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not to be serious on a sunday night but this post in particular kinda haunts me

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In certain areas of Nafarroa, women used to wear two-layered skirts, and would use the upper one to cover their head and torso in case of rain or snow.

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Women should start inviting other women over for tea again. Yes, tea. Yes, to your house. If you don't like tea, put lemonade in a teapot. Nothing too pretentious. A convenient excuse to stay for a 20 minute pit stop (as long as it takes to drink a cup of tea) and then be on your way. You're not hosting a party, it's just a tea. If you get to know your neighbors you could do this almost on the daily

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Do You Want to go out with Me, Fido? Alfred Stevens. 1859.

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The love story of Alice B. Toklas and Gertrude Stein is one of the most enduring and influential partnerships in literary and artistic history. Their relationship spanned nearly four decades, from their meeting in Paris in 1907 until Stein’s death in 1946.

Read more of their enduring love story here...

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Of course the attacker was a degenerate subhuman male. Another one was caught physically hitting a girl. When will women match this energy and start attacking them back? Use your pepper sprays, bear mace, kick them in their tiny nuts, beat them up in groups, etc. This is one of the reasons why all men and boys should be on a watchlist and the criminal ones should be beat by women then put in cages like they belong.

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Exploring Edinburgh Castle 🏰

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Chinese Porcelain - Suzan Visser

Dutch, b. 1967 -

Oil on panel , 20 x 23 cm.

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check out the mourning doves’ new single “hooOOOO hoo hoo hoo” if you get the chance. sound of the summer.

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Lady with basket filled with fruits - Louis-Marie Autissier

A strong-willed matriarch, Eugénie Pastré (1776–1862) took over her husband’s business after his death. Thanks to her keen insight and determination, she built a veritable empire.

The lady of the house

Born in 1776 to a family of traders, Eugénie Gautier married Jean Pastré in 1799. Jean, nearly twenty years her senior, had settled in Marseille, where he traded wool and owned several washhouses. Their marriage was harmonious, and the couple had six children. Jean relied heavily on Eugénie’s resolve and reliability. Eugénie inherited her strong-willed nature from her mother, who claimed she had known how to control her husband from the very first day of marriage.

Jean later chose to diversify his ventures, moving into banking and arms trading. He managed to amass a modest fortune but died in 1821 after the closing of one of his banking establishments. In his will, he explicitly stated that he did not want his sons to pursue a business career. But Eugénie had other ideas.

A visionary business woman

Eugénie took the reins of her husband’s enterprise, investing her personal fortune to keep the business afloat. By all accounts, she was a prudent, determined, and visionary entrepreneur. She was among the first to recognize the commercial potential of Egypt. In 1825, she opened a trading post there and sent one of her sons to establish connections. The business soon became one of the most prominent and well-regarded establishments in Alexandria.

Her savvy leadership restored the family’s fortune and solidified the Pastré name on the international stage. She actively encouraged the diversification of their operations into trade, industry, and finance. By the time her sons came of age, they inherited a thriving business.

Yet Eugénie was far from ready to step aside. The matriarch retained significant influence for several more years, claiming that she could direct her sons "like the five fingers of her hand.”

In 1836, Eugénie acquired several parcels of land that would later become the heart of the Campagne Pastré, a vast family estate that is now open to the public. She died in 1862 at the age of 86.

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Further reading:

Bellamy Olivier, La folie Pastré

Richard Eliane, “Eugénie Pastré”,  Marseillaises, vingt-six siècles d'histoire

Thiveau Jean-Marie, "Un marché en éruption : Alexandrie (1850-1880)"

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La justice française mesdames messieurs

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When I was like 15 or 16 I helped conduct an intergenerational LGBT meeting. I presented alongside a millennial nonbinary bisexual woman to a room of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and two spirit elders. The presentation was to inform these elders on what the new generations of local LGBT people are doing, and how we're identifying, and with what words. We ran through a bunch of sexualities and trans and nonbinary gender identities and "queer" identity.

These people who were all 50+ were trying to keep up with the times, but their bodies visibly tensed when we started using the word "queer." They started whispering to each other, becoming less engaged. I remember one flamboyant guy started rolling his eyes and lightly heckling. At the end we took questions, and they started telling me and my millennial mentor about the word queer.

Most of them had been called it derogatorily, like a slur. Many of them were called that while being beaten–that was a story that many of the gay men spoke up about. An elderly lesbian for angry at the presentation and told us that she would never be queer because she's not unusual. One gay man had a homophobic bully that terrorized him as a boy, called him a queer and they got in a fight. The gay man grabbed a brick and hit the guy's head–he ended up dying and the gay man was convicted of manslaughter. He was crying while he admitted all this, telling me that that's how serious the word "queer" is to the older generations. I think it's one of the largest reasons why we are disconnected from our elders.

After the meeting I felt awful. I couldn't stop thinking about how they were talking about not liking what the community is becoming, but back then I was too young to fully grasp it. My mentor assured me that progress takes time, and they will eventually do the right thing and come around to using the proper pronouns, and accepting of "queerness". But I wasn't so sure. Whenever I hear the word queer, I think of all the people that we alienate.

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this might sound stupid but I can’t help but believe that the new wave of “birth control is actually horrible for your body, you need to get off it immediately” misinformation from influencers and the ‘natural cycle tracking’ apps suddenly being advertised is a sneaky underhanded way of causing more unplanned pregnancies that people now cannot abort. now is possibly the worst time ever to turn towards ‘natural family planning’