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    Bosom Buddies: A Celebration of Female Friendships throughout History
    Bosom Buddies: A Celebration of Female Friendships throughout History
    Bosom Buddies: A Celebration of Female Friendships throughout History
    Ebook169 pages52 minutes

    Bosom Buddies: A Celebration of Female Friendships throughout History

    By Violet Zhang and Sally Nixon

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    About this ebook

    Featuring 25 remarkable and inspiring female friendships throughout history, Bosom Buddies is an illustrated celebration of these empowering relationships between women. From the formidable Trung Sisters and friendly rivals Katherine Mansfield and Virginia Woolf to powerhouse partners Oprah Winfrey and Gayle King, writer Violet Zhang captures the love, challenges, encouragement, and adulation of female friendships across time. With winsome illustrations from illustrator Sally Nixon, Bosom Buddies is a tribute to gal pals everywhere.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherChronicle Books Digital
    Release dateAug 14, 2018
    ISBN9781452168456
    Bosom Buddies: A Celebration of Female Friendships throughout History
    Author

    Violet Zhang

    Violet Zhang is a writer and editor living in Brooklyn, New York.

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      Book preview

      Bosom Buddies - Violet Zhang

      160

      Introduction

      The term bosom buddies, meaning best friends, originated in the sixteenth century. The bosom was, at the time, considered a symbol of thoughtfulness and deep feeling. So in turn, a bosom buddy (or a bosom friend, as they said back then) was someone with whom you could share all your most private thoughts; someone you were very attached to emotionally. It’s this kind of intimacy that you’ll see in the friendships featured in this book.

      From entertainment and sports to politics and activism, every woman in this book is the (s)hero of her own story, and worthy of her own praise. But, despite being spectacular as individuals, these leading ladies didn’t do it alone; they had their besties beside them. Angela Davis and Toni Morrison merged literature and activism. Venus and Serena Williams took over the tennis world and crushed stereotypes about the game. Together, Qiu Jin and Xu Zihua, members of the Chinese literati during the Qing dynasty, rebelled against an unjust government. In times of stress and confusion, these women turned to one another for inspiration, advice, or simply comfort. They motivated each other to be better in their work, and stuck with one another through ups and downs, successes and failures.

      Of course, these friendships weren’t all rainbows and sunshine and butterflies. (What friendship is?!) Like any serious relationship, there was often tension and conflict—and in some cases even rivalry. Tennis idols Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert were best friends in their personal lives, but they destroyed each other on the court. Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield connected on their writing, but were also deeply envious of one another. Zora Neale Hurston and Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings respected each other as writers, but their relationship was tainted by the racial prejudices of their time. This book explores those complicated aspects of friendship, on top of all the feel-good lovey stuff.

      So get ready for hearty laughs with Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, a journey to the White House with Michelle Obama and Valerie Jarrett, and some serious political upheaval realness with the Trung sisters. The BFFs in this book prove that when smart, talented, motivated, and charismatic women get together, they are unstoppable.

      And when you’re finished reading this book, pass it on to the special women in your own life. Be inspired to unlock the power of your own bosom friendships.

      40 C.E.

      Trung Sisters TRUNG TRAC & TRUNG NHI

      In the first century C.E., Vietnam was ruled by the Chinese Han dynasty. The Chinese government forced local leaders to report to the government and made Vietnamese people assimilate to Chinese culture: the Vietnamese were forced to adopt the Chinese language, beliefs in Daoism and Confucianism, Chinese customs, and even Chinese clothing.

      The Trung sisters, Trung Trac and Trung Nhi, rebelled against the Chinese overlords in 40 C.E. and led what would be the first major Vietnamese rebellion against Chinese rule. The older sister, Trung Trac, was married to a prominent local leader who was plotting a resistance against the Chinese when he was found out and subsequently assassinated. Despite the clear danger involved, Trung Trac decided to continue what her husband had started, and her little sister Trung Nhi joined her. The legend goes that in order to prove themselves and receive support from their community, the Trung sisters killed a tiger and wrote a proclamation of independence on the tiger’s skin.

      With local leaders and other armed sympathizers, the sisters marched through northern Vietnam, driving the Chinese away. Their army included many women—thirty-six of whom were generals, including the sisters’ own mother. They eventually gained sixty-five citadels and established an independent Vietnamese kingdom located between southern China and present-day Hue, a city in central Vietnam. The sisters declared themselves the queens of this new state.

      Sadly, their time as royalty didn’t last long. After about three years, it became apparent that the resistance was unsustainable. They had few supplies left, they weren’t getting a lot of support from the locals, and they didn’t have the trained military personnel that they needed to keep fighting. And yet, despite all of this, the revolution persisted; the sisters carried on. They never formally surrendered, even when it was clear after multiple lost battles that the Chinese were going to win. Many accounts say that rather than admitting defeat to their enemy, the sisters chose instead to commit suicide by drowning in a river.

      Today, there are

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