Liberating Motherhood

Two weeks ago, I interviewed Justine van der Leun about criminalized survival, and why women so often end up in prison for “crimes” of self-defense. The truth is that women often end up in prison for behaviors that aren’t criminal at all—not just for self-defense or for killing. Today we are talking about the widespread victimization of women at the hands of the legal system.  Patriarchy specifica...

In patriarchy, there is no sure escape from violent relationships. The courts and police may not help. Friends and family may turn their backs. And even when a woman’s life is in danger, she does not have the same right to self-defense as a man.  Journalist Justine van der Leun began researching this phenomenon when she learned about Nikki Addimando , a woman who killed her abusive partner in self...

Rather than taking the summer entirely off, I’m reducing my podcasting frequency to every other week, and posting reruns of some of my favorite episodes during the off weeks. I’ll be back to full-time in the fall. In the meantime, I’ve made no secret that this one of my all-time favorite episodes, and that interviewing Loretta Ross is one of the most enjoyable things I’ve ever done. I hope you lov...

“There is always a reason for people to hate on women.” — Elizabeth Dalgarno Why is it so hard for victims of coercive control, domestic violence, and other forms of abuse to be believed? This is the subject Elizabeth Dalgarno has devoted much of her work to. A leading researcher on coercive control, Dr. Dalgarno has written extensively on abusive relationships, including on how they affect childr...

Exciting news: I’m writing a book. Less exciting news: This means I have a little less time right now. It’s also summer break, which means things are in a chronic state of chaos. Lots of podcasts take breaks over the summer, but I didn’t want to do that, especially since I have SO MANY amazing guests lined up for the summer. So instead, I’ll be mixing in some rerun podcasts this summer, to give my...

I’ve often said that there’s a concerted effort to get people to hate lawyers, and it’s because when people hate lawyers, they won’t assert or even learn about their own rights. Lawyers have helped lead every movement for social justice, and in the United States, are behind every imaginable civil rights gain.  Inimai Chettiar, an American attorney and President of A Better Balance, has used the le...

Mainstream career advice for women loves to pretend we can’t possibly know even the most basic facts about having a career.  We tell women to ask for a raise, as if they don’t know they work for money.  We tell them to “lean in,” as if the problem is just that no one ever bothered telling them to try.  We tell them to communicate better at work, as if women have never learned to talk, and as if me...

You’re being lied to about gender difference science. Researchers are inflating, overstating, and falsifying their data, or building biases into the research that render it unreliable. Stories about research inflate the limited differences these flawed studies find, and parenting advice suggests that we should treat girls and boys as radically different types of humans.  So we do exactly that, and...

“The adoption industry needs vulnerable pregnant women.” — TJ Raphael Who gets to be a mother? And who gets to decide? This is the question at the heart of TJ Raphael’s incredible podcast series, Liberty Lost.  Much of the adoption industry treats women as vessels for someone else’s child. Their trauma, their desires, their beliefs do not matter. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the right-win...

Patriarchy destroys relationships, and it has turned dating into a nightmare. Jennie Young is fighting back with her Burned Haystack method, and now the method is a book. Through her work, Jennie endeavors to teach women to detect red flags before they become obvious, and to thwart abuse before it happens. Dating is the most dangerous thing most of us do, and I have no doubt that Jennie is saving...

Why is misogyny so widespread, even when men claim to love and care about women, even among those who believe they are feminists? Male supremacy helps explain this phenomenon.  The Institute for Research on Male Supremacism defines male supremacy as follows :  [A] cultural, political, economic, and social system, in which cisgender men disproportionately control status, power, and resources, and w...

I wrote recently about how men are using AI to prop up their belief in their own superiority. This propaganda is nothing new. Men have, for thousands of years, used every tool at their disposal to spread false ideas about women’s inferiority and demonic nature.  Sarah Ruden is a translator, a classicist, and the author of Reproductive Wrongs: A Short History of Bad Ideas About Women. She came on t...

I’m on vacation this month, so am re-releasing this excellent episode with Dr. Emma Katz.  Content warning: This podcast extensively discusses all forms of intimate partner violence, some child abuse, and briefly discusses the death of a child, but not in graphic detail.  Intimate partner violence is much more than physical violence. Every physically violent perpetrator was, for a time, not physic...

Today we are going to be learning from the legendary reproductive justice activist Loretta Ross. Loretta is my feminist hero and role model, and I feel so lucky that she was willing to share some time with me.  How is it that a human rights movement rooted in the shared value and worth of every human being so often devolves into a toxic stew of abuse and hurt feelings? Anyone who participates in l...

This is the first podcast episode I’ve done by myself, because I wanted to speak directly to all of you. If you like it, I may do more.  On a recent AMA, someone asked me how I sustain hope when I’m surrounded by horror and despair. Here’s what I told her:  I know that the only thing that makes things actually hopeless is giving up hope. If my foremothers could fight through coverture, through leg...

“Black men have been held accountable for things they didn’t do for so long, that we have forgotten how to hold them accountable for the things they do.” — Kiki Bryant Men are stealing women’s lives by stealing their time. So why is it that we have widespread notions of women as spoiled, entitled gold diggers? The words we use matter. They focus our attention and make it easier (or harder) to spea...

If you like this episode or this podcast, please consider heart-reacting, sharing, commenting, or leaving a positive online review. It helps the podcast continue to attract great guests! Motherhood is a cultural, political experience. But in many places, especially the United States, we pretend culture doesn’t exist, and that everything about motherhood is both inevitable and an individual problem...

“Everyone is impacted by racism.” — Sabia Wade  We’re back! It’s now Season 3 of the Liberating Motherhood podcast. As promised, this season you’ll be getting an episode every single week. Please consider helping this podcast continue to grow by: heart-reacting on Substack, liking on your favorite platform, leaving a comment on social media, leaving a positive review on your favorite podcast platf...

I am so excited about this episode! Jane Ward is a brilliant queer feminist scholar who has written extensively about the harmful dynamics heterosexual relationships normalize. Her book, The Tragedy of Heterosexuality , has heavily influenced my own work, and I am so grateful to her. She’s working on a new book about parenting that we hit on a bit, but we mostly talk about what is going on in hete...

“White feminism is often about becoming equal to men, which makes you the leading oppressor across the globe. It leaves everyone else behind.”—Desiree Stephens  I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how we bring more women—especially white women—into the feminist fold. And then, once they’re there, how do we get them to embrace an intersectional approach that acknowledges and tackles the entirety...

Childbirth is an incredibly powerful rite of passage. The literal creation of life could be a source of empowerment, no matter how any individual person chooses to do it. Instead, patriarchy weaponizes birth as a tool of trauma and oppression that steadily normalizes the dehumanization of motherhood.  My transition to motherhood included a massive fight against the hospital where I intended to giv...

LC DeShay is a reproductive justice sociologist, as well as a doula and lactation consultant who has worked on the front lines of women and children’s health. I brought them on as a witness, as someone who has seen what we do to women at their most vulnerable moments. I wanted to talk specifically about the male loneliness epidemic, and how it is weaponized to extract even more labor from women at...

Violence and abuse are normalized in every aspect of our culture, and particularly in parenting. No wonder so many women tell me they didn’t recognize abuse until it was too late.  Authoritarian parents set their children up for abusive relationships , and they damage their kids’ self-esteem and emotional intelligence in the process. Whether you call it authoritative parenting, gentle parenting, c...

This month, I’ve been inundated with messages from folks who love the new pace of podcasts—weekly instead of every other week. I love making the podcast and love giving you what you want, but the podcast is a ton of work, and it underperforms in the algorithm. My data show that people listen to the podcast, but they don’t otherwise engage after or before listening, which pushes it down in the all-...

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what it means to be a public intellectual who also happens to be a woman. The constant criticism feels like a crushing weight that no amount of therapy, resilience, or blocking can render manageable.  Philosopher  Kate Manne has long argued that the abuse patriarchy hurls at women is a policing mechanism designed to punish women who step out of line. It seems...