Why would she do anything like that? Well, Mr. Foley had beaten her up as well as mistreated her in various ways, which is never a good idea as some women are reputed to be very vindictive as well as quite devious ....
Why would she do anything like that? Well, Mr. Foley had beaten her up as well as mistreated her in various ways, which is never a good idea as some women are reputed to be very vindictive as well as quite devious ....
Yes, Anne Boleyn (ca. 1501-1536) did become the Queen of England (1533-1536), but as we know, she didn't STAY queen as she was jailed and beheaded for a variety of not very likely "crimes".
Sitting in Tower, she must have felt abandoned and let down by her husband, Henry VIII. She may have found some solace in the love and comfort she had from her loyal ladies-in-waiting, but it didn't save her from the expert executioner, her husband had brought over to rid himself of this woman whom he had adored for years, but whom he now found burdensome.
When her head fell, her ladies-in-waiting swept it in a cloth of some sort, but then it disappeared with the rest of her dead body. There have been many suggestions as to where she was buried, but no certainty: Where is her dead body, and could it be because it has sort of disappeared that she seems to have been robbed not only of her life, but of her "eternal rest"??? As it is, after death, she has turned into a very famous ghost, roaming some of the places that were of special value to her when she was alive. One of these is Blickling Hall where she was born. It has been said that her spirit may be expected to appear on May 19th, the anniversary of her execution. Some give very vivid and dramatic accounts of how her ghost comes in a carriage drawn by headless horses and driven by a headless coachman. As it that wasn't enough, people also say that her ghost is carrying her own severed head!
No, this is not supposed to be Anne, but it might have been as she has been called the "most widely travelled ghost": She simply has a way of appearing everywhere, even in modern vehicles, like e.g. trains. Very weird indeed, but it indicates an ongoing interest - and maybe even love? - of the poor, beheaded queen by the English population, that is very telling. She wasn't a typical "English rose", but her fate was touching, and people feel for her.
https://ghostcitytours.com/ghost-stories/christmas-ghosts/ghost-anne-boleyn/
https://www.hauntedrooms.co.uk/anne-boleyn-ghost-sightings-pictures
Wikipedia
The Abrahamic religions find status and authority in what is considered genuine messages from "God" in writing, like e.g. The Bible: Yahweh - who started out as one of the "toyboys" of the supreme God, namely the goddess Asherah - ended up claiming to be the only true deity of the entire world. One may feel about that as one chose to, but no matter what, it's obvious that this belief has not been without its implications. However, I agree with Napoleon when he stated the importance of keeping the religion of the then post-Revolution-society survive because it stabilized the social institutions, like e.g. the class system of "rich" and "poor".
That should turn religion into the main gluing system in any society, and one must admit that it seems to play an important role in most societies - and for the same reason: It's the what keeps it all together. That said it becomes even more interesting to learn that there actually are a few societies in which religions - namely institutionalized faith systems - are of no interest whatsoever. Religious systems are seen as superstition and that makes it quite difficult for Western missionairies to do what they came for when visiting these societies. Actually, it may be impossible, and the missonairies could end up as Atheists like e.g. Daniel Everett, who went to the Piraha-tribe in the Amazonas to study and convert them.
To me it seems that he had a rather naive idea of the power of The Biblical scriptures: He thought that "The Bible should be able to speak for itself. So my daily activities among the Pirahãs were mainly linguistic, trying to figure out the language well enough to do a good translation of the New Testament." Also, he "would often talk to people about my faith and why it was important to me". The Pirahas must have been very polite as well as gentle people not to walk out on him, but he ended up realizing that he was toiling in vain as a missionary when one of the men said to him: "The Pirahãs know that you left your family and your own land to come here and live with us. We know that you do this to tell us about Jesus. You want us to live like Americans. But the Pirahãs do not want to live like Americans. We like to drink. We like more than one woman. We don’t want Jesus. But we like you. You can stay with us. But we don’t want to hear any more about Jesus. OK?" Then, referring to the previous American missionaries among them, he added, “Arlo told us about Jesus. Steve told us about Jesus. But we don’t want Jesus.” The other men present seemed to agree with him."
Little by little Daniel Everett came to question his own faith, and if he isn't a fullfledged Atheist by now, he sure is bordering on this modern kind of religious disbelief ....
Or as he put it himself: "All the doctrines and faith I had held dear were a glaring irrelevancy in this culture. They were superstition to the Pirahãs. And they began to seem more and more like superstition to me."
https://www.bentley.edu/news/9-fascinating-facts-about-dan-everett
Wikipedia
The biography of Faith Bacon (1910-1956) reads like a well-known nightmare of female ambitions turned foul with that enemy of women who rely on looks, namely old age. As a young woman, Faith was hailed as "The most beautiful American dancer" and "The most beautiful woman of the world", but she ended up a shabby "bag-lady".
Early on her ambitious mother lined her daughter up for a career based on her looks. When Faith was 13 she took her to New York as yet another part of her plans of finding rich "sugar-daddies" for her - or for both of them. As it is Faith was suspected of being a lesbian, but this rumor may have been aired by her mother in order to keep non-millionaires - and this happened before the rise of our days' billionaires - away from Faith: No hanky-panky without money or the ability to further the career of the young dancer. Faith's marriage to the lyricist Sanford Hunt Dickinson has been seen as a cover-up by some, as they never lived together. That may be as it is, as her entire life was full of lies, e.g. about her Mom, whom she had to call her "sister".
For several years, a very young Faith toiled as a chorus dancer, living on a diet of "nothing" in order to keep the body that gave her, and her mother, an outcome. However, 17 years old Faith moved to Paris, but she didn't have her breakthrough until she went back to New York three years later: She invented the "fan dance" and made a career as a nude dancer, in a performance that was seen as extremely "advanced", so to speak.
She may have had talent for e.g. acting, but didn't do much to start a new career in the movies. To me, it looks like she simply lost faith in the future, and destitute at 46 years old, she lept to her death from a window.
https://www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news/faith-bacon-the-rise-and-tragic-fall-of-nude-dancer-in-chicago/
Wikipedia
That’s a fact I came to think of when I heard that the next trend in pulp ficion is supposed to be some kind of a revival of the old ”romances”-genre. I wonder whether that means that someone like e.g. the pink-loving as well as best-selling Barbara Cartland will be having a renaissance. Well, that I doubt, but there are traits in her writings that I suspect may be revived and then presented as a new trend, as I’ve seen modern writers on several subs discussing writing something like it themselves.
Wikipedia: "Barbara Cartland (1901 – 21 May 2000) was an English writer who published both contemporary and historical romance novels, the latter set primarily during the Victorian or Edwardian period. Cartland is one of the best-selling authors worldwide of the 20th century.
Her numerous novels are not what I call "literature", but it's interesting as a social "marker": A Cartland plot was like a fixed entity of all her books: A woman, young and innocent, without any previous sexual experiences is being noticed by a RICH, noble, but most often, demure and disillusioned man who has given up on love, e.g. ”true love” as opposed to something sexual. When it comes to ideology these romances of young, virginal women gaining status in The Patriarchy by making noble and rich men fall in love with and marry them represent the opposite of what one finds in the porn-pulp that so many men love. In those there are lots of accessible women, ready to becoming a new, free notch in the belt of some man who is described as a sexual super-hero. What happens in porn - and some Western romances - would figure as a tragedy in the old romances of, e.g., Barbara Cartland.
That means that not so long ago, each of the sexes has – or had – some easy to read pulp fiction that confirmed the general belief in the sex roles of their society: Both the male and the female pulp genres gave their readers the feeling of success for their individual gender-stereotypes. As it is, I doubt that the genuine Cartland-romance is the genre that some authors believe will have a renaissance, but who knows, it may be what the woman of today want when she is in need of a dream-fix to make her go on in a misogynistic world ....
https://www.sagaegmont.com/guinness-world-record-barbara-cartland/
Wikipedia
Many non-tRumpians are desperate for the so-called "Epstein-files" to be released. The fact that that hasn't happened yet, and that America has ended up in an unfortunate Shutdown which puts a severe strain on the American people will make even more of them want to see that release as soon as possible: The obvious need to keep the files secret may be the real reason for the Shutdown. In the imagination of the, by now, quite exhausted American people the Epstein-files have been turned into the magic key to how to get rid of The Conman, tRump. They already know a lot about the allegations against him by the girls and women he presumably abused with Epstein, and they expect the files to give some information about even more pedophile or "just" sexual crimes which may get him indicted. However, we know from e.g. Ghislaine Maxwell that there also were videos, and some of these seem to have ended up in Russia. In my opinion videos must be much better evidence than lists in writing, but I may be wrong, as it's obvious that the tRump administration really, really doesn't want the files released for public scrutiny, so after all, they may be DYNAMITE!
I, for one, suspect that The Orange Menace was more than a friend and customer of Epstein. If the allegations of one of the victims, Maria Farmer, is right then his then wife, Ivana, may have been into trafficking herself for a while which also makes her husband a suspect. In my opinion there are details in the tRump-Epstein-relationship that hasn't been seen - or seen for what they are - as Maria Farmer has told of how she, Ivana and her friend, Ghislaine went out scouting for under age girls to the Epstein-trafficking-business. If that's true then it opens up to many new questions about the real nature of the friendship of tRump and Epstein.
As we know tRump definitely was a close friend of Epstein, but why did they (presumably) fall out over one of the Epstein-girls, Virginia Giuffre, when there were so many more to chose from? The way tRump has described the end of the long friendship with Epstein over her indicates that both of these men saw her as some kind of sales object, merchandise, or at least "property". To me that looks like the grandson of a German pimp, namely tRump - and his then wife, Ivana - were into sex trafficking themselves, at least for some time, and maybe just for the "fun" of committing such a crime.
The files may tell about even more grave crimes, and I for one wonder at the fate of one girl who seems to have "disappeared". What happened to her, and is she even alive today? The only way to find out may be the release of the files - or of some of the videos. However, even as I claim this release I feel that those of us who do that may be duped into focusing on something that is neither magic nor a key to much of what went on in the world of tRump and Epstein. While we focus on that a lot of events tell of an ongoing political coup that should have been stopped long ago, but which wasn't recognized as what it is ....
https://trumpfile.org/ghislaine-maxwell-says-jeffrey-epstein-recorded-trump-with-his-victims/
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/17/trump-human-trafficking-programs-cut
https://pagesix.com/2021/02/16/ira-rosens-60-minutes-book-has-stories-galore/
What nonsense! As if women only need medical attention when they are in the child-bearing age. Nothing could be more wrong - except one thing: The very idea that women always should do with medical attention. As we know that's what the infamous "Project 2025" is implying, at the same time uttering the assumption that women are some kind of "breeding machines" who willingly will give birth without any kind of medical and economic help.
Joseph Goebbels should not be someone to admire, but he sure did have an eye for propaganda, and he knew how to use his knowledge. He is not the one who invented the "Kinder-Kuche-Kirche"-ideology which was set to assign women their special role in society as it goes much further back in history. However, he - as well the Nazified German society as such - used this ideology, to suppress women.
The seeming "glorification" of women and their maternal role in society gave the suppressed gender a loophole into a kind of acceptance that in reality was more of a "noose" because they didn't have any other useful options.
These days many women have their tubes tied, not to get pregnant, because they know that in the tRumpian Hellhole of today they shall have to fend for themselves, even with little or no medical and economic attention. Those who fell for the "Kinder-Kuche-Kirche"-scam in former times may have become CEOs, etc. these days. They may still want to have children, but also they may turn their wishes for progeny into a deep love of their "furbabies". Such a family doesn't even take a husband or father ....
https://boobytrapec.blogspot.com/2025/02/women-chosing-to-have-no-babies-after.html
Wikipedia
As sex in a patriarchy is most often defined as a power struggle it's difficult to agree to Ovidie's suggestion that porn is a form of female emancipation. After all, words may have been given the power to define sexual interactions, even though the most common definitions don't hold water for a more close scrutiny: For instance, for a long time sex very often was described as "he got his way with her", as if it was all his doing. It's definitely not a definition made in Nature, but in Patriarchal societies: There are many "Mrs. Robinsons" out there, seducing whomever catches their eyes. However, somehow the idea of men as the "aggressor" is still (more or less) valid: Men are the seducers, proving their masculine superiority by getting women to sleep with them - something which they may even brag about.
Ovidie is of another opinion than the general one about the sexual roles, and, by the way, she is a French actress, movie director, writer, journalist as well as a former porn star. When entering the porn industry she was a very active feminist, and before trying out porn for herself she was sure that the female stars were subjected to all manners of suppression and degrading situations. However, she came to see that they themselves felt that they were gaining power from their work - and, after all, it is a job!!! - so she decided to try it out for herself.
She saw her porn experience as extremely interesting as a way of understanding something about the female sexuality, femininity as well as bodily expressions. Surprisingly enough in her opinion the female porn stars didn't come out as "victims", which was how they were commonly described, but as strong women made stronger through the performance of sexual acts.
To me that looks as a very limited "freedom", but I admit that sexual rights are an important part of the picture as such. As it is, I hold that freedom should be the right to do whatever one wants within the legal limits of one's society and the personal limits of each of us. That also pinpoints what's very important in any society: The ability to earn a living, to have a meaningful career and to say "NO!!!" if that's what one wants to do when one is being targeted by that maybe not all that seductive guy.
I bet that the football legends being admired by ardent fans love it at the moment, but will they go on loving - and expecting - it after their career has ended? After all, they have their private lives with partners, kids and whatever they do that has noting to do with ball games. Or put another way, what weighs the most, the fans or the privacy?
Harriet Jacobs (1894)
The brother of Harriet, John S. Jacobs, who also had escaped from slavery was involved with the abolitionists and, for instance, went on anti-slavery lecturing tours. Harriet helped him run "The Anti-Slavery Office and Reading Room" in New York. She learnt about feminist and anti-slavery ideologies, and in her book she describes how she came to a new understanding of the situation of black people: "The more my mind had become enlightened, the more difficult it was for me to consider myself an article of property." Well said and totally understandable!| https://hammondharwoodhouse.org/womens-history-month-harriet-jacobs-the-woman-in-the-attic/ | |
https://skinnerfamilypapers.com/?p=3731
https://web.english.upenn.edu/~cavitch/pdf-library/Jacobs_Incidents_1861.pdf
https://nbhistoricalsociety.org/portfolio-item/harriet-jacobs-writer/
Wikipedia
Nobody really knows what happened to Sarah Musben, who was born in Sweden in 1913 and died 13 years later. Her life must have been agony, and, according to one's beliefs, one will ask how did this happen or why. To ask "how" one must see her case as belonging to medicine, but to ask "why" one obviously sees it as part of something else, but what? She herself said that a demon took possession of her body, but do we believe in what is known as super-natural demonic possessions? Naaahhh, not really, but on the other hand: Maybe ....
However, neither way of seeing her fate gives a truly useful answer to her strange condition, which is the reason that many people don't believe it's true whereas others are convinced that it's a genuine case of demonic possession. (Also it scares people that much that they simply don't want to admit that it may be true ....).
https://youtu.be/NVuzH3zKe_c?si=xc85HqSgx_C8rfCi
As far as I can see the only medical condition which might explain something of what happened to her is Epilepsy, but only up to a point. The possibility of a demonic possession is hard to accept because we are conditioned to see hardships of this magnitude as something deserved or undeserved. In this case it goes far back in the life of a child in Sweden who can't have deserved anything like it: Her parents got so afraid of her that they had her hospitalized when she was 7 because every night at midnight her blue eyes turned black, and her body made involuntary movements.
The most striking physical change was her eyes which attained an extremely hateful expression while black. People - obviously including her parents - got afraid of her and thus shunned her. As to her death at 13 it must have been a relief to her no matter what happened to her in her short life - or didn't her demon possession not stop when she died? People at her death bed reported that after death her eyes suddenly opened, not blue, but black and sinister. What's more, all those present at her death died soon afterwards, and - lo and behold!!!! - their eyes had gone black ....
It's obvious to me that Anne Boleyn didn't believe that her husband, the king, Henry VIII, was going through with his intentions to have her executed for "adultery", "incest", etc. that she most probably didn't commit. When waiting for the executioner she kept looking for "someone" which most likely would be a messenger that Henry VIII wouldn't go through with the executioner. That means that on that fatal day, May 18, 1536, she was still hoping that she might be saved by a pardon which never came. Hoping against hope is a very special kind of torture, and she endured it in a notable fashion, actually laughing when the time schedule of the execution was botched. Of course, that laughter wasn't out of merriment, but shock at the situation where she, the Queen, was to be slaughtered by the man who had been totally besotted with her, but who now wanted to get rid of her so that he could marry his pregnant mistress, Jane Seymour: All for the male, royal heir he was so desperate for!
The day before the execution she had been told to "prepare her soul for death". Just like Marie Antoinette of France, who was sent to the guillotine on October 16, 1793, she kept her dignity, didn't fight the executioner or try to escape on the scaffold like e.g. the king's cousin, Margaret Pole. The execution of this elderly relative of the King was totally botched up and must have been a nightmare not only to her, but to the executioner. But then she and her son had resisted his changing the religion of England to be able to marry Anne Boleyn "who was going to save the Tudor-dynasty by giving him that much longed for son" so ....
Margaret Pole
Henry's desperate wish for that male heir who might save the Tudor-dynasty made him cruel and vicious. His two daughters, Mary and Elizabeth, weren't even married off at an early age as was usual with royalty, most probably because they would not save the Tudor-name, only the bloodline. If married they would still belong to the house of Tudor, but they would not keep the name alive, and that meant a lot to a new dynasty which this was.
Jane Seymour
After the execution of Anne Boleyn the king married Jane Seymour, and - lo and behold - she gave him the son he longed for: Edward who became Edward VI after his death. As to Jane Seymour she died from postnatal complications, a couple of weeks after the birth of her son, but she was the only one of Henry's many wives who received the honor of a queen's funeral, and she was buried alongside him.
Henry took for granted that he himself would have a splendid burial site, but no, he didn't so there his lies in his badly damaged coffin with a small coffin on top of it which contains one of the many dead princes and princesses of the dynasty to follow his own: The Stuarts. They were of the Tudor bloodline, but didn't represent the dynasty as such, and he would have grieved to see that this was what it all came to in the end.
Wikipedia