Well-behaved women don't make history: difficult women do. 'This is the antidote to saccharine you-go-girl fluff. Effortlessly erudite and funny' Caroline Criado-Perez Strikers in saris.

Bomb-throwing suffragettes. The pioneer of the refuge movement who became a men's rights activist. Forget feel-good heroines: meet the feminist trailblazers who have been airbrushed from history for being 'difficult' - and discover how they made a difference.

Here are their stories in all their shocking, funny and unvarnished glory