New Season, New Arc: Taking Bitchy History Back to the Classroom

Friends, comrades, fellow troublemakers—after a lot of waffling about where to take this little podcast next, I’ve decided to stop reinventing the wheel and lean into the material I already know inside and out: the lectures I wrote back when I was teaching women’s history.

Yes, the very same course where I apparently taught “too much feminist theory.” (Which, to be clear, is like complaining your pizza had too much cheese. That’s literally the point.) And yes, it’s also the same course that was handed over the following year to a professor who was—brace yourself—a prolife, young earth creationist. The university thought that was a more “balanced” approach. That was the moment I realized it was time to pack up my books, pour myself a drink, and find better uses for my voice than babysitting the patriarchy.

So here we are.

What’s Coming

This next season of Bitchy History is basically me taking my syllabus and giving it the treatment it always deserved: sass, sarcasm, and zero patience for the nonsense patriarchy has been peddling for centuries. Basically you’ll get a semester’s worth of intro level women’s history without paying thousands in tuition.

That said, if you want to become a paid subscriber to the podcast, I’d appreciate it. Cost of living in the UK is wild and the exchange rate is…not great.

We’ll start with the big stuff: how gender was invented (spoiler: it’s not biology, it’s marketing). Then we’ll wander through the witch hunts, the plague years, chivalry’s scam of “protection,” and the suffrage fights that were messy, racist, and unfinished. We’ll dive into industrial labor, colonialism, Rosie the Riveter and her postwar hangover, Iron Girls in Maoist China, and all the ways women’s bodies have been used as battlefields. And yes, we’ll end up in the 20th and 21st centuries, where “the personal is political” becomes hashtags, #MeToo, and TikTok tradwives who think June Cleaver invented feminism.

Why This Matters

Here’s the thing: women’s history isn’t niche. It’s history. It’s the story of labor, law, war, colonialism, science, religion, and pop culture—all refracted through the lens of gender. It’s also the story of how power justifies itself, and who pays the price. If you want to understand our current political dumpster fire—abortion bans, anti-trans hysteria, tradwife nostalgia—you need to know how we got here.

And honestly? I’d rather give you that story myself than let another creationist in kitten heels try to pass it off as “God’s plan.”

Get Ready

Episodes drop soon. Bring your headphones, your snark, and maybe a notebook if you want to take notes like you’re back in class (except no pop quizzes this time…unless you like that sort of thing, weirdos).

History isn’t neutral. And neither am I.

See you in class,

Professor Meredith