Activists Around the World: A Year End Review

As we welcome 2023, we bid a fond farewell to 2022 with some of our favorite entries in this series from that year, both fictional and non.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and welcome to stephone
never told your production of by Heart Radio. And Happy
New Year, everybody. Yes, Happy New Year. You know. I
have been looking over some of our old episodes of

(00:28):
Women around the World, Activists around the World, fictional women
around the World. But I was thinking about how long
has been, and I did not realize because time means nothing.
But we started this and I was like, wow, I
need to go back and we'll get all of our
episodes because it's been a lot and we have gone
through a lot of people and a lot of conversations,

(00:50):
um and it's been exciting. We've even had a few interviews,
and then there's been some women that we didn't even
feature on the Activists, but there were interviews as full
episodes because it was too good to be just like
a fifteen minute segment, not noting we could probably split
it up, but you know, and I'm like, you know
what we need We need to come back over it.
I know last year we did a year in review
and we're going to kind of revisit some of those questions.

(01:13):
But for this year's I thought we would do a
top three plus one exchange. I know you love the
plus additionals and do you have bonuses? Do you have
bonuses on this one? I mean I wrote them down,
but I won't do any Okay. See see I knew
she was So what I thought would be fun is
for you to tell me your top three from favorite

(01:36):
fictional women around the world. And I will tell you
my top three activists around the world and then give
you my one I guess the one favorite, just to
not to add more work, and also because we have
so much content out there, my favorite one of the
fictional women and your favorite one of the activists around
the world. I wonder if we're gonna overlap. Mm hmm, Yeah,

(01:58):
I'm curious. I was thinking when I was scrolling through.
I was like, I wonder which one Samantha will choose? Yeah,
I know. Keep you on edge of your seat. UM,
I will say this for your listeners. We would love
to hear what your favorites were or types of people
that you think we would we should talk more about.

(02:20):
UM if you have countries that we have not covered,
because y'all it's it's kind of difficult to try to
to try to make this list with enough information and
enough correct information. UM. And as well as getting all
of all of the information and all the different people's
part of the different crews correct information. That's the other

(02:41):
part of that, UM and and all of that. So
if you have any suggestions or we love the suggestions.
A few of you've already sent in some a few
of you even wrote some of our episodes. Thank you
for the Olympics. You know, you know who I'm talking to, UM,
and so that that's amazing. So if you have any
for this year placing it to us. UH, typically our

(03:01):
biggest thing is that internationally or something that they've done
that is uh intersectional, so they're in the US is
an intersectional person who does something significant and that they
are still currently alive. Because we want to be able
to give flowers to these people today. UM. So if
you have suggestions sending our way, and if you want

(03:23):
to send your top three, send it our way because
we love as well. So we're gonna start off with you. Yes,
what was your top three fictional women around the world? Okay,
that's hard. It was difficult, but I tried to I
try to get a mix of what I covered this year,

(03:46):
and I tried to be I tried to not just
choose my favorite character. So keep that in mind. This
is not necessarily my favorite characters I picked. Actually most
of them aren't, but one of them that is is
Tara Bradford. I covered her for my birthday. She is
from Final Fantasy three Slash six. One of the reasons

(04:06):
I loved covering her was because she was one of
the very first characters as a child, who was a woman,
who was my favorite character, who was the main character
who people loved. I loved her, and so it was
just really fun to like go back and revisit that
I haven't played that game in forever. I think that
that character still has a really big, like a legacy

(04:30):
that was left behind, and it was just cool reading
about it. Because I love video games. I love the
history of video games and how characters get made, and
so it was just neat to to dig deeper into
this character that I've loved since I was like five
years old. And in fact, my family is nerdy enough
that at we were visiting over the holidays, we play

(04:50):
video game music when we decorate the tree, and we
were playing Terra's theme song, which is a beautiful song,
and I was like, the whole family is enjoying a
piece of this character. I love, I like it. Yes, okay,
so that's fun. The second one is America Chavez. And
the reason I love this one is because Joey came

(05:12):
on to you talk with us about why this character
impacted them so much, And it was just really cool
because I knew I had known about this character. We
talked about doctor Strange, Multiverse of Madness. Um. But it's
pretty rare. I've been very selfish so far. It's pretty rare.
We cover a character that I don't know that well,

(05:34):
it does happen, but it's pretty rare. UM. And I
knew the main storyline of this character. But it was
just really cool to bring someone else on who had
grown up with this character, who loved it, who had
this knowledge of it, and to get to like nerd
out over that. It was a very fun, rewarding experience
because a lot of times I feel like and I

(05:54):
think this works, it's a fun dynamic, but I come
on and I'm like, haven't you read comic fifteen of
the Marvel Star Wars run And You're like, no, what
does that mean? So it's just kind of neat to
see to be on your side of it for what

(06:15):
actually really enjoyed it. Yeah, it's great learning things and
I didn't have to do that. Yeah, and I just
love hearing that passion people have about fictional characters, So
that was really cool. My last one is probably surprised
some people, but it's Setene Creeze. We covered her in
the beginning of like my whole Star Wars run through

(06:38):
in April May June, however many months. She's definitely not
my favorite character, but I really like talking about her
because I think, like politically and philosophically, she's a fascinating
character because she was kind of the pacifist ruler of
the Mandalorians who got assassinated, and it's just a really
albi one Canobi and her were in love um and she.

(07:01):
They're like the opposite of what happened with Anakin and
pad May Wear and Satine died and Opi one was
able to not become Darth Vader, so I she's It
was just like one of those things where it was
very fascinating in terms of the lore and the because
Stars does a lot with philosophy, so it was interesting
in the politics of it, and then the fallout of

(07:24):
that character and how divisive she is because some people
don't hate her um some people ever. But it was
fun to like try to explain Mandalorian culture in a
very short episode. Yes you did, Yes, you know what

(07:54):
we did? Overlap and because I also said America Chavez
as well, because I knew nothing of our care her
except for the movie and the one movie that I
really didn't love, but this character was great, so, but
I didn't have the in depth information and Joey coming
on and doing that episode was phenomenal. I also love
that Joey is so passionate that they made like, let
me do this episode. Is it okay if I do this,

(08:15):
let me just write it, And then they're like, even
if you can, you can, you can do it. I
just want you to do it, and we're like, no, Joey,
come on. And they were so great. They did an
amazing job, a wonderful way to have them being a
part of an episode. So I was so phenomenal to
see that. And then the watching the two of you
geek out about Marvel was another perspective of this that

(08:36):
I haven't had. So it's really fun to watch the
two of you going back and forth and talking about
this fact and that fact, and I'm like, I don't
know what's happening, but amazing, great, great, UM, just with
all the questions that I had that the two of
you together can tell me all about UM and the
fact that the y'all love something that you grew up
with seeing it come to screen and talking about the

(08:58):
realities of the disappoint as well as the excitement of
it all. So it's kind of it was really fun
for that episode having a third person coming in, Hey, yeah,
so that y'all can banter instead of me just going
uh huh, okay what But I will say, and I
don't think these were all in two but things that
you love watching you explain it is always fun, always fun.

(09:22):
So when you do anything with the Last of Us,
anything with Star Wars that you have been dying to do,
always a fun thing to watch. So I'll put that
in the top bariances as well. UM. And of course
with that, I'm going to talk about the activists that
we've talked about in two UM, and one of those

(09:43):
kind of cheating but I don't think it's cheating on
my top three and it was talking about the Olympics
when we were talking about the women of the specific
sports or competitions. I love it because we had a
lot of people writing in telling us what's going on
in their area. So I love that hearing things that
if we may have missed, because we missed a lot.

(10:04):
Obviously we can't talk too much about a full Olympic competition,
um within a fifteen minutes space, maybe ten minutes, maybe
twenty UM. But doing all of those, covering the different
sports which I typically don't watch, but seeing people break records,
women or those who identify as women break these records
is phenomenal and I loved every bit of it. People participating,

(10:26):
there's something that is the commandarie of it all. And
just being able to celebrate with other countries about what
is happening, and the people who are so young or
so like in the problem of their age. You know,
all of these things. I love it so anything with
I said that Winter Olympics specifically, but when we talked
about the Winter Olympics, when we talked about the Paralympics,

(10:46):
and just celebrating all of those. Of course you watched
it a lot more than I do. But being able
to read about it and coming back into it and
having a history of it because we've talked about women
in Olympics before and seeing it grow is a beauty,
a full thing. And then also seeing women challenging the
systems when they're wrong. So I had to put that
as one of my faves. I'm sorry. The other one

(11:11):
I love because it was historical for the United States. UH,
seeing the confirmation of the Supreme Court Justice Judge Katangi
Brown Jackson, who became the first black woman to sit
on the bench. Already, Like, there's so much happening, and
we know it's an ugly controversy, but it was such
a light to talk about, especially with some of the

(11:31):
arguments that she's been able to make. Um, it's been beautiful.
So I can't wait to see as she is the
one of the newest judges obviously, UM of our Supreme
Court of the United States Supreme Court, UH, beking change
or fighting for change because we know she's not going
to sit back. Um, none of the justices really sit back.

(11:51):
We have majority, so that's a problem. But UM, in
that conversation, I think it was a really important and
so being able to celebrate that, being able to celebrate
a big win for black women, it felt nice. So
I think that's one of my top three moments as well,
and then the other one. Uh and I think you'll

(12:12):
know why because I thought it was really really fun
when we were talking about bees Letty Pesh from the
Man environmental activists and talking about the source of bees
and how they are connected to the indigenous community and
why it's so important that we talked about the bees.
I know, you love bees, like I remember what I
was talking like we were. I was like, Hey, we're

(12:33):
gonna talk about this. You're like, yeah, because it is.
It's such a stainable part of our environment and why
they are important, and now it's kind of a little
more widely known. Don't bother these We need to protect
these bees, and they've known it for years, So being
able to talk about her and her work. Of course,
we love talking about all the native and indigenous activists

(12:55):
because they are the front and center when it comes
to climate change, um, environmental protection and all of that UM,
So we definitely want to talk about that as part
of the bigger conversation when it comes to climate change
and the impact it has on our world in general.
So in the ecological systems, we need to go back
and talk about the Amazon rainforest as they're being burned

(13:16):
down again. I guess it's continually happening. But you know,
talking about her, what she's done and the impact that
she did, I thought was one of the best fun,
fun part of the conversations that we've had. And I
felt like you and I you are really just enjoying it.
So it made me very happy to Yeah, I do.
I do love bees like I. That is one of
the things like if you are at a party and

(13:39):
you see me and I got a glass of wine
in hand, and you're like, I just need somebody to
take over the conversation. I'm tired, Go ask me about
bees and I will talk, talk and talk. Um, it's
like one of the it's one of like my I
would say ten things you could just ask me about.
Now I'm going go and go and you don't have
to worry about anything else. Um. Yeah, this was hard,

(14:00):
hard because you always bring so many people when you
were joking about like my bonuses. I did write down
several names, um, because it was hard for me to decide.
But I will pick one and it's a recent one.
Hindu Almaru Ibrahim, who was the cryptographer and digenous activists
all about environmentalism because I do think, as you said,

(14:20):
it's so important to us that we highlight the work
of indigenous activists that has continued been there forever, but
been so long ignored, and so I always love it
when we get to talk about that, and then I
things like climate change in our environment and the health
of our our planet and water and all of those
intersections of m racism and sexism and all of that

(14:44):
stuff that makes makes everything worse. That is one of
my biggest issues. That's one of the things I care
about the most is our environments. And so every time
we do one about people protecting it but also protecting
it in that kind of intersectional justice way that we
talked about with one of our book clubs, because you
can't ignore like the reality of who is hurting more

(15:05):
and and all of the things behind that um And
so I like when we get to focus on uh
an indigenous activist, especially or any marginalized activist who is
really doing the intersectional work of environmentalism. That's that's so
important to me. That is like one of the most

(15:25):
important things I think, and so I'm every time we
get to do that, whether it's bees. I also loved
our recent Emily Pinnon episode where all these things where
we can't I'm all for, like, yes, recycle more, but
it's just so much bigger than that, right. So I
like seeing these activists that you bring where they know

(15:46):
it's so much bigger than that, right. And yeah, I
love doing the ones the way we talked about the
record breaking women UM, which you kind of overlaped with
like mountaineers, and that that was a fun subject this year. Um,
there's so many things at women and marginalized community have
done that we do want to continue celebrating. And yes,
we will be doing that until the end of time

(16:07):
maybe I hope. So anyway, until the end of this series,
I don't know, but doing we're gonna keep going with
all of that, and yes, we're gonna add hopefully more
organizations because we have talked about different organizations, especially as
we talk about reproductive rights around the world and different

(16:27):
nonprofits that have come together to work for the rights
of people. We've talked about iran um and the Iranian people,
and hopefully we can keep have a conversation about that
because we don't want to stop highlighting things for those
who are oppressed. We want to talk about the the
continued people are protesting in China, UM in Hong Kong.

(16:48):
We know there's a lot of things happening and we
need to have that conversation as well. UM. We don't
want to ignore all of the unfortunate darkness because we
don't because we're scared to talk about it. Because there
are people in those movements who are making an amazing change,
and that we need to speak up about UM continuously.
And that's what's something that we think is important. That

(17:09):
is something that we hope that we can use our
platform for UM and continue to speak up for those
who can't for themselves and for those who have just
damn smart getting done right. Do you want to make
sure we celebrate that as well? Because I'm always in
awe of the amazing work that people do because they
are committed for something bigger than themselves and that's amazing.

(17:47):
As for the future, Annie, I asked you this last year,
I want to ask you this this year. What can
we look forward to for the next year? In fictional
women around the world. Oh, you've already heard about my pickle, Um, Well,
the last of a show is coming out everybody. If
you haven't heard me say it a million times. They're

(18:08):
not currently a sponsor, but damn they should be. I'm
looking forward to that. I am in a weird situation
about spoilers with it, but I am looking forward to that.
I'm curious about There's a lot of new media coming
out with Marvel and with Star Wars. Like Listener Dina,
who writes infrequently about Star Wars and I so much

(18:30):
love you, thank you read your message before on listener mail,
was like, how are you excited about? And they listened
like ten shows um, and I was like, I am,
but I'm also nervous. I've been burned before. UM. And
I think it will be interesting to see, especially with Marvel.

(18:54):
Marvel has made a lot of the decisions I wouldn't
have gone for. Uh with women are intersectional people marginalize
people lately. UM, So I'm curious. I'm here, I'm curious
to see where they go. We'll see. UM could be good,
it could be really good. I'm just nervous Star Wars.
I'm much more like we'll finally have to talk about Bokatan.

(19:18):
I've been putting it off, but it's time. I like
her as a character, but a lot of people hate her,
hate her, so I I'm excited to talk about her.
The SOCA shows coming out. We'll see what goes down
with that. Um. But yeah, yeah, there are Honestly, there's
four characters with Last of Us that I'm dying to

(19:39):
talk about. But I don't know what I'm gonna do
with the show now. I feel strange, I feel I
feel trued. O. Lord, I don't want to spoil it
for anybody, but the show has been out for so long.
Yeah the game, yeah yeah, the game. Yeah yeah, but yeah,
so I'm excited and I think just gonna do the

(20:00):
caveat spoiler if you want to wait, and then you
can come back. You have something to look forward to
and come back and listen. Because those I can participate in.
I've watched the game, we talked a lot about it,
so that I got that, I go. I'm We're hoping
we'll definitely have Joey back on for their contributions because
they love so many amazing things when it comes to

(20:20):
UH marginalized people and the content that needs to be
there when it comes to fictionalized characters. So we'll definitely
have Joey back on. We will, like I said, be
having a lot of different women and those who identify
as female or film because we think that it's very
important important and non binary people's. Um. We know that
we are watching in the US and a lot of

(20:42):
places where it's turned into a very conservative flip when
it comes to what is being targeted in our policies,
uh in just hateful crimes in general. So we will
we will continue to make sure that those who have
continued to work or uh continue to fight for those
communities are highlighted throughout. We hope to have more guests,

(21:04):
like we said earlier, in expectations uh to talk about
their work as well. So yeah, it's we're just going
to continue on. We are, We're gonna continue on happily.
This was a fun little recap. Thank you, um and
once again, this was your idea. This segment was your idea,
So cheers to you. You for also still humoring me.

(21:27):
You know, I would talk forever about like any fictional character. UM. Okay,
And we did want to share this very quick listener
mail before we wrap up. And this is from Ziki.
My best friend is a Twitch streamer and I was
hoping to shout them out because they do some creative stuff.
Lizard Wizard l y z a r D. W y
z a r d is their user name and they

(21:48):
do a stream where they make the recipes from Starting Valley.
It's pretty cool and they're a great person who deserves support,
so that sounds awesome. Definitely another person for us to highlight.
Go check them out. Yes, you know we love We
love when friends support supporting each other on here. So
this is great. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Keep
those uh people we should highlight coming. Any suggestions for

(22:11):
the segment coming, you can email as a Steffanie and
mom Stuff at iHeart meta dot com. You can find
us on Twitter and mom Stuff podcast or inscaream with
stuff I've never told you. Thanks. It's always to our
super producer Christina, who we will be highlight every day
because you are amazing. Christina, you are, Yes, you are,
and thanks to you for listening step who Never told
the production of I Heart Radio. For more podcast from

(22:32):
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