Jezebel is known in the Bible as the Slut of Samaria, an Israelite queen who worshipped false gods and applied makeup and fixed her hair before meeting her son’s killer, the new king, in an attempt to seduce him and save her own life. More likely, however, is that she was a 60-year-old grandmother and royal widow who bravely prepared herself to die with the dignity of a queen. Despite that, her name has become a byword for “slut.”

Cleopatra, the most intelligent, powerful, and wealthy woman of the ancient world, was slut-shamed by her male enemies, the leaders of the Roman Republic. She had hundreds—no, thousands!—of lovers. In a typical “blame the woman” maneuver, they blamed her for the treachery and weakness of her lover, the Roman general Mark Antony. Because it’s always the woman’s fault when men behave badly, right?

History has reduced Anne Boleyn to a wily seductive temptress, greedy for power and riches, using Henry VIII’s unsated lust for her to force him to divorce his faithful dowdy wife and make her queen. A closer examination of her story, however, shows that when Henry initially stalked her, she fled from him for a year. Once he offered her honorable marriage, she relented. As queen, she was a philanthropist to the poor and to low-income students, a strict mistress enforcing good moral conduct at court, and a fervent religious reformer. Oddly, Henry VIII’s cruel treatment of his ex-wife and daughter are all blamed on her, though it is hard not to laugh at the image of a shrinking violet Henry VIII meekly accepting Anne’s cruel and outrageous orders. But Anne’s story was written by her worst enemy at court, and everyone loves the tale of a slut losing her head.

Catherine de Medici, the French queen mother, is known as a mass murderer who plotted the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre in 1572 to kills thousands of Huguenots across France. A closer examination of her life, however, will show that she exhausted herself for a decade before the massacre, and for 17 years afterward, until her deathbed, to bring peace to France in the Catholic-Huguenot religious wars. Her purported role in the massacre came from a single Huguenot report blaming the woman, whereas other Huguenot reports blaming the male members of the royal family were nearly not as popular. It is far more likely that her son, the king, or his brother planned the massacre.

Marie Antoinette was the subject of pornographic writings for many years before the 1789 Fall of the Bastille. Drought, famine, mismanagement of the royal coffers—they were all blamed on her, a woman with no political power whatsoever, rather than her good-hearted but rather daft husband, King Louis XVI. Who had the power. (Blame the woman, right?) Marie was expected to wear elaborate clothing befitting the dignity of a queen of France. When she didn’t, she was harshly criticized for lacking in dignity. When she did, she was criticized for wasting money from the royal coffers. The woman couldn’t win. And LOST HER HEAD in the process.

Julia Gillard was Australia’s first female prime minister from 2010 to 2013. She suffered the worst onslaught of misogyny ever up until that time. She was harshly criticized for her clothing, the width of her hips, the size of her earlobes, her accent, and the way she breathed air. Her Misogyny Speech is epic, and an absolute must-see.

Theresa May was the second female prime minister of Great Britain from 2016-2019. She was widely criticized for not having children, though somewhat forgiven as she and her husband had, at least, tried but, alas, it had not worked out. Women politicians are often seen as selfish and uncaring if they don't have children (which is usually not the case for their male counterparts) but if they have done the right thing by having children, women are asked "While you are working, who is looking after your husband and children?" Rarely, if ever, are male politicians asked this.

Hillary Clinton has been cast as a witch worthy of burning and hanging, a slut and lesbian, who tortured, sexually abused, and cannibalized young children under a Washington, DC pizza parlor, and a murderer of dozens of others, with a shrill voice and scary laugh, and hips and ankles far too wide. Does anybody talk about male politicians like this?