Season 4 has been our favorite season yet of The Fairer Cents, and today we're talking about our favorite moments and reading lots of listener mail we've received, some of it inspiring to financial feminists everywhere, and some of it heartbreaking.  We'll be back soon, so make sure you're subscribed so you don't miss any new episodes when they're ready. And in the off-season, check out the links below for all the places you can find Kara and Tanja online. Stay safe and healthy!

Kara:

• Kara's site, Bravely
• Kara's Instagram
• Kara's Twitter

Tanja:

• Tanja's site, Our Next Life
• Tanja's book, Work Optional
• Tanja's Instagram
• Tanja's Twitter
• Tanja's Facebook page

This is the second episode in a two-part mini series on money in our relationships, today exploring money and family (most especially parents), AND it’s the last full episode of season 4. Before we dive in to talk about family, we’re talking about the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) and the stock markets crashing, because they’re way too important not to discuss, including steps to take with your money and how to make sure you prioritize self care at a time that feels completely chaotic, especially for women. Our guests to talk about navigating financial family relationships are Cameron Huddleston, author of Mom and Dad, We Need to Talk: How to Have Essential Conversations with Your Parents About Their Finances, and Revanche, author of the blog A Gai Shan Life. They both share advice and stories of navigating tricky money relationships as women, both positive and negative, and looking out for yourself in the process. Be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss our season 4 wrap-up episode and any bonus or mini-series episodes we drop, as well as our season 5 premiere when it’s time. Thanks for being a part of The Fairer Cents community. Stay rad!

Links from the show:

• BuzzFeed debunking coronavirus myths
• Cameron Huddleston’s book
• Cameron’s Twitter
• Revanche’s blog, A Gai Shan Life
• Revanche’s Twitter
• Revanche’s blog posts on cutting off her dad

This is the first episode in a two-parter about how money impacts our relationships, and how we talk about money within those relationships. Within friendships, it’s a big social taboo to discuss money, right up there with politics and religion, but there are massive benefits that can come from breaking that taboo, from getting to know your friends on a deeper level, to feeling seen and known yourself, to even opening up the opportunity to do cool projects with friends (like this podcast!). Our guest is Kiersten Saunders, who writes the blog Rich & Regular with her husband Julien, and who fights for inclusion and racial equality in the financial independence space.

Links:

• Ecuador Chautauqua information – Hang out with Kara, Tanja & Kiersten for a week in August!
• Kiersten Saunders’ blog, Rich & Regular
• New York Times story on women in the FIRE movement
• Bank of America survey on money and friendships
• Away CEO expose on The Verge

This is the second in a two-part series on the evolving nature of careers, especially as it pertains to women and people of color, today focusing on the myriad ways our current work world doesn't work for women. We've talked before about the economic disadvantages that mothers face in the workplace and across their entire careers, as well as the costs of beauty double standards, but we're now layering in the costs of disability -- which will affect 1 in 4 women during our lifetimes -- and how our economy forces many women to be seen as disruptors whether they want to be or not. Our guests are Tiara Mercius, who has a legal career and advocates on behalf of disabled people, and Christabel Nsiah-Buadi, a journalist working to share stories from unrepresented voices, but who has had to create her own path to do so.

Links from the show:

• Ecuador FI retreat with Kara & Tanja
• Tiara Mercius's blog
• Tiara's blog post: An ADA Fail
• Christabel Nsiah-Buadi on Twitter
• Christabel Nsiah-Buadi's website
• My Lens Media pieces on PRX
• The Media Disruptors on PRI
• CDC Statistics on Disability

This is the first in a two-part series on the evolving nature of careers, especially as it pertains to women and people of color, today focusing on creating your own path when there is no road map, whether that's because you're trying to break into a legacy industry without connections, or because you're literally heading out into uncharted territory. Our guests are Jada Gomez, senior platform editor at Medium (and formerly of Bustle, Time, People and a slew of other prestigious media outlets), and Paula Pant, creator and host of the Afford Anything podcast and blog, both of whom got where they are today despite there not being a well-trod path laid out in front of them. 

Links from the episode:

• Jada Gomez on Twitter
• Jada Gomez on Medium
• Paula Pant's Afford Anything blog and podcast
• Paula Pant on Twitter
• Tanja's blog post about keeping money and creativity separate

This is the second part in a two-part series on women speaking, focusing today on our actual voices and how they are heard (or not heard) by our bias-filled culture. There is a ton of research showing that women and men are perceived differently when we speak, and that's both socially wired and generational. Like in so many parts of the economy, women are held to an impossible standard where you lose no matter what: either you're too assertive or you're not assertive enough. You're not authoritative enough or you're bossy. Our guests are Kristen Meinzer (host of the By the Book podcast along with Jolenta Greenberg, and author of the book "So You Want to Start a Podcast: Finding Your Voice, Telling Your Story, and Building a Community that Will Listen" and, along with Jolenta, the forthcoming book "How to Be Fine: What We Learned from Living by the Rules of 50 Self-Help Books") and Tamara Keith (National Public Radio's White House correspondent and host of the NPR Politics Podcast). While not every woman needs to speak on the air like they both do, their experience tells us a lot about what women are up against in our economy when we speak.

Links from the episode:

• Kristen Meinzer on Twitter
• Kristen’s book, So You Want to Start a Podcast
• By the Book podcast
• Tamara Keith on Twitter
• NPR Politics podcast
• Katie Mingle’s autoreply at 99 Percent Invisible 
• Study on vocal fry and success of young women in the labor market
• Study on preference for leaders with masculine voices
• This American Life piece on vocal fry and women’s voices: “Freedom Fries”
• Fresh Air interview on policing young women’s voices
• NPR story: “Sounding Like a Reporter – And a Real Person, Too”
• Transom.org opinion piece by Chenjerai Kumanyika about vocal color in public radio
• Naomi Wolf’s misguided Guardian piece on women’s voices
• Fast Company piece victim blaming women for our voices and how others discriminate on that basis
• Atlantic story on bias against women’s voices in hiring

This is the first part in a two-part series that is years in the making, and a topic close to our hearts. The fact is that when women and people from marginalized groups speak, it’s heard differently than it is when men speak. So we’re digging into that, today starting with the more figurative meaning of women’s voices, as in women daring to speak up and fight for something they believe in. Our guests are Noami Grevemberg who Instagrams about the lack of inclusivity in #vanlife at @irietoaurora, and Julia, a trans woman suing the state of North Carolina for its discriminatory health care policies that specifically target transgender people. Both of them are speaking up and willing to be visible even though it’s not always safe to do so, and we talked to them about weighing the risks -- including the financial risks -- of speaking up against what we all gain when women speak up in spite of those risks. In part 2, coming in two weeks, we’re talking about women’s actual voices, how the world hears us, and how we can push back.

Links from the episode:

• Diversify Vanlife essay on GnomadHome.com
• Noami on Instagram
• Julia’s Twitter account

Today we’re completing the two-part series on the economic implications of reproducing, talking about the costs – often mysterious -- of giving birth for women and others who can get pregnant, especially in the U.S. In this episode, Kara talks to Carol Sakala from the National Partnership for Women & Families about the actual costs of delivering a baby, and shares an audio essay on the range of known and unknown stats a mother must contend with when pondering the costs of delivery. We’d love to hear your thoughts on the episode, so please email us at [email protected] or hit us up on Twitter or Instagram at @fairercents. Thanks to our sponsor Freshbooks for their support of the show.

Links:

• Carol Sakala, director of childbirth connection programs at the National Partnership for Women & Families
• Vox video on the mysterious costs of giving birth
• The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecolegists position paper on home births

Today’s show is the first in a two-part series all about the economic implications of reproducing — or not reproducing. On the next episode, we’ll talk about the wide range of financial implications of giving birth for women and others who can get pregnant, but today we’re talking about the massive financial impacts of not being forced to have children you don’t want to have for any number of reasons, impacts that go well beyond women themselves. In this episode, Tanja talks to Brigette Courtot of Urban Institute about the economic impacts on women of having access to birth control, and Kara talks to Anna Bernstein of the Institute for Women’s Policy Research about the economic impacts of abortion. Thanks to our sponsors Upstart and Freshbooks for their support of the show.

Links:

• Urban Institute Health Policy Center reproductive health and access data and analysis
• Brigette Courtot’s bio and publications
• Anna Bernstein’s bio and publications
• IWPR’s Fact Sheet: “The Economic Effects of Contraceptive Access: A Review of the Evidence”
• New York Times piece by Lyndsay Werking-Yip: “I Had a Late-Term Abortion. I Am Not a Monster.”
• Vox piece by Dr. Cheryl Axelrod: “I’m an OB-GYN who had a 2nd-trimester abortion. The 20-week ban bill is dangerous.”
• Slate piece by Margot Finn: “I Had a Late-Term Abortion. President Trump and Pro-Lifers Have No Right to Call Me a Murderer.”
• From The Guardian: “Ohio bill orders doctors to ‘reimplant ectopic pregnancy’ or face ‘abortion murder’ charges”

This week, we conclude our two-part series on wellness by focusing on diet and weight loss, the real centerpiece of the entire wellness industry. Just how big a business it is, the lengths the industry goes to to hide itself, and how it hurts us as women in particular. Feminist dietician Rachael Hartley talks to us about how we’ve focused too much on diet and fitness in our quest to be healthier (or, really, thinner), and Tanja looks at the fat phobia that’s the real motivator behind so much of our wellness and weight loss obsession. Big thanks to Freshbooks for sponsoring season 4 of The Fairer Cents. If you’d like to try their cloud accounting software for free, go to freshbooks.com/tfc and enter “the fairer cents” in the How did you hear about us?

Links from the episode:

• Smash the Wellness Industry by Jessica Knoll in the New York Times
• Rachael Hartley Nutrition
• Rachael Hartley on Instagram
• Rachael on Twitter
• Rachael’s blog post on Food, Dieting & Feminism
• Huff Post piece by Michael Hobbes, “Everything You Know About Obesity Is Wrong”
• Diet industry research
• French women would rather be fat than dead
• Yale research on trading life or limb not to be fat
• Melinda Parrish video on Huff Post
• Stephanie Shames TEDx talk
• Samantha Bee Full Frontal clip