Explore every episode of the podcast Gals Guide

It's Lauren's turn to share her pick of a woman of history who embodied safety & boundaries. Learn about Frances Perkins, the first woman ever in a Presidential Cabinet position. Frances was the US Secretary of Labor from 1933-1944. She was a big part of the New Deal. She developed the policy for Social Security. She fought for labor issues and immigrant rights. Learn about this trailblazer who made Americans' lives better by making them safer.

It's a new month and a new look at wellbeing. This month the Gal Pals are picking women of history who embody safety & boundaries. Bonnie starts us off with Erin Brockovich, the paralegal and environmental activist who built a case again PG& E and won! Oh and they made her life into a movie!

Cathy finishes up Learning & Growing Month with a wonderful tie-in to National Hispanic Heritage Month. Cathy talks about Pura Belpre, the Latina librarian from Puerto Rico. Pura's brought to the New York Public Library Spanish language books, bilingual story time, holiday celebrations, and more! Pura also wrote books and did puppet shows! In fact, Pura has an award in her name. Learn about this lover of learning and language in this week's episode!

Amy continues Learning & Growing Month with a walk in the woods to learn about life. Amy talks about Ella Flatau, a Danish woman who in the 1950's started the Walking Kindergarten -  which we know now as Forest Schools. Learn about this amazing woman and her school. 

Leah starts off Learning & Growing Month talking about one of the first female professors in the United States. She was hired as a professor in 1880. She spent over 30 years of her teaching career at the University of Minnesota. Her name is Maria Sanford, and she was also called “the best-loved woman in Minnesota.” 

Katie closes up Healing & Mental Health month. Her pick is Marsha Linehan an American psychologist, professor, and author. Marsha created dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), an evidence-based psychotherapy that combines cognitive restructuring with acceptance, mindfulness, and shaping.. Learn more about Marsha Linehan on this week's episode of the Gals Guide Podcast.

The Gals Guide Podcast is off next week for Labor Day. 

Trigger Warning: This episode does mention suicide and self-harm.

It's Lauren's episode of Healing & Mental Health month. Her pick is Margaret Morgan Lawrence. She’s an American psychiatrist who wrote books about mental health in children in inner cities. Learn more about Margaret Morgan Lawrence on this week's episode of the Gals Guide Podcast.

Trigger Warning: This episode does mention suicide and self-harm.

Leah continues our look at Healing & Mental Health month. Her pick is Demi Lovato. She’s a singer, songwriter and actress. She’s sold over 30 million records world wide so far. She’s an artist that is constantly evolving and experimenting with her voice and her sound. She also struggles with mental illness and turns that struggle around to be an advocate for others and be a light in the dark. Learn more about Demi Lovato on this week's episode of the Gals Guide Podcast. 

Bonnie starts off a new month's theme. August is Healing & Mental Health month and Bonnie's pick is Leta Stetter Hollingworth. Leta was an American Psychologist known for her at Bellevue and her work with gifted children.

Katie finishes up Financial Health & Security Month with a prospector during the Gold Rush who built a church, a restaurant, and a boarding house. She was known as "The Angel of Tombstone," not the pizza, the Val Kilmer movie. Learn about this amazing Irish woman from County Cork! 

Special note: no episode next week, August 3, 2026.

Debbi continues Financial Health & Security month with Barbara Hackman Franklin. Businesswoman, board executive, and the 29th U.S. Secretary of Commerce are just a few of Barbara's financial pursuits.  Learn more about this powerhouse on this week's episode.

Leah continues Financial Health & Security Month with the first Black woman to establish a bank in the United States. Maggie Lena Walker not only opened the Saint Luke Penny Savings Bank, but she was the first Black woman to be president of a bank in the United States. Learn more about the financial well-being Maggie created for her community in this week’s episode.

Bonnie starts our monthly theme, Financial Health & Security, by talking about Katharine Dexter McCormick. Katharine was a rich lady, a suffragist, and helped fund the first birth control pill.  

Leah finishes up Creative & Expression Month with Moomins!!!!! Leah talks about the Swedish-Finnish artist, Tove Jansson, who created a colorful universe for her and her characters to escape to. The Moomin world is about admitting your joys and fears, looking for a place of safety, knowing danger is out there, but that you’ll always discover new ways to incorporate what “home” means.

Klaire is back on the podcast talking about an amazing Italian painter who started producing works as a teenager. Artemisia Gentileschi's life was full of challenges and obstacles, including an abuser and rarely getting credit for her paintings. Learn about Artemisia's fierce paintings of women that are gorgeous and haunting to look at. 

Katie is taking a pottery class and found inspiration and kinship with Beatrice Wood. Beatrice was a potter and involved with the Dada movement, giving her the nickname "Mama of Dada." Learn about Beatrice's fascinating life in pottery, art, literature, and French names we struggle to say. 

Bonnie starts Creativity & Expression month by talking about Elizabeth Keckley. From slavery to the personal dressmaker to Mary Todd Lincoln, learn about Elizabeth and her dress-making business.  

Katie finishes up Movement & Joy in the body month by talking about Eunice Kennedy Shriver and her work creating Special Olympics. Did you know Special Olympics first started with Eunice hosting a summer camp on her farm in Maryland? Learn more about Eunice and her work on behalf of persons with disabilities. 

Jackie continues our learning theme of finding wellness with Movement & Joy in the body. Jackie talks about Dorothy "Tommy" Dermody, the Irish fencer who was from County Tipperary. Not only did she compete in the  Olympic Games, but she also made movement and fitness invaluable for kids around Ireland. 

Leah starts off the month with our new theme. In May, Gals Guide is learning from women who found wellness with Movement & Joy in the body. Leah talks about the famous quote and how it might be truer (and wiser) than we might have given it credit for. "Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, but did it backwards...and in high heels." Also, a tribute and wish for Mother's Day.

The world is a better place because Selma Miriam was in it... and we might not have known about her without the support of our patron Tony Vasquez. He was the one who sent us a DVD of the amazing documentary A Culinary Uprising: The Story of Bloodroot. Leah closes our learning theme with a wonderful example of Nourishment & The Table. Selma Miriam created a space for well being in so many women’s lives. Learn and share the story of Bloodroot a feminist, vegetarian, restaurant, and bookstore in Bridgeport Connecticut.

Katie continues our learning theme - Nourishment & the Table - by talking about the Queen of Creole Cuisine, Leah Chase. Learn why her restaurant, Dooky Chase, was named one of the 40 most important restaurants of the past 40 years by Food & Wine.

Amy Dalton is back on the show! Amy continues our learning theme - Nourishment & the Table by talking about The Black Forager, Alexis Nikole Nelson. Learn from this adorable forest fairy of a woman, all about how the outdoors are full of things we can eat and how we can have fun learning what is edible and what isn't. 

Bonnie starts our learning theme - Nourishment & the Table by talking about Desert Person, Claire Saffitz. Claire's describes being a desert person  as "an attitude; it's about embracing cooking and eating as fundamental sources of pleasure." 

Leah finishes up Rest as Resistance month with a meditation. She learned this meditation from the Tara Mandala Center. She has been led in this meditation by Lama Tsultrim Allione as well as Lopon Charlotte Rotterdam. It’s a practice that can be done whenever you need it. It has a seed of Buddhism with mindful compassion at its center but you can use this process with any spiritual path, including no specific spiritual path.

Katie continues Rest as Resistance Month talking about Betty Ford. Learn about the former First Lady whose clinic provided rest and awareness of those with substance use disorders.

Debbi continues Rest as Resistance Month talking about Mother Jones. Learn about the activism of Mary G. Harris Jones to provide rest for the Industrial Workers of the World as well as transform child labor laws. 

Leah starts off Rest as Resistance Month with the woman who wrote the book on it, Tricia Hersey. Learn all about the amazing teaching artist and founder of the Nap Ministry. "Rest is a healing portal to our deepest selves. Rest is care. Rest is radical." - Tricia Hersey from Rest is Resistance

Leah finishes Heart & Connection Month with a gal whose empathy for animals changed our understanding of the world. Learn about Jane Goodall and her amazing work with chimpanzees. 

Katie continues Heart & Connection Month with a gal whose writing connected her readers to a larger world. Learn all about the amazing Nellie Bly and her investigative journalism into a mental institution as well as her adventures around the world in 72 days. 

Bonnie starts our Heart & Connection Month with another "puny pick." First there was a botanist for Rooted in Self Month, now there is a cardiologist for Heart & Connection Month. Learn all about the amazing Helen B. Taussig who founded the field of pediatric cardiology.

It's our 300th episode! Leah, Bonnie, and Katie recorded a live, interactive show with host Editor Amber! The Gal Pals be drinking. See if they can sum up the 300 episodes in 300 seconds. See how much of the 8 years they remember and how much was wishful drinking. Plus audience questions, interactive games, and giveaways. Raise a glass of the Gal Pal Official Cocktail to another 300 episode of amazing women of history! Check out galsguide.org to see what exclusive giveaways are left. 

Katie continues Rooted in Self Month by telling us about Joan Didion. Learn about the writer who was a pioneer in the form of New Journalism. Joan wrote essays, articles, novels, and screenplays. Writing was therapeutic and helped her process the death of her husband and daughter. Learn about Joan's years of magical thinking. 

It's the start of Season 9! The Gal Pals are back, starting off our year by learning about Personal & Collective Well-being. Leah gives you the details on the year before Bonnie starts off Rooted in Self Month with her pick, Jeanne Baret. Learn about the French botanist who was the first woman to get on a boat and circumnavigate the world (she did have to do it dressed as a man, though). Learn all about how she navigated these waters in the late 1760s

Leah finishes Political Change Month with the first Chinese woman to vote in America...and she was a pinball wizard. I know, I know seems like a jump but it’s a journey and we’re in it together. Learn all about Tye Leung Schulze in the final episode of Season 8.

Katie continues Political Change Month by talking about Jeannette Rankin, the first woman to hold federal office in the United States. The Republican Representative for Montana in 1916 and again in 1940. To this date, Jeannette is the only congresswoman to have represented Montana.

Bonnie starts of Political Change Month with the infamous Alice Roosevelt. Have you heard the quote by her dad Theodore Roosevelt? “I can do one of two things. I can be President of the United States or I can control Alice Roosevelt. I cannot possibly do both.” Learn why on this week's episode. 

Leah wraps up Defiance Month with a pair of queer Irish ladies that she found so adorably defiant that she just wanted to be in their orbit and share their story. Remember Leah is high on cold medicine as she talks about Lady Eleanor Butler & Sarah Ponsonby. The Ladies of Llangollen were two upper-class women who lived together as a couple in the late 1700s. People wrote poems about them, their house is a museum. 

Julie continues Defiance Month by talking about N.O.W. The National Organization for Women. 

Katie continues Defiance Month by talking about Kathrine Switzer. After a Jock tried to rip off her bib number, Kathrine is the first woman to officially run the Bost Marathon. Leah's on cold medicine, Bonnie's craftin' without deadlines, and Julie's back.

Bonnie starts Defiance Month with Olga of Kiev. A gal who killed a lot of people who tried to marry her and yet was made a saint. Leah's on cold medicine, Katie's writing letters, Julie's back, and we're pronouncing "Kiev" wrong the whole time. 

Leah finishes up Personal Change Month with a gal who experienced the effects of mental illness and decided to create better conditions (not perfect) for those afflicted with mental illness. As Dorothea Dix fought for the humanity of the mentally ill, the culture started to shift more humanely as well. Knowing we still have  *LOTS* to go in the field of mental health, learn about Dorothea Dix on this week's episode. Joined by Klaire, Katie, and Bonnie.

Klaire continues Personal Change month with an abstract painter whose legacy personally effects one of our Gal Pals. Learn about Lee Krasner on this week's episode. Joined by Leah, Katie and Bonnie. 

Katie continues Personal Change month with a neuroscience journalist who covers drugs, addition and public policy. Learn about Maia Szalavitz on this week's episode. Joined by Leah, Katie and Klaire Lockheart.

Bonnie starts of Personal Change month with a chemist who won a Noble Prize. Joined by Leah, Katie and Klaire Lockheart. 

Leah finished up courage month talking about a rebel in a swimsuit. In an era where women were expected to be silent and modest, Annette Kellerman dove headfirst into controversy. She used her body as a tool of protest, a canvas for art, and a vehicle for change. She helped create the modern swimsuit by not being ashamed of her body. 

Even in 2025, some of us who wear a swimsuit in public are performing an act of courage. A battle between ourselves and culture. A piece of fabric whose history is written with rebellion.

Learn about this poetic, noble, land-mermaid on this episode of the Gal's Guide Podcast.

Jackie continues courage month talking about the Camogie and it's women's uniform. Camogie is a sport similar to hurling. The uniform in the past has been a wool skirt and until 2025 a uncomfortable skort. When Kilkenny and Dublin teams protested and wore (gasp!) shorts, they were not allowed to play until they changed clothes. What happened next? Listen to this weeks episode. 

Katie continues courage month talking about sisters. The Mirabal Sisters courageously defied the foul dictator Rafael Trujillo known as el Jefe. Patria, Minerva and Maria Teresa are national heroines of the Dominican Republic and the sisters in the book In the Time of Butterflies written by Julia Alvarez.

Bonnie starts of courage month with a gal who was so courageous she ran for President of the United States before women even had the right to vote. Learn about the unique history of Victoria Woodhull, a woman who was certainly ahead of her time! 

Riwo finishes up Freedom Month talking about a San Diego Public Librarian who stood up for Japanese American children during WW2 interments. Clara Breed sent books, letters, and support to young readers imprisoned in camps — protecting their right to read and reminding them they were not forgotten.