BitchStory - Stories of badass women that history "forgot"

You read The Grapes of Wrath in high school. (Or you read the SparkNotes. No judgment.)More than one writer documented the migrants of the Dust Bowl era… some were journalists some were novelists, some were documentarians. Meet Sanora Babb. She grew up in a Dust Bowl dugout, started school at almost eleven, and graduated valedictorian anyway. In 1938 she walked the rows of Weedpatch camp outside Arvin with a notebook, interviewing hundreds of migrant families. Then her boss asked her to share those notes with a "friend." You'll never guess who.THE BLOG: kellymcclain.blogspot.comASTROLOGY NERDS: Patreon.com/BitchscopesINSTAGRAM: @bitchstory.pod THE EMAIL: [email protected]: We insert zero ads and have no subscription fees. If you'd like to contribute to our work here at Bitchstory, we'd be thrilled to receive your financial support so we can keep going and maybe actually not be in the red.Our venmo is @bitchstory

Elizabeth Magie designed the board game that became Monopoly — on purpose, as a warning about how monopolies destroy society. It got stolen, watered down into a celebration of the exact thing it was built to criticize, and sold by another man as his own invention for decades before the truth came out. Meanwhile, Mary Anderson invented the windshield wiper in 1902 and got a rejection letter telling her it had “no commercial value” — right before the auto industry exploded and started using her exact idea for free the moment her patent expired. Two women, two dead-on ideas, and two very different ways of getting written out of the credit.Once again, rage inducing…we are sorry. Also we won’t be using this script format ever again - you’re welcome in advance. 🫶🏻🙄THE BLOG: kellymcclain.blogspot.comASTROLOGY NERDS: Patreon.com/BitchscopesINSTAGRAM: @bitchstory.pod THE EMAIL: [email protected]: We insert zero ads and have no subscription fees. If you'd like to contribute to our work here at Bitchstory, we'd be thrilled to receive your financial support so we can keep going and maybe actually not be in the red.Our venmo is @bitchstory

Tale as old as time🙄…Two women, two eras, one recurring problem: build something that works, and someone (cough cough, a man) will show up to insist it isn’t yours. A secretary who couldn’t afford to keep retyping her mistakes invents Liquid Paper in her kitchen blender — then nearly gets locked out of the company she built when her husband tries to take it from her in their divorce. A century earlier, a woman designs the machine that makes flat-bottomed paper bags possible, only to have a man steal her patent — and defend himself in court by arguing a woman couldn’t have built it. Join us for this infuriating episode…but don’t worry, we are also entertaining AF 😏THE BLOG: kellymcclain.blogspot.comASTROLOGY NERDS: Patreon.com/BitchscopesINSTAGRAM: @bitchstory.pod THE EMAIL: [email protected]: We insert zero ads and have no subscription fees. If you'd like to contribute to our work here at Bitchstory, we'd be thrilled to receive your financial support so we can keep going and maybe actually not be in the red.Our venmo is @bitchstory

How do you kill a witch? First, you create one.In this episode, we speak with Claire Mitchell KC and Zoe Venditozzi, authors of ‘How to Kill a Witch: The Patriarchy’s Guide to Silencing Women’ and founders of the Witches of Scotland campaign.Together, they explore the largely forgotten history of Scotland’s witch trials, the legal and cultural machinery that turned ordinary women into dangerous enemies, and the campaign that helped secure a formal apology from the Scottish government for those accused and executed under Scotland’s witchcraft laws.The conversation also asks a deeply uncomfortable question: are witch hunts really a thing of the past? From rumor and scapegoating to public humiliation and institutional persecution, Claire and Zoe reveal how the old blueprint for silencing “quarrelsome” women still appears in modern life—and how recognizing the pattern may help us resist it.History, misogyny, justice, memorialization…and the unsettling realization that Kelly’s cats, candles, essential oils, and refusal to shut up would probably have gotten her arrested before breakfast.Check their website for the podcast, the official tartan, contact info, and all kinds of info: https://www.witchesofscotland.com/THE BLOG: kellymcclain.blogspot.comPATREON: Patreon.com/BitchscopesINSTAGRAM: @bitchstory.pod THE EMAIL: [email protected]: We insert zero ads and have no subscription fees. If you'd like to contribute to our work here at Bitchstory, we'd be thrilled to receive your financial support so we can keep going and maybe actually not be in the red.Our venmo is @bitchstory

They Made Us Invisible. We Made History.In 1881, the city of Chicago made it illegal to be visibly disabled in public. The fine was one dollar per offense — roughly thirty dollars today — for the crime of existing where someone could see you. Those laws stayed on the books in American cities until 1974.This Disability Pride Month, K and L look at four women the history books “forgot” Plus: the Black Panther who saved the longest nonviolent federal building occupation in U.S. history, the Supreme Court ruling that has never been overturned, and why the people who fought the hardest are the ones you've never heard of.The erasure is part of the system. Not anymore.🎧 We are on all major platforms- Listen wherever you get your podcastsWe made the “Top 80 Badass Female Podcasts”! We are number 30, in fact! Woot woot! Thank you listeners! Check out the list hereTHE BLOG: kellymcclain.blogspot.comPATREON: Patreon.com/BitchscopesINSTAGRAM: @bitchstory.pod @apothe.kelly @kellymcbitchTHE EMAIL: [email protected]: 💲We insert zero ads and have no subscription fees. If you'd like to contribute to our work here at Bitchstory, we'd be thrilled to receive your financial support so we can keep going and maybe actually not be in the red.Our venmo is @bitchstory

Happy Pride Month! On this episode of Bitchstory, we’re spending time with Anne Lister — a Queer Englishwoman of the 1800s. She is the woman behind a wild code that she used her entire life, to document every detail of her life. She was many things, a wife, the landowner, the original “Gentleman Jack” (which would have been considered a slur). We get into the diaries, the relationships, the texture of her daily life, and what it meant to live as fully and unapologetically as she did in Regency-era England.We have thoughts. We have feelings. We have theories. We have a lot of gratitude for Helena Whitbread, who gave us this gift by deciding the diaries. We even looked at Anne’s astrology, and to say “heavy Aries” is an understatement! Whoa!Come for the history. Stay for the part where we lose our minds a little bit!🎧 We are on all major platforms- Listen wherever you get your podcastsWe made the “Top 80 Badass Female Podcasts”! We are number 30, in fact! Woot woot! Thank you listeners! Check out the list hereTHE BLOG: kellymcclain.blogspot.comPATREON: Patreon.com/BitchscopesINSTAGRAM: @bitchstory.pod @apothe.kelly @kellymcbitchTHE EMAIL: [email protected]: 💲We insert zero ads and have no subscription fees. If you'd like to contribute to our work here at Bitchstory, we'd be thrilled to receive your financial support so we can keep going and maybe actually not be in the red.Our venmo is @bitchstory

You know the perfume. You don’t know the woman. By the end of this episode you’re going to be furious that the only thing most people associate with her name is a bottle on a department store counter.We don’t usually think about fashion and war crimes at the same time. Today’s episode forces us to. This story is about 2 MAJOR fashion houses and the very different roles they played in Nazi occupation in Europe. Trigger warnings apply. Please listen with care as this episode discusses concentration camps, rape, and torture (nothing detailed). I would call this episode adult content only. 🎧 We are on all major platforms- Listen wherever you get your podcasts, THE BLOG: kellymcclain.blogspot.comPATREON: Patreon.com/BitchscopesINSTAGRAM: @bitchstory.pod @apothe.kelly @kellymcbitchTHE EMAIL: [email protected]: 💲We insert zero ads and have no subscription fees. If you'd like to contribute to our work here at Bitchstory, we'd be thrilled to receive your financial support so we can keep going and maybe actually not be in the red.Our venmo is @bitchstory THANKS FOR LISTENING! We 🩷you!

This week we have a true crime story for you. I don’t want to give away too much here in the notes. But Dorothy Kilgallen was the Oprah or Barbara Walters of her time (the 40s, 50s & 60s)…and most of us have never heard of her. She was erased. Why? Dun-dun-dun… This story is wild! 🎧 We are on all major platforms- Listen wherever you get your podcasts, THE BLOG: kellymcclain.blogspot.comPATREON: Patreon.com/BitchscopesINSTAGRAM: @bitchstory.pod @apothe.kelly @kellymcbitchTHE EMAIL: [email protected]: 💲We insert zero ads and have no subscription fees. If you'd like to contribute to our work here at Bitchstory, we'd be thrilled to receive your financial support so we can keep going and maybe actually not be in the red.Our venmo is @bitchstory THANKS FOR LISTENING! We 🩷you!

This week on Bitchstory, Kelly and Lisa uncover the Black women who invented parts of everyday life — and then got ignored for it. From laundry tech and menstrual products to home security systems and space-saving furniture, these innovators made modern life easier while battling racism, sexism, and a patent system that rarely worked in their favor. Some lost their fortunes, some had their inventions rejected, and one even signed her patent with an X. Turns out the world we live in was built by women whose names most of us never learned.🎧 We are on all major platforms- Listen wherever you get your podcasts, THE BLOG: kellymcclain.blogspot.comINSTAGRAM: @bitchstory.pod @apothe.kelly @kellymcbitchTHE EMAIL: [email protected]: Patreon.com/bitchscopesCONTRIBUTE: 💲We insert zero ads and have no subscription fees. If you'd like to contribute to our work here at Bitchstory, we'd be thrilled to receive your financial support so we can keep going and maybe actually not be in the red.Our venmo is @bitchstory THANKS FOR LISTENING! We 🩷you!

During the 19-teens and through the Great Depression, women and particularly black women were holding together literacy in society with their bloody fingertips and blistered feet. In this episode we discuss the Packhorse Librarians of Kentucky, and the black librarians of the Harlem Renaissance. Literacy is power, guys. And Black history is American history. And women’s history is still sadly overlooked, which is why we do this podcast!Kelly’s creative projects of the moment: Goddess justice arc 2026 calendar Well behaved women keychains 🎧 We are on all major platforms- Listen wherever you get your podcasts, THE BLOG: kellymcclain.blogspot.comTHE EMAIL: [email protected]: Patreon.com/bitchscopesCONTRIBUTE: 💲We insert zero ads and have no subscription fees. If you'd like to contribute to our work here at Bitchstory, we'd be thrilled to receive your financial support so we can keep going and maybe actually not be in the red.Our venmo is @bitchstory THANKS FOR LISTENING! We 🩷you!