The Digital Period

The Digital Period is a podcast series that examines the relationship between autonomy and technology by taking a closer look at period apps. 

In this short introduction, I discuss how I, Judith Zoë, embarked on this adventure in the first place and why I want to talk about period tracking apps. Period apps are one of the most downloaded health apps across the world, and they play an incredible intimate role in our lives. Taking a ...

In this episode Judith talks to her best friend Iris van Wurmond, Mana Sadeghipour, a public policy professional, and Rayén Mitrovich co-founder of radical data about how and why they track their periods.

Together they discuss why tracking one’s period is important to some people and all the different ways this can be done. We also discuss the role of women in health care, the impact of the so-called gender health data gap in healt...

In this episode Judith Zoë talks to Chiara Nowak, a visual artist, and Anastasia Siapka and Elisabetta Biasin from the KU Leuven University. 

To understand the effect of marketing and narratives behind period apps, I spoke to Chiara Nowak, a graphic designer and visual artist working on the project ‘not.a.period’ and got the chance to visit the site of her art installation while we dissected the topic together. 

Anastasia and Elisa...

In this episode, we dive into the principles and practicalities behind period tracking and how we can better equip ourselves to protect our data. 

I talk to Iris Muis from the Data School of the University of Utrecht about how developers can translate values into technology. She points to practical resources that can help make sure our technology is aligned with what we find important. 

During my time at the CPDP conference I was l...

In this episode, we got philosophical as I spoke to Marjolein Lanzing, Naomi Jacobs, and Jenneke Evers - all philosophers who have done research on period apps and self-tracking technologies. I also talked to Anuj Puri, a postdoctoral researcher at Tilburg University, about what autonomy means for privacy. 

Together, we attempt to dissect what autonomy is and how it relates to us in the digital age, especially when it comes to us...

In episode 5, I take time to look to the future. How can we move forward?  How can we build a feminist future with technology that fits our values? And what does that mean for period apps?

To answer these questions, I spoke to Marie Kochsiek, co-founder and developer of the period app Drip and Elisa Lindinger, one of the founders of Superrr Lab, a feminist organization and advocacy hub focused on feminist digital policy and many ot...

This bonus episode of The Digital Period Podcast is about localizing technology to local needs. It touches on the importance of embedding period app technology within societies or different geographic regions.

I spoke to Risper Onyango, who pointed me towards a period app called Oky, developed by UNICEF. I also got the chance to approach Niken Lasarati, the international project manager of Oky as well as Ashley Rarieya and Mercy Nz...