THREAD: With #MarchForOurLives around the corner, I've been thinking about the amazing teen activists. It reminds me of the true story of a badass average teenage girl who single-handedly took on an insanely popular but powerfully misogynist asshole in 1615.
2. So there was this guy in England, a real man's man named Joseph Swetnam. The guy was scary. He literally write the book on fencing and was thought to have taught the most powerful men in the kingdom how to fight. He was really into weapons. You just didn't mess with this guy.
3. The guy hated women. He wrote a terrible tract called The Arraignment of Women in 1615. In it he said terrible things like a dead wife isn't worth crying over, women should be beaten, all women are [insert animal here], etc. He published it anonymously. It went viral.
4. A teenage girl from a middle class family heard about it and had enough. Rachel Speght wrote a tract called A Mouzel for Melastomus and ripped him a new one. She kicked his ass across the page with her superior scholarship, but how she started her book KILLED.
5. You see, Swetnam's tract was originally anonymous. He used the lame penname Thomas Tell-Troth. At first, it wasn't clear who wrote this sexist piece of crap. Rachel Speght, however, wanted the world to know. She wanted to publically shame him. Check out how she did it:
6. This teenage girl outed quite possibly the scariest dude in town with A FUCKING ACROSTIC POEM FULL OF INSULTS. In iambic pentameter, yo. Everyone now knew the identity of the dude who wrote the wildly popular but disgustingly shitty misogynist tract. BUT WAIT...THERE'S MORE
7. Rachel Speght, many have argued, became the FIRST ENGLISHWOMAN protoFEMINIST TO IDENTIFY HERSELF BY NAME. A few pro-female tracts were written by supposed women before them, but there is no evidence that there were actual women behind the pen names. AND GET THIS...
8. Rachel Speght sparked a wave of writers AGAINST SWETNAM. Two more books appeared after her, written anonymously, supposedly by other women authors, who tore him a new one. AND YOU GUYS...someone even wrote a play. It was a COMEDY featuring a jury of women GRILLING Swetnam!
9. This all took place during the pamphlet wars in Jacobean England, where people were debating issues that eventually would further sew the seeds for the equality we now strive for today. Rachel Speght, a teenage girl, helped. She was the 17th century Katniss meets Hermione.
10. So the next time someone underestimates the teens who are speaking out against #gunviolence , remember that history is FULL of brave teens who acted in powerful ways & spoke truth to authority. If you don't take teens seriously, it is at your own peril! #MarchForOurLives
11. FOOTNOTE: Please forgive the typos. Autocorrect is a drunken bitch.😑
Share this Scrolly Tale with your friends.
A Scrolly Tale is a new way to read Twitter threads with a more visually immersive experience.
Discover more beautiful Scrolly Tales like this.