I've been reading / listening to podcasts by various "public intellectuals" and watching lots of TED talks / interviews recently etc (I happen to have a week alone at home while DH is away with our children). Some that I have really enjoyed are Sam Harris's Making Sense podcasts (recommended on here), TED interviews with him and others including Jared Diamond, George Monbiot, Yuval Harari, Douglas Rushkoff's Team Human Podcast. I've been reading a lot of history and geopolitics - George Friedman, Robert Kaplan (DH is a geography teacher, so we have a lot of these in the house anyway!). They are absolutely fascinating.
However, it has struck me just how white and male this whole group of thinkers / writers / academics is. I haven't specifically gone looking for female equivalents (that's where you can maybe help me out) but there certainly aren't any jumping off the screen at me. Sometimes the guests on the Podcasts are female - but not often. Maybe it's because the subject areas themselves to tend to be dominated by men - science, public perception of science, geopolitics, history, tech / AI etc.
Something I hate to admit, but I am trying to be honest about, is that maybe I don't find female equivalents because I don't expect them to be as clever, funny, challenging, well-informed. I am quite ashamed to admit this.
So help me out. Point me in the direction of female "public intellectuals" in these fields who will help me address my internalised academic misogyny ;-) . And if we are struggling to find them, maybe we could talk about why that is? It did strike me when Sam Harris was talking about the wonders of meditation, just when does he find the time to do this? Who's taking on his mental load while he's having all these "big ideas"?