Toxic

Weaponized incompetence deserves a second episode, and this time, we brought friends: ThatDarnCha t, aka Laura Danger, propelled to popularity online by talking about domestic labor and its unequal distribution in many relationships, and SpeechProf , aka Professor Chesko, an outspoken feminist advocate on TikTok. Both of these talented individuals do the thankless work of tearing down misogynistic...

Happy Pride, y'all! We hope this month is super duper uncomfortable for all the homophobes out there! In this episode, we're scratching our heads over a [failed] Target boycott of a few people who are appalled by the idea of merchandise that would promote the idea of loving everyone, even * GASP* those different from us. Don't worry, we end with a recommendation of a place where only love and acce...

Weaponized incompetence is a manipulation tactic used by individuals to purposefully avoid sharing labor equally in a partnership. It's not only annoying as all hell, it can be a favorite tactic of abusers who subscribe to traditional gender roles and have no interest in stepping outside of them. Is your partner constantly forgetting how to provide basic care for their own children? Is remembering...

Happy (?!) Sexual Assault Awareness Month...? Maybe? Every 68 seconds, a sexual assaulter is choosing to assault someone. We need to talk about this. What does sexual assault look like—it's rape, but so much more—and why is it one of the most underreported crimes (spoiler alert: we're shaming women into silence)? With this many constant assaults, it was hard to pick just one assaulter to talk abou...

When Bonnie's husband decided he wanted to possibly kill her, rather than, oh, we don't know, love and respect her, Bonnie knew she needed to run. But with a toddler, a three-day-old baby, two big dogs and a 30-pound tortoise in her care, finding a shelter that could help her proved nearly impossible. An estimated 70 percent of domestic violence survivors have pets, but only a fraction of domestic...

It's Dish! The shorter (sometimes?!) version of Toxic where we rant about the newsy stuff that's chock-full of toxicity. Two weeks ago, the U.S. was collectively traumatized by its 131st mass shooting that took the lives of three kids and three adults, and yet all Tennessee did in response was a.) ask people to pray away the murderous rampages and b.) fire three heroic Representatives who said thi...

According to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, 43 percent of men in the U.S. have experienced some form of sexual harassment and or sexual assault in their lifetime. In 2003, Brendan Fraser became one of them. Philip Berk, former president of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and a man in a position of power, felt entitled to Brendan's body in that way predators do, leading to th...

This Dish covers a lot of bases: Taylor Swift is on tour and pulls a hero move that addresses a basic need many of us take for granted. A stalker is on trial in Wisconsin accused of murder after his ex-girlfriend's new partner goes missing, but his teenage daughter isn't going to cover for his ass. And will he or won't he-who-is-too-toxic-to-be-named be arrested this week? And will he actually see...

To All the Men I've Tolerated Before host Natalie Katona joins Amanda for a quickie (dirty) episode about the healing powers of disecting past relationships, why we find Penn Badgley alluring in You , even though we shouldn't (and he's told us not to), and more general musings on misgony.  Check out Natalie's other online presence, Still Comfy? a Youtube livestream where she and a friend dissect t...

Ready to be angry? Nikki Addimando was terrified to leave her abusive partner of nine years, Chris Grover, believing the only way she could protect herself and her two young children was to stay and try and endure his abuse, hoping he would stop eventually. But in the meantime, she collected evidence, just as we advise survivors to do—photographs, medical records, forensic reports—each time he ass...

It's all the toxicity you love to hate ...but less. This Dish, we're talking Women's History Month —it's time to remind yourself and others that women actually have done important things in history, politics, culture and the arts. We did stuff, ladies! Visit toxicthepodcast.com to see a list of children's books we love that celebrate women in history (for those little feminists in your life). We a...

We're launching something new here at Toxic. It's the shorter, newsy bits of toxicity that you love to hate, coming to you every other week in between our full episodes. Come laugh, cry and scream into the abyss with us about all the ways misogyny infiltrates our world on a daily basis.  In this episode, we're talking BIG NEWS about the capture of one of our previous murderous (allegedly) a-holes...

Did you know that in over half the states in the U.S., mandatory arrest laws denote at least one, if not both parties, will be arrested when police respond to a domestic violence call? As they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and though these laws were originally designed in the '80s to take the burden off a survivor of pressing charges on the scene, they're actually doing the...

Lately, it feels like the world is obsessed with diagnosing narcissists, and for good reason. There are a lot of assholes out there. But why this word? Why this diagnosis? Just like "fitspiration" and "situationship" got their 15 minutes of buzzword fame, now it's the narcissist's turn. Except, this one's a mental health diagnosis with slightly bigger implications. Is it OK if we all play armchair...

It's Human Trafficking Awareness Month, which is way less fun than what we celebrated last month but still deserves our attention. We nominate Greta Thunberg for our Hero of the Year for taking down trafficker and overall douche Andrew Tate through a tweet alone that damaged his paper-thin ego so much he led police right to him (through a pizza nonetheless!). Next, we're questioning Dana White and...

It's a brutal truth—abusive partners are the most dangerous when a victim tries to end the relationship. Nicole Sinkule was the kind of person who wanted to save everyone, so meeting a guy who was in and out of rehab for drug addiction wasn't a deterrent for her. She thought she could help him. Until, she couldn't. The night she told her parents she wanted to end things with him was also the night...

Ah, the dating pool. Like hell, but with cocktails. If you're in it, you know its horrors. Out of every 100 cishet male dating profiles, at least 98 are likely giving either an inkling of a future serial killer or someone holding a fish. Jenna, one of Toxic's hosts, sometimes dips her toes into said pool and then promptly jumps back out again. But along the way, she's saved some eyebrow-raising pr...

Survivor Rachel Bellesen thought she was free after escaping a horrifically abusive husband who started grooming her at just 15 years old. But his abuse never stopped, even after Rachel remarried. Even after her ex victimized other women—he still came for Rachel. In 2020, when she fought back, the courts called her the perpetrator and threatened to send the mom of two to prison for life or possibl...

Former Playboy Mansion live-in girlfriends Holly Madison and Bridget Marquardt came out with a new podcast recently, Girls Next Level, in which they walk through each episode of the reality show "Girls Next Door" that aired between 2005 and 2009. Coincidently during that same time period, Amanda may have also frequented the Mansion for parties, a period of her 20s that she looks back on slightly d...

We're back! Back again. Toxic's back. Tell a friend. One of the most toxic men of history has to be the guy we were all indoctrinated to heroicize as kids—Christopher Columbus. He sailed the ocean blue! He had three ships and we'll never forget their names! Most importantly, we were fed the lie time and time again that he discovered America. Truth is, he never even once set foot on U.S. soil and t...

"What doesn't kill you only makes you stronger." "God only gives you as much as you can handle!" Toxic positivity is positivity that's taken a wrong turn. It dismisses our true feelings, minimizes what we're going through and leaves us with feelings of guilt for being unhappy. And it's typically rooted in someone else's uncomfortableness with vulnerability. In this episode, Jenna and Amanda unpack...

The audacity of men continues with Alex Jones, conspiracy theorist who denies peddling conspiracy theories about the Sandy Hook massacre to make millions after he was sued by the grieving parents for millions more, and Andrew Tate, a random dude who realized he could get other dudes to send him money if he started spouting violently sexist bullshit on social media. This is the world we live in (wa...

Enjoy this mini episode devoid of your typical a-hole-ish abusers to celebrate us making it to 50 episodes of Toxic! Get to know Jenna and Amanda, how Toxic came to be and why Jenna can't cook a pizza in an efficient manner. Thank you for your support over 50 episodes of calling out and shutting down toxic masculinity poster boys. Here's to 50 more and counting....because, unfortunately, there's n...

All the women above, all women of color, were murdered in the last few weeks by men who decided that dealing with their feelings was just too much work and opted for a brutal homicide instead. So, you know, eff those guys.  Femicide is the killing of women because they're women, and that encompasses the majority of domestic violence homicide. Worldwide, every 11 minutes a woman or girl is killed b...

When abusive partners have access to guns, female partners are 500 percent more at risk for homicide. So in 2015 when police came to get Scott Bland's guns after his wife was granted an order of protection, confiscating 73 of his 74 guns wasn't their best call. Especially after he had explicitly informed his wife and the mother of his two children that he was going to kill her. "Looking back on it...