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    Bad Girls Throughout History: 100 Remarkable Women Who Changed the World
    Bad Girls Throughout History: 100 Remarkable Women Who Changed the World
    Bad Girls Throughout History: 100 Remarkable Women Who Changed the World
    Ebook329 pages2 hours

    Bad Girls Throughout History: 100 Remarkable Women Who Changed the World

    By Ann Shen

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    Bad Girls Throughout History: 100 Remarkable Women Who Changed the World delivers a empowering book for women and girls of all ages, featuring 100 women who made history and made their mark on the world, it's a best-selling book you can be proud to display in your home.

    The 100 revolutionary women highlighted in this gorgeously illustrated book were bad in the best sense of the word: they challenged the status quo and changed the rules for all who followed. Explored in this history book, include:

    • Aphra Behn, first female professional writer.
    • Sojourner Truth, women's rights activist and abolitionist.
    • Ada Lovelace, first computer programmer.
    • Marie Curie, first woman to win the Nobel Prize.
    • Joan Jett, godmother of punk.

    From pirates to artists, warriors, daredevils, women in science, activists, and spies, the accomplishments of these incredible women who dared to push boundaries vary as much as the eras and places in which they effected change. Featuring bold watercolor portraits and illuminating essays by Ann Shen, Bad Girls Throughout History is a distinctive, gift-worthy tribute to rebel girls everywhere.

    A lovely gift for teen girls, stories to share with a young girl at bedtime, or a book to display on a coffee table, everyone will enjoy learning about and celebrating the accomplishments of these phenomenal women.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherChronicle Books Digital
    Release dateSep 6, 2016
    ISBN9781452157023
    Bad Girls Throughout History: 100 Remarkable Women Who Changed the World
    Author

    Ann Shen

    Ann Shen is an illustrator and graphic designer whose bright, colorful style has been put to work all over the world. She lives in Los Angeles.

    Read more from Ann Shen

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    Reviews for Bad Girls Throughout History

    4/5

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    • 4/5
      A bit repetitive of other anthologies, but fun nonetheless
    • 3/5
      This is a great little collection of short, one- or two-page bios of "bad girls," women who did what they needed to do rather than what they were expected to do. There are warrior queens and pirate queens, actors and writers, inventors, actors who became inventors, politicians, doctors, nurses, notorious criminals, and spies. It's light, lively, with fun, colorful art showing the women described.

      It is, sadly, quite oversimplified, probably inevitable given the limited space. We don't know if the story of Cleopatra and the asp is true. Major events in Eva Peron's career are dropped out entirely. And in some places, it's just completely, inexcusably, unnecessarily wrong. The Constitution under which George Washington and then John Adams became President was not even adopted until years after the Revolution. So, no, while John and Abigail Adams were the first Presidential couple to live in the Presidential Mansion in Washington, they didn't live there during the Revolution. Exactly zero thought had been given to a possible future capital for the new United States of America during the war, when the working capital was Philadelphia. Now, Abigail was John's full partner and a vital part of his career, but muddling the history like that just subtracts from the whole. There are other factual errors like that, and you will likely have your own "favorites."

      That said, though, this is interesting, entertaining, and really doesn't pretend to be anything other than a brief introduction to the women. They're all potentially fascinating, and this is a great starting point if you're looking for a direction to go off in for further reading about trouble-making women in history.

      I got this from Kindle Unlimited.
    • 4/5
      This is a lovely book showcasing several famous women throughout history and their exploits. Illustrated by Shen, we get a beautiful portrait of each woman and a few paragraphs about her life and contributions to our lives through science, art, politics, music, etc. I've heard of most of the women in this book, though there were a few I hadn't. I also learned little facts I'd never known about the women I did recognize, like how Dr. Ruth trained with snipers and how Hedy Lamarr helped to invent the technology that would become wi-fi. The illustrations are lovely and this was a fun book to flip through.
    • 4/5
      In the past few years, there has been a most welcome influx of books highlighting the contributions women to society and culture. From science to history to culture, works like “Women in Science: 50 Fearless Pioneers Who Changed the World” and “Rad Women Worldwide: Artists and Athletes, Pirates and Punks, and Other Revolutionaries Who Shaped History” serve as an important reminder of the too-often ignored ways that women have had an impact on the world. A recent addition to this growing collection is “Bad Girls Throughout History: 100 Remarkable Women Who Changed the World” by Ann Shen, a beautifully illustrated look at different women who have influenced the world in a variety of ways. Starting with Lilith, the first wife of Adam, and moving chronologically to the present with Malala Yousafzai, the book provides a two-page spread on each woman included. One page features a brief overview of the woman’s life and accomplishments, and the facing page features a full-color illustration by Shen. The result is a light, enjoyable, and gorgeous book.As indicated by the book’s layout and focus, there isn’t a lot of depth regarding the attention each subject receives. For curious readers who want to learn more, Shen includes a helpful bibliography at the end of the book, which provides further reading on the different women. The approachable and succinct nature makes “Bad Girls Throughout History” a great book to read in pieces and to skip around in.The 100 women Shen opts to focus on are all intriguing, and they encompass a variety of fields and accomplishments. These range from fashion (Diana Vreeland and Edith Head) to entertainment (Gypsy Rose Lee and Alice Guy-Blache) to science (Marie Curie and Sally Ride). The downside of constraining the book to 100 (or any specific number) of women is that this inevitably leaves some people out, and if I had to identify a drawback with “Bad Girls Throughout History,” it is that it tends to feature women primarily from western culture. On one hand, it is understandable that Shen decided to feature many women who are well known, such as Beatrix Potter and Madonna. On the other, it would have been nice to have some more representation from different countries and cultures, particularly in the second half of book. That said, I did appreciate the diversity in the first part of the book, which includes Tomyris from Iran and Empress Wu Zeitan from China. Furthermore, Shen does a nice job spotlighting some women from more recent times who might be under people’s radar, such as Christine Jorgensen, the first American trans woman, and Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space.In short, Shen’s work helps bring to life Laurel Thatcher Ulrich’s assertion that “well-behaved women seldom make history,” and it would be a worthy addition to any library, particularly for people who are curious about women’s contributions but aren’t certain where to get started or those who want to provide a primer on the subject.
    • 4/5
      Bad Girls Throughout History by Ann Shen is a collection of short biographies on 100 women from biblical times to present day. For each woman, the book devotes a two-page spread for a short biography and a full page portrait painting. The paintings are lively and colorful. The biographies offer a very basic outline of each woman's life, but there is a bibliography at the end if you want to research any of them further. Many are well known, but there were also many that I either did not know or only knew the names of. It is the kind of book you can pick up and turn to any random page and learn about a strong woman and her significance in history. It does make me wish some of the biographies were a bit longer, but it is a good starting point for anyone who wants to learn about them.
    • 5/5
      I was already a big fan of Ann Shen's artwork, so I'm super excited to have this book! The illustrations are gorgeous and are paired with a brief synopsis of each woman's life and how she impacted the world.I can't wait until my niece is a little older so I can share this book with her. A must read for anyone who's helping to raise a strong generation of girls.
    • 4/5
      This book ended up being a bit of a let down when compared to some other similar books and blogs I've followed. It's aimed at a younger audience, but I felt Shen neglects to point out why most of these women were considered "bad" (in terms of going against societal norms, etc...). For a more informed audience that's okay, but the younger set need those reminders given how much society has changed. Dolly Parton is an example that stands out, her breaking away from Porter Wagoner to go solo was seen very negatively (ungrateful, too ambitious, etc..) in country music circles at the time but there's no elaboration there (and it's a very short, basic entry which leaves out some great information). The women are largely the expected subjects, which is okay for the younger set but makes the book less useful overall. The book is organized by date of birth, and even with only 100 subjects I do wish there were an alphabetized index (would be great to have a subject index as well). With Shen's art sometimes I loved it and sometimes it just felt rushed. Her habit of getting the light-skinned women just an outline of color with a flat white face really negatively impacted the art, in my opinion.It's fine for what it is, and probably a good book to have in any household with young girls just as an initial reference. It's not a book I'd give as a gift to anyone over age 12 though, there's just not enough body here.
    • 4/5
      A lovely book filled with sumptuous watercolor illustrations and a little bit of information on each "bad girl" to be tempting. It's enough info to either whet your appetite and research more into the lady, or leave her as she is to be rediscovered at a later date. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and I gave a copy to a friend for Christmas. She's got two young girls that will appreciate looking through this.
    • 3/5
      I received an ARC of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This did not affect my opinion of the book, or my review itself.First of all, the illustrations in this book are absolutely gorgeous. I was captivated by the visual portraits right from the start.The mini-biographies about each woman are great as well. There were a lot of famous women I had already heard of, but quite a few I knew very little about. With some of the bios I wanted more, but in this case I think that's a good thing. This book has inspired me to go out and learn more about these women and their incredible lives.
    • 4/5
      Entertaining and light, this is a good introduction to some of history's lesser known badass females. As with any list, regardless of length, there are some names I wish I could have seen (Aung San Suu Kyi), and some I could have done without, but overall, it was a good selection. Lovely illustrations round this out.
    • 4/5
      I received a copy of ‘Bad Girls Throughout History:100 Remarkable Women Who Changed The World’ by Ann Shen as part of the Librarything Early reviewers program. I was familiar with the earliest women in the book– Lilith and Tomyris- and most of the later ones, although there were often facts I didn’t know. There were so many fascinating women from historical periods and cultures I hadn’t read about I ended up making a list of the many women I want to read more about. The bibliography cites sources for each subject, which makes it easier to do some follow-up reading.
    • 2/5
      All in all, I am disappointed in this book. The 100 women presented were interesting, and with short vignettes about each, the book is a quick and accessible overview that points the way to learning more about any of them. What bothered me was that so many of the women portrayed were from Hollywood and the American music industry. While we had some scientists and activists, the book seemed to portray women as having major influence primarily in pop culture.And what really bothered me were the illustrations! Everyone was nicely coifed with makeup and big, BIG eyelashes. Real women don't look like that! And if you are writing about women's contributions to history, you shouldn't make nearly all of them all look like the stereotype of beautiful.
    • 2/5
      A list of 100 women, 80% from the 19th and 20th century, heavily weighted toward show business and media. That's the value. For facts you'll get more and probably more accurate from Wikipedia. The illustrations are less interesting and less accurate portraits than the average tourist caricaturist hack would produce.

    Book preview

    Bad Girls Throughout History - Ann Shen

    For girls of all ages who dare to be bad, and for the people who stand behind us when we are . . . especially my mom Alice and my husband Ryan.

    Copyright © 2016 by Ann Shen.

    All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher.

    Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

    Names: Shen, Ann, author.

    Title: Bad girls throughout history / Ann Shen.

    Description: San Francisco : Chronicle Books, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references.

    Identifiers: LCCN 2015048600 | ISBN 9781452153933 (hardback)

    ISBN 9781452157023 (epub, mobi)

    Subjects: LCSH: Women—History. | Women—Biography. | BISAC: ART / Popular Culture.

    Classification: LCC HQ1123 .S525 2016 | DDC 920.72—dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015048600

    Designed by Jennifer Tolo Pierce

    Chronicle Books LLC

    680 Second Street

    San Francisco, California 94107

    www.chroniclebooks.com

    Contents

    Introduction page 8

    Lilith page 10

    Tomyris page 12

    Cleopatra page 15

    Boudica page 16

    Empress Wu Zetian page 19

    Lady Godiva page 21

    Khutulun page 22

    Jeanne de Belleville page 24

    Joan of Arc page 27

    Grace O’Malley page 28

    Queen Elizabeth I page 31

    Artemisia Gentileschi page 33

    Aphra Behn page 34

    Catherine the Great page 37

    Abigail Adams page 39

    Marie Antoinette page 40

    Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun page 43

    Ching Shih page 45

    Jane Austen page 46

    Sojourner Truth page 48

    Anna Atkins page 50

    Harriet Beecher Stowe page 53

    Ada Lovelace page 55

    Maria Mitchell page 56

    Susan B. Anthony page 58

    Florence Nightingale page 61

    Anita Garibaldi page 62

    Elizabeth Blackwell page 65

    Harriet Tubman page 66

    Amalia Eriksson page 69

    Belva Lockwood page 71

    Annie Edson Taylor page 72

    Fannie Farmer page 75

    Annie Oakley page 76

    Edith Wharton page 79

    Nellie Bly page 80

    Beatrix Potter page 83

    Madam C.J. Walker page 84

    Marie Curie page 87

    Alice Guy-Blaché page 88

    Mata Hari page 90

    Lilian Bland page 93

    Margaret Sanger page 94

    Helen Keller page 97

    Eleanor Roosevelt page 98

    Georgia O’Keeffe page 101

    Elsa Schiaparelli page 102

    Mary Pickford page 105

    Mae West page 106

    Martha Graham page 108

    Edith Head page 111

    Amelia Earhart page 113

    Tallulah Bankhead page 114

    Norma Shearer page 117

    Anaïs Nin page 118

    Diana Vreeland page 121

    Anna May Wong page 122

    Josephine Baker page 125

    Rachel Carson page 126

    Carmen Miranda page 128

    Bonnie Parker page 131

    Mary Blair page 132

    Gypsy Rose Lee page 135

    Lucille Ball page 137

    Julia Child page 138

    Rosa Parks page 141

    Hedy Lamarr page 143

    Billie Holiday page 144

    Iva Toguri D’Aquino page 146

    Phyllis Diller page 149

    Sister Corita Kent page 150

    Eva Perón page 153

    Betty Friedan page 155

    Helen Gurley Brown page 157

    Dorothy Dandridge page 158

    Bettie Page page 160

    Margaret Thatcher page 162

    Christine Jorgensen page 165

    Coretta Scott King page 167

    Ruth Westheimer page 168

    Maya Angelou page 171

    Barbara Walters page 173

    Marlene Sanders page 174

    Ruth Bader Ginsburg page 176

    Gloria Steinem page 179

    Mary Quant page 181

    Valentina Tereshkova page 182

    Judy Blume page 185

    Junko Tabei page 186

    Nora Ephron page 188

    Angela Davis page 191

    Dolly Parton page 192

    Sally Ride page 195

    Diana Nyad page 196

    Oprah page 199

    Joan Jett page 201

    Madonna page 202

    Tina Fey page 205

    Selena page 206

    Malala Yousafzai page 209

    Bibliography page 211

    Acknowledgments page 224

    Introduction

    This is a book about women. This is a book about girls who had a ton of fear and personal flaws and faced insurmountable obstacles but did amazing things anyway. This is a book about those who came before us, who knocked up against that glass ceiling and made a tiny fissure or a full-on crack.

    When I first started this project five years ago, someone remarked that the title of this book didn’t make sense. That none of these girls were bad. That ax murderers were bad. Not Harriet Tubman. Yet she escaped slavery and snuck into the South nineteen times to illegally free slaves. To be a bad girl is to break any socially accepted rule. For some women, it’s the way they dress. For other girls, it’s the act of going to school. At one point, it was fighting for the right to vote. Anything we do outside the lines is immediately up for persecution. Just ask Mata Hari, an internationally famed exotic dancer who was accused of being a spy and executed by firing squad. Everything we’ve gained has been hard-won by a woman who was willing to be bad in the best sense of the word.

    When I set out to write this book, I thought I knew what I was getting into. But after spending time with every single one of these ladies, I am profoundly changed. I feel the gravity of their courage and accomplishments, these women on whose shoulders we stand today. Through the process of writing the book, I came to realize that we all come from this daring tribe of women, and that like them I need to use my voice to do better in this world. I hope that in some small way this book changes you too.

    This is by no means a definitive list of the one hundred bad girls in history, nor an exhaustive detail of their personal stories. The book presents a broad world of women coming from all eras, countries, backgrounds, races, and ethnicities. They’re rabble-rousers from all sorts of disciplines: artists, activists, astronauts, daredevils, outlaws, scientists, warriors, writers, and everything in between. The short essays are meant to whet your appetite for exploring more on your own. Finding out how Annie Edson Taylor became the first female daredevil at sixty-three is a starting point. Consider Harriet Beecher Stowe and her little book that started the Civil War the flint to light your own fire. Let four-foot-seven, sniper-trained Dr. Ruth and her sex ed radio show inspire you. You are never too old, too small, or too late to live the life you’re meant to lead. Especially if it means rewriting the rules to do it.

    Lilith

    It all began with Lilith, the lesser-known first wife of Adam who was kicked out of the Garden of Eden. Adam insisted she lie beneath him, but she wanted to lie next to him and be equal. Because she refused to be subservient to Adam, Lilith left the Garden of Eden and became associated with the archangel Samael. We know of Lilith because she is represented as a demon in many religious mysticism texts; she is never mentioned in the Bible. It doesn’t get much more badass than getting rejected from the Bible, does it?

    Kicked out of paradise for demanding equalityTomyris

    Tomyris (sixth century B.C.E.) was a widowed queen who ruled over a nomadic Eastern Iranian tribe called the Massagetae. They were a warrior tribe notable for their battle skills and cannibalistic tendencies (they had an honored ritual of sacrificing their elderly and eating them in a stew). The tribe occupied what became modern-day Iran, and in 529 B.C.E. they were the next targets in Cyrus the Great’s Persian empire expansion. At first, Cyrus proposed to Tomyris in a thinly veiled attempt to seize her land. She rejected him, and he declared war. Cyrus set up a trap by sending his weakest soldiers to lay out a fancy banquet, luring the Massagetae warriors into drinking themselves into a stupor. Led by Tomyris’s son Spargapises, the Massagetae troops took the bait—hook, line, and sinker—and were slaughtered in their wine-fueled haze by Cyrus’s soldiers. Spargapises managed to avoid being killed, but Tomyris was pissed. She sent Cyrus a warning message to release her son and leave their lands, which Cyrus ignored. After he was captured, Spargapises killed himself, which further fueled Tomyris’s rage. She retaliated in a fiery rampage that resulted in Cyrus’s decapitation and crucifixion. Legend says that she stuffed his head into a wine bag full of human blood and laughed, I warned you that I would quench your thirst for blood, and so I shall.

    Fearless warrior queenCleopatra

    The last pharaoh of ancient Egypt, Cleopatra VII (69-30 B.C.E.) was crowned at eighteen and became a ruler legendary for her intellect and beauty. Characterized as a cunning seductress who secured lovers (including Julius Caesar and Mark Antony) to ensure her political power, Cleopatra quickly overthrew all other claimants to the throne in a time when it was customary for siblings to marry and co-rule. It was rumored that the twenty-two-year-old Cleopatra had herself wrapped in a rug and smuggled into Caesar’s bedroom after he was appointed dictator of Rome, to win his allegiance for the Egyptian civil war. It worked: the fifty-two-year-old Roman ruler fell for her and she was appointed sole ruler of Egypt after he defeated the pharaoh. When Antony summoned her after Caesar’s assassination, she floated down the river to him in a gilded ship filled with flowers and servants, presenting herself in the likeness of the goddess Venus. Legend has it he was captivated as soon as he saw her. Now there’s a woman who knew the importance of branding.

    Cleopatra held Egypt together in a time of political turmoil. She was the last ruler during Egypt’s defiance of the Roman Empire’s expansion, she spoke Egyptian in a time when all other rulers spoke only Greek, and she successfully claimed she was the reincarnation of the goddess Isis. Her life ended as dramatically as she lived it, in a double suicide with Mark Antony—he by his own sword, upon hearing a false rumor of her death; she by inviting a poisonous asp bite while in captivity after the Roman Octavius successfully defeated Egypt.

    Queen of the nileBoudica

    Boudica was a British queen of the Iceni tribe during the golden age of the Roman Empire in 60 C.E. After the death of her husband, King Prasutagus, the alliance between the Roman Empire and the British island tribe fell apart and the Romans moved in, pillaging the island. Boudica was flogged and her two

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