“One of the things that I really wanted to focus on, and I felt it immediately after meeting Lina the housewife in Indiana [played by Betty Gilpin in the show], whose husband no longer wanted to kiss her on the mouth, I felt like this woman was as important as the Queen of England, as important as Napoleon. I felt her dreams and fears are just as universal as someone who has defeated an army and the only reason we’re not hearing about her is because we have these sorts of rules in place for what possesses historical significance. And I don’t really think that that’s necessarily true,” says Lisa Taddeo, author of the book Three Women, on which her new TV show is based. 

In today’s episode, we speak to Lisa Taddeo, creator of the show Three Women that stars Shailene Woodley, Betty Gilpin, DeWanda Wise and Gabrielle Creevy as “ordinary” women searching for their sexual identity and fulfillment in disparate and surprising ways. The show is an intimate, often stark portrayal of forbidden female desire and the consequences of that desire – both good and bad. 

We also talk about writing the “female gaze” into the scripts, filming with prosthetic penises, the power the book Twilight has on teenage girls, and the uncanny way our mothers influence our own sexuality. 

“My mother made up her face every morning, even when she wasn’t going to leave the house. Who is she? My father sees her before she puts on her face as they say, so it’s not for him. Nobody is coming to the door today, so it’s not for them. It’s certainly not for me, because I see her without makeup when she washes it off at night. So, who is it for, you know? And that was a question I had but didn’t really know how to frame,” Taddeo says. 

To hear more about the groundbreaking show Three Women that’s airing on Starz, listen to the podcast. 

Trigger warning: contains mentions of sexual explicit material, sexual assault and trauma.