Five Favorite Feminist Podcasts by Ellen @butnotdegeneres

Welcome to Smugglivus 2017! Throughout this month, we will have guests – authors and bloggers alike – looking back at their favorite reads of 2017, looking forward to events and upcoming books in 2018, and more.

Today’s Smugglivus guest is Ellen – librarian, podcaster, reader – and they can be found on Twitter @butnotdegeneres

Please give a warm welcome to Ellen, everybody!

Five Favorite Feminist Podcasts

As we near the end of 2017, I’ve spent the last couple months burying myself under a pile of blankets, cats, and fluffy media. It’s a nice pile if I do say so myself. I have snacks and tea and lots and lots of yarn. However I am often forced to pop my head – sometimes even my whole self out of my artificial cocoon. At which point I pull on my coziest sweater, wrap up in a truly enormous coat, pick out the perfect feminist podcast, and venture out into the cold, harsh world. More than anything else good feminist critic warms me to the core, so I’ve prepared a list of some of my favorite feminist podcasts that got me through 2017.

Desi Geek Girls by Swapna Krishna and Preeti Chhibber

While Swapna and Preeti do talk about more than Star Wars on their podcast, they talk about Star Wars a lot. More importantly they know waaaaaay more about the Star Wars extended universe than I do, so I always learn something knew from their discussions and appreciate their insights on the films. They also unapologetically love Porgs and that brings true joy to my Porg-loving heart. I’ve been relistening to their episode to get ready for The Last Jedi premiere.

Crime Time Podcast by Lee and Eddie

The podcast is centered around crime fiction, mysteries, thrillers, suspense, and horror fiction. Lee and Eddie have hilarious takes on the books they read, strong opinions about Patricia Cornwell, and fun recurring segments like Guess Along – they read the first few chapters of a book, guess what will happen, and reveal if they were right on a later episode. It’s obvious from listening that the hosts are cracking up the whole time, and if like me you are too much of a scaredy cat to read crime fiction it will keep you caught up on the genre.

Woke Doctor Who by Eugenia and Toya

Beside having some truly excellent intro music, the podcast dives deep into tricky PG13 topics in the hosts examination of gender, race, and representation in Doctor Who. Eugenia and Toya discuss specific topics like domestic violence as a plot device and their hopes for the first female doctor. They also look at characters who were often underserved by the plot like Mickey Smith (swoon) and Martha Jones (double swoon).

Not Now, I’m Reading by Kay Taylor Rea and Chelsea

Every week Kay and Chelsea talk about a book of their choice (or occasionally another type of media) and recommend other things they’re reading. Most of the fanfics recs I have bookmarked on my AO3 account came from their discussions, and I probably have at least 10 books they recommended. I owe them many times over for several sweet romances, their excellent holiday gift guide, an explanation of different ways to navigate AO3, and a window into the world of hockey fandom. Full disclosure, I ordered three more books they recced while I was writing this review.

Witch, Please by Marcelle and Hannah

Marcelle and Hannah, two academics, began Witch, Please as a friendship project to read and watch all seven Harry Potter stories together. They’ve used Harry Potter to center conversations on feminism, racism, domestic violence, and anti-semitism among other topics. Their episodes are consistently laugh out loud, intelligent, and full of funny sound effects – if you don’t like owls now, you will soon. Listening to their podcast reviewing the Lego games is almost more enjoyable than reading Harry Potter itself.