women

When most of us think of the Viking Age, we think of its men: powerful warriors sailing ships, building armies, and sacking cities across Europe. But new research shows Viking women were warriors, too – and that they were traders, artisans, explorers, landowners, and respected leaders in their own right. On this week’s 51%, we kick off Women’s History Month by speaking with science writer Heather Pringle about her book The Northwomen, on how women helped shape Viking society and culture.

On this week’s 51%, we speak with Carol Cleaveland and Michele Waslin, author of Private Violence: Latin American Women and the Struggle for Asylum. As President Trump effectively shuts down processing at the southern border and ramps up deportations, asylum seekers in the U.S. are left in a precarious position, especially women fleeing domestic and gender-based violence. Through interviews and eyewitness accounts of closed court proceedings, Cleaveland and Waslin demonstrate how difficult it is for these women to seek shelter in the U.S., and why “gender-based violence” is still not considered grounds for asylum — even before the second Trump Administration.

Author Olivia Campbell is here to tell us about her new book “Sisters in Science: How Four Women Physicists Escaped Nazi Germany and Made Scientific History.” The book tells the true story of four women pioneers in physics during World War II and their daring escape out of Nazi Germany.

Nadira Simmons is a writer and digital content creator committed to preserving Black history, hip-hop history, and pop culture and finding new ways to tell stories on TV and the internet. She created “The Gumbo, an innovative space in media for the creative excellence and activism of Black women in hip-hop and a safe haven free of politics.Her book “First Things First: Hip-Hop Ladies Who Changed the Game,” published by Twelve, is a celebration of the achievements of women in hip-hop who broke down barriers and broke the mold.

A self-described recovering perfectionist, Dr. Shai Butler, author of "Better. Not Perfect-From Hot Mess To Life Success" is leading a movement of women who are learning to give the same grace to themselves that they so freely give to others.

“The Women,” a new novel by Kristin Hannah, is set at a pivotal time in American history: the Vietnam era. It is an intimate portrait of a woman coming of age in a dangerous situation and an epic tale of a nation divided by war and broken by politics.

When Clair Wills was in her twenties, she discovered she had a cousin she had never met. Born in a mother-and-baby home in 1950s Ireland, Mary grew up in an institution not far from the farm where Clair spent happy childhood summers. Yet Clair was never told of Mary’s existence.How could a whole family―a whole country―abandon unmarried mothers and their children, erasing them from history?Clair’s tells the story in the new book "Missing Persons: or, My Grandmother's Secrets."

In the book, “If Love Could Kill: The Myths And Truth Of Women Who Commit Violence,” Anna Motz is an acclaimed forensic psychotherapist who looks at women who commit extreme acts of violence and cruelty, at the underlying oppression, and abuse often at the heart of these crimes.

Lauren Groff is a three-time National Book Award finalist and New York Times bestselling author. Her new novel, “The Vaster Wilds,” is at once an adventure story and a penetrating fable about trying to find a new way of living in a world succumbing to the churn of colonialism. It tells the story of America in miniature, through one girl at a hinge point in history.

In the book, “If Love Could Kill: The Myths And Truth Of Women Who Commit Violence,” Anna Motz is an acclaimed forensic psychotherapist who looks at women who commit extreme acts of violence and cruelty, at the underlying oppression, and abuse often at the heart of these crimes.