March 12, 2014 • 25 mins
Jessica Lamb-Shapiro, author of "Promise Land," stops by the show to share her insights on the history of self-help, its particular appeal to women and whether it can really improve lives.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to stuff Mom Never told You From house Supports
dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Christen
and I'm Caroline. And today on the show we're talking
to author Jessica Lamb Shapiro, who recently published the book
Promised Land, not to be confused with Promised Land. Uh.
(00:26):
It's her journey through America's self help culture, and it's
part memoir, part history, part examination of the self help industry,
and a really fun read. Yeah. She is clearly incredibly
on point. She knows the ins and outs of the
self helped genre, and part of that is because of
her own family history. Yeah, her father is a psychologist
(00:48):
and he plays a prominent role in this story and
in the memoir part I should say of Promised Land
and growing up, he was always making self help products
or writing self help books. He never became like a
chicken soup for the soul style like mega self help author.
(01:08):
But he, you know, as you'll learn in the book,
was continually and still kind of is actively engaged in
the self help industry. Yeah. And uh, we learned so
much from her book and from talking to her. For instance,
the history of self help. I didn't realize stretches all
the way back to ancient Egypt and the Greek philosophers.
It moves through history into the Middle Ages and Renaissance
(01:31):
with books that you know, they talk about behavior of
princes and kings that you should model or not model.
Moving all the way into the nineteenth century in the
Victorian period where quote unquote self help really really takes
off advice on everything from marriage, to having babies to
keeping a house. Yeah, and it's in that Victorian era,
as Jessica will talk about more in our interview, that's
(01:52):
when you see more self help targeted specifically towards women.
What jumped out to me in the history of elf help,
which she lays out so well, is how in its
earliest eras it was largely directed towards men, the betterment
of men in order for them to socially climb through
the ranks. Which makes sense because back then women really
(02:15):
didn't have much There were no there were no ranks.
What what what would they climb? And I gotta say I
first heard Jessica Lamb Shapire talking about this book in
an interview with Harry Gross on Fresh Air, and I
was driving home actually from the house. Stuff works offices,
and it was such a fantastic interview, and it was
(02:35):
a topic that we've been wanting to talk about on
the podcast for a while, self help. And so as
soon as the interview finished, I googled her and looked
up her publicist name and hope that she would want
to come on the show, and she did, hooray. So
we hope that you enjoyed this conversation with Jessica Lamb Shapiro,
(02:55):
author of Promised Land, My Journey through America's self help culture. So,
first of all, Jessica, thanks so much for coming on
stuff Mom never told you. So for listeners who might
not be familiar with Promised Land, could you talk a
little bit about your inspiration for writing this book and
(03:16):
how that was connected to your father's self help career.
I mean, it sort of happened by coincidence because my dad,
who had written so many self help books, had never
reached a certain level of fame of someone like Dr
Phil or like the Chicken Sup for the Soul series, um,
And so he heard about this conference for self help
authors that was taught by the guy who co wrote
(03:38):
Chicken Sup for the Soul, and I guess he kind
of fell into this uh seductive idea that there might
be some secret that he didn't know. UM. So he
told me he was going to this conference, and I
just want because I thought it would be kind of fun.
And I didn't really have anything to do. UM. I
had just graduated from grad school and I was in
my early twenties and I was really adrift. UM. And
I don't know, maybe I was secretly so chank them
(04:00):
self help for myself. UM. But I went with him,
and I guess what I saw there surprised me so
much that kind of piqued this curiosity. And then I
started looking into self help and the history of self help.
And then I got really interested because I I kind
of started to realize what an integral part of American
society it is and how long it has been that way.
(04:22):
And I've always been a real American history buff and
I'm just really interested in, like what the way that
America defines itself. Um, And it seemed to be really
wrapped up in that. So I guess that's what kind
of fascinated me. Well, early self help from these stoic
philosophers all the way up to Horatio Alger seems typically
(04:42):
to be directed just at male readers. When did female
readers start getting in on the self help game? I mean,
that's a really great question and sort of fascinating because
I mean, for thousands of years, self help was written
by men for men, and I think a lot of
that was because women and weren't They didn't know how
to read, and they didn't know how to write, and
(05:03):
they weren't given that kind of education. Um. And so
part of it is congruent with women, you know, getting
getting their own education. Um. But basically it was after
the Industrial Revolution, um that you first started to see
books written for women, not always buy women, and they
were mostly on house swiffery, being a mother, raising children,
(05:24):
how to keep servants in line. And they were really
written for upper class women because they were always you know,
about things that you would need money to do, like
have servants or have a house that you would have
to manage. Um. And those were the women who also
knew how to read and write, so you know, it
all kind of made sense. Um. And then later in
the nineteenth century you saw some women starting to write
these books for women and they started to include recipes.
(05:47):
These early books are really interesting because they weren't on
just one topic. They would be on basically every topic
that could possibly relate to you as a woman. So
you would buy one book and it would have, uh,
you know, how to clean your house, how to manage
your servants, how to raise your kids, how to be
a good wife, you know, social niceties like what works
to serve you know, how to play, how to lay
(06:07):
at the table, um, and also recipes, and I mean
they were just like these these codgepodge books of like
everything having to do with almost how to be a woman.
And then later on they started to get down to
more specific topics. Um, in the early nineteen hundreds, there
were there were diet books for men and for the
general public in the nineteen hundreds, but it was in
(06:29):
the twentieth century that you started to see diet books
for women specifically um written by women, calorie counting, that
sort of thing. And so it was really like, I
would say the early nineteen hundreds that you started to
see a lot of women's self help authors than even
more books directed specifically at women and then broken down
by topic, as opposed to one big book that covered
(06:51):
you know, every topic. So it seems like even today's
self help gurus tend to be men, like Mark Victor Hansen,
who started the whole Chicken Soup for the Soul Empire.
And I was wondering why you think this is, I mean,
does it have to do perhaps with masculine, gendered constructs
of expertise? Are we more willing to take advice from men?
(07:16):
I mean, definitely there was a tonal difference. Um, men
talked to women, and women talked to women in a
different way than men talked to men, and and generally
there I did not find such a thing as a
self help book by a woman for men, um, you know,
until much much later on in the twentieth century, and
even then it's still pretty rare. So yeah, I guess
(07:39):
I would characterize it as more you know, feminine, more girly.
I'm not even sure exactly what made it that way,
but it was sort of more conversational, and it was
very conspiratorial, you know, like here we are just us girls.
You know, I'm going to tell you some secrets. But
you know, it was a very different tone from the
books that were directed towards men. So The Rules was
(08:00):
one of your least favorite self help titles, and definitely
I think it's safe to say one of ours too.
Can you talk a little bit about why you just
found it so particularly terrible? Well, you know, it's funny.
I think, like you, it made a big impression on
me because I was in high school when it came out,
and I think I was just very conscious. I was
starting to become very conscious of being a woman and
(08:23):
being around guys and wanting them to like me. So
I think it like hit a particular like note in
my psyche at that time. Um. But I also, you know,
I was kind of a burgeoning feminist and I knew
that some of the stuff was not a good idea,
and I didn't really take a look at it until
you know, years later, when I when I was working
on this book. Um, I guess you know, a lot
(08:45):
of what it was difficult for me about the book
is that most self help books talk about self control,
and I think, to a certain extent, self control is important.
It's important to be a functional human being and to
put your clothes on and go get a job, and
you know all that stuff. You can't just do whatever
you want all the time. Um, but this was like
anything you want to do, you can't do it. If
(09:05):
you want to call a guy, you can't. If you
want to seem interested, you can't. So it was all
about suppressing all of your desires and all of your
impulses and pretending to be someone you're not, which is
basically a completely indifferent person um. You know, and to me,
like socially, it's troubling to say that, you know, men
can only like a certain kind of woman or a
(09:27):
perfect woman. You know, on a personal level, it's troubling
because I don't really want to do that, and so
it's troubling to me if that's like actually successful and
that's the only way that you can have a relationship
is to put on a facade, and then, you know,
I really question the longevity of that, because I mean,
the idea that you're going to pretend for your whole
(09:48):
life to be a certain kind of person is exhausting.
Or you know, the book is mostly about getting married,
and the idea that you're gonna pretend to be one way,
get married and then reveal your true self is also
really seems like a terrible idea. So to me, like
there's a logical problem with it. Now, speaking of the rules,
it does seem like dating and relationships. Self help is
(10:11):
particularly popular among women. And based on you know, you're
reading of the rules and other research that you've done,
do you think that there is any value to it
for actually starting and maintaining healthy relationships? Um? You know,
I think it can depending on what the promises. You know,
(10:32):
anything that asks you how to get or control another person,
it seems to me like a bad idea and kind
of destined to fail. Or if it does work, it's
going to require some stuff that you probably don't really
want to do. Um. But on the end hand, of
book that just asks you to be thoughtful about your desires,
your expectations, UM, what you want in a relationship, you know,
(10:54):
and that's kind of having you more work on yourself
and your communication. That to me seems like, you know,
it would be useful for relationship, because communication is really
important to a relationship. According to two thousand eight data
from Nielsen Book Scan, women bought seventy four per cent
of self help titles on family and relationships. Why do
(11:15):
you think women are more apt to seek it out
compared to men? I mean, it definitely seems to be
split by gender, and that when men by self help
books they self help books about business and success. And
when women by self help books, they buy books about others,
which is to say, parenting, families, relationships, that sort of thing,
you know. And traditionally women have been more concerned with
(11:36):
their relationships with others than men for many, many, many
really reasons that might have to do with biology and
evolution and social structure. Um. But I think that there
are a lot of theories about about this, um and,
and none of them have any real statistical research done
to them, but I do think they're interesting. UM. One
(11:59):
is that women are just more likely to ask for
help because they're more community oriented. So it's almost the
very same thing. Like women want to buy books about
relationships and families, is the same reason that they will
seek out help from other people or from books. I
think that they're also less embarrassed to ask for help,
you know. I think that socially men it's like that
old joke about you know, men not wanting to ask
(12:21):
for directions. I think there's something, you know, that kind
of trickles down from that, where like men are embarrassed
to ask for help and women are less embarrassed to
ask for help. I think that you know, women are
more isolated sometimes than men, especially if they're at home
with children, um and so it might be more necessary
for them to go to a book. They might not have,
(12:42):
you know, a family or a community to turn to,
or they just might feel more isolated because of it.
Um So. So those are some of the theories that
are put forth about why this might be um But
again they're just kind of psychological theories based on, you know,
basic ideas about women's psychology versus men's psychology. One thing
you talk about in towards the end of the book
(13:03):
is how the future of self help is largely tech driven.
You mentioned things like apps that can help you maybe
if you are, you know, experiencing anxiety, things like that.
So do you think though, that social media has a
similar self help like quality in the same sense, because
when I was reading about this, it reminded me of
(13:23):
seeing communities on Tumbler where you have a lot of
connection going on, a lot of advice requests and advice giving,
and this sense of community that does seem to be
serving some kind of self soothing and self help function. Yeah,
I mean, I think in a sense it is that
same thing. You know. I'm not familiar. I mean, I've
(13:46):
heard of tumbler, but I have not spent any time
on it. UM. But I can speak from my experience
with Facebook. UM. So many people put inspirational quotes upon
their board or whatever you call it. So during the day,
as I'm procrastinating into think Facebook, I'm seeing all of
these inspirational quotes. UM. People very often start posts with
(14:06):
the sort of like hello, hive mind. You know, does
anybody know how I can do this? Or can somebody
give me advice on this? Um? And and it is
this way of you know, kind of reaching out to
community and getting help without even leaving your house. So,
you know, I think in a sense, UM, I'm not
sure that it's any less isolating because you know, even
a lot of the people that I communicate without Facebook,
(14:27):
I've never actually met them in person. I just sort
of know of them or they're like friends of friends. UM.
So it's still kind of getting advice from strangers in
some sense. UM. But yeah, I think that there's definitely
a similarity. So one thing that came to mind when
reading about the evolution of these victorians self help books
and self help more geared towards women, is that it
(14:50):
sounds so much like a lot of the themes and
topics covered and women's magazines today. You're absolutely right, I
mean it's so true. There are so many how to
do X articles in women's magazines, you know, and I
think that we still turn to those things because we
want to know, you know, how to be women and
how to achieve what we want. Um. And yeah, that
(15:13):
is a really interesting parallel. In fact, one of the
bigger self help books was actually written by Harper's Bizarre
um about a hundred years ago, and it was one
of those uh, you know, compilations of how to be
a housewife, you know, do your servants raise your kids? Um? So,
so there's definitely a link between those women's magazines and
those books. And this might be a sensitive question, but
(15:36):
as you have grown older, is there a type of
self help that you wish your mother in particular were
around to bestow on you? Absolutely, I mean I think
the whole idea of getting advice is so interesting because
it's sort of like the book versus family. You know,
there's this real there's a way in which you can
get advice from your family or community. Um. And then
(15:57):
there's a way in which you get advice from strangers
and sometimes they see diametrically opposed to me. And I
think in a weird way, the mother is kind of
the symbol for advice. I mean from what I hear,
a lot of the time it's unwanted advice. You know,
mothers are calling people and telling them what to do. Um.
But I think I really have missed that in a sense.
(16:17):
You know, I would love for somebody to call and
tell me what to do. Um. You know that I
could trust and you know, in a sense like a
mother doesn't even have to give advice, but they provide
a model. So just by seeing them do things a
certain way and seeing their values, UM, I think that
can really model for a daughter. UM ways that you know,
(16:38):
they can behave in choices that they can make. And
I certainly feel like, you know, there've been pivotal moments
in my life when I had to make decisions and
you know, some of them I felt were really gender
specific and not necessarily something I would even want to
talk to my dad about. UM. And yeah, those were
times where I really, you know, missed this idea of
having a mother that I could sure to for advice. Jessica,
(17:00):
Thanks so much for taking the time to talk with
us today about self help and especially these more gendered
aspects of self help. Is there anything that we haven't
asked you about specifically that you would like to add? Yeah.
I mean, you know, when I started the book, I
was very very cynical. UM. I was pretty anti self help.
I thought it was really silly. I thought a lot
of the titles were kind of you know, idiotic, UM.
(17:23):
And when I really started thinking about what it provides
and what it can provide, and I sort of set
aside the worst examples and sort of thought about it
more generally and more self help in theory, I felt
myself becoming really sympathetic to just the idea of self
help and the desire for self help UM. And I
could really identify it, identify with it in the way
(17:45):
that you know I was. I was just mentioning with
my mother, because when you have a whole in your family,
um or in your life, and you don't have someone
to ask for advice, it's really nice that there's this,
you know, you can go to a bookstore and you
can read a book and you can get information. You know,
I think that information is so valuable. UM. I had
an experience where, you know, I was actually worried about
(18:08):
dying at the same age my mother had died, and
it was sort of a superstitious worry, UM, but I
it also kind of scared me. And when I read
this book UM about losing a mother, I read that
it was a really really common fear and just that
was information that I felt really kind of freed me
up to not be afraid anymore. And so in that sense,
(18:29):
I think that information can be so valuable and it
doesn't matter where it is coming from, um, you know.
And and also self help books can make you feel
better because I think we turned to them when we're
feeling isolated, when we're feeling helpless and hopeless, and they
can be very reassuring and they can give us a
sense of hope. But you know, I guess where I
(18:50):
worry about self help books is that real change is
much more difficult, and it takes more effort and more
investment on the part of the individual and the reader
that I think self help books really ask us for. Um.
And you know, I found in my research some statistics
that said people sometimes buy self help books and they
(19:11):
don't read them, or they buy them, and they read
only the first twenty pages. And I think if you're
not willing to put in you know, sort of sustained
effort over time, you can't really expect any real change
to occur. And so you're probably just going to be
left with a feeling of hope or you know, feeling better,
which I think is really valuable, but maybe is not
long term going to solve anything. And where can listeners
(19:34):
go to find out more about you and about Promised
Land and other things that you might be working on. Yeah,
I have a website, UM, which is Jessica Lamb Shapiro
dot com. UM J E S. S I C A
L A M B S J P I R Oh,
I'm sorry I had such a long name, UM. And
I know it's available on Amazon and it's at Barnes
(19:55):
and Noble and it's an independent bookstore, so it's definitely
you can find it online. And there's all a book
called Promised Land with a D and it's not that book.
It's Promised Land Without a D. Well. Thank you so
much again to Jessica Lamb Shapira for talking to us
in this very enlightening interview about her self help journey
(20:17):
and kind of self help culture at large, and you know,
it's a it's an incredibly popular and widespread genre, and
it makes me kind of wonder. You know, Kristen, have
you ever partaken I don't know that I've partaken in
any self help books, any any books that would be
classified in the self help area of a bookstore. But
(20:39):
I mean, thinking though about how I consume women's magazines,
I feel like, in a way I am still participatory
in that, whether it's self help in terms of oh, well,
you know, you could consider maybe Sheryl Sandberg's Lenon to
be a self help book of sorts, or even just
all of the tips and lifestyle advice that's often doled
(21:01):
out to women and Marie Claire and Glamour, etcetera, etcetera. Yeah, sure,
I I agree. I have never like sought out self
help books per se. But I have said this before
on the podcast, and I will say it again. I
freaking love oh Magazine and all of the like pseudo scientific,
spiritual advice in that magazine. I just love it. I
(21:23):
can't get enough, Like I don't. I don't know if
Martha Beck is still writing for that magazine anymore or not.
But like herst, I would like flip straight to her
column every month. Did I mean does it soothing for
you that kind of advice, especially the pseudo spiritual stuff
that you mentioned. Yeah, I found it very reassuring and
and very like, Okay, you're not crazy. Really, anything that
(21:45):
tells me, hey, you're not crazy. People go through rough
patches in life. I appreciate that. Maybe I should just
have that sewn onto a pillow or cross stitchet somewhere
and just hang it up. I know what I'm getting
you both Christmas, Well, everybody, definitely go check out Promised Land,
My Journey through America's self help culture by Jessica Lamb Shapiro.
(22:06):
It is highly engaging, entertaining, an educational book, so we
give it to sminty thumbs way way up and also again,
huge thanks to Jessica Lamme Shapire for taking a time
to talk to us. And if you have any thoughts
on self help, we'd love to hear from you. Are
there any titles that have helped you out or that
you kind of, like Jessica negatively, really reacted to the rules.
(22:29):
Have there been any self help books that have really
turned you off? Let us know. Mom Stuff discovery dot
com is where you can email us, or you can
hit us up on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcast, or
send us a message on Facebook, and we have a
couple of Facebook messages to share with you when we
come right back from a quick break and now back
to the show. So I got a message here from
(22:54):
Meredith about our episode on Susan B. Anthony, and she writes,
I know you have the most respect for Susan B. Anthony,
and I also share your disgust that we don't know
more about the other women you mentioned, especially women of color.
I also loved how you pointed out that the story
in American history highlights the intersection of race and gender.
I did want to write and let you know this
intersection is still going on. Of course, we both saw
(23:16):
it during the primary campaign against Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama,
both vilified for different reasons. But also the church that
I grew up in, the Mormon Church, did not extend
priesthood to blackmails until ninety During this time, there was
a push in wider America for the Equal Rights Amendment,
which the Mormon Church was distinctly against. There were some
(23:36):
powerful women excommunicated from the Mormon Church for their support
of the e r RA. However, to my knowledge, no
black man has ever been excommunicated for pushing for black priesthood,
and women still don't have much more say in the
Mormon Church than they did in the early nineteen eighties.
Because of this, I can sympathize with Susan B. Anthony's
inability to support the fifteenth Amendment since it did not
achieve full equality. It's always hard to push for something
(23:59):
and then be left out because you're a woman. I
don't think that I could ever be as single minded
as Susan Anthony, but I'm glad people like her still
exist in the Mormon Church, which I have left. The
fight is on in Kate Kelly, who was pushing hard
for female ordination. I really love your podcast and thanks
so much, so thanks Meredith for that insight into the
Mormon Church. And I have a message here from Kendall
(24:22):
talking about our Engagement Ring episode Uh. She says, a
couple of years ago, I decided I was going to
propose to my now husband, and leap day was approaching,
so I thought that would be the perfect day. I
went shopping and agonized over which banded by him and
finally settled on one, a simple sterling silver band. I
carried that thing around with me for a few weeks
(24:43):
and planned a special night for leap Day. The weekend
before a leap Day, we were jointly filing taxes for
the first time, and our accountant playfully told us right
before we filed that this would be it and in
the eyes of the government, we would be officially married.
And are we sure? I'm not sure how true this is,
but it is what he told us. In a moment
of panic, I took the ring out of my bag
and proposed so we would have at least five minutes
(25:05):
of being engaged before the I R S considered us married.
He was so surprised. It was pretty great. I wore
a simple sterling band, and last year for my birthday,
he took me shopping for a ring because we do
everything out of order, so why not buy an engagement
ring after you're already married. I love the podcast and
can't wait to get through more of your great stuff.
So thank you, Kendall. That's a great story, and congratulations,
(25:26):
and thanks to everybody who's written into us. Mom Stuff
at Discovery dot com is where you can send your
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It's Stuff Mom Never Told You dot com for more
(25:47):
on this and thousands of other topics. Does it How
stuff Works dot com
Welcome to stuff Mom Never told You From house Supports
dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Christen
and I'm Caroline. And today on the show we're talking
to author Jessica Lamb Shapiro, who recently published the book
Promised Land, not to be confused with Promised Land. Uh.
(00:26):
It's her journey through America's self help culture, and it's
part memoir, part history, part examination of the self help industry,
and a really fun read. Yeah. She is clearly incredibly
on point. She knows the ins and outs of the
self helped genre, and part of that is because of
her own family history. Yeah, her father is a psychologist
(00:48):
and he plays a prominent role in this story and
in the memoir part I should say of Promised Land
and growing up, he was always making self help products
or writing self help books. He never became like a
chicken soup for the soul style like mega self help author.
(01:08):
But he, you know, as you'll learn in the book,
was continually and still kind of is actively engaged in
the self help industry. Yeah. And uh, we learned so
much from her book and from talking to her. For instance,
the history of self help. I didn't realize stretches all
the way back to ancient Egypt and the Greek philosophers.
It moves through history into the Middle Ages and Renaissance
(01:31):
with books that you know, they talk about behavior of
princes and kings that you should model or not model.
Moving all the way into the nineteenth century in the
Victorian period where quote unquote self help really really takes
off advice on everything from marriage, to having babies to
keeping a house. Yeah, and it's in that Victorian era,
as Jessica will talk about more in our interview, that's
(01:52):
when you see more self help targeted specifically towards women.
What jumped out to me in the history of elf help,
which she lays out so well, is how in its
earliest eras it was largely directed towards men, the betterment
of men in order for them to socially climb through
the ranks. Which makes sense because back then women really
(02:15):
didn't have much There were no there were no ranks.
What what what would they climb? And I gotta say I
first heard Jessica Lamb Shapire talking about this book in
an interview with Harry Gross on Fresh Air, and I
was driving home actually from the house. Stuff works offices,
and it was such a fantastic interview, and it was
(02:35):
a topic that we've been wanting to talk about on
the podcast for a while, self help. And so as
soon as the interview finished, I googled her and looked
up her publicist name and hope that she would want
to come on the show, and she did, hooray. So
we hope that you enjoyed this conversation with Jessica Lamb Shapiro,
(02:55):
author of Promised Land, My Journey through America's self help culture. So,
first of all, Jessica, thanks so much for coming on
stuff Mom never told you. So for listeners who might
not be familiar with Promised Land, could you talk a
little bit about your inspiration for writing this book and
(03:16):
how that was connected to your father's self help career.
I mean, it sort of happened by coincidence because my dad,
who had written so many self help books, had never
reached a certain level of fame of someone like Dr
Phil or like the Chicken Sup for the Soul series, um,
And so he heard about this conference for self help
authors that was taught by the guy who co wrote
(03:38):
Chicken Sup for the Soul, and I guess he kind
of fell into this uh seductive idea that there might
be some secret that he didn't know. UM. So he
told me he was going to this conference, and I
just want because I thought it would be kind of fun.
And I didn't really have anything to do. UM. I
had just graduated from grad school and I was in
my early twenties and I was really adrift. UM. And
I don't know, maybe I was secretly so chank them
(04:00):
self help for myself. UM. But I went with him,
and I guess what I saw there surprised me so
much that kind of piqued this curiosity. And then I
started looking into self help and the history of self help.
And then I got really interested because I I kind
of started to realize what an integral part of American
society it is and how long it has been that way.
(04:22):
And I've always been a real American history buff and
I'm just really interested in, like what the way that
America defines itself. Um, And it seemed to be really
wrapped up in that. So I guess that's what kind
of fascinated me. Well, early self help from these stoic
philosophers all the way up to Horatio Alger seems typically
(04:42):
to be directed just at male readers. When did female
readers start getting in on the self help game? I mean,
that's a really great question and sort of fascinating because
I mean, for thousands of years, self help was written
by men for men, and I think a lot of
that was because women and weren't They didn't know how
to read, and they didn't know how to write, and
(05:03):
they weren't given that kind of education. Um. And so
part of it is congruent with women, you know, getting
getting their own education. Um. But basically it was after
the Industrial Revolution, um that you first started to see
books written for women, not always buy women, and they
were mostly on house swiffery, being a mother, raising children,
(05:24):
how to keep servants in line. And they were really
written for upper class women because they were always you know,
about things that you would need money to do, like
have servants or have a house that you would have
to manage. Um. And those were the women who also
knew how to read and write, so you know, it
all kind of made sense. Um. And then later in
the nineteenth century you saw some women starting to write
these books for women and they started to include recipes.
(05:47):
These early books are really interesting because they weren't on
just one topic. They would be on basically every topic
that could possibly relate to you as a woman. So
you would buy one book and it would have, uh,
you know, how to clean your house, how to manage
your servants, how to raise your kids, how to be
a good wife, you know, social niceties like what works
to serve you know, how to play, how to lay
(06:07):
at the table, um, and also recipes, and I mean
they were just like these these codgepodge books of like
everything having to do with almost how to be a woman.
And then later on they started to get down to
more specific topics. Um, in the early nineteen hundreds, there
were there were diet books for men and for the
general public in the nineteen hundreds, but it was in
(06:29):
the twentieth century that you started to see diet books
for women specifically um written by women, calorie counting, that
sort of thing. And so it was really like, I
would say the early nineteen hundreds that you started to
see a lot of women's self help authors than even
more books directed specifically at women and then broken down
by topic, as opposed to one big book that covered
(06:51):
you know, every topic. So it seems like even today's
self help gurus tend to be men, like Mark Victor Hansen,
who started the whole Chicken Soup for the Soul Empire.
And I was wondering why you think this is, I mean,
does it have to do perhaps with masculine, gendered constructs
of expertise? Are we more willing to take advice from men?
(07:16):
I mean, definitely there was a tonal difference. Um, men
talked to women, and women talked to women in a
different way than men talked to men, and and generally
there I did not find such a thing as a
self help book by a woman for men, um, you know,
until much much later on in the twentieth century, and
even then it's still pretty rare. So yeah, I guess
(07:39):
I would characterize it as more you know, feminine, more girly.
I'm not even sure exactly what made it that way,
but it was sort of more conversational, and it was
very conspiratorial, you know, like here we are just us girls.
You know, I'm going to tell you some secrets. But
you know, it was a very different tone from the
books that were directed towards men. So The Rules was
(08:00):
one of your least favorite self help titles, and definitely
I think it's safe to say one of ours too.
Can you talk a little bit about why you just
found it so particularly terrible? Well, you know, it's funny.
I think, like you, it made a big impression on
me because I was in high school when it came out,
and I think I was just very conscious. I was
starting to become very conscious of being a woman and
(08:23):
being around guys and wanting them to like me. So
I think it like hit a particular like note in
my psyche at that time. Um. But I also, you know,
I was kind of a burgeoning feminist and I knew
that some of the stuff was not a good idea,
and I didn't really take a look at it until
you know, years later, when I when I was working
on this book. Um, I guess you know, a lot
(08:45):
of what it was difficult for me about the book
is that most self help books talk about self control,
and I think, to a certain extent, self control is important.
It's important to be a functional human being and to
put your clothes on and go get a job, and
you know all that stuff. You can't just do whatever
you want all the time. Um, but this was like
anything you want to do, you can't do it. If
(09:05):
you want to call a guy, you can't. If you
want to seem interested, you can't. So it was all
about suppressing all of your desires and all of your
impulses and pretending to be someone you're not, which is
basically a completely indifferent person um. You know, and to me,
like socially, it's troubling to say that, you know, men
can only like a certain kind of woman or a
(09:27):
perfect woman. You know, on a personal level, it's troubling
because I don't really want to do that, and so
it's troubling to me if that's like actually successful and
that's the only way that you can have a relationship
is to put on a facade, and then, you know,
I really question the longevity of that, because I mean,
the idea that you're going to pretend for your whole
(09:48):
life to be a certain kind of person is exhausting.
Or you know, the book is mostly about getting married,
and the idea that you're gonna pretend to be one way,
get married and then reveal your true self is also
really seems like a terrible idea. So to me, like
there's a logical problem with it. Now, speaking of the rules,
it does seem like dating and relationships. Self help is
(10:11):
particularly popular among women. And based on you know, you're
reading of the rules and other research that you've done,
do you think that there is any value to it
for actually starting and maintaining healthy relationships? Um? You know,
I think it can depending on what the promises. You know,
(10:32):
anything that asks you how to get or control another person,
it seems to me like a bad idea and kind
of destined to fail. Or if it does work, it's
going to require some stuff that you probably don't really
want to do. Um. But on the end hand, of
book that just asks you to be thoughtful about your desires,
your expectations, UM, what you want in a relationship, you know,
(10:54):
and that's kind of having you more work on yourself
and your communication. That to me seems like, you know,
it would be useful for relationship, because communication is really
important to a relationship. According to two thousand eight data
from Nielsen Book Scan, women bought seventy four per cent
of self help titles on family and relationships. Why do
(11:15):
you think women are more apt to seek it out
compared to men? I mean, it definitely seems to be
split by gender, and that when men by self help
books they self help books about business and success. And
when women by self help books, they buy books about others,
which is to say, parenting, families, relationships, that sort of thing,
you know. And traditionally women have been more concerned with
(11:36):
their relationships with others than men for many, many, many
really reasons that might have to do with biology and
evolution and social structure. Um. But I think that there
are a lot of theories about about this, um and,
and none of them have any real statistical research done
to them, but I do think they're interesting. UM. One
(11:59):
is that women are just more likely to ask for
help because they're more community oriented. So it's almost the
very same thing. Like women want to buy books about
relationships and families, is the same reason that they will
seek out help from other people or from books. I
think that they're also less embarrassed to ask for help,
you know. I think that socially men it's like that
old joke about you know, men not wanting to ask
(12:21):
for directions. I think there's something, you know, that kind
of trickles down from that, where like men are embarrassed
to ask for help and women are less embarrassed to
ask for help. I think that you know, women are
more isolated sometimes than men, especially if they're at home
with children, um and so it might be more necessary
for them to go to a book. They might not have,
(12:42):
you know, a family or a community to turn to,
or they just might feel more isolated because of it.
Um So. So those are some of the theories that
are put forth about why this might be um But
again they're just kind of psychological theories based on, you know,
basic ideas about women's psychology versus men's psychology. One thing
you talk about in towards the end of the book
(13:03):
is how the future of self help is largely tech driven.
You mentioned things like apps that can help you maybe
if you are, you know, experiencing anxiety, things like that.
So do you think though, that social media has a
similar self help like quality in the same sense, because
when I was reading about this, it reminded me of
(13:23):
seeing communities on Tumbler where you have a lot of
connection going on, a lot of advice requests and advice giving,
and this sense of community that does seem to be
serving some kind of self soothing and self help function. Yeah,
I mean, I think in a sense it is that
same thing. You know. I'm not familiar. I mean, I've
(13:46):
heard of tumbler, but I have not spent any time
on it. UM. But I can speak from my experience
with Facebook. UM. So many people put inspirational quotes upon
their board or whatever you call it. So during the day,
as I'm procrastinating into think Facebook, I'm seeing all of
these inspirational quotes. UM. People very often start posts with
(14:06):
the sort of like hello, hive mind. You know, does
anybody know how I can do this? Or can somebody
give me advice on this? Um? And and it is
this way of you know, kind of reaching out to
community and getting help without even leaving your house. So,
you know, I think in a sense, UM, I'm not
sure that it's any less isolating because you know, even
a lot of the people that I communicate without Facebook,
(14:27):
I've never actually met them in person. I just sort
of know of them or they're like friends of friends. UM.
So it's still kind of getting advice from strangers in
some sense. UM. But yeah, I think that there's definitely
a similarity. So one thing that came to mind when
reading about the evolution of these victorians self help books
and self help more geared towards women, is that it
(14:50):
sounds so much like a lot of the themes and
topics covered and women's magazines today. You're absolutely right, I
mean it's so true. There are so many how to
do X articles in women's magazines, you know, and I
think that we still turn to those things because we
want to know, you know, how to be women and
how to achieve what we want. Um. And yeah, that
(15:13):
is a really interesting parallel. In fact, one of the
bigger self help books was actually written by Harper's Bizarre
um about a hundred years ago, and it was one
of those uh, you know, compilations of how to be
a housewife, you know, do your servants raise your kids? Um? So,
so there's definitely a link between those women's magazines and
those books. And this might be a sensitive question, but
(15:36):
as you have grown older, is there a type of
self help that you wish your mother in particular were
around to bestow on you? Absolutely, I mean I think
the whole idea of getting advice is so interesting because
it's sort of like the book versus family. You know,
there's this real there's a way in which you can
get advice from your family or community. Um. And then
(15:57):
there's a way in which you get advice from strangers
and sometimes they see diametrically opposed to me. And I
think in a weird way, the mother is kind of
the symbol for advice. I mean from what I hear,
a lot of the time it's unwanted advice. You know,
mothers are calling people and telling them what to do. Um.
But I think I really have missed that in a sense.
(16:17):
You know, I would love for somebody to call and
tell me what to do. Um. You know that I
could trust and you know, in a sense like a
mother doesn't even have to give advice, but they provide
a model. So just by seeing them do things a
certain way and seeing their values, UM, I think that
can really model for a daughter. UM ways that you know,
(16:38):
they can behave in choices that they can make. And
I certainly feel like, you know, there've been pivotal moments
in my life when I had to make decisions and
you know, some of them I felt were really gender
specific and not necessarily something I would even want to
talk to my dad about. UM. And yeah, those were
times where I really, you know, missed this idea of
having a mother that I could sure to for advice. Jessica,
(17:00):
Thanks so much for taking the time to talk with
us today about self help and especially these more gendered
aspects of self help. Is there anything that we haven't
asked you about specifically that you would like to add? Yeah.
I mean, you know, when I started the book, I
was very very cynical. UM. I was pretty anti self help.
I thought it was really silly. I thought a lot
of the titles were kind of you know, idiotic, UM.
(17:23):
And when I really started thinking about what it provides
and what it can provide, and I sort of set
aside the worst examples and sort of thought about it
more generally and more self help in theory, I felt
myself becoming really sympathetic to just the idea of self
help and the desire for self help UM. And I
could really identify it, identify with it in the way
(17:45):
that you know I was. I was just mentioning with
my mother, because when you have a whole in your family,
um or in your life, and you don't have someone
to ask for advice, it's really nice that there's this,
you know, you can go to a bookstore and you
can read a book and you can get information. You know,
I think that information is so valuable. UM. I had
an experience where, you know, I was actually worried about
(18:08):
dying at the same age my mother had died, and
it was sort of a superstitious worry, UM, but I
it also kind of scared me. And when I read
this book UM about losing a mother, I read that
it was a really really common fear and just that
was information that I felt really kind of freed me
up to not be afraid anymore. And so in that sense,
(18:29):
I think that information can be so valuable and it
doesn't matter where it is coming from, um, you know.
And and also self help books can make you feel
better because I think we turned to them when we're
feeling isolated, when we're feeling helpless and hopeless, and they
can be very reassuring and they can give us a
sense of hope. But you know, I guess where I
(18:50):
worry about self help books is that real change is
much more difficult, and it takes more effort and more
investment on the part of the individual and the reader
that I think self help books really ask us for. Um.
And you know, I found in my research some statistics
that said people sometimes buy self help books and they
(19:11):
don't read them, or they buy them, and they read
only the first twenty pages. And I think if you're
not willing to put in you know, sort of sustained
effort over time, you can't really expect any real change
to occur. And so you're probably just going to be
left with a feeling of hope or you know, feeling better,
which I think is really valuable, but maybe is not
long term going to solve anything. And where can listeners
(19:34):
go to find out more about you and about Promised
Land and other things that you might be working on. Yeah,
I have a website, UM, which is Jessica Lamb Shapiro
dot com. UM J E S. S I C A
L A M B S J P I R Oh,
I'm sorry I had such a long name, UM. And
I know it's available on Amazon and it's at Barnes
(19:55):
and Noble and it's an independent bookstore, so it's definitely
you can find it online. And there's all a book
called Promised Land with a D and it's not that book.
It's Promised Land Without a D. Well. Thank you so
much again to Jessica Lamb Shapira for talking to us
in this very enlightening interview about her self help journey
(20:17):
and kind of self help culture at large, and you know,
it's a it's an incredibly popular and widespread genre, and
it makes me kind of wonder. You know, Kristen, have
you ever partaken I don't know that I've partaken in
any self help books, any any books that would be
classified in the self help area of a bookstore. But
(20:39):
I mean, thinking though about how I consume women's magazines,
I feel like, in a way I am still participatory
in that, whether it's self help in terms of oh, well,
you know, you could consider maybe Sheryl Sandberg's Lenon to
be a self help book of sorts, or even just
all of the tips and lifestyle advice that's often doled
(21:01):
out to women and Marie Claire and Glamour, etcetera, etcetera. Yeah, sure,
I I agree. I have never like sought out self
help books per se. But I have said this before
on the podcast, and I will say it again. I
freaking love oh Magazine and all of the like pseudo scientific,
spiritual advice in that magazine. I just love it. I
(21:23):
can't get enough, Like I don't. I don't know if
Martha Beck is still writing for that magazine anymore or not.
But like herst, I would like flip straight to her
column every month. Did I mean does it soothing for
you that kind of advice, especially the pseudo spiritual stuff
that you mentioned. Yeah, I found it very reassuring and
and very like, Okay, you're not crazy. Really, anything that
(21:45):
tells me, hey, you're not crazy. People go through rough
patches in life. I appreciate that. Maybe I should just
have that sewn onto a pillow or cross stitchet somewhere
and just hang it up. I know what I'm getting
you both Christmas, Well, everybody, definitely go check out Promised Land,
My Journey through America's self help culture by Jessica Lamb Shapiro.
(22:06):
It is highly engaging, entertaining, an educational book, so we
give it to sminty thumbs way way up and also again,
huge thanks to Jessica Lamme Shapire for taking a time
to talk to us. And if you have any thoughts
on self help, we'd love to hear from you. Are
there any titles that have helped you out or that
you kind of, like Jessica negatively, really reacted to the rules.
(22:29):
Have there been any self help books that have really
turned you off? Let us know. Mom Stuff discovery dot
com is where you can email us, or you can
hit us up on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcast, or
send us a message on Facebook, and we have a
couple of Facebook messages to share with you when we
come right back from a quick break and now back
to the show. So I got a message here from
(22:54):
Meredith about our episode on Susan B. Anthony, and she writes,
I know you have the most respect for Susan B. Anthony,
and I also share your disgust that we don't know
more about the other women you mentioned, especially women of color.
I also loved how you pointed out that the story
in American history highlights the intersection of race and gender.
I did want to write and let you know this
intersection is still going on. Of course, we both saw
(23:16):
it during the primary campaign against Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama,
both vilified for different reasons. But also the church that
I grew up in, the Mormon Church, did not extend
priesthood to blackmails until ninety During this time, there was
a push in wider America for the Equal Rights Amendment,
which the Mormon Church was distinctly against. There were some
(23:36):
powerful women excommunicated from the Mormon Church for their support
of the e r RA. However, to my knowledge, no
black man has ever been excommunicated for pushing for black priesthood,
and women still don't have much more say in the
Mormon Church than they did in the early nineteen eighties.
Because of this, I can sympathize with Susan B. Anthony's
inability to support the fifteenth Amendment since it did not
achieve full equality. It's always hard to push for something
(23:59):
and then be left out because you're a woman. I
don't think that I could ever be as single minded
as Susan Anthony, but I'm glad people like her still
exist in the Mormon Church, which I have left. The
fight is on in Kate Kelly, who was pushing hard
for female ordination. I really love your podcast and thanks
so much, so thanks Meredith for that insight into the
Mormon Church. And I have a message here from Kendall
(24:22):
talking about our Engagement Ring episode Uh. She says, a
couple of years ago, I decided I was going to
propose to my now husband, and leap day was approaching,
so I thought that would be the perfect day. I
went shopping and agonized over which banded by him and
finally settled on one, a simple sterling silver band. I
carried that thing around with me for a few weeks
(24:43):
and planned a special night for leap Day. The weekend
before a leap Day, we were jointly filing taxes for
the first time, and our accountant playfully told us right
before we filed that this would be it and in
the eyes of the government, we would be officially married.
And are we sure? I'm not sure how true this is,
but it is what he told us. In a moment
of panic, I took the ring out of my bag
and proposed so we would have at least five minutes
(25:05):
of being engaged before the I R S considered us married.
He was so surprised. It was pretty great. I wore
a simple sterling band, and last year for my birthday,
he took me shopping for a ring because we do
everything out of order, so why not buy an engagement
ring after you're already married. I love the podcast and
can't wait to get through more of your great stuff.
So thank you, Kendall. That's a great story, and congratulations,
(25:26):
and thanks to everybody who's written into us. Mom Stuff
at Discovery dot com is where you can send your
emails and four links to all of our other social
media presences as well as all of our podcast videos
and blogs. You should head on over to our website
It's Stuff Mom Never Told You dot com for more
(25:47):
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