Amplify is a once a month series written by HerStry columnist, Joycelyn Ghansah. Each month Joycelyn explores one of the lives lesser known from women in history. It is our goal to bring these women’s stories and works to the forefront so that their stories are not forgotten.
What’s your ideal camping trip? Does it involve about 250 of your closest girlfriends, some in witch's costumes and military gear? What about a 36-woman-human chain surrounding an army base, a couple of arrests, fights with the UK government and police, and disarming nuclear missiles? If your answer is yes, you'd fit in with the Women of Greenham Common Camp.
Read MoreWhat happens when an anarcha-feminist creates an organization, or even two, in the middle of the Spanish civil war? You get a movement of 30,000 members fighting for women’s liberation, with some working-class empowerment thrown in! Breaking tradition, demanding independence and freedom from the patriarchy, and fighting for equality, is what Soledad Estorach was all about.
Read MoreThis month’s AMPLIFY is about the Lavender Menace action during the second wave of the feminism movement in the 1970s. The Lesbian members felt, or rather they were excluded from many of the feminist movement activities. They started the Lavender Menace action and fought for their voices to be heard. They made sure they were heard as well not only their issues but the issues of the WOC and lower SES women issues.
Read MoreThis month’s AMPLIFY features Dr. Sigird Phyllis Stearner, a scientist who revolutionized not just the field of radiation biology, but science’s relationship with disability inclusivity.
Read MoreThis month’s AMPLIFY features six Black women in 1881 that suffered from injustice, wage theft and opression, who came together to fight against it all. They formed The Women of the Atlanta Washerwomen Coalition and conducted a two week-strike that transformed American employer/consumer behavior.
Read MoreThis month’s AMPLIFY features scholar and social justice and reproductive justice advocate/activist Dorothy Roberts. Dorothy Roberts is a Critical Race Sociologist, and the 14th Penn Integrates Knowledge Professor with joint appointments in the Departments of Africana Studies and Sociology and Law School at the University of Pennsylvania. Her studies and work focus on the intersection of race, gender, and socioeconomic status through a policy lens.
Read MoreReiko Okuyama was born in Japan c.1936. As a child, she developed an interest in drawing while being confined to her bed due to an ongoing childhood illness. Okuyama entered the world of animation by accident. She applied for what she believed was a designer position for children’s books at Toei Doga (doga meaning picture book) but ended up in the animation department.
Read MoreHello sweet HerStry babes! How are we doing? Holding up? Holed in? I hope you are all protecting yourselves the best you can and taking care of your heads and hearts. As you may have noticed, there was no March Amplify and we’re picking up in April. If you’re a frequent reader of Amplify, you know I’m no stranger to skipping a month here and there when it comes to the column, but usually I do this with a great amount of guilt. This time, though, I offered myself a bit of grace because we are all, collectively, living through a pandemic. So today, in addition to learning about Dr. Ruby Sakae Hirose, I want to remind each reader that you should always offer yourself grace.
Read MoreAlright folks, I’m two for two on the year for articles, so let’s hope I keep on this positive trajectory. Thanks for meeting me back here on HerStry for the next installment of Amplify. This month, we’re talking about Winona LaDuke.
Read MoreHappy New Year, HerStry Babes! This month marks the start of the third year of Amplify, a column meant to highlight different women throughout history whose names we should know, but usually don’t. Watching HerStry grow and change in the past two years has been nothing short of inspiring. I am so excited to be on board for the next year as we watch HerStry only continue to grow and to see our fearless founder, Julia, embark on her journey into motherhood.
Read MoreFor the frequent flyers of the Amplify column, you’ll know that I live in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, so I was incredibly pleased to come across Mary Dee Dudley, a trailblazer in radio who happens to be from the Pittsburgh area. She was a staple in the black community in the 1940’s & 50’s, airing her radio show from a storefront in a historically black neighborhood for most of her tenure in Pittsburgh.
Read MoreThis will likely be one of the shortest editions of Amplify. So short, in fact, that I don’t even have a timeline following this article because the life of Esther Jones was not well documented. In fact, the best source available (for free) online is Wikipedia. In most cases I wouldn’t use Wikipedia as a source, let alone my only source, but the citations for this particular Wikipedia article about the child who inspired the woman who inspired Betty Boop are books, newspaper articles, and scholarly articles so big thanks to the angel that put that page together.
Read MoreTraces of former US Representative Patsy Takemoto Mink are woven throughout our current political and social climate. From the Kavanaugh hearings, to human beings in cages on the US/Mexico border, to the US Women’s National Team winning the world cup, Mink’s policies and experiences are continually relevant.
Read MoreLuisa Moreno was born Blanca Rosa Lopez Rodriguez on August 30, 1907, in Guatemala City, Guatemala, to a prominent and well-to-do family (2). Details on the specifics of Moreno’s life are hard to come by, but we do know that during her school-age years, she attended boarding school in Oakland, California.
Read MoreJane Bolin was born on April 11, 1908 in Poughkeepsie, New York to Gaius Bolin and Matilda Emery. Her father, Gaius, was the first black person to graduate from Williams College and he had his own law practice. Because of his success, Bolin had a comfortable childhood and was inspired to be an attorney after being exposed to the beauty of his leather-bound books and the horror of the court cases they contained.
Read MoreHappy February, HerStry Readers! This month, we’re taking a look at the life of Madam C.J. Walker, America’s first (reported) self-made black woman millionaire. Sure, there are a lot of qualifiers there, but Madam Walker reached this accomplishment in the early 1900’s.
Read MoreHappy January, HerStry readers! I apologize for the lack of Amplify in December. One of my low-key resolutions is to not miss a single month of Amplify in 2019. There are so many stories to tell and no one wants an unreliable columnist.
Read MoreI live in Pittsburgh. My home is 4.9 miles from the Tree of Life Synagogue. I don’t think I’ll ever have the words to describe how Pittsburgh felt on October 27, 2018.
Read MoreThis month for Amplify, I decided to do something a little different. Instead of searching deep through the internet and archival websites for women to highlight, I looked right at the headlines. I had heard the name Anita Hill many times before this past week, but never knew who she really was.
Read MoreIn 1865, La Flesche Picotte was born to Chief Iron Eyes (Joseph La Flesche) and his wife, One Woman (Mary) in northeastern Nebraska, in a tipi. Her father was Chief of Omaha Nation, but he felt that the Omaha people would only survive by assimilating to white culture. She attended school on the reservation until she was fourteen years old and was then sent to the Elizabeth Institute for Young Ladies in New Jersey to help her assimilate. La Flesche Picotte was called a “cultural broker” because she grew up in a mostly Western way, but still held on to the traditions of the Omaha people.
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