@carvehername.bsky.social
Every day women have, and are, making history. Follow us to get daily posts on what women have done #OnThisDay. 🗃️ We check replies on weekdays, but not always at weekends. https://carvehername.org.uk/ and https://linktr.ee/CarveHerName
#OnThisDay, 14 Mar 2018, Angela Merkel is sworn in as Chancellor of Germany for the fourth time. #WomenInPolitics
As well as being the first woman to take up the role of President, she had been the first woman to practise law in the country, and the first woman to sit as a judge in their Supreme Court. She stabilised the country for long enough for it to hold a free and fair election.
2/2
#OnThisDay, 13 Mar 1990, Ertha Pascal-Trouillot became the provisional president of Haiti.
“I accepted the position in the name of Haitian women. I did it as a service to my country. I did it with love and determination.”
#History #WomensHistory #WomensHistoryMonth #CaribbeanHistory 🗃️
1/2
And finally, I've updated our version of the Indie Champions list, where we only include books by women and non-binary people.
A surprising amount from the Booker International Writing shortlist this year, including two by Iranian women.
uk.bookshop.org/lists/2026-b...
If non-fiction is more your thing, the Women's Prize long list for non-fiction is here: uk.bookshop.org/lists/2026-w...
We've just updated our online bookshelves with the long list for the Women's Prize for fiction!
If there's a book you're thinking about getting, buying via our online shop supports indie bookshops in the UK and may give us a little affiliate payback too.
uk.bookshop.org/list...
(UK only)
#OnThisDay, 12 Mar 1994, the first 32 women are ordained as priests in the Church of England. Angela Berners-Wilson was the very first.
#WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #WomensHistoryMonth #EnglishHistory 🗃️
She was subsequently the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights (2018-2022) where she was criticized for visiting China. She is in the running to be the next General Secretary of the UN: if selected she would be the first woman to hold the role.
#OnThisDay, 11 Mar 2006 and 11 Mar 2014, Michelle Bachelet was sworn in as President of Chile. She was the first woman to hold the role, and the first to be re-elected to it.
Hansberry was a rising star when she died young of cancer. Her posthumous play, Young Gifted and Black, inspired her friend Nina Simone to write the song of the same name.
www.youtube.com/watc...
2/2
#OnThisDay, 11 Mar 1959, Lorraine Hansberry's play, A Raisin in the Sun, is the first play by a Black woman to debut on Broadway.
#WomensHistoryMonth #LiteraryWomen #AmericanHistory #WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory 🗃️
1/2
#OnThisDay, 11 Mar 1942, the current Waterloo Bridge in London partially opens. The construction force included many women, giving it the nickname “the Ladies Bridge”.
#WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #BritishHistory #LondonHistory #WorldWar2 🗃️
historicengland.org....
#OnThisDay, 11 Mar 1928, hundreds of women march through London to a Communist Party rally, demanding better working conditions.
[photo via redflagwalks.wordpre... ]
#WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #BritishHistory #LondonHistory 🗃️
A new biography of Mary Richardson, written by Helena Wojtczak, was published last year.
www.hastingspress.co...
@mary-r-richardson.bsky.social
4/4
Richardson had been one of the first two women to be force fed whilst in prison for her suffragette actions.
In 1922 she stood for Labour in the general election. By 1934, she was Chief Organiser for the Women's Section of the British Union of Fascists. She left them a couple of years later.
3/4
Suffragette attacks on art were common enough for Punch to do a cartoon of it.
2/4
#OnThisDay, 10 Mar 1914, suffragette Mary Richardson attacks, with a meat cleaver, Velázquez's painting of Venus in the National Gallery in London in protest at the treatment of Emmeline Pankhurst.
#VotesForWomen #WomenInHistory #WomensHistoryMonth #BritishHistory 🗃️
1/4
Our Mags was part of Occupy the Airwaves yesterday.
Please join us for the launch of our 'Women Strike Back!' exhibition on Monday 9th March. The wonderful Vanessa Kasuule will be joining us for a poetry reading.
You can book your tickets via: ticketpass.org/event/ELVTJM...
#OtD 9 Mar 2020 tens of thousands of women across Mexico went on strike in protest at gender-based violence which kills thousands of women each year in the country. Transport, banking, education and retail were amongst the industries affected. stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/1092...
Here's a interesting piece on the rightwards drift of some British suffragettes in the 1920s:
historyatkingston.wo...
3/3
Flora, once the vote was won, went on to found the Women's Guild of Empire which was a conservative group opposed to unions, strikes and the welfare state.
Annie, once the vote was won, became a theosophist and an official in the Rosicrucian order.
2/3
#OnThisDay, 9 Mar 1906, British suffragettes Flora Drummond and Annie Kenney repeatedly knock on the door of Number 10 Downing Street during a protest.
They were playing 'knock down ginger' on the Prime Minister. And were arrested for it.
#WomenInHistory #VotesForWomen #BritishHistory 🗃️
1/3
To mark International Women's Day, meet Lt Cmdr. Madeleine Barclay. First Officer on HMS Fidelity.
To my knowledge, the first woman to officially serve as First Officer on a Royal Navy vessel deployed on combat duty. Achieving this involved a three-way war between Navy, SOE and the WRNS /1 🧵 #IWD
#OnThisDay, 8 Mar 1978, over 400 women challenged Queensland’s ban on political marches by marching through Brisbane, Australia, demanding the end of violence against women, the right to abortion and lesbian rights. 51 people were arrested.
#WomenInHistory #History #WomensHistory #AustralianHistory
The conference took up the idea and events began to be held each year, demanding equal rights for women. Initially, many sought #VotesForWomen.
The first IWD held on 8 March was in 1914 in Germany.
The day and date was formally adopted by the UN in 1977.
2/2
#OnThisDay, 8 Mar 1914, #InternationalWomensDay started to settle on the date.
The idea started at the International Socialist Women’s Conference 1910, inspired by an American national day in Feb 1909. The focus was on equal rights for women.
#WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #IWD
1/2
She said, taking the post:
“The door might not be opened to a woman again for a long, long time, and I had a kind of duty to other women to walk in and sit down on the chair that was offered, and so establish the right of others long hence and far distant in geography to sit in the high seats.”
2/2
#OnThisDay, 4 Mar 1933, Frances Perkins is sworn in as Secretary of Labor: the first woman to hold a cabinet post in the USA.
She was a workers-rights activist, a key builder of the New Deal, and was in FDR's cabinet throughout his Presidency.
#WomenInHistory #History #AmericanHistory 🗃️
1/2
The British SOE supported the French resistance in sabotaging Nazi operations.
Both women were arrested by the summer of '44. Denise was killed in Ravensbrück concentration camp. Eileen escaped but never recovered her health.
2/2