Filed under: art, feminism, podcasting | Tags: Broad Experience, Feminist, feminist revolution, feminist snap, iTunes, Manoush Zomorodi, Note to Self, NPR, podcasting, public funding, public radio, Sara Ahmed, Soundcloud
You guys. I love podcasts. I can’t call myself a vanguard podcast listener (I wasn’t really in the very first wave of podcast listening) – but I caught on pretty quickly and have been listening for about a decade. And for many of those years, most of the voices in my podcast feed were male. They were the hosts of public radio shows or men interviewing (mostly) men.
In 2012, in the midst of my feminist snap (hat-tip to Sara Ahmed for that term,) I began to really feel the imbalance. I found I was worn out from listening to, almost exclusively, men so I went on a search for women’s voices to include in my podcast feed. That search led me to the Broad Experience (which I love) and for a while things settled there. But then about a year ago, there was a shift…suddenly all the new shows in my feed were hosted by women. And it looks as though I have Public Radio to thank for that.
The fact is, 80% of the podcasts in my feed were public radio shows that were also podcasts. And because Public Radio is publicly funded, they apparently, at some point noticed the imbalance themselves (or savvy listeners wrote in and told them) and took it upon themselves to right the ship by investing in female podcasters. One of my favorite podcasts, Note to Self, is apparently a result of that direct action. The host, Manoush Zomorodi has been talking about this lately in the press and it’s made me really appreciate that we have a publicly funded media that can invest in this sort of thing.
Also, in hearing and reading Zomorodi talk about it, I got inspired to add my own voice to the mix. In the years when I was desperate to hear a female voice on a podcast, I thought I SHOULD start a podcast. Obviously there was a need. But I didn’t want to and I didn’t feel inspired about it. Then Zomorodi started talking about the development of her own voice on her podcast, on the change from being an authoritative, impartial reporter voice to a quirky human one and I thought, “Well, I am a quirky human. Maybe it’s time to do it.”
Simultaneously, I was realizing that even the people who like me the most weren’t able to keep up with reading my blog and I thought, “Maybe people would like to hear it instead. It would mean they could “read” my blog while washing the dishes or whatever.” And so I dove in – at first only for my patrons on Patreon – and then for the public. Some people like it. Some people don’t. Like anything.
But I am glad to be a part of what Zomorodi is calling a feminist revolution. I mean, yeah, if podcasting is a feminist act, then it feels important to add my voice. Both my writerly voice and my ACTUAL voice. Welcome to the podcast revolution. You can subscribe to Songs for the Struggling Artist on iTunes. Or wherever you get your podcasts.
So this is about the feminist act of podcasting, yes. The feminist revolution. Allelujah. But also – it’s about how important public funding is. The new trend in lady podcasters happened because public radio is public. Being beholden to the public, publicly funded media has more motivation to right its inequities. I would like for more of our arts to be public. What’s happened in public radio and, by extension, podcasting, is a direct result of a concentrated effort to improve a gender imbalance. We need the same in theatre, in dance, in visual art, in film, in writing… in everything. And we need a concentrated effort through public funding to right all the other inequities as well, to increase racial diversity, for example. Or increase visibility for disability. Public funding for everything. That would be the revolution that would make the revolution possible.
You can help me stoke the fires of revolution by becoming my patron on Patreon.
Click HERE to Check out my Patreon Page
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Writing on the internet is a little bit like busking on the street. This is the part where I pass the hat. If you liked the blog and would like to give a dollar (or more!) put it in the PayPal digital hat. https://www.paypal.me/strugglingartist
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Songs for the Struggling Artist 