The Unspeakeasy With Meghan Daum

"It feels so good to feel like you're on the right side of history." In this episode of the podcast, Meghan talks with novelist Leigh Stein, whose wickedly satirical new novel Self Care sends up internet influencers and Goop-flavored millennial startup culture while also slyly poking fun at the commodification of social justice activism. Leigh discusses the feminism, capitalism, and "performative workaholism" that inspired her novel and talks about how she went from being "part of the woke mob" to embracing more nuanced discussions. Leigh Stein is the author of four books, including the novel Self Care. From 2014-2017, she ran a secret Facebook group of 40,000 women writers, in her role as cofounder and executive director of Out of the Binders/BinderCon, a feminist nonprofit organization. She's been called a "leading feminist" by the Washington Post and "poet laureate of The Bachelor" by The Cut. Self-Care has been called "highbrow brilliant" by New York Magazine's Approval Matrix and is on numerous must-read summer book lists, including those of Cosmopolitan, Esquire, Publisher's Weekly and Vulture. Visit Leigh at www.leighstein.com

**Recorded July 15th** "I do think on average men are more likely to be more disruptive than necessary and women are more likely to be less disruptive than necessary" - Dr. Heather Heying Evolutionary biologist Dr. Heather Heying has emerged over the last few years as a free speech advocate, largely because of her connection to a now-infamous set of protests at Evergreen State College, where she and husband, evolutionary biologist Bret Weinstein, taught for fifteen years. But less is known about Heather's own story. In a wide-ranging conversation that covers sex differences, sex discrimination, and what it was like to grow up in the 1970s and 1980s as a girl who felt "invincible," Heather talks about doing field work in Madagascar, wanting to be a science fiction writer, and why there aren't more women in the "Intellectual Dark Web." GUEST BIO: Heather Heying is a scientist, educator, and author. Currently a Visiting Fellow in the James Madison Program at Princeton, she was a professor at The Evergreen State College for 15 years, where she pushed students from their comfort zones, in part through exploring remote sites in the neotropics. She earned her PhD in Biology from the University of Michigan, receiving the university's top honor for her dissertation, and has a B.A. in Anthropology. Her first book is Antipode (2002), written while she was studying the sex lives of poison frogs in Madagascar. With husband Bret Weinstein, she is now writing A Hunter-Gatherer's Guide to the 21st Century, which will provide an evolutionary toolkit for living a good and honorable life as an ape in the 21st century. Visit Heather Heying at https://heatherheying.com