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Articles on Women's history

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An illustration from Christine de Pizan’s ‘The Book of the City of Ladies.’ Fine Art Images/Heritage Images via Getty Images

Centuries after Christine de Pizan wrote a book railing against misogyny, Taylor Swift is building her own ‘City of Ladies’

By compiling stories about the accomplishments of women, Christine set out to build an allegorical city where women and their achievements would be safe from sexist insults and slander.
Betty Smith’s novel sold millions of copies in the 1940s. Weegee/International Center of Photography via Getty Images

Betty Smith enchanted a generation of readers with ‘A Tree Grows in Brooklyn’ − even as she groused that she hoped Williamsburg would be flattened

No other 20th-century American novel did quite so much to burnish Brooklyn’s reputation. But Smith rarely saw her hometown through rose-colored glasses − and even grew to resent it.
Women’s wills and last testaments provide a more nuanced picture of life in the Middle Ages than medieval stereotypes allow, such as that depicted in “Death and the Prostitute” by Master of Philippe of Guelders. Gallica/Bibliothèque nationale de France/Feminae

Gifts that live on, from best bodices to money for bridge repairs: Women’s wills in medieval France give a glimpse into their surprising independence

European women’s rights expanded in early medieval cities, though they were still limited. Last wills and testaments were some of the few documents women could dictate themselves.
Mrs Chan Harr, Marjorie Wong Yee, Annie Kwok, Norma Wong Yee, Ida Kwok, and Patty Wong Yee on their arrival in Sydney from Hong Kong on the SS Changte, 8 March 1938. ACP Magazines Ltd Photographic Archive, Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales (ON 388/Box 043/Item 035)

‘Your government makes us go’: the hidden history of Chinese Australian women at a time of anti-Asian immigration laws

In 1901, there were almost 30,000 Chinese men in Australia but fewer than 500 women. Despite their small numbers, emerging research reveals surprising stories of Chinese Australian women’s lives.

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