Well, do ya? If you are a woman then you really need to know your women’s history. And I am not just talking about when women got the right to vote. Do you even know what started the Women’s suffrage movement? You need to get some info on your history today!
Start here – A look at at women’s history, part 1.
This afternoon was the vote for the confirmation of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State. The final vote was 94-2 in favor of Hillary.
Immediately after the vote, Clinton was to be sworn in during a private ceremony at the Capitol.
South Carolina Republican Jim DeMint and Louisiana Republican David Vitter were the two ‘no’ votes.
Women’s History Month as you know is this month. It got its start with International Women’s Day back in 1911.
In 1978, Women’s History Week was introduced. By 1981, Congress recognized the week. And in 1987, Congress expanded Women’s History Week to Women’s History Month. And each year month has a theme.
The theme of National Women’s History Month for the year 2008 is visionary female artists. Honorees will be selected based on their impact in various medias from pottery to sculpture to any type of modern art.
I came across an interesting website today. It is called the Children’s Encyclopedia of Women.
Apparently this site was started by some 3rd and 4th grade students in 1998. It is kind of a wikipedia of women in history. Only it is not editable by the general public. And it does not use the wiki software, but you get my point.
You can search by subject or last name. And they also have a timeline on the site.
If you check it out, be warned that it does not appear to be Firefox friendly 
When one thinks of pirates, usually the first thing to come to mind is the infamous Blackbeard. What does not come to mind is women pirates. Rarely is Anne Bonny brought up. Bonny was a female pirate that could wreak as much havoc as Blackbeard or any other male pirates. But Anne Bonny was not the only female pirate to sail the seas.
Some known female pirates are:
Queen Artemisia of Halicarnassus (in Greece) was a known pirate around 480 B.C. in the Mediterranean region.
Elissa, commonly known as “Dido” was a pirate in 470 B.C., also in the Mediterranean region. She is also the legendary founder of Carthage.
Queen Teuta of Illyria was a pirate in the Adriatic Sea circa 232 B.C. to 228 B.C.
Norwegian Vikings Princess Sela, Princess Rusla, Russila and her sister Stikla pirated the seas between 420 A.D and 800 A.D.
Other female Viking pirates believed to sail the seas post 800 A.D. are Wigbiorg, Hetha, Wisna, Alfhild (a.k.a. Ælfhild, Alwilda, Alvilda), Ladgerda and Æthelflæd, who was known as the “Lady of the Mercias.”
A fairly famous pirate in the 1500’s was Grace O’Malley, who was also know to go by Granuaile, Grainne O’Malley. She commanded three galleys and 200 men in the Atlantic.
Between 1500 – 1800, it is estimated that hundreds of Chinese female pirates roamed the seas. Supposedly whole families of pirates lived at sea, including mothers, wives, daughters, and servant girls. Some were forced, some voluntarily joined and some were born into piracy.
Other pirates of the late 1500’s to early 1800’s include Lady Killigrew who sailed the Atlantic during 1530-1570, and Mrs. Peter Lambert of Aldeburgh, Suffolk pirated in the late 1500’s. The 1600’s saw Elizabetha Patrickson pirating in 1634, and Caribbean buccaneers Jacquotte Delahaye and Anne Dieu-le-veut were around in 1650s-1660s. The 1680’s saw an anonymous Indian Pirate Queen sailing the Arabian Sea and La Marquise de Frèsne was in the Mediterranean in the late 1600s.
It wasn’t until around 1720 that Anne Bonny, sometimes using the aliases Ann Bonn, Fulford, and Sarah Bonny, terrorized the Caribbean. At the same time, Mary Read, sometimes using the alias Mark Read, was also in the Caribbean.
Several women worked off the east coast of the United States in the 1700s and 1800s including Mary Harvey (or Harley), who used the alias Mary Farlee in 1725-1726, Mary Crickett, sometimes Crichett in 1728, Rachel Wall in the 1780s, Charlotte Badger and Sadie the Goat in the early 1800s.
China also had its share of notorious female pirates. Qi Sao in the South China Sea commanded a fleet of 20 ships. Li, the wife of Chen Acheng, was also in the South China Sea in the early 1800s and was believed to be involved in at least 10 robberies at sea with her husband before she was captured and made the slave of a military officer. Shi Xainggu, who was better known as Cheng I Sao, Ching Yih Saou, or Zheng Yi Sao, was in the South China Sea between 1801-1810 and commanded five or six squadrons consisting of 800 large junks, about 1,000 smaller vessels, and between 70,000 and 80,000 men and women. And Cai Quin Ma, Matron Cai Quin was also in the South China Sea in the early 1800s. T’ang Ch’en Ch’ia, known by the alias “Golden Grace,” was another prominent female pirate of this time.
In other regions, Catherine Hagerty was a pirate off the coast of Australia and New Zealand in 1806. The Canadian East Coast saw Margaret Jordan in the waters in 1809. Also in Canada was Gertrude Imogene Stubbs, often using the alias “Gunpowder Gertie, the Pirate Queen of the Kootenays.” She used Kootenay Lake and river system of British Columbia, Canada between 1898-1903.
Lo Hon-cho, known as Honcho Lo, took over command on husband’s death in 1921, was a supporter of the Chinese revolution. In 1922, Wong, another female pirate, united her 50 ship fleet with Lo Hon-cho’s 64 junks.
Between 1922 – 1939, Lai Sho Sz’en commanded 12 junks in the South China Sea. And in 1936, P’en Ch’ih Ch’iko commanded 100 pirates. 1937-1950 saw Huang P’ei-mei as a leader of some 50,000 pirates.
The NAWSA disbanded as an organization after gaining the right to vote.
That gave birth to the League of Women Voters.
The women of the NAWSA had won the battle to vote. However, the vote was not enough to secure women’s equal rights according to Alice Paul, founder of the National Woman’s Party (NWP).
She moved to take women’s rights one step further by proposing the Equal Rights Amendment (E.R.A.) to Congress in 1923. This demand to eliminate discrimination on the basis of gender failed to pass.
The push for the E.R.A. continued on a state-by-state basis, until the newly formed National Organization for Women (NOW) launched a national campaign during the 1960′s. Despite many heated debates and protests, the E.R.A. , while passed by Congress in 1972, has never been ratified.
If you are a woman then you should know the Nineteenth Amendment. As a woman, it is the most important amendment for you.
If you do not know the 19th Amendment, you should learn it. Below is the Nineteenth Amendment that gave women the right to vote. Finally.
AMENDMENT XIX
1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.
2. Congress shall have power to enforce this Article by appropriate legislation.
It was ratified August 26, 1920.
Together they were stronger. And they were serious about getting the right to vote.
In fact, Susan B. Anthony was arrested for attempting to vote for Ulysses S. Grant in the 1872 presidential election.
Six years later, in 1878, a Woman’s Suffrage Amendment was introduced to U.S. Congress.
With the formation of numerous groups, such as the Women’s Christian Temperence Union (WCTU), the National Council of Jewish Women (NCJW) ,the National Association of Colored Women (NACW) and, the Women’s Trade Union League, the women’s movement gained a full head of steam during the 1890′s and early 1900′s.
The U.S. involvement in World War I in 1918 slowed down the suffrage campaign as women pitched in for the war effort.
In 1919, after years of petitioning, picketing, and protest parades, the Nineteenth Amendment was passed by both houses of Congress and in 1920 it became ratified under the presidency of Woodrow Wilson.
These two Amendments produced a lot of strong feelings in those behind the women’s movement.
In fact, the women’s movement split into two factions over a disagreement over these Amendments.
In New York, Stanton and Anthony established the radical National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA).
Meanwhile, Lucy Stone, Julia Ward Howe, and Henry Blackwell organized the more conservative American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA) in Boston.
These two groups later merged in 1890. Together they formed the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). And it was under the leadership of Elizabeth Stanton.
As you can imagine, women activists became enraged by this declaration.
As a result, the American Equal Rights Association was established by Stanton and her colleagues in 1866 in effort to organize in the fight for women’s rights.
In 1868, the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment proved an affront to the women’s movement. You see, it defined “citizenship” and “voters” as “male”, and raised the question as to whether women were considered citizens of the United States at all. This only enraged the women more!
The exclusion of women was further reinforced with the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment in 1870. It enfranchised black men.
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