Peter Dreier of YES! Magazine writes:
Less well known (but no less inspiring) is the fact that Keller, who was born in 1880 and died in 1968, was a lifelong radical who participated in the great movements for social justice of her time. In her investigations into the causes of blindness, she discovered that poor people were more likely than the rich to be blind, and soon connected the mistreatment of the blind to the oppression of workers, women, and other groups, leading her to embrace socialism, feminism, and pacifism.
Keller was part of wide circle of reformers and radicals who participated in a variety of overlapping causes. She was a strong advocate for women’s rights and women’s suffrage, writing in 1916: “Women have discovered that they cannot rely on men’s chivalry to give them justice.” She supported birth control and praised its leading advocate, Margaret Sanger, with whom she had many mutual friends. Keller argued that capitalists wanted workers to have large families to supply cheap labor to factories but forced poor children to live in miserable conditions. “Only by taking the responsibility of birth control into their own hands,” Keller said, “can [women] roll back the awful tide of misery that is sweeping over them and their children.”
She donated money to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)—then a young and controversial civil rights organization that focused on opposition to lynching and job and housing discrimination against African Americans—and wrote for its magazine. At an antiwar rally in January 1916, sponsored by the Women’s Peace Party at New York’s Carnegie Hall, Keller said, “Congress is not preparing to defend the people of the United States. It is planning to protect the capital of American speculators and investors.
In 1918 she helped found the American Civil Liberties Union, which was initially organized to challenge the U.S. government’s attempts to suppress the ideas of and jail or deport radicals who opposed World War I, including Socialists and members of the Industrial Workers of the World.
Keller is well known for being blind, but she also deserves to be heralded for her progressive social vision.
https://www.yesmagazine.org/people-power/the-radical-dissent-of-helen-keller
Category: Herstory
Jacinda Ardern to guest edit New Zealand newspaper on anniversary of suffrage
Charles Anderson writers for The Guardian:
Jacinda Ardern will guest edit the country’s largest daily newspaper on Wednesday as New Zealand marks 125 years since becoming the first nation in the world to give women the vote.
The country is marking the occasion in various ways – with a vast number of exhibitions and special projects dedicated to the event.
In 1893, New Zealand suffragists gathered the signatures of nearly 32,000 women to demonstrate the breadth of support for their cause. Despite opposition, the legislation allowing women to vote was passed by both houses of parliament and became law on 19 September.
The news sent shockwaves throughout New Zealand and went on to inspire suffrage movements around the world. In 1902, Australia followed suit, however Indigenous men and women were forced to wait until 1962 before they were allowed to vote in federal elections.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/sep/18/jacinda-ardern-guest-edit-new-zealand-newspaper-on-anniversary-of-suffrage?
Year 11 and 12 students in NSW will no longer learn about women's contributions to physics
The new Higher School Certificate (HSC) physics syllabus for NSW will contain no mention of the contributions of female physicists to the field. Not teaching students about their contributions to the field denies young women role models, and denies all students important knowledge about physics.
The new syllabus has 25 scientists mentioned 56 times. But no women are referred to by name, nor are any contributions women have made to physics included.
This new syllabus focuses completely on male physicists and their work. Women have been and continue to be told physics is primarily a male endeavour.
This syllabus conveys the message that female physicists aren’t significant enough to mention. This is not only incorrect, but discouraging to female students. When we focus entirely on male scientists, we devalue women and their work in this field.
https://theconversation.com/year-11-and-12-students-in-nsw-will-no-longer-learn-about-womens-contributions-to-physics-102988
Women Move From Samba’s Sidelines to the Center of the Circle
Shannon Simms for The New York Times writes:
With astonishing speed, female musicians in Brazil have begun breaking into the male realm of samba circles, taking a seat at the table both literally and figuratively. Just a few years ago, the musicians playing in a samba circle jam session used to be almost all male.
Another part of the movement is spurred by a newfound sense of revolt among female musicians against the lyrics of some of the traditional samba circle anthems, which make light of serious crimes such as domestic violence and sexual assault.
But as Brazilian women and female musicians in particular have called out the traditional samba circle’s culture of machismo, the blowback has been very real.
But samba circles weren’t always male dominated. In 1930s post-slavery Brazil, Ms. de Oliveira notes, women were the orchestrators of what are now known as samba circles.
Afro-Brazilian religions like Umbanda and Candomblé, which have been historically persecuted for their perceived connection to “black magic,” burnished the cultural role of the powerful female “auntie” — nicknamed a Baiana in reference to the state of Bahia, the geographical center of Afro-Brazilian religions in Brazil. The women inhabiting these leadership roles, which are somewhere between a mother figure and a wise queen, became the de facto hostesses of the very first samba circles.
Mr. Gustavo recently sat in as a guest at one of the new samba circles made up mostly of women. When he started playing one of the more offensive old songs — about beating women (without thinking twice, he claims) — the female musicians one by one stopped playing.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/08/world/americas/women-samba-musicians.html
John Steinbeck was a sadistic womaniser, says wife in memoir
Sian Cain of The Guardian writes:
John Steinbeck’s wife Gwyn Conger Steinbeck describes the author as “a sadistic man” and a serial womaniser, in a newly unearthed memoir found in Wales, which is set to be published for the first time this week.
“Like so many writers, he had several lives, and in each he was spoilt, and in each he felt he was king,” she wrote. “From the time John awoke to the time he went to bed, I had to be his slave.”
By her account, Steinbeck rarely showed affection to her or their two sons, Thomas and John Jr, and had never wanted any children. When she was experiencing problems during her pregnancy with John Jr, Steinbeck told her that she had “complicated” his life during a busy period of writing. When John Jr arrived prematurely in 1946, she recalls Steinbeck telling her: “I wish to Christ he’d die, he’s taking up too much of your fucking time.” She identifies the conversation as “the moment when love died”.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/sep/07/john-steinbeck-a-sadistic-womaniser-says-wife-in-memoir
Dorothy Hill: Pioneer and Professor ·
Professor Dorothy Hill was an Australian geologist and palaeontologist, the first female professor at an Australian university, and the first female president of the Australian Academy of Science.
Dorothy Hill was a well-known figure at the University of Queensland from the time she was 18 years old and beginning her degree until she retired, aged in her seventies. By then she had become a world-renowned professor.
Throughout her career, she led by example and inspired women to pursue science and a university education. Through her numerous achievements, she helped to advance the place of women in academia.
https://uqlibraryonlineexhibitions.omeka.net/exhibits/show/dorothy-hill-online-exhibition https://trove.nla.gov.au/people/754082?
https://www.science.org.au/learning/general-audience/history/interviews-australian-scientists/emeritus-professor-dorothy-hill
How a Runaway Nun Helped an Outlaw Monk Change the World
Andrew Curry for National Geographic writes in October 2017:
October 31 marks 500 years since Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door of a Wittenberg church, an act that secured his place in history. But historians say his later career—and the Reformation movement he led —might have looked very different if not for his marriage to von Bora.
Luther’s bride was no ordinary woman, particularly for the 16th century. In 1504, at the age of five, von Bora—born to impoverished German nobility—was shipped off to a convent.
At the time, Luther’s marriage was a scandal on many levels: He was a monk who had broken his vows, married to a nun who had broken hers. As Luther continued his career as a theologian and preacher, his marriage flouted centuries of Catholic teaching about celibacy and the priesthood—and established married clergy as a precedent for Reformation churches.
“As soon as this former monk married a former nun, people took interest,” says Gabriele Jancke, a historian at Freie University in Berlin.
As Luther’s intellectual fame grew, some of his allies, uncomfortable with his wife’s outsize presence, referred to her as “Doctorissa” in their letters – intended as a mean-spirited dig at both Katharina and her husband. Others tried to needle Luther by suggesting that some of his ideas were actually Katharina’s. [ed: and maybe
they were. . . ]
“Women at the time were supposed to be seen and not heard,” says Martin Treu, a historian at the Luther Society in Wittenberg and author of a von Bora biography. “Von Bora was seen as self-confident, strong-willed, and independent, which were all negative attributes for women at the time.”
Luther sometimes referred to his wife as Wittenberg’s “morning star,” up earlier than anyone else in town to manage a staff of nearly a dozen servants, look after their six children, and manage the equivalent of a mid-sized company. (He also called her “Lord Katie” in some of the 21 surviving letters he wrote to her.)
As the Reformation movement spread across Europe, the house that Katharina ran became its epicenter. After dinner, Luther, Katharina, and select guests discussed theology and politics in Latin, hammering out the intellectual framework of the Reformation.
Remarkably, Luther’s last will made Katharina his sole inheritor, and named her guardian of their children. (Treu says the move was unheard of at the time, and ultimately ruled illegal by incredulous judges after his death in 1546.)
Kramer says von Bora’s story is a reminder that the Reformation wasn’t a one-man project.
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/10/martin-luther-wife-protestant-reformation-500/
http://go-newfocus.co.uk/articles/app/category/biography/article/katharina-luther-the-morning-star-of-wittenberg
5 Famous Female Mathematicians You Should Know
[H]ere are Whizz Education’s top five female mathematicians you should know about.
1. Hypatia (born c. 350–370; died 415 AD)
Her efforts saw her become one of the leading mathematicians and astronomers of her time and she was eventually named the head of the prestigious Platonist School in Alexandria, where she taught mathematics, philosophy and astronomy.
2. Florence Nightingale (1820-1910)
While better known for her heroics as a nurse during the Crimean War, Nightingale is also considered one of history’s most famous female mathematicians.
The data she gathered indicated that poor sanitation was the key cause of deaths within hospitals and her research was a driving force behind a sharp decline in preventable deaths in both military and civilian healthcare facilities during the 19th century.
3. Ada Lovelace (1815-1852)
A giant in the world of STEM, Ada Lovelace not only holds the honour of being one of the most famous women in maths history, but she is also recognised as the first-ever computer programmer of any gender.
4. Mary Everest Boole (1832-1916)
A self-taught mathematician, Gloucestershire-born Boole is best remembered for her seminal works on the teaching of mathematics to young children.
Many of the practices we still use in the classroom, including the use of maths manipulatives and cooperative learning, can be traced back to this famous female mathematician. An amazing feat for a woman whose father forced her to drop out of school at age 11.
5. Amalie Emmy Noether (1882 – 1935)
Her crowning achievement came in 1919 when she published Noether’s Theorem, which is considered by some academics to be as important as Einstein’s theory of relativity.
https://www.whizz.com/blog/5-famous-female-mathematicians-you-should-know/
Study: Women's Suffrage Improved Education
Alia Wong for the The Atlantic writes:
Women’s suffrage—widely viewed as one of the 20th century’s most important events—coincided with a growing (if gradual) embrace of gender equality, increased social spending, and a greater tendency among politicians to take a progressive stance on legislative proposals. Evidence suggests that women’s suffrage also corresponded with a significant increase in municipal spending on charities and hospitals, as well as on social programs; one study found that when women gained the right to vote, child mortality dropped by as much as 15 percent. A new study shows that another one of the ripple effects of women’s suffrage was that, across the board, children were more likely to stay in school.
“What we find is that when women got power, there were changes in spending that closed various gaps—any kind of spending: health care, education,” says Kuka, of Southern Methodist University. “These kinds of changes mattered back then and they probably matter now, too.”
https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2018/08/womens-suffrage-educational-improvement/568726/
Decades Before Judy Chicago's 'The Dinner Party,' Virginia Woolf's Sister Made a Set of Dinner Plates Celebrating 50 Historic Women
Sarah Cascone at Artnet News writes:
A long-lost, groundbreaking work of feminist art by British artists Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant, members of the famously bohemian Bloomsbury Group, is being shown publicly for the first time at Piano Nobile gallery in London.
The Famous Women Dinner Service is a 50-piece ceramic dish set featuring portraits of famous women from history, completed between 1932 and 1934.
Even though it predates Judy Chicago’s iconic The Dinner Party—a triangular table with 39 place settings recognizing the achievements of women throughout history—by more than 40 years, there’s a reason you haven’t heard of The Famous Women Dinner Service. A private commission, it was never publicly displayed, and for decades, art historians believed it was lost.
Grant and Bell created a bold feminist statement, featuring 12 dancers and actresses, 12 writers, 12 beauties, and 12 queens, each surrounded by bold patterned borders.
https://news.artnet.com/exhibitions/vanessa-bell-duncan-grant-famous-women-dinner-service-1254239?
