A Woman’s Place Is In The Revolution. These Powerful Images From Around The World & Throughout History Prove It

Young girl standing next to “A Woman’s place is in the Revolution” sign. (Photo-Rayna Fahey)

A woman’s place is in the revolution, and it turns out, it always has been. Although many of us are keenly aware that women and minorities have not always enjoyed equal rights, and in many areas still do not have them, there are numerous examples throughout history and around the globe showing women pushing through the societal barriers to pave the way for others.

A recent thread on Twitter, created by user @_Xas_, based in New Zealand, started getting shared quite widely and had other social media users adding to the initial string of images. “Just a wee thread of women who truly don’t have any time for your sh*t” was the status, under which were a number of incredible and iconic images of women being the literal and physical resistance in protests and demonstrations around the world.

Capitalizing on the popularity of the Women’s Marches held in Washington D.C, around the rest of the US and even in other parts of the world, it’s easy to see why so many other Twitter users were inspired to share and add their own images to the thread. Shaun King, Senior justice writer for the New York Daily News, also shared the thread with his 648,000 followers which no doubt added to the viral nature of this post.

We were so inspired by the images and how Twitter users from all walks of life were tweeting about sharing this with their friends, family and kids, that we wanted to create our own post with images of women who have been resisting for many, many years. There are some familiar and iconic images and names: Ruby Bridges, Katherine Switzer, Bree Newsome, Leshia Evans, and events such as the protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline that have been covered well in mainstream media and on social media.

But there are also women in countries where you would not expect to see them on the frontlines of resistance movements, as dictated by stereotypical mainstream newsmedia narratives. The reason we wanted to share these images, giving a brief explanation of the event and giving credit to the photographer, was to encourage and inspire those of us today who are perhaps feeling a bit of fatigue and despair at political and social events happening in our world.

Whether it was the results of Brexit or the US presidential election, or the ongoing conflict in Syria and the Middle East, there is plenty to lose heart over. This is where the powerful images of women taking a stand for causes that matter most to their lives can encourage us to keep going.

These women are young, old and every age in between. They are women of color, and from a range of different backgrounds. Some stand up to the opposition with fierce determination and force, and others stand in defiance, strength and peace. The women who resist are not a monolith, they are from all walks of life. This collection of images we put together are by NO means exhaustive, and we could easily do 2 or 3 more posts in this vein. But allow this to be simply a glimpse of what women have been doing for many years. Long live women of the revolution!

Tess Asplund, Bolange, Sweden, 2016 confronting demonstrators during a neo-nazi rally. (Photo-David Lagerlof)
Unidentified woman, Santiago, Chile, 2016 staring down riot police in defiance (Photo-Carlos Vera Mancilla)
Unidentified woman, London Poll Tax Riot, March 1990 (Photo-Duncan Philips)
12 year old Ahed Tamimi faces off against IDF soldiers in the town of AnNabi Saleh in the West Bank, November 28, 2012 (Photo taken form Youtube video-Omar Daraghmeh)
Ruby Bridges being accompanied by US Marshals from William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans, Louisiana, 1960. She was the first black child to de-segregate the school. (Photo-AP File photo)
Marina Ginestà, Barcelona, Spanish Civil War (photo-Juan Guzmán, 1936)
Yolanda Oqueli of the community resistance group LaPuya standing up to the military police & hired thugs of a mining company in Guatemala (Photo-Guatemalan Human Rights Commission)
A Turkish riot policeman uses tear gas on a lady dressed in a red dress, as people protest against the destruction of trees in a park brought about by a pedestrian project, in Taksim Square in central Istanbul May 28, 2013. (Photo-Osman Orsal, Reuters)
Palestinian girl walking to school past Israeli guards, West Bank near Jerusalem, March, 2010 (Photo-Ammar Awad, Reuters)
Amanda Polchies of the Elsipogtog First Nation, Oct, 2013 Rexton, New Brunswick, Canada protesting fracking trucks (Photo-Ossie Michelin)
Gloria Richardson, Cambridge, Maryland, United States, 1963 who was nicknamed “Glorious Gloria” and “the Second Harriet Tubman,” organized the Cambridge Nonviolent Action Committee in the segregated city of Cambridge, Maryland.(Photo- Fred Ward)
Danuta Danielsson, Vaxjo, Sweden, 1985 hitting a neo-nazi with her bag during a rally (Photo-Hans Runesson)
Leshia Evans, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, July, 2016 in an anti-police brutality demonstration (Photo-Jonathan Bachman, Reuters)
Elizabeth Eckford, Little Rock Central High School, Arkansas, 1957 walking to school among a group od aggressive white women. (Photo-Will Counts/Indiana University Archive)
Filipino nuns putting themselves between soldiers and civilians during the EDSA Revolution, Manila 1986 (Photo by Pete Reyes, courtesy of the Manila Times)
Mothers Of The Disappeared rally held for the 30,000 people who disappeared between 1976-1983 military dictatorship. Policeman blocks “Madres de Plaza de Mayo” member, Buenos Aires, Argentina, November 2002 since 1977 (Photo-Daniel Garcia, AFP)
Two women kissing, Marseille – France, 2012, during a protest against gay marriage. The shocked look on the faces of the women in the background is priceless (Photo-GERARD JULIEN, AFP)
Woman holds up mirror to riot police in Ukraine, December 2013 (Photo-Sergei Chuzavkov, AP)
Unidentified woman during Democracy demonstration, Tiananmen Square, China, June, 1989 (AP Photo/Jeff Widener)
Kathrine Switzer being pulled by male marathon officials at the 1967 Boston Marathon, April. (Photo-Paul Connell/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)
Bernadette Devlin, Battle of the Bogside 1969, Independent Unity MP for Mid-Ulster youngest MP in UK. (Photo-Victor Patterson)
Iranian women face off against riot police in Tehran, 2009 outside British Embassy (Photo-Teresa Kopec)
Unidentified activist during protest against the government in Dhaka, Bangladesh September 2012 (Photo-REUTERS/Andrew Biraj)
1st grader Zea faces down preacher after Supreme Court gay marriage ruling, July 2015, Columbus, OHIO (Photo-Mara Gruber)
Saffiyah Khan, Birmingham, England, 2016 shows she is not afraid of an English Defense League thug (Photo-Joe Giddens, PA)
X’Oyep women of the Zapatista movement trying to expulse soldiers from the Chenalhó’s displaced people camp, Chiapas, México January 1998. (Photo-Pedro Valtierra, La Jornada)
Unidentified Ethiopian-Israeli woman, Tel Aviv – May 2016 staring down riot police (Photo-MIDDLE EAST RISING)
Bahraini police arrest human rights activist & mother Zainab Al-Khawaja for protesting against Gov’t in October 2012. (Photo-EPA/MAZEN MAHDI)
Jan Rose Kasmir, Washington DC, October 1967 (photo-Marc Riboud)
Pretoria High School girls (lead by Zulaiykha Patel) protesting their school’s racist hair policies. South Africa, August 2016.
Jasmin Golubovska, Skopje, Macedonia, 2016 puts on lipstick in the reflection of a riot policeman’s shield. (Photo-Ognen Teofilovski, Reuters)
Environmental protestors opposing the Roe 8 highway extension, Perth Western Australia Feb 2017 (Photo-Michael Wilson)
Jewish settler defies Israeli security officials during clashes that erupted when authorities deprived the West Bank settlement of Amona, east of the Palestinian city of Ramallah, 2007 (photo Oded Balilty)
Unidentified woman, Minsk, Belarus, March, 2017 during an opposition rally in defiance of the former Soviet republic’s authoritarian government, led by President Alexander Lukashenko (Photo-Sergei Grits, AP)
Unidentified woman at anti-government march, April 2015, Seoul, South Korea. (Photo-Chung Sung-Jun, Getty Image)
Unidentified woman, protest against proposed labor reforms in Paris, June 2016 (Photo-Alain Jocard, AFP/Getty Images)
Bree Newsome, Columbia SC USA, 2015 risking arrest and climbing up to take down the Confederate flag outside a government building (Photo – Adam Anderson)
A student protester stands on a barrier in Parliament Square on December 9, 2010 in London, England. Parliament was voting on whether to implement the coalition Government’s proposals to increase university tuition fees in England from 3,290 GBP to 9,000 GBP. (Oli Scarff/Getty Images)
Image of young Scottish girl holding flag in Greenock, Scotland next to two British nationalists, 2015, around the time of the referendum vote (Photo credit-WingsoverScotland.com)
Native Standing Rock Sioux Tribe woman facing down police during protests at the Dakota Access Pipeline, 2016. (Photo-Ryan Vizzions)

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