Lean Out with Tara Henley

One of the themes of the Lean Out podcast is the ongoing tensions between men and women. This past week saw a shot fired on that front: a piece published in The New York Times Magazine, titled “The Trouble With Wanting Men [https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/21/magazine/men-heterofatalism-dating-relationships.html].” For this special joint episode, we unpack this essay with podcaster Meghan Daum and a Gen Z guest. Meghan Daum [https://www.theunspeakablepodcast.com/] is an American author and essayist, and the host of the Unspeakable podcast, soon to be renamed the Unspeakeasy. Lily Isaacs [https://unherd.com/author/lily-isaacsunherd-com/] is a British writer, and an editorial assistant for UnHerd. You can find Tara Henley on Twitter at @TaraRHenley, and on Substack at tarahenley.substack.com

The working poor in Canada are often largely invisible. The struggle to make ends meet in an explosively expensive era tends to be a private matter. But our guest on the show today has taken the step to make her own battle public, with a new cover story for Maclean’s that’s sparking discussion across the country. Jeni Gunn is a gig worker in Victoria, B.C. Her new essay for Maclean’s is “Confessions of the Working Poor [https://macleans.ca/society/confessions-of-the-working-poor/].” You can find Tara Henley on Twitter at @TaraRHenley, and on Substack at tarahenley.substack.com

In recent weeks and months, a number of you have reached out to Tara about the debate on gender medicine for minors — and a lack of media coverage about it, particularly in this country.  This is a topic that she recently covered on her other podcast, Full Press. And The Hub [https://thehub.ca] has been kind enough to let us bring you the free version of that episode today, where you can hear her entire conversation on gender medicine and the media, with co-hosts Harrison Lowman and Peter Menzies [https://petermenzies.substack.com/].  You can find Tara Henley on Twitter at @TaraRHenley, and on Substack at tarahenley.substack.com

In recent years, we’ve read a lot of memoirs from women who feel stuck in specific ways: single, childless, consumed by work, and disillusioned with hook-up culture. Our guest on today’s program is the author of the first memoir we have read about breaking free from that pattern — and the story of how it happened is as moving as it is surprising. Beth Kaplan [https://touchpointsawriterstruth.substack.com/] is a Canadian writer, and the author of Loose Woman: My Odyssey From Lost to Found [https://bethkaplan.ca/books/loose-woman/]. You can find Tara Henley on Twitter at @TaraRHenley, and on Substack at tarahenley.substack.com

With the excesses of 2020 now being examined in mainstream outlets like The New York Times, we are witnessing a moment of introspection on the American left. To unpack this development, we're joined by a writer who has studied the history of the left. And in this week's conversation, we wrestle with our own complicated — and at times conflicted — relationships to these politics. Daniel Oppenheimer [http://www.danieloppenheimer.com/about] is an American writer and podcaster. He runs the Substack newsletter Eminent Americans [https://danieloppenheimer.substack.com/] and hosts a podcast [https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/eminent-americans/id1684295922] of the same name. He’s the author of Exit Right: The People Who Left the Left and Reshaped the American Century [https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Exit-Right/Daniel-Oppenheimer/9781416589716], and his latest essay for Persuasion is “How the Left Loses its People [https://www.persuasion.community/p/how-the-left-loses-its-people].” You can find Tara Henley on Twitter at @TaraRHenley, and on Substack at tarahenley.substack.com