Rebecca Walker

Rebecca Walker

Author: Sydney Opera House June 18, 2018 Duration: 41:00

The daughter of Alice Walker, who wrote the African-American classic The Color Purple, and Melvyn Leventhal, a Jewish civil rights lawyer, Rebecca Walker’s intersecting and sometimes jarring identities were the foundation of her career. In 1992, her article for Ms Magazine ‘I am the Third Wave’ crystallised her thinking around feminism and activism. Its massive success spurred on her work: she established the Third Wave Fund to support young women from diverse backgrounds to pursue activism and leadership. Multiple memoirs, essay collections and a novel followed. Rebecca’s work has always been a response to her personal situation, be it family, identity, becoming a mother, masculinity, race, Buddhism, or a combination of all of these, and she has developed a strong and compelling ethos about what it means to live a feminist life in an ever-changing world.

This episode of It's a Long Story is hosted by Edwina Throsby.

Show notes 'I am the Third Wave' article Rebecca Walker on beauty as resistance On Third Wave feminism Rebecca Walker's bibliography


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.


Behind every significant idea, there is a rich and often winding narrative waiting to be told. It's a Long Story is where those narratives unfold, brought to life by the Sydney Opera House as a key part of its Talks and Ideas program. Host Edwina Throsby guides these explorations, sitting down for deep conversations with a fascinating array of global thinkers, artists, and culture creators. Each episode delves beyond the headlines and finished works, uncovering the personal journeys, creative struggles, and pivotal moments that shape groundbreaking contributions to the arts, commentary, and current affairs. This podcast offers a rare, intimate space to hear the nuanced stories behind the public personas, providing listeners with a deeper understanding of the forces that drive innovation and cultural dialogue. Tune in for thoughtful, extended dialogues that remind us that the most compelling concepts are rarely born in an instant, but are instead the product of a long, considered, and human process.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 62

It's a Long Story
Podcast Episodes
Thordis Elva [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 45:07
Award-winning writer, journalist and public speaker, Thordis Elva was voted Woman of the Year in her native Iceland for her tireless campaigning for gender equality. She believes in ending the silence that still shrouds…
Lindy West [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 42:02
Lindy West’s vibrant humour, refreshing candour and unapologetically trenchant attacks on body shamers and trolls have earned her the admiration of Lena Dunham, Ira Glass, and Caitlin Moran. What can each of us take away…
Mei Fong [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 37:03
Mei Fong is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist who covered China for the Wall Street Journal for many years. Her book, "One Child", the story of China's most radical experiment details the repercussions of the one-child…
Jessa Crispin [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 31:58
Has contemporary feminism grown so tame, cowardly and irrelevant that it barely challenges the status quo? Have feminists traded liberation for acceptance? What will it take to wake the movement up? In a fearless call fo…
Janine di Giovanni [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 22:13
As a war correspondent, Janine di Giovanni has spent the last 30 years covering stories in the most dangerous places on earth. She first reported from Palestine in the late 1980's and has covered almost every major confl…
Giulia Enders [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 36:23
Microbiologist Giulia Enders is seriously into guts. So into guts in fact, that she's been the catalyst for a global movement to encourage people to understand their insides and to not be afraid of talking about them. He…
Geena Davis [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 24:35
When Geena Davis was three years old she announced to her parents that she was going to be in movies. In fact, the quote in her high school year book was "Future plans: go to the big city and become a star." Fast forward…
Josh Thomas [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 34:11
You will know Josh Thomas as the blonde-haired, 20-something from "Please Like Me." An Aussie comedy, which has stolen audience hearts the world over. The New Yorker describes the show as having a "tender, finicky qualit…
Gretel Killeen [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 41:03
Some words to describe the woman who sits before you; creative - you've seen her on TV and in theatre. Prolific - she's written more than 20 books. Overachieving maybe as well - she wrote many of them while raising two c…
Chris Borelli [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 33:35
Christopher Eric Borrelli is a features and culture writer for the "Chicago Tribune." By his own admission, a bland title. But there's nothing bland about what he writes and how he writes it. I was a typical latchkey kid…