One of our favorite ways to stay current on issues affecting women’s health and rights is by subscribing and listening to podcasts.
What exactly is a podcast? A podcast is a form of audio or video media that can be downloaded and listened to on-demand at your own time and pace. The best part about podcasts is that nearly all of them are completely free, and you can watch or listen to them on your phone, tablet, or computer.
Are you new to podcasts and not sure how to get started? If you’re using an iOS device, we recommend this guide from LifeWire. For Android users, check out Stitcher. You can also stream podcasts directly from your computer using iTunes, which is available for download on both Mac and PC users.
We’ll start by sharing a few of our favorite podcasts that we recommend subscribing to for their regular content. Then we’ll share a few specific episodes of podcasts that pertain directly to issues affecting women and their families.
Recommended Podcast Subscriptions
CodeswitchMain Topic: Race in the United States
Description: “Ever find yourself in a conversation about race and identity where you just get…stuck? Code Switch can help. We’re all journalists of color, and this isn’t just the work we do. It’s the lives we lead. Sometimes, we’ll make you laugh. Other times, you’ll get uncomfortable. But we’ll always be unflinchingly honest and empathetic. Come mix it up with us.”
Episode to Try: “Safety-Pin Solidarity: With Allies, Who Benefits?”
CHOICE/LESSMain Topic: Reproductive Justice
Description: Produced by Rewire this podcast “delivers powerful, personal stories of reproductive injustice and the laws, politics and people beyond the headlines.”
Episode to Try: “When Is it Ok?”
The Longest Shortest TimeMain Topic: Parenting
Description: “The Longest Shortest Time is a parenting show for everyone, hosted by This American Life contributor and author Hillary Frank. From sex after parenthood, to biracial kids schooling their parents on skin color, to deciding whether or not to even have kids, Frank dares to tackle the topic of family in all of its deep complexity.”
Episodes to Try: “Babymaking While Queer” and “The Scarlet A”
Stuff Mom Never Told YouMain Topic: Gender and Culture
Description: “Hosted by Cristen Conger and Caroline Ervin, Stuff Mom Never Told You is the audio podcast from HowStuffWorks that gets down to the business of being women from every imaginable angle. Fueled by boundless curiosity and rigorous research, Cristen and Caroline are girls-next-door gender experts who skillfully decode the biology, psychology and sociology of ladies and gents, from their evolutionary past to millennial present, to better understand all the Stuff Mom Never Told You.”
Episode to Try: “Transgender 101” and “Why America Hates Maternity Leave”
How to Be a GirlMain Topics: Parenting, Transgender Issues
Description: Pseudonymous Marlo Mack is a mother raising a young transgender daughter in Seattle. Produced in partnership with KUOW public radio, “it stars the two of them — a single mom and an eight-year-old “girl with a penis” — as they attempt together to sort out just what it means to be a girl.”
Episodes to Try: “Mama, I’m a Girl” and “Red State Mama”
Recommended Podcast Episodes
“Being Single,” Holy Holy Podcast, June 1, 2016
Main Topics: Dating, Singlehood
Summary: “This conversation on being a single adult in America features Peg Birk, University of Chicago sociologist Linda Waite, Rabbi Andrea London, Emmy award winner Rev. Julian DeShazier, and Imam Malik Mujahid.”
“We’re Not Going to Have Karl Again,” Death, Sex, and Money, July 13, 2016
Main Topics: Infant Loss, Paid Family Leave
Summary: “Karl Ives Scorah Towndrow was born last spring to parents Amber Scorah and Lee Towndrow. Neither of them were prepared for how deeply they would fall in love with their first child. Amber and Lee’s time with Karl was intense, but brief. Karl died when he was almost four months old, while he was at his first day of daycare. He stopped breathing after being put down for a nap.”
“Inside Planned Parenthood,” Death, Sex, and Money, July 22, 2016
Main Topic: Women’s Health Clinics
Summary: “Many Planned Parenthood clinics across the country rely on security measures like these. The services provided by these clinics—specifically, abortions—have long been at the center of a raging political debate in the U.S. But it’s not very often that we hear from the people who rely on these clinics for health care.”
“Listening Beyond Life and Choice,” On Being, August 11, 2011
Main Topics: Abortion, Politics, Bridging Across Difference
Summary: “Frances Kissling is known for her longtime activism on the abortion issue but has devoted her energy more in recent years to real relationship and new conversations across that bitter divide. She’s learned, she’s written, about the courage to be vulnerable in front of those with whom we passionately disagree.”