Chat is a feminist issue — a new show that talks sex, power and female rage
TO millennial women of a certain age — hello! The Cut represents a celestial sisterhood, and we are their zealous fangirls. The Cut’s takes are hot and smart, and its writers committed both to the good fight (Why Capitalism is Ruining Your Sex Life and Wait,
Taylor Swift Actually Travels Inside a Suitcase?).
All of which is to say, mine is not necessarily an objective position on The Cut’s new podcast, The Cut on Tuesdays. They could probably have stuck on 35 minutes of screaming into the void and I’d have launched a spirited defence of its vision.
However, whether or not you’re a paid-up member of The Cut’s fanbase, the podcast is potent.
Host Molly Fischer presents a slalom course through the female zeitgeist, whether exploring the meaning of girl power as demonstrated by the Spice Girls,
Brett Kavanaugh and #MeToo, or “the relentless work of actually changing who has power”, or the election of the precocious US Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to Congress.
In the opening episode — If it Were Easy, We’d Have Done it — she’s joined by Stella Bugbee, editor-in chief-of The Cut (if you’re still reading this, you probably knew that already), Teen Vogue editor
Lindsay Peoples Wagner, and Rebecca Traister, who contributes regularly to the magazine, and whose recent book, Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women’s Anger, has become the unofficial text of post-#MeToo womanhood.
They explore the politics of female leadership; persisting through disapproval; how to raise daughters; and working as a black woman in the fashion industry. The second episode covers the “weaponisation of whisper networks” — closed communities of women who share intelligence about predators, and tensions that exist in the orbit of these circles (“talk about whether things have gone too far ... worries about vigilante justice and mob rule”).
It’s pacy, witty and very sharp. But I would say that, wouldn’t I?