F Word podcast

Episode 3

jess.mccabe@gmail.com (thefwordpodcast) — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 21:44:43 +0000

Contributors to this episode:

Polly Cassidy
Holly Combe
Finn Mackay
Jess McCabe
Lynne Miles

Pornography is one of those topics that can lead to heated arguments between feminists. And by heated arguments, I mean pistols at dawn. So we thought it would be the perfect subject for an episode of The F Word podcast directly following our discussion of bridge building between different feminist groups.

Fuelled by Victoria sponge and other sugar-based foods, we had a really interesting debate and, I think, found lots of common ground between our different perspectives.

We covered: why mainstream/all porn is such a problem for feminists; whether censorship is the solution; how feminists have tried to define pornography; the issue of feminists allying themselves, or being seen to be allied with the right wing on porn; the distinction between extreme and violent porn, porn which is ‘merely’ depressingly sexist and potential alternatives; the effect that porn has on our sex lives; pornography which is filmed abuse and the impact pornography has on male violence. We also tried to define radical feminism, considered the risks and rewards of pissing as a viable protest against the sleezy type of sex shop and mourned the lack of consciousness-raising groups in the 21st century.

Our F Word podcast themetune is by the lovely Laura Kidd. The song is Pull You Down, and it is from her solo project She Makes War. If the way the intro is cut seems weird, that is because I did it. However, if you listen to the end of the podcast you will get to hear the whole song.

We got so caught up in this (there was a lot to discuss!) that we didn’t get on to talking over any news items, but never fear news junkies – we did manage to work in some thoughts about the recent case of the Manchester United Christmas party where one woman was allegedly raped and another was “roasted” by six footballers.

Click here to download episode three!

jess.mccabe@gmail.com (thefwordpodcast) — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 16:50:11 +0000

My Podcast Alley feed! {pca-44bdfc6ae0f09843b17f17a5a64360c1}

Episode Two

jess.mccabe@gmail.com (thefwordpodcast) — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 16:35:27 +0000

Some months ago, we recorded episode one of our brand new podcast. It’s taken us longer than we thought to record episode two, but it is finally here for you to download!

Click here to download Episode Two of The F Word podcast

This time we talked about a recent Marie Claire feature on rebranding feminism. The magazine asked three agencies to come up with adverts that sell feminism to the general public – we rate their efforts, and talk about the problematic concept that feminism needs to be repackaged to make it more appealing. Here are the ads, in the order we talk about them – just to give you some context:

Then we move on to consider how feminists can avoid getting into self-destructive arguments about controversial issues such as pornography.

The episode’s podcasters were: Lynne Miles, Holly Combe (arriving fashionably late), Louise Livesey, Laura Woodhouse, Polly Cassidy and me.

Our new F Word podcast themetune is by the lovely Laura Kidd. You may remember her recent feature about volunteering at Ladies Rock! – the three day camp for aspiring rock stars. The song is Pull You Down, and it is from her solo project She Makes War. If the way the intro is cut seems weird, that is because I did it. However, if you listen to the end of the podcast you will get to hear the whole song.

Photo by fensterbme, shared under a Creative Commons license

Episode 1

jess.mccabe@gmail.com (thefwordpodcast) — Sun, 08 Jul 2007 22:11:34 +0000

Welcome to the first ever F Word podcast!

A couple of weekends ago, bloggers Holly Combe and Lynne Miles got together at my house, along with Polly Cassidy, to record the podcast. Now you can download it. This is our first foray into podcast making – and my first attempt to edit audio of any kind, so bear with us if it’s not completely polished. Rather than a scripted show, we wanted to record our conversations as they happened. And if you hear a sort of rustling in the background, those are the M&Ms we were scoffing.

Still, listening back to the recording, I think we came up with some pretty interesting stuff. It’s split into two parts for easy listening. In part one, we tackled:

The Cabinet reshuffle, in particular media reactions to the promotion of the UK’s first ever female Home Secretary and the election of Harriet Harman as deputy leader of the Labour party
Wimbledon: the first year of equal prize money for female and male competitors and why women only play three sets while men play five

In part two, we had a bit more of a general discussion about the issue of femininity, touching on:

How traditionally ‘feminine’ things are still looked down on, while ‘masculine’ things are embraced by men and women alike
Why rugby players love drag – when they’re pissed
The difficulties of buying gender-neutral toys
The myth of the finger-wagging feminist who will tell you off for wearing make-up
The politics of hair removal
And, of course, the question of why we have all these gender-binaries anyway, and if it’s possible to tell whether there is a difference between men and women really

I can’t promise that we’ll be doing these podcasts every month, but hopefully we’ll get another one out by the end of the summer. Please do get in touch to tell us what you think: this audio-stuff is very new to us here at The F Word, so your feedback is really valuable. As usual, you just need to fill in our comments form to let us know what you think of this podcast, or anything else on The F Word.

Happy listening

Click to download part one

Click to download part two

Photo by fensterbme, shared under a Creative Commons license