89. Dr. Beth Livingston: Building Bridges

• The connection made through Betsy and Beth’s daughters (both previously on the Barbie episode).
• Beth’s upbringing as the only girl and youngest of three children in Louisville, Kentucky. 
• How the impact of “bussing” children to different schools to help balance racial inequality, meant a diverse group of friends and strong realtyonships with her brothers’ older friends.  
• How with all of the male influence and sports talk at home Beth found herself seeing race and gender in different ways than the mainstream stereotypes.
• The way generational racial trauma caused confusion as Beth navigated friendships through high school and into college.
• How a lack of availability to women and positive interactions with men led to her dissociating from the feminine.
• Her realization that because of gender inequality and gender stereotypes she needed to reclaim her feminine. 
• Meeting friend and co-writer of Shared Sisterhood, Tina Opie, a strong black woman in academia.  How they found similarities and built a relationship that led to not only a deep friendship, but also deep personal growth.
• Beth shares how building friendship through shared experience, finding understanding, shared values and being open to learning can reveal new truths in gender and racial equity.
• How Tina and Beth eventually co-wrote Shared Sisterhood, a guide to white and black women navigating friendship and their shared sisterhood.
• The importance of overcoming fear, individual work and racial work that needs to be done before building bridges with our sisters. 

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