The woman who most credibly lays claim to the title of the original scream queen earned her fame on the stage. Paula Maxa became known as ‘the most assassinated woman in the world’, and not for nought — she was ‘killed’ over 10,000 times in at least sixty different ways. Beyond the stage, her real life proves difficult to construct, but if Maxa herself is to be believed, it was just as dark as her career…
Author: historicallywoman
Women in Horror: Regina Maria Roche
Regina Maria Roche’s legacy is that of a ‘minor’ Gothic writer, paling in comparison to the likes of Ann Radcliffe and Mary Shelley. Yet, during her lifetime, she was widely celebrated, some of her novels becoming bestsellers and appearing in numerous editions and languages.
Maligned Women: La Malinche
La Malinche is reviled throughout Mexico as a traitor, a whore, the ‘Mexican Eve’ who sold her people out and was directly responsible for their downfall. Now, to pin the blame for an event as significant as the collapse of the Aztec Empire on a single person is pretty ridiculous anyway, but why would it land in particular on a translator who had been sold into slavery and was likely doing what she had to to survive?
Maligned Women: Marie Antoinette
The last Queen of France is probably among the most maligned women in history, perceived as insensitive and cruel. In reality, she was modest and frugal, and once much-loved by her subjects. So how did she end up executed by a cheering mob?
Pirates: Jeanne de Clisson
In 1330, Jeanne de Belleville married her third husband, wealthy Breton nobleman Olivier de Clisson IV, becoming Jeanne de Clisson. The couple individually had extensive properties and the combination of their assets and wealth turned them into something of a power couple, though it would take some years (and Olivier’s death) before that power truly revealed itself.
Pirates: Six Biographies
Six short biographies of ruthless female pirates across history.
Women in STEM: Chien-Shiung Wu
Before we get into the main article, I must admit that I don’t understand physics and I definitely skipped over most of the technical, sciency stuff when I was researching. Sorry. What I did understand, however, was that Chien-Shiung Wu was a genius who contributed enormously to our knowledge of physics, and that she truly … Continue reading Women in STEM: Chien-Shiung Wu
Book Review – Ariadne by Jennifer Saint
Jennifer Saint's retelling of the myth of Ariadne is powerful and lyrical - well worth picking up.
Women in STEM: Trota of Salerno
In New York, there stands a statue of J. Marion Sims, a man known as the ‘father of gynaecology’. Asks historian Monica H. Green — ‘why the field of women’s medicine has a father but no mother’. Well, perhaps there was one - enter Trota of Salerno.
Femme Fatales: Mata Hari
She is remembered as one of history’s greatest femme fatales, a cunning, double-crossing spy who was responsible for the deaths of up to 50,000 men. But was Mata Hari really that deadly, or was she instead just the scapegoat France needed at the time?