Episodios

  • S2 Ep9: What's Wrong With Men? With Jessa Crispin

    S2 Ep9: What's Wrong With Men? With Jessa Crispin
    Jul 9 2025
    “We need to figure out how to create political, social solidarity that is not reliant on some sort of fantasy that they have to see us, hear us, etc. That idea that we need to be in perfect harmony to work together is not going to happen. It’s a fool’s errand, a waste of time and energy. That doesn’t mean you can’t work with somebody…There’s so much energy wasted in the left on coming to consensus. You don’t need consensus. You need solidarity.” — Jessa Crispin

    I discovered Jessa Crispin shortly after Donald Trump was elected, when I stumbled across “Why I am Not a Feminist.” I thought it was going to be another annoying anti-feminist tome, or a moderate feminist insisting we need to be less radical. It was neither. It was so tightly argued, so compelling and thoughtful, that when her publicist reached out to me about appearing on the podcast, I literally squealed.

    Jessa is a cultural critic who talks about feminism, relationships, literature, and film. She has done SO MUCH. She knows so much. I adore her, even when I disagree with her, and I think you’ll love her to.

    Some of what we talk about in this wide-reaching episode:
    • Building consensus vs solidarity, and why the left in the United States is so ineffective.
    • How the Trump administration shifted feminist discourse.
    • What if we just got rid of all the men?
    • The zombie patriarchy, and why it makes everything so confusing.
    • Why Jessa believes patriarchy doesn’t really exist anymore (but don’t send her hate mail; this doesn’t mean she thinks misogyny is done or feminism is pointless).
    • Why women continue to enter into marriages, which serve as a key tool of oppression. Spoiler alert: it’s because marriage opens access to resources that are increasingly inaccessible.
    • The challenges of living a principled, purposeful life.

    About Jessa Crispin


    Jessa Crispin is the author of several books, including Why I Am Not a Feminist: A Feminist Manifesto, The Dead Ladies Project, and My Three Dads. She is the editor and founder of The Culture We Deserve as well as host with Nico Rodriguez of TCWD weekly podcast. In 2002, she launched Bookslut.com, one of the first and most treasured literary websites of the era; it ran for fifteen years. She is originally from Lincoln, Kansas, and currently lives in Philadelphia.
    Jessa’s latest book, What is Wrong With Men?, explores feminism and masculinity through Michael Douglas films. Her Substack, The Culture We Deserve, is amazing.
    I have links to all of Jessa’s books, as well as a long list of recommended texts, on the Liberating Motherhood Bookshop.org page.
    If you like this podcast or find my work valuable, I hope you’ll consider supporting it! Your paid support ensures I never have to take advertiser dollars, and am beholden only to my readership. You’ll also get access to one more podcast episode each month, eight additional pieces of written work, and membership in the Liberating Motherhood Community.
    You can also support this podcast for free! Heart-reacting makes a huge difference, as does commenting and sharing on social media. If you listen to this podcast on a podcast platform, please leave a positive review; it makes a huge difference. Oh, and tell the people you love about this podcast too!
    My next podcast episode will be out two weeks from today, and I’ll be talking about misandry, man-hatred, what it means to hate men, and whether I hate men.
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    1 h y 3 m
  • S2 Ep8: Understanding the Logic of Misogyny With Philosopher Kate Manne

    S2 Ep8: Understanding the Logic of Misogyny With Philosopher Kate Manne
    Jun 11 2025
    Misogyny isn’t really about hating women. After all, if pure hate explained everything, wouldn’t that mean that only mean men abuse women, and that misogynists never seek relationships with women? Men are able to mistreat women they claim to love because of the internal logic of misogyny. They’re not irrational or unhinged; they’re following a set of rules rooted in entitlement.

    Kate Manne is a philosopher who focuses on understanding what’s behind the misogynistic behavior patriarchy creates and enables. She envisions misogyny as a sort of disciplinary tool for reinforcing gendered norms, and preserving men’s access to resources—especially the highly valuable resource of women’s labor.

    We cover a lot of ground in this podcast, including:

    • The reflexive denial in the media of misogyny.

    • Misogyny as a system for enforcing men’s entitlement to women’s labor.

    • Why misogyny is not random and not mental illness, but instead a set of corrupt moral values that reflect the values of the wider culture.

    • Misogyny as more than mere hatred of women, and why certain women may be more impacted by misogyny than others.

    • How not to hate your husband after children…or maybe you should just hate him.

    • The normalization of all forms of violence.

    • The parallels between misogyny and fascism.

    • Fatphobia as a core element of misogyny.

    About Kate Manne

    Kate Manne is an associate professor at the Sage School of philosophy at Cornell University. She specializes in moral, social, and feminist philosophy, and has written three books: DOWN GIRL: The Logic of Misogyny (Oxford University Press, 2018), ENTITLED: How Male Privilege Hurts Women (Crown, 2020) and UNSHRINKING: How to Face Fatphobia (Crown, 2024), a National Book Award finalist in non-fiction. In addition to academic work, she regularly writes opinion pieces and essays for a wider audience, including in outlets such as The New York Times, The Cut, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, The Nation, and Time. She writes a substack newsletter, More to Hate, exploring misogyny, fatphobia, and their intersection.
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    1 h
  • S2 Ep7: Why is patriarchy so afraid of women's anger? With Gemma Hartley

    S2 Ep7: Why is patriarchy so afraid of women's anger? With Gemma Hartley
    May 14 2025
    Women are angry, and rightfully so. Yet everywhere we go, men tell us we are too angry, and that if we were just nicer about our oppression, they’d knock if off. Anger, though, is key to women’s liberation. Writer Gemma Hartley is here to tell us why.

    About Gemma Hartley (and where to find her)

    Gemma Hartley is a freelance writer with a BA in writing from The University of Nevada, Reno. She is author of FED UP: Emotional Labor, Women and The Way Forward. She has written a new book, No One Loves an Angry Woman, which will be out new year.

    Her Substack, No one Loves an Angry Woman, explores feminism, anger, domestic labor inequity, and more. She also has an amazing Substack for writers, called Creative Commitment.
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    47 m
  • S2 Ep6: Treating Children Like People Who Matter, With Dr. Naomi Fisher

    S2 Ep6: Treating Children Like People Who Matter, With Dr. Naomi Fisher
    Apr 2 2025
    “We depoliticize distress by locating it in the individual.” — Naomi Fisher

    Naomi Fisher helped me become a better mother without ever even meeting me. I stumbled across her work when one of my children was dealing with school anxiety. Doing so empowered me to take my child’s distress seriously and trust my instincts as a mother.

    In this podcast episode, Dr. Fisher and I discuss the myriad harms of authoritarian parenting practices, that focus on compliance above all else. Dr. Fisher’s work focuses heavily on school anxiety and refusal. Some of the topics we discuss in this episode include:

    • The weaponization of mom-guilt and mom-shaming to gain compliance from mothers and children.

    • Why we spend so much time teaching parents not to trust their children’s emotions.

    • Alternatives to forced compliance, and what to do when a child doesn’t feel like they can go to school.

    • Why catastrophization plays such a significant role in parenting.

    • Antidotes to rigid thinking, and what to do when plan A (or B, or C) doesn’t work.

    • Why the relationship with the child must always come first.

    • Trusting children to know their needs, and helping them to advocate for those needs.

    I absolutely love listening to Dr. Fisher, and I listen to this recording every time I need a pep talk to get through the hard times with my own kids. I hope it will have the same effect on you.

    About Dr. Naomi Fisher

    Naomi Fisher is an independent clinical psychologist. She specializes in trauma, autism and alternative ways to learn.

    She has a doctorate in clinical psychology from Kings College London (Maudsley), a PhD in developmental cognitive psychology also from Kings College (IoPPN), and a degree in Experimental Psychology from the University of Cambridge. She is the author of four books: Changing Our Minds, The Teenager’s Guide to Burnout, A Different Way to Learn, and When the Naughty Step Makes Things Worse.

    I urge everyone to visit her incredible Substack, where you will find so much wisdom.

    You can also check out her website here.

    Supporting This Podcast

    This podcast depends on you to survive and thrive!

    If you like this podcast, you can help me continue making it with your support! A few free ways to support include:

    • Leaving a positive review on your favorite podcast platform.

    • Liking and sharing the podcast on social media.

    • Heart-reacting the Substack post.

    If you really love the podcast, you can get more of it by becoming a paid subscriber. Paid Substack subscribers get at least one bonus episode of the podcast each month, as well as eight bonus Substack posts and access to the Liberating Motherhood community.
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    1 h y 11 m
  • S2 Ep5: Revolutionary motherhood, the life cycle of an activist, and motherwhelm, with Beth Berry

    S2 Ep5: Revolutionary motherhood, the life cycle of an activist, and motherwhelm, with Beth Berry
    Mar 19 2025
    The silencing and targeting of mothers is a deliberate act of damaging the next generation and attacking women. When we rob mothers of their power, we slow the process of human liberation.

    Beth Berry is a coach, mentor, and seasoned mother and activist who works with mothers to access their power so they can be changemakers. In this podcast episode, we talked about maternal activism, making friends, and so much more. Here’s some of what we cover:
    • How activists often experience a diminishing of their humanity, and an expectation that we should have limitless capacity and resources,
    • What a sustainable lifetime of activism looks like.
    • The depoliticization of motherhood: Motherhood is inherently political. So why don’t we see issues of maternal justice as political?
    • The critical need for community: how we build it, why we struggle with it and so often lose it.
    • Why self-compassion has to be a part of any revolution.
    • Activism as performance vs. real activism, and why our liberation work must also look inward.
    • Why mothers live in fear of traumatizing their children, and how this can be a tool for controlling them.
    • How the demonization of awkwardness has made it impossible for us to build community.
    • The misuse and weaponization of boundaries work.

    About Beth Berry


    Beth Berry is a coach, teacher, author, and mother to four grown daughters. Through her online courses, small groups, and retreats, she helps mothers deconstruct disempowering narratives, deepen and heal their relationship with themselves, better understand and meet their needs, and live more meaningful and liberated lives.

    Beth began supporting mothers more than 20 years ago as a La Leche League leader. Twelve years ago, she started her popular blog, Revolution From Home, which led to her writing a bestselling book, Motherwhelmed. Today, she teaches workshops and short courses, leads women on year-long healing journeys, and mentors others with a heart for gathering and nurturing mothers.

    She envisions a future where mothers’ needs are visible and well-met and seeks to co-create a world in which mothers feel beautifully supported and able to create lives they truly love.
    You can buy her book here.
    Visit her website here.
    Check out her amazing Instagram here.

    Supporting This Podcast


    If you like this podcast, you can help me continue making it with your support! A few free ways to support include:
    • Leaving a positive review on your favorite podcast platform.
    • Liking and sharing the podcast on social media.
    • Heart-reacting the Substack post.
    If you really love the podcast, you can get more of it by becoming a paid subscriber. Paid Substack subscribers get at least one bonus episode of the podcast each month, as well as eight bonus Substack posts and access to the Liberating Motherhood community.

    Liberating Motherhood is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
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    57 m
  • S2 Ep4: The shock of motherhood in a patriarchy, with Mary Catherine Starr

    S2 Ep4: The shock of motherhood in a patriarchy, with Mary Catherine Starr
    Mar 5 2025
    “I think about and write about this all the time, and yet I still think there’s something wrong with me that it’s so hard for me. It’s so hard to separate what we’ve been told…from the truth, which is that it’s not us.” — Mary Catherine Starr

    Patriarchy tells everyone motherhood is easy, and demands that mothers perform ease. The pressure to do this conceals the realities of motherhood, convincing us that the highly political challenges of motherhood are personal, individual failings. As a result, we spend our lives on a hamster wheel making lists, going to therapy, and trying to do better rather than demanding better from an oppressive society.

    Every woman thinks she’s the only one, but she is not. Because this is not personal; it’s political.

    Mary Catherine isn’t just a force of nature; she’s also my childhood friend. So we talk about how our careers have unfolded, too, including dealing with incels and angry readers.

    About Mary Catherine Starr

    Mary Catherine Starr is a mother-of-two and a graphic designer, illustrator, yoga teacher, and the artist behind the Instagram account @momlife_comics. Mary Catherine's work focuses on the challenges of marriage, motherhood, double standards, and inequality in both the household and the workplace. She is passionate about speaking up for women and bringing awareness to the mental load + invisible labor of motherhood. Mary Catherine lives in Massachusetts with her family and her son’s large collection of plastic dinosaurs. Her first book, a comic memoir entitled Mama Needs a Minute!, will be out on March 11th, 2025.

    You can follow Mary Catherine’s comic strip here.

    Buy her amazing book here.

    Follow Mary Catherine on Substack here.

    Visit her website here.

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    1 h y 13 m
  • S2 Ep3: The Patriarchal Playbook: How it controls both women and men

    S2 Ep3: The Patriarchal Playbook: How it controls both women and men
    Feb 26 2025
    The Patriarchal Playbook is my term for the set of canned responses, expectations, and norms men follow without thinking. This concept helps clarify why the behavior of sexist men is both predictable and often nonsensical. In this episode, Jeff and I discuss how that playbook damages heterosexual relationships and limits women’s options. We also go on a lot of sidequests, because we recorded this at night after not having seen each other all day.

    Jeff talks a lot about the norms into which men are socialized, and how they’re a poor fit for relationships or being functional humans, let alone being decent partners to women.

    We go on side tangents about my continuously failing weightlifting hobby, talk about why men have such bad hygiene, and have a fake fight. Jeff also somewhat randomly interviews me about the scope and nature of my work at the end. We also talk about the book I’m writing, and Jeff discusses his own pet topic: the police state.

    We talk a lot about my work on men and hygiene. You can find those pieces here and here. I outlined the specifics of The Patriarchal Playbook in my Weapons Men Use and Gaslighting Inequality series, as well as in this piece on what to expect when you leave your partner.

    I hope you’ll check out the newish Liberating Motherhood website, which has a TON of resources.

    As always, liking, commenting, and leaving positive reviews are all great ways to support this podcast, thereby ensuring it can continue!
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    1 h y 19 m
  • S2 Ep2: Talking to your kids about sexism and oppression in the Trump Era: An Interview with Jo-Ann Finkelstein

    S2 Ep2: Talking to your kids about sexism and oppression in the Trump Era: An Interview with Jo-Ann Finkelstein
    Feb 5 2025
    The Trump presidency presents parents with a host of challenges. How do we help our kids feel safe while educating them about oppression? How can white parents inspire their kids to be accomplices standing with the most vulnerable? How can we help kids assess the risk this presidency poses to them and act accordingly? And perhaps most importantly, how do we as parents manage our own emotions so we can help our kids manage theirs?

    Jo-Ann Finkelstein is an expert on talking to kids about feminism, oppression, and social justice. In the wake of the Trump election, she joined me to discuss how to have these conversations with our kids in a way that is productive rather than scary, and that encourages critical thinking at all ages.

    Check out Jo-Ann’s amazing Substack here.

    You can buy Jo-Ann’s incredible book, Sexism and Sensibility, here.

    I mention GLAHR in this podcast, which is local to me, but they have tons of information that is going to be relevant across the United States. Some other organizations I really love include:

    • Southern Center for Human Rights

    • Human Rights Defense Center

    • Black Mamas Matter Alliance

    • American Friends Service Committee

    You can find and contact your elected officials here.

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    1 h y 4 m