What happens when adult women discover they're autistic? Cristen busts the gender stereotypes and neurotypical myths of Autism Spectrum Disorder with help from unladies who've been there. The Loudest Girl in the World host and producer, Lauren Ober, details the (expensive!) jungle gym she had to cross for a middle-age diagnosis. Meanwhile, listener Sarah has mixed feelings about self-diagnosis, and listener Anna feels finally free to unmask. Highlights include: refrigerator-mom blame, too-tight ponytails, a queer correlation and America's Next Top Model cringe. Send voice memos and emails to hello@unladylike.co Follow Unladylike on Instagram and TikTok Join the Unladies' Room Patreon Shop Unladylike doodads Contact Multitude Productions for ad rates, etc. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Exiled from a world of engineered perfection, Demetria crash-lands into the brutal reality of the Outerlands. Distrusted by the defiant survivors, her only hope lies with a mysterious AGI, First Belle. But the secrets it holds could break her... or forge her into the hero she never knew she could be. From Wondery, the makers of Academy and Dr. Death, The Last City stars actors Rhea Seehorn, Jeannie Tirado, and Maury Sterling. Listen to The Last City on the Wondery App or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes exclusively and ad-free on Wondery+. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Could an 1873 law that hasn't been enforced in nearly a century be a national abortion ban just waiting to happen? Legal friend of the pod Natalie Birnbaum (Repro Solutions) returns to explain what the Comstock Act is, why it's getting so much attention lately and whether it could it ban medication abortion and even birth control. Highlights include: Gilded Age abortionist Madame Restell, a postmaster general gone wild, fake-out abortion referenda and Justice Samuel Alito's revisionist legal history. Recommended resources: Plan C Pills Yellowhammer Fund ReproCare If/When/How Get more Unladylike: Send voice memos and emails to hello@unladylike.co Follow Unladylike on Instagram and TikTok Join the Unladies' Room Patreon Shop Unladylike merch Contact Multitude Productions for ad rates, etc. This episode is sponsored in part by Oak Essentials. Get 15% off your first order with code UNLADYLIKE15. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

**Unladies' Room Patreon preview** What does it take to erect a monument to women's history? Just ask Diane Carlson Evans, without whom the Vietnam Women's Memorial would not exist... To hear the full, ad-free episode, join the Patreon - and THANK YOU!! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Magician Nicole Cardoza has never met another illusionist who looks like her. The reasons why are no stage magic secret. This episode, Nicole debunks the default pale, male magician and his "lovely assistant" and reclaims the power of suspending disbelief. Highlights include: spiritual appropriation; taboo magic; the Queen of Coins; sexist pockets; and America's first Black female magician, Ellen Armstrong.  Follow Unladylike on Instagram and TikTok Join the Unladies' Room Patreon Shop Unladylike merch Contact Multitude Productions for ad rates, etc.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What do vision boards and Princess Diana conspiracy theories have in common? They both rely on a kind of magical thinking called proportionality bias. It's one of many cognitive biases that returning guest Amanda Montell connects to all the woo-woo and delulu going around these days. From the sunk cost fallacy of toxic relationships to the halo effect of female celebs to the declinism of everyday doomsday speak, Amanda makes even the most mindboggling and brainrotting realities of today's (mis)information overload more bearable. Highlights include: Beyonce's vegan surprise, Charli XCX stans, Earth Mamas, therapy influencers, TikTok astrologers and "learning to stomach a sense of irresolution." Amanda's new book is The Age of Magical Overthinking: Notes on Modern Irrationality. Follow Unladylike on Instagram and TikTok Join the Unladies' Room Patreon Shop merch Contact Multitude Productions for ad rates, etc. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

**Unladies' Room Patreon preview** A labor-free life of feminine leisure, and/or the ultimate self-care con? The SAHGs (stay-at-home girlfriends) of TikTok have been described as a manifestation of Gen Z, anti-girlboss culture. Except, they’re still getting paid to work!! To hear the full, ad-free episode, join the Patreon

What's the difference between a white feminist and a mean girl? Not so much, as Kim Hong Nguyen explains this episode. From colonial era white women to TERFs on main today, mean girl feminism is a new term for an old problem that's all show, no go and oblivious to racialized white feminisms. We also meet its four familiar faces: Whitesplaining White Lady of Liberal Reason; Girlboss, a Self-Promotional Equity Lady; Karen with Illegible Rage; and Power Couple Wife with Resting Bitch Face. Kim is an associate professor of communication arts, and gender and social justice at the University of Waterloo. Her new book is Mean Girl Feminism: How White Feminists Gaslight, Gatekeep and Girlboss. Follow Unladylike on Instagram and TikTok Join the Unladies' Room Patreon Shop Unladylike merch Contact Multitude Productions for ad rates, etc. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Are butch-femme roles in queer relationships just recycling the same old hetero his 'n' hers gender boxes? What happens when toxic masculinity invades queer relationships and spaces? In an Unladylike FIRST, we're re-asking and re-answering a listener advice request–and with empathetic expertise from Autostraddle editor in-chief Carmen Phillips and community editor Nico Hall. Carmen and Nico break down butch misogyny, femme objectification and why lesbian relationships aren't immune to patriarchy. Highlights include: midcentury Buffalo lesbians, helpful dykes, queer signaling and Catholic school unladies. Carmen and Nico's recommended reading: Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold Kate Bornstein (author of Gender Outlaw) With Gratitude and Struggle: Loving Butch/Femme as a Trans Woman Butch Memoirs to Check Out On navigating femme invisibility The Allure of Chola Femininity To get in touch with Unladylike: Send voice memos and emails to hello@unladylike.co Follow Unladylike on Instagram and TikTok Join the Unladies' Room Patreon Shop merch Contact Multitude Productions for ad rates, etc. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

**Unladies' Room Patreon teaser** With spring a few days away, tis the season to talk BODY HAIR! But my 2019 interview with spoken word artist and performer Sukhjit Kaur Khalsa isn't the same old to-shave-or-not-to-shave body hair binary. Sukhjit is a practicing Sikh, and letting it all grow (aka keeping kesh) is an article of faith. And as you might imagine, that was easier said than done for Sukhjit once puberty rolled around, and visible hairiness attracted ALL of the unwanted attention.  To hear the full, AD-FREE episode, join the Patreon and THANK YOU!! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Have you ever wondered what the zodiac can reveal about your favorite artists? Then you have to listen to Stars and Stars with Isa, the podcast where we look to the stars above with the stars below. Every episode our charismatic, funny and insightful host and astrologer, Isa Nakazawa, sits down with the most talented creators and thinkers of our time to read them their birth chart. In the show, Isa delves into what the planets reveal about the star’s life’s purpose and why they love, create, and walk the world the way they do. You’ll laugh, you might cry and you’ll definitely connect with your favorites. You’ll even learn a little about yourself. Listen to Stars and Stars with Isa every Tuesday wherever you listen to podcasts.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Of all the aunt tropes in pop culture–spinster aunts, sinister aunts, weird aunts, witchy aunts–why is The Cool Aunt so popular these days? More importantly, who is she really, beyond (alleged) disposible income and TikTok aesthetics? Los Angeles Times art and design columnist Carolina Miranda appraises the figure as a timely foil to tradwives, as well as an underappreciated part of the family. Highlights include: Cristen's formative fictional cool aunt, Fresh Prince's Aunt Viv, Empire's Cookie Lyon and the invention of PANK (professional aunt, no kids). *Read Carolina's LA Times piece that inspired this episode: How the cool aunties of pop culture flout, the growing restrictions imposed on women* Get in touch at hello@unladylike.co Follow Unladylike on Instagram and TikTok Join the Unladies' Room Patreon Shop merch Contact Multitude Productions for ad rates, etc. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's not like a regular podcast episode. It's a cool episode. Right, Regina? Andi Mitchell and Sabrina Kohlberg from Pop Culture Moms take us on a pop cultural tour of The Cool Mom, from Mean Girls to Euphoria, and her defining qualities on screen. But as we also learn from her disregard for boundaries, the Cool Mom isn't all trope and no substance. Highlights include: Munchausen by proxy, Peg Bundy, cool dads and whether The Cool Mom is just The Cool Girl with kids. Follow Unladylike: Instagram | TikTok Join the Unladies' Room Patreon Shop merch Contact Multitude Productions for ad rates, etc.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Wtf just happened with frozen embryos, fertility clinics and IVF in Alabama?? Get ready for the un-true crime, sci-fi Jesus saga of LePage v Center for Reproductive Medicine. As in, the case behind the Alabama state supreme court’s ruling that frozen embryos for IVF are “EXTRAUTERINE CHILDREN” in a “CRYOGENIC NURSERY” and therefore are full-ass people?? Cristen ragesplains how this anti-abortionist legal buffoonery happened, the fetal personhood of it all and why “save IVF” is a bait and switch. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 1974, what had started as a sexist gimmick became the first and only (so far) professional women's football league in US history. It wasn't a feminist stunt, either. Sports writer Frankie de la Cretaz tells us the incredible - and incredibly queer - story of the National Women's Football League, the hundreds of women who played and how it changed their lives. Highlights include: breast padding, "Harlem Globetrotters with rip-away skirts," Dallas lesbian bars and your new favorite Linda. Frankie is the co-author of Hail Mary: The Rise and Fall of the National Women's Football League. Get in touch: hello@unladylike.co Follow Unladylike: Instagram, TikTok Join the Unladies' Room Patreon Shop mErCh Contact Multitude Productions for ad rates, etc. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The feminist blogosphere era officially ended last November when Jezebel, website and water cooler of millennial feminism, was shut down by its media overlords. But even though Jezebel was swiftly put on life support by Paste magazine, its long-term survival remains unclear partly due to the same, old "business problems" of feminist media. First, senior lecturer Melanie Waters shares what happened 50 years ago when Ms. magazine launched with a million-dollar investment but never turned a profit. Then, New York Times reporter Emma Goldberg explains how the feminist blogosphere's success help put it out of business and how Gen Z feminists are navigating today's fractured feminist internet. GET IN TOUCH: Send voice memos to hello@unladylike.co Follow Unladylike on Instagram and TikTok Join the Unladies' Room Patreon Contact Multitude Productions for ad rates Thank you to this episode's sponsor, Flure Dating App: Made for Pleasure - https://flure.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Why is penis size and performance the go-to butt of the joke, especially when we're talking about shitty men? Is it punching up at misogyny, or just recycling bad material? Writer Mikala Jameson (Body Type) introduces America's Small Dick Joke Problem, interrogates the instinct to hit misogyny where it hurts and recalls an infamous "hot dog down a hallway." Then, Robin Taylor, Your Trans Friend You Didn't Know You Needed, takes us deeper into the simultaneous objectification and erasure wrapped up in their punchlines. Highlights include Ben Shap***, gym bros, Sydney Sweeney's flop romcom, truck nuts, everyday transphobia and the "normal" trap. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

**Unladies' Room Patreon preview** Grab your snorkel masks and oxygen tanks, unladies! We're revisiting my 2019 interview with cave diver and underwater explorer Jill Heinerth (ep. 64: How to Dive Into Fear). She takes us along her path into the incredibly dangerous world of cave diving, how she approaches fear as an asset and what sexism looks like in her niche field.  To hear the full, ad-free episode, join the Patreon - and THANK YOU!! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What if society exalted the love and commitment of friendship as highly as that of marriage and biological family? How would our lives change if close friends were more empowered to be our til-death-do-us-part significant others? Journalist Rhaina Cohen (NPR, Embedded) talks to Cristen about the friendship that shook up her own notions of BFFs; how platonic intimacy became sexually suspect and the legal barriers to nonmarital support systems. Highlights include: passionate but not sexual friend attraction, straight men besties, friend co-parenting, Byzantine brotherhoods, Thelma & Louise and the finale of HBO's Girls. Rhaina's new book is The Other Significant Others: Reimagining Life with Friendship at the Center. Send in your voice memos: hello@unladylike.co Follow Unladylike: IG | Twitter | TikTok Join the Unladies' Room Patreon Shop merch Contact Multitude Productions for ad rates, etc. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sharing an episode of another podcast we’re loving: Your Mama’s Kitchen, all about cuisine and culture, ingredients and identities, and the meals and memories that make us who we are. Every week, host Michele Norris talks to guests like Michelle Obama, Glennon Doyle, and José Andrés. They explore the complexities of family life and how their earliest culinary experiences helped shape their personal and professional lives—and of course, each guest shares a recipe from their youth so you can taste a bit of their story. In this episode, chef, writer and tv personality Samin Nosrat shares stories of her mother's Persian cooking in Samin's childhood kitchen, of her time training with Alice Waters at Chez Panisse in Berkley, California, and of a special trip Samin took with her mother when she was a teenager that made Samin realize how influential her own Iranian culture had been in her life, all along. The best part -- Samin shares the recipe for her Iranian-influenced, lemony chicken soup that you can savor in your own home. You can listen to more of Your Mama’s Kitchen HERE. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices