Sunday, June 24, 2018

2,000 year old mummified ‘sleeping beauty’ dressed in silk emerges from Siberian reservoir

MummyFrom the Siberian Times:
Archeologists hail extraordinary find of suspected ‘Hun woman’ with a jet gemstone buckle on her beaded belt.

After a fall in the water level, the well-preserved mummy was found this week on the shore of a giant reservoir on the Yenisei River upstream of the vast Sayano-Shushenskaya dam, which powers the largest power plant in Russia and ninth biggest hydroelectric plant in the world.

The ancient woman was buried wearing a silk skirt with a funeral meal - and she took a pouch of pine nuts with her to the afterlife. 

In her birch bark make-up box, she had a Chinese mirror.  Near her remains - accidentally mummified - was a Hun-style vase. 

read more here @ Siberian Times

Sunday, June 10, 2018

The woman who built Jersey's first hospital

Standing in St Brelade’s Church cemetery is an obelisk dedicated to a public-spirited Islander who bequeathed her fortune to the poor and sick at a time when social services were unheard of.

The inscription on the monument is in French. Translated, it reads: ‘To the memory of Miss Marie Mauger – widow of Mr Francis Bartlett – foundress of the General Hospital. Buried in this parish April 26 1741.

Her altruism gave Jersey its first hospital on the site of the present building.  Finally, in 1793, more than 50 years after her death, Mrs Bartlett’s dream finally became reality and the old building of the General Hospital opened its doors.

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Plymouth's Laura Chase Smith woman ahead of her time

Laura Chase Smith was a woman ahead of her time. A force in her own right, she and her husband, H.N. Smith (Horatio Nelson) were an important part of the growth and development of Plymouth. Laura kept a journal most of her life, and those diary entries would, years later, provide primary source documentation of pioneer Plymouth.

Laura wrote a well-received book, The Life of Philander Chase, First Bishop of Ohio and Illinois, Founder of Kenyon and Jubilee Colleges. But, she also wrote a series of articles for the Plymouth Reporter. Published between December 1872 and June 1873, the series covered the history of the township of Plymouth and the Villages of Plymouth and Quit Qui Oc.

read more here @ Sheboygan Press

What Happened to Women in France After D-Day in 1944

From Time:
They called it the épuration sauvage, the wild purge, because it was spontaneous and unofficial. But, yes, it was savage, too. In the weeks and months following the D-Day landings of June 6, 1944, Allied troops and the resistance swept across France liberating towns and villages, and unleashing a flood of collective euphoria, relief and hope. And then the punishments began.

circa 1945: Two French men restrain a woman while another crops her hair after she has been accused of collaborating with the Germans during the occupation.

The victims were among the most vulnerable members of the community: Women. Accused of “horizontal collaboration” — sleeping with the enemy — they were targeted by vigilantes and publicly humiliated. Their heads were shaved, they were stripped half-naked, smeared with tar, paraded through towns and taunted, stoned, kicked, beaten, spat upon and sometimes even killed.

One photograph from the era shows a woman standing in a village as two men forcibly restrain her wrists; a third man grabs a hank of her blonde hair, his scissors poised to hack it away. Just as the punished were almost always women, their punishers were usually men, who acted with no legal mandate or court-given authority. Although some were loyal resistance members, others had themselves dabbled in collaborationist activity and were anxious to cleanse their records before the mob turned on them, too. About 6,000 people were killed during the épuration sauvage — but the intense, cruel, public ferocity of the movement focused not on serious collaborationist crime. Instead, it zeroed in on women accused of consorting with the enemy.

Paulette Jordan - first Native American governor in US history

Amid an unprecedented wave of women running for office in the age of President Donald Trump, Paulette Jordan is hoping to achieve an extraordinary electoral feat in a deeply conservative state that would make her a string of firsts:

She would be the first Native American governor in the history of the US, the first woman governor of Idaho, and the first Democrat to be elected to lead the state in a generation.

“I think it’s great, and I’m really excited that we are breaking a lot of barriers from age and race to gender, but it’s not the goal,” Ms Jordan, 38, tells The Independent. “The goal is to bring back real representation – whether a man or woman – bringing back leadership to the people that they can be confident and believe in.”

Female Historians Try to End the I-Didn’t-Know-Any-Women Excuse for Men-Only Panels

Following in the footsteps of other disciplines, a group of female historians unveiled a searchable online database on Tuesday listing their peers’ areas of expertise and contact information. The site — called Women Also Know History — is meant to make it abundantly easy to find female historians to invite to speak at conferences, quote in articles, or add to a syllabus. 

In March, the issue boiled over when an invitation-only history conference hosted by Niall Ferguson, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, was publicized on social media. The conference included 30 panelists, all of whom were white and male — a stark example of what’s become known as a manel

The idea for Women Also Know History came from the initiative Women Also Know Stuff,which includes a database of 1,650 female-identifying political scientists. There’s also, Diverse Sources, a database of underrepresented people who can talk to reporters about science, health, and the environment, as well as online lists of female neuroscientists,astronomers, and physicists.

Hundreds of women get Saudi driving licences

Image result for women drivers
From GulfNews:
Hundreds of Saudi and foreign women have been granted local driving licences since Tuesday, the General Directorate for Traffic has said.

The licence will allow the women to drive in the kingdom starting June 24 as per the royal orders issued in September that called for allowing women to drive for the first time.

Traffic officials said 22 centres had been set up across the kingdom to convert foreign licences while four driving schools have been issuing Saudi licences to candidates who passed the test.

Several driving schools have been set up and awareness campaigns launched throughout the kingdom.

Africa: Femwise-Africa Set to Boost Women's Role in Peace Processes

From allAfrica:


High-level African Union (AU) mediation efforts have in the past included very few women. Almost all AU special envoys to conflict zones are men - mostly former heads of state and other former senior officials.


The Network of African Women in Conflict Prevention and Mediation (FemWise-Africa), established in July 2017, is an AU initiative aimed at changing this. Its success will depend on whether it has the necessary support and capacity to carry out its mission.

Progress in implementing the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 that urges the international community to improve women's participation in peace and security has been slow. UN Women noted that between 1992 and 2011, women globally made up only 2% of chief mediators, 4% of witnesses and signatories, and 9% of negotiators.