Raising Greener Teens is a part of the EcoParent Podcast Network: https://www.ecoparent.ca/podcasts

I’m your host Manda Aufochs Gillespie and this is the Raising Greener Teens podcast, where we as parents take all the curiosity, self-empowerment, and other parenting tools that got us this far and apply them to understanding our teenagers better and hopefully shepherd them to becoming curious, self-empowered, caring and courageous citizens of the future. In this episode I interview author Jennifer Block about her most recent book Everything Below the Waist: Why Health Care Needs a Feminist Revolution.

I’d suggest this is one of the most important books a woman will ever read. But what does it mean for our teenagers, especially our daughters? We will learn more today. And then, at the end, my daughter will Teen Splain the issue. Stay tuned. Stay curious.

About the Episode:
American women visit more doctors, have more surgery, and fill more prescriptions than men. In Everything Below the Waist, Jennifer Block looks at the stories behind some scary stats to question why one third of mothers give birth by major surgery; roughly half of women lose their uterus to hysterectomy; and life expectancy of women are declining relative to women in other high-income countries, and relative to the generation before them. Our teenagers are growing up in a world where feminism has some serious unfinished business in women’s healthcare. Jennifer Block leads us in a discussion of how we might help guide our teenagers to enter adulthood, eyes open to the possibility of improving healthcare for all people. She covers it all and then my teenager simplifies it in her “Teen Splain”.

Guest Bio & Links:
Jennifer Block is an independent journalist focused on women and health. Her work has appeared in The Washington Post Magazine, Pacific Standard, The Cut, Newsweek, The Los Angeles Times, and many other publications. Her first book, Pushed, led a wave of attention to the national crisis in maternity care and was named a Best Book of 2007 by Kirkus Reviews. A reporter with Type Investigations, Block won several awards for her investigative reporting on the permanent contraceptive implant Essure, which has since been discontinued. For early chapters of Everything Below the Waist, she won a Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her son.

Learn more about Jennifer Block and her books and writing at jenniferblock.com.

Host Bio & Links
Are you a parent to a teenager? For most parents, the teenage years can be the most challenging. Parenthood will make the best of us rethink our fundamental values and question our preconceived beliefs. The Raising Greener Teens podcast invites listeners to use their skills of curiosity, research, and humour to further develop as experts in the care of their family and to help guide the teens in their care to do the same.
Host Manda Aufochs Gillespie is the author of Green Mama & Green Mama-to-be, creator of the award-winning website thegreenmama.com, and founder of Folk University (folku.ca) and FolkU radio. She interviews doctors, naturopaths, sex educators, brain researchers, drug counsellors, parents who seem to be doing it better, and all sorts of interesting people in this series to provide inspiration to parents of teens and pre-teens, and—hopefully—teens themselves. Join Manda and her teenage daughter as they ask the experts: Is this the way it’s supposed to be?

About the EcoParent Podcast Network:
The EcoParent Podcast Network helps busy families live a healthier, greener lifestyle. Our host experts are imperfect, real, busy parents just like you who share ways to lower our collective carbon footprint and practical strategies that make a difference to your family’s health, the planet and to our children’s future. We offer raw, honest conversations and actionable advice across our six podcasts: pregnancy & birth, pediatric wellness, kids’ nutrition, green beauty, healthy home, and raising greener teens. Join us and get inspired to live a more sustainable, healthy life! www.ecoparent.ca/podcasts

Partnerships:
Audio magic on this episode was performed by Carlay Ream-Neal, and was edited by Emily Groleau.