Eileen herself has been quoted as saying that “Between memory and reality there are awkward discrepancies.” This might well apply to the reality of her own life as a Shanghainese woman who wrote feminist works about...
History
We introduce the awesome, badass Asian women of history. This is where we remember that we’ve always been here, making the world happen.
Guest Writer
Komako Kimura: the Japanese suffragist on the streets of New York
The Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich wrote that “well-behaved women seldom make history.” About sixty years before Ulrich penned her words, on October 23, 1915, women marched en masse in New York...
Portia Chan
Choi Eun-hee : the Legendary Actress Coveted by North and South Korea Alike
Often our lives are not our own to lead. Fortune dictates where we are born, when, and to whom. Mistakes and mishaps, large and small, buffet us as we make our way. Sometimes we make history, but always, it also makes...
April Editors
Qiu Jin: the Feminist Rebel of 20th Century China
On the 15th of July 1907, the Chinese imperial Qing government publicly beheaded a 31-year old woman in her home village of Shanyin, near Shaoxing. It was probably a hot and humid day, which makes her last words more...
Patsy Takemoto Mink: the First Asian-American US Congresswoman
It is 2018. We might think we have come far in our struggles against sexism, racism, and oppression, but we still have a very long way to go. Just seventy years ago, in 1948, a graduate of the University of Hawaii...
Miyoshi Umeki, the Oscar Winning Actress, Remains Unique After 60 Years
…The memory of all that. No, no, they can’t take that away from me… —George and Ira Gershwin, “They Can’t Take That Away from Me,” (1937) In Hollywood leading male and leading female roles were historically written...
Rose Chan: Charity Queen of Striptease
April Magazine presents a series that highlights the badass Asian women of history. If you have a heroine in mind, tell us in the comments. One does not simply tick the checkboxes and walk into the land of Badassery...
Gayatri Rajapatni: The Queen Mother of the Majapahit Empire
The tropical climate of Indonesia eats away at parchment and paper and wood and even stone, erasing our memory of ancestors and the world they built. Even so, some names come to us across the centuries. One of those...
Ching Shih: the Pirate Queen who Ruled the South China Sea
Ching Shih, or as she was named, Shi Xianggu, has fascinated moviemakers and writers and artists for a while. In Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End (2007) she was presented as Mistress Ching, one of the nine...
Amdaeng Muen: the fighter for love, life, and women’s rights in Thailand
Amdaeng Muen was a peasant girl in 19th century Thailand. At a time when only men were allowed an education in the buddhist temples and women were supposed to stick to housework, Muen wanted to learn to read and write...
Corazon Aquino: the First Female President who won Philippine people’s hearts
It’s a hot day in Manila. 30 degrees. The tropical sun beats down despite the overcast. Around one in the afternoon an airplane lands on the tarmac. It comes to a stop. Soldiers enter it. A man in a white suit...
Queen Seondeok: the first Korean queen who proved that women rule
April Magazine presents a bi-weekly series that highlights the badass Asian women of history. If you have a heroine in mind, tell us in the comments. There’s a popular Western idea that Asian countries are...