From Of Another Fashion: ‘We found this when we were going through my grandma’s photos (after she passed away on April 29, 2012 at the age of 98). It’s taken in Los Angeles. I forgot about this photo but it’s one of my favorites. It was taken in the 1930s and the dress was likely made by my grandma, like a lot of her clothes. Submitted by Cheryl Motoyama (Santa Ana, California).’

Here are some links in honor of Women’s History Month (US and Australia) and International Women’s Month (UK).

A mother’s struggle

Louisa Elizabeth Nichols was 32 years old when, on 24 July 1901, she took her husband’s revolver, walked outside her family’s home at Tarlo, near Goulburn, and shot herself in the head. Watching was her 11-year-old daughter, Lily, together with her other six children: Ruby (10), Ronald (9), Hilton (6), Elsie (4), Louisa (2) and baby Edith…. On hearing the shots, Charlie Ah Chong got out of bed, finding his wife dead and the children crying. When the neighbours arrived ten minutes later, there was nothing to be done.

British Caribbean and British Asian women, a brief history

Black and Asian women’s lives can only be interpreted in relation to the history of colonialism and slavery. There were significant differences in white stereotypes of black and Asian women that evolved in the colonial era but both contrasted adversely to ‘superior’ white women (Bush 2004). Asian women were stereotyped as docile and passive and oppressed by patriarchy, particularly Moslem women. The perceived seclusion of the veil, purdah and the forbidden sexuality of the harem, common themes in western orientalist discourse, strengthened the stereotype of passivity. This contrasts with the multiple identities attributed historically to women of African origin in the Americas during the era of slavery- ‘Sable Venus’ and sexual temptress; rebellious ‘she devil’ and as, the African American writer Zora Neale Hurston, observed, the ‘mule ah de world’ (Bush, 2000).

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