The writhing serpent hair. The fearsome gaze that can turn onlookers to solid stone. Medusa is one of the most instantly recognizable monsters of Greek mythology. But her story and image have evolved over the centuries — sometimes a villain, sometimes a victim, sometimes a divine goddess.

This back to school season, we're bringing back some of our favorite Womanica episodes you might have missed. Today's Womanican is Mary McLeod Bethune (1875-1955). She was a pioneering American educator and education activist, civil rights activist, stateswoman, philanthropist, writer and humanitarian.

This back to school season, we're bringing back some of our favorite Womanica episodes you might have missed. Today's Womanican is Lee Miller (1907-1977). She was legendary for her beauty, which was captured on film by Jean Cocteau, painted by Pablo Picasso, and photographed by Man Ray. However, she was also a talented photographer, writer, and one of the only female war correspondents to be credentialed during World War II.

This back to school season, we're bringing back some of our favorite Womanica episodes you might have missed. Today's Womanican is Harriet Martineau (1802-1876), a journalist and writer. She is often considered the first female sociologist known for popularizing political economy. Over the course of her lifetime, she wrote 35 books and countless essays and articles spanning topics from anti-slavery to religion and health.

This back to school season, we're bringing back some of our favorite Womanica episodes you might have missed. Today's Womanican is Mamá Tingó (1921-1974). She was an Dominican activist who is often overlooked in historical accounts. She led protests to save her farm — and the farms of 350 other families — from an illegal land seizure. She was assassinated for trying to bring justice to her community.

This back to school season, we're bringing back some of our favorite Womanica episodes you might have missed. Today's Womanican is Hua Mulan (c. 400-600 AD). She was the hero of an iconic Chinese tale that remains a symbol of courage, familial duty, and national pride.

This back to school season, we're bringing back some of our favorite Womanica episodes you might have missed. Today's Womanican is Patsy Mink (1927-2002). She was the first woman of color and Asian American woman to serve in Congress, she was also a major author of Title IX.

This back to school season, we're bringing back some of our favorite Womanica episodes you might have missed. Today's Womanican is Henrietta Lacks (1920-1951). She unknowingly shaped modern medicine.  For the last seventy years, scientists have used cells taken from her body–without her knowledge or permission–to develop vaccines, conduct research, and more.

This back to school season, we're bringing back some of our favorite Womanica episodes you might have missed. Today's Womanican is Dr. Ruth Westheimer (1928-2024). She helped her listeners, viewers, and readers have more fulfilling sex for over four decades. Her disarming and relatable demeanor endeared her to generations of Americans and made comprehensive sex education more widely available.

This back to school season, we're bringing back some of our favorite Womanica episodes you might have missed. Today's Womanican is Katsuko Saruhashi (1920-2007). She was the first woman to receive a PhD in chemistry in Japan. As a geochemist, she notably detected the dangers of radioactive fallout and how far it can travel.

This back to school season, we're bringing back some of our favorite Womanica episodes you might have missed. Today's Womanican is Mae Carol Jemison (1956-present), engineer, physician and astronaut who became the first Black woman in space.

This back to school season, we're bringing back some of our favorite Womanica episodes you might have missed. Today's Womanican is Val Plumwood (1939-2008). She was an environmentalist and philosopher who went against the grain. She was a pioneering thinker in ecofeminism. She believed that the western human-centric approach to life devalued nature, and she advocated for an alternative, more expansive way of life.

This back to school season, we're bringing back some of our favorite Womanica episodes you might have missed. Today's Womanican is Evelyn Berezin (1925-2018), who built and marketed the first computerized word processor.

This back to school season, we're bringing back some of our favorite Womanica episodes you might have missed. Today's Womanican is Maria Agnesi (1718-1799). She did groundbreaking work in the field of mathematics, creating a two-volume textbook that helped to shape math education. Later, she gave up her academic success to serve the poor and live in poverty.

This back to school season, we're bringing back some of our favorite Womanica episodes you might have missed. Today's Womanican is Maryam Mirzakhani (1977-2017). She was an optimist and an innovator, contributing new points of view and new teachings to the fields of dynamics and geometry. She is the only woman to have won the coveted Fields Medal.

This back to school season, we're bringing back some of our favorite Womanica episodes you might have missed. Today's Womanican is Sophie Germain (1776-1831). She was a French mathematician and physicist who contributed to the study of acoustics, elasticity, and number theory. She was forced to assume a fake male identity to have her work taken seriously, but her efforts paved the way for further breakthrough discoveries in mathematics.

This back to school season, we're bringing back some of our favorite Womanica episodes you might have missed. Today's Womanican is Ada Lovelace (1815-1852). She is known as the first computer programmer. Despite living during a time when women were not considered scientific thinkers, her contributions to computer science are indispensable–and indisputable.

This back to school season, we're bringing back some of our favorite Womanica episodes you might have missed. Today's Womanican is Ella Cara Deloria (1889-1971). She was a linguist and ethnographer who became one of the foremost experts on Dakota and Lakota oral history.

This back to school season, we're bringing back some of our favorite Womanica episodes you might have missed. Today's Womanican is Sappho (c. 615 BC). She was an ancient Greek poet and an architect of the very words we use to talk about queer identity today.

This back to school season, we're bringing back some of our favorite Womanica episodes you might have missed. Today's Womanican is Gayl Jones (1949-present). She is a prolific author celebrated for her writing about Black womanhood, slavery, and the African Diaspora. She disappeared from public life by choice until very recently, when she reappeared in words with her 2021 novel, “Palmares.”

This back to school season, we're bringing back some of our favorite Womanica episodes you might have missed. Today's Womanican is Begum Rokeya (c. 1880-1932). She spent her life fighting for women’s rights in India and Bangladesh. She opened the first school for Muslim girls in her region and advocated for women’s education. She dreamed of a world where women could reach their full potential — a world she brought to life in her revolutionary feminist utopian short story “Sultana’s Dream.”

This back to school season, we're bringing back some of our favorite Womanica episodes you might have missed. Today's Womanican is Marguerite Duras (1914-1996). She was a pioneer of autofiction and one of the most widely-read French writers in the postwar era. She specialized in blurring the lines between autobiography and imagination, mining her myriad of hardships for narrative gold. Her novel “The Lover” reflected her experiences growing up in French Indochina and became an international...

Monica Seles (1973-present) and Steffi Graf (1969-present) held one of the most famous rivalries in tennis history. They battled for the No. 1 ranking for years, equally matched in prowess.  This episode of Womanica is brought to you by the all-new Toyota Camry.

Roxanne Shanté (1969-present) ignited The Roxanne Wars, a series of hip hop rivalries during the mid 1980s, that created the most answered records in history. It was also one of the first “rap beefs” in history.