Women Who Dared

Ben Fletcher-Watson is Deputy Director of the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities (IASH) at the University of Edinburgh. He holds degrees from the University of St Andrews and the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. His books include Dangerous Women (Unbound 2022) and The Art of Being Dangerous (Leuven University Press 2021). Jo Shaw is Head of Edinburgh Law School, and has held the Salvesen Chair of European Institutions since January 2005. Since 2018, she has also held a part-time visiting position in the New Social Research programme of Tampere University in Finland. Between 2009-2013, she was Dean of Research of the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, leading on research development and REF submission for the College. From 2014-2017 she was Director of IASH, where she led the Dangerous Women Project. Sara Sheridan is a Scottish activist and writer. In 2018, she remapped Scotland according to women’s history to memorialise our forgotten foremothers in her imagined guidebook Where are the Women? This book was chosen for the First Minister’s Summer Reading list at the David Hume Institute that year. Her novel The Fair Botanists, set in Edinburgh in 1822, was Waterstones’ Scottish Book of the Year 2022. In 2024, her play Robert Burns: His Psychotherapy and Cure aired on BBC Radio 4, voiced by Elaine C. Smith. Her latest novel, The Secrets of Blythswood Square, was longlisted for the Saltire Prize 2024. The story is set in Victorian Glasgow and examines the early female gaze, bodily autonomy and the nature of shame, uncoveringscandal in what was, at the time, Britain’s second city of Empire. Sara mentors fledgling writers and outside her writing work has a number ofother interests.

The long line of rebellious, outspoken and daring women gathered in this anthology transforms the meaning of the word 'dangerous' from its fear-laden connotation into necessary audacity. These numerous essays across times, places and perspectives also illuminate that to write is to disrupt, and these women have all done precisely that.

• Introduction by Ben Fletcher-Watson and Jo ShawForeword by Sara SheridanDissidents and DisruptorsFlora Tristan by Jelena VasilijevićCaroline Norton by Francine RyanLetitia Youmans by Janet KelloughMillicent Garrett Fawcett by Gillian MurphyLumina Sophie dite Surprise by Vanessa LeeFlora Shaw by Pengpeng WangChrystal Macmillan by Helen KayLilian Lenton by Hilary McCollumAdrienne Gerhäuser and Corinna Kawaters by Katharina KarcherWriters and WordsmithsAnna Komnene by Loulia KolovouHarriette Wilson by Louise PeskettMarjorie Fleming and Emily Pepys by Lois BurkeLouisa Lawson by Sarsha CrawleyNellie Bly by Ashley OrrMarija Jurić Zagorka by Ana PavlićIsmat Chughtai by Megha KatoriaDoris Lessing by Jane RogersAlifa Rifaat by Alia SolimanFlora Nwapa by Ejine Olga Nzeribe and Ebere OkerekeAnna Politkovskaya by Lucy PopescuMonarchs and MysticsHatshepsut by Stephanie Aulsebrook ­The Oracle at Delphi by Jill E. Marshall ­Wu Zeitan by Chiew-Siah TeiThe Oseberg Burials by Marianne MoenSt Margaret of Scotland by Claire HarrillThe Empress Matilda by Lucy FlanneryMarguerite Porete by Laura MoncionAnne Askew by Debapriya BasuWomen of the Pendle Witch Trials by Sarah KingTravellers and TrailblazersMary Somerville by Ruth BorehamIsabella Bird by Jenni CalderSophia Jex-Blake by Jo SpillerLady Florence Dixie by Margot McCuaigMary Kingsley by Jo WoolfLois Weber by Shelley StampElsie Mackay by Quentin Wilson and Fiona WilsonBrenda Fassie by Chisomo KalingaPoliticians and PeacemakersMary Barbour by Catriona BurnessVijaya Lakshmi Pandit by Rosalind ParrMadge Saunders by Janet LeesDagmar Wilson by Jon CoburnSirimavo Bandaranaike by Harshana Rambukwella and Kanchana N. RuwanpuraRozanne Colchester by Tessa DunlopDagmar Šimková by Kelly HignettHelen Steven by Kathy GallowayAfterword by Jemma Neville