Looking for Feminism Podcasts

July 20, 2010 8:36 AM

Suggestions for feminist/progressive podcasts?

Ideally I'm looking for something like Shakesville in podcast form, but I'm open to anything. Googling around turns up several programs but they're all defunct. And there's Radio Shakesville, but that's just about music.

Requirements: feminist/progressive/antiracist perspective. That's about it.

Any ideas?

posted by rossination to Society & Culture (6 answers total)

Bloggingheads.tv is a video site, but all the "diavlogs" (video dialogues) are downloadable as podcasts/mp3s. It's a trans-ideological site: they have many progressives, but also many conservatives and libertarians (including libertarian feminists). (If the site has any leaning it would be to the left -- it was founded by liberal Robert Wright -- but it avoids projecting an overtly progressive image.) They'll often have a liberal and a conservative conversing together.

Are most of the podcasts about gender or race? No, but plenty of them are. Any of the ones with John McWhorter and/or Glenn Loury about race are going to be worth listening to.
posted by Jaltcoh at 9:03 AM on July 20, 2010

Democracy Now
posted by Rudy Gerner at 9:14 AM on July 20, 2010 [2 favorites]

The Fatcast is a podcast done by Leslie from Fatshionista and Marianne from The Rotund. Fat politics is the jumping off point, but they also talk about a lot of other stuff. They are definitely coming from a feminist and progressive perspective.
posted by shamash at 10:23 AM on July 20, 2010

'Stuff mom never told you' from howstuffworks.com is an informative podcast on a whole range of topics relevant to women. Recent examples include 'Does polygamy ever benefit women?', 'How is the role of women in the military changing?', 'What is female circumcision?' and 'Is androgyny the ideal gender identity'. The people doing the podcast don't usually take sides on the issues being discussed, rather they give a balanced explanations of the different arguments and views and so on, and therefore couldn't really be described as feminist in their approach. But I think the podcast is excellent, very interesting and entertaining to listen to. Definitely progressive and antiracist. It's available from itunes.
posted by lizabeth at 10:39 AM on July 20, 2010

Nthing Stuff Mom Never Told You.

Though I will caution that, if you're a regular at Shakesville and the like, they might be a touch "feminism lite" for you. They often cave on stuff by declaring that "it's a choice", justify things traditionally considered sexist, and otherwise tiptoe around taking a strong political stance.

I've always got the feeling, however, that this is because How Stuff Works doesn't really know what to do with the podcast - their others are usually fact based educational podcasts where, even if a topic is politically charged, editorial constraints keep the participants from expressing anything too radical in either direction*. I often get the impression that their podcasters are vaguely right-leaning, though Molly and Cristen at Stuff Mom Never Told You don't necessarily fit that mold.

*With the possible exception of a few Stuff You Should Know podcasts where the facts of the subject matter straight up confirm various leftist ideas to the point where they can't beat around the bush and give credence their usual center-right "balanced" perspective.
posted by Sara C. at 11:01 AM on July 20, 2010

I recommend checking out the Slate Double X Gabfest. They discuss women's issues and current events. However, they only come out with new episodes every two weeks or so.
posted by upplepop at 4:16 AM on July 21, 2010