Introducing 'History Becomes Her' — a new podcast by Mashable
Who inspires the women making history right now?
Everybody needs an icon, a role model, or someone to look up to. Even the people you'd consider your personal heroines. Mashable's new podcast History Becomes Her delves into this very subject — the inspiration behind our modern-day heroines.
Each episode, I speak to history-making women about the women of the past who paved the way for them. In powerful interviews, guests share the challenges they've faced in trying to make change in the world, and the source of their motivation and determination to fight for progress.
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Season 1 of the podcast kicks off with two very special guests: Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey, the New York Times reporters behind the Harvey Weinstein investigation. Within days of the story's publication, the #MeToo hashtag — a movement started a decade earlier by civil rights activist Tarana Burke — went viral. Episode 1 reveals the dramatic events that took place behind the scenes of the investigation, the obstacles Kantor and Twohey overcame, and their thoughts on the extraordinary response their investigation garnered.
Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Acast, or wherever you get your podcasts. The podcast airs weekly, every Thursday.
Other guests featured on History Becomes Her include: Lisa Taddeo (author of Three Women), Caroline Criado Perez (campaigned for the first woman on UK banknotes), Gina Martin (campaigned to make upskirting illegal), Diane Munday (campaigned to pass the 1967 Abortion Act), Vicky Spratt (campaigning to decriminalise abortion and fought letting fees), gal-dem editors Charlie Brinkhurst-Cuff and Leah Cowan (co-authors of We Will Not Be Erased), Zing Tsjeng (author of Forgotten Women), Poorna Bell (author of In Search of Silence), Sofie Hagen (fat acceptance activist and comedian), Ruth Hunt (former Stonewall chief executive), Jess Phillips (Labour MP for Birmingham Yardley), and Akilah Hughes (host of What A Day podcast).
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So, where did the idea for this podcast come from? When I discovered that women only occupy around 0.5 percent of recorded history (despite making up 50 percent of the population), I was horrified. I grew up hearing mostly about the 'his' in 'history' — stories about men trundling around in battlefield fisticuffs, or conquering territories that didn't belong to them. I remember sitting in history A Level lessons feeling, honestly, bored to tears. I wanted to know what the women were doing. Not only that: I wanted to know about their inspirations, their challenges, and their triumphs.
History Becomes Her aims to address the erasure of women’s history through personal storytelling. It's high time we heard these stories.
Please subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Acast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Follow History Becomes Her on Twitter and Instagram.
Topics Activism
Rachel Thompson is the Features Editor at Mashable. Rachel's second non-fiction book The Love Fix: Reclaiming Intimacy in a Disconnected World is out now, published by Penguin Random House in Jan. 2025. The Love Fix explores why dating feels so hard right now, why we experience difficult emotions in the realm of love, and how we can change our dating culture for the better.
A leading sex and dating writer in the UK, Rachel has written for GQ, The Guardian, The Sunday Times Style, The Telegraph, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, Stylist, ELLE, The i Paper, Refinery29, and many more.
Rachel's first book Rough: How Violence Has Found Its Way Into the Bedroom And What We Can Do About It, a non-fiction investigation into sexual violence was published by Penguin Random House in 2021.
