New Favorite Tumblr: Radical Women’s History Project

radical women

On this day in 1431, Joan of Arc was handed over to be tried for heresy; in 1793, abolitionist and feminist Lucretia Mott was born; and in 1987, Aretha Franklin became the first female artist to be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

Thanks to the just-launched Radical Women’s History Project, you can learn quick facts like these about the lives and the accomplishments of the world’s women–especially those who have been most ignored–every day. Shelby Knox explains the project:

In short, women and men have been denied for far too long the history of half of the population. When we know what the women before did and overcame, it becomes more possible to see ourselves doing and overcoming.

But just as women have been mostly left out of the broad discourse we call “history,” women of color, indigenous, queer, trans, disabled and non-Western women (and women living within all the intersection thereof) have been further marginalized, mostly left out of or tossed in as an afterthought in feminist attempts to add women to existing history.

As Shelby acknowledges, this is a going to be a difficult project for one (privileged) woman to take on, so she needs your help. Send tips and sources her way, and hopefully RWHP will become a useful resource and source of inspiration for all of us.

St. Paul, MN

Maya Dusenbery is executive director in charge of editorial at Feministing. She is the author of the forthcoming book Doing Harm: The Truth About How Bad Medicine and Lazy Science Leave Women Dismissed, Misdiagnosed, and Sick (HarperOne, March 2018). She has been a fellow at Mother Jones magazine and a columnist at Pacific Standard magazine. Her work has appeared in publications like Cosmopolitan.com, TheAtlantic.com, Bitch Magazine, as well as the anthology The Feminist Utopia Project. Before become a full-time journalist, she worked at the National Institute for Reproductive Health. A Minnesota native, she received her B.A. from Carleton College in 2008. After living in Brooklyn, Oakland, and Atlanta, she is currently based in the Twin Cities.

Maya Dusenbery is an executive director of Feministing and author of the forthcoming book Doing Harm on sexism in medicine.

Read more about Maya

Join the Conversation