Unruly

With WNBA viewership spiking and new NWSL leagues popping up across the country, it’s safe to say that women’s sports teams are experiencing a wild popularity boom. This is embarrassingly overdue since women have been good at sports for as long as they’ve been playing them. In this episode, we ask Gotham FC General Manager Yael Averbuch West—why now? We also unpack all the ways the infrastructure around wome...

Let’s talk about hormones, baby! Turns out your cycle isn’t just about cramps and mood swings. Everyone from CEOs to elite athletes are hacking their periods to level up their performance. Body talk in professional spaces has 180’d from the very taboo to the very trendy, and cycle syncing is all the rage! While the jury is still out on the science of cycle syncing, it’s still a marvel to witness this kind of...

A recent Pew Research study revealed some truths: there are significantly fewer single women actively looking for partners compared to men. But what happens when you do want love in a world where everything feels financially… precarious? In this episode, we talk to former Tinder sociologist Dr. Jess Carbino about the realities of "recession dating." How does a changing economy impact how we build connections, mark milestones...

Tired of being sold a “solution” to a “problem” you didn’t even know you had? Welcome to the club. The internet’s obsession with “self-improvement” often just feels like a competition no one asked to be a part of: everybody and their mother is taking some kind of supplement, injecting something into their face, and refining a million-step skincare ritual. It makes us dizzy just trying...

The people are hungry for love! Recent data shows that every literary genre experienced a decline in book sales with the exception of romance. Today’s romance genre is not what it once was—we’ve got queer stories being centered, high fantasy reigning, and a world of BookTok influencers driving sales. But despite the craze, romance still isn’t always taken seriously. In this episode, we talk to Tinx, legendar...

Confused by the twelve year old girl in your life who wanted retinol for xmas? Well, she’s certainly not alone. These days, teens and tweens are lining up outside any neighborhood Sephora in search of a skincare fad designed for people more than a decade older. In this episode, journalist and podcaster Elise Hu helps us unpack the visible and invisible forces that make today’s young girls thirst for an unattainable perf...

For as long as women have been recognized as a distinct group, their interests have been side-lined as “Women’s Issues,” “Women’s Topics,” and “Women’s Studies.” Though likely well-intended, the distinction proposes that women’s conversations are outside the mainstream and, thus, not centered as primary or important. Women know that's far from true. Unruly centers women &n...

Women are often taught to silence themselves and that can have damaging effects. On our last episode of the season, psychologist, writer and speaker Maytal Eyal joins host Kimberly Drew to discuss her Time Magazine article: “Self Silencing is Making Women Sick.” We get into Maytal’s research, what’s at stake when we don’t express ourselves fully, and how we can work together to fight against ...

Female athletes have fought uphill battles for equity and respect for about as long as sports have existed. Their bodies and uniforms are under intense scrutiny from the public, the press and athletic institutions. In this episode, we talk to Olympic Shot-Putter Raven Saunders, who pushes back on archaic athletic dress code standards – she famously wears a Hulk mask when she competes. We get into her Olympic experience, what ...

Vaginal atrophy, geriatric pregnancy, incompetent cervix- why can medical terminology around women’s bodies be so shaming?! In this week’s episode, “Vagina Obscura” author Rachel E. Gross talks with host Kimberly Drew about the long shadow of the patriarchy over the medical profession. She walks us through how it’s shaped the way we talk about our bodies, how we understand vital body parts like the cli...

How do we decide which beauty products we use, and are those choices really our own? This week, writer and beauty culture critic Jessica DeFino, author of the Substack The Unpublishable, sheds light on the alarming power of the beauty industrial complex. She and Unruly host Kimberly Drew unpack terms like “anti-aging” and how we are sold products under the guise of empowerment. In this episode, we learn how to divest fr...

Welcome to Unruly. We take the quiet ways women’s bodies are commodified, defined, regulated and we name them– out loud. In this week’s episode, host Kimberly Drew talks with Body Image coach Tiffany Ima (@tiffanyima) about how we learn to love ourselves in a world that still heralds thinness as greatness. We clear up the distinction between body neutrality and body positivity, call out diet culture trends, and un...