The third and, it seems, final part of The Ascent of Woman was broadcast last night. This one looked at more recent times, but continued the international flavor. There were six women featured in all, some of which were very familiar to me and others who were not.

First up was Empress Theodora of Byzantium, whom you all should know as she has been the subject of fine novels by Guy Gavriel Kay and Stella Duffy.

Then there was Hildegard of Bingen, who among other things was the first person in the world to write down musical compositions. The section in which Amanda Foreman chats to a German nun about Hildegard’s writings on the female orgasm is priceless.

Christine de Pizan is another character who should be well know as she is widely cited as the author of the first work of feminist philosophy. Her two books on The City of Ladies were apparently very popular with women politicians of the time.

Given that this was a BBC series, we had to have one British woman in it. The honor went to Queen Elizabeth I, and was accompanied by some rather jingoistic nonsense (not from Foreman) about the primacy of Shakespearean English in world literature.

After that it was off around the world again, and two women who were much less familiar to me. The first was Roxelanna, the chief wife of Suleiman the Magnificent. She is believed to have been a Russian rather than a Turk, and she played a very powerful role in the governance of the Ottoman Empire. Suleiman was no mug, of course, but together they made an exceptionally capable couple.

The final slot went to Nur Juhan who was the chief wife of the Mughal emperor, Jahangir. I knew next to nothing about her before the program, but like Roxelanna and Theodora she appears to have been an exceptionally capable politician and indispensable to her husband’s rule.

Overall I was really pleased with the series. It did turn out to be mostly a story of specific women rather than a history of womankind, but I loved the international focus that it had. I’m disappointed that it didn’t cover the Americas and Africa (save for a brief mention of Hatshepsut), and I’m sure than Foreman could have filled an entire season had she been given the budget. But it is a start, and judging from my Twitter feed something that has captured the imagination of women viewers.

I’d say “more please”, except that we actually have more, just not from the same person. There’s another post coming.