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[Edmond Dantès]

A groundbreaking four-part documentary series on the history of women

About:

Biographer and historian Dr. Amanda Foreman presents a landmark series on the history of women from the dawn of civilisation to the modern day.

This ambitious series sets out to redress a significant imbalance in global history, exploring the extraordinary and often overlooked role women have played in the forging of the modern world, as Amanda confronts the difficult questions: How did power become a male right? Why is the female body a living battleground? Who decided that women are inferior?

In addition to asking the hard questions, this series is also a celebration of women; from Enheduanna, the first known writer in history, to Margaret Sanger, the pioneer of women’s sexual liberation, the series will traverse the globe to uncover and interrogate key stories of women that have changed human history.

Amanda considers the status of women as a barometer of a society’s tolerance, fairness and openness, and argues that for the next economic cycle to be the age of full participation, there has to be a woman-led revolution that unleashes the potential of all individuals. At stake are the goals of autonomy, authority and agency for all women.


Presented by:

Dr. Amanda Foreman.


Starts:

Today on BBC2 and BBC2 HD.

Episode one: Civilisation

Civilisation has given humanity extraordinary advances - codes of law and commerce, science and art. But what does it look like from the point of view of women? Travelling from the nomadic worlds of the Eurasian steppes to the early civilisations of Mesopotamia, Egypt, ancient Greece and Rome, Dr Amanda Foreman explores how early civilisations dealt with the roles and status of women and, in so doing, she asks some profound questions about the legacy they've left behind.

In Anatolia, she visits Catalhöyük, one of the world's earliest settlements, which archaeologists believe held remarkably different notions of gender. From Mesopotamia, she explores the world's first law codes written to regulate women's status and behaviour, including the world's first known veiling law dating from 1350 BC, two millennia before the advent of Islam.

Across Europe and the Near East, she uncovers a group of extraordinary women who created their own routes to power in male-dominated worlds. These include Enheduanna, the world's first recorded author, the Ukok Ice Maiden, one of the great archaeological discoveries of the 20th century, and Hatshepsut, one of ancient Egypt's most successful but most maligned ruling queens. Crucially, she also explores the darker legacy of gender inequality in ancient Greece, whose influential ideas on the inferiority of women have cast a long shadow over women's lives across the globe to this day. Amanda's approach aims to profoundly alter the accepted view of civilization once and for all.

 

[IronRinn]

This looks pretty cool. Hopefully it'll be available in the US at some point.

 

[show me your skeleton]

cheers for this. could be very good!

 

[Knit Your Own Porridge]

Sounds interesting! I'll check it out on iPlayer at the weekend. Thanks for the heads-up!

 

[Edmond Dantès]

This looks pretty cool. Hopefully it'll be available in the US at some point.

Almost certainly.

cheers for this. could be very good!

It does look very accomplished thus far and possibly a worthy companion piece to Jacob Bronowski's Ascent of Man.

 

[Twilight Princess]

The accent is slightly different between men and women.

 

[olympia]

I'm ready for this

 

[Dany]

Damn, never heard of this. Will tune in.

 

[mclem]

They're having some fun with the naming of the series and episodes, aren't they?

(Joking aside, looks interesting)

 

[Kinokou]

"This programme will be available shortly after broadcast" is BBC setting me up for disappointment when I'm gonna try tuning in from outside the UK?

 

[Barkley's Justice]

A whole series about women's accents??! That's preposterous!

 

[disappeared]

Definitely will check this out in the future.

 

[show me your skeleton]

this was great, such a shame that it was only 4 episodes.