7 great women’s history podcasts

Pod Bible loves to share articles highlighting podcasts to listen to beyond International Women’s Day! Today we’re bringing you an update of an article from 2021, with some great podcasts about women’s history. 

As well as bringing us International Women’s Day, March is also Women’s History Month. So much of the history we are taught focuses on the male perspective, and the same can be said of many history podcasts. Even when searching for the best women’s history podcasts,  quite often you will be recommended podcasts from the USA, and focused on American history. So for those of you searching for some UK-based women’s history podcasts, we’ve pulled together some shows that look at the history on our doorstep.

History Becomes Her

Who inspires the women making history right now? In History Becomes Her, Mashable journalist Rachel Thompson speaks to some of the women making change today about the women of the past who paved the way for them. Episodes include journalist Zing Tsjeng talking about pirate queens, and Ruth Hunt speaking about Virginia Woolfe and LGBQT+ history. This is also a great one to listen to for the book recommendations to add to your reading list. Listen now >>

Hell Cats

Speaking of pirate queens, a great Audible Original podcast to listen to this month is Hell Cats. It tells the little-known story of history’s most progressive pirates, Anne Bonny and Mary Read. This is a fictionalised version of a true story, so expect adventure on the high seas and an enduring love affair between the women.  This has had great reviews on Audible, with one listener saying “The sound design is like watching a series with your eyes closed”. Listen now on Audible>>

History Cafe

This podcast isn’t exclusively for women’s history, but it has some great episodes that delve into lesser-known parts of British women’s history. In a short series running this month ‘The Secret History of the Suffragettes’, they “peel away the Pankhurst monopoly to reveal something much uglier”. Learn about the WSPU and the terrorist tactics they employed in the name of women’s voting rights.  Listen now >>

Outliers

Another podcast that looks at history from an interesting angle, Outliers is an historic fiction podcast that explores how big events filter down to the people left out of the history books. Made by Historic Royal Palaces, in association with Rusty Quill (who are most popular for making fiction podcast The Magnus Archives and Stellar Firma) each episode has a writer pick a lesser-known person associated with a historical event, and write a monologue from their point of view. I really enjoyed Fresh Sweat and Cloves, where we hear from the widow of Walter Raleigh. Listen now >>

It’s A Continent

This podcast is here to remind us that Africa is a continent, not a country. And as such, there is a lot of history for many of us to unpack. For Women’s History Month, check out some of the episodes devoted to women who have changed their countries. ‘Queen Nzinga: Angola’s Protector’ was made famous by fighting against the slave trade and European influence, whilst ‘Wangari, Kenya’s mother’ tells the story of Wangari Maathai, who was the first Black woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize. Listen now >>

Same Sh!t, Different Century

In the Women’s March in 2017, three women went viral for dressing as suffragettes and marching with a sign that said “Same Shit, Different Century”. They were Costume Coordinators Amy Trend, Hannah Monkley and Amy Toll, and this is their podcast. Made back in 2018, there are only eight episodes and the first couple are very homemade. But this is a great podcast diving deep into one aspect of history, and it often pops up in lists for offering a different angle on women’s history. Listen now>>

Normal Women

This podcast was created to be released alongside Philippa Gregory’s history book, Normal Women, but it’s not a book podcast but rather a standalone series based on the book premise. The eight-part series doesn’t focus on the normal podcast narrative about the three or four well-known historical heroines. It is a dive into the normal women who we don’t learn about in history, whether they left records or were ‘hidden from history’ in the everyday. Listen now >>