Thanks to our Kickstarter campaign for 2013, we’re adding 19 new costumes this season, 7 of which our backers and supporters will get to vote on. This series of posts is designed to briefly introduce the many notable women and legendary figures we’ll be considering. Voting will take place spring/summer of 2013.
It’s not true about the horse. Catherine the Great had plenty of paramours, but her private life was no weirder than the average king’s. The only difference was that she was a queen, not a king, and so what we might call the Empress Theodora Effect kicked in (powerful woman = male panic = lurid gossip, rumors of depravity, blah blah blah). So ignore the stories. Yes, Catherine had a lot of boyfriends. No, they weren’t equines.
Silliness aside, Catherine the Great was one of the most influential rulers in Russia’s history. She came to the throne in a coup and then stayed there for 30 years, expanding the nation’s borders and turning it into an international powerhouse. She was in many ways very enlightened—or as enlightened as an absolute monarch can be—and successfully promoted education, modernization, and reform. (Not for serfs, though; no relief for them. Catherine was as enlightened about serfs as Thomas Jefferson was about slaves.) During her reign Russia finally became, in the words of a contemporary, “a European country,” with an educated, sophisticated elite and the status of a world power. What Peter the Great had dreamed of, Catherine the Great made happen.
Ironically, Catherine’s awful son Paul was so resentful of his mother that when he finally succeeded her as tsar, he passed a law forever banning women from the throne.
Think we should add a Catherine the Great costume to Take Back Halloween? If you missed our Kickstarter campaign you can still become a supporter and get to vote on the new costumes.
Thanks to our Kickstarter campaign for 2013, we’re adding 19 new costumes this season, 7 of which our backers and supporters will get to vote on. This series of posts is designed to briefly introduce the many notable women and legendary figures we’ll be considering. Voting will take place spring/summer of 2013.
Before Freyja or the Morrigan, before Venus or Aphrodite, before Artemis or Athena or Demeter or Persephone, there was Inanna. She was the great Sumerian Queen of Heaven and Earth, the goddess of love, fertility, and war. In her earliest form, perhaps 6,000 years ago or so, she may have been the supreme giver of life and civilization. Her Akkadian (Semitic) counterpart was Ishtar, and in the dual Sumerian-Akkadian civilization of the third millennium BCE, the two goddesses became merged. As time went on the Sumerian side of things faded away while Akkadian things survived, and thus Ishtar is the name that endured. It was as Ishtar that she was worshiped by the Babylonians, the Assyrians, and the Canaanites, who pronounced her name something like Ashtart. (In the Bible she is called “Ashtoreth,” which scholars think was a deliberate play on words, combining “Ashtart” with the Hebrew word “bosheth,” meaning abomination.) The Greeks rendered the name as Astarte.
So who was this amazingly long-lived goddess whose cult lasted for 4,000 years? In the early days she was probably the most important deity in people’s lives, the main god they prayed to and thought about. The earliest known religious literature was dedicated to her, and texts like The Descent of Inanna (describing her journey to the underworld, death, and return to life after three days) indicate that she was the focus of profound theological contemplation. She was pictured as the eternally youthful embodiment of the life force: perpetually a virgin (signifying independent female power) yet full of passion and enjoying many lovers. The fecundity of fields, flocks, and humans were in her care. In her role as the morning and evening star (the planet Venus), she was the queen of heaven, with the zodiac as her girdle. She controlled the arts of civilization, and her mystical marriage to the king was what gave him sovereignty. As society became more warlike, so did she, and by Babylonian times she was positively bloodthirsty, exulting in the death of the king’s enemies.
Over the millennia the focus shifted more and more to the goddess’s relationship with her son-consort, Tammuz. The original story of Inanna’s descent to the underworld gradually became a story about Ishtar resurrecting Tammuz from a sacrificial death. It was this latter form of the myth that permeated the ancient Mediterranean world; traces of it appear in the Greek story of Demeter and Persephone and in the Hellenistic mystery cults of a dying and resurrected god (which of course provided the theological climate in which Christianity emerged). Meanwhile, the love goddess aspect of Inanna-Ishtar survived in the Greco-Roman pantheon as Aphrodite/Venus. And thus this originally Sumerian goddess is, in many ways, still with us. When you look at Botticelli’s Venus on the half shell or contemplate a statue of the Virgin and Child, you’re seeing a faint reflection of the great Mesopotamian Queen of Heaven.
Think we should add an Inanna-Ishtar costume to Take Back Halloween? If you missed our Kickstarter campaign you can still become a supporter and get to vote on the new costumes.
Illustration credit: The painting of Astarte is from the mural Triumph of Religion (1895) by John Singer Sargent.
Thanks to our Kickstarter campaign for 2013, we’re adding 19 new costumes this season, 7 of which our backers and supporters will get to vote on. This series of posts is designed to briefly introduce the many notable women and legendary figures we’ll be considering. Voting will take place spring/summer of 2013.
The problem with Theodora is that her biographer hated her guts. She was probably the most important woman in the history of the Roman Empire, but the main thing people seem to know about her is that she started out, allegedly, as a prostitute. But did she? The stories about Theodora’s early life all came from one very bitter misogynist dude named Procopius, who wrote his scurrilous Secret History after Theodora’s death. It’s probably true that Theodora was born into a circus family and worked as an actress, but Procopius’s more lurid details should definitely be taken with several large shakers of salt. After all, every powerful woman in history, from Hatshepsut to Hillary Clinton, has been accused of sexual shenanigans. It’s how men express their panic.
We’re on firmer ground when we assess Theodora’s political career. Her husband, the Emperor Justinian, thought the world of her, and the two of them effectively ruled as co-regents. Theodora may actually have been the more capable of the two; her name is on all the legislation, she received envoys, she corresponded with foreign rulers, she put down rebellions, and so on. What’s really cool is that she was a remarkably vigorous proponent of women’s rights. Women’s legal status in the Roman Empire was almost non-existent, and Theodora set out to change that. She reformed the laws so that women could own property, daughters could inherit, and widows could recover their dowries; she made it illegal for a man to kill his wife over adultery; she made rape a crime punishable by death; she gave mothers guardianship of their children; she outlawed sex trafficking and sex slavery; and she created safe-haven homes for former prostitutes. Yay, Theodora! No wonder Procopius hated her.
Think we should add an Empress Theodora costume to Take Back Halloween? If you missed our Kickstarter campaign you can still become a supporter and get to vote on the new costumes.
Thanks to our Kickstarter campaign for 2013, we’re adding 19 new costumes this season, 7 of which our backers and supporters will get to vote on. This series of posts is designed to briefly introduce the many notable women and legendary figures we’ll be considering. Voting will take place spring/summer of 2013.
If you grow up reading Greek mythology as a kid, the image you get of Artemis is rather one-dimensional. She’s the eternal tomboy, the ever-virginal goddess of the hunt, roaming through the woods in her short tunic and boots, beholden to no man. Twin sister to Apollo, she’s the moon to his sun (figuratively speaking; Artemis and Apollo were linked to, but not quite the same as, the celestial bodies).
All that’s true enough, as far as Classical Greek mythology goes, but the full picture is more complex. Artemis was also the patron of women in childbirth, and outside of Greece was worshiped with statues covered in breasts (or eggs, or gourds, or whatever the heck those things are supposed to be). Archaic Greek art shows her surrounded by bees and other fertility symbols, and ancient folk rituals connected her with motherhood, the moon, and untamed nature. The Romans identified her with Diana, an Italian goddess with a similar portfolio (hunting, childbirth, the moon), while in the Near East she was identified with Cybele, the Great Mother. To moderns it all seems a bit of a mess—what does a virgin tomboy hunter have to do with childbirth?—but to the ancients it made sense. They seem to have been working from the same mental checklist: nature, animals, childbirth, virgin, moon…yep, that’s Her!
Some scholars believe that Artemis was ultimately descended from a Neolithic Great Goddess, particularly in her aspects as Mistress of Animals and Eternal Virgin (signifying self-possessing female power). Whether this was the case or not, people do seem to have had a shared concept of an animal-accompanied goddess who combined perpetual virginity with childbirth. It’s interesting to note that when Christianity came along, shrines to Artemis/Diana were transformed into shrines to the Virgin Mary.
Think we should add an Artemis costume to Take Back Halloween? If you missed our Kickstarter campaign you can still become a supporter and get to vote on the new costumes.
Thanks to our Kickstarter campaign for 2013, we’re adding 19 new costumes this season, 7 of which our backers and supporters will get to vote on. This series of posts is designed to briefly introduce the many notable women and legendary figures we’ll be considering. Voting will take place spring/summer of 2013.
Eleanor of Aquitaine was probably the most powerful woman in medieval Western Europe. It’s certainly hard to think of anyone else who might fill the bill. In her own right she was Duchess of Aquitaine and Countess of Poitiers, ruling over a large part of what is now France. Her marriage to Louis VII made her Queen of France, in which capacity she rode at the head of the Second Crusade. After divorcing Louis she married Henry Plantagenet—soon to ascend the throne as Henry II of England—and thereby became Queen of England and co-regent of the vast empire created from their combined territories. In her spare time she sponsored the greatest literary revival of the High Middle Ages; she also masterminded a military rebellion against Henry that landed her in prison for 16 years. After Henry’s death it was Eleanor more than anyone who held things together: she was the de facto ruler of England for her son King Richard the Lionheart (who was off on Crusade) and did everything she could to keep her son King John from making a total mess (which he did after she died). In the words of the nuns of Fontevrault, where Eleanor was buried, she “surpassed almost all the queens of the world.”
Think we should add an Eleanor of Aquitaine costume to Take Back Halloween? If you missed our Kickstarter campaign you can still become a supporter and get to vote on the new costumes.
Thanks to our Kickstarter campaign for 2013, we’re adding 19 new costumes this season, 7 of which our backers and supporters will get to vote on. This series of posts is designed to briefly introduce the many notable women and legendary figures we’ll be considering. Voting will take place spring/summer of 2013.
Elizabeth I is so famous that people often ask us why we don’t already have a costume for her. Honest answer: because it’s hard. I mean, look at those clothes. Not exactly a candidate for our “costumes you can make from a bedsheet” series, is what I’m saying.
But of course Elizabeth was a great queen—one of the greatest queens in history. Daughter of Anne Boleyn and noted serial killer Henry VIII, Elizabeth proved everybody wrong about the ability of women to rule. For over 45 years she steered England with a sure hand, leading it from a nightmare of fear and dissent to a Golden Age of literature and exploration. She ought to be represented, no question. If only she’d worn a chiton…
Think we should add an Elizabeth I costume to Take Back Halloween? If you missed our Kickstarter campaign you can still become a supporter and get to vote on the new costumes.
Thanks to our Kickstarter campaign for 2013, we’re adding 19 new costumes this season, 7 of which our backers and supporters will get to vote on. This series of posts is designed to briefly introduce the many notable women and legendary figures we’ll be considering. Voting will take place spring/summer of 2013.
When patriarchal religions collide with goddess-worshipping cultures, strange things happen. The female deities get demoted, tamed, domesticated. Divine Mothers are married off to father gods and transformed into jealous nags, awesome creator goddesses are turned into fertility nymphs, and sovereign queens are re-cast as trophy wives. That’s what happened when the migrating Greeks (patriarchal Indo-Europeans) arrived in the Balkans, and it’s what happened when their cousins, the Indo-Aryans, arrived in South Asia. It probably happened with other Indo-European tribes as well, but it’s clearest with the Greeks and the Indo-Aryans. The classical mythologies of both cultures are full of crash debris.
Queen Draupadi is a case in point. As the heroine of the Mahabharata, she’s practically the poster child for Formerly Independent Goddesses Trapped in Patriarchal Myths And Not Liking It One Bit. Her polyandrous marriage to the five Pandava brothers is surely a relic from a pre-patriarchal era, and her miraculous birth from a fire altar strongly hints that we’re dealing with an ex-goddess. But the Mahabharata insists on making her subordinate to her five husbands. The men treat her as shared chattel, and even gamble her away in a dice game. Draupadi protests vigorously, but the day is saved only when Krishna intervenes from heaven.
Three thousand years later, poetic justice has prevailed. Draupadi the Fire-Born has been reclaimed as a feminist icon, with the complexity of her story providing an almost endlessly rich source of contemplation for today’s women. It’s probably not what the authors of the Mahabharata had in mind, but we think Draupadi would be pleased.
Think we should add a Draupadi costume to Take Back Halloween? If you missed our Kickstarter campaign you can still become a supporter and get to vote on the new costumes.
Thanks to our Kickstarter campaign for 2013, we’re adding 19 new costumes this season, 7 of which our backers and supporters will get to vote on. This series of posts is designed to briefly introduce the many notable women and legendary figures we’ll be considering. Voting will take place spring/summer of 2013.
A couple of thousand years ago, Sudan was home to a remarkable civilization. The Kingdom of Meroë flourished from about 300 BCE to 300 CE, with its own writing system (not yet fully deciphered), an iron-working industry that was one of the engines of the ancient world, and trade contacts as far afield as Europe and India. An intriguing aspect of Meroitic culture was the ruling role played by queens, who were known by the title Kandake (traditionally spelled Candace). Amanishakheto was surely one of the greatest Kandakes; the treasure plundered from her pyramid in Naqa demonstrates the wealth and power at her command. She may have been the famous “one-eyed” Kandake who led a war against the Romans in the 20s BCE, successfully keeping Meroë out of Rome’s grasp even as Egypt and Lower Nubia were reduced to imperial provinces. (It also might have been her predecessor, Amanirenas, but until the Meroitic language is deciphered, we can’t be sure. The Greek historians only referred to the queen by her title, not her name, and the exact dating of each Kandake’s reign is iffy.)
The documentary Nubia: The Forgotten Kingdom has great footage of the Meroitic ruins and Amanishakheto’s jewelry, with actors recreating scenes from the life of the queen as well as the creepy European fortune hunter who plundered and destroyed her pyramid in the nineteenth century:
Think we should add an Amanishakheto costume to Take Back Halloween? If you missed our Kickstarter campaign you can still become a supporter and get to vote on the new costumes.
If you’ve been following along you know that of the 19 new costumes we’re introducing this year, 7 are to be voted on by our Kickstarter backers and supporters. I think of those as the People’s Choice costumes. The way things are shaping up, we’re going to go ahead and try to get the voting done for the 7 People’s Choice costumes by the end of this month. That way we’ll be able to figure out the work plan for the season. We’ll resume publishing the little mini-bios in the Costume Candidates series so everybody knows who the nominees are, and then we’ll figure out how to run the poll.
To recap, here are the Costume Candidates we’ve published so far:
At the same time that we’re doing this, of course, progress is continuing in our secret workshop on the other costumes. We published Lasiren earlier this week, and we’re working on a second Special Request costume commissioned by another wonderfully generous Kickstarter backer. We’re also working on the 10 costumes already announced (Grace O’Malley, Anne Bonny and Mary Read, Zheng Yi Sao, Hypatia, Marie Curie, Grace Hopper, Rosalind Franklin, Queen Christina of Sweden, the Trung Sisters, and Amelia Earhart).
Isn’t she gorgeous? Lasiren (also spelled La Sirène) is the Haitian mermaid goddess of the sea. This is one of the two Special Request costumes from our Kickstarter campaign that we’ll be presenting this year. The wonderful backer who commissioned Lasiren prefers to remain anonymous, but thank you!
You can read all about Lasiren on her page. The costume isn’t difficult, but it does involve several components and a lot of craft paint. The level of complexity is about on par with our Freyja costume from last year. There’s no sewing, of course, but there is some pinning and gluing and painting. If you can work a safety pin and use a paint brush, you can make this costume.
Alternatively, if you have a readymade mermaid outfit that you’re happy with, you can certainly wear that instead. Just add a crown (because Lasiren is the queen of the sea) and ideally a golden horn of some kind. Even a glittery party horn would work, like the kind people blow at birthday parties and on New Year’s Eve. Drape on as much bling as you can—fake pearls, fake gold coins—to represent the sunken treasure that belongs to Lasiren, and voilà! You’re the mermaid queen!
P.S. Listen to the Haitian children’s song about Lasiren here.
Actually they were here a week ago; but within an hour of publishing the news to our Kickstarter backers on April 15, the Boston Marathon bombing happened. Buttons were the last thing on people’s minds.
But a horrible week has ended and it’s time to move forward, so: buttons! There are 63 buttons in all, one for each of our existing costumes. These are mini pinback buttons, 1.25″ across, great for wearing or collecting. Kickstarter backers at the $25 level get 5 buttons of their choice, and backers at the $50 level and above get 10 buttons. The designs are grouped by category:
Buttons – Glamour Grrls
Buttons – Goddesses and legends
Buttons – Notable Women
Buttons – Queens
Thanks to all our wonderful Kickstarter backers for supporting our project!
Isis. One of 17 button designs in our Goddesses and Legends category.
Murasaki Shikibu. One of 20 designs in our Notable Women category.
The Minoan Queen button, one of 18 designs in our Queens category.
Rita Hayworth, one of 8 buttons in our Glamour Grrl category.
Every year on International Women’s Day, potted histories appear online to explain why March 8 is the day we honor women. Many of them are wrong.
Back in the 1980s historian Renée Coté undertook a meticulous search of the records, trying to figure out the origins of the March 8 date (see “International woman’s day: in search of the lost memory”). There were a number of women-led strikes and marches and protests in the years leading up to 1914, but none of them happened on March 8. And the earliest Women’s Day observances were held on a variety of dates:
- May 3, 1908, in Chicago
- February 28, 1909, in New York
- February 27, 1910, in New York
- March 19, 1911 (the first real International Women’s Day) in Austria, Denmark, Germany, and Switzerland
In 1914 it was scheduled for March 8—probably because that was a Sunday and thus convenient for working women—and that’s the date that stuck. The German poster at right advertised the event.
(Here’s the English translation: “Give Us Women’s Suffrage. Women’s Day, March 8, 1914. Until now, prejudice and reactionary attitudes have denied full civic rights to women, who as workers, mothers, and citizens wholly fulfill their duty, who must pay their taxes to the state as well as the municipality. Fighting for this natural human right must be the firm, unwavering intention of every woman, every female worker. In this, no pause for rest, no respite is allowed. Come all, you women and girls, to the 9th public women’s assembly on Sunday, March 8, 1914, at 3pm.”)
Three years later, on March 8, 1917, International Women’s Day achieved world-shaking significance. On that date (which was February 23 in Russia, where they were still using the old Julian calendar), women in Saint Petersburg went on strike for “Bread and Peace.” They were demanding not only the vote but an end to the war and the food shortages that were crippling the nation. Their protest evolved into the first Russian Revolution.
Here in the United States, March 8 never really caught on as a big popular observance. (The fact that it was a major Soviet holiday may have played a tiny role there.) But it is the reason National Women’s History Month, which was established by Congress in 1987, is in March. Over on our Facebook page we’re celebrating all month with “this day in history” updates.
Useful Links
International Women’s Day (UN)
Women’s History Month (Library of Congress)
National Women’s History Project
MAKERS: Women Who Make America (PBS)
