In downtown New York, in the early 20th century, a secret club of women met regularly, to discuss ideas, politics, art and their own lives. They forged friendships and alliances, and took up some of the most significant social fights of the day. Joanna Scutts joins Elinor Evans to discuss the women of the Heterodoxy club.
(Ad) Joanna Scutts is the author of ... Show More
Jan 13
Emperor Hirohito: life of the week
While most of the other surviving Axis leaders were put on trial following the end of the Second World War, Japan's Emperor Hirohito never faced justice and, instead, continued to reign until his death in 1989. Debate continues about how far he was personally responsible for Japa ... Show More
42m 2s
Jun 2025
The Best-Paid Woman in NYC
As J.P. Morgan's personal librarian, entrusted with building his collection, Belle da Costa Greene could ‘spend more money in an afternoon than any other young woman of 26’, as the New York Times put it in 1912. In the latest LRB, Francesca Wade reviews a new biography of Greene ... Show More
40m 30s
Jul 2025
‘Dollar princesses’ or influential heiresses? A new perspective on Sargent’s American portraits
In the late 19th and early 20th century, glamorous, exciting and often very wealthy American women mingled with the British aristocracy and set the gossip pages alight with rumours of engagements. But alongside this fascination, anti-American sentiment and xenophobia saw them dis ... Show More
35m 45s
Mar 2025
Aphra Behn: Revolutionary, Author, Spy
<p>Aphra Behn was a true original. Not only was she the first woman to earn a living by writing, she was also a spy, a political propagandist and a revolutionary. Publicly she was all brash sexuality and outspoken politics, but what is known about the woman beneath? Professor ... Show More
40m 26s
Oct 13
Voices of Thunder: Radical Women of the 17th Century
In 17th-century England, women weren’t asked what they believed, they were generally told to obey. But amid civil war, revolution, and religious upheaval, a remarkable group of women risked everything to speak out. They preached, prophesied and published their defiance, surviving ... Show More
46m 58s
Mar 2025
Robert Dudley: Elizabeth I's Forbidden Love
<p>Passion, scandal, and power collided in the tumultuous relationship between Elizabeth I and Robert Dudley. Rumours of secret trysts between them set the court ablaze, but their love was doomed from the start.</p><br><p>Professor Suzannah Lipscomb and Dr. Joanne Paul unravel t ... Show More
58m 10s
Mar 2023
Difficult Feminism: History’s Complicated Changemakers
International Women’s Week on Intelligence Squared. Change is never easy, it requires putting up a fight, going against the status quo, and if you’re a woman - this may require you to be difficult. In 2020 Helen Lewis, staff writer for The Atlantic, joined us on stage to discuss ... Show More
1h 2m
Feb 2025
Inside Europe's Biggest Red Light District
<p>Between 1860 and 1925, tens of thousands of women worked in Dublin's Monto, the largest red light district in Europe.</p><br><p>It was a world of narrow alleyways full of brothels busy with sex workers, at a time when the Catholic church was trying to establish ideas around wh ... Show More
51m 47s