On the last day of Women’s History Month, I want to tell a personal story. This is the story of my great-great-grandmother, Gana Naidenova Stoilova.
You’ll need to know a bit of Bulgarian history first. From the late 14th/early 15th century onwards, Bulgaria fell under the rule of the Ottoman empire. Bulgarian institutions, national identity, the Bulgarian Orthodox Church were all practically obliterated and assimilated into the structures of the Sultanate. This had a devastating impact on the Bulgarian population. Historians estimate that at the end of the 14th century there were around 1.3 million Bulgarians – a similar number to the populations of countries like Germany, France, or England at the time. 100 years into Ottoman rule, that number had dwindled to just 260,000. This population impact can be seen right through to today: whereas countries with a comparable 14th-century population now have populations upwards of 50 million, there are barely 10 million Bulgarians.
Bulgarian women were particularly harshly affected by the Ottoman occupation. They were already oppressed: subservient to their husbands, their activity pretty much limited to their own homes, with no social role outside the home. Domestic violence was wide-spread. What Ottoman rule added to this was the constant threat of violence from locally stationed Turkish soldiers or administrators, frequent abductions of Bulgarian women – either to be sold into slavery or forcibly converted to Islam, abductions of their children, especially boys who were converted to Islam and trained to fight in some of the most vicious units of the Empire’s army. Bulgarian folklore is full of tales and songs about young women suffering terrible torture or even choosing to die rather than convert to Islam. One story, which I read when I was ten years old and which still sticks in my mind, is of 100 girls abducted into slavery who instead chose to braid their hair together and jump off the cliffs into the sea.
After 400 years of Ottoman rule, by the start of the 19th century economic and political conditions had changed sufficiently to allow for the beginning of a Bulgarian “National Revival” movement within the weakening Empire. There were two catalysts in particular: the first was a strong push for independence of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church; the second was increased levels of education and especially the teaching of the Bulgarian language in semi-religious and newly-established public schools. Women in particular had a pivotal role to play in the latter as the vast majority of teachers were women.
As the pace of the national revival picked up, with a small Bulgarian middle class beginning to emerge, so did the demands for political autonomy and self-government. Eventually, these demands culminated in the April Uprising, an armed revolt in the Balkan mountains in April 1876. For a number of reasons, the uprising wasn’t as well prepared and didn’t have the reach the organisers were hoping for. It was brutally crushed by the Ottoman army, and an estimated 15,000 Bulgarians – including women and children, sometimes whole towns – were killed in the process. This indirectly led to the establishment of an autonomous Bulgaria two years later.
Back to my great-great-grandmother…
Gana was born in Sopot in 1850. The town had had a reputation for resisting the Ottoman occupation since the very beginning in the 15th century, when it was completely destroyed in revenge for such resistance. As a young woman Gana moved to the town of Klisura where she became a teacher and became involved in the organisation of the April Uprising there.
Gana sewed and embroidered the flag for the uprising in Klisura. With money set aside from her teaching wages over five years, she bought fabric and sewed clothes for the fighters. The uprising found her in Klisura, and when the town was overrun by the Turks, she actually found herself fighting. She was captured, tortured (they cut off one of her breasts – I can’t imagine her not being raped), escaped to Koprivshtitsa, and survived. She had seven or eight children, lived to see her country liberated, lived into the 20th century. A single photo of Gana survives (that my family is aware of). In it, she wears a medal she was awarded for her bravery and contribution to the uprising. Proud as I am to have her as my great-great-grandmother, Gana was not an exception. Bulgarian women contributed time, money, skills, and their lives to the uprising. They played a vital role in the national revival as teachers. They fought bravely, a lot of them died bravely.
Gana is the basis of the female lead character Rada in one of Bulgaria’s greatest works of literature, Ivan Vazov’s “Under the Yoke”. I have a number of issues with the portrayal of Rada as a simpering love interest, as my great-great-grandmother clearly was neither of these things, but I am happy that some of her story is read by every Bulgarian school child to this day.
Gana’s story brings me back to the theme I talked about at the start of Women’s History Month: the way we as a society have historically restricted opportunities for women, and the way we value women’s contributions to our history. I find Gana’s story inspiring because she managed to overcome those obstacles in her own way. Her first contribution to the April Uprising was strictly within the sphere reserved for women: she made clothing and a flag. But when the time came to fight, she did, and did so bravely.
Do I wish she had lived in a time and place where her life was not characterised by violence? Yes. But in her time, in her place, this woman made a significant mark on the world. I don’t generally believe that I can or should be proud of things I have not achieved myself. But I am proud of having Gana Naidenova Stoilova, freedom fighter, for a great-great-grandmother, and I am proud to tell her story.

Kathryn Cann has kindly contributed a Women’s History Month guest post. I was enlightened by this story of two women pioneers in the medical professions, I hope you are too. Enjoy Kathryn’s post below!

(Image via Wikipedia.)

This is a tale of two Elizabeths. Not the Queen Elizabeth I or II, worthy though they surely would have been of a Women’s History Month post! No, these Elizabeths (Elizabeth Blackwell & Elizabeth Garrett) were pioneering doctors, and they helped break barriers for women in the medical profession, in many respects they also made a large contribution to winning the argument of that time about women’s access to higher education.
No matter how well-known these two may be to feminists and women’s historians they can never be well known enough to the mainstream, hence the reason for this reminder as Women’s History Month draws to a close. We must make Women’s History mainstream history, somehow.
Elizabeth Blackwell was born in Bristol, England in 1821 to a Quaker Family that believed in the idea of equal rights. The family emigrated to the United States in 1832, and at private school Elizabeth became interested in medicine. At this time, women were not permitted to attend higher education establishments. Elizabeth Blackwell took a keen interest in medicine at school and decided that she wanted to be a doctor. After being rejected from 29 medical schools, the Geneva Medical College, New York, finally accepted her application. It is believed that the student body voted to allow her in, thinking that the application was a hoax. In any event on the 11th January 1849, Elizabeth Blackwell became the first female* to graduate as a medical student. Here is an eyewitness account of the Graduation Ceremony (pdf format). It makes for a very interesting read!
*Of those that admitted their gender that is! We do not know how many women had posed as male to complete their medical studies.
After graduation, Elizabeth Blackwell was banned from being a doctor, and as she wanted to go on to be a surgeon, friends advised her to go to Paris. La Maternité would accept her but the downside was that she had to continue her training as a student midwife, not a physician. In November 1849, her hopes of becoming a surgeon came to an abrupt end when Dr. Blackwell picked up a serious eye infection that led to the loss of her right eye, and a replacement glass eye had to be fitted in its place.
This setback did not deter Elizabeth Blackwell and in 1853, along with her sister Emily and Dr. Marie Zakrzewska, they founded the New York Infirmary for Indigent Women and Children in Manhattan, New York. After the Infirmary was well established, she seems to have spent some of her time back in England, on lecture circuits and attending Bedford College before becoming the first woman to have her name put on the General Medical Council Medical Register in January 1859. Around this time, she met Elizabeth Garrett, inspiring her and countless other women to seek a career in the medical profession. Dr. Blackwell spent some of her time in Great Britain, organising the National Health Society and founding the London School of Medicine for Women. She later returned to the United States to train women to be nurses during the US Civil War and in 1868 established a Women’s Medical College at the Manhattan Infirmary.
Elizabeth Garrett Anderson was the first woman to successfully complete the medical qualifying exams in Great Britain. Born in Whitechapel, London in 1836, Garrett was introduced to the feminist scene in London in 1854, and met Dr. Blackwell, who inspired her to study to be a doctor, in 1859. At first she attended the Middlesex hospital as a nursing student, going to doctors’ lectures normally only attended by male students. After half receiving a medical education but being the subject of too many complaints she was barred! It just wasn’t the done thing to have females studying to do medical exams at the time. So Garrett had to find another way, and that she did. The Society of Apothecaries did not specifically forbid women from taking the examinations and in 1865 she passed, gaining a certificate to become a doctor. This loophole was swiftly closed behind her and no other women were allowed to enter this way. Elizabeth Garrett had become the second woman to have her name placed on the UK Medical Register and the first educated and qualified in Great Britain. She went on to set up her own dispensary and in doing so became the first woman to practice medicine in Britain. The dispensary grew into the New Hospital for Women, where Dr. Garrett worked for more than twenty years.
Elizabeth Garrett Anderson also founded the London School of Medicine for Children, and in 1875, Elizabeth Blackwell was appointed professor of gynaecology. Both women throughout their lives and careers were strong advocates of women’s suffrage and women’s opportunities in higher education, arguing against spurious claims of the times that womens reproductive, general and mental health would suffer if they were allowed to participate in higher education.
Incidentally, Elizabeth Garrett’s younger sister is Millicent Garrett Fawcett, after whom the Fawcett Society is named.
Elizabeth Garrett Anderson became the first woman in England elected as mayor, in the town of Aldeburgh, Suffolk which had been their family’s home-town for some years. A monument to Elizabeth Blackwell can be found at the site of the former Geneva Medical College, (now Hobart) New York. The New Hospital in London was renamed the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson hospital but in 2005 the building was sold to UNISON, and is no more. A wing at the University Hospital London is named after Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, and an art exhibition in her honour was held there in 2009.
Cross Posted at miscellani.org/blog/

This is going to be my penultimate Women’s History Month post, and I want to take a moment to raise awareness of an issue that is often shrouded in secrecy and shame, and that is integral to women’s history. Even in Britain where abortion is (more or less)^[1] legal the women who dare speak up about having had an abortion are rare and brave.
In Ireland (both North and South), the picture is different entirely. Abortion is illegal in Northern Ireland, and constitutionally outlawed in the Republic of Ireland. So women who find themselves unexpectedly pregnant and do not want to continue the pregnancy (they may be too poor, have too many children already, be in an abusive relationship, find themselves pregnant as a result of rape – there are as many reasons as there are women seeking abortion) have only one option – travel to England for a termination.
As abortions are not available on the NHS for either Irish or Northern Irish women, the significant cost of the procedure at a private clinic is added to the travel costs, the potential costs of childcare while away, and in some cases the costs of staying overnight in England.
In the 1980s a number of Irish women living in London got together to form the Irish Women’s Abortion Support Group. The history of the group is documented in Ann Rossiter’s “Ireland’s Hidden Diaspora”. Here are a few highlights.
The group was entirely unfunded/self-funded. Rossiter herself says they did “sponsored swims, sponsored walks, sponsored weight loss, and sponsored anything else we could think of.” The vast majority of the work of the group consisted of providing Irish women with information (not readily available, and at times illegal to obtain), overnight accommodation when they came over for the procedure, financial support, and also escorting them to the clinic.
This kind of “welfare feminism” (as Rossiter calls it) is an example of the way “women’s issues” are left to be dealt with by women – usually at great cost, with no support from the state, and in secret and shame. Like violence against women, unavailability of abortion is one of those areas where the cost is almost exclusively born by women. We raise the money, we support each other, we provide a sympathetic ear to our friends when they break down crying on the anniversary or their abortion, we keep the secrets, we get on with it – quietly, efficiently, out of the way of “mainstream society”.
Towards the end of the 1990s, as the Irish economy boomed and credit and low-cost flights became more readily available, the IWASG was wound down. With the recent economic crisis, however, Irish women are yet again finding it more and more difficult to raise the money to travel to the UK for a termination. Which is why the Abortion Support Network (ASN) started up.
I honestly can’t remember how I first came across ASN, though if I had to guess I would say it was through Twitter. I donated money to one of their appeals, and have been getting their monthly updates in my inbox ever since, a constant reminder of the continued struggle of so many Irish women for bodily autonomy. Reading the stories of women helped by ASN, and some of the stories documented by Ann Rossiter, the one thing that strikes me is how little has changed in 30 years. The guilt, the shame and the social stigma are all still there. But with every grant ASN makes, a woman gets her life back. And that is an amazing achievement for a small, chronically underfunded group of women operating on the fringes of society.

[1] Abortion in the UK is only legal to prevent a negative impact on the woman’s physical or mental health or if there are severe foetal abnormalities. Two doctors have to sign off a woman’s request for an abortion. While the guidelines are interpreted extremely liberally so that de facto abortion is available here on request, the legal situation is somewhat murky. Every few years, there is an attempt to further restrict abortion rights. There is, in fact, one going on right now. All this despite the fact that having an abortion is medically safer than carrying a child to term.

I was intrigued by this article by David Allen Green on marriage. I happen to agree with Mr. Green on this: marriage is a legal and economic contract and love and romance only get in the way of that. Far too many people say “I do” without really understanding the legal and financial implications. Yet, when I once casually inquired of my solicitor what those implications were, he looked at me like I’d grown a second head.
Historically, marriage has been an extremely important social and economic institution, and one that has had an enormous impact on the social status of women. So I’d like to have a look today at marriage through the ages within the Western/Judeo-Christian context.
Marriage as a legal and economic contract:
I feel like stating the obvious here, but it is surprising how many people don’t realise the full legal and financial implications, and the simple fact that marriage is, above all, a legal and economic contract. Even some of our most “romantic” customs today have evolved from economic necessity. Engagement rings, for instance, date back to Germanic tribes, where they were a downpayment on the bride price the groom paid the bride’s family. Another good example is how marriage custom changes with economic conditions. Early Jewish law as captured in Deuteronomy makes levirate marriage (where a brother has to marry his deceased brother’s widow) compulsory, while later writers (Leviticus) prohibit it.
For the majority of our history, marriage has been a way of regulating property rights, over money, land, but also children. Modern tendencies to grant custody of children to the mother are actually an innovation – historically custody defaulted to the father. This also explains the historical importance placed on a bride’s virginity, as it provided a measure of certainty of paternity.
Hendrik Hartog points us to the concept of “coverture” – the idea that in legal terms a husband spoke for his wife who couldn’t, for instance, own property in her own right. This arrangement makes marriage through the ages unequal by definition. Only in the last couple of hundred years have we moved, slowly, towards an understanding of marriage as a contract between legal equals.
The rise of romantic love in marriage:
The ideas of love and marriage were for a very long time seen as incompatible. Through the middle ages in Europe, marriages tended to be arranged by families, often without even a meeting between the bride and groom before the wedding. A good illustration of the emergence of romantic love is Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte D’Arthur – a 15th-century retelling of older English and French tales about, among others, King Arthur. The book includes both the story of the love triangle between King Arthur, Sir Lancelot and Guinevere, and the much older tale of Tristan and Isolde.
Superficially, the stories are similar: queen falls in love with knight who is not her husband. The main difference, which hints at the difference in period of origin, is that there is no meaningful relationship at all between Isolde and her husband King Mark. Guinevere, on the other hand, genuinely loves both Arthur and Lancelot.
While even into last century marriage was the only legal expression of sexuality, there have been periods, notably the 12th century, when a strong belief was held that love was impossible in marriage and could only be found in adultery. The idea that love and marriage actually go together is much more recent.
Hartog argues (in a US context which, however, is largely also reapplicable to Western Europe) that over the last 200 years we have seen the gradual evolution of marriage into an expression of an individual’s right to happiness.
Divorce:
When researching this post, one of the things I found most surprising was the varied history of divorce. I expected that divorce wouldn’t really come onto the scene until the 20th century (unless of course you were Henry VIII). And while in many cultures – for instance ancient Israel – divorce was frowned upon or prohibited, it was quite common for the Romans. There were even periods in Roman history when husband and wife could divorce by mutual agreement – something which has yet to return to all of Europe. In the post-Roman period and early middle ages, marriage was often still seen as a civil legal contract. It was not until the 12th century that the Christian church began to extend its influence and marriage became a sacrament. It was due to these changes that marriage was declared insoluble except by death. Combined with other factors like coverture, this pretty much put women under mens’ control for their entire lives.
It is only with the recent reframing of marriage as an expression of the right to happiness and as a contract between two equals that divorce has really started being relevant again, and that we have made any progress in divorce legislation. Initial progress was the legalisation of divorce when one party was at fault, e.g. through infidelity or other acts deemed “incompatible with the marriage”. No-fault divorce is still not available in many countries around the world. Even in the US, it was not available in the state of New York until 2010.
Same-sex marriage:
Strangely enough, it is only when we start looking at same-sex marriage that the oppressive effects of historical, “traditional” marriage on women become really apparent. I was struck by a recent post on Conservative Home which claimed the Britain has the most “anti-family” tax system in Europe. When you look at how this is calculated, it becomes apparent that the implied Conservative definition of “family” is a unit of one man who goes out to work, one woman who stays at home and two kids. When traditional, segregated gender roles are so deeply embedded in your world view it is not surprising that [c/C]onservatives find it difficult to deal with families where both partners are of the same sex. Ask any gay couple and they will tell you of the countless times someone has asked them “So which one of you is the man and which the woman?” It is this expectation of gender roles which is damaging to women and LGBT people alike. For a slightly satirical but ultimately very down-to-earth look at gender roles and same-sex marriage, I highly recommend Gay marriage: the database engineering perspective.
The LGBT community has had an inconsistent history when it comes to marriage. Historically, some LGBT people have rejected marriage as an institution, due to the history of oppression it comes with. More recently, marriage equality campaigns have been successful around the world. One of my favourite stats is that until about six months ago there were more countries in the world who executed people for being gay than countries which permitted same-sex marriage. I am incredibly pleased that this has now changed. Ten countries and a few other jurisdictions, including several US states and the Native American Coquille Nation, currently permit same-sex marriage, with several others recognising marriages performed in other countries or having other forms of same-sex civil unions.
Cohabitation:
Finally, here we are in the 21st century, and while a lot of people still get married – some even to people of their own sex – and some get divorced, a lot of us choose to simply cohabit. If marriage is not about “ownership” of property or children anymore, if it is no longer the only legally sanctioned form of sexual expression, a lot of people simply no longer see a point in it.
Of course, there is still a point. Being recognised as husband and wife or as civil partners by the state confers a whole lot of rights and obligations on you. I am reliably told that the UK Civil Partnership Act was one of the most complex pieces of UK legislation: as the intention was to make civil partnerships equal to marriage, all of the same legal rights, privileges and obligations has to be included – apparently right down to changes in the Abattoirs Act.
Things like being allowed to visit your partner in hospital and make decisions for them if they are incapable of doing so themselves can be hugely important. In case of separation, figuring out how to split property can be a challenge, whether you are married or not, but unmarried women tend to suffer disproportionately financially at the end of a relationship. Every few years someone comes up with the idea that cohabiting couples should be given some rights.
I must admit I am ambivalent about this. We’ve already established that the smart thing to do would be to take independent legal advice before you get married. I don’t particularly want to have to do that before I move in with someone too. As it is, the state already treats my partner and me as married for benefits purposes, so even though he is currently looking for a job, he is not receiving any job seekers’ allowance or any other benefits. I am expected to support him, pretty much regardless of how long we’ve been together for, what the nature of our relationship is, or how long ago we moved in together.
Marriage through the ages is a highly complex subject, and this post has barely scratched the surface. What I hope it has shown is that women have only recently become equal partners in this institution, that the current arrangements around the world vary wildly, especially when it comes to provisions for divorce and same-sex marriage, and that cohabitation, too, comes with its own set of thorny issues. Food for thought as we near the end of Women’s History Month.

As a geek, Bletchley Park is one of my favourite places in the world. Today, it houses the National Museum of Computing as well as the National Codes Centre. During World War II, this top secret location was the main code-breaking site in the UK, intercepting and decoding German messages.
Bletchley often features in LGBT history as the place of work of mathematician and computing pioneer Alan Turing, who as well as being a genius was also gay and was tragically hounded to death by the state because of it. It was only in 2009 that the UK government officially apologised for the state’s actions in this matter.
What is less well known about Bletchley Park (or Station X, as it was known during the war) is that the vast majority of the 12,000 people stationed there over the course of the war (around 80%!) were women. While the senior officers and most of the mathematicians and cryptographers were men, there was a lot of manual clerical work and machine operation to be done which was performed by women. Anything from transcribing coded messages to operating Turing’s Bombe machines for decoding Enigma messages – one of the most demanding jobs on site – was done by women.
One of the ways in which women were recruited to Station X was through Times Crossword competitions. You needed people with good general knowledge, outstanding analytical and problem solving skills, and ability to work under pressure. What better way to find them than to set a challenge to solve the Times Crossword in under 12 minutes? Those who did were offered a position at Bletchley Park – and those reluctant to take it up were offered the most ghastly alternatives available, providing a good incentive to move to the relative peace and quiet of the countryside.
At its peak, there were 9,000 people stationed at Bletchley Park in January 1945, all of whom needed to stay in touch with their families. The quiet town of Bletchley couldn’t be seen to attract attention through vast quantities of post, so up to four separate addresses were set up, all of which redirected to the secret Bletchley Park post office. There was a limit on the number of letters the women could send and receive each week, and the arrival of post from their families had an appreciable effect on the women’s morale.
Women’s contributions to the war effort at Bletchley Park were not something I was aware of until I visited there a few months ago. It is definitely something that deserves a lot more attention than it gets, and therefore a perfect topic for Women’s History Month.