History Extra Podcast: How Women Were Erased from Economic History

Date: September 14, 2025
Host: Danny Bird
Guest: Dr. Victoria Bateman, University of Cambridge
Main Theme:
A sweeping conversation illuminating how women’s economic contributions across 12,000 years have been persistently erased or overlooked—and why that erasure distorts our understanding of history, power, and prosperity.

Episode Overview

Dr. Victoria Bateman discusses her new book, Economica, which re-examines world economic history through the decisive role played by women—arguing that civilizations flourished when women were able to participate fully and faltered when they were pushed to the margins. Using examples from Stone Age societies to Renaissance Europe and the rise and fall of empires, Bateman challenges entrenched narratives and explores the deep interconnections between gender, economic freedom, and the fate of whole societies.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Genesis of Economica and Its Approach

[02:46–05:57]

• Dr. Bateman sought to “[combine the different threads of economic history] … but to do so in a way that includes the lives of women as well as men.” (Bateman, 03:20)
• She argues that successful civilizations “have always been those where women are ... at the heart of the economy.”
• The long arc of history is not of incessant progress, but cycles of rise and decline, often linked to the inclusion or exclusion of women.

2. Stone Age Women and the Bias of the Archaeological Record

[05:57–09:01]

• The focus on stone and metal tools (which survive archaeologically) leads to a skewed view, ignoring perishable goods made largely by women (baskets, textiles).
• Assumption that big game hunters buried with weapons were men—a bias now undermined by DNA evidence showing up to 40% of such buried hunters in early Americas were women.
• “The idea that from very early on in history, men and women were taking on different roles … has shaped the way we see men and women in the modern world.” (Bateman, 08:37)

3. Civilizations Flourish or Falter in Step with Women’s Economic Freedom

[09:01–13:42]

• Ancient Greece: Rigid restrictions on women, compared to “modern day Afghanistan ... restricted to the home ... no legal autonomy to earn their own money.” (Bateman, 09:25)
• Ancient Rome: “Women could own shops, ships...trading across the Mediterranean. One of my female characters from the book, Julia Felix—she was a property developer in Pompeii...” (Bateman, 11:21)
• Augustus’s era saw backlash—policies pushing women back to reproduction: “He even makes ... husband’s career prospects depend on how many children their wives have.” (Bateman, 12:55)
• The marginalization led to fragility and economic decline—“undermining the basis ... that had made them great in the first place.” (Bateman, 13:21)

4. Control Over Women as ‘Get-Rich-Quick Scheme’ – Law, Technology, and Suppression

[13:42–16:51]

• Societies swung between empowering women (matrilineal succession, land ownership) and controlling them (through marriage and inheritance laws, employment bans).
• “Any society that tries to succeed through exploitation … is only going to go so far.” (Bateman, 15:24)
• Examples: marriage bars for women, exclusion from universities and guilds, all stemming from fear and attempts to control women’s value.

5. The Persistent Modernity of Sexism

[18:12–20:22]

• Shocking facts: Married women in the British civil service had to resign (into the 1970s in the Foreign Office), and women were denied credit cards & mortgages well into the 20th century.
• “The pendulum swings and … sometimes things have been better in the past.” (Bateman, 18:47)
• Examples of past societies with gender parity: Ancient Persia (“no gender pay gap”), Ancient Egypt, and dynamic pre-Taliban Afghanistan.

6. Bride Prices, Dowries, and the Economics of Marriage

[20:22–22:34]

• Money changing hands in marriage has been the global norm. Bride price (groom to bride’s family) was historically much more common than dowry.
• “I think that does to some extent show that women have long been seen as a valuable resource ... But it also shows how ... value rests in women [doesn’t mean] they themselves benefit from it.” (Bateman, 21:31)

7. Women in the Informal Economy: Medieval to Renaissance Era

[22:34–26:54]

• Peasants’ Revolt and aftermath of the Black Death: Labor shortages enabled women to move into brewing, farming, cloth making—“sectors in which women feature very highly.”
• “London brewers … around 40% of their members are female.” (Bateman, 25:37)
• Women’s work undergirded urban and rural economies, even as official histories remembered only men.

8. Industrial Revolution Myths and the Erasure of Women’s Labour

[26:54–32:08]

• Textbooks wrongly suggest women “entered the economy” only in the 20th century, perpetuating the myth of women as domestic by default.
• “Economic history has been written by men, for men, about men.” (Bateman, 27:16)
• This revisionist narrative is now weaponized by reactionaries who claim the housewife is the ahistorical norm.

9. Redefining “Economic Value”: Sex Workers, Concubines, and Pirates

[32:08–38:35]

• Notable: Priscilla Wakefield, 18th-century feminist banker, who argued for women’s economic recognition—but excluded sex work as “immoral.”
• “This resulted in ... dividing women into two camps, the respectable woman and the unrespectable woman. And this was ... exported really across the British Empire.” (Bateman, 34:24)
• Ching Shih (“my favorite female pirate in history”): a former brothel worker who became a legendary pirate queen—her fleet outnumbered China’s navy, implemented proto-socialist pirate codes, and forced the emperor to grant her a title.
  • “She grew this fleet ... three times the size of China’s navy ... and eventually ... died at a happy old age ... She now lives on in the myths told to Hong Kong schoolchildren.” (Bateman, 37:05)

10. Rethinking the Roots of Western Prosperity: Gender, Capitalism, and the Protestant Work Ethic

[38:35–44:05]

• Bateman debunks the Weberian thesis attributing capitalism’s rise to Protestantism (“Protestant work ethic”), arguing instead that women’s labor-force participation and autonomy (especially around delaying marriage) were decisive.
• In Britain (1500–1700s), the mean marriage age for women was 25–26, limiting population growth, raising wages, and driving up skills and savings—fertile ground for industrialization and innovation.
• “That whole ... Protestant work ethic ... really originates in young women going out into the economy being free to work and taking charge of their life.” (Bateman, 43:32)

11. The Knife Edge of Progress and the Dangers of Regression

[44:05–45:13]

• History is not a steady upward curve. Gains in women’s rights are fragile and can be reversed, as shown repeatedly in history.
• “The idea of the housewife, it is a Victorian invention ... we need to make sure that we hold on ... and continue to make progress ... and don’t go back to square one and repeat the mistakes.” (Bateman, 44:32)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “The most successful economies ... have always been those where women are invisibly or visibly at the heart of the economy.”
  —Dr. Victoria Bateman, [04:30]

• “We really were organic going back millennia. So much of what ... early society produced ... these are things that have disintegrated ... and the reality is that women were heavily involved in manufacturing those rather perishable goods.”
  —Dr. Victoria Bateman, [06:43]

• “I think when you look at the decline of civilizations ... there is a very strong correlation between economic decline and ... the marginalization of women.”
  —Dr. Victoria Bateman, [04:57]

• “Augustus really buys into this rhetoric that is anti-immigration ... manipulates laws to compel women to marry young and to have lots of children ... leaving the economy very fragile.”
  —Dr. Victoria Bateman, [12:38–13:41]

• “Societies have seen controlling women as a get-rich-quick scheme ... but you eventually hit a ceiling, any society that tries to succeed through exploitation ... only goes so far.”
  —Dr. Victoria Bateman, [15:11]

• “Sometimes we make the mistake of thinking that history is one long upward march to some utopia ... but the pendulum swings ... sometimes life was better for women in the past.”
  —Dr. Victoria Bateman, [18:47]

• “Women have long been seen as a valuable resource ... but just because value rests in women doesn’t mean the women themselves benefit from it.”
  —Dr. Victoria Bateman, [21:28]

• “Economic history has been written by men, for men, about men.”
  —Dr. Victoria Bateman, [27:16]

• “Only by realizing that the economy is not and never has been just for men can we put women’s position on a much more stable footing.”
  —Dr. Victoria Bateman, [31:33]

• “That whole ... Protestant work ethic ... really originates in young women going out into the economy being free to work and taking charge of their life.”
  —Dr. Victoria Bateman, [43:32]

• On the prospects for the future:
  “We need to make sure that we hold on ... and continue to make progress ... and don’t go back to square one and repeat the mistakes.”
  —Dr. Victoria Bateman, [44:32]

Timestamps for Important Segments

• [02:46] – Why Bateman wrote Economica and the importance of including women in economic history.
• [06:13] – How archaeological and economic biases erased Stone Age women.
• [09:17] – Ancient Greece vs. Rome: contrasting outcomes based on women’s roles and rights.
• [12:38] – Augustus, marriage laws, and the sidelining of Roman women.
• [14:00] – Civilizational “get-rich-quick schemes” through controlling women.
• [18:15] – Modern relics of exclusion: civil service, credit, mortgages.
• [20:30] – Dowries, bride prices, and the economic commodification of marriage.
• [22:50] – Women brewers, dairymaids, and informal economy during the Peasants’ Revolt.
• [27:15] – Gender bias in economic history and its political dangers.
• [32:24] – Priscilla Wakefield and what gets counted as “respectable” women’s work.
• [36:07] – Ching Shih: pirate, businesswoman, icon.
• [38:55] – Rethinking the “Protestant work ethic” and the roots of the West’s prosperity.
• [44:09] – The knife-edge of progress: warnings for the future.

Summary Tone & Takeaways

The conversation is energetic, challenging, and deeply informed. Dr. Bateman’s perspective is both scholarly and passionate, drawing on vivid historical examples and overturning familiar “progress” myths. Throughout, the tone is insistently inclusive—she calls not for histories of women alone, but “an economic history of everyone.” Her warnings about cyclical reversals and modern political regression are timely and cautionary.

For listeners and readers alike, this episode compellingly rewires how we should think about economics, gender, and the very engines of history itself.