Fear Was Not in My Dictionary: The Revolutionary Work of Sara Fortis

Reading time: 6 minutes
When the small Greek town of Kuturla burned in 1943, teenage Sara Fortis had been on the run from German occupying forces for two years already. From the raw age of fourteen, she had hidden her Jewish status and worked for underground resistance movements as a nurse and teacher. But when her sanctuary burned, when she was separated from her mother, Fortis was no longer willing to hide. She was no longer willing to limit her resistance to ‘women’s work.’

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Unsung Heroes: Women’s Role in the Agricultural Revolution

Unearthed secrets from 7,000 years back highlight prehistoric women as the heroines who dug deep–quite literally, to plant the seeds of the first Agricultural Revolution–a recent study in Science Advances has unearthed. Analysis of the bones of these women shows they took on their fair share of digging, hauling, hoeing, and grinding grain in early agricultural societies – in fact, so much so, that their upper body strength would have been greater than that of modern female athletes today. Notably, these findings disprove the widely-held notion that prehistoric women favored domestic tasks over intensive manual labor. 

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The Woman King is more than an action movie – it shines a light on the women warriors of Benin

Reading time: 6 minutes
The Woman King is a big-budget Hollywood movie that has been anticipated since 2018, when US star Viola Davis was announced as the lead in the story of the “amazons” of Dahomey. Rising South African star Thuso Mbedu also takes a key role in the film, which has premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and is heading to cinemas worldwide.

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Women in the Second World War: The sinking of SS Khedive Ismail

Reading time: 7 minutes
On the afternoon of 12 February 1944, travelling in a convoy from Mombasa to Ceylon (modern-day Sri Lanka), troopship SS Khedive Ismail was struck by two Japanese torpedoes just south-west of the Maldives. Hit directly in the vicinity of its engine and boiler rooms, the ship sank within just two minutes of the attack. Of the 1,506 passengers and crew on board, mostly military personnel, there were little more than 200 survivors.

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The Suffragette: The History of the Women’s Militant Suffrage Movement

THE SUFFRAGETTE: THE HISTORY OF THE WOMEN’S MILITANT SUFFRAGE MOVEMENT By E. Sylvia Pankhurst (1882 – 1960) This history of the Women’s Suffrage agitation is written at a time when the question is in the very forefront of British politics. What the immediate future holds for those women who are most actively engaged in fighting for […]

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Australia’s first known female voter, the famous Mrs Fanny Finch

AUSTRALIA’S FIRST KNOWN FEMALE VOTER, THE FAMOUS MRS FANNY FINCH On 22 January 1856, an extraordinary event in Australia’s history occurred. It is not part of our collective national identity, nor has it been mythologised over the decades through song, dance, or poetry. It doesn’t even have a hashtag. But on this day in the […]

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The Life of Clara Barton – Volume 1 – Audiobook

THE LIFE OF CLARA BARTON – VOLUME 1 – AUDIOBOOK By William E. Barton (1861 – 1930) Clarissa Harlowe Barton (December 25, 1821 – April 12, 1912) was a pioneering American nurse who founded the American Red Cross. She was a hospital nurse in the American Civil War, a teacher, and a patent clerk. Since nursing […]

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The Life of Clara Barton – Volume 2 – Audiobook

THE LIFE OF CLARA BARTON – VOLUME 2 – AUDIOBOOK By William E. Barton (1861 – 1930) Clarissa Harlowe Barton (December 25, 1821 – April 12, 1912) was a pioneering American nurse who founded the American Red Cross. She was a hospital nurse in the American Civil War, a teacher, and a patent clerk. Since nursing […]

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Women of America – AudioBook

WOMEN OF AMERICA – AUDIOBOOK By John Ruse Larus (1858 – 1920) The present volume completes the story of woman as told in the series of which it forms part. The history of nations is, in its ultimate analysis, largely that of woman. Therefore this series in its wide inclusiveness forms a more than ordinarily interesting […]

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How Eleanor Roosevelt reshaped the role of First Lady and became a feminist icon

“Well-behaved women seldom make history” is a phrase frequently trotted out around International Women’s Day, and just as frequently attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt. It doesn’t matter that the former First Lady of the United States never actually said this – in fact, it was Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich in an obscure academic article in the […]

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