The Broad Experience

In this, the final episode of The Broad Experience, I talk to three women about what has changed for women at work during the past decade, and what remains to be done.I began this show in 2012. Back then women and the workplace was a little discussed topic, and almost no one was podcasting about it. But my own experiences at work had convinced me this subject deserved much more attention. And while one measly decade barely registers in the arc of history, it means something to those of us who live through it. There has definitely been progress during the years I've worked on this show. My guests are based all over the world. Branca Vianna is a longtime listener who lives in Rio de Janeiro. Today she is the founder and president of a highly successful podcast company in Brazil, Radio Novelo. Frequent guest Avivah Wittenberg-Cox is back in London after a stint at Harvard. She always has an intriguing take on where we are, and where we should go next. Heather McGregor, once known as Financial Times columnist Mrs. Moneypenny, was in one of my first podcasts, and I was delighted that she agreed to be in my last. She's now living and working in Dubai.I can't tell you how rewarding it's been to make this show during the last almost 11 years. Thanks for listening and for all the emails and other messages of support. It means a lot when you work alone from your closet. Onward. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Shame, guilt, trauma…these are just some of the words that came up in my conversations for this show on women's relationship with money. Why IS that relationship so complicated? Two women with different money backgrounds, knowledge, and expectations, help me delve into that question.My first guest, Sarah Wolfe, grew up with little knowledge of how to handle money and a mother who told her she didn't really have to worry about it anyway. She just needed to find a guy who would. But that advice didn't work out so well. Kristine Beese is CEO of Untangle Money, which helps women plan, save, and spend. Her own life experience and years in the financial services industry taught her just how poorly it caters to women. Yet women tend to work less over a lifetime, earn less, and live longer than men - if anyone needs solid monetary advice, it's us.The final episode of The Broad Experience will be out in January. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ageism and sexism are sometimes described as a double-whammy that hits women later in life. Which is a bit worrying, because I'm 52 and wrapping up this show after a decade of production. Onto new things - I hope!My first guest lives in New Zealand and recently got back into the workforce in her fifties after being out for more than a decade. It feels like that notorious double-whammy is hitting her, yet it's impossible to truly measure. She wants people to know that many 50-plus women aren't coasting on a sea of contentment and financial security.Avivah Wittenberg-Cox agrees that ageism is rampant, but says we need to re-frame things if we're going to improve life for older workers. And that starts with educating employers about the advantages of maintaining and engaging 50-plus employees, a group that includes more women than ever before. It's up to us to do our part as well, she says, including “recognizing that usually what got you here isn't going to get you through the next phase.” As usual she's sprouting with ideas that I plan to use in my own next phase. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ellen Snee decided to become a nun in the early ‘70s, which seemed an inopportune time. Society was changing rapidly, there were riots on her college campus, and as a friend told her, nuns and priests were abandoning convents and the priesthood, not joining. But Ellen felt a sense of mission and purpose that didn't go away. She spent 18 mostly happy years with an international order of nuns, the Religious of the Sacred Heart.In a stereotype-busting conversation, Ellen describes how life in a convent gave her a freedom her married girlfriends lacked, how she hoped to change the Catholic Church from the inside, and how taking a vow of chastity didn't mean the end of her relationships with men. Since leaving the convent in the early 1990s Ellen has used her wisdom and insights within corporations, to help professional women “learn how to know what they know, how to recognize their desire, and how to pursue it.” Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this show we meet three musicians, all performers and teachers, and get a sense of how much the traditional world of classical music is changing. We also hear some of their playing. Lydia Brown, now a professor of collaborative piano at Juilliard, began her career mentored by several women who worked to established her profession. Yet despite this female influence, she says she's had to fight to achieve the same success as a male pianist. Renate Rohlfing was one of Lydia's students. Now in her late thirties, she has had a successful career, traveling far and wide to play. But it took her a long time to realize that performing does not have to mean sticking to old expectations of what a woman ‘should' look like on stage. French horn player Christine Stinchi is working on her doctorate at Rutgers University. She performs in pants, and has had plenty of women mentors in what was for so long a male field. She sees a hopeful future for women in brass. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When longtime Canadian journalist Anna Maria Tremonti was 23, she married a charming guy she met through work. He turned out to be violent, a secret Anna Maria kept from everyone, including her colleagues. This was quite a feat given his attacks would sometimes leave her with visible bruises she'd have to cover up before heading into work. In this episode she and I talk about her long-ago marriage and the scars it left behind. We discuss the positive role work played in her life, even as she strove to keep any signs of her tumultuous home life hidden. Anna Maria is the writer and host of the six-part CBC podcast Welcome to Paradise. My second guest is Beth Lewis, director of Standing Firm, a Pittsburgh-based organization that trains businesses to spot signs of abuse in their employees, as well as signs that they might have an abuser on staff. Standing against partner violence and abuse is a big part of health and wellness that many companies currently bypass.You will hear some descriptions of partner violence in this episode. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Lots of us dream of leaving corporate life to travel the world. Meena Thiruvengadam did just that, incorporating travel into her career. But sometimes following your dream occupation means flouting expectations of what you should be doing - including expectations your traditional Indian family has for you.In this episode we discuss the exhaustion that can come from trying to make things work at work, the frustrations travelers of color often face, and the many joys of traveling alone. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode my guests Raina Brands and Aneeta Rattan share ideas about how to call out bias so it can't sit there in the background, subtly undermining our progress. Still, confronting bias can seem intimidating to many women. It means awkwardness, and making people (including us) feel uncomfortable. But as you heard if you listened to the last show with Raina, feeling a little discomfort is no reason not to call out unfairness when we see it. Raina and Aneeta are both professors who run the site Career Equally. This show is full of ideas on how to 'de-bias' your career. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

I knew I wanted to talk to Professor Raina Brands when I spotted a tweet of hers last year in which she revealed that her CV contained some updated, and quite personal, information - information most of us wouldn't reveal to an employer. In this episode Raina discusses her project to help women ‘de-bias' their careers, something she and her colleague Aneeta Rattan write about on their site, Career Equally. She explains what that means, why it's important, and how we can get started. She also talks about why she decided to get personal in public and what the response has been. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This time we're revisiting an episode about working women in the Nordic countries. Scandinavia has a reputation for equality and excellent work/life balance. American women look enviously at these nations as they scrape together a short maternity leave or finish another 10-hour day. But here's the paradox: there are just as few women in powerful roles in Scandinavia as there are in the US. Three women in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark take us behind the scenes to find out why. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In her early twenties, bored by her office job, Kelly joined the British Army for a life of adventure. This was just before 9/11. She'd grown up a relatively conflict-free world. Suddenly everything changed. Kelly spent almost 19 years in the Army doing multiple jobs in different parts of the world, including Iraq and Afghanistan. She loved much of what Army life gave her. Other things were less appealing, from sexual harassment to fellow officers who couldn't handle women in authority...to the loneliness of being a woman in command when one of your soldiers is killed. In this show Kelly - who asked me not to use her last name so she could speak freely - looks back on her career, what she learned, and what she wishes could have been different in the ultimate male environment. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Business and economics reporter Stacey Vanek Smith has not only reported on the gender pay gap and other workplace discrimination, she's experienced it firsthand. But it hasn't put her off the workplace. Far from it. In her book, Machiavelli for Women, she explores how women can thrive in a setting that was not designed for them.In this show - the tenth anniversary episode of The Broad Experience - we focus on a few areas that are rarely discussed, in particular the relationships women have with other women at work, and how to manage them when things get tricky. We delve into the inequities mothers face after coming back from parental leave, and our shared experience of receiving vague, discouraging and useless feedback - and what to do next. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Bobbi Thomason studies gender for a living. She was aware of the pitfalls couples can fall into, even those who assumed their relationship would be absolutely equal. Still, when her own marriage foundered over career equality (or the lack of it), she was gutted. At the same time she was reading social media comments urging women to demand a ‘50/50 partner.' ‘I tried that,' she thought, ‘and it didn't work.'In this episode we hear Bobbi's story. She says sticking to her belief that she deserved a partner as willing to sacrifice for her as she was for him, has cost her a great deal. But she's learned through academic research and personal experience that support comes in many forms, and that all women need a ‘village' to get ahead. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Two years into a pandemic many of us are overwhelmed at work, feeling we have little control, and dealing with a lack of support from our organizations. Burnout rates are up all over the world. But they were bad even before Covid-19 came along. So what can we do about it?In this episode we meet three women who know burnout first-hand. Danielle Fried works for a small business that exploded during Covid. It took a health crisis for her to realize she was a frazzle of her former self. Jennifer Moss is the author of The Burnout Epidemic: The Rise of Chronic Stress and How We Can Fix It and a longtime expert on happiness and unhappiness at work. She says it's up to leaders to solve this problem, and there is plenty they can do about it. Jamie Hand is one such leader, managing her own stress levels while tackling burnout one team member at a time.Jennifer's pandemic dog Maple made her presence felt during our interview. For an outtake, go to the episode 188 page at TheBroadExperience.com. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

It's the start of a new year - a time when a lot of us think about changing our lives. In this show we re-visit a conversation with two traditionally successful women who left their old work lives for the unknown. But jumping meant leaving their identities behind as well as their paychecks.Radio journalist Tess Vigeland left her job at the top of her game, and initially wondered if she was nuts to have done so. Whitney Johnson was itching to move away from her comfortable existence at Merrill Lynch and challenge herself in new ways. She invites other people to do something similar, even if you may not think you need disrupting.This conversation feels just as relevant in pandemic times as it did when we recorded it, as more and more people re-consider what success actually means. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The culture of winning pervades our lives. From sport to the classroom to the workplace, we're supposed to 'kill it' or congratulated for 'crushing it.' But all that crushing can take a toll on the psyche, as Olympic athlete Cath Bishop can attest. Cath spent years training in her sport, rowing, and competed in three Olympic Games. When she left sport she thought she'd left the obsession with winning behind. Instead she found it was pretty much everywhere.In this episode we discuss what winning actually means if you want to achieve long-term success (which looks a lot different than what most people think of as 'success.') We talk about the gendered language around winning, and the young female sports stars who are rejecting the winning narrative.Cath is the author of 'The Long Win: the search for a better way to succeed.' See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In this show we're talking about women getting paid. Two business owners weigh in on how to charge for your services and how to respond to people who ask if they can 'pick your brain.' We tackle a question from a woman who knows she's paid less than the last man who did her job, but asks if she's happy, how much should she care? And we hear from a negotiation expert on how to use the negative voice in your head - the one that says 'you can't ask for that much!' - to help you get what you want.This episode distills some findings from past shows. I'm using it as a springboard to more coverage on women and money in 2022. Guests today are Adrienne Graham, Kathy Caprino, Jacquette Timmons and Natalie Reynolds. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

A lot of people are quitting their jobs at the moment. In the US, more than 12 million people left jobs voluntarily between July and September. They are fed up, burned out after months and months of pandemic working, and some are wondering, what am I doing this for anyway? Is this what I really want to do with my life? If not, what do I want to do instead?In this show Dorie Clark helps us answer some of those questions, which all involve the need for long-term thinking. She talks about the ideas in her new book, The Long Game: how to be a long-term thinker in a short-term world. We discuss how to carve out time to think about the future, identifying what's most meaningful to you, and casting off the expectation that you ‘find your passion' (too much pressure!)We also meet consultant Tom Waterhouse, who had a long-term plan to have a family before it was too late. But realizing his dream meant infuriating his bosses. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Rejection plays a part in everyone's work experience. But women are socialized to seek approval, and as my first guest says, 'rejection is the opposite of that.' In this show I speak to Jessica Bacal, author of The Rejection that Changed My Life, about the sting of rejection and what we can learn from it. We also meet nonprofit leader Amy Campbell Bogie. She talks about two searing rejections she went through, and how to emerge gracefully from what can feel like a slap in the face. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Lauren Tucker is a longtime advertising executive and, as a Black female, she's rather unusual in that industry The last time we spoke she was finding it tough to land a job in her field in a new city. Today she runs her own successful inclusion management business, where she grapples with everything from cultural blind spots to terrible job descriptions. Still, Lauren is itching to find out what's around the corner. Looking back, she sees a career that despite her ambitions, was largely controlled by others. Her job's demands influenced what she did with her life. Today, she wants her job to be in service of her life - and her perspective on life has changed quite a bit in the last few turbulent years. She still has a lot to do. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Nearly all our workplace communication is digital. Gone are the days when faxing seemed like efficient new technology (believe me, it did at one point). Emails, team communication programs like Slack, texting, instant messaging - they're all convenient and speedy. They can also cause a lot of angst.In this show I sit down with Erica Dhawan, author of the book Digital Body Language, to talk about why digital communication can be so fraught with frustration and anxiety. Is that terse email simply direct, or does a more sinister meaning lurk in those short sentences? Are emojis OK at the office and if so, for whom? I'm also joined by Liz Zelnick, whose experience in a past job made her think again about her use of exclamation points. And we look at the advantages of virtual meetings, where stereotypes can fade into the background. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Scan the business section of any bookstore and you'll see reams of books written by men, far fewer by women. In this show, which originally aired in 2018, we talk about women as writers and readers of business books. Is it imposter syndrome, fear, or lack of time that stops women from putting fingers to keyboard? Is Lean In a business book or a self-help book? And why are female authors less likely to embrace a publicity blitz when their book is published? My guest is Alison Jones, owner of Practical Inspiration Publishing, host of the Extraordinary Business Book Club podcast and author of This Book Means Business. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In the last couple of episodes we talked about the transitions working couples go through. In this show we re-meet a former guest, one half of one such couple. Heather McGregor embraced a big career change at 55, going from entrepreneur to academic dean, continuing a period in her life where she's switched from supportive partner to family breadwinner. Heather has always had an eye on the future, planning for what might come next. She believes it's never too late for a career change - if you prepare ahead of time. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This is a quick follow-up episode to the last show with INSEAD professor Jennifer Petriglieri, author of Couples that Work. We tackle a few of your questions, covering everything from 'how do we split the invisible home and parenting tasks?' to couples with different working styles to couples living apart for work. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Books and articles offer career advice or relationship advice. They rarely consider the link between the two. Yet dual-career couples are everywhere, and anyone who's part of one knows your careers can only run in parallel for so long At some point, life is going to get complicated - and not only if you have kids. So how do you make it work?INSEAD professor Jennifer Petriglieri, author of Couples That Work, has spent years researching working couples and learning from their experiences. In this episode we talk about the three transitions couples go through over the decades, and what her research (and her own career and home life) have taught her about the roadblocks couples face, and how to navigate them. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Work has changed forever. Our host Melanie Green is on a journey to learn how we can thrive in work through 2021 and beyond. We'll share stories about the challenges and possibilities those changes bring. We'll hear about the tools, tech, and best practices that power flexible work. Produced by Citrix. Follow along @Citrix See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This show is all about working with neurodiversity - having a condition such as ADHD, or Asperger’s or anything else that means your brain functions a bit differently from a lot of your colleagues'.Emma Case had always wanted to work in fashion, and she loved it - but at the same time she had trouble with things that seemed totally straightforward to others. It took years to work out why. Emma now runs Women Beyond the Box, a platform that celebrates the successes of neurodiverse women. Michelle Jones and Paige Jeffrey are in this category too. Paige often found the office a confusing environment but didn’t know why until last year. Michelle’s world was rocked when, in her late thirties, she received some shocking news about her brain.All three women have struggled at times, but they’ve all learned use their particular brains to fuel their success. And each of them wants workplaces to open up, to be more inclusive - to recognize that neurodiversity can be a benefit to a project or a team rather than a hindrance. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In this show we consider the idea that resilience is overrated. When Omolara Thomas Uwemedimo attended medical school she learned to be stoic and to power through. But during her career as a pediatrician and professor, she powered through so much that her body turned on her. She says too many Black women are supporting their workplaces - and everyone else - to the detriment of their health. She wants to change that.Therapist Camesha Jones was a student when she experienced a mental health crisis. Today she's bringing mental healthcare to women in Chicago whose needs have too often not been met. Mental health, she says, "is the gateway to having the life that you want." See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

A lot of workplaces use alcohol as social glue. When Lisa Smith started out as a lawyer in the '90s she spent multiple late nights out drinking with colleagues. But the pressures of work had her drinking at home too, and by the time she was in her thirties she was an alcoholic. In this show we look at women's relationship with alcohol as it intersects with the workplace. By being at the bar Lisa got career opportunities she wouldn't have if she'd stayed at her desk. Today she works with law firms on changing their cultures so that alcohol plays less of a central role in people's careers, and to end the stigma around addiction in the legal profession. We also meet Dawn Nickel of She Recovers to talk about the issues women face in seeking treatment for substance use, and how the pandemic has affected women in recovery. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The income gap between women is widening fast as well paid, educated women outsource traditionally female tasks to women who earn far less, with little job security. In this episode we meet Alison Wolf, a professor and labor market expert and author of The XX Factor. Then we hear from Jennifer Bernard, a Trinidad-born, New York-based nanny. She describes the unequal work environment that is the home, how she began to gain confidence on the job, and what makes her feel successful. Since this episode was first released life has become harder for domestic workers of all kinds. Many lost their jobs during the early days of the pandemic, and some remain unemployed. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This episode takes a step back in time to look at the history of women as public speakers, and how the past relates to the present. If you look at history books or speech anthologies, you might assume women didn't say very much in public until the 20th century. But that's far from the case. My guest, speechwriter and coach Dana Rubin, has compiled a speech bank of women's speeches going back hundreds of years. Women were speaking up...it's just that HIStory wasn't interested. And that legacy, Dana argues, affects the way women see themselves as speakers today. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Erica Heilman is the host of the podcast Rumblestrip. The Atlantic recently named her series ‘Our Show’ the best podcast of 2020. But before she was a brilliant podcaster, Erica was a lot of other things. She was a seller of muffins, she was a theater performer, she milked cows, she worked on a TV news show, then in documentaries, then for a healthcare website…and that’s not all.It took Erica a while to get where she wanted to be. And she’ll be the first to admit she had no idea where that was.She is not the only person who’s struggled to work out, what am I doing? What am I good at? How best do I use the skills I actually have? Some of us take longer to get there. We wish it were different, but it’s not. This is a show about the messiness of the unconventional career path. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Dara Kass had always known emergency medicine was for her. She loved the excitement of the ER, the fact that she always had too much to do. It was only when she had a baby that she realized the emergency room, like so many other workplaces, wasn’t going to fit in with her - she was expected to fit in with it. She set out to change that for her and everyone else.But when Covid-19 hit New York last spring, Dara was presented with challenges she could never have imagined - catching the virus herself, protecting her family, working through a relentless pandemic, and the loss of a colleague to suicide. She still wants to bring gender equity to emergency medicine. But she says workers’ mental health has to take priority now and as we emerge from this pandemic. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

2021, a year so many of us have been hoping will turn a global page for the better, has got off to a rocky start. There is so much we can’t control at the moment, so in this show we’re going to concentrate on what we can do - that is, take the reins of our own careers, albeit from behind our computers. My guest is Lisa Unwin, co-founder of London-based Reignite Academy and author of She’s Back. I wanted to talk to Lisa because she’s now optimistic about the future, when a few months ago she felt quite differently. Among other things we discuss the underrated business phone call, how men and women have used social media differently during lockdown (which may be hurting women’s careers), and what happens when women don’t charge for their work. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Being single is a lifestyle choice for some women and an unwelcome reality for others. In this episode we meet three women, each with different perspectives on living and working alone, especially during a pandemic. Retired professor Joan DelFattore has been happily single for decades. Susie, a consultant, is mourning the lack of a husband and children. Her isolation during Covid just makes everything feel worse - particularly when HR seems fixated on families. And psychotherapist Magali Rozenfeld says being by yourself can provide unexpected opportunities for growth. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Today we revisit the theme of body language in the workplace: hunching, spread legs, eye contact, and kissing - all in a business setting. We meet Yale psychology professor Marianne LaFrance, who discusses how men and women play up their power, or lack of it, through non-verbal communication. And Financial Times journalist Elaine Moore talks about how she deals with unwanted male kisses at business meetings. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Working from home is the new normal for a lot of us. But that doesn't mean we like it. Or that we're good at it. In this episode I sit down with Laura Vanderkam, author of I Know How She Does It, What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast, and, most recently, The New Corner Office: How the Most Successful People Work from Home. Working from your house or apartment has taken on new meaning - and stress - in the pandemic. But Laura says there are ways to gain focus, force yourself to stop at the end of the day, and make the rhythm of the whole thing work for you. WFH won't go away when the pandemic does, but doing it well is a skill that most of us need a little help mastering. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Now may not seem like the best time to ask for what you want at work, whether that's more money, a new title, or more time off. Everyone's under stress and putting in extra hours, right? But this situation isn't ending any time soon. And you may be about to burn out. So why NOT ask for what you want and need?In this episode we meet negotiation coach Fotini Iconomopoulos. We talk about her background as a child of Greek immigrants and what that taught her about advocating for herself. And we discuss how women in particular can stop their empathy getting in the way of reaching their goals. Because you can improve your situation, even during tough times. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In this show we meet a small business owner, Rachel Garrett who specializes in boosting women's careers - only to find that during Covid, her own was flagging. She is far from alone. We now know that in September, four times as many women than men left the US workforce thanks to the pressures of the pandemic. Rachel and I discuss the difficult conversations she started at home about whose career was getting priority, and why it's important - even now - that women don't put themselves on the sidelines. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

We're still in a pandemic and we know women's careers are suffering. So many of us are managing working from home and family at the same time. But what if you don't have kids, or your children are grown up? In this show we meet two child-free women with different experiences of work during Covid. One feels her career is thriving. The other wonders what ambition means anymore when she just wants to get offline before midnight. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In the last episode you heard Jessi Hempel and I ask, what is happening to women’s careers right now? So many of us are still at home, often with family underfoot, attempting to manage children’s schooling or simply care for them while also doing our own jobs. Much has been written about the ‘women’s recession’ and the enormous pressure women are under during this pandemic.In this show Avivah Wittenberg-Cox offers a more hopeful perspective.She sees this crisis is an opportunity for organizations to change the way they do things and make the workplace fairer for everyone. She says a generation clash between men is part of the current problem. And she says many of us will undergo a big shift in our careers in the months and years ahead, whether we welcome it or not. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In this episode I sit down with Jessi Hempel, host of LinkedIn's Hello Monday podcast. We talk about how the last six months have affected women's careers, and what might happen next. We discuss who's able to get ahead right now, and the delights of a supportive manager whose home/work life is as crazy as your own.We don't have a crystal ball, but we wonder - will this pandemic have lasting effects on women's progress? See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

When I first made this show I could never have imagined how large a role both stress and getting outside would play in our lives in 2020.In this episode I talk to science writer Florence Williams, author of The Nature Fix, about how spending time outside can help lower our stress levels and allow us to gain perspective on daily problems. Most of us live and work in urban environments, spending hours a day in front of a screen. Nothing could be less natural. In this show we talk about how spending time outdoors can improve our lives in multiple ways, and how women can benefit even more than men. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Ainissa Ramirez has loved science since the age of four. But her dreams of becoming a scientist were almost squelched when she got to college. When she graduated she vowed to make other people's journeys through science better than her own. Today, she's helping thousands of people understand and appreciate how the world works - and maybe even go into science themselves. In this episode we talk about the ups and downs of her career, leaving academia to go out on her own, and some of the amazing stories in her new book, The Alchemy of Us. And she has some solid advice for other women scientists who may be finding their workplace...challenging. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

A lot of us have been able to work from home during lockdown these last few months. One group of workers that hasn't is paid caregivers - aides, mainly women, who are paid by the hour to help elderly, frail and disabled people accomplish some of the tasks of daily living.In this show we meet two women who have been doing care work for three decades - Susie Rivera in Texas and Maria Colville in Massachusetts. Their job is one of the fastest growing in the U.S. But it pays poorly and a lot of people don't see its importance...until they need that care themselves. Some clients are grateful and gracious, some less so. Each woman feels called to her role. As Maria puts it, "The opportunity to make an impact in someone else's life," is its own reward. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In this episode I hand over the reins to Lauren Schiller, host of Inflection Point. In this show she and writer Ruth Whippman (a fellow Brit) discuss the very American idea that if you just try hard enough, you can get pretty much anything you want - from a better figure to a better job. But Ruth says self-belief plus a few girl power T-shirts and social media slogans do not an equal society make. Tune in to hear Lauren and Ruth discuss what needs to change for 'empowerment' to lead to real power. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Fernanda Santos moved to the U.S. from Brazil to go to graduate school, but ended up staying and forging a career in journalism. Her work is a thread throughout this episode (she was an early believer in the mantra ‘never work for free’). But this story is also about how Fernanda's life as an immigrant, and her journalist training, helped when she was forced to confront a future she never expected. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Some of us have two jobs: one that pays us, one that sustains us in another way. In this episode we meet two women who volunteer as firefighters. Stephanie Looi and Kassie Stevens have faced challenges in their roles, but each feels lucky to be doing something so important for their communities. Stephanie just went through Australia's devastating fire season and had to make decisions she never thought she would. Kassie faces incredulous reactions when she shows up to a call, and sometimes hostility as well. But each says it's a privilege to serve - and to inspire other women. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

You’ve probably seen some of the stories: women leaders around the world are “stepping up to show the world how to manage a messy patch for our human family.” I’m quoting one of this week’s guests, Avivah Wittenberg-Cox, from her Forbes piece on women leaders’ success during the pandemic. She and other writers on this topic make the same point: when you look at countries with the best coronavirus outcomes so far, they often have one thing in common - a woman at the top. In this week’s show Avivah and Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, author of Why Do So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders? discuss the leadership styles we’re seeing during this global crisis, why Andrew Cuomo can chat about recipes on TV where Jacinda Ardern probably couldn’t, and whether today’s female leaders will change anything for women in the future. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Last month an article appeared in The Atlantic with the title The Coronavirus is a Disaster for Feminism. One striking line reads, ‘The coronavirus smashes up the bargain that so many dual-earner couples have made in the developed world: We can both work because someone else is looking after our children. Instead, couples will have to decide which one of them takes the hit.’But is that true?In this episode we meet three married women in Canada, the US, and the UK, and one (male) sociologist, Daniel Carlson, who has studied couples and the division of labour in the home. Kristen Elworthy and Anna Lagerdahl have children and Samantha Murphy doesn’t. Each has found the pandemic has affected her work/life balance in unexpected ways. And it’s not all about housework and childcare - women may be carrying a greater emotional load at this time, which affects many aspects of our lives. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

My guest in this episode started working right around the time most of us started school. Marie was just five years old when her acting work began supporting her entire family. But as she got older she noticed all the best parts were going to the boys, while the roles she was getting relied on her looks. Her dreams of continuing in acting were dashed when she realized what she was expected to do to get better parts. Today she has a totally different career, but she’ll never forget what show business taught her - about professionalism, teamwork, and sexism. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.