Not any specific historial woman, but as someone from Louisiana, I'd be super interested in a human portrayal of the history of Voodoo queens in New Orleans! Voodoo is so often misrepresented and villified. I know there are some interesting anthropological works about Voodoo priestesses (Mama Lola is one I've often seen pretty often being sold in Voodoo shops in New Orleans), but I'd love to see a historical fiction type movie or novel that delves into the topic with attention, care, and authenticity. If anyone reading this knows of such a book, I'm all ears! Also in general, just interested in witches and any kind of magic-esque history of women and the idea that these types of women are villified because their feminitiy is seen as a real threat. Feminity as a powerful force is just so cool!
Laney, thank you for spending time here and engaging, I am so grateful!!!! And I so agree with you, that would be such a fabulous watch/read! As someone who is absolutely uneducated in Voodoo, I wonder just off-hand how much of that vilification is white-supremacist fueled? A spiritual practice outside the bounds of colonizer patriarchal Christianity, I'm sure that couldn't stand. I imagine the same language of 'savagery' was utilized here as Indigenous practices too often experienced. Second on being open to any recommendations here!! Sounds so intriguing!
Have you read Gemma Hollman's Royal Witches? Absolutely wonderful, insightful read on the patriarchal greed that fueled the really early witchcraft charges in England (15C). A woman with agency has truly always been a threat to patriarchy.
Oh I can definitely imagination there’s a white supremacist connection in the Voodoo-villification! As someone that grew up in Louisiana, I don’t think I got as negative of an impression of it as I saw in media. I do think it tends to happen with places like Louisiana that certain things are exoticized and misrepresented- especially, of course, if it is a threat to white patriarchal supremacy!!
I’m so excited to have found you here, unwrapping 15th century women - my postgrad research led me back from Wollstonecraft to Aphra Behn, Mary Wortley Montagu and a raft of women writing at a time when printing presses were everywhere, but also the culture of letter writing was flourishing, especially in Britain and France. I’m intrigued to read more about how women so much earlier than all this have expression in writing - and who, if anyone, read it?
Your post grad research sounds like such a marvelous endeavor, I would love to hear more! I am so excited that you found me as well! Getting to connect over incredible matriarchs of the past is the absolute dream, honestly. Have you read Susan Groag Bell's essay Medieval Women Book Owners? Absolutely recommend it--so insightful re: the movement of books across Western Europe through women and marriages, especially in the 14/15Cs. It's an essay I find myself quoting often in my newsletter, the entire thing is just so good and so thought-provoking! Oh to be Christine de Pizan's The City of The Ladies which was left to Jacquetta of Luxembourg via John, duke of Bedford's will, and then was passed on through her female bloodline for generations! So many women impacted by a proto-feminist's framework. Just incredible!
Thank you for spending some of your precious time here, Michelle! I'm honored. ❤️
That essay sounds just up my street - I’ll see if I can find it! (I’m no longer connected to a uni but know people who are 😉). And I’ve just finished reading Targoff’s ‘Shakespeare’s Sister’ so I’m getting closer to the 15th c!
You are very generous in your comment but honestly I’m thrilled to start with the archive and then follow your journey 😊
"Growing our paradigms together, in community, allows us to strive towards collective liberation with mutual understanding and shared language." what a beautiful intention to introduce me to your work <3 <3
My favorite woman from my corner of the world is Maria Pita. She protected the Galician city of A Coruña from Sir Francis Drake in the 1500s. Also, Victoria Woodhull who ran for president in 1872. Excited to explore both of their stories more in my writing, thx again for this space & reality <3 <3
Aw, I never saw a notification for this but I am so glad I'm just now finding your comment. I haven't heard of either of those women, but I absolutely would like to learn more now. Thank you so much for sharing their names with me and for writing their stories (or working towards it!!!)
I really appreciate you spending time with my words and of recognizing the intentionality behind them. I am so grateful!
YOU are amazing, Swarnali! I am so grateful to virtually know you, my goodness. I feel so lucky that the algorithm put such phenomenal humans in my path--I know I am better for having your words impacting my paradigms! Thank you for being you and showing up into the world the way you do. ❤️
Likewise my dear friend. You are a treasure, and your work is massively instrumental not only towards analysis of the misogynistic frameworks of the past and dismantling the current ones, but also towards building a better - more egalitarian society where all humans are treated fairly and with dignity. Sending love your way and fierce grace of the mother goddess for the work that you do. 💜
Excited to learn about the lives of these historical women through your excellent research and writing. I am especially interested in women scientists. And thank you so much for including a transcript of your video. I’m not an audio person and I know I miss so much if there isn’t a transcript.
Thank you so much for the kind words, Karen! I totally get it, if there aren’t subtitles, it is as if my brain knows no languages. ❤️ Ohhh, what a great topic to be interested—so many incredible, and far too many unnamed, women in the sciences out there. I’m fascinated by Trota of Salerno and The Trotula (book of beauty standards and medieval healthcare.) Amazing that a lot of the tedious healing of minor wounds to care for a large wound stems from her study of midwivery, yet she’s not often credited (nor are the others that surely contributed to her scientific method that have gone unnamed.) Thank you for spending you time here. ❤️
Tara! Appreciate you immensely! I'm feeling too perceived and working through the feelings that is bringing up, but very happy to be me on here and be met with such kindness and love. Thank you for being you and thank you for the support! 💖💖
Are you familiar with Sylvia Federici's "Caliban and the Witch"? She really puts the past in a whole new light. Imagine what would have happened if there had been no Inquisition and Burning Times, and women had actually won the 7000+ year gender war (which they call "patriarchy" to make it sound nicer).
I have not, but just reading what you linked that sounds right up my alley, thank you for the recommendation! I'm currently working on a piece around women's beauty and body standards, and so much of that aligns with my argument that these things all just support hierarchical existence, allowing more 'achievement time' to one gender over all others. Adding this to my TBR list now, thank you, thank you, thank you!
Very interesting perspective overall. I was just wondering, John Locke was thought to be the person who invented the very concept of individual rights as we know it, and the stereotype of the pre-Enlightenment era was one of collectivism which disregarded the individual. Do you know of any feminists before him who also believed in individual rights as well? Because that would be truly iconoclastic to the patriarchy IMHO.
That is such a great question -- I really focus on the Middle Ages, and the women that lived within that timeframe, and there were so many women writing during that time articulating the inequity of patriarchal rule (of course without such language) but seeking freedom/restructure at the community level. Almost fighting on the 'whole' for gender rather than any one individual's rights. I think of Christine de Pizan here--she dreamt of creating a city where women weren't subjugated in such ways, building a history of women while telling the story of women working in community to create the ideal environment. Having been born in the 14th century, living her life in France, she lived in equidistance to communal Merovingian gender roles as we live to her now. Women went from being a helpmeet at the communal level, equally working towards common good, to the helpmeet of the husband-boss (as the author you linked calls it! which i love!), I wonder how much of that influence seeing gender expression as a means of communal support? I have a handful of pieces of women writers of the middle ages and there were so many women during that timeframe that were questioning so much of the gender expectation of the time.
What I found really, really, really interesting (though maybe I shouldn't have upon further reflection) was how many women of the common day church commented on the pieces reflecting how they hadn't heard of any--or most--of the women though majority of the women writers of the middle ages were tied to the church so as to have access to education. I guess patriarchs are going to patriarch, huh?
I would add that both primary flavors of modern feminism (i.e. liberal and radical) tend to get it half-wrong. One side seeks only individual empowerment for women, while the other side seeks only collective empowerment for women, as though it were somehow a zero-sum game with one always at the expense of the other, which it is not. IMHO both individual AND collective empowerment are needed, not an either-or false choice between them. That said, at least some people of both sides do indeed see that. In reality, you cannot have one without the other.
Hyper-collectivism and hyper-individualism are both highly toxic. Locke's "negative" liberty versus Plato and Marx's "positive" liberty are not opposites, but really two sides of the same coin IMHO.
I think my favorite historical woman is the last one I read about, and each time I read about a new one I get all excited again. I was super excited to find your substack a while back because I love history and feminism, and I think the two totally go together. I look forward to whatever it is you have to share.
And great job on the video... that kind of thing would be really hard for me and I thought you did a good job.
Sarah, thank you so much for spending your precious time here and for adding this comment! I feel much the same, each new woman I read about becomes my favorite historical woman! But there is also a level of heartbreak attached to hearing the name and story of an incredibly influential woman of the past for the first time in my mid-30s. Young Kate would have really benefited from these anthologies of women we are lucky enough to have today.
Thank you for saying that. I had, as my friend @John Lovie says, a vulnerability hangover all day yesterday. I kept opening substack to engage and then immediately closing it when I remembered my video was just there, for all to witness. Found myself taking a lot of deep breaths today, but I once again feel so much gratitude for the found, welcoming, activist community here in this space, you included. Thank you for adding your words here. ❤️
omg Kate—your are a jewel. 💎 I love all of this and what you are working on and creating—YES!! So love that you share your voice, your passion, and your kindness. ❤️🔥
Thank you for spending time with video-me today, Freya! The 'being-perceived' hangover is very real today. I'm so grateful for this platform connecting me with such phenomenal, like-minded women (and men!) that strive for a more just, equitable, and joyful future through inspecting the past. So glad to virtually know you!!
same my dear! and i do get that hangover—but you truly are wonderful and it comes through sharing your voice and video. So don’t give it a second thought—you’re a star! 🌟
Congratulations on putting out the video. Looking forward to learning more from you. I love that line of John Donne that you shared. He is my favorite poet. Excited to be a part of your passion project.
Thank you so much for spending time here, Abha. I am truly so grateful! John Donne is my favorite as well, I'm fascinated by literature created in plague time (wild to think that art made in 2020 will now also qualify here!) Your presence is so appreciated.
Not any specific historial woman, but as someone from Louisiana, I'd be super interested in a human portrayal of the history of Voodoo queens in New Orleans! Voodoo is so often misrepresented and villified. I know there are some interesting anthropological works about Voodoo priestesses (Mama Lola is one I've often seen pretty often being sold in Voodoo shops in New Orleans), but I'd love to see a historical fiction type movie or novel that delves into the topic with attention, care, and authenticity. If anyone reading this knows of such a book, I'm all ears! Also in general, just interested in witches and any kind of magic-esque history of women and the idea that these types of women are villified because their feminitiy is seen as a real threat. Feminity as a powerful force is just so cool!
Laney, thank you for spending time here and engaging, I am so grateful!!!! And I so agree with you, that would be such a fabulous watch/read! As someone who is absolutely uneducated in Voodoo, I wonder just off-hand how much of that vilification is white-supremacist fueled? A spiritual practice outside the bounds of colonizer patriarchal Christianity, I'm sure that couldn't stand. I imagine the same language of 'savagery' was utilized here as Indigenous practices too often experienced. Second on being open to any recommendations here!! Sounds so intriguing!
Have you read Gemma Hollman's Royal Witches? Absolutely wonderful, insightful read on the patriarchal greed that fueled the really early witchcraft charges in England (15C). A woman with agency has truly always been a threat to patriarchy.
I have not read Royal Witches! Definitely going on my witchy autumn reading list
Oh I can definitely imagination there’s a white supremacist connection in the Voodoo-villification! As someone that grew up in Louisiana, I don’t think I got as negative of an impression of it as I saw in media. I do think it tends to happen with places like Louisiana that certain things are exoticized and misrepresented- especially, of course, if it is a threat to white patriarchal supremacy!!
I’m so excited to have found you here, unwrapping 15th century women - my postgrad research led me back from Wollstonecraft to Aphra Behn, Mary Wortley Montagu and a raft of women writing at a time when printing presses were everywhere, but also the culture of letter writing was flourishing, especially in Britain and France. I’m intrigued to read more about how women so much earlier than all this have expression in writing - and who, if anyone, read it?
Your post grad research sounds like such a marvelous endeavor, I would love to hear more! I am so excited that you found me as well! Getting to connect over incredible matriarchs of the past is the absolute dream, honestly. Have you read Susan Groag Bell's essay Medieval Women Book Owners? Absolutely recommend it--so insightful re: the movement of books across Western Europe through women and marriages, especially in the 14/15Cs. It's an essay I find myself quoting often in my newsletter, the entire thing is just so good and so thought-provoking! Oh to be Christine de Pizan's The City of The Ladies which was left to Jacquetta of Luxembourg via John, duke of Bedford's will, and then was passed on through her female bloodline for generations! So many women impacted by a proto-feminist's framework. Just incredible!
Thank you for spending some of your precious time here, Michelle! I'm honored. ❤️
That essay sounds just up my street - I’ll see if I can find it! (I’m no longer connected to a uni but know people who are 😉). And I’ve just finished reading Targoff’s ‘Shakespeare’s Sister’ so I’m getting closer to the 15th c!
You are very generous in your comment but honestly I’m thrilled to start with the archive and then follow your journey 😊
The "know people who are" bit is exactly how I still get access to some things for this space--thank goodness for community!
So glad you were able to find the essay, I hope it feels like time well spent!! ❤️
Just found the essay and saved to read at the weekend ❤️
"Growing our paradigms together, in community, allows us to strive towards collective liberation with mutual understanding and shared language." what a beautiful intention to introduce me to your work <3 <3
My favorite woman from my corner of the world is Maria Pita. She protected the Galician city of A Coruña from Sir Francis Drake in the 1500s. Also, Victoria Woodhull who ran for president in 1872. Excited to explore both of their stories more in my writing, thx again for this space & reality <3 <3
Aw, I never saw a notification for this but I am so glad I'm just now finding your comment. I haven't heard of either of those women, but I absolutely would like to learn more now. Thank you so much for sharing their names with me and for writing their stories (or working towards it!!!)
I really appreciate you spending time with my words and of recognizing the intentionality behind them. I am so grateful!
You are so amazing! I adore this space, your work, and everything about you now that I saw you too! 💜💜💜
YOU are amazing, Swarnali! I am so grateful to virtually know you, my goodness. I feel so lucky that the algorithm put such phenomenal humans in my path--I know I am better for having your words impacting my paradigms! Thank you for being you and showing up into the world the way you do. ❤️
Likewise my dear friend. You are a treasure, and your work is massively instrumental not only towards analysis of the misogynistic frameworks of the past and dismantling the current ones, but also towards building a better - more egalitarian society where all humans are treated fairly and with dignity. Sending love your way and fierce grace of the mother goddess for the work that you do. 💜
Thank you for this. 😭❤️❤️❤️
🤗💜
Excited to learn about the lives of these historical women through your excellent research and writing. I am especially interested in women scientists. And thank you so much for including a transcript of your video. I’m not an audio person and I know I miss so much if there isn’t a transcript.
Thank you so much for the kind words, Karen! I totally get it, if there aren’t subtitles, it is as if my brain knows no languages. ❤️ Ohhh, what a great topic to be interested—so many incredible, and far too many unnamed, women in the sciences out there. I’m fascinated by Trota of Salerno and The Trotula (book of beauty standards and medieval healthcare.) Amazing that a lot of the tedious healing of minor wounds to care for a large wound stems from her study of midwivery, yet she’s not often credited (nor are the others that surely contributed to her scientific method that have gone unnamed.) Thank you for spending you time here. ❤️
That video!! It made me so happy to see and hear you! You are so brave and smart and fabulous. You made my day. 💕🤗
Tara! Appreciate you immensely! I'm feeling too perceived and working through the feelings that is bringing up, but very happy to be me on here and be met with such kindness and love. Thank you for being you and thank you for the support! 💖💖
So lovely to see you and hear you dear Kate, having enjoyed your written word for so long! With a HUGE hug, Jody x
So much love your way, Jody! So grateful for you, your voice, your support, your kindness--all if it! Thank you for being you. 💖💖🌞
Are you familiar with Sylvia Federici's "Caliban and the Witch"? She really puts the past in a whole new light. Imagine what would have happened if there had been no Inquisition and Burning Times, and women had actually won the 7000+ year gender war (which they call "patriarchy" to make it sound nicer).
https://inthesetimes.com/article/capitalism-witches-women-witch-hunting-sylvia-federici-caliban
I have not, but just reading what you linked that sounds right up my alley, thank you for the recommendation! I'm currently working on a piece around women's beauty and body standards, and so much of that aligns with my argument that these things all just support hierarchical existence, allowing more 'achievement time' to one gender over all others. Adding this to my TBR list now, thank you, thank you, thank you!
You're very welcome 😊
Very interesting perspective overall. I was just wondering, John Locke was thought to be the person who invented the very concept of individual rights as we know it, and the stereotype of the pre-Enlightenment era was one of collectivism which disregarded the individual. Do you know of any feminists before him who also believed in individual rights as well? Because that would be truly iconoclastic to the patriarchy IMHO.
That is such a great question -- I really focus on the Middle Ages, and the women that lived within that timeframe, and there were so many women writing during that time articulating the inequity of patriarchal rule (of course without such language) but seeking freedom/restructure at the community level. Almost fighting on the 'whole' for gender rather than any one individual's rights. I think of Christine de Pizan here--she dreamt of creating a city where women weren't subjugated in such ways, building a history of women while telling the story of women working in community to create the ideal environment. Having been born in the 14th century, living her life in France, she lived in equidistance to communal Merovingian gender roles as we live to her now. Women went from being a helpmeet at the communal level, equally working towards common good, to the helpmeet of the husband-boss (as the author you linked calls it! which i love!), I wonder how much of that influence seeing gender expression as a means of communal support? I have a handful of pieces of women writers of the middle ages and there were so many women during that timeframe that were questioning so much of the gender expectation of the time.
What I found really, really, really interesting (though maybe I shouldn't have upon further reflection) was how many women of the common day church commented on the pieces reflecting how they hadn't heard of any--or most--of the women though majority of the women writers of the middle ages were tied to the church so as to have access to education. I guess patriarchs are going to patriarch, huh?
Thank you 😊
I would add that both primary flavors of modern feminism (i.e. liberal and radical) tend to get it half-wrong. One side seeks only individual empowerment for women, while the other side seeks only collective empowerment for women, as though it were somehow a zero-sum game with one always at the expense of the other, which it is not. IMHO both individual AND collective empowerment are needed, not an either-or false choice between them. That said, at least some people of both sides do indeed see that. In reality, you cannot have one without the other.
Hyper-collectivism and hyper-individualism are both highly toxic. Locke's "negative" liberty versus Plato and Marx's "positive" liberty are not opposites, but really two sides of the same coin IMHO.
Glad you’re here and doing the meaningful work you do.
Thank you!!
I think my favorite historical woman is the last one I read about, and each time I read about a new one I get all excited again. I was super excited to find your substack a while back because I love history and feminism, and I think the two totally go together. I look forward to whatever it is you have to share.
And great job on the video... that kind of thing would be really hard for me and I thought you did a good job.
Sarah, thank you so much for spending your precious time here and for adding this comment! I feel much the same, each new woman I read about becomes my favorite historical woman! But there is also a level of heartbreak attached to hearing the name and story of an incredibly influential woman of the past for the first time in my mid-30s. Young Kate would have really benefited from these anthologies of women we are lucky enough to have today.
Thank you for saying that. I had, as my friend @John Lovie says, a vulnerability hangover all day yesterday. I kept opening substack to engage and then immediately closing it when I remembered my video was just there, for all to witness. Found myself taking a lot of deep breaths today, but I once again feel so much gratitude for the found, welcoming, activist community here in this space, you included. Thank you for adding your words here. ❤️
omg Kate—your are a jewel. 💎 I love all of this and what you are working on and creating—YES!! So love that you share your voice, your passion, and your kindness. ❤️🔥
Thank you for spending time with video-me today, Freya! The 'being-perceived' hangover is very real today. I'm so grateful for this platform connecting me with such phenomenal, like-minded women (and men!) that strive for a more just, equitable, and joyful future through inspecting the past. So glad to virtually know you!!
same my dear! and i do get that hangover—but you truly are wonderful and it comes through sharing your voice and video. So don’t give it a second thought—you’re a star! 🌟
❤️❤️❤️
🙏☺️
💖💖💖
Congratulations on putting out the video. Looking forward to learning more from you. I love that line of John Donne that you shared. He is my favorite poet. Excited to be a part of your passion project.
Thank you so much for spending time here, Abha. I am truly so grateful! John Donne is my favorite as well, I'm fascinated by literature created in plague time (wild to think that art made in 2020 will now also qualify here!) Your presence is so appreciated.
Omg maybe somebody should study the relation between literature created during these times. A John Donne - Rupi Kaur crossover hehe.
What an idea! Sounds like such a fun brain-adventure. 🤣❤️