For AAPI History Month we're talking about 1948 Olympic athlete Vicki Manalo Draves, who was the first American woman to win gold medals in both the 10 meter platform and three meter springboard events. Despite the prejudice and racism she experienced as the daughter of aFilipino father and British mother, Vicki powered through, trained her butt off, and became a badass record-breaking Olympic champion.
Read MoreWe all know the story of Helen Keller, but do you know about the woman who finally taught her to read and write? Her name was Anne Sullivan and she was a remarkable woman who was determined to go to school despite being blind and poor. She convinced the Perkins School for the Blind to accept her as a student, became valedictorian, and soon found herself the lifelong teacher and companion of Helen Keller, with whom she lived until she died.
Read MoreJulia Child is best known as a television personality, a cooking teacher, and an all around charming personality. Few people know that she was also a staunch progressive who fought hard for women's rights and worked for the clandestine OSS (Office of Strategic Services) during World War II. She lived a fascinating life and had immense fun sharing her wealth of cooking knowledge with the world.
Read MoreDorothy Arzner was a silent and sound film director in the late 20's and 30's, and has more directing credits than most female directors to this day. She was the first female member of the Directors Guild of America, she was the first person, man or woman, to have a credit as "Editor" in a film, she invented the boom microphone, and to top it off, and the list goes on. To make her legacy even more incredible, she was also an incredibly well-dressed butch lesbian woman. Dorothy Arzner paved the way for many of today's filmmakers, man and woman alike.
Read MoreIf you've never heard of Mae West, then listen to this podcast and then go watch one of her films, stat! She's an actress and writer like no one else of her time, bringing an innuendo-laden sexuality to all of her roles before the Hays Code could nip that in the bud. She was known for the pushing the envelope her entire life until the day she died. She believed in a healthy sex life, being swathed in diamonds, and wearing seven inch heels. So grab a bottle of champagne and settle in - you're gonna be dying to watch all of her films by the time this is done!
Read MoreDido Elizabeth Belle was the biracial daughter of a British naval officer and Maria Belle, a woman enslaved in the West Indies. She became a ward of her father's aristocratic family in 18th century England, the Earl and Countess of Mansfield, where she was treated as one of the family despite the fact that slavery was quite legal at the time, and therefore most people of color were regarded with racist attitudes and behaviors. She is the subject of a painting that launched much speculation, and is said to have been the inspiration for the Earl's decisions as a judge to vote in favor of several enslaved people going up against their "owners" in court. Dido Belle remains a bit of a mystery to us, but one thing is certain: European history is not nearly as white as we have been led to believe. So the next time some douche starts talking about "historical accuracy" when it comes to characters of color, you'll know exactly how to start dismantling that argument.
Read MoreWe know her now as the incredible director whose career was launched with the award-winning Selma and continued with a diversity of projects from Queen Sugar to A Wrinkle in Time to When They See Us. But Ava wasn't always the badass director you know today, and we're diving in to how she got where is now!
Read MoreMadam C.J. Walker was born Sarah Breedlove on a sharecropping in the post-Civil War South. She found her entrepreneurial calling when she met Annie Turbo Malone and tried her revolutionary hair products. From there, Sarah married the well-connected C.J. Walker and became Madam C.J. Walker, the name with under she marketed her own revolutionary hair products for African American women. And her products remain on shelves to this day!
Read MoreDid you know that, for a long time, women have been viewed as the over-zealous architects of the failed Prohibition movement? Associated primarily with the Women's Christian Temperance Union, anti-Prohibition politicians and historians long put the onus of Prohibition on pissed-off women looking for any way to control men they could find. The realities are far more complicated - and today we're talking about the who, the why, and the how! From temperance activist Carrie A. Nation to the Assistant Attorney General, Mabel Walker Willebrandt, and socialite and anti-Prohibition activist, Pauline Sabin, we're deep-diving into the Prohibition movement and all its good witches and bad bitches!
Read MoreIf you grew up reading and rereading Little Women, chances are you know all about the tomboyish Jo March and the March family. You probably don't know that Little Women is based in some part on author Louisa May Alcott's life, or that her life is almost as interesting, if not more so, than the March sisters. She grew up in a Transcendentalist commune, hid slaves escaping along the Underground Railroad, lived with mercury poisoning after a stint as a nurse, and became a bestselling author in her time. Her story is truly incredible, with twists and turns worthy of any bestselling novel.
Read MoreWhen you hear the words "organized crime" you probably think of the Italian Mob or the Russian Mafia, gangs with intricate networks of murderous and bank robbing men with thick New York accents and a gun hidden in their belt. You think of the Godfather or John Gotti or Al Capone. You've probably never once thought of the woman who came before them all - Fredericka "Marm" Mandelbaum, the mother of organized crime in America, whose criminal network spanned the country and even ran a school for burgeoning criminals, thus ensuring she would always have women and children at her beck and call to handle her criminal business. Marm was arguably the most successful organized criminal you've never heard of.
Producer’s note: This episode is numbered 85 in keeping with our numbering from the 2 episodes we’ve lost (83 and 84), should those be recovered or re-recorded, they will be numbered based on their original placement in our podcast’s order.
Read MoreWelcome to our Halloween Special Episode! Building on the spooky historical women and the witch trials we covered last Halloween, we're jumping in time to the here and now, where things haven't changed much, and the scares are even scarier! Hannah and Deanna cover a range of wicked topics, from the Satanic Panic, a modern-day witch trials you don't know about, to the evolution of campy goth icon, Elvira! It's the end of the Spookin' Season and we're closing it out with a bang.
Read MoreCome on, you've all heard of Mary Shelley! All you really need to know about this bad bitch was that she was a freaking genius. Daughter of liberal feminists, self-taught reader and writer, partner of "free love" enthusiast Percy Shelley, and, of course, author of the magnificent FRANKENSTEIN, a gorgeously written, creepy, spooky, gothic af story about a sinister doctor and his monster. She lost her virginity in a graveyard, kept locks of her deceased children's hair, and when she died they discovered the remains of her husband's heart tucked into her dresser drawer. Her life was full of drama and she was intense as hell, and her legacy lives on in FRANKENSTEIN.
Read MoreWe all know the name Jamie Lee Curtis. A prolific actress, children's book author, cosplayer, and the daughter of Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh, Jamie Lee got her start as Laurie Strode in John Carpenter's Halloween - a film which launched the trope of the Final Girl, and changed Jamie's life forever. Decades later, Jamie is starring in Knives Out, a campy whodunit, and her acting career is still going strong.
Read MoreLeona Vicario was a well-educated young woman of nobility who grew up in Spanish colonial Mexico. After beginning a relationship with a revolutionary named Quintana Roo, Leona made it her mission to help Mexico gain Independence - and spent a majority of her fortune funding the revolutionary effort. When Spanish investigators learned of her involvement, she fled, and continued her fight for independence as a boots-on-the-ground revolutionary. Leona was one seriously bad bitch.
Read MoreMaría Jesús Alvarado Rivera was a Peruvian journalist and feminist at the turn of the 20th century. She was inspired by her own childhood teacher and went on to speak about the importance of full equality for women in Peru. The most incredible thing about Maria was her dedication to achieving full equality for women - not only the vote, which was the primary feminist topic of the time. Later on, she got her message across through her work in the arts and the theater and though she lived long enough to see women achieve the right to vote in Peru, the victory was bittersweet because women's equality is still out of reach today. Maria was a seriously good witch, and we're honored to feature her during Hispanic/Latinx Heritage Month.
Read MoreCarmen Contreras-Bozak was the first Puerto Rican woman to go overseas as a codebreaker for the army in WW2. She joined at a time when women's contributions to the war were not seen as military, and they were therefore not entitled to the same benefits as male soldiers, such as access to VA hospitals or overseas payment. Carmen was a patriot in the truest sense - a young American woman born in the territory of Puerto Rico who found a life she loved in the mainland, and volunteered without hesitation to defend it.
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