Put on your shoes and head to the nearest museum: May 18th is International Museum Day! To celebrate, here's a list of some of the world's most renowned museums of women's history and art, focusing on everything from the history of women's political equality to feminist art. If your appetite for feminist museum material remains unsatisfied, rest assured: this is just scratching the surface. Museums centered on women's issues and historical contributions are thriving around the world, and you just need to follow your nose (or a good tour guide) to find them.
Modernity also means that some of the best “museums” of women’s work are online. The National Women's History Museum, for example, is still looking for a brick-and-mortar home in the U.S., but in the meantime you could waste time in its extensive online exhibits, which cover everything from Harriet Tubman to Women in Early American Film Various content. (Don’t say I didn’t warn you.) Further afield, the Istanbul Women’s Museum is currently hosted online while it raises funds for a physical dormitory, but you can scroll through biographies of hundreds of famous women from Istanbul history. Furthermore, brilliant parts of women's history are often hidden in larger museum spaces: the Curie Museum in Paris, for example, traces the history of the entire famous Curie family, but also contains the (thankfully sanitized) offices and experiments of Marie Curie room.
Here are 11 of the top feminist museums in the United States and around the world. Grab your passport; I have a feeling a historic holiday is coming...
1. Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, USA
If you've heard of the Sackler Center, it's likely because of one of its most famous permanent exhibitions: Judy Chicago's "The Dinner Party," a monumental installation that has contributed to the world of art, literature, and history. Influential women provide the place setting. Located within the Brooklyn Museum in New York City, the Sackler Center focuses on explicitly feminist art; its current temporary exhibitions look at activist art fighting for women's social justice. It also hosts its inaugural awards for women who are pioneers in their fields, honoring everyone from Julie Taymor to Miss Piggy.
Click here to view the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art.
2. U.S. International Women’s Air and Space Museum
As is the case with much of science, women's contributions to humanity's exploration of the skies and stars are often overlooked. (You may not know Margaret Hamilton's name, but she and her team hand -coded the entire code for NASA's Apollo missions.)
The International Women's Air and Space Museum aims to rectify this problem. The museum opened in Ohio in 1998, and while it's quite small compared to other large women's museums, it packs a punch and features Amelia Earhart and memorabilia from figures such as Bessie Coleman, a 1920s aviator and the first African-American female pilot to win the award. pilot's license).
Visit the International Women's Air and Space Museum here.
3. Vietnamese Women’s Museum, Vietnam
The Vietnamese Women's Museum in Hanoi is one of the top 25 museums in Asia and its rich content is astonishing. Its collection of more than 28,000 objects and artifacts is dedicated to the history of women in Vietnamese culture and politics. It was renovated in 2010 and now combines a range of permanent exhibitions on women's fashion and history with temporary exhibitions focusing on anthropology, modern art, folklore and pretty much anything else you want to name.
Visit the Vietnamese Women’s Museum here.
4. Kovind Museum, Denmark
The Women's Museum in Aarhus, Denmark, aims to help visitors "experience the story from a female perspective," with a special focus on children. It collects objects and oral histories from generations of Danish women, from the domestic sphere to voting activists and fighters. It only started in 1982, but it knows its content: the current range of temporary exhibitions, including a photographic series about teenage mothers around the world and a collection of short films narrated by Helen Mirren, is an excellent s work.
Check out Kovind Musset here.
5. National Museum of Women in the Arts
Back in the United States, the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C., has a prestigious reputation: it is the only museum in the world dedicated to art in all mediums created by women. From the 17th century portraitist Mary Beale to the delicate pastels of American Impressionist Mary Cassatt, all the way to their current exhibition of contemporary Iranian female photographers, the collection is truly international and genre-bending. It also houses a research library and hosts numerous events aimed at increasing the visibility and importance of female artists.
Visit the National Museum of Women in the Arts here.
6. Anna Akhmatova Museum, Russia
Anna Akhmatova is one of the most famous women in Russian history and a poet of Russia's Silver Age who survived the Stalinist reign of terror, witnessed the execution of her husband and son, and wrote about what she witnessed in a devastating way. Her old apartment in St. Petersburg is now a museum dedicated to her, combining exhibitions on her life and poetry under Stalin with collections on literary history. Even if you know little about Akhmatova, be prepared to be shocked.
Visit the Anna Akhmatova Museum here.
7. Pankhurst Centre, UK
Emmeline, Sylvia and Christabel Pankhurst were the quintessential suffragettes who led the British women's suffrage movement and were occasionally arrested as activists in the process. Their family home in Manchester is now the Pankhurst Centre, a small museum of the British suffragette movement of the early 20th century. It also doubles as a women's community center shared by domestic abuse charity Manchester Women's Aid. The museum is currently only open once a week on Thursdays, but it has announced a fundraising campaign to help keep it open daily.
View the Pankhurst Center here.
8. Sewell-Belmont House Museum, United States
The Sewell-Belmont House Museum in Washington, D.C. is essentially a pilgrimage site for those interested in the fight for women's rights in the United States. It commemorates everyone from trailblazing journalist Ida B. Wells to suffragette leader Lucy Burns, and has a powerful legacy: The house is The National Woman's Party, which agitated for women's equality, purchased it in 1921 and has been its home ever since. It contains an extensive collection of suffrage and women's rights memorabilia, the Florence Bayard Hills Feminist Library, and everything from voting cards to photographs tracing the history of the women's movement in the United States.
Visit the Sewall-Belmont House & Museum here.
9. Florence Nightingale Museum, UK
This is another museum that honors a trailblazing figure: Florence Nightingale, the Crimean War nurse who broke huge barriers to women’s medical careers in the 19th century, dramatically lowering the mortality rate in military hospitals and was a staunch advocate for women's rights to enter the workforce. In other words, a badass. The Museum of London is dedicated to a presentation of her life that is as comprehensive as it is delightful: it includes her beloved pet owl Athena, now stuffed, as well as letters, medicines and her famous lantern.
Visit the Florence Nightingale Museum here.
10. German Museum of Our Lady
The Flahn Museum in Bonn has an unusual arrangement. It actually has five studios where contemporary female artists practice. This might give you an idea of its focus, which is to raise awareness of the importance of women in art and history. Its own permanent collection includes works by the likes of Yoko Ono, and its temporary exhibitions and press often focus on women's experimental art, but it also doubles as an active cultural center, hosting awards, lectures, seminars, and even purely It's a studio for kids. Definitely worth your time.
Visit the Flahn Museum here.
11. National Susan B. Anthony House, United States
If you've studied any feminist history, you'll recognize the name Susan B. Anthony, which is why the abolitionist, suffragist, and civil rights activist's hometown is located in New York City Rochester, State, this is no surprise. It became a museum of her life. And it doesn't do things by halves: even its main fundraising project, the crocodile leather bag, is based on Anthony's own bags and her edict that "a woman must have a purse of her own...her right to individual and joint income." They The Courageous Leaders Alliance has also been formed to find new female leaders of the future.
View the National Susan B. Anthony Home here.
