The Ascent of Woman

Dr Amanda Foreman uncovers stories of women that have made and changed human history from 10,000 BC to the present day.

1. Civilisation Civilisation has given humanity extraordinary advances - codes of law and commerce, science and art. But what does it look like from the point of view of women? Travelling from the nomadic worlds of the Eurasian steppes to the early civilisations of Mesopotamia, Egypt, ancient Greece and Rome, Dr Amanda Foreman explores how early civilisations dealt with the roles and status of women and, in so doing, she asks some profound questions about the legacy they've left behind. In Anatolia, she visits Catalhöyük, one of the world's earliest settlements, which archaeologists believe held remarkably different notions of gender. From Mesopotamia, she explores the world's first law codes written to regulate women's status and behaviour, including the world's first known veiling law dating from 1350 BC, two millennia before the advent of Islam. Across Europe and the Near East, she uncovers a group of extraordinary women who created their own routes to power in male-dominated worlds. These include Enheduanna, the world's first recorded author, the Ukok Ice Maiden, one of the great archaeological discoveries of the 20th century, and Hatshepsut, one of ancient Egypt's most successful but most maligned ruling queens. Crucially, she also explores the darker legacy of gender inequality in ancient Greece, whose influential ideas on the inferiority of women have cast a long shadow over women's lives across the globe to this day. Amanda's approach aims to profoundly alter the accepted view of civilization once and for all.

2. Separation Travelling to Vietnam, China and Japan, Dr Amanda Foreman explores the role of women in Asia under the philosophy religions of Confucianism and Buddhism. Covering a period from the 1st century AD to the present day, she'll look at how Asian ideals of feminine virtue and the division of space between the female world of the home and male world of business and politics became a hallmark of Chinese identity. Part of yin and yang, they have cast a long shadow across women's lives, not just in China, but across Asia. On the one hand, empowered by faiths such as Buddhism and Shinto, many women confronted the limits placed on their sex. They include Vietnam's Trung Sisters, who mounted the first armed rebellion against China, Empress Wu, the only woman to have ruled China in her own right, and the female writers of 12th century Japan such as Murasaki Shikibu, who created Japan's great literacy masterpieces, including the world's first novel - The Tale of Genji. On the other hand, these limitations created ideals of beauty that advocated immobility and artifice, and were a world away from low-status work and labour. If they could lead to dynastic power and in some cases considerable sexual freedom, they also culminated in one of the most troubling and least understood beauty rituals in women's history: Chinese foot-binding, whose painful legacy would last right up to the 20th century.

3. Power Dr Amanda Foreman travels to Istanbul, Germany, Paris and Delhi to explore the stories of women behind some of the most powerful empires of the Middle Ages. From 6th-century Byzantium to Medieval Europe, the Ottoman Court to the Mughal Empire, Amanda looks behind the male-dominated perceptions of these empires to reveal the strength of women at the heart of power and influence. This is the story of the few exceptional women who defied the entrenched male intellectual movements and religions of the period by creating their own worlds from which a female perspective could thrive. Women who operated from within the systems of religion, law, marriage and education to create their own routes to power - from Empress Theodora, who transformed herself from street performer and prostitute to empress and co-ruler of the Eastern Orthodox Church, to 12th century German writer, preacher and visionary Hildegard of Bingen. From Christine de Pizan, the first woman to write in defence of women's rights to Roxelana, a former slave who changed the structure of sexual dynastic politics in the Ottoman Court and the Mughal Empress Nur Jahan, who helped establish trade routes and pioneered the visual aesthetic of India we know today. These women resisted and rebelled from within the confines of the palace, the convent and the harem. They demanded to be heard, fought to be respected and insisted on having their own authority. And in doing so, they helped to shape our world.

4. Revolution In this final film, Dr Amanda Foreman looks at the role of women in revolutions that have transformed the modern world, from political uprisings to reproductive rights. Amanda discovers, through women like campaigner and writer Olympe De Gouges, that the French Revolution's promise of equality, liberty and brotherhood would be limited to men. Bolshevik radical Alexandra Kollontai would find that while her fellow Russian revolutionaries may have put women's rights at the forefront of ideological change, the post-revolutionary world would be as rife with gender bias as the societies they'd helped transform. In the end, revolutionary 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. Amanda discusses the experiences of women in contemporary uprisings - in what's been called the Arab spring, when women defied cultural and political traditions, marched into public squares and called for change, only to find that once they demanded rights for women, they were denied them. Amanda discusses the growth of grass roots women's movements in Africa, like those in Liberia and Malawi, and interviews African women involved in democratic politics - Lindiwe Mazibuko, the South African leader of the opposition and Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, executive director of UN Women. Amanda finishes the series with a bold statement - she believes the most critical issue of the 21st century is to address the inclusion of women, to break from the past and create a new model for social revolution - one of gender equality. (BBC)