Good afternoon,

Allow me to introduce women and their diaries! You may know that I am extremely into reading other people’s diaries and am currently reading an entry a day of Pepys, so I’m excited to have some ideas for diaries to read that have less of some dude eyeing up ladies in church.

Firstly, Altas Obscura delivering as usual with this article on a Chinese script that only women could read or write. It’s fading out of use so if you know it and would like to write a guest Fem Friday in Nüshu, let me know and we can keep the dream alive:

Stemming from the southwestern Hunan Province county of Jiangyong, a small group of women in the 19th and 20th centuries practiced this special script that no man could read or write. The writing system allowed these women to keep autobiographies, write poetry and stories, and communicate with “sworn sisters,” bonds between women who were not biologically related. The tradition of Nüshu is slowly vanishing, but at one time gave the women of Shanjiangxu freedom to express themselves.   

http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/nushu-chinese-script-women

Here’s diarist Alice Dunbar-Nelson! She did not enjoy taking second place, or anything less than first place it seems. Similarly to the “sworn sisters” in the Nüshu link, she had a supportive group of women and activists around her, which must have helped in her often difficult life:

This rare and often absorbing diary contains many accounts of Dunbar-Nelson playing supporting roles and hating it. Whether in the delegation to the White House, a decision-making session on the paper she coedited for a time with her third husband, Robert Nelson, or in one of her furies at having been placed too low on the roster of speakers at a political rally, Dunbar-Nelson steams - and occasionally curses a blue streak - at being expected to defer to men she deems less talented than herself. Anger animates some of the most vivid writing in this diary, including some pungent, unforgiving character sketches.

http://www.nytimes.com/1985/04/14/books/she-was-hard-to-impress.html

And on the topic of secret languages, Anne Lister invented one of her own so she could enjoy writing about her wife and girlfriends in the 1700s without anyone else knowing about it. She was also a heavy hitter who did not care what people thought of her:

When she took on local coal-mining interests, and opened her own pit in direct competition with the macho-men of Halifax, effigies of herself and her wife Ann Walker were burnt in the town. Money and class had allowed her to escape too much trouble up till then, but the moment Ann Lister stopped living like a landed, if eccentric, gentlewoman, and starting living like a man – competing openly for wealth, – her sexuality was brutally used against her. Gentleman Jack, they called her. It is to her credit that she did not give up.

http://www.jeanettewinterson.com/journalism/about-anne-lister/

Happy Friday,

Alex.