Discourse: The Grabbing Back podcast: Recent Episodes
Grabbing Back
Join me, Cyara, as I chat to a range of individuals about their views and experiences of feminism and feminist theory. From the seasoned academic to the lifelong activist, to young people just starting out on their feminist journey, we explore many different perspectives on what feminism means today, it’s history, and the future we’re trying to create. Pull up a metaphorical seat at our kitchen table, and prepare yourself for some truly excellent chinwags.
Nancy has spent her career working towards social justice and the realisation of universal human rights in fields ranging from mental health and poverty eradication to refugee protection. Until July she was the CEO of the charity Stonewall and as such worked as part of the movement in the UK and around the world. She is now helping small start up organisations in the same fields.We talked about where the backlash comes from, what the solution is (if any), the historical evidence of backlash against various activist movements and so many more incredibly interesting and timely things.Finally, thank you for coming with us on the journey of listening to our podcast this season. We delved into Money, Nature, the Body and the Home from a feminist lens and we’re so proud of what we produced. If you haven’t, go to our website to read our articles and definitions as well as going back to episodes you may have missed, and if you know anyone that might be interested or benefit from Grabbing Back - send them our way! See you in the next season!
Resources mentioned
- Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg
- The Feminist Killjoy Handbook by Sara Ahmed
- Trans+ History Week
For today's episode, we sat down with Dr. Mary-Ann Stephenson, Director of the Women’s Budget Group, to discuss women and money.
The UK Women’s Budget Group is the UK’s leading feminist economics think tank that provides evidence and proposes policy alternatives for a gender-equal economy. They are the link between academia, the women’s voluntary sector and progressive economics think tanks.
In this episode we talk about the financial repercussions of unpaid are, the impact of austerity on gender equality, the flaws of classic economics theory and the importance of reforming our childcare system.
We also discuss financial abuse, if you'd like to skip this part, it's from minute 30:00 to minute 38:30. 1 in 5 women in the UK experience financial abuse, if you or someone you know needs help, consult the resources on Surviving Economic Abuse.
Discussed in this episode:
- Universal Credit and financial abuse: exploring the links
- A Home of Her Own: Housing and Women
Recommended books:
- Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist by Kate Raworth
- Who Cooked Adam Smith's Dinner?: A Story About Women and Economics by Katrine Marcal (Translated by Saskia Vogel)
You can find us on our website, instagram and twitter to keep up with new episodes, articles and definitions.
On today's episode we are joined by Laura Danger, a licensed educator, certified coach and creator from Chicago who has been teaching and facilitating for over 12 years. Laura, also known by her social media handle as thatdarnchat, uses her incredibly successful social presence to empower overwhelmed caregivers to value their own time and the priceless care labour they provide.
She popularised the term Weaponised Incompetence (referring to people, mainly men, who deliberately do a task poorly in order to not be asked to do it again) and regularly speaks of domestic labour, sexism and systems of oppression. In this episode, we delve into all of this and the nuances of hyper-individualism, class, intersectionality and feminism within domestic labour and the obsession with the nuclear family.
Texts discussed:
-Emotional Labor by Rose Hackman
-Fair Play by Eve Rodsky
-How We Show Up by Mia Birdsong
Texts mentioned:
-Hood Feminism by Mikki Kendall
-The Secret History of Home Economics by Danielle Dreilinger
On today's episode we're joined by Andrea Sempértegui, Assistant Professor of Politics at Whitman College and a member of the anti-extractive collective Comundisis based in Quito, Ecuador. She focuses on indigenous politics, environmental and feminist movements, struggles over territory and natural resource extraction and decolonial thought in Latin America. Her essays have appeared in the likes of New York Review of Books and Verso. We delve into the importance of women in the climate struggle, the initial logic behind extractivism and what is being done to fight it and why the women leading this fight don't call themselves feminists.
Andrea is currently working on her book, Earthed Politics: The Mujeres Amazónicas’ Fight against Extractivism in Ecuador.
Texts mentioned:
- Feminismos del sur y ecofeminismo by Maristella Svampa
- Caliban and the Witch by Silvia Federici (you can also find a deep dive explainer on this text on our website here)
Welcome to Series 2 of Discourse: The Grabbing Back Podcast! We are so excited to be starting this season with such a fantastic episode with guests Julia Serano and Talia Mae Bettcher.
We discuss, amongst many ideas, the perceptions and readings of our bodies, the cultural specificity of boundaries and how they tend to affect women more than men and how femininity is considered quote-unquote artificial in a similar way to transness, and how dangerous that can be.
Trigger warnings: transphobia and sexual assault.
Talia is an expert on feminist philosophy, transgender studies and philosphy of personhood. She’s a professor at California State University and her upcoming book is Intimacy and Illusion: An Essay in Trans Philosophy. Julia is a writer, performer, activist, musician and biologist, she is best known for her book Whipping Girl and her upcoming book is titled Sexed Up: How Society Sexualises us and how we can Fight Back.
Texts mentioned and discussed:
- Full‐Frontal Morality: The Naked Truth about Gender by Talia Mae Bettcher (2012)
- Playfulness, World-Travelling and Loving Perception by Maria Lugones (1987)
- What Does it Cost to Tell the Truth by Riki Anne Wilchins (1997)
- Homogenizing Versus Holistic Views of Gender and Sexuality by Julia Serano - Chapter 13 of Excluded (2013)
- The Difference Sameness Makes: Objectification, Sex Work, and Queerness by Ann J. Cahill
GET TICKETS FOR OUR UPCOMING POETRY LIVE EVENT HERE.
Renowned feminist, activist, historian and theorist who has been key int bringing female voice into visible history. A life long activist, she has campaigned on issues from unionising women, abortion, nurseries and the Vietnam War and has always been an advocate for grass roots activism.
She helped to make the phrase “the personal is political” popular. She is best known her contributions the Women’s Liberation Movement, which drove feminism in the 1970s and brought us feminism as we know it today.
Her book, Daring to Hope, which we discuss in this episode, is a memoir of her life during that decade. From organising the first Women's Liberation Movement conerence to heartbreak.
We talk about some of her biggest feminist influences, her start in feminist movements, her best advice to young feminists and how we can come together in our struggles.
Book recommendations
- Daring to Hope by Sheila Rowbotham
- Promise of a Dream by Sheila Rowbotham
- Misbehaving: Stories of Protest Against the Miss World Contest and the Beauty Industry
This month we are delving into and explaining Intersectional Theory through the lens of Kimberlé Crenshaw, the American civil rights advocate and leading scholar who introduced it. Last month we considered how the concept of ‘intersectionality’ has deep roots. This month we’re narrowing down and getting really specific about the term ‘intersectionality’ as defined by the woman who coined it. The term is widely used now, but had quite a specific meaning when Crenshaw introduced it as a framework within legal theory.
Our guest this month is Katie, who is actually an integral part of our team at Grabbing Back. She is our article editor, studied Archeology and Philosophy at university and will be starting her Masters in Philosophy in September. She wrote our article this month so be sure to check it out on our website.
Reading list:
Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics (1989) by Kimberlé Crenshaw
This month we are focusing on the Roots of Intersectionality and instead of one big conversation, we wanted to really reflect the diversity of voices and opinions that emerged with early African American feminists.
We have picked six extracts of text by some writers of the time, and invited on six guests to share their reflections on them. There’s so much richness of thought here and so we’ve divided this month’s episode into three mini episodes, so you can reflect on different pieces in your own time.
This (part 3) looks at an extract from Angelina Weld Grimke’s lesbian love poetry,and our second extract from Audre Lorde’s ‘Sister Outsider’.
- Angelina Weld Grimke was a teacher, poet and playwright, working in the first half of the 20th century. She is far less well known than the other authors we have explored in these podcasts,and there is limited information about her life. However, we know she was mixed race, and race was an important theme in her work, especially as she was one of the first women of colour to have her play performed in America. Her work also explores her suppressed sexual identity, and our extract is taken from the poem Rosabella, one of her lesbian love poems. Reflecting on this is Amu.
- As mentioned above Audre Lorde was a black, lesbian feminist activist. Our second extract from her works is also taken from ‘Sister Outsider’, but is an extract taken from the speech ‘Lessons from the 1960s’, which she delivered at Havard University in 1982. This speech looks to the future, and all marginalised and oppressed identities allying together to fight the oppression each community experiences both individually and collectively. Reflecting on this speech is Chi Chi x.
A quick note to apologise for the audio quality in this part, we had some recording issues but we hope you can still enjoy the reflections from Amu and Chi Chi.
Contact us:
We’d love to get your feedback so do email us at hello@grabbingback.com or drop us a DM on socials.
Twitter and Instagram: @grabbing_back
This month we are focusing on the Roots of Intersectionality and instead of one big conversation, we wanted to really reflect the diversity of voices and opinions that emerged with early African American feminists.
We have picked six extracts of text by some writers of the time, and invited on six guests to share their reflections on them. There’s so much richness of thought here and so we’ve divided this month’s episode into three mini episodes, so you can reflect on different pieces in your own time.
This (part 2) looks at extracts from bell hooks’ ‘Ain’t i a woman? Black Women and Feminism’ and from Audre Lorde’s ‘Sister Outsider’.
- bell hooks is the pen name for Gloria Watkins, who was an American academic and social activist. She was prolific writer, and most of her works looked at the intersecting oppression caused by systems of race, gender and capitalism. ‘Ain’t i a woman?’ is a history of racism and sexism against black women, focusing on the specific misogyny faced by enslaved black women, and the historical legacy this left on black womanhood. The extract in the podcast reflects on why black woman did not get involved in the white feminist movement. Reflecting on this is Sophie Lewis, who is currently doing an MA at SOAS.
- Audre Lorde was an academic and activist, but is perhaps most well known as a poet who tackled issues of racism, sexism, ablism and homophobia in her work. She described herself as "black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet”. The podcast looks at one of her prose works, ‘Sister Outsider’ which is a collection of essays and speeches from her activism, published in 1984. The extract is taken from ‘Your silence will not protect you’ which argues for the importance of marginalised and oppressed communities to speak out. Reflecting on this is Jess Leigh.
- In her reflection, Jess mentions some cases of violence against women, including Sandra Bland, Kathryn Johnstone, Breonna Taylor. If you are unfamiliar with these cases, but would like to know more here are some links you can check out:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/may/07/sandra-bland-video-footage-arrest-death-police-custody-latest-news
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Kathryn_Johnston
https://www.nytimes.com/article/breonna-taylor-police.html
Trigger warnings: violence against women and racial violence.
Contact us:
We’d love to get your feedback so do email us at hello@grabbingback.com or drop us a DM on socials.
Twitter and Instagram: @grabbing_back
This month we are focusing on the Roots of Intersectionality and instead of one big conversation, we wanted to really reflect the diversity of voices and opinions that emerged with early African American feminists.
We have picked six extracts of text by some writers of the time, and invited on six guests to share their reflections on them. There’s so much richness of thought here and so we’ve divided this month’s episode into three mini episodes, so you can reflect on different pieces in your own time.
This (part 1) reflects on extracts from the Combahee River Collective Statement and Angela Davis’ book ‘Women, race and class’.
- The Combahee River Collective were a Black feminist lesbian collective, with socialist roots, who were active in Boston in the 1970s. They were vital in pushing the white feminist movement, and the Civil Right Movement, to recognise the specific needs of Black women, especially Black lesbians. The extract in the podcast grapples with the idea of multiple identities leading to multiple oppressions, and reflecting on this is Anna Spence, one of the team here at Grabbing Back.
- Angela Davis is a radical African American academic and activist, who has been engaged in fighting racial injustice since the 1960s. She has written ten books, but our extract is taken from her first work, which is a history of the racial inequality in the feminist movement and women’s experiences from the abolition of slavery to the 1980s. The extract in the podcast examines the gendered roles that emerged for enslaved women as a result of white oppression and violence.Reflecting on this is Honesty, who works at the Runneymede Trust.
Trigger warnings for this episode: Includes discussion of experiences of sexual harassment and the physical and sexual violence and abuse suffered by enslaved people.
Welcome to part one of our "Waves" episodes everyone!
This is month one of season one here at Grabbing Back, THE place for all things feminist theory and good chat.
We’re chatting to the amazing Gillian Love about ‘the waves of feminism’; when were they, what were they, did they even exist and what should we, as modern feminists learn or critique about them.
Content warning: discussions touched on homophobia and transphobia - without graphic details.
References and recommendations
This is a list of some of the sources mentioned in this episode, plus other recommended texts on the theme of first and second wave feminism.
This is by no means an exhaustive list, and we recommend them not as a full-throated support of all of their contents, but as representations of particular feminist positions.
First wave feminism
Mary Wollestonecraft. 1792. A Vindication of the Rights of Women – The ‘proto-feminist’ text
Sojourner Truth. 1851. ‘Ain’t I A Woman?’ – Speech at the 1851 Akron Women’s Convention – speaking back to white-centric views of womanhood and feminism and arguing for abolition of slavery.
Second wave feminism
Betty Friedan. 1963. The Feminine Mystique. – Argues that women are not simply fulfilled by the role of housewife and mother.
Shulamith Firestone. 1970. The Dialectic of Sex. – A socialist feminist take on sex, reproduction, and gender relations. Content note: its sections on race are widely critiqued and reflect arguably racist ideology.
Andrea Dworkin. 1974. Woman Hating. – A radical feminist text on the representation of women, including in pornography.
Andrea Dworkin. 1984. Intercourse. – A radical feminist text on sex, heterosexual dynamics, and violence.
Catherine McKinnon. 1989. Toward a Feminist Theory of the State – An examination of the basis of gender inequality through the lens of political and legal theory.
Combahee River Collective Statement. 1977 – A manifesto for Black Feminism, a movement running concurrently to, but somewhat separate from, Second Wave Feminism.
Bell Hooks. 1981. Ain’t I A Woman? Black Women and Feminism. – An influential Black Feminist text.
Kimberlé Crenshaw. 1989. Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color. Stanford Law Review, Vol. 43, No. 6, pp. 1241-1299 – Highly influential article credited with coining the term ‘intersectionality.’ Important within Black feminism, this concept would go on to be central to the third wave too.
Welcome to part two of our "Waves" episodes everyone!
This is month one of season one here at Grabbing Back, THE place for all things feminist theory and good chat.
We’re chatting to the amazing Gillian Love about ‘the waves’; when were they, what were they, did they even exist and what should as modern feminists learn or critique about them.
Content warning: discussions touched on homophobia and transphobia - without graphic details.
References and recommendations
This is a list of some of the sources mentioned in this episode, plus other recommended texts on the theme of third and fourth wave feminism..and beyond!
This is by no means an exhaustive list, and we recommend them not as a full-throated support of all of their contents, but as representations of particular feminist positions.
Third wave feminism
Naomi Wolf. 1990. The Beauty Myth – Explores the pressures women are under to meet impossible standards of beauty and femininity.
Susan Faludi. 1991. Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women – An influential third wave book arguing that there was a backlash against the gains of the second wave that must be combatted.
Rebecca Walker. 1996. To Be Real: Telling the Truth and Changing the Face of Feminism – Walker is credited with coining the term ‘third wave’ in an article for Ms. Magazine. This book features 21 essays from feminist activists about their understanding of feminism.
Fourth wave and beyond
Laura Bates. 2014. Everyday Sexism - Inspired by a digital project where women shared their experiences of harassment and sexism.
Rebecca Solnit. 2014. Men Explain Things to Me – Credited with popularising the term ‘mansplaining.’
Lola Olefumi. 2020. Feminism, Interrupted. – A contemporary feminist manifesto that is radical and intersectional.
Amia Srinivasan. 2021The Right to Sex – cutting-edge contemporary feminist theory on sex, intimacy and power.
Commentary on feminist ‘waves’
Bailey, Cathryn. 2002. Unpacking the Mother/Daughter Baggage: Reassessing Second – and Third-Wave Tensions. Women's Studies Quarterly , Vol. 30, No. 3/4. pp. 138-154.
Graff, Agnieszka (2003). Lost between the Waves? The Paradoxes of Feminist Chronology and Activism in Contemporary Poland. Journal of International Women's Studies, 4(2), 100-116.
Available at: https://vc.bridgew.edu/jiws/vol4/iss2/9
Networks
The Feminist Gender Equality Network (FGEN) – A major new global movement, dedicated to countering anti-trans propaganda at home and abroad.
Grabbing Back has returned hot from the presses with its latest discourse episode.
Be a fly on the wall and listen to our creators talk about ownership of language, space, swimming pool lanes, bodies, racial identity, and the feminist movement. Who owns those things? Do we? Should we? How can we?This audio piece was created as part of Grabbing Back's theme month, where our creators focused on the word "OWN." Six people - some who knew each other, some who didn’t, got together in a (zoom) room and chatted through what first came to mind when they heard the word "OWN."
Definitions of words used, info on writer’s discussed, and references are all on grabbingback.com, along with a transcript of the conversation for accessibility purposes. So do check out our website for all that and our other brilliant theme month pieces. As ever, if you want to get in contact, join the team, or pitch an article, you can find us on instagram and twitter @grabbing_back, or check out our website.
Happy listening
Welcome to our very first episode! Come and listen to some excellent feminist chat on childhood, Audre Lorde, feminist Shakespeare, and much more.
Don't forget to like, subscribe, review, and most importantly, share us with your friends!
You can find more info on our podcasts as well as more episodes and articles at grabbingback.com
Happy listening :)
Welcome to 'Mother's Meeting', your new, intersectional feminist podcast, discussing all things theory and activism at a (virtual) kitchen table.