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SMNTY Interviews: WhatsHerName · Stuff Mom Never Told You

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and walking Stuff. I
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: never told you production of iHeartRadio, and.
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: Y'all, we are so excited for this episode. We're bringing
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: back a friend of the show, fellow podcasters who do
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: the work of preserving women in history. Yes, it is
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: What's Her Name podcast hosts and creators Olivia and Katie. Hello, Hi, Hello,
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: great to be here. Can you introduce yourself to our
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: listeners or reintroduce Hi.
• 0:41
  Speaker 3: I'm Olivia Michael and with my history professor's sister co host, Katie,
• 0:48
  Speaker 3: we're the hosts of What's Her Name? Podcast? What's What's
• 0:52
  Speaker 3: Your Name?
• 0:53
  Speaker 4: Podcast?
• 0:53
  Speaker 3: Katie?
• 0:54
  Speaker 5: Yeah, So I'm Katie and Olivia and I are sister
• 1:00
  Speaker 5: in real life, and I guess that's how we ended
• 1:01
  Speaker 5: up doing the podcast. Olivia is a professor of women's
• 1:05
  Speaker 5: and gender studies, so I guess a women's history project
• 1:09
  Speaker 5: was inevitable at some point.
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: And for I think it's eight years we've been.
• 1:15
  Speaker 5: Telling years, which is stories, yeah, women from world history,
• 1:19
  Speaker 5: putting women back in world history.
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: Yes, and I love that now. It feels like it's
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: been forever ago. And I realized when I was looking
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: back on our episode with you, Olivia, because I know, Katie,
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: you couldn't join us at that time. It was April
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: twenty twenty. Things were happening, and things were happening. It
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: was the beginning of our home recording journey for all
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: of us. I believe I remember being in the kitchen
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: because I didn't nowhere else to go. And now we've
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: kind of upgraded to closets or addics for candy, and
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: I was just like, wow, this feels like forever ago,
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: because it was almost five years and you came to
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: us talking about Harriet Jacobs and nor Johan and we
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: had connected because we were all lists together, and we're like, yeah,
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: obviously we need to be interacting and having each other
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: on the podcast. Duh. But it's been been a minute,
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: So let me ask you the dreaded question, how have
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: y'all been?
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: I think the short answer is good question. I think
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: I think we're doing well well.
• 2:33
  Speaker 5: One of the awesome things is to see how in
• 2:37
  Speaker 5: the past five years, eight years, I suppose, it's been
• 2:41
  Speaker 5: a great surprise to see how eager the world is
• 2:45
  Speaker 5: to hear the stories of women in history. And when
• 2:48
  Speaker 5: we started the podcast, we had no idea that we
• 2:51
  Speaker 5: can tell you the origin story. But you know, the
• 2:53
  Speaker 5: short version is I wanted to do a podcast about
• 2:55
  Speaker 5: the forgotten women of history, and Olivia was like, nobody's going.
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: To listen to it?
• 3:01
  Speaker 5: Deeply cynical, yes, And I guess rightly. So she was like,
• 3:05
  Speaker 5: it's hard enough to convince people to listen to stories
• 3:09
  Speaker 5: about the already famous women. It's hard enough to get
• 3:12
  Speaker 5: them to care about that. And I wanted to do
• 3:14
  Speaker 5: women nobody had ever heard of, and who's going to
• 3:16
  Speaker 5: listen to that? But so the great takeaway for us
• 3:19
  Speaker 5: is people want to hear about it. You know, millions
• 3:22
  Speaker 5: of downloads later, people are ready and eager and excited,
• 3:27
  Speaker 5: and there are listeners all over the world who are
• 3:30
  Speaker 5: just eating this stuff up. So in that way, it's
• 3:33
  Speaker 5: just been really wonderful. Yeah, I've never been so happy
• 3:36
  Speaker 5: to be wrong.
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: We love that. And with all of that, the origin
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: stories and where we are today, can you give us
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: an update on what has been going on in the
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: world of What's her name?
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: Gosh, we have been busy. We wrote the four books, finished,
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: just finished the fourth. It's the book I've wanted to
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: write since I was seven, so I'm very excited about
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: it and it comes out this fall, but we are
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: three other ones. We can talk about a couple books.
• 4:06
  Speaker 5: For middle grade books, we've written the Book of Sisters,
• 4:09
  Speaker 5: which is a history of the world through the stories
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  Speaker 5: of sisters, illustrated by thirty eight different female illustrators from
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  Speaker 5: all over the world. That was just such an amazing
• 4:18
  Speaker 5: progating And then probably the work I'll be proudest of
• 4:22
  Speaker 5: till the day I die, A Stinky History of Toilets,
• 4:25
  Speaker 5: which is a richly illustrated really discussing the history of poop.
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: Around the world. Yeah, which every time the illustrations came back,
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: or every time I knew layout came back, my husband
• 4:40
  Speaker 3: would just kind of look at it and go, I
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: can't believe letting you get away with so much food.
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  Speaker 5: But then we finally wrote something for grown ups, and
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  Speaker 5: it is a history of the world in eighty lost women,
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  Speaker 5: and it's just a complete, as complete as you can
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  Speaker 5: be history of the world from the beginning of time
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  Speaker 5: to the modern era, told through the stories of eighty
• 5:01
  Speaker 5: women that nobody's ever heard.
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: Of, because like, what if women were there the whole time? Surprise.
• 5:09
  Speaker 3: It's a bold proposition, but I think.
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: Controvers proved it controversial For sure, yeah, And as I
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: was like, we were researching through your work and I
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: popped up done to the two children's book, I was like,
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: this is amazing foremost both of them, because it was
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: the poop one, the toilet one, the stinky history of
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: toilets was a surprise. I didn't realize look at that,
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: look like this. But of course I love the Book
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: of Sisters, the two of you being sisters and writing
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: this together and loving this journey. Seeing Korean sisters legends
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: being mentioned in the I was like, oh, look at that.
• 5:48
  Speaker 4: That's sad.
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: I was like, oh, I'm trying to tell that story
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  Speaker 3: for children, because I don't know if you're familiar with
• 5:57
  Speaker 3: the whole story, but it is. It is. It's not
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: it's not a PG story. They made My writing challenge, ever,
• 6:07
  Speaker 3: was how am I gonna tell this story right in
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: a way that doesn't traumatize everyone and get us fired.
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: Did y'all watch the horror movie based on that?
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: Just have you seen?
• 6:19
  Speaker 5: Oh?
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: No, I just I just recently. Yeah, I get Movies Award.
• 6:25
  Speaker 3: It's because so like But we'll talk about that later.
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: That's besides the point. My kids watch it and they
• 6:31
  Speaker 3: can tell me all about perfect. We have our other
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: sister is obsessed with horror film. She's okay everyone, and
• 6:37
  Speaker 3: I'm sure she's seen it. She has will ask her
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: for okay, okay version.
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: I think you did a good job with the PG version,
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: like you kind of melted it down.
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: Like okay. Very impressed with myself.
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was good and the art is gorgeous. And
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: for your newest or newer book, and that has been
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: released what's her name? A History of the World in
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: eighty Lost Women, it's really also amazing and I really
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: love the layout. It kind of it was nice to
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: see because we kind of had similar ideas in I
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: think all that same level, like let's make it interactive,
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: let's have them kind of be a part of this,
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: and you're asking questions and you're getting polls of people's opinions,
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: and I loved so much of that. So with that,
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: you kind of explained about this book. But can you
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: go into more depth about what this book is about.
• 7:24
  Speaker 5: We were approached to write a book based on the podcast,
• 7:27
  Speaker 5: and immediately I thought, what would make it fun for me?
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: What would make an interesting challenge?
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  Speaker 5: And I've taught world history at university for you know,
• 7:38
  Speaker 5: eleven or fifteen years something, I don't know how long,
• 7:41
  Speaker 5: for a long time, and I just immediately thought, what
• 7:45
  Speaker 5: would be such an interesting challenge. Could I tell a
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  Speaker 5: complete history of the world, you know, by like academic
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  Speaker 5: standards of what you need to know after you come
• 7:54
  Speaker 5: out of a world history course.
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  Speaker 3: Could I teach.
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  Speaker 5: A history of the world using only the stories of
• 7:59
  Speaker 5: forgotten women? And immediately I was like, oh, now that
• 8:02
  Speaker 5: sounds fun, that sounds intriguing. And it turned out that
• 8:07
  Speaker 5: it was even easier than I thought it was going
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  Speaker 5: to be.
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  Speaker 3: That it was not.
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  Speaker 5: Difficult to find women's stories that are that either are
• 8:17
  Speaker 5: emblematic of a moment in time or women who played
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  Speaker 5: some hugely significant role in different moments in time from
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  Speaker 5: the Stone Age all the way through the present day.
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  Speaker 5: So I guess that was the beginning of it. And
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  Speaker 5: then for a good year was it a full year?
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: Maybe longer? Olivia. Yeah, that's a theme with our work,
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: is that we get offered a project and then we say,
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: how about instead of that project, we do this other
• 8:46
  Speaker 3: much more complicated, much more difficult, much more time consuming.
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: We don't even know if it's possible project instead, sure, okay,
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  Speaker 3: but yeah, this one just it turned out so great.
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  Speaker 4: I'm so proud of it.
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  Speaker 5: And I think it was because of a maybe because
• 9:06
  Speaker 5: of my experience in the classroom. I wanted to make
• 9:09
  Speaker 5: it interactive, like you said, because that's how you get
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  Speaker 5: the class engaged. You don't just say, here are the facts,
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  Speaker 5: memorize them, and spit them back at me on the exam.
• 9:18
  Speaker 5: You say, here's what we know, here's what we don't know.
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  Speaker 5: Here are the different really sound theories that have a
• 9:25
  Speaker 5: lot of academics that agree with them.
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  Speaker 3: Which one do you think?
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  Speaker 5: So you get to pick as you go, and like
• 9:31
  Speaker 5: you said, there's a lot of like checklists, you choose,
• 9:33
  Speaker 5: you know what, how do we explain this phenomenon? And
• 9:37
  Speaker 5: every one of the possible options in the checklist, every
• 9:41
  Speaker 5: one of them is a sound academic theory that's supported
• 9:44
  Speaker 5: by hundreds or thousands of different you know, professors and academics.
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  Speaker 3: But you get to choose.
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  Speaker 5: So it's yeah, kind of like taking you for a
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  Speaker 5: ride through history, but you get it's to choose your
• 9:53
  Speaker 5: own adventure of what you.
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: Did that you actually did to choose your own adventure
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  Speaker 2: in part of this, and I was like, we wanted
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: to do this.
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: They did it.
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  Speaker 2: It's amazing, envious, and very excited.
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  Speaker 5: And that's how history should be. I think you know
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  Speaker 5: that there's so many different stories. You get to choose
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  Speaker 5: which ones resonate with you and which ones you want
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  Speaker 5: to construct the storyline from.
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: That's what makes it so fun.
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  Speaker 5: I'm not of the school of memorize these facts and
• 10:23
  Speaker 5: then spit them out on an exam.
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: That's the way you do history wrong. I think that's true.
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: I especially like that approach, just because I got very
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: politely kicked out of an anthropology degree for that very thing,
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: for refusing to pick a side, for refusing to choose
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: one option and insist that it was the right one,
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: and they were like, you can't you have to choose.
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: You can't say, well, we don't know. So I'm now
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: very pleased that I was right. And even anthropology is
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: coming around now too. We don't know. We've pretended we
• 10:57
  Speaker 3: knew for a long time, but it could be any
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: these options right for thinking answers are boring to me.
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: I always prefer questions. I will take better questions over
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: answers in any situation. So it's fun to force people
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: to adopt that theory of looking at history.
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that is it can be frustrating sometimes
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: as a podcaster when I'm like, I want to find
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: the answer and I think it exists in history, and
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: it's like.
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: No, we don't know.
• 11:33
  Speaker 4: Yeah, no idea.
• 11:35
  Speaker 5: I love to fill in the gaps and invent my
• 11:37
  Speaker 5: own I mean, will I will construct the plotline in
• 11:41
  Speaker 5: my head and I'll say this is the way it
• 11:43
  Speaker 5: went in my head, So I will land somewhere, but
• 11:46
  Speaker 5: also allow other people to land in different places if
• 11:50
  Speaker 5: they want to construct, they want to fill in the
• 11:52
  Speaker 5: gaps in a different way.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, And my favorite thing about history is that you
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: can be one hundred percent sure you know what happened.
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: We know what happened here, and even though this happened
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: a thousand years ago, tomorrow we might find something that
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: means that everything we knew was wrong. And I love
• 12:11
  Speaker 3: that you can be still discovering completely new information about
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: things that happened thousands of years ago.
• 12:21
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's amazing.
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: We have a segment on this show called female First,
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: and it's astounding to me how they'll be like, you know,
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: just a couple of years ago, we learned something about
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: that changed everything. Yes, So with all of that in mind,
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: it's daunting enough to write a book, then you've got
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: all this complicated history. Can you tell us about the
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: writing process that went into this. How did it the
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: writing and research? How did that play out?
• 13:01
  Speaker 5: Some Initially, I think because I'm the world historian, the
• 13:06
  Speaker 5: job was mine to at least lay out the big
• 13:10
  Speaker 5: picture outline. So what I did first was sit down
• 13:14
  Speaker 5: and say, okay, so what are the major episodes of
• 13:17
  Speaker 5: world history that I want to make sure we include
• 13:20
  Speaker 5: that are in the book. So I outlined all of
• 13:22
  Speaker 5: those from the Stone Age to the modern era. Okay,
• 13:25
  Speaker 5: we need to have this episode. You know, we're definitely
• 13:27
  Speaker 5: going to need something from nineteenth century China. I mean,
• 13:31
  Speaker 5: that was this whole show that we definitely need something
• 13:34
  Speaker 5: from there, you know, just those major episodes. Had that outlined,
• 13:38
  Speaker 5: and then we looked at all the episodes we had
• 13:40
  Speaker 5: already recorded and thought and sort of slotted some of
• 13:44
  Speaker 5: those in. Know, this tells this this is great Neolithic stories,
• 13:48
  Speaker 5: We'll slot.
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: Her in there.
• 13:49
  Speaker 5: And then where there were gaps where we hadn't had
• 13:52
  Speaker 5: episodes of particular moments in time, you know, that's when
• 13:56
  Speaker 5: the research began to go. Research in more depth, for example,
• 14:01
  Speaker 5: like ninth century Africa in order to see what women's
• 14:06
  Speaker 5: stories were going on there.
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: So there was some.
• 14:09
  Speaker 5: New and in depth research in some areas, and then
• 14:12
  Speaker 5: in other areas it was like, oh, we already have
• 14:14
  Speaker 5: like twelve episodes about this episode, so this moment in history,
• 14:18
  Speaker 5: so we'll have to narrow it down and choose just
• 14:21
  Speaker 5: one or two of the women to tell this story.
• 14:24
  Speaker 5: So that was kind of the big picture process, and
• 14:27
  Speaker 5: then we just went through chronologically. We wrote it chronologically
• 14:33
  Speaker 5: over the course of a year and would give ourselves
• 14:35
  Speaker 5: deadlines at the end of every month we have to have.
• 14:37
  Speaker 5: It was a chapter a month basically. And then because
• 14:41
  Speaker 5: we literally co wrote it using the same document, it
• 14:45
  Speaker 5: was on Google docs that we both had access to,
• 14:47
  Speaker 5: and we were just in there sort of typing and
• 14:50
  Speaker 5: having a conversation with each other in the Google doc
• 14:53
  Speaker 5: as we went.
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: And she's very politely not saying that we had deadline,
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: but I narrowly gave her a nervous breakdown because she
• 15:03
  Speaker 3: did I was having a rough here and I am.
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: I am not great on deadlines at the best of times,
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: and it was it was bad, and bless her for
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: putting up with me.
• 15:19
  Speaker 5: The farther you get into the book, because we wrote
• 15:21
  Speaker 5: it chronologically. The farther you get into the book, the
• 15:23
  Speaker 5: more of it I wrote, the more of Katie.
• 15:26
  Speaker 4: I guess.
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah. But we finished it. We did it. And here's
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: my psa to the world. Don't write two books at
• 15:35
  Speaker 3: the same time. Don't ever agree to write two books
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: at the same time. Oh you can't.
• 15:43
  Speaker 5: It's excuse how but it's part of things.
• 15:49
  Speaker 4: Well, congrats finishing it.
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And you know, Samantha and I can relate so
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: much to all of this if we ever get to
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: hang out and person, we could if we.
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: Did give like tales like yes, of the book.
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: Writing process and deadlines and all of that. But one
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: thing that I think that we could probably really relate
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: to is the difficulty of choosing whom you're going to
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: feature and what you're going to do. So for for us,
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: it was a little different because ours was I think
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: more condensed in terms of like who we were featuring,
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: but it did feel like by featuring someone, you're leaving
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: someone else out, and like, what are you saying by
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: choosing this person and not this person? Yes, So, how
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: how was that for you? And how did you choose
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: the people you were going to feature.
• 16:44
  Speaker 5: That's a great question that only somebody who has been
• 16:46
  Speaker 5: through it would know to ask our way to make
• 16:52
  Speaker 5: a big paint of that in the intro of like,
• 16:55
  Speaker 5: this is ah history.
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: It is a history, it is not the history. And
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: we could write this book with eighty different women and
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: it would be everybit as accurate and true to history
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: and be a completely different story. You know, the idea
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: that there's only certain people in history that matter that
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: should be included is ridiculous, and that you can tell
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: it so many different ways, and so the yeah, I
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: get lots of people. I'm sure you get the same
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: that assume that our main problem in writing and podcasting
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: everything is finding enough women, like aren't you going to
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: run out of women soon? Which is still mind blowing
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: to me.
• 17:37
  Speaker 5: No.
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: In fact, there have been more than many one hundred
• 17:41
  Speaker 3: and fifty one women in the whole history of the
• 17:44
  Speaker 3: world who did something problem. But the problem is always
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: the opposite of you know, we started with three hundred
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: and twenty women and had to keep cutting it down.
• 17:55
  Speaker 3: You know, our publishers like, you cannot you cannot go
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: over one hundred. You must keep it under one hundred.
• 18:01
  Speaker 5: And I think, so I made sure to sort of
• 18:04
  Speaker 5: address that in the introduction and then at the conclusion again,
• 18:07
  Speaker 5: as you said, Olivia, like, what I find wonderful about
• 18:12
  Speaker 5: history is that there is no set cast of main characters,
• 18:16
  Speaker 5: and that history is like this treasure trove of human
• 18:22
  Speaker 5: stories and truths that you can just dive into again
• 18:26
  Speaker 5: and again. It's almost endless, all the stories that have
• 18:29
  Speaker 5: been lived before and all the things people have learned
• 18:32
  Speaker 5: and done in the past. And so what's so beautiful
• 18:35
  Speaker 5: about history is that every time you find a new person,
• 18:38
  Speaker 5: you find a new truth that they lived or that
• 18:41
  Speaker 5: they learned. And so the beauty is keep on diving in,
• 18:45
  Speaker 5: keep on finding new characters, Get write another story with
• 18:49
  Speaker 5: a different cast, and see how that story plays out.
• 18:52
  Speaker 5: So I think, I mean, you couldn't blame people for
• 18:54
  Speaker 5: believing there is a fixed cast of main characters, because
• 18:57
  Speaker 5: that's what we were taught in school, and that's how
• 18:58
  Speaker 5: the textbooks make it. You know, like there was this
• 19:01
  Speaker 5: important person and if you left that person out, you
• 19:04
  Speaker 5: wouldn't have the complete history or you know, things like that.
• 19:07
  Speaker 5: But it's just the more I teach world history, the
• 19:10
  Speaker 5: more I know that's just not true. And that the
• 19:12
  Speaker 5: bigger stories always involved millions of people, and you could
• 19:17
  Speaker 5: tell that episode through any one of those people who
• 19:21
  Speaker 5: lived it. It's sort of like switching cameras in a movie.
• 19:24
  Speaker 5: You know, you can tell the same story, but from
• 19:27
  Speaker 5: this perspective, now switch to this perspective or this perspective,
• 19:30
  Speaker 5: And every time you add more characters, it makes a
• 19:33
  Speaker 5: story so much more interesting. It comes alive in completely
• 19:36
  Speaker 5: new ways. So it can be painful to choose the characters.
• 19:42
  Speaker 5: But as long as in doing that you show people like, wow,
• 19:48
  Speaker 5: this story is totally fascinating and different in new ways. Now,
• 19:51
  Speaker 5: then maybe we can all realize that we could choose
• 19:55
  Speaker 5: all kinds of different people from history and it doesn't
• 19:57
  Speaker 5: mean that we're ignoring or erasing the other. It just
• 20:00
  Speaker 5: means we're switching cameras to look at it in new ways.
• 20:05
  Speaker 5: I think that's the way we're headed. I even think
• 20:07
  Speaker 5: that's the way textbooks are headed, the way that things
• 20:10
  Speaker 5: have been involving in the last ten years in academia.
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I love everything that was said because we again
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: Annie was talking about the fact that we were like, oh,
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: we don't want to exclude anybody. We want to bring
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: everybody in, and then our editors are like no, no, no, no, no,
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: we have to cut this, we have to cut this
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: and this, And I'm like, but why, But there's so
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: much to that in knowing that if there was a
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: very small choice in finding women is not because they're
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: not there. It's because either A they haven't been discovered
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: or B they've been hidden or the history has trying
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: to erase them. But I love that as more and
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: more content creators, more and more professors like yourself, and
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: more and more people coming out discovering or retelling these stories,
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: and that's exactly why books like this are so important.
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: But you know, at the very top, when you were
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: talking about the book, you did say something about you
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: knew you had to include this these specific people. So
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: with that, who are some of these people? You're like, Yeah,
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: before we even write this book, I know these are
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: the people I want to include. Who were they? And
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: why ah?
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: And why yes?
• 21:14
  Speaker 5: Just to speak generally, some of them are like, we
• 21:16
  Speaker 5: personally love them so much that they have to go
• 21:20
  Speaker 5: in because like this is my personal hero or something
• 21:22
  Speaker 5: like that. And then other times I think I felt
• 21:25
  Speaker 5: really strongly about choosing this or that woman because to
• 21:29
  Speaker 5: use the same metaphor, this shift of cameras totally changes
• 21:34
  Speaker 5: the way that we perceive the event. And the one
• 21:36
  Speaker 5: that springs to mind for me is including in talking
• 21:39
  Speaker 5: about the story of the cult of Liberty and the
• 21:42
  Speaker 5: American Revolution and you know that whole entire episode in
• 21:46
  Speaker 5: History where the camera is usually on Thomas Jefferson and
• 21:48
  Speaker 5: George Washington and you know those characters. If you shift
• 21:52
  Speaker 5: the camera to the enslaved woman who is in the
• 21:57
  Speaker 5: room while they're all sitting around the dining room table
• 22:00
  Speaker 5: talking about liberty and how are we going to.
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: Pull this off?
• 22:03
  Speaker 5: While a slave is serving them, you know, at their
• 22:06
  Speaker 5: dining room table, shift to her, how does she see
• 22:09
  Speaker 5: the event and how does it all play out for her? Well,
• 22:11
  Speaker 5: that completely, I mean, that just blows wide open the
• 22:14
  Speaker 5: whole story of the American Revolution in the most enlightening
• 22:17
  Speaker 5: and amazing way. So it was those kind of camera
• 22:19
  Speaker 5: shifts too that were like, we have to do this
• 22:21
  Speaker 5: because it's just.
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: So brilliant when you shift cameras like that in these episodes. Yeah,
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: I mean an obvious one for me that I know,
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: for you know, for when we did episodes on them,
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: we just kept going How did we not know any
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: of this? How are we not talking about this? Was
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: the fact that I will insert the academic Arguably but definitely,
• 22:46
  Speaker 3: the two most important figures in the Spanish colonization of
• 22:51
  Speaker 3: what is now Mexico are women who no one outside
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: of Mexico has ever heard of. They're more important than Cortez.
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: They're more important. I mean, they are the key to
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: that entire era of history, to what happens, to how
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: it happens to, you know, the fundamental shift in how
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: the world behaves toward the New World, and nobody even
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: talks about them, which is ridiculous, It's absurd. And whenever
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: I tell people, you know, I just sort of casually mention, oh,
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: by the way, did you know that? And their minds
• 23:27
  Speaker 3: are blown and they're angry. They're angry that this was
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: never told, even though everyone at the time knew, they
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: were talking about it at the time. It's not like
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: nobody knew she was there. You know, Molentcine is central
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: in every picture of Cortes interacting with anybody, and yet
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: we just pretend she, oh, some woman. I don't know,
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: we don't know why there's a woman there. That's the
• 23:51
  Speaker 3: biggest person in the entire picture, and Cortes is standing
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: behind her as a little shrimpy you know nothing.
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: I love that you come in with like a party
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: conversation with this. Did you know.
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: I'm very annoying to be around. I'm sure I'm never
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: not on my soapbox. I like, I tried bally hard.
• 24:10
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I crowded best just standing next to someone and
• 24:14
  Speaker 5: be like, so, what do you know about the conquest
• 24:16
  Speaker 5: of Mexico?
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: This is the information I would want to know.
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: My eighteen year old pointed out to me a couple
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: of months ago just how ridiculous I am. In a
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: good way. He was laughing with love. But this was
• 24:35
  Speaker 3: an entirely normal interaction to me. But we were just
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: driving along somewhere in the car and we're just silent,
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: and all of a sudden, I said, so do you
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: want to hear my most controversial archaeological opinion? And he
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: just burst out laughing. And I didn't even I couldn't
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: even for a minute. I was like, why is he leven?
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: And then I went, oh, that is probably a weird,
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: weird conversation starter for a mother and her teen age
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: child in a car. And he just started off, He's like,
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: you're so weird. I love it. But then we talked,
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: you know, for an hour about our most controversial archaeological opinions,
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: and so yeah, we're nerds to the core, and that's
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: where I think all of this comes out of true
• 25:17
  Speaker 3: nerdy passion, right, all of this. We're so excited about
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: it that you can't help, I hope, but also be
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: excited about it when you are leading or hearing us enthus.
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: Teaching the next generation to have that conversation as well.
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: I mean, come on, yeah, that's what a good parent does.
• 25:35
  Speaker 4: So great job.
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah he did apparently go to school and tell everyone
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: about my most controversial archaeologicalis.
• 25:42
  Speaker 6: I love it sharing it. This is how we read history.
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: Well, let's look behind the cards a little bit in
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: this writing process because we talked about the people you did. So,
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: was there something you planned at the beginning in this
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: writing or for the book but changed as you were
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: in the process of writing it?
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, quite a bit.
• 26:13
  Speaker 5: The list of women who were included changed as we
• 26:18
  Speaker 5: went pretty regularly. And it was funny because we had
• 26:21
  Speaker 5: already given the list to our editor because he'd sent
• 26:25
  Speaker 5: it on to their promo team.
• 26:27
  Speaker 3: You know, and they were using it to.
• 26:30
  Speaker 5: Send the book out to different countries, you know, all
• 26:32
  Speaker 5: those kinds of things, and then we'd be like, oh,
• 26:35
  Speaker 5: well the list has actually changed now, so now it's
• 26:37
  Speaker 5: these people, you know. And then a month later, okay,
• 26:40
  Speaker 5: and we've had to take her out because we realized
• 26:42
  Speaker 5: we really need to tell this story instead, so now
• 26:44
  Speaker 5: this woman is included in.
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: So it was it was constantly tweaking of like era
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: and region and theme and story, you know, just like
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: every possible cross cross reference.
• 27:00
  Speaker 5: We really wanted to make sure that we were choosing
• 27:05
  Speaker 5: as diverse a group as we possibly could in all ways,
• 27:10
  Speaker 5: including geographical and time period and what kind of a
• 27:14
  Speaker 5: story are they telling? Is this an athlete, is this
• 27:17
  Speaker 5: a politician, is this an artist? You know, all of
• 27:20
  Speaker 5: those things that we were working really hard to make
• 27:23
  Speaker 5: sure that we had representation from all those different categories.
• 27:28
  Speaker 5: So it was it was a endless juggling, endless juggling,
• 27:33
  Speaker 5: I think, And that's why I think at the end
• 27:35
  Speaker 5: we said, if we chose in a different eighty Women,
• 27:37
  Speaker 5: the story would be enlightening in a new way.
• 27:40
  Speaker 3: It would be a very different story.
• 27:42
  Speaker 5: I think it would be really fun, even like a
• 27:44
  Speaker 5: game which they would be the world's nerdiest board game.
• 27:50
  Speaker 5: Once again, randomly select, randomly select these women, and then
• 27:56
  Speaker 5: construct a story that to them all together across time
• 28:01
  Speaker 5: and across the world.
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: I think that'll be so fun next Fourth of July barbecue. Right,
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: That is genuinely the kind of thing we do at
• 28:11
  Speaker 3: family gatherings with our family, Like, you know, let's let's
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: construct this timeliner. Let's go through the slide show of
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: the history of the Ottoman Empire at the fourth of July.
• 28:20
  Speaker 4: We're weird. That's great.
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah, there was there was one woman who we decided
• 28:28
  Speaker 3: to sub out for someone else and then found out
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: that they had put her on the cover, so we
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: had to put her back in, which I was happy.
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: We love her, but it was like, yow, she's on
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: the cover now, I guess get back in.
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: Relatable we've had these are like, oh, I think we
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: mentioned them, but we never mentioned them again. Yeah, yeah,
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: so we've been there.
• 28:53
  Speaker 4: Yes, there's a lot of moving parts when we're writing
• 28:56
  Speaker 4: a book.
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the cover we've learned is very important.
• 29:03
  Speaker 5: Yeah, And like initially the illustrations they because the venus
• 29:07
  Speaker 5: of Willendorff is in the book and the illustration of
• 29:10
  Speaker 5: the venus, which I personally loved. The illustrator of the
• 29:13
  Speaker 5: cover is Ellen Winata in Singapore and her illustration the
• 29:18
  Speaker 5: Venus of Willendorf is just gold.
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: I loved it.
• 29:21
  Speaker 5: And that was on the cover originally, and then somebody
• 29:24
  Speaker 5: took the venus off the cover and then you know,
• 29:27
  Speaker 5: for me, that was like, no, she was going to
• 29:29
  Speaker 5: be if she was on the binding, she was going
• 29:32
  Speaker 5: to be the icon of the book.
• 29:33
  Speaker 3: And then she wasn't. Maybe somebody was like, it was boobs.
• 29:37
  Speaker 3: Maybe they'll let us buy her and put her on
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: a T shirt. Yeah, maybe, yeah, March. You know, so
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: we can write books full of poop for children, but
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: no ancient boobs, but books stone age. The rules of
• 29:51
  Speaker 3: publishing are strange.
• 29:54
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I am speaking of merch though, now that you
• 29:57
  Speaker 5: mention it.
• 29:58
  Speaker 3: Look, I'm wearing a shirt.
• 29:59
  Speaker 5: This is one of the the new shirts that we
• 30:01
  Speaker 5: made from the It's just got a line from the book,
• 30:04
  Speaker 5: Less Patriarchy, more Elephant. That's one of the options when
• 30:09
  Speaker 5: you take the Ancient Empire's test, which empire would you
• 30:12
  Speaker 5: have lived in?
• 30:12
  Speaker 3: That's one of the options.
• 30:13
  Speaker 5: If your personality is less patriarchy, more elephant, then it
• 30:17
  Speaker 5: turns out you lived in ancient Vietnam. So yeah, Olivia
• 30:21
  Speaker 5: really wanted that line on a T shirt.
• 30:23
  Speaker 3: It has to be on a T shirt with no context, right,
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: just yes, yes, the people who know will know your bond.
• 30:35
  Speaker 6: It.
• 30:36
  Speaker 4: We have one I still want to do.
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: Unfortunately, I think there will be balls.
• 30:55
  Speaker 3: Remember that distinctly.
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: Well, all of this research, did you run across anything
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: that really surprised you or something that you discovered that
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: you hadn't heard before even doing all this research?
• 31:10
  Speaker 5: Constantly, constantly, Yeah, And that's the whole story of the
• 31:14
  Speaker 5: podcast too. For eight years, we're just constantly encountering stuff
• 31:17
  Speaker 5: we had never heard of, you know, almost every episode
• 31:21
  Speaker 5: these women we've never heard of also, And I guess
• 31:25
  Speaker 5: that's what so makes the podcast so fun for us.
• 31:29
  Speaker 5: It's going to school, you know, we're still in school
• 31:32
  Speaker 5: eight years later. And our general strategy is, well, people
• 31:36
  Speaker 5: who've written biographies will approach us to be on the podcast,
• 31:39
  Speaker 5: and then we learn about the woman that way. But
• 31:42
  Speaker 5: we also like to just approach experts in all fields
• 31:47
  Speaker 5: all over the world and just say to them, is
• 31:49
  Speaker 5: there a woman in your field that you think deserves
• 31:51
  Speaker 5: more attention than she gets? And they always say yes, always,
• 31:57
  Speaker 5: and it's almost always a woman we've never heard of either.
• 32:00
  Speaker 5: So yeah, every episode we make is so fun for
• 32:04
  Speaker 5: us because we get to deep dive into this story
• 32:07
  Speaker 5: that we'd never heard of either. So I mean, as
• 32:10
  Speaker 5: people who have taught the subject for a decade, that
• 32:14
  Speaker 5: is so thrilling and so encouraging. I think there's just
• 32:18
  Speaker 5: so much out there. The work is being done. It
• 32:20
  Speaker 5: is absolutely being done. Up to eleven, there is so
• 32:24
  Speaker 5: so much out there, and like I said, the world
• 32:28
  Speaker 5: is ready for it. I think all these books are
• 32:30
  Speaker 5: being published, all these people are working on these projects.
• 32:33
  Speaker 5: So we're like right on the cusp of it entering
• 32:37
  Speaker 5: the mainstream historical narrative. And I think for the next
• 32:40
  Speaker 5: generation the story is going to be radically different.
• 32:43
  Speaker 3: It's going to be awesome because I think that is right.
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: That's the power that is sometimes recognized, not usually not
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: recognized about teaching, is that you're setting the normal right
• 32:58
  Speaker 3: that we all came up through. When I was a
• 33:02
  Speaker 3: women's studies undergrad the narrative was women didn't do stuff.
• 33:08
  Speaker 3: It wasn't their fault, they weren't allowed to, but mostly
• 33:11
  Speaker 3: they didn't do stuff, and there was this kind of
• 33:15
  Speaker 3: feeling that you were sort of shoehorning women into the story. Well,
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: you're just trying to go find a woman so that
• 33:22
  Speaker 3: you can she wasn't as good or she didn't do things,
• 33:25
  Speaker 3: and that was that was the women's studies people narrative, right,
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: It wasn't their fault, but they just didn't And so
• 33:31
  Speaker 3: watching it shift as everyone went, oh, no, In fact,
• 33:35
  Speaker 3: women were always doing stuff. All you have to do
• 33:39
  Speaker 3: is kind of poke a tiny bit and they just
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: come pouring out. It's not like you're having to go,
• 33:46
  Speaker 3: you know, dig through layers of stuff to find the
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: one woman you could possibly maybe justify. It's there's so many,
• 33:54
  Speaker 3: there's so many stories constantly just you know, falling out
• 33:59
  Speaker 3: of every every pocket of the universe whenever you start
• 34:03
  Speaker 3: looking for them. And I love that the problem is
• 34:07
  Speaker 3: we're having to say no, right, We're having to just
• 34:09
  Speaker 3: like say no to whole categories. We've just we can't
• 34:12
  Speaker 3: do any more of this, and we can't we have
• 34:15
  Speaker 3: too many white Americans and we can't do another white
• 34:18
  Speaker 3: American for a year. Or you know that we're having
• 34:23
  Speaker 3: to you know, turn down things instead of go searching
• 34:29
  Speaker 3: for things. Is a wonderful problem.
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I love that there's so much And speaking of
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: searching for things, Uh, you talk about legendary goddesses and
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: mythical women in your both of your books, the Sister
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: Book and in the Newest Book, and here we talk
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: about a lot of goddesses and legends, but we also
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: talk about the undertones that is often either as based
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: on some awful stereotype or sometimes it's like really banking
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: on the fact that they did so much. So do
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: you have this like almost two opposites when it comes
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: to legendary goddesses and or.
• 35:06
  Speaker 3: All of these people.
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: Can you talk about what you found as you're researching
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: for your podcast and as you're researching for your book
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: that kind of talks about and how it implies how
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: they saw women in those like goddess peoples.
• 35:21
  Speaker 3: It's still my favorite part in the whole book. Yeah,
• 35:24
  Speaker 3: And I think that I think that's a really important
• 35:26
  Speaker 3: point that mythology matters, these core stories that we carry
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: in our culture and form everything the way we think
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: about everything. But also we often tend to act the
• 35:40
  Speaker 3: same way about like that, well, these these myths are old,
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: and therefore this is just this is the myth, This
• 35:47
  Speaker 3: is the story, and you'll get accused of trying to
• 35:51
  Speaker 3: you know, change it, or why are you being you know, oh,
• 35:54
  Speaker 3: you're trying to pc up this myth. When myths are
• 35:59
  Speaker 3: ass malleable as anything else. The myths that you choose,
• 36:03
  Speaker 3: the way you tell them, the things that you highlight
• 36:06
  Speaker 3: in those stories, are as flexible and as movable as
• 36:11
  Speaker 3: any other story. And that if you look at the way,
• 36:14
  Speaker 3: even like the standard Greek mythology that every American kid
• 36:17
  Speaker 3: learns in junior high, if you look at the way
• 36:20
  Speaker 3: that was taught in my parents' generation versus my generation
• 36:23
  Speaker 3: versus what my kids were learning in high school, it's
• 36:26
  Speaker 3: so radically different, and it's all the same content, but
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: just the framing of it is so different. And so
• 36:34
  Speaker 3: I think, you know, we have these narratives around, Like
• 36:37
  Speaker 3: one that I really liked taking on in there was
• 36:40
  Speaker 3: the myth of the mother, that the good mother, and
• 36:43
  Speaker 3: the you know, we have this nurturing mother myth, which
• 36:49
  Speaker 3: you know, in the nineties and then again right now
• 36:50
  Speaker 3: I think a lot of people are pulling back to
• 36:52
  Speaker 3: and we have this kind of earth mother nurturing thing,
• 36:55
  Speaker 3: which is true and great and wonderful and also there's
• 36:59
  Speaker 3: the exact opposite, and every shade of gray in between
• 37:02
  Speaker 3: is available in mythology and often in the same stories,
• 37:07
  Speaker 3: and just how we decide to tell it. Is the
• 37:09
  Speaker 3: story about a nurturing, loving earth mother or is this
• 37:12
  Speaker 3: story about a terrifying goddess of death? Yes, at the
• 37:19
  Speaker 3: same time. And so when you realize how how much
• 37:26
  Speaker 3: you can shift those framings around and how you can
• 37:30
  Speaker 3: make those stories do work in the present, you recognize
• 37:34
  Speaker 3: the way those mythologies are being either weaponizing or even
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: just you know, utilizing these stories.
• 37:40
  Speaker 5: Like I said, the camera shift, Yeah, they're just looking
• 37:43
  Speaker 5: at it with certain filters.
• 37:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, And that you can and should and we
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: always haven't always will do that shift the way you're
• 37:52
  Speaker 3: looking at these core stories, and that they can mean
• 37:56
  Speaker 3: whatever people now decide they want them to mean, and
• 38:01
  Speaker 3: that can be you know, good or bad or value neutral.
• 38:04
  Speaker 3: But you need to be aware that these aren't just
• 38:07
  Speaker 3: you know, core mythologies that you can't mess with. But no,
• 38:11
  Speaker 3: of course you mess with them. That's what mythologies are
• 38:14
  Speaker 3: for everybody has always messed with them.
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: Well with that, since you love this, I did see
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: like a few like crossovers but who would be your
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: favorite mythological goddess that you love to talk about?
• 38:29
  Speaker 3: Or oh geez, the question favorites?
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: I know, I gotta ask.
• 38:36
  Speaker 3: Because I get like, you know, you've I'm sure you
• 38:39
  Speaker 3: do it too. People are like, what's your favorite? And
• 38:41
  Speaker 3: you think of one, and then later you're like, oh,
• 38:43
  Speaker 3: I forgot, like super I would have, yeah, because we
• 38:46
  Speaker 3: were saying we can't even remember what we wrote. I know.
• 38:49
  Speaker 5: I love the Mesopotamian Inana and that story. Yes, what
• 38:55
  Speaker 5: happened she turned her sister into a chunk of meat
• 38:58
  Speaker 5: and hung her on the.
• 38:59
  Speaker 3: Wall rotten and let her rot on the wall.
• 39:01
  Speaker 5: I just as sisters, you know. But I love those
• 39:09
  Speaker 5: kind of plot twists in the ancient myths. It's like weird, weird.
• 39:14
  Speaker 5: I don't think anybody today they would think of that
• 39:17
  Speaker 5: kind of plot element.
• 39:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I love that, which tells us that we're definitely
• 39:21
  Speaker 3: not understanding it, right, there's something happening there that we're
• 39:26
  Speaker 3: not understanding.
• 39:29
  Speaker 5: The cultural truth about meat hanging on the wall or
• 39:33
  Speaker 5: something like that. Yeah, I love the Moregan. She's gonna
• 39:37
  Speaker 5: she's gonna be my favorite, of course, something that's going
• 39:40
  Speaker 5: to be my Halloween costume.
• 39:42
  Speaker 3: Oh ay, did you choose. Yeah, I think for me,
• 39:48
  Speaker 3: she's they're in actually two of our books because they're
• 39:51
  Speaker 3: so I think brilliant, and they're they're so interesting in
• 39:54
  Speaker 3: that they the story itself is doing that work that
• 39:58
  Speaker 3: I was just talking about, of of change, the framing
• 40:00
  Speaker 3: and pointing out that you can see something from so
• 40:03
  Speaker 3: many perspectives. It's this mythological story of these twin sisters
• 40:08
  Speaker 3: who are conjoined at the back, they're conjoined at their spine,
• 40:12
  Speaker 3: and they are demigods, goddesses, it's not those categories aren't
• 40:19
  Speaker 3: as cut and dry in Polynesian mythology. And they are
• 40:24
  Speaker 3: tasked with taking the knowledge of tattoo from Fiji to
• 40:29
  Speaker 3: Samoa and so but they are told very strictly, there's
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: very important here's the technology, here's how you do it.
• 40:36
  Speaker 3: And there's one very important rule. You only tattoo women,
• 40:40
  Speaker 3: never men. Men are not allowed to get tattoos. And
• 40:44
  Speaker 3: then they start swimming to Samoa from Fiji, and along
• 40:48
  Speaker 3: the way there's all these adventures. They meet a giant clam.
• 40:51
  Speaker 3: They try to dive down to the giant clam and
• 40:54
  Speaker 3: a huge tidal wave whether or not the giant clam
• 40:56
  Speaker 3: is evil or if it's just a coincidence. There's different versions,
• 40:59
  Speaker 3: and a huge wave breaks them apart, and so for
• 41:04
  Speaker 3: the first time they're seeing each other's faces. They've been
• 41:06
  Speaker 3: back to back their whole life. They're seeing each other's faces.
• 41:09
  Speaker 3: They continue to swim and they arrive in Samoa, but
• 41:12
  Speaker 3: the whole you know, seeing each other and almost drowning
• 41:15
  Speaker 3: and giant clam incident has mixed up this song in
• 41:20
  Speaker 3: their head. They were singing a song to remind themselves
• 41:23
  Speaker 3: only tattoo women, never men. And when they arrive, they
• 41:27
  Speaker 3: tell them here's the most important rule. You only tattoo men,
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: not women. And they teach everyone in Samoa tattoo and
• 41:34
  Speaker 3: for many generations tattoo and Samoa is only for men,
• 41:39
  Speaker 3: not for women. Now, this story blows my mind because
• 41:43
  Speaker 3: it's a story about how that is wrong. Right, Yeah,
• 41:49
  Speaker 3: it's a story about we screwed up and you weren't
• 41:53
  Speaker 3: supposed to be doing this. But that's why men get
• 41:56
  Speaker 3: tattoos and women don't. This is if this is the
• 42:00
  Speaker 3: origin story and you know what's wrong, why are you
• 42:03
  Speaker 3: still doing it that way?
• 42:05
  Speaker 6: Right?
• 42:05
  Speaker 3: It's so fascinating. So is it actually a story? It's
• 42:09
  Speaker 3: the origin story of tattoo? But is actually is it
• 42:11
  Speaker 3: actually an origin story of patriarchy? Is it actually an
• 42:14
  Speaker 3: origin story of Uh? They were living in a world
• 42:19
  Speaker 3: upside down? Yeah, we're living in and or that. Once
• 42:22
  Speaker 3: you get stuck in yeah, and once you get stuck
• 42:24
  Speaker 3: in the wrong loop, you just you can't get out
• 42:27
  Speaker 3: of it. What's the message of the story? What a
• 42:30
  Speaker 3: what a weird story. Yeah, to enshrine at the center
• 42:34
  Speaker 3: of your society, it's so fascinating mm hmm. And they
• 42:39
  Speaker 3: now do tattoo women too, right, but it was a
• 42:42
  Speaker 3: long time that they did not How long did it
• 42:44
  Speaker 3: take a long time? Hundreds of years?
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: Wow? Yes, I love that. I love that story so much.
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: I was like, oh, this is amazing because I don't
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: think I knew much about uh, these goddesses. I was like, wow,
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: this is an interesting idea. And as well as a
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: change of history, you're.
• 43:02
  Speaker 3: Like, well, woops.
• 43:04
  Speaker 5: That myth served as a useful shorthand for the rest
• 43:07
  Speaker 5: of the book too, because then we could just say
• 43:09
  Speaker 5: this is a tattoo the men's society, and then you
• 43:12
  Speaker 5: know all that that implies, Like, okay, so this is
• 43:15
  Speaker 5: a patriarchy. That's sort of maybe on accident or upside
• 43:19
  Speaker 5: down world.
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, this is a whoopsie, but we're still in it.
• 43:23
  Speaker 3: We're still in You might even know it's doing it wrong,
• 43:26
  Speaker 3: but it keeps doing it right.
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: This is the lesson that we have yet to learn.
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: But one day maybe maybe. Oh gosh, I love this
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: so much. I love these conversations. And you've already kind
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: of hinted at it, and you already said you told
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: a sacret. So I won't push too much. Put to
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: put it on on on Mike on record. But are
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: there any other projects or even extensions to this book
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: that you have planned for the future.
• 43:52
  Speaker 5: We have another book coming out in October me Hearty's
• 43:56
  Speaker 5: Oh oh, I can say, well.
• 44:00
  Speaker 3: A certain kind of life for me.
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: Yes, yes, that you've been wanting to do this childhood,
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: which I excited about.
• 44:08
  Speaker 3: Our family is fully obsessed with pirate. I don't think
• 44:11
  Speaker 3: there's ever been a Halloween when one member of the
• 44:13
  Speaker 3: extended family has not been a pirate for help.
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: I love this.
• 44:18
  Speaker 3: Okay, okay, okay, already my costa book, oh, book signings.
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: You know, even before you said Halloween, I was like,
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: it's coming out in October, opportunity.
• 44:32
  Speaker 3: Yes, my husband teaches me that that, like the majority
• 44:36
  Speaker 3: of what I do is just excuses to buy new costumes. Yeah,
• 44:41
  Speaker 3: the picture is He's not wrong.
• 44:43
  Speaker 5: Uh you should have seen her at the Toilets book signings.
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: Where that was a whole different Okay, oh yeah, she
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: finish giant.
• 44:51
  Speaker 3: I have emoji hat. It's humongous, it's amazing. I just
• 44:57
  Speaker 3: like to set the tone from the beginning, like let
• 45:00
  Speaker 3: people know what is happening, you know, walk in looking
• 45:04
  Speaker 3: regular and then dramatically pull the poop hat out from
• 45:07
  Speaker 3: the podium and put it on and go, this is
• 45:10
  Speaker 3: we're talking about poop today. And you know, if parents
• 45:13
  Speaker 3: are going to get upset, I want them to leave early.
• 45:16
  Speaker 5: So they wouldn't have been Yeah.
• 45:19
  Speaker 3: I don't think they would have. But the kids always
• 45:22
  Speaker 3: absolutely freak out and love it, like the poop emoji dress.
• 45:27
  Speaker 3: But that felt like, I don't know, that felt like pushing.
• 45:33
  Speaker 4: It.
• 45:34
  Speaker 3: You should do it dress. It's not too late.
• 45:37
  Speaker 5: Yeah, you don't want regrets, especially dress regrets.
• 45:42
  Speaker 4: I definitely definitely.
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: Well Okay, Pivoting from the book, what about the podcast,
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: is there anything any plans you have for the future
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: of it, anything you're excited about.
• 46:06
  Speaker 5: One of the things that has emerged from the podcast
• 46:08
  Speaker 5: over the years, which has been a surprise, but is
• 46:11
  Speaker 5: something that I'm really loving is that we're doing a
• 46:13
  Speaker 5: lot of podcast based women's history tours and just listeners
• 46:19
  Speaker 5: will sign up to come with us on you know,
• 46:21
  Speaker 5: one or two week adventures all over just visiting the
• 46:26
  Speaker 5: locations where we've recorded previous episodes, meet the guests that
• 46:30
  Speaker 5: have been on previous episodes, and I think we're just
• 46:33
  Speaker 5: gonna We're going to keep doing those because it's so
• 46:36
  Speaker 5: much fun and it's so the self selecting group, the
• 46:41
  Speaker 5: kind of people who sign up for a very nerdy
• 46:45
  Speaker 5: tours very yeah, like if we say, hey, would you
• 46:49
  Speaker 5: like to go to a place nobody's ever heard of?
• 46:52
  Speaker 5: To visit locations associated with historical women.
• 46:56
  Speaker 3: That nobody knows about.
• 46:58
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean this is zero bagging rights. This is
• 47:01
  Speaker 5: not your difficult tour.
• 47:03
  Speaker 3: And for the kind of.
• 47:04
  Speaker 5: People who say yes, sign me, yeah for that please,
• 47:07
  Speaker 5: it's been wonderful.
• 47:08
  Speaker 3: It's been so great. So they're doing the best in
• 47:10
  Speaker 3: the world. Yeah, Oh, it's so and just.
• 47:12
  Speaker 5: Sort of turns into instant travel families. It's and most
• 47:16
  Speaker 5: people sign up solo also, so it's I appreciate the
• 47:20
  Speaker 5: courageous leap that they take. You're like, I'm signing up
• 47:22
  Speaker 5: for this. This might be the worst thing ever. But
• 47:25
  Speaker 5: so far, I don't know how many we've done so far,
• 47:27
  Speaker 5: like ten, I haven't counted, maybe more. And every time
• 47:32
  Speaker 5: it's magic, every single time. And it's just strangers from
• 47:35
  Speaker 5: across the world who just come together for this grand
• 47:38
  Speaker 5: adventure in women's history.
• 47:40
  Speaker 3: And then stay friends. I mean that, like the WhatsApp
• 47:42
  Speaker 3: group from tours from three years ago are still going.
• 47:46
  Speaker 3: Like people are visiting each other independently, and and I'm
• 47:50
  Speaker 3: in the best history travel it's just bonding. Yeah, And
• 47:54
  Speaker 3: I think the best the reason, the best proof that
• 47:58
  Speaker 3: again people there's an appetite for this and that we're
• 48:01
  Speaker 3: doing something right on them is that people keep coming back.
• 48:04
  Speaker 3: We have people who've come over and over. I think
• 48:08
  Speaker 3: one like six tours, yeah you got yeah, like three
• 48:14
  Speaker 3: quarters We open a tour now and like three quarters
• 48:17
  Speaker 3: of it fills up with just people who've already been
• 48:20
  Speaker 3: on a tour. Here's here's the regulars, and then there's
• 48:23
  Speaker 3: three slots left for new people.
• 48:25
  Speaker 2: So that a good travel partner like that, that says
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: a lot you can with someone and enjoy it enough
• 48:33
  Speaker 2: to go again.
• 48:36
  Speaker 3: So that's a test of a relationship.
• 48:38
  Speaker 2: So y'all are but head to Greece, right.
• 48:40
  Speaker 5: Yes, we're in April Savannah, in September, Boston and October.
• 48:47
  Speaker 3: I think next year we'll do Italy.
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: Are you're coming down to Savannah?
• 48:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah?
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we need to meet up with y'all.
• 48:53
  Speaker 3: Are you in Savannah?
• 48:54
  Speaker 4: In Atlanta?
• 48:56
  Speaker 3: Okay? You should? We definitely need. My husband's in Atlanta
• 49:01
  Speaker 3: all the time. I need to just come and hang
• 49:03
  Speaker 3: out with you. Wait, you are? My husband is there
• 49:06
  Speaker 3: all the time, and I keep saying I gotta go along.
• 49:10
  Speaker 3: You need to go. But okay, so we're.
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: Gonna put that down in our calendar Savannah all right? Yeah,
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: I said imaginary. Yes, I love that.
• 49:19
  Speaker 3: And these are like super boutique curated there's no travel
• 49:24
  Speaker 3: agents involved. This is Katie and her husband Mark, who
• 49:28
  Speaker 3: has been dubbed the Smoothness Operator, whose job is to
• 49:32
  Speaker 3: just keep everything running perfectly, smoothly, solve all the problems.
• 49:36
  Speaker 3: And these are trip servants. Super Yeah, these are super,
• 49:42
  Speaker 3: super individualized, unique, precisely organized. Yeah, this is not just
• 49:49
  Speaker 3: you know, oh yeah, we'll tag along on a pre
• 49:51
  Speaker 3: organized tour nope, what's her name? Tours?
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: I love it.
• 49:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you might find us on your next door because.
• 50:01
  Speaker 2: Of that, yeah, man earlier.
• 50:06
  Speaker 5: But honestly, just the people, Yeah, the people who. It's
• 50:10
  Speaker 5: really about the people, and it's about the places we
• 50:12
  Speaker 5: go and that you get to meet the guests from
• 50:13
  Speaker 5: the episode and that's always so cool. We do a
• 50:15
  Speaker 5: lot of like book signing with the guests, and like
• 50:18
  Speaker 5: we'll do a lot of like we have this historic
• 50:20
  Speaker 5: house to ourselves as we just got Caroline Herschel's house
• 50:24
  Speaker 5: and just you know, freak out and touch everything, and
• 50:28
  Speaker 5: because the people.
• 50:29
  Speaker 3: Who run those places are so excited that someone's excited, right,
• 50:33
  Speaker 3: And we walk in and they're like, how do you
• 50:35
  Speaker 3: You know, they'll show some artifacts. So many times they're
• 50:37
  Speaker 3: like and here's the blah blah blah blah blah, and
• 50:39
  Speaker 3: you can see they're just running their spiel and the
• 50:42
  Speaker 3: whole group will go who you see them kind of
• 50:45
  Speaker 3: recalibrate for a second.
• 50:47
  Speaker 5: Ago, oh, oh you actually, oh these people care care.
• 50:51
  Speaker 3: And then it's and suddenly it's a completely different tour
• 50:54
  Speaker 3: and they're you know, we get every exciting detail and
• 50:56
  Speaker 3: they're like, oh look at this, and no, let me
• 50:58
  Speaker 3: pull this out of storage and it's.
• 50:59
  Speaker 5: So Yeah, it's so fun. Yeah, they're so great, So
• 51:02
  Speaker 5: I think we'll keep doing that. Yeah, yeah, yes, that
• 51:07
  Speaker 5: sounds so lovely.
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: Also, just just thank you so much for we talk
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: about here on here all the time when people bring
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: up these stories that we didn't know about, and how
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: important it is, and how it's amazing that people are
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: still doing this work and sometimes they're kind of ignored
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: for a long time. But so thanks to you and
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: to all the researchers and academics who have come to
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: you and been like, no, actually I know a lot
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: about this and we should be talking about this person.
• 51:35
  Speaker 4: That's amazing exactly.
• 51:38
  Speaker 5: That's it. And at the opening of the book, we said,
• 51:40
  Speaker 5: a book like ours is only possible because literally hundreds,
• 51:44
  Speaker 5: if not thousands, of people are out there excavating these
• 51:48
  Speaker 5: stories all over the world. You know, everybody is working collectively,
• 51:54
  Speaker 5: and now after a decade of that, the fruits of
• 51:57
  Speaker 5: everyone's labor is so inspiring. It's just incredible how much
• 52:03
  Speaker 5: has been done just in the last ten years.
• 52:06
  Speaker 3: So amen, thank.
• 52:08
  Speaker 5: You everybody who has been uncovering these stories all these years.
• 52:13
  Speaker 5: It's amazing what we found, even though we knew we
• 52:16
  Speaker 5: were going to find amazing stuff. It's yeah, surprising every
• 52:20
  Speaker 5: time everything that gets unearthed.
• 52:23
  Speaker 3: Absolutely, and one story that keeps coming up that it's
• 52:26
  Speaker 3: now getting to the point where I just I have
• 52:28
  Speaker 3: to believe it is how many people have some version
• 52:32
  Speaker 3: of I was working on this other project and then
• 52:37
  Speaker 3: this dead woman tackled me in the library. This book
• 52:42
  Speaker 3: one was literally the book fell out of the shelf
• 52:45
  Speaker 3: as she was walking past, like this story just like
• 52:49
  Speaker 3: came out of nowhere, grabbed me, wouldn't let me go.
• 52:52
  Speaker 3: She insisted that I tell her story, you know, And
• 52:55
  Speaker 3: I think it feels like these women are going it
• 52:58
  Speaker 3: is now my turn and the time has come, we're
• 53:02
  Speaker 3: coming back, and they've you know, found found enough trained
• 53:08
  Speaker 3: and willing people to tell those stories now, because it's
• 53:13
  Speaker 3: it's just it's so wild how often that exact story
• 53:17
  Speaker 3: comes up of I was working on this and then
• 53:20
  Speaker 3: completely derailed into this thing instead.
• 53:24
  Speaker 4: Yes, yes, just.
• 53:25
  Speaker 3: Go pick up random books in the library, folks, and
• 53:28
  Speaker 3: start looking. Because feel the vibe as you walk down
• 53:33
  Speaker 3: the aisle. Is there someone here who wants to talk
• 53:36
  Speaker 3: to me?
• 53:38
  Speaker 5: Oh?
• 53:38
  Speaker 3: I love that it's seance seance based Yeah, oh I
• 53:45
  Speaker 3: like that. I want that on a T shirt, say
• 53:47
  Speaker 3: on second em.
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: Well, thank you both so much for being here. This
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: has been a delight. Hopefully we can do this again,
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: maybe I.
• 53:58
  Speaker 3: R out.
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: Yep in September, yes, yeah, yes, Well until then, where
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: can the good listeners find you?
• 54:10
  Speaker 3: Uh? What's your name? Everywhere dot com?
• 54:12
  Speaker 5: Yeah, we're on every podcast platform, and the books you
• 54:16
  Speaker 5: can get everywhere.
• 54:19
  Speaker 3: We have links on our website.
• 54:21
  Speaker 5: Also, if you want to support indie bookshops on bookshop
• 54:24
  Speaker 5: dot org local indie bookshops, We've got all the books
• 54:29
  Speaker 5: on there.
• 54:30
  Speaker 3: We will also very soon have signed copies available on
• 54:34
  Speaker 3: our website if people want to buy signed copies directly
• 54:36
  Speaker 3: from us of the the Eighty Lost Women book, so
• 54:41
  Speaker 3: they can find those there too, And we'll even personalize
• 54:43
  Speaker 3: it for you if you tell us what you want.
• 54:46
  Speaker 3: And it's in a whole bunch of countries and a
• 54:48
  Speaker 3: whole bunch of languages. Our books have been published and
• 54:51
  Speaker 3: I think it's nine languages now, which is mind blowing.
• 54:55
  Speaker 5: Stinky history toilets is the most translated. Yeah, yes, Slovak, Vietnamese,
• 55:01
  Speaker 5: Pole delightful and poop is universal. That's the one truth.
• 55:06
  Speaker 3: Everybody poops we know, but the idea that a small
• 55:09
  Speaker 3: child in Slovakia is going to be reading my book
• 55:16
  Speaker 3: about poop blows my mind.
• 55:19
  Speaker 2: Beautiful.
• 55:19
  Speaker 3: It's a beautiful world.
• 55:21
  Speaker 4: It is well. Thank you both so much for being
• 55:25
  Speaker 4: here and for such a delightful conversation.
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: Thank you, Thank you listeners. If you would like to
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: contact us, you can. You can email us at Hello
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: at stuff Onenever Told You dot com. You can find
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: us on Blue Sky at mom Stuff podcast, or on
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: Instagram and TikTok at stuff I Never Told You or
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: ls on YouTube. You have a tea public store, and
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: we have a book you can get where you get
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: your books. Thanks as always to a super producer for
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: senior executive producer, my indercontributor Joey. Thank you and thanks
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: to you for listening Stuff I Never Told You distrection
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: of my Heart Radio more podcast from my Heart Radio.
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: You can check out the i Heeart Radio app, Apple podcast,
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.