Hi All,
On the original JWG message board a thread was started by Linda Jonson a few years ago now called Asteroid Goddesses. Linda had been a Soul who desired to promote EA as far and wide as she could before her physical passing a while back now. At the very end of her life she also put together a book called Natural Astrology which was published as part of the Jeffrey Wolf Green Evolutionary Astrology series which are all available on Amazon, can also be ordered from the main EA website: https://schoolofevolutionaryastrology.com/evolutionary-astrology-books/ .
So I thought it to be just right to also continue with the asteroid goddesses that Linda started here on our new message board. Here we can still post charts, and anyone can ask questions or make comments on the individuals that we are posting. Additionally, for those interested here the link to the original thread that has every post that was ever made: https://forum.schoolofevolutionaryastrology.com/index.php/topic,309.0.html . We will be posting a new chart once a week which will typically be on a Friday or Saturday
Goddess Bless, Rad
Hi All,
Here is the story of Evgenia Kara-Murza. This is a noon chart.
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The UK must change its position’: the wife of Briton jailed by Vladimir Putin on taking up her husband’s fight
As Alexei Navalny was buried, the wife of Russian opposition activist Vladimir Kara-Murza was in London to challenge foreign secretary David Cameron
Carole Cadwalladr
Sun 3 Mar 2024
Hours after Alexei Navalny was buried in Moscow, his body brought from a grim Siberian jail, Evgenia Kara-Murza, who is married to another Russian opposition leader serving a 25-year sentence in another grim Siberian jail, is perfectly composed.
On Friday, images of Navalny’s body in an open casket were beamed around the world, but if these scenes had brought home to Evgenia Kara-Murza the risk to her husband and her family, she wasn’t showing it.
In fact, she’s fresh out of a meeting with Britain’s foreign secretary, David Cameron. “I was actually with him when the funeral was taking place,” she says. “It was arranged two weeks ago so it was a total coincidence. But can you believe it’s taken two years for the British government to meet with me? It took them a year to make even a statement about his arrest.”
It’s a fact that Bill Browder, an American businessman turned activist calls “utterly shameful”, not least because Vladimir Kara-Murza is a British citizen. Since Navalny’s death, he’s the most high-profile politician imprisoned in Russia but he spent his teenage years in Britain after his mother married an Englishman, studying at Cambridge University before returning to Moscow.
“He looked around and said, ‘Britain will be fine without me whereas Russia … Russia needs my help’,” says Evgenia.
Browder became close to Kara-Murza when they travelled around the world together successfully advocating for western governments to sanction Russian businessmen and politicians via “Magnitsky Acts”. “In my fantasy, Alexei Navalny was going to be president and Vladimir would be prime minister,” says Browder.
He also got to know Evgenia well and her trip to London was supported by his foundation. “She’s amazing, unbelievable. Since the day he was arrested in April 2022, she’s been on the road, talking to politicians and parliamentarians to raise the awareness of this case and get him out of jail.
“Unlike other political prisoners, the after-effects of two assassination attempts have left Vladimir extremely vulnerable. If he’s not released, he’ll probably die.”
The assassination attempts – two separate poisonings in 2015 and 2017 – are one of many similarities between Kara-Murza and Navalny. Like him, Kara-Murza was arrested on trumped-up charges, in his case for “treason”. He has also been exiled to a Siberian penal colony and repeatedly isolated in a punishment cell. And according to an investigation by Bellingcat, he was poisoned by the same FSB team that used the prohibited nerve agent, Novichok, on Navalny.
Evgenia and their three children have lived in Washington DC since Kara-Murza, a journalist by profession, was posted there in the mid-2000s but he continued to base himself in Russia, going back even after he was poisoned. He left briefly to celebrate his daughter’s birthday in spring 2022 and was arrested shortly after his return, although Evgenia describes this incident almost in terms of relief. “We thought it was more likely he would be murdered.”
It’s not just Vladimir Kara-Murza who bears similarities to Alexei Navalny – the two men were friends and Navalny asked Kara-Murza to testify at his trial – but there’s also a similarity between their wives. They’ve never met but Evgenia’s cool-headed resolve is strikingly like Yulia Navalnaya’s blend of steel and dignity. And just as Navalnaya has been forced into the spotlight following her husband’s murder, Kara-Murza has become a fierce advocate for her husband and his cause: the need for western governments to take action against Putin.
But Britain has, until now, turned its back. It’s not been helped by what she calls the “chaos” of the Foreign Office. “How many foreign ministers have you had since he was arrested? There was Liz Truss and James Cleverly and then was there someone else? I forget. And we only now finally get a meeting with Lord Cameron.”
Last week, Maria Pevchikh, the chair of Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, spoke publicly about the diplomatic efforts to free him as part of a prisoner swap. He was due to be exchanged, she has claimed, with a Russian hitman held in a German jail, along with two US nationals. If Kara-Murza knew anything about this, she’s not saying.
What she is saying, however, is that the UK government needs to change its position. “It refuses to negotiate prisoner or hostage swaps. It says this will encourage the taking of more hostages. This is categorically not true and it has to change.”
She is blistering, too, about how the UK enabled Putin’s regime to continue for so long, turning a blind eye to the vast amounts of money and reputations being laundered and how, even now, the mansions of Putin’s oligarchs sit empty in London. “Why aren’t they using that money?” she demands.
The situation for her husband is urgent. Since his 2015 poisoning, Kara-Murza has suffered from a nerve condition called polyneuropathy that is worsening by the day.
And the stakes are rising. Not just with Navalny’s death but with the paralysis in the US in providing support to Ukraine and the spectre of a Trump victory and what that would mean. “Biden has said that Russia will face ‘devastating consequences’ for Navalny’s murder, but where are they?” All it has done, she says, is to underline Putin’s impunity.
While her husband’s bravery has shown the world what Putin’s regime is really like, with what she calls its Stalinist repression of political dissent, the west is still failing to understand Russia’s threat to its own security.
According to Browder, we are running out of time. The “terrifying” prospect of another Trump presidency is potentially just months away. Meanwhile, Evgenia Kara-Murza is staying on the road.
She puts on her coat to leave. “I think if things are ever sorted out,” she says, “it’ll be the women who do it.”
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‘This Kind of Work Cannot Stop Now:’ Evgenia Kara-Murza on the Fight for a Free Russia After Navalny’s Death
By Yasmeen Serhan
February 20, 2024
Few people understand what Yulia Navalnaya, the wife of the slain Russian dissident Alexei Navalny, is going through right now better than Evgenia Kara-Murza. Like Navalnaya, she has experienced what it’s like to have a spouse jailed for challenging Russian President Vladimir Putin. Her husband, the Kremlin critic Vladimir Kara-Murza, has been languishing behind bars since 2022 over his opposition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine (although not a politician herself, she has taken up his activism in his stead). She too has experienced what it’s like to have her family targeted with assassination attempts—like Navalny, Vladimir Kara-Murza was poisoned by the Kremlin. Twice. And like Navalnaya, who on Monday vowed to continue her husband’s fight for a “free, peaceful, and happy Russia,” Kara-Murza understands what drives someone to pick up where their partner left off.
“I’m happy that she’s decided to continue Alexei’s work, to continue his legacy, because I think it will maybe help her cope with what she’s living through right now,” Kara-Murza tells TIME. “I know that work always helps me when I’m absolutely terrified for Vladimir’s life and I know that this will also give her this sense of purpose now that she lost the person she loved most in the whole world.”
Like Navalny’s family, many world leaders and Kremlin critics alike have laid the blame for Navalny’s death squarely on Putin, whose foes have often been met with violent deaths. But why the Kremlin would choose now to kill Navalny, who at the time of his death was facing decades in prison with little to no prospect of release, is unclear. The outcome of next month’s ritualistic election in Russia—in which all genuine challengers to Putin have been disqualified, jailed, or worse—was never in any doubt. If anything, things appear to be looking up for the Russian leader, particularly as U.S. aid to Ukraine stalls and as NATO braces for the possibility of a second Donald Trump presidency, which many observers predict would wreak irreparable damage on the militancy alliance.
In an eponymous documentary in 2022, Navalny predicted that an attempt on his life could only mean one thing: “That we are incredibly strong.” This was the message that Navalnaya has reinforced in the days since her husband’s death, which she says was orchestrated in order to “kill our hope, our freedom, our future.” It’s a belief that Kara-Murza shares—and one she says must drive their work now.
Speaking to TIME from Vienna, Kara-Murza discusses the timing of Navalny’s death, what it means for her own husband’s fate, and where the fight for a free and democratic Russia goes from here.
TIME: How did you hear the news of Navalany’s death?
Evgenia Kara-Murza: I just woke up at home and that was the first thing I saw. I woke up to the calls of friends, colleagues and journalists.
I am absolutely certain that this was a political assassination because even if they did not use Novichok [nerve agent] or whatever else that they have in their toolbox, they tried to kill him once in the past and then they threw him in prison where he was tortured for three years in conditions in which his state of health was deteriorating. So far the Russian authorities offered two explanations of his death: the “sudden death syndrome,” so basically the authorities said that he dropped and died, or thrombosis, which according to his doctors was unlikely because he was not suffering from any condition that would make a blood clot likely. And the thing is, had it really been thrombosis, had it really been natural causes, why are the Russian authorities refusing to give Alexei’s body to his family? His mother is there, his lawyers are there. They are not even being allowed into the morgue.
Just like my husband, Alexei was a healthy man before they tried to kill him with Novichok and then held him for three years in a solitary, punishment cell. No causes can be seen as natural in these circumstances.
What do you make of the timing of Navalny’s death? Was he still perceived as a threat, even behind bars?
Every dissenter in Russia is a threat to the regime, judging by the harsh treatment they receive for their dissent. Alexei was definitely one of the biggest threats because he has always been incredibly effective in bringing people out in the streets. He has been incredibly effective in exposing the kleptocratic nature of this regime. He was, of course, seen as a personal enemy of the state.
I don’t know why he was killed specifically now. Vladimir Putin is a deeply disturbed person, so it would be a very dangerous feat to try and get into his head. But look at the short-lived campaign of [erstwhile presidential candidate] Boris Nadezhdin. He is not a prominent opposition political figure. But he was also the only candidate running on an anti-war platform. And in just two weeks—without access to state media, with all the restrictions and challenges that he faced during this short-lived campaign—he was able to collect over 200,000 signatures. And that in itself was an act of defiance and bravery on the part of those people who were leaving the signatures because when you leave a signature to support a candidate, you leave your full name, your address, all your personal information. But like my husband said during a recent court hearing, these people were there not to put signatures for Nadezhdin, but to put signatures against the war. And Vladimir Putin realized that; he realized that if Nadezhdin was able to collect over 200,000 signatures in just two weeks, without the ability of fully leading his campaign like a candidate should, he would actually be a threat to him. He wouldn't risk this. And so he decided it would be safer to not register him at all.
Vladimir Putin is not a confident leader who truly has the support of his population. A confident leader who believes that his population trusts him and has confidence in him would allow his opponents on the ballot. This leader would not use repression against his population. Vladimir Putin wants to create this warped image of reality in which there is this united support for him and the war. Meanwhile, arrests and detentions continue on a daily basis. Over 360 people were arrested just in the last three days for laying flowers for Navalny. I’m not saying that the regime will collapse tomorrow. But I’m saying that it is a regime that is not built on Vladimir Putin’s confidence of the support of the population. And the image that he wants to create for the world of the unity behind him has nothing to do with reality.
Threats to yours and your family's safety are unfortunately not new. Does Navalny’s death renew any of those fears?
I’ve lived with this since at least 2015, when first [Kremlin critic] Boris Nemtsov was assassinated and then, two months after that, when Vladimir was poisoned for the first time. And since that first poisoning, I’ve been sleeping with my phone, afraid to miss an important call and afraid to get that call. This is the reality of life in Russia today, of the life of someone who opposes the regime. You’re walking a very thin line and at every step you risk being killed, imprisoned, tortured, whatever. This is the life of anyone who stands up to the Putin regime.
Is your husband aware of Navalny's death?
Yes. His lawyer went to see him today. I was very, very worried because I cannot even imagine that you’re behind bars and you hear that your colleague had just been murdered. I asked his lawyer after the visit how Vladimir was and he said he was swearing—and then he added, “but he does not panic.” He’s very, very angry.
Was he close to Navalny?
They’ve known each other for many years. They always respected each other, as far as I know. Alexei was always impressed with Vladimir’s effectiveness on the international stage and Vladimir was duly impressed by Alexei’s effectiveness on bringing people out in the streets in Russia. So they were working in different areas, but striving for the same goal.
You are one of the few people who would have a proximate understanding of what Yulia Navalnaya has been through. Do you know her?
Surprisingly enough, we’ve never even met. Before Vladimir’s detention, I was never a public person and Yulia was never a public person. I know that Vladimir met Yulia, but I have never met either Yulia or Alexei in person.
Like you, Yulia has vowed to continue her husband’s work. Might you be able to work together?
I’m very open to dialogue and I am open to cooperation with anyone who is fighting for the same cause, so if such a possibility presented itself I’d be more than happy—why not? I believe that we need to bring our efforts together and fight the regime and we all have this duty to do everything we can to stop the war. As Russian citizens, we have this duty.
I was of course very much impressed by Yulia’s statement. I believe that the strength and resilience that was emanating from her are all the more impressive when you realize what exactly she’s living through right now.
I see that this fight is getting an increasingly pronounced feminine face. It’s those women who stand up because their loved ones were either killed or are in jail, both in Russia and in Belarus. And I believe this is actually a good thing because women can bring that long-forgotten understanding of values back to the world of politics; that understanding that you should act based on your values and not on your interests.
Indeed, neither you nor Yulia Navalnaya nor Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya (who took up the mantle of her husband’s activism after he was jailed by Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko) identify as politicians. You all seemingly took on this work out of loyalty to your partners, as well as to the values you share?
It’s both things. It’s not just out of love, which already is enough—people do amazing things out of love. But also, in my case, it’s the understanding that I also owe it to my kids. And I also owe it to my compatriots. I’m a Russian citizen too and the Russian state is currently leading a war of aggression in Ukraine and, as a Russian citizen, it is my duty to stand up and do something about it; to do my best to stop this aggression, to do my best to bring those responsible to accountability. So yes, in big part it is because I’ve always admired and admire and I believe I always will admire my husband and his dedication to his cause. And I understand that this kind of work cannot stop now. This work has to continue—the work on political prisoners, the work on Magnitsky sanctions, the work on making sure that the Russian state is held responsible under international law for the crimes that it is committing. That work that Vladimir has been doing for years cannot stop now when it is most needed.
So I have this motivation in continuing my husband’s work. I have the motivation of a Russian citizen who sees that the Russian state is killing civilians in Ukraine. And I also owe it to my kids because if I want to teach my kids about what true love and partnership is, I have to show it from my own example. If your loved one is in trouble, you fight for him or her. You do that. You stand up and fight for them. I owe it to my kids to fight for their father, to bring him back.
The last motivation, and not the least, is the fact that when 20 years ago I said that I would spend my life with this man, I meant it. I want to spend my life and grow old with this particular man and I need him alive and by my side. And I will fight for that right and for that dream that we share of spending our life together and growing old together.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
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Magnitsky Awards
Winner’s Bio
Evgenia Kara-Murza
HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVIST,
FREE RUSSIA FOUNDATION
Award Winner 2023
Courage Under Fire Award
Evgenia Kara-Murza graduated with honors from the Moscow State Linguistic University and worked as translator and interpreter for several non-governmental human rights organizations including the International Center for Nonviolent Conflict, Modern Russia, and the Free Russia Foundation before joining her husband Vladimir Kara-Murza, a prominent Russian politician and human rights activist, in his pro-democracy and human rights work.
As Advocacy Director of the Free Russia Foundation, Evgenia Kara-Murza helps FRF’s efforts in public diplomacy and global outreach on behalf of Russian civil society. The wife of Vladimir Kara-Murza, sentenced in Russia to 25 years for high treason in a politically motivated case, Evgenia Kara-Murza ensures the continuation of her husband’s years-long work on engaging multilateral oversight mechanisms to hold the Russian government to account over violating its international commitments on human rights, democracy, and the rule of law, and on establishing personal accountability for Kremlin officials complicit in corruption and human rights abuses. She is part of FRF’s global campaign for solidarity with Russian anti-war and prodemocracy activists both inside and outside of the country and ontinues her husband’s work of being a voice of political prisoners in the Russian Federation.
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Wife of Vladimir Kara-Murza fears he will face the same fate in prison as Alexei Navalny
Monday 19 Feb 2024
Evgenia Kara-Murza has no doubts who was responsible for the death of Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny in prison on Friday.
"Make no mistake, this was a political assassination and murder carried out in cold blood, and the man responsible is Vladimir Putin," she told 7.30.
"The reason Alexei Navalny had to be eliminated like that is because he represented a very strong alternative to Vladimir Putin and refused to back down, refused to be silenced."
Ms Kara-Murza is the wife of opposition politician Vladimir Kara-Murza, a Putin critic who was jailed in 2022 after returning to Moscow.
Her 42-year-old husband is currently in solitary confinement in a prison colony in Siberia, where he is serving a 25-year sentence for speaking out against Mr Putin's war in Ukraine.
Like Mr Navalny, he survived poisoning attempts with the nerve agent Novichok. In Mr Kara-Murza's case, it happened twice.
"My heart goes out to Alexei's family, and I can imagine what they're living through right now because I've been on the brink of that at least twice," Ms Kara-Murza said.
"But this is still something too huge to process. And I believe that millions of Russians who have been absolutely horrified by Alexei's death have not yet been able to process it."
Ms Kara-Murza says if you look at the history of Russia under Putin, it's no real shock that Navalny did not survive his prison sentence.
"I was horrified, of course, but unfortunately not surprised because political assassinations are something Vladimir Putin has been doing for years," she said.
"Novaya Gazeta, one independent media outlet alone, lost six employees to political assassinations over the years.
"In 2015, the leader of the Russian opposition, Boris Nemtsov, was assassinated 100 yards away from the Kremlin walls.
"Today it was Alexei Navalny after they tried to kill him with poison."
Russia denies Navalny was murdered.
Russian authorities deny Navalny was assassinated, saying he died of "sudden death syndrome" after going for a walk in the Arctic penal colony where he was serving more than 30 years in prison.
However, his team believe he was murdered and say the fact that authorities have refused to release his body to his family suggests there is a cover-up.
Ms Kara-Murza says she doesn't believe the Kremlin's version of events.
"So far, the Russian authorities have offered two possible reasons for Alexei's death. And that's sudden death syndrome or blood clot," she said.
"I've heard those ridiculous things after my husband's poisonings, both poisonings in which he was given a 5 per cent chance of survival twice.
"So, I know what they say when they kill someone."
John Sweeney is a British journalist who has been covering both Mr Putin's wars and the deaths of his critics for over two decades.
His book Killer in the Kremlin documents what has happened to those who have dared to take on Mr Putin.
He told 7.30 there was a sordid history of his critics being rubbed out.
"Let's run through a few of them," he said.
"Anna Politkovskaya, Natasha Estemirova, Boris Nemtsov, Alexei Navalny.
"In that order. Poisoned then shot. Shot. Shot. Poisoned, now dead. I've met all four. All four were very critical of Putin. All four are dead."
Sweeney believes Navalny was murdered.
Doomed Putin critics
Yevgeny Prigozhin
The 62-year-old was once one of Vladimir Putin's friends, but constant criticisms of military resourcing and strategy in Ukraine saw Yevgeny Prigozhin fall out of favour. The final straw appeared to be Prigozhin ordering soldiers from his private military company to march towards Moscow in June 2023. He died in a plane crash two months later.
Vladimir Kara-Murza
A fierce critic of the Russian president, Vladimir Kara-Murza was in 2023 sentenced to 25 years behind bars after being found guilty of treason and other offences during a secret trial. The pro-democracy activist had described Vladimir Putin's administration as corrupt and a "regime of murderers".
Alexei Navalny
Russian opposition activist Alexei Navalny gestures while speaking to a crowd
The prominent opposition politician, 47, died in prison in February 2024 — two years into several sentences that were to stretch around three decades. Alexei Navalny had regularly criticised Vladimir Putin and described the charges against him as bogus. In 2020, he also survived a poisoning attempt.
Boris Nemtsov
Former Russian deputy prime minister Borsi Nemtsov was fatally gunned down on a bridge in Moscow in 2015, aged 55. He was among the most prominent opponents of Vladimir Putin, and spoke at mass rallies against him. Pro-Kremlin groups regularly featured him on their list of "traitors".
Sergei and Yulia Skripal
Former Russian intelligence officer Seigei Skripal — a double agent for MI6 — and his daughter Yulia were found unconscious in Salisbury, England, in 2018. They spent weeks in hospital, but survived, after being poisoned with the nerve agent Novichok.
Viktor Yushchenko
The Ukrainian presidential candidate was poisoned with dioxin, a chemical found in agent orange, during his campaign in 2004. Viktor Yushchenko had repeatedly criticised his main opponent as being backed by Russia and claimed the election was rigged. He became seriously ill and disfigured, but survived and won office after mass protests.
Alexander Litvinenko
Poisoned: The condition of Alexander Litvinenko has worsened. The KGB-officer-turned-dissident died an agonising death aged 43 in a London hospital in 2006 after drinking green tea laced with the radioactive isotope polonium-210. In 2021, the European Court of Human Rights ruled Russia was responsible for killing Alexander Litvinenko.
Anna Politkovskaya
Novaya Gazeta newspaper journalist Anna Politkovskaya was in 2006 shot dead in the lift of her Moscow apartment building on Vladimir Putin's birthday, October 7. Her reporting had featured human rights abuses in the Russian republic of Chechnya.
Yuri Shchekochikhin
The investigative reporter for the Novaya Gazeta newspaper died suddenly in 2003 while probing corruption in the Kremlin and KGB. He became sick with a mystery illness, aged 53, and his colleagues maintain he was poisoned. His symptoms were akin to being exposed to radioactive materials.
"The message from the Kremlin is, don't mess with the tsar because if you mess with the tsar, you may die," he said.
Sweeney says the 47-year-old posed the greatest threat to Mr Putin of any Russian politician.
First Navalny was barred from running for president, then he was poisoned in 2020. After recovering in Berlin, he returned to Moscow in 2021, where he was arrested at the airport and eventually jailed.
"He [Navalny] was everything Putin wasn't — physically brave, amusing, funny, charismatic, all of those things," Sweeney said.
"I think tyrants hate being mocked. He was on the blackest of blacklists, and he wasn't scared. He stood up to Putin and he stuck it to him.
"Putin hated him. You look at the pictures on the day his death was announced, Putin looked so happy."
Putin is 'scared to death'
Human rights activist Bill Browder is another person with a deep knowledge of how Putin operates.
Once Russia's largest foreign investor, he was banned from the country after he exposed corruption linked to the Kremlin.
He now heads up the Global Magnitsky Justice Campaign which aims to hold human rights abusers in Russia to account through sanctions.
He worked with Navalny to expose corruption in Russia and believes that his friend was murdered.
"Putin's got an election coming up in the middle of March. He's scared to death that people aren't going to come out and support him. He's scared to death of the opposition," Mr Browder told 7.30.
"What better way to make sure that he has no opposition than to kill the most important opposition politician in Russia, Alexei Navalny?"
He says his friend was a man of immense courage, who returned to his country at great risk to himself after recovering from his poisoning.
"At that moment, the Putin regime said if you come back to Russia, we will arrest you, hoping that he will never come back to Russia. But instead he got on that aeroplane, flew to Moscow and was arrested," he said.
"It showed what kind of man Alexei Navalny is. He cared more about the future of his country than his own personal security and his own safety, and he was ready to take a risk with his life and his liberty for his country."
Over the weekend over 400 Russians who had been commemorating Navalny's death across the country were arrested.
In the current climate, Ms Kara-Murza is worried that her husband and other political prisoners may not survive.
"Yes. I do believe that his life is in danger," she said of her husband of 20 years, and the father of her three children.
"As are the lives of many other Russian political prisoners held behind bars in Putin's prisons, and the lives of Ukrainian civilian hostages and war prisoners held in Russian prisons, as well as our colleagues who oppose Alexander Lukashenko in Belarus.
"I have been fearing for my husband's life every single day since at least his first poisoning in 2015.
"I have been sleeping with my phone by my pillow all these years, just knowing that any moment of any day of my life, the phone call might come."
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Opinion: My husband is in a Russian jail for speaking the truth
By Evgenia Kara-Murza
June 1, 2022
Evgenia Kara-Murza is the project manager of the Free Russia Foundation and wife of detained Russian opposition leader Vladimir Kara-Murza. This article is based on remarks made at an event at the National Endowment for Democracy on April 28.
On April 11, my husband, Vladimir Kara-Murza, was arrested by Moscow police on spurious charges of “failing to obey the orders of law enforcement.” But we know the real reason. The day before, he had given an interview to CNN in which he called the government of Vladimir Putin “a regime of murderers.”
Within days, the authorities leveled new and more serious charges against my husband. His alleged crime? Criticizing Putin’s bloody invasion of Ukraine. The regime, which is trying to conceal the reality of its actions from the Russian people, has issued a law targeting anyone who dares to refer to this war as a war. Yet Vladimir has shown again and again during his years of fighting the Putin regime that he has never been afraid to speak the truth — no matter the consequences.
In May 2015, Vladimir fell ill after a lunch meeting in Moscow. He began vomiting violently and was soon diagnosed with a multiple-organ failure. It didn’t take us long to figure out that he had been poisoned — though doctors were never able to determine the precise nature of the toxin. After three weeks in an intensive care unit and another three in the neurology department of Moscow’s First City Hospital, Vladimir was transported to the United States for rehabilitation.
Excerpts from Vladimir Kara-Murza's columns: The truths he spoke that Putin wants suppressed
Yet a few months later, leaning on his cane, having relearned how to walk and hold a spoon, he returned to Russia. When I think of courage, this is what comes to mind. I saw it again when he decided to return to Russia after his second poisoning in 2017 — and again in February, when he returned after the outbreak of the war.
The reason in each case was simple: He believes that, as a Russian politician, he needs to be where people are fighting this regime. He believes that he must assume the same risks, and face the same challenges, confronted by Russians at home. He believes in his country and his people. He is a patriot — one who believes that the Russian people deserve to be free, and that patriotism should not be ceded to the Neanderthal nationalists and their thugs.
He went back after the invasion began because he wanted to show that the Russian people do not support this war. In one of his recent articles, he cited the example of Natalia Gorbanevskaya, one of the Soviet-era dissidents who demonstrated in Red Square against the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968: “A nation minus me is not an entire nation. A nation minus ten, a hundred, a thousand people is not an entire nation. So [the authorities] could no longer say that there was nationwide approval for the invasion …”
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Her natal Lilith is 14 Scorpio, N.Node 11 Sagittarius, S.Node 15 Cancer
Her natal Ceres 25 Cancer, N.Nod 8 Cancer, S.Node 10 Sagittarius
Her natal Amazon is 24 Cancer, N.Node 28 Taurus, S.Node 19 Scorpio
Please feel free to comment or ask questions.
Goddess Bless, Rad
Hi All,
Here is the story of Marianna Mortágua. This is a noon chart.
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Mariana Mortágua
Wikipedia
Mariana Rodrigues Mortágua (born 24 June 1986) is a Portuguese economist, politician, and current National Coordinator of the Left Bloc, serving since 28 May 2023. In 2013, she was elected to the Assembly of the Republic of Portugal, replacing Ana Drago.
Early life
Mortágua is the daughter of Camilo Mortágua, an anti-Salazar activist, revolutionary, and founding member of LUAR. She is the twin sister of Joana Mortágua, also MP of the Left Bloc, and distant cousin of socialist Maria João Rodrigues.
She holds a degree and a master's degree in Economics from ISCTE - Instituto Universitário de Lisboa, having completed her PhD in economics at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) at the University of London.
She made her debut as a deputy in the Assembly of the Republic at the age of 27, in 2013, due to the need to replace Ana Drago in the Lisbon constituency, where she was elected. Her appointment in September 2013 to the top positions on the list of candidates for deputies by the Political Commission of the BE was contested by a group of militants, who criticized the "technocratic criteria" that guided her choice. In view of this, the BE confirmed that Mariana Mortágua was considered as the element that “would best serve the interests of the party in the Assembly of the Republic, due to her knowledge in the area of the Economy”, something that had “been felt since the departure of Francisco Louçã”.
She later gained particular visibility in Portuguese politics after her performance in the parliamentary inquiry of Zeinal Bava and Ricardo Salgado, in the context of the bankruptcy of the BES bank.
She was re-elected as a deputy in the 2015 legislative elections, which gave the Bloco de Esquerda its highest vote ever. She was a member of the Economy and Public Works Commission, the Budget, Finance and Public Administration Commission and the Eventual Commission for Monitoring the Measures of the Financial Assistance Program for Portugal. She was re-elected as a deputy in October 2019.
In September 2016, she stated that, "from a practical point of view, the first thing we have to do is lose the shame of looking for someone who is accumulating money" and that "we cannot be ashamed of having a social policy of this kind."
She was again reelected in 2022, despite the poor results of the Left Bloc. After Catarina Martins decided not to run again in the upcoming Congress, Mariana Mortágua announced her candidacy to the leadership of the party, receiving wide support from party members. On 28 May, Mariana Mortágua was elected Left Bloc's new coordinator, with the support of 493 out of 528 delegates for her motion, and 490 out of 600 delegates for her list for the BE's national board on party's convention in Lisbon.
Political views
Mortágua is interested in various humanitarian causes, especially women's rights and LGBT rights. She awakened to the cause of feminism in her youth, when she was part of the Young Association for Justice and Peace (AJP), led by feminist Teresa Cunha.
Mortágua regularly participates in LGBT pride marches. However, she stated in an interview "today the gay parades are no longer political marches, they are publicity marches", contrary to when they were a "cause against capitalism".
Personal life
In April 2023, she claimed on SIC Notícias she was being politically targeted through lawsuits filed by Marco Galinha, chairman of the Global Media Group, and Chega, a right-wing populist political party in Portugal, and noted "I know that this type of pressure and political persecution will continue and will even rise in tone and level, whether because I am a woman, because I am on the left, whether because I am a lesbian woman, whether because I am the daughter of an anti-fascist resistance fighter, or because apparently I have the gift of bothering some people with a lot of power".
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"I'm a lesbian and I'm prepared for anything", admits Mariana Mortágua
25 Apr 2023 13:05
The Bloco de Esquerda deputy and candidate for party leadership, Mariana Mortágua admitted on SIC Notícias that she is a lesbian and is "prepared for anything". The revelation was made regarding the most recent legal case filed against her and which was archived by the Central Criminal Instruction Court, initiatives that the deputy sees as attempts at "public waste".
At the start of the face-to-face 'Red Lines', with the former CDS-PP deputy, Cecília Meireles, on Monday night, the BE deputy asked for "borrowed two minutes" to comment on the three legal proceedings that, in the last year, were filed against him, all archived.
"I know that this type of pressure and political persecution will continue and will even increase in tone and level", said Mariana Mortágua, arguing that "these processes have a very clear intention, which is public wear and tear, either because in the course of these processes, the media notes that they happen, even if their outcome is archiving".
"Whether it's because I'm a woman, whether it's because I'm left-wing, whether it's because I'm a lesbian woman, whether it's because I'm the daughter of an anti-fascist resister, with a past and an important story, whether it's because I apparently have the gift of bothering some people with a lot of power. . And I know that, for some people, these days, anything goes in politics, and I can only say that I am prepared for anything. I will continue to be who I am and do exactly my job as I have done until here", he said, then going on to comment on the most recent revelations from the parliamentary commission of inquiry into TAP, where he sits.
Last Friday, the Central Criminal Instruction Court (TCIC) decided to close the case against Mariana Mortágua, in which the BE deputy was accused of violating the exclusivity regime for making political comments on SIC Notícias.
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Interview: The right has no fixes for Portugal’s problems, says Left Bloc leader
Sam Jones in Lisbon
Mariana Mortágua warns victory in Sunday’s election could reverse social gains and mark return of ‘political bankruptcy’
Mon 4 Mar 2024 05.00 GMT
A victory for the right in the Portuguese general election this week could reverse the social advances of the past few years and herald a return to the “moral, theoretical and political bankruptcy” that followed the 2008 financial crisis, the leader of the small Left Bloc party has said.
Speaking to the Guardian as Portugal prepared to go to the polls on Sunday in a snap election triggered by the collapse in November of António Costa’s socialist government, Mariana Mortágua said rightwing and far-right parties did not have viable solutions to the country’s housing, healthcare and wage crises.
She also suggested hard-won social rights could be threatened, pointing out that a senior member of one of the parties that makes up the centre-right Democratic Alliance coalition had floated the idea of a new referendum on abortion, almost two decades after Portugal overturned one of Europe’s most restrictive laws.
“Today, the big news is that one of the rightwing candidates wants to have a referendum to ban free abortion in Portugal, which is something we won 17 years ago,” said Mortágua. “All that is at stake right now.”
The Democratic Alliance moved swiftly to distance itself from the idea of a new abortion referendum, but Mortágua said the coalition, led by the Social Democratic party (PSD), could not be allowed back into power because of the painful and destructive austerity policies it had inflicted on Portugal at the behest of the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
“After the troika intervention and all the rightwing policies – not only here – the right entered a period of moral, theoretical and political bankruptcy,” she said.
“What’s at stake in these elections is whether we’re able to keep the right away from power and from the place where they went after the crisis, because they had no solutions to offer the country or the people, or whether they somehow manage to recover from that bankruptcy and take power again.”
The centre-right government of the PSD’s Pedro Passos Coelho was toppled in November 2015 and replaced by an anti-austerity alliance of the Socialist party (PS), the Left Bloc and the Portuguese Communist party, which was collectively known as the geringonça, or “improvised solution”.
Under Costa’s stewardship, the unlikely and little-fancied geringonça managed to bring political and economic stability to a country that received a €78bn (£67bn) bailout from the EU and the IMF in 2011.
“We did something important in 2015 and we need to keep that capacity to change the country, to have agreements on the left, and to have progressive measures,” said Mortágua.
Although the geringonça eventually foundered in 2021 when the Left Bloc and the Communist party refused to support Costa’s 2022 budget on the grounds that it did not include measures the smaller parties had asked for, Mortágua said her party was ready and willing to support a new Socialist-led government if its voice and policies were heeded.
“We’d be happy to have an agreement if that agreement means we have enough power to impose new measures for wages and the healthcare system and housing and so on,” she said.
Sunday’s election comes almost four months after Costa – who won a third term as prime minister and an unexpected absolute majority in the January 2022 general election – resigned amid an investigation into alleged illegalities in his government’s handling of large green investment projects.
Costa, who has not been accused of any crime and who maintains he has a clear conscience, said he had stepped down out of respect for his office, saying “the duties of prime minister are not compatible with any suspicion of my integrity”.
Recent polls suggest the socialists and the PSD are running almost neck and neck, with the centre-right party on about 31% of the vote and the PS on 29%. The far-right Chega party looks set to finish third with 18% of the vote, and the Left Bloc and the centre-right Liberal Initiative party are competing for fourth place with between 4% and 6% each.
The PSD’s leader, Luís Montenegro, has emphatically ruled out any agreement with Chega, saying the views and policies of its leader, André Ventura, are “often xenophobic, racist, populist and excessively demagogic”. Mortágua approves of the PSD’s decision to reject Chega, but she is sceptical as to how long it might last.
“Are we completely at peace and confident that, when the time comes and they need to get power, the right won’t find a way to make an agreement between themselves?” she said. “No. No one is.”
The Left Bloc suffered a huge collapse in the 2022 election, dropping from 19 seats in the 230-seat parliament to five, a dismal performance that Mortágua attributes to tactical voting and fears of the far-right driving her party’s voters into the arms of the socialists.
Her party may still have the clout to help the left back into office, and she is hoping that its ideas, rather than worries about Chega, will win back voters. Among its policies are using the budget surplus to increase investment in healthcare and education, ensuring that no CEO can earn more than 12 times the salary of their company’s lowest-paid worker, lowering taxes on wages and energy, and ending the non-resident tax schemes under which non-residents pay a flat tax of 10%.
The party plans to tackle Portugal’s housing crisis by banning non-residents from buying houses in cities, drastically limiting Airbnb numbers in saturated areas, and introducing rent caps and mandatory five-year rental contracts to ensure stability.
Despite the tumult of the past few years, Mortágua, a 37-year-old economist whose mother is a social worker and whose father is a veteran anti-fascist activist who fought the Salazar regime, is optimistic about the state of Portuguese democracy as the country prepares to mark the 50th anniversary of the Carnation revolution.
“If you think in international terms, when welfare states were being built, we were in a dictatorship, and we got out of dictatorship when neoliberalism was being imposed everywhere else,” she said. “Thatcher was doing her worst work ever and we were just getting out of the dictatorship and starting to build our welfare state. So we were always in kind of a countercycle, catching up to building the welfare state and democracy. But we did it and we did a great job.”
The memory of the revolution, she said, was a useful reminder of what could be done. “We need to keep working and to show people that it’s possible to fight to move forward instead of just resisting and stopping bad things from happening.
“I’m quite optimistic about this election, even if it’s against the odds. I believe in the great power of the Portuguese people.”
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Women who conquered macho world of Portuguese politics prepare for power
This article is more than 8 years old
The female-led Left Bloc party is about to form a government, but now faces shockingly sexist attacks
Catarina F Martins
Sat 14 Nov 2015 22.12 GMT
A few days after Bloco de Esquerda (Left Bloc) won 10% of the vote in the Portuguese general elections last month, Joana Mortágua strode through the marble halls of the Portuguese parliament.
Mortágua doesn’t resemble most deputies: she doesn’t wears suits, preferring a T-shirt and sneakers. She’s athletic and gathers her hair into a ponytail. Even after a historic result, she looked relaxed and amused, joking with colleagues that she had too many meetings to go to. Fast-forward a few weeks and her diary is fuller; Mortágua has become one of the most powerful politicians in the country.
Bloco de Esquerda, Portugal’s equivalent to Greece’s anti-austerity Syriza party, is a crucial element in a leftwing alliance which is set to deliver a socialist government. Its sudden rise is also the story of a remarkable turnaround in fortunes which, in a notoriously macho political culture, has been masterminded by four women: the Bloc’s leader, Catarina Martins, deputies Mortágua and her sister Mariana, and Euro-deputy Marisa Matias.
During the past year the quartet have confronted corrupt bankers and businessmen in parliament and won major debates in a country where women are left out of most politics.
In 2009 Martins and Matias discussed how to promote greater prominence for women inside the Left Bloc. The fringe party had existed for 10 years and always emphasised feminism and gender equality. But its charismatic leaders were all men, including Francisco Louçã, Luís Fazenda, Miguel Portas and Fernando Rosas. “The founding male figures of the Left Bloc are feminists, but Marisa and I felt the need to tell them, ‘We want to engage in politics,’ ” says Martins.
The women started to take action to combat the macho traits of a party that had deep roots in Portuguese society. “At the end of our meetings, we count how many times men and women took the stage to speak. Men always speak more than women – but usually they have nothing new to say. Women are more cautious about speaking in public, but when they do they’re adding new ideas or information,” says Joana Mortágua. Martins says the party now trains women in public speaking.
“I encourage younger and shyer women to speak. And sometimes I scold the older male party figures, asking them to resist the temptation to explain what a woman said once she’d finished speaking,” she says.
These strategies paid off in 2012. The party leader, Louçã, stepped aside and nominated a man – João Semedo – and a woman, Martins, to replace him, trying to replicate the leadership model of some far-left parties in Europe.
At first it didn’t work. Martins ended up as leader, but found herself confronting hostility towards the notion of a leading female politician. “She had such a bad time. People would call João Semedo grandpa and Catarina the little granddaughter,” says Matias. Joana Mortágua adds that all the women in the Left Bloc faced sexism. “Our colleagues in other parties treat us in a very condescending way. They always say, ‘Those beautiful girls in the Left Bloc.’ People on the streets mix up our names and call us Catarina Matias, Mariana Martins, Marisa Mortágua, Joana Matias,” she says.
By that time, some leading figures had left the party and in the European elections the Left Bloc lost two deputies. In 2014 Semedo resigned as party leader, leaving Martins in charge. “The shared leadership had meant that neither of them could shine,” says Marina Costa Lobo, a political scientist at the Institute of Social Sciences of the University of Lisbon.
The changes began to bear fruit. “We put women in charge of some areas traditionally associated with men. We chose Marisa Matias as the frontrunner in the European elections and put Mariana Mortágua in charge of the economic dossiers,” says Martins.
Matias became a vice-president of the European United Left in the European parliament and has been chosen as Left Bloc candidate for the Portuguese presidential elections in January. Mariana Mortágua’s role in questioning those responsible for the failure of Banco Espírito Santo – which had a €4.9bn (£3.4bn) bailout after a series of scandals – turned her into a hero. The images of her questioning of Ricardo Salgado, the bank’s former chief executive officer, went viral.
“No one expects such a robust approach from a woman confronting the rich and powerful. The fact that Mariana did that while showing a deep knowledge of the subject granted her a huge respect. She proved her worth,” says Ana Lúcia Teixeira, an expert in women and politics at the Centre for Sociological Studies of the New University of Lisbon.
“People started treating me with respect because of my hard work and stopped making fun of me for being a young liberal woman,” says Mariana Mortágua. During the general election campaign, the faces of the Mortágua sisters and Martins dominated billboards. Martins came across as well prepared and fearless during debates with leaders of other parties – all men and all older. After being mocked for failing to emulate the successes of Syriza, the Left Bloc finally seemed to have found its mojo.
On election night, two winners emerged: the rightwing coalition was re-elected but could only form a minority administration. The real story was that the Left Bloc achieved a landmark haul of half a million votes, making it a pivotal player in negotiations. Martins announced that evening that the Left Bloc would oust a minority rightwing government. There followed weeks of negotiations, during which the Socialist party forged an unprecedented alliance with the Communist party and the Left Bloc.
Last week the alliance forced the minority government to resign. That has left many on the right fearing a return to the revolutionary years that followed the 1974 ousting of the dictatorship. In a febrile atmosphere, the four female figures of the Left Bloc are again coming under scrutiny.
“I didn’t feel a lot of sexism during the campaign, but now it’s worse. It’s much worse to hear someone calling us hysterical on TV,” says Mariana Mortágua. She cites one rant from a commentator on cable TV, who railed against “those four hysterical women. They’re always going against something or someone. I wouldn’t marry any of them, even if for free. I wouldn’t be able to stand such a woman.” On social media, a petition was launched, calling for Mariana Mortágua to pose naked on the cover of Playboy. The slogan chosen by Matias for her presidential candidacy – “one woman for all” – has been given a sexual overtone and transformed into “one woman for everyone”. Catarina Martins’ body has been discussed extensively by journalists, some suggesting she has adopted a more “feminine” haircut and wardrobe and that she is now “dyeing her grey hair”.
“I started to dye my hair some years ago when I realised the grey hair made me look tired. About my clothes – I try to assume that they’re not newsworthy,” she says ironically. “But everyone’s talking about that instead of discussing the fact that the political centre in Portugal no longer exists.”
Old habits die hard. But the four women leading the left into uncharted waters may be about to rip up the old rules of Portuguese politics.
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The 28-Year-Old Who Stared Down The Portuguese Rockefeller
An economist and daughter of one of the leading opponents of Portugal's former dictatorship, Mariana Mortagua is challenging the status quo. Is this a new Syriza?
Sarah Halifa-Legrand
May 18, 2015
LISBON — The vigor of her handshake offers a glimpse of her personality, frank and strong-willed. Her appearance does the rest. With her Converse shoes, jeans and ear piercings, Mariana Mortagua contrasts with the setting of Portugal's Parliament.
"No, I'm not like the others," she says. A 28-year-old economist who became a parliament member in 2013 with the far-left party Bloco de Esquerda (Left Bloc), Mortagua has since demonstrated that she is undoubtedly her father's daughter.
Camilo Mortagua played an important role in the fight against the dictatorial regime of António de Oliveira Salazar and in the 1974 Carnation Revolution. Mariana has earned her own reputation as a righter of wrongs by standing up to the country's biggest industrial and financial empire, Banco Espirito Santo (BES). As vice president of the Parliamentary Inquiry Commission, last year she led the offensive against one of the last banking dynasties.
The collapse of BES in the summer of 2014 plunged Portugal back into turmoil just as it was emerging from a 78 billion-euro bailout program. After three years of austerity, wage cuts, pension cuts, spending cuts, tax hikes and privatizations, Lisbon found itself forced to bail out the debt-ridden bank to save it from bankruptcy. The state injected 3.9 billion euros, and the country's private bank another 1 billion.
Taking on the power
The young lawmaker was enthralled by the whole affair. For months, she worked relentlessly until late at night, until she knew all the twists and turns by heart. The Palácio de São Bento, Portugal's house of Parliament, became her second home, and the black couch in the room her party occupies became her camp bed. First of all, because what this finance fanatic saw in this case was the "occasion to scrutinize our economic elite," but also because the history of Espirito Santo, like that of her own father, goes back to the dictatorship.
Founded in 1869 and developed under Salazar's authoritarian regime, the finance giant was nationalized in the aftermath of the 1974 revolution. "Humiliated but still refusing to admit defeat, the Espirito Santo family set about rebuilding its might abroad, through debt, before coming back to Portugal to get its banks back," Mariana explains, punctuating each of her sentences with a punch on the table.
The group, built upon holdings divided among the family members, had placed its banking institution at the center of a complex financing scheme connecting all of its different companies. The structure was "poorly built, poorly managed and weakened by the crisis," she says. It ultimately collapsed just after Portugal's bailout.
Mariana suspects the government and the Bank of Portugal were aware of the problems inside BES but waited until the international creditors left the country to avoid provoking a banking crisis while they were there. But she can't prove that. "Our job in parliament was to show to all Portuguese what the elite really think and how they operate," she says.
She may not have succeeded in getting the people to share her passion for analyzing this Ponzi scheme, but Mariana Mortagua did manage to spark citizen interest in this extremely complex case. She created a blog to inform citizens, posted videos of the parliamentary debates that have been viewed more than 200,000 times on YouTube, and made a remark that has become something of a cult punch line. "The owner of everything is trying to pass himself off as the victim of everything," she told 70-year-old Ricardo Salgado, the empire's boss who has become known as "the Portuguese Rockefeller."
"She stood out thanks to her perfect knowledge of the subject, her precise and direct but always polite questions, in a society that's used to more biased exchanges," says economist José Caldas, who was her professor until she went to London to continue her studies.
"She's one of the rare women to often speak up in parliament," one journalist notes. Bloomberg News dubbed her a "Portugese star."
Offspring of a militant
In Alvito, a small village in the southern region of Alentejo, one of the poorest in the country, 81-year-old Camilo Mortagua follows his daughter’s television appearances with pride. Mariana is "hard-working" and "competent," he modestly told Público newspaper.
The elder Mortagua is known for his involvement in the League of Union and Revolutionary Action, a small group of far-left militants who carried out spectacular operations against Salazar's regime. A sea pirate, he hijacked a cruise ship in 1961 with 900 people on board. Also an air pirate, a few months later he hijacked a plane to fly it over Lisbon and jettison 100,000 anti-fascist leaflets. In 1967, he robbed a branch of Bank of Portugal to continue to pay for his activities.
"He was a revolutionary, yes, but not a terrorist," the lawmaker says in defense of her father. "His goal was to make the rest of the world care about what was going on in Portugal."
Her parents met soon after the Carnation Revolution, which toppled the regime in 1974, four years after Salazar’s death. Twelve years later, Mariana and her twin sister Joana were born. "I joined Bloco de Esquerda thanks to Joana. She taught me a lot," Mariana says. Her sister joined the radical left party in 2004 and quickly became an important figure, becoming part of its standing committee. Mariana, who at the time was a militant in a feminist group, joined Bloco de Esquerda in 2009. "I realized that this party was a point of reference in my life," she says. "I crossed its path in every fight I took part in."
Today, Mariana is one of the party's most promising figures, and some see her as its potential future leader now that its founder Francisco Louça, with whom she has co-authored books, is retired. "We'll see," she says when asked about her future.
The task ahead is immense, and she knows it. Unlike its Greek or Spanish equivalents, Syriza and Podemos, her Portuguese anti-austerity party is swimming against the tide. Having received 10% of the vote and seen 16 lawmakers elected in 2009, Bloco de Esquerda has since lost half of its representatives.
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Her natal Lilith is 17 Pieces, N.Node 15 Sagittarius, S.Node 24 Gemini
Her natal Ceres is 15 Virgo, N.Node 23 Gemini, S.Node 14 Sagittarius
Her natal Amazon is 28 Gemini, N.Node 2 Gemini, S.Node 8 Scorpio
Please feel free to comment or ask questions.
Goddess Bless, Rad
Hi All,
Here is the story of Monetochka. This is a noon chart.
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For Russia’s Pop Star Exiles, a Moral Stand and a Creative Climb
Monetochka was one of Russia’s most discussed pop stars. Now, like other antiwar acts in exile, she’s having to retool her career.
By Paul Sonne and Alex Marshall
Paul Sonne reported from Zurich and Berlin, and Alex Marshall from London.
Nov. 24, 2023
Before Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, Monetochka was on her way to becoming a superstar in Russia.
She had released two hit albums of lyrical pop, secured ad deals with brands including Nike and Spotify, and was set to appear and sing a new song in theopening scene of Netflix’s first original Russian drama, a lush adaptation of Leo Tolstoy’s “Anna Karenina.”
But President Vladimir V. Putin’s military action derailed everything.
Netflix shelved the series. The big ad deals, which once constituted more than half of Monetochka’s income, disappeared. And, after making a raft of antiwar statements and fleeing Russia, she was branded a foreign agent in January.
Yet the 25-year-old singer-songwriter — who now lives in Lithuania and is scheduled to perform at the Melrose Ballroom in New York on Sunday as part of a U.S. and European tour — said exile had removed the burden of worrying about what she says, and was worth the cost.
“You can scream, yell, rant, write any songs or poems you want — and this, of course, means a lot to me,” said Monetochka, or “Little Coin,” whose real name is Liza Gyrdymova. “For me, this is such an important feeling, as an artist and a lyricist: freedom of expression.”
She is just one of the many Russian music stars rebuilding their careers outside their homeland after taking a moral stand against the invasion of Ukraine. Now forced to operate at a distance from most of their fan bases and, in many cases, labeled traitors by their government, they are adopting touring schedules that hew to the new geography of the Russian diaspora as they try to keep their careers moving forward.
Michael Idov, a Latvian-American writer and director who has worked with top Russian singers and has directed a music video for Monetochka (pronounced moh-NYET-och-ka), said that those musicians faced several dilemmas abroad, even though in most cases Russians can still stream their music on YouTube and Yandex Music, a Russian streaming platform.
“The basic question is: Can you write new hits in this situation, or are you automatically a nostalgia act, even if the nostalgia is for the year 2021?” he said.
There was also the question of how to create a sustainable future. “After you have played every new Russian enclave five times, what do you do after that?” Mr. Idov added. The musicians could break into new markets through collaboration with non-Russian artists, Mr. Idov noted, but few had tried that approach, or put out much new music.
So far, the millions of Russian speakers outside Russia have been sustaining the performers. Last Saturday, at a Monetochka concert in Zurich, the hall was packed with nearly 700 fans, including middle-aged couples bopping along and screaming young women taking selfies — some of them with their hair done up in the singer’s trademark double buns. Everyone was speaking Russian.
Onstage, Monetochka acknowledged that things had changed. “For all these songs and these views and beliefs, folks, they gifted me the rank of foreign agent,” she said. The crowd erupted in cheers, and the singer launched into a song criticizing Russian internet censorship.
Her tour, which kicked off in Barcelona last month, has faced logistical challenges. This week, Monetochka had to postpone a concert in London and cancel one in Miami because she didn’t get visas in time. And figuring out the right size and type of venues has involved some guesswork.
To widen their appeal, some exiled artists, including Face, a Russian rapper, have considered switching to English. Yet only a couple of Russian acts, such as the girl group t.A.T.u., have ever landed a hit on the American charts.
Monetochka, who rocketed to fame in part because of the poetry of her subversive lyrics, said she couldn’t imagine achieving a similar depth of expression in a language other than Russian. She plans to release a new album in the spring, which she said would reflect her rage and alarm about the war, but also the hopeful feelings she had felt since becoming a mother last year. She said she felt she needed to leave listeners with something positive, too.
Other exiled Russian stars have soured on living abroad. Morgenshtern, a popular Russian rapper who moved to Dubai last year and was also labeled a foreign agent, recently told a Russian interviewer that he missed home and wanted to return to Russia but was too scared for his safety, including the possibility of being sent to the front as retribution. The Kremlin spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, later said no one would give Morgenshtern “guarantees that everything will be fine.”
While Russian musicians who backed the war and embraced the accompanying nationalist fervor have found themselves rewarded with growing popularity and riches, the acts who left have felt financial impacts, even if they already had large followings outside the country.
Sonya Tayurskaya, a member of a rave band called Little Big, who moved to Los Angeles from Russia just days after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began, said that the group had to go “back to the beginning.”
Rebooting their career had been a test of character, said Ilya Prusikin, Little Big’s main songwriter. “What we’ve learned is that money is not important,” he said.
Monetochka said she knew her finances would suffer when she left Russia. She is now touring more and playing smaller venues than she did there. She said she was also considering moving beyond music, to stage theatrical performances that would be subtitled for non-Russian speakers, to try to reach new audiences.
But for now, she said, she was still making enough from concerts and streaming to produce new music — and that was what matters.
“If you’re still dreaming of some kind of big concert in Moscow, some sort of solo performance at the Olympic stadium, then it’s going to be hard for you,” she said. “You have to make the decision to go down a few notches and start building it up again.”
“It doesn’t take much time to get on your feet and understand how you can earn money,” she added. “Everyone I know after this move feels a surge of inspiration. And again, this is the most important thing — not money, but songs.”
With young, tech-savvy music listeners in Russia always a step ahead of government censorship, she said she never expected to fully lose access to her fans in Russia. Her antiwar stance had also gained new fans in Ukraine, including among her nearly two million TikTok followers.
But even before the war, Monetochka had faced political pressure. After she released a video in support of L.G.B.T.Q. rights, Russian state television went after her, she said, and the authorities called music festivals to get her removed from lineups. She said she had come to shrug off Russia’s branding her as a traitor with humor and “accept that people love to hate someone, they really need it — and when the state encourages this, they reach untold heights.”
Toward the end of her concert in Zurich, Monetochka tried to impart some of that resilient spirit as she prepared to play her 2020 song, “Will Survive,” an anthem many of her fans have adopted amid the war.
“All of this nonsense, all of this nastiness and filth,” she told the audience. “We will survive.”
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Monetochka
Wikipedia
Monetochka (Russian: Моне́точка, lit. 'Little Coin') is the stage name of Elizaveta Andreevna Gyrdymova (Russian: Елизаве́та Андре́евна Гырды́мова, born 1 June 1998), a Russian singer-songwriter.
Biography
Elizaveta Gyrdymova was born on 1 June 1998 in Yekaterinburg. From childhood, Gyrdymova enjoyed writing poetry and published her work on the site Stihi.ru as a teenager.
In 2014, she entered tenth grade at the Specialized Educational and Scientific Center of the Ural Federal University.[2] In 2016, she enrolled in correspondence courses in film production at the Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography in Moscow. She chose the school because of her love of classic cinema.
Since September 2016, Gyrdymova has continued her studies, and her first internship was at the ETV channel in her native Yekaterinburg, where she released joint projects with the poet Alexandra Aksyonova.[4] She then worked for some time as a producer at ETV.
In May 2022, it became known that the singer left Russia for Lithuania.
In January 2023, the Russian Ministry of Justice included Gyrdymova in the list of foreign agents.
Musical career
At the end of 2015, Gyrdymova uploaded her first album, Psychedelic Cloud-Rap (Russian: «Психоделический клауд рэп», romanized: Psihodeličeskij klaud rèp), to the social network VKontakte under the pseudonym Monetochka. She recorded the songs at home on a synthesizer. Soon after, she began uploading videos of her live performances to YouTube.
On 22 January 2016, she officially released Psychedelic Cloud Rap. The album was posted in one of the popular social network communities and quickly went viral.[1][10] By the end of February, she had over 20,000 followers on her VKontakte page and received offers to give concerts and interviews.
In January 2017, Monetochka released the video for the song "Ushla k realistu" (Russian: «Ушла к реалисту»). On 1 June 2017 the video for the song "Childfree" (Russian: «Чайлдфри»), recorded with Noize MC, was released. The song and video became the subject of a scandal. The Moscow lawyer Sergei Afanasyev wrote to the prosecutor's office to check "Childfree" for legal violations, claiming that the lyrics promoted teen suicide.
In 2017, Monetochka began to collaborate with the alternative R&B musician and producer Viktor "BTsKh" Isaev. Their first collaboration, the single "Poslednyaya diskoteka" (Russian: «Последняя дискотека», lit. 'The Last Disco'), was released on 31 October 2017.
On 25 May 2018, Monetochka released her first studio album, Coloring for Adults (Russian: «Раскраски для взрослых», romanized: Raskraski dlâ vzroslyh), produced by Isaev. According to the press release, Coloring for Adults marked a new sound for Monetochka, "containing musical references to the 1980s and 1990s, contemporary club music, music from cartoons, and even folklore." The album contains multiple references to the late Soviet rock musician Viktor Tsoi, including a musical quote from the Kino song "Khochu peremen!" (Russian: «Хочу перемен!», lit. 'I Want Change!') and lyrics mentioning a "weary Tsoi".
On 28 May 2018, Monetochka performed the song "Kazhdyi raz" (Russian: «Каждый раз», lit. 'Every Time') on the late-night talk show Evening Urgant. In his introduction, the host, Ivan Urgant, said that some critics considered Monetochka's new album "one of the major Russian-language albums of this year." On 1 June 2018, a concert presentation of the new album took place in Moscow.
On 2 October 2020, Monetochka released the studio album Arts and Crafts (Russian: «Декоративно-прикладное искусство», romanized: Dekorativno-prikladnoe iskusstvo).
In 2022, Monetochka toured with Noize MC, raising over €200,000 for a Polish charity that helped refugees resulting from the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Critical reception
In a review of Psychedelic Cloud Rap on the InterMedia website, the music critic Alexei Mazhaev wrote that "in Liza's music, stiob is combined with sanity on the verge of cynicism", and "excellent command of words, a sense of language and accurate orientation in the signs of the times are seasoned with charming naivety."
According to music journalist Alexander Gorbachev (Meduza), despite the fact that Monetochka started off as an Internet meme, she did not share the formulaic path of short-lived celebrity. Comparing the singer's songs from Psychedelic Cloud Rap to the new songs of Coloring for Adults, Gorbachev notes that "the toylike childishness of Monetochka’s early music has grown into something far more complex in this album."
The poet Vera Polozkova spoke about Monetochka's success in the following way: “This is absolutely a child telling you about what is happening around you, with such irreconcilability which you would never have dared to use yourself."
Maria Engström claims that "Monetochka’s album [Coloring for Adults] today is the only intelligible manifesto of the aesthetics of Putin’s fourth term in office."
The singer Zemfira called Monetochka's lyrics "excellent", but said she considered the singer's voice "repulsive".
Boris Barabanov named "Kazhdyi raz" one of the 16 top songs of 2018 and wrote that by releasing Coloring for Adults, Monetochka "managed to break the framework of the independent scene and break into the mainstream."
Childfree and accusations of promoting suicide
On June 28, 2018, Moscow lawyer Sergei Afanasyev said that the prosecutor's office, at his request, began checking the song "Childfree" of Monetochka and Noize MC for, in his view, calls for adolescent suicide in the song, specifically in the following lyrics:
Listen to my advice in MP3 format: don't wait until you get old, rather die. It's a shame your parents aren't childfree. Burn in hell, burn in hell!
Vitaly Milonov, a deputy from United Russia, was also extremely outraged by this work and said in an interview that medical experiments should be carried out on Monetochka and Noize MC.
However, many famous people defended the performers, stating that one cannot judge the entire composition by a phrase taken out of context. For example, Mikhail Osadchiy, Vice-Rector for Science of the State Institute of Russian Language, spoke as follows:
If you carefully read the text, then in it you will see not propaganda for suicide, nor incitement to suicide, but ridicule of suicides committed due to influence by the media. The text, of course, is devoted to the negative impact of the information field of modern society on a person.
Charts
In December 2016, Monetochka's track "Gosha Rubchinskiy" (Russian: «Гоша Рубчинский») was ranked 11th in The Flow's "50 Best Tracks of 2016."
In January 2017, Psychedelic Cloud Rap was ranked 6th in The Flow's "33 Best Russian Albums of 2016". Psychedelic Cloud Rap was 14th in the list of the 20 best Russian albums in Afisha Daily's "40 Albums of the Year" for 2016. In December 2017, "Poslednyaya diskoteka" was ranked 17th in The Flow's "50 Best Tracks of 2017."
In 2018, at the Jager Music Awards, Monetochka won in the categories "Group of the Year" and "Single of the Year" with the song "Kazhdyi raz". All 10 songs from Coloring for Adults entered Yandex Music's Top 100 chart within three days of the album's release. The song "Nimfomanka" received the highest ranking, reaching number one in the chart. In summing up the music of 2018, Yandex Music named Monetochka as the breakthrough artist of the year and noted that "Kazhdyi raz" was one of the most streamed tracks across their markets. The Flow ranked Monetochka's tracks "90" and "Kazhdyi raz" in the 20th and first places, respectively, in their list of the 50 best tracks of 2018, and according to the results of a popular vote, Coloring for Adults came third among the best albums of 2018 and first among pop albums of the year.
Discography
Albums
2016 — Psychedelic Cloud Rap (Russian: «Психоделический клауд рэп»)
2018 — Coloring for Adults (Russian: «Раскраски для взрослых», romanized: Raskraski dlâ vzroslyh)
2020 — Arts and Crafts (Russian: «Декоративно-прикладное искусство», romanized: Dekorativno-prikladnoe iskusstvo)
Mini-albums
2017 — I'm Liza (Russian: Я Лиза, lit. 'I'm Liza')
Singles
2016 — "Gosha Rubchinskiy" (Russian: «Гоша Рубчинский»)
2016 — "Capital" (Russian: «Капитал»)
2016 — "Trump Ace" (Russian: «Козырный туз»)
2016 — "Left for a Realist" (Russian: «Ушла к реалисту»)[36]
2016 — "Factory" (Russian: «Завод»)
2016 — "Hello, Angelina" (Russian: «Здравствуйте, Анджелина»)
2017 — "Daddy, forgive me" (Russian: «Папочка, прости»)
2017 — "Risa-chan" (Russian: «Риса-чан»)
2017 — "The Last Disco Party" (Russian: «Последняя дискотека»)
2018 — "There's Nothing I Want to Know Anymore" (Russian: «Не хочу ничего знать»)
2018 — "At Dawn" (Russian: «На заре») (Alyans cover)
2019 — "Fall into the Mud" (Russian: «Падать в грязь»)
2019 — "Burn Burn Burn" (Russian: «Гори гори гори»)
Collaborations
2016 — Noize MC — "Childfree" (Russian: «Чайлдфри»)
2016 — Khan Zamai & Slava KPSS — Hype Train («Гоша Рубчинский» feat. СД, Zoo in Space, Букер Д. Фред, Овсянкин, «Покемоны» feat. Овсянкин)
2017 — Satana Pechet Bliny (Russian: Сатана Печёт Блины) — "Selfie" (Russian: «Селфи»)
2018 — Satana Pechet Bliny — "Son Studentki" (Russian: «Сон Студентки»)
2018 — Noize MC, Swanky Tunes — "People with Machine Guns" (Russian: «Люди с автоматами»)
2018 — Kurtki Cobaina (Russian: Куртки Кобейна) — "DNA Threads" (Russian: «Нити ДНК») (Bi-2 and Monetochka)
Videos
2017 — "Left for a Realist" (Russian: «Ушла к реалисту»)[37]
2017 — "Childfree" (Russian: «Чайлдфри») (feat. Noize MC)
2017 — "Goodbye, my Yekaterinburg!" (Russian: «Прощай, мой Екатеринбург!»)
2017 — "The Last Disco Dance" (Russian: «Последняя дискотека»)
2018 — "Zaporozhets" (Russian: «Запорожец»)
2018 — "90"
2018 — "DNA Threads" (Russian: «Нити ДНК») (feat. Bi-2)
2019 — "Nimphomaniac" (Russian: «Нимфоманка», lit. 'Nymphomaniac')
2019 — "Fall into the Mud" (Russian: «Падать в грязь»)
2019 — "No Money" (Russian: «Нет монет»)
*************
Meet Monetochka, the popstar fast becoming the face of young Russia
July 09 2018
Follow Russia Beyond on Twitter
She was once a meme, and then she became a popstar. Meet 20-year-old Monetochka, who walks a fine line between sincerity and sarcasm - she may have just made the best Russian pop album in years.
Liza Gyrdymova used to be a typical teen. Then one day after school she wrote a sarcastic ballad about communism on her keyboard and posted it on VK (the Russian version of Facebook). The song went viral and, to cut a long story short, just two years later, seven of the ten tracks from her new album “Adult Coloring Books” currently sit pretty in the Russian top 100 chart.
This is not your run-of-the-mill popstar – her aberrant mix of strikingly high-pitched vocals and satire means she’s not only big among teenage girls, but has a wide fanbase incorporating adults and music critics. Moreover, her music is surprisingly, well, good.
How did this happen?
Prankster’s paradise
“Mama, I’m not making Nazi salutes/Please stop swearing, my outlooks are alright,” sang a 16-year-old Monetochka in one of her ballads at the outset of her unorthodox rise to the top.
Монеточка - Мама, я не зигую от Музыкальный маньяк на Rutube.
Songs like these made Liza Russia’s favorite troll, with the country’s online community lapping up the sight of pop culture icons and trends being slaughtered by a sweet-voiced girl armed with the candid YouTube value of Alessia Cara and a sense of humor. Prime victim was high-end fashion designer Gosha Rubchinskiy, often mocked for his unironic commercialization of Soviet culture.
There was also an element of the surreal to it: Her breakout EP “Psychedelic Cloud Rap” contained literally no rap whatsoever.
But there was something more to a Monetochka roasting than the average online parody. Unlike her “influencer” peers, Liza refused to be forcibly bubbly or flashy (she didn’t wear makeup for her bedroom videos). Perhaps inadvertently, this helped her tap into a silent majority of the Russian youth often overlooked due to its noiselessness: Those who are educated but apolitical, creative but averse to the mainstream, and extremely cynical about their generation’s outlook.
Coloring a generation
Liza’s breakthrough came when she started collaborating with producer Vitya Isaev, and the first taste of the pair’s colab was given to us in the form of 2017’s "The Last Disco," a sentimental coming-of-age track sung over sleek synths and nostalgic 80s snares.
While the song was undeniably earnest, "Adult Coloring Books" reassured us that the Liza of meme-based fame was never too far away. This doesn’t mean 33 minutes of Gosha Rubchinskiy piss-taking, but the album does essentially keep most of its heaviness at bay.
Like other socially “conscious” artists like Kendrick Lamar, Liza often refutes the temptation to claim that she alone represents what it means to be young in modern-day Russia, instead using a series of quirky mood-characters for this purpose.
The album’s lead single Каждый раз (Every Time), has the following chorus:
If I had a nickel every time, every time I thought of you
I’d be out homeless on the hills, I’d be the poorest girl in view
The protagonist, a supposedly “ideal, independent girl, who’s proud and self-sufficient,” clearly doesn’t quite fit the job description (why else would she be so obsessed with her ex otherwise?) In a sense, it mirrors the Internet generation: Raised on and hardened by dark humor, but often defensive when the surface is scratched a little.
It’s not just one big joke
While Monetochka’s portrait of Russia is humorous and dense, her invitation to national self-reflection extends beyond pop culture too. There is a deeper message to the album: That Russia should not let its history hinder its future.
This is clear from the opening track "Russian Ark," a sarcastically nationalistic song with a tongue-in-cheek salutation of Russia’s greatest treasures: Kvass, iconostasis, crooner Stas Mikhaylov.
Then there’s the track "90," which derisively re-hashes oft-exploited narratives about 1990s Russia:
In the nineties people were killed
And everybody ran around buck-naked
Electricity was nowhere to be found
Just fights over jeans and Coca-Cola
Cynics will say it’s a skeptical view of the country’s past, yet these are two of the most upbeat tracks on the record – the smooth disco-pop we’re given here is as nostalgic as the lyrics are critical.
It’s on the tear-inducing "Your Name", the LP's eighth track, that the album makes its first unequivocal attempt at sincerity, addressing the topic of bereavement over a wistful disco beat (with surprising success, given the gravity of the theme):
And you disappeared, not in the void nor in the darkness, no, you’re gone
You’ve merged with the air, you turned to fumes
All that’s left is letters on the mail, on the forms
And those letters spell out your name
The cusp of adulthood
The broadness of Monetochka’s appeal is hard to explain, but much of it probably lies in her age. Currently on the cusp of adulthood, she’s at a sentimental sweet spot that both evokes teenage nostalgia but is acceptable for anyone to tune in.
She’s also quintessentially Russian: At once serious and satirical, mature and childlike, stubborn and vulnerable, never has pop come so close to capturing the angst and complexity of the nation’s identity.
She shows no signs of completely abandoning her roots, however: "Adult Coloring Books" closes with jokey keyboard-ballad "Post-Post," about the online teenage craze over pseudo-philosophy. You can almost imagine Liza recording the song from her bedroom (at least, the sticky keys are very audible). The track proves her new endeavors haven’t killed her sense of humor, abruptly finishing with the announcement, “I haven’t thought of an ending yet.”
Say what you want, but she keeps you on your toes.
*********
A 19-year-old musician just released the best Russian pop album of the year
Seriously.
9:02 pm, May 31, 2018
On May 25, Elizaveta Gyrdymova — aka “Monetochka” (Lil’ Coin) — released a new album called “Raskraski dlya Vzroslykh” (Coloring for Adults). Just two years ago, Monetochka made a name for herself with a collection of amusing songs uploaded to the social network Vkontakte, where she sings and plays piano. With “Raskraski,” however, Monetochka has fashioned her own tone and musical language, transcending what made her an Internet sensation. She’s now a national pop star. Meduza editor Aleksandr Gorbachev explains how this happened.
Monetochka was 16 when she became an Internet meme
In December 2015, an 11th grade student in Yekaterinburg named Elizaveta Gyrdymova uploaded her album to Vkontakte. Calling herself Monetochka and titling the album “Psychedelic Cloud-Rap,” it was a medley of witty, touching songs where she played piano and sang lyrics with cute vignettes about teenage everyday life, with satirical jabs at modern culture (especially at fashion designer Gosha Rubchinskiy) and even a few political jokes.
Within a month, pop-culture websites were writing about Monetochka, and her Vkontakte page was getting thousands of likes. In Moscow and in other cities across the country, people invited her to come perform. Monetochka’s songs became the ideal manifestation of the Vkontakte culture, which by this time had confidently become pop culture: the album was a funny, deliberately naive reworking of Russians’ everyday information overload, fit into short, catchy amateur hits. In other words, the music was a meme you could listen to at home and go see live in concert.
This is usually the end of the road
Monetochka certainly isn’t the first person to strike the Internet’s collective nerve and win a following overnight. In Russia, there’s been Nikolai Voronov, the strangely talented, ill-fated man behind the song “White Dragonfly of Love,” and Oleg Legky, the bard from Khabarovsk whose 10-minute album about fish proved far more popular than anything his old band managed in years of struggling in Moscow.
These two cases illustrate well what usually happens next. Voronov performed at a Gosha Rubchinskiy party in one of Moscow’s hottest clubs, the “Solyanka,” and for a few months he played his strange music at concerts around the city, giving interviews to the media. He even sold his hit song to the band Quest Pistols. Gradually, however, the public’s interest waned, and his more serious compositions (Voronov studied to be a composer) didn’t impress. Legky also spent some time performing live concerts, gallivanting across the country. He even recorded a couple of new completely genius songs longer than 20 seconds, but he was unable to turn that initial symbolic capital into anything more, and eventually he moved back to Khabarovsk.
It’s a different story with Monetochka. Her new album changes everything.
At first, Gyrdymova’s trajectory seemed to mimic what’s happened to so many Internet stars before her: a hodgepodge of concert performances, meetings with celebrities, and a few collaborations with major rappers (where Monetochka mainly played out her usual comic role). Meanwhile, Gyrdymova finished high school, moved to Moscow, and enrolled in the Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography. You might have logically assumed that she simply wouldn’t have time to continue working on her music.
You would have been wrong. Exactly the opposite happened.
Monetochka got serious about her music, with some help from Viktor “BTsKh” Isaev (who is maybe Russia’s most talented alternative R&B musician today). Their collaboration demonstrates wonderfully the role a good producer can play. Isaev has brought his groove to Monetochka’s music, highlighting all the irresistible clarity of her melodies, and finding the perfect sound for her voice. It was clear when Gyrdymova first teamed up with him on “Poslednyaya Diskoteka” (The Last Disco) that it was time to start watching her closely. With the new album, Monetochka has finally established herself as a true pop star. She’s already performed on “Evening Urgant” — which remains an important recognition of artistic legitimacy for Russian musicians — and she’s likely bound for further success.
When “Psychedelic Cloud-Rap” appeared online, Gyrdymova was 16 years old. Today, she’s 19. Many people experience a period of radical self-discovery in these years, and that is precisely what seems to have happened with Monetochka’s music.
This is a new kind of pop music, uncompromising and without shame
In a nutshell, “Coloring for Adults” is something created by people who remain gleefully unaware of that dirty word “pop.” The album’s first song recalls a guitar riff from Viktor Tsoi’s classic “Khochu Peremen!” (I Want Changes!), while introducing an almost pornographic, Kenny-G-like saxophone — it feels like something that goes against good taste, but it works perfectly. “Coloring for Adults” is elastic, sassy pop music that doesn’t try too hard. You might go looking for comparisons (like the synthetic funk Ivan Dorn made popular in Russia), but it’s not worth it: this is really more of a universal hit sound that borrows a bit from the past several decades of dance music but doesn’t ever go overboard.
What’s most important here isn’t the sound, however, but Gyrdymova’s voice. This kind of singing is something new in Russian: the toylike childishness of Monetochka’s early music has grown into something far more complex in this album. It’s as if we’re watching in real time how someone’s voice breaks down, except not in a physical but a conceptual sense. We see a vocalist adapt her own ironic defenselessness to issues that are no longer “post-” or “meta-” — the content is now devastatingly real at times.
It would be meaningless to say that Monetochka falls “somewhere between Alena Apina and Joanna Newsom,” but that’s exactly where her tone fits: in a conceptual space where wily naivete blends with a certain alluring strangeness. When she was in the band “Massa Kryma,” the singer Evgeniya Borzykh managed something like this. Where Borzykh showed principled amateurism, Monetochka has demonstrated professionalism in the best sense of the word.
A generation’s manifesto
Elizaveta Gyrdymova’s work with Russian rappers wasn’t for nothing: Russian hip hop clearly will never claim “Coloring for Adults” as its own, but in terms of technical skill Monetochka can put together words and rhymes as well as many in the industry (and Noize MC’s influence on her is especially noticeable). One of the main functions of today’s Russian rap is to talk about yourself and about time, and this plays out wonderfully for Monetochka. Of course, it would be an exaggeration to say that social issues are what drive the album. The balance you find here is normal for any 19-year-old: there’s love, sex, money (no money), feelings about your hometown and other cities, and there’s “Your Name” — a surprising, tender song about death that will bring you to tears. But Gyrdymova’s music also goes further.
Monetochka performs “Net Monet” (No Coins), a comical ballad about rap, youth, and empty pockets.
On Air
“Coloring for Adults” rightly starts with the song “Russkii Kovcheg” (Russian Ark) — an aphoristic composition about Russia’s special path:
Where’s their Slavic mass, oil, and gas?
They’ve got unisex, but we’ve got kvas,
Iconostasis and Mikhaylov, Stas.
[...]
Pussy Riot took off their masks — a pity.
But they look good without them — they’re pretty.
Another key track is “90” — a satire on the myth of the “troubled” 1990s, and something like the opposite of a song with the same name by the band “Barto”:
It’s fun to sit around and divvy up the shops,
But carving up a country is where playtime stops.
[...]
It’s only thanks to tapes and to Krovostok’s song
That I learned with horror what had gone wrong.
That in the 90s people turned up dead,
And they ran the streets buck naked.
What’s important here isn’t just what is being sung, but how: Monetochka’s music has neither patriotism nor contempt. She brings only a keen interest in the land of her people, and a genuine love for its paradoxical nature. In the song “Russian Ark,” when a chorus of voices starts chanting “Rossiya!” it’s authentic, but it isn’t some pro-Kremlin cheer. Listen carefully and the sound might as well be people Gyrdymova’s age shouting the same word at some unpermitted protest.
Monetochka isn’t alone: there are many young women behind a new wave of interesting music in Russia
This new women-led pop music in Russian didn’t start with Monetochka. Before her, there was at least the Ukrainian singer Kristina Bardash — aka “Luna” (Moon) — who lacks Gyrdymova’s originality, but has more style. The important thing, however, is that this new music doesn’t end with Monetochka. So far, “Coloring for Adults” is probably the most marketable product from this new generation of women singers, but there are other artists right up there with Gyrdymova.
There’s Liza Gromova, the former vocalist for the band “Ozera” (Lake), who released her new album a week after Monetochka’s. Her producers are from the band “Malbec,” which is always collaborating with another important singer: Susanna. There’s the band “Komsomolsk,” which combines the aesthetics of the utopian 1960s and the realities of life today in Moscow. There’s the “Derevyannye Kity” (Wooden Whales) with their exceptionally beautiful shoegaze indie rock that recalls the Thaw under Medvedev. There’s “Lemniskata Petrikor” with its mystical synthesized urbanism. And, of course, there’s Anastasia Ivanova — aka “Grechka” (Buckwheat). All these artists are worth following; in one way or another, they’re all laying new paths for what Russian music with women’s voices can be.
In her last song on “Coloring for Adults,” Monetochka cuts herself off in mid-sentence and says into the mic: “I haven’t come up with an ending yet.” It’s less an admission of failure than a promise of more to come.
*******
Links:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvGMys5Cgkk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVUBdmsG-pM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hJOCCXPwT8
Please feel free to comment or ask questions.
Goddess Bless, Rad
Hi All,
Here is the story of Hanah Lahe. This is a noon chart.
****************
‘People put a lot of hope on me’: Estonia’s youngest MP already making waves
Shafi Musaddique in Tallinn
Hanah Lahe is just 24 but she is already a leading voice for change in the former Soviet Baltic state
Wed 28 Feb 2024
Hanah Lahe can’t remember the fall of the iron curtain. Estonia’s youngest MP grew up surfing the web and consuming American television. Just nine years before her birth, it was all so different. When borders reopened after the end of Soviet rule in 1991, Estonians rushed to stare at bananas, enthralled by the arrival of this new, exotic fruit.
“People were standing in line sometimes not even to buy, but just to have a look at them. Those who would buy them would not even eat them because it was such a big thing,” says Lahe, 24, recounting a story her grandmother told her. “When a plastic bag from another country that had a big brand name arrived, people would use it all the time.”
Freedom, after half a century of Soviet occupation, held no immediate assurances. Criminal gangs were known to wander around Tallinn in the turbulent years of the early 1990s. Foreign visitors were relatively few and far between. Finnish tourists, allowed to cross the Soviet Union’s sea border, recall seeing ramshackle houses and children in rags roaming the streets of Tallinn.
“Coming from that, the changes [today] are quite big,” says Lahe.
It has been nearly a year since Lahe, representing the liberal Reform party of the prime minister, Kaja Kallas, was elected an MP, and in that time she has emerged as one of the Baltic country’s most outspoken, energetic and interesting politicians.
She landed her first big victory within months of her election, at just 23, when she led the fight to legislate marriage equality. Estonia went on to become the first ex-Soviet country to legalise same-sex marriage, a groundbreaking piece of legislation that came into effect in January 2024.
“I still remember the day; the feelings, the applauding. It was a big day. It brought Estonia into the value room of Europe, western countries and other democratic countries that have had this for decades,” she says.
Lahe is now challenging other status-quos. The climate crisis remains a muted topic in Estonia, largely thanks to a deep-rooted car-loving culture at odds with Tallinn’s much-lauded free public transportation for residents. Cars remain something of a status symbol for new wealth and Estonia has the EU’s second-highest share of cars older than 20 years.
Lahe, a former youth delegate at Cop27 in Egypt and a founder of a circular economy support group in Estonia’s parliament, still sees herself as an activist taking on mainstream attitudes and “big egos”. She refuses to own a car, instead using public transport or walking.
“As a politician you can’t really talk about valuing the environment, or being an advocate for climate politics, if you in your personal life are not contributing at all to solving the crisis,” she says.
The MP notes that the Estonian business sector, with its abundance of startups and tech unicorns, is better equipped to push forward climate issues than policymakers. “They are way ahead of politics, which is weird,” she says.
Lahe and like-minded Estonians have their work cut out if the Baltic state is to make real progress on the climate. The country remains an outlier in the EU, with no climate-based laws, though the government – a coalition led by Reform with Estonia 200, a new liberal party, and the Social Democrats as junior partners – is drafting a climate bill that could be pushed through this year. A new car tax is to come into force in 2025, despite public opposition. The reforms could raise an extra €120m a year.
Despite her relative inexperience, Lahe understands the importance of communication. Like Kallas she understands social media, but while the prime minister posts behind-the-scenes footage of her day-to-day duties on Instagram, Lahe goes a step further, using social media as a tool to gain traction on protests.
In June, she set up a temporary garden space outside Estonia’s parliament in protest over the large number of empty “asphalt heat island” spaces devoted to parked cars. Her pop-up went viral and caught the wider public’s attention. The prime minister even dropped by. Fierce climate opponents couldn’t resist having a look.
“I was away from the parliament for an hour or two. I came back and I saw a politician from Isamaa, the opposition party, giving an interview in my park, which was really cool because people were trying to use this place. It’s needed,” she says.
The other crisis on Lahe’s mind – like all politicians in the Baltics – is Russia’s war on Ukraine.
“My generation’s heart aches for Ukraine, not because we lived through a war, but because we have the negative imprint of Russian invasion from our heritage. It matters to everyone who is Estonian how things are going in Ukraine,” says Lahe. She is clear: Ukrainian victory is the only path to securing Europe: “There really isn’t any other option.”
Domestically, battles lie ahead for Lahe, who as a young person in politics feels she has to prove herself “more than a regular politician”, particular since she chooses to go against many of her country’s cultural norms. A recent post on Instagram saw her dressed entirely in clothes found at local recycling centres; the most expensive item in her very chic outfit cost €30 (£25).
Radical voices at the top of Estonian politics remain a rarity. That, she says, has raised the pressure.
“People put a lot of hope on me to do something revolutionary, which I’m trying to do. Some older people put a lot of pressure, saying that younger people will solve the climate crisis and that they are too old to change something in their lives,” she says.
“It’s a completely unnecessary thing to say. But we shouldn’t blame them. Rather, we should find a way to cooperate together. No matter your age, you’re supposed to contribute.”
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Estonia's Youngest MP Hanah Lahe Champions Revolutionary Changes, From Marriage Equality to Climate Action
Hanah Lahe, Estonia's youngest MP, is a trailblazer for social and environmental change. From legalizing same-sex marriage to advancing climate policies and standing in solidarity with Ukraine, her impact is reshaping Estonia's future.
Shivani Chauhan
28 Feb 2024 00:14 EST
Estonia's Youngest MP Hanah Lahe Champions Revolutionary Changes, From Marriage Equality to Climate Action
At just 24 years old, Hanah Lahe has become a beacon of hope and progress in Estonia, marking her place as the country's youngest member of parliament (MP) and a vocal advocate for social and environmental reform. Raised in the shadow of Estonia's Soviet past, Lahe's journey reflects the nation's transformative leap towards democracy, inclusivity, and sustainability since gaining independence in 1991. Her achievements, most notably leading Estonia to be the first post-Soviet state to legalize same-sex marriage, underscore her commitment to challenging established norms and fostering a more equitable society.
Breaking Barriers: Marriage Equality
In a historic move, spearheaded by Lahe, Estonia became the first former Soviet country to legalize same-sex marriage in January 2024. This legislative victory, a culmination of persistent advocacy and progressive thinking, not only champions LGBTQ+ rights but also signifies a major shift in the societal attitudes of Eastern Europe towards marriage equality. The decision, which was met with both celebration and controversy, represents a pivotal moment in Estonia's journey to becoming a more inclusive nation, setting a precedent for other post-Soviet states to follow.
Advancing Environmental Policy
Lahe's activism extends beyond social issues to the pressing global challenge of climate change. Recognizing the urgency of environmental preservation, she has been instrumental in drafting a comprehensive climate bill and introducing a new car tax aimed at reducing carbon emissions. Her efforts reflect a broader commitment to sustainable living and policy-making, emphasizing the need for action over rhetoric. By leveraging her platform, Lahe seeks to inspire a generational shift towards more conscientious and environmentally responsible governance, illustrating the critical role of young leaders in driving forward ecological progress.
Standing in Solidarity with Ukraine
Lahe's advocacy also encompasses a strong stance on regional security and solidarity with Ukraine amid ongoing Russian aggression. Her position highlights the historical and emotional ties that bind the Baltic states to their Eastern European neighbors, underscoring the importance of unity and resilience in the face of external threats. Through her actions, Lahe embodies the spirit of a new generation of Estonians, deeply connected to their history but determined to chart a course towards a peaceful, secure, and progressive future.
As Estonia continues to navigate the challenges and opportunities of the 21st century, Hanah Lahe stands out as a symbol of hope and change. Her journey from witnessing the remnants of Soviet influence to becoming a leading voice in the fight for equality, environmental sustainability, and regional solidarity showcases the dynamic and transformative spirit of Estonia's youngest generation of leaders. With figures like Lahe at the helm, Estonia's future looks not only brighter but bolder, paving the way for revolutionary changes that could inspire nations worldwide.
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Hanah Lahe, Estonia's next-gen climate politics champion
The worldwide lack of young people in government is a threat to democracy and climate justice. Meet Hanah Lahe, who’s changing the game in Estonia – and soon Europe – from the inside.
The Green Journey
Sep 20, 2023
Note: This interview is the first part of our “The Greenest Generation” series — where we sit down with Gen Z climate warriors across the globe who are tackling the climate and nature crisis. Know a young person doing inspiring work on climate we should feature? Leave us a note in the comments or reach out at travelfortheclimate@gmail.com with your suggestions!
In May 2023, we traveled to Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, to meet with the youngest member of the national Parliament, Hanah Lahe.
Hanah was elected as a Parliament Member this year, running with an agenda exclusively focused on the environment. As she explained, no other politician across the country had such focus on climate topics. This competitive advantage helped her capture the attention of underrepresented voters, proving once more that strong proposals for a safer and greener future can become a winning political platform.
While Estonia has committed to reducing their greenhouse gas emissions 70% below 1990 levels by 2030 and currently generates about 25% of electricity from renewables, the country has one of the highest average GHG footprints per capita, and, as we learned from Hanah, is significantly one of the few EU member countries that lacks a climate law.
Hanah welcomed us in her parliamentary cabinet, where her “Fridays for Future” strike sign is shelved next to a photo of Elle Woods from Legally Blonde fame. Our discussion gave us a preview of the possibilities – and hope – instilled by Gen Z coming to power.
The beginnings of a climate career
The Green Journey (TGJ) : It's a pleasure to meet you, Hanah. Thank you for your time. Could you introduce yourself and tell us about your journey in politics?
Hanah: I'm Hanah, the youngest member of Estonia's parliament. I work in the Environment and European Affairs Committees. My journey started in 2019 when a conservative coalition formed behind the scenes, even though my political party, the Estonian Reform Party, won the elections.
This motivated me to join the Reform Party's youth organization and become active in politics. I ran the environment committee both for my locality and for the youth organization, participated in local elections, and worked as a campaign advisor. In the 2023 parliamentary elections, my party won by a significant margin, and I got elected with a focus on climate and environment.
TGJ: What sparked your interest in climate issues?
Hanah: Growing up in the countryside, I developed a strong connection to nature. My family taught me to be sustainable and mindful of our impact on the environment. I became a vegetarian at a young age and cared deeply for animals.
When I came to understand the scale and depth of the climate crisis - I looked around me and I felt profoundly disappointed by what was happening — and shocked that people weren’t doing more about it. I guess I was similar to Greta Thunberg and a lot of other young activists in that way. I witnessed the climate crisis, the lack of action by politicians, and I felt compelled to take matters into my own hands.
The state of climate policy in Estonia
TGJ: Looking at Estonia's climate journey, what are the key goals you want to achieve during your time in parliament?
Hanah: Over the next four years, we as the Estonian Reform Party and its broader coalition aims to pass a climate law, reform the energy sector, and prioritize environmental education. The coalition is the most liberal government Estonia has ever had, with climate policy as our top priority.
The climate law will provide a framework for achieving our climate goals and ensure coordination among different sectors. It should set targets for different years and establish a climate advisory board. Additionally, we want to focus on waste management, sustainable city development, and building renovations.
TGJ: Do you feel there has been a shift in Estonia’s approach to climate over the years?
Hanah: Estonia's progress on climate is largely due to being part of the European Union. EU directives have influenced our actions because we have relied on mining oil shale for decades, which has historically covered most of Estonia’s energy needs. Estonia is the only country in the world that uses oil shale as its primary energy resource.
So for Estonians, the change on climate that we need to see is not only about reducing the CO2 footprint in our country, but it’s a sociopolitical challenge concerning how to adapt this industry as well.
. The green transition is already underway, but we need to ensure it is thorough and not just superficial. Greenwashing is a concern, even among politicians. We are in the middle of a turning point, where the challenge is not starting but finishing the transition.
TGJ: Can you explain Estonia’s climate law and the context around it?
Hanah: Well, there’s no climate law. In fact, Estonia is one of the few EU countries without one that’s been ratified.
Estonia needs a climate law - this law would establish a legal framework for our climate goals, bringing together different sectors and defining our vision for the future. It would set targets for specific years, allow measurement of progress, and establish a climate advisory board. Without a climate law, we lack a unified approach and clear guidelines for tackling the climate crisis.
Generation Z takes the stage
TGJ: It’s amazing that you’re a member of Gen Z and already in national government. How do you plan to use your platform to engage and inspire our generation on climate issues in Estonia?
Hanah: It's crucial to listen to the voices of Gen Z and take action based on what this generation has to say.
As Estonia’s youth climate delegate in 2022 and due to several years of studies in climate, including my master’s, I have a pretty good understanding of the challenges we face from a scientific point of view. And because I’ve participated in politics, especially political activism, I see the challenges we face from a political point of view.
And many members of Gen Z also have a good understanding of the challenges that we face. But not enough youth, perhaps, are pursuing politics as an avenue to change.
Politics can be dirty, and that may be a reason why young people interested in climate don’t pursue politics as their first career choice. I’m trying to change that by setting an example. I hope that in our next parliamentary elections in 2027, if I decide to run again, I won’t be the youngest member anymore.
Whether in environmental fields or other fields, whether in NGOs, private sector, or politics, the most important thing is to remember that as members of Gen Z, we can really bring value and make a difference.
TGJ: What is your message for young people who are interested in getting involved in politics as a way to accelerate climate action?
Hanah: My first piece of advice to young people interested in climate politics is to educate yourself. If you become an expert in your chosen topic, you have deep knowledge draw on in discussions. When you speak, you speak proactively, whether than just reacting to whatever opponents are saying.
My second piece of advice is to not lose hope about changing the system. Politics is a very, very old game and it’s very established. You can change the system if you’re an insider, but it becomes harder from an outsider point of view. We need new faces in politics.
Avoid negative politics and corruption, and stay true to your values. Persistence and positivity are key. We need inspirational role models and collective action to address the climate crisis.
What gives you hope
TGJ: At the end of our interviews, we always ask: when you look at the climate situation right now, what gives you hope?
Hanah: I think two things. One is that we see young people coming together every day to cooperate, to do projects together, to talk about the climate crisis or everything regarding the environment. I think it's very inspirational.
The second thing is just looking at nature, looking at the environment that we’re in, and being inspired by it. I’m motivated by how much I want to preserve the planet, how much it matters. Maybe during the busiest days, we don’t really recognize all of the beauty that surrounds us, but when I take time to truly realize how beautiful the world is, that’s one thing, that for me at least, gives a lot of hope
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Her natal Lilith is 12 Pisces, N.Node 10 Sagittarius, S.Node 28 Gemini
Her natal Ceres is 23 Cancer, N.Node 27 Gemini, S.Node 7 Sagittarius
Her natal Amazon is 4 Virgo, N.Node 5 Gemini, S.Node 6 Scorpio
Please feel free to comment or ask questions.
Goddess Bless, Rad
HI All,
Here is the story of Jen Shahade. This is a noon chart.
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Jen Shahade, World Poker And Chess Champion, Encourages Women To Be Aggressive And Take Risks
Bonnie Marcus
You’re the only woman at the poker table. The attention turns to you to make your next move. At that moment you ask yourself, ‘What’s my next play?’ ‘How aggressive should I be?’ ‘What am I willing to risk?’
Jennifer Shahade, two-time Global Poker award winner and chess champion, member of team Poker Stars and an Ambassador for Poker Power, has poker career earnings of over $480,254. An advocate for gender equality and empowerment, Shahade spoke to me recently about how poker helps women feel more comfortable being aggressive and addresses their fear about money and risk taking.
Learning to be comfortable being aggressive
Research finds that women can be aggressive, but it is more common for them to be indirectly aggressive rather than direct. In poker, one doesn’t have the choice of being subtle.
According to Shadade, “poker very concretely shows you that is not an option not to be aggressive. You must be aggressive at some point and it’s critical to learn the exact balance between patience and aggression. If you’re too aggressive, you lose your chips quickly. If you’re too patient, you lose them slowly. Intellectually, finding the right balance isn’t difficult, but I’m going to tell you, psychologically, it’s really hard.”
Women are generally conditioned to accommodate to other’s wants and needs at the expense of their own, and that mindset doesn’t work at the poker table. Part of the challenge being aggressive is learning to how to balance aggression with patience, but what may be even more challenging for women, because of the tendency to be people pleasers, is feeling comfortable making other people uncomfortable. If you’re too empathic and caring as a woman, you'll be perceived as weak and less competent.
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Shahade shared, “You can’t always please everyone. There are times you’re going to have a big stack, you have leverage, and you’re going to be aggressive, and a lot of the people (mostly men) at the table are not going to like it.”
On the one hand, aggressive women may be admired. ‘Wow, you’re a woman and you’re playing so well’, which can be a bit condescending or flattering depending on your mood, Shahade admits. “But then there’s the part where people are especially triggered that a woman is being aggressive. You have to get comfort in that and understand you can’t please everyone all the time.”
Getting comfortable with success
“I think there’s this idea that if you’ve done well as a woman, there’s a point at which you should just stop because you’ve done well for yourself. A lot of people talk about coping with failure and what to do when you’re struggling or you’re not lucky in life or poker, and that is important.”
“I think one thing that’s equally important that doesn’t get as much attention is the ability to continue enjoying those moments when you’re thriving and to make the most of them,” Shahade went on to say. “In poker, it’s getting the best hand, which is aces, or just having a really good tournament in which you have lots of chips. That’s when you have a lot of leverage and an opportunity to really increase your wins. I think sometimes there’s a sense that, ‘Oh, isn’t it enough? You’re doing well.’”
But Shahade believes that opportunities sometimes pass and you need to take the most of them when they’re in front of you. “I think that’s a life metaphor. It’s really important. Those moments when everyone is looking at you and saying how great you’re doing, that is a moment where you can really try to leverage as much success as possible.”
Improving your relationship with money
“We have a complicated relationship with money based on our entire life, our family, our careers, our approach, our fears, and our desires,” Shahade says, “and poker reminds me a lot of financial issues you may have. These issues are really tested in poker. You can easily know intellectually that something is the right thing to do, but not be able to do it because you have these fears related to your relationship with money. I think poker trains you out of that.” She goes on to say, “if you’re not being aggressive and just sitting there, it’s like the equivalent of putting your money in a low interest account. Poker exposes you to your weaknesses.”
At the end of the day you need to look at what people do
“Reading people is important,” Shahade says, “and women have a lot of skill doing that, but it’s also important to know what you have and what you should bet and how much it’s worth. In poker, it’s all about prioritizing. It’s all about combining all those factors into a decision. You’re getting all this information and how much do you weigh things? Sometimes you get mixed signals and you see another player being boisterous but his bets are small. Normally I’m going to go with what he actually does first, until I can confirm that my actual people read is correct. That’s a really important life skill too. At the end of the day, you need to look at what people do. Your intuition is important but if it’s conflicting with reality, I go with the reality first then shape the intuition around what I continue to observe.”
Taking no risk is a risk
Shahade wants women to know that they can learn a lot of things from the game maybe they didn’t learn when they were younger because they weren’t invited to those poker games in college. “They didn’t learn that taking no risk is actually a risk. In poker, you’re up against time and if you don’t take any risk with your money, if you don’t take any risk with your life, then it’s actually a risk. Poker shows you very concretely, that it’s not an option to not be aggressive at some point, maybe not all the time because you’ll lose that way too, but you must be aggressive.”
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Jennifer Shahade
Wikipedia
Jennifer Shahade (born December 31, 1980) is an American chess player, poker player, commentator and writer. She is a two-time United States Women's Champion and has the FIDE title of Woman Grandmaster. Shahade is the author of the books Chess Bitch, Play Like a Girl, and most recently, Chess Queens, and co-author of Marcel Duchamp: The Art of Chess. From 2018 to 2023, she was the Women's Program Director at US Chess. She is also a MindSports Ambassador for PokerStars and a board member of the World Chess Hall of Fame in Saint Louis.
Early life
Shahade was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She is the daughter of FIDE Master Mike Shahade and Drexel University chemistry professor and author Sally Solomon. Her father is Christian Lebanese and her mother is Jewish. Her older brother, Greg Shahade, is an International Master.[3] She attended Julia R. Masterman School.
Career
In 1998, she became the first female winner of the U.S. Junior Open.
In 2002, she won the U.S. Women's Chess Championship in Seattle, Washington. At the next U.S. Women's Championship she earned her second International Master norm, and in 2004, she won her 2nd U.S. Women's Chess Championship.
Shahade lives in Philadelphia and has earned a degree in comparative literature at New York University. Her writing has appeared in the LA Times, The New York Times, Chess Life, New In Chess, and Games Magazine. Her first book, Chess Bitch: Women in the Ultimate Intellectual Sport (Siles Press, ISBN 1-890085-09-X) was published in October 2005.
Shahade is the former web editor-in-chief of the United States Chess Federation website.
In 2007 Shahade co-founded a chess non-profit called 9 Queens.
Shahade is also a poker player. In 2014, she became the MindSports Ambassador for PokerStars. On December 9, 2014, Shahade won the first TonyBet Open Face Chinese Poker Live World Championship High Roller Event taking home €100,000. She is also a former coach for the training website Run It Once.
Shahade is the host of the poker podcast the GRID, which she produces with her husband Daniel Meirom. In 2019, the GRID won the Global Poker Award for Podcast of the Year. She also hosts a monthly chess podcast Ladies Knight, produced by the U.S. Chess Federation.
Shahade is a board member of the World Chess Hall of Fame. In 2018, Shahade became the woman's program director at the U.S. Chess Federation, which brings chess programming to thousands of girls in the country. Shahade resigned from the US Chess Federation on September 6, 2023. She claimed that the Federation treated her with "hostility instead of support" and that she was "constantly minimized or ignored" when she came forward with allegations of assault against Ramirez. Shahade released a statement on her social media regarding her resignation, stating: "Based on what I’ve seen, I cannot currently lend my credibility to the organization in good conscience. This is especially true since I’ve become a de facto confidante for so many women and girls—making it essential for me to have faith in executive decision-making and communication."
Personal life
Shahade is married to Daniel Meirom. The have a son, Fabian, born in 2017. In 2019, they created "Not Particularly Beautiful", an art installation that overlaid misogynist insults directed at women in chess over the squares of a chessboard.
In February 2023, Shahade accused GM Alejandro Ramírez of sexually assaulting her twice, and stated that she had heard from other alleged victims. The United States Chess Federation and Saint Louis Chess Club are, as of February 2023, investigating Ramírez over the alleged sexual misconduct. On March 6, Ramírez resigned his affiliation with the Saint Louis Chess Club and the Saint Louis University chess team. The following day, The Wall Street Journal published an article corroborating Shahade's claims, finding based on interviews with eight women, that Ramírez had made unwelcome sexual advances towards them since 2011 and that the alleged behavior was an open secret.
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Two-Time Women's US Champion, Jennifer Shahade, Teaches Us Four Life Lessons From The Game Of Chess
Pauleanna Reid
Senior Contributor
I was honoured to have the opportunity to speak with Jennifer Shahade who, like me, grew up playing chess. But while I’ve made the game a metaphor for life and business, Shahade made it her livelihood. A two-time US women’s chess champion and the author of Chess Bitch: Women in the Ultimate Intellectual Sport, Shahade discovered her love of the game from her father, an avid player. From her mother, the first female chemistry professor at Drexel University, Shahade inherited the audacity and courage to thrive in a sport like chess where men far outnumber women.
Shahade is excited at the prospect of that narrative continuing to change. She co-founded a non-profit called 9 Queens that provides chess programs and workshops to girls and at-risk youth and is currently the Women’s Program Director at US Chess. She also hosts a podcast called Ladies Knights where she interviews female chess players. This month, from February 5th-16th, she commentated at the inaugural Cairns Cup, an event she helped to organize. It is the biggest women’s chess tournament on US soil, featuring 10 of the best female chess players and a prize fund of $150,000, one of the largest ever for an all-female tournament. Created and hosted by the Saint Louis Chess Club, the Cairns Cup aims to encourage more women to discover the beauty of the game.
But you don’t need to pursue chess professionally to reap the benefits of the game. Shahade shared some of the life lessons she learned form chess that have contributed to her success both in the career and beyond, which might just inspire you to pick up a chess set of your own.
Efficiency Is The Name of the Game
Chess is complex and the number of ways a single game could play out is astounding. While studying the books and other resources that helped her get so good at chess, Shahade had to learn how to discern what would be most helpful and where she should place her focus. In the same way, as we navigate our lives, bombarded by information and options, we have to be careful about how we spend our attention if we want to make the most of our time. “You have to say, ‘What’s actually going to make me great?’ and go on that path. You can do almost anything you put your mind to, but you have to be really efficient,” Shahade said.
Discover Your Inner Power
Shahade noted that female chess players tend to be hyper-critical of themselves when they are studying the game, which can be useful for spotting and correcting weakness. But it’s important that players know how to shut off the inner critic when it’s time to play so that they can move with confidence. “I like to call it the switch—being able to switch from self-criticism and perfectionism to self-confidence and self-belief. This is a great skill in business and in life,” Shahade explained. As women in business, mastering this skill allows us to shake off the nerves and doubt we feel in private so that we can navigate meetings, negotiations, and leadership with self-assurance.
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Sharpen Your Focus to Ditch Distractions
Career women always have a lot on their plate, and split focus is almost the norm. Chess provides a solution. “Chess is a great lesson on how to slow down and get completely into a flow experience where you’re not bothered by social media notifications or your extremely busy life,” Shahade asserted. “Meditation is a really big buzz word these days and lots of people love it, but I kind of feel like chess is meditative as well. You may not be trying to empty your brain, but you’re thinking about one thing really hard, and that can be freeing.”
Take Your Vision Beyond Your Side of the Board
“Chess is great for teaching you how important it is to look at your opponent’s side as well as your own because it’s always harder, even for the very best players in the world,” Shahade said. But it is worth it to rise to challenge. As you learn to anticipate your competitors’ game plans on the chess board, you make decisions that protect your own pieces while positioning yourself to make game-winning moves. Likewise, as you navigate your career, learning to understand what others around your are doing, whether it’s a potential employer or a direct competitor, will help you plan and execute for success.
If chess is not already in your arsenal of personal and professional development tools, these four lessons, plus a long list of other benefits, make it well worth your consideration. And should you choose to begin playing, heed Shahade’s advice: “Everybody’s brain is calibrated differently. Some people get it right at the beginning, some people take a few months for it to sink in. The important thing is falling in love with the game.”
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Jennifer Shahade Resigns Director Position At US Chess
WGM Jennifer Shahade says she was greeted with "hostility instead of support" and "consistently minimized or ignored" by US Chess when she came forward with allegations of sexual assault. The former U.S. Women's Chess Champion resigned as the Director of the US Chess Women's Program on Monday.
Shahade on Wednesday had her last day as the Women's Program Director of US Chess, a position she has held since 2018. She has worked for the federation since 2006, when she was hired as a Web Editor and later promoted to Senior Digital Editor.
"Based on what I’ve seen, I cannot currently lend my credibility to the organization in good conscience. This is especially true since I’ve become a de facto confidante for so many women and girls—making it essential for me to have faith in executive decision-making and communication," Shahade said in a post titled "I Am Leaving US Chess" published on social media on Monday.
The outspoken and influential two-time U.S. Women's Chess Champion, chess commentator, author, poker player, and founder of the non-profit organization 9 Queens, sent shockwaves through the chess world in February when, in a series of tweets, she alleged that GM Alejandro Ramirez sexually assaulted her twice.
The allegations led to a bombshell report by The Wall Street Journal, where it was claimed the grandmaster had become "physically aggressive as he forcibly kissed and groped" women without their consent. Three of them were under the age of 18, according to the newspaper. Ramirez resigned from his position as a commentator and coach at the Saint Louis Chess Club and is now suspended by US Chess.
The Wall Street Journal corroborated Shahade's claim that her allegations and those of others about Ramirez were reported to US Chess, and the Saint Louis Chess Club, but went unaddressed for years. US Chess ignored repeated warnings that the grandmaster had allegedly abused a 15-year-old and herself, and still sent him to work as a coach at the Women's Olympiad—an event with over 100 minors—Shahade said.
"With the truth out, I was hopeful, perhaps naively so, that I could help reset the pieces and forge a better future within US Chess, especially for our girls and children," she says in her resignation letter, where she also talks about what she calls an intimidating letter from a lawyer representing US Chess.
Instead of support, I was greeted with hostility. My tweet—the one that finally instigated consequences—was criticized by US Chess. A lawyer representing the organization told me to be “mindful” that speaking up could violate policy and “jeopardize” US Chess’s process. From the Women’s Olympiad coach selection to the day I resigned, my advice and accomplishments were consistently minimized or ignored.
Shahade tells Chess.com that she was surprised by how US Chess handled her tweets so negatively, "especially since it resulted in so many more victims coming forward, which got us closer to the truth so quickly."
US Chess refused to comment on Shahade's claims for Chess.com, but instead points to a statement on their official website.
US Chess wishes Shahade the best as she seeks new opportunities, and we are grateful to her for her work building what was then a brand-new programmatic area for us. Executive Director Carol Meyer says, "Thank you to Jennifer for her many contributions to the US Chess Women’s Program and for her years in the Communications Department. We at US Chess wish her well in her next professional chapter."
Randy Bauer, President of the US Chess Federation, made some additional comments in a thread on X/Twitter where he responded to the intimidation claim.
On calls for US Chess to more thoroughly investigate allegations of abuse, Bauer writes:
Shahade signs off the letter by expressing her "deepest admiration to the Jane Doe's who stepped up and broke the silence, to make the game safer for the next generation. To any survivors reading this post, whether you’ve spoken up or not: know that to me, you are the important one."
Asked by Chess.com if she is hopeful for the future despite feeling forced to resign from her position, she says:
"Yea, I am hopeful for the future of girls and women in chess and US Chess Women even though short term it’s quite painful to leave. The reaction from the public has been so supportive. Thanks to strong moves by Chess.com and Lichess, people are starting to understand more clearly that we need to recruit more great leadership to match the explosive growth of chess in recent years."
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I Am Leaving US Chess
Jennifer Shahade
Sep 5, 2023
I have resigned from US Chess and as of Sept 7, will no longer serve as director of the US Chess Women’s Program that I started four years ago.
Prior to my work with US Chess Women, I launched US Chess’s online magazine, CLO, where I wrote, edited, and assigned many hundreds of chess-related articles. I chaired the organizing committee for the first five and hosted the first ten US Championships and US Women’s Championships held in St. Louis, which brought the conditions and competition to a new level of prestige.
The Women’s Committee at US Chess inspired me to fundraise for a Women’s Program when I learned about their girls club room, and I’m grateful to them and to the many US Chess staff and volunteers who’ve supported me.
I’ve loved hosting hundreds of girls and women’s chess events, including sessions with Judit Polgar and Garry Kasparov. Many of these events brought in girls from all over the World, from Kenya to Colombia, showing the power of chess to connect us. The US Chess Women grant program reached thousands of girls at non profits across the country and I spoke about our work in speeches and panels from Harvard and MIT to the Bank of America. I passed on the message of women, chess, and empowerment via numerous venues including Vanity Fair, CBS News, NPR, Forbes, Jeopardy, The Times, NBC and the New York Times. I wrote an award-winning WSJ op-ed on women in chess, exec produced two acclaimed videos on US Chess Events for the New Yorker and the Atlantic, and hosted four years of Ladies Knight. Most recently, I spoke to CNN International about FIDE’s cruel restrictions on transgender players, and I’m so happy that US Chess’s policy contradicts theirs.
Sadly, I leave with heavy concerns. After I went public in February with a viral tweet about being assaulted by a prominent Grandmaster, things escalated quickly. More women came forward to me and a Wall Street Journal article, “How Allegations Against a U.S. Grandmaster Went Unaddressed for Years” dropped on International Women’s Day. You can read a particularly detailed account of the timeline and institutional failures—in lichess’s “Breaking the Silence” as well as a subsequent WSJ piece on the fallout. One of the most alarming facts that came out was that US Chess sent Alejandro as a coach at the Women’s Olympiad—an event that includes over 100 minors—despite my repeated warnings (in addition to warnings from others) that he allegedly abused a 15-year-old, and that he had also attacked me. With the truth out, I was hopeful, perhaps naively so, that I could help reset the pieces and forge a better future within US Chess especially for our girls and children.
Instead of support, I was greeted with hostility. My tweet—the one that finally instigated consequences—was criticized by US Chess. A lawyer 1representing the organization told me to be mindful that speaking up could violate policy and “jeopardize” US Chess’s process. From the Women’s Olympiad coach selection to the day I resigned, my advice and accomplishments were consistently minimized or ignored.
Based on what I’ve seen, I cannot currently lend my credibility to the organization in good conscience. This is especially true since I’ve become a de facto confidante for so many women and girls—making it essential for me to have faith in executive decision making and communication.
Those familiar with institutional betrayal and whistleblowing won’t find any of this surprising. As painful as it was, I am confident the insights I gained will help me in my advocacy and work.
I wish the best for US Chess in making the necessary changes in the future. And to whoever takes over US Chess Women, know that my door is always open to chat.
My deepest admiration goes to the Jane Doe’s who stepped up and broke the silence, to make the game safer for the next generation. To any survivors reading this post, whether you’ve spoken up or not: know that to me, you are the important one.
In truth, Jennifer Shahade
Update: Soon after this letter, I was sent a cease and desist by lawyers representing US Chess, demanding I cease all contact with teen/youth US Chess members.
US Chess President Faces Calls For Resignation After Social Media Comments
Updated: Sep 18, 2023, 3:09 PM
The US Chess Federation's handling of allegations of sexual misconduct continued in the spotlight after Randy Bauer, the President of the federation, made public comments on social media.
Former U.S. Women's Chess Champion WGM Jennifer Shahade resigned as the Director of the US Chess Women's Program this month, signing off by expressing disappointment with how her allegations of sexual assault against GM Alejandro Ramirez were met with "hostility instead of support" and "consistently minimized or ignored."
Shahade claimed in The Wall Street Journal's bombshell report that she and others had warned the federation repeatedly that Ramirez allegedly had assaulted a 15-year-old and that she was told he would not be considered for future coaching roles. The grandmaster was still hired by US Chess as a coach at the Women's Olympiad, an event that included over 100 minors.
US Chess has not yet responded to the public criticism by Shahade and others, but Randy Bauer, its president since 2022, took to social media to respond to claims.
In a public discussion on Facebook where US Chess board member Leila D'Aquin pointed out that the national team selects their own Olympiad Team coach, Sean Finn, a chess coach and writer, tagged Bauer in his Facebook comment and wrote:
"It is amazing to me that you do not think US Chess deserves criticism for how they handled Ramirez."
Bauer responded publicly in the same thread:
"I don't give a rats behind about your amazement. You have done nothing substantial that I have observed for US Chess. Come back when you have," he wrote.
When Finn reacted to how Bauer responded by calling it "a disgrace," Bauer responded:
"I am a 50-year benefactor life member of US Chess. I helped dig this organization out of near bankruptcy. You, what exactly have you done for US Chess? I've earned my right to talk to any US Chess member as I please, certainly you. Meanwhile, when I did respond about your friend being assaulted, you asked me not to reveal details. Do you see the problem you have developed here? You are the epitome of the "damned if you do, damned if you don't" culture."
Responding to Finn's comment that he followed US Chess' proper channels for reporting allegations, Bauer wrote:
"Let's put it all out then, in public. You ok with that? Let's name names on what you brought to US Chess and then told me on Twitter to not. You can't have it both ways, little clown," Bauer said in the Facebook comment after being called a "clown" by Finn.
Bauer's responses were later deleted but captured and shared by IM Greg Shahade, brother of Jennifer on X/Twitter.
The comments by the US Chess president sparked a Reddit thread that has received more than 360 comments. Another reaction came from GM Ben Finegold who called for Bauer's resignation and also said he is giving up his US Chess membership.
Katie Stone, a poker pro, commentator, and co-founder of chesscamps.com, did the same in a thread on X/Twitter giving support to Shahade.
Chess.com has been in contact with Bauer regarding the comments. He refers to a response he sent to Shahade which he says summarizes his feelings toward her:
You and I have been chess friends for well over a decade, and we've worked together over the years on a lot of things that have been important for US Chess. I'm truly sorry if that friendship has now been strained. I have zero interest in blaming you for Ramirez - we blamed him and kicked him out, forever, when we had enough evidence to do so. Thank you for helping to provide that. If there are others that need to go, I'm more than willing to 'vote them off the island' as well.
Bauer also added in his response to Chess.com:
"Jennifer and I have a disagreement about what US Chess should have done and when. US Chess followed legal advice, and when we and the attorneys were confident we had sufficient evidence to act, we banished Ramirez from US Chess for life. My only wish is that we would have had enough evidence to do it sooner. "
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4 tips on how to stay focused, from a chess grandmaster
Jennifer Shahade, a two-time U.S. women’s chess champion, learned how to play chess from her dad when she was about 5 years old. By 9, she was playing in her first tournament, and by high school, Shahade was traveling the world to play in chess matches.
Today, Shahade, 39, is the women’s program director at the U.S. Chess Federation and also a competitive poker player. Since the October debut of Netflix’s “The Queen’s Gambit,” about a fictional woman chess grandmaster, Shahade says interest in chess, especially among women, “has exploded.”
(According to Bloomberg, online playing site Chess.com has added around 1 million new members each month since lockdowns began in March, and around 2.8 million in November alone.)
For newbie chess players, Shahade says “deep focus and deep concentration” are the most important skills to develop.
Here’s how Shahade preps for a chess match — and her tips can help anyone focus.
Know your peak hours
Over the years, Shahade says she’s learned its important to figure out at what time of the day or night you perform best — what she calls your “peak hours” — and do the most taxing work during that time.
“It’s good to figure out what times of the day you have the most acuity,” she says. For instance, if Shahade is developing ideas for a new chess position to use during a competition, “that would be something you really want to do when you’re on point.”
Find quiet time
Before big games, Shahade likes to be left alone, especially right before the match, to mentally prepare herself. “You drain energy when you are around a lot of people,” she says.
After the game, she says she typically hangs out with other players.
Remove distractions
During a competition, chess players are not allowed to bring any devices with them. That’s useful, says Shahade, because it removes a common distraction and keeps her attention and concentration on the game.
Exercise
As a chess player, exercising can be important to increase stamina and focus. But Shahad likes to get physical activity after a match, too.
Shahade says she likes to sometimes walk after playing. “I thinking the walking...[is] a way to kind of emulate what your brain just did,” she says.
During a chess competition, while your body is not moving for hours, your brain is. “Inside, the moves are racing furiously through your brain. So it kind of leaves you in this weird state afterwards, where you’re tired but your body didn’t really move a lot. So it needs to move to play catch up with the brain in a way.”
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How ‘The Queen’s Gambit’ Started a New Debate About Sexism in Chess
The Netflix hit captures the struggles of women in the game, where female grandmasters are rare. But the reality, one top player says, is worse.
By Dylan Loeb McClain
Judit Polgar might be the one woman in the world who knows how Beth, the heroine of the hit Netflix series “The Queen’s Gambit,” really feels. Like Beth, Polgar, who is from Hungary, stood out during her career because she regularly beat the world’s top players, including Garry Kasparov in 2002, when he was ranked No. 1.
Polgar, the only woman to ever be ranked in the Top 10 or to play for the overall world championship, retired from competitive chess in 2014. Watching the series, which she described as an “incredible performance,” gave her a sense of déjà vu, particularly in the later episodes.
But there was one respect in which she could not identify with Beth’s experience: how the male competitors treated her.
“They were too nice to her,” Polgar said. When she was proving herself and rising in the world rankings, Polgar said the men often made disparaging comments about her ability and sometimes jokes, which they thought were funny but were actually hurtful.
And no one ever resigned to her as Shapkin did to Beth in Episode 7 by gallantly holding her hand near his lips.
“There were opponents who refused to shake hands,” she recalled. “There was one who hit his head on the board after he lost.”
Not every woman has had negative experiences. Irina Krush, who won her eighth United States Women’s Championship last month, said that she felt as if the chess community and men in particular were very supportive of her when she was an up-and-coming player. She said of the series, “The spirit of what they are showing conforms to my experience.”
Whether what happens to Beth is typical or not, the popularity of “The Queen’s Gambit” has inspired anew a debate about inequality and sexism in chess and what, if anything, can be done about them.
Though chess would seem like one area where men and women should be able to compete on equal footing, historically, very few women have been able to do so. Among the more than 1,700 regular grandmasters worldwide, only 37, including Polgar and Krush, are women. Currently, only one woman, Hou Yifan of China, ranks in the Top 100, at No. 88, and she has been playing infrequently, even before the pandemic.
The superiority of men in the game is so well established that the best female players have freely acknowledged it. In a recent issue of Mint, in an article titled, “Why Women Lose at Chess,” Koneru Humpy, an Indian player currently ranked No. 3 among women, said that men are just better players. “It’s proven,” she said. “You have to accept it.”
The dearth of women at the top of the game is one reason that there are separate tournaments for women, including a world championship; the World Chess Federation even created titles for women, such as women grandmaster.
Having such institutionalized, second-class status might seem like a bad idea, but not according to Anastasiya Karlovich, a woman grandmaster who was the press officer for the World Chess Federation for several years. She said that the women’s titles permit more female players to earn a living as professionals, thereby increasing their participation in the game.
Karlovich said that the Netflix show has helped her indirectly: It has made the parents of her chess students look at her differently. “They have more respect for me. They understand better the life of a player,” she said.
While some men have speculated that the reason there are so few top female players is because they are not wired for it — Kasparov once said that it is not in their nature — women think the overriding reason is cultural expectations and bias.
Polgar said that society and even parents can undermine their daughters’ efforts to improve, though, in her case, her parents, in particular her father, did the opposite: They started teaching her chess when she was of kindergarten age. Polgar also has two older sisters, Susan, who became a grandmaster and women’s world champion, and Sofia, who became an international master, to blaze the way and support her.
Elizabeth Spiegel is an expert, a level just below master, and has taught chess for two decades at I.S. 318, a public middle school in Brooklyn that has won dozens of national championships. She believes that cultural stereotypes definitely affect how people learn and play chess. She noted that boys tend to be overconfident, but that is more of a strength than a flaw in chess. On the other hand, during class, when girls answer her questions, they often begin, “I think I am wrong, but …”
Krush said that the cultural cleaving between boys and girls happens at a young age. Scrolling through the lists of the top players in the United States who are 7, 8 and 9, Krush pointed out there are only a small handful of girls in the Top 10.
That creates and reinforces another problem that discourages women’s participation: too few social contacts. Jennifer Shahade, a two-time U.S. Women’s Champion who has written two books about women in chess (“Chess Bitch” and “Play Like a Girl!”) and is the women’s program director at the U.S. Chess Federation, said teenage girls tend to stop playing chess because there are so few of them and they want the social support. That Beth is a loner is likely an important reason she does not quit playing in tournaments.
Shahade said she actually did quit for a while, at about age 12, even though she came from a chess family. Her father, Mike, was a master and her brother, Greg, became an international master.
“I was self-conscious,” Shahade said. “My brother was super talented and had become a master so early and so easily. I was a much slower learner.”
Shahade, who grew up admiring Polgar, said it was “totally inspiring” to see Beth’s story unfold. Like Beth, who loses all her games to Benny the first time they play speed chess, she prefers slow, or classical, chess.
Of 74,000 members in total, the U.S. Chess Federation said it has about 10,500 female members. Shahade wants to increase that number, as well as their participation. To that end, Shahade and the federation started an online chess club in April to keep female players engaged during the pandemic. In the last few weeks, there have been between 80 and 140 participants, with quite a few older players. The last meeting also had a special guest: Kasparov, who has become a big booster of women’s chess since his retirement from competition in 2005. He was also a consultant on the Netflix series.
To keep the momentum going, Shahade is launching a new online group called the “Madwoman’s Book Club.” The title refers to a pejorative name used for the queen in the 15th and 16th centuries after it became the most powerful piece on the board. The first meeting this Friday already has 100 people signed up.
The subject of the discussion should come as no surprise: “The Queen’s Gambit” by Walter Tevis, the book on which the Netflix series is based.
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Link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGS2Oi5MXAg
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Her natal Lilith is 3 Scorpio, N.Node 2 Capricorn, S.Node 25 Taurus
Her natal Ceres is 16 Aries, N.Node 00/24 Gemini, S.Node 2 Capricorn
Her natal Amazon is 2 Taurus, N.Node 3 Taurus, S.Node 7 Sagittarius
Please feel free to comment or ask questions.
Goddess Bless, Rad
Hi All,
Here is the story of Maria Kolesnikova. This is a noon chart.
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Belarusian flautist’s fate unknown as hundreds of activists remain in prison
Death of Russian opposition leader will add to anxiety of Maria Kolesnikova’s family who have not heard from her for a year
Andrew Roth
Wed 21 Feb 2024 05.00 GMT
It has been more than a year since relatives and friends have heard from Maria Kolesnikova. The Belarusian activist is one of 1,416 political prisoners behind bars as part of a crackdown that has maintained pace this year before parliamentary elections this weekend.
“The last letter from [Maria] was received on 14 February 2023,” her sister wrote last week. “Since then, which is exactly a year ago, we have not received any reliable information about her.”
Kolesnikova, a pro-democracy activist and former flautist who was close to the opposition presidential candidate Viktar Babaryka, was arrested in September 2020 after she joined a female triumvirate spearheading the opposition to the Belarusian leader, Alexander Lukashenko. She was sentenced to 11 years in prison for “extremism” and other charges. In February 2022, her lawyers lost contact with her and she ceased writing letters, one of a number of high-profile political activists to vanish in prison in Belarus after the anti-opposition crackdown.
The death in jail of the Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny on Friday will add further anxiety to the families of political prisoners not only in Vladimir Putin’s Russia but also in Belarus, which is Moscow’s staunchest ally among ex-Soviet states.
In an interview last year, Kolesnikova’s sister, Tatsiana Khomich, said she believed Kolesnikova had been placed in a punitive cell in a prison colony, most likely in isolation, where she was being held incommunicado, given just 30 minutes outside her cell each day and with no access to communications.
“These are the conditions that Belarus’s most public and famous political prisoners are being held in,” she said, referring to would-be opponents of Lukashenko in the 2020 presidential elections, such as Syarhey Tsikhanouski and Barbaryka, along with many of their top supporters and prominent human rights lawyers.
“Of course it’s very hard to be in this situation and it’s sad to see others who have relatives who have been behind bars for two or three years,” said Khomich, a co-founder of FreeBelarusPrisoners. “The atmosphere inside Belarus is very hard. But people are trying to support one another because we don’t have any other choice. We don’t have another situation.”
Kolesnikova had established herself as a musician and organiser in Stuttgart, but helped establish cultural organisations in Belarus, including the youth art space OK16 that was closed by the government in 2021. “For the 12 years she lived in Germany, she maintained a very strong connection with Belarus … she wanted to bring the things she saw in Germany to Belarus,” her sister said.
She entered politics through her connection with Babaryka, a banker and public figure who sought to oppose Lukashenko in the 2020 presidential elections but was arrested and ultimately sentenced to 14 years’ imprisonment for bribery and tax evasion, charges seen as politically motivated. At the time, Kolesnikova was his campaign manager, and she was later detained after public protests over mass voter fraud.
When Belarusian authorities sought to expel her from the country, she refused to go into exile and tore up her passport, choosing to go to prison instead.
“We never tried to talk her out of it,” Khomich said of Kolesnikova’s activism. When Babaryka and his son Eduard were arrested during the campaign, she chose to remain in the country and become one of the leaders of the pro-democracy opposition. “She said: ‘My friends and colleagues are behind bars. I can’t leave them. I can’t abandon them.’”
Viktoriia Vitrenko, a singer and conductor who co-founded the InterAkt Initiative, met Kolesnikova at a recital in Stuttgart, where the two women lived in 2017. Despite Kolesnikova’s ties to the city, she “never lost her connection to Belarus”, Vitrenko said. In March 2020, she said, she noticed a change as Kolesnikova entered politics and became far more careful about what she shared by phone, ultimately telling her it “was not safe” to write about her life.
She was clear-eyed about the risks of joining the opposition to Lukashenko in Belarus, her friend said, and understood the dangers of her work.
“I remember asking her: ‘Are you 100% sure of what you are doing?’” she said. “It’s a huge difference if you’re in Germany and if you’re in Belarus. And she said she’s 100% sure and she knew what the outcome could be.”
Vitrenko said she understood Kolesnikova’s principled decision to risk jail in support of the protests against Lukashenko.
“I think that someone had to do it otherwise, you know, the nation would be just lost, and without any hope,” she said. “Someone has to be the symbol for the nation, just to give a hope. So, this is my interpretation of what happened. Maybe she didn’t even have a choice … not to do that.”
In prison, Kolesnikova had health problems due to poor treatment and was hospitalised in November 2022, undergoing an operation for a perforated ulcer.
In her last letter, she told her family to look after themselves and always ended her letters with some form of the phrase “Everything will be OK”.
Khomich said: “We need support from European countries to support Belarusians. Even if you don’t see protests on the streets, it doesn’t mean that Belarusians have chosen to surrender. Of course the government is still afraid if they continue to arrest people over protests that happened more than three years ago.”
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Maria Kalesnikava
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In this name that follows Eastern Slavic naming customs, the patronymic is Aleksandrovna / Alyaksandrauna / Alaksandraŭna and the family name is Kalesnikava.
Maria Kalesnikava[a] (Marya Alyaksandrauna Kalesnikava, Belarusian: Марыя Аляксандраўна Калеснікава, IPA: [maˈrɨja alʲakˈsandrawna kaˈlʲɛsʲnʲikava]; Maria Aleksandrovna Kolesnikova, Russian: Мария Александровна Колесникова, IPA: [mɐˈrʲijə ɐlʲɪkˈsandrəvnə kɐˈlʲesʲnʲɪkəvə]; born 24 April 1982) is a Belarusian professional flautist and political activist. In 2020, she headed Viktor Babariko's electoral campaign during presidential elections of 2020 in Belarus. Kalesnikava represented the united campaign of Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, then she became a member of the presidium of the Coordination Council formed during the 2020 Belarusian protests in opposition to the regime of Alexander Lukashenko. She is also a founder of the 'Razam' political party.
Kolesnikova was kidnapped by unidentified law enforcement officers on 7 September 2020. Early in the morning of 8 September 2020, she was by force taken to the Ukraine country border. Kolesnikova was intimidated and pressured to leave the country, but while being on neutral ground she got off the car from the rear window, tore her local passport to pieces and went back on foot. On Belarusian territory she was arrested immediately. On the next day, Maxim Znak, Kolesnikova's attorney, was also detained.
On 11 September 2020, Amnesty International recognized Kalesnikava as a prisoner of conscience. She was awarded the International Women of Courage Award in 2021.
On 6 September 2021, Kalesnikava was sentenced to 11 years in a penal colony for her political activity.
She was last heard from on 12 February 2023.
Early life and musical career
Kalesnikava was born on 24 April 1982 in Minsk to a family of engineers. She has one sibling, a sister named Tatiana Khomich. According to Tatiana, their parents were deeply fond of music. They inspired interest in it in their daughters and in a certain way influenced Maria's choice of profession. Maria studied in a music school, then graduated from the Belarusian State Academy of Music as a flutist and conductor.
At the age of 17, Kalesnikava started teaching the flute at a private gymnasium school in Minsk. She also played the flute at the National Academic Concert Orchestra of the Republic of Belarus under the direction of Mikhail Finberg.She played on tours across Italy, Poland, and Lithuania.
At the age of 25, she moved to Germany and enrolled to the State University of Music and Performing Arts in Stuttgart. She got two master's degrees, one in Early Music, and another in Neue Musik in 2012.
In the 2010s, Kalesnikava performed at concerts and was actively involved in organizing international cultural projects in Belarus and Germany, for instance, she was one of the creators of 'Eclat' music festival. Her other projects included 'Music and the Holocaust', school programm 'Orchestra of Robots', and a series of lectures under the title "Music Lessons for Adults".
In 2017, Maria participated in one of the first TEDxNiamiha conferences in Belarus.[9] She took part in creation of the 'Artemp' art community that hosted contemporary art events. In the same year, she became the art director of the 'OK16' culture centre in Minsk.
Political activity
In May 2020, Kalesnikava became the head of Viktar Babaryka's presidential campaign, who was Alexander Lukashenko's greatest independent competitor at the 2020 Belarusian presidential election. When Babaryka was refused registration and detained, on 16 July 2020, Kalesnikova and representatives of two other independent candidates' campaigns — Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya (wife of Sergei Tikhanovsky) and Veronika Tsepkalo (wife of Valery Tsepkalo) — announced creation of triple alliance. Tsikhanouskaya became their mutual candidate, she gained wide support across the country. When Lukashenko declared himself a winner with 80,1% of votes, the opposition refused to acknowledge the results and accused Lukashenko of massive falsifications. USA, Great Britain, Canada and 8 EU countries refused to acknowledge the election's results as legitimate. The street protests and meetings emerged across the country, demanding re-election and Lukashenko's dismissal., brutally put down by law enforcement
Kalesnikava in her interviews always emphasized that she wasn't any kind of 'protest leader' and never took part in the meetings' organization. In that time Belarusian opposition pursued the idea that all citizens were protest leaders and everyone was responsible for his country's future. She visited protest meetings as a private person, via mass media she asked both citizens and law enforcement to preserve peace.
On 18 August 2020, Kalesnikava joined the 7-member presidium of Coordination Council. On 19 August, she was selected as one of the main board members.
By mid-August Tikhanovskaya and Tsepkalo were forced by authorities to leave the country. Meanwhile, Kolesnikova stated to the media that she by no means would leave Belarus because she felt it was deeply personal not to flee while her colleagues and friends were jailed under unlawful charges.
On 31 August 2020, Kalesnikova announced the start of a new political party 'Razam' that she intended to make a democratic tool to protect human rights in the country.
Arrest and repressions
On 7 September 2020, Belarusian media published the news that Kalesnikava was kidnapped in the center of Minsk. Her friends and colleagues could not reach her by phone. Later, witnesses stated that a woman was forcibly put into a black minivan by some unknown men in civilian clothes with covered faces. In the morning of 8 September 2020, the news was published that the authorities tried to deport Maria against her will, she was taken to the Alexandrovka border crossing with Ukraine. Later, Ukrainian Deputy Interior Minister Anton Gerashchenko wrote on his Facebook page, "This was not a voluntary departure. This was a forced deportation from his native country". The State Border Committee of the Republic of Belarus reported that at 4 a.m. she left Belarus together with Ivan Kravtsov and Anton Rodnenkov passed the border control and headed towards Ukraine.State-controlled TV-channels put around the story that Kalesnikava was detained at the border cross when trying to leave the country and move to her sister in Ukraine. In fact, as confirmed by the witnesses Rodnenkov and Kravtsov, in the neutral zone Kalesnikava managed to escape through the rear window of the car where she was kept, tore her passport to pieces, then headed back to Belarusian border. There she was immediately arrested. Following these news, Bundestag vice-chairman Klaudia Roth promised to patronage Kalesnikava and help her via Libereco organization.
On 9 September 2020, Kalesnikava's colleague in Coordination Council, lawyer Maxim Znak was also arrested. On the same day, Kalesnikava's father, Alexander Kolesnikov, was notified by the police that she had been jailed at a detention centre in Minsk. Through her lawyers, Maria appealed to the State Investigative Committee with the complaint that KGB and GUBOPiK officers threatened to kill her, they put a sack on her head and promised 'to deport her whether in one piece or in many pieces'.[66][67] Deputy Head of Department of Home Affairs Gennadiy Kazakevich personally told Kalesnikava that She will be in prison without teeth for 25 years to sew clothes for the security forces.
On 10 September 2020, twelve organizations, including the Viasna Human Rights Centre, the Belarusian Association of Journalists, the Belarusian Helsinki Committee, the Belarusian PEN Center, released a joint statement naming Kalesnikava as a political prisoner. On 11 September 2020, Amnesty International recognized Kalesnikava as a prisoner of conscience.
On 20 August, Alexander Konyuk, the Prosecutor General of Belarus, initiated criminal proceedings against the members of the Coordination Council under Article 361 of the Belarusian Criminal Code, on the grounds of attempting to seize state power and harming national security.
On 12 September, Kalesnikava was transferred from Minsk to prison № 8 in Zhodino. On 16 September, the Investigative Committee of Belarus charged Kalesnikava with "actions aimed at undermining Belarusian national security" using the media and the Internet.
On 10 October 2020, Kalesnikava's attorney Aliaksandar Pylchanka announced that Lukashenko requested a meeting with her to discuss changes to the Constitution, to which she refused in an expression of solidarity with other imprisoned dissidents. On 8 November 2020, the press office of the Babaryka campaign announced that investigators had extended Kalesnikava's detention until 8 January 2021.
On 6 January 2021, the Coordination Council announced that investigators had extended Kalesnikava's pre-trial detention until 8 March. She was transferred back to Minsk. In the end of the month, on 27 January, the Investigative Committee refused to open a criminal case against law enforcement officers who threatened to kill her.
On 12 February, Kalesnikava and Maxim Znak were charged with "conspiracy to seize state power in an unconstitutional manner" and "establishing and leading an extremist organization". Her attorney Liudmila Kazak was stripped of her license to practice law on 19 February by the Belarus Ministry of Justice. On 9 March 2021, Viktar Babaryko's social media reported that Kalesnikava's pre-trial detention had been extended through 8 May.[83] Her attorney Illia Salei is under house arrest through 16 April. Final charges in May 2021 included three articles of the State Criminal Code. The defence refused all accusations and demanded to drop all charges due to absence of the event of a crime.[88] The investigation and the trial were held behind closed doors, the accused were prohibited to study the case files.
For a year, in detention, Kalesnikava was denied visitors and couldn't meet her father. According to Tatiana Kalesnikava, Maria wrote more than 150 letters per month while jailed, while no more than 20 were received by the addressees. The correspondences sent to her were heavily censored, as Kalesnikava received no more than 5% of letters written to her. She also was prohibited from getting a flute. A year without practice could forever ruin her mastery as a musician.
Sentence
Starting 4 August 2021, after almost 11 months in custody, Kalesnikava and Maxim Znak stood trial behind closed doors in the Minsk Regional Court. The prosecutor demanded 12 years in prison for both of them. Maria pleaded not guilty and called any charges against herself and Znak 'absurd'. Throughout the investigation and trial, the details of the charges were not publicly disclosed. The attorneys of Kalesnikava and Znak were under a nondisclosure agreement. Though the authorities promised to make the proceedings public, in fact the courtroom was filled with some strangers, foreign ambassadors who wanted to support Kalesnikava and Znak weren't allowed inside.
On 6 September 2021, Kalesnikava was sentenced to 11 years in prison. She is serving her sentence in penal colony no. 4 (Russian: ИК №4) in Gomel. Both she and Znak refused to request for pardon because they believed they were innocent. They planned to appeal to a higher court.
In a written interview, Kalesnikava told the media that in jail she was offered many times to make a movie 'Protasevich-like' with confessions and to admit guilt for her actions. In her first interview after the sentence, given by phone to BBC journalist Sara Rainsford, Kolesnikova complained that in prison 'everyone smokes everywhere', and the prolonged passive smoking will forever ruin her chances to come back as a professional flutist. However, she says she regrets nothing and believes that the protests of 2020 were the beginning of a new era in the country. According to Kalesnikava, triumph of democracy in Belarus is only a matter of time.
On 29 November 2022, Kalesnikava was hospitalized in critical condition. As stated by Babariko's press service, she was put in a punitive isolation cell no later than 22 November. In Homel hospital she was diagnosed with perforated ulcer and had urgent surgery. As mentioned by Maria's sister, she never had any problems with GI tract before prison. In isolation cell she was denied visits of her lawyer, had faints and hypertension. Only in hospital she was allowed a 10-minutes visit of her father, with three law enforcement officers present. On 9 December 2022, one of Kalesnikava's lawyers Vladimir Pulchenko was disbarred.
She was last heard from on 12 February 2023. In August 2023, after no news about Kalesnikava for six months, 13 cultural figures wrote an open letter to Lukashenko demanding information with no answer.
Reactions to Kalesnikava arrest
Human rights activists and international community condemn Kalesnikava's sentence, the case is unanimously considered to be fabricated. The sentence is repressive and made as Lukashenko's political revenge.
European Union The European Commission condemned the 7 September arrest, describing it as unacceptable.
Germany Germany demanded clarity on Kalesnikava's whereabouts and called for the release of all political prisoners in Belarus.
Lithuania Lithuania called Kalesnikava's abduction a disgrace, comparing it to something that Stalin-era secret police would have done, and demanded her immediate release.
Poland Poland denounced Kalesnikava's abduction as contemptible and called on immediate release of all political prisoners in Belarus.
United Kingdom The United Kingdom expressed serious concern for Kalesnikava's welfare and said that her release must be given the highest priority.
United States The United States expressed concern about the attempt to expel Kalesnikava by the Belarusian authorities.
Amnesty International recognized Kalesnikava as a prisoner of conscience and demanded her immediate release.
Kosovo Kosovo's speaker of the Assembly, Vjosa Osmani, along with 9 other members of the parliament, signed a letter demanding the immediate release of Kalesnikava.
Awards
2020: Sakharov Prize (European Parliament, Prize for Freedom of Thought)[119][120]
2021: Global Belarusian Solidarity Award by the Center for Belarusian Solidarity in the category "Deed"[121]
On 8 March 2021 (International Women's Day), Kalesnikava was presented with the International Women of Courage Award from the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken. The ceremony was virtual due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and included an address by First Lady, Jill Biden.[122]
2021: Lew-Kopelew-Preis (Germany, peace and human rights award)[123]
2021: Stuttgarter Friedenspreis (Germany, award for courageous struggle against the autocratic regime of Alexander Lukashenko)[124]
2021: Fritz-Csoklich-Preis (Austria)[125]
2021: Menschenrechtspreis der Gerhart und Renate Baum-Stiftung (Germany, human rights award)[126]
2021: Václav Havel Human Rights Prize, Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe[127]
2022: Theodor Haecker Prize [de], City of Esslingen[128]
2022: Stig Dagerman Prize[129]
2022: Charlemagne Prize[130]
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Maria Kolesnikova: No regrets for Belarus activist jailed for coup plot
30 September 2021
Maria Kolesnikova became a prominent opposition figure during protests against a disputed election in 2020
A year ago, Belarusian security forces tried to get rid of Maria Kolesnikova. But the opposition activist refused to leave the country, ripping up her passport at the border and climbing out of the car window.
"This whole year, they've been trying to make me regret what I did," she told the BBC in her first interview since she was convicted last month of plotting to seize power.
"I've been in hot and then cold cells, without air or light, without people. A whole year with nothing."
Ms Kolesnikova is one of the most prominent among hundreds of political prisoners who were seized after mass protests swept Belarus over the discredited election victory of President Alexander Lukashenko in 2020.
Many were brutally beaten while some have been forced into exile, as Mr Lukashenko, who has been in power since 1994, tried to crush all dissent.
"I knew if they didn't kill me, they'd put me in prison for sure," Ms Kolesnikova told me of the moment she resisted deportation, in written responses to my questions. "Those who serve this system had left me in no doubt of that.
"But I don't regret anything, and I'd do the same again."
'None of us are free'
That act of defiance brought her instant hero status among the protesters she'd led in demanding an end to Mr Lukashenko's authoritarian rule, sure that his latest landslide election victory had been rigged.
It also secured her an 11-year prison sentence.
Ms Kolesnikova called the case against her "absurd", arguing that her goal of bringing "positive change" to Belarus had simply proved too popular for the authorities to tolerate.
The giant protests that broke out following last August's election were suppressed by riot police, with clear evidence that they used torture. There were also mass arrests: the Viasna human rights group has counted more than 700 political prisoners so far, including several of its own members.
"My only regret is that Belarusians are afraid, that none of us are free," Ms Kolesnikova wrote to me from her own prison cell.
"I also regret that there are those who commit horrific crimes against people, against their own nature. Against life itself."
Symbol of freedom
A classical flautist, Maria Kolesnikova entered politics to campaign for Viktor Babaryko, a banker attempting to run in the 2020 presidential elections.
When her candidate was arrested, Ms Kolesnikova teamed up with Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, who had stepped into the race and became a surprise hit with voters after her own husband was thrown in jail.
The women became the face of resistance to Mr Lukashenko's quarter-century-long rule, a suddenly unleashed demand for change.
But Ms Tikhanovskaya soon had to flee for safety. Ms Kolesnikova was then bundled into a van in Minsk by unknown men and vanished. This August, she was convicted and sentenced in a closed trial along with an opposition lawyer, Maxim Znak.
'Prison is a vile place'
Home is now a 2.5 m x 3.5 m (8.2 ft x 11.4 ft) cell with "two bunks, a toilet, a washbasin, a TV, a kettle, a mug, a bowl, a table, a bench and a view of the sky through the window bars". The activist says the prison exercise yard is just as tiny, but she runs around it for 50 minutes each day.
She spends the rest of the time reading, studying English and German and writing up to 200 letters a month. She allows herself just one note of complaint: that "everyone smokes everywhere", which is bad for her lungs as a flautist.
But it is that musician's background Ms Kolesnikova says she's drawing on.
"Classical musicians develop a kind of military discipline and strength in all their years of rehearsals," she wrote, saying she'd adapted to her new existence "in an instant and without problem".
"Prison is a vile place. But here I feel like a free and happy person," the activist wrote.
"I know how many people care about me and think about me. That gives me incredible strength to go on. And I know for sure that good will triumph."
The smiling activist
That sunny personality has become famous in Belarus.
During the protests the flautist-turned-activist appeared to smile constantly, whatever the tension, her bright red-painted lips and bleach-blonde hair matching the colours of the opposition flag.
Others including Ms Tikhanovskaya have talked of "feeding" off her immense energy, enthusiasm - and bravery.
"When I remember the real reason the authorities and their pocket courts actually sentenced Maxim and me to such terms I find it easier to breathe and I'm more cheerful," Ms Kolesnikova wrote, whilst admitting she's "not thrilled" at the prospect of so long behind bars.
"The real plot to seize power has been carried out by Alexander Lukashenko's regime," she argued. "We wanted positive change in the country and we were making that happen. I am not surprised that this regime considers that a crime."
No illusions
Ms Kolesnikova's former lawyer, now stripped of his status like others who defended her, has told the BBC the entire process was intended to isolate the pair from society.
The activist herself says Belarusians now have "no illusions" about fair courts in the country.
"Trust in state institutions has been destroyed," she wrote. "Everyone understands perfectly that there are no independent courts or judges… they're serving the regime."
Her supporters don't believe she'll serve her full sentence: they argue that political change will come to Belarus sooner, despite the brutal pushback from the authorities.
Ms Kolesnikova is holding on to the same hope.
When I asked about her dancing on the opening day of her trial, she told me it was "better to dance, than to suffer".
"They can confine us to prison, hide us away from people," Ms Kolesnikova wrote. "But all of that - along with their fear, hatred and their shackles - will be shattered by our songs and laughter, our dancing and our love."
Sarah Rainsford was expelled from Russia a month ago.
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How did Belarus' Maria Kolesnikova end up in hospital?
Elena Doronina
12/01/2022December 1, 2022
One of Belarus' most high-profile political prisoners is in hospital. What happened to Maria Kolesnikova while she was in detention — and what have her relatives and fellow campaigners been told?
The Belarusian opposition activist Maria Kolesnikova is out of intensive care, it was announced on Thursday. German SPD foreign policy expert Nils Schmid told the Minsk Forum in Berlin that she had been moved to a normal hospital ward. The office of the former Belarusian presidential candidate Viktor Babariko, who worked with Kolesnikova, confirmed this information.
Schmid said the German Embassy in Belarus was paying close attention to Kolesnikova's hospital stay, and that Germany was ready to provide any form of assistance if required.
It only emerged on November 29 that the 40-year old was in intensive care. She had been taken straight to hospital by ambulance the previous day, from a prison in the Belarusian city of Gomel.
"The doctors say Maria was brought in in a serious condition. It's not clear when she became ill. Her lawyer hasn't been allowed to see her since November 17," Kolesnikova's sister, Tatsiana Khomich, told DW.
Kolesnikova is one of the three women who, in the summer of 2020, led the protest movement against longtime Belarusian ruler Alexander Lukashenko after he rigged the presidential election in his favor.
The opposition demonstrations were brutally suppressed by the Belarusian regime, prompting Kolesnikova's fellow activists Veronika Tsepkalo and Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya to leave the country. But Kolesnikova stayed.
Lukashenko had her abducted and driven to the Ukrainian border in an attempt to throw her out of the country. But Kolesnikova ripped up her passport at the border to prevent her forced deportation, and was subsequently detained in Belarus. In 2021, a court sentenced her to 11 years in prison.
Prison visit denied
Kolesnikova's lawyer last attempted to visit her in prison on November 29, but was denied permission. He wasn't told that his client was not even in her cell. "Shortly afterward, I received an unofficial tipoff saying Maria was in a hospital in Gomel. All we were told was that she was undergoing surgery," said her sister.
It remains unclear why exactly Kolesnikova is in the hospital. The leaked information only made clear that she had been operated on the day she was admitted. Neither her lawyer nor her father have been allowed to visit her in hospital. However, her father did manage to speak to the doctors who are treating her.
"The whole conversation took place in the presence of Interior Ministry employees," Khomich told DW. "The doctors said that the operation went according to plan and was successful, but Maria's condition was still serious. However, they said she was conscious, and getting the treatment and medication she needed."
Kolesnikova's father was not told what was wrong with her. It was claimed that his daughter would need to give written permission in order for the relevant data to be released.
"We have no confirmed information as to why the operation was necessary. I've heard from several sources that Maria supposedly had a perforated ulcer," said Khomich, but she added that her sister had not reported any health problems of this nature.
What happened in solitary confinement?
On November 22, it was made known that Kolesnikova would have to spend 10 days in solitary confinement in a virtually bare cell. Khomich described the regime's harsh treatment of members of the opposition:
"Political prisoners are currently being put under extreme pressure. They don't even have a toothbrush, no bed linen. There's no bed, only a board that's fixed to the wall in the daytime. The prisoners are effectively made to stand all day. They're not given any books, and they're not allowed phone calls, either. Maria's lawyer was told she hadn't requested a visit from him, but she doesn't have paper or a pen with which to make such a request."
Kolesnikova's lawyer has made complaints to the public prosecutor's office and the prison authority, expressing concern about his client's health, but he has not received a response.
Kolesnikova's relatives are now trying to find out what happened to her, and what her condition was when she was in custody. "We want official information from the doctors, although we realize that they are now under tremendous pressure. The important thing is of course that they pay as much attention to her as possible," said Khomich.
Franak Viacorka is a confidant of the Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who currently lives in exile in Lithuania. "We demand that Maria's relatives, lawyers and foreign diplomats are granted access to her, in order to satisfy themselves that she is alive and receiving the necessary treatment," he said.
Viacorka added that eyewitnesses had testified to the torture of political prisoners in Belarus. According to their reports, prisoners were made to sit in freezing cold rooms. "They were also beaten. Belarusian prisons are not governed by the law, but by the completely arbitrary abuse of power," he explained.
Support from comrades-in-arms
Many newspapers carried the news about Kolesnikova on the front page. It was also the top story on numerous websites. The European Parliament, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the US State Department and the German Foreign Office all reacted to the reports of Kolesnikova's ill health.
Her comrades-in-arms Tsikhanouskaya and Tsepkalo have also commented. "Terrible news. Our dear Masha, we all hope that you will be all right!" Tsikhanouskaya wrote. She called on Belarusians to pass on information from the hospital in Gomel, to prevent Lukashenko's regime from hushing up the case.
"Dear Maria, there are no words to describe my feelings on hearing the news that you are in the ICU. What has to happen to someone in solitary confinement for them to go straight from there to intensive care?" Tsepkalo posted on Facebook. She called on the international community to help "isolate Lukashenko from the Belarusian people."
"What else has to happen in Belarus for us to get help? Masha, I really hope you will get better soon and that everything will be fine. I am with you," Tsepkalo wrote.
This article was originally written in Russian.
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American ballerina with dual citizenship arrested in Russia, facing life in prison for donating $51 to Ukraine
Bradford Betz
Tue, February 20, 2024
A 33-year-old amateur ballerina with dual U.S.-Russian citizenship has been detained in Russia and is facing life in prison for allegedly donating $51 to Ukraine’s war effort.
Russia's main domestic intelligence agency, the Federal Security Service, reported the woman’s arrest on charges of treason. The FSB said the woman is a resident of Los Angeles, California and accused her of collecting money for the Ukrainian military.
"Since February 2022, she has proactively collected funds in the interests of one of the Ukrainian organizations, which were subsequently used to purchase tactical medicine, equipment, weapons and ammunition by the Ukrainian Armed Forces," the FSB said. "In addition, in the United States, this citizen repeatedly took part in public actions in support of the Kyiv regime."
The independent news outlet Mediazona identified the woman as Ksenia Karelina and said that she had received U.S. citizenship after marrying an American. The outlet reported that Karelina allegedly transferred around $51 to "Razom for Ukraine," a nonprofit Ukrainian group.
White House national security spokesman John Kirby said the White House and the State Department were aware of reports of the arrest and added that "we are trying to get more information and to secure some consular access to that individual."
Kirby refrained from further comment due to respect for privacy, but reiterated "our very strong warnings about the danger posed to U.S. citizens inside Russia."
"If you're a U.S. citizen, including a dual national residing in or traveling in Russia, you ought to leave right now," he said.
U.S. State Department Spokesman Matthew Miller noted that when it comes to dual citizens of the United States and Russia, Moscow "does not recognize dual citizenship, it considers them to be Russian citizens first and foremost," giving U.S. diplomats a difficult time getting consular assistance.
"What happened to Ksenia Karelina is very sad. It really hits home for me as someone who fled Soviet Russia more than 30 years ago and whose daughter is a ballerina," said former DIA intelligence officer Rebekah Koffler.
"But it’s hardly surprising. Putin’s regime has always used hostage diplomacy as a form of statecraft and now that the confrontation between Moscow and Washington is at its highest ever, the Kremlin is ratcheting up this tactic to the maximum. No American, especially of Russian or Slavic descent, should go to Russia," Koffler said.
She added: "Moreover, no one should be holding dual US-Russian citizenship or both passports. For the Russian state -- if you are born in Russia, you are always Russian, not American, by law. Similarly, when you are born in the U.S., you are automatically a U.S. citizen, with minor exceptions, unless you renounce your citizenship. Having dual US-Russian citizenship is asking for it, asking for trouble, nowadays."
Razom for Ukraine's CEO Dora Chomiak said the organization was "appalled by the reports of Karelina's arrest.
"Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly shown that he holds no sovereign border, foreign nationality, or international treaty above his own narrow interest. His regime attacks civil society activists who stand up for freedom and democracy, Chomiak said in a statement to Fox News Digital. "Razom calls on the U.S. government to continue to do everything in its power to demand that President Putin release all those unjustly detained by Russia and to hold Russia’s political and military leadership accountable for their unprovoked invasion of Ukraine."
The news of Karelina’s arrest comes as a Russian court ruled to keep Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich in custody pending his trial on espionage charges that he denies.
The Moscow City Court rejected an appeal against Gershkovich's detention filed by his lawyers, upholding an earlier ruling to keep him behind bars until the end of March.
That means Gershkovich, 32, will spend at least a year behind bars in Russia after his arrest in March 2023 while on a reporting trip to the Russian city of Yekaterinburg in the Ural Mountains.
Gershkovich and the Journal have denied the espionage allegations, and the U.S. government has declared him to be wrongfully detained. Russian authorities haven't detailed any evidence to support the charges.
In December, the U.S. State Department said that Russia had rejected several proposals for freeing Gershkovich and Paul Whelan, a corporate security executive from Michigan who has been jailed in Russia since his December 2018 arrest on espionage-related charges that both he and the U.S. government dispute. Whelan was sentenced to 16 years in prison.
Some analysts have noted that Moscow may be using jailed Americans as bargaining chips after U.S.-Russian tensions soared when Russia sent troops into Ukraine. At least two U.S. citizens arrested in Russia in recent years, including WNBA star Brittney Griner, have been exchanged for Russians jailed in the U.S.
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Who is Ksenia Karelina? The Californian ballerina detained by Russia on treason charges
By Rebecca Robinson
Ksenia Karelina was arrested for treason by Russian authorities on Tuesday after allegedly raising money for the Ukrainian army.
She is currently in pre-trial detention in Yekaterinburg after being arrested by Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), accused of collecting funds for a Ukrainian organization whose ultimate beneficiary was the Ukrainian army.
Karelina, 33, holds dual nationality for the US and Russia and was living in Los Angeles, California before her arrest. She attended Ural Federal University in Yekaterinburg and was detained in the city while visiting her parents.
In 2021, Karelina posted on VKontakte, a Russian version of Facebook, that she had received US citizenship and announced her marriage to an American citizen in 2023.
The FSB's statement said: "Since February 2022, she has proactively collected funds in the interests of one of the Ukrainian organizations, which were subsequently used to purchase tactical medicine, equipment, weapons and ammunition by the Ukrainian Armed Forces."
As well as allegedly raising money for the Ukrainian military, Karelina's treason charge is also because the FSB believes that she "repeatedly took part in public actions in support of the Kyiv regime" while living in the US, according to Russia's security service.
It continued: "Operational search activities and investigative actions continue. The court chose a preventive measure in the form of detention for the accused."
Following her arrest on the way to meet her parents, footage emerged of Karelina being escorted to the pre-detention facility in Yekaterinburg, roughly 900 miles east of Moscow.
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Opinion: Yulia Navalnaya: Putin isn’t a politician, he’s a gangster
By Yulia Navalnaya
March 13, 2024 at 6:00 a.m. EDT
Yulia Navalnaya is the widow of the Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.
On Feb. 16, one month before the scheduled “presidential elections” in Russia, my husband, Alexei Navalny, was murdered in prison on Vladimir Putin’s direct order. I never wanted to be a politician, I never wanted to speak from the rostrum or write for international media. But Putin left me no other choice. Therefore, I want to tell you a few important things that Alexei had been trying to say all these years.
To defeat Putin, or at least seriously punish him, one must realize who he is. Unfortunately, too many people in the West still see him as a legitimate political leader, argue about his ideology and look for political logic in his actions. This is a big mistake that breeds new mistakes and helps Putin to deceive his opponents again and again.
Putin is not a politician, he’s a gangster. Alexei Navalny became famous in Russia and hated by Putin precisely because, from the beginning of his fight, he openly described Putin and his allies as gangsters who had seized and used power only for their own enrichment and to fulfill their personal ambitions.
Look at Putin as the leader of a mafia group. You will grasp his brutality, cynicism, penchant for violence, fondness for ostentatious luxury — and his willingness to lie and kill. All his talks about religion, history, culture and politics might mislead Westerners. But in Russia, everyone knows that gangsters have always loved to flaunt large crosses, pose in churches, and present themselves as fighters for higher justice and traditional values, which in their understanding boil down to a professional criminal’s ruthless code of conduct.
Look at Putin as a mafia boss and you will understand how to punish him and hasten his end. Status is very important to criminal leaders — both within their gangs and in the outside world. Putin seized power in Russia, where he can declare himself the legitimate president or even crown himself as heir to the Russian czars. But why do democratic countries continue to recognize his criminal authority as legitimate? Why do fairly elected world leaders put themselves on the same level as a criminal who has for decades falsified elections, killed, imprisoned or forced out of the country all his critics, and now has unleashed a bloody war in Europe by attacking Ukraine?
I’m not promising that refusing to recognize the results of the Russian presidential elections this weekend would lead to the instant collapse of the Putin government. But it would be an important signal to civil society in Russia and the elites still loyal to Putin, as well as to the world, that Russia is ruled not by a president recognized by all, but by someone who is despised and publicly condemned. Only then will those who remain loyal to Putin start to see that the one way to return to normal economic and political life is to get rid of him.
To criminal leaders, money is crucial. Putin is indifferent to the suffering of ordinary people both in Ukraine and in Russia. He doesn’t care about Russia’s economy — as long as there is money enough to sustain the army and the security services and to fill his own pockets and those of his associates. The only thing that truly hurts Putin is loss of income. Though it might be difficult to target him directly at this point, it’s possible to deprive his inner circle, his representatives and decision-makers, of their ill-gotten gains.
Deprive gangsters of their wealth, and they will lose their loyalty to their leader. This is why I call for the maximum expansion and careful enforcement of sanctions against all more or less prominent Putin-allied politicians, so-called businessmen, civil servants and law enforcement officials. By depriving thousands of influential figures of their capital and assets, you lay the groundwork for internal divisions — and ultimately the collapse of the regime.
Extensive support for Ukraine and its army in the fight against Putin’s unjustified aggression has become the natural moral choice for Western countries. A military defeat for Putin in Ukraine should push his government to the brink of collapse. However, there have been cases in history where defeat hasn’t led to a dictator’s fall. Saddam Hussein’s defeat in Kuwait, for instance, did not end his rule; Hussein and his gang terrorized the people of Iraq and neighboring countries for another decade. To ensure that Putin’s rule doesn’t survive another crisis, including those caused by military setbacks in Ukraine, it is essential to support the forces that continue to resist from within Russia.
Do not believe that everyone in Russia supports Putin and his war. Russia is under a harsh dictatorship. The number of political prisoners in Russia is three times higher than it was during the Soviet system’s struggle with dissidents. Human rights are being trampled, and there is no freedom of speech or protest. But even in such difficult conditions, the people of Russia find ways to demonstrate against the repressive regime. Any opportunity to legally express discontent becomes a mass protest. Hundreds of thousands of people stood in line hoping to register candidates expressing antiwar views in the presidential elections.
And my husband’s funeral in Moscow also became a multiday protest. Despite all the authorities’ efforts, thousands of people visited his grave, covering it with flowers. People know that the regime tracks all those who dare participate — and that they might be punished later — but they show up nevertheless, in Moscow and throughout Russia.
My husband’s most recent appeal to Russians was to participate in the “Noon Against Putin” campaign. He asked all Putin’s opponents to come to polling stations at noon on March 17, election day. The goal is not to influence the voting results, which will be falsified anyway, and it is not to support any of Putin’s puppets allowed on the ballot. Alexei wanted this to be a nationwide protest, emphasizing the illegitimacy of Putin’s election and the resistance of Russian civil society.
I call on political leaders of the West to help all Russian citizens who stand up against Putin’s gang. I urge you to finally hear the voice of free Russia and take a principled stand against him — to not recognize the results of the falsified elections, to not recognize Putin as the legitimate president of Russia.
The world must finally realize that Putin is not who he wants to appear to be. He is a usurper, a tyrant, a war criminal — and a murderer.
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Opinion: Don’t lose sight of the other Navalnys
By the Editorial Board|
March 13, 2024
Russia holds a three-day presidential election starting Friday, and the result is not in doubt: President Vladimir Putin has rigged the process to ensure he holds power for another six years, at least. This farce thus extends Russia’s tragedy, the most heartbreaking recent manifestation of which was the death of Alexei Navalny, the Russian dissident, in an Arctic prison after nearly three years under increasingly harsh physical and mental torment, including long periods in cramped solitary confinement. The best way to mark Mr. Putin’s reelection is by remembering Mr. Navalny — along with the fact that, as a political prisoner, he was far from alone, either in Russia, or around the world.
These are the other Navalnys. Among them is Post Opinions contributor Vladimir Kara-Murza, arrested two years ago for his strong criticism of Mr. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. A journalist, historian and political activist, Mr. Kara-Murza was absurdly accused of treason and sentenced to 25 years. Another principled prisoner in Russia is Ilya Yashin, a political activist, unjustly sentenced to 8½ years in December 2022 on charges of spreading false information about the Russian military. Since February 2022, Russian authorities have detained 19,855 people at protests against the war and opened criminal cases against 909 antiwar dissidents, according to the watchdog group OVD-Info.
In Cuba, dissident José Daniel Ferrer, leader of the Patriotic Union of Cuba, has been repeatedly punished for imaginary offenses — with real prison sentences. Detained in 2021 amid a national uprising against the Communist regime, he is currently serving a four-year term at the Mar Verde prison in Santiago de Cuba. His family said they have not had contact with him for a year and reported he is in poor health.
Cuban authorities arrested Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, a founder of the San Isidro artists’ movement in Havana, about the same time they took Mr. Ferrer into custody. He is serving five years on charges of “insulting national symbols.” Equally wrongful is the incarceration of Maykel Castillo Pérez, known as Maykel Osorbo, a Cuban musician, rapper and San Isidro movement leader. He shared in two Latin Grammy awards for “Patria y Vida,” the anthem of the protest movement. He was arrested in May 2021.
A voice for the same ideals that motivated Mr. Navalny is Ales Bialiatski of Belarus, founder of Viasna, a group that since 1996 has fought for civil society and against human rights violations under the erratic autocrat, President Alexander Lukashenko. Mr. Bialiatski, a winner of the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize, was arrested in July 2021 and sentenced to 10 years in prison for purportedly bringing money into the country to support mass demonstrations against Mr. Lukashenko’s theft of the 2020 presidential election. Other Viasna leaders are also in prison. Mr. Lukashenko has tormented political prisoners by denying them any family contact for long periods. Svetlana Tikhanovskaya has not heard from her husband, Sergei — who was imprisoned by the authorities in Belarus when he declared he would run against Mr. Lukashenko — for more than a year. Maria Kolesnikova, who ran on a ticket with Ms. Tikhanovskaya, was also imprisoned and has been held incommunicado for a year, according to her family. Viktor Babariko, a banker who was a popular candidate for president, was arrested and remains in prison, also often incommunicado for long periods.
In Turkey, the government of autocratic President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has imprisoned philanthropist Osman Kavala for life on charges the European Court of Human Rights has described as based upon “an absence of facts, information or evidence.” Mr. Kavala was engaged in exclusively peaceful protest and organizing. The European court said Mr. Kavala was prosecuted for an ulterior purpose, “namely that of reducing the applicant to silence.”
Salma al-Shehab, the mother of two young children, a researcher at the University of Leeds, took time off to go home to Saudi Arabia. Ms. Shehab is a women’s rights activist and a Shiite Muslim, a persecuted minority in the kingdom. Saudi authorities detained her in 2021 after she posted on Twitter demanding freedom for Loujain al-Hathloul, who campaigned for women’s right to drive and was incarcerated and tortured for it. Ms. Shehab’s sentence, 34 years in prison, later reduced to 27 years, is surely one of the most draconian ever for a single social media post.
There are more, from China to Egypt, from Iran to Myanmar. They are the victims of dictators and autocrats who cannot tolerate free speech and assembly. We cannot forget the other Navalnys.
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Here is the story of Monica Sjoo. This is a noon chart.
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Monica Sjöö
Wikipedia
Monica Sjöö (31 December 1938 – 8 August 2005) was a Swedish-born British-based painter, writer and radical anarcho/ eco-feminist who was an early exponent of the Goddess movement. Her books and paintings were foundational to the development of feminist art in Britain, beginning at the time of the founding of the women's liberation movement around 1970.
Sjöö's most famous painting is God Giving Birth (1968), which depicts a woman giving birth and was inspired by Sjöö's religious view of motherhood; it sparked some protests from Christian groups in the 1970s. She wrote or co-wrote the manifesto Towards a Revolutionary Feminist Art (1971) and The Great Cosmic Mother: Rediscovering the Religion of the Earth (1987).
Sjöö's art and writing became well-known outside of the UK, and throughout the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s she corresponded with influential American writers, artists and pagans such as Jean and Ruth Mountaingrove, Starhawk, Zsuzsanna Budapest, Shekhinah Mountainwater, Lucy Lippard, Alice Walker, and Judy Chicago.
Early life
Her parents were the Swedish painters Gustaf Arvid Sjöö (1902–1949) and Anna Harriet Rosander-Sjöö (1912–1965), who divorced when Sjöö was three years old. She left school and ran away from home when she was 16.
Sjöö traveled Europe and held a variety of jobs: she worked in vineyards and as a nude model at art schools in Paris and Rome. She first came to Britain in the late 1950s, and eventually settled in Bristol where – except for a period in Wales in the early 1980s – she lived for the rest of her life.
Career
Sjöö was the main author of Towards a Revolutionary Feminist Art (1971) one of the first, and most militant, feminist art manifestos. It was discussed widely in the feminist press, and The Guardian published an article in response.
Sjöö wrote the original pamphlet[9] that, with Barbara Mor's re-write and expansion,would become the book The Great Cosmic Mother (1987). It covers women's ancient history and the origin of religion, and is one of the first books to propose that humanity's earliest religious and cultural belief systems were created and first practised by women. It is currently in print and has been, and still is, a part of many women's studies, mythology and religious studies syllabi. Her research and writing helped uncover the hidden history of the Goddess. Sjöö's successful use of interdisciplinarity in her research has led to its acclaim within the Goddess movement.
Early exhibitions
Sjöö's first exhibition was at the Gallery Karlsson in Stockholm, Sweden in 1967.[13] Having been a founder member of the Bristol Women's Liberation group, in March 1971, she participated in the first "Women's Liberation Art Group" exhibition held at the Woodstock Gallery in London.
Margaret Harrison (1977) states that [on one occasion in 1970 several of Sjöö's paintings were banned from being shown in St. Ives during the St. Ives festival]. (...) "Monica then wrote in Socialist Woman (Nottingham) proposing forming a group or alliance of women artists. This led to the formation of the Bristol Women's Art Group (...)".
Later exhibitions
Sjöö used imagery in her paintings which often references birth, the female body, and nature. All of these images were central to her beliefs regarding her "Cosmic Mother". She described herself as among the pioneers in this movement of reclaiming female divinity – along with many other writers, artists, poets, and thinkers. In her art, she attempted to "holistically express" her growing religious belief in the Great Mother as the cosmic spirit and generative force in the universe. This was a critical component of her artwork. She claimed to enter a "state" of being or of mind where knowledge was available from past, present, and future.
Sjöö's most famous painting, God Giving Birth (1968), depicts a woman giving birth, and has the title text painted in red capitalized letters. It is an expression of Sjöö's spiritual journey at that time, inspired by her religious experience during the birth of her second son, and represents her perception of the Great Mother as the universal creator of cosmic life. The painting and its concept created some controversy among Christian groups in the 1970s; at a group exhibition in London in 1973, it led to Sjöö being reported to the police for blasphemy, although the case was not taken up by the court.
Beliefs
Sjöö's work and beliefs centered on her respect and care of the Goddess, or Mother Earth. The Goddess was "the beauty of the green earth, the life-giving waters, the consuming fires, the radiant moon, and the fiery sun". Sjöö's respect for nature and the environment was not mere belief but, for her, a spiritual truth. The Goddess / Earth is to be respected as the life giver. This respect is to be found not only in her imagery, but in two texts which chronicle her journey through the written word.
Yet, these abstract beliefs were grounded with a firm foundation of action and activism. She was involved with the anarchist and anti-Vietnam War movements in Sweden in the 1960s and was active in the women's movement in Britain. Her political activism always grew out of her spiritual understanding of the earth as our living mother, similar to the beliefs of some Native American peoples.
Sjöö was highly critical of many of the ideas and personages of the New Age movement, including Alice Bailey, J. Z. Knight and "Ramtha", and Gene Roddenberry for some of the ideas behind Star Trek.
Reception
Starhawk described Sjöö's work as paintings that "transformed ancient images and symbols into contemporary icons of female power." In 1976 Sjöö was the subject of a film documentary shown at the ICA and NFT.
Personal life
Sjöö believed heterosexuality was an unnatural state imposed by patriarchy, and later in her life she enjoyed a number of intimate romantic relationships with women. (In the context of the 1980 essay by Adrienne Rich, "Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence".) However, after separating from her second husband, Andy Jubb, a composer, in the mid 1970s, Sjöö had an intense relationship with Keith Paton, a founder of the Alternative Socialist movement and, like Sjöö herself, a regular contributor to the alternative press, especially Peace News. Under Sjöö's influence, Paton changed his name to Motherson (or Mothersson).
Two of her three sons died young. In 1985 her youngest, Leify, was killed in front of her by an oncoming car at age 15. Her eldest son, Sean, died of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in 1987, aged 28. She claimed that his death was exacerbated by his experiences of rebirthing. Sjöö's grief at this double loss led first to an artistic paralysis akin to writer's block, and then to artistic expression, in the shape of the painting My Sons in the Spirit World (1989).
Sjöö died of cancer in 2005, aged 66.
Artwork
Exhibitions
Group exhibitions Name Year Venue
Nine Morgens 2003 Glastonbury Goddess Conference
Windows to Otherworlds 2002 St Petersburgh State University, Russia
Neolithia Arts Festival 2001–2002 Gozo, Malta and (Germany)
II Mara II 1999 Dragonara Hotel, St. Julian's, Malta
Malta and Beyond 1998 Quan Yin Gallery, Oakland, California, US
"Hjartat sitter till vanster" (Heart is on the Left) radical art in Scandinavia from 1965 to 1975 1998 Various in Scandinavia
North Current 1998 Varberg Museum, Sweden; Watermans Arts Centre, London, England; Gedok-Haus, Lubeck, Germany
Sharjah Biennial 1997 United Arab Emirates
With Your Own Face On 1994–1995 Various in England
Fantasy: Exchange exhibition with Arab women artists 1994 Various is UAE
The Stones and the Goddess 1990 Gaia Book Store Gallery, Berkeley, California
Women Artists in Wales 1984–1985 Llandudno, Aberystwyth Arts Centre and Newport Arts Museum, Wales
Woman Magic: Celebrating the Goddess Within Us 1979–1980 Various in Europe
The Worlds as We See It 1977 Swiss Cottage Library, London
Kvinnfolk (Womenpeople) 1975 Kulturhuset, Stockholm, Sweden and Malmo Arts Hall
Women's Lives 1974-1974 Various in Scandinavia
Images of Womanpower 1973 Swiss Cottage Library, London
Women's Liberation Art Group 1971 Woodstock Gallery, London
Solo exhibitions Name Year Location
Monica Sjöö: The time is NOW and it is overdue! 2022 Beaconsfield Gallery, Lambeth, London
2001 Create Gallery, Bristol, England
2001 Skellefta Women's Arts Museum, Sweden
2001 Kebele Kulture Projekt, Bristol, England
Traveling Show 1999–2000 Casa de Colores at Brownsville, Texas, USA; Austin, Texas; University of Texas in Arlington
1998 Gaia Centre Galleri, Stockholm, Sweden
Touring Exhibition 1994 Various in Scandinavia
Women's Rites 1994 Liverpool, England
1967 Galleri Karlsson [sv], Stockholm
Locations
Sjöö's art can be found in the Women's Art Collection at Murray Edwards College in Cambridge and at the Museum Anna Nordlander [sv] in Skellefteå, Sweden. Some of her works are currently held in private collections of individuals: Sig Lonegren, Alice Walker, and Genevieve Vaughan[13] hold a few, while Maggie Parks holds most of her art.[26] The Temple of Goddess Spirituality dedicated to Sekhmet holds Solar Lionheaded Sekhment of Primordial Fire (1992, oil on hardboard) where it is displayed in the living room of their guest house.[27][28]
Written works
The Great Cosmic Mother
Sjöö, Monica (1975). The Ancient Religion of the Great Cosmic Mother of All. Bristol, England: Monica Sjöö. (Original pamphlet)
Sjöö, Monica (1977). Den Store Kosmiske Mor og Hennes Urgamle Religion (in Norwegian). Trondheim: Regnbuetrykk. ISBN 9788272230011.
——; Mor, Barbara (1981). The Ancient Religion of the Great Cosmic Mother of All. Trondheim: Rainbow Press. ISBN 82-7223-012-7.
——; Mor, Barbara (1987). The Great Cosmic Mother: Rediscovering the Religion of the Earth. New York: HarperCollins Publishers Inc. ISBN 9780062507914.
——; Mor, Barbara (1991). The Great Cosmic Mother: Rediscovering the Religion of the Earth (2nd ed.). New York: HarperCollins Publishers Inc. pp. 501. ISBN 0062507915.
Excerpted in: Sjöö, Monica; Mor, Barbara (2016). "The First Sex: In The Beginning We Were All Female". In Barrett, Ruth (ed.). Female Erasure. Tidal Time. ISBN 978-0997146707.
Books
Sjöö, Monica; Mothersson, Keith (1979). Women are the Real Left/Wider We: Towards Anarchist Politics. Matri/anarchy Press. ISBN 978-0950655109.
—— (1 February 1992). New Age and Armageddon: The Goddess or the Gurus?. London: Women's Press. ISBN 9780704342637.
—— (1999). Return of the Dark/Light Mother or New Age Armageddon: Towards a Feminist Vision of the Future. Austin, TX: Plain View Press. ISBN 9781891386077.
—— (1 May 2000). The Norse Goddess. Meyn Mamvro Publications. ISBN 978-0-9518859-6-3.
—— (2003). Kvinnligt konstnärligt skapande är mänskligt skapande: några kommentarer till Monica von Stedingk, "Kvinnokonstmuseum som ide" [Female Artistic Creation is Human Creation: Some Comments by Monica von Stedingk, "Women's Art Museum as an Idea"] (in Swedish). Museum Anna Nordlander. ISBN 9789186072315.
Chapters
Sjöö, Monica (1972). "A Woman's Rights Over Her Body". In Wandor, Michelene (ed.). The Body Politic: Writings from the Women's Liberation Movement in Britain, 1969–1972. London: Stage 1. pp. 180–188. ISBN 9780850350142.
—— (1983). "Aspects of the Great Mother" and "Creation". In Garcia, Jo; Maitland, Sara. Walking on the Water: Women Talk About Spirituality. London: Virago. ISBN 9780860683810
——; Smythe, Roslyn (1987). "Some Thoughts About Our Exhibition of 'Womanpower: Women's Art' at the Swiss Cottage Library". In Parker, Rozsika; Pollock, Griselda (eds.). Framing Feminism: Art and the Women's Movement, 1970–85. London: Pandora Press. ISBN 9780863581793.
—— (1990). "Tested by the Dark/Light Mother of the Other-world". In Matthews, Caitlin (ed.). Voices of the Goddess: A Chorus of Sibyls. Aquarian Press. ISBN 9780850309652.
——; Straffon, Cheryl (1993). "Introduction". Pagan Cornwall: Land of the Goddess. Penzance, Cornwall: Meyn Mamvro. ISBN 9780951885925.
—— (1995). "Monica Sjöö". In Witzling, Mara R. (ed.). Voicing Today's Visions: Writings by Contemporary Women Artists. London: Women's Press. ISBN 0704344335.
—— (1996). "Well Worship: The Cult of Sacred Waters". In Castle, Leila (ed.). Earthwalking Skydancers: Women's Pilgrimages to Sacred Places. North Atlantic Books. ISBN 978-1883319335.
Articles
Sjöö, Monica (1973). "För en revolutionär feministisk konst". Vi Människor (in Swedish). 25 (4): 22–26.
—— (1977). "Women's Spirituality" (PDF). Goddess Shrew. Vol. 1. London: London Matriarchy Study Group. pp. 5–6.
—— (1978). "Some Thoughts on Menstruation" (PDF). Menstrual Taboos. Vol. 2. London: London Matriarchy Study Group. pp. 11–13.
—— (1979). "An Avebury Experience" (PDF). Politics of Matriarchy. Vol. 3. London: London Matriarchy Study Group. p. 55. ISBN 978-0906663004.
—— (Fall 1980). "Art is a Revolutionary Act". WomanSpirit.
Excerpted in: (2001). In Robinson, Hilary. Feminism Art Theory: An Anthology 1968–2000. Malden, MA: Blackwell. ISBN 9780631208495.
(2015). In Robinson, Hilary. Feminism Art Theory: An Anthology 1968–2014. Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell. ISBN 9781118360606.
—— (1983). "Sagan om St. Göran och kvinnan". Hertha (in Swedish). 70 (2): 2–4, 38.
—— (Summer 1984). "The Bleeding Yew Mother and Pentre Ifan Cromlech" (PDF). Wood and Water. 2 (12): 6–8.
—— (1998). "Sinister New Age Channelings: Who or What is Speaking?". From the Flames – Radical Feminism with Spirit. 22. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016.
——. "The Unofficial Herstory of the Externsteine, Ancient Sacred Rocks of Germany". The Pipes of Pan. 19. Archived from the original on 14 March 2016.
——. "Challenging New Age Patriarchy". Women of Power (19). Archived from the original on 14 March 2016.
—— (28 May 1993). "Going To Church: Breaking the Taboo – doing the unthinkable". Archived from the original on 14 March 2016.
——. "The Artist As Reluctant Shamanka". Archived from the original on 14 March 2016.
——. "St Non's Well, Pembrokeshire". Archived from the original on 14 March 2016.
——. "On Death and Dying". Archived from the original on 14 March 2016.
Poems
Sjöö, Monica. "Nearly full Moon, Autumn Equinox 1986". Archived from the original on 14 March 2016.
—— (12 September 1987). "New Age or Armegeddon". Archived from the original on 14 March 2016.
——. "Are There Great Female Beings Out There – Waiting for Us to be Free..." Archived from the original on 14 March 2016.
Pamphlets
Sjöö, Monica; Berg, Anne (1971). Images on Womanpower – Art Manifesto (trying to get a rough and necessarily incomplete idea of what we are about). Bristol, England. Reprinted in "Towards a Revolutionary Feminist Art"
——; Berg, Anne; Moore, Liz (1972). Towards a Revolutionary Feminist Art. Bristol, England: Monica Sjöö.
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BIOGRAPHY OF MONICA SJÖÖ
Monica wrote a brief autobiography (twenty-two A4 pages) at the beginning of 2004 when she felt that her health was deteriorating.
The breast cancer she suffered several years before, had returned and spread throughout the bones of her body. She needed a wheelchair and nursing care.
Further information about Monica's life can be gained through reading her personal commentary on each painting in the Art Gallery that was included in the 2004 Retrospective Exhibition.
From the catalogue of one of her Art Exhibitions:
Monica Sjöö is a radical anarcho/eco-feminist and Goddess artist, writer and thinker involved in Earth spirituality. Born in Sweden in 1938 she has lived mostly in Bristol since the late 1950's and has been active in the Women's Liberation Movement since the 60's. Her paintings are inspired by the veneration in ancient cultures of the Great Mother, the Earth. They have been exhibited throughout Europe and in America. Monica reflects her politics and spirituality not just in her art but also in her writing. She's author of the Great Cosmic Mother, Rediscovering the Religion of the Earth (with Barbara Mor) and "Return of the Dark/Light Mother, or New Age Armegeddon?" plus numerous articles in many papers and magazines. She is also an active speaker who has toured many countries exposing her anarcho-femnist philosophies in universities, conferences, festivals and camps. This ideology is also reflected in Monica's activism, she took part in many campaigns and causes.
As an artist her most famous work is "God giving birth" (1968) which has become a feminist icon. This painting depicts God as a Black woman and the human creation as a real birth (A revolutionary painting back in the 60's, for she was threatened several times with legal action on the grounds of "blasphemy").
Many of her paintings have also been used in books, covers and cards.
MY LIFE STORY
I was born on New Year's Eve 1938 in Härnösand, a small provincial city on the Baltic in north Sweden, where my maternal grandparents lived and my mother, Harriet Rosander, grew up. My grandfather was the Lord Mayor for life there. My parents were both artists, from different class backgrounds, and were traveling in the north of Sweden with a joint exhibition when my mother 'happened' to go into labour in her native city. She had never been to see a doctor during the pregnancy and suffered badly from deficiencies and from postnatal depression during which time my grandmother had to care for me. This was ironic since my grandparents had completely disapproved of the fact that my mother had 'married below her class' and they saw my father as a rough upstart.
My father, Gustav Sjöö, was from a poor peasant/working class background, the youngest of ten children. That he was able to train as an artist at all was a miracle and it was in the art school in Stockholm that my parents met. They went on to the Art Academy together and when they left from there they got married, much against my grandparents wishes.
For three years we lived in Växjö in the south of Sweden close to where my father's extended family lived in the countryside. My parents painted side by side, lived in a tiny place in an attic where there were no cooking facilities, bath or hot water. I remember the smell of turps and paint but not of cooking. I suffered from a lack of vitamins but half rotting oranges stored in our backyard saved me from scurvy. My parents were totally unpractical and my father basically didn't want me around.
My mother divorced him when I was three years old and we went back to live in Härnösand where my mother kept us both by painting portraits. I was however, the favourite subject of her art.
I loved the north with its great forests, rivers and thousands of lakes. I delighted in the winters with the crisp cold and the abundant snow, when we skied and skated and built snow houses. I loved the white nights around midsummer when it was light all night. All my best memories are of my childhood in the north and the summers up there on a farm where my grandparents were able to hire a cottage for us to live in.
When I was five I wanted to become a farmer and my first loves were cows, great gentle maternal beings who suffer badly and dogs, I milked the cows and helped with the haymaking. I thought I was a dog and had total telepathic communication with them.
I was until then a pretty and gracious child who was always dancing and singing but now I became awkward and put on weight and became self-conscious. I remember though at this time having premonitions in a waking dream of what I would do in my future life and I knew that somehow I had a destiny and a mission to fulfill.
Misery struck however, when my mother decided to move to live in Stockholm thinking that this would good for her career as an artist since she had studied and thought that she had friends there. This was however, a very great mistake. We got trapped in a tiny flat in a very dull neighbourhood on one of Stockholm's many islands. My mother never made the contacts she had been dreaming of and for the rest of her life she lived in poverty and obscurity although she was a talented artist. Meanwhile, my father who was much tougher than my very sensitive mother, had made it as an artist and received a lot of respect for being a peasant artist and true to his background.
It hadn't always been so. Matisse was the flavour of the day when my parents studied at the Art Academy and only bright primary colours were acceptable then. My father, however, who loved the land and the peasant cottages of his childhood, used earth colours and painted the world he knew well. He was rubbished during many years as being 'unaesthetic and crude' in his art. When he became famous however, after a major exhibition, the very same critics, who had put him down, now wrote that he was a great and original colourist. My father thought precious little of the class biased art world and its art critics and favouritisms, the 'malestream' art world as I call it. This knowledge stood me in good stead when I myself became the target of criticism and put downs for being a feminist artist.
I am proud of this side of my father but not of the fact that he competed with my mother when they lived together and hindered her career. My mother always said to me "don't become an artist, it is nothing but poverty and misery but if you do never marry another artist". She had seen many of her contemporaries, women artists who had been her friends, becoming the hostess in a male artist's home, having breakdowns and/or ending up in mental hospital. Her best friend, the talented writer Eva Meander, went into a lake and drowned herself even though she had had two books published.
My mother knew of no tradition of women artists in the past and felt alone and isolated while my father, in spite of his class background, bought into the myth of the male artist genius and compared himself to artists such as Goya and Delacroix. He said, like Renoir, that he painted with his prick and bragged to me about how he slept with the women who posed for him in the nude. I was twelve years old by then and spent summers with him watching him at his easel in all weathers painting in wild and beautiful locations on the east coast of Sweden. Around that time I remember coming across a book on William Blake's art in my father's studio and I was awestruck by its visionary quality.
In Stockholm my mother would take me along to see great exhibitions on Surrealism, Cubism, Italian Futurism etc. and the one that made a particular and lasting impression on me was the one of Mexican art. It was enormous and showed Pre Aztec and massive Aztec sculptures, Catholic art and the vibrant revolutionary paintings by Diego Rrvera, Frieda Kahlo and other artists. I was 15 years old at the time.
Living in Stockholm was however a misery for both of us. We were treated more or less as immigrant families are today. I spoke with a strong north country accent and wore plaits, a country girl. I was also naive and had a strong sense of justice. My mother wasn't able to tell a lie to save herself. My mother used to be mistaken for a gypsy. She had high cheekbones, work colourful clothes and headscarves and in the summers developed a high red brown skin colour. We were treated in a racist way and were ostracised. No girls were allowed to come and play with me in my home. I had to go to a school where there were 36 children in each class. I played truant and refused to go to school a lot of the time. My mother feared that social workers would take me away but what saved us is that I had a good head and did well in school in spite of the many absences. My mother had a fear all her life of people in white coats. She had spent many years in and out of hospitals as a child because she had been born with her feet turned inwards. She feared doctors, hospitals, and social workers. She walked with a bad limp and had pain in one deformed foot every step she took. She was a tall and strong, very beautiful woman who I loved very dearly. She was a dreamer, a natural anarchist and feminist. She detested all things "feminine" and never ever forced gender thinking on me, I was allowed to be and to find my own ways. My mother confided in me and I knew what she felt: her pain at not being able to paint as she needed to do because of poverty, her humiliation when treated with disrespect, the assumption at the time, being that women were ignorant and unknowing.
From early years I had to protect my mother against harsh unrealities and this made me much tougher than her. To be able to survive I had to lose some of my own innocence and became streetwise. I felt deprived, living in an urban landscape of concrete and ugliness. My parents were both nature mystics and this should have been my heritage too. Of course it was there in me but remained hidden during may years. My mother though used to draw for me the trolls she "saw", magical nature beings who are neither good nor bad and who could be as large as the mountains or as small as a pebble. There are moss-covered boulders everywhere in the northern boreal birch and pine forest and the legend goes that they are trolls petrified by the sun. If a troll is caught out by the sun it either bursts or becomes a stone. Were the trolls an ancient Moon-worshipping people? I was especially entranced by the Huldra, or Queen of the forest, a goddess vilified by the Christians who demonised her. She is portrayed as a beautiful naked woman with long golden hair who lures lonely men to their death in the forest. Her backside however is a mass of rotting wood. She is the forest personified, a giver of life and death, of purification and of rebirth. A Nordic Kali figure or perhaps ancient Hel, who dwells in the mountains and cliffs, the most ancient Mother of the Nordic peoples.
So, my mother was a shamanic woman who belonged by a deep lake in the deep forest with me by her side. We were rebels together and she was an original dropout long before the 60's hippy era. She was an unsupported mother.
I was brought up by my grandparents to think that there was no alternative to going to church and being a practicing Christian. My grandfather, who I loved very much as a small child, sang in the church choir and had wanted to become an opera singer in his youth. It was only at the age of 12 that I realised that I didn't need to go with my grandparents to church. I had always felt intimidated in churches and the Christian faith was always meaningless to me. The first time I refused to go, I took my clothes off, danced naked and drew myself while looking in a mirror, all of this very symbolic of my future life. My grandfather soon decided that I was "heathen" and there was a great rift between us especially after I discovered socialist writers in my teens.
My only friend in those early years in Stockholm was another girl who was also an outcast, her mother a part-time prostitute and her step-father an alcoholic who turned into a monster when drunk. I couldn't believe the transformation and came early to understand the violence so many women and children are made to suffer in our society at the hands of men.
My situation got infinitely worse when my mother remarried in 1949. My stepfather was a Russian, Michael de Tourchaninoff, of the old Tzarist nobility. He was stateless, an emigre, who hated the Russian Communist regime and imagined they had spies everywhere ready to murder him. My stepfather resented my presence and there was class warfare in the family as I was the daughter of a peasant and he the son of aristocrats. He was also deadly jealous but my mother loved him in spite of it all. Since we lived in a one room and kitchen flat there was nowhere for me to escape or hide, no room of my own. I slept and lived in the kitchen and was like a prisoner there during the 5 years Michael stayed with us he wouldn't allow me to have friends or go out. I missed out on being a teenager and even on the popular music of the time since my stepfather always listened to Radio Moscow. I was far more familiar with Russian choirs than with Elvis Presley. I became familiar with Russian culture as Michael read aloud to us all the great classical Russian writers in the evenings, such as Tolstoy, Gogol and Turgenjev. This is one good thing Michael did for me, he got me reading real literature instead of the girls-only slush. His family came from the Caucasus, he had Tartar-blood in his veins. He was a dark Russian and was treated in a racist way by mother's family and that I couldn't go along with although he was incredibly rightwing and was trying to drive me out of my mind. He would swear at me in five different languages and torture me psychically.
An influence on my life when I was 15 years old was reading Engel's book "The Origins of the family, private property and the state" and being taken by a young British Marxist, who was trying to educate and rescue me, to see Eisenstein's marvellous films, such as Potemkin and Alexander Nevskij. Of course my stepfather went spare. My brother Stephan was born when my mother was 42. I ran away from home and left school when I was 16 years old and was almost catatonic from depression and rejection. I was poor and homeless but took refuge with a group of surrealists/avantgardists/existencialists who met in a cellar cafe in the Old Town in Stockholm. I worked as a nude artists' model, which was humiliating for me but the only job I was able to hold down as nothing was expected of me. I was running the gauntlet between predatory male artists, out to seduce me and the 'beat-niks' who were reading Buddhist and Hindu scriptures, as well as Henry Miller and de Sade, and had the most appalling attitudes to women who they treated as members of a lesser species. Seeing this damaged me further and it also put me off all male centred religions for all time.
I was told in no uncertain terms that I'd have to pick a man to live with, for my own protection. It was my good luck that I chose a decent human being, a working class Dane, 10 years older than me, who was beautiful but disfigured from childhood polio. His mother was a cleaner in Copenhagen where we spent 4 months. The rest of the year I lived with Torben we spent in Gothenburg where I worked as a fulltime model in the prestigious Valand art school. I had wanted to go to art school myself when I left school but no chance of that because I was poor. I tended to say that this was my art school training, being the object in others' art. I felt treated as if I was a cross between an apple or chair and a part-time prostitute. At the time this was often the assumption and John Berger, the Marxist art historian, wrote in "Ways of Seeing" of how women are/were seen as sexual objects in men's art and he compares to portrayal of women in European male art with pornography and advertising. The woman always pleasing, to be bought and consumed by the male bourgeois buyer and viewer.
I was 17 when I left Sweden in 1955 with £20 in my pocket that I had saved from working in the summer on a graveyard, hitch hiking with a girl a year younger than me. We were heading for Paris and then the vineyards in south of France. We were delighted and amazed at the multi-racial cosmopolitan cultures first of Amsterdam and then Paris. Sweden at the time was very provincial and white and conformist and very few immigrants had arrived then. We worked as artists' models in the Paris art schools for a while and then headed south to Beziers in the Languedoc, the land that the Cathars once inhabited. I knew nothing of the terrible history of persecution and mass murder of the Gathers but I could somehow sense a sadness in the people and the land itself. We visited medieval Carcasonne and worked a month picking grapes in the vineyards. Hard work but it earned us enough to travel during a month in Franco's Spain. We visited Barcelona , and saw Gaudi's park there,( we stumbled upon it ) Valencia and traveled to Granada where we stayed a week and spent most of our time high up in the gypsy caves of SacreMonte. We had befriended some gypsy-boys who took us to their families. We saw a large elderly man 'King of the Gypsies' dance to rhythmic handclaps in a dark cave and we swapped Swedish folk songs for Flamenco singing. We loved the Alhambra, magnificent palace of the moors. We also saw the fear in the Spanish people and the poverty in Andalusia, we saw that the catholic church worked hand in glove with the fascist dictator, Franco, and that the only wealthy and well fed looking people were priests, monks, police and the military. While we were in Granada the Suez crisis broke out and the world could have been plunged into another war. We traveled as fast as we could back to France but on the way we managed to stop off in Madrid where I saw Goya's "Black paintings" at the Prado museum. We had nothing, not even a tent, sleeping bags or any such things, and in this situation we found amazing kindness and hospitality from people who were also poor. It revived my belief in the basic goodness of human nature, at least in the common people.
Back in Paris winter was approaching. We lived in a small hotel room with no heating and where water, which was left out, froze to ice. It was in Paris that I first came across real and rabid racism especially against North Africans. The war in Algeria was raging as Algeria, a French colony then, was fighting for its life and independence. We befriended Algerians, Moroccans, African Americans living in exile from "Babylon", and we heard their stories and felt their pain. My friend decided to return to Sweden for Xmas or "Jul" as we say in Sweden, a name kept from Pagan time. I had hoped to go back as well spending Jul with my mother and grandparents but they wouldn't let me. Being proud and stubborn I decided to stay in Paris but managed to get my mother to send me some warm clothes at least. In this situation, lonely and forlorn, I met my husband to be, Stevan Trickey, in a bar/cafe in St.Germain where English-speaking foreigners congregated. I moved in with him in a tiny room on the seventh floor in a block of flats, in the servant's quarters, off Boulevard St Michel. Soon we decided to go hitchhiking in Italy and we spent four months there. On the way, while traveling along the Mediterranean we 'stumbled' upon the gypsy festival, which is held every May at Les Saintes Maries de la Mer in the Camerque. Mv first meeting with a Black Madonna, the gypsies ' Sarah La Kali.'
It was rough traveling in Italy as we again had no money and there were many potentially dangerous situations. I was appalled at the predatory attitudes of Italian men and disappointed because I had grown up on stories of how wonderful Italy was. My parents had spent a year painting in Taormina on Sicily before I was born. My mother spoke Italian and they both loved Italian opera, which I heard a lot of as a child. I worked privately as an artist's model in Rome, a city I disliked. We saw the wealth of the imperial Vatican city and its art treasures such as Michelangelo's Sistine chapel. I was doing small drawings and pastels as we traveled. We went south over Calabria to Sicily where we traveled along the east coast and ended up living a whole month in the home of the communist artist Rudolfo Christina in Pozzallo ,a village or small town on the south coast. I remember being introduced in Catania to the great socialist painter Renato Gutuso. In Paris I had seen the American artist, Sam Francis in his studio working up ladders on huge canvases of "skyscapes" He had been an airpilot.
In Pozzallo we spent much time with our friends in the headquarters of the local communist party. We also took part in a May-day demonstration in a town nearby, singing "The Red Flag" (Bandera Rossa). I saw how the Catholic church oppressed the women who were continuously pregnant, on their knees in the churches and dressed in black as if in perpetual mourning. All the time we traveled in Italy I felt the priests and monks as an evil presence and I feared them.
Our stay in Pozzallo ended abruptly when we discovered that there were plans afoot to kidnap me and set me up in a brothel. We also couldn't believe the hypocrisy of the people there when they all agreed that a man had been justified when he stabbed his wife many times because he had found her with a lover. The same men who condemned her had been bragging to us about their mistresses in nearby villages. Experiences like this contributed to me becoming a feminist in later years.
After many further adventures we ended up in Stockholm where we married in the registrar office because we were planning to go and live in Bristol in England, in the home of Stevan's parents. His mother, a Celt from the Shetland Islands, became my life long friend. Stevan was escaping military service and therefore we didn't officially exist in England, something that got difficult when I got pregnant. We lived a winter in St. Ives where we were able to hire a large studio/home above the Penwith gallery. I was starting to paint then and we were drawn there because of the artist colony centred around Barbara Hepworth and others. I discovered though that there was a tyranny of abstraction and figurative art was unacceptable.
As I got more pregnant we returned to Sweden where our son, Sean, was born in 1959 in a hospital. It was a bad experience as I was put to sleep for no reason at all and felt alienated from my child as a result. We were given emergency housing on the outskirts of Stockholm far away from my mother and brother. Stevan trained as a silversmith and I was left alone all day suffering from post natal depression and unable to cope with my son. During this unhappy period I did some visionary pastels while listening as in a trance to Hebrew sacred music. Many of Stevan's fellow workers were Jewish silversmiths who had lost their families in the concentration camps. My situation was not helped by the fact that we lived in just one room with a non-functional small kitchen, no hot water, no bath and the toilet three flights down.
We returned to Bristol when military service was ended for good and my second son, Toivo, was born there in 1961. This was a natural homebirth, it changed my entire life, initiated me to the Great Mother and it was love at first sight. So, so different from the hospital birth. (See the text to my painting "God giving birth"). I was painting, learning my craft, doing part-time courses, in sculpture, in etching etc. and making jewellery with my husband. It was interesting thinking in terms of form and seeing how different metals behave.
I came across first "The Second Sex" by Simone de Beauvoir, and then Robert Graves "The White Goddess" in the early 60s, and those two books changed my life, especially coming after that homebirth which had already set me questioning what this patriarchal culture is all about as it diminishes, disempowers and desacrilises women. I realised why I was angry!
I also realised that I had to get out of the marriage and change my life. I had an exhibition in a small gallery in Bristol in 1964 and in it I showed my first attempt at a woman centred painting which was also figurative. The other paintings were more abstract studies in black and white, partly inspired by the vision I had at my son's birth of great radiant light alternating with deep luminous blackness. It was as if the Great Mother had shown Herself to me in Her pure cosmic energy form. In the painting, which I called "Birth", I tried to catch that experience of flying amongst the stars at the same time as my body was very physically bleeding and in pain. I was shocked to find that people thought it was obscene, crude ,and that I shouldn't have shown such a painting in public. In Patriarchy men are sacred and women profane.
I decided there and then that I would dedicate my life to creating paintings that speak of women's lives, our history and sacredness. I had never realised until I read Robert Graves book that there had been religions and cultures based in women's values and perceptions and I spent many years after that reading everything I could find about ancient women cultures and the religion of the Great Mother. I was also accepted at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School in 1964 to study theatre design. I was, however, not made for the theatre but it got me away from the home and I learnt about Brecht, the revolutionary dramatist, and studied plays such as Oedipus Rex and the Duchess of Malfi. I was always appalled at the powerlessness of women in most plays we studied and the way they were always used as pawns by the men around them. While studying Oedipus Rex I came across an image of the Theban Sphinx who seemed to speak to me, even haunt my dreams. She is woman, lion, vulture/dragon at the same time and she stems from the Phoenician Bronze age colonies in Greece. She is the Goddess of the Underworld and protector of the dead. I also had revelations seeing images from archaic Greek sculptures and vases of powerful bisexual women of great dignity and beauty. They were giving me messages of another world and time when women were the creators of cultures.
I got to know a group of people who were grassroots poets and artists, some of them gay or bisexual. This was the time when Britain and the USA went through a cultural psychedelic revolution and exploded in colour and music as the Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and later ,Bob Marley, made their appearance. Life changed for the betterr, I left Stevan and lived with a man 19 years old. I was in love for the first time and for a while life felt good.
My mother died suddenly and unexpectedly, 54 years old, from a stroke. I hadn't seen her for 6 years and had been planning to visit her that summer of 1965. Now I traveled over to Sweden for her funeral and finding that I was able to take over the flat I decided to stay. I was joined by my lover and my son Toivo. I lived the next two years in Stockholm and got involved there in the anti- Vietnam war movement, which was partly led by some powerful women, and started to organise the Vietnam exhibitions that raised money for NLF who were fighting the Americans in Vietnam. We had ongoing study groups where I learnt about US Imperialism in the world. My job was also to get artists to donate work to the exhibition and to discuss their political involvement. I was sometimes threatened with violence. I had a small studio and did a lot of paintings during this time and worked as an assistant to the great artist Siri Derkert who was in her 60s then and had been a lifetime socialist feminist. A lot of learning for me on all fronts. I experimented with doing paintings exploring the nude male, which was seen as shocking. In Sweden, home of hardcore pornography, my art was censured! To show an erected male penis was utter taboo. During this time I made some important friendships with radical artists such as the African American Black Power artist Cliff Jackson, the Norwegian gay artist Kjartan Slettemark and many others.
When I had a one woman show in 1967 in Stockholm I found that my comrades in the Vietnam committee disapproved of the fact that I explored my sexuality as a woman in my paintings, only paintings of protest against the war were acceptable to them. I was hurt and disappointed and left soon after to go back to Bristol as my young son missed his older brother and his father. I had been abandoned by my lover and was unhappy.
In the hot summer of 1968 I found myself with my son in New York and up in New York state where I had a job as an arts and crafts counselor in a camp run by Jewish civil rights workers for deprived children from the inner city. There were children there from the ages of 8 to 18, African Americans and Puerto Ricans mixed in with Jewish, Italian, Irish children who came from better off families. A strange and dangerous mixture. Racism was rampant and difficult to tackle, as "black is beautiful" was only just becoming a concept to take seriously. There was warfare! The Black Panthers marched that summer.
I was rescued by New York anarchists who I had contacted and spent time staying with Murray and Bea Bookchin on the tenth floor of a skyscraper near the Bowery. I met many revolutionaries such as Weathermen, street fighting anarchists etc. while staying there. I just missed the very first militant feminist action - in protest against the Miss World competition at Atlantic city, but met some of the women soon after. Women were angered by the fact that in all the so-called revolutionary movements of the 60s women were still expected to make the tea and look after the children. The "Sexual Liberation" of hippiedom was also still on men's terms. I had found in the Vietnam groups in Stockholm that I couldn't even begin to speak of what the natural homebirth in 1961 had meant for me. May 1968 was the near revolution in France led by anarchist Situationists. I was involved with the anarchist movement first in Britain and then in Sweden where I worked with Provie/Provos in Stockholm and in Gothenburg. I was well aware though of the sexism of anarchist men. There were a few exceptions. Over the New Year of 1967 I took part with some Swedish comrades in an international Anarchist conference in Milano and was arrested there together with some Dutch Provos (from "provoke") after a demonstration at Piazza Duomo (cathedral square) and was deported from Italy. When the Maoists who dominated the Vietnam committee discovered that I saw myself as an Anarcha-feminist I was just about expelled. It was in 1968 also that I painted "God giving birth". I had started it before I went to USA and finished it when I came back. In 1969 my father died from cancer and I married Andrew Jubb, a brilliant but alcoholic pianist and composer who was of a Jewish family and grew up in Africa, in Zambia, which he loved passionately. My life got very complicated as I got pregnant by Cliff Jackson my long term but occasional lover, in Stockholm and gave birth to my mixed race son Leify while at the same time I had recently married Andy. He, however, fell totally in love with the child and all was well. A few of us founded Bristol Women's Liberation group that same year and a first women's conference took place in 1970 at Ruskin College. We had originally formed to support women at a Ford factory who went on strike for equal pay, unheard of at the time.
Our one women's group expanded to many over the years and took in many grass roots campaigns and consciousness raising groups. In 1970 I took part with some paintings in an arts council sponsored arts festival in St Ives where "God giving birth" and some other of my paintings were censured and not allowed to be shown anywhere in the town. It caused a scandal and I was traumatised as I was breastfeeding at the time and felt vulnerable. I was shocked also that the artists, like Barbara Hepworth, in St Ives made no protest nor did they give me any support at all. I decided that if I was to exhibit I wanted to do so with a group of women artists so I couldn't be targeted or hunted as a witch on my own. I wrote a letter, which was published in one of the first women's newsletters of the time, asking for women to join me. We had a first collective show in 1971 of ten feminist artists at Woodstock gallery in London. Amongst the artists was Liz Moore who recently had returned from New York where she had been part of a women artists group. We became lifelong friends. Another artist, Anne, Berg, had contacted me from Manchester and together we wrote a "Feminist arts manifesto".
I also produced some newsletters called "Towards a feminist revolutionary art", on a gestetmer and stencils. Our aim now was to have major show of feminist art somewhere in London. I stayed a week in London, supported by my friend John Sharkey (author of "Celtic Mysteries" and former manager of the ICA gallery) and visited galleries, the Arts Council etc. Everywhere I was met with a total lack of understanding of why we wanted a women's only exhibition and it took years, until 1973, before our dream came true. We were then at last offered a show by Peter Carey who managed the great hall/exhibition space at Swiss Cottage Library in Camden Town. In the meanwhile I had had an exhibition of my paintings including "God giving birth", in 1969 I think, at the experimental and hip Arts Lab in Drury Lane before it was shut down. Its director then was the American, Jim Haynes. We called our exhibition "5 women artists - Images of Womanpower" and the five of us were Liz Moore, Anne Berg, Beverly Skinner, myself and (Canadian) Roslyn Smythe. Peter Carey, for reasons of his own, placed the 6 feet tall "God giving birth" where it faced everyone coming into the library. Inevitably scandal broke out as the Pornography squad of Scotland Yard and the Public Prosecutor were called to the library by one of its employees, a fundamentalist Christian. The "Festival of Light" was active at the time. The complaint was that my painting was "obscene and blasphemous". I wasn't taken to court but in the meantime "God giving birth" was reproduced in many newspapers and as a result the exhibition was visited by great crowds of people. It was scary though and I thought that my paintings would be destroyed and the exhibition had to be guarded day and night. What Christians found offensive about my painting wasn't just that "God" is giving birth but also that She is an African woman. Africans and Indian Hindus who saw the exhibition all said that there are images of the Goddess giving birth in their cultures, but they were not known to me at the time. The painting had been inspired by my own experience of natural birth. It was strange that Picasso died on the first day of our show and my beloved Siri Derkert in Sweden on the last day!
I had said for years that I experienced that ancient women were communicating with me and now, during this high state of fear and tension during our "Womanpower" show in London, I had a kind of Zen experience when I "knew" that past, present and future co-exist and that therefore it is entirely possible for ancient women to reach us now from another time/space.
"God giving birth" was reproduced in a Swedish daily paper and as a result I was visited by a Swedish feminist artist, Anna Sjodahl, who invited me to exhibit with her in the grand state funded arts hall in Lund in south of Sweden. After many difficulties and complications, not least to do with money and how to get 30 large paintings on hardboard, to Sweden, the exhibition finally happened. We called it "Women's lives" and it was magnificent. I experienced though that women artists at the time received far less economic and other support than male artists. I could also tell horror stories about traveling with a small child, I had taken my son, Leify, then four years old with me, during the exhibition and being put up by strangers. We were lucky though that 1970-80 was the UN "Decade of women". Our exhibition was given priority because of this and it traveled to Norway and to Finland as well as to several venues in Sweden during a period of two years. In 1975 it was included in a huge exhibition called "Womenfolk" (Kvinn-folk) shown at the house of Culture in Stockholm.
It showed 7 women's exhibitions in one and occupied the whole of the vast fourth floor gallery space. In the meantime I was involved in the Gay women's group in Bristol and some paintings, like the six feet tall "The Lovers'' came out of this period. I also worked with the budding Matriarchy movement that was started in London by women such as Asphodel (Pauline) Long. In 1975 I was invited to give a talk about the Goddess at a WEA class in Birmingham, run by Keith Paton of Alternative Socialism. Since I wasn't sure what I did think I spent a month, very inspired, looking through the vast notes I had accumulated from many years of reading and wrote 30 packed A3 pages. I didn't know at the time what a paragraph was and it came out like a "stream of consciousness". No way could I go through all that material during a short class. I did read a bit and afterwards was asked by several of the women if they could type out the article to be run off on stencils so they could all have a copy to read. They ran off 500 ex. and that was the beginning of "The Great cosmic Mother" book! I took part in, and exhibited my paintings, at a number of National Women Liberation conferences such as at Acton Town Hall in 1972 and took part in the "Sistershow" performed in Bristol. In 1975 there was a Womanspirit conference at Wick court outside of Bristol organised by the Student Christian movement which was radical at the time. I was invited as one of its main speakers although I am not a Christian. I extended the Cosmic Mother pamphlet in time for the conference and gave a talk abut the Goddess as sacred Serpent which shocked many women there, especially the brilliant Mary Condren, who is an Irish Catholic and had been a nun when still a child. She had been the first speaker and we clashed but then became friends.
Years later Mary went to USA, studied under Mary Daly and wrote a scathing criticism of the misogyny of the Catholic Church in a book called "The Serpent and the Goddess".
I stayed in Paris with Maj Skadegaard, a Danish artist and filmmaker and her then lover, Renate Stendhal, a poet and through the lesbian community there I got contact with Jean and Ruth Mountaingrove, publishers of the "Womanspirit" journal in Oregon. I sent the Cosmic Mother pamphlet to them and they were interested. They put me in contact with Barbara Mor, a passionate poet who then lived in Taosin, New Mexico. They wanted her to edit my text but being involved herself in the study of Goddess cultures and having great knowledge, she got inspired and extended the text to twice its length. For the next number of years we sent the MS forth and back across the ocean writing and rewriting the text but never meeting. Barbara lived in great poverty with a number of children, an unsupported mother and was/is politically very radical. There were many similarities between us.
While in Paris I remember being taken by Renate to meet the late Meret Oppenheim in her studio. I was honoured to see her at work. In February 1978 I had a major initiation to the Great Mother when I visited Avebury, Silbury mound and West Kennet long barrow for the first time. I had read Michael Dames' books "Silbury Treasure, the Great Goddess rediscovered" and "Avebury circle" when they first came out a year or so before and as a result I had started doing a large painting. I found, however, that I couldn't continue with it unless I experienced the sacred site for myself. I went there with my then partner, I had left Andy who was drinking himself to death, and we ate a salad in which there were sacred mushrooms. In an altered state I fully experienced the Standing Stones of Avebury and Silbury, the pregnant womb of the Earth. For the first time did I 'know' that Mother Earth is truly alive as I could see Her breathing and undulating. I also felt Her great pain and after this I had to leave the city and live close to Her in Her changes. Until then I had been under the impression that the standing stones were irrelevant to my life and what I had seen of the Earth Mystery movement, and its journal the Ley Hunter seeker, was very male dominated and patriarchal. I saw in my mind's eye men with guns stalking the ley lines! After my own experience, however, I spent many years after 1978 seeking out the sacred Neolithic centres of the ancient Great Mother, pilgrimaging to the sacred land in England, Ireland, Cornwall, Scotland, Brittany, communing with the spirits and connecting with other women such as artists Lynne Wood (Australian), Jill Smith and later Cheryl Straffon, all involved in Earth Mysteries. John Sharkey was also on the same path and a friend.
I finished my painting "The Goddess at Avebury and Silbury", which was eight feet long and I took the painting to that year's "Festival of Mind and Body" in London and together with Bristol based artist, Beverly Skinner, had stalls at the festival which otherwise was totally male dominated.
My experience at Silbury also inspired me to get together a collective exhibition that we called "Woman Magic, celebrating the Goddess within us". We were Marika Tell, a Swedish artist, Beverly Skinner and myself and later we were joined by Anne Berg and Lynne Wood. It traveled to nine venues in the UK and was shown in libraries, theatre foyers etc. and was supported by the Matriarchy study groups. In 1983 we were invited to show in the multimedia "Huset" (the House) in Copenhagen thanks to a contact I had made when a speaker in Denmark at an Anarchist conference, two years earlier. We were sent the money to buy a transit van and we drove the large exhibition, going by ferry but with no official papers ,which would have cost a lot of money to obtain..One was' supposed to have such ''carnes''as there was no EU at the time. From Denmark the exhibition travelled in Germany where it was shown in Braunschweig, then in Cologne and at the Frauenrnuseum (Women's Museum) in Bonn and finally in Dortmund, everywhere it was looked after by women's groups. I spent a lot of time traveling and being with the show and giving slideshow/talks. As a result of my talk in Braunschweig some women translated and Gisela Ottmer published The Great Cosmic Mother book 1985 in German and started a publishing co. called Labyrinth. The book had been published first, in English, by the Norwegian "Rainbow Press" in Trondheim in 1981 after many adventures trying to find a publisher for it. There were many hair-raising moments when we traveled across borders with a van full of paintings, to Germany from Denmark and then from Germany to Sweden, where Woman Magic stayed many months being shown at the Women's centre in Stockholm .It was finally shown in four cities in Finland.
I had lived in Bristol with my sons in a large community squat, Durdham Park Community, during the year 1979-80 but when we were violently evicted from there (thanks to the Darlington Hall Trustees who owned it) I went to live in a cottage in a tiny hamlet not far from St. David's and Fishguard in South West Wales with my partner and mixed race son, Leify. We had many friends and good contacts with the Tipi village in the Black mountains not far away near Llandeilo. I loved the Presseli mountains, the sea and wild costal paths, the dark nights when the Milky way was visible because there was no electric pollution. I pilgrimaged again and again to the many sacred sites such as St Non's well at St David's, Pentre Ifan Cromlech on the slopes of the Presseli's and Nevern church and graveyard with its beautiful celtic cross and Bleeding Yew. All incredibly sacred places that inspired my paintings. I did a lot of work in our damp little cottage the five years we lived there, 1980-85. I got in contact for the first time with the Celtic spirit in the land, and the Celtic ancestral goddesses - such as Rhiannon, Brigid, Cerridwen, came totally alive to me and in my paintings. We sometimes met with a coven. I had many visionary experiences while living there. We followed the Moon in Her changes, grew a garden and loved Mother Earth.
My son, however, was not happy. He experienced racism at school and had a fraught relationship with my partner who was jealous of him at home. Things were not well.
In 1982 I travelled with my Swedish friend Pia Lasker, a Swedish Anacha-feminist, up to Lewis on the Outer Hebrides to be there with friends to witness summer solstice amongst, the magical Callanish stones. This was a first visit to the Western isles and later, when Jill Smith lived up there with her young son Taliesin, I visited a number of times and always returned doing important paintings and having written poems. Pia and I also visited Greenham Common and during the next few years I would sometimes stay at the Greenham women's camps. I took part in the marvelous action when 20,000 women surrounded the US missile base and decorated the fences with spider's webs, baby rompers, photos of their grandmothers etc. A very powerful moment and direct action art. We worked with a Peace group in Fishguard and I was also involved with women for life on Earth. In 1985 Greenham women called women to a Walk across Salisbury Plane military firing ranges/MOD land in May. We, ca. 100 women, met at Silbury mound where we did a ritual and slept on Her belly in the near full moon light that night. For the next 2-3 days we walked the barren and desolate military land continuously threatened with imprisonment as we were followed by police. For some reason the police were always called off at the last minute from arresting us and we felt like an invincible army of sisters, who were somehow magically protected. Starhawk, the American witch, was on the walk and led rituals to centre and empower us. I met Musawa, American publisher of the We'Moon diaries. For me this was a fateful meeting as it turned out. We were heading for Stonehenge which I felt uneasy about but the Greenham women felt that they wanted to liberate the stones from the (razor wire fences put up in preparation for the, by then annual, struggle between police and freaks, who felt that Stonehenge belongs to the people and wanted to celebrate summer solstice amongst the stones. That summer of 1985 was the "Battle of the Beanfield" when the vehicles of "New Age travelers " were violently smashed by police and dreams shattered.
There was a Full Moon lunar eclipse that Beltane/Mayday. We cut our way through the barbed-wire fences and drummed and chanted and then watched the eclipse in silent awe, praying to the lunar Mother. Many more women had joined us then, from London and other places. Later that summer in August I and my son, Leify, then 15 years old, hitchhiked down to the South of France to stay with Musawa and her German lover, Nada. They owned a herb farm near Tarbes not far from Lourdes in the foothills of the Pyrenees. It was beautiful there. In 1985, my paintings were included in the 'Women Artists in Wales" exhibition, which traveled to three cities in North and South Wales.
Two years earlier we had stayed over New Year with a friend who lived in a small town in Catalonia close to the sacred white Montserrat mountain with its Black Madonna who we visited. I experienced the Madonna's miraculous healing powers and explored the mountain with its strange rock pinnacles looking like giant women up there beneath the sky.
This summer of 1985 we visited Lourdes on Maria's ascension day, 15th August, when vast numbers of pilgrims come to ask the Virgin for help and healing. It was amazing to behold, 40,000 pilgrims in the dark, all holding candles and signing Ave Maria. Even my teenage son was enchanted. We drank the holy waters and that night he danced with me, the one and only time, at a peasants' party. Eleven days later my son was dead, run down by a car as he ran across a road. It was August Bank Holiday Monday 26 August and I saw him dying on that road. The only thing that kept me sane was that I saw his face utterly peaceful in death.
My life stopped at that moment and would never be the same. I wanted to die. Soon after my oldest son, Sean, 26 years old, was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma and needed to be treated in Bristol. He had moved to the cottage in Wales to give me support and now I went to Bristol to live with him there as he went through Chemotherapy and Radiotherapy treatments. He died two years later but by then we had had the time to prepare ourselves for his death. We had frequented a spiritualist church, spent time at the Cancer Help Centre, studied near death experiences and psychic phenomena etc. I had experienced traveling with my brain-dead son, Leify, in the hospital in Bayonne into a great light and a loving presence and needed to somehow understand this. We had buried his ashes in a little African drum in the Tipi Village.
My son, Sean, had unfortunately got involved with Rebirthers, New Agers who are mercenary and don't know what they are doing. Sean relapsed while he was seeing them and I can't help feeling that they contributed to him becoming ill again and dying. I read their books after my son's death and was appalled at what I was reading. I felt now that I needed to study and expose the New Age movement that the Rebirthers are a part of. I had been present at very dubious New Age events, all very patriarchal, misogynist, racist and rightwing in their assumptions.
I spent the next five years working on a book which was published by The Women's Press in London in 1992 called "New Age and Armageddon: the Goddess or the gurus". It was extended and republished in USA, in Texas in 1998 and called then "Return of the Dark/Light Mother or New Age Armageddon". "The Great Cosmic Mother" had in the meantime been published, also in the USA in 1987 by Harper S. F. They had wanted the book vastly expanded but at the time we were offered the contract, Sean and I were homeless and barely alive and so it was left to Barbara Mor to do the work, unfortunately, the only paintings I did during this two year period of intense grief and supporting Sean were "Lament for my young son, Why, Oh Why?" and "Rebirth from the Motherpot", where I imagine my young son rising reborn from a. lotus in a Neolithic pot, the Mother's womb. I painted "My sons in the Spiritworld" after returning from Lewis the year of the major Lunar standstill in 1987, when the Lunar Mother danced over the Silver Maiden/Sleeping Beauty Mountain, which is visible from Callanish stones.
I had been visited in lucid dreams by Andy, my husband, who had died in 1981, only 36 years old, his pancreas rotten from alcohol. Leify also appeared and communicated with me in lucid dreams and there-fore I "know" that we live on in another dimension or reality. In the meanwhile, when I wasn't able to travel, our WomanMagic exhibition went to Finland where my friend, Kari Mattila organised it and it was shown in four cities. She then brought all the work to the Women's high school in Gothenburg where it was looked after for the next four years until the Women's Arts Museum/Museum Anna Nordlander in Skelleftea in north of Sweden, brought it up there for a major exhibition of my work in 1994 and bought "God giving birth" for their collection.I have to thank Swedish feminist art historian Barbro Werkmaster for making all this come about and drawing the attention of the museum to my work.
In 1989 I took part with Jill Smith, Philippa Bowers and Joanna Corner in an exhibition that we called "The Goddess Re-emerging" at the Glastonbury assembly rooms. Alice Walker came to this show as did Joan Marler bringing with her the first copy of the Lithuanian Archaeologist, Marija Gimbutas' book /Language of the Goddess". We had a program of events and slideshows during the two weeks, also a women's only discussion about "New Age Patriarchy", as I called it. After that we had a major national conference in Malvern, organised by Maggie Parks and her friends, called "Challenging New Age Patriarchy" and out of all this energy generated was born "From the Flames - a Journal of Politics and Spirit" which was edited by Vron Mclntyre and Maggie Parks. For the next ten years, until its demise, I wrote innumerable articles for the journal and many both political and spiritual issues were discussed. "No spirituality without politics"!
I got involved doing workshop/talks/slideshows, with first the Oak Dragon camps in the summers and then the Rainbow camps. The first time 1 gave a talk at a Rainbow camp, about Goddess art, was during our Glastonbury exhibition in 1989. It was the Autumn/Equinox and there I met Marianna Chapland who asked me if I would be into helping to start a Bristol women's spirituality group with her and Ros Beauhill. So, AMA MAWU was born and has grown and thrived and changed all over the years. We did/do rituals at the Full and sometimes Dark Moons and also direct political action at times, we visited sacred sites such as Avebury and many a time we slept on Silbury in the light of the Full moon. AMA means to breast-feed/mother/grandmother in different languages and MAWU is a great West-African Goddess. We have always been active against racism, the war against Iraq, GM foods and Globalisation. The Spiral (women's only) camps were also born and thrived.
*****
The Story of Monica Sjöö
08 December 2023
A Quote by Monica Sjöö reading: I’m an artist and I’m a woman–what should my painting come from, it should come from my experiences, my honest experiences, well it had to come from my honest woman’s experiences.
Monica Sjöö was an unwavering advocate for freedom from oppression in all its forms. Her works were made to be in this world as agents for change – political and spiritual. In this series, The Story of Monica Sjöö, discover how her personal, political and spiritual life intertwined to influence her artistic and activist practice. Read her biography below.
Monica Sjöö, Our Bodies Ourselves, 1978. Courtesy Monica Sjöö Estate and Alison Jacques, London © Monica Sjöö Estate. Photo: Albin Dahlström / Moderna Museet
1938 – Monica Sjöö is born in Härnösand, the daughter of Gustav Sjöö and Harriet Rosander, both professional artists.
1941 – Sjöö’s parents divorce when she is just three years old.
1946 – At the age of eight, Sjöö moves to Stockholm with her mother. Her mother’s artistic career is not as successful as her father’s. Sjöö’s later approach to art, feminism, and politics is impacted by witnessing her mother’s grief over having to neglect her artistic career because of her dire financial difficulties and her struggles to make time for her work.
1954 – Sjöö reads The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (1884) which comes to influence her immensely.
1956 – At the age of sixteen, Sjöö drops out of school and runs away from home. She stays in Gothenburg for a brief period, where she makes a living as a life model for different art schools, including Valand Academy. She soon leaves Sweden and goes to Paris, where she meets her future husband, the Englishman Stevan Trickey.
1957 – Sjöö moves to Bristol with Trickey.
1958 – The couple spends the first months of the year in St. Ives, Cornwall, where they rent a studio and Sjöö starts painting. In the autumn she becomes pregnant.
1959 – Sjöö and Stevan Trickey leave Bristol and travel to Sweden. The couple are not registered in England since Trickey is evading National Service. They marry and stay in Sweden until 1961, when they return to Bristol. Sjöö gives birth to her first child, Sean, at a Swedish hospital.
Sjöö’s experience of medical intervention during labour has a strong impact on her negative view of hospital childbirth, which she later came to process and question in her work.
1961 – Sjöö and Trickey’s second son, Toivo, is born. This time it is a home birth, as planned. The experience changes her views on childbirth, female empowerment, and spirituality.
Sjöö attends classes in sculpture and etching, she paints, and helps Trickey – who is a silversmith – make jewellery.
1962 – Sjöö attends an art course at the Royal West of England Academy (RWA) in Bristol
1963 – Sjöö continues attending courses at the RWA. She reads Robert Graves’s book The White Goddess (1948).
1964 – Sjöö has her first exhibition in Bristol. The exhibition consists primarily of abstract paintings.
She is accepted into the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School to study theatre design, where she encounters the plays of Bertolt Brecht, ancient Greek dramas such as Oedipus Rex, and the Jacobean tragedy The Duchess of Amalfi.
1965 – Sjöö’s mother Harriet Rosander dies in September. Sjöö travels from Bristol to Stockholm with her son Toivo and decides to stay. During this time, Sjöö becomes involved in the anti-Vietnam War movement, organising exhibitions aimed at educating and spreading the word on American imperialism. She also helps raise funds for the National Liberation Front (NLF), among others.
Sjöö reads Alarm Clock (1941) by Elin Wägner, a writer, feminist, and forerunner of the so-called ‘green wave’ movement of the 1960s (which saw Swedes moving back to a more rural life) and the feminist ecological activism of the 1970s.
In the autumn, Sjöö meets the Swedish artist Siri Derkert.
1966 – Sjöö works briefly as an assistant set designer at Pistolteatern in Stockholm.
After several visits to Siri Derkert’s studio on Lidingö, Sjöö starts working as her assistant. Sjöö admires Derkert’s artistic practice and political activism, particularly when it comes to issues of equality and women’s rights. They stay in touch even after their professional relationship ends, exchanging letters up until Derkert’s death in 1973.
She continues to be active in the protest movement against America’s invasion of Vietnam.
Monica Sjöö protesting the Vietnam War, Stockholm, 1966. Photographs from Monica Sjöö’s personal archive, Courtesy Monica Sjöö Estate © Monica Sjöö Estate
Sjöö travels to Italy with the anarchists Bengt Ericsson, Ingvar Salomonsson, and Lennart Karlsson to participate in an anarchist conference, but they are arrested and deported by the Italian police.
1967 – Sjöö has her first solo exhibition at Galleri Karlsson in Stockholm. Her paintings depict naked men, deliberately challenging the dominant male ideal within what Sjöö considers androcentric art history. The motifs are considered improper and had already the year before been retouched in an article for the Swedish magazine Se.
Later that year, Sjöö leaves Stockholm and returns to Bristol.
1968 – Sjöö paints one of her best-known works, God Giving Birth. The painting is inspired by her experience of giving birth to her second child at home.
Monica Sjöö Good Giving Birth, 1968 Museum Anna Nordlander © The Estate of Monica Sjöö Foto/Photo: Krister Hägglund
In England she gets to know several members of the radical group King Mob. Formed in the 1960s by the brothers David and Stuart Wise, the King Mob members called themselves ‘the gangsters of the new freedom’. They combined sharp politics with Dadaism’s disruptive potential in their confrontational happenings.
1969 – Sjöö’s father Gustav dies of cancer. She marries the pianist and composer Andrew Jubb.
Sjöö has a solo exhibition at Arts Lab in Drury Lane, London, where God Giving Birth is shown.
She paints Past and Present while living on Princess Victoria Street in Bristol. Sjöö joins several other women to form Bristol Women’s Liberation Group.
Monica Sjöö, Past and Present, 1969. © The Estate of Monica Sjöö. Photo: Albin Dahlström/Moderna Museet
1970 – Gives birth to her third son, Leif.
Participates in the first National Women’s Liberation Conference in the UK at Ruskin College in Oxford. Sjöö tries to exhibit six of her paintings in conjunction with the St. Ives Festival, but the works are hastily removed by council officials.
She is invited to give a lecture on abortion rights at a conference in Liverpool. Shortly thereafter she founds the Women’s Abortion and Contraceptive Campaign (WACC) in Bristol.
Monica Sjöö in her studio in Stockholm, 1966 Photographs from Monica Sjöö’s private archive © The Estate of Monica Sjöö
1970 – In March the first Women’s Liberation Art Group exhibition is presented at the Woodstock Gallery in London.
Sjöö and the artist Anne Berg write the Images on Womenpower – Arts Manifest. It raises questions about abstract art and how it is embedded in Western male privilege.
Paints Aspects of The Great Mother and Cosmos within Her Womb, inspired by a Neolithic grave from circa 10,000 years ago. Sjöö portrays the woman as the archetypal mother and a direct link to the origin of life.
Meets the American artist Carolee Schneemann. They keep in touch over subsequent years.
1972 – Sjöö writes the manifesto Towards a Revolutionary Feminist Art, which is rooted in a feminist critique of the Western, male-dominated art world and the lack of women in art history. The manifesto can be seen as a call to women to organise themselves.
She participates in the National Women’s Liberation Conference at Acton Town Hall in London.
1973 – The exhibition Images of Womanpower opens at the Swiss Cottage Library in Camden Town, London. The participating artists are Anne Berg, Liz Moore, Monica Sjöö, Beverly Skinner, and Roslyn Smythe.
The exhibition provokes strong reactions, and a complaint is filed against Sjöö’s painting God Giving Birth. She is consequently charged with blasphemy and pornography, but the charges are eventually dropped.
1974 – Sjöö publishes the pamphlet Some Notes on Feminist Art – Women’s Art, Women Culture Reborn. She presents some works in the exhibition Kvinnoliv [Women’s Lives] at Lunds Konsthall following an invitation from the Swedish artist Anna Sjödahl, who Sjöö met at the Swiss Cottage Library exhibition.
1975 – Sjöö publishes the pamphlet The Ancient Religion of The Great Cosmic Mother of All, which is the first draft of the book that she would later publish with Barbara Mor in 1981.
Monica Sjöö at the exhibition Kvinnoliv [Womenfolk], Kulturhuset, Stockholm, 1975. Photograph from Monica Sjöö’s personal archive, Courtesy Monica Sjöö Estate © Monica Sjöö Estate
1976 – Sjöö contacts the quarterly magazine WomanSpirit and starts corresponding with writer and poet Barbara Mor. She publishes the article The Witches Are Returning in Peace News.
1977 – The pamphlet The Ancient Religion of The Great Cosmic Mother of All is translated into Norwegian and published as a book (Den Store Kosmiske Mor).
Jane Jackson produces the short documentary Portrait (Monica Sjöö) about the artist and her practice. The documentary is shown at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), London, and the London Film Festival.
1978 – Sjöö visits the Neolithic monument Silbury Hill in Avebury and has a profound spiritual experience there. After her visit she paints The Goddess at Avebury and Silbury. She also visits the Stone Age monuments at Newgrange in Ireland for the first time.
Monica Sjöö, The Goddess at Avebury and Silbury, 1978 Museum Anna Nordlander © The Estate of Monica Sjöö. Photo: Albin Dahlström/Moderna Museet
1980 – Sjöö and Anne Berg give a lecture at the first International Festival of Women Artists in Copenhagen.
1981 – Publishes the book The Ancient Religion of the Great Cosmic Mother of All with American writer and feminist Barbara Mor.
Participates in a protest march to the airfield RAF Brawdy organised by Welsh Anti-Nuclear Alliance (WANA). To protest the proposed placement of cruise missiles in the area, a group of women stage a march.
The Greenham Common protests start on 27 August 1981, when the Women for Life on Earth group embarks on a ten-day march from Cardiff to to Greenham Common air base in Berkshire, a distance of almost 200 kilometres. They set up what has come to be known as the Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp.
1982 – The Women for Life on Earth march takes place on 4 June and involves the participation of over five hundred demonstrators walking from Fishguard to U.S. Brawdy’s submarine tracking station. Sjöö is one of the organisers, along with Ann Pettitt.
Sjöö travels to Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp to participate in the protest Embrace the Base. She returns several times in the following two years.
1984 – Sjöö creates several new collages and paints The Earth is Our Mother and The Goddess in Her Manifestations at Greenham Common, among other works.
She completes the manuscript for Spiral Journey, a compilation of texts on her travels to sacred sites of the Celtic Britons.
1985 – Sjöö’s paintings are included in the exhibition Women Artists in Wales, which tours across Wales.
In August, Sjöö goes on holiday to the Pyrénées with her youngest son, Leif. While there, he is hit by a car. Thirty hours later Leif dies of his injuries, aged fifteen. The sudden death of her son has a profound effect on Sjöö, and she enters a state of mourning.
Shortly thereafter another tragedy occurs: her eldest son, Sean, is diagnosed with lymphoma.
1986 – Sjöö paints Lament for My Young Son, the first of a series of paintings dedicated to her son after his tragic death.
1987 – Publishes a further book with Barbara Mor, The Great Cosmic Mother: Rediscovering the Religion of the Earth, which becomes one of Sjöö’s best-known works.
Her son Sean dies of lymphoma.
1989 – Participates in the exhibition The Goddess Re-emerging at the Glastonbury Assembly Rooms along with the artists Jill Smith, Philippa Bowers, and Joanna Corner.
She reads Marija Gimbutas’s book Language of the Goddess, which influences her profoundly. Sjöö makes the acquaintance of poet, writer, and activist Alice Walker, and they become friends shortly thereafter.
1990 – Travels to the US again and exhibits at Gaia bookstore in Berkeley.
1993 – Sjöö completes several important paintings including Meeting the Ancestors at Avebury.
She and other women in the Ama Mawu group (which she co-founded) interrupt a service at Bristol Cathedral. Participates in the group exhibitions Women Made at Cooper’s Gallery in Bristol and Women Remember Women in Conflict in Liverpool.
Monica Sjöö, No title (Ama Mawu), 1993. Courtesy of The Estate of Monica Sjöö. © The Estate of Monica Sjöö.
1994 – The archaeologist and author of The Living Goddesses, Marija Gimbutas, dies. Sjöö paints Rites of Passage and dedicates it to Gimbutas. Sjöö visits the first international goddess festival in California.
Museum Anna Nordlander in Skellefteå organises a solo exhibition with some thirty of Sjöö’s works, including God Giving Birth and Cosmos within Her Womb. In connection with the exhibition, the museum acquires several of her paintings.
1996. Sjöö visits the Newbury Bypass protest in Berkshire, where eco-activists are ‘tree-sitting’ to halt the clearing of ancient woodland for a new motorway.
She creates several new works, including Mother Earth in Pain, Her Trees Cut Down, Her Sea Polluted.
The first goddess conference takes place in Glastonbury Goddess Temple. Several of Sjöö’s paintings are installed on the walls of the Assembly Rooms.
1997 – Sjöö participates in the Sharjah Third International Biennial, United Arab Emirates.
She is diagnosed with breast cancer.
1998 – Sjöö participates in the group show Hjärtat sitter till vänster – svensk konst [The Heart is on the Left: Swedish Art 1964–1974] at Gothenburg Museum of Art.
1999 – Writes her final book, The Norse Goddess, published the following year.
2001- Exhibits a selection of her paintings at the Create Centre Gallery in Bristol.
Monica Sjöö, Ancient Mothers Weaving the World, The Norns, 2003 © The Estate of Monica Sjöö. Photo: Albin Dahlström/Moderna Museet
After several years of correspondence, Sjöö finally meets the American artist Judy Chicago in Cambridge.
2002 – Travels to Russia to participate in the group exhibition Windows to Other Worlds at Saint Petersburg State University.
Makes her last trip to the US to attend the Goddess Festival in La Honda, California.
2003 – Sjöö is diagnosed with secondary bone cancer and her right arm is operated on shortly thereafter.
2004 – Sjöö’s retrospective Through Time and Space: The Ancient Sisterhoods Spoke to Me opens at Hotbath Gallery in Bath. Alice Walker writes the foreword of the exhibition catalogue.
2005 – Monica Sjöö dies in Bristol on 8 August.
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Links:
https://www.monicasjoo.net/
https://www.monicasjoo.net/art-gallery
https://www.monicasjoocuratorial.com/
https://www.modernartoxford.org.uk/whats-on/monica-sjoo
https://www.modernartoxford.org.uk/whats-on/monica-sjoo
Books:
The Great Cosmic Mother: Rediscovering The Religion Of The Earth by Monica Sjoo (7-Nov-1991)
Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/Great-Cosmic-Mother-Rediscovering-7-Nov-1991/dp/B012HTM9GE/ref=sr_1_6?crid=268YNJGHSZGEF&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.2ZOILUWG8BNAFvjkgGvi3cd4bQG1pt6IhKaAmrziUhSmfgcPSva-4Wqal8swQ4F6PwJl4V1jmuvDTktJoW_uMYqVMsSSma_0BP9HfJdMeGD8rOMdiaRJL1pSc_0oQ-LhRQbYyiSWh6tMC1fPqFboRinZ3hNvR7XxLhu06H8LqZIXCuZKTTjcS6b44oxxsat5ulip9esPKYQ_36oIZlhfXL8Y5O5ojXcTh2Dt15XwcE8.XKLlS-lb2OfTTCd1Lnxh3UQqhbs9PyI9QWtR01VfaqQ&dib_tag=se&keywords=monica+sjoo&qid=1709415131&sprefix=monica+sjoo%2Caps%2C331&sr=8-6
New Age and Armageddon: The Goddess or the Gurus? Towards a Feminist Vision of the Future
https://www.amazon.com/New-Age-Armageddon-Goddess-Feminist/dp/0704342634/ref=sr_1_5?crid=268YNJGHSZGEF&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.2ZOILUWG8BNAFvjkgGvi3cd4bQG1pt6IhKaAmrziUhSmfgcPSva-4Wqal8swQ4F6PwJl4V1jmuvDTktJoW_uMYqVMsSSma_0BP9HfJdMeGD8rOMdiaRJL1pSc_0oQ-LhRQbYyiSWh6tMC1fPqFboRinZ3hNvR7XxLhu06H8LqZIXCuZKTTjcS6b44oxxsat5ulip9esPKYQ_36oIZlhfXL8Y5O5ojXcTh2Dt15XwcE8.XKLlS-lb2OfTTCd1Lnxh3UQqhbs9PyI9QWtR01VfaqQ&dib_tag=se&keywords=monica+sjoo&qid=1709415257&sprefix=monica+sjoo%2Caps%2C331&sr=8-5
****
Her natal Lilith is 7 Pisces, N.Node 25 Sagittarius, S.Node 7 Gemini
Her natal Ceres is 13 Taurus, N.Node 10 Gemini, S.Node 25 Sagittarius
Her natal Amazon is 9 Pisces, N.Node 5 Taurus, S.Node 2 Sagittarius
Please feel free to comment or ask questions.
Goddess Bless, Rad
HI All,
Here is the story of Kaja Kallas. This is a noon chart.
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Kaja Kallas
Wikipedia
Kaja Kallas (Estonian: [ˈkɑjɑ ˈkɑlːɑs]; born 18 June 1977) is an Estonian politician who has been prime minister of Estonia since 2021, and is the first woman to serve in the role. The leader of the Reform Party since 2018, she was a member of parliament (Riigikogu) in 2011–2014, and 2019–2021. Kallas was a member of the European Parliament in 2014–2018, representing the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe. Before her election to Riigikogu, she was a lawyer specialising in European competition law.
Early life and education
Kaja Kallas was born in Tallinn on 18 June 1977. Her father Siim Kallas is a former prime minister of Estonia (served 2002–2003), and a former European Commissioner (2004–2014).
During World War II, after the Soviet Union had invaded and occupied Estonia in 1940, as part of the wave of executions and deportations from Estonia that followed, her mother Kristi, six months old at the time, was deported by the Stalinist regime to Siberia with her mother and grandmother in a cattle car and lived there until she was ten years old. Kallas's great-grandfather was Eduard Alver (1886–1939), one of the politicians leading the establishment of the independent Republic of Estonia in 1918, and also first head of the Estonian Police in 1918–1919. Apart from Estonian, Kallas patrilineally also has distant Latvian and Baltic German ancestry, as discovered by investigative journalists researching her father's ancestry shortly after his premiership.
Kallas graduated from the University of Tartu in 1999 with a bachelor's degree in law. She lived in France and Finland briefly while training in European law. From 2007, she attended the Estonian Business School, earning an Executive Master of Business Administration (EMBA) in 2010.
Professional career
Kallas became a member of the Estonian Bar Association in 1999, and an attorney-at-law in 2002. She became a partner in law firm Luiga Mody Hääl Borenius and Tark & Co, and worked as an executive coach in the Estonian Business School. She is also a member of the European Antitrust Alliance. In 2011, she was placed on inactive status as a member of the Estonian Bar Association. In November 2018, Kallas published her memoir MEP: 4 aastat Euroopa Parlamendis (MEP: Four Years in the European Parliament), in which she described her life and work in Brussels from 2014 to 2018.
Political career
Member of the Estonian Parliament (2011–2014)
In 2010, Kallas joined the Estonian Reform Party. In the 2011 parliamentary elections she won a seat in the Riigikogu (for the Harju County and Rapla County constituency) receiving 7,157 votes. She was a member of the 12th Parliament of Estonia and chaired the Economic Affairs Committee from 2011 to 2014.
Member of the European Parliament (2014–2018)
In the 2014 European Parliament election in Estonia, Kallas received 21,498 votes. In the European Parliament, Kallas served on the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy and was a substitute for the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection. She was a vice-chair of the Delegation to the EU–Ukraine Parliamentary Cooperation Committee as well as a member of the Delegation to the Euronest Parliamentary Assembly and Delegation for relations with the United States. In addition to her committee assignments, Kallas was a member of the European Parliament (MEP) Intergroup on the Digital Agenda, and was also a vice-chair of the Youth Intergroup.
During her period in Parliament, Kallas worked on the Digital Single Market strategy, energy, and consumer policies, and relations with Ukraine. In particular, she defended the rights of small and medium-sized enterprises, maintaining that borders in the digital world hinder the emergence of innovative companies. She is a proponent of innovation and frequently emphasises that regulations cannot and must not hinder the technological revolution.
Kallas served as rapporteur for six reports: opinion on the ePrivacy Regulation, civil law rules on robotics, on the Annual report on EU Competition Policy, and on Delivering a New Deal for Energy Consumers, legislation on Custom infringements and sanctions, and the own-initiative report on the Digital Single Market. During her time in Parliament, she was also nominated as a European Young Leader (EYL40). At the end of her term, she was cited by Politico as one of the 40 most influential MEPs, and one of the most powerful women in Brussels, who was highlighted for her understanding of technological issues.
Return to national politics (2017–2020)
On 13 December 2017, the Reform Party leader Hanno Pevkur announced that he would no longer run for the party leadership in January 2018, and suggested that Kallas should run instead. After considering the offer, Kallas announced on 15 December 2017 that she would accept the invitation to run in the leadership election. Kallas won the leadership election held on 14 April 2018 and became the first female leader of a major political party in Estonia.
In the 2019 Estonian parliamentary election on 3 March, the Reform Party led by Kallas received about 29% of the vote, with the ruling Estonian Centre Party taking 23%. The Centre Party managed to form Jüri Ratas' second cabinet with the conservative Isamaa party and the far-right EKRE, leaving the Reform Party out of power. On 14 November 2020, Kallas was re-elected as leader of the Reform Party at a Reform Party Assembly.
Prime Minister of Estonia (2021–present)
On 25 January 2021, after the resignation of Jüri Ratas as prime minister following a scandal, Kallas's first cabinet, a Reform-led coalition government with the Centre Party, was formed. In doing so, she became the first female prime minister in Estonia's history.
During the latter half of 2021, the 2021–2023 global energy crisis disrupted the Estonian economy; businesses were forced to temporarily shut down, while the public requested government aid to pay for the high electricity and heating prices. Kallas initially resisted calls for government aid, suggesting that the government should search for long-term solutions rather than handing out government benefits, and that a free market should not require consistent government intervention to keep people afloat. The energy crisis nearly caused the collapse of the coalition government. Kallas observed in a speech that the high cost of natural gas coupled with the Russia-Ukraine crisis was driving the increase in energy prices, and that the green energy measures Estonia adopted limited what the government could do to handle the crisis. In January 2022, Kallas announced a 245 million euro plan to reduce the cost of energy from September 2021 to March 2022. The energy crisis impacted her popularity in Estonia.
During the 2021–2022 Russo-Ukrainian crisis, Kallas said that the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline was "a geopolitical project not an economic one" and urged that the pipeline be terminated. She also stated that Europe's dependence on Russian natural gas was a significant political problem. In January 2022, Kallas committed Estonia to donating howitzers to Ukraine to assist in its defence against a possible Russian invasion, pending German approval as the howitzers were originally purchased from Germany. When Germany delayed in giving an answer, Estonia sent American-made Javelin anti-tank missiles instead in the first weeks of February 2022. Following Russia's recognition of the Donetsk and Luhansk people's republics, Kallas demanded that the European Union introduce sanctions on Russia. Kallas was praised domestically for her leadership during the Russia-Ukraine crisis. Subsequently, her approval rating soared, making her Estonia's most popular politician.
After the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine started on 24 February, Estonia along with other allies triggered Article 4 of NATO. Kallas pledged to support Ukraine with political and materiel support. By April 2022, 0.8% of Estonia's GDP per capita in military equipment had been handed over to Ukraine. Kallas has been praised both in Estonia and internationally as a leading pro-Ukrainian voice in the war, with the New Statesman calling her "Europe's New Iron Lady". She also strongly supported the admission of Ukraine to the European Union, saying that there was "a moral duty" to do so. In April 2022, she warned against "peace at any price" with Russia.
After her resignation on 14 July 2022, Kallas' second cabinet was sworn in on 18 July. The new government was a three-party coalition by the Reform Party, Social Democratic Party, and Isamaa. Her previous government had lost its parliamentary majority after the Centre Party left the coalition. As prime minister, Kallas attracted international attention as a leader in efforts to support Ukraine during the Russian invasion, delivering more military equipment to Ukraine as a proportion of GDP per capita than any other country in the world. In September 2022, in the context of a plan by three other bordering nations to restrict Russian tourists, she said: "Travel to the European Union is a privilege, not a human right." She added that it was "unacceptable that citizens of the aggressor state are able to freely travel in the EU, whilst at the same time people in Ukraine are being tortured and murdered." In February 2023, Kallas was mentioned as a possible candidate to replace NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg following his expected retirement that same year. She rejected any peace agreement that would cede part of Ukrainian territory to Russia.
In March 2023, Kallas led the Reform Party to a decisive victory in the 2023 parliamentary election, increasing the party's seat count in the Riigikogu by three seats. Following the election result, Kallas negotiated a coalition government with Estonia 200 and the Social Democratic Party, and her third cabinet was sworn in on 17 April. In June 2023, the government passed a bill legalising same-sex marriage and adoption in Estonia. The bill will come into effect on 1 January 2024, making Estonia the first Baltic state and country formerly occupied by the Soviet Union to legalise same-sex marriage and adoption.
She is frequently named as a potential candidate to succeed Jens Stoltenberg as Secretary General of NATO, a role she has expressed interest in.
Kallas condemned Hamas' actions during the 2023 Israel–Hamas war and expressed her support to Israel and its right to self-defence, but added that Israel "must do so in a way that spares innocent lives and adheres to the norms of international law." She said the conflict in the Middle East "is useful to those seeking to distract the free world from its support for Ukraine."
Stark Logistics and Metaprint scandal
In August 2023, the media reported that Kallas's husband, Arvo Hallik, had a 24.9% share in the transportation company Stark Logistics, which had continued to operate in Russia following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, despite Kallas having previously called for Estonian companies to cease operations in Russia. The company had generated approximately €1.5 million in revenue from its business in Russia since the beginning of the invasion.
Kallas later admitted to her husband's share in the company, but denied wrongdoing on the part of herself or her husband and stated that the company's business in Russia was to assist an Estonian client, identified by the Estonian media as the company Metaprint, end its production in Russia, adding that "not a single euro, dollar or ruble" was spent in Russia as part of the activity. Stark Logistics seconded Kallas's claim that the company's dealings in Russia were to assist an Estonian client end their production in the country, and that their work did not contribute to the Russian economy in any way nor did it violate Estonian law, as Kallas's government had prohibited only state-owned companies from working with Russia. The Estonian media has separately reported that Metaprint sold €17 million worth of goods to Russia between the start of the invasion in February 2022 and November 2022. Hallik's business partner Martti Lemendik later admitted in the Estonian media that the company had sold over $32 million in goods on the Russian market between February 2022 and August 2023. The company also collaborated with sanctioned individuals, such as Sergei Kolesnikov. Hallik later stated that he would sell his shares in Stark Logistics.
Tanel Kiik of the opposition Centre Party noted that "the scandal has severely damaged the reputation of the Estonian state", while President of Estonia Alar Karis stated his worry for seeing "the credibility of the Estonian state called into question, in its relations with its allies" and fears that it "creates a precedent for the future and affects the reputation of Estonian democracy". Two opinion polls conducted by Norstat and Turu-uuringute AS showed that 57% and 69% of respondents, respectively, thought Kallas should resign due to the scandal. Kallas continued to refuse to resign in September 2023, calling the controversy a "witch-hunt" by political opponents.
Personal life
In 2002–2006, Kallas was married to Roomet Leiger. She lived together with former Estonian politician and businessman Taavi Veskimägi (the country's minister of finance in 2003–2005). Kallas and Veskimägi have one son; they separated in 2014. In 2018, she married Arvo Hallik, a banker and investor. Hallik has two children from a previous relationship.
Apart from her native Estonian, Kallas is fluent in English, Russian and French.
Awards and honours
European Prize for Political Culture by Hans Ringier Foundation (2022)[90]
Grand Cross of the Order of the Star of Romania (2021)[91]
Member 2nd Class of the Order of Prince Yaroslav the Wise (Ukraine, 24 April 2023)
Other activities
Since 2020, Kallas has been a member of the Board of Trustees of the Friends of Europe. Additionally, she is a member of the European Council on Foreign Relations, an advisory board member of the Women Economic Forum, and a patron of the Model European Union Tallinn.[96][non-primary source needed] She is also a mentor of the European Liberal Youth, a member of the European Young Leaders, a MEP ambassor of Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs, a member of the MEP Library Lovers Group, a political member of the European Internet Forum, a member of the extended board of the European Forum for Renewable Energy Sources, a member of the Global Young Leaders, a member of the Women Political Leaders, and a MEP ambassador of the European Entrepreneurship Education Network.
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‘Putin’s Appetite Will Only Grow.’ Estonia’s Prime Minister Says We’re Not Doing Enough to Stop Russia
By Lisa Abend/Tallinn, Estonia
March 31, 2022 3:12 PM EDT
Kaja Kallas has clear memories of the Soviet occupation. She was a teenager when Estonia became independent, and she remembers growing up before that with empty shop shelves, a passport that would not allow her to travel to countries outside the Eastern bloc, and a chilling atmosphere that kept people from speaking freely outside their homes. She also remembers the stories about the harsher deprivations—deportations, imprisonment— that her parents and grandparents faced. So now that Kallas is Estonia’s Prime Minister, it makes sense that she has become one of the most vocal advocates for taking an unyielding stance against Putin.
“If Putin wins, or if he even has the view that he has won this war, his appetite will only grow,” Kallas, 44, said in late March, sitting in the elegant neoclassical building—its salons lined with paintings of Estonian patriots—that serves as the seat of government. “And that means he will consider other countries. That’s why we have to do everything we can to stop him now.”
Like other countries in the region, Estonia has had painful experiences with Russian oppression. Occupied by the Soviet Union in the 1940s, the country’s farms were forcibly collectivized and tens of thousands of its citizens deported to Siberia. It was not until 1991, when the USSR was collapsing, that the country regained its independence. Quickly reverting to democracy, Estonia joined the European Union in 2004, and put a forward-looking emphasis on digitalization—all of its public services and much of its business is conducted online. It has since become one of the fastest-growing economies in Europe. But it has never relinquished its mistrust of its powerful neighbor to the east, with whom it shares nearly 200 miles of border.
Read More: ‘Everybody’s Waiting for Putin to Die.’ A Russian Businessman on the Hopes for His Homeland
Although allies like Poland and Hungary were once in the Soviet sphere of influence, the Baltic states are the only NATO members that were formally incorporated into the USSR. Coupled with their tiny size and close proximity to Russia, that history has made some in the region feel especially vulnerable–a sense that was heightened in 2007, when, in the midst of a disagreement with Russia about the relocation of a Soviet-era monument, Estonia’s parliament, banks, and other major institutions were the victim of a massive cyberattack whose sophistication suggested to some experts that it was state-sponsored. NATO responded by creating a cyber-defense center in the Estonian capital of Tallinn.
The vulnerability also helps explain why the region identifies so closely with its defensive alliance. “I’m asked many times if Estonia or the Baltics are next,” the Prime Minister says. “But I always say that’s the wrong question. The right question is: is NATO next? And what I’ve tried to explain within NATO is that it is much cheaper to defend us in the first place than liberate us after we’re attacked.”
Although she hesitates to point fingers, Kallas admits that among the leaders of formerly occupied countries, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has triggered a certain sense of ‘we told you so.’ Her father was foreign minister when Estonia began negotiations to join NATO, and she recalls that at a time when the Soviet Union had just collapsed, the petition raised a lot of questions. “He was frequently asked, ‘Why do you need this? Russia does not pose a threat anymore,’” Kallas recalls. “Well, we knew our neighbor then, and we know our neighbor now.”
Since the Russian invasion, Kallas says Western allies have come closer to the Estonian point of view. “Before there were many who were watching this through the lens of democratic world, ” she says. “But what I was saying then, and what I think is clear now, is that [Putin] is a dictator. He doesn’t care for people’s opinion. He doesn’t care that he’s hurting his own country.”
Guided by that perspective on the Russian president, Kallas has argued from the war’s beginning for NATO to evolve from being what she calls a “forward presence” in the region to “forward defense,” with more boots on the ground and more fighter jets and ships actively patrolling Europe’s skies and seas. Her thinking is based less on any specific threat to Estonia—Kallas says there has not been any increase in Russian aggression toward the country—than on a deeply held belief, again informed by history, that it is only a robust defense on the alliance’s eastern edge that will contain Putin. “It’s easy to break one finger,” says Kallas. “But it’s hard to break a fist. A fist is much stronger in a fight.”
It was Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014 that prompted NATO to deploy combat troops to the Baltics for the first time in 2017. Overseen by Canada, Germany, and the U.K., respectively, this “enhanced forward presence” in Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia consisted of roughly 1,000 troops each. Since the Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine, that number has grown (there are currently 1,700 NATO troops in Estonia) and the alliance’s “forward defense” strengthened with U.S. fighter jets. At its emergency summit in Brussels on March 24, NATO decided to reinforce its eastern border even more, announcing that, among other measures, it would be deploying four battle groups to Eastern Europe.
But if Kallas is gratified by collective increases, she isn’t easing up on the resources Estonia is devoting to its self defense. On March 24, the country increased its defense budget to 2.5% of GDP (from an already relatively high 2.3%), and she would like to see other countries go further not only in their own defense budgets, but in their aid to Ukraine as well. “We are a country of 1.3 million people,” she says, noting that Estonia has donated 2,000 tons of military and humanitarian aid since the war’s outbreak. “Believe me, the big countries could do more to help Ukraine.”
And although she was pleased with both the strength and the speed with which Europe applied economic sanctions on Russia, she’d like to see more there too. That means petroleum. “If half of Russia’s budget comes from the sale of gas and oil, then this is how Putin funds his war machine. We have to take those means away.”
Precisely because it did not want to depend on Russia for energy security, Estonia has drastically cut its imports of oil and gas in the last decade, relying instead on a mix of renewables and its own decidedly ungreen mining of shale oil. But Kallas recognizes that other countries may not be able to pull the plug on Russian petroleum so easily. As a result, she has come up with a novel proposal: to create an escrow account into which European payments for Russian gas and oil will be fed, and which can then be used to rebuild Ukraine.
“So we pay, and it is Russia’s money, but we will keep some of it in that escrow account so that when the time comes, we can give it to Ukraine, because Russia is in debt to them,” she says. “This way, Putin will get the idea that every building he bombs, every road that is destroyed or bridge that is damaged, he will pay for.”
Kallas is not too concerned that such a plan would provoke Putin into cutting off the pipeline.”We’re 30 days in to the war; if he was going to do that, he would have already done it,” she says—and she also rejects some of her colleagues’ claim that she is getting ahead of herself. “Some of the prime ministers said we are already talking about reparations while the war is going on,” she says. “That is true. But I think we have to think two steps ahead. And the signal this would give Russia is: We are not paying for this. You will pay for this because you have caused the damage.”
That devastation not only convinces her that everything must be done to help Ukraine now, but also reminds her of her own country’s past. “Every family in Estonia has a history of how they suffered during the Soviet times, due to the deportations, to the killings, to the shelling of towns. So when you see that in 2022 in Mariupol they’re deporting people from their homes,” she says, “it just brings all the very painful memories back of something that you thought would never again be possible.”
In Kallas’s case that includes the story of her own family, which was deported to Siberia in a freezing 3-week journey by cattle car. Her mother was just 6 months old at the time, and Kallas’ voice fills with emotion as she recounts the hardships her grandmother and great-grandmother faced when Russian soldiers appeared at their door and told them they had to leave immediately. “What do you take?” Kallas says, as if reliving the moment. “What is really important?” Unaware of where they were being sent, her grandmother asked one of the soldiers what they should bring. Looking around the room, the soldier pointed to the Singer sewing machine her grandmother kept in the corner. “It saved them,” Kallas says now. “Because they had something they could earn a living with.”
For better or worse, Estonia’s younger generation doesn’t carry that same kind of emotional baggage. “In these last 30 years, we’ve become this boring Northern European country where freedom is taken for granted, and our young people don’t live in fear,” Kallas says with a small smile. “That’s great, and it means we’ve done something right. But I’ve always thought that I’m of the lucky generation that was born in a country that wasn’t free, because it’s made me really grateful that we are free now.”
Still, as a tiny country with a vivid memory of the violence committed against it, she believes Estonians, who have already welcomed 25,000 refugees, have a clear-eyed view of what Ukraine is suffering. “If you go around to certain European countries you see these monuments to big war heroes—but they’re heroes who conquered other countries. Whereas for us, war is something that could never be positive. War means utter devastation.”
When she has the chance, she tries to impart that historical lesson to younger Estonians. Visiting a classroom, she’ll ask the children to draw the nicest day they can imagine, a request that is usually met with colorful pictures of sunshine, flowers, family members, beloved pets. When she asks them what it would look like if a war came, most of the children respond by taking black markers and scribbling violently across the page. “After that, you say, ‘OK, now turn the war into peace again,’” Kallas says. “They see that it’s impossible, because they’ve destroyed the previous picture. So now they understand: This is what war really means.”
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Russia puts leader of NATO member Estonia on wanted list over removal of WWII monuments
February 13, 2024
Estonia’s prime minister has been put on a wanted list in Russia because of her efforts to remove Soviet-era World War II monuments in the Baltic nation, officials said Tuesday as tensions between Russia and the West soar amid the war in Ukraine.
Russian media reported Tuesday that Kaja Kallas’ name appears on the Interior Ministry’s register of people wanted on criminal charges, but it was not clear when she was added to the list that also includes scores of officials and lawmakers from other Baltic nations.
The ministry didn’t specify what charges Kallas faces, but other officials said the move was related to her efforts to remove WWII monuments. Estonia and other NATO members — Latvia and Lithuania — have sought to remove the monuments widely seen as a legacy of Soviet occupation of the countries. Moscow has denounced those moves as a desecration of memory of Soviet soldiers who fell while fighting the Nazis.
The inclusion of Kallas — who has fiercely advocated for increased military assistance to Ukraine and stronger sanctions against Russia — appears to reflect the Kremlin’s effort to up the ante in the face of pressure from NATO allies as the war nears the two-year mark.
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Who is Estonia’s Kaja Kallas, and why is her election win key for Ukraine?
By Kelly Kasulis Cho
March 7, 2023 at 2:38 a.m. EST
One of Ukraine’s most prominent backers emerged victorious this week in Estonia’s parliamentary election, which was dominated by the aftershocks of the war and brought voters out in record numbers.
Prime Minister Kaja Kallas’s pro-market Reform Party came in first and appears set to hold 37 seats in the 101-member legislature, three more than it previously had. That puts Kallas — who has sent significant assistance to Ukraine and pushed European powers to do more to support Kyiv — in prime position to lead the Baltic country’s next government once coalition negotiations are completed.
Her win is “a good sign for the solidarity of the European Union and continued support of Ukraine,” said Robert English, director of central European studies at the University of Southern California.
Estonia, which borders Russia, was occupied by the Soviet Union in the 1940s. It regained independence after the end of the Cold War, joined NATO and the European Union and developed a flourishing digital economy. The nation of 1.3 million grappled with a surge of Ukrainian refugees after Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion and later faced soaring inflation and a recession. But Kallas’s management of the threat — she has been called Europe’s “Iron Lady” for her refusal to compromise with Putin — won her party favor with voters.
Here’s what to know about Kallas and why her win matters.
Kallas comes from high-profile political family that suffered under Soviet Union
Kallas, 45, is a daughter of a former Estonian prime minister and a great-granddaughter of Eduard Alver, an early 20th-century independence war commander.
As an infant, her mother was deported to Siberia by Joseph Stalin’s regime, a story that Kallas has referenced in her arguments for supporting Ukraine. “To anyone who lived under Soviet occupation, Russia’s atrocities in Ukraine replay the worst Soviet crimes,” she said in a speech last year. “My mother was an only 6-month-old baby when she, my grandmother and my great-grandmother were sent off to Siberia in cattle wagons.”
Estonian leader urges faster help for Ukraine amid signs of war fatigue
Kallas started her career as an attorney before becoming a member of Estonia’s legislature and then the European Parliament. In 2018, she was elected leader of the Reform Party, a group that English said would be regarded by many Americans as a liberal-centrist party.
She led Reform to first place in the 2019 polls, but a deal between smaller rivals prevented her from entering government and becoming prime minister until early 2021.
Beyond urging more diplomatic and material support for Ukraine, Kallas has also advocated for renewable energy and wider LGBTQ rights. A fluent English speaker and prolific social media user, she is widely quoted in international media and has been credited with raising Estonia’s influence in the European Union and around the world.
“She’s economically conservative, very pro-free market, but she’s very socially liberal, young and dynamic,” English said. “She’s staunchly pro-European and anti-Putin.”
Concern about Ukraine war and its aftershocks dominated the election
The Reform Party’s main political opponent, a right-wing populist party, argued that Estonia should focus on its domestic economy. It called for domestic spending to help voters through economic woes, which includes an inflation rate of around 20 percent last year and a recession forecast to continue through at least the first half of 2023.
But Kallas’s commanding victory suggests most voters are willing to sacrifice financially to back Kyiv, and her pro-Ukraine stance is broadly supported by most other Estonian political parties. “Everyone understands that the recession and inflation is because of the war,” English said. “But people are apparently willing to pay that price because they see Putin’s Russia right across the border.”
The Kremlin “might have hoped for a more divided result and a weakening of solidarity with NATO, with the E.U., but they didn’t get it,” English said. “Not by any stretch.”
Kallas routinely urges more aid for Ukraine, harsher penalties for Russia
Kallas wrote in an April essay for the Economist that Estonia’s government would increase its defense spending beyond the target outlined by NATO. She also advocated for measures that would hurt the Kremlin financially, including putting some of the money Europe pays for Russian energy in an escrow account.
The prime minister has also called dispatching military aid to Kyiv a “top priority.” About half of Estonia’s defense budget has gone to Ukraine, which Kallas justified by saying that Kyiv’s fighters are “weakening the same enemy as we have.”
“Sometimes, the best way to achieve peace is to be willing to use military strength,” she wrote in the Economist.
Kallas has pushed for punitive measures against Moscow, including a visa ban on Russian tourists and a threat to boycott sporting competitions that allow Russian athletes.
As of December, Estonia also hosts the largest share of Ukrainian refugees as part of its population, according to the International Monetary Fund.
However, Kallas’s firmly pro-Ukraine stance and influence with other European powers does not guarantee other E.U. countries will continue to prioritize support.
“Maybe this was to be expected — Estonia is a front-line country,” English said. “It doesn’t necessarily mean that national elections in places like Spain or Greece are going to be as consistent.”
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Estonia’s Kallas is reelected to lead party despite a scandal over husband’s Russia business ties
November 18, 2023
TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — Estonia’s ruling Reform Party reelected Prime Minister Kaja Kallas as its chairperson Saturday and confirmed her staying on as the Baltic nation’s leader amid widespread calls by opposition and voters for her to resign over a scandal involving her husband’s business dealings in Russia.
Kallas was the only candidate for the party leadership post as center-right Reform held a general meeting in the capital, Tallinn. Two-thirds of the 931 delegates who took part in a vote supported her and one-third abstained.
The 46-year-old lawyer has been the leader of the Reform Party, Estonia’s largest political group, since April 2018. She became the country’s first female prime minister in January 2021.
Earlier this week, Kallas publicly signaled at a foreign policy conference in Washington her interest in becoming the next secretary-general of NATO. NATO’s current chief, Jens Stoltenberg, is due to step down in October 2024 after 10 years in the post.
Kallas, the daughter of former Estonian Prime Minister Siim Kallas, has been one of the most vocal European backers of Ukraine and a fierce critic of Russia within the European Union and NATO. Estonia, a country of 1.3 million people, is a member of both the EU and NATO.
Under her leadership, the Reform Party scored an overwhelming victory in Estonia’s March general election. Russia’s war in Ukraine emerged as a major theme in election campaigning, which political observers said helped her substantially to win a new term as prime minister.
However, her domestic popularity - and political credibility - crashed in August after Estonian media reported that her husband had remained a shareholder in a transportation company which continued operating in Russia following the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
Kallas had previously called for companies in Estonia to cease their operations in Russia.
During parliamentary committee hearings, she denied knowing the details of her husband’s business activities in Russia. She has refused to resign despite urging to do so from President Alar Karis. Over two-thirds of Estonians surveyed in recent opinion polls said they thought Kallas should step down.
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Estonian PM Kaja Kallas open to being next NATO chief
The leader said she’d like to be considered for the top job at the Cold War-era alliance.
Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas was bullish that Ukraine will ultimately prevail in its efforts to repel Russia’s invasion. | Rod Lamkey for POLITICO
By Eric Bazail-Eimil
11/14/2023 02:10 PM EST
Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas said on Tuesday she’s interested in taking over the top job at NATO, as the Cold War-era alliance continues to navigate Russia’s war in Ukraine and homes in on common strategies against China and other emerging threats.
Speaking at the POLITICO Defense Summit, Kallas was pressed on whether she’d like to be considered for the role once NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg steps down. She responded “yes.”
Kallas’ response and her visit to Washington comes as worries grow in Europe, especially among the leaders of Baltic and Eastern European countries such as Estonia, that U.S. support for Ukraine’s war effort is increasingly wavering.
It also comes as NATO’s role is evolving as a key force in support of Ukraine as it continues to repel Russia’s February 2022 invasion, and as the alliance seeks to project strength and unity in the face of emerging threats such as China, artificial intelligence and other challenges.
Kallas was bullish that Ukraine will ultimately prevail in its efforts to repel Russia’s invasion, as concerns grow on both sides of the Atlantic that Ukraine and Russia are approaching a standstill on the battlefield.
“I totally understand and believe that it is beatable,” Kallas said, in reference to the Russian military. “And Ukraine can win this war.”
Kallas rejected the notion that the conflict is at a stalemate, saying it serves Russian interests to paint conditions on the battlefield in that light.
“That works to their benefit,” Kallas said. “Let’s not fall into that trap.”
Kallas, who met with Biden administration officials and lawmakers on Capitol Hill, underscored the need for American support to achieve lasting peace in the region.
Estonia's PM: America 'takes freedom for granted'
“What we want to have is sustainable peace. And of course, you know, American support for that is fundamental,” Kallas said.
She also added that she was pleasantly surprised to find that “skeptical” American politicians were more on board than she had expected.
“I actually had a very, very good meeting with all of those people and I was asking the ambassadors like, “when are we meeting the skeptical ones?’ ” Kallas quipped.
“They had a lot of questions and I tried to answer them as well. But it seems to me that we are still, you know, getting through with our ideas and it doesn’t seem to me that we are very far away from each other,” Kallas continued.
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Links:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/01/alexei-navalny-funeral-draws-thousands-to-heavily-policed-moscow-church
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2024/mar/01/funeral-alexei-navalny-moscow-putin-russia-ukraine-war-live
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Her natal Lilith is 14 Aquarius, N.Node 18 Sagittarius, S.Node 22 Gemini
Her natal Ceres is 1 Gemini, N.Node 22 Gemini, S.Node 17 Sagittarius
Her natal Amazon is 1 Scorpio, N.Node 0/56 Gemini, S.Node 9 Scorpio
Please feel free to comment or ask questions.
Goddess Bless, Rad
Hi All,
Here is the story of Yulia and Dasha Navalny. These are noon charts.
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As morgue retains Navalny’s body, wife says she will lead fight vs. Putin
By Robyn Dixon
February 19, 2024 at 6:00 a.m. EST
RIGA, Latvia — Three days after the sudden death of Alexei Navalny, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s most formidable rival, the location of his body was still unclear on Monday, and his mother was again rebuffed by morgue officials in the Arctic town of Salekhard, 33 miles from the prison colony where he died, Navalny’s press secretary said.
Navalny’s grieving family and political team, who demanded the return of his remains on Saturday, have faced an extended, almost surreal struggle to recover his body, or even to establish its location — with Russian officials seemingly determined to obstruct any independent investigation into the cause of death and delay a funeral.
But as Russian authorities continued to torment Navalny’s family even after his death at age 47, there were signs that his wife, Yulia Navalnaya, was prepared to continue her husband’s crusade against the Putin regime. Navalnaya was in Brussels on Monday to address European Union foreign ministers who invited her in a show of solidarity.
In a video statement posted on YouTube on Monday, Navalnaya proclaimed: “I will continue the work of Alexei Navalny.”
“A free, peaceful, happy Russia, a beautiful Russia of the future, which my husband dreamed of so much — that is what we need,” Navalnaya said. “I want to live in this Russia. I want our children to live in it. I want to build it with you.”
“I should not have been in this position,” Navalnaya, clad in black, added, her voice occasionally trembling. “I should not be recording this video. A different person should be in my place.” She accused Putin of murdering her husband. “Putin did not only murder the person, Alexei Navalny. He wanted, along with him, to kill out hope, our freedom, our future,” she said.
Navalny’s mother, Lyudmila Navalnaya, 69, has not been allowed to see his body. She traveled on Saturday to the Polar Wolf prison just above the Arctic Circle in the Yamalo-Nenets region, where he died Friday, and to the local morgue. Prison officials gave her a paper showing a time of death — 2:17 p.m. — but morgue officials denied they had the body.
After the Russian newspaper in exile Novaya Gazeta Europe reported that Navalny’s body was indeed at the morgue in Salekhard, the regional capital, Lyudmila Navalnaya and Navalny’s lawyers went to the morgue early Monday morning and were again denied access.
“They were not allowed to go in. One of the lawyers was literally pushed out,” Navalny’s press secretary, Kira Yarmysh, who lives outside Russia, posted on X. “When the staff was asked if Alexei’s body was there, they did not answer.”
Members of Navalny’s team have called his death a “murder,” while many world leaders, including President Biden, have stated that Putin bears responsibility for his death.
Amid fears that the real cause of death may never be known, Yarmysh said officials from Russia’s Investigative Committee, which handles major crimes, had extended their inquiry into the matter.
“They don’t say how long it will take. The cause of death is still ‘unknown.’ They lie, buy time for themselves and do not even hide it,” Yarmysh said.
On Saturday, Lyudmila Navalnaya was initially told by prison officials that her son died of “sudden death syndrome,” with Investigative Committee officials later offering contradictory accounts, stating that the cause was unknown.
Putin who has long made a point of virtually never uttering Navalny’s name, has made no comment about the death of Navalny, who for more than a decade was viewed as the Russian leader’s most charismatic opponent.
Navalny was barred from running in the 2018 Russian presidential election against Putin, after his unexpectedly strong showing in the 2013 Moscow mayoral race.
Navalny faced numerous criminal charges, which he and many independent analysts said were trumped up for political retribution, and in August 2020, he was poisoned with a chemical nerve agent. Navalny later teamed up with Bellingcat, the investigative news group, and managed to prove that a team of agents from Russia’s Federal Security Service, or FSB, was responsible for tracking and poisoning him. They even identified many of the agents by name. Navalny called one and tricked him into confessing his role in the failed assassination attempt.
Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, on Monday said Putin had made no reaction to Navalny’s death, and that the Kremlin was “not engaged” in the matter of the return of his body to his family. Asked whether the Kremlin was concerned about ensuring a thorough investigation into the cause of death, Peskov replied: “Those actions that are stipulated by Russian legislation are being carried out.”
“The investigation into Navalny’s death is underway, and the necessary actions are being carried out,” he said. “But the results have not yet been made public. It is not known about them.”
Peskov also criticized world leaders who said the Russian president was responsible for Navalny’s death, calling it “absolutely unacceptable to make such blatantly boorish statements.”
Tens of thousands of Russians have signed appeals for Navalny’s body to be returned to his family and for them to be granted access to the video camera and body-camera footage from the prison and its staff.
More than 50,000 signed a petition organized by OVD-Info, a legal rights group, to the Investigative Committee demanding the return of his body to the family, and more than 20,500 people signed a petition mounted by Nobel Peace Prize laureate and longtime Novaya Gazeta editor Dmitry Muratov, demanding that the family be granted access to the surveillance footage from the prison.
Independent Russian media outlet Mediazona on Sunday published video of a convoy, including two police cars and a prison van traveling on Friday night from the Polar Wolf prison colony toward Salekhard, possibly carrying Navalny’s body.
Novaya Gazeta Europe, quoting an ambulance paramedic, reported that Navalny’s body was initially taken to a district hospital in Salekhard, instead of directly to the morgue as is customary in the case of prison deaths. The body was later transferred to the morgue, according to the paramedic.
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Alexei Navalny death latest: Putin critic’s wife says Kremlin ‘waiting for novichok poison’ to leave his body
Matt Mathers,Arpan Rai and Tara Cobham
Mon, February 19, 2024
Alexei Navalny’s wife has accused the Kremlin of waiting for traces of the Novichok nerve agent to disappear from his body as she vowed to reveal the names of his killers.
In a video message on Monday, Yulia Navalnaya said: "Vladimir Putin killed my husband... We know exactly why Putin killed Alexei three days ago. We will tell you about it soon. We will definitely find out who exactly carried out this crime and how exactly. We will name the names and show the faces."
It comes as Mr Navalny’s bruised body is believed to have been delivered to a morgue at the Salekhard District Clinical Hospital, an anonymous experienced paramedic told the independent Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta Europe on Sunday.
Mr Navalny’s mother, Lyudmila Navalnaya, and his lawyers were not allowed into the morgue, his spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh wrote on X, formerly Twitter, on Monday.
Meanwhile, Alexander Litvinenko’s widow called for support from the West for critics of the “monster” Vladimir Putin who “killed hope for a new Russia”.
Marina Litvinenko, whose husband died in 2006 after being poisoned in London with Polonium 210, told Sky News that the West needs “to do everything to save the lives of these people” as she accused Putin of “killing the most prominent politician and the hope of a new Russia”.
The jailed opposition figure’s team accused authorities of deliberately hiding his body to “cover traces” of what they claim is a clear act of murder.
Key Points
Alexei Navalny’s ‘bruised body seen in morgue’
Navalny’s mother not allowed into morgue in Russia, spokeswoman says
Russian spies ‘visited Navalny’s prison’ days before his death
Over 400 people detained in Russia at events in memory of Navalny
Biden blames Putin for Navalny death
Yulia Navalny calls on world to punish Putin
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Navalny’s widow accuses Putin of killing him as she says details of death will soon be revealed
Tara Cobham
Alexei Navalny’s widow has accused Vladimir Putin of killing her husband as she said details of the Russian opposition leader’s death will soon be revealed.
"Vladimir Putin killed my husband," Yulia Navalnaya said in a video message on Monday, adding that she would work with the Russian people to battle with the Kremlin to create a new Russia.
The Kremlin has denied involvement in his death.
Navalnaya accused the Russian authorities of hiding Navalny's body and of waiting for traces of the Novichok nerve agent to disappear from his body.
Navalny's allies know why her husband was killed and would soon reveal the details, including the names of the people involved in his death.
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Yulia Navalnaya Demands Justice in Powerful Speech After Husband’s Death
Nikki McCann Ramirez
Fri, February 16, 2024
Yulia Navalnaya, now the widow of Vladimir Putin critic Alexei Navalny, demanded after her husband’s death on Friday that the Russian autocrat and his government “be personally held responsible for all of the atrocities they have committed.”
Russian correctional authorities announced earlier on Friday that Alexei Navalny, who was serving a 19-year prison sentence in an Arctic penal colony, died after experiencing a sudden collapse. Given the cloud of suspicious deaths surrounding vocal Putin critics — and the fact that Navalny had survived two previous assassination attempts — Russia’s description of his death has been met with immediate suspicion.
Yulia Navalnaya, who was in attendance at the Munich Security Conference in Germany, took the stage in a surprise appearance shortly after the news of her husband’s death became public.
“I thought, ‘Should I stand here before you or should I go back to my children?’ Then I thought, ‘What would would have Alexei done in my place?’” she told the conference.
Navalnaya added she could not trust the claims made by the Russian authorities because “they are lying constantly.”
“I want Putin and his entire circle know that they’ll bear responsibility for what they did with our country and my family and my husband,” she said. “And this day will come very soon.”
Navalnaya called upon “all the international community, all the people in the world, we should come together and we should fight against this evil.”
“We should fight this horrific regime in Russia today,” she said. “This regime and Vladimir Putin should be personally held responsible for all the atrocities they have committed in our country the last years.”
The crowd in Munich gave her a standing ovation.
Alexei Navalny’s mother, Lyudmila Navalnaya, wrote on Facebook that she doesn’t “want to hear any condolences,” adding that she saw her son “in prison on the (Feb) 12, in a meeting. He was alive, healthy and happy.”
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Alexey Navalny’s widow Yulia to meet EU foreign ministers
Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny died in a Russian jail after spending more than three years behind bars.
Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of the late Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny, will meet European foreign ministers in Brussels on Monday, the European Union’s foreign policy chief said.
The 47-year-old Navalny, President Vladimir Putin’s most prominent domestic foe, died in a Russian jail on Friday after spending more than three years behind bars, prompting outrage and condemnation from Western leaders and his supporters.
“On Monday, I will welcome Yulia Navalnaya at the EU Foreign Affairs Council,” Josep Borrell said late on Sunday on X.
“EU Ministers will send a strong message of support to freedom fighters in Russia” and “honour” Navalny’s memory, he said.
Earlier on Sunday, Navalnaya shared a post on Instagram that showed a picture of the two together, their heads touching as they watched a performance.
“I love you,” she wrote in the post two days after her husband’s death.
It brought a personal note to the loss she expressed more formally on a public stage just hours after Navalny’s passing was announced by the Russian prison service.
Navalny, 47, fell unconscious and died on Friday after a walk at the “Polar Wolf” penal colony in the Arctic, where he was serving a three-decade sentence, the prison service said. There are still few details on why he died.
On Friday afternoon, Navalnaya appeared before an audience of leaders, diplomats and other officials at the Munich Security Conference, saying she had weighed coming out on stage or immediately leaving to be with the couple’s two children, Daria and Zakhar, deciding her husband would want her to speak.
If the news of his death was true, Navalnaya, 47, said, “I want Putin, his entire entourage, Putin’s friends, his government to know that they will bear responsibility for what they did to our country, to my family, to my husband”.
Hundreds arrested
Navalny’s sudden death was a crushing blow to many Russians, who had pinned their hopes for the future on Putin’s fiercest foe.
Navalny remained vocal in his unrelenting criticism of the Kremlin even after surviving a nerve agent poisoning and receiving multiple prison terms.
His death came a month before a presidential election in Russia that is widely expected to give Putin another six years in power.
Hundreds of people in dozens of Russian cities streamed to ad-hoc memorials and monuments to victims of political repressions with flowers and candles on Friday and Saturday to pay tribute to the politician.
In more than a dozen cities, police detained 366 people by Sunday night, according to the OVD-Info rights group that tracks political arrests and provides legal aid.
More than 200 arrests were made in St Petersburg, Russia’s second-largest city, the group said.
Among those detained there was Grigory Mikhnov-Voitenko, a priest of the Apostolic Orthodox Church – a religious group independent of the Russian Orthodox Church – who announced plans on social media to hold a memorial service for Navalny and was arrested on Saturday morning outside his home.
He was charged with organising a rally and placed in a holding cell in a police precinct, but was later hospitalised with a stroke, OVD-Info reported.
Courts in St Petersburg have ordered 42 of those detained on Friday to serve from one to six days in jail, while nine others were fined, court officials said late on Saturday.
In Moscow, at least six people were ordered to serve 15 days in jail, according to OVD-Info.
Questions remain
Questions about the cause of death have lingered, and it remains unclear when the authorities may release Navalny’s body.
More than 12,000 people have submitted requests to the Russian government asking for the politician’s remains to be handed over to his relatives, OVD-Info said on Sunday.
Navalny’s team said Saturday that the politician was “murdered” and accused the authorities of deliberately stalling the release of the body, with Navalny’s mother and lawyers getting contradicting information from various institutions where they went in their quest to retrieve the body.
Russian authorities viewed Navalny and his supporters as extremists with links to the CIA intelligence agency in the United States, which they say is seeking to destabilise Russia. Navalny always dismissed accusations that he was a CIA asset.
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Alexei Navalny’s wife and two children learned of his death from afar
By Francesca Ebel
February 16, 2024
As Telegram exploded with the news of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s death, his wife, Yuliya Navalnaya was in Germany — about to attend the annual Munich Security Conference surrounded by world leaders and defense officials, and within view of countless television cameras.
Navalnaya has generally sought to avoid the spotlight, to shield her two children from the fallout of her husband’s political work and to deny his tormentors in the Kremlin, including President Vladimir Putin, the satisfaction of ever seeing her cry. But as she took to the stage and delivered a dramatic, surprise statement, grief and worry were etched across her swollen face, and her eyes were tearful and blotchy.
She said she was not certain whether the reports of her husband’s death were true. But, her voice trembling with fury, she said: “I want Putin, his entourage, Putin’s friends and his government to know they will pay for what they have done to our country, to our family and my husband. And that day will come very soon.”
She noted that Navalny — who had spoken out forcefully against Russia’s war in Ukraine and called for reparations to be paid from Russia’s oil and gas revenue — would have wanted to be in Munich, were he in her place.
“He would be on this stage,” Navalnaya said, adding: “I want to call the world, everyone who is in this room, people around the world, to together defeat this evil. Defeat this horrible regime in Russia.”
Navalnaya said she was torn about whether to remain in Munich or fly immediately to her children. The couple had a 23-year-old daughter, Daria, and a teenage son, Zakhar.
In August 2020, Navalnaya left them home still asleep as she raced for a flight to Siberia, where her husband was in a coma, having fallen mysteriously ill while on a flight back to Moscow. Navalny had been poisoned with a banned nerve agent, and Navalnaya later appealed personally to Putin to allow her husband to be flown to Germany for treatment.
Navalnaya has generally shied away from attention, declining most media interviews and rarely speaking in public — though she has made notable exceptions, such as her speech accepting the Academy Award for best documentary in 2023 for the film about the poisoning attack on her husband and the investigation into the Russian assassins responsible for it. Daria and Zakhar joined her onstage in Los Angeles.
Despite her reluctance to be a focus of attention, Navalnaya had been a crucial partner to her husband throughout his career, often appearing with him at protests and in courtrooms as he faced numerous prosecutions in cases widely viewed as political retribution, and occasionally doing joint interviews with him. She had also made countless trips to visit him in prisons.
In 2013, she told an interviewer that she could envision her husband as president of Russia but not herself as first lady. “I want him as president because I want a person who has overcome so much,” she said. “I think he deserves it. Sharing his convictions, I imagine him as president.”
“Myself, I don’t really imagine as first lady,” she added. “I imagine myself as his wife, no matter what he is.”
Navalnaya, 47, met her husband, who was the same age, while they were both on vacation with friends at a resort in Turkey, a classic post-Soviet romance. Their relationship became a source of fascination and admiration for supporters.
Over the years, she has worked to give her children a normal upbringing even as their father was the subject of relentless attacks, including two different assaults with brilliant green dye. One of those attacks, in 2017, damaged his eye, and he required surgery.
Daria, a student at Stanford University, has slowly molded herself into an activist like her father and occasionally stood in for him at public events.
This included accepting the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought on his behalf from the European Parliament in December 2021. She delivered a blistering speech in which she accused Western politicians of being too timid in confronting Putin and his authoritarianism. She accused them of pragmatism, using the word as if it were a slur.
“I don’t understand why those who advocate for pragmatic relations with dictators can’t simply open the history books,” she said. “It’s very easy to understand the inescapable political law: The pacification of dictators and tyrants never works.”
Last year, Daria gave a TED Talk during which she described her own resilience amid her father’s continuing imprisonment.
“I miss him every single day,” she said. “I’m scared that my father won’t be able to come to my graduation ceremony or walk me down the aisle at my wedding. But if being my father’s daughter has taught me anything, it is to never succumb to fear and sadness.”
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“These Bastards Will Never See Our Tears”: How Yulia Navalnaya Became Russia’s Real First Lady
When the Kremlin tried to kill Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny, his wife launched an epic battle to save his life—and became the face of the resistance to Vladimir Putin.
By Julia Ioffe
July 8, 2021
It was 6:40 on the morning of August 20, 2020 when Yulia Navalnaya’s phone rang. She wasn’t normally up that early, but she was preparing to go to the airport to meet her husband, Alexey Navalny, the sole remaining leader of the Russian opposition, whose flight from the Siberian city of Tomsk was scheduled to arrive in Moscow at eight that morning. Navalnaya looked at her phone. It was Kira Yarmysh, her husband’s press secretary, who was supposed to be midflight with Alexey. “Yulia, don’t worry,” Yarmysh said. “Alexey has been poisoned, the plane landed in Omsk.” Navalnaya said “okay” and hung up. If the plane carrying her husband had to make an emergency landing 1,700 miles from its intended destination, Alexey’s life must have been in imminent danger. This was it, then. She had been preparing for this moment for a decade, and now it was finally here, pouring in with the sun on this warm summer morning. Her children were still asleep. A thought flitted by. “The most important thing is not to relax,” she felt, “to not show weakness.” It would stay with her for weeks.
She called Yarmysh back and told her she was coming to Omsk. Yarmysh tried to dissuade her—maybe Navalny would get better in a day or two and return to Moscow on his own—but Navalnaya stood firm. Seeing that a flight was departing for Omsk in two hours, Navalnaya threw a random medley of clothes into a suitcase and bought her ticket in the back of a cab. (“Why didn’t the people you’re going to see give you any advance notice?” the cab driver asked when Navalnaya told him she absolutely had to make the flight.) As she waited in the airport, a message from Yarmysh arrived: Navalny was in a coma and on a ventilator. Navalnaya got up, found a café, and, despite the early hour, ordered a whiskey. That was when the tears began to fall, a silent cascade. “I was unable to restrain my emotions,” she would later tell Russian journalist Yury Dud, as if justifying an embarrassing lapse.
She hid behind a pair of sunglasses and resumed the wait, the most agonizing, she imagined, of her life. By the time she boarded the plane, Ivan Zhdanov, director of Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, or FBK, was with her. Navalnaya realized she would have to turn off her phone and cut herself off from any information about her husband for the three-and-a-half-hour flight. Friends describe Navalnaya as deeply reserved. “Yulia is a very closed person,” says the journalist Yevgenia Albats, who is close with the Navalnys. “She doesn’t like to talk about herself.” And yet, Navalnaya talked at Zhdanov for the entire flight, without pause. “I think I told him all our family secrets,” she would recall. “I was scared to be alone with myself and to think.”
As the plane prepared to land, she realized that no, this must be the worst moment of all. What news awaited her when she switched on her phone? Navalnaya quickly found a solution: She would have Zhdanov read the text messages that had come in, and she would be able to tell by his expression how bad things were. “I wanted to collect myself and be okay when I walked out into the airport,” she explained.
Return to V.F.’s Y2K bonanza
Her husband, she learned, hadn’t died, but the hardest was yet to come. At the hospital in Omsk, Navalnaya would encounter a wall of doctors who seemed more scared of their civilian superiors than they were of losing their patient. They were reinforced—or kept in line—by a small battalion of plainclothes federal security officers, all intent on keeping her from seeing her husband. To enter his room, she would need to present a marriage certificate, they said, and secure verbal consent from Navalny, who was still unconscious and on life support. She would stare them down, out-argue them, and bend their will to hers, all while a gathering swarm of journalists trained their cameras and microphones and smartphones on her. She would finally break through to see him, his body sprouting tubes and cords like vines, writhing in near-constant seizures. (She wouldn’t know until days later that this was the result of a military-grade nerve agent in the Novichok family.) She would have to fight with doctors and hospital administrators to see the results of her husband’s lab work, to give impromptu press conferences on the hospital steps, to sneak around the city to find the German doctors who had arrived with a private medevac plane and whom the authorities had barred her from seeing. She would have to demand, over and over, that the Omsk hospital release her husband and allow him to be loaded onto the plane and taken to Berlin, the only way, everyone knew, of possibly saving his life. And she would never, ever lose control of her emotions again.
For two days, Russia and the world waited nervously to see if Navalny, the only halfway plausible alternative to Vladimir Putin, lived or died. Instead, they saw Navalnaya. This pretty blond woman in a black leather jacket who had always appeared silently at her husband’s side was suddenly alone on the world stage, doing battle with the entire repressive machinery of the Russian state to pull her husband from the jaws of death. What people saw astounded them. “Russia is still a sexist country,” says economist Sergei Guriev, a friend and onetime adviser to Navalny. “People think that a woman is not an independent person, especially if she doesn’t work. Therefore, they didn’t understand that Yulia is an independent person. And then they understood. They saw Yulia fight the machine and win. I think for many people it was eye-opening.”
That is an understatement; Navalnaya was a revelation. The country saw her living out the worst moment of her life—live. And yet she was strong, she was stoic, she didn’t crumble under pressure and, through the sheer force of her will and the strength of her love, she got the dragon to release her man. In a culture that intuitively understands redemption through suffering, in a society that believes women are by nature maternal nurturers, Navalnaya was immediately understandable. “It is a story of biblical proportions,” says Guriev. Journalist Anna Mongayt added, “Russia has never had a queen like Yulia.” But it was more than a fairy tale. Through Navalnaya, all of her husband’s sins—his prickliness and perceived authoritarianism, his propensity to pick fights with the liberal Moscow intelligentsia and independent journalists, his past flirtations with nationalism—were suddenly expiated. “People who like Navalny automatically like her,” says journalist Serguei Parkhomenko, a friend of the couple. “And there are some people for whom she is Navalny without the downsides of Navalny: her self-sacrifice, her single-mindedness, her opposition to Putin.”
“If I were scared, it would be difficult to live with him.”
As midnight closed in on Omsk, Alexey Venediktov, editor in chief of the liberal Ekho Moskvy radio station, went on the air in Moscow. He telegraphed to Navalnaya what needed to be done. “Until Yulia makes a public declaration, until she makes a request to the Russian government to transport Alexey Navalny out of the country,” Venediktov said, no transfer would be possible. “We’re waiting.” People close to the Navalnys understood this to be a message from the Kremlin, passed through Venediktov, who is very public about maintaining a cozy relationship with the presidential administration, ostensibly to keep his station from being shuttered. Venediktov told me that he did in fact lobby on Navalnaya’s behalf with his friends in the Kremlin, but that they did not insist on a public appeal from her. That was his idea. “I said this myself, that this might help and would have an effect on VVP, because that kind of thing works on him,” Venediktov explained, using Putin’s initials. Regardless, it put Navalnaya in an impossible situation. “You know you have to bend your knee to Putin and ask for your husband to be let out, but you know that Alexey would rather die than ask Putin for anything,” explains Albats, who was in touch with Navalnaya while she was in Omsk. “And that’s the only thing you can’t do. Because this is a betrayal of Alexey.”
The next day, with the plane from Germany already on the ground in Omsk, Navalnaya issued a public letter to Putin. “I am officially addressing you,” she wrote, “with a demand for permission to transport Alexey Anatolievich Navalny to the Federal Republic of Germany.” Within hours, she was boarding the plane alongside her husband, invisible on a gurney that was part cocoon, part coffin. Her formulation—a demand rather than a plea—was not lost on the Russian opposition. Even at her most desperate and vulnerable, she approached Putin, the man trying to kill her husband, not as a fearful supplicant but as a defiant equal.
In the following months, as Navalnaya and her husband documented his resurrection and recovery on social media, they became the measure of decency and nobility for millions of Russians. There were Yulia TikTok memes and Yulia Instagram flash mobs. People began to wonder whether they would be capable of such heroism under such duress—and, of course, everyone wanted a love like theirs. “[They are] so relationship goals,” one friend in Moscow told me.
Because of who her husband is, all of this quickly became political. In a country that hasn’t had a first lady since Putin’s divorce in 2013, here was a political wife who could more than hold her own in an almost exclusively male arena. “We’ve lived for seven years without a first lady, and it seemed like no big deal,” journalist Maria Komandnaya said on her podcast. “We’ve forgotten that this institution exists, but when we saw Yulia Navalnaya in all her beauty, it was like a light went off for everyone: Here she is, the first lady.” Some compared Navalnaya to Michelle Obama. Others, inevitably, to Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who, a week before Navalny was poisoned, spearheaded an unprecedented wave of protests in neighboring Belarus after her husband, an opposition activist, was jailed. Could Navalnaya, people wondered, be Russia’s Tsikhanouskaya? Could she be not just the next first lady of Russia but its next leader? Yabloko, the old liberal democratic party where her husband had gotten his start, announced it was willing to support Navalnaya if she were to run for Parliament. Even Tsikhanouskaya encouraged Navalnaya “to begin her political career.”
Navalnaya quickly shut down the speculation. “I think it’s much more interesting to be the wife of a politician,” she told Russian Harper’s Bazaar in January, one of only a handful of interviews she’s ever given. “Then again what I do is, to a certain extent, also politics.”
Yulia Abrosimova was born in Moscow on July 24, 1976. Her father was a government scientist, and her mother worked at Gosplan, the Soviet central economic planning agency. Her parents divorced when Yulia was in grade school, and her mother married a Gosplan colleague. They were an average Soviet family, living in a sea of high-rise apartment buildings in Moscow’s Olympic village. When I first met her in early 2011, Navalnaya told me her mother and stepfather talked about international economics at home, which drew her into majoring in the subject in college. “I knew all the government ministers by name,” she said. “I was interested in it.” She also told me the story of how, in the summer of 1998, at a resort in Turkey, she met a young lawyer named Alexey Navalny. “He immediately felt that I would be his wife,” she said. Two years later, it came to pass. People who know her say she never had any professional ambitions of her own, so when her first child, Dasha, was born in 2001, Navalnaya stopped working and became a stay-at-home mom. In 2008, a son, Zakhar, was born. They were very difficult pregnancies, and the couple scrapped their wish for more children.
Albats first met Navalny when someone brought him to the weekly seminars she ran for young opposition activists in 2005. It had been six years since Putin had ascended to power, and he had already managed to stifle dissent in the media and eliminate competitive elections. At the time, Navalny was a recovering real estate lawyer who was just getting a foothold in opposition politics, and he struck a slightly pathetic figure. He was tall, stoop-shouldered, awkward, with a bit of a beer belly—“a man-child,” a fellow activist remembers. He was from a simple family from a military town outside of Moscow—the boonies for any self-respecting Muscovite—and was far less educated and worldly than the intelligentsia in opposition circles. But when Albats saw him at his 30th-birthday party in the summer of 2006, he was different: He had Yulia in tow. She was tall and striking. She laughed and danced, but Albats got the distinct sense that she kept everyone at arm’s length. “She’s a queen,” Albats thought to herself. “And Alexey was dancing around her like a little rooster. And that’s when I thought, this is the motivator. In addition to his personal ambition, he needs to constantly prove to this beautiful woman that he is worthy of her.”
For years, Navalnaya was focused on raising their two children while her husband published investigations of fraud in the Russian government and state-owned companies. “He leaves early and comes home late,” Navalnaya told me back in January 2011. “At first it irritated me, but then I see what people write about him, about what a good job he’s doing, about who would do it if it weren’t for him.” It clearly made her proud, and she obviously shared his views. At the time, most people were deeply apathetic to politics. Consumerism and rising wages fueled by a commodities boom were all anyone seemed to care about after the poverty of the 1980s and ’90s. Opposition protests attracted a couple hundred people at most. The indifference frustrated Navalnaya. “People ask why he’s doing this,” she told me then. “Mostly they’re not interested, they just want to go shopping. I can’t judge them, but things would be a lot better if they cared.”
We were sitting in her tiny kitchen in the tiny apartment she and Navalny rented in Maryino, a remote, lower-middle-class Moscow neighborhood. As Navalny stepped up his investigations into corruption at the highest levels of the Russian government, the FSB moved in. They bought an apartment across the way so they could monitor the couple around the clock. (“Can you imagine it,” Albats says. “They’re making love under the eye of the FSB!”) Agents began tailing not just Navalny but Navalnaya and her children. It bothered her but she took it in stride, joking with friends that, since the FSB was following her daughter, they might as well save Navalnaya some time and just drive Dasha home from school.
Navalnaya rarely gives interviews—and she declined to do so for this story—but when she does, she is always asked a version of this question: Aren’t you tired of this life? Haven’t you asked Alexey to stop what he’s doing for the family’s sake? It is a sentiment rooted both in old Russian folk wisdom and in Bolshevik ideology that women are the most fearful and conservative elements of society, that they are not the engine but the brakes of revolution, tearfully holding their men back from the barricades. I asked Navalnaya a version of this question a decade ago. “I’ve never said it,” she told me. “If I were scared, it would be difficult to live with him.” When Navalny ran for mayor of Moscow in 2013, she gave her first television interview and was asked the same thing. “I think that many people expect me to say this to him at home,” she said, perfectly poised on the edge of a studio couch. “No, I’ve never in my life said anything like that to my husband, because I genuinely understand that he’s not doing it for himself. He’s doing it for my children and for everyone else, and he wants life [in Russia] to get better.” Why not stop for the sake of Dasha and Zakhar, the interviewer asked her. Obviously surprised, she exclaimed, “Because it’s them he’s fighting for!”
Navalnaya has insisted that her primary concern is the home front. “My main task is so that, in spite of everything, nothing in our family changes,” she said in her interview with Harper’s Bazaar, “so that the children can remain children, and the house a home.” But even finding a home has been a challenge. A few years ago, the Navalnys decided to move to an apartment closer to FBK’s offices. No one would rent to them. Still, Navalnaya worked hard to maintain a sense of normalcy for her children through their father’s arrests and the attacks on him, to make sure they did well in school and were well-adjusted. Navalnaya seems to have succeeded in this. Dasha, who told her kindergarten class that her father’s job was going to protests, started her own popular YouTube channel and is now in her junior year at Stanford. Zakhar, who grew up constantly hearing that his father was on the verge of being killed, kept on playing his video game when he was told about Navalny’s poisoning.
Navalnaya’s presentation as the private, homebound half of the couple, however, is deceiving. “Navalny the politician is two people: Yulia and Alexey,” says Albats. “She’s his editor in chief, she reads everything he writes before it’s published.” Navalnaya is also a crucial sounding board. “He consults with Yulia and talks through certain ideas with her to formulate them better,” says Lyubov Sobol, a lawyer who was one of Navalny’s first employees. Before Navalny hired a press secretary, it was Navalnaya who would take to his blog and social media accounts to update his supporters when he was in jail. She dresses Navalny and is very attuned to the image he cuts. She also keeps him humble. “It’s obvious that she criticizes him when there’s something to criticize him for,” says Guriev. “This forces Alexey to remember that he’s not the greatest person in the world, and that’s very important for him.” More importantly, says Vladimir Ashurkov, one of Navalny’s longest-serving lieutenants, “Yulia is the rock on which Alexey stands. She’s got his back.”
Navalnaya is also a careful and astute political observer. “She feels everything very keenly and observes everyone around her,” says Albats. “I honestly think that she likes being the shadow politician.” Navalny once joked that his wife is even more radical than he is, but she has been careful to never make her positions known on the one subject that has dogged him: nationalism. People close to her simply say that her views align with her husband’s, and that the latter has evolved away from the anti-migrant rhetoric that characterized his early forays into public politics.
The radicalism, people close to her say, manifests itself in a different way: She is a harsher judge of character and less forgiving of transgressions. When a Kremlin loyalist posted a doctored photo showing that Navalnaya had German citizenship (she does not) and then apologized, she refused to accept. “You are apologizing because you are a coward,” she wrote on Instagram, where she has more than a million followers, and called him “an overgrown mama’s boy.” When Oleg Kashin, a journalist who was once close to the Navalnys, alleged that Navalnaya’s father was actually an FSB agent living in London, Navalny refuted the theory: Her father had never worked for the security services. Moreover, he was not currently working for the FSB in London because he had died in 1996; here was his death certificate. Kashin, who admits that the incident was “an embarrassing failure,” told me, “I have apologized several times, but I don’t think these apologies are welcome.” Like many people I spoke to, Kashin believes Navalnaya is the source of Navalny’s conflicts with others in the Russian opposition. (Ashurkov confirmed this. “She’s likely to judge these kinds of people more harshly,” he said, adding that Venediktov also falls into this category.) A source who has known the Navalnys for a decade told me, “She’ll be quiet, quiet, and then she’ll annihilate you with one word.”
Navalnaya has always been extremely self-contained. “She is like the consummate British lady from classic novels,” says the source. “She is always extremely polite and friendly, but you’ll never find out anything about her if you’re not in her inner circle. You’ll walk away with a pleasant impression, but you’ll never get under her skin.” The years of unrelenting pressure from the Kremlin have simply transformed the introversion into steel. On top of a string of arrests and jail sentences, Navalny suffered a severe chemical burn to his right eye in 2017 when a thug, apparently hired by the government, splashed a bright green antiseptic in his face. Her friends’ and family’s apartments have been searched by authorities several times, so she avoids revealing the identities of her nonpolitical friends so they might avoid this fate. “The experience has hardened her,” says Ashurkov. “Of course, she’s changed over these years,” says a friend of Navalnaya who asked for anonymity to speak candidly about their relationship. “The world has split more clearly into black and white. I think she’s become tougher and more decisive.” Says the source who has known the Navalnys for 10 years, “Everything that’s happened to this family doesn’t predispose them to letting in strangers and trusting easily. It’s great to be friends with everyone when they’re not trying to take out your eye.”
“Navalny the politician is two people: Yulia and Alexey. She’s his editor in chief.”
In July 2013, while Navalny was running for mayor of Moscow, he was also facing politically motivated criminal charges in the city of Kirov. A train car full of journalists and activists (including Boris Nemtsov, who would be assassinated outside the Kremlin walls less than two years later) set out for the overnight trip from Moscow to hear the verdict. It was a carnival atmosphere, and everyone, including Navalnaya, stayed up all night drinking and laughing. They seemed sure that the Kremlin wouldn’t allow a provincial court to jail Navalny while he was running for mayor of the capital—which was only happening with the Kremlin’s blessing. The next morning, the verdict came down. This was not the 15-day sentence Navalny had become accustomed to. Petr Ofitserov, Navalny’s former associate, was sentenced to four years in a penal colony. Navalny got five, and both men were led away in handcuffs. Ofitserov’s wife began to wail and cling to her husband’s neck, and had to be dragged away by the bailiffs. Sobol cried. Navalny’s press secretary cried. The men were shell-shocked. Only Navalnaya kept her composure. “These bastards will never see our tears,” she said.
When Navalny finally opened his eyes, he didn’t recognize her. For 18 days she had waited, not knowing what she was waiting for. The doctors at Charité Hospital in Berlin told her they were not sure if Navalny would ever emerge from his coma, and if he did, what state he would be in. So few people had been exposed to Novichok and survived that there was just no data they could rely on. And so Navalnaya waited. Every day, she came to the hospital, adjusted her husband’s pillows, and waited. She talked to him and played him their songs, like Duran Duran’s cover of “Perfect Day.” Their 20th wedding anniversary came and went. She got through each day by breaking it into survivable increments. “Right now, I’m doing this, and then I will do that, and after that—something else,” she said of her mindset then. “And then maybe later, I’ll let myself cry.” But sometimes the tears came unbidden. If they fell while she was on the phone with a friend, she made sure to mute herself. No one would hear her cry—not her confidants, not whoever else was listening on the line.
When doctors brought him out of his coma, it seemed the old Navalny was gone. This new Navalny just sat there and stared. Everything was erased: Yulia, his children, how to walk, how to write, what a spoon was. At one point, he tried to rip out every cord and line that was keeping him alive, including the tracheostomy tube protruding from the hole in his throat. The doctors and nurses managed to wrestle him back down. Eventually, Navalnaya’s children arrived. Her husband’s colleagues were already there, as were Kremlin agents. RT, the Kremlin-financed propaganda network, announced a bounty for anyone who could sneak into the hospital and get a photo of the felled opposition leader.
Inside, Navalny was relearning how to be himself. A month after his poisoning, he wished Navalnaya a belated happy anniversary in an Instagram post. For once, he put aside his sardonic tone and recounted how a kind and cheerful feminine presence pierced the veil of his hallucinations and pulled him from the other side. “I don’t doubt for a second that this has a scientific explanation,” he wrote. “Yulia, you saved me, and let them put it in all the neurobiology textbooks.”
In the fall, Navalny was discharged and the family decamped to Todtnauberg, a small German village on the Swiss border. They rented a house and enrolled Zakhar in a local Catholic school. Every morning, Navalnaya took her son to school and her husband to physical therapy. When the session was over, she picked up Navalny and took him on his daily walk, a key part of his rehabilitation. The area, known for its thermal springs and picturesque waterfalls, was normally crowded with tourists, but the pandemic had left it deserted. Navalnaya and her husband wandered the streets and the nearby hills, talking to farm animals and joking about which of them was the donkeys’ favorite. The villagers, bereft of other visitors, treated the couple like celebrities.
In mid-November, Christo Grozev arrived. He worked for Bellingcat, the investigative journalism outfit, and he was trying to figure out who had tried to kill Navalny. Grozev was starting to zero in on a set of suspects, so he reached out to Navalny and offered to help Maria Pevchikh, the head of FBK’s investigations team, who was then living near the Navalnys in Germany and digging toward the same goal. Grozev was surprised to discover that the Navalnys were what they had appeared to be on social media: a good-looking, cheerful couple who were well-stocked with inside jokes and continuously teasing each other. Sometimes Navalnaya joked that her husband had gotten a little slow from the Novichok. Their public message was also what they repeated in private: that, with some more work and organizing, there would soon be a free and democratic Russia, and Navalny would be its president. “It’s a very infectious feeling,” Grozev says. “You spend 20 minutes around it and you believe it.”
Soon, Grozev and Pevchikh had a clear picture of who had poisoned Navalny: an elite team of chemists, doctors, and operatives working for a special unit of the FSB. Their boss reported directly to the head of the FSB, who, in turn, reported to Putin. Grozev and Pevchikh discovered that this team had made as many as three attempts to poison Navalny. One went sideways and the assassins accidentally poisoned Navalnaya. On July 6, just weeks before the emergency landing in Omsk, while the Navalnys were on a short vacation on the Baltic shore, Navalnaya suddenly felt sick. She collapsed onto a park bench. Nothing hurt, but her legs didn’t respond to her commands, like they had stopped working. “I felt sicker than I had ever felt in my life,” she told Bellingcat. It was a mysterious, nonspecific illness, and by morning, it had vanished as quickly as it had come on. “She told us how stupid she felt, how she couldn’t even make Alexey believe that something was very wrong,” Grozev says of their conversation.
In mid-December, Navalny and Bellingcat published the results of their investigation. The Russian authorities responded by announcing that Navalny had violated his parole for an old, politically motivated conviction: He had failed to check in in person with his parole officer while he was in Germany recovering from the Kremlin’s attempt on his life. If he didn’t return to Russia, he would be a fugitive from the law. If he came back, he would be arrested for violating it. For Navalny and his colleagues, the answer was obvious: He had to go home. Grozev wondered if Navalnaya secretly disagreed with her husband, if she were privately trying to dissuade him from going back. “But she said, ‘Yes, he should go. There’s a risk, but that’s his life and that’s where he should be,’ ” Grozev recalls. “She said she was scared, but I didn’t see it in her.” Grozev tried to be optimistic and argued that maybe the Kremlin wouldn’t arrest him, but Navalnaya saw it clearly. “She said, ‘I think there is no chance that they will let him out. He will be in jail for a long time,’ ” Grozev recalls. “You must understand how shocking this conversation was. She’s this wide-eyed, earnest, honest person. She says these things like they’re the most obvious things on earth, but she’s saying very nonobvious things. You have to process what she says before you realize that it’s obvious only in a certain universe.” That universe was the imagined future in which Russia is free and happy. For all her fierce pragmatism, Navalnaya believed it fully. It would be impossible to survive if she didn’t.
By January, everyone had moved to Freiburg, and Dasha arrived to spend some time with her parents before they went back to Moscow. Navalny’s team was wrapping up an investigation into a baroque, billion-dollar palace that Putin owned on the Black Sea—to be published when Navalny was inevitably arrested. On January 14, Grozev hosted a farewell dinner for his team and Navalny’s. He made pasta and served local wine and gin made from juniper picked in the nearby forests. Several nights earlier, Grozev and Navalny had called Konstantin Kudryavtsev, the chief FSB hit man, and, in a 45-minute conversation in which Navalny pretended to be one of Kudryavtsev’s superiors, coaxed him into explaining exactly how he had tried to poison Navalny. Amazed by their luck, they listened to the call again, this time with Navalnaya in the room. That evening, as they sipped their wine and gin, Grozev offered a hypothetical: If you could go back in time and make Kudryavtsev disappear so that he couldn’t live to poison Navalny, would you? Each person around the table said yes, until it was Navalnaya’s turn to respond. No, she said. Grozev was stunned. Just behind her back was the investigators’ corkboard with pictures of her husband’s would-be assassins. Why, Grozev asked? “I’m a Christian,” she answered. “I would never harm a person.”
The next day, Yulia and Alexey took a train to Berlin, and from there, on January 17, they departed for Moscow. Russian police were waiting at passport control. He quickly kissed his wife, who turned to fish her passport from her purse, as if her husband being led away by police were the most natural thing in the world.
When Navalny arrived in Moscow, Western observers couldn’t help but compare his journey to that of Vladimir Lenin, who, after a long exile, arrived at Petrograd’s Finland Station in April 1917. The parallel seemed obvious enough: two men, no matter how different ideologically, who had tried to overthrow a corrupt Russian autocrat. It was an imperfect comparison, but there was one overlap that most failed to notice: their wives. If Navalnaya is, as some have dubbed her, the first lady of the opposition, Nadezhda Krupskaya, Lenin’s wife, was the first lady of the Russian Revolution. Like her husband, Krupskaya endured the hardships—and prison sentences—that came with opposing an oppressive regime. And like Navalnaya, she had her own cult following among the young people who took up her husband’s cause.
The idea of a revolutionary first lady began and ended with Krupskaya. For the next century, Russia’s first wives were of a far more traditional mold. Joseph Stalin constantly tried to keep his wife from working and, after a tempestuous marriage, she died by suicide in 1932. Stalin never remarried. “Whatever pleasures Stalin occasionally took,” wrote historian Stephen Kotkin, “he was married to Soviet state power.”
After the 1964 ouster of Nikita Khrushchev, who brought his wife on foreign trips to humanize Soviet power, the wives of Soviet leaders disappeared entirely from public view. People knew that Leonid Brezhnev was married and had children, but that was the extent of their knowledge. They did not know that Viktoria Brezhneva and her children accumulated tremendous wealth at the state’s expense, all while average Soviets endured increasingly frequent deficits of basic goods. Nor did they know that Brezhnev and all his lieutenants kept small harems in diamonds, furs, and large apartments. People only discovered that Brezhnev’s successor, Yuri Andropov, had a wife when she appeared at his state funeral in 1984.
Vladimir Putin came of age—and into the KGB—during the Brezhnev era, and the militant secrecy in which he swaddles his family is a clear echo of that time. Even before he announced his divorce from Lyudmila in 2013, Putin was, essentially, alone on the throne. Lyudmila was rarely seen in public, except on the few occasions she was trotted out to stand near him, blinking slowly. As she disappeared from view, rumors spread that Putin had packed her off to a convent. Other rumors had it that Putin had taken up with Alina Kabayeva, a former Olympic gymnast who was three decades his junior and with whom he’d supposedly had several children. In 2008, the newspaper that published those rumors was forced to shut down. That year, a reporter asked Putin about Kabayeva at a joint press conference with his friend Silvio Berlusconi, then the prime minister of Italy. “In what you said, there is not one word of truth,” Putin shot back. “I have always reacted negatively to those who with their snotty noses and erotic fantasies prowl into others’ lives.” Knowing how ferociously his friend guarded his personal life, Berlusconi made his hands into pistols and playfully fired them at the offending reporter.
In 2015, a number of publications reported that one of Putin’s two daughters, who went by the name Ekaterina Tikhonova, oversaw a $2 billion fund bankrolled by some of her father’s closest associates. It was the first time that anyone had seen what one of Putin’s daughters looked like as an adult—or learned her name. The Kremlin immediately denied the reports and punished the one Russian publication that printed the story. (In the fall of 2020, the Kremlin offered more awkward denials when Proekt, an independent online outlet, revealed the alleged existence of another daughter—one who looked uncannily like Putin—from a decades-old affair with a former cleaning lady who became a shareholder in the giant Rossiya Bank.)
When asked about Tikhonova at a 2015 press conference, Putin said, “I’ve read about Ekaterina Tikhonova and my other supposed relatives on the internet.” Then he grew angry. “I never discuss questions regarding my family…. I’ve never spoken about where specifically my daughters work and what they do and don’t plan to because of many different considerations, including security.” True to his KGB training, Putin saw his family as a potential pressure point, a weakness that could be exploited rather than a point of pride. In 2019, when asked about them again, he referred to his daughters as “one woman” and “the second woman.”
Navalny pounced. The comment, he said, “shows that we’ll never hear even a single word of truth from these people because they lie even when you would think it’s too embarrassing to lie, because they’re essentially disowning their own children.” It was a deliberate point of contrast: Unlike Putin, Navalny was transparent about his family. Everyone knew what they looked like because Navalny constantly posted pictures of them on his Instagram and took evident pride in his children. Everywhere Navalny went, Navalnaya was there, holding his hand or intimately whispering in his ear. She was with him at every social event, at every protest. When Navalny ran for mayor of Moscow and Navalnaya gave a speech at the rally two days before the vote, she made a point of comparing her family to Putin’s. “I came out here to say that if those in power see families as a weakness, they are mistaken,” she declared. “Family is the strength of any normal person—especially any real politician.”
Navalny’s strategy is to be the opposite of Putin in everything, including this. If Putin is an autocrat who is married to Russia and lives far above his subjects, Navalny positions himself as a man like any other. He wants to show Russians that he has earthly attachments, that it is these familial bonds that make him want to change Russia for the better. “Navalny decided that he would show Yulia,” says Parkhomenko. “It was all done with the understanding that this was being done for public consumption. And she is this cinematographic, nearly perfect woman who embodies total support and agreement and solidarity with what he’s doing.” Some, like Albats, think that it’s not just Navalny and his supporters who notice the contrast. “I think Putin really envies Alexey,” says Albats. “No woman ever loved you like this without money. He’s tall, and you’re tiny. He’s handsome, you’re a mouse. And a woman like this loves him.”
It is also an approach very clearly modeled on the West, where a spouse is a key component of a political leader’s image. “They violate the tradition of what the family of a Russian politician is supposed to be: people who are worried about what they’re wearing, what car they’re in, how many bodyguards they have,” says filmmaker Vera Krichevskaya, who is friendly with them. “Politics in Russia is about money. It’s a business.” By putting Navalnaya and their marriage on display, Navalny has made his brand not about money and power, but about honesty, as well as optimism, love, and courage. Recently, he turned the old opposition slogan “Russia will be free” into something less abstract: “Russia will be happy.” For a certain segment of the population, this is a powerful message, especially amid an accelerating and brutal state crackdown. Navalnaya’s image, says Krichevskaya, is that of “a woman who conquered fear.”
Parkhomenko believes that the familial contrast is indicative of a much deeper philosophical divide. “Putin is an absolutely Soviet ruler,” he explained. “He sees politics as an inherently male thing, which is very convenient for a totalitarian regime. And that’s the root difference between totalitarian and democratic politics. For democratic leaders, it’s very important for people to see the human in them. Soviet leaders are scared for people to see the human in them,” he said. “That’s the difference.”
Shortly before the pandemic ground Europe to a halt, the Navalnys flew to Paris to see Guriev and his wife. There were certain questions that were just too sensitive to discuss remotely. The two couples retreated to the Gurievs’ vacation home on the northern French coast. They visited the local bakery and took walks by the cliffs under the gray winter drizzle. “Alexey and Yulia both understood very well what awaited them,” Guriev told me. “They didn’t expect that he would be poisoned, but they understood that there’s a risk that Alexey could be killed. They’ve always understood that risk and understood it well.” Guriev told me about the time in 2012 that he invited Alexey, then early in his career as an opposition leader, to speak to his students at Moscow’s New Economic School. (A year later he would be forced to flee Russia for working on Navalny’s mayoral campaign.) One of the students asked Navalny a question he was starting to get all the time: Why hadn’t he been killed yet? Unfazed, Navalny replied that he didn’t know, but he was hoping to spread the word to young people so that they could continue his work if the worst ever happened. The discussion moved on, but as Guriev looked out into the audience, he saw Navalnaya sitting in the front row. She was crying. “It is absolutely not theoretical for them,” he told me. “They’ve been thinking about this for many years.”
The possibility of a lengthy prison sentence was also not theoretical. Contingency plans were put in place for what FBK and the network of election offices would do when Navalny was jailed or incapacitated. (This spring, as the Kremlin moved to have FBK labeled an extremist organization, Navalny’s lieutenants disbanded their field offices, citing the danger to their volunteers. In June, a Moscow court made the designation official.) Navalnaya, who is not formally involved with FBK and is careful to maintain a clear distinction between herself and the fund’s work, also had her contingency plan. Boris Zimin, the exiled Russian businessman who is Navalny’s benefactor, saw the couple in Germany shortly before their January return and told me that Navalnaya was as stoic as ever. “You couldn’t see that she was nervous,” he said. “She always creates the impression of a very calm person. I think she has strong emotions, but she’s not given to showing them.” In part, this is the product of experience. In the last decade, as Navalny emerged as an opposition leader, he was arrested at every protest he attended and given short sentences, ranging from two weeks to one month. Once he was arrested just as he was being released from jail, right at the prison gates. Another time, he went out to buy Navalnaya flowers for her birthday, only to be picked up in the street and slapped with a monthlong jail sentence. In 2014, he was put under a yearlong house arrest. This has given Navalnaya good training in the art of packing prison bags: bundles of food, clothing, and toiletries to pass to her frequently jailed husband. “A lot of people don’t understand, they only see the glamorous side,” says Albats. “But there’s this everyday life where you have to maintain a household on not a lot of money and make sure the kids do their homework. Receptions and articles—that’s Alexey. Her routine is packing bags for jail. It’s the dirty work of being in opposition politics.”
Navalnaya was intent on doing what she had always done: being a wife to Navalny and a mother to her children. This became harder after Navalny was sentenced, on February 2, to two years and eight months in prison. He was transferred to a notoriously brutal penal colony in Vladimir Oblast, 125 miles east of Moscow. Dasha went back to Stanford, 10 time zones away, and Zakhar remained at his boarding school in Germany. Suddenly, everyone for whom Navalnaya was responsible was no longer under her roof, and the tension occasionally spilled out into the open. Navalnaya created a stir when she went to Germany a week after her husband’s sentencing. But because she hadn’t advertised that her son now lived abroad, no one knew why she was going to Germany. Was she attending a secret meeting with Angela Merkel? Was she fleeing the country? When she again traveled to Germany just days before Navalny declared a hunger strike, Kremlin social media channels lit up with conspiracy theories and accusations: How could she abandon her husband at such a critical time? But the answer was much simpler and more poignant. Zakhar, alone in a foreign country, his father in jail, was turning 13.
In the meantime, Navalnaya continues packing bags of food for her husband. (In March, she posted a photo of the ramen noodles and instant soups she was sending to Navalny, asking people for their recommendations. This too turned into a trend, and a popular food blogger devoted an entire episode to the best dehydrated soups on the market.) She consults doctors about her husband’s faltering health. She continues writing him letters and visiting him in prison when she can—and calling them “dates” on Instagram. She goes to court hearings as the Kremlin continues opening new criminal cases against Navalny. Recently, he appeared by video link at an appeal hearing, gaunt after a 24-day hunger strike. “Yulyashka,” he said, using the diminutive of her name. “If you can hear me, stand up, let me get a look at you.” She stood. “I am awfully happy to see you,” he beamed.
And she continues swatting away calls to become a politician in her husband’s stead, just as she did in 2013 when, for a brief and horrible moment, it seemed that he was going to jail for five years. That time, thousands of Muscovites flooded the streets, demanding his release, and the Kremlin complied. This time, tens of thousands of people across all of Russia demanded the same—and the Kremlin arrested thousands more. Navalnaya came out with them twice, and twice she was arrested. The third time, the authorities refrained. Her husband’s supporters surrounded her and began chanting her name: “Yulia! Yulia! Yulia!” She held her hands to her chest and bowed, touched but overwhelmed by their attention. This was not her role. In 2013, shortly before her husband was sentenced, she was asked in an interview if she saw her husband as the next president of Russia and herself as the first lady. “Yes, I can see him as president,” she responded. “I don’t see myself as a first lady. I see myself as his wife, no matter who he is.”
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Links:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wx3vHdFRvMo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odGg5MwZThM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Kc4ZuyRAbc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4Lq7gaKW4A
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Her natal Lilith is 14 Scorpio, N.Node 5 Sagittarius, S.Node 3 Cancer
Her natal Ceres is 2 Leo, N.Node 1 Cancer, S.Node 2 Sagittarius
Her natal Amazon is 17 Virgo, N.Node 8 Gemini, S.Node 4 Scorpio
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Why Putin Fears My Father Alexei Navalny
By Dasha Navalnaya
December 6, 2022 2:14 PM EST
Dasha (Daria) Navalnaya, 21, was born and raised in Moscow. She is pursuing her undergraduate degree at Stanford University.
Over the past couple of years, the name Alexei Navalny has become known outside of Russia. You’ve read about him founding the Anti-Corruption Foundation to investigate the illicit wealth of Russian elites, getting detained numerous times over the years for attending protests against Putin’s regime, running for president in 2018, being poisoned in 2020, miraculously recovering and going back to fight for the better future of his country.
For you, these are just headlines around the world. For me, it’s the reality.
My name is Dasha Navalnaya. I’m a 21-year-old studying at Stanford University. My father—Alexei Navalny, became Vladimir Putin’s number one enemy by fighting the Kremlin’s corrupt and bloodthirsty regime.
Since 2011 the Anti-Corruption Foundation has been exposing the corruption of high-ranking government officials in Russia, one of the most famous investigations being Putin’s Palace. In August 2020, my father survived a chemical weapon poisoning with Novichok performed by FSB officers and, several months after recovering, successfully investigated his own assassination attempt.
Despite the dangers he faced, in January 2021, Alexei Navalny went back to Russia and was unlawfully arrested at the airport. He has since been serving his time in prison eye-to-eye with Putin’s jailers. Shortly after his arrest, the Anti-Corruption Foundation was recognized as an extremist organization in Russia. Its team members were prosecuted and forced into exile.
We all know that prison isn’t a place where you want to end up anywhere in the world, but, the conditions of the Russian prison system are far worse than those in the U.S. or Europe. There is nothing like a Russian prison to cripple even those in perfect health. My father survived a chemical weapons poisoning, which took a toll; he spent more than two weeks in a coma and over a month in intensive care. The rehabilitation took months. Shortly after the imprisonment, he started experiencing back pains and a gradual loss of control in his legs. He had to endure a 24-day hunger strike just to get access to medical help.
Barely surviving the hunger strike did not break his spirit—nothing ever will. But the solitary confinement conditions he is now subject to are clearly aimed at mentally breaking and physically killing him. My dad’s “residence” for over two months now – a 7 by 8 feet punishment cell, which is more of a concrete cage for someone of 6 ‘3 height. He spends days sitting on a low-iron stool (which exacerbates his back pain), with a mug being the only thing he’s allowed to keep. Even his bed is fastened to the wall from 6 AM to 10 PM.
On Thursday, November 17th, my dad was moved to the strict regime in a solitary housing unit. The rest of the prisoners live in barracks, which they can freely exit, but he will be permanently locked in the solitary cell. He wrote: “It is a regular cramped cell, like the punishment cell, except that you can have not one, but two books with you and use the prison kiosk, albeit with a very limited budget.” These new conditions will also prevent him from receiving any family visits—they are all completely banned. Being able to have a second book is definitely a bonus for an extremely fast reader like my dad.
I am proud to be my father’s daughter and walk tall knowing that despite the inhuman conditions, he has been standing up against Putin’s war in Ukraine and calling on the Russian people to do everything in their power to fight it.
“Everything has a price, and now, in the spring of 2022, we must pay this price. There’s no one to do it for us. Let’s not ‘be against the war.’ Let’s fight against the war,”—he stated during the trial in March. It is now December, and since August my father has spent 78 days in the punishment cell, serving eight solitary confinement terms back-to-back.
Why was he sent to the solitary confinement punishment cell and now to a long term solitary confinement cell, you ask? Among the violations from the colony administration, my father has been sent to the punishment cell because: unbuttoning jumpsuit” (it is physically impossible to button as the jumpsuit is a few sizes smaller than his), refusing to mop the fence,” and “sweeping the exercise yard poorly and insulting the Сriminal Investigator Lieutenant by addressing him by title and surname instead of his first name and patronymic.” The most recent is simply being an “egregious offender” worthy of the “cell-type” room.
The real reason behind the constant punishments is and always has been, of course, Navalny’s condemnation of the Ukraine war and his opposition to the Putin regime. My father uses every appeal hearing as an opportunity to make an anti-war statement. During his recent hearing, he said: “Your Honor, I declare that I am an innocent person. And I believe that I and others like me did everything possible to prevent what is happening now. And we will continue to do so. And I call on all citizens of Russia to fight this regime, this war, and mobilization.”
“I will spend as much time in a punishment cell as will be necessary to defend my right to speak out against a historic crime Putin is committing” —is a sadly self-fulfilling prophecy in his case. The prison administration made it clear there’s no such thing as a glimpse of the rule of law when it comes to Navalny.
The latter is also attested by the fact that my father’s attorney-client confidentiality privilege no longer exists. The penal colony administration had simply decided to waive it. In recent months, all communication he has had with his lawyers goes through the prison administration. The window in the visiting room has been covered with an opaque film, so lawyers can only hear a voice and see their client’s silhouette as they discuss the defense in the new criminal cases against him (he currently is facing up to 30 years behind bars). My dad’s lawyers no longer have a visual understanding of his health and physical conditions. This is unique even by the low standards of the Russian judicial system.
To me, Alexei Navalny is not only a determined, hard-working, and charismatic leader but also a funny, caring, and incredible father. He taught me how to ride a bike; he helped with math equations and grammar questions when I simply could not wrap my elementary school brain around the concept of semicolons. In middle school, when I made my first attempt to cook porridge, when it turned out to be way too salty, my dad smiled, didn’t discourage me, and ate the whole thing. For hours he helped me learn the poem “The Prophet” by Alexander Pushkin so well it is still engraved in my mind. Every September, he walked my younger brother and me to school on the first day of class. My dad was there for our competitions, concerts, and graduations. And has always written me or anyone he holds close a loving and hilarious letter on our birthday if he was arrested and couldn’t be with us in person.
Now he can’t even do that.
Our family has always taken pride in its optimism: we prefer jokes over complaining when the worse comes. We’ve seen a lot over the years and made sure not to take it too close to heart. My father was detained at least once almost every year between 2011 and 2021, with time spent in prison longer and longer. My mother was detained and tried; my uncle served 3.5 years in prison for the simple crime of having the same last name. Our whole family, including my grandparents and great-grandparents, has been harassed and unlawfully prosecuted many times. Not to mention the “good old times” when the FSB poisoners were close to killing my mother and almost killed my father
It is impossible to get used to the idea that your loved ones can be imprisoned or killed at any time for a made-up reason, but over time it became part of our family routine. “So, I assume you won’t be coming to dinner tonight?” I’d ask my dad whenever he was getting ready to go to a protest. He would respond with a snicker.
The Russian regime has always been based on corruption and it is now based on war – for Putin, these are the two prerequisites for staying in power. That is why he is ready to destroy anyone who dares to expose them. And he treats my father with a personal hatred—as his most implacable opponent for many years.
As you read these lines, Navalny is in mortal danger, but he continues to stand by what he believes in. He has proven willing to sacrifice his freedom, health, and even his life to see Russia become a democratic, prosperous country. And right now, even from prison, he is fighting to make it peaceful. By his example, he supports and inspires millions of Russians who, like him, are unwilling to tolerate war and injustice.
Putin must be defeated. He is a threat not only to Russia and Ukraine but to the world. The very essence of authoritarian power involves a constant increase in bets, an increase in aggression, and the search for new enemies. In order not to lose in this struggle, we must unite.
My father is one of the leaders of this struggle, and he must be out there. He challenges Putin every day, but together we can ensure that his efforts are not in vain and that his words are heard around the world. I now turn to world leaders and ask them to support my call to the Russian government to release my father.
Let’s all strive for a better, more prosperous global future where we can choose our own leaders. Free Alexei Navalny!
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‘We will not stop fighting’: Daughter of imprisoned Putin critic Alexey Navalny speaks out
By Sophie Tanno and Caitlin Hu,
Dasha Navalnaya, the daughter of jailed Russian dissident Alexey Navalny, has called on Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the war in Ukraine and to release her father and political prisoners in the country, in an extensive interview with CNN’s Erin Burnett on Friday.
“We will not stop fighting” until both of those goals are achieved, Navalnaya said.
Her father Navalny – an outspoken critic of the Kremlin and its war in Ukraine – is currently serving a nine-year jail term at a maximum-security prison east of Moscow after being convicted of large-scale fraud by a Russian court last year.
He was poisoned with nerve agent Novichok in 2020, an attack several Western officials and Navalny himself openly blamed on the Kremlin. Russia has denied any involvement.
After several months in Germany recovering from the poisoning, Navalny returned to Moscow, where he was immediately arrested for violating probation terms imposed from a 2014 embezzlement case that he said was politically motivated.
He was initially sentenced to two-and-a-half years, and then later given nine years over separate allegations that he stole from his anti-corruption foundation.
Navalny, who previously ran for political office in Russia, has long been a thorn in the side of the Kremlin.
Dasha said the “main goal” of her father’s work and anti-corruption foundation “is for Russia to become a free state, to have open elections, to have freedom of press, freedom of speech, and just you know, to have the opportunity to become a part of the normal Western democratized community.”
She described the experience of growing up in a family watched closely by the government, telling Burnett that she and her brother made a game out of trying to evade spies on public transport in Russia.
“We would look around the train and then start chatting with the guy who had the worst camouflage outfit and the black cap and the weird strappy bag on the side, and we would jump out – not out of the train but out of the the subway car,” she said.
But Navalnaya also voiced escalating concern about her father’s prison conditions now, saying that her family has had limited access to Navalny and that his attorneys are able to see him only “through a guarded veil.”
“So we can’t really know for sure his health circumstance and he hasn’t seen his family in over half a year,” she said. “I haven’t seen him in person in over a year and it’s quite concerning considering his health is getting worse and worse.”
Concerns about Navalny’s health have persisted for months. Footage during his sentencing last year showed Navalny as a gaunt figure standing beside his lawyers in a room filled with security officials.
Navalny himself has tweeted about difficult conditions in confinement, saying in November that he had been isolated from other prisoners in what he described as a move designed to “shut me up.” Inmates in Russian penal colonies are typically housed in barracks rather than cells, according to a report by Poland-based think tank the Center for Eastern Studies (OSW).
The “real indescribable bestiality” of his incarceration, however, was limitations on visits with family, he said at the time.
Navalny’s poisoning and subsequent legal problems drew intense interest from the Russian public and abroad. Russia witnessed large-scale anti-government protests in towns and cities across the country after his arrest, with authorities detaining around 11,000 demonstrators within a few weeks.
In June last year, Navalny was transferred from a penal colony in Pokrov to a maximum-security prison in Melekhovo in Russia’s Vladimir region.
Throughout his incarceration, Navalny has nevertheless vociferously denounced Russia’s invasion of Ukraine via social media, advocating anti-war protests across the country as “the backbone of the movement against war and death.”
In a tweet thread about his prison conditions last year, he vowed to continue speaking out.
“So what’s my first duty? That’s right, to not be afraid and not shut up,” he wrote, urging others to do the same. “At every opportunity, campaign against the war, Putin and United Russia. Hugs to you all.”
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Link:
Lessons from My Father, Alexey Navalny | Dasha Navalnaya
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4Lq7gaKW4A
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Please feel free to comment or ask questions.
Goddess Bless, Rad
Hi All,
Here the story of Beatrix Potter. This is a noon chart.
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Overlooked No More: Beatrix Potter, Author of ‘The Tale of Peter Rabbit’
She created one of the world’s best-known characters for children, and fought to have the book published, but she never sought celebrity status.
By Jess Bidgood
Jan. 19, 2024
This article is part of Overlooked, a series of obituaries about remarkable people whose deaths, beginning in 1851, went unreported in The Times.
With “The Tale of Peter Rabbit,” Beatrix Potter created what would become one of the world’s best-known children’s book characters.
The book, about a cheeky rabbit who steals vegetables from the garden of one Mr. McGregor and loses his coat and shoes in a narrow escape, became a literary juggernaut that has sold more than 45 million copies. It also spawned a merchandising empire and has left an indelible imprint on children’s book publishing.
But Potter’s manuscript was initially dismissed by publishers.
The year was 1900, and Potter, then in her mid-30s, had submitted her book, complete with her own intricate illustrations, to at least six publishers, according to her biographer Linda Lear.
As the rejections flowed in, she unloaded her frustrations in a letter to a family friend, including a sketch depicting herself, little book in hand, arguing with a man in a long coat. “I wonder if that book will ever be printed,” she fumed.
She finally decided to print it herself. The next September, she took her savings to a private printer in London and ordered 250 copies of the book, which she distributed herself. The demand was so great that she soon needed to print 200 more. One early admirer, she wrote in a letter, was Arthur Conan Doyle, the author of the Sherlock Holmes mysteries.
Finally, in 1902, Frederick Warne & Co., a London publishing house that was among those that had initially rejected the manuscript, released “Peter Rabbit” to a wider audience.
As the books flew off shelves (or hopped off, as the case may be), Potter sensed a merchandising opportunity. She designed a Peter Rabbit doll, injecting the legs with lead to help it stand up, and registered it as patent No. 423888.
Soon there were china figurines, wallpaper and more dolls — products she jokingly called “sideshows” even as she involved herself in their design, copyright and quality control.
“If it were done at all, it ought to be done by me,” she wrote to her editor, Norman Warne, after a reader approached her with another wallpaper design in 1904.
“The idea of rooms covered with badly drawn rabbits,” Potter added, “is appalling.”
Potter died of heart ailments and complications of bronchitis on Dec. 22, 1943, during World War II. She was 77. Though the death was not initially reported by The New York Times, for reasons lost to history, the newspaper referred to it in subsequent weeks and months, noting that she left behind an estate worth $845,544 (about $15 million in today’s dollars) and that Queen Elizabeth, the queen mother, had bought all 15 copies of “The Tale of Peter Rabbit” from a London bookstore to keep at Buckingham Palace.
Potter went on to write 22 more books, whimsical but razor-sharp stories about soon-to-become enduring characters like Jemima Puddle-Duck and Benjamin Bunny. Her characters, dressed in waistcoats and bonnets, were rendered with meticulous attention to anatomical detail, an outgrowth of Potter’s long interest in natural science.
Her deep involvement with the business side of book writing — dealing with licensing, for example — was unusual at a time when unmarried women’s economic and social standing were limited.
“It is just historically remarkable that we have this female author, a children’s author in particular, who had such control over her work,” Chloe Flower, an assistant professor of English literature at Bryn Mawr College, said in an interview.
It also gave Potter a pathway out of the overbearing home life that confined most women in her day.
Helen Beatrix Potter was born on July 28, 1866, in London to Rupert and Helen (Leech) Potter. Her father was a barrister, her mother a daughter of a successful merchant. (Potter’s paternal grandfather had been a wealthy calico trader and a member of Parliament.) Beatrix’s upbringing was a whirlwind of country houses and idyllic vacations — but it was stifling, too, hemmed in by a narrow set of expectations for women, a tense relationship with her mother and a paucity of friends.
Nature gave her an escape and a sense of purpose. She and her younger brother, Bertram, collected insects and frogs, caught and tamed mice and trapped rabbits to observe them. She drew them — and just about everything else — endlessly, binding her sketchbooks with string at first, according to her biographer Lear, who wrote “Beatrix Potter: A Life in Nature” (2006).
Bertram was sent to school, but Beatrix was not; she was taught by governesses, took art lessons and made regular trips to the Natural History Museum in London to find specimens to draw. In the mid-1890s, she sold drawings of frogs and other work to a fine arts publisher.
“One must make out some way,” she wrote in her journal in 1895. “It is something to have a little money to spend on books and to look forward to being independent, though forlorn.”
She took a particular interest in mycology, the study of fungi, which she would examine under a microscope, and, despite her amateur status, sought out the experts at the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, in London.
With encouragement from her uncle, a prominent chemist, Potter had a paper of hers submitted to the Linnean Society, an organization devoted to natural history, but it went unnoticed (a slight that the society apologized for after her death). By the turn of the century, Potter found herself over 30 and in need of something else to do.
Seven years earlier, she had written what she called “picture letters” to the children of a former governess — illustrated fictional tales about creatures in the garden.
“I don’t know what to write to you,” read one from 1893, “so I shall tell you a story about four little rabbits whose names were Flopsy, Mopsy, Cotton-tail and Peter.”
It was the governess, Annie Moore, who suggested that Potter turn the letters into books and sell them.
Potter knew there was a market for books that were physically small, like Helen Bannerman’s “The Story of Little Black Sambo” (1899), and she wanted her book to be affordable. About a year after Warne & Co. published “Peter Rabbit,” there were almost 60,000 copies in print, Lear wrote.
In 1905, when she was 39, Potter got engaged to the editor with whom she collaborated, Norman Warne, although to her parents’ disapproval; they believed a publisher could not be a good enough match for their daughter. But Warne died of leukemia a month later. Potter, for her part, continued to work with his family’s publishing house, writing most of her books between 1900 and 1913.
The world that Potter conjured in her books — whimsical but dark, full of bloodless observations about the food chain — appealed as much to adults as to children.
“It would never do to eat our own customers; they would leave us and go to Tabitha Twitchett’s,” remarks a yellow tomcat named Ginger, who, with a dog named Pickles, owns a shop patronized by mice and rabbits in Potter’s “Ginger & Pickles” (1909).
“On the contrary,” Pickles replies, “they would go nowhere at all.”
The stories are replete with consequences for rudeness, missteps and plain old bad luck, but they were also charming and warm. When the Tailor of Gloucester falls ill and is unable to finish making a waistcoat for the mayor’s wedding, a team of mice sew a cherry-red garment. And Jeremy Fisher, a frog, goes on a misadventure to find lunch for his friends, Sir Isaac Newton and Alderman Ptolemy Tortoise, who only eats salad.
Maurice Sendak, who acquired rare copies of Potter’s books, acknowledged being influenced by her work.
“Peter Rabbit, for all its gentle tininess, loudly proclaims that no story is worth the writing, no picture worth the making, if it is not a work of imagination,” he wrote in “Caldecott & Co.: Notes on Books and Pictures” (1988), a book of essays.
Still, Potter never sought to be a celebrity. She used the money from her book sales to buy — and preserve — the farmland that had inspired her tales, and as she grew older and her literary output slowed, she increasingly devoted herself to life in the country.
“Somehow when one is up to the eyes in work with real live animals, it makes one despise paper-book animals — but I mustn’t say that to my publisher,” she wrote cheekily to one of them in 1918.
She bought Hill Top Farm, in England’s northwest Lake District, in 1905, eventually becoming a prizewinning sheep breeder and a conservationist, and continued buying land with William Heelis, a lawyer she married when she was 47.
By then, “very few people knew that Mrs. Heelis was also Beatrix Potter,” said Libby Joy, a former chairwoman of the Beatrix Potter Society.
Potter’s stories have been adapted into films, including one of a 1971 ballet, “The Tales of Beatrix Potter,” and two adaptations of “Peter Rabbit” — a 1991 HBO movie with Carol Burnett and a 2018 animated version. Renée Zellweger played the author in the 2006 biopic “Miss Potter.”
On her death, Potter left 4,000 acres of farmland to England’s National Trust, a conservation charity.
Her posthumous books include a diary, which was written in code, deciphered and finally published in 1966; a belatedly discovered story called “The Tale of Kitty-in-Boots,” which was published in 2016 with illustrations by Quentin Blake; and her mushroom illustrations, 59 of which appear in a 1967 natural history book written by a professional mycologist.
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The Secret Life of Beatrix Potter
A new book and an exhibition on Potter, who wrote “The Tale of Peter Rabbit,” use letters, sketches, and a coded journal to capture an author who delighted in the detail and humor of the natural world.
By Anna Russell
March 12, 2022
Many teen-agers will go to great lengths to keep their diaries private—I kept a little key for mine in a wooden jewelry box, which I guarded jealously—but the children’s book author Beatrix Potter took it to an extreme. Between the ages of fourteen and thirty, she fastidiously recorded observations about her stiff Victorian world in several journals. Her parents, descendants of wealthy cotton merchants in the North of England, were rich and exceedingly proper. Perhaps to protect her work, Potter wrote in a minuscule handwriting using a code that only she could understand. Her journals remained a mystery until 1958, when a collector, searching through them, identified a passing reference to Louis XVI, and then painstakingly decoded years’ worth of Potter’s innermost thoughts. (Fans are nosy, too).
In public, Potter, the author of “The Tale of Peter Rabbit” and “The Tale of Benjamin Bunny,” whose books have now sold more than two hundred and fifty million copies, was demure and perfectly respectable. In private, the journals suggest, she was forthright and opinionated, a budding artist, who delighted in the detail and humor of everyday life. “She was quite a strong and determined personality,” Annemarie Bilclough, who co-curated an exhibition on her life at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum, told me. Born in 1866, Potter lived with her parents in a grand house in South Kensington, a rapidly growing community, until she was forty-seven years old. She felt like an outsider much of the time. She hated the noise and grime of the city—“Why do people live in London so much?” she wondered—and longed to be in nature. She called her birthplace “unloved.” “My brother and I were born in London because my father was a lawyer there,” she wrote. “But our descent—our interests and our joy was in the north country.”
What was Potter doing all that time she lived at home with her parents? In childhood, she rarely ventured into the rest of London, and she had few friends besides her younger brother, Bertram. Mostly, it seems, she spent her days drawing. She drew compulsively, rapturously, from a young age, in a sketchbook that she made from drawer-lining paper and stationery. “It is all the same, drawing, painting, modelling, the irresistible desire to copy any beautiful object which strikes the eye,” she wrote. She drew when she was unsettled, regardless of the subject. “I cannot rest, I must draw, however poor the result, and when I have a bad time come over me it is a stronger desire than ever, and settles on the queerest things,” she wrote in her journal. “Last time, in the middle of September, I caught myself in the back yard making a careful and admiring copy of the swill bucket, and the laugh it gave me brought me round.”
Potter’s sketchbook and coded journal, and many of her other belongings, are on display at the V. & A. through early next year, in an exhibition titled “Beatrix Potter: Drawn to Nature.” (Rizzoli has recently published an accompanying book by the same name.) Some two hundred and forty eclectic objects, including manuscripts, sketches, tchotchkes and collectibles—even the alleged pelt of Benjamin Bunny–—tell the story of a remarkable transformation. Having lived the first two-thirds of her life in near-total acquiescence to her family’s wishes, she made a sudden turn in her third act. “A town mouse longing to be a country mouse,” as Bilclough put it, Potter gave up the trappings of her privileged life in London and bought a cottage in a remote part of the English countryside. She became a farmer and conservationist, with muddy shoes and prize-winning sheep. She walked the fells and lakeside paths around her new home, sketching them, and ultimately saving them from destruction.
Potter may not have had many friends as a child, but she had lots of animals. She and Bertram sneaked a rotating cast of pets into their nursery, including snakes, salamanders, lizards, rabbits, frogs, and a fat hedgehog. The V. & A. exhibition, which includes a series of dark rooms that evoke the cloistered atmosphere of Potter’s childhood, showcases her early drawings of the natural world as she would have known it then: a mouse, a caterpillar, a beady lizard. The siblings loved animals, but they were “unsentimental about the realities of life and death,” as the show puts it. When their pets died, they would stuff them, or boil their skeletons for further study. There’s a drawing by Bertram of a pickled fish next to a human skull, and a note from him about his pet bat: “If he cannot be kept alive . . . you had better kill him, + stuff him as well as you can,” he wrote to Potter from boarding school. Nearby, stretched out in a display case, is a flattened rabbit hide and the disturbing sign, “Rabbit pelt, thought to be that of Benjamin Bouncer.” Benjamin Bouncer was one of a series of rabbits that Potter owned, and a favorite muse. She brought him home in a paper bag when she was in her teens. Later, she brought home the rabbit Peter Piper, who learned how to jump through hoops but “flatly refused to perform” in company.
In early adulthood, Potter observed her pets closely, inventing narratives about them, and filling her letters to the children of friends with their adventures. Her dispatches are playful and alive, illustrated with pen-and-ink drawings of rabbits. In 1892, she wrote a letter to Noel Moore, the son of her former governess, about an encounter that Benjamin Bunny had with a wild rabbit in the garden. (Benjamin hardly noticed; he was eating so much.) After Benjamin died (“through persistent devotion to peppermints”), Peter Piper became Potter’s leading man. In 1893, she wrote to Noel again: “My dear Noel, I don’t know what to write to you, so I shall tell you a story about four little rabbits whose names were Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail and Peter.” A drawing of a whiskered Peter on his hind legs, ears perked, immediately suggests mischief.
Potter sent the Moore children story after story in illustrated letters, until Noel’s mother suggested that she try to turn them into books. (The children had saved their copies.) In 1901, Potter self-published the first edition of “The Tale of Peter Rabbit,” which appeared almost exactly as she had written it to Noel, down to Peter’s “blue jacket with brass buttons, quite new.” A series of established publishers had turned her down, partly because of her insistence on keeping the book’s price low. “Little rabbits cannot afford to spend 6 shillings on one book, and would never buy it,” she wrote to a friend. She was also particular about the size of the book; it had to be small, for small hands. The following year, Frederick Warne & Co. agreed to put out an abridged version. Potter compromised on the cover image, which she called the “idiotic prancing rabbit.”
“Peter Rabbit” was an instant hit, selling out multiple editions. (“The public must be fond of rabbits! what an appalling quantity of Peter,” Potter wrote.) Her publisher asked for more books, and she began pumping them out one after another, beginning with “The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin” and “The Tailor of Gloucester.” She also patented her characters. In the exhibition, there’s a fraying Jemima Puddle-Duck doll, with a fabric bonnet and shawl, and a Peter Rabbit teapot, as well as a complicated-looking board game. “She was very savvy in what was created, and what was made,” Helen Antrobus, who co-curated the show, told me. Potter believed that her first books found an audience because they were written for real children. “It is much more satisfactory to address a real live child,” she wrote. “I often think that that was the secret of the success of Peter Rabbit, it was written to a child—not made to order.”
She also had a knack for making the familiar strange. Her attention to the practicalities of being an animal, even a very civilized one, produced beguiling images. If a hedgehog wears a bonnet, as one does in “The Tale of Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle,” her quills will certainly poke through. If a tortoise is invited to a dinner party, as happens in “The Tale of Mr. Jeremy Fisher,” he’ll probably bring a salad in a string bag. She took silliness seriously. At the V. & A., one display case holds tiny folded letters that Potter wrote as if they were sent from one character to another: “Letters between Squirrel Nutkin, Twinkleberry Squirrel and Rt Hon. O. Brown, Esq. MP.”
Potter’s funniest tales are understated, and occasionally gruesome. Peter Rabbit’s father had an “accident” in Mr. McGregor’s garden, and Mrs. McGregor put him into a pie. The disrespectful Squirrel Nutkin, who loses his tail to an owl, is drawn in the owl’s talons with the caption, “This looks like the end of the story; but it isn’t.” In “The Tale of Ginger and Pickles,” a cat and a dog running a shop that caters to rabbits and mice struggle to rein in their appetites. “It would never do to eat our customers,” Pickles says. “They would leave us and go to Tabitha Twitchit’s.”
As Potter’s career was taking off, something else was happening, too: she was falling in love with her editor, Norman Warne. It wasn’t exactly a whirlwind romance—they saw each other with chaperons—though it must have felt that way to Potter. At thirty-nine, she was still living with her parents, who disapproved of Warne’s background in “trade.” (Gasp!) They wanted her to stay at home and continue running their affairs. Still, when he proposed, Potter accepted without hesitation. A month after the engagement, while Potter was vacationing in Wales, Warne died suddenly of lymphatic leukemia. She didn’t make it back in time to say goodbye.
Potter had long dreamed of owning a farm. A few months after Warne’s death, she completed the purchase of the thirty-four-acre Hill Top Farm, in England’s Lake District, in the far north of the country, an area that her family had visited for years. She bought it with money that she’d made from her books. The act was a “turning point,” Linda Lear wrote in the biography “Beatrix Potter: A Life in Nature,” “a courageous assertion of personal freedom and emotional independence.” In Potter’s grief, she set about planting a garden. Years later, she wrote of the house, “It is in here I go to be quiet and still with myself. This is me, the deepest me, the part one has to be alone with.”
When I visited Hill Top recently, in the tiny village of Near Sawrey, the area looked to me like a storybook drawing of the English countryside: whitewashed houses, stone walls, and rolling, green hills. Lots of sheep and lots of rain. Near Sawrey contains just a handful of streets, a few dozen cottages, and a pub called the Tower Bank Arms. (There’s also a Far Sawrey, down the road, but no Sawrey.) Today, Hill Top is maintained as a house museum—a kind of Beatrix Potter shrine—by the National Trust, a conservation charity. The area is popular with hikers and families visiting nearby Windermere, and has become a place of pilgrimage for fans.
Hill Top itself is a two-story farmhouse originally from the seventeenth century, with a pitched roof and vines that creep up the outside. In the summer, the garden is full of roses, hollyhocks and saxifrage, but in late winter it is in hibernation, with just a few shoots poking through the hard ground. The site is still a working farm, and I could smell the animals; dogs were barking nearby. John Moffat, who manages National Trust properties in the area, showed me around. “It’s all still very much as it would have been when Beatrix was here,” he said.
Some people shut down after tragedy; others become extraordinarily productive. The eight years after Warne’s death were Potter’s most prolific in terms of literary output. She wrote more than a dozen books, including “The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck,” “The Tale of Mr. Jeremy Fisher,” “The Tale of Tom Kitten” and “The Tale of Samuel Whiskers.” She also threw herself into the renovation of Hill Top. Her letters during this time were full of practical problems—the house had rats and a bad roof—as she tried to find her feet among the locals. “I had rather a row with the plumber—or perhaps I ought to say I lost my temper!” she wrote in one. “If he won’t take orders from a lady I may pack him off & get one from Kendal.” She also bought up additional land to conserve it. She married a local lawyer named William Heelis, and moved into a cottage with him, but she kept Hill Top to herself, as a place to write, garden, and be alone.
Many of the stories that Potter wrote while living in Near Sawrey take an interest in country life. For “The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck,” about a fussy duck determined to find a place to hatch her eggs, Potter drew the Tower Bank Arms, as well as the gate to her garden. Her characters are genial country folk who retain their essential animal natures. (The sly fox whom Jemima speaks to reads a newspaper and sits on his tail to keep dry, but is also quite interested in her eggs.) In “The Tale of Samuel Whiskers,” Samuel Whiskers and his wife Anna Maria, both rats, are drawn running around Hill Top, gathering ingredients to bake Tom Kitten into a pie. (“ ‘No,’ said Samuel Whiskers, ‘make it properly, Anna Maria, with breadcrumbs.’ ”) Upstairs at Hill Top, there’s an intricate doll house with a miniature ham that Potter drew in “The Tale of Two Bad Mice.”
Looking over her things, I was struck by the house’s modest proportions. (By the end of her life, Potter was the equivalent of a multimillionaire.) She could have remained in London, patiently keeping house for her parents, but instead she chose this life. The rooms felt cozy and curated, filled with knickknacks collected over the years, like a magpie’s nest. Her joy in having a space of her own is obvious. She was a late bloomer, but she grew decisively into herself.
As Potter aged, her writing slowed. The real animals around her—on her farms, and the hardy Herdwick sheep up in the hills—took precedence. Around Near Sawrey, she wore wool skirts and clogs, and went by the name of Mrs. Heelis. Her sheep won competitions. Beatrix Potter belonged to another life. When she died, in 1943, she left more than four thousand acres, and many working farms, to the National Trust, which now owns more than twenty per cent of the Lake District. Her bequest remains the Trust’s largest acquisition in the area. Potter’s shepherd, Tom Storey, scattered her ashes above Hill Top. “It was not only the landscape—it was the life, and the traditions, that she wanted to preserve,” Antrobus told me.
Around the corner from Hill Top, the Tower Bank Arms was filling up. There was a fire going, and a box of crocheted rabbits, which the Ladies of the Village were selling for charity, sat on the bar. From the pub, I walked through town up toward Moss Eccles Tarn, a small lake where Potter liked to paint while Heelis fished. In the rain, the landscape was foreboding, and a little wild. Several trees had fallen over. At the top of a hill, I watched as a flock of sheep grazed in the storm. They looked up curiously, and then went about their business.
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Leap Into the Surprising, Art-Filled Life of Beatrix Potter in a New Exhibition
The beloved author of “The Tale of Peter Rabbit” also wrote diaries in code, sketched fungi and raised prize-winning sheep
Nora McGreevy
Correspondent
March 28, 2022
Early on in her career, beloved children’s author Beatrix Potter (1866-1943) paid several visits to the local museum in her native South Kensington, London.
She went to make sketches of a silk 18th-century man’s waistcoat that had been expertly embroidered with neat pink, blue and green flowers. To Potter’s eye, the jacket’s button-hole stitches were “so small—so small—they looked as if they had been made by little mice!” Drawing from local legend about a miraculously appeared waistcoat, Potter wrote and illustrated her own version of events, where a poor tailor’s business is saved from ruin by a crew of singing, sewing mice.
That story became The Tailor of Gloucester (1902), one of Potter’s dozens of books that have collectively sold more than 250 million copies to date. And the museum where Potter sketched is now the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A), which recently opened a new exhibition dedicated to the unconventional, art- and animal-filled life of Potter herself.
Titled “Beatrix Potter: Drawn to Nature,” the show explores the art and stories behind Potter’s world-famous creations, such as The Tale of Peter Rabbit, as well as her lesser-known achievements as a sheep breeder and a scientific illustrator of fungi and beetles. Museumgoers can visit in-person through January 2023, while viewers can also watch videos, read biographical essays and explore close-up reproductions of Potter’s finely detailed drawings online.
Some sketches on display date to when Potter was just 8 or 9 years old, as Sarah Cascone reports for Artnet News. Highlights of the more than 200 objects on view include rarely seen Potter family photographs; the author’s muddy clogs, used for outdoor traipsing and farming; and her walking stick, complete with an inset magnifying glass that allowed her to better study the natural world, according to a V&A statement.
Potter’s passion for nature takes center stage in this exhibition, as co-curator Annemarie Bilclough tells Artnet News. “[T]he theme of nature underpins everything she did,” the curator says.
Potter grew up a sheltered, creative child in Victorian-era London. Their controlling parents kept Potter and her brother, Bertram, isolated from other children for fear that they might “catch germs,” according to the National Trust.
As Bilclough notes in the V&A statement, “Potter was a ‘town mouse’ longing to be a country mouse.” She longed to be in nature but lived in London for the first 47 years of her life, so she often had to settle for museums, libraries and gardens. She and her brother kept dozens of beloved pets—more than 90 throughout Potter’s life—and collected insects, hedgehogs, snakes, and owls in their family home.
Potter’s first career ambition was to become a mycologist. She worked for a time at the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, where she channeled her lifelong passion for art into meticulously detailed renderings of various fungi. Potter even once attempted to submit a scientific paper on spore germination to the Linnean Society—but eventually withdrew, per a V&A biography.
As a teenager and well into adulthood, Potter wrote all her diaries in a cryptic secret code. Subsequent researchers only managed to crack it in the 1960s, reports Anna Russell for the New Yorker.
Several of these rarely seen drawings of mushrooms are on view at the V&A. “Many will be familiar with the extraordinary legacy of Potter’s storybooks, but in this exhibition they will discover how her talent at making her characters real emerged from a long-standing curiosity for the small details of nature, which could have led her down a different career path,” adds Bilclough in the statement.
Her parents hoped to groom their daughter to become a live-in housekeeper and caretaker, per the New Yorker. But it was Potter’s knack for telling stories that eventually won her financial and personal independence. In letters to the children of her former governess, Potter would write down stories about her pet rabbits, Peter Piper and Benjamin Bouncer, and illustrated them with lively sketches. (These rabbits would inspire two of Potter’s most famous characters, the mischievous Peter Rabbit and his cousin Benjamin Bunny.)
When the children’s mother suggested that Potter turn these stories into a published book, Potter created the manuscript for Peter Rabbit and began pitching her creation to publishing houses. No editors bit until Norman Warne, of Frederick Warne & Co., agreed to publish the first edition of Peter Rabbit in 1902.
The book was an immediate and enduring best-seller: In the 120 years since its publication, Peter Rabbit has never gone out of print, per the museum statement. Buoyed by her success, Potter set to work creating more indelible tales such as The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin and the Tailor of Gloucester, per the New Yorker.
Potter became briefly engaged to Norman Warne, her editor, but he died suddenly and tragically before they could marry. In her grief and with newfound financial freedom, Potter moved to the Lakes District in the northern English countryside, buying a farmhouse and estate known as Hill Top.
At Hill Top, Potter finally realized a lifelong dream of living in close contact with nature. She became a farmer, raised prize-winning sheep for competitions and used proceeds from her books to buy the surrounding landscape and protect it from developers. She married a local lawyer, William Heelis, despite her parent’s objections. And when she died at age 77, she left more than 4,000 acres in her Hill Top estate to the National Trust, reports Artnet News.
Bilclough tells Artnet News that she hopes audiences will leave the exhibition with a deeper understanding of Potter’s determined, multifaceted personality.
“Her legacy can be seen in more than one way,” the curator adds. “We wanted take a broad view of her achievements beyond her storybooks, because there was such a wide range.”
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Link:
https://www.wikiart.org/en/beatrix-potter/all-works#!#filterName:all-paintings-chronologically,resultType:masonry
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Her natal Lilith is 2 Virgo, N.Node 4 Sagittarius, S.Node 4 Cancer
Her natal Ceres is 6 Virgo, N.Node 2 Cancer, S.Node 2 Sagittarius
Her natal Amazon is 29 Leo, N.Node 8 Gemini, S.Node 5 Scorpio
Please feel free to comment or ask questions.
Goddess Bless, Rad
Hi All,
Here is the story of Georgie Purcell. This is a noon chart.
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Meet Georgie Purcell: Animal Justice party’s Champion
Georgie Purcell is a passionate animal protection advocate living in the beautiful Macedon Ranges on Dja Dja Wurrung, Taungurung and Wurundjeri Country. For the past 4 years, she has been proud and honoured to work as Chief of Staff to Victoria’s first Animal Justice Party MP – playing a key role in achieving legislative reform to better the lives of animals. But after entering a political role at just 26 years old – she has noticed the way young people, particularly young women, are not represented in our halls of power. Georgie wants to change that.
Georgie has been involved in the animal protection movement for 11 years – volunteering on campaigns to end puppy farming, ban jumps racing and stop duck shooting. Georgie has a double degree in law and communications/politics. She is admitted as an Australian lawyer, and is a graduate of the Pathway to Politics Program for Women and Centre for Australian Progress.
In her spare time, she loves to hang out with her 17 sheep, donkey, 3 horses, 4 ex-puppy farm dogs and 4 cats.
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Why I’m not done fighting – for animal rights, and for women
Georgie Purcell
As a young woman, I knew public life wouldn’t be easy – but Monday was a new low when my image was manipulated and misused
Wed 31 Jan 2024 14.00 GMT
Monday was the day that duck shooting should have been banned in Victoria. Instead it was the day we saw the government betray parliamentary processes, our wildlife and our community. And somehow, that day ended with a bizarre form of sexism against me.
I won’t pretend public life since my election as an MP has been easy, especially as a young woman.
I never thought it would be, particularly because I didn’t want to – and couldn’t – pretend to be the kind of woman people easily accept as a politician.
It’s why I chose to share parts of my story, including that I am a former sex worker, and my experience with abortion.
I’m a member of the Animal Justice party and, to me, that means defending the non-human constituents largely ignored in politics. It means going up against traditionally patriarchal, inherently violent systems where animal abuse and sexism can form a dangerous alliance.
Being on the front foot has always felt like an important form of self-preservation and protection. But it shouldn’t have to be, and it is apparent to me that it is not this way for my male colleagues.
Monday marked a new low. Against a backdrop of shooter bravado, and woven between endless messages from men vowing to kill more ducks “for me”, a mainstream TV news channel betrayed not just me but all women.
An image of my outfit and my body was altered without my permission; my dress was turned into a two-piece, revealing my stomach, and my breasts were enlarged. Even if accidental, for this image to be broadcast on TV was not something I thought I’d face at the end of the worst day of my career to date.
This is not my first experience of having personal images misused. Like many women, I have had images shared, leaked and distorted.
The issue at the core of these experiences for women is consent. And while I accept the apology provided by Nine News, its explanation of how it occurred fails to address this issue.
I was a victim of image-based abuse while studying at university and I have since been diagnosed with PTSD. So the explanation that this was an AI editing error came too late for me to feel anything but that my body had been violated once again.
The image was out there and, once again, my determination and commitment to my work were overshadowed.
I can deal with this personally. While it is tiring, I won’t stop talking about my experiences because it reflects what women face broadly, especially young women. If men won’t stand up in newsrooms, parliaments or offices around the country, then I must, even on my worst days.
I took the government’s gutless decision to ... continue the slaughter of native waterbirds as a personal blow
I’ll leave the commentary about the possibility of an AI image error to the experts. What’s important to me is that this doesn’t happen again. I want women’s words to be enough, without bringing our bodies into it. The media undoubtedly controls much of the gender narrative and for that reason, they should be held to high standards.
Because my dedication to end recreational duck shooting has been met with sexist and misogynistic rhetoric, I took the government’s gutless decision to ignore the recommendation of its own parliamentary inquiry, its choice to continue the slaughter of native waterbirds, as a personal blow.
This campaign has captured my heart and soul for more than a decade. Every year, for months at a time, while loved ones enjoy weekends, I’m with animal rescuers, camping near wetlands where the shooters are, up before sunrise to the sound of gunshots. Waiting for the first bird to fall but not be retrieved, I know well the stark contrast of our beautiful wetlands with the bloodbaths they become.
Ending recreational duck shooting has always been my No 1 priority and one of the biggest reasons I wanted to get elected.
The government knows exactly who it supports by backing the less than 1% of Victoria’s population who continue to shoot ducks for fun.
And while the government takes a year to work on so-called “reform” it has rewarded shooters with a final free-for-all by ignoring the science and increasing the bag limit and season timeline from last season. It is rewarding bullyboys who kill native birds for fun.
These are men who the inquiry showed cannot be trusted to do the right thing. Compliance, training and regulation has not worked and will not work. Yet here we are giving them the green light. We have formally approved their behaviour on and off wetlands.
I’m not done fighting. Not for animal rights and not for women. Because, like all women before me have had to do, I will continue calling out injustice as long as it exists.
Georgie Purcell is Victorian upper house MP for the Animal Justice party
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MP Georgie Purcell: Why I’m wearing my gendered online abuse to Victoria’s parliament
Georgie Purcell
The language is unparliamentary but I’ll be marking International Women’s Day in a dress adorned with abusive comments
Tue 7 Mar 2023 14.00 GMT
The day I delivered my inaugural speech in the Victorian parliament, I walked out relieved and immediately checked my phone. I saw the first Twitter notification.
“Whoreable person.”
I put it down, hugged my family and friends and accepted congratulations. I wasn’t going to let the pervasive nature of cyberhate take the moment away from me.
Despite only being elected for a mere three months, my response to online threats and harassment has already become somewhat sterilised, almost robotic. It has happened too many times before to keep track of everything said. It used to sting me a lot more.
Over recent years, our Houses of Parliament have been portrayed as unsafe spaces for women and other gender diverse politicians and staffers. This can certainly be true: some women – who are readily attacked for doing so – continue to expose the harassment and even sexual abuse they’ve faced in the halls of power.
But perhaps the place we’re most consistently at danger is one we must carry around with us, everywhere we go – slid into our pockets or pushed into our bags.
The threats we receive on our phones through emails, text messages and social media are ever-constant to the point we build up a resilience that should be considered unhealthy.
Every politician, regardless of gender, expects to be challenged on their policy. As we should be. Yet for women, it consistently goes beyond politics. It goes to the personal.
You shouldn’t need to have a thick skin to be a woman who can survive in politics (or any male-dominated workplace).
So today, on International Women’s Day, I’m wearing my online harassment to work by donning a dress to Parliament House adorned with just some of the tweets, emails and comments I’ve received since being elected.
Despite the online abuse I receive being particularly vile and misogynistic – due to my past as a stripper – my situation is not unique. The scars and damage of online harassment to female politicians are a burden across party lines.
It’s something we share together, sometimes even laugh about. There’s a shared camaraderie among the alarming ping of a phone notification, the rolling of the dice between what could be an update on a proposed bill, or a sexually charged death threat. Because what more can we do? The situation feels powerless, and the internet makes us accessible in a way we can’t control.
But it doesn’t need to be this way, and it mustn’t be. Last year, Gender Equity Victoria wrote a report titled Gendered Online Harassment of Women in Politics. It included recommendations for online safety for women working in politics in Victoria.
The report found that online gendered violence and cyberhate is a norm in politics. Participants described being frequently abused via social media, phone and email. Perhaps most pertinently, it found the online harassment of women is damaging democracy.
A healthy democracy requires a diversity of voices, but a rational fear of normalised abuse against women, with no tool to stop it, is deterring women and gender-diverse people away from running for public office, and from being able to withstand it and be their most effective once they’re in. We’d much rather spend our time on positive social change than on emptying our inboxes of violent threats, sexist comments and attacks.
The report recommended mandatory training and development around online safety at work, for perpetrators of online abuse to be held accountable, the allocation of more staff members to assist with social media management, and for the online safety of women to be considered a collective, not individual, responsibility. These recommendations are all important, and should be implemented.
But the most important thing is changing the narrative around how women – no matter what they do for work or who they are – are treated online. Last year, The Global Institute for Women’s Leadership found that Australian men rank among the most misogynistic in the western world. Stopping this disturbing trend starts with the very men responsible, and it’s clear we have a long way to go.
That’s why I’ve decided to put a face – a person, someone with lived experience of mental ill-health – to those words that I receive each and every day, and that I drag with me like weights on the worst days. Maybe it will make just one of those who send these messages reconsider.
Ironically, the moment the parliamentary bells ring for the day’s session to begin, I need to take the dress off and change into a different, more “appropriate” outfit. The language I am wearing, even silently, is considered unparliamentary, and could be breaking the rules of the House.
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If I can’t wear it, why aren’t we doing more to stop them saying it?
Women are scared to enter politics because of their past. I was one of them
Almost 10 years ago, I worked as a topless waitress. I never realised the profound impact those few months would have on my entire life
Georgie Purcell
Mon 5 Apr 2021 18.30 BST
If we’ve learned anything over the past few weeks, it’s that we need more women in politics, not less.
It’s no secret that women are held to a different standard to men in politics. The gendered criticism of Julia Gillard is an example that still sits at the forefront of many of our minds. Countless female staffers and politicians are reflecting on how they are treated everyday solely due to their gender.
But one thing that some don’t realise is that gender disparity affects women long before we are even elected to our parliaments. There’s something holding us back from trying to get there in the first place.
Being a millennial with a digital footprint, a topic that regularly comes up in conversation with other women with political aspirations, is our pasts becoming the subject of public discussion in a way that would never happen to a man.
I know many women who are scared to nominate for candidacy or enter public life because they have sent consensual nude images or are concerned that their private sex lives would become a topic for public discussion.
The irony is not lost on me that this fear exists for many women while sitting male members of parliament manage to hold on to their jobs despite allegations of illegal behaviour. It makes you wonder how anyone can deny that there is a different standard for men than women.
For almost 10 years now, I have let my own past dictate my ambitions out of fear that a man might use them against me.
While at university, I worked as a topless waitress to make some extra money. I never realised the profound impact those few months would have on my entire life.
In 2012, I felt a sick feeling in the pit in my stomach when the phone notification dinged that I had been tagged in a post on Facebook by an acquaintance.
“LOL – is this for real,” it read, alongside images of myself at work shared without my consent.
The comments from people I knew piled up underneath.
The days and weeks that followed felt like a blur. There is a term for when this happens: outing.
Being outed feels like an assault. It takes away your autonomy and leaves you feeling betrayed and violated.
I went from a happy, outgoing on-campus law student to withdrawn, anxious and afraid to go to class. I eventually decided to never return to campus and to finish my studies online.
It is the leaking or sharing of past (consensual) sexual decisions or history that is shameful
We know university campuses have historically been a petri dish for misogynistic behaviour. But at the same time, for many men, it is where they get their first taste of politics. While they get a short course in the tenets of power, women are delegitimised.
The following months were dark, and at times plagued with thoughts of harming myself.
Since then, with time and support from loved ones, the pain and anxiety has subsided, but has still lingered in the back of my mind in a way that’s made me scared to pursue a career in public life – like a dark shadow haunting me.
For many men, my decision to work in a real, legal and legitimate job that did no harm is political ammunition. It is weaponised against women to destroy their confidence and force them into submission. Meanwhile, a visit to a strip club by a previous male prime minister arguably boosted his popularity. The disparity is glaring.
The reality is, this isn’t an isolated issue. The fact that I am a young woman has been weaponised against me countless times.
Fed up with feeling trapped, I recently decided to see a psychologist and work on strategies to stop my past holding me back from pursuing my ambitions.
She told me one thing women can do to heal when their power has been taken away is to claim it back without shame.
That, I have learned, is easier said than done.
But today is the day I have decided to do it.
In politics, people often use the word “dirt” to describe the secrets or hidden pasts of candidates or politicians.
Over the Christmas break, I shared my so-called dirt with Reason party leader and former sex worker Fiona Patten. I always admired the way Fiona owned her past in a way that could never be used against her (a strategy that women in politics should never have to learn, but all too many do). She said some words I haven’t forgotten:
“A moment will come when you will feel compelled to share your story – and you’ll know when that is.”
And she was right. That moment is now.
A new generation is set to come through politics soon, and we must drive home the message that it is the leaking or sharing of past (consensual) sexual decisions or history that is shameful. Not the decision for a woman to partake in them.
Last week, almost a decade on from those events that changed my life, I delivered a parliamentary-style stump speech as the final module to complete the Melbourne University’s Pathway to Politics Program for Women. It’s a place I never thought I’d be, and to be honest, I am proud.
Making our parliaments safe and inclusive for women is an important step, but the same must be done for the systems and processes to get there in the first place.
Who knows what my future holds from here – but if sharing my own story helps just one woman living with the same fear, then it will be worth it. Because it’s time we let women control their own narratives, and the only people who should feel ashamed are those who try to weaponise our sexual experiences or pasts for political gain.
Georgie Purcell is chief of staff to Animal Justice party MP Andy Meddick. She has a Bachelor of Laws, a Bachelor of Communications, and is a graduate of the Pathway to Politics Program for Women
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Nine News manipulated an image graphic that was used on air of Victorian upper house
MP Georgie Purcell. Nine blamed the error on automation by Photoshop.
Benita Kolovos and Josh Taylor
Tue 30 Jan 2024 06.02 GMT
The Victorian upper house MP Georgie Purcell has lashed Nine News in Melbourne for using an image edited to make her breasts look bigger and expose her midriff, which the network blamed on “automation by Photoshop”.
But Adobe has cast doubt on Nine News’s claim about its software, after the network broadcast the image during Monday night’s bulletin.
The program’s news director, Hugh Nailon, apologised to the upper house Animal Justice Party MP on Tuesday for the “graphic error”, and blamed “automation by Photoshop”.
“Our graphics department sourced an online image of Georgie to use in our story on duck hunting. As is common practice, the image was resized to fit our specs,” he said.
“During that process, the automation by Photoshop created an image that was not consistent with the original. This did not meet the high editorial standards we have and for that we apologise to Ms Purcell unreservedly.”
But in a statement on Tuesday afternoon, a spokesperson for Adobe said use of its generative AI features would have required “human intervention”.
“Any changes to this image would have required human intervention and approval,” the spokesperson said.
Purcell said she realised the image had been edited when she compared it to the original, taken in 2023.
She said it had topped off the “worst” day she had since she was first elected, given the government’s decision to reject a ban on duck hunting.
“I endured a lot yesterday, but having my body and outfit Photoshopped by the media wasn’t on my bingo card. It’s not abnormal for politicians to have catastrophic days at work. I’m not afraid to say yesterday was the worst I’ve had so far,” she said in a statement to Guardian Australia.
“Unfortunately, the difference for women is that they also have to deal with the constant sexualisation and objectification that comes with having images leaked, distorted and AI generated.”
Purcell said the incident was another example of the discrimination and barriers that women in politics face.
“Let’s be clear – this is not something that happens to my male colleagues,” she said.
“The message this sends to young women and girls across Victoria is that even at the top of your field, your body is always up for grabs.”
The upper house MP said she was hopeful the “sexist editing” wouldn’t overshadow the work of the female reporter who put together the news package, or her continuous fight for a ban on duck shooting.
“For now, at least I know what I’d look like with a boob job and chiselled abs,” Purcell said.
Melbourne-based Photoshop tutor David Ewing said the editing of the photo was “no accident”.
“The [statement] has an underlying tone that Photoshop has done this with a mind of its own, but that mind needs to be told what to do, so that means selecting the top and telling it to make it shorter and then that process is automated,” he told Guardian Australia.
“Photoshop would do nothing by itself other than open the photo. Someone has told Photoshop how to edit a part of the image that they have selected.”
The Victorian premier, Jacinta Allan, who also appeared in the graphic but whose image did not appear to be edited, said the incident was concerning.
“That’s no way to represent any woman, let alone a woman who holds a position in public office, represents a community and is in the public discourse every single day,” she told reporters.
“Let’s think about the message that it sends, particularly to young women, the distorted images that women see day after day.”
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Georgie Purcell is an Animal Justice Party MP in Victoria’s upper house.
Nine apologises for using digitally altered image of Animal Justice Party MP Georgie Purcell
In short: Channel Nine has apologised for using a digitally altered image of Animal Justice Party MP Georgie Purcell, which they claim was "inadvertently altered by Photoshop".
Ms Purcell says the situation highlights the "insidious" way women are treated, and that while she doesn't buy the explanation she is "willing to move on" following Nine's apology.
Executive director of the Victorian Women's Trust, Mary Crooks, says the digital alteration is a form of abuse, calling Nine's excuse "unacceptable".
The Victorian MP whose image was digitally altered in a Channel Nine news broadcast has said it should "never happen again", adding she does not entirely "buy" the explanation that an automated edit was to blame.
Channel Nine apologised to Georgie Purcell after the altered image of her was broadcast on its TV news bulletin on Monday.
The Animal Justice Party MP tweeted an image shown on Nine which showed her wearing a midriff-baring top as part of the network's coverage of Victoria's duck hunting issue.
Ms Purcell also posted the original image, which was published in the Bendigo Advertiser, which does not show her midriff.
"Note the enlarged boobs and outfit to be made more revealing," she tweeted.
"What gives?"
Ms Purcell said she found the altered image concerning.
"I think male MPs get to endure catastrophic days without having their bodies photoshopped when they're on the nightly news," she told ABC Radio Melbourne.
"I can't imagine that happening to a male politician.
"I wanted to point out the more insidious ways females continue to be treated."
Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume
Georgie Purcell tells ABC Radio Melbourne she "can't imagine" a male politician receiving the same treatment.
Nine News apologised to Ms Purcell and said the image was inadvertently altered.
"Our graphics department sourced an online image of Georgie to use in our story on duck hunting," Nine News director Hugh Nailon said in a statement.
"As is common practice, the image was resized to fit our specs. During that process, the automation by Photoshop created an image that was not consistent with the original.
"This did not meet the high editorial standards we have and for that we apologise to Ms Purcell unreservedly."
Nine attributed the error to artificial intelligence and said no staff member was involved in altering the image.
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Georgie Purcell Animal Justice Party
Ms Purcell was elected to the Victorian parliament in November 2022.(ABC News: Emma Field)
An Adobe spokesperson told the ABC that the process would have involved "human intervention".
"Any changes to this image would have required human intervention and approval," the spokesperson said.
'It should never happen again', MP says
Addressing the media on Tuesday afternoon, Ms Purcell said that while she was not an expert in Photoshop, she "didn't buy" Nine News' explanation.
"I don't think there's a single young person that hasn't struggled with their body image, and seeing your own body altered on TV is very confronting," Ms Purcell said.
"I'm not an expert in Photoshop … I'm not sure if I buy it, but I am satisfied with every other way they've handled this scenario and am willing to move on.
"This has affected me in some way, and it could affect other women even more. It should never happen again."
Ms Purcell said that her response to the error has exacerbated "awful" comments directed at the MP online.
Executive director of the Victorian Women's Trust Mary Crooks said Channel Nine's excuse was "not acceptable".
"It's not just a photoshopped image, it's a form of abuse … it's invasive of a woman's privacy and it's ultimately demeaning," Ms Crooks said.
"Anybody who assumes that the increasing use of AI is unproblematic has their head in the sand."
Ms Crooks says the capabilities of AI as evidenced by the altered image could be a forewarning of "troubling times ahead".
"Sure, these forms of technology have always got their advantages but they also have a pretty devastating flip-side.
"I think we're on the verge of a tsunami in terms of the way that women are coming under attack … by use of this kind of technology."
Premier Jacinta Allan said it was not an appropriate way to treat Ms Purcell.
II would be really concerned to hear that that has happened because that's no way to represent any woman let alone a woman who holds a position in public office," she said.
"Let's think about the image that sends particularly to young women."
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Her natal Lilith is 19 le 11 South Node 8 sa 17 North Node 0 cn 24
Her natal Ceres is 5 aq 58 Rx South Node 28 ge 45 North Node 5 sa 48
Her natal Amazon is 14 cn 17 South Node 6 ge 11 North Node5 sc 30
Please feel free to commentor ask questions.
Goddess Bless, Rad
Hi All,
Here is the story of Carissa Moore. This is a noon chart.
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An Olympic Champion Goes in Search of a New Identity
As she prepares to step away from surfing, Carissa Moore confronts a question that many people face when they make a change in life: Who am I if I don’t do this anymore?
By John Branch
John Branch has written often about surfing, including from the Tokyo Olympics, where Carissa Moore won a gold medal in 2021.
Jan. 19, 2024
There is a shelf at Carissa Moore’s home in Honolulu where she keeps her journals. She has carried blank pages around the globe since she was a little girl, scribbling her thoughts and worries and goals as she became one of the best surfers in the world.
She still does it.
This year, knowing that she was going to retire from competition, she wrote a new goal: Face your fears.
Moore is 31. She is a five-time world champion and current defender of an Olympic gold medal. Now she wants to start a family with her husband, Luke Untermann. She wants to extract herself from the loose structure and warm cocoon of her sport’s global tour, to redefine success on her own terms and in her own mind.
She wants to be challenged in a different way, even though the easiest thing might be to stick around.
“All those wins, the competitive part that’s so much of my identity, I’m taking that away, and I’m facing myself this year,” she said. “And that’s scary. Like, who am I? Am I going to be OK? Will I be able to love myself and think that I’m worthy without this?”
Moore reflects a newer generation of athlete that openly discusses mental health and self-care. The superhero mystique placed upon the best athletes is a veneer, we all know.
She sees vulnerability and relatability as more honest traits to model. Maybe those are her superpowers.
There is no single path for those who have been defined so singularly, who become the best at something, famously, and then walk away from it in their prime. When most top athletes retire, the discussion is in the past tense, an assessment of accomplishments and legacies.
For Moore, this is about what she wants, not what she did. It is about the eternal, universal search for something more — more challenges, more unknowns, more meaning.
“I’m excited to see what else there is, outside the jersey,” Moore said.
Few have explained it so thoughtfully, so rawly, on their way out. Surfing as a metaphor for life is obvious and apt. Nothing is static. Position yourself for the best wave, but know that there will always be another. Be patient. Be decisive. Be bold.
“My favorite rides, the greatest thrills have come when I’ve paddled over the ledge even though my heart or my head is telling me not to, you know?” she said. “The anxiety comes from ‘am I going to show up?’ I just want to be proud of myself. I want, at the end of the day, to be like, ‘OK, I did my best. And I rose to the occasion.’ You know?”
Has that been an issue?
“My whole life — my whole life,” she said. “It’s something I have to work at every day, looking in the mirror and being, like, ‘You’re good enough, Riss. I’m so proud of you. And you can do this. You can do the things that you dream of.’ I think it’s the beauty and the beast of me, because it guides me to keep pushing and going for more, but at the same point, I struggle with just internal peace sometimes.”
She plans to compete in two major events this year on two of the world’s fiercest waves. The first is the World Surf League’s season-opening event at Banzai Pipeline, on Oahu’s North Shore, starting Jan. 29. Moore is the reigning champion, and she will surf in front of close friends and family.
The other is the Paris Olympics, where surfing will be held in Tahiti, at Teahupo’o, in July.
In both places, women have competed only sparingly, largely because the waves were considered too challenging. The two waves scare Moore. That is the point.
“When I’m in these positions, at these waves, am I going to go?” she said. “When I’m at the peak, and it’s my turn, and I have to face that fear, am I going to run away from it or am I going to embrace it? Am I going to trust myself? Am I going to trust my ability? Am I going to lean into it? Am I going to go?”
Sometimes it can be hard to know if she is talking about waves or life. Or both.
A Child Star
Moore was in a car, driving toward the big waves on Oahu’s North Shore, as she explained her decision. She has known it for a year, but has kept it from all but her closest confidantes until now.
“I don’t like the word retirement,” she said. “I like to say a departure from the tour, or just stepping back, or switching gears, or, like, evolving.”
She stopped there. “Evolving.” That feels right. “Retirement” evokes leaving something; “evolving” means growing.
She was a child star in surfing, famous in Hawaii since she was little. Her parents, Chris and Carol, divorced when Carissa was in grade school. Her father guided her surfing career. She dominated youth competitions. At 16, she was on the cover of Surfer magazine. At 18, she was a world champion.
She was also struggling with body-image issues and an eating disorder — and talking about them, with a nudge from her father.
“He encouraged me to own my story,” she said. “He encouraged me to say, ‘Hey, I’m struggling. You see this but there’s so much else going on.’ And I’m a work in progress. We’re all a work in progress.”
Since joining the championship tour in 2010, Moore has finished the season outside the top three only once. She has won five world titles, the last in 2021, when she also won the gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics.
“I felt really, really content, really satisfied with everything I achieved, and I was starting to ask the questions: What more do I want? What more do I need here?” she said. “I’ve kind of exceeded my expectations. When I was a little girl, I really only dreamed of that first world title. I didn’t dream about five or being in the Olympics, you know? So it’s actually been a bit harder for me to find the motivation to keep going the last couple of years.”
Still, she led the tour championship standings in both 2022 and 2023 until the last day, losing head-to-head championship matches. It was a new format that the league introduced to build excitement. It likely kept Moore from being a seven-time champion and winning four in a row on her way out.
“I would have loved to have won a world title and then dropped the mic and walked away,” she said. “I would have loved the fairy tale ending.”
Moore arrived at Pipeline. The waves were pumping, and she excused herself.
“I’m human — I don’t have everything figured out,” she said. “I’m flowing and feeling and learning as I go. I’m following my heart. And the unknown is freaking scary. But I’m also excited. There is no such thing as the end until you’re in the ground.”
And then she was gone, into the ocean.
‘It Was Hard to Give Myself That Praise’
It can be a cliché, a public-relations volley, an accomplished athlete starting a foundation. But it can also signal an internal reversal, a private acknowledgment that championship success can come with diminishing returns. Most famous athletes do not like to admit it.
Moore started Moore Aloha in 2018 when she was in the mental and motivational doldrums, coming off her worst season and searching for meaning. Six years later, Moore Aloha may be a post-career landing pad.
The charity is geared toward girls and women, building self-awareness and community. The goals are loose. The mission is not to save whales or cure cancer. It is about “wellness, mindfulness and friendship” through events and workshops.
Each month, Moore Aloha solicits essays through a prompt. The current one: “Think about the most prominent challenge ahead of you in 2024 and how you plan to embrace it.” The best essay will be rewarded with $200.
The prompts sometimes serve as two-way therapy.
“One of the essays was for them to write a letter of love to themselves,” Moore said. “And I was really struggling. I was in Australia. I was looking at myself in the mirror every day, just picking myself apart and just — just sad at myself.”
She wrote an essay. She put herself in the position of the girls she was trying to motivate.
“It was really, really difficult,” Moore said. “It was really difficult to be, like, hey, you have great arms — they’re great for hugging people. And you have a smile that brightens your room. It was hard. It was hard to give myself that praise. I don’t know why I struggle with it. But I think I’m trying to find those things that are just real and truthful, the things that people can’t take away.”
Stepping away from the structure of an international surfing tour probably means receiving less direct adoration or affirmation. The sports world is filled with famous champions who struggled to find purpose or capture what they left behind in their youth.
Moore and Untermann were walking their two dogs recently in Honolulu, when Untermann wondered aloud about Moore returning to competition after having children. Moore is open to the idea, not knowing how she will feel in the years ahead.
She named Serena Williams, Ashleigh Barty and Allyson Felix, who all stepped away at the top of their sports to start families, as inspirations. A closer connection might be to Kimi Werner, a free diver who grew up on Maui. She is also a champion spearfisher, a chef, an environmentalist and public speaker.
“One of her overarching themes is being authentic, and following your authentic journey,” Moore said. “It often turns out better than you could have ever imagined and brings you more opportunities and success than you would have had if you kept staying in one space.”
In October, after her disappointing second-place finish and the missed opportunity to “drop the mic,” Moore kept her plans secret from all but those closest to her. She held an event for Moore Aloha in Hawaii, talking to girls about goals and fears and being vulnerable. Moore wants to give permission for all of that, in a world where it is not always encouraged.
“I had three or four girls come up and cry to me, in tears, saying ‘I really needed this day. I had no idea you were going through the same things that I’m going through,’” Moore said.
She added: “If that’s what comes of this, to help someone else know that they’re not alone — oh my, gosh, that’s the biggest success. That helps them know that they can keep going, that they can face their fears or they can overcome and create a life that they envision for themselves. That’s the dream, really.”
Soon, Moore was back on her surfboard, at Pipeline, wondering what the next wave would bring and whether she had the courage to catch it.
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Carissa Moore is one of surfing's all time greats, in and out of the water
You might know Hawaiian surfer Carissa Moore for her five world titles, but beyond her silverware is a radiant soul with a heart that could power a nation. Come meet her.
Carissa Moore is a multi-time world surfing champion and the sport's first-ever Olympic gold medalist, but at the end of the day the woman they call 'Riss' would prefer to be known as a great human more than a great surfer.
In 2021, after her win at the Tokyo Games, the mayor of her hometown of Honolulu, Hawaii, granted Moore the keys to the city and declared October 6 as Carissa Moore Day.
"It's my hope that anyone who's young and chasing their dreams knows that anything is possible if they work hard and put their heart and mind to it," said Moore in her beautiful acceptance speech.
With this in mind let's take a closer look at what Moore a got up to while on her incredible journey to the top.
Carissa Moore's scrapbook paints a picture of a multifaceted woman
The plan was simple: surprise Carissa Moore with a custom-made scrapbook detailing moments large and small from her venerable career, and let her reactions do the talking. The reaction, showcased in the video here is just superb.
The scrapbook highlights once-in-a-lifetime moments, like her tow session at Jaws ("I'm not a big wave surfer," she notes), early-career moments like her stint as a Roxy girl and the quieter, in-between moments like a walk on the beach with her husband and their dog Tuffy.
The scrapbook is especially sweet given Moore's own fondness for the craft and presenting it gave the makers of In Plain Sight the opportunity for a few quiet moments with her, far from the typical crush of media or high-stakes heats. As Moore flips through the pages, sitting cross-legged on a couch, different photos prompt anecdotes, memories, laughs and small confessions. The result is a sense of intimacy and a sense of who she is as a person.
Zeroing in on the moments that add up to a life is what this collection of images does for Moore. Taken together, the pictures are a portrait of a multifaceted woman; someone with a highly public persona who knows how to enjoy, prioritise and protect her life behind the scenes.
"The world that we live in moves so fast," says Moore. "When we can bring people back to the moment and share that joy, it’s like nothing else. When this is all said and done, all the friends I’ve made, from travelling and competing, is what will last forever. The end."
Carissa Moore wants you to be your best
Moore is the first to admit that although she loves surfing and competing, there are times when self-doubt can creep in. "I had fallen into that trap of negativity," Moore told Red Bull Basement about one particularly low point. "Then, I was like, ‘No more of this. Let's start turning this around and making it positive, and redefining who I am for myself, rather than for everybody else."
Moore’s ability to shape her mindset and destiny once saw her named National Geographic Adventurer of the Year. In her humble way, she’s happy to offer some confidence-building advice for the next generation of new entrepreneurs and young innovators aiming to spark future change with Red Bull Basement, through these six tips:
Live your passion.
It's not about perfection.
It's not about completely eliminating self-doubt, either.
You be you.
Think "stronger together."
Learning to surf at five isn't vital, but it sure helps
Born in Hawaii in 1992, it was Moore's dad Chris who first introduced her to surfing in the turquoise waters off Waikiki Beach, aged just five. Like any proud parent, Chris shot videos of little Carissa surfing and wholeheartedly believed she could accomplish anything she set her mind to. "He’s always pushed me to strive for more than I thought I could," says Moore.
In the beginning, what had me coming back was spending time with my dad
"In the beginning, what really had me coming back was my dad and spending time with him. I started surfing when I was five and it was something that we always did together. It wasn’t until I was 10 or 12 years old that I think I fell in love with the challenge of it. That’s when I really enjoyed goal-setting and working towards stuff and actually competing. But in the beginning, it was just the pure joy of spending time with my dad and riding waves together."
While Chris might now be best known as Moore's longtime coach, he's also an artist and it was he who created the wing-style spray on her boards when she was young. When Moore was struggling for motivation in 2019, it was Chris who suggested bringing back the spray as a way to help Moore remember what it felt like to be a kid and the pure joy of surfing that went with it. Did a turnaround world title ensue? You already know the answer to that one.
RISS
RISS: A Film about More Love with Carissa Kainani Moore follows her journey in 2019 and captures the year leading up to another world title moment with a steady gaze. An intimate look at one of surfing's most iconic athletes, RISS is both tender and playful, celebrating a comeback that was the culmination of years of emotional searching and hard-won personal strides.
Most of all, RISS is a high-energy, self-aware time capsule and cinematic party. It's Moore as a young woman, defining who she is and becoming the person she wants to be: someone who's a world champion, but also a real person who’s “perfectly imperfect,” as she says.
In RISS, Moore is revelling in the life that she's defined for herself, through the trials and the triumphs. “Because we all have our things that we go through,” she said. “And it’s hard to show people that sometimes. We all want to have it together.”
Press play above to savour Peter Hamblin's 40-minute masterpiece and enjoy the full interview with Carissa about the movie here.
Competition or not, she keeps stamping her passport
First it was Haiti, then Iceland. Now it's Morocco and Israel that have piqued Moore's surfing interest and convinced her to spend her every spare moment away from the pro tour still travelling to remote locations in pursuit of saltwater therapy.
"We lined up with an organisation called Surfing For Peace in Israel and went primarily to participate in one of their events. It was really emotional, powerful and everyone there was so happy that we were able to be a part of it. It’s one of the rare occasions, especially in that part of the world, where Muslim kids, Jewish kids and Christians all come together in peace around the common love of surfing. It was incredible."
From Israel it was a short skip to Morocco. “Ever since I watched that Dane Reynolds segment there, I knew I needed to go there,” says Moore. “I'd been dreaming about it for years, but we knew that it was a bit unsafe so it never happened. Then, finally, our local connection hit us up and gave us the green light.”
Naturally, the trip was a success and Moore filmed the edit you see above while on location, with yet another selfless goal in mind. "I want to motivate people to step outside their comfort zones and do stuff they might not otherwise do, while hopefully inspiring people to give back a little along the way.”
Moore boosts with the best
At the Rip Curl Newcastle Curl in 2021, Moore launched a perfectly grabbed Frontside Air-Reverse that was so lofted that she disappeared out of the top of the livestream screen momentarily. It was a move so unique that her opponent clapped in the shorebreak and all but high-fived her afterwards. Moore gasped in shock on landing and then spent the rest of the heat crying tears of joy, the clip going viral long before she hit the beach victorious over Johanne Defay.
The scoreboard would later show that this hall of fame manoeuvre somehow only registered a 9.90, but make no mistake it was a 10 every day of the week and somewhere a judge is still losing sleep over whichever key got stuck when they went to punch in their score. The aerial was the catalyst for Moore to bulldoze her way to yet another event victory, one of 28 and counting at the highest level.
Moore Aloha is the epitome of giving back
In 2018, Moore launched Moore Aloha, a non-profit that encourages young female surfers to be strong, confident and compassionate individuals. Moore had a hard time balancing life as a professional athlete with that of a teenager who grappled with her changing body and the search for her identity.
"I've put so much pressure on myself my whole life to get a certain result," she told the Red Bulletin, in 2022. "It was like, ‘Who am I if I’m not winning contests?'"
Moore Aloha is another way to remind people (including herself) to believe in themselves. “It's really cool to hear Carissa speak on that from her personal experience,” says fellow surfer Izzi Gomez. “She’s showing I can still be beautiful, an amazing human and an amazing athlete.” Moore admits her motivation is selfish, too – she feels good when she sees girls smile, walk away with a new friend and feel empowered after riding a surfboard for the first time.
Moore is surfing's golden girl
As detailed in her excellent recent Red Bulletin interview, in 2021 Carissa Moore silenced her fiercest critic – Carissa Moore – to propel herself to one of the greatest years in surfing history. As well as winning Olympic gold in fine style, Moore did it without her usual travel companions for company and coaching thanks to the pandemic.
In times of doubt, Moore dug deep, with hopes of replicating the most famous Hawaiian Olympian of them all, Duke Kahanamoku, a five-time swimming medallist and the godfather of modern surfing. In winning gold, Moore achieved a dream that she hadn't foreseen a few years earlier, but the job wasn't quite complete. On Moore's return to Hawaii, the newly crowned champion made a special pilgrimage to the statue of Kahanamoku to share her leis with a fellow legend of surfing.
On the World Surf League Championship Tour that same year, Moore cruised into the finals day with a firm grasp on the title. But, after a slow start, Moore felt pushed up against the wall. "I was like, 'hey, you can either continue this negative self-doubt, downward spiral and just give up now, or you can dig deep and give it your best shot and fight'.”
Moore leaned on years of preparation, remembering her sessions at Lower Trestles over the years and training with her dad Chris back home on Oahu, to overcome her self-doubt and power to victory, claiming world title number five in the process. You could say Moore isn’t just part of Duke Kahanamoku’s legacy, she’s carrying it on.
When asked to describe Moore, the same answer is often repeated: she’s a good human. “Carissa's not just a world champion,” says Caroline Marks. "She’s the people's champion.” Amen to that.
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Her natal Lilith is 8 Virgo, N.Node 2 Sagittarius, S.Node 12 Cancer
Her natal Ceres 27 Capricorn, N.Node 8 Cancer, S.Node 29 Scorpio
Her natal Amazon 29 Cancer, N.Node 11 Gemini, S.Node 6 Scorpio
Please feel free to comment or ask questions.
Goddess Bless, Rad
HI All,
Here is the story of Shere Hite. This is a noon chart.
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Shere Hite
Wikipedia
Shere Hite (/ʃɛər haɪt/; November 2, 1942 – September 9, 2020) was an American-born German[6] sex educator and feminist. Her sexological work focused primarily on female sexuality. Hite built upon biological studies of sex by Masters and Johnson and by Alfred Kinsey and was the author of The Hite Report on Female Sexuality.[She also referenced theoretical, political and psychological works associated with the feminist movement of the 1970s, such as Anne Koedt's essay "The Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm". She renounced her United States citizenship in 1995 to become German.
Early life, education, and career
According to Katharine Q. Seelye, Hite was born Shirley Diana Gregory in St. Joseph, Missouri to Paul and Shirley Hurt Gregory. Shortly after the end of World War II, her parents divorced. When her mother remarried, she took the surname of her stepfather Raymond Hite. According to her friend Joanna Briscoe, Hite had never known her father, and had been abandoned twice by her mother; her grandparents raised her until they divorced, and she was sent to be raised by an aunt.
Hite graduated from Seabreeze High School in Daytona Beach, Florida. After she received a master's degree in history from the University of Florida in 1967, she moved to New York City and enrolled at Columbia University to work toward her Ph.D. in social history. Hite said that the reason for her not completing this degree was the conservative nature of Columbia at that time.
In the 1970s, she did part of her research while at the National Organization for Women. She posed in the nude for Playboy magazine while studying at Columbia University.
In 1988, she made an extended appearance on the British TV discussion programme After Dark, alongside James Dearden, Mary Whitehouse, Joan Wyndham, and Naim Attallah.
In 1989 she was interviewed in London by Joanna Briscoe, who later became her friend, and whose flat she often lived in. Eighteen months later she left the United States because of "vicious media attacks, doorstepping, public humiliation and death threats, all of which contributed to the loss of her American publishers and of her ability to make a living", despite The Hite Report selling 50m copies, estimated to be the 30th bestselling book of all time. According to Briscoe she commuted between Paris, the Kensington Hilton and a mattress on the floor of a squat in north London, and perpetually swung between spending and thrift. Between 1991 and 1997 she lived largely between France and Briscoe's small flat. She tended to write all night an sleep all day. Briscoe said that Hite "had an extraordinary effect on people – possessing a strange, delicate charisma that hooked them".
Hite taught at Nihon University (Tokyo, Japan), Chongqing University in China, and Maimonides University in North Miami Beach, Florida.
Research focus
Hite focused on understanding how individuals regard sexual experience and the meaning it holds for them. Hite believed that the ease at which women orgasm during masturbation contradicted traditional stereotypes about female sexuality. Hite's work concluded that 70% of women do not have orgasms through in-out, thrusting intercourse but are able to achieve orgasm easily by masturbation or other direct clitoral stimulation.
Hite, as well as Elisabeth Lloyd, criticized Masters and Johnson for uncritically incorporating cultural attitudes on sexual behavior into their research; for example, the argument that enough clitoral stimulation to achieve orgasm should be provided by thrusting during intercourse and the inference that the failure of this is a sign of female "sexual dysfunction." While not denying that both Kinsey and Masters and Johnson have played a crucial role in sex research, Hite believed that society must understand the cultural and personal construction of sexual experience to make the research relevant to sexual behavior outside the laboratory. She offered that limiting test subjects to "normal" women who report orgasming during coitus was basing research on the faulty assumption that having an orgasm during coitus was typical, something that her own research strongly refuted.
Methodology
Hite used an individualistic research method. Thousands of responses from anonymous questionnaires were used as a framework to develop a discourse on human responses to gender and sexuality. Her conclusions were met with methodological criticism. The fact that her data are not probability samples raises concerns about whether the sample data can be generalized to relevant populations. As is common with surveys concerning sensitive subjects such as sexual behavior, the proportion of nonresponse is typically large. Thus the conclusions derived from the data may not represent the views of the population under study because of sampling bias due to nonresponse.
Hite has been praised for her theoretical fruitfulness in sociological research. The suggestion of bias in some of Hite's studies is frequently used as a talking point in university courses where sampling methods are discussed, along with The Literary Digest poll of 1936. One discussion of sampling bias is by Philip Zimbardo, who explained that women in Hite's study were given a survey about marriage satisfaction, where 98% reported dissatisfaction, and 75% reported having had extra-marital affairs, but where only 4% of women given the survey responded. Zimbardo argued that the women who had dissatisfaction may have been more motivated to respond than women who were satisfied and that her research may just have been "science-coded journalism." Some or all of her published surveys depended on wide multi-channel questionnaire distribution, opportunity for many long answers on a respondent's own schedule, enforced respondent anonymity, and response by mail rather than polling by telephone. Sharon Lohr argues that the distribution of questionnaires to women's organizations and the length of the questions and the allowance for long responses introduces a bias towards people who are not typical. She also argues that several of the questions are leading the respondent to reply in a particular way.
Personal life
In 1985, Hite married German concert pianist Friedrich Höricke, who was 19 years her junior. The couple divorced in 1999. Hite was married to Paul Sullivan in 2012. They moved across Europe multiple times together, settling in north London, England.
In 1995, Hite renounced her U.S. citizenship at the former Embassy of the United States in Bonn. She accepted German nationality because she regarded German society as more tolerant and open-minded about her endeavors.
In September 2020, Hite died of corticobasal degeneration at the age of 77.
Legacy
The biographical documentary film The Disappearance of Shere Hite, directed by Nicole Newnham, had its premiere at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival, and was released in the U.S. in November 2023.
Notable works
Sexual Honesty, by Women, for Women (1974)
The Hite Report on Female Sexuality (1976, 1981, republished in 2004)
The Hite Report on Men and Male Sexuality (1981)
Women and Love: A Cultural Revolution in Progress (The Hite Report on Love, Passion, and Emotional Violence) (1987)
Fliegen mit Jupiter (English: Flying with Jupiter) (1993)
The Hite Report on the Family: Growing Up Under Patriarchy (1994)
The Hite Report on Shere Hite: Voice of a Daughter in Exile (2000, autobiography)
The Shere Hite Reader: New and Selected Writings on Sex, Globalization and Private Life (2006)
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She Changed the Way Women Thought About Their Sexuality. Now She’s Finally Getting Her Due
Michael Wilson,
By Cady Lang
November 22, 2023
It may seem like common knowledge now that a woman's sexual pleasure isn't dependent on the presence of a man. But when The Hite Report: A Nationwide Study of Female Sexuality was published in 1976, the idea was revolutionary, groundbreaking, and to some (namely, men), threatening. The book was the brainchild of Shere Hite, a trailblazing feminist who indelibly changed the way that women thought about their bodies, their sexuality, and themselves, but who largely vanished from cultural memory in recent years.
Hite's findings on female sexuality dispelled years of misconceptions about women's pleasure. The chief and most controversial among her insights: That the majority of women did not need penetrative intercourse, and thus a male partner, to achieve orgasm. With this revelation, many women felt liberated, just as many men felt imperiled. The book became an instant bestseller.
By all accounts, Hite was integral to the momentum of the sexual revolution and foundational to contemporary feminist movements—so why has she been all but absent from history? That's the question at the heart of The Disappearance of Shere Hite, a documentary that released in theaters on Nov. 17, which centers on the life and times of the researcher. Directed by Nicole Newnham, the director of 2020's Oscar-nominated Crip Camp, the film delves into Hite's radical work and fearless personal life, while reckoning with the misogynistic backlash she faced, which eventually drove her to leave the United States and to renounce her American citizenship in 1995.
Newnham, who recalls furtively reading her mother's copy of The Hite Report as a 12-year-old, relied heavily on Hite's archive at Harvard's Schlesinger Library, where she discovered an "overwhelming" wealth of material, including Hite's personal journals, which are read in the film by actor Dakota Johnson, who also executive produced the film. She also found a cohort of enthusiastic collaborators in Hite's friends and colleagues, who were eager to reframe the narrative around their friend and preserve her legacy.
"I really wanted it to be a film that explored the great work and cultural important of a really brilliant, iconoclastic thinker and researcher, who was also an artist and cultural change agent," Newnham told TIME. "People were so excited to help us kind of bring her to life for the viewer, because they saw how she had been caricatured and diminished in the media. And they really wanted people to know who she was...that's a pretty beautiful way to come to know someone."
Tracing Hite's rise from a struggling grad student to a best-selling author and, later, a controversial celebrity, the film draws on a wealth of archival footage: Shere's collaborative image-making with photographers for both modeling work and her own aesthetic pleasure, videos and images of her political organizing with the National Organization for Women, and perhaps most notably, her media appearances where she faced sexist scrutiny of her work. Newnham also included footage that puts Hite's work in broader context with the rampant misogyny that characterized the media attention in the '90s, where other women, like Anita Hill and Monica Lewinsky, were also being vilified. What emerges is a nuanced portrait of a vibrant woman who was unfairly judged for being far ahead of her time. For Newnham, Hite's work was prescient and feels more urgently needed than ever.
"For Shere, women's right to pleasure was important to ensuring the success of our freedom and democracy," she said. "I'd like for people to come away with an understanding of the ways in which sex is political and that they will be inspired by the bravery and strength and creativity that it took to change something as seemingly intractable the definition of sex that was taken for granted for thousands of years. And I hope that leaves people inspired to try to do their part in the fight for women's bodily autonomy and our right to our own bodies."
Who was Shere Hite?
Shere Hite was born Shirley Diana Gregory in 1942 in Saint Joseph, Mo.; after her mother married her stepfather, he adopted Shere, giving her his surname. She was raised primarily by her grandparents and her aunt and attended college at the University of Florida at Gainesville, where she got a bachelor's and master's degree in history. In the late '60s, she entered a doctoral program at Columbia, where she paid for her tuition by doing modeling jobs, which ran the gamut from sitting for book illustrations to shoots for Playboy; she left the university because of the conservatism of the program.
Shere's modeling jobs helped her find her life's work. She had appeared in a campaign for Olivetti typewriters, but was appalled at the ad's caption: “The typewriter so smart, she doesn’t have to be." Subsequently, she joined a protest of the advertisement alongside feminists from the NOW and became an active member of the organization, befriending and working alongside leaders like Gloria Steinem and Flo Kennedy to fight for women's rights during the '60s and '70s. Following a discussion at a NOW meeting about female orgasms, Hite was shocked by the lack of data surrounding the topic and decided to conduct her own research on the topic, starting a project that would eventually become The Hite Report: A Nationwide Study of Female Sexuality, which she published in 1976. The book was heralded as a beacon of the Women's Liberation movement and became an instant best-seller (it's still 30th best selling book of all time), bringing Hite both huge acclaim and notoriety.
In the years following, Hite published many other books, including reports on male sexuality, teenage sexuality, and families. The nature of Hite's work, especially around sex research and education, made her a target for scrutiny and often resulted in people not taking her research seriously. In the media, she was subject to misogynistic attacks and undue criticism. In one particularly harrowing clip in the documentary, she appears on the Oprah Winfrey Show, where an all-male audience verbally berates her; in another, she is ridiculed on the Maury Povich Show. Within the research community, Hite faced critique for her methodology and sampling practices, with some contemporaries demeaning her work.
The scrutiny directed at Hite was so intense that in 1989, she moved to Germany with her husband Friedrich Höricke, a German concert pianist 19 years her junior; in 1995, she renounced her American citizenship and in 1996, she became a German citizen.
"After a decade of sustained attacks on myself and my work, particularly my ‘reports’ into female sexuality, I no longer felt free to carry out my research to the best of my ability in the country of my birth," she wrote of renouncing her American citizenship in a 2003 New Statesman piece.
In 1999, Hite divorced Höricke, remarrying a man named Paul Sullivan in 2012 and relocating with him to London. For the rest of her life, Hite continued to do research, mostly focusing on sexuality, and write, including a memoir, The Hite Report on Hite: A Sexual and Political Autobiography, which was published in 2000. She died in 2020, at the age of 77; she had been suffering from Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases ahead of her death.
What was The Hite Report and why was it so controversial?
The Hite Report: A Nationwide Study of Female Sexuality was a book containing the results of about 3,000 of 100,000 questionnaires that Hite wrote and distributed to women nationally between the ages of 14 to 78. In over 60 questions, Hite asked women to share their personal feelings about sex and their sexuality, from the physical logistics to the emotional aspects.
She initially distributed her surveys by hand in New York City, enlisting her then-boyfriend to use his motorcycle to travel borough to borough to pass them out. She then began advertising the surveys nationally in magazines and included mailers for them in her first book, Sexual Honesty, by Women, For Women, which she published in 1974.
Upon publication in 1976, the Hite Report, which covered everything from masturbation and sexual satisfaction to femininity and romantic relationships, was a revelation for many, helping to make it a bestseller. Chief among the insights was the knowledge that more 70% of the respondents did not climax from penetrative intercourse, but were more successful at climaxing through clitoral stimulation or masturbation—a finding that affirmed many women's private feelings but unsettled men.
"Women who read it will feel enormously reassured about their own sexuality and if enough men read it, the quality of sex in America is bound to improve," Erica Jong wrote in a 1976 review of the book in the New York Times. Playboy, meanwhile, dubbed it, "The Hate Report."
What set the book apart from previous writing and research about female sexuality from researchers like Kinsey and Freud, who focused primarily on penetrative sex, was its individualistic approach to gathering data. Women responded anonymously to write-in questions, as opposed to multiple choice queries, allowing them to provide more nuanced and complex responses.
"I think her work was precious because she was really trying to make us aware by showing the breadth and diversity of actual experience," Newnham said of why Hite's research resonated with so many women. "I don't think we tend to think of our own lives and our own experiences as being dictated by political or social constructs like that so much because we're busy living them, but she showed how much trying to live within a rigid, patriarchal definition of sexuality that's just really about intercourse and male orgasm is painful for so many people, both men and women."
While Hite's methodology allowed women to respond candidly, it also left her open to scrutiny. She was criticized for research methods, particularly her statistical reporting, because she didn't gather demographic information from all of her respondents. Hite was also criticized for her sampling methods, which were subject to both selection and nonresponse bias because her questionnaires were distributed and did not have to respond. Critiques about the validity of her work were especially hurtful to Hite, who already felt that her work was not taken seriously because of the subject matter and her gender.
"I feel I have contributed significantly to methodology," she said in a 2011 interview with The Guardian. "None of the media read the long explanation in my report of how I did the research. After all, Freud only interviewed three Viennese women."
Why did Shere Hite "disappear?"
Though Hite's influence is still felt today in our contemporary understanding of sexuality, her name isn't familiar to most in the way that other sexologists are, like Freud, Kinsey, or Masters and Johnson. Likewise, though she was actively involved in the second wave feminist movement and NOW, she's not a prominent feminist figure to the layperson. There are a number of reasons why Hite's legacy may been largely forgotten, but one of the major factors was the sexist backlash she faced to her work. Though Hite's work was revolutionary, it was constantly undermined by inflexible conventions in society and in the academic community. Hite essentially became a scapegoat for tensions and insecurities for those who were threatened by changing attitudes toward gender and sexuality, causing her to retreat from the American public eye.
The controversy of her work and the subsequent fallout led her to a self-imposed exile. In addition to moving to Germany and renouncing her American citizenship, Hite was also seemingly selective about her public appearances and interviews, dialing down her press. It all makes sense, given the way she was attacked in the media at the height of her fame. The same 2011 interview with The Guardian hints at the stress that years of scrutiny may have left on Hite and why she may have chosen to stay out of the spotlight in later years.
"Because I have sold a lot of books I think that women think that I'm fine, but I'm not fine," she said. "I hope they realize that."
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My life with Shere Hite: the forgotten feminist who changed sex for ever
When her books about women, men and the clitoris caused outrage, the bestselling writer was forced to flee the US. She ended up in my small ex-council flat in London – her head still full of revolution
by Joanna Briscoe
Wed 24 Jan 2024 00.00 EST
Shere Hite was a legend of her time who landed in my small ex-council flat when I was in my 20s. She was two decades older and seemed to me to be an extraordinary, exotic creature transmuted from celluloid into strange reality in my home. To those over 50, Hite – a pivotal figure in the second wave feminist movement – was a much-photographed writer and sexologist: a mix between Germaine Greer and a movie star. To those younger, the name draws a blank. Hence the title of Nicole Newnham’s superb new documentary, The Disappearance of Shere Hite.
I had known about this feminist author from my mother’s bookshelf when I was a child, read about her in Cosmopolitan as a teenager and was quite fascinated by the idea of her by the time I was 25 and went to interview her.
Born in Missouri in 1942, she published The Hite Report in 1976, which has sold more than 50m copies and is by some estimates the 30th bestselling book of all time. It was a landmark that brought her wealth and fame and upended the dialogue on female sexuality, most notably by proving that most women orgasmed through clitoral stimulation rather than penetration. Her later surprising findings about male insecurity in The Hite Report on Male Sexuality (1981), and female marital dissatisfaction in Women & Love: A Cultural Revolution in Progress (1987), were anathema to the increasing conservatism of the US in the 1980s. The backlash against her and her work was so extreme that eventually she renounced her American citizenship.
So there she was, in London in 1989, for the appointed interview, ridiculously beautiful at 46 in a pale, almost unearthly way. She was glamorous, and the 1940s Hollywood style that she had made her own cast her as different from others in the feminist movement, who tended to adopt a more practical aesthetic. She greeted me by pouncing on my burgundy velvet jacket: she loved it, so she sent her poor publicist off to the shops with her credit card to find one – but none were to be found.
We talked about feminism, life, publishing, politics, relationships. I was drenched in her charm, floating on her weird, hypnotic voice as she wove words such as “clitoris” and “masturbation” through her sentences. A bouquet arrived from a newspaper. She decided she wanted to give it to me. I left our meeting floating beneath flowers, my fascination thoroughly reinforced. On my way back to the office, I went into the shop where I had bought my jacket. A single one was left. In the sale. It had to be.
A few days later, Shere’s voice drifted from my clunky tape answering machine, thanking me for the jacket I’d sent and giving me her New York number. Eighteen months later, she was in my flat. Having fled the US, she had been commuting between Paris, the Kensington Hilton and a mattress on the floor of a squat in north London: the ways of her formerly wealthy life clashing with the financial reality of her present. She perpetually swung between spending and thrift.
By the time I got to know her in 1990, she was in trouble. She had been the victim of vicious media attacks, doorstepping, public humiliation and death threats, all of which contributed to the loss of her American publishers and of her ability to make a living. Her findings on sex – now widely accepted – caused outrage, and her appearance was used by critics to detract from the seriousness of her work at a time when there were rigid expectations of what a feminist firebrand should look like. She could also be difficult, it has to be said. Most notoriously, she apparently attacked a limo driver who had called her “dear”.
She became a European citizen before quietly separating from her German husband, with whom she was barely in contact in the years I knew her. We had begun an on-off relationship in Paris, and between 1991 and 1997, she lived largely between France and my home, where she researched and wrote ceaselessly. The royalties from those hit books still came in, but she needed a market for new work and dedicated herself to rebuilding her career with phenomenal focus.
Shere had never known her father and had been abandoned twice by her mother. Then the grandparents who raised her divorced and she was sent to be raised by an aunt. Clearly this was not a stable foundation for life as an activist whose theories caused such fury. In London, after she had begun to lose the wealth and success she had created, she retreated, to hide, recover and restock.
She would write for much of the night, sometimes in pyjamas and curlers, as she worked on new theories. She slept in the day, waking in time for us to go out to dinner. It was her only real leisure activity apart from bouts of high-speed shopping at Harvey Nichols – her personal style was vital to her identity. Occasionally, we crossed in the morning: as I was getting up, she was going to bed. Her somewhat vampiric pallor along with her almost disconcerting beauty could make her seem illusory. Other times, she failed to emerge from behind her piles of papers even into daylight.
I was writing my first novel while supporting myself as a features writer, while Shere, who described herself as a “cultural historian”, was trying to figure out the state of the world, untangle it and capture it in accessible form. She was eternally curious, asking me questions about sex, politics and younger women’s emotional lives. I could offer her a different viewpoint that was useful – but could be discomfiting if it wandered too far from her own theories. She didn’t look like any of my friends. Her skin was whiter than anyone’s I knew, contrasting with scarlet lipstick. Her slenderness and elegance belonged more on screen than real life. She exercised daily, always indoors, once disappearing into a cupboard in a bookshop to complete her stretches before giving a speech.
Shere had an extraordinary effect on people – possessing a strange, delicate charisma that hooked them. “Our team did all fall a bit in love with her, I think,” says Newnham, about making her documentary. At the parties I had in my flat, I could see the gazes, the entrancement, the curiosity. “I thought waists like that only existed in the 18th century,” said one guest, goggling at her in her Norma Kamali jacket. Business cards were pushed into her hands. Dates suggested. Projects proposed. People – including me – always felt the need to help her; taxi drivers would leap out of their car to carry her bags. She took it all in her stride: the cards proliferated on her desk, ignored or Sellotaped to her notes as she worked on. Seemingly never maternal, in some ways she needed mothering herself. Perhaps others sensed this.
The weirdness of having what a friend called “that international diva” ensconced in my flat cannot be underestimated. “What? Shere Hite’s in there?” people would exclaim, glancing up at the unprepossessing block.
People wanted a piece of the feminist femme fatale, yet once my closest friends had got over the novelty – much as I adored her – I needed a break from the intensity an existence with Shere entailed. We would intermittently hide, going for drinks at the nearby Russell Hotel instead of in my flat because we wanted to distance ourselves from what I can only describe as the Shere Show, and giggle and talk twentysomething nonsense without her scrutinising us or correcting us if she detected sexism, fervent young feminists though we all were.
In retrospect, I see that I was out of my depth in trying to steer through life with Shere, exciting though it was. My much-loved father had recently died young; I was in a state of bereavement, working hard, and here was this woman with a whole career established and a marriage behind her, although her otherworldly presence was also a distraction from the grief.
A novelist friend later said about that period: “I thought you were living a kind of dream life.” I gasped at the idea. My youthful neuroses, bereavement, crying fits and self-castigation flourished alongside vanity and daring. I see now that spending so much time with that dazzling trailblazer, with her decades of experience, her sophistication and celebrity lifestyle – aspects of which remained as she flew to Hamburg for a haircut and bought piles of unaffordable designer clothes – was hard to negotiate as a young woman trying to make her own way.
But during this period, she was oddly isolated, and didn’t seem to have kept many friends from her New York years, when she had her Fifth Avenue apartment and went to celebrity parties. I’d come back home amused to find long messages from Ruby Wax for her on my answerphone, yet she was largely a recluse. She was as fragile as she was tough. As guarded as she was flamboyant.
She would stay a month, disappear to Paris and Rome, engage in mysterious activities, the Roman connection vague, then come back and stay for more months. She took over my basement storage locker with her clothes and papers, just as she did in other cities. She took offence freely. It was easy to say the wrong thing and wind up her sensitivity, a kind of narcissistic armour protecting her from the darkness of her earlier years. As her ex-boyfriend, the writer Martin Sage, said: “It was like entering a different universe and not understanding the rules.” She was well known for screaming and losing her temper, getting us chucked out of taxis for it. I was once with her in La Coupole in Paris when she turned against a waiter and started throwing sugar lumps at him while I sat there open-mouthed.
It was also enormous fun. As an impassioned young feminist, full of the revolution, I loved listening to this fighter for the cause, refining my perceptions of patriarchy. We both loved clothes and she took me to hidden secondhand shops in Islington before “vintage” was a concept and was always good for a styling session. We watched the early Hollywood films she loved, the sillier and more music-filled the better, listened to political debates and discussed at length her horror at the rise of the religious right in the US.
She rarely cooked or cleaned the flat, and wrapped up steaks from restaurants to take home in her handbag. I would return home to find my fax machine emptied of paper, piles of work on every surface, some cheap wacky present from her on the table or the most beautiful long-stemmed roses I had ever seen. When I had my first novel accepted for publication, she bought me a velvet heart-shaped Lacroix necklace that now looks as though it came straight from Absolutely Fabulous, yet was much treasured. She once admitted she had thrown her sheets down the rubbish chute in Paris rather than wash them, finding it quicker to buy more. I found all this hilarious – I was much more stimulated by the wildness and naughtiness of others than I was by doing this kind of thing myself.
This was a sentimental education, a rich and frustrating and eye-opening period, and despite all the dramas and demands, I’m glad she was there. This woman was truly ahead of her time. Regardless of her strict religious 1940s upbringing, she somehow thought in a clear-sighted and entirely liberal way, called herself bisexual before it was acceptable and was rarely shocked by anything. A revolution was going on inside her head. She was genuinely passionate about her message.
Time moved on, we formed different lives, but we kept up a friendship, and Shere eventually moved to London full-time. I last saw her when she became ill, in my house with my family and her partner, along with the photographer Iris Brosch, whose portraits had given her so much pleasure. When she died in 2020, the obituaries were widespread to the extent that various film-makers began to wonder why they had never heard of such a significant figure and started to pitch documentaries. Newnham, who, like me, had seen her mother’s copy of The Hite Report, succeeded in the task.
At a time when the fight must be continued, when women’s history is routinely erased, I’m so very happy that Shere is being celebrated as she should be. She deserves to be acknowledged by a new generation. I think of her when I wear a particular velvet jacket she gave me, and recently realised that the story of velvet jackets came full circle. She was a revolutionary; an iconoclast of great tenacity and courage who completely changed the conversation about women and sex. She enhanced all our lives.
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Women’s sex lives were a mystery to men. Then along came Shere Hite
Yvonne Roberts
A new documentary celebrates the life of the feminist pioneer who shocked the world – and about time too]
In a society in which nine-year-olds watch pornography and song lyrics are more explicit than The Kama Sutra, the revolution that Shere Hite helped to bring about in the 1970s, employing the words vagina, clitoris and masturbation, on primetime television for a start, is easily forgotten – which is exactly what has happened.
The Disappearance of Shere Hite, a documentary made by Nicole Newnham and produced by Dakota Johnson, and released in the UK this weekend, charts Hite’s rise in the 70s and her decline by the 1990s. “It’s just as simple as know yourself, not your role,” she says as advice to herself. “It’s hellish hard.”
In 1976, The Hite Report: A Nationwide Study of Female Sexuality was published. By the time of the author’s death in 2020, it had sold 48m copies in many countries and was banned in almost a dozen.
The documentary charts how, over a period of four years, Hite had sent out thousands of questionnaires asking detailed questions that probably hadn’t even been asked at the consciousness raising sessions then emerging in the second wave of the women’s movement and at the gatherings in which participants equipped with mirrors took at a look at their own vulvas, aghast or overjoyed with what they spied. It was a fun time to be alive.
Hite talks coolly about the shocking revelation (at least to many men) that women had orgasms easily when they masturbated
“Does your partner realise you come when you come?” Hite asked her anonymous respondents. She received thousands of replies to dozens of detailed questions. One woman was in her 10th week as a cook with an all-male crew on a freighter in the North Sea. “I enjoy sex,” she wrote, in itself a challenge to the prevailing stereotype that nice girls thought it an unpleasant but necessary business. “I enjoy sex… but never have I experienced a more concentrated dose of chauvinism than being the only woman on a freighter with young men I am unwilling to fuck.”
In the documentary, Shere (pronounced “share”, born Shirley Diana Gregory) Hite talks coolly about the shocking revelation (at least to many men) that women had orgasms easily when they masturbated and that they preferred clitoral stimulaton to vaginal penetrative sex, a challenge to what the sexologists Masters and Johnson had asserted.
Whether you agreed with her or not – and plenty of feminists such as the redoubtable Lynne Segal in Straight Sex rightly took her to task for her oversimplification – Hite was trying to point out that the lack of words to portray the female sexual experience was an example of the patriarchy in action. The clitoris, whose only role is to provide pleasure, might have been discovered and illustrated in medical journals in the 17th century but by the early 20th century its value had been eroded.
In the 70s and 80s, it still wasn’t acceptable to be female with a brain, beauty, wit and a publicly viewed vulva
In 1987, Hite published Women and Love: A Cultural Revolution in Progress. Her responses this time told her that women were fed up, they wanted intimacy and emotional connectedness with men. I interviewed her at the time. As the documentary portrays very accurately, Hite was unique: clever, spikey, ethereal with almost see-through alabaster skin, a cloud of curls, white eyelashes and a soft, baby voice. As an interviewee in the documentary says, Hite had made herself a brand. In the 1970s and 80s, it still wasn’t acceptable to be female with a brain, beauty, wit and a publicly viewed vulva (Hite had hers photographed often by the German photographer Iris Brosch in later years); a scholar and a slut.
The joy of the documentary is that it provides a history of the women’s movement in which Hite felt at home. Bisexual, she was an advocate for gay rights at a time when it was dangerous to do so. She had featured in Playboy, and, as a model, in an ad for Olivetti typewriters: ”The typewriter that’s so smart she doesn’t have to be.” Sexism was that bad, and worse.
Hite confessed to her modelling past and the liberationists took her to their heart. On one occasion, she asked those in the room to raise their hands if they masturbated; nobody moved. The idea for the first Hite report was born.
Hite, whose 16-year-old mother dumped her with her grandparents, had two history degrees. When she and her fellow activists picketed Washington’s National Museum of Natural History – “the Unnatural History Museum – women were only portrayed stirring a pot and holding a baby. I was studying the past,” Hite says in the documentary. “Because I couldn’t understand the present… why couldn’t everyone have an equal chance?”
Hite wrote half a dozen books; her report on women’s sex lives was followed by The Hite Report on Male Sexuality, published in 1981 and drawn from 7,239 questionnaires. Reading some, her editor, Bob Gottlieb, said: “I haven’t had many sadder experiences as an editor in my life.” Men said they were lonely, some were afraid. Other men reacted angrily. The backlash had already begun because Hite called herself a social scientist.
In a letter to the New York Times in 1981, she noted that “science” comes from the Latin root “to know”. Hite had employed percentages in her books – but percentages of what, her critics asked? Seventy per cent of 10 or 1,000? Regardless of the numbers, as Oprah Winfrey says in the documentary, “Nobody can deny there’s a problem.”
By the 1990s, Hite was in financial trouble and couldn’t get her books published in the US. In 1996, she became a German citizen, having married Friedrich Höricke, a couple of decades her junior in 1985. She developed Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s and died aged 77. In her New York Times review of The Hite Report, Erica Jong quotes a character in Doris Lessing’s The Golden Notebook (1962): “Women of any sense know better, after all these centuries, than to interrupt when men start telling them how they feel about sex.” Shere Hite deserves to be remembered.
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‘The Disappearance of Shere Hite’ Review: A Vivid Portrait of a Pioneer of the Female Orgasm
Documentarian Nicole Newnham (‘Crip Camp’) delves into the fascinating life of feminist sexologist Shere Hite, with Dakota Johnson lending her voice for readings from Hite's writings.
January 21, 2023 10:40am
Writer and social scientist Shere Hite’s books on sex were publishing phenomena in the 1970s and 80s. Like Alex Comfort’s bestselling erotic “cookbook” The Joy of Sex, her monographs seemed ubiquitous in those days, especially in master bedrooms where readers could use them as informative, topical works of popular social science which just happened to double as erotic bedside reading. The books on male and female sexuality tessellate together thousands of micro stories, observations and admissions written by the many respondents who filled out her questionnaires anonymously. That meant that in those pages, readers found reassurance that there were others who felt and experienced sex in the same way that they did, and that being “different” was quite normal. Arguably nobody did more than Hite, for example, to dismantle the myth, promulgated by Sigmund Freud among others, that “clitoral orgasms” were somehow inferior to “vaginal” ones. Clitorises around the world should rise up to salute her in gratitude.
Yet, as director Nicole Newnham’s new documentary points out, Hite is surprisingly not the household name these days you would expect given that her first major work, The Hite Report on Female Sexuality (1976), remains one of the bestselling non-fiction books of all time. The Disappearance of Shere Hite ponders this paradox, and while somewhat vexingly it doesn’t fully explain why or to what extent Hite “disappeared” from public view in the decades before her death in 2020, it draws a vivid portrait of a complex, fascinating woman.
Born into a humble Midwestern family, she ended up married to a German concert pianist and living a glamorous itinerant lifestyle in Europe. A sometime model who was also a staunch feminist, a shy character who could be a fierce debater, an industrious researcher but with a fabulous bohemian dress sense, Hite truly contained multitudes.
After its premiere at Sundance, the film is certain to be programmed at many subsequent festivals, as was Newnham’s previous, Academy Award-nominated feature Crip Camp, which she co-directed with James LeBrecht. In terms of publicity, it won’t hurt that one of the film’s executive producers is actor Dakota Johnson, who also voices the extracts from Hite’s writing heard in the film. Surely, it’s only a matter of time before someone starts raising finance for a biopic.
As with Crip Camp, her feature on the rise of the disability-rights movement as seen through the eyes of alumni of one specific summer camp for disabled kids, Newnham finds in Hite’s personal story a microcosm of the rise of second- and third-wave feminism in the mid-20th century. The narrative starts with Hite’s arrival in New York to work on her doctorate in social history and immediately encountering misogynist, class-based prejudice. Seeing the high standard of her work, some professors refused to believe it was composed by a woman with a degree from the University of Florida. In need of money like any graduate student, she turned to modeling and was cast in commercial photoshoots as well as hired to model for illustrators. It turns out both the leggy women in a poster commissioned for James Bond film Diamonds Are Forever were modeled on Hite, who also did nude photoshoots for Playboy and other men’s magazines.
The fact that Hite was so comfortable in her own skin and willing to own and celebrate her natural sensuality put her on the vanguard of the sexual revolution. It all starts to seem of a piece with her enjoyment of lovers of both sexes (some interviewed here) in her private life. Meanwhile, with the first Hite Report, she wasn’t afraid to contradict the orthodoxies of the time with her research pointing to the fact that many women masturbated frequently and found it difficult to orgasm from regular heterosexual penetrative sex.
The scrupulous archive research by Newnham and her team churns up footage of Hite parrying with (almost always male) critics of her findings, who refused to believe their own wives, mothers and daughters could be so wanton. Later, the confrontations become more testy and fractious, which partly explains why Hite “disappeared.” A quick search engine query turns up that she had a degenerative neurological disease toward the end of her life, which might provide a partial answer for her withdrawal from public life.
But that would have been a depressing note to end on, and done nothing for the image the film seeks to build up for Hite as a feminist heroine, practically martyred for telling the truth. It’s a shame the doc hedges towards hagiography in the last act, with almost no space given over to an assessment of what might have been problematic about her research — questions that could be raised without diluting the significance of the work overall. But maybe they’ll get around to those issues in the biopic.
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Shere Hite, author of taboo-breaking ‘Hite Reports’ on human sexuality, dies at 77
By Emily Langer
September 11, 2020 at 8:00 p.m. EDT
Shere Hite, whose taboo-busting “Hite Reports” on human sexuality sold millions of copies after their debut in 1976, energizing feminists with their frank discussion of how women achieve sexual pleasure even as many social scientists decried the studies as pseudoscience, died Sept. 9 at her home in London. She was 77.
She had corticobasal degeneration, a rare neurological disorder, said her husband, Paul Sullivan.
Shere Hite — her name was pronounced “share height” — was an unusual successor to sex researchers such as Alfred C. Kinsey, who began documenting the sexual lives of Americans in the 1940s, and William H. Masters and Virginia E. Johnson, who took sex into a laboratory setting in the 1960s.
A onetime Playboy model with a master’s degree in history, Dr. Hite joined the feminist movement in the early 1970s after appearing in an advertisement for an Olivetti typewriter that, according to its billing, was “So Smart She Doesn’t Have to Be.”
Disgusted by the misogynistic message, she signed on with the National Organization for Women, which was protesting the campaign, and agreed to lead a project on feminist sexuality. (She had recently suspended doctoral studies at Columbia University.)
Dr. Hite — Nihon University in Tokyo reportedly awarded her a doctorate for the research published in her reports — began distributing among women and later men detailed surveys to be completed anonymously about their sexual experiences and desires.
The responses yielded enough material to fill volumes and controversy sufficient to keep Dr. Hite in the news for years. One day, she might appear on Oprah Winfrey’s talk show, the next day before an audience at the University of Oxford in England, offering her listeners a rare entree into the inner sanctum of other people’s bedrooms.
The first installment of her works, “The Hite Report: A Nationwide Study of Female Sexuality,” appeared in 1976. Even at that point, well into the sexual revolution, the book caused a stir by championing the idea that women do not need men to achieve orgasm, and that for many it is reached not through traditional intercourse but rather by clitoral stimulation.
The publication “became so popular because it was the only book to say there is nothing wrong with women — that women can have orgasms very easily, but the kind of stimulation women need isn’t being included in sex,” Dr. Hite told USA Today three decades after the report was released. “It was trying to say that women need to be half of the equation, and, if we’re going to have equality in sex, it has to be rethought.”
The sequel to the first Hite Report — Playboy magazine called it the Hate Report — was released in 1981 as “The Hite Report on Male Sexuality.” That volume, relying on questionnaires returned by 7,239 respondents ranging in age from 13 to 97, reported that many men had deep fears of intimacy and their own sexual inadequacy.
Her third study, “Women and Love: A Cultural Revolution in Progress” (1987), reported rampant infidelity and unhappiness in romantic relationships. According to Dr. Hite, 70 percent of women married for at least five years had extramarital affairs — a number far higher than the figures found in other surveys. Ninety-eight percent reported dissatisfaction in their sexual relationships. Ninety-five percent of women, Dr. Hite said, described emotional harassment by their male partners.
The findings were based on 4,500 replies to 100,000 questionnaires that Dr. Hite distributed. Social scientists who criticized her work noted that besides the dismal response rate, respondents were self-selecting and therefore were the individuals most likely to have strong feelings, positive or negative, about the issues at hand.
“It has no resemblance whatsoever to science,” Gordon S. Black, a pollster for USA Today, told the Associated Press in 1987, describing “Women and Love” as “distorted, basically prejudicial to her own point of view and in no way in accordance with tons of other data done in legitimate research.” A writer for the London Daily Mail went further, saying “these implausible majorities read like old-style Albanian election results, where 99.9 percent of the electorate voted for the dictator.”
Dr. Hite argued that such points did not invalidate the insights that she gleaned from the confessional-style questionnaires that poured into her mailbox.
“Most of the answers I received were 14 and 15 pages long, usually handwritten,” she told USA Today. “Can you imagine at that time how hard it was? I still have them. They would say things like they waited and stayed up late after they put their whole family to bed and they were answering on the kitchen table and things like that, so I didn’t feel inclined to disbelieve them.”
Reviewing the book in the New York Times, Arlie R. Hochschild, a sociologist at the University of California at Berkeley, cautioned that “to accept this study as ‘science’ would be wrong,” but that “fishy statistics don’t necessarily equal fishy insights.”
The fracas over “Women and Love” coincided with reports of erratic personal behavior by Dr. Hite. In 1987, she told the AP that she had assumed the identity of a fictional publicist called Diana Gregory — Dr. Hite’s full name was Shirley Diana Gregory — for an earlier interview.
The Times reported that another purported assistant working for Dr. Hite, a Joan Brookbank, spoke on the telephone in a voice that “bore a strong resemblance” to Dr. Hite’s. Sterling Lord, a prominent literary agent, resigned around that time as Dr. Hite’s representative. At one point, according to Newsweek magazine, Dr. Hite called a book critic at 2:30 a.m. to assail the critic for a negative review.
Dr. Hite, who cultivated a look that evoked Marilyn Monroe, denounced her critics as nitpicking her data rather than giving serious consideration to what she said it revealed.
Dispirited by her reception in the United States, Dr. Hite moved to Europe in the early 1990s with her then-husband, a German pianist. In 1996, she renounced her U.S. citizenship and became a German citizen.
“It’s much harder for what a woman does to be taken seriously, expectations, assumptions are different,” she had once told The Washington Post. “When people say ‘It’s not scientific, what they really mean is ‘You’re not a man, you’re not wearing a white coat. It’s just women talking, that’s nowhere, that’s not scientific, not Important with a capital I.’ ”
Shirley Diana Gregory was born in St. Joseph, Mo., on Nov. 2, 1942. Her mother was 16 when she gave birth and soon divorced. Dr. Hite, who took the surname of a stepfather, was largely raised by her grandparents and later by an aunt in Florida.
“My grandmother never talked about sex except once when I came home from a date,” Dr. Hite once recalled. “I had been kissing my boyfriend on the front porch and she said: ‘You know, they only marry the nice ones.’ ”
She studied history at the University of Florida, where she received a bachelor’s degree in 1963 and a master’s degree in 1966. She began modeling around the time of her graduate studies to pay bills. Her success as a writer, she told The Post in 1977, meant that “now I can eat regularly and I know I’ll be able to eat regularly for a number of years. And I don’t have that horrible lurking feeling whenever I go out of my apartment, the fear that I’ll run into my landlord.”
Her books included “The Hite Report on the Family: Growing Up Under Patriarchy” (1994), “Women as Revolutionary Agents of Change: The Hite Reports and Beyond” (1994), “The Hite Report on Shere Hite: Voice of a Daughter in Exile” (2000) and “The Hite Report on Women Loving Women” (2007).
Dr. Hite’s marriage to Friedrich Höricke ended in divorce. A complete list of survivors other than her second husband, of London, was not immediately available.
In 1994, after distributing thousands upon thousands of questionnaires to potential survey participants, Dr. Hite agreed to respond to one crafted for her by the London Guardian. Among the questions: “With which historical figure do you most identify?”
“Perhaps Simone de Beauvoir,” she replied, referring to the French feminist intellectual, “or Margaret Mead,” the renowned cultural anthropologist. She concluded with a nod to the powerful mistress of King Louis XV of France: “Pompadour, too.”
Karla Adam in London contributed to this report.
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Links:
What happened to shere hite ?
https://www.cnn.com/videos/world/2024/01/23/exp-amanpour-newnham-shere-hite-documentary-012301pseg2-cnni-world.cnn
Trailor for the movie:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmdSX7PuZ4w
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Her natal Lilith is 20 Capricorn, N.Node 11 Sagittarius, S.Node 15 Cancer
Her natal Ceres is 19 Pisces, N.Node 9 Cancer, S.Node 10 Sagittarius
Her natal Amazon is 12 Scorpio, N.Node 29 Sagittarius, S.Node 19 Scorpio
Please feel free to comment or ask questions.
Goddess Bless, Rad
Hi All,
Here is the story of Mary Donaldson who has become Crown Princess Mary of Denmark. This is a noon chart.
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The Aussie set to become Queen of Denmark
January 11, 2024 6:48AM ET
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Denmark's popular Australian-born Crown Princess Mary will cap a real-life fairytale Sunday when she becomes queen after her husband Crown Prince Frederik accedes to the throne.
The glamorous 51-year-old is credited with helping modernise the Danish monarchy over the years, and is one of its most popular members.
Queen Margrethe II shocked Danes when she announced her plans to abdicate after 52 years on the throne in her annual New Year's Eve speech, citing her age -- 83 -- and health issues.
The future queen, born Mary Donaldson, brought a breath of fresh air to the monarchy and dazzled Danes when she married into the royal family.
"Some people think my husband is a bit in my shadow because I'm very much in the spotlight and I have a lot of engagements," she said in a 2017 authorised biography of Prince Frederik.
"But he'll never be in my shadow, and I'll never be in his shadow, because he reflects light on me," she said.
Born in Hobart, Tasmania on February 5, 1972, Mary was working as an advertising executive in Australia when she met the then 34-year-old Frederik while out with friends at Sydney's Slip Inn bar during the summer Olympics in 2000.
She only discovered later that he was the crown prince of Denmark and his group of friends was made up of other European royals -- including his younger brother Prince Joachim and cousin Prince Nikolaos of Greece and Denmark.
"The first time we met, we shook hands," she said in an interview several years ago.
"I didn't know he was the prince of Denmark. Half an hour later, someone came up to me and said, 'Do you know who these people are?'"
Frederik meanwhile told daily Kristeligt Dagblad that meeting Mary was "not only a rush of love, but also the feeling of having met my soulmate."
After a discreet long-distance relationship and numerous under-the-radar visits, the couple became officially engaged in October 2003 and married on May 14, 2004 in Copenhagen Cathedral.
They are now parents to four children: Prince Christian, 18, who will one day succeed his father as king, Princess Isabella, 16, and twins Prince Vincent and Princess Josephine, 13.
- Modern and trendsetter -
Mary made a splash in Denmark from the start, impressing Danes with her ability to learn the Danish language quickly.
She also won over her mother-in-law immediately.
"I have to say that the first time (Frederik) allowed me to meet her, I hoped it would last," Queen Margrethe recalled in a 2015 interview.
A poll published by Danish television TV2 in December declared Mary Denmark's third-most popular royal, behind the immensely popular queen and Frederik.
"For the almost 20 years that she has been a member of the royal family, the crown princess has widened and perfected her role as spokesperson and PR official for the royal family, Denmark, and her chosen causes," the daily Berlingske wrote recently.
She is often compared to Britain's Princess Catherine for her sense of style and long dark locks, regularly making the fashion pages of Danish and international magazines.
She is also known for her work to fight bullying, domestic violence and social isolation, as well as promoting mental health and women's rights.
Mary and Frederik are considered a modern couple, who love pop music, modern art and sports, according to historian Sebastian Olden-Jorgensen.
They have tried to give their four children as normal an upbringing as possible, sending them mainly to state schools.
Their first-born, 18-year-old Prince Christian, was the first Danish royal to attend daycare.
They "do not represent a potential revolution compared to the queen", but a careful transition adapting to the times, Olden-Jorgensen said.
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Mary, Crown Princess of Denmark
Mary, Crown Princess of Denmark, Countess of Monpezat, R.E. (born Mary Elizabeth Donaldson; 5 February 1972) is an Australian-born member of the Danish royal family. She is married to Frederik, Crown Prince of Denmark, the heir apparent to the Danish throne.
The couple met at the Slip Inn, a pub in Sydney when the prince was visiting Australia during the 2000 Summer Olympics. Their official engagement in 2003 and their marriage the following year was the subject of extensive attention from Australian and European news media, which portrayed the marriage as a modern "fairytale" romance between a prince and a commoner.
Since her marriage, the Crown Princess has carried out engagements on behalf of her mother-in-law the Queen and currently serves as patron of over 30 charitable organisations, including the United Nations Population Fund, the European regional office of the World Health Organization, the Danish Refugee Council and Julemærkefonden. She founded her award-winning social organisation the Mary Foundation in 2007. In 2019, she was made a rigsforstander which allows her to act as regent when the Queen and Crown Prince Frederik are abroad.
Following the abdication of Margrethe II in favour of her son, Frederik, on 14 January 2024, Mary is expected to become the first Australian-born queen consort.
Early life
Mary Elizabeth Donaldson was born 5 February 1972 at Queen Alexandra Hospital in Battery Point, Hobart. She is youngest of four children to Scottish parents, Henrietta (née Horne), an executive assistant to the vice-chancellor of the University of Tasmania, and John Dalgleish Donaldson, an academic and mathematics professor.[ Her paternal grandfather was Captain Peter Donaldson (1911–1978).[8] She was named after her grandmothers, Mary Dalgleish and Elizabeth Gibson Melrose, and was born and raised in Hobart, Australia. She has two older sisters, Jane Stephens and Patricia Bailey, and an older brother, John Stuart Donaldson. Her mother died from complications following heart surgery on 20 November 1997 when Mary was 25.[9] In 2001, her father married the British author and novelist Susan Moody (née Horwood).
During her childhood, she was involved in sports and other extracurricular activities both at school and elsewhere. She studied music, playing piano, flute, and clarinet, also playing basketball and hockey.
Education
In 1974, she began schooling at Clear Lake City Elementary School in Houston, Texas, when her father, a professor of applied mathematics, worked at the Johnson Space Center. She then moved to Sandy Bay, Tasmania, from 1975 to 1977. Her primary education, from 1978 to 1983, was at Waimea Heights with her secondary schooling (1984–1987) being at Taroona High School, and matriculation (1988–1989) at Hobart College. She studied at the University of Tasmania from 1990 to 1994, graduating with a combined Bachelor of Commerce and Bachelor of Laws degree on 27 May 1995. Between 1994 and 1996, she attended a graduate program and qualified with certificates in advertising from the Advertising Federation of Australia (AFA) and direct marketing from the Australian Direct Marketing Association (ADMA).
Her native language is English, and she studied French during her secondary education. In 2002, she briefly worked as an English tutor in Paris while dating Crown Prince Frederik.[13] After moving to Denmark and prior to her marriage, Donaldson studied Danish as a foreign language at Studieskolen in Copenhagen in 2003.[
Career
She worked for Australian and global advertising agencies after graduating in 1995. Upon graduation she moved to Melbourne to work in advertising. She became a trainee in marketing and communications with the Melbourne office of DDB Needham, taking a position of account executive. In 1996, she was employed by Mojo Partners as an account manager. In 1998, six months after her mother's death, she resigned and travelled to America and Europe. In Edinburgh, she worked for three months as an account manager with Rapp Collins Worldwide; then, in early 1999, she was appointed as an account director with the international advertising agency Young & Rubicam in Sydney.
In June 2000, she moved to a smaller Australian agency, Love Branding, working for a short time as the company's first account director. However, in the (Australian) spring of 2000 until December 2001, she became sales director and a member of the management team of Belle Property, a real estate firm. In the first half of 2002 Donaldson taught English at a business school in Paris but, on moving to Denmark permanently, she was employed by Microsoft Business Solutions (5 September 2002 – 24 September 2003) near Copenhagen as a project consultant for business development, communications and marketing.
Personal life
Courtship and engagement
Mary met Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark at the Slip Inn in 2000 during the Summer Olympics in Sydney. Frederik was at the bar with his brother Prince Joachim, his cousin Prince Nikolaos of Greece and Denmark as well as the then Prince of Asturias and Princess Märtha Louise of Norway. The Prince of Asturias knew Mary's flatmate. Frederik was not identified by her friends as the Crown Prince of Denmark until after they met.[10] They conducted a long-distance relationship and Frederik made a number of discreet visits to Australia. On 15 November 2001, the Danish weekly magazine Billed Bladet named Mary as Frederik's girlfriend. She then moved from Australia to Denmark in December 2001, while she was working as an English tutor in Paris.
On 24 September 2003, the Danish court announced that Queen Margrethe II intended to give her consent to the marriage at the State Council meeting scheduled for 8 October 2003.[citation needed] Frederik had presented Mary with an engagement ring featuring an emerald-cut diamond and two emerald-cut ruby baguettes, which are similar to the colour of Denmark's flag. The couple became officially engaged on 8 October 2003.
Marriage and children
Donaldson and Frederik married on 14 May 2004 in Copenhagen Cathedral, in Copenhagen. The couple reportedly spent their honeymoon in Africa.
The couple have four children:
Prince Christian Valdemar Henri John, born 15 October 2005 at Rigshospitalet in Copenhagen
Princess Isabella Henrietta Ingrid Margrethe, born 21 April 2007 at Rigshospitalet in Copenhagen
Prince Vincent Frederik Minik Alexander, born 8 January 2011 at Rigshospitalet in Copenhagen
Princess Josephine Sophia Ivalo Mathilda, born 8 January 2011 at Rigshospitalet in Copenhagen
The Danish Folketing (parliament) passed a special law (Mary's Law) giving Donaldson Danish citizenship upon her marriage, a standard procedure for new foreign members of the royal family. She was previously a dual citizen of Australia and the United Kingdom. Formerly a Presbyterian, she converted to the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Denmark upon marriage.
As a native English speaker Mary's priority from the time of her engagement was to become fluent in the Danish language and acknowledged that this was a challenge for her in several interviews at the time of her engagement and marriage.[ However, after months of intensive lessons, Mary succeeded in mastering the language.
Mary and her family currently reside at Frederik VIII's Palace, one of the four palaces that make up the Amalienborg Palace complex. Since May 2004 they have also resided at the Chancellery House, a building in the park at Fredensborg Palace, during the summer months.
Mary is a keen equestrian and has competed at several dressage events.
Among others, Mary is the godmother of Princess Estelle of Sweden, who was also given the secondary name Mary in her honour,[28] and her nephew, Count Henrik of Monpezat (then Prince Henrik of Denmark).
Public life, charities and patronages
Mary attends the wedding of Victoria of Sweden. Mary is pictured here surrounded by (left to right): Frederik; Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands; Máxima of the Netherlands; Mette-Marit; and Beatrix of the Netherlands.
Following the wedding, the Crown Prince couple embarked upon a summer working-tour of mainland Denmark aboard the royal yacht Dannebrog, then travelled to Greenland and later to the 2004 Athens Olympics.[citation needed] In 2005, during the celebrations for the 200th anniversary of Hans Christian Andersen, the royal family was involved in related events throughout the year. Frederik and Mary marked the anniversary in London, New York and in Australia, where she was made Honorary Hans Christian Andersen Ambassador to Australia in the Utzon Room of the Sydney Opera House.
Since becoming Crown Princess, Mary has made a number of international visits, and Frederik and Mary participated in the reburial ceremonies for Empress Maria Feodorovna in Denmark and Saint Petersburg in 2005. In November 2009, Mary made a surprise visit to Danish soldiers in Helmand Province, Afghanistan. One of her stops was FOB Armadillo.
During a Council of State on 2 October 2019, the Queen's request to appoint Mary a rigsforstander, a functioning regent when the monarch or the heir is out of the country, was approved by the government. After having sworn to respect the Danish constitution, she became the first person not born into the royal family to assume the position of rigsforstander since Queen Ingrid in 1972.
Mary was voted Woman of the Year 2008 by a Danish magazine, Alt for damerne, donating her cash reward to charity.[33] She was interviewed by Parade Magazine, on television programs of Andrew Denton (Australia) and USA Today (US).
She serves on the board of directors of The Royal Danish Collection.
Patronages and interests
Since 2004, Mary has steadily worked to establish her relationships with various organisations, their issues, missions, programmes and staff. Her patronages range across areas of culture, the fashion industry, humanitarian aid, support for research and science social and health patronages and sport. The organisations for which she is patron have reported positive outcomes through their relationship with her and there are various reports in the Danish media and on some of the websites of the organisations themselves about her being quite involved in her working relationship with them. She is currently involved in supporting anti-obesity programs through the World Health Organization, Regional Office for Europe.
In the context of immigrant issues in Denmark, Mary has visited the disadvantaged migrant areas of Vollsmose (2006), Gellerup (2007), and Viborg (2010), and has participated in integration projects including the teaching of the Danish language to refugees. As patron of the Danish Refugee Council, Mary visited Uganda (2008) and East Africa (2011) and supports fundraising for the region.
Mary has played an active role in promoting an anti-bullying program based on an Australian model through the auspices of Denmark's Save the Children. She is also involved in a campaign to raise awareness and safe practices among Danes about skin cancer through The Danish Cancer Society.
Mary is also an Honorary Life Governor of the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute based at the Garvan Institute/St Vincent's Hospital, Sydney, a member of the International Committee of Women Leaders for Mental Health and a member of various sporting clubs (riding, golf and yachting). In June 2010, it was announced that Mary has become Patron of UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, "to support the agency's work to promote maternal health and safer motherhood in more than 150 developing nations".Mary lends her support to a number of other 'one-off' Danish causes, industry events and international conferences. In 2011, the Westmead Cancer Centre at Westmead Hospital in Sydney was renamed the Crown Princess Mary Cancer Care Centre Westmead.
Mary is an active patron of Denmark's third-highest-earning export industry, the fashion industry, and is Patron of the Copenhagen Fashion Summit.
The Mary Foundation
On 11 September 2007, Mary announced the establishment of the Mary Fonden [da] at an inaugural meeting at Amalienborg Palace. The foundation's aim is to improve lives compromised by environment, heredity, illness or other circumstances which can isolate or exclude people socially. The initial funds of DKK 1.1 million were collected in Denmark and Greenland and donated to Frederik and Mary as a wedding gift in 2004. Mary is the chairwoman of eight trusts. In 2014, she received a Bambi Award for her work with the foundation.
LGBT rights
In 2016, on the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia, Mary gave a speech on LGBT rights at a forum in Copenhagen hosted by the Danish government. She called for an end to discrimination, oppression, and violence against people because of their sexual orientation and gender identity. In January 2018, Mary delivered her speech about LGBTQ+ equality at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. On 25 April 2018, Mary was invited to present the honorary award to LGBT Danmark at the Danish Rainbow Awards – AXGIL 2018. She thus became the first ever member of the royal family to attend the Danish Rainbow Awards. She also attended the awards ceremony in 2019 and 2020. In 2020, Mary spoke at Copenhagen Pride's virtual pride festival.
In October 2019, it was announced that Mary would serve as patron of WorldPride Copenhagen 2021, making her the first ever royal to serve as patron for a major LGBT event. She carried out numerous engagements in connection with the event and also gave the closing speech of the week-long celebrations on 21 August 2021.
Public image and style
Mary has been named one of the world's most fashionable people in Vanity Fair's annual International Best-Dressed List[70] and has posed and given interviews for magazines including Vogue Australia (where she used pieces of foreign designers, such as Hugo Boss, Prada, Louis Vuitton or Gaultier, and Danish designers, like Malene Birger and Georg Jensen), Dansk (Danish Magazine, dedicated to Danish fashion) and German Vogue (where she was photographed between pieces of Danish modern art in Amalienborg Palace). Mary also posed for other magazines during her life as a royal, such as The Australian Women's Weekly (to which she spoke on several occasions about her life as a royal and her family), and Parade.
In 2010 her elegance was praised by designer Tommy Hilfiger, who remarked "I've seen pictures of her and she dresses really well. Mary has a very sophisticated, European style that is also worthy of a princess".
50th Birthday Celebrations
Numerous official events were planned for the week of Mary's 50th birthday on 5 February 2022. Several of these, including a gala dinner at Rosenborg Castle, were cancelled due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. However, several hundred Danes showed up at Amalienborg's courtyard at noon on Mary's birthday. Rather than stepping out onto Frederik VIII's Palace's balcony as is customary for birthday celebrations in the Danish royal family, Mary and her three oldest children came out onto the courtyard to thank the people who had shown up. The day after her birthday, the Crown Prince family attended a televised concert held in her honour named Mary 50 – we’re celebrating Denmark's Crown Princess hosted by TV2.
For Mary's 50th birthday, several places in Denmark were named in her honour: The University of Copenhagen created a knowledge centre named the Crown Princess Mary Centre in which Mary will be part of the Advisory Committee; Rigshospitalet, the Copenhagen University Hospital, named their new department for children, teenagers, expecting mothers and their families Mary Elizabeth's Hospital in honour of Mary's extensive work with the well-being of children and youths, maternal health and the hospital's network for children with cancer; and Copenhagen Zoo named the Australia-themed section of their garden Mary's Australian Garden.
With the marriage in 2004, Mary was honoured with the Order of the Elephant, and her father John Dalgleish Donaldson with the Order of the Dannebrog. In accordance with the statutes of the Danish Royal Orders, both Mary and her father were granted a personal coat of arms, this for display in the Chapel of the Royal Orders at Frederiksborg Castle. The main field of Mary's coat of arms is or tinctured and shows a gules MacDonald eagle and a Sable tinctured boat both symbolising her Scottish ancestry. The chief field is azure tinctured and shows two gold Commonwealth Stars from the Coat of arms of Australia, and a gold rose in between, depicted as her personal symbol. Above the shield is placed the heraldic crown of a Crown Prince of Denmark.
The coat of arms of her father is almost identical to that of the Crown Princess, but a gold infinity symbol is depicted (symbolising his career as an Australian mathematician), instead of the gold Rose. Above his shield is instead placed a barred helmet topped with a gules rampant lion, which is turned outward. The lion is derived from the Scottish coat of arms and also from the arms of Tasmania and Hobart. Both coats of arms were approved in 2006 and placed in the Chapel of the Royal Orders in 2007.
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Crown Prince Frederik and Crown Princess Mary of Denmark's Royal Love Story
The future king and queen's romance reads like a real life fairy tale.
On January 14, 2024, Crown Prince Frederik and his wife, Crown Princess Mary will take on new titles as Frederik's mother, Queen Margrethe, steps down as monarch. The royals will become king and queen amidst a swirl of drama in Denmark's royal family.
The spotlight won't be anything new for this royal couple, though, who have been headline darlings since the start of their storybook romance. Here, we're taking a look back at the real life fairy tale love story of Prince Frederik and Princess Mary.
1968
The eldest son of Queen Margrethe II and her husband, Prince Henrik, Frederik (who was christened Frederik André Henrik Christian) was born on May 26, 1968, just four years before his mother would become queen. Following Margrethe's coronation, Frederik took on the title Crown Prince.
1972
Though she would go on to become a member of the Danish royal family, Crown Princess Mary is actually Australian by birth—she was born Mary Elizabeth Donaldson in Hobart, Tazmania on February 5, 1972. The daughter of a Scottish mathematics professor father and a British mother, Mary had dual Australian and British citizenship before becoming a Danish citizen by marriage.
1994
Mary received a Bachelor's degree in Commerce and Law from the University of Tasmania. She would go on to hold a career as an advertising executive at agencies including DDB Needham and MOJO Partners. She also worked in real estate.
1995
Sporty and adventurous Frederik (he once participated in a four-month, 1,700 mile dog-sled expedition in Greenland) became the first Danish royal to complete a university education, graduating from Aarhus University with a masters in political science.
Frederik also underwent military training in the army, navy, and air force, completing trining with the Royal Danish Navy Frogman Corps in 1995. He would go on to hold the rank of commander in the navy and colonel in the army and the air force.
2000
During the Olympics in Sydney, Australia, the future couple met at a local pub called the Slip Inn, though Mary was unaware of Frederik's royal identity—the prince reportedly introduced himself simply as Fred. "The first time we met, we shook hands and I didn’t know he was the crown prince of Denmark," Mary told 60 Minutes Australia in 2003. "An hour or so later someone came up to me and said, 'Do you know who these people are?'"
They quietly began dating long-distance, before their relationship became public in 2001.
2002
Mary moved to Denmark and, in an apparent nod to the couple's eye toward the future, converted to the Lutheran Church and began learning Danish.
2003
On October 8, 2003, the couple announced at Fredensborg Palace that they would wed the following year.
2004
On May 14, 2004, Frederik and Mary wed at in Copenhagen Cathedral. Mary wore a boatneck ivory gown by Danish designer, Uffe Frank, which reportedly had her mother's wedding ring sewn into the lining—an homage to her late mother, who passed away in 1997. She also carried a bouquet with eucalyptus in a nod to her Australian roots, but also embraced her new nationality with a diamond tiara that was gifted to her by her new in-laws along with an Irish lace veil that had served as a royal heirloom since it was first donned by Princess Margaret of Connaught on her wedding day in 1905.
2005
Just over two years after they announced their engagement, Mary and Frederik welcomed their first child, Prince Christian, on October 15, 2005. After Frederik ascends the throne in 2024, Christian will become the heir apparent and is expected to receive the title Crown Prince.
2007
On April 21, 2007, the couple had their second child, Princess Isabella.
2011
The royals started the new year by doubling the size of their family with the birth of twins—Prince Vincent and Princess Josephine.
2022
Queen Margrethe announced that she would be discontinue the titles of the four children of her second son Prince Joachim, evidently in an effort to modernize and streamline the royal house. While Mary and Frederik's children, as the closest in the line of succession, were not impacted by the controversial decision, the couple did speak out in support of the queen.
Crown Princess Mary, told the press, "I can understand that it is a difficult decision to make and a very difficult decision to receive. Change can be difficult and can really hurt. But this does not mean that the decision is not the right one. We will also look at our children’s titles when the time comes. Today we do not know what the royal house will look like in Christian’s time, or when Christian’s time begins to approach."
Frederik later agreed, stating, "I myself am interested in the Danish monarchy staying slim over time, so I therefore support my mother's decision."
Frederik and Mary joined Queen Margrethe and their children, Prince Christian, Prince Vincent, Princess Isabella, and Princess Josephine on the balcony of Amalienborg Palace on Christian’s 18th birthday in 2023.
2023
In late 2023, rumors circulated that Frederik was involved in an extramarital affair with socialite Geneveva Casanova. Casanova roundly denied the claims, saying per Hola, "I flatly deny the statements that suggest a romantic relationship between Prince Frederick [sic] and me. Any statement of this type is not only completely untrue but also distorts the facts in a malicious manner. This is already in the hands of my lawyers, who will take care of the pertinent steps to protect my right to honor, truth and privacy."
The royal couple did not comment publicly on the claims, however it was later suggested that Margrethe's decision to abdicate may have been motivated by a desire to save Frederik and Mary's marriage.
2024
During her New Year's speech, Queen Margrethe announced that she would be stepping down from the throne, becoming the first Danish monarch in more than 500 years to abdicate.
"I have decided that now is the right time. On 14 January 2024, 52 years after I succeeded my beloved father, I will step down as Queen of Denmark. I leave the throne to my son Crown Prince Frederik," the queen stated.
Upon her official abdication, Frederik will become king and Mary will become queen following a proclamation by the prime minister at the Christiansborg Palace. Unlike Britian's King Charles, who was crowned in May 2023, there will not be a large coronation ceremony.
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Her natal Lilith is 12 Sagittarius, N,.Node 3 Capricorn, S.Node 24 Taurus,
Her natal Ceres is 16 Leo, N.Node 29 Taurus, S.Node 4 Capricorn
Her natal Amazon is 22 Sagittarius, N.Node 4 Taurus, S.Node 9 Sagittarius
Please feel free to comment or ask questions.
Goddess Bless, Rad
HI All,
This is the story of Peggy Whitson. This is a noon chart.
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Peggy Whitson: Record-holding astronaut
By Elizabeth Howell
last updated September 03, 2023
Peggy Whitson has achieved many milestones, we explore her incredible life and career in more detail.
Peggy Whitson is a record-breaking astronaut who has worked for both NASA and Axiom Space.
She has spent more time in space than any other American or woman, and those are only two of the records she holds. Whitson retired from NASA on June 15, 2018, after three missions but kept flying and went on to command Axiom Space's Ax-2 mission in 2023.
Whitson's many milestones also include becoming the first woman to command the space station twice, the first female and nonmilitary head of NASA's astronaut office, and the first woman to command a private space mission.
Related: In photos: Record-breaking NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson:
https://www.space.com/36268-astronaut-peggy-whitson-photo-gallery.html
How many days has Peggy Whitson spent in space?
Whitson has spent a cumulative 675 days in space — more than any other American or woman.
How many space missions did Peggy Whitson fly on?
Whitson has flown on four space missions: three with NASA and one with Axiom Space.
Joining NASA
Peggy Annette Whitson was born on Feb. 9, 1960, in Mount Ayr, Iowa. After earning her bachelor of science degree in biology and chemistry from Iowa Wesleyan College in 1981, she earned her doctorate in biochemistry from Rice University in Texas in 1985, according to her official NASA biography. Whitson then served as a National Research Council resident research associate at NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC), and later as supervisor of the biochemistry research group at KRUG International, a medical sciences contractor at JSC. She was also an adjunct assistant professor at both the University of Texas and Rice University.
On May 6, 1989, Whitson married Clarence F. Sams. Sams, also a biochemist, had joined NASA in 1984, researching the biological effects of spaceflight at the cellular and subcellular levels.
Also in 1989, Whitson began work as a research biochemist at JSC, serving as a technical monitor of its biochemistry research laboratories. In 1992, she was named the project scientist for the Shuttle-Mir program, in which NASA space shuttles visited and carried crewmembers to and from Russia's Mir space station, spending three years in that role. She also served as deputy division chief of JSC's medical sciences division.
Whitson's journey to becoming an astronaut
In 1996, Whitson was selected as an astronaut candidate for NASA, and she started training in August of that year. After two years of training and evaluation, she became eligible for flight duties with the rest of her astronaut class. Because astronauts take on ground duties when not training for a mission, Whitson was then assigned technical duties in JSC's astronaut office operations planning branch. Whitson also served as the lead for the crew test support team in Russia from 1998 to 1999, during the early days of the International Space Station (ISS) program that included Russian cosmonauts.
Whitson's first assignment was as part of the long-duration Expedition 5 crew. On June 5, 2002, Whitson launched for the ISS and served there for six months. Named the first NASA science officer during her stay in space, Whitson conducted 21 investigations in human life sciences and microgravity sciences. She returned to Earth on Dec. 7, 2002, logging 184 days, 22 hours and 14 minutes in space.
For several years, Whitson then took on a series of high-profile ground responsibilities. In 2003, she commanded the underwater NEEMO (NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations) mission, which simulated aspects of spaceflight. Whitson also served as deputy chief of the JSC astronaut office between November 2003 and March 2005, including being a member of the 2004 selection board for astronaut candidates.
Whitson stepped down from her management role at the astronaut office to become eligible for missions again, as NASA rules stipulate that the office's management cannot fly to space. From March to November 2005, she was chief of the station operations branch at JSC's astronaut office, where she played a key role in ISS mission planning. She then trained as backup ISS commander of Expedition 14 from November 2005 to September 2006, before being assigned to her next mission.
NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson is pictured with an Orbital ATK Cygnus spacecraft (left) during a May 12, 2017 spacewalk outside the International Space Station. Whitson, the station's commander, and fellow NASA astronaut Jack Fischer will conduct a repair spacewalk on Tuesday, May 23. (Image credit: NASA)
First female space station commander
Whitson returned to space on Oct. 10, 2007, as part of Expedition 16 — this time, as the first female station commander. Along with Pamela Melroy, she was one of the first two women to lead missions at the same time. (Melroy led a 13-day shuttle mission.) While on board the ISS, Whitson oversaw the first expansion of the station's living and working space in more than six years. She returned to Earth on April 19, 2008, after 191 days, 19 hours and 8 minutes in space. At that time, she had accumulated the most time in space for any woman. During Whitson's fifth overall extravehicular activity (EVA), she surpassed Sunita Williams as the woman with the most spacewalks; she would make one more spacewalk by the end of the mission.
It would be almost a decade before Whitson returned to space. Whitson served as chief of the astronaut corps from 2009 to 2012, making her the first female, nonmilitary individual to hold that position. She was responsible for the mission preparation activities and on-orbit support of all ISS crews and their support personnel.
Although she enjoyed the job, she wasn't ready to say goodbye to space.
"It was actually a very satisfying job, but I did know that I still wanted to fly again — at least, I was not willing to say I didn't want to fly anymore," Whitson said in a YouTube video for AARP. "So that's when I stepped down to get back in line [for a flight]."
Record-breaking trip to space
On Nov. 17, 2016, Whitson once again launched into space as part of Expedition 50/51. At age 56, she immediately became the oldest woman to go to space (a record that would be broken by Wally Funk in 2021). Whitson also became the only woman to command the space station twice.
Although the initial plan was for Whitson to spend three months in space, her stay on the ISS was extended by three months. She returned home on Sept. 3, 2017, after clocking 289 days, 5 hours and 1 minute in space and attaining the record for the most cumulative days in space for an American, as well as for a woman of any nationality.
"I haven't felt bored since I got here in November last year," Whitson said from orbit in a video interview with a representative of Guinness World Records on July 26, 2017. "I think if you have the right attitude, you can stay in space for a long period of time, and it's actually very satisfying and enjoy[able]."
While in space, Whitson performed four additional spacewalks, bringing her total to 10 and putting her in a tie for first place with Michael Lopez-Alegria for the most spacewalks performed by a NASA astronaut. She also clocked the most time spent by a woman performing spacewalks.
"I feel like the reason I'm here is to do my job, and I'm going to do it to the best of my abilities," she said in the interview with Guinness World Records. "The records, I think, are important for NASA, to demonstrate what we're doing, how we're expanding and what we're improving on. And that continual improvement, that continual expansion of our records, is an important one for all of us at NASA, not just me."
Axiom Space
Although Whitson retired from NASA in 2018, she wasn't done flying in space. In 2022, she joined Axiom Space, a Houston-based company that was just starting to fly its own missions to the ISS with SpaceX Dragon spacecraft. Whitson became the first female commander of a private mission with Ax-2, the second Axiom mission, which flew for about 10 days in May 2023.
Whitson is also director of human spaceflight at Axiom and was on the mission to fulfill a NASA requirement: All private missions, per agency rules, must be commanded by a former agency astronaut. Joining Whitson were paying customer and pilot John Shoffner and the first two Saudis to visit the ISS: astronauts Ali AlQarni and Rayyanah Barnawi. (Rayyanah was also the first Saudi woman to go to space.)
As of the end of Ax-2, Whitson's tally of days in space is 675, according to Axiom Space. Whitson remains active with the company, which may bring her to space again.
After Whitson's 2023 flight, CBS asked whether she would like to go to the moon one day.
"I'd have fun doing that one," Whitson said. "But there's just a lot of opportunities. I think, as space is changing so much, there are lots of ways to contribute and be a part of that. I think it's part of the reason I like to keep going back. Besides the addiction of this perspective, I really like being a part of something bigger than me. Space truly is that, and the objectives in space are that. So I'm very excited about continuing."
Records Whitson set
These records were current at the time of the listed mission and may have changed in the intervening years.
Expedition 16
One of the first two women to lead missions at the same time
Oct. 10, 2008: First female commander of the ISS
Dec. 16, 2008: Most cumulative spacewalk time for a woman (a record achieved during her fifth spacewalk), at 32 hours, 36 minutes
Astronaut Office
2009: First female, nonmilitary chief of the astronaut office
Expedition 50/51/52
Nov. 17, 2016: Oldest woman to go to space, at age 56; and first woman to command the ISS twice
March 30, 2017: Most spacewalking time accumulated by a female astronaut
April 24, 2017: Most cumulative days in space by an American and by a woman of any nationality (534 days, 2 hours, 48 minutes; when she landed, she had clocked 665 total days in space)
May 23, 2017: On her 10th spacewalk, tied with Michael Lopez-Alegria for most spacewalks by a NASA astronaut
Nov. 17, 2017: With 665 days in space, Whitson held the record for the most days in space for an American astronaut and the most for a woman of any nationality. On the all-time spaceflight endurance list, she sat at No. 8.
Peggy Whitson Q&A
Peggy Whitson bio
Peggy Whitson holds the record for the most time in space by an American and by any woman in the world. Her latest mission was the 10-day Axiom Space Mission 2 (Ax-2). Before that, she had accumulated 665 days in space as a NASA astronaut across three missions, during which she commanded the International Space Station twice and performed the most spacewalks of any woman.
Tell us about the Ax-2 mission.
The Ax-2 mission had a couple of really important objectives: to increase access for private and government astronauts, and [for] scientists as well. We succeeded in doing that.
What's harder: preparing for space or for reentry?
For me, it's actually the landing. My body doesn't adapt well to being back in gravity. I think it just loves being in space more.
Why did you decide to work for a private space company after retiring from NASA?
I might be a little bit addicted to space. But it was exciting to me to be a part of this change in space. Governments have pretty much led the way in space because it's so expensive, but commercial entities now are providing some of the leadership.
This interview is based on a joint Space.com-CBS exclusive interview with Whitson made public on July 20, 2023.
Additional resources
Read about ISS record holders like Whitson in this NASA feature. Learn about the space station that Axiom is slowly working to build on this Axiom Space webpage.
Bibliography
AARP. (2016, Nov. 16). "NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson breaks records | Disrupt aging." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dS7hRY6oFUU
Axiom Space. (2023.) "Peggy Whitson." https://www.axiomspace.com/astronaut/peggy-whitson
CBS. (2023, July 19.) "America’s most experienced astronaut Peggy Whitson on overcoming 4 rejections from NASA." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bJxWt5he-s
Guinness World Records. (2017, July 28.) "Space interview with NASA astronaut Dr. Peggy Whitson — Guinness World Records." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omQ6BhRgZiA
NASA. (2018, Dec. 14.) "Peggy A. Whitson (Ph.D.) NASA astronaut." https://www.nasa.gov/astronauts/biographies/peggy-a-whitson/biography
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How Apollo 11 inspired record-breaking NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson (exclusive)
By Elizabeth Howell
published July 20, 2023
The historic moon landing had a big impact on Whitson, who was nine at the time.
When the first people walked on the moon 54 years ago today (July 20), female astronauts weren't yet allowed in the U.S. human spaceflight program.
That didn't deter future NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson, who at age nine watched Apollo 11's Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin set foot the moon in 1969, on a television set from her home in Iowa.
"I thought, 'Cool job' ... [but] I never really told anybody about it, because it seemed so unreal to me," Whitson, 63, said on CBS News' "Person to Person with Norah O’Donnell." The interview will stream today at 9:30 pm EDT (6:30 p.m. PDT), and CBS will air a preview on the CBS Evening News at 6:30 p.m. EDT.
In an excerpt from that interview provided exclusively to Space.com, Whitson recalled another major milestone in space history: 1978, when the first class of astronauts that included women and Black individuals was finally brought into NASA. She was graduating high school that year.
"I'm like, 'Maybe this is possible for me to become an astronaut.' Luckily, I had no idea how hard it would be, but I set my mind to it," Whitson said. After getting her Ph.D., she began applying for every NASA class, racking up four rejections in eight years.
Those rejections are hard to imagine now, given that Whitson has since commanded three space missions (for NASA and Houston's Axiom Space) and is one of the most traveled people of any gender, with a total of 675 days in space — more than any other American. She told CBS she was fortunate to keep going and attributed her childhood on a farm to creating the resilience she needed to go back to NASA again and again.
Related: International Women's Day: Female astronauts keep making strides off Earth: https://www.space.com/international-womens-day-space-diversity-2023
In her formative years, Whitson witnessed a sea change at NASA in terms of female participation. The first women in the space program worked in background roles — for example, the Black "Hidden Figures" mathematicians and engineers only latterly hailed for their roles in calculating the trajectories of early human spacecraft.
The agency recruited its early astronaut corps from the military, which itself had restrictions by gender and race in the 1960s and 1970s during the early days of the space age. A 1960s effort to bring in civilian women, known as the Mercury 13, ultimately failed after some of the tests required U.S. military facilities that were restricted to men. (Decades later, happily, Mercury 13 participant Wally Funk made it to space at age 82, aboard Blue Origin's New Shepard suborbital vehicle.)
NASA gradually opened up its corps to scientists and then women astronauts, starting with the pioneering "Thirty-Five New Guys" class in 1978. Despite that joking moniker (which in part referred to the near-decade it had been since any astronauts were hired), NASA took its diversity recruitment so seriously that it brought Nichelle Nichols of "Star Trek" fame on board to attract women and Black astronaut candidates.
Among the women brought on board in that class was Sally Ride, whose estate posthumously disclosed in 2012 that Ride was also the first known LGBTQ+ individual in space. Ride was the first American woman to fly in June 1983 and ending up going to space twice. "It was very meaningful to me," Whitson told CBS of Ride's pioneering mission, adding that she has been glad of the attention brought to 40th anniversary celebrations this year.
To be sure, women astronauts continue to lag their male peers in terms of milestones, even as NASA and other agencies work hard to overcome the bias of the early space program days. For example: the first spacewalk by a female NASA astronaut was by Kathryn Sullivan in 1984, two decades after the first man performed an extravehicular activity. (The Soviet Union exceeded that mark by a few months, and notably it flew the first-ever female astronaut in 1963. But this article focuses on Whitson and NASA.)
Spacesuits for the space shuttle unfortunately were tailored to larger and more stereotypically male sizes; cost and complication has meant similarly male-focused suits continue to fly on International Space Station missions. This situation means that few women can don the extravehicular mobility unit (EMU) spacesuit overall. The only all-female spacewalk to date took place in 2019, 54 years after the first male one. (NASA's new generation of spacewalking suits for its Artemis moon program will be more gender-diverse; to date, other genders besides male and female have not flown with the agency as far as we know.)
As Whitson was being rejected over and over again, the first female pilot of a space shuttle (Eileen Collins) got her mission in 1995 — 14 years after the shuttle first reached orbit. Whitson's persistence paid off, however. She was selected as a NASA astronaut candidate the next year, after racking up considerable related experience.
Whitson's work at NASA before being an astronaut included research roles and (eventually) being appointed to deputy division chief of the medical sciences division at NASA's Johnson Space Center; working in the U.S.-U.S.S.R. joint working group in space medicine and biology; and being named project scientist of the shuttle-Mir space station program that saw several U.S. spacecraft visit the Russian outpost, among other milestones.
Whitson stayed busy on the ground side for nearly a decade after her selection, holding key roles such as deputy chief of the astronaut office (which assigns folks to flights), lead for the crew test support team in Russia, and chief of the station operations branch. Whitson also chaired the astronaut selection board in 2009 and served as a member of the 2004 astronaut selection board.
She then flew three roughly six-month missions to the International Space Station (ISS): with Expedition 5 from June to December 2002; as commander of Expedition 16 that flew from October 2007 to April 2008; and as commander of Expedition 51 (and crew member of Expedition 50) that flew from November 2016 to September 2017.
Whitson emphasized that all of these years of getting related experience on the ground was key to securing her milestone as the first-ever female commander of an ISS expedition. (The first female commander of any NASA mission, a space shuttle mission, was none other than Collins in 2005.)
"I was qualified and had some experience working with these teams," Whitson said, referring to the ground teams supporting Expedition 16. Then, in 2009, Whitson was selected as the first female and non-military chief of the NASA astronaut office, which also drew upon her lifetime of experience. She held the post for three years.
"I try and tell young people it's so important to take advantage of the opportunities you're given along your path, because getting there isn't always a straight line," she said.
RELATED STORIES:
— 'I'm ready. Let's go!' Record-breaking astronaut Peggy Whitson eager for next flight after private Ax-2 mission: https://www.space.com/ax-2-astronaut-peggy-whitson-ready-next-flight
— Peggy Whitson is back! The record-breaking astronaut reveals why she chose to command a private space mission after leaving NASA: https://www.space.com/peggy-whitson-nasa-astronaut-axiom-spaceflight
— Former astronaut Peggy Whitson will return to orbit in command of private Axiom Space mission: https://www.space.com/astronaut-peggy-whitson-private-axiom-space-flight
Whitson retired from NASA in 2018 as the American with the most total time in space — and the woman who had done the most spacewalks (10). After leaving the agency, she went to space yet again through another route. Whitson commanded Axiom Space's Ax-2 mission to the ISS earlier this year, serving as the first female commander of a private space station mission.
Axiom Space is part of a new generation of companies aiming to bring commercial science and crewmembers to space. Like NASA, it uses SpaceX Dragon spacecraft, but focuses on short-term stays immersed in research. All such missions must be commanded by a retired NASA astronaut, per agency regulations; the 10-day Ax-2 mission concluded in May 2023.
When CBS asked Whitson what she wants to do next, she said she'd love to go to the moon, just like the Apollo astronauts did. (It's not an idle dream, given that the Artemis program aims to NASA and international astronauts to the lunar surface as soon as 2025, with Artemis 3.)
"I'd have fun doing that one," Whitson said of a moon mission. "But there's just a lot of opportunities. I think, as space is changing so much, there are lots of ways to contribute and be a part of that. I think it's part of the reason I like to keep going back. Besides the addiction of this perspective, I really like being a part of something bigger than me. Space truly is that, and the objectives in space are that. So I'm very excited about continuing."
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Link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bJxWt5he-s
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Her natal Lilith is 2 Aquarius, N.Node 2 Capricorn, S.Node 24 Taurus
Her natal Ceres is 21 Capricorn, 00/22 Gemini, S.Node 3 Capricorn
Her natal Amazon is 28 Scorpio, N.Node 3 Taurus, S.Node 7 Sagittarius
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Please feel free to comment or ask questions.
Goddess Bless, Rad
Hi All,
This is the story of Nina Gonoi. This is a noon chart.
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She dreamed of defending Japan. Instead, her fellow soldiers sexually assaulted her
July 10, 2023
Tokyo
Rina Gonoi is a fighter.
As a former soldier, as a judo practitioner, and as a woman battling on behalf of all women to bring those who sexually abused her to account.
When Gonoi served in Japan’s Self-Defense Force (JSDF), she says she endured physical and verbal sexual abuse on a daily basis for more than a year, and vowed when she left the force in June 2022 after two years’ service that she would bring her tormentors to justice.
At first, authorities seemed unwilling to believe her. When she reported the alleged abuse to military authorities, two investigations were launched, but both were dropped on grounds of lack of evidence.
Undefeated, she approached TV stations. When they ignored her, she took her battle to social media – a rare move in a country where sexual assault survivors can face backlash for raising their voices.
“I wanted to help other people who had also been sexually harassed (in the JSDF). As for the perpetrators, I wanted an apology and for them to admit to what they had done; I wanted to prevent others from going through what I went through; that’s why I spoke out,” she said.
Gonoi’s refusal to be silenced eventually prompted a wide-sweeping probe into sexual harassment across the JSDF and prosecutors reopened an investigation that found she had endured physical and verbal sexual harassment daily between autumn 2020 and August 2021, according to Gonoi’s defense team.
The findings resulted in a groundbreaking moment: a rare admission of guilt and a public apology from Japan’s Ministry of Defense, as Ground Self-Defense Force Chief of Staff Yoshihide Yoshida bowed deeply, saying: “On behalf of the Ground Self-Defense Forces, I would like to express my deepest apologies to Ms. Gonoi, who has been suffering for a long time. I am very sorry.”
Five servicemen were also dishonorably dismissed and four others punished last December, according to NHK, Japan’s public broadcaster. Gonoi also said she received in-person apologies from several officers.
But this, she said, is not enough, and she is now pursuing both criminal and civil cases in the courts. At the start of the year she filed lawsuits against the government and her alleged assailants – three of whom were indicted in March on charges of sexually assaulting Gonoi. In the criminal case, to date, neither the defendants nor their lawyers have issued statements. Public prosecutors in Japan have not released information regarding the case and did not respond to CNN’s request for comment. In the civil case, four of the five accused recently denied sexual abuse, while a fifth admitted the accusation.
The state has responded saying harassment “cannot be tolerated” but has not yet commented on Gonoi’s lawsuit.
Regardless of the outcome of those lawsuits, Gonoi believes there is a bigger battle to be fought against what she sees as a culture of sexual harassment in the male-dominated military.
Speaking out
Japan’s struggles with gender inequality, which were highlighted during the #MeToo campaign, are well-documented. The country ranks bottom of all the G7 nations and 116th out of 146 countries in the World Economic Forum’s index for gender inequality.
But Gonoi’s experience is likely to be particularly damaging for the JSDF, which has poured much effort into promoting an image of itself as an institution that promotes gender equality.
Fumika Sato, a sociologist at Hitotsubashi University, said many women opt to join the military as they see it as offering greater job security and gender equality than the private sector.
“(Women) choose the JSDF because they think it is an organization that will recognize their abilities fairly. It’s very rare to hear that they joined to protect the country out of a sense of national defense,” Sato said.
Gonoi, for instance, joined the ground forces in April 2020, seeing it both as a way of “paying it forward” but also a way of achieving her dreams of training as a judoka and competing at the Olympics.
Despite the JSDF’s image, Sato said sexual harassment within the ranks has long been an issue but it is often hidden because people in the military often find it hard to admit vulnerability.
“There’s an image that only strong personnel are considered suitable for the organization, and there’s the attitude that those who say they are victims of harassment have no place in the organization,” Sato explained. “That makes it hard for people to speak out.”
Recruitment shortfall
Gonoi’s fight also comes just as the JSDF faces a recruitment shortfall that is undermining its efforts to grow its military amid rising regional tensions with North Korea and China.
Last year, Japan announced it would boost its defense budget for 2023 to a record 6.8 trillion yen ($55 billion), a 26% increase, raising its defense spending to 2% of GDP by 2027.
Experts say attracting enough women will be key to Tokyo meeting its objectives. The JSDF is meant to have a strength of around 250,000 service members but has consistently failed to reach its recruitment goals and says it is understaffed by around 16,000 service members – a shortfall that experts say has limited its operational abilities.
The force has spent years trying to encourage female enrollment, in line with the “womenomics” policy of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe aimed at combating the effects of Japan’s aging population and shrinking workforce. In April 2015, the Defense Ministry launched a series of initiatives in which funds were allocated for everything from gender awareness programs to establishing of day care centers for children of JSDF employees.
But Japan still lags its peers. According to the Defense Ministry, as of March 2022, there were 20,000 women in the JSDF, comprising around 8% of the organization’s total strength, which still lags the NATO average of 12% as of 2019. And to reach that threshold by 2030, Tokyo needs to reach more women.
A spokesperson for Japan’s Ground Self-Defense Force told CNN, “We believe that the promotion of female SDF personnel is important for securing high-quality personnel in a stable manner and for incorporating diversity into the organization. The SDF continues to actively recruit female SDF personnel with the aim of increasing the proportion of women in all SDF personnel to 12% or more by (fiscal year) 2030.”
Setback for progress
The JSDF has made progress in this regard. When it was first formed in 1954, women were recruited exclusively as nurses.
Japan’s navy accepted its first female recruits in 1977. And in the early 1990s, most roles – except those requiring combat – opened up to women.
In 1992, Japan’s National Defense Academy finally began accepting women, which made it possible for them to become senior officers. Since then, new women leaders have started taking the reins. For example, in March 2018, Japan’s navy appointed the first woman commander of a warship squadron. Later that year, it appointed its first woman fighter pilot.
As a child, Gonoi says she saw JSDF members as heroes. She grew up wanting to be like them after women officers – in particular – came to her rescue following the deadly 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami disaster that decimated her hometown of Higashi-Matsushima in Japan’s northern prefecture of Miyagi.
Gonoi had marveled at how the JSDF members helped citizens regain a sense of normalcy, she said, making sure they had makeshift areas to bathe, for instance. The young Gonoi was sold by that human touch.
A dream dashed
Years later, it would be a posting to a JSDF station in Fukushima – another area that was decimated by the 2011 disaster – where she tells CNN she first experienced sexual harassment.
“They’d comment on my body and the size of my breasts. Or they’d come up to me in the hallways and suddenly hug me in the corridor. That kind of thing happened daily,” Gonoi recalled of her time in the station.
The last straw came in August 2021, when Gonoi said she was pinned to a dormitory floor as several senior male officers simulated sexual intercourse. It was this incident that convinced her to come forward and report her assailants.
But Gonoi’s claims were dismissed, and no action was taken internally within the JSDF.
“They initially didn’t admit that they’d done anything wrong. They tried to cover up what I’d gone through, but then a re-investigation was ordered. That’s when they admitted what I’d gone through,” said Gonoi.
An external investigation was also dropped due to “lack of evidence” as none of the male personnel who witnessed her sexual assault would provide testimony.
Eventually, Gonoi says she felt like she had no other choice but to quit in June 2022.
Japan's top pop agency apologizes for alleged sexual abuse by late founder
Sato, the sociologist, said that it was only by taking her fight to social media to publicize her case that Gonoi had been able to pressure the JSDF into a rethink.
“The Defense Ministry acted as it had always done in the past, taking the side of the perpetrators and isolating the victims. However, this resulted in so much public outrage, surprising so many people in the Defense Ministry, that they realized that if they didn’t take proper action, the reputation of the (military) itself would be at stake,” Sato said.
In recent months, the Defense Ministry has sought to improve its image. In March, Japan’s Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada asserted that “harassment shakes the foundations of the JSDF by destroying mutual trust among its members and is something that should never be allowed to happen.”
A spokesperson for the Ground Self-Defense Force told CNN, “Harassment is a violation of basic human rights and, of course, must never be allowed to happen in the Ground SDF, where unit actions are the basis, as it causes loss of mutual trust and shakes the strength of the personnel.
“For this reason, the GSDF is actively participating in various efforts to eradicate harassment based on the minister’s directive and is carefully implementing measures such as education for its commanders and others.
“To this end, we will continue to implement measures such as group education and e-learning to raise the awareness of personnel, education to promote understanding and improve the leadership skills of personnel (especially managers) and improve and strengthen the consultation system.”
A battle won, now the war
Gonoi tells CNN she went back and forth on her decision, before finally raising her voice.
“When you speak out there is a big risk that you’ll be beaten down and people will slander you, even though what you went through is real and you’re really suffering,” Gonoi said.
But she didn’t back down.
“(The JSDF) initially didn’t admit that they’d done anything wrong – they tried to cover up what I’d gone through, but then a re-investigation was ordered; that’s when they admitted what I’d gone through.”
The government has yet to respond to Gonoi’s lawsuits, but last October Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said he understood that sexual harassment cases were handled inappropriately by the Self-Defense Force and the Ministry of Defense during a parliamentary meeting.
He added that though harassment should “not be tolerated in any organization,” there have been instances where cover-ups have been pointed out.
He asserted that the government and Defense Ministry are committed to eradicating all forms of harassment.
“We are aware that the perpetrators of sexual harassment cases are scheduled to be punished severely. We are also conducting a special defense inspection to thoroughly identify harassment. We are committed to eradicating all forms of harassment,” he said.
In a news conference last year, Gonoi said three of her perpetrators got down on their hands and knees to apologize after she received direct apologies from four of her assailants. She said the perpetrators acknowledged their actions and repeatedly bowed their heads, and one was crying.
“When I joined the JSDF, I had a lot of dreams of what I wanted to achieve there. Had the JSDF fully investigated what happened to me I feel like I could’ve still stayed on there. Everything came too late,” she said.
The officers were dismissed last December, but Gonoi questions the sincerity of their apologies and decided to pursue both a civil and criminal case – not for money, she says, but because she wanted “an apology from the heart.”
In the civil case, four of the five plaintiffs recently denied sexual abuse, while a fifth admitted the accusations. Gonoi told reporters after the hearing, “I felt a variety of feelings – sadness, frustration, anger, etc – that I can’t express in words. I knew that their apology was only a formality.”
Meanwhile, the government has said it will continue to “establish drastic measures” that strive to “build an organizational environment that does not tolerate harassment at all.”
Today, Gonoi said she receives abuse on social media with some users commenting on her appearance or accusing her of tarnishing the JSDF’s reputation.
She has battled depression and still has flashbacks of what happened to her, but is grateful for the support she received on social media.
She wants the JSDF to educate its forces to recognize harassment as a crime, to install surveillance cameras and to not allow women officers to be left alone in situations where they are highly outnumbered by male colleagues.
But she said she hasn’t lost faith in the JSDF. Mostly, she wants it to be a safer place, so other new recruits will not have to endure what she did. She wants to travel and keep practicing judo.
“In Japan, there’s a kind of view that you can’t laugh, can’t enjoy yourself after you’ve been a victim, but I don’t want my life to be defined by that,” Gonoi said.
“I’m glad I joined the SDF and I was able to work for my country. It wasn’t all bad and I want to live life as normally as possible, knowing that everything ultimately works out somehow in the end.”
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Rina Gonoi sexual assault: Japan court finds soldiers guilty in landmark case
Victory for former self-defence forces member after fight for justice that challenged taboos in male-dominated society
Tue 12 Dec 2023 07.33 GMT
A court in Japan has found three former male soldiers guilty of sexually assaulting a female colleague, in what is being seen as a rare victory for survivors and a challenge to taboos surrounding abuse.
The Fukushima district court sentenced Shutaro Shibuya, Akito Sekine and Yusuke Kimezawa to two years in prison, suspended for four years, for “forced indecency” against Rina Gonoi during a military drill in 2021.
Gonoi, a 24-year-old former member of Japan’s self-defence forces (SDF), had taken the unusual step of pursuing her abusers through the courts, drawing international headlines after she spoke about the assault in a YouTube post last year.
Gonoi said the three men, who are in their late 20s and early 30s, used martial arts techniques to pin her on to a bed, before forcing apart her legs and, one by one, repeatedly pressing their crotches against her to simulate a sex act while the others watched and laughed.
The defendants denied their acts amounted to sexual assault and said they had apologised to her before being given dishonourable discharges, according to Japanese media reports.
Gonoi, who said she had been subjected to persistent harassment after enlisting in 2020, complained to her superiors immediately after the incident in August 2021, but decided to leave the SDF in June last year after no action was taken.
The defence ministry issued an apology after Gonoi went public about the assault and said it had dismissed five men connected to the assault and disciplined four others.
A defence ministry investigation triggered by Gonoi’s case uncovered about 1,400 cases of sexual harassment and bullying targeting women and men, most of which had not been reported.
In June, Japan passed legislation redefining rape, including removing the requirement that victims prove they tried to resist their attacker.
Gonoi’s decision to go public with her accusations garnered attention in male-dominated Japan, where speaking out against sexual violence has remained largely taboo.
In November, she was included in the BBC’s list of 100 “inspiring and influential women” for 2023 and named in Time magazine’s “100 Next” list of people to watch.
Gonoi, who is suing her attackers and the government in a separate civil case, was subjected to a torrent of abuse online.
“I was prepared for defamation, but it’s tough,” she said before the verdict, adding that at one point the abuse was so bad that she did not leave her home for five days.
“There’s something wrong with Japan – people attack victims instead of perpetrators,” she said.
Gonoi’s case coincided with an effort by Japan to recruit more female soldiers and bolster its defence forces amid concerns over China’s military buildup and North Korea’s ballistic missile and nuclear weapons programmes.
Few women hold positions of authority in Japanese politics, business or the military, and its gender pay gap is the worst among advanced economies. That backdrop makes it harder for survivors of sexual assault to come forward, according to campaigners.
“In Japan, suffering sexual violence brings stigma and shame, often leaving survivors reluctant to come forward,” Teppei Kasai, of Human Rights Watch, said before the verdict.
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Japan’s military ignored her sexual assault claims, so she went public
February 26, 2023 at 2:00 a.m. EST
TOKYO — Female soldiers at the evacuation center would carry heavy buckets of water so that Rina Gonoi and others whose homes were destroyed by the devastating tsunami of 2011 could bathe. Gonoi, then 11, decided she, too, would become a soldier to help others.
But soon after joining the forces three years ago, Gonoi was sexually assaulted. When she spoke up, her allegations were repeatedly dismissed. She dropped out after just two years.
Gonoi, now 23, is taking on her assailants publicly — a rare and difficult decision in a male-dominated society where sexual abuse victims face backlash for speaking out.
She is demanding a thorough investigation in the hopes of improving working conditions in Japan’s Self-Defense Forces for future generations of aspiring service members.
“There are so many people out there who can’t voice their struggles, and even for those who do, there is so much risk,” Gonoi said in an interview. “I really want to change that.”
Women are vastly underrepresented in positions of power in Japan, which is the world’s third-largest economy but consistently ranks as the most regressive developed nation on gender equality. The #MeToo movement that spread throughout the world fizzled as quickly as it arrived here, and a culture of silence about sexual abuse prevails.
Gonoi filed a lawsuit against her assailants and the government in January. She has become the first sexual assault survivor to gain intense public attention — and scrutiny — since Shiori Ito, a former journalist who in 2017 filed a lawsuit against her rapist and won.
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The lawsuit comes as Japan embarks on a major military buildup unprecedented in the postwar period, alarmed by China’s military threats and North Korea’s nuclear ambitions. But Japan’s shrinking population has created an acute personnel shortage that threatens to undermine its new national security strategy.
One solution is recruiting more women, who make up less than 10 percent of the forces. Yet Gonoi’s case has revealed poor working conditions inside the forces, which could deter recruits: Her case prompted an internal investigation that drew 1,400 new reports of harassment in just two months.
Gonoi’s very public story is unusual because Japan remains hostile toward victims who speak up, even though gaining the public’s support is often the only way to be taken seriously. Her allegations were repeatedly dismissed until she went public last year, and it has come at great mental and physical cost.
Gonoi has been the target of a torrent of online abuse blaming her for her looks, accusing her of lying and even criticizing her for smiling in public — which social media trolls claimed was unbecoming of a victim.
So she was stoic and emotionless in news conferences, which were already intimidating, but even more so because she knew the public was watching her every move and word. But they slammed her for her seriousness, too.
She had braced for backlash, but the hateful comments were nonetheless overwhelming. She has struggled with anxiety, weight loss and flashbacks as a result.
“In Japan, there is also the notion that victims shouldn’t smile, live out in the open, live normally, which I really hate. So I want to change that mood,” she said. “I want the world to be a place that is kinder to victims and a world that’s more comfortable for them to live in, however they want to.”
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What resonates deeply with her are the many women and men who have approached her with their own stories of harassment from within the Self-Defense Forces and in other sectors in Japan — and how their efforts to raise complaints to their superiors or through helplines went ignored, like hers.
Gonoi joined the Ground Self-Defense Force of Japan, or the Japanese army, in 2020 and quickly learned that unwanted physical touch and verbal sexual harassment were part of daily life, she said. At one event, men touched her breasts and forced her to touch a man’s genitals, she said. She had become almost inured to such behavior as she went through trainings at Camp Koriyama in northeastern Japan.
Then in August 2021, during training with more than a dozen male colleagues, several servicemen pinned her to the ground and simulated sexual acts on her while others watched and laughed.
The incident was her breaking point. She reported it to a female superior, and the two of them went to speak with a male superior, who dismissed her allegations, she said. The Defense Ministry has acknowledged that a commander in Gonoi’s unit received her complaint but failed to report it to his superior.
She filed a formal complaint to the SDF’s human resources department, which was forwarded to the local prosecutor’s office. But prosecutors could not find a witness to corroborate her allegation, and dropped her charges.
She took leave with reduced pay to cope with her trauma, but she could not tell her parents why she came back. She felt alone, depressed and suicidal, she said.
One day she had planned to take her life, but then another earthquake came. It reminded her of surviving the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, and the many others who had not.
“I thought about all my classmates who couldn’t make it alive. I felt terrible that I was thinking of taking my own life when I had survived, and I strongly felt that I had to fight on,” she said.
So she decided to take her story public. When television stations ignored her request, she went on a YouTube show. She also started a petition and gained more than 130,000 signatures to request an investigation into the Defense Ministry.
The public attention prompted the ministry to launch an internal investigation, which confirmed that Gonoi’s colleagues had sexually assaulted and repeatedly sexually harassed her.
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The ministry arranged a private meeting with Gonoi and her perpetrators, who apologized to her 16 months after the incident, crying and kneeling for forgiveness. In December, the Defense Ministry dishonorably discharged five men and disciplined four others for not taking the matter seriously.
“We take this very seriously and will establish an organizational culture that does not tolerate harassment,” Gen. Yoshihide Yoshida, chief of staff of the army, said at a news conference. He also apologized to Gonoi.
She said she felt their apology was overdue.
“I thought about how if they had properly investigated in the beginning, I wouldn’t have had to come public with my face and name and be under attack on social media,” she said. “The re-investigation and the apology happened only after I had come forward and public opinion was on my side — and, sadly, that’s how it always is in Japan.”
Gonoi wants public accountability and systemic change within the military.
In January, she filed a lawsuit against five men, claiming $42,400 in damages. She also said she wants the men to make a public and “sincere” apology. She sued the Japanese government over its failure to prevent abuse and investigate her claims and sought about $15,000 in damages.
“I hope that we can live in a world where people don’t have to go public, but sadly I think that’s the only way to really make change happen in Japan currently,” she said. “I hope I am the last one to experience this [going public] in the SDF. Otherwise, what I have been doing will become meaningless.”
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Link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0POZCPk_Xgg
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Her natal Lilith is 0/42 Pisces, N.Node 4 Sagittarius, S.Node 17 Cancer
Her natal Ceres is 0/34 Virgo, N.Node 12 Cancer, S.Node 2 Sagittarisu
Her natal Amazon is 00/50 Libra, N.Node 9 Gemini,S.Node 12 Scorpio
Please feel free to comment or ask questions.
Goddess Bless, Rad
HI All,
Here is the story of Dakota Johnson. This is a noon chart.
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Dakota Johnson
Dakota Johnson wants to talk about sex. With all of us.
The narrator and producer of the documentary “The Disappearance of Shere Hite” is making it part of her life’s work to promote sexual wellness
By Ann Hornaday
December 16, 2023
“Hi. How are you guys?”
Dakota Johnson has just Zoomed in, joining director Nicole Newnham for a conversation about their recent collaboration, “The Disappearance of Shere Hite,” a revelatory documentary about the sex researcher whose journey from independent researcher to media sensation to cultural pariah followed a dismally familiar American arc of titillation, celebrity, misogyny and weaponized forgetting.
Hite’s most famous work, “The Hite Report,” was published in 1976, the result of surveying thousands of women about the most intimate — and hitherto unreported — aspects of their sex lives, from how they masturbated to agonizing self-doubt and loneliness. While doing publicity for the book, Hite, who died in 2020 at age 77, was greeted with a combination of 1970s-era open-mindedness and leering fascination. When she dared to challenge the notion of the vaginal orgasm — insisting that clitoral stimulation was far more effective in bringing women pleasure — she was alternately lionized, shamed and ultimately marginalized.
As Johnson arrives on Zoom, though, she wants to talk not about Hite, but about sex with a capital S — specifically, the Museum of Sex in Miami, where she just spent 20 hours on a whirlwind tour. A preview of an exhibit called “Superfunland” featured a riff on the B-movie classic “Attack of the 50 Foot Woman,” complete with what Johnson calls a “vagina [that] glows like Kryptonite” and “a bouncy castle made of boobs.”
Johnson was at the museum as an investor and co-creative director of the sexual well-being company Maude, a sponsor of the forthcoming exhibit “Modern Sex: 100 Years of Design and Decency,” which traces the invention and marketing of a century’s worth of sexual health products — including an original copy of “The Hite Report.”
“The exhibit is really beautiful,” Johnson tells Newnham, “and it’s kind of subversive. You think you’re looking at the history of sex devices and advertising, but then you leave going, ‘Well, I guess we’ve come far, but have we actually come very far?’”
That’s the precise question raised by “The Disappearance of Shere Hite,” which Newnham conceived after reading a Hite obituary titled “Shere Hite: She explained how women orgasm — and was hated for it.”
“I kind of fell off my chair,” recalls Newnham, who co-directed 2020’s “Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution.” “I was simultaneously feeling outraged by that headline and taking a trip back in time, to when I was 12 and I read ‘The Hite Report’ on my mom’s bedside chest.” The book, she says, invited her into a world of “women talking openly about their sexuality in a way that we just weren’t, otherwise. Or at least I wasn’t otherwise.” It became “this treasure chest that I carried with me for the rest of my life.”
When Newnham read Hite’s obituary, she says, “it took me down this whole rabbit hole of wondering how did she do the work? Who was she? Who was that impossibly glamorous person in the picture? How did she create herself? And what was the nature of the backlash against her?” (After its remaining theatrical runs, “The Disappearance of Shere Hite” will be available for rental and on demand Jan. 9.)
Newnham says she approached Johnson to provide Hite’s voice in the film “because of her amazingness as an actor.” But, she adds, addressing Johnson, “you have a quality about you that reminds me of Shere — strength and unabashed femininity, and the way you’ve navigated your public presence in regards to sexuality and all of the prickly, tough things that that brings up in a patriarchy.” (“Thanks,” Johnson says softly.)
What Newnham didn’t know then was that Johnson had already considered doing a Hite project through her production company, TeaTime Pictures. “To discover that you already loved Shere, and she was already a figure that you wanted to celebrate and elevate, you can’t even begin to imagine how thrilled I was,” Newnham recalls. “Because it meant you could really go deep into it and bring out something that was beyond my capacity to even really imagine in the role.”
Hite was an unapologetically theatrical figure, a self-dramatizer who dressed in romantic, costume-like ensembles and made the most of her Pre-Raphaelite looks. In “The Disappearance of Shere Hite,” Johnson doesn’t attempt a vocal impersonation of Hite. She delivers a performance that’s far more interior, intimate and vulnerable.
“Before we recorded it, I felt like what was missing was how she spoke to herself,” Johnson explains. “And that felt like an entirely different person to know. I feel like I’ve experienced little tastes of being shut down publicly, or being talked about negatively publicly. And I can imagine that the outward voice that you hear from her is very different from the inward voice that she has for herself.”
One of the most striking things about “The Disappearance of Shere Hite” is how Hite’s beauty and embrace of glamour operated in her life, making her both an irresistible figure and someone who was consistently underestimated as an intellect and academic. Her looks were simultaneously her currency and her greatest liability.
“I identify,” Johnson says with a laugh.
When asked to say more, she responds, “I don’t know how to say more.”
Then she says a lot more.
Hite “knew how to use herself and her body,” Johnson says, but it came out of a spirit of inquiry that she instinctively shares. “I understand that I could use my body and my face and my voice — or whatever — as a tool for my work,” she says. “But even when I was 23 and I auditioned for the part in ‘Fifty Shades [of Grey],’ I was so curious about it. I was just like, ‘What an interesting dynamic between two young people.’ That was really what I was focused on, was this sexual dynamic, this power dynamic, how deep love kind of shifts and shapes those things.”
It isn’t lost on Johnson, 34, that she’s part of a storied lineage deeply entwined with Hollywood’s constricting and contradictory attitudes toward sexuality: Her grandmother, Tippi Hedren, has spoken about the predation she suffered at the hands of director Alfred Hitchcock, and her mother, Melanie Griffith, was at one point a similar muse for Brian De Palma. Johnson was directed by a woman — Sam Taylor-Johnson — for her breakout role in “Fifty Shades of Grey,” about a young woman exploring a sadomasochistic relationship with a wealthy bachelor. Since then, she says, her work keeps gravitating toward dynamics around sex, relationships, power and self-knowledge.
“I’m starting to feel now like this is part of my life’s work,” the actress says. “Sexual wellness, awareness, female sexuality, women’s rights, women’s reproductive rights. This is part of [the] work in my life that I’m here to do.
“I grew up being told that my body was sacred and beautiful and special and to be protected and to be cared for,” Johnson adds. “I think it’s so important to be able to talk about sex and our bodies and sexuality and gender freely, without fear, without any kind of stigma. And still also keep ourselves sacred and hold ourselves in our bodies in high regard and keep ourselves precious. And maybe that’s a form of self-love.”
Still, Johnson is aware that the discourse is still taking place within a social context that might not be so enlightened. Seen through one lens, a bouncy castle made of boobs is playful and bracingly forthright; through another, it’s part of a long, dubious habit of reducing women to their fetishized parts.
Although her publicist jumps in to say she has to go, Johnson insists on staying to grapple with the question. “I understand the idea of how a booby bouncy castle is objectifying women,” she says. “But it’s also really beautiful. And it’s like an incredible little world that was made. So you can look at it so many different ways.” She hesitates. “I can see how what I’m saying is going to become like some kind of clickbait nightmare for me, but … I guess I think there’s a way for both things to exist.”
Newnham jumps in. “I think that’s partly how we are trained to rush to judgment around sexuality in a way that’s really painful,” she says. “That’s why it’s so important that [Hite] was out there on talk shows saying words like ‘clitoral stimulation’ — not to be profane, but just to not keep that painfully hidden. That was one of the most striking things to me, was the fact that those conversations were happening in the ’70s on the nightly news, and they’re not happening anywhere now.”
Johnson, for one, would like to change that.
“It just kind of keeps unfolding and unfolding and unfolding, this journey of understanding sexuality and relationships between people,” she says, adding that at one point, when she was at the Museum of Sex, she found herself asking, “What am I doing here?” She answers her own question: “Maybe it’s because I have a sense of curiosity coupled with a bravery around it. I don’t feel ashamed or scared to ask questions or understand more. So I’m starting to come to terms with that.”
As for the question Johnson raised earlier, about whether we’ve come that far, “The Disappearance of Shere Hite” raises it without resolving it.
“I think it’s a question for people who watch it,” Johnson says. “It’s just: ‘Here are the facts. Here’s a story. What do you think?’ Because I think we have come a long way. And I think we also haven’t, in a lot of ways. Just like I’m sitting here going, ‘How am I going to be taken down for what I’m saying in this interview?’”
She laughs, but the trepidation is real. And understandable. Still, if women keep allowing fear and ambivalence and self-protection to censor the truth, where’s the progress in that?
“Let’s absolve ourselves,” Johnson says brightly. “The three of us on this Zoom. Let’s absolve ourselves of that today. We can let that go.”
“That would be great,” Newnham says.
“And if anybody’s going to take the heat, it’s going to be me.” And with that, Dakota Johnson has left the meeting.
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Dakota Johnson
Wikipedia
Dakota Mayi Johnson (born October 4, 1989) is an American actress. The daughter of actors Don Johnson and Melanie Griffith, she made her film debut at age ten with a minor role in Crazy in Alabama (1999) with her mother. After graduating high school, she began auditioning for roles in Los Angeles and was cast in a minor part in The Social Network (2010). Johnson had her breakthrough playing the lead role of Anastasia Steele in the erotic Fifty Shades film series (2015–2018). In 2016, she received a BAFTA Rising Star Award nomination and was featured in a Forbes 30 Under 30 list.
Johnson's profile grew with roles in the crime drama Black Mass (2015), the drama A Bigger Splash (2015), the romantic comedy How to Be Single (2016), the horror film Suspiria (2018), the thriller Bad Times at the El Royale (2018), the coming-of-age film The Peanut Butter Falcon (2019), the psychological drama The Lost Daughter (2021), and the romantic drama Cha Cha Real Smooth (2022). She also produced the last of these under her company TeaTime Pictures.
Early life
Dakota Mayi Johnson was born on October 4, 1989, at Brackenridge Hospital in Austin, Texas, to actors Don Johnson and Melanie Griffith. Her father was shooting the film The Hot Spot (1990) in Texas when she was born. Her maternal grandparents are advertising executive and former child actor Peter Griffith and actress Tippi Hedren. She is a niece of actress Tracy Griffith and production designer Clay A. Griffith. Her former stepfather is Spanish actor Antonio Banderas. Johnson has six half-siblings: on her mother's side, she has one half-brother, Alexander Bauer (1985), and one half-sister, Stella Banderas (1996); on her father's side, she has three half-brothers—Jesse (1982), Jasper (2002), and Deacon (2006)—and one half-sister, Grace Johnson (1999).
Owing to her parents' occupations, Johnson spent much of her childhood in various locations with them on film sets and premieres, though she spent extended amounts of time in Aspen and Woody Creek, Colorado, where she worked during summers at the local market as a teenager. In Woody Creek, she was neighbors with Hunter S. Thompson. She attended the Aspen Community School for a time. "I was so consistently unmoored and discombobulated, I didn't have an anchor anywhere," Johnson recalled. She attended the Santa Catalina School in Monterey, California, for her freshman year of high school before transferring to the private New Roads School in Santa Monica, California.
Johnson became interested in modeling at age twelve after taking part in a photoshoot with other celebrities' children for Teen Vogue, and subsequently earned an income modeling while attending high school in Santa Monica.[5] She has struggled with depression since around age fourteen and checked into rehabilitation. She also has had ADHD since childhood. Johnson was interested in acting as a child, having spent significant time on film sets with her parents, but they discouraged her from pursuing the profession until she graduated high school. After high school, she was turned down by Juilliard in New York City; her audition featured a cover of a Radiohead song.
Career
1999–2014: Beginnings
In 1999, Johnson made her film debut in Crazy in Alabama, where she and her half-sister Stella Banderas played daughters to their real-life mother, Melanie Griffith. The film was directed by her ex-stepfather, Antonio Banderas. In 2006, she was chosen as Miss Golden Globe 2006, where she served as the first second-generation Miss Golden Globe in the Globes' history.
In 2006, Johnson signed with IMG Models.[12] Though acting is her primary work, she has since modeled for MANGO brand's jeans line in 2009 and shot the "Rising Star" campaign for Australian fashion label Wish in 2011.
After graduating from high school, Johnson took acting classes with teacher Tom Todoroff until 2008. She signed with the William Morris Agency and started her acting career. She had a minor role as Amelia Ritter in the Oscar-nominated hit film The Social Network (2010), directed by David Fincher. She had a small role in the fantasy film Beastly (2011), followed by So Yong Kim's drama For Ellen (2012) opposite Paul Dano and Jon Heder,[19] about a struggling musician in the midst of a custody battle. Also in 2012, she had roles in Christopher Neil's independent comedy Goats, portraying a student at a prep school; Nicholas Stoller's romantic comedy The Five-Year Engagement; and the comedy 21 Jump Street. She also played the female lead in Chris Nelson's film Date and Switch written by Alan Yang.
In March 2012, Johnson was cast as Kate in the Fox comedy series Ben and Kate, marking her television debut. The show was canceled on January 25, 2013, after one season. Johnson quickly resumed her film career, with a small role in Need for Speed (2014).[28] In 2013, she had a role as one of the new hires on the series finale episode of the NBC comedy series The Office.
2015–2019: Breakthrough
Johnson's breakthrough came with her leading role as Anastasia "Ana" Steele in the erotic romantic drama film Fifty Shades of Grey, which was released in February 2015 and brought her international recognition. Johnson won the role over Lucy Hale, Felicity Jones, Elizabeth Olsen, Danielle Panabaker and Shailene Woodley. In response to questions regarding her stance on gender rights concerning her character in the Fifty Shades film series, Johnson stated: "I'm proud of [the film]. I completely disagree with people who think Ana's weak. I think she's actually stronger than he is. Everything she does is her choice. And if I can be an advocate for women to do what they want to do with their bodies and not be ashamed of what they want, then I'm all for that." While the trilogy was widely criticized, Johnson received praise for often being the standout performer.
Johnson at the 2016 BAFTA Awards
On February 15, 2015, Johnson appeared on Saturday Night Live's 40th anniversary special and hosted SNL on February 28, 2015, making her the second daughter of a former SNL host (after Gwyneth Paltrow, whose mother Blythe Danner hosted during the show's seventh season in 1982) to host the show. Also in 2015, she reunited with her 21 Jump Street cast member Johnny Depp, playing the mother of his character's child in the feature film Black Mass. Jessica Kiang of IndieWire said that she "makes something of nothing" in her role. In 2015, Johnson starred in Luca Guadagnino's thriller A Bigger Splash, alongside Tilda Swinton, Matthias Schoenaerts and Ralph Fiennes. Writing for Rolling Stone, Peter Travers stated that Johnson showed that her character "has more on her mind than slithering seductively".[36] According to Christy Lemire from RogerEbert.com: "A Bigger Splash allows Johnson to be both funnier and sexier than she was in Fifty Shades of Grey". The same year saw the release of Cymbeline, a modern film adaptation of the William Shakespeare play, in which she starred opposite Ethan Hawke and Ed Harris. She also played a lead in the 2016 comedy How to Be Single, with Leslie Mann and her Date and Switch co-star Nicholas Braun.[39] She performed a cover of the song "Can't Take My Eyes Off of You", alongside actors Zani Jones Mbayise, Vanessa Rubio and Damon Wayans Jr. for the soundtrack of the film.[citation needed] Johnson was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in June 2016.
Johnson trained in dance to prepare for Luca Guadagnino's Suspiria (2018), a supernatural horror film and remake of the 1977 film by Dario Argento, in which she plays an American dancer in Berlin who enrolls in an academy run by a coven of witches. David Ehrlich of IndieWire described Johnson's performance in the film as "thrillingly unrepentant". Also in 2018, she starred in Drew Goddard's neo-noir thriller Bad Times at the El Royale, with Jeff Bridges, Jon Hamm and Chris Hemsworth. In the film, she plays a hippie staying at a resort on the California-Nevada border where the lives of various people with suspicious pasts intersect. Screen Rant ranked Johnson's performance as the fourth-best in the film and stated that "she brings a reserved, under-the-surface power to her role".
In 2019, Johnson starred in the psychological horror film, Wounds, opposite Armie Hammer, directed by Babak Anvari, based upon a horror novella The Visible Filth by Nathan Ballingrud. It had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on January 26, 2019.[45] She then starred in the well-reviewed independent adventure film, The Peanut Butter Falcon, opposite Shia LaBeouf and Bruce Dern,[46] which had its world premiere at South by Southwest on March 9, 2019. She appeared in the drama film Our Friend, opposite Casey Affleck and Jason Segel, and directed by Gabriela Cowperthwaite. The film is based upon real life couple Nicole and Matthew Teague, faced with Nicole's impending death, see their best friend move in with them to help them out. She sang on three covers of songs for the film's soundtrack,[citation needed] including one of "If I Had the World to Give" by Grateful Dead. Joe Morgenstern of The Wall Street Journal wrote that the "intimacy of Ms. Johnson's performance is extraordinary. She is the least assertive of movie stars, yet the courage, despair and fury she finds in Nicole will lift you up and spin you around". While Gary Goldstein from the Los Angeles Times stated that Johnson "impresses with affecting range — from flirty, ebullient and adoring to stalwart, enraged and resigned; it's a lovely performance".
2020–present: Professional expansion
Johnson founded the production company TeaTime Pictures, alongside former Netflix development executive Ro Donnelly, to develop film and television projects. In 2020, Johnson made her directorial debut, co-directing (with Cory Bailey) the music video for Coldplay's "Cry Cry Cry", which featured her boyfriend Chris Martin. Johnson starred alongside Tracee Ellis Ross in the dramedy film The High Note, which was released on May 29, 2020. Ann Hornaday of The Washington Post wrote that "she's lovely to look at and can never be accused of overacting, but in terms of conveying single-minded drive, Johnson is no match for [Tracee Ellis] Ross's carefully calibrated tonal swings between imperiousness, self-awareness, isolation and down-to-earth intimacy."[55] Conversely Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun Times saw it as "maybe her best and certainly most lovable performance."
In 2021, she co-starred in The Lost Daughter directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal, based on the novel of the same name by Elena Ferrante. In December 2021, Boat Rocker Media acquired a minority interest in Johnson's TeaTime Pictures company.[ In 2022, she starred in a Netflix adaptation of author Jane Austen's Persuasion, Am I Ok? by Stephanie Allyne and Tig Notaro, and as a young mother in Cha Cha Real Smooth by Cooper Raiff. In 2023, Daddio was released, in which she starred in and also co-produced.
Johnson will next star as Madame Web in the superhero film of the same name, set in Sony's Spider-Man Universe.
Personal life
Johnson was previously involved in long-term relationships with Noah Gersh and actor Jordan Masterson. She dated Matthew Hitt, the lead vocalist of Welsh indie rock band Drowners, intermittently for almost two years until 2016. She has been in a relationship with Coldplay's vocalist Chris Martin since October 2017. They reside in Malibu, California.
Johnson is a tattoo enthusiast[ and has been named a brand ambassador for luxury fashion brand Gucci. In November 2020, it was announced that she had become an investor and co-creative director of Maude, a sexual wellness brand.
In 2018, she collaborated with 300 women in Hollywood to set up the Time's Up initiative to protect women from harassment and discrimination.
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The Stunning Transformation Of Dakota Johnson
By Joey Keogh/Feb. 20, 2020
Dakota Johnson is Hollywood royalty, but it's easy to forget the daughter of the legendary Melanie Griffith and Don Johnson isn't as ubiquitous on screen as some of her contemporaries. Still, the lady who made Fifty Shades of Grey her breakout in spite of everything working against it, similar to Kristen Stewart's take-notice spin on Twilight's Bella, is only just getting started.
In fact, it's likely that no matter how much praise she racks up Dakota Johnson will always feel like a bit of a pretender by her own admission. Whereas some famous kids coast by, she's eager to impress in her own right, and while many are content with living off their names, Johnson wants to forge her own path. The actress may not have grown up in front of our eyes via Disney shows and cereal commercials, but she has certainly transformed into a stunning woman over the years.
Dakota Johnson grew up in a famous family
Dakota Johnson comes from generations of Hollywood royalty, as her grandmother is the legendary Tippi Hedren of Hitchcock's The Birds fame and her mother is actress Melanie Griffith. But, as Johnson explained in a 2016 interview with Vogue, her childhood was relatively normal. Johnson grew up in Woody Creek, Colo. with her parents, proudly recounting how she "worked at the local store and did odd jobs like wash horses and babysit," rather than living off her folks' riches.
After Johnson's parents divorced in 1996, the youngster split her time between Colorado and L.A., Calif., where her mother lived with none other than The Mask of Zorro star Antonio Banderas. Although it wasn't a typical upbringing, Johnson acknowledged, "My parents' friends had children and we understood each other's lives." Thinking back on those formative years, she said, "The way I grew up is the way I grew up. I didn't know different." Besides, she noted, "In LA there's a wider awareness of celebrity families."
Dakota Johnson struggled with normalcy as a child
Due to the nature of her parents' work, as well as splitting her time between two different households, young Dakota Johnson found it difficult to put roots down. Speaking to Vogue in 2017, the actress, who began therapy at age 3, admitted to not being raised anywhere in particular, tagging along with her folks on sets with school tutors or nannies along for the ride. Neither schools nor friendships stuck.
The media circus surrounding her parents' divorce, as well as their own issues, was tough to contend with, too. "I was so consistently unmoored and discombobulated. I didn't have an anchor anywhere," Johnson explained. Studying presented its own set of problems, as she was so used to being on set. She admitted, "I never learned how to learn the way you're supposed to as a kid. I thought, Why do I have to go to school on time? What's the point when you're living in Budapest for six months while your stepdad films Evita and you go to school in your hotel room?"
Dakota Johnson experienced a not-so-charmed life as a teen
As she got older, Dakota Johnson increasingly had to deal with her parents' fame. In 2014, she told Elle that her first regular high school experience at a Catholic boarding school in northern California was horrible. "I was just miserable there. It was a great school, but girls in that concentration are so horrific, just horrific," she explained. Johnson eventually got her father to bail her out, leading to a transfer to Santa Monica's prestigious New Roads School, which counts the Olsen twins as alumni.
Still, although she was more settled, Johnson was confronted with stories about her family on a regular basis. "Things get made up. It's so, so sad. And there's absolutely nothing you can do about it as a 16-year-old. You're like, 'What the f**k? Why? What did I do?'" she railed. A story about Johnson supposedly being in rehab for a month as a teen was reportedly made up, according to the actress, who reasoned, "As a child, you trust someone and then they f**k you over."
Dakota Johnson joined the family business
In spite of the issues with her parents, becoming an actress was always Dakota Johnson's goal. It did, however, surprise her father who told The Guardian in 2019, "I didn't know that she wanted to do it. She hadn't shared that with us. So she's 18, I think, at the time and I'm going: 'OK, I'll just keep my eye on her and reach out and catch her.'" However, he soon realized she was serious, acknowledging, "She has the goods. She's a wonderful actress, and in some ways better than her mother [Melanie Griffith] and me."
Dakota Johnson's grandmother Tippi Hedren confirmed with Vogue in 2017 that the family's influence wasn't to blame either. She explained, "I didn't push Melanie into films, and she didn't push Dakota. I think neither of us is the type to push." Regardless, the grandmother and granddaughter don't tend to talk shop. "But I have told her that I think it's important to do different things in life, to have a sense of balance," Hedren noted.
On Johnson's part, she told Vogue simply, "I thought, this is just what my family does. It's like, my dad's a lawyer, so I'm a lawyer."
Dakota Johnson took on a role her mother had held decades prior
Dakota Johnson's first personal brush with fame came via the second most prestigious awards show in the world. With just one small role under her belt (1999's Crazy in Alabama, in which mother Melanie Griffith featured), the wannabe actress took to the stage for one of Hollywood's biggest nights of the year as Miss Golden Globe in 2006. Vogue noted that Johnson was actually following in her mother's footsteps, as Griffith had the honor back in 1975, with just two uncredited roles to her name at the time. As of this writing, they are the only mother-daughter duo in history to both serve as Miss Golden Globe.
As Entertainment Weekly noted, Johnson is in good company, as other famous kids have previously taken on the role, including Jack Nicholson's daughter Lorraine in 2007, and Bruce Willis and Demi Moore's child Rumer Willis in 2009. It may not have been a massive spring-board for Johnson the way Fifty Shades would be, but it was certainly a take-notice moment for the then-up-and-comer.
Dakota Johnson landed a role in a huge 2010 movie
As it happened, just a few short years after being Miss Golden Globe (via Vogue), Dakota Johnson nabbed a role in David Fincher's 2010 Facebook drama The Social Network. Although it was a small part as Amelia Ritter, a flirty paramour who got intimate with Justin Timberlake's Sean Parker character, Johnson made a major impression in the film that starred the likes of Jesse Eisenberg, who portrayed founder Mark Zuckerberg. She proudly told Interview magazine in 2012, "When I did The Social Network, David Fincher told me that I managed to make a thankless character pretty awesome."
Johnson considered this the nicest thing anybody had ever said about her work, though she's probably heard much more flattering stuff in the years since. She explained the man's words meant so much because she thought he was "really cool."
Notably, The Social Network also starred Andrew Garfield, Brenda Song, Rooney Mara, and Armie Hammer.
Dakota Johnson snagged a leading role on a TV show
In 2012, Dakota Johnson got the opportunity to show off her range thanks to the sitcom Ben and Kate, which was sadly short-lived. Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, the actress gushed about the role, saying, "It's a lot of fun, she's like a loose cannon and can do or say anything. She's a little bit darker and meaner, not necessarily intentionally, just because she's rather selfish, so that's fun." The show only lasted one season, but Johnson's comedic timing was made clear in the role.
Decider, in a 2018 revisit, called it the best role of Johnson's career. The piece noted that Johnson is a very funny performer, but, because she's most well known for playing the brooding, lip-biting lead in Fifty Shades, she often doesn't get the credit she deserves. Her character in Ben and Kate, which was usually the scolding "voice of reason," was elevated to something much more interesting in Johnson's hands. Decider opined, "The writing staff took advantage of the actress' innate comedic timing and instead made her an active participant in the misadventure of the week."
Dakota Johnson worked hard on Fifty Shades of Grey
Fifty Shades of Grey's Anastasia Steele might have been the role of a lifetime for Dakota Johnson, but it wasn't without controversy. The film currently sits at 25 percent on review aggregate Rotten Tomatoes, capturing the overwhelmingly negative reaction from critics. Fans of the book flooded cinemas, however, to the tune of $569 million worldwide, according to Box Office Mojo. Johnson remains loyal to the franchise that made her a household name, telling Vogue in 2015 that "even if it's commercial and mainstream, the subject matter isn't." She noted, "In that way I can do something mass but stay true to my weird interests."
Of the character of Anastasia herself, the actress explained, "She's hyperintelligent and hypersexual and very tough and very loving, and her character has so many different aspects that don't normally make sense in one person. I tried to amplify them all." James Foley, director of sequels Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed, said approvingly of his leading lady, "She has a very sensitive bulls**t meter, so if she does something that is the least bit unreal she just stops herself. She is just bizarrely instinctual about it all."
Dakota Johnson lost her anonymity
When she was right on the cusp of mega-stardom, Dakota Johnson sat down with Vogue for a frank chat about how much her life was about to change. It was 2015, and the actress was still enjoying the benefits of being someone unrecognizable. While she'd appeared in modeling campaigns previously, she had not necessarily been plagued by paparazzi everywhere she went. "My most favorite thing about London is that nobody recognizes me. It's really ... cool," she shared at the time.
With Fifty Shades about to drop in theaters worldwide just a month later, Johnson revealed her fears about no longer having the ability to blend in. "I think about my dwindling anonymity and that's really scary," she admitted, noting a big part of her would sooner live "on a ranch in Colorado" while taking care of animals and maybe even popping out a baby or two. Still, the actress acknowledged she could still do that anyway, especially if the encroaching attention ever became too much for her.
Dakota Johnson has "outgrown" these past decisions
Most actors, aside from maybe Tom Hardy, tend not to cover themselves in tattoos, lest it hinder their progress in front of the camera. But not Dakota Johnson, who, by her own admission, got very into covering herself with ink until it was too late to go back. In a 2016 interview with Net-a-Porter, she proudly revealed a quote from Aldous Huxley novel Island that was tattooed in white and which matches sister Stella Banderas' own tattoo: "Lightly, my darling."
Still, Johnson admitted, "Some of the others I'm not so proud of." The actress shared, "I went through a phase where I loved tattoos, and I loved the feeling of getting tattooed. But now I've outgrown them mostly, and because I always have to cover them for jobs, God, they're annoying!" Now that she's super famous and in demand, the actress understands that she "really should have listened to everyone," noting, "But therein lies my problem in life!"
Dakota Johnson has taken pride in her work, no matter the roles
As much as she might have to defend Fifty Shades of Grey's Anastasia Steele, Dakota Johnson isn't reticent about sharing her enthusiasm for playing any and every role she can, no matter the size. Explaining to Net-a-Porter why she doesn't read reviews, Johnson opined, "If people are into my work, great. But I just want to enjoy my job. Artists are complicated and sensitive people, you know? At least, I am a complicated and sensitive person."
As for whether she prefers indies or blockbusters, the actress told Vogue definitively, "The size of a role doesn't matter to me. I don't need to be the lead of a movie in order to want to do it. I have to love the character." As someone who didn't train formally (Johnson and Juilliard "mutually" split, as the actress likes to tell interviewers), she's fully assured of her choice in career. "There was no Plan B. It's mostly instinctual. I don't have a process," she shrugged.
Dakota Johnson has remained a friend of the animals
Not content with simply descending from Hollywood royalty or effortlessly straddling the line between indie darling and blockbuster breakout star, Dakota Johnson also finds time to be a passionate animal rights advocate. It's noted in a 2015 Vogue profile that her grandmother, Tippi Hedren, took to rescuing wild animals after being treated badly by Hollywood and Alfred Hitchcock, in particular. Melanie Griffith, meanwhile, "famously grew up with a lion" living in the family home, and Johnson remembers rescue elephants in her family's backyard.
Hedren's ranch boasts "some small cats and some big cats," according to Johnson, namely "lions and tigers, a black leopard, and a three-legged cheetah." In an interview a year later, Johnson proudly told Vogue, "My grandmother is one of the most extraordinary women in the world. She's more quick-witted and wise than anyone I know." Demonstrably confident about following in her iconic grandmother's footsteps, the actress revealed, "She still walks around the reserve at night and checks the tigers."
Dakota Johnson began dating this famous musician
Dakota Johnson is often described by interviewers as open, honest, and wonderfully frank, but if there's one topic she won't be pressed on, it's her relationship with Coldplay singer Chris Martin. A 2019 news piece in People noted the happy couple spent Johnson's 30th birthday together, with a so-called insider revealing, "She and Chris were very affectionate. They walked around the party hand in hand. They were very cute." Her mother, Melanie Griffith, previously gushed to People, "I love my daughter's boyfriend. I think that they're an awesome couple."
According to a timeline of their relationship in Cosmopolitan, the two were first rumored to be dating back in October 2017. They reportedly called time on their romance in June 2019, before apparently getting back together soon after. There were rumors of matching tattoos and even a bogus pregnancy. Still, Johnson has refused to discuss the relationship, telling Tatler in an interview (via E! News), "I'm not going to talk about it. But I am very happy."
Dakota Johnson made headlines for a "feud" with Ellen DeGeneres
As it turned out, Dakota Johnson's 30th birthday party was the source of some bizarre controversy when TV host Ellen DeGeneres publicly called her out on air for failing to invite her, only for Johnson to immediately deadpan that DeGeneres actually was invited and opted not to show up. The story was a major source of hilarity online for the better part of a week, with everybody and their uncle chiming in on who was really pulling the strings behind the scenes.
It made for an intensely uncomfortable interview on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, but Johnson more than held her own, calmly setting the record straight. Naturally, the short-lived "feud" was more mindless gossip than anything else, though an interesting revelation came about when internet sleuths discovered DeGeneres was with former president George W. Bush on the day of Johnson's party. As Time reported, it caused quite a stir online.
Dakota Johnson has become more comfortable with her "life being in constant flux"
Despite success on the big screen, Dakota Johnson still feels as though she's figuring things out. In a 2016 interview with The Pretenders' Chrissie Hynde for Interview magazine, Johnson admitted, "I don't know what I'm doing. ... I have such an obsession with making movies that I probably will always do that. But sometimes my life can feel so suffocating, and then it can feel so massive, like I don't have a handle on it at all, and I don't know where it's going or what I'm going to do."
As for the press and the pressures of fame, she revealed, "There are some days when I can do my thing and be in the world and walk around, and it's fine. And then there are other days where it's totally not fine, and I want to crawl into a hole and die." However, as she's matured, Johnson has "learned to be comfortable with my life being in constant flux."
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Her natal Lilith is 28 Scorpio, N.Node 5 Sagittarius, S.Node 18 Cancer
Her natal Ceres is 2 Cancer, N.Node 12 Cancer, S.Node 4 Sagittarius
Her natal Amazon is 11 Sagittarius, N.Node 8 Gemini, S.Node 13 Scorpio
Please feel free to comment of ask questions.
Goddess Bless, Rad
Hi All,
This is the story of Li Qiaochu. This is a noon chart.
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Li Qiaochu
李翘楚
Li in December 2020
Born 13 January 1991 (age 32)
Beijing
Li Qiaochu (Chinese: 李翘楚; pinyin: Lǐ Qiáochǔ; born 13 January 1991 in Beijing) is a Chinese labor and women's rights activist and researcher on labour issues. She was detained by authorities for four months in the first half of 2020 and again in February 2021, in both cases on national security charges. These were due to her connection with activists, including her partner Xu Zhiyong, who had secretly met in the southeastern city of Xiamen in December 2019 to discuss "democratic transition in China".
Education and career
After completing her undergraduate studies at Renmin University, Li obtained a master's degree in public policy from the University of York in 2015. Later she worked as a research assistant at Tsinghua University, where her work included an analysis of China's pension system and research on the rights of migrant workers.
Activism
In 2017, Li worked with other volunteers on finding free or cheap housing for thousands of migrant workers who had been evicted by authorities in Beijing during a particularly cold winter. In 2018, she compiled data on cases of sexual harassment and drafted reports in support of the Me Too movement in China. She also took part in efforts against the 996 working hour system.]
On 24 January 2020, Li criticized in a Twitter message on occasion of the Lunar New Year the alleged underreporting of the number of deaths by the Chinese authorities in the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, calling to "remember the pain [and] the lives that left us without even being tallied", and writing: "Let’s use civic engagement to pursue those responsible for trampling lives." She joined a volunteer team to distribute free masks to sanitation workers, and helped pregnant women in quarantine areas to obtain medical care. She also worked to support victims of domestic violence, which spiked in the wake of pandemic lockdowns in central China.
In early 2020, Li publicized an essay by her partner, legal activist and former university lecturer Xu Zhiyong, which called on Chinese leader Xi Jinping to resign over alleged incompetence in particular with regard to his handling of the COVID-19 outbreak.
Four-month detention and 2021 arrest
On 31 December 2019, Li was held for 24 hours, while being handcuffed, in Haidian District for questioning regarding Xu. Along with other human rights activists, Xu was wanted by police for his participation in a meeting in Xiamen on 13 December 2019 where "democratic transition in China" was discussed. Li had not taken part in the Xiamen meeting. Nevertheless, her arrest was regarded by the non-governmental organization Human Rights in China as part of the "12.26 Citizen Case" named in reference to 26 December, the date of the first arrests in relation to the meeting. Li later posted online about the interrogation, in which she alleged that her depression had been used at one of the questionings to belittle her character; she also wrote that she had been monitored by security guards since her release.
Li was detained in the early morning of 16 February 2020 in Beijing, one day after Xu was detained in Guangzhou. As of 11 March 2020, her charge and whereabouts had not been disclosed by authorities, with an officer saying that Li had been subpoenaed for "allegedly inciting subversion of state power". Li's lawyer, Song Yusheng, was denied information about his client on "national security grounds". After having been held incommunicado in RSDL, a form of secret detention, Li was released on bail on 19 June 2020. In an essay about her detention dated 11 January 2021, Li accused state authorities of serious ill-treatment, including that her medication had been denied in the first five days.
In December 2020, Li accepted the PEN America 2020 PEN/Barbey Freedom to Write Award on behalf of Xu, who was still in detention. Subsequently, Li was forced by police into house arrest and, according to PEN America, threatened with detention if she continued to speak about the detention of Xu. On 5 February 2021, after Li visited Xu and activist Ding Jiaxi in prison, she tweeted about them having been tortured during detention, charging that Xu had been "tied to an iron chair for more than ten hours a day" for more than a week in May 2020.On 6 February, police from Linyi County, where Xu was held, took away Li in Beijing. She was formally arrested on 15 March on charges of "inciting subversion of state power" and completed a period of coronavirus quarantine in Linyi, according to close friends. A member of the Weiquan movement said on that day that Li was suffering from depression and had been assigned to a supervised section of a hospital in Linyi, where she was barred from meeting with lawyers. Beijing-based rights activist Hu Jia opined that Li played a key role in the efforts of authorities to cover up their persecution of the dissidents at the 12.26 Citizen Case.
Li reportedly received a visit by her lawyer on 27 August, during her third stay at the hospital under the supervision of the Linyi Detention Center. This was the first time she had seen a lawyer during her detention; four previous requests had been rejected by authorities on the grounds that they would leak secrets and compromise the investigation. A rights lawyer familiar with the case suspected that Li, who was reportedly suffering from severe tinnitus[20] and had gained substantial weight as side effects of her medication, had "likely been subjected to mild torture" during detention. On 10 September, Li reportedly again met a lawyer, who stated that Li had unsuccessfully applied for bail twice.
In February 2022, prosecutors issued an indictment saying that Li was facing trial for "subversion of state power", alleging that Li had published numerous articles by Xu with the intention to "overthrow the socialist system". By March 2022, several requests by her family for medical parole had been made with authorities but all had been turned down.
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Feminist Activist Li Qiaochu Struggles With Mental Health in Detention
Li is accused of "subverting state power" after she spoke out about the treatment of her partner Xu Zhiyong, detained on the same charge.
2021.08.30
FreeLiqiaochu
Rights activist Li Qiaochu has met with a lawyer for the first time after nearly seven months' detention in the eastern Chinese province of Shandong, on suspicion of subversion, RFA has learned.
Li is currently in COVID-19 quarantine in a hospital under the supervision of the Linyi Detention Center, a Facebook page campaigning on her behalf reported.
Her lawyer visited her there on Aug. 27, during her third hospital visit. Li, who was diagnosed with depression two years ago, needs long-term medication, prompting concerns about her physical and mental health in detention.
"At the moment, she is taking antipsychotics and antidepressants, and due to the side effects, she has gained a lot of weight despite not eating as much as before," a statement on the Free Li Qiaochu page said.
"She said that she does not regret being arrested a second time, and that she spoke out because she had to," it said.
Li has been held in Shandong's Linyi city since her initial detention on Feb. 6, 2021 on suspicion of "subverting state power."
Her detention came after she posted details of torture allegations by her partner, the detained rights activist Xu Zhiyong, and rights lawyer Ding Jiaxi, to social media.
The overseas-based Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD) network, which honored Li with the Cao Shunli human rights award, said she was likely also being targeted in retaliation for her engagement with United Nations human rights mechanisms.
Rights lawyer Wu Shaoping, who is familiar with Li's case, said she is currently suffering from auditory hallucinations, and from the side-effects of anti-psychotic medication used to suppress them.
"This is because she was already suffering from severe depression before she was detained," Wu told RFA. "She told the lawyer [who visited her] that she had severe auditory hallucinations, that she was hearing voices."
"She wasn't able to get off the medication, and she has put on weight because of it," he said.
"Li Qiaochu has likely been subjected to mild torture in there," Wu said. "It looks as if she's not getting the right kind of diet in there."
"She's in a kind of pure state of mind right now, and she has no regrets whatsoever that she wound up in jail for her man," he said. "She wants to carry on trying to support him."
Xu Zhiyong's mother Luo Shenchun said the meeting with the lawyer came after four previous requests were turned down by the authorities.
"The lawyer submitted four applications to meet with her, all of which were rejected on the grounds that they would leak secrets and compromise the investigation," Luo told RFA. "But there are no state secrets involved here; they just said someone had been leaking secrets."
State subversion charges
Xu, who founded the New Citizens' Movement, and rights lawyer Ding Jiaxi have also been charged with "subversion of state power," and are being held in Shandong's Linshu Detention Center.
Their detentions came after an informal gathering of dissidents in the southeastern port city of Xiamen in December 2019.
"Subversion of state power" carries a minimum jail term of 10 years, with no upper limits on the severity of the sentence, where a defendant is judged to have played a leading role in the events used as evidence.
Those seen as "participants" can be jailed for three to 10 years.
Their lawyers Liang Xiaojun, Zhang Lei, and Peng Jian have yet to be allowed to meet with their clients, although Xu and Ding's cases have been transferred to the state procuratorate for review and prosecution, paving the way for a trial.
Xu Zhiyong and Ding Jiaxi were charged with "subversion of state power" and were prosecuted at the Intermediate Court of Linyi City, Shandong Province earlier this month. The family members and lawyers have not yet grasped the specific content of the indictment.
Fellow activists have told RFA that Li is the key to the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP)'s ability to keep its nationwide operation targeting political dissidents who attended the Dec. 13, 2019 gathering in Xiamen under wraps.
Li, 30, is also a long-term campaigner against gender-based violence and for labor rights.
In 2017, Li Qiaochu volunteered to provide information and resources to affected migrant workers when Beijing authorities forcibly removed them from the city, CHRD said.
She also boosted the visibility of China’s #MeToo movement by compiling data on sexual harassment, and campaigned against a culture of long hours in the workplace.
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China rights activist goes on trial for ‘inciting subversion of state power’
US congressional commission has called for Li Qiaochu’s release, citing reports she needs urgent medical treatment
Amy Hawkins Senior China correspondent
Tue 19 Dec 2023 14.12 GMT
Li Qiaochu, a human rights activist detained for nearly three years in China, has gone on trial in Shandong province charged with “inciting subversion of state power”.
On the eve of the trial, the chairs of the US congressional commission on China called for Li’s unconditional release, citing reports that the labour rights and feminist activist needed urgent medical treatment.
Li’s charges carry a sentence of up to five years, or potentially longer if she is deemed a ringleader.
Li’s lawyer Li Guobei said she had been blocked from entering the Linyi intermediate people’s court, where the trial was due to be held, by two security guards.
One of Li’s other lawyers was allowed to enter the court.
Li’s trial concluded at 3pm local time with no public judgment, according to the Facebook page FreeLiqiaochu李翘楚.
Li is the partner of the imprisoned human rights lawyer Xu Zhiyong, one of the leaders of China’s embattled civil rights movement. In November, a court in Shandong upheld the conviction of Xu and a fellow human rights lawyer, Ding Jiaxi, for subversion of state power, sentencing them to 14 and 12 years in prison respectively.
When Li was able to meet her lawyer in April, she said her feelings for Xu “had never changed”, according to an account from her supporters, who also said Li’s family had been denied repeated requests to meet her.
Li was arrested on 14 March 2021, having previously spent several months under “residential surveillance at a designated location”, a form of detention used by China’s police to hold someone outside of a normal prison without access to family or lawyers. After her release from that period of detention, Li described her experience as “black hoods and handcuffs, closed rooms, 24-hour white lights”.
Previously employed in Tsinghua University’s sociology department, Li had worked as a researcher and activist since at least 2017, when she worked with other volunteers to support migrant workers who had been evicted from their homes in Beijing in 2017. She later supported various MeToo campaigns and helped Xu maintain the website Beautiful China, where they published articles about China’s civil rights movement.
On Monday, Li’s supporters said they were very concerned about her physical health. She previously said she was denied access to anti-depressants while in detention. In 2020, she wrote that she was secretly weaning herself off the medication in anticipation of a future arrest.
Sarah Brooks, the head of Amnesty International’s China team, said: “Li’s trial highlights the deeply repressive environment for anyone who tries to advocate for human rights in China, even when their activities are entirely peaceful and protected under international law.”
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Detention of Chinese Women’s Rights Activist an Appalling Escalation in Attempt to Silence Her
Li Qiaochu was spirited from Beijing to a distant detention center on Saturday; in December, she accepted the PEN/Barbey Freedom to Write Award on behalf of her partner detained dissident Xu Zhiyong
February 6, 2021
(New York, NY) — Li Qiaochu, the women’s rights activist and partner of detained activist, essayist, and PEN/Barbey Freedom to Write awardee Xu Zhiyong, has been detained and taken to Linyi detention center in China’s Shandong province. PEN America decried her detention today as an appalling escalation in the attempt to silence her.
On Friday, Li posted on Twitter that she had been asked to meet with a police officer in the Haidan district of Beijing the next day. Long an outspoken defender of Xu, Li was reportedly detained at that meeting and taken from Beijing—where she lives—to the Linyi detention center some five hours away. Li’s parents were reportedly told to sign a detention notice that says that Li is suspected of subversion of state power, which they refused to sign.
“This is an appalling escalation in the attempt to silence and punish Li Qiaochu for continuing to speak out about Xu’s case and about her own treatment at the hands of state security services. It may also represent an attempt to increase the pressure on Xu himself by targeting his loved ones,” said PEN America CEO Suzanne Nossel. “Li Qiaochu is a woman of tremendous courage and conviction, and that courage has put her in the crosshairs of the Chinese government. She is being treated like a criminal for refusing to relent as her partner is detained and abused. We remain in solidarity with Li Qiaochu; we call for her immediate release, and we insist the police stop pursuing these spurious charges.”
Hours before her detention, Li tweeted her reaction to learning that Xu had been tortured in prison, and shared information about her complaint against Linyi detention center—where Xu was being held and where she is now detained—for serving sub-standard food. In December, police forced Li into house arrest and threatened to detain her if she kept speaking out about Xu’s case.
Last year, Li spent four months in “residential surveillance at a designated location,” a form of secret detention, before being conditionally released on bail. Last month, Li released an account of her secret detention. She described 24/7 surveillance, constant insults and degradation, and sleeping in a fixed posture so the guards wouldn’t wake her up. She wrote in that essay that, when she learned that people outside were “concerned about me, looking for me, and I wasn’t forgotten,” that this “gave me the will to leave that place alive and have the opportunity to speak for myself.”
Late last month, Chinese officials escalated the charges against Li’s partner Xu, from “inciting subversion of state power” to “subversion of state power.” Xu, who was first detained in February 2020, has been cut off from the outside world, and was only recently allowed to meet with his lawyers for the first time. Li accepted the 2020 PEN/Barbey Freedom to Write Award on his behalf at a ceremony in December.
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China: Activist detained for reporting torture: Li Qiaochu
Prominent human rights defender Li Qiaochu was taken away by police on 6 February 2021, shortly before the Lunar New Year. According to a detention notice her parents were asked to sign, she might be facing charges related to subversion. Li’s detention is suspected to be related to her efforts to publicize the torture and ill-treatment at Linshu County Detention Centre. Detained incommunicado for a month, there is concern that Li Qiaochu is at risk of torture or other ill-treatment, as she remains without access to her family or a lawyer of her choice.
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First UA 31/21 Index: ASA 17/3784/2021 China Date: 4 March 2021
URGENT ACTION
ACTIVIST DETAINED FOR REPORTING TORTURE
Prominent human rights defender Li Qiaochu was taken away by police on 6 February 2021, shortly before the Lunar New Year. According to a detention notice her parents were asked to sign, she might be facing charges related to subversion. Li’s detention is suspected to be related to her efforts to publicize the torture and ill-treatment at Linshu County Detention Centre. Detained incommunicado for a month, there is concern that Li Qiaochu is at risk of torture or other ill-treatment, as she remains without access to her family or a lawyer of
her choice.
TAKE ACTION: WRITE AN APPEAL IN YOUR OWN WORDS OR USE THIS MODEL LETTER
Director Li Dengquan
Linyi Shi Public Security Bureau
7 Shanghai Lu, Lanshan Qu
Linyi Shi, Shandong Sheng
People’s Republic of China
Dear Director Li:
I am writing to express my grave concern for Li Qiaochu (李翘楚), who has been held incommunicado since being taken away by police on 6 February 2021. According to the detention notice that her parents were summoned by Beijing police to sign, Li might be facing charges related to subversion merely for engaging in peaceful activism.
It is alarming to learn that Li has been detained without due process and that she has had no access to her lawyer and family. On 19 February 2021, Linyi Municipal Public Security Bureau denied her lawyer’s request to meet with Li.
Without any access to Li Qiaochu, it is unclear whether she has prompt, regular, and unrestricted access to medical care. Suffering from depression since June 2019, there are fears for Li’s mental and physical health if she does not get the care she needs in an appropriate and prompt manner.
Li Qiaochu is a prominent researcher on labour rights and has been a peaceful advocate against gender-based violence for many years. It is deeply upsetting that Li Qiaochu has been detained on suspicion of such serious charges solely for speaking about and reporting human rights violations.
Therefore, I urge you to:
Immediately and unconditionally release Li Qiaochu, unless there is sufficient credible and
admissible evidence that she has committed an internationally recognized offence and is
granted a fair trial in line with international standards.
Pending her release, ensure that Li Qiaochu has regular, unrestricted access to family and
lawyers of her choice and is not subjected to torture and other ill-treatment.
Allow her prompt, regular and unrestricted access to medical care on request, or as
necessary.
Yours sincerely,
First UA 31/21 Index: ASA 17/3784/2021 China Date: 4 March 2021
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Li Qiaochu (李翘楚) is a feminist and researcher on labour issues who has long been involved in issues concerning the equal rights for workers, women and other members of Chinese society. Her research has covered topics such as policies on social protection for retired workers. When Beijing authorities cleared and evicted the “low income population” in 2017, Li worked with volunteers to compile and disseminate information about the most affected communities in order to help the expelled migrant workers find new jobs and affordable alternative accommodation.
Li also actively took part in various national #MeToo campaigns. She compiled data, drafted reports and posted online messages of her support for the movement.
In June 2019, Li was diagnosed with depression and had to be on regular medication. However, this did not stop her from her activism. With the outbreak of COVID-19, Li again volunteered to help both online and offline with epidemic prevention. She distributed face masks to sanitation workers and guided pregnant women of the affected
communities to help each other out. Having observed the lack of gender perspective, especially with respect to prevention of gender-based violence in the practices of some hospitals, she immediately worked with a group of volunteers to set out recommendations.
Li’s activism led to frequent police harassment. In early December 2019, public security officers began to be stationed outside her house and monitored her on her way to and from work, which seriously contravened her rights to privacy and freedom of movement.
On 31 December 2019, Li was summoned by the police and held in the Beijing Public Security Bureau for 24 hours.
During her detention, the police reportedly refused to give her adequate medical care. As most of the questioning related to Xu Zhiyong, Li Qiaochu decided to reveal her treatment by the police online and called for more public attention for others detained in relation to the gatherings in Xiamen. As a result, Li was arrested on 16 February
2020 and had been detained incommunicado under “residential surveillance at a designated location” before being released on bail on 19 June 2020.
Since 26 December 2019, police across the country have been summoning or detaining participants who took part in an informal gathering of lawyers and activists in Xiamen earlier that month. Ding Jiaxi and Xu Zhiyong are just two of the many participants detained and are currently facing charges related to subversion.
On 6 February 2021, Li Qiaochu sent out two tweets and disclosed the complaints she filed against the ill-treatment and inadequacy of conditions in Linshu County Detention Centre. Shortly after, she received a call from a Beijing police officer and was asked to come out of her home to “have a chat”, at which point she was abruptly detained by
Shandong police officers and taken to Linyi City. Li is currently in quarantine at a local hospital in Linyi City, after which she is expected be transferred to Linyi Municipal Detention Centre.
PREFERRED LANGUAGE TO ADDRESS TARGET: English or Chinese
You can also write in your own language.
PLEASE TAKE ACTION AS SOON AS POSSIBLE UNTIL: 4 May 2021
Please check with the Amnesty office in your country if you wish to send appeals after the deadline.
NAME AND PREFFERED PRONOUN: Li Qiaochu (She/her)
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Her natal Lilith is 29 Aquarius, N.Node 28 Sagittarius, S.Node 00/14 Gemini
Her natal Ceres is 26 Gemini, N.Node 4 Gemini, S.Node 28 Sagittarius
Her natal Amazon is 18 Pisces, N.Node 4 Taurus, S.Node 5 Sagittarius
Please feel free to comment or ask questions.
Goddess Bless, Rad
Hi All,
This is the story of Juanita MCNeely. This is a noon chart.
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Juanita McNeely
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Juanita McNeely (March 13, 1936 - October 18, 2023) was an American feminist artist known for her bold works that illustrate the female experience in her nude figurative paintings, prints, paper cut-outs and ceramic pieces. Feminist emotional elements in her work include the portrayal of female experiences such as abortion, rape, and menstruation. Her recurring health problems and expressive figurative compositions have prompted comparisons to Frida Kahlo. According to McNeely, "we as women must continue the struggle to hold on to our rights, or let the children lead the way."
Early life
McNeely was born in Ferguson, Missouri on March 13, 1936 to Robert and Alta McNeely. In her early years, McNeely spent time at the Saint Louis Art Museum, where she saw works by Paul Gauguin, Henri Matisse, and the German Expressionists. At the age of 15, after winning an art scholarship for an oil painting, McNeely dedicated her life to art. She enrolled in the St. Louis School of Fine Arts at Washington University in St. Louis and began to study art. Under the careful eye of Werner Drewes, who served as her inspiration, McNeely began rigorous training in composition and technique. By her sophomore year, the professors allowed her to work without models at her request because of her intuitive knowledge of the human form. She graduated with her BFA in 1959.
After being hospitalized for a year in high school for excessive bleeding, McNeely was diagnosed with cancer in her first year of college, and given three to six months to live. She has identified this experience as the reason why she was unafraid to talk about "the things that are not necessarily pleasant." Another obstacle in her early years was sexism in the art world. She later recalled that an anatomy teacher pulled her aside during class and told her "Look, you will never make it as an artist...because you're too skinny and you don't look like a good f...k." This experience also contributed to the feminist themes in her work.
After a short hiatus in Mexico, McNeely began her graduate studies at Southern Illinois University, where she worked on a Happening with Allan Kaprow. She subsequently went to Chicago, where she persuaded the Art Institute of Chicago to give her a job while she continued to paint and exhibit in solo and group shows.
Professional life
While at Southern Illinois University, McNeely decided that she was ready to go to New York City, where she moved in 1967 with her husband and opened a studio in the East Village. In 1968, she completed Woman's Psyche, a multi-panel work that Sharyn Finnegan has described as a "tragic vision of monthly bleeding." Maryse Holder characterized it an image of "an Everywoman deep with primal mysteries" in the " depths of the female experience."
In New York, McNeely's health deteriorated when another tumor was found. Because she was pregnant and abortion was then illegal, the doctors could do little to treat her. This adversity and lack of control over her own body fueled McNeely's feminism. She was one of the first to address the issue of abortion in her painting, Is it Real? Yes it is (1969).
In 1970, McNeely joined Prince Street Gallery, an artist's collective that exhibits contemporary abstract and figurative artists. It was established in Soho in 1970 as an outgrowth of the Alliance of Figurative Artists McNeely extensively exhibited at Prince Street Gallery in the 1970s, which gave her the artistic freedom to express what she needed to say as a woman artist. In 1970, she also moved into Westbeth, the affordable artist's residence in the West Village, where she would live for the rest of her life.
In 1975, McNeely was again diagnosed with cancer, which prompted her to remove material possessions and live lightly, which is echoed in the light colors and lone, simple figures that are found in her work of that period. Moving Through (1975) exemplifies this particular stage in McNeely's life and career. After divorcing her first husband, she met the sculptor Jeremy Lebensohn, whom she later married. From 1981 to 1982, they lived and traveled for six months in France, where McNeely suffered an accident that damaged her spinal cord and forced her to use a wheelchair. This disability inspired her to paint and make the "ugly and terrible beautiful for herself."
McNeely continued to exhibit late into her life, including in a solo exhibition at Brandeis University. Her exhibition, Indomitable Spirit, embodied the spirit and courage it took to challenge misogyny and patriarchy. McNeely has also become a spokesperson at all of the events of the International Organization of Jean Kennedy Smith and Ambassadors Wives under the auspices of Very Special Arts from 1990 until 1994, an organization that promotes access and visibility of the arts, and creates opportunities for disabled artists. She was the judge of an art exhibit held in honor of the 200th anniversary of the laying of the first corner stone of the White House at a ceremony for that exhibit at the White House. Also under the auspices of the VSA, McNeely was judge and teacher for the International Yamagata Art Program.
Involvement in the Feminist Art Movement
McNeely showed Woman's Psyche (1968) in First Open Show of Feminist Art, an all-women exhibition that was organized by Marjorie Kramer. She also joined several feminist artist groups, including Women Artists in Revolution and the Redstockings. McNeely was also a member of the all-women cooperative gallery, SOHO 20 Gallery, where she had a solo show in 1980.
McNeely was an early member of Fight Censorship (est.1973), founded by Anita Steckel, a group of women artists who explored female sexuality and the erotic needs or experiences of women. Fight Censorship sought to change the conservative society that barred feminist artists from jobs and exhibitions. To accomplish this, they lectured and educated the public about erotic art and the negative effects of censorship.
Themes
Eroticism
Many of McNeely's works center around erotic imagery. Her art takes a dark look at the violent and sometimes bloody sexual experiences of women. As suggested by Joseph Slade, the success of McNeely's erotic art can be shown by the efforts to censor it. Her art has been described as illustrating the fear in most women of "physical vulnerability, embodying all of [her] sexual functions and their possibly devastating consequences."
Women's experience
Another theme in McNeely's work is the female perspective. Her work focuses on the fact that sex is central to a woman's life but women are not allowed to comment on it. Her art shows the violence, torture, and pain of experiences in a woman's life such as abortion, rape, and menstruation. The notion that biology defines a woman's identity is also present. Chameleon (1970), for example, depicts a nude woman in vibrant colors lying on a table. She is sexual from her own perspective and active in her sexuality, which is clearly a female experience.
Nude/violence/pain
The nude paired with violence, pain, and blood is a recurring theme in McNeely's work. She relates to her audience by using the female nude as an active agent. She also uses her own experience and perspective as a woman to create a strong connection to the pain, blood, and violence that comes with birth and womanhood. In The Tearing, for example, a half skeletal woman gives birth surrounded by blood and gore, insinuating that birth is also a death. She also shows the pain and violence of motherhood in Delicate Balance (1970) by depicting a mother as a contorted, bleeding madwoman balancing on a tightrope.
Death
McNeely died on October 18, 2023 at Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan at the age of 87.
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Juanita McNeely, Intense Artist of the Female Experience, Dies at 87
Her searing paintings, which could be sweet but also brutal, reflected her interest in the female body and what it could do.
By Will Heinrich
Nov. 2, 2023
Juanita McNeely, an uncompromising painter who used the language of Expressionism to immortalize the sweetest and most brutal moments of her own female experience, died on Oct. 18 at her home in Manhattan. She was 87.
Her death was confirmed by her husband and only immediate survivor, Jeremy Lebensohn.
Ms. McNeely’s work was often intense. But the most searing single piece might have been her record of the fragmentary details — emotional as well as physical — of an abortion she underwent in the 1960s. She had been admitted to a hospital for treatment of a tumor when doctors discovered she was pregnant.
Because the pregnancy threatened her life, but with abortion illegal at the time, the doctors prevaricated, argued, even proposed saving the fetus and letting her die. She eventually did receive the procedure she needed, at a different hospital — but the experience left marks.
In the central panel of her “Is It Real? Yes, It Is!,” a polyptych of nine canvases arranged in a 12-foot square, a woman lies splayed and naked on her back, eyes shut, breathing tube in her mouth, her feet in stirrups, while a hand reaches through a slit in a blue curtain to extend a pair of forceps toward her genitals. A pale blue Donald Duck solemnly looks on.
A woman’s body figures in the other eight panels, too, but less literally. In those she is pinioned, or skeletal, or being eaten by carrion birds. Black outlines, exaggerated highlights and striking background colors — powder blue, bright yellow — add to the work’s aggression and intensity without diminishing its unflinching emotional realism. And though complex in design and dense with color, the whole thing looks as if it were painted in a single burst of anger.
But Ms. McNeely’s nudes could also be lush and sensuous; her portraits of friends, New York City passers-by and fellow artists often have a fairylike élan. Painted not from life but from memory, they display Ms. McNeely’s keen eye for anatomy, but their limbs often curve and twist slightly more than natural, evoking fashion sketches or ballet dancers in movement.
Ms. McNeely’s interest, from beginning to end, was in the body, particularly the female body and what it could do. If it was suppressed, mistreated or callously acted upon, her canvases filled with rage and the color of blood; when it moved freely under the direction of its inhabitant, however, her depictions captured a winsome, evasive pleasure.
All in all it was the interplay between two basic carnal states — action and passion, motion and rest, health and illness, bitter and sweet — that constituted her basic subject.
“She was able to demonstrate in her work both the pleasure and the pain of a woman’s sexuality,” the painter Joan Semmel, a friend of Ms. McNeely’s since the early 1970s, said by phone. “Those two elements have always been connected, and connected in a way to stress the vulnerability. But she stressed the strength, also, and the confrontation of that.”
Juanita Rose McNeely was born on March 13, 1936, in Ferguson, Mo., to Robert Hunt McNeely Sr. and Alta (Greene) McNeely, both of whom had moved from Mayfield, Ky. She was their second child; her older brother, Robert Jr., died before her.
She began making art in high school, where she won a prize for an oil painting and took notes on Shakespeare with figure drawings of his characters. (These drawings, chaste but nude, earned her a reproving telephone call home; her parents took her side.) Another high school experience helped define her direction in life: She missed a full year when she was hospitalized for excessive bleeding.
During her first year as an art student at Washington University in St. Louis, where she earned a B.F.A. in 1959 and an M.F.A. two years later, she was diagnosed with cancer and given three to six months to live. Doctors advised her to spend that time doing what made her happy — so she kept on painting.
“I’m a painter,” she told Vogue earlier this year. “That’s what I am; that’s what I do.”
During her second year, while her cancer was in remission, Ms. McNeely began to find the stillness of the figure models tedious and asked to draw from her imagination instead. The school let her try it; after two months, her instructors examined her work and gave her permission to continue.
She also studied with Werner Drewes, a German expatriate who had studied with Max Beckmann. Mr. Drewes imposed a Bauhaus-style regimen, with classes six days a week and on two nights. At the St. Louis Art Museum, she looked at works by Gauguin, Matisse and especially Beckmann, whose color palette and nightmare quality became hallmarks of her style, too, and whose surfaces, the painter Sharyn M. Finnegan wrote in Women’s Art Journal in 2011, “look quickly done even when quite reworked.”
In 1967, Ms. McNeely moved to a sixth-floor walk-up in Manhattan’s East Village with her first husband. Their marriage would end in divorce.
She carried slides of her figurative paintings around to galleries still hooked on abstraction, but she made little progress; according to Ms. Finnegan’s article, one gallery expressed interest in her paintings until realizing they had been painted by a woman.
But she found community in New York with groups like Women Artists in Revolution, the Redstockings, the Figurative Alliance and the Prince Street Gallery, an artists’ co-op. In 1970, she moved into Westbeth, the affordable artists’ residence in the West Village, and began working in its print shop. She stayed there for the rest of her life.
Around that time, her polyptych “Woman’s Psyche” appeared alongside work by Faith Ringgold, Alice Neel and more than 100 others in a feminist show organized by the Redstockings. Over the course of that decade she had six solo shows at Prince Street, as well as three elsewhere. In addition to painting on canvas, she made cut-paper pieces and painted ceramics.
In 1982, Ms. McNeely took a six-month sabbatical from Suffolk County Community College, where she taught painting and printmaking for 17 years, to go to France with Mr. Lebensohn, a sculptor, writer, set designer and metal fabricator who had been her on-and-off companion for a decade. They married in Saint-Cézaire-sur-Siagne, on the Mediterranean coast. But three days before their return, Ms. McNeely tripped and fell, damaging her spine, which had been weakened from radiation treatments. Back in New York, she cut down on her teaching and activism and began to use a wheelchair.
Told that she would never make a large painting again, she hung 13 enormous canvases around her living space and worked on them for a year, titling the resulting series “Triskaidekaptych.” In that work, more writhing female bodies in challenging, symbolic situations, one per panel, join a flayed horse and a screaming baboon — but pastel colors and a lighter paint application temper rage with soft edges.
Between 1996 and 2018, Ms. McNeely had four solo shows on the Lower East Side with the gallerist Mitchell Algus, and since 2020 she had four solo shows with James Fuentes, including one that ends later this month at his Los Angeles space. “Is It Real? Yes, It Is!” was acquired by the Whitney Museum in 2021.
In a 2022 interview for a book about her work, Ms. McNeely recalled being confronted by a visitor to an early show of hers that had “lots of bleeding women on the walls.” The visitor was a mother who was there with her child, and who objected to the subject matter.
“‘First of all, you came inside,’” Ms. McNeely said she replied. “‘Second of all, can I ask you what is so awful about a woman bleeding?’ I said, ‘That’s how you give birth. That’s how you die. That’s how you live.’”
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In Juanita McNeely’s Searing Paintings, Beauty and Pain Commingle
By Grace Edquist
It can be hard to look at unpleasant things. Blood, violence, sickness, pain: Who needs it? The world is brutal enough as it is.
But to Juanita McNeely, the 87-year-old artist whose life dealt her an unfair share of hardship, shying away from the taboo was never an option. For more than half a century she has rendered the vicissitudes of her life, gore and all. “I’m a painter,” McNeely told me recently from her studio in the Westbeth Artists Housing complex in Manhattan, where she has lived since the 1970s. “That’s what I am; that’s what I do.”
Her work is often gruesome, primal, erotic. She captures her own struggles: bouts with cancer, a harrowing abortion in the 1960s, and a spinal cord injury that largely confined her to a wheelchair. Her whole approach to art speaks to the idea that these were things that she—and other women—experienced, and that visualizing life’s discomforts and anguish is powerful, and necessary. Though much of the content is drawn from her life, she is channeling a universal pain, and resilience.
Today, three of McNeely’s works from the 1970s will go on view in Los Angeles. “Juanita McNeely: Moving Through,” at James Fuentes’s new gallery space on Melrose Avenue, features large-scale, multi-panel paintings that combine McNeely’s striking depiction of naked bodies—suspended, contorted, kicking, careening—with her exacting use of color.
In the eponymous piece Moving Through, from 1975, nine panels are lined up horizontally, like stills from a movie. As she often does, McNeely includes teeth-bearing animals in several of the panels. Taken together, it’s an unflinching expression of rage in the face of a society that doesn’t often show women the care they deserve.
From the Black Space I (1976) and From the Black Space II (1977), the show’s other two works, eschew background color and detail to let her nude figures stand alone. No less bold, the panels in these works practically burst with feeling: limbs stretch, backs arch, heads howl. The musculature is breathtaking—especially impressive considering McNeely gave up working with models and photographs back in art school, preferring instead to work “from my mind,” as she told me, pointing to her temple.
Juanita McNeely was born in St. Louis in 1936. As Sharyn M. Finnegan recounts in her essay on McNeely from the fall/winter 2011 issue of Woman’s Art Journal, McNeely had an early calling to art—at 15, she won a scholarship for an oil painting. But this coincided with the beginning of her health troubles. She missed a year of high school when she was hospitalized for excessive bleeding. (Blood factors heavily in McNeely’s work in part because she was around it so much, and it just seemed like a normal part of life.)
She attended the St. Louis School of Fine Arts at Washington University, where she studied under Werner Drewes, the German expatriate credited with introducing principles of the Bauhaus school to Americans. A cancer diagnosis in her first year of college came with a grim prognosis: only three to six months to live. Per her doctor’s orders, she filled that time doing what she loved: studying art. She beat the odds, and told Finnegan: “That was the beginning of what really formed me as someone who spoke about the things that are not necessarily pleasant, on canvas, things that perhaps most people even feel uncomfortable about looking at, much less talking about.”
McNeely went on to graduate school at Southern Illinois University before moving to Chicago, where she taught at the Art Institute while showing her own work. But New York City beckoned, and in 1967, she decamped from the Midwest to the East Village. McNeely found community with fellow feminist artists in New York, joining groups like Women Artists in Revolution, Redstockings, and Fight Censorship, an organization started by Anita Steckel that included Louise Bourgeois, Joan Semmel, and Hannah Wilke. (Semmel, age 90, McNeely’s best friend and fellow unabashed painter of nude bodies, just opened a show at Alexander Gray in New York, concurrent with McNeely’s show in LA.)
Not long after she moved to New York, McNeely’s cancer returned, and an attempt to remove a tumor led doctors to discover she was pregnant. This being pre–Roe v. Wade, abortions were illegal. Thus began a distressing process of doctors, mostly men, trying to figure out what to do with her. She eventually got the abortion she needed to save her life, but it wasn’t without physical and emotional repercussions.
McNeely’s 1969 work Is It Real? Yes, It Is! documents this experience. The epic nine-panel work—so brutal it will bowl you over—was acquired by the Whitney Museum of American Art last year. “There was nothing else in the collection that dealt with abortion in such a head-on way,” says Jane Panetta, a curator at the Whitney. “It’s such a singular piece: the frank sensibility, the fearlessness of it…. It’s unbelievable to think that she made it in 1969.”
In Is It Real? Yes, It Is!, as in many of her fervent works, McNeely uses color—lush purples and almost sickly greens, burning scarlets and piercing blues—as a way into what is otherwise quite difficult subject matter. But color is just as much a signature in her other paintings. She made lively portraits of friends and loved ones, including Jeremy, her husband, a sculptor in his own right.
The world is catching up to Juanita McNeely. There was a survey at Brandeis University’s Women’s Study Research Center in 2014. Solo shows at the Mitchell Algus and James Fuentes galleries in New York followed, as did group shows and appearances at Art Basel Miami in 2020 and Independent 20th Century in 2022. Is It Real?’s new home on the seventh floor of the Whitney surely means more people will learn about her.
Perhaps others, like me, are finding her work worthy of attention not despite its intensity, but because of it. There’s something to be said about taking in work that makes you uncomfortable, that makes you wrinkle your nose, cock your head, let out a sigh. My visit with McNeely was brief, but I couldn’t stop thinking about how someone who has been through such traumatic experiences, who has excised her own agony onto canvas, could be so charming and cheerful in person.
But then her mantra reminded me: “I’m a painter. That’s what I do.” She has made beautiful art out of pain, calling attention to the grave disservice done onto women when it comes to reproductive and medical care. She made us look at things we might rather pretend aren’t…real. But there’s humanity in revealing the grotesque, in telling the truth about the world.
“Juanita McNeely: Moving Through” is open from September 8 to October 14 at James Fuentes, 5015 Melrose Ave., in Los Angeles.
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Links:
https://www.vogue.com/article/juanita-mcneely-james-fuentes-show
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWj5QFOETwo
https://images.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search;_ylt=AwrEnz41C0llXIEWWSAnnIlQ;_ylu=Y29sbwNiZjEEcG9zAzEEdnRpZANMT0NVSTExNFRfMQRzZWMDc2M-?p=juanita+mcneely+paintings&ei=UTF-8&type=dss&hsimp=yhs-102&hspart=mozilla&fr=yhs-mozilla-102
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Her natal Lilith is 15 Virgo, N.Node 7 Capricorn, S.Node 25 Taurus
Her natal Ceres is 27 Scorpio, S.Node 8 Capricorn
Her natal Amazon is 3 Libra, N.Node 6 Taurus, S.Node 9 Sagittarius
Please feel free to comment or ask questions.
Goddess Bless, Rad
Hi All,
These week we are going to post the story of female Goddess in the form of an Orca whale named Tokitae. Many human beings intersected with her life that truly tried to help her and one in particular, Raynell Morris, is from the Lumni Indian tribe in the Pacific Northwest of the USA. Her story follows after the story of Tokitae.
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The Call Of Tokitae
After half a century in a tank, a beloved orca was about to be freed. Then her life ended, and a moment of reckoning began.
She was 3 or maybe 4 years old on the last day she saw her family, when the men came in spotter planes and speedboats, hurling seal bombs that sent 200-decibel blasts reverberating through the currents of Puget Sound. She stayed close to her mother, the pair of them among nearly 100 terrified and disoriented southern resident orcas who were driven north along the eastern shore of Whidbey Island, until they were trapped in the shallower waters of Penn Cove.
It was unusually cold that August of 1970, and Terrell C. Newby still remembers that he arrived at Whidbey Island wearing a thick red-and-blue sweater that his mother had knitted for him. He was 30 years old, a student of marine biology and a Vietnam veteran who had returned from the war less than two years before. He had come to Penn Cove because he’d been invited by the men who were leading the orca capture: Ted Griffin, who owned the Seattle Marine Aquarium, and his business partner, Don Goldsberry. Their intent was to pull roughly half a dozen orcas from the water — young ones, 10 to 12 feet long, old enough that they wouldn’t perish when separated from their mothers but young enough to be compliant — and sell them to marine parks around the world for display.
By the time Newby set foot on the dock, the most desirable whales had already been cordoned off behind nets in the water, and his job was to sit in an eight-foot pram and try to keep the panicked mother orcas away from their babies. It was exhilarating and frightening at once — virtually nothing was known about orcas at the time, and Newby had no idea what might happen to him if they tipped his boat and he fell into the water — but despite the desperation of the whales, none showed aggression toward him.
He found the scene disturbing, but he didn’t feel truly horrified until he heard shrill cries and saw that the men had trapped the juvenile female orca against the dock. She was squealing frantically as a net was pulled over her body, and her mother was calling out in response, lifting her eyes above the surface to maintain sight of her calf.
The young whale was lifted from the water, wrapped in moist towels and loaded onto the back of a flatbed truck, and Newby was told to ride with her down to Seattle. He took his place at her side, and found himself fixed in her wide, dark gaze. Here, he would say, five decades later, is where I started getting really undone. He watched her eye move from his face to the buildings shuddering past along the highway, and he wondered how foreign it all must seem to her — to be outside the only element she’d ever known, her body unfamiliar with the burden of its own weight.
She stared and stared. He took a photograph of her, and a sickened feeling began to spread in his chest. His mind carried him back to the Mekong Delta, where he had been tasked with making solatium payments to families who had lost livestock or loved ones to American attacks. He’d once sat beside a mother who wept over the body of her baby on a rice mat, as they tried to determine a fair price for a lost child. That moment returned to him as he looked into the piercing eye of the young whale.
It took nearly two hours for the truck to lumber south to the city, and the orca never made a sound. Newby gently rubbed her head, poured water over her, murmured It’s going to be okay, not believing his own words.
In Seattle, he touched her one last time before he slipped off the back of the truck. Bye, baby, he whispered. Then he got in a car bound for Penn Harbor to prepare the next whale for transport. He would finish his job, and then devote his life to the study and protection of marine mammals, fighting to outlaw captures like the one he had just participated in. Riding north in stunned silence, Newby had become only the first of many who would describe themselves as forever changed by the orca known as Tokitae.
She was sold for $20,000 to the Miami Seaquarium, where she would spend the next half a century performing in the smallest orca tank in North America, 80 feet long and 35 feet wide, dubbed the “whale bowl.” Of the nearly 50 southern resident orcas taken from the Pacific Northwest during the 1960s and ’70s, most died within the first years after their capture — but Tokitae endured, becoming the last member of her family alive in captivity. Her life was shaped by an expansive constellation of people drawn into her orbit: devoted trainers who cared for her; marine mammal scientists who understood the toll of her captivity; conservation advocates and legions of fans who called for her freedom; the Indigenous people of the Lummi Nation, who consider orcas to be sacred relatives of their tribe; a Latin American business executive who agreed in 2022 that the whale did not belong in the stadium he’d just purchased; a billionaire NFL team owner who pledged to spend upward of $20 million to bring Tokitae home to the Salish Sea.
To Raynell Morris, a 67-year-old matriarch of the Lummi Nation who spent the past six years working to return Tokitae to the Pacific Northwest, the remarkable alignment of people devoted to the orca — across different cultures and convictions — made perfect sense. “She had a purpose, and it was bringing people together,” Morris said. Tokitae, known by the name Sk’aliCh’ehl-tenaut in the Lhaq’temish language of the Lummi, always held a singular magnetism, Morris said: “When her left eye walks on you, you are hers forever.”
In March, a plan was announced to move Tokitae to a 10-acre netted sanctuary in the San Juan Islands, where she could live out her life in her natal waters. To Morris, helping the whale complete this journey was a sacred obligation on behalf of her people.
The team working toward her relocation began logistical preparations, addressing state and federal requirements and consulting with Native tribes. After enduring lonely periods of neglect, Tokitae seemed to flourish with the constant dedication of the trainers and veterinarians who were readying her for the transition. Her return home was finally within sight, a milestone that felt ecstatic to the many who had fought for her for so long.
And then, on Aug. 18, 53 years after she arrived at the Miami Seaquarium and just months before she was due to leave it, Tokitae died there.
What followed was a moment of reckoning. The hopeful symbolism of her rescue was gone, replaced by searching questions about the past and future of our relationship with her species, and the natural world we share. In life, Tokitae was a beloved but involuntary ambassador for her kind. In death, she had become something more: a parable and a guide, revealing the full spectrum of our human potential — to ruin, and to repair.
In her prime, she was magnificent: over 7,500 pounds and 22 feet long, liquid lines of obsidian black and white, a sleek, strong body built to swim vast distances and dive hundreds of feet deeper than the 20-foot floor of the barren concrete tank where she performed every day in the center of a crowded stadium.
Her name, Tokitae — Toki for short — was given to her by the first veterinarian to care for her at the Miami Seaquarium; it was a nod to her region of origin, a Coast Salish greeting roughly translated as “nice day, pretty colors.” But to audiences packed into the Seaquarium, she was known only as Lolita.
In the beginning, Tokitae performed 20-minute shows multiple times per day alongside her companion, Hugo, a fellow captured southern resident orca. The whale bowl was small even for a single whale, but the pair shared the space until 1980, when Hugo was found motionless at the bottom of the pool. The young bull — 15 years old, far short of the 50 or 60 years he might have lived in the wild — was dead of a brain aneurysm after repeatedly ramming his head against the side of the tank. His body was reportedly disposed of at a Dade County landfill. Tokitae would continue to share her tank with other cetaceans, but she would never again be in the company of her own kind.
The grim details of Tokitae’s years at the Seaquarium are chronicled in Sandra Pollard’s book “A Puget Sound Orca in Captivity”: Tokitae’s body was marred by sores and abrasions from the concrete pool, and “rake” marks from the Pacific white-sided dolphins who scraped their teeth over her skin. Her favorite toy was an old wet suit — some theorized it might have reminded her of kelp. She was sunburned, with no shelter to shade her, and her eyes suffered from constant exposure to dust and UV radiation. Tokitae regularly performed with injuries — bloody teeth, abscesses, infections — and was kept on a cocktail of antibiotics and medications.
“Her [tail] flukes dragged on the floor of that tank,” Pollard said. “She was never able to fully submerge in a vertical position.”
As our knowledge of orcas grew, and our cultural perception of captivity began to shift, the calls to release Tokitae reached a new intensity. In 1995, Ken Balcomb, the pioneering marine mammal researcher who founded the Center for Whale Research and spent his life tracking the southern resident killer whale population, announced a campaign to push for Tokitae’s return to Washington state. Balcomb’s brother, Howard Garrett, formed a nonprofit organization to support this effort, eventually called Orca Network.
For several years, Garrett campaigned in Miami, “trying to drum up awareness, media, do demonstrations, write open letters to the owners — everything that I could think of,” he said. But there was never a response from the Seaquarium. County records indicated that the marine park was making around $1 million per year on Tokitae at that time, he said, “so they certainly weren’t going to listen to me.”
Others listened, though. Garrett’s efforts drew widespread public attention, rallying support from state and federal elected officials as well as a few high-profile names. “I have been deeply moved by the efforts to free Lolita,” Elton John wrote in a 1999 letter, “and wish to add my name to the campaign to return her to her home waters.”
Over Tokitae’s years at the Seaquarium, several of her trainers developed committed bonds with the orca. Marcia Henton Davis saw Tokitae for the first time in 1988 as a 22-year-old visitor to the park, where she was instantly struck by the smallness of the tank and the lethargy of the whale within. Davis stared into one of Tokitae’s eyes, “and there was just such depth there,” she said. “I kind of started crying a little bit, just seeing her like that. … I knew right at that moment, ‘I need to be with this animal.’” She was hired by the Seaquarium a few months later.
Tokitae was gentle and patient, and often exhibited protective instincts, Davis said. She recalled one afternoon when she was joking around with another trainer and tossed a squid tentacle that stuck to his wet suit. In response, the trainer scooped Davis up as if he might drop her into the pool — and Tokitae came racing over from the opposite side of the tank, furiously bobbing her head in disapproval. “She thought that was aggression,” Davis said. “She got upset by that.” The trainers were careful to never play around in that way again.
Davis left the Seaquarium in 1995, after new management took over and implemented policies that she found irresponsible, including limiting the time that trainers could interact with Tokitae. “I cried for months about that,” she said. “But I couldn’t effect any change.”
Sarah Onnen, who joined the Seaquarium in 2001, spent more than 20 years working with the orca. At first, Onnen felt challenged by Tokitae, who had a stubborn streak and a sense of humor that sometimes frustrated her trainers. She had an impeccable memory, Onnen said, and would needle specific trainers with certain behavioral quirks. For years, Tokitae made a particular sound when she saw Onnen, an exhale like air hissing from a flat tire, which Onnen interpreted as something akin to a mocking snort. When Onnen learned to laugh at this — when she began to embrace Tokitae’s expressiveness — their connection deepened, she said.
She felt a responsibility to protect that relationship, Onnen said, because she knew the orca had lost so many others. Trainers would build rapport with her, and then leave for other jobs or to raise families. “It wasn’t their fault,” Onnen said, “but I saw people come and go. It always kind of broke my heart. So I kind of vowed to myself that I wouldn’t leave her.”
Everything about Tokitae’s existence — her routines, her relationships, her environment — was defined by humans; she’d grown familiar with the hum of motorized pumps, the blare of loudspeakers and screaming crowds. But when the stadium emptied at night, she would often vocalize in the quiet, calling out
In our collective imagination, the stories of individual orcas transform our understanding of what these animals feel and experience — as with Tilikum, the SeaWorld orca who was involved in the deaths of three people and became the subject of the 2013 documentary “Blackfish.” The impact of his story was significant: In the year after “Blackfish” was released, SeaWorld’s attendance plummeted, and in 2016, the company announced an end to its orca breeding program.
For years, Tokitae’s experience was less visible but no less illuminating, said Lori Marino, president of the Whale Sanctuary Project and a neuroscientist who has studied cetacean brains for 35 years. Structurally, an orca has a larger portion of its brain devoted to higher thinking than a human does, Marino said; Tokitae’s mind had afforded her extraordinary resilience, an unknowable inner life that allowed her to persist for so long in such an impoverished environment.
“She was coping in a way that she had worked out for herself,” Marino said. “There was a narrative there, a story she told herself about what was happening to her, and that allowed her to live.”
It is possible to fully understand the contrast between Tokitae’s life in the whale bowl and the one she would have lived in the wild, because her family is the most studied population of whales on the planet, with a complete annual census dating back 47 years.
All orcas around the world are the same species, the largest of the dolphin family, but they are divided into distinct populations that do not interbreed and rarely interact with one another. Tokitae’s family of southern resident orcas range from Northern California to southeastern Alaska, with their core habitat in the Salish Sea. They are known for their close-knit social culture, said Michael Weiss, research director at the Center for Whale Research on San Juan Island. The three matrilineal pods of southern resident whales — J pod, K pod and L pod — each communicate in their own specific dialect, and all are exceptionally bonded to their mothers.
“No one leaves their mom’s group for their whole life, not the males nor the females,” Weiss said. Female southern residents have been known to live as long as 90 or 100 years; males, on the other hand, are more than eight times as likely to die the year after their mother does.
Some say Tokitae might be the daughter of the oldest living orca, an L pod matriarch known as Ocean Sun, but this has never been confirmed. At nearly 100 years old, Ocean Sun is the only southern resident who was alive at the time of the captures — the only one who would remember Tokitae.
For creatures of such intelligence and social sophistication, the trauma of the capture era was profound and enduring. After the last of the young whales were pulled from the water in 1970, the fractured family of southern residents made their way back out to sea without the seven juveniles who were taken and the four whales who had died — three babies and a mother who drowned in the nets. By the time whale captures in the United States ended in 1976, roughly a third of the southern residents had been culled, Weiss said. Before the capture era, their population was more than 100 whales; as of the census in July, there were 75. Since 2005, the southern residents have been listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act.
The whales have faced new threats in more recent years, particularly the precipitous decline of their primary prey, the Chinook salmon, said Deborah Giles, science and research director at the conservation research organization Wild Orca. In the absence of sufficient salmon, other dangers to the orcas — the stress of boat traffic, the infiltration of chemical pollutants — are exacerbated, causing illness, death and pregnancy loss.
In 2018, the plight of the southern residents drew worldwide attention when an orca known as Tahlequah gave birth to a female calf who died less than an hour later. The grieving mother carried the body of her newborn for 17 days, sometimes in her mouth, sometimes draped over her head or back. Her vigil made global headlines, and many expressed astonishment to see an animal perform such an undeniable ritual of mourning.
Two years later, Tahlequah stunned onlookers again after giving birth to a healthy male calf. Giles was on the water with Tahlequah’s pod near San Juan Island on the afternoon when the new calf was first spotted, and suddenly the two other southern resident pods came charging in from the west, scores of whales soaring up and out of the water as they swam at top speed. Every member of the population was in attendance.
It was a “superpod,” a cultural phenomenon unique to southern residents, in which all three pods of whales come together in one group. Superpods have anecdotally been observed to occur around occasions of social significance to the animals — such as the birth or death of an orca — and this one was the first to occur in the area in several years.
“There’s not many animal populations, period, let alone other marine mammals … where they’re all socializing with one another, and they all know each other,” Weiss said.
For hours, Giles remembered, the whales breached and vocalized, slapping their fins and flukes against the water. The timing of the gathering, so closely following the arrival of the new calf, was especially striking.
“It feels metaphysical to me,” Giles said. “How did they hear? How did they know?”
To the people of the Lummi Nation, orcas are considered to be people, sacred kin of the tribe; they are called qwe’lhol’mechen
, meaning “our relations under the waves.” But for decades, the Lummi did not know that dozens of southern resident orcas had been trapped and sold.
“We weren’t asked, in 1970, what our feelings were about the state of Washington issuing a permit to capture our relatives,” Morris said. “We didn’t hear about the captures. We didn’t know about them. We didn’t know about her until 2017.”
When a member of the Lummi business council learned of Tokitae, the tribe’s Sovereignty and Treaty Protection Office began to investigate her story. What it discovered felt painfully resonant, Morris said, echoing the abduction of Native children who were sent to American boarding schools and stripped of their families, culture and language. The council soon passed a unanimous motion, declaring their sacred obligation to bring Tokitae — Sk’aliCh’ehl-tenaut to the Lummi — back to the Salish Sea. This task was bestowed upon Morris by Lummi Hereditary Chief Tsi’li’xw Bill James before his death in 2020. He described the world as an interconnected web of life; bringing the orca home would mend the strand broken by her capture, he told Morris, and allow a new cycle of healing to begin.
But there was little precedent for such an endeavor, so Morris and fellow tribal elder Ellie Kinley approached Charles Vinick, executive director of the Whale Sanctuary Project, for guidance. Vinick prepared a proposed operation plan with Jeffrey Foster, a marine mammal expert who once collected orcas from the wild for SeaWorld before pivoting toward conservation, and his wife, Katy Foster. Numerous leading experts contributed to their work, and Vinick and Jeffrey Foster drew on their own experience as part of the team involved in the 1998 relocation of Keiko, the star of “Free Willy,” from the Oregon Coast Aquarium to a sea pen in Iceland.
The involvement of the Lummi breathed new life into the campaign to free Tokitae, but it wasn’t until August 2021 that her release began to feel truly possible. That month, the Dolphin Co. — the largest marine park operator in Latin America, led by CEO Eduardo Albor — announced its intent to buy the Miami Seaquarium. Soon after, the U.S. Agriculture Department issued a scathing inspection report of Tokitae’s living conditions, revealing that the orca had been fed rotting fish, given insufficient quantities of food and forced to perform with injuries.
When Albor purchased the Seaquarium in March 2022, Tokitae was officially retired from performance. The stadium itself had been condemned — only Tokitae’s caregivers were allowed within — which meant Albor found himself the new owner of an orca who could not be displayed to the public, contained at an unusable facility with an outdated, rapidly deteriorating infrastructure. He was a businessman with a liability.
He was also a father who had made a promise, years before, when he took his young adult daughter to watch Tokitae’s show. His daughter was distressed to see the whale in that environment, he said: “She told me, ‘If you ever buy the park, promise you are going to look for a better place for Lolita.’”
Meanwhile, Vinick and Morris had joined forces with marine conservationist Pritam Singh, who had created a nonprofit — ultimately known as Friends of Toki — to advocate for higher-quality care for Tokitae, and announced that he would personally fund $1 million toward that goal. Soon after Albor bought the Seaquarium, Vinick and Singh traveled to Miami, prepared to hold a news conference calling for independent veterinarians to assess Tokitae. But Albor made it clear that a media frenzy would not set the tone for a productive conversation — so Vinick and Singh canceled their plans and agreed to talk privately instead. “That showed great credibility,” Albor said.
The resulting partnership was unprecedented: It was the first time a marine park owner had agreed to work with people who might be considered activists, Vinick said. “What was this collaboration based on? It was based on identifying an area of mutual agreement, on being able to respect one another, and speak with one another as collaborators and even partners, without worrying about all the things we disagree about.”
At first, Friends of Toki was focused on improving Tokitae’s daily care; there wasn’t enough funding to consider a permanent relocation to a sanctuary in the Pacific Northwest.
Then, in early January 2023, Vinick spoke with Jim Irsay, the billionaire owner of the NFL’s Indianapolis Colts. He wanted to see the whale.
Irsay had watched Tokitae perform long ago, as a 12-year-old boy, and he’d never forgotten her. He’d always been enamored with animals, and whales in particular; to him, their staggering power and benevolence felt something like God. He told Vinick that he was interested in helping take Tokitae back to her native waters.
Later that month, when Irsay walked up to Tokitae’s tank, she came to the edge of the pool to greet him. She lifted her head out of the water and met his gaze. Then she “baptized” him, as Vinick recalled, spraying a jet of water that soaked Irsay’s expensive suit. He laughed, instantly besotted. “I’m in,” he told Vinick, right then. “I’m in.” Irsay was every bit as dazzled by her as he’d been decades before, but now he was seeing something more.
“I know how it feels — to be held captive,” he said recently, during a video call from his home in Indianapolis. He wore a dark cowboy hat and sunglasses, and lit a cigarette as he spoke. He grew up in an abusive, alcoholic household, he said, in a family scarred by tragedy. “My sister died in a car crash when I was 11. My brother died from birth defects.” For much of his adult life, Irsay struggled with alcoholism and opioid addiction; he finally achieved sobriety many years ago, he said, because he didn’t want to die the way his father and grandfather had.
This is where she lived
When he looked at Tokitae, he said, he understood what it meant to be the last one left, to be grieving, to be trapped.
So he knew what he had to do for her. “My goal, my job, whatever you want to call it, is to get her to freedom,” he said. “She told me that she wanted to be free. I mean, she told me. I’m telling you. She looked me in the eye.”
The announcement was made at a news conference in Miami in March: Within 18 to 24 months, Tokitae would leave the Miami Seaquarium at last, bound for a netted sea sanctuary in the Salish Sea, where she would receive supportive care for the rest of her life. Irsay was prepared to spend upward of $20 million to fund her journey and remaining years.
The plan was not universally embraced. Some of Tokitae’s former trainers and veterinarians said that the stress of the move could kill her, that she couldn’t tolerate such radical change so late in her life. Some marine scientists were initially concerned about the potential impact of Tokitae’s presence in the Salish Sea.
There were also misunderstandings by some members of the public who were envisioning a more idealistic outcome. Tokitae would not be set free into the wild; it simply wasn’t possible. She was a captive whale with chronic infections, potentially carrying harmful pathogens. The southern residents were an endangered, fragile population that were already facing significant threats. Tokitae would live out her life supported by caregivers and veterinarians, her sea pen in a location where scientists were confident that nothing — not a drift of her exhalation, not the sound of her calls — could reach her family.
To Tokitae’s team, there was no question that her life would be monumentally better there. But what had been taken from her could never be fully given back.
The first time Jeffrey Foster saw Tokitae, when he arrived at the Miami Seaquarium as part of the Friends of Toki care team in September 2022, she seemed listless, barely moving beneath the surface of the pool.
“I watched her sitting in a corner, staring at a wall. She rocked back and forth,” Foster said. “It was one of the saddest things I’ve ever seen.”
She nearly died that October, after developing a serious pulmonary infection, but under the care of her team of veterinarians, she swiftly recovered. By early 2023, with her trainers offering constant engagement, she began to show more energy and vitality than she had in many months. Instead of retreating to a corner of the tank when trainers weren’t working with her, “she started swimming a lot more on her own,” said Mike Partica, her lead trainer. “She had people there to interact with her whenever she wanted.”
Partica came to know her idiosyncrasies, the meaning of her gestures and expressions. She was gentle and good-natured, but also direct in her communication, he said: A vigorous head bob meant “don’t do that.” If you touched her when she didn’t want contact, her eyes would widen. She loved company in proximity, so Partica and the other trainers spent a lot of time floating in the water by her side.
Over those months, Foster said, Tokitae became “just a totally different animal.” She would play with Li’i, the pacific white-sided dolphin who had shared her tank with her for 40 years, the two often racing through the water. “You could never imagine an animal that size swimming that fast in a pool like that,” Foster said. “You could tell that she was responding very well to what we were trying to do.”
To prepare for Tokitae’s eventual transport to the Pacific Northwest, the care team began to introduce her to the stretcher that would be used to lift her from her tank. The team hung it over the side of the pool, then lowered it farther and farther into the water. They offered her food beside it and taught her to line up against it.
Former trainer Marcia Henton Davis had joined the care team, after contacting Friends of Toki to ask if she could be of service once more to the whale she’d loved for so long. That time was filled with a sense of hope and possibility, she said, and she wanted Tokitae to feel it, too. “Every day,” she said, “I’d tell her, ‘You’re going home.’”
In June, Raynell Morris made her seventh trip to Miami to visit and pray with Tokitae. The orca had never seemed so exuberant, slapping her flukes against the water as Morris stood by the pool in her ceremonial regalia and played her drum. “Sk’aliCh’ehl-tenaut, you have such a strong spirit!” Morris exclaimed. When she sang her prayers, the orca called in response, each voice answering the other.
When Tokitae began to show signs of illness early in the week of Aug. 14, her caregivers were not alarmed. She was moving her body in ways that indicated discomfort, refusing to eat her usual volume of fish, but she’d had episodes of gastrointestinal distress before. Her veterinary team — including Tom Reidarson, a prominent expert in the medical care of cetaceans, and James McBain, considered a pioneer in the field of marine mammal veterinary medicine — had been encouraged by Tokitae’s recent return to health.
But her appetite and energy level dwindled over the following days, until it became clear that an urgent intervention was needed. The team members formulated a plan to drop the water in her tank Friday morning, to allow them to take a blood sample and administer fluids and medication. It was the same protocol they’d followed months before, and there was no doubt in anyone’s mind that she would recover once again.
“We weren’t cavalier,” Reidarson said, “but we knew how to take care of her.”
Their treatment was already underway Aug. 18, when an initial blood test revealed a rising level of creatinine, a sign that her kidneys were failing. Reidarson was distressed, he said, but the team was resolute. “There was no giving up,” he said. “It was as simple as that.”
Tokitae’s condition deteriorated as hours passed. She regurgitated bile and kept listing to the side, seemingly disoriented. Divers rotated in and out of the 55-degree pool, trying to hold her upright. Then, as they tried to raise the water level in the tank, there came a harrowing moment when the orca abruptly rolled over and sank toward the bottom. Foster dove down to lift her, along with several other trainers who labored to guide Tokitae back toward the surface.
Partica directed the staff to start draining the water again. A crane lowered Tokitae’s stretcher, and the team guided her into it. They were in the midst of providing more fluids and medications when her respiration grew erratic, the minutes stretching longer and longer between breaths. Partica and trainer Kyra Wadsworth were perched along the sides of the stretcher, and Wadsworth looked at him. “Are we losing her?” she asked. “Yes,” he said. Several members of the team had started to cry.
Sarah Onnen was cradling Tokitae’s head in her hands. Over her long tenure at the Seaquarium, she’d been present when other cetaceans had died; she knew they often experienced involuntary spasms as their bodies shut down, blindly thrashing or biting. She realized that Tokitae could hurt her without intending to, but Onnen stayed as close as she could, gently caressing the orca’s face.
Partica kept moving, climbing toward Tokitae’s head, waving his fingers near her eye and searching for a response. Submerged beside Tokitae, Foster did the same, and he saw her focus on him briefly. Then her gaze softened and drifted, and she closed her eyes. Her final breath left her like a whisper: Shhhhh.
In the water near Tokitae’s pectoral fin, Davis pressed her hand flat against the orca’s side, the place where Davis had always loved to feel that massive heart pumping against her palm. She felt it beat for the last time. In the moment that followed, a low roll of thunder echoed through the stadium — “as if the sky received her,” she would recall later — and a soft rain began to fall.
A stillness fell over Tokitae. She lay cradled by the stretcher that was always meant to lift her away from there, toward the escape she’d finally been granted, but she had already found her own.
Within hours of Tokitae’s death, her body was transported to the University of Georgia for a necropsy. The invasive work meant she would need to be cremated, a development that surprised and disturbed the Lummi, who do not cremate their dead and said they had not been consulted. Morris, who had flown to Miami to bring the orca’s body home to her tribe for burial, returned to Washington to wait for the weeks-long process to be completed.
In Facebook groups and online forums, thousands of strangers around the world demanded to know what happened, as if searching for one discernible cause, a precise target to blame. In October, the necropsy results would show that Tokitae had died of a convergence of chronic illnesses: pneumonia, inflammation, heart disease and ultimately kidney failure.
This offered a more holistic understanding of her death, the outcome of damage accumulated over many years, until a tipping point was reached. It was a warning and a galvanizing truth: Help came too late for Tokitae, but there were others who still had time.
In September, Marcia Henton Davis stood on a bluff on San Juan Island, overlooking the Salish Sea. She’d once planned to move there with her husband, to be a permanent part of Tokitae’s care team after her relocation to the sea pen; now Davis had come to see Tokitae’s home for the first time, the place of her birth and burial.
“I thought she was going to change the world by coming here alive,” Davis said.
Instead, a sense of urgency had followed Tokitae’s death, the channeling of communal grief into action. Across the world, people were sharing information about the effort to breach four dams along the Snake River to help restore the population of Chinook salmon. They were making donations to marine conservation organizations. They were writing letters to SeaWorld imploring the marine park to release Corky, a wild-born northern resident orca captured in 1969, to a sanctuary off the coast of British Columbia.
“So Toki is going to change the world,” Davis said. “I just wish she didn’t have to die to do that. But sometimes we humans have to get punched in the face before we take the right action. So maybe this is how she makes a difference.”
Tokitae’s circumstances were unique, Vinick said, but her account is both groundbreaking and instructive. An impenetrable wall has historically stood between marine parks and those who are branded as environmentalists — but Tokitae transcended that divide.
“She brought us together in a way that we would not, and have not, come together otherwise,” Vinick said. He hopes such unity will be possible again: The Whale Sanctuary Project is preparing to open a 100-acre ocean sanctuary in Nova Scotia as soon as next year, and it’s already eyeing animals that might be candidates for placement there.
Vinick looks toward where Tokitae's sea pen would have been.
Vinick feels this work is now bound to Tokitae’s legacy, that her story demonstrates the need to act on behalf of the more than 3,000 cetaceans who remain in captivity worldwide, including approximately 53 orcas. The Whale Sanctuary Project’s ultimate goal is for the breeding of captive whales and dolphins to cease, and for the last of them to live out their lives in sanctuaries where they can explore larger spaces, interact with other animals, feel the currents of the tide.
“We cannot move them all. But if we can demonstrate a way to create a sanctuary, others will do the same — and collectively, we’ll be able to do it,” Vinick said. “Is it enough? No. But it’s probably the best we can do. Did we do enough for Toki? No. But we did the best that we could.”
They began arriving on the afternoon of Aug. 17. Members of all three pods of southern resident orcas made their way into the Haro Strait off the western shore of San Juan Island, dozens of dark bodies surfacing together beneath scattered clouds and the distant Olympic Mountains. It was technically a “near-superpod” — a few of the whales would not arrive in the Salish Sea until days later — and the awed onlookers who watched the orcas greeting and socializing with one another that day did not yet realize the synchronicity, that the gathering was taking place in Tokitae’s final hours. Three thousand miles apart from the last survivor of their stolen family, the southern residents came together in the waters where she was born, filling the air with the sound of their voices.
By the following day, when Tokitae died, only a small group of L pod whales remained near the southern shore of the island. Deborah Giles was on the water with them in her research boat, and she watched Ocean Sun — the matriarch who is possibly Tokitae’s mother — as she distanced herself from the others, almost as if she were seeking a moment alone.
“Whether they somehow know, even across space or distance, that something is happening, a birth or that an animal is dying … I can’t possibly say,” Giles said. “What I can say is these animals are smarter than I think we know.” She doesn’t gravitate toward the mystical, she said, but neither does she dismiss a sense of possibility. Against the limits of our own understanding, we can only wonder at theirs.
Tokitae came home on a chartered jet late in the afternoon on Sept. 20, in a custom-made white cedar box holding her cremated remains, the lid painted with the precise outline of her tail flukes. Before the flight, Morris had brushed the box with sacred cedar boughs, a ritual meant to cleanse away negative energy.
There was still an undercurrent of sorrow, but Morris also felt relief — joy, even — that her relative was finally where she belonged. Of all the orcas who have died in captivity, Tokitae was the first to be returned to an Indigenous tribe; she would be the first to be buried in her rightful home. The Lummi believed Tokitae’s spirit had already joined the ancestors, but she would not be whole until her remains were put back in the sea.
“That cultural work in finishing this sacred obligation is everything, to give her the honor and respect that she has earned and deserves as a sacred being,” Morris said, as she sat by the Salish Sea at Cherry Point, a hallowed site near the Lummi reservation where she often comes to pray. “Only then, the healing can begin.”
On the morning of Sept. 23, Morris arrived before dawn at the funeral home in Bellingham where the whale’s ashes were awaiting the final transport. She draped the box in a black-and-white burial shroud printed with the orca’s Indigenous name, laid cedar boughs atop it and whispered softly: “This is your day.”
They left as dawn was breaking, seven members of the Lummi Nation aboard the patrol boat carrying the box of ashes, escorted at a distance by the Coast Guard. The boat paused offshore near the Lummi Stommish Grounds, where other members of the tribe were gathered to pray and bid the orca farewell. At a Lummi burial ceremony, Morris said, it is traditional for pallbearers to lift a casket and rotate it in a circle; it is a gesture of honor, symbolizing a person’s final movement upon the earth. The mourners on the shoreline watched as the boat spun slowly on its axis, one last full turn for Sk’aliCh’ehl-tenaut.
The sun was rising through a cloud-dappled sky as they continued on their way. They traveled for an hour before arriving at the site they had chosen, then stopped and spoke the prayers to welcome their relative home.
When their work was done, Morris unlocked the cremation box and the seven people aboard the boat took turns scooping nearly 300 pounds of fine, dove-gray ash into the sea. They watched as the final essence of the whale vanished in the swells, borne out at last to open water.
Links:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLQHU_cxXJw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2Xsao88lvk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oc6esyvU6Ms
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_c7wH1ti5lo
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This is the story of Raynell Morris. This is a rectified chart.
A Lummi matriarch tells her story
From time in the White House to fighting for the Sacred Sea, Raynell Morris has experienced much.
Natasha Brennan
May 1, 2022
Raynell Morris, an enrolled Lummi Tribal citizen and vice president of the Sacred Lands Conservancy, leads the Bob Family singers in a prayer for the repatriation of southern resident orca Sk’aliCh’elh-tenaut — who has lived and performed at the Miami Seaquarium for over 50 years — to her home waters of the Salish Sea at a gathering Sunday, March 20, 2022, at the sacred site of Cherry Point in Whatcom County, Wash. (Photo by The Bellingham Herald)
This profile is one of a series on the contributions, cultural knowledge and strength of Native peoples in celebration of Washington state’s Indigenous peoples year-round.
Natasha Brennan
Raynell Morris, an enrolled Lummi Tribal citizen, is known for her activism as vice president of the Sacred Lands Conservancy. She advocated against the coal port at Cherry Point and to bring home southern resident orca Sk’aliCh’elh-tenaut from the Miami Seaquarium.
In her neighborhood, she’s the watchful matriarch and to her beloved grandchildren, she’s a dance party host and “Grandma Sparkles.” It’s little-known that Squil-le-he-le (her traditional name) was the first Native staffer appointed to the White House.
Morris’ long journey to serve with President Bill Clinton started at Bellingham High School, where she was the first Native cheerleader — a first of many firsts. She took on an internship at the National Bank of Commerce in Bellingham.
She was born in May 1956 and raised as the middle of five siblings in a Catholic home on the Lummi Reservation in Whatcom County.
From a young age, she learned about tribal sovereignty, with both of her parents, Raphael and Ramona, active members of the community who served on tribal council. Her family, including her elder sister, participated in the early days of the tribal self-governance movement, the battle with the IRS to ensure fishing income was non-taxable, the establishment of the first Lummi Nation school and Tribal gaming.
Her parents worked to give each of their children two traditional names — one to honor their Yakama heritage and one their Lummi heritage. Morris’ Yakama name is Commusni and her Lummi name is Squil-le-he-le.
Time with family
As a child, she was very close with her maternal grandparents, who lived in the Lummi river village. She’d often spend weekends with them, her grandfather providing as a fish buyer and otter and mink fur trader.
“(My grandmother) was always very proper. Her house was spotless, she was a good homemaker. That part of grandma shines through and I’m told that I resemble that,” Morris said, with every hair in place and her nail polish matching her necklace and earrings — made by her sister, Raydean Finkbonner.
On her father’s side, her paternal grandmother was chief of the Lakahahmen Band in Mission, British Columbia. Her father and uncles came to Lummi as teenagers.
“We have that kind of cross-border lineage,” she said. “And my brother has our family tree that goes back nine generations.”
After graduating from Bellingham High School in 1974, she married her high school sweetheart. The pair were both from low-income families, she said, and prioritized traveling before settling down to have their son seven years later.
“I wanted a large family, but Creator had a different idea,” Morris said. “I found out I had cervical cancer when I was pregnant.”
She had nine failed procedures to remove the cancer cells. After delivering, she took six weeks to heal before a full hysterectomy.
“He was the only one I could have. It was really hard. I was just so grateful for him,” she said, her voice shaking.
Her son Kyle was her miracle baby in many ways — the only child she could have, but also the one who saved her life. She was 25 years old and with no symptoms. Had she not been pregnant, the cancer would likely not been found early enough, she reflected.
“What if we waited for one more big trip? One more big vacation? I wouldn’t have a choice,” she said.
Banking, finance expertise
By the time her son was 14, Morris and her first husband had separated and she was steadily climbing up the ranks at the bank, which changed hands and names multiple times over the years. She’d worked as a branch manager, loan officer and took all the American Institute of Banking courses. She ended her tenure as vice president of Security Pacific Bank before its divestment to Bank of America.
In 1996, she was hired by the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians to form their Economic Development Corporation in Lynnwood. She helped to establish a revolving $5 million loan fund and increase access to credit and lending to Native-owned businesses.
She’d been there a short while before attending a conference with the economic development director of the Bureau of Indian Affairs as the keynote speaker.
“She was visiting with a couple of (Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians) board members and said, ‘Keep your eye out. We’re looking for a Native with banking finance experience if you know anybody.’ And they all looked at each other and said, ‘We just hired her’.”
The Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians worked out a deal — they’d share her. Beginning in March of 1997, she had two-week rotations, working in Lynwood for the Tribes and in D.C. for the Department of the Interior as an expert consultant for the Office of Economic Development.
“I did it for five months and was about to crack,” Morris said.
By September, she had an offer to stay in D.C. to work as the associate director of Intergovernmental Affairs for President Clinton. As the first Native American appointed to the White House, she aided in coordinating briefings between 26 agencies, grant announcements and developing Native policies and outreach with federally recognized Tribes.
In 1999, she was facilitating a trip for the Director of Intergovernmental Affairs Lynne Cutler to speak at the National Congress of American Indians conference in South Carolina.
“My job was to get tribal leaders in front of her to talk about their issues. That’s where I met my husband,” she said.
By October, she left D.C. to join her husband in Albuquerque, where she took on positions at Tiller Research to develop the economic reference “Tiller’s Guide to Indian Country,” advocated for low-income and minority groups at Project Change Fair Lending Center and served as the executive director of the Native American Lending Group.
As a lobbyist, she helped to enact the first and strongest state anti-predatory mortgage lending law in the nation – one of her proudest accomplishments.
Moving home, battling cancer
In May 2007, by then separated, Morris chose to move home to Bellingham when her father needed brain surgery. She worked for the Lummi Commercial Company as the general manager, responsible for operations at the Lummi Mini Mart, Fisherman’s Cove and Dock, Lummi Tobacco Company and the Silver Reef Casino.
“I pulled over and interviewed on the road — I had my little white Bichon buddy, driving my U-haul, towing my Lexus — on Wednesday. I got home to Lummi Friday night. I was at the hospital that next morning with my father and started work for the Lummi Commercial Company board on Wednesday,” she said.
While working as the general manager, Morris learned her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer.
“Me and my sisters were with her in the operating waiting room. The surgeon came in to talk to her and said, ‘Ramona, is there anything else we need to know before we begin?’ And she said, ‘Yes.’ She points at all of us girls. ‘I want them all to get their mammograms before I go in. Especially this one.’ She points at me,’” Morris said.
“My mom was having surgery in December. I got my test results in January. I had breast cancer. I wouldn’t have gone if she didn’t make me,” she said.
She had a double mastectomy and had to leave the position as general manager.
“I needed to heal. I needed to recover. We were going from my dad having brain surgery, a couple years later my mom having breast cancer, then me having breast cancer. A double mastectomy is a really big recovery. So almost for a full year I was dealing with my health,” she said.
Years later, Morris’ sister Raydean Finkbonner accompanied her to Chameleon Ink in Bellingham where tattoo artist Shelly James covered the scars left by her double mastectomy and an unsuccessful bilateral transplant reconstruction.
“Breast cancer is just barbaric. The healing is very, very painful. And reconstruction didn’t go well. All my lady parts had been removed by surgery. It was really hard to feel feminine. I couldn’t look at myself. And that’s when I figured maybe if I did really pretty, colorful tattoos, it’ll make me feel more like a woman again. So when I don’t have my clothes on and I see myself in a mirror, I don’t see the scars. I see the art,” she said.
The design is two hummingbirds, each holding an end of a pink ribbon.
“When we’re recovering, the hummingbirds come into our spirit,” Morris said.
The design was created with input from her sister.
“She’s been through a lot of medical issues, so she has dealt with a lot of that and I’ve helped her through some if it, but she’s always taken it on by herself. She’s highly independent. She confronts everything head-on,” Finkbonner said
Service to Tribe
Morris became senior policy advisor for the Lummi Indian Business Council’s Office of the Treasurer in January 2011.
“The first time I had worn real clothes again was when I went in to report to her,” she said.
She moved on to be the chief of staff and policy analyst for the chairman that May.
By May 2013, she continued her work in the chairman’s office as the Sovereignty and Treaty Protection Office director and worked on the Salish Sea Campaign to Fulfill Our Xa Xalh Xechnging (sacred obligation in Xwlemi Chosen) to defeat the proposed coal port at Cherry Point.
“We developed strategies to inform counsel, strategies to inform community, Tribal and non-Tribal. We defeated that project and our treaty rights were upheld. That was probably our biggest feather in our cap,” she said.
When the Sovereignty and Treaty Protection Office closed in March 2020, Morris channeled her passion for saving the Salish Sea as vice president of the nonprofit Sacred Lands Conservancy, known as Sacred Sea.
While in her position at the Sovereignty and Treaty Protection Office, she had become aware of a southern resident orca that had been captured in 1970 and taken to Miami to perform. The story of Sk’aliCh’elh-tenaut (pronounced SKAH-lee-CHUKH-tah-NOT) — known by her stage name of Lolita and as Tokitae by others — as she was later renamed by the Tribe, resonated with her.
“When I watched the video and learned that it was a commercial, couple-a-hundred dollar permit from the state of Washington, that they didn’t have our consent to do that, and that she’s still there — that was compelling. I’m a mom and a grandma,” she said. “I went and sat with (late hereditary chief Bill Tsi’li’xw James) and talked to him about it,” she said.
James, her spiritual guide, told her that orca are called “qw’e lh’ol’ me chen,” meaning “our relations who live under the water.”
“That was it,” she said. “I knew we had to bring her home.”
Now, she leads community prayers and prayers of her own at Cherry Point. She wants to continue to bring her grandchildren Kinsley, 9, Landon, 3, Soren, 2 and Isabel, 5.
“I bring them to Cherry Point and tell the about the ancient ones who still walk here,” she said. “We’re advocating for their future. For them to be able to know our ways.”
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Goddess Bless, Rad