Badass women from history

[spikepipsqueak]

Holy crap, Dystopian, I had no idea Holland had such an impressive list!

There should be a formal law describing the Talk Freethought history forum that posits that as a length of a thread the goes to infinity, the probability that Dystopian will pipe in with anecdotes about how awesome Dutch history is goes to one.

(We love you, Dystopian, I'm just saying that if someone did the same with US history, you'd probably be the first to call them out as "my country right or wrong" nationalists.)

hmmm. All of us who don't live in the US just accept that the US citizens among us talk as if your culture is the only one. And everybody else "obviously" does things your way. We accept it and it doesn't bother most of us, it's just part of US mindset and a product of the greater US representation here.

But I'm really grateful to Dystopian for giving me a window on history that is not my own and not out of the ubiquitous US. I would never, otherwise, have heard those stories.

 

[dystopian]

Holy crap, Dystopian, I had no idea Holland had such an impressive list!

There should be a formal law describing the Talk Freethought history forum that posits that as a length of a thread the goes to infinity, the probability that Dystopian will pipe in with anecdotes about how awesome Dutch history is goes to one.

(We love you, Dystopian, I'm just saying that if someone did the same with US history, you'd probably be the first to call them out as "my country right or wrong" nationalists.)

No, I wouldn't. There are plenty of awesome Americans in history, and pointing out how awesome they are isn't something I identify as that type of nationalism unless they're literally using it in a "These Americans were awesome, therefore America is better" sort of way. In a similar vein, there are plenty of awesome Dutch people in history, but that doesn't mean my country is better than yours or any other, and it doesn't erase the dark parts of our history. The only reason you so often see me give anecdotes about Dutch history or society is because I'm obviously more familiar with it, and because I feel that the specific things I point out are interesting/relevant/or otherwise useful to point out in the context of a given conversation. Plus, there is a well-established mentality among Dutch people of undervaluing our country while at the same time wanting foreigners to like and value us as important; that's not nationalism, that's a national self-esteem issue.

If you genuinely feel like I'm the kind of nationalist you were implying, we could start a thread on all the evil shit my country has done over the years? I have plenty of stories about slavery and what not. Genocide and massacre too. We've been dicks to a lot of people.

 

[Duke Leto]

Not really criticizing, Dystopian, just observing. The behavior is pretty unique, but that does not make it bad.

I've not seen the Australians chime in with anecdotes from Australian history as reliably, although admittedly there's a much smaller timescale to work with. There aren't many of other non-Anglophone history geeks floating around the forums.

And no, I do not think of you as that kind of nationalist, but I do think you have a mild national pride that blinds you to at least one contemporary political narrative: The European Austerity vs. Stimulus debate.

Short version: When challenged that Holland and Germany's primary surpluses (I forget if you have a fully balanced budget) are the side effect of the Euro's structural imbalance of current account payments, which are the natural side effect of having poor and wealthy countries in a common currency area (the US had the same problem between 100 and 140 years ago prior to the establishment of strong national taxes), and NOT the result of a peculiar virtue in avoiding public debt that the Dutch and Germans have and the Southern European countries do not, you did not take the suggestion well or even seem to understand it. (You even dragged out the straw-Keynesian argument of eternal deficits and accused me of supporting that, which I do not.)

It's actually rather helped me understand the Northern European blindness on this issue. If you give people the choice between a theory that says they are special and virtuous and one that says their present prosperity is at least partly due to unintentionally screwing over other people who it can superficially be said appear to be not practicing the above special virtue...

Well, which should I have expected you to choose?

 

[dystopian]

I've not seen the Australians chime in with anecdotes from Australian history as reliably, although admittedly there's a much smaller timescale to work with. There aren't many of other non-Anglophone history geeks floating around the forums.

To be fair, Australian history is kind of the same as British history; or at least fits into the anglosphere historical understanding: the average English speaking person is far more likely to know things about Australia than they are about any country outside the anglosphere. Given how often Americans have told me they think I'm from Denmark, is it really any wonder that I feel compelled to provide some counter-thrust every now and then? Of course, there's also the whole; wanting to be part of the conversation and adding thoughts and arguments, thoughts and arguments that often require clarification/explanation in the sense of 'this is how it is over here, this is why I think it works, and this is why I think this is relevant to the discussion', which may well be confused for a pattern of overt nationalism ala 'Americuh!'

And no, I do not think of you as that kind of nationalist, but I do think you have a mild national pride that blinds you to at least one contemporary political narrative: The European Austerity vs. Stimulus debate.

... what?

Short version: When challenged that Holland and Germany's primary surpluses (I forget if you have a fully balanced budget) are the side effect of the Euro's structural imbalance of current account payments, which are the natural side effect of having poor and wealthy countries in a common currency area (the US had the same problem between 100 and 140 years ago prior to the establishment of strong national taxes), and NOT the result of a peculiar virtue in avoiding public debt that the Dutch and Germans have and the Southern European countries do not, you did not take the suggestion well or even seem to understand it. (You even dragged out the straw-Keynesian argument of eternal deficits and accused me of supporting that, which I do not.)

...

...what?

...

I vaguely recall having a conversation about that...

...like 2 years ago.

...although I really don't see how that had anything to do with national pride.

Anyway, that's a long time to carry that with you, mate. It's kind of like having an argument with a friend, and then a month later when it's long since passed suddenly blurt out "FUCK! YOU WERE WRONG, AND HERE'S WHY YOU DICK!" when you're watching a movie together: sure, maybe the friend really was wrong and maybe he really was a dick about it... but you're the weirdo that randomly started yelling about it in a crowded movie theatre while your friend forgot the argument the next day.

Anyway, I'll apologize if I accused you of supporting eternal deficits; even though I have no recollection of doing so and even though you're being a bit weird about it.

 

[Duke Leto]

Anyway, I'll apologize if I accused you of supporting eternal deficits; even though I have no recollection of doing so and even though you're being a bit weird about it.

I just have a freakishly good memory and too much free time. And I've sort of tuned out the forum most of the time.

The point I was trying to make was not to drag out personal baggage but to explain how that discussion enlightened me about how folks in Pro-Austerity European nations view the discussion.

Like I said, given the choice in believing the comparatively good macroeconomic outcomes in Northern Europe are caused by a structural flaw in the Euro that is comparable to the old Gold Standard/Free Silver fight in the USA over the Dollar and the choice of believing "Yay, we've done better in controlling our deficits, go us!", the majority of people are going to believe the latter, it's just human nature.

As to "national pride", maybe I'm just using far too loose a definition.

See here:

 

[Tigers!]

My mum (hope she doesn't read these fora)

 

[Togo]

La Maupin, aka Julie of Aubigny
Wanderer, duelist, opera singer, lover, political force, broke a lover out of a nunnery by setting it on fire and planting a false corpse in the bed, seduced a nobleman by stabbing him with a sword and then visiting his bed while he recovered, did it all without concealing her gender.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julie_d'Aubigny

 

[Mageth]

Anyone mentioned Hannah Snell?

 

[Underseer]

La Maupin, aka Julie of Aubigny
Wanderer, duelist, opera singer, lover, political force, broke a lover out of a nunnery by setting it on fire and planting a false corpse in the bed, seduced a nobleman by stabbing him with a sword and then visiting his bed while he recovered, did it all without concealing her gender.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julie_d'Aubigny

Holy shit, she put modern rock stars to shame.

 

[credoconsolans]

The women "calculators" of World War II

http://www.cnn.com/2011/TECH/innovation/02/08/women.rosies.math/

 

[Toni]

There should be a formal law describing the Talk Freethought history forum that posits that as a length of a thread the goes to infinity, the probability that Dystopian will pipe in with anecdotes about how awesome Dutch history is goes to one.

(We love you, Dystopian, I'm just saying that if someone did the same with US history, you'd probably be the first to call them out as "my country right or wrong" nationalists.)

hmmm. All of us who don't live in the US just accept that the US citizens among us talk as if your culture is the only one. And everybody else "obviously" does things your way. We accept it and it doesn't bother most of us, it's just part of US mindset and a product of the greater US representation here.

But I'm really grateful to Dystopian for giving me a window on history that is not my own and not out of the ubiquitous US. I would never, otherwise, have heard those stories.

It's really that we know so little history outside of our own, and have a piss poor understanding of even that.

Not all Americans, of course, but me, and an awful lot of others. I married into a family filled with people who know a lot more history than I ever will so I have to say not all of us are as ignorant as I am. Unfortunately, there are plenty more ignorant than I am, as well.

 

[bilby]

hmmm. All of us who don't live in the US just accept that the US citizens among us talk as if your culture is the only one. And everybody else "obviously" does things your way. We accept it and it doesn't bother most of us, it's just part of US mindset and a product of the greater US representation here.

But I'm really grateful to Dystopian for giving me a window on history that is not my own and not out of the ubiquitous US. I would never, otherwise, have heard those stories.

It's really that we know so little history outside of our own, and have a piss poor understanding of even that.

Not all Americans, of course, but me, and an awful lot of others. I married into a family filled with people who know a lot more history than I ever will so I have to say not all of us are as ignorant as I am. Unfortunately, there are plenty more ignorant than I am, as well.

It's out there to be found - surely even in the USA, libraries contain history books about other parts of the world, and even if they don't, Amazon certainly sell such books. And many of the best stories are on the Internet free of charge.

Lots of history is incredibly fascinating, filled with amazing people doing astonishing things. That schools often make history into a list of boring names and dates to memorise is a great shame; it took me until my early twenties to discover that history is not boring at all.

 

[repoman]

Regarding Tomoe Gozen, she used a naginata which is kind of like a pike with a short katana at the end, this is a cool video which seems to be from the 1980s:



Wow, what people did in their free time before social media.

 

[Toni]

It's really that we know so little history outside of our own, and have a piss poor understanding of even that.

Not all Americans, of course, but me, and an awful lot of others. I married into a family filled with people who know a lot more history than I ever will so I have to say not all of us are as ignorant as I am. Unfortunately, there are plenty more ignorant than I am, as well.

It's out there to be found - surely even in the USA, libraries contain history books about other parts of the world, and even if they don't, Amazon certainly sell such books. And many of the best stories are on the Internet free of charge.

Lots of history is incredibly fascinating, filled with amazing people doing astonishing things. That schools often make history into a list of boring names and dates to memorise is a great shame; it took me until my early twenties to discover that history is not boring at all.

Oh, for sure. I tend to blame my lack of knowledge of history to the fact that when I was in school, I found history classes to be unbearably boring because they concentrated so heavily on battles and wars which did not interest me. I swear the only women I ever heard mentioned, other than their names in passing were Dolly Madison, Martha Washington, Betsy Ross and Carrie Nation. I found it highly improbable that women did nothing aside from birth and occasionally raise and marry leaders.

However, I find that my interests don't naturally lead me to read so much history as they do science, specifically biology and literature and art, which has led me to learn what little history I do know. I realize that I am wrong in this respect, just as my husband is deficient in not wanting to learn a great deal more about biology than he cares to understand. But we do prod each other along, over the years.

Even more embarrassing and less forgivable to me is the frequency with which I must consult maps, atlases and wiki to figure out most things geographical. I am an idiot. But having lived through so much history at this point, I find that I am more interested in it than I was formerly. I read the bio of Cleopatra, thinking that if anything would stir my passions for history, that would. I was thoroughly bored with the book and even more disappointed in myself. Habits acquired in childhood and during school years can be hard to overcome, especially unaided by any natural talent.


My remark that Americans are particularly ignorant about history not their own and even their own stands: most of us really are.

 

[Mageth]

Lyudmila Pavlichenko

 

[4321lynx]

It's out there to be found - surely even in the USA, libraries contain history books about other parts of the world, and even if they don't, Amazon certainly sell such books. And many of the best stories are on the Internet free of charge.

Lots of history is incredibly fascinating, filled with amazing people doing astonishing things. That schools often make history into a list of boring names and dates to memorise is a great shame; it took me until my early twenties to discover that history is not boring at all.

Oh, for sure. I tend to blame my lack of knowledge of history to the fact that when I was in school, I found history classes to be unbearably boring because they concentrated so heavily on battles and wars which did not interest me. I swear the only women I ever heard mentioned, other than their names in passing were Dolly Madison, Martha Washington, Betsy Ross and Carrie Nation. I found it highly improbable that women did nothing aside from birth and occasionally raise and marry leaders.

However, I find that my interests don't naturally lead me to read so much history as they do science, specifically biology and literature and art, which has led me to learn what little history I do know. I realize that I am wrong in this respect, just as my husband is deficient in not wanting to learn a great deal more about biology than he cares to understand. But we do prod each other along, over the years.

Even more embarrassing and less forgivable to me is the frequency with which I must consult maps, atlases and wiki to figure out most things geographical. I am an idiot. But having lived through so much history at this point, I find that I am more interested in it than I was formerly. I read the bio of Cleopatra, thinking that if anything would stir my passions for history, that would. I was thoroughly bored with the book and even more disappointed in myself. Habits acquired in childhood and during school years can be hard to overcome, especially unaided by any natural talent.


My remark that Americans are particularly ignorant about history not their own and even their own stands: most of us really are.

If you want history presented in a highly readable form you cannot do better than the Durants' History. Sure it.s long & in many volumes but you only need to look up in the Index what interests you and read that. The Academic historians will pooh=pooh those two "amateurs". but who reads what academic historians say? And it must be available in Public libraries in the USA, after all the Durants were Americans.

 

[credoconsolans]

Lyudmila Pavlichenko


View attachment 1045

Lot of badass Russian women from WWII, from snipers to pilots to tank drivers to partisans. They did it all.

 

[spikepipsqueak]

hmmm. All of us who don't live in the US just accept that the US citizens among us talk as if your culture is the only one. And everybody else "obviously" does things your way. We accept it and it doesn't bother most of us, it's just part of US mindset and a product of the greater US representation here.

But I'm really grateful to Dystopian for giving me a window on history that is not my own and not out of the ubiquitous US. I would never, otherwise, have heard those stories.

It's really that we know so little history outside of our own, and have a piss poor understanding of even that.

Not all Americans, of course, but me, and an awful lot of others. I married into a family filled with people who know a lot more history than I ever will so I have to say not all of us are as ignorant as I am. Unfortunately, there are plenty more ignorant than I am, as well.

I wasn't havng a shot at Americans in general. Every nation knows its own history best and thinks in its heart of hearts that they are the centre of the universe. (Unless you are Australian. Here, the education system is so afraid of being parochial that we get very little of our own brief history and a good overview of everyone else's. I studied PNG, China, Japan and Modern Europe in high school. None of it electives.)

I was having a gentle shot at Duke Leto saying that Americans would be derided for doing what Dystopian did, having failed to notice that the Americans here do it all the time.

Nobody minds, it's natural, it's interesting,it's part of the conversation, but I had to point out the oblivious pot/kettle attitude.(because I don't know how to keep my mouth shut)

 

[Toni]

It's really that we know so little history outside of our own, and have a piss poor understanding of even that.

Not all Americans, of course, but me, and an awful lot of others. I married into a family filled with people who know a lot more history than I ever will so I have to say not all of us are as ignorant as I am. Unfortunately, there are plenty more ignorant than I am, as well.

I wasn't havng a shot at Americans in general. Every nation knows its own history best and thinks in its heart of hearts that they are the centre of the universe. (Unless you are Australian. Here, the education system is so afraid of being parochial that we get very little of our own brief history and a good overview of everyone else's. I studied PNG, China, Japan and Modern Europe in high school. None of it electives.)

I was having a gentle shot at Duke Leto saying that Americans would be derided for doing what Dystopian did, having failed to notice that the Americans here do it all the time.

Nobody minds, it's natural, it's interesting,it's part of the conversation, but I had to point out the oblivious pot/kettle attitude.(because I don't know how to keep my mouth shut)

I was taking a bit of a shot at (most) Americans and myself in particular because as a rule, we don't know a lot about other histories and geographies. It is a bit embarrassing, to tell the truth.

 

[Eldarion Lathria]

Queen Toda of Navarre. She fought in the front lines at the battle of Simancas. Later, when Abd-al Rahman refused to meet her, she said, "It is not surprising that he refuses to meet the woman who whipped him in fair fight at Simancas."

Eldarion Lathria