Wicked Women: The Podcast

It is a horror story stained with blood. A Hungarian noblewoman tortures and murders her female servants out of jealousy and sadistic need for violence. After the grisly deed, she bathes in the blood of her victims to gain eternal youth and beauty. Some claims put her kill count in the range of 600 young women to thousands, making her possibly the most prolific female serial killer in history. Lady Gaga has played her, Brahms Stoke...

On an endlessly bright summer night in St. Petersburg in 1777, a glamorous three masted ship sailed into harbor. On board the yacht was a lone woman, responsible for scandalizing the British public and ready to make her name known at the court of Catherine the Great. This inconspicuous woman on the regal yacht had quickly become the anti-hero of a Georgian society desiring a headline other than the War of Independence an ocean away...

On today’s episode I will be chatting Maria the creator of Herstorical Walking Tours, a theatrical walking tour company that focuses on the stories of women in and around London, England through a feminist lens. Tours include "Hex and the City", "Harlots, Strumpets, and Tarts, Oh My!", and "Goal Birds of London". Continue listening to learn more about the tours and the process of bringing villainized women to captivating and nuance...

In the remnants of a burned out farmhouse were the bodies of three children in the arms of a woman. What made this a more grisly scene was the fact that the woman had no head. Headlines praised the woman for selflessly comforting her children in the last agonizing moments of life. However, the following days would reveal a far darker and violent story. Spread amongst the farm were the dismembered bodies of around 14 men, lured to t...

Perhaps best known as the long-standing Royal Mistress for King Louis XV of France, Madame de Pompadour has become synonymous with a debauched period of French history. Known for her astounding beauty, wit, and charm, much of Madame de Pompadour's legacy is wrapped up in her supposed frivolity and manipulation. But who was the woman behind that glittering mask? Prof. Jones discusses a woman who deserves far more credit for her bril...

Fashion History is an integral part of our understanding of the past. It provides a visual marker of societal changes over time. It is also an accessible avenue into the study of history. We all wake up in the morning and put on clothes. We have plans, thoughts, and intentions behind what we choose and what we scorn. This can be a thread that connects us to other people throughout thousands of years of history. In particular it als...

“I marvel that Aspasia, who is only a woman, should be able to compose such a speech; she must be a rare one.” –Menexenus by Plato 

The ancient Greeks loom large in history. Responsible for architectural wonders, cultural institutions, and historic figures However, there is one woman who loomed large on the Greek political and philosophical stage who has been relegated to the shadows of history, Aspasia. A highly educated w...

When people think about wicked women, Anne Boleyn is usually one of the first names to come to mind. It seems that every generation has its own version of Anne: Slutty Anne, Religious reformer Anne, Innocent Anne, Manipulative Anne, Sexy Anne, Evil Anne, Educated Anne, Feminist Anne, the list goes on. Thousands of people flock annually to locations Anne once walked (Hampton Court, Hever Castle, The Tower of London) and documentarie...

Behind every powerful King has stood a Queen. And some women have filled the role of both King and Queen in their own right. Some quiet, others fiery, some powerful, others left powerless, some revered, others forgotten. What creates the legacy of one Queen but erases another? Listen to this episode as I discuss that question and more with the brilliant historian Dr. Valerie Schutte.

Polly Adler was one of the most well-known Madams in NYC during the 1920s; a ruckus era of speakeasies, brothels, the mob, and sexual expression. Polly rose from a shtetl in the Russian Pale of Settlement to become “The Queen Madam”. Not only was she known to supply girls to wealthy men, but her nightclubs that dotted the city were a favorite haunt for some of the most famous names of 1920s New York. Polly Adler’s profession was no...

Planned Parenthood divided and continues to divide American society to this day. But this organization that has become synonymous in the U.S. with birth control and abortion did not begin as an American company but as a global enterprise headed by strong and outspoken women. The International Planned Parenthood Federation (founded in 1953) was the first of its kind and by the 1960’s it was chaired by one of Europe’s leading Women’s...

She was known as the “wickedest woman in New York” during her lifetime. A physician adored by her patients but despised by the moralizing populace sweeping mid-19th century America. She defied all social conventions of her era, she rose from an immigrant widowed single mother living on the lower east side to a self-made millionaire outbidding the Catholic Diocese of New York for an empty lot on fifth avenue. She not only provided a...

The mistresses of the French kings are some of the most iconic and recognizable. Madame de Pompadour, Agnès Sorel, Madame de Montespan, Madame de Maintenon, Diane de Poitiers. These are just a few of the hundreds of women who came to dominate the French court. In many cases they all shared a similar background; daughters of minor nobility who knew the ways of a royal court and played their parts accordingly. However, in the waning ...

It’s the woman everyone loves to hate. The home wrecker, the social climber, the spendthrift, the whore. Mistresses have divided our society (and marriages) for centuries. But the Royal Mistress was a role in and of itself. In the early modern period it was a title as sought after as Duke or Comte. But it also provided a uniquely powerful role for a woman in a royal court, granting them political influence often seen as only belong...

Traitorous, wanton, frivolous, obese, foreign, deceitful. These are all terms used to describe Isabeau of Bavaria, a woman at the center of one of the most turbulent eras in French history. She shared the world stage with names like Joan of Arc, Henry V, and Charles VII but her name would not be revered and lionized by later generations. Instead, she would be cast as the ultimate villain in the tale of the struggle for France. She ...

On a hot humid Parisian July day, the aristocratic Marie, Marquise de Brinvilliers was carted out to the scaffold before a seething crowd. Marie was accused of poisoning over 50 people, including her own father and brothers. The massive crowd on July 17, 1676, had come to witness a common entertainment, an execution. Marie de Brinvilliers has run the gambit of public opinion, from femme fatale to hapless victim to hysterical woman ...

Elizaveta (Elizabeth) Petrovna was the daughter of Peter the Great and his history-making wife Catherine I, believed to have risen from being a serf to becoming Empress in her own right. Elizabeth was not raised to be ruler, there were plenty of distant male relatives to take on the mantle of Tsar, but as we’ll discuss later in this episode, Elizabeth clawed through heartbreak, tragedy, and abuse to eventually be crowned Empress of...

English writer, John Evelyn, called her “the curse of the nation,” while politician Sir John Reresby called her “the finest woman of her age”. By all accounts, Barbara Palmer was a stunning beauty with dark hair, blue eyes, and a charismatic personality. She rose to fame as one of the numerous royal mistresses of King Charles II. Throughout her life and subsequent legacy, Barbara has elicited both revulsion and admiration. She was ...