Live A Conscious Life

Writer and mental health advocate of Spoken Black Girl blog, Rowana talks about the stigma of mental health, particularly in the Black community, how we can undo the stigma and take care of our mental health, why taking care of our mental health is a practice for everyone, and she confronts the idea that Black women need to be strong all of the time and how this idea is connected to racist history, the power of affirmations, and the novel Rowana is writing!

Sex and Relationship coach and expert, Celeste, talks about Somatica, her coaching and training program related to emotional and erotic connection, women reclaiming their sexuality and power, men connecting to their emotions and vulnerability, why getting into your body is essential for owning your sexuality and sexual pleasure, the connection between gender socialization and sexual and emotional repression, what defines sex positivity, and Celeste's practice of non-monogamy.

Creator and editor of feminist blog, GirlTalkHQ, shares about her feminist journey, history of revolutionary women in Biblical history, her passion for abortion rights, and two feminist TV documentary series she's developing. The feminist retreat survey: https://andrea268.typeform.com/to/s6Vroj

Creator and editor of feminist blog, GirlTalkHQ, shares about her feminist journey, history of revolutionary women in Biblical history, her passion for abortion rights, and two feminist TV documentary series she's developing. The feminist retreat survey: https://andrea268.typeform.com/to/s6Vroj

Anne is an Emerita professor at Brown University and an expert of biology and gender studies. I first discovered Anne's work ten years ago when I read her book "Sexing The Body," which had a huge influence on the kind of academic work I ended up pursuing around challenging the gender-binary in sports. "Sexing The Body" was the first time I was introduced to the concept of how we socially construct the body and it deeply resonated with and interested me. Anne is the author of three books and over 60 scholarly articles related to feminist and scientific theories. Anne's work has centered on challenging our ideas about the nature/nurture divide, women and gender in science, intersexuality, homosexuality, the construction of heterosexuality, and the intersections of race and gender in science. She is an extremely important scholar in the field of women, gender, sex, and sexuality, and I am honored to have her as a guest on the Real Feminist Stories podcast. "Sexing The Body" was the first source to bring to my attention of intersexual professional athletes being discriminated against because they did not fit into the gender-binary. As a queer athlete, I became interested in the subject matter instantly, and ended up writing research papers on the matter. In this interview, I ask Anne more about this and whether she thinks gender categories are necessary in sports, a question I keep pursuing. We talk about the complexity of answering this complicated question. Also, I ask Anne about what inspired her to write "Sexing The Body" and embark on this path of gender and science, and how she uses the dynamic systems approach to understand the social construction of bodies. Anne shares her research with how cultural conditioning has real physiological effects, and we explore how undoing gender conditioning is more than de-conditioning the mind, but, also, a deeper work within the body. In addition, I ask Anne why she thinks we don't validate bodies that live outside the norm, and she shares a couple of possible theories. These topics and conversations have been given more attention within feminist spheres and conversations, but I believe, as a culture, we still have a ways to go in understanding how society and the medical field constructs the body. If we want to challenge the construction of gender, we must, also, look at the construction of the body. For more exploration, press play to listen to this podcast episode!

Anne is an Emerita professor at Brown University and an expert of biology and gender studies. I first discovered Anne's work ten years ago when I read her book "Sexing The Body," which had a huge influence on the kind of academic work I ended up pursuing around challenging the gender-binary in sports. "Sexing The Body" was the first time I was introduced to the concept of how we socially construct the body and it deeply resonated with and interested me. Anne is the author of three books and over 60 scholarly articles related to feminist and scientific theories. Anne's work has centered on challenging our ideas about the nature/nurture divide, women and gender in science, intersexuality, homosexuality, the construction of heterosexuality, and the intersections of race and gender in science. She is an extremely important scholar in the field of women, gender, sex, and sexuality, and I am honored to have her as a guest on the Real Feminist Stories podcast. "Sexing The Body" was the first source to bring to my attention of intersexual professional athletes being discriminated against because they did not fit into the gender-binary. As a queer athlete, I became interested in the subject matter instantly, and ended up writing research papers on the matter. In this interview, I ask Anne more about this and whether she thinks gender categories are necessary in sports, a question I keep pursuing. We talk about the complexity of answering this complicated question. Also, I ask Anne about what inspired her to write "Sexing The Body" and embark on this path of gender and science, and how she uses the dynamic systems approach to understand the social construction of bodies. Anne shares her research with how cultural conditioning has real physiological effects, and we explore how undoing gender conditioning is more than de-conditioning the mind, but, also, a deeper work within the body. In addition, I ask Anne why she thinks we don't validate bodies that live outside the norm, and she shares a couple of possible theories. These topics and conversations have been given more attention within feminist spheres and conversations, but I believe, as a culture, we still have a ways to go in understanding how society and the medical field constructs the body. If we want to challenge the construction of gender, we must, also, look at the construction of the body. For more exploration, press play to listen to this podcast episode!

Shalese is a life and business coach focusing on helping autistic folks live the life of their dreams. She's an avid traveler who has always felt a deep connection to geography and physical world. In this interview, Shalese shares about her experience with autism, including how she was treated by other kids growing up, and how she loves to smash stereotypes as a Black woman traveler.

Anna is a multi-talented creative who writers, directs, produces, and acts in her own YouTube videos. She is most known for her YouTube Channel, "Why Stuff Is Great," about queer representation on TV, in film, and in web series. In this interview, we talk more about when Anna knew she was funny, queer representation, the hunger for lesbian videos, the issue of non-queer actors playing queer characters, what TV character Anna would be, and her feminist journey. Anna is genuinely funny and I absolutely love her videos. If you haven't seen them, check them out here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYAgdq-Zko7HsS49rH3agSA.

Diane is a spiritual life coach, poet, and writer. In this interview, Diane talks about what she calls "soulful critical thinking," the connection between spirituality and being woke, the tarot and debunking its myths, marginalized spiritualities and their connection to power and privilege, my experience receiving a tarot reading from Diane, and Diane's challenging background.

I speak with Bitch Flicks editor and social media manager, Megan Kearns, about her passion of analyzing the representation of women and gender in film, especially aging women in film. We start the episode talking about her impressive background and the importance, positives, and negatives of women's visibility on social media.