Feminist Professor

S2 E8 On Complaint DESCRIPTION In this episode, we will explore complaint: as a response to an unacceptable and unwanted situation as well as a means of remedy when one has been harmed. Drawing on Sara Ahmed’s work on complaint, we will think about why institutions and systems often work to block complaint, why we are made anxious by the act of complaining, and why it is important that we guarantee that our grievances are recorded for those who both came before as well as those who will come after us. SHOW NOTES I discussed two books by Sara Ahmed at some length: Complaint! (Duke U Press, 2021): https://www.amazon.com/Complaint-Sara-Ahmed/dp/1478017716 No!: The Art and Activism of Complaining (released on April 7th, can preorder): https://www.amazon.com/No-Activism-Complaining-Sara-Ahmed/dp/1558613684

In this episode, we will consider the rise of the ‘angry white man,’ the man who experiences aggrieved entitlement because he has not been delivered the social power, authority, and resources promised by patriarchy. The angry white man—who may resent downward economic mobility as much as feminist challenges to gender hierarchy—has been recruited as a voter, protestor, and warrior in the fight for normative masculinity (which, by extension, requires normative femininity). We talk about the political force of the angry white man right now as well as the many ways he is positioned as the last defense of patriarchy and white supremacy. Show Notes The following texts have been mentioned in this episode as well as earlier episodes in the series on masculinities: Guyland: The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men (Michael Kimmel): https://www.amazon.com/Guyland-Perilous-World-Where-Become/dp/0060831359 Angry White Men: Masculinity at the End of an Era (Michael Kimmel): https://www.amazon.com/Angry-White-Men-American-Masculinity/dp/1568585136 Dude, You’re a Fag: Masculinity and Sexuality in High School (C.J. Pascoe): https://www.amazon.com/Dude-Youre-Fag-Masculinity-Sexuality/dp/0520271483 The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love (bell hooks): https://www.amazon.com/Will-Change-Men-Masculinity-Love/dp/0743456084

In this episode, we will launch the first of three conversations on masculinities with Dr. Suzanne Ashworth. We will discuss why masculinities should be understood as plural even though our culture seems to ignore all but the most dominant and idealized version of it. We will also discuss boyhood and the ways in which mainstream culture begins to ‘boy’ our boys in the direction of emotional indifference and cruelty. Throughout the three-part series, we will constantly return to the questions: what does masculinity feel? And what more might masculinity feel? SHOW NOTES The following texts were cited in this episode: Masculinities (R.W. Connell): https://www.ucpress.edu/books/masculinities/paper Guyland: The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men (Michael Kimmel): https://www.amazon.com/Guyland-Perilous-World-Where-Become/dp/0060831359 Deep Secrets: Boys’ Friendships and the Crisis of Connection (Niobe Way): https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674072428 Perverse Feelings: Poe and American Masculinity (Suzanne Ashworth): https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/perverse-feelings-9781978798533/

In this episode, we will continue our close look at the key objectives of Project 2025. This time, we will focus on the plan to restrict and deny access to both contraception and emergency contraception. More contraceptive forms (i.e. hormonal birth control, IUDs) have been reframed as abortifacients, or drugs and devices designed to terminate pregnancy. They do not terminate pregnancy; they prevent pregnancy. But Project 2025 is intent on erroneously redefining them so that they can be folded into larger efforts to regulate and ban abortion. Listen to hear more about how this is—and will—happen.

In this episode, we discuss the important political and personal necessity of rest. Because we live in a grind culture that insists on incessant productivity and normalizes exhaustion, we have lost the capacity to define and defend rest. Thanks to Tricia Hersey’s work in Rest is Resistance, this episode describes how we are damaged by the ‘cult of urgency and busyness’ and how we might begin to reimagine the radical potential of learning how to rest.

In this week’s episode, I was fortunate to sit down for a longer discussion about trans athletes and gender in sport with Dr. Kristy McCray, a sports sociologist and Professor in Otterbein’s Health and Sport Sciences Department. This episode is twice as long as my solo episodes, but it is well worth the time (even […]

We will continue exploring the assumptions that underlie ‘woke gender ideology.’ This particular episode will focus on the purported ‘biological reality of sex’ as defined by the Trump administration’s Executive Order ‘Defending Women from Gender Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.’ More specifically, we will explore how a scientifically inaccurate understanding of biological sex is leveraged in anti-gender and anti-trans political efforts.

This episode continues the conversation of last week, Preparing for Trump 2.0. In it, eighteen speakers from the larger podcast community share brief and powerful insights into what they are doing differently or refusing to do in this volatile political climate.

In this episode, we discuss the rise in trans panic, or the cultivation of widespread anxiety and fear at the very fact of trans existence. We talk about the ways in which trans panic serves particular political ends as well as underscores the phantasmatic nature of gender. Using gender affirming care as an example, we consider how much trans panic relies on fictitious stories about gender and ignores the lived realities of trans youth specifically.

In this episode, we will discuss different ways of understanding the motives of misogyny, or what is more commonly understood as the hatred of women, as well as examine the upsurge in misogynist rhetoric in the 2024 Presidential election.

In this episode, we turn to the work of Sara Ahmed to better understand how we become a problem for others when we expose or name a problem. Podcast Available On: Apple Spotify Featuring: Dr. Tammy Birk Show Notes: In this episode, I relied on the critical work of Sara Ahmed and cited three of […]

This episode explores some of the anxieties and fears that keep us silent or unwilling to speak. Why do we think silence protects us when it doesn’t make us any less afraid? Let’s consider what Audre Lorde can teach us. Podcast Available On: Apple Spotify Featuring: Dr. Tammy Birk Show Notes: In this episode, I […]