My first Fine Feminists takeover episode of The Daily Whatever Show felt like both a debut and a line in the sand.
Lawrence Winnerman was still there in the chat — an odd little role reversal — but this was my Thursday, a space we carved out for women’s lives, women’s rights, and the uncomfortable reality that so many things Gen X grew up assuming were permanent… simply aren’t.
I opened the show with the personal context behind Fine Feminists: coming of age with Roe v. Wade, no-fault divorce, financial independence, and the basic ability to build a life on your own terms.
It’s hard to believe how easily those freedoms once felt like givens, and how surreal it is to watch them erode in real time, not just legally but culturally, through the way feminism itself is being reframed as something suspect or even harmful.
Melissa Corrigan, she/her joined me first, wearing RBG earrings from a fellow Substack artist Beware Of Artists, and immediately grounded the conversation in what she does best: auditing the narrative one story at a time.
Melissa and I discussed our new Blue Amp piece on the SAVE Act, a bill already passed by the House that claims to be about “election security” but, in practice, could create massive new barriers for voters whose names don’t match their birth certificates — which is to say, most married women, many divorced women, widows, trans people, and anyone who has changed their name for safety or survival.
Melissa broke down the paperwork trap with chilling clarity: certified documents for every link in the chain, with voter roll purges as the looming weapon.
Rachel @ This Woman Votes joined us and brought her trademark systems-level fire, calling it “administrative violence” and naming the larger pattern: cruelty not as a side effect, but as the credential. The SAVE Act wasn’t just bureaucracy — it was strategy.
The episode turned briefly tender when all three shared their first voting stories, from Dana skipping her first election, to Melissa being openly instructed to vote for Bush, to Rachel’s mother treating the ballot like homework and civic inheritance.
By the end, the call was blunt: get your documents, get your passport, be loud, be insufferable, be prepared.
Thanks to Melissa Corrigan, she/her and Rachel @ This Woman Votes! Fine Feminists didn’t arrive gently — it arrived woke, and yes, I’m taking that word back, just like the word “feminist.”
Also, a big thank you Egberto Willies, Nick Paro, Caro Henry, Margaret Williams, MS, ACC, Natasha K., and many others for tuning in today. Thanks you to Karen Marie Shelton for moderating The Whatever chat.
Lawrence and I will be back tomorrow for Fucked-up Friday with our guest Mike Nellis. Please join us at our special time of 1PM EST/12 PM CST.
We love you all—truly!—mean it.
