Throughout history, women have been written out of cultural moments they helped shape. And now we have a new word for it
Category: Herstory
The Scientist Who Said Periods Weren’t a Big Deal
Mary Putnam Jacobi argued that menstruation shouldn’t stop women from getting an education—and that science should be supported by facts, not hunches.
Hypatia of Alexandria
As the historian Deakin writes, “The most detailed accounts we have of Hypatia‘s life are the records of her death. We learn more about her death from the primary sources than we do about any other aspect of her life” (49). She was murdered in 415 CE by a Christian mob who attacked her on the streets of Alexandria. The primary sources, even those Christian writers who were hostile to her and claimed she was a witch, portray her as a woman who was widely known for her generosity, love of learning, and expertise in teaching in the subjects of Neo-Platonism, mathematics, science, and philosophy in general.
Hypatia was a close friend of the pagan prefect Orestes and was blamed by Cyril, the Christian Archbishop of Alexandria, for keeping Orestes from accepting the ‘true faith’. She was also seen as a ‘stumbling block’ to those who would have accepted the ‘truth’ of Christianity were it not for her charisma, charm, and excellence in making difficult mathematical and philosophical concepts understandable to her students; concepts which contradicted the teachings of the relatively new church. Alexandria was a great seat of learning in the early days of Christianity but, as the faith grew in adherents and power, steadily became divided by fighting among religious factions. It is by no means an exaggeration to state that Alexandria was destroyed as a centre of culture and learning by religious intolerance and Hypatia has come to symbolize this tragedy to the extent that her death has been cited as the end of the classical world.
Source: Hypatia of Alexandria – Ancient History Encyclopedia
Where are all the blue plaques celebrating women?
Blue plaques are found right across Greater London, showing us where important people in history have lived and worked. Over 900 official plaques have been erected across London since the scheme began in 1866.
But, currently just 14 per cent of blue plaques across the city celebrate women.
Source: Where are all the blue plaques celebrating women? – Virago
‘Show them what crazy can do’: Serena Williams brilliantly calls out double standards in new ad
The word ‘crazy’ has been given a shakeup In a new Nike ad led by tennis superstar Serena Williams.
Source: ‘Show them what crazy can do’: Serena Williams brilliantly calls out double standards in new ad
The deadly truth about a world built for men – from stab vests to car crashes
Crash-test dummies based on the ‘average’ male are just one example of design that forgets about women – and puts lives at risk
Women at the Helm
Project Managers Winters, Dodd lead New Horizons and Voyager – Humankind’s Two Most Distant Missions
These missions are not only setting records for distant exploration; both have female project managers. Helene Winters of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, serves as the project manager for the New Horizons mission. Suzanne Dodd of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, is project manager for Voyager and has also managed NASA’s NuSTAR and Spitzer space observatories.
Source: New Horizons: News Article
The nation-builders we constantly fail to recognise
If it’s late enough in summer that we’ve grown exhausted of complaining about the weather, it must be time to have a few too many beers and start punching We all know of the great men who shaped Australia, but what of the great women — women like John Macarthur’s wife, who ran the farm while he was off fighting, feuding and facing charges on the other side of the world
From Chinese spies to award-winning geologists, we’re making women visible on Wikipedia
Just 3,541 Wikipedia editors are considered “very active”, and very few of them are female. But this can change.
Source: From Chinese spies to award-winning geologists, we’re making women visible on Wikipedia
5 Indigenous women who didn’t get the credit
Natalie Cromb writes for NITV:
It is no secret where we —Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women— are placed on the scale of relevance and importance in this country. We are last, always.
We are also tireless in our pursuit of rights and betterment for our people, which is why individual achievements are rarely important and why we are often overlooked and don’t receive credit where credit is due. There are countless examples of this and we bring you five cases of incredible Indigenous women achieving great things and not getting near enough credit for their achievement.
https://www.sbs.com.au/nitv/article/2018/07/12/5-indigenous-women-who-didnt-get-credit
[category Aust, feminism, herstory]