FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE | August 10, 2021
On the Issues with Michele Goodwin is a popular, issues and policy-focused podcast featuring feminist analysis, insightful conversations and exciting guests. This is the first podcast from Ms. magazine, a legacy feminist publication. In each bi-weekly episode, host Dr. Michele Goodwin and special guests will tackle the most compelling issues of our times, centering feminist concerns about rebuilding our nation and advancing the promise of equality.
A new episode—15 Minutes of Feminism: The Olympics—An Uneven Playing Field? (with Ria Tabacco Mar)—is available now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and MsMagazine.com.
In this episode, Dr. Goodwin is joined by the ACLU’s Ria Tabacco Mar to unpack the inequities and controversies of the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games—from rulings targeting Black athletes like Sha’Carri Richardson, to COVID protests taking place just outside the stadium, to transphobia directed at the first openly trans athletes to ever compete on this highest international stage.
They ask: is the Olympics an uneven playing field? And if so, how can that be changed?
You can find a full transcript of the episode here, as well as a few excerpts below:
“When you put these series of events together, what you’re left with is the impression that Black women athletes can be required to take drugs to alter their bodies, to cut or chemically alter their hair in order to wear swim caps, to miss out on competition all together because of tragic personal loss in their lives. And then when they have the gall to complain about it, they’re ostracized as well.” —Ria Tabacco Mar
“We are told quite clearly, put up or shut up. But there is no opportunity to be ourselves and to bring our full selves onto the playing field, the way that other athletes again, are not only allowed to do but are celebrated for doing.” —Ria Tabacco Mar
“We celebrate those differences—those extreme differences, in the case of Michael Phelps, as part of what makes him a marvel, makes him superhuman. Yet when it comes to Black women, those things are not only not celebrated, but they’re actually used as a reason to exclude them from competition altogether.” —Ria Tabacco Mar
Meet the Host of On the Issues: Dr. Michele Goodwin is a frequent contributor to Ms. Magazine and on MsMagazine.com. She is a Chancellor’s Professor at the University of California, Irvine and also serves on the executive committee and national board of the ACLU. Dr. Goodwin is a prolific author and an elected member of the American Law Institute, as well as an elected Fellow of the American Bar Foundation and the Hastings Center. Her most recent book, Policing The Womb: Invisible Women and The Criminalization of Motherhood is described as a “must read.”
About Ms. Magazine: Co-founded by Gloria Steinem in 1972 and published by the Feminist Majority Foundation since 2001, Ms. magazine has been a trusted, popular source for feminist news and information in print and online for nearly 50 years. Ms.’s time-honored traditions of an emphasis on in-depth investigative reporting and feminist political analysis have never been more relevant, bringing a new generation of writers and readers together to share news, analysis, research and strategies for fighting back and moving forward, for shaping the future.
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If you would like more information on the On the Issues with Michele Goodwin podcast, or to schedule an interview with Host and Executive Producer Michele Goodwin or Executive Producer & Ms. Executive Editor Katherine Spillar, please email press@msmagazine.com.
Launched in 1971, Ms. is the most trusted, popular source for feminist news and information in print and online with a tradition of in-depth investigative reporting and feminist political analysis. Ms. is wholly owned and published by the Feminist Majority Foundation.
