Women's History Profile: Hatshepsut

Our own country has yet to elect a female president, but over three thousand years ago the Egyptian empire, one of the most powerful forces at the time, was ruled by a woman. Over the centuries, there were a number of female pharaohs, but Hatshepsut had the most successful rule of them all. Daughter of Thutmose I and married to Thutmose II, Hatshepsut became regent after her husband died. Thutmose’s son of another wife, Thutmose III, was supposed to take over as pharaoh when he grew older, but Hatshepsut declared herself pharaoh in 1473 BC. With the support of the important religious and political leaders and the people, she acted as pharaoh until 1458 BC.

Determined, brave and smart, Hatshepsut was a remarkable woman of the time. In order to maintain her standing the respect she received, Hatshepsut dressed as a male pharaoh, was called his majesty and wanted to be treated like a male. More than rejecting her sex and feminism, Hatshepsut was striving for equality and dignity which she achieved by being an extremely prosperous leader.

Women's History Profile: Barbara Smith

In the world of discrimination, Barbara Smith has it all going against her. As a black lesbian she has been a victim of sexism, racism and homophobia, yet she doesn’t wither under this discrimination. Instead, she thrives as an activist and writer, especially in the context of black feminism.

Born in 1946, Smith grew up in segregated Cleveland and quickly realized how unfair the world really was. The Feminist movement in the 1960s drew her in, giving her a feeling of empowerment and a voice, but even in the women’s movement, Smith encountered racism that made her and other women of color feel unwelcomed. In response, Smith and others began to work with black feminism, a branch movement that recognized the connection between sexism, racism, classism and homophobia and was committed to work against all of them. Black feminism called for the liberation of black women and recognized their inherent value.

Smith had two very distinct projects that mark her activism in the black feminist movement. In 1977, she established the Combahee River Collective in Boston which became on of the most active and progressive organizations for black feminism. The Combahee River Collective Statement written by the group is an extremely important document for black feminism and defined identity politics. The statement proposed solutions to the many forms of discrimination people were encountering.

Women's History Profile: Betty Friedan

The modern feminist movement in the past fifty years has had its own goals. After achieving suffrage in 1920, women had succeeded in a major way for the cause, but forty years later society still maintained prominent gender roles and treated men and women differently in the work field. Betty Friedan (February 4, 1921 - February 4, 2006) was an American writer and activist whose work inspired the goals and ideals of modern feminism.

The Feminine Mystique, Betty Friedan’s most famous and recognized book, was published in 1963 and explained Friedan’s findings that women, especially middle-class suburban house wives, were undergoing an identity crisis, losing themselves in the gender roles society expected them to fulfill and the overwhelming poweress of their family. By conforming to the female ideal and limiting the development of their intelligence and employment, women were stifled and imprisoned. The message of the book, and Friedan’s claim that women were just as capable as men in any career spoke to women and got them yearning for change. The strong response The Feminine Mystique received helped create a transformation in the attitude women had toward their rights.

Women's History Profile: Margaret Cho

Just as a Disclaimer: this post was written by our crazy awesome blogging intern, Jodi and not by me!

“We have the power as woman to call ourselves beautiful.”

Margaret Cho, comedian, activist, fashion designer, writer and actress is on a mission. She wants to cure everybody of self-deprecation, make them realize just how beautiful they are. After her own self body image problems lead to eating disorders that almost killed her, Margaret Cho began to accept and love herself and her body and wants to spread that feeling to everyone. Recently, the concept of beauty, which she defines as “a feeling of goodness and happiness and that you don't have to change anything,” has become a central theme in her work. This past summer, she starred in the Lifetime sitcom, Drop Dead Diva, that centers on the idea of beauty and its context in society. Her passion in promoting self appreciation stems not only from her own personal experience, but her observations that society does not how to deal with women’s bodies, creating a constant sense of self criticism instead of appreciation and love.

Yet that mission is only the tip of the iceberg for Cho, who at forty-one years old has had a number of tours, records, DVDs, film credits and awards. One of the most successful comedians of the past two decades, Cho’s popularity exploded in the early 90s after becoming a hit on the college comedy circuit although she had been performing since she was 16. She quickly became the most booked comedian, doing over 300 shows in two years. Margaret Cho is a political comedian, recognizing activism as the very nature of herself. Her focus issues have been feminism, race, and GLBTQ rights.

Women's History Profile: Joan of Arc

Joan of Arc was not a crusader for women’s rights or suffrage, those ideals had no standing in her day, but a warrior, fighting for her country by breaking gender roles of the time. 15^th century France was a dark and dismal place marked with war, the after effects of the plague and royal feuding. The Hundred Years War was raging, and the English were continually gaining on the offensive. That was until a pheasant girl from a village became a commander in the army, leading France to a series of important victories.

Joan of Arc, born in 1412, had seen the effects of the war from a young age when her village was attacked and burned by opposing forces. At the age of 12, Joan heard her first voices. Throughout her life, Saints came to Joan relying messages from God. Although she would have been happy staying home and taking care of her mother, Joan was instructed by these voices to drive the English out of France and help Charles VII, the rightful heir, take the thrown. Inspired by God, Joan of Arc set off to have an interview at the royal court and help her country when she was 16.

Women's History Profile: Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Today, we go back a hundred and fifty years to take a look at one of the most famous women’s rights activists, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony’s cohort in the suffrage movement of the 19^th century. Although she is best known for her work with the women’s suffrage movement, her passion for women’s rights expanded beyond the scope of many of her peers including Susan B. Anthony. Born in 1815, Stanton was also thrust into the abolition movement until the passage of the 13^th amendment in 1865.

What I find the most interesting about Stanton is how she became aware of sexual discrimination in the world and became impassioned to work against it. All of her male siblings had died, leaving her parents with four girls and no male heirs. At a young age, Stanton’s father, a prominent lawyer and politician told her, “Oh my daughter, I wish you were a boy.” This blatant preference of the male sex not only by her father but by society stirred a determination in Elizabeth from a young age to excel in the areas usually reserved to men and to be their equal. Her awareness of society’s prejudices and inequalities grew as her father taught her about the legal barriers between men and women. She also had her own personal experiences of discrimination including being denied admission to the Union college because she was female.

Women's History Month Profile: Nina Simone

Its funny to me that the only request we have gotten so far for Women’s History Month Profiles is for a musician. I feel like Casey Kasem.

So, this one goes out to our loyal reader Jodi!

Our feature today is, obviously, Nina Simone. I’m going to skip all of the early life information and go right to why she was way more then just a musician.

Nina Simone musically became influential in the early 1960’s. After a few years of teaching piano in Philadelphia, she quickly became popular by performing in Atlantic City bars and night clubs. From there, she was signed by a record label and recorded her breakthrough song “I loves you Porgy” in 1958. The song did extremely well and propelled Simone into musical popularity at the start of the new decade.

Nina Simone wrote songs that defined the times. Many of her recordings evoke singular moments during the civil rights movement and are historically important akin to the popular anti-war music of this era. For example, Simone wrote “Mississippi Goddam” in response to the bombing of a Baptist church in Alabama killed four children and the assassination of Medgar Evers. This and many other songs by Simone were adopted by the civil rights movement and encapsulated the thrust of emotion behind the social movements that were changing the landscape of the US.

Mississippi Goddam (sorry folks, the html link was broken)

Women's History Profile: Judy Chicago

When most of us picture the word ‘feminist’ we probably picture an activist, marching in a crowd of people for suffrage or equal rights, or burning her bra, hair flailing in the air. But feminism expands from beyond the political into the areas of culture, economics and sociology. Judy Chicago, an artist born in 1939 was not out campaigning for women’s rights on the political field with the likes of Susan B. Anthony, but progressing feminism from her studio by her own terms. For her, art was a ‘vehicle for intellectual transformation and social change,’ and she was committed to creating an equal role for women in the art world.

Judy Chicago started Feminist Art in 1970. She coined the term when she started a feminist art program for women at California State University Fresno and then started the CalArts Feminist Art Project. During the next 20 years, Chicago worked on a number of ground breaking pieces, often in collaboration with the women from the Feminist Art Project. These pieces demonstrated, for the first time an openly female point of view and established a centralized focus within women’s art which recognizes an established female imagery.

Women's History Profile: Hannah Senesh

My first Women’s History Month feature is a woman that I didn’t hear about until way into my college education. I took a class focused on women as diarists/memoirists using this book as a text. Seriously, it’s a great read and I highly recommend it.

Anyway, one of the diarists highlighted is Hannah Senesh. I don’t know what it was about her life or her diary entries that made her stand out from the many other fascinating women we read but here I am, ten years later, anxious to let the blogosphere know my devotion to her story.

Hannah Senesh was born in 1921 in Hungary. In the face of religious oppression, she and her family were Jewish, her mother managed to ensure an excellent education for Hannah (for three times the rate that Protestants were paying).

A side note here: I loved that Hannah’s mother was clearly a strong feminist in her own right. I didn’t know too much about her until recently but I have written in the margins of my copy Hannah’s diary “Moms!” and “I wonder what her mothers story is?” more on this later, though.

Women's History Profile: Margaret Sanger

I am sure everyone is exhaling a sigh of relief today in Pittsburgh. It's March 1st which means February's dreaded reign is officially over. Here's hoping the first week of this month is more lamb like than lion. What you may not know is that today is also the first day of Women's History Month. This year's theme is "Writing Women Back into History." When the National Women's History Project began its mission in 1980, less than 3% of the content of teacher training textbooks mentioned the contributions of women. It is all of our responsibilities to recognize the impact of great women in history. PPWP will be blogging all month on the women we've been influenced by.

Today, I thought it was only fitting to do a profile on Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood Federation of America and pioneer of the birth control movement.

Margaret Sanger was the sixth of eleven children born to Anne Purcell Higgins and Michael Hennessy Higgins, a devout Catholic family in New York. As a child, Margaret was profoundly influenced by her mother's seemingly constant state of pregnancy. She often played caretaker to her younger siblings. After her mother's death from tuberculosis and cervical cancer in 1896, Margaret enrolled in a nursing program paid for by her sisters' wages.