Masking women’s faces across history has a common denominator — the practice focuses on how society monitors female sexuality, and shows how often a woman’s place in society was equated with her sexuality. The creepy face mask known as a “Visard” in Early Modern Europe is a case in point. This French painting from 1581 […]
The Visard, an Early Modern Woman’s Facemask Read More »
These projectile points were discovered in a 9,000 year-old grave at Wilamaya Patjxa in southern Peru. Archaeologists immediately diagnosed the burial items as part of a hunter’s toolkit and assumed that the person they were buried with was a high-status male from an ancient hunter-gatherer community. However, DNA analysis revealed that the hunter was actually
Ancient Peruvian Weapons and Evidence for Early Women Hunters Read More »
In the four corners region of New Mexico, a population of ancestral Pueblo people settled for a few centuries around the first millennium CE and built magnificent structures and created beautiful pottery like this pitcher (dating between 1075-1150 CE), fostering a relatively large population in the arid region. Archaeologists call this the Chaco Canyon civilization,
Chaco Canyon’s Pottery and Gendered Work Read More »
This Hindu Goddess has been around for a long time: I introduce to you all the deity Sheetala (also Shitala). In English, her name means “the cooling one,” and she is a mother goddess protector from smallpox and childhood illnesses — except for the times when she becomes the embodiment of disease and annihilates those
Sheetala Hindu Goddess and Smallpox Read More »
“The Mushroom Hunters,” a poem by Neil Gaiman, is a feminist paean about science, inspired by history. Some commentary about the history behind the poem: in evolutionary human behavior, much is speculative. “The Mushroom Hunters” draws from many hypotheses made by anthropologists, several of which I have featured stories about. Here are some of them:
The Mushroom Hunters by Neil Gaiman Read More »
It’s not-so-nice to know that the Andrew Tates of this world were preceded by a long legacy of women haters. Take one Joseph Swetnam (d. 1621), an Englishman who is famous for the first extant fencing manual to be written in English but also a super-popular pamphlet called “The Arraignment of Lewd, Idle, Froward, and
Joseph Swetnam and Rebuttal to His Misogynist Pamphlet Read More »
This woodblock print from about 1787 is by the Japanese artist Torii Kiyonaga, and it’s one of the most elegant examples of the distinct art from the Edo period in Japan, a time when the country’s artistic creativity generated works admired both at home and by Europeans. “Interior of a bathhouse” shows several women in
Torii Kiyonaga the Woodcut Artist Who Focused on Women and Erotica Read More »
