March 21, 2025 • 56 mins
Olivia and Katie of the WhatsHerName podcast join us to break down the importance of talking about the lost women of history, how numerous they are, and the amazing stories behind them waiting to be told.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and walking Stuff. I
never told you production of iHeartRadio, and.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Y'all, we are so excited for this episode. We're bringing
back a friend of the show, fellow podcasters who do
the work of preserving women in history. Yes, it is
What's Her Name podcast hosts and creators Olivia and Katie. Hello, Hi, Hello,
great to be here. Can you introduce yourself to our
listeners or reintroduce Hi.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
I'm Olivia Michael and with my history professor's sister co host, Katie,
we're the hosts of What's Her Name? Podcast? What's What's
Your Name?
Speaker 4 (00:53):
Podcast?
Speaker 3 (00:53):
Katie?
Speaker 5 (00:54):
Yeah, So I'm Katie and Olivia and I are sister
in real life, and I guess that's how we ended
up doing the podcast. Olivia is a professor of women's
and gender studies, so I guess a women's history project
was inevitable at some point.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
And for I think it's eight years we've been.
Speaker 5 (01:15):
Telling years, which is stories, yeah, women from world history,
putting women back in world history.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Yes, and I love that now. It feels like it's
been forever ago. And I realized when I was looking
back on our episode with you, Olivia, because I know, Katie,
you couldn't join us at that time. It was April
twenty twenty. Things were happening, and things were happening. It
was the beginning of our home recording journey for all
(01:44):
of us. I believe I remember being in the kitchen
because I didn't nowhere else to go. And now we've
kind of upgraded to closets or addics for candy, and
I was just like, wow, this feels like forever ago,
because it was almost five years and you came to
us talking about Harriet Jacobs and nor Johan and we
had connected because we were all lists together, and we're like, yeah,
(02:06):
obviously we need to be interacting and having each other
on the podcast. Duh. But it's been been a minute,
So let me ask you the dreaded question, how have
y'all been?
Speaker 3 (02:21):
I think the short answer is good question. I think
I think we're doing well well.
Speaker 5 (02:33):
One of the awesome things is to see how in
the past five years, eight years, I suppose, it's been
a great surprise to see how eager the world is
to hear the stories of women in history. And when
we started the podcast, we had no idea that we
can tell you the origin story. But you know, the
short version is I wanted to do a podcast about
(02:55):
the forgotten women of history, and Olivia was like, nobody's going.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
To listen to it?
Speaker 5 (03:01):
Deeply cynical, yes, And I guess rightly. So she was like,
it's hard enough to convince people to listen to stories
about the already famous women. It's hard enough to get
them to care about that. And I wanted to do
women nobody had ever heard of, and who's going to
listen to that? But so the great takeaway for us
is people want to hear about it. You know, millions
(03:22):
of downloads later, people are ready and eager and excited,
and there are listeners all over the world who are
just eating this stuff up. So in that way, it's
just been really wonderful. Yeah, I've never been so happy
to be wrong.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
We love that. And with all of that, the origin
stories and where we are today, can you give us
an update on what has been going on in the
world of What's her name?
Speaker 3 (03:47):
Gosh, we have been busy. We wrote the four books, finished,
just finished the fourth. It's the book I've wanted to
write since I was seven, so I'm very excited about
it and it comes out this fall, but we are
three other ones. We can talk about a couple books.
Speaker 5 (04:06):
For middle grade books, we've written the Book of Sisters,
which is a history of the world through the stories
of sisters, illustrated by thirty eight different female illustrators from
all over the world. That was just such an amazing
progating And then probably the work I'll be proudest of
till the day I die, A Stinky History of Toilets,
which is a richly illustrated really discussing the history of poop.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
Around the world. Yeah, which every time the illustrations came back,
or every time I knew layout came back, my husband
would just kind of look at it and go, I
can't believe letting you get away with so much food.
Speaker 5 (04:46):
But then we finally wrote something for grown ups, and
it is a history of the world in eighty lost women,
and it's just a complete, as complete as you can
be history of the world from the beginning of time
to the modern era, told through the stories of eighty
women that nobody's ever heard.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
Of, because like, what if women were there the whole time? Surprise.
It's a bold proposition, but I think.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
Controvers proved it controversial For sure, yeah, And as I
was like, we were researching through your work and I
popped up done to the two children's book, I was like,
this is amazing foremost both of them, because it was
the poop one, the toilet one, the stinky history of
toilets was a surprise. I didn't realize look at that,
(05:34):
look like this. But of course I love the Book
of Sisters, the two of you being sisters and writing
this together and loving this journey. Seeing Korean sisters legends
being mentioned in the I was like, oh, look at that.
Speaker 4 (05:48):
That's sad.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
I was like, oh, I'm trying to tell that story
for children, because I don't know if you're familiar with
the whole story, but it is. It is. It's not
it's not a PG story. They made My writing challenge, ever,
was how am I gonna tell this story right in
(06:11):
a way that doesn't traumatize everyone and get us fired.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
Did y'all watch the horror movie based on that?
Speaker 3 (06:17):
Just have you seen?
Speaker 5 (06:19):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (06:19):
No, I just I just recently. Yeah, I get Movies Award.
It's because so like But we'll talk about that later.
That's besides the point. My kids watch it and they
can tell me all about perfect. We have our other
sister is obsessed with horror film. She's okay everyone, and
I'm sure she's seen it. She has will ask her
(06:41):
for okay, okay version.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
I think you did a good job with the PG version,
like you kind of melted it down.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
Like okay. Very impressed with myself.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Yeah, it was good and the art is gorgeous. And
for your newest or newer book, and that has been
released what's her name? A History of the World in
eighty Lost Women, it's really also amazing and I really
love the layout. It kind of it was nice to
see because we kind of had similar ideas in I
think all that same level, like let's make it interactive,
(07:09):
let's have them kind of be a part of this,
and you're asking questions and you're getting polls of people's opinions,
and I loved so much of that. So with that,
you kind of explained about this book. But can you
go into more depth about what this book is about.
Speaker 5 (07:24):
We were approached to write a book based on the podcast,
and immediately I thought, what would make it fun for me?
Speaker 3 (07:32):
What would make an interesting challenge?
Speaker 5 (07:35):
And I've taught world history at university for you know,
eleven or fifteen years something, I don't know how long,
for a long time, and I just immediately thought, what
would be such an interesting challenge. Could I tell a
complete history of the world, you know, by like academic
standards of what you need to know after you come
out of a world history course.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
Could I teach.
Speaker 5 (07:56):
A history of the world using only the stories of
forgotten women? And immediately I was like, oh, now that
sounds fun, that sounds intriguing. And it turned out that
it was even easier than I thought it was going
to be.
Speaker 3 (08:09):
That it was not.
Speaker 5 (08:10):
Difficult to find women's stories that are that either are
emblematic of a moment in time or women who played
some hugely significant role in different moments in time from
the Stone Age all the way through the present day.
So I guess that was the beginning of it. And
then for a good year was it a full year?
Speaker 3 (08:33):
Maybe longer? Olivia. Yeah, that's a theme with our work,
is that we get offered a project and then we say,
how about instead of that project, we do this other
much more complicated, much more difficult, much more time consuming.
We don't even know if it's possible project instead, sure, okay,
(09:00):
but yeah, this one just it turned out so great.
Speaker 4 (09:03):
I'm so proud of it.
Speaker 5 (09:04):
And I think it was because of a maybe because
of my experience in the classroom. I wanted to make
it interactive, like you said, because that's how you get
the class engaged. You don't just say, here are the facts,
memorize them, and spit them back at me on the exam.
You say, here's what we know, here's what we don't know.
Here are the different really sound theories that have a
(09:25):
lot of academics that agree with them.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
Which one do you think?
Speaker 5 (09:28):
So you get to pick as you go, and like
you said, there's a lot of like checklists, you choose,
you know what, how do we explain this phenomenon? And
every one of the possible options in the checklist, every
one of them is a sound academic theory that's supported
by hundreds or thousands of different you know, professors and academics.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
But you get to choose.
Speaker 5 (09:49):
So it's yeah, kind of like taking you for a
ride through history, but you get it's to choose your
own adventure of what you.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
Did that you actually did to choose your own adventure
in part of this, and I was like, we wanted
to do this.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
They did it.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
It's amazing, envious, and very excited.
Speaker 5 (10:06):
And that's how history should be. I think you know
that there's so many different stories. You get to choose
which ones resonate with you and which ones you want
to construct the storyline from.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
That's what makes it so fun.
Speaker 5 (10:19):
I'm not of the school of memorize these facts and
then spit them out on an exam.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
That's the way you do history wrong. I think that's true.
I especially like that approach, just because I got very
politely kicked out of an anthropology degree for that very thing,
for refusing to pick a side, for refusing to choose
one option and insist that it was the right one,
and they were like, you can't you have to choose.
(10:46):
You can't say, well, we don't know. So I'm now
very pleased that I was right. And even anthropology is
coming around now too. We don't know. We've pretended we
knew for a long time, but it could be any
these options right for thinking answers are boring to me.
I always prefer questions. I will take better questions over
answers in any situation. So it's fun to force people
(11:11):
to adopt that theory of looking at history.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
Yeah, I mean that is it can be frustrating sometimes
as a podcaster when I'm like, I want to find
the answer and I think it exists in history, and
it's like.
Speaker 3 (11:31):
No, we don't know.
Speaker 4 (11:33):
Yeah, no idea.
Speaker 5 (11:35):
I love to fill in the gaps and invent my
own I mean, will I will construct the plotline in
my head and I'll say this is the way it
went in my head, So I will land somewhere, but
also allow other people to land in different places if
they want to construct, they want to fill in the
gaps in a different way.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
Yeah, And my favorite thing about history is that you
can be one hundred percent sure you know what happened.
We know what happened here, and even though this happened
a thousand years ago, tomorrow we might find something that
means that everything we knew was wrong. And I love
that you can be still discovering completely new information about
(12:16):
things that happened thousands of years ago.
Speaker 4 (12:21):
Yeah, that's amazing.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
We have a segment on this show called female First,
and it's astounding to me how they'll be like, you know,
just a couple of years ago, we learned something about
that changed everything. Yes, So with all of that in mind,
(12:46):
it's daunting enough to write a book, then you've got
all this complicated history. Can you tell us about the
writing process that went into this. How did it the
writing and research? How did that play out?
Speaker 5 (13:01):
Some Initially, I think because I'm the world historian, the
job was mine to at least lay out the big
picture outline. So what I did first was sit down
and say, okay, so what are the major episodes of
world history that I want to make sure we include
that are in the book. So I outlined all of
(13:22):
those from the Stone Age to the modern era. Okay,
we need to have this episode. You know, we're definitely
going to need something from nineteenth century China. I mean,
that was this whole show that we definitely need something
from there, you know, just those major episodes. Had that outlined,
and then we looked at all the episodes we had
already recorded and thought and sort of slotted some of
(13:44):
those in. Know, this tells this this is great Neolithic stories,
We'll slot.
Speaker 3 (13:48):
Her in there.
Speaker 5 (13:49):
And then where there were gaps where we hadn't had
episodes of particular moments in time, you know, that's when
the research began to go. Research in more depth, for example,
like ninth century Africa in order to see what women's
stories were going on there.
Speaker 3 (14:08):
So there was some.
Speaker 5 (14:09):
New and in depth research in some areas, and then
in other areas it was like, oh, we already have
like twelve episodes about this episode, so this moment in history,
so we'll have to narrow it down and choose just
one or two of the women to tell this story.
So that was kind of the big picture process, and
then we just went through chronologically. We wrote it chronologically
(14:33):
over the course of a year and would give ourselves
deadlines at the end of every month we have to have.
It was a chapter a month basically. And then because
we literally co wrote it using the same document, it
was on Google docs that we both had access to,
and we were just in there sort of typing and
having a conversation with each other in the Google doc
(14:53):
as we went.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
And she's very politely not saying that we had deadline,
but I narrowly gave her a nervous breakdown because she
did I was having a rough here and I am.
I am not great on deadlines at the best of times,
and it was it was bad, and bless her for
(15:16):
putting up with me.
Speaker 5 (15:19):
The farther you get into the book, because we wrote
it chronologically. The farther you get into the book, the
more of it I wrote, the more of Katie.
Speaker 4 (15:26):
I guess.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
Yeah. But we finished it. We did it. And here's
my psa to the world. Don't write two books at
the same time. Don't ever agree to write two books
at the same time. Oh you can't.
Speaker 5 (15:43):
It's excuse how but it's part of things.
Speaker 4 (15:49):
Well, congrats finishing it.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
Yeah, And you know, Samantha and I can relate so
much to all of this if we ever get to
hang out and person, we could if we.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
Did give like tales like yes, of the book.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
Writing process and deadlines and all of that. But one
thing that I think that we could probably really relate
to is the difficulty of choosing whom you're going to
feature and what you're going to do. So for for us,
it was a little different because ours was I think
(16:25):
more condensed in terms of like who we were featuring,
but it did feel like by featuring someone, you're leaving
someone else out, and like, what are you saying by
choosing this person and not this person? Yes, So, how
how was that for you? And how did you choose
the people you were going to feature.
Speaker 5 (16:44):
That's a great question that only somebody who has been
through it would know to ask our way to make
a big paint of that in the intro of like,
this is ah history.
Speaker 3 (16:58):
It is a history, it is not the history. And
we could write this book with eighty different women and
it would be everybit as accurate and true to history
and be a completely different story. You know, the idea
that there's only certain people in history that matter that
should be included is ridiculous, and that you can tell
it so many different ways, and so the yeah, I
(17:22):
get lots of people. I'm sure you get the same
that assume that our main problem in writing and podcasting
everything is finding enough women, like aren't you going to
run out of women soon? Which is still mind blowing
to me.
Speaker 5 (17:37):
No.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
In fact, there have been more than many one hundred
and fifty one women in the whole history of the
world who did something problem. But the problem is always
the opposite of you know, we started with three hundred
and twenty women and had to keep cutting it down.
You know, our publishers like, you cannot you cannot go
(17:57):
over one hundred. You must keep it under one hundred.
Speaker 5 (18:01):
And I think, so I made sure to sort of
address that in the introduction and then at the conclusion again,
as you said, Olivia, like, what I find wonderful about
history is that there is no set cast of main characters,
and that history is like this treasure trove of human
(18:22):
stories and truths that you can just dive into again
and again. It's almost endless, all the stories that have
been lived before and all the things people have learned
and done in the past. And so what's so beautiful
about history is that every time you find a new person,
you find a new truth that they lived or that
they learned. And so the beauty is keep on diving in,
(18:45):
keep on finding new characters, Get write another story with
a different cast, and see how that story plays out.
So I think, I mean, you couldn't blame people for
believing there is a fixed cast of main characters, because
that's what we were taught in school, and that's how
the textbooks make it. You know, like there was this
important person and if you left that person out, you
wouldn't have the complete history or you know, things like that.
(19:07):
But it's just the more I teach world history, the
more I know that's just not true. And that the
bigger stories always involved millions of people, and you could
tell that episode through any one of those people who
lived it. It's sort of like switching cameras in a movie.
You know, you can tell the same story, but from
this perspective, now switch to this perspective or this perspective,
(19:30):
And every time you add more characters, it makes a
story so much more interesting. It comes alive in completely
new ways. So it can be painful to choose the characters.
But as long as in doing that you show people like, wow,
this story is totally fascinating and different in new ways. Now,
(19:51):
then maybe we can all realize that we could choose
all kinds of different people from history and it doesn't
mean that we're ignoring or erasing the other. It just
means we're switching cameras to look at it in new ways.
I think that's the way we're headed. I even think
that's the way textbooks are headed, the way that things
have been involving in the last ten years in academia.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
Yeah, I love everything that was said because we again
Annie was talking about the fact that we were like, oh,
we don't want to exclude anybody. We want to bring
everybody in, and then our editors are like no, no, no, no, no,
we have to cut this, we have to cut this
and this, And I'm like, but why, But there's so
much to that in knowing that if there was a
very small choice in finding women is not because they're
not there. It's because either A they haven't been discovered
(20:35):
or B they've been hidden or the history has trying
to erase them. But I love that as more and
more content creators, more and more professors like yourself, and
more and more people coming out discovering or retelling these stories,
and that's exactly why books like this are so important.
But you know, at the very top, when you were
talking about the book, you did say something about you
(20:56):
knew you had to include this these specific people. So
with that, who are some of these people? You're like, Yeah,
before we even write this book, I know these are
the people I want to include. Who were they? And
why ah?
Speaker 3 (21:11):
And why yes?
Speaker 5 (21:14):
Just to speak generally, some of them are like, we
personally love them so much that they have to go
in because like this is my personal hero or something
like that. And then other times I think I felt
really strongly about choosing this or that woman because to
use the same metaphor, this shift of cameras totally changes
the way that we perceive the event. And the one
(21:36):
that springs to mind for me is including in talking
about the story of the cult of Liberty and the
American Revolution and you know that whole entire episode in
History where the camera is usually on Thomas Jefferson and
George Washington and you know those characters. If you shift
the camera to the enslaved woman who is in the
(21:57):
room while they're all sitting around the dining room table
talking about liberty and how are we going to.
Speaker 3 (22:02):
Pull this off?
Speaker 5 (22:03):
While a slave is serving them, you know, at their
dining room table, shift to her, how does she see
the event and how does it all play out for her? Well,
that completely, I mean, that just blows wide open the
whole story of the American Revolution in the most enlightening
and amazing way. So it was those kind of camera
shifts too that were like, we have to do this
because it's just.
Speaker 3 (22:23):
So brilliant when you shift cameras like that in these episodes. Yeah,
I mean an obvious one for me that I know,
for you know, for when we did episodes on them,
we just kept going How did we not know any
of this? How are we not talking about this? Was
the fact that I will insert the academic Arguably but definitely,
(22:46):
the two most important figures in the Spanish colonization of
what is now Mexico are women who no one outside
of Mexico has ever heard of. They're more important than Cortez.
They're more important. I mean, they are the key to
that entire era of history, to what happens, to how
(23:08):
it happens to, you know, the fundamental shift in how
the world behaves toward the New World, and nobody even
talks about them, which is ridiculous, It's absurd. And whenever
I tell people, you know, I just sort of casually mention, oh,
by the way, did you know that? And their minds
are blown and they're angry. They're angry that this was
(23:32):
never told, even though everyone at the time knew, they
were talking about it at the time. It's not like
nobody knew she was there. You know, Molentcine is central
in every picture of Cortes interacting with anybody, and yet
we just pretend she, oh, some woman. I don't know,
we don't know why there's a woman there. That's the
biggest person in the entire picture, and Cortes is standing
(23:54):
behind her as a little shrimpy you know nothing.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
I love that you come in with like a party
conversation with this. Did you know.
Speaker 3 (24:02):
I'm very annoying to be around. I'm sure I'm never
not on my soapbox. I like, I tried bally hard.
Speaker 5 (24:10):
Yeah, I crowded best just standing next to someone and
be like, so, what do you know about the conquest
of Mexico?
Speaker 2 (24:19):
This is the information I would want to know.
Speaker 3 (24:22):
My eighteen year old pointed out to me a couple
of months ago just how ridiculous I am. In a
good way. He was laughing with love. But this was
an entirely normal interaction to me. But we were just
driving along somewhere in the car and we're just silent,
and all of a sudden, I said, so do you
(24:43):
want to hear my most controversial archaeological opinion? And he
just burst out laughing. And I didn't even I couldn't
even for a minute. I was like, why is he leven?
And then I went, oh, that is probably a weird,
weird conversation starter for a mother and her teen age
child in a car. And he just started off, He's like,
(25:03):
you're so weird. I love it. But then we talked,
you know, for an hour about our most controversial archaeological opinions,
and so yeah, we're nerds to the core, and that's
where I think all of this comes out of true
nerdy passion, right, all of this. We're so excited about
it that you can't help, I hope, but also be
(25:25):
excited about it when you are leading or hearing us enthus.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
Teaching the next generation to have that conversation as well.
I mean, come on, yeah, that's what a good parent does.
Speaker 4 (25:35):
So great job.
Speaker 3 (25:36):
Yeah he did apparently go to school and tell everyone
about my most controversial archaeologicalis.
Speaker 6 (25:42):
I love it sharing it. This is how we read history.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
Well, let's look behind the cards a little bit in
this writing process because we talked about the people you did. So,
was there something you planned at the beginning in this
writing or for the book but changed as you were
in the process of writing it?
Speaker 3 (26:10):
Yeah, quite a bit.
Speaker 5 (26:13):
The list of women who were included changed as we
went pretty regularly. And it was funny because we had
already given the list to our editor because he'd sent
it on to their promo team.
Speaker 3 (26:27):
You know, and they were using it to.
Speaker 5 (26:30):
Send the book out to different countries, you know, all
those kinds of things, and then we'd be like, oh,
well the list has actually changed now, so now it's
these people, you know. And then a month later, okay,
and we've had to take her out because we realized
we really need to tell this story instead, so now
this woman is included in.
Speaker 3 (26:46):
So it was it was constantly tweaking of like era
and region and theme and story, you know, just like
every possible cross cross reference.
Speaker 5 (27:00):
We really wanted to make sure that we were choosing
as diverse a group as we possibly could in all ways,
including geographical and time period and what kind of a
story are they telling? Is this an athlete, is this
a politician, is this an artist? You know, all of
(27:20):
those things that we were working really hard to make
sure that we had representation from all those different categories.
So it was it was a endless juggling, endless juggling,
I think, And that's why I think at the end
we said, if we chose in a different eighty Women,
the story would be enlightening in a new way.
Speaker 3 (27:40):
It would be a very different story.
Speaker 5 (27:42):
I think it would be really fun, even like a
game which they would be the world's nerdiest board game.
Once again, randomly select, randomly select these women, and then
construct a story that to them all together across time
and across the world.
Speaker 3 (28:02):
I think that'll be so fun next Fourth of July barbecue. Right,
That is genuinely the kind of thing we do at
family gatherings with our family, Like, you know, let's let's
construct this timeliner. Let's go through the slide show of
the history of the Ottoman Empire at the fourth of July.
Speaker 4 (28:20):
We're weird. That's great.
Speaker 3 (28:24):
Yeah, there was there was one woman who we decided
to sub out for someone else and then found out
that they had put her on the cover, so we
had to put her back in, which I was happy.
We love her, but it was like, yow, she's on
the cover now, I guess get back in.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
Relatable we've had these are like, oh, I think we
mentioned them, but we never mentioned them again. Yeah, yeah,
so we've been there.
Speaker 4 (28:53):
Yes, there's a lot of moving parts when we're writing
a book.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
Yeah, the cover we've learned is very important.
Speaker 5 (29:03):
Yeah, And like initially the illustrations they because the venus
of Willendorff is in the book and the illustration of
the venus, which I personally loved. The illustrator of the
cover is Ellen Winata in Singapore and her illustration the
Venus of Willendorf is just gold.
Speaker 3 (29:20):
I loved it.
Speaker 5 (29:21):
And that was on the cover originally, and then somebody
took the venus off the cover and then you know,
for me, that was like, no, she was going to
be if she was on the binding, she was going
to be the icon of the book.
Speaker 3 (29:33):
And then she wasn't. Maybe somebody was like, it was boobs.
Maybe they'll let us buy her and put her on
a T shirt. Yeah, maybe, yeah, March. You know, so
we can write books full of poop for children, but
no ancient boobs, but books stone age. The rules of
publishing are strange.
Speaker 5 (29:54):
Yeah, I am speaking of merch though, now that you
mention it.
Speaker 3 (29:58):
Look, I'm wearing a shirt.
Speaker 5 (29:59):
This is one of the the new shirts that we
made from the It's just got a line from the book,
Less Patriarchy, more Elephant. That's one of the options when
you take the Ancient Empire's test, which empire would you
have lived in?
Speaker 3 (30:12):
That's one of the options.
Speaker 5 (30:13):
If your personality is less patriarchy, more elephant, then it
turns out you lived in ancient Vietnam. So yeah, Olivia
really wanted that line on a T shirt.
Speaker 3 (30:23):
It has to be on a T shirt with no context, right,
just yes, yes, the people who know will know your bond.
Speaker 6 (30:35):
It.
Speaker 4 (30:36):
We have one I still want to do.
Speaker 1 (30:39):
Unfortunately, I think there will be balls.
Speaker 3 (30:55):
Remember that distinctly.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
Well, all of this research, did you run across anything
that really surprised you or something that you discovered that
you hadn't heard before even doing all this research?
Speaker 5 (31:10):
Constantly, constantly, Yeah, And that's the whole story of the
podcast too. For eight years, we're just constantly encountering stuff
we had never heard of, you know, almost every episode
these women we've never heard of also, And I guess
that's what so makes the podcast so fun for us.
It's going to school, you know, we're still in school
(31:32):
eight years later. And our general strategy is, well, people
who've written biographies will approach us to be on the podcast,
and then we learn about the woman that way. But
we also like to just approach experts in all fields
all over the world and just say to them, is
there a woman in your field that you think deserves
more attention than she gets? And they always say yes, always,
(31:57):
and it's almost always a woman we've never heard of either.
So yeah, every episode we make is so fun for
us because we get to deep dive into this story
that we'd never heard of either. So I mean, as
people who have taught the subject for a decade, that
is so thrilling and so encouraging. I think there's just
(32:18):
so much out there. The work is being done. It
is absolutely being done. Up to eleven, there is so
so much out there, and like I said, the world
is ready for it. I think all these books are
being published, all these people are working on these projects.
So we're like right on the cusp of it entering
the mainstream historical narrative. And I think for the next
(32:40):
generation the story is going to be radically different.
Speaker 3 (32:43):
It's going to be awesome because I think that is right.
That's the power that is sometimes recognized, not usually not
recognized about teaching, is that you're setting the normal right
that we all came up through. When I was a
women's studies undergrad the narrative was women didn't do stuff.
(33:08):
It wasn't their fault, they weren't allowed to, but mostly
they didn't do stuff, and there was this kind of
feeling that you were sort of shoehorning women into the story. Well,
you're just trying to go find a woman so that
you can she wasn't as good or she didn't do things,
and that was that was the women's studies people narrative, right,
(33:28):
It wasn't their fault, but they just didn't And so
watching it shift as everyone went, oh, no, In fact,
women were always doing stuff. All you have to do
is kind of poke a tiny bit and they just
come pouring out. It's not like you're having to go,
you know, dig through layers of stuff to find the
(33:49):
one woman you could possibly maybe justify. It's there's so many,
there's so many stories constantly just you know, falling out
of every every pocket of the universe whenever you start
looking for them. And I love that the problem is
we're having to say no, right, We're having to just
(34:09):
like say no to whole categories. We've just we can't
do any more of this, and we can't we have
too many white Americans and we can't do another white
American for a year. Or you know that we're having
to you know, turn down things instead of go searching
for things. Is a wonderful problem.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
Yeah, I love that there's so much And speaking of
searching for things, Uh, you talk about legendary goddesses and
mythical women in your both of your books, the Sister
Book and in the Newest Book, and here we talk
about a lot of goddesses and legends, but we also
talk about the undertones that is often either as based
(34:52):
on some awful stereotype or sometimes it's like really banking
on the fact that they did so much. So do
you have this like almost two opposites when it comes
to legendary goddesses and or.
Speaker 3 (35:06):
All of these people.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
Can you talk about what you found as you're researching
for your podcast and as you're researching for your book
that kind of talks about and how it implies how
they saw women in those like goddess peoples.
Speaker 3 (35:21):
It's still my favorite part in the whole book. Yeah,
And I think that I think that's a really important
point that mythology matters, these core stories that we carry
in our culture and form everything the way we think
about everything. But also we often tend to act the
same way about like that, well, these these myths are old,
(35:44):
and therefore this is just this is the myth, This
is the story, and you'll get accused of trying to
you know, change it, or why are you being you know, oh,
you're trying to pc up this myth. When myths are
ass malleable as anything else. The myths that you choose,
the way you tell them, the things that you highlight
(36:06):
in those stories, are as flexible and as movable as
any other story. And that if you look at the way,
even like the standard Greek mythology that every American kid
learns in junior high, if you look at the way
that was taught in my parents' generation versus my generation
versus what my kids were learning in high school, it's
(36:26):
so radically different, and it's all the same content, but
just the framing of it is so different. And so
I think, you know, we have these narratives around, Like
one that I really liked taking on in there was
the myth of the mother, that the good mother, and
the you know, we have this nurturing mother myth, which
(36:49):
you know, in the nineties and then again right now
I think a lot of people are pulling back to
and we have this kind of earth mother nurturing thing,
which is true and great and wonderful and also there's
the exact opposite, and every shade of gray in between
is available in mythology and often in the same stories,
and just how we decide to tell it. Is the
(37:09):
story about a nurturing, loving earth mother or is this
story about a terrifying goddess of death? Yes, at the
same time. And so when you realize how how much
you can shift those framings around and how you can
(37:30):
make those stories do work in the present, you recognize
the way those mythologies are being either weaponizing or even
just you know, utilizing these stories.
Speaker 5 (37:40):
Like I said, the camera shift, Yeah, they're just looking
at it with certain filters.
Speaker 3 (37:45):
Yeah, yeah, And that you can and should and we
always haven't always will do that shift the way you're
looking at these core stories, and that they can mean
whatever people now decide they want them to mean, and
that can be you know, good or bad or value neutral.
But you need to be aware that these aren't just
(38:07):
you know, core mythologies that you can't mess with. But no,
of course you mess with them. That's what mythologies are
for everybody has always messed with them.
Speaker 2 (38:19):
Well with that, since you love this, I did see
like a few like crossovers but who would be your
favorite mythological goddess that you love to talk about?
Speaker 3 (38:29):
Or oh geez, the question favorites?
Speaker 2 (38:34):
I know, I gotta ask.
Speaker 3 (38:36):
Because I get like, you know, you've I'm sure you
do it too. People are like, what's your favorite? And
you think of one, and then later you're like, oh,
I forgot, like super I would have, yeah, because we
were saying we can't even remember what we wrote. I know.
Speaker 5 (38:49):
I love the Mesopotamian Inana and that story. Yes, what
happened she turned her sister into a chunk of meat
and hung her on the.
Speaker 3 (38:59):
Wall rotten and let her rot on the wall.
Speaker 5 (39:01):
I just as sisters, you know. But I love those
kind of plot twists in the ancient myths. It's like weird, weird.
I don't think anybody today they would think of that
kind of plot element.
Speaker 3 (39:19):
Yeah, I love that, which tells us that we're definitely
not understanding it, right, there's something happening there that we're
not understanding.
Speaker 5 (39:29):
The cultural truth about meat hanging on the wall or
something like that. Yeah, I love the Moregan. She's gonna
she's gonna be my favorite, of course, something that's going
to be my Halloween costume.
Speaker 3 (39:42):
Oh ay, did you choose. Yeah, I think for me,
she's they're in actually two of our books because they're
so I think brilliant, and they're they're so interesting in
that they the story itself is doing that work that
I was just talking about, of of change, the framing
and pointing out that you can see something from so
(40:03):
many perspectives. It's this mythological story of these twin sisters
who are conjoined at the back, they're conjoined at their spine,
and they are demigods, goddesses, it's not those categories aren't
as cut and dry in Polynesian mythology. And they are
(40:24):
tasked with taking the knowledge of tattoo from Fiji to
Samoa and so but they are told very strictly, there's
very important here's the technology, here's how you do it.
And there's one very important rule. You only tattoo women,
never men. Men are not allowed to get tattoos. And
then they start swimming to Samoa from Fiji, and along
(40:48):
the way there's all these adventures. They meet a giant clam.
They try to dive down to the giant clam and
a huge tidal wave whether or not the giant clam
is evil or if it's just a coincidence. There's different versions,
and a huge wave breaks them apart, and so for
the first time they're seeing each other's faces. They've been
back to back their whole life. They're seeing each other's faces.
(41:09):
They continue to swim and they arrive in Samoa, but
the whole you know, seeing each other and almost drowning
and giant clam incident has mixed up this song in
their head. They were singing a song to remind themselves
only tattoo women, never men. And when they arrive, they
tell them here's the most important rule. You only tattoo men,
(41:30):
not women. And they teach everyone in Samoa tattoo and
for many generations tattoo and Samoa is only for men,
not for women. Now, this story blows my mind because
it's a story about how that is wrong. Right, Yeah,
it's a story about we screwed up and you weren't
(41:53):
supposed to be doing this. But that's why men get
tattoos and women don't. This is if this is the
origin story and you know what's wrong, why are you
still doing it that way?
Speaker 6 (42:05):
Right?
Speaker 3 (42:05):
It's so fascinating. So is it actually a story? It's
the origin story of tattoo? But is actually is it
actually an origin story of patriarchy? Is it actually an
origin story of Uh? They were living in a world
upside down? Yeah, we're living in and or that. Once
you get stuck in yeah, and once you get stuck
in the wrong loop, you just you can't get out
(42:27):
of it. What's the message of the story? What a
what a weird story. Yeah, to enshrine at the center
of your society, it's so fascinating mm hmm. And they
now do tattoo women too, right, but it was a
long time that they did not How long did it
take a long time? Hundreds of years?
Speaker 2 (42:48):
Wow? Yes, I love that. I love that story so much.
I was like, oh, this is amazing because I don't
think I knew much about uh, these goddesses. I was like, wow,
this is an interesting idea. And as well as a
change of history, you're.
Speaker 3 (43:02):
Like, well, woops.
Speaker 5 (43:04):
That myth served as a useful shorthand for the rest
of the book too, because then we could just say
this is a tattoo the men's society, and then you
know all that that implies, Like, okay, so this is
a patriarchy. That's sort of maybe on accident or upside
down world.
Speaker 2 (43:20):
Yeah, this is a whoopsie, but we're still in it.
Speaker 3 (43:23):
We're still in You might even know it's doing it wrong,
but it keeps doing it right.
Speaker 2 (43:29):
This is the lesson that we have yet to learn.
But one day maybe maybe. Oh gosh, I love this
so much. I love these conversations. And you've already kind
of hinted at it, and you already said you told
a sacret. So I won't push too much. Put to
put it on on on Mike on record. But are
there any other projects or even extensions to this book
that you have planned for the future.
Speaker 5 (43:52):
We have another book coming out in October me Hearty's
Oh oh, I can say, well.
Speaker 3 (44:00):
A certain kind of life for me.
Speaker 2 (44:02):
Yes, yes, that you've been wanting to do this childhood,
which I excited about.
Speaker 3 (44:08):
Our family is fully obsessed with pirate. I don't think
there's ever been a Halloween when one member of the
extended family has not been a pirate for help.
Speaker 2 (44:16):
I love this.
Speaker 3 (44:18):
Okay, okay, okay, already my costa book, oh, book signings.
Speaker 1 (44:25):
You know, even before you said Halloween, I was like,
it's coming out in October, opportunity.
Speaker 3 (44:32):
Yes, my husband teaches me that that, like the majority
of what I do is just excuses to buy new costumes. Yeah,
the picture is He's not wrong.
Speaker 5 (44:43):
Uh you should have seen her at the Toilets book signings.
Speaker 2 (44:47):
Where that was a whole different Okay, oh yeah, she
finish giant.
Speaker 3 (44:51):
I have emoji hat. It's humongous, it's amazing. I just
like to set the tone from the beginning, like let
people know what is happening, you know, walk in looking
regular and then dramatically pull the poop hat out from
the podium and put it on and go, this is
we're talking about poop today. And you know, if parents
(45:13):
are going to get upset, I want them to leave early.
Speaker 5 (45:16):
So they wouldn't have been Yeah.
Speaker 3 (45:19):
I don't think they would have. But the kids always
absolutely freak out and love it, like the poop emoji dress.
But that felt like, I don't know, that felt like pushing.
Speaker 4 (45:33):
It.
Speaker 3 (45:34):
You should do it dress. It's not too late.
Speaker 5 (45:37):
Yeah, you don't want regrets, especially dress regrets.
Speaker 4 (45:42):
I definitely definitely.
Speaker 1 (45:56):
Well Okay, Pivoting from the book, what about the podcast,
is there anything any plans you have for the future
of it, anything you're excited about.
Speaker 5 (46:06):
One of the things that has emerged from the podcast
over the years, which has been a surprise, but is
something that I'm really loving is that we're doing a
lot of podcast based women's history tours and just listeners
will sign up to come with us on you know,
one or two week adventures all over just visiting the
locations where we've recorded previous episodes, meet the guests that
(46:30):
have been on previous episodes, and I think we're just
gonna We're going to keep doing those because it's so
much fun and it's so the self selecting group, the
kind of people who sign up for a very nerdy
tours very yeah, like if we say, hey, would you
like to go to a place nobody's ever heard of?
(46:52):
To visit locations associated with historical women.
Speaker 3 (46:56):
That nobody knows about.
Speaker 5 (46:58):
Yeah, I mean this is zero bagging rights. This is
not your difficult tour.
Speaker 3 (47:03):
And for the kind of.
Speaker 5 (47:04):
People who say yes, sign me, yeah for that please,
it's been wonderful.
Speaker 3 (47:08):
It's been so great. So they're doing the best in
the world. Yeah, Oh, it's so and just.
Speaker 5 (47:12):
Sort of turns into instant travel families. It's and most
people sign up solo also, so it's I appreciate the
courageous leap that they take. You're like, I'm signing up
for this. This might be the worst thing ever. But
so far, I don't know how many we've done so far,
like ten, I haven't counted, maybe more. And every time
it's magic, every single time. And it's just strangers from
(47:35):
across the world who just come together for this grand
adventure in women's history.
Speaker 3 (47:40):
And then stay friends. I mean that, like the WhatsApp
group from tours from three years ago are still going.
Like people are visiting each other independently, and and I'm
in the best history travel it's just bonding. Yeah, And
I think the best the reason, the best proof that
again people there's an appetite for this and that we're
(48:01):
doing something right on them is that people keep coming back.
We have people who've come over and over. I think
one like six tours, yeah you got yeah, like three
quarters We open a tour now and like three quarters
of it fills up with just people who've already been
on a tour. Here's here's the regulars, and then there's
(48:23):
three slots left for new people.
Speaker 2 (48:25):
So that a good travel partner like that, that says
a lot you can with someone and enjoy it enough
to go again.
Speaker 3 (48:36):
So that's a test of a relationship.
Speaker 2 (48:38):
So y'all are but head to Greece, right.
Speaker 5 (48:40):
Yes, we're in April Savannah, in September, Boston and October.
Speaker 3 (48:47):
I think next year we'll do Italy.
Speaker 2 (48:49):
Are you're coming down to Savannah?
Speaker 3 (48:51):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (48:51):
Yeah, we need to meet up with y'all.
Speaker 3 (48:53):
Are you in Savannah?
Speaker 4 (48:54):
In Atlanta?
Speaker 3 (48:56):
Okay? You should? We definitely need. My husband's in Atlanta
all the time. I need to just come and hang
out with you. Wait, you are? My husband is there
all the time, and I keep saying I gotta go along.
You need to go. But okay, so we're.
Speaker 2 (49:12):
Gonna put that down in our calendar Savannah all right? Yeah,
I said imaginary. Yes, I love that.
Speaker 3 (49:19):
And these are like super boutique curated there's no travel
agents involved. This is Katie and her husband Mark, who
has been dubbed the Smoothness Operator, whose job is to
just keep everything running perfectly, smoothly, solve all the problems.
And these are trip servants. Super Yeah, these are super,
(49:42):
super individualized, unique, precisely organized. Yeah, this is not just
you know, oh yeah, we'll tag along on a pre
organized tour nope, what's her name? Tours?
Speaker 2 (49:55):
I love it.
Speaker 3 (49:56):
Yeah, you might find us on your next door because.
Speaker 2 (50:01):
Of that, yeah, man earlier.
Speaker 5 (50:06):
But honestly, just the people, Yeah, the people who. It's
really about the people, and it's about the places we
go and that you get to meet the guests from
the episode and that's always so cool. We do a
lot of like book signing with the guests, and like
we'll do a lot of like we have this historic
house to ourselves as we just got Caroline Herschel's house
and just you know, freak out and touch everything, and
(50:28):
because the people.
Speaker 3 (50:29):
Who run those places are so excited that someone's excited, right,
And we walk in and they're like, how do you
You know, they'll show some artifacts. So many times they're
like and here's the blah blah blah blah blah, and
you can see they're just running their spiel and the
whole group will go who you see them kind of
recalibrate for a second.
Speaker 5 (50:47):
Ago, oh, oh you actually, oh these people care care.
Speaker 3 (50:51):
And then it's and suddenly it's a completely different tour
and they're you know, we get every exciting detail and
they're like, oh look at this, and no, let me
pull this out of storage and it's.
Speaker 5 (50:59):
So Yeah, it's so fun. Yeah, they're so great, So
I think we'll keep doing that. Yeah, yeah, yes, that
sounds so lovely.
Speaker 1 (51:09):
Also, just just thank you so much for we talk
about here on here all the time when people bring
up these stories that we didn't know about, and how
important it is, and how it's amazing that people are
still doing this work and sometimes they're kind of ignored
for a long time. But so thanks to you and
to all the researchers and academics who have come to
(51:31):
you and been like, no, actually I know a lot
about this and we should be talking about this person.
Speaker 4 (51:35):
That's amazing exactly.
Speaker 5 (51:38):
That's it. And at the opening of the book, we said,
a book like ours is only possible because literally hundreds,
if not thousands, of people are out there excavating these
stories all over the world. You know, everybody is working collectively,
and now after a decade of that, the fruits of
everyone's labor is so inspiring. It's just incredible how much
(52:03):
has been done just in the last ten years.
Speaker 3 (52:06):
So amen, thank.
Speaker 5 (52:08):
You everybody who has been uncovering these stories all these years.
It's amazing what we found, even though we knew we
were going to find amazing stuff. It's yeah, surprising every
time everything that gets unearthed.
Speaker 3 (52:23):
Absolutely, and one story that keeps coming up that it's
now getting to the point where I just I have
to believe it is how many people have some version
of I was working on this other project and then
this dead woman tackled me in the library. This book
one was literally the book fell out of the shelf
(52:45):
as she was walking past, like this story just like
came out of nowhere, grabbed me, wouldn't let me go.
She insisted that I tell her story, you know, And
I think it feels like these women are going it
is now my turn and the time has come, we're
coming back, and they've you know, found found enough trained
(53:08):
and willing people to tell those stories now, because it's
it's just it's so wild how often that exact story
comes up of I was working on this and then
completely derailed into this thing instead.
Speaker 4 (53:24):
Yes, yes, just.
Speaker 3 (53:25):
Go pick up random books in the library, folks, and
start looking. Because feel the vibe as you walk down
the aisle. Is there someone here who wants to talk
to me?
Speaker 5 (53:38):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (53:38):
I love that it's seance seance based Yeah, oh I
like that. I want that on a T shirt, say
on second em.
Speaker 1 (53:51):
Well, thank you both so much for being here. This
has been a delight. Hopefully we can do this again,
maybe I.
Speaker 3 (53:58):
R out.
Speaker 1 (54:00):
Yep in September, yes, yeah, yes, Well until then, where
can the good listeners find you?
Speaker 3 (54:10):
Uh? What's your name? Everywhere dot com?
Speaker 5 (54:12):
Yeah, we're on every podcast platform, and the books you
can get everywhere.
Speaker 3 (54:19):
We have links on our website.
Speaker 5 (54:21):
Also, if you want to support indie bookshops on bookshop
dot org local indie bookshops, We've got all the books
on there.
Speaker 3 (54:30):
We will also very soon have signed copies available on
our website if people want to buy signed copies directly
from us of the the Eighty Lost Women book, so
they can find those there too, And we'll even personalize
it for you if you tell us what you want.
And it's in a whole bunch of countries and a
whole bunch of languages. Our books have been published and
(54:51):
I think it's nine languages now, which is mind blowing.
Speaker 5 (54:55):
Stinky history toilets is the most translated. Yeah, yes, Slovak, Vietnamese,
Pole delightful and poop is universal. That's the one truth.
Speaker 3 (55:06):
Everybody poops we know, but the idea that a small
child in Slovakia is going to be reading my book
about poop blows my mind.
Speaker 2 (55:19):
Beautiful.
Speaker 3 (55:19):
It's a beautiful world.
Speaker 4 (55:21):
It is well. Thank you both so much for being
here and for such a delightful conversation.
Speaker 1 (55:28):
Thank you, Thank you listeners. If you would like to
contact us, you can. You can email us at Hello
at stuff Onenever Told You dot com. You can find
us on Blue Sky at mom Stuff podcast, or on
Instagram and TikTok at stuff I Never Told You or
ls on YouTube. You have a tea public store, and
we have a book you can get where you get
your books. Thanks as always to a super producer for
senior executive producer, my indercontributor Joey. Thank you and thanks
(55:49):
to you for listening Stuff I Never Told You distrection
of my Heart Radio more podcast from my Heart Radio.
You can check out the i Heeart Radio app, Apple podcast,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and walking Stuff. I
never told you production of iHeartRadio, and.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Y'all, we are so excited for this episode. We're bringing
back a friend of the show, fellow podcasters who do
the work of preserving women in history. Yes, it is
What's Her Name podcast hosts and creators Olivia and Katie. Hello, Hi, Hello,
great to be here. Can you introduce yourself to our
listeners or reintroduce Hi.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
I'm Olivia Michael and with my history professor's sister co host, Katie,
we're the hosts of What's Her Name? Podcast? What's What's
Your Name?
Speaker 4 (00:53):
Podcast?
Speaker 3 (00:53):
Katie?
Speaker 5 (00:54):
Yeah, So I'm Katie and Olivia and I are sister
in real life, and I guess that's how we ended
up doing the podcast. Olivia is a professor of women's
and gender studies, so I guess a women's history project
was inevitable at some point.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
And for I think it's eight years we've been.
Speaker 5 (01:15):
Telling years, which is stories, yeah, women from world history,
putting women back in world history.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Yes, and I love that now. It feels like it's
been forever ago. And I realized when I was looking
back on our episode with you, Olivia, because I know, Katie,
you couldn't join us at that time. It was April
twenty twenty. Things were happening, and things were happening. It
was the beginning of our home recording journey for all
(01:44):
of us. I believe I remember being in the kitchen
because I didn't nowhere else to go. And now we've
kind of upgraded to closets or addics for candy, and
I was just like, wow, this feels like forever ago,
because it was almost five years and you came to
us talking about Harriet Jacobs and nor Johan and we
had connected because we were all lists together, and we're like, yeah,
(02:06):
obviously we need to be interacting and having each other
on the podcast. Duh. But it's been been a minute,
So let me ask you the dreaded question, how have
y'all been?
Speaker 3 (02:21):
I think the short answer is good question. I think
I think we're doing well well.
Speaker 5 (02:33):
One of the awesome things is to see how in
the past five years, eight years, I suppose, it's been
a great surprise to see how eager the world is
to hear the stories of women in history. And when
we started the podcast, we had no idea that we
can tell you the origin story. But you know, the
short version is I wanted to do a podcast about
(02:55):
the forgotten women of history, and Olivia was like, nobody's going.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
To listen to it?
Speaker 5 (03:01):
Deeply cynical, yes, And I guess rightly. So she was like,
it's hard enough to convince people to listen to stories
about the already famous women. It's hard enough to get
them to care about that. And I wanted to do
women nobody had ever heard of, and who's going to
listen to that? But so the great takeaway for us
is people want to hear about it. You know, millions
(03:22):
of downloads later, people are ready and eager and excited,
and there are listeners all over the world who are
just eating this stuff up. So in that way, it's
just been really wonderful. Yeah, I've never been so happy
to be wrong.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
We love that. And with all of that, the origin
stories and where we are today, can you give us
an update on what has been going on in the
world of What's her name?
Speaker 3 (03:47):
Gosh, we have been busy. We wrote the four books, finished,
just finished the fourth. It's the book I've wanted to
write since I was seven, so I'm very excited about
it and it comes out this fall, but we are
three other ones. We can talk about a couple books.
Speaker 5 (04:06):
For middle grade books, we've written the Book of Sisters,
which is a history of the world through the stories
of sisters, illustrated by thirty eight different female illustrators from
all over the world. That was just such an amazing
progating And then probably the work I'll be proudest of
till the day I die, A Stinky History of Toilets,
which is a richly illustrated really discussing the history of poop.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
Around the world. Yeah, which every time the illustrations came back,
or every time I knew layout came back, my husband
would just kind of look at it and go, I
can't believe letting you get away with so much food.
Speaker 5 (04:46):
But then we finally wrote something for grown ups, and
it is a history of the world in eighty lost women,
and it's just a complete, as complete as you can
be history of the world from the beginning of time
to the modern era, told through the stories of eighty
women that nobody's ever heard.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
Of, because like, what if women were there the whole time? Surprise.
It's a bold proposition, but I think.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
Controvers proved it controversial For sure, yeah, And as I
was like, we were researching through your work and I
popped up done to the two children's book, I was like,
this is amazing foremost both of them, because it was
the poop one, the toilet one, the stinky history of
toilets was a surprise. I didn't realize look at that,
(05:34):
look like this. But of course I love the Book
of Sisters, the two of you being sisters and writing
this together and loving this journey. Seeing Korean sisters legends
being mentioned in the I was like, oh, look at that.
Speaker 4 (05:48):
That's sad.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
I was like, oh, I'm trying to tell that story
for children, because I don't know if you're familiar with
the whole story, but it is. It is. It's not
it's not a PG story. They made My writing challenge, ever,
was how am I gonna tell this story right in
(06:11):
a way that doesn't traumatize everyone and get us fired.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
Did y'all watch the horror movie based on that?
Speaker 3 (06:17):
Just have you seen?
Speaker 5 (06:19):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (06:19):
No, I just I just recently. Yeah, I get Movies Award.
It's because so like But we'll talk about that later.
That's besides the point. My kids watch it and they
can tell me all about perfect. We have our other
sister is obsessed with horror film. She's okay everyone, and
I'm sure she's seen it. She has will ask her
(06:41):
for okay, okay version.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
I think you did a good job with the PG version,
like you kind of melted it down.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
Like okay. Very impressed with myself.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Yeah, it was good and the art is gorgeous. And
for your newest or newer book, and that has been
released what's her name? A History of the World in
eighty Lost Women, it's really also amazing and I really
love the layout. It kind of it was nice to
see because we kind of had similar ideas in I
think all that same level, like let's make it interactive,
(07:09):
let's have them kind of be a part of this,
and you're asking questions and you're getting polls of people's opinions,
and I loved so much of that. So with that,
you kind of explained about this book. But can you
go into more depth about what this book is about.
Speaker 5 (07:24):
We were approached to write a book based on the podcast,
and immediately I thought, what would make it fun for me?
Speaker 3 (07:32):
What would make an interesting challenge?
Speaker 5 (07:35):
And I've taught world history at university for you know,
eleven or fifteen years something, I don't know how long,
for a long time, and I just immediately thought, what
would be such an interesting challenge. Could I tell a
complete history of the world, you know, by like academic
standards of what you need to know after you come
out of a world history course.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
Could I teach.
Speaker 5 (07:56):
A history of the world using only the stories of
forgotten women? And immediately I was like, oh, now that
sounds fun, that sounds intriguing. And it turned out that
it was even easier than I thought it was going
to be.
Speaker 3 (08:09):
That it was not.
Speaker 5 (08:10):
Difficult to find women's stories that are that either are
emblematic of a moment in time or women who played
some hugely significant role in different moments in time from
the Stone Age all the way through the present day.
So I guess that was the beginning of it. And
then for a good year was it a full year?
Speaker 3 (08:33):
Maybe longer? Olivia. Yeah, that's a theme with our work,
is that we get offered a project and then we say,
how about instead of that project, we do this other
much more complicated, much more difficult, much more time consuming.
We don't even know if it's possible project instead, sure, okay,
(09:00):
but yeah, this one just it turned out so great.
Speaker 4 (09:03):
I'm so proud of it.
Speaker 5 (09:04):
And I think it was because of a maybe because
of my experience in the classroom. I wanted to make
it interactive, like you said, because that's how you get
the class engaged. You don't just say, here are the facts,
memorize them, and spit them back at me on the exam.
You say, here's what we know, here's what we don't know.
Here are the different really sound theories that have a
(09:25):
lot of academics that agree with them.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
Which one do you think?
Speaker 5 (09:28):
So you get to pick as you go, and like
you said, there's a lot of like checklists, you choose,
you know what, how do we explain this phenomenon? And
every one of the possible options in the checklist, every
one of them is a sound academic theory that's supported
by hundreds or thousands of different you know, professors and academics.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
But you get to choose.
Speaker 5 (09:49):
So it's yeah, kind of like taking you for a
ride through history, but you get it's to choose your
own adventure of what you.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
Did that you actually did to choose your own adventure
in part of this, and I was like, we wanted
to do this.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
They did it.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
It's amazing, envious, and very excited.
Speaker 5 (10:06):
And that's how history should be. I think you know
that there's so many different stories. You get to choose
which ones resonate with you and which ones you want
to construct the storyline from.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
That's what makes it so fun.
Speaker 5 (10:19):
I'm not of the school of memorize these facts and
then spit them out on an exam.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
That's the way you do history wrong. I think that's true.
I especially like that approach, just because I got very
politely kicked out of an anthropology degree for that very thing,
for refusing to pick a side, for refusing to choose
one option and insist that it was the right one,
and they were like, you can't you have to choose.
(10:46):
You can't say, well, we don't know. So I'm now
very pleased that I was right. And even anthropology is
coming around now too. We don't know. We've pretended we
knew for a long time, but it could be any
these options right for thinking answers are boring to me.
I always prefer questions. I will take better questions over
answers in any situation. So it's fun to force people
(11:11):
to adopt that theory of looking at history.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
Yeah, I mean that is it can be frustrating sometimes
as a podcaster when I'm like, I want to find
the answer and I think it exists in history, and
it's like.
Speaker 3 (11:31):
No, we don't know.
Speaker 4 (11:33):
Yeah, no idea.
Speaker 5 (11:35):
I love to fill in the gaps and invent my
own I mean, will I will construct the plotline in
my head and I'll say this is the way it
went in my head, So I will land somewhere, but
also allow other people to land in different places if
they want to construct, they want to fill in the
gaps in a different way.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
Yeah, And my favorite thing about history is that you
can be one hundred percent sure you know what happened.
We know what happened here, and even though this happened
a thousand years ago, tomorrow we might find something that
means that everything we knew was wrong. And I love
that you can be still discovering completely new information about
(12:16):
things that happened thousands of years ago.
Speaker 4 (12:21):
Yeah, that's amazing.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
We have a segment on this show called female First,
and it's astounding to me how they'll be like, you know,
just a couple of years ago, we learned something about
that changed everything. Yes, So with all of that in mind,
(12:46):
it's daunting enough to write a book, then you've got
all this complicated history. Can you tell us about the
writing process that went into this. How did it the
writing and research? How did that play out?
Speaker 5 (13:01):
Some Initially, I think because I'm the world historian, the
job was mine to at least lay out the big
picture outline. So what I did first was sit down
and say, okay, so what are the major episodes of
world history that I want to make sure we include
that are in the book. So I outlined all of
(13:22):
those from the Stone Age to the modern era. Okay,
we need to have this episode. You know, we're definitely
going to need something from nineteenth century China. I mean,
that was this whole show that we definitely need something
from there, you know, just those major episodes. Had that outlined,
and then we looked at all the episodes we had
already recorded and thought and sort of slotted some of
(13:44):
those in. Know, this tells this this is great Neolithic stories,
We'll slot.
Speaker 3 (13:48):
Her in there.
Speaker 5 (13:49):
And then where there were gaps where we hadn't had
episodes of particular moments in time, you know, that's when
the research began to go. Research in more depth, for example,
like ninth century Africa in order to see what women's
stories were going on there.
Speaker 3 (14:08):
So there was some.
Speaker 5 (14:09):
New and in depth research in some areas, and then
in other areas it was like, oh, we already have
like twelve episodes about this episode, so this moment in history,
so we'll have to narrow it down and choose just
one or two of the women to tell this story.
So that was kind of the big picture process, and
then we just went through chronologically. We wrote it chronologically
(14:33):
over the course of a year and would give ourselves
deadlines at the end of every month we have to have.
It was a chapter a month basically. And then because
we literally co wrote it using the same document, it
was on Google docs that we both had access to,
and we were just in there sort of typing and
having a conversation with each other in the Google doc
(14:53):
as we went.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
And she's very politely not saying that we had deadline,
but I narrowly gave her a nervous breakdown because she
did I was having a rough here and I am.
I am not great on deadlines at the best of times,
and it was it was bad, and bless her for
(15:16):
putting up with me.
Speaker 5 (15:19):
The farther you get into the book, because we wrote
it chronologically. The farther you get into the book, the
more of it I wrote, the more of Katie.
Speaker 4 (15:26):
I guess.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
Yeah. But we finished it. We did it. And here's
my psa to the world. Don't write two books at
the same time. Don't ever agree to write two books
at the same time. Oh you can't.
Speaker 5 (15:43):
It's excuse how but it's part of things.
Speaker 4 (15:49):
Well, congrats finishing it.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
Yeah, And you know, Samantha and I can relate so
much to all of this if we ever get to
hang out and person, we could if we.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
Did give like tales like yes, of the book.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
Writing process and deadlines and all of that. But one
thing that I think that we could probably really relate
to is the difficulty of choosing whom you're going to
feature and what you're going to do. So for for us,
it was a little different because ours was I think
(16:25):
more condensed in terms of like who we were featuring,
but it did feel like by featuring someone, you're leaving
someone else out, and like, what are you saying by
choosing this person and not this person? Yes, So, how
how was that for you? And how did you choose
the people you were going to feature.
Speaker 5 (16:44):
That's a great question that only somebody who has been
through it would know to ask our way to make
a big paint of that in the intro of like,
this is ah history.
Speaker 3 (16:58):
It is a history, it is not the history. And
we could write this book with eighty different women and
it would be everybit as accurate and true to history
and be a completely different story. You know, the idea
that there's only certain people in history that matter that
should be included is ridiculous, and that you can tell
it so many different ways, and so the yeah, I
(17:22):
get lots of people. I'm sure you get the same
that assume that our main problem in writing and podcasting
everything is finding enough women, like aren't you going to
run out of women soon? Which is still mind blowing
to me.
Speaker 5 (17:37):
No.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
In fact, there have been more than many one hundred
and fifty one women in the whole history of the
world who did something problem. But the problem is always
the opposite of you know, we started with three hundred
and twenty women and had to keep cutting it down.
You know, our publishers like, you cannot you cannot go
(17:57):
over one hundred. You must keep it under one hundred.
Speaker 5 (18:01):
And I think, so I made sure to sort of
address that in the introduction and then at the conclusion again,
as you said, Olivia, like, what I find wonderful about
history is that there is no set cast of main characters,
and that history is like this treasure trove of human
(18:22):
stories and truths that you can just dive into again
and again. It's almost endless, all the stories that have
been lived before and all the things people have learned
and done in the past. And so what's so beautiful
about history is that every time you find a new person,
you find a new truth that they lived or that
they learned. And so the beauty is keep on diving in,
(18:45):
keep on finding new characters, Get write another story with
a different cast, and see how that story plays out.
So I think, I mean, you couldn't blame people for
believing there is a fixed cast of main characters, because
that's what we were taught in school, and that's how
the textbooks make it. You know, like there was this
important person and if you left that person out, you
wouldn't have the complete history or you know, things like that.
(19:07):
But it's just the more I teach world history, the
more I know that's just not true. And that the
bigger stories always involved millions of people, and you could
tell that episode through any one of those people who
lived it. It's sort of like switching cameras in a movie.
You know, you can tell the same story, but from
this perspective, now switch to this perspective or this perspective,
(19:30):
And every time you add more characters, it makes a
story so much more interesting. It comes alive in completely
new ways. So it can be painful to choose the characters.
But as long as in doing that you show people like, wow,
this story is totally fascinating and different in new ways. Now,
(19:51):
then maybe we can all realize that we could choose
all kinds of different people from history and it doesn't
mean that we're ignoring or erasing the other. It just
means we're switching cameras to look at it in new ways.
I think that's the way we're headed. I even think
that's the way textbooks are headed, the way that things
have been involving in the last ten years in academia.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
Yeah, I love everything that was said because we again
Annie was talking about the fact that we were like, oh,
we don't want to exclude anybody. We want to bring
everybody in, and then our editors are like no, no, no, no, no,
we have to cut this, we have to cut this
and this, And I'm like, but why, But there's so
much to that in knowing that if there was a
very small choice in finding women is not because they're
not there. It's because either A they haven't been discovered
(20:35):
or B they've been hidden or the history has trying
to erase them. But I love that as more and
more content creators, more and more professors like yourself, and
more and more people coming out discovering or retelling these stories,
and that's exactly why books like this are so important.
But you know, at the very top, when you were
talking about the book, you did say something about you
(20:56):
knew you had to include this these specific people. So
with that, who are some of these people? You're like, Yeah,
before we even write this book, I know these are
the people I want to include. Who were they? And
why ah?
Speaker 3 (21:11):
And why yes?
Speaker 5 (21:14):
Just to speak generally, some of them are like, we
personally love them so much that they have to go
in because like this is my personal hero or something
like that. And then other times I think I felt
really strongly about choosing this or that woman because to
use the same metaphor, this shift of cameras totally changes
the way that we perceive the event. And the one
(21:36):
that springs to mind for me is including in talking
about the story of the cult of Liberty and the
American Revolution and you know that whole entire episode in
History where the camera is usually on Thomas Jefferson and
George Washington and you know those characters. If you shift
the camera to the enslaved woman who is in the
(21:57):
room while they're all sitting around the dining room table
talking about liberty and how are we going to.
Speaker 3 (22:02):
Pull this off?
Speaker 5 (22:03):
While a slave is serving them, you know, at their
dining room table, shift to her, how does she see
the event and how does it all play out for her? Well,
that completely, I mean, that just blows wide open the
whole story of the American Revolution in the most enlightening
and amazing way. So it was those kind of camera
shifts too that were like, we have to do this
because it's just.
Speaker 3 (22:23):
So brilliant when you shift cameras like that in these episodes. Yeah,
I mean an obvious one for me that I know,
for you know, for when we did episodes on them,
we just kept going How did we not know any
of this? How are we not talking about this? Was
the fact that I will insert the academic Arguably but definitely,
(22:46):
the two most important figures in the Spanish colonization of
what is now Mexico are women who no one outside
of Mexico has ever heard of. They're more important than Cortez.
They're more important. I mean, they are the key to
that entire era of history, to what happens, to how
(23:08):
it happens to, you know, the fundamental shift in how
the world behaves toward the New World, and nobody even
talks about them, which is ridiculous, It's absurd. And whenever
I tell people, you know, I just sort of casually mention, oh,
by the way, did you know that? And their minds
are blown and they're angry. They're angry that this was
(23:32):
never told, even though everyone at the time knew, they
were talking about it at the time. It's not like
nobody knew she was there. You know, Molentcine is central
in every picture of Cortes interacting with anybody, and yet
we just pretend she, oh, some woman. I don't know,
we don't know why there's a woman there. That's the
biggest person in the entire picture, and Cortes is standing
(23:54):
behind her as a little shrimpy you know nothing.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
I love that you come in with like a party
conversation with this. Did you know.
Speaker 3 (24:02):
I'm very annoying to be around. I'm sure I'm never
not on my soapbox. I like, I tried bally hard.
Speaker 5 (24:10):
Yeah, I crowded best just standing next to someone and
be like, so, what do you know about the conquest
of Mexico?
Speaker 2 (24:19):
This is the information I would want to know.
Speaker 3 (24:22):
My eighteen year old pointed out to me a couple
of months ago just how ridiculous I am. In a
good way. He was laughing with love. But this was
an entirely normal interaction to me. But we were just
driving along somewhere in the car and we're just silent,
and all of a sudden, I said, so do you
(24:43):
want to hear my most controversial archaeological opinion? And he
just burst out laughing. And I didn't even I couldn't
even for a minute. I was like, why is he leven?
And then I went, oh, that is probably a weird,
weird conversation starter for a mother and her teen age
child in a car. And he just started off, He's like,
(25:03):
you're so weird. I love it. But then we talked,
you know, for an hour about our most controversial archaeological opinions,
and so yeah, we're nerds to the core, and that's
where I think all of this comes out of true
nerdy passion, right, all of this. We're so excited about
it that you can't help, I hope, but also be
(25:25):
excited about it when you are leading or hearing us enthus.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
Teaching the next generation to have that conversation as well.
I mean, come on, yeah, that's what a good parent does.
Speaker 4 (25:35):
So great job.
Speaker 3 (25:36):
Yeah he did apparently go to school and tell everyone
about my most controversial archaeologicalis.
Speaker 6 (25:42):
I love it sharing it. This is how we read history.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
Well, let's look behind the cards a little bit in
this writing process because we talked about the people you did. So,
was there something you planned at the beginning in this
writing or for the book but changed as you were
in the process of writing it?
Speaker 3 (26:10):
Yeah, quite a bit.
Speaker 5 (26:13):
The list of women who were included changed as we
went pretty regularly. And it was funny because we had
already given the list to our editor because he'd sent
it on to their promo team.
Speaker 3 (26:27):
You know, and they were using it to.
Speaker 5 (26:30):
Send the book out to different countries, you know, all
those kinds of things, and then we'd be like, oh,
well the list has actually changed now, so now it's
these people, you know. And then a month later, okay,
and we've had to take her out because we realized
we really need to tell this story instead, so now
this woman is included in.
Speaker 3 (26:46):
So it was it was constantly tweaking of like era
and region and theme and story, you know, just like
every possible cross cross reference.
Speaker 5 (27:00):
We really wanted to make sure that we were choosing
as diverse a group as we possibly could in all ways,
including geographical and time period and what kind of a
story are they telling? Is this an athlete, is this
a politician, is this an artist? You know, all of
(27:20):
those things that we were working really hard to make
sure that we had representation from all those different categories.
So it was it was a endless juggling, endless juggling,
I think, And that's why I think at the end
we said, if we chose in a different eighty Women,
the story would be enlightening in a new way.
Speaker 3 (27:40):
It would be a very different story.
Speaker 5 (27:42):
I think it would be really fun, even like a
game which they would be the world's nerdiest board game.
Once again, randomly select, randomly select these women, and then
construct a story that to them all together across time
and across the world.
Speaker 3 (28:02):
I think that'll be so fun next Fourth of July barbecue. Right,
That is genuinely the kind of thing we do at
family gatherings with our family, Like, you know, let's let's
construct this timeliner. Let's go through the slide show of
the history of the Ottoman Empire at the fourth of July.
Speaker 4 (28:20):
We're weird. That's great.
Speaker 3 (28:24):
Yeah, there was there was one woman who we decided
to sub out for someone else and then found out
that they had put her on the cover, so we
had to put her back in, which I was happy.
We love her, but it was like, yow, she's on
the cover now, I guess get back in.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
Relatable we've had these are like, oh, I think we
mentioned them, but we never mentioned them again. Yeah, yeah,
so we've been there.
Speaker 4 (28:53):
Yes, there's a lot of moving parts when we're writing
a book.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
Yeah, the cover we've learned is very important.
Speaker 5 (29:03):
Yeah, And like initially the illustrations they because the venus
of Willendorff is in the book and the illustration of
the venus, which I personally loved. The illustrator of the
cover is Ellen Winata in Singapore and her illustration the
Venus of Willendorf is just gold.
Speaker 3 (29:20):
I loved it.
Speaker 5 (29:21):
And that was on the cover originally, and then somebody
took the venus off the cover and then you know,
for me, that was like, no, she was going to
be if she was on the binding, she was going
to be the icon of the book.
Speaker 3 (29:33):
And then she wasn't. Maybe somebody was like, it was boobs.
Maybe they'll let us buy her and put her on
a T shirt. Yeah, maybe, yeah, March. You know, so
we can write books full of poop for children, but
no ancient boobs, but books stone age. The rules of
publishing are strange.
Speaker 5 (29:54):
Yeah, I am speaking of merch though, now that you
mention it.
Speaker 3 (29:58):
Look, I'm wearing a shirt.
Speaker 5 (29:59):
This is one of the the new shirts that we
made from the It's just got a line from the book,
Less Patriarchy, more Elephant. That's one of the options when
you take the Ancient Empire's test, which empire would you
have lived in?
Speaker 3 (30:12):
That's one of the options.
Speaker 5 (30:13):
If your personality is less patriarchy, more elephant, then it
turns out you lived in ancient Vietnam. So yeah, Olivia
really wanted that line on a T shirt.
Speaker 3 (30:23):
It has to be on a T shirt with no context, right,
just yes, yes, the people who know will know your bond.
Speaker 6 (30:35):
It.
Speaker 4 (30:36):
We have one I still want to do.
Speaker 1 (30:39):
Unfortunately, I think there will be balls.
Speaker 3 (30:55):
Remember that distinctly.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
Well, all of this research, did you run across anything
that really surprised you or something that you discovered that
you hadn't heard before even doing all this research?
Speaker 5 (31:10):
Constantly, constantly, Yeah, And that's the whole story of the
podcast too. For eight years, we're just constantly encountering stuff
we had never heard of, you know, almost every episode
these women we've never heard of also, And I guess
that's what so makes the podcast so fun for us.
It's going to school, you know, we're still in school
(31:32):
eight years later. And our general strategy is, well, people
who've written biographies will approach us to be on the podcast,
and then we learn about the woman that way. But
we also like to just approach experts in all fields
all over the world and just say to them, is
there a woman in your field that you think deserves
more attention than she gets? And they always say yes, always,
(31:57):
and it's almost always a woman we've never heard of either.
So yeah, every episode we make is so fun for
us because we get to deep dive into this story
that we'd never heard of either. So I mean, as
people who have taught the subject for a decade, that
is so thrilling and so encouraging. I think there's just
(32:18):
so much out there. The work is being done. It
is absolutely being done. Up to eleven, there is so
so much out there, and like I said, the world
is ready for it. I think all these books are
being published, all these people are working on these projects.
So we're like right on the cusp of it entering
the mainstream historical narrative. And I think for the next
(32:40):
generation the story is going to be radically different.
Speaker 3 (32:43):
It's going to be awesome because I think that is right.
That's the power that is sometimes recognized, not usually not
recognized about teaching, is that you're setting the normal right
that we all came up through. When I was a
women's studies undergrad the narrative was women didn't do stuff.
(33:08):
It wasn't their fault, they weren't allowed to, but mostly
they didn't do stuff, and there was this kind of
feeling that you were sort of shoehorning women into the story. Well,
you're just trying to go find a woman so that
you can she wasn't as good or she didn't do things,
and that was that was the women's studies people narrative, right,
(33:28):
It wasn't their fault, but they just didn't And so
watching it shift as everyone went, oh, no, In fact,
women were always doing stuff. All you have to do
is kind of poke a tiny bit and they just
come pouring out. It's not like you're having to go,
you know, dig through layers of stuff to find the
(33:49):
one woman you could possibly maybe justify. It's there's so many,
there's so many stories constantly just you know, falling out
of every every pocket of the universe whenever you start
looking for them. And I love that the problem is
we're having to say no, right, We're having to just
(34:09):
like say no to whole categories. We've just we can't
do any more of this, and we can't we have
too many white Americans and we can't do another white
American for a year. Or you know that we're having
to you know, turn down things instead of go searching
for things. Is a wonderful problem.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
Yeah, I love that there's so much And speaking of
searching for things, Uh, you talk about legendary goddesses and
mythical women in your both of your books, the Sister
Book and in the Newest Book, and here we talk
about a lot of goddesses and legends, but we also
talk about the undertones that is often either as based
(34:52):
on some awful stereotype or sometimes it's like really banking
on the fact that they did so much. So do
you have this like almost two opposites when it comes
to legendary goddesses and or.
Speaker 3 (35:06):
All of these people.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
Can you talk about what you found as you're researching
for your podcast and as you're researching for your book
that kind of talks about and how it implies how
they saw women in those like goddess peoples.
Speaker 3 (35:21):
It's still my favorite part in the whole book. Yeah,
And I think that I think that's a really important
point that mythology matters, these core stories that we carry
in our culture and form everything the way we think
about everything. But also we often tend to act the
same way about like that, well, these these myths are old,
(35:44):
and therefore this is just this is the myth, This
is the story, and you'll get accused of trying to
you know, change it, or why are you being you know, oh,
you're trying to pc up this myth. When myths are
ass malleable as anything else. The myths that you choose,
the way you tell them, the things that you highlight
(36:06):
in those stories, are as flexible and as movable as
any other story. And that if you look at the way,
even like the standard Greek mythology that every American kid
learns in junior high, if you look at the way
that was taught in my parents' generation versus my generation
versus what my kids were learning in high school, it's
(36:26):
so radically different, and it's all the same content, but
just the framing of it is so different. And so
I think, you know, we have these narratives around, Like
one that I really liked taking on in there was
the myth of the mother, that the good mother, and
the you know, we have this nurturing mother myth, which
(36:49):
you know, in the nineties and then again right now
I think a lot of people are pulling back to
and we have this kind of earth mother nurturing thing,
which is true and great and wonderful and also there's
the exact opposite, and every shade of gray in between
is available in mythology and often in the same stories,
and just how we decide to tell it. Is the
(37:09):
story about a nurturing, loving earth mother or is this
story about a terrifying goddess of death? Yes, at the
same time. And so when you realize how how much
you can shift those framings around and how you can
(37:30):
make those stories do work in the present, you recognize
the way those mythologies are being either weaponizing or even
just you know, utilizing these stories.
Speaker 5 (37:40):
Like I said, the camera shift, Yeah, they're just looking
at it with certain filters.
Speaker 3 (37:45):
Yeah, yeah, And that you can and should and we
always haven't always will do that shift the way you're
looking at these core stories, and that they can mean
whatever people now decide they want them to mean, and
that can be you know, good or bad or value neutral.
But you need to be aware that these aren't just
(38:07):
you know, core mythologies that you can't mess with. But no,
of course you mess with them. That's what mythologies are
for everybody has always messed with them.
Speaker 2 (38:19):
Well with that, since you love this, I did see
like a few like crossovers but who would be your
favorite mythological goddess that you love to talk about?
Speaker 3 (38:29):
Or oh geez, the question favorites?
Speaker 2 (38:34):
I know, I gotta ask.
Speaker 3 (38:36):
Because I get like, you know, you've I'm sure you
do it too. People are like, what's your favorite? And
you think of one, and then later you're like, oh,
I forgot, like super I would have, yeah, because we
were saying we can't even remember what we wrote. I know.
Speaker 5 (38:49):
I love the Mesopotamian Inana and that story. Yes, what
happened she turned her sister into a chunk of meat
and hung her on the.
Speaker 3 (38:59):
Wall rotten and let her rot on the wall.
Speaker 5 (39:01):
I just as sisters, you know. But I love those
kind of plot twists in the ancient myths. It's like weird, weird.
I don't think anybody today they would think of that
kind of plot element.
Speaker 3 (39:19):
Yeah, I love that, which tells us that we're definitely
not understanding it, right, there's something happening there that we're
not understanding.
Speaker 5 (39:29):
The cultural truth about meat hanging on the wall or
something like that. Yeah, I love the Moregan. She's gonna
she's gonna be my favorite, of course, something that's going
to be my Halloween costume.
Speaker 3 (39:42):
Oh ay, did you choose. Yeah, I think for me,
she's they're in actually two of our books because they're
so I think brilliant, and they're they're so interesting in
that they the story itself is doing that work that
I was just talking about, of of change, the framing
and pointing out that you can see something from so
(40:03):
many perspectives. It's this mythological story of these twin sisters
who are conjoined at the back, they're conjoined at their spine,
and they are demigods, goddesses, it's not those categories aren't
as cut and dry in Polynesian mythology. And they are
(40:24):
tasked with taking the knowledge of tattoo from Fiji to
Samoa and so but they are told very strictly, there's
very important here's the technology, here's how you do it.
And there's one very important rule. You only tattoo women,
never men. Men are not allowed to get tattoos. And
then they start swimming to Samoa from Fiji, and along
(40:48):
the way there's all these adventures. They meet a giant clam.
They try to dive down to the giant clam and
a huge tidal wave whether or not the giant clam
is evil or if it's just a coincidence. There's different versions,
and a huge wave breaks them apart, and so for
the first time they're seeing each other's faces. They've been
back to back their whole life. They're seeing each other's faces.
(41:09):
They continue to swim and they arrive in Samoa, but
the whole you know, seeing each other and almost drowning
and giant clam incident has mixed up this song in
their head. They were singing a song to remind themselves
only tattoo women, never men. And when they arrive, they
tell them here's the most important rule. You only tattoo men,
(41:30):
not women. And they teach everyone in Samoa tattoo and
for many generations tattoo and Samoa is only for men,
not for women. Now, this story blows my mind because
it's a story about how that is wrong. Right, Yeah,
it's a story about we screwed up and you weren't
(41:53):
supposed to be doing this. But that's why men get
tattoos and women don't. This is if this is the
origin story and you know what's wrong, why are you
still doing it that way?
Speaker 6 (42:05):
Right?
Speaker 3 (42:05):
It's so fascinating. So is it actually a story? It's
the origin story of tattoo? But is actually is it
actually an origin story of patriarchy? Is it actually an
origin story of Uh? They were living in a world
upside down? Yeah, we're living in and or that. Once
you get stuck in yeah, and once you get stuck
in the wrong loop, you just you can't get out
(42:27):
of it. What's the message of the story? What a
what a weird story. Yeah, to enshrine at the center
of your society, it's so fascinating mm hmm. And they
now do tattoo women too, right, but it was a
long time that they did not How long did it
take a long time? Hundreds of years?
Speaker 2 (42:48):
Wow? Yes, I love that. I love that story so much.
I was like, oh, this is amazing because I don't
think I knew much about uh, these goddesses. I was like, wow,
this is an interesting idea. And as well as a
change of history, you're.
Speaker 3 (43:02):
Like, well, woops.
Speaker 5 (43:04):
That myth served as a useful shorthand for the rest
of the book too, because then we could just say
this is a tattoo the men's society, and then you
know all that that implies, Like, okay, so this is
a patriarchy. That's sort of maybe on accident or upside
down world.
Speaker 2 (43:20):
Yeah, this is a whoopsie, but we're still in it.
Speaker 3 (43:23):
We're still in You might even know it's doing it wrong,
but it keeps doing it right.
Speaker 2 (43:29):
This is the lesson that we have yet to learn.
But one day maybe maybe. Oh gosh, I love this
so much. I love these conversations. And you've already kind
of hinted at it, and you already said you told
a sacret. So I won't push too much. Put to
put it on on on Mike on record. But are
there any other projects or even extensions to this book
that you have planned for the future.
Speaker 5 (43:52):
We have another book coming out in October me Hearty's
Oh oh, I can say, well.
Speaker 3 (44:00):
A certain kind of life for me.
Speaker 2 (44:02):
Yes, yes, that you've been wanting to do this childhood,
which I excited about.
Speaker 3 (44:08):
Our family is fully obsessed with pirate. I don't think
there's ever been a Halloween when one member of the
extended family has not been a pirate for help.
Speaker 2 (44:16):
I love this.
Speaker 3 (44:18):
Okay, okay, okay, already my costa book, oh, book signings.
Speaker 1 (44:25):
You know, even before you said Halloween, I was like,
it's coming out in October, opportunity.
Speaker 3 (44:32):
Yes, my husband teaches me that that, like the majority
of what I do is just excuses to buy new costumes. Yeah,
the picture is He's not wrong.
Speaker 5 (44:43):
Uh you should have seen her at the Toilets book signings.
Speaker 2 (44:47):
Where that was a whole different Okay, oh yeah, she
finish giant.
Speaker 3 (44:51):
I have emoji hat. It's humongous, it's amazing. I just
like to set the tone from the beginning, like let
people know what is happening, you know, walk in looking
regular and then dramatically pull the poop hat out from
the podium and put it on and go, this is
we're talking about poop today. And you know, if parents
(45:13):
are going to get upset, I want them to leave early.
Speaker 5 (45:16):
So they wouldn't have been Yeah.
Speaker 3 (45:19):
I don't think they would have. But the kids always
absolutely freak out and love it, like the poop emoji dress.
But that felt like, I don't know, that felt like pushing.
Speaker 4 (45:33):
It.
Speaker 3 (45:34):
You should do it dress. It's not too late.
Speaker 5 (45:37):
Yeah, you don't want regrets, especially dress regrets.
Speaker 4 (45:42):
I definitely definitely.
Speaker 1 (45:56):
Well Okay, Pivoting from the book, what about the podcast,
is there anything any plans you have for the future
of it, anything you're excited about.
Speaker 5 (46:06):
One of the things that has emerged from the podcast
over the years, which has been a surprise, but is
something that I'm really loving is that we're doing a
lot of podcast based women's history tours and just listeners
will sign up to come with us on you know,
one or two week adventures all over just visiting the
locations where we've recorded previous episodes, meet the guests that
(46:30):
have been on previous episodes, and I think we're just
gonna We're going to keep doing those because it's so
much fun and it's so the self selecting group, the
kind of people who sign up for a very nerdy
tours very yeah, like if we say, hey, would you
like to go to a place nobody's ever heard of?
(46:52):
To visit locations associated with historical women.
Speaker 3 (46:56):
That nobody knows about.
Speaker 5 (46:58):
Yeah, I mean this is zero bagging rights. This is
not your difficult tour.
Speaker 3 (47:03):
And for the kind of.
Speaker 5 (47:04):
People who say yes, sign me, yeah for that please,
it's been wonderful.
Speaker 3 (47:08):
It's been so great. So they're doing the best in
the world. Yeah, Oh, it's so and just.
Speaker 5 (47:12):
Sort of turns into instant travel families. It's and most
people sign up solo also, so it's I appreciate the
courageous leap that they take. You're like, I'm signing up
for this. This might be the worst thing ever. But
so far, I don't know how many we've done so far,
like ten, I haven't counted, maybe more. And every time
it's magic, every single time. And it's just strangers from
(47:35):
across the world who just come together for this grand
adventure in women's history.
Speaker 3 (47:40):
And then stay friends. I mean that, like the WhatsApp
group from tours from three years ago are still going.
Like people are visiting each other independently, and and I'm
in the best history travel it's just bonding. Yeah, And
I think the best the reason, the best proof that
again people there's an appetite for this and that we're
(48:01):
doing something right on them is that people keep coming back.
We have people who've come over and over. I think
one like six tours, yeah you got yeah, like three
quarters We open a tour now and like three quarters
of it fills up with just people who've already been
on a tour. Here's here's the regulars, and then there's
(48:23):
three slots left for new people.
Speaker 2 (48:25):
So that a good travel partner like that, that says
a lot you can with someone and enjoy it enough
to go again.
Speaker 3 (48:36):
So that's a test of a relationship.
Speaker 2 (48:38):
So y'all are but head to Greece, right.
Speaker 5 (48:40):
Yes, we're in April Savannah, in September, Boston and October.
Speaker 3 (48:47):
I think next year we'll do Italy.
Speaker 2 (48:49):
Are you're coming down to Savannah?
Speaker 3 (48:51):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (48:51):
Yeah, we need to meet up with y'all.
Speaker 3 (48:53):
Are you in Savannah?
Speaker 4 (48:54):
In Atlanta?
Speaker 3 (48:56):
Okay? You should? We definitely need. My husband's in Atlanta
all the time. I need to just come and hang
out with you. Wait, you are? My husband is there
all the time, and I keep saying I gotta go along.
You need to go. But okay, so we're.
Speaker 2 (49:12):
Gonna put that down in our calendar Savannah all right? Yeah,
I said imaginary. Yes, I love that.
Speaker 3 (49:19):
And these are like super boutique curated there's no travel
agents involved. This is Katie and her husband Mark, who
has been dubbed the Smoothness Operator, whose job is to
just keep everything running perfectly, smoothly, solve all the problems.
And these are trip servants. Super Yeah, these are super,
(49:42):
super individualized, unique, precisely organized. Yeah, this is not just
you know, oh yeah, we'll tag along on a pre
organized tour nope, what's her name? Tours?
Speaker 2 (49:55):
I love it.
Speaker 3 (49:56):
Yeah, you might find us on your next door because.
Speaker 2 (50:01):
Of that, yeah, man earlier.
Speaker 5 (50:06):
But honestly, just the people, Yeah, the people who. It's
really about the people, and it's about the places we
go and that you get to meet the guests from
the episode and that's always so cool. We do a
lot of like book signing with the guests, and like
we'll do a lot of like we have this historic
house to ourselves as we just got Caroline Herschel's house
and just you know, freak out and touch everything, and
(50:28):
because the people.
Speaker 3 (50:29):
Who run those places are so excited that someone's excited, right,
And we walk in and they're like, how do you
You know, they'll show some artifacts. So many times they're
like and here's the blah blah blah blah blah, and
you can see they're just running their spiel and the
whole group will go who you see them kind of
recalibrate for a second.
Speaker 5 (50:47):
Ago, oh, oh you actually, oh these people care care.
Speaker 3 (50:51):
And then it's and suddenly it's a completely different tour
and they're you know, we get every exciting detail and
they're like, oh look at this, and no, let me
pull this out of storage and it's.
Speaker 5 (50:59):
So Yeah, it's so fun. Yeah, they're so great, So
I think we'll keep doing that. Yeah, yeah, yes, that
sounds so lovely.
Speaker 1 (51:09):
Also, just just thank you so much for we talk
about here on here all the time when people bring
up these stories that we didn't know about, and how
important it is, and how it's amazing that people are
still doing this work and sometimes they're kind of ignored
for a long time. But so thanks to you and
to all the researchers and academics who have come to
(51:31):
you and been like, no, actually I know a lot
about this and we should be talking about this person.
Speaker 4 (51:35):
That's amazing exactly.
Speaker 5 (51:38):
That's it. And at the opening of the book, we said,
a book like ours is only possible because literally hundreds,
if not thousands, of people are out there excavating these
stories all over the world. You know, everybody is working collectively,
and now after a decade of that, the fruits of
everyone's labor is so inspiring. It's just incredible how much
(52:03):
has been done just in the last ten years.
Speaker 3 (52:06):
So amen, thank.
Speaker 5 (52:08):
You everybody who has been uncovering these stories all these years.
It's amazing what we found, even though we knew we
were going to find amazing stuff. It's yeah, surprising every
time everything that gets unearthed.
Speaker 3 (52:23):
Absolutely, and one story that keeps coming up that it's
now getting to the point where I just I have
to believe it is how many people have some version
of I was working on this other project and then
this dead woman tackled me in the library. This book
one was literally the book fell out of the shelf
(52:45):
as she was walking past, like this story just like
came out of nowhere, grabbed me, wouldn't let me go.
She insisted that I tell her story, you know, And
I think it feels like these women are going it
is now my turn and the time has come, we're
coming back, and they've you know, found found enough trained
(53:08):
and willing people to tell those stories now, because it's
it's just it's so wild how often that exact story
comes up of I was working on this and then
completely derailed into this thing instead.
Speaker 4 (53:24):
Yes, yes, just.
Speaker 3 (53:25):
Go pick up random books in the library, folks, and
start looking. Because feel the vibe as you walk down
the aisle. Is there someone here who wants to talk
to me?
Speaker 5 (53:38):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (53:38):
I love that it's seance seance based Yeah, oh I
like that. I want that on a T shirt, say
on second em.
Speaker 1 (53:51):
Well, thank you both so much for being here. This
has been a delight. Hopefully we can do this again,
maybe I.
Speaker 3 (53:58):
R out.
Speaker 1 (54:00):
Yep in September, yes, yeah, yes, Well until then, where
can the good listeners find you?
Speaker 3 (54:10):
Uh? What's your name? Everywhere dot com?
Speaker 5 (54:12):
Yeah, we're on every podcast platform, and the books you
can get everywhere.
Speaker 3 (54:19):
We have links on our website.
Speaker 5 (54:21):
Also, if you want to support indie bookshops on bookshop
dot org local indie bookshops, We've got all the books
on there.
Speaker 3 (54:30):
We will also very soon have signed copies available on
our website if people want to buy signed copies directly
from us of the the Eighty Lost Women book, so
they can find those there too, And we'll even personalize
it for you if you tell us what you want.
And it's in a whole bunch of countries and a
whole bunch of languages. Our books have been published and
(54:51):
I think it's nine languages now, which is mind blowing.
Speaker 5 (54:55):
Stinky history toilets is the most translated. Yeah, yes, Slovak, Vietnamese,
Pole delightful and poop is universal. That's the one truth.
Speaker 3 (55:06):
Everybody poops we know, but the idea that a small
child in Slovakia is going to be reading my book
about poop blows my mind.
Speaker 2 (55:19):
Beautiful.
Speaker 3 (55:19):
It's a beautiful world.
Speaker 4 (55:21):
It is well. Thank you both so much for being
here and for such a delightful conversation.
Speaker 1 (55:28):
Thank you, Thank you listeners. If you would like to
contact us, you can. You can email us at Hello
at stuff Onenever Told You dot com. You can find
us on Blue Sky at mom Stuff podcast, or on
Instagram and TikTok at stuff I Never Told You or
ls on YouTube. You have a tea public store, and
we have a book you can get where you get
your books. Thanks as always to a super producer for
senior executive producer, my indercontributor Joey. Thank you and thanks
(55:49):
to you for listening Stuff I Never Told You distrection
of my Heart Radio more podcast from my Heart Radio.
You can check out the i Heeart Radio app, Apple podcast,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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