KCET's Women's History Month Line-Up
KCET is honoring Women's History Month with several documentaries throughout March. These programs celebrate the courage, commitment, and strength of influential women and their significant impact on the U.S., as well as the world. We also continue to air female-driven shows that challenge the usually marginalized roles of women on TV.
Although we revere women year-round, we're featuring articles and videos about women's history, community involvement, and work in the arts in honor of this heritage month. The stories from Artbound, Departures and Food, and programs, including "Artbound Presents Studio A," "Full Frame," and "SoCal Connected," spotlight female artists, musicians, writers, athletes, farmers, cooks, activists, and service members, among others. Learn more by visiting our Women's History Month site.
Here's our March program line-up:
Unsung Heroes: The Story of America's Female Patriots, Pt. 1
Wednesday, March 4 at 9 p.m.
Margaret Corbin shed blood fighting in the Revolutionary War. Years later in Afghanistan, Leigh Ann Hester became the first woman to receive the Silver Star for combat heroism.
Nurses have been in harm's way since the Civil War and thousands of women volunteered for service as Navy Yeomanettes and Army Signal Corp "Hello Girls" during WWI. In a world where frontlines no longer exist, America's female patriots confront the horrors of war like never before, and more suffer the effects of combat stress than at any other time in the nation's history.
Unsung Heroes: The Story of America's Female Patriots, Pt. 2
Wednesday, March 4 at 10 p.m.
America's female patriots pay the price of freedom as they shatter the brass ceiling one valiant deed at a time.
Women take to the skies in combat aircraft and change the rules of flight. On the high seas, a female admiral charts the capture of ruthless pirates, while on land, America's first female four-star general guides the military's transition from Iraq to Afghanistan. However, women are also held as prisoners of war in the jungles of the Philippines and in the deserts of the Middle East.
Meet Mary Pleasant
Wednesday, March 11 at 9 p.m.
This award-winning documentary presents a colorful look at the unsung and daring 19th-century African American activist Mary Ellen Pleasant. Born a slave, Pleasant went on to become an international abolitionist whose now called "the mother of Civil Rights in California."
Narrated by actress Ruby Dee, "Meet Mary Pleasant" interweaves an acclaimed one-woman enactment with beautiful photo montages and expert commentary punctuated by live re-enactments and song.
India: A Dangerous Place to Be a Woman
Wednesday, March 18 at 9 p.m.
British Asian journalist Radha Bedi chronicles her travels to India to uncover the reality of life for young women, six months after a medical student was brutally gang-raped on board a bus in Delhi in December 2012. She later died from her injuries. The story made international headlines and shocked the world, but was this an isolated incident?
Horrified by the attack, 28-year-old Radha returns to a country she's visited many times to explore the problems women and girls face there. Over the course of the documentary, she learns about current societal attitudes toward females, meeting young girls and women who bravely share their personal experiences of harassment and violence.
California Women Win the Vote
Wednesday, March 25 at 9 p.m.
The film uses both historical material and live reenactments to present the dramatic suffrage campaign that won California women the right to vote nine years before the federal amendment. The campaign became a role model for the rest of the country.
New Tricks
Mondays at 8 p.m. and Saturdays at 11 p.m.
Retired detectives with over 80 years of service between them are recruited to re-examine unsolved crimes. The squad is headed by Sandra Pullman, a detective in disgrace after mishandling a hostage situation. Adapting to new 21st century police strategies, not to mention working under a tough woman with her future on the line, isn't easy, as the three discover with plenty of comic results.
Scott & Bailey
Mondays at 9 p.m. and Sundays at 10:30 p.m.
"Scott & Bailey" is a British detective series that explores the personal and professional lives of Detective Constables Janet Scott and Rachel Bailey -- members of the Manchester Metropolitan Police's prestigious Murder Investigation Team -- whose task is to track down killers. The two detectives, one motherly, the other emotionally immature, have varying levels of success applying their eccentric outlooks on life to their police cases and private lives.
Borgen
Mondays at 10 p.m.
This internationally acclaimed Danish political drama from the producers of "The Killing" tells the story of charismatic politician Birgitte Nyborg (Sidse Babett Knudsen) who unexpectedly becomes Denmark's first female prime minister. It focuses on the personal costs and consequences of the people at the center of the political and media worlds.
Vera
Sundays at 9 p.m.
Golden Globe winner Brenda Blethyn stars as Chief Inspector Vera Stanhope. Vera is an experienced and brilliant murder investigator in the North East England county of Northumberland. Driven by her own demons, the workaholic detective faces the world with caustic wit, guile, and courage.
