Chloe Skye join us once more for a (sadly) expected rant against the Academy. Yes, we did this not so long ago after Ms. Viola Davis was snubbed for her stunning performance in The Woman King but we find ourselves here yet again. PLUS, since we spent a month in our own "Barbenheimer" series here it seems only right to give the world our own think piece on why the f*ck Greta and Margot, who LITERALLY made the whole Barbie movie happen, were shut out of the Oscars. Be prepared for us to throw some...
Jan 24, 2024•43 min•Ep. 195
Dr. Jessica Wade came from a family of brilliant scientific brains, so it's no wonder she dove head first into science, too. The further she got into her studies, though, the more she realized how alone she was - there were hardly any other women with her in Grad school! In fact, statistically the UK's numbers of women in S.T.E.M. are some of the lowest in the world. Jess, however, was not deterred. She finished her studies and her career has blossomed - but even more impressive is the fact that...
Jan 17, 2024•25 min•Ep. 194
The last election in New Zealand was accompanied by a huge wave of anti-indigenous & anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke is NOT having it. Despite her youth (she's only 21!) and lack of political experience, she has donned the mantle of her political and activist ancestors and ran for Parliament - beating her incumbent who had held the seat almost 20 years. She is already fighting for the rights of Māori and she brings with her that Gen Z fire and absolutely zero f*cks. At her ...
Jan 10, 2024•22 min•Ep. 193
Wahoo! We made it through 2023!! The year wouldn't be complete without a Broads recap, though. Sara brings you a snapshot of some of the most incredible Broads we lost this year and all of their accomplishments, both for women specifically and all of humankind. Then we take a dive into the United Nations’ Progress on the Sustainable Development Goals: The gender snapshot 2023. A little intimidating for some, but absolutely CRUCIAL for really comprehending the true level of gender inequality and ...
Jan 03, 2024•39 min•Ep. 192
We've got a fabulous 2023 recap episode brewing, but it's not ready yet, so today we revisit our (one and only) New Year's Broad: Betsy Ross! That's right - Betsy Ross was born on January 1st. You may already know that Betsy Ross designed the first American Flag. But did you know that she increased sewing efficiency by switching from a 6-pointed star to a 5-pointed star, making it possible to create the stars with a single snip? Or that she was disowned by her Quaker family for marrying a man wh...
Dec 27, 2023•14 min•Ep. 191
When America ran out of Santas during World War II what happened? Was Christmas cancelled while the men were overseas fighting? NOPE! The Rosie the Riveter spirit persisted, and WOMEN stepped up to the plate! But not everybody was happy about it. Learn how these Santa Broads came to be, who loved them, who hated them, and most importantly - DID THEY WEAR THE BEARD, TOO? Also, what the heck is the origin of Santa Clause and the modern American Christmas? When did Mall Santas emerge and why? All t...
Dec 20, 2023•23 min•Ep. 190
Jeanne Villepreux-Power has to be one of the most interesting STEM broads from the 19th Century! The daughter of a shoemaker and a seamstress, Jeanne follows her mother's line of work and slays it, making dresses for the top royalty and high society Europeans. After marrying a well-to-do merchant, though, she doesn't have to work for a living anymore - she's living the high life! Except...the genteel life didn't sit with her. She rolls up her sleeves and becomes a SCIENTIST. Jeanne quickly becom...
Dec 13, 2023•25 min•Ep. 189
Chloe Skye joins Sara for a long overdue check-in on all the exciting girl power moments of the moment including the fun-loving and *actually highly successful* film THE MARVELS. Despite what the box office magazine reports are saying, this movie is kicking the butts (in box office returns AND hearts) of other movies released around the same time INCLUDING Scorsese's Killers of the Flower Moon AND Ridley Scott's Napolean. Both of THOSE films are being lauded as successes, so why is The Marvels b...
Dec 06, 2023•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 188
Germany in the 1500's was a pretty risky time to be a midwife - even a really good one. And so it was with poor Walpurga Hausmännin when 20 years of brilliant midwifery and healing was snatched away by a stupid rumor and some very unfortunate circumstances, leading to her arrest and subsequent witch trial. However, her story turns bizarre at her trial, when she confesses (under torture, of course), to countless instances of infanticide, vampirism, and even repeated s*x and malicious deeds with a...
Nov 29, 2023•26 min•Ep. 187
While history marks the first Thanksgiving as being in Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1621, it turns out that when Christopher Columbus (and his *sshole brother, Bartholomew) first land in modern-day Haiti in 1492, they were warmly welcomed and assisted in a similar fashion by today's Broad, Anacaona! A powerhouse leader of the Taino people, Anacaona led her people NOT into war, as so many neighboring tribes had done, but with a true matriarchal vision of peace and prosperity for all, she tried to e...
Nov 22, 2023•23 min•Ep. 186
Sara has been busy MOVING this week, and didn't have time wrap up her research on some GERMAN WITCHES (come back next week!!), so today enjoy this throwback episode with Chloe bringing us the story of not one... not two... but THREE broads you should know, and they're together in this episode because they all have one thing in common: they were indestructible. Joy Andrew is likely turning 100 this year. And one thing's for sure—it was not an easy journey. She was almost assassinated. Her plane c...
Nov 15, 2023•21 min•Ep. 185
When King James IV of Scotland (later James I of England) has his grand wedding plans thwarted by bad weather in 1590, an investigation is launched as to the cause. Instead of discovering the gross incompetence of the men in charge of outfitting the royal fleets, they find a much more sinister cause - WITCHES who conspired to send tiny devils in barrels across the ocean to cause the storms and prevent James' marriage! Historians can't tell us very much about Ana Koldings because not much documen...
Nov 08, 2023•19 min•Ep. 184
Taking a break from the heavy-hearted witch trial content for a minute - we revisit one of our favorite BYSK episodes about a different kind of witch - THE NIGHT WITCHES! Dubbed the nachthexen by the german troops who heard nothing but a WHOOSH before their camps went up in flames - The Night Witches were a hastily trained, poorly equipped, all-female Russian Air Force unit who struck fear into the hearts of Nazis and turned the tide of World War II. They were fearless and brilliant and their st...
Nov 01, 2023•22 min•Ep. 183
Beatrix Leslie is an 84-year-old midwife living just outside Edinburgh, Scotland in 1661, which happened to be a very bad period of time to be a disliked elderly woman in the community because it was smack dab in the middle of the Great Scottish Witch Trials of 1661-1662. During a span of literally 16 MONTHS over 660 people were publicly accused of witchcraft in that neck of the woods, and Beatrix, unfortunately, was one of them. Listen now to learn exactly what she was accused of, and how the w...
Oct 25, 2023•26 min•Ep. 182
Hypatia is widely (but incorrectly) thought to be the first female mathematician in the world and is considered to be one of the foremost intellectuals and philosophers in the entire Roman empire. So how come we don't list her name when we talk about Plato and Aristotle? Also, why does her name come up when you google search for "witches in history"?! Unfortunately, politics, as usual. In her home of Alexandria, religious and political tensions had reached a fevered pitch, and her unique positio...
Oct 18, 2023•27 min•Ep. 181
This week Sara dives into the most well-known incident of witch hysteria in North America - the Salem Witch Trials! While many of you may be familiar with the story from your history classes and Arthur Miller's popular play-turned-Daniel-Day-Lewis-Winona-Ryder-movie The Crucible, Sara's research turns up some VERY interesting truths about the motivations of the the girls and their parents - who (not surprisingly) influenced, puppetered and corroborated the "accuser girls'" testimony. The second ...
Oct 11, 2023•54 min•Ep. 180
This week, special guest Caitlin Parrish tells us the story of "Half-Hanged" Mary Webster. Accused of witchcraft more than once in her lifetime, she does not escape the noose - but you'll have to listen to find out the rest! Her story predates the Salem witch trials by several decades and she is an ancestor of Margaret Atwood's, inspiring her poem "Half-Hanged Mary" and one of the dedicatee's of The Handmaid's Tale. — A Broad is a woman who lives by her own rules. Broads You Should Know is the p...
Oct 04, 2023•35 min•Ep. 179
Today Sara brings us a new Series for the fall (to the delight of spooky season lovers everywhere): Women They Called Witches! Throughout the entire world, and pretty much ALL of recorded history through TODAY, women have been accused of being witches and paid the price for it with their lives. One historian notes that the witch trials served as "the most important institutionalized femicide in the history of mankind" Sara gives us a very brief overview of the history of the "witch trials" to la...
Sep 27, 2023•12 min•Ep. 178
Special guest Zach Livingston brings us the story of the 2nd female Pharaoh, who expanded Egyptian trade and built many of the greatest wonders of Egypt throughout her reign, including the Valley of the Kings. Why, then, were her name and robust accomplishments only discovered in the late 19th century? Listen and find out! — A Broad is a woman who lives by her own rules. Broads You Should Know is the podcast about the Broads who helped shape our world! 3 Ways you can help support the podcast: Wr...
Sep 20, 2023•43 min•Ep. 177
Annie Cohen Kopchovsky is already struggling under the weight of patriarchy when two arrogant gentlemen wage a bet that a woman cannot possibly be as physically capable as a man nor able to care for herself as a man can. The wager? $10,000 if Annie can circumnavigate the world in less than 15 months and raise $5,000 in the process. Eager to prove those "gentlemen" wrong, Annie jumps at the chance, and leaves her family behind for the bike trail - the only problem? She's never ridden a bicycle be...
Sep 13, 2023•21 min•Ep. 176
This week, Sara researched Lucy Parsons, and enlightens all us Broads as to the history of the Labor Party & Anarchist Movement in the US in the early 20th Century! Lucy Parsons fought her entire life for workers' rights. She was possibly born a slave, but claims not to be Black at all. Still, she is considered by many to be one of the most important figures in the Labor Movement throughout 20th Century America. She was considered by the FBI and various government agencies to be "more danger...
Sep 06, 2023•41 min•Ep. 175
Last week we dove into the history of the land and the hispanos who lived in Los Alamos when the government and Oppenheimer came to town - that’s right the land was not “unoccupied”, as the movie would have us believe. Hundreds of native ranchers and their families were forced off their lands and their livelihoods, and subsequently had no choice but to work at the labs. TODAY, in part two, best-selling author and award-winning journalist Alisa Lynn Valdés brings us the story of LOYDA MARTINEZ. L...
Aug 30, 2023•44 min•Ep. 174
Best-selling author and award-winning journalist Alisa Lynn Valdés made international headlines a few weeks ago when her Twitter thread about the REAL story of what happened in Los Alamos went viral. Unlike Christopher Nolan's new film Oppenheimer suggests - the land that the Los Alamos Labs was built on and the area the first bombs were tested on were NOT "uninhabited" - the people living there had been there for centuries, and in a (not) shocking turn of events, they were NOT treated kindly th...
Aug 23, 2023•25 min•Ep. 173
Ruth (Moskowicz) Handler was born the 10th child to a family of immigrants and from the get-go she was a hard working Broad jumping quickly from the local soda fountain to Paramount Pictures in Los Angeles. Her boyfriend Elliott was quick to follow, and soon enough they tie the knot, a partnership that would prove to be a huge success in both the personal and corporate worlds. How did Ruth originally conceive of the idea of Barbie? How did she influence Barbie's design and development as the lin...
Aug 16, 2023•28 min•Ep. 172
Sara welcomes back guests Chloe Skye and Zach Livingston to gush over and analyze the new Greta Gerwig Barbie Movie and the way that the world is reacting to it! We daresay NEVER in the history of blockbuster filmmaking, has a film so well articulated the damage that patriarchy inflicts on EVERY PERSON it touches (yes, it's bad for Kens, too!), and so precisely defined the challenges ALL women face in balancing the contradictory expectations inflicted on us by patriarchy (truly masterful work, A...
Aug 09, 2023•1 hr 11 min•Ep. 171
Why isn't there another new Broad for you today? What in the world has been going on with Broads You Should Know the past few weeks?! The short answer: JURY DUTY. Sara was held captive by the "Justice" System, and now that the case is over she can finally tell all about what it was like to be on a Jury, and why she's feeling pretty messed up about it. BUT FIRST! We preview all the great new Broads episodes we've got coming down the pipeline including our own "Barbenheimer" with some of your favo...
Aug 02, 2023•24 min•Ep. 170
Sara has been stuck in Jury Duty (where she's forbidden to act out in any way) so it's a great excuse to revisit our episode about Helen Hulick Beebe - the woman who DARED to wear pants to the courthouse in defiance of the judge... Helen Hulick Beebe is working as a teacher in Los Angeles in 1938, and when she's called to court to testify in a burglary case she inadvertently causes quite the ruckus by...wearing pants! The Judge is outraged and reschedules the court date with an order to wear a d...
Jul 26, 2023•23 min•Ep. 169
We just passed her birthday on June 6th, so it's a great time to revisit our episode on Frida Kahlo — the Mexico-born painter and revolutionary whose tragic backstory adds depth to her work. Frida originally wanted to be a doctor, but a bus accident left her broken and bedridden for an extended period of time. While she was confined to her room, she began painting self-portraits and developing her own unique style. After impressing muralist Diego Rivera with her work, they were married and Frida...
Jul 19, 2023•35 min•Ep. 168
From the very beginning of the colonization of Australia, the treatment of Aborigine people was atrocious, but the end of the 19th century the codification of that treatment upticked sharply in an attempt to flat out remove the Aborigine people via cultural erasure and breeding, so when Molly Craig entered the world around 1915 the deck was heavily stacked against her. After 14 year old Molly, and her sister and cousin, are all ripped away from their mothers' arms and transported almost 1,000 mi...
Jul 12, 2023•27 min•Ep. 167
We've talked a lot about Marsha P. Johnson but today we're finally circling around to her other half - her best friend and co-founder of STAR House - Sylvia Rivera! Orphaned at a young age and suffering much abuse at the hands of her caretakers, Sylvia left home at eleven years old and never looked back. She found a new home with the drag queens of 42nd Street who took her in, dubbed her Sylvia, and taught her how to survive the streets. Her activist heart was in action long before the Stonewall...
Jul 05, 2023•33 min•Ep. 166
