Listen, no offense to Taylor Swift—building a $280 million media empire at 27 years old is an impressive achievement—but, no matter how many shades darker she takes her lipstick, she will never be “pirate queen of the South China Sea” badass. Over the weekend, this point was made over and over again, in a rare moment of Twitter turning sarcasm and spite into something inspirational and informative. (Usually it’s the other way around.)
Sparked by a simple act of Taylor Swift superfandom from an account with the mysterious, mouthwatering sobriquet “Nutella,” the meme earnestly heeds the call to “name a bitch badder than Taylor Swift.” Amid the jars of mayonnaise and jokes about Pop Tarts, responses to that initial tweet also contain fascinating mini-women’s history lessons, highlighting generals, warriors, moguls, explorers, snipers, three different pirate queens, and a gin and tonic-slurping WWII resistance courier.
From ancient Britain to 17th-century Africa to the Philippines circa 1896, history has been full of bad bitches. Let us now celebrate just a few.