This American Life- Five Women

It’s a little more than a week since Valentine’s Day! A hallmark holiday to be sure, but it’s fitting that this be a review of a podcast I’ve loved recently.

Through interviews with five women, this episode of This American Life explores the relationships these women had with Don Hazen, the former executive editor of Alternet, a progressive news website. First released in March 2018 after the publishing of a Buzzfeed article detailing sexual harassment allegations against Hazen, including from some of the women profiled, the episode was re-released January 24th with a newly recorded epilogue.

This podcast is so engaging because it harnesses the power of the medium to capture the gravity of things that feel small, yet uncomfortable. Unlike practiced testimonies that have partially desensitized me to descriptions of assault, listening to these interviews is affecting. Hearing the intonations in these women’s voices, I understand the confusion, murderous anger, empowerment, and the self-conscious questioning “is this even a big deal?”

The focus of this podcast is women. The common thread between them is their connection to Hazen, but this podcast so deftly shows the events that shaped their interactions with him, and the way they, individually, make sense of themselves, those events and their former boss or husband. I most connected with some of the women’s descriptions of childhood or adolescent dynamics with boys or men. One was from Onnesha, who, in middle school, overheard her friends, boys, describing her as “the Hypnotizer” in her tie-dyed bathing suit. This led to her dressing in large baggy clothes and slouching, embittered by this new sexualizing that contrasted the way she saw herself. Her observation of other girls merging themselves with this sexualized version is something familiar to me. There are parallels between all of these women and clear differences that any listener can connect with.

What I am left with is a line from Deanna, a woman Hazen had an affair with, who reflects, after Hazen did something surprising and unasked for, “It did not make sense to me and I made sense of it, and that carried through our entire relationship.” This underscores the entire episode and the aftermath of sexual harassment, as well as relationships in general. The urge to make sense of something unwanted from a person that made these women feel special is what allowed Hazen’s harassment to go on for so long.