By Judy Cox

The Rebellious Daughters are women drawn from across continents and decades connected by their determination to challenge prejudice, inequality and injustice. From Black Panthers to Victorian trade unionists, from slave insurgents to radical poets, the Rebellious Daughters all defied the system and many won. The project began as a response to Lock Down. In daily Facebook posts I drew attention to how women of the past had fought back. The only criterion was that the women looked to militant collective action rather than Parliament or Congress. I also chose women whose lives were unconventional, those who challenged expectations by speaking out and finding their own ways to love as they were fighting for a radical transformation of their world.

The book introduces women in accessible mini-biographies and excavates their lives from the obscurity to which they have been condemned by a historiography which is misogynistic, racist and centred on men in positions of power. Rebellious Daughters creates a vivid and inspiring series of portraits of women who refused to stay in their place in the expectation that their example will strengthen women fighting for a better world.

Published by Redwords, 2021