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 did it mean to be a ‘dangerous woman’ in post-Independence Ireland?
Lynsey Black explores the convictions and prejudices that could lead to a woman finding herself with the heaviest of sentences in post-Independence Ireland.
Continue reading
Australia’s Unruly Pankhurst
Geraldine Fela traces the political career of Adela Pankhurst – from communist anti-conscription campaigner to a conservative who assisted with the founding of a proto-fascist political party.
Continue reading
Lilah Grace Canevaro examines how women in Homeric epic used objects and technology as a dangerous negotiation of agency within the gender constraints of their time.
Continue reading
Bridle/Bridal Mismanagement in Early Modern Drama
Through the lens of seventeenth century horsemanship, Jemima Hubberstey explores the subversive potential for a dangerous woman, like a spirited horse, to resist and destabilise the patriarchal order.
Continue reading
Columnist Mireya coaches 1950s Mexican immigrant women on dating, working and belonging
Soledad Quartucci takes us back to the southwest U.S. of the 1950s, when advice columnist Mireya was both a lifeline to first generation Mexican Americans and a danger to traditional values.
Continue reading
Elisabet Ney’s final sculpture
With her short story ‘Lady Macbeth’, Carly Brown transports us to the final years of 19th century feminist sculptor Elisabet Ney.
Continue reading
Lady Florence Dixie and the dangerous women of Scottish women’s football
Margot McCuaig pays tribute to the women throughout history who have organised and played women’s football in Scotland in the face of condescension, opposition and even legal bans.
Continue reading
Liubov Popova, Constructivism and politics as an artform
Sotiria Grek reflects on the role of women artists–with a focus on Liubov Popova–in the Russian avant-garde movement.
Continue reading
‘Heinous’ child killer or vulnerable victim of her times?
Morag Allan Campbell imagines the final days of Jessie King, who in 1889 became the last woman to be executed in Edinburgh.
Continue reading