Banning Women

Banning Women

From Subject To Power by Elle Kamihira

September 17, 2025 · 1h 25m · Season 4 · Episode 52

About this episode

Rachel Hewitt discusses women's history, sports, and the impact of misogyny on women's public participation.

Award-winning non-fiction writer and journalist Rachel Hewitt unearths and writes about various corners of women’s history - and the subsequent erasure of that same history - showing us how women are indeed equal participants in all aspects of public life - until we are banned, excluded and erased. In her latest book, In Her Nature, Rachel looks at women’s accomplishments in sports and the great outdoors from the Victorian era to the present, and chronicles the various ways in which men organized to exclude and ban women from athletics and the outdoors - and more broadly from public spaces and public life. In her writings, which includes the brilliant Substack Small Revolutions, Every Day, Rachel makes crucial connections between women’s hidden history and how women navigate our current-day climate of rising misogyny. She also writes about feminism, grief, trauma and recovery - and her own experiences as an ultra-runner. In this episode Elle and Rachel cover a sprawling map of topics, from Rachel’s research and writing about women’s history in sports and outdoors adventure, to how women navigate public spaces - now and then, the constantly changing shape of misogyny and how women…

People in this episode

Host: Elle Kamihira

Guest: Rachel Hewitt

Topics covered

  • women's history
  • sports
  • misogyny
  • public spaces
  • feminism
  • grief
  • trauma

Keywords

  • women's history
  • sports exclusion
  • misogyny
  • feminism
  • grief
  • trauma
  • outdoors
  • public life

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: In Her Nature, Small Revolutions, Every Day, Family Fortunes

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