Women’s History Thread

[Kiwisee]

I'm sure by now, we’ve all seen how many misconceptions about historical time periods are often perpetuated by low fantasy series such as George RR. Martin’s Game of Thrones. Whether intentional or not, many people believe that GOT is an accurate representation of medieval history despite the author’s lack of research.

If you were to take it all at face value, it would be easy to believe that women were getting raped at 12 left and right all the time. Truth was, rape was a crime that would result in the death penalty. Medieval law would go as far as to not only executing rapists, but castrating all male animals so that his family will feel the financial cost of his degeneracy. Although raping a higher class woman would have harsher penalties, committing sexual violence against a lower class woman still came with the risk of castration.

Moving on, contrary to popular belief, women did hold many jobs throughout this time period.


Technically, most universities barred women from learning medicine but there was a loophole; becoming a midwife under a physician meant she would receive a lot of the same training, and thus become a physician in her own right. Usually, she would deal with female patients so that the doctor could focus solely on the men.

As depicted in the drawing, she would tend to men as needed as well.

Becoming an apocethary was another option. The midwife to apocethary pipeline existed.

Contrary to popular belief, most of the economy of Medival Europe (especially in England and the Holy Roman Empire), women often were running family businesses and usually did the book keeping. A family business could mean several things back in those days: farming for meat, crop harvesting, seamstress, jewelry production and many more. It also wasn't uncommon to run into women that owned estates if they were born into middle class wealth.

Lower class women had rough starts due to economical reasons, but they still had opportunities to develop skills to work as domestic servants for richer lords (also known as maids). More often than not, they'd mainly be working with noble women and her children. They were provided with homes and stipends in exchange, which was a decent living back then.

What is interesting is that hunting was a unisex hobby, even if limited to nobility to prevent overhunting.

In this thread, we will be discussing all things relevant to women’s history. While it will primarily focus on the context of western countries, discussion on other countries is welcome.


Happy posting, queens!

 

[Inside your walls]

Awesome thread. I have plenty of things I want to discuss regarding women's history.

Now that this thread exists I can finally say this:

Something that really annoys me in the women's history discourse is how scrotes use the fact that queens were more likely to start wars more than kings as some gotcha that if women ruled the world it would be a complete warzone, never mind that they completely ignore the fact that many queens were more likely to inherit kingdoms whether it's from their husbands or relatives that were already collapsing and at the brink of wars with other kingdoms/countries and those wars were kind of inevitable.

Plus idk I think Olga of Kiev was pretty baller. Nothing is more romantic to me and says "pure devotion" than somebody going scorched Earth
on people that killed their spouse.

Such a girlboss

 

[LimeRikki]

women often were running family businesses and usually did the book keeping

A lovely example of this from the 17th century is Mary King! She was a prominent enough business Woman that she shows up in historical court documents and had an entire close named after her!

 

[Dan of Steel]

Great idea for a thread, people that unironically think civilization pre-industrial revolution was like Game of Thrones are retarded. GOT was very loosely based on The War of the Roses, mainly the political intrigue aspect. It's cool hearing about how ordinary people lived in late antiquity. A good video that covers similar stuff for those that are interested is this:

(Guy has a left-wing bias but mostly just sticks to the facts in this one, makes it a good video)

On the topic of women of history, one of my favorites has always been Ida Tarbell who was a journalist in the early 20th century who broke the case on Standard Oil, them being a monopoly, their shitty practices, etc etc. Journalism back then was pretty dogshit even compared to current standards, but Ida was thorough in her reporting and it's why she's remembered even to this day.

 

[Brenda Holiday]

Its insane to me how many accomplished women there are in history that we could be teaching young girls about instead of the demoralizing narrative we push on them now. Amazing scientists, artists, etc... thats not to sugarcoat the past, it wasn't easy, but these women existed and its terrible hardly anyone knows about them.

 

[Jacknife]

Joan of Arc inspired whole armies and rode into battle herself against the British at seventeen years old, only two years later died for her beliefs.
It took 21 more years for the Hundred Years' War to end but I am sure she played an important role in freeing France from the English.

 

[Bionicle Enthusiast]

Lady Godiva was neat. She rode on horseback through the streets nude to protest the tax rates imposed by her husband/king (regent? Some sort of loyalty).

 

[ShiftyBoi]

Before inevitable troonposting occurs I thought I'd leap frog off of Joan of Arc, strange woman with strange bedfellows. I'm sad she didn't live to find out about her man at arms, Gille De Rais, being a serial child murderer and the inspiration for the BlueBeard folk tale.

I wonder how she would have reacted, if she would have doubted her mission or dealt justice to him herself. We'll never know.

 

[Kiwisee]

Have some more historical artwork of women in the workforce:

Tending to the fields was a tough woman’s job, and it very much still is. It wasn’t uncommon to see mothers having their children work with them to teach them essential skills.


Seamstress, plower, winery and weavemaker were common occupation titles for women.


Sheep shearing is something you'll commonly see women doing pre-industrial revolution.


Yes, participated in war from time to time if they had nothing better to do (or they had proven their strong religious resolve).



Even as far back as ancient Greece, women didn't just make clothing but they also were in charge of the fashion industry by default.


It wasn’t that uncommon to see women in the teaching profession. In this image, she is teaching geometry to a group of monks.

Last, but not least, for the roman empire spergs. Ever wonder why shaven faces were the norm?


Hairdressing and Barbary were primarily women’s jobs, and since they were weavers they dictated how men should look. Unsurprisingly, shaven faces were the norm because it was one way to show that you are wealthier than other men. Plus, women just like the clean shaven look no matter the time period.
(note: Slaves also carried out this task, but they would do an average job. Going to a hairdresser for a special occasion would give you a better cut).

A quick aside: I like the coziness of this thread so far. None of this is to say that women didn't struggle historically (they did). However, it is worthwhile to point out that things weren't bleak either. The middle ages in particular were a lot more jovial and colorful than we've been gaslit to believe.

 

[AMHOLIO]

YES I GET TO READ MORE HISTORY SPERGING

 

[LimeRikki]

Select quotes from the linked article:

"Remnants of a rare pigment found in dental tartar of a woman buried around 1,000 years ago at a medieval monastery indicate that she may have been an elite scribe or book painter.
Based on the distribution of pigment in her mouth, the woman was probably licking the end of a brush in order to create a fine point while painting, the researchers say."

No matter the time period, no matter how tough, Women always manage to bring color and creativity into the world. Sadly, there are no surviving works from that particular monastery, but we might be able to catch wind of more historical Woman painters this way in the future.

 

[Kiwisee]

Florine of Burgandy was a crusader:

According to legends, she and her husband were supposed to get married in Jerusalem but it was ambushed by Turks. Both she and her husband fought them to the death. While some historians debate on whether she was present, it’s a legendary story worth mentioning. Turks claim she was beheaded in front of their sultan after the battle. Either way, nothing says quite like cutting down people for interrupting your wedding.

To add a cherry on top, apparently in Islam if a man is killed by a woman then he gets no reward in the afterlife. She allegedly killed several Turks that day, so she got the last laugh on them.


Here’s an interesting article about women in the crusades. Historians have been debating for centuries at this point as to which women fought in the crusades and when. They can’t even agree to what the first one even was.

 

[Squawking Macaw]

I recently came across a blog about women's lives in the Middle Ages, Rosalie's Medieval Woman (A). It doesn't always use sources so take it with a grain of salt, but I found it quite interesting. It doesn't sugarcoat things to make the Middle Ages seem more accepting than they actually were (try to read the page on social etiquette without going "oh who cares?"), but it makes it clear that medieval women's lives weren't all constant fear and misery.

 

[NoReturn]

HAREMS
In the middle east, the concept of sex-segregated spaces was misunderstood as "All the women belong to the sultan and it's a sexy zoo back there." and artists and writers came up with a lot of the tropes people associate with the harem.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yuc3zsXSiwc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSKMkAwRfc4

In China, the "inner palace" wasn't comprised with the most attractive women. The top positions were occupied for political reasons, same as a western royal marriage.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/-V1zbcBOrJU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlCtb_7zGeg

In either case, it would have sucked unless you were on top, and even then you were still property.

 

[Kiwisee]

Catherine the Great was pretty based. She overthrew her man-child husband, became empress, humiliated other leaders at the time, made her enemies so mad that they had to spread rumors about her dying from being railed by a horse (in reality, she died of a stroke).

Above all else, she was as intelligent as she was ambitious.

 

[ThePozzedOutCritic]

I have a bunch of old commie propaganda saved some of which features women

Admittedly women's history is a bit of a blind spot for me, so I don't have too much to comment on. However, I do know that the various eastern bloc regimes really tried to push themselves as egalitarian in comparison to what they defined as the unenlightened pre-revolutionary past. To an extent it was true as women's rights did improve during the years after the second world war, even surpassing the west in certain aspects. Abortion access was pretty commonplace to give an example (Romania would be one major exception with it's pretty radical natalist policies).
The eastern bloc was kind of peculiar in how it really tried to sell itself as progressive while at the same time being staunchly socially conservative.
Anyway that's about all I had to say I mostly just wanted to share my love for old propaganda posters and how they actually looked nice instead of the shite we get nowadays.

 

[NoReturn]

A fun trick to play when looking at history is "Who enabled you?"
You know the phrase, "Behind every great man is a woman"? It's usually true, and I like to think about how these great men in history basically had a support-class wife buffing them. I wish those woman got more attention and appreciation. Often times you'll even find things like diary entries where the men do talk about how much they love and appreciate their wives and mothers, but it doesn't come up in the history books because the women's labor is taken for granted.

As a recent example, it drives me up the wall when I see memes about MacKenzie Scott that are always some version of "She became the richest woman by divorcing the richest man, durr hurr." MACKENZIE was the one who did all the "boring stuff" to get Amazon off the ground in the first place!
Who was the one who said "Yeah, let's start a business"? MacKenzie.
Who named the company? MacKenzie.
Who was the original bookkeeper? MacKenzie.
Who was the payroll and HR person? MacKenzie
Who was the first packer/shipper? MacKenzie.
Who negotiated the first freight contract? MacKenzie
Who WROTE THE ORIGINAL BUSINESS PLAN? IT WAS MACKENZIE.

Jesus christ, it's like saying "Oh, the person who planted that apple tree and watered it when it was just barely a sapling did nothing."
Yeah, the guy selling the apples is the one everyone knows, but he wouldn't have any apples to sell in the first place if she hadn't helped him get it started.

 

[Olga of Kiev]

I have to go dust off my "Rejected Princesses" book and read it again.

 

[ThePozzedOutCritic]

There was this one pretty nuts bolshevik lady I remember reading about but for the life of me I cannot remember her name. I think she was pretty high up in the hierarchy and I think she managed orphanages or something like that. She was an interesting figure I think so if anyone can remember who I'm talking about plz post about her here as I think she'd be a pretty good addition to the thread.

 

[Otterly]

Mozart had a sister, who was apparently as talented as he was. After she turned 18 she moved from child prodigy to ‘adult women don’t do that’ and never played in public like he did. None of her compositions survive, only some letters from Wolfgang to her praising her work.