September 17, 2019 • 28 mins
From Wall Street to the military and the media, no industry has come out of the #MeToo movement unchanged. In this episode, Stephanie talks to actor and activist Amber Tamblyn, journalist Joanna Coles, and professor Scott Galloway about the progress the movement has inspired since it launched just two years ago, and what a post #MeToo world might look like.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listening to Modern Rules, a production of MSNBC and
I Heart Radio. Is it okay to say that men
are allowed to exit the conversation for a moment while
they go get themselves figured out and feel what they
need to feel, while the rest of us take over
and make the decisions. It's a welcome relief to say, actually,
pisces me off when you put your hand in the
(00:21):
center of my back every time we have a meeting.
The problem is, I think we have this culture now
where you get points. If you're offended, you're immediately right.
All you have to do to be right is be offended.
When I was just getting started in my career on
Wall Street, I definitely got a ton of mileage about
being the only woman on the team. I used it
to my advantage, And I'm not saying I used it
(00:42):
in a creepy way or an inappropriate way, but for me,
being a woman in a man's world was my reality,
and I made it work to my advantage. To be
totally honest, I would credit a lot of my success
to the fact that I built relationships with men. And
at the same time, I know that many thought leaders
(01:03):
in the Me Too movement would say that's not appropriate.
The workplace is the workplace. Your personal life and your
professional life should never cross. I'm Stephanie Rule, MSNBC anchor
and NBC News correspondent, and this is Modern Rules. In
(01:29):
this season of Modern Rules, I'm going to be spending
time unpacking the harriest conversations from privilege to political correctness,
to try and figure out how we can navigate this
changing world and break through to actually talk with and
learn from the people who disagree with us, and maybe
just maybe learn something along the way. Today's episode Me Too.
(01:56):
It isn't two years since the me too movement emerged
in the wake of the horrible revelations about movie producer
Harvey Weinstein that changed absolutely everything, and in many ways
it was the wake up call our business, our society,
our culture drastically needed. But even in the last two
years now, even that change has changed again. We're gonna
(02:20):
dig into the current state of me too with my
guests Amber Tamberland, Joanna Coles, and Scott Galloway. That's coming
up on Modern Rules. One thing I found myself thinking about,
especially in this stage of Me Too, is redemption. Is
it possible and what does it look like who gets
it without question. There's no way we're going to go
(02:41):
back to the way things were. But what happens to
men who are genuine about accepting the consequences for the
way they behaved and are committed to changing. My first
guest as a pretty interesting take on how men and
women are reacting. What's possible in terms of moving forward
post Me Too? She is the talent did extraordinary award
winning actress and activist, the most recent author of a
(03:04):
very powerful memoir of her own coming of age as
a feminist. My friend Amber tample amber Era of Ignition
was this book that women needed. We're going through times up,
we're going through me Too. Since you wrote it, does
it feel like people are asking you what are the
(03:25):
new rules of engagement? I think the book has opened
up exactly that more questions than it has answers for people.
I find myself constantly in this position people asking big,
difficult questions. My kind of favorite is when they're sort
of talking third person. They're like, I have a friend
who's in a marriage with a man who you know
(03:46):
is having a hard time with the me too movement,
And how would I explain to my friend you know
there's a lot of those sort of um questions which
you kind of know sometimes are about themselves. But I think, um,
I think what's so important about everything that's happening right
now is that the questions are okay. The sense of
sort of feeling lost in chaotic right now and and
entangled and deeply a meshed in this chaos is a
(04:08):
good thing because I think from that is where real
clarity and change can ultimately come from. I don't think
that's sitting and knowing what the answers are. That doesn't
provide us with any ability to acquire new knowledge. We
have to be curious and open to two ideas. But
isn't one of the problems that some people think they
know what the answers are and they know what the
(04:29):
rules of engagement are. And one of my fears is
we're having men, especially retreat, they're so anxious about how
to behave that they're now leaving the conversation or they're
not engaging with women in the workforce, And ay, do
we think that's really happening? And be if it is,
what do we do about it? So let me say this,
do you really think that it's wrong or bad? That
(04:52):
that happens for a little while. Is it okay to
say that men are allowed to exit the conversation for
a moment. Will they go get themselves has figured out,
and feel what they need to feel while the rest
of us take over and make the decisions. Because for me,
part of it should be them being allowed to feel
that way. I am really okay with everyone retreating to
(05:12):
their corners right now. I think this foe coming together,
this foe reaching across the aisle with people who do
not have your best interest in heart, who do not
care what you have to think, who do not think
your voice matters in any given room or position of power.
I don't think it's right for us right now to
be spending energy trying to connect with those people that's
(05:33):
gonna come. That is inevitably going to come. All of
these men in business saying well, I'm not going to
mentor women anymore. I'd like to know when they started
doing that, right I came from investment banking. There's never
been a woman head of investment bank ever. So they're
rewriting history and saying I'm not going to take women
along and bring them up the corporate ladder with me.
Yet if you actually look, there's no evidence of them
(05:55):
doing that at all. Even in the announcing of that,
it's they're revealing themselves as supporters of charity cases, as
if women are you know, meant to be charity cases.
And it's like, look, I brought this one woman up
this one time, and I helped her get to the
position that she was in, and I'm not going to
do that anymore because that was me putting myself out.
We have to let men be able to retreat the
ones that want to do that, the ones that have
(06:17):
existed and lived in cowardice and have maintained their power
through uh, through that type of behavior. And for men,
I think the simple practice of not going you know,
I know what's right for women. I know I know
how to get more women in positions of power. I'm
the best person to pick the legislation for women. I'm
the best person to create laws for women. I'm the
(06:38):
best man in the house to help uh, you know,
pass legislation for women's um bodily autonomy and healthcare. And yes,
conservative women are part of the conversation, and they may
feel like they don't even want to be part of
that conversation yet, but I think inevitably they will. Megan
McCain and I agree that it was totally unfair that
no one reached out to conservative women, you know, during
(06:59):
the Women's March rally. The same thing with Time's Up.
I've been I've been working to sort of bring her
in and bring in more conservative women to talk with
Times Up and to talk with UM having a larger platform.
But you can't feel like you're a part of any
movement unless you have some kind of larger support. Not
one of us can do it alone. Not one of
(07:19):
us is going to come out and say, Okay, one time,
Harvey Weinstein grabbed my butt one time, Harvey Weinstein dragged
me into a hotel room one time. You know, no
individual person was able to do that. It was like
a floodgate that opened. And and now the floodgate has opened,
but there's still parts of the water that's not getting through.
But here's what I'm not allowed to say that there
are also women who have consciously used sex to get ahead.
(07:45):
That is absolutely so if I try to say this,
I get annihilated and I don't know where to put it. So,
so put it away for a minute. Because there's gonna
be time. Right. So, for instance, if you even look
at two thousands ev teens me to movement two years ago,
there is no way that Joe Biden would have been
(08:06):
able to pass along and and become a still viable
candidate under those terms. Two years ago, meaning two years ago,
we were in the absolute me too. We were in
the center of a deep, deep storm. I think it's
Jill Soloway has said it the best, which is when
people are talking about like, well, these consequences don't fit
(08:28):
for this person, how can you possibly say? And the
truth is, we don't know what the consequences are anymore.
They've been all thrown out the window. What you were
seeing right now is the creation of consequences. We're creating
and laying a new foundation of rules. It is happening
as we speak. You have to wait for it. We
have to do these things in at the appropriate times
(08:49):
in which people are ready for them. And maybe sometimes
in that given situation, it is about saying, okay, right now,
I can't say that women are part of the problem,
that women this out there in the world is part
of the problem, because we're still we're so mad at
the patriarchal point of view. We're so mad at men
and positions of power. We're still wrapping our head about
(09:10):
dismantling that. So I think it's about knowing when to
speak about these things. Two years ago. There are things
we could never be talking about now. We could not
be talking about the the empathy and and and sympathizing
of men, and how do you bring men into the conversation.
If I had done this podcast two years ago, I
would have been ripped to the seams, and it would
have been rightfully so, because women deserved their place in anger,
(09:33):
they deserved to have the feelings they were having at
that moment. And so everything to me, at the end
of the day comes down to the context of the
timing in which we're saying things, and we're bringing up points.
I think everyone at one point two years ago, I
thought that it was going to be this monumental, immediate
shift where all of a sudden the paradigm was going
to change overnight. And it did kind of in a
(09:55):
in a in a different way than we thought. All
of these women running for president the first time ever
in our entire history. It's that's not a coincidence. Look
in the entertainment business. You know. Uh, for us, it's
it's having more women as members of the voting Academy
for the Academy of Television, Arts and Sciences, it's having
more women of color, more representation who are behind the camera, directing, producing.
(10:18):
You're seeing you know, Regina King, You're seeing a black
woman when the best Supporting actress for the first time
ever in the Academy Awards. You're seeing things you've never
seen before. It's unprecedented. I don't think there's a war
on men, and neither do you. But there's a war
on power. That's really what it is. The war is
on power, so that that means people who abuse positions
(10:38):
of power, who are who are up there doing harm
and creating harm for other people. I think women reclaiming
their voice and reclaiming their autonomy and reclaiming what we
need for ourselves is the most important thing we can do,
as opposed to spending the energy on trying to stop them,
because we can't. Again, this is a long term goal.
It's going to take years and years for this to happen.
(11:00):
But it's been statistically proven and shown to that when
you have more equality in the workplace. When you have
more equality in positions of power, sexual harassment and assault
goes down. We're gonna be right back after a quick break,
welcome back to modern rules. My very first day in
(11:23):
New York, my very first day on the job, I
met a boy at work. I ended up marrying that boy. Now,
when I think about our story, our career story, our friendship,
our love life, I think through the two thousand nineteen lens.
It was a problematic relationship. I'm not saying it was
a me too that worked out, but it was a
situation that today would definitely be a no no. So
(11:47):
I had a chance to ask the brilliant, influential editor
Joanna Coles, who is a keen observer of our culture
and of women's perspectives of identity and relationships. And she's
also no prude on her views on this issue. I
want to talk about how our sex or our sexuality
(12:07):
UM is so prevalent in the workplace. I think back
to when I started, when I graduated college, and the
advice I got was all centered around UM behaving, don't
drink at a work event, dress conservatively, UM, never stay
out late, don't sleep with any guys at work, and
you can think that's good advice or bad. But men
(12:30):
who are starting in the workplace never get that advice.
I think that. I think men can get the advice
of don't get drunk at work, and don't get drunk
at work dinners, and don't sleep with the secretary, or
don't sleep with your female colleague. I think men are
much more conscious of that now. I mean it possibly
not when we were graduating and getting into the workforce,
but I think people are much more mindful of it now. Okay,
(12:51):
let's say you do all those things. Let's say you
get super drunk at a work event and you sleep
with someone. The impact on a woman who does that,
I think as much worse than it is for a man.
I suspect now. Actually, there's so much sensitivity around it.
It's probably the same. I think, certainly, ten, fifteen, even
maybe five years ago. You're absolutely right, But I think
(13:14):
post me too people are much more conscious of it now.
Are we better off post me too? In what way
do you think the workplace is smarter or better? Do
you think it's better for women? Undoubtedly the workplace is
better for women than it was three or five years ago.
The fact that women are allowed to talk to each
other about. It is a huge relief for women, and
(13:35):
I think I think the small micro aggressions that women
talk about, that one becomes aware of, are actually incredibly interesting.
And you saw it playing out in the Biden campaign
with people saying, actually, I don't like it when you
kiss the back of my head, or actually I don't
like it when you ruffle my hair. Those are all
(13:57):
things that I think over the years, women have had
to put with, if not more, egregious behavior, And it's
a welcome relief to say, actually, it pisces me off
when you put your hand in the center of my
back every time we have a meeting. And the reverse
women forever who do get ahead. People love to say
she must have slept her way there. I don't hear
(14:17):
people saying that so much, not today, But that's been
the case before. You don't think so yeah, sort of
twenty thirty years ago, But I don't think anybody thinks
that now. But do you believe there is a place
that we could get to in the workplace that's too far?
Is there? Could we overset sanitize things that you know
they're they're a level of intimacy, and I don't meant
(14:39):
sexual intimacy, but but connection does help us advance. It's
how you really get to understand people. It's sort of
where culture lives well. I think relationship intelligence is absolutely vital,
and now people are much more aware of it than
they were before. People get called out much more and
it can be really damaging when you get called out.
(15:00):
But what's interesting when people do get called out is
that it's often a systematic pattern of behavior which more
than one person then responds to. And I think we've
all figured out that if there's a complaint about someone
and it's one person making the complaint, that's one thing,
and it's probably something that went on between the two
of them that ended badly. But when there's a complaint
(15:21):
about someone and then twelve people weigh in and say yes,
and they all have almost identical stories, then you're glad
that that's been put under a microscope. When Me Too
first began, we weren't waiting for twelve people. That's sort
of when that canceled culture began, when as soon as
someone was accused of something, it became public and it
(15:42):
was game over for no. I don't think that's true.
I think you're doing your media kind of rushing to
judgment thing. That's not what happened. It took forever to
get the Harvey Weinstein story, which really kicked off the
me too and there were dozens of women who complained.
It was the collective group of women that allowed Adventure
Lee the story to get broken. Similarly with what happened
(16:03):
with Charlie Rose, almost all the people that we're thinking about,
some of the big film directors, these were scores of women.
Al Franken's a sort of a more interesting case. I agree,
although there were a lot of people who felt he'd
been inappropriate right and and at the end if they were,
if there would have been uh, due process, due diligence,
(16:25):
maybe they would have come to that conclusion. But there's
this fear right now that in in a mob mentality,
as soon as someone gets accused, the mob comes after them. Well,
it's pretty hard for it to get into the mainstream
media without there being a group of accusers. I mean,
give me a story, give me a case of someone
(16:47):
who's been brought down by one accuser in the in
the me too world that that you're referencing, Well, um,
it's not a direct me too, and it's not sexual assault.
But the Joe Biden situation came from one woman and
she said it was inappropriate. It wasn't sexual harassment. If
sexual assault is in one category and Joe Biden isn't another,
(17:09):
and Joe needs to be addressed. But in Joe's maybe
it's that conduct doesn't work. We need to update it.
And I wonder and we don't know the answer. If
she had reached out to his campaign and said, this
person is he's running, I need to tell you my experience,
and if he's going to run for president, it should
be something different. But we saw this woman boom rise
(17:30):
to prominence. In al Frankin's case, all of a sudden,
that woman, for many of us, seemed to come out
of nowhere. But maybe I'm wrong. Well, I don't know
enough about the Al Frankin case. And I think that
the images of him pretending to sort of turn the
women's the woman's breast when she was sleeping, though in
you know, very poor taste, clearly weren't being done in secret.
(17:52):
The photo was being done to show off and be funny. Right,
it was a joke. It was a bad joke. It
was a joke in poor taste, but it was like
it was happening in secret, which is I think one
of the issues that a lot of the me too.
The me too movement has raised this sort of secret, furtive,
controlling behavior that goes on that women feel uncomfortable with. Rightly, so,
(18:15):
I think the me too movement has has been you know, great.
Where do you think it goes from here? Well? I
think the media is enormously powerful when it shines its
spotlight on a subject and then collectively the media rolls
onto what whatever is next. But the media itself has
got bored with me too, and he's moving on. It's
(18:36):
actually moved on to a different narrative that I worry
is dangerous. And it's this narrative. If you turn on
conservative media any night of the week at nine pm,
ten pm, and they will tell you there's a war
on men in this country. Men are going to be
falsely accused of assault. Your sons aren't going to get
into college because a diversity candidate is going to take
(18:58):
their spot. And you know, corporate America is being taken
over by women. And I watch it and I think
this is crazy. If you actually look at the data there.
The amount of women running companies is minuscule, but you
have a portion of the media telling this country every night,
(19:19):
these angry women are taking over and they're going to
take us down. This is what the media does. Why
are you so you seem outraged by this. I'm not outrage.
That's what conservative media is. I'm not outraged. I'm concerned
because what will the impact be? Then? I care so
much about the advancement of women, So how do you so?
(19:39):
I'm very curious. Then, how do you explain the results
of the mid term elections last November? I think this
is I love this question because the results of the
mid terms were stunning that we saw a record number
of women run. We saw a record number of people
with education backgrounds, with science backgrounds win, and I thought
that was tremendous. I love your question because I think
(20:01):
it speaks to the perils of media narratives. And the
reason I wanted to even have this conversation is because
I feel the perils because I live in them. So
maybe it's time to move back to banking. There you go,
Just hold on a second, because we have so much
more to get into. We'll be back right after a
(20:24):
quick break, welcome back to modern rules. So, after I
had the privilege of speaking about this to two brilliant women,
I thought I needed to bring a dude into the mix.
I brought in my dear friend, author, entrepreneur, and very
popular n y U professor Scott Galloway. If you say
(20:48):
something from your heart and your mind and it doesn't
exactly fit into a category, people will call you a sexist,
a racist, a misogynist, and then you're dead to them.
The risk there's only one real dialogue here, and that
is an appropriate dialogue for someone in my position, and
that is to pile on and be outraged by everything
(21:09):
and join the chorus. One of the reasons I decided
to go in academia is academia is based on the
pursuit of truth, regardless of who it offends. The problem is,
I think we have this culture now where you get points.
If you're offended, you're immediately right. All you have to
do to be right is be offended, you immediately get
virtue points. We're not really having a conversation. We're having
an overdue immune reaction to some terrible problems. But we
(21:33):
aren't having a conversation because there's a one in ten
chance when I start talking about the things on your
list here, I'm gonna funk up and ruin my career
or say nothing. This is my fear retreat. Look at
me too. For example, I did a wellness panel last
year and I was talking about how in me too,
there's different grades of me too. And I actually brought
(21:55):
up a very unpopular topic of redemption, because I think, listen,
we loved fight as a culture, but we also love forgiveness.
We love a comeback. And I brought that up and
a woman in the audience stood up and said f you,
and she walked out. And another woman said, corporate America
was built by male white supremacists and until we destroy
that system, we can't move forward. And I tried to
(22:17):
make the argument, like, listen, the world is run by
white guys. If you want to get them to the table,
if you want to make things better, we have to
find a middle ground. Is there a middle ground? I
don't know if we're going to have what is really
a conversation. I don't know how we end up on
the other end of this. And I believe what Jonathan height,
and he's sort of my Yoda around this stuff, and
he's a colleague at n y O, and he believes that,
(22:38):
at least initially, you should interpret gestures with the intent
that they were made, and even just saying that is
dangerous because there's a general viewpoint that okay. Affection in
the workplace is a really interesting thing because I do
a podcast with Kara Swisher and she was saying that,
you know, she's experienced, and I believe her somebody just
creepy moments with men who feel at liberty to invade
(23:00):
a woman's space. I also asked her, have there been
moments of expression of affection at work that you've appreciated
and she said yes, And I said, well, some of
us need help figuring out the gray zone in between them.
And the reaction right now among all men at work
is that there's absolutely no affection. There's no real, open,
honest dialogue. There isn't even joking, and I think it's
creating a lack of camaraderie and quite frankly, a lack
(23:22):
of career advancement and connection for the people who needed
the most. So this is my fear. I have built
my career based on personal close relationships. Right when I
started in banking. Literally the way I got ahead. Uh,
it was my assignment to get reservations most nights of
the week at the hottest restaurants in New York City
(23:42):
for these guys, And when I did it, I always
made sure there was an empty seat at the table
for me. So three nights a week I was going
to hot restaurants and nightclubs with the guys that I
worked for. And one could say, oh my god, it's
sexist that you had to make dinner reservations. What were
you doing going to places like guess what? Me going
to those dinners and getting myself a seat every single
(24:04):
night was great for my career. And to say I'm
going to use my feminine wiles. It's not feminine wiles
or sexuality, but women do have high emotional intelligence and
people might invite me to dinner because I'm gonna make
the table move faster. I'm gonna make the clients feel good,
not in a sexual way, but in a personal way.
And that personal connection, building trust with the senior people
(24:27):
at the bank and with our clients is what catapulted
my business. Now, the idea of doing that is so
offensive that that that especially young women are saying that
should not happen in the workplace, and my worry is, like, ladies,
you are going to miss out. So it's funny I
hear that, and I think it's it's too bad you
had to put up with that bullshit, but you had
(24:49):
the ability to navigate it and leverage it and take
advantage of it. You know how this this problem gets solved.
And this is going to sound politically correct. I've run
nine businesses, and I hate to even say this out loud.
One of the things I'm most proud about is none
of my friends has ever been sued, nor have we
ever sued anybody else. You're generous with people. And the
(25:10):
thing that has protected or been the kind of the
kryptonite of my firms from ever having a complaint or
a lawsuit is that early on I recognize this underinvested
asset called young female leadership, and that is if you
give him a little bit of flexibility, they were outstanding
assets that weren't appreciated by traditional corporate America. So what
(25:34):
I've heard, especially abround redemption, is that for so many
people and industries, they're like at the tip of the iceberg.
For me too, I feel like me Too has been
revolutionary in the media, on Wall Street and lots of industries.
But for many, they're saying, Steff, we've barely scratched the surface.
We're not even ready for the redemption story. But even
(25:55):
with the changes that we've seen, it's hard for me
to get redemption into the conversation. But I actually think
we need to because a lot of people want to
talk about redemption, but they're afraid. They're afraid to bring
it up because this is such a hot button issue.
Are we going to create an island where every me
(26:15):
too person has to live like a leper colony? Are
we going to say, listen, there are different levels of this.
There are people who have been embroiled in it, and
maybe they've gotten smarter and better, or we have. Here's
what I'm committed to do. I'm committed to talk about
me too, not to banish anyone to an island. I'm
(26:38):
not gonna let me to sit on a shelf that
I won't touch. So for every guy out there who's
saying I'm not going to mentor a woman anymore because
I'm going to be accused of something, I'm not going
to allow him to say that, because I don't want
mentorship to go away, and I am going to spend
more time that puts myself at risk. Em that I
(27:00):
work with who are so clear, black and white that
there should never be paths that cross. So I'm gonna
bring those people to my house for dinner, where they're
gonna eat with my husband who I met at work,
and my children, who wouldn't exist if I didn't meet
that guy at work, and try to say, if we
opened our hearts and opened our minds and realized the
negative impact when sex exists at work, what it can
(27:24):
do and all the people it can hurt, if we
talked about it more, it actually talked about these things
more with compassion. I think we have progress. This has
been our conversation on me too. Thanks for listening, bringing
an open mind, and helping me create the modern rules.
(27:53):
That's it for today's episode. I'm your host, Stephanie Rule.
A very very special thanks to the extraordinary people who
made this happen. My producers Julie Brown, Samantha Ullen, and
Anne Bark, Audio Michael Biett for booking and wrangling the
amazing guests who joined us, Julian Weller for editing, and
Bill Plaques, Michael Azar and Jacobo Penzo for their recording expertise.
(28:14):
Special thanks to Steve lick Tide, Barbara Rab, Jonathan Wald,
Marie Dugo, Holly traz, Nikki Etre, and Christina Everett. Our
executive producers are Conald Byrne and Mangesh Hatigadore, and of
course the men who brought us all together, Chairman and
CEO of iHeartMedia Bob Pittman and Chairman of NBC News
Andy Lack. For more podcasts for my Heart Radio and
(28:36):
visit the I Heart Radio Adam Apple podcast or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows
You're listening to Modern Rules, a production of MSNBC and
I Heart Radio. Is it okay to say that men
are allowed to exit the conversation for a moment while
they go get themselves figured out and feel what they
need to feel, while the rest of us take over
and make the decisions. It's a welcome relief to say, actually,
pisces me off when you put your hand in the
(00:21):
center of my back every time we have a meeting.
The problem is, I think we have this culture now
where you get points. If you're offended, you're immediately right.
All you have to do to be right is be offended.
When I was just getting started in my career on
Wall Street, I definitely got a ton of mileage about
being the only woman on the team. I used it
to my advantage, And I'm not saying I used it
(00:42):
in a creepy way or an inappropriate way, but for me,
being a woman in a man's world was my reality,
and I made it work to my advantage. To be
totally honest, I would credit a lot of my success
to the fact that I built relationships with men. And
at the same time, I know that many thought leaders
(01:03):
in the Me Too movement would say that's not appropriate.
The workplace is the workplace. Your personal life and your
professional life should never cross. I'm Stephanie Rule, MSNBC anchor
and NBC News correspondent, and this is Modern Rules. In
(01:29):
this season of Modern Rules, I'm going to be spending
time unpacking the harriest conversations from privilege to political correctness,
to try and figure out how we can navigate this
changing world and break through to actually talk with and
learn from the people who disagree with us, and maybe
just maybe learn something along the way. Today's episode Me Too.
(01:56):
It isn't two years since the me too movement emerged
in the wake of the horrible revelations about movie producer
Harvey Weinstein that changed absolutely everything, and in many ways
it was the wake up call our business, our society,
our culture drastically needed. But even in the last two
years now, even that change has changed again. We're gonna
(02:20):
dig into the current state of me too with my
guests Amber Tamberland, Joanna Coles, and Scott Galloway. That's coming
up on Modern Rules. One thing I found myself thinking about,
especially in this stage of Me Too, is redemption. Is
it possible and what does it look like who gets
it without question. There's no way we're going to go
(02:41):
back to the way things were. But what happens to
men who are genuine about accepting the consequences for the
way they behaved and are committed to changing. My first
guest as a pretty interesting take on how men and
women are reacting. What's possible in terms of moving forward
post Me Too? She is the talent did extraordinary award
winning actress and activist, the most recent author of a
(03:04):
very powerful memoir of her own coming of age as
a feminist. My friend Amber tample amber Era of Ignition
was this book that women needed. We're going through times up,
we're going through me Too. Since you wrote it, does
it feel like people are asking you what are the
(03:25):
new rules of engagement? I think the book has opened
up exactly that more questions than it has answers for people.
I find myself constantly in this position people asking big,
difficult questions. My kind of favorite is when they're sort
of talking third person. They're like, I have a friend
who's in a marriage with a man who you know
(03:46):
is having a hard time with the me too movement,
And how would I explain to my friend you know
there's a lot of those sort of um questions which
you kind of know sometimes are about themselves. But I think, um,
I think what's so important about everything that's happening right
now is that the questions are okay. The sense of
sort of feeling lost in chaotic right now and and
entangled and deeply a meshed in this chaos is a
(04:08):
good thing because I think from that is where real
clarity and change can ultimately come from. I don't think
that's sitting and knowing what the answers are. That doesn't
provide us with any ability to acquire new knowledge. We
have to be curious and open to two ideas. But
isn't one of the problems that some people think they
know what the answers are and they know what the
(04:29):
rules of engagement are. And one of my fears is
we're having men, especially retreat, they're so anxious about how
to behave that they're now leaving the conversation or they're
not engaging with women in the workforce, And ay, do
we think that's really happening? And be if it is,
what do we do about it? So let me say this,
do you really think that it's wrong or bad? That
(04:52):
that happens for a little while. Is it okay to
say that men are allowed to exit the conversation for
a moment. Will they go get themselves has figured out,
and feel what they need to feel while the rest
of us take over and make the decisions. Because for me,
part of it should be them being allowed to feel
that way. I am really okay with everyone retreating to
(05:12):
their corners right now. I think this foe coming together,
this foe reaching across the aisle with people who do
not have your best interest in heart, who do not
care what you have to think, who do not think
your voice matters in any given room or position of power.
I don't think it's right for us right now to
be spending energy trying to connect with those people that's
(05:33):
gonna come. That is inevitably going to come. All of
these men in business saying well, I'm not going to
mentor women anymore. I'd like to know when they started
doing that, right I came from investment banking. There's never
been a woman head of investment bank ever. So they're
rewriting history and saying I'm not going to take women
along and bring them up the corporate ladder with me.
Yet if you actually look, there's no evidence of them
(05:55):
doing that at all. Even in the announcing of that,
it's they're revealing themselves as supporters of charity cases, as
if women are you know, meant to be charity cases.
And it's like, look, I brought this one woman up
this one time, and I helped her get to the
position that she was in, and I'm not going to
do that anymore because that was me putting myself out.
We have to let men be able to retreat the
ones that want to do that, the ones that have
(06:17):
existed and lived in cowardice and have maintained their power
through uh, through that type of behavior. And for men,
I think the simple practice of not going you know,
I know what's right for women. I know I know
how to get more women in positions of power. I'm
the best person to pick the legislation for women. I'm
the best person to create laws for women. I'm the
(06:38):
best man in the house to help uh, you know,
pass legislation for women's um bodily autonomy and healthcare. And yes,
conservative women are part of the conversation, and they may
feel like they don't even want to be part of
that conversation yet, but I think inevitably they will. Megan
McCain and I agree that it was totally unfair that
no one reached out to conservative women, you know, during
(06:59):
the Women's March rally. The same thing with Time's Up.
I've been I've been working to sort of bring her
in and bring in more conservative women to talk with
Times Up and to talk with UM having a larger platform.
But you can't feel like you're a part of any
movement unless you have some kind of larger support. Not
one of us can do it alone. Not one of
(07:19):
us is going to come out and say, Okay, one time,
Harvey Weinstein grabbed my butt one time, Harvey Weinstein dragged
me into a hotel room one time. You know, no
individual person was able to do that. It was like
a floodgate that opened. And and now the floodgate has opened,
but there's still parts of the water that's not getting through.
But here's what I'm not allowed to say that there
are also women who have consciously used sex to get ahead.
(07:45):
That is absolutely so if I try to say this,
I get annihilated and I don't know where to put it. So,
so put it away for a minute. Because there's gonna
be time. Right. So, for instance, if you even look
at two thousands ev teens me to movement two years ago,
there is no way that Joe Biden would have been
(08:06):
able to pass along and and become a still viable
candidate under those terms. Two years ago, meaning two years ago,
we were in the absolute me too. We were in
the center of a deep, deep storm. I think it's
Jill Soloway has said it the best, which is when
people are talking about like, well, these consequences don't fit
(08:28):
for this person, how can you possibly say? And the
truth is, we don't know what the consequences are anymore.
They've been all thrown out the window. What you were
seeing right now is the creation of consequences. We're creating
and laying a new foundation of rules. It is happening
as we speak. You have to wait for it. We
have to do these things in at the appropriate times
(08:49):
in which people are ready for them. And maybe sometimes
in that given situation, it is about saying, okay, right now,
I can't say that women are part of the problem,
that women this out there in the world is part
of the problem, because we're still we're so mad at
the patriarchal point of view. We're so mad at men
and positions of power. We're still wrapping our head about
(09:10):
dismantling that. So I think it's about knowing when to
speak about these things. Two years ago. There are things
we could never be talking about now. We could not
be talking about the the empathy and and and sympathizing
of men, and how do you bring men into the conversation.
If I had done this podcast two years ago, I
would have been ripped to the seams, and it would
have been rightfully so, because women deserved their place in anger,
(09:33):
they deserved to have the feelings they were having at
that moment. And so everything to me, at the end
of the day comes down to the context of the
timing in which we're saying things, and we're bringing up points.
I think everyone at one point two years ago, I
thought that it was going to be this monumental, immediate
shift where all of a sudden the paradigm was going
to change overnight. And it did kind of in a
(09:55):
in a in a different way than we thought. All
of these women running for president the first time ever
in our entire history. It's that's not a coincidence. Look
in the entertainment business. You know. Uh, for us, it's
it's having more women as members of the voting Academy
for the Academy of Television, Arts and Sciences, it's having
more women of color, more representation who are behind the camera, directing, producing.
(10:18):
You're seeing you know, Regina King, You're seeing a black
woman when the best Supporting actress for the first time
ever in the Academy Awards. You're seeing things you've never
seen before. It's unprecedented. I don't think there's a war
on men, and neither do you. But there's a war
on power. That's really what it is. The war is
on power, so that that means people who abuse positions
(10:38):
of power, who are who are up there doing harm
and creating harm for other people. I think women reclaiming
their voice and reclaiming their autonomy and reclaiming what we
need for ourselves is the most important thing we can do,
as opposed to spending the energy on trying to stop them,
because we can't. Again, this is a long term goal.
It's going to take years and years for this to happen.
(11:00):
But it's been statistically proven and shown to that when
you have more equality in the workplace. When you have
more equality in positions of power, sexual harassment and assault
goes down. We're gonna be right back after a quick break,
welcome back to modern rules. My very first day in
(11:23):
New York, my very first day on the job, I
met a boy at work. I ended up marrying that boy. Now,
when I think about our story, our career story, our friendship,
our love life, I think through the two thousand nineteen lens.
It was a problematic relationship. I'm not saying it was
a me too that worked out, but it was a
situation that today would definitely be a no no. So
(11:47):
I had a chance to ask the brilliant, influential editor
Joanna Coles, who is a keen observer of our culture
and of women's perspectives of identity and relationships. And she's
also no prude on her views on this issue. I
want to talk about how our sex or our sexuality
(12:07):
UM is so prevalent in the workplace. I think back
to when I started, when I graduated college, and the
advice I got was all centered around UM behaving, don't
drink at a work event, dress conservatively, UM, never stay
out late, don't sleep with any guys at work, and
you can think that's good advice or bad. But men
(12:30):
who are starting in the workplace never get that advice.
I think that. I think men can get the advice
of don't get drunk at work, and don't get drunk
at work dinners, and don't sleep with the secretary, or
don't sleep with your female colleague. I think men are
much more conscious of that now. I mean it possibly
not when we were graduating and getting into the workforce,
but I think people are much more mindful of it now. Okay,
(12:51):
let's say you do all those things. Let's say you
get super drunk at a work event and you sleep
with someone. The impact on a woman who does that,
I think as much worse than it is for a man.
I suspect now. Actually, there's so much sensitivity around it.
It's probably the same. I think, certainly, ten, fifteen, even
maybe five years ago. You're absolutely right, But I think
(13:14):
post me too people are much more conscious of it now.
Are we better off post me too? In what way
do you think the workplace is smarter or better? Do
you think it's better for women? Undoubtedly the workplace is
better for women than it was three or five years ago.
The fact that women are allowed to talk to each
other about. It is a huge relief for women, and
(13:35):
I think I think the small micro aggressions that women
talk about, that one becomes aware of, are actually incredibly interesting.
And you saw it playing out in the Biden campaign
with people saying, actually, I don't like it when you
kiss the back of my head, or actually I don't
like it when you ruffle my hair. Those are all
(13:57):
things that I think over the years, women have had
to put with, if not more, egregious behavior, And it's
a welcome relief to say, actually, it pisces me off
when you put your hand in the center of my
back every time we have a meeting. And the reverse
women forever who do get ahead. People love to say
she must have slept her way there. I don't hear
(14:17):
people saying that so much, not today, But that's been
the case before. You don't think so yeah, sort of
twenty thirty years ago, But I don't think anybody thinks
that now. But do you believe there is a place
that we could get to in the workplace that's too far?
Is there? Could we overset sanitize things that you know
they're they're a level of intimacy, and I don't meant
(14:39):
sexual intimacy, but but connection does help us advance. It's
how you really get to understand people. It's sort of
where culture lives well. I think relationship intelligence is absolutely vital,
and now people are much more aware of it than
they were before. People get called out much more and
it can be really damaging when you get called out.
(15:00):
But what's interesting when people do get called out is
that it's often a systematic pattern of behavior which more
than one person then responds to. And I think we've
all figured out that if there's a complaint about someone
and it's one person making the complaint, that's one thing,
and it's probably something that went on between the two
of them that ended badly. But when there's a complaint
(15:21):
about someone and then twelve people weigh in and say yes,
and they all have almost identical stories, then you're glad
that that's been put under a microscope. When Me Too
first began, we weren't waiting for twelve people. That's sort
of when that canceled culture began, when as soon as
someone was accused of something, it became public and it
(15:42):
was game over for no. I don't think that's true.
I think you're doing your media kind of rushing to
judgment thing. That's not what happened. It took forever to
get the Harvey Weinstein story, which really kicked off the
me too and there were dozens of women who complained.
It was the collective group of women that allowed Adventure
Lee the story to get broken. Similarly with what happened
(16:03):
with Charlie Rose, almost all the people that we're thinking about,
some of the big film directors, these were scores of women.
Al Franken's a sort of a more interesting case. I agree,
although there were a lot of people who felt he'd
been inappropriate right and and at the end if they were,
if there would have been uh, due process, due diligence,
(16:25):
maybe they would have come to that conclusion. But there's
this fear right now that in in a mob mentality,
as soon as someone gets accused, the mob comes after them. Well,
it's pretty hard for it to get into the mainstream
media without there being a group of accusers. I mean,
give me a story, give me a case of someone
(16:47):
who's been brought down by one accuser in the in
the me too world that that you're referencing, Well, um,
it's not a direct me too, and it's not sexual assault.
But the Joe Biden situation came from one woman and
she said it was inappropriate. It wasn't sexual harassment. If
sexual assault is in one category and Joe Biden isn't another,
(17:09):
and Joe needs to be addressed. But in Joe's maybe
it's that conduct doesn't work. We need to update it.
And I wonder and we don't know the answer. If
she had reached out to his campaign and said, this
person is he's running, I need to tell you my experience,
and if he's going to run for president, it should
be something different. But we saw this woman boom rise
(17:30):
to prominence. In al Frankin's case, all of a sudden,
that woman, for many of us, seemed to come out
of nowhere. But maybe I'm wrong. Well, I don't know
enough about the Al Frankin case. And I think that
the images of him pretending to sort of turn the
women's the woman's breast when she was sleeping, though in
you know, very poor taste, clearly weren't being done in secret.
(17:52):
The photo was being done to show off and be funny. Right,
it was a joke. It was a bad joke. It
was a joke in poor taste, but it was like
it was happening in secret, which is I think one
of the issues that a lot of the me too.
The me too movement has raised this sort of secret, furtive,
controlling behavior that goes on that women feel uncomfortable with. Rightly, so,
(18:15):
I think the me too movement has has been you know, great.
Where do you think it goes from here? Well? I
think the media is enormously powerful when it shines its
spotlight on a subject and then collectively the media rolls
onto what whatever is next. But the media itself has
got bored with me too, and he's moving on. It's
(18:36):
actually moved on to a different narrative that I worry
is dangerous. And it's this narrative. If you turn on
conservative media any night of the week at nine pm,
ten pm, and they will tell you there's a war
on men in this country. Men are going to be
falsely accused of assault. Your sons aren't going to get
into college because a diversity candidate is going to take
(18:58):
their spot. And you know, corporate America is being taken
over by women. And I watch it and I think
this is crazy. If you actually look at the data there.
The amount of women running companies is minuscule, but you
have a portion of the media telling this country every night,
(19:19):
these angry women are taking over and they're going to
take us down. This is what the media does. Why
are you so you seem outraged by this. I'm not outrage.
That's what conservative media is. I'm not outraged. I'm concerned
because what will the impact be? Then? I care so
much about the advancement of women, So how do you so?
(19:39):
I'm very curious. Then, how do you explain the results
of the mid term elections last November? I think this
is I love this question because the results of the
mid terms were stunning that we saw a record number
of women run. We saw a record number of people
with education backgrounds, with science backgrounds win, and I thought
that was tremendous. I love your question because I think
(20:01):
it speaks to the perils of media narratives. And the
reason I wanted to even have this conversation is because
I feel the perils because I live in them. So
maybe it's time to move back to banking. There you go,
Just hold on a second, because we have so much
more to get into. We'll be back right after a
(20:24):
quick break, welcome back to modern rules. So, after I
had the privilege of speaking about this to two brilliant women,
I thought I needed to bring a dude into the mix.
I brought in my dear friend, author, entrepreneur, and very
popular n y U professor Scott Galloway. If you say
(20:48):
something from your heart and your mind and it doesn't
exactly fit into a category, people will call you a sexist,
a racist, a misogynist, and then you're dead to them.
The risk there's only one real dialogue here, and that
is an appropriate dialogue for someone in my position, and
that is to pile on and be outraged by everything
(21:09):
and join the chorus. One of the reasons I decided
to go in academia is academia is based on the
pursuit of truth, regardless of who it offends. The problem is,
I think we have this culture now where you get points.
If you're offended, you're immediately right. All you have to
do to be right is be offended, you immediately get
virtue points. We're not really having a conversation. We're having
an overdue immune reaction to some terrible problems. But we
(21:33):
aren't having a conversation because there's a one in ten
chance when I start talking about the things on your
list here, I'm gonna funk up and ruin my career
or say nothing. This is my fear retreat. Look at
me too. For example, I did a wellness panel last
year and I was talking about how in me too,
there's different grades of me too. And I actually brought
(21:55):
up a very unpopular topic of redemption, because I think, listen,
we loved fight as a culture, but we also love forgiveness.
We love a comeback. And I brought that up and
a woman in the audience stood up and said f you,
and she walked out. And another woman said, corporate America
was built by male white supremacists and until we destroy
that system, we can't move forward. And I tried to
(22:17):
make the argument, like, listen, the world is run by
white guys. If you want to get them to the table,
if you want to make things better, we have to
find a middle ground. Is there a middle ground? I
don't know if we're going to have what is really
a conversation. I don't know how we end up on
the other end of this. And I believe what Jonathan height,
and he's sort of my Yoda around this stuff, and
he's a colleague at n y O, and he believes that,
(22:38):
at least initially, you should interpret gestures with the intent
that they were made, and even just saying that is
dangerous because there's a general viewpoint that okay. Affection in
the workplace is a really interesting thing because I do
a podcast with Kara Swisher and she was saying that,
you know, she's experienced, and I believe her somebody just
creepy moments with men who feel at liberty to invade
(23:00):
a woman's space. I also asked her, have there been
moments of expression of affection at work that you've appreciated
and she said yes, And I said, well, some of
us need help figuring out the gray zone in between them.
And the reaction right now among all men at work
is that there's absolutely no affection. There's no real, open,
honest dialogue. There isn't even joking, and I think it's
creating a lack of camaraderie and quite frankly, a lack
(23:22):
of career advancement and connection for the people who needed
the most. So this is my fear. I have built
my career based on personal close relationships. Right when I
started in banking. Literally the way I got ahead. Uh,
it was my assignment to get reservations most nights of
the week at the hottest restaurants in New York City
(23:42):
for these guys, And when I did it, I always
made sure there was an empty seat at the table
for me. So three nights a week I was going
to hot restaurants and nightclubs with the guys that I
worked for. And one could say, oh my god, it's
sexist that you had to make dinner reservations. What were
you doing going to places like guess what? Me going
to those dinners and getting myself a seat every single
(24:04):
night was great for my career. And to say I'm
going to use my feminine wiles. It's not feminine wiles
or sexuality, but women do have high emotional intelligence and
people might invite me to dinner because I'm gonna make
the table move faster. I'm gonna make the clients feel good,
not in a sexual way, but in a personal way.
And that personal connection, building trust with the senior people
(24:27):
at the bank and with our clients is what catapulted
my business. Now, the idea of doing that is so
offensive that that that especially young women are saying that
should not happen in the workplace, and my worry is, like, ladies,
you are going to miss out. So it's funny I
hear that, and I think it's it's too bad you
had to put up with that bullshit, but you had
(24:49):
the ability to navigate it and leverage it and take
advantage of it. You know how this this problem gets solved.
And this is going to sound politically correct. I've run
nine businesses, and I hate to even say this out loud.
One of the things I'm most proud about is none
of my friends has ever been sued, nor have we
ever sued anybody else. You're generous with people. And the
(25:10):
thing that has protected or been the kind of the
kryptonite of my firms from ever having a complaint or
a lawsuit is that early on I recognize this underinvested
asset called young female leadership, and that is if you
give him a little bit of flexibility, they were outstanding
assets that weren't appreciated by traditional corporate America. So what
(25:34):
I've heard, especially abround redemption, is that for so many
people and industries, they're like at the tip of the iceberg.
For me too, I feel like me Too has been
revolutionary in the media, on Wall Street and lots of industries.
But for many, they're saying, Steff, we've barely scratched the surface.
We're not even ready for the redemption story. But even
(25:55):
with the changes that we've seen, it's hard for me
to get redemption into the conversation. But I actually think
we need to because a lot of people want to
talk about redemption, but they're afraid. They're afraid to bring
it up because this is such a hot button issue.
Are we going to create an island where every me
(26:15):
too person has to live like a leper colony? Are
we going to say, listen, there are different levels of this.
There are people who have been embroiled in it, and
maybe they've gotten smarter and better, or we have. Here's
what I'm committed to do. I'm committed to talk about
me too, not to banish anyone to an island. I'm
(26:38):
not gonna let me to sit on a shelf that
I won't touch. So for every guy out there who's
saying I'm not going to mentor a woman anymore because
I'm going to be accused of something, I'm not going
to allow him to say that, because I don't want
mentorship to go away, and I am going to spend
more time that puts myself at risk. Em that I
(27:00):
work with who are so clear, black and white that
there should never be paths that cross. So I'm gonna
bring those people to my house for dinner, where they're
gonna eat with my husband who I met at work,
and my children, who wouldn't exist if I didn't meet
that guy at work, and try to say, if we
opened our hearts and opened our minds and realized the
negative impact when sex exists at work, what it can
(27:24):
do and all the people it can hurt, if we
talked about it more, it actually talked about these things
more with compassion. I think we have progress. This has
been our conversation on me too. Thanks for listening, bringing
an open mind, and helping me create the modern rules.
(27:53):
That's it for today's episode. I'm your host, Stephanie Rule.
A very very special thanks to the extraordinary people who
made this happen. My producers Julie Brown, Samantha Ullen, and
Anne Bark, Audio Michael Biett for booking and wrangling the
amazing guests who joined us, Julian Weller for editing, and
Bill Plaques, Michael Azar and Jacobo Penzo for their recording expertise.
(28:14):
Special thanks to Steve lick Tide, Barbara Rab, Jonathan Wald,
Marie Dugo, Holly traz, Nikki Etre, and Christina Everett. Our
executive producers are Conald Byrne and Mangesh Hatigadore, and of
course the men who brought us all together, Chairman and
CEO of iHeartMedia Bob Pittman and Chairman of NBC News
Andy Lack. For more podcasts for my Heart Radio and
(28:36):
visit the I Heart Radio Adam Apple podcast or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows
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I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
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Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com