Election 2020: Bodies on the Ballot
Bodies, body safety, body autonomy, body rights. All these things are on the ballot in this election.
On this page you can listen to Body Kindness episodes that dive into some of these critical issues.
Podcast 160: Rage Becomes Her: Why Self-Care Won’t Save Us with Soraya Chemaly
In the countdown to the 2020 election I interviewed Soraya Chemaly, author of Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women’s Anger, which is an amazing book she wrote after 2016 election delving into the reasons why women can’t be angry without being called “unhinged” or a “b*”. In this episode she shares the historical context of gender roles and intersectional feminism to provide convincing reasons why self-care rituals fall short of any real solutions while remaining vitally important for us to do.
Air Date: October 2020
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Podcast 159 – Bodies on the Ballot with Jaclyn Friedman, author and activist
What does your body liberation have to do with voting this year? Everything. Everything is on the line this election, up and down the ballot.
Jaclyn Friedman, author of Unscrewed, helps me link body kindness to climate change, economic justice, healthcare, and more. In this lively episode chat, Jaclyn shares many ways anyone can get fired up to vote or help others get fired up… with joy and connection.
Air Date: October 2020
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Podcast 150: Racism Explains the Origins of Fat Phobia and Diet Culture, with Sabrina Strings PhD, Author of Fearing the Black Body
Sabrina Strings, PhD is the author of the book Fearing the Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia. We discuss how she was able to connect racism with fat phobia, control of women’s bodies historically and through today’s diet culture, and how medicine’s use of the BMI metric is problematic and harmful. We discuss why only white women’s bodies were subjects of control in historical fat phobia. Dr. Strings shares the history of the BMI development and its flaws. We share personal stories for how BMI and weight bias in medicine harms people today. Dr. Strings also shares how she was discouraged from even writing this book.
Air Date: June 2020
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Podcast 142 – Believe Me: Why trusting women is essential for collective well-being with Jaclyn Friedman and Jessica Valenti
I’m joined by Jaclyn Friedman and Jessica Valenti, editors of a new anthology Believe Me: How Trusting Women Can Change the World. We discuss why we need a book about believing women’s experiences are as credible and reliable as men.
Air Date: February 2020
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Podcast 124: Eliminating weight stigma from medical care with Jennifer Gaudiani MD, author of Sick Enough
Weight stigma is harmful to human health at all sizes. The medical community upholds weight stigma and harms the very people they should be helping by weighing patients without informed consent, blaming weight on non weight related concerns like earaches and wrist pain, and recommending weight loss based on the unscientific BMI measurement. Medicine must work from the inside out to eradicate the problems they have perpetuated. Dr. Jennifer Gaudiani author of the book Sick Enough has made weight inclusive medical care a priority at her Denver based telemedicine clinic and she shares her ideas for why doctors must act to eradicate weight stigma on this episode.
Air Date: July 2019
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Episode 85: Doing Harm – The Truth About How Bad Medicine and Lazy Science Leave Women Dismissed, Misdiagnosed, and Sick with feminist author Maya Dusenbery
I chat to Maya Dusenbery about her new book, Doing Harm: The Truth About How Bad Medicine and Lazy Science Leave Women Dismissed, Misdiagnosed, and Sick. We spend our conversation talking about the book and all that she discovered about the history of ignoring and/or disbelieving women’s pain and the deep, systemic problems that underlie women’s experiences of feeling dismissed by the medical system.
Editor of the award-winning site Feministing.com, Maya brings together scientific and sociological research, interviews with doctors and researchers, and personal stories from women across the country to provide the first comprehensive, accessible look at how sexism in medicine harms women today.
Episode 86: Racial Disparities in Pregnancy Outcomes with “The Radical Doula” Miriam Zoila Pérez
Racism harms pregnant women— toxic stress harms pregnant women. What can we do about it in the short term and the long run? Continuing my women’s health series, I’m excited that my guest today is writer and activist Miriam Zoila Pérez. We talk about the impact of racism on health. We also talk about toxic stress – what that is, how it builds up, and the impact it can make as early as childhood. Miriam then shares the three core areas where her current research is focusing that she sees as possible solutions for safer pregnancy outcomes for women of color.
Air Date: June 2018
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Episode 75: Your Body Is Not an Apology, with Author, Poet, and Activist Sonya Renee Taylor
Are you in need of some radical self-love? This is your Body Kindness episode.
Sonya Renee Taylor is the Founder and Radical Executive Officer of The Body is Not An Apology, a digital media and education company promoting radical self-love and body empowerment as the foundational tool for social justice and global transformation.
Air Date: April 2018
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Episode 65: So You Want to Talk About Race with Ijeoma Oluo
Ijeoma Oluo wants us to talk about race. In her book, So You Want to Talk About Race (Seal Press) she breaks down the barriers and explains, in simple terms and with lively examples, key concepts of privilege, intersectionality, microagressions, cultural appropriation, and more.
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Air Date: January 2018
Episode 57: Get ‘Unscrewed’ in this #MeToo world with Jaclyn Friedman, activist and author of Unscrewed
Politics, Hollywood, and your neighborhood. Sexual abuse is happening everywhere and people are speaking up. And finally we’re believing them. If you’re shaking your head at Charlie Rose, Roy Moore, Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey (and others) you’re probably wondering what you can do about it. I chat to author and activist Jaclyn Friedman: Unscrewed: Women, Sex, Power and How to Stop Letting the System Screw Us All.
Air Date: November 2017
