In 1945, Sherlock Holmes (played by Basil Rathbone) said, “Poison is a woman’s weapon”. But is it true? Well... Kind of?
A-Z
O is for… Onake Obavva
Sometimes, the most ordinary people can do the most extraordinary things - a fact that is especially true for Onake Obavva, a regular woman living in Karnataka, India, who in an instant became one of the area's most celebrated female warriors.
N is for… Noor Inayat Khan
Noor Inayat Khan was an unlikely spy. A Muslim pacifist who had a great dislike of lying and deception and once fell apart during a mock interrogation, she nevertheless proved herself to be intelligent, resolute, and utterly invaluable to the British cause.
M is for… Medusa
The monstrous woman is a common figure in Greek mythology, and Medusa is arguably the most well-known of them. But who is the woman behind the myth, and is she truly the monster of her story?
L is for… LGBT+
I want to tell you a story. It starts like any other - girl meets girl. Girl gets confusing feelings for girl. Girl has a months-long identity crisis and comes out the other side scared and unsure, with a secret she can hardly admit to herself, let alone others. She is bisexual.
K is for… Kamala Surayya
Women writers have been present in India for millennia, evidence stretching back to 600 BC. Among them numbers Kamala Surayya, a ground-breaking poet whose honest and frank discussions of women's sexuality continues inspiring people to this day.
J is for… Jean Batten
If asked to name a female aviator, the first name to come to mind is often Amelia Earhart, or perhaps Amy Johnson, (both of whom, incidentally, disappeared). Yet, despite her achievements being on a par with theirs, Jean Batten is someone whose name has faded into obscurity, like so many women throughout history.
I is for… Iceni
The Iceni were a Britonnic tribe in Iron Age and Roman Britain, which co-existed peacefully with Rome until around AD 60. When Rome tried to ransack the tribe, their queen, Boudicca, launched a revolt that almost drove the Romans from Britain for good.
H is for… History!
In which I discuss history, the origins of Historically Woman, and what history means to me.
F is for… Female archetypes of Latin America
La Malinche, La Virgen, and La Llorona are three archetypal women from Chicano folklore who have historically been used as tools of a patriarchal society to repress women's bodily agency and sexuality. However, recently there has been a pushback by Chicana feminists to reclaim these figures - but how are they doing this, and why?