Bloody Brilliant Women: The Pioneers, Revolutionaries and Geniuses Your History Teacher Forgot to Mention

Product Information

I hugely respect anyone who campaigns to end violence against women—from Avon & Somerset Constabulary’s brilliant DCI Leanne Pook to the former foreign secretary William Hague’s aides Baroness Helic and Chloe Dalton. They pioneered a new approach to combating sexual violence in war zones and are now doing inspirational work with actor Angelina Jolie in this field. There are enjoyable anecdotes aplenty. But it’s not all a comfortable read. The detailed execution of the wartime nurse, Edith Cavell, by German firing squad, is harrowing. You might know her statue in Trafalgar Square; you may not have known her story. Despite gradual progress, wives were still considered the rightful property of their husbands in the early 1900s. In the next blink, you’ll find out how women used their work during World War I to their advantage and advanced their suffrage agenda. I’m glad you like [it]. I had great fun writing it as the women I “met” — I feel I met them even though sadly most of them are no longer with us — were such vibrant, colorful characters. My history teaching at school was a bit patchy, to say the least, so I devour history books as an adult now. As a busy person, I don’t have a lot of time for dry-as-dust dreary tomes, so I wanted to make my own history book as accessible and entertaining as possible. Out of all of those featured in Bloody Brilliant Women, which figure surprised you the most during your research and why? Novelists Hilary Mantel, Sarah Waters and poet Carol Ann Duffy are literary giants — I think I’ve read every word they’ve ever written.

Bloody Brilliant - Home Bloody Brilliant - Home

It explores the earliest battles for women’s liberation, starting with the fight against restrictive Victorian marriage laws. You’ll learn how – within a matter of decades – women went from being the property of men to independent citizens with a vote and control over their bodies. And you’ll see how the seeds of dissatisfaction sown in the 1940s bloomed into the sexual revolution of the 1960s, which helped secure the freedoms so many women enjoy today. Following the release of the book, we caught up with Cathy to find out about some of her favorite “bloody brilliant women.” Your book is so much fun to read. Why did you choose this playful tone? But some critics said some children are now so confused by the words used around sex and menstruation publicly that teachers are reporting some pupils arriving at secondary school not knowing who has periods.Though the High Court refused to issue the habeas corpus, the Court of Appeals delivered a decision that was unprecedented for the time, rejecting the notion that a husband should have complete control over his wife. The Welsh Government's Period Action Plan, which was sent out for consultation earlier this year, says “person who menstruates” will be the most frequently used phrase to describe who has periods, in the document. Probably Jane Austen’s Emma. It’s technically perfect, elegantly witty, delicately plotted. And it has a message which has stood the test of time: choose your life partner for love not money. What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received? And Shard structural engineer Roma Agrawal and Crossrail tunneller Alex Mitchell are an inspiration to girls who want to know that no job is just for the boys in 2018. How important is the current zeitgeist to the timing of this book’s release? We’ll also talk about women like Rosalind Franklin and Dina St Johnston, who accomplished incredible things in science and technology, only to be written out of history by their male counterparts.

Bloody Brilliant Women: The Pioneers, Revolutionaries and Bloody Brilliant Women: The Pioneers, Revolutionaries and

Newman points out that the likes of the Brontës and Florence Nightingale, though great figures, have almost become “brands” (I am sure there are tote bags and mugs). She also corrects further historical wrongs in including diverse women often sidelined: women of colour, trans women and those with disabilities. In particular, asylums play a prominent role. Merched Cymru said: “The adverse consequences of deliberately adapting language to be impersonal, ideological, based on body parts and bodily functions, or being ‘gender-neutral’ on an issue so clearly related to biological sex will be experienced by the very groups a Period Dignity Strategy needs to reach." With the fight for gender equality ongoing, and feminists banding together like never before, it’s important to understand where it all started. Bloody Brilliant Women shines a light on some of the unsung women whose contributions to British history are just as important as any man’s. Martha Gwion from Merched Cymru said: “The Period Dignity Action Plan, that went out to consultation at the beginning of the year, used awkward and confusing language, deliberately avoiding the use of the words women and girls. Instead of being person centred so that it can reach women and girls in marginalised or vulnerable groups effectively, it is focused on bodily functions and on avoiding sex-based language completely. “Those who menstruate” is not clear language.The Bloody Brilliant campaign has said it will be making changes to its materials following widespread criticism of its decision not to use the words women or girls. It follows the omission of the terms male and female in the new curriculum. The Relationships and Sexuality Education (RSE) Code does not explicitly reference “boys”, “girls”, “straight” or “heterosexual”. The Welsh Government and Welsh NHS have been criticised for removing the words women and girls from a campaign on periods and using the phrases “people who bleed across Wales” and “those who menstruate” instead. The document says: " Menstruation is a specific experience of the female sex, however not all people who are assigned female at birth, or who identify as women, menstruate. Conversely, there are people who identify as genders other than women, such as trans men, intersex and non-binary people who also menstruate. The language used within this Action Plan is deliberately broad as the plan aims to include all who menstruate. The campaign is already inspiring young people both boys and girls across the country with its honest, straight-talking messages, which focuses on normalising periods and period health. It has had more than 2.5 million impressions on social media so far. While a few of the women in this book are now household names, many have faded into oblivion, their personal and collective achievements mere footnotes in history. We know of Emmeline Pankhurst, Vera Brittain, Marie Stopes and Beatrice Webb. But who remembers engineer and motorbike racer Beatrice Shilling, whose ingenious device for the Spitfires’ Rolls-Royce Merlin fixed an often-fatal flaw, allowing the RAF’s planes to beat the German in the Battle of Britain? Or Dorothy Lawrence, the journalist who achieved her ambition to become a WW1 correspondent by pretending to be a man? And developmental biologist Anne McLaren, whose work in genetics paved the way for in vitro fertilisation?

NHS period website omits word ‘girls’ amid health service’s

Only in the late nineteenth century did the law begin to change, and women gradually gained protection from domestic offenses. Mary Wollstonecraft’s 1798 novel The Wrongs of Woman tells the tale of Maria – a woman who loses custody of her infant daughter and is unjustly imprisoned in a mental asylum by her husband. Though a work of gothic fiction, Maria’s fate was a sad reality for many women in Britain’s Georgian and Victorian eras. At the time, marriage for a woman meant being robbed of her fortune and freedom.

What one book do you re-read again and again?

One of the foundations of marriage law in Victorian England was coverture. Coverture dictated that a woman’s legal rights were subsumed by the legal rights of her husband. That meant she could not sue, be sued, or make a will. Her property became her husband’s property – even if she owned it prior to marriage – and she had no custody of the couple’s children. However, married women eventually gained legal inheritance rights and the right to own any money they earned with the Married Women’s Property Act of 1870. The need for clear, accurate language in public health messaging is well established. It’s difficult to understand how professionals in Public Health Wales, Welsh Government and practitioners thought it was a good idea to throw that established knowledge out of the window.” The Welsh Government said the PHSE curriculum guidance preceding the RSE code also did not make reference to male and female. Supporting statutory guidance, which all schools must consider alongside the code, "makes a number of references to women," a spokesperson added. A fresh, opinionated history of all the brilliant women you should have learned about in school but didn’t. Cathy Newman has written a bloody brilliant book. Bloody Brilliant Women (perhaps a cheeky takedown of Ken Clarke’s description of Theresa May as a “bloody difficult woman”) is one of a few recent titles celebrating lesser known women – or, as the subtitle of Newman’s book puts it, “the pioneers, revolutionaries and geniuses your history teacher forgot to mention”. It is an excellent addition to volumes such as Modern Women: 52 Pioneers by the Guardian’s Kira Cochrane; Zing Tsjeng’s Forgotten Women series; and Hannah Jewell’s riposte to Trump, 100 Nasty Women of History.