Danielle
Appearances
Brooke and Jeffrey: Second Date Update
Second Date Update: Ex-Aversary
I won't compare him with a 12-foot pole.
Brooke and Jeffrey: Second Date Update
Second Date Update: Ex-Aversary
Yeah. Well, I will tell you this. I don't want anything to do with him, so I don't.
Brooke and Jeffrey: Second Date Update
Second Date Update: Ex-Aversary
Well, I don't like people who go through my personal things and make me feel uncomfortable.
Brooke and Jeffrey: Second Date Update
Second Date Update: Ex-Aversary
I don't know what he's told you or whatever happened. But he was in my business, like literally in my bag, my wallet business.
Brooke and Jeffrey: Second Date Update
Second Date Update: Ex-Aversary
I had to use the restroom. So I asked him if he'd hold my stuff for me.
Brooke and Jeffrey: Second Date Update
Second Date Update: Ex-Aversary
While we were waiting, I went to the restroom.
Brooke and Jeffrey: Second Date Update
Second Date Update: Ex-Aversary
So my purse was only out of my possession for a moment, but I think that's when he went in my bag and snatched my stuff. What stuff?
Brooke and Jeffrey: Second Date Update
Second Date Update: Ex-Aversary
Well, it surely isn't there anymore. And it sounds minute, but for me, it's the principal. What did he take? My Jamba Juice card.
Brooke and Jeffrey: Second Date Update
Second Date Update: Ex-Aversary
It was in my wallet, right in the front of my wallet. So why is it in my purse to even go in my wallet?
Brooke and Jeffrey: Second Date Update
Second Date Update: Ex-Aversary
Hello, that's what I'm trying to figure out.
Brooke and Jeffrey: Second Date Update
Second Date Update: Ex-Aversary
And why the hell would you take my Jamba Juice card?
Brooke and Jeffrey: Second Date Update
Second Date Update: Ex-Aversary
See, I knew it. I told you guys. Wow.
Brooke and Jeffrey: Second Date Update
Second Date Update: Ex-Aversary
Why are you in my bag? Does no one see that that's an issue? Why are you in my bag? Yeah, that is also bad. And why are you getting something for your ex?
Brooke and Jeffrey: Second Date Update
Second Date Update: Ex-Aversary
If your phone's that tight, you probably should not have been going out with me, Kendrick.
Brooke and Jeffrey: Second Date Update
Second Date Update: Ex-Aversary
This is so weird. We gotta go.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"I Feel Guilty Asking For More Money. Am I Wrong? Coach Me!" with Claire Wasserman
Yeah. I feel like that's definitely something that has been a challenge. I have been able to make shit happen for people and that's what I've done for CEOs and in these companies. And I know how to do that in the creative realm, and I don't know how to turn that into a business that has perfect product market fit.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"I Feel Guilty Asking For More Money. Am I Wrong? Coach Me!" with Claire Wasserman
That's theoretically fine. I did try really hard to do that. And the jobs just, you know, I started applying over the summer and stuff like that. And things were just like really tough. And I know a lot of incredible people that got hit with layoffs that are still struggling to get a position. And I struggled then too, with how to kind of like cast myself.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"I Feel Guilty Asking For More Money. Am I Wrong? Coach Me!" with Claire Wasserman
I have worked across three different industries at least already. And the thing that I do is called a different thing in each one and requires a different background in each one.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"I Feel Guilty Asking For More Money. Am I Wrong? Coach Me!" with Claire Wasserman
And I know that I can do certain jobs, but when I'm asked if I am the best person for a job or things like that, like that's where it's like, I do know that there's so many people who have really refined their skillset in that one area. And I've been like all over the board. And that was a little bit of a challenge when I was applying for jobs. Mm-hmm.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"I Feel Guilty Asking For More Money. Am I Wrong? Coach Me!" with Claire Wasserman
I think that when people just like have like cold approach to me, I've been working on how to share my pricing. And the problem is, is that even if someone's been willing to like pay me the full price, I felt bad, like stating it aloud and just said like, pay whatever, just like do a pay what you can more so because like, I know that they're struggling or I think that they're struggling.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"I Feel Guilty Asking For More Money. Am I Wrong? Coach Me!" with Claire Wasserman
And then I've gotten burned a few times doing that because then I saw them turn around and pay someone 10 times what they paid me without thinking about it. And that kind of like, that kind of, I don't know if it hurts, but it's just like, kind of a bummer, but it's also partially my fault that that happened.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"I Feel Guilty Asking For More Money. Am I Wrong? Coach Me!" with Claire Wasserman
But yeah, I think that I've been still trying to find out what that product market fit is. It's almost like I've been doing that thing where I'm beginning again in a way and like, oh, I'll just price these lower, just do some of these things just to get my feet wet and just start getting more of a portfolio in this specific area. And that's been a challenge with then going out and
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"I Feel Guilty Asking For More Money. Am I Wrong? Coach Me!" with Claire Wasserman
I don't really go out and try to find business either. That's one of my problems. I don't know how to like pitch myself necessarily. I don't like to look really eager. And to be honest, like I have to put on a fake version of myself to do that. And I don't know how to just be my, you know, like, yeah.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"I Feel Guilty Asking For More Money. Am I Wrong? Coach Me!" with Claire Wasserman
I think that money has always been like a little bit of a complicated topic. I grew up with like you know, my parents didn't have much money and they were in service oriented professions, like trying to help other people. And so money was kind of something that if you had a lot, then it was like egotistical or selfish and you weren't sharing with others. I feel like
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"I Feel Guilty Asking For More Money. Am I Wrong? Coach Me!" with Claire Wasserman
Saying that now sounds a little bit strange. I don't know if I have the best language for it still, but that is actually what I went to college. I went to college to try to be in a profession that was helping other people, but just really geared toward that. I knew I wasn't gonna be making money. I'm not actually in that profession. My life has taken a much different route.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"I Feel Guilty Asking For More Money. Am I Wrong? Coach Me!" with Claire Wasserman
Yeah, that's actually, I want to avoid that too because I have been the cheap pick before and I don't want to be the cheap pick again because I know how I get treated when I am that. I need to do some more market research around pricing just because there's so many different like possibilities of offerings. And I have not figured that out yet.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"I Feel Guilty Asking For More Money. Am I Wrong? Coach Me!" with Claire Wasserman
And so whatever way I shake it, I do want to just double check up, but I don't want to be low. And I also, the high I am uncomfortable with for multiple reasons, including the ones that you said.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"I Feel Guilty Asking For More Money. Am I Wrong? Coach Me!" with Claire Wasserman
Yes, absolutely. When you said that, something did click in me. I do have a question though, because I am someone who I'm a very proud person in certain ways. And one of those ways is even when I was paying full price and not taking any discounts on things. And that is one thing that I don't know what that is within me. I should probably talk to my therapist about that at some point, but I...
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"I Feel Guilty Asking For More Money. Am I Wrong? Coach Me!" with Claire Wasserman
just do not ever want to be seen as weak or fragile or powerless or also like incapable in that way, like unable to pay the full price. And I think maybe because I wanted people to respect me without demanding it, I have wanted to pay their full price or more. And sometimes I will do that. Like sometimes I will be obnoxious and like paying more always like I think it's an ego thing.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"I Feel Guilty Asking For More Money. Am I Wrong? Coach Me!" with Claire Wasserman
I just don't know why I do that.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"I Feel Guilty Asking For More Money. Am I Wrong? Coach Me!" with Claire Wasserman
But I did spend time post-grad. My first post-graduate job after my bachelor's degree, I only made $19,200 a year. And I also had a kid that year and spent time on food stamps, Medicaid, which truly saved my life because... I would be drowning in death if not, just due to a lot of unforeseen circumstances.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"I Feel Guilty Asking For More Money. Am I Wrong? Coach Me!" with Claire Wasserman
Mm-hmm. I don't know. That's a good question. I feel like I would need to dig into that. Yeah, I think that I am an idealist to my own detriment. And I know that I would have had millions of dollars in medical debt. But on principle, I support stuff. But I guess that is a contradiction.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"I Feel Guilty Asking For More Money. Am I Wrong? Coach Me!" with Claire Wasserman
I ended up in jobs where I was making six figures, worked my way up in the creative realm, mostly as a creative director at a tech company for my last full-time position until this past July when I was forced to go out on my own, but it was honestly the best nudge. I had been needing to quit the job that I was at for a while, but it was like the golden handcuffs. I made too much to feel
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"I Feel Guilty Asking For More Money. Am I Wrong? Coach Me!" with Claire Wasserman
Yeah, it does lend itself. I have got some internal work to do around social media and putting myself out there clearly because it's very uncomfortable for me, as I know it is for a lot of people.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"I Feel Guilty Asking For More Money. Am I Wrong? Coach Me!" with Claire Wasserman
So like, I don't know, like what version of myself, like is the one that I'm supposed to be putting out there because the one that is like holistically me isn't, Like I also am a writer and I also love like writing weird shit and I just want to be able to be myself. And it's not like this polished, like, you know, business forward image.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"I Feel Guilty Asking For More Money. Am I Wrong? Coach Me!" with Claire Wasserman
like I could easily step away. And I was honestly too overwhelmed and stressed there to even thinking about doing something else. So I got hit in layoffs and that really propelled me into where I am now, which like I had begun by applying for a bunch of jobs and the jobs just weren't opening up. And my partner was like, well, what if you could actually do the thing that you wanted to do?
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"I Feel Guilty Asking For More Money. Am I Wrong? Coach Me!" with Claire Wasserman
And I don't know how to be my weird little self and also what version of myself people pay me to do. I don't know what I'm saying. Do you know what I'm saying?
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"I Feel Guilty Asking For More Money. Am I Wrong? Coach Me!" with Claire Wasserman
So now I'm here, maybe trying to do the thing that I actually want to do. I have no idea how to actually take care of my family in a productive way. So it's kind of this tension. I started my own company kind of broadly thinking that if I could take all of my creative wheelhouse and turn it into a company that supports other people, then I'm wondering if I could make good money that way.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"I Feel Guilty Asking For More Money. Am I Wrong? Coach Me!" with Claire Wasserman
No, I just appreciate you. Thank you for sharing all that. And there's some things that you said that I want to sit with a little bit more, especially one of the things that you were saying about more for me isn't less for them. And that's something that I think I have a lot to unpack in that regard. And I feel like that with a lot of the things that we discussed.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"I Feel Guilty Asking For More Money. Am I Wrong? Coach Me!" with Claire Wasserman
So I really appreciate your insight and your time.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"I Feel Guilty Asking For More Money. Am I Wrong? Coach Me!" with Claire Wasserman
Instead, I've ended up working with a lot of people that I love working with. The people that I'm drawn to work with are mostly women who cannot afford to pay. And I love working with them and I do not feel right charging them. And I do not know how to also be responsible and take care of my family and have boundaries when it comes to money as well.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"I Feel Guilty Asking For More Money. Am I Wrong? Coach Me!" with Claire Wasserman
Yeah, I think that I have every couple year burnout cycle. That's my tendency. So hopefully I'm off of it for a little bit.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"I Feel Guilty Asking For More Money. Am I Wrong? Coach Me!" with Claire Wasserman
No, not at this point in my career, which I'm in my mid thirties and So much of my career has just been hustling and hauling ass to try to get better projects or get better income or things like that. I don't think that I've been able to do that, be at ease, but also feel respected by the income that I'm making.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"I Feel Guilty Asking For More Money. Am I Wrong? Coach Me!" with Claire Wasserman
I don't mean to be cynical, but Honestly, I think that is a point of frustration for me right now because the only people that are immediately coming to mind and the people that I have been witnessing, especially recently are mostly men who are consultants who have ended up being able to charge exorbitant amounts and make that money.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"I Feel Guilty Asking For More Money. Am I Wrong? Coach Me!" with Claire Wasserman
And I think that that's kind of one of the things that's been really frustrating me is knowing how many like, extremely overqualified women I know who are not getting that and not being able to just like sit around and just rake the money. And, you know, someone, I was just talking to a friend this morning who was talking about hearing someone brag that he was making $4,000 a day doing nothing.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"I Feel Guilty Asking For More Money. Am I Wrong? Coach Me!" with Claire Wasserman
And it's just like the assholes that end up raking in the money. And it's really frustrating to me, just like our society in general, in so many ways that is not working for the people. And so many people, extremely overqualified people than I know.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"I Feel Guilty Asking For More Money. Am I Wrong? Coach Me!" with Claire Wasserman
And I'm not actually even referencing myself in that regard, but just how hard it is to like, God, if she can't do it, then like, if she is like so extremely overqualified, like so much more qualified than me, you know, has 15 more years of experience on me, but she is also begging for scraps like that. that pisses me off. And that's one of the frustrating things is like, I know that this exists.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"I Feel Guilty Asking For More Money. Am I Wrong? Coach Me!" with Claire Wasserman
I don't know how to make that a reality for people, let alone for myself.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"I Feel Guilty Asking For More Money. Am I Wrong? Coach Me!" with Claire Wasserman
I guess I fucking hate the game. I wish that we didn't have to play the game. I wish like I didn't have to like vomit every time I opened LinkedIn. I just am trying to figure out how to be an authentic person and like still be true to myself. And I would love further to be a way where like, I can still feel fulfilled, but also still put food on the table.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
"I Feel Guilty Asking For More Money. Am I Wrong? Coach Me!" with Claire Wasserman
And then I would also love to give that way to other people too. And I, that's like one of the things is like, if, I wish we could build a new game and then invite everyone that I know who is also struggling with this to be part of that.
Something You Should Know
Why We Forget & The Amazing Story of Your Body’s Atoms - SYSK Choice
I had Danielle and Megan record some answers to seemingly meaningless questions. I asked Danielle, what insect song is typically higher pitched in hotter temperatures and lower pitched in cooler temperatures?
Something You Should Know
A Paradox That Makes You Miserable & How We Amplify Our Own Stress
I had Danielle and Megan record some answers to seemingly meaningless questions. I asked Danielle, what insect song is typically higher pitched in hotter temperatures and lower pitched in cooler temperatures?
Sword and Scale
Episode 294
Her husband Eric? how do I say it, looks really great on paper. So he's a lawyer, he's charming, he's felt liked, he's good looking, he likes to cook, all of these different things. Things were good in the beginning of their relationship. But then things kind of took a turn.
Sword and Scale
Episode 294
So there's some information, he was in the military, he was stationed in Alabama, they were in Hawaii, then they were in Connecticut, and then Arizona.
Sword and Scale
Episode 294
There's been some things that have happened in the past. He has been very mentally unstable. So he's had a lot of... And there was more. but we labeled him as, and I don't know, he could see a psychiatrist as a sex addict. So he was constantly looking at porn. He had been always doing porn websites, porn, porn, porn. He had a job where he traveled a lot. He was in Turkey at one point.
Sword and Scale
Episode 294
He had solicited prostitutes there, and she was pregnant with her second son. So she, I remember when he came back, she found out about this, I think via on his phone and computer, and she had gone into the doctor and had all kinds of STD testing to make sure that, you know, she was pregnant and things like that. He also has had issues maintaining the job.
Sword and Scale
Episode 294
So I think something happened in the military where he was also walked in on looking at pornography and things like that. But anyway... Please let me know if you have questions or anything. Yeah, I'm just taking it in.
Sword and Scale
Episode 294
I do know Sherry does have evidence, and I don't know where it is, of some child pornography. There was one time she walked in on him. This was in Connecticut, by the way. This was probably in the last three years. She walked in on him masturbating to a five- or six-year-old girl, getting anally raped.
Sword and Scale
Episode 294
And he left when he was at home and he drove her and she came here. Her goal was to leave him, and she didn't have any money. And when she came here, he pretty much put all the, you know, I mean, he controlled the money. He did not give her any money. She stayed at her mother's house. I tried to help her out as much as possible.
Sword and Scale
Episode 294
I invited her to stay at my house, groceries, you know, things like that.
Sword and Scale
Episode 294
Yeah, so things were worse. I know in Connecticut when she went back, they had agreed Eric was going to seek help. They sought help. Sherry was not religious, but he said, well, let's, you know, go talk to a priest. And so they were kind of doing some type of marital counseling with a priest in Connecticut. And... Eric also was getting on meds. He was seeing a psychiatrist.
Sword and Scale
Episode 294
They wanted to have him go to a treatment center. He didn't want to. And I know the priest, I remember being surprised because the priest told Sherry to leave him. And I was surprised at that. I was raised Catholic, so I thought, oh, that's interesting.
Sword and Scale
Episode 294
After Max was born and Mark was seeking help, the family relocated to Arizona, where things didn't really get much better.
Sword and Scale
Episode 294
He's had higher-up jobs, and unfortunately, authority figures haven't – it's been habitual issues with him because he's really lasted a job a year or less. He's often fired from jobs. The recent one, he was fired in Arizona. He's been unemployed for nine months, and here he did not work until the last three months. So they've been living off of savings. He borrowed money from someone in Florida.
Sword and Scale
Episode 294
I do know because she confided in me about everything. So I know they were really in financial ruin. She, and I have this text message, she said they were probably about $140,000 in debt.
Sword and Scale
Episode 294
ago it's our first job um back from being you know a stay-at-home mom um eric has always been very controlling they got into a lot of fights about cleaning ironing his shirts that was her job to iron his shirt if he was going to go anywhere she had to pack his bag she had to wake up in the morning and you know make him you know that kind of thing right
Sword and Scale
Episode 294
And so, since he lost his job, I know he was working out a lot, that was his thing. He'd go to the gym, he'd lift weights, he worked out a lot. And he really did his own thing. Now, since Sherry was working, for the first two months she was working, because I feel like she was working for about 90 days, for the first two months, he was home with the kids.
Sword and Scale
Episode 294
And then Maddie, who's six, started school about a month ago. And so that was a huge change. Sherry would go to work. She was very worried for the safety of her children. She confided in me that Max, her youngest son, who's almost 20 months, had fallen down the stairs a couple times because Eric was on the computers.
Sword and Scale
Episode 294
I believe it was about a month ago, she took in Max, maybe two months, took in Max for his 18-19 month appointment. Eric went to the doctor and Maddie, the daughter, had told the doctor that Max fell down the stairs two times. And I don't know if the doctor was asking questions or anything. got very angry and said in front of the doctor, Maddie, you get over here, I'm going to smoke you.
Sword and Scale
Episode 294
And that was something interesting because I had never heard Sherry ever say anything about that. And I asked Sherry, did he ever smoke Maddie? She said no, not that she was aware of. Danielle said that Mark had really been going downhill since Sherry became the breadwinner, and his emotions were off the charts. I want to say it was maybe four to six weeks ago.
Sword and Scale
Episode 294
They had gone somewhere in Arizona, maybe for a hike or something, and he had lost it in the car over, I don't recall. He took her phone. He said he was going to throw it out. Kids were screaming in the background. He was stopping the car. It was a very, you know, dramatic, you know, something had happened. The thing about Eric was that he could turn his mood like that.
Sword and Scale
Episode 294
Sherry was kind of eggshell, like, stepped on eggshells. I know he, you know, punched a wall, you know, a hole in the wall in their house in Connecticut. That kind of thing. He was very hot-tempered.
Sword and Scale
Episode 294
She had found a picture of a girl or something, a woman on his phone, and asked him about it. And he said, oh, she's from some pornography website. And so she said to him, well, show me. Show me the website. And he couldn't. And he got very, very upset about that. And she told him that...
Sword and Scale
Episode 294
She was there for the kids, and that she really wanted nothing to do with him sexually, and that he could do whatever he wanted, that she was there for the kids, and he, like that, completely blew up. Now, I don't, that was the only time we talked about that. I don't know anything about that.
Sword and Scale
Episode 294
His dad was... She told me about how he was in prison. He used to have a lot of money. And Eric had told Sherry that he had introduced Eric to pornography when he was seven or eight years old. Your dad has always tried to get mail order, but things like that. I don't know anything more than that.
Sword and Scale
Episode 294
So Eric's dad was in prison for killing a man in Spain. It was a Dutch tourist over road rage.
Sword and Scale
Episode 294
And Kentucky came up, and she wasn't thrilled about it. But her main thing, because I was always trying to be positive with her, was that she was going to be closer to Wisconsin. Her main dream was she wanted to get back to Wisconsin. She had family and friends here. She wanted just kind of down-to-earth life for her family. And she was only going to be a couple hours away. eight hours away.
Sword and Scale
Episode 294
Now, I know this last week she texted me and said, oh my gosh, Eric got a call from a job in Oshkosh. Oshkosh is an hour and a half away from her parents' home. And I said, oh my goodness, wow, that's excellent. But she said at that point that Eric said absolutely not that he had already signed the contract for this new job in Kentucky.
Sword and Scale
Episode 294
And her plan was that she wanted to leave in a couple of years. She was very fearful for our children. She was fearful to leave the house and have 50-50 custody and have him taking care of the kids when he couldn't even take care of himself in that regard.
Sword and Scale
Episode 294
She said the thought of a third child sounds really great to me if I had a different life, if I was with someone else.
Sword and Scale
Episode 294
to divorce Eric right now. She never said anything like that to me. But I remember her saying, I would say in the last month, she said something about my kids are legal residents of Arizona. And that's when, you know, she had said something about, well, you know, I might stay, work my job a little bit. Maddie just started school and whatever. And then, you know, that's all I know.
Sword and Scale
Episode 294
Yes. Absolutely. And what I can tell you, the only reason, and she told me this over and over again, the only reason why she never left here was because of her children. If it wasn't because of her children, she would have been gone a long time ago. She was the best mom, never complained, just did everything.
Sword and Scale
Episode 294
And even though her life at home was horrible with her husband and all of that, you know, she was definitely the rock for her children.
The Bald and the Beautiful with Trixie and Katya
A Blueberry Bayou Adventure with Trixie and Katya
Before that? Yes. You have? Yes. Were you intimate before that? Yes. You have. Okay, so you've kind of consummated the relationship.
The Bald and the Beautiful with Trixie and Katya
A Blueberry Bayou Adventure with Trixie and Katya
Was there any intimacy after the wedding at all?
The Bald and the Beautiful with Trixie and Katya
A Blueberry Bayou Adventure with Trixie and Katya
Yes.
The Bald and the Beautiful with Trixie and Katya
A Blueberry Bayou Adventure with Trixie and Katya
Can you tell us what he's talking about? He has told people that I smell and I peed on him.
The Bald and the Beautiful with Trixie and Katya
A Blueberry Bayou Adventure with Trixie and Katya
You know what? I don't even want to know. Thank you very much.
The Ramsey Show
It’s Our 2024 Annual Giving Show!
Okay, so my husband and I are both educators in a small school. And in 2018, there's a theme I've noticed today in the show, but
The Ramsey Show
It’s Our 2024 Annual Giving Show!
Unfortunately, we lost two students to suicide, and it was one of the hardest things as an educator that we've had to go through, and we decided we were on baby step six, and we decided to go ahead and take a goal that we had for baby step seven, and we went ahead and started a college scholarship in the name of my brother. His name was Evan, and we give, we raise money, and we give
The Ramsey Show
It’s Our 2024 Annual Giving Show!
scholarships to students at our high school. And so far to date, since then, we've been able to give 15 scholarships, ranging from $750 to, actually, I'll pause real quick and say that where we get the funds is
The Ramsey Show
It’s Our 2024 Annual Giving Show!
Um, we don't, I have an annual fundraiser in the summertime and the students at the school will help me to put on the fundraiser and we sell, um, food burritos and salsa and the community is extremely generous.
The Ramsey Show
It’s Our 2024 Annual Giving Show!
And so, um, I'll, I'll tell people that, um, you know, the, the food costs a certain amount, but they'll tip me like crazy cause they know that every dollar that they give to us will go straight to the college scholarship, straight to the kids. And, um, The reason why we wanted to do the scholarship is because the loss felt really real to us and we wanted to have change in the community.
The Ramsey Show
It’s Our 2024 Annual Giving Show!
But we also knew that we would prefer that the scholarship be more about going to school without loans than mental health. And so our focus is on teaching kids also on how to go to school without any loans.
The Ramsey Show
It’s Our 2024 Annual Giving Show!
We have given out 15 so far, and we've awarded over $64,000 in scholarships. I love it. Yeah, it's a community. The community is very generous, plus we have some really generous donors. And how the kids will qualify for the scholarship is they have to
The Ramsey Show
It’s Our 2024 Annual Giving Show!
listen to the borrowed future or watch the documentary and they have to come up to us and let us know how they're going to school without loans and so our scholarship renews every year for up to $10,000 and I'm proud to say quite a few of these kids, I know it's made a difference in them going to school.
The Ramsey Show
It’s Our 2024 Annual Giving Show!
We changed their mindset and they go to school without any loans and that makes me very proud and it's the only positive thing I can say that came from the losses that we had.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Found the Cure for the Untreatable
Hawaii had a dark history of leprosy being deeply misunderstood, feared, and stigmatized since the first cases in the 1830s and 40s.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Found the Cure for the Untreatable
It is. I think I first discussed this in 2021. I do remember I titled the episode Exile Island, if you're interested, but we did a whole episode on leprosy and what we're about to get into right now.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Found the Cure for the Untreatable
Quite the improvement from last year when you're like, I'm just throwing wildflower seed everywhere and hoping for the best.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Found the Cure for the Untreatable
In 1865, King Kamea Kamea V passed the act to prevent the spread of leprosy, leading to the forced establishment of the Kalapapa and Kalawao settlements on the Molokai Peninsula, an isolated area surrounded by steep cliffs and treacherous waters. Police were required to arrest anyone they suspected of having the sickness.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Found the Cure for the Untreatable
Those with advanced cases were torn away from their families and forced to relocate to this remote island, where they endured harsh conditions. The policy tore families apart. Some fled while others hid their loved ones from authorities, terrified they would be taken away and never seen again.
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The Woman Who Found the Cure for the Untreatable
In some cases, families disowned sick relatives, driven by the shame the disease carried, even believing it was a punishment for immoral behavior. Others distanced themselves from their own family members, fearing that association would make them targets of suspicion.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Found the Cure for the Untreatable
Okay, so now we're reflecting. We've done three episodes on this. We've done the New River Gorge. We've done Kalapapa. Well, that was tuberculosis. Yeah, but like, oh yeah, that's true.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Found the Cure for the Untreatable
We like to talk about diseases. I guess we do. And exiles that happen with them. Interesting. I'm learning a lot about us, as well as Alice.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Found the Cure for the Untreatable
Because of this, the effectiveness of the oil was inconsistent. Some patients showed improvement, while others experienced little to no results or severe side effects. These challenges made it clear that a better delivery method was needed and was why Dr. Hallman turned to Alice.
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The Woman Who Found the Cure for the Untreatable
Knowing her expertise, he was intrigued by the possibility of extracting the active ingredient from the chalmugra oil, much like she had done with the awa plant.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Found the Cure for the Untreatable
Yeah, what she's done. And we can talk a little bit about leprosy, just for a moment, because I think it's incredible how I've never seen somebody with leprosy. in real life. Of course, I've researched it, and especially for the Kalapapa episode that we did a few years ago, and it's memorialized in photographs and things like that throughout history.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Found the Cure for the Untreatable
But the second you hear leper or leprosy, you have this almost visceral reaction of like, I want to stay away from that. And we must have learned that somewhere along the line.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Found the Cure for the Untreatable
Well, the shunning of people and othering of people who are suffering from this disease, it just feels like it's been throughout history conflated with, you know, avoidance, complete isolation, like I can't ever be near you. And of course, we touched on that a little bit.
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The Woman Who Found the Cure for the Untreatable
But I just think it's really interesting to note that even now as a listener or somebody learning about this right now, the reaction your own body has when somebody says, you know, somebody suffering with leprosy, you're almost like, I'm not even involved, but I don't want to be near that.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Found the Cure for the Untreatable
So to know that Alice has created this method that is going to help that and help people that are suffering from this. and not have to go through painful treatment that sometimes makes it worse. Or it doesn't help at all. Right. It's such an accomplishment.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Found the Cure for the Untreatable
And by 1918, it was reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association that 78 people with leprosy at the Kalihi Hospital who received the treatment were free of lesions and were discharged. And between 1919 to 1923, no new patients were exiled to the settlements on the Malakai Peninsula. Alice's technique was successfully used until an antibiotic was introduced in its place in the 1940s.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Found the Cure for the Untreatable
Right. So not only is she saving lives, she's also saving a lot of people from exile. And then as a byproduct of that, saving a lot of families and loved ones. And friends of those people, a lot of heartache and just life-changing circumstances, you know. And she did all that in a year. And she's 23.
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The Woman Who Found the Cure for the Untreatable
Following her death, President of the College of Hawaii, Arthur L. Dean, continued Alice's research, and in 1919, a college chemistry lab was producing large quantities of the extract. In 1920, Dean co-authored a paper detailing Alice's findings, adding a minor tweak and renaming the technique the Dean Method, with no mention of Alice at all. Wow. God.
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The Woman Who Found the Cure for the Untreatable
Are you kidding me? Well, two years later, here we go. We have some hope. Two years later, Dr. Harry Hallman came to Alice's defense, publishing his own academic journal exclusively calling the treatment the Ball Method. and rejecting Dean's claims, saying, quote, I cannot see that there is any improvement whatsoever over original technique as worked out by Miss Ball.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Found the Cure for the Untreatable
But despite his efforts, Alice was not recognized for her work until decades later.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Found the Cure for the Untreatable
The way I would be rolling in my grave. Yeah. Something about somebody taking credit for other people's hard work has always really gotten to me.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Found the Cure for the Untreatable
Alice was born on July 24, 1892, in Seattle, Washington, to Laura Ball and James Presley Ball, a lawyer, photographer, and editor for The Colored Citizen, a newspaper aimed at serving African American citizens in the U.S.
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The Woman Who Found the Cure for the Untreatable
yeah like they did something oh the way that gets me amped up in the most aggressive way it just something about it really gets under my skin and i don't know why that is i can probably figure that out in therapy but i could probably guess could you yeah i feel like you probably in school
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Found the Cure for the Untreatable
Yeah, I am very type A and I never half-ass anything. If I'm doing something, no matter what it is, I give my all. So when other people don't and yet somehow get equal or more recognition, it really irritates me.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Found the Cure for the Untreatable
So I think that's probably, it's a me problem. But I'm sure Alice would have been quite upset. And imagine her family and her loved ones. I mean, it's not like nobody knew. Yeah.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Found the Cure for the Untreatable
Yeah. A lot of those factors definitely compiled into something that he felt he could easily bulldoze over.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Found the Cure for the Untreatable
Her grandfather, James Ball Sr., was a renowned photographer and one of the first Black Americans to use daguerreotype, the groundbreaking photographic technique that captured images on silver or copper plates. While her family was deeply involved in supporting African American rights and culture, it is alleged that Alice was listed as white on her birth certificate.
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The Woman Who Found the Cure for the Untreatable
In 2000, the University of Hawaii honored Alice by dedicating a plaque to her on the school's only Chalmugra tree. And in 2007, the University Board of Regents honored Alice with a Medal of Distinction, the school's highest honor.
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The Woman Who Found the Cure for the Untreatable
A park was named after her in Seattle, Washington. Her name was engraved onto the main building of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine alongside Florence Nightingale and Marie Curie, and a short film was created on her life.
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The Woman Who Found the Cure for the Untreatable
Though her life was tragically cut short at just 24, Alice's story lives on as a testament to brilliance, resilience, and the power of perseverance. Her groundbreaking scientific achievement, the Ball Method, not only revolutionized the treatment of leprosy, but also quietly changed the limitations society placed on women and people of color in her time.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Found the Cure for the Untreatable
Her story reminds us that some of the most profound contributions to history can come from those whose voices were almost lost, and it calls us to keep uncovering, honoring, and learning from them.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Found the Cure for the Untreatable
Yeah, that's such a good point and a valid one. And the way that we are. watching history be rewritten, not because we're discovering anything new. We're just paying attention to other voices that were silenced or overshadowed for a really long time. And that changes the narrative. That changes what we know and what we remember when we pay attention to people as a
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Found the Cure for the Untreatable
the people in power at the time and that is such an excellent example of that and one that everyone knows and can use as kind of like this this new lens of like okay well if that we were wrong about that what else what else is are we missing here
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Found the Cure for the Untreatable
And I think that through Watcher Cook, that's the approach we want to take because there are so many other stories out there, not necessarily about anything, quote unquote, new. It's just different perspectives.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Found the Cure for the Untreatable
Isn't there a show that's like, the tagline is, you think you know, but you have no idea? I think so, but I don't know. What is that? For some reason, I want to say that's like, I don't. The real world. Oh, God, I hope not.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Found the Cure for the Untreatable
Oh, you know what it is? What? It's Diary, the documentary series that MTV had in the, I think it was the early 2000s. And it would be little documentary series about a public figure that you think you know, but you have no idea. And the one I remember the most is Britney Spears. Oh, okay. I do vaguely remember this. Callback, big time.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Found the Cure for the Untreatable
If you're looking to dive a little deeper into Alice's story, we've included some sources for you in the description. Let us know what incredible women's stories you'd like to hear next.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Found the Cure for the Untreatable
The Reconstruction came to an end with the Compromise of 1877, a political deal that resolved the disputed 1876 presidential election. In exchange for Republican Rutherford B. Hayes becoming president, federal troops were withdrawn from the South.
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The Woman Who Found the Cure for the Untreatable
This allowed white Southern leaders to regain power, dismantle Reconstruction reforms, and enforce Jim Crow laws, ushering in an era of segregation and racial oppression.
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The Woman Who Found the Cure for the Untreatable
The new laws supported a system of white supremacy and reversed much of the progress the Reconstruction period had made. Though the amendments remained in place, white leaders found loopholes to segregate black Americans, adopting a separate-but-equal ideology.
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The Woman Who Found the Cure for the Untreatable
This meant that while Black Americans had access to public services such as schools, transportation, restaurants, and public restrooms, the options available to them were intentionally inferior.
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The Woman Who Found the Cure for the Untreatable
The laws also included provisions to disenfranchise Black men, meaning to deprive them of their right to vote, while racist groups like the Ku Klux Klan terrorized Black communities through violent acts, including public lynchings that were treated as spectacles.
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The Woman Who Found the Cure for the Untreatable
Circling back to how Alice's parents put white on her birth certificate, that just speaks volumes to the lengths they were trying to go to provide any sort of equal opportunity for their daughter. And it reminds me a lot of the episode you did on National Park After Dark a long time ago. So I apologize, I don't remember their exact names. But didn't you do an episode where
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Found the Cure for the Untreatable
a individual in the South pretended to be or tried to pass off as white to escape to the North.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Found the Cure for the Untreatable
Yeah, that one was a wild story and one that has stuck with me for a while. But it did remind me of this as being like, this is our only hope of trying to make it in this world is passing off as white and it's just it's so disheartening and it also like i said speaks so much to her parents willing to make that concession you know it's giving up part of her her identity you know
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Found the Cure for the Untreatable
Definitely. Definitely. I actually was just watching a TikTok video that has been making its rounds of just this woman walking through, and I don't remember the exact museum, but she was just walking through a memorial dedicated to Black Americans that were lynched and the reasons for their deaths. And they were all so heartbreakingly simple. Like,
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Found the Cure for the Untreatable
She would say their name, their age, and the reason they were lynched. So it would be like, I don't know, Joe Smith, age 13, publicly lynched for asking a white woman for a sip of water. And she just went on and on and on for, you know, like three minutes of just listing out all of these people who lost their lives during this time for something as simple as that.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Found the Cure for the Untreatable
I would definitely imagine if this ever came to light or they were ever prosecuted for this, there would be significant consequences to that.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Found the Cure for the Untreatable
Well, let's fast forward. Alice is now 10, and her family relocated from Seattle to Honolulu, hoping that the warmer weather would help ease her grandfather's arthritis. At this time, Black Americans made up only 0.2% of the population in Hawaii. While living there, Alice attended Central Grammar School, where she was described by her classmates as brilliant.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Found the Cure for the Untreatable
However, her grandfather passed away shortly after, and her family moved back to Seattle, where Alice attended high school.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Found the Cure for the Untreatable
Following her undergraduate studies, she was invited to pursue her master's degree at both the University of California and the College of Hawaii. Heading back to her childhood roots, Alice seized the opportunity to study in Hawaii with a focus on medicinal and organic chemistry.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Found the Cure for the Untreatable
I loved your introduction because you're such a garden girl.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Found the Cure for the Untreatable
She centered her thesis around kava, known locally as awa, a plant native to the Pacific Islands revered for its sedative and psychoactive properties. It was traditionally used in spiritual and medicinal rituals, but there was little scientific research around its potential therapeutic properties or potential toxicity.
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The Woman Who Found the Cure for the Untreatable
Alice graduated in 1915 as the first woman and the first African American woman to receive a master's degree at the College of Hawaii. She also became the college's first black female chemistry instructor. And before we move on, not to derail from Alice's story because she's wonderful, but... I learned something in this research, and it has to do with kava.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Found the Cure for the Untreatable
It has provided the missing puzzle piece to a personal story.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Found the Cure for the Untreatable
You know this story, and you're going to laugh.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Found the Cure for the Untreatable
But a few years before that, we took a trip to the Tampa area and we were about to go on a ghost tour, as one does. And before we did that, we were just walking around town and we went into this
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Found the Cure for the Untreatable
bar that we were drawn to because it had a very gothic look it looked spooky and cool and just that was your vibe it was my vibe it was very unique um it was in a really old part of town and we went upstairs to this bar and there was this whole separate menu that was not But it was... It had this really weird name. And we're like, oh, look at all these teas.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Found the Cure for the Untreatable
And they were serving them in a skull glass. Fun. Like, I got to get one. I don't even know what these things are. But I'm getting one. Like, sold. And the skull thing was... the size of an actual human skull. So it was huge. So we shared it and we went on our way 20 minutes later, went to the go store about 10 minutes into the tour.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Found the Cure for the Untreatable
We look at each other and we're like, are you feeling what I'm feeling? Because I'm feeling great. I am flying high. And turns out it was kava. And I totally understand now when it says it was used for its psychoactive and sedative properties. Because I experienced that first time and it was so great. It is a feeling I'll be chasing for the rest of my life.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Found the Cure for the Untreatable
A nod to Alice. Thank you, girl. I know it has nothing to do with... She's doing something else. She's doing something for humanity here. That is arguably for humanity.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Found the Cure for the Untreatable
oh my god happiness is important to humanity god that was such a good time now that i'm like actually thinking about it i would love to go back there and i i know we asked on national park after dark if any listeners knew of that bar because i described it more in detail and somebody wrote back to us and said yeah i know it because i i worked there oh wow small world yeah i know anyways interesting
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Found the Cure for the Untreatable
Back to Alice and her incredible accomplishment of becoming the first African-American woman to receive a master's degree at the College of Hawaii.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Found the Cure for the Untreatable
And she was invited back to do her master's at two different places. Which is also incredible. Yeah. I don't even think I got into two undergrad colleges. And I had to ask. No one asked me.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Found the Cure for the Untreatable
Yeah, I was like, can I please come there and I'll pay you everything, every penny I have.
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Hitting Pause For Memorial Day
Hey, Watcher Cook listeners. We wanted to let you know that we're taking a break this week in observance of Memorial Day, but we'll be back next week on Wednesday, June 4th, with a brand new episode. Make sure you're subscribed to hear more incredible stories from inspiring women, and we'll see you then.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Told The Truth About Sex
And I really enjoy the subject of female pleasure and standing up for and expressing and being transparent and having open conversations about what you desire, what you need, and vice versa from your partner and things like that.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Told The Truth About Sex
So some of the questions that were included in the survey that Cher put out included everything from, I think she kind of started off with some softballs, you know, warmed people up. How often do you have sex? How often do you have sex? Who are you having sex with? You know, is it a partner? Is it a spouse? What gender are they?
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Told The Truth About Sex
You know, just kind of she just really mounted up and started to get more in-depth. and maybe more into territory that people are kind of like, oh my gosh, I can't even believe that she's asking this. Everything up to how often do you masturbate? Or do you masturbate? How often do you masturbate? In which ways do you masturbate? And all the way up to like, is it clitoral? Is it intercourse?
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Told The Truth About Sex
Is it anal? Is it a combination? Are you by yourself? Do you have
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Told The Truth About Sex
outside help do you do it with a partner all the way up to like when you orgasm what does it feel like can you describe it have you ever had an orgasm what was the first time you had an orgasm at what age like do you talk about this with your partner how often do you orgasm with a partner just like so many different questions that really I think made a lot of women pause and
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Told The Truth About Sex
And evaluate because if it was the norm at the time to just when you're in a sexual relationship with a man that it's kind of like, I know how this is going to go. It's going to last about five minutes. He's going to do this, this and this to me. He's going to have a good time. I'm going to leave either uncomfortable or unsatisfied or it was a good time, but I probably didn't reach orgasm.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Told The Truth About Sex
And if that's just the way of things are and just the norm, I don't think you really question it much. And this was an opportunity for women to sit down and really take account of their own experiences and really look at their
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Told The Truth About Sex
Yeah, so we'll get into it. Let's introduce her because as you alluded to in the introduction, it is all about sex. Well, not all about sex, but mostly about sex. And what I love about, one of the things I love about Watcher Cook is the opportunity to have different discussions that We aren't able to have on National Park After Dark our other podcast.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Told The Truth About Sex
Especially now what we know about Hugh Hefner and that whole... But as soon as she publishes this work that has, you know, not direct criticism at men, and it was never meant to be that. It was simply telling women's experience with men, in part. I mean, it wasn't just about that. And if anything, helping men. Right? I would think you'd want to know this information.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Told The Truth About Sex
Like, a rising tide lifts all boats, you know what I mean? Like, let's... Yeah. This is benefiting everyone. Let's come together. Literally.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Told The Truth About Sex
Wow. Wow. I feel like I'm in the episode right there, but we won't. Okay. Her public persona, an unapologetic, liberal, fashion-forward woman with platinum blonde hair and bold red lipstick who had posed for Playboy, made her a target for criticism. The backlash largely stemmed from Cher's candid exploration of topics that had been long considered off-limits.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Told The Truth About Sex
She shared direct quotes from women across America about their genuine experiences and frustrations with their sexuality, covering topics like female masturbation, lesbian sex, and the pressure women felt to please their male partners. These intimate accounts painted a picture of the reality many women were living with but had been silenced by.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Told The Truth About Sex
Some examples from the report include, quote, masturbation is better than bad sex with an incompatible partner. I perform and boost his ego and confidence. I do not like to think of myself as a performer, but I feel judged and also judge myself when I don't have an orgasm. A male journalist writing for the Miami Herald argued, quote, That quote annoys me, so...
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Told The Truth About Sex
just because a woman expressed her experience I mean what what do you mean a woman is telling you her experience and you're saying it's not true well and it kind of just like goes to prove the point of that part of that second quote of feeling judged and that's why they're performing you know it's like they're obviously uncomfortable having conversations authentic transparent
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Told The Truth About Sex
conversations with their partners for fear of being judged and criticized and probably being called annoying.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Told The Truth About Sex
And it's crazy because, you know, we've been podcasting for over four years and there's going to be a lot of subjects that we're going to have conversations about that we've never...
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Told The Truth About Sex
Ultimately, the Haidt report brought light to the deeply misogynistic attitudes of the time. It posed a threat to the male-dominated narrative surrounding female sexuality, and it made clear that societal attitudes towards women's autonomy and sexual agency were changing.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Told The Truth About Sex
Well, I've been thinking about that and I thought about that a lot because it seems wild to be so... Like offended? Offended. Offended when this is something that if you better understood would make the experience better for you. Like you're going to gain here. Like you're... Why wouldn't you want to be with, you know, somebody who's comfortable with you?
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Told The Truth About Sex
It's just going to enhance your experience and... And so for me, you know, I was like, okay, what, like what, I'm trying to think of this from a different point of view because I'm having a really hard time.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Told The Truth About Sex
And then when we watched the documentary, I forget, I think it was in, so there was a segment in the documentary that showed some archival footage from a Oprah show and she had Cher on and the whole the whole theme of the show was actually, it was quite incredible. This is when she's getting backlash about the book and the report and everything that was coming out of it.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Told The Truth About Sex
had on in this way you know on a show and they're so worthy of having and people are going to get to know us in a different way and we haven't talked about sex like this before but i don't know if we've talked about sex really ever well get ready but we are not shying away today because today is all about women embracing their sexuality and being able to talk about sex openly without embarrassment or shame so we're here to talk about it all
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Told The Truth About Sex
So the show decided to have Cher on to talk about that, but the audience was all male. And they did that to kind of showcase like, okay, to ask her questions, give your opinion. Like, we want to understand from the male perspective what all this is about. Like, why are you so upset? And
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Told The Truth About Sex
It came out that somebody stood up and was like, well, if women are figuring out how to have pleasure and having orgasms and having these conversations and can orgasm through masturbation, what will be the point of us? Like, what?
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Told The Truth About Sex
Well, the other part of this is like, do you not masturbate? Right. That's never a question. It's like no one's saying, oh, if men can figure out how to masturbate, what do they need women for?
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Told The Truth About Sex
So that argument was kind of null and void to me almost immediately. And again, I've spent a lot of time since learning of Cher and this report was and what these findings were and this criticism that came from it.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Told The Truth About Sex
I'm trying really hard to understand the backlash for it and the male community in particular because I think it's also interesting that this book, it touches upon female sexuality as a whole and it never once shames men outwardly. It just says, hey, here's some room for improvement.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Told The Truth About Sex
an experience that you're enjoying agreed and one of the women who was being interviewed for the documentary put it so well she was like this wasn't sending digs at anyone in particular this was essentially saying hey, we've been doing this all wrong. Like we've been under the impression as a society that strictly intercourse is good enough for women and it's not.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Told The Truth About Sex
We found out that there's a thing called the clitoris and that's where the pleasure center lies and let's incorporate that more. And that's kind of being like, she was saying, it's as if we've been all under the impression for centuries that the male pleasure center
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Told The Truth About Sex
is in his balls and not his penis it's like yeah you'll rub up against every once in a while while you're you know doing something else but the focus is all wrong it's all backwards you know and it's like that would be absurd to men imagine if women were just going around just only touching your balls ignoring the penis nothing else
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Told The Truth About Sex
Cher continued to face intense scrutiny. Another source of controversy stemmed from Cher's research methods. While Kinsey gathered statistical data through structured interviews and Masters & Johnson conducted psychological studies by directly observing sexual activity in a controlled environment,
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Told The Truth About Sex
Haidt took a more qualitative approach, collecting thousands of open-ended responses from women about their personal experiences. As both of her reports relied heavily on self-reported data, critics argued that this kind of survey was unscientific and unreliable. Some also suggested that it reflected a biased sample.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Told The Truth About Sex
Cher Height was an author, sex educator, feminist, and self-proclaimed cultural historian whose work revolutionized how we understand female sexuality. In the 1970s, her book, The Height Report, shattered taboos by amplifying women's voices about their own pleasure and experiences.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Told The Truth About Sex
Since she used magazines and mailers in her book to distribute the questions, many of the respondents were likely highly educated or already involved in the feminist or sexual liberation movements.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Told The Truth About Sex
I think there's a few things to talk about here, especially going back to her other book about men. because she was so harshly criticized um about her first book the height report about female sexuality so like you said okay let's do it for men see what happens and i just think there's like there's some parallels here between
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Told The Truth About Sex
What women were revealing about their experiences and what men were frustrated by and their experiences. And while different, I think the biggest thing and biggest takeaway from the results is that there's not communication.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Told The Truth About Sex
And that kind of opens the door to the second part that I think we just should discuss at least a little bit because a lot of this criticism didn't come solely based off of what Cher was reporting, but how she collected.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Told The Truth About Sex
the information so if you had to choose between you know hard numbers having what did we say having sex in like a scientific vacuum which is crazy to me like do you think those numbers are really reflective of true experience probably not but Basically, what I'm asking is, do you think that between the hard numbers or personal stories, which do you think tells the truest story?
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Told The Truth About Sex
Despite facing intense backlash, she remained committed to challenging outdated narratives and advocating for sexual liberation. Her impact still shapes conversations about women's autonomy and desire today.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Told The Truth About Sex
Right. Especially because if we're looking at it in numbers wise or a black and white, yes, no, there's going to be so much. If I was filling out that a survey like that,
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Told The Truth About Sex
with just yes or no's it would be so many yes buts or no buts because there's so much more to tell than just a yes or no answer sex is so nuanced and so layered and there's so much gray area and room for you know there's just it's not black and white
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Told The Truth About Sex
and she understood that and that's why she formulated this survey in this particular way so she's an intelligent woman she knows that in order to get a truer sense of really what's going on here she needs to do something in a different way and that's what she did so i feel like
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Told The Truth About Sex
the way that she was criticized for the collection of her answers, and also when they were trying to mark her for, oh, they just go to privileged people and a certain demographic. In the documentary, it showed examples of the women who were writing in. There was somebody who was the only woman on an all-male scale shipping container at sea. She was the cook or something like that.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Told The Truth About Sex
This isn't a housewife in the suburbs. This is a woman who's spending months on the high seas as the only woman in a male-dominated field. That's not... the norm that people are trying to say, oh, she only collected answers from a certain type of demographic. Like that's clearly wrong and it shows in her results. So I think that's kind of null and void as well.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Told The Truth About Sex
And another last thing before we get back to her story. There's just so much to talk about with this.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Told The Truth About Sex
And, you know, this topic is so interesting because it's unfortunately still very relevant today. We're talking in the 60s, 70s right now, but, you know, the themes of it are still relevant, you know, however many decades later.
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The Woman Who Told The Truth About Sex
But, you know, there's this question of why people felt so threatened by her approach and the results and the findings and just everything essentially top to bottom about the height report and why that is, even though she's just simply trying to amplify real people's voices. You know, what's the harm in that? You know, what's the problem? And
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The Woman Who Told The Truth About Sex
I saw this quote from, of all people, Voltaire, that I thought was very fitting to answer this. And it says, quote, if you want to know who controls you, look at who you are not allowed to criticize. That's very telling. And I think it comes down to control. Once we're amplifying voices, we're recognizing, hmm, maybe let's try and gain some ownership and autonomy and
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The Woman Who Told The Truth About Sex
you know, stand up and speak out, all of a sudden the control is not what it used to be. And that's scary for a certain group of people. And I think that's really the root of the problem.
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The Woman Who Told The Truth About Sex
In 1985, Cher married German pianist Friedrich Herica, who she later moved to Germany with. By 1996, Cher had become a German citizen and renounced her U.S. citizenship. Over the years, Cher's conservative critics were determined to crush her free-spirited attitude.
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The Woman Who Told The Truth About Sex
In 1987, they seized the opportunity when Cher missed a live interview, skipped a taped one, and allegedly lashed out at her limo driver after he called her dear. On the TV show A Current Affair, Cher was ambushed as interviewer Maury Povich introduced his surprised guest. the limo driver.
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The Woman Who Told The Truth About Sex
They kept the cameras rolling until Cher lost her composure, torn down by the mockery they were making of her.
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The Woman Who Told The Truth About Sex
Over the course of her life, Cher released several publications that changed conventional narratives about sexuality, gender roles, and relationships.
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The Woman Who Told The Truth About Sex
Outside of the reports we covered, she continued to explore these themes in books like Women in Love, A Cultural Revolution in Progress, which examined women's emotional and sexual dissatisfaction in relationships, and The Height Report on the Family, which analyzed changing family dynamics. Through her work, Cher reshaped the conversation around intimacy, desire, and gender expectations.
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The Woman Who Told The Truth About Sex
We're still asking that question. She attended the University of Florida, where she earned both a bachelor's and a master's degree in history, before moving to New York in the late 1960s to pursue a Ph.D. in social history at Columbia University. Cher eventually dropped out, citing that the university was too conservative.
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The Woman Who Told The Truth About Sex
She passed away on September 9, 2020, at age 77, after complications with Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease.
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The Woman Who Told The Truth About Sex
Yeah, I think one of the most depressing things about it all is everyone was thinking it. She was just the one saying it for the first time in this way.
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The Woman Who Told The Truth About Sex
and she was absolutely destroyed for it and you know in the documentary it shows a lot of archival footage of her you know from the beginning when she first started compiling data to giving interviews and just going throughout the years you can see the toll you know and the the documentary did such a brilliant job of painting that picture of showing this like
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The Woman Who Told The Truth About Sex
young, bright, enthusiastic, intelligent person who's really passionate about this and is really eager to have discussions about it. And then just her having to repeat herself over and over and defend herself over and over and just kind of get worn down over time.
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The Woman Who Told The Truth About Sex
And that was just like the hardest thing to watch because there's only so much somebody can take, you know, and you really saw that translated. And she did what she could for as long as she could. And I think that I don't blame her at all for kind of throwing in the towel. I mean, she didn't totally. She still lived her life and lived by her values and spoke.
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The Woman Who Told The Truth About Sex
Yeah, so I don't know. I just, like, it was just hard to see that kind of play out in the film. But I think what was really poignant, I wrote down two or three things at the very end of that documentary that I think is relevant here, is... At the end, you know, we're hearing from a couple other people. And there is a woman named Clarence Edgar Rosa, who's the founder of the magazine Gaze.
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The Woman Who Told The Truth About Sex
And she said, speaking of her early career in journalism, that, quote, I quickly understood that the history of female sexuality was very much a story that repeated itself. It's a story of the successive erasure of knowledge. And then somebody else chimes in and says there is a disappearance of feminist knowledge. Systematically, century after century, decade after decade.
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The Woman Who Told The Truth About Sex
Described by her friend as ridiculously beautiful and someone whose slenderness and elegance belonged more on screen than real life, Cher took on modeling jobs to support herself. These gigs ranged from book illustrations to posing for Playboy.
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The Woman Who Told The Truth About Sex
And it's this cycle that's totally repeated. And then Cher kind of closes out by saying her voice is Dakota Johnson, which is just so fitting for this documentary. And she concludes... Male ownership of female sexuality is what makes patriarchy possible. As women, we deserve the right to own our own bodies.
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The Woman Who Told The Truth About Sex
I find it troublesome that younger women coming along will have to fight the same battles over and over again.
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The Woman Who Told The Truth About Sex
and you would think you know that like i'm dedicating my life i'm kind of like taking the brunt like i will sacrifice myself i will endure this if it means yep if it means that you know like other successive generations and however many thousands of women after me don't have to go through this and she was very cognizant of the fact that unfortunately that would not be the case
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The Woman Who Told The Truth About Sex
and that this is a discussion that's going to come in waves. And we're seeing that right now.
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The Woman Who Told The Truth About Sex
If you're looking to dive a little deeper into Cher Height's story, we've dropped some sources for you in the description. Let us know what incredible women's stories you'd like to hear next.
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The Woman Who Told The Truth About Sex
We're going to get into it more, but we both watched a documentary on Cher, her life and her work. And in the documentary, it featured this advertisement. Just seeing it on screen and seeing kind of the way that...
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The Woman Who Told The Truth About Sex
Not only the tagline was incorporated, but the way in which they really painted women to just be this like empty shell of a kind of robotic, you know, Stepford wife type of look and feel to them. And it was it was really it was really jarring to see that.
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The Woman Who Told The Truth About Sex
And also kind of to just circle back to her education and how she, after that, after obtaining all levels of education, all the way going up to almost PhD level, and then having to look for work in all of these different ways, including being, you know, being like an extra in a commercial, but doing just different side work and things like that.
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The Woman Who Told The Truth About Sex
And you usually don't equate people with high levels of education needing to be like, God, I can't find work.
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The Woman Who Told The Truth About Sex
You know, and that was the story for a lot of different women at the time. It's not just shares, but also, you know, posing for Playboy that comes back around as well as far as people not taking her seriously. Yeah. And her work seriously.
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The Woman Who Told The Truth About Sex
Well, we'll find out pretty soon that she didn't really have an interest in being a housewife, at least not at first. She had some other goals and other things that she wanted to put her focus on and her professional focus on. Before we explore more of Cher's story, it's important to provide some context to the views surrounding social issues of the time.
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The Woman Who Told The Truth About Sex
In 1963, feminist author and journalist Betty Friedan published The Feminine Mystique, a book that challenged the notion that women could only find fulfillment in traditional roles as wives and mothers. The book's popularity sparked the second wave of feminism, which lasted from 1963 to 1980.
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The Woman Who Told The Truth About Sex
Following the release of the Olivetti ad, Cher attended a march to protest against these harmful campaigns. While at the protest, she was invited to join the New York chapter of the National Organization for Women, also called NOW.
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The Woman Who Told The Truth About Sex
In 1974, she published her first book, Sexual Honesty, By Women, For Women, a collection of firsthand accounts from thousands of women of diverse backgrounds, ages, and sexual orientations. The book challenged societal taboos and conventional narratives about female sexuality, sparking widespread discussion.
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The Woman Who Told The Truth About Sex
This research laid the foundation for what would become Cher's most critically acclaimed work, The Height Report, a nationwide study of female sexuality, published in 1976.
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The Woman Who Told The Truth About Sex
And this all is, as we are going to discuss. groundbreaking yes you know for the time this information to be put out so publicly and in this way is was up until that time pretty unheard of and it really shocked the nation but i can't help but think of you know all of this stuff you're listing it off and i'm like okay yep heard that before i've had discussions about this before with my friends
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The Woman Who Told The Truth About Sex
It's bold. But this is definitely my favorite episode of the show that we have done so far. and likely will do for quite a while and i say that's a bold statement because every single woman that we include in our show is for a reason because they're incredible but i love this woman
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The Woman Who Told The Truth About Sex
Like these are things that are not groundbreaking to me. And that goes to show that these conversations have been had before openly in my world. And that's because of work, this initial seed that was planted and things that came from this. And we live in a time now, at least in our corner of the world and in our lives, where this is a conversation that is able to be had.
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The Woman Who Told The Truth About Sex
Yeah. Would you have filled out the survey, do you think? Because we both got a good idea of the types of questions and things like that on it in the documentary that was called, for everyone listening, it's called The Disappearance of Cher Height, if you're interested. But what do you think?
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The Woman Who Told The Truth About Sex
Well, it's almost impossible to say, you know, we weren't. women in the 60s but I would like to say yes I mean I remember in growing up you know in our teenage years when Cosmo and all these other magazines were kind of all the rage there were so many different quizzes in there and surveys and stuff like that everything from you know, like horoscope stuff to personality traits to sexual things.
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The Woman Who Told The Truth About Sex
That's such a throwback that you're bringing up. Cosmo polls and questionnaires.
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The Woman Who Told The Truth About Sex
But yeah, I loved it. I thought, I mean, I love anything that really, I mean, this survey is a little bit different because it doesn't reveal anything about you. Like here's this questionnaire, fill it out and there's results and we'll tell you something about you. It's not really like that, but I do, I enjoy filling things out like this.
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The Most Feared Pirate of the South China Sea
Though it's unclear how involved Cheng Yi Tsao was, it is clear that she was involved by how she quickly stepped up to assume leadership. She began by securing her authority, gaining the backing of her late husband's most influential commanders to prevent any rivals from challenging her.
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The Most Feared Pirate of the South China Sea
She next worked to reinforce her importance within the pirate alliance that she and Cheng Yi had built, ensuring that the fleets remained loyal to her.
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The Most Feared Pirate of the South China Sea
Well, she married her stepson? Yeah, essentially. Okay, queen. They're not blood related, so... So anyway, she marries her adopted son, and then she becomes the leader of this massive pirate organization. And under her leadership, the Pirate Confederation became even more organized as she implemented a rigid but effective code of laws.
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The Most Feared Pirate of the South China Sea
According to surviving records, some of these include, and I have them quoted because I think that these are really important to mention, quote, If any man goes privately on shore, he shall be taken and his ears be perforated in the presence of the whole fleet. Repeating the same act, he shall suffer death.
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The Most Feared Pirate of the South China Sea
Yeah, every night. Yeah, it is true. Every night we sit down and we have dinner together at our dining table. And while we eat dinner, so we're not like on our phones or distracted or anything like that, we play a game of chess. So we like eat dinner and play chess. And I always lose. Always? Almost every time. I've won one time in the past six years we've been playing.
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The Most Feared Pirate of the South China Sea
It's like a slap on the wrist and then death.
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The Most Feared Pirate of the South China Sea
But it's like first we're piercing your ears and then death.
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The Most Feared Pirate of the South China Sea
Well, the next one said, quote, not the least thing shall be taken privately from the stolen and plundered goods. All shall be registered and the pirate received for himself out of 10 parts, only two. Eight parts belong to the storehouse called the general fund. Taking anything out of this general fund without permission shall be death. So you can't steal from them.
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The Most Feared Pirate of the South China Sea
I mean, this is a time people are living in poverty too. So 20% and not death sounds pretty good to me. I would take it.
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The Most Feared Pirate of the South China Sea
And then this last one was my favorite of her loss. No person shall debauch at his pleasure captive women taken in the villages and open spaces and brought on board a ship. He must first request the ship's pursuer for permission and then go aside in the ship's hold to use violence against any woman or to wed her without permission shall be punished with death.
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The Most Feared Pirate of the South China Sea
Yeah, she's a woman leader and she says, nope, no violence towards women. Absolutely not. Or death. No violence under any circumstance unless it's against men.
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The Most Feared Pirate of the South China Sea
And their methods of punishment were severe, including flogging, dismemberment, shackling limbs in heavy irons before throwing them overboard and decapitation.
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The Most Feared Pirate of the South China Sea
Yeah, I agree. I already don't love water that much. And unless I'm some kind of Houdini, I'm good with the shackles and the water. However, with all of this stuff, all of these rules and laws that she had in place, this system was well-respected. It maintained order, and because of the fair incentives allowing them to keep a portion of the loot, it created a sense of unity and loyalty.
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The Most Feared Pirate of the South China Sea
Especially as a woman, you know, to come in and be a woman leader after your husband has died, you know, to make sure that people respect you. And it seems like fear you a little bit. You have to put in some pretty serious punishment that will make people comply. Yeah.
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The Most Feared Pirate of the South China Sea
I think that's a really good point. Yeah. And I think that that's a great point is that she was in this industry of sex work and she probably saw some pretty horrific things in her time there. And it's like, OK, now I'm in power and that's not going to be happening on my watch.
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The Most Feared Pirate of the South China Sea
Um, no, no. The last game I played with him, I did fantastic. I didn't strategize or anything. I kind of strategized, but I brought my queen on the other side of the board and I took almost all of his pieces out.
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The Most Feared Pirate of the South China Sea
Yeah. And to threaten and punish death for defying her. I mean, it's very big. You know, she means business. Between 1807 and 1809, Cheng Yi Tsao and Zheng Bao's confederation ran like a well-oiled business venture. In Guangdong, they took control of the salt trade by hijacking salt junks. Eventually, merchants agreed to pay the pirates a portion of their profits in exchange for safe passage.
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The Most Feared Pirate of the South China Sea
This business model was soon applied to silk, rice, and other commodities, with reports suggesting that merchants paid anywhere from 50 to 500 Spanish dollars per trip for protection. They established headquarters and financial offices along the sea to collect these payments.
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The Most Feared Pirate of the South China Sea
They also sent agents to Macao, which was a trade port located on the southern coast of China, to sell merchants, quote, safe passage documents. These were certificates that guaranteed protection from the Confederation's raid if purchased.
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The Most Feared Pirate of the South China Sea
I think that all of this is really fascinating, and I think that their relationship with merchants is really interesting, where they're supplying safe passage. Do you think that this was more of like a cooperative relationship that the two had, or do you feel like they were more taking advantage of people in those situations?
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The Most Feared Pirate of the South China Sea
Yeah. And I'm sure at this point, she has this reputation where obviously they're violent and there's thousands of them. And to be like, hey, I'll give you safe passage just by this document.
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The Most Feared Pirate of the South China Sea
it was great it was the best game i've ever played worst one he's ever played and i just i did really well um but i have i struggle to choose moves ahead of time or i get you know what my problem is actually in chess is i get really excited about these good moves that i have that i don't pay attention to what like in mind for the future yes
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The Most Feared Pirate of the South China Sea
You know, it's kind of like it's setting the tone of I'm in charge, but I will like work with you.
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The Most Feared Pirate of the South China Sea
So there is like you're either working with us or you're against us or you're dead. So is that a passage document? It's just business, baby. Nothing personal. Well, for the Qing government, their fears exceeded far beyond vessel attacks. Cheng Yi Sao was running an alternative economy complete with its own laws, taxes, diplomatic channels, and organized hierarchy.
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The Most Feared Pirate of the South China Sea
This was humiliating for Chinese and European powers who could not maintain control over trade. It is rumored that the Qing Navy sabotaged their own ships to avoid going out to sea and risking an encounter with her. Things are getting serious. When the military is afraid of you... You know you've won. You've made it.
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The Most Feared Pirate of the South China Sea
When the military fears me, that's when I'll know.
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The Most Feared Pirate of the South China Sea
This sparked the Battle of Tangcheng Bay in 1809, where the Qing and Portuguese naval forces set out to defeat the Confederation once and for all. On the day of the attack, Cheng Yi Cao had anchored her boat at Tangcheng Bay for repairs. When she saw the Portuguese ship approach, she called for support from Cheng Bao and the Red Flag Fleet.
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The Most Feared Pirate of the South China Sea
However, the Portuguese continued to send their boats, eventually blockading the pirates.
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The Most Feared Pirate of the South China Sea
But behind the scenes, tensions within the Pirate Confederation were mounting. Some fleet commanders disagreed over strategy, others broke rank, and loyalty began to fracture. Cheng Yi Cao realized that a continued fight could be the end for everything she had built, so she took the unprecedented step of initiating surrender, but not without conditions.
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The Most Feared Pirate of the South China Sea
In February 1810, the Red Flag Fleet anchored in Guangdong to negotiate with officials. The governor-general demanded that Xi and Zhang Bao disband their fleet and settle on land, which Zhang Yisao rejected. On top of amnesty without punishments for her and her confederation, Xi reportedly insisted they retain 80 ships and command over 5,000 pirates.
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The Most Feared Pirate of the South China Sea
Despite disagreements among her commanders, she pressed on with negotiations, strengthening her offer by requesting additional junks for Zheng Bao's personal fleet after surrender. Lacking leverage, Qing officials eventually accepted her terms, and the deal was finalized in April 1810.
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The Most Feared Pirate of the South China Sea
In the future, I'm like, I'm going to move it here and then here and then I'm going to move this one here and checkmate. And then I forget to focus on what he's doing and what his moves can make. And I've lost queens that way. I've lost like my entire plan has been totally spoiled because of that, where he sits there for a really long time, like too long. Sometimes I'm like, can you please move?
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The Most Feared Pirate of the South China Sea
I love that she gets kind of away with the whole pirate thing and then she just opens a gambling ring.
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The Most Feared Pirate of the South China Sea
Yeah. She's commanding 60,000 pirates who have done who knows what to who knows who for many years. And they're like, okay, we don't really have... This is a fight for our lives too. The government is really at their wit's end with her. It kind of feels like they don't have much of a place to turn. And they're like, sure. Just like... Please stop.
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The Most Feared Pirate of the South China Sea
Which I would be super curious to know how that one went because starting a gambling house, I mean, you know there was some weird stuff going on there and a lot of money to be made. So I'm sure she made out just fine.
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The Most Feared Pirate of the South China Sea
Yeah. From humble beginnings to commanding one of the largest pirate fleets in history, Cheng Yi Cao's story is nothing short of amazing. She outwitted a dynasty not with brute force alone, but with strategy and diplomacy. By the end of her career, she walked away on her own terms with wealth, power, and protection.
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The Most Feared Pirate of the South China Sea
Her legacy lives on as a rare example of a woman who not only survived in a male-dominated world, but bent it to her own will. Thanks for tuning in to Watch Her Cook.
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The Most Feared Pirate of the South China Sea
And a big shout out to Sick Bird Productions, who produces our podcast and helps bring these stories to life. Don't forget to follow us on Instagram at Watch Her Cook Podcast. Leave a review and subscribe for more inspiring stories. Just a reminder, empowered women empower the world. Now let's go cook. See you next Wednesday.
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The Most Feared Pirate of the South China Sea
because he thinks out his move for a really long time and then it's worked in his favor because he's won until this last time that we played where I I mean he lost so badly it was like I've been losing for so long but all of it came together in one game where I just absolutely crushed him and it felt really nice finally well maybe quit while you're while you're ahead
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The Most Feared Pirate of the South China Sea
It's certainly... I think it is related to this episode, though, because it's definitely a game where it's really strategic. You have to figure out your moves. You have to pick your players. Not players, but... Your pieces, each one has a different role and you have to use it in a certain way to get the game to go your way. And I think that it takes a lot of strategy to win in chess.
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The Most Feared Pirate of the South China Sea
And I think that when we go into our story about our woman today, there is a lot of strategy behind the things that she does.
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The Most Feared Pirate of the South China Sea
I love that we're talking about her because whenever I think of a pirate, the first thing that comes to mind is like Captain Hook. You know, like it's always a guy with a patch missing an arm and he's the leader of a ship. That's what I mean, his hand. He's got the hook, Captain Hook. And, you know, like there's this vision that you have of a pirate. And now we're switching.
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The Most Feared Pirate of the South China Sea
Like we're totally flipping that narrative on its head because we're talking about a woman. And it's just, it's fun. I like it. I'm into it. Cheng Yi Sao was born as Shi Yang in 1775 in the coastal city of Guangdong, China. Before we go any further, I think it is important to acknowledge that her name has been recorded in many different ways throughout history, including Shi Yang and Cheng Yi.
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The Most Feared Pirate of the South China Sea
And today's episode will primarily refer to her as Cheng Yi Sao, which is the name that she is most commonly associated with. While little is known about her upbringing, we do know that she was born during the reign of the Qing Dynasty, which refers to a line of rulers from the same family who govern an empire and pass the power down through generations.
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The Most Feared Pirate of the South China Sea
The Qing Dynasty was established by the Manchu, an ethnic group of northeast China who overthrew the Ming Dynasty, previously ruled by the Han people in 1644. Although the Manchu were a minority, They retained control by blending their own customs with the Confucian ideals.
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The Most Feared Pirate of the South China Sea
These ideals, based on the teachings of the philosopher Confucius, emphasized hierarchy, moral behavior, and social order, and shaped nearly every aspect of Chinese society.
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The Most Feared Pirate of the South China Sea
Foot binding was a painful practice where a girl's toes were broken and their feet were tightly bound into a smaller shape, and it was still common among the upper-class Han women, seen as a symbol of beauty and status. However, obviously, it severely limited mobility and meant that wealthy women were not expected to work.
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The Most Feared Pirate of the South China Sea
For women from poorer backgrounds, survival often meant doing whatever jobs were available, which was often sex work. This is where the story of Cheng Yi Cao, who still went by the name Shi Young, at the time began.
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The Most Feared Pirate of the South China Sea
She worked as a sex worker on a floating brothel, commonly referred as a flower boat, where it is believed that she had a reputation as a savvy businesswoman, often involving herself in conversations with the wealthy men who visited.
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The Most Feared Pirate of the South China Sea
She's like, I might be in this role, but I'm still a businesswoman at heart.
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The Most Feared Pirate of the South China Sea
I like to think that it was a negotiation.
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The Most Feared Pirate of the South China Sea
Yeah. If she's a savvy businesswoman, she meets this guy who's a leader of a large pirate ship. And, you know, she sees the opportunity here to get out of her work. I imagine it was some type of negotiation.
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The Most Feared Pirate of the South China Sea
It's never you. Yeah. And your, your worth is surrounded by the importance of men and you are only important if you can give birth to a son if you give birth to a girl that's that's not the same you know it's just i think it's sad and i know it's a it was a cultural thing and but it just i don't i don't like it
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The Most Feared Pirate of the South China Sea
I watched the remake actually kind of recently. Really? Did you like it? Yeah, I did. I haven't seen the original Mulan since I was a kid, though. But I thought that they did a really good job of portraying the story.
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The Most Feared Pirate of the South China Sea
Well, going back into the Qing Dynasty, the Qing Dynasty marked the height of piracy in the South China Sea. While piracy had existed in the region for centuries, its rise can be traced back to the policies of the Ming Dynasty. In an attempt to preserve political control and protect against foreign threats, the Ming introduced the Haijin, which translates to the sea ban.
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The Most Feared Pirate of the South China Sea
This was a policy that made all private overseas trade illegal and less approved by the imperial court. The goal was to limit foreign influence and centralize trade under state authority. But in reality, it devastated coastal economies. With legal trade routes cut off, many communities turned to smuggling and part-time piracy simply to make ends meet.
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The Most Feared Pirate of the South China Sea
We call them part-time pirates because many of the men had typical jobs, like fishermen, by day and became pirates at night. The sea ban was later lifted, but its impact persisted.
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The Most Feared Pirate of the South China Sea
Although the number of pirates grew, they lacked the structure and order that would have been needed to make a big impact. This came into play after the outbreak of the Taishan Rebellion in Vietnam, which was a civil war between rival Vietnamese factions vying for control of the region.
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The Most Feared Pirate of the South China Sea
Pirates and mercenaries, which are soldiers who are hired from foreign nations, were recruited from southern China by all sides, gaining weapons, combat experience, and powerful networks in the process. When the war ended, these hardened pirate crews returned to the South China Sea with organized power and ambition.
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The Most Feared Pirate of the South China Sea
I don't know about you, but I was so shocked to learn the 40,000 to 60,000 pirates.
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The Most Feared Pirate of the South China Sea
Right. It's not like you just said. It's not just this criminal gang. It's more of this empire that's being built. And now you have the actual government that's like, hey, wait a second. Hey, can you not do that? That's... It's like, excuse me, we put a ban on this.
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The Most Feared Pirate of the South China Sea
It's like in the morning, I make pastries.
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The Most Feared Pirate of the South China Sea
I fly into the night under a flag and get my gold and loot. It is really, it's an interesting time. I think that this whole era is very interesting. So in 1807, tragedy struck when Cheng Yi died under unknown circumstances. Some accounts suggest he may have fallen overboard, been caught in a typhoon, or struck by cannon fire.
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The Woman Who Spoke To Animals
A chimpanzee will hold out a hand to comfort a grieving friend. It will share food, forge alliances, wage wars, and even laugh when it's surprised. We share 98% of our DNA with chimpanzees. Genetically, we are almost identical. And yet, we tell ourselves we are civilized, superior, and removed from the wild. But are we? Like chimpanzees, we form tight-knit communities.
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The Woman Who Spoke To Animals
Yeah. Hmm. We'll just leave that there and let you ruminate on that. Mic drop. One of Simona's most notable studies focused on the European bison, a species deeply tied to the history of the Bialowieza forest. Once abundant across the continent, the bison faced near extinction in the early 20th century due to hunting and habitat loss.
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The Woman Who Spoke To Animals
While reintroduction efforts had begun before her time, Simona's research provided valuable insights into the species' needs and behaviors, which remained largely understudied. Her work contributed to ongoing conservation efforts to support their thriving population in the Bialowieza Forest and other regions of Europe.
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The Woman Who Spoke To Animals
Yeah. And we were inspired to do Simona's story from of all things, a viral Facebook post. And hopefully as we describe her and get into her story, you'll know exactly the photo that we're speaking about. So like Cassie just alluded to, today we are exploring the incredible story of Simona Kosak, an inspiring figure in environmental activism and ecology.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Spoke To Animals
No, and I'm not one for fairy tales usually, but I can get on board with this. She also had a crow who she named Korosek, though the villagers had a slightly different name for him, the terrorist crow. Oh no. He gained notoriety for stealing gold, attacking bicyclists, and even taking wallets and money from forest workers.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Spoke To Animals
Many of Simona's friends have stories of Korosek, and one of them being, quote, Once I was walking around the reserve without a permit, and the guard saw me. He followed me to Di Zinza and started to fill out a penalty. When he was handing me the print, the crow appeared. He took the paper in his beak, flew onto the roof of Di Zinza with it, and tore it up with his leg on top of that roof.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Spoke To Animals
I had such a laughing attack that I couldn't control myself. The guard didn't know what to do, and finally, he just shrugged his shoulders at the whole thing. When I told this story to Simona, I thought she would die of laughter.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Spoke To Animals
I know. Yeah. She's definitely living life on her own terms. That's for sure. Yes.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Spoke To Animals
She was proud of the world that she built, where the animals weren't just her companions, they were her family. And that feeling seemed to go both ways. She recalled a profound experience when the herd of deer she cared for barked at her, warning her from an unseen prowling lynx. Her takeaway was, quote, I will honestly admit this day was a breakthrough.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Spoke To Animals
I crossed the border that divides the human world from that of the animals. I relived this event for many days. And in fact, today, when I think about it, there is a sense of warmth around my heart. It proves how one can befriend the world of wild animals.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Spoke To Animals
And it was in moments like these that highlighted the unique relationships Simona had forged with the wildlife she loved, studied, and strove to protect.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Spoke To Animals
I'm not trying to be silent. I'm just trying to look at you with knowing eyes because I know you know the answer to that.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Spoke To Animals
Thank you. I just wanted to see if you recognized that. Of course I do. Minus the motorcycle. That's all you. But yeah, this whole like surrounded by animals and wildlife and nature. I mean, of course, you're a nature and animal lover as well. It's that's not a question. It's just more of that.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Spoke To Animals
Without question. Yeah, for sure. But I do want to say I think this is a good time to make note. We're really romanticizing this. And it is romantic in its own way. And it's obviously noteworthy. And it's true. It happened. We know this probably isn't the best way to study wild animals and the whole habituation that goes with this. But we're just telling you we know.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Spoke To Animals
She was a scientist, biologist, professor of forest sciences, ecologist, and a writer. Often called an animal psychologist, she had a rare ability to understand and form deep connections with wild animals. She spent over 30 years living in the Biało-Wiesia forest, where she dedicated much of her life to advocating for the protection of the forest, which is Europe's oldest.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Spoke To Animals
Yeah. We're just trying to lay the foundation here. But in doing so, recognize that we shame a lot of this behavior now with like. Oh, a national park. Right. Like we don't want to be hypocrites. We're just saying we're just trying to tell you what happened. That's all.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Spoke To Animals
And saying it would be cool to live if it was okay. Yeah. Shortly after moving into Deeds Insta, Simona met Leck Wilczek. Leck was a photographer and a nature documentarian who moved into the other half of the lodge. Simona wasn't thrilled when Leck moved in and was wary of him at first, stating she'd had bad experiences with other people or, quote, other two-legged mammals.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Spoke To Animals
It's like, if you're asking to date, the answer is yes. This is the photo that I was referring to in the beginning of the episode. And there's a ton of photos of Simona, but the one that has been making its rounds online is... of this full-grown adult boar in a bed with Simona on the floor next to it.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Spoke To Animals
And it was so cool during the research to learn about Lek because through every photo of her I've ever seen, I've never once seen him. So I was like, oh, there was a guy involved?
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Spoke To Animals
Yeah, for sure. And it wasn't just their bond with each other that grew, but also their collection of animals. They went on to include everything we've described, plus owls, deer, and even a donkey. Leck admired Simona's dedication to preserving the natural world, and Simona respected his ability to capture nature's beauty through his photography.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Spoke To Animals
But their relationship over the years was tumultuous. It was alleged that Leck was unfaithful, and that they faced a hurdle after Leck accidentally dropped a bundle of firewood on top of Simona's lynx, Agatha, killing her. Simona, who often referred to Agatha as her daughter, was absolutely devastated and grieved for months.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Spoke To Animals
They may not have had the most traditional relationship, but their dynamic benefited them both and the love that they shared remained constant. Fleck's presence, his love, and even his stubbornness had a big influence on her.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Spoke To Animals
Well, yeah, of course. And especially if there's already some other things that are going on that are making other aspects of your relationship unstable. you know, this is kind of just adding fuel to the fire so I can see how, I mean, that's a traumatic event. I mean, that's a tragic standalone event, let alone, it just being compiled onto other preexisting things that are going on.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Spoke To Animals
Simona regularly contributed articles in major publications, using her voice to rally support for the cause. Beyond writing, she created her own films and capturing both the breathtaking beauty of the forest and the vulnerability of its endangered species.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Spoke To Animals
Her influence also extended to the radio, where she became a guest on well-known talk shows, sparking meaningful conversations and inspiring others to take action. One of the biggest battles she fought was against the logging and industrial exploitation of the forest. She clashed with loggers, politicians, and hunters who were decimating populations with little to no regulations in place.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Spoke To Animals
While we mentioned she had gone up against the big timber industry, she also conflicted with colleagues in instances where she felt research was being conducted improperly. In 1993, she fiercely opposed methods used by researchers from the Polish Academy of Sciences to capture endangered wolves and lynx for study, and stood firmly against methods in which Simona found unethical.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Spoke To Animals
In order to capture the animals to fit with radio collars which collect important scientific data, they utilized steel leg-hold traps, a cruel and barbaric method which not only caused harm to the animals, but was illegal in Poland.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Spoke To Animals
I really enjoy this part of Simona's story, particularly because I have some experience with steel leghold traps in my work. with wolf conservation at the conservation center that I worked at in Colorado called the Colorado Wolf and Wildlife Center.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Spoke To Animals
Back when I did tours of the facility and the animals, we always started out before, you know, everyone was always really anxious to go out and see the animals that were on the property that were rescued from various things, mostly fur farms and private ownership. and photo farms and things like that.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Spoke To Animals
But regardless, before, you know, people, we let everyone out there and got to, you know, the quote unquote, good stuff. We always started out with what was really important, especially while we had people's attention and eagerness. And that was what was going on in the world of wolf conservation at the time and kind of gave a brief history of wolves in America, particularly. And
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Spoke To Animals
What was going on with them and their protections? Because it changes a lot, both federally and at the state level. And to illustrate some of the methods in which wolves are hunted. In certain places, we had examples, either videos or physical items, and one of the physical items was a steel leghold trap that was donated from a previous hunter. And you can read about it all you want.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Spoke To Animals
and kind of get an idea of what they're all about. But to see it in action, to hold the weight of it, to see how the mechanism works, we would lay it out and open it and have a large branch or a stick to trigger it so people could see what happens to an animal's legs, snout, whatever that gets trapped in there.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Spoke To Animals
it it's like a very it's an important visual to have you know to to to really show what these how violent and then also you know you can see pictures and video of animals literally gnawing their own limbs off to get out of um these traps and Or dying in them. And then, of course, you know, a lot of them are used off trail and in places where people recreate with their dogs. Right.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Spoke To Animals
So then... Dogs are caught in them all the time. And people are like, I can't even get this off my animal. Like, you know, it's... Anyway. So to read about Simona... So it's awful.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Spoke To Animals
group that is supposed to be advocating for these animals is putting those out as a means to catch them right and it's putting the population in significant danger and so anyways just seeing how simona really stepped up and spoke out against them but also against her colleagues for their use i mean that's like double layers of respect there
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Spoke To Animals
But back to the legal proceedings, they didn't result in a conviction as Simona was acting out of concern for wildlife protection. And just as a side note, she never did return the traps.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Spoke To Animals
The second I read that in the research, you know who I thought of? Who? The boss baby. Not the boss baby, like the movie, but... That might have been confusing. But the boss, comma, baby. So... For those of you who are unfamiliar with the boss, he is a grizzly bear that resides in Banff National Park up in Canada.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Spoke To Animals
And we covered his story actually on National Park After Dark after we went to visit Canada and were introduced to him and his legacy there. He has made a name for himself for a lot of reasons, but essentially he's known to be like the biggest, baddest, toughest bear up
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Spoke To Animals
in Banff National Park he's fathered a lot of the grizzlies up there he's fought a lot but in relation to this and the UOZ1 repeller is he's been struck by a train on two separate occasions in Banff National Park and has lived to tell the tale yeah which if you get hit by a train not once but twice you earn the nickname the boss yeah for sure wear that with pride
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Spoke To Animals
One could only hope. I haven't heard much about this, actually.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Spoke To Animals
This was also due to the fact that her childhood was during a time of immense political and social upheaval. Poland was devastated by the war. After it ended, the country went under Soviet influence, forcing Poland to adopt a communist government. The communist regime aimed to eliminate any form of dissent or opposition.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Spoke To Animals
Leck continued to live in the lodge following Simona's death. He wrote a book titled Meeting with Simona Kosak, which reflects on her life, work, and legacy, helping others understand her contribution to environmentalism and wildlife conservation. Luck passed away in 2018, but their shared vision lives on through his writing and their ongoing conservation work.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Spoke To Animals
Both the public and scientific community strongly opposed the decision and over 140,000 people signed a petition urging the reinstatement of protections. It wasn't until 2018 that a European Court of Justice ruled the logging illegal and also threatened to fine Poland 100,000 euros per day if the logging activity was to continue, which ultimately stopped the activity.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Spoke To Animals
However, not shortly thereafter, environmental groups found themselves standing up against yet another commercial logging company, who once again gained access to the forest. That fight continues today, and it just goes to show that the world is always in need of more Simonas.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Spoke To Animals
In such a unconventional way for the times, you know, I'm really proud to know that that has shifted a little bit. You know, I think that a lot of us don't really blink an eye when someone says they're going to go off and do something completely different, like our generation, especially, I think. is probably the start of that. You know, like, okay, go off, do your thing.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Spoke To Animals
Like, just more supportive and understanding of a different choice and a different path. Especially for women. Especially for women. And I do recognize, though, that that wasn't always the case. And that's really what we need to keep in mind when reflecting back on Simona's story. Because, yeah, she did so much and there's so much to recognize and applaud her for.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Spoke To Animals
This meant that political opponents, like intellectuals, activists, and even artists, were often silenced or oppressed, and environmental activism and scientific pursuits didn't always align with the priorities of the state.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Spoke To Animals
But it all begins with making a difficult choice of going against the grain. And that translated into standing firm and standing up and speaking out. And that just is really, you know, Simone is all about that. And we're all about that. And that's why we wanted to include her in our show.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Spoke To Animals
If you're looking to dive a little deeper into Simona's story, we've dropped some sources for you in the description. Let us know what incredible women's stories you'd like to hear next.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Spoke To Animals
driven by love, power, and survival. We play, we grieve, we teach our young. We communicate not just with words, but with gestures and expressions embedded deep in our biology. If we strip away the concrete buildings, the screens, and the rules that we've built, what mutually remains is our instinct and our connection to nature.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Spoke To Animals
After completing her studies, Simona secured a position at the Mammal Research Institute in Biało-Vieja Forest. This ancient forest is one of the last primeval woodlands in all of Europe, meaning it has been largely untouched by human exploitation or deforestation. Say that word three times fast.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Spoke To Animals
Biało-Vieja. I've said this word, as have you, about 100. I hear it in my sleep.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Spoke To Animals
After some renovations, Simona plastered the walls with wallpaper and furnished her room with both practical and sentimental items from home. This included books, oil lamps, and an iron, but also things like ebony jewelry chests, glassware, and an oak bed she inherited from her family. She also hung a shotgun from the Kosak family collection right by her door for safety.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Spoke To Animals
All right, we have some things to talk about before we go on, because there's some points I want to hit here. First, What came out of your mouth is like, I see you and Simona here. Or Simona and you, I guess I should say.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Spoke To Animals
Or slowly making your way through and having your bike fall on top of you.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Spoke To Animals
Well, the other thing is we've talked a lot about Simona's upbringing and kind of this break off of traditional roots that maybe her family were expecting her to follow and in regards to art and the artistic way of life and career. And I was just thinking back to kind of like myself a little bit too, and how that has translated in my life and how I can relate to that.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Spoke To Animals
Many of us live in a society that sees the world as a place to conquer, when really, it's a place we need to understand and protect. Because in reality, the animals, forests, insects, and all that exists in the great outdoors is not beneath us, it is part of us. And it was one determined woman's mission to prove it. This is Watch Her Cook.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Spoke To Animals
Not that my family had this expectation of what I was supposed to do. I didn't come from a long line of...
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Spoke To Animals
anything you know everyone's done their own thing but there was this kind of like you know simona is the first in her family to do something different and i think a lot of people can relate to that um especially nowadays with different choices of careers and just different opportunities that never existed before and for me that came in the form of deciding to move away from all my friends and family and my bubble in new england right after college
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Spoke To Animals
in pursuing a career path that not only was different from anything that anyone in my family had ever done, but also one that wasn't monetarily secure.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Spoke To Animals
What's happening here? Yeah. So just like a short little story. I know we have a lot of listeners from National Park After Dark. Hey, hi, hello. But for those who are new, after college, I went to school for biology, and environmental science. I graduated and worked as a veterinary technician for about a year before deciding to pursue what I had wanted to do, which was wildlife conservation.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Spoke To Animals
And that came in the form of moving from New Hampshire to Colorado to pursue an internship in wolf conservation. And at first, my family was like, oh God, like why? At first, first, I wanted to do big cat conservation and did some working internships with big cats and tigers and lions. And my mom was supportive, but I could tell she was like, God, why?
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Spoke To Animals
Yes. And then when she realized that it wasn't, she was still supportive. But I think everyone's kind of holding their breath of kind of like what you just said. Is this a phase? What's going on? Whatever. So I go out to Colorado. A three month internship turns into a permanent position. And I decided to plant roots in Colorado and really pursue this long term, which was great for me.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Spoke To Animals
When you were talking about how Simona said, wow, I'm seeing this place for the first time and I just have this feeling like I've made it. This is it. I had a similar feeling to getting into the groove of Colorado. That's where I felt at home. And I get this, you know, so I'm like, make this announcement to my family. Great. I'm staying here.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Spoke To Animals
And they were super supportive, my kind of like close-knit nuclear family, which is just my mom, my stepdad, and my sister. And then I get this letter in the mail from my grandmother, my mom's mom. Wow. And we never had like a turbulent relationship. Everything was good.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Spoke To Animals
We weren't super close, but there was never anything that was like a point of contention to my knowledge until I get this letter. And in it, you know, I thought maybe it was just more of like a not like a housewarming thing, but a congratulations on this new chapter type of thing.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Spoke To Animals
So I opened this letter and my grandmother had basically in not so many words said, you know, if this is the path you're choosing yourself, leaving your family behind. thousands and miles away, choosing a career that has a lot of uncertainty and not a lot of financial promise, then so be it.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Spoke To Animals
Yeah, it's like you could have kept that opinion to yourself. You didn't have to pen me a letter and send it across the country.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Spoke To Animals
Yeah. And we had never really, she knew that this letter would be kind of like out of left field. Like I would take notice. It's not like we had exchanged letters frequently and this was just something that was our normal thing.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Spoke To Animals
type of communication style i don't know it was just and since then things have been fine i love my grandmother she's supportive of me it's just for her it was just such a diversion from what she thought her grandchildren especially a a female grandchild would do it was just like it was hard for her to comprehend.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Spoke To Animals
And it made me feel a little bit of like the black sheep of the family, which is something that I have 100% embraced in years following.
Watch Her Cook
The Fearless Trio of WWII
Hello, everyone. I'm Cassie. And I'm Danielle. You may know us from National Park After Dark, a podcast that explores the true crime tales of the outdoors, which, don't worry, is not going anywhere.
Watch Her Cook
The Fearless Trio of WWII
snowballed into something much larger than that and I just have to say also when you heard the gasp I gasped when you started talking about how she was tested and she decided to pull the trigger her first liquidation and it ends up being one the gun doesn't go off your first the first thing in your head must be like oh my god what is going on I just really messed up and then you turn around and you meet
Watch Her Cook
The Girl Who Stood Up To The Taliban
This blog garnered international attention. People around the world were able to witness the struggles of daily life in SWAT from someone who was experiencing it in real time. It was a dangerous move, but it marked the beginning of Malala's journey as an outspoken advocate for girls' education globally.
Watch Her Cook
The Girl Who Stood Up To The Taliban
One of her entries said, quote, The night was filled with the noise of artillery fire and I woke up three times. But since there was no school, I got up later at 10 a.m. Afterwards, my friend came over and we discussed our homework. Today is the last day before the Taliban's edict comes into effect. And my friend was discussing homework as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.
Watch Her Cook
The Girl Who Stood Up To The Taliban
Today, I also read my diary written for the BBC in Urdu. My mother liked my pen name, Gulmakai. I also like the name because my real name means grief-stricken. The blog ran from January 2009 to March of 2009.
Watch Her Cook
The Fearless Trio of WWII
Once they located him, Hani shot Raghu in the back of his neck. However, Raghu saw the attack coming and retaliated, shooting and injuring Bonekamp. The mission was completed and Hani was able to flee the scene, but Bonekamp didn't make it far before he was arrested and taken in by Nazi police.
Watch Her Cook
The Fearless Trio of WWII
While under their supervision, Bonecamp was given a substance that manipulated him into revealing Hani's address. This mistake set off a chain of events, making Hani an identifiable target. Bonecamp died shortly after. That same day, the Germans raided Hani's home. Although they did not find Hani, they forcibly escorted her parents to a concentration camp in Vaud, a city within the Netherlands.
Watch Her Cook
The Girl Who Stood Up To The Taliban
Yeah. But again, the kind of grabbing the torch and carrying it like this is important that the world knows. Right. Like people are so invested in this blog because they haven't been shown an inside look before directly from someone experiencing all of this unfold. Right.
Watch Her Cook
The Girl Who Stood Up To The Taliban
And writing under this pen name in hopes that it will provide complete anonymity, like you hopefully are disguised behind it, that really gives you the freedom to be unfiltered and say exactly what's happening. So that the truth gets out there in its entirety versus going through some sort of filter or different lens or, you know, just it's not sugar-coated in any way.
Watch Her Cook
The Fearless Trio of WWII
Hanni jumped right back into sabotage and assassination missions. On March 1, 1945, just a few weeks after her return, Hanni and Truus Overstegen assassinated Willem Zierse, an NSB police officer in Harlem. This assassination was a significant blow to the Nazi apparatus in Harlem and marked Hanni's return to action.
Watch Her Cook
The Fearless Trio of WWII
Yes, and this podcast has been a long time coming because if you are coming over here from National Park After Dark, you know that we tell a lot of stories about different people throughout history, but we surround it with national parks and national forests and all that good stuff.
Watch Her Cook
The Fearless Trio of WWII
I am loving these women. And the fact that all of this is going on with Hani and she just turns around, dyes her hair, gets a new idea and is like, I'm back, baby. Let's get back to work. I'm back here. Yeah. I mean, incredible.
Watch Her Cook
The Girl Who Stood Up To The Taliban
In February 2009, the Pakistani government announced a ceasefire agreement with the TNSM, which would allow the implementation of Sharia law in the Malikand division of Pakistan in exchange for the group halting their violent activities.
Watch Her Cook
The Girl Who Stood Up To The Taliban
This solution was deeply divisive, with opposition from both the Pakistani government and the public, who saw it as a dangerous compromise that could grow the Taliban's militant influence. And it wasn't long before it was made clear that the Taliban were not going to hold up their end of the agreement.
Watch Her Cook
The Fearless Trio of WWII
Yeah. I mean, I feel like it came down to, yes, this is dangerous to fight this and to be part of the resistance, but it's more dangerous to not be a part of it because of what is happening in the world. And she just perseveres through everything. And I just think it's incredible. And not just her, but also Truist and Freddie as well.
Watch Her Cook
The Girl Who Stood Up To The Taliban
In response, the Pakistani military launched Operation Rahirast, also known as the Second Battle of Swat, in an attempt to restore justice.
Watch Her Cook
The Fearless Trio of WWII
They're doing some really incredible and scary work for the resistance. I totally agree. After a valiant run, Hani was caught on March 21st, 1945, while distributing the illegal communist newspaper, Die Wahrheit, at a military checkpoint in Harlem. But the newspaper was merely a front. She was actually carrying secret documents critical to the resistance.
Watch Her Cook
The Fearless Trio of WWII
At the time, Hani had been working closely with her co-worker, Anna Weinhof, who allegedly later betrayed her. Following her arrest, Hani was taken to a prison in Amsterdam, where she endured relentless interrogation and torture at the hands of her captors.
Watch Her Cook
The Girl Who Stood Up To The Taliban
By June 2009, the military declared SWAT had been cleared of the Taliban presence, but life remained difficult, especially for women and girls. SWAT, which had once been a center of tourism, had been left in a state of devastation. The infrastructure had been reduced to rubble, electricity and water were limited, and people were left with psychological scars, and the fight was not over yet.
Watch Her Cook
The Fearless Trio of WWII
And during our research, we kept coming across stories specifically of women that we were so interested in telling but never quite fit the narrative of these outdoor wild spaces and that we know and love. But these stories just felt so important that we were almost pulling our hair out of, how do we tell this on National Park After Dark?
Watch Her Cook
The Fearless Trio of WWII
The last time Truist and Freddie saw Honey was before her arrest in March of 1945. The Nazis were closing in on the resistance, and Truist and Freddie could feel it. Freddie even said they all knew, deep down, that it was coming.
Watch Her Cook
The Girl Who Stood Up To The Taliban
It's just so it's so devastating, not only because we're talking about devastation at multiple levels, right? Not only the overarching like physical devastation to the land and to infrastructure and just your way of life. And then there's the devastation to access to education and not only where to go. for this education, but who to get education from.
Watch Her Cook
The Fearless Trio of WWII
After the war, Hani was reburied at a cemetery of honor in Bloemendaal. In November 1945, she was given a state funeral attended by Queen Wilhelmina, Princess Juliana, and Prince Bernhard, who called her the, quote, symbol of the resistance. She received the Wilhelmina Resistance Cross along with a posthumous Medal of Freedom, which is the highest civilian award in the United States.
Watch Her Cook
The Girl Who Stood Up To The Taliban
And then there's the psychological devastation of everything that you're going through day to day and all of, it's just, this is so far reaching and it impacts so many facets of life and is so disproportionately targeted at women and their ability to access Education, which clearly is the key to so many other things. I mean, without an education, life is so much harder.
Watch Her Cook
The Fearless Trio of WWII
A statue of her standing as a hero was later unveiled in the honor of her in Canal Park, located in Harlem. Schools and streets were named after her and a foundation was created in her memory.
Watch Her Cook
The Girl Who Stood Up To The Taliban
And that's why so many people fight for education.
Watch Her Cook
The Fearless Trio of WWII
They have been widely recognized since the war and have received several honors. Truist was awarded the Dutch Resistance Memorial Medal, the Medal of Merit, and the Yad Vashem Award for saving Jewish lives. She was passionate about sharing her story and detailed her experiences in a memoir called Not Then, Not Now, Not Ever.
Watch Her Cook
The Fearless Trio of WWII
She additionally founded the National Hanischuft Foundation in honor of her friend. Freddie was also awarded the Resistance Memorial Medal and the Yad Vashem Award. She worked hard to ensure women's contributions to the resistance were recognized, and she spoke out when it was important to honor those who fought for freedom. She served as a board member for Hani's foundation.
Watch Her Cook
The Girl Who Stood Up To The Taliban
You know, it's just... Well, you are learning all of these foundational skills and things that we take for granted now. And I can't help but reflect back to...
Watch Her Cook
The Fearless Trio of WWII
And they have such a powerful story. I'm glad that we got to dive into an episode on World War II and explore the bravery of this trio.
Watch Her Cook
The Girl Who Stood Up To The Taliban
my own education and thinking of especially during this time right like that age and then kind of going into early high school years of sitting here from somebody who was fortunate enough to school was never a question i never had to fight to go to school and Sometimes I dragged my feet about it. And so did a lot of my friends. And so did I. Right.
Watch Her Cook
The Fearless Trio of WWII
Yeah, I've been begging on National Park After Dark to talk about World War II in any capacity. I'm like, how can we get this into the show? And it's just hard because there are national parks that are dedicated and remember World War II stories, but to dive into it in this way was never... Something that we've found so far.
Watch Her Cook
The Fearless Trio of WWII
And we kind of came to this conclusion that we can't tell it on National Park After Dark. It doesn't fit. And that this actually deserves its own podcast. And thus, Watch Her Cook has been Born, and you are here for the very first episode.
Watch Her Cook
The Girl Who Stood Up To The Taliban
And it's just like, oh, I don't want to go to school. School is a waste of time. School is this. School is that. But when you really zoom out and look at it on a broader scale, like this, we are so fortunate to have had. the opportunity to receive an education and whether or not you choose to go on to higher education or not, like that's your choice.
Watch Her Cook
The Fearless Trio of WWII
So to start Watch Her Cook with a World War II episode of three incredible women who stood up against the Nazi regime is really exciting. And I'm really glad that we started the podcast this way.
Watch Her Cook
The Girl Who Stood Up To The Taliban
But a lot of people throughout the world, like this story is so important to share because I think a lot of us in certain circumstances and times are just like, we don't realize how fortunate we were, you know? And it's important to know that this is something that people have risked their lives for.
Watch Her Cook
The Fearless Trio of WWII
How I said earlier, I think their ages really stood out to me a lot. Hany, I think... How could we forget this moment where she is put to execution and she is shot, missed, and she turns around and says, ha, I'm a better shot. What a way to go.
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The Fearless Trio of WWII
I mean, in that moment, you are facing your own mortality, your own death, and you're being executed. And you know in that moment she had no regrets. She was there. She stood there and she's like, I'd do it again. I don't regret this at all. And I'm a better shot than you.
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The Girl Who Stood Up To The Taliban
And we're going to talk about just how dangerous.
Watch Her Cook
The Girl Who Stood Up To The Taliban
After the attack, Malala was rushed to the hospital in Pakistan, where she received emergency surgery to remove the bullet that was now lodged in her shoulder. Shortly after, she was airlifted to Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, UK. And miraculously, Malala survived.
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The Girl Who Stood Up To The Taliban
But she was left with a damaged skull and brain, which was later repaired with a titanium disc, along with the loss of hearing in one ear, which was later treated with a cochlear implant. She detailed in an article that she had no recollection of that day, though her classmate remembers how tightly Malala squeezed her hand in fear.
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The Fearless Trio of WWII
I couldn't agree with you more. And I also just think, yeah, we can look at these small
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The Fearless Trio of WWII
acts of course that turn into bigger things but they were clearly making waves the nazis had a target on their back because they were clearly there were three women that were making really big waves and clearly they thought that it was necessary to execute honey to stop her because she had that big of a role in the in the resistance so just because you're one or three women and you're doing something and this friendship that forms doesn't mean you're not making really big
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The Girl Who Stood Up To The Taliban
The moment of her attack must have been so surreal. I mean, you're on a school bus, a school bus. With your classmates. You're 15 years old and you are a target. You're a target for an assassination. Yeah.
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The Girl Who Stood Up To The Taliban
Yeah, it was a very public act. Right, yes. This wasn't like a covert in her bedroom under the eye of nobody else. Like they wanted to make a statement and they wanted to make it on such a public stage that there could be no question about what happened to her and why.
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The Fearless Trio of WWII
And a big shout out to Sick Bird Productions, who produces our podcast and helps bring these stories to life. Don't forget to follow us on Watch Her Cook podcast, leave a review, and subscribe for more inspiring stories. Just a reminder, empowered women empower the world. Now let's go cook. See you next Wednesday.
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The Girl Who Stood Up To The Taliban
Yeah. And they really, everyone rallied to support and show up and really just say, you know, like she said, thousands of letters and voices of we're here. We see you and we're here to help and guide and support you. And, you know, it made all the difference for her and she, she's here today and she hasn't stopped.
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The Girl Who Stood Up To The Taliban
In 2013, just one year after the attack, Malala and her father co-founded the Malala Fund, an organization dedicated to ensuring every girl receives 12 years of free, safe, and quality education. During her recovery, she explained how she knew she had a choice. She could live a quiet life or make the most of her new life that she had been given.
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The Girl Who Stood Up To The Taliban
And that's why we're friends. That's why we found each other later in life. I just knew that about you the second I met you. I was like, this girl's weird. This girl loved historical accounts in third grade. And I just know that. You could just sense it. I could. Yeah.
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The Girl Who Stood Up To The Taliban
Beyond funding, Malala and her team work at the highest levels of government, advocating for policies that put education first. She has stood before world leaders at the United Nations, the G7, and the World Bank, urging them to prioritize girls' education.
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The Girl Who Stood Up To The Taliban
What do you want to be when you grow up? It's a question so many of us were asked as kids, one that sparked excitement, endless possibilities, and dreams of what our future could hold. For those with access to education, school became the launchpad, a place where ideas took shape, skills were honed, and passions turned into purpose. Learning gave us the power to shape our futures.
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The Girl Who Stood Up To The Taliban
Yeah, no one is excluded from her desire for everyone to have access to quality education. Malala's extensive list of honors and awards are both inspiring and well-deserved.
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The Girl Who Stood Up To The Taliban
These include the National Youth Peace Prize, the Mother Teresa Memorial Award, and the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, along with her memoir titled I Am Malala, The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban.
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The Girl Who Stood Up To The Taliban
In 2020, Malala graduated from Oxford University, earning a degree in philosophy, politics, and economics. and it is clear that she has no intention of stopping now. From surviving an attack to becoming a global icon for education and equality, Malala's courage, passion, and dedication continue to inspire millions of people around the world.
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The Girl Who Stood Up To The Taliban
Her belief that education is the key to a better future remains unwavering, and her story reminds us all that one voice, one person, can change the course of history and lead us to a more equal world. What a good way to end that story. I know. Okay. Can I just say that I knew Malala's name and I could picture her before I knew the details of her actual story.
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The Girl Who Stood Up To The Taliban
And I think that speaks volumes because she's so prevalent in speaking about I mean, I just listed just some of the places that she is sure to make speeches and really get her voice out there. But I have seen her and snippets of her speeches at all of these global seminars and just her really standing up.
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The Girl Who Stood Up To The Taliban
And I could just see her at the podium in my mind's eye before I even knew the details of her life story and what led her there. And I just think that's so cool because it's like usually – It's the opposite. It's like you learn about someone and then you're like, oh, there they are. And I recognize them now because I'm familiar with their story. But with her, it's the opposite.
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The Girl Who Stood Up To The Taliban
Well, it's so funny because I've been thinking about that. And I don't know if I have a particular story like you do, but I do have a very vivid memory of one of my earliest projects in school. And it must have been around second or third grade. I remember my teacher's name. Her
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The Girl Who Stood Up To The Taliban
And the title, like going back to, again, why she likely titled it that. You know, when she was almost killed, the last question she maybe would have ever heard if she didn't survive was,
Watch Her Cook
The Girl Who Stood Up To The Taliban
who is Malala and you know and now the title of this is I am Malala and just kind of that like reclaiming of it's just like such a power move you know it's like a mic drop title like I am and remember too she probably still to this day has a mark on her from the Taliban you know she for sure she
Watch Her Cook
The Girl Who Stood Up To The Taliban
I'm going to make this very clear also. So there's no question.
Watch Her Cook
The Girl Who Stood Up To The Taliban
Yeah. She's just – I am really inspired now to read her book, so you may have to bring it next time you come see me. Yeah.
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The Girl Who Stood Up To The Taliban
Thank you, everyone, for tuning in to Watch Her Cook. If you're looking to dive a little deeper, we've dropped some sources for you in the description. Let us know what incredible women's stories you'd like to hear next.
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The Girl Who Stood Up To The Taliban
and it was definitely miss quinn hey hey um she was great and um i remember it was we've talked about this before but we were each assigned a person and you had to do a project on them and present you know to the class about their lives and things like that and i'm pretty sure it was my mom's idea instead of like a diorama or something she used a two liter bottle of soda
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The Fearless Trio of WWII
And part of what really inspired this podcast, too, is specifically I was listening to a lot of true crime stuff. And don't get me wrong. I love true crime. But I was noticing this narrative that I was really getting tired of. And that was that women are victims. Mm-hmm. Every time I tune into a true crime episode, you know, women are the victims of something.
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The Girl Who Stood Up To The Taliban
and filled it with sand and like dressed the bottle to look like this person. And the person was Amelia Earhart. And I did her life story and. touched upon her disappearance and all of that. And that really got me interested in more of like, I guess, just like the mystery of the unknown, of like what happened to this person. There's so many theories. There's so many different explanations.
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The Girl Who Stood Up To The Taliban
Yet today, 120 million girls around the world are denied this chance. And when that happens, we all lose. Throughout history, we have seen that when girls have knowledge, they don't just change their own lives. They become a force that challenges inequality, strengthens communities, and solves problems that drive progress. Because girls inspire other girls.
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The Fearless Trio of WWII
And I was getting really tired of that narrative because women are so much more than that. You know, we're not just victims of circumstance or crimes or whatever that may be. Women are strong. They're smart. They're intelligent. They can get things done and they do and have. And unfortunately, throughout history, sometimes that's not remembered or acknowledged at all.
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The Fearless Trio of WWII
In 2024, a TikTok user made her waves when she posted a video stating, I'm not a feminist. I can actually cook. And women everywhere heard it and responded. Social media was flooded with videos of women showcasing their talents that extended far beyond the kitchen. Building, designing, leading, performing, teaching, and inventing. And from that moment, Watch Her Cook was born.
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The Girl Who Stood Up To The Taliban
And I think that really opened my eyes to we don't know what happened to a lot of people throughout history, or there's a lot of questions surrounding certain events and they're still open for discussion. And I think that was really my first introduction to that type of thing.
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The Girl Who Stood Up To The Taliban
And I was just, because up until that point, you're like, every question has an answer and here's how you get to that answer. And then that story and learning about her life and especially the end of it, I was like, wait, we don't have all the answers. So that means there's still more to learn. And I really love that.
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The Fearless Trio of WWII
We're going to dive into all of it, no matter what it is. And today, we're really excited because this particularly has been a story that has been on our list of how we could get this onto National Bark After Dark, which was just never going to happen, but has been in our mind and we've been wanting to cover. And this is a mix of empowering women and also some darker things. So
Watch Her Cook
The Fearless Trio of WWII
It's a good episode to start off on. And today we've got not one, not two, but three women that we are going to highlight.
Watch Her Cook
The Girl Who Stood Up To The Taliban
add to the podcast definitely let's add her to the list I that would be a full circle moment for sure Today we're sharing the extraordinary story of Malala Yousafzai, a young girl who risked her life to defend every girl's right to an education while living under Taliban rule in Pakistan.
Watch Her Cook
The Girl Who Stood Up To The Taliban
Her bravery sparked a global movement, and to this day, she remains a powerful voice for change, fighting to ensure that every girl has access to learning. I'm really excited for this one, so let's dive into her story. Malala Yousafzai was born on July 12, 1997, in Mangora, the largest city in the Swat Valley of Pakistan.
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The Fearless Trio of WWII
Before diving into the story, let's talk more about where this all took place. During World War II, the Netherlands were a neutral party. Initially, the Dutch didn't want to pick a side. They weren't planning on getting involved in the conflict at all.
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The Fearless Trio of WWII
Because the Netherlands were not taking the side of the Germans, they ended up becoming invaded by them, leaving the Dutch no other option than to become involved with the war, and thus began their fight against the Nazis.
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The Girl Who Stood Up To The Taliban
She was named after Malala of Maiwan, a courageous Afghan hero who played a pivotal role in rallying troops during the Second Anglo-Afghan War in the 19th century. She grew up in a Pashtun family, an ethnic group known for their rich cultural traditions, and was raised by her parents, Zayodin Yousafzai and Tor Pekai Yousafzai.
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The Girl Who Stood Up To The Taliban
Her father was an education activist who co-founded and ran Kushal Public School, a chain of low-cost private schools that sought to provide quality education to children, particularly girls in the Swat Valley.
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The Fearless Trio of WWII
But let's backtrack a little bit and talk about how Freddie and Truist grew up, because this is pertinent to the story. They were raised in Harlem, a city just outside of Amsterdam, by their single mother. Their mom had strong socialist beliefs and felt passionately about standing up for those who were oppressed.
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The Fearless Trio of WWII
She was a communist who took Jewish refugees into their home during the war, even though this put them all at risk.
Watch Her Cook
The Girl Who Stood Up To The Taliban
When Malala was born, her father's cousin presented him with a family tree that stretched back 400 years, listing only the names of men. Her father took a pen, drew a line from his own name, and wrote Malala. The disapproval on his cousin's face was immediate, but Zayuddin stood firm in his belief that Malala's name and her legacy would shine on its own.
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The Fearless Trio of WWII
The girl's age and youthful appearance made them unlikely suspects and allowed them to move discreetly. Among the most dangerous tasks Truist faced was being assigned to seduce an SS officer. These were members of the Schutzstaffel, a paramilitary organization that was responsible for some of the most cruel acts during the Nazi regime.
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The Girl Who Stood Up To The Taliban
And when that happens, the world grows into a better place. This is Watch Her Cook.
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The Fearless Trio of WWII
They were assigned with enforcing Nazi policies, maintaining internal security, and running concentration camps.
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The Fearless Trio of WWII
This wasn't something the sisters relished in. Truist expressed that, quote, it was tragic and very difficult, and they cried about it afterwards. She explained how she did not feel it suited them and that it never suits anybody unless they are real criminals. I couldn't help but, when hearing this story, notice their ages and that they are...
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The Girl Who Stood Up To The Taliban
But Fazlullah's ambitions stretched further. He set forth a strict agenda to end female education. His message was clear. Women belonged in the home, not in the classroom. In early 2007, schools became targets of destruction. Principals received threats warning them to shut down or face the consequences. Many complied, and some teachers fled, fearing for their lives.
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The Fearless Trio of WWII
Their children. They're 16 and 14 and they're being sent to seduce Nazis. To seduce them and to kill them as teenagers.
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The Fearless Trio of WWII
I think it really brings forth and sets the scene of how evil this time was. Because if a 16-year-old and a 14-year-old are able to seduce grown men Nazi soldiers. That's just a whole nother thing where it's just all of it is really hard and it's really awful what's going on.
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The Girl Who Stood Up To The Taliban
Swat, which was once called the Switzerland of the East, known for its lush forests, snow-capped mountains, and natural beauty, had become a war zone. Public punishments became common, including flogging, public beheadings, and suicide attacks, and women were not allowed to leave their homes unless escorted by male family members. In September 2008, when Malala was 11 years old...
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The Fearless Trio of WWII
And the fact that they're recruited and they're doing this and they're fighting for the Jewish people in their country and for the Netherlands at such a young age is really incredible. And I feel like I could say that so many times, but it just blows me away how young they were.
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The Girl Who Stood Up To The Taliban
She joined her father at a local press club and gave her first speech, titled, How Dare the Taliban Take Away My Right to an Education. The speech was televised throughout the country.
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The Girl Who Stood Up To The Taliban
It just, it gives me chills, honestly. And we do have to go back. I'd like to go back just a second to her dad because she joined her dad, you know, at this local press club and going back to how he was so adamant about being the one in his family to kind of change things. change it up, change the narrative, change how people recognized individuals in their family.
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The Girl Who Stood Up To The Taliban
Like they, you know, going back to the family tree and how only the men were recognized for centuries. Right. And he's like, nope, it ends with me. And it starts with my daughter.
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The Girl Who Stood Up To The Taliban
Well, in my little intro there, we talked a little bit about school and the importance of school. So let's talk about our own experiences really quick, especially with early education, because I think those are really formative years that a lot of us reflect back on and can kind of trace where our lives have gone based on what we loved or maybe didn't love about what we learned in school.
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The Fearless Trio of WWII
In fact, smuggling refugees into safe houses became part of Chura's and Freddie's daily routine. These safe houses were often hidden in plain sight, like private homes, barns, and basements. But the real challenge was getting to them. They had to avoid detection from Nazis, collaborators, and spies. Getting caught meant death, not just for them, but for the people they were trying to protect.
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The Fearless Trio of WWII
And they did this all on their bikes, hiding refugees under large blankets, inside bags, or even in the bike frames themselves.
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The Fearless Trio of WWII
Despite the constant danger and narrow escapes, their courage only grew stronger, and it wasn't long before they crossed paths with another young woman whose bravery would forever change their lives, Hani Schuft. Janneke Joanna Schuft, who went by Hani after she joined the resistance, grew up in the northern part of Harlem and was known for her bright red hair.
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The Fearless Trio of WWII
During the war, she studied law at the University of Amsterdam with hopes of becoming a human rights lawyer.
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The Girl Who Stood Up To The Taliban
Absolutely. And if you think of not only is this young girl standing up on national television and It's in the title. How dare the Taliban take away like her fingers pointed right to them. She doesn't shy away from pointing them out. And this organization that's not only taking away. Yeah, like things that bring joy and entertainment. It's to the point that they're killing people in public.
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The Girl Who Stood Up To The Taliban
This isn't like, oh, you shouldn't do that. It's okay. If you do that, you're going to pay with your life and everyone will know it.
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The Fearless Trio of WWII
In 1943, the Nazis demanded that university students sign a, quote, pledge of loyalty to the German occupation, swearing allegiance to the Nazi regime and its leaders. While many complied, Hani refused. But her decision came at a cost, and she was forced to drop out of the University of Amsterdam.
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The Fearless Trio of WWII
After this, Hani moved back in with her parents, bringing along her two Jewish friends, Sonia Frank and Feline Polak, to find them a safe place to hide from the Nazis.
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The Girl Who Stood Up To The Taliban
Yeah. And the repercussions just couldn't be more severe. Right. It doesn't get worse than that.
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The Fearless Trio of WWII
It didn't take long before Hany met other members of the resistance, including Truis and Fredi. The three of them navigated the chaos of the war together, growing an inseparable bond.
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The Fearless Trio of WWII
Yeah, she was another. I think it happened, what, a month before Rosa Parks where she did essentially the same thing where she refused to give up her seat and was arrested as well.
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The Girl Who Stood Up To The Taliban
So do you have anything that you look back on and reflect and say, wow, that's where my first introduction to my interest now took hold.
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The Fearless Trio of WWII
Yeah. And earlier we mentioned in the story where Honey, the first thing she started with the resistance was she was just helping giving the resistance food and doing small things that meant big things to people who needed it. But in a resistance standpoint was pretty small. She wasn't standing up to anyone. She was just helping support the resistance. And then it
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Changed The Boston Marathon
This is still, they still think that their uteruses are going to fall out if they run for more than 1.5 miles.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Changed The Boston Marathon
Yeah. Don't tell me what to do, especially when she specifically reached out to them because she knows that she's capable. right, and to receive a letter from someone who has never met you before, has never seen you, does not know what you're capable of, to blatantly state, women are not capable, Yeah. No, you cannot enter. Yeah. With not knowing her at all.
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The Woman Who Changed The Boston Marathon
She entered the race. That's our parents were teenagers and and young kids at that point. You know, these are it's not that long ago. Yeah. Well, anyway, this letter fueled Bobby's competitive fire, and her rage turned into determination. She trained alone in nurse's shoes, which were the only comfortable footwear available to women at the time, and she had no running clothes.
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The Woman Who Changed The Boston Marathon
But she was running recreationally for up to 40 miles at a time. Recreationally. Recreationally. Just for a light jog, she went 40 miles. Wow. As the race was approaching, she began the 3,000-plus mile journey from San Diego to Boston, despite her husband's disapproval.
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The Woman Who Changed The Boston Marathon
She spent four days cooped up on a Greyhound bus, stopping for a pair of men's running shoes along the way, and could barely walk by the time she got out.
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The Woman Who Changed The Boston Marathon
I love the support that she got when she finally got there. You know, she has this official letter that says you're not capable, but then other people in the community see her and rally around her and support her in those moments, which I think is really exciting and She's told she couldn't and she does. And she does it better than almost two thirds.
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The Woman Who Changed The Boston Marathon
She does better than two thirds of everyone who ran the marathon.
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The Woman Who Changed The Boston Marathon
So pivoting back to Catherine's story, we've talked about Bobby. She was the first person to unofficially run the Boston Marathon. But Catherine is preparing to do that officially. And the days leading up to the race, shortly after signing up, Catherine's boyfriend, an ex-American football player and nationally-ranked
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The Woman Who Changed The Boston Marathon
hammer thrower, who they called Big Tom Miller, announced that he was also going to run but didn't need to train because, quote, if a girl can run a marathon, I can run a marathon. John Leonard, a friend from the cross-country team, also signed up and completed their team of four.
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The Woman Who Changed The Boston Marathon
Does anyone know? How do we sign up? But also imagine the person that you... have a relationship with, seeing all the work that you're doing and knows your aspirations to run this and knows the training that you're doing and how hard to come out publicly and say, if a girl can do it, I can do it.
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The Woman Who Changed The Boston Marathon
It's like, it's not if a girl can do it, you're saying if my partner, the person I am supposed to love and care about the most can do it, then it's easy. Yeah. It's just such a dig. It is such a dig.
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The Woman Who Changed The Boston Marathon
Not a good look. Not a fan of Big Tom already. The day before the marathon, they all piled into Arnie's car bound for Boston. It was a five-hour ride, but the excitement in the car made it feel even longer. After arriving, Arnie insisted on driving them along the marathon course, excited to point out all the sights that he admired.
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The Woman Who Changed The Boston Marathon
Catherine was already anxious, thinking of all the things that could go wrong, and witnessing the sheer distance was nerve-wracking. But after a big meal and encouraging words from her parents who trusted she would not take on anything unprepared, she went to bed in preparation for the morning.
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The Woman Who Changed The Boston Marathon
As they move towards the starting area, Tom asks Catherine why she was wearing lipstick, saying, Someone might figure out you're a girl and not let you run. Take it off. I will not take off my lipstick, she said back, and they were off.
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The Woman Who Changed The Boston Marathon
It's such a statement. And it's a clear indication where she says, yeah, I'm wearing lipstick because I want people to know that I'm a woman doing this race. And I also am very confident that I'm capable.
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The Woman Who Changed The Boston Marathon
Afraid and panicked, Arnie leapt to her defense, blocking Catherine and urging Jock to leave them alone. Next came the sound of a huge thud. Big Tom launched himself at Jock with a crossbody block knocking him to the ground. Frozen in disbelief, Arnie told Katherine to run like hell, and she did. With the press truck following close behind, the entire altercation was caught on camera.
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The Woman Who Changed The Boston Marathon
The iconic images would soon go down in history as testaments of resistance, courage, and the fight for women's right to run.
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The Woman Who Changed The Boston Marathon
Yeah, the full story. It's such an iconic image that... is tied so closely to the Boston Marathon, which maybe is why we've both seen it. I wonder if everyone around the U.S. is like, yeah, I've seen it. Or if specifically because we grew up in New England, we're like, yeah, we know that image.
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The Woman Who Changed The Boston Marathon
Can you imagine that scene, though, of being tackled by an ex-football player in the middle of a Boston street?
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The Woman Who Changed The Boston Marathon
Which is really funny because, spoiler alert, he finishes after her.
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The Woman Who Changed The Boston Marathon
It's like, get out. Get away. Can we not make this about you and your hammer throwing career right now? It's like, thanks for tackling that guy a few minutes ago, but you kind of ruined that moment when you came back and broke up with me and blamed me for it.
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The Woman Who Changed The Boston Marathon
Well, I think if you're married to the right person, it's not a downfall. It's just making sure that you don't lose yourself in your marriage.
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The Woman Who Changed The Boston Marathon
Right. It's like, don't distract me when I'm in my moment here and try and bring me down. But it doesn't work. Despite being cold, anxious, and processing all of the day's events, Catherine knew that she had a mission. Dropping out would only support the existing belief that women were not capable of handling the physical or mental strain of a marathon.
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The Woman Who Changed The Boston Marathon
Completing the race was no longer just a personal goal. It was for all women who had been underestimated or excluded, and to prove that women were no longer going to stand for this discrimination.
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The Woman Who Changed The Boston Marathon
Bobby broke the barrier proving that women could run, and Catherine's confrontation with Jock became the spark that ignited public conversation and eventually policy change. An image from the day was later recognized as Time Life's 100 Photos That Changed the World. And five years later, the Boston Marathon officially opened its doors to female applicants.
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The Woman Who Changed The Boston Marathon
Right. It's a valid fear. I think it happens for sure. But I am also not a runner, but we are talking about a runner today. And we're actually going to our own neck of the woods today, which is exciting.
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The Woman Who Changed The Boston Marathon
But also, those journalists, to be annoyed at a girl finishing the race, that's a moment in history, and you're annoyed to be there? You should be honored to be there. You're witnessing history in real time.
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The Woman Who Changed The Boston Marathon
Catherine was additionally named Female Runner of the Decade from 1967 to 1977 by Runner's World magazine and went on to be an Emmy award-winning TV commentator for marathons. Over the course of her life, she has released two books, one being her memoir titled Marathon Woman, which is where much of today's story details and quotes were pulled from.
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The Woman Who Changed The Boston Marathon
Finally. Finally. God, we haven't talked about New England yet. And Boston is our place. So let's talk about some. It's probably the biggest marathon in the world is the Boston Marathon, or at least in the United States.
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The Woman Who Changed The Boston Marathon
Right. Because of these women, your friend, can be there. And that is something that when I watched the marathon this year and I see all of the women who are running, I am going to be thinking of this story and I'm going to think of the women who really paved the way so all of these women could do it and be out there. Yeah. Are you going to sign up for a race this year?
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The Woman Who Changed The Boston Marathon
It's funny that you ask that because I've been looking into just some small ones, some 5Ks, but then I've also wanted to do like a Tough Mudder or something with an obstacle course.
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The Woman Who Changed The Boston Marathon
And the fun thing about 5Ks is that a lot of them, and especially when you're looking at charities and things like that, they're 5Ks, but you don't have to run them. It's just being part of the community and getting out and exercising and breathing fresh air and doing it for a good cause. You know, you don't have to be a huge runner to participate in some of these activities.
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The Woman Who Changed The Boston Marathon
Yeah. And of course, we're talking about some women today. So let's get into it. Katherine Switzer, a 20-year-old college student with a passion for running, never set out to make history. But in 1967, when she stood at the starting line of the Boston Marathon, her decision to run would challenge a deeply held belief in sports, that women had no place in long-distance events like the marathon.
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The Woman Who Changed The Boston Marathon
The Boston Marathon is a different story. You got to be very, very qualified and trained very hard for it. But there are other options for people. Yeah. like us who aren't big runners, but appreciate people who do run.
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The Woman Who Changed The Boston Marathon
Well, I'm glad we covered their stories. Me too. This was a fun episode. Thank you everyone for tuning in to Watch Your Cook.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Changed The Boston Marathon
And a big shout out to Sick Bird Productions, who produces our podcast and helps bring these stories to life. Don't forget to follow us on Instagram at Watch Her Cook Podcast. Leave a review and subscribe for more inspiring stories. Just a reminder, empowered women empower the world. Now let's go cook. See you next Wednesday.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Changed The Boston Marathon
What unfolded that day would provoke headlines, spark conversation, and forever change the course of women's athletics.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Changed The Boston Marathon
Once she arrived, she was disappointed to discover that Syracuse didn't offer intercollegiate sports programs for women. This was not unusual for the time. Before we continue Catherine's story, let's discuss the broader history of women in modern sports for a moment.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Changed The Boston Marathon
We want to paint a picture of some of the challenges women faced, though the full history of the inequality women have faced in sports is complex.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Changed The Boston Marathon
harm any form of childbirth or whatever in the future it's like we wouldn't have gotten to this point because like we would have been knocked out of existence survival of the fittest you know if we we wouldn't have survived we wouldn't be here yeah no it's like okay it's just wild but that was even common thought accepted widely accepted thought yeah yeah
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Changed The Boston Marathon
It always kind of brings me back to that astronaut who was a woman who went up to space and she had her period. So they sent a thousand tampons or something.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Changed The Boston Marathon
While not everyone agreed with this whole concept of women can't do any form of exercise, some educators and physicians argued that exercise could be healthy and beneficial for women as long as it remained within, quote, the appropriate bounds, meaning light, non-competitive, and feminine. Beyond health concerns, sport was also seen as a domain to shape masculinity.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Changed The Boston Marathon
Allowing women into this space was viewed as threatening to both the sport and the status quo. Female athletes who did break through were often accused of being too masculine, while at the same time, held to beauty standards male athletes never faced. While some women found ways to participate, often in middle or upper class settings like tennis or golf, access was extremely limited.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Changed The Boston Marathon
White women began slowly gaining entry to certain sports institutions in the early 20th century. But for Black, Indigenous, and other women of color, opportunities were even scarcer. They were often barred entirely from mainstream athletic clubs, leagues, and college teams due to segregation, racism, and underfunding.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Changed The Boston Marathon
Instead, they created their own spaces, thriving in community-run leagues, historically Black colleges, tribal schools, and local clubs.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Changed The Boston Marathon
I think that those numbers are really exciting because when you go from 7% to 43%, that is a huge jump. But going back to something that I said a minute ago, talking about how women who are in sports are too masculine, but also they're expected to look a certain way and are judged on if they are pretty enough or if they're feminine enough. That is something that very much is in sports today.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Changed The Boston Marathon
And we see it with professional athletes all the time.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Changed The Boston Marathon
Yeah, you just know that once that barrier was shot down, there were so many women that were like, finally, this is my time to do this. I've wanted to do this. And I think that it's also important to recognize that sports aren't just about being athletic or participating in a game. Sports are such a big part of community.
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The Woman Who Changed The Boston Marathon
So many, I remember in high school when I played sports, I did volleyball and tennis, and then I also did the dance team. There was so much, yeah, of course you love what you're doing, but there's so much friendship that's built there. You learn so much about working with other people. There's so much community. It gives you this really exciting activity to do.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Changed The Boston Marathon
You know, it's just, it's so much, it's so, sports are so fulfilling. And to take that and say that women should not be allowed in that space is really upsetting.
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The Woman Who Changed The Boston Marathon
Yeah, I'm full of secrets and surprises. How long did that last? I was on dance team for four years and then I took dance lessons outside of that. Yeah.
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The Woman Who Changed The Boston Marathon
I mean, this is my high school career, so it's been a long time, but I'm also love swing dancing. I'm actually pretty good at swing dancing.
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The Woman Who Changed The Boston Marathon
One evening, Catherine and Arnie set out on a six mile run, something they did frequently. During these runs, Arnie would share stories of the Boston Marathon. But on this particular night, Catherine interrupted and said, quote, Oh, hey, let's quit talking about the Boston Marathon and run the damn thing. Arnie insisted that it wasn't possible.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Changed The Boston Marathon
The distance was simply too long for, quote, fragile women to run. The two bickered back and forth before Arnie relented, saying, If any woman could do it, you could, but you would have to prove it to me. If you ran the distance in practice, I'd be the first to take you to Boston. Catherine was elated. She knew that she was capable.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Changed The Boston Marathon
I've never asked someone to add five miles onto a run. Yeah, it's like, we're already at it.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Changed The Boston Marathon
But you know that that was a point of, yeah, add five more miles. I've got this. This is fine.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Changed The Boston Marathon
Like, look what I can do. Yeah. And I think it's important to note the KV Switzer. It doesn't reveal her gender. because being an official participant is an important detail to note. This is because there is another key figure in history of the Boston Marathon that we do need to highlight, Roberta Bobby Gibb, who was the first woman to ever unofficially run the Boston Marathon.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Changed The Boston Marathon
Bobby Gibb was born in 1942 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She grew up running and had a deep love for the outdoors. Her mother used to say that she was never going to find a husband while running in the woods with the neighborhood dogs. but running brought her a sense of peace.
Watch Her Cook
The Woman Who Changed The Boston Marathon
Hello everyone, I'm Cassie. And I'm Danielle. Welcome back to Watch Her Cook, a podcast dedicated to sharing the incredible lives of women who have taken their power back throughout history. What did you think of my little intro today? It threw me back to high school. I haven't thought about Greek mythology that much, but it reminded me of my Greek mythology class in ninth grade. Wow.
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Welcome To Watch Her Cook!
Hey, everyone. It's Cassie. And I'm Danielle. You might know us from National Park After Dark, but we're launching something completely new, and we're so excited to share it with you.
Watch Her Cook
Welcome To Watch Her Cook!
Some of them fought for justice. Some of them shocked the world. But all of them made sure that they wouldn't be forgotten. Whether they're making history or making headlines, join us every Wednesday to hear the stories of women who have proved their power exceeds far beyond the kitchen.