Power, Blood, and Scandal: The Women Who Rewrote the Past
Wu Zetian: The Concubine Who Crowned Herself God on Earth 624–705 CE | Tang Dynasty, China
Wu Zetian didn’t just break the rules—she torched the handbook. Starting out as a teenage concubine, she clawed her way into the highest echelons of power, re-entering the imperial court after the emperor’s death, seducing his son, and maneuvering her way to becoming the only female emperor in China’s 5,000-year dynastic history. Not empress—Emperor (Rothschild, 2008; Yao, Bai, & Lu, 2021).
Accusations flew—like that she smothered her own infant daughter to eliminate a rival—but historians still debate what’s fact and what’s smear campaign (Yao et al., 2021). What we do know? Wu transformed a patriarchal Confucian order into her personal power stage. She wrapped herself in Buddhist divinity, turning religion into a weapon of legitimacy and the throne into her altar (Princess Taiping, 2016). Her reign was a political performance—sacred theater mixed with iron-fisted reform—and somehow, it worked.
Nzinga Mbande: The Queen Who Wore Pants and Crushed Portuguese Egos 1583–1663 | Ndongo and Matamba (Modern-Day Angola)
Nzinga Mbande was pure political heat. When Portuguese diplomats expected her to kneel, she instead perched herself on a servant’s back and made them grovel (Miller, 1975). But the showmanship was only the surface. Nzinga knew how to play every side: converting to Christianity when it served her, forming strategic alliances, and commanding armies in full military gear like a seasoned general (Green, 2018).
She ruled not just as queen—but sometimes as king. In her court, gender roles were flipped like playing cards. Her entourage reportedly included a harem of young men forced to duel each other for the right to spend the night with her (Agiş, 2022). Let that sink in: men. Fighting. For a place in her bed. Nzinga didn't just survive colonialism—she twisted it into a tool, running a kingdom on her own terms (Ribeiro, Moreira, & Pimenta, 2019).
Julie d’Aubigny: The Queer Swordswoman Who Sang Opera and Burned a Convent 1673–1707 | France
Julie d’Aubigny was 17th-century France’s gender-bending, sword-swinging, opera-singing chaos queen. She dressed in men’s clothing, seduced whomever she wanted, and fought duels like a scandal magnet with a death wish (Gardiner, n.d.). When her girlfriend was locked away in a convent, Julie busted her out in a blaze of glory—allegedly lighting the place on fire as they escaped.
But she didn’t just crash the patriarchy. She stole the stage. As a celebrated mezzo-soprano at the Paris Opéra, she defied every expectation of how a woman should act, love, or perform. Julie blurred every line—between gender, status, art, and rebellion (Clément, 2005). She wasn’t a problem to be solved. She was a story no one could stop telling.
Toypurina: The Indigenous Rebellion that Spanish Priests Couldn’t Pray Away 1760–1799 | Tongva Land (Modern-Day California)
When Spanish missionaries rolled into Tongva land, they brought baptism, forced labor, and cultural genocide. Toypurina, a young medicine woman, met them not with submission but resistance. At just 24, she organized a multi-village revolt against the San Gabriel Mission (Beebe & Senkewicz, 2015).
Toypurina wasn’t just a spiritual leader—she was a tactical mastermind. Her role as a healer gave her authority, and she used it to challenge the religious and colonial systems threatening her people. Her rebellion was as much about cosmic order as it was about stolen land. When captured, she didn’t flinch. She told the colonizers exactly what she thought of them—on record. Her legacy remains one of fire, fury, and sacred resistance.
Mariam al-Asturlabi: The Astrolabe-Building Scholar That Medieval Textbooks Forgot 10th Century | Aleppo, Syria
While medieval Europe was stuck in plague and paranoia, Mariam al-Asturlabi was busy building intricate astrolabes in Aleppo. These weren’t just fancy clocks—they were devices used to navigate the stars, chart prayer times, and calculate complex mathematical equations (Saliba, 2007).
Mariam worked under royal patronage and earned recognition from Islamic scholars—an outrageous feat for a woman in the 10th century. Her contributions flip the narrative that science was only shaped by Enlightenment-era men. She was building cosmic tools when half the world didn’t know what day it was. Mariam wasn’t a footnote. She was the equation.
Rewriting the Canon, One Woman at a Time
This isn’t your average #girlboss listicle. It’s a reclamation of rage, rebellion, and radical womanhood.
These women didn’t "lean in." They kicked the door off its hinges. They manipulated religion, toppled empires, hijacked gender norms, and invented tech while the world looked the other way. They weren’t just historical figures—they were cultural detonators. Boom.
Their stories remind us that gender isn’t fixed, power isn’t fair, and legacy is a fight. They weren’t interested in playing the game. They rewrote the rules, set fire to the scoreboard, and left behind myths too wild to be contained by the archives.
They weren’t role models. They were revolutionaries who are not done teaching us yet.
Thanks for reading!!
I’ll catch you next week with more untamed history, buried rebellions, and the women who refused to behave. Until then—stay wild, stay curious, and never trust a source without footnotes.
—Shan
Sources:
AGİŞ, F. D. (2022). Learning about a woman Queen in Africa: Njinga (1583–1663) as an ecological human rights defender and a sister against turbulent times of racism and war: An ecolinguistic study. Universal Journal of History and Culture, 4(1), 64–77. https://doi.org/10.52613/ujhc.1063732
Gardiner, K. Of female bridegrooms and cavaliers: A bibliography on Julie d'Aubigny and her world. https://www.academia.edu/7576763/Of_female_bridegrooms_and_cavaliers_a_bibliography_on_Julie_dAubigny_and_her_world
Green, T. (2018). Heywood, Njinga of Angola: Africa’s warrior queen (Harvard University Press, 2017). Royal Studies Journal, 5(2), 164. https://doi.org/10.21039/rsj.173
Miller, J. C. (1975). Nzinga of Matamba in a new perspective. The Journal of African History, 16(2), 201–216. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0021853700001122
Njinga of Angola: Africa’s warrior queen. The Library of Congress. (n.d.). https://www.loc.gov/item/2021690664/
O’Leary, J. S. (2011). Sex and gender in “Albert Nobbs.” Journal of Irish Studies, 26, 88–96. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23033179
Princess Taiping, daughter of Emperor Gaozong and Empress Wu Zetian, Tang dynasty. (2016). Notable Women of China, 242–244. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315702063-66
Ribeiro, O. M., Moreira, F. A., & Pimenta, S. (2019). Nzinga Mbandi: From story to myth. Journal of Science and Technology of the Arts, 11(1), 51–60. https://doi.org/10.7559/citarj.v11i1.594
Rothschild, N. H. (2008). Wu Zhao: China’s only woman emperor. Pearson Longman.
Saliba, G. (2007). Islamic science and the making of the European Renaissance. The MIT Press. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt5hhj73
Yao, L.-q., Bai, X.-x., & Lu, J. (2021). Wu Zetian’s manipulation of Confucianism and Buddhism. Journal of Literature and Art Studies, 11(6), 439–442. https://doi.org/10.17265/2159-5836/2021.06.010
