Women In Your Ears
Shanti Mathias | She/Her
My friend Bri started a podcast because she wanted to be on Spotify and can’t sing. The result is an ‘anonymous’ advice podcast, which is enjoyable to listen to if you know enough of her friends to guess at who is asking for advice. This is how podcasts are supposed to be, part of the same mythology as blogs: something that anyone can make, and anyone can listen to, accessible for free.
Still, podcasts are a medium, developed over the last two decades, and now replete with as many high budget productions and corporate sponsors as punters who decided to start recording something in their spare time. In podcasts, as with other mediums, power structures are replicated, and this includes sexism.
Many of the most popular podcasts are headlined by men. Reply All, a podcast “about internet culture,” is fronted by PJ and Alex, two men whose banter and teasing is a good deal of the appeal of the show. I’ve listened to a few episodes of The Joe Rogan Experience at the behest of my boyfriend, in its brash bro-ishness, although I understand that for many men, this form is an ideal way to engage with big ideas that they might not feel able to do otherwise.
Good podcasts—no matter who they’re made by—appeal to people of all genders. Certain podcast forms lend themselves to replication, making space for more women in the process. The Daily, the New York Times podcast which popularised the ‘interview journalists to learn about one particular piece of news’ format, is headlined by Michael Barbaro. Other takes on the form allow more space for women, including non-white women—The Detail’s Sharon Brettkelly, Today in Focus’s Anushka Asthana, and Full Story’s Laura Murphy-Oates.
Some excellent podcasts are about the issues that are traditionally associated with women: sex and fashion. The Spinoff’s On the Rag, with Leonie Hayden, Alex Casey, and Michele A’Court is bitingly funny, and provides an inclusive feminist perspective on a range of contemporary issues in Aotearoa. Hannah Witton’s Doing It! and Melody Thomas’s Bang! are focused on different aspects of sex.
Hannah Witton gets an excellent range of guests, from a Muslim woman who has had an unplanned pregnancy to an LGBT travel writer to a sex-positive Christian model. Bang!, made by RNZ, is completely delightful, carried mainly by the energy of its host. Melody talks to ordinary people and experts about experiences of sex and sexuality, including boundaries around kink and polyamory and how people stay with their partners, even if humans didn’t evolve for monogamy. There are also some extra-fun live episodes. All these podcasts use inclusive language (no TERFs in my feminist podcasts thanks very much!), and are welcoming and accessible to people of all genders.
When women led-podcasts are given big budgets, it is marvellous to see what can happen. Avery Trufelman’s magnificent Articles of Interest (a spinoff from Roman Mars’ design podcast 99% Invisible) has interlocking stories about fashion. The episodes on pockets, wedding dresses, and diamond rings are particularly recommended. For more feminist, more interesting history than NCEA exposed you to, Dana Schwartz’s Noble Blood provides elegantly written, totally fascinating stories of different royal people from around the world and how they died. The episodes on Carlota of Mexico and series on Henry VII’s wives are especially excellent.
With podcasts, it is possible for me to be making dinner and learning Chinese history; walking into town, and feeling infuriated by another country’s political situation. I love how podcasts can fill spaces in my life when I would otherwise be lost in the ordinariness of my own thoughts; suddenly, I am elsewhere, another part of the world spilling over into my reality. It’s vitally important to me that the podcasts I listen to reflect a world where women’s contributions are valued.