What was it like to be a woman in the ancient Roman Empire? Let’s find out.

Our grooming habits are a contested issue, no more so than the question of what we do with our hair down below. This is especially true for women, for whom the question of whether or not to keep the hair down there has been always been charged with social and sexual meaning. How has our relationship with our pubic hair changed over time, from ancient past to present? What influences our feelings and grooming practice? Join me and Lyndsey Craig, a grad student at the University of Nevada Las Vegas (who has conducted a study on this very issue), as we dive into this tangled and fascinating aspect of womanhood through the ages.

Let’s dive into the lives and times of the women who helped shape Alexander’s Greatness, and accomplished a whole lot of their own along the way. Get ready to enter Macedonia. We’ll face assassinations, intrigue, a little snake worship, warrior women, and an epic battle for an empire that would put Game of Thrones to shame. 

The ancient world saw its fair share of warrior women, living on the move, hunting and fighting, living and dying on their own terms. It turns out the Amazons were as real as it gets. Who were these women the Greeks saw in their pleasant dreams and worst nightmares? Let’s go hunting beyond the myths and legends to try and find them.

When it comes to the words that made it through time to us, ancient Greece is particularly loud with men’s voices. But if you listen, you hear one woman through the crowd—we still hear her today, thousands of years after she lived. Heralded as a genius in her time, she was called “The Poetess” and “The Tenth Muse.” People made coins with her face on them, and created honorary statues of her all over Greece. Even Aristotle, that grumpy bastard, wrote she was “honored even though she was a woman.” Sappho wrote poetry that rocked her ancient world. 

Ancient Greece has a rep for liking their ladies silent, veiled, and chained to the loom. But was life for women in places like Athens really so restrictive? Let’s strap on our sandals and go find out.

We tend to think of beer, even now, as a “man’s drink.” But for most of history, it was women who brewed it. Let’s explore how they brewed in the ancient world, then hop forward through time, tracing the ever-evolving and complex relationship between women, brewing, and beer.

At a time when men ruled the world, a whole host of women rose up to become some of the most powerful in ancient Egypt. Let’s walk with five different female pharaohs - Merneith, Neferusobek, Hatshepsut, Nefertiti, and Tawosret - to find out what their lives were like, how they rose to power, and what they had to do to stay on top.