There’s nothing like a mad woman, what a shame she went mad.  What better way to celebrate Valentine’s Day than with some songs about women scorned? In this episode, we bring to you three songs that represent mad women. Maansi kicks off the discussion with the scornful, vengeful mad woman in “Better Than Revenge,” Jodi walks us through the woman who’s driven to insanity in “mad woman,” and Jenn wraps up the discussion with an example of the mad woman who is stuck in bonus track “right where you left me.” We close out the discussion by acknowledging how all of these songs are indicative of a movement that’s giving women everywhere the opportunity to reclaim the “mad woman” stigma.

Did we know this episode would drop on Valentine’s Day when we recorded it? No. Are we mad about it? Not at all!

Mentioned in this episode: 

Hildegard of Bingen

Sigmund Freud

Mean Girls

“Before He Cheats,” Carrie Underwood

“Mama’s Broken Heart,” Miranda Lambert

“Jolene,” Dolly Parton

“Vigilante shit,” Taylor Swift

The Country of the Blind, HG Wells

Game of Thrones

Great Expectations, Charles Dickens

Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf

Pride & Prejudice, Jane Austen

Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte

The Female Malady, Elaine Showalter 

Villette, Charlotte Bronte

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See

Cinderella’s Sisters: A Revisionist History of Foot Binding, Dorothy Ko

“Mama’s broken heart,” Miranda Lambert

Looking for an audio book? Check out our Libro.fm playlist https://tidd.ly/47uhRVI

***

Episode Highlights: 

[01:47] Intro to “mad women” & hysteria

[09:43] “Better than revenge,” Speak Now

[33:52] “mad woman,” folklore

[50:52] “right where you left me,” evermore

[1:13:02] Reclaiming the mad woman

Subscribe to get new episode updates: aptaylorswift.substack.com/subscribe

Follow us on social! 

• TikTok → tiktok.com/@APTaylorSwift

This podcast is neither related to nor endorsed by Taylor Swift, her companies, or record labels. All opinions are our own. Intro music produced by Scott Zadig aka Scotty Z.