Stuff Mom Never Told You

Last summer when I went on holiday to Yorkshire with my family, we were having some problems. Specifically, issues with the cottage we had rented for the week. The dog peed on the brand new sofa twenty minutes after we arrived. Not a good start. The shower in the en-suite in my bedroom I had got so excited about did not work. Unfortunately neither did the one in the main bathroom, and when we attempted to use either, this awful moaning wheezing sound would start in the ceiling and reverberate throughout the house for hours. It would be fair to say that nerves were frayed.

But I was determined to have a nice time. I took the Glamour magazine I had brought and saved specifically for reading in this cute cottage and went upstairs to look it over in bed despite what sounded like an aging werewolf throwing a tantrum above me.

In Glamour was an article about podcasts. I had been vaguely aware that podcasts existed, but I pretty much thought they were mostly run by middle aged comedians who felt that the BBC were too restrictive for their genius, so I was surprised by how great the content Glamour described sounded. It may have been timing or it may have been the cottage’s continued attempts to noisily eat itself, but over the course of that holiday I threw myself into the podcasting world with enthusiasm. And I’ve spent a lot of time there since.

The best podcast Glamour provided me with that week, and one of my favourites to date was Stuff Mom Never Told You, presented by Cristen Conger and Caroline Ervin. SMINTY is a podcast for burgeoning feminists everywhere. I have learned so much about the different experiences of women and how feminism fits into wider cultural issues through listening. SMINTY has taught me about subjects I have never even considered, as a feminist or otherwise.

Here are my top five shows to get you started:

5. The Literary Reign of YA Fiction

An interesting look at young adult fiction and the relationship adults have with it. YA is a big topic in feminist writing because of course most of the authors of it are women. This podcast was particularly interesting to me at the time because of the articles written after The Fault In Our Stars got big about how John Green had ‘saved’ young adult fiction. Love TFIOS, but ugh. Seriously.

4. Cosplaying with Gender

Cosplay fascinates me as I know very little about it. In my first year of university there was one night were I attempted to get involved in one of those Dungeons and Dragons-type (see? Terrible!) board games that one of my flatmates was playing with her friends, but it did not go very well and I was never invited to play again.

3. Black Hairstory

This podcast with Lori L. Tharp, author of Hair Story: The Untangling of Black Hair in America utterly fascinated me. Tharp’s discussion begins with the story of how when she first approached her university about writing a thesis on black hair, eyes were rolled because her supervisor couldn’t see her having enough to say. Spoiler alert: she did.

2. Curly Hair Conundrums

I think I’m obsessed with hair. This was one of the first of Cristen and Caroline’s podcasts that I listened to. It looks at the representation of straight VS curly hair and how curly haired women are often represented in television as crazy or evil. Think Elena VS Katherine in early The Vampire Diaries.

1. Fat Bottomed Girls

This podcast looks at the cultural and historical background of our obsession with big bottoms. Large bottoms and race associations are discussed, with a particular look at the really tragic history of Saartje Baartman. It is totally fascinating and gives a lot more insight into why those Kim K pictures could be considered so problematic.