Up Next: Three podcasts we love, for your next commute

WORDS BY SASHA GATTERMAYR

ARTWORK BY SOPHIA TEMPORALI

Educational, reflective and wildly entertaining.

As non-traditional as it might seem, everything I know, I learnt from podcasts.

They were my teachers at the school of life far more than institutions had been at all. Call Your Girlfriend and The Guilty Feminist taught me everything I know about intersectional feminism, while Longform trained me in how to be a writer.

Podcasts like these allow us to share knowledge, raise our voices and educate ourselves. Or, at the very least, provide some solid entertainment.

How to be a Girl

Marlo is the single mother of a transgender child. At three years old, her son informed her that she was actually a girl.

How to be a Girl chronicles Marlo’s journey of raising her daughter and the complications they face in a society that is sometimes hostile to each of them. It is also a moving exploration of parenthood, as Marlo herself re-evaluates her identity and makes a huge effort towards self-education.

She experiences moments of doubt and sadness, simultaneously longing for the child that used to be there, but deeply loving the one she has now. How to be a Girl is at the frontier of new parenting literature, veering away from self-help and more towards the essence of being human.

It is about the experience of being transgender, the experience of someone you love being transgender, and navigating unfamiliar territory together. Heartwarming, open-minded and inspirational, it made me cry tears of sadness and happiness at once.

The central question the host asks is what is a ‘girl’, anyway? What does it mean, even to a fully-grown woman, to be female?

It is a deep and uplifting portrayal of a child teaching a parent, rather than the other way around.

Guys we F****d

This is an example of a podcast steering the collective conversation in a new direction.

Hosted by New York comedians Corinne Fisher and Krystyna Hutchinson, this sex-positive podcast is all about discussing topics that are still taboo for women in the public space. Primarily, female sexuality.

Our foul-mouthed, straight-talking, sexually expressive hosts interview revolutionaries in reproductive health, people from all corners of the LGBTQI+ community, people in the arts, sex workers and porn stars.

They also successfully weave in-depth pop culture analyses with real-world and political references. Expect titles like ‘Does Kris Jenner know when each of us will die?’ and ‘You’re a queer Christian?’.

Fisher and Hutchison are like the crazy aunts we only ever see at Christmas because our parents worry they will be a bad influence, but little do they know they buy us booze on the weekends and tell us everything they know about sex.

Fisher and Hutchinson speak truth to power, are confrontational in a way we all wish we were, and are laughing with sex not at it.

And occasionally they talk about guys they f****d.

She’s on the Money

UK-based initiative, She’s on the Money, started as event workshops that aim to enhance financial literacy among women. Its podcast is now beamed around the world.

Hosted by founder Molly Benjamin and financial planner Lisa Conway-Hughes, She’s on the Money looks at investing, pensions, taxes, budgeting and property, with zero accounting jargon.

It’s not so much about demystifying finance as it is about learning how the most important system in the world works, so that women can take control of their financial independence and stability.

Together, Benjamin and Conway-Hughes break down difficult and deliberately confusing financial concepts in a friendly, no-bullshit way. Industry guests feature on every episode, delivering their own ‘how-to’ guides, such as on building an investment portfolio with 100% ethical companies.

It also dedicates specific episodes to financial issues that disproportionately affect women, such as child support, health insurance and tackling the gender pay gap. It encompasses the financial needs of all different kinds of working women, professional or not, from home loans to freelancing.

It’s funny and educational and everything I wish I’d learnt at school.

This article was originally published in Fashion Journal 190. You can read it here.