Episode 30: Wise Wives and Witch Hunts
Discover how King James VI's insecurities sparked the North Berwick Witch Trials – the first of Scotland's brutal witch hunts. When storms hit his wedding voyage, he blamed witches—leading to torture, execution, and a Bible translation that shaped centuries of misogyny. A dark tale of fragile masculinity meets divine right.
Episode 29: Monsters and morals
Meet the shishiga, the siguanaba, Umm al-Duwais, and the Deer Woman. These female monsters from across the globe have a shared duty: They warn, protect, and punish – but this time, they’re targeting men.
Episode 28: Chloe, Cleo, and the Myrtles Plantation
Chloe, the world-famous ghost of an enslaved girl lynched for poisoning a white woman and two children, has put the Myrtles Plantation on the dark tourism map. If that sentence felt problematic to you, I promise, it gets worse.
Episode 27: Hillary Clinton and the Lizard People
Paranormal Pajama Party returns with a look at conspiracy theories, gender, and power, exploring how women in politics are often demonised. Listen to the Season 3 premiere now.
Ladies, Listen To This Before You Build Your Crow Army
Explore ghost stories and paranormal legends with a feminist twist on season three of Paranormal Pajama Party.
“Get Away From Her, You Bitch!”
As I think about the "Alien" series more, I keep coming back to its use of a gendered term as the go-to insult. It seems weird for a feminist movie franchise. Why does it keep popping up in powerful moments? Read on to reclaim language with Ripley.
MU/TH/UR Doesn’t Always Know Best
Let's talk about a freaky maternal figure who didn’t get the recognition she deserved in the Alien episode: MU/TH/UR, the Nostromo’s artificial intelligence system.
Episode 26: “Aliens”
We're off again with Ripley, this time headed into the hive. From an iconic feminist action hero to the Xenomorph Queen's monstrous power, learn how the sci-fi horror classic Aliens redefined feminine strength.
Episode 25: “Alien”
We're dipping our toes into the feminist undercurrents of Ridley Scott's Alien in this eye-opening episode. We dissect how this sci-fi horror classic subverts genre expectations, forcing viewers to confront uncomfortable truths about gender and power. Discover why Alien remains a powerful statement on women's experiences, cleverly disguised as a monster movie.
Episode 24: Green Ladies and Glaistigs
Discover Scotland's eerie green spectres: from mischievous glaistigs to tragic green ladies. Explore the folklore, superstitions, and ethical questions surrounding these female phantoms that haunt Scotland's ancient castles and fuel its paranormal tourism industry.
Episode 23: Rangda
Discover the complex mythology of Rangda, Bali's demon queen. From ancient Hindu-Buddhist kingdoms to modern Indonesia, we explore how this fearsome figure embodies the duality of creation and destruction. Uncover the historical roots of Rangda in Queen Mahendradatta's story and examine how powerful women throughout history have been demonised for political gain.
Episode 22: “The Fall of the House of Usher” (Part 2)
Explore how the 19th-century Cult of True Womanhood may have influenced Edgar Allan Poe's female characters. From Madeline Usher to modern horror and the cult of domesticity to the tradwife movement, we unpack some of society’s “feminine” ideals and their surprising link to feminism. We also talk about how women in fiction still struggle to break free from being mere reflections of male narratives.
Episode 21: “The Fall of the House of Usher” (part 1)
Edgar Allan Poe, known for pioneering gothic literature, had a fixation on beautiful dead women in his works. This motif reflects his personal losses and the cultural glamorisation of tuberculosis, a disease often associated with beauty and death in his time.
Episode 20: The Malleus Maleficarum (part 2)
The dark history of witch hunts, exemplified by Heinrich Kramer’s “Malleus Maleficarum,” has disturbing parallels with modern misogynistic violence. This week, we’re bringing the story of the witch-hunts into the present, because unfortunately, more than 250 years later, not nearly enough has changed.