Unsung Heroines: Rebel Girls of the Bay Area

Bay Curious

KQED

Places & Travel, Society & Culture, History

4.8 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 23 March 2026

⏱️ 17 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Women have dramatically influenced San Francisco Bay Area history since before the Gold Rush, but their stories are often far less well known. Rae Alexandra's new book, Unsung Heroines: 35 Women Who Changed the Bay Area shines a light on these untold stories, highlight these women's impact on the social, cultural and political life of the Bay Area. *An earlier version of this episode incorrectly named the District 3 supervisor involved in naming Tien Fuh Wu Way. We regret the error. Additional Resources: ⁠Unsung Heroines: 35 Women Who Changed the Bay Area⁠ ⁠Read the transcript for this episode⁠ ⁠Get tickets for Bay Curious Trivia night April 8th⁠ KQED's Rebel Girls Series ⁠Sign up for our newsletter⁠ Got a question you want answered? ⁠Ask⁠! Your support makes KQED podcasts possible. You can show your love by going to ⁠https://kqed.org/donate/podcasts⁠ This story was reported by Rae Alexandra. Bay Curious is made by Katrina Schwartz, Christopher Beale and Olivia Allen-Price. Additional support from Jen Chien, Katie Sprenger, Maha Sanad, Ethan Toven-Lindsey and everyone on Team KQED. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Support for KQED comes from Genentech, the original biotech company.
0:05.3	For 50 years, Genentech has pioneered more than 40 scientific breakthroughs across various diseases,
0:11.1	bringing greater hope to patients everywhere.
0:14.0	Learn more at gene.com. That's gENE.com.
0:18.8	Hey, it's Scott Schaefer, host of KQ80's Political Breakdown.
0:22.6	Head over to Political Breakdowns feed this Saturday to catch a debate between the top
0:27.0	three candidates trying to get your vote for the San Francisco congressional seat,
0:31.3	now held by Nancy Pelosi for the past 38 years.
0:34.8	We'll hear from San Francisco supervisor Connie Chan, former political advisor
0:39.1	and software engineer, Shoycott Chakrabarty, and California State Senator Scott Weiner
0:44.1	on why they should be the one to replace the Speaker of Merida. That's Saturday, April 4th,
0:49.2	right here on Political Breakdown.
0:51.0	From KQED.
0:55.6	Ray Alexandra, an arts and culture reporter here at KQED, was frustrated.
1:01.3	I think looking back, I had gotten wind of the fact that there were no statues of women in San
1:07.1	Francisco, or there were very few.
1:10.9	It was 2018, and she had just found out that just 12% of San Francisco's street names,
1:17.5	statues, parks, and public art honored women.
1:21.1	And that made me angry.
1:23.2	Meanwhile, the names of important men were everywhere.
1:26.2	Anza, Coyt, Sutro, Sutter, Polk, Taylor, Fillmore.
1:31.3	I could go on.
	...

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