Welcome 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.
Read MoreBrenda Berkman has been fighting tirelessly for women's rights her entire life. Starting in the late 70's - early 80's, when she won a lawsuit in New York that resulted in the admission of women into the New York fire department for the first time in history, to her courageous contribution as a first responder during 911, to her advocacy work for women firefighters and first responders across the country in the years after 9/11. Brenda Berkman is tireless, fearless, and still going strong.
Read More(from: http://www.annebonnypirate.com/famous-female-pirates/jeanne-de-clisson/)
Read More"Stagecoach" Mary Fields was a hard drinkin', hard fightin', hard swearin' convent carpenter, former slave, and beloved mail carrier extraordinaire in the Old Montana West. She was the baddest bitch you'll ever meet and don't you forget it.
Read MoreSana Amanat joined Marvel Comics in 2009 after working for two years at Virgin Comics, a short-lived indie publisher that folded in 2008, after having only just launched in 2006. Marvel saw something special in her, and for good reason - as the VP of Content and Character Development at Marvel, she launched Ms Marvel, one of their most popular series, and is systematically helping to update Marvel characters from misogynistic dreams to feminist heroes and icons. And she is nowhere near done.
Read MoreMargaret Cavendish was known during her time as a duchess during the Reformation and Restoration as a shy, kooky philosopher with her head in the clouds. But the truth is, Margaret Cavendish is responsible for science fiction as we know it today, thanks to her philosophical novella about a woman who is whisked off to another dimension, where humans and animals co-exist in harmony under the rule of a benevolent empress, and airships cloud the sky. Margaret was deeply curious and devoted her life to writing, philosophy, and science, long before society stopped frowning on such activities. She was a seriously good witch who marched to the beat of her own damn drum!
Read MoreNellie Bly is an incredible historical figure and certainly ahead of her time. She was a keen and tireless reporter, and she knew her worth. She became famous for her stunt as an undercover reporter in a famous mental asylum on New York's Roosevelt Island, exposing the horrendous conditions there and garnering the hospital millions in funding from an abashed government. It wasn't the only thing she was famous for - Nellie also became the first woman to travel around the world in 80 (or, in her case, 72) days - stopping to meet Jules Verne at his home in France along the way.
Read MoreDuring World War 2, scientists developed a machine called THE ENIAC that they thought might be able to take the burden of computing intricate ballistics computations off of the human "computers", usually women, hired for the task. The problem was, they needed someone to program the machine, and that had never been done before. Enter the ENIAC programmers - six women computers hired to take on the task of programming the very first machine computer. Little did they know the impact this job would have on society, and the pure fact that a group of six women quite literally invented computer programming was lost to history - until now. Their names are: Kathleen McNulty Mauchly Antonelli, Jean Jennings Bartik, Frances Snyder Holberton, Marlyn Wescoff Meltzer, Frances Bilas Spence, and Ruth Lichterman Teitelbaum.
Read MoreIf you had an ailment in the early 1900's. Linda Hazzard had a solution for you. That solution was fasting, a process she helped you complete in her private Washington Sanatorium, where she would oversee your meals (or lack thereof), your "treatments" (which included enemas and extreme body massages), and, in some cases, your wealth. She claimed her method of fasting could detox the body, cure disease, and make a person feel good as new...unless it killed you.
Read MoreThe Countess di Castiglione, sometimes referred to as the original Selfie Queen, was a socialite in Paris who established herself there by having an affair with Napoleon. From then on, she had many affairs with society men, but she was most known by everyone in Paris society as the woman who meticulously (and some would say narcissistically) art-directed hundreds of photos of herself - in the mid-1800's.
Read MoreJulia Morgan's architectural genius was overlooked by history for almost a hundred years before she posthumously earned the American Institute of Artists Gold Medal, the first woman ever to do so. Besides the design largely considered to be her masterpiece, the Hearst Castle in San Simeon, Julia was responsible for designing myriad buildings, mostly in California, that stand the test of time today.
Read MoreTracey "Africa" Norman is a trans woman whose modeling career was on a roll in the 70's and 80's, with Vogue and Essence covers and even her face on one of Clairol's most popular box colors of its time - until someone learned her secret, and outed her to the rest of the modeling world. Years went by and other activists, models, and actors like Janet Mock and Laverne Cox learned of Tracey as their own careers began to rise, and took huge inspiration from her. Now her modeling career is blossoming once again thanks to changing national attitudes about gender, beauty, and identity. We have a long way to go, but people like Tracey are helping to create systemic change just by unabashedly being who they are.
Read MoreLeslie Feinberg brought the complicated conversation about gender to the public when she published Stone Butch Blues in 1993. In addition to her communist beliefs and writings, Leslie dedicated her life to the protection of gender nonconforming and transgender people.
Producer’s Note: This episode contains a lot of text referenced from the research and article written by Jeffry Lovannone and his piece on Leslie Feinberg: https://medium.com/queer-history-for-the-people/leslie-feinberg-transgender-warrior-fcb1bcaf15b2
Read MoreThe Chevaliere D'Eon was a woman in 18th century France (historically known as Chevalier d'Eon) who, born as a man, was a soldier, a lawyer, and a spy for King Louis XV for many years before publicly declaring herself a woman, which was accepted as truth by the public. She acquired feminist works and did swordplay demonstrations in her heavy dresses. She lived as a woman for thirty three years in post-revolutionary France.
Read MoreChristine Jorgensen was born George Jorgensen and the first American woman to undergo sex reassignment surgery. She went as far as Europe to receive confirmation from doctors there that her belief she was a woman was not a psychiatric disorder. She got it - and the surgery - and came back to the US a celebrity.
Read More
