The Story of Woman

In this episode, I talk with Katrina Majkut about her book, The Adventures and Discoveries of a Feminist Bride, a personal and powerful prenuptial journey through Western wedding culture. Katrina demonstrates how there is no such thing as ‘traditional marriage’ or a ‘traditional wedding’, as both have been evolving for centuries, and she unpicks the importance of updating our outdated traditions t...

In this episode, I talk with urban scholar Leslie Kern about her book, Feminist City. We tend to think about our built environment as fixed and nothing to do with sexism, discrimination or bias but like everything else in our world, our cities are shaped by gender, as they were designed for one type of man, at the exclusion of women.  Cities aren’t built to accommodate women’s bodies, women’s need...

In this episode, I talk with Paula Stone Williams - internationally known speaker on issues of gender equity - about her book, As a Woman: What I Learned About Power, Sex and the Patriarchy After I Transitioned. A father, husband, and successful pastor and CEO, Paula Stone Williams made the decision to transition at the age of 60 and quickly discovered her life as a woman was not going to be as ea...

In this episode, I talk with Associate Professor of Sociology Dr Kystale Littlejohn about her book, Just Get on the Pill. A keenly researched and incisive examination, Dr Littlejohn investigates how birth control became a fundamentally unbalanced and gendered responsibility. Though it takes two people to make a pregnancy, prevention is seen almost entirely as a woman’s responsibility. In Just Get...

This is Part Two of my conversation with feminist historian Elinor Cleghorn about her brilliant book, Unwell Women. If you haven’t listened to Part One yet, we suggest you head there first - it’s Episode 5 of the podcast.  In Unwell Women, Elinor explores the history of medicine, exposing the fundamentally social, cultural and political foundations of medical practice and the long shadow that a tr...

This episode is Part One of my conversation with feminist historian Elinor Cleghorn about her book, Unwell Women - we had so much to chat about that the interview is split into two parts! Going to the doctor and seeking medical advice can be a big deal in and of itself, but what about being misdiagnosed, misunderstood, or simply not believed about your own body? These are all too common experience...

In this episode, I talk with Arab gender researcher and poet Farida D. about her book, Rants of a Rebel Arab Feminist.  Writing under a pen name to protect her identity, Farida D. writes about everyday oppressions from an Arab feminist's perspective while demonstrating how we are all connected under the one patriarchal system. Some topics of discussion include: What it means to be an Arab feminist...

In this episode, I talk with Professor Emeritus of Cognitive Neuroimaging Gina Rippon about her book, The Gendered Brain, which for our US listeners is called Gender and Our Brains. Since the day we are born, we face deeply ingrained (false) beliefs that our sex determines our skills and preferences - from toys and colors to career choices and salaries. Using the latest neuroscience, Gina unpacks...

Have you ever had a great idea which was ignored in a meeting, only for it to be wildly applauded and rapidly implemented when later suggested by a man? In this episode, I talk with Katrine Marçal about her book, Mother of Invention: How Good Ideas Get Ignored In An Economy Built For Men. From the rolling suitcases to computer science to addressing the climate crisis, Katrine illuminates how our w...

In this episode, I talk with journalist, broadcaster and non-executive director Mary Ann Sieghart about her book, The Authority Gap: Why Women Are Still Taken Less Seriously Than Men and What We Can Do About It. Unbelievably, there is still a huge gulf between men and women in the workplace when it comes to pay, promotion and authority. Referred to as “the mother of all gender gaps”, Mary Ann expo...

Wondering what The Story of Woman is all about? This episode has the answers! In this introduction episode, I talk about: Part 1: the story | 2:20 - 19:35 what is “the story of woman” and why it’s important what the story of humankind looks like when half of it is missing the social construct of gender, aka the performance of a lifetime woman’s “special” category, eg scientists... and women scient...

The consequences of woman's exclusion from our world are so deeply embedded that they are all but impossible to see, unless you are looking. Through interviews with authors of non-fictions books, each episode explores a different part of our world through the perspective it is missing: woman’s. From a man's world to mother nature, our world is shaped by gender. So when one half is left out, the st...