Advancing Women Podcast

A woman doesn’t become wicked because she stops being convenient.

She said no. Set a boundary. Asked for credit. Wanted something for herself.

So how did she become the villain?

It’s another Season of the Witch on the Advancing Women Podcast, and this year, we’re examining the stories that turn women’s independence into a moral problem.

Inspired by Practical Magic, its sequel, and the expectations women inherit across generations, Dr. Kimberly DeSimone explores three familiar “spells”: a good woman is always available; wanting power makes her suspicious; and someone else’s discomfort means she’s done something wrong.

With research, Halloween humor, and a little cauldron-side clarity, we connect the witch archetype to gendered expectations at work, at home, and in our relationships. We examine the “villain edit” that supplies sinister motives for ordinary actions—and ask whether we support women’s independence when it actually requires something of us.

In this episode

The Key Takeaway

Before we call her wicked, let’s ask what she did. And before we ask her to keep the peace, let’s ask what that peace is costing her.

Sometimes, the woman we’re calling a witch is simply the one who refuses to keep living under the spell.

She hasn’t cast one. She’s broken one.

Research, historical sources, and further reading

Movies referenced

Keep the conversation going

What inherited expectations are you ready to question? Listen, Subscribe, Connect!

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Share this conversation with someone who needs the reminder that having limits is not a character flaw.

Music: Joe Jacobs Podcast logo: Heather Harris

Be confident…but not intimidating.

Be warm…but not weak.

Lead…but please make everybody comfortable while you’re doing it.

Sound familiar? In this episode of the Advancing Women Podcast, Dr. Kimberly DeSimone revisits tightrope bias through a recent experience: feedback that praised women faculty for their warmth while suggesting a male professor would bring challenge, assertiveness, and perseverance. The compliment was sincere. The gendered assumptions were revealing.

Drawing on Joan C. Williams and Rachel Dempsey’s work, Kimberly explores how women’s care can eclipse their authority, and how their authority can become a complaint about their tone. She connects those judgments to the work women are expected to do, the opportunities they receive, and whose contributions count as leadership.

We explore:

The takeaway: Her warmth does not cancel out her rigor. Her authority does not make her unkind. And she should not have to give up one to get credit for the other.

If this feels familiar, share the episode with someone who teaches, mentors, hires, or evaluates others. And join the conversation on Instagram or LinkedIn: what has the moving standard sounded like in your workplace?

Related episodes

Research and resources

What happens when language created to make inequality visible becomes so broadly used that the inequality itself begins to disappear?

Terms like mental load, invisible labor, and emotional labor have helped name forms of work —often disproportionately carried by women—that traditional measures of labor have failed to capture. But lately, these terms seem to be everywhere, applied to everything from emotionally difficult conversations to administrative annoyances to ordinary responsibilities we wish we didn't have.

In this episode of the Advancing Women Podcast, Dr. Kimberly DeSimone explores what happens when useful structural concepts undergo conceptual inflation: their boundaries expand until they begin encompassing experiences increasingly distinct from what they were originally helping us understand.

Because the popularity of a concept can become the enemy of its precision.

Not all invisible work is “the mental load.”

There is a difference between a burden and a pattern of inequity.

Kimberly traces the research behind mental load and cognitive household labor, revisits sociologist Arlie Hochschild's original conception of emotional labor, and considers what gets lost when structural language becomes a generic synonym for this is hard.

She also explores emerging research from Angelica Ferrara and colleagues on “Mankeeping”: the work women may perform to maintain men's social and emotional lives, and an important paradox: at the same time we're broadening the language of invisible labor to encompass men's ordinary responsibilities, men's shrinking social networks may be generating additional invisible labor for women.

Previous Episode Referenced in this episode: The Hidden Cost of Effortless 

Research Referenced:

Ferrara, A. P., & Vergara, D. P. (2024). Theorizing mankeeping: The male friendship recession and women’s associated labor as a structural component of gender inequality. Psychology of Men & Masculinities, 25(4), 391–401. 

Hochschild, A. R. (1983). The managed heart: Commercialization of human feeling. University of California Press.

Mancini, V. O., Guerrini, B. N., Clarke, J. J., Vergara, D. P., Seidler, Z. E., & Ferrara, A. P. (2026). Measuring mankeeping: Development and validation of a scale assessing how women experience the impact of men's declining social networks. Sex Roles, 92, Article 32. 

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When we're young, life is filled with firsts. First days. First trips. First jobs. First heartbreaks. First moments of realizing we can do something we weren't sure we could do.

Then somewhere along the way, we get good at life.

We build careers, relationships, homes, habits, and routines. And that's a good thing. Routine makes life manageable. Familiarity gives us security.

But does it also have a quiet cost?

In this episode of the Advancing Women Podcast, Dr. Kimberly DeSimone explores what happens when a life once filled with firsts becomes increasingly familiar, and whether one of the hidden costs of routine is a gradual loss of wonder.

Drawing on the psychology of habituation, novelty, attention, and memory, Kimberly considers why new experiences can make us feel more awake, why familiar experiences can begin to blur into the background, and why creating more “firsts” may help us encounter our lives with greater attention and curiosity.

But novelty alone isn't enough.

We can travel halfway around the world and still turn Paris into a checklist. We can rush through vacations, optimize our leisure, document experiences before we've actually experienced them, and bring the urgency of an ordinary Tuesday into extraordinary places.

Which raises a bigger question:

What happens when we stop assaulting life with urgency?

From the surrender of sitting beside the ocean, to the unexpected moments that happen when travel plans fall apart, to finding magic in a hot, crowded day at Disney, this episode explores wonder not simply as something we encounter, but as a way we encounter the world.

And for women, there may be another layer. So much of adulthood can involve being the person who knows what's next: anticipating, remembering, planning, organizing, and creating predictability for everyone else. Sometimes there is freedom in stepping out of that role long enough to wander, be a beginner, not know what's next, and allow ourselves to be surprised.

The takeaway isn't another assignment, bucket list, or life-optimization strategy.

It's much simpler:

Routine makes life manageable.

Novelty wakes us up.

Surrender gives us space to notice.

Maybe we don't lose our capacity for wonder as we get older. Maybe our lives simply become so familiar, efficient, and hurried that we stop creating the conditions in which wonder can find us.

So this week, go find a first.                                   

And when you do?

Look around. Pay attention.

Let yourself be surprised.

Let’s continue the Conversation! If this episode resonated with you, why not share it!

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Instagram: @AdvancingWomenPodcast 

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LinkedIn: Dr. Kimberly DeSimone 

Have you ever tried to tell someone how something made you feel, only to find yourself suddenly defending the accuracy of your own experience?

That's not what happened. That's not what I said. That's not what I meant. You're taking it the wrong way. I guess I just can't do anything right.

And suddenly, you're no longer talking about what hurt you. You're litigating whether they did anything wrong.

In this episode of the Advancing Women Podcast, Dr. Kimberly DeSimone explores what happens when someone listens to our feelings for errors instead of understanding, and why defensiveness can turn an attempt at connection into a battle over whose version of reality gets to count.

Because feelings aren't courtroom testimony.

Understanding someone's experience doesn't require agreeing with every interpretation of what happened. Empathy is not a verdict. It isn't a confession, compliance, or an admission of guilt. It's the willingness to stop defending your own perspective long enough to become curious about someone else's.

But this episode goes beyond communication. We examine the gender socialization that shapes how women and men learn to receive criticism, research on masculine norms and manipulation in conflict, and the psychological function of defensiveness as protection against shame, vulnerability, and threats to self-image.

Dr. DeSimone explores the important distinction between ordinary defensiveness and persistent invalidation, including gaslighting, DARVO, and the concept of epistemic testimonial injustice: what happens when someone's credibility as the narrator of their own experience is repeatedly diminished.

Because after enough conversations in which your reality is disputed, the greatest cost may not simply be unresolved conflict.

It may be that you begin to stop trusting yourself.

This episode is ultimately about something bigger than getting another person to understand you. It's about recognizing that you cannot force someone into self-awareness,  but you also don't have to surrender your understanding of your own experience simply because someone refuses to validate it.

Sometimes clarity means recognizing that someone you love gets defensive but genuinely wants to do better.

Sometimes it means recognizing your own contribution to a dynamic.

And sometimes it means confronting the harder possibility:

You may be trying to explain yourself to someone who benefits from not understanding you.

The goal isn't to have relationships without disagreement. It's to have relationships where disagreement doesn't require one person's experience to disappear.

Referenced: Scott Austin Martin: Are you listening for errors? Or listening to understand? 

Let’s Connect:

Instagram: @AdvancingWomenPodcast

Facebook: Advancing Women Podcast 

LinkedIn: Dr. Kimberly DeSimone 

What can a Division I basketball coach teach us about confidence, identity, leadership, and becoming the women we're meant to be?

As it turns out…a lot.

In this episode of the Advancing Women Podcast, Dr. Kimberly DeSimone sits down with University at Buffalo Women's Basketball Head Coach Kristen Sharkey for a conversation that goes far beyond the basketball court.

The connection began at a women's leadership conference, where several young women who had heard both Kimberly and Sharkey speak insisted the two needed to meet. On the surface, a professor and a Division I basketball coach might seem to occupy very different worlds. But when Sharkey later told Kimberly, “My purpose in what I get to do is to help our young ladies grow into the phenomenal women they are meant to be. Basketball is my tool to do that,” the shared mission became clear.

Basketball may be Sharkey's tool. Leadership education and this podcast may be Kimberly's. But both are deeply invested in helping women recognize their potential, find their voices, and become more fully who they are meant to be.

Together, they explore what Sharkey has learned from coaching women in one of the most competitive environments imaginable, and why those lessons matter far beyond sports.

They talk about:

This isn't an episode about basketball…It's a conversation about becoming. About learning to trust yourself. It’s about recovering from mistakes rather than being defined by them, about taking your seat at the table, even when you're not entirely sure you belong there, and about becoming the kind of strong woman who brings other women with her!

Support Women's Sports: One of the themes that emerges in this conversation is that visibility and investment matter. Women's sports deserve our attention, our attendance, and our support.

Support Coach Sharkey and UB Women's Basketball through the Power of One Campaign

Every ticket. Every cheer. Every person in those stands matters.

Let’s Connect:

What if everything you've been told about success is true...just not equally true?

For generations, women have been given a roadmap to success. Work hard. Earn the degree. Build your expertise. Develop executive presence. Negotiate. Become exceptional.

And millions of women have done exactly that.

So why do so many still feel like the finish line keeps moving?

In this episode of the Advancing Women Podcast, Dr. Kimberly DeSimone explores a question that has been at the center of her research, teaching, and leadership work for years: What if the problem isn't that women aren't following the roadmap? What if they're following it exactly?

Using the metaphor of the classic street game Three-Card Monte (sometimes called Find the Queen), this episode examines why doing everything "right" doesn't always produce the same outcomes for everyone.

Drawing on decades of research in organizational psychology, leadership, gender studies, and behavioral science, Kimberly explores how bias often shifts rather than disappears, as women become more qualified, more accomplished, and closer to positions of power.

Rather than asking women to become even more exceptional, this episode asks a different question: What if the system keeps changing the rules?

This Episode Explores:

Mentioned in This Episode:

Continue the Conversation! Have you ever felt like the goalposts moved just as you reached them? I'd love to hear your thoughts. Why not add a comment on the Advancing Women Podcast Instagram page?

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Please share this episode with someone who needs to hear it and join the conversation. Every conversation helps us move one step closer to changing the game!

Summer has a funny way of becoming another thing to accomplish.

The perfect vacation.

But what if we've been measuring summer all wrong?

In this episode, Dr. Kimberly DeSimone explores the surprising science behind micro moments of joy…those small, seemingly ordinary experiences that quietly restore our minds, calm our nervous systems, and remind us what it feels like to simply be present.

Drawing from Attention Restoration Theory, positive psychology, and Barbara Fredrickson's Broaden-and-Build Theory, you'll discover why a walk outside, an iced coffee on the porch, a favorite song, or ten uninterrupted minutes in the sunshine may be more restorative than we realize.

This isn't about escaping your life.

It's about finding tiny moments of joy within the life you're already living.

Because sometimes the smallest moments change us the most.

In this episode:

Why our brains need "micro moments" of restoration

 The science behind nature, joy, and resilience

 Why savoring ordinary moments strengthens well-being

 Five gentle ways to experience more joy this summer, without adding another item to your to-do list

An Invitation: Steal back ten minutes this week.

No multitasking.

Just ten minutes that belong completely to you.

Then ask yourself: What is your favorite micro moment of summer joy? Consider sharing your favorite micro moment on the Advancing Women Podcast Instagram Post!

Let’s Connect:

·        Instagram: @AdvancingWomenPodcast 

·        Facebook: Advancing Women Podcast 

·        LinkedIn: Dr. Kimberly DeSimone 

What started as a frustrating battle with my health insurance over a medication that has worked successfully for nearly two years led me to ask a much bigger question:

Why are we so comfortable with women's suffering?

In this episode, I explore why women's pain is so often treated as "normal"…whether it's menopause, chronic pain, endometriosis, caregiving exhaustion, or countless other experiences that disproportionately affect women. Drawing on current research, personal experience, and Caroline Criado Perez's groundbreaking book Invisible Women, I examine how women's health has historically been under-researched, underfunded, and too often treated as an afterthought.

This episode isn't about blaming individual doctors or healthcare providers. It's about understanding how systems evolve and what happens when women's experiences are consistently treated as secondary rather than central.

Most importantly, it's about hope.

For perhaps the first time in history, women are connecting their experiences at scale. Through research, storytelling, and yes, even social media, women are realizing something profoundly important:

It's not just me.

When we name what has been invisible, we can finally begin to change it.

Explored in this episode:

Resources Mentioned

If this episode resonated with you, I'd love to hear your story. Share it with someone who needs to know they aren't alone.

Because every time women share their experiences, the invisible becomes visible.

And that's where change begins.

Let’s Connect:

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·        LinkedIn: Dr. Kimberly DeSimone 

What if one of the most common compliments women receive isn't really a compliment at all?

In this episode of the Advancing Women Podcast, Dr. Kimberly DeSimone explores the cultural obsession with "effortlessness" and the hidden costs that accompany it. Inspired by conversations following a recent Women's Leadership Summit, this episode examines how language shapes perception, why precision of language matters, and how the word effortless often conceals the labor, expertise, preparation, and emotional work behind success.

From leadership and caregiving to careers and relationships, women are frequently expected not only to achieve, but to make achievement appear easy. The result? Invisible labor, unrealistic expectations, and a growing disconnect between what success looks like and what it actually costs.

In this episode:

• Why precision of language is a leadership skill

Because maybe what looks effortless isn't effortless at all.

Maybe it's expertise.

Let’s Connect:

·        Instagram: @AdvancingWomenPodcast 

·        Facebook: Advancing Women Podcast 

·        LinkedIn: Dr. Kimberly DeSimone 

Referenced: https://shswny.org/duck-syndrome-are-people-what-they-seem/

Akçay, E., & Ohashi, R. (2024). The floating duck syndrome: biased social learning leads to effort–reward imbalances. Evolutionary Human Sciences, 6, e30.