heliopausa (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
heliopausa) wrote2015-03-09 07:37 pm
heliopausa) wrote2015-03-09 07:37 pm
Entry tags:
a poet, a prisoner and a pirate
The remarkable women I didn't manage to write about yesterday, and one extra!
The Poet: Hồ Xuân Hương lived in a highly literary, politically tumultuous, patriarchal culture, in late eighteenth-century/early nineteenth century Vietnam. She married twice, the second time as a 'second wife' or concubine to the provincial governor; a position she found uncongenial ("like a maid, but you don't get paid"). Well, but the governor died, and this remarkable woman made a new life for herself as a poet and teacher, defender of women's rights to their own sexuality and tenchant social critic. Her poetry is melodic and allusive and uses simple-seeming metaphors to be very blunt, like someone saying the most startling things with a demure smile - and she said them, too, using the Nom script - a script based on Chinese characters, representing the local colloquial language - her poetry thus contributed to the movement asserting and fostering pride in native Vietnamese culture.
The Prisoner: Irom Sharmila Chanu is a lone and almost unknown satyagrahi - a non-violent protester for the truth - in Manipur, India. She's currently imprisoned on the tenuous charge of attempting suicide, a wilful misinterpretation of her fast protesting the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, which guarantees immunity from prosecution for members of the armed forces in Manipur (and other declared zones). Actually, she's also a poet, but I haven't read any of her poetry yet. Here's an article by a journo who wrote book about her. (which I also haven't read! The book, I mean - I'll get to it, I'll get to it!)
The Pirate:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
todayiamadaisy has noted Zheng Shi, also known as Ching Shi, as a woman of enormous influence who deserves to be better known, and I can only totally agree. She lived at roughly the same time as the poet above, but far from leading a quietly subversive urban life, this woman oversaw a pirate operation (in Guangdong province of China) so large and so stable that it might as well be called a water-based state. She commanded a major fighting force - some seventy thousand men and women - ruled harshly, but according to known rules - towns and ships which paid their protection money/tax were kept unmolested,for example. Her career is ... a knockout! What other pirate, anywhere, has ended by taking on in battle the combined powers of three major empires (Chinese, British and Portuguese) and winning, to end by being granted a noble title, and an honourable retirement? Strenuously recommended (and thanks todayiamadaisy. :)
and that's my round-up of awesome women for this year's IWD! Thanks for reading. :)
The Poet: Hồ Xuân Hương lived in a highly literary, politically tumultuous, patriarchal culture, in late eighteenth-century/early nineteenth century Vietnam. She married twice, the second time as a 'second wife' or concubine to the provincial governor; a position she found uncongenial ("like a maid, but you don't get paid"). Well, but the governor died, and this remarkable woman made a new life for herself as a poet and teacher, defender of women's rights to their own sexuality and tenchant social critic. Her poetry is melodic and allusive and uses simple-seeming metaphors to be very blunt, like someone saying the most startling things with a demure smile - and she said them, too, using the Nom script - a script based on Chinese characters, representing the local colloquial language - her poetry thus contributed to the movement asserting and fostering pride in native Vietnamese culture.
The Prisoner: Irom Sharmila Chanu is a lone and almost unknown satyagrahi - a non-violent protester for the truth - in Manipur, India. She's currently imprisoned on the tenuous charge of attempting suicide, a wilful misinterpretation of her fast protesting the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, which guarantees immunity from prosecution for members of the armed forces in Manipur (and other declared zones). Actually, she's also a poet, but I haven't read any of her poetry yet. Here's an article by a journo who wrote book about her. (which I also haven't read! The book, I mean - I'll get to it, I'll get to it!)
The Pirate:
todayiamadaisy has noted Zheng Shi, also known as Ching Shi, as a woman of enormous influence who deserves to be better known, and I can only totally agree. She lived at roughly the same time as the poet above, but far from leading a quietly subversive urban life, this woman oversaw a pirate operation (in Guangdong province of China) so large and so stable that it might as well be called a water-based state. She commanded a major fighting force - some seventy thousand men and women - ruled harshly, but according to known rules - towns and ships which paid their protection money/tax were kept unmolested,for example. Her career is ... a knockout! What other pirate, anywhere, has ended by taking on in battle the combined powers of three major empires (Chinese, British and Portuguese) and winning, to end by being granted a noble title, and an honourable retirement? Strenuously recommended (and thanks todayiamadaisy. :)and that's my round-up of awesome women for this year's IWD! Thanks for reading. :)