Speaker 1: Welcome to stuff mob never told you. From how Supports
Speaker 1: dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen
Speaker 1: and I'm Caroline, or should I say Caroline ahoihoi madi
Speaker 1: ahoi madies. Yes, we are talking about women explorers on
Speaker 1: the high seas because in our summer series on women
Speaker 1: and Exploration, we've talked about overland explorers and Antarctic explorers,
Speaker 1: and now it's time to explore the parts of the globe.
Speaker 1: But knit all of these excursions together the seas, that's right.
Speaker 1: A lot of cross dressing on the ocean, that's right,
Speaker 1: because women weren't allowed on big boats for a long time.
Speaker 1: They were not women, and our lady parts were considered
Speaker 1: bad luck for ships and sailors. That's right. Along with priests,
Speaker 1: pigs flower and leaving harbor on a Friday. Women aboard
Speaker 1: ships for a long time were considered unlucky, probably because
Speaker 1: of the whole thing about distracting sailors who would then
Speaker 1: think of sex instead of thinking of you know, a
Speaker 1: sex stance, right, because men only think about sex when
Speaker 1: women are around. Yeah, well, but you know where women
Speaker 1: were welcome naked on the carvings of the ships that's right,
Speaker 1: because the ocean. While the sailors shouldn't look at or
Speaker 1: even think about women ever because it's bad luck and etcetera, etcetera,
Speaker 1: the ocean itself needs to see naked women, and hence
Speaker 1: the carvings of like topless mermaids. And I guess, I
Speaker 1: don't know, would you say a mermaid is just naked?
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess you couldn't wear bottoms, that's true, topless,
Speaker 1: we would call them topless mermaids. Topless mermaids. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: why you see them so commonly on ships, because they're
Speaker 1: sort of offerings to the seas, which all of it
Speaker 1: doesn't make a whole ton of sense. But then again,
Speaker 1: we're talking talking about superstitions. Um. But then early in
Speaker 1: the seventeen hundreds, speaking of cross dressing, we start to
Speaker 1: see some daring seafaring women like Mary Anne Talbot and
Speaker 1: Bonnie and Mary Read who in various ports of call
Speaker 1: disguised themselves as men in order to join the ship's cruise. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and and Bonnie and Mary Read both hooked up with pirates, right, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it was was it Anne Read? One of
Speaker 1: them ended up marrying the pirate known as Calico Jack.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that was Anne Bonnie. Yeah. Yeah, so they're
Speaker 1: they're a happy pirate family and until they weren't, you know,
Speaker 1: and their their ship was caught, and then they were
Speaker 1: in prison and the men were hanged, and there's all
Speaker 1: sorts of legends about maybe what happened to uh Anne
Speaker 1: and Mary, but nobody really knows for sure. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: and maybe we should do an episode on women in piracy,
Speaker 1: as in sea piracy, not internet internet piracy. But then
Speaker 1: we moved into the eighteen hundreds, you start to see
Speaker 1: more commonly the wives of say, military officers, merchants, and
Speaker 1: whaling captains joining their husbands on board more often. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and these actually became known as HNN frigates. Yeah. If
Speaker 1: you had a ship with women on board, I think
Speaker 1: all you needed was one woman to constitute a hen frigate. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I feel like that's making a big deal on to nothing.
Speaker 1: It also reminds me of how bachelorette parties in the
Speaker 1: UK hen parties just ladies of clucking. Interesting. I wonder
Speaker 1: if women are called hens and other capacities. I mean,
Speaker 1: I guess they are, but I wonder if it's supposed
Speaker 1: to be derogatory in the same way as Chicks Chicks,
Speaker 1: or maybe we have. We're hitting on so many other
Speaker 1: potential podcast topics's just stopping our research right now. But anyway, So, so,
Speaker 1: Mary Ann Talbot and Bonnie and Mary Reid were all
Speaker 1: pretty impressive tough women. They were obviously pretty tough to
Speaker 1: dress as men hang out with these like big burly,
Speaker 1: scary pirate people. Obviously they were tough, but they were
Speaker 1: not as tough as the first woman who circumnavigated the Globe,
Speaker 1: who really only recently we found out about. Yeah, we're
Speaker 1: talking about a French woman named Jean Beret, who once
Speaker 1: she completed the trip, it was known that she was
Speaker 1: a woman, that she had done this. She actually ended
Speaker 1: up receiving a commission from the French Navy. But it
Speaker 1: seems like her story has only been told in more
Speaker 1: recent years. She was sort of lost to the history books.
Speaker 1: But her story is fascinating. Yeah, Glenny's Ridley. You just
Speaker 1: wrote a book about her called The Discovery of Jean Beret,
Speaker 1: And yeah, her life story is pretty incredible. So she
Speaker 1: was born to peasants in France in seventeen forty and
Speaker 1: I just as I'm reading her life story I'm picturing
Speaker 1: the peasants from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, you know, like, oh,
Speaker 1: I would be an impressed. Um. Anyway, she became an
Speaker 1: herb woman, and this is basically part of a feminine
Speaker 1: tradition surrounding the medicinal properties of plants and the emerging
Speaker 1: field of taxonomy which aimed to name classify the natural world.
Speaker 1: So basically, beret was part of this oral tradition because
Speaker 1: it's not like they could read and they were at
Speaker 1: the library studying all these plants. It was an oral
Speaker 1: tradition where these families trained each other on how to
Speaker 1: identify plants and their healing properties. Well. And it's notable
Speaker 1: too that being an herb woman in particular was considered
Speaker 1: this feminine folk loreic art, because it sort of ties
Speaker 1: into what we were talking about in our Overland Explorers
Speaker 1: podcasts about how a lot of the wealthier Victorian women
Speaker 1: who went on all these explorations did so as botanists
Speaker 1: because similar to the whole herb woman thing, you have
Speaker 1: botany at the time being the one approved science for
Speaker 1: women to be interested in because ladies love flowers, that's right.
Speaker 1: I love flowers. I don't know what any of the
Speaker 1: names are, but I love them anyway. So, yeah, botany
Speaker 1: during this time was an emerging field. So basically what
Speaker 1: does that mean, Like herb woman versus botanists, you have
Speaker 1: the professionalization of the field, which means that more men
Speaker 1: are getting into it, while women are considered like improper
Speaker 1: through you know, it's not appropriate for them to study it.
Speaker 1: So anyway, Beret is out out in the field one
Speaker 1: day looking at some flowers and she ends up meeting
Speaker 1: botanist Philibert Commerson. They they, I guess they They end
Speaker 1: up talking quite a bit, getting to know each other
Speaker 1: and talking about flowers and the birds and the bees
Speaker 1: and whatnot, and of course, you know, they grow to
Speaker 1: like each other quite a bit. Yeah, And at first
Speaker 1: it seems as though Commerson takes on Jean Beret as
Speaker 1: a student of his, but as Glenna's Ridley talks about
Speaker 1: in her book, she thinks that it's actually likelier that
Speaker 1: Commerson ended up working with Beret because she had things
Speaker 1: to teach him about all of the herbal knowledge that
Speaker 1: she had cultivated through this kind of folkloric medicine that
Speaker 1: she practiced. That's right, And so basically Commerson was going
Speaker 1: to go on this journey to identify plants and whatnot, etcetera, etcetera.
Speaker 1: He needed an assistant to go with him, and who
Speaker 1: better to go than Jean Berat. But the thing is,
Speaker 1: she's a lady. She can't go. Yeah, she can't go
Speaker 1: because at the time the French Royal Navy completely forbade
Speaker 1: women on ships. And this journey took place from seventeen
Speaker 1: sixty six to seventeen sixty nine. And so Commerceing said,
Speaker 1: what are we gonna do? I love you, you know
Speaker 1: so much about plants. I want you on the ship. Hey,
Speaker 1: here we go. Uh, why don't we just dress you
Speaker 1: up like a man. Put on man's clothes, bind your breast,
Speaker 1: deepen your voice at voila right, And so she ends
Speaker 1: up getting to accompany him in this disguise, dressed as
Speaker 1: a man on this journey, which was led by French
Speaker 1: explorer Louis Antoine de Bougainvilla. And if that sounds familiar,
Speaker 1: it should because while they were in Brazil, they discovered
Speaker 1: a certain type of plant, which they then named for
Speaker 1: the explorer Bougena. Yeah, and it's thought that it was
Speaker 1: Beret who discovered this now famous plant. Species. But then
Speaker 1: the story takes a tragic turn because it's it's not
Speaker 1: terribly surprising that on this three year jaunt, at some
Speaker 1: point the crew started to suspect that Jean Beret was
Speaker 1: not in fact a man, and she was found out.
Speaker 1: And there are a lot of conflicting stories about how
Speaker 1: her outing happens. But what Glenni's Ridley thinks happens comparing
Speaker 1: all these different primary sources that she used to research
Speaker 1: her book, she thinks that Beret was actually gang raped
Speaker 1: by the crew after she was outed at one point,
Speaker 1: and soon after that, bouguin Villa actually in seventeen sixty
Speaker 1: eight leaves Beret, who was then pregnant at that point,
Speaker 1: possibly due to the gang rape in the French colony
Speaker 1: of Mauritius where she then had the baby, gave it
Speaker 1: up for adoption, and then Philibert dies like rough time Jee,
Speaker 1: but Jean does not give up. She certainly didn't. She
Speaker 1: remarried and went back to France and seventeen seventy four
Speaker 1: seventy five about she ends up receiving a pension from
Speaker 1: the French Navy, which is pretty shocking considering the time
Speaker 1: she was living in the fact that she was a
Speaker 1: woman and she wasn't even supposed to be on that ship.
Speaker 1: But they they ended up basically compensating her for her
Speaker 1: time that she spent looking at plants and identifying plants
Speaker 1: and working on this ship. Yeah, and they knew by
Speaker 1: that point obviously that she was not a he. And
Speaker 1: Ridley thinks that maybe this was due to an affair
Speaker 1: with bouguin Vie that she received this pension. But nonetheless,
Speaker 1: there was this prince aboard the ship at one point
Speaker 1: he was sailing with them, and in his diary he
Speaker 1: wrote about Jean Beret quote, she dared to confront the stress,
Speaker 1: the dangers, and everything that happened that one could realistically
Speaker 1: expect on such a voyage. Her adventure should, I think
Speaker 1: be included in the history of famous women. So that's
Speaker 1: what we're doing. Yeah, we're doing our part. But I
Speaker 1: but I I love that that that somebody of his
Speaker 1: stature would write something like that. But talk about going
Speaker 1: to great lengths to explore I mean putting herself in
Speaker 1: I mean direct danger. That's right now. I want to
Speaker 1: see a movie about this. Yeah, that's what I want
Speaker 1: to see next. But it would take a while for
Speaker 1: other women to end up making and breaking records of
Speaker 1: their own on the high seas. Yeah, we're now going
Speaker 1: to leap for word in time to the twentieth century,
Speaker 1: which is when we start seeing other women. I mean,
Speaker 1: there have certainly been other women in the meantime who
Speaker 1: had sailed around the globe, but once we get to
Speaker 1: the twentieth century, that's when we have a lot of
Speaker 1: races of women trying to go around the world on
Speaker 1: their own or sail across specific oceans. And so you
Speaker 1: start out in nineteen fifty two with Anne Davison, who
Speaker 1: becomes the first woman to sail across the Atlantic alone. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and her story of what really drove her was was
Speaker 1: pretty interesting as well. In the nineteen thirties she actually
Speaker 1: learned how to fly, which is how she met her
Speaker 1: future husband, Frank, and after World War Two, the couple
Speaker 1: took up sailing with plans to sail to the West
Speaker 1: Indies to start a new life. But soon after embarking
Speaker 1: in nineteen forty nine, a storm hit, the boat capsized
Speaker 1: and Frank died. So and to sort of continue their
Speaker 1: their goal. To reach their goal, she sets off in
Speaker 1: May of nineteen fifty two, across the Atlantic alone. And
Speaker 1: it was not easy. No, apparently she maintained a steady
Speaker 1: diet of Ben's adrine and rum to keep on keeping
Speaker 1: on because it was such an arduous journey. But she
Speaker 1: made it, and she broke this record and now has
Speaker 1: a place in the history books. And and then in
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty nine you have a similar story actually with
Speaker 1: Sharon Cites Adams becoming the first woman to sail the
Speaker 1: Pacific alone, going from Japan to California because she discovered
Speaker 1: sailing after the death of her husband. And in nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty four she had already become the first woman to
Speaker 1: sail solo from the mainland US to Hawaii. So in
Speaker 1: a pretty short period of time she just started racking
Speaker 1: up all of these records sailing back and forth across
Speaker 1: the Pacific alone. Deal. And I mean, these women were
Speaker 1: not exactly using GPS systems, you know. This is this
Speaker 1: is back in the fifties and sixties. And I mean
Speaker 1: I I imagine like the quiet and the birds and
Speaker 1: the water sounds, and I'm like, god, that was so
Speaker 1: nice for like two hours, that would be really nice.
Speaker 1: And then my Scottish skin would just like turn purple
Speaker 1: and I would turn into like leather and shrivel up
Speaker 1: and just throw myself overboard. You would need a lot
Speaker 1: of bends, a green and rum. So maybe just the rum.
Speaker 1: It's just the rum. Maybe just the downers. But I
Speaker 1: think it's so interesting, like these stories of perseverance through
Speaker 1: emotional turmoil from Beret to women like Sharon sits atoms Um.
Speaker 1: But then things start getting a little more competitive in
Speaker 1: the seventies, and apparently in ninety eight women had sailing fever.
Speaker 1: Sailing fever, that's right, in June of nineteen seventy eight,
Speaker 1: Poland's Christina Chanalska Liskawitz, who was a shipbuilding engineer and
Speaker 1: yachting sea captain. I hope she had a jaunty hat.
Speaker 1: She was the first woman to single handedly circumna vigate
Speaker 1: the world singlehandedly, that's the important part. She actually ended
Speaker 1: up getting dubbed the first Lady of the Oceans and
Speaker 1: was admitted to the very exclusive, gender exclusive Explorers Club.
Speaker 1: But obviously that wouldn't be for another couple of years because,
Speaker 1: as we discussed in a previous Explorer episode, it wasn't
Speaker 1: until the Explorers Club even started letting women in. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I did a little digging on that, and I think
Speaker 1: it might have been the Polish chapter of the Explorers Club.
Speaker 1: And I was surprised too that there wasn't more information
Speaker 1: or celebration regarding Liskowitz and her accomplishment. She just sort
Speaker 1: of a footnote, even though it seems like a pretty
Speaker 1: huge accomplishment. And I don't know if it's simply because
Speaker 1: she was an American so she didn't get quite as
Speaker 1: much fanfare, But yeah, I mean you would think, because
Speaker 1: I feel like for a lot of these women who
Speaker 1: you know, were the first at something or or did
Speaker 1: something the best, Uh, there's usually like an interview or
Speaker 1: an article somewhere. Yeah, why don't we know more about
Speaker 1: someone called the first Lady of the Oceans, Because it
Speaker 1: seems like Naomi James, who completed a similar solo circumnavigation,
Speaker 1: say that five times Fast has received more historical attention.
Speaker 1: She was just narrowly be by list Go It's for
Speaker 1: that title, but she actually completed her trip one d
Speaker 1: twenty nine days faster, which is especially impressive considering that
Speaker 1: James had barely two years of training on a yacht
Speaker 1: before she was like, oh hey, I'm just gonna sail
Speaker 1: around the world alone and for a little bit of
Speaker 1: comparison with men's sailing, women weren't terribly behind guys and
Speaker 1: doing these solo trips around the world. Robin Knox Johnson
Speaker 1: had become the first man to solo circumnavigate the globe
Speaker 1: in n interesting. I like hearing about people who just
Speaker 1: kind of, whether it's smart or not, just jump into
Speaker 1: something like this. I mean, after only two years of training.
Speaker 1: She's like, Yeah, I'm gonna do this. It's cool. I'm
Speaker 1: just gonna go like around the world and stuff and
Speaker 1: do it really fast on my boat. Yeah. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I guess I would need a lot of bends a
Speaker 1: dream for that one. But more recently, in twelve, Laura
Speaker 1: Decker became the youngest woman to sail around the world,
Speaker 1: and she set out when she was fourteen, completing the
Speaker 1: trip in two years. Yeah, listeners might be familiar with
Speaker 1: her name a because there's a fantastic documentary about her
Speaker 1: trip called Maiden Trip, because she actually took a camera
Speaker 1: with her and filmed the entire thing, and it was
Speaker 1: incredible to watch her on the boat taking care of things,
Speaker 1: fixing things, sailing through storms, and generally just being by herself.
Speaker 1: Can you imagine thinking back on when you were fourteen
Speaker 1: fifteen years old, spending that much time alone. I feel
Speaker 1: like there was I was in a state of constant
Speaker 1: frenzy of wanting to be around other people and hang
Speaker 1: out with friends and all of that kind of social stuff,
Speaker 1: whereas she prefers that kind of solitary lifestyle. It takes
Speaker 1: a strong person to be alone that much and too
Speaker 1: and to buck what is normal for your social group,
Speaker 1: of your age group or whatever. But her name was
Speaker 1: also in the news before she even set sail, because
Speaker 1: the Dutch government was so opposed to her even embarking
Speaker 1: on this trip that they initially took her away from
Speaker 1: her dad, who has sole custody of her, and I
Speaker 1: think she ended up having to legally like separate emancipate
Speaker 1: herself in order to do this. It was just like
Speaker 1: a whole I mean, she was making national news the
Speaker 1: whole time, and you see in the documentary this process
Speaker 1: of her and her dad having to deal with all
Speaker 1: of this unwanted media attention because genuinely, all she wanted
Speaker 1: to do was sail around the world. She grew up
Speaker 1: on boats, her dad worked, but all she wanted to
Speaker 1: do all she wanted. I mean, all a girl wants
Speaker 1: to do is take two years out of her life
Speaker 1: and sail around the world. But I mean I think
Speaker 1: I think that's a great gift. I mean, maybe not
Speaker 1: sailing around the world, but I think that type of
Speaker 1: independence is a great gift that a parent can give
Speaker 1: to a daughter to let her do something on her own. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: that kind of ambition and bravery, because I mean she
Speaker 1: would even you know, at certain ports, get off and
Speaker 1: you know, hang out on land for a while and
Speaker 1: just explore on her own and meet people and talk
Speaker 1: to people. I don't even know if I approaching thirty
Speaker 1: and brave enough to do that. At sixteen, I was
Speaker 1: just meeting from I was going by myself to Starbucks
Speaker 1: to meet friends. Yeah, big move, big move. I'll take
Speaker 1: a Venti frappuccino, thank you. But next up, we want
Speaker 1: to dive in to the seas to talk about not
Speaker 1: just the women who have explored the oceans by sailing
Speaker 1: on top of them, but also the women who explored
Speaker 1: the sea by diving into its deepest depths. And we'll
Speaker 1: get into that when we come right back from a
Speaker 1: quick break. So far, we've talked a lot about Yes,
Speaker 1: Jeane Beret was an explorer in the literal definition of
Speaker 1: the term. She was going out around the world doing
Speaker 1: science and research and all that stuff. But we've talked
Speaker 1: a lot about adventurers to people like young Laura Decker,
Speaker 1: who became the youngest woman to sail around the world.
Speaker 1: Now let's let's dive in, as Kristen said, to some
Speaker 1: more of these explorer stem Field types. Yeah, the women
Speaker 1: who are getting into the oceans in order to learn
Speaker 1: about how that aquatic world works. And just for a
Speaker 1: little bit of historical context, and this is coming from
Speaker 1: National Geographic to understand what is leading up to these
Speaker 1: notable women. In ninety four, we have William Baby being
Speaker 1: lowered into a tethered bathosphere to over three thousand feet
Speaker 1: into the ocean, and he and his partner Otis Barton
Speaker 1: pioneered manned exploration of the ocean. So this is in
Speaker 1: the mid thirties. This is when we're really starting to
Speaker 1: get into the depths, right and in this name should
Speaker 1: be familiar to you. Jacques Cousteau and his partner, engineer
Speaker 1: Emil Ganyon, modified a demand breathing regulator to engineer the
Speaker 1: aqua lung forever changing how people interact with the ocean.
Speaker 1: In other words, they made scuba diving possible. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: and so my panic attack hyperventilation when I tried to
Speaker 1: go snooba diving in Mexico, which is like a combination
Speaker 1: of scuba and snorkeling. Total panic attack because my brain
Speaker 1: I have him to thank for it, because my brain
Speaker 1: was like, you're underwater. Did you not know you're underwater?
Speaker 1: You're not supposed to breathe? Panic attack. But anyway, speaking
Speaker 1: of Custo, because we're not here to just talk about
Speaker 1: these dudes, as impressive as they are with their aqua lung,
Speaker 1: we have to talk about Custo's wife, Simone Melchior Custo.
Speaker 1: So she and Jacques get married, and she actually sold
Speaker 1: family jewels and furs initially to help fund the Calypso,
Speaker 1: which was the famous ship that they sailed on. And
Speaker 1: she became known as the first Lady of the Ocean
Speaker 1: because of all of the incredible work that she did
Speaker 1: alongside Jacques Cousteau. For instance, she became the first woman
Speaker 1: scuba diver and played an essential role in the development
Speaker 1: of scuba diving technology as well as basic undersea operations
Speaker 1: because she was helping test out the equipment, get dive
Speaker 1: into the ocean with it on and see what there
Speaker 1: was to see in the sea. Yeah, yeah, and and
Speaker 1: looking fabulously French while she with a with a little
Speaker 1: like short haircut and striped shirt with the boat neeck.
Speaker 1: I kind of want that to be my summer style,
Speaker 1: the Simone chic um. Well, so in nineteen sixty three
Speaker 1: she actually became the first aquannot when she visited the
Speaker 1: con shelf to undersea habitat in the Red Sea. But
Speaker 1: I do want to mention too that there was a
Speaker 1: scandalous undercurrent to the Cousto's relationship because and this didn't
Speaker 1: come out until after Simone died, but almost the entire time,
Speaker 1: or at least for a good portion of their marriage,
Speaker 1: Jacques Coustou had a secret family, and he ended up
Speaker 1: marrying the woman that he had been, you know, having
Speaker 1: this long term affair with and two children with while
Speaker 1: he was married to Simone. He married this other woman
Speaker 1: after Simone died. But I mean it just seems like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, I wonder if she was how could
Speaker 1: she not have been aware of that? And I think
Speaker 1: she just loved the exploration in life on the Calypso
Speaker 1: so much that perhaps that overshadowed any kind of you know,
Speaker 1: relationship turmoils. I mean maybe maybe. I mean, after all,
Speaker 1: her son with Custo, Jean Michelle, often said that she
Speaker 1: was the real captain of the Calypso and that she
Speaker 1: spent more time on Calypso than my father, brother, and
Speaker 1: myself combined. Yeah, and I hate that I didn't even
Speaker 1: know about her accomplishments because everyone knows about Jacques Gusta,
Speaker 1: but I don't think that that many people know about
Speaker 1: the important Simon. Yeah that she Yeah, that she was
Speaker 1: just as critical to these explorations as Jacquas. But if
Speaker 1: first Lady of the Ocean Simone's moniker isn't impressive enough,
Speaker 1: here we go. Let's take this radnus up a notch
Speaker 1: with Sylvia Earle known as her Deepness. Yeah. We we
Speaker 1: mentioned Sylvia Earle in our first introductory episode and and
Speaker 1: talked about how her resume is incredible. Um. In nineteen seventy,
Speaker 1: Earl led the first team of women aquanauts, which I
Speaker 1: love that aquanauts during the tech Type project, and she
Speaker 1: set a record for solo diving to a depth of
Speaker 1: one thousand meters. And now the first tech type project
Speaker 1: was all men, but then she was part of a
Speaker 1: follow up project that brought all women explorers down to
Speaker 1: the ocean, and that tech type project in nineteen seventy
Speaker 1: was the first NASA mission to include women, and it's
Speaker 1: still the only all female NASA mission ever conducted, right,
Speaker 1: And it's it's interesting too when you think about the
Speaker 1: context of when this was happening. I mean, this is
Speaker 1: this tech type to project that Earle lad was happening
Speaker 1: during a time when women were, you know, more entering
Speaker 1: the workforce. They were entering jobs that had traditionally been
Speaker 1: held by men, and so it was really showing that
Speaker 1: women scientists and explorers could do the same things that
Speaker 1: men could do and had a lot to contribute to
Speaker 1: the field as well. Yeah, And one of the engineers
Speaker 1: and assistant scientific director on that tech type to all
Speaker 1: female mission under the Seas, Peggy Lucas Bond said about
Speaker 1: that uh expedition quote, one of the things is probably
Speaker 1: true to any minority group. Ours was bound and determined
Speaker 1: to do everything better than the men could do. And
Speaker 1: she from there talked about how they completed more projects
Speaker 1: and tried to bring back more data than other projects
Speaker 1: had because this was the point in which they had
Speaker 1: to prove themselves, and it actually paved the way for
Speaker 1: other female aquanauts to be regularly included in future missions
Speaker 1: and also paved the way for women's inclusion in NASA
Speaker 1: space missions. Yeah, exactly. You're you're either floating under the
Speaker 1: water or you're floating in space. Yeah, because this tech
Speaker 1: type project was meant to help simulate how life in
Speaker 1: space would take place. Oh and Peggy Lucas Bond also
Speaker 1: talked about the claustrophobia aspect of living in that capsule underwater,
Speaker 1: because it would be the same kind of thing if
Speaker 1: you're in, say the space station, you can't leave. Nope,
Speaker 1: no thanks brave women, No thank you, But I'm glad
Speaker 1: other women did it. I just said, no desire. Well,
Speaker 1: And I thought Sylvia Earle's career lead up to becoming
Speaker 1: her deepness resonates a lot with the other explorers that
Speaker 1: we've talked about because she was introduced to all of
Speaker 1: this through guess what botany? Yeah, studying algae for her
Speaker 1: thesis of all Things algae. Yeah, and just for another career.
Speaker 1: Note this was actually before tech type two. In ninety eight,
Speaker 1: she discovered undersea dunes off the coast the Bahamas. That
Speaker 1: would be nice, that would be cool. I want to
Speaker 1: go there. Um. In ninety nine she actually set the
Speaker 1: world untethered diving record. She descended twelve hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: feet beneath the surface of the Pacific Ocean in one
Speaker 1: of these special diving suits that maintain a constant interior pressure.
Speaker 1: Because holy goodness, I cannot believe that she went so
Speaker 1: far down, just untethered. I I with the pantic attacks,
Speaker 1: like I'm feeling one coming on. I just I can't.
Speaker 1: She's she's so cool. Well and for that, I think
Speaker 1: she got the name her deepness because she went so
Speaker 1: deep into the ocean. Um. And in she became the
Speaker 1: first woman to become the chief Scientists of the National
Speaker 1: Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which is pretty cool. And she
Speaker 1: wrote a book called Sea Change, A Message of the Oceans,
Speaker 1: which is kind of considered the silent Spring for the oceans.
Speaker 1: And then in which seems a little too too recent
Speaker 1: for this to be a first, but in she became
Speaker 1: the National Geographic Society's first female explorer in residence. And
Speaker 1: she's still working, she's still doing stuff. She's still diving
Speaker 1: and learning about the ocean and conservation and spreading the
Speaker 1: gospel thereof Yeah, I saw a picture of her with
Speaker 1: her son. They were both in diving states. And then
Speaker 1: I was thinking about pictures of the Custos and their family,
Speaker 1: and I was like, can you imagine that that's your normal?
Speaker 1: Like my parents worked for Delta Airlines and that's my normal.
Speaker 1: And like other people, their parents are like teachers and
Speaker 1: firefighters and the office people like, but no, your your
Speaker 1: parents were just like super awesome underwater explorers. That's normal. Well,
Speaker 1: it seems like with a lot of the seafaring women there,
Speaker 1: there's usually a family tie of either growing up on
Speaker 1: boats or around boats or by the water. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: I one thing that I do wish as far as
Speaker 1: inspiration is concerned, Like I do wish we knew more
Speaker 1: about what inspired those early women like and Bonnie to
Speaker 1: dress like men and go out on the oceans. I mean,
Speaker 1: I know that they love these pirates and they wanted
Speaker 1: to have adventures for themselves, but it's like, oh, I
Speaker 1: just want to kind of get inside their brains. Yeah,
Speaker 1: absolutely well, and even today, I mean, there are so
Speaker 1: many women also in oceanography. There there are many other
Speaker 1: women doing similar work to Sylvia Earle. There's even a website,
Speaker 1: Women oceanographers dot Org dedicated to highlighting all of the
Speaker 1: different career paths that water loving women have taken. In
Speaker 1: its similar stem oriented jobs that they're doing. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I mean, in in earlier episodes we've we've hit on
Speaker 1: this over and over again that you know, people are
Speaker 1: asking what is left to explore, what is left to discover,
Speaker 1: And the answer is only that it's everything you know,
Speaker 1: people who are whether you're on top of the water
Speaker 1: discovering things or you're underneath the surface of the water
Speaker 1: discovering things. There's everything from microbes and habitats to the
Speaker 1: plant life, the animal life, I mean everything in between. Well,
Speaker 1: and so much of us two deals with broader issues
Speaker 1: of climate change and its repercussions down to our day
Speaker 1: to day lives. So while it might seem rather exotic
Speaker 1: to you know, have a job that involves scuba diving,
Speaker 1: it actually can have a trickle down impact into our
Speaker 1: day to day cubicle bound existences, that's right. It can
Speaker 1: make us better podcasters. That's right. Indeed, Well, this wraps
Speaker 1: up the portion of our summer series really highlighting the
Speaker 1: women who are professional explorers and adventurers. And next up
Speaker 1: to close things out, we're going to take a look
Speaker 1: at women who are just traveling on their own just
Speaker 1: to see the world to day and what that's like.
Speaker 1: So in the meantime, we want to hear from you.
Speaker 1: Do we have any oceanographers, any marine biologists listening? Anyone
Speaker 1: who knows Sylvia Earle her deepness? Are you listening? Let
Speaker 1: us know Mom's Stuff at how Stuff works dot Com
Speaker 1: is our email address. You can also tweet us at
Speaker 1: mom Stuff podcast or messages on Facebook, and we have
Speaker 1: a couple of messages to share with you right now.
Speaker 1: So I've got a letter here from summer in response
Speaker 1: to our episode on why a fiction. She writes as
Speaker 1: a teacher in New Zealand, teaching students eighteen years old,
Speaker 1: I try to make sure that I teach something new
Speaker 1: with at least one of my classes every year so
Speaker 1: that I don't get bored. I get to choose what
Speaker 1: I teach and can sometimes arrange for class sets of
Speaker 1: texts we purchased if I want to teach something that
Speaker 1: we don't already have. I think the best part of
Speaker 1: my job is seeing young people excited about literature and
Speaker 1: choosing the right text for the class is so important.
Speaker 1: You touched on the need for great diversity and fiction,
Speaker 1: and in New Zealand this is represented by the need
Speaker 1: to have relevant New Zealand text rather than relying on
Speaker 1: American and British fair and specifically Maori and Polynesian stories.
Speaker 1: My recollection of New Zealand literature when I was in
Speaker 1: high school was not entirely positive. Either it wasn't relevant
Speaker 1: to me, or I often found it boring because New
Speaker 1: Zealand literature is characteristically dark. That's surprising, and I liked
Speaker 1: more optimistic fare at that stage in my life. Furthermore,
Speaker 1: as a Maori living in the suburbs of Auckland, I
Speaker 1: was somewhat disconnected from my heritage and so called Maori
Speaker 1: stories did not apply to me is they tended to
Speaker 1: be set in rural communities or in violent gang lands.
Speaker 1: That said, as the market grows, there are more of
Speaker 1: our stories being told, and the students I teach are
Speaker 1: less likely to experience cultural cringe than I did when
Speaker 1: I was in school. My favorites include Guardian at the
Speaker 1: Dead by Karen Healy, a supernatural thriller that contains elements
Speaker 1: of Maori mythology, and also Rangatira by Paul Morris, which
Speaker 1: is historical fiction based on real events. So thanks for
Speaker 1: that insight, summer and fun. Fact, my brother is also
Speaker 1: a teacher in New Zealand, so hats off to you.
Speaker 1: I have a letter here from Melissa. She says, I
Speaker 1: was so excited to listen to your did World War
Speaker 1: Two really help Rosie the Riveter podcast? From my master's
Speaker 1: thesis in history, I wrote about Millie Jeoffrey, who was
Speaker 1: the first woman to have a department at the United
Speaker 1: Auto Workers. She ran the Women's department from nineteen forty
Speaker 1: four to nineteen forty nine. One problem she encountered during
Speaker 1: the end of World War Two is the disregard of
Speaker 1: women's special seniority that they accrued during the duration of
Speaker 1: the war. When men left their auto factory jobs to
Speaker 1: serve in the military, they continued to accrue seniority, while
Speaker 1: the women who replaced them got special seniority. Women therefore
Speaker 1: wouldn't outrank returning veterans, but they would out rank men
Speaker 1: who had never worked in the factory. However, veterans who
Speaker 1: were new to the auto industry were hired over women
Speaker 1: workers who had more seniority than them. When the war ended, Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: million or colleagues got little help from their union and
Speaker 1: the auto companies on this matter. Oh I hate that story,
Speaker 1: but I love the story and I'm glad you shared it.
Speaker 1: So thank you me, Lissa, and thanks to everybody who
Speaker 1: shared their stories with us. Mom stuff at how stuff
Speaker 1: works dot com is our email address, and for links
Speaker 1: to all of our social media outlets, blogs, videos, and
Speaker 1: every single one of our podcast head on over to
Speaker 1: stuff Mom Never Told You dot com for more on
Speaker 1: this and thousands of other topics. Is that how stuff
Speaker 1: works dot com.