Episodes
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Farewell
We say goodbye, in the final episode of Call Your Girlfriend. In typical fashion, we're going out talking about how friends have been helping us get through the pandemic, the never-ending furor over Joe Rogan, and what podcasts we're loving. If you're looking to subscribe to something new, check...
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I'm the Bad Guy Sometimes
We're not dead yet! Aminatou talks with legendary podcast, poet and essayist Nichole Perkins about navigating relationships as a Black woman, desire, boundaries, longing, and much more as we chat about her new book, Sometimes I Trip on How Happy We Could Be.
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See You on the Nostalgia Tour
Is there anything you miss from before the internet? Reading, focus, getting lost, filing cabinets, are just a few of the things New York Times Book Review editor Pamela Paul discusses with us. Her new book is 100 Things We've Lost to the Internet.
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Big Announcement
A different kind of newsy episode with Aminatou, Ann and Gina.
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Money, Grief, Kids
We talk with one of our favorite writers, The New Yorker's Ariel Levy, about dynastic wealth, how we experience grief, and big surprises in life, including the joys of getting older and having children. Her podcast that chronicles maternity wear icon Liz Lange, of the New York Steinbergs is The...
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So You Want to Change the World
Can’t be that hard, right? We pass the mic to Nereya Otieno, one of Ann’s 2021 writing fellows, who sits down with two women who have started initiatives to improve the lives of a select few in hopes that it can spark a radical shift. Tia Korpe is the founder of Future Female Sounds, a nonprofit...
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Tastemakers
We talk with Mayukh Sen about seven immigrant women who remade American cuisine and his new book, Taste Makers. Plus, racism in the worlds of food writing and publishing and who gets to break out.
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Making Older Friends
Women over 50 are too often erased, including on this very podcast. Grace Bonney has been collecting inspiration and advice from women of more advanced experience in her new book, Collective Wisdom. She's gathered interviews and intergenerational conversations with over 100 trailblazing women…
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Grief Companionship
Grief can come in so many forms and impact us in unexpected ways. Illustrator and designer Ngaio Parr knows all too well, having lost four family members in four years. Retreating from family and friends? Strange physical symptoms? Suddenly seeing things everywhere that echo a lost loved one? All...
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Bandsplain
Yasi Salek's podcast Bandsplain has us listening to music like teens again, with obsessive curiosity about whole albums and the quirks and life stories that draw us into the artists we come to love, or learn more about canonical artists we never understood.
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The Silent but Deadly Fart of Racism
George McCalman is an artist, a writer, an illustrator, and a designer. This man does it ALL. He spent many years as a magazine creative director, shaping the look and feel of publications such as Mother Jones, Readymade, Afar. Then he opened up his own studio, McCalman Co, where he collaborates…
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Change is Always Coming
How fixed are we in our ways of being and doing things? We're always confronting change, but how much can we choose it? These are some of the big ideas through small moments Jade Chang tackles in her Audible Original, You've Already Changed Your Life: A Recipe for a Revelation. Jade is a friend…
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SCOTUS vs. Abortion (sponsored by Rewire News Group)
In a special episode brought to you by Rewire News Group, we go deep on the conservative push to regulate and ban abortion in Texas and Mississippi with Imani Gandy and Jessica Mason Pieklo of the Boom Lawyered podcast.
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Disability, Fragility, Vulnerability
Emily Ladau and Kelly Dawson return to dispel dull narratives around disability and go beyond the 101. How coping with fragility creates resilience. How friendships deepen with the knowing and trust that disabled people share. What allyship looks like to them as physically disabled women. The...
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Believing Anita Hill
Dr. Anita Hill made history in 1991 when she testified to the Senate Judiciary committee about the sexual harassment perpetrated against her by Clarence Thomas. After the all-white, all-male committee led by then-Senator Joe Biden heard Dr. Hill's testimony, Clarence Thomas was confirmed to the…
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Where Should I Send My Kid to School?
A simple question with loaded answers. On today's episode, we unravel a few of those knots with Courtney Martin and Dr. Dena Simmons, whose interracial friendship has weathered distance, accountability, academic rigor, heartbreak, and mutual support. They met over a decade ago when Courtney...
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Conspiracy Theories and Misinformation
Don't today's conspiracy theories make UFOs and JFK conspiracy theories seem quaint, almost sweet? Dr. Stacy Wood breaks down how independent communities of belief have accelerated online. It's not only the fault of social media, but as we reorganize how we search and find information, Facebook,...
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Finding Your Voice
Comedy and art criticism don't exactly sound like parallel career paths. But after bouncing from a freelance hustle to a fancy art world job to improv classes, Christina Catherine Martinez realized she wanted to do both. We talk about how she navigates making a life and a career as an…
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Sex Work is Work
As OnlyFans flips and flops on the sex workers that built its platform, we revisit our interview with Lorelei Lee on the history of sex work legislation. Lorelei is a writer and performer who discusses how sex work is neither purely exploitative nor purely empowering. Instead, like all work, it's...
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Sustainable Style
Miranda Bennett has long been one of our favorite designers. We discuss how she got started making and selling clothes, how she balances running a sustainable business with keeping the lights on, and tips for shopping sustainably (even though we know there is no ethical consumption under...
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Summer of Friendship: Forever35
Our summer of friendship continues with Kate Spencer and Doree Shafrir, hosts of the podcast Forever35. While we love their conversations about serums and budget-friendly makeup tips, we come and stay for their deep friendship, which started on the internet and was partly cemented at a CYG live...
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Bad Behavior
From Matt Damon to Andrew Cuomo to gender testing at the Olympics, we do a quick survey of men in the news behaving badly. Links Matt Damon and the "f-slur" / original headline Amanda Knox on Damon’s Stillwater Cuomo is the worst Rebecca Traister told us! Weightlifter Laura Mariel on trans...
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Boundaries
We talk about finding and maintaining boundaries, why the world makes it easier for some people than others, how boundaries help us be in community with others, and how grateful we are for boundary possibility models like Simone Biles and Naomi Osaka.
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Summer of Friendship: Foxy Browns
More from our Summer of Friendship series, where a few of our favorite podcasters tell us how they met, times their friendship has been stretched, and how they grow together. This week, dear pals Camilla Blackett and Priyanka Mattoo of the Foxy Browns podcast.
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Summer of Friendship: Two Old Bitches
As we continue our Summer of Friendship series, a few of our favorite podcasters tell us how they met, times their friendship has been stretched, and how they grow together. This week, Idelisse Malavé and Joanne Sandler aka Two Old Bitches!
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Summer of Friendship: Claire and Erica
As part of our Summer of Friendship series, a few of our favorite podcasters tell us how they met, times their friendship has been stretched, and how their off-air and on-air friendship is different. This week, iconic bestie entrepreneurs Claire Mazur and Erica Cerulo of A Thing or Two.
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Hot Vax Summer of Friendship
Aminatou and Ann's book Big Friendship is available in paperback July 6, so to celebrate we're doing our second Summer of Friendship series. We catch up and kick off chatting through our recent forays back into the world, which friends we're seeing, how we work through the emotional distance with...
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Bi Bi Bi 2.0
Jordan and Gina round out Pride with a followup to our Bi Bi Bi episode from 2018. We hear from Divinity (@officiallydivinity) who identifies as bisexual, gray ace, and aromantic and how those labels coalesce for her. Divinity has amazing things to share about friendship. love, sex, connection…
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Lockdown Lesbian Love Story
Queer women aren't exclusively looking for longterm monogamous love - but some are! As part of our Pride series, a lockdown lesbian love story featuring musician Abby Diamond and actor and director Rachel Cora Wood.
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Detransition, Baby
We talk with Torrey Peters about her breakout novel, Detransition, Baby, full of queer characters finding and defining family, and why she dedicated it to divorced cis women. Plus, a bunch of great reading recommendations for books by trans authors. Reading List: Detransition, Baby by Torrey…
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Queer and Questioning
On this month's agenda: exploring queer identities with CYG producers Gina Delvac and Jordan Bailey. First up, we hear from queer sex therapist Casey Tanner about questioning your sexuality or gender identity, coming out, and dating when you're first exploring a queer identity. This is a great...
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What Does an Art Curator Do
As more of us can step back into the world and look at art in person, we discuss the role (and responsibility) of an art curator with Helen Molesworth, formerly of MOCA in Los Angeles, and host of the podcast Recording Artists.
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Healing Ourselves with Friends (and Books)
You know that friend you can get real with about therapy, shedding the hard parts of your childhood, and how to take the next steps in your life? Ashley C. Ford is that and more to so many, in how shares of herself online, in her podcasts, and now her new memoir, Somebody's Daughter.
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The Other Epidemic
As we emerge back into the world, how long will we live with COVID? Will it be like HIV/AIDS? We talk to people who have been closely involved in AIDS activism and responding to the coronavirus: Mathew Rodriguez and Leisha McKinley-Beach.
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Hard Conversations
Death, sex, money, family and identity. How do we start and receive the hardest conversations that emerge in our lives? The one-and-only Anna Sale of Death, Sex and Money is here to talk us though it and her new book, Let's Talk About Hard Things.
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Creative Evolutions
We have all had to find different ways to cope, and for those with creative practices, they are often evolving. For friend of the podcast and artist Kenesha Sneed, that has meant moving among media and the many different roles her art has played in her life - from joyful personal expression to...
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Cooking and Eating with Friends
Home cook and author Julia Turshen joins us to discuss pandemic cooking fatigue, why the stories behind recipes matter, and how she learned to love cooking and eating. Her latest cookbook is Simply Julia: 110 Easy Recipes for Healthy Comfort Food. LINKS Simply Julia: 110 Easy Recipes for Healthy...
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Love in Color
We're easing our way back from our break with Bolu Babalola, author of the delightful collection of romantic stories that center Black women, Love in Color.
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Get Your 2020 Taxes Right
Taxes are scary but getting free money from the government is great. CYG's accountant and the force behind Taxes for Artists, Claudia Yi León returns to tell us all about how to deal with the wild year of unemployment and (non)income that was 2020. From PPP loans (freelancers, you can still get...
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More Shine Theory
What better time to be lifting up the people we love and growing together? Brooke Baldwin of CNN joins us to discuss the groups of women - or huddles - that make collective change happen at work, in activism, sports, and our personal lives. And we revisit our own notion of Shine Theory.
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More Pelvic Power
You should never pee when you laugh. You can see a midwife for non-pregnancy health exams like pap smears. And you can even insert your own speculum at the gynecologist if that makes you more comfortable. We revisit all the things we learned about pelvic health from our Pelvic Power episode.
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More Samantha Power
Samantha Power served as the US ambassador to the United Nations in the Obama administration and has been nominated by President Biden to serve as administrator to USAID. We revisit our 2019 interview full of hard and candid truths about what she was and wasn't able to accomplish, especially in...
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More Pleasure Activism
It doesn't feel like a great time for pleasure, but that's exactly why we need it, right now. We revisit our interview with adrienne maree brown, author of Pleasure Activism, Emergent Strategy, and most recently, We Will Not Cancel Us.
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Burnout
Getting real about recognizing burnout, how it's different from similar feelings like depression, and how ambition means more than working constantly.
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Fighting for Indigenous Rights
A planned tar sands pipeline through Northern Minnesota crosses tribal land and would disrupt waterways and wild rice cultivation. Tara Houska is Ojibwe, an attorney, an environmental and indigenous rights advocate, and has a long history on the land Line 3 would travel through. Links: Stop Line…
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Feeling Our Way Through
Poet, artist and activist Cleo Wade feels deeply and writes movingly about growing up, finding ourselves, and having good boundaries with the people in our lives and our social feeds.
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Glittery Curiosity
The NYT's Caity Weaver joins us to discuss her love of Santa Fe, television, pronouncing words correctly, and how her insatiable curiosity compels her to find out how glitter is made. Plus, in her many celebrity profiles: who tried to pick up the check, who was beautiful in person, and who smells...
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Cozy Content
This episode is all about comfort in challenging times and staying true to yourself. We talk with a paragon of creating cozy feelings, Jenny Han, the author behind the book and Netflix series To All the Boys I've Loved Before. How to decide what to say yes to? How do you take time for yourself?…
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Jangling Keys of Friendship
Is it childish to call people Best Friends? Who holds the various keys to our hearts and identities? And what dreams of the past and future are getting us through the pandemic? Aminatou discusses travel, religion, finding ourselves and how we use coded language to find our people with Jedidiah...
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Transition of Power
We discuss the inauguration celebrity parade, the fallacy of calls for "unity," Melania's caftan, Bernie's mittens, and "We will be back in some form."