157 episodes
Breaking the Glass Slipper: Women in science fiction, fantasy, and horror Megan Leigh, Charlotte Bond, and Lucy Hounsom
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- Society & Culture
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4.8 • 23 Ratings
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Celebrating writers, creators, and characters in speculative fiction, with a focus on intersectional feminism. We love genre fiction and want to see everyone well represented!
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Oppression & survival – with Sunyi Dean
While World War 2 saw greater opportunities for women on the home front while so many working-age men were away at war, there are many more examples of hard times bringing curbs on women’s rights. We only have to read the daily news to see it in action. But why is this? If you are fighting […]
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No trope is an island – with Foz Meadows
As you’ve hopefully worked out by now, we are big proponents of the need for diverse representation in speculative fiction. And while we are certainly seeing more LGBTQ+ relationships portrayed in the genres we love, there’s still a long way to go. But what about speculative fiction romance? Romance is a genre with very entrenched tropes […]
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Cyberpunk with Kimberly Unger
These days, ‘punk’ is added to a whole host of different genres, sub-genres, and words never before used to indicate book genres before. But there was once only one kind of literary punk: cyberpunk. Pioneered in the 1980s by authors like Pat Cadigan, William Gibson, and Bruce Sterling, cyberpunk imagined a dystopian world of advanced […]
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Metaphor and social commentary with Saara El-Arifi
Please be aware that we discuss some fairly heavy topics in this episode, including addiction, violence against children, and racially motivated violence. Also, less serious in nature but full disclosure: I reference Star Trek really early in this episode. I was proud of myself. Towards the end of this episode, we discuss some important issues […]
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The haunt – with Michelle Paver
It’s easy to see why haunted houses are frightening – most of us live in a house and share a terror of what might happen if some unpleasant force took up residence there alongside us. Similarly, folk horror that is rooted in a particular place can challenge our sense of feeling safe within a community. […]
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Families in horror with Priya Sharma
The best horror takes place when we are at our most vulnerable. In our house. Under our bed. The best monsters are those that we trust because they have the greatest capacity for betrayal. With that in mind, it’s no wonder that families feature so strongly in horror fiction. In this episode, we are joined […]
Customer Reviews
My Favorite Podcast
I usually use podcasts to listen to tidbits of information on news, politics, and entertainment. But one day I was bored by the usual slate and wanted something new, preferably something to do with writing in literature or film, so I subscribed to maybe 15 more podcasts in the hopes of finding something decent. Not only did BtGS turn out to be the best of the batch that I was trying out, it pretty quickly became my favorite podcast entirely. Even when some of the subjects are rather straightforward, the conversations are fantastic. I highly recommend Breaking the Glass Slipper, and perhaps also supporting their Patreon if you end up loving them too!
Great conversations, if not very intersectional
I have a love/hate relationship with this podcast. The themes are excellent and the conversations and guests are engaging. I love the idea of having a podcast that makes space for feminist discussions in SFF and Horror contexts.
However, I find myself feeling frustrated that this podcast only seems to understand feminism in the white feminism context. There are only occasional mentions of trans/cis genders, ability/disability themes, diverse sexualities, and racial experiences. Often the guests do most of this work. I would love the hosts themselves to do more modern feminist academic reading and to better apply an intersectional lens in their conversations. The horror host in particular seems to only consider "the girls and the guys."
I recognize that the hosts are coming from a European perspective (I'm including but it does regularly surprise me how Euro-centric their conversations sometimes are. I'm listening to the episode about female monsters, and am surprised at how Greek focused the conversation is. It seems hard to make any larger statements about female monsters if the only ones considered are coming from the famously misogynist Greeks. Other episodes have sometimes shown that the hosts idea of women in history only means the roles of European/English women in the last ~500 years. It feels surprisingly myopic for a show about intersectional feminism and genres that push at conventional understanding.
I love so many things about this as an SFF podcast, but I wish it was stronger as a feminist podcast.
A Fantastic Show!
Breaking the Glass Slipper is my favorite show on women in SF/F/H (there are a few others, btw). The hosts are knowledgeable and have a great way of approaching the subject that makes the content inviting. The content is varied and compelling. And the guests are always great (and cover a wide range of stuff).
Basically, this is a podcast everyone should listen to, especially if you care about making SF/F/H a better place. A++++
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