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SMNTY Classics: Uncovering the Names of History’s Lost Women · Stuff Mom Never Told You

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha.
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: All of this stuff I never told you production by
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: Heart Radio, and recently we had the pleasure of getting
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: to talk to Olivia and Katie over at the What's
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: Her Name Podcast and it was an excellent conversation. We're
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: still trying to make this Savannah trip happen, but you
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: mentioned in there we had previously interviewed Olivia during early
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: pandemic days and it was such a fascinating conversation, so
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: we thought we would bring this one back for people
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: to listen to. And it's two amazing stories of amazing women,
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: so please enjoy.
• 0:56
  Speaker 3: Hey, this is.
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: Annie and Samantha and welcome to stuff Mom told your
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: production of iHeartRadio.
• 1:10
  Speaker 4: So today we are excited to bring another crew who
• 1:14
  Speaker 4: also loves to talk about amazing women in history and
• 1:17
  Speaker 4: talk about all the amazing or even unknown accomplishments they did.
• 1:21
  Speaker 4: So let's welcome Olivia.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: Olivia.
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: Hi, so happy to be here.
• 1:29
  Speaker 4: Yay, Olivia, thank you for joining us. Can you introduce
• 1:32
  Speaker 4: yourself for us?
• 1:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, my name's Olivia mikel and I teach women's studies
• 1:37
  Speaker 3: in Denver, Colorado, and I am the host of the
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: What's Her Name? Women's history podcast with my sister and
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: co host Katie Nelson.
• 1:46
  Speaker 4: And we are so excited that you have joined us.
• 1:49
  Speaker 4: You and I actually kind of connected because well, I
• 1:51
  Speaker 4: say you and I because I was the one handling
• 1:53
  Speaker 4: the social media at that point, because we got listed together,
• 1:57
  Speaker 4: and I was like, oh my god, it is cold.
• 1:59
  Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, crossover so exciting.
• 2:03
  Speaker 4: So can you tell a little bit about yourself for
• 2:06
  Speaker 4: our listeners and about your fantastic podcast and the reason
• 2:09
  Speaker 4: you and your sister decided to start all of it.
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah. So I was finishing up grad school and jobs
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: were very thin on the ground here. I live in Boulder,
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: and like the people bagging your groceries, to have a
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: master's degree, so it's really hard to get an academic
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: job here. And I was afraid I wasn't going to
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: find anything. Thank goodness, I did, but and I didn't
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: want to do nothing with my degree. It felt like
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: it felt frustrating to not do anything with this degree
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: that I had discerned. And so I called Katie, my sister,
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: who is a history professor, and we had been talking
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: for a while about doing something for women's history since
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: it was the perfect crossover of our interests. And so
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: we thought about writing articles or doing a blog or
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: something to get more women's history into the world. And
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: at that point podcasting was us about to shift from
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: do you know what a podcast is? To do you
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: listen to podcasts? And so we realized if we can
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: jump on this early on, then we have an advantage
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: over all the other podcasts that will start, and this
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: really seems like the venue that we're looking for. We
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: want this to be public and accessible and something that
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: you can use in classes, but also something that your
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: next door neighbor will enjoy. And so we decided to
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: do this to try to find a way to do
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: a podcast. We knew nothing about it at all, and
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: humanity professors learning to audio edit was hilarious, I will
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: tell you, and incredibly frustrating. But so we weren't really
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: exactly sure what we wanted to focus on. Just you know,
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: we knew women's history and that we were frustrated that
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: you keep hearing the same five women's stories over and
• 3:55
  Speaker 3: over again. And there are I don't know if you
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: know this, but there are more women than five who
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: didn't what I thought they were. There might be dozens
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: of women who did stuff throughout history, and Katie's idea
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: was that she really wanted to focus on all the
• 4:14
  Speaker 3: women that have not been talked about the you know,
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: our tagline is fascinating women you've never heard of, And
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: she knows this now. I didn't tell her at the time.
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: I thought it was a terrible idea, because you I met.
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: It was a brilliant idea, but a terrible idea because,
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: as you know, it's really hard to get people interested
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: in women's history anyway, and doing a whole podcast around
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: women that you've never heard of before just seemed like
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: such a hard sell to me, and I was worried
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: that nobody would listen to it. And then I was
• 4:43
  Speaker 3: walking through a graveyard, as one does, I do. I'm
• 4:47
  Speaker 3: informed that people don't, but apparently they I do. And
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: I was walking through this great old cemeterian boulder and
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: I just sort of stumbled across this gravestone that didn't
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: have any name on it. All it said was mother.
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: And I was just horrified. I mean, it gutted me
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: because I'm a mother and I love being a mother.
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: I have three children who I love, and I am
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: not mother. I am Olivia, and I am more than
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: that identity and I just it suddenly just felt so
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: horrifying to me that this woman was gone. And I
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: know that usually there's a larger gravestone with all the names,
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: and you know that it was probably attached to something
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: at one point, but nothing else was there anymore, and
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: all she was was mother. And I freaked out frankly
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: and called Katie on the way back to my car
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: out of the revery. Yes, we're doing it. We're doing
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: the Forgotten Women podcast. We have to rescue these women
• 5:46
  Speaker 3: from obscurity.
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: And that was it.
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: And she claims that since then that I've been forcing
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: her to do it, but it was her idea, so
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: and it's been it's been really fun to do, and
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: it's been way more successful than we expected, especially given
• 6:04
  Speaker 3: that setup of you've never heard of any of these people,
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: but we're going to make you interested in them, and
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: it's been really fun to have it take off and
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: be much much more successful then we anticipated it being.
• 6:16
  Speaker 5: I love that.
• 6:16
  Speaker 4: And it is the last day of March, which is
• 6:19
  Speaker 4: still technically women's first month.
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: We've forgotten it. Oh my god, March No, March ninety eighth,
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: the longest month in the world.
• 6:32
  Speaker 4: It really feels like it's been this month for over
• 6:35
  Speaker 4: two years now, Yeah, because I'm like, wait, I've been
• 6:39
  Speaker 4: in quarantine for how long? Because it feels like six years.
• 6:42
  Speaker 4: I'm pretty sure I died and came back and it's
• 6:46
  Speaker 4: still the same time frame, right as Groundhog's Day all
• 6:48
  Speaker 4: the time.
• 6:49
  Speaker 5: Well, we were so.
• 6:50
  Speaker 4: Excited when talking with you about bringing in some women
• 6:54
  Speaker 4: that you want to talk about, and can you kind
• 6:56
  Speaker 4: of introduce us to who you have brought for our listeners.
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so I have picked two of our women who
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: I think are some of my favorite stories to tell.
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: And it really is hard. I mean, it's you probably
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: get this one, which is your favorite episode? All of
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: them don't make me choose a child, but I think
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: these are two important ones to tell, and some of
• 7:24
  Speaker 3: the most surprising that they have been erased or that
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: they have been ignored, because some of the women that
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: we profiled are are just genuinely like no one knows
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: about them, accept the person that we talk to, because
• 7:37
  Speaker 3: every episode we have a guest, and some of them
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: just genuinely like this guest found this person and no
• 7:42
  Speaker 3: one in the world knows about them except this person
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: that's talking to us. And those are exciting, but these
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: ones are more well known in certain circles and certain
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: areas of the world, but still just way less celebrated
• 7:56
  Speaker 3: than they should be. So I've chosen Harriet Jacob, who
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: is the author of Incidents in the Life of a
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: Slave Girl and she was a self emancipated slave in
• 8:06
  Speaker 3: the American South, and noor Jahan, who was the only
• 8:11
  Speaker 3: Mughal empress to rule as a co emperor and sort
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: of even more important than her husband. Right, So we're
• 8:19
  Speaker 3: India and the US, yes, a couple of centuries apart. Yeah,
• 8:25
  Speaker 3: and opposite sides of the world, right, right.
• 8:29
  Speaker 4: And completely different situations. One was slave, So yeah, I
• 8:34
  Speaker 4: love this variation.
• 8:46
  Speaker 5: So, yeah, tell us about Harriet Jacobs.
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: I'm not gonna lie.
• 8:48
  Speaker 4: When I was delving into it, we kind of had
• 8:50
  Speaker 4: a similar story from our female first also named Harriet, right.
• 8:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Yeah, there's a lot of I think we even
• 8:57
  Speaker 3: set up the episode with her similarity to to Harriet Tubman, Yeah,
• 9:01
  Speaker 3: the famous Harriet. Because one of the things that is
• 9:05
  Speaker 3: frustrating about women's history is that we have one slot
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: for each story, right, we have one slot for a
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: runaway slave, and we have one slot for a pilot
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: and we well, we already talked about a black woman singer,
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: so now there's no more room for them, and there's
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: plenty of room for everyone. Absolutely, we talk about all
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: kinds of kings, and we don't just have room for
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: one queen. But her story is bananas, like you couldn't
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: make it up. If you made it up, no one
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: would believe you. And that's what happened, is that her
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: story is so amazing and ridiculous that four one hundred
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: years everybody thought it was fiction. They believe that this
• 9:48
  Speaker 3: must be a composite story trying to invoke the worst
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: possible experiences in order to serve abolition. And instead it's
• 9:57
  Speaker 3: the absolutely factual narrative of this woman who was an
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: enslaved person who emancipated herself and whose story is not
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: at all what we expect. And that's what I love
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: about her, is that we when we think of in
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: the US, when we think of runaway slafe stories, the
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: story is that you run away, that you run north,
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: and you, if you're lucky, you go all the way
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: to Canada. But at least you run to the north.
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: You leave the location and you go somewhere else and
• 10:27
  Speaker 3: that's how you become free, and Harriet Jacobs didn't. She
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: ran away across the street because she was the man
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: who owned her, who probably stole her by forging a will,
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: which is a whole other horrific side of the story.
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: She probably should have been freed, but he forged a
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: will and it comes to own her and is at
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: least sexually harassing her and probably more. She can't tell
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: the truth about this. In nineteenth century eventually threatens to
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: sell her children to try to force her to put
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: up with his sexual advances, and she knows that as
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: long as she is there, he's going to keep trying
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: to abuse her children to get to her. But she
• 11:16
  Speaker 3: doesn't have any way to get north. She doesn't have
• 11:18
  Speaker 3: any funds, she doesn't have a network, she doesn't know
• 11:21
  Speaker 3: where the underground railroad is running, and so she runs
• 11:25
  Speaker 3: away across the street to her grandmother's house, wherein I
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: didn't know this was going to be this appropriate when
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: I chose her for this, but where she self isolates
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: in a coffin sized space in her grandmother's attic for
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: seven years. Now, if we're all losing our minds after
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: two weeks, and we can still go to the grocery
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: store and we can sit up. She is literally laying
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: down in a space that is seven x ten by
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: three feet tall, and it's in the eaves of the attic,
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: so it's three feet tall at the point, but it
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: slopes down to the side. She can lay on one side.
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: She can't even lay down and roll over in this
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: space for seven years. Wow, it's I genuinely don't even
• 12:23
  Speaker 3: know how to think about this, right.
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: My back's already hard and thinking about this, I know.
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: And our guest Mario Indell, who's wonderful. She's a professor
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: at CU Boulder, and she talks about when she teaches
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: this book, she tapes out on the floor these dimensions,
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: and the tables in the classroom are exactly three feet tall,
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: so she teaches it from under the table. Wow, just
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: to help them realize how small this space is. And
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: you know, after one hour she can barely get up. Yeah,
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: and I mean very Occasionally, in the middle of the night,
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: they would sneak her down and let her walk around
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: a little, and that's the only and she can walk,
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: but she has physical damage to her body for the
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: rest of her life from this. She has difficulty walking,
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: and she has back problems, and you know, aside from
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: the extreme isolation and the you know, being forced to
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: be in the space, it's also it's North Carolina and
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: it's you know, one hundred and twelve degrees and one
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: hundred percent humidity, and there are bugs. And this is
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: not a modern attic, this is just planks, and it's
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: raining and it's hot, and then it's freezing cold. And
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: she is just entombed alive in this space. And that
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: that to her is preferable to what looked from the
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: outside as a good situation as an enslaved person, I
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: think really drives home. We can tell all the narratives
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: we want about, Oh, slavery wasn't that bad. It was
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: bad enough that this woman spent seven years in a
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: coffin right to escape, right, yeah. And worse than that,
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: to me is that her children didn't even know where
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: she was. Her grandmother knows where she is, and her
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: uncle knows where she is. No one else knows where
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: she is. And so she can see her children in
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: the street, she can hear them visiting her grandmother's house,
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: and they don't know she's there. That I just can't
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: I can't imagine it's brilliant too, because he's not looking here, right,
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: no one would stay here, and he immediately assumes she's
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: gone north, and she plays into that. She is writing
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: letters as if she's in New York and sending them
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: with people to mail back from the north, and he
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: is spending all of this time, He keeps going north
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: and wasting all this time looking for her when she's
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: five hundred feet away and he has no idea she's there.
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's brilliant and horrifying and sobering and amazing.
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: Eventually he agrees to sell her children to their father,
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: who's a white lawyer in town, and so she knows
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: her children are safe. He doesn't free his children this lawyer,
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: but at least they're not going to get sold to
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: the plantation anymore. So then she eventually does go north
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: and gets incredibly involved in abolition. She's running reading rooms,
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: she is working on running other slaves. You know, she's
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: doing all of this incredible work, but mostly she's focusing
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: on education. She was educated because the woman who owned
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: her before this man treated her well for an enslaved
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: person and educated her, and she knew how important that
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: was to be able to read and write, to be
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: able to escape in a way from the absolute brutal
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: reality of her world. So she starts some of the
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: first colored schools. She starts these massive education programs for
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: all of these escaping and freed slaves. And she is
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: a huge force for black education in the Northern United
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: States and just a hugely important person. And so when
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: she publishes this memoir anonymously, because she at the point
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: she publishes this memoir, she is still officially owned by
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: doctor Norcombe, her the man who owns her, or doctor
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: Norkam's daughter technically owns her. And so she publishes this
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: memoir anonymously, and no one knows who it is, and
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: it eventually gets it's so it's so wild that people
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: assume it must be fake and it must be written
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: by a white woman. And so the woman who writes
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: a preface for her one of her friends, it starts
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: being ascribed to her Lydia child. And even though she
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: keeps saying no, no, no, no, no, I didn't write this,
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: but that's how it's taught for one hundred years in
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: school that this is fiction by a white woman. And
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: it's not until the nineteen eighties someone starts putting this
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: together and realizes, wait a minute, this story tracks exactly
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: with the things that that important, famous abolitionist educator, Harriet
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: Jacobs said about her life. Tracks everything down and even
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: to the floor plans of the houses and the description
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: of all of these places. It matches exactly. And they
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: realized this was Harriet Jacobs who wrote this, So she
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: was already important and famous, and no one knew she
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: wrote this book. Wow, it's just unbelievable to me.
• 17:42
  Speaker 4: So it took over a one hundred and forty years
• 17:45
  Speaker 4: almost for them to realize who this belonged to, what right.
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: When, Even though when it first came out it wasn't
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: sold as fiction, it was old as this is a narrative,
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: This is a true narrative, but there were some fake
• 17:55
  Speaker 3: narratives floating around. But I think, you know, it's very
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: easy for people to say, well, and I'm sure that
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: there was an element of this is very well written.
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: It must be a white woman, and it's not employing
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: all of the tricks that we expect, and so it
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: just it makes me so happy that she's getting credit
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: now and it is being taught a lot more in classes.
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: But we don't have enough slave narratives, as this genre
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: is called already taught. But when we do read them,
• 18:25
  Speaker 3: we read Frederick Douglas's or we read these men's narratives.
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: When frankly, her story is the wildest story that you
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: have ever heard about. All this, I mean, this is
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: the very pair debt. There's so much more going on
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: in her story than these tiny little vignettes here and
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: you know, running off over and over again or come
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: chruming to find her, and the white family she's living
• 18:48
  Speaker 3: with sending her off with their baby so that she
• 18:51
  Speaker 3: can escape, like no, no one will stop you if
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: you have a white baby with you, go go go,
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: and just astonishing, and the way that she she talks
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: about the importance of emancipating herself, that one of her
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: friends eventually purchases her to free her. And while that's
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: a very kind act, and she acknowledges like that was
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: probably the best way to prevent me from being sold
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: back into slavery, it breaks her heart because once again
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: she's been you know, after decades of being free of
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: her own work, she is again, she said, Now history
• 19:29
  Speaker 3: has a bill of sale that Harriet Jacobs was sold
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: in the nineteenth century in New York City, when I
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: had already freed myself. So it's complicated and it's messy,
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: and it doesn't conform to the ways that we like
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: to tell these stories. And this really was the first
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: one that pointed out that women have an exceptionally specific
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: problem when they are enslaved people. Right that now our
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: standard narrative of slavery and includes sexual violence, But it
• 20:01
  Speaker 3: didn't until that point. No one had talked about it,
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: and it was carefully hidden away as a thing that
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: didn't happen. And she's the one who shone a light
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: on it and said, women, if you value Christianity, if
• 20:16
  Speaker 3: you value fidelity in marriage, you have to abolish slavery,
• 20:19
  Speaker 3: because look what's happening right under your nose. It was
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: just brilliantly strategic writing, too, right.
• 20:27
  Speaker 4: Yeah. One of the things I read while we were
• 20:30
  Speaker 4: researching this was the quote that our researcher said that
• 20:34
  Speaker 4: this was specifically for white women and for them to
• 20:38
  Speaker 4: acknowledge that this is something that's happening and to call
• 20:41
  Speaker 4: out the patriarchy for sexual tyranny.
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: Over black women like herself, and that she.
• 20:47
  Speaker 4: Was trying to put it in delicate ways, but to
• 20:49
  Speaker 4: let them know this is actually happening, and you were
• 20:52
  Speaker 4: allowing this to.
• 20:53
  Speaker 3: Happen, and it's happening in your house exactly, because I
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: think until it had been talked about, of course, most
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: women knew this was happening because it's happening in their house,
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: but it's not spoken about, and so they don't know
• 21:08
  Speaker 3: that it's happening everywhere. It's humiliating and shameful that it's
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: happening in my house. But once I find out that
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: it's happening everywhere, this is not me. This is not
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: a me problem. This is a societal problem. Right. It's
• 21:21
  Speaker 3: not that I can't keep my husband's interest, which is
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: usually how it was framed, or frankly, it's that this
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: system is a system of sexual assault that we have,
• 21:32
  Speaker 3: you know, codified, right, and that has to go if
• 21:35
  Speaker 3: we're going to call ourselves Christians. Right.
• 21:38
  Speaker 4: Yeah, And I did like her point of saying that
• 21:40
  Speaker 4: she almost it almost seemed like she was implying and
• 21:44
  Speaker 4: you can correct me if I'm wrong, that it was
• 21:46
  Speaker 4: a lesser evil to have.
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: This love affair with this white man.
• 21:52
  Speaker 4: Oh, definitely, in ordered to kind of validate what's happening
• 21:56
  Speaker 4: and to actually pull herself from that situation as well.
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, that her only choices were succumb to. I mean,
• 22:05
  Speaker 3: in the story she doesn't succumb. But yeah, right, that's
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: not a choice you can make to her owner who
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: is trying to rape her or have an affair consensually. Whatever,
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: we can argue about what consent means in this scenario
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: with a white man who at least might be able
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: to buy her children his children right, and might at
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: least protect them from this system in a tiny amount,
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: and might at least give her some semblance of agency.
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: That she made a choice to do this, but she
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: knows very well that this is a choice that will
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: be hugely frowned on by these very devout Christian abolitionist
• 22:43
  Speaker 3: women she's writing to, and that balancing act she has
• 22:46
  Speaker 3: to do of that's the point. Look, what choices you
• 22:51
  Speaker 3: left me? You left me no choices. My choices are
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: a fair Her owner wouldn't let her marry the man
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: she wanted to marry, a free black man, so she
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: doesn't have choices outside of these ones, and she made
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: the best choice she could, Even though she says repeatedly,
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: knowing her audience, I know this was wrong, but it
• 23:11
  Speaker 3: was less wrong than the other choices.
• 23:15
  Speaker 4: And that man was Sam Trentwell Sawyer, who ended up
• 23:18
  Speaker 4: being in the US House of Representatives.
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: Right right, Yeah, and also significant, Yeah, and who sent
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: who bought his children and then sent them to work
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: for his white children as enslaved people. I mean they
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: they treated them a little better. No, they didn't. They didn't.
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: He bought his children and put them to work. It's
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: just it's not the white Knight story that we wanted
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: to be, which is an important thing to pay attention to,
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: you know.
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: And that's kind of the.
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: There are no white saviors in this story.
• 23:51
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and that was kind of her point, is Hey,
• 23:54
  Speaker 4: I think quote she said, to tell you the truth,
• 23:56
  Speaker 4: let it cost me what it may. Yeah, And that
• 24:00
  Speaker 4: makes a lot of sense in this, like there's no
• 24:03
  Speaker 4: good situation.
• 24:04
  Speaker 5: This is the best that I could do.
• 24:06
  Speaker 4: And now I'm able to fight for my rise and
• 24:08
  Speaker 4: for others and let people know the atrocities that are
• 24:11
  Speaker 4: happening that you are turning a blind eye to, which
• 24:14
  Speaker 4: is really significant of a conversation in itself.
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a I mean, aside from the story, which
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: is all very I mean, it seems it's the first
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: time you read it. You know, students reading go, this
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: can't be true. This is exaggerated, it's verified, it's fact checked.
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: She is underplaying right story. If anything.
• 24:34
  Speaker 4: They literally said that she was kind of trying to
• 24:38
  Speaker 4: make it mild enough that people would read it.
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, you can't tell the truth about what really happened,
• 24:44
  Speaker 3: or it'll be too vile for ladies to read. I mean,
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: and walking that line of making it voyeuristically exciting enough
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: that people want to read it who might not be
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: interested in abolition, but also not selling out your own dignity.
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's it's a masterful piece of writing. It
• 25:02
  Speaker 3: really is. And the woman who edited it, Lydia Child. Again,
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: often even when they said once they realized, oh, she
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: didn't write this, Harriet Jacobs write it, there are a
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: lot of people who still say, well, she heavily edited,
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: but she herself was very upfront and said I did
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: almost nothing. I moved a few things around. She wrote this.
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: I didn't fix this. This is how she wrote it.
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: And that urge to delegitimize her voice. I think is
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: it tells us a lot and it's upsetting, right, So,
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's an amazing book. I really strongly recommend
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: everybody read it. It's just astonishing from a plot perspective,
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: from a literary perspective, from a history perspective, it's a
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: gem of a book. And her daughter went on to
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: become an extremely important educator. And I mean she just
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: she really she made a powerful impact on the world
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: and changed it in really important ways, even when no
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: one knew that she wrote this. And now that we
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: put these things together, that this woman wrote this book,
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: that's it's amazing. So yeah, Harriet Jacobs, I hope she
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: deserves a lot more attention than she's getting.
• 26:20
  Speaker 4: And she died in eighteen ninety seven DC, right, Yeah,
• 26:23
  Speaker 4: And she was a significant impact in just women in
• 26:27
  Speaker 4: bondage and slavery and again the horrendous things that were
• 26:32
  Speaker 4: happening that people oftentimes want to take ignore because it just,
• 26:36
  Speaker 4: you know, shames their sensibilities.
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, the determination of so many people to clean this
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: up and to convince ourselves that slavery wasn't that bad.
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: It was so much worse than you can imagine. Imagine
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: the worst thing you can imagine about slavery, and it
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: was worse than that.
• 27:00
  Speaker 4: And just let's just go it's slavery the word of itself.
• 27:04
  Speaker 4: Any it is gonna be bad. That's such an obnoxious
• 27:07
  Speaker 4: conversation in saying ownership is not a bad.
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: Thing, right, well, as long as you know, as long
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: as they weren't physically beaten, it wasn't that.
• 27:15
  Speaker 5: But no, you owned a person, You own a person.
• 27:18
  Speaker 4: They didn't get paid, they didn't get any kind of conversation,
• 27:21
  Speaker 4: they didn't get help. They weren't treated as equals. That
• 27:24
  Speaker 4: means as bad and whatever. The greatest situation is.
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah, if you wouldn't be willing to trade right now,
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: then it was bad.
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: We have some more of our conversation, but first we
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: have a quick break for a word from our sponsor,
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: and we're back.
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: Thank you sponsor.
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: So let's get back into it now.
• 27:56
  Speaker 5: Let's go back even further, as you said.
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: Into the past and on the other side of the world.
• 28:02
  Speaker 4: Yes, and tell her was about her next famous fabulous woman?
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah, uh noor Jahan, Empress nor Jahan. I had never
• 28:10
  Speaker 3: heard of her until I did this interview for this
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: episode with doctor Ruby Lall of emer University, who's wonderful
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: and Katie teaches this period in history a lot, so
• 28:21
  Speaker 3: she had heard of her, but there was still this
• 28:23
  Speaker 3: whole aspect of the story that she had never heard.
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: Because noor Jahan is wildly famous in India. She is
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: a household name. Her story is the story that you
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: hear from your grandmother and your mother. It is a famous,
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: famous story. But her story doesn't tell any of her story.
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: The story that is famous about nor Jahan is about
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: her falling in love with Emperor Jahangiir and then marrying him.
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: And that's her story, like she she married him the end.
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: And it's a beautiful love story. I mean it is.
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: And I think that's important too, for especially those who
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: said a European history and Western history have this idea
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: that like love wasn't a thing courtly, you know, until
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: courtly love, no one fell in love. Nonsense. The Eastern
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: world has been talking about love for thousands of years.
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: But this love story, this really powerful genre of love story,
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: is an important thing to talk about in the way
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: that women influence societies. But it's so frustrating because this
• 29:30
  Speaker 3: woman was amazing and none of the stuff she did
• 29:34
  Speaker 3: is in her story that everyone knows. And so Ruby
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: Lall's biography, which is called Empress, and it's just amazing.
• 29:42
  Speaker 3: It's so great, and I recommend it really strongly takes
• 29:46
  Speaker 3: all of that and puts it all back together. And
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: as not a historian myself, but someone who has studied
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: a lot of history in women's studies in one of
• 29:56
  Speaker 3: these related fields, I love when historians ignore knowledge, the
• 30:00
  Speaker 3: power of literature, the power of mythology, the power of story,
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: and that it's not just written off as well, that's
• 30:07
  Speaker 3: the legend, yeah, but the legend has affected the history.
• 30:11
  Speaker 3: She is as much her legendary self as she was
• 30:14
  Speaker 3: her historical self now, and so she brings all of
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: those things in together and talks about the intersection of
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: those in ways that I really love. But then also
• 30:23
  Speaker 3: tells us the unbelievable forgotten facts about nor Jehan, such
• 30:29
  Speaker 3: as she was a world renowned tiger hunter and she
• 30:37
  Speaker 3: once shot four man eating tigers with six musket shots
• 30:42
  Speaker 3: from the top of an elephant. I mean, there's not
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: a better story in the world than that, no matter
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: what else happened, Like just those sentences, she.
• 30:54
  Speaker 5: Was our tiger queen.
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean at the time when only the king,
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: only the emperor is allowed to kill a tiger, right,
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: and she does it, which is how we know she
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: was the emperor. She was co regent with her husband,
• 31:16
  Speaker 3: who was either ill or alcoholic or maybe both right
• 31:20
  Speaker 3: and kind of out of the picture for a lot
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: of it. She took over and she is running it,
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: and instead of thankfully running scary sideshows us, she is
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: rescuing people from man eating tigers on the rampage. But
• 31:33
  Speaker 3: that I mean, I just muskets have barely been invented.
• 31:39
  Speaker 3: No one knows how to shoot them. And if anyone
• 31:41
  Speaker 3: has ever shot an old school like black powder rifle
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: muskets something, they are difficult and they are wildly inaccurate.
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: I mean, if you hit anything within an eight foot range,
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: you did well. And she kills four man eating tigers
• 31:59
  Speaker 3: in one day with six shuts from an elephant which
• 32:05
  Speaker 3: you know is not standing there nicely while tiger is
• 32:08
  Speaker 3: nip at its heels and she's shooting a musket like
• 32:10
  Speaker 3: this is an impossible job, and she does it. That's
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: that woman is. I don't care what else she did.
• 32:16
  Speaker 3: That woman I want to learn about, right, yes, but
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: she was absolutely incredible. She is taking over this very
• 32:25
  Speaker 3: male dominated society and ruling and stepping into the role
• 32:32
  Speaker 3: of emperor. In very public and meaningful ways and doing
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: it effectively that people love her. She is minting coins
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: in her own name, which is the number one sign
• 32:44
  Speaker 3: that you know, that's how in most of history we
• 32:46
  Speaker 3: know who was in charge there on the coin. And
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: she's doing executive orders with her own seal, not her
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: husband's name. Her name. Just really astonishing power that she's wielding.
• 32:59
  Speaker 3: But like her husband gets kidnapped by people who are
• 33:04
  Speaker 3: trying to take over, probably one of his sons is involved,
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: trying to undermine his rule. And rather than send the army,
• 33:10
  Speaker 3: or send one of her step sons, or do political
• 33:13
  Speaker 3: channels or whatever you know a good WiFi should do,
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: she gets on another elephant and storms off across India
• 33:23
  Speaker 3: to go rescue him. And then when her step son
• 33:26
  Speaker 3: sells her out and it doesn't work, she gets captured,
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: and she's now captured with him. Rather than feeling bad
• 33:32
  Speaker 3: about that, she goes, great, I'm inside the machine. Now
• 33:36
  Speaker 3: this will be even easier, and she stages an elaborate
• 33:40
  Speaker 3: like escape coup from inside the prison camp, raises an
• 33:44
  Speaker 3: army under the noses of her captors. Because she's a woman,
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: she couldn't be, and escapes and rides triumphantly back into
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: town with her husband that she has saved. I mean,
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: it's just it's made up, crazy, hilarious nonsense, and it
• 34:02
  Speaker 3: absolutely happened, right, It's impossible that you did that, and
• 34:06
  Speaker 3: she did it. She was just the coolest, unstoppable force
• 34:11
  Speaker 3: of this Mughal empress. She dressed like a man. She
• 34:15
  Speaker 3: would go hunting. She sometimes dressed like a man, but
• 34:18
  Speaker 3: other times it was like the peak of fashion. She
• 34:21
  Speaker 3: was a fashion designer and influenced the entire fashion of
• 34:24
  Speaker 3: one hundred years of India. She designed jewelry, She was
• 34:28
  Speaker 3: an artist. She designed tombs, she designed buildings. She shifted
• 34:33
  Speaker 3: the course of Indian architecture forever. Like the most famous building,
• 34:37
  Speaker 3: the taj Mahal, is based on the tomb she built
• 34:41
  Speaker 3: for her parents. That was wild and ridiculous, white marble.
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: Who uses white marble, We use red sandstone. And she
• 34:48
  Speaker 3: made up this new whole entirely different form and then
• 34:53
  Speaker 3: everyone went, oh, that's kind of cool and copied it.
• 34:55
  Speaker 3: And that's where we get the taj Mahal from her
• 34:58
  Speaker 3: step son. She was just this massive force in society
• 35:05
  Speaker 3: and that she's known for getting married. It's frustrating right.
• 35:12
  Speaker 4: Right, because not only would yes, she got married, but
• 35:15
  Speaker 4: she kind of fixed the mistakes that have been occurring
• 35:19
  Speaker 4: or what are occurred under the husband's reign, who again
• 35:22
  Speaker 4: was either sick or an alcoholic or whatever whatnot. And
• 35:26
  Speaker 4: she's like, nah, I got this, let me let me not.
• 35:29
  Speaker 4: On top of that, she's like, and you're going to
• 35:30
  Speaker 4: see me do it. You're going to see that I'm
• 35:33
  Speaker 4: no one that's making this change.
• 35:35
  Speaker 3: Right, and that everybody apparently was cool with it until
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: until she wrote off on an elephant at the head
• 35:40
  Speaker 3: of the army that seems to have been the line
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: when her steps and went, okay, stop it, no, I'm
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: in charge now, you're not a man. But I mean,
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: it's just it's amazing, and I think it it illustrates
• 35:54
  Speaker 3: the point that we we as soon as she is
• 35:57
  Speaker 3: out of power, they erase her again. And they not
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: only erase her, they debase all women, that all women
• 36:03
  Speaker 3: are chaotic and unstable, and that's why she was chaotic
• 36:05
  Speaker 3: and unstable, and therefore she was terrible and we should
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: not talk about her anymore. And this very effective erasure
• 36:14
  Speaker 3: that doesn't just erase her, that we do this over
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: and over and over again, we act like women weren't
• 36:20
  Speaker 3: ever in power. And this comes up in the podcast
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: all the time that we pretend that women ruling is
• 36:26
  Speaker 3: an aberration that just every once in a while we
• 36:29
  Speaker 3: get a weird queen victoria. But it's not the norm,
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: and it doesn't happen very often, and we shouldn't encourage it,
• 36:36
  Speaker 3: and that's nonsense. Women are in power all over the
• 36:39
  Speaker 3: place all the time. And one of our other guests,
• 36:42
  Speaker 3: Pam Toller, who's wonderful. She has a book called Women
• 36:45
  Speaker 3: Warriors that's fantastic. She was our guest on another episode,
• 36:49
  Speaker 3: but she talked about when she went into writing that book,
• 36:51
  Speaker 3: she had a list of you know, a few dozen
• 36:54
  Speaker 3: famous warrior women that she knew about and stood by
• 36:57
  Speaker 3: the end she had thousands. She had thousands of names
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: of these women who were rulers and warriors and broke
• 37:02
  Speaker 3: all of these norms, which means they aren't norms. I mean,
• 37:06
  Speaker 3: it happens all the time, but we every time we
• 37:09
  Speaker 3: pretend like, ohoh, this was unusual, and then five years
• 37:13
  Speaker 3: later happens again and go, oh, unheard of, never seen
• 37:15
  Speaker 3: this happen before. Maybe pay attention that it happens a
• 37:19
  Speaker 3: lot and it's normal.
• 37:20
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 37:21
  Speaker 3: But as long as we keep women convince that women
• 37:23
  Speaker 3: have never been in power, women don't ask for power, right,
• 37:27
  Speaker 3: it's easier to insist that it's not normal. Right.
• 37:31
  Speaker 4: I think that's one of the conversations that we've had
• 37:34
  Speaker 4: with past guests is the fact that there's always a
• 37:37
  Speaker 4: discovery that when we think we know who did the first,
• 37:39
  Speaker 4: there was also someone else who may have done that first,
• 37:42
  Speaker 4: and we just didn't recognize it until them because they
• 37:45
  Speaker 4: weren't given the credit for the work they had done.
• 37:48
  Speaker 4: And then as we keep continuing to dig more and more,
• 37:51
  Speaker 4: we're realizing there's a lot of significant people, specifically women.
• 37:54
  Speaker 4: Are those who identify as women a non binary that
• 37:57
  Speaker 4: just got passed over, right, just their idea is stolen
• 38:01
  Speaker 4: or the credit taken from them, right.
• 38:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean even when we give women credit, it's
• 38:08
  Speaker 3: often at the expense of other women, like the famously
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: and I adore her. Mary Shelley invented science fiction, as
• 38:16
  Speaker 3: we all are told, No she didn't. Margaret Cavendish invented
• 38:21
  Speaker 3: science fiction two hundred years earlier, but we don't pay
• 38:25
  Speaker 3: attention to it, you know. And I love Mary Shelley,
• 38:27
  Speaker 3: but she didn't invent science fiction. It was a thing
• 38:29
  Speaker 3: well before, and that we don't talk about the many,
• 38:34
  Speaker 3: many generations and layers of women who have been doing stuff.
• 38:37
  Speaker 3: We picked the one story and Mary Shelley Sorry, is
• 38:41
  Speaker 3: amazing and fantastic and we should tell it, but we
• 38:43
  Speaker 3: don't need to add things that, you know, Frankenstein stands
• 38:47
  Speaker 3: on its own. Whether it was the first time someone
• 38:49
  Speaker 3: had done something like that or not, it's it is
• 38:52
  Speaker 3: peak science fiction, right, but it's not the first.
• 38:56
  Speaker 4: And yeah, and I do love when we talk about
• 38:58
  Speaker 4: these amazing women, whether it's true or not, we do
• 39:00
  Speaker 4: have this fantasized level of and we know beauty does
• 39:04
  Speaker 4: accentuate and help give some privilege. But the fact nor
• 39:08
  Speaker 4: John was known as a beauty as one of the
• 39:11
  Speaker 4: first things as you recognize, and then all of the
• 39:14
  Speaker 4: soap opera backgrounds, yeah, hinder.
• 39:17
  Speaker 3: That she was in love with the emperor but had
• 39:20
  Speaker 3: to marry someone else. And I mean it's an unusual
• 39:22
  Speaker 3: story anyway, because now the Empress is someone who is
• 39:25
  Speaker 3: a widow, right, she's already been married. That's not something
• 39:30
  Speaker 3: that's supposed to happen, you know, But he loved her
• 39:34
  Speaker 3: before she got married, so I mean, it's it's an interesting,
• 39:36
  Speaker 3: unusual story, especially from a Western perspective who doesn't understand
• 39:40
  Speaker 3: the way these stories work in mingle culture. But it's
• 39:44
  Speaker 3: it's just it's a wild ride no matter what you
• 39:49
  Speaker 3: know about her, and Ruby lall had to do all
• 39:52
  Speaker 3: of this detective work to find out these things about her.
• 39:55
  Speaker 3: You know that, Yeah, we all Why do they keep
• 39:58
  Speaker 3: talking about her hunting? Why is they they're so obsessed
• 40:01
  Speaker 3: with her hunting tigers? Because they were telling us something
• 40:04
  Speaker 3: because if you you know, if we don't know until
• 40:07
  Speaker 3: Ruby Laule digs this up, who was allowed to hunt
• 40:09
  Speaker 3: tigers the emperor. When they keep talking about this in
• 40:13
  Speaker 3: court documents, they're making a point she is the emperor
• 40:16
  Speaker 3: that we we don't have the historical knowledge to understand
• 40:21
  Speaker 3: the clues they've been trying to give us.
• 40:23
  Speaker 4: You know. And I do love that her fact that
• 40:26
  Speaker 4: her name was and I'm gonna butcher this mayor Unissa,
• 40:30
  Speaker 4: that she was born the name which was son among women,
• 40:34
  Speaker 4: and then the emperor changed her name to nir John, which.
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: Is the light of the world, right right.
• 40:38
  Speaker 4: I love that that kind of is like the transition
• 40:41
  Speaker 4: for that as well, to show the significance of how
• 40:44
  Speaker 4: amazing she was.
• 40:46
  Speaker 5: Yeah, and influencing the emperor.
• 40:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean he absolutely that. The love story part
• 40:52
  Speaker 3: is not a lie. He absolutely adored her. I mean
• 40:55
  Speaker 3: it was a devoted, passionate love affair that also turns
• 41:01
  Speaker 3: into this astonishing story of female power and political boundary
• 41:07
  Speaker 3: pushing and historical detective work. It's interesting. It's really the
• 41:13
  Speaker 3: portraits of her bizarre and fascinating. There's one of her
• 41:17
  Speaker 3: loading a musket. I mean, have you ever seen a
• 41:21
  Speaker 3: royal portrait of a queen where she's loading a musket? No?
• 41:25
  Speaker 3: And she's dressed like a man. The only reason they
• 41:27
  Speaker 3: can tell it's a woman is the very small waist
• 41:29
  Speaker 3: and the henna on her feet. I mean, this broke
• 41:32
  Speaker 3: every boundary of art. Women all look the same in
• 41:35
  Speaker 3: Mughal art, Right, it's the same woman, the perfect woman
• 41:38
  Speaker 3: with different dresses on, and she doesn't look anything like that?
• 41:42
  Speaker 3: Was that her? The royal artist who did this had
• 41:44
  Speaker 3: never done another portrait like that ever for the rest
• 41:47
  Speaker 3: of his career. So is she insisting? Is she saying, no,
• 41:51
  Speaker 3: draw me draw you know? Who knows? And it's so
• 41:54
  Speaker 3: many fun rabbit holes to go down, like who was
• 41:57
  Speaker 3: this woman and you know, how did she manage all
• 42:02
  Speaker 3: of this, all of these grown step sons that are
• 42:05
  Speaker 3: vying for power as soon as her husband dies. And
• 42:10
  Speaker 3: it's just it's fascinating. It is She's she's such a
• 42:13
  Speaker 3: fascinating woman.
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: I did love that that there was like a poem
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: about her.
• 42:20
  Speaker 4: She He's like though nor John being formal woman in
• 42:24
  Speaker 4: the ranks of men.
• 42:24
  Speaker 5: She's a tiger slayer.
• 42:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, making it very clear, like, don't mess with her.
• 42:31
  Speaker 3: She's in charge here, you know.
• 42:35
  Speaker 4: I mean, unfortunately it does sound like, oh, she's not
• 42:37
  Speaker 4: one of those women.
• 42:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 42:39
  Speaker 5: Different.
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's an unfortunate say.
• 42:40
  Speaker 4: But at the same time, it kind of is the
• 42:42
  Speaker 4: credit to her that she took a challenge. It was like, nah,
• 42:45
  Speaker 4: I'm not I'm not going to stay behind. I'm going
• 42:47
  Speaker 4: to be the forefront of this.
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: Watch me.
• 42:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I will write an elephant into battle and I
• 42:53
  Speaker 3: will bring my husband home.
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: And she did.
• 42:57
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's just amazing. And I we especially love
• 43:00
  Speaker 3: the stories where patriarchy ignores women and gets bitten for it,
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: right that over and over again women, i mean, the
• 43:09
  Speaker 3: Roman Empire, every single time a woman rises up against them,
• 43:12
  Speaker 3: they're like, what is this we have never seen a woman.
• 43:15
  Speaker 3: We had no idea women could fight, and they don't.
• 43:19
  Speaker 3: They refuse to acknowledge that it's possible. So it keeps
• 43:21
  Speaker 3: happening over and over and over all. These women defeat
• 43:24
  Speaker 3: the Roman Empire because they refuse to admit that it
• 43:26
  Speaker 3: might happen. It just happened three years ago. Many pay attention.
• 43:31
  Speaker 4: Yeah, there's nothing more dangerous than an underrestimated woman, so.
• 43:37
  Speaker 3: That when you can use that ideology, you know they're
• 43:39
  Speaker 3: not going to pay attention to you. You know, so
• 43:42
  Speaker 3: many spies during the Civil War, spies all the time
• 43:44
  Speaker 3: who just are absolutely they know that the men aren't
• 43:48
  Speaker 3: going to think they're anything, so they can do whatever
• 43:51
  Speaker 3: they want. I just did an interview about these amazing
• 43:53
  Speaker 3: teenage girls who were some of the most effective anti
• 43:58
  Speaker 3: Nazi resistance workers in the Netherlands during World War Two
• 44:03
  Speaker 3: because they were cute teenage girls, and nobody thought the
• 44:06
  Speaker 3: cute teenage girl is gonna ride by on her bicycle
• 44:08
  Speaker 3: and assassinate the Nazi captain, but they did. I mean,
• 44:13
  Speaker 3: it was just I love those when you take the
• 44:20
  Speaker 3: terrible structures you've been given and use them to subvert
• 44:22
  Speaker 3: the power. Those my favorite stories always.
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: I love it.
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: I'm just so glad people are doing this work because
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: it is something we talk about a lot. How unfortunately,
• 44:32
  Speaker 2: these stories have been lost, and there's a part of
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: me that when I hear such an amazing stories like these,
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: I'm so glad to hear them. They're great, but I'm
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: also angry that I'm learning them so late in life. Yeah,
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: I would have loved this story about a tiger slayer
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: when I was a kid.
• 44:48
  Speaker 3: I would have loved How did this not feature in
• 44:51
  Speaker 3: our history classes? Come off?
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, it's not a movie like a big
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: you know deal.
• 44:58
  Speaker 3: They got lots in India, right, there's lots of great
• 45:01
  Speaker 3: Bollywood versions of this, which I adore Bollywood, so like
• 45:04
  Speaker 3: they've done it better than you need more dancing anyway,
• 45:07
  Speaker 3: so a lot more. We wouldn't have got enough dancing
• 45:09
  Speaker 3: in that fight. My teenage sons, when they were quite young,
• 45:12
  Speaker 3: they've grown up watching Bollywood with me and one of them,
• 45:14
  Speaker 3: we were watching some American, famous American movie I can't remember,
• 45:17
  Speaker 3: and my son, at that point, probably about nine, set
• 45:20
  Speaker 3: The problem with American movies is there aren't enough angry
• 45:23
  Speaker 3: dance offs. So that is the problem with American movies.
• 45:28
  Speaker 4: True, you can only get that in the fifties and sixties.
• 45:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah, the Galley, Yeah, that's why we love that. Right,
• 45:36
  Speaker 3: you need more dance offs. And I'm just saying, Hollywood,
• 45:39
  Speaker 3: get it together. Yes, agreed. And that's the other part
• 45:44
  Speaker 3: of this, right, that that we the Western world in
• 45:47
  Speaker 3: scare quotes just feel free to absolutely ignore the entire
• 45:52
  Speaker 3: rest of the world, and that you know, with that
• 45:55
  Speaker 3: story doesn't matter. I mean, come on, that story is
• 45:59
  Speaker 3: amazing and if you want to make kids. You know,
• 46:01
  Speaker 3: my son, my younger son, just about a year ago,
• 46:05
  Speaker 3: just in passing, mentioned that history was boring, and I just,
• 46:09
  Speaker 3: like his brother, went, oh, don't know what he's like what?
• 46:16
  Speaker 3: And so I pulled it together because I know what
• 46:20
  Speaker 3: he means. Right, we tell history so badly. And so
• 46:23
  Speaker 3: we were out. I was forcing him to walk with
• 46:25
  Speaker 3: me around this lake, and so for three laps around
• 46:27
  Speaker 3: the lake, I told him just the story of Henry
• 46:29
  Speaker 3: the eighth and his three wives and his six wives, right,
• 46:32
  Speaker 3: and just all the details, and people walking past were
• 46:35
  Speaker 3: looking at us like what that's a weird covers and
• 46:39
  Speaker 3: then she was beheaded. But by the end of the lake,
• 46:43
  Speaker 3: I said So do you think history is boring? He said, no,
• 46:45
  Speaker 3: I think my history teachers are boring. That's amazing, thank you.
• 46:50
  Speaker 5: Mean, but that's that's like so many good stories.
• 46:54
  Speaker 4: And I think it's from where you're from too, because
• 46:56
  Speaker 4: growing up in Georgia myself, as you can tell from
• 46:59
  Speaker 4: my accent, uh, I got a very edited, dumb down,
• 47:04
  Speaker 4: not completely history of things because you know, when you
• 47:08
  Speaker 4: are from a very politically angled Yeah.
• 47:14
  Speaker 5: I don't even know how to say it all of that,
• 47:16
  Speaker 5: but you.
• 47:16
  Speaker 3: Know your history is it through a very specific filter variation.
• 47:20
  Speaker 4: I mean, even to the point when we're talking about
• 47:21
  Speaker 4: Harriett Jacobs again, that point of slavery wasn't that bad.
• 47:25
  Speaker 4: The Civil War wasn't based on slavery.
• 47:27
  Speaker 5: A little more like.
• 47:30
  Speaker 3: Every single one of the states mentioned slavery in their
• 47:34
  Speaker 3: statement of secession. But that's probably just a coincidence.
• 47:36
  Speaker 5: Right, I mean, that's kind of like a variation of history.
• 47:39
  Speaker 4: So you start being like, wait, this is not this
• 47:41
  Speaker 4: history is not pertained And again for me as an
• 47:43
  Speaker 4: Asian woman, and I could call myself brown woman, and
• 47:45
  Speaker 4: I'm like, this not pertained to me? Yeah, in that level,
• 47:50
  Speaker 4: So you have a very like a skewed version, and
• 47:51
  Speaker 4: I would have loved it. Yeah, hear about this badass
• 47:55
  Speaker 4: empress who was shooting up tigers and doing her thing,
• 47:59
  Speaker 4: rescuing her husband and fighting a pretty much a civil
• 48:02
  Speaker 4: battle with her own stepsons because they were afraid of women.
• 48:06
  Speaker 4: I'm like, oh my god, where was that at in
• 48:08
  Speaker 4: my grow I want to know about those heroes.
• 48:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we You know, you can't be what you can't see.
• 48:14
  Speaker 3: How are we supposed to grow into tiger shooting, elephant
• 48:19
  Speaker 3: writing warrior women. No. And I will say, as someone
• 48:21
  Speaker 3: who adores tigers a lot, like I can't even I
• 48:25
  Speaker 3: can't even bring myself to watch the Tiger King show
• 48:29
  Speaker 3: because it will hurt my heart too much. But she's
• 48:32
  Speaker 3: only shooting man eating tigers that are killing people. He's
• 48:38
  Speaker 3: not just out shooting tigers. The space send, No, they
• 48:42
  Speaker 3: send for the emperor to come and rescue them from
• 48:44
  Speaker 3: the tiger who's killed one hundred people, and then she
• 48:47
  Speaker 3: shoots the tigers. That's the kind of awesome, badass warrior
• 48:51
  Speaker 3: queen that I can get behind.
• 48:52
  Speaker 4: Again, it was fifteen hundred, so that's a whole different level.
• 48:56
  Speaker 2: We have some more for you listeners, But first we
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: have one more quick break for word from ours.
• 49:14
  Speaker 5: And we're back.
• 49:14
  Speaker 3: Thank you sponsor.
• 49:16
  Speaker 4: Well, I mean these stories are not just for like
• 49:19
  Speaker 4: a feminist perspective. These stories are yeah, the live realization
• 49:23
  Speaker 4: of how the amazing people are and the fact that
• 49:27
  Speaker 4: women are very much ignored in or raced through history,
• 49:30
  Speaker 4: and so we have to acknowledge and go beyond and
• 49:32
  Speaker 4: be like, hey, listen to this. This is a fascinating
• 49:34
  Speaker 4: story about a human being. But because she's a woman,
• 49:38
  Speaker 4: or because she has a vagina, people who chose to
• 49:40
  Speaker 4: ignore it.
• 49:41
  Speaker 5: But now it's time.
• 49:42
  Speaker 4: This is just just listen to the good stories if
• 49:44
  Speaker 4: you want to.
• 49:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean that, you know, amazingly half of humanity
• 49:51
  Speaker 3: has done stuff and it's worth talking about. Yeah. I mean,
• 49:57
  Speaker 3: my my field makes me both very aware of things
• 50:01
  Speaker 3: and very cynical on some level. Like I'm angry all
• 50:03
  Speaker 3: the time doing these podcasts, Like some of them are
• 50:06
  Speaker 3: super inspiring, but a lot of them I end up
• 50:08
  Speaker 3: just furious, right, furious about these women's lives or the
• 50:12
  Speaker 3: things they had to endure, or the way they were
• 50:14
  Speaker 3: erased or you know, it's frustrating. And so I do
• 50:18
  Speaker 3: this and then I teach women's studies and then I
• 50:20
  Speaker 3: was writing a lot of women's studies stuff, and finally
• 50:22
  Speaker 3: my husband said, I think you need a hobby that's
• 50:24
  Speaker 3: not about feminism, because, like I just it was eating
• 50:27
  Speaker 3: me alive, and I thought, you were right. I need
• 50:30
  Speaker 3: something else that is just fun. Right, that's just positive
• 50:33
  Speaker 3: all the time. But it also makes me unsurprised by things.
• 50:38
  Speaker 3: So like I have the platonic ideal of a supportive husband.
• 50:41
  Speaker 3: He is the best there you could not improve as
• 50:46
  Speaker 3: a person, my husband, and so he is super helpful
• 50:51
  Speaker 3: and supportive and great on all of this stuff. And
• 50:54
  Speaker 3: he is consistently surprised by how few men listen to
• 50:59
  Speaker 3: our podcast, you know, pretty clear demographics. And when the
• 51:03
  Speaker 3: demographics came through the first time, he came in just
• 51:05
  Speaker 3: furious and he said, do you how many men?
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: What?
• 51:08
  Speaker 3: What percentage of your listeners do you think are men?
• 51:10
  Speaker 3: And I said, ah, three? And he looked at me startled,
• 51:13
  Speaker 3: and he said.
• 51:14
  Speaker 5: How did how did you know?
• 51:15
  Speaker 3: How did you why? And he just was so angry,
• 51:18
  Speaker 3: he was like incandescent with anger that men aren't listening.
• 51:22
  Speaker 3: He's like, why are men so terrible? Why aren't they
• 51:25
  Speaker 3: listening to this? Don't they understand that this is just history.
• 51:29
  Speaker 3: Women's history is not a niche subject, and he like
• 51:31
  Speaker 3: ranted for a long time, and it was very good
• 51:34
  Speaker 3: for my soul to see my husband just so angry
• 51:38
  Speaker 3: that other men just blow this stuff off. You know
• 51:41
  Speaker 3: that it's not a podcast for women just because it's
• 51:45
  Speaker 3: about women, Right, you can listen to it boys, exactly.
• 51:50
  Speaker 4: And I love that. So tell your husband. He gets
• 51:52
  Speaker 4: an A plus from us, and we are very much approving.
• 51:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah, those are very valuable. He's like out there, I mean,
• 52:00
  Speaker 3: he's out there pushing and challenging people like, oh, you
• 52:03
  Speaker 3: listen to history podcasts? Do you listen to any women's
• 52:07
  Speaker 3: And they're like, oh, like, here's a list of options
• 52:12
  Speaker 3: for you. But and it's frustrating, right, it is, just
• 52:15
  Speaker 3: it keeps repeating, generation after generation. Your trains to believe
• 52:18
  Speaker 3: that women aren't interesting and didn't do anything. And even
• 52:21
  Speaker 3: if we do the what we think is progressive version
• 52:24
  Speaker 3: of it's not women's fault. They didn't do anything. They
• 52:26
  Speaker 3: just weren't allowed to. Women weren't allowed to write, and
• 52:29
  Speaker 3: so they didn't write anything good. It's not their fault. Rubbish.
• 52:34
  Speaker 3: There's so much good stuff that's been thrown out and
• 52:37
  Speaker 3: this objective standard of only white men are good writers.
• 52:40
  Speaker 3: Oh interesting, who decided? Oh white men.
• 52:44
  Speaker 4: Right, who's the one that's the judges and the right
• 52:48
  Speaker 4: in this moment.
• 52:49
  Speaker 3: There's so much good stuff, you know, when you watch
• 52:52
  Speaker 3: I'm a huge fan of The Good Place, the TV show,
• 52:55
  Speaker 3: because there are so many jokes in that show we've
• 52:58
  Speaker 3: never heard before in our lives. Right, we've heard every
• 53:00
  Speaker 3: joke on sitcoms. You always know where the joke is going,
• 53:03
  Speaker 3: even when they're funny. You're like, oh yeah, all right there,
• 53:05
  Speaker 3: and we don't never know where the jokes are going
• 53:07
  Speaker 3: there because they're written by people who've never written for television.
• 53:10
  Speaker 3: We've never let them write before. And it's great. It's
• 53:15
  Speaker 3: not about diversity because we need to check a box.
• 53:17
  Speaker 3: It's because it's better to have more people talking. There
• 53:22
  Speaker 3: are new stuff you've never heard before.
• 53:26
  Speaker 4: Yes, oh we love that well, Olivia, you are amazing
• 53:30
  Speaker 4: And obviously it's gonna be one of our best friends.
• 53:34
  Speaker 5: Yay, because we're going to collaborate again.
• 53:36
  Speaker 3: I have a feeling that's the dream.
• 53:38
  Speaker 4: Yes, And of course, let your sister know she is
• 53:41
  Speaker 4: always welcome as well.
• 53:43
  Speaker 3: Love. Yeah, hopefully she's a she's quarantined. With small children
• 53:48
  Speaker 3: quarantine with teenagers, so mine are happy to ignore me
• 53:53
  Speaker 3: and hers are not.
• 53:55
  Speaker 4: I'm gonna say this women and the mothers with tiny
• 53:59
  Speaker 4: children and children at all during start times.
• 54:01
  Speaker 5: Are rock stars and heroes.
• 54:03
  Speaker 4: Yes, because I'm annoyed with my dog sometimes.
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: And I could just tell her to be quiet.
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: Can you tell our listeners where to find you?
• 54:14
  Speaker 3: Yes, we're everywhere. We're everywhere that there are podcasts is
• 54:18
  Speaker 3: what's her name? All one word with the apostrophe. Some
• 54:21
  Speaker 3: of them are very picky about getting that apostrophe in there,
• 54:24
  Speaker 3: or just google us. We're also at what's your namepodcast
• 54:26
  Speaker 3: dot com and from there there's links to all the
• 54:29
  Speaker 3: main platforms, and we're also on Spotify and YouTube. Yeah,
• 54:33
  Speaker 3: our website has tons of pictures and we always try
• 54:35
  Speaker 3: to have pictures and links and more information about all
• 54:37
  Speaker 3: our subjects and our guests who are amazing.
• 54:41
  Speaker 2: That brings us to the end of that wonderful interview
• 54:44
  Speaker 2: with Olivia. Definitely go check out their podcast if you
• 54:47
  Speaker 2: want to learn more about these two women. Are so
• 54:50
  Speaker 2: many other women, and if you would like to email
• 54:54
  Speaker 2: us about women. We should be talking about our other podcasts.
• 54:57
  Speaker 3: We should be collaborating with.
• 54:58
  Speaker 2: You can our email Stuff Media mom Stuff at iHeartMedia
• 55:01
  Speaker 2: dot com. You can also find us on Twitter at
• 55:04
  Speaker 2: mom Stuff Podcast and on Instagram at stuff moom Never
• 55:06
  Speaker 2: Told You. Thanks as always to our super producer producing
• 55:09
  Speaker 2: from Afar, Andrew Howard, and thanks to you for listening
• 55:13
  Speaker 2: stuff mom Never Told You the protection of iHeartRadio. For more
• 55:16
  Speaker 2: podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or
• 55:19
  Speaker 2: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.