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Speaker 1: Welcome to stuff Mob Never told you. From how Supports

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Speaker 1: dot Com. Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Caroline

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Speaker 1: and I'm Brisbane. And as part of our July summer

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Speaker 1: Lady Explorer series, we're gonna look at overland explorers today.

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Speaker 1: The women who cross deserts, climbed mountains, went into the

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Speaker 1: jungles and studied plants, or just you know, went to

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Speaker 1: Boston and studied plants. Women who traveled mostly by themselves

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Speaker 1: to discover things that they probably wouldn't have discovered sitting

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Speaker 1: in their parlors in Victorian England. Yeah, And in our

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Speaker 1: introductory episode to the series on explorers, we talked a

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Speaker 1: lot about sort of the masculine construct of the explorer

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Speaker 1: hero and how in the nineteenth century when women really

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Speaker 1: started leaving their homes, not too many of them, but

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Speaker 1: some of them started following in these male explorers footsteps.

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Speaker 1: How they had to fight even for the right to

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Speaker 1: leave their homes in their dresses and petticoats and set forth,

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Speaker 1: and also they had to fight for recognition as well, right,

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Speaker 1: And we talked a little bit about the golden Age

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Speaker 1: of exploration in our first episode, and that was really

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Speaker 1: the nineteenth century. In this Victorian era, of men going

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Speaker 1: out discovering things, they were considered heroes. They was a

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Speaker 1: manly pursuit. And I mean, you know, I can't blame

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Speaker 1: women for wanting to get in on that, wanting to

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Speaker 1: they're basically seeing what these men are doing and wanting

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Speaker 1: to be a part of that discovery process. But for

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Speaker 1: the most part, when governments and militaries, for example, sent

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Speaker 1: men overseas abroad wherever to basically report back about cultures,

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Speaker 1: about night life, about animal life, they they were only

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Speaker 1: sending men because it was a manly pursued It wasn't

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Speaker 1: the type of work that women were supposed to do.

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Speaker 1: And so women, their viewpoints, their thoughts, their opinions, their

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Speaker 1: reports were kind of suppressed. And when it comes to

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Speaker 1: the motivations for exploring, when we're talking about the past

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Speaker 1: in the nineteenth century, in that Golden Age, uh, it's

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Speaker 1: really motivated by things like economic development, military operations, and trade.

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Speaker 1: There were a lot of very selfish reasons were going

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Speaker 1: out and exploring, whereas today we think of exploration more

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Speaker 1: in the sense of stem fields of learning more about

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Speaker 1: how the natural world works in order to apply it

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Speaker 1: in more altruistic and scientific and technological ways to improve

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Speaker 1: not just our lives, our lives being our Western lives,

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Speaker 1: but also in prove the lives of you know, people

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Speaker 1: living in indigenous cultures much unlike how they would have

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Speaker 1: been treated in the Golden Age of Expiration when they

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Speaker 1: were simply seen as oddities. We probably took a lot

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Speaker 1: of land, well, not probably, we took a lot of

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Speaker 1: land from them, took a lot of relics. Yeah, I

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Speaker 1: think about the beginning of Raiders of the Lost Ark,

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Speaker 1: Yes exactly. I mean, we sent Indiana jones Is into

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Speaker 1: these places, into these countries, and they were just like, oh, hey,

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Speaker 1: look at this really cool like golden statue thing. I'll

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Speaker 1: just take that because it belongs in a museum. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and if you want to legitimized, then you should put

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Speaker 1: it behind a display case that white well to do

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Speaker 1: people can see and appreciate on a weekend, right, because

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Speaker 1: how will anyone ever believe it exists if it stays

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Speaker 1: in your temple? Yeah, And for that reason, for the

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Speaker 1: next ninety minutes of this podcast, we're just gonna play

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Speaker 1: the audio from Raiders of the Lost Dark. I think

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Speaker 1: there might be some copyright issues but fingers cross, I

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Speaker 1: have a feeling George Lucas might be a tabletagious. So

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Speaker 1: let's let's keep going with our lady explorer theme, right,

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Speaker 1: and so so in in the vein of what we

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Speaker 1: were just talking about, using Indiana gens as a great example, um,

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Speaker 1: basically around this time there was the feeling that there

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Speaker 1: was so much out there in the world that they

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Speaker 1: didn't know, but that no proper study of anatomy of disease,

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Speaker 1: of ecology, of evolutionary relationships, none of the stuff could

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Speaker 1: be complete without sending people out into the world to

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Speaker 1: discover it. And you also have to keep in mind

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Speaker 1: that a lot of these fields are fledgling fields of study,

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Speaker 1: and so you kind of couldn't even have these focus areas,

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Speaker 1: these areas of study without sending these people out to

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Speaker 1: discover what was even out there to begin with. But

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Speaker 1: as a lot of people have pointed out, and a

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Speaker 1: lot of the things we read, women's voices were pretty

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Speaker 1: much lost, and it seems like from our research, Caroline,

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Speaker 1: it's almost as though those lost voices of the Golden

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Speaker 1: age of exploration are now experiencing maybe a resurgence in

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Speaker 1: this twenty one century age of exploration, because you do

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Speaker 1: have women like Melbury Polk, whom we talked about a

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Speaker 1: lot in our introductory episode, who wrote an entire book

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Speaker 1: about women explorers called Women of Discovery, a celebration of

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Speaker 1: intrepid women who explored the world. You have women like

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Speaker 1: Polk and others who are writing books, who are starting organizations,

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Speaker 1: who are shining a light on those unsung heroines of exploration,

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Speaker 1: which is really cool, right, because whereas it seems like

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Speaker 1: the history of women explorers is one giant cycle of unfair.

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Speaker 1: You know, they weren't allowed to have the same types

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Speaker 1: of educational opportunities, which meant they weren't taken seriously, which

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Speaker 1: meant they weren't allowed in the field, which meant their

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Speaker 1: voices were lost, they didn't receive funding, right, And so

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Speaker 1: now it's kind of the cyclist kind of going in

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Speaker 1: in reverse in the other direction, because you have women

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Speaker 1: like Milbury Poke, who is and was an explorer and

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Speaker 1: who then is trying to shed more light on women

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Speaker 1: who have come before us. And so then it becomes

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Speaker 1: the snowball effect of well, the more women we can

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Speaker 1: bring to our consciousness today, then maybe the more women

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Speaker 1: who will be inspired by them. Yeah, and when you

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Speaker 1: look back at those earliest women explorers, they did have

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Speaker 1: some characteristics in common, which usually revolved around higher levels

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Speaker 1: of socioeconomic privilege. Right, These people, whether they were male

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Speaker 1: or female, going out exploring, tended to be very highly educated,

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Speaker 1: and they had the financial means to fund their expeditions

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Speaker 1: and then to publish those findings. That was very important

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Speaker 1: because while you could go out and discover some things

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Speaker 1: or paint some plants or what not, you know, if

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Speaker 1: you couldn't didn't disperse that information to people back home,

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Speaker 1: nobody really paid attention. And Polk also highlights in her

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Speaker 1: book one difference that she noticed between male patterns of

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Speaker 1: exploration at that time versus women's pattern of exploration in

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Speaker 1: that because women were so often ignored by these larger institutions,

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Speaker 1: and it wasn't as necessary as it might be for

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Speaker 1: a male explorer to pick a dot on a map

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Speaker 1: and find the quickest route to get there. Instead, women

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Speaker 1: sort of meandered a bit more, right, Yeah, exactly, Um,

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Speaker 1: she talks about, you know, especially since men were often

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Speaker 1: subsidized by groups, whether that was a military type backing

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Speaker 1: or a state funded type of thing, women often didn't

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Speaker 1: have that type of backing, and so if they were

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Speaker 1: going to go exploring, they didn't quite have that same

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Speaker 1: type of pressure. And maybe pressure is the wrong word,

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Speaker 1: but there was more of a put an internal push

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Speaker 1: that they wanted to go discover these things, and so

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Speaker 1: a lot of their travelogs and whatnot, and we talked

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Speaker 1: about this in our first episode as far as like

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Speaker 1: modern day travelogs for women are often expected to be

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Speaker 1: about a personal, you know, internal journey, whereas men are

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Speaker 1: more like action and what I saw and what I did,

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Speaker 1: what I ate. UM. Back in this era too, women's

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Speaker 1: travelogs tended to be like their journals, where they talked

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Speaker 1: about what they experienced, sort of in a more personal tone. Well.

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Speaker 1: And also the fact that when you consider how that

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Speaker 1: internal drive at the time would have to be so

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Speaker 1: strong and so specific because these women didn't really have

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Speaker 1: many female role models at all doing what they wanted

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Speaker 1: to do, and that doing what they wanted to do

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Speaker 1: also required violating very strict gender norms at the time. Uh,

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Speaker 1: it makes their journeys all the more fascinating. And it's

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Speaker 1: not just um the lack of financial support in terms

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Speaker 1: of being affiliated with scientific institutions or wealthy patrons, etcetera.

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Speaker 1: Mona demash Um, who was writing about geography and sort

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Speaker 1: of the gendered intersections of the development of that field,

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Speaker 1: pointed out how even in socializing, when it comes to geography,

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Speaker 1: you have like these field workers, obviously these mail field

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Speaker 1: workers going out and they have this financial support. But

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Speaker 1: then it was even more of an elite club because

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Speaker 1: of the all male club atmosphere of the Royal Geographic

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Speaker 1: Society in England and the American Geographical Society in the US.

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Speaker 1: And we talked about that too in our introduction episode,

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Speaker 1: talking about how the Explorers Club was all male until

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Speaker 1: the nineteen eighties. So you just have all of these

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Speaker 1: kind of tight male circles and women just meandering around

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Speaker 1: them on the outskirts. Well, Um Domache, I mean, her

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Speaker 1: paper is really really in interesting. It's it's a great

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Speaker 1: look at just the gendered aspects of exploration through the

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Speaker 1: lens of geography specifically. But I mean she talks about how,

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Speaker 1: I mean, you want to talk about a cycle. She

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Speaker 1: talks about how women were basically the victims of the

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Speaker 1: society that they were a part of. They couldn't get

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Speaker 1: that financial backing that we talked about or the proper

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Speaker 1: education to be explorers, and then as a result, they

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Speaker 1: weren't taken seriously because they weren't official and so don't

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Speaker 1: watch talks about how their views were often ignored because

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Speaker 1: they're the stuff that they wrote, the activities that they

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Speaker 1: participated in did not accord with the standards of scientific geography.

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Speaker 1: She wrote, Victorian women explorers could not escape the context

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Speaker 1: in which they lived, and those contexts shaped not only

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Speaker 1: their outlook on personal matters and social networks, but they

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Speaker 1: operated in very material ways as well, by limiting the

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Speaker 1: resources and support networks available to women in their travels.

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Speaker 1: And so it's for this reason that I've had a

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Speaker 1: few minutes ago that one common thread among a lot

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Speaker 1: of these Victorian women travelers is that they were wealthy.

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Speaker 1: I mean, they came from means that gave them good

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Speaker 1: educations but also financed their trip on their own. They

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Speaker 1: didn't need the backing of, say, a wealthy patron um.

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Speaker 1: So when you have women like Mary Kingsley, who will

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Speaker 1: talk about in a little bit, Mary Gaunt, Isabella Bird

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Speaker 1: who we mentioned in our intro episode, and Marian North,

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Speaker 1: who will also talk about more in a few minutes,

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Speaker 1: these women were these women could afford to explore in

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Speaker 1: other words, right, And so because these women had the

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Speaker 1: appropriate means, they weren't going to let it stop them

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Speaker 1: that they weren't sort of allowed into the professional circles

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Speaker 1: of explorers. They realized that oh, I can go out

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Speaker 1: and do field work. I can go explore the land,

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Speaker 1: whether it's around me or overseas, just as any man

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Speaker 1: could do, because hey, look I have the sources to

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Speaker 1: do it. And so we've been talking about uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: women not having enough funding, and so their voices weren't

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Speaker 1: taken seriously. They were considered amateurs and as exploration, particularly

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Speaker 1: land exploration, geographical studies. As these things became more professionalized,

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Speaker 1: they became more masculinized, and so women's voices, since they

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Speaker 1: weren't quote unquote professionals, they were definitely suppressed. As all

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Speaker 1: these scientific fields flourished, there was this giant drive to

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Speaker 1: make everything like super scientific and cut and dry. But

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Speaker 1: who defined what was cutting, dry and scientific. Well it

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Speaker 1: was the men folk, and they thought that women just

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Speaker 1: were sort of silly and amateurs who couldn't be taken seriously.

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Speaker 1: I mean, take it from one high ranking English statesman

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Speaker 1: who maybe wasn't such a fan of women in the field. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: his name was George Curzon and he was a Viceroy

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Speaker 1: of India at the turn of twentieth century, who said, quote,

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Speaker 1: their sex in training render them equally unfitted for exploration.

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Speaker 1: And the genus of professional female globe trotters with which

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Speaker 1: America has lately familiarized us is one of the horrors

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Speaker 1: of the latter end of the nineteenth century, right, And

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Speaker 1: so dudes who are armed with this attitude, who have

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Speaker 1: this attitude that women are just silly and they're frittering

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Speaker 1: their time away and they're just they're just globe trotters. Well,

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Speaker 1: of course you would want to exclude non serious globe

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Speaker 1: trotting silly people from joining your super formal geographical society.

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Speaker 1: But there were a few standouts whose accomplishments were so

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Speaker 1: incredible even men like George Curzon couldn't deny them a

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Speaker 1: place in their elite circles. So, for instance, a name

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Speaker 1: that you might remember from our introductory episode, Harriet Chalmers

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Speaker 1: Atoms in the late eighteen hundreds early nineteen hundreds, really

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Speaker 1: established herself as one of the foremost explorers male or

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Speaker 1: female in the world. Or at least we should say

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Speaker 1: in the Western world. She really made herself an expert

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Speaker 1: on Latin America. She was born in California and she

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Speaker 1: rode on horseback through most of Latin America. Yeah, she

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Speaker 1: ended up basically producing so much information for quote unquote

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Speaker 1: back home that she was really valued by government and

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Speaker 1: business uh interests alike in academic circles. And she was

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Speaker 1: one of the first American women elected to membership in

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Speaker 1: the Royal Geographic Society of London, which is like such

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Speaker 1: a big deal because you know, as as we'll get

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Speaker 1: into further in this series, especially when we talk about

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Speaker 1: Antarctic explorers, the British were not like super excited about

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Speaker 1: women joining their ranks. And no offense to UK listeners,

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Speaker 1: but my witness, Britain was quite a holdout in terms

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Speaker 1: of gender purity and exploration. Um. But we we've established

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Speaker 1: that it usually cost women a lot of money to travel.

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Speaker 1: It still does. It's not like it's cheap to explore,

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Speaker 1: but um, back then they had to be independently financed.

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Speaker 1: But there were some other interesting demographic similarities that you

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Speaker 1: see among a lot of the names of this time.

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Speaker 1: For instance, a lot of women travelers would have been

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Speaker 1: in middle aged, and they were often unmarried. There's actually

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Speaker 1: Caroline speaking which there was one book that I came

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Speaker 1: across in our research called Spinster's Abra, all about Victorian

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Speaker 1: women travelers, because many of them were spinsters. They were

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Speaker 1: unmarried women who some of whom were like, I don't

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Speaker 1: need marriage, I don't want marriage. I'm going to explore

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Speaker 1: um and others whom society was like, no, you just

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Speaker 1: you were unmarriageable. Well it's so funny. I mean, I

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Speaker 1: think that's so funny to call someone like an explore

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Speaker 1: an independent, incredible, brilliant woman who wants to go explore

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Speaker 1: the world a spinster, you know, because spinster, the connotation

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Speaker 1: there is that she's just like sitting at home alone

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Speaker 1: in the dark weather cats. O. Hey, let's take back spinster. Okay,

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Speaker 1: let's reclaim spinster right here right now. Yeah. And as

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Speaker 1: we mentioned, a lot of these women had family members

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Speaker 1: who were involved in some type of exploration too, and

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Speaker 1: so they're, you know, I can't hammer home enough how

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Speaker 1: important it is now or then for boys or girls

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Speaker 1: to have people in their lives who can inspire them.

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Speaker 1: And so they saw these people and their families doing this,

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Speaker 1: and they were like, oh, well, I have a dream

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Speaker 1: as well, and I'm going to go pursue it. And

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Speaker 1: so they ended up a lot of these women sort

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Speaker 1: of removing themselves from the shackles of these institutions that

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Speaker 1: sort of oppressed other women of their age. They weren't

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Speaker 1: going to not necessarily be married, or if they were,

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Speaker 1: they certainly weren't going to let it stop them from

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Speaker 1: going a traveling well. And it was that outsider spinster

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Speaker 1: status that kind of made them good observers and other

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Speaker 1: cultures species to range just depending on where they were

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Speaker 1: going and what they were hoping to discover. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: I mean as far as discovery and women traveling outside

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Speaker 1: of the norms. You know, we we touched on in

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Speaker 1: our introductory episode the fact that pilgrimage, if we're talking

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Speaker 1: about women land explorers, pilgrimage was the main way that

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Speaker 1: women could kind of get away from home go see

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Speaker 1: other lands, um. And so Milbury Pope talks a lot

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Speaker 1: about this in her book, and I thought it was

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Speaker 1: interesting that, you know, Okay, so it was strange for

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Speaker 1: women to travel, especially like in the Middle Ages, definitely

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Speaker 1: not an accepted thing outside of gender norms not considered

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Speaker 1: safe or a good idea in general. But a lot

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Speaker 1: of the women who went traveling to distant lands for

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Speaker 1: pilgrimage purposes ended up being declared saints by the Catholic Church.

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Speaker 1: So I think that's an interesting division between women who

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Speaker 1: are considered outside the norm versus women who are traveling

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Speaker 1: for the purpose of religion. They're considered not only okay

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Speaker 1: but awesome. Well, I think it makes sense because and

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Speaker 1: this is an entire conversation for another time, perhaps a

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Speaker 1: podcast that has been requested many times on women in religion,

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Speaker 1: But I feel like religious devotion and piety fits so

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Speaker 1: nicely into the feminine box, especially if if those very

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Speaker 1: feminine religious women are going overseas to like try to

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Speaker 1: convert other people that are considered backwards into their religion. Right. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's that's the uncomfortable background noise for all of this

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Speaker 1: Victorian era exploration history is that it is very much

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Speaker 1: steeped in um racism and uh, white centric, Western centric

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Speaker 1: views of the world. Yeah, both men and women are

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Speaker 1: definitely guilty of that in this era for sure. But

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Speaker 1: I mean, if you want to go way back and

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Speaker 1: talk about Christian pilgrims Byzantine Empress Helena, who died in

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Speaker 1: three that's three, no one um. She along with her

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Speaker 1: son Emperor Constantine, traveled numerous times to Palestine. They went

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Speaker 1: to Bethlehem, Jerusalem, and Sinai, where she ended up founding

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Speaker 1: several churches. But so once the floodgates kind of opened

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Speaker 1: as far as religious pilgrimage went where Okay, you're a woman,

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Speaker 1: you only have one avenue for for traveling and exploring

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Speaker 1: distant lands, and that's religious pilgrimage going to the Holy Land.

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Speaker 1: Once those floodgates were opened, the local populations weren't always

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Speaker 1: excited about it. And talking about this in the introduction

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Speaker 1: to her book, Millbury Poke writes about one irate Egyptian

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Speaker 1: asthetic who apparently told a wealthy Roman woman who was

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Speaker 1: on a pilgrimage to Egypt uh. She wrote that he

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Speaker 1: decried her and her kind who threatened to quote turned

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Speaker 1: the sea into a thoroughfare with women coming to see me. So,

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Speaker 1: you know, I mean, I think that's an illustration of

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Speaker 1: how sisters are doing it for themselves, and they're getting

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Speaker 1: to travel and explore other lands far away from home

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Speaker 1: and sort of shed some of their societal norms in

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Speaker 1: the process, but it was kind of at the expense

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Speaker 1: of a lot of locals who had to deal with them.

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Speaker 1: But thankfully there were plenty of plucky women out there

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Speaker 1: who did not let what I rate locals thought of

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Speaker 1: them stop them from wanting to explore. And this is

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Speaker 1: such a such an important thing for you know, not

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Speaker 1: just the lives of these women, but for our lives

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Speaker 1: as well, because, as Courtney Stevens put it so perfectly

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Speaker 1: in a ted ed presentation on some early women explorers,

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Speaker 1: she said, the desire to see for one's self not

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Speaker 1: only changes the course of human knowledge, but it also

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Speaker 1: changes the very idea of what is possible. And that

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Speaker 1: gets to the heart of why exploration is important and

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Speaker 1: why we wanted to do this series as well. And

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Speaker 1: let's not get those into some more names of women

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Speaker 1: you probably haven't heard of who did some pretty incredible

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Speaker 1: things back then and also now who were exploring now

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Speaker 1: to help change the course of human knowledge and change

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Speaker 1: our ideas of what is possible. Yeah, one woman that

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Speaker 1: really stuck out to me who definitely was not a

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Speaker 1: part of the Golden Age of exploration during the Victorian era,

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Speaker 1: during the nineteenth century was some really cool kind of

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Speaker 1: be a Viking lady good reader. Perhaps that's how we

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Speaker 1: pronounce her name, good reader. Yes, this Viking woman good

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Speaker 1: reader whose Viking last name is so challenging to pronounce

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Speaker 1: that even the Internet didn't have a guide for us.

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Speaker 1: So we're just gonna call her a good reader because

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Speaker 1: her accomplishments really lend her the credibility to only go

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Speaker 1: by one name. Yeah, she's like, yeah, she's like the

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Speaker 1: share of Viking exploration because so get this. In the

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Speaker 1: late nine hundreds, she travels to Greenland from Iceland and

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Speaker 1: then she heads on over to North America with her

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Speaker 1: husband where she had her son. Her husband dies and

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Speaker 1: she's like, oh too bad, so sad. She remarries back

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Speaker 1: in Greenland, and then they led another expedition to North

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Speaker 1: America where she had a second son there. So you

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Speaker 1: know all those stories from European and American history about

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Speaker 1: how the trips you know, back and forth weren't so easy.

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Speaker 1: She didn't hop on like a carnival cruise and go

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Speaker 1: where the you know, the bathroom breaks down and everyone

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Speaker 1: was like, oh no, no, she was doing this like

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Speaker 1: back and forth at a time when it was an

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Speaker 1: incredibly treacherous journey to make. Yeah, and and she was

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Speaker 1: doing it alongside some big burly men her husband her

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Speaker 1: first husband anyway, it was one of the sons of

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Speaker 1: Eric the Red and I think the brother of Leif Ericson. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that was her brother in law. Yeah, so, I mean,

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Speaker 1: no big deal. She's just like Viking Royalty. But so

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Speaker 1: after her I think it's her second son after he

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Speaker 1: grows up. So so Christianity has been introduced. They are

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Speaker 1: Christian now. Um. She ends up making a pilgrimage to Rome.

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Speaker 1: After that son grows up and gets married, she meets

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Speaker 1: the Pope. Again, no big deal for a good reader.

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Speaker 1: She ends up retiring to the church where her son

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Speaker 1: her son built, and starts to live life as a nun.

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Speaker 1: She just set her own path. She totally set her

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Speaker 1: own I will say. When I was reading her biography,

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Speaker 1: the end felt like a real plot twist. I did

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Speaker 1: not anticipate good reader settling down to the life of

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Speaker 1: a nun. Yeah, I'm picturing Xena Warrior princess just being like, ah,

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Speaker 1: here's my soil. I'll be a nun. You're wearing a habit. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: good reader, But I guess there weren't like so many

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Speaker 1: options in the early by then thousands, by the early thousands,

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Speaker 1: by the thousands of what else are you gonna do? Well,

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Speaker 1: now we're going to take a giant leap in history

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Speaker 1: to the eighteen hundreds to talk about Marianne North, who was.

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Speaker 1: I feel like she's kind of the epitome of the

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Speaker 1: Victorian spinster explorer. Yeah. Oh, she hated marriage. She I

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Speaker 1: think she also kind of hated men. Yeah, she detested

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Speaker 1: the idea of getting married. She called it a terrible

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Speaker 1: experiment that turned women into a sort of upper servant.

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Speaker 1: And she actually really just preferred to hang out with

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Speaker 1: her father, whose passion for botany and travel inspired her.

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Speaker 1: And when he died it left her both independent because

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Speaker 1: she was no longer hanging out with him, but it

396
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Speaker 1: also left her wealthy, which is t and through her

397
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Speaker 1: travel she became the pre eminent botanical artist of the

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Speaker 1: late Victorian period, and she powered her away wearing Victorian garb.

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Speaker 1: She didn't trade out her skirts for Nicko Bakos, but

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Speaker 1: she actually went to some of the world's most inhospitable terrain.

401
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Speaker 1: She hit every single continent, in fact, except for Antarctica.

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Speaker 1: On her journeys to find rare and beautiful plants that

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Speaker 1: she then sat down and oil painted. And there was

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Speaker 1: someone talking about how it was so significant that she

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Speaker 1: oil painted rather than watercolor, which was a far more

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Speaker 1: feminine art form at the time, because it lent a

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Speaker 1: just a deeper richness visually to her art and also

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Speaker 1: helped ensure that they stayed in prime condition for longer. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that they would last. That you know, she's if she's

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Speaker 1: going to these tropical locations to paint these incredible, multicolored,

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Speaker 1: beautiful plants watercolor, you know, humidity not so good for

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Speaker 1: water based pigment. I would I would think, I mean,

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Speaker 1: I'm not a painter. And what I mean one key

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Speaker 1: thing about her art, so she was self taught. As

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Speaker 1: an adult. She wanted to be, I think a singer,

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Speaker 1: but it's like a life of the stage was beneath

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Speaker 1: her family position or something. So she ended up taking

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Speaker 1: up painting. Realized she loved it, you know, paint paint

419
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Speaker 1: things with oils um And what was key about her

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Speaker 1: painting is that, unlike a lot of the male explorers

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Speaker 1: and male botanists who went traveling and took specimens and

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Speaker 1: brought them back. She didn't dig them up, she painted them.

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Speaker 1: She would just PLoP down with her her easel and

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Speaker 1: her paints and paint them well. And as she was

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Speaker 1: a woman of wealth and had a good family name,

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Speaker 1: when she went on all these journeys, she often arrived

427
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Speaker 1: with letters of introduct shin and would have had, you know,

428
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Speaker 1: wealthy hookups to stay with and dine with and rub

429
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Speaker 1: elbows with. But she really tried to avoid that as

430
00:27:10,320 --> 00:27:14,000
Speaker 1: much as possible. She preferred to just trapes around on

431
00:27:14,080 --> 00:27:19,200
Speaker 1: her own and paint her paintings. Yeah. And the cool

432
00:27:19,240 --> 00:27:22,280
Speaker 1: thing about her paintings, which are now on display in

433
00:27:22,480 --> 00:27:27,280
Speaker 1: England in her own gallery that she pushed to have built, Um,

434
00:27:27,600 --> 00:27:30,560
Speaker 1: they're displayed really interestingly. They're all kind of swished together

435
00:27:30,600 --> 00:27:33,159
Speaker 1: like a big pinterest board on the wall, uh to

436
00:27:33,480 --> 00:27:35,440
Speaker 1: throw a modern reference in there. And they're all grouped

437
00:27:35,440 --> 00:27:38,680
Speaker 1: according to country, which is really cool too. But she

438
00:27:38,720 --> 00:27:42,680
Speaker 1: didn't she didn't paint in a super like quote unquote

439
00:27:42,680 --> 00:27:45,320
Speaker 1: scientific way. I mean, if we're talking about women going

440
00:27:45,320 --> 00:27:48,800
Speaker 1: their own way, doing their own thing and not really

441
00:27:48,840 --> 00:27:53,240
Speaker 1: traveling and reporting back like the men did, she didn't

442
00:27:53,320 --> 00:27:56,399
Speaker 1: just paint the single flower or the single leaf or

443
00:27:56,440 --> 00:28:00,280
Speaker 1: plant against a white background, as was the science ific

444
00:28:00,320 --> 00:28:02,919
Speaker 1: habit of the time. She really painted the plant in

445
00:28:02,960 --> 00:28:05,480
Speaker 1: its whole ecosystem, so you might see the plant or

446
00:28:05,480 --> 00:28:08,879
Speaker 1: the flower, but it would be on the bush in

447
00:28:08,960 --> 00:28:11,320
Speaker 1: the field, so you would still see everything that was

448
00:28:11,359 --> 00:28:13,960
Speaker 1: around it and how it was interacting with its ecosystem.

449
00:28:14,280 --> 00:28:19,040
Speaker 1: And in the process she discovered a number of plant species,

450
00:28:19,480 --> 00:28:22,919
Speaker 1: many of which are named in her honor, including just

451
00:28:23,000 --> 00:28:27,479
Speaker 1: for an example, miss North picture plant, and even the

452
00:28:27,560 --> 00:28:30,960
Speaker 1: genus name North thea, which is part of a plant

453
00:28:31,000 --> 00:28:35,840
Speaker 1: family of evergreen trees and shrubs. And through her paintings

454
00:28:35,840 --> 00:28:39,680
Speaker 1: she also showed Europeans for the first time because Google

455
00:28:39,720 --> 00:28:44,479
Speaker 1: image did not exist, but she showed them plants they

456
00:28:44,480 --> 00:28:48,240
Speaker 1: had never seen before, such as the giant picture plant

457
00:28:48,280 --> 00:28:51,840
Speaker 1: of Borneo and the African tort lily. So she very

458
00:28:51,920 --> 00:28:55,360
Speaker 1: much educated the public through her exploration. And I like

459
00:28:55,600 --> 00:28:57,520
Speaker 1: that she didn't bring back all those speciments. It's like

460
00:28:57,600 --> 00:29:01,000
Speaker 1: she went in painted and then left without a trace.

461
00:29:01,600 --> 00:29:04,760
Speaker 1: She left a small minimal footprint, probably in the shape

462
00:29:04,880 --> 00:29:10,240
Speaker 1: of a very uncomfortable Victorian high heeled shoe. And speaking

463
00:29:10,320 --> 00:29:14,680
Speaker 1: of botanists slash explorers, I also want to mention Inez

464
00:29:15,040 --> 00:29:19,680
Speaker 1: and Riquetta Julietta Mechia, who's who has a beautiful name

465
00:29:19,760 --> 00:29:23,640
Speaker 1: that I'm hopefully doing justice to. Um. She came around

466
00:29:23,720 --> 00:29:28,600
Speaker 1: a little bit later than North Um, and she was

467
00:29:28,680 --> 00:29:32,360
Speaker 1: focused on South and Central America and Alaska, and so

468
00:29:33,640 --> 00:29:36,440
Speaker 1: she set out on a series of journeys to remote

469
00:29:36,440 --> 00:29:41,000
Speaker 1: locations around there and collected one hundred and fifty thousand

470
00:29:41,320 --> 00:29:45,239
Speaker 1: botanical specimens, and she identified more than five hundred new

471
00:29:45,280 --> 00:29:48,240
Speaker 1: species of plants, many of which were named in her honor.

472
00:29:48,320 --> 00:29:50,680
Speaker 1: So she was more of the go and collective specimen,

473
00:29:50,760 --> 00:29:54,120
Speaker 1: bring it back, not so much of an artist, but

474
00:29:54,360 --> 00:29:58,320
Speaker 1: nonetheless an important explorer to know. Yeah, and I mean

475
00:29:58,360 --> 00:30:00,240
Speaker 1: I think about I think what's so neat a about

476
00:30:00,240 --> 00:30:03,040
Speaker 1: Marian North I mean, being such a product of her time,

477
00:30:03,680 --> 00:30:06,520
Speaker 1: is that she's exactly the type of woman from this

478
00:30:06,640 --> 00:30:11,000
Speaker 1: era that Domash was writing about in terms of going

479
00:30:11,040 --> 00:30:13,400
Speaker 1: her own way, doing what she was doing for her

480
00:30:13,560 --> 00:30:15,600
Speaker 1: I mean, she just loved to paint, and so she's

481
00:30:15,640 --> 00:30:20,280
Speaker 1: sort of fell into this love of plants and exploration

482
00:30:20,360 --> 00:30:22,680
Speaker 1: from her father combined with her own love of painting

483
00:30:23,080 --> 00:30:26,880
Speaker 1: to really go about this scientific pursuit in her own

484
00:30:27,320 --> 00:30:30,400
Speaker 1: very unique way. Well, and the fact that she was

485
00:30:30,440 --> 00:30:35,960
Speaker 1: focused on. Botany is significant too, because unlike say geography,

486
00:30:36,000 --> 00:30:38,680
Speaker 1: which was a field, an emerging field at the time,

487
00:30:39,080 --> 00:30:44,000
Speaker 1: very much exclusive to men, botany, not so surprisingly, was

488
00:30:44,120 --> 00:30:51,080
Speaker 1: really the only hard science considered female appropriate because it's flowers. Well,

489
00:30:51,280 --> 00:30:53,400
Speaker 1: of course we would want to study flowers. It's it's

490
00:30:53,560 --> 00:30:55,719
Speaker 1: we could learn to arrange them in vases for our

491
00:30:55,800 --> 00:30:59,600
Speaker 1: sitting rooms where we stay, right, exactly, that was my

492
00:30:59,720 --> 00:31:04,160
Speaker 1: victory Orian woman. Well, okay, so one woman that we

493
00:31:04,320 --> 00:31:07,440
Speaker 1: have to mention, we have to mention and who was

494
00:31:07,600 --> 00:31:11,480
Speaker 1: focused on a little bit of a more masculine science

495
00:31:11,640 --> 00:31:15,600
Speaker 1: or sciences plural is Gertrude Bell. Now we could do

496
00:31:15,960 --> 00:31:19,720
Speaker 1: like fifteen hours worth of podcasts on Gertrude Bell because

497
00:31:19,720 --> 00:31:22,320
Speaker 1: she's so fascinating and accomplished so much in her life.

498
00:31:22,720 --> 00:31:25,000
Speaker 1: But we actually don't have to because stuff you missed

499
00:31:25,000 --> 00:31:28,280
Speaker 1: in history class. Our sister podcast has already done a

500
00:31:28,320 --> 00:31:31,440
Speaker 1: two parter on Gertrude Bell. That's right, So if you

501
00:31:31,600 --> 00:31:34,520
Speaker 1: really want to dig into her bio, you can do that.

502
00:31:34,640 --> 00:31:40,080
Speaker 1: But in the context of exploration, yes, we must discuss her. Yeah,

503
00:31:40,120 --> 00:31:43,719
Speaker 1: because she was an archaeologist, a linguist, a mountaineer. She

504
00:31:43,840 --> 00:31:47,800
Speaker 1: traveled to the desert and helped form what is now Iraq.

505
00:31:47,920 --> 00:31:50,479
Speaker 1: I mean this, this woman had a hand in a

506
00:31:50,480 --> 00:31:52,720
Speaker 1: lot of stuff. And what's interesting if we're talking about

507
00:31:52,880 --> 00:31:56,280
Speaker 1: forming your own path and all that stuff. She also

508
00:31:56,400 --> 00:31:59,480
Speaker 1: was one woman who did not get married. She wasn't

509
00:31:59,480 --> 00:32:03,520
Speaker 1: really considered marriage material because she was so highly educated

510
00:32:03,520 --> 00:32:07,360
Speaker 1: at Oxford, So she ended up teaching herself Persian, hanging

511
00:32:07,360 --> 00:32:10,480
Speaker 1: out with her uncle and Iran who was a British

512
00:32:10,480 --> 00:32:14,280
Speaker 1: official over there, developing this interest in the Middle Eastern region,

513
00:32:14,560 --> 00:32:17,400
Speaker 1: and traveling all over the place. Yeah, the fact that

514
00:32:17,440 --> 00:32:19,800
Speaker 1: she was the first woman to graduate with a modern

515
00:32:19,880 --> 00:32:25,160
Speaker 1: history degree from Oxford essentially just banished her from the

516
00:32:25,240 --> 00:32:28,360
Speaker 1: marriage market. They were like, oh, well, no, no, no, no,

517
00:32:28,400 --> 00:32:30,600
Speaker 1: not not you, Gertrude. You have too many things to

518
00:32:30,600 --> 00:32:33,240
Speaker 1: talk about, Gertrude. Well, and and I also want to

519
00:32:33,280 --> 00:32:37,320
Speaker 1: mention to her mountaineering passion because this is also a

520
00:32:37,400 --> 00:32:42,200
Speaker 1: great snapshot of women exploring at the time, because in

521
00:32:42,600 --> 00:32:47,960
Speaker 1: eighteen she made her first major ascent over thirteen feet

522
00:32:48,040 --> 00:32:52,240
Speaker 1: in the French Alps. But there were no proper clothes

523
00:32:52,280 --> 00:32:55,040
Speaker 1: for female climbers back then, so she took off her

524
00:32:55,080 --> 00:32:59,720
Speaker 1: skirt and just kept climbing in her underclothes until she

525
00:33:00,000 --> 00:33:03,840
Speaker 1: reached the summit. I love it yeah, in her under clothes,

526
00:33:04,000 --> 00:33:07,440
Speaker 1: in her undercarriage clos And in nineteen o one, after

527
00:33:07,480 --> 00:33:10,400
Speaker 1: a few more climbs, she ended up becoming the first

528
00:33:10,440 --> 00:33:14,640
Speaker 1: person to climb all the peaks of the Angle Horner

529
00:33:15,280 --> 00:33:19,040
Speaker 1: Range in the Swiss Alps, and during that time she

530
00:33:19,160 --> 00:33:22,520
Speaker 1: spent two weeks wearing a blue climbing suit with pants,

531
00:33:22,520 --> 00:33:26,400
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, pants, although she always changed back into

532
00:33:26,400 --> 00:33:29,880
Speaker 1: her skirt at base camp. And of the nine peaks,

533
00:33:29,960 --> 00:33:32,840
Speaker 1: she was the first person to summit seven of them,

534
00:33:32,920 --> 00:33:36,040
Speaker 1: and she even had a mountaintop named after her, Gertrude

535
00:33:36,120 --> 00:33:42,560
Speaker 1: spitza Gertrude Spitzer Let's climate Caroline. I'm I'm wearing pants though,

536
00:33:43,040 --> 00:33:46,560
Speaker 1: But she wasn't just interested in climbing mountains and just

537
00:33:46,600 --> 00:33:50,720
Speaker 1: hanging out with her uncle in Iran. So in nineteen fifteen,

538
00:33:50,760 --> 00:33:52,840
Speaker 1: she's in Cairo at the time where she becomes the

539
00:33:52,880 --> 00:33:57,800
Speaker 1: first woman officer to be employed by British military intelligence,

540
00:33:57,920 --> 00:34:01,080
Speaker 1: and it's as a British spy that she sent. Then

541
00:34:01,240 --> 00:34:04,640
Speaker 1: goes back to the Middle East and starts doing some

542
00:34:04,880 --> 00:34:09,879
Speaker 1: scouting around. She does and she ends up having a

543
00:34:09,960 --> 00:34:14,120
Speaker 1: huge impact over there um, but not everybody was super

544
00:34:14,120 --> 00:34:20,560
Speaker 1: excited about her participation. Diplomatic advisor Sir Mark Sykes put it, thus,

545
00:34:20,680 --> 00:34:26,040
Speaker 1: late confound the silly, chattering wind bag of conceited, gushing,

546
00:34:26,120 --> 00:34:32,960
Speaker 1: flat chested man woman, globe trotting, rump wagging, bleathering ass. Yeah.

547
00:34:33,040 --> 00:34:34,960
Speaker 1: I mean he had a lot to say about her.

548
00:34:35,080 --> 00:34:37,600
Speaker 1: And it's funny that like gendered stuff gets in there.

549
00:34:37,640 --> 00:34:40,279
Speaker 1: He calls her a man woman and flat chested, and

550
00:34:40,280 --> 00:34:42,960
Speaker 1: then you've got like, yeah, you've got the dismissive stuff,

551
00:34:42,960 --> 00:34:46,520
Speaker 1: the globe trotting, rump wagging, she's a wind bag. She

552
00:34:46,600 --> 00:34:51,200
Speaker 1: talks so much like God forbid women talk so But generally,

553
00:34:51,200 --> 00:34:55,520
Speaker 1: I mean generally she was admired and appreciated. And I

554
00:34:55,560 --> 00:34:59,160
Speaker 1: mean it's obvious because in Iraq in the nineteen twenties,

555
00:35:00,080 --> 00:35:03,640
Speaker 1: she's this powerful official of the British administration in Baghdad

556
00:35:03,719 --> 00:35:07,359
Speaker 1: after World War One, and she helped ensure that an

557
00:35:07,360 --> 00:35:11,120
Speaker 1: Arab state was founded from the three Ottoman provinces of Mosl,

558
00:35:11,520 --> 00:35:16,000
Speaker 1: Baghdad and Bosra, but helped ensure that it would stay

559
00:35:16,040 --> 00:35:18,800
Speaker 1: too weak to be independent of Britain. Yeah, she essentially

560
00:35:19,040 --> 00:35:24,279
Speaker 1: drew the borderlines of Iraq and so If her name

561
00:35:24,440 --> 00:35:27,879
Speaker 1: is ringing a bell right now, Gertrude Bell ding Ding,

562
00:35:28,719 --> 00:35:31,399
Speaker 1: it might be because her name has been coming up

563
00:35:31,520 --> 00:35:36,720
Speaker 1: recently in some news articles about the current unrest in Iraq,

564
00:35:36,920 --> 00:35:39,759
Speaker 1: because you know, I mean, this was a state that

565
00:35:39,920 --> 00:35:45,040
Speaker 1: was drawn up strategically to sort of pitt different groups

566
00:35:45,040 --> 00:35:47,359
Speaker 1: and tribes against each other to ensure that they would

567
00:35:47,400 --> 00:35:51,600
Speaker 1: never become more powerful than Britain. So yet again we

568
00:35:51,840 --> 00:35:55,520
Speaker 1: have to reference sort of the the uncomfortable undercurrent of

569
00:35:56,360 --> 00:36:03,000
Speaker 1: um political nastiness and white people muck and stuff up. Yeah,

570
00:36:03,000 --> 00:36:05,080
Speaker 1: that's a good way to put it. But I mean,

571
00:36:05,239 --> 00:36:08,560
Speaker 1: in all this, she did make bagged at her permanent home,

572
00:36:08,800 --> 00:36:11,680
Speaker 1: and she did help to organize elections, and she did

573
00:36:11,760 --> 00:36:14,880
Speaker 1: help to write a constitution, and in she was the

574
00:36:14,920 --> 00:36:17,440
Speaker 1: first person to write a white paper called the Review

575
00:36:17,520 --> 00:36:20,400
Speaker 1: of the Civil Administration of Mesopotamia, And a white paper

576
00:36:20,480 --> 00:36:26,239
Speaker 1: is basically like a really long informational booklet about a place. Yeah,

577
00:36:26,280 --> 00:36:29,839
Speaker 1: she kind of makes me feel like I need to

578
00:36:29,920 --> 00:36:33,319
Speaker 1: do more with my life. I don't know, But the

579
00:36:33,360 --> 00:36:36,239
Speaker 1: desert is so hot. It doesn't have to be in

580
00:36:36,280 --> 00:36:38,880
Speaker 1: the desert, Carol, Okay, cool, Okay. Well, in the last

581
00:36:39,000 --> 00:36:42,800
Speaker 1: big Explorer of your that we really want to focus

582
00:36:42,840 --> 00:36:47,560
Speaker 1: on for this episode is one Alexandra David Neil. And

583
00:36:47,680 --> 00:36:51,319
Speaker 1: it's like we've been kind of moving eastward on our

584
00:36:51,360 --> 00:36:54,239
Speaker 1: our map here because we had Gertrude Bell in the

585
00:36:54,239 --> 00:36:57,440
Speaker 1: Middle East, and now we're gonna have Alexander David Neil

586
00:36:58,200 --> 00:37:02,520
Speaker 1: go into the deep East. Yeah. I mean, this is

587
00:37:02,560 --> 00:37:04,960
Speaker 1: a woman who lived to be just shy of her

588
00:37:05,000 --> 00:37:08,839
Speaker 1: one first birthday and so in true in her true

589
00:37:08,880 --> 00:37:12,360
Speaker 1: middle age. At fifty five, she became the first European

590
00:37:12,400 --> 00:37:16,680
Speaker 1: woman to reach Tibet's forbidden capital, and she remains the

591
00:37:16,719 --> 00:37:21,879
Speaker 1: most accurate, extensive source on hidden Buddhist practices of this

592
00:37:22,120 --> 00:37:26,719
Speaker 1: really what is sort of vanishing Eastern world. But she

593
00:37:26,760 --> 00:37:28,839
Speaker 1: didn't start out that way. She actually began her career

594
00:37:28,880 --> 00:37:31,680
Speaker 1: as an opera singer and then her voice broke and

595
00:37:31,719 --> 00:37:33,359
Speaker 1: she was like, well, now what am I gonna do?

596
00:37:33,440 --> 00:37:36,799
Speaker 1: And so she became a strongly feminist writer because of

597
00:37:36,800 --> 00:37:40,759
Speaker 1: course naturally and uh, it was through her writing and

598
00:37:40,840 --> 00:37:45,399
Speaker 1: research that her interests in Eastern philosophy really matured, and

599
00:37:45,520 --> 00:37:49,840
Speaker 1: that plant the seed for this harrowing journey that she

600
00:37:50,000 --> 00:37:54,000
Speaker 1: made over the trans Himalayas to Lassa. Now in order

601
00:37:54,040 --> 00:37:58,359
Speaker 1: to get around and actually avoid getting arrested by British officials.

602
00:37:58,600 --> 00:38:01,640
Speaker 1: She disguised herself as a Tibetan man by wearing a

603
00:38:01,680 --> 00:38:09,560
Speaker 1: massive yak fur coat and a necklace made of animal skulls. Yeah.

604
00:38:09,600 --> 00:38:13,080
Speaker 1: That was in the winter of ninety four, and she

605
00:38:13,200 --> 00:38:16,320
Speaker 1: went with one of her adopted sons and yeah, managed

606
00:38:16,360 --> 00:38:20,439
Speaker 1: to just disguise herself as a beggar. No, no big deal,

607
00:38:20,520 --> 00:38:24,200
Speaker 1: no threat here, definitely not a Western woman. Um. And

608
00:38:24,280 --> 00:38:28,280
Speaker 1: three years later, in nine, her book My Journey to Lassa,

609
00:38:28,400 --> 00:38:31,120
Speaker 1: which was published in New York, London and Paris, became

610
00:38:31,160 --> 00:38:34,480
Speaker 1: an instant classic of travel and adventure. People couldn't get

611
00:38:34,560 --> 00:38:38,160
Speaker 1: enough of this exotic story. Yeah, and she ended up,

612
00:38:38,680 --> 00:38:41,880
Speaker 1: along with her adopted son, writing two dozen books on

613
00:38:42,120 --> 00:38:45,239
Speaker 1: Eastern themes Um. And that one journey to Lasso was

614
00:38:45,360 --> 00:38:48,440
Speaker 1: by no means the only journey that she took. I mean,

615
00:38:48,520 --> 00:38:53,040
Speaker 1: she spent so much time in Tibetan and other areas

616
00:38:53,080 --> 00:38:56,440
Speaker 1: in the Far East. And we could go on and

617
00:38:56,440 --> 00:39:00,479
Speaker 1: on and on with other stories of other women doing

618
00:39:00,520 --> 00:39:03,600
Speaker 1: incredible things around the world. Unfortunately, we only have time

619
00:39:03,600 --> 00:39:07,239
Speaker 1: in this podcast just to do a survey of explorers

620
00:39:07,280 --> 00:39:10,120
Speaker 1: past and present and since We've talked so much about

621
00:39:10,160 --> 00:39:13,840
Speaker 1: women of the past. Now let's talk about what women

622
00:39:13,880 --> 00:39:18,960
Speaker 1: are doing exploration wise today. Yeah, um, I mean speaking

623
00:39:19,040 --> 00:39:22,840
Speaker 1: of you know, the East. Um, we have Christina Lee

624
00:39:22,840 --> 00:39:30,480
Speaker 1: who's an American bioarchaeologist who is exploring diversity through skeletons.

625
00:39:30,480 --> 00:39:34,880
Speaker 1: She combines physical anthropology and archaeology to study human remains

626
00:39:34,880 --> 00:39:38,480
Speaker 1: that are millennia old. And she talks about her own

627
00:39:38,480 --> 00:39:41,960
Speaker 1: personal experience what drove her, which is feeling um as

628
00:39:42,000 --> 00:39:45,759
Speaker 1: an Asian student in Texas, feeling out of place. She

629
00:39:45,800 --> 00:39:48,319
Speaker 1: says that she wanted to explore diversity, that it's at

630
00:39:48,360 --> 00:39:52,920
Speaker 1: the core of her archaeological research, and to search for

631
00:39:53,560 --> 00:39:57,560
Speaker 1: those sort of diverse beginnings through dental anthropology. I mean,

632
00:39:57,560 --> 00:40:00,520
Speaker 1: this woman is incredible, saying that look ing a dental

633
00:40:00,600 --> 00:40:04,640
Speaker 1: dental anthropology can reveal everything from population origin and history

634
00:40:04,680 --> 00:40:07,400
Speaker 1: to migration and intermarriage. And she's doing a lot of

635
00:40:07,440 --> 00:40:09,840
Speaker 1: this research in China, and so she was saying that

636
00:40:09,840 --> 00:40:12,520
Speaker 1: she hopes her discoveries can give the people of China

637
00:40:12,560 --> 00:40:15,760
Speaker 1: a greater sense of their own cultural identity and past.

638
00:40:16,280 --> 00:40:20,000
Speaker 1: And then for another example of a modern stem explorer,

639
00:40:20,080 --> 00:40:26,560
Speaker 1: we have Nalini ned Carney whose specialty is studying tree

640
00:40:26,600 --> 00:40:31,839
Speaker 1: canopies in rainforests in Central and South America and it's fascinating.

641
00:40:31,880 --> 00:40:34,640
Speaker 1: She she gave a ted talk on what she has

642
00:40:34,800 --> 00:40:37,759
Speaker 1: learned from the tree canopies, because it's kind of like

643
00:40:37,800 --> 00:40:40,160
Speaker 1: how we don't think of all the things you could

644
00:40:40,200 --> 00:40:43,640
Speaker 1: learn from a tooth, like Christina Lee is doing. Nalini,

645
00:40:44,040 --> 00:40:47,719
Speaker 1: who grew up climbing trees and loving climb trees, essentially

646
00:40:47,840 --> 00:40:53,600
Speaker 1: climbs trees for a living in order to investigate what

647
00:40:53,800 --> 00:40:57,960
Speaker 1: kind of bio diversity is living up high in those

648
00:40:58,000 --> 00:41:01,000
Speaker 1: tree tops. And it's fascinating me the kind of mosses

649
00:41:01,040 --> 00:41:03,600
Speaker 1: and insects and all of these things that support these

650
00:41:03,719 --> 00:41:07,960
Speaker 1: very fragile ecosystems. And so obviously this is linked to

651
00:41:08,120 --> 00:41:14,080
Speaker 1: ecological preservation and um. Just to think though of exploration

652
00:41:14,360 --> 00:41:18,040
Speaker 1: and tree climbing as a modern day profession that has

653
00:41:18,120 --> 00:41:23,480
Speaker 1: a positive impact on our daily lives is so incredible. Yeah,

654
00:41:23,719 --> 00:41:25,480
Speaker 1: But I mean, I think you just hit on something

655
00:41:25,520 --> 00:41:29,720
Speaker 1: really important about modern day explorers. Whereas in the Golden

656
00:41:29,760 --> 00:41:32,680
Speaker 1: Age of exploration, you had a lot of people not

657
00:41:32,719 --> 00:41:35,520
Speaker 1: necessarily out for themselves, but out for the glory of

658
00:41:35,560 --> 00:41:38,880
Speaker 1: their empire back home. Whether that was America or Britain.

659
00:41:39,480 --> 00:41:41,360
Speaker 1: I think now you have a lot of people, a

660
00:41:41,360 --> 00:41:44,760
Speaker 1: lot of women in particular, who were out exploring for

661
00:41:44,880 --> 00:41:49,080
Speaker 1: the purpose of shedding light on global problems, whether that's

662
00:41:49,880 --> 00:41:55,760
Speaker 1: um ecological problems, environmental issues, or whether that's food problems

663
00:41:55,800 --> 00:41:57,879
Speaker 1: throughout the world. You have a lot of people out

664
00:41:57,880 --> 00:42:00,680
Speaker 1: there today trying to shed the light on tragedies that

665
00:42:00,719 --> 00:42:04,120
Speaker 1: need our attention. Yeah, and that's one of the aims

666
00:42:04,239 --> 00:42:08,960
Speaker 1: of Kiasalak, who is an incredible traveler. She's traveled alone

667
00:42:09,000 --> 00:42:14,120
Speaker 1: to almost every continent, and she really focuses on going

668
00:42:14,200 --> 00:42:19,600
Speaker 1: to remote and sometimes dangerous, outright dangerous locations. And she's

669
00:42:19,600 --> 00:42:22,200
Speaker 1: been profiled in the National Geographic and all sorts of

670
00:42:22,400 --> 00:42:25,120
Speaker 1: other places because, for instance, I mean, she was the

671
00:42:25,160 --> 00:42:28,640
Speaker 1: first woman to traverse Papua New Guinea. She also biked

672
00:42:28,680 --> 00:42:32,640
Speaker 1: seven hundred miles from Alaska to the Arctic Ocean. She

673
00:42:32,719 --> 00:42:36,520
Speaker 1: also biked seven hundred miles from Alaska to the Arctic Ocean.

674
00:42:37,120 --> 00:42:41,040
Speaker 1: She's a fearless woman in other words, right, And she's

675
00:42:41,040 --> 00:42:45,120
Speaker 1: a fearless woman with goals, she said, to reveal situations

676
00:42:45,120 --> 00:42:47,759
Speaker 1: no one else is covering, like slavery and timbuctoo and

677
00:42:47,800 --> 00:42:51,080
Speaker 1: genocide and Eastern Congo. She said that these tragedies are

678
00:42:51,160 --> 00:42:53,759
Speaker 1: very emotionally difficult to witness, but if by shedding light

679
00:42:53,800 --> 00:42:56,000
Speaker 1: on them, I can improve even one person's life, I

680
00:42:56,000 --> 00:42:58,760
Speaker 1: feel it's worth the risk. Well, and at one point

681
00:42:58,760 --> 00:43:02,040
Speaker 1: to where she was is escaping me at the moment,

682
00:43:02,239 --> 00:43:07,760
Speaker 1: but she was kidnapped by some locals and had to escape.

683
00:43:08,040 --> 00:43:10,880
Speaker 1: She actually made an escape, and she was talking about

684
00:43:10,920 --> 00:43:16,000
Speaker 1: how that kind of danger is terrifying. Yes, but when

685
00:43:16,000 --> 00:43:21,279
Speaker 1: she encounters obstacles like that, getting through them only empowers

686
00:43:21,400 --> 00:43:25,960
Speaker 1: her to keep exploring further. Right, And she told a

687
00:43:25,960 --> 00:43:28,520
Speaker 1: story about um, I can't remember which river she was

688
00:43:28,560 --> 00:43:31,239
Speaker 1: traveling down, but the women alongside the river were just

689
00:43:31,360 --> 00:43:34,560
Speaker 1: cheering her on and chanting for her, you know, because

690
00:43:34,680 --> 00:43:37,080
Speaker 1: she might raise the eyebrows of the men in the

691
00:43:37,120 --> 00:43:41,560
Speaker 1: local populations that she travels past, but the women are

692
00:43:41,600 --> 00:43:45,239
Speaker 1: definitely on her side. And then I mean continuing the

693
00:43:45,239 --> 00:43:49,520
Speaker 1: theme of women out there exploring to benefit the global

694
00:43:49,600 --> 00:43:54,960
Speaker 1: population at large. Alexander Custo, Yes, that Custo. She's the

695
00:43:55,000 --> 00:43:59,080
Speaker 1: granddaughter of Jacques Cousto, is a social environmental advocate and

696
00:43:59,160 --> 00:44:03,719
Speaker 1: one of National Graphics Emerging Explorers who looks at all

697
00:44:03,760 --> 00:44:08,080
Speaker 1: different kinds of media opportunities and partnerships between different diverse

698
00:44:08,160 --> 00:44:12,719
Speaker 1: groups to create platforms for emerging environmental leaders. So be

699
00:44:12,760 --> 00:44:17,320
Speaker 1: Gaustove travels all over the world to highlight environmental issues.

700
00:44:17,800 --> 00:44:21,560
Speaker 1: Her latest initiative, Blue Legacy, for instance, was created to

701
00:44:21,840 --> 00:44:25,080
Speaker 1: inspire people to take action on water issues around the

702
00:44:25,080 --> 00:44:30,120
Speaker 1: world and to help spark some dialogue on climate change,

703
00:44:30,400 --> 00:44:34,000
Speaker 1: water availability to various populations throughout the world, etcetera, etcetera.

704
00:44:34,120 --> 00:44:37,799
Speaker 1: So those are just some names who instead of going

705
00:44:37,840 --> 00:44:42,040
Speaker 1: out into the world just taking specimens to inform knowledge.

706
00:44:42,120 --> 00:44:44,680
Speaker 1: Not that stuff like that is not important and obviously

707
00:44:44,800 --> 00:44:47,880
Speaker 1: is critical to scientific research, but these are just a

708
00:44:47,920 --> 00:44:53,880
Speaker 1: few women who are traveling the world to help everyone else. Yeah,

709
00:44:53,960 --> 00:44:57,120
Speaker 1: and that's one of the biggest takeaways from and we're

710
00:44:57,200 --> 00:45:01,080
Speaker 1: only focusing in this episode two on overland and exploration,

711
00:45:01,080 --> 00:45:02,400
Speaker 1: and there are so many other names too that we

712
00:45:02,400 --> 00:45:04,840
Speaker 1: could have talked about. Um, but when it comes to

713
00:45:04,960 --> 00:45:09,279
Speaker 1: just the the giant umbrella of exploration, you know, the

714
00:45:09,360 --> 00:45:12,960
Speaker 1: question from we when we're talking about the nineteenth century

715
00:45:13,520 --> 00:45:15,919
Speaker 1: is why, well, why would they go explore? Well, because

716
00:45:15,920 --> 00:45:19,960
Speaker 1: they had everything to discover. Fast forward to today, same question, Well,

717
00:45:19,960 --> 00:45:23,000
Speaker 1: why would you explore because we still have everything to discover.

718
00:45:23,719 --> 00:45:29,120
Speaker 1: There's always something new to learn. So hopefully we can

719
00:45:29,160 --> 00:45:31,560
Speaker 1: do our part to shed light on the women who

720
00:45:31,800 --> 00:45:35,200
Speaker 1: are doing that and have done that, and we'll do

721
00:45:35,239 --> 00:45:38,239
Speaker 1: that in the future. So if you are an explorer,

722
00:45:38,239 --> 00:45:41,439
Speaker 1: an adventurer, an outdoors person, um, if any of these

723
00:45:41,560 --> 00:45:45,399
Speaker 1: names ring bells to you, we want to hear all

724
00:45:45,440 --> 00:45:49,920
Speaker 1: of your exploration thoughts and stories, etcetera. Mom Stuff at

725
00:45:49,920 --> 00:45:52,359
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com is where you can email us.

726
00:45:52,600 --> 00:45:55,400
Speaker 1: You can also tweet us at mom Stuff podcast or

727
00:45:55,480 --> 00:45:58,600
Speaker 1: messages on Facebook and like us while you're at it.

728
00:45:58,880 --> 00:46:01,440
Speaker 1: And we've got a couple of messages to share with

729
00:46:01,520 --> 00:46:07,800
Speaker 1: you right now. So I got a couple of letters

730
00:46:07,800 --> 00:46:11,600
Speaker 1: here from our episode on y a Fiction, and this

731
00:46:11,640 --> 00:46:15,200
Speaker 1: one is from Rory, who writes I wanted to comment

732
00:46:15,239 --> 00:46:18,359
Speaker 1: on Time editor joel Stein's comments. I wanted to find

733
00:46:18,360 --> 00:46:21,520
Speaker 1: an article that would put his statement into context, and

734
00:46:21,640 --> 00:46:25,840
Speaker 1: fortunately his opinion piece adults should read adult books was

735
00:46:25,920 --> 00:46:28,680
Speaker 1: just a Google search away. After reading his article, it

736
00:46:28,680 --> 00:46:31,360
Speaker 1: should be said that moderation is the key. This is

737
00:46:31,400 --> 00:46:34,879
Speaker 1: not a revolutionary idea. It's a cliche concept, but it's

738
00:46:35,160 --> 00:46:37,399
Speaker 1: a true one and one that so many people seem

739
00:46:37,480 --> 00:46:40,560
Speaker 1: to forget. Stein appears to take the side in which

740
00:46:40,760 --> 00:46:42,759
Speaker 1: the world of higher art is one in which he

741
00:46:42,800 --> 00:46:47,040
Speaker 1: believes people should aspire to, even using such degrading sentences

742
00:46:47,080 --> 00:46:49,919
Speaker 1: as the only thing more embarrassing than catching a guy

743
00:46:49,960 --> 00:46:52,759
Speaker 1: on the plane looking at pornography on his computer is

744
00:46:52,800 --> 00:46:55,120
Speaker 1: seeing a guy on the plane reading The Hunger Games.

745
00:46:55,680 --> 00:46:58,719
Speaker 1: The only problem with the situation is when an individual,

746
00:46:59,000 --> 00:47:01,879
Speaker 1: regardless of age gender, refuses to step out of their

747
00:47:01,880 --> 00:47:04,760
Speaker 1: comfort zone. There is a point in which someone should

748
00:47:05,040 --> 00:47:07,759
Speaker 1: step up, as it were, and move to the next

749
00:47:07,840 --> 00:47:11,239
Speaker 1: level of literature that may be considered more substantial. It's

750
00:47:11,280 --> 00:47:13,600
Speaker 1: hard to argue that a novel by Susanne Collins or

751
00:47:13,640 --> 00:47:16,680
Speaker 1: John Green could match the prose or philosophical complexity of

752
00:47:16,719 --> 00:47:20,120
Speaker 1: a novel written by by Nabokov or Thomas Hardy. But

753
00:47:20,200 --> 00:47:23,000
Speaker 1: then again, maybe our contemporary way of thinking just can't

754
00:47:23,040 --> 00:47:26,080
Speaker 1: see it yet. However, another problem in the situation is

755
00:47:26,080 --> 00:47:29,799
Speaker 1: the assumption that this person only reads books like The

756
00:47:29,880 --> 00:47:33,040
Speaker 1: Hunger Games or Harry Potter. If that's the case, as

757
00:47:33,120 --> 00:47:35,840
Speaker 1: was hinted in the previous paragraph, that is a problem,

758
00:47:35,920 --> 00:47:38,800
Speaker 1: just as it's a problem if someone only reads Victorian literature.

759
00:47:39,320 --> 00:47:41,760
Speaker 1: It would be beneficial for any reader to move onto

760
00:47:41,760 --> 00:47:45,040
Speaker 1: more challenging examples of literature justice. It would be beneficial

761
00:47:45,080 --> 00:47:47,160
Speaker 1: for someone who has already reached that next level to

762
00:47:47,200 --> 00:47:50,800
Speaker 1: step down from their pedestal and give those supposed lesser

763
00:47:50,800 --> 00:47:54,919
Speaker 1: writers a chance. They may be surprised. Look no further

764
00:47:54,960 --> 00:47:57,080
Speaker 1: than Philip K. Dick, who used to be considered a

765
00:47:57,080 --> 00:48:00,279
Speaker 1: pulse science fiction writer. To my knowledge, he came the

766
00:48:00,320 --> 00:48:03,160
Speaker 1: first science fiction author whose works were collected in two

767
00:48:03,239 --> 00:48:06,440
Speaker 1: volumes that were published by the Library of America, an

768
00:48:06,520 --> 00:48:08,880
Speaker 1: organization that has collected the works of authors such as

769
00:48:08,960 --> 00:48:12,120
Speaker 1: John Updike and Ernest Hemingway. Who was to say that,

770
00:48:12,200 --> 00:48:14,920
Speaker 1: decades from now, the works of John Green will not

771
00:48:15,040 --> 00:48:21,160
Speaker 1: be published in similar collections. So thanks for your insights, Rory. Alrighty,

772
00:48:21,280 --> 00:48:24,160
Speaker 1: I have a letter here from Mary. She says, I

773
00:48:24,200 --> 00:48:26,200
Speaker 1: am a ninth grade English teacher at a high school

774
00:48:26,239 --> 00:48:28,680
Speaker 1: in rural Wisconsin. The town in which I teach is

775
00:48:28,760 --> 00:48:31,799
Speaker 1: very provincial, and as a result, the population is very homogeneous,

776
00:48:31,880 --> 00:48:35,840
Speaker 1: meaning the students are largely white, working class or lower

777
00:48:35,880 --> 00:48:38,640
Speaker 1: middle class kids. This being said in order to help

778
00:48:38,680 --> 00:48:41,759
Speaker 1: my students game perspectives from all walks of life, regions,

779
00:48:41,840 --> 00:48:45,720
Speaker 1: social classes, cultures, ethnicities, rates of sexual orientations, et cetera.

780
00:48:46,160 --> 00:48:48,840
Speaker 1: I use young adult lit. Yes, perhaps I should be

781
00:48:48,840 --> 00:48:51,799
Speaker 1: teaching more classics, and please understand that I do. But

782
00:48:51,840 --> 00:48:54,359
Speaker 1: as wonderful as Lord of the Flies or Great Expectations

783
00:48:54,360 --> 00:48:58,280
Speaker 1: can be, they are usually only presenting limited viewpoints, usually white, straight,

784
00:48:58,440 --> 00:49:01,399
Speaker 1: sisgendered males, so my students do not have the means

785
00:49:01,440 --> 00:49:03,600
Speaker 1: to travel the world and it's people in order to

786
00:49:03,600 --> 00:49:05,560
Speaker 1: bring the world to them. I use young adult lit.

787
00:49:05,880 --> 00:49:08,920
Speaker 1: As you stated in your podcast, it's more representative of

788
00:49:08,920 --> 00:49:11,520
Speaker 1: all people and therefore has helped my students gain new

789
00:49:11,600 --> 00:49:14,439
Speaker 1: views on the world. Through young adult lit. They're able

790
00:49:14,480 --> 00:49:16,040
Speaker 1: to look at life through the eyes of someone with

791
00:49:16,080 --> 00:49:19,040
Speaker 1: a severe disability and Terry Truman stuck in Neutral, or

792
00:49:19,080 --> 00:49:21,520
Speaker 1: experience high school in the shoes of a transgender teen

793
00:49:21,640 --> 00:49:24,880
Speaker 1: and Julianne Peter's Luna, or understand the impact of sexual

794
00:49:24,880 --> 00:49:28,280
Speaker 1: assault on women and Lorie halls Anderson's Speak. Young adult

795
00:49:28,320 --> 00:49:30,440
Speaker 1: lit has enabled me to foster a better understanding of

796
00:49:30,440 --> 00:49:32,680
Speaker 1: the world with my students and helped instill an improved

797
00:49:32,719 --> 00:49:35,040
Speaker 1: sense of empathy in them, much more so than a

798
00:49:35,080 --> 00:49:38,480
Speaker 1: typical complex classic. This is not to say that classics

799
00:49:38,480 --> 00:49:41,279
Speaker 1: have no place in secondary English language arts classes, but

800
00:49:41,400 --> 00:49:43,360
Speaker 1: rather to say that young adult lit is and should

801
00:49:43,400 --> 00:49:46,480
Speaker 1: be placed alongside the literary canon, as they both present

802
00:49:46,560 --> 00:49:50,440
Speaker 1: important and needed aspects and education. So thank you, Mary,

803
00:49:50,760 --> 00:49:53,239
Speaker 1: and thanks to everybody who has written into us mom

804
00:49:53,360 --> 00:49:56,080
Speaker 1: stuff at how stuff Works dot com is our email

805
00:49:56,080 --> 00:49:59,080
Speaker 1: address and for links to all of our social media

806
00:49:59,520 --> 00:50:03,399
Speaker 1: blog hosts, videos, and every single one of our five

807
00:50:03,440 --> 00:50:07,960
Speaker 1: hundred plus podcasts, there's one place to go. It's stuff

808
00:50:08,000 --> 00:50:13,600
Speaker 1: Mom Never Told You dot com. For more on this

809
00:50:13,760 --> 00:50:16,279
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics, is it how stuff Works

810
00:50:16,280 --> 00:50:24,520
Speaker 1: dot com