Messy Liberation: Feminist Conversations about Politics and Pop Culture

Becky and Taina are joined by fitness coach Laura Thomas for a brutally honest conversation about body image, aging, and what it really means to feel at home in your body.

They unpack how diet culture is a tool of patriarchy and capitalism, how the “male gaze” shapes even the most “empowering” wellness trends, and how we can start to reclaim movement as a way to care for ourselves rather than control ourselves.

This episode invites all of us, especially those socialized as women, to stop outsourcing our worth and start listening to our bodies again

Discussed in this episode:

• Why gyms can feel unsafe (and how to reclaim movement on your own terms)
• How diet culture and anti-fatness are rooted in anti-Blackness
• Decentering men and re-defining beauty on your own terms
• The emotional labor of unlearning body shame
• How patriarchy, racism, and capitalism keep us disconnected from our bodies
• Why movement is resistance, not punishment

Resources mentioned:

• “Fearing the Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia” by Sabrina Strings
• “The Body Liberation Project” by Chrissy King
• “The Body Is Not an Apology” by Sonya Renee Taylor
• “Why Does Patriarchy Persist?” by Carol Gilligan and Naomi Snider
• “More Than a Body: Your Body Is an Instrument, Not an Ornament” by Lindsay and Lexie Kite

💪 Learn More About Laura Thomas

• Website: laurathomasfitness.com
• Instagram: @laurathomasfitness

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What happens when two podcasts built on honesty, healing, and humor come together?

In this special crossover between Messy Liberation and brb crying, Becky and Taina sit down with Angela (“Nins”) and Ariana (“Arns”), lifelong best friends and co-hosts of brb crying, for a heartfelt, hilarious, and deeply real conversation about what it means to feel your feelings in a world that rewards suppression.

They unpack why crying is a radical act of self-trust, how vulnerability is a muscle that takes practice, and what it looks like to de-armor yourself in a culture that treats emotions like weakness. They also talk about creative rebirth through fan fiction (yes, really), the burnout cycle of podcasting, and how anti-capitalist rest practices can help us find joy again.

This one’s equal parts therapy session, slumber party, and masterclass in liberation.

Check out brb, crying:
Website: https://www.brbcryingpodcast.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brbcrying.podcast
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB3O5-2SWBN4AYpb061iipg

Discussed in this episode:

• The power of crying as emotional liberation
• Why vulnerability is a practice — not a personality trait
• Creative healing through fan fiction and rediscovering joy
• The burnout cycle of podcasting under capitalism
• Safety, embodiment, and learning to feel at home in your body
• The balance between vulnerability and humor
• Partnership, community, and the importance of feeling seen
• Rest and joy as acts of resistance
• Human Design, astrology, and honoring your energy type
• Releasing capitalist urgency and redefining success

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In this fiery, messy conversation, Becky Mollenkamp and Taina Brown dive headfirst into celebrity culture, capitalism’s endless hunger, and the idea of enough. What started as a chat about Taylor Swift’s latest grift spirals—naturally—into reflections on fascism, fire-hose overwhelm, and why local action matters more than ever.

They talk about:
• Why celebrity “side hustles” and billionaire branding keep us chasing more
• How capitalism turns “enough” into failure
• The illusion of American exceptionalism and what fascism actually looks like
• Why your local school board might matter more than Congress
• What iteration (not hustle) really means for liberation
• How collective care—and choosing one or two issues you actually have energy for—is the real resistance

Resource mentioned:
• Deepa Iyer’s Social Change Ecosystem Map

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👉 On October 9, 2025, Feminist Founders is hosting The Weight We Carry, a free, focus-group-style conversation on invisible labor. We’ll share stories, hold space, and imagine what collective relief might look like. And your stories will directly shape a white paper we’re writing to push this issue into wider conversations where it belongs. ✨ Reserve your free spot here

In this episode of Messy Liberation, Becky Mollenkamp and Taina Brown are joined by their dear friend and collaborator Faith Clarke. Faith is a workplace culture strategist who challenges extractive systems and works to build restorative, liberatory environments rooted in belonging.

Together, the three dig into what “belonging” really means—not as a buzzword, but as an embodied experience of communal care, shared responsibility, and accountability. Faith shares stories from her corporate and nonprofit experiences, connects belonging to invisible labor, and explains why true belonging requires honesty about what spaces can and can’t hold.

This is a conversation about work, family, faith, identity, power, and the hard truth that belonging isn’t something leaders “create”—it’s something communities must practice together.

In this episode, we discuss:

• What belonging feels like and how to recognize its absence
• Why extractive work systems can never truly foster belonging
• The violence of having to self-advocate in spaces that won’t meet your needs
• Invisible labor and how marginalized folks often hold it all together
• Why belonging must be a community responsibility and not left to leaders alone
• Signs your workplace or organization lacks true belonging
• How Faith and Becky are partnering on an upcoming container to address invisible labor

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Becky’s sick, Taina’s tired, and somehow that makes for the best kind of messy conversation. From writing smut to why summer feels like winter, this grab bag episode runs the gamut of sex, TV, astrology, and systemic injustice.

Discussed in this episode:

• What it’s really like to write sex scenes (and why it’s more about logistics than lust)
• Becky’s prudish confessions about watching intimacy on screen
• Love Is Blind: Brazil – Over 50 and why watching older women date is surprisingly joyful
• British comfort TV vs. American sensory-overload reality shows
• Astrology, natal charts, and why New Year’s actually starts in Scorpio or Virgo season
• Why summer feels like winter and autumn brings the most creativity
• Becky’s son’s “welcome to capitalism” moment with a half-empty bag of chips
• Activism that disrupts power at the table, not just in the streets
• The parallels between Baltimore and St. Louis: segregation, schools, and systemic inequities
• Infrastructure failures, unsafe water, and the privilege required to access safety

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THIS IS FOR COACHES (or anyone who uses coaching skills)...

Join Becky Mollenkamp and Taina Brown for a free live workshop on October 30th at 2 p.m. ET where we’ll explore what it really takes to grow as a coach rooted in liberation, not just business.

🌟 In this session, you’ll learn:

• What liberation can look like for you and your clients
• The 3 essentials every coach needs for a sustainable, liberatory practice
• How community can fuel your growth with fresh ideas, accountability, and support

This isn’t just another workshop—it’s a doorway into deeper connection with coaches who share your values.

👉 Reserve your free spot today: https://evt.to/eodmahasw

(If you can’t make it live, sign up anyway—replay will be available!)

This week, Becky and Taina cut through the noise—what “compromise” really means in a deeply divided America. Triggered by Jerry Greenfield’s exit from Ben & Jerry’s, Tad Stoermer’s critique of liberal nationalism, and the recent killing of Charlie Kirk, we unpack how stories are told, how power is preserved, and who gets to be the “martyr.”

We talk about:

• How Christian nationalism (via figures like Charlie Kirk) has evolved — from campus provocateur to media force to mythic martyr.
• Why “compromise” is pitched as a virtue — but often functions to protect white supremacy, heteropatriarchy, and nationalism.
• How grief and the narrative around someone’s death (Kirk’s, especially) are weaponized in service of myth-making and mobilization.
• The difference between compromise and surrender—and why that distinction matters in politics and in life
• Jerry Greenfield’s choice to leave Ben & Jerry’s rather than mute his values for corporate comfort
• Tad Stoermer’s warning about liberal nationalism, American mythology, and the weaponization of compromise
• The powder keg moment America is in, and what it means for those with privilege vs. those without
• Culture as propaganda: from Star Trek to 9/11 broadcasts to the cult of celebrity
• How white liberals cling to the dream of compromise and why it only leads to deeper harm
• What legacy really means—not just what you build, but what you walk away from

This is a heavy one. We name the fear, the grief, and the hope in imagining a future beyond duct-tape solutions. And, as always, we find a little levity at the end (Cardi B, Beyoncé, and witchy weekends).

Resources Mentioned:

• Tad Stoermer video: “Why U.S. Historians Keep Reinforcing American Nationalism (Even When They Think They Aren’t)”
• “A Resistance History of the United States” by Tad Stoermer (coming 2026)

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Death isn’t something most of us are taught to face with honesty, compassion, or ritual. In this episode of Messy Liberation, hosts Becky Mollenkamp and Taina Brown sit down with Nikki Smith, The Death Doula, to explore what it means to navigate dying, grief, and collective loss with more humanity.

Nikki shares how her personal experiences with loss led her to become a death doula and grief coach, and why she believes grief doesn’t have to suck. Together, we talk about how our culture fails us in grief (three days of bereavement leave? really?), the myths of the “stages of grief,” what collective grief looks like in moments like COVID and global injustice, and why rituals matter.

We also touch on end-of-life dignity, hospice care, and what Nikki has learned about her own mortality from walking alongside others in their final days. This conversation is real, tender, and surprisingly hopeful—it’s about love, legacy, and finding joy even in the hardest moments.

If you’ve ever felt alone in your grief, questioned how to support someone through loss, or wondered what it means to prepare for your own death, this episode will meet you right where you are.

Discussed in this episode:

• How Nikki became a death doula and grief coach
• Why toxic positivity is harmful in grief
• The many forms of grief, including disenfranchised grief
• The limitations of bereavement leave and how workplaces fail grievers
• Rituals and cultural approaches to death
• The myth of “stages of grief” and why grief is nonlinear
• Collective grief in times of crisis (COVID, genocide, natural disasters)
• The dignity (and indignity) of dying, and hospice care
• Talking with kids about death
• Finding joy, ritual, and love inside grief

Resources:

• Nikki Smith’s website (and podcast info)
• Nikki and Taina’s upcoming session on collective grief (Sept. 25)

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What does it mean to rest in a world that’s constantly demanding more from us—and why is rest such an essential part of resistance?

In this episode, Becky and Taina sit down with Jordan Maney (aka The Radical Joy Coach) to talk about rest as resistance, how to distinguish between anger and rage, and why “rest so you can rage” is a mantra worth remembering.

Together they unpack:

• The difference between anger (short-term) and rage (sustainable)
• Why rest, joy, and care are essential for sustaining activism and justice work
• What Audre Lorde meant when she said “anger is loaded with information and energy”
• How shame and defensiveness show up when we’re called in or called out
• The tension between white women co-opting “rest as resistance” vs. acknowledging privilege
• Rest equity and who most urgently needs access to true restoration
• Why rest isn’t the absence of doing, but the presence of restoration—creative rest, social rest, emotional rest, and more

Jordan reminds us that rest isn’t an excuse to check out. It’s a strategy for sustaining ourselves in the long fight against oppressive systems. Without it, burnout wins.

If you’ve ever felt guilty about slowing down, or wondered how to balance caring for yourself while also showing up for justice, this episode will leave you with a radical new lens on why rest isn’t optional—it’s part of the work.

Jordan Maney is The Radical Joy Coach and the host of Rest Lab podcast. She helps “bleeding hearts”—people who deeply give a damn—center rest, joy, and care in their lives as an act of resistance.

Resources & Links

• RestLab Report and Podcast, Jordan’s Substack
• “Joy Is a Strategy: The White Leftist Struggle with Spirit”
• “Uses of Anger” by Audre Lorde
• “Rest Is Resistance: A Manifesto” by Tricia Hersey

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Becky and Taina sit down with Tiana Dodson, a body liberation facilitator who helps people reconnect with their bodies, destigmatize fatness, and confront the oppressive systems that keep us at war with ourselves.

Together, we dig into the messy, nuanced truths about body liberation: what it really means beyond “body positivity,” why loving your body isn’t always possible (or required), and how systemic oppression—not personal failure—shapes our relationships with our bodies.

Tiana shares her four-step framework for body liberation—education, reframing, resilience/self-care, and advocacy—and we talk about the real-life challenges of living in a fat body in a fatphobic, racist, capitalist culture. This conversation unpacks how liberation isn’t a destination but an ongoing practice of resistance, reclamation, and joy.

Discussed in this episode:

• The limits of body positivity and why “just love your body” is often inaccessible.
• The political realities of having a marginalized body and why they matter.
• Tiana’s journey from engineer to body liberation facilitator (with a spreadsheet love story in the mix).
• How trauma complicates body acceptance and why neutrality can be liberatory.
• The role of storytelling and representation in dismantling shame.
• Why reclaiming pleasure—from sex to ice cubes—is a radical act of liberation.

Resources Mentioned:

• "Fearing the Black Body" by Sabrina Strings
• "Fat Girls in Black Bodies" by Dr. Joy Arlene Renee Cox
• "The Body Is Not an Apology" by Sonya Renee Taylor
• "Pleasure Activism" by adrienne maree brown

Connect with Tiana Dodson:

• Instagram: @iamtianadodson
• Website: tianadodson.com
• TikTok: @iamtianadodson

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