podcasts for women
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Why Podcasters Need to Ask Women Better Questions

It’s time to stop asking “What’s it like to be a woman in…?"

“What is it like to be a woman in…?” This is the question I dread whenever I’m listening to successful women being interviewed.

In June, Mindy Kaling went on The Daily Beast‘s The Last Laugh podcast and was asked, “What it’s like to be the only minority woman in an all white-male writers room?” She answered thoughtfully, but then neatly summed up the problem with this line of questioning during her speech at a Women in Hollywood event in October. “We are not just women in Hollywood. We are Hollywood,” she told the crowd.

It’s not that I find the question offensive in any way. Obviously, when you create things, different parts of your identity come into play. That is super important and interesting. What I dislike about this question is its ubiquitousness. It’s asked in almost every podcast and media interview with prominent women working in tech, finance, music and other male-dominated industries—by men, of course, but also by women. Often, the subject being interviewed has answered this same question time and time again.

“What is it like to be a woman in comedy? I would say it’s 1% jokes & 99% answering this question.”

Comedian Aparna Nancherla wrote a tweet back in 2016 that has stayed with me: “What is it like to be a woman in comedy? I would say it’s 1% jokes & 99% answering this question.” When I was just starting to do standup comedy myself, I listened to a lot of comedy podcasts. I looked forward to the episodes featuring comedians who were also women, but was always disappointed when the majority of the conversation was about their experiences as women: writing comedy as a woman, performing comedy as a woman, interacting with other comedians as a woman and on and on ad nauseam. When interviewing men, those same podcast hosts allowed the conversation to go anywhere and be anything. What a huge waste of an opportunity to allow women to talk about their process, to be silly, to tell us something we’d never heard before about themselves or their lives.

One of the reasons I started my podcast, Cavern of Secrets, was I wanted to create a space for women to talk about anything. In previous seasons, guests like Cheryl Strayed, Carrie Brownstein, Tanya Tagaq and Jillian Tamaki got into the weeds about their creative process, made jokes and talked about personal stuff. (The latest season has just launched.) I want my guests to feel like they have control over what they talk about; if someone wants to talk about the way that being a woman has affected their art, we can talk about that. If someone wants to talk about their divorce, we can also talk about that. 

I am interested in what happens when you leave those doors open, when you leave room for exploration. I feel very grateful to have had conversations about anything and everything with so many amazing women, all without resorting to that age-old question. Because we aren’t “women in…,” we just are. 

podcasts for women
Cavern of SecretsBTS while recording Cavern of Secrets.

Lauren Mitchell’s best podcast picks 

5 podcasts that won’t ask their guests, “What’s it like to be a woman in…?”

Bodega Boys

I cannot listen to this podcast at work or while I’m driving because I am pretty much laugh-crying the whole time. Hosts Desus and Mero regularly interview women on their late-night show, and they always ask interesting, off-the-cuff questions that dig deep. 

Sandy and Nora Talk Politics

Sandy Hudson and Nora Loreto, two of the smartest women in the country, examine Canadian politics through a leftist lens. It doesn’t get much better than that.

The Red Road Podcast

Imagine overhearing two incredibly smart and nuanced thinkers talking about politics and anything else they felt like while on a long drive. Hosts Courtney Skye and Hayden King record this podcast on their commute into work, and it’s a great listen.

Safe Space

This podcast, hosted by my friend Vicky Mochama, makes current events funny. (I swear I would say this even if I wasn’t a recurring guest.)

Sportsfeld

My two lovely friends Andrew Zuber and Jake Goldsbie make this meandering, silly podcast about sports that even an extreme novice like me finds interesting. They are talented interviewers and conversationalists who do a great job of incorporating women into a traditionally dude-heavy space. 

The new season of Cavern of Secrets kicks off with a live show featuring Mary H.K. Choi and Bim Adewunmi on Sunday, October 27, from 7 – 9 p.m. at Revue Cinema in Toronto.

 

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