S3 E2. Breaking Boundaries: Women Who Dressed Like Men to Do Shit They Weren't Supposed to Do with Tracy Dawson, author of Let Me Be Frank

[00:00:00] Dear Lord, we are innovative. And I wish I didn't have to have all my writing be focused on excavating women's stories, excavating the history, the innovation and the accolades. But I will continue

[00:00:15] to do it because I just think we are so resilient and resourceful and innovative. It's incredible if you think of the history of knocking us down again and again and again. And as I say in

[00:00:29] the introduction, we will always get up. We are resourceful and savvy and resilient as fuck. Welcome to season three of The Story of Woman. I'm your host, Anna Stoecklein. From the intricacies of the economy and healthcare to the nuances of workplace bias and gender roles, each episode

[00:00:59] of this season features interviews with thought leaders who provide fresh perspectives on critical global issues, all through the female gaze. But this podcast isn't just about women's stories, it's about rewriting our collective story to be more inclusive, equitable and effective in

[00:01:16] driving change. It's about changing the current story of mankind to the much more complete story of humankind. Hello friends and welcome back. Thank you as always for being here. Today's conversation is as hilarious as it is insightful and possibly frustrating because

[00:01:52] I'm speaking with comedy writer and actress Tracey Dawson about her book Let Me Be Frank, a book about women who dressed like men to do shit they weren't supposed to do. I mean, how perfect is that title? I think I saw it on Instagram and just instantly thought,

[00:02:11] yep, this needs to be on the podcast. Absolutely brilliant. So Tracey is an award-winning actress and a TV writer who began her career on the alt comedy stages of Toronto. In 2014,

[00:02:24] Tracey worked as a writer on TBS sitcom Your Family Are Mine where she got to write jokes for Richard Dreyfus and Ed Bagley Jr. Ed even called her a genius once, and I've got to agree with him.

[00:02:38] But as funny as the title of this book and Tracey are, the topic is really quite serious. It's not about gender identity or women gaining the right to wear pants or trousers,

[00:02:53] as we say here in the UK, even though that was an actual right that we had to gain because at times it was illegal to wear pants as a woman. But this isn't what that book is about. This is a book

[00:03:06] about women from around the world from ancient Greece all the way up until present day, refusing to take no for an answer and doing what they needed to do just to live their lives and

[00:03:20] sometimes to save their own lives and to save the lives of others. And all along the way, forging a better path for the women and girls that came behind them. So you'll hear several of these

[00:03:31] fantastic stories in our conversation today and why all of this really matters. If you like what you hear and you want to keep making this a world where women don't have to dress like men

[00:03:44] or change their name or write under a pseudonym or go by anonymous in order to get their work out in the world and do what they want to do, please take a minute to write and review

[00:03:55] wherever you listen. And don't forget to follow the story of women on social media where you can find clips from the interviews and much more. But for now, please enjoy my conversation with Tracy Dawson. Hi Tracy, welcome. Thank you so much for being here with me today.

[00:04:23] I'm super excited for our conversation. Anna is an honor to be here. I'm very excited. So thank you. Absolutely. We are discussing your book, Let Me Be Frank, a book about women who

[00:04:36] dress like men to do shit they weren't supposed to do. And the first thing I want to just say is brilliant title, brilliant subtitle and just really a brilliant concept generally. I absolutely love it. Thanks. And I would love to start by having you tell us a bit

[00:04:56] about what the book is about and how you came up with the idea for it. I know there's a bit of a personal story behind it. Yes, the great thing about the title is it tells you exactly what the

[00:05:07] book is. It really is a book about women who dress like men to do shit they weren't supposed to do. And that doesn't always mean a disguise. You know, when you start to read the book,

[00:05:15] you realize that this is really a book about defiant women and rule breaking women. And often what they did was they used dressing as men, quote unquote, to do shit they weren't supposed

[00:05:26] to do. If someone was told you can't go there, you can't study that, you can't play that sport, you can't be that. And they, you know, refused to take no for an answer. And I was inspired

[00:05:37] to read this book. So about 10 years ago, I was starting off as a TV writer here in LA. And you go one of these meetings, they're called general meetings, and you're meeting

[00:05:47] with all the networks in the studios, and they're trying to like hire writers for their new shows. And so I was on one of those meetings, and I was feeling jazzed, right? Like I wanted to get my

[00:05:58] first American job on a TV show. And this executive said, you know, which of our new shows are you vibing with? Like did you connect with any of them? And I said, yes, this one,

[00:06:08] and this one, this one. And then she goes, Oh, well, none of those shows that you just mentioned have any female needs. And I just think I, I think I just completely,

[00:06:21] I was shocked. I don't think I'm actually very often shocked. I could not believe what came out of her mouth. And I think I turned red and I felt like really hot and ashamed and embarrassed.

[00:06:33] And it was like, you know, she was saying, there are jobs available, but not for you. We have filled our quota of female writers. And unfortunately at that time, and sometimes still today, what that usually means is they had hired one or two women for a group of 10,

[00:06:51] 12, 14 writers. And so they thought, you know, we filled our woman quota. And I just thought, but I'm a writer and I write jokes and great dialogue. And it felt like it was like, it

[00:07:02] doesn't matter. We don't want to hear that, you know, to me, and it was like my boobs came first. And so I was infuriated. I was embarrassed. And I went home and I thought, you know, I kind

[00:07:13] of fantasized for a hot second about doing reverse tootsie, you know, Dustin Hoffman and all that. And I just thought, Oh, it sounds like a lot of work. And I, and I was like, I'm not going to do

[00:07:24] that because I just wanted to write some fucking jokes, you know, and I don't know what the swearing is here. Is it okay to drop F bombs? It's allowed. Woo. Yes, it is. We are in a

[00:07:33] great space. Drop away. So, so that happened about 10 years ago and it really stuck with me. And I put it in my writing like I tried to write a pilot about it. And it kept on coming up. And

[00:07:46] then I saw this story about Catherine Nichols, this writer. It was an article in Jezebel, and she had submitted her novel under her real female name. And then she submitted a second time with a male named George of all names, George, very historical choice there. Anyway,

[00:08:02] she got a much better response when she submitted it under the male name. And so I just had this idea. I was like, I wonder how many people like I thought back to my experience in 2013.

[00:08:13] And I just was like, I wonder if there's something here. And I really never thought when I started to research that there would be that many people enough to fill a book or

[00:08:21] a TV show because I was like thinking maybe this is a TV show idea, you know what I mean? Well, when I started to research, I realized, Oh, my good gravy. There are a lot of people

[00:08:31] to fill a book here. And it's not just people, as I said at the top who were disguised, like there's people who fit into the premise like Catherine Switzer, who was the first woman to run

[00:08:41] the Boston Marathon. You know, she filled out her application form using her initials, K-Switzer. And so they thought, Oh, this is a man because a woman had never run the Boston Marathon before. So it wasn't even on their radar that a woman would want to or submit

[00:08:56] herself. So they gave her her numbers and she showed up on race day, and they were just appalled. And so I put her in the book because she quote unquote did something she wasn't supposed to do.

[00:09:07] And she took on the guise of a male supposedly by submitting her application using just her initials. So that was a long winded answer. But that was the inspiration for the book because I had had this very personal shaming event. And then when I started to do research,

[00:09:27] I thought, Oh my God, there's all these people who just wanted to whatever write a book, study medicine, play a sport, run a marathon. It was like, and then when I came up with that title,

[00:09:38] Anna, when I came up with that title, it was like game over. I knew I had to write the book. Do you know what I mean? I was like, Oh my gosh, that might be the best thing I've ever

[00:09:46] written is this title. It's a brilliant title. And yeah, the book is fantastic. It is filled with wonderful humor, which you would expect from a comedy writer such as yourself. But I was laughing through the whole thing while also shaking my head and being like, I can't believe

[00:10:07] women have had to do this and are still continuing as you have just outlined even yourself in today's day and age. And Catherine Nichols, who you mentioned, and other people will get into who

[00:10:16] are still facing this today. But another thing that I liked about your book was you were always adding context about what was going on because you have stories from 1478 BCE until today,

[00:10:30] and they take place in cultures and societies all over the world. And you always add a lot of great context to really paint the picture of what that world was like for a woman living

[00:10:40] in those times. And one thing I was just going to say, since you brought up Catherine Switzer, this first woman who officially ran the Boston Marathon, something that blew my mind about

[00:10:50] that story that I just want to blow listeners minds is that yeah, she snuck in that way and people were appalled. And people didn't just like wait until she finished to be like, how did

[00:11:02] you get in here? But the race director chased after her in the race and then physically assaulted her trying to rip the number off of her shirt. Exactly. While she was racing during this first ever

[00:11:17] attempt. I mean, I had seen those famous photographs, those black and white photographs of that race director assaulting her during the marathon, like I'd seen those photographs and they were always chilling because he looks filled with rage. And the more I researched about

[00:11:33] him, he was he had anger issues. He was this like Scottish American, you know, had this thick rogue. And he just thought, I mean, I found this recording of him going like, what,

[00:11:44] why do women? Well, don't you have enough? Like, aren't you just happy? Like, why do you got to come into our spaces? And I'm just like, this guy needs to sit down. And eventually he came

[00:11:54] around like a few years later, like he did sort of go, Oh, okay, women can run marathons. But like, those pictures actually really changed something her running that race. And those pictures went worldwide. And suddenly people realized, Oh, this amateur athletic association, it's on the

[00:12:13] books that women were not allowed to run more than a mile allowed. And so things started to change because of it was embarrassing. But it took like a long time before they permitted,

[00:12:27] and I just say that with just so much just, you know, sarcasm and snark that they permitted a woman to run a marathon, because they were convinced that it was going to mess with their reproductive system, which is ridiculous. And like Catherine Switzer as a quote where she's

[00:12:43] like giving birth to a baby, like giving birth to a child does so much more to damage a woman's internal organs her insides her reproductive system. Like it's so it's a lot. I've never had a child.

[00:12:57] I've talked to a lot of people who have and it really changes your body forever, right? I mean, for many people maybe not some people. But she was just like the idea that they were

[00:13:07] like afraid that women running around the block was going to make their uterus fall out was just like dear Lord. That was another mind blowing thing from that story I had no idea. So this was

[00:13:18] 1967 a mile and a half was the longest distance women were allowed to run. I mean, seriously, even how far we can run has been regulated. I had no idea that was ever a thing. I mean,

[00:13:31] there you go. It's like bodily autonomy, right? It all comes down to wanting to control the body. It's not just about it's like what you put in the body, how you're spending time with

[00:13:40] the body to close your wearing on the body. If you're running with the body, a common theme in the book is really about freedom of movement because it's not just about freedom of movement

[00:13:49] in space and it's about freedom of movement in your clothing. And it's part of the reason some of the women in the book took on male clothes. I say male clothes literally rolling my eyes

[00:14:01] for the listener because it's like trousers or trousers. But for a long time it was illegal in many places for women to wear trousers. Period full stop. So that's a big theme that it's not

[00:14:13] that I set out when I was writing the book and researching the book that freedom of movement would be the theme. It just kept on coming up. I did want to ask you upfront about some of the

[00:14:22] themes that you noticed because as I mentioned, this is spanning millennia. This is spanning the entire world. This is spanning all kinds of cultures and societies, but you can still see commonalities amongst all of the women in their stories. So yeah, can you talk a little bit

[00:14:39] about some of the other themes that really jumped out at you? Well, I mean, the major commonality here is the patriarchy, right? This is not a book about gender identity. This is not a book about cross-dressing to take on a different gender identity. This is about

[00:14:53] people who are defiant and who are trying to circumvent the patriarchy. And so really the patriarchy is here everywhere, everywhere you look and just trying to control women's bodies and control their actions and control their ambitions. I mean, God forbid we have ambition.

[00:15:09] And so yeah, and again, the freedom to move that was the main thing that it was such a big thing that came up. You know, someone like George Sand, one of the authors that's in the

[00:15:20] author section of the book, people knew that she was a woman. She wasn't trying to disguise herself as a man. I really tried so hard to decipher when was the moment in George Sand's career that people realized that it wasn't a man? Because obviously there wasn't social media,

[00:15:35] there weren't videos going around. And so there must have been a moment because she was very popular as an author. There must have been a moment in the beginning when they thought that George Sand was a man. But she famously dressed in trousers and quote-unquote

[00:15:50] men's clothing and she smoked in public, which was also considered absolutely appalling for a woman to do. And she just went against all the gender norms. And so I don't know how much is

[00:16:01] documented about how queer George Sand was or if I believe that she was bisexual. I'm not 100% clear on it, but I mean, she basically wanted freedom of movement, you know, and it was

[00:16:13] illegal at the time in Paris for a woman to wear clothes. It was called impersonating a man. It was illegal. And you were supposed to get a note from your doctor signing off and saying,

[00:16:25] you know, there's a health benefit and there's a reason that this woman needs to wear trousers. And you had to get like a paper, you had to get your dog for to sign it. George Sand did not comply

[00:16:35] with these rules. She was like, fuck everything. I'm fucking whoever I want. I'm smoking cigarettes. I'm wearing these trousers and I'm going to write some goddamn great stories. So, you know, another commonality unfortunately is that it kept coming up a few times at least that

[00:16:53] women who wound up being institutionalized in some of these stories and you go, it starts to really wear you down because, you know, I can't help but think, would I have been one of those women? Like women that refuse to comply. Women that did

[00:17:09] things a different way. Women that had really, really strong ambition or highly sensitive, you know, I'm all of those things. So I sit to myself, I go, damn, you know, what I have ended up,

[00:17:23] like if you didn't have the support system or if you didn't have the class, like if you didn't have the money, the status, what I have ended up in an institution, I was very excited

[00:17:33] to write about hysteria in the chapter on Louise Augustine Glees. And this was an instance where a very short period of time she disguised herself as a man to escape from the hospital. So when I

[00:17:45] heard that she had disguised herself as a man to escape, I said, this is great because now I can write about hysteria. I can write about what it was like in the 19th century to be in this

[00:17:56] hysteria ward and to be photographed and to become a medical celebrity. Again, those pictures of her like the Catherine Switzer photographs, completely different era. They were world famous. Like they were, she was a celebrity. People would go to the hospital because

[00:18:12] they had these public presentations and it was like a hot ticket to like get in. Like it was a performance and the doctor would have these hysteria patients perform their symptoms and

[00:18:25] he would hypnotize them and he would manipulate them. And he wasn't a monster. He really did believe in this affliction and he wanted to, he took it seriously. He didn't just write it off as some

[00:18:37] female ailment. I mean, it is a gender diagnosis. It is completely problematic. And he did absolutely manipulate and he like took advantage of them for his own gain. Right? What's the word I'm looking for? It starts with an E. Exploit. He goddamn exploited them.

[00:18:59] He manipulated them and he exploited them, right? For his own personal gain. He became a celebrity because of them. So Louise Augustine Glaze, she's in this hysteria ward and after a while,

[00:19:12] she said, I'm done with this. In her file it's quoted as her saying, I don't want to be a star anymore because she was this medical celebrity. I mean, it's wild to think about and she disguised

[00:19:24] herself as a man and she left the hospital and she was never heard from again. And I was just really excited to write about hysteria because of the history of this affliction and the fact that it was

[00:19:36] so problematic and so gendered. And at the end, she took control of her life and she did so by dressing as a man. Even though it was a short period of time,

[00:19:48] I wanted to include her. So every story is really different in terms of how they take on this dressing as a man. Yeah, every story is so different but I just think it's wild that

[00:20:03] this has been the same kind of out that's needed to happen century after century, millennia after millennia across the world and not always just for being able to run a race or

[00:20:17] be included in a hobby they wouldn't have access to but exactly as you just laid out with Louisa, a lot of times it was a matter of life and death. I mean, maybe she wouldn't have necessarily died

[00:20:28] from her treatment but she could have been in there for the rest of her life and that sure as hell doesn't sound like a life to me. And that was another really kind of theme that

[00:20:37] I saw throughout. I'm thinking of the very first story with Hannah Snell who joined the English Army in the 1700s because that was the best way for her to escape extreme poverty after being

[00:20:49] abandoned by her cheating husband or Ellen Kraft who passed as a white plantation owner in order to escape slavery in the 1800s. So I'm curious what did you find in your research about

[00:21:02] women doing this as a kind of means of survival? Absolutely. You know, it's funny because we could think of survival very black and white and you can also say almost like a spiritual survival like

[00:21:13] you're not thriving anymore. You're literally just getting by. I think Ellen Kraft is the clearest example of someone who I mean it's the most ingenious story of disguise and escape and survival in the book. I was appalled that I had never heard of Ellen Kraft before I started

[00:21:33] researching this book. Ellen Kraft was a very light skinned mixed race woman who was born into enslavement in Georgia and she escaped along with her husband from enslavement by passing as a white male plantation owner and her husband passing as her enslaved valet. I mean this is

[00:21:52] absolutely jaw-droppingly incredible to me and I have not yet met anyone in America where I live who had heard of Ellen Kraft. The people that I know who've heard of Ellen Kraft are in the UK

[00:22:08] interestingly enough because that is where she escaped, she left America and she landed in the UK because of the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act after they had settled in the north. They really

[00:22:20] were not safe. They had to leave America. They were like we have to get out of here and they landed in Liverpool and they lived a couple places. They had five kids in the UK so there's plaques

[00:22:30] to Ellen Kraft. There is memorials to Ellen Kraft in the UK and I'm ashamed that I mean I'm Canadian born so that's my I was just like I wasn't taught about Ellen Kraft in school and my American

[00:22:41] friends were like yo neither were we so I just I'm just amazed that there's not a documentary, a film, like a biopic right? Oh we got the biopics about Elvis out there but not Ellen Kraft.

[00:22:53] Okay everybody thanks I'm gonna go to bed for a thousand years. Okay so you know Ellen's story is truly ingenious and yes yes her and her husband they could have survived in enslavement but

[00:23:05] they actually were motivated by this idea that they wanted to start a family. They loved each other and they wanted to have children and there was no way that Ellen was going to have children while in bondage because she knew very well what would happen to those children.

[00:23:19] They would not be hers, they would be taken from her. It's a horror show it is a horror film and so they were really motivated to do this. It's incredible their story is incredible I hope

[00:23:30] people are inspired when they read the book to then go and learn even more and just like delve into unknown stories of escape like theirs because there's a lot of stuff that we were

[00:23:41] taught in school and guess what we're living in a time when they're trying to ban even more of these American history stories it just it's just it gets my goat and I was thrilled and honored to

[00:23:54] write about Ellen and William Kraft. Another story of survival I would say is Maria Torpecai who was born in 1990 a completely different era she was born in the tribal region of northwestern Pakistan it was a hotbed of the Taliban and it was a very conservative upbringing

[00:24:12] her family her parents she was very fortunate they were very liberal they believed in girls being educated they wanted to see their child be able to run and play in the street outside with the

[00:24:22] other children and the only way that they could do that is if they cut off Maria's hair and let her live as a boy as a child as a girl you weren't supposed to leave the house

[00:24:33] without a male companion right and so she couldn't run and play outside and she would look at the kids from the window and her dad was like this is killing her this is survival so even though she

[00:24:43] would have maybe stayed alive it was like she took on this disguise her father was I mean I loved reading about her family I absolutely I say it several times in the chapter I'm like I love

[00:24:53] this family because he was the one okay let me tell her whole story very briefly so not only did she want to run and play outside that eventually you know he's like this child has a lot

[00:25:04] of energy I'm going to introduce her to weightlifting and to sports and so as disguised as a young boy she took on weightlifting she found it really boring then she found squash squash was huge

[00:25:15] in Pakistan at the time she then was found out by her team they all thought that she was the coolest and she had the biggest muscles and she was the tallest and then they found out she

[00:25:24] was a girl in disguise and they all turned against her and they called her a slut and it was very violent and horrible and instead of going oh I'm sad and I'm gonna go home she said

[00:25:33] you know what F you I'm gonna become the best female squash player in the nation and she did she rose to number one nationally female squash player she was the first girl to play in shorts

[00:25:44] and t-shirt you know and she because of this visibility because of this acclaim she then had a target on her back her name indicates the region that she's from like it's built into

[00:25:57] the fabric of her last name and so the Taliban when they saw her name in the news they're like wait she's from our people she's from our region and so the death threats began and she ended up

[00:26:09] having to hold herself up in her house for three years and she tried to continue her training this is when she was ranked number one nationally like she had to sort of pull everything back

[00:26:20] and then she tried to continue to train by bouncing the wall with her squash racket up against the side of her bedroom wall I mean what so you can imagine that mentally and physically

[00:26:30] she started to decline she wasn't playing as often she wasn't getting out as much and her dad just said to her it's time you got to go and Maria was like you got to go who's going to take me

[00:26:42] I'm not number one anymore I'm not he's like this isn't about the sport this is about survival he says it like this is a quote from her book a different kind of daughter which I highly recommend

[00:26:51] loved reading her whole story and she eventually was welcomed by a sponsor in my hometown of Toronto she got back on track she got her training all back up and she started winning tournaments again

[00:27:05] and I just absolutely love Maria I love that she landed in my home country very much and I just want everybody to know about these women all the way from ancient Egypt you know Ellen

[00:27:17] Kraft in the Civil War and then Maria Torpacai in the 2000s what this is crazy this is women showing you can't keep us down we're going to innovate we're going to have a claim we're going to have

[00:27:30] ambition and we're going to do what we want it's like it was so inspiring to write it you know what I mean because I'm someone that doesn't take no for an answer you get what?

[00:27:39] and so what I'm in Aries I'm ruled by Mars it's the god of war I lich are you in Aries you'll me too we're I mean we love to do stuff we love to get shit done and so that's why I wonder

[00:27:53] I go I wonder how many of those women that were institutionalized way back when we're just like Aries who were like get the fuck yeah yeah I definitely almost 100% would have been institutionalized I would have been a witch I

[00:28:08] would have been all of the things but you bring up a you know a good point in the kind of the next commonality theme that I picked up throughout the book which was a lot of the times women

[00:28:19] were doing this for their own well-being safety to be able to participate in a sport whatever it was but it wasn't just their own individual lives that were transformed they were also kind of

[00:28:30] transforming the course of history and life for women for the next generations at the same time so talk about inspirational I mean we've already mentioned Catherine's in switzer you wrote about Rena Rusty Kanakoji and probably totally butchering that who is basically the mother

[00:28:50] of women's judo who got her start from dressing like a man and there was other examples throughout the book of people who transformed some aspect of a culture an institution a country by taking this on

[00:29:07] and going into the places that they weren't supposed to go into so what did you find in regards to how these women's actions and decisions to dress quote like men drove progress for future generations yeah you mentioned Rena Rusty Kanakoji you were very close with the pronunciation

[00:29:26] good job first of all there's two fold with this book right like it's like I want everybody to know them but also I want to say why don't we all know them do you know what I mean because

[00:29:36] like Rena Rusty Kanakoji literally changed the world like she changed the world so I'm happy to talk about her because I love talking about her okay so Rusty was born in New York and

[00:29:50] she was like a tough little kid she was a leader of like a youth gang on the street called the Apaches and she got her nickname because she had the same color hair as this local dog and the dog's name

[00:30:02] was Rusty it's just like guys can we get more creative here anyway so she she was introduced to judo at a young age because she had all this energy and she was always getting into fights I

[00:30:12] mean kind of similar to Maria Torpecai if I'm honest just had all this energy and thank God some elder stepped in and said you know you should try this well no there were no women doing judo

[00:30:23] and so she had to join this ymca group that was like 40 men she was the first one to show up in the morning and the last one to leave and it was like she was completely dedicated and she became a

[00:30:32] badass and when she was 24 she decided that she wanted to take part in this ymca judo championship and so of course it was all men so she cut off her hair and she taped down her breasts

[00:30:45] and her coach said you know don't be too good don't draw attention to yourself just you know just be okay and so of course she couldn't she could not she couldn't just be okay she won

[00:30:56] and when she went up to collect her medal they said are you a girl and she said yes and they stripped her of the medal right then and there and that moment planted this seed in her

[00:31:07] that she said in an article in the New York Times near the end of her life if that moment hadn't happened to her her whole life would have been different women's judo wouldn't have been in

[00:31:15] the olympics none of this stuff would have happened and what this stuff is is that her advocacy got just like it lit on fire and she was like f this i'm gonna do something about this and what

[00:31:28] she ended up doing was she became the best women's judo practitioner she ended up going to japan because a lot more women were practicing and competing in judo in japan and they put her in this women's only group well she just dominated there like no one could

[00:31:44] stand up to her and so for the first time in history resty kanekogi was the first woman to be allowed to practice and compete with the men in the kota can in japan which is incredible basically then her whole mission became getting women's judo to be accepted women's

[00:32:02] judo to be accepted into the olympics she got into screaming matches with the olympic committee she mortgaged her house to fund a tournament of women's judo at madison square garden like she literally put her life her money her livelihood on the line it all started from that moment

[00:32:21] when she was disguised as a man and she was just trying to compete in judo in the ymc a tournament i mean can you even so her story is incredibly moving to me she changed

[00:32:32] so many people's lives she didn't just do this on a grand scale she on a daily basis in her gym she helped children she had students she mentored people and her greatest achievement she said

[00:32:45] was helping a child male or female who thought that they couldn't do something to help them realize that they could do it that was her greatest you know reward in life and a few

[00:32:55] months before she died the ymc a reissued that medal gave her that medal that they stripped from her all those decades ago and it's just an incredibly moving story and you go how does everybody not

[00:33:08] know who she is it's because women's stories and women's achievements and accolades and innovations are generally not considered as worthy just like queer people just like people of color you know who gets left off of the history pages people that have been traditionally writing those history

[00:33:23] pages are old white men and that's why the curriculum is the way that it is and that's why the biopics in hollywood sometimes are the way that they are why did it take so long for

[00:33:34] hidden figures to be a movie that's crazy i know i'm jumping all over the place because i get fired up but the great end to the rusty story is that wisconsin public radio read several chapters of

[00:33:46] my book on their program called a chapter a day and rusty's daughter dr gene kanakogi heard the rusty chapter being read and she contacted the radio station saying that she was brought to

[00:33:58] tears and she was so moved and then they introduced us on email and we've had some email exchanges it's just like what an honor what an honor to to be connected to her daughter and that the

[00:34:11] daughter thought that i did a great job in telling her story oh that's incredible yeah full circle and also just to point out you know rusty something personal happening to her her deciding to dedicate her life and do something to change it not too dissimilar to you tracy

[00:34:29] something personal happening to you in this regard and you deciding to do something about it and tackling this exact issue that we're talking about which is women being left out of the history book so one day there's probably going to be a book that includes tracy about the

[00:34:45] wonderful contributions she made in wow to get very meta here yeah well i mean really these things are these moments are born out of rejection and failure in a way and i've really leaned into this idea that

[00:34:59] and i think i heard something similar on a previous episode of the story of woman which is like you know in order to have the triumph sometimes you need to be the one that's knocked

[00:35:08] down and that makes us stronger that makes our heart and our resolve stronger it teaches us more about ourselves but sometimes it is the thing that inspires us to then make the change right

[00:35:19] and so you know i was rejected in that executive's office like right through my face and also this book was born out of rejection and failure because i did first take it out as a tv pitch i thought it

[00:35:31] could be a really cool tv anthology show people loved the idea but anthologies are notoriously hard to sell and to make because they're expensive and there's a lot of different time periods and

[00:35:42] yada yada yada it really was meant to be a book and i had never written the book before so it's like what a beautiful thing that sometimes being knocked down or being rejected can actually

[00:35:55] make you do the thing that you were meant to do which is what i truly believe in with rusty's case for sure absolutely it's about what you do what you do in response to the situation

[00:36:23] so you had a chapter called anonymous was a woman which is a different sort of disguise that women have taken on again through the centuries throughout time throughout the world so tell us a bit about

[00:36:34] that practice and what you found in your research yeah so there's this big chapter in the middle of the book called anonymous was a woman and i decided instead of having several chapters about

[00:36:44] authors who took on male pseudonyms or quote unquote disguises i said oh you know what i'm going to do a big compendian chapter in the middle of the book because my goodness there's a lot of

[00:36:55] people and there's people who took on male pseudonyms as well as who wrote anonymously and so i loved writing this chapter because i learned an awful lot in my research and even

[00:37:08] talking to my most well read and educated friends they were shocked at some of the stuff i said did you know that jane austin only was published anonymously the entire time she was alive and

[00:37:21] friends were like what no i didn't know that it was just like jane austin was not known to be jane austin when she was live and the same thing with the bronte sisters the bronte sisters only published

[00:37:31] using male names while they were living so they didn't get to enjoy the accolades and as i point out in the chapter you know stuff like free dinner and drinks because it's like i want to be taken

[00:37:44] out take me up for dinner you know you love jane here take me out so yeah the chapter is filled with authors who took on pseudonyms who wrote anonymously and i wanted to introduce people to new people

[00:37:57] that they've never heard of as well as write about the jane austins the bronte's the mary shellies because a lot of people were unaware that these people when they were living didn't actually get to enjoy their success and be known and it wasn't until after they died

[00:38:13] and the joke i have in the book about jane austin is the only time it's safe to be you know a successful female author at that time was when you were dead and six feet underground because you couldn't be

[00:38:24] accused of boasting anymore there's just a lot of authors and i've heard from many readers that it's their favorite chapter in the book because obviously readers tend to like writers they like to read about authors and it's just so fulfilling that that people would reach out

[00:38:42] to me and go i had no idea about jane austin i had no idea about charlotte bronte yeah and i mean it still happens today right like aren't there authors that's still right maybe i don't know i'm thinking

[00:38:53] like jk rolling was there any reasoning behind that i feel like i heard that at some point i should have looked that up before it's no i mean listen listen i purposely didn't include jk

[00:39:03] rallying because her story i actually had a chapter and i decided to take it out because i thought maybe there could be something that we could publish separately like in like an op-ed or something

[00:39:13] because i okay so my thing about that is just separating from her extremely problematic stance that trans women aren't women uh okay i mean i don't even know where to start with that but

[00:39:29] in terms of like you know harry potter was not that long ago and so when you think that everybody the story is and maybe not everybody knows this i thought this was common knowledge but the story

[00:39:40] goes her publisher said listen we don't think that this book will be attractive to young boys you know it's a book about wizards and we just think if the name joanne is on the cover you

[00:39:51] know it's not going to do well and so a lot of people like say but that's just a decision about sales that's about sales and marketing i go no that's about misogyny that's about saying

[00:40:02] we're less than if you put the name joanne on the cover you know we don't think that your book's gonna sell because it's going to be seen as less than with a female sounding name and i just

[00:40:15] i mean i'm just appalled i'm like i'm never not going to be upset about this because i think that we have been told over eons that we're overreacting and that we're overly sensitive and

[00:40:26] the fact of the matter is i have this fantasy in my head of a young girl reader and she loves these books and then she finds out that her favorite books are written by a girl a girl just like her

[00:40:39] oh my god her name is joanne my name is joanne and so like think of that visibility think of that inspiration and then all of a sudden they say but do you know why her name is jk on the cover

[00:40:48] and the little girl goes why well because they thought that little boys wouldn't like to buy a book with the name joanne on it but you know how disgusting and like how cancerous that is like

[00:40:59] it's sort of it sort of digs under your skin like a cancer disease and you carry that reality around with you your whole entire life which is no no no no you're less than and so that affects

[00:41:13] how that little girl is going to see herself as a writer and what she thinks she's able to write and what how what her chances are being published it's all there so just that this idea that oh you

[00:41:25] know it was just about sales with the jk joanne here's the other thing we're never going to be able to go back in time we're never going to be able to know what the sales of harry potter

[00:41:36] would have been with the name joanne and i just wonder in her quiet moments does jk rowling ever think of that i wonder what would have happened i wonder if it would have been the

[00:41:47] juggernaut and if i would be the billionaire i am today if my name my real name i don't know i'm being on names i tend to lean towards dr mary edwards walker who was someone i'd love to talk

[00:42:00] about because she is in the book and she this was no disguise you know she tended to dress in what they called male clothing and she always said i don't dress as a man i dress in my own clothing

[00:42:11] that's what this is and just to give you a little brief overview she was the second woman in the united states to graduate from medical school she's the sole female recipient of the medal of honor

[00:42:23] she was the first united states army surgeon on the front lines during the civil war and she got that position because she demanded it she was this doctor the civil war broke out she went down

[00:42:34] and she said i want to support the united states army give me a position and they laughed in her face they laughed in her face and they kept laughing in her face and she said fine i'll

[00:42:43] volunteer i'll be a volunteer surgeon and then the media found out about her because she was really beloved by the soldiers because she was one of the only doctors who tried to save limbs

[00:42:53] instead of amputating them i get real fired up when i talk about her but here's the thing when she finally got that position because the media shamed the army into giving saying she's

[00:43:05] a qualified amazing doctor give her an official position for god's sake and so they did so there she is and she's dressed in the exact same uniform as her male colleagues but she said i decided to grow

[00:43:16] my curls long i wanted them to see that i am a woman you know she had no interest in disguising herself and she was taken as a prisoner of war for several months being held in a confederate

[00:43:28] prison and that's why she got the medal of honor okay so then the war ends she's got her medal of honor her whole mo became her whole fight became about dress reform meaning women should be able to

[00:43:40] wear whatever they want these long skirts were dragging along the ground or dirty they're unhygienic you don't have freedom of movement she believed the freedom to dress and to wear whatever you

[00:43:51] wanted was more important than getting the right to vote i laugh because i'm like wow i love how vocal she was i love that she was just fired up she was eccentric they arrested her innumerable times

[00:44:06] for posing as a man finally the judge said stop arresting dr walker the judge had to say stop arresting her she's got the medal of honor she was a prisoner of war she saved countless limbs

[00:44:21] of our soldiers please stop arresting her so she just believed in freedom of movement and she was just very vocal and very fiery and that's why i love her maybe i would have thought she was

[00:44:33] really annoying if we were friends at that time but you know but with this with this benefit of space and time i can say i just love this woman and she changed the world in a different way

[00:44:48] than rusties or catherine switzer changed things she changed the world because she was adamant about being visible about growing her curls long about saying i don't want to be a volunteer put me

[00:45:00] on the front line and so to me it's like okay so that kid who learns about the story of jk ralink like that feeds into her right the same thing is what if there was a young woman who looked at

[00:45:14] dr mary walker and you go oh my god i mean that's why they say representation is everything if you see it you can be it literally so i just think that she changed the world in her own way not only

[00:45:26] because she was the first and only woman to get the medal of honor but because she was persistent adamant about being visible yeah i loved her story as well and her whole fight about just

[00:45:38] fighting for women to be able to wear pants and that was also a kind of meta thing in your book because as you said at the very beginning most of these women weren't just breaking the rules by

[00:45:50] doing the thing they weren't supposed to do they were also breaking the rules just by wearing pants so she kind of tackled that and really made a mark there and also just to point out what you

[00:46:01] pointed out in your book as you mentioned she received a medal of honor and she is to this day the only woman to ever have received that in the history of the united states out of 3500

[00:46:12] recipients so she is a trailblazer in a multitude of ways absolutely and they tried to take it from her by the way they tried to strip her of that medal not because she was a woman but because they

[00:46:22] realized after the war that they had given out so many of them and they were thinking about the pension payouts they were thinking about oh shit this is going to cost us a lot of money so they

[00:46:31] decided oh i know what we'll do we'll say that you can only have a medal of honor if you actually took part in combat and she was like are you kidding me i was a prisoner of war for four

[00:46:44] months in a confederate prison i was on the line i was saving limbs and they said we're asking for the medal back and you know what she told them and now she said not only did she refuse to give it

[00:46:55] back but she defiantly wore it on her lapel every single day until the day she died so to me i'm like this is a fiery woman who changed things by not shutting up you know what i mean and in the end

[00:47:08] after she passed i think her great niece like took this up with the president and they said no she has the honor she has the medal of honor do you know what i mean like they they backtracked

[00:47:17] they were like absolutely she deserves it it's looks like yeah you think no kidding and still the only woman i mean it's just it's unbelievable it is all right so we've seen how this has

[00:47:29] persisted through the millennia and in reading this you know sometimes i was thinking to myself in some instances today women are still having to fully dress as men but in other instances

[00:47:42] it's almost just like the disguise has kind of changed you know there was this whole era of women in the business world needing to act more like men to be successful there are stories

[00:47:54] of women trying to make their voices lower in recent times i mean it's really i feel like these disguises haven't gone away they've just kind of transformed and there are different things that

[00:48:05] we have to do now to try to lessen the feminine aspects of ourselves that are unfavorable in many instances so i don't know just thinking about that thinking about where we are today everything that you've looked at and researched and learned are there any lessons that you

[00:48:21] feel like that we can take away as individuals or as a society and i'm also curious if you feel like it's gotten better or we just kind of wear different disguises now i think that you know in many many

[00:48:38] ways it's gotten better we're in a moment of time where gender is more fluid than ever sexuality is more fluid queerness it's like everything just feels like we're getting more spacious patriarchy isn't just bad for women patriarchy is bad for society patriarchy is bad

[00:48:55] for men and there we're all in these boxes and these gender norms and it's like i think that we're in the most incredible moment but with great progress and great change comes you know the fascists the

[00:49:10] fascists are here the fascists are here everybody you guys the fascists are here you know so and so we have to be we really have to stick together as these communities of people who

[00:49:22] have been other historically we really have to like it's now more than ever we do in terms of women's rights it's unfathomable to me and to many many people that we are here once again

[00:49:34] just fighting to be considered a full equal human being just a just a human being you know just that who can be in charge of what is in or on or what we do with our own bodies just basic human

[00:49:46] rights so that's very disheartening it's hard not to look at what's happening in the right wing politics and what's happening on the supreme court in america and not be depressed and want to like

[00:50:00] lay down but in terms of lessons i mean what i got out of writing this book and what other people have told me they've gotten out of it as they read it is dear lord we are innovative and

[00:50:13] i wish i didn't have to have all my writing be focused on excavating women stories excavating the history the innovation and the accolades but i will continue to do it because i just think we are so resilient and resourceful and innovative it's incredible if you think of

[00:50:35] the history of knocking us down again and again and again and as i say in the introduction we will always get up we will always get up we are resourceful and savvy and resilient as fuck

[00:50:46] and i just that's how i feel in a day-to-day basis in my own life whether i'm facing just like regular ups and downs of career creativity you know existential crises or whether it's like

[00:50:59] because things are being leveled at me because of my gender identity i just i guess that's the lesson is like we're going to keep getting up and i hope that people are really engaged right now politically

[00:51:13] i think that there's no sidelines you know there's this joke like when you're on a dating app i'm not on them anymore but when you're on the dating app and like people fill out where it says

[00:51:22] like politics and the person puts a political i couldn't you know it's like oh it's like what it's disgusting first of all someone made a joke that apolitical when they put apolitical it just

[00:51:33] means conservative but they're too ashamed to say so you know what i mean so it's like i couldn't run away faster from someone who considers themselves apolitical because that generally means you're a white person who's like i'm fine and comfortable i'm okay with white supremacy

[00:51:51] it benefits me bye so yeah i'm very fulfilled and satisfied and just like full in my heart because people reach out to me and say oh my gosh i i read your book and i was laughing and then the next

[00:52:02] page i was crying and the next page i was enraged yeah nothing i'm most proud of of course i'm a comedy writer who likes to make people laugh but i really am most proud about making people angry

[00:52:13] yeah i can attest i had all of those emotions throughout all of the book and sometimes in one story so it really it really is phenomenal so it's a great way to read about women's stories but in

[00:52:28] a way where you're entertained or you learn a bit about history and where you feel a good angry where you're perhaps inspired to do something in your own life absolutely take a chance in your own

[00:52:42] life where maybe you've faced resistance yourself because i think every woman non-binary person anybody reading this book will be able to think about instances in their own life when they've been up against these types of challenges so perhaps that's something else we can take away is where

[00:52:57] is this happening in our own life how are we disguising ourselves absolutely i mean this is so rewarding and also that's why i put my own stories something we didn't talk about is that

[00:53:06] i don't treat these people in the book at arm's length i'm like in the story with them and so i try to bring some personal stories into each chapter because i want to be involved and i want

[00:53:16] the reader to feel exactly the same way they're invested and they can see their own selves in some of these stories yeah absolutely absolutely i definitely could well is there anything else

[00:53:28] that you would like to talk about which we haven't gotten to today oh lord well i mean not really this was fantastic i feel like i jumped all over the place but that's

[00:53:40] that's i guess what happens when you write an anthology book there's a lot to jump around to but thank you so much this is such a joy to talk to you absolutely it's been such a pleasure

[00:53:53] it was such a pleasure reading the book such a pleasure talking to you i'm so glad that we have you putting these kinds of stories out into the world and perhaps somebody is listening

[00:54:03] you know now we could get some biopics out there on these types of stories a tv series i mean i do think that that would be a great way to bring these women's stories to life but the book was

[00:54:13] absolutely fantastic and couldn't recommend it more to everybody listening so thank you so much for being here today thanks anna thanks for listening the story of woman is a one woman operation run by me anna steckline so if you enjoy listening and want to help me on

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