Wise Women Forward

Wise Women Forward
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The origin story of humanity is wrong. This is the correction. A companion to the documentary Wise Women: Humanity’s Untold Origins, this podcast explores the ideas we were never meant to question—women’s power, post-reproductive wisdom, evolution, and the cultural systems that buried them. Hosted by filmmaker Christopher Henze and producer Dominique Debroux, Wise Women Forward features conversations with thinkers, elders, artists, and disruptors who challenge the myths of patriarchy, menopause, and “how things have always been.” This isn’t self-help. It’s a reframe of who we are—and where

  1. Jul 14

    Where Wisdom Meets Medicine: Dr. Carla Rotering on Healing, Agency, and the Power of Midlife

    What happens when a physician at the height of her career realizes she has lost her way in her own healership? Dr. Carla Rotering—physician, author, speaker, leadership mentor, and psychospiritual teacher—joins Dominique Debroux and Christopher Henze for a powerful conversation about bringing the human being back into medicine. Carla shares how professional overwork and a personal “existential freefall” led her to reconsider everything she had been taught about healing. A lung specialist who had never spoken to her patients about breath as medicine, she began exploring what conventional care leaves out: relationship, intuition, collaboration, spiritual well-being, and the expertise each person carries within their own body. Together, they examine why women’s symptoms and inner knowing are still too often dismissed, how medical culture can silence both patients and practitioners, and why healing must become a partnership rather than a hierarchy. Carla also reflects on the liberation of postmenopausal life—the moment when approval loses its grip, the hormonal storms settle, and a woman can say: “I have nothing left to prove. I’m all about putting goodness into the world.” A soulful, candid conversation about courageous leadership, patient agency, women in medicine, and the wisdom available when we stop treating aging as decline and begin recognizing it as a generative new phase. Learn more about Dr. Carla Rotering:https://www.drcarlarotering.com/ Discover Wise Women – Why Menopause Matters:https://wisewomenmovie.com/ Rent the film:https://bingeable.net/Dr._Carla_cares

    Where Wisdom Meets Medicine: Dr. Carla Rotering on Healing, Agency, and the Power of Midlife

  2. Jul 9

    Jonathan & Carla Sanger: Why Wise Women Still Matter

    In this episode of Wise Women… Forward, Dominique and Christopher sit down with Jonathan and Carla Sanger—two dear collaborators on Wise Women – Why Menopause Matters and two people who understand that storytelling is never just storytelling. It is how culture decides who matters. Jonathan Sanger is an award-winning film, television, and theater producer and director whose career includes The Elephant Man, Frances, Flight of the Navigator, Vanilla Sky, Marshall, and Cabrini. He has produced more than fifty films, shorts, and documentaries, and his work has been connected to Academy Award, BAFTA, and César recognition. (Wikipedia⁠) Carla Sanger brings her own remarkable legacy as the founding CEO of LA’s BEST, an after-school enrichment program serving children with the greatest needs and fewest resources in Los Angeles. In this conversation, she speaks with the kind of grounded authority that doesn’t need to announce itself before changing the room. Together, Jonathan and Carla reflect on why they were drawn to the Wise Women project, what surprised them about the film’s thesis, and why post-menopausal women are not meant to fade into the background. As Jonathan says in the conversation, post-menopausal women are “uniquely suited to being leaders” and among the strongest advocates for a more positive, humanistic society. We talk about women’s confidence, the danger of treating retirement as “after success,” the difference between worshiping women and truly partnering with them, and why men have an essential role to play in helping dismantle the stories that have kept women marginalized and underused for far too long. It’s warm. It’s wise. It’s funny in the places truth always gets funny. And it leaves us with a word we could all use more of right now: hope. Find out more about the movie:https://wisewomenmovie.com Rent the film:https://bingeable.net/wisewomen Learn more about Jonathan Sanger:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Sanger

    Jonathan & Carla Sanger: Why Wise Women Still Matter

  3. Jul 3

    Margaret Cho: Menopause, Power, and the Unionization of Wise Women

    Margaret Cho joins Wise Women… Forward for a fearless conversation about menopause, identity, power, aging, comedy, politics, and the freedom of no longer living as the woman the world expected you to be. Margaret describes menopause as the moment when the old mythology of the self begins to fall away. Hormonal imperatives quiet. Social expectations lose their authority. And a new woman starts to emerge—clearer, freer, and far less interested in behaving politely. In this episode, we talk about: • Menopause as a time of greatness and power• Losing the identity you thought was fixed• Aging and invisibility in Hollywood• Mentoring younger women in comedy• Supporting trans women and expanding sisterhood• How patriarchy harms men as well as women• Why older women must use their power to open doors• The liberation of speaking without apology Margaret also delivers one of our favorite lines yet: “Aging women have been around since the beginning of time, but we’ve never thought to unionize.” Well. Perhaps now we have. Follow Margaret Cho: Website: https://margaretcho.com/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/margaret_cho/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@themargaretcho Watch Wise Women Rent the film: https://bingeable.net/wisewomenLearn more: https://wisewomenmovie.com

    Margaret Cho: Menopause, Power, and the Unionization of Wise Women

  4. Jun 23

    Radicalized Into the Matriarchy: A Conversation with Dr. Jonna Cohen

    In this conversation, Dr. Jonna Cohen, founder of She Rises in Abundance, joins Wise Women Forward to talk about women’s stories, joyful resistance, menopause, social media, and the growing movement toward a more compassionate, collective form of leadership. We explore what it really means to be “radicalized into the matriarchy” — not as women replacing men at the top, but as a return to community, care, children, elders, the vulnerable, and the wisdom women have carried all along. In this episode, we talk about: • Why women’s stories can transform culture • How social media is helping women find one another • The freedom and clarity that can come with midlife and menopause • Why joy, playfulness, and optimism are acts of resistance • What leadership can look like when it centers community instead of hierarchy Follow Jonna and She Rises in Abundance: Instagram: @sherisesinabundance Rent Wise Women – Humanity’s Untold Origins: https://bingeable.net/wisewomen

    Radicalized Into the Matriarchy: A Conversation with Dr. Jonna Cohen

  5. Jun 18

    She Never Raised Her Voice—She Changed the Business | Nancy Cushing-Jones

    Nancy Cushing-Jones entered Universal Studios in 1979, when only three other women at the company worked above the level of secretary. She went on to become the first female division president in the studio’s history, transform publishing into a global revenue-generating business, and help build the emerging video-game licensing industry.   But this conversation is about more than an extraordinary résumé. Nancy joins Wise Women… Forward to talk about the quiet architecture of power: keeping your back straight, setting clear boundaries, asking for what you deserve, and refusing to confuse aggression with authority. She shares what happened when men assumed she was there to fetch their coffee, how she stopped a notorious Hollywood screamer before he could begin, and why being underestimated can become an advantage—provided you know who you are when you enter the room.   It is a masterclass in leadership without theatrics, confidence without ego, and speaking the truth without surrendering your dignity. Because sometimes power does not shout. Sometimes it smiles politely and says, “No, I don’t think so.” Nancy's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nancy-cushing-jones-366b7/ Rent the Wise Woman Movie - bingeable.net/wisewomen Info about the film wisewomenmovie.com

    She Never Raised Her Voice—She Changed the Business | Nancy Cushing-Jones

  6. Jun 9

    She Rewrote Her Story — Matriarchy, Plasma Water & the Truth About Women | Kristen Shelt

    After being diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, Kristen Shelt didn't just seek a cure — she sought coherence. That journey took her deep into quantum physics, matriarchal history, and a radically different way of understanding reality and women's place in it. Kristen is the founder of Ether Well, a structured plasma water company, and is currently getting certified as a lecturer in matriarchal studies through the only program of its kind — based in Germany. She's also a truth teller on social media who has received death threats for simply saying what she sees. In this episode of Wise Women Forward, Christopher Henze and Dominique Debroux talk with Kristen about what it means to live a coherent life, how 95% of human evolution was matriarchal, and why the way forward is rooted in the deep past. TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@kristen1942Substack: https://kristenshelt.substack.com/?r=5vilos&utm_campaign=profile&utm_medium=profile-pageLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristen-shelt-351083213/Ether Well: https://etherwell.coFrom us: Rent Wise Women: Humanity’s Untold Origins bingeable.net/Kristen More about the film → wisewomenmovie.com

    She Rewrote Her Story — Matriarchy, Plasma Water & the Truth About Women | Kristen Shelt

  7. Jun 8

    Single, Child Free, and Fully Alive with Angela Gentile

    In this episode of Wise Women Forward, Dominique and Christopher sit down with Angela Gentile, founder of the Single and Child Free Network, an international community for women living outside the traditional expectations of marriage and motherhood. Angela’s work challenges the old, exhausted script that tells women their lives only become meaningful when they are chosen, partnered, married, or raising children. Together, we talk about the cultural pressure to become a role in someone else’s life, the loneliness of choosing differently, the power of community, and why a woman’s worth was never meant to be measured by her reproductive status. This conversation is fiery, funny, tender, and deeply necessary. Angela reminds us that single and child free women are not missing a life. They are building one — with purpose, autonomy, joy, friendship, travel, care, creativity, and the occasional well-earned refusal to explain themselves. Because it is your goddamn life. Go live it. Connect with Angela Gentile:Instagram: @TheAngelaGentileSingle and Child Free Network: https://www.theangelagentile.com/scfnetworkAngela’s Podcast: https://www.theangelagentile.com/podcastWebsite: https://www.theangelagentile.com Wise Women Links:Rent the film: https://bingeable.net/wisewomenFilm info + trailer: https://wisewomenmovie.com

    Single, Child Free, and Fully Alive with Angela Gentile

  8. May 30

    Kukuwa & Coach Cass on African Movement, Food Wisdom, and Legacy Forward

    Kukuwa and Coach Cass are a mother-daughter team leading a global African-rooted wellness movement through Kukuwa Fitness, their app and online community, and Africa With Us, their cultural wellness travel program. In this episode of Wise Women… Forward, they join Dominique Debroux and Christopher Henze for a conversation about movement as medicine, food as foundation, ancestral healing, menopause, longevity, and the wisdom passed through generations of women. Kukuwa shares how African dance connects us barefoot to Mother Earth, strengthens the core, moves the pelvis, works the whole body, and welcomes people of all ages and abilities. Coach Cass speaks about strength, mobility, motherhood, weight release, food choices, and the importance of meeting women wherever they are in their wellness journey. Together, they explore why food is more than fuel, how ancestral remedies and whole foods support the body, why menopause symptoms can be teachers, and how Africa With Us creates cultural immersion, community service, wellness, and reconnection with Africa as source. This conversation beautifully embodies the Wise Women hypothesis: that postmenopausal women are not done — they are still leading, teaching, healing, dancing, and carrying the knowledge forward. LINKS Kukuwa Fitness: https://www.kukuwafitness.com/ Africa With Us: https://africawithus.com/ Kukuwa Socials Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KukuwaFitness YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@KukuwaFitness Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kukuwafitness/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@kukuwafitness?lang=en Join the app: https://ignitehappinessnow.com Two Weeks to Live video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BtO2L0vd38 Rent Wise Women: https://bingeable.net/Kukuwa More about the film: wisewomenmovie.com

    Kukuwa & Coach Cass on African Movement, Food Wisdom, and Legacy Forward
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About

The origin story of humanity is wrong. This is the correction. A companion to the documentary Wise Women: Humanity’s Untold Origins, this podcast explores the ideas we were never meant to question—women’s power, post-reproductive wisdom, evolution, and the cultural systems that buried them. Hosted by filmmaker Christopher Henze and producer Dominique Debroux, Wise Women Forward features conversations with thinkers, elders, artists, and disruptors who challenge the myths of patriarchy, menopause, and “how things have always been.” This isn’t self-help. It’s a reframe of who we are—and where

Information

  • Creator
    Wise Women Forward
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    21
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Wise Women Forward
  • Show Website
    Wise Women Forward

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