Infinite Women

Author, historian and filmmaker Mindy Johnson joins us to talk about Bessie Mae Kelley, a pioneering animator in the early film industry.

Find Mindy's books at www.mindyjohnsoncreative.com/book-menu

Professor Jenie Hahn, a lecturer and administrator at Jeju National University in South Korea, joins us to talk about the businesswoman and philanthropist, Kim Manduk, who saved the people of Jeju in the 1790s.

Dr Gabby Storey joins us to talk about the medieval queen Berengaria of Navarre.

You can order her book, Berengaria of Navarre. Queen of England, Lord of Le Mans, at https://www.routledge.com/Berengaria-of-Navarre-Queen-of-England-Lord-of-Le-Mans/Storey/p/book/9781032121475

Dr Sharrona Pearl, a professor of bioethics and history at Drexel University, joins us to talk about painter, writer, educator and activist Riva Lehrer, whose experience living with spina bifida significantly influences her work.

Dr Toner Stevenson, the co-author of Eclipse Chasers, which includes women's contributions to solar eclipse science. Dr. Stevenson’s PhD research delved into the stories of the women that worked as “computers”, “star measurers” and “clerical assistants” at Australian observatories on the Astrographic Catalogue project, an international effort to map the entire night sky that took decades.

Artist and writer Leeza Peters to talk about Elizabeth Woolcock, the only woman ever executed in South Australia, and for a crime that Peters believes may not have even happened.

Aida Brankovic, a Research Scientist with CSIRO, joins us to talk about software engineer Margaret Hamilton, the lead developer for NASA's Apollo flight software, who also coined the term “software engineering.”

Dr Ellie Woodacre, Reader in Renaissance History at the University of Winchester and author of Queens and Queenship, joins us to discuss how queens’ sexuality - real, imagined or perceived - impacts their public image.

Dana Rubin, author of Speaking While Female: 75 Extraordinary Speeches by American Women and creator of the Speaking While Female Speech Bank, joins us to explore the secret history of women’s speech, its impacts today and how things have changed (but perhaps not enough).

Discover women's words at the Speaking While Female Speech Bank: https://speakingwhilefemale.co/speaking-while-female/

Dr. Brandy Schillace, Editor in Chief of Medical Humanities for the British Medical Journal, to discuss the ways in which society has historically pathologised women and continues to do so today.

Dr Katia Wright joins us to talk about medieval queens as landowners.

Bianca Taubert, curator of the Adjutant General’s Corps Museum, joins us to discuss the UK’s Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps in World War I, their role and their legacy.

Holly Marsden, a PhD candidate at the University of Winchester and Historic Royal Palaces, joins us to talk about Mary Frith, AKA Moll Cupturse, a not-so-common criminal who became a legend of London.

Anne O'Hehir, Curator of Photography in International Art at the National Gallery of Australia, tells us about artist Nan Goldin and her large-scale work, The Ballad of Sexual Dependency. After being on display recently at the NGA, the show travels to the Art Gallery of Ballarat from 2 March 2024 to 2 June 2024 for the International Festival of Photography.

More info: photo.org.au/events/the-ballad-of-sexual-dependency

Liesel Higgins, a researcher at CSIRO’s e-Health Research Centre, joins us to to talk about Australian epidemiologist and science communicator Dr Mary Louise McLaws.

Nancy Marie Brown, author of The Real Valkyrie: The Hidden History of Viking Warrior and The Far Traveler: Voyages of a Viking Woman, shares the stories of warrior women, Gudrid the Far Traveler and the textiles workers who were the economic backbone of Viking civilization.

Amy Saunders, a doctoral student in history and heritage at Winchester University in the UK, joins us to talk about Christina of Sweden, the so-called "Girl King" and modern-day queer icon who had a fascinating life both before and after her time as queen.

Thera Webb, Women@MIT Project Archivist with the MIT Libraries Department of Distinctive Collections, tells us about women at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from the 1870s to today.

Dr Jess Bugeja, a CERC postdoctoral fellow in the CSIRO’s Australian eHealth Research Centre, Neurodevelopment and Plasticity team, to talk about Dr. Jacquelin Perry, a pioneer in the mechanics of gait, diseases that affect motion (such as polio and cerebral palsy) and orthopaedic surgery.

Dr Catherine Tracy Goode, Director of the Tools for Researchers Program at the Americas Research Network joins us to talk about the scandal and letters of Casiana Melo.

Dr. Joy Wiltenburg, professor emerita at Rowan University and author of Laughing Histories: From the Renaissance Man to the Woman of Wit, to talk about the life and letters of Dorothy Osborne, Lady Temple.

More about the book: https://www.routledge.com/Laughing-Histories-From-the-Renaissance-Man-to-the-Woman-of-Wit/Wiltenburg/p/book/9781032162072

Historian Dr. Johanna Strong joins us to share the story of Queen Mary I of England, also known as Mary Tudor. Due to all the drama around the Tudors, this conversation has been split into two parts; this episode will delve into her reign and legacy, but be sure to listen to Part 1: Princess Mary for her early life leading up to her coronation.

Historian Dr. Johanna Strong joins us to share the story of Queen Mary I of England, also known as Mary Tudor. Due to all the drama around the Tudors, this conversation has been split into two parts; this episode will cover Mary's life up to her coronation, with the second episode delving into her reign and legacy.

Lorissa Rhinehart, author of the new book, First to the Front: The Untold Story of Dickey Chapelle, Trailblazing Female War Correspondent, joins us to share Dickey's story.

More about the book: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250276575/firsttothefront

Emily Sullivan, assistant curator of contemporary international art at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, joins us to discuss the artist Louise Bourgeois, her work and the largest exhibition dedicated to the artist ever in Australia, Louise Bourgeois: Has the Day Invaded the Night or Has the Night Invaded the Day? at the AGNSW through 28 April 2024

Danielle Scrimshaw, author of She and Her Pretty Friend: The Hidden History of Australian Women Who Love Women, to chat about swimmer Harriet Elphinstone Dick and Alice Moon, their gym in Melbourne and telling queer histories.

More about the book: https://ultimopress.com.au/products/she-and-her-pretty-friend

Lucina Ward, Senior Curator of International Art at the National Gallery of Australia, joins us to talk about German-American multidisciplinary artist Kiki Smith. Smith is one of the artists featured in Deep inside my heart exhibition, which is at the NGA through 19 May 2024. Deep inside my heart is part of the larger Know My Name initiative at the NGA, focused on women artists.

More about the exhibition: nga.gov.au/exhibitions/deep-inside-my-heart/

Angelique Joy, an artist and PhD candidate at RMIT, joins us to talk about Ada Lovelace, who was writing code for computers before they even existed. We also chat discuss how to make modern technology more inclusive, biases in coding and the implications of artificial intelligence.

Dr. Tamara J. Walker, author of Beyond the Shores: A History of African Americans Abroad, to talk about journalist, civil rights activist and adoption advocate Mabel Grammer.

Buy the book: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/635185/beyond-the-shores-by-tamara-j-walker/

Dr. Kiera Lindsey, South Australia's History Advocate, joins us to talk about her new biography Wild Love: The ambitions of Adelaide Ironside, the first Australian artist to astonish the world. Dr. Lindsey also delves into the complexities of, and need for, speculative biography to tell marginalised stories.

Buy the book: https://www.allenandunwin.com/browse/book/Kiera-Lindsey-Wild-Love-9781760296759

Novelist Sherilyn Decter, author of the Bootlegger Chronicles, Rum Runners Chronicles and Moonshiner Mysteries series, joins us to chat about Prohibition in the 1920s United States, and the women who defied it in spectacular fashion.

More on Sherilyn's books: https://sherilyndecter.com/books/

Sara Hardy, author of The Unusual Life of Edna Walling, joins us to talk about the iconic, queer English-Australian landscape designer.

Buy the book: https://www.allenandunwin.com/browse/book/Sara-Hardy-Unusual-Life-of-Edna-Walling-9781741142297

Dr. Kaley Butten, a Research Scientist with CSIRO, joins us to talk about pharmacologist and physician Dr. Frances Oldham Kelsey, who prevented thousands of birth deformities and whose work led to stricter safety regulations in the U.S. and beyond.

Loretta Smith, author of A Spanner in the Works: The extraordinary story of Alice Anderson and Australia's first all-girl garage, joins us to talk about Alice's incredible, but tragically short, life.

Buy the book: https://www.hachette.com.au/loretta-smith/a-spanner-in-the-works-the-extraordinary-story-of-alice-anderson-and-australias-first-all-girl-garage

CSIRO Communications Officer Morgan Gilbert joins us for a chat about women doctors of the ancient world, and how CSIRO's Mother app is helping pregnant people today.

Learn more about the Mother app: https://vimeo.com/770947091

Dr. Gwendolyn Collaço, Collections Curator at MIT's Aga Khan Documentation Center, joins us to talk about wedding trousseaus as curated collections that were meticulously displayed and evaluated before they were ever used in a household. Women played the part of artist, curator and performer in the creation and presentation of the trousseaus.

Image: Wedding procession on the Bosphorus, by Jean Baptiste Vanmour, Istanbul, c. 1720 - c. 1737. Rijksmuseum, SK-A-2000. (Photo: Public Domain)

Elizabeth Freeman, also known as MumBet, fought a legal battle for her freedom from slavery in 1700s Massachusetts.

Elizabeth had been born into slavery around 1744, and was given to her owner’s daughter when she was just seven years old, remaining in that woman’s household for almost 30 years. In 1780, Elizabeth heard the newly ratified Massachusetts State Constitution, which included that “All men are born free and equal, and have certain natural, essential, and unalienable rights.” With that in mind, she approached a lawyer and abolitionist, Theodore Sedgewick, who agreed to represent her in court. According to his daughter, Catherine, Elizabeth told him, "I heard that paper read yesterday, that says, all men are created equal, and that every man has a right to freedom. I'm not a dumb critter; won't the law give me my freedom?”

That same year, she reportedly prevented her mistress from striking a servant girl with a heated shovel, receiving a deep wound on her own arm as she shielded the girl. She refused to hide the wound as it healed, displaying the evidence of abuse for all to see. Catharine Maria Sedgwick quotes Elizabeth as saying: "Madam never again laid her hand on Lizzy. I had a bad arm all winter, but Madam had the worst of it. I never covered the wound, and when people said to me, before Madam,—'Why, Betty! what ails your arm?' I only answered—'ask missis!' Which was the slave and which was the real mistress?"

In 1781, Elizabeth and another slave in the household, named Brom, became the first African-Americans to file and win a freedom lawsuit in Massachusetts. The county court found slavery to be inconsistent with the new State Constitution, granting them their freedom. Their case was cited as a precedent later that year when another freedom suit, Quock Walker v. Jennison, came before the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. Elizabeth and Brom’s case laid the legal foundation for that court to essentially end slavery in the state.

After gaining her freedom, Elizabeth took the name Elizabeth Freeman, chose to work as a paid and respected servant in Sedgewick’s home and earned a reputation as a healer, midwife and nurse. After she died at age 85, she was the only non-family member interred in the Sedgewick family plot, where the inscription on her tombstone included “She could neither read nor write, yet in her own sphere she had no superior or equal.”

Dr. Jess Bugeja, a CERC postdoctoral fellow in the CSIRO’s Australian eHealth Research Centre, Neurodevelopment and Plasticity team, joins us to talk about neuroplasticity pioneer Dr Marian Diamond, one of the founders of neuroscience.

Anacaona was a Taíno cacica (female cacique or chief), religious expert, poet and composer of Xaraguá, in what is now Haiti. Born into a family of caciques, she succeeded her brother as ruler of Xaragua after his death in 1500. Although she was famous for her poetry, songs, oral histories and traditional dances, little remains of her work today.

In 1493, the Spanish had established a colony to mine for gold and other precious metals. The Taíno were kidnapped and enslaved; many Taíno women were raped and those who resisted the Spaniards were murdered. Anacaona had a political marriage to Caonabo, cacique of Maguana. In 1493, he was arrested for ordering the destruction of a Spanish colony and the slaughter of its people. He was sent to Spain and died in a shipwreck during the journey. When her husband was captured, Anacaona returned to Xaraguá and served as an advisor to her brother, Bohechío.

In 1498, he was confronted by Spanish troops who wanted to conquer his territory to acquire gold. With his power weakened, Bohechío, advised by Anacaona, decided to accept the sovereignty of the Spanish monarchs. Instead of fighting, he committed to paying the tribute levied by the Spaniards with items like cotton, bread, corn and fish. Under Anacaona's rule after his death, the Spanish settlers and the Taínos of Xaraguá coexisted and intermarried.

In 1503, Spanish governor Nicolás Ovando suspected an insurrection was brewing among the Taíno chiefs, including Anacaona. He gave the order for the caciques to be captured. Wanting to make an example of her, Ovando brought Anacaona to Santo Domingo and put her on public trial. Having tortured the other caciques to betray her before killing them, Ovando the “evidence” he needed to execute her. Anacaona was hanged in a public square in 1503.

Anacaona is remembered in contemporary art and literature across the Caribbean.

CSIRO behavioural scientist Dr. Emily Brindal, who uses her understanding of human behavior to help people investigate and promote healthy lifestyles, joins us to chat about about philosopher and psychologist Dr Mary Whiton Calkins.

We know for a fact that multiple women reigned over the centuries in ancient Egypt, but understandably, the further back we go, the less clear the records get - because there simply isn’t much documentation left after thousands of years. Apart from the natural causes of materials being lost, damaged or destroyed over time, there were also instances of deliberate attempts to erase women from history, like when one of Hatshepsut’s successors had her statues destroyed, her monuments defaced, and many of her achievements attributed to other pharaohs, trying to undermine her more than 20-year reign. Based on this, the vandalisation of Setibhor’s tomb has been used to suggest the 24th-century queen may have been more than a consort. In other cases, women rulers have been maligned by political enemies, as seen in much of the Roman accounts of Cleopatra.

But while Cleopatra and, to a lesser extent, Hatshepsut may be the best-known female pharaohs, they were definitely not the first.

Neithhotep may have been the first recorded female monarch in world history, circa 3,000 to 3200 BC. She is believed to have been married to either the first or second pharaoh of unified Egypt, and when her large tomb was discovered, with royal hieroglyphs surrounding her name, she was originally assumed to have been a male ruler. The nature of her tomb and evidence that she exercised powers a mere consort would not have had indicate that she was a co-ruler, and may also have acted as a regent for her son before he came of age.

However, because the evidence is inconclusive about her possible regency, it can be argued that Neithhotep may have only been a co-ruler, instead of reigning a sole pharaoh. If that’s the case, the next candidate is Merneith, who ruled circa 2950. She may also have been a regent for her son after the death of her husband, and, like Neithhotep, the supporting evidence largely comes from her tomb, as well as that of her son.

It can also be asserted that, even assuming both Neithhotep and Merneith ruled as regents, this was a temporary role until their sons came of age. Sobekneferu is believed to be the first female Pharaoh to rule Egypt in her own right, to claim to full titles of a pharaoh, and is also the first woman listed in the Turin King List, an ancient papyrus scroll compiled during the reign of Rameses II in the 1200s BC of all the pharaohs that came before. That being said, it must be noted that the list was seriously fragmented as the result of poor handling after it was discovered in 1820, and historians have discovered discrepancies between the list and other sources. So while valuable, it is not a definitive source of information.

Disclaimers aside, we know that Sobekneferu ruled for almost four years in the 18th century BC. But she may not have been Egypt’s first queen regnant (meaning a queen who rules in her own right rather than as the wife or mother of a male ruler). Nitocris is a woman who may have ruled Egypt in the 22nd century BC, or who may have been a literary invention centuries later. According to Herodotus, she lured her brother’s murderers into a banquet hall and then killed them by diverting the waters of the Nile to flood the room. Historians have since suggested that Nitocris never existed, that the name was conflated with a misspelling of a male ruler from the time. While that’s probably true based on the current evidence - it’s still a great story.

And of course there’s always the possibility of powerful women whose legacy was erased more completely than Hatshepsut’s and Setibhor’s, to the point that they have truly been lost to history. There may also be pharaohs who were assumed to be male but were actually female, as rulers like Sobekneferu and Hatshepsut are depicted wearing male clothing. But while we may not know for certain who the first female pharaoh was, we do know there were plenty of women who held power in ancient Egypt.

In this episode, we're joined by Evelien de Bruijn, a glass artist from the Netherlands, to discuss biases in how women’s lives are documented, and the impact this has on future generations.

Dr. Ides Wong, a program manager at CSIRO, joins us to talk about 18th century Chinese astronomer, mathematician, and poet Wang Zhenyi.

Known as the Lioness of Brittany, Jeanne turned to piracy to avenge her husband, who the French king had had executed for treason. Olivier de Clisson was her third of four husbands, the first having died and the second marriage having been annulled. Together, they had ruled part of Brittany, but following the Breton War of Succession, he was accused of not defending his city vigorously enough; he was beheaded in 1343. Jeanne was then charged, because she had tried to bribe a sergeant to free her husband. Thanks to powerful friends, she avoided the banishment and confiscation of property that she was sentenced with.

She then swore vengeance upon the French King Philip VI and the duke who had accused her husband of treason. She sold her estates, raised a fighting force of 400 loyal men and started attacking. One of her early targets was a castle at Touffou, where the officer in charge recognised her and let her in, at which point her men massacred the entire garrison, save one person. This was a precursor to her practice of leaving only one or a few sailors alive when she attacked ships, to carry word to the King of France.

With the help of the English king and Breton sympathisers, she started building her Black Fleet, outfitting three warships painted black, with red sails. She named her flagship My Revenge. She started attacking ships in the Bay of Biscay but soon escalated to hunting down French commerce ships in the English Channel. She is also said to have attacked villages along the Norman coast.

At one point, the French were able to sink her flagship and Jeanne and two of her sons were adrift for five days, with her son Guillaume dying of exposure while Jeanne and her other son Olivier were eventually rescued, and resumed their piracy. All told, she was active for over a decade in her 40s and 50s, from around 1343 to 1356.

Jeanne is sometimes referred to as a privateer, meaning her piracy was sanctioned by the English crown, which was a common practice at the time. Although no official documentation of this exists, she did work with the English, including using her ships to supply their forces.

Jeanne remarried for the fourth and final time in the 1350s, to one of the English king’s deputies, and later settled at the Castle of Hennebont, on the Brittany coast. Husband and wife died a few weeks apart in 1359, when Jeanne was 59.

CSIRO’s Dr. Denis Bauer, whose work focuses on improving human health by applying cloud-computing technology to better understanding the genome, joins us to discuss both her own work and one of Dr. Bauer’s scientific forebears - Rosalind Franklin.

Dr. Brandy Schillace, Editor in Chief of Medical Humanities for the British Medical Journal, joins us to discuss women and Autism. For context, both Dr. Schillace and host Allison Tyra are Autistic.

https://brandyschillace.com/