Dame is a Four Letter Word

So Many Dames They Demanded Their Own Exhibit

dameisafourletterword@gmail.com (DameIsAFourLetterWord) — Wed, 18 Mar 2015 16:42:00 +0000

As part of a class project, I (LP) with my group, created an online exhibit at the DPLA about aviatrixes profiling women figures in early aviation up through the era of the WASP. I worked mostly on the Daredevil section of the exhibit but also on some of the text about the aspects of planes of the era, but everyone in my group did great!

Obviously I included the Dame formerly profiled, Bessie Coleman. God DAMN I love that picture, she's got such a sly grin on her face.

Unfortunately there were practically no public domain photos of Pancho Barnes, or I would have absolutely profiled her, BUT in the group shot of the participants of the Powder Puff Derby she's visible, puffing away on her cigar. And fortunately I got to hand the profiling of Jackie Cochran off to one of my classmates as I doubt I could have been terribly impartial since though she help started the WASP, she sold out women in aviation down the line as profiled in a later podcast.

I think that's all the different links handled, go check it out!
Here it is!

Dames Deferred: A special Moon Landing anniversary edition

dameisafourletterword@gmail.com (DameIsAFourLetterWord) — Tue, 22 Jul 2014 01:45:00 +0000

Dames Deferred - The Mercury 13

Further Reading:
Ackmann, Martha (2003). The Mercury 13: The Untold Story of Thirteen American Women and the Dream of Space Flight.
Nolen, Stephanie (2002). Promised the Moon: The Untold Story of the First Women in the Space Race

Music:
I Should Fly - Vermillion Lies

Click to listen in new window

Episode 20: Aviators

dameisafourletterword@gmail.com (DameIsAFourLetterWord) — Sat, 29 Jun 2013 18:43:00 +0000

'Queen' Bess Coleman and Pancho Barnes

Click to listen in new window

Further Reading:
Bessie Coleman:
Queen Bess: Daredevil Aviator by Doris L. Rich

Pancho Barnes:

The Happy Bottom Riding Club: The Life and Times of Pancho Barnes by Lauren Kessler (2001)
The Legend of Pancho Barnes and the Happy Bottom Riding Club directed by Amanda Pope (2009)

Music: "Don't Stop" by the Parting Gifts

Episode 19: Dames who got aim

dameisafourletterword@gmail.com (DameIsAFourLetterWord) — Mon, 24 Dec 2012 20:27:00 +0000

Mamie "Peanut" Johnson and Lyudmilla Pavlichenko

Click to listen in new window

Further Reading:
Mamie "Peanut" Johnson
A Strong Right Arm by Michelle Green
Interview on Youtube by Visionary Project
Mamie 'Peanut' Johnson, Pitching Pioneer, Interview Fresh Air, NPR 2/18/2003
Mamie Johnson: Peanut Who Stood Tall in Negro Leagues
Podcast interview of Mamie before an elementary school class.

Lyudmilla Pavlichenko
Women in War and Resistance by Kazimiera J. Cottam

Episode 18: Dame Adventurers

dameisafourletterword@gmail.com (DameIsAFourLetterWord) — Mon, 05 Nov 2012 07:40:00 +0000

Lady Hester Stanhope and La Maupin

Click to listen in new window

Further Reading:

Lady Hester:

Lady Hester: Queen of the East by Lorna Gibb. (2005)

Memoirs of the Lady Hester Stanhope by Dr. Meyron. (1845)

La Maupin

By the Sword: A History of Gladiators, Musketeers, Samurai, Swashbucklers, and Olympic Champions by Richard Cohen (2003)

Queens of Song by Ellen Clayton (1865)

Wonderful Characters: Comprising Memoirs and Anecdotes of the Most Remarkable Persons of Every Age and Nation by Henry Wilson (1830)

The Sketchbook of Character by E.L. Carey and A. Hart (1835)

Dictionnaire des Theatres de Paris and Anecdotes Dramatiques by Francois Parfaict

Women in Men's Guise by Oscar Gilbert (1932)

Gallant Ladies by Rogers

Episode 17: Outlaws

dameisafourletterword@gmail.com (DameIsAFourLetterWord) — Sat, 29 Sep 2012 19:51:00 +0000

Cora Hubbard and Belle Starr: Wild West Outlaws.

Click to listen in new window

Further Reading:

Cora Hubbard:

Bedside Book of Bad Girls: Outlaw Women of the Old West by Michael Rutter

Tales Never Told Around the Campfire: True Stories of Frontier America by Mark Dugan

Ozarks, Gunfire and Other Notorious Incidents by Larry Wood

Cora Hubbard: Female Bank Robber in Missouri by Larry Wood

Belle Starr:

Women of the Wild West by Katherine Kohn

http://www.lkwdpl.org/wihohio/star-bel.htm

Music: The Devil Had a Hold of Me - Gillian Welch

Episode 16: Circus Performers: Whoot! Whoot!

dameisafourletterword@gmail.com (DameIsAFourLetterWord) — Thu, 13 Sep 2012 01:53:00 +0000

Dames of the Circus: Lillian Leitzel and Millie-Christine McCoy

Click to listen in new window

Further reading:

Millie-Christine: Fearfully and Wonderfully Made; Joanne Martell; John F. Blair Publisher (2001)

Biographical Sketch of Millie Christine, the Carolina Twin, Surnamed the Two-Headed Nightingale and the Eighth Wonder of the World

Music: Little Egypt by the Coasters

Episode 15 - Funny Dames

dameisafourletterword@gmail.com (DameIsAFourLetterWord) — Fri, 27 Jul 2012 03:05:00 +0000

Tallulah Bankhead and Dorothy Parker: Droll dames.

Click to listen in new window

Further Reading:

Tallulah Bankhead
Tallulah Bankhead: My Autobiography by Tallulah Bankhead (1952)
Tallulah Bankhead by Byrony Lavery (1999)
Tallulah Bankhead: A Scandalous Life by David Bret (1996)

Tallulah ragging on Bette Davis on The Big Show
Tallulah and Marlena sparring on the radio
Tallulah and Groucho sparring on the radio

Tallulah on Batman. The Black Widow Strikes Again 1,2,3 and Caught in the Spider's Web 1,2,3

Dorothy Parker
'What Fresh Hell Is This?' by Marion Meade. (2006).

Music: This Party Took a Turn for the Douche - Garfunkel and Oates

Special Minisode - Lydia Litvyak

dameisafourletterword@gmail.com (DameIsAFourLetterWord) — Sun, 08 Jul 2012 17:35:00 +0000

Sr. Lt. Lydia Vladimirovna aka Lilya Litvyak

Right click here and save as to download

Further Reading:
Wings Women and War by Reina Pennington (1997)
Soviet Women in Combat in WWII by Kazimiera J. Cottam (1983)

Also, online commentary by Ms. Cottam on the likelihood of the cheating death rumors.

Episode 14: Dame Physicists (ish)

dameisafourletterword@gmail.com (DameIsAFourLetterWord) — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 00:02:00 +0000

Dr. Chien-Shiung Wu and The Harvard Computers

Special thanks to Bil Sanford for putting science into English for us.

Dame is a Four Letter Word - Episode 14 : Free Download & Streaming : Internet Archive

Right click here and save as to download

Further Reading:

Dr. Chien-Shiung Wu:

Question of Parity Conservation in Weak Interactions by T.D. Lee and C.N. Yang; The Physical Review (October 1, 1956)

Reversal of the Parity Conservation Law in Nuclear Physics prepared by Ralph P. Hudson.

Famed Physicist Chien-Shiung Wu Dies at 84 by Bob Nelson; The Columbia University Record. (1997)

Beta Decay and Quark-Antiquark Non-Parity in Collision-Induced Gravity by Gary C. Vezzoli; Progress in Physics. (April 2009)

The Harvard Computers

Miss Leavitt's Stars: The Untold Story of the Woman Who Discovered How to Measure the Universe by George Johnson (2005)

Woman Astronomer: The Harvard Computers

Wellesley College Astronomy Department: Annie Jump Cannon

Antonia Caetana de Paiva Pereira Maury - Vassar College Encyclopedia - Vassar College

Characteristics of the spectral classes - Spectra

Music: Doris Day: Tic,Tic,Tic

Hum: Stars

Episode 13 - Reporters

dameisafourletterword@gmail.com (DameIsAFourLetterWord) — Mon, 28 May 2012 20:22:00 +0000

Nellie Bly and Anna Politkovskaya: Plucky investigative journalists.

Right click here and save as to download

Further Reading:
Nellie Bly:

Nellie Bly: Daredevil, Reporter, Feminist by Brooke Kroeger (1994)
10 Days in a Madhouse by Nellie Bly
Around the World in 72 Days by Nellie Bly
Six Months in Mexico by Nellie Bly
Nellie Bly Resource Site (online archive of Nellie's writing)
Transcript of PBS American Experience
I'm not the only one curious about McGinty - There's a children's book about him.
And the tradition of stunt reporting continues to the modern age

Anna Politkovskaya

"A Small Corner of Hell: Dispatches from Chechnya" by Anna Politkovskaya, The University of Chicago Press (2003).
Whose Truth? by Georgi M. Derluguian (2003)
"Nothing But the Truth" by Anna Politkovksaya, Novaya Gazeta (2007)
"A Russian Diary: A Journalist's Final Account of Life, Corruption, and Death in Putin's Russia" by Anna Politkovskaya (2006)

Music: Monster Hospital by Metric

Look Who's Popped up on Vanity Fair

dameisafourletterword@gmail.com (DameIsAFourLetterWord) — Mon, 28 May 2012 19:35:00 +0000

Our old barkeep Texas Guinan in an Impossible Interview with Mrs. Ella Boyle

Wish she'd been having a conversation with Carry Nation, as that would have been much more apt for us, and also this lady, from what I found on her, seems like half the prohibitionist Carry was. Though she did have the gall to run for public office before she had sufferage, so give the little lady a big hand!

Special Bonus Aviatrix: Hazel Ying Lee

dameisafourletterword@gmail.com (DameIsAFourLetterWord) — Thu, 24 May 2012 00:19:00 +0000

Hazel Ying Lee, WASP pilot.

I love love LOVE this photo. Aviator hat on. Shit eating grin on her face. Cigarette dangling from her hand. She sits on the wing of a plane in one of those old fashioned balloon looking shorts and a pair of boots that just must be too big for her. That, my friends... is a plucky heroine. That, my friends, is a certain Hazel Ying Lee, World War II WASP Aviatrix.

Hazel grew up in Portland, Oregon. Not quite the espresso-sipping philosophy-reading bastion it is today, the only job she could get as a Chinese American once she left school was as an elevator operator. But hey, at least she was a citizen by way of being born in the US, something that naturalized immigrants from China or anywhere else in that region weren't allowed to become...by federal law.

Then, when she was 20, Hazel Ying Lee learned how to fly. She was one of the first Chinese American women to earn her pilot's license when she passed her test in 1932. At this time, less than 1% of pilots in the US were women, but she knew from the first time she was in a plane that she wanted to be a pilot.

She went to China a year later and sought to join their air force. But you know, so what they needed pilots? So what Japan had just invaded part of their country? Women? Too erratic to be combat pilots. Sorry, honey.

So Hazel stayed in Canton, China working a desk job and flying chartered private flights while one of her brothers and her husband joined the Chinese Air Force. She was still there in 1937 when Japan quit being cute with it and full-on invaded China. She stayed in Canton for a while longer, helping with civilian air-raids, then fled back to the US via Hong Kong.

Although I absolutely know in my heart of hearts that World War II was a horribly devastating time, why does so much of it lend itself to tragic romantic fantasy? I can see her coming to the decision that if they won't let her fight in this war, she's by god not going to die from some air-raid bomb when she should by all rights be dropping bombs herself. A dodgy stowaway sequence later and she's on the midnight plane from Hong Kong back to the West Coast, under constant threat of death from enemy anti-aircraft fire. This being 1938, there's probably a dramatically flapping scarf and some lipstick involved.

Hazel spent the next few years in New York buying and shipping wartime supplies to the Chinese government. And for a while, that was the best way for her to fight her war...until Pearl Harbor that is. And then, the US Army started entertaining a crazy notion brought forth to them by pilot Jacqueline Cochran.

To digress a bit, Jacqueline Cochran was total badass in her own right. (A peek behind the curtain, there's a really poorly recorded podcast about her in the vault.) She won the prestigious Bendix Race, which was an air-race across the country, set a transcontinental speed record - notice that there is no "for women" after that. She was the first woman to fly across the ocean, the first woman to break the sound barrier and the first woman to fly a bomber across the ocean. And in that last one, came the idea that she brought to the army.

See, Jackie Cochran had flown that Lockheed bomber across the Atlantic as part of the Wings for Britain program which ferried American-built aircraft to besieged England. While there, she joined the RAF and recruited women across Europe to join the RAF's non-combat airforce division. So the idea comes to her...why should women only be given this opportunity to help with wartime effort in England?

Cheeky wench starts lobbying with Eleanor Roosevelt to help her create a non-combat civilian aviation division for women in the US. This persuasion starts in September of 1940, mind you, before the US is even in the war. There was a lot of resistance to the idea but as pilot resources started to wear thin, first came the WAFS (Womens Auxiliary Ferry Squadron) to fly airplanes from factory to airbase and then Jacqueline got her wish in 1943 when the Women Airforce Service Pilot (WASP) division was started.

Hazel Ying Lee seized this opportunity and a decade after the Chinese army told her women were too erratic to fly in the air force, she was accepted into the WASP program, one of the 1,074 to pass training and join out of 25,000 female pilots who applied.

WASP did not enter combat, which isn't to say their job wasn't dangerous. 38 ended up dying by the end of the program, and there were many emergency landings. One of their primary duties was to fly planes from the factory to a way station where it would then be flown by combat pilots to battleships or to give to allies. This was the first time that many of these planes were flown, and some didn't leave the assembly line without their flaws.

Another duty was to fly planes that towed targets for practice in combat training. That's probably not a good day. There's at least one tale of a woman getting shot in the foot by someone whose aim really did need that training.

Hazel was part of a select group within this program that learned to fly pursuit, i.e. to be able to fly the fastest, highest-powered fighters the United States was producing, even if only from Buffalo, New York to North Dakota. Out of the thousand odd women in the program, only 134 were trained to fly these planes.

And did I mention that she did it in style? Hazel used to label the planes she flew and those of others with Chinese characters scrawled in lipstick on the tail. When there was a mission she was on that involved staying overnight in a city, her fellow pilots tried to get assigned with her, because even in the some airstrip town in the middle of nowhere, she could find a Chinese restaurant, make friends with the kitchen, and order in rapid Cantonese, or hell, help them cook it herself. One article I read said that some of her fellow pilots still had cartoons of her running around playing cook.

Oh and there was the time some farmer thought she was part of a Japanese invasion and held her at pitchfork point after she'd had to make an emergency landing in his field. One version of the story has her talking him down and then getting fed up and flat out commanding him to drop his pitchfork. Another has his son realizing that she was a WASP who'd had a mishap and called the nearby military base after which his father calmed down enough to put down the pitchfork. I kind of like the latter one, just getting a mental picture of Hazel and the farmer's son exchanging shrugs and rolled eyes with some paranoid pitchfork-holding old man in between them, desperate to believe he can repel an invasion with the power of agriculture.

But, as any viewer of WWII movies can tell you, one cannot engage in those kind of happy-go-lucky shenanigans and expect to last.

On Thanksgiving morning, 1944, Hazel was approaching the airport in Great Falls, North Dakota after being delayed in Fargo due to weather for several days. She was flying a P-63, as was another pilot who had a broken radio. She was cleared by the tower to land over the radio at the same time that he was by way of light signals. As they both headed in, the tower realized what was going to happen and radioed them both to pull up. But only Hazel had an operating radio so when she pulled up and the other pilot didn't, she crashed right into his plane.

The other pilot survived with minor injuries, but Hazel died from burns sustained in the crash two days later.

Her family learned of her death, and then of her brother Victor's on the battlefield in France within days of each other. Just to make it all better the cemetery in Portland didn't want to let them be buried in the plot that the Lees had selected...because the plot was in the white section of the cemetery.

One really shameful to contemplate court battle later and Victor and Hazel were laid to rest in Portland.

The P-63, the plane that Hazel and her fellow WASP members spent many days and nights flying from Buffalo to North Dakota, was used in the liberation of Berlin, and also when the Soviets liberated Northeastern China. So, air force or no, Hazel got to play at least a bit of a role.

Episode 12: Dame Warriors 2: Because Sometimes You Need a Posse

dameisafourletterword@gmail.com (DameIsAFourLetterWord) — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 01:44:00 +0000

The Trung Women and The Night Witches:

Right click here and save as to download

Further Reading:
The Trung Warriors
When Heroism is Not Enough: Three Women Warriors of Vietnam, Their Historians and World History by Professor Marc Jason Gilbert.
From Co-Loa to the Trung Sisters' Revolt: Viet-Nam as the Chinese Found It by Stephen O'Harrow. (1978)
Hai Ba Trung (The Trung Sisters)

The Night Witches
"We, of course, would have preferred to have been called 'night beauties,' but, whichever, we did our job." - Galina Beltsova, pilot

A Dance with Death: Soviet Airwomen in WWII edited by Anne Noggle and Christine White (2001)
Wings Women and War by Reina Pennington (1997)
Unit Cohesion Among the Three Soviet Women's Air Regiments During World War II, by Jessica Bhuvasorakul (2004)
Soviet Women in Combat in WWII by Kazimiera J. Cottam (1983)

For pretty pictures:

Some awesome soul's Flickr: Some of these are Night Witches, some are other Soviet women who served in WWII.

Battlefields: Night Witches and Motherland, Garth Ennis and Russ Braun

Music: PJ Harvey - Meet Ze Monsta

Photoshop didn't pulp it up enough, moved on to acrylics - LP

Episode 11: Soldiers

dameisafourletterword@gmail.com (DameIsAFourLetterWord) — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 01:06:00 +0000

Trieu Thi Trinh and Maria Quitéria de Jesus Meideiros: Women in combat? Yea, they've been tearing up battlefields for centuries upon centuries. Listen up.

Right click here and save as to download

Further Reading:
Trieu Thi Trinh
Vietnam, A Long History by Khac Vien Nguyen
Vietnam, A Comprehensive History by Kim Vinh Pham
The Birth of Vietnam by Keith Taylor
Vietnamese Tradition on Trial by David Marr

Maria Quiteria
Cross-dressing to Liberate Her Country and Herself: Revisiting the Life Trajectory of the Joan d' Arc of Brazil by Ivani Vassoler (2004).
Biography of Quiterias by Lima (1976).
Historical fiction based on Quiterias by Helio Polvora (2004).

Music: Rebel Girl by Bikini Kill

Tit for tat, y'all!

dameisafourletterword@gmail.com (DameIsAFourLetterWord) — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 18:44:00 +0000

Yasmin Neal's anti-vasectomy bill

Slightly Inebriated Historical Travelogue of St. Petersburg.

dameisafourletterword@gmail.com (DameIsAFourLetterWord) — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 08:43:00 +0000

Lindsay, Sasha and Laurin with a snowman-spy caught
not far from the banks of the Neva.

Right click here and save as to download

*This travelogue is dedicated to Crystal Veytia, who was one of our traveling buddies and who left this world far too soon shortly after our trip to St. Petersburg. RIP and much love mija.

Old Nevsky Prospect - 1905

Music: DDT-Black Dog Petersburg

The Unlucky Sophia

dameisafourletterword@gmail.com (DameIsAFourLetterWord) — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 03:08:00 +0000

When Sophia of Stettin came over to Russia to be the heir’s betrothed, she took her new name of Catherine upon converting to Russian Orthodoxy. She could have kept her old name, Sophia was a proper Russian name, but some think Elizabeth felt it an imprudent choice, considering the history of another woman with that name who was quite the usurper. She probably didn’t want to give Catherine any ideas in that area.

Little did she know.

Well, whether Catherine thought much on her name change at the time, I don’t know, but later on in her life, there was a work attributed to her where she commented on the regent Sophia - “Much has been said about this princess, but I believe that she has not been given the credit she deserves...she conducted the affairs of the Empire for a number of years with all the sagacity that one could hope for. When one considers the business that passed through her hands, one cannot but concede that she was capable of ruling.”

I had my own little geek out over Sophia, on my previous journey to Moscow. There was a very particular exhibit at the Kremlin Arsenal that I was excited to see. It was hardly unassuming. A double seated throne covered in ornamentation of snakes and eagles. But carved out of it, a tiny square window, and that was what I came to see. A singularly perfect physical manifestation of one woman’s attempt at power.

See, Sophia would have been in a pretty sweet spot, if she’d been born with a Y chromosome. When her brother Feodor II died, she would have had a straight shot at the throne. The only other male offspring were her younger brother Ivan, and a half-brother Peter.

Ivan was nearly an invalid, partially blind and not in complete control of his wits.That’s what inbreeding gets you. Peter on the other hand, had the strikes against him of being only 10, and being a child of the Tsar’s less legitimate second wife. Other than that, as you might guess from his later nickname of Peter the Great he was pretty capable.

A story from the time of when the Swedish king visited, and when the two tsars had to ask about his health as per custom "the hand of the elder tsar had to be raised to his cap by his young attendant, and a babbling noise issued from his lips." In contrast, the king took eleven year old Peter to be around 16.

So, appearances aside, Russia couldn’t really be ruled by a child and a half-wit, but fortunately, elder sister Sophia was more than happy to step up and be regent. She was 27 at the time of her accession to power, and it was a move pretty much unprecedented for women in Russia.

On that double-seated throne sat young Peter and foolish Ivan. Either in front on a lower bench, or in the back, whispering through that hole (that would be covered by a curtain) would be Sophia. Sophia was the real ear for nobles to catch if they wanted anything done, and she sought to catch the public’s eye as well, putting herself on coinage and seals next to the two young tsars. Most of the sources I find that mention the hole in the throne tend towards saying Sophia’s whispers through it were more a symbolic story than her actual method of rule. Rats, shoulda known a symbol that perfect was fake.

How well she actually ruled is a murky subject. Much the same way that any history of Peter III’s brief reign is colored by whether or not the writer liked his successor Catherine, any history of Sophia is colored by the writer’s opinion of Peter the Great, which as you can guess by the sobriquet is usually at the least deep respect, if not outright worship.

But in her time behind the throne, roughly from 1682-89, Moscow began to be a more organized metropolis and the building and art styles known as Moscow baroque became the dominant one. She was a very pious woman, but that didn’t stop her from executing anyone who had opposed her taking over as regent, nor acquiring Kiev, nor warring with Turkey, nor annexing a chunk of Poland (but what Russian ruler doesn’t at least try that?)

Peter however was growing older, and began to dislike the idea of having a regent. He also, being none too dumb himself, recognized that she might not like being a regent much longer, and might prefer another title. One that would be easier to get if he was dead. By 1688, when the Crimean campaigns took a turn for the worst, and the taxes they were costing the people began to feel burdensome, Peter, in some eyes, no longer seemed to need a regent.

In July of 1689, he confronted her during a church feast, and then fled to a nearby town. With his own personal regiment. That he threatened to unleash to deal with her “dishonorably” if she came anywhere near his stronghold. Sophia, who was holed up in the Kremlin, started issuing decrees that were contrary to the decrees of Peter, who was holed up in the Trinity Monastery. She even at one point flirted with the idea of becoming sovereign herself, the proposed coronation engravings surviving to be used against her later.

She spent that summer behind the walls of the Kremlin, watching desperately as her supporters one by one either defected or were arrested and made to confess to intrigues against Peter. Her advisor and possible lover Vasily Galitzine, was implicated and exiled to Siberia.

In September of that year, she was confined to the Novodivechy convent. As prisons go, it was a fitting and elegant one. She’d spent a lot of her rule embellishing the convent with new buildings, towers, icons, cathedrals, and now she’d never leave it alive.She didn’t take the veil, and hardly seems to have taken the vow of poverty, taking much of her possessions with her, and financing further constructions in the convent.

I recorded a small bit while walking through the convent, and here it is.

Right click here and save as to download

In 1697, a plot against Peter was discovered. The conspirators admitted under torture that their ultimate goal was to put Sophia on the throne. Peter came in to question her, and though evidence was discovered that she’d been being passed secret messages by her sisters, no evidence was found that she had a hand in the attempted coup. If they wanted to put her on the throne, she maintained, it wasn’t on her request.

Still in October of 1697, she took the veil, to try to place herself on more blameless ground. Maybe she felt that she’d made the right decision when hundreds were executed. Three of the ringleaders were hung in view of her window, one of them had the petition inviting Sophia to take the helm of the state clasped in his hand "perhaps in order that remorse for the past may gnaw Sophia with perpetual grief."

She died in 1704, still within the convent walls, and despite having taken the veil, still found a way to pay for handsome renovations to the various churches and towers within in the years leading up to her death.

Not making any argument here that she would have been a better ruler than Peter, seemed like she was more an old-school, hang onto power by its' short and curlies as long as possible type ruler than any kind of reformer. But it’s interesting that for the rest of the 18th century after Peter's death, the country was ruled predominantly by women. Is this because of Sophia's legacy, or in spite of it?

16 year old girl sends MIT Admissions letter to 91,000 feet

dameisafourletterword@gmail.com (DameIsAFourLetterWord) — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 17:49:00 +0000

This is all over the internet, but thought we'd pile on too.

Incredible already...and she's barely got started.

Clever dame. See the beautiful footage here

Episode 10: Queens

dameisafourletterword@gmail.com (DameIsAFourLetterWord) — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 03:29:00 +0000

Queen Boudica (aka: Boudicca or Boadicea) and Catherine the Great (Ekaterina the 2nd)

Right click here and save as to download

Further Reading:
Queen Boudica:
"Boudica: Iron Age Warrior Queen" by Richard Hingley and Christina Unwin.
"The Annals" by Tacitus. (Boudica's story was rediscovered in this book around 1360)

Catherine the Great
Catherine the Great: A Short History by Isabel de Madriaga
Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman by Robert K Massie
Catherine the Great: Love, Sex and Power by Virginia Rounding
Catherine the Great (PBS Documentary)

Music: Etta James - Pay Back

Dame Adventurer anyone?

dameisafourletterword@gmail.com (DameIsAFourLetterWord) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 15:35:00 +0000

Congrats to Felicity Aston for being the first to ski solo across Antarctica. And tweeting all the while.

Episode 9: Dames Mathematica

dameisafourletterword@gmail.com (DameIsAFourLetterWord) — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 20:14:00 +0000

Ada Lovelace and Emmy Noether - Dames of Mathematics

Right click here and save as to download

Further Reading:
Ada Lovelace
"Ada: The Enchantress of Numbers" by Betty Toole (2010)
"The Calculating Passion of Ada Byron" by Joan Baum (1986)
"Ada, Countess of Lovelace, Byron's only Legitimate Daughter" by Doris Langley Moore (1977)
"Ada: A Life and Legacy" by Dorothy Stein (1985)
Sketch of the Analytical Engine by L. Menebrea. Notes by Ada Lovelace. (1843)
Great comic on Hark a Vagrant
Unbelievably thorough historiography of Ada Lovelace on Victorian Geek, invaluable resource on who said what when about Ada's much-contended legacy.
An Archetypal Bad Death: The Case of Ada Lovelace from Death in the Victorian Family by Patricia Jailand (2000)

Emmy Noether
"Modern Mathematicians" by Harry Henderson. (1996).
"The Mother of Modern Algebra" by M.B.W Tent (2008).
Great video lecture with Ransom Stephens:

Music: "Don't Make me Prove it" - Veruca Salt

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame to Joan Jett: By rock and roll, we mean Madonna, sorry, hun.

dameisafourletterword@gmail.com (DameIsAFourLetterWord) — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 18:44:00 +0000

Interesting item on Salon decrying Joan Jett not getting into Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
Ha, my favorite line in here comparing Joan Jett to Guns N Roses "Still tours constantly not as a pathetic parody of her old self"

Episode 8: Dames of Philosophy

dameisafourletterword@gmail.com (DameIsAFourLetterWord) — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 22:16:00 +0000

Simone de Beauvoir and Hannah Arendt: Logical ladies possessing giant intellects.
Forget the teachings which say that women are solely emotional creatures, incapable of sophisticated reasoning. The fact is that females have repeatedly proved throughout history that they're just as logical as their male counterparts. Listen up.

Note: Apologies on the delay, we had some sound quality/technical issues while recording.

Right click here and save as to download

Further Reading:
Simone de Beauvoir:
"A Dangerous Liaison: A Biography of Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre" by Carole Seymour-Jones (2008). The Overlook Press, Peter Mayer Publishers, Inc., New York. (2009)
"The Second Sex." (1949) translated by H M Parshley, Penguin (1972); published by Jonathan Cape in 1953.
"Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter." by Simone de Beauvoir
"The Prime of Life." By Simone de Beauvoir
"Philosophy as Passion" by Simone de Beauvoir
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy - Simone de Beauvoir
Hannah Arendt:
Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt
Eichmann in Jerusalem by Hannah Arendt
The Human Condition by Hannah Arendt
Men in Dark Times by Hannah Arendt
Reflections on Violence by Hannah Arendt
Reflections on Little Rock by Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt and Martin Heidegger by Elzbieta Ettinger
Fembio on Hannah Arendt
Arendt's Judgment by Mark Greif, Dissent Magazine
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy - Hannah Arendt
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy - Hannah Arendt

Music: Beethoven Kreutzer Sonata

*Pictures done up by LP*
Thanks to Sasha for audio help.

Episode 7 Addendum

dameisafourletterword@gmail.com (DameIsAFourLetterWord) — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 01:37:00 +0000

Hmm looks like Texas Guinan's grave and former speakeasy sites are not the only destinations from this podcast I could pay a visit to.Per this awesome blog post from The Bowery Boys, (much recommended) I could go see the bar where famed boxer John L Sullivan was too chicken to let little old lady Carrie Nation in. Though according to Google Street View, it currently seems to be a perfume shop. How anticlimactic.
-LP