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

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In this episode we’ll meet Jane Drew, a visionary architect of the mid-20th century; and the better-known novelists Iris Murdoch, Agatha Christie, and Muriel Spark. 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. In this episode we’ll meet Sophie Mirman, Margaret Seymour, Martha Lane Fox, Penny Smith, Susan Faludi, and Lesley Knox, amongst many others. This is a history of our times. This is a history of the pioneering women who defied the odds to make careers for themselves and alter the course of modern history. This is a history of women who achieved remarkable things, but have faded into oblivion. 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 by Cathy Newman | Waterstones

In this episode we’ll meet Marjorie Hurst, the founder of the Brook Street Bureau secretarial agency.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. 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. In this episode we’ll explore Thatcherism: the woman and the movement. We’ll learn about her changing attitudes towards working women and the way in which all women in politics during her era were compared, favourably or unfavourably, to Thatcher herself.

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Your book mostly deals with recent history, but which women do you admire today and why?

Through their stories we’ll explore how female entrepreneurs prospered during the 80s 90s, and early 2000s, succeeding in the financial sector and prospering from the boom years of the Internet and tech companies, and how this was set against the overall picture for women at this time of statis and compromise. However, the narrative that women have achieved full equality and that our job is done is frankly ludicrous, so we’ll also explore the new mechanisms for silencing women that have evolved in the modern era. In the final episode we’ll meet Elizabeth Nyamayaro, Laura Bates, Caroline Criado-Perez, as-well as incredible female MPs serving in all strands of government, powerful women writers who have written their names into history, and the current crop of determined, resilient campaigners who, collectively, target a broad spectrum of injustices.