A Taylor Swift fan tweeted a still from the singer’s “Look What You Made Me Do” video with the caption “Name a bitch badder than Taylor Swift” ― and got an overwhelming response of, well, a lot of bad bitches.
Name a bitch badder than Taylor Swift 😍😛😤 pic.twitter.com/AkSyQBUIME
— Nutella (@xnulz) November 10, 2017
Twitter user @xnulz celebrated Swift’s badassery just before her “Reputation” album drop. The tweet initially prompted responses like “the guy next to her” and “the cleaning lady from Family Guy.”
But the meme took a turn around the first weekend of December, when people started naming women throughout history whom they considered to be “badder” than Swift. The responses included everyone from civil rights activist Rosa Parks to actress Carrie Fisher to sniper Lyudmila Pavlichenko to their own mothers.
Carrie Fisher fought through the stigmas Hollywood put against her while battling bi-polar disorder and she doctored about every movie you loved growing up. She managed to educate people about mental health issues and be a support system for her fans. https://t.co/XKA665WjND
— rachel leishman (@RachelLeishman) December 4, 2017
Lyudmila Pavlichenko was 24 years old when she joined the Red Army's 25th rifle division to defend her homeland from the nazi invasion after refusing an offer to be a nurse. She's one of the most successful snipers in history with 309 confirmed kills of fascists in 10 months. ☭ https://t.co/pp4Jj8hjb1
— Morgana (@discomfiting) December 3, 2017
My Mom was raising two kids by herself without a college education and a disability, cerebral palsy. She went back to school, attained her Masters in social work/counseling & worked in child protective services until she passed from cancer 3 years ago. https://t.co/KZwLLVwW1C
— Nada Bakos (@nadabakos) December 3, 2017
Here are some of our favorites:
Hypatia was one of the first women to teach astronomy, math, and philosophy in 5th century Egypt, she surpassed all of her peers and was fine af, she once rejected a man by giving him bloody menstrual rags, her radical presence led to her being beaten to death by a christian mob https://t.co/SgsJ17fd5T
— Zachary Fox (@zackfox) December 3, 2017
Mbuya Nehanda. Mmanthatisi. Queen Nzingha. Bessie Head. Ellen Khuzwayo. Saartjie Baartman. Sojourner Truth. Brenda Fassie. Miriam Makeba. Winnifred Nomzamo Madikizela Mandela. Evelyn Chalo: my entrepreneurial great-grandmother who raised 9 kids as a young widow in Sophiatown. https://t.co/4TeTfEEXV1
— happily misdirected feminist (@lebomashile) December 4, 2017
Elizabeth Freeman was the first enslaved Black person to sue for freedom & win. She ended slavery in Massachusetts. https://t.co/kAi4vxzrLY
— Mikki Kendall (@Karnythia) December 3, 2017
Julia Child joined the OSS during World War Two, worked directly for Wild Bill Donovan, developed shark repellant, earned the Emblem of Meritorious Civilian Service for her work at in Chunking, China, THEN mastered French cuisine and became America's most famous chef. https://t.co/MdfXHZwh6L
— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) December 4, 2017
As a child, Harriet Tubman had her skull crushed in by a slave owner, was left w/o medical attention for 2 days, + then was returned to working the fields. She went on to rescue dozens of slaves + be the first woman to lead an armed assault during the CW. https://t.co/Swgus7BlRO
— Jane Coaston (@cjane87) December 3, 2017
Susan Hendrickson was a high school dropout who became a self taught paleontologist and archeologist on expeditions. She discovered the largest T. rex specimen of all time. Now she’s a dive archeologist in Egypt and Honduras. Like an actual Indiana Jones who is good at her job. https://t.co/6k7GwdSD7U
— SUE, “The Ghost of T. rex-mas Past” 🎄🦖 (@SUEtheTrex) December 2, 2017
Clara Barton helped wounded men on both sides of the Civil War. She then ran the Office of Missing Soldiers and helped locate nearly 22,000 missing men. She founded the American Red Cross and lobbied for women's and civil rights. https://t.co/O8I9ZpJ42Y
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) December 4, 2017
My mom escaped the Vietnam War at age 23 when the city around her was being bombed, was forced to leave her parents and 12 siblings behind with no notice, then spent the next 20 years raising money and bringing them slowly one by one to the US https://t.co/vyoiws7NCl
— Haku @ Comic Fiesta (@hakuku) December 3, 2017
Berta Cáceres: an indigenous woman who championed the fight over water and land rights for her community in Honduras and fended off multinational corporations from her ancestral land even after her assasination by the companies in collusion with the US-backed Honduran government https://t.co/oSB78n5ydC
— Papi🇭🇳 (@mimosa_daddy) December 4, 2017
You can easily spend hours scrolling through the wildly edifying responses about a lot of totally incredible women. We actually have to go read more of them now.
Enjoy, and stay great, Twitter!
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