We’ve put together some of our favourite episodes highlighting the struggles and achievements of women throughout contemporary history. Listen in as authors Carol J. Adams, Ayanna Dozier, Jenn Pelly, Rafia Zakaria and Kate Kirkpatrick discuss everything from feminism, sexuality, misogyny, anti-Blackness, Islamophobia, veganism, and more. These are five conversations you don’t want to miss.
1. The Sexual Politics of Meat with Carol J. Adams
Carol J. Adams is an activist and author of The Pornography of Meat, Living Among Meat Eaters, Burger, and many other books challenging a misogynistic, meat-eating world. She is a sought-after speaker throughout North America and Europe, and has been invited to more than 100 campuses to show “The Sexual Politics of Meat Slide Show,” which is continually being updated to include contemporary cultural representations.
In this episode, she discusses the interplay between contemporary society’s ingrained misogyny and its obsession with meat and masculinity. She offers us arevolutionary insight into the way feminist theory logically contains a vegan critique through overlaps in cultural images of sexual violence against women, as well as the fragmentation and dismemberment of nature and the body in Western culture. If you’re interested in the deeper connections between veganism, capitalism and the climate crisis then this episode is for you.
2. Janet Jackson’s The Velvet Rope with Ayanna Dozier
The question of control for Black women is a costly one. For Janet Jackson, it went beyond her desire for economic and creative control over her career. As heard in her sixth album The Velvet Rope, she explores the existential question about the desire to control and be in control over her bodily integrity as a Black woman. In this episode, Ayanna Dozier – author, filmmaker, and performance artist – shares her experience writing about The Velvet Rope for our 33 1/3 series, while tackling Black women’s sexuality and bodily autonomy, technophilia, online structures of oppression, and much more.
Join us as we delve into a pivotal album in Janet Jackson’s career through the lens of Black feminist poetics. The album stands out as a revelatory expression of emotional vulnerability by the singer, one that many other artists have followed in the 20-plus years since its release. This episode is for anyone curious about Janet Jackson’s life, legacy and the influence she still has on artists today.
3. The Raincoats’ The Raincoats with Jenn Pelly
The Raincoats reinvented punk in 1979 from the basement of a London squat. They had a violin player, their anarchy was poetic, and they came from Portugal, Spain, and England. Working with the iconic Rough Trade Records at its radical beginnings, they were the first group of punk women to actively call themselves feminists.
In this episode, author and journalist Jenn Pelly tells the story of the group’s audacious debut album, which Kurt Cobain once called “wonderfully classic scripture.” She transports us back to a world of indie record stores, feminist ideals, DIY music, and a fight against capitalism as she discusses four independently talented women, their work as artists, and their impact as a group. Explore their history, songs, opinions, and culture with someone who traveled to London to speak with the Raincoats themselves.
4. Veil with Rafia Zakaria
Rafia Zakaria is an author, attorney, political philosopher, and human rights activist. In this episode, she helps us consider the veil from a range of perspectives, including her own. The veil is an object in constant transformation and can be an instrument of feminist empowerment, with a myriad of meanings that challenge the absolute truths of patriarchy and Islamophobia. From personal encounters with the veil in France (where it is banned) to Iran (where it is compulsory), she discusses how the garment’s reputation as a pre-modern relic is fraught and up for grabs. This episode takes a closer look at the veil in relation to women, aesthetics, power, and identity – perfect for anyone looking to join the conversation.
5. Becoming Beauvoir with Kate Kirkpatrick
In this episode, we sat down to talk to author Kate Kirkpatrick, an expert on Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir who has written several books on them both, including Sartre and Theology and the Bloomsbury biography Becoming Beauvoir. Though skeptics have claimed Beauvoir’s ideas to be a simple reiteration of Sartre’s, recent discoveries have revealed the ingenuity of her philosophy.
After the release of these never-before-published diaries and letters, we discussed everything about Beauvoir, from her childhood, to her personal relationships, to her commitment to social justice movements such as the decolonization of Algeria.
We hope you enjoy these episodes. Drop us a message on our socials and let us know what you think. Happy listening!