Our Favorites: The Heroines of Jiangyong

Womanica

Acast Creative Studios

History, Society & Culture, Education

4.3 • 920 Ratings

🗓️ 3 October 2025

⏱️ 6 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The Heroines of Jiangyong were women in rural China who made a secret language – Nüshu – to communicate with each other. Nüshu translates directly to “women’s writing” and is a series of phonetic scripts. The practice is estimated to go back as far as the Shang Dynasty 1600 to 1046 BCE. For centuries it was the language of female defiance to the Chinese patriarchy, legitimizing the thoughts, feelings, and experiences of rural women who had been denied access to an education.

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For the past six years, we’ve been telling the stories of women you may or may now know– but definitely should. This month, we’re bringing back our favorite Womanica episodes from across our back catalog. These are women throughout time and around the world who made their mark.

History classes can get a bad rap, and sometimes for good reason. When we were students, we couldn’t help wondering... where were all the ladies at? Why were so many incredible stories missing from the typical curriculum? Enter, Womanica. On this Wonder Media Network podcast we explore the lives of inspiring women in history you may not know about, but definitely should.

Every weekday, listeners explore the trials, tragedies, and triumphs of groundbreaking women throughout history who have dramatically shaped the world around us. In each 5 minute episode, we’ll dive into the story behind one woman listeners may or may not know–but definitely should. These diverse women from across space and time are grouped into easily accessible and engaging monthly themes like Educators, Villains, Indigenous Storytellers, Activists, and many more. Womanica is hosted by WMN co-founder and award-winning journalist Jenny Kaplan. The bite-sized episodes pack painstakingly researched content into fun, entertaining, and addictive daily adventures.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, from Wonder Media Network, I'm Jenny Kaplan, and this is Womanica.
0:07.1	For the past six years, we've been telling the stories of women you may or may not know about,
0:12.0	but definitely should. This month, we're bringing back our favorite Womanica episodes from
0:16.9	across the back catalog. These are women across centuries and around the world who made their mark.
0:24.4	With that, here's one of our favorite episodes.
0:31.9	Hello, from Wonder Media Network, I'm Jenny Kaplan, and this is Womanica.
0:37.2	This month we're talking about word weavers, people who coined terms, popularized words,
0:42.0	and even created entirely new languages.
0:45.6	These activists, writers, artists, and scholars used language to shape ideas and give voice
0:50.5	to experiences that once had no name.
1:04.5	Imagine, you're standing on a cliff above Zhang Yang in southern China's Hunan province.
1:07.7	Fog drifts across the craggy ridge lines.
1:14.9	From your perch, you can see sharp sandstone pillars dotted by green trees and naughty undergrowth.
1:19.8	And down below, in the small villages nestled within the rocky folds of the landscape,
1:24.7	today's womenikins were birthing a secret language, made by and four women.
1:28.6	Let's talk about the heroines of Zhang Yang.
1:36.8	In feudal Chinese society, women were often at the mercy of men, first their fathers and then their husbands. The practice of footbinding and a lack of educational opportunities left
1:42.2	them with limited economic, social, and physical mobility.
1:45.9	As a result, they resorted to subtle forms of resistance in an effort to make their voices heard.
1:51.8	Living in a society that silenced them, forced these women to get creative.
1:56.3	No one really knows exactly when the women of Hunan began creating their secret language.
2:01.7	Scholars estimate the script is at least several centuries old. The oldest evidence is found on the
	...

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