10 intriguing female revolutionaries that you didn’t learn about in history class

We all know male revolutionaries like Che Guevara, but history often tends to gloss over the contributions of female revolutionaries that have sacrificed their time, efforts, and lives to work towards burgeoning systems and ideologies. Despite misconceptions, there are tons of women that have participated in revolutions throughout history, with many of them playing crucial roles. They may come from different points on the political spectrum, with some armed with weapons and some armed with nothing but a pen, but all fought hard for something that they believed in.


Read at whizzpast.com

The Dinner Party Curriculum Project

The rich content of The Dinner Party—women’s achievements throughout history and curricular applications for K-12 art education settings is examined by The Dinner Party Curriculum Project. While the Curriculum was developed by and for art educators, its teachings about the relevance of women’s achievements apply to many other fields as well.



Launched by Through the Flower in 2009, The Dinner Party Curriculum was created by a team of writers spearheaded by Dr. Marilyn Stewart (with Dr. Constance Bumgarner Gee, Dr. Peg Spiers and Dr. Carrie Nordlund) in collaboration with Judy Chicago. Through a series of free, downloadable pdf files, teachers can learn how to integrate The Dinner Party into their classrooms so as to teach a wide audience about women’s rich and empowering history through art. The official launch of The Dinner Party Curriculum Project took place on May 1, 2009 at the New Mexico State Capitol in Santa Fe and was attended by state officials, museum professionals, curators, art teachers from around the state and the entire board of Through the Flower.
   
In 2011, Through the Flower gifted and endowed the Curriculum to Penn State where it continues to be integrated into their art education and other programs and maintained online in perpetuity. This Curriculum is now an in-perpetuity “living curriculum” and can be found on the website of Penn State University, one of the leading art education institutions in the country. Penn State also houses the Judy Chicago Art Education Collection, gifted by Judy Chicago; regarded as one of the most important private collections of archival materials on feminist art education, it encompasses videos, photographs, and notes on Chicago’s teaching projects. Through the Flower’s endowments to Penn State will ensure the continued development, support and promotion of the Collection, and of the Curriculum for future generations.




via Through the Flower

The Dinner Party by Judy Chicago

I spent some time looking through 'The Dinner Party' with my daughter before the school year started yesterday. She asked, "Can I have a seat at that table?!"




For those who don't know, table sat 39 women from pre-history with specific place settings. It also features the name of 999 women.  The book contains detailed information on each. It's a fantastic addition to the library of anyone who is interested in herstory.

This is a beautiful book that I've been enjoying for years -- until I am able to go in person with my kids. I noticed it's also on sale on Amazon now. HIGHLY recommended!

Judy Chicago also has a remarkable Curriculum Project that I will blog about later.

Recreating Herstory by Danica Anderson

"The Bosnian kilms filled with signs, symbolic representations are exactingly shaped like the “Old Europe” Danube signs and scripts some four thousand years old. Yet, I know the Srebrenica widows, who never worked outside the home, learned to drive or finished school or would not have opened a book with the archeological inscriptions. Srebrenica ...widows are teaching me that the past are memories that are not mobile. Since memories are static, memories are easily accessed in the moment, simply by their loom and their survival of war crimes. We see this with Post Traumatic Stress flashbacks of what appears as live memories unwilling to die in those who survive.
At the same time, with the past memories evoked from the air, the Srebrenica widows held a vision of their kilms’ design and ethnochoreology of their grief to view the future as herstory. With each kilm the Srebrenica widows were shifting of the past memories to recreate herstory with a new sense of purposeful meaningful living. In other words, their creative acts of the simple loom will live on long after their deaths. "


-Danica Anderson, Blood & Honey Icons: Biosemiotics & Bioculinary: The Pedagogy of South Slavic Women War

Women's rights and their money: a timeline from Cleopatra to Lilly Ledbetter

Women had plenty of financial rights in ancient Egypt, but it’s been a little woozy ever since. Photograph: Uncredited/AP

"When did women get the right to inherit property and open bank accounts? How long did it take until women won the legal right to be served in UK pubs? Our timeline traces women’s financial rights from ancient societies to the present day"

Read the full timeline here.

Interesting tidbit:

“Egyptian women were able to acquire, to own, and to dispose of property (both real and personal) in their own name. They could enter into contracts in their own name; they could initiate civil court cases and could, likewise, be sued; they could serve as witnesses in court cases; they could serve on juries; and they could witness legal documents.”

The Epic Tale of Hiiakaikapoliopele

This ancient saga begins with the goddess Pele’s migration to Kīlauea and her spirit’s search for a lover. The story then details the quest of Pele’s younger sister, Hi‘iakaikapoliopele, to find the handsome Lohi‘auipo, and bring him back to their crater home. It is a very human account of love and lust, jealousy and justice, peopled with deities, demons, chiefs and commoners.

This version by Ho‘oulumāhie-hie ran from 1905 to 1906 as a daily series in the Hawaiian-language newspaper Ka Na’i Aupuni. It is the most extensive form of the story ever documented, offering a wealth of detail and insights about social and religious practices, poetry and hula, healing arts, and many other Hawaiian customs.

Author: Ho‘oulumahiehie; Translator: Nogelmeier, M. Puakea; Illustrator: Enos, Solomon;

via University of Hawaii Press.


When The Drummers Were Women With Layne Redmond