Herstory

Eleanor of Aquitaine (1122-1204)

Lizzie — Mon, 6 Oct 2008 08:19:12 -0700

by Lizzie

Why We Should Care: She’s a role model for heiresses everywhere. Look no further, Paris Hilton, for advice on how to get out of a shit marriage without losing the land and on mothering your boys into vicious regicide conspirators. Being the most eligible bachelorette in Europe she served a stint first as Queen of France and then as Queen of England. She also bore King Richard and King John, those two lions in Disney’s Robin Hood.

Jenny Lind

Tue, 16 Sep 2008 14:54:51 -0700

Born 1820 – Died 1887

By Jen Houston

Why We Should Care: Dubbed the “Swedish Nightingale,” Lind became an opera singer at age 10. She developed into an international sensation, singing for royalty and brought to North America by circus mogul P.T. Barnum. An avid humanitarian, Lind gave most of her American profits to charities. She also funded the 1854 opening of the Jenny Lind Infirmary for Sick Children in Norwich, England.

Greta Garbo (1905 – 1990)

Reta — Thu, 7 Aug 2008 14:20:52 -0700

by Reta Robinson

Why we should care: This Swedish vixen was a major star of silent movies in the 1920s and 30s. She blazed a trail for actresses to come as one of the first real Hollywood movie stars. Unlike many of her contemporaries, and despite her thick Swedish accent, she went on to have success in talking films.

Three roles: She starred as Ninotchka in the 1939 film of the same name, as Anna Karenina in 1927 and again in 1935, and as Katrin in the original version of The Painted Veil.

Diane Di Prima

haleyc — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 14:09:57 -0700

"The original outlaw poet." -Michelle Tea

WHY WE SHOULD CARE: Heroine, revolutionary, feminist and poetess of the Beat generation, Diane Di Prima is a living example of woman as artist. A renaissance creator most well-known for her poetry, she spent the sixties in New York, writing, publishing, and founding the New York Poets Theatre, the Poets Press, and editing literary magazine The Floating Bear. In the male-dominated world of beat poetry, she emerged as one of the most important artists of a generation. She became a part of the hippie movement, joining Timothy Leary's psychedelic community in upstate New York, before relocating to California later in life. Her life is chronicled in 13 works of poetry and prose.

Empress Theodora (c. 497-548)

Wed, 9 Jul 2008 09:51:46 -0700

by Bea Wayne

Why We Should Care: Empress Theodora became one of the greatest rulers of the Byzantine Empire, despite growing up an orphaned peasant girl in Constantinople. She worked variously as a dancer, an actress and a wool spinner until her incredible beauty caught the eye of Justinian, the emperor’s nephew. The ottoman equivalent to Wallis Simpson, Theodora convinced Justinian to change the law that prohibited marriage across classes, and soon she and Justinian were crowned empress and emperor of the Byzantine Empire. More than a skilled social climber, Theodora was a highly intelligent and influential ruler, who instituted incredibly important reforms for women and children.

Veronica Franco

Wed, 2 Jul 2008 14:53:46 -0700

Born 1546 – Died 1591

By Jen Houston

Why We Should Care: Veronica Franco became one of Venice’s most revered courtesans after a failed teenage marriage left her with few options. As a courtesan, she was awarded privileges not extended to other females at the time, such as education. Respected by male nobility, Veronica became a renowned poet in Venice’s most elite thespian circles, having her own volumes published, and editing other authors’ works. She started a charity for courtesans and their children, and later tried unsuccessfully to obtain government assistance in opening a home for poor women. She was later tried for witchcraft during the inquisition, but the charges were acquitted, possibly due to pulled strings by her powerful confidants.

Sappho circa 630 B.C.

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 15:29:28 -0700

Why we should care: This lyric poet from the Greek Island of Lesbos was so damn good that Plato referred to her as the tenth muse. Take that Feist. Her verses wax poetic upon braiding the ladies of Lesbos’ hair with rosebuds, winding their necks with crocuses and dripping myrrh on their heads. Reading these lines, Victorian Englishmen concluded that, ah ha, the ageold mystery of what female homosexuals do is solved! Henceforth, lesbians have been named after Sappho’s fellow islanders.

For her biopic we’d cast: Leisha Hailey of The L Word

Two traits we admire:
1) Longevity: The woman lived over 2600 years ago and she’s still notorious. I’m lucky if someone remembers me from a party last weekend.
2) Etymological Fertility: not only has her fame given birth to the words lesbian and sapphic, but also to the website www.lesbos.com and the 1971 German horror film Vampiros Lesbos, a touching tale about a vampiress who seduces women to fill her insatiable appetite for female blood.

Qiu Jin (1875-1907)

Lizzie McNeely — Tue, 27 May 2008 07:29:26 -0700

by Lizzie

Why we should care: Ever gone to the Bata Shoe Museum and felt queasy from the three inch long shoes worn by Chinese women with bound feet? Well back in the early 1900s Qiu Jin said no to size one shoes, left her aging hubbie, began a journal advocating for Chinese women’s rights and (as a school principal) trained a female army of revolutionaries against Manchu rule. Awesome, all my school principal did was ask me to tuck in my shirt.

For her biopic we’d cast: Jin Jing, the paralympic athlete who became a national hero after defending the Olympic torch from French free Tibet protesters.

Two traits we admire: 1) Secrecy: She helped run clandestine bomb making facilities, trained an underground army, and didn’t reveal her compatriots when tortured by the Imperial Army. I’m pretty sure Qiu Jin wouldn’t spill the beans if you told her about that unfortunate one night stand with the mailroom guy. 2) Lyricism: She didn’t just fight for the right, she fought for the right with poetic flare, describing the removal of her bound feet so: “Freeing my bound feet, I washed away the poison of a thousand years, and, with agitated heart, awakened the souls of all the flowers.”

Mae West (August 17, 1893 – November 22, 1980):

Tue, 20 May 2008 07:44:10 -0700

by Bea Wayne

Why We Should Care: Mae West was a gifted comic actor and the author of some of the best pick-up lines in history. After suffering years of poverty and even imprisonment due to strict censorship laws, she eventually became the second highest salaried person in American next to William Randolph Hurst. Before she began to write there were no available cinematic roles for a woman who drove men wild and enjoyed them in bed by the dozen and didn't want to marry and never suffered for any it. So she wrote them.

It's Better to be Looked over than Overlooked: Her style is best described as extravagant. Lace, plumes, jewels, towering picture hats and completely outrageous amounts of cleavage.

A Hard Man is Good to Find: She lived like the characters she created, sleeping with many different men under her famous mirrored ceiling. She never had a long-term relationship, and seemingly never felt particularly bad about it.

Margaret Thatcher, 1925 -

Reta — Fri, 9 May 2008 10:51:58 -0700

by Reta Robinson
Why we should care This Iron Lady of British politics was the first and only female prime minister of the land of tea and scones. As PM from 1979 – 1990, she lobbied for environmental issues, allied herself with the US in the cold war, and survived an IRA bombing in Brighton because she waited her turn for the loo. Talk of her tenure still incites controversy today. Her achievements put our Kim Campbell to shame.