Episode 4

Overview

Three stories presented from the Virago bookshop in Covent Garden about the lives of women in worlds dominated by men. THE NINE DAY QUEEN: Lady Jane Grey was used by men of power when she was alive, and by male propagandists when she was dead. A new film about her life is to be released next month. What interpretation do its makers offer of the 16-year-old girl who was beheaded for treason more than 400 years ago? MOST DANGEROUS WOMEN shows how close the leaders of a women's international peace movement came to getting the most powerful men in the world to stop the Great War in the middle of 1915. THE WORLD OF MARY ELLEN BEST illustrates how one woman artist left a vivid record of the domestic surroundings of her time simply because she was denied the opportunities freely available to her male contemporaries.

Episode Information