Strong Feelings

Can business be a site for radical creativity and social change? Join us as we go back to school with feminist business consultant Jennifer Armbrust. Jennifer is the founder and director of Sister, a consulting firm that advises companies on bringing feminist principles into business practices. She’s also the creator of Feminist Business School, an online course, and the author of Proposals for the Feminine Economy. We talk to her about what it means to bring feminism into business, what it might look like to build more equitable economic systems, and why she thinks all entrepreneurs should read some Audre Lorde. Listen to your body’s messages as guidance, instead of seeing your body as an inconvenience to work—which is what capitalism says. Capitalism says, “you could work so much more if you didn’t get sick or pregnant or have to eat or go to sleep!”... So, that’s kind of the first place I work. How do we bring your body back into your business and let your body have some votes on what happens throughout t

Abortion rights are under attack across the country—from “heartbeat bills” aimed at destroying Roe v. Wade to “crisis pregnancy centers” that lie to pregnant people. But Seneca Joyner knows we can fight back—by organizing and paying for abortions. Seneca is the manager of community organizing at Women’s Medical Fund, the oldest and largest abortion fund in the country. She’s also a Muslim, an anarchist, a parent, a historian, and...a joy to talk with. So listen up for a deep dive into abortion rights and access, what’s happening legally right now, and why Seneca is 1,000% sure that we will win. Our average pledge at Women’s Medical Fund is $128. And we often talk with people about that because what that means is that before folks call us...they have pooled their resources to bring money to the table, but they’re short, on average—for this extremely safe, regular medical procedure—less than $130. —Seneca Joyner, manager of community organizing, Women’s Medical Fund We talk about: Why organizing for abortion

Are rest and joy part of your daily regimen? Maybe they should be. Author and activist adrienne maree brown joins us to talk about her new book, Pleasure Activism. adrienne is a black feminist writer and social justice advocate based in Detroit, and Pleasure Activism will change the way you think about yourself, your body, and your relationship to feeling good. She’s also the author of Emergent Strategy, the cohost of How to Survive the End of the World, a doula, a facilitator, and so much more. This is an episode we’re gonna be sitting with for a while. Because the crises are so big, there’s a real desire to constantly be responding to these crises —there’s never a moment when we can’t justifiably be working because there’s so much to work on... But what ends up happening is we suffer because we don’t have joy, and connection to each other, and connection to our bodies, and connection to family, and pleasure in our lives. And that suffering builds up into exhaustion. That exhaustion leads to a depletion of

It’s episode 69, y’all—and that means we’re getting steamy. Author Jasmine Guillory joins us for a look at the world of romance novels: why they’re important, what people get wrong about them, and what it’s really like to write them for a living. Jasmine is the New York Times bestselling author of The Wedding Date, The Proposal, and a new book, The Wedding Party, which just came out in July. Her hugely popular romance novels have earned fans from Reese Withersppoon to Roxane Gay to, well, us! We loved hearing Jasmine talk about why she centers black women in her books, how she writes about bodies in inclusive ways, and why romance novels aren’t guilty pleasures—but rather a sweet (and sexy!) comfort in tough times. People of color have always embraced stories that weren’t about us, so we have known that everybody else out there can do it… These are stories that everybody wants to see. —Jasmine Guillory, author of The Wedding Party We chat about: Jasmine’s latest book, The Wedding Party. It’s about Maddie a

What’s it like to spend a decade working on your first novel, become a bestselling author, and still have the first thing people say about you be that you’re “adorable”? We talk with Korean American writer R.O. Kwon to find out. R.O. is best known for her 2018 novel, The Incendiaries. It’s a story about young love, religious fundamentalism, violent extremism, and coming to terms with the loss of faith. It was named one of the best books of the year by NPR, The Atlantic, Bustle, Buzzfeed, the BBC, and a bunch other outlets—and it’s finally out in paperback this week. It was a dream to talk with R.O. about finding massive success after working on her book for 10 years, loving literature she couldn’t see herself in, and why we all need to stop calling Asian women “cute.” I was desperately in love with an art form—literature—in which I physically could not and did not exist… the books I had around the house that I loved and still love were Henry James and Jane Austin and Edith Wharton. All these books by very de

What does community mean? How do you build one? And why do they matter—particularly for people of color? We chatted with Naj Austin this week to find out. She’s the founder Ethels Club, a new private membership club and workspace created by and for people of color. And while Ethels is definitely a spot where you can perch with your laptop for a few hours, it’s way more than coworking: we’re talking exhibits from artists of color, mental health programming designed to destigmatize therapy and connect members to therapists of color, and so much more. The first Ethels Club is set to open in Brooklyn in October—and that launch can’t come soon enough for the thousands of people who’ve flocked to her waiting list (including early investor Roxane Gay). So we asked Naj how she’s making it happen, what it means to build a business and a community at the same time, and why she’s committed to offering more than just a desk and some wifi to her members. People are looking for spaces where they can feel seen, celebrated,

When Mary Pipher first published Reviving Ophelia in 1994, she changed the way America thinks about teenage girls and their needs. Now she’s back with a new 25th anniversary edition of her landmark book—this time, published with her own daughter, Sara Pipher Gilliam. From student debt to school shootings to climate change to digital culture, a lot has changed for teen girls in the past 25 years. But many things remain the same: body image issues, anxiety, sexual harassment and abuse. We sat down with Pipher (who you may remember from the spring, when she came on to discuss [women, friendship, and aging](link to ep)) and Gilliam to talk about what teen girls experience today, what it was like to write a book together, and why it matters so much for all of us that we change our “girl-poisoning culture.” There’s a strange way in which girls today are never together and never alone. And so the primary building blocks of self—which is to be interacting face-to-face with other people and to be alone reflecting and

Talking about money is uncomfortable for lots of people—including us! But way too many of us aren’t getting paid what we deserve, and if we want to change that, then we all need to start speaking up—for ourselves, for each other, and for a more equitable financial future. So join us for this deep dive into all things work money: how to ask for a raise, negotiate an offer, and deal with all the weird feels that come up along the way. To help us out, we’ve got clips from our first Collective Strength event, where we were joined by one of our most fave people ever: author and consultant Karen McGrane. Plus, we asked y’all to tell us what advice you’d give your younger selves about salaries and negotiation, and a bunch of you answered! So we have tips and stories from folks at lots of career stages—all designed to help you feel more prepared to go get paid. The more you do it, the less emotional it becomes, and the more it just becomes a very transactional kind of thing. The only way that you get to that place i

Did your first management gig come with a small pay bump and zero training? Ours too! But being good at doing a job doesn’t mean you’ll automatically be good at managing people doing it. That’s where our guest, Lara Hogan, comes in! Lara is an author, public speaker, and coach for managers and leaders across the tech industry. Her latest book, Resilient Management, is brand-new this week. We’re huge fans of the way Lara throws out the playbook of a domineering boss who aims to intimidate. Instead, she’s all about nurturing, coaching, and sponsoring people— so they can grow and reach their goals. And she does it all with empathy, warmth, and humility. Love. Find [people] an opportunity. Put your name on the line for them, put your reputation on the line for them, and help them get opportunities that they are looking for. —Lara Hogan, author of Resilient Management We chat about: Lara’s new book, Resilient Management! Why there’s more to managing than just mentoring, and how to start sponsoring and coaching

What happens when one woman looks around her field and notices the leaders are mostly men? If that woman is Becca Gurney, she starts her own design studio, and creates a place that chooses to hire women, pay them fairly, and find clients ready to do the same. Becca is a Washington, DC-based graphic designer, art director, and founder of Design Choice. She’s built an agency focused on social justice issues that’s vocal about fair pay and offering work those who are often overlooked in the field—women and people of color. The hardest part is knowing what you’re worth and then sticking to it. I do a lot of research to understand what my worth should be and a lot of that research involves knowing what men who are doing what I’m doing are charging. —Becca Gurney, founder of Design Choice We chat about: How Becca makes a conscious choice to look for new women and/or people of color to work with on projects, instead of hiring the same people over and over—and why you should, too The truth behind being asked to wo

What if—instead of waiting on the right romantic relationship—two best friends had a baby together? This week we chat with real-life and onscreen best friends Miranda Kent and Danielle Weeks, the creators and costars of a new web series about just that: Baby Love. We loved hearing about Miranda and Danielle’s creative project, but we gotta admit: it was their incredible relationship that really blew us away. They met when they were fourteen, y’all...and they’ve been BFFs and collaborators ever since. Our biggest hurdle always is when we get together, we just want to talk. We don’t necessarily go straight to the work. So, a lot of times, we have to set a timer, we have to be really diligent. —Miranda Kent, Baby Love co-creator and costar We chat about: How to be successful in creative collaborations with a friend (we definitely took notes) Why getting through the difficult moments makes a creative partnership (and friendship!) better How fertility fears, a very British breakup, and true friendship led to

Did you know that women are 17 percent more likely to die in a car crash than men—and 47 percent more likely to be seriously injured? That’s because cars are designed for the average male, not the average human. This week’s guest is Caroline Criado Perez, and she’s on a mission to change that. Caroline Criado Perez is a journalist, a feminist campaigner, and the author of a new book called Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men. It’s an in-depth look at the ways everything from heart-attack symptoms to snow-clearing routes put men first—and what needs to happen to change that. Caroline is also a fierce campaigner for women’s rights, and has a certain knack for making her feminist campaigns go viral. As you might guess, we absolutely love her. You don't have to be nice all the time. Women are always taught we have to be nice and everyone has to love us. And actually, if you're trying to make change, that is impossible and you have to be okay with that. —Caroline Criado Perez, author o

Were you allowed to cry as a kid—or did someone tell you to toughen up and get over it? Nanci Luna Jiménez believes that too many of us were taught to shove our feelings down, instead of handling them in healthy ways—and that if we can’t release our feelings and process our hurt, we can’t dismantle oppression. Nanci wants to change that. She’s the founder and president of the Luna Jiménez Institute for Social Transformation, where she inspires individuals and organizations to deepen their commitment to social justice and create transformational change. And she wants us all to understand why building intimate relationships and allowing ourselves and others the space to release feelings aren’t just feel-good tactics. They’re acts of revolution. When we get hurt and there’s oppression coming at us, the responses we’ve normalized are all responses that eventually numb and isolate us. And if they don’t numb and isolate us, then they will come out and leak out in ways that become oppressive towards other human bei

If you’ve ever had a job, chances are you faced issues and didn't know who you could safely reach out to—especially if you’re a woman and/or a person of color working in an industry that is dominated by people who don’t look like you. Instead of struggling to get through it on your own, what if you could send a text and chat it out with a trained peer? Good news! Empower Work exists for just that purpose. It’s an online platform where you can get fast, free, and confidential support by simply sending a text message. On this week’s episode, we chat with founder and executive director Jamie-Alexis Fowler. I think so often when you’re grappling with the situation, it feels so isolating. It can feel like you’re the only person who has ever faced this, that you’re the only person who has felt this stuck. And, of course, it’s deeply, deeply personal. And that’s completely normal to feel that way—and also it’s important to recognize that this is something that millions of Americans are facing. —Jaime-Alexis Fowler,

One out of three people who are arrested in America can’t pay their bail, leaving them to sit behind bars for months while they wait for a trial—losing jobs, homes, and even custody of their kids in the process. Most of those people are black or brown. We talk with community organizer Veronica Rex about why the cash bail system is so broken, how community bail funds work, and how we can help bring home black mamas this Mother’s Day. Veronica Rex is a mother, grandmother, and activist with the Philadelphia Community Bail Fund. She’s also experienced the injustice of cash bail firsthand. Last year, she was arrested—and she had to choose between bail money and legal support. So she sat behind bars for three months before she learned about the bail fund. Now she wants to share her story with the world, and help more black mamas stuck in pretrial detention get back to their families. It’s like being in slavery again because you have to pay for your freedom. We should not have to pay for our freedom, and we should

Older women are the happiest demographic in this country—but you wouldn’t know it based on how our culture talks about them. Mary Pipher, author of _Women Rowing North: Navigating Life’s Currents and Flourishing As We Age, joins us to set the record straight. If you’re a woman, you’ve probably internalized a million messages about the horrors of getting older: changing bodies, diminished careers, invisibility everywhere. But Mary Pipher wants you to know there’s more to aging than gray hair—there’s also incredible resilience, growth, and even bliss. And the more we build those skills now, the better off we’ll all be. “It’s in everybody's benefit, not just older people’s benefit, to have a new way of redefining older people that is not in terms of loss and diminishment, but in terms of growth.” —Mary Pipher, author of Women Rowing North Whatever life stage you’re in, this interview will speak to you—promise. We talk about: Why ageism is probably a bigger problem for older women than agin. The resilience of

Indigenous communities face all kinds of injustice—from violence to poverty to climate change. Yet their voices are often absent from policy discussions. We talk with Seeding Sovereignty’s Christine Nobiss about what it would look like to follow the lead of Indigenous people, and why violence against Indigenous women needs much more of our attention. (This episode discusses sexual and domestic violence—please take care of yourself while listening.) Christine is a Plains Cree-Saulteaux writer, artist, and organizer based in Iowa. She leads several projects with Seeding Sovereignty, an organization empowering the political voice of Indigenous peoples. Indigenous women have managed to tenaciously keep our culture together, and keep our children healthy, and our communities going. We are the walking embodiments of a social impact strategy. —Christine Nobiss, decolonizer, Seeding Sovereignty We talk about: How Seeding Sovereignty empowers Indigenous peoples’ political voice How Christine got her start as an act

Are high heels oppressive or powerful? Good or bad? Beauty or pain? What if the answer to all of those questions is...yes? We talk with Summer Brennan about her new book, High Heel, which explores how heels aren’t just about fashion or culture, but are really about women’s place in public life. Summer is a journalist who writes about gender, art, and the political history of fashion. Her new book, High Heel, is part of a Bloomsbury series called “Object Lessons: Exploring the Hidden Lives of Ordinary Things.” What does it mean if the most feminine shoe is the shoe that makes it difficult to get from one place to another? In the literal sense, does that say something about our metaphorical ability to get from one position to another position? We chat about: Summer’s new book. High Heel is out now! Why high heels are such a divisive topic, and how Summer deals with negative feedback High heels and class: how what women are expected to wear ties directly to perceptions about where they stand economically Her

We hear lots of stories about motherhood and parenting. But not very many about moms themselves—except for ones where they feel guilty and exhausted all the time. Journalist Katherine Goldstein wants to change that. She joins us to talk about what it’s really like to be a working mom—and how she’s challenging the world around her, not conforming to it. Katherine is a journalist whose work focuses on women, work, and parenting issues. She’s also the creator and host of a new podcast called The Double Shift—a show that explores the intricate lives of mothers who work. She joins us to share her own experience, and the amazing stories of working moms—from a 24-hour daycare provider in Las Vegas to a candidate who’s running for office with three small kids in tow. The conversation about working mothers is very dominated by mostly middle class, white collar, urban people in big cities… usually through a lens of a lot of privilege. And those concerns that are raised by that group are completely valid and need to be

Jessica is the executive director at The Audre Lorde Project and an activist and organizer advocating for sex workers—first with Decrim Now and now with the brand-new Decim NY. Her passion for the work stems from her own experiences with gendered violence, homelessness, and the sex trade. We fell in love with her insight, her voice, and her incredible compassion. You will too. Those who are most vulnerable to sex trafficking are people who are already in the sex trades, just like any other industry. The solution to ending trafficking in the agriculture industry is not “ban food” or “end demand for food.” That’s not logical. The solution to ending trafficking is by meeting people’s basic needs. —Jessica Raven, executive director at the Audre Lorde Project and Decrim NY steering committee member _(Photo by Darrow Montgomery at the Washington City Paper) We talk about: Jessica’s work with the Audre Lorde Project and Decrim NY Recognizing that sex work is work Sex trafficking, The Mann Act, and the connection