March 29, 2025 • 56 mins
In this classic episode, Renee Powers of Feminist Book Club stops by and shares her thoughts on how to run a feminist business in a capitalist society.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Sanny and Samantha and welcome to Stuff
I Never Told You Production of by Heart Radio. And
welcome to another classic episode, and this one we've been
talking a lot about ethical consumerism, where to buy things from,
(00:30):
and it has brought back a conversation to me, at least,
that we had with Renee Powers about how to run
a feminist business and how complicated that is and all
of the questions you have to ask yourself and I
still think about it. Honestly, I still think about it.
(00:54):
So please enjoy this classic episode. Hey, this is Annie
and Samantha and welcome to Stefan Never Told You Protection
of iHeartRadio. And today we are so so so happy
(01:18):
to be joined by Renee Powers of Feminist book Club,
the podcast, the business, the subscription box, all of it.
Thank you so much for joining us. I am so
excited to be here. Thanks for having me. We're so
excited to have you. We've already like we do this
all the time. We just adopt people as friends, so
(01:38):
you're like our friend perfect. We're gonna have really fun
hangout times where we complain about business stuff. Yes, I
love this for all of us.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
I love that your podcast just fits perfectly with ours,
And I'm like, why haven't we've been hanging out before.
That's uh, that's more that's stranger to me than the
this part.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
It's true, it's true, And this is this is a
really fun thing because you're coming on our podcast and
we're going to be on your podcast, which I'm gonna
admit i'm a little nervous about because you feel a
little bit more polished.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
Oh oh, it's all a facod. It's all fake, fake
it till you make it, is my mantra.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Yeah, and I love that as our like twelve year
veteran here are saying she's nervous, and yes, I still
get nervous.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
It's like I want a plane with turbulence, right.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
I have to tell you though, And I was telling
Samantha this earlier that I started podcasting because of stuff
Mom never told you, Like I started listening back in
like twenty ten, is that right? Like yeah, like even
before Caroline came on, it was it was Christian and Molly. Yeah, yeah,
and that's what inspired me to podcast. I remember, like Dorive,
(02:58):
I had a thirty five minute commute to my grad
school program, and I would it was a straight shot
and I would just cueue up all the back episodes.
A fan ever said, so this feels really like I
don't know, this is really fulfilling to me. So thanks
for thanks for chatting with me.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
I love that so much. Oh my gosh, I'm almost
like I'm thinking back to my time because I was
an editor at that point. I was the editor of
the show. So that's so cool. It's like those connections
you can make over technology and you don't realize. Yes,
like he's made them.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
The parasocial relationships have become real social relationship.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
Oh my gosh. Yes, yes, it's so odd too working
in this business when you, like, as an editor, I
would know such personal facts about people who have never
spoken to me before but I work with them. It
was just such a strange thing where it's like you
probably don't even know my name, but I know, and
(04:00):
you like lost your virgin very bizarre. Well, okay, can
you introduce yourself to our listeners.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
Yeah, so, as you said, my name Serine Powers, I
she her pronouns. I am based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and
Minneapolis proper, not one of the urbs.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
Okay, that's a big thing.
Speaker 4 (04:25):
That's a thing for everyone like exactly, yeah, but I
am the founder of Feminist Book Club.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
We are a monthly book subscription service and media company.
We use literature as a launchpad to have difficult conversations
about social justice and we've been doing this for just
over five years now. This grew out of a failed dissertation.
Oh wow, So I'm actually I'm a I call myself
a pH dropout. I spent eight years in grad school,
(04:57):
six years in a PhD program, and and I was
studying gender and communication and technology and got to the
point where I did all my coursework, I passed my exams,
and then I went to propose my dissertation and I
failed it three times, and I was like, I'm out. Yeah,
(05:19):
it was just like horrible on my mental health. So
I was in Chicago. My partner is from Minneapolis. We
moved up here together, and I was like, well, I
had this interview project as part of my dissertation. I'm
just going to do it as a podcast. And like
I said, stuff, Mom, never told you got me into podcasting.
Like listening to podcasts and feminist podcasting I think is
(05:41):
such an interesting medium. And so thanks to y'all and
what you do Feminist book Clubs started as a podcast,
and my listeners would say, like, you're always giving you know,
book recommendations, like what if you had an actual book club,
And it just grew organic from there. We started just
(06:01):
a bunch of friends in a Facebook group reading the
same books, and now we have you know, a thousand
members around the world and our own platform and app,
and we talk to authors, and we have a you know,
bi weekly podcast. Bi weekly has twice a week, not
every other week, it's twice a week podcast and daily blog.
(06:23):
We're big on TikTok, We're big on Instagram. It's just
rad as hell. So that's what we are and what
I do. I just kind of guide the ship.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
Yes, and it is quite the ship. You've got quite
a large team. I was a little jealous when I
was looking at it right. This is amazing. You get
to work with these as many people.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
They're so cool to Every single one of our contributors
and staff is just like the coolest people I've ever met.
And I am big on surrounding myself with people that
are just much smarter than me. So we do have
We've got kind of our executive team of four of
us that our podcast producer. We've got our blog editor
(07:05):
in chief, and then our Captain of Commerce is their title,
and their name is Raw and Ron and I work
in Minneapolis together in an office space, and so we
are the only two full time employees. But everyone else
is a contributor and you know, doing two to four
pieces of content every month and helping out on you know,
(07:28):
the community and creating all sorts of really cool conversations
to starting really interesting conversations of like things that they
are interested in and therefore I am now interested in.
So it's yeah, our content really runs the gamut of
a little bit of everything. We've got, you know, someone
who works for the federal government. We've got a former
(07:49):
park ranger. We've got a science communication like professional like
feminism applies to everything, and we are able to use
our team of contributors to to highlight that. We've got
like a film writer like it's just cool, it's just cool.
Everybody is just yeah, a romance author like what. Yeah,
(08:15):
it's a great team.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
Yeah, that's awesome. And I do want to come back
to the thing you said about being a feminist podcast
in this this space in a second, But just first,
I have a couple of questions about how has podcasting
treated you? How has it been? And then also I
(08:36):
find we have a book club on here. It is
once a month and it's amazing, but I find that
it's difficult to like read a whole book for podcasts,
which sounds terrible, but like when it's your job, like
you're researching all the time, you're reading stuff all the time,
it just becomes like, okay, and I hate this, but
(08:58):
it's true. We'll be like this book is too long,
we can't read this one. Have you found that that
has sort of leaked into your personal enjoyment of reading?
Speaker 3 (09:09):
Mmmm?
Speaker 1 (09:11):
What a good question.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
I I'm hmm. So one of the reasons I started
Feminist Book Club is because I was so tired of
reading like research, like dead old white guys writing about
postmodernism like over it. So anything that's not that has
always been fun for me. But to your point, yes,
(09:33):
there are some books that kind of feel like homework,
whether that's for you know, one of our books of
the month, or if that's the guest that we're going
to have on the podcast. I read everybody's books that's
on the podcast, So yes, I don't know what else
to say about that without as sending people.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
Not trying to do gotcha interview gosh.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
But what I will say is I'm a very fast reader,
and so I always have at least three books going
at once, and if if one, if I'm reading something
for quote unquote fun, so I don't have like the
author coming on or I don't have to write discussion
questions for our book club. I am not afraid of
(10:30):
not finishing a book like time is too precious. I
will I will put it. If it's like fifty pages
in and I am not feeling it, it's just not
the right time for me. It's not you know, the
vibe that I'm looking for, I will shelve it. I'm
unapologetic about not finishing books. I also listen to most
(10:51):
books on audio rather than reading physical books, and Famous
Book Club does have an audiobook subscription nice and I
find that being able to instantly be listening to something,
I get through so many more books because I can
do it, you know, while I'm walking my dog, while
I'm washing dishes, while I'm doing yardwork. You know. So
I at ninety percent of the time I've got you know,
(11:13):
earbuds in and I'm listening to a book on at
least one point five speed.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
Interesting. I love it when people are write it and
like I only listen to it this this, this speed, Like, all.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
Right, your audiobook is great at one point five speed.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
That's good to know myself as well. So if not
too a chipmug a fuck.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
Yeah, yeah, you both sound great. That's a great speed
for y'all.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
Yes, Oh my gosh, I love that so much. It's
true though it is. Oh, I'm sure we'll probably talk
about this a bit when we are on your show,
but it is one of those things that we kind
of had to say to our boss, which felt strange.
It felt like he was assuming this is gonna be
a grand slam because you've got like an audience, and
(12:05):
it's like, yeah, but people listen to things because they
can do something else while they're listening to the thing,
and it's just different mediums. Like I'm not sure it's
going to translate necessarily. But both Samantha and I foolishly
didn't realize we were going to do an audiobook, which
I'm so happy about, Like it's very cool. I want
to be accessible all that stuff, but I just it
(12:26):
is different when you can walk your dog or cook
or do something while you're listening to a book.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
And I'm one of those people that I always have
to be doing something with my hands, Like, so it's
hard for me to sit down and read a book.
I'm very like fidgety, and so what I often do.
Then I got really into cross stitching. Yes, yes, so
I have just dozens of cross stitching projects that I'm
(12:54):
working on, and I will just sit on the couch,
listen to my book and do my little do my
little cross stitching because I'm seventy five years old and
unashamed of it. And I'm also in like I'm calling
it my cozy mystery era, Like all I want to
read are like women solving murders but like cozy. Yes,
so yes, I just make me a cup of tea
(13:16):
and you know, reserve a bed at the Old Folks
Home for me because I'm.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Sounds doesn't sound bad to me?
Speaker 1 (13:27):
No, No, Samantha is looking for a lazier version of
cozy game.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
Yeah, like I'm.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
Like trying to actually do things and having quests. No,
that's like good, I'm good. I just I want to
do something in less than that. What do I just
click on things.
Speaker 3 (13:40):
Thank you. That's how. That's how I got you want
to talk about games, How I got into animal crossing
because it's just like, yeah, I just want to sit
here and fish.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
Well, that's the thing is like I literally stopped building things,
so it's like I don't want this to be a
whole village. I want it to be my five people.
And I just go selfish, like I don't understand what
this is. Even a boy like I actually try to
start knitting, and I did. Okay, I did a couple
of rows, and I was like, and I'm done. So
(14:09):
I'm really good at it.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
You know, it's all right to change an audio book.
Speaker 3 (14:15):
You do a few more and you can do a
few more roads.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
I am an odd person when it comes to audiobooks.
I do like I will play phone games while I'm
listening to the audio, or I will sam I will
work the double whammy of that. So yeah, but I
like your version better except for the fact that I'm
not talented enough to do this stitching. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (14:38):
Oh, it's just following. It's just following a map. It's
so easy.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
This is what people tell me. And then I try it,
and then it comes out of blob. I'm like, you
lie to me.
Speaker 3 (14:49):
All the stitches and start over, which is also really satisfied.
Is it okay?
Speaker 2 (14:53):
Because in my mind I'm just automatically breaking the string
and throwing it across the room and screaming up my failures.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
Fair enough that sounds yeah, totally. I could chat all
day about this kind of stuff. But you did propose
(15:19):
a serious topic for this episode, which is something that
we struggle with that we think about a lot. And
that's when you are an intersectional feminists and that's something
that's part of you, but you're still in this capitalist
space that is not that and in fact and typical
(15:42):
to that. So how to be a feminist in a
space that is not when we do have to, you know,
have livelihoods and make money and survive, but how to
do that? So if you can just talk about like
your initial because you said you've done a lot of
interviews about this lately, you've been thinking about it lately,
(16:03):
sort of the when you sent this idea to us.
What was on your mind? What are you thinking about?
Speaker 3 (16:08):
Yeah, so it's something that I think about constantly, is
how to run a feminist business? Because, like you said,
that feels contradictory, and it's something I changed my mind
about all the time. And this is something you all
discuss in your book too, and I love that you
talk about this fear of failure is detrimental to the
(16:29):
feminist movement. And I've been screaming that from the top
of my lungs, right that you know, if I don't
show up try and fail, Like if I don't show
up and try, knowing that I could fail, Like what,
that's not moving anybody forward? Right, So all I'm saying
is like, this is my approach and I will likely fail,
(16:50):
but that's okay because we will all learn something from it. Right, So,
how do we participate in capitalism and critique capitalism at
the same time as something I think about a lot.
And the the short answer is capitalism is compulsory, Like
there's nothing that we can do to remove ourselves from
(17:10):
capitalism and still be just like a functioning human in
the society. So that means that we have to participate
in capitalism ethically, And so how do we do that?
What does that look like? And so that's what I've
been like, how to be an anti capitalist business is
like really hard, but how to be an ethical business
(17:31):
that prioritizes the needs of its customers, the needs of
its employees, the needs of its staff before profit. I
think that is what sets feminists businesses apart from your
run of the mill, even small business. I was gonna say,
like Walmart, but like even there are a lot of
(17:51):
small businesses that are just in it for the bottom line. Yeah,
every decision that is made in this business comes from
a place of people over profit. Like, yes, we have
to pay our bills, but if by chance we can't
pay our bills, we will still pay our people. And
(18:11):
that's a real thing. Right We're in a recession, and
there are there are times like right now, I was
just telling you all before we started recording, like our
office space was broken into four times in the last month,
and we lost, you know, over five thousand dollars worth
of equipment, Like all of our festival stuff is gone.
It's just it's so frustrating, and insurance won't cover it,
(18:32):
which is really great. Yeah, oh I love it. So
Like we started a I believe deeply in mutual eight too,
and so we started to GoFundMe and we're starting to
like recoup some of those costs and anything left over
is going to start to help us get the ball
rolling on reincorporating as a feminist co op, an employee
(18:55):
owned co op. So that's I wanted to get this
business off the ground, so it was stable, it was running,
it had systems and processes right.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
And.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
Then I wanted to step away. And so that's what
we're in the process of right now, is putting the
business in the hands of the actual community. Like I said,
my background is in feminist theory, and so I come
at this not from a business standpoint. I don't have
a background in business. I don't have a business degree,
but I come from this from a theory background. And
what does it look like when we put feminist theory
(19:29):
into action? And there is a research method called feminist
participatory action research, and I have tried my best to
adapt that to running a business. And what that really
means it's a feedback loop, right of you know, we're
thinking about this decision. What do you think we want
to go this direction? What do you think this goes
(19:51):
all the way down to Like the books that we pick,
I don't pick them, our members pick them. Like I
choose a theme because I'm like, well, we haven't read
Native American voices lately, so like, let's do Native American
Voices month, something along those lines. We haven't read trance voices,
we haven't read about Hollywood, so like our next our
next theme is in the zeitgeist, right because they're on strike,
(20:15):
but it's a night at the movie, so we're going
to be having conversations about the strike and the labor movement,
but you know, all under the guise of reading fun
Hollywood stories. So I propose the theme, our members suggest
titles based on that theme, and then everybody votes and
that's what gets chosen as the book of the month.
So yeah, learning with and from participants instead of like teaching,
(20:40):
like just not assuming I'm the smartest person in the room,
because I'm absolutely not. But you know, bringing our community
into the decision making has been really rewarding. And then
and then they feel invested in it too. So I
think that's I just gave you, like all of my
word salad about about running a feminist business. So yes,
(21:01):
let's let's let's let's synthesize here, right, So restructuring into
a co op, people over profit, prioritizing our customers' opinions
and asking for their feedback, I think, and opening up
this feedback loop. I think that are those are the
hallmarks of how we run a feminist business and how
we uh yeah, push back against and participate in capitalism
(21:25):
in in an anti capitalist way. We're not in it
to make a bajillion dollars. Nobody sells books to make
a bajillion dollars unless your name is Jeff Bezos and
he can give.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
Agree, agree, Also, can we actually make money because I
want to make money with the book? How do we
do this?
Speaker 3 (21:45):
Annie? Yeah, sorry, not to be the bearer of bad news,
but son of them.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
Okay, sorry, friends as expected, but.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
Yes, they thank you.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
I love the wrap up that was. You can tell
I've definitely done presentation. I see your PhD in here,
like trying to do the defense.
Speaker 3 (22:10):
Not quite a PhD. I'm considered abd all the dissertation.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
Yeah, well I'm gonna I'm gonna say you have.
Speaker 3 (22:16):
It because you you were. Thank you you were. So
you can still call me professor Powers.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
I will, I will every day. But yeah, I think
that's such an interesting conversation because we've had to have
a back and forth about like, yeah, we need money
to live. Uh, So we can't say because like, we
have a lot of ads and advertising, and we try
to be very very very conscious of what we say
yes and no to, and of course sometimes we just
don't have any control at all. And then the like
(22:40):
pushback we get because we are an absolute and we
stand by the intersectional feminist, we make mistakes or we
may not know every information because as much as we
want to be those upstanding people, the fact of the
matter is this is a job. We have to make money.
I have to do things kind of the same way
when I was in social work, of like, I'm doing
some things that I really hate, but I'm trying to
(23:01):
do it in the best and more conscious way possible,
knowing that I'm finding a system that's rigged against everyone,
every marginalized group in so many ways. Like have you
had a lot of conversations on how to like navigate
that for yourself, especially when it comes to like advertising
and all of those.
Speaker 3 (23:18):
Yeah, we do sell advertising, and we are very picky
about who we are willing to work with. And that's
I mean, and that's one of the pluses of being
independent is we don't have a parent company that we
have to make money for, like we are making money
for ourselves to keep this ship afloat. So we only
work with women, gender non conforming or queer or people
(23:43):
of color in terms of like the books that we spotlight,
the the companies that we work with for like the
products that come with the books, because we do send
out like a sticker or like a bookmark or something
like small and cute, and we do quarterly boxes that
are full of goodies and books and those all those
things come from small marginalized identity businesses including like our
(24:07):
our web developer and our you know, our podcast editor
are our printer that we use for like inserts and
stickers and stuff. So like when we spend money on something,
we are doing that within our values. When we take
money from someone, I don't care who we take money
from as long as that product is aligned with us. Gosh,
(24:30):
and very rarely have we worked with CIS men and
CIS owned businesses, this male owned businesses. But I'm not
going to say no to if like Casper Mattresses or
something like, I'm just gonna assume their own by a
white guy. If Casper Mattress wants to, like give me
a bajillion dollars to pitch them on our podcast, like
(24:52):
or like a free mattress like thank you, yeah, yes,
and like one for all of our friends, you know,
like right, because you're getting me money and I feel
like that's feminist. But if it's like if it's like
a company that sells only like maga hats, absolutely not
like I don't care if you give me a bajillion dollars,
(25:13):
I'm not going to you know, sell ar fifteens on
our podcast. But right, but like a mattress owned by
this why guy? Probably yeah yep.
Speaker 1 (25:24):
So like that's like we could be really picky.
Speaker 3 (25:26):
But thankfully we haven't had to have run into those issues.
It's the flows of money, right, It's the flow of
capitalism and like redistributing it. And that's one thing also
is like we work primarily with women owned businesses because
studies have shown when you put capital in the hands
of a woman owned business a, you will lift generations
(25:49):
out of poverty, but be it will also be redistributed
amongst that community. So the fact that you know, we
are more likely to give our dollars, we are one
hundred percent likely to give our dollars to small women
and minority on businesses just means that that money continues
to do good in whatever community they serve instead of
(26:12):
going into if we were to give money to Bezos,
for instance, that's just going into his pockets and into
his like four oh one K. Does he even have
a four oh one k? Probably not, like he is
a four oh one K, but like, well you know
what I mean, it's going into like investments, which doesn't
do anybody any good except for him.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
So yeah, yeah, yeah, you ended up hitting on a
topic which was an inside joke for us about me
trying to get a damn mattress from Jump like because right,
well that's hilarious. Right before I started everyone that was
one of the big things is individual mattresses, and I
was like, I want one. That started the best.
Speaker 3 (26:46):
We've gotten as vibrators. We got vibrators.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
We'll be happy with that too, but.
Speaker 3 (26:52):
They were woman owned. They were a woman Latina owned,
so like.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
We had someone on who had those amazing vibrators, like,
I want one. We never got it, though I was
really hoping.
Speaker 1 (27:01):
I'm sorry I paid for it, but I got it anyway.
Moving well, that's one of the interesting things about I
think about this a lot, and sometimes I think this
is kind of a petty thought, but sometimes I'm like, no,
this is completely legitimate. But we sometimes get teased because
(27:27):
we turned down a lot of ads. We really do
and there was this infamous study it so Mantha didn't
do it well. I had to fill out like this
huge form where you just it was. It took me
four hours and it was just like sponsors that you
might be okay with working with. And I feel like
(27:50):
for people who want to uphold intersectional feminism, that was
a homework excignment because I literally had to look up
every company yep, what they do, where do they donate
their money, all of this stuff. And I think that
people who issued it were just polly white men who
didn't think like I'm not. They're like, oh, do you
(28:12):
like this or do you not like that? Like that
kind of dichotomy versus wait, what do they stand for?
What do they do? And sometimes I get a little
grumpy because I'll hear some male colleagues of ours. We're like, oh,
I just said yes to that because I like that.
I'm like, well, okay, but did you know about this
right right? Right?
Speaker 3 (28:30):
Did you know they single handedly caused the fires on MAUI.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
Like, you know, like the content, we really would have
an ad that we said yes to two years prior
and then come back and go, oh, well, here's a
new controversy and we can't use them now, whether it's
like strike things or union things or or you recall
or you found out that the CEO was a man
who did not care about people when it was branded
as women owned. Like there are so many things that
(28:53):
came back. We're like, what's happening? And then not only
do we say no, and probably Anie because Andy does
I love you Anie, She's already justified. Why we get
another pushback like are you sure? Now? Tell me why again?
Tell us why again? Like and I'm not we love
our as people. Please don't think this because they're just
doing their job. But the of the matter is like
there is extra work to what you think. And like
(29:16):
we got another ad vetting today and I'm looking at it.
I'm like, well, we know this already controversy, so we
definitely probably will say you know, like all these things,
I already know what Anie said in turning it down.
It was a huge company, and it's like, this is
what we have to do and then justify two or
three times about why we can't work with them.
Speaker 3 (29:34):
Yeah, and even and it sucks too. It's like it's
hard for us when we are purchasing things. So for
the first couple of years I live in Minneapolis, we
were using you line for our boxes. We didn't have
branded boxes. We were using you Line because they are
just across the state line and Wisconsin. I could go
pick them up, Like it was really easy. I didn't
(29:55):
have to paper shipping, and they were the cheapest on
the market. Well, they're the cheapest on the market because
they're a bajillion dollar industry and they're one of Trump's
largest donors. That family, the U Line family. As soon
as I learned that, I was like, like, now I
have to I had to pay more to find something.
But it ended up being great because then I found
(30:16):
a family owned box printing company here in Saint Paul
that they were so like, they were so wonderful right
where they like I was sick and they like brought
they brought samples to my house just so I could
like choose the ink color and then we got the
customerz like it turned out great. Shout out to Tilsner Carton.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
Myself was like this like an office episode of like
business owners and like they do the like and that,
but I was like, help them.
Speaker 3 (30:46):
I didn't have the time at the time to do
my due diligence of like vetting. It was just like
where everybody got their boxes from, you know, like, oh,
it was so frustrating and so now, yeah, so now
we don't use you line. And I suggest you'd not
use you line because they're a giant donor to the
far right.
Speaker 2 (31:04):
So there's so many conversations like that.
Speaker 3 (31:06):
But at least our audiences know that we are putting
in that due diligence now, like we learn our lessons.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
Yeah, and when we get calls in is nice.
Speaker 3 (31:14):
Yeah, And if we are doing I mean, there's only
so much work and research we can do, but we're
doing the best that we can. And I think that
our audiences as an audience of yours, I know I
appreciate it, and I also know that y'all need to
make money. You can't do this for free.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
I'm sure people will be like, why podcasting was like
that to begin with?
Speaker 3 (31:35):
It was, but it's not you know.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
One of the other things I think about especially when
it comes to like feminist businesses. You want to be
the person who supports the small businesses, that supports the
marginalized businesses as well. And for the longest time, ATS
was the to go spot, and now you were getting
all this information about, oh, they're not being treated well.
So this comes to the point of like, okay, a,
(32:09):
as a small owner of a business, where do you
go b as a consumer? How do you navigate that
as well so that you're doing what you need to
do to truly help those businesses? Like how do you
go through all of that?
Speaker 3 (32:24):
Yeah, So there are a lot of marketplaces like at
C and for small businesses too, there are a lot
of like wholesale marketplaces. And one thing that I do
is like there's the ability to message like the business
owner on all of these marketplaces. At C we use
fair for a lot of our wholesale goods, and then
I always ask them like, how do you prefer that
I make this purchase? Like would you like to invoice
(32:45):
me directly? Because yeah, I want to make sure that
they're getting all of the dollars, so Etsy's not going
to hold on to, you know, six thousand dollars inevitably
for six months or something like what Etsy is doing
is really frustrating for a lot of makers. So I
would just go, you know, if I see something that
I really like, absolutely message the creator and just say
(33:06):
how what is the best way for me to support
you and and make it as easy as possible for them.
It's also like hard to do and it's it's time consuming.
So they're on Etsy for a reason, and so I'm
sure they're not going to be like, well, don't buy
from Etsy. They would rather you buy from Etsy than
not buy it, all right, So if you don't have
the time or energy or spoons to spend on you know,
(33:27):
going out of your way to message the artist or
the creator like, it's fine, But if you do have
that extra energy to spend, please.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
Do Essentially, Like what it comes down to is, I
know there's a lot of small businesses and trying to
take off. Essentially they're hoping that they're they're gonna make
the the gold mine of being viral. I know that's
the new thing, and that's let's just be real honest,
that's rare. That's not going to happen to most small businesses.
As much as we would love it. I know, like
the small restaurants are hoping to buy the Keith Lee
(33:55):
of TikTok will come through and and like just blow
up their business. But that's that's a rare occasion for
any business owner who's trying to be especially women, because
we know that they are the least likely to get
any help when it comes to advertising any of that.
How what's the best route for them to have their
business take off or at least to be profitable.
Speaker 3 (34:15):
Yeah, oh, that's okay, that's excellent. That's an excellent question.
First off, I will say that even going viral doesn't
do We have had several of our TikTok videos, you know,
get five hundred thousand, a million views. It barely moves
the needle for us. We will get a lot of traffic,
(34:36):
but it doesn't necessarily traffic doesn't equal sales. Right, We'll
get a lot of followers, followers, you can't you can't
make money on followers. So it's like converting virality is
really hard for a lot of people. So there's that.
But I also think that there are so many really
really cool organizations that are created just for small business owners.
(35:02):
Insert identity here, right, if that's queer small business owners,
if that's black small business owners and women's small business
owners have Like there are so many resources, and I'm
gonna shout out a couple of them in particular. I
was a part of the Tory Birch Foundation Fellowship in
twenty twenty one and they select it's founded by Tory Birch,
and she actually created her fashion line so she could
(35:24):
give back. This is what I'm saying, Like women do
cool with their businesses and their money. Like she she
likes fashion, but she was like, but I want my
fashion to do something and like support other woman business owners.
And so she launched the Tory Birch Foundation, which focuses
solely on women owned small businesses and getting them up
off the ground and giving them the resources that they
(35:46):
need to succeed. And so every year they pick fifty
women owned small businesses across the country and I from
this book club was one of them in twenty twenty one.
And it's a cohort of women owned businesses from all
different industries from you know, finance, tech to restaurants to
roofing companies, and we all come together online to learn
(36:13):
the basics of business, learn the ins and outs learn
new skills. But also I think the most important thing
that comes out of these kind of incubators or accelerators
or fellowship programs is the connections that you make with
other small businesses. Like I have made so many close
friends through these kinds of things who will be there
to support me. They're just a text message away, you know.
(36:33):
Or we have a very active WhatsApp group that is
just like I have to mute it most of the
time because it is so so active, which is lovely.
Speaker 1 (36:43):
Right.
Speaker 3 (36:44):
So I think that women especially tend to lean on
their communities or or ought to learn how to lean
on our communities for support in all sorts of ways.
Whatever that means, Like, hey, does anybody have like a
marketing professional? I mean just like just yesterday I got
(37:05):
an email from somebody in the Tory britsh Fellowship that
was like, Hey, I'm looking for somebody who specifically does
you know CpG consumer package goods sales through Klavio, which
is like an email client. And I was like, I
actually have somebody who works with integrations with WU commerce,
Like these are very very specific asks. It's like, oh wait,
(37:29):
there's somebody in this group that knows exactly what you
need and like can make that introduction. So it's just
a way to like to network and to like grow
your connections so you have you have those resources when
you need them. So yeah, the Torribrtch Foundation has been
fantastic the connections that I've made there. But also there
are local organizations like this too. So I'm also part
(37:53):
of Lunar Startups, which is just Minnesota based and they
work with under estimated and underrepresented founders, so they specifically
work with people of color, women and queer folks. So
I was a part of that. During the pandemic, we
started March like third of twenty twenty in person in
(38:13):
Saint Paul, and then the world cut out and we
all moved to Zoom crying, and it was great. We
were all in the trenches together at least like fifteen
you know, small business owners in the Twin Cities, We're like,
what do we need?
Speaker 1 (38:25):
Everything sucks.
Speaker 3 (38:27):
So I was so glad to have that resource because
I don't know what I would have done otherwise. So
it's just like, building these communities is so necessary for
small feminist business owners because we cannot do this in
a vacuum. But we require. That's one thing that we
learned in the pandemic, or we didn't warn the pandemic
that we should have learned, was like, we need to
take care of the community's needs in order to take
(38:49):
care of our own needs. And until we take care
of the community around us, you know whatever that means, however,
you to find community like, we cannot succeed full stop.
So what is it? But yeah, how do we take
care of everybody's needs in order to take care of
our own needs? I think Robin waal Chimer said it
best in Braiding Sweet Grass. It's my favorite, one of
my favorite lines of any book ever. She says that
(39:11):
all flourishing is mutual. We cannot flourish until we are
in all of it together flourishing. There's no individual flourishing
like that.
Speaker 1 (39:24):
And it's true. The pandemic really showcased for like small businesses.
It started that conversation of like, oh, well, we've been
kind of pushing this to the side, ignoring this for
so long, and now we have we're trying to have
some conversations about it, some more healthy or helpful than others.
But there was that aspect I did want to touch
(39:47):
on and I'm hoping that this will give you some
room to really rant because it's something that bothers me.
Is a lot of times, Samantha kind of alluded to it.
Because we're feminist podcasts, we're women moms in the name,
we get a lot of ad requests from businesses that
(40:11):
are pretending to be feminists or any any like intersection
with it, like queer, Like during Black History Month, all
of this happens, and it's just like I've multiple times
been like, okay, but you're saying you're donating this, what
are you donating it to? And then I never hear
anything again. What are your thoughts on the people who
(40:35):
are trying to use this feminist business model to pretend
and to cash in, but are actually like the most
superficial things.
Speaker 3 (40:49):
Yes, yes, let me, let me get out my soapbox.
You're alluding to incredibly performative feminism, and it is most
like white feminism if we're gonna keep it in the
realm of feminist we get so many, so many book
pitches in particular that are like unleash the Goddess within,
(41:13):
or like your Warrior Woman says Rar, or like boss Babe.
But how to start your girl boss empire. And it's like,
none of those things are feminist. That is so disgusting.
Those are so neoliberal, capitalist junk. Can we get to
the second and third layer of this because your surface
layer of white feminism is I'm allergic to it, like
(41:35):
please please step away. Yeah, it makes me very angry.
But the thing is like I just simply say, like,
thank you so much. This does not align. We are
really trying to amplify the voices of folks on the margins,
not let's be honest, like rich white, blonde yoga instructing
(42:00):
green smoothie drinking privileged women. And if you are that,
I'm so glad that you are here because you need
to You need this kind of information in your life.
The stuff that stuff, that stuff mom never told you,
you know, covers It's like that's one way to broaden
your horizons. And and yeah, there are a lot of
(42:22):
companies out there and organizations out there that just give
lip service to whatever is in the zeitgeist right that
they're raising money or they donate to, you know, we
say social justice organizations. We say we donate to social
justice organizations every month, and we don't name what they
are publicly because for a number of reasons, because we're
(42:47):
not marketing on that, like we're not using that as
a marketing tool, and so our members know where the
money is going. But also I am a strong believer.
I grew up Catholic. This is where I wanted. I
grew up Catholic and like social justice Catholic, though like
the real the.
Speaker 4 (43:06):
Reals, like everybody get some emails. I'm just kidding, sorry,
but not like but not not Catholic or it's like
anti abortion Catholic, but but like feed the feed the
hungry and clothe the naked.
Speaker 3 (43:21):
Catholic is like how I grew up. And one of
the things that really stuck with me from Catholic school
is when there's a there's a verse in the Bible.
And don't ask me what part of the Bible, I
have no clue at this point, but there's a verse
where it says, when you pray, go into a closet
and pray in solitude, nobody needs to know that you're praying,
(43:42):
Like you're not praying for everybody's brownie points. That's performative.
And the same thing goes with our our social justice
and our activism, like yes, we need to be out marching. Yes,
we need to use our privilege for good those of
us who have privilege. Yes, we need to put our
bodies on the lines, especially white bodies on the lines
in front of people of color. Like, yes, those are
(44:03):
things we need to be doing. And at the same time,
your entire Facebook feed doesn't need to know that you
just donated fifty dollars to plan Parenthood. That's who is
that doing. That's just making you feel good. And so
I think a lot of businesses think that, you know,
saying that they're going to donate X, Y and Z
is just like it's just lip service, it's just a
(44:24):
marketing ploy And it's really frustrating for me to see
as a company who has donated tens of thousands of
dollars of our profit to social justice organizations across the world,
but we don't use it. We're doing it in our
closet and praying God, I'm so sorry, and this is
(44:44):
how I get canceled.
Speaker 1 (44:46):
So so you know, Kncel, it is so frustrating and
I can't we can't go into this because it'll become
(45:07):
a whole railroad going off the railroad situation. But it's
like I hate that. I'm into what you're doing. I'm
into what you're saying, and I asked for any details
and then none come forth. And then if they do,
if you're like I don't know, bud Light and you
do this thing and then they freak out and backtrack immediately,
(45:27):
like it's like illuminating because it tells me you literally
have never thought about what it must be like to
be a transperson in this case and all of the
backlash that might be, but you thought it would be
cool to cash it. Like it's like uninformed. It's like
not even it's malicious, but it's almost more uninformed than malicious.
Speaker 3 (45:49):
First off, that woman in particular, Dylan who just got
brutally attacked online because she got bud Light, said to
her like that's just my heart goes out to her.
What I would prefer bud Light Anheuser Busch and MBEV
who owns like every major beer company in this country,
(46:09):
and beyond, what I would prefer to see them do
is have trans folks on their board of directors, you know,
like I don't give a if they are giving a
can of beer to Dylan on TikTok. What I give
about is if you are including their voices in decision
making rooms, like transfolts need to be in the work
(46:31):
room where it happens, you know, like it's not just yeah,
that is the definition of performative. If they had had
a trans person in their like marketing, the influencer outreach division,
like that wouldn't have happened.
Speaker 2 (46:47):
That's kind of the epitome of like the privilege that yeah,
people don't realize there is that the fact that Annheuser
Busch they had a little bit of backlash. All they
did was stay silent, literally allowing this woman to take
all the threats and harassment and being like, yep, oh,
well that didn't work. That didn't well, it did partially
pay out for a minute because there were supporters for
(47:07):
the second and then their silence and apology shows not
only their blindness, ignorance and harmful behavior in everything that
they just did without again talking to the right community.
Who did they talk to. They're like, this person's a
TikTok famous little let's send a beer, which we already
(47:27):
know all the miss on that and we're not going
to talk about. But that kind of comes back to
this whole conversation of like who is this for? Why
are you doing this? And what does this do? And
then when we look at who may be a woman,
and this is the whole conversation. Ay, and I've had
plenty of times women supporting women, but what are these
women actually doing and what are they doing that is
(47:49):
good for other women and other marginalized folks. So we
have to backtrack, like, no, it can't just be simply
this and this. There's a lot of women own businesses.
Like I think about this often because again coming back,
that's because I tried to be is whatever. Well, I'm like, yeah,
but this person, Oh she's got she's got some things
on here that I do not want to support. She
has anti abortion, she has all these things, and I'm like,
I can't support that. I have to dig in to
(48:11):
see who she's selling to or someone who has no standards.
And I get to the point of like, yeah, you
have to make a business, I get it, but you're
willing to put mega stuff onto your stuff and then
sell it and then also Black Lives matter that doesn't work.
Speaker 3 (48:25):
Yeah, there was that that reminds me like when we
were doing whatever I'm I was purchasing for one of
our boxes ones. There was a product that I thought
was so cute and it came in all these different
designs and I was like, ooh, so close to purchasing,
and then I kept going and scrolling and I was like,
uh uh oh when you go to the review.
Speaker 2 (48:44):
So you go through the reviews and you see who
she's You're like, ma'am, oh.
Speaker 3 (48:49):
We're in Minneapolis. We are not supporting somebody who has
Blue Lives Matter on there.
Speaker 2 (48:57):
That's the other part to that, like we have to
hold our own accountable as well. And I say this
as an Asian woman who all this rhetorics and very
very like white supremacist rhetoric that I'm like, I do
not support this. I do not support them just because
they're an Asian woman. We have to have that conversation
of like that fine line of just because it seems
okay because on the outside, this is a person of color,
(49:19):
she's an Asian woman, Okay, cool, cool, cool cool. Even
queer people you're like, oh they're queer. Oh, but they're
they're staunchly still somehow republican. Like I don't I don't
get this, but I have to know that this is
not necessarily just supporting, like that's right, you have to
dig deeper.
Speaker 3 (49:35):
Holes come in every shade race and you know color,
like everybody can has the potential to be a total.
Speaker 2 (49:43):
Yes, that's how I live. Everybody's probably an I'm just kidding.
Speaker 3 (49:49):
I'm just kidding. So yeah, I like to think that
I want to support, you know, first and foremost intersectional
progressive businesses, just personally. But yeah, and if that's not available,
a minority owned business, a woman owned business is better
(50:10):
than again, it's better than Amazon. But yes, being mindful
of like what's that person likely going to do and
support with their dollars is really important to me.
Speaker 1 (50:23):
Yeah, and I do think you said something earlier that
I hadn't really thought about it before. But I often
complain about this extra work we have to do, and
I complain like it's like hm hmm, I wish I
could just be like, oh, yeah, I like that thing.
That's fine. But you're right, it does. I have heard
from friends who have told me like, I like that,
(50:44):
I know that you do that. It makes me feel better.
And that's not to say we've made mistakes. We've said
yes to things that later turned out to be terrible
and we try to learn from that and be like, Okay,
not that one again, because a lot of times in
our company they'll be like, you said yes to it once,
surely yes again No, not always, but it is like,
(51:09):
it is a lot of work, and I don't think
everyone has the time to do it, yea, or even
the emotional because we were talking about this the other day,
like women typically or marginalized people typically are more drained
from what from the patriarchy, from white supremacy and all
this stuff.
Speaker 3 (51:28):
What's happening in the world.
Speaker 1 (51:30):
Yeah, so maybe you don't have the time to vet
certain things. So I do think that is a value.
I think that's something. I'm glad that you said that.
I'm gonna you put a more positive spin on this
whole thing for me.
Speaker 3 (51:44):
And it comes from a place of privilege, right that
we I in particular have the time to do this
research and can afford it. And that's what's really I
don't want to discount the privilege that I hold to
be really mindful as a as an agent of capitalism,
because it's not not everybody has this privilege. Not everybody
(52:10):
can afford to shop at you know, small mom and
pop grocery stores because they are more expensive. If Amazon
and Walmart are what you can budget for, I am
fully supportive of that. You know, that is where you
are in your life in the society to society sucks, Like,
(52:30):
don't feel bad if that's if that's where you are,
Please don't feel bad. Shame is not a tool of
social justice, right, Like, it's not going to help anybody
for me to say, like you're shopping at Walmart? Hell yeah,
like some some people have to. And that's okay because
I do have a little bit more time and resources.
(52:55):
I don't need to. But I am glad that it
exists for the people who need it. And that same
goes for every institution, right that there are institutions that exist,
there are stores that exist for the people who need it,
and I'm glad they exist. Do I wish? Do I
wish they had more ethical practices? Absolutely, But that's something
(53:19):
I can do with my resources and my privilege is
to push back and to call make the phone calls
and to you know, say and demand better of these
companies so that they can continue to support underprivileged communities.
Speaker 1 (53:33):
Yes, this is true. I think about this every time
voting comes up, which you've probably heard is rough in Georgia.
Is that like, I don't know how people who have
kids who work many jobs have the time to vote
but also have the time to research who to vote for,
because a lot of times it'll be like I can't
find information about any of this, so I'm like, I
(53:56):
guess this guy I don't know. So that is a
big conversation of It's frustrating because it's like the Walmarts
of the world are playing a part and keeping us
in this situation, but also they are important because we
are in the situation. It's it's frustrating, but yeah, I
(54:19):
mean it is, especially you know, we're in city, but
when I'm just in the small town, it's only game
in town. That was like that was.
Speaker 3 (54:29):
It exactly same? Yeah, I grew up in northern Indiana,
and it's like, you got your groceries at Walmart, you
bought your you know, incidentals on Amazon. It's just what
you do. There was a Barnes and Noble, like that's
that was the bookstore.
Speaker 1 (54:43):
Yes, and you go hang out there and you were cool.
Speaker 3 (54:47):
Yes, yeah, you get your Starbucks. Yes, that's fine, fine,
because that's that's what is available, right, and that's what
is in a budget. And and yeah, I'm never going
to be here to shame somebody for doing what they
need to do to get by.
Speaker 1 (55:04):
Yes, well, thank you so much, Renee for coming on
here to spend the light. You are a friend. Officially, Yes,
we could talk forever, but I suppose we should seriously
just to sign off for this one. But let's hang
out and just complain. I feel like I'm in a
complaining movie, which is rare.
Speaker 2 (55:23):
For Me's a hobby that I have, complaining that.
Speaker 1 (55:30):
Yes, thank you, thank you, thank you. Where can the
good listeners find you?
Speaker 3 (55:35):
The best place to go is Feminist book Club dot com.
We're on Instagram at your Feminist book Club because Feminist
book Club is taken on Instagram. But Feminist book Club
is available on TikTok, so you can find this famous
book club on TikTok. And uh, yeah, everything everything's on
our website though. That's the best, the best place to go.
Speaker 1 (55:51):
Yes, and and you have show notes, which I am
very jealous of.
Speaker 3 (55:56):
They're not extensive, but they are we have.
Speaker 1 (56:00):
I'm very jealous. Yes, just go check it out, listeners.
It's amazing. Also, we will be on the show. We'll
see how this goes. Yes. In the meantime, if you
would like to contact us, you can Our email is
stuff India, mom Stuff at iheartmeda dot com. You can
find us on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcasts, or on
(56:20):
Instagram and TikTok at Stuff I've Never Told You. We
have a tea public store you can buy merch on there. Also,
we have a book coming out well you can reorder
it Stuff You should read Books dot com. Thanks as
always to our super producer Christina, our executive producer Maya,
and our contributor Joey. Thank you and thanks to you
for listening Stuff I Never Told You This Question by
heart Radio. For more podcast from my heart Radio, you
(56:42):
can check out the heart Radio app Apple Podcasts where
you listening to you Stafish
Hey, this is Sanny and Samantha and welcome to Stuff
I Never Told You Production of by Heart Radio. And
welcome to another classic episode, and this one we've been
talking a lot about ethical consumerism, where to buy things from,
(00:30):
and it has brought back a conversation to me, at least,
that we had with Renee Powers about how to run
a feminist business and how complicated that is and all
of the questions you have to ask yourself and I
still think about it. Honestly, I still think about it.
(00:54):
So please enjoy this classic episode. Hey, this is Annie
and Samantha and welcome to Stefan Never Told You Protection
of iHeartRadio. And today we are so so so happy
(01:18):
to be joined by Renee Powers of Feminist book Club,
the podcast, the business, the subscription box, all of it.
Thank you so much for joining us. I am so
excited to be here. Thanks for having me. We're so
excited to have you. We've already like we do this
all the time. We just adopt people as friends, so
(01:38):
you're like our friend perfect. We're gonna have really fun
hangout times where we complain about business stuff. Yes, I
love this for all of us.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
I love that your podcast just fits perfectly with ours,
And I'm like, why haven't we've been hanging out before.
That's uh, that's more that's stranger to me than the
this part.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
It's true, it's true, And this is this is a
really fun thing because you're coming on our podcast and
we're going to be on your podcast, which I'm gonna
admit i'm a little nervous about because you feel a
little bit more polished.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
Oh oh, it's all a facod. It's all fake, fake
it till you make it, is my mantra.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Yeah, and I love that as our like twelve year
veteran here are saying she's nervous, and yes, I still
get nervous.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
It's like I want a plane with turbulence, right.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
I have to tell you though, And I was telling
Samantha this earlier that I started podcasting because of stuff
Mom never told you, Like I started listening back in
like twenty ten, is that right? Like yeah, like even
before Caroline came on, it was it was Christian and Molly. Yeah, yeah,
and that's what inspired me to podcast. I remember, like Dorive,
(02:58):
I had a thirty five minute commute to my grad
school program, and I would it was a straight shot
and I would just cueue up all the back episodes.
A fan ever said, so this feels really like I
don't know, this is really fulfilling to me. So thanks
for thanks for chatting with me.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
I love that so much. Oh my gosh, I'm almost
like I'm thinking back to my time because I was
an editor at that point. I was the editor of
the show. So that's so cool. It's like those connections
you can make over technology and you don't realize. Yes,
like he's made them.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
The parasocial relationships have become real social relationship.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
Oh my gosh. Yes, yes, it's so odd too working
in this business when you, like, as an editor, I
would know such personal facts about people who have never
spoken to me before but I work with them. It
was just such a strange thing where it's like you
probably don't even know my name, but I know, and
(04:00):
you like lost your virgin very bizarre. Well, okay, can
you introduce yourself to our listeners.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
Yeah, so, as you said, my name Serine Powers, I
she her pronouns. I am based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and
Minneapolis proper, not one of the urbs.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
Okay, that's a big thing.
Speaker 4 (04:25):
That's a thing for everyone like exactly, yeah, but I
am the founder of Feminist Book Club.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
We are a monthly book subscription service and media company.
We use literature as a launchpad to have difficult conversations
about social justice and we've been doing this for just
over five years now. This grew out of a failed dissertation.
Oh wow, So I'm actually I'm a I call myself
a pH dropout. I spent eight years in grad school,
(04:57):
six years in a PhD program, and and I was
studying gender and communication and technology and got to the
point where I did all my coursework, I passed my exams,
and then I went to propose my dissertation and I
failed it three times, and I was like, I'm out. Yeah,
(05:19):
it was just like horrible on my mental health. So
I was in Chicago. My partner is from Minneapolis. We
moved up here together, and I was like, well, I
had this interview project as part of my dissertation. I'm
just going to do it as a podcast. And like
I said, stuff, Mom, never told you got me into podcasting.
Like listening to podcasts and feminist podcasting I think is
(05:41):
such an interesting medium. And so thanks to y'all and
what you do Feminist book Clubs started as a podcast,
and my listeners would say, like, you're always giving you know,
book recommendations, like what if you had an actual book club,
And it just grew organic from there. We started just
(06:01):
a bunch of friends in a Facebook group reading the
same books, and now we have you know, a thousand
members around the world and our own platform and app,
and we talk to authors, and we have a you know,
bi weekly podcast. Bi weekly has twice a week, not
every other week, it's twice a week podcast and daily blog.
(06:23):
We're big on TikTok, We're big on Instagram. It's just
rad as hell. So that's what we are and what
I do. I just kind of guide the ship.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
Yes, and it is quite the ship. You've got quite
a large team. I was a little jealous when I
was looking at it right. This is amazing. You get
to work with these as many people.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
They're so cool to Every single one of our contributors
and staff is just like the coolest people I've ever met.
And I am big on surrounding myself with people that
are just much smarter than me. So we do have
We've got kind of our executive team of four of
us that our podcast producer. We've got our blog editor
(07:05):
in chief, and then our Captain of Commerce is their title,
and their name is Raw and Ron and I work
in Minneapolis together in an office space, and so we
are the only two full time employees. But everyone else
is a contributor and you know, doing two to four
pieces of content every month and helping out on you know,
(07:28):
the community and creating all sorts of really cool conversations
to starting really interesting conversations of like things that they
are interested in and therefore I am now interested in.
So it's yeah, our content really runs the gamut of
a little bit of everything. We've got, you know, someone
who works for the federal government. We've got a former
(07:49):
park ranger. We've got a science communication like professional like
feminism applies to everything, and we are able to use
our team of contributors to to highlight that. We've got
like a film writer like it's just cool, it's just cool.
Everybody is just yeah, a romance author like what. Yeah,
(08:15):
it's a great team.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
Yeah, that's awesome. And I do want to come back
to the thing you said about being a feminist podcast
in this this space in a second, But just first,
I have a couple of questions about how has podcasting
treated you? How has it been? And then also I
(08:36):
find we have a book club on here. It is
once a month and it's amazing, but I find that
it's difficult to like read a whole book for podcasts,
which sounds terrible, but like when it's your job, like
you're researching all the time, you're reading stuff all the time,
it just becomes like, okay, and I hate this, but
(08:58):
it's true. We'll be like this book is too long,
we can't read this one. Have you found that that
has sort of leaked into your personal enjoyment of reading?
Speaker 3 (09:09):
Mmmm?
Speaker 1 (09:11):
What a good question.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
I I'm hmm. So one of the reasons I started
Feminist Book Club is because I was so tired of
reading like research, like dead old white guys writing about
postmodernism like over it. So anything that's not that has
always been fun for me. But to your point, yes,
(09:33):
there are some books that kind of feel like homework,
whether that's for you know, one of our books of
the month, or if that's the guest that we're going
to have on the podcast. I read everybody's books that's
on the podcast, So yes, I don't know what else
to say about that without as sending people.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
Not trying to do gotcha interview gosh.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
But what I will say is I'm a very fast reader,
and so I always have at least three books going
at once, and if if one, if I'm reading something
for quote unquote fun, so I don't have like the
author coming on or I don't have to write discussion
questions for our book club. I am not afraid of
(10:30):
not finishing a book like time is too precious. I
will I will put it. If it's like fifty pages
in and I am not feeling it, it's just not
the right time for me. It's not you know, the
vibe that I'm looking for, I will shelve it. I'm
unapologetic about not finishing books. I also listen to most
(10:51):
books on audio rather than reading physical books, and Famous
Book Club does have an audiobook subscription nice and I
find that being able to instantly be listening to something,
I get through so many more books because I can
do it, you know, while I'm walking my dog, while
I'm washing dishes, while I'm doing yardwork. You know. So
I at ninety percent of the time I've got you know,
(11:13):
earbuds in and I'm listening to a book on at
least one point five speed.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
Interesting. I love it when people are write it and
like I only listen to it this this, this speed, Like, all.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
Right, your audiobook is great at one point five speed.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
That's good to know myself as well. So if not
too a chipmug a fuck.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
Yeah, yeah, you both sound great. That's a great speed
for y'all.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
Yes, Oh my gosh, I love that so much. It's
true though it is. Oh, I'm sure we'll probably talk
about this a bit when we are on your show,
but it is one of those things that we kind
of had to say to our boss, which felt strange.
It felt like he was assuming this is gonna be
a grand slam because you've got like an audience, and
(12:05):
it's like, yeah, but people listen to things because they
can do something else while they're listening to the thing,
and it's just different mediums. Like I'm not sure it's
going to translate necessarily. But both Samantha and I foolishly
didn't realize we were going to do an audiobook, which
I'm so happy about, Like it's very cool. I want
to be accessible all that stuff, but I just it
(12:26):
is different when you can walk your dog or cook
or do something while you're listening to a book.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
And I'm one of those people that I always have
to be doing something with my hands, Like, so it's
hard for me to sit down and read a book.
I'm very like fidgety, and so what I often do.
Then I got really into cross stitching. Yes, yes, so
I have just dozens of cross stitching projects that I'm
(12:54):
working on, and I will just sit on the couch,
listen to my book and do my little do my
little cross stitching because I'm seventy five years old and
unashamed of it. And I'm also in like I'm calling
it my cozy mystery era, Like all I want to
read are like women solving murders but like cozy. Yes,
so yes, I just make me a cup of tea
(13:16):
and you know, reserve a bed at the Old Folks
Home for me because I'm.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Sounds doesn't sound bad to me?
Speaker 1 (13:27):
No, No, Samantha is looking for a lazier version of
cozy game.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
Yeah, like I'm.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
Like trying to actually do things and having quests. No,
that's like good, I'm good. I just I want to
do something in less than that. What do I just
click on things.
Speaker 3 (13:40):
Thank you. That's how. That's how I got you want
to talk about games, How I got into animal crossing
because it's just like, yeah, I just want to sit
here and fish.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
Well, that's the thing is like I literally stopped building things,
so it's like I don't want this to be a
whole village. I want it to be my five people.
And I just go selfish, like I don't understand what
this is. Even a boy like I actually try to
start knitting, and I did. Okay, I did a couple
of rows, and I was like, and I'm done. So
(14:09):
I'm really good at it.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
You know, it's all right to change an audio book.
Speaker 3 (14:15):
You do a few more and you can do a
few more roads.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
I am an odd person when it comes to audiobooks.
I do like I will play phone games while I'm
listening to the audio, or I will sam I will
work the double whammy of that. So yeah, but I
like your version better except for the fact that I'm
not talented enough to do this stitching. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (14:38):
Oh, it's just following. It's just following a map. It's
so easy.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
This is what people tell me. And then I try it,
and then it comes out of blob. I'm like, you
lie to me.
Speaker 3 (14:49):
All the stitches and start over, which is also really satisfied.
Is it okay?
Speaker 2 (14:53):
Because in my mind I'm just automatically breaking the string
and throwing it across the room and screaming up my failures.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
Fair enough that sounds yeah, totally. I could chat all
day about this kind of stuff. But you did propose
(15:19):
a serious topic for this episode, which is something that
we struggle with that we think about a lot. And
that's when you are an intersectional feminists and that's something
that's part of you, but you're still in this capitalist
space that is not that and in fact and typical
(15:42):
to that. So how to be a feminist in a
space that is not when we do have to, you know,
have livelihoods and make money and survive, but how to
do that? So if you can just talk about like
your initial because you said you've done a lot of
interviews about this lately, you've been thinking about it lately,
(16:03):
sort of the when you sent this idea to us.
What was on your mind? What are you thinking about?
Speaker 3 (16:08):
Yeah, so it's something that I think about constantly, is
how to run a feminist business? Because, like you said,
that feels contradictory, and it's something I changed my mind
about all the time. And this is something you all
discuss in your book too, and I love that you
talk about this fear of failure is detrimental to the
(16:29):
feminist movement. And I've been screaming that from the top
of my lungs, right that you know, if I don't
show up try and fail, Like if I don't show
up and try, knowing that I could fail, Like what,
that's not moving anybody forward? Right, So all I'm saying
is like, this is my approach and I will likely fail,
(16:50):
but that's okay because we will all learn something from it. Right, So,
how do we participate in capitalism and critique capitalism at
the same time as something I think about a lot.
And the the short answer is capitalism is compulsory, Like
there's nothing that we can do to remove ourselves from
(17:10):
capitalism and still be just like a functioning human in
the society. So that means that we have to participate
in capitalism ethically, And so how do we do that?
What does that look like? And so that's what I've
been like, how to be an anti capitalist business is
like really hard, but how to be an ethical business
(17:31):
that prioritizes the needs of its customers, the needs of
its employees, the needs of its staff before profit. I
think that is what sets feminists businesses apart from your
run of the mill, even small business. I was gonna say,
like Walmart, but like even there are a lot of
(17:51):
small businesses that are just in it for the bottom line. Yeah,
every decision that is made in this business comes from
a place of people over profit. Like, yes, we have
to pay our bills, but if by chance we can't
pay our bills, we will still pay our people. And
(18:11):
that's a real thing. Right We're in a recession, and
there are there are times like right now, I was
just telling you all before we started recording, like our
office space was broken into four times in the last month,
and we lost, you know, over five thousand dollars worth
of equipment, Like all of our festival stuff is gone.
It's just it's so frustrating, and insurance won't cover it,
(18:32):
which is really great. Yeah, oh I love it. So
Like we started a I believe deeply in mutual eight too,
and so we started to GoFundMe and we're starting to
like recoup some of those costs and anything left over
is going to start to help us get the ball
rolling on reincorporating as a feminist co op, an employee
(18:55):
owned co op. So that's I wanted to get this
business off the ground, so it was stable, it was running,
it had systems and processes right.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
And.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
Then I wanted to step away. And so that's what
we're in the process of right now, is putting the
business in the hands of the actual community. Like I said,
my background is in feminist theory, and so I come
at this not from a business standpoint. I don't have
a background in business. I don't have a business degree,
but I come from this from a theory background. And
what does it look like when we put feminist theory
(19:29):
into action? And there is a research method called feminist
participatory action research, and I have tried my best to
adapt that to running a business. And what that really
means it's a feedback loop, right of you know, we're
thinking about this decision. What do you think we want
to go this direction? What do you think this goes
(19:51):
all the way down to Like the books that we pick,
I don't pick them, our members pick them. Like I
choose a theme because I'm like, well, we haven't read
Native American voices lately, so like, let's do Native American
Voices month, something along those lines. We haven't read trance voices,
we haven't read about Hollywood, so like our next our
next theme is in the zeitgeist, right because they're on strike,
(20:15):
but it's a night at the movie, so we're going
to be having conversations about the strike and the labor movement,
but you know, all under the guise of reading fun
Hollywood stories. So I propose the theme, our members suggest
titles based on that theme, and then everybody votes and
that's what gets chosen as the book of the month.
So yeah, learning with and from participants instead of like teaching,
(20:40):
like just not assuming I'm the smartest person in the room,
because I'm absolutely not. But you know, bringing our community
into the decision making has been really rewarding. And then
and then they feel invested in it too. So I
think that's I just gave you, like all of my
word salad about about running a feminist business. So yes,
(21:01):
let's let's let's let's synthesize here, right, So restructuring into
a co op, people over profit, prioritizing our customers' opinions
and asking for their feedback, I think, and opening up
this feedback loop. I think that are those are the
hallmarks of how we run a feminist business and how
we uh yeah, push back against and participate in capitalism
(21:25):
in in an anti capitalist way. We're not in it
to make a bajillion dollars. Nobody sells books to make
a bajillion dollars unless your name is Jeff Bezos and
he can give.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
Agree, agree, Also, can we actually make money because I
want to make money with the book? How do we
do this?
Speaker 3 (21:45):
Annie? Yeah, sorry, not to be the bearer of bad news,
but son of them.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
Okay, sorry, friends as expected, but.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
Yes, they thank you.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
I love the wrap up that was. You can tell
I've definitely done presentation. I see your PhD in here,
like trying to do the defense.
Speaker 3 (22:10):
Not quite a PhD. I'm considered abd all the dissertation.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
Yeah, well I'm gonna I'm gonna say you have.
Speaker 3 (22:16):
It because you you were. Thank you you were. So
you can still call me professor Powers.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
I will, I will every day. But yeah, I think
that's such an interesting conversation because we've had to have
a back and forth about like, yeah, we need money
to live. Uh, So we can't say because like, we
have a lot of ads and advertising, and we try
to be very very very conscious of what we say
yes and no to, and of course sometimes we just
don't have any control at all. And then the like
(22:40):
pushback we get because we are an absolute and we
stand by the intersectional feminist, we make mistakes or we
may not know every information because as much as we
want to be those upstanding people, the fact of the
matter is this is a job. We have to make money.
I have to do things kind of the same way
when I was in social work, of like, I'm doing
some things that I really hate, but I'm trying to
(23:01):
do it in the best and more conscious way possible,
knowing that I'm finding a system that's rigged against everyone,
every marginalized group in so many ways. Like have you
had a lot of conversations on how to like navigate
that for yourself, especially when it comes to like advertising
and all of those.
Speaker 3 (23:18):
Yeah, we do sell advertising, and we are very picky
about who we are willing to work with. And that's
I mean, and that's one of the pluses of being
independent is we don't have a parent company that we
have to make money for, like we are making money
for ourselves to keep this ship afloat. So we only
work with women, gender non conforming or queer or people
(23:43):
of color in terms of like the books that we spotlight,
the the companies that we work with for like the
products that come with the books, because we do send
out like a sticker or like a bookmark or something
like small and cute, and we do quarterly boxes that
are full of goodies and books and those all those
things come from small marginalized identity businesses including like our
(24:07):
our web developer and our you know, our podcast editor
are our printer that we use for like inserts and
stickers and stuff. So like when we spend money on something,
we are doing that within our values. When we take
money from someone, I don't care who we take money
from as long as that product is aligned with us. Gosh,
(24:30):
and very rarely have we worked with CIS men and
CIS owned businesses, this male owned businesses. But I'm not
going to say no to if like Casper Mattresses or
something like, I'm just gonna assume their own by a
white guy. If Casper Mattress wants to, like give me
a bajillion dollars to pitch them on our podcast, like
(24:52):
or like a free mattress like thank you, yeah, yes,
and like one for all of our friends, you know,
like right, because you're getting me money and I feel
like that's feminist. But if it's like if it's like
a company that sells only like maga hats, absolutely not
like I don't care if you give me a bajillion dollars,
(25:13):
I'm not going to you know, sell ar fifteens on
our podcast. But right, but like a mattress owned by
this why guy? Probably yeah yep.
Speaker 1 (25:24):
So like that's like we could be really picky.
Speaker 3 (25:26):
But thankfully we haven't had to have run into those issues.
It's the flows of money, right, It's the flow of
capitalism and like redistributing it. And that's one thing also
is like we work primarily with women owned businesses because
studies have shown when you put capital in the hands
of a woman owned business a, you will lift generations
(25:49):
out of poverty, but be it will also be redistributed
amongst that community. So the fact that you know, we
are more likely to give our dollars, we are one
hundred percent likely to give our dollars to small women
and minority on businesses just means that that money continues
to do good in whatever community they serve instead of
(26:12):
going into if we were to give money to Bezos,
for instance, that's just going into his pockets and into
his like four oh one K. Does he even have
a four oh one k? Probably not, like he is
a four oh one K, but like, well you know
what I mean, it's going into like investments, which doesn't
do anybody any good except for him.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
So yeah, yeah, yeah, you ended up hitting on a
topic which was an inside joke for us about me
trying to get a damn mattress from Jump like because right,
well that's hilarious. Right before I started everyone that was
one of the big things is individual mattresses, and I
was like, I want one. That started the best.
Speaker 3 (26:46):
We've gotten as vibrators. We got vibrators.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
We'll be happy with that too, but.
Speaker 3 (26:52):
They were woman owned. They were a woman Latina owned,
so like.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
We had someone on who had those amazing vibrators, like,
I want one. We never got it, though I was
really hoping.
Speaker 1 (27:01):
I'm sorry I paid for it, but I got it anyway.
Moving well, that's one of the interesting things about I
think about this a lot, and sometimes I think this
is kind of a petty thought, but sometimes I'm like, no,
this is completely legitimate. But we sometimes get teased because
(27:27):
we turned down a lot of ads. We really do
and there was this infamous study it so Mantha didn't
do it well. I had to fill out like this
huge form where you just it was. It took me
four hours and it was just like sponsors that you
might be okay with working with. And I feel like
(27:50):
for people who want to uphold intersectional feminism, that was
a homework excignment because I literally had to look up
every company yep, what they do, where do they donate
their money, all of this stuff. And I think that
people who issued it were just polly white men who
didn't think like I'm not. They're like, oh, do you
(28:12):
like this or do you not like that? Like that
kind of dichotomy versus wait, what do they stand for?
What do they do? And sometimes I get a little
grumpy because I'll hear some male colleagues of ours. We're like, oh,
I just said yes to that because I like that.
I'm like, well, okay, but did you know about this
right right? Right?
Speaker 3 (28:30):
Did you know they single handedly caused the fires on MAUI.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
Like, you know, like the content, we really would have
an ad that we said yes to two years prior
and then come back and go, oh, well, here's a
new controversy and we can't use them now, whether it's
like strike things or union things or or you recall
or you found out that the CEO was a man
who did not care about people when it was branded
as women owned. Like there are so many things that
(28:53):
came back. We're like, what's happening? And then not only
do we say no, and probably Anie because Andy does
I love you Anie, She's already justified. Why we get
another pushback like are you sure? Now? Tell me why again?
Tell us why again? Like and I'm not we love
our as people. Please don't think this because they're just
doing their job. But the of the matter is like
there is extra work to what you think. And like
(29:16):
we got another ad vetting today and I'm looking at it.
I'm like, well, we know this already controversy, so we
definitely probably will say you know, like all these things,
I already know what Anie said in turning it down.
It was a huge company, and it's like, this is
what we have to do and then justify two or
three times about why we can't work with them.
Speaker 3 (29:34):
Yeah, and even and it sucks too. It's like it's
hard for us when we are purchasing things. So for
the first couple of years I live in Minneapolis, we
were using you line for our boxes. We didn't have
branded boxes. We were using you Line because they are
just across the state line and Wisconsin. I could go
pick them up, Like it was really easy. I didn't
(29:55):
have to paper shipping, and they were the cheapest on
the market. Well, they're the cheapest on the market because
they're a bajillion dollar industry and they're one of Trump's
largest donors. That family, the U Line family. As soon
as I learned that, I was like, like, now I
have to I had to pay more to find something.
But it ended up being great because then I found
(30:16):
a family owned box printing company here in Saint Paul
that they were so like, they were so wonderful right
where they like I was sick and they like brought
they brought samples to my house just so I could
like choose the ink color and then we got the
customerz like it turned out great. Shout out to Tilsner Carton.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
Myself was like this like an office episode of like
business owners and like they do the like and that,
but I was like, help them.
Speaker 3 (30:46):
I didn't have the time at the time to do
my due diligence of like vetting. It was just like
where everybody got their boxes from, you know, like, oh,
it was so frustrating and so now, yeah, so now
we don't use you line. And I suggest you'd not
use you line because they're a giant donor to the
far right.
Speaker 2 (31:04):
So there's so many conversations like that.
Speaker 3 (31:06):
But at least our audiences know that we are putting
in that due diligence now, like we learn our lessons.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
Yeah, and when we get calls in is nice.
Speaker 3 (31:14):
Yeah, And if we are doing I mean, there's only
so much work and research we can do, but we're
doing the best that we can. And I think that
our audiences as an audience of yours, I know I
appreciate it, and I also know that y'all need to
make money. You can't do this for free.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
I'm sure people will be like, why podcasting was like
that to begin with?
Speaker 3 (31:35):
It was, but it's not you know.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
One of the other things I think about especially when
it comes to like feminist businesses. You want to be
the person who supports the small businesses, that supports the
marginalized businesses as well. And for the longest time, ATS
was the to go spot, and now you were getting
all this information about, oh, they're not being treated well.
So this comes to the point of like, okay, a,
(32:09):
as a small owner of a business, where do you
go b as a consumer? How do you navigate that
as well so that you're doing what you need to
do to truly help those businesses? Like how do you
go through all of that?
Speaker 3 (32:24):
Yeah, So there are a lot of marketplaces like at
C and for small businesses too, there are a lot
of like wholesale marketplaces. And one thing that I do
is like there's the ability to message like the business
owner on all of these marketplaces. At C we use
fair for a lot of our wholesale goods, and then
I always ask them like, how do you prefer that
I make this purchase? Like would you like to invoice
(32:45):
me directly? Because yeah, I want to make sure that
they're getting all of the dollars, so Etsy's not going
to hold on to, you know, six thousand dollars inevitably
for six months or something like what Etsy is doing
is really frustrating for a lot of makers. So I
would just go, you know, if I see something that
I really like, absolutely message the creator and just say
(33:06):
how what is the best way for me to support
you and and make it as easy as possible for them.
It's also like hard to do and it's it's time consuming.
So they're on Etsy for a reason, and so I'm
sure they're not going to be like, well, don't buy
from Etsy. They would rather you buy from Etsy than
not buy it, all right, So if you don't have
the time or energy or spoons to spend on you know,
(33:27):
going out of your way to message the artist or
the creator like, it's fine, But if you do have
that extra energy to spend, please.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
Do Essentially, Like what it comes down to is, I
know there's a lot of small businesses and trying to
take off. Essentially they're hoping that they're they're gonna make
the the gold mine of being viral. I know that's
the new thing, and that's let's just be real honest,
that's rare. That's not going to happen to most small businesses.
As much as we would love it. I know, like
the small restaurants are hoping to buy the Keith Lee
(33:55):
of TikTok will come through and and like just blow
up their business. But that's that's a rare occasion for
any business owner who's trying to be especially women, because
we know that they are the least likely to get
any help when it comes to advertising any of that.
How what's the best route for them to have their
business take off or at least to be profitable.
Speaker 3 (34:15):
Yeah, oh, that's okay, that's excellent. That's an excellent question.
First off, I will say that even going viral doesn't
do We have had several of our TikTok videos, you know,
get five hundred thousand, a million views. It barely moves
the needle for us. We will get a lot of traffic,
(34:36):
but it doesn't necessarily traffic doesn't equal sales. Right, We'll
get a lot of followers, followers, you can't you can't
make money on followers. So it's like converting virality is
really hard for a lot of people. So there's that.
But I also think that there are so many really
really cool organizations that are created just for small business owners.
(35:02):
Insert identity here, right, if that's queer small business owners,
if that's black small business owners and women's small business
owners have Like there are so many resources, and I'm
gonna shout out a couple of them in particular. I
was a part of the Tory Birch Foundation Fellowship in
twenty twenty one and they select it's founded by Tory Birch,
and she actually created her fashion line so she could
(35:24):
give back. This is what I'm saying, Like women do
cool with their businesses and their money. Like she she
likes fashion, but she was like, but I want my
fashion to do something and like support other woman business owners.
And so she launched the Tory Birch Foundation, which focuses
solely on women owned small businesses and getting them up
off the ground and giving them the resources that they
(35:46):
need to succeed. And so every year they pick fifty
women owned small businesses across the country and I from
this book club was one of them in twenty twenty one.
And it's a cohort of women owned businesses from all
different industries from you know, finance, tech to restaurants to
roofing companies, and we all come together online to learn
(36:13):
the basics of business, learn the ins and outs learn
new skills. But also I think the most important thing
that comes out of these kind of incubators or accelerators
or fellowship programs is the connections that you make with
other small businesses. Like I have made so many close
friends through these kinds of things who will be there
to support me. They're just a text message away, you know.
(36:33):
Or we have a very active WhatsApp group that is
just like I have to mute it most of the
time because it is so so active, which is lovely.
Speaker 1 (36:43):
Right.
Speaker 3 (36:44):
So I think that women especially tend to lean on
their communities or or ought to learn how to lean
on our communities for support in all sorts of ways.
Whatever that means, Like, hey, does anybody have like a
marketing professional? I mean just like just yesterday I got
(37:05):
an email from somebody in the Tory britsh Fellowship that
was like, Hey, I'm looking for somebody who specifically does
you know CpG consumer package goods sales through Klavio, which
is like an email client. And I was like, I
actually have somebody who works with integrations with WU commerce,
Like these are very very specific asks. It's like, oh wait,
(37:29):
there's somebody in this group that knows exactly what you
need and like can make that introduction. So it's just
a way to like to network and to like grow
your connections so you have you have those resources when
you need them. So yeah, the Torribrtch Foundation has been
fantastic the connections that I've made there. But also there
are local organizations like this too. So I'm also part
(37:53):
of Lunar Startups, which is just Minnesota based and they
work with under estimated and underrepresented founders, so they specifically
work with people of color, women and queer folks. So
I was a part of that. During the pandemic, we
started March like third of twenty twenty in person in
(38:13):
Saint Paul, and then the world cut out and we
all moved to Zoom crying, and it was great. We
were all in the trenches together at least like fifteen
you know, small business owners in the Twin Cities, We're like,
what do we need?
Speaker 1 (38:25):
Everything sucks.
Speaker 3 (38:27):
So I was so glad to have that resource because
I don't know what I would have done otherwise. So
it's just like, building these communities is so necessary for
small feminist business owners because we cannot do this in
a vacuum. But we require. That's one thing that we
learned in the pandemic, or we didn't warn the pandemic
that we should have learned, was like, we need to
take care of the community's needs in order to take
(38:49):
care of our own needs. And until we take care
of the community around us, you know whatever that means, however,
you to find community like, we cannot succeed full stop.
So what is it? But yeah, how do we take
care of everybody's needs in order to take care of
our own needs? I think Robin waal Chimer said it
best in Braiding Sweet Grass. It's my favorite, one of
my favorite lines of any book ever. She says that
(39:11):
all flourishing is mutual. We cannot flourish until we are
in all of it together flourishing. There's no individual flourishing
like that.
Speaker 1 (39:24):
And it's true. The pandemic really showcased for like small businesses.
It started that conversation of like, oh, well, we've been
kind of pushing this to the side, ignoring this for
so long, and now we have we're trying to have
some conversations about it, some more healthy or helpful than others.
But there was that aspect I did want to touch
(39:47):
on and I'm hoping that this will give you some
room to really rant because it's something that bothers me.
Is a lot of times, Samantha kind of alluded to it.
Because we're feminist podcasts, we're women moms in the name,
we get a lot of ad requests from businesses that
(40:11):
are pretending to be feminists or any any like intersection
with it, like queer, Like during Black History Month, all
of this happens, and it's just like I've multiple times
been like, okay, but you're saying you're donating this, what
are you donating it to? And then I never hear
anything again. What are your thoughts on the people who
(40:35):
are trying to use this feminist business model to pretend
and to cash in, but are actually like the most
superficial things.
Speaker 3 (40:49):
Yes, yes, let me, let me get out my soapbox.
You're alluding to incredibly performative feminism, and it is most
like white feminism if we're gonna keep it in the
realm of feminist we get so many, so many book
pitches in particular that are like unleash the Goddess within,
(41:13):
or like your Warrior Woman says Rar, or like boss Babe.
But how to start your girl boss empire. And it's like,
none of those things are feminist. That is so disgusting.
Those are so neoliberal, capitalist junk. Can we get to
the second and third layer of this because your surface
layer of white feminism is I'm allergic to it, like
(41:35):
please please step away. Yeah, it makes me very angry.
But the thing is like I just simply say, like,
thank you so much. This does not align. We are
really trying to amplify the voices of folks on the margins,
not let's be honest, like rich white, blonde yoga instructing
(42:00):
green smoothie drinking privileged women. And if you are that,
I'm so glad that you are here because you need
to You need this kind of information in your life.
The stuff that stuff, that stuff mom never told you,
you know, covers It's like that's one way to broaden
your horizons. And and yeah, there are a lot of
(42:22):
companies out there and organizations out there that just give
lip service to whatever is in the zeitgeist right that
they're raising money or they donate to, you know, we
say social justice organizations. We say we donate to social
justice organizations every month, and we don't name what they
are publicly because for a number of reasons, because we're
(42:47):
not marketing on that, like we're not using that as
a marketing tool, and so our members know where the
money is going. But also I am a strong believer.
I grew up Catholic. This is where I wanted. I
grew up Catholic and like social justice Catholic, though like
the real the.
Speaker 4 (43:06):
Reals, like everybody get some emails. I'm just kidding, sorry,
but not like but not not Catholic or it's like
anti abortion Catholic, but but like feed the feed the
hungry and clothe the naked.
Speaker 3 (43:21):
Catholic is like how I grew up. And one of
the things that really stuck with me from Catholic school
is when there's a there's a verse in the Bible.
And don't ask me what part of the Bible, I
have no clue at this point, but there's a verse
where it says, when you pray, go into a closet
and pray in solitude, nobody needs to know that you're praying,
(43:42):
Like you're not praying for everybody's brownie points. That's performative.
And the same thing goes with our our social justice
and our activism, like yes, we need to be out marching. Yes,
we need to use our privilege for good those of
us who have privilege. Yes, we need to put our
bodies on the lines, especially white bodies on the lines
in front of people of color. Like, yes, those are
(44:03):
things we need to be doing. And at the same time,
your entire Facebook feed doesn't need to know that you
just donated fifty dollars to plan Parenthood. That's who is
that doing. That's just making you feel good. And so
I think a lot of businesses think that, you know,
saying that they're going to donate X, Y and Z
is just like it's just lip service, it's just a
(44:24):
marketing ploy And it's really frustrating for me to see
as a company who has donated tens of thousands of
dollars of our profit to social justice organizations across the world,
but we don't use it. We're doing it in our
closet and praying God, I'm so sorry, and this is
(44:44):
how I get canceled.
Speaker 1 (44:46):
So so you know, Kncel, it is so frustrating and
I can't we can't go into this because it'll become
(45:07):
a whole railroad going off the railroad situation. But it's
like I hate that. I'm into what you're doing. I'm
into what you're saying, and I asked for any details
and then none come forth. And then if they do,
if you're like I don't know, bud Light and you
do this thing and then they freak out and backtrack immediately,
(45:27):
like it's like illuminating because it tells me you literally
have never thought about what it must be like to
be a transperson in this case and all of the
backlash that might be, but you thought it would be
cool to cash it. Like it's like uninformed. It's like
not even it's malicious, but it's almost more uninformed than malicious.
Speaker 3 (45:49):
First off, that woman in particular, Dylan who just got
brutally attacked online because she got bud Light, said to
her like that's just my heart goes out to her.
What I would prefer bud Light Anheuser Busch and MBEV
who owns like every major beer company in this country,
(46:09):
and beyond, what I would prefer to see them do
is have trans folks on their board of directors, you know,
like I don't give a if they are giving a
can of beer to Dylan on TikTok. What I give
about is if you are including their voices in decision
making rooms, like transfolts need to be in the work
(46:31):
room where it happens, you know, like it's not just yeah,
that is the definition of performative. If they had had
a trans person in their like marketing, the influencer outreach division,
like that wouldn't have happened.
Speaker 2 (46:47):
That's kind of the epitome of like the privilege that yeah,
people don't realize there is that the fact that Annheuser
Busch they had a little bit of backlash. All they
did was stay silent, literally allowing this woman to take
all the threats and harassment and being like, yep, oh,
well that didn't work. That didn't well, it did partially
pay out for a minute because there were supporters for
(47:07):
the second and then their silence and apology shows not
only their blindness, ignorance and harmful behavior in everything that
they just did without again talking to the right community.
Who did they talk to. They're like, this person's a
TikTok famous little let's send a beer, which we already
(47:27):
know all the miss on that and we're not going
to talk about. But that kind of comes back to
this whole conversation of like who is this for? Why
are you doing this? And what does this do? And
then when we look at who may be a woman,
and this is the whole conversation. Ay, and I've had
plenty of times women supporting women, but what are these
women actually doing and what are they doing that is
(47:49):
good for other women and other marginalized folks. So we
have to backtrack, like, no, it can't just be simply
this and this. There's a lot of women own businesses.
Like I think about this often because again coming back,
that's because I tried to be is whatever. Well, I'm like, yeah,
but this person, Oh she's got she's got some things
on here that I do not want to support. She
has anti abortion, she has all these things, and I'm like,
I can't support that. I have to dig in to
(48:11):
see who she's selling to or someone who has no standards.
And I get to the point of like, yeah, you
have to make a business, I get it, but you're
willing to put mega stuff onto your stuff and then
sell it and then also Black Lives matter that doesn't work.
Speaker 3 (48:25):
Yeah, there was that that reminds me like when we
were doing whatever I'm I was purchasing for one of
our boxes ones. There was a product that I thought
was so cute and it came in all these different
designs and I was like, ooh, so close to purchasing,
and then I kept going and scrolling and I was like,
uh uh oh when you go to the review.
Speaker 2 (48:44):
So you go through the reviews and you see who
she's You're like, ma'am, oh.
Speaker 3 (48:49):
We're in Minneapolis. We are not supporting somebody who has
Blue Lives Matter on there.
Speaker 2 (48:57):
That's the other part to that, like we have to
hold our own accountable as well. And I say this
as an Asian woman who all this rhetorics and very
very like white supremacist rhetoric that I'm like, I do
not support this. I do not support them just because
they're an Asian woman. We have to have that conversation
of like that fine line of just because it seems
okay because on the outside, this is a person of color,
(49:19):
she's an Asian woman, Okay, cool, cool, cool cool. Even
queer people you're like, oh they're queer. Oh, but they're
they're staunchly still somehow republican. Like I don't I don't
get this, but I have to know that this is
not necessarily just supporting, like that's right, you have to
dig deeper.
Speaker 3 (49:35):
Holes come in every shade race and you know color,
like everybody can has the potential to be a total.
Speaker 2 (49:43):
Yes, that's how I live. Everybody's probably an I'm just kidding.
Speaker 3 (49:49):
I'm just kidding. So yeah, I like to think that
I want to support, you know, first and foremost intersectional
progressive businesses, just personally. But yeah, and if that's not available,
a minority owned business, a woman owned business is better
(50:10):
than again, it's better than Amazon. But yes, being mindful
of like what's that person likely going to do and
support with their dollars is really important to me.
Speaker 1 (50:23):
Yeah, and I do think you said something earlier that
I hadn't really thought about it before. But I often
complain about this extra work we have to do, and
I complain like it's like hm hmm, I wish I
could just be like, oh, yeah, I like that thing.
That's fine. But you're right, it does. I have heard
from friends who have told me like, I like that,
(50:44):
I know that you do that. It makes me feel better.
And that's not to say we've made mistakes. We've said
yes to things that later turned out to be terrible
and we try to learn from that and be like, Okay,
not that one again, because a lot of times in
our company they'll be like, you said yes to it once,
surely yes again No, not always, but it is like,
(51:09):
it is a lot of work, and I don't think
everyone has the time to do it, yea, or even
the emotional because we were talking about this the other day,
like women typically or marginalized people typically are more drained
from what from the patriarchy, from white supremacy and all
this stuff.
Speaker 3 (51:28):
What's happening in the world.
Speaker 1 (51:30):
Yeah, so maybe you don't have the time to vet
certain things. So I do think that is a value.
I think that's something. I'm glad that you said that.
I'm gonna you put a more positive spin on this
whole thing for me.
Speaker 3 (51:44):
And it comes from a place of privilege, right that
we I in particular have the time to do this
research and can afford it. And that's what's really I
don't want to discount the privilege that I hold to
be really mindful as a as an agent of capitalism,
because it's not not everybody has this privilege. Not everybody
(52:10):
can afford to shop at you know, small mom and
pop grocery stores because they are more expensive. If Amazon
and Walmart are what you can budget for, I am
fully supportive of that. You know, that is where you
are in your life in the society to society sucks, Like,
(52:30):
don't feel bad if that's if that's where you are,
Please don't feel bad. Shame is not a tool of
social justice, right, Like, it's not going to help anybody
for me to say, like you're shopping at Walmart? Hell yeah,
like some some people have to. And that's okay because
I do have a little bit more time and resources.
(52:55):
I don't need to. But I am glad that it
exists for the people who need it. And that same
goes for every institution, right that there are institutions that exist,
there are stores that exist for the people who need it,
and I'm glad they exist. Do I wish? Do I
wish they had more ethical practices? Absolutely, But that's something
(53:19):
I can do with my resources and my privilege is
to push back and to call make the phone calls
and to you know, say and demand better of these
companies so that they can continue to support underprivileged communities.
Speaker 1 (53:33):
Yes, this is true. I think about this every time
voting comes up, which you've probably heard is rough in Georgia.
Is that like, I don't know how people who have
kids who work many jobs have the time to vote
but also have the time to research who to vote for,
because a lot of times it'll be like I can't
find information about any of this, so I'm like, I
(53:56):
guess this guy I don't know. So that is a
big conversation of It's frustrating because it's like the Walmarts
of the world are playing a part and keeping us
in this situation, but also they are important because we
are in the situation. It's it's frustrating, but yeah, I
(54:19):
mean it is, especially you know, we're in city, but
when I'm just in the small town, it's only game
in town. That was like that was.
Speaker 3 (54:29):
It exactly same? Yeah, I grew up in northern Indiana,
and it's like, you got your groceries at Walmart, you
bought your you know, incidentals on Amazon. It's just what
you do. There was a Barnes and Noble, like that's
that was the bookstore.
Speaker 1 (54:43):
Yes, and you go hang out there and you were cool.
Speaker 3 (54:47):
Yes, yeah, you get your Starbucks. Yes, that's fine, fine,
because that's that's what is available, right, and that's what
is in a budget. And and yeah, I'm never going
to be here to shame somebody for doing what they
need to do to get by.
Speaker 1 (55:04):
Yes, well, thank you so much, Renee for coming on
here to spend the light. You are a friend. Officially, Yes,
we could talk forever, but I suppose we should seriously
just to sign off for this one. But let's hang
out and just complain. I feel like I'm in a
complaining movie, which is rare.
Speaker 2 (55:23):
For Me's a hobby that I have, complaining that.
Speaker 1 (55:30):
Yes, thank you, thank you, thank you. Where can the
good listeners find you?
Speaker 3 (55:35):
The best place to go is Feminist book Club dot com.
We're on Instagram at your Feminist book Club because Feminist
book Club is taken on Instagram. But Feminist book Club
is available on TikTok, so you can find this famous
book club on TikTok. And uh, yeah, everything everything's on
our website though. That's the best, the best place to go.
Speaker 1 (55:51):
Yes, and and you have show notes, which I am
very jealous of.
Speaker 3 (55:56):
They're not extensive, but they are we have.
Speaker 1 (56:00):
I'm very jealous. Yes, just go check it out, listeners.
It's amazing. Also, we will be on the show. We'll
see how this goes. Yes. In the meantime, if you
would like to contact us, you can Our email is
stuff India, mom Stuff at iheartmeda dot com. You can
find us on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcasts, or on
(56:20):
Instagram and TikTok at Stuff I've Never Told You. We
have a tea public store you can buy merch on there. Also,
we have a book coming out well you can reorder
it Stuff You should read Books dot com. Thanks as
always to our super producer Christina, our executive producer Maya,
and our contributor Joey. Thank you and thanks to you
for listening Stuff I Never Told You This Question by
heart Radio. For more podcast from my heart Radio, you
(56:42):
can check out the heart Radio app Apple Podcasts where
you listening to you Stafish
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