Yep. It was only Libertié, Egalitié, Fraternitié for the chaps.

#OnThisDay, 21 Apr 1944, the provisional government of France signs into law universal suffrage, granting women the vote.

#WomenInHistory #VotesForWomen

Quite Unfit for Females (1921) | BFI National Archive YouTube video by BFI

Rummaging around for more details about something later this month, and found this silent newsreel from 1921 on the BFI's YouTube.

"Football: quite unfit for females"

youtu.be/Ecp6T8mZSCY

Pierre and Marie outdoors with their bicycles, during their honeymoon.

The committee had planned to only award the Nobel to Pierre and Henri. Committee member and Swedish mathematician Magnus Gösta Mittag-Leffler alerted Pierre Curie to the plan. Pierre insisted Marie also receive the prize.
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posed photograph of Maria Skłodowska-Curie in her lab holding a volumetric flask. She is a white woman with dark hair in a bun.

#OnThisDay, 20 Apr 1902, Maria Skłodowska-Curie and Pierre Curie refine radium chlorine. The discovery leads to Marie being the first woman to win the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1903.

#WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #WomenInSTEM #NobelWomen 🗃️
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Right! Household disruption over! Let's get back up into posting women from history.

Photo of a burnt out building.

#OnThisDay, 11 Apr 1913, the Nevill Pavilion in Tunbridge Wells, UK, is destroyed by arson. No-one is injured. Suffragettes are suspected of starting the fire because their leaflets are found nearby, but no-one is ever caught.

#WomenInHistory #OTD #History #BritishHistory #VotesForWomen 🗃️

You can read more about her at www.infinite-women.com/women/mary-e..., inc. a podcast episode about women in the US Civil War. She's also in my book Uncredited, because they tried to take her medal away (she refused to give it back and wore it until she died): www.infinite-women.com/uncredited/

None of Dr Walker’s clothes were intrinsically “men’s”, which was the point she was making.

You used the phrase “men’s clothes” uncritically. I worked in vintage fashion long ago so I still think “top hat = menswear” but I’m trying to follow Dr Walker’s lead in saying they’re just clothes.

The point she was making in her quote was that there is nothing inherently gendered about clothes. Trousers are not “men’s clothes” - they’re just clothes - yet women were arrested and put on trial for wearing them.

formal portrait of Pauline McGibbon in a grand chair. She is a white woman with grey hair.

#OnThisDay, 10 Apr 1974, Pauline McGibbon is sworn in as Lieutenant Governor of Ontario, Canada. She was the first woman to hold the role.

#WomenInHistory #OTD #History #CanadianHistory 🗃️

Dr Mary Edwards Walker in later life. She is wearing a trouser suit, overcoat and scarf, and carrying a top hat. She is a white woman with white hair.

As well as serving in the Civil War, and being a dress reformer who preferred to wear trousers, she was also a suffragist who declined to take her husband’s name when they married.

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Dr Mary Edwards Walker with her medal. She is a white woman with dark hair. She's wearing a dress and looking miserable about it.

Dr Mary Edwards Walker in later life. She is wearing a wing collar shirt with a cravat, a heavy overcoat and a top hat. She is a white woman with white hair.

"I don’t wear men’s clothes, I wear my own."

#OnThisDay, 10 Apr 1864, army surgeon Dr Mary Edwards Walker is captured by the Confederates during the US Civil War. She later receives the Medal of Honor.


#WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #AmericanHistory 🗃️

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Absolutely extraordinary woman. How there isn't a miniseries about her life & exploits I do *not* know. She once escaped from an enemy castle during a snowstorm by dressing herself & her knights all in white & roping out of the window onto all-white horses! What's more cinematic than that?!

Joyce Bandu at her swearing in, with the Malawi flag behind her. She is a black woman with a head wrap.

#OnThisDay, 7 Apr 2012, Joyce Banda is sworn in as President of Malawi, the first woman to hold the role.

After losing the 2014 election, Banda was accused of corruption and went into exile. She returned, has never been charged with corruption and ran, unsuccessfully, in the 2025 election.

Matilda was appointed heir by her father Henry I, then usurped by her cousin Stephen after Henry’s death. The civil war between the cousins is known as the Anarchy and lasted from 1138 to 1153.
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line drawing illustration of Empress Matilda.

#OnThisDay, 7 Apr 1141, Matilda is legally recognised as ruler of England in her own right. Her coronation never happens.

#WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory
#EnglishHistory #AnarchyInTheUK 🗃️


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Yeah, I’d heard that but I’m enjoying it too much to stop. ~Mags

Mags has been reading The City We Became by N. K. Jemisin and is obsessed with it.
uk.bookshop.org/a/15...

But our shop also has lists like this one, uk.bookshop.org/list..., with popular, lauded or both books by women and non-binary writers.
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generic blocks with text reading WIN a £400 Bookshop.org GIFT CARD! Buy a book 3-6 APRIL supporting bookshops, not Bezos.

Last day to treat yourself this Easter to ANY book from our UK bookshop. Buy by 6 April and you'll be supporting independent bookshops AND have a chance to win a £400 digital gift card: uk.bookshop.org/shop...


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Szabo returns to the UK at the end of April but goes back to France in June 1944 and is captured. Rolfe is captured in July 1944.

They are executed together, by shooting, in Ravensbrück concentration camp in February 1945.

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photo of Lillian Rolfe. She is a white woman with dark hair.

photo of Violette Szabo. She is a white woman with darkish hair.

Very early #OnThisDay, 6 Apr 1944, Lillian Rolfe and Violette Szabo separately arrive in occupied France to work for the British Special Operations Executive (SEO). Rolfe is a wireless operator, Szabo is a courier.

#WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #WorldWar2 #EuropeanHistory 🗃️

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This offer is still running, for people who need a book to go with the week of leftover chocolate eggs.

Mags has been reading The City We Became by N. K. Jemisin and is obsessed with it.
uk.bookshop.org/a/15...

But our shop also has lists like this one, uk.bookshop.org/list..., with popular, lauded or both books by women and non-binary writers.
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A promo for the book card prize draw. It reads WIN a £400 Bookshop.org GIFT CARD! Buy a book 3-6 APRIL supporting bookshops, not Bezos.

Treat yourself this Easter to ANY book from our UK bookshop. Buy between 3 and 6 April and you'll be supporting independent bookshops AND have a chance to win a £400 digital gift card: uk.bookshop.org/shop...


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Lori Lightfoot was the second woman to hold the post, from 2019 to 2023. Lightfoot is the first black woman and the first LGBT+ mayor since the post was created in 1837.
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Jane Byrne sat in front of the city of Chicago seal. She is a white woman with blonde hair.

#OnThisDay, 3 Apr 1979, Jane Byrne wins the Chicago mayoral election. She's the first woman to be mayor and is sworn in on 16 April. She hires the first black woman to be a school superintendent, and stops the police raiding gay bars.

#OTD #History #WomensHistory #AmericanHistory 🗃️
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Trupti Desai in a press conference. She is an South Asian woman.

#OnThisDay, 2 Apr 2016, Trupti Desai leads a group of women in an attempt to enter the Shani Shingnapur Temple in Ahmednagar in India. Courts had ruled in favour of allowing women access but women were still being denied. It's part of a wider campaign for women to enter temples.

Rita Johnson's official photo. She's a white woman with blonde hair.

#OnThisDay, 2 Apr 1991, Rita Johnson becomes the first female premier of a Canadian province when she is elected by the political caucus.

#WomenInHistory #CanadianHistory #History #OTD 🗃️

Jeanette Rankin standing in front of the dome of the US Capitol on a windy day. She is a white woman with dark hair.

#OnThisDay, 2 Apr 1917, Jeanette Rankin is sworn in, becoming the first woman to sit in the US Congress.

#WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #AmericanHistory 🗃️