A viral tweet about the female power embodied by Taylor Swift has inadvertently prompted an avalanche of stories about strong women throughout history, including Malala Yousafzai, Jane Austen and Virginia Woolf.
On 10 November Twitter user Nutella posed the rhetorical question: “Name a badder bitch than Taylor Swift.”
The internet took the invitation literally and by Monday the post had more than 7,000 replies.
Name a bitch badder than Taylor Swift 😍😛😤 pic.twitter.com/AkSyQBUIME
— Nutella (@xnulz) November 10, 2017
The thread quickly became a history lesson on some of the “baddest bitches” from history, ranging from women’s rights activists to heroines of ancient cultures.
Among the more famous historical figures invoked were Jane Austen and Virginia Woolf, but the light was also shone onto some unsung heroines including Jeanne de Clisson, a Bretton noblewomen who was remembered for her 13-year-long career as a pirate.
Jeanne de Clisson, murderous French aristocrat-turned-pirate who named her ship My Revenge after the French king executed her husband. She spent the next decade killing all the French crews she encountered, sparing only 1 sailor to relay her message of vengeance ☠️⚓️⚔️ https://t.co/7JGPo3qNjj
— Greg Jenner (@greg_jenner) December 1, 2017
Boudicca was a queen of the British Celtic Iceni tribe who led an uprising against the occupying forces of the Roman Empire in AD 60 or 61, and died shortly after its failure. She is sometimes considered a British folk hero
— Francesca Dobbyn (@Francesca__ah_) December 2, 2017
Mariya Vasilyevna Oktyabrskaya: her husband was killed by the Nazis in 1941 during Operation Barbarossa. She went to the Soviet gov’t and demanded to get a tank to kill Nazis. The gov’t relented and she killed Nazis with her tank. pic.twitter.com/9Iinz8ndxx
— (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻ (@shonan_naminori) December 2, 2017
zheng shi was a sex worker in Canton who was captured & wedded to a pirate lord and so quickly proved her ability to command that she took over and at one point commanded 300+ ships with 40,000 men and was so fearsome that she forced china and britain to let her peacefully retire https://t.co/uQXD8JsL1k
— Ben Shapiro Is 5'3 1/2 (@DOGGEAUX) December 2, 2017
Julie d'Aubigny was a French opera singer/swordswoman in the 1600s who killed over ten men in duels over other women and once took holy vows so she could break into a nunnery, sleep with a blonde nun, then burned the church down and escaped with herhttps://t.co/SaGN3FuELu
— ⚔ Julie d'Atmabigny (@Swordwields) December 2, 2017
Phulan Devi was a Dalit (low caste) woman born to a poor rural family in India and was later called a “feminist Robin Hood” for leading low-caste rebellions and robbing rich communities to redistribute to poor Indian communities. https://t.co/8YYYWGcYrv
— Vriddhi / ವೃದ್ಧಿ (@scaryammu) December 3, 2017
Franceska Mann, the Polish ballerina, who, while being led to the gas chamber, stole a Nazi guard’s gun, shot him dead, and started a female-led riot that gave hope to all of the prisoners of Auschwitz in the face of certain death https://t.co/s7yM6MDYT5
— Hollywood Histories (@moviehistories) December 2, 2017
Virginia Woolf: she fought the patriarchy, pioneered stream of consciousness writing, co-founded a publishing company, had a female lover, struggled with depression, and walked into a river with rocks in her pockets when she was done with life. https://t.co/zpYlEd22Pv
— Lauren Brown (@laurenalixb) December 3, 2017
Some social media users used to the tweet to pay homage to some of the powerful women within their own lives.
My grandmother who raised a half dozen kids, only one of which was her own, worked every day of her life. Could drink anyone under the table and survived breast cancer TWICE. And when her body finally gave out and she left us she was more afraid of what we would do without her. https://t.co/EPxKyXkVDb
— Richard Jensen (@RichardJensen46) December 3, 2017
My wife. She went into labor while performing a gall bladder removal on a patient. Between contractions she finished the case.
— Rob F🇺🇸 (@ospunx) December 2, 2017
My grandmother, who survived the second world war, lost her father, lived in the Gdr, suffered the separation of her baby because it was ill and could only be treated in West-Berlin and was imprisoned in the Stasi-Prison Hohenschönhausen.
— Charlie (@Disco_fox) December 3, 2017
She wrote a book about all of this.
My great aunt Wanda, with a 1 year old at home, Jewish, smuggled herself back INTO Nazi Germany in the boot of a car to rescue her mother. They left on last train out, stopped by border guard who took their wedding rings as payment. Both lived long happy lives in Surrey.
— Meryl O'Rourke© (@MerylORourke) December 2, 2017
Others even nominated themselves.
Ok. Fine: I cared for my brilliant husband as brain tumor took his vision, short term memory, & core bodily functions through 13 brain surgeries; raised our 1 yr old baby alone. Finished PhD dissertation 8 months after he died. Published like mad & got tenure at R1. https://t.co/yvum8IslI7
— Danna Young🇺🇸✌🏻 (@dannagal) December 3, 2017
Taylor Swift’s latest album Reputation has become the biggest-selling album of the year in the US within a single week, clocking up 1.23m sales.
