Popular Reviews of The Waves

I anticipated this podcast to be a rationally based commentator on feminism , but I find this Slate produced podcast to be biased and defensive in their narrative. I understand and support podcasts that empower females in all fields but what is the point of such podcasts that don’t address criticism.I listened to 2 episodes, both of which were recently released which left me disappointed.

Extremely hypocritical show. They act like they are the authority on every subject and debunk media which tells women what to think... But then they just judge and shame women and tell us new versions of what to think. For example, in an episode about breast implants they start insulting the ADHD community and feeding harmful stigma that our condition isn't real and we're just trying to get medication which is deeply hurtful because if they did their research they would know that ADHD is real and it can take months or years to get a diagnosis or prescription for medication. So the fact they buy into old stigma and stereotypes is extremely "problematic" and hurtful.

This podcast is more hurtful to women than helpful. They decry media that tells women what to think, then they go on and do the same thing. From telling us not to use skin care, to telling us not to get mental health diagnoses online (even though that's a normal and healthy practice during Covid) there seems to be no end of bigoted opinions about what women "should" do. How very unfeminist. There is also a lot of harmful ableist language and no representation of disabled folk. Negative stereotypes of neurodiverse people are rife and the hosts make no effort at all to do research on the disabilities they discuss and how they affect women, or to prevent indulging in stigmatising us themselves. I genuinely hate listening to this podcast as I find it hurtful on a variety of levels. And for some reason, (this is petty) but I also bloody hate the intro with it's pretentious "today you've got me...today you've got me" which for some reason makes me want to burn my bras and jump into the flames.

This is not the interesting cultural commentary that I thought it would be. It's so much more conservative that I expected! I used to listen to this podcast back when it launched as Double-X, but I unsubscribed at the height of Hanna Rosin's "The End of Men" nonsense (turns out, women did not take over and force men into underpaid exploitative jobs, wow). I decided to try it out again because I like Christina Cauterucci's writing.Not much has changed, and it's still not really a feminist podcast. Mostly, the hosts are just bringing Slate-brand contrariness to topics that are considered to be of interest to women. That's fine, and I'm not the kind of person who requires everyone to hold the same opinion about anything, but it's important to remember that contrariness when applied to feminist theory is just social conservatism. That's a trap this show does not take pains to avoid, and most of the time they pile onto something that is not important to most people (most recently: Gwyneth Paltrow, the least relatable feminist issue ever), and it comes off feeling like they are just not impressed by anything any woman ever does.I will admit it's 100% better since Hanna Rosin left, though.