My Favorite Feminists

This episode Megan and Milena cover the founder of Kabuki, dancer and actress Izumo no Okuni & Mexican-American botanist and explorer Ynes Mexia.

Izumo no Okuni

Okuni looking badass, dressed as a samurai

One day in the early 1600’s (we’re talking 1602, 1603) an out-of-town shrine maiden in Kyoto made her way to a dry river bed, went over the choreography in her head one last time, then started performing. The dance that Izumo no Okuni gave that day ended up rewriting Japanese theatre history in the process.             The show Okuni gave became Kabuki. This episode we cover what little is known about this crossdressing woman, who favored employing sex workers in her dance troupe. While today’s Kabuki is a male dominated art, we cover how Okuni and her feminism crafted Japan’s most popular form of theater.

Image of a traditional Kabuki theater, including stage walkway platform for dramatic entrances and exits by actors

Image of actor Ebizo Ichikawa XI, known today as the Prince of Kabuki. Over the top makeup, costumes and expressions are all customary within Kabuki(Photo by Education Images/UIG via Getty Images)

Japanese stamp issued in 1994 in honor of Okuni

Mentioned this episode:

* Kabuki – Traditional Japanese theater drama, combining dancing and singing into the story * Izumo Grand Shrine – This shrine is one of the most important ones in Japan – here, in the late 1500’s Okuni was most likely working as a miko, or shrine maiden, where she’d perform the kagura dance * Warring States Period – Also known as the Sengoku Period, it spanned from 1467 to 1598, where feudal lords were trying to out kill one another. Unsurprisingly, it’s a very violent and politically unstable time * Edo – Modern day Tokyo, founded as the capital after the Sengoku period * Edo Period – Period from 1603 to 1868 of relative political, economic and cultural stability, under which Kabuki flourished * Bunraku – Amazing puppet theater that developed alongside Kabuki * Noh – Theater that developed in the 1300’s, a very traditional and formal form of art that Okuni was ...

This episode Megan and Milena cover the first computer programmer, Ada Lovelace & our first non visual artist but complete badass, Lisa Fittko

Ada Lovelace

– Our Bad Woman of Science-

This is the world’s first computer programmer. Stylin’ and killing it. Ada Lovelace (born Augusta Ada Byron) was born in December of 1815. Raised by a single mother who she had a cold relationship with, abandoned by her father, and bedridden for most of her childhood by various illnesses- our girl had a lot of alone time to learn math and science.

And then she got out of bedrest and got into a LOT of trouble. But you’re going to have to tune into episode 18 to get the scoop on that….

BUT- While she was getting into trouble, she was also creating the first ever known computer program in the world. So there’s that.

This is a daguerreotype of her- called the Countess of Lovelace- was done by Antoine Claudet. Thought I would just put this here.

This is the not-fully-completely Analytical Machine that was being built by Ada’s BFF Charles Babbage. He could not complete it because he had lost funds and eventually passed. But before he did that, he held a lecture on the possible machine. An Engineer in the lecture took notes in Latin, and Ada translated those notes into English.

She also added her OWN notes, that were triple the size of the original ones. Labeled A-G, she picked apart the machine, explained what it, mused the possibilities of such a machine, discredited the idea of machines making its own decisions, and then wrote the first known computer program in history.

Like wtf is this?

WHICH IS WHAT THIS IS. This is the very detailed notation of how to make the Analytical Machine generate Bernoulli Numbers….which is a number sequence in number theory. It’s fairly tedious to do yourself. So she made the algorithm!!!

And above, not mentioned in the episode but still pretty cool….. an entire comic series called The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage. It is based loosely off the two best friends Ada and Charles and written by Sydney Padua. Padua is a talented Artist and Author. So if you want to give a female artist (A LIVING ONE) some love, you can find her website and work HERE

Lisa Fittko

1942 Passport photo of Lisa as she was trying to GTFO of Europe

Lisa Fittko is a Fucking Badass™. This episode we explore our first non-visual artist, a woman whose World War II efforts were so impactful to the arts that I couldn’t not cover her. While Lisa might not be a painter, or sculptor, or musician, the work she did while fleeing from the Nazi’s has countless artists indebted to her.

This episode we cover how Lisa, a Jewish anti-fascist resistance activist AKA pretty badass woman subverted the raise of the Nazi’s while ensuring the survival of those fleeing from them. Stubbornness, determination and a well bribed salami are not to be underestimated.

Photo from the Vél d’Hiv roundup in 1942 – Lisa was caught in an earlier round up like the one above, leading to her imprisonment under the French government.

This episode Megan and Milena cover the first computer programmer, Ada Lovelace & our first non visual artist but complete badass, Lisa Fittko

Ada Lovelace

– Our Bad Woman of Science-

This is the world’s first computer programmer. Stylin’ and killing it. Ada Lovelace (born Augusta Ada Byron) was born in December of 1815. Raised by a single mother who she had a cold relationship with, abandoned by her father, and bedridden for most of her childhood by various illnesses- our girl had a lot of alone time to learn math and science.

And then she got out of bedrest and got into a LOT of trouble. But you’re going to have to tune into episode 18 to get the scoop on that….

BUT- While she was getting into trouble, she was also creating the first ever known computer program in the world. So there’s that.

This is a daguerreotype of her- called the Countess of Lovelace- was done by Antoine Claudet. Thought I would just put this here.

This is the not-fully-completely Analytical Machine that was being built by Ada’s BFF Charles Babbage. He could not complete it because he had lost funds and eventually passed. But before he did that, he held a lecture on the possible machine. An Engineer in the lecture took notes in Latin, and Ada translated those notes into English.

She also added her OWN notes, that were triple the size of the original ones. Labeled A-G, she picked apart the machine, explained what it, mused the possibilities of such a machine, discredited the idea of machines making its own decisions, and then wrote the first known computer program in history.

Like wtf is this?

WHICH IS WHAT THIS IS. This is the very detailed notation of how to make the Analytical Machine generate Bernoulli Numbers….which is a number sequence in number theory. It’s fairly tedious to do yourself. So she made the algorithm!!!

And above, not mentioned in the episode but still pretty cool….. an entire comic series called The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage. It is based loosely off the two best friends Ada and Charles and written by Sydney Padua. Padua is a talented Artist and Author. So if you want to give a female artist (A LIVING ONE) some love, you can find her website and work HERE

Lisa Fittko

1942 Passport photo of Lisa as she was trying to GTFO of Europe

Lisa Fittko is a Fucking Badass™. This episode we explore our first non-visual artist, a woman whose World War II efforts were so impactful to the arts that I couldn’t not cover her. While Lisa might not be a painter, or sculptor, or musician, the work she did while fleeing from the Nazi’s has countless artists indebted to her.

This episode we cover how Lisa, a Jewish anti-fascist resistance activist AKA pretty badass woman subverted the raise of the Nazi’s while ensuring the survival of those fleeing from them. Stubbornness, determination and a well bribed salami are not to be underestimated.

Photo from the Vél d’Hiv roundup in 1942 – Lisa was caught in an earlier round up like the one above, leading to her imprisonment under the French government.

This episode Megan & Milena cover the first modern abstract painter, Swedish artist Hilma af Klint & the mother of modern environmentalism, American biologist, science writer, and conservationist Rachel Carson

Hilma af Klint

Hilma af Klint is a curious one. Born in 1862 Sweden, the first few decades of her artistic professional career was spent on traditional, respectable oil paintings featuring landscapes and local plant life. Then shit got weird. At a weekly seance held with four other women, collectively known as The Five, it was revealed to Hilma that the High Spirit Amaliel has commissioned her for a series of paintings on the astral plane and the unity of everything. Yup. Little weird. This episode we explore how in the hell that even came about, what happened after Hilma was granted the task and how the resulting artwork has since shaken up Western notions of who really was the first Western modern abstract painter.

Alter created by The Five, Jesus leading the way

Selected Work

Early Paintings

Oil on canvas from 1888

Another oil on canvas from the late 1890’s

Hilma was interested in botany, creating a series of watercolors documenting the plants around her, like this illustration from the 1890’s

Now this is where things get weird…

Seance sketch from 1905 next to a painting derived from those seance ‘communications’

Alterpiece, Group 10, number 1 from 1915, oil on canvas

Painting Picture of the Starting Point, Series 8 from 1920

Exhibition shot from the Guggenheim Museum Hilma’s retrospective this year, 2019, depicting some of her large 10 paintings, the largest from her Paintings for the Temple series

* Royal Academy of Fine Arts – School in Sweden where Hilma was part of the first generation of women graduates * Anna Cassel – Fellow artist and best friend to Hilma* Western Esotericism – Ugh…essentially a blanket term for religious philosophical BS beliefs like alchemy and numerology * Mondrian – Pioneering modern painter in abstraction* Kandinsky – Also a pioneering modern painter in abstraction* Rudolf Steiner – Hot shot leader within esoteric movement of the late 1800’s, early 1900’s* Iris Müller-Westermann – Curator of the Hilma retrospective, as well as director of,

This episode Megan & Milena cover the first modern abstract painter, Swedish artist Hilma af Klint & the mother of modern environmentalism, American biologist, science writer, and conservationist Rachel Carson

Hilma af Klint

Hilma af Klint is a curious one. Born in 1862 Sweden, the first few decades of her artistic professional career was spent on traditional, respectable oil paintings featuring landscapes and local plant life. Then shit got weird. At a weekly seance held with four other women, collectively known as The Five, it was revealed to Hilma that the High Spirit Amaliel has commissioned her for a series of paintings on the astral plane and the unity of everything. Yup. Little weird. This episode we explore how in the hell that even came about, what happened after Hilma was granted the task and how the resulting artwork has since shaken up Western notions of who really was the first Western modern abstract painter.

Alter created by The Five, Jesus leading the way

Selected Work

Early Paintings

Oil on canvas from 1888

Another oil on canvas from the late 1890’s

Hilma was interested in botany, creating a series of watercolors documenting the plants around her, like this illustration from the 1890’s

Now this is where things get weird…

Seance sketch from 1905 next to a painting derived from those seance ‘communications’

Alterpiece, Group 10, number 1 from 1915, oil on canvas

Painting Picture of the Starting Point, Series 8 from 1920

Exhibition shot from the Guggenheim Museum Hilma’s retrospective this year, 2019, depicting some of her large 10 paintings, the largest from her Paintings for the Temple series

Mentioned this episode:

* Royal Academy of Fine Arts – School in Sweden where Hilma was part of the first generation of women graduates * Anna Cassel – Fellow artist and best friend to Hilma* Western Esotericism – Ugh…essentially a blanket term for religious philosophical BS beliefs like alchemy and numerology * Mondrian – Pioneering modern painter in abstraction* Kandinsky – Also a pioneering modern painter in abstraction* Rudolf Steiner – Hot shot leader within esoteric movement of the late 1800’s, early 1900’s* Iris Müller-Westermann – Curator of the Hilma retrospective,

This episode Megan & Milena cover Chinese American nuclear physicist Chien-Shiung Wu & Russian born portrait photographer Ida Kar

Chien-Shiung Wu

All hail the Queen of Nuclear Physics!

Chien-Shiung Wu, born in 1912, turned the physics world on its head. Quite possibly literally.

Our girl became the leading voice on beta decay, a very special kind of radiation. She used her expertise to disprove an already established theory on how physics would act in a mirrored universe. It also helped find an absolute left and right in terms of Physics in case a bunch of aliens asked us what it was. Sure, we don’t know if a mirrored universe exists, and I doubt any aliens want anything to do with us. But her experiment let us understand how subatomic particles would behave ANYWHERE in the universe, regardless of atmosphere, rotation, and gravitational pull. This made our understanding of these radioactive elements even more solid.

SO- we stole this diagram online for those visual learners in the audience. If the Law of conservation of parity held true, our mirrored universe would look something like the left part of the following diagram. Wu’s experiment yielded the results on the right.

Ida Kar

Artist with a Camera

Self portrait of Ida Kar

Photography is every where – it’s so pervasive in our lives from advertising to journalism to Instagram that it’s hard to imagine that for a time photography was not considered art. Ida Kar helped change that.

Born in 1908 Soviet Russia, Ida is best known for her midcentury portrait photos of England’s cultural elites. She was the first artist in London to have her work shown as art – photographs as art. Today that sounds like a ‘yeah, duh’ but in the 1950’s and 60’s there were still Art World snobs that maintained photo’s would never be art. Thankfully all those Art World snobs are dead – as is Ida, but her art helped paved the way for photography’s acceptance as art. This episode we profile how she came into photography, the importance of a seedy neighborhood and the perks of being creatively stubborn.

Selected Works

Early Photos

1943 photo of Ida’s second husband, Victor Musgrave

One of Ida’s 1940’s surrealist inspired photo studies

Like most learning photography, Ida used friends and family as subjects – above is Ida’s parents Melkon & Anahit from the early 1940’s

Very Big Deal Art Names

After moving from Cairo to England, Ida became immersed in London’s creative scene, photographing some of the most prominent figures of the time. Below are a few Big Names

Peggy Guggenheim in 1952/53 – might sound familiar as she was mentioned last episode in regards to Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner

Sculptor Alberto Giacometti in 1954

Surrealist & Dada artist

This episode Megan & Milena cover Chinese American nuclear physicist Chien-Shiung Wu & Russian born portrait photographer Ida Kar

Chien-Shiung Wu

All hail the Queen of Nuclear Physics!

Chien-Shiung Wu, born in 1912, turned the physics world on its head. Quite possibly literally.

Our girl became the leading voice on beta decay, a very special kind of radiation. She used her expertise to disprove an already established theory on how physics would act in a mirrored universe. It also helped find an absolute left and right in terms of Physics in case a bunch of aliens asked us what it was. Sure, we don’t know if a mirrored universe exists, and I doubt any aliens want anything to do with us. But her experiment let us understand how subatomic particles would behave ANYWHERE in the universe, regardless of atmosphere, rotation, and gravitational pull. This made our understanding of these radioactive elements even more solid.

SO- we stole this diagram online for those visual learners in the audience. If the Law of conservation of parity held true, our mirrored universe would look something like the left part of the following diagram. Wu’s experiment yielded the results on the right.

Ida Kar

Artist with a Camera

Self portrait of Ida Kar

Photography is every where – it’s so pervasive in our lives from advertising to journalism to Instagram that it’s hard to imagine that for a time photography was not considered art. Ida Kar helped change that.

Born in 1908 Soviet Russia, Ida is best known for her midcentury portrait photos of England’s cultural elites. She was the first artist in London to have her work shown as art – photographs as art. Today that sounds like a ‘yeah, duh’ but in the 1950’s and 60’s there were still Art World snobs that maintained photo’s would never be art. Thankfully all those Art World snobs are dead – as is Ida, but her art helped paved the way for photography’s acceptance as art. This episode we profile how she came into photography, the importance of a seedy neighborhood and the perks of being creatively stubborn.

Selected Works

Early Photos

1943 photo of Ida’s second husband, Victor Musgrave

One of Ida’s 1940’s surrealist inspired photo studies

Like most learning photography, Ida used friends and family as subjects – above is Ida’s parents Melkon & Anahit from the early 1940’s

Very Big Deal Art Names

After moving from Cairo to England, Ida became immersed in London’s creative scene, photographing some of the most prominent figures of the time. Below are a few Big Names

Peggy Guggenheim in 1952/53 – might sound familiar as she was mentioned last episode in regards to Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner

Sculptor Alberto Giacometti in 1954

Surrealist & Dada artist

This episode Megan & Milena cover German neo-Freudian psychoanalyst Karen Horney and American Abstract Expressionism painter Lee Krasner.

Karen Horney

This is Karen Horney, MD. She is tired of people making everything about dicks.

Specifically, she was tired of Freud making everything about dicks and then spearheaded a new movement of psychoanalysis along with, like, four other individuals in her field at the time. It is very aptly and stoically named Neo Freudianism. We’re not going to get into the other doctors; but we are going to get into her. In a non-repressed sexuality sort of way.

This is because, while she was not the only psychoanalyst that expanded on and disproved Freudian’s theories, she seemed to be the only one including the psychology of women in a sea of privileged white men.

While we could not find a picture of Bernt Wackels and his smug sailor’s hat, we found a picture of a young Karen Horney, her two daughters, and the asshole she married, Oskar. We’re glad she left him.

She left him, not only because he was insufferable, but because she was on to bigger and better things. Dr. Horney published many books and journals. 

Her biggest concern was the field of Neurosis. How it manifested in people, what it looked like, what would cause it. She would focus on it and how it developed from early childhood. But not just in children and in men…

…but in women as well. Throughout her career, Horney would publish countless articles and papers on women and the specific issues they went through, like motherhood. She dissected the relationship between man and wife and asserted that it was very much like a parent-child relationship, as the woman was dependent solely on her husband. She even countered Freud’s penis envy with something revolutionary: womb envy from men who could never bear children. Horney applied a humanistic way to the human psyche, instead of a completely sex-obsessed one.

She was over the obsession of dicks. And honestly, we are too.

Lee Krasner

Lee Krasner, giving no fucks

Lee Krasner has been described as a lot of things – ugly, a bitch, a sharp businesswoman, a major figure in the American Abstract Expressionism movement – but she’s unfortunately most well known as Mrs. Jackson Pollock.

For most people, Jackson Pollock is an artist they can name, he’s a huge figure in American Modern art. Lee Krasner helped make that happen. Lee and Jackson were together for 11 years – just over a decade is what it took for his work and death to overshadow her for years. Even today, decades after her death there’s still the challenge of presenting Lee’s work on it’s own merits. This episode we cover Lee Krasner’s art and life, and yeah, mention that guy she happened to be married to.

Selected Work

Lee in front of one of her Little Images paintings

Another of her Little Images paintings, Composition is a 1949 oil on canvas that resides in the Philadelphia Museum of Art

This is the 1955 work Burning Candles from Lee’s mosaic work, where should would cut up her umwanted older paintings and rework them

Lee always worked large – here a visitor is looking at her painting A Portrait in Green at Barbican Art Gallery (Photo by Tristan Fewings/Getty Images for Barbican Art Gallery)

This episode Megan & Milena cover German neo-Freudian psychoanalyst Karen Horney and American Abstract Expressionism painter Lee Krasner.

Karen Horney

This is Karen Horney, MD. She is tired of people making everything about dicks.

Specifically, she was tired of Freud making everything about dicks and then spearheaded a new movement of psychoanalysis along with, like, four other individuals in her field at the time. It is very aptly and stoically named Neo Freudianism. We’re not going to get into the other doctors; but we are going to get into her. In a non-repressed sexuality sort of way.

This is because, while she was not the only psychoanalyst that expanded on and disproved Freudian’s theories, she seemed to be the only one including the psychology of women in a sea of privileged white men.

While we could not find a picture of Bernt Wackels and his smug sailor’s hat, we found a picture of a young Karen Horney, her two daughters, and the asshole she married, Oskar. We’re glad she left him.

She left him, not only because he was insufferable, but because she was on to bigger and better things. Dr. Horney published many books and journals. 

Her biggest concern was the field of Neurosis. How it manifested in people, what it looked like, what would cause it. She would focus on it and how it developed from early childhood. But not just in children and in men…

…but in women as well. Throughout her career, Horney would publish countless articles and papers on women and the specific issues they went through, like motherhood. She dissected the relationship between man and wife and asserted that it was very much like a parent-child relationship, as the woman was dependent solely on her husband. She even countered Freud’s penis envy with something revolutionary: womb envy from men who could never bear children. Horney applied a humanistic way to the human psyche, instead of a completely sex-obsessed one.

She was over the obsession of dicks. And honestly, we are too.

Lee Krasner

Lee Krasner, giving no fucks

Lee Krasner has been described as a lot of things – ugly, a bitch, a sharp businesswoman, a major figure in the American Abstract Expressionism movement – but she’s unfortunately most well known as Mrs. Jackson Pollock.

For most people, Jackson Pollock is an artist they can name, he’s a huge figure in American Modern art. Lee Krasner helped make that happen. Lee and Jackson were together for 11 years – just over a decade is what it took for his work and death to overshadow her for years. Even today, decades after her death there’s still the challenge of presenting Lee’s work on it’s own merits. This episode we cover Lee Krasner’s art and life, and yeah, mention that guy she happened to be married to.

Selected Work

Lee in front of one of her Little Images paintings

Another of her Little Images paintings, Composition is a 1949 oil on canvas that resides in the Philadelphia Museum of Art

This is the 1955 work Burning Candles from Lee’s mosaic work, where should would cut up her umwanted older paintings and rework them

Lee always worked large – here a visitor is looking at her painting A Portrait in Green at Barbican Art Gallery (Photo by Tristan Fewings/Getty Images for Barbican Art Gallery)

This episode Megan & Milena cover Victorian English flower painter and botanist Marianne North and 20th century African American ophthalmologist, inventor, educator and pioneer Dr. Patricia Bath

Marianne North

Marianne looking bored, she’s got international travel to plan

In case you didn’t know, flowers are for women. For a respectable Victorian Lady, flower painting was a very respectable hobby. What was not expected, is international voyages – lasting years at a time, all in order for said respectable Victorian Lady to paint the flowers, on location.

In the case of Marianne North, that meant traveling from 19th century England to paint in California, Chile, Burma, Java, New Zealand, Jamaica, and more – traveling to over 20 countries in total. From these travels Marianne documented a wide range of flora in over a thousand paintings. This episode we explore how her family wealth and connections facilitated this, and how with enough commitment – and money – she became a unconventional painter and botanist of the time.  

The Marianne North Gallery at the Kew Gardens. Marianne paid for and designed this space to house hundreds of her paintings for public view

Selected Paintings

Selecting a few of Marianne’s work was tough – she was a very prolific artist. Below are just a few of the hundreds, more of which can be seen HERE

One of my favorite paintings – this one of a Chilean cactus in flower

These are carnivorous pitcher plants found in Java and were named after Marianne

In additions to painting plants Marianne would incorporate the wildlife around them, like these Urania moths by these angraecum in Madagascar

This is a 1880 painting of a coral tree – Marianne blended art and science in painting a entire landscape in addition to the plant subject matter

This painting is of the Otira Gorge in New Zealand. Marianne traveled there on the encouragement of family friend Charles Darwin. YEAH, just ol’ pal CHARLES DARWIN

Marianne was also such a badass she received special permission from the Emperor of fucking Japan to paint in Kyoto – which at the time was off limits to foreigners. Above is the Temple over the Great Bell of Chion-in

* Red Dwarf – Amazing British scifi/comedy sitcom about a group of misfits alone in space, originally airing in 1988. Watch it or be a smeghead* Maria Sibylla Merian – 17th Century scientific illustrator and entomologist who we cover in episode 8* Hastings, England – Coastal southwest English town where Marianne grew up * Sir William Hooker – Family friend and first director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, now the Kew Gardens *