Women Around the World: A Year End Review

With nearly a year's worth of this segment under our belts, Anney and Samantha look back at some highlights and forward to the future. 

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha, and welcome to Stephane
never told your production of I Heart Radio. And welcome
to either our very last Women Around the World for
this year or our very first Women Around the World

(00:25):
for twenty two. I know you never know with us.
So today is December one. I just got my booster.
Still feeling okay a little bit, but I'm feeling good,
feeling good, feeling happy about it. I will say the
person who did my shot was very gentle. I told
her after the fact that she was very kind. It

(00:48):
was like kind of massage my arm. So yeah, it
was at a Walgreens over here in East East Point, Georgia,
if you know where that is. But we're not talking
about shots today from my Women around the World. I
don't know why, but we are talking about this year
and the fact that we decided to start this segment

(01:10):
and how I love I've loved the segment. Ay, I
don't know about you. Um. I really love digging into
seeing who is doing what and just basking in their
amazing nous. Yeah, now I love it too. I love
hearing about people I don't normally hear about in the news,
and like all of the creative ways that they've advocated

(01:34):
or been active around an issue, whether that's art or government.
I just find so many, so many other stories that
I'm like, this is so cool and it I find
it really inspiring that there are all of these different
ways that you can do that that you can't advocate.
It doesn't have to look one way, it can look
a bunch of different ways, right, And I was trying

(01:56):
to count how many we did I want to say,
include eating the fictional women around the world. We have
about forty four to forty five because a few of
these we kind of hopped around and did some other things.
But yeah, I think that's how many we've gotten. And
I know we are just at the tip of the
iceberg when we have these conversations. One of the big

(02:18):
things that I wanted to do with the segment um
and any you and I talked about was just really
giving the flowers to those who are still alive today
instead of waiting and just celebrating in memorandum, as well
as the fact that, yeah, there are so many things
happening around the world that we don't know. We are
very obviously United States centric, not because we want to,

(02:40):
but because That's kind of how it goes. When you
get your news, it's directly affected, very localized. Sometimes only
Atlanta's half the times it feels like for me, I
don't know about you any um, maybe your fictional worlds,
so that's your localized bits of news. So it's been
like really fun to try to really dig in and
dig deep. I will say. The frustrating part is not

(03:02):
having enough information, um, and I want to talk about
what they did, and I want to talk about what
they're doing, but we literally are like, oh, this is
only three minutes long because I can't find all of
the in depth information. Maybe it's because of a language barrier,
or maybe it's because not enough people are talking about it.
You know, we've featured several women who haven't been on
Wikipedia yet are not Wikipedia level, which they should be,

(03:26):
let's say that. But we have those moments as well,
so discovering some things, so kind of highlighting some of
the people that we have talked about. Of course, we
have to shout out Nicola Mitchell, who created Girls Who Brunch.
She was a past winner for Lorials Women of Worth
and he's doing some amazing things. Apparently we might see
her on some other things. I guess we can't mention

(03:48):
it because she told us affair, didn't she almost I
almost blew it. But she's doing some amazing things. She's
also an author, so if you look up her name,
she's got a bunch of amazing books out there there,
y'all should check it out. Having her on the show
talk about what she's doing, how she's been influencing so
many of those around her just from her own past,

(04:09):
And I think that's what another part of women around
the world for me, is that they're coming from maybe
a struggle or maybe something they were lacking, or maybe
seeing seeing something that was missing in their community, and
they really took it to heart and did something about it.
And honestly, that's what I think. As a child, I
never really had big aspirations to be this, this or that,

(04:29):
but that is something I wanted to be able to
say that I did. It was that I gave back
to the community when I saw something was lacking, or
I took something that was so disheartening for me as
a kid when I was missing all these things, and
I came back and decided to do it for those kids,
um and or people in general. Yeah, Yeah, and I

(04:50):
think I love hearing these stories too, of the importance
of seeing like having that mentor that person you can
look up to, and knowing that these women, by doing
what they're doing, are impacting so many others who might
go on to impact their communities and so on and
so forth, which I find just so inspiring. It is.
And yeah, kind of like another loreal women of birth

(05:12):
that we kind of brought it that we hadn't intend
to do with Jahad Gray who has been working to
and female genital mutilation of children and arranged marriages, and
she had an amazing story and just really pushing for
organizations to take keyed and making a change for her
community as well. I think she moved Atlanta. I don't

(05:32):
know if she's still here or not. That would be
nice to know. And then Gladys Reddick, who has been
working for the movement Missing Murdered Indigenous Women Girls and
two Spirits. She was the one that had created the
Walk for Justice and has been so much in bringing
attention and like asking the hard questions for her country,

(05:55):
for the government saying what are you doing, um, which
is a great question we all need to be asking,
what are people doing? We had Ruby Corrado, who was
an activist and supporter from El Savador, who have been
frighting for rights and justice for the trans and l
g pt Q plus community. Like all of these different

(06:15):
people that we've been able to talk about, it's been amazing.
Whether it's a government official like Unity Dow who did
so much during her time in trying to make change
in our country, I just think it's so important. And
I will say these are some of the most amazing
people that we've talked about UM and can't talk enough
about honestly, Like I really UM which I could dig

(06:38):
more into it, and we would like love to get
to the point that we could interview some of these people,
but of course we do not always have that access
as we would hope, which we hope to change a
little bit. But yeah, and then we add a little
extra because we wanted to go beyond talking about organizations
that work for the betterment of women and those who
identify as them and girls, like we really wanted to

(07:01):
push to see what was happening. And yeah, a lot
of these people have started their own fights, nonprofits organizations
to make a statement, to make a push, whether it's
changing UM bad policies or just talking about some of
the injustices that have been happening around the world. So
we've added that recently, Um, what else have been we've

(07:24):
been doing any Well, obviously the fictional women, which was
your idea but very on board with, right, and yeah,
and I think we talked about but why it was
important that we do talk about fictional representation in media,
and that's why we said it. I mean, any tell

(07:47):
me why it's important. I mean, as someone who grew
up loving fiction and being very imaginative and just having
like day dreams day James and daydreams and writing things down,
it was a big deal for me when I would
see somebody that I could identify with or that reminded

(08:09):
me of me. And I think that those messages you
do internalize them very young. So if you're like, like
a lot of the stuff I wrote when I was younger,
it was a male character. It was the main character.
And looking back, I have a lot of thoughts about
why that is, But I think it's just because I
was seeing that a lot. And then also just apart
from the influence it has on on people as a whole,

(08:33):
of what we believe women can do um and especially
for young girls. I just think it's more interesting, Like
it makes better entertainment if we have these more diverse
experiences as opposed to something that's pretty much been a
monolitht for a long time with some outliers Like I
think it's just it makes for better storytelling. It's more

(08:55):
representative of us of the world, which I think is
really really important. So it's always like, we want good stories,
right right, we want very rounded stories, and yeah, we
need more. Honestly, as you are bringing more and more
people out, I love it. It's kind of like, who
is this person? Tell me what's going on and the

(09:17):
fact that yeah, there is now a request because I
don't feel like we don't demand enough, but for more
diverse people who represent us as individuals and recognizing that yes,
there are young women, girls, non binary, trans people who
love this stuff too. We should be represented, yes, And

(09:39):
I think that it does excite me. It's it's one
of those things where I'm like with everything we talked about,
it's the hesitation, but also the optimism because I feel
like we are seeing more mainstream, like we're seeing more
diverse like superhero movies and things like Star wars are

(10:00):
divers fying. You're like, I wanted to be handled well
and respectfully, so there's always that very as well, and
of course the fan boys and all the backlash, which
is very frustrating, but that does make me. I am
happy to see it. I'm happy that it's moving that way. UM.
I still think like we could do so so, so

(10:20):
so much more, um in terms of like women and
race and also like queer stories. This is why I
go to fan fiction all the time because I could
find that there. But I am happy that it seems
to be becoming more common and also less acceptable for
someone I'm not going to say that it's way better,

(10:43):
but it's becoming less acceptable for somebody to tell the
story who really shouldn't be telling the story at the
very least of getting called in as they should. What

(11:05):
do you have in store? Because I know you're already
thinking it. This is kind of the inside joke between
all of us that Annie's already prepared and has been
trying to rein it in. But what can we look
forward to in the next year or in this year,
whichever it is. That's a good question, because I do
have a list, and it's got like fifty names on it.
I really appreciate listeners who have written in with their suggestions.

(11:32):
I do think so far. I like Mile Lopez and
Echo on Hawkeye, and she's getting her own show, so
I think that would be interesting to visit. Um and
she's an indigenous deaf character and actor UM, so I
think that would be really cool. Obviously a SOCA, there
will be some interesting things to talk about with that,

(11:53):
but that show is coming out, so that would be interesting.
There's a lot of like we said and whatever was
it the Hawkeye episode, There's a lot of content coming
out and I'm kind of overwhelmed. I'm not saying something
because I big fan, but I'm like, WHOA, I'm interested

(12:13):
to see how they handle quote Lady thor Yeah, like
characters like that where it's kind of like the woman
version of this, which I'm hoping they'll kind of upgrade
into it's not just the woman version of this man character.
They're actually their own characters. That would be nice. It

(12:34):
would be nice, but that would be nice to see. Yes, yes, yes,
I hope Afre shows up. We already did an episode
on her, but I hope she shows up soon. Anyway,
I've got a lot of a lot of ideas, but
I do want, like, as as passionate as I am
about this, please listener to send in your request. The

(12:55):
Ted last one was listening test And it's not that
I had never wanted to see it, but I probably
we wouldn't have watched it, um if not for that episode,
and I really really loved it. So I love I
love finding these new characters that are really resonating with people,
as I love Ted Lasso, I love Rebecca um. But yeah,

(13:15):
as as she's saying, we do love the suggestions and
we do read them, we do hear them. Sometimes it
might take us a while because you know, it takes
us a while, but we do we'll see them. And
speaking of which, we had one of our favorite segments
where listener Taylor sent us a bunch of information pretty
much wrote a show for us because they were so
excited about that as well as knowing and understanding what

(13:39):
was happening and wanting to highlight. We loved that, um,
not just because it was easy for us, but also
because we don't always know what's going on out there.
We try so hard to highlight as much as we can. Obviously, again,
like we said, it's very centralized because it's just Anie
and I doing the research, looking up Google, telling Google
to find it for us, or not looking at the tweets,

(14:01):
hoping that we're connected enough looking at all of what
we can for the newest information, but we don't always
know what's happening. So we are giving a call out
to y'all the listeners. And we actually had someone sending
in about the information about Poland, what was happening in
Poland and giving us organizations about in Germany and allies
and all of that. Things like that are so helpful.

(14:23):
So if you're interested in having your information slash something
that you think is really really important or something amazing
that's happening, or a woman or a person that identifies
film or non binary, really think that they need to
be highlighted, send it in. You would love to do
like a monthly episode dedicated to the people that you
think need to be highlighted. So please, if that is

(14:45):
something you are interested in, you automatically have someone in mind.
As soon as I said this, now again we want
this to be outside of the US as much as
possible because we want to connect with all of our
listeners so we know we have a lot of listening
in India. Something's going on there you want to tell
us about. We obviously have some listeners in Poland, would
love to hear what's going on there as well. Canada

(15:08):
give it to us, England, give it to us. Anywhere. Chili.
We know that we have some listenership there. Please send
us something that we might not know. We want that
to be highlighted, and we think it's important that you
are involved as well. Yes, please, please please, and that
we would love to feature any of those stories. Resources
are always welcome, just because, like like Samantha said, sometimes

(15:30):
it's hard for us to hunt those down I think
being in America and based on what the Google algorithm
is here. But yes, please send those to us if
you're in the US and you're like, oh, we still
want to hear from you. Yeah, and if there's anything
amazing going on around you, because believe us, there's so many,
so many things we could talk about um and this
is but one of our many segments. So right, yes, yes,

(15:54):
these listeners you our only hope, right, I see what
you did that there? Yeah. As in fact, obviously if
you have some characters that's out of this world. Electical
Yes we need those two. Yes we do. So please
send any of those suggestions or resources our way. You

(16:14):
can emails at Stephanie your Mom and Stuff at I
Heart media dot com. You can find us on Twitter
at mom Stuff podcast or Instagram. And Stuff I've Never
told you. Thanks, It's always to our super producer Christina.
Happy New Year, Christina and everybody. New Year, Yes, and
thanks to you for listening. Stuff I Never told you.
Prodection but I Hurt Radio for more podcast on my
Heart Radio, I Hear Radio app, I'm a Podcast, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows,