Can Women Exercise Without the Patriarchy Getting in Our Heads?
The Waves: Gender, Relationships, Feminism
Slate Podcasts
4.2 • 903 Ratings
🗓️ 27 January 2022
⏱️ 36 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On this week’s episode of The Waves, Slate podcast producer Cheyna Roth is joined by author Danielle Friedman. Friedman’s new book Let’s Get Physical explores the history of women’s exercise, and how some old attitudes still linger. They talk about the double bind women have faced when it comes to exercising, the “uterus myth,” and where we’re at with anti-fatness and inclusivity in exercise.
In the Slate Plus segment: Are yoga pants feminist?
Recommendations:
Cheyna: YouTube yogi Yoga With Adriene.
Danielle: Watching movies from the 1930s. Especially Jewel Robbery.
Podcast production by Cheyna Roth with editorial oversight by Susan Matthews and June Thomas.
Send your comments and recommendations on what to cover to thewaves@slate.com
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | This is the waves. This is the waves. This is the waves. This is the waves. This is the waves. |
| 0:06.6 | This is the waves. Welcome to the waves, Slate's podcast about gender, feminism, and our complicated relationship |
| 0:19.1 | with fitness. |
| 0:20.5 | Every episode you get a new pair of women to talk about the thing we can't get off our minds and today you've got me Shaina Roth a podcast producer for Slate including for The Waves and today I'm joined by journalist and author of the new book, Let's Get Physical, Danielle |
| 0:35.9 | Friedman. |
| 0:36.9 | Danielle, welcome to the waves. |
| 0:37.9 | Hi, it's great to be here. |
| 0:39.9 | I have been dying to talk about fitness and the sort of complexities of wellness on this show for a while now. |
| 0:46.8 | And your book is really interesting to me because it tracks the evolution of women's fitness and different types of exercises that women haven't always |
| 0:55.6 | been able to participate in. And I've had a fraught relationship with fitness from fad diets to |
| 1:02.1 | spurtes of exercise followed by long stretches of not doing |
| 1:05.4 | anything and then feeling depressed and what I loved about your book is that |
| 1:09.9 | without being a sort of like Ra Ra let's all exercise and feel great book it got me into that |
| 1:16.7 | head space or you had a lot of different parts throughout it where it just reminded me that |
| 1:21.1 | exercise can just be about me feeling good and not necessarily |
| 1:24.9 | about looking good. I also think part of it was because you brought up a lot of trailblazing women. |
| 1:31.2 | I wanted to start up just by asking you what got you thinking about |
| 1:34.2 | fitness and feminism in the first place? So there was a pretty organic origin |
| 1:39.5 | story here. I am a lifelong runner but about about five years ago, and I'm always kind of a little bit |
| 1:45.6 | sheepish to tell this story, but I was actually getting ready for my wedding. |
| 1:51.1 | And so I decided to take my first bar class to venture into a boutique |
| 1:56.5 | fitness studio for the first time. And I was surprised by how good and how strong |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Slate Podcasts, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Slate Podcasts and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.