The Unconstrained Podcast

My interview with professor of Feminist Studies at UC Santa Cruz about her memoir Intimate Politics: How I Grew Up Red, Fought for Free Speech, and Became a Feminist Rebel.Recorded August 2009

''The closer you look, the dirtier it gets,'' says Brent Turner, activist with the Open Voting Consortium, www.openvoting.org.Today is Election Day! Do you know where your vote WENT? Originally a civil rights activist, Brent has been ringing the alarm about the very systems in place that the average voter naively assumes make a fair, just and unmanipulated tabulation of the most basic cornerstone of democracy: voting. The piece of the puzzle most vulnerable is the software used to count our votes. Who manufactures it? Who knows how to manipulate it? How can there be public oversight of the final tabulations if the computers doing the counting are programmed secretly? DON'T GET CYNICAL. GET MAD.Recorded April 2009.

Jen Nedeau blogs about Women's Rights at Change.org. She's not a seasoned feminist who has it all figured out in fact, her feminist awakening began only a year ago. But she understands that women of her generation have grown up with a dangerous sense of equality that does not sync with real-world politics. This interview was recorded in March of 2009.

Interview with Rachel Blum, recorded April 11, 2009, roughly a year since she began transitioning from living as a man to living as a woman. Although there is much to say about the issues presented in a story like Rachel's, I find that I am profoundly moved by what Rachel has shared with me, and can only frame this conversation with music that expresses my feelings. Very brief selections from a live recording of La Traviata with Alfredo Kraus and Maria Callas are included in this podcast.

This interview was recorded March 10, 2009. The woman behind the blog, Womanist Musings, talks with Madama about parenting as a radical act, womanism as opposed to feminism, a social hierarchy of bodies, and the many forms of privilege that she consistently writes about on her blog. Always thinking critically, Renee also discusses her thoughts on victimology and how women must exercise power creatively and productively.

WAM! Bang! Blogher! Born with an innate sense of fairness, Veronica organized her first protest in 2nd grade and by the time she was in high school knew she was feminist. Veronica is ubiquitous in the blogosphere as well as speaking at conferences this year, and our conversation covers her work in reproductive justice, the marketing of mommyblogging and her work on legislation in her home state of Illinois. This is a woman who was born knowing that she wasn't going to let other people decide what she could tackle...

''SPEAK! is a group of women of color media makers. With contributions from all over the U.S., these recordings are testimonials of struggle, hope, and love. Proceeds of this album will go towards funding single mothers traveling to the 2009 Allied Media Conference in Detroit, MI.'' (from the album liner notes)Here is my interview with Adele Nieves, who produced the album as well as contributed its first track. This CD packs a punch, and you're welcome, you needed that. Powerful, lyrical, musical, beautiful, angry, strong and vulnerable, Adele Nieves and the women of SPEAK! are not sitting around waiting to be granted a seat at the table. They have discovered themselves. So, if you're ready to shut up, sit down and listen to radical women of color media makers, you can buy the CD at www.speakmediacollective.com.The interview opens with Adele reading her piece, Why Do You Speak?, and our conversation ends with a taste of Wishful Thinking by Alexis Pauline Gumbs. Watch for this poem set to music to be released as a single on iTunes! You will want it and you will want to give it to every woman you know.

Madama reads sections 12, 13, 14 & 15 of Walt Whitman's poem, Song of Myself. With an introduction...

With an introduction to get you in the mood...

Madama talks about smacking into art and reads sections 6, 7 and 8 as she poems her way to the inauguration of President Barack Obama.