War Queens

Gender, identity, mental health, LGBTQ+ civil rights—these don’t have to be confusing, intimidating conversations. Everyone from your grandma to your best friend has an opinion on these issues, and Schuyler Bailar, the celebrated activist, author, and trailblazing transgender athlete (the first to compete in NCAA Division 1) is here for it. Each week, Dear Schuyler invites cultural movers to join him in provocative and personal conversations about how gender issues impact all of us. They include thought leaders like actress-activist Dylan Mulvaney, NCAA champion swimmer Lia Thomas, NFL Pro Bowler and Super Bowl Champion Brendon Ayanbadejo, Olympian Megan Rapino, and many others. Every episode focuses on a topical, listener-sourced question. You can submit your own question at DearSchuyler.com.

Sometimes the conversation is fun, other times it may get uncomfortable, but in the end, Schuyler and his guests give us the perspective and vocabulary to better understand each other in today’s evolving world. Would you like to better understand gender and identity? Want to explore what being an ally can really mean? However you define yourself — you’re in the right place. Dear Schuyler humanizes these conversations.

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Whipped, then forced to watch her daughters raped in her village center, Boudica, Celtic queen of the Iceni tribe of Britons, vowed revenge on the Romans who violated women and children. Leading a mass revolt of British peoples who had been driven from their lands by Emperor Nero’s invaders, Boudica fought three Roman legions and burned London to the ground. Cutting a swath of destruction across southern England, she chased down the main Roman army and set the stage for a battle that would echo through the ages.

Actor Nathalie Emmanuel joins father-daughter history team Jon & Emily Jordan to tell the story of Boudica.

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Queen Tomyris led her hard-riding, hard-fighting Massagetae horsemen one of the ancient world’s fiercest battles—against one of history’s greatest superpowers. Using quiet diplomacy and hardcore savagery, Queen Tomyris leads her people up against the might of the Persian Empire and its legendary founder, King Cyrus the Great. Her battle, documented by the Greek historian Herodotus, the “Father of History,” is one of the earliest recorded battles of a woman commanding armies against a king. Her fight would become the stuff of legends.

Actor Nathalie Emmanuel joins father-daughter history team Jon & Emily Jordan to tell the story of Tomyris.

Find us on social: @warqueenspodcast 

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Bride at 10, widow at 25, general, tyrant, cosmetologist, mother, countess, botanist, and war leader, Countess Caterina Sforza di Riario led the most interesting life of any woman of the Italian Renaissance. Trained to fight by a powerful Milanese warlord, she learned that a Renaissance woman’s duty is to support her husband – whether in the home, or by providing medicines to peasants during the plague, or galloping on horseback to take command of a castle. She aimed cannons from the battlements of Rome and cowed cardinals into recognizing her husband’s legal rights. She survived assassination plots, executed traitors, and fought papal armies led by the Borgia pope’s son, Cesare. Mingling with da Vinci and Botticelli, out-negotiating Machiavelli, Caterina defined the woman warrior leader of 15th century Italy.

Actor Nathalie Emmanuel joins father-daughter history team Jon & Emily Jordan to tell the story of Caterina Sforza.

Find us on social: @warqueenspodcast

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On the dust-swept steppes of Mongolia, a young woman labors to rebuild the old empire of Genghis Khan. Surviving palace intrigues and the death of her husband the khan, Queen Manduhai teams up with a young boy of noble blood to resist threats from China, Central Asia and Mongol rivals to consolidate a kingdom of nomadic horse riders. War, diplomacy and marriage are the backdrop to this epic story of a wise queen who shed blood to bring peace to her people.

Actor Nathalie Emmanuel joins father-daughter history team Jon & Emily Jordan to tell the story of Manduhai.

Find us on social: @warqueenspodcast

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In a scene out of “House of the Dragon,” an elderly king appoints his young daughter to rule his medieval realm after his death. But the beautiful, pious, and wise Queen Tamar would find her claim to the Kingdom of Georgia challenged by nobles, religious leaders, courtiers, sultans—and the most annoying ex-husband in history. Waging war on her borders while setting an example of mercy and restraint, Tamar’s armies fought with sword, spear and shield to expand her kingdom and usher Georgia into its golden age of wealth, literature and stability.

Actor Nathalie Emmanuel joins father-daughter history team Jon & Emily Jordan to tell the story of Tamar.

Find us on social: @warqueenspodcast

Learn more about War Queens: diversionaudio.com/podcast/war-queens

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Queen Artemisia of Caria joins the world’s biggest empire in a legendary campaign to wipe out the rebellious cities of ancient Greece. In a council filled with men, she gives sound advice and strategic insight, which the men leading the coalition rejected. When Artemisia’s advice was not heeded, she dutifully led her fleet in the sea battle that would decide the fate of the world – and pulled off one of history’s most audacious escapes, earning the admiration of the Father of History. 

Actor Nathalie Emmanuel joins father-daughter history team Jon & Emily Jordan to tell the story of Artemisia.

Find us on social: @warqueenspodcast

Learn more about War Queens: diversionaudio.com/podcast/war-queens

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In one of history’s delicious ironies, the abused wife of a psychotic drunkard turned into a tiger who destroyed her oppressor. Catherine the Great launched a palace coup from atop a war horse and wrested the throne of Imperial Russia from her incompetent husband. For 33 years, she shepherded the world’s largest empire through a time of enlightenment and revolution, a time when French philosophies she embraced brought down monarchs and threatened her rule. Skillfully leading Russia through wars with the Ottoman Empire, Sweden, Poland, and a mob of embittered peasants, Catherine alloyed lofty principles of the Enlightenment with an iron fist. Her brilliant tactics would be studied and copied by dictators like Stalin and Putin in the 20th and 21st centuries.

Actor Nathalie Emmanuel joins father-daughter history team Jon & Emily Jordan to tell the story of Catherine the Great.

Find us on social: @warqueenspodcast

Learn more about War Queens: diversionaudio.com/podcast/war-queens

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"Margaret Thatcher takes the reins of Her Majesty’s Government and leads Britain through a time of economic depression, threats of nuclear annihilation, and political restlessness. Within months of her becoming Britain’s first woman prime minister, she faces down Irish Republican Army terrorists and stands up to Soviet communism. Her mettle meets it test of wills when Argentina launches a surprise invasion of the Falkland Islands, one of the last vestiges of the British Empire. Counseled by men to take the insult and let the islands go, Thatcher is determined to face down aggression. She sends an army to the far side of the world, through terrible winter storms, to take back a land belonging to her queen – and earns the nickname “The Iron Lady” for her courage.

Actor Nathalie Emmanuel joins father-daughter history team Jon & Emily Jordan to tell the story of Margaret Thatcher.

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At nearly 75, a Jewish grandma named Golda Meir made critical military decisions as she led the young nation of Israel through the Egyptian-Syrian surprise attack known as the Yom Kippur War. Brilliantly playing a three-dimensional game of diplomatic chess, Golda triangulated the battlefield, superpower détente, and long-term peace prospects to bring Israel out on top of a two-front war. Golda’s decisions not to strike first, to refuse the use of nuclear weapons, and to end the war on terms Egypt’s president could accept without losing face led to a lasting peace between Egypt and Israel and changed forever the history of the Middle East.

Actor Nathalie Emmanuel joins father-daughter history team Jon & Emily Jordan to tell the story of Golda Meir.

Find us on social: @warqueenspodcast

Lear more about War Queens: diversionaudio.com/podcast/war-queens

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