AS IT is Women’s History Month, this week’s column focuses on podcasts by and about women.
The writer and comedian Cariad Lloyd has, for several years, hosted an award-winning podcast, Griefcast (Features, 20 January 2023). It has taken a break; and the final interview, for now (episode 190), was with the poet Hollie McNish. It was beautiful listening.
Hollie discusses the loss of her grandmother, who was 96, and how the strength of grief that she felt seemed less warranted than had she been mourning a younger person.
Hollie and Cariad explore the unspoken hierarchy of grief. What I think Hollie was getting at, however, was that her grandmother had lived a long life in terms of years, but she was short-lived in experiences. In part, this was because of the expectations placed on women at the time, so that Hollie’s grandmother had many ambitions that remained unfulfilled.
There is also an embarrassing aspect to the discussion when she talks of how poorly the cleric performed at the funeral. His sermon was so insensitive that a regular churchgoer in the family stopped attending. There are strong language and sex-positive themes in this podcast; so don’t be shocked. Near the end, there is a particularly tender poem, which elicited a tear or two.
All the Buried Women, a new mini-series from the stable of The Bible for Normal People, documents the uphill journey towards the recognition of women’s ordination and leadership. Presented by Beth Allison Barr and Savannah Locke, the first episode focuses on the Southern Baptist Convention in the United States, a huge denomination and a conservative cultural juggernaut. The episode covers race, forms of misogyny, biblical interpretations of St Paul’s epistles, and the heartbreak of those first female pioneers and the men who broke with the status quo to support them.
There are parallels to similar questions considered in some types of churches in the UK. I look forward to hearing the other episodes.
On to politics: the Sky News podcast Electoral Dysfunction interviewed the Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, on 7 March. She speaks about her routine and aspects of family life, and the reasons behind her fiscal decisions. This podcast is a nice alternative to The Rest is Politics, and features a strong trio: the political editor of Sky News, Beth Rigby; the Labour MP Jess Phillips; and a former leader of the Scottish Conservative Party, Baroness Davidson. They acknowledge and privilege the female perspective, providing a behind-the-scenes analysis of the additional barriers to leadership that they face and that their male counterparts do not.
Finally, we have Nemone Lethbridge, a lawyer and writer who was interviewed by Lauren Laverne on Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs (also available as a podcast).
In contrast to Hollie’s grandmother’s life discussed on Griefcast, Lethbridge, now in her early nineties, has had a long life both in years and rich experiences. It is both joyful and painful to listen to: one of her discs contains problematic lyrics about slavery, although it is given adequate context. Lethbridge has suffered, but has not wallowed in suffering, aligning herself, to this day, with the suffering of others through her open and free law practice.
