The Waves: What's Different About Women's Brains?

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Slate Podcasts

News, News Commentary, Politics

4.6 • 6K Ratings

🗓️ 15 January 2022

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

On this week’s episode of The Waves, Slate senior editor Shannon Palus is joined by author Emily Willingham. Emily’s new book The Tailored Brain: Feeling Better and Thinking Smarter is all about how our brains work and whether gender plays a role in brain enhancement. They talk about how to be more empathetic and the ways empathy can boost your brain, the importance of using a feminist lens in brain science, and the old theory that brains are made of sperm. In the Slate Plus segment, Emily and Shannon talk about Emily’s other book, Phallacy: Life Lessons From the Animal Penis and explore why the duck vagina is like a gated community. Recommendations: Shannon: Wearing perfume to turn your mood around. Emily: Lightly meditating by beholding a tree. Podcast production by Cheyna Roth with editorial oversight by Shannon Palus, Susan Matthews and June Thomas. Send your comments and recommendations on what to cover to [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is the waves. This is the waves. This is the waves. This is the waves. This is the waves.
0:13.1	Welcome to the waves. Slates podcast about gender, feminism, and this week at least brains.
0:19.6	Every episode you get a new pair of women to talk about the thing we can't get off our minds.
0:24.4	And today you've got me, Shannon Paulis, senior editor at Slate covering science and health.
0:30.3	I have with me Emily Wilhelm, a science writer and the author of The Tailored Brain
0:36.0	from ketamine teketo to companionship, a user's guide to feeling better and thinking smarter.
0:42.8	This book is fascinating to me because it subtly abends a lot of common sense about what it
0:48.0	means to be smart and about what we do to be smarter. And I wanted to have Emily on this podcast
0:54.1	because she spent a lot of time thinking and writing about gender and sex. And I think it overlaps
0:59.8	in interesting ways with how we think about the brain and how she writes about it.
1:04.1	Emily, thank you so much for joining us. How's your brain today?
1:07.7	Oh my gosh, how is my brain? I don't know. You know, COVID's all around it. It's not in me
1:13.2	yet as far as I know, but certainly that's where my brain tends to spend most of its time these days.
1:18.1	How are you? I am doing okay. My brain is overloaded, but functioning. We're going to talk more
1:25.7	about The Tailored Brain with Emily right after this. For Slate Plus listeners, we're going to ask
1:31.1	her a few questions about her other book, Fallacy, Life Lessons from the Animal P.S.
1:48.8	Thank you so much for listening. If you're loving the show and want to hear more,
1:52.2	subscribe to our feed. New episodes come out every Thursday morning. While you're there,
1:57.1	check out our other episodes too. Like last week's discussion about the state of middle-aged women on TV.
2:05.2	This episode of The Waves is brought to you by Cook Unity. Getting Delivery is kind of like having
2:11.2	a bad date. It happens late at night and it's never on time. It's never as hot as you hope and it
2:17.2	usually leaves you full of regret. Maybe it's time to break up with delivery and try something better.
	...

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