Zing Tsjeng on pirate queens, resistance heroines, and history's forgotten women

Zing Tsjeng is a journalist and the author of the Forgotten Women book series. These four books provide fascinating biographies of the leaders, scientists, artists, and writers who are notably absent from our history books. As Tsjeng notes in her books, women account for around half of the world’s population, but they only occupy around 0.5% of recorded history. For those of us who grew up learning a lot about Henry VIII, Oliver Cromwell, Christopher Columbus, and Abraham Lincoln, you might have wondered what women were getting up to during this time. They were very busy, it turns out. In this episode, we learn about some of the fascinating women who changed the course of history but didn’t get a mention in the books we read at school.

Tsjeng also pays tribute to her grandmother, who smuggled food to British prisoners of war during the occupation of Hong Kong while raising seven children. You'll also learn about U.S.-based peace activist Concepción Picciotto, Chinese pirate leader Ching Shih, and the Mirabal Sisters, who opposed the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo in the Dominican Republic. 

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Special thanks to Zing Tsjeng and Octopus Publishing Group.

Credits:

Creator and host: Rachel Thompson

Producers: Maria Dermentzi and Nikolay Nikolov

Editor: Shannon Connellan

Music: Christianne Straker

Illustration: Vicky Leta

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