Feminist Files
By Leigh Fondakowski, Frequency Machine
Activist Pauli Murray said that all you needed to start a revolution is a typewriter… And a lot of guts.
This is the story of how Title IX came to pass and how the women behind the scenes in Washington, D.C. created the academic sex revolution. The nerdy revolutionaries: Bunny Sandler, Patsy T. Mink, Edith Green, and Pauli Murray, among others—women who left behind clues about their lives, not just what they achieved, but how they did it, and who they were, little pieces that we pick up and find along the way.
The Feminist Files is a series that digs down into the nitty-gritty of change and mobilization: how it actually happened, how women organized and how the opposition organized against them. The blood, sweat, and tears of that movement. The revolution which led in 1972 to the passage of Title IX: 37 words that changed the world.
Host Leigh Fondakowski and an all-star cast led by Jodie Foster and Samira Wiley, dig deep into the archives to uncover and reveal the secret origin of Title IX.
Latest episode
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EP 10: The Finale: Bring it On
As we come full circle, Bunny’s unique form of activism takes flight, while Rora makes a connection that changes her life forever. -
EP 9: A Mystery Solved
As Pauli Murray breaks new ground yet again, they reflect on the slow work of change, and how many “lost causes” can, by taking the long view, eventually be won. -
EP 8: Patsy and Wendy: Think Mink
As Patsy Takemoto Mink - the first woman of color in Congress - leads the charge to defend Title IX, she’s forced to choose between the survival of the bill… and of her own daughter. -
EP 7: The Ordeal of 1973
Why did Pauli Murray leave the movement and their tenure track position at Brandeis after fighting hard to reach the pinnacle of their profession? -
A Pause Between Acts
And now, a pause between the acts... -
EP 6: Under the Radar
Leigh returns to the Schlesinger Library and discovers letters chronicling the growing friendship between Bunny Sandler and Pauli Murray - all against the backdrop of the stealth campaign for what would become Title IX. -
EP 5: Pauli, Roy & Tim, and The Mysterious Tape Recording That Shouldn’t Exist
There were no official audio or video recordings of the Edith Green hearings on sex discrimination... or were there? -
EP 4: On the Record
As the hearings continue, Edith Green dives into territory beyond education and leading to tense testimony about a loaded question - which is worse: sexism or racism in America? -
EP 3: Bunny Goes to Washington
Representative Edith Green of Oregon, wants to hold hearings about sex discrimination, but she doesn’t think she has the evidence she needs to do anything about it – until she meets Bunny Sandler. -
EP 2: You Come On Too Strong... For a Woman
Bunny Sandler (Jodie Foster) discovers the footnote that will become the legal basis for Title IX - and uses it to start taking on the most powerful universities in the nation.
