The Women Blowing Up Ethiopia’s Film Industry

Successful Female Writers, Directors, and Producers Set the Nation Apart From Hollywood, Bollywood, and the Rest of World Cinema

Among the many stories about Ethiopia’s long, multifaceted past and politically complicated present, an extraordinary transformation that has received less media attention is the dramatic leap forward in its movie industry. Before 2004, Ethiopia was producing only a few movies from time to time. But, by 2015, almost 100 locally produced new features were hitting the theaters in its capital city, Addis Ababa, each year. Local television has also grown and diversified.

Behind the rise of Ethiopian cinema is an even more remarkable tale of the women who—as writers, directors, producers, …

The Legendary New York Saloonkeeper Who Was the Real-Life Inspiration for Star Trek’s Guinan  | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

The Legendary Saloonkeeper Who Was the Real-Life Inspiration for Star Trek’s Guinan

Whoopi Goldberg’s Character Was Based on Texas Guinan, a Larger-Than-Life Texas Girl Turned Power Player in Prohibition-Era New York

In an emotional scene, earlier this year actor Patrick Stewart stopped by “The View” to ask co-host Whoopi Goldberg to join the cast of “Star Trek: Picard” for its second …

How Cesarean Births Became a ‘Global Epidemic’

Reliance on New Obstetric Technology and Lawsuit-Averse Doctors Made Traditional Birth Seem More Risky Than C-Sections

Almost one in three births in the United States today is by cesarean section—a dramatic change from a century ago when physicians avoided the surgery whenever possible. Doctors remained so …

The Voodoo Priestess Whose Celebrity Foretold America’s Future

Marie Laveau, the Self-Invented New Orleans Prophetess, Blurred the Sacred and Profane While Presiding Over a Multiracial Following 

Any tourist who rolls into New Orleans’s French Quarter eventually finds themselves standing before a Bourbon Street botanica called Marie Laveau’s House of Voodoo. It’s a small shop, and …

Women Rocked the Ancient World—But Ruling It Was Harder

Nefertiti, Cleopatra, and Hatshepsut Commanded Empires and Flipped Gender Roles While Pushing Against the Patriarchy

Cleopatra shattered the glass ceiling of power in ancient Egypt. Boudica, the fearsome first-century Celtic Iceni queen, “leaned in” by leading a bloody uprising against the occupying Roman army.

But …