Inflection Point with Lauren Schiller

I am so glad you’re catching our current season about “radicals”-- Radical actions, radical system change and the people who are making it happen right now: In the workplace--if you’re still catching up, check out my conversations with Katie Bethel of Paid Leave for the US & Morgan Mercer who is using Virtual Reality to end sexual harassment... Or if government policy is your thing—you’ll love hearing from the team experimenting with Basic Income in Stockton, CA...and don’t miss Shannon Watts the founder of Moms Demand Action whose gun sense movement used the power of moms to go from from Facebook Page to front page news... And don’t miss my live conversations with activists—Gloria Steinem, and with Eve Ensler about the radically transformative power of apology. Plus hear from Jennifer Weiner, whose new book “Mrs Everything” asks who’s really making women’s choices? Are we--or our system?” All that is in the feed right now! Coming up I have a couple of special summer-swap episodes from podcasters I admire who have covered topics that tie in with what I cover here on Inflection Point. They’ll appear in your feed on the same schedule as always--every other Wednesday morning! I have 3 things to ask of you to keep us all rising up: 1) Thinking about women rising up, social change and the quest for equality....What or who do you want to learn about in the next season? How can we help you be the change? Let me know on my contact page at inflectionpointradio.org. Second thing...We are an independent production out of KALW in San Francisco and PRX. That means that MOST of the funding for this show comes from you, my dear listeners. So I’m asking for your support right now to help me produce the next season of Inflection Point with as much as you can give--whether it’s $10 or $100 or $1000. Here’s how: just go to our support page and give what you can. As a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, your donation is now tax deductible and covers hard costs like studio time, transcripts and editing. If you are already contributing, thank you! If you have a donor-advised fund or employer match, we can accept those contributions too! Third... Not in a position to give money? I get that....Support the show with a review on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher or where ever you listen. And last but not least, for the readers out there...I have a whole page on my website featuring the books of people who have been on Inflection Point this season and all seasons past. If you are looking for a good read, you will find it at inflectionpointradio.org/books. With all that teed up for you, it’s time for me to take a wee break to reflect on everything we’ve heard so far, to work on the next season for you--and yes to try and relax for a minute in this crazy time we live in. As always, thanks for listening! This is Inflection Point and this is how women rise up. *Thank you to our sponsors! * NATIVE Deodorant: 20% off your first purchase. Go to nativedeodorant.com and use promo code INFLECTION during checkout. Spotlyte: Spotlyte is your destination for curated, expert content helping you discover how beauty, skincare, and medical aesthetic treatments may fit into your routine. YOU! Become a supporter today—it’s tax deductible and you can help us make our next season of episodes. Support here.

The times, they are a’changin’. This week on Inflection Point, I talk to author Jennifer Weiner about her newest bestselling book “Mrs. Everything”. The story is loosely based on Jennifer’s own mother, Fran, who got married, had 4 children and ultimately came out as a gay woman after Jennifer and her siblings were out of the house. Spanning two sisters’ lives from the 1950s to the night of the 2016 political election, the book raises questions about who is really making women’s choices about our own lives...are we? Or our system? How did we get where we are, and how do we move on from here? Jennifer shares the facts behind her fiction, what it takes to write a good sex scene, what hasn't changed since #metoo started, and  how the personal becomes political. We spoke at Women Lit, a program of the Bay Area Book Festival on June 22, 2019 in Berkeley, California. *Thank you to our sponsors! * EO Essential Oils NATIVE Deodorant: 20% off your first purchase. Go to nativedeodorant.com and use promo code INFLECTION during checkout. Spotlyte: Spotlyte is your destination for curated, expert content helping you discover how beauty, skincare, and medical aesthetic treatments may fit into your routine. YOU! Become a supporter today—it’s tax deductible and you can help us make our next season of episodes. Support here.

Meet Shannon Watts, the author of Fight Like a Mother, and the founder of Moms Demand Action, a group that uses research, data, and a little bit of “nap-tivism” to throw their weight and money behind political candidates who are willing to put better gun control laws into action. The kicker? They’re winning. In the last election, they outspent even the NRA. Join us this week for a look at why our kids are subjected to violent and traumatizing active shooter drills, and what it takes to pass sensible gun legislation. We talk about the root cause of gun violence, who takes the brunt of the violence when background checks get lax, “losing forward” and the very real and positive change that is starting to take place as we come up to the 2020 elections. Support the production of our next season! It’s tax deductible. Click to support here. And when you’re done, come on over to The Inflection Point Society, our Facebook group of everyday activists who seek to make extraordinary change through small, daily actions. Subscribe to “Inflection Point” to get more stories of how women rise up right in your feed. **Thank you to our sponsors! ** NATIVE Deodorant: 20% off your first purchase. Go to nativedeodorant.com and use promo code INFLECTION during checkout. Spotlyte: Spotlyte is your destination for curated, expert content helping you discover how beauty, skincare, and medical aesthetic treatments may fit into your routine. YOU! Become a supporter today—it’s tax deductible and you can help us make our next season of episodes. Support here.

This week on Inflection Point, I talk with Eve Ensler, award-winning playwright of The Vagina Monologues, about her new book “The Apology”, in which she writes in the voice of her father to apologize to herself--from him--for the years of sexual and physical abuse he perpetrated upon her. Stress warning: This episode contains conversation about sexual assault and violence. You will be blown away by Eve’s resilience, by her self-knowledge, by her strength of character, and by her deep well of compassion and empathy. Her ideas for political and social reform, as well as her profound insights into the human soul, make her a true radical, and radically empathetic. This week, we discuss the anatomy of a true apology, and the transformative power that apologies hold for the apologists themselves and their recipients. We discuss why punishment never leads to rehabilitation. We discuss the roots of abuse, and how we can start shifting the paradigm. A must-listen for anyone frustrated at the lack-luster apologies precipitated by the #MeToo movement. A must-listen for anyone infuriated by the Anita Hill and Christine Blasey Ford cases. A must-listen for anyone who needs to apologize for something. A must-listen for anyone who has ever needed an apology, but hasn’t yet gotten one. PS I also spoke with Eve in October of 2016, about a year before the #MeToo movement took off. Her words were prescient and I encourage you to listen to that conversation too. Just scroll down the feed. If this conversation is important to you, please support our independent production with a tax deductible donation. Inflection Point is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization.

America is one of only two countries in the world where you can be fired for taking a day off in order to give birth (let that sink in for a moment). As it stands, paid leave policy varies from company to company, state to state, but on a national level, there is no policy in place, no minimum requirements or baseline standard that applies to everyone. And it’s not just about moms—this lack of policy also has greater repercussions for how we define a family, in a political sense, and the relationship between the family and the workplace—men included. Senators Elizabeth Warren and Kirsten Gillibrand are both bringing attention to these issues, running on platforms of universal childcare, and paid medical and family leave. Katie Bethell, founder and executive director of Paid Leave for the US (PLUS), joins us this week to give us the alarming stats, talk nerdy government logistics, and offer some extremely practical advice on how we can use this particularly potent moment to push for political change. Join us this week on Inflection Point for a look at radical change in action, one decision at a time. We are independently produced and supported by listeners like you. Make a tax deductible donation to support our production today at inflectionpointradio.org/contribute. Thank you!

In 19th Century San Francisco's Chinatown only 1 in 10 people were women, and most of them were forced into prostitution, trafficked by criminal tongs. In today’s episode, meet the Scottish sewing instructor Donaldina Cameron and the women she collaborated with and helped escape from sex slavery between 1870 and 1930. This week, Julia Flynn Siler talks with Lauren about her new book “The White Devil’s Daughters: The Women Who Fought Slavery in San Francisco’s Chinatown”. Prepare yourself for bomb scares and bubonic plague quarantines, court cases and crowdfunding efforts. Join us in what is, ultimately, a conversation about standing up to a broken society, and how women can help women rise up. Recorded at the Bay Area Book Festival in May 2019 as part of their Women Lit programming.

This week, we hear about a radical idea to end poverty: Universal Basic Income. Lauren talks to the team behind an experiment with Guaranteed Income taking place in Stockton, CA the one-time foreclosure capital of America where 1 in 4 people live below the poverty line. Featuring conversations with Mayor Michael Tubbs, Natalie Foster of the Economic Security Project, and the co-principal investigators on this experiment: Dr. Amy Castro Baker of the University of Pennsylvania, and Dr. Stacia Martin West of the University of Tennessee. Guaranteed Income and Universal Basic Income—where money is given with no strings attached represents a radical shift in the way we think about the social contract. Could this be what a Feminist Economy looks like? Special thanks to Mia Birdsong for providing voices of Stockton residents, from her “More Than Enough” Podcast. Additional thanks to First Lady of Stockton, Anna Tubbs and Sukhi Samra, Executive Director of SEED. Learn more about the Stockton Demonstration.

In the post-#MeToo era, men who would never consider saying a harassing word or venture a grope are now asking themselves “can I hug a co-worker anymore?” **** “Can I put my arm around someone in a photo?” “Can I have dinner with a female co-worker...alone?” For the most part, workplace sexual harassment training includes the same rote video, awkward role-playing scenarios or yawn-inducing speaker, and is not remotely equipped to end a culture of enabling harassers or dismissing claims. What kinds of training tools will create a true change in workplace culture? The kind that helps workers and supervisors comprehend the nuances of what sexual harassment looks like and how the power dynamics of workplace sexual harassment can damage the careers and well beings of those harassed? Morgan Mercer, CEO of enterprise training platform Vantage Point, believes the answers to these questions, as well as more nuanced insights about the nature of workplace sexual harassment, lies in virtual reality. Listen to my convo with Mercer as we discuss why corporate sexual harassment training has for the most part failed women, and how immersive experiences like virtual reality may be the key to unlocking empathy, action and change. Support our production at inflectionpointradio.org/contribute

Dr. Michael Reichert, a psychologist and author of "How to Raise a Boy," explores radical shifts needed in raising boys. He discusses the detrimental effects of traditional masculinity and advocates for emotional literacy as a key for healthier male identities. Reichert highlights that boys thrive in relational settings, urging educational changes to foster empathy. He emphasizes the importance of nurturing relationships in boys' development, pushing for a cultural transformation that promotes equality and respects emotional well-being.

Times like these call for radical ideas. But is being a radical a positive thing? And if so, why are so many radicals seen as dangerous? In the first episode of the new season of Inflection Point: RADICALS, we’ll define what it really means to be a radical, look at some of the lasting change radicals have made throughout our history, and examine how those ideas went from unthinkable to mainstream. I invited Rad Women book series’ creators Kate Schatz and Miriam Klein Stahl to talk about how to spot a radical, because if anyone knows what a radical looks like and what it takes to be one, it’s them. We’re celebrating our 4 year anniversary of elevating women’s voices! Support the production of Inflection Point by clicking this link here. Thanks!