In this episode of Middle Fingers Up, I’m in conversation with Farida D, author of The Shit That Made Me a Feminist — a body of work that names the lived realities many women are taught to swallow quietly.

Out of respect for her safety, this episode is audio-only. Farida’s work — which centers women of color, power, rage, and structural inequality — does not allow her the privilege of visibility without risk. And yet, she has chosen not to stop. She continues to speak, write, and show up for women, even when doing so requires navigating the cost of being seen.

This conversation moves through the “shit” that made feminism unavoidable — the moments where being grateful was expected instead of being honest, where motherhood shocked the system, where rage became information, and where the bar for men ended exactly where it began for women.

We talk about:

Why we are all born feminist, long before we have language for it

How boys are given credit before they’re even born

Why we do not choose our privileges or our oppressions

The difference between having access to education but not access to safety

Why this work is about structures, not individual people

And why naming what’s happening is the first step to understanding it

This episode is a reminder to trust your rage, "to feel the fire already inside you"

There is space for all of us — but not without truth.

IG: @farida.d.author

🎧 Audio-only episode

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In the spirit of reconciliation, we acknowledge that we live, work and play on the traditional territories of the Blackfoot Confederacy (Siksika, Kainai, Piikani), the Tsuut’ina, the Îyâxe Nakoda Nations, the Métis Nation (Region 3), and all people who make their homes in the Treaty 7 region of Southern Alberta.