What Does It Take to Be a ‘Good Woman’?

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KQED

News, Politics, News Commentary

4.2 • 726 Ratings

🗓️ 3 March 2026

⏱️ 54 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

“All my life I have tried to be a good woman,” writes Savala Nolan. Being “good” meant not rocking the boat. It meant following the rules and fitting herself into the mold of duty, excellence, sacrifice, and hard work. But as a Black woman and mother navigating a world built for men, Nolan learned that the lessons of being good no longer fit her life. In her new book of essays “Good Woman: A Reckoning,” Nolan, an attorney who heads UC Berkeley Law’s Thelton E. Henderson Center for Social Justice, blends history and memoir as she examines the confining expectations of womanhood. We talk to Nolan. Guests: Savala Nolan, executive director, Thelton E. Henderson Center for Social Justice, Berkeley Law; author, "Good Woman: A Reckoning," "Don't Let It Get You Down: Essays on Race, Gender, and the Body" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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0:00.0	Support for KQED podcasts comes from San Francisco International Airport.
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0:17.0	My name is Sherlock Holmes.
0:18.8	It's an unusual name.
0:20.6	Introducing Young Sherlock, a new Guy Ritchie series.
0:24.3	What game I would claim today?
0:25.8	Discover the origins.
0:27.1	It's leaving.
0:27.7	Those days are surely behind me.
0:29.3	Of crime's most iconic mind.
0:31.5	There has been a break-in.
0:33.8	Astoned.
0:34.6	You should be a detective.
0:35.9	Starring Hero finds Tiffin, Donald Finn and Colin Firth.
0:39.5	If you start wearing a hat like that, I will no longer be friends with you.
0:42.9	Young Sherlock, new original series. Watch now only on Prime Video.
0:48.5	From KQED.
0:51.1	Welcome to Forum. I'm Alexis Madrigal.
0:54.3	Savala Nolan's new book of essays grapples with almost everything.
0:59.2	Patriarchy, God, bodies, Thomas Jefferson, violence, the sweetness of love, divorce, slave-owning ancestors, paying for sex, linear time.
	...

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