In the shadowy corners of 17th-century Italy, where men held the power and many women were locked in stifling marriages, one woman chose to rebalance the world—through poison. Her name was Giulia Tofana, a figure who emerged as both a guardian and a ghost. To some, she was a cold-blooded killer, to others, a hidden liberator. Tofana was a mysterious figure believed to have been born in Palermo, Sicily, around the early 1600s. She may have inherited her deadly trade from her mother, Thofania...

In her 1999 photo series Pissing Women , British artist Sophy Rickett takes a long, hard look at gender norms—and then proceeds piss all over them. Shot in black and white, the series shows women urinating while standing. Yes, standing. An activity so unremarkable for men that it barely registers, yet for women, apparently, it’s enough to cause an existential crisis in the social order. These aren’t sneaky paparazzi snaps from behind a bush; they’re deliberately composed scenes. Women stand...

In the dusty, mothball-scented archives of history’s strangest acts of rebellion, one woman from 19th-century Quebec City practically moonwalks across the pages — pipe in hand, coffin beneath her, and not a single f k given. At a time when women were expected to sip tea, tend parlors, and faint politely, she instead chose to ride through town lounging in a hearse and smoking a pipe. A Bold Statement Against Norms Yes, you read that right: she stretched out on a coffin-bed, lit up a pipe, and...