Herstory Revisited

" It has taken too long but to all women and girls of colour out there - the Scottish Parliament belongs to you too.So whilst I may be the first I will not be the last” 👑  I didn’t have time to do the local history post I wanted to do today so I thought I’d share some living Scottish history instead! Today the first woman of colour/first Muslim woman was elected to the Scottish Parliament. Kaukab Stewart, of the SNP, has run for election five times having been a campaigner for more than 20 years. The 53-year-old teacher takes over the Glasgow Kelvin constituency seat from the party's Sandra White. She thanked voters, saying it was "an honour" to be the first woman of colour to become an MSP. Giving her acceptance speech, Ms Stewart, who is also the first Muslim woman to be elected in Holyrood, said: "I intend to be a voice for every single person in Kelvin that I've been elected to represent. Whether you voted for me or not, please know my door will always ...

  Sophia Duleep Singh Finally sharing the story of my favourite historical woman (a very tough call): Princess Sophia Duleep Singh. Sophia embodies my three greatest passions (women’s history, religious history, and Indian history)! I recently did a talk at work on her and wanted to continue spreading the word about this queen who is left out of the traditional white-focussed telling of suffragist history. These posts are based on my presentation and the proposal I did for a PhD on Princess Sophia. Although my PhD ended up taking a different direction but it is still my mission to make Sophia Duleep Singh a household name, especially in the UK. This will be a long one, but I hope you all love her as much as I do! Sophia Alexandro vna Duleep Singh (1876 – 1948) was a British-Indian suffragette, Punjabi Princess, women’s rights and anti-racism activist, nurse, socialite, and champion dog breeder.   Daughter of the last Maharajah of the Sikh Empire, Sophia reconciled her Brit...

Happy Holi to my Hindu/South Asian followers!! May your life be as colourful every day as it is today! (Except in Scotlandm where our family spent a very lowkey, stormy lockdown Holi!) For those of you who don’t know, my boyfriend is Hindu and my PhD is on India/Hindu mythology so I thought I’d share a wee history of Holi for those who don’t know. Holi is one of the most important Hindu festivals, also known as the "Festival of colours", and the "Festival of spring". In Hindu mythology, it celebrates the victory of Lord Vishnu's Narasimha Avatar over Hiranakashyap which signifies the triumph of good over evil, and the divine and eternal love of the deities Radha and Krishna. Today, however, it also celebrates the end of winter and the arrival of spring, and the blossoming of love. Holi originated and is predominantly celebrated in India but has also spread to other regions of Asia and is now popular in India diasporas across the globe as well as as well as amo...

Today marks 10 years since the icon that was Elizabeth Taylor passed away. There is so much to cover here that this will be a rather long post, apologies in advance. Dame Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor   DBE  (1932 – 2011) was an English-American actress, businesswoman, and humanitarian. She began her career as a child actress in the early 1940s and was one of the most popular stars of  classical Hollywood cinema  in the 1950s. She continued her career successfully into the 1960s, remaining a well-known public figure for the rest of her life. In 1999, the  American Film Institute  named her the seventh- greatest female screen legend  of all time. Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor was born in London on February 27. She received  dual British-American citizenship  at birth, as both her parents, art dealer  Francis Lenn Taylor  and retired stage actress  Sara Sothern were from Kansas.   She was raised according to the teachings of...