BBC - The Ascent of Woman: Series 1 (2015)

Dr Amanda Foreman travels the world to relate and cross-examine the stories of the women who made and changed human history, from 10,000 BC to the present day.

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Part 1: Civilisation
She begins by exploring the roles women played in early civilisations, visiting Turkey to take in Catalh�y�k, which is thought to be one of the world's earliest settlements, and one where unexpected notions of gender are believed to have developed. She explores how the world's first codified laws regulated women’s' status in Mesopotamia, introducing the first-known veiling law two millennia before the advent of Islam, and profiles ancient females who created their own routes to power in male-dominated cultures. Among these pioneers are Enheduanna, the world's first recorded author, the Ukok Ice Maiden, and Hatshepsut, one of Egypt's most successful - but also most maligned - queens.


Part 2: Separation
Dr Amanda Foreman continues her profile of women who made and changed human history, travelling to Vietnam, China and Japan to assess the role of women in Asia under the philosophy religions of Confucianism and Buddhism. Amanda looks at how Asian ideals of feminine virtue and the division of space between the female world of the home and the male world of business and politics became a hallmark of Chinese identity, and examines the controversial beauty ritual of Chinese foot-binding.


Part 3: Power
Dr Amanda Foreman turns her attention to the history-making women who held direct power, emerging from outside of the traditionally male-dominated dynasties, religions and intellectual movements to shape the face of the world as it is today. Among the female pioneers highlighted are 5th century Byzantine co-regent Empress Theodora, who transformed from prostitute and street-performer to ruler, the visionary 12th-century German preacher, Hildegard of Bingen, and Mughal Empress Nur Jahan who, as the charismatic chief consort to the 15th-century emperor Jahangir, is thought to have shaped the visual aesthetic of India that persists to the modern day. She also profiles women who changed the dynamics of their respective cultures, such as Christine Pizan, the pioneering medieval Italian-French writer who championed women's rights, and Roxelana, the former Polish slave who became the legitimate wife of the 15th-century Ottoman sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, and changed the structure of sexual dynamics in the Ottoman Court.


Part 4: Revolution
Amanda Foreman profiles the women who made and changed human history, concluding with those involved in revolutions. Despite the promises of the French and Russian revolutions, Amanda believes that the subsequent world remained rife with gender bias. In the end, real change for women would come from within the private sphere - in America, with activists like Margaret Sanger, who coined the term `birth control' and developed the pill which would finally give women control over when to have children. She also discusses the experiences of women in contemporary uprisings, such as the Arab Spring and the growth of grass-roots movements in Africa.