Herstory

Virgins Wanted, a documentary film project where a man and a woman auction off the rights to first access of their private parts, is coming to TV soon.

A proposal by Tobi Maier, curator in residency

The exhibition The Second Sex – a visual footnote is a visual essay inspired by the book of the same name by French philosopher Simone de Beauvoir, whose existentialist take on many of the issues of feminism first emerged with the publication of Le Deuxième Sexe in 1949. One of de Beauvoir’s principal challenges was to foster women’s emancipation and the recognition of their working force. Through a close reading of de Beauvoir’s seminal book, the exhibition introduces a number of works that lean towards ideas highlighted in her texts, such as representations of women in myths and the descriptions of their lived situations.

The Second Sex – a visual footnote presents installations by three woman artists spanning a variety of media, from film, sculpture, and photography to collage.

A brutal bondage billboard on Los Angeles’s Sunset Strip for the Rolling Stones’ 1976 album, Black and Blue, was taken down after fierce feminist protests.

In 2011, a man in northeastern Oregon beat his girlfriend with a gun, using it like a club to strike her in front of their children.

Both were members of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation. The federal government, which has jurisdiction over major crimes in Indian Country, declined to prosecute.

So the tribes stepped in. The man was convicted in their courts and sentenced to 790 days in federal prison.

But had the assault happened a week earlier, the case could never have gone to trial.

The Umatilla tribes had recently enacted new provisions from a federal law, the Tribal Law and Order Act, that allowed Native American courts to try their own people for felony crimes instead of relying on the federal authorities.

Without those provisions, once federal prosecutors declined the case, the woman would have had no other legal recourse.

From Sylvia Plath’s copy of The Great Gatsby.

Ella Fitzgerald was not allowed to play at Mocambo because of her race. Then, one of Ella’s biggest fans made a telephone call that quite possibly changed the path of her career for good. Here, Ella tells the story of how Marilyn Monroe changed her life:

The presence of Scandinavian-style female jewellery in Britain has overturned the idea that the Viking conquest of England was an all-male affair, suggesting that in fact large numbers of women travelled over from the Scandinavian homelands.

Photos of Evelyn Nesbit 

Following a discriminatory act based on their sexual orientation, a lesbian couple of Isle of Man wishes an anti-discriminatory law for LGBTQ people.

The landlord refused the rental agreement with Kara Izzard and Laura Cull because they are lesbians.

They have had then the bad surprise to discover that there is no law in Isle of Man to protect them in this kind of situation whereas civil unions and adoption are possible for same-sex couples.

"I was so shocked to hear this and felt sick, said Cull.

"I didn't know where to go or what to do as I didn't have a legal leg to stand on so after speaking with my partner Kira we thought that the only thing we could do was to share our story with as many people as possible and try and raise awareness that on this beautiful island that we call home we can still be treated this way."

This photo and headline accompanied an article from the October 15, 1970 issue of Jet magazine.

...However, decades prior to this bold public display of queer affection, African American female couples in New York strategized alternative ways to obtain marriage licenses in the 1920s and 30s: