Sheepville

Some lady that writes for MSN, something like Marsha Quakenbush out of Seattle, recently wrote a snippet for “women’s history month”, which March evidently is but probably not many have actually noticed. Though if this is the best she can set forth as examples, that would explain why no one has noticed.

The good eggs

AgnodiceIn the 4th century BC it was illegal for women to practice medicine in Greece. But the 1st-century-AD author Hyginus wrote that one Greek woman, Agnodice, disguised herself as a man, studied medicine, and set up a bustling practice in Athens. Scholars debate whether Hyginus's tale is true, but I wonder if one reason we can't find corroborating evidence is that she was a woman. According to Hyginus, Agnodice was so successful that other doctors got jealous and accused her of "corrupting" aristocratic women. So, Agnodice revealed that she was a woman herself--and was promptly arrested and sentenced to death. Her devoted patients came to her rescue. All noblewomen, they threatened to kill themselves if she was executed. It worked, and thereafter, all free women could become doctors--as long as they treated women only.

When her first example seems at best to be based on rumor, that’s definitely not getting off on a good foot for the article. Maybe you can’t find corroborating evidence simply because it’s not true?

The Trung sisters and Phung Thi ChinhTrung Trac and Trung Nhi, sisters and widows of Vietnamese aristocrats, led a major uprising against Chinese invaders in AD 39. Trung Trac ruled for four years before the Chinese conquered Vietnam again, but resistance continued for the next 1,000 years. Many women figured in the resistance, notably Phung Thi Chinh, who fought while pregnant, paused to give birth, and rejoined the fight with her baby on her back.

Two thousand years from now they’ll probably write the Queen Mum was ruling England too. Same thing 2,000 years ago as today, the Trung sisters as noted were widows, and just assumed the title and were really nothing but figureheads. Phung is a shining example of motherhood, isn’t she? Today the child welfare authorities would move in and take the baby for child endangerment. One good point though, women today are obviously making a mountain out of a mole hill over the child birth thing just to make men feel bad.

Deborah SampsonDuring the Revolutionary War Sampson put on a man's uniform and fought under the alias Robert Shurtleff. Hit in the leg during the Battle of Tarrytown, Sampson removed the musket balls herself so that no one would guess her identity. She later took a shot in the shoulder at the Battle of Yorktown and came down with brain fever (an old-timey term for inflammation of the brain). It was only then that a doctor figured out her secret. Accounts differ over what happened next, but Sampson was eventually given an honorable discharge. Paul Revere later helped her get a soldier's pension, and she went on to give lectures about her experience.

Not quite accurate, but historically significant for being the first, though unwitting, sex change operation. The musket balls didn’t exactly lodge themselves in his leg, just close. Out of embarrassment he removed them himself, with rather severe consequences. Same as men today, we just seem to be so squeamish about seeing a doctor over something like a musket shot to the groin.

Nellie Bly and Ida Wells-BarnettElizabeth Cochrane Seaman--using the pen name Nellie Bly, helped invent an important kind of journalism, even if it did get an ugly name: muckraking. Writing for Pittsburgh and New York newspapers, Bly exposed corruption, horrible prison conditions, slums, and factory abuses. Her most famous exploit, however, was probably the ten days she spent disguised as a patient in a mental hospital in 1888. Her book, 10 Days in a Madhouse (1888), became a bestseller. Bly didn't stop there. In 1889 and 1890, she circled the globe in 72 days, 6 hours, and 11 minutes, beating Jules Verne's fictional 80-day mark. The story of that adventure, Nellie Bly's Book: Around the World in Seventy-two Days (1890), also became a bestseller.

Today she would easily get a job at the National Enquirer, back then she was institutionalized for writing bizarre stories. After getting out she just exploited that story too. As far as her round the world trip, I read the story, seems she spent most of the sea parts heaving over the railing. She also had a MALE escort that she even admits she couldn’t have done without, so it was really a man that went around the world in 72 days, she just tagged along.

Ida B. Wells-Barnett was Bly's equally remarkable contemporary. Wells-Barnett is kind of a precursor to Rosa Parks. In 1884 Wells-Barnett, the daughter of former slaves, was traveling on a first-class train ticket to Memphis. White passengers complained that she should leave the first-class car, but Wells-Barnett refused to move to the smoking section, which was reserved for blacks. She was eventually kicked off the train. Wells-Barnett sued the railroad and won a $500 judgment, but the Tennessee Supreme Court later overruled her victory. She told her story in a newspaper--launching her career as an activist journalist.

I was suspicious when the race card was brought into this so did some research and found it had nothing to do with her being black, it was overturned because she was smoking and it was requested for her to move to the smoking section.

Valentina V. Tereshkova: You hear a lot about Sally Ride, who in 1983 became the first American woman in space. But Soviet cosmonaut Valentina V Tereshkova beat her into orbit by 20 years. In 1963 Tereshkova rode the Vostok 6 spacecraft into orbit and circled the Earth a whopping 48 times during her three-day mission. To put this in perspective, Tereshkova spent more time in orbit than all the U.S. Mercury astronauts combined. (Too bad she didn't write a book, Around the World 48 Times in Three Days: Neener, Neener, Nellie Bly.)



Valentina – Need I say more? I think she should have done a little more research for her article, like maybe photos.

The bad apples

Countess Nadasdy This Hungarian countess, also known as Elizabeth Bathory, had a disturbing beauty regimen. She believed that soaking in human blood would keep her forever young, giving a new and hideous meaning to the term bloodbath. It didn't work. But before she died in 1614, she had stolen the lives of hundreds of female servants. (The Web site Bathory.org says her diary documented 612 killings, but other sources offer slightly different figures.)

But we vilify poor Vlad for what was much less selfish than what she did.

Mary Reade and Anne BonneyPirates are bad, but women pirates could be especially dastardly. In the early 1700s, Mary Reade and Anne Bonney donned menswear and terrorized the West Indies. (This is after Reade had served in both the British army and navy, but decided, evidently, that her survival depended on plundering instead of public service.) The pirating pair was captured in 1720 and sentenced to hang for their crimes. But, choosing an escape route not available to their male colleagues, they claimed to be pregnant--and after they were released, they fled (according to one version of the story). Another version claims that Mary Reade later died of fever and that no one knows what happened to Anne Bonney, other than the fact that she wasn't executed.

Same as today, women get off much easier after being busted for a crime than a man would be under the same circumstances.

Mary Mallon"Typhoid" Mary Mallon worked as a cook in New York, and after an outbreak of the disease in 1904, she was recognized as a carrier. But this didn't stop her from handling food. She went from job to job, infecting the innocent until she was caught in 1907 and committed to an institution until 1910. She wasn't supposed to work in food service again but did--spreading more disease in her wake. In all, authorities attributed 51 cases and three deaths to "Typhoid" Mary, who was institutionalized again in 1914. She died in 1938 but not from typhoid. She was immune to the disease.

More proof men make better cooks that women.

Ilse KochLast but not least is Ilse Koch, who committed atrocities in Nazi concentration camps (for which she got life in prison). But this wasn't the extent of her crimes: She also collected lampshades and other ornaments made from human flesh.

And I thought that was a guy in Silence of the Lambs.