wonder who is the only woman ever inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame?

Did you know there is a woman who is a part of the Baseball Hall of Fame? Many players get a chance to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. However, many lose that chance, either by not receiving enough votes or by being banned for life (such as Pete Rose).

Have you ever wondered who is the only woman ever inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame? It was Effa Manley, who became the first and only woman ever to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2006.

Effa Manley was born in Philadelphia. After completing school, she did some vocational training in things such as cooking and sewing. Later, she started a hat-making business.

She was a black woman, but her mother was white. She was raised by her black stepfather and mother. Since her biological father’s skin color is unknown, for many years critics debated her racial background. Effa Manley always enjoyed the confusion her skin color created. However, she recognized herself as a black woman and was proud of the color of her skin.

Effa Manley was not a baseball player, so why is she part of the Baseball Hall of Fame? Let’s find out!

Who is the only woman ever inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame?

Now you know more than most….

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Have I great weekend…..Be well and Be safe….

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18 March

I know the day after St. Patrick’s Day….the cabbage has been eaten and the green beer is gone…..why not hurt your head with some history?

It is Women history month and since I do enjoy my history and today is the 150th anniversary of the Paris Commune, 18 March 1871.

The Paris Commune was a popular-led democratic government that ruled Paris from March 18 to May 28, 1871. Inspired by the Marxist politics and revolutionary goals of the International Workingmen’s Organization (also known as the First International), workers of Paris united to overthrow the existing French regime which had failed to protect the city from Prussian siege, and formed the first truly democratic government in the city and in all of France. The elected council of the Commune passed socialist policies and oversaw city functions for just over two months, until the French army retook the city for the French government, slaughtering tens of thousands of working-class Parisians in order to do so.

The Paris Commune was formed on the heels of an armistice signed between the Third Republic of France and the Prussians, which had laid siege to the city of Paris from September 1870 through January 1871. The siege ended with the surrender of the French army to the Prussians and the signing of an armistice to end the fighting of the Franco-Prussian War.

At this period in time, Paris had a considerable population of workers—as many as half a million industrial workers and hundreds of thousands of others—who were economically and politically oppressed by the ruling government and the system of capitalist production, and economically disadvantaged by the war. Many of these workers served as soldiers of the National Guard, a volunteer army that worked to protect the city and its inhabitants during the siege.

More on the background of the uprising……https://www.thoughtco.com/paris-commune-4147849  and  https://www.counterfire.org/articles/history/21095-the-paris-commune-150-when-workers-ran-a-city

Among the leaders of this uprising were many women….among them was Louise Michel…..

During the Paris Commune, women organised as never before. There were women caring for the wounded, women bringing food to the fighters and women fighting – some doing both. Women’s organisations and meetings were set up to improve the role of women in society. But of all the many women who took part in these activities, including prominent political thinkers and organisers, such as Elizabeth Dmitrieff, Andre Leo, and Nathalie Lemel, the name which is remembered most in association with the Commune is that of Louise Michel.

This is probably because Michel, as her biographer, Edith Thomas, says, was everywhere at once: in the political clubs and on the battlefield, in the 61st Montmartre battalion (noted for fighting like devils, and for her energy in particular), on committees and in the ambulance stations she helped to organise. Soldier, ambulance nurse, orator, her courage and audacity meant she was at Clamart, Neuilly, and Issy Les Moulineaux, with a rifle in her hands. She also proposed going in person to Versailles to assassinate Thiers. When told she would not be able to get that far, she disguised herself and got within reach of Versailles.

https://www.counterfire.org/articles/history/22143-louise-michel-the-revolutionary-woman-who-led-the-paris-commune

These are events that you probably have never heard of or the women who were a vital part of this historic event…..and that is why I am here.

An interesting time and a fascinating historic event…..

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Amazon Female Warriors

Did you see Wonder Woman or WW84?

Wonder Woman everybody’s favorite Amazon.

By Amazon I am talking about the warriors of legend not the rain forest or the business that is sucking the life out of local retail.

Yes the Amazons are the people of Wonder Woman….but were they real or just myth?

Were the Amazons of ancient Greek mythology — fierce female warriors said to have roamed a vast area around the Black Sea known as Scythia — real? Or were they as fictitious as other Greek myths, such as Aphrodite emerging from genitals thrown into the sea or Jason stealing a golden fleece?

Modern historians assumed that the Amazons, first documented by the poet Homer in the eighth century B.C., were fantasy. But then, in the 1990s, archaeologists began identifying ancient female skeletons buried in warrior graves in the same region.

Some skeletons were found with combat injuries, such as arrowheads embedded in their bones, and were buried with weapons that matched those held by Amazons in ancient Greek artwork, according to Adrienne Mayor, a research scholar in the classics department and History of Science Program at Stanford University. 

“Thanks to archaeology, we now know that Amazon myths, once thought to be fantasy, contain accurate details about steppe nomad women, who were the historical counterparts of mythic Amazons,” Mayor, who is also the author of “The Amazons: Lives and Legends of Warrior Women Across the Ancient World” (Princeton University Press, 2014), told Live Science in an email.

These nomadic warriors were part of an ancient group of tribes known as Scythians, who were masters of horseback riding and archery. They lived across a vast territory on the Eurasian steppe, stretching from the Black Sea to China, from about 700 B.C. to A.D. 500, Mayor wrote in Foreign Affairs magazine in 2015.

The Scythians were a hard-core people; they had a reputation for drinking excessive amounts of undiluted wine (unlike the Greeks, who mixed wine with water), imbibing fermented mare’s milk and even getting high on hemp, according to The British Museum. Frozen bodies of mummified Scythians preserved in permafrost reveal they were heavily tattooed with animals, according to the museum. 

https://www.livescience.com/who-were-amazon-warriors.html

Your lesson is now complete.

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19 May

On this day in history…..

Anne Boleyn is beheaded 1536…..Mary Queen of Scots is imprisoned in England 1568…..Spanish Armada sets sail 1588….Grant attacks Vicksberg 1863….Last battle of Civil War Spotsylvania, Virginia….Congress curbs immigration into the US 1921……Hanoi is bombed for the first time 1968.

And not one of those has anything to do with this post…..Psyche!

Actually this post is about an organization unknown as May19 or M19…..of which I wrote during Women’s History month…..https://lobotero.com/2020/03/19/womens-history-3-m19/

It was a terror group in the US mainly run by women….something that the history books seem to leave out when the study of the 1960s and 70s and into the 1980s come around……

On the evening of November 7, 1983, a call came into the U.S. Capitol switchboard. “Listen carefully, I’m only going to tell you this one time,” the caller said. “There is a bomb in the Capitol building. It will go off in five minutes. Evacuate the building.” Then the caller hung up.

At 10:58 p.m., a blast went off on the second floor of the structure’s north wing. The explosion blew doors off their hinges, shattered chandeliers and sent a shower of pulverized glass, brick and plaster into the Republican cloakroom. The shock wave from the explosion sounded like a sonic boom. A jogger outside on the Capitol grounds heard the blast: “It was loud enough to make my ears hurt. It kept echoing and echoing—boom, boom.” According to one estimate, the bomb caused $1 million in damage.

Later, National Public Radio received a message from a group calling itself the Armed Resistance Unit: “Tonight we bombed the U.S. Capitol.” Nobody was killed or injured in the attack, but the ARU made clear that it had contemplated lethal action: “We purposely aimed our attack at the institutions of imperialist rule rather than at individual members of the ruling class and government. We did not choose to kill any of them at this time. But their lives are not sacred and their hands are stained with the blood of millions.”

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/05/03/us-history-first-women-terrorist-group-191037

But for those visually impaired….a video about the bombing…..

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Women’s History #5–The Poetic Princess

A little more women’s history to help sooth the nerves in the time of sheltering in place…..

I first came across this woman when I was living in Spain…..she has a fascinating story……and since this is women’s history month what better time to introduce this poet to my readers?

Her name was Wallada bint al-Mastakfi…….

Wallada was born in 1001, the daughter of a noble in the Andalusian city of Córdoba. In 711 an army of Moors coming up from Africa had conquered the city for the Umayyad Caliphate, along with most of modern Spain. Córdoba became the capital of this province on the edge of their empire. Fifty years later, after the Umayyads had been deposed, a prince of their line named Abd al-Rahman fled to Córdoba. Several of the locals had taken advantage of the chaos to declare independence, and he conquered them and welded them together into the independent Emirate of Córdoba. By the time Wallada was born his descendents had declared themselves Caliphs, [1] and Córdoba was a city of half a million people – one of the most advanced cities in Europe.

Unfortunately for the Córdobans, however, by this time the Umayyads had definitely begun to lose their grip on their caliphate. In 976 a ten year old boy named Hisham had succeeded to the throne. In the grand tradition of child rulers throughout history, fierce competition immediately started over the regency (and thus effective control of the caliphate). The eventual winner in this was al-Mansur Ibn Abi Amir, a powerful leader whose victories against the Christian kingdoms clinging to the northern part of Spain earned him infamy as “Almanzor”. He died in 1002, with his son succeeding to the regency.

Wallada bint al-Mustakfi, Poetic Princess

More on her scandalous love affair with ibn Zaydun a prominent poet of Andalusia…..

Although ibn Zaydun was a leading figure in the courts of Cordoba and Seville, he was most famous among the people of his day because of his scandalous love affair with Princess Wallada. They did nothing to hide their passion, and at her literary circle, when the poets began improvising, as was their custom, they would allude to it quite openly. On one famous occasion, Wallada uttered this impromptu verse, as she gazed upon her lover’s face:

“I fear for you, my beloved so much, that even my own sight even the ground you tread even the hours that pass threaten to snatch you away from me. Even if I were able to conceal you within the pupils of my eyes and hide you there until the Day of Judgment my fear would still not be allayed.”

https://www.andalucia.com/history/people/ibn-wallada.htm

Fascinating love story…..

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Empress Irene

While sheltering in place….why not learn something?

It is the weekend and I have been dealing (like everyone else) with the virus stuff that I think my readers need to know……but after all it is women’s history month so I will give some of women of history that are seldom mentioned…….this time it is Empress Irene.

Who?

She was the empress of the Byzantines ………

Known for: sole Byzantine emperor, 797 – 802; her rule gave the Pope the excuse to recognize Charlemagne as Holy Roman Emperor; convened the 7th Ecumenical Council (2nd Council of Nicaea), restoring icon veneration in the Byzantine Empire

Occupation: empress consort, regent and co-ruler with her son, ruler in her own right
Dates: lived about 752 – August 9, 803, ruled as co-regent 780 – 797, ruled in her own right 797 – October 31, 802
Also known as Empress Irene, Eirene (Greek)

Background, Family:

  • from a noble Athenian family
  • uncle: Constantine Sarantapechos
  • husband: Emperor Leo IV the Khazar (January 25, 750 – September 8, 780); married December 17, 769, son of Constantine V Copronymus who arranged the marriage and his first wife Irene of Khazaria. Part of the Isaurian (Syrian) dynasty ruling the Eastern Roman Empire.
  • one child: Constantine VI (January 14, 771 – about 797 or before 805), emperor 780 – 797

https://www.thoughtco.com/irene-of-athens-p2-3529666

We always hear about the strong men of this empire but seldom anything about the women…..and Irene is one that should be mentioned more…..

Empress Irene was the wife of Leo IV and, on her husband’s death, she reigned as regent for her son Constantine VI from 780 to 790 CE. From 797 to 802 CE she ruled as emperor in her own right, the first woman to do so in Byzantine history. During her lacklustre reign, Irene ruthlessly schemed and plotted to keep the throne she would lose and regain three times, but she is chiefly remembered for restoring the Christian veneration of icons, which her predecessors of the Isaurian dynasty had sought so vehemently to repress. Even this seemingly pious campaign was really only a means for Irene to defeat her enemies and keep power. The Empress’ gold coins reveal much of her duplicitous character for, uniquely, they carried a portrait of herself on both sides

https://www.ancient.eu/Empress_Irene/

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