Ask a Feminist, a podcast from Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society (http://signsjournal.org), features interviews with leading feminist thinkers on feminist issues raised by some aspect of current political life or social justice issue. This allows Signs to create an ongoing conversation between and among feminist scholars, media activists, and community leaders, enhancing the journal’s role as a transitive space, percolating in and between the space of intellectual production and activist engagement. Ask a Feminist is part of the Signs Feminist Public Intellectuals Project (http://signsjournal.org/feminist-public-intellectuals-project/).
Palestinian Feminism, a Conversation with Sarah Ihmoud and Zinaida Miller
Sociocultural anthropologist Sarah Ihmoud and Professor Zinaida Miller discuss Palestinian feminism as a life-affirming force resisting colonial violence in this insightful interview.
12 May 2026TRANSCRIPT
Feminist Scholarly Writing under Authoritarianism, a Conversation with Debjani Chakravarty, Patti Duncan, and Jennifer C. Nash
Suzanna Walters interviews Debjani Chakravarty, Patti Duncan, and Jennifer C. Nash about how authoritarian attacks impact feminist scholarly writing and journal production.
4 Mar 2026TRANSCRIPT
Pronatalism, a Conversation with Nandita Bajaj and Michele Goodwin
Shoshanna Ehrlich interviews Nandita Bajaj and Michele Goodwin, deconstructing pronatalism's antifeminist roots and its links to nativism and eugenics.
25 Jun 2025
Online Abuse and US Politics, a Conversation with Moya Bailey and Nina Jankowicz
Professor Sarah Sobieraj interviews Professor Moya Bailey and Nina Jankowicz about online abuse against women in politics, especially racialized misogynoir, revealing how it hinders women's political participation.
28 Apr 2025
Trump’s Anti-Trans, Anti-Gender Executive Orders, A Conversation with Libby Adler and K.J. Rawson
For our first episode of the second Trump Administration, Carla Kaplan (chair of the Signs editorial board) speaks to Libby Adler and K.J. Rawson about the administration's anti-trans, anti-gender executive orders. While we’ve known for quite some time that the anti-trans attacks would be coming, their speed and breadth have still been breathtaking. Adler and Rawson tease out the implications of these executive orders and demonstrate what they reveal about the Trump regime’s understandings of sex and gender. Adler is Professor of Law and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and is the author of the book Gay Priori: A Queer Critical Legal Studies Approach to Law Reform from Duke University Press. And Rawson is Professor of English and Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies and the founder and director of the Digital Transgender Archive, an award-winning collection of trans-related historical materials.
24 Apr 2024
Public Feminism, a Conversation with Marcie Bianco and Andi Zeisler
Ask a Feminist is back after a long hiatus with an episode about the current state of public feminism! Signs editor Suzanna Walters is joined by Marcie Bianco and Andi Zeisler. Andi is the cofounder of Bitch Media and the author of the book We Were Feminists Once: From Riot Grrl to CoverGirl, and Marcie is the author of Breaking Free: The Lie of Equality and the Feminist Fight for Freedom. Their experiences writing and editing for feminist publics and building feminist platforms give them unique insights into the difficulties faced by those trying to reach or create feminist publics today. What happens when feminism becomes part of a “personal brand”? What are the pitfalls of anointing a few individuals as the public representatives of a movement as broad and diverse as feminism? Why do there seem to be so many feminist public intellectuals and so few feminist spaces?
19 Apr 2022
Reproduction in the Age of Epigenetics, a Conversation with Rene Almeling, Sarah Richardson, and Natali Valdez
Three esteemed feminist science-studies scholars—Sarah Richardson, Rene Almeling, and Natali Valdez—discuss reproduction in the age of epigenetics. They offer a critical appraisal of recent developments in the much-hyped field of epigenetics, particularly as those developments have focused on reproduction. Their discussion provides a crucial corrective as the biological sciences push for more epigenetic and high-tech approaches to reproductive health. Their feminist lens allows them to ask new questions and push back against scientific approaches that continue to place responsibility for managing reproductive risk onto individual women. They ask why these new epigenetic approaches—which even feminists had hoped might lead to more capacious or holistic understandings of reproduction—ultimately fail to live up to their own hype.
8 Feb 2022
Jennifer Fluri Discusses the Gender Politics of the US Withdrawal from Afghanistan with Sandra McEvoy
On this episode, Sandra McEvoy speaks to Jennifer Fluri about what the United States’s withdrawal from Afghanistan means for Afghan women and for the feminist movement in Afghanistan. Jennifer’s expertise as a geographer and her transnational feminist perspective are sorely needed in this perilous moment. As the withdrawal was under way, we heard familiar concerns--voiced by pundits and politicians--about the plight of Afghan women under the Taliban. But the broader context of the long US occupation, its effects on gender relations, and the history of women’s organizing in Afghanistan makes for a much more complicated picture, as you’ll hear. Jennifer--a professor of geography at University of Colorado Boulder who has worked in and on Afghanistan for almost twenty years--illuminates this complex history in this conversation with Sandra, who is clinical associate professor of political science at Boston University and a member of the Signs editorial board.
22 Apr 2021
Susan Stryker discusses Trans Studies, Trans Feminism, and a More Trans Future with V Varun Chaudhry
A conversation about the field of trans studies between V Varun Chaudhy and Susan Stryker. V is an assistant professor of women’s, gender, and sexuality studies at Brandeis and a member of the Signs board of associate editors. Susan is a founding editor of the journal TSQ and a major figure in the development of trans studies as a field. In the interview, they discuss the social and political context for the emergence trans studies, including its roots in feminist theory, and what its institutionalization (including the found of TSQ) has meant for the field. They also share insights about how trans feminism can combat new forms of transphobia, and, beyond that, how trans feminism can provide necessary tools for enacting new forms of sociality.
22 Feb 2021
Patricia Williams Discusses Rage and Humor as an Act of Disobedience with Carla Kaplan and Durba Mitra
Patricia J. Williams, the renowned feminist theorist and legal scholar joins Carla Kaplan and Durba Mitra, two of the coeditors of the upcoming special issue of Signs on “Rage,” to talk about the multiple crises we face at the current moment, from Donald Trump’s cruel legacy of misogyny and racism to the failures of market-based approaches to the COVID-19 pandemic. They also discuss new forms of surveillance that have emerged during the pandemic and the disproportionate levels of emotional labor that particular groups, particularly black women, have been expected to take on throughout Trump’s presidency.
18 Dec 2019
Eesha Pandit and Paula Moya Discuss Activism and the Academy with Carla Kaplan and Suzanna Walters
Activist, writer, and advocate Eesha Pandit and professor of English Paula Moya discuss the relationship between feminist scholarship and feminist activism, and how feminist activists and scholars can best support one another's work. What makes a good ally? How can we build systems of accountability among and between scholars and activists? How can we most productively use identity as the basis for organizing action? The conversation is facilitated by Signs editorial board chair Carla Kaplan and Signs editor in chief Suzanna Walters. Recorded live at the National Women's Studies Association Conference.
12 Nov 2019
Byllye Avery Discusses the Past and Future of Reproductive Justice with Susan Reverby
Byllye Avery, cofounder of the Black Women’s Health Imperative, speaks to historian Susan Reverby about her activist work, beginning in the 1970s, to increase women’s access to abortion. She discusses the state of reproductive rights before and after Roe v. Wade, the genesis of the “reproductive justice” movement, and the tactics that might be needed in a post-Roe future.
Ask a Feminist is part of the Feminist Public Intellectuals Project, which provides a host of free feminist resources (http://signsjournal.org/fpip).
14 Aug 2019
Deborah Anker Discusses Gender and Asylum Law with Aziza Ahmed
How has feminism shaped US asylum law? Why and how is the Trump Administration trying to undo feminist gains? Hear asylum- and refugee-law expert Deborah Anker discuss the history and present of gender in the US asylum system in the latest episode of Ask a Feminist. Anker is the founder and director of the Harvard Law School Immigration and Refugee Law Clinical Program and is one of the most widely known asylum scholars and practitioners in the United States. She speaks to Aziza Ahmed, professor of law at Northeastern University School of Law, and takes us through the key cases and arguments that have led to the current moment, the transformations the system is currently undergoing, and why she is less pessimistic than might be expected. A transcript is also available on our website (http://signsjournal.org/ask-a-feminist/).
The theme song is “I Dunno” by Grapes, available on SoundCloud.
23 Apr 2019
Soraya Chemaly Discusses Feminist Rage, with Carla Kaplan and Durba Mitra
12 Sept 2018
Cynthia Enloe Discusses Gender and the Rise of the Global Right with Agnieszka Graff, Ratna Kapur, and Suzanna Danuta Walters
30 Jul 2018
Ask a Feminist: Catharine A. MacKinnon and Durba Mitra Discuss Sexual Harassment in the Age of #MeToo
Inside a recent episode
Palestinian Feminism, a Conversation with Sarah Ihmoud and Zinaida Miller
Published 8 Sept 2026 · Transcript excerpt
[…] So what happens when we follow, when we inhabit this revolutionary demand? What does a Palestinian feminist lens allow us to see? My approach has been following an intergenerational archive and feminist praxis, right, tradition to examine the everydayness, the intimate spaces of daily life to consider, right, as you asked in your question, the revolutionary labor that has always been the foundation of social reproduction. So to think about Palestinian feminism in relation to revolution isn't a rhetorical move it is a methodological provocation because what a feminist lens reveals is that the social revolution i gesture toward is not separable from the political revolution right it is its precondition and you know i think the most recent phase of Israel's genocidal project has made this absolutely undeniable in the most devastating way. […]
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