#strong women

The Scottish Suffragette  Agnes Henderson Brown was born on April 12th 1866 in Edinburgh.

The term ‘suffragette’ was invented in 1906 by that bastion of everything bad,  the Daily Mail, as meant to be a belittling epithet, but the women turned it around and adopted it as a badge of honour.

Nannie Brown, as she later became known as was born at 125 Princes Street, which is slap bang opposite the Castle. The street  in those days would have been mainly a residential one, as it was meant to be in the plans for the New Town, George Street was meant to be the main shopping area.

Their father was interested in social and political reform and the house became a centre of cultural activity. The Dad ran a number of fruit shops under the title of William Brown & Sons he trained his daughters, Agnes and Jessie, well and refused to submit to laws that he objected to, he was an activist for women’s rights. His opposition to taxes that differentiated between genders caused him to end up in the notorious Calton Gaol in Edinburgh.

Agnes and her sister Jessie  were among the first women to be seen on bicycles in Scotland. The safety bicycle was the direct ancestor of today’s machines. With a slight adaptation they attracted thousands of women to cycling and some historians point to the safety bicycle as the beginnings of suffrage, women’s rights and feminism.

Nannie and Jessie were known to heckle parliamentary candidates at meetings, Nannie was also a writer of stories, lectures, plays and articles. She was a member of The Scottish Women’s Rural Institute, as she grew older and unable to participate as much in demonstrations, her house in Castle Street became a haven for the SWRI who would seek out advice from her.  They would hold ‘Scots evenings’ or ‘Dickens evenings’, at which stories, songs, and sketches were performed.
 

She also participated in societies such as the Edinburgh Dickens Fellowship, learned to type, this might seem trivial,  but women were marginalised back then, hence the suffrage movement sprung up to right these things, it was said in an obituary the Nannie was the first woman to learn to type in all of Scotland. 

Nannie Brown died on 1st December 1943 at 3 Blackford Road, Edinburgh and is buried beside her parents at The Dean Cemetery, sadly Wiki reports that the grave has been vandalised and is not the easiest to locate, I must try and seek it out the next time I am on a wander down that way. 

The first two pics are from a newspaper reporting on their march to Selby, they also marched to John O’Groats to spread the word about women’s rights.

The third pic is from Ste[hen Dickson at  Chaos Project who seek to remember unsung or undersung heroes and especially heroines whose graves are lost or forgotten. Go have a look at the page, it’s not been updated for a while, but has some interesting posts, they don’t go into detail, but one that caught my eye was “ Remembering the 115,000 unmarked graves in St Cuthbert’s Churchyard “

https://www.facebook.com/Chaos-Project-396319260884649/

prlywhites:

❤❤❤

remind yourself sometimes, too. Believe in yourself.

heirofmedusa:

sourcedumal:

And this right here is where Martha Jones shows that she IS The Doctor.

RIGHT HERE.

And he goes ‘that’s never an option’ when he knows damn well that it IS when shit hit the fan for Gallifrey. Because HE was the one who had to stop it all. And that kind of weight weighs heavily on his heart because there’s no going back.

SHE IS HIM.

And THAT is why he pushed her away.

Because he saw himself in her and he couldn’t take seeing himself become what he was all over again.

She was bout that life and Ten was acting like a little bitch.

She was wiling to sacrifice the entire planet rather than become a tool for the Daleks.

I’m telling y’all Martha was about THAT LIFE.

Portrait of a purported onna-bugeisha found amongst a series of actor and kabuki photographs.

Hello, friends! Today I break my long and unfortunate silence to report that I received my blue belt last Saturday. It was a surprise and an honor to be promoted by two inspirational coaches whom I deeply respect and love. Receiving this blue belt represents everything I’ve been through in the 15 months since I started my BJJ journey: Depression, anxiety, panic, pain, injury, surgery, fear, doubt, ego, and failure… I am grateful for the instruction of my coaches Mayko Araujo and Karen Antunes, and humbled by their belief in me.

Park Seungah - The God of High School

You’re tapping out already? Martha was right, you really are a sissy. Get me my water bottle, lightweight! 

medieval-women:

Christine de Pizan

Author, historian, poet, philosopher

Born 1364 or 1365 – Died 1430 (age 65 - 66)

Claim to fame: An advocate for women’s education, Christine is the first European woman known to have made her living as a writer.

Born the eldest child of the personal physician to King Charles V of France, Christine was well educated and benefited from access to the King’s vast library.

Christine was married at 15 and widowed just 10 years later. After her husband’s death, she turned to writing to support herself and her family, serving as a court writer for several dukes as well as Charles VI of France.

Her 1405 book, ‘La Cité des Dames’ (‘Book of the City of Ladies’), catalogued female accomplishment and helped establish her popularity. This book is considered by many as the inaugural text in the field now known as women’s studies.

Christine completed forty-one works during her career. Her work contradicted negative female stereotypes and countered unjust slander of women within other literary texts. She argued that women have the same aptitudes as men and thus the right to the same education. Christine’s influence in the otherwise male-dominated field of rhetorical discourse lead Simone de Beauvoir to acknowledge her as the first woman to “take up her pen in defence of her sex”.

Boston College Magazine

Wiki

medieval-women:

Jeanne Laisné (nicknamed Jeanne Hachette - ‘Jean the Hatchet’).

Born 1456 - died ?

Claim to fame: a French military heroine who prevented the capture of Beauvais.

In June of 1472 Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, laid siege to the French town of Beauvais. Over the course of the three week siege, a peasant woman named Jeanne Laisne joined a contingent of women and children responsible for loading the town’s cannons, delivering munitions and dumping boiling liquid over the walls onto the attackers.

By 27 June, many of the French defenders had lost hope and begun to flee as an assault from the Burgundians seemed set to defeat the town. An officer was about to plant the Burgundian flag on the wall and claim Beauvais when Jeanne grabbed a hatchet and flung herself upon him, hurling him off the wall and tearing down the flag. Her bravery revived the courage of the garrison and the French soldiers returned to their posts, keeping the Burgundians at bay until reinforcements arrived and the town was saved.

By way of recognition, King Louis XI heaped favours on Jeanne and ordered for the ‘Procession of the Assault’ to take place in Beauvais every year with women marching at the head of the parade. This tradition still continues.

In 1851, a bronze statue sculpted by Gabriel-Vital Dubray (pictured above) was unveiled in Beauvais by Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte.

Sources:1.2.3.4.5.

- queen hoe