Feed the Matriarchy

In this episode of Feed the Matriarchy , we are joined by Amanda Pyle, a powerhouse leader in disability advocacy, to discuss the radical act of taking up space physically, emotionally, and historically. We dive deep into the exhausting reality of "auditing" our own presence to make others comfortable and explore how to pivot from asking for permission to expecting others to move for us. From navi...

In this episode of Feed the Matriarchy , Heather and Johanna sit down with Deb Benfield (MEd, RDN/LDN, RYT, she/her) and author of Unapologetic Aging , for a powerful conversation on what it means to age on our own terms. Together, they unpack how diet culture and ageism keep us chasing control, youth, and “relevance,” and how stepping outside of those narratives creates space for something far mo...

In this episode of Feed the Matriarchy , Johanna and Heather dig into the ways women’s bodies have been turned into commodities—measured, controlled, and constantly evaluated. We talk about body fascism, the cultural pressure to keep women small and manageable, and how diet culture functions as a tool of the patriarchy. But we also explore the antidote: body autonomy. What happens when women stop...

In this episode, Johanna and Heather bring in special guest Christina Hartmen (she/her) to dig into intuition—how we reclaim it after a lifetime of being told not to trust ourselves. They talk about taking up space, unlearning the scripts around women’s worth, and why self-trust is a radical act. Christina shares her own journey of following intuition, embracing vulnerability, and redefining succe...

In this episode of Feed the Matriarchy , Heather and Johanna are joined by sociologist Ignacia Eschelbach (she/her) to unpack how bodies come to be labeled “normal” or “deviant”—and who benefits from those classifications. From “too thin” to “too fat,” “too much” to “not enough,” they explore how the rubric for women’s bodies is constantly shifting, ensuring perpetual failure by design. Together,...

In our first-ever guest episode, Heather and Johanna sit down with Jenn Heettner (she/her) to unpack the profound, often messy, and beautiful transition known as matrescence . Much like adolescence, the shift into motherhood is a total identity overhaul, yet society often expects us to navigate it quietly. Jenn joins them to discuss the radical act of taking up space —emotionally, physically, and...

In this follow-up to our deep dive into the diets, Heather and Johanna explore the quiet, often radical act of rediscovering your own autonomy. Now that we’ve started to dismantle the external rules, we’re asking the big question: What comes next? They discuss the messy, beautiful process of tuning back into your inner voice and learning to trust your intuition after years of being told it couldn'...

In this episode, Heather and Johanna pull back the curtain on the relentless cycle of the diet industry, tracing its history and the ways it has shaped our relationship with food. They get vulnerable about their own years of "experimentation" from the fad diets that promised everything to the quiet exhaustion of constant restriction. They share their personal histories of diets and when they final...

In the first episode of Feed the Matriarchy , Heather and Johanna kick off the podcast by talking about where they learned to shrink-- bodies, voices, and needs—and why unlearning that conditioning matters now more than ever. From diet culture to motherhood to the quiet ways women are taught to disappear, this episode sets the foundation for a podcast rooted in nourishment, nuance, and resistance