I had the best of plans for the letter U. I had decided early on that the perfect word for the letter U in this years’s challenge was the word Umiaq, which would give me opportunity to talk about gendered toolkits and tools, not pink hand drills, but real distinct tools that are women’s boats […]
Iconic T: Titles
This morning I began thinking about hereditary titles when the British Royal family grew by one. I heard more than one talking head saying that it was so 21st Century for the line of succession to have been changed so that daughters of Kings and male heirs would inherit ahead of sons born after them. […]
Iconic S: The Sabine Women
This story that is told about Rome’s founding, formulation, and populating, and has bothered me for a long time. The story is usually called The Rape of the Sabine Women. Current attempts to make the story title less horrific has it being called The Abduction of the Sabine Women. It seems that every painter from the […]
Iconic R: Aretha's R-E-S-P-E-C-T
I created this image last year to pay homage to the 50th anniversary of the recording of the song, Respect, by Aretha Franklin on Valentines Day. Otis Redding wrote the song, but Respect as Aretha interpreted it, became an anthem for women and the downtrodden. Was it the song or the woman, or both that made […]
Iconic Q: It is about Quality
Quan Yin, Quality, Quilts, Queer… or perhaps Quakers, or Quest… such a quandary as to what to write about for this A to Z Challenge for the letter Q. The later portion of the English alphabet poses a special challenge as the words that start some of the letters in the last third of the […]
Iconic P: Pandora Got a Bad Rap
Women get very short shrift in Greek Myth. Doomed before creation. Pandora was the first woman according to the Greek origin story. The Gods and Titans made men, and then became angry after Prometheus helped them gain fire and they became uppity. So to punish men, they created a woman, the first mortal woman, Pandora. […]