Leo and Mari will TRY to keep it light with a little game this week.

Hopefully, you can get to know your host a little better.

We are talking about beauty today and all the expectations and standards that come with it. Today we discuss our own experiences with American standards of beauty and how it has affected our relationship with ourselves. It's a vulnerable episode, so take a listen!

Below are some references that we made during our episode today:

The Crown Act

Traditional African Hairstyles and their Origins

In today’s episode we talk about our experiences trying to fit into the expectations of white society and our own personal path to rejecting assimilation.

References:

You Sound Like a White Girl: The Case for Rejecting Assimilation by Julissa Arce

Jose Olivarez Mexican American Poem Read

Today we are talking about the beauty of female friends, the impact that they have on our lives, and why they need to be valued. But before that, we talk about Marielena’s new life in the Netherlands and some updates on Leocadia’s marathon training.

*Trigger warning: we do briefly talk about suicide in this episode*

Sometimes your only choice is to just do it!

This week on our podcast, we have Eileen Bobowaski, director of the The Sewing Labs. We sit down and talk about the mission of the organization, which is to help marginalized women in the Kansas City area gain self sufficiency, independence and entrepreneurial skills through sewing .

The Sewing Labs

526 Campbell

Kansas City, MO 64106

To learn more about how you can help The Sewing Labs in their work, check out their website and social media links below:

Website: https://thesewinglabs.community/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesewinglabs/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheSewingLabs/

Climate Council of Kansas City, article on fast fashion and the environment: https://climategkc.org/fast-fashion/

We have a wonderful guest with us today, the one and only Nancy Shawver. A good friend of both of us, Nancy takes a minute to sit down with Léocadia to talk about her journey in journalism, working in corporate America and eventually starting her own career. We also talk about building confidence and knowing your self-worth in the workforce and in life.

Sometimes you record an episode and realize that is not your best work nor your most honest work, so you just start over - and that is exactly what we did. Today we talk about having to scratch our original recording for this episode, life changes that we individually are currently experiencing and how this all ties into the societal expectations we have as women and even the expectations that we put on ourselves.

In a perfect world, all women would lift each other up and encourage one another to move up on the ladder of success. However, that is not always the case. Meet “Ice Queens” - women, who unfortunately, put other women down. Our guest today Rev. Bethany Ruhl - an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ and a board certified chaplain- talks about this term that she has coined and her experiences encountering Ice Queens, how to heal from the trauma of dealing with one and how we as women can lift each other up.

Did you know that 3 in 10 Americans have said they used online dating!

Mari and Leocadia explore this hot topic and share stories on online dating and ghosting culture.

#ifykyk