2023 is a milestone year for the as we celebrate our 40th anniversary! Help us bring light to the untold stories of women's accomplishments for another 40 years. Give today: give-usa.keela.co/40th-anniversa
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To educate and inspire generations about the experiences and contributions of women. #WomensHistory
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Check out this 🧵 about the Blood Sisters and San Diego LGBT history:
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Spurred on by virulent response to the disease— people didn’t want to touch, or even be in the same room as anyone with HIV—the Women’s Caucus of the San Diego Democratic Club banded together to take action, forming the Blood Sisters. #WomensHistory #SanDiegoHistory #LGBTHisotry
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The Blood Sisters organized regular blood drives, establishing an account to which people could apply when in need of blood. After about four years—by most accounts, the time it took President Reagan to first use the term “AIDS” in public—the Blood Sisters gradually disbanded.
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“Women came out of the woodwork; women that didn’t want to have anything to do with men—even gay men,” fellow Blood Sister Peggy Heathers recalled. “It was an incredible experience to see the caring and the support.”
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The Blood Sisters first blood drive on July 16, 1983, at the San Diego Blood Bank on Upas Street in Hillcrest. Though Vick didn’t expect much of a response, close to 200 women showed up, resulting in at least 130 donations.
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Although their community was in desperate need of it, gay men were prohibited from donating blood. Lesbians were under no such restrictions. Wendy Sue Biegeleisen, Nicolette Ibarra, and Barbara Vick helped pull together
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“We had nothing medically to help people then so what we dealt with was death on a regular basis.” Increasingly, lesbians filled the void, quietly stepping in as caregivers and leaders, while working to raise money to combat the epidemic.
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Within two years, more than half of the Democratic Club’s male leadership had succumbed to the disease. Former Blood Sister Gloria Johnson, the first county social worker assigned to AIDS cases, recalled losing two or three men a week to the disease.
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Spurred on by virulent response to the disease— people didn’t want to touch, or even be in the same room as anyone with HIV—the Women’s Caucus of the San Diego Democratic Club banded together to take action, forming the Blood Sisters. #WomensHistory #SanDiegoHistory #LGBTHisotry
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In 1988 hosted its second Lesbian Rights Conference. At the conference NOW committed to publicizing a long history of discrimination against women and “lesbian witch-hunts” in the Armed Forces.
📸 National Lesbian Rights Conference flyer from archives
Title IX opened new doors to American women in education. Patsy Mink made it happen.
The 1st woman of color and the 1st Asian American woman elected to Congress, she spent much of her career supporting women’s rights: s.si.edu/3q0W4ES
#SmithsonianAANHPI
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Looking for something, fun, engaging, and educational to do this summer? Book a group workshop at the Women's Museum of California for hands-on learning about suffrage, activism, and the women's movement!
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Don't worry! You still have time to double your donation to the Women's Museum of California! Donate before June 1st and the first $10,000 donated will be matched. give-usa.keela.co/40th-anniversa
Commemorate #MenstrualHygieneDay by joining us in our Menstrual Product Drive. Drop off menstrual products and other needed items at the every Thursday and Friday from 11:00 am - 4:00 pm.
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This time though the advertisement was designed to help break down cultural taboos surrounding menstruation. The kit promoted that every girl should know about menstruation before their 11th birthday and encouraged mothers to talk to their daughters about menstruation.
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Advertising campaigns reinforced the idea that menstruation was something to conceal and a problem for women, rather than a natural bodily function.
The Kotex gift package found in the Women’s Museum’s archives is another example for the company’s innovative marketing techniques.
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The simple kit challenged social norms by encouraging adults to talk about menstruation to their children.
Kotex advertised their products in women’s magazines starting in the 1920s which shaped the perceptions of menstruation and how women publicly discuss their periods today.
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May 28 is International #MenstrualHygieneDay, an annual global day of awareness and action to create a world where no one is held back because they menstruate.
A small glimpse inside the history of menstruation, the archives house a 1970s Kotex Introduction kit.
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We were honored to join this community quilting circle as an act of healing, community, and resistance. Thank you to San Diego for Gun Violence Prevention for talking about their organization and gun violence, an issue that disproportionately affects women.
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Textiles and craft-making have been used as communication and engagement tools for the women’s movement since the beginning of the suffrage crusade. Quilting circles not only provided a social space for women to come together but to also exercise their creative capabilities.
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Last evening the Women's Museum of California hosted a special community quilting night with San Diegans for Gun Violence Prevention.
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Tina Turner received 12 Grammys and was the first woman on the cover of Rolling Stone.
shares material from early shows at the Apollo:
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Today we join in remembering Tina Turner, the Tennessee-born rock star whose story of performance excellence and personal perseverance made her a superstar of popular music and female empowerment.
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For refugees and asylum seekers, access to period products and other supplies can be uniquely challenging.
Join us in our Menstrual Product Drive. Drop off menstrual products and other needed items at the every Thursday and Friday from 11:00 am - 4:00 pm.
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Thank you to Annabelle from Balboa Art Conservation Center for leading an excellent workshop on textile conservation at the today!
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Join us on 5/24 at the from 6pm-8pm for the Community Quit Uvalde event. Antonia Davis created this quilting project as an act of healing, community, and resistance. Help finish the quilt on the Uvalde tradedy anniversary in a supportive & healing environment.
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Do you have beloved family textiles like quilts, garments, tablecloths, or rugs that you want to preserve for future generations? Join the tomorrow for a special workshop on textile conservation. Register today:
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In the late 1800s, bicycling offered new independence to some American women.
With “Bicycling for Ladies” (1896) Maria E. Ward, offered a practical guide to riding and maintenance. From : s.si.edu/3NTNVvP
#BikeToWorkDay
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Tomorrow! Express yourself and your activism by making feminist graphic t-shirts at the Women's Museum of California:
Join the Women's Museum of California this Thursday for our latest #Craftivism class! All ages and skill levels are welcome to create graphic feminist t-shirts:
Don't miss your chance to double your support for the Women's Museum of California! The first $10,000 raised by June 1st will be matched during our 40th-anniversary campaign! give-usa.keela.co/40th-anniversa
Without additional activism, the power of the graphic t-shirt is limited. But, when artists respond, it transforms into a wearable canvas capable of forcing women’s views into the public realm. Make your own feminist t-shirt at the next week!
Marietta Stowe was nominated to Woodhull’s ticket as the Convention’s candidate for vice president. The nominations were more symbolic than anything, unfortunately, as the nominating committee was unauthorized and nothing came of their proposed Woodhull/Stowe ticket.
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Woodhull tried again to run for president in 1884 and 1892, gaining more traction in ‘92, when she was nominated to be the presidential candidate by the National Woman Suffragists’ Nominating Convention.
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Woodhull did not receive any electoral votes, and Republican Ulysses S. Grant won the election.
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Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton did not vote for Woodhull, though both publically applauded Woodhull’s pioneering efforts on behalf of all women. Anthony’s (illegal, and therefore irrelevant) vote was cast for a straight Republican ticket.
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It was the goal of Woodhull and the Equal Rights Party to reunite the causes of women’s equality and racial equality, as a schism between the movements was created.
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Woodhull’s campaign was also revolutionary in its nomination for vice president, electing former slave and abolitionist Frederick Douglass to its ticket (though Douglass never publically acknowledged the nomination).
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The Supreme Court ruled against her interpretation of the Constitution. Women who showed up to the polls to vote for any party in the 1872 election were arrested.
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Woodhull was a pioneering suffragist, and she believed, and publically argued, that women actually already had the legal right to vote under the Privileges and Immunities Clause of the Constitution. She presented this argument before the House Judiciary Committee in 1871.
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