All About Eve

8. The Mother of the Nation & The Anthropologist: Whina Cooper & Margaret Mead.

November 28, 2019 Julia & Anna Season 1 Episode 8
All About Eve
8. The Mother of the Nation & The Anthropologist: Whina Cooper & Margaret Mead.
Show Notes

Anna kicks us off with Dame Whina Cooper, the activist who fought throughout her life for Maori rights in Aotearoa (New Zealand). An absolute ball-buster, her biggest achievement was organising the Land March in 1975 which saw 5,000 people walk from the top of the North Island down to parliament in Wellington. While she is known as 'Mother of the Nation', her legacy is controversial as not everyone agrees with her actions. Julia enlightens us on the story of Margaret Mead, a cultural anthropologist who seemed to be pretty woke before woke was a thing. In the early 1900s she helped influence Women's rights movements in America and repeatedly pointed out the racism enacted by other anthropologists in her profession. She also took to wearing a cape. Fair enough.