- 50 minutes 21 secondsStuttered: Diversifying The Way We Speak
Stuttering occurs in every culture with a spoken language. So why do many communities treat it as a source of shame? Two speech-language pathologists and a comedian help Anita question cultural assumptions about stuttering and explore the growing movement to embrace speech diversity.
Meet the guests:
- Dr. Derek Daniels, licensed and certified speech-language pathologist and associate professor in the department of Communication Sciences and Disorders at Wayne State University, shares his own experience of stuttering and what we know about what causes stuttering
- Jia Bin, doctoral student at Michigan State University, talks about growing up in rural China with a stutter and what she's hoping to bring back to the stuttering community there
- Nina G, comedian and author of "Stutterer, Interrupted: The Comedian Who Almost Didn’t Happen," explains why she decided to embrace her dream of doing stand-up and shares how her stuttering has impacted romantic and platonic relationships
Dig Deeper:
Follow Nina G's comedy on Instagram
Jia on stuttering as a superpower
Stuttering content on YouTube by Courtland Crain and Matice Ahnjamine
National Stuttering Association website
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Please note: This episode originally published March 31, 2023.
Updates: You can learn more about Jia’s work at the Spartan Stuttering Lab here. You can learn more about National Stuttering Awareness Week here. Nina G is in the midst of the making the comedy docu-special: Comedians with Disabilities Act: Going Beyond The Punchlines.
14 May 2026, 9:00 am - 50 minutes 21 secondsHow A Mother Learned To Connect Without Language
How do you care for someone you struggle to communicate with ... and can never fully understand? That's the question anthropologist Danilyn Rutherford has been wrestling with for decades — ever since it became clear that her daughter Millie would never speak, sign or use symbols to express herself. Danilyn talks with Anita about how mothering a multiply-disabled child challenged her beliefs about the importance of language for human connection.
Meet the guest:
- Danilyn Rutherford is the author of “Beautiful Mystery: Living in a Wordless World”
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7 May 2026, 9:00 am - 50 minutes 25 secondsThe Case For Taking Humor Seriously
Comedian Chris Duffy believes everyone has a sense of humor. And if you think you don’t? That’s just years of adult socialization talking! He shares his roadmap for building a more humor-filled life, from learning to be present and notice the absurdities of the world to taking social risks. Plus, he and Anita workshop some comedy exercises that will not just get you laughing more — but also help you kickstart your creative juices and feel more connected to those around you.
Meet the guest:
- Chris Duffy is the host of the TED podcast “How To Be a Better Human” and the author of “Humor Me: How Laughing More Can Make You Present, Creative, Connected, and Happy”
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30 April 2026, 9:00 am - 50 minutes 20 secondsA New Playbook For Raising Boys
When the #MeToo movement exploded in 2017, journalist Ruth Whippman — nearly nine months pregnant with her third son — experienced a profound conflict. As a feminist, she celebrated the movement; as a mother, she worried: "How am I gonna raise these boys to be good?" This tension launched Ruth on a quest to understand modern American boyhood and what's not working. Ruth and her husband Neil Levine tell Anita about their journey of putting Ruth’s research into practice, working to give their sons the emotional tools to thrive in a changing world — and what’s at stake if we don’t shift our approach to raising boys.
Meet the guests:
- Ruth Whippman is the author of "BoyMom: Reimagining Boyhood in the Age of Impossible Masculinity"
- Neil Levine is Ruth's husband
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Please note: This episode originally published May 8, 2025.
23 April 2026, 9:00 am - 50 minutes 13 secondsReckoning With The Asian Fetish
Kaila Yu spent years as an Asian American pinup model, singer and actress, leaning into a hypersexualized image of Asian femininity and burying her doubts about it. But after the 2021 Atlanta spa shootings, she started reckoning with how fetishization can lead to violence — and interrogating her own role in perpetuating harmful stereotypes. She talks with Anita about her new memoir. Plus, a sociologist breaks down how history and Hollywood built the stereotypes in the first place and what we can do to break free.
Meet the guests:
- Kaila Yu is a culture writer and the author of "Fetishized: A Reckoning with Yellow Fever, Feminism and Beauty"
- Nancy Wang Yuen is a sociologist and a professor in the department of ethnic studies at Crafton Hills College and the author of “Reel Inequality: Hollywood Actors and Racism”
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16 April 2026, 9:00 am - 50 minutes 20 secondsClimate Anxiety And The Choice To Parent
Gen Z is anxious about climate change, and it’s impacting their family planning. Anita talks to researcher Jade Sasser, who's been studying young people’s attitudes about climate change and reproductive choices while unpacking her own experiences with climate anxiety. They’ll talk about how to manage climate emotions while making big life decisions, and how “the kid question” isn’t just about babies — it’s about what bringing new life into an uncertain world represents.
Meet the guest:
- Jade Sasser is the author of “Climate Anxiety and the Kid Question: Deciding Whether to Have Children in an Uncertain Future” and an associate professor at the University of California, Riverside
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Please note: This episode originally published May 15, 2025.
Update: Jade Sasser is working on a third book, tentatively titled “Climate Change Hates Mothers.”
9 April 2026, 9:00 am - 50 minutes 23 secondsThe Hidden Labor Of Flight Attendants
When you board a plane, flight attendants greet you with practiced smiles and seamless service. But there’s a lot of mental and emotional labor that passengers don’t see. Missy, a Hawaii-based flight attendant, takes Anita inside her world and shares stories from her close to five years on the job — from managing unruly passengers to dealing with medical emergencies. Travel journalist Natalie Compton also shares her reporting on the financial precarity some flight attendants face and how understanding more about their reality has changed the way she approaches air travel.
Meet the guests:
- Missy is a Hawaii-based flight attendant who is using only her first name since she's not authorized to speak on behalf of her airline
- Natalie Compton is a travel reporter for The Washington Post
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Dig deeper:
Natalie's reporting on the financial precarity of early-career flight attendants
Natalie's reporting on flight attendant training
Please note: This episode originally published on June 19, 2025.
2 April 2026, 9:00 am - 50 minutes 22 secondsThe Future of Trans Athletes in Sports
When Chris Mosier became the first openly trans athlete to qualify for Team USA in 2015, he catalyzed policy change for trans people in sports. Now, more than a decade later, his legacy is beginning to unravel. Chris talks to Anita about how sports have affirmed him as a trans person and why they’ve become a battleground for trans rights. They also discuss the assumptions that underpin many of the bans on trans athletes in the U.S. and solutions that Chris says could make sports better for all athletes.
Meet the guest:
- Chris Mosier is an eight-time Team USA athlete who wrote the forward to and conducted interviews for the recent book “Fair Game: Trans Athletes and the Future of Sports”
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You can read the new International Olympic Committee's policy on gender here.
26 March 2026, 9:00 am - 50 minutes 20 secondsBeyond Bromance: Searching For Deeper Male Friendship
American men are in a friendship recession. Compared to a few decades ago, five times as many men have no close friends. So what’s going on? Anita talks with Mark Pagán, creator and host of the podcast “Other Men Need Help,” about what makes close friendships among men so fraught — and what we can do about it. They talk about everything from why Mark loves secret handshakes to his ongoing journey of making himself say the hard stuff out loud.
Meet the guest:
- Mark Pagán is the creator and host of the podcast "Other Men Need Help" and writes the substack "Other Men"
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Please note: This episode originally published April 17, 2025.
19 March 2026, 9:00 am - 49 minutes 48 secondsInside The World of Sugar Babies, Sugar Daddies & Sugar Dating
When B. Chionne first heard about sugar dating in college, she was intrigued — what if in exchange for her time and attention she could earn enough money to pay her bills? She ended up dating sugar daddies on and off for about a decade. B. tells Anita about what the sugar dating life looks like and how years of exchanging companionship for financial support reshaped the way she thinks about money, power and intimacy. Plus, a researcher shares insights into the sugar daddy perspective and broader trends in sugar relationships.
Meet the guests:
- B. Chionne is a digital content creator and former sugar baby
- Lauren Cormier is a doctoral candidate in clinical psychology at the University of New Brunswick who studies human sexuality and relationships
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12 March 2026, 9:00 am - 50 minutes 21 seconds‘You Don’t Become a Witch, You Remember That You Are One’
Rebecca Auman is a witch. That’s not an insult — it literally says “head witch” on her LinkedIn profile. Rebecca has been able to read people and pick up on energy and vibrations for as long as she can remember. But as the daughter of a Methodist minister growing up in the South, she was encouraged to turn away from that intuition for a long time. She tells Anita about the long and winding road to reclaim her magic and how she has turned her gift into a service for others.
Meet the guest:
- Rebecca Auman runs her own witchy business offering tarot readings and intuition training, and she hosts the podcast “Voices in the River”
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