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Factual: Life Stories

Two women from different parts of the world share the stories of their lives

Two women from different parts of the world, united by a common passion, experience or expertise, share the stories of their lives.

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The Conversation: Women rewriting history

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L: Uma Chakravarti (Uma Chakravarti) & R:Hallie Rubenhold (Credit: Johnny Ring)

10/02/2020 GMT

Women rewriting history

BBC World Service - The Conversation, Women rewriting history

Unearthing the stories of overlooked women.

History is told by the victor, and he's usually male.  Kim Chakanetsa speaks to two historians who've made it their mission to track down 'ordinary' women of the past, and carve out a proper place in the history books for them.

Hallie Rubenhold is a social historian whose book The Five focuses on Jack the Ripper's victims.  These were real women with varied lives, before being killed and - mostly incorrectly - labelled as prostitutes.  While their murderer remains unidentified over 130 years later, Hallie has pored over census records, ships' manifests, workhouse ledgers and newspaper cuttings to painstakingly reconstruct these women's stories.

The Indian feminist historian Uma Chakravarti focuses on rehabilitating controversial women from the past and uncovering previously unknown women's stories.  Uma's film A Quiet Little Entry is about an ordinary woman called Subbalakshmi, who contributed 'small acts of resistance' to India's struggle for Independence and left behind an extraordinary archive of papers.

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L: Uma Chakravarti (credit: Uma Chakravarti)
R: Hallie Rubenhold (credit: Johnny Ring)

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