unholy curses that are stamped into my heart

Sincerity is given from birth. And only the experience of life .. burns it away without a trace.

poetry-siir ©

La sinceridad se da desde el nacimiento. Y solo la experiencia de la vida… la quema sin dejar rastro.

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edward minoff / alfred emile stevens / sally storch / milt kobayashi / warren chang / malcolm t. liepke

*clears throat*

there were actually tons of women and girls on board ships during the age of sail and it’s really cool history that no one!!! ever!!! talks about!!! 

like captains of merchant ships used to bring their wives and children on board for long voyages all the time (and of course there were plenty of well known female pirate ship captains, and women cross-dressing as men, and prostitutes that more people seem to know of)

there’s actually a really amazing story of one woman, Mary Ann Patten who was the wife of the captain of this ship called Neptune’s Car. Captain Patten decided that he wanted her onboard with him and she was super about this and learned all about navigation and sailing and everything. so this one voyage they’re going around the tip of south america when her husband gets sick and is bed ridden with a fever right as the ship sails into one of the worst storms any of the crew had ever seen and it looks like they might lose the ship or have to stop

so you know who takes over??? the first mate??? 

no.

MARY

she took over the whole crew and sailed that ship through freezing water and pack ice and had it coasting smoothly into the san francisco harbour like it was nothing. and she did this all at age 19. while pregnant.

at one point the first mate tried to get the crew to mutiny against her but they all rallied with her and told him to shut the heck up because she obv knew what she was doing.

there’s a great book about women in the age of sail called ‘female tars’ by suzanne stark that i cannot recommend enough and has way more amazing stories and insights about the myriad roles women and girls played aboard ship during that time period.

Female Tars: Women Aboard Ship in the Age of Sail by Suzanne Stark

Hen Frigates: Passion and Peril, Nineteenth-Century Women at Sea by Joan Druett

Hen Frigates: Wives of Merchant Captains Under Sail by Joan Druett

Iron Men, Wooden Women: Gender and Seafaring in the Atlantic World, 1700-1920 edited by Margaret S. Creighton and Lisa Norling

Petticoat Whalers: Whaling Wives at Sea, 1820-1920 by Joan Druett

Sea Queens: Women Pirates Around the World by Jane Yolen

Seafaring Women: Pirate Queens, Female Stowaways and Sailors’ Wives by David Cordingly

The Captain’s Best Mate: The Journal of Mary Chipman Lawrence on the Whaler Addison, 1856-1860 by Mary Chipman Lawrence

a few femme reads for y’all….

valencia by michelle tea

dirty river:  a queer femme of color dreaming her way home by leah lakshmi piepzna-samarasinha

femmes of power:  exploding queer femininites by ulrika dahl & del lagrace volcano

visible:  a femmethoogy, volume one by jennifer clare burke

persistance all ways butch & femme by ivan e. coyote & zena sharman

brazen femme:  queering femininity by chloë brushwood rose & anna camilleri

femme:  feminists, lesbians, & bad girls by laura harris & elizabeth crocker

whipping girl:  a transsexual woman on sexism & the scapegoating of femininity by julia serano