To quote Stephen King: “There’s no bitch on Earth like a mother frightened for her kids.” The Madres de Plaza de Mayo more than prove this, still fighting today for the return of their 'disappeared' children.
twentieth century women
Women in Horror: Paula Maxa
The woman who most credibly lays claim to the title of the original scream queen earned her fame on the stage. Paula Maxa became known as ‘the most assassinated woman in the world’, and not for nought — she was ‘killed’ over 10,000 times in at least sixty different ways. Beyond the stage, her real life proves difficult to construct, but if Maxa herself is to be believed, it was just as dark as her career…
Women in STEM: Chien-Shiung Wu
Before we get into the main article, I must admit that I don’t understand physics and I definitely skipped over most of the technical, sciency stuff when I was researching. Sorry. What I did understand, however, was that Chien-Shiung Wu was a genius who contributed enormously to our knowledge of physics, and that she truly … Continue reading Women in STEM: Chien-Shiung Wu
Femme Fatales: Mata Hari
She is remembered as one of history’s greatest femme fatales, a cunning, double-crossing spy who was responsible for the deaths of up to 50,000 men. But was Mata Hari really that deadly, or was she instead just the scapegoat France needed at the time?
Suffrage Around the World: Clara González
During the early 1900s, women all around the world were mobilising to fight for their rights, and it was no different in Latin America. Clara González spent her whole career fighting for women and their rights.
Suffrage Around the World: Nüzi canzheng tongmenghui
China’s ‘first wave’ of feminism took place between 1911-1913 when the new constitution contained no mention of women's suffrage. Women's groups across China came together to form the Women's Suffrage Alliance - the first of its kind in the country.
LGBTQ+ Couples: Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West
"I am reduced to a thing that wants Virginia..." The love affair of Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West was colourful and lively, and the impact the two women had on each other and their work can scarcely be measured.
Y is for… Yaa Asantewaa
Now an anti-colonial heroine and a role model for women and girls throughout Africa, Yaa Asantewaa was prepared to do whatever it took to protect her land and culture. As Queen Mother, she held a great deal of power in the relatively egalitarian Asante nation—power which she used to incite a war against one of the largest colonial forces in the world. It was not a war Asantewaa would necessarily win in body, but her actions and what they symbolised produced a type of victory out of defeat.
R is for… ‘Red’ Emma Sproson
Studies of the suffrage movement in the UK—at least in school settings—are overwhelmingly focused on the middle- to upper-class, London-based women who were members of the WSPU or the NUWSS. But this erases many working-class people who were just as influential, including Black Country activist, Emma Sproson.
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.