Ep. 41: Helen Roy on Parenting, Care Feminism, and Human Dignity
About this episode
Helen Roy discusses parenting, care feminism, and the civic significance of family life.
Lura and Lauren welcome writer and mother of four Helen Roy of Helen Roy Writes to the podcast We Made This Political for their parenting month series. Roy describes how her early work as an analyst at the Defense Intelligence Agency, graduate study in Western moral tradition and Aristotle’s virtue ethics, and concern about national identity and lack of grand strategy led her to see the family as a basic unit of civilization and parenting as work with deep civic meaning. She shares how meeting her husband (her first Bumble date) shifted her view of family life, and emphasizes that raising a family can be central without diminishing intellectual or professional work. The conversation turns to Roy’s “Call Your Mom” advice series and her view of feminism, which she identifies as “care feminism” and “Catholic feminism,” drawing in part from radical Black feminist legacies that center care as legitimate economic, spiritual, and politically significant work. They discuss care as protection and resistance, including examples from the history of Black midwifery, and criticize contemporary conservative anti-feminist arguments that dismiss feminism by redefining it narrowly while taking…
More episodes of We Made This Political Podcast
- Ep. 48: Colleen Shogan on Public History, Polarization, and the Future of the National Archives
- Ep. 47: Joshua Bandoch on Persuasion, Emotional Intelligence and Positive Politics
- Ep. 46: Sam Daley-Harris on Transformational Advocacy
- Ep. 45: Joe Waters on the Common Good, Family Policy, and Predictability
- Ep. 44: Mike Lee on Civility, Rhetoric, and Disagreeing Better
- Ep. 43 WMTP: Elizabeth Neumann on Rage, Extremism, the Online Outrage Machine
Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the We Made This Political Podcast podcast page.