WMC Live
WMC Live #375: The Sex Industry & Refugees. (Original Airdate 4/10/2022)
Robin explores what will actually happen to the 98% of refugees—women and children—fleeing Ukraine. Special Guest Taina Bien-Aimé, Executive Director of Coalition Against Trafficking in Women.
WMC Live
WMC Live #374: Goblin Market. (Original Airdate 4/3/2022)
Robin welcomes Poetry Month by celebrating Pre-Raphaelite Victorian poet Christina Rossetti—who was (surprise!) an overlooked feminist—with a reading of her remarkably erotic work, "Goblin Market."
WMC Live
WMC Live #373: One Woman's Courage. (Original Airdate 3/20/2022)
Robin on good news about Equal Pay, Marina Ovsyannikova, and the courage of presence. Special Guest: Dr. Kyleanne Hunter, Asst. Professor of Military and Strategic Studies at the USAF Academy, on gender and unconventional warfare.
WMC Live
WMC Live #372: Sexual Politics and War. (Original Airdate 3/13/2022)
Robin on resilience and fortitude, and the gender dimensions of Putin's war against Ukraine. Special Guest Nina Khrushcheva on the Ukrainian tragedy.
WMC Live
WMC Live #371: The Great Gates of Kiev. (Original Airdate 3/6/2022)
Robin explores "streaming war," the devastation of Ukraine, and the powerfully moving (but also shamefully racist) response to the tragic invasion. Plus, an analysis of Biden's first State of the Union speech.
WMC Live
WMC Live #370: The Bionic Woman. (Original Airdate 2/27/2022)
Robin explores modern medical technology in all its wonder—and reveals a personal modern medical technological procedure of her own.
WMC Live
WMC Live #369: The Mothers of Gynecology. (Original Airdate 2/13/2022)
Robin covers the Pape/University of Chicago study on the January 6 insurrection and racism; also, new facts on J. Marion Sims (the "father of gynecology”) who experimented on enslaved women without anesthesia, and the women who somehow survived.
WMC Live
WMC Live #368: Native Women & Media. (Original Airdate 2/6/2022)
Robin hosts a roundtable discussion with two Native activists and leaders, on Native people—women in particular—and the media. Guests: Crystal Echo Hawk (Pawnee Nation) and Rebecca Nagle (Cherokee Nation).
WMC Live
WMC Live #367: The New & Widening Gender Gap! (Original Airdate 1/30/2022)
Robin reports on the latest Gender Gap statistics (hope yet for the world!) and coins a radical new word. Plus, Supreme Court Justice Breyer's retirement, recent crackdowns on domestic terrorism—and librarians.
WMC Live
WMC Live #366: Voting Rights—and Wrongs. (Original Airdate 1/23/2022)
Robin returns and dives deep into voting rights—what you don't know, and what you could never have imagined. Plus, why the Right Wing admits not wanting you to vote!
WMC Live
WMC Live #365: Comfort, At Least. Joy? Hmmm. (Original Airdate 12/19/2021)
Robin ranges the globe collecting traditions for the Solstice and its offspring holidays. Plus, readings from Dorothy Parker, three male poets (Eliot, Yeats, Frost), four female poets (Derricotte, Chang, Le Guin, Morgan) . . . and a Partridge?
WMC Live
WMC Live #364: 100 Years Ago. (Original Airdate 12/12/2021)
Was it the good old days or the worst of times? Robin explores how we lived and who we were a century ago, and writes a letter to readers 100 years from now.
WMC Live
WMC Live #363: Vigilantism. (Original Airdate 12/5/2021)
Robin takes on vigilantism—the history, the psychology, and the overlap with law enforcement and the military, from Kyle Rittenhouse's trial to bounty hunters and Texas's abortion ban enforcement.
WMC Live
WMC Live #362: Feminism pre-Feminism. (Original Airdate 11/21/2021)
Robin, with guest historian and feminist chronicler Miriam Schneir, discusses "where were you when . . ." and "so where were all your great women?”—and then they find them!
WMC Live
WMC Live #361: Once More, With Feeling—The ERA. (Original Airdate 11/14/2021)
Robin takes us behind the scenes of how the Equal Rights Amendment got killed in the ‘70s—and what's really at stake today. Guest: Rep. Carolyn Maloney, Chairwoman of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform.
WMC Live
WMC Live #360: Conspiracy Theories. (Original Airdate 11/7/2021)
Robin confronts the "other pandemic”—the rash of conspiracy theories afflicting our conversations—and what to do about them. Special Guest: Mary Trump, best-selling author and psychologist.
WMC Live
WMC Live #359: All Hallows’ Eve! (Original Airdate 10/31/2021)
On Hallowe’en, Robin explores the increasing death of formal religion in the United States, and the possible birth of “Secular Grace.” She also explains what the group WITCH really was—and takes on the case of Britney Spears.
WMC Live
WMC Live #358: BANNED! (Original Airdate 10/17/2021)
Robin explores rising campaigns in the US and abroad to ban books and censor reporters, and revisits crusading Filipina journalist Maria Ressa, who was a prophetic special guest on the podcast in May 2018, and who has now just won the Nobel Prize.
WMC Live
WMC Live #357: Turning Pain Into Power. (Original Airdate 10/10/2021)
In ironic dis-observance of Columbus Day, Robin devotes the entire episode to Louise McDonald Herne and Jonel Beauvais, two Mohawk women leaders who discuss Indigenous culture and the primacy of its feminism.
WMC Live
WMC Live #356: The Shot That Saves—Vaccination. (Original Airdate 10/3/2021)
Robin (vaccinated twice and awaiting her booster!) takes on vaccines: their scrupulous science, surprisingly feminist history, testing, and mandates. Plus resistance (racist misuse), and opposition anti-vaxxers, Trumpists, and religionists.
WMC Live
WMC Live #355: Infrastructure! (Original Airdate 9/26/2021)
As Congress votes, Robin deconstructs “infrastructure”—and finds a surprise. Special Guest: novelist and poet Sandra Cisneros on her new book, “Martita, I Remember You.”
WMC Live
WMC Live #354: The Two Talibans. (Original Airdate 9/19/2021)
Season premiere! Robin reports on the summer and goes full frontal attack on the end in Afghanistan and the urgent threat to women’s reproductive rights in the U.S. Guest: Alida Brill on her book, “Nobody’s Business,” about privacy and abortion.
WMC Live
WMC Live #353: The Roaring Twenties. (Original Airdate 6/27/2021)
Season Finale! Robin plumbs parallels from the 1920s—from pandemic to pandemic, automobile to Harlem Renaissance, prohibition to evolution, women’s enfranchisement to The Great Migration. So how can we avoid repeating our mistakes this time?
WMC Live
WMC Live #352: Juneteenth! (Original Airdate 6/20/2021)
Robin celebrates Juneteenth, Jubilee or Freedom Day, commemorating the end of enslavement in the United States. Special Guest: Dr. Janet Dewart Bell, social justice activist and author.
WMC Live
WMC Live #351: Cities. (Original Airdate 6/13/2021)
Robin explores both the crucial importance and the crisis in cities, how COVID has forever altered city life, and how those radical changes will inform our future.