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Someone you may not have any awareness of in this list of women and equality throughout history is British councillor Mavis Best. Best led a group of black women activists from Lewisham who successfully petitioned for the recall of 'Sus' Law, the colloquial term for section 4 of the 1824 Vagrancy Act, which allowed arrest based solely on suspicion of a crime. Police used this periodically to stop, search, arrest, detain and assault young black men. Whilst also a single mother Best’s leadership of the Scrap Sus campaign was singularly successful, and her personal involvement in protest unprecedented. She has received little awareness for her efforts however and remains largely in obscurity. Best moved from Jamaica to the UK in her early 20s in 1961, joining her brothers and sister in Peckham. Best was immediately aware of the restrictions placed against her, finding difficulties in employment opportunities, housing, policing and general hostility from the wider population. She would later tell an interviewer in a radio appearance that “We didn’t have the language to speak about racism in those days. That comes later. But we knew they didn’t like us. ” This awareness allowed for further enlightenment to ongoing Black Rights movements across the country, in the 1970s she studied community development at Goldsmiths College, where she met Basil Manning, who pushed for her involvement in the growing ‘Scrap Sus’ campaign, burgeoning in Lewisham. Best would go on to lead the fight for the repeal of this act whilst also raising her three children as a single mother. 'Sus' Law is a colloquial term for section 4 of the 1824 Vagrancy Act. This entitled the police to stop and search, and arrest anyone in a public space if there was suspicion that they intended to commit an offence. Although it was slightly more complex to bring such cases to trial, there was still a good chance that the arresting force could provide proof of suspicion. Within a fundamentally racist society, this law was typically and increasingly used against young black men in Metropolitan areas. Often young men and boys were simply looking into a shop window or walking down a street. The treatment they would then receive was something more reminiscent of 1930s Germany. They were detained for days, with no notice given to families, physically assaulted in police vans and stations, and later wrongly accused of criminal activities such as theft or conspiracy, only 10% of 'Sus' convictions had supplementary evidence to police testimony. It was the subject of protest among other causes in the 1980 and 1981 Race Riots around England before Best became involved and it is telling of the institutionalised racism in the British Police force that when questioned on the law in 1980, then Met commissioner Sir David McNee argued that there was such a high proportion of black people incarcerated thanks to the law because they were “over-represented in offences of robbery and other violent theft.” Best’s leadership of the “Scrap Sus” Campaign was arguably fundamental to its quick repeal once protests had begun, quickly enlisting co-campaigner Paul Boateng, Best is described to have been almost obsessive in the organisation of the campaign, immediately taking to leadership and organising protests in days and being so involved in them that she was often dragged away by the very police she was protesting; they produced leaflets, and flyers to hand out at public events, personally marshalled families and communities to attend hearings, drumming up support and witnesses for any and all cases she could, pushing the effort with her group that the only way to win was to directly challenge the authority, call them what they were, liars. Boateng described how she was singularly committed to the campaign, calling him “at all times of the day and night and on the weekends, and say: ‘X, Y or Z is happening. You need to get down here. And I did.” Perhaps the most notable action of Best and her ‘Scrap Sus’ Protestors was their direct challenge of arrests. Best herself would refuse to leave stations until arrested men were released into her care, explaining later that this step was necessary for her and the communities affected because “by then their parents were so debilitated by the whole thing that they couldn’t do anything.” 1981 is described as one of the worst years for British Race Relations: National Front Protests had closed and opened 1980 and 1981 on a sour note, this was followed in January with the New Cross House which Fire saw thirteen young black people die. Could the fire have been started thanks to an arson attack as part of the aforementioned fascist protests? The suspicion was ironically never addressed. Mass protests in the following months were met with indignant racism and violence and in April the violence arguably reached a climax with ‘Operation Swamp 81’ in Brixton. Operation Swamp, named for Thatcher’s statement that Britain was “swamped” with other cultures saw 1000 people stopped and 150 arrested, actions which saw an uprising in the following days and continual uneasiness and readiness to protest in the following months throughout all of London. Protesting lasted three years, with both Conservative and Labour Governments ignoring the community’s complaints and efforts until 1981 when a Home Affairs committee was eventually formed to address the issue. The law was repealed in August but most agreed it was too late to repair the damage that had already been done throughout the year. Mavis Best is not a single success story, she continued to fight for Black rights throughout her career over the following three decades, working for Camden Social Services, and working with several grassroots community projects in the 80s and 90s. Throughout it all, Best would lead the movements, speaking up when others couldn’t or were too afraid to. For example, Best pushed for support for young people from their local churches, worked with the Anti-Racist Alliance in the early 90s, and continued to campaign specifically for black individuals mistreated by the law, such as Stephen Lawrence and was part of a panel to review the implementation of the Macpherson Report, which had concluded that there was ‘institutionalised racism’ in the UK police forces. Additionally, she helped start and support two efforts to provide aid to African and African-Caribbean people: the Saturday Achievement Project and the Simba Family Project. Almost 20 years after her involvement with “Scrap Sus”, in 1998, Best was elected Labour Councillor in Greenwich, her long time colleague, Paul Boateng, this year had become a minister at the Home Office, and it was Boateng who appointed Best to the committee which oversaw community development trusts. In 2002 she established the Greenwich African Caribbean Organisation. Throughout the 00s her activism continued, setting up a commemoration for the black and enslaved people of Greenwich centred around a grace of an unknown Black Person, who saw that a ceremonial juneberry tree was planted at Charlton House to commemorate the black people of the borough, the house had been partially built on the proceeds of slavery. Furthermore, her activism wasn’t solely restricted to London; on a holiday to Jamaica, she became so enraptured with a local campaign concerning employment that she stayed to assist them for several months. Unfortunately, acknowledging the problem does not entirely solve it and institutionalised racism is arguably as prevalent in today’s society as it was in the 1970s, it’s just got to be more creative in its discrimination. Still, Best’s contribution, and that of the women she led and inspired throughout her activism and political career shouldn’t have faded into obscurity as it has, it was her leadership and fearlessness which helped bring about the end of a brutal and devastating technicality of the law, and it is with her continued legacy that we can work to address ongoing racism in our society. Source Rose, Steve, ‘“She was not a woman to back down@: the fearless Black campaigner who helped to scrap the UK’s ‘sus’ law’, The Guardian, (02/12/2022), < https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/nov/29/she-was-not-a-woman-to-back-down-the-fearless-black-campaigner-who-helped-to-scrap-the-sus-law >, [03/03/2023] ‘Best, Mavis’, Hackney Museum, < https://museum-collection.hackney.gov.uk/names/AUTH4748 >, [03/03/2023] Maggs, Joseph, ‘Fighting Sus: then and now’ Race Relations, (04/04/2019), < https://irr.org.uk/article/fighting-sus-then-and-now/ >, [03/03/2023]

Militant suffragette might not be a term you’d immediately associate with a disabled teacher, but militant suffragette is an accurate description for the largely overlooked Rosa May Billinghurst, or as she was to the people who knew her, May. Billinghurst was born in Lewisham in London in 1875, at a time when women’s rights movements were growing globally. In New Zealand, all women over 21 were enfranchised in 1891, and in South Australia women received the same, as well as the right to stand for parliament in 1895. In the USA, campaigners were fighting for enfranchisement alongside black citizens, across the pond, in the UK, working-class movements for enfranchisement had been ongoing since the 1830s, women, still unable to vote even if they were landowners, were uniting to form organisations to push for the equal right to vote. Political support was unsteady, in 1869, John Stuart Mill published an essay in support of enfranchising women, after winning election on a platform which had advocated for votes for women. Also in the 1860s, Mill presented a petition to Parliament which would allow women the vote, an act drafted by early women’s rights group The Kensington Society and signed by the likes of Florence Nightingale and Mary Somerville. However, by the time of Billinghurst’s birth and childhood, women were no closer to achieving the vote than they had been 20 years prior. The Women’s Suffrage Committee was formed in Manchester in 1867, with meetings attended by a young Emmeline Pankhurst. In 1897 the committee joined with the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies. But the women’s suffrage movement took off as Rosa May Billinghurst would have been able to engage with the movement herself, with Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughter Christabel breaking off from the central suffrage movement to create the organisation which earned its members the name suffragette, The Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU). To return to our protagonist: Billinghurst had suffered polio as a child, becoming paralyzed from the waist down. Her disability does not appear to have been much of a hindrance to her activism, but rather a simple fact of her existence. As a teen she became actively engaged with the Women’s Liberal Association, seemingly joining the WSPU in 1907, marking a move from any peaceful engagement to the militant actions recognisable of the movement. Billinghurst’s exact actions in protests and activism are annoyingly, often unclear. We do know that she was a very active participant involved in marches and protests following elections. Billinghurst also founded the Greenwich branch of the WSPU in 1910, acting as its first secretary and naturally taking part in its demonstrations. Regarding accessibility, she was slated to be in a wheelchair-like device, effectively a tricycle and became well known among the press as the “cripple suffragette”. Such was the militant activism that on the Greenwich branch’s first march she was arrested after being thrown out of her chair by police (although she was allegedly happy with the publicity). Police also targeted her by stranding her in her chair in an alleyway with flat tyres, even stealing the valves. Billinghurst would go on to use her tricycle/wheelchair in further protests, hiding rocks, pamphlets and ribbons under her skirts and blankets. Her disability also worked in her favour when she was arrested and sent to Holloway prison (the first time) for breaking a window. She had been sentenced to hard labour, but her disability confused guards so much that they didn’t actually assign her any work to do! However, she was not safe from the curse of all militant suffragettes. In 1913, sent to Holloway, this time for damaging letters in a postbox, Billinghurst went on hunger strike and was consequently force-fed via nasal tube for two weeks, this ripped her nostril and broke her tooth, leading to her being released after only two weeks. In case you needed another example of the deplorable British police force in the early twentieth century, during protests to petition the king in May 1914 Billinghurst had like her peers, chained herself and her wheelchair to the gates of Buckingham Palace, the reaction of the police was to tip her out of her chair, leaving her stranded. The Representation of the People Act was published in 1918 by a Government who had had to acknowledge the value of women throughout the Great War. Perhaps the passing of the Act was also a form of gratitude for the militant actions of the WSPU and suffragettes like Billinghurst putting their political freedom aside during the war. The act only enfranchised women to vote in national elections when aged 30 and over, so it wasn’t exactly successful, but it was a start. Billinghurst retired from activism at the passing of the bill and died in July 1953. Sources: ‘Remembering the Suffragettes: Rosa May Billinghurst (1875-1953)’, LSE Blog, (2022), < https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsehistory/2022/03/23/rosa-may-billinghurst-31-may-1875-29-july-1953/ >, [26/02/2023] ‘Who were the Suffragettes?’, Museum of London, < https://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/museum-london/explore/who-were-suffragettes#:~:text=The%20Suffragettes%20were%20part%20of,in%20parliamentary%20and%20general%20elections .>, [26/02/2023] (Youtube video) Kellgren-Fozard, Jessica, ‘“The Crippled Suffragette”//Rosa May Billighurst’, in Historical Profiles, Jessica Kellgren-Fozard, (2021), < https://youtu.be/9RuL6Y6BcGs > [26/02/2023] Hanlon, Sheila, ‘Rosa May Billinghurst: Suffragette on Three Wheels’, Sheila Hanlon, < http://www.sheilahanlon.com/?page_id=1314 >, [26/02/2023] “Billinghurst Letters” and “Alice Ker Letters,” The Women’s Library, Autograph Collection, Vol XXIX, 9/29, 1912-1913 Abrams, Fran Freedom’s Cause: Lives of the Suffragettes , (London: Profile Books, 2003) Dove, Iris, Yours in the Cause: Suffragettes in Lewisham, Greenwhich and Woolwhich , (1988)

Hey there, girls and gays, I hope you’ve got your face paints, feather boas and skimpy outfits ready for any Pride event you’re heading to… In the meantime, here’s some recommendations for queer content and queer history that you could engage with this month, I’ve split them into books, podcasts and TV and film so you can pick and choose depending on what you want, regardless of what you fancy, I hope that you’ll learn, be entertained, or be inspired (and hopefully all three). Books/articles and lots of written stuff A Short History of Queer Women, by Kirsty Loehr Kirsty Loehr is a writer and English teacher (and a lesbian), and this is her first historical book, it’s a thoroughly entertaining short account of the history of women who love other women, a brilliant introduction and rebuttal of any suggestion that queer women didn’t exist before the twentieth-century (yes, I have been told that). Loehr has written this book to be engaging to a vast variety of audiences, and whilst as a queer historian (true in every sense) not much of what she wrote was news to me, she has done a fantastic job of accounting for all of them, and I must say, the chapter ‘Feminism and Football’ made even me, the world’s biggest hater of football, like football. Loehr also featured on a recent episode of the History Hit Podcast Betwixt the Sheets, (a bit later on in this article), and made a pretty good case for the use of the word ‘lesbian’. Gay History and Literature, Essays by Rictor Norton Rictor Norton is a queer historian and has accumulated his work onto a website, this was a go to resource when studying for much of my under- and post-graduate degrees, as Norton explains queer history in an accessible and engaging manner, you should definitely browse the site but here’s a couple of my favourite articles: Lesbian Marriages in 18th-century England Satire on Queen Anne and Her 'She-Favourite' Anne Lister’s Diaries Edited by Helena Whitbread, Lister’s diaries have been decoded and published in several volumes. If you don’t know, (I don’t know how you wouldn’t), Anne Lister was a raging lesbian, her marriage to Anne Walker is regarded to be the first lesbian marriage in Britain, and she wrote explicit accounts of her many relationships with women in code in her diaries. The history behind the diaries themselves is astounding, so definitely check it out. As well as providing insight and proof that lesbians did exist in history, the diaries are also a fascinating insight into her business practises and the upper classes of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Marsha P. Johnson For IWD and Women's History Month, we posted an article about the person who inspires generations of queer people, her life and her tragedies and her successes. Marsha P. Johnson was a powerful and complicated person, read about her for Pride Month. Podcasts Betwixt the Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal and Society Now I will point out some more specific episodes of Betwixt that you should check out, but I want to advocate for this podcast overall. Kate Lister, the author of The Curious History of Sex, and general icon, presents this often rather risqué podcast for History Hit (you’ll find me advocating for History Hit’s podcasts a lot), a lot of the episodes are either queer, or queer adjacent, and the whole thing is just delightfully sexy, and very very gay. A History of Queer Women – an episode featuring Kirsty Loehr, really entertaining and basically a whistle stop tour of a bunch of sapphics through history Molly Houses – Kate chats to Rictor Norton (check out his website above) about queer men in eighteenth-century London, a really enjoyable episode that highlights how queer subcultures have always found a way to exist. Pirates – Did you know there was a lesbian couple on board a pirate ship? They’re only part of this episode but it’s still worth checking out. Drag Queens – Need I say more? Female Pirates – See above, but this one’s just about the ladies 😉 The First Queer Activist – I feel like this is self-explanatory Not Just the Tudors Another History Hit Podcast, this time hosted by the incomparable Suzannah Lipsomb (what did I say?) this one looks more specifically at early modern Europe, but don’t be fooled into thinking that there weren’t queers sprawling around (King James and George Villiers, anyone?). There are fewer episodes as the series looks at the period generally, so there’s a lot of episodes about politics and art and all the other good things, but let’s looks at the gay episodes shall we? Female Sodomy – sounds contradictory, which it is. This episode talks about queer women executed in a charged period of lesbo-phobia, as I like to call it, in the Southern Netherlands. Was Queenship the same around the World? – this episode chats about female power but also notably King Christina of Sweden, a woman who eventually abdicated her throne because she refused to get married to a bloke. The Woman Who was crowned King – This episode looks a little more in depth at the aforementioned King Christina and her years long close friendship with her ‘bedfellow’. The Queer Shakespeare: John Lyly – It’s queer. TV/Film Pride This iconic film is based on the true story of the partnership and the friendships that emerged between the mining community in a small village in South Wales and a bunch of gays as they supported each other in protests against Margaret Thatcher, the police and the conservative press. There are of course fictional elements of this film, but it also does a great job of encapsulating the joy and fear of this period, with a sobering undercurrent of the Aids crisis throughout the film. It’s a Sin This TV show doesn’t need much explanation, at least it shouldn’t. Featuring a group of friends living in London in the 80s, the show is written by Russell T Davies and based on his and his friends’ experiences throughout the Aids crisis in Britain. I’ll be honest, it’s a struggle to get through part of this show, but whilst the sad points are devastating, they are so important to the history of queer people, and the happy moments, such as the themes of found family that are integral to the plot, make for a beautiful watch. Gentleman Jack Now here’s a controversial opinion, I, a queer historian, am not a huge fan of history’s favourite lesbian. Anne Lister has an undeniably unlikable quality, and if you’ve studied her, you might share my opinion (give me a week or so and I’ll explain myself I promise). But, anyone can admit that Suranne Jones as the infamous Gentleman Jack is a pretty big moment for lesbian history, and the representation of queer love in the show is brilliantly messy and lightly pathetic, just as it often is in real life. Also, much of the show is taken verbatim from her decoded diaries, so for historical authenticity, it’s up there. This list isn’t exhaustive by any means, there’s a lot more out there, if you’ve read, listened or watched something cool, share it below! Happy protesting, and check back soon to read about some pretty cool queer women in eighteenth-century Wales.

Always “Susan” and “Mrs Stanton” in their letters, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton are fundamental in the conversation of women’s rights, both in the USA and the rest of the Western World. Individually, they were influential, but their partnership is widely regarded to be a turning point in the women’s rights movement. This profile considers briefly these women individually before discussing their partnership, and the impact it had. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the daughter of a wealthy landowner was remarkably privileged in her upbringing, receiving an extensive education, including tutoring in Greek and advanced mathematics and learning law from her attorney/justice father. Stanton’s memoir gives insight into just how extensive the family’s wealth and precedence in New York was, she recollects three black male servants during her childhood, one of whom has been confirmed to be a slave. Stanton appears to have been fairly aware of the problem of her gender from an early age, writing that her father exclaimed that he wished she were a boy upon the death of her last surviving brother. However, she was not greatly affected during her early schooling, later, she inevitably encountered institutionalised gender differences when she was unable to attend university, as women were prohibited. The school she eventually was able to attend, the Troy Female Seminary, Stanton would go on to criticise for an over-reliance on the preaching of religion. Her beliefs for the rights of women were established fairly early, and are seen throughout her marriage; her vows omitted the word obey and pregnancies seem organised via some sort of birth control method, although the couple still produced seven, something which meant that the often restless Stanton was kept at home whilst her husband, a lawyer and abolitionist, travelled without her. It is on her honeymoon to England in 1840 that we can most clearly see the seeds of Stanton’s ‘feminism’. Here the couple attended the World Anti-Slavery Convention in London (I know, classic honeymoon antics…). Stanton wrote that she was appalled by the male delegates, who voted to prevent women from participating, even if they had been voted to be delegates of their respective abolitionist societies. In fact, these male delegates required the men to sit in a separate section, hidden by curtains (excusing William Lloyd Garrison, who disagreed with the ruling, and instead sat with the women). Stanton was the primary author of the 1848 Seneca Fall’s Declaration of Rights and Sentiments, modelled on the U.S. Declaration of Independence. This list of grievances included the wrongful denial of women’s right to vote, something which several co-organisers, including Lucretia Mott and Stanton’s husband, were concerned would ruin the meeting. However, approximately 300 men and women attended the convention, and Stanton’s Declaration, although controversial became the leading factor in spreading the women’s rights movement from 1848 onwards. Following this convention, Stanton would speak at the Rochester Women’s Rights Convention in New York two weeks later, an event organised by women who had attended the Seneca Falls convention. Also, in Stanton also participated in the 1850 National Women’s Rights Convention in the form of a letter “Should women hold office”. It was then tradition to open the convention with a letter from Stanton, who herself did not attend the convention until 1860. Susan B. Anthony, born into a Quaker family who shared a desire for social reform was almost predestined to become the face of the women’s rights movement. Susan’s early life followed tolerant teachings of her father’s religion (her mother was a baptist), and her parents specifically encouraged all of their children to be self-supporting, teaching them business and giving responsibilities at an early age. For one term, she attended the Quaker boarding school in Philadelphia, which her biographers have described as an unhappy period thanks to a strictness and humiliating atmosphere. This education ended according to the financial downturn of her family with the ‘Panic of 1837’. The family consequently sold most of their belongings at auction and Susan began teaching to provide another income. Unlike Stanton, Susan B. Anthony was not yet a fully established reformer by the time of their friendship. Introduced by a mutual friend, Amelia Bloomer (for whom “Bloomers” were actually named) Stanton and Anthoney are claimed to have immediately hit it off and as well as working together on reform, the pair became almost inseparable friends. In fact, Stanton’s biographers conclude that Stanton had spent more time with Anthony than with any other adult, including her husband, and their children actually came to think of Anthony as another mother. This was largely due to her consistent presence in the Stanton’s homes over the years, often caring for them to allow her friend to work in peace. In every home that the Stanton’s moved to after their move to New York City in 1861, a room was always set aside for Anthony. The pair’s success as coworkers is attributed, by biographers and the women themselves to their oppositional and thus complementary skills, Stanton would describe her and Anthony as complementary, where Anthony was an organiser and critic, Stanton was “rapid” and an intellectual writer. Throughout their close friendship, Anthony would regularly defer to Stanton, refusing to take office in any organisation which would place her above her friend. Throughout their partnership, Stanton and Anthony’s activism was unlike any others. Individual efforts for abolition, temperance and women’s rights within marriage took the forefront in the 1850s. Both women supported reform concerning women’s rights if their husbands were alcoholics (she had little opportunity for legal recourse even if he was abusive and left the family destitute, he could still win sole custody of any children upon separation). Together Stanton and Anthony formed the Women’s State Temperance Society in 1852. Stanton as President and Anthony ‘behind the scenes’. In support of alcoholism reform, Stanton publically criticised the reliance on religion in women’s marital lives, something which arguably led to her and Anthony’s ousting from the organisation a year later. Their move from temperance led to a focus on Women’s rights, and more specifically than that, Stanton and Anthony turned their attention to the recently passed Married Women’s Property Act, as a basis for further reform for women’s equality. This act intended to reform women’s rights upon their marriage. Existing matrimonial law meant that a woman effectively ceased to exist upon marriage, becoming an extension of her husband, a law set by English Common Law. The Act reformed this, meaning that women were able to retain identity, but still not properties. The pair petitioned the Judiciary Committee and the legislature was passed in 1860. Also throughout the 1850s both supported dress reform, citing practicality, although they, like many other women abandoned efforts to modernise dress to not draw attention from the movement itself. In 1860 Stanton again supported a women’s right to divorce, and further antagonised traditionalists with a pamphlet from the imagined perspective of a female slave, ‘The Slaves Appeal’. Anthony similarly engaged in anti-slavery activity throughout this period and both women were threatened by violence on their lecture tours. For the pair, anti-slavery and women’s rights came hand in hand, both seeing the legal status of women, especially those in marriage to have a similar grounding in male ownership. It is unsurprising that the two women were at the forefront of reviving the women’s rights movement as the Civil War ended. In December 1861 they submitted the first women’s suffrage petition directed to Congress during the drafting of the Fourteenth Amendment, challenging the use of the specification ‘male’. In reaction to Congress refusing to permit women a space, Anthony announced her candidacy to run for Congress in October 1866. Largely unsuccessful, Anthony’s efforts did bring national attention to their efforts for women’s suffrage. In the same decade, the pair produced, edited and published a newspaper for women, The Revolution, from 1868-1870 and in 1869 formed the National Women’s Suffrage Association, then on travelling together to promote women’s rights. The pair weren't exactly popular with everyone though; this cartoon, produced in 1896 mocks Stanton and Anthony for being as important as George Washington, ironically, these women have been called the foremothers of Women’s equality. The decades of these women’s fight for women’s equality battled at times with society’s focus on the abolitionist movement, which many considered more important than women’s rights. For example, Stanton’s husband was an abolitionist but not a suffragist, whilst Horace Greeley as US Representative for founder and editor of the New York Tribune pleaded that women, “Remember that this is the Negro hour and your first duty is to go through the state and plead his claims.” This is despite many of the suffragists working for both purposes. They were told to wait until after the civil war and the enfranchisement of black people before pursuing women’s suffrage. However, several of these women, including Anthony and Stanton were unwilling to forget their own efforts, they saw an opportunity in this time of change, specifically in the wording of the Fourteenth Amendment, which gave the due process and equal protection under the law to “persons” without qualifications such as gender. When women attempted to vote under this rule, their votes were simply put into another box and not counted, or, as in Susan B. Anthony’s case in Rochester in November 1872, they were arrested. Acting on the basis of Anthony’s lawyer, she and her sisters successfully cast votes, they were arrested two weeks later. Trying to find a loophole by refusing bail in order to challenge the proceeding in court (under ‘federal habeas corpus’ which allows prisoners to challenge to cause of their arrest). Following this event, in December 1872, Stanton and Anthony wrote their New Departure Memorials to Congress, and although both were invited to read their memorials to the Senate Judiciary Committee (the group of senators who effectively judge the legality of pending legislation before it goes to Congress), it was rejected but again brought the issues to the forefront of politics. The next two decades of the women’s rights movement in the U.S. are complicated, divisions arose in the movement largely in part to the proposed Fifteenth Amendment, whilst Stanton and Anthony led a group (the NWSA) which pushed for total enfranchisement of all women (and people) regardless of race as well as a wide range of women’s issues, including divorce reform and equal pay. The alternative side, (the AWSA) did support the Amendment but argued that the enfranchisement of women was more beneficial than that of black men and that the movement should focus on women first. Failure of the Amendment to provide either meant that the two organisations merged in 1890, becoming the National American Women Suffrage Association, of which Stanton was initially president, then Anthony from 1892. The pair's lasting legacy is the drafting of the act which would eventually become the Nineteenth Amendment, which enfranchised women. The act was colloquially known as the Susan B. Anthony Amendment and was passed in 1920, fourteen years after the death of Susan B. Anthony and eighteen after the death of Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Their professional partnership gives insight into the reliance of women in the domestic sphere, just as Stanton fought for women’s liberty she was also homebound with seven children. Unmarried and childless, Anthony provided both intellectual aid and practical support to her friend and mentor. Perhaps without Anthony’s’ support, and without Stanton’s guidance, neither woman would have been able to have achieved half of their efforts for the rights of women. Sources Michals, Debra, ‘Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902)’, National Women’s History Museum, (2017), < https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/elizabeth-cady-stanton >, [25/02/2023] Hayward, Nancy, ‘Susan B. Anthony, (1820-1906)’, National Women’s History Museum, (2018), < https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/susan-b-anthony >, [25/02/2023] ‘Susan B. Anthony’, HISTORY, (09/03/2010 - 29/08/2022), < https://www.history.com/topics/womens-history/susan-b-anthony >, [25/02/2023] June-Friesen, Katy, ‘Old Friends Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony Made History Together’, National Endowment for the Humanities, Vol.35, No.4, < https://www.neh.gov/humanities/2014/julyaugust/feature/old-friends-elizabeth-cady-stanton-and-susan-b-anthony-made-histo >, [25/02/2023]

Catharine Dowman probably won’t be a name you’re familiar with, unless, of course you’re an ardent fan of early twentieth-century British Maritime History. In fact, even if you are, and even if you have visited Royal Museums Greenwich’s Cutty Sark, you still might not know who she is, which is a tragedy. So here is a long overdue article about this Suffragist who gave London one of it’s most famous maritime landmarks. (A note from Abby: if you’re not really bothered about maritime history don’t click off, I’m not going to start giving you ship facts, this is about Catharine.) Glossary: Deed poll - A legal document that must be filed to change your name in the UK Cutty Sark – Old Scots for ‘short skirt’ or ‘short petticoat’, the name of the ship comes from a Robert Burns poem ‘Tam o’Shanter’, a young witch ‘Nannie’ chases Tam, a drunk farmer after he catcalls her for her ‘Cutty Sark’ and she pulls off his horse’s tail! She’s the figurehead of the ship! Suffrage/Suffragette/Suffragist – protestors and activists for women’s right to vote. broadly speaking, Suffragettes were militant protesters and Suffragists were peaceful, though lines were often blurred. Barquentine – This is a type of sailing ship and simply means she had fewer sails than others, allowing for a much smaller crew but also slower travel. Brigantine – This is a smaller sailing vessel with two masts of different heights, this term is often shortened to ‘brig’ The Courtaulds and Public Service Catharine Courtauld (yes, that Courtauld) was born on the 25th May 1878, as the daughter of a wealthy textile family Catharine had an extensive education and a privileged upbringing. Contrary to any preconceptions you may have, the Courtaulds were unilaterally supportive of social reform, suffrage, and public causes; the family had a long history of funding hospitals, educational trusts, and charitable funds. Furthermore, prior to Catharine’s own birth, in 1866, two members of the family signed the first mass suffrage petition to Parliament! Catharine’s brothers Stephen and Samuel restored Eltham Palace (now an English Heritage site), and founded the Courtauld Institute of Art respectively. Their cousin, Katharina Mina Courtauld, ‘Min’, was a committed Suffragist who contributed to the 1911 Census Protests. Min’s half-sister, Elizabeth Courtauld, qualified as a doctor in 1901 and during WWI worked as an anaesthetist in a hospital 30km north of Paris. Catharine and her sister Sydney Renée were involved in the Mid Bucks Suffrage society, often hosting Garden Parties at their home in Frith Hill to fundraise for the cause, also selling art and sculptures for the effort. Moreover, Catherine was a founding member of the Artists’ Suffrage League and the Suffrage Atelier. Founding the League In 1907,and the Atelier in 1909, both organisations contributed artistic work to protests and propaganda efforts of the various Suffrage movements. Catharine’s work for the Suffrage Atelier were widely distributed in the form of postcards, and their typically witty nature made them popular and easily recognisable. (You can check out more of Catharine’s art and others in the Museum of London Collection !) Like other British Suffragettes and Suffragists, Catharine neglected activism during the outbreak of WWI to support the war effort. In 1918 (some) women in the UK were enfranchised, under the Representation of the People act. Specifically, women over the age of 30 who owned property, which included Catharine Dowman, although not the majority of the female population. Love and Scandal In 1912, Catharine met Mate Wilfred Dowman on board the Port Jackson, a Cadet Training Ship en route from London to Sydney, Australia. Scandalously, the married Dowman and Catharine fell in love. The couple would live together, unmarried(!) for several years, until Catharine changed her name by deed poll from Courtauld to Dowman in 1918. Unsurprisingly, this act was the final straw for Wilfred Dowman’s estranged wife Nellie and shortly afterwards she filed for divorce. Catharine and Wilfred were married in 1920. (Hurray for them?) Maritime Saviour The Cutty Sark, a former Tea Clipper and Merchant Navy ship, was spotted by Wilfred Dowman in Falmouth, Cornwall. Dowman recognised the ship as the one that overtook the ship which he had been an apprentice on in 1895. Cutty Sark had since been sold to the Portuguese, renamed the Ferreira and rerigged as a barquentine after a devastating storm. Dowman paid over the odds to have her returned to British ownership. An oft overlooked fact is that Catharine almost entirely footed the £3750 bill! (Approximately £108,700*) The Dowmans sold off other vessels that they already owned, including a brigantine called the Lady of Avenal, to buy Cutty Sark. They spent several years and a sizeable chunk of their finances to restore the ship to its former glory days as a sailing vessel. It made a public debut as the flagship of the Fowey Regatta in 1924, and for 16 years after this, she was moored in Falmouth as a training vessel for cadets. After Wilfred Dowman’s death in 1936, Catharine ‘sold’ the ship (for 10 shillings!) and donated £5000 (approximately £253,313*) for its upkeep to the Thames Nautical Training College. She was towed to Greenhithe, a village in Kent, where she served as an auxiliary vessel to HMS Worcester until 1950. After receiving considerable damage in January 1952, she was given to the Cutty Sark Preservation Society, and in 1954, moved to a custom-built dry dock in Greenwich where she remains. Despite a fire in 2007, 90% of the original ship materials remain intact! She is now a Grade 1 listed monument, open as a paid-entry museum as part of Royal Museums Greenwich. Her preservation is all thanks to Catharine Dowman’s generosity. If you want to learn more about Cutty Sark, Catharine, and Wilfred Dowman (and maybe even spot The HERstory Project’s founder in the flesh!) take a visit to Greenwich and the ship. If you’re lucky, Abby might even tell you about another Catherine’s influence on the British Tea Trade! *Currency conversions are completed by the National Archives Currency Calculator and only converts up to 2017 and does not take into account recent inflation, exact figures for 2023 would be much higher! Further reading: ‘Catharine Dowman’, Royal Museums Greenwich, (06/03/2018), https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/blog/catharine-dowman-preservation-cutty-sark ‘Catharine and Sydney Renee Courtauld’, Amersham Museum, https://amershammuseum.org/history/women-at-war/catharine-and-sydney-renee-courtauld/ Batchelor, Linda, ‘Saving Cutty Sark – The Legacy of Wilfred and Catharine Dowman’, National Maritime Museum, https://nmmc.co.uk/2023/06/saving-cutty-sark-the-legacy-of-wilfred-and-catharine-dowman/ ‘The Suffragettes’, Museum of London, https://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/discover/suffragettes

Glossary Agnatic Primogeniture: inheritance can only pass through the male line. There are different versions of this, however, this primarily means that women cannot inherit, nor can the right of succession be passed through their familial line.  Cognatic Primogeniture: the first born male child will be the first in the line of succession (heir apparent), if there are no male children, then the first born female child will be first (heir presumptive) and they will be displaced if a male child is born. Absolute Primogeniture: the first born or eldest surviving child will inherit regardless of gender. Heir Apparent: denotes the first in line to inherit, they cannot be displaced  Heir Presumptive: denotes the first in line to inherit, they can be displaced, e.g. by a male child. Salic Law: A type of Agnatic Primogeniture in which inheritance could not pass to women in any circumstances, including to male children via women’s lines. Known to each other as Lilibet and Daisy , Queen Elizabeth II and Queen Margrethe II had been the only two Queen Regnants in Europe since Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands abdicated in 2013. With Margrethe’s decision to abdicate on the 14 th  of January 2024, the 52 nd  anniversary of her accession, as announced in her 2023 New Year’s Eve address, Europe, and the world, ceases to have a reigning Queen.  Queenship is a complex and difficult concept to study from a historical perspective and cannot be defined solely within the parameters that it is typically considered. It is often grouped with studies of women’s history more broadly, in ways that studies of kings are not grouped with ‘men’s studies’. This may be attributable to how ‘queenship’ as a concept is defined in studies of historical queens remains problematic. The word ‘queen’ is used to denote a ‘regnant’ (someone who rules in their own right), a ‘regent’ (someone who rules on behalf of another), a ‘consort’ (the wife of a king), a woman who holds similar or equivalent authority (such as an Empress, Pharoah or other leader), and the term ‘queen’ has developed another definition in contemporary LGBT slang. When we use the word ‘queen’ uniformly for all these definitions, even with their secondary definitions, it makes a study of what ‘queenship’ is, how it has developed and what it has meant through history incredibly difficult.  This article asks what does ‘queenship’ mean in the twenty-first century? (I will note here that I focus on European Royal histories and so am primarily relating this discussion to Europe). Historically and still by definition, ‘monarchy’ is the political system through which an individual rules autonomously as sovereign, usually achieving her position via hereditary means. Most monarchies today have minimal actual authority and are heads of state almost entirely in name only.  As we move into a world without these women as queens, I ask what made them so significant, and how can they be used to define ‘modern queenship’?  The modern European monarch is decorative, a piece of national tradition and nostalgia whilst being effectively harmless. Regardless of your political view on modern monarchies, these families, and the institutions they are a part of maintain a significant place in the cultural identity of the nations they preside over. In Britain fascination with royalty is clear in the popularity of historic palaces as tourist attractions, period dramas which focus on the soap opera-like history of the monarchy and a borderline psychotic national obsession with the likes of Harry and Meghan, Kate and William and Princess Diana. Furthermore, eighteen months after her death, Elizabeth II continues to lead polls of the most popular British Royal at 75%. King Charles III placed sixth, at 51%, after Zara Phillips, Catherine, Princess of Wales, Princess Anne and Prince William. Furthermore, since Elizabeth’s death in September 2022 support for a British monarchy has dropped from a 38% positive rating to only 29% as of April 2023, and approximately 62% of Brits currently think that we should continue to have a monarchy whereas at the end of Elizabeth’s life this figure sat at 67%. More indicative of Elizabeth’s importance to the popularity of the British monarchy is that whilst 88% of Brits said that they liked Queen Elizabeth during her reign only 60% had a favourable view of Charles as king. Danish support for their Royals is similarly tied to their matriarch. Under her father’s rule, support for the Danish monarchy sat at 42%. Under Margrethe II, this figure has doubled to 84%. In fact, both women have been so popular, and instrumental in re-establishing the popularity of their respective monarchies that their sons, two long serving princes, King Charles III and King Frederik X face an insurmountable mission; to win over a public which has lauded their mothers and media which has disparaged them.  Neither Queen was expected to accede to the throne when they were born. Elizabeth, born 26th April 1926, was the daughter of a second son, the then Duke of York. Margrethe, born on the 16th April 1940, although the eldest child of the king, was prohibited from the line of succession by something called agnatic primogeniture. This meant that only male heirs could inherit the throne, therefore, Margrethe’s uncle was the heir presumptive to the Danish Crown. At the age of 10, following her uncle’s abdication and father’s accession, Princess Elizabeth became the heir presumptive to the British throne. Elizabeth married Prince Phillip (of Greece and Denmark) in 1947 and the couple settled into a family life as close to normal as being a princess and working Royals would allow. Elizabeth and Phillip had two children, Charles in 1948 and Anne in 1950, before Elizabeth’s accession to the throne. When she became queen in 1952; at the age of 25 she and Phillip were in Kenya, on their way to a Royal Tour in Australia and New Zealand. Elizabeth returned to England and much like in The Crown , a black dress was brought on board the aeroplane for Elizabeth to change into. Her coronation in June of the same year was the first televised Royal Coronation, and began a prevalence of royal celebrity culture in the following decades.  Elizabeth’s reign was colourful, to say the least and it would be remiss not to mention that over the seven decades of her tenure as Queen, there was rarely a peaceful moment. From war, political upset, decolonisation, assassination attempts, an increase in celebrity culture, four Royal divorces and global attention on a family argument. Despite this, Elizabeth was often praised for her personal and royal orderliness. This may be credited to a lifetime of leading by example. Throughout their youth Elizabeth and younger sister, Princess Margaret became sweethearts of the nation. Their father’s choice to stay in London during the Blitz and Elizabeth’s service with the Auxiliary Territorial Service in the Second World War won the family, and Elizabeth in particular lasting popular support. Her demeanour throughout her reign continued this, easily progressing from sweetheart, to mother, to grandmother of the nation. Following her death, news outlets stated that her popularity came from her calm, cheerful and friendly attitude, that she exemplified a British ideology of ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’. This is particularly noticeable in media output during the recent Covid-19 Pandemic. News articles adopted a wartime-like attitude, heralding Queen Elizabeth as a steady lead against uncertainty. Media attention during this period evoked British memories of her youth and the impact of war on British Nationalism. She was for many, the only monarch they had ever had and in terms of British National Identity, even eighteen months after her death, she is synonymous with Britishness.  Queen Margrethe II, as mentioned, was also not the intended recipient for the throne. The House of Glucksberg, ascended the Danish throne in the 1850s due to a law which only permitted male incumbents called agnatic primogeniture (not dissimilar to Salic Law). This was changed in a long process beginning in 1947, when her father inherited the throne and it was clear that her mother, Queen Ingrid, would not have any further children after their three daughters. In 1953 the Danish Parliament passed the law which changed the constitution to allow for cognatic primogeniture, allowing Margrethe to become heir presumptive. Margrethe began playing a more visible role in the Danish monarchy after her eighteenth birthday, chairing meetings of the Council of State in the absence of her father. She went on to study in London, where she met French diplomat Henri de Laborde de Monpezat. The pair married in 1967, and now King, Prince Frederik was born less than a year later, his brother Joachim in 1969. Much like her English cousin, Margrethe ascended the throne with two young children, in 1972 at the age of 31. Her age likely played a significant part in her popularity, much like in Britain, the nation was allowed to enjoy a young family at its head, and Margrethe similarly evolved into the mother, then grandmother of the nation.  Margrethe’s impact on the Danish people’s perception of the monarchy as an institution, is more dramatic than Elizabeth’s. Studies state that throughout her 52 years as Queen, public support for the Danish Royal family has doubled, with approximately 84% of the public supportive of the Queen. Her success can be attributed to her longevity and her consistency in her reign. Supplementary to this, Margrethe is active and she is charismatic. She has forged a career outside of her monarchical identity, something Elizabeth did not. As a visual artist Margrethe has illustrated editions of the Lord of the Rings novels; worked as a set and costume designer; designed the monograms for herself, the Crown Prince and Crown Princess, their familial monogram, and others. She contributed screenplays to several films based on Hans Christian Anderson’s stories. She has also produced church textiles for use in churches in Denmark and other locations, including the Danish Church of St Katharine in Camden, London. Despite their similarities in the longevity of their reigns, their actions as queens have differed. Whilst Elizabeth became Britain, Margrethe maintained an identity separate to the crown. Perhaps this is what allows the latter to step down this weekend.  Like Elizabeth II's, Margarethe's reign has not been entirely smooth sailing. Her husband publicly protested in the decade before his death that he had never been able to use the title ‘king’ or ‘king-consort’, and complained about having to ask his wife for pocket money. He was later given a salary, although he continued to complain to the press. In 2023 she came under fire for the decision to strip her younger son and his family of their ‘prince’ and ‘princess’ titles and the right to be called ‘HRH’. The Crown stated that this was an effort to allow the younger grandchildren to live freer lives, without the pressure of Royal titles as they would not be expected to participate actively in the monarchy. Joachim and his family publicly protested this change, stating that they were unaware of her decision until the news broke in the media. Furthermore, her eldest son, the Crown Prince has a less than positive reputation in Denmark for being somewhat of a scandal, with rumours of affairs being given as a potential reason for Margrethe’s abdication. Conjecture like this isn’t really a helpful debate, but it is worth returning to the question of what do these sons inherit from such queens?  On Elizabeth’s death, some of the earliest news articles questioned if Charles III would remain King, or if he would pass the throne to Prince William. With Margrethe’s abdication hitting the news, the calls have a new sense of urgency, several claiming that Charles stepping down for William and Catherine would be the ‘correct’ thing to do. Negative popular opinion undoubtedly stems from Charles’ years-long affair with his now wife, Queen Camilla, and the tragedy that befell Princess Diana in 1997. Support for Prince William to become king is a sense of public justice for the People’s Princess. The British public is obsessed with the young family. News that the children of the then Duke and Duchess of Cambridge would retain their place in the line of succession regardless of gender was met with significant celebration. Princess Charlotte now retains her place in the line of succession before younger brother, Prince Louis. In Denmark, the new King Frederik X is staring down the barrel of his kingship with several years of media drama in his back pocket. From photographs of him leaving hotels with other women and partying on a yacht with Mexican models, to semi-regular news articles that his wife, Australian born Queen Mary, has seen her life go from a real-life fairy tale to a soap opera. The questions in the media now: is Margrethe’s abdication an effort to save the monarchy by giving in to what Frederick wants (the crown) and force him to ‘grow up’? Will Mary and their young family be able to retain the popularity Margrethe has built up?  To return to the question of ‘what does modern queenship mean?’ the answer unfortunately remains unclear. On paper, they are figurative, ceremonious, largely redundant, and expensive. As both Britain and Denmark mourn the loss of their Queens however, it becomes clear that the figure of the monarch, and uniquely the women who wear the crown, have adopted a sub-human level of laudation and heroism. Time will tell if these women   have redefined modern queenship for the upcoming European Queen regnants. Perhaps their popularity will remain a novelty to Lilibet and Daisy. Future European Queen regnants Both Crown Princess Victoria and her daughter Princess Estelle are in line for the Swedish crown. They will be the fourth and fifth Queens of Sweden, after Queen Margarethe (who also ruled Norway and Denmark), Queen Christina (who abdicated after adopting her nephew and converting to Catholicism), and Queen Ulrika Eleanora. Victoria, born in 1977, had originally been displaced by her brother as heir apparent, however, when absolute primogeniture was introduced in 1979, it was done so retroactively, allowing for Victoria to become Crown Princess at the age of two. Sweden was the first European country to make this change to absolute primogeniture and the only to have done so retroactively. Princess Elisabeth is the heir apparent of Belgium. Absolute primogeniture was introduced 10 years before she was born, marking a significant difference from the country’s previous succession laws, a version of Salic Law, which restricted women from inheriting regardless of any other factor, even if she was the only immediate heir.   Princess of Orange, Catharina-Amalia will inherit the throne of the Netherlands from her father. She will become the fourth queen regnant, after her grandmother, Queen (now Princess) Beatrix, Queen Juliana, Catharina-Amalia’s great grandmother, and Queen Wilhelmina, her great-great-grandmother. Princess Amalia is however, the first of these queens to be born heir apparent, as absolute primogeniture was introduced in 1983.   Princess Leonor of Asturias is the heir presumptive in Spain. Spain continues to withhold cognatic primogeniture, meaning that although Leanor is the eldest of two teenage daughters, legally, she cannot be the heir apparent on the off chance that her father may have a son to inherit. The reasons for a reluctance to alter this part of the constitution is tied to concerns that if absolute primogeniture is introduced it may inspire women who have been excluded from lines of succession outside of the monarchy to retroactively claim inheritance. (Scandalous.) When she becomes Queen, Leonor will be the first queen of Spain since Isabella II, who abdicated in favour of her son after a series of rebellions in the late nineteenth century. Finally, Princess Ingrid Alexandra will accede to the Norwegian throne after her father, the current Crown Prince, Haakon. Absolute primogeniture was introduced in Norway in 1990, 14 years prior to Ingrid’s birth, this was not enacted retroactively however, so her aunt, the elder sister of her father, Princess Martha Louise, remains displaced in the line of succession. Like Margarethe II in Denmark, Princess Ingrid will be the second queen of Norway, after Queen Margarethe in the fourteenth century.  Bibliography ‘Prince Frederik Caught Out!’, Magzter, (24.06/2019), < https://www.magzter.com/stories/Lifestyle/New-Idea/Prince-Frederik-Caught-Out > ‘Queen Mary of Denmark or, was Prince Frederik's affair scandal a masterstroke?’, Saint Joan, (02/01/2024), < https://saintjoan.studio/2024/01/02/mary-queen-of-denmark-or-was-prince-frederiks-affair-scandal-a-masterstroke/ > Elbaum, Rachel, ‘The life and legacy of Britain’s longest-serving monarch’, NBC NEWS, (08/09/2022), < https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/queen-elizabeth-life-legacy-uk-monarch-rcna17047 > Evenett, Heather, ‘Women, hereditary peerages and gender inequality in the line of succession’, UK Parliament, (03/10/2022), < https://lordslibrary.parliament.uk/women-hereditary-peerages-and-gender-inequality-in-the-line-of-succession/#:~:text=In%202013%2C%20the%20Succession%20to,the%20preference%20for%20male%20primogeniture .?> Hofverberg, Elin, ‘The Future Queen Regnants of Generation Z’, Library of Congress, (07/10/2022), < https://blogs.loc.gov/law/2022/10/the-future-queen-regnants-of-generation-z/ >, Lodge, Matthew, ‘Queen Margrethe's scandal-hit son Crown Prince Frederik will take the throne just months after rumours of an 'affair' with a Mexican socialite rocked the royal household’, Daily Mail, (31/12/2024), < https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12914789/crown-prince-frederik-affair-queen-margrethe-abdicates-denmark-royal-family.html > Maltby, Kate, ‘A difficult lesson in love for poor Princess Mary of Denmark’, iNews, (02/01/2024), < https://inews.co.uk/opinion/a-difficult-lesson-in-love-for-poor-princess-mary-of-denmark-2834012 > Murphy, Victoria, ‘Will King Charles ever abdicate like Queen Margarethe II of Denmark?’, Town and Country, (03/01/2024), < https://www.townandcountrymag.com/society/tradition/a46274541/will-king-charles-ever-abdicate/ > Ritchie, Hannah, ‘Mary, Crown Princess of Denmark: Australia celebrates an unexpected queen’, BBC News, (04/01/2024), < https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-67860144 > Switzer, Charles, ‘THE DANISH CROWN STRIKES BACK: PRINCE FREDERIK 'AFFAIR RUMORS' ADDRESSED IN RARE PALACE STATEMENT’, The Royal Observer, (17/11/2023), < https://www.theroyalobserver.com/p/prince-frederik-affair-rumors-addressed-in-rare-palace-statement > TalkTV, ‘“It Will NEVER Happen” Should King Charles Follow the Queen of Denmark And Abdicate?’, < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xl2iRaSphcg > Statistics Smith, Matthew, ‘One year into King Charles's reign, how do Britons feel about the monarchy?’, YouGov, (07/09/2023), < https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/46032-one-year-of-king-charles-how-do-britons-feel-ab > ‘ Share of respondents in Great Britain advising they have a positive or negative opinion of Queen Elizabeth II from 2019 to 2022’, Statista, <   https://www.statista.com/statistics/1358323/queen-elizabeth-favorability-rating/ > Serhan, Yasmeen, ‘Do Brits Still Want the Monarchy?’ Time, (02/05/2023), <   https://time.com/6276478/british-monarchy-popularity-explained/ > ‘The Most Popular Royalty’, YouGov, (2023), < https://yougov.co.uk/ratings/politics/popularity/royalty/all > Hill, Amelia, ‘British public support for monarchy at historic low, poll reveals‘, The Guardian, (28/04/2023), < https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/apr/28/public-support-monarchy-historic-low-poll-reveals > Smith, Matthew, ‘Where does Public opinion stand on the monarchy ahead of the coronation?’, YouGov, (03/05/2023), < https://yougov.co.uk/society/articles/45654-where-does-public-opinion-stand-monarchy-ahead-cor?redirect_from=%2Ftopics%2Fsociety%2Farticles-reports%2F2023%2F05%2F03%2Fwhere-does-public-opinion-stand-monarchy-ahead-cor >

This article was originally published in issue #1 of The HERstory Project Journal and has been shared online with permission of the author. What does my MA dissertation and Katy Hessel’s 2022 The Story of Art Without Men have in common? A dedication to Baroque artist Artemisia Gentileschi and the words she wrote in a letter in 1649, “I’ll show you what a woman can do.” Now, to be clear, that’s where the similarities end, Hessel is an accomplished art historian whose corrective work gives a fairly thorough overview of women’s place in the art world. My MA dissertation was far more amateur (and subjectively great) and focuses heavily on my interpretation that Gentileschi’s work is unfairly defined within the context of her sexual trauma. They had very different scopes. Hessel’s work for women’s art history continues to impress and intimidate, her instagram and corresponding podcast, ‘The Great Women Artists’, do more for women’s art history than, well, pretty much anything else out there, and I’m both an avid follower and listener. So it’s quite surprising that it’s taken me so long to get myself to Tate Britain to experience Hessel’s latest project, Museums without Men. Museums without Men is a multi museum and gallery project to showcase the women, or lack thereof in collections across the globe, and this is my review. I had three questions I wanted to be able to answer going into the gallery: 1. Does the audio tour reclaim women’s voices and artwork? 2. Is it engaging not only for a historian but for the public? 3. Have I learnt something? The answer to these was actually somewhat complicated, for starters, I was surprised that the ‘guide’ as it was marketed was actually seven short talks on the Tate’s audio player webpage which referred to specific artwork without telling the listener actually where they were, or how to find them. Perhaps this is a criticism of the Tate’s audio guide system, but it was difficult to understand where and when I was meant to listen to Hessel’s talks. As someone who champions accessibility in the arts and historical education, this was frustrating. It was also somewhat annoying to see that seemingly at no point around the gallery was the Audio Guide marketed. At a simple level, how can it be engaging to anybody when it is poorly constructed and advertised? I did listen to each talk, whilst looking, in the end, at works from seventeenth century Europe. To give them and Hessel their due, each talk was engaging and informative. I would say that the talks themselves do successfully achieve all three of my questions: they reclaim (some) women’s voices and artwork; I would argue that they are engaging for both a historian and a member of the public; and I did learn something (many things!). However, the Tate also currently has an exhibition called ‘Now You See Us: Women Artists in Britain 1520-1920’. I visited this whilst I was there too, albeit with the primary focus of seeing Artemisia Gentileschi’s La Pittura. I was struck by just how much the displays in this exhibition undermined the efforts of the Museums Without Men project. ‘Now You See Us’ is a comprehensive overview of women’s work over a huge time period; even coming in with a pretty good knowledge of women’s art history I was blown away by what I learnt. Now, I don’t think that this is a criticism of the Museums without Men guide. The audio guide is intended to exist in the space of a permanent exhibition, something this temporary exhibition is not, so there are different struggles and parameters by which to judge the guide and the exhibition. Perhaps, it is best to ask why these works are in a temporary exhibition and not on the walls in the permanent galleries? Were many of these works introduced then Hessel’s guide might look a bit different, and rather more comprehensive. Perhaps the lack of content is really a criticism of the Tate’s permanent exhibition, which is itself, perhaps the point of Hessel’s work. In the days after visiting the Tate and writing this review, I decided to do some extra research, and I was struck that the second thing that came up after searching ‘Museums without Men’ was an article titled ‘The Story of Art without Men: and without brains?’ This article was written by art historian Mark Stocker, and at first glance I was simply fatigued by the apparent dismissal of women’s work. Then I read the article, and Stocker has picked up on something that I couldn’t quite articulate above. That the guide does not only feel incomplete because it only covers seven pieces of art work, but it also feels incomplete because without situating these women’s lives and work within the broader context that inevitably includes the men they knew, loved and hated, we cannot understand the full picture of the art itself. Now I want to clarify that this is, in my opinion, an overstatement, we do not insist on contextualising every male artist in the context of the women they know, so why does Stocker think that this guide is irrelevant because it may not discuss the women artists in relation to their male contemporaries? (He specifies in the article that he has not listened to the guide and judges his review on Hessel’s podcast series.) Stocker’s article is a good read, and he does make some interesting points regarding the validity and value of feminist art history, something I myself have written about and criticised over both my dissertations. Yet his final paragraph undermines his argument, and consequently his criticism, by describing the current popular focus with female artists as a ‘preoccupation’ which ‘ignores’ men. Considering how much art history has ignored women in favour of men, do these female artists not deserve a little bit of positive discrimination? I think so, and that’s why you should go and check out Hessel’s Museums without Men, and whilst you’re there, ‘Now you see us’ too.

In February, the UK celebrates LGBT+ History Month. Different from June’s Pride Month, LGBT+ History Month focuses on education around and freedom for queer identities, relationships and families. The month-long event was founded by an organisation called SchoolsOut UK, an LGBT+ educational charity. SchoolsOut UK announced the commemoration of LGBT+ History Month in 2004. February 2005 was the first year of the annual event, the second anniversary of the repeal of Section 28. Section, or Clause 28 prohibited the education of anything perceived as LGBT+ in schools and libraries, as well as restricting funding to LGBT+ social causes. To mark this year’s LGBT+ History Month, this short article explores the causes, passage and eventual repeal of the act, alongside  the impact it has on LGBT+ education in the UK to this day. Discussions of queer history typically focus on the 1969 Stonewall Riots and the global impacts which followed. In the UK: The 1964 Wolfenden Report, the 1972 Sexual Offences Act and 2013’s Marriage Act often remain the focus - whilst all important, an often overlooked, yet continually damaging piece of anti-LGBT+ UK legislature was the 1988 passage of Section, or Clause 28.  The first piece of legislature in Britain to directly name homosexuality as a disease. Introduced by the Conservative Thatcher Government in 1986, Section 28 was a small line in the 1988 Local Government Act which stated that: ‘A Local Authority shall not: (a) intentionally promote homosexuality or publish material with the intention of promoting homosexuality; (b) promote the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship Nothing above shall be taken to prohibit the doing of anything for the purpose of treating or preventing the spread of disease.’ Such censorship can be understood as a response to two factors. The HIV epidemic and a book. Firstly, let us discuss the impact of the HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus) epidemic on British homophobia. The first known case of HIV in Britain occurred in 1981 in a 49-year-old gay man who frequently travelled to Florida. By 1985 HIV was listed as the cause of death of 50 individuals, and by 1987 over 1000 people were diagnosed. HIV had likely been transmitted from chimpanzees to humans sometime in the mid-nineteenth century thanks to humans in Africa hunting the animals for sport. The disease spread through Africa but it wasn’t until it became a problem in the USA in the early 1970s that popular panic set in worldwide. HIV is a (currently) incurable disease which can be spread through an exchange of bodily fluids. AIDS (Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome) is often grouped into discussions of HIV, for context, AIDS is the last and most aggressive stage of the disease.  If you are HIV positive you are advised to always use condoms, as sex, both anal and vaginal, is historically the most common way in which the disease spreads. It is also spread through shared needles or syringes and other equipment used for drug taking. It is not a ‘gay disease’ and does not specifically affect homosexual people, heterosexual people were diagnosed during the height of the epidemic, and they continue to be affected by HIV. However, the number of gay men diagnosed with and dying from HIV and AIDS throughout the 1980s-1990s was disproportionate. The reason HIV diagnoses were more common in homosexual individuals is largely because although any penetrative sex can spread the disease, transmission via anal sex is easier; The walls of the rectum are thinner than those of the vagina. As most HIV patients and victims were gay men; fear and hatred towards the community mounted. This is demonstrated by surveys conducted by the British Social Attitude. These show that in 1983, approximately 50% of Brits thought that “sexual relations between two adults of the same sex” were “always wrong”. By 1987 as the epidemic picked up, the figure had risen to 64%. Sex between two consenting men over the age of 21 was  decriminalised in 1967, under the Sexual Offences Act. The age of consent for heterosexual sex was 16, a figure that would not be matched for homosexual sex for almost forty years. Despite decriminalisation, homosexuality continued to be demonised by politicians and the press. An onslaught of deaths seemingly linked to what was still commonly thought of as degenerative behaviour was too good to be true, as public fear set in, reports of a ‘gay disease’ sold papers. Common understanding of homosexuality was fairly reductive by today’s standards and people were concerned that if homosexuality was ‘taught’ then the disease would be spread further. Secondly, the book Jenny Lives with Eric & Martin was published by Danish author Susanne Bösche in 1983. Bösche’s book featured a young girl called Jenny, her father, and his boyfriend, looking to educate children about different types of families. Looking back in 2024 this is a lovely idea to normalise non-heteronormative families to young children. In 1983, the existence of homosexuality near children was blasphemous. When, in 1986 the book was reported to be on display in a library of a London primary school within a Labour Party Authority, public panic regarding ‘exposing’ children to homosexuality grew. The Education Secretary stated that the book was ‘propaganda’ and the Thatcher Government suddenly had an opportunity to attack the community. Concerns about the so-called “promotion” of homosexuality were already rife, but these two events in quick succession added hysterical fuel to the homophobic fire. A bill was first introduced in 1986, though it couldn’t get through the House of Commons due to the 1987 general election. Margaret Thatcher publicly supported the bill in her campaign for re-election, using this public fear of homosexuality to shore up both her own and the party’s popularity in the election. At a Conservative Party conference she argued that children were being “cheated of a sound start in life” due to being “taught they have an inalienable right to be gay”. Support for the Act was not restricted to the Tories, however, with Labour Party opposition also supporting the passage of the act. The Labour party does not believe that councils or schools should promote homosexuality and I hope that no one in the Committee has any doubt about that [Local Government Bill, Standing Committee A, 8 December 1987, c1211]. – Dr Cunningham Section 28 censored LGBT+ identities, families, relationships and existences. The Clause specifically targeted areas relating to children, such as schools and public libraries. However, bookshops were also encouraged not to sell LGBT+ literature, and council funds which had been directed to LGBT+ youth support, or any funding towards media which included same-sex relationships was cut. LGBT+ groups immediately came out (pardon the pun) to protest the passage of the Act. Perhaps most famously, in January 1988 during a public broadcast debating the act, Sir Ian McKellen inadvertently came out as gay live on air at 48 years old. A year later in 1989, McKellen co-founded the LGBT+ charity Stonewall. (The archive broadcast is linked at the bottom of this article and I recommend listening, but please be aware that the presenter is arguing for the Act, and McKellen is, as stated, outed without his own intention. This may be difficult to listen to so please only do so if you feel able.) A lack of education on homosexuality led to an immediate increase in homophobic prejudice, bullying, assaults, and violence. The Act justified the demonisation of LGBT+ topics, communities and individuals, and the British tabloids were unsurprisingly quick to jump on the scare tactics. Research conducted by Stonewall in 2017 shows that 52% of British teenagers had heard homophobic slurs in schools. It is thanks to this Act that several misconceptions regarding how HIV and AIDs were a ‘gay disease’ persist in public memory. For example, there are still popular misconceptions about the disease being exclusively homosexual, other popular fears include that it can be shared through food, or touch. As early as 1985 media was produced in the USA which attempted to address the stigma and fear concerning HIV diagnoses. However, there is a noticeable gap in British media until 2018 with the depiction of Freddie Mercury’s HIV diagnosis in Bohemian Rhapsody. Direct attention to the impact of the epidemic is evident  in the production of LGBT+ shows such as ITV’s It’s a Sin (2021), based on the real-life experiences of writer Russell T. Davies and his friends at the height of the epidemic. Examples of media like this are indicative that public interest has moved from discriminatory to empathetic. However the dates also demonstrate that fear of homosexuality and a reluctance to depict a human disaster which primarily affected queer individuals continued long after the repeal of the act in 2003. In face, in 2013 at least 50 schools still had policies in place which adhered to Section 28. The Act shaped the way a generation and beyond understood LGBT+ identities and issues, its effects still seen in how such issues are understood and taught today. The existence of this Act is problematic on several levels, that much has been established. Here I want to highlight the danger and the ignorance of this censorship. Under Section 28 the following could not be taught accurately, a significant impact of which is that large parts of LGBT+ history remain un-taught and under-researched. (This list is a short snippet and is not intended to be exhaustive.) Royal British History, namely Edward II, James VI & I and Queen Anne all had same-sex relationships during their reigns, which in all three cases were hugely significant to the trajectory of their political lives Alan Turing, the cryptanalysis of the Enigma machine, was chemically castrated in the years following the Second World War before dying by cyanide poisoning two weeks before his 42nd birthday after being found guilty of homosexuality Women in the military, especially those who served in the auxiliary forces in WW2 who often had secret relationships with each other, many joining the force to avoid heteronormative ideals all together English Literature/writers including Shakespeare, Oliver Wilde, Virginia Woolf, E.M. Forster, Walt Whitman and Audre Lorde. Ancient civilisations including Greece, Rome, and the Celts all had known and often celebrated same-sex relationships. In Greece, there was even an elite band within the Theban Army which consisted of 150 couples, 300 men. They were chosen and trusted because it was believed that each pair would rather die bravely for the other than allow himself to be seen as a coward by his beloved. They were undefeated from 371BCE – 338BCE. In Japanese history, in the pre-Meji period (800-1868 CE) same-sex relationships among men were considered an “honoured way of life … [that] in some respects even surpassed ancient Athens.” (Crompton, 412) Native American indigenous tribes mostly recognised at least four genders, if not more. Gender is also seen to be non-binary in Hindu Texts, a third gender is noted in the Manusmriti, a law code from approximately c.1250 BCE You may have noticed from this list that homophobia and censorship of same sex love emerge as Western Colonialism and Culture takes root. (A discussion of this nuance is important but overwhelming for this article. I recommend reading the articles listed below by María Lugones, “Heterosexualism and the Colonial / Modern Gender System”, and “The Coloniality of Gender”). By the end of the 1990s, support for the Act had waned. The HIV and AIDS epidemic had slowly begun to improve, consequently, so had public and political fear. In 1994 Conservative MP Edwina Currie introduced an amendment to the 1967 Sexual Offences Act to lower the age of consent for homosexual men to 16, in line with the age of consent for heterosexual individuals. While the act was rejected, the age of consent was lowered to 18. Crucially, Currie’s amendment had the support of then Shadow Secretary Tony Blair who stated that ‘a society that has learned, over time, racial and sexual equality can surely come to terms with equality of sexuality.’ From 1997, under Blair’s new Labour Government, efforts to change legislation were more successful. Labour MP Jack Straw was the Home Secretary for only two months in 1997 when he started to push for reform on LGBT+issues, notably around the age of consent. Part of Straw’s reasoning for this was clearly the upcoming publication of a report by the European Commission of Human Rights. Straw wanted to fix Britain’s homophobic legislation before it could be declared in violation of the European Convention on Human Rights. Despite his desire to pre-empt an issue, Straw’s support for ‘homosexual rights’ was not simply a proactive legal effort. To cut a long story short, Straw was successful in 2000, the bill was passed and in 2001 the law changed: the age of consent was 16. However, Section 28 still stood. Also in 2000, the Scottish Parliament voted to remove the Act from Scottish legislation 99 votes to 17. Whilst parliamentary support was not entirely unanimous (when is it in politics?) public support was fairly strong. Nicola Sturgeon, then first minister for Scotland, stated "A discriminatory and shameful piece of legislation that was imposed on Scotland by Westminster will today be repealed by the Scottish parliament ahead of other parts of the UK. That says something about the state of Scotland that we can all be proud of." Meanwhile, in Westminster, Tony Blair also brought a bill to parliament in an effort to repeal the Act. It was rejected by an alliance of Tory and Cross-benchers in the House of Lords. The Labour Government then retreated from the effort to protect themselves amid the general election. Whilst we can decry this cowardice, Blair’s re-elected government did return to the repeal. In January 2002 support for the repeal of Section 28 received backing from the unlikeliest of places, Tory Party Members. Section 28 was removed entirely from the British legal system in November 2003, but it was February 2003 that saw the abolition of the Act passed through Parliament. To mark this point of improving the education of LGBT+ issues and history, activist group Schools Out UK initiated the first LGBT+ History Month in February 2005, a concerted effort to correct almost two decades of direct censorship and centuries of criminalisation. The abolition of Section 28 was by no means the end of LGBT+ oppression in the UK but the removal of censorship has allowed for LGBT+ communities and individuals to establish themselves within a national identity, heading towards a normalisation of some sorts. Further Reading: ‘‘Coming Out Under Fire’: The Story of Gay and Lesbian Service Members’, National WW2 Museum, (25/06/2020), , [15/11/2023]. ‘18 November 2003: Section 28 Bites the Dust’, Stonewall, , [15/11/2023]. ‘1988: Clause 28 protest leaflet. Catalogue ref: FCO 82/1979’, The National Archives, (1988), , [31/12/2023]. ‘Lesbians in the twentieth century, 1900-1999, by Esther Newton and her students’, Out History, (2006), , [15/11/2023]. ‘Queer life during the Second World War’, NI War Memorial, < https://www.niwarmemorial.org/collections/blog/queer-life-during-the-second-world-war-1>, [15/11/2023]. ‘Scotland throws out section 28’, The Guardian, (22/06/2000), < https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2000/jun/22/kirstyscott>, [15/11/2023]. ‘Sexual Offences Act: 2003’, Legislation.Government, (2003), , [15/11/2023]. ‘Third Ear - Section 28’, BBC Archive, (27/01/1988), < https://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/third-ear--section-28/zbm4scw>, [31/12/2023]. “LGBT+ History Month”, SchoolsOut, https://lgbtplushistorymonth.co.uk/, [30/01/2024]. Carlick, Stephen, ‘From Sappho to Stonewall, and beyond: how fiction tells LGBTQ+ history’, Penguin Press, (01/06/2023), < https://www.penguin.co.uk/articles/2023/06/fiction-lgbtq-history-novels>, [31/12/2023]. Dunton, Mark, ‘Equality of sexuality: The age of consent’, The National Archives: Records and research, (23/02/2023), < https://blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/equality-of-sexuality-the-age-of-consent/>, [31/12/2023]. Grierson, Jamie, ‘Tony Blair was warned repeal of anti-gay section 28 might harm election chances’, The Guardian, (19/07/2022), , [15/11/2023]. Hartley-Brewer, Julia, ‘Blair loses section 28 vote’, The Guardian, (25/07/2000), < https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2000/jul/25/education.politics>, [15/11/2023]. Lugones, Maria, ‘Heterosexualism and the Colonial / Modern Gender System’, Hypatia, Lugones, Maria, ‘The Coloniality of Gender’, In: Harcourt, W. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Gender and Development, (Palgrave Macmillan, London: 2016), < https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-38273-3_2>, [31/12/2023]. Mark, Joshua J. ‘Ten Ancient LGBTQ Facts You Need to Know’, World History Encyclopedia, (08/06/2021), < https://www.worldhistory.org/article/1774/ten-ancient-lgbtq-facts-you-need-to-know/>, [15/11/2023]. Pyper, Douglas, Tyler-Todd, Joe, ‘The 20th anniversary of the repeal of section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988’, House of Commons Library, (28/11/2023), < https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cdp-2023-0213/>, [15/11/2023]. Vol. 22, No. 1: Writing Against Heterosexism (Winter, 2007), pp. 186-209 (24 pages), , [31/12/2023]. Wakefield, Lily, Kelleher, Patrick, ‘The terrible, brutal history of Tory prime minister Margaret Thatcher’s homophobic Section 28’, PinkNews, (18/11/2022), , [15/11/2023].

Stuck for where to find that all important source? Not sure where to look for an article or portrait? This page encompasses a number of databases and websites which are useful starting points for historical research, this list is not exhaustive, so expect additions as and when they are found - if you have a suggestion please send in a submission. When looking for research articles or foundational historiographic literature, learning how to search the internet is a slightly tricky habit to get into. Firstly, don't just restrict yourself to your regular search engine - Google Scholar will become your best friend if you let it. Don't search for a long question, such as 'to what extent did Anne Boleyn meddle in Tudor Politics in 1529?', try 'Anne Boleyn politics'. If you know the name of the article you need, or the name of the author, search for the title in Google Scholar, this should bring up the title you're looking for on a number of sites and databases, and most likely several similar publications. Now at this point, it can get a little overwhelming, look for one of these databases as your first port of call, you should have either free access or free access via your institution. Jstor -digital library for articles, chapters, books and primary sources, you can use an institutional login to access the sources ODNB - The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, a cumulative database for biographies of British individuals and British adjacent individuals. ProQuest - a cumulative database for research papers and articles generally - log in via your institution Shibboleth login will enable you to log in to a variety of University libraries in order to access their collections, this will typically pop up as an option once you have found a source online. Archives/primary sources (Most UK universities, libraries, museums, galleries and archives will now have fairly comprehensive databases of their collections available to view for free - some have licensing fees or processes to use images of these objects in your work so please check the details yourself. Here I have listed a few particularly useful sites.) The National Portrait Gallery - portraits/images can be downloaded for free under different licensing agreements. The Royal Collection Trust - items and objects (primarily art) held within the Royal Collection Victoria and Albert Museum - items and objects held within the V&A collections The British Museum - items and objects held within the British Museum collections Institute of Historical Research Collections - a huge range of objects and items available through this library The National Archives - access 1000s of documents, including newspapers and legal documents The proceedings of the Old Bailey - legal documents and trial transcripts from the Old Bailey, London's Central Criminal Court, 1674-1913 Step one in your personal research journey should be double checking facts for yourself. That's all for now, this list will be updated as and when and all sources used for articles and content on this site will be cited in the article itself.

This project aims to highlight women’s histories, that much is probably clear from the term “herstory”. However, “herstory” should also be understood as a critical term, one which suggests that history doesn’t do much for gender equality. The HERstory Project focuses on the question, “hey, where’s ‘she’ though?” because whilst history does tell us an awful lot about men, women tend to be pushed to the side. Even those histories which are about women somehow actually end up being about men, don’t they? When we talk about Henry VIII’s wives we acknowledge them because of the man they married, rather than for being the women that they were: a successful wartime leader, religious patrons, foreign women who made England their home, an abused child, and the first woman published in English under her own name. Truth is, those six women have very little in common other than all being the wife of one man, and the only reason our collective historical consciousness actually cares about them is because of his actions. My point is if you read histories of women they will often tell you about the important and the wealthy, the martyred and the evil, but I want to explore, very plainly, women. The exciting and the mundane. What did they do? Where did they go? What did they achieve? History needs to approach women in the same way that it does men. Now if you just wanted the answer to “what the hell is this about?” you can stop reading here, the first article will be out soon and so will the first of the Into the SPOTLIGHT feature. However, if you want a lovely long discussion of women’s and gender history as researched and understood by me over the past four years of my academic life, as well as a more in-depth explanation of the purpose of this project, then read on… (A short disclaimer: I am not the first historian, nor the first person to broach the subject of women’s histories and attempt to push their experiences into the spotlight of historical or public attention. At the bottom of this article, you will find a list of useful resources which you can and should check out for more information about this topic. This list isn’t exhaustive but they are the pieces and individuals who have informed and encouraged this project thus far.) Why is a focus on women in history necessary? Women’s place in history is often contentious, those whose names we know we often know for bad reasons and those who we don’t know are assumed to have been nothing worth remembering. But that’s not really fair. If women make up approximately 50% of the global population we cannot all have been bad or insignificant. I could list for several pages women who deserve to be remembered, celebrated and studied, but that’s the point of this project, not this article. This article intends to explain a few important points and theories to help you understand this project and the following questions. Why are these histories important to study thematically? What can we learn not just from a successful individual but from the experiences of women generally? What does the ignorance of women's histories teach us about the history of them? It will be useful to break this large topic into smaller bite-sized chunks, this should also serve as a resource, if you need to clarify why something is significant, refer back here first. What is women’s history? Women’s history is the study of women, what they did, who they were and what they achieved throughout history. It is about women in history. Simple. it’s not quite the same as gender history, but there is some overlap which will feature in this project - read on for that. Why is there women’s history but not men’s history? Because just history tends to be men’s history, so there has never been a need for a specific focus on male experiences, women on the other hand often don't seem to exist even when and where they were fundamental to an event. This is an everyday example of the effects of a patriarchal society (and as we will touch on in this project, Western colonialism). It’s complicated but you can think of it like this, in genealogy upon marriage, the wife has typically taken the husband’s name and is thereon known as Mrs-husband’s-name. (This is not the case in all societies but similar trends of the eradication of women’s identities have occurred in most, often due to colonialism). In legal documents, women would cease to exist. History has kind of done the same thing, it has assumed that if there is a woman there is nothing she could do or be other than the wife of x, daughter of x etc. There are exceptions to this, but they are quite rare and until fairly recently, historians didn’t really know how to talk about these histories. Since the second wave of feminism historians have acknowledged these women on a more balanced scale but there’s a lot we still don’t know and there’s quite a lot of latent misogyny in earlier women's histories which has carried through into how we write and think about women, and into the histories available to us. Tell me, have you seen any historians claim that Thomas Cromwell or James VI & I were incapable or dangerous because of their fatherhood or promiscuity? You mentioned gender history isn’t the same as women’s history, what is it then? Gender history has been described as a sort of outgrowth of women's history, whilst the latter looks specifically at women and their experiences, gender history considers the perspective of gender and tries to understand events and occurrences according to this disparity. To simplify this, gender history might provide a comparison of how an event affected men and then how it affected women, as according to gender disparities in societies and cultures they will have had differing effects and thus reactions. This perspective needs to be understood in order to correctly gauge the impact of an event. Gender and women's history are not then the same thing, but they are connected and you will see gender history used throughout work on this project. Okay so, is the history we know about women wrong? Not necessarily, but it might be slightly twisted. Historians (this one included) have a tendency to create villains or heroes of their subjects, let’s consider Anne Boleyn as an example. Historians either love or hate Anne and they write her accordingly. Some place emphasis on the belief that she never wanted the position she got and was the victim of a sociopathic king, yet, she still managed to do good as the king’s wife. Or they focus on the caricature of the scheming bitch, the bad she did in meddling in politics, disrupting the king’s marriage, effectively killing Katherine of Aragon and supposedly wearing yellow to the funeral (on the same day as Anne likely was suffering an 8-month miscarriage). She’s either a villain or heroic victim, feminist or pariah. But Anne Boleyn, like all women, is more complex than that, when in the position that she was faced with (the subject of distrust and disdain) it is likely that she did try to be a good queen, to influence the king to supporting the factions which supported her (she had managed to do so before they were married after all) and she was probably a good mother. But she was also not educated in politics, thus, long-standing beliefs that she meddled in court politics intentionally but dangerously are probably at least partially true. It is impossible to fit any person into a single archetype, historical figures included. If you created a character with as little nuance as some historians have suggested for Anne Boleyn your creative writing tutor would probably tell you that she was too unrealistic. If we think about Anne for a little bit longer, what we know about her is actually extremely slim, so maybe she was as George Bernard has suggested, a mindless feature of Tudor Court Politics, nothing compared to Thomas Cromwell’s majesty, or perhaps she was as Hayley Nolan argues, a victim of the sociopathic Henry VIII. Maybe she was even a feminist ahead of her time, a lot of historical women could be considered this if their efforts to stay alive and achieve some educational variety are considered. But the bottom line is, Anne Boleyn is a key example of how women are both vilified and heroised by historical study. In a way that their male counterparts are not, Cromwell, for example, is the feature of several nuanced histories debating the good and bad of his political efforts, attempting to understand his morality and his actions. Women are rarely given the same complexity, even Elizabeth I is treated like a sort of confused subhuman heroine in both scholarly and popular culture. The point of this rant is to demonstrate that history, especially women’s history rarely gives women the sort of celebration, criticism and attention for their actions in the same way that men are, there is a lack of complexity. Women’s and gender historians have made huge efforts over the past couple of decades in an attempt to address this failure, to redress the balance. We’re still working for that. The HERstory Project intends to contribute by providing a space for resources and discussion about women’s, gender, and sexuality histories, spotlighting individuals whose contributions, lives and experiences have been overlooked. I’m confused, you’re called The HERstory Project but you’re going to look at all types of history? Yes, the focus will be women and gender history, but history is a multidisciplinary area of study. Women have been involved in culture, religion, art, science, politics and war, so we will look at a huge variety of histories and spotlight women who deserve your attention (that’s everyone we can get to). We will also look at anyone who has been overlooked because they were transgressive in their gender or sexuality identities and discuss how queer histories can be understood when individuals might not have had the freedom nor vocabulary to have communicated their identities as we do now - is it fair to call Anne Lister a lesbian when we don’t know if she would have used this identity herself? There are several individuals who are quite elusive and it will be interesting to consider these people too. These individuals just happen to be mostly women… So, are there any women you won’t talk about? I doubt it, we will try not to give you the same discussions of the women who saturate historical study and historical fiction (excusing the use of Anne Boleyn above) but sometimes these women are worth discussing - why are they so popular and is the information we have accurate? How can we get involved? A significant point of this project is to create a space for women's, queer and under-represented histories, we need researchers, writers and editors, no qualifications required, to get involved. If you love history, and want to help us build a meaningful community for these histories, please get in touch! You can fill out the Join Us form at the bottom of the website, or email us at herstoryproj@gmail.com That’s all from me for now, thank you for reading. You can follow The HERstory Project on Insta and Twitter, search for @herstoryproj on both. See you soon! Abby Bibliography/Useful resources: On the value and definitions of women’s and gender as themes for study: Butler, Judith, 'Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomelogy and Feminist Theory', Theatre Journal, Vol.40, No.4 (1988), pp.519-531, < https://doi.org/10.2307/3207893 , [30/12/2022] Butler, Judith, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, (New York: Routledge, 1990) Meyerowitz, Joanne, 'A History of "Gender"', The American Historical Review, Vol.113, No.5, (2008), pp.1346-1356, < https://www.jstor.org/stable/30223445 >, [30/12/2022] Scott, Joan W., ‘Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis’, The American Historical Review, Vol.91, No.5, (1986), pp.1053-1075, < https://www.jstor.org/stable/1864376>, [26/12/2022] Scott, Joan W., Gender and the Politics of History, (New York: Colombia University Press, 1999) On Women's history generally: Amussen, Susan Dwyer, An Ordered Society, (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1988) Davies, Natalie Zemon, ‘Women in Politics‘ in A History of Women in the West, eds. Davis, Natalie Zemon, and Farge, Arlette (Cambridge: Belknap Press, 1993), pp.167-185 Davis, Natalie Zemon, ‘Women on top’, in Society and Culture in Early Modern France: Eight essays, ed. Davis, Natalie Zemon, (Stanford: Stanford university press, 1975), pp. 124-51 Davis, Natalie Zemon, and Farge, Arlette, ‘Women as Historical actors’ in A History of women in the West, eds. Davis, Natalie Zemon, and Farge, Arlette, (Cambridge: Belknap Press, 1993), pp.1-7 Eales, Jacqueline, Women in Early Modern England, 1500-1700, (London: UCL, 1998) Fletcher, Anthony, Gender and Subordination in England, 1500-1800, (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1995) Fraser, Antonia, The Weaker Vessel, (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1984) Greer, Germaine, Medoff, Jeslyn, Sansone, Melinda and Hastings, Susan (Eds.) Kissing the Rod, (London: Virago Press, 1988) Hufton, Olwen, The Prospect before her, (London: Harper Collins, 1997) Jay, Nancy, ‘Sacrifice as Remedy for having been born a woman’, in Castelli, E.A. (eds) Women, Gender, Religion: A Reader, (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2001), pp.174-195, Laurence, Anne, Women in England, 1500-1780, (Great Britain: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1994) Melman, Billie, 'Gender, History and Memory: The Invention of Women's Past in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries', History and Memory, Vol.5, No.1, (1993), < : https://www.jstor.org/stable/25618641>, [30/12/2022] Nguyen, Athena, ‘Patriarchy, Power, and Female Masculinity’, Journal of Homosexuality, Vol.55, no.4, pp. 665-683, [22/11/2020] Paechter, Carrie, ‘Masculine femininities/feminine masculinities: power, identities and gender’, Gender and Education, Volume 18, No. 3, (May 2006), pp. 253-263, [23/11/2020] Sommerville, Margaret R, Sex and Subjection, (London: Arnold, Hodder Headline, 1995) Wiesner, Merry E., Women and gender in early modern Europe, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000) Wiesner-Hanks, Merry, ‘Women’s Authority in the state and household in Early Modern Europe’, in Women who Ruled, ed. by Annette Dixon (London: Merrell Publishers LTD, in association with The University of Michigan Museum of Art, 2002), pp. 27-39 On Anne Boleyn, Tudor Politics and the other wives of Henry VIII: Beer, Barrett L., ‘Jane [née Jane Seymour], (1508-1537)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, (2004/2008) < https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/14647 >, [27/12/2022] Bernard, G.W., Anne Boleyn: Fatal Attractions, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010) Davies, C.S.L., ‘Katherine [Catalina, Catherine, Katherine of Aragon], (1485-1536), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, (2004/2011), https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/4891, [27/12/2022] Ives, E. 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