What does it look like to change our relationship to food and nourishing ourselves over time? Can we love characters we hate in fiction? Are we all manifestations of the same consciousness living simultaneously across all humans? Casual questions as always! This week we tackle women characters in fiction--including the Bible as literature, because Olivia is reading Paradise Lost (yes the one from high school English class and the 17th century) and Jessie is reading Butter. It's a fun discussion with only the most mild spoilers for both plots.

Jessie and Olivia are BACK for season three! We started with a book we both read, 'I Who Have Never Known Men,' and discuss its themes, genre, and the nature of freedom and existence (we know, super light topics). The conversation explores the impact of relationships on personal growth and the importance of community. It’s really fun! Some light plot spoilers between around 8 minutes and 20 minutes, but we hope small spoilers will make you even more interested in reading this book we both loved. Also: is sending six women to space in a Blue Origin ship feminist?

https://bookshop.org/a/81323/9781945492600

After an unintentional break, we're back to discuss what's been going on in the world -- really, not a lot, right?! The U.S. presidential election gives us yet more opportunity to talk through a key feminist ideal, that the personal is political. Jessie's also kept reading in the ACOTAR series. In true form, she also brings us the story of some everyday women who lived in a neighborhood that happened to be built on a chemical waste landfill (turns out, this is not good!) The book follows the actions they and allies in Congress and the New York health department took to stand up to corporations, many of them experiencing activist awakenings in the process. When it's families' lives and health on the line, women truly show UP.

Jessie's book: Paradise Falls: The True Story of an Environmental Catastrophe by Keith O'Brien. Also published with the subtitle "A Deadly Secret, a Cover-Up, and the Women Who Forged the Modern Environmental Movement."

If there was a way to connect WWI to the Blake Lively PR controversy, you know Jessie and Olivia will find it. Today, a robust conversation about media literacy, freedom of the press, and how many of our issues with access to accurate information and using essential critical thinking skills are not new problems. Jessie talks about one postmaster general's single-minded mission to prevent sharing any minority opinions, even after wartime (ostensibly the justification) ended. Olivia talks about her personal journey through recognizing the motives that can be at play in cultural drama. Then we go on a whole tangent into the things we distract ourselves with when life is overwhelming. Jessie has discovered the wide world of racecar-driving-themed romance novels, which Olivia points out has always been the way of thriving spaces for publishing and reading the stories we love. We discuss the ways we engage(d) with stories as fledgling writers.

Demure, mindful: Jools Lebron on TikTok

Books Jessie talks about: American Midnight by Adam Hochschild; Getting Lost by Annie Ernaux; Drive Me Crazy by Carly Robyn

Today Olivia and Jessie talk about the surreality of #tradwives on social media. They have a massive following, but the audiences are there for as many different reasons as we can imagine--to stare, to envy, to learn, to be infuriated, to be sad, to look at beauty, to feel human, to feel inhuman. We talk about @ballerinafarm (on Instagram and TikTok) and Nara Smith (@naraazizasmith on TikTok). We also get into the Kamala Harris of it all, and yes, Jessie brings it back to rhetoric (all humanity is centered around stories, and stories are some of the best rhetorical means!).

Jessie briefly discusses one of the most important books she ever read, and it's MORE RELEVANT THAN EVER: Notes on a Foreign Country: An American Abroad in a Post-American World by Suzy Hansen

This summer, we've swapped reading content - Olivia reads the nonfiction and Jessie has entered the ACOTAR universe. We discuss bodies and faeries, it's all Feminish on this one!

Olivia's books: The Body is Not an Apology: The Power of Radical Self-Love by Sonya Renee Taylor; The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel Van Der Kolk.

Jessie's book: A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas. Olivia also recommends the series The Bridge Kingdom by Danielle L. Jensen

We really fell off there, y'all! Jessie and Olivia are back to catch up on all the Feminish-relevant pop culture goss since we last met. It's the bear-versus-man of it all. Plus, we dream up a summer plan to swap our podcast personas in the most fun way: Olivia is going to bring some important nonfiction works on body and body image in culture and Jessie is going to read ACOTAR(!). More from us soon, happy summer!

Back on our bullsh*t, Olivia and Jessie discuss the new Taylor Swift and Beyoncé albums and the continued violence that capitalism inflicts on us, inhibiting our best feminist intentions. In true form, we cover some pop culture with a dose of reality from Jessie as she continues reading Naomi Klein's book, Doppelganger: A Trip Into the Mirror World (it keeps staying good, staying relevant). In the meat of the book, Klein discusses the ways that covid-19 really set us solidly into two worlds, and both camps sees the other as living in the unreality. A fun one, glad to be back!

This week our pop culture and book discussion overlap big-time, with a conversation on what it means to have a public image, to "be" in public, including and especially on the internet. We discuss The Duchess of Wales's Photoshop mishap and the fallout it caused, and what all this suggests about being a persona in the media (for famous people) and on the internet (for the rest of us). Naomi Klein's book about her own real-life doppelgänger centers our discussion on the nature of multiple lived realities, and what it means when people confuse you with another person on the internet.

Jessie's book: Doppelganger: A Trip Inside the Mirror World by Naomi Klein

This week we go full ’90s nostalgia, from Lisa Frank to Scholastic Book Fairs. Jessie brings a book that is as much about dolls and sleepovers as it is about the history that was central to Pleasant Company’s American Girl Dolls.

Olivia brings the ~ hot goss ~ from TikTok: Who Did I Marry? and more. Did we miss something that was an unforgettable part of your ‘90s experience? Let us know!

We made a Pinterest board that captures the mood of this episode

This week Jessie brought the book Dolls of our Lives: Why We Can’t Quit American Girl by Mary Mahoney and Allison Harrocks