The Gondolier

**Storm Wheeler** (0:02)
This is Radiolab, I'm Storm Wheeler, the executive editor here at the show. And I wanna play you an episode today that we first put out in 2017
And the reason is because I still think about this story all the time. It was both a real challenge and a joy to work on because it's the story of a person who had to face off against literally the entire world and against our most ingrained ways of seeing the world and each other all just to be who they really are. That person is named Alex Hai.
And in this episode, we meet Alex sort of in the middle of that struggle. And as you'll hear in the show, it doesn't end at the end of this story. So I got a hold of Alex to find out what happened next. So if you stick around for the end, you'll hear Alex telling me about a whole second act to this story, which honestly I found very moving. But first, I'm just going to play you the original piece, which is called The Gondolier. Wait, you're listening?

**David Conrad** (1:14)
Okay.

**Storm Wheeler** (1:16)
All right.

**Jad Abumrad** (1:23)
Radiolab.

**SPEAKER_5** (1:23)
From WNYC.

**David Conrad** (1:28)
Rewind.

**Jad Abumrad** (1:32)
Hey, I'm Jad Abumrad.

**Robert Krulwich** (1:33)
I'm Robert Krulwich.

**Jad Abumrad** (1:34)
This is Radiolab.

**Robert Krulwich** (1:35)
Today, we have the story of just how hard it can be to be who you actually are, when it seems like the entire world is doing its best to make you who you actually aren't.

**David Conrad** (1:44)
Well, I guess I could, I mean, this could be too many details, but.

**Jad Abumrad** (1:48)
The story starts for us with reporter David Conrad.

**David Conrad** (1:51)
So, for me, it was back in late 2014 I was living in Philadelphia as a grad student.

**Jad Abumrad** (1:58)
And at the time, David was applying for jobs. And one of the jobs he was applying for was at a radio show that was doing a series about international women's issues.

**David Conrad** (2:07)
And so I had this on my mind, and I was taking a bus to the university, and I just overheard somebody talking about their recent trip to Venice.

**Jad Abumrad** (2:15)
And of course, the classic tourist thing to do when you go to Venice is to take a ride on the canal boats, the gondolas, you know, go down the canal, maybe someone sings you a famous song. It's very romantic.

**David Conrad** (2:30)
In any case, the person sitting on the bus next to David was telling their friend that they had taken a gondola ride with this first ever woman gondolier in Venice.

**Kristen Clark** (2:42)
Yeah, and then we were like poking around and we realized like how...

**Robert Krulwich** (2:45)
But how did this become a we?

**Kristen Clark** (2:46)
Um, no, I...

**Robert Krulwich** (2:48)
Who are you?

**Kristen Clark** (2:49)
I'm Kristen.

**Jad Abumrad** (2:50)
Kristen Clark, also a journalist and radio producer. And she and David are partners and collaborators.

**Kristen Clark** (2:55)
I mean, and this is what was interesting is like, we realized like how big a deal it is to be a family gondolier. This is like, it's like a 900 year old tradition.

**Robert Krulwich** (3:02)
900 years.

**Kristen Clark** (3:03)
Yeah.

**David Conrad** (3:03)
All men.

**Kristen Clark** (3:04)
Yeah, all men. And it's always passed father, son, father, son, father, son, or like uncle, nephew down the line.

**Robert Krulwich** (3:11)
So this is like, this has been no ladies now, no ladies then, no ladies ever.

**David Conrad** (3:15)
No ladies in 900 years.

**Kristen Clark** (3:16)
Yeah.

**Jad Abumrad** (3:17)
Just think about that for a second. Almost a thousand years of all men, men, men, men, men, men. And then one day you get a woman.

**Robert Krulwich** (3:24)
Right. As a headline, woman breaks through 900 year old glass ceiling.

**David Conrad** (3:29)
I thought that sounds like a good pitch.

**Robert Krulwich** (3:31)
Are you kidding? It sounds like God kissed you in the lip.

**David Conrad** (3:34)
Exactly. It sounded like the perfect empowerment story, I guess.

**Kristen Clark** (3:38)
Yeah. And so we're kind of just like Googling it and like it's all over the media.

**David Conrad** (3:42)
It seemed like every outlet from The Guardian to The New York Times, to The Financial Times, to the Cedar Rapids Gazette, to newspapers.

**Jad Abumrad** (3:48)
It made it all the way to Cedar Rapids?

**David Conrad** (3:50)
Yeah, to newspapers in Germany and China and Australia.
And all the articles laid out the same basic story. It was this Algerian woman from Germany named Alex Hai, showed up in Venice 20 years ago, got around a gondolier's association that never wanted to see a woman become a gondolier and eventually became the first ever female gondolier of Venice. The whole thing, of course, sparking this giant gender war. But that was sort of it.