This week's installment of Adventures in Feministory goes out to a very special lady, one who broke barriers for older women in the entertainment industry like nobody's business: Estelle Getty. (And no, this post isn't just an excuse to talk about her fabulous exercise video, but yes, the video is included after the jump.)
Trivia: Which came first: the Model T Ford or the windshield wiper?
Might seem counter-intuitive, but it was the wiper! Yep, the first successful windshield wiper was invented, and patented, by Mary Anderson in 1903.
Jackie Ormes wasn't just the first black syndicated newspaper cartoonist. She was the only black female cartoonist of her time and for decades after that.
In honor of the 82nd Annual Academy Awards and Kathryn "I don’t want to talk about gender" Bigelow’s historic Oscar win AND the 99th Anniversary of the first International Women’s Day Conference, I thought it would be appropriate to highlight some Hollywood feminism that seems to always be in quirky style – the marvelous Diane Keaton, actor, director, photographer and singer.
First of all, Happy Women's History Month! (Adventures in Feministory is, after all, kind of like Women's History Month only it's weekly and year-round).
And this week we're journeying into the not-so-distant history of Wilma Mankiller, the first female Chief of the Cherokee Nation, who held her title for ten years.
Yes, Liz Lemon's evoking of the name Anna Howard Shaw made for some big laughs on the most recent episode of 30 Rock. But did you know that in addition to being funny (at least by association, and probably in real life as well), Shaw was also the first woman ordained by the Methodist church, a medical doctor, a published author, a decorated member of the National Council of Defense, a social justice activist, and a pioneer for women's suffrage? It's true!
Today’s Adventures in Feministory features Gwendolyn Brooks, a Chicagoan, prolific poetess, and the first black author to win the Pulitzer Prize for her 1949 collection, Annie Allen.
Writing history is a radical act. I’m going to say it again. Writing history is a radical act. The process by which historians choose to deify, demonize, or emulate individuals and events is a malleable and contentious undertaking. As I’m sure you savvy readers out there know—with this retelling comes power. Sure, narratives can be retold, historical ‘facts’ reformulated, and legacies reclaimed. But whose voices get heard? Which versions get told? Who gets remembered and why? (For far too long ‘our’ Nation’s history consisted overwhelmingly of the male, pale, and stale variety.)
Today's Martin Luther King Jr. Adventures in Feministory focuses on Bayard Rustin, one of the most important individuals in the Civil Rights Movement, and a life-long activist for human dignity, but whose contributions are are overlooked (then and now) because he was gay.
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