Awesome Stuff Women Did

Eight-Year-Old Who Dresses Up As a Different Historical Figure Each Day Is Our New Hero

Wed, 17 Oct 2012 11:49:06 -0400

Eight-Year-Old Who Dresses Up As a Different Historical Figure Each Day Is Our New Hero:

From Jezebel, “Eight-year-old Stella Ehrhart decides what to wear each day by looking through her book,100 Most Important Women of the 20th Century, and picking a different notable female historical figure.

Recent selections include Billie Holiday (black dress, red tissue-paper flower), Grace Kelly (pink satin lace), and Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. (Girl knows how to mix it up!)”

Wow what an awesome idea! And probably a great confidence booster!

Why Gender History is Important (Asshole)

Tue, 02 Oct 2012 19:03:35 -0400

Why Gender History is Important (Asshole):

historicity-was-already-taken:

This weekend I was schmoozing at an event when some guy asked me what kind of history I study. I said “I’m currently researching the role of gender in Jewish emigration out of the Third Reich,” and he replied “oh you just threw gender in there for fun, huh?” and shot me what he clearly thought to be a charming smile.

The reality is that most of our understandings of history revolve around what men were doing. But by paying attention to the other half of humanity our understanding of history can be radically altered.

For example, with Jewish emigration out of the Third Reich it is just kind of assumed that it was a decision made by a man, and the rest of his family just followed him out of danger. But that is completely inaccurate. Women, constrained to the private social sphere to varying extents, were the first to notice the rise in social anti-Semitism in the beginning of Hitler’s rule. They were the ones to notice their friends pulling away and their social networks coming apart. They were the first to sense the danger.

German Jewish men tended to work in industries which were historically heavily Jewish, thus keeping them from directly experiencing this “social death.” These women would warn their husbands and urge them to begin the emigration process, and often their husbands would overlook or undervalue their concerns (“you’re just being hysterical” etc). After the Nuremberg Laws were passed, and after even more so after Kristallnacht, it fell to women to free their husbands from concentration camps, to run businesses, and to wade through the emigration process.

The fact that the Nazis initially focused their efforts on Jewish men meant that it fell to Jewish women to take charge of the family and plan their escape. In one case, a woman had her husband freed from a camp (to do so, she had to present emigration papers which were not easy to procure), and casually informed him that she had arranged their transport to Shanghai. Her husband—so traumatized from the camp—made no argument. Just by looking at what women were doing, our understanding of this era of Jewish history is changed.

I have read an article arguing that the Renaissance only existed for men, and that women did not undergo this cultural change. The writings of female loyalists in the American Revolutionary period add much needed nuance to our understanding of this period. The character of Jewish liberalism in the first half of the twentieth century is a direct result of the education and socialization of Jewish women. I can give you more examples, but I think you get the point.

So, you wanna understand history? Then you gotta remember the ladies (and not just the privileged ones).

ask historicity-was-already-taken a question

sciencechicks: Maria Gaetana Agnesi (1718-1799) was an Italian...

Wed, 19 Sep 2012 20:05:27 -0400

sciencechicks:

Maria Gaetana Agnesi (1718-1799) was an Italian mathematician who wrote the first book discussing both differential and integral calculus. She was also an honorary member of the faculty at the University of Bologna.

Maria was born in Milan to a wealthy family. She was recognized early as a child prodigy. When she was 9 years old, she composed and delivered an hour-long speech in Latin to some of the most distinguished intellectuals of the day. By her thirteenth birthday she had acquired Greek, Hebrew, Spanish, German, Latin, and was referred to as the “Walking Polyglot”. Maria was shy by nature and did not like all these public meetings. Around 15, she devoted her study to differential and integral calculus and avoided all social interactions. She also taught her siblings.

She wrote the book Instituzioni analitiche ad uso della gioventù italiana, published in 1748. The first volume discusses the analysis of finite quantities and the second of the analysis of infinitesimals.

In 1750, she was appointed by Pope Benedict XIV to the chair of mathematics and natural philosophy and physics at Bologna. She was the first women appointed as a mathematics professor at a university. After the death of her father in 1752 she took to the study of theology and devoted herself to the poor, homeless, and sick. After holding for some years the office of director of the Hospice Trivulzio for Blue Nuns at Milan, she herself joined the sisterhood.

death-by-avengers: You know the Big Bang Theory episode where Sheldon adopts all those cats and...

Fri, 24 Aug 2012 00:12:00 -0400

death-by-avengers:

You know the Big Bang Theory episode where Sheldon adopts all those cats

and names them after scientists who were part of the Manhattan Project

WHERE IS THE “HOWARD STARK” CAT SHELDON

WHERE

Serious question, though: where were the Leona Woods and Chien-Shiung Wu cats? Or the later-Nobel Laureate Maria Goeppert-Mayer?

Loads of women scientists were involved in the Manhattan Project. Read more about them here!

It is funny, how erasure of women from history can be a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it would be nice to think that women were not tangled up in such a destructive project. But they were there, and we owe it to them and future generations to remember them.

I think we all know who was on Howard Stark’s security detail, though:

Golda Meir: Prime Badass

Mon, 30 Jul 2012 18:58:35 -0400

Golda Meir: Prime Badass

sparkamovement: SUPPORT TEEN VOICES Teen Voices isthe only...

Wed, 25 Jul 2012 18:57:00 -0400

sparkamovement:

SUPPORT TEEN VOICES

Teen Voices isthe only alternative print magazine created by and for girls in the country. Their local Boston program has a national, and even international, impact through the print and online magazines that reach hundreds of thousands of girls worldwide, and now it’s in danger.

Teen Voices is more than just a magazine; it’s a community institution:

87 Boston teen girlstake part in SHOUT!(Sisters Helping Other Unheard Teens) and work as Teen Editors and writers for the print and online versions ofTeen Voices.” Girls come from the Boston neighborhoods of Roxbury, Jamaica Plain, Dorchester, Mattapan, Hyde Park, West Roxbury, and Brighton.

Their teen constituents are 14 to 18 years of age; 82% come primarily from low-income families and 93% are girls of color (70% African descent, 18% Latina, 5% Asian), and 7% are Caucasian

110 Boston neighborhood teen girls participate in Poetically Speaking, a forum in the Boston Girls Writing Community.

6 Peer Leaders run programs and public forums.

35 college women and recent college graduates are trained to mentor the teen editors in their production of Teen Voices’ print and online magazines.

Like many girls, participants in Teen Voices are dealing with serious issues at home and in their communities. The issues range from racism, sexism, elitism, hunger, violence, depression, sexually transmitted diseases, sexual identity exploration, and unplanned pregnancy. For many, schools are not institutions that support their ability to address these issues, or their self-confidence. They need safe spaces to talk—with adults as well as peers—so that they can feel validated, supported, and informed. Some girls have support at home with parents, grandparents, teachers, or religious leaders; for others, Teen Voices offers a rare source of consistent, supportive adults.

Due to a recent decrease in funding, Teen Voices is in crisis and must raise $300,000 by August 1st. Please support this important, brilliant magazine by donating whatever you can and helping to spread the word.

Everyone, please help save this wonderful magazine from extinction. I read every issue of Teen Voices in my high school library, and it was one of the first pieces of alternative media I had access to, setting the first sparks of critical thinking about mainstream media and the expressions and promulgation of privilege in society.

As a Bostonian, I am particularly proud that the magazine gives girls of color and lower income of my city a chance to feel that they matter too. With all the wealth and universities concentrated in the Boston-Cambridge area, it would be all too easy for people of our low-income neighborhoods to fall through the cracks. Institutions like Teen Voices need to exist and continue to encourage young people of all backgrounds that they as much of a voice as Harvard professors and Bank of America executives.

Please, give what you can by August 1st. Teen Voices must continue to be heard.

blu3rsx: “16-Year-Old Egyptian Scientist Finds Way to Turn...

Tue, 24 Jul 2012 20:20:44 -0400

blu3rsx:

“16-Year-Old Egyptian Scientist Finds Way to Turn Plastic Waste Into $78 Million of Biofuel!”

What Azza proposes is to break down the plastic polymers found in drinks bottles and general waste and turn them into biofuel feedstock. (This is the bulk raw material that generally used for producing biofuel.) It should be noted that this is not a particularly new idea, but what makes Azza stand out from the crowd is the catalyst that she is proposing. She says that she has found a high-yield catalyst called aluminosilicate, that will break down plastic waste and also produce gaseous products like methane, propane and ethane, which can then be converted into ethanol.

Can I be there when she accepts her Nobel Prize? This woman has a hand I would very much like to shake.

barackobama: breakingnews: Gabrielle Giffords, Mark Kelly...

Mon, 23 Jul 2012 22:46:20 -0400

barackobama:

breakingnews:

Gabrielle Giffords, Mark Kelly scale French Alps

Reuters: Former Arizona congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords traveled to the French Alps on Monday with her astronaut husband Mark Kelly.

Today in day-making photos.

This lady shook off being shot in the head and then scaled the French Alps like a boss.

Invented absinthe, inspiring some of the finest European...

Wed, 11 Jul 2012 21:11:00 -0400

Invented absinthe, inspiring some of the finest European writers, artists, and musicians of the 19th century. (Mère Henriod/Mother Henriot)

"Women invented all the core technologies that made civilization possible. This isn’t some feminist..."

Wed, 11 Jul 2012 15:40:36 -0400

“

Women invented all the core technologies that made civilization possible. This isn’t some feminist myth; it’s what modern anthropologists believe. Women are thought to have invented pottery, basketmaking, weaving, textiles, horticulture, and agriculture. That’s right: without women’s inventions, we wouldn’t be able to carry things or store things or tie things up or go fishing or hunt with nets or haft a blade or wear clothes or grow our food or live in permanent settlements. Suck on that.

Women have continued to be involved in the creation and advancement of civilization throughout history, whether you know it or not. Pick anything—a technology, a science, an art form, a school of thought—and start digging into the background. You’ll find women there, I guarantee, making critical contributions and often inventing the damn shit in the first place.

Women have made those contributions in spite of astonishing hurdles. Hurdles like not being allowed to go to school. Hurdles like not being allowed to work in an office with men, or join a professional society, or walk on the street, or own property. Example: look up Lise Meitner some time. When she was born in 1878 it was illegal in Austria for girls to attend school past the age of 13. Once the laws finally eased up and she could go to university, she wasn’t allowed to study with the men. Then she got a research post but wasn’t allowed to use the lab on account of girl cooties. Her whole life was like this, but she still managed to discover nuclear fucking fission. Then the Nobel committee gave the prize to her junior male colleague and ignored her existence completely.

Men in all patriarchal civilizations, including ours, have worked to downplay or deny women’s creative contributions. That’s because patriarchy is founded on the belief that women are breeding stock and men are the only people who can think. The easiest way for men to erase women’s contributions is to simply ignore that they happened. Because when you ignore something, it gets forgotten. People in the next generation don’t hear about it, and so they grow up thinking that no women have ever done anything. And then when women in their generation do stuff, they think “it’s a fluke, never happened before in the history of the world, ignore it.” And so they ignore it, and it gets forgotten. And on and on and on. The New York Times article is a perfect illustration of this principle in action.

Finally, and this is important: even those women who weren’t inventors and intellectuals, even those women who really did spend all their lives doing stereotypical “women’s work”—they also built this world. The mundane labor of life is what makes everything else possible. Before you can have scientists and engineers and artists, you have to have a whole bunch of people (and it’s usually women) to hold down the basics: to grow and harvest and cook the food, to provide clothes and shelter, to fetch the firewood and the water, to nurture and nurse, to tend and teach. Every single scrap of civilized inventing and dreaming and thinking rides on top of that foundation. Never forget that.

”

- from a post by Reclusive Leftist on women’s erasure in history.

her comments relate specifically to an article by the NYT thanking “the men” who invented modern technology, but pick absolutely any academic field of study, and women’s contributions are minimized, if not outright ignored.

literature has been a huge part of my life for a long time, and i grew up reading the classics—which, of course, are typically books written by white men, depicting their experiences. i was taught that the first “modern novel” was Don Quixote, written in the early 1600s by a guy (Cervantes). i don’t think i know of a word to accurately describe my mixture of outrage, shock, and pride, when i discovered later that actually, the first modern novel was written 600 years earlier—by a woman! (it’s The Tale of Genji, written by a Japanese lady-in-waiting who was known as Murasaki Shikibu.)

this might not seem important, but if you’re a woman you know just how vital this knowledge is. even now, when women are being told that we can do anything we set our minds to, the historical, literary, and scientific figures we learn about are all men. it’s a much more insidious way to discourage women from aiming high—because what’s the point in putting in so much hard work if it’s not even going to be remembered after you’re dead?

(via sendforbromina)

All of this. For a long time, women couldn’t apply for patents in the US, so even if they invented something, they had to let their husband or male colleague take credit for it. Us ladies had made significant contributions to every field of study out there, and I am sick and tired of seeing that shit get ignored.

Pioneered entomology. Documented the life cycles of 186 insect...

Tue, 10 Jul 2012 19:56:52 -0400

Pioneered entomology. Documented the life cycles of 186 insect species, including the transformation of caterpillars to butterflies. Proved definitively that insects do not spontaneous generate from mud, as believed by most contemporaries. Published her findings (including her detailed paintings) in German instead of Latin, allowing the non-scientists to understand insects. Went on a self-funded scientific expedition of Surinam, unheard of for women of her time, becoming the first European to observe and record much of the plant and insect life there. One of the first naturalists to observe insects directly. (Maria Sibylla Merian)

History is full of fabulous females who have been...

Tue, 10 Jul 2012 18:06:55 -0400

History is full of fabulous females who have been systematically ignored, forgotten, or simply written out of the records.

They’re not all saints, they’re not all geniuses, but they do deserve remembering.

- Sandi Toksvig, a.k.a. the patron saint of ASWD!

Hi New Followers!

Sun, 08 Jul 2012 13:41:59 -0400

I’ve had lots of new followers since my last real update, but being featured by Sadie Magazine was the final kick I needed to get back to this.

Here’s a quick rundown of the philosophy behind this blog:

Women’s achievements tend to go, not necessarily unmentioned, but uncredited in the history books. Women have always been doing awesome stuff, much of which we couldn’t do without in today’s world. But the problem is so few are remembered and honored for their contributions to the modern science and society (like inventing Kevlar). And there are also women who have done stuff that is just flat out impressive (like striking out Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig back-to-back). So the point of this blog is to be cheeky and stick our collective tongues out at sexists who make stupid jokes about sandwiches and kitchens and tell them to GTFO their Wi-Fi if they don’t want the ghost of Hedy Lamarr to come after them.

I tend to avoid posts about women who were just the “first woman” to do something— but fortunately, most “first women” did plenty of other awesome stuff in their lives.

As for me, I’m Alexa, I’m a ladytype and a feminist (shocker!). I also run another blog about ladies, the ones in the comics medium, called Ladies Making Comics which, you know, you could check out and follow maybe? I do have a full-time job, which is nice, but I’m still working out how to comfortably fit blogging into my days, so submissions are very much appreciated!

Thanks for following, hope you enjoy and learn some things!

invented the 80’s computer the BBC Micro, and designed the...

Sun, 08 Jul 2012 13:07:42 -0400

invented the 80’s computer the BBC Micro, and designed the instruction set for ARM microprocessors that power most mobile phones, tablets, and embedded computer systems. (Sophie Wilson)

Feminist tumblr of the day: Awesome Stuff Women Did

Sun, 08 Jul 2012 12:34:31 -0400

Feminist tumblr of the day: Awesome Stuff Women Did:

sadiemagazine:

Because women have done more in the past 10,000 years than just pop out babies and make sandwiches.

Thanks for the rec, Sadie! I promise to update this tumblr more :D

(via xkcd: Marie Curie)

Mon, 09 May 2011 02:49:54 -0400

(via xkcd: Marie Curie)

"When a man gives his opinion he’s a man. When a woman gives her opinion she’s a bitch."

Wed, 06 Apr 2011 00:46:48 -0400

““When a man gives his opinion he’s a man. When a woman gives her opinion she’s a bitch.””

- Bette Davis, the original HBIC. Happy Birthday Bette! (via sexisbeautiful)

BOSSED UP

(via stefi-leekx)

rosietint: In History: Sophie Germain Germain, born April 1,...

Wed, 06 Apr 2011 00:07:00 -0400

rosietint:

In History: Sophie Germain

Germain, born April 1, 1776, was a mathematician who often worked under a pseudonym because she was concerned her work wouldn’t be taken seriously if people knew she was a woman. One of the pioneers of elasticity theory, she won the grand prize from the Paris Academy of Sciences for her essay on the subject. Her work on Fermat’s Last Theorem provided a foundation for mathematicians exploring the subject for hundreds of years after.

femaleartists: Self-Portrait as the Allegory of Painting,...

Wed, 30 Mar 2011 22:55:26 -0400

femaleartists:

Self-Portrait as the Allegory of Painting, 1630s, Artemisia Gentileschi (July 8, 1593 - 1653)

The victim of rape at a young age at the hands of her painting teacher, Agostino Tassi, Gentileschi’s works were often critiqued by using this event as an automatic translator for her works. Paintings such as this are largely ignored in favor of more violent pieces. These pieces, depicting strong women in positions of aggression toward men, have come to be thought of as a trademark of Gentileschi’s work. In her Self-Portrait as the Allegory of Painting, she presents another kind of painting that expresses her identity as a woman and a painter.

Many of her paintings have been confused for Orazio Gentileschi’s, her father. He also has been accused of painting works and attributing them to her.

Because someone once asked for a more in-depth post about her

Provided refuge, food, and medical and spiritual aid to...

Wed, 30 Mar 2011 17:51:50 -0400

Provided refuge, food, and medical and spiritual aid to Katipuneros (revolutionaries) in her small convenience store. Illiterate and a single mother, she also let revolutionaries hold secret meetings in her house. Became known as the Mother of the Katipunan, as well as Tandang Sora (or Old Sora), at 84 years old. When the Spaniards interrogated her, she did not divulge what she knew about the revolution. Because of her age, she was sentenced to be exiled to Mariana Islands. She returned from exile under the American occupation. The revolution impoverished Tandang Sora. Notwithstanding her dire conditions, she politely declined the colonial government’s offer of a lifetime pension. She was content and happy, she told the government emissary, that she was able to help in regaining her country’s freedom. She died at the age of 107. (Melchora Aquino)