History & Biography
From monarchs to military heroes, notorious to unsung, we’ll feature biographies and research on women who history labelled dangerous.
Want to shine the spotlight on a dangerous woman from times gone past? See our submissions page for contribution guidelines.
What turned a Cornish country girl into a dangerous woman?
Deirdre Chapman reflects on the life and character of her mother-in-law Valda – writer in her own right and wife to poet Christopher Grieve, aka Hugh MacDiarmid.
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Fake Woman and Dangerous Mystic
Marguerite Porete was accused of being a heretic and even a ‘pseudo’ woman by the Inquisition and executed in the early fourteenth century. Laura Moncion explores the implications of her gender for judgements made about her.
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Sea Sharp’s poem presents the ambiguous figure of Calamity Jane, using the ambiguity in the form of the poetry to mimic the ambiguity in Jane’s identity.
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Catriona McAra and Lesley McAra write about their ancestor Charlotte Marsh, a feminist and suffragette who was imprisoned for her beliefs. They ask themselves what her legacy is in their academic and professional practice.
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Laura Sjoberg and Caron Gentry argue that gender stereotypes obscure the actual dangerousness of politically violent women.
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Photography, Surrealism, and Beyond
By reviewing the story of Lee Miller’s life, Patricia Allmer explores how the woman artist occupies a permanently impermanent position, constantly discovered and then re-discovered.
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Branded a threat to communism
Kelly Hignett highlights the story of Dagmar Šimková, imprisoned in Czechoslovakia for alleged anti-communist activities in the 1950s and 1960s.
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Where dangerous women swim
Victoria Leslie explores the connection between women and water–physical and metaphorical–in myth, history and the writing of Virginia Woolf.
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…of Williamina Fleming
On the birth date of Scottish astronomer Williamina Fleming, we present a poem in memoriam from Gerda Stevenson.
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