In this captivating episode of Girls, Girls, Girls, host Bea Duncan celebrates the extraordinary life of Jeanne Baret, the first woman to sail around the world—while disguised as a man. Born in 1740 in rural Burgundy, France, Baret rose from humble working-class origins to become an indispensable botanist and naturalist. After being hired as a housekeeper by the renowned naturalist Philibert Commerson, she seized an incredible opportunity when he was invited to join Louis Antoine de Bougainville’s expedition to circumnavigate the globe. Since women were strictly forbidden from ships, Baret disguised herself as Jean Barrot, a male valet, and smuggled herself aboard the Étoile in December 1766.
Throughout the voyage, Baret did the lion’s share of the botanical work, collecting samples, scaling mountains, and conducting research while Commerson struggled with seasickness and a leg ulcer. Her contributions were so significant that she and Commerson discovered the vibrant bougainvillea plant together in Rio de Janeiro. When the ship reached Tahiti in April 1769, the local residents immediately recognized her true identity, and her cover was blown. Despite breaking the law and risking deportation, Bougainville allowed her to remain on the ship, recognizing her value to the expedition. This is the remarkable true story of a working-class woman who traveled further than any aristocrat of her time.
The episode also features a segment celebrating Sophia Hilton, the inspirational owner of Not Another Salon in Shoreditch, a gender-neutral, no-judgment hairdresser that prices clients based on hair length rather than gender—a refreshing approach that reflects the pioneering spirit of women breaking barriers.
Main Topics
Jeanne Baret was born in 1740 in rural Burgundy, France, to a working-class family and somehow learned to read and write despite limited opportunities for literacy
She became an 'herb woman' with extensive knowledge of local plants and flora before joining naturalist Philibert Commerson's household as a housekeeper
Baret disguised herself as a man named Jean Barrot to board the Étoile in 1766, breaking the law that prohibited women from sailing on ships
During the voyage, she performed most of the hard botanical work—collecting specimens, climbing mountains, and conducting research—while Commerson suffered from illness
Baret and Commerson discovered and named the bougainvillea flower after the expedition's captain, Louis Antoine de Bougainville
Her disguise was discovered by Tahitian residents in April 1769, but Captain Bougainville allowed her to remain on the ship due to her invaluable contributions
Baret became the first woman to circumnavigate the globe, proving that a working-class woman could achieve what aristocrats of her era attempted
Full TranscriptHello, it is Bea Duncan here. You are listening to Girls, Girls, Girls here on women's radio station. This is the show r...▼
Hello, it is Bea Duncan here. You are listening to Girls, Girls, Girls here on women's radio station. This is the show rewriting history one episode at a time. And I'm very excited for today's episode. As always, we're going to be talking about Jeanne Barre, the first woman to, say, sail around the world while disguised as a man. The first woman to sail around the world, but she also happened to be disguised as a man. But first, let's sell her. Great. So I'm going to be celebrating today, Sophia Hilton, who is the owner of not another salon, which is a hairdresser. Hairdresser, color specialist in Shoreditch and she owns, she owns the place and it's a kind of no judgment hair salon. You can go. It's completely, completely gender neutral. You get priced based on how long your hair is, basically, which is how it should be, basically. And if you hop onto their Instagram, oh, my gosh, it is amazing. If you're someone who likes colored hair, likes to color their hair, you will be in ecstasy. It's incredible the colors that they have on there and the styles that they do. It is mind blowing. And Sophia Hilton herself, her look is amazing. Her hair is bright yellow. She wears a lot of yellow. As someone who is a fan of yellow, I'm a fan of her and she's just an incredible. They call her the boss lady, which I think is really funny and I'd quite like someone at some point to call me the boss lady. But yeah, if you hop onto their Instagram account, her Instagram account, not another salon, is the one that she runs and she's Sophia Hilton. She's just really cool and she inspires me to be more confident and to wear more confident things and just to be more in happy with myself, basically. So that is who I would like to sell her break today. She's awesome. Love me. Badass women. Business owner. But let's get into who we're going to be talking about today. Jian Bai. And there was a quote about her from somebody called Glynis Radley, who kind of wrote a whole load of stuff about her. And she said she was a working class woman who travelled further than any aristocrat. So she was born in July 27, 1740, so quite a while ago in a small village in the Burgundy region of France. And at this time the area was quite a poor one. There were very few literate people. So it is likely that her and her family would have been working class, probably labourers in the field. They would have had very Little, not very much is known of her formative years because as I said, it was 1740 and she was living in a working class area. So no one would have really been documenting her life at this point. But her record of baptism does survive and so we do know who her parents were, where she was born. All of that is confirmed and it is seen later. She said that she was orphaned and she kind of lost her fortune in a lawsuit, which doesn't seem to be the case, to be honest. But that is all the point of reference we have for her younger years. But another point of confusion comes from the fact that she, she herself was clearly not illiterate because there are some legal documents that prove that she could sign her own name. And so she did somehow know how to read and write, which no one is 100% sure how that could have happened. And historians are still arguing over their theories. But it is known however that she became the so called herb woman, which isn't what it sounds like. And she studied local plants and trees in her village and she kind of saw what was could be used for medical treatments and stuff. So she became very, very well versed in the different flora that was around where she lived. And somewhere between 1760 and 1764 she began being the housekeeper to Philibert Commisson, who was a naturalist. His wife died very shortly after giving birth to their son in 1762. And it was around this time that it is thought that barrier would have taken over essentially the management of the household and it would have just kind of been her running the stuff that his wife would have usually been doing until she died. Now we are aware that they had a relationship together and Barry became pregnant in 1764 and it's pretty much wholeheartedly agreed that Commisson would have been the father and they moved to Paris together. But she was still his housekeeper, so not in a kind of romantic way. And their child was born in December of 1764. Commissore had left his first son with his brother in law and then they gave the second one up to the Paris foundlings hospital. But he only the son died a few years later. So Commissant doesn't have a great track record with his children, so he never saw either of them again. But yeah, we're not going to cast judgment on that. Just leave you with that fact. So as I said, Commerson was around a renowned naturalist, and in 1765 he was invited to join the expedition of Louis Antoine de Bougainville, which is a Fantastic name. I really want to take that as my own because that's a great name. Lots and lots of gravitas. So de Bougainville was a renowned naval commander and he was commanding two ships that were planning to be France's first circumnavigation of the entire globe. They wanted to travel about and visit loads and loads of different countries, trees and collect different plants and basically study them. Which was why Commerson was asked to join. Now, Commissore had been in pretty poor health for the last couple of years and had needed Barry's assistance as pretty much a full time nurse and housekeeper. So he was hesitating about whether or not he was going to take up the opportunity to go on the ship. At this point, women were banned from all ships. So it was kind of proper law. Women were not allowed to go on these ships, not allowed to go on a voyage. So he was worried about how he was going to cope because he needed Baret to be there. And this is probably where they concocted their little plan. So she decided that she was going to disguise herself as a man named Jean Barrot and she was going to claim that she was a valet and assistant to Commerson. So she was basically going to sneak in, break the law so she could kind of sail around the world. And obviously, being the herb woman, she was interested in plants and she wanted to help out. Basically she thought it was going to be a really great opportunity and she was right. So the two of them joined the expedition at a port in Rochford in December 1917, 66, 19 where that happened on the ship the Etoile. And Commersant, being a naturalist, had lots and lots of equipment and files and stuff. And so the captain of the ship gave up his large cabin for Commersant and of course his supposed valet. So they basically gave them this nice little lover's cabin on a silver plate. They thought it was just two buddies, two bros, sharing a cabin, but it was not. So Barra spent most of her time looking after Commerson, who suffered from seasickness and an ulcer on his leg. And there wasn't really very much to do on the ship until they reached Montevideo. Because obviously you're on a ship and if you're a naturalist who studies plants, you've got nothing to do because you're in the middle of the ocean. So this was when they could get down to the real work of the expedition. So they were collecting plants, scouring mountains, seeing new samples, but of course, due to the fact that commerson was still unwell. He had this ulcer on his leg. Most of the actual hard work was, you guessed it, done by Barrett. She collected the samples, she carried the samples, she rummaged around the local area and she did a lot of the hard work of labelling, researching all of that sort of stuff. And the same was true when they got to Rio de Janeiro. And this was where commersant and barrier discovered the plant that they decided to name bougainvillea after the captain of the ships. Bougainvillea is a gorgeous plant, by the way, my mother's favourite. And yeah, they discovered it together, or I probably should say buret probably discovered it because she was doing the heavy work. So she was organizing their records, organizing the samples and doing a lot of the things that commerson probably did end up taking a lot of the credit for. Now, there are quite a lot of different accounts about when barrier was found out to be a woman. A lot of people thought that she was just a eunuch and that is what she told a lot of people. And bougainville actually said that there were rumors that there was a woman on the ship for a long time. But it's thought that it was April 1769 that this was properly confirmed. The ship had landed in Tahiti and the residents of Tahiti said that she was a woman. They basically just were like, you're a woman, aren't you? And she kind of had to say yes. It blew her cover quite a bit. But obviously because all of the rumors had been flying around, she really couldn't deny it and she was found out. And obviously she had disobeyed the law. She'd broken the law. She was a fugitive essentially. But despite this, she was allowed to remain on the ship. I think bougainville was probably quite fond of her at this point and she'd been doing a lot of the work, as I said, collecting the plants and stuff. He probably quite liked her and just thought, you know what, I'm not gonna. I'm not gonna give myself a bit of a pain trying to get rid of her and turning her in. So he did let her stay on the ship for a little bit longer. And yeah, we're going to take a very, very short break. We're going to be back shortly. We're going to discuss the rest of the time on the ship and after all that. But don't forget, head on to womensradiostation.com you can find everything that you need right there. Or if you're more of a social media person, you can slide into my DMs on Twitter gggpod. I'm also girlsgirlsgirlspod on Instagram girlsgirlsgirlspodmail.com calm. See you after the break. WRS Women's Radio station Voice of Women Worldwide Sarah's Universal Soul Show. What does your soul or spirituality mean to you? Welcome to future Classical Woman Awards with me, Stefania Passamonte on Women's Radio Station. Welcome back. I'm Russ Cain. You're listening to in conversation with on Women's Radio Station. I'm Angie. And I'm Patsy and we're open. To see what other programs we have on Women's Radio station, head to our website womensradiostation.com I'm Isabelle Manavie, an executive coach. Do you want to change a negative into a positive? We can do this by coaching you to rewire your brain using simple visualization techniques. In 20 years of practice, I seen this transform lives. For more information, look on Women's Radio website. Call me on 079-84422 171. I'm listening. Mirae B Ltd. We are a virtual PA consultancy. We provide remote administrative services. Our offering is diverse. We manage your calendar, we update your client database. We take care of your property in France and in London. We also offer bookkeeping and translation services. Would you like to know more? Please call 077-8684-8998 for further information. Mirabe Limited making the life of the business owner successful. Let Women's Radio advertise your brand or business. It's so affordable and effective. Reaching out to all women. Call us on 020-743-7706 now. Are you struggling with money? Turn to us as a national charity helping people struggling to make ends meet. Job loss, illness or bereavement can cause a real financial crisis. We give practical help to get people back on track. Whether you're thinking of having a baby, trying to get out of an unhappy relationship or just unsure what benefits you may be entitled to, we can help. Visit turntous.org.uk I'm Angie. And I'm Patsy and we're open to share our own personal stories dealing with life events. Staying positive through the tough times. Share your stories too. What worked, what didn't. Join us each week for open. We know you're going to love it. Women's Radio Station is a not for profit community interest company. Supporting women is our passion. We're Currently welcoming donations to help towards our running costs to keep this important initiative alive. To donate, simply head to our website. Every little will help. Welcome back. You are listening to Girls Girls Girls. And you're of course listening to women's radio station. As you probably knew by now, at the moment we're talking about Jeanne Barry. She was the first woman ever to sail around the globe, the entire globe. And she did so kind of by accident and dressed as a man. So let's dive straight in, pardon the pun. Because at the moment in our story we are in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. So maybe best not to dive in. This was the time when the ships realized they were running quite low on food. The middle of the Pacific is not the place that I would forget that I had run out of food. You probably should have thought of that before. But you know what, let's not hold them to it because they were doing many other important things. So they managed to make it to Indonesia and then Mauritius. They stocked up on food and had a little bit of a break, bit of a nice tropical holiday. And Conventant had an old friend there who actually was the governor of Mauritius. And so the ships and Bougainville decided to drop Commersant and Jeanne off onto the island because this ridded them the problem of when they got back to France trying to explain why they had a woman on the ship. And it also was a good plan because Jeanne was. Was pregnant again. She really doesn't have fantastic timing, does she? So obviously it would have been difficult to keep her on board. They go back to France. Having to explain how they managed to get a baby there would have been quite confusing. Especially because she was pretending to be a man. So they were there and they stayed with this guy. And Baret kind of kept going on as Commerson's assistant. And she was also collecting plants on Madagascar and Bourbon island, which sounds like a very great island. I think I should travel there. Until Commensur died in 1773. Unfortunately he had left Barry money in his will. But that was back in France and he died quite suddenly leaving her absolutely no money to get back to France to claim it. So she was financially destitute and in the middle of Mauritius. So what do you do? You decide to stay there and you run a tavern for seven years. So she was running this tavern in Port Louis and then a guy who was traveling through, he was a non commissioned officer from the French army and he was traveling back to France in May of 1774. His name was Jean, which Is quite ironic because that was the name that she was using to disguise herself while she was a man on the ship. Almost like it was fate. So he was passing through and he stopped off, they fell in love and they got married. I should probably mention this, the. The second son that she had had with Commerson had also been given up. They've got a bit of a trend of that, but that's fine. They got married, Jeanne and Jean, probably at some time in 1775. They decided to go back to France. And about a year later she managed to receive the money from the will and they settled down in Jean's hometown. So it is good she did actually get the money eventually, which would have been pretty sad if she hadn't. I know I would have been upset. And she was eventually recognized by Bougainville because of her good service and good behavior that she'd had on the ship. She was given a pension of 200 livres a year. And, well, we don't know 100% if it was from Bougainville. It was from a kind of anonymous source, but most people agree that it would have been. And she got that every year until she died in 1807 on August 5th. She was 67, which is quite old for somebody in 1800s or something. And although she had not been given the complete credit, she hadn't been confirmed as this at her time. She was the first woman ever to circumnavigate the globe. I think what's funny about it is the. She didn't even really realize that she was doing it. It's not something she ever set out to do. She didn't wake up one day and think, I'm gonna go around the globe. It was a complete mistake. And she was basically doing it because she really liked plants and wanted to go and see some more. She did some really, really great work. There is lots and lots of interesting accounts of their time on the ship. Nothing from her directly, but from other people who were working on the ship at the time and from Bougainville's kind of records. But as I said, Commerson was ill for most of the trip. And so all of the discoveries and the categorizations and stuff, it was done by her. So she did some really great stuff as well as being the first woman to circumnavigate the globe. So, yeah, that is the story of Gianbury. I hope that you haven't hated me murdering French accent. I know I'm not great at those pronunciations. Please I do apologize. And it's going to get even better because next week I'm going to be covering a famous Florentine. Please do let me know if you know who this is. Going to give you a couple of clues. The reason why I'm doing this is because this, when this episode airs next week, I am going to be in Florence. I'm going to be drinking lots of wine, eating lots of pizza and pasta and carbs in general, seeing lots of art, having a lovely time. So I'm going to cover a Florentine because, of course, why wouldn't I? Tell me if you know who this is. So jumping forward in time a little bit more. So the 20s is when this woman was operating and she only died a few years ago, actually. So she was, she was around for quite a long time. She was a scientist, specifically an astrophysicist. So we're going to have another episode of me attempting to say science. And she was also a communist. So think about who you think that might be. I know I haven't given you too much to go on and please, by the way, don't just whack it into Google. Don't just put, you know, Florentine astrophysicist because, you know, there probably was only one and you'll probably find it out and that spoils all the fun. So, you know, if you think you know who it is, I'll be very, very impressed. But if you just googled it, I won't be that impressed. But yes, I'm going to be in Florence. So if you've got any recommendations. Actually, I will still be there when this airs and I'm going to be there for another couple of days. Let me know if you've got any tasty food, places you like to go to or anything that you've seen. I'm going to be there with my parents. So something that's parent friendly would also be very, very well received. You have been listening to Girls, Girls, Girls. You're on women's radio station, of course. And this is just another shout out to please get in contact with me if you've got a woman or an industry that you would like me to cover. I do like being given a little bit of inspiration. I have a kind of word document on my computer which is 10 pages long or something which has just got a whole bunch of names, women. And it. I really am literally spoiled for choice. I struggle to decide who I'm going to cover because there are so many good people. So it does help me when People give me something to kind of hone my vision. So say if you're a scientist, if you're a sportswoman, if you're anything, let me know and I can cover somebody from your field. Or if you have someone specific who you love and you think that other people should love too, please do let me know that as well. You can get in contact with me in a whole load of different ways. I'm gggpod on Twitter girlsgirlsgirlspod on Instagram. I also have an email, actually remembered it this time. Girlsgirlsgirlspodmail.com y that is it. Drop me an email if you've got somebody's suggest or if you just want to say hello. I'm nice to talk to, I think. And you can also have a look@womensradiostation.com womensradio stn on Twitter, Instagram, all of the social medias and please interact with me. It is very pleasant to have a chat, hear what you guys have to say. So yes, next week I'm gonna be in Florence. Tell me if you can guess who it is and I'm gonna sign out. Please do join me next week. Bye bye. WRS Women's Radio Station Voice of Women Worldwide this is Amy Liu, Voice of China at Women's Radio Station. Welcome to future Classical Woman Awards with me, Stefania Passamonte on Women's Radio Station. After a long day I like to sit in my bath with a glass of wine and listen to Women's Radio. Kamross, Kate, you're listening to in conversation with on Women's Radio Station. To see what other programmes we have on Women's Radio Station, head to our website womensradiostation.com do you need mediation? We are the Aid Project Charity. We provide convict resolution and community engagement services. Our services include community mediation for neighbour disputes, family mediation for separating couples, special education needs for parents, carers and their children and young adults, as well as workplace mediation and restorative services. To find out more, head to womensradiostation.com or theaproject.co.uk Mirai B Ltd. We are a virtual PA consultancy. We provide remote administrative services. Our offering is diverse. We manage your calendar, we update your client database, we take care of your property in France and in London. We also offer bookkeeping and translation services. Would you like to know more? Please call 077-868-48998 for further information. Miray B Limited making the life of the business owner successful. Would you like to host your own radio Show. Would you love to be doing what I'm doing right now and be a radio presenter on Women's Radio Station? If you're passionate on your subject or topic, we'd like to hear from you, wherever you are in the world, about what's happening in your country, town or city. It's your station, your voice to women of the world. So contact us. Send an email to involvedomensradiostation.com. I'm Isabelle Manevy, an executive coach. Do you want to change a negative into a positive? We can do this by coaching you to rewire your brain using simple visualization techniques. In 20 years of practice, I seen this transform lives. For more information, look on Women's radio website. Call me on 07-984-422171. I'm listening. Women's Radio Station is a not for profit, community interest company. Supporting women is our passion. We're currently welcoming donations to help towards our running costs to keep this important initiative alive. To donate, simply head to our website. Every little will help. And now you're gonna listen to Natalie Darkin, presenter of who Am I? And producer at Women Radio Station. This is five fire questions with her guests. Ali, what is the one word you would associate most with dance? Creativity. Good word. Nice. Very well. Well said. Do you have a phrase that you live your life by? I don't think I do, actually. I think I like to believe that you can make an impression on everybody that you meet and therefore to give them your most positive self if you can. Very nice. Very nice. If you had to choose one food to eat for the rest of your life, what would it be? Chocolate. Any kind of chocolate or just chocolate? All of it. All of the chocolate. All of the chocolate. Now, if you had to pick one choreographer to watch for the rest of your life, who would you choose? I just finished choreographing west side Story where I had to live and breathe Jerome Robbins the entire time and I got given his book of choreo notes. It's the bible, we call it. And that was pretty amazing to see how he, how he thought and how he danced, how he created the dance out of the acting and the emotion first and then took it to the movement. So I would stick with him. He was pretty good. And then, well, I do love Fosse as well. So if I could merge the two together, I'd be very happy. Please. Thanks. And last but not least, if you had one bit of advice to tell your students about life, what would you tell them? Them I got told this advice, actually, by a headteacher that I worked with. I was having a really hard time, really, really difficult. And he said things only last for the next 10 minutes, and that's what you have to remember. And then if not, it's only the next 10 days if it's a bigger problem or a legal matter, which is what I was going through. 10 days. That's all it is, 10 days. And he was right. It was over in about six days. Thank you very much for joining us. It's been an absolute pleasure. And I've been Natalie. And you've been listening to Women's Radio.
