S2 E5: 'Men Dodge Bullets, Girls Dodge Men'

Bad Women: The Blackout Ripper

Pushkin Industries

History, True Crime

4.6 • 1.7K Ratings

🗓️ 1 November 2022

⏱️ 43 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The Blackout Ripper wasn't the only serviceman attacking women in World War Two. In cities, towns and villages women were being harassed and abused by men in the military - and the women who chose to join the armed forces weren't immune from such treatment.

Those women who signed up for the army, navy or air force to fight Hitler were dogged by crude insinuations that they were promiscuous - especially if they went to dances and drank alcohol. When these servicewomen were stalked, raped or murdered, the official response was often a dismal exercise in victim blaming.

Sources:

Dunlop, Dr Tessa. 'Army Girls: The Secrets and Stories of Military Service from the Final Few Women who Fought in World War II.' 2021 Headline Publishing Group.

Owtram, Jean and Patricia 'Codebreaking Sisters: Our Secret War.' 2020 Mirror Books.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hello, hello, hello listeners, Malcolm Gladwell here.
0:03.3	Before this episode starts, I wanted to let you know that there is a month of new content
0:08.2	coming from Pushkin that you can hear early and at free.
0:12.6	Our team has exciting new shows and podcasts like a new series from my podcast Revisioness
0:18.7	History, Paul McCartney's brand new podcast McCartney, a life in lyrics, new and exclusive
0:24.5	content from the Happiness Lab by Dr. Laurie Santos and a brand new season of the podcast
0:30.5	called The Dream that dives into the truth behind life coaches and self-help.
0:37.2	You won't want to miss Pushkin's September launches.
0:41.0	And if you want to binge shows early and at free, you can hear all of Pushkin's content
0:47.0	by becoming a Pushkin Plus subscriber.
0:49.8	Subscribe on Apple Podcasts or by visiting pushkin.fm slash plus.
1:19.8	There's a certain equality in death.
1:23.3	Visit a British military cemetery with its pristine lawns and carefully tended flower beds
1:28.7	and you'll see no difference between the pale stone grave markers of women's service
1:33.4	members and those of their male counterparts.
1:37.4	Below a carved crest of their unit, bit army, navy or air force, the tombstones carry
1:44.2	each woman's name, her rank, the date on which she died and her age, 44, 27, 21, 18, 17.
1:58.5	In a space at the bottom of each stone, relatives are permitted to add a brief personal message,
2:04.6	one grieving family writes, not goodbye darling, but are of war, for we will meet again.
2:12.0	Illness and accident accounted for hundreds of these wartime deaths.
2:16.2	And while women were not supposed to serve on the front lines, many were indeed killed
2:20.8	by enemy bullets and bombs.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Pushkin Industries, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Pushkin Industries and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.