The Women Are Plotting

Jane Gari, Etienne Rose Olivier, Heidi Willis
  • 5.0 (1)
  • Society & Culture

Do you know how to use a rotary phone? Worry about how much Aquanet you inhaled as a teen? Wonder about the creative worlds of writers? Believe belly laughs make the best ab workouts? Seek answers to the mysteries of menopause?    Then welcome to The Women Are Plotting -- a new podcast that allows a peek into the unfiltered minds of three Gen X writers. Give us a listen. And if you like what you hear, tell your friends.   If you have a story or an idea you'd like to share, we'd love to hear from you! Email us at info@thewomenareplotting.com 

  1. 4d ago

    Gen X: The Last Analog Generation in a Digital World

    Remember when you could make a complete ass of yourself without someone recording it and posting it on the internet? Welcome to the Gen X experience. This week on The Women Are Plotting, Etienne, Heidi, and Jane explore what it means to be the generation that grew up analog and somehow ended up living in an entirely digital world. From rotary phones, cassette tapes, Walkmans, and film cameras to smartphones, dating apps, virtual reality, and artificial intelligence, Gen X has experienced an extraordinary technological transformation. But just because we've embraced the digital revolution doesn't mean we have to like everything about it. The women reminisce about the freedom of growing up without social media, when your most embarrassing moments weren't permanently documented and you had to wait to develop your photographs to find out whether you actually captured anything worth keeping. Jane shares how testing a virtual tour at work left her curled up in a ball under her desk, while Etienne reveals the dating-app encounter that had a younger man asking her to fulfill his granny fantasy. And Heidi raises the question of whether all this technological convenience is worth the privacy we've surrendered along the way. The conversation also takes on AI, surveillance, subscription culture, increasingly complicated appliances, and the infuriating experience of trying to reach an actual human being in customer service. Through it all, one thing becomes clear: Gen X knows how to navigate the digital world, but we still remember when you could fix your own appliances, leave the house without being tracked, and make questionable decisions without leaving a permanent digital footprint. We may have adapted to the future, but that doesn't mean we've forgotten the past—or that we're particularly happy about all these f*****g subscriptions. Join us for a hilarious, nostalgic, and occasionally exasperated look at life as the generation caught between two very different worlds. Send us Fan Mail Email us at info@thewomenareplotting.com, and find us on all the socials. Be safe and be excellent to each other.

  2. Sep 24

    Digital Infidelity: Is It Cheating If You Never Touch?

    Does it count as cheating if you never actually touch the other person? This week on The Women Are Plotting, Etienne, Heidi, and Jane dive into the increasingly complicated world of digital infidelity—and quickly discover that cheating in 2026 looks a whole lot different than it did when they were young. From flirty emails and AOL chat rooms to sexting, secret DMs, dating apps, porn, Fitbit affairs, and even AI boyfriends and girlfriends, the women debate where harmless fantasy ends and betrayal begins. And this one gets personal. Etienne confesses that she was an early adopter of digital infidelity back in the 1990s, when an office email flirtation turned into a very real—and spectacularly regrettable—encounter. Jane reveals her own experience sexting strangers in AOL chat rooms during a rough patch in a long-term relationship. And then there's the woman who used Fitbit to flirt with strangers…until her suspicious husband created a fake account and unknowingly got his own wife to flirt with him. But things get even stranger when the conversation turns to AI. If you're married but getting emotional support, romantic validation, or sexual gratification from an AI companion, are you cheating—even though the “other person” isn't a person at all? Funny, candid, occasionally filthy, and surprisingly thought-provoking, this episode asks a very modern relationship question: If you'd have to hide it from your partner, does that make it cheating? Send us Fan Mail Email us at info@thewomenareplotting.com, and find us on all the socials. Be safe and be excellent to each other.

  3. Sep 17

    Finding Magic in a Harsh World: Signs, Synchronicities & Everyday Miracles

    What if the magic we’re looking for is already happening all around us? This week on The Women Are Plotting, Etienne, Heidi, and Jane explore how to find whimsy, joy, intuition, and those strange little moments that make you wonder if the universe might be trying to tell you something. Jane dives into the growing embrace of whimsy as a form of rebellion against doomscrolling, conformity, and an increasingly harsh world. Heidi shares why she believes in following the breadcrumbs—and how an annoying delay might sometimes turn out to be exactly what you needed. Then things get seriously weird. Jane recounts a vivid dream about dying in a car accident—only to find herself months later on the same road, hearing the same Billy Joel song from her dream just before a semi runs a red light. Etienne talks about meditation, manifestation, energy, and what happened when she started asking the universe for exactly what she wanted. And Jane shares the moving story of her daughter asking a late childhood friend to send her a deer as a sign…and what happened next. From premonitions and synchronicities to four-leaf clovers, manifestation, mysterious delays, and simply stopping to watch a bee disappear into a flower, the women ask: What happens when we stop dismissing the weird stuff and start paying attention? Maybe finding magic doesn’t require believing in the impossible. Maybe it just requires looking for it. Send us Fan Mail Email us at info@thewomenareplotting.com, and find us on all the socials. Be safe and be excellent to each other.

  4. Sep 10

    Stop Shrinking Yourself: The Gen X Guide to Being Authentic

    How much of yourself have you changed, hidden, or made smaller just to keep other people comfortable? In this deeply personal—and frequently hilarious—episode of The Women Are Plotting, Etienne Rose Olivier, Heidi Willis, and Jane Gari explore what it really means to live authentically, especially as Gen X women who grew up learning to be agreeable, fit in, and care far too much about what other people thought. The conversation begins with everything from targeted ads pushing the so-called “cool midlife fashion uniform” to the complicated meaning behind Shakespeare's famous “to thine own self be true.” But it quickly gets much deeper. Jane reflects on slowly losing parts of herself in a seven-year relationship and eventually realizing that the person she had become no longer wanted the same life. Etienne opens up about how gradually silencing herself in a relationship left her feeling trapped in her own home and disconnected from who she really was. Heidi discusses neurodivergent masking, making yourself smaller for others, and the freedom that comes when you finally stop trying to be the person everyone else expects. The women also explore authenticity at work, listening when your body tells you something is wrong, walking away from situations that no longer align with your values, finding “your people,” and why being yourself doesn't mean using authenticity as an excuse to be an a*****e. And because this is The Women Are Plotting, a thoughtful discussion about living your truth eventually leads to the ultimate test of intimacy: whether you're comfortable enough to fart in front of the person you love. At midlife, maybe authenticity isn't about discovering one permanent “true self.” Maybe it's about giving yourself permission to keep changing—and refusing to abandon yourself along the way. Send us Fan Mail Email us at info@thewomenareplotting.com, and find us on all the socials. Be safe and be excellent to each other.

  5. Sep 3

    What Are You Addicted To? Drugs, Dopamine & the Things We Can’t Quit

    What are you addicted to—and how do you know when something you enjoy has crossed the line into something that's controlling your life? In this unusually raw and personal episode of The Women Are Plotting, Etienne Rose Olivier, Heidi Willis, and Jane Gari take on addiction in all its forms, from cocaine and alcoholism to sex, shopping, relationships, compulsive behaviors, and the endless dopamine machine of social media. Etienne shares the disturbing experience of discovering that a man she was sleeping with was addicted to crack—and watching as his choices contributed to the destruction of his career while he continued using. Heidi opens up about growing up with a mother whose lifelong alcoholism ultimately became fatal, the family's attempts to intervene, and the heartbreaking experience of briefly getting her mother back during a period of sobriety. Etienne also gets candid about her own history with alcohol, including blackouts, hallucinations, damaged relationships, and the surprising sense of freedom she experienced after finally quitting. But addiction isn't always about drugs or alcohol. The conversation expands into genetics, brain chemistry, dopamine, OCD, ADHD, gambling, shopping, sex, exercise, unhealthy relationships, and social media. Can we become addicted to a person? Is compulsively checking something fundamentally different from chasing a chemical high? And when does an innocent habit become a problem? Ultimately, the women arrive at a simple question worth asking ourselves: Is something helping you live the life you want—or has it started getting in the way? From crack cocaine and family trauma to peppermint oil, Ryan Gosling videos, and the irresistible pull of the algorithm, this episode explores why humans keep reaching for things that make us feel better—and what can happen when the thing that soothes us becomes the thing we can't stop. Send us Fan Mail Email us at info@thewomenareplotting.com, and find us on all the socials. Be safe and be excellent to each other.

  6. Aug 27

    Secondhand Sex: When You Hear, See, or Walk In on Too Much

    What happens when sex stops being private—and somebody else accidentally becomes part of the experience? In this wildly candid episode of The Women Are Plotting, Etienne Rose Olivier, Heidi Willis, and Jane Gari dive into what they jokingly call “secondhand sex”: walking in on people, overhearing them, getting caught, or realizing after the fact that someone else had a front-row seat. The conversation begins with childhood memories of walking in on parents having sex and the surprisingly different ways families handle those awkward moments. Jane shares both a loving childhood memory of accidentally interrupting her parents and a much more mortifying college-age encounter that resulted in what she calls the most “joyless” slice of New York pizza of her life.  From there, the stories only get more outrageous. Jane recounts the karmic payback of having her own toddler overhear her and Brendon, leading to a hilariously disastrous attempt to explain that Mommy and Daddy were “playing a game.”  Etienne shares stories involving an unwanted voyeur, a boyfriend who kept having sex while her future stepbrother sat on the bed talking to them, and the lengths she went to avoid hearing her mother m********e.  The women also get into public sex, celebrity scandals, being caught outdoors, sex in swimming pools, and the unforgettable couple Jane spotted having sex against a tree on a family hike while desperately pretending they were simply very interested in the bark.  Funny, explicit, and full of stories that are impossible to unhear, this episode is a celebration of embarrassment, boundaries, consent, and the very human reality that sometimes your private moment is not nearly as private as you thought. Send us Fan Mail Email us at info@thewomenareplotting.com, and find us on all the socials. Be safe and be excellent to each other.

  7. Aug 20

    Are We All a Little Psychic?

    What if that gut feeling, strange coincidence, vivid dream, or piece of information that seemingly came out of nowhere wasn't just your imagination? In this deeply personal—and occasionally very weird—episode of The Women Are Plotting, Gen X friends Etienne Rose Olivier, Heidi Willis, and Jane Gari explore psychics, mediums, intuition, synchronicities, and their own experiences with things they simply can't explain. The conversation begins with just how common belief in psychic phenomena actually is before turning to Heidi's interest in psychic mediumship and Laura Lynne Jackson's The Light Between Us. But things quickly get personal when Jane shares what happened the night she met a complete stranger named Greg in 1996—and somehow knew it was his 21st birthday, that he played guitar, and that he had stopped writing poetry. Thirty years later, they're still best friends, and Greg ultimately became the person who introduced Jane to her husband.  From there, the stories get even stranger. Etienne recalls psychic and past-life readings from her years in Los Angeles, while Jane talks about relatives who've been told she's a medium, visits from deceased loved ones in dreams, and a great-grandmother who she says used to sit on her bed and sing to her as a child.   Then comes one of the episode's most remarkable stories: Jane recalls seeing an unfamiliar woman washing dishes in her boyfriend's mother's kitchen. After Jane described the woman's clothing and earrings, she learned she'd apparently described the family's deceased grandmother—including the outfit she regularly wore to church. What happened afterward, involving a psychic, a message from the woman's mother, and a single rose delivered by an unsuspecting neighbor, left everyone wondering how much can really be dismissed as coincidence.  Send us Fan Mail Email us at info@thewomenareplotting.com, and find us on all the socials. Be safe and be excellent to each other.

  8. Aug 13

    Happily Ever After Is a Lie: How Fairy Tales Shaped Our Love Lives

    Did fairy tales teach us how to fall in love—or did they completely screw up our expectations? In this funny, personal, and surprisingly revealing episode of The Women Are Plotting, Etienne Rose Olivier, Heidi Willis, and Jane Gari take a hard look at the “happily ever after” stories many of us grew up believing. From knights in shining armor and damsels in distress to Disney princesses and romantic comedies, the women explore how the stories we consume can shape what we expect from love, marriage, and ourselves. The conversation dives into the darker side of princess culture, including benevolent sexism, traditional gender roles, the pressure for women to make themselves smaller to attract men, and the dangerous idea that enough patience and love can transform a troubled partner into Prince Charming.  But what happens after the prince and princess finally get together? Drawing from marriages, divorces, parenting, therapy, loss, and their own relationship histories, the women contrast fairy-tale romance with the much messier reality of loving another human being. Real love, they argue, isn't about finding someone who saves you or completes you. It's about two whole people choosing to grow together, support each other, survive the hard stuff, and keep doing the work long after the credits would normally roll. Maybe we don't need “happily ever after” at all. Maybe what we should be looking for is happily ever more. Send us Fan Mail Email us at info@thewomenareplotting.com, and find us on all the socials. Be safe and be excellent to each other.

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About

Do you know how to use a rotary phone? Worry about how much Aquanet you inhaled as a teen? Wonder about the creative worlds of writers? Believe belly laughs make the best ab workouts? Seek answers to the mysteries of menopause?    Then welcome to The Women Are Plotting -- a new podcast that allows a peek into the unfiltered minds of three Gen X writers. Give us a listen. And if you like what you hear, tell your friends.   If you have a story or an idea you'd like to share, we'd love to hear from you! Email us at info@thewomenareplotting.com 

Information

  • Creator
    Jane Gari, Etienne Rose Olivier, Heidi Willis
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    62
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026 The Women Are Plotting
  • Show Website
    The Women Are Plotting