Hot Flashes & Brain Frog
Menopause gets funny, furious, and deeply honest, sometimes all in the same sentence.
Dr. Sally Chivers talks with poet and professor Susan Holbrook about Steamy: A Menopause Symptomology, her raucous feminist book organized not by chapters, but by symptoms. Hot flashes. Burning mouth syndrome. Bladder leaks. Brain fog. The things you Google at 3 a.m., but rarely speak out loud.
The conversation brings comedy and compassion to fertility grief, gendered shame, and medical language. We swap stories about women’s health, fanning ourselves in too-hot meeting rooms, and the joy that comes from giving “fewer shits.”
If you’ve ever caught yourself wondering, “Is it just me?” or tried to understand friends, partners, colleagues, and family members, you’ll be in good company here.
Episode 18 also includes music by folk_acoustic via Pixabay
Wrinkle Radio is a proud member of the Amplify Podcast Network. We are grateful for funding from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada and support from Aging in Data and VoicEd Radio.
Intro and interlude music by Duce Williams (via Artlist). Outro music by Michael Shayne (via Artlist).
Host
Dr. Sally Chivers
Professor, Gender & Social Justice and English, Trent University, Ontario
Sally Chivers is Full Professor of Gender & Social Justice and English as well as a Founding Executive Member and Past Director of the Trent Centre for Aging & Society. She was honoured with the 2021 Distinguished Research Award in recognition of her prolific scholarship and international reputation as a leader in the interdisciplinary fields of age and disability studies, health humanities, and cultural gerontology. Her research focuses on the hidden or ignored contributions of older adults and people with disabilities, especially those who too often get pushed outside the frame. Specifically, she studies the cultural politics of aging and disability, especially within film
