Misseducated

After a sturdy career in consulting and healthcare, Anu Sharma knew she wanted to make a difference. She just wasn't sure what kind of difference she wanted to make. Yet when she gave birth to her daughter three years ago, nothing could have prepared her for a near-death experience. Anu used her in-depth health knowledge to take herself back to the ER post-partum, effectively saving her own life. ...

"If I were a man, I would..." This was a prompt given to me by my writing teacher, Ann Randolph . It sparked one of my most-read pieces on my blog, and helped me discover my narrative voice. Enjoy!  Read along at tashdoherty.com --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/misseducated/support Get full access to Misseducated by Tash Doherty at misseducated.tashdoherty.com/subscribe

A fable for single women who want to find a partner. Disclaimer: you can be single and perfectly happy.  Read along at tashdoherty.com --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/misseducated/support Get full access to Misseducated by Tash Doherty at misseducated.tashdoherty.com/subscribe

In memory of Laura Johnston Kohl, a Jonestown survivor who went on to join another cult, Synanon.  Cults are a topic I find endlessly fascinating. But I wanted to know: how are cult leaders able to subtly and gradually influence their followers' beliefs over time? To find out more, I spoke to writer, language scholar and podcast host, Amanda Montell. Amanda's new book, "Cultish", explores the lang...

Trigger Warning: Rape, sexual assault, violence and sexual violence discussed.  I recorded this update a couple weeks ago. I've been going back and forth between sharing the true story of what happened to me. So, here is the honest truth. I'm so grateful for your patience, and thank you for coming to my TED talk.  Why have I not published an episode in 2 months? Well, you're about to find out. Sti...

I'm not the only woman who watches porn. According to Pornhub's 2019 Annual Review, 32% of Pornhub's viewers are women, accounting for about 13.5 billion video views per year. But Pornhub has tried to lump us all into a single category, "Popular with Women", and we don't quite fit.  Enter: Afterglow, and it's inspiring and authentic founder, Lilly Sparks. In this episode, I wanted to deeply unders...

Another episode not for my family or future employers... Here I chat with Founder and CEO of Afterglow, Lilly Sparks, about what it's really like to build a porn and sexual wellness site for women. I really see the incredible potential in what Lilly is building, because I've watched a lot of porn over the years, but I'm always bombarded with things that don't interest me: big boobs, other people's...

This week, I’m chatting again with Serena Schuler, award-winning writer, director and series-creator. I ask her all about how she got the crew and cast together for her current and most ambitious project, Makeshift Society, which is an Original TV Comedy Series about a female founder. We chat about about the importance of diversity in the cast, what it was like to have a baby during the coronaviru...

This week my guest is Serena Schuler, an award-winning writer, director, and series creator. She's piloting the first episode of her new series called Makeshift Society, an Original TV Comedy Series about a female founder. I liken Makeshift Society to the female version of the HBO show Silicon Valley, so I’m really excited to share this conversation I had with Serena today. What I also love about...

(Warning: We discuss sex in this episode). Anna Lee, co-founder of Lioness.io , has learnt a thing or two about the female orgasm from building a smart sex toy company. Here, Anna and I have an open and honest discussion about sex, masturbation, squirting and female orgasms, which frankly I'm a little nervous about putting out into the interwebs. Be prepared to learn a lot more about different typ...

How would you pitch a sex toy company to investors? Well, Anna Lee, co-founder of Lioness.io , is here to tell us. Whether it's hosting a booth at the Consumer Electronics Conference in Las Vegas, or fundraising from manels of venture capital investors in Silicon Valley, Anna and her team at Lioness.io have come up against every barrier in the book on their path to building a successful sex toy st...

Anna is anything but your typical mechanical engineer. She's the co-founder of Lioness.io , a smart sex toy company, which among other things, enables people with vaginas to track and measure their orgasms. Here I ask Anna all about her experience growing up, her path to becoming a Mechanical Engineer when she was studying at UC Berkeley, and how she got into building Lioness. Enjoy!  Follow us on...

In this episode, I continue my conversation with Lola, a cam girl and recent college graduate, as she looks for a job during the pandemic. I wanted to know whether she expected to still be camgirling after all these years when she first started doing it age 18. Is this kind of supplemental income sustainable? How has the pandemic impacted her cam work? How does it overlap with her romantic relatio...

What is it like to be a cam girl? To find out, I spoke with Lola, a recent college graduate who started as a cam girl when she was a freshman as a way to supplement her income from her various student jobs. In this first episode, I ask her about how and why she got into camgirling, how being a cam girl enabled her to explore her own sexuality, and how she built her following on Chaturbate. Enjoy!...

This episode is the final part of my conversation with Ruby, a college graduate, nanny and stripper who has kindly shared her experiences of sex work with us. Thank you, Ruby, for coming on the show! Here, we talk more about the dynamics of power between heterosexual men and women when it comes to strip clubs. Before this conversation, I didn’t know what sugaring was, so I ask her to define it her...

How can one person embody these 3 personas? In this episode, I ask Ruby all about how she balanced her life as a college student, nanny and stripper.  We talk about the labor rights of sex workers, when it comes to things like job contracts. She’ll also reveal some of the threats to her personal safety and the mistreatment that she’s faced when doing “out of club” work, to give you a heads up. Hav...

Meet Ruby, a young woman who entered the world of sex work when she was a college student, living in Los Angeles. Ruby has since done a number of forms of “body work”, such as dancing at a strip club, using the platform Seeking Arrangement for sugaring, and also informal “out of club’ work with male clients, which we’ll learn is more dangerous for her personal safety. In this first episode, I ask...

This is the last part of my conversation with Christina Vanvuren, founder of The Future of Femtech and Femtech Media Group. Here, she tells us all about the skills and techniques she used to scale her organization and get sh*t done, and how she organized one of the first conferences on femtech. You'll also get the inside scoop on all our favorite startups and products in femtech. Enjoy! 🥰 Insta:...

Welcome to the second part of my conversation with Christina Vanvuren, founder of the Future of Femtech! Here we discuss how becoming a mum helped Christina develop a broader understanding of the problems we face in women's health, particularly when she went through postpartum depression but had no idea what it was at the time. We also ask a very important question: how should we educate our daugh...

I sat down with Christina Vanvuren, founder of Future of Femtech, which is now part of Femtech Focus. Here, she tells us about how she left her corporate job, where she was miserable, and began her journey which would lead to discovering her passion for women's health. What inspired her to launch one of the first conferences devoted to femtech? Stay tuned to find out!  Insta: @femtechmediagroup @f...

In the last part of my conversation with Kristina, Co-Founder and CEO of Kegg, we talk about the cold, hard challenges for startups in the femtech space, and the discrimination female founders constantly face in trying to raise money from investors in Silicon Valley. Kristina has built Kegg, a medical device that helps women track their fertility and strengthen their pelvic floor muscles. Her cust...

Join us for the second part of the story of how Kristina built Kegg: a medical device that both helps us understand our fertility and strengthen our pelvic floor muscles (which is great for intimacy 😉). Here, I ask Kristina about the process of developing such a beautifully designed product that goes into your vagina. In just a few short years, she has brought this product to market, made revenue...

Kristina is the Co-Founder and CEO of Kegg, a 2-1 fertility tracker that also helps you strengthen your pelvic floor muscles. Like many founders in the Femtech space, her story of how she got started is an unusual one. Here, I asked her about what it was like to grow up in Slovakia, her experiences working in big tech companies and startups, and how she made her way to San Francisco and Silicon Va...

From all the research I was doing about egg freezing and extending my fertility so that I can pursue my career, I wanted to know: what is the oldest possible age I can have a baby?  To find out, I spoke with Dr. Fahimeh Sasan M.D., founding doctor at Kindbody, a clinic based in Manhattan that is at the cutting edge of fertility technologies and women's health services. Here, she shares with us som...

Egg Freezing is expensive. Then why are people doing it? Valerie Landis, founder of Eggology Club and Eggsperience.com is here to tell us her fascinating story.  I got some feedback on the last episode I did on Egg Freezing, and wanted to incorporate it to make the story better. Feel free to give me your feedback, and I hope you enjoy!  --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/misseducated/supp...