Show Notes
A new eight-part series starts on the 26th October.
Normal Women is a radical retelling of our nation’s story – not of the rise and fall of kings and the occasional queen – but of social and cultural change, powered by the determination, persistence and effectiveness of women– from 1066 to modern times. This is not a podcast about three or four well-known heroines; it is a story about millions of women: those who left records and those who were ‘hidden from history.’
We'll hear about rioting women, power-mad women, manipulative women, angelic women and cursed women as Philippa Gregory weaves together narrative history with lively discussions, bringing together historians who are experts in their field, and guests with lived experience and their own modern perspectives to discuss themes from the her book 'Normal Women - 900 Years of Making History'.
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More from Normal Women
What if the so-called "madwoman" wasn’t mad at all? In this special episode of Normal Women, Philippa Gregory is joined by academic and author of Delusions of Gender Cordelia Fine to expose the myths behind the so-called fragile female brain. From hysteria to hormones, we ask: are women really more emotional, or have we just been told that we are for centuries?
The marriage of Queen Victoria to Prince Albert set the template for how we imagine a wedding should be but it wasn’t always about big white frocks. Philippa Gregory explores how married women became the property of their husbands - along with everything they owned and produced. She considers the hidden history of wife sales and female husbands and shines a light on the difficulty women had accessing divorce.
Men have always claimed that there is such a thing as “female nature” and described it with great authority – but throughout history, women have refused to conform to the strict view of what is masculine and feminine - from fierce jousting medieval ladies to 18th Century French aristocrats who seamlessly slip in and out of male and female roles.
Bitten, spat on, denounced - in the 1990s newly-ordained women were met with fury by a vocal minority. But women have always played an important role in the Church, as mystics, the heads of religious houses, saints or simply as normal women seeking salvation.
Throughout history women have faced the threat of sexual violence and, sadly, it's no different today. Philippa explores how rape was viewed as a crime against a man’s property, how courtly love gave way to brutal desire and the difficulties women face in bringing their attackers to justice.