Happy Women's History Month!

[ArabellaScott]

I had no idea women got a whole month!!!

I can't wait to see the flags flying from every government building and all the celebrations of women in history everywhere. 😊

Another piece on Betsy Miller. She lived with and supported her two sisters. None of them ever married.

https://naheritage.co.uk/stories/betsy-miller

Is anyone's council flying the Suffragette flag?
No, mine neither.
The Women's Rights Network council report is jaw-dropping. Why do so many of them think they are above the law?
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5498310-is-your-council-ignoring-your-rights-great-womens-rights-network-report?reply=150869844

I appreciate that the Catal Huyuk 'Goddess', like the much older 'Venus' figurines from other places looks like a post-menopausal woman. Lots of fat, pendulous breasts, belly apron. Not just a woman, an old woman, with the experience and wisdom that brings.

Enheduanna - the first ever recorded author. Ancient poet, politician, and priestess.

Mesopotamia, in approximately 3400 BC was a wealthy society that was relatively hospitable for women, who could own property, worked in trades and the arts, and were governors like Queen Puabi, who lived 150 years prior to Enheduanna.

Enheduann, in her poetry recorded on clay tablets, was instrumental in creating a hybrid goddess - Ishtar/Inanna, who was a goddess of war, love, and abundance. The goddess battles a mountain range, eventually killing the mountain's male god. The illustrations of this text are the first known instance of an illustrated text.

Enheduanna's works that melded and emphasised the links between Ishtar and Inanna helped create a common system of beliefs through the empire, helping to bind Mesopotamia and Sumeria.

Posted in honour of women poets, and the women of Iraq.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/culture/article/20221025-enheduanna-the-worlds-first-named-author

A film of the exhibition mentioned above.

An article on Holy Women's Rage:

https://www.faranakmirjalili.net/articles/2022/12/10/holy-womans-rage-the-woman-life-freedom-revolution-of-iran

“Lioness Inanna
crouched in a reed thicket
leaps to slash the fearless
mountain wildcat
prowling the roads
shows wet fangs
gnashes her teeth
wild bull Queen
mistress of brawn
boldly strong
no one dares turn away
greatest of the great rulers
a pit trap for the headstrong
a rope snare for the evil
where she spits venom
fighting erupts
tumult spreads the poison
her overturned fury
Holy Woman’s Rage
is a rampaging flood
hands cannot dam.”

—Enheduanna in The Exaltation of Inanna (4)

Revolution art by Toni de Muro

The ancient goddess Inanna was a goddess of love, fertility and war. It is noteworthy that this goddess who left her imprints in the collective psyche for over 4000 years was not known as a particularly nourishing Mother Goddess. She was a goddess of power, culture, arts, poetry, love-making and fertility. Inanna (and later Ishtar) was the first goddess figure to rise with the dawn of civilisation and was the main goddess to rule alongside other gods. She was considered the creatrix of life, but not as a classical nourishing and caring mother. Rather, she had the power to create and destroy at her will. Therefore, this goddess compensates the old-fashioned belief that women’s power (and thus role) lies only in their mother-role and that goddesses and the feminine divine are primarily mother-goddesses.'

Well, that's fascinating, I had no idea about the first illustrated text, for example.

In years past I've made a carefully-researched contribution about some valiant and admirable woman in history.
This year - not so much, but it's good, isn't it?😁

This Insta makes AI renders from historical art sources.

I find the recreations/interpretations of historical figures fascinating.

Here is one on Margaret Beaufort.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DVjqZvfgbEk/

And here is a recent radio programme on MB, too. Came recommended!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002s3dq