Josefina Guerrero was a Filipina spy during World War II who was responsible for saving the lives of thousands of American soldiers. She spied undetected on behalf of the Allied forces for years and was so effective because of her particular affliction: leprosy. She used her illness, which had caused her so much trauma and grief since her diagnosis, to save countless lives and help turn the tide of the war, and for that, she must be celebrated.
Read MoreSpiritualism was a religious movement that came into the popularity in the mid 1800's, and remained strong through the 1920's. The movement insisted that spirits could reach through the veil to speak with their loved ones in the living world, and psychics raked in the cash to commune with the spirits of desperate widows and grieving families. Enter: Rose Mackenberg, famed "Ghost Detective" on a team of salaried psychic debunkers organized by Harry Houdini himself. Rose exposed hundreds of frauds and even testified before Congress about psychic fraud in the United States. She dedicated her life to making sure vulnerable people were not taken advantage of by Spiritualist fakers, though it didn't hurt that she got to wear fun disguises and work side-by-side with Harry Houdini!
Read MoreAphra Behn was a woman ahead of her time. As the first English woman to make her living as a writer and playwright, she was both incredibly popular and a source of ire for many conservatives, who considered her work to be far too raunchy, *especially* coming from a woman. Centuries later, her work is still feminist af, and we’re here to shed light on a prolific writer the patriarchy has desperately tried to forget. Enjoy the story of this seriously bad 17th century bitch!
Read MoreElizabeth Van Lew was a Union-sympathizing Quaker living in Virginia during the Civil War. Mary Bowser was a free woman posing as a slave in order to spy on the Confederates and, most notably, Jefferson Davis himself. These bad bitches got up to all sorts of crazy shit - ultimately earning Mary a posthumous place in the Military Intelligence Hall of Fame!
Read MoreElizabeth Bentley was a communist spy turned American spy and informant in the 1930’s – 40’s – she spent enough time as a communist spy that when she defected from the party, Russian spying in the US effectively ceased for years, so vast was her damaging knowledge. While she was neither a good witch nor a bad bitch, spending much more time in the gray area, it can’t be disputed that without Elizabeth Bentley, we wouldn’t have background checks, an oath of allegiance for government officials when they are sworn in, and McCarthyism might not have been the movement that it came to be.
Read MoreJosephine Baker displayed resistance in multiple movements and multiple decades – despite being American born, she fell in love with and moved to France, where she became a war hero for her work as a French spy during World War 2. Later, she was a huge part of the civil rights movement in America, despite the many challenges she faced there. In addition, she was a raging bisexual. In short, she was one bad bitch.
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