Women Who Dared: From the Infamous to the Forgotten

What does it mean to be a woman who dares to challenge the status quo? Whether by wielding power in patriarchal societies or rallying for peace, fighting for change has always put women in danger, but also led to remarkable stories of resistance. Gathering 46 stories from writers around the globe, this collection explores the twin themes of women and daring through the lives of monarchs, prophets, suffragists, soldiers, scientists, activists and artists. From the infamous to the forgotten, these trailblazers have much to tell us about the dynamics, conflicts, identities and power relations with which women live today.

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, uncovering
scandal in what was, at the time, Britain’s second city of Empire. Sara mentors fledgling writers and outside her writing work has a number of other interests.