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By factorwomen • 15 years ago

The Facts: Lesbian Vampires Predate Dracula

Sometimes we must go where few in women’s history tread. Did you know that Bram Stocker’s Dracula was not the first modern vampire novel; and that the first modern vampire novel was about a lesbian vampire? Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu 1872 novel Carmilla predates Dracula by twenty-five years. Instead of focusing on the usual alpha male bloodsucker preying on frail, newly post-pubescent women, the novel Carmilla was about a woman vampire of aristocratic lineage who seduces an upper class young woman and her friends.
By factorwomen • 15 years ago

The Facts: Women as Strong as Men?

Sometimes the facts of women’s history speak for themselves. Did you know that on this day, December 9th, in 1897, pioneering women’s rights advocate, Marguerite Durand founded the early feminist newspaper, La Fronde, in Paris? But the real topic for today concerns this age-old question: Are men really physically stronger than women? The answer is “no” but some explanation is required. While women and men merit equal treatment, their anatomies are different. (We mean “biologically born” women and men here.) Women traditionally retain less fibrous muscle mass in their upper bodies than men who are able to build mass in their upper bodies far more quickly. Yet, even with this fact in mind, women may still gain the requisite upper ...

Sometimes the facts of women’s history speak for themselves. Did you know that on this day, December 9th, in 1897, pioneering women’s rights advocate, Marguerite Durand founded the early feminist newspaper, La Fronde, in Paris? But the ...
By factorwomen • 15 years ago

The Facts: Dangerous High Heels

Sometimes the facts of women’s history provoke searing debate. Did you know that wearing high heels can be dangerous to your health? According to a team of Harvard researchers, wearing high heels is linked to “knee osteoarthritis, a painful, degenerative joint disease characterized by the breakdown of the cartilage surrounding the knee.” Wide high heels are no better: “The researchers decided to look at the chunkier heels now in fashion to determine if they too are harmful to women’s knees. The latest study, which appears in the April 7, 2001, issue of The Lancet, demonstrates that wide heels increase the risk of developing osteoarthritis in the knee as much as, or more than, spindly-heeled stilettos.”
The recent vogue for ...

Sometimes the facts of women’s history provoke searing debate. Did you know that wearing high heels can be dangerous to your health? According to a team of Harvard researchers, wearing high heels is linked to “knee ...
By factorwomen • 15 years ago

The Facts: Criminalizing Gender

Sometimes the facts of women’s history speak for themselves. Did you know that it was once (and still is in a few places in the United States of America) a crime to appear in a gender that seemed not to conform with the gender into which it was assumed that you were born? By, crime, we mean literally against the law punishable by imprisonment and/or fines. Some of these laws were only overturned in the 1970s and 1980s in the USA. Today, New York State Article 190 of the Penal Law lists two forms of fraud punishable by varying degrees of imprisonment: (1) 190.25 Criminal impersonation in the second degree; and (2) 190.26 Criminal impersonation in ...

Sometimes the facts of women’s history speak for themselves. Did you know that it was once (and still is in a few places in the United States of America) a crime to appear in a gender that ...
By factorwomen • 15 years ago

The Facts: Suffrage

Sometimes the facts of women’s history speak for themselves. Did you know that the United Arab Emirates only granted women the right to vote in 2006? Or that South Africa did not include black women in their right to vote in 1930, waiting until 1994, only 14 years ago, to grant black women suffrage? Did you know that many women’s suffrage rights all over the world are tied to both their age and their probable marriage to a man? In Bolivia, if you are an 18 year old woman you can only vote if you are married; otherwise, you must wait until you are 21. Moreover, most countries only provide limited suffrage, or voting rights with restrictions, and some of those ...

Sometimes the facts of women’s history speak for themselves. Did you know that the United Arab Emirates only granted women the right to vote in 2006? Or that South Africa did not include black women in their right ...