Women's Issues

The series "Fleishman Is In Trouble" was adapted by our guest, Taffy Brodesser-Akner, from her novel of the same name. The complete season is now streaming on Hulu. Brodesser-Akner is also known for her celebrity profiles in GQ and The New York Times, where she's a staff writer for the magazine.

Iranian American scholar Pardis Mahdavi, who was once dragged out of a Tehran classroom by morality police while lecturing about her latest book, "On Iran's Sexual Revolution" joins Tonya Mosely to help shed light on the protests in Iran.

A self-described "showgirl at its finest," Lizzo initially thought she'd be a classical flautist. Though rap and pop won out, she still brings the flute into her music. Originally broadcast in 2019.

Afghan British journalist Najibullah Quraishi has had trouble sleeping for more than two hours a stretch ever since the U.S. withdrew troops from Afghanistan in August and the Taliban came back into power. Quraishi grew up in Afghanistan under Soviet and Taliban rule, and began reporting on the Taliban before the Sept. 11, 2001, al-Qaida attacks and the onset of the U.S. Afghan war. He's currently in Kabul reporting for his upcoming PBS Frontline documentary, Taliban Takeover, (airing Oct. 12) which details life in Afghanistan now.

In 1991, attorney Anita Hill testified that Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas had sexually harassed her when he was chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and she worked there as an adviser to him. Thirty years later, Hill's new book, Believing, draws on her own experiences, as well as the stories shared with her by victims of sexual harassments and assault.

In her new book, The Man Who Hated Women, author Amy Sohn writes about Anthony Comstock, an anti-vice crusader who later became a special agent to the U.S. Post office, giving him the power to enforce the law. And she writes about the eight women charged with violating the Comstock Act.

Winslet stars in the new HBO series, Mare of Easttown. She spoke to Fresh Air in 2020 about her breakout turn in Titanic when she was in her 20s. "I was learning on the fly," she says.

The Trump White House agreed to a May 1 troop withdrawal. New Yorker writer Dexter Filkins says Biden must now decide whether to honor a deal that included the Taliban but not the Afghan government.

Underwater explorer and photographer Jill Heinerth has dived into unmapped caves deep in the earth, and beneath a giant iceberg. She's seen hidden creatures old as dinosaurs, and witnessed scenes of surreal beauty. Her work is so dangerous, over a hundred of her friends and colleagues have died in caves. She talks about the risks and rewards of her work.

Masih Alinejad discusses her campaign against a law requiring that Iranian women and girls to cover their heads and necks with a hijab. Her new memoir is The Wind in My Hair.

Moral Combat author R. Marie Griffith says the fight for women's suffrage and legal birth control in the early 20th century helped create a political divide in the U.S. that still exists today.

After defying her country's ban on woman drivers, Manal al Sharif was arrested. The outcry by people all over the world led to her release. She tells her story from growing up in Mecca, and adhering to the fundamentalist interpretation of Islam to being a security engineer at Aramco, the Saudi national oil company.

Stephanie Danler drew on her own experiences to write her novel about a young woman working at an upscale restaurant in New York. "It's so physically punishing," she says of her work as a server.

The main character in Vendela Vida's new novel is alone in Morocco when her bag with her passport and credit cards is stolen. Vida says The Diver's Clothes Lie Empty was inspired by her own travels.

In 2013, three young women who had vanished years earlier escaped from a house where they had been held captive. Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus, along with writer Mary Jordan, discuss their new memoir.

Juliette Binoche plays an aging movie star who's about to appear in a play opposite an infamous young Hollywood actress. It's a hall of mirrors that sounds convoluted in the telling, but plays easily.

Poehler joins Fresh Air's Terry Gross to talk about fighting the body image "demon," being a "world-class snooper" and how she was once told that she had a "great face for wigs."