The Babblery

In her work in the Second Wave feminist movement, historian Ruth Rosen experienced a lot of revelations about the lives of women. But once that time was past, she experienced a different type of revelation as male historians described the 70s as "a decade when nothing of importance happened." [Platform listeners: Visit https://babblery.com for the full show notes.] For Ruth and the other women who...

What is swing and why does jazz violinist Nora Germain love it so much? In this short outtake from our full interview, Nora explains what swing is, how it feels to play it, and why she believes that everyone would love it if they gave it a chance. Listen in.  "It reminds me of sitting in a house, it could be a family member's house or just any house in front of a nice fire, and feeling a sense of...

At the end of my interview with jazz violinist Nora Germain, I realized that I had forgotten to ask her an important question spurred by her book. Why did she choose to write only one important sentence about her experience as a woman in the jazz industry?   "After many years of being underestimated, discarded, harassed, assaulted, fired, groped, robbed, propositioned, and abused, after looking ov...

Jazz violinist Nora Germain has been playing her instrument for 30 years, yet she describes herself as a beginner. Attracted to improvisational music from a young age, Nora knew that she wouldn't follow her family's classical music tradition. With no plan other than to leave home, she became the first jazz violinist trained at the top boarding school for performing arts, Idyllwild, then the first...

How does becoming a mother—or choosing not to—shape women's lives? Time and again, mothering is fundamental to how women do their work. Whether women choose to be mothers or not, the choice affects their lives deeply. Having children often changes or postpones career choices, but mothering also informs how women do their work outside the home. In this interview, you will hear how mothering or choo...

"I think most people will gasp when I tell you that I screamed—yelled at Gloria at one point. But you know, that's, we thought those differences were life altering, basically. And she just laughed." This week we lost a towering figure of second wave feminism, Gloria Steinem. I find myself not at all sad because I can't imagine a life better spent. Gloria saw the trajectory of her life change in a...

Abortion, race, and the second wave History records that Black women felt excluded from Second Wave Feminism. In this short piece, historian Barbara Winslow reflects on the issue through her experience as a radical feminist activist in Seattle. She traces the movement's roots to the anti-war and Civil Rights movements, but Barbara argues that there were complications that led to Black women's voic...

Barbara Winslow has been a political activist since she was a kid campaigning for Stevenson over Eisenhower in the 1950s. By the late 1960s she was a founding member of Seattle Radical Women and then Women's Liberation Seattle, groups that fought for legal abortion in Washington State years before Roe v. Wade. Her book, Revolutionary Feminists , is a hyperlocal history of that movement: the meetin...

Enid Baxter Ryce has just published a book that explores spells and incantations across time and cultures. In this short version of the full episode, Enid reads and explains some of her favorite spells. We also discuss the function of spells and incantations in people's lives. Please visit BABBLERY.com to listen to the full interview, in which we discuss magic and spells, but she also addresses th...

Artist, author, educator—Enid Baxter Ryce is on a roll. She's changed her careers on both sides: In her creative work, she is now publishing books rather than working with museums. As an educator, she is using her experience teaching students of all ages to train teachers on how to get students off their screens and back into the natural world. These changes have been heralded by a sudden-seeming...

In this short adaptation of the full episode, “Living within the questions,” women’s healthcare pioneer Merle Hoffman speaks about the importance of trusting women to know their own bodies and....

To call Merle Hoffman the owner of an abortion clinic is only to scratch the surface of her complexity. She's a pianist, a philosopher, an activist, a mother, and an adventurer in the world of spirituality. This is a conversation about courage, conviction, and what happens when we decide to trust ourselves.

Cindy Cohn, retiring executive director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, speaks about the controversies regarding restriction of online speech. Addressing everything from breastfeeding forums to human rights abuses in Sudan,....

LaDoris Cordell, Denise Miranda, and Cindy Cohn are three very different women who have had three very different careers. But all three have drawn their inspiration from using their legal training to make a difference in the world.

I went into my interview with Cindy Cohn of the Electronic Frontier Foundation ready to argue my case that anonymity is the problem. I came away with a more nuanced understanding.

Cindy Cohn’s new book, Privacy’s Defender, focuses on three legal cases that formed the basis for privacy and freedom of speech on the Internet. But it’s also a memoir, framing the issues raised by legal battles through personal choices and life events both mundane and momentous. In this unusual conversation, we leave the big legal questions behind and focus instead on our modern lives on the inte...

Denise Miranda is New York State's top civil rights official, the head of an agency that is charged with monitoring and promoting civil rights in the state. She's also a proud native of the Bronx, daughter of Puerto Rican-born parents, and a mother. On the Babblery, we discuss the passion for justice and rights for all that drives her work.

What happens when women's fight for long-delayed justice collides with our legal tenet of due process? In this Minibabble, host Suki Wessling speaks with retired judge LaDoris Hazzard Cordell about the #MeToo movement and how she reacted when she heard some women insist that we should "believe all women."

This month’s guest on the Babblery podcast is retired judge LaDoris Hazzard Cordell. I first interviewed LaDoris about her work with the African American Composer Initiative. In both interviews, she gives a passionate defense of what she calls today’s “dirty word”—DEI. In this Minibabble, producer Suki Wessling reflects on what it means to hold the door open for others. Read the full text on Babbl...

Retired judge LaDoris Cordell is known for her groundbreaking career as a judge in Northern California and then her stint as Independent Police Auditor for the City of San Jose. Join us in a wide-ranging conversation, from a segregated childhood, an unusual education, and an unlikely acceptance to Stanford Law School, to retired judge, community activist, musician, artist, and grandmother.