Voices from the Past: Strong Women Speak Out in New History Book

Morro Bay author Vicki Leon explores the ancient Roman city of Pompeii. | Photo: Stan Thompson.

For centuries, women were expected to behave, mind their manners and keep their mouths shut. Yet that fact didnt stop them from speaking out, Morro Bay author Vicki Leon said.

They talked a lot, she said, and their words were preserved on paper, papyrus and clay tablets.

Leon shares the wit and wisdom of 170 historical heroines in her new book, Uppity Women Speak Their Minds. Published by MJF Books in 2015, its the latest in her Uppity Women series of popular history books dedicated to celebrating rebellious belles, daring dames and headstrong heroines through the ages.

Shell speak about her experiences as an author, researcher and traveler on March 30 at the Morro Bay Library.

Leon, 73, first got interested in womens history in 1973 while taking a western civilization class at Sacramento City College. Invited to spend a semester studying the ancient world, Leon told her professor, I'd really like to learn more about women in ancient Greece. I don't want it to be about mythological women, and I don't want it to be about literary women. I want it to be about flesh-and-blood women.

My professor ruefully shook my head, saying, I dont think youre going to find much of anything, Vicki, she recalled, which made her even more determined to show him up and prove something to all those authors who dismissed or ignored long-ago women.

I said, Well, will you let me try?

So began the lengthy process of ferreting out facts about real-life leading ladies, which Leon compared to searching for thousands of little needles in a huge, huge haystack.

Vicki Leon profiles more than 200 heroines, hussies, and harpies in her book Uppity Women of the Renaissance.

Finally, while digging through Harvard University Presss Loeb Classical Library, she found references to two sets of ancient athletes: Spartan royal Cynisca, a champion chariot racer and horse breeder who triumphed at two Olympic games in the fourth century B.C., and Hedea, Tryphosa and Dionysia, a trio of sisters from Asia Minor who ran, raced war chariots and competed in music competitions across the Roman Empire in the first century A.D.

These discoveries were mind-blowing for me, still a student struggling to learn how to be a successful historical detective, and writing, still fighting to find her voice -- and her audience, Leon recalled. Rather than take an overly serious, overtly scholarly approach, she resolved to write about these fantastic gals with irreverence, even humor, with more of the unblinking, bulldog spirit they displayed.

The first book in the series, Uppity Women of Ancient Greece, was published in 1989, followed by Uppity Women of Ancient Times in 1995.

Leon has showcased the lives of women during the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, colonial times and the Victorian era in successive Uppity Women books, and contributed a few titles to the Outrageous Women series for younger readers. (Shes also delved into the curious customs of the past in books such as The Joy of Sexus: Lust, Love & Longing in the Ancient World and How to Mellify a Corpse: And Other Human Stories of Ancient Science & Superstition.)

I've spent many years of my life writing about what women did and what they accomplished, but not nearly as much time writing about what they thought and what they said, and what they might have said had they been able to say it, Leon acknowledged.

Uppity Women Speak Their Minds gives voice to multiple generations of fierce females.

From girls to grannies, queens to slaves, all shared key qualities that made them worth knowing, and worth hearing about as trailblazers and role models, Leon writes in the introduction to the book. No matter their status, these women spoke their minds, often at great personal cost.

Leons subjects range from the well-known -- think Catherine the Great, Sacagawea and Sojourner Truth -- to the relatively obscure. Few readers may recognize the name of Lady Trieu, a young freedom fighter from third century Vietnam, but its impossible not to be moved by her defiant words: I want to ride the tempest, tame the waves, kill the sharks. I will not resign myself to the usual lot of women who bow their heads and become housewives. Or concubines.

Or consider this powerful statement by abolitionist and political activist Jessie Benton Fr mont, wife of 19th-century military officer, explorer and politician John C. Fr mont: I am like a deeply built ship -- I drive best under a strong wind.

The compact, pocket-sized volume is divided into seven sections, including Brains and Brass, Risk-takers and Roamers and Warriors for a Rainbow of Rights. Each quote comes with biographical details and anecdotes that, Leon explained, lend context and flavor to the womens words.

Leon said the historical figures featured in Uppity Women Speak Their Minds have plenty in common with modern women. They're flexible. They're vital. They have senses of humor. They have clear senses of self-worth, she said.

In celebration of Womens History Month, Leon recently chatted with Artbound about Uppity Women Speak Out.

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What is an uppity woman ? How would you define that term?

All these women had certain qualities in common. They didn't buy into what others said that women should do... They were women who took stock of what they were born with and they just knew how to leverage the pluses they were born with.

They knew how to roll with the punches; they were very flexible women. They must have had quite a bit of vitality because they often outlived one or two husbands... They clearly had senses of humor in order to have made sense of their worlds and just not given up.

They had lively, inquiring minds. And they had just a whole lot of guts.

Who do you c

LINK:	https://www.kcet.org/shows/artbound/uppity-women-speak-out-vicki-leon...
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