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Podcast Recommendation List | PART 6

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If you’re a fan of history, science or social science, do I have some podcast recs for you!

HISTORY

1 | Fall of Civilizations

A history podcast looking at the collapse of a different civilization each episode. Host Paul M.M. Cooper wants to ask: What did they have in common? Why did they fall? And what did it feel like to watch it happen?

Episode Examples: Roman Britain – The Work of Giants Crumbled | The Aztecs – A Clash of Worlds

2 | The Exploress

Join us as we time travel back through history, exploring the lives and stories of ladies of the past, from the everyday to the extraordinary, imagining what it might have been like to be them.

Episode Examples: When in Rome: A Lady’s Life in the Ancient Roman Empire | Alexander’s Women: Olympias and the Ladies Who Helped Shape a Conquerer

3 | The History of Sex

In today’s culture of gay marriage, trans rights, and a new politically-correct term everyday, things can feel a little chaotic. It makes you long for the good old days when men were men, women were women, and nothing could be more clear, right?

Well, sorry to break it to you, but…those days never existed. If there’s one thing the history of sex teaches us, it’s that sex and gender have varied fantastically across different eras and cultures.

Episode Examples: Toxic Masculinity in Nazi Germany | Did Da Vinci Omit the Clit? A History of the Clitoris

4 | Wonders of the World

In this podcast, we’ll visit 200 Wonders of the World, from the Pyramids to the Great Barrier Reef, to tell the story of our people, our civilization, and our planet. The world is filled with amazing places that reflect the greatest achievements of human accomplishment. We’ll discuss the history of each place and the story of the men and women who lived there. We’ll cover travel notes, examine what else to see while you’re in the area, and dig into the local cuisine.

Episode Examples: The Theater of Dionysus | The Pyramid of Kukulkan at Chichen Itza

SCIENCE

1 | Advice for/from the Future

Should I follow my boyfriend to Mars? Can I ask my friend to turn off her Alexa when I come over? Is it okay to have kids while the world is burning? Should I cryopreserve my dog? Your resident futurologist Rose Eveleth tackles the real, the almost-real, and the totally out there questions from today and tomorrow. The future is going to be weirder than we can even imagine, so let’s get ready for it together.

Episode Example: Should I follow my partner to Mars?

2 | Flash Forward

Flash Forward is a show about possible (and not so possible) future scenarios. What would the warranty on a sex robot look like? How would diplomacy work if we couldn’t lie? Hosted and produced by award winning science journalist Rose Eveleth, each episode combines audio drama and journalism to go deep on potential tomorrows, and uncovers what those futures might really be like. The future is going to be weird, so let’s get ready for it together.

Episode Examples: Easy Bake Organs | BODIES: Switcheroo

3 | Ologies

Volcanoes. Trees. Drunk butterflies. Mars missions. Slug sex. Death. Beauty standards. Anxiety busters. Beer science. Bee drama. Take away a pocket full of science knowledge and charming, bizarre stories about what fuels these professional -ologists’ obsessions. Humorist and science correspondent Alie Ward asks smart people stupid questions and the answers might change your life.

Episode Examples: Oikology (DECLUTTERING) | Quantum Ontology (WHAT IS REAL?)

4 | Short Wave

New discoveries, everyday mysteries, and the science behind the headlines — all in about 10 minutes, every weekday. It’s science for everyone, using a lot of creativity and a little humor. Join host Maddie Sofia for science on a different wavelength.

Episode Examples: How to Correct Misinformation, According to Science | How Bears Come Out of Hibernation Jacked

SOCIAL SCIENCE

1 | Code Switch

Code Switch is the fearless conversations about race that you’ve been waiting for! Hosted by journalists of color, our podcast tackles the subject of race head-on. We explore how it impacts every part of society — from politics and pop culture to history, sports and everything in between. This podcast makes ALL OF US part of the conversation — because we’re all part of the story.

Episode Examples: Unmasking The ‘Outside Agitator’ | A Decade of Watching Black People Die

2 | Nice Try!

Avery Trufelman explores stories of people who tried to design a better world — and what happens when those designs don’t go according to plan. Season one, Utopian, is about the perpetual search for the perfect place. From Curbed and the Vox Media Podcast Network.

Episode Examples: Jamestown: Utopia for Whom | Disney World: Celebrating Utopia

3 | The Happiness Lab

You might think more money, a better job, or Instagram-worthy vacations would make you happy. You’re dead wrong. In “The Happiness Lab” podcast, Yale professor Dr Laurie Santos will take you through the latest scientific research and share some surprising and inspiring stories that will forever alter the way you think about happiness. She’s changed the lives of thousands of people through her class “Psychology and the Good Life,” and she’ll change yours, too. Are you ready to feel better?

Episode Examples: Mistakenly Seeking Solitude | The Power of a Made-up Ritual

4 | The Next Big Idea

Think bigger. Create better. Live smarter. Ideas are coming at you every day from all directions. Where do you even start? Hosted by Rufus Griscom, and featuring thought-leaders Malcolm Gladwell, Susan Cain, Adam Grant, and Daniel Pink, THE NEXT BIG IDEA brings you the most groundbreaking ideas that have the power to change the way you live, work, and think. Each episode dives deep into one big idea through immersive storytelling, narration and curator interviews with the most interesting authors at work today.

Episode Examples: BOYS & SEX: Coming of Age in America | JOYFUL: Why Ordinary Objects Can Make You Extraordinarily Happy

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Part 5

We Remember: A Ceremony to Lament and Honor Women

Trish5 Comments

One of my least favorite things about the Bible are stories where women are neglected, abused, raped, and chopped into twelve pieces.  Worse than the stories themselves is the way in which God is silent about these stories.  When Abraham sacrificed his son, God saved the day by providing a ram.  When Jephthah sacrificed his daughter…she died.

One of my favorite things about the Bible is that it is full of people screaming at God, desperate to know why things happen and where we can find meaning in the midst of misery.  Although I still don’t understand why these stories are in the Bible, or why God allows so much abuse to continue today, I know that one way I can find meaning in all of this is to remember their stories and tell them again to a world that so often doesn’t want to hear.

“Those who seek to glorify biblical womanhood have forgotten the dark stories.  They have forgotten the concubine of Bethlehem, the raped princess of David’s house, the daughter of Jephthah, and the countless unnamed women who lived and died between the lines of Scripture exploited, neglected, ravaged, and crushed at the hand of patriarchy are as much a part of our shared narrative as Deborah, Esther, Rebekah, and Ruth.  We may not have a ceremony through which to grieve them, but it is our responsibility as women of faith to guard the dark stories for our own daughters, and when they are old enough, to hold their faces and make them promise to remember.”

-Rachel Held Evans’ A Year of Biblical Womanhood, pg 66

After reading Rachel Held Evans’ book, a friend and I decided that we wanted to recreate a ceremony she describes, a ceremony meant to lament the fates of women in the Bible and in present times so that their stories will not be forgotten.  It was an incredibly moving experience, and I encourage anyone interested to consider trying it yourself.

Based largely on the suggestions made by Evans, this is the layout of our ceremony:

Should we remember Hagar, Tamar, Jephthah’s daughter, and Lot’s?
Should we tell of their wretched lives to our daughters?
Should we speak on our lips the tales of torture, misery, abuse, and violence?
Would we do better to consign them to silence?
We will listen, however painful the hearing,
for still there are women the world over
being raped
being whipped
being sold into slavery
being shamed
being silenced
being beaten
being broken
treated as worthless
treated as refuse.
Until there is not one last woman remaining
who is a victim of violence.
We will listen and we will remember.
we will rehearse the stories and we will renounce them.
we will weep and we will work for the coming of the time
when not one baby will be abandoned because of her gender
not one girl will be used against her will for another’s pleasure
not one young woman will be denied the chance of an education
not one mother will be forced to abandon her child
not one woman will have to sell her body
not one crone will be cast off by her people to die alone.
Listen then, in sorrow.
Listen in anger, Listen to the texts of terror.
And let us commit ourselves to working for a world
in which such deeds may never happen again…

  • Read the story of Jephthah’s Daughter (Judges 11)
  • Light a candle: “We remember Jephthah’s daughter.”
  • Read the story of the Unnamed Concubine (Judges 19)
  • Light a candle:  “We remember the unnamed concubine.”
  • Read the story of Hagar (Genesis 21)
  • Light a candle:  “We remember Hagar.”
  • Read the story of Tamar (2 Samuel 13)
  • Light a candle:  “We remember Hagar.”
  • Light candles for any other women who you want to remember

We ended our ceremony with discussion.  I felt drained by the horror of the stories we’d read, but also furious.  The male privilege throughout was infuriating – men mourning the death of the son but not the rape of their daughter – men throwing their concubine to a crowd to be repeatedly raped and then using pieces of her body as a spiritual warning – men taking God’s will into their own hands and then discarding a woman when it is clear she is no longer necessary – it is MADDENING.

But I remember their stories.  And I let this despair and outrage fuel my work with HD, reaching out to women who have been sexually exploited and abused.  Their stories are also too often forgotten.  Their actions are explained away, their experiences become statistics, and laws never change.  But each of us can make a difference, beginning today, by giving some of your time to remember the dark stories of women who came before us.

“From this comes the Israelite tradition that each year the young women of Israel go out for four days to commemorate the daughter of Jephthah” (Judges 11:39-40).

I’m So Glad I Accidentally Got a Copy of Glamour

Trish2 Comments

Earlier this week, the newest issue of Glamour came to my parents’ house.  I don’t subscribe, and they both claimed the same.  I decided to read it for laughs and, I assumed, as fodder for a scathing review of women’s magazines.  I flipped open its pages, and quickly realized that…I liked it.  The editor’s page, “From Me to You,” featured a picture of curvy Amy Schumer from the side, and it didn’t look like she was sucking in her stomach.  My mouth dropped open and hearts appeared in my eyes.  I read the letter from the editor and found that it was humorous, woman positive, and humble.  Shocked and awed, I went back to the cover.

07-amy-schumer-glamour.w245.h368.2xThe cover title, about Schumer, is respectful.  Actually, it’s worshipful, not of her looks or romantic entanglements, but of her talent for empowering women and making them laugh.  There’s a blurb for increasing your sexual health IQ, and a hint at an article about someone fighting back against a victim of naked picture attacks.  True, there is fashion advice, but it’s either about a person’s face or their clothing–specifically, clothes designed for individual body types.  I had assumed that the cover would be fat-shaming and beauty-limiting.  Instead, I felt….welcomed.  Could the rest of the magazine be so amazing?

There were, of course, some problems.  The clothing advertised was ridiculously expensive for, I hope, most of their reading audience.  And the models used to advertise the clothes were disproportionately young white girls.  The magazine could do with an extra dose of relatability:  more women of color showing off clothes and accessories I might actually afford.

But these problems were so slight in comparison with how much I loved everything else!  Glamour has become an incredibly positive place for women.  It’s a magazine written by women for women about women.  I’m almost positive that only one page in the entire thing is about a man:  Paul Rudd, who gets a half-page interview about Ant-Man.

Although a significant amount of the stories are about health or fashion or other looks-related topics, they completely avoid a sense of shame or desperation.  I was prepared to groan throughout one article entitled, “The Real Flat Belly Diet,” until I realized it was about a scientific discovery that FODMAPs, not gluten, is responsible for the majority of gastrointestinal problems.  When the magazine addressed relationship issues, the advice was optimistic, self-respecting, and assertive.  The cover story about Amy Schumer managed to elevate sibling relationships (Amy’s sister Kim wrote the piece), celebrate having a career that you love, and promote body positivity.

Already impressed, Glamour sealed the deal with their article, “Meet the Woman Fighting ‘Sextortion.'”  As a teenager, Ashley Reynolds was manipulated by a stranger into sending him nude pictures in an ever-increasing blackmail scheme.  Eventually she risked calling his bluff in order to break the cycle.  When he lived up to his promise and shared the pictures with her friends and family, her amazing mom saw it as the exploitation that it was and defended and supported her traumatized daughter.  What makes this even greater is that the man slipped up, and the FBI was able to capture Michael Chansler, who had over 80,000 images and videos of 350 (mostly) underage girls.  He is currently serving his time in prison after being sentenced with 105 years.  Ashley Reynolds, now twenty, is sharing her story at law enforcement conferences and saving money to study forensic psychology.

That story was in Glamour!  Why have I gone so long assuming it was a frivolous magazine sharing shallow tips on how to look good enough to snag a man?  I was so wrong.  And since the magazine included a card to buy 12 issues of Glamour for just $12, I’m going to celebrate how wrong I was for the next year.