Odds & ends

• Crazy weather this week: Tuesday, we reached 30C and a humidex reading of 35C (that's 86F and 95F). The air conditioner was running non-stop. Yesterday, we woke up to 3C/37F, and rain mixed with... SNOW?!!  On May 28th!!  Gotta love springtime in Canada, lol... 
• Gateway Women's Jody Day said she wanted to make 2021 her "Year of the Podcast" -- and she's getting her wish, lol. She's been spreading the word about childlessness on one podcast after another recently, including three this month (so far!) -- and most of them outside the childless community, too:  
• On "A Certain Age" with Katie Fogarty, Jody talked about being childless at midlife and how to be a better friend and ally to the childless women in your life. 
• On How to Be Sad with Helen Russell, Jody touches on various aspects of childless-related grief (and talks about some things she's never publicly discussed before). 
• On the Virgin.Beauty.B!tch podcast, Jody takes a deep dive into some of the societal and structural issues around life without children that rarely get discussed -- including how  pronatalism and consumerism have fetishized and commodified motherhood, and how this oppresses all women, whether they are mothers or not. (And how it all started with Demi Moore...!) Says Jody: "This interview goes places other interviews I've done have not." It's fascinating!  
• I haven't actually listened to all of these yet, but podcast transcripts are available to read on the Gateway Women website, under "News."  
• In her TEDx talk a while back, Jody called childless people "the biggest workplace diversity issue that HR has never heard of." That's starting to change! Gateway Women operations director Karin Enfield and GW members Shar and Cecilia recently took part in an online conversation about childless women in the workplace. It was hosted by Julia Fomoniva, the founder of an organization called Human Rocks, who is advocating for more support for childless employees in HR policies. They were also joined by Dr. Galina Boiarintseva, Assistant Professor of Management at Niagara University in Ontario, who does academic research into diversity & inclusion policies for childless employees. This is an important issue that is FINALLY beginning to get some attention as a valid concern alongside other diversity and inclusion issues. Watch this groundbreaking conversation on YouTube here. 
• I've created a new tag/label for posts on this blog that mention interesting podcasts.