The New Feminist

What really happens to your mind, body and sense of reality when the person you trusted most betrays you? Why is it so hard to get over? Jill is joined by her co-host for this episode — model, actress, author and activist Carre Otis and together they deep dive into Betrayal Trauma to understand why it hurts so differently than any other pain. Whether betrayed through infidelity, deception, addicti...

What really happens to a woman when she loses her mother? How does she find her way back to herself? The New Feminist returns after a year away. Our host Jill Sorensen lost her own mother and is back this Mother’s Day to speak with bestselling author and grief coach Hope Edelman. Hope’s mother passed away when she was young, an experience that inspired her New York Times #1 bestselling book Mother...

A disturbing new study published in The New York Times revealed that 2/3 of college age girls reported being extreme choked during sex, sometimes to the point of passing out. 40% of the girls said the first time it happened was as early as age 12 to 17. The porn industry’s uncontrolled mass promotion of girls being abused has been our kids' sex-ed for years - and parents are still clueless abo...

Heidi Basch-Harod, an Israeli American woman, is the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors and executive director of Women's Voices Now, and Nada Higuera is one of eight daughters born to Palestinian parents, now a Palestinian-American and attorney. After October 7th, they met in an interfaith Zoom meeting, and struck up a close bond and friendship. Pain, hatred and fear gave way to love, empathy a...

Shaynna Blaze is an award-winning interior designer, author, entrepreneur, a producer, musician, and Australian television personality known for the long running series The Block and Selling Houses… And if this wasn’t enough she is also the winner of Celebrity Apprentice Australia 2021.  Shaynna is also a passionate advocate for the safety of women, and a social justice campaigner who has lent her...

On December 7th The New Feminist joins forces with Deeyah Khan, Women’s Voices Now, Knock Out Abuse West and NYT best selling author and advocate Leslie Morgan Steiner for a special screening of Behind the Rage followed by a panel with the men and women who are fighting to end relationship abuse. Links and info about the event can be found on our website thenewfeminist.net.

From becoming an iconic MTV VJ, starring in Dumb and Dumber, writing a New York Times Best selling book, to being diagnosed with a life threatening disease today’s guest, my friend Karen Duffy has done it all and has wisdom and positivity in spades! With her son Jack preparing to go off to college she wrote her new book WISE UP: Irreverent Enlightenment from a Mother who has been through it all. I...

I saw this fantastic documentary at the Sundance Film festival called Victims/Suspects. The film follows Rachel de Leon, an investigative journalist at The Center for Investigative Reporting, and her incredible work to uncover a disturbing pattern in the US: A surprising number of legal cases involving young women who report their rape to the police, get charged with false reporting, and instead o...

Our guest today, super model and author Paulina Porizkova is one of the most visible women in the world, yet the last two years she has garnered a huge Instagram following sharing how invisible she feels as a middle aged woman. Something so many women relate to in youth obsessed America. Decades long ageism against women in advertisement and films has given us all a warped view of what we should p...

Our guest today Jewell Baraka, is brave. She has survived horrors that are hard to imagine. Her father, a deeply religious man, was popular in his community in Portland, yet behind closed doors he was a sociopathic monster. When Jewell was only five years old, he started sexually abusing her. By the time she was eleven, he trafficked his own daughter in to prostitution and porn, selling her most s...

Benji Nolot might just be the most effective arch nemesis online pornography has. He is the President of Exodus Cry, an organization that works to abolish sex trafficking and sexual exploitation while assisting and empowering its victims. They have led a tireless and successful campaign to reveal the horrendous abuses and misconceptions about the porn industry and together with other activists hav...

At 22 years old, Andrea Heinz found herself $60,000 in debt from a string of abusive relationships and entered into the commercial sex industry in Canada. She worked in prostitution for seven years and had over 4000 customer sessions. She even opened a brothel herself, hoping that the women she hired would suffer less abuse, but to no avail. Barely surviving the industry herself, she finally quit...

Jill speaks with Pernilla Sjöholm, one of the women who fell victim to the infamous “Tinder Swindler.” Pernilla lost her life savings when she was conned by a man she met on the dating app Tinder in 2018. The hit Netflix documentary “Tinder Swindler” tells the story of how the Swindler used the popular dating platform to connect with women all over the world and emotionally manipulate them into fi...

Jill speaks with Emmy winning producer and experienced human rights advocate Heidi Basch-Harod, the executive director of Women’s Voices Now, a nonprofit dedicated to driving positive social change for women and girls worldwide through the power of impact storytelling and film. Heidi shares the mission of Women’s Voices Now, the importance of empowering and uplifting female filmmakers through an i...

Where are kids getting their sex education? Their smartphones? In this episode, Jill speaks to Amanda "Mandy" Sanchez, program coordinator at Culture Reframed, the first organization to address hypersexualized media and pornography as “the public health crisis of the digital age.” In this episode, Jill and Mandy discuss the work of Culture Reframed, and their research on the impacts of hypersexual...

Jill talks to Rebecca Magnuson, vocal coach, singer and songwriter. After her 2015 divorce, Rebecca used her art to heal and tell her story. Her one-woman musical, She Sings, premiered in 2018. A television series based on the musical, “She Sings: Surviving the Narcissist” is currently in development with Paramount. 

Jill talks to Madeline Di Nonno, President and CEO of the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media (@geenadavisorg), the only global research driven advocacy organization working within the entertainment and media industry to create gender balance, foster inclusion and reduce negative stereotyping in family entertainment media.

Jill talks to Academy Award and BAFTA nominated actress, producer and author Mariel Hemingway about her advocacy for mental health and the tools she uses to build mental, emotional, and spiritual wellbeing.

Jill talks to Ayesha Sherzai and Jahan Shahryar, founders of Restore Her Voice. Since the fall of Afghanistan’s government and the rise of Taliban rule, Restore Her Voice has been connecting outstanding Afghan women to universities, healthcare institutions, political organizations, media institutes, art & music centers, and other personal development venues that will help them regain their voi...

Jill talks to Iliana Tavera, Executive Director at Haven Hillls, a nonprofit that provides shelter and services for domestic violence survivors and their families. In her role as ED, Iliana has been working to break the cycle of abuse and transform victims into empowered survivors. In this episode, Iliana and Jill discuss the cycle of abuse, and how it impacts all people who experience DV and thei...

In a special part two of "The Nightmare at Playboy," Jill Sorensen sits down to talk to Miki Garcia, a former head of promotions for Playboy's parent company, and PJ Masten, a "Bunny Mother" who managed the young women who worked at Playboy's clubs. You can hear more of their stories on “Secrets of Playboy” on A&E, a documentary series that uncovers the horrific reality behind the glossy façad...

Jill Sorensen sits down to talk to Sondra Theodore, a former Playmate and teenage girlfriend of the late Hugh Hefner to talk about her experiences at the Playboy Mansion. You can hear more of her story on “Secrets of Playboy” on A&E, a documentary series that uncovers the horrific reality behind the glossy façade of the brand and the man who controlled it. New episodes of “Secrets of Playboy”...

Jill Sorensen sits down with entrepreneur, investor, and financial advisor Kathy Checchi to discuss “financial feminism,” the importance of taking charge of your financial future, and economic empowerment for women.  

In the Season 2 premier of The New Feminist Podcast, Jill Sorensen sits down with guest Fraidy Reiss to talk about her escape from a forced marriage, her Orthodox Jewish upbringing in Brooklyn, New York, and her fight to end forced and child marriage in the U.S. with her organization Unchained At Last.

Donald Hilton, MD, is a neurosurgeon and internationally recognized expert on the neuroscience of pornography. Jill and Dr. Hilton talk about the ways that pornography rewires the brain, and explore themes of addiction, domestic violence, and the way scenes in porn model sexual behavior.