I knew from the first thought of doing the challenge this year that I wanted to do the word vessel for the letter V. Women being thought of as vessels is a problematic, but common concept. I suspect it is one of the most harmful iconic visualizations of women in the world. I do not […]
Iconic M: Mama
Why do most languages have something like a word that sounds like mama that means mother? Etymology, the study of the history of language and words, tells us part of the story, but biology tells us the other part. And we really can figure out why some things come to stand for other things, […]
Reprint of "Ain't I A Woman" Redoubt
Most of this post is a republication of an article about a woman who inspired a little white girl from a county next to Kosciusko County, Indiana, where the woman, Sojourner Truth, infamously bared her breast to the congregated to prove her womanhood when pro-slavery infiltrators began to heckle her. In 1858 in Silver Lake, Kosciusko, […]