88. If I Were the Man, I'd Be the Man: Women in the Economy and Gun Culture with Economist Misty Heggeness and Sociologist Margaret Kelley (Live Show!)

Our guests today have just released two eye-opening books! In Swiftynomics: How Women Mastermind and Redefine Our Economy, economist Misty Heggeness uses the stories of trailblazers like Taylor Swift to reveal how everyday American women shape the economy, often in ways the numbers never capture. In A Gun of Her Own: The Everyday Lives of Women Who Shoot, sociologist Margaret S. Kelley shows that for many women, a gun is about more than protection; it's a symbol of independence and control over their own lives.

Heggeness and Kelley are both working to fill huge gaps in research on women's contributions to the economy and on women as gun owners.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• Whether politics and gun ownership align for women

• Why Taylor Swift has changed our understanding of women in business

• Who cooked for Adam Smith, and why that invisible hand is the most important of all, even if Smith didn't know it

• What "care privilege" is, and why male economists ignore it

• What "vigilance of care" means for women gun owners

• How gun marketing has changed, and how that affects women

• Why, if women are more at risk, they don't own more guns than men

This is IWAW's first show recorded outside the studio, taped live at the 2026 Kansas Book Festival, hosted by Washburn University in Topeka, Kansas. Join us!