Babes in Bookland: Your Favorite Women's Bookclub Podcast

Babes in Bookland's 2nd Birthday!

Thank you for being here! Today, we look back on a few of my favorite clips from the past three seasons! xx, Alex ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

Trans Joy // RE-RUN: Geena Rocero's "Horse Barbie"

How can you reclaim your truth and your power? We’re diving into Horse Barbie, Geena Rocero’s radiant and illuminating memoir that shows her journey from a one-room home in Manila, Philippians, to trans pageants, from the perfume counter at Macy’s to New York fashion sets, and from private, suffocating, fear to a TED Talk that reframed transness as power. Along the way, we discuss her father’s complicated love, her mother’s unwavering belief and reflect on what can spark when the people who matter most tell you there’s nothing wrong with you.   Geena’s story and memoir widens from personal to political: pre-colonial history without gendered pronouns, the costs of documentation that doesn’t match your face, and the power of her viral TED Talk to turn shame into strength. We sit with the big questions: Why is femininity seen as a threat? How do entertainment and policy diverge? What changes when a community moves from visibility to rights? By the end, Horse Barbie reads like a manual for courage. It shows how story becomes strategy and how one woman’s voice can help many step out of the shadows. If you care about trans rights, immigration, pageant culture, modeling, or the way love can change a life, this conversation brings nuance, warmth, and a clear takeaway: policy matters, family matters, and stories move hearts faster than arguments ever will.   If the conversation resonates, subscribe, leave a review, and share this episode with someone who needs a hopeful, human lens on trans life and advocacy. For the extended discussion of this episode (an additional 24 min), subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Patreon [https://www.patreon.com/c/BabesinBooklandPodcast]. Support the show: Buy us a book [https://buymeacoffee.com/babesinbookland] Buy cute merch [https://www.teepublic.com/user/babes-in-bookland-podcast] Buy Horse Barbie [https://bookshop.org/p/books/horse-barbie-a-memoir-of-reclamation-geena-rocero/653cdaa143243d38?aid=118071&ean=9780593445907&listref=season-2-memoirs&next=t] Other Links: Evan Hurst substack [https://evanhurst.substack.com/p/is-it-anti-christian-extremism-to] This episode is produced, recorded, and its content edited by me. Special thanks to my dear friend, Jaime!  Xx, Alex Connect with us and suggest a great memoir! [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2339134/fan_mail/new] Follow us on instagram! @babesinbooklandpod [https://www.instagram.com/babesinbooklandpod/]  Timestamps! 00:21: Intro Buy Geena Rocero's Memoir [https://bookshop.org/p/books/horse-barbie-a-memoir-of-reclamation-geena-rocero/653cdaa143243d38?aid=118071&ean=9780593445907&listref=season-2-memoirs] ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

AUTHOR CHAT: Dorothy Roberts' "The Mixed Marriage Project"

What questions should you be asking the people you love while you still can? That's the thread running through this conversation with Dorothy Roberts, whose memoir The Mixed Marriage Projectstarted with a stack of boxes. After her parents passed, Dorothy opened them and found nearly 500 interviews her white father had conducted with interracial couples in Chicago, beginning in 1937, almost two decades before he married her Black mother. Inside were wild parties, a nudist camp, a turn-of-the-century club for mixed couples, and a file labeled number 224 that turned out to be about her. We talk about the interviews her father never published and the book contracts he kept walking away from, why she hid her father's whiteness from her Black classmates at Yale, and the painful stereotypes that surfaced even inside a club devoted to interracial marriage. We get into the big question at the heart of the memoir too: whether love, the everyday intimate kind, can actually dismantle racism. Spoiler, it's complicated. Dorothy Roberts is a scholar, professor, and author of five books on race, gender, and the systems that devalue Black women and mothers. The Mixed Marriage Project is her first memoir, built from the nearly 500 interviews her father left behind. If this conversation moved you, share it with a friend and leave a review and rating. Purchase The Mixed Marriage Project [https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-mixed-marriage-project-a-memoir-of-love-race-and-family-dorothy-roberts/d5922a6c45c20de3?ean=9781668068380&next=t&aid=118071&listref=season-3-memoirs] Support the show: On Patreon [https://www.patreon.com/c/BabesinBooklandPodcast] Buy us a book [https://buymeacoffee.com/babesinbookland] Buy cute merch [https://www.teepublic.com/user/babes-in-bookland-podcast] Subscribe to the Babes in Bookland Substack [https://substack.com/@babesinbookland] Connect with us and suggest a great memoir! [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2339134/fan_mail/new] Follow us on instagram!  [https://bookshop.org/p/books/strangers-a-memoir-of-marriage-belle-burden/9576dba8b9d3ce7d?ean=9780593733318&next=t&aid=118071&listref=season-3-memoirs]@babesinbooklandpod [https://www.instagram.com/babesinbooklandpod/]  Thank you for listening! Xx, Alex Timestamps! 00:01 — Intro: The Mixed Marriage Project 02:22 — Finding the form: memoir as history and social analysis 04:09 — What was the Great Migration 05:55 — Interracial marriage laws, North vs. South 08:00 — The interracial couples' club and its blind spot on Black women 10:56 — Race, racism, and why the questions never get asked 12:19 — Choosing which couples made the book 14:00 — The Albertis: a lifelong family friendship hidden in the interviews 15:22 — Researcher, daughter, or both 16:53 — The twist: her father started this before he met her mother 19:51 — Her father's anti-racism, and the brother who disowned him 23:19 — The India trip that shaped everything 25:06 — Questions she'll never get to ask her parents 26:24 — Writing alongside her sisters, Helen and Evelyn 28:00 — The Bachelor chapter: the nudist camp, the wild party, the sister who wanted it cut 31:40 — A loving memoir, not an attack 33:22 — Her own "bachelorette" stories 34:21 — What her kids might find in her own papers one day 35:37 — Being recorded, being remembered — the podcast as legacy 38:36 — Her father's thesis: can interracial marriage end racism 41:29 — How her views shifted while writing 47:30 — Her father's first interview, 1937, and the racial caste system 49:17 — The book he never finished 51:28 — File 224: discovering she was one of his research subjects 55:59 — Hiding her father's whiteness at Yale 59:04 — Ashamed isn't quite the word 61:06 — Racial identity is made up — and hers is hers 63:06 — Favorite word, staying hopeful, Marvin Gaye ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

Objectify Her // Lauren Fleshman's "Good for a Girl"

What would it mean to build women's sports around women's bodies?  This week, my friend Becca returns to discuss Lauren Fleshman's memoir "Good for a Girl". What starts as a running memoir quickly reveals itself as something far bigger: an investigation into the science of female puberty and athletics, the eating disorder epidemic inside women's collegiate and professional sports, and one woman's relentless fight to change a sport she loves from the inside out. We discuss Lauren's unconventional path to running, the ways puberty has been treated as "the one injury a girl can't come back from," the NCAA's staggering lack of policy around eating disorders in women's athletics, Lauren's famous Nike "Objectify Me" campaign, and the ways female athletes are still being failed by the systems built to protect them. This episode is for every woman who was ever told she was good — for a girl. The runners, the former athletes, the moms of daughters in sports, and anyone who has ever felt their body was working against them instead of for them. If this conversation resonated with you, the best thing you can do is share it with a friend who needs to hear it, and rate and review the show wherever you listen. It makes a huge difference! Purchase "Good for a Girl" [https://bookshop.org/p/books/good-for-a-girl-a-woman-running-in-a-man-s-world-lauren-fleshman/716dbb2e91b4d2be?aid=118071&ean=9780593296806&listref=season-3-memoirs&next=t] Other Links: https://www.milesplit.com/articles/211759/dear-younger-me-lauren-fleshman [https://www.milesplit.com/articles/211759/dear-younger-me-lauren-fleshman ](Lauren's letter to her younger self) Follow Becca's bookstagram: @bookedwithbecca and her new running account: @run.with.becca Support the show: On Patreon [https://www.patreon.com/c/BabesinBooklandPodcast] Buy us a book [https://buymeacoffee.com/babesinbookland] Buy cute merch [https://www.teepublic.com/user/babes-in-bookland-podcast] Subscribe to the Babes in Bookland Substack [https://substack.com/@babesinbookland] Connect with us and suggest a great memoir! [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2339134/fan_mail/new] Follow us on instagram!  [https://bookshop.org/p/books/strangers-a-memoir-of-marriage-belle-burden/9576dba8b9d3ce7d?ean=9780593733318&next=t&aid=118071&listref=season-3-memoirs]@babesinbooklandpod [https://www.instagram.com/babesinbooklandpod/]  Thank you for listening! Xx, Alex Timestamps! 00:00 — Intro: Lauren Fleshman's Good for a Girl 01:02 — Why did Becca pick this book? 03:33 — The book's dedication and opening lines 03:57 — How did Becca's running journey begin? 05:15 — How do you stay safe on solo runs? 07:05 — What would you tell your younger self? 08:09 — "You can do anything, Lauren" — her dad's voice in her head 09:58 — How do we hold space for people who shaped us for better and worse? 11:35 — "Dad was a wild tide, but mom was our shore" 12:08 — How do parents give equal love and attention in a big family? 13:44 — Beating the boys, and not questioning it 17:03 — Why do we still say "good for a girl"? 17:51 — Middle school dominance, then puberty hits 19:00 — Do we tie our identity to winning? 19:50 — Becca's Lauren Fleshman sighting on a race course 20:25 — Why are girls quitting sports by 14–17? 22:37 — Why does puberty help boys and hurt girls athletically? 23:32 — The clash between athletic function and the male gaze 25:39 — Finding her running form and making the team 27:20 — When did you first realize the boys were pulling ahead? 29:30 — How did Title IX change the culture of effort? 33:04 — "Puberty is the injury you can't come back from" — what did the captain mean? 34:20 — Why are eating disorders so prevalent in the running world? 35:53 — Why does the NCAA still have no policy on eating disorders? 39:06 — Stanford, Jesse, and asking the hard question up front 40:07 — "What made great women possible?" 41:19 — Body image and the college uniform 42:41 — Equity vs. equality — why "same" isn't fair? 43:16 — Why do female athletes peak in their late 20s and 30s, not their teens? 45:08 — Going pro on a $60K Nike salary 46:04 — Coming heartbreakingly close to the Olympics 47:01 — What happened when she emailed Nike's CEO? 47:46 — The "Objectify Her" campaign — reclaiming the gaze 49:19 — How do you let anger fuel advocacy instead of consuming it? 49:56 — Why did she start her blog? 50:49 — The granola bar company 51:04 — Why did Nike treat her pregnancy like an injury? 51:33 — What real change would actually look like for young female athletes? 52:20 — Final thoughts: what are we taking from this book? ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

AUTHOR CHAT: Jessica Zucker's "I Had a Miscarriage" & "Normalize It"

What would change if women stopped being silent about the hardest parts of their lives? This week, I sit down with psychologist, author, and advocate Dr. Jessica Zucker, the woman behind the viral #IHadAMiscarriage movement, to discuss her memoir I Had a Miscarriage and her newest book Normalize It: Upending the Silence, Stigma, and Shame That Shape Women's Lives. TW: Infant loss, pregnancy loss Jessica shares the story behind her 16-week miscarriage, how it deepened her already decade-long clinical work in women's reproductive and maternal mental health, and why she felt compelled to bring that conversation into the public sphere. We also dig into why so many women default to self-blame after pregnancy loss, how our culture has taught us to minimize our grief, and why avoiding painful emotions can be far more destructive than actually feeling them. Plus these big questions: Can pleasure and grief coexist? What does it mean to truly honor a loss? And why do the people who most deserve joy so often feel the least entitled to it? Come for the conversation about pregnancy loss and women's shame. Stay for the moment Alex and Jessica unpack why grief avoidance, not grief itself, is what really derails us, and the simple, no-excuse practice Jessica recommends for anyone who doesn't have time to fall apart. Warm, honest, and full of gentle permission slips, this conversation is for anyone who has ever shrunk their pain to make others more comfortable — which is probably all of us. Purchase Jessica's Books: Normalize It! [https://bookshop.org/p/books/i-had-a-miscarriage-a-memoir-a-movement-jessica-zucker/1a59de68ee83b5d6?aid=118071&ean=9781558612884&listref=season-3-memoirs&next=t] I had a Miscarriage [https://bookshop.org/p/books/i-had-a-miscarriage-a-memoir-a-movement-jessica-zucker/1a59de68ee83b5d6?aid=118071&ean=9781558612884&listref=season-3-memoirs&next=t] Find Jessica! Dr. Jessica Zucker's website: drjessicazucker.com [drjessicazucker.com] Her Instagram: @IHadAMiscarriage Support the show: On Patreon [https://www.patreon.com/c/BabesinBooklandPodcast] Buy us a book [https://buymeacoffee.com/babesinbookland] Buy cute merch [https://www.teepublic.com/user/babes-in-bookland-podcast] Subscribe to the Babes in Bookland Substack [https://substack.com/@babesinbookland] Connect with us and suggest a great memoir! [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2339134/fan_mail/new] Follow us on instagram!  [https://bookshop.org/p/books/strangers-a-memoir-of-marriage-belle-burden/9576dba8b9d3ce7d?ean=9780593733318&next=t&aid=118071&listref=season-3-memoirs]@babesinbooklandpod [https://www.instagram.com/babesinbooklandpod/]  Thank you for listening! Xx, Alex Timestamps! Timestamps! 00:00 Welcome and intro to Dr. Jessica Zucker 01:48 The origins of I Had a Miscarriage and Jessica's background in reproductive mental health 03:08 Jessica's own sixteen-week miscarriage while home alone 04:06 Why shame and self-blame follow pregnancy loss 05:28 Miscarriage as a normative outcome, not a curable one 07:14 Alex opens up about her own miscarriage 09:04 Building composite patient stories across both books 11:44 The #IHadAMiscarriage hashtag going viral 14:19 Letting grief wash over you instead of running from it 15:33 Grief avoidance, numbing, and what actually ruins us 16:09 How being the specialist made her own grief harder to navigate 18:57 Two weeks after the book came out: a breast cancer diagnosis 20:43 Small daily check-ins for people without access to therapy 25:01 Grief doesn't shrink, your life just gets bigger 26:08 Naming Olive and the grief rituals she witnessed in Tokyo 30:14 Can pleasure and grief coexist? Joy as resistance 31:35 The backstory of Normalize It and how it came together during cancer 35:20 Why women carry so much shame 38:04 Can shame ever be a useful tool? 39:35 Talking to her son and daughter about bodies, periods, and sex 44:11 The bravery of a text that just says "thinking of you" 45:52 Mirror or manifesto? 46:38 Body image after breast cancer 48:29 How Jessica stays hopeful 49:02 Where to find Jessica and her books ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.