It's our second annual jingly mish-mash episode, packed full of Christmas and other holiday goodies! How have American First Ladies celebrated over the years? Who is Judith, and what bloody act of courage got her inducted as a Hanukkah staple in the Middle Ages? How do traditional gender roles play out during the holidays? What the heck is a SPUG?? All this and more, in our HOLIDAY SPECIAL!!!! Plus, a promise from Heather and Dayna to get back to a regular posting schedule as soon as possible! Our gift to you, dear listener! Happy Holidays!!

Further Reading:

• Christmas Traditions at the White House (White House History)
• Women responsible for more jobs than men at Christmas (The Sun)
• Women abolitionists and Christmas bazaars (Zinn Education Project)
• Judith and the Hanukkah story (Jewish Women's Archive)
• Hogmanay and cultural depictions of drunken women (Sceptical Scot)
• "Spugs" of 1911-13 (Atlas Obscura)

Greetings, faithful Yesterladies listeners!

As you may have noticed, we’ve taken a longer “summer break” than usual. It’s November (!), we know, and we’re terribly sorry to have stepped away for so long!

Here’s what’s been happening behind the scenes to keep us away from our microphones: Dayna has been dancing her booty off in a local production of “Mamma Mia!”, and jetting across North America to represent the legal advocacy organization she works for. Heather, on the other hand, has been marching on the picket line at her college while they’re on strike, and juggling childcare on the side. It’s been a packed autumn so far, but we promise to record this month, and rustle you up a fresh episode full of the gutsy, daring, and patriarchy-smashing women you love! We'll post new episodes as we can, and hope to return to a regular posting schedule soon.

Thanks,

Heather & Dayna

We're ending the season with a patriotic bang, on the eve of Canada's 150th birthday, by bringing you an extravaganza of incredible Canuck ladies. From an intrepid viking to a civil rights heroine, from the first Native saint to the first female Supreme Court Chief Justice, we're celebrating the spunky and brilliant women who have defined our country over the last few hundred years. (Because the Dominion of Canada has been officially sexy since 1867, but everyone knows this has been sexy territory since the dawn of time.) And just wait until you hear about Cougar Annie! Happy Canada Day from Heather and Dayna! #CANADA150

*PLEASE NOTE: We're unfortunately currently having technical difficulties with iTunes, and the podcast is currently unavailable through them, which we know affects other podcast apps. Apple is working on this, and we hope to get back up and running on iTunes as soon as possible, but in the meantime, we're publishing this episode on SoundCloud (listen here!), and of course you can also listen right here, on our lovely website. Thanks for your patience everyone!

Further Reading: 

• Gudridur Thorbjarnardottir
• Kateri Tekakwitha
• Marie-Madeleine Jarret de Vercheres
• Mary Ann Shadd
• Beverley McLachlin
• Elizabeth Turner
• Viola Desmond
• Cougar Annie

Just a little announcement this week, cause we're saving our energy for a CANADA DAY SPECTACULAR next Friday!! Celebrate the 150th anniversary of Dominion Day with us in true Yesterladies style on June 30th, and then we'll bid you adieu until the fall, when we'll return with brand new episodes. (We just feel we need to put all our energies into patriotic activities this summer...) See you next week!

Wonder Woman, aka Diana Prince, is having a bit of a moment right now, but she's been on the scene for a lot longer than you might think, fighting for the feminist cause since the day she sprang forth from the pen of noted psychologist, lie detector inventor, polygamist, and women's rights enthusiast William Moulton Marston. Originally hired by the head of DC Comics to make sure the new medium of comic books was psychologically healthy for America's kids, Marston ended up creating the most popular and well-known female superhero of all time, who in her storied career has run for president, launched Ms. Magazine, been a United Nations icon, and of course saved the world countless times. Great Hera! 

Further Reading:

• The Surprising Origin Story of Wonder Woman (Smithsonian)
• The Freaky, Fabulous, Feminist 'Secret History' Of Wonder Woman (NPR)
• The Last Amazon (New Yorker)
• Wonder Woman Designation as Honorary Ambassador for the Empowerment of Women and Girls (DC Comics)

Polyandry, the practice of one woman taking multiple husbands, has not been very common throughout human history, but anthropologists have recently discovered that it might be a little more common than previously thought! OK, that doesn't sound super exciting, we know, BUT the whys and wherefores of polyandry are actually pretty fascinating, and it turns out this particular style of marriage has cropped up throughout history, from ancient to modern times, around the world. Sometimes it just makes sense to marry more than one dude!

Further Reading:

• Polyandry (Encyclopedia Britannica)
• When Taking Multiple Husbands Makes Sense (The Atlantic)
• A Survey of Non-Classical Polyandry (Human Nature)

Nefertiti is one of Ancient Egypt's most famous queens, ruling beside the Pharaoh with unprecedented equality. She and her husband turned the country on its head by instituting a new, controversial religion, and literally uprooting the capitol city, while redefining art and culture. But her death and burial are shrouded in mystery, and not even 21st century science and tech have been able to solve the riddle of just where, exactly, her notorious mummy ended up...

Further Reading:

• Nefertiti (Biography.com)
• Nefertiti As Sensual Goddess (Harvard Gazette)
• Bust of Queen Nefertiti (Egyptian Museum Berlin)

The Filles du Roi ("Daughters of the King") were 800 intrepid young women, between the ages of 16 and 30, who left everything they knew behind in France to start a new life populating the colony of New France (Quebec), arriving in Canada between 1663 and 1673. They speed-dated their way to new husbands, and quickly got down to business, popping out enough babies to increase the colony's population by more than 150% in just a few years. Millions of North Americans now owe DNA to them, and we think they deserve more than a little applause for their bravery and strength of character. Bien joué, ladies! 

Further Reading: 

• Immigration of the Filles du roi to New France (Government of Canada)
• The filles du roi (Canada: A People's History - CBC)
• Filles du Roi (Canadian Encyclopedia) 
• "Filles du Roi": Come Visit Scenic New France in the 17th Century (The Toast)

The ancient Greeks might have come up with beauty contests (naturally), but modern America perfected them! An awful lot of stuff is crammed in to the history of the beauty pageant as we know it today: Atlantic City tourism, scholarships, segregation, Klingons, and yes, bikini glue. It's a controversial topic, but it's also awfully hard to resist the allure of a pageant queen!

Further Reading:

• A Look Back at the Sexist, Racist History of Beauty Pageants (Racked)
• What's the History of Child Pageants? (Bustle)
• 10 Bizarre Beauty Pageants from the Past (Listverse)
• I Went to the Miss America Pageant and Had a Full-On Existential Crisis (Bustle)
• Miss America Pageant (John Oliver, Last Week Tonight) VIDEO

Amelia Earhart is certainly a well-known name, but you might not know as much as you think you do about this famous aviatrix! Did you know she nursed WWI soldiers in Toronto? That she was a social worker? A fashion designer? The aviation editor for Cosmopolitan magazine? There's so much to learn about this spunky role model for the liberated early 20th century woman, including the mysterious circumstances of her famous last flight and disappearance, and the ongoing search for the truth of what REALLY happened to Amelia on that fateful July day in 1937...

Further Reading:

• Amelia Earhart (official website)
• Amelia Earhart Birthplace Museum (official website)
• Missing Woman (The New Yorker)
• Amelia Earhart Didn't Die in a Plane Crash, Investigators Say (Washington Post)
• The Earhart Project (TIGHAR)

Constance Markievicz might have been born into aristocracy and privilege (and then married a Polish aristocrat...), but she had an unexpected burning passion for the plight of the Irish working class and the cause of Irish Nationalism. And that passion led her to load herself down with as many guns as she could find and take to the streets with her Republican comrades! It also led her to British Parliament, via a prison cell...

Further Reading:

• Constance Markievicz Facts (YourDictionary.com)
• Constance Markievicz: A Self-Portrait? (Huffington Post)
• Constance Markievicz (Rejected Princesses)
• Countess Constance Markievicz (Easter 1916)
• Y.B. Yeats poem (Poetry Foundation)