Absolutely fabulous. Amazing.
You can read it in a day.
You've got nothing to lose reading it, and everything to gain.
What are you waiting for? You need this and other books like it in your life. The whole world needs them.
My favourite inclusions in 'Brazen: Rebel Ladies Who Rocked The World', specifically, are *deep breath*:
Clémentine Delait the Bearded Lady, and barmaid, café owner, and cabaret dancer; Nzinga the badass warrior queen of Ndongo an Matamba; Margaret Hamilton the actress; Las Mariposas the rebel sisters who were murdered by their country's dictator; Annette Kellerman the "mermaid", and swimming champion, women's swimsuit designer, and Hollywood actress; Delia Akeley the explorer, and the pre-Jane Goodall; Josephine Baker the Black dancer, singer, French Resistance fighter and spy, sub-lieutenant, and matriarch; Tove Jansson the lesbian artist and 'Moomins' creator; Agnodice the Ancient Greek doctor and gynaecologist; Leymah Gbowee the Liberian social worker, women's shelter founder, and founder of the Women in Peacebuilding Network (WIPNET) (alongside Thelma Ekiyor), and she's a social activist who helped exile, extradite, and arrest a fascist dictator president, whereupon he is replaced by a woman, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf; Christine Jorgensen the transgender social activist, sexual revolutionary, and stage singer; Wu Zetian the Chinese empress who is fucking awesome and needs to be un-erased and acknowledged and remembered; Temple Grandin the autistic "animal whisperer", anthropologist, and hero to cattle; Sonita Alizadeh the young Muslim rapper and advocate against the Taliban, forced marriages, and child brides; Cheryl Bridges the athlete and marathon runner, who is also awesome and inspirational; Thérése Clerc the utopian realist, feminist activist, advocate for sexual freedom, birth control, and abortion, lesbian, and hero to older women (the "Baba Yagas"!) everywhere; Betty Davis the Black singer and songwriter way ahead of her time; Nellie Bly the Irish, feminist as fuck journalist, globetrotter, inventor, industrialist, war correspondent, and suffragette; Jesselyn Radack the idealistic former US lawyer and Department of Justice advisor, and blacklisted enemy of the state - the corrupt government and system - and whistleblower, truthteller, activist, and protector of democracy; Hedy Lamarr the Hollywood actress, inventor, and WWII hero, or she should have been, if only men had just listened to her and her ideas, oh, and her radio communication system technology helped to develop GPS and WiFi; Naziq Al-Abid the Syrian aristocrat, activist, feminist, suffragette, humanitarian, general, and "the Joan of Arc of the Arabs"; and Mae Jemison the Black astronaut - the first Black woman in space - and scientist and humanitarian.
Phew!
There are so many fantastic, amazing women in history and the modern day, fighting for humanity's progress and survival, and the future of all women - to be free, educated, independent, safe, and happy.
It's impossible to include every "rebel" woman in one book.
Pénélope Bagieu is a genius. Forget 'Hark! A Vagrant' - this is the satirical comic strip collection about history and its foibles and triumphs.
The artwork is great, too. So full of life, personality, passion, expression, and cartoony delight!
Fuck the patriarchy. Fuck the system. Fuck oppression. Fuck regressive and backwards politics. Fuck "traditional gender roles" (they've always been completely made up by the patriarchy to keep (white, cishet) men in power). Fuck fascism. Fuck withholding women's basic, fundamental human rights. It is inhumane, unethical, cruel, pointless, and wrong and evil on every single level.
Great women - and great people of colour, and LBGTQA+ people, and disabled people - are everywhere. They have always existed. And they will continue to exist, no matter what.
'Brazen: Rebel Ladies Who Rocked The World (Les Culottées, #1-2)' has revitalised me. It has reshown me that I have every right to be angry, at how, in fact, little has changed. Has refused to change. Has taken steps back.
In 2025.
Look at how our general, mainstream (what I like to call "meanstream") social attitudes and politics are, and how conservatives/bigots/fascists everywhere are absolutely, fiercely, zealously determined to make things worse for everyone, all the time, never stopping, never being satisfied, never satiating their bloodlust and hatred of people they consider inferior to them. Of people they narrow-mindedly judge and think are disgusting, unnatural, broken, ill-fitting, threatening, and wrong for existing. Of people they want to silence, to hide, to make invisible.
To erase.
Solely because they think they can.
They refuse to listen, learn, and change.
They are ruining and destroying society.
They are against humanity, hope, and love.
It's got nothing to do with politics. Or "agendas".
Equality, freedom for all, the truth - it's just common sense.
You should be angry and rebel against the injustices - unjust authority, and unjust, infringing governments - too.
'Brazen' is a book/comic strip collection from 2018, and it hasn't become dated (it shouldn't be, for all women deserve to be remembered and respected, in their lifetime or not). It still has enough power - it's powerfully inspirational enough - to start a revolution. Several revolutions.
Endless revolutions.
We remain fighting for our rights - for our very lives - again and again.
Let's keep doing it. Never give up hope.
The women in 'Brazen: Rebel Ladies Who Rocked The World' never did, and they certainly showed us what is possible - what women are truly capable of, what humanity is capable of, if we simply let them do it. Do whatever they want.
Before I get even more carried away and ranty:
Bottom Line: Read 'Brazen: Rebel Ladies Who Rocked The World'.
Thank you.
Also read 'Rejected Princesses', 'Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls', 'Bygone Badass Broads', 'Pirate Women', 'Warriors, Witches, Women', 'Literary Witches', 'Wonderful Women of the World', and 'She Persisted'.
Also also, learn about Marie Elizabeth Zakrzewska, Zenobia, Louise Yim, Valentina Tereshkova, Tomoe Gozen, Margaret Hamilton (the Apollo Space Program computer scientist one), Alice Guy-Blaché, Karen Horney (a psychoanalyst who challenged Freud... how fitting (or is it ironic?), given her last name), Hubertine Auclert, Tarpé Mills, Helen Thomas, Margaret Sanger, Qiu Jin, Simone Veil, and Laskarina Bouboulina.
Final Score: 5/5
P.S. Okay okay, if I have one negative criticism, it is that I would have preferred the book came with a content warning at the beginning. While the tone in general is lighthearted and humorous, it doesn't erase, sugarcoat or gloss over heavy, difficult subject matters, such as sexual assault. A forewarning would have been much appreciated.
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