a visual presentation by Max Dashu

A panoramic and dramatically visual survey of female leadership, creativity, wisdom, and courage, around the world and over thousands of years: female spheres of power in politics, economics, religion, medicine, technology (farmers, builders, weavers!), arts and letters. This visual talk offers a rich tapestry of women famous and anonymous, ancient and modern. The women who the writers of history skipped over -- not least the Indigenous women whose cultures sustained egalitarian values, in some cases mother-right societies and female public offices. The presentation also looks at women who fought for their own rights and those of their peoples against dominance-based social systems.

We'll look at Monumental women, Founders, Chieftains, and Queens. Clan Mothers: Structural Social Authority. Builders, Potters, Weavers: Life-sustaining Arts and Technologies. Providers: Foragers, Farmers, Fishers and Traders. Women Elders. Seers, Shamans, Priestesses Healers, Medicine Women, Physicians. Educators and Scientists. Athletes, Warriors, Rebels, Liberators, and Activists for Justice and Peace.

90 minutes, with break (available in shorter 60 minute version) and discussion afterwards.
Requires digital projector, screen, and mic.

"I have come from the school of medicine at Heliopolis, and have studied at the women's school at Sais where the divine mothers have taught me how to cure diseases."
---from Temple of Neith at Sais, Nile delta

In Guinée Bissau "… there were even matriarchal societies where women were the most important element. On the Bijagos Islands they had queens.They were not queens because they were the daughters of kings. They had queens succeeding queens. The religious leaders were women too..." --Amilcar Cabral, Return to the Source: Speeches, Guinée-Bissau, 1973

“Do not look upon me as an appendage of that great general or that reknowned scholar… I am in my own right a whole person, responsible to myself alone, for all that I am, all that I say, all that I do.” ---Emilie du Châtelet, 18th century mathematician

Hatshepsut • the Kandakes • Sondok • Libusche • Trung Sisters • Boudicca • Maria Hebraea • Anacaona •
Walladah bint-al-Mustakfi • Enheduanna • Lweji • Karaikkalammayar • Yeshe Tsogyel • Marie de France • Mama Huaco • Abla Pokou • Nanyehi • Gabriela Silang • Lozen • Catalina Erausa • Cecile Fatiman • Matilda Joslyn Gage • Kartini Solo • Zitkala-Sa • Niuta Teitelboim • Violeta Parra • Mileva Maric • Lilian Ngoyi • Anna Mae Aquash •
María Candelaria • Samsi of Nabataea • and many more...

Women's Power: What does that mean?

For descriptions of more Suppressed Histories presentations,
see the current catalog of digital presentations.

About Max Dashú

Suppressed Histories Archives | Articles | Woman Shaman DVD