00:01:00.000hello and welcome to vulgar history of feminist women's history comedy podcast my name is ann
00:01:15.480foster and today i'm so delighted to bring you an interview with author allison tyra who you may
00:01:21.480know from her podcast infinite women or also from her website infinite women which is an ever
00:01:27.500expanding encyclopedia of women so we talk about this in the episode as well we talk about her book
00:01:34.280mostly but also her project infinite women which is a website that's bringing together
00:01:38.640biographical information about thousands of of women from history and it's an ongoing project
00:01:44.800and she's still going on it it's got over 6 000 different entries and you can look up on the
00:01:49.740website for a specific person to read about them or you can look up a specific type of person
00:01:55.300if you just log on any day it shows like here's what happened in history on this day and it's
00:01:59.160women from all of history like all the way back to the oldest of old like ancient cultures up to
00:02:03.580people who are doing stuff these days and so she wrote a book which is called uncredited women's
00:02:09.940overlooked misattributed and stolen work this book is available now as a book also as an audiobook
00:02:16.600i know this because she in one of her earlier conversations she was saying that she was hard
00:02:21.880at work recording the audio book. It's like 18 hours long. So she was giving me some advice for
00:02:26.600if I end up recording my audio book, how, how long you can go before your voice completely breaks
00:02:32.140off. Anyway, I want to just let everybody know that the women's history podcasting community
00:02:38.860is so supportive and so kind. And when I started doing this podcast in 2019, part of the reason
00:02:46.600why, why it kind of took off and became successful is because of the support of people like Alison
00:02:51.620Tyra, Katie from the Queen's Podcast. It's just such a nice, positive community. There's no
00:02:57.900competition. It's just people, women helping each other out because in the podcast space,1.00
00:03:03.500there's a lot of bros and we are happy to see each other succeed. And I'm so happy that Alison
00:03:08.320has this book out and I was so happy to talk to her. So please enjoy this conversation between
00:03:12.260myself, and Alison Tyra, author of Uncredited. So I'm joined by Alison Tyra from the Infinite
00:03:24.260Women podcast and the new book. Wait, I don't even have the book in front of me. Tell everybody
00:03:29.780the name of your book, please, Alison. But I don't have it in front of me either.
00:03:35.460It's called Uncredited, Women's Overlooked, Misattributed, and Stolen Work.
00:03:40.000I love that you know that right off like the title, subtitle. Yes, I pulled it up.
00:03:46.860That's relieving for me because I too have a book coming out and I'm always like,
00:03:50.420will I remember the title? Will I remember the subtitle? Well, it's the subtitle.
00:03:54.060The subtitle, exactly. And I assume that you've gone through different titles and subtitles. So
00:03:57.260like which one stuck? Well, originally it was going to be to her credit. But then a few months
00:04:03.220after I signed the contract, which keep in mind was two years ago, right? Because that's how long
00:04:06.940it took to get it out on the shelves. Another book came out with the same title and a similar
00:04:12.960theme. So it wasn't an in-depth analysis. It was, I think maybe two dozen stories like you would
00:04:19.860find in my book, except my book has over 600 stories. Um, so it was, it was still very different
00:04:25.720in format, but, um, because it was on the same general topic, um, and it would have come out
00:04:32.760within, you know, recent times, uh, when this book came out, they wanted us to change the title.
00:04:38.680So I think my editor was more cranky about it than I was. I was like, look, I'm just glad that
00:04:42.420it's not. Um, so my first offer from a publisher, uh, that I'd sent it to was a military history,
00:04:50.420one that also does a bit of women's history. And so their managing editor, I assume is a middle
00:04:55.960aged to older white man whose main interest is military history. And he really wanted to change
00:05:01.580a title from, like I said, at the time it was to her credit, he wanted to change it to women's
00:05:06.400hidden achievements. And literally every woman I said that title to got the same, like, look on
00:05:13.940their face. And I was like, would you pick up that book? And they said, no, no, no. That sounds
00:05:18.700like a text, like a, you know what? That would have been a good textbook to encounter in 1991.
00:05:23.920But like, I feel like if I was researching for my podcast and I'd be like, oh, there's something
00:05:29.180about this person and women's hidden achievements of a textbook from 1989. And then I'd be like,
00:05:34.140oh, that was okay. I got some facts, but like, whatever. But yeah, I think I've learned it's
00:05:38.800important to have a title that is distinct. You don't want people to confuse it with another
00:05:43.780book, especially if it's the same topic. But I want to like, take a step back just for people
00:05:48.180who may not be familiar with the infinite women project. So can you explain, cause the book kind
00:05:53.500of grew out of that. So can you explain like your website and everything you're doing?
00:05:56.680sure so you mentioned the podcast which uh you are actually on if anybody wants to keep an eye
00:06:03.640out for the princess charlotte episode it's an hour and 42 minutes long and that's shorter than
00:06:10.260what we recorded very much so yes so in addition to the weekly podcast which i've been doing since
00:06:16.4602023 so um you know there's well over a hundred episodes and i've already got them scheduled
00:06:22.840into like february so please do go check them out i will talk about anything except cisgender dudes
00:06:28.840pretty much is my only caveat um so i talked to a lot of really interesting people about
00:06:33.680whatever they're obsessed with case in point anne and princess charlotte but the original project
00:06:43.460and the main function of it i would say is the biographical database so um at the time that
00:06:48.860recording, it's at just over 6,700 biographies and I'm always adding to it. And it is not limited
00:06:58.340by geography, by time period, by field. So as far as I know, it's the only resource out there
00:07:04.960of this size that has such a broad range of women. Cause usually you see like Irish women or,1.00
00:07:13.600you know women in science or whatever this is the only one I found that is more comprehensive
00:07:20.020and the thing is despite that huge range of women I kept seeing the same stories over and over and
00:07:27.580over again and so one that I like to mention is being kept out of med school isn't just something
00:07:33.940that was happening in the 1870s to the Edinburgh 7 it's also happening as recently as 2018 because
00:07:43.140a lot of the examples in this book are, you know, even into the 2020s. But in 2018, it came out that
00:07:49.760at least 10 medical schools in Japan were deliberately downgrading female applicants'
00:07:57.320test scores to justify rejecting them. And at the time, less than 22% of doctors in Japan were women.
00:08:07.880and so that's the thing that you'll you'll read about you know artists and business women and
00:08:15.000inventors and activists and athletes and see how these patterns are playing out not just in a given
00:08:23.400situation because i think that's what happens when we tell these stories in isolation which is very
00:08:28.080important like i cannot tell you how much i appreciate the scholars um well like you who
00:08:34.000will go incredibly in-depth on like a particular woman's stories and you know who may be digging
00:08:40.280through all of those dusty boxes full of old documents that haven't gotten digitized yet
00:08:45.740and because my work would not be possible without that in-depth work but when we tell those stories
00:08:54.660in isolation I think it's much easier for people to think oh well that sucks for them
00:09:01.840that happened one time to this one person and that was too bad but like exactly like when you're
00:09:07.340looking that closely at one tree you don't get what i'm bringing is like drone footage of the
00:09:13.380whole forest and i have your website up and i was just it's so well designed listeners you should
00:09:20.280go so it's infinite-women.com and so you've got like this day in history like things are happening
00:09:25.180today that you've got sort of like pick a random woman button to just like here's somebody's
00:09:29.500interesting story but you can also browse you can also just type the name of someone you're looking
00:09:33.200for like it's such a good resource and how how do you get the biographies of all the people
00:09:40.020and then how do you so I guess you're just putting them in there my question is how do you get the
00:09:45.540biographies then once you have them you're codifying like this is the date so you know
00:09:48.960that can link to that stuff and things like that so the widget that is the you know chain women's
00:09:55.660history, you just plug all those in as separate entries. And so I actually have a separate
00:10:00.580document that I keep track of because I love a spreadsheet. And it's literally just anytime I
00:10:08.400come across a date, I pop it in there. And then when I have the time, which is never,
00:10:15.840but I think I had at least four or five events for every day. And then I was like, okay,
00:10:20.080that's good for now. Maybe I'll come back and do more later. But there's also a function
00:10:25.580that I want to add called world of women. So it's not live yet, but I have another spreadsheet with
00:10:31.520all of these places that women lived or, you know, did work or are buried that, you know,0.99
00:10:39.320I want to, maybe it's just going to be like a giant Google map essentially. Um, but yeah,0.91
00:10:45.140I just think that there's something about those little connections to history, whether it's you
00:10:51.160were standing someplace that this person was doing something or just something about the dates like
00:10:57.820knowing that today something happened I think that helps people connect to history I don't know if
00:11:03.960all historians have the same experience I do but my birthday April 5th keeps coming up in so many
00:11:10.160stories I read I was just like oh this was the day that this person got one on the train to here
00:11:13.660this is the day that this person was arrested I'm just like April 5th it's like a cosmic magical
00:11:17.340date. But I feel like if that's your birthday, if whatever anyone's birthday is, I think if you read
00:11:21.500as much as I do, you'd keep coming up any date. But I'm just like April 5th, April 5th. So I feel
00:11:26.400like, yeah, I like tracking the significance of dates and all the different things that might
00:11:31.200have happened. Well, I can send you a list later of all the things that happened on April 5th
00:11:35.980in women's history. Probably not all of them, but a lot of them. I was low-key hoping you would
00:11:41.740offer that. And if you have something missing, I can fill you in. Um, but so the, like the,
00:11:49.640the entries, so you're pulling these from like library of Congress records or where are you
00:11:53.480getting them? Yes. So, um, some things are available for different reasons. So the library
00:12:00.720of Congress and the national park service had a bunch. I don't know because, um, the Trump
00:12:06.380administration has had so many diversity things taken down um but thank god for the way back
00:12:13.320machine which is an incredible archive if anyone's not familiar you can plug in a link
00:12:17.580and it'll show you what has been there in the past to basically take snapshots
00:12:21.680um and i've had to use that because some of these pages have been taken down but with the u.s
00:12:28.280government there is a law that says any work product essentially of a federal government
00:12:32.780employee is automatically public domain. So anything that like a national park service
00:12:38.320staff member writes for the national park service website, that's public domain. Um, and you know,
00:12:45.060unless I've seriously misunderstood copyright law, I can share anything from, you know,
00:12:50.260the library of Congress, the national park service, the national archives. Um, so that's great.
00:12:56.220There's also some sites like the conversation, which is another great resource. Um, it's
00:13:01.400essentially like mainstream journalism, but it's written by academics, but it's written for a
00:13:06.860mainstream audience. So they'll take a current events issue and give you all of this context
00:13:12.740that they know because they have a PhD in the topic. Um, and so I absolutely love that. And they
00:13:19.100make their stuff freely republishable under creative commons licenses. And so a lot of them
00:13:25.080are like, as long as you're not doing this for a commercial purpose, then you can share it.
00:13:29.900Um, others I have explicitly asked for permission. So like the, um, national women's history museum
00:13:35.580is fabulous. I love their bios and, you know, they gave me permission several years ago
00:13:41.380to share theirs. So there, there are a couple, like if it's not attributed, then I wrote it,
00:13:46.460but almost all of them, like the vast majority are from other sources because I don't want to
00:13:52.780reinvent the wheel. I would rather spend the same amount of time importing 20 bios that someone
00:13:59.240else has written than writing like one or two myself i was just gonna say because you've got
00:14:03.220what did you say like 6700 yeah i'm recording this so when it comes out it's definitely going
00:14:08.580to be more right right so you're you're finding like as you described like you're finding these
00:14:13.180sources putting them all in one place so that people like me who are researching somebody for
00:14:19.220their podcast like i can just kind of like well and this is something you talk about in your book
00:14:23.460which is the wikipedia problem um we have a chapter called wikipedia's gender bias
00:14:29.640and i having handled this so many times just when i come across the name of a woman or
00:14:36.700somebody suggests it like my first go-to is often wikipedia just to be like is there a story here
00:14:42.020like is there what's you know i'm always excited when there's a heading that's just like scandal
00:14:47.140and murder trial i'm like oh this is going to be a good story because i see that subheading
00:14:51.000but or like mysterious disappearance i'm like okay that's good but so many people are
00:14:55.880just the smallest little thumbnail um paragraphs i mean your your resource is such a good i'm
00:15:01.980gonna pivot i'm gonna pivot this is where i'm gonna look first now so thank you well and it's
00:15:06.460also i think very helpful that if i come across other links so if i have a smithsonian magazine
00:15:12.340article that i find about that person like i do always try to link to wikipedia pages and i think
00:15:17.280it's very telling, um, how many pages I have that there is not a Wikipedia link for, because I will
00:15:23.200always have checked if there are any other resources I can tell you about. But, um, you know,
00:15:28.700the conversation, like I mentioned, if, even if the bio isn't from there, I might have a link
00:15:32.260to an article that someone's written. So I do try to share other resources for more information
00:15:38.400if I have them. Yeah. What I find helpful, I mean, you have this on your site as you're
00:15:43.980describing but also sometimes the wikipedia has got like the shortest possible thing but at the
00:15:47.980bottom it's like here's the resources and it's like great let me try to find the resource does
00:15:51.740the university library have that like is it on internet archive like can i find this obscure
00:15:56.760french language document from 1952 or not but just um and it's interesting because i do find
00:16:05.240there's i work at the public library but i also am a big library user and there's a
00:16:10.100old-ish yet still useful multi-volume resource that i use it's called the it's like the
00:16:17.600either the dictionary or the encyclopedia of women in world history and so my go-to is often
00:16:23.480because these are really good essays in there they're written by scholars on a specific thing
00:16:26.880and they have like a point of view and they give their references at the bottom but when i'm like
00:16:30.220okay is if there's an essay there that's always my first stop but then i'm like oh they're not in
00:16:34.880there okay so it's like are they with a video huh they're not i'm like oh but it's a cool story i
00:16:39.160need to find it. So just having them all in one place, like what you're doing is so useful for
00:16:44.740people and everybody should know about it. So that's why I wanted to make sure that everybody
00:16:48.080understands that before we even talk about your book. But you were saying how looking at all these
00:16:53.900stories as you're putting together this website, but also for your podcast, you're noticing these
00:16:57.960themes. And so could you describe how the book actually describe how you decided to arrange the
00:17:03.920book by the themes that it's arranged by? Sure. So my first step was I started just making notes.
00:17:11.940So every time I would kind of come across one of these stories, make a note, make a note,
00:17:15.540make a note. And when you have like 600 notes, you should probably write a book.
00:17:18.940But yeah, so I first was actually looking at a much broader topic, just generally about like
00:17:23.640women's work. I hadn't really focused in on what I was going to do yet. And that huge topic was
00:17:30.700just going to be way too much for one book. And so I was like, okay, what can I pull out of that?
00:17:37.220And so rather than looking at things that were like interfering with women doing the work,
00:17:41.500I was like, okay, let's focus on women have done the work, but for whatever reason,
00:17:47.680they're not getting the credit they deserve. And so broadly speaking, there are several categories.
00:17:55.720So we start with documentation and gatekeeping. And I describe documentation as like a multi-tiered
00:18:01.880sieve where each level we are losing women's stories until all you're left with is that
00:18:08.120little trickle. And so the holes, if you will, are often around privilege, right? So who is0.90
00:18:15.900literate? Who considers themselves worth talking about? Who does someone else consider worth
00:18:20.940talking about? Whether that's a journalist or maybe somebody who would be mentioned in other
00:18:25.080people's letters? And then who has the time and energy and money to buy the supplies, right?
00:18:31.900Who has the privilege to document their life? And then even if that documentation existed at some
00:18:39.280point, what is considered worth saving and who makes those decisions, right? Is it a relative
00:18:45.120who decides to just check your stuff in the trash? There's so many examples of diaries where somebody
00:18:52.200dies and then their family just burns the diaries. I'm so mad every time I come across her. I'm just
00:18:55.960like, oh, I would have loved to read the diaries. But yeah, I think people are just like, this isn't
00:19:00.000worthwhile. Well, the diary of Anne Lister is actually a great example. So she died in, I want
00:19:08.540to say around 1840. But around 50 years later, her, I'm going to say a great nephew, that's probably
00:19:15.360an imprecise description of their relationship, but let's call him a great nephew. He and his
00:19:20.840buddy around 1890 discover these diaries that have been hidden in the walls of the family home
00:19:27.760and it's in code but there's um like a key and they're able to decode it and they read all of
00:19:33.400this stuff about how she's running around seducing all of her neighbor's wives and stuff and the
00:19:40.180buddy according to his own account is like yeah i told him to burn them but he didn't and i believe0.57
00:19:46.640there's a theory that the great nephew himself was also a queer man and so that may have had0.55
00:19:51.600something to do with it but so they hide it back in the wall and then another 50 years goes by so
00:19:57.240it's now like 1932 i want to say and um the great nephew has died the year before presumably other
00:20:04.180relatives have come into the house they re-rediscover it and the buddy is still kicking
00:20:09.660around he's like oh i know the code and and this is also when he's like i mean i told him to burn
00:20:14.640know i told them they'd be awful for the family reputation i don't know so it hasn't been destroyed
00:20:19.660and it does end up in an archive but nobody's writing about it right nobody wants to tie0.92
00:20:25.020their reputation as an academic to this 1800s lesbian lesbian sex diary in code yes
00:20:33.660and so it's not until again another 50 years goes by so it's 1988 i want to say that an academic0.60
00:20:41.940actually publishes like actually makes public hey this this diary is queer as hell and it's from
00:20:51.520you know almost 150 years ago well probably more than 150 years ago because they spanned0.76
00:20:57.220like so much of her life but and then it wasn't um until i want to say 2017 that we got the book
00:21:03.980gentleman jack and then 2019 that we got the series so if you look at each of those steps
00:21:09.640that's a pretty good encapsulation of she was incredibly privileged right uh like the fact
00:21:15.420that she felt safe enough even in code to have all this written out that is a sign of that she
00:21:23.220was incredible like she was wealthy she was well connected she had the privilege to do this in the
00:21:29.040first place and then a relative chose not to destroy it and then it did make it into an archive
00:21:36.200It's relatively safe there, but it's not being, nobody's talking about it. It's not being
00:21:41.220indexed, looked at by academics. Obviously, this is well before digitization. And then,
00:21:47.900okay, finally, the academics talk about it. And then eventually, eventually it comes to public
00:21:52.760attention. I do want to just mention, we're talking about your book, but my book available
00:21:57.200now for pre-order at rebeloftheregency.com does use Anne Lister as a source. I do quote from her
00:22:03.240diaries because she did write twice about Caroline of Brunswick. And thank you to all those
00:22:08.460generations of people that made me able to have two quotes in my book from her.
00:22:15.240And so after documentation and gatekeepers, because gatekeepers are the ones making these
00:22:20.040decisions at every step, right? Then you have credit outright being stolen and contributions
00:22:27.000being ignored so these are two i wanted to take those apart because um credit being outright stolen
00:22:34.660is really overt but there's also a lot of like more subtle but still incredibly harmful things
00:22:39.680so treating a woman as though she's just the assistant to particularly her husband so they
00:22:46.740actually did this to marie curie and so people might say like oh why is like the only woman0.70
00:22:52.680scientists that a lot of people can probably name at least westerners um why would she be in your0.90
00:22:58.100book um you know she's the first woman to win a nobel because she almost wasn't the 1903 nobel
00:23:03.180committee was only going to recognize pierre her husband and another prominent male uh scientist
00:23:11.440uh heard about this and he goes to pierre and he warns him and pierre and a third prominent male
00:23:18.560scientist, they go to the Nobel committee and they fight for her. They say like, no, you have
00:23:22.980to give this to her as well. She is at least as deserving as Pierre. And so the Nobel committee
00:23:29.660gives in, but it took three prominent men fighting for her, like caring enough to go to bat for her.
00:23:38.440And so I love that example because it's, it is one of several male ally stories in the book.
00:23:44.660because I did want to shout out the good men. I told my husband, I want to write a book about
00:23:50.640the good men. And he said, so a pamphlet. I would agree. Yeah. Yeah. But they are definitely
00:23:58.760the minority, but I do want to give credit where credit is due. And also point out that,
00:24:07.440you know, a lot of times there is only so much women have the power to do. It's one reason that1.00
00:24:14.420I get really annoyed at books that basically tell you how you're letting yourself down and how you could, you know, succeed in the workplace if only you do these things.
00:24:24.760And it really puts the responsibility.0.97
00:24:26.760Like, it's framed as empowerment, but when it comes down to it, there's only so much power that women have in a lot of these situations.
00:24:34.700And so, like, if Marie had gone by herself and, you know, tried to fight for herself, I highly doubt she would have been successful through no fault of her own.
00:24:44.420The simple fact is that male allyship is incredibly important in a lot of these stories.
00:24:50.540Like even if it's not the key, you know, pivot point that we wouldn't have this story if it wasn't for these men, it's still important.
00:24:59.740And I think that I need to understand that as well.
00:25:02.920I think what's also really what I keep coming across in my research, but also this is in
00:25:08.940your book too, is the concept of, and this is where I think like a book like this is
00:25:13.020so valuable, is that women often won't think that something is even an option for them
00:25:19.720because you don't know that a woman did this before.
00:25:21.720And the reason you don't know a woman did this before is because of what you were saying.
00:25:24.120It's like there wasn't a record kept of it or nobody explained that like, oh, actually
00:25:27.580she did all the work, but the man's name was published in it.
00:25:30.720So I think it's just so important to where we do know about women who did stuff to kind of elevate those and raise those so people can see like, oh, I'm not the first one to do this.
00:25:39.020Like, there's somebody who could be my role model.
00:25:40.860Like, there's somebody who did this 100 years ago or five years ago or something.
00:25:45.340And I think that sort of record is so valuable.
00:25:49.240When we say representation matters, it's not just, you know, a catchphrase like you can't be what you can't see.
00:25:54.960And it's important to understand that women have been written out of these things.
00:26:00.120like women in hollywood women in computer science they were there from the very beginning like1.00
00:26:05.680computer science the first programmer before computers even existed was ada loveless the0.99
00:26:11.180people who made the first computer work the eniac programmers were women you know women literally
00:26:17.980founded this discipline and the fact that we now see a minority of women in this field is man-made
00:26:29.360quite literally yeah and that's interesting too that like computers is such a good
00:26:35.120example of this it's just kind of like it was considered well i'm just thinking about like
00:26:39.640the movie hidden figures like a computer was a person um and it was sort of considered it wasn't
00:26:45.440necessarily a gendered thing until it became a gendered thing like where i work at the public0.94
00:26:50.340library here in saskatoon i've heard tell there was a woman who retired shortly after i started1.00
00:26:55.260working, but one of her first jobs was working in the computer room, like where it was a room0.62
00:27:00.140full of these machines. And she was, who was hired to do it because it was like, yeah,
00:27:03.420let's get this young woman to do it because it was sort of equated to being equivalent to other1.00
00:27:07.880female coded jobs, like secretarial work or something. And now the IT department is entirely0.99
00:27:14.480men because that's who tends to enter and be successful at that career.
00:27:20.400Well, and there's also a really interesting pattern that I've noticed. I don't think I
00:27:24.360mention in the book but one of the things that you find is that women often get put into tedious
00:27:33.420roles and so things like the the harvard college observatory astronomers who were women i mean
00:27:42.580there were men doing other jobs but the women actually analyzing the photographs a lot of
00:27:50.460times it's because this is boring it is minutiae it is detail oriented and there's this argument0.98
00:27:58.180that like oh women are just better at tedious work which is incredibly insulting but also0.99
00:28:06.500anyone who does science knows that a lot of times the tedious work is where the discoveries happen1.00
00:28:13.620so someone like Henrietta Swan-Levitt who's in the book they are making those discoveries
00:28:19.380because they're doing the tedious work like you could you can make the same argument about
00:28:23.740this book in fact because i i love my website i'm very proud of it but it is very tedious it
00:28:30.940is very repetitive adding all of these biographies to this site it's very time consuming and um
00:28:38.620it's also why i saw these patterns it's why i have this book written is because wait here it's
00:28:47.420it's why I wrote this book. It, because I was able to see those patterns from doing the tedious
00:28:53.060parts. And so it's actually really funny that this sexism is what is leading to these discoveries.
00:29:01.800You also talk in your book about something that has come up a few times, actually pretty recently
00:29:05.940on my podcast. And it makes me so angry, which is when somebody's grave has their husband's name,
00:29:12.860mrs husband's name mrs nameless yeah yeah yeah it's it just makes me when someone is remembered
00:29:20.840as not who they were but it's like here lies mrs husband's name mother of son's name and it's just
00:29:28.620like oh so that's like that's the whole identity of this person yeah and i'm guessing not even
00:29:34.300mother of daughter's names no no i'm sure not yeah my favorite example of mrs nameless is there
00:29:41.180was a woman who collected, I want to say botanical samples. So these were kept in the Smithsonian
00:29:47.380archives. And when they were entered, they were listed as Mrs. Husband's name. And at some point
00:29:56.160when they were upgrading their digital system, any honorifics, so Mr. and Mrs. were removed.
00:30:03.200And so suddenly Mrs. Husband's name became just husband's name. And so all of these samples
00:30:07.640were now credited to him except he'd been dead for years it's it it's a thing that it just feels
00:30:18.340like the final when i what you know when i finished because my podcast i always do like
00:30:22.300life to death of a person and when there's like a what i consider like a good memorial or even
00:30:28.540just like a gravestone i'm just like yes amazing love it but so often it's just like oh hate it
00:30:34.400Either there's no grave or it's just like Mrs. Husband name.
00:30:37.200And I'm just like, no, that's not, it makes me mad.
00:30:41.580But you also talk in your book about male pseudonyms.
00:37:17.680So when you were first putting this book together, whichever title it was under at that time, how, like, there's so many people in this book. How did you decide how many people it was going to be?
00:37:30.660I just kept adding until my editor made me stop. So that was, I think, maybe eight months before publication. She said, okay, it's a static medium. You need to stop.
01:06:13.940And one of the things that we were talking about, it made me think when you were talking about racist Hollywood, and you didn't even mention all the yellow face and the black face, and how the Hays Code wouldn't allow interracial marriage.
01:06:28.620I did say, I carefully worded it, I was like, it was mostly white actors, which is not to say it was all white characters.0.79
01:06:35.640here's the thing we could talk for 25 more hours as I murder a person each hour but people need to
01:06:44.980people need to read the book a bit far from uncredited we have we have but it's all good
01:06:52.760um and this is the thing like you have your book is available as a book you also have an
01:06:57.600audiobook that you read yourself what is it 18 hours long 18 and a half 18 and a half hours long
01:07:03.420and your poor voice congratulations on accomplishing that i wanted to ask you one
01:07:07.980more question about your book which is it ends with a playlist tell me about how you chose those
01:07:14.200songs it's just songs that i like that make me feel it that they give me the girl power0.96
01:07:23.600vibes and you know they sort of we're not going to take this shit anymore
01:07:27.800yeah i i hope that um it helps other people get through what is admittedly0.98
01:07:33.820often not a fun book the the midwesterner in me anytime someone says oh i just got your book
01:07:41.000wants to reply with oh i hope you enjoy it but the person who wrote the book in me is like oh
01:07:47.920no no no no that's not the vibe yeah it's more often like oh i hope it makes you mad my favorite
01:07:53.460review so far is my mom who is a 68 year old white midwestern lady and she said you know
01:08:01.600this really pissed me off and that that is not her but um the other way to look at it um is that
01:08:13.940it is honestly the most empowering thing i think i've ever experienced to really appreciate because
01:08:22.580I think we do all internalize that message of like, oh, if women are as good as men,
01:08:26.880how come I haven't heard of more women? Like the implication being, well, obviously they're not0.84
01:08:30.820because I haven't heard of them. And I do think that we internalize that because that's what
01:08:36.660we're shown constantly is this absence and really seeing. So like I mentioned that drone footage of
01:08:44.920the forest, right? Not just one or two women's stories, but here's over 600 stories. Here's how
01:08:50.300What didn't happen today, so don't let anybody tell you this is all in the past, is actually really empowering to see how hard the patriarchy and the people who uphold it, they have to work to keep us out because they know if we get in, we will outperform them.
01:09:10.260if we get into the schools if we get the job if we get the promotion that we've earned
01:09:15.300we will often outperform the men and they can't have that and so they try to convince us0.99
01:09:24.340because if you can convince a woman that she's not capable she'll do the job for you right she0.97
01:09:32.180will do the work of keeping herself down. And that is what our whole society tells us over and over
01:09:40.880and over again, implicitly or explicitly. And I really hope that people who read my book, both
01:09:48.660men, women, non-binary, other, whatever your gender, I hope that people who read my book
01:09:57.340will realize how much they have been lied to about women's potential and women's abilities
01:10:04.560and that hopefully that will help unravel some of their biases because there are stories in the book
01:10:10.900about not just the male allies but male bosses in contemporary settings who wants things like
01:10:18.160heap eating where a woman says something and it's ignored and then a guy basically says the exact
01:10:23.860same thing. And it's like, Oh, you're brilliant. Once you point this out to, to a male boss,
01:10:31.020some of them are massages, obviously like they, you know, they'll just keep, they won't believe
01:10:35.540you or they'll just keep letting it happen. But there are multiple stories in the book about
01:10:39.900once things like, you know, men interrupting women all the time, once that their eyes are
01:10:45.900open to that because they are blinded by their privilege, right? If it doesn't affect them,
01:10:50.780they're probably not going to notice it i was actually just in the san francisco airport and
01:10:55.860they've got um an aviation museum there and there was a display with i think it was virgin america
01:11:01.840paraphernalia and one of them was a flight attendant i believe uniform like the actual
01:11:08.900uniform from like 2012 and it included knee-high stiletto boots and i mentioned this to like a male
01:11:16.680employee there he had not noticed like it had not occurred to him that not only is this for people
01:11:24.360who are on their feet for hours at a time it's also probably a safety code violation if we're
01:11:30.540being honest but it genuinely just hadn't occurred to him until i pointed out that forcing a flight0.99
01:11:36.980attendant to wear stiletto boots in 20 freaking 12 was stupid on many levels well and especially0.98
01:11:46.120the like just my recent understanding of flight attendants as first responders after there was0.99
01:11:52.380that thing where the airplane landed upside down and then i just threw that i learned0.97
01:11:56.000their first is your safety yeah so like why the fuck are we putting them in these shoes0.93
01:12:01.420when it's like well she would have saved your life or she would have helped the people0.94
01:12:05.640evacuate the airplane but unfortunately she tripped and fell because she's wearing these0.96
01:12:08.820fucking stiletto boots yeah and so i i do genuinely hope that you know people who don't0.94
01:12:14.800identify as women will also read this book. And if they have experienced male privilege,0.97
01:12:20.880that hopefully it will change their biases and hopefully it will open their eyes
01:12:25.260so that they can be better allies. Because I do love the good men. I'm married to one. My
01:12:31.640dedication in the book is for Jared. He knows what he did. And it's an in-joke with me and
01:12:40.640my husband, Jared, because what he did was, you know, support me and listen to me rant about this
01:12:46.060and feed me and read the book multiple times. So I do want to shout out the men who help women
01:12:56.520get the credit they deserve, but also do the work in the first place, because
01:13:01.020the last section of the book is about the cost of disregarding women.
01:13:04.480and one of the people i talk about is um an fda employee uh francis oldham kelsey who
01:13:14.120while european countries were okaying a drug called thalidomide for use in morning sickness
01:13:20.600so for pregnant women all these countries were approving it and she said hang on there was this
01:13:26.820one study that found that like birth defects may be connected to this and i want more research done
01:13:31.640and she talks about how her bosses backed her up and not too long after she was credited with
01:13:40.880preventing tens of thousands of birth defects in children because yeah it turned out that she was
01:13:48.980exactly right to be concerned about that and all of these kids in countries where it had been
01:13:54.480approved were being born with these birth defects. And so you can see how having supportive bosses
01:14:01.960trust her saved a lot of kids from being born with those conditions. And there are lots of stories
01:14:12.180where the men didn't listen to the women. The men in power chose to disregard women and people died
01:14:19.120or, you know, say investment companies lost a bunch of money because they didn't trust a woman0.96
01:14:24.580entrepreneur. And it really drives home that it's not just about the women themselves. And it's not0.80
01:14:33.180just about the girls who are not seeing themselves represented. People die when you don't listen to
01:14:39.300women. Thank you so much for talking with me about your book and also about your website.
01:14:47.300I wanted to, well, first of all, everybody like go get the book, like order this book from your
01:14:52.040local bookstore or all the places you can get it. Force your library to order a copy of it.
01:14:56.780The ebook and the audio book are also available. And also I just wanted to let everybody know,
01:15:01.300like your website is so great. Infinite-women.com. So you can go in there, look up your faves.
01:15:07.5206,700 people there and growing. But if there's someone who's not there,
01:15:11.300you have a form right at the bottom of the website where you can suggest somebody.
01:15:14.140I will say the total list, because I love a spreadsheet, as previously mentioned,
01:15:20.060the total list is something like 225,000 people. So I am working on it, but I'm always happy to
01:15:29.960add to that list because I have issues with boundaries, apparently, when it comes to
01:15:36.340these projects. I was complaining to my husband and he's like, you literally called it infinite
01:15:41.420women we have a very uh you did this to yourself policy in in our house like when he's you know
01:15:52.400really sore because he just did an ultra marathon like you did this to yourself
01:15:57.180nobody made you no exterior force yeah you chose this path you knew what was going to happen and
01:16:05.340now you are paying the consequences sometimes I tell him like look I am just trying to check
01:16:10.460yourself before you wreck yourself. And I am failing. I wanted to mention too, just I'm looking
01:16:16.720at the cover of your book. So I don't know how much input you had on the cover design, but I
01:16:21.460love it. It's called uncredited women's overlooked, misattributed and stolen work. And then it says
01:16:25.740Alison Tyra in the hugest font where you're just like, I will be credited as the author of this
01:16:31.720book. And I respect that. Thank you. I did not have any input on the, well, I'm sure I could
01:16:38.320have if i'd asked but um no the cover illustration is by a designer named nat mac who is brilliant
01:16:44.440and is currently at work um on the cover design for the view from the hill which is my next book
01:16:52.900comes out in 2026 it'll be on pre-sale um i would guess november i should probably know that
01:17:00.840but um yeah it celebrates women uh who made their mark after 40. I love that I love that as a concept
01:17:08.560and I love knowing I'm gonna invite you back on to talk about that because that's what shouldn't1.00
01:17:13.140like we'll talk about that later I'm sure but just like because for a lot of women it's like1.00
01:17:18.980marriage and raising children you're not able to pursue these passions and your goals until1.00
01:17:24.520you're after 40 because a lot of women are raising children up to that point. That's one of the1.00
01:17:30.500reasons. Another factor I found was, um, some women are just working away for decades and they1.00
01:17:37.000just don't get recognized. They don't get credited and acknowledged and widely known until they're0.87
01:17:43.240older. So, you know, you might have someone like Tina Turner who did have a career as a singer,
01:17:50.140but she was very much under the control of her husband, Ike. And it was very much Ike and Tina.
01:17:55.240and it wasn't until um later in her life that she got away from him and she came into her own
01:18:02.660or it might be a women artists or scientists where the rest of the world just hasn't caught0.98
01:18:10.020up with them yet so uh you know a scientist like patricia bath i believe had to wait for1.00
01:18:17.320laser technology to catch up with her ideas for what she wanted to do with laser eye surgery
01:18:21.800and it wasn't until later in her life that that happened so i will happily come back and talk with
01:18:28.100you for however long you want about that but it was interesting getting into like the different
01:18:34.040reasons but that one's less analytical it's more a collection of stories but there is a bit of that
01:18:38.980okay let's look at this whole you know youth obsession and this idea that you have to you0.82
01:18:44.580have to know what you want to do with your life at 18 is just dumb and also i think we put too
01:18:51.480much pressure on young people going back to that whole question of how much control are you actually0.56
01:18:57.320in right like what I was saying about telling women here's what you can do to get ahead in
01:19:01.780the workplace and sort of indicating that if you don't it's your fault but I think that we put too
01:19:07.680much pressure on young people who feel like they have to have everything in their life sorted by
01:19:14.160age 25 like okay I have to be married by this date I have to have kids by this date you know I have to
01:19:20.280have bought a house by this date. And a lot of times it's just not realistic. And it's not
01:19:26.620necessarily what's going to make you happy in the long run. I just want to say, and do you know
01:19:30.520where those timelines and numbers come from, is America in the 1950s. Everything comes back
01:19:37.340to America in the 1950s. It traces back the one decade where that was possible for anybody.0.97
01:19:42.980Like, is this going to become a conspiracy podcast where you've got the board with all
01:19:47.720the string and like it's just the 1950s at the center and then it's all the string well and then
01:19:53.840i think the ultimate end of that would be like me time traveling back and then like sort of like in
01:19:59.220back to the future with the room with the string because it also takes place in the 1950s i think
01:20:03.160that's where this is all headed but i'll let you know please stay away from your parents if you do
01:20:06.960time travel yes that's what we learned from that trilogy absolutely thank you so much for talking
01:20:13.840with me this is it's always a pleasure everybody should listen to first of all just listen to
01:20:18.540infinite women the podcast subscribe like set up your automatic downloads whatever and then keep
01:20:22.980your ears peeled because on august 4th you can hear the episode the extremely long episode that
01:20:28.280you've edited down where i am on infinite women talking about my fave should have been queen
01:20:34.080princess charlotte well and if you just can't wait i do already have an episode about the
01:20:39.880Hanoverians and their rise to power. So if you want to hear about all the messy drama that came
01:20:45.440before Princess Charlotte, brace yourself. Um, there's also a Royals playlist. So if you go on
01:20:51.880my website under the podcast item in the menu, there's playlists and you can see all the Royal
01:20:58.880episodes. And I also have transcripts for every episode. So feel free to check that out. If you're
01:21:05.520more of a reader than a listener. This is fantastic. I just clicked on it and I'm like,
01:21:11.320oh, you know what? I've done some website work. I should do this. These playlists are great.
01:21:15.620I just feel like you're going to start doing like you should start doing like react videos. Like
01:21:20.400you're just listening to the podcast, like hang on. BRB, I'm just going to recode my website.
01:21:27.760Thank you so much for talking to me, Alison. And I hope that you continue having fantastic
01:21:32.700interactions with people about this book, because I do think it's going to make people mad in a good
01:21:37.000way. That's the plan. And so far it seems to be working. So again, Alison's book is Uncredited,
01:21:47.900Women's Overlooked, Misattributed, and Stolen Work. And you can get more information about that0.88
01:21:52.540from her website, which is infinite-women.com, which is also the website where you can get all
01:21:57.100the information about women from history, as well as playlists of her past podcast episodes. If you
01:22:02.680have a certain type of person you'd like to hear about. And I might add that to my website too,
01:22:07.120because I love the idea of podcast playlists. Anyway, speaking of books, I have a book that
01:22:12.060is available now for pre-order. It's called Rebel of the Regency, The Scandalous Saga of
01:22:16.020Carolina Brunswick, Uncrowned Queen of Britain, or maybe it's Britain's Uncrowned Queen.
01:22:22.080We go back and forth. It's, you know, until the book is printed, it could still change.
01:22:26.960But just look up Rebel of the Regency by Anne Foster. You can order that at your local bookstore.
01:22:31.940if you've never pre-ordered you can just go to your local bookstore's website and look at my
01:22:36.580book rebel of the regency by ann foster and click on like order and then the website will do it for
01:22:41.260you you can just go in in person and be like i demand that you order this book it comes out next
01:22:45.120february so there's plenty of time for you to do that you can also order it from any of the
01:22:49.780major online book websites you can have more information about ordering my book at rebel
01:22:55.500of the regency.com and there's also a link there for if you do pre-order the book you can share
01:23:01.580a picture of the receipt with me. And then you can get some delightful treats. Like you can get
01:23:07.260a paper doll of Carolina Brunswick designed by Siobhan Gallagher. You can get a free membership
01:23:11.920to my Substack or a free membership to my Patreon. Anyway, rebeloftheregency.com.
01:23:17.520Get used to me talking about it because I'm going to be promoting that every week
01:23:21.300until next February. And what else is there to say? So yeah, I mean, if you want to keep up with
01:23:29.680more information from me and what I'm up to, you can subscribe to my newsletter, which is like
01:23:34.440every month I send out just kind of the highlights of what's up. Like I talk about the most recent
01:23:39.660podcast episodes I've done. I'll give you the latest book news, information about events.
01:23:44.360Like for instance, I'm going to be having an in-person Vulgar History meetup in July in
01:23:49.640Toronto, Ontario, Canada. If you're going to be around that area and you want to know the
01:23:55.200information you can rsvp at vulgarhistory.com slash meet up and otherwise i mean i i did these
01:24:04.860new end credits that say a lot of the stuff that i used to usually say so i'm like i feel like
01:24:08.660there's more to say but i think it's all going to be covered in the credits so until next time0.93
01:24:12.400keep your pants on and your tits out vulgar history is researched scripted and hosted by0.98
01:24:18.360ann foster that's me editor is christina lumagi theme music is by the severin duo0.99
01:24:24.840Transcripts of this podcast are available at vulgarhistory.com by Aveline Malek.
01:24:29.280You can get early ad-free episodes of Vulgar History by becoming a paid member of our Patreon
01:24:33.880for as low as $1 a month at patreon.com slash annfosterwriter.
01:24:38.940Vulgar History merchandise is available at vulgarhistory.com slash store for Americans
01:24:43.420and for everyone else at vulgarhistory.redbubble.com.
01:24:47.540Follow us on social media at vulgarhistorypod
01:24:50.180and get in touch with me via email at vulgarhistorypod at gmail.com.
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