The Eucharist as Breastfeeding: Medieval Women Mystics and the Body of Christ
Julian of Norwich and Mechthild of Magdeburg used motherhood to describe divine power, from Christ feeding believers to a woman nourishing him.
Women worth knowing
All Stories
Extraordinary women, overlooked stories, and a more complete history. Explore the lives, ideas, and achievements that changed the world.
Unexpected Connections
Surprising links between women’s history and the ideas, objects, beliefs, and movements that shaped it.
The Rational Dress Reform Movement
Heavy skirts and restrictive corsets limited women’s movement. Campaigns for practical clothing linked everyday comfort with greater freedom to participate in public life.
What Are Bluestockings? The Movement, Origins, and Insult
Women created space for serious intellectual conversation in literary societies, challenging expectations of femininity even as a label for learning became a weapon of ridicule.
“Pleading the Belly”: Pregnancy & Execution
Pregnancy could postpone a woman’s execution under common law, creating a route to survival that exposed the complicated relationship between reproductive status and criminal justice.
Why Did Victorian Men Hate Women on Bicycles?
Bicycles gave women new freedom to travel, dress, and move through public life, turning an everyday means of transport into a powerful challenge to conventional femininity.
Women’s Suffrage and Prohibition: Strange Allies
Campaigns for women’s votes and alcohol prohibition once shared organizers and goals, building an unexpected alliance that helped advance demands for sweeping social reform.
The Surprising History Of The Birth Control Pill That Almost Wasn’t Invented
Determined activists and private funding helped turn the birth control pill from an uncertain research project into a development that transformed women’s reproductive choices.
The Law Of Coverture: Why Call A Woman By Her Husbands Name?
Addressing a wife by her husband’s name reflects a legal tradition that erased her separate identity, restricting control over her property, earnings, and future.