Wild Women Do (whatever they want, really)

I ride a motorcycle. More and more women do. So why is it still so outlandish of me? Not to mention unfeminine. Some reactions are so extreme it’s all I can do to stay on the bike for laughing. Others have lost various motorcycling outlets my custom, because I do not appreciate spotty teenage moped-riders assuming that I must either ride a scooter or be a pillion because I’m a girl. Actually, you zit-ridden little ignoramus, I have been riding a lot longer than you, I am better at it than you and there is no way in hell you would even begin to be able to handle my bike. Clear? Good.

I recently had an older man view the bike I was selling and attempt to patronise me because I’m a girl. Also to bullsh*t me into dropping the price to less than the bike was worth by listing a host of non-existent mechanical problems on the assumption that, as a girl, I’d not know any better than to believe him. Newsflash, idiot: I have a higher IQ than you do, and that’s not hard.

I prefer the other reactions, from the women who cut me up, then realise I’m not a boy-racer and just about stall in sheer shock to the men who are so busy looking at the bike and me at lights and trying to work out if I really am a woman on that big heavy noisy Amercian bike that they forget to go when the lights change, or else veer distractedly into the car on the other side. While, of course, I sail smoothly on.

Motorcycles are cheaper and more economical to run than cars. They get through city traffic more easily too, and they’re a damn sight easier to park. This isn’t why I ride, if it was I probably would be on a scooter, but when you look at it that way, the idea that women don’t or shouldn’t ride becomes somewhat ridiculous.

I ride because it’s exhilirating. I’m planning a major biking trip soon and when I talk to people about it they’re incredulous, because I’m going with a friend – 2 girls, 2 bikes, a couple of thousand miles of asphalt calling. Where, they want to know, is the support vehicle, the protective company of men? Sorry, what? Where should they be? It’s not an off-road inter-continental trip that would require spare parts and DIY-mechanics. It’s just a holiday.

WAGS to witches - women in power 2

The recent referendumm got me thinking about government. Women in the UK lost the vote in 1832, and only some got it back in 1918. Universal suffrage didn’t come in until 1928. That’s frighteningly recent, but perhaps not as firghtening as the misogyny of Britain under Queen Victoria. Still, before they could elect MPs, women could stand for election to Parliament, in one of the less logical moments of British government.

Nancy Astor is perhaps the most famous of these pioneering lady MPs, because of her wit (some of her one-liners can still be devasting, if used well). She first campaigned for her husband’s Commons seat in 1919 after he inherited a title and therefore had to move to the House of Lords. In the beginning of her career, she was a formidable force, and taken seriosuly by her peers (possibly partly because of her husband and social connections, but nonetheless). Unfortunately, as time went on, some of her views went out of fashion, and her heavy involvement in Appeasement branded her a Nazi-sympathiser. It probably had more to with the horror of the Great War, during which she had worked in a hospital for Canadian soldiers, but despite her subsequent patriotism, she never escaped the taint.

She was the first woman to take up her seat in Westminster, but not the first to be elected. Contance Markiewicz was elected in 1918, but didn’t take it up because of her Irish Republican politics. She went on to become a Minister in the Irish government in 1919.

“Battling Bessie” Braddock may have been elected after women’s enfranchisement, but at least she had no fear of taking on the old boys at their own game – like Astor before her, she had a reputation for using wit to get her way with the likes of Churchill.

They paved the way for Thatcher to gain the PM position a few decades later. One thing all these women have in common, despite wildly different politics, is that they are strong. Iron-willed, determined, bordering on ruthless. But when you get right down to it, so are the men that history remembers equally.

WAGS to witches - women in power

There is a perception of women in power as being hard, ruthless and heartless. Yes, a lot of them are. They had to be to get the power. And oddly enough, a lot of the names we all know come from East – not the officially liberal and equal West (apart from Thatcher, and lately Merckel). Benazir Bhutto, Western-educated and twice Prime Minister of Pakistan, springs to mind. She may or may not have run a corrupt government and it may or may not have been a sham democracy – depending on your political views, but there is no denying that she proved it possible for a woman to rise to the highest political office in a Muslim state. Between her terms in power, she was Leader of the Opposition – also not a post for the shrinking violet the West generally assumes Muslim women to be.

In Burma, we have Aung San Suu Kyi  - possibly the most famous opposition figure in modern politics. Her many years of intermittent house arrest have ensured the kind of global attention to Burma the ruling military junta was probably trying to avoid. She has been influenced by Gandhi’s philosophy of non-violence and Buddhism, and went into politics to promote a democratic model of government. When she was first placed under house arrest, she was offered the alternative of exile. She turned it down.

She has no qualms about making bold statements about the nature of power, fear, corruption (as in the famous “Freedom From Fear” speech) and governmental myopia.

As an Opposition figure, she has not held the reins of power, so it’s difficult to know what kind of leader she would be. But an idea can be formed by the fact that after so many years of struggle, she’s still not discouraged. Finally free (for now), she is still working for democracy and human rights in Burma.

Indira Gandhi remains the longest serving female prime minister, thanks to her 4 terms totalling 15 years in power, during which India went from relying on food aid to exporting food.

But these ladies are just the latest in a long tradition of local queens. After all, when the Roman Empire collapsed, it was Queen Zenobia seized control of the Eastern half.

The Prophet Muhammed’s wife Aisha had enough political clout to lead an army into battle againt someone she thought was trying to usurp Muhammed’s place in Islam. Razia  ruled in 13^th Century India, Amina in 16^th century Zaria (Nigeria). In the 17^th century Ottoman empire there was a group of such powerful women they were known as the “sultanate of women.”

All of which just goes to show that if you want it enough, there’s nothing stopping you.

WILD WOMEN DID (AT LEAST, THEY DID IN EUROPE)

If you’ve read Pauline Gedge’s “The Eagle and the Raven” you will know the names Cartimandua and Boudicca. Both were historical figures, both were queens. And always, one has been reviled and one praised. (Which one’s which, though, has changed). In Roman Britain, Cartimandua ruled the Brigantes with her husband Venutius. They were one of the tribes that dealt with the Romans and became a client of Rome. When Cartimandua divorced Venutius and replaced him with his arms-bearer Vellocatus, who then became king (king, in Celtic terms, being a word for Queen’s consort. She had the right to rule and the power, not him). Venutius, probably influenced by Roman patriarchal culture, rebelled against this decision, and Cartimandua had to call on the Romans to aid her in crushing the revolt. (Unfotunately, they didn’t help her during Venutius’s second attempt).

Boudicca, meanwhile, was Queen of the Iceni, ruling with her older husband Prasutagus. They were also clients of Rome, until Prasutagus died. He left half his belongings to Rome and the rest to Boudicca and their daughters, but the Romans had no concept of women inheriting, so attempted to seize the sovereignty of the Iceni. Boudicca resisted this attempt, and so the Romans, thinking to subdue her, flogged her and raped her daughters. This may have been a mistake.

She killed her daughters (I'm thinking coup de grace), and led one of the most famous rebellions of history. Her forces destroyed Camulodonum, routed the 9^th legion and headed for Londinium. Nero was seriously considering Rome’s complete withdrawal from Britain when Boudicca was finally defeated.

Meanwhile, on the continent in Galatian territory, the fierce Scordisci tribe struggled against famines in their land. None of their chieftains stepped forward to lead them to a better life or propose a solution, so it fell to a woman – Onomaris – to combine all their wealth and lead the tribe across Europe to the lower Danube. She led them successfully through Brennus’s attack on Delphi in the 3^rd century BC and subsequently into war against the Illyrians. Having won, she founded a city (now Belgrade) and ruled the re-settled Scordisci as queen.

Across the Celtic world – most of Europe and some of the Middle East – queens ruled, priestesses led and women fought alongside their men. History generally remembers only those few the patriarchal cultures met (and usually fought) because the Celts had an oral, not a written tradition, so it was up the Greeks and Romans to write their exploits down.

WILD WOMEN, WILD - WELL - MIDDLE EAST

It’s not just the Orient that has a history of fighting and formidable women. The Assyrian records from the 8^th Century BC cite a line of four queens who reigned over one of Assyrias vassal states in succession – Zabibe, Samsi (who led an armed rebellion against the Assyrian overlords. She lost, but at least we know she actively fought), Yatie and Te’el-hunu.

Semiramis of Assyria was a legendary queen even in the Ancient world – but it’s very hard to separate myth from fact. But the Hanging Gardens of Babylon were built in her name.

Stateira I of Persia is perhaps more interesting, because more factual. She was Darius III’s wife, and accompanied him to war – as was the custom for royal Persian women (this alone is significant, given where Persia was and the politics of what’s there now). Darius was defeated by Alexander, who then appears to have usurped his position in his own family as well.

Queen Tomyris ruled over the Massegetae in the 6^th Century BC, and during her reign defeated and killed Cyris, the Persian King after he had invaded her land in an attempt at conquest.

In the 5^th Century, Artemisia, Carian client-queen of Persia, counselled Xerxes to coordinate a land-and-sea attack on the Greeks, hitting both their army and navy. He ignored her advice, and attacked the Greek fleet at Salamis, ignoring their army. In the Battle of Salamis, Artemisia commanded five ships, and after the defeat, advised Xerxes to retreat. (That time he listened). She was held in such high regard, the Iranians named a destroyer after her in the 20^th Century.

And who could forget Dido of Carthage, who famously tricked the local North African tribes who had given her refuge after she fled her homeland – her brother had usurped the throne they were supposed to share – into granting her far more land than they’d anticipated. She asked for only the land she could enclose with a bull’s hide, and when they agreed (probably laughing up their sleeves), she cut the hide into thin strips and encircled an entire hill, upon which she founded Carthage. This required a knowledge of geometry as well as sheer chutzpah. (No wonder I’ve always liked her).