Women's Rights and Chairs

Stories of exceptional women seen through familiar, everyday objects

By Google Arts & Culture

Words by Anna Gerber

Grapes (2014) by Ai WeiweiOscar Niemeyer Museum

According to architect Witold Rybczynski, “The history of chairs is the history of who we are.” We know that in Ancient Egypt folding stools were used by the masses while elevated thrones were reserved for the elite.

Today, the domestic chair -- mass produced since the Industrial Revolution -- continues to be used mostly for eating, socialising, relaxing and working.

President Barack Obama sits on the famed Rosa Parks bus at the Henry Ford Museum following an event in Dearborn, Michigan, April 18, 2012. (2012-04-18)U.S. National Archives

Chairs have also had a functional and symbolic impact on women’s social history, from Rosa Parks refusing to give up her seat on a segregated bus to Clara Burton, President of the Red Cross, lowering the height of her chair to improve her posture and power.

Scroll on to learn the stories of several women who have earned their seat of power and influence.

Tea Party at Tang Court by Guxiuzhai Art WorkshopSoyim

Tea Party in Tang Dynasty

The Tang Dynasty (618 to 907), ruled by China’s first female empress Wu Zetian, was a golden era of women’s rights as seen in acts like scholars being appointed to write the biographies of celebrated women. This tea party shows women in the seats of power.

Self-Portrait (c. 1630) by Judith LeysterNational Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Judith Leyster

Judith Leyster was ​​one of the few known professional women painters of the Dutch Golden Age. By the time she died in 1660, few of her paintings were attributed to her. Not until the 19th century was her contribution to painting retrospectively and fully recognized. 

In this self-portrait, showing the artist leaning nonchalantly on the back of her chair, happily at work, Leyster makes it clear that she belongs here in the driving seat of Dutch Golden Age art.

Clara BartonGeorgia Public Broadcasting

Clara Barton

Clara Barton founded the American Red Cross in 1881. The American nurse learned about the Red Cross while in Switzerland, on a European humanitarian effort offering aid to those injured in combat. Barton served as President of the American Red Cross for 23 years.

Side ChairOriginal Source: http://www.nps.gov/museum/exhibits/clba/exb/Homelife/Historic_Furnishings/CLBA2644_chair.html

Clara Barton's Chair

Myth has it that Clara Barton requested for the back of her chair to be lowered so that she could sit commandingly upright. As President of the American Red Cross in the late 19th Century, Clara hoped a straight posture would invite her to be taken more seriously as a woman. 

Rosa Parks by Library of CongressNational Women's Hall of Fame

Rosa Parks

When Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat to a white man in racially segregated America in 1955, she inspired black leaders to organise the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Led by Martin Luther King Jr, the boycott ended with the US Supreme Court ruling on segregation as illegal. 

Congresswoman Patsy Mink by Ralph CraneLIFE Photo Collection

Patsy Mink

Patsy Mink was the first woman of colour to be elected to the US House of Representatives in 1964 and with it, the first Asian-American woman to serve in US Congress. Born in Hawaii in 1927, Mink is pictured here wearing a lei, a flower garland, worn by native Hawaiians.

Mission Specialist Kalpana Chawla sits in her launch and entry suit in the Operations and Checkout Building.NASA

Kalpana Chawla

Kalpana Chawla, Indian-born NASA mission specialist, is pictured awaiting her first Space Shuttle mission in 1997. Tragically, Chawla died six years later in the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster, when the spacecraft disintegrated upon re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere.

From her seat in the shuttle, Chawla expanded new frontiers for women of color.

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