Thank you so much for this exhilarating truth bomb of an essay. I am grateful that you looked at medieval women beyond the Eurocentric gaze. The word medieval itself is synonymous to a pre-enlightenment Europe. It has never been about anyone else really but those who were considered to be at the ‘pinnacle’ of human race aka white men. A lot of written history survives from the rest of world that suggests that women have forever been opposing the patriarchy in both subtle and obvious ways but most history outside the Eurocentric realm has been oral.
This reminds of the 16th century princess, poet and mystic Meera bai who completely rejected patriarchy and marriage because she decided that she is not a slave to men. She dedicated her life to devotion to lord krishna and faced a lot of cruel consequences for this. Yet her verses and songs are of pure love and deep connection to divinity.
I am so glad you told me about Meera bai, another woman I must read about!
This one was hard to edit down, I wanted to include so many more women from around the world but needed a more realistic scope. You are so right, women have always pushed against the patriarchy and by not including their voices, the oppression has been able to continue on for far too long.
There was one poem included in the Classical Poems of Arabic Women anthology that really struck me — I don’t have the resource in front of me so I can come back and edit this later, but the poet was calling out how those in positions of privilege and power will sit in their greed and well-fed sanctuaries declaring all is well when cities around them boast hoards of starving citizens… I can see why the patriarchs didn’t want to include her voice—how dare she highlight their well documented greed! It also feels very similar to today… the illusion of progress.
Thank you so much for spending your precious time with these women and my words, I truly am so grateful and honored to witness them alongside you, my friend! 💜
I am not surprised to learn about that Arabic poet dear friend. Like you rightly pointed, this is exactly what is happening right now too all over the world. The global north narrative specially that of white men is still prevalent. Women of the global south and east have always had to fight teeth any nails to make our place in the world. It’s exhausting to say the least.
I am honoured too, to witness your work around dismantling these stubborn and evil frameworks. More power to you. 💜
Thank you so much for spending your time here with the women and my words. I am so, so grateful! It was hard to edit this one down, I wanted to add so many more voices, so many more stories. But those will come later.
Kate, this is an amazing work of scholarship. Thank you so much for doing this work. I have listened to your introduction and will work through the rest.
The Democratic Republic of Congo is such a sad story. From diamonds to uranium, it has been cursed by resources deemed important to the colonial powers and has been deliberately destabilized and kept in play as a colonial football as a result. Just tragic.
Absolutely tragic—all in the name of capitalism. It is so, so gross. Thank you for spending your precious time here, John! This one felt necessary to write, even if just for myself.
Wow this is amazing, thank you! You just sent me down a rabbit hole on Wälättä P̣eṭros, what an incredible story. Long ago I studied medieval history but never heard any of these stories. Just one thing I love is that even in this field new information and stories can come to light. Thank you for the thoughtful attention to each of these.
Thank you for spending your time here, Nicole, I’m honored! 💜 Oh my goodness, wasn’t she incredible? This piece was so hard to edit down, I originally had way more women from all around the world, but realized that was a bit unrealistic so I had to scope down a bit. But oh my goodness what a rewarding research project. Again, thanks for spending your time here. 💜
Janet, thank you for taking a moment to share this. Your words mean so much to me. I appreciate you spending your precious time here with my words and these women! 💖💖
Thank you for this uncovering. You’ve left me with a web of voices that I want to follow learn more. It’s so important to remember the first audacious voices were not white middle class women. That there was a culture and time when women were in charge of their bodies, connected to their power and creativeity. So grateful tp read your words.
Anne, thank you so much for spending your precious time here and for taking the time to say this! It means so much! This one was hard to edit down—there have been countless patriarchy confronting women through the centuries, but they’ve been distant to use on purpose…no more! I’m honored to witness these women alongside you. 💜
This is beyond independent scholarship -- absolutely stunning work here. I am in awe! I'm going to be keeping this piece and coming back to it again and again. The resources you've pulled together here ... I cannot even imagine the work this has taken, and I am so grateful you're doing it.
And Zitkala-Ša! I hardly meet anyone who's even heard of her.
You are a gift, Antonia, I hope you know that! I was stuck in the writing process and you just gifted me incredible resources yielded from your own hard work and interrogations. I’m grateful for you!
This was one of those pieces my heart needed to write. I needed to do the research here—I feel better for it. It also led to what is likely another essay around the ideas of courtly love poetry and the never-mentioned Arabic influence, which will be a fun future project!
I was pushed out of my last non profit role for sharing some of the above thoughts in a meeting once. I was asked to join the DEI & B committee and they were planning the women’s history month CEO email. They had a whole piece on the suffragists planned out and I casually mentioned how the white suffragists pushed out Black women’s ideas because they didn’t believe Black men deserved the vote before white women… I mentioned that we should tell the stories of the Black women pushed out and their immense contributions (mind you, this was for an organization that focused on civil rights for girls at-risk with a workforce made up of 95% women, 80% of those women being Black women while the room I sat in was totally white and had more men in it than any other committee…) I was promptly disinvited from that group and out went that “yay white suffragists” email. I directly replied to the CEO with resources for further reading. Shocked they didn’t want me around. 😅 Anyways, I say all of that to say thank you for seeing the value in the time spent here—and for seeing the time and energy put in! I am so, so grateful to have found community that wants to read the things that challenge our own paradigms, our own comfort zones. I am grateful, thank you. 💜
What can I say except I'm grateful for you, too! So many of these women I would never know about without your scholarship, and it's knowing of them and their work and words that can start to shift the paradigms we all live under that seem immovable. They are not! And the works of women of the past can help us see how weak their foundations are.
What an infuriating story about that non-profit. It's one of the most frustrating things about this kind of work, it being strangled by people who refuse to see the truth of these histories even when it's shown to them in the politest way possible. Even the League of Women Voters has managed to acknowledge the influence of Haudenosaunee women on the suffragists, and how they were still excluded from it: https://www.lwv.org/blog/how-native-american-women-inspired-womens-suffrage-movement
If such a long-established organization that's probably as hidebound as any other can start to shift their stories, so can any other!
You are a powerhouse. Don't drain your batteries. ;) But know that when you spark something new, we're ready and eager.
The root cause of "trauma" is a severe power imbalance between one person/group and another. When history is written by the powerful, this destructive dynamic can be hidden/denied, even romanticized, and awareness let alone change is impossible. That is why the fearless scholarship of a publication like 15thCenturyFeminist is so valuable.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. I so appreciate you spending your time here, your most precious resource. Thank you! This one was so rewarding to write, the research moved me so much and opened my eyes to so much more. We deserve to heal beyond patriarchy. We deserve other voices. 💜
Thank you so much for this and the generosity of your time, I am so grateful! This was one of those pieces I wrote for myself as much as I wrote it to share. I so appreciate you uplifting it. 💖
Thank you for spending your time here, I’m honored! This was such a rewarding research project, confronting some of my own literary biases along the way. 💜
Thank you so much for this exhilarating truth bomb of an essay. I am grateful that you looked at medieval women beyond the Eurocentric gaze. The word medieval itself is synonymous to a pre-enlightenment Europe. It has never been about anyone else really but those who were considered to be at the ‘pinnacle’ of human race aka white men. A lot of written history survives from the rest of world that suggests that women have forever been opposing the patriarchy in both subtle and obvious ways but most history outside the Eurocentric realm has been oral.
This reminds of the 16th century princess, poet and mystic Meera bai who completely rejected patriarchy and marriage because she decided that she is not a slave to men. She dedicated her life to devotion to lord krishna and faced a lot of cruel consequences for this. Yet her verses and songs are of pure love and deep connection to divinity.
I am so glad you told me about Meera bai, another woman I must read about!
This one was hard to edit down, I wanted to include so many more women from around the world but needed a more realistic scope. You are so right, women have always pushed against the patriarchy and by not including their voices, the oppression has been able to continue on for far too long.
There was one poem included in the Classical Poems of Arabic Women anthology that really struck me — I don’t have the resource in front of me so I can come back and edit this later, but the poet was calling out how those in positions of privilege and power will sit in their greed and well-fed sanctuaries declaring all is well when cities around them boast hoards of starving citizens… I can see why the patriarchs didn’t want to include her voice—how dare she highlight their well documented greed! It also feels very similar to today… the illusion of progress.
Thank you so much for spending your precious time with these women and my words, I truly am so grateful and honored to witness them alongside you, my friend! 💜
I am not surprised to learn about that Arabic poet dear friend. Like you rightly pointed, this is exactly what is happening right now too all over the world. The global north narrative specially that of white men is still prevalent. Women of the global south and east have always had to fight teeth any nails to make our place in the world. It’s exhausting to say the least.
I am honoured too, to witness your work around dismantling these stubborn and evil frameworks. More power to you. 💜
Thank you for sharing these important historic female voices.
Women's voices are badly needed, and it helps us all when powerful women's voices from the past are amplified.
Thank you so much for spending your time here with the women and my words. I am so, so grateful! It was hard to edit this one down, I wanted to add so many more voices, so many more stories. But those will come later.
Thank you again 💜
Such a pleasure! We need to know about these women. Thanks again.
Kate, this is an amazing work of scholarship. Thank you so much for doing this work. I have listened to your introduction and will work through the rest.
The Democratic Republic of Congo is such a sad story. From diamonds to uranium, it has been cursed by resources deemed important to the colonial powers and has been deliberately destabilized and kept in play as a colonial football as a result. Just tragic.
Absolutely tragic—all in the name of capitalism. It is so, so gross. Thank you for spending your precious time here, John! This one felt necessary to write, even if just for myself.
Wow this is amazing, thank you! You just sent me down a rabbit hole on Wälättä P̣eṭros, what an incredible story. Long ago I studied medieval history but never heard any of these stories. Just one thing I love is that even in this field new information and stories can come to light. Thank you for the thoughtful attention to each of these.
Thank you for spending your time here, Nicole, I’m honored! 💜 Oh my goodness, wasn’t she incredible? This piece was so hard to edit down, I originally had way more women from all around the world, but realized that was a bit unrealistic so I had to scope down a bit. But oh my goodness what a rewarding research project. Again, thanks for spending your time here. 💜
Thank you…
Thank you for spending your time with it!
I’m traveling… enjoying your little “podcasts” :)
You are a treasure to Substack. Appreciate your work
Janet, thank you for taking a moment to share this. Your words mean so much to me. I appreciate you spending your precious time here with my words and these women! 💖💖
This is such an amazing list. Thank you so much for giving us this. ♥️
Thank YOU for spending time with it! I am very grateful.
Thank you for this uncovering. You’ve left me with a web of voices that I want to follow learn more. It’s so important to remember the first audacious voices were not white middle class women. That there was a culture and time when women were in charge of their bodies, connected to their power and creativeity. So grateful tp read your words.
Anne, thank you so much for spending your precious time here and for taking the time to say this! It means so much! This one was hard to edit down—there have been countless patriarchy confronting women through the centuries, but they’ve been distant to use on purpose…no more! I’m honored to witness these women alongside you. 💜
This is beyond independent scholarship -- absolutely stunning work here. I am in awe! I'm going to be keeping this piece and coming back to it again and again. The resources you've pulled together here ... I cannot even imagine the work this has taken, and I am so grateful you're doing it.
And Zitkala-Ša! I hardly meet anyone who's even heard of her.
You are a gift, Antonia, I hope you know that! I was stuck in the writing process and you just gifted me incredible resources yielded from your own hard work and interrogations. I’m grateful for you!
This was one of those pieces my heart needed to write. I needed to do the research here—I feel better for it. It also led to what is likely another essay around the ideas of courtly love poetry and the never-mentioned Arabic influence, which will be a fun future project!
I was pushed out of my last non profit role for sharing some of the above thoughts in a meeting once. I was asked to join the DEI & B committee and they were planning the women’s history month CEO email. They had a whole piece on the suffragists planned out and I casually mentioned how the white suffragists pushed out Black women’s ideas because they didn’t believe Black men deserved the vote before white women… I mentioned that we should tell the stories of the Black women pushed out and their immense contributions (mind you, this was for an organization that focused on civil rights for girls at-risk with a workforce made up of 95% women, 80% of those women being Black women while the room I sat in was totally white and had more men in it than any other committee…) I was promptly disinvited from that group and out went that “yay white suffragists” email. I directly replied to the CEO with resources for further reading. Shocked they didn’t want me around. 😅 Anyways, I say all of that to say thank you for seeing the value in the time spent here—and for seeing the time and energy put in! I am so, so grateful to have found community that wants to read the things that challenge our own paradigms, our own comfort zones. I am grateful, thank you. 💜
What can I say except I'm grateful for you, too! So many of these women I would never know about without your scholarship, and it's knowing of them and their work and words that can start to shift the paradigms we all live under that seem immovable. They are not! And the works of women of the past can help us see how weak their foundations are.
What an infuriating story about that non-profit. It's one of the most frustrating things about this kind of work, it being strangled by people who refuse to see the truth of these histories even when it's shown to them in the politest way possible. Even the League of Women Voters has managed to acknowledge the influence of Haudenosaunee women on the suffragists, and how they were still excluded from it: https://www.lwv.org/blog/how-native-american-women-inspired-womens-suffrage-movement
If such a long-established organization that's probably as hidebound as any other can start to shift their stories, so can any other!
You are a powerhouse. Don't drain your batteries. ;) But know that when you spark something new, we're ready and eager.
Impressive scholarship and advocacy! 👏
The root cause of "trauma" is a severe power imbalance between one person/group and another. When history is written by the powerful, this destructive dynamic can be hidden/denied, even romanticized, and awareness let alone change is impossible. That is why the fearless scholarship of a publication like 15thCenturyFeminist is so valuable.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. I so appreciate you spending your time here, your most precious resource. Thank you! This one was so rewarding to write, the research moved me so much and opened my eyes to so much more. We deserve to heal beyond patriarchy. We deserve other voices. 💜
Thank YOU! 🙏🏻
Well said!
Thanks AM!
This is beautifully written, inspiring, healing, educational and essential ❤️❤️well done💗
Thank you so much for this and the generosity of your time, I am so grateful! This was one of those pieces I wrote for myself as much as I wrote it to share. I so appreciate you uplifting it. 💖
You are so welcome. I truly love your writing 💗💜💜💗
Thank you so much for these. For your voice alongside them and accompanying sources. All of it.
Thank you for spending your time here, I’m honored! This was such a rewarding research project, confronting some of my own literary biases along the way. 💜
This is just breathtaking.
Thank you, Leah 💜