Good afternoon everyone,

I’m back! How are you doing, are you alright? I hope everything is great and that you enjoyed two week’s of Saxey’s editorship. If you’re missing it already, don’t worry! Novellas and short stories abound here at lightningbook:

https://lightningbook.wordpress.com/fiction-by-e-saxey/

I was on holiday by the sea, and also I read Sympathy by Olivia Sudjic which gave me 66% of the idea for today’s Feminist Friday. You’d enjoy Sympathy, I think, definitely check it out if you’d like something fun and creepy to read as the winter approaches.

Anyway, here’s our first Fem Fri hero for today! Kathleen Drew was a Lancashire scientist whose pioneering work in seaweed headed off at the pass a famine and the collapse of an industry. She didn’t live to see the immense impact of her work, or the immense regard in which she would be held in Japan where she is honoured to this day:

The Japanese began cultivating nori in the 1600s. Due to a change in the farming methods, and after a series of typhoons in 1948, the seaweed bed was decimated and since next to nothing was known about the life cycle of seaweeds, no one knew how to grow new replacement plants. The nori industry tanked. In the same year however, Drew-Baker published a landmark paper that saved Japan’s nori farmers, put sushi on tables worldwide, and paved the way for international seaweed cultivation. […] In Japan, Kathleen Drew-Baker has become known as the ‘Mother of the Sea‘, and each year on 14th April there is a celebration of her work. A monument to her was erected in 1963 at the Sumiyoshi shrine in Uto, Kumamoto, Japan.

https://mmwonderwomen.wordpress.com/2018/03/07/kathleen-mary-drew-baker/

My favourite of all of the last fortnight’s links was about the Sardinian woman who dives for sea silk, and in a tribute to that, here’s a piece about the ama divers of Japan – women who free dive for pearls. I like how the key to this is not so much being good at anything technical as being good at (1) making decisions and (2) making the most of your time:

Regular accidents have become a way of life, shark encounters aren’t unheard of and there’s always that biting cold. […] The key, she explained, is not how long the Ama can hold their breath for, but how fast they can hunt. Beneath the waves, sometimes for a gut-wrenching two minutes at a time, the Ama need to be decisive and efficient.

http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20160829-the-last-mermaids-of-japan

Finally, I’m reading The Pillow Book, which is making me think about my favourite character in The Tale of Genji, the Akashi Lady. LOOK AWAY NOW if you don’t want spoilers for Japan’s premier medieval epic. The Akashi Lady lived by the sea and was therefore seen as a bit of a bumpkin and was aware that she was lower status than the city court ladies. Needless to say, she had the last laugh by becoming the Empress Mother. There aren’t any great links about her online, so instead you can enjoy this painted screen showing her interacting with Genji while gentlewomen snicker:

Happy weekend, everyone!

A xx.