"Introducing Clitoral Conflabs"

Transcript and shownotes from the first episode of the new podcast from The Agentic Feminine

April 22, 2026

Meredith (00:02)

Hey there and welcome to the first episode of Clitoral Conflabs, currently the official podcast of the Agentic Feminine. My name is Meredith and I'm the founder. I'm not gonna highlight my last name because I don't plan on keeping it after my youngest turns 18. More on that later, because that's a conversation.

Anyway, I'm recording this introductory episode in April, 2026. So I am currently a 48 year old badass recently divorced, solo mom of three school-age, pretty spectacular kiddos. I've got one in high school, I've got one about to be in high school, and one in middle school. Just to get started, here's a little bit about me. So my family's from South Louisiana, but I have spent the vast majority of my life in Texas. I grew up with a big conservative Christian extended family and in a conservative area.

Hell, I was even a delegate at the Houston and Texas Republican Conventions when I was 18 and an evangelical Christian in 1996. Yeah, I voted for Bob Dole and the whole nine yards. Anyway, recently I have moved with my kids to California about two and a half years ago for a whole host of reasons I'll be getting into later. My mom came too and is living her little dream life in her cute little house down the street, super cute.

I have a degree in government from the University of Texas and worked as a geopolitical analyst covering mostly Asia and doing some pretty cool shit. Before, I was unable to outrun patriarchy. I found myself as a stay-at-home mom in a shit-tastic marriage that only ended a few years ago.

Now know it's a privilege to be able to be a stay-at-home mom with your babies when they're young, but I never wanted to completely give up my career and it was truly like a soul death more and more every day. It has been inexpressibly difficult and I've had to fight my damnedest to be able to get to a point where I could really launch The Agentic Feminine in a way that truly aligned with who I am, what I can do, and where I can focus my strengths at best to not just help restore women to their rightful place in their own lives and society, but to meet the cataclysmic changes we're facing in today's current political, social, and overall climate.

I just want to say a quick thank you to those of you who have followed my journey with the agentic feminine for any length of time. You've witnessed me rebuilding and trying different things, trying to find the right fit. And most of the content I've been putting out for The Agentic Feminine has been personal and bearing witness to my divorce and subsequent move to California and my rebuilding and my putting my life back together.

But I'm pivoting now. It's time for me to do what I'm meant to do and it's time for The Agentic Feminine to become what she was meant to become and it's going to be awesome. While my previous iterations were close, they weren't quite where we needed to be, so I've wiped the slate clean and we're really gonna get down to business. That starts with a redesigned website and this podcast.

So with this first podcast, I'm going to explain a few things:

• what I mean by "rewilding,"

• where I got the term "agentic,"

• why I chose "Clitoral Conflabs" as the title.

And I just wanna have like a little side note. I was hoping my braces would be off by the time I restarted this, but that's not gonna happen till June, so here we are, and please bear with me during this difficult time. My Texas accent can be a little more prominent because with braces, enunciating hurts my mouth.

Meredith (03:31)

All right, let's talk about why I use the term "rewild." Women are sovereign beings. Yes, there's epigenetics and generational trauma, but you didn't come to this life in a cage. I didn't come to this life in a cage. We come to this life wild, and then we're conditioned and indoctrinated to be small, likeable, pleasing helpmates and service providers to men. We're indoctrinated to deprioritize our wants, needs, preferences, confidence, to lose our sense of self, to sublimate our decision-making, and allow others to determine our path. That's not just by happenstance, and it ain't for shits and giggles.

It's because we live in a patriarchy which dehumanizes women and turns us into service bots, baby incubators, and sex providers for men. We are conditioned to give up our sovereignty so that aren't just easier to control, but that we keep ourselves in line and other women in line. And we raise our daughters to be in line with this conditioning and our sons to enforce it.

We lose ourselves, the connection to our inherent wisdom and our souls and our soul voice, our FIRE, our capacity and capabilities, agency and power, we lose our wild because we are trying to stay safe or keep others – such as our children safe – inside this oppressive infrastructure. And in doing so, many of us end up upholding and even strengthening this horrific patriarchy.

But our connection to ourselves and our wild isn't lost forever. It's always waiting for us to come back to it and reclaim it. This is why I say women REWILD. We return to our wild selves as we begin to heal ourselves from this socialization and examine how it affects our life and how we ourselves are perpetuating it.

This knowledge can help us reframe our paradigm and we can learn to divest slowly perhaps, but steadily from capitalist white supremacist patriarchy. As we end that self-abandonment and rebuild that connection, we can establish, uplift and support other people and organizations in that same space. So when we rewild, it isn't just an individual event. It doesn't just happen in a vacuum. It has ripples and tentacles that affect everyone around you and us and the community at large. How do we fix the world?

We help women rewild, at least that's what I do. I started by posting an extensive list of books for rewilding women on my library of resources page on my website, which I will post in the show notes. This list does not include memoirs or fiction, but I will create lists of those book genres as well.

Meredith (06:17)

Moving on, why I use the term "agentic." Now, I got the word "agentic" from the book, Fierce Self-Compassion by Dr. Kristin Neff. That book was incredibly eye-opening and enormously helpful to me during the darkest, last days of my marriage and COVID isolation when I was virtually schooling three kids and I was just completely losing it and I had lost myself. I had completely lost myself and it helped me really commit to and understand the journey back. So in that book, Dr. Neff really breaks down a lot of our society's patriarchal norms that sentence us to perpetual self-hate and self-criticism and this includes men.

And one of the things she does is break down character traits that patriarchy associates with genders in an effort to create this like really tight, harmful binary that makes people easier to control. She says, quote, "In most cultures, females are considered communal and males, agentic. Women are seen as sensitive, warm, cooperative and concerned with the welfare of others as men are seen as strong, aggressive, goal-oriented and independent." So my interpretation, end quote. So my interpretation was that she replaced the word "feminine" and "masculine" with the words "communal" and "agentic" in order to break them out of that harmful, patriarchal binary.

The traits that we associate with masculine are more "agentic" traits. And of course, "agentic" is a derivative of the word "agency" defined as "the ability to make decisions and act independently." And it's the perfect word for what we're trying to accomplish because we want to reclaim our power but without demanding power over others. And that's the problem with the word "power." That's why they use the word "power" is that so many times that's what it means – power over – when really what I'm trying to accomplish is a reclamation of agency. For women to step back into their ability to do what they want, make their own decisions, trust themselves, and step into their rightful place in society, to have agency and be agentic, yet ALSO be communal – to be concerned with the welfare of others, which is a big part of who we are – to be of service and alleviate suffering. To find our rightful balance for each of us, which is mature, wise, discerning, as we do the work of being well, of regulating our nervous systems so that we CAN be of service to the community as well as ourselves and our loved ones.

So that is a long way of explaining the word "agentic" in the title of The Agentic Feminine. I know that the name of a business and organization should probably be very simple and obvious to I've gotten feedback that agentic is confusing and weird, but the word "agentic" just grabbed me and it wouldn't let me go. And I love it. I love the way it sounds. I love the way it feels in my mouth when I say it. We are Agentic Women.

And choosing the labels and words we use when we are working to rebalance society away from patriarchy is a theme that will come up again and again in my work. And there are times when I don't make the transition over to newer language. But I think that using words like "agentic" as opposed to "masculine" in a society in which male domination is wreaking extreme horror is really important.

Now I kept "feminine" because I want to be extremely clear that I'm talking to women and people who have been socialized as female.

Meredith (09:59)

All right, so let's talk about the podcast Clitoral Conflabs. Yeah, this is clearly not a gynecological or medical podcast. So, as I have built the infrastructure of The Agentic Feminine, I have purposefully labeled a few of the upcoming publications with references to female anatomy. The blog is called "Piratical Vagenda" – I came up with that title a few years ago.

The newsletter is "Dispatches from Fallopia" and my streak of female excellence continues with "Clitoral Conflabs." The disrespect given to women's bodies is an intentional strategy of patriarchy in the erasure and removal of women from every aspect of respectable society, especially the echelons that wield power and status.

The global patriarchy, yes, global, renders women's bodies and personhood unimportant by ridiculing, trivializing, and neglecting every aspect of our existence. We are unnecessary – except for our ability to service the male gender in various capacities. Our female gendered parts are scrutinized, demonized, and labeled as profane and even their mere existence as sinful, simply for the sole purpose of unseating us as givers of life, community and family leaders, and power practitioners that prevent the corrupt and violent from decimating and desecrating everything in their path.

Once power structures have succeeded in relegating something as profane or improper in the general zeitgeist and broader culture, such as the clitoris, they no longer need to proactively oppress people themselves. With the social conditioning in place, the powerful, which in a patriarchy is men, can rely on the public at large, including and sometimes most especially other women, to enforce the oppression. Honestly, go to almost any white Christian church and you'll find women on the front lines of sexual purity control and persecution, which has a direct correlation with domestic and sexual violence and more. This then all translates into self-loathing and self-policing from people who have bodies prohibited from membership to, quote, polite, respectable, society where access to resources is available.

In order to stay safe, we have to hide the bits about us that label us as less than and make us targets for oppression and abuse. This reality where women's bodies are so widely and profoundly disrespected and regulated isn't just harmful on a globally epidemic scale. It's deadly, especially for black women in the US who face much greater societal hurdles in accessing resources, including safe and effective health care.

This also contributes to women losing sovereignty over their own sexual lives and pleasure, body parts, probably none are seen as obscene or taboo as the clitoris, a scientifically anatomically correct term. Because for most women, it is the epicenter of sexual pleasure. And in a patriarchy, women do not own their lives, their bodies, and for damn sure, their own sexuality.

To label the clit or clitoris as obscene is to effectively weaponize our bodies against us. Our lives, personhoods, souls, bodies, our entire humanity are forfeit from the jump. Well, fuck that. The way to combat it is to use these terms all day, every day to free women's bodies from these societal stigmas that take our power and threaten our lives. Say it loud and proud over and over, clitoris, clitoris, clitoris.

Now, quick recommendation, give @amydiehlphd a follow on threads. She provides all sorts of fantastic news links for women, including a recent Guardian piece on the vast network of nerves of the clitoris being mapped out for the first time. I'll put the link in the show notes. Now, I want to say here very clearly that trans women's bodies, anatomies, processes, and experiences also matter and are of vital importance and have my full support and admiration.

Meredith (14:22)

okay. Now I'm gonna tell y'all where the word "conflab" comes from for me, like my personal history with it. It can be pronounced conFAB or conFLAB I like conFLAB because the first time I heard it was on one of the best shows ever produced in the history of television. It's called "Glow Up."

Okay, and in the US, we watch it on Netflix, but it is a BBC production. Now for some dark and sinister, wretched reason, Netflix has not carried the last two seasons and that needs to be rectified (French)immediament. Now, let me tell y'all just a little bit about it. It is a competition show amongst makeup artists and I'm talking like extremely talented people and it is jaw-droppingly spectacular. It's also fun and loving and has fantastic energy and it helped save my life when I was in quarantine with my three baby kiddos during the height of COVID. Now, at the end of each episode, there are always two contestants who are on the bottom who then have to compete in a duel where they have to make some makeup magic on a set of identical twins. And the main judges, Val Garland and Dominic Skinner, evaluate the makeup artists' work, after which Val asks Dom,

"So are you ready for a conflab?"

Then they proceed to deliberate before they must tragically send one contestant home. And I just loved it. Conflab. Ready for a conflab? You have a conflab? And I, I like, I want it to be in like my regular vernacular.

I love words and it's quite possible that I'm a weirdo because I really notice how words feel in my mouth and I really enjoy saying certain words like spatula, spatula, which has really sucked having braces, whatever. Conflab tickled me from the get-go and was one of the few highlights of the torment of COVID quarantining with my kids, which was not a fate worse than death, but let me tell you, it was making me think about it.

Meredith (16:19)

All right, lastly, let me tell y'all what I imagine each episode of Clitoral Conflabs will be. There will be talk about politics and government because, know, obviously that is the area that provides the greatest attack on rewilding women, the greatest obstacles, and also the most important avenues of resistance and rebuilding.

Plus, I am a government major and now I would not call myself a politics junkie anymore because I don't know how productive it is to participate in the gamification of what's going on. It almost like renders it like we're in some sort of reality TV show and we're in reality. And so I do think that while there are a lot of different ways to approach politics, being a politics junkie, to me is no longer for myself, it's no longer a productive way to approach what the hell is going on in this world. So we must be aware, involved, and dedicated to using all the avenues and tools to create the society everyone deserves to live in. As the founder of The Agentic Feminine, I will be discussing current events, what's happening in the zeitgeist relevant to rewilding women, and then explore broader topics and themes.

Like I'm super excited. can't even, I'm gonna be doing, it's gonna be the best. These episodes are not gonna be recorded in one sitting. As a mom, I have to be very flexible. mean, my kids' schedules are all over the place. So I'll be recording each section of each episode when I have a chance. So they might seem disjointed, but them's the breaks.

One thing I will not do, however, under any circumstances, no matter how much you pay me, no matter how much you threaten me, no matter what happens, is design those little sensationalist thumbnails that are super trendy on YouTube right now. Those little thumbnails that are like insane with the font and the expressions and all the different, they remind me of the gross and repulsive tabloid, the National Enquirer that was in that grocery store checkout aisle. And honestly, the fact that there was such a market for that, including my grandmother in her elder years, should have prepared me for the fact that a Trump presidency was coming down the pike. So I ain't doing that. But welcome to Clitoral Conflabs. We're going to have the best time and we're going to have the most productive time and we're gonna have the most fired up time.

We're gonna be rewilding and exploring so much and really getting a handle on what patriarchy is, what matriarchy is, how we could build new sociopolitical infrastructures, how we could meet women who are on our same wavelength and be a cohesive unit changing the world. This is going to be monumental. It's gonna be a big deal. I have a whole vision for The Agentic Feminine laid out so that we can grab a hold of the future that we all deserve. I'm so glad you're here. I'm excited you're here and we're doing this.

Get ready, buckle up, and I hope you're as excited as I am. See you soon.

Meredith (19:17)

One last thing, I wanna make really clear that while I host Clitoral Conflabs, the POV of this podcast is going to be that of a single mom. I am a divorced woman. I am happily, merrily, orgasmically single.

Now, no disrespect to anybody, but there is a gaping, sucking, massive hole, a missing voice, one that is acutely affected by everything everyone is discussing while we are not present and we don't have a microphone.

That is the viewpoint of single moms, especially those of school-aged and very young kids. Now, I am a Cishet white woman who is able-bodied for the most part, so I have a lot of privilege, absolutely. But single and divorced moms are downstream from the socio-political and socioeconomic culture and decisions by people who have no idea what we are going through like few other demographic groups.

This isn't to diminish at all the fact that there are a number of other demographic groups who similarly experience the residual bullshit of white supremacist patriarchy and lack the necessary influence, attention, voice and space in social, cultural and political media.

We all experience white supremacist patriarchy viscerally. So here at The Agentic Feminine and Clitoral Conflabs, I am dedicated to lifting up all of these voices. But let me be clear, let me be crystal clear. We are women-centered. We actively de-center men while discussing ways in which the culture of male domination – the violence, the narcissism, the oppression impacts us.

Furthermore, we de-center whiteness while acknowledging the impacts of racialized socioeconomics and marginalization. Bottom line y'all is I'm a single divorced mom with precious little support and I will be telling it like it is. We'll be getting into it in ways that are welcoming, original, enlightening and productive. See you next time.

Shownotes:

Introducing "Clitoral Conflabs," the official podcast of The Agentic Feminine. Hosted by me, Meredith, I briefly touch on my background, why I use the term "rewilding," where the word "agentic" originates, why I chose "Clitoral Conflabs" as a title for this podcast as well as what it will encompass. I close with a brief explanation of the POV of the podcast as that of a single mom. Welcome and enjoy! Glad you are here!

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Clitoral Conflabs

03:30 Why I say 'Rewilding'

06:14 Where I got the term 'Agentic'

09:57 Lore Behind the title 'Clitoral Conflabs'

14:19 'Conflab' Is Such a Great Word

16:17 Brief description of 'Clitoral Conflabs'

19:08 POV: Single Moms/Women-Centered

🖥️ The Agentic Feminine Website: https://www.theagenticfeminine.com/

🛍️ The Agentic Feminine Merch Store (just getting started!): https://the-agentic-feminine.printify.me/

📚 TAF Canon of Non-Fiction Literature for Rewilding women: https://www.theagenticfeminine.com/_files/ugd/57e401_fd9e9defdec648b88bfdcc52cdcf6ace.pdf

🧵 Amydiehlphd on Threads: https://www.threads.com/@amydiehlphd

📰 “Full network of clitoral nerves mapped out for first time” from The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/mar/29/full-network-clitoral-nerves-mapped-out-first-time-women-pelvic-surgery

📖 Fierce Self-Compassion by Kristin Neff, Ph.D.: https://bookshop.org/p/books/fierce-self-compassion-how-women-can-harness-kindness-to-speak-up-claim-their-power-and-thrive-kristin-neff/15209763?ean=9780063473577&next=t