March 26, 2025 • 26 mins
In this episode, Karol interviews Abigail Shrier, a contributing editor at the Free Press and author of two best-selling books. They discuss the motivations behind Shrier's controversial writing, her journey in journalism, the state of relationships among young people, the impact of technology on interpersonal connections, and the importance of community. Shrier shares her insights on the decline of friendships and the need for young people to prioritize meaningful relationships over career pursuits. The Karol Markowicz Show is part of the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Podcast Network - new episodes debut every Wednesday & Friday.
Learn more about Abigail Shrier HERE
#controversial #writing #relationships #technology #journalism #parenting #youngpeople #community #publicdiscourse #mentalhealth
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hi, Welcome back to the Carol Markowitz Show on iHeartRadio.
There's an article that seems to be written every few
weeks now, and the latest is titled American women are
giving up on marriage and was in Saturday's Wall Street Journal.
I'm not criticizing the genre. I obviously talk about this
topic maybe more than any other, and I appreciate that
(00:23):
these pieces are sounding the alarm. Just kind of think
they're not quite getting it right. Here's a quote from
the article. I'm financially self sufficient enough to do these
things by myself, said a woman they interviewed, a Boston
based accountant. I'm willing to accept being single versus settling
for someone who isn't the right fit. She sees her
(00:44):
plans for an independent futures, making the best of a
lousy situation. I don't want to sit here and say
I'm one hundred percent happy, but I feel happier just
accepting my reality. I'm mentally and emotionally a sense of peace.
She's only twenty nine. She's twenty nine, and she's given
up on finding her person. It's just depressing. But here's
(01:06):
the thing. At twenty nine, I was in a six
year relationship with someone who I did not marry. I
was certain, I mean one thousand percent sure, that I
didn't want to get married and I didn't want to
have kids. I started dating my husband the following year
when I was thirty, and we got married the year
after that. It changes so quickly. Why does a twenty
(01:29):
nine year old feel so despondent about her future? The
problem is the dating culture. If you talk to anyone
in it, well you feel extra grateful to not be
in it. But they use this language that's just become ridiculous.
Like I get what a situationship is, but giving it
a name as opposed to just like someone you're hooking
(01:51):
up with, makes it sound so much more important than
it is. As listeners have heard me say on this
show before, the problem is a decline in marriage, yes,
but it's a decline in all relationships, including friendships. The
top message that I get to this show is from
(02:11):
parents writing in about helping their kid, sometimes a teen,
sometimes a twenty something have more of a social life.
Something has definitely shifted for the worse. Listen to this
stat from the article the share of women age eighteen
to forty who are single, That is neither married nor
cohabitating with a partner was fifty one point four percent
(02:34):
in twenty twenty three, according to an analysis of census
data by the Aspen Economic Strategy Group. That's up from
forty one point eight percent in two thousand. I mean
a ten point jump in twenty years or so. And
that part about cohabitating is important. It's not just marriage
that people aren't participating in. It's not this piece of paper,
(02:54):
it's not the institution. It's everything. It's having relationships in general.
There are a lot of reasons for it, and a
lot of the articles and a lot of the research
focuses on the financial more than anything else. Women are
succeeding at previously unheard of levels. Men aren't, women want
to marry up, etc. But is that what you're hearing
(03:17):
from real people in your life who are trying to
find someone. It's not at all what I'm hearing. I'm
hearing that women can't find a man who will be faithful,
and men say they can't find a woman who isn't
in two material things. Women say men don't ask any
questions about themselves on dates, so a woman will ask
(03:37):
him about his family, about his job, about his hobbies,
and he won't say a word asking her in return,
He'll just answer her questions. Men say that women expect
them to carry conversations and interactions. I get that those
things are diametrically opposed. But I hear both of these perspectives,
and these are all things that I've heard multiple times.
(03:57):
We're missing the forest for the trees. It's not that
women are focused on their jobs. It's that they are
focused on their jobs because they can't find a man.
I'd love to hear from listeners on this. Am I
right is the whole She's just a career woman, a
red herring. Let me know what you think. Thanks for listening.
Coming up my interview with Abigail Schreier. But first, after
(04:20):
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(05:28):
three two five, And Welcome back to the Carol Marcowitz
Show on iHeartRadio. My guest today is Abigail Shreier. Abigail
is contributing editor at The Free Press and the author
of two best selling books, Irreversible Damage, The Transgender Creates,
Seducing Our Daughters and Bad Therapy, Why the Kids Aren't
(05:49):
Growing Up. Abigail is also one of my all time
favorite people. Hi, Abigail, so nice to.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
Have you on. Oh it's great to be here, Carol,
great to talk to you.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
So I feel like my question two has to be
why do you do it? Why do you do this?
Why do you write controversial books that are going to
bring you, you know, nasty hate mail when and here's
the thing, I think you are amazing, brilliant, but you're
also a fantastic writer. Like a lot of people in
(06:18):
our world are smart, but they don't have a beautiful
writing style. You could be writing about anything, but you're
choosing to go into the lines.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
And why, Well, thank you. That's very kind of you
to say. I mean, I write about what interests me,
and I write about things where I don't know the
answer to the question. And you know, starting out with
you know, irreversible damage. A reader wrote to me to
tell me about this sudden spike and transgender identification among
(06:46):
teenage girls, and no one was at the time willing
to write about it, and I wanted to know if
she was right, and so it sort of took me
on an investigative journey. But it wasn't you know, provocation
wasn't the point. It was really sort of getting getting
to the answer. And I like that. I mean, I
(07:08):
like getting to the answer. I always feel that I
feel personally much safer in a world where I feel
like I have full information and I know what's going on.
And the truth is more than sort of public opprobrium.
Things that worry me is really not knowing or being fooled,
and those things actually do scare me. So you know,
(07:31):
you sort of have to go with who you are
in life, I think, especially in your profession, and you
know this, the job sort of suits me, it just does.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
It does. But you're so not like you're very mild
mannered and just a calm, rational person. I mean your
books are very common rational too, But I think that
the hate at you is not And I don't know,
I worry about you in that way just because like
it's not like you don't but you don't need it.
(08:01):
You don't need that kind of response, and yet you're
going out there and doing it anyway. I'm very proud
of you, obviously.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
I think that that's, you know, the way to be.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
I don't know necessarily that I have that.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
So people get angry with me because I'm effective. That's
what makes them so angry. So I think if I
were more provocative or extreme or ungrounded or unfounded and
things I had to say, I would get a lot
less hate and I would be more ignored. And the
reason that I get attention is because I, you know,
try to craft things in a way that will be
(08:37):
effective and well grounded and therefore hard to ignore. So
you know that that makes some activists angry who are
trying to, you know, keep the facts from getting to light.
I really think that's sort of their problem. And I,
you know, I leave the rest up to the public,
but you know, I'm going to keep doing my job.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
What was your path here? How did you get your start? Oh?
Speaker 2 (09:01):
So that's a great question. So I, you know, always
did journalism high school. I was a stringer for the
Wall Street Washington Jewish Week and you know, through college
and then I I was working at the Washington Monthly.
And I got the advice from some of my editors.
You know, journalists are so often diletants. They don't you know,
(09:22):
you have to know about everything, but you never know
anything deeply. You should really try to get a PhD
or learn something deeply. And I thought, well, I wasn't
sure I wanted to do a PhD. I did some
graduate life. He was drastic. Yeah, it's drastic. But one
thing they said that did scare me. It wasn't anything
they said, actually, it was something they did. And that
was that my editor, one of my editors. She was
(09:45):
this beautiful, young, very talented editor, and I think she
was about twenty five at the time, and she was
going out to dinner with this sixty five year old
man who was rich, just so he would buy her dinner,
because the editors were so poor at the Washington Monthly
that they would base do anything for a nice meal.
And that scared me. That scared me more than anything
(10:05):
she said. So after that I went to law school.
I thought, this is journalism.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
By my own dinner, actually exactly.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
I thought journalism could be very bleak if that's what
you have to do to get a meal. So so
I went to law school, but I never really enjoyed
the practice of law. And so when when my kids
were born, I started writing these novels and they weren't
going anywhere, and I thought, I have to get my
(10:34):
novels out before I go back to journalism, because once
people find out, you know, most people say my journalism,
they'll never let me publish another novel. Right, But my
novels were not successful. I never sold one. So I decided,
you know what, I have so many thoughts, I'm just
going to go back to journalism, and from there I
just started writing for the local press and my career
(10:55):
sort of took off.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
Would law have been the plan, B.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
I suppose. I mean, I like writing about law even now.
It's it's certainly an advantage in journalism to be able
to write accurately about law. It's it's something that trips
up a lot of journalists. So you know, certainly, having
that in my toolkit, as it were, as something I
can write about, I have found very useful. You know,
(11:20):
I'm not I'm not scared by a statute in the
way that I very reasonably some journalists would be, well,
I mean understandably, I mean, and I also, you know,
you know, because I went to y A law school,
I have a number of professors I can call up
if I'm not sure about something and get a really,
really smart take. So so you know, I I like
(11:42):
having you know, personally, I'm glad that I went to
law school, but you know, the journalism just just really
suits my personality best.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
You live in California, and I've had a lot of
people on the show who have left California in the
last five years. And you're saying you're you're you're you're
waiting it out. How how is it going? How is
how is it out there?
Speaker 2 (12:05):
Well, you know, obviously California is a disaster in so
many ways, that's no secret. We're we're horribly governed all
the way down from the you know, state level, uh
through my local uh here in l A. I mean,
the governance is a disaster. But I write about the culture,
and there is really no better way to look at
(12:26):
how the culture has gone drastically off course, how it
has undermined families and children than to be in a
in the state where a lot of that, those bad
ideas and bad policies get started. So, you know, from
that perspective, it really is a candy store for a journalist.
And uh, for from the perspective of our family, we're
(12:48):
in it. We happen to be in a very nice
community so that you know, the kids are in a
good school, we're happy with so uh. From that perspective,
it's it's we're doing all right.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
So California gets to keep you for now.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
Yes, absolutely, we'll revisit right, Yeah, sounds good.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
What do you worry about?
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Oh, so there's there's so much to worry about. But
I think the thing I worry about the most right
now is why young people are not forming relationships, healthy relationships,
sort of the retreat from the in person world and
also the lack of meaningful romantic relationships that we're seeing
(13:29):
young people less interested in having them. They're too young
to know that they're giving up on the best things
in life. And also they've been lied to a lot
of them believe that no, I need to get my
professions started first. I can't possibly date someone until I've
pursued my career as a paralegal.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
And it's don't go pursuing that career, go ahead and
find your spouse.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
Now, right. I mean, you know, for for any job,
they will put off finding a spouse. And it really
should be the reverse. You know, I'm not saying, you know,
don't take your career seriously, but God willing, we have
many decades, productive decades had but unfor you know, the
way we're designed, we have a short time with biology
(14:15):
and in which to have children and to marry, and
that's the thing that we actually should be you know,
putting at least as much energy into if not more,
And unfortunately it's really reversed. Young people are putting all
their energy into their careers and none into finding a spouse.
And I do think that's a real problem.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
Do you think phones are related to it, that they're
not living like real lives or they're they're just on
the internet.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
Absolutely undeniably. But I also think that that the fearfulness
of the generation, they're so full of worry and look
in our personal relationships are the scariest and most risky
things you'll ever get involved in, and they're also the
most rewarding. But not knowing if someone's going to like
you back, much less love you back, not knowing if
(15:04):
you're going to get your heart broken. These are really
scary things. And we've raised this generation to be the
most fearful, and so unfortunately they're staying away from the
ultimate rewards of a loving relationship.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
We're going to take a quick break and be right back.
On the Carol Marcowitch Show, I talk about this a
lot on the show, about relationships and about all kinds
of connections between people. Family, friendships, friendships are way down.
It's not just they're not just not making romantic connections,
(15:39):
they're not even making friends anymore. And I get emails
all the time from people saying like, how can I
help my teenager or how can I help my twenty
something make friends. It's becomes so like people see it
as out of reach to connect with other people, and
it's scary.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
Yeah, you had a great column on that. I should
have mentioned that. It was a terrific column. Everyone should
go back and read it if they missed it. On
the decline of friendship. It was something that I wasn't
aware of until I saw your column. And it's exactly
what you just said is exactly right. I mean, we
look back on our lives. Friendships and romantic relationships. These
(16:16):
are you know, in your spouse, and then these are
at the top of what gives you meaning and satisfaction
in life. And friendships are amazing things because you start
out you have these conflicts, right, you know, you get
very close to someone, then you fall out of touch,
or maybe you get a share with them or whatever happens.
(16:37):
But this is the amazing thing. Years go by, and
for whatever reason, it has this amazing cementing effect of
making your friendship so meaningful and so strong, and it
doesn't even matter how mad you got at her over
this or that. In the sixth grade, you look back
and all of a sudden, you've known her for thirty years.
(17:00):
And I do very much worry that kids are missing
out on those close friendships.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
Yeah, I definitely like it's something that I think about
a lot. That you know, I'm on my phone a lot.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
I can't.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
I can't say that I'm not guilty of the same thing.
Every every moment of awkwardness, I immediately reached my phone
just like, WHOA, this feels much more comfortable. I could
just scroll and not focus on whatever is happening here.
How do you kind of direct your kids toward those connections? Right?
Speaker 2 (17:30):
So, first of all, let me just acknowledge that it's
near impossible to manage the phones and the computers. It's
so hard, and the schools have made it harder than
any I think, any institution. You try to keep these
things away from your kids, and then every teacher assigns
homework through some school some computer programs. So let me
(17:51):
just start by saying, I'm, you know, not perfect by
any means. How do I direct my kids to in
person relationships? I do send them to a school with
a no phone policy, which has been really wonderful, And
you know, my sons who are in high school. They
have what's known as kosher phones. You can actually buy
these things and they are Internet blocked. It's great, that
(18:13):
doesn't It's been wonderful for us. They have you know,
various apps like WhatsApp for communicating with teams or you know,
chatting apps, but when like Gmail, so they can use
their see their schedules and whatnot. But it's not the
open Internet, Okay, so that's somewhat better. But truthfully, and
this goes to another question that I think, as you
(18:37):
let me know is on your mind, is sort of
what advice would I give? And that is that let's
just go.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
Right to it. What advice would you give your sixteen
year old self?
Speaker 2 (18:47):
Well, you know, what advice would I give my sixteen
year old self will be a little different, but I'll
tell you what advice I would give in general on
this issue of improving life, improving your life honestly, and
I hate to say it, and people are going to
really upset that I said this, or maybe tune out,
but honestly, the easiest, quickest, most assured way to do
this is to join a religious community, join a church,
(19:09):
join a synagogue. There is no quicker way to get
actual real community, that is in person, that is meaningful,
that is full of connections, And yes, it comes with
plenty of annoyance too, of course, But I actually think
that that is the most direct way to sort of
immediately improve your life.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
I love it. That's usually the last question, but that's okay,
that's okay, we can starry.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
What advice would I give to my sixteen year old self.
You know, I spent a lot of years. I think
this may resonate with with a lot of women. So
I spent a lot of years thinking my personality was
just wrong. So by which I mean, you hear from
a lot of other girls you can't say that, my god.
You know that seems to be a theme with girl
(19:58):
groups of girls, and you spend a lot of of
time sort of, especially if you're like me or you
know you, I would imagine you sort of if you're
a straightforward person who just sort of calls things like
you see them, you spend a lot of time with
other girls being told that you're mean, you're saying all
the wrong things, and you don't share what you said.
And if I could go back, what I would would
(20:20):
would do is sort of tell myself. You know, there's
going to be a place for someone with your personality.
It's not all bad. It may be hard to maintain
large groups of friends of girlfriends because they want you
to flatter them, and the ticket for large groups of
girlfriends tends to be small lies and flattery, neither of
(20:42):
which I'm terribly good at. But it turns out there's
you know, there's really a place for you, no matter
your personality. And I'm not talking about sociopathy or anything
like that, right, but personality and in journalism, you know,
I'm I'm I'm not running against you know, I'm going
with the current when it comes to my personality when
(21:04):
I tell the truth, because that's something that's always been
very easy for me. It's covering up the truth or
taking care of everyone's feelings that's always been harder. So
I sort of if I could go back, I wish
I would have known that, actually what was so difficult
in some situations that required niceties and flattery and you know,
(21:29):
white lies, it would actually be to my advantage in
a career in journalism.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
Did you always have primarily male friends or yes, yes,
same same, Yeah. Do you know how that is so
not popular now like that is. When I say that
to my fifteen year old daughter, she's like, that's you know,
they call girls like that, like the pick me girl
who like tries to cater to boys and like no,
boys were just they were funny and trying to be
(21:55):
funny all the time. And that's what I was looking
for totally.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
And I was also I was always close to my
father and maybe yeah, and I don't know if it's
because I was close to him or we were close
because we had such similar personalities. But I always got
along with men and boys much better. And you know,
my husband says, he always jokes that I'm the only
woman who wants to be told when she looks fat,
because I'll I'll say to him, do I look fat
(22:21):
in this? And I want to know before I leave
the house. I don't want to be lied to. You
definitely don't want to be Apparently that's a big no
no with most women. They want to be lied to.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
And why would you ask unless you want to know
the honest opinion, what am I doing here?
Speaker 2 (22:35):
Exactly? If I don't look good, I want to change
immediately before I leave the house. So you know, that
was always very hard with me with groups of girlfriends.
I always had a female best friend, but the rest
I just couldn't maintain the group. I just could never,
you know, keep the whole group happy and and and
I didn't know that that those same sort of personality
(22:56):
quirks would would make some areas of my life much
much easier.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
Do you feel like your books change the conversation and
enough to make those issues that you've written about better?
Like I think that you writing about the trans contagion
blew it all up to such an extent that I
think that. I mean, maybe I just live in Florida now,
but I'm seeing a change, a shift in the way
(23:21):
that this is all going down. I don't see as
many And again, this might just be a New York
to Florida move. Maybe they're still all trendsing in New York,
but it seems like fewer girls are going down that path.
And similarly, your book about you know, over therapy for kids,
I feel like the conversation around that has changed and
(23:42):
that there's an improvement. Do you feel any of that.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
I do think so, and I'm very happy about that.
I mean the advantage of writing a book is here's
what I try to do. I don't write a book
that's just my opinions or my take. There's nothing wrong
with that, but that's not what I do. I try
to create a document that people can take that's full
of information and that can really add to the discourse.
(24:06):
So in Bad Therapy, there were legislators who bought the
book who went argued in court against. You know, people
would argue in court against or in favor of puberty
blocker bands or whatnot, and they would have all the
evidence in my book, they would say, they would cite
it in their briefs, And I tried to do the
same for Bad Therapy. I wanted parents who went into
(24:28):
school boards and were trying, who sensed in their guts
there was something wrong with social emotional learning to be
able to say here, chapter whatever chapter it was, I
think it was chapter nine, but or chapter six, and
they would say, here, it's all in this book. And
that's what I try to do. I try to be
a resource in that way. The nice thing about a
book is that you know it's always there, so you
(24:52):
know it's you know, an episode will get more views,
but then people rarely go back and listen to or
read why old episodes. The advantage, of course of the
episodes is you know, unfortunately reading is really declining. So
I think I think sort of the podcast world and
the book world work really well together because you sort
(25:13):
of need both to reach people.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
Absolutely, So do you when people do cite your work,
do they I mean, do you feel like you've gotten
the credit that you deserve for this? I feel like
maybe not enough. That's fair, and I think Abigail Schreier
deserves more.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
Guys, thank you, you know, I'm I'm I'm happy. I
think that, you know, I'm not. I think if I
were more strategic about my career in certain ways, I
would have stayed on each topic longer and kept promoting
it and promoting it and promoting it. So within the
(25:51):
year after Irreversible Damage was out, I was really onto
new topics and new investigations because just I'm just interested
in what the next is and I'm not someone who
has I'm not an activist. I don't have a burning
passion about one issue, and so you know, as a journalist,
I'm always looking at sort of what's ahead and what
(26:12):
the next issue is. I don't know if that's the
best always the best move for my career. It might
be to make sure that I'm the one person everyone
constantly goes to for this one issue. But for me,
I like being able to move on to the next
topic and reveal something else if I can.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
I love it. She is Abigail Schreier. Get her books,
read her anywhere you can. You're so fantastic. Thank you
so much for coming on. I've loved this conversation.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
Thank you, Carol, You're the best.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
Thanks so much for joining us on the Carol Marco
Which show. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
Hi, Welcome back to the Carol Markowitz Show on iHeartRadio.
There's an article that seems to be written every few
weeks now, and the latest is titled American women are
giving up on marriage and was in Saturday's Wall Street Journal.
I'm not criticizing the genre. I obviously talk about this
topic maybe more than any other, and I appreciate that
(00:23):
these pieces are sounding the alarm. Just kind of think
they're not quite getting it right. Here's a quote from
the article. I'm financially self sufficient enough to do these
things by myself, said a woman they interviewed, a Boston
based accountant. I'm willing to accept being single versus settling
for someone who isn't the right fit. She sees her
(00:44):
plans for an independent futures, making the best of a
lousy situation. I don't want to sit here and say
I'm one hundred percent happy, but I feel happier just
accepting my reality. I'm mentally and emotionally a sense of peace.
She's only twenty nine. She's twenty nine, and she's given
up on finding her person. It's just depressing. But here's
(01:06):
the thing. At twenty nine, I was in a six
year relationship with someone who I did not marry. I
was certain, I mean one thousand percent sure, that I
didn't want to get married and I didn't want to
have kids. I started dating my husband the following year
when I was thirty, and we got married the year
after that. It changes so quickly. Why does a twenty
(01:29):
nine year old feel so despondent about her future? The
problem is the dating culture. If you talk to anyone
in it, well you feel extra grateful to not be
in it. But they use this language that's just become ridiculous.
Like I get what a situationship is, but giving it
a name as opposed to just like someone you're hooking
(01:51):
up with, makes it sound so much more important than
it is. As listeners have heard me say on this
show before, the problem is a decline in marriage, yes,
but it's a decline in all relationships, including friendships. The
top message that I get to this show is from
(02:11):
parents writing in about helping their kid, sometimes a teen,
sometimes a twenty something have more of a social life.
Something has definitely shifted for the worse. Listen to this
stat from the article the share of women age eighteen
to forty who are single, That is neither married nor
cohabitating with a partner was fifty one point four percent
(02:34):
in twenty twenty three, according to an analysis of census
data by the Aspen Economic Strategy Group. That's up from
forty one point eight percent in two thousand. I mean
a ten point jump in twenty years or so. And
that part about cohabitating is important. It's not just marriage
that people aren't participating in. It's not this piece of paper,
(02:54):
it's not the institution. It's everything. It's having relationships in general.
There are a lot of reasons for it, and a
lot of the articles and a lot of the research
focuses on the financial more than anything else. Women are
succeeding at previously unheard of levels. Men aren't, women want
to marry up, etc. But is that what you're hearing
(03:17):
from real people in your life who are trying to
find someone. It's not at all what I'm hearing. I'm
hearing that women can't find a man who will be faithful,
and men say they can't find a woman who isn't
in two material things. Women say men don't ask any
questions about themselves on dates, so a woman will ask
(03:37):
him about his family, about his job, about his hobbies,
and he won't say a word asking her in return,
He'll just answer her questions. Men say that women expect
them to carry conversations and interactions. I get that those
things are diametrically opposed. But I hear both of these perspectives,
and these are all things that I've heard multiple times.
(03:57):
We're missing the forest for the trees. It's not that
women are focused on their jobs. It's that they are
focused on their jobs because they can't find a man.
I'd love to hear from listeners on this. Am I
right is the whole She's just a career woman, a
red herring. Let me know what you think. Thanks for listening.
Coming up my interview with Abigail Schreier. But first, after
(04:20):
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(05:28):
three two five, And Welcome back to the Carol Marcowitz
Show on iHeartRadio. My guest today is Abigail Shreier. Abigail
is contributing editor at The Free Press and the author
of two best selling books, Irreversible Damage, The Transgender Creates,
Seducing Our Daughters and Bad Therapy, Why the Kids Aren't
(05:49):
Growing Up. Abigail is also one of my all time
favorite people. Hi, Abigail, so nice to.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
Have you on. Oh it's great to be here, Carol,
great to talk to you.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
So I feel like my question two has to be
why do you do it? Why do you do this?
Why do you write controversial books that are going to
bring you, you know, nasty hate mail when and here's
the thing, I think you are amazing, brilliant, but you're
also a fantastic writer. Like a lot of people in
(06:18):
our world are smart, but they don't have a beautiful
writing style. You could be writing about anything, but you're
choosing to go into the lines.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
And why, Well, thank you. That's very kind of you
to say. I mean, I write about what interests me,
and I write about things where I don't know the
answer to the question. And you know, starting out with
you know, irreversible damage. A reader wrote to me to
tell me about this sudden spike and transgender identification among
(06:46):
teenage girls, and no one was at the time willing
to write about it, and I wanted to know if
she was right, and so it sort of took me
on an investigative journey. But it wasn't you know, provocation
wasn't the point. It was really sort of getting getting
to the answer. And I like that. I mean, I
(07:08):
like getting to the answer. I always feel that I
feel personally much safer in a world where I feel
like I have full information and I know what's going on.
And the truth is more than sort of public opprobrium.
Things that worry me is really not knowing or being fooled,
and those things actually do scare me. So you know,
(07:31):
you sort of have to go with who you are
in life, I think, especially in your profession, and you
know this, the job sort of suits me, it just does.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
It does. But you're so not like you're very mild
mannered and just a calm, rational person. I mean your
books are very common rational too, But I think that
the hate at you is not And I don't know,
I worry about you in that way just because like
it's not like you don't but you don't need it.
(08:01):
You don't need that kind of response, and yet you're
going out there and doing it anyway. I'm very proud
of you, obviously.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
I think that that's, you know, the way to be.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
I don't know necessarily that I have that.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
So people get angry with me because I'm effective. That's
what makes them so angry. So I think if I
were more provocative or extreme or ungrounded or unfounded and
things I had to say, I would get a lot
less hate and I would be more ignored. And the
reason that I get attention is because I, you know,
try to craft things in a way that will be
(08:37):
effective and well grounded and therefore hard to ignore. So
you know that that makes some activists angry who are
trying to, you know, keep the facts from getting to light.
I really think that's sort of their problem. And I,
you know, I leave the rest up to the public,
but you know, I'm going to keep doing my job.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
What was your path here? How did you get your start? Oh?
Speaker 2 (09:01):
So that's a great question. So I, you know, always
did journalism high school. I was a stringer for the
Wall Street Washington Jewish Week and you know, through college
and then I I was working at the Washington Monthly.
And I got the advice from some of my editors.
You know, journalists are so often diletants. They don't you know,
(09:22):
you have to know about everything, but you never know
anything deeply. You should really try to get a PhD
or learn something deeply. And I thought, well, I wasn't
sure I wanted to do a PhD. I did some
graduate life. He was drastic. Yeah, it's drastic. But one
thing they said that did scare me. It wasn't anything
they said, actually, it was something they did. And that
was that my editor, one of my editors. She was
(09:45):
this beautiful, young, very talented editor, and I think she
was about twenty five at the time, and she was
going out to dinner with this sixty five year old
man who was rich, just so he would buy her dinner,
because the editors were so poor at the Washington Monthly
that they would base do anything for a nice meal.
And that scared me. That scared me more than anything
(10:05):
she said. So after that I went to law school.
I thought, this is journalism.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
By my own dinner, actually exactly.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
I thought journalism could be very bleak if that's what
you have to do to get a meal. So so
I went to law school, but I never really enjoyed
the practice of law. And so when when my kids
were born, I started writing these novels and they weren't
going anywhere, and I thought, I have to get my
(10:34):
novels out before I go back to journalism, because once
people find out, you know, most people say my journalism,
they'll never let me publish another novel. Right, But my
novels were not successful. I never sold one. So I decided,
you know what, I have so many thoughts, I'm just
going to go back to journalism, and from there I
just started writing for the local press and my career
(10:55):
sort of took off.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
Would law have been the plan, B.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
I suppose. I mean, I like writing about law even now.
It's it's certainly an advantage in journalism to be able
to write accurately about law. It's it's something that trips
up a lot of journalists. So you know, certainly, having
that in my toolkit, as it were, as something I
can write about, I have found very useful. You know,
(11:20):
I'm not I'm not scared by a statute in the
way that I very reasonably some journalists would be, well,
I mean understandably, I mean, and I also, you know,
you know, because I went to y A law school,
I have a number of professors I can call up
if I'm not sure about something and get a really,
really smart take. So so you know, I I like
(11:42):
having you know, personally, I'm glad that I went to
law school, but you know, the journalism just just really
suits my personality best.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
You live in California, and I've had a lot of
people on the show who have left California in the
last five years. And you're saying you're you're you're you're
waiting it out. How how is it going? How is
how is it out there?
Speaker 2 (12:05):
Well, you know, obviously California is a disaster in so
many ways, that's no secret. We're we're horribly governed all
the way down from the you know, state level, uh
through my local uh here in l A. I mean,
the governance is a disaster. But I write about the culture,
and there is really no better way to look at
(12:26):
how the culture has gone drastically off course, how it
has undermined families and children than to be in a
in the state where a lot of that, those bad
ideas and bad policies get started. So, you know, from
that perspective, it really is a candy store for a journalist.
And uh, for from the perspective of our family, we're
(12:48):
in it. We happen to be in a very nice
community so that you know, the kids are in a
good school, we're happy with so uh. From that perspective,
it's it's we're doing all right.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
So California gets to keep you for now.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
Yes, absolutely, we'll revisit right, Yeah, sounds good.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
What do you worry about?
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Oh, so there's there's so much to worry about. But
I think the thing I worry about the most right
now is why young people are not forming relationships, healthy relationships,
sort of the retreat from the in person world and
also the lack of meaningful romantic relationships that we're seeing
(13:29):
young people less interested in having them. They're too young
to know that they're giving up on the best things
in life. And also they've been lied to a lot
of them believe that no, I need to get my
professions started first. I can't possibly date someone until I've
pursued my career as a paralegal.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
And it's don't go pursuing that career, go ahead and
find your spouse.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
Now, right. I mean, you know, for for any job,
they will put off finding a spouse. And it really
should be the reverse. You know, I'm not saying, you know,
don't take your career seriously, but God willing, we have
many decades, productive decades had but unfor you know, the
way we're designed, we have a short time with biology
(14:15):
and in which to have children and to marry, and
that's the thing that we actually should be you know,
putting at least as much energy into if not more,
And unfortunately it's really reversed. Young people are putting all
their energy into their careers and none into finding a spouse.
And I do think that's a real problem.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
Do you think phones are related to it, that they're
not living like real lives or they're they're just on
the internet.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
Absolutely undeniably. But I also think that that the fearfulness
of the generation, they're so full of worry and look
in our personal relationships are the scariest and most risky
things you'll ever get involved in, and they're also the
most rewarding. But not knowing if someone's going to like
you back, much less love you back, not knowing if
(15:04):
you're going to get your heart broken. These are really
scary things. And we've raised this generation to be the
most fearful, and so unfortunately they're staying away from the
ultimate rewards of a loving relationship.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
We're going to take a quick break and be right back.
On the Carol Marcowitch Show, I talk about this a
lot on the show, about relationships and about all kinds
of connections between people. Family, friendships, friendships are way down.
It's not just they're not just not making romantic connections,
(15:39):
they're not even making friends anymore. And I get emails
all the time from people saying like, how can I
help my teenager or how can I help my twenty
something make friends. It's becomes so like people see it
as out of reach to connect with other people, and
it's scary.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
Yeah, you had a great column on that. I should
have mentioned that. It was a terrific column. Everyone should
go back and read it if they missed it. On
the decline of friendship. It was something that I wasn't
aware of until I saw your column. And it's exactly
what you just said is exactly right. I mean, we
look back on our lives. Friendships and romantic relationships. These
(16:16):
are you know, in your spouse, and then these are
at the top of what gives you meaning and satisfaction
in life. And friendships are amazing things because you start
out you have these conflicts, right, you know, you get
very close to someone, then you fall out of touch,
or maybe you get a share with them or whatever happens.
(16:37):
But this is the amazing thing. Years go by, and
for whatever reason, it has this amazing cementing effect of
making your friendship so meaningful and so strong, and it
doesn't even matter how mad you got at her over
this or that. In the sixth grade, you look back
and all of a sudden, you've known her for thirty years.
(17:00):
And I do very much worry that kids are missing
out on those close friendships.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
Yeah, I definitely like it's something that I think about
a lot. That you know, I'm on my phone a lot.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
I can't.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
I can't say that I'm not guilty of the same thing.
Every every moment of awkwardness, I immediately reached my phone
just like, WHOA, this feels much more comfortable. I could
just scroll and not focus on whatever is happening here.
How do you kind of direct your kids toward those connections? Right?
Speaker 2 (17:30):
So, first of all, let me just acknowledge that it's
near impossible to manage the phones and the computers. It's
so hard, and the schools have made it harder than
any I think, any institution. You try to keep these
things away from your kids, and then every teacher assigns
homework through some school some computer programs. So let me
(17:51):
just start by saying, I'm, you know, not perfect by
any means. How do I direct my kids to in
person relationships? I do send them to a school with
a no phone policy, which has been really wonderful, And
you know, my sons who are in high school. They
have what's known as kosher phones. You can actually buy
these things and they are Internet blocked. It's great, that
(18:13):
doesn't It's been wonderful for us. They have you know,
various apps like WhatsApp for communicating with teams or you know,
chatting apps, but when like Gmail, so they can use
their see their schedules and whatnot. But it's not the
open Internet, Okay, so that's somewhat better. But truthfully, and
this goes to another question that I think, as you
(18:37):
let me know is on your mind, is sort of
what advice would I give? And that is that let's
just go.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
Right to it. What advice would you give your sixteen
year old self?
Speaker 2 (18:47):
Well, you know, what advice would I give my sixteen
year old self will be a little different, but I'll
tell you what advice I would give in general on
this issue of improving life, improving your life honestly, and
I hate to say it, and people are going to
really upset that I said this, or maybe tune out,
but honestly, the easiest, quickest, most assured way to do
this is to join a religious community, join a church,
(19:09):
join a synagogue. There is no quicker way to get
actual real community, that is in person, that is meaningful,
that is full of connections, And yes, it comes with
plenty of annoyance too, of course, But I actually think
that that is the most direct way to sort of
immediately improve your life.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
I love it. That's usually the last question, but that's okay,
that's okay, we can starry.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
What advice would I give to my sixteen year old self.
You know, I spent a lot of years. I think
this may resonate with with a lot of women. So
I spent a lot of years thinking my personality was
just wrong. So by which I mean, you hear from
a lot of other girls you can't say that, my god.
You know that seems to be a theme with girl
(19:58):
groups of girls, and you spend a lot of of
time sort of, especially if you're like me or you
know you, I would imagine you sort of if you're
a straightforward person who just sort of calls things like
you see them, you spend a lot of time with
other girls being told that you're mean, you're saying all
the wrong things, and you don't share what you said.
And if I could go back, what I would would
(20:20):
would do is sort of tell myself. You know, there's
going to be a place for someone with your personality.
It's not all bad. It may be hard to maintain
large groups of friends of girlfriends because they want you
to flatter them, and the ticket for large groups of
girlfriends tends to be small lies and flattery, neither of
(20:42):
which I'm terribly good at. But it turns out there's
you know, there's really a place for you, no matter
your personality. And I'm not talking about sociopathy or anything
like that, right, but personality and in journalism, you know,
I'm I'm I'm not running against you know, I'm going
with the current when it comes to my personality when
(21:04):
I tell the truth, because that's something that's always been
very easy for me. It's covering up the truth or
taking care of everyone's feelings that's always been harder. So
I sort of if I could go back, I wish
I would have known that, actually what was so difficult
in some situations that required niceties and flattery and you know,
(21:29):
white lies, it would actually be to my advantage in
a career in journalism.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
Did you always have primarily male friends or yes, yes,
same same, Yeah. Do you know how that is so
not popular now like that is. When I say that
to my fifteen year old daughter, she's like, that's you know,
they call girls like that, like the pick me girl
who like tries to cater to boys and like no,
boys were just they were funny and trying to be
(21:55):
funny all the time. And that's what I was looking
for totally.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
And I was also I was always close to my
father and maybe yeah, and I don't know if it's
because I was close to him or we were close
because we had such similar personalities. But I always got
along with men and boys much better. And you know,
my husband says, he always jokes that I'm the only
woman who wants to be told when she looks fat,
because I'll I'll say to him, do I look fat
(22:21):
in this? And I want to know before I leave
the house. I don't want to be lied to. You
definitely don't want to be Apparently that's a big no
no with most women. They want to be lied to.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
And why would you ask unless you want to know
the honest opinion, what am I doing here?
Speaker 2 (22:35):
Exactly? If I don't look good, I want to change
immediately before I leave the house. So you know, that
was always very hard with me with groups of girlfriends.
I always had a female best friend, but the rest
I just couldn't maintain the group. I just could never,
you know, keep the whole group happy and and and
I didn't know that that those same sort of personality
(22:56):
quirks would would make some areas of my life much
much easier.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
Do you feel like your books change the conversation and
enough to make those issues that you've written about better?
Like I think that you writing about the trans contagion
blew it all up to such an extent that I
think that. I mean, maybe I just live in Florida now,
but I'm seeing a change, a shift in the way
(23:21):
that this is all going down. I don't see as
many And again, this might just be a New York
to Florida move. Maybe they're still all trendsing in New York,
but it seems like fewer girls are going down that path.
And similarly, your book about you know, over therapy for kids,
I feel like the conversation around that has changed and
(23:42):
that there's an improvement. Do you feel any of that.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
I do think so, and I'm very happy about that.
I mean the advantage of writing a book is here's
what I try to do. I don't write a book
that's just my opinions or my take. There's nothing wrong
with that, but that's not what I do. I try
to create a document that people can take that's full
of information and that can really add to the discourse.
(24:06):
So in Bad Therapy, there were legislators who bought the
book who went argued in court against. You know, people
would argue in court against or in favor of puberty
blocker bands or whatnot, and they would have all the
evidence in my book, they would say, they would cite
it in their briefs, And I tried to do the
same for Bad Therapy. I wanted parents who went into
(24:28):
school boards and were trying, who sensed in their guts
there was something wrong with social emotional learning to be
able to say here, chapter whatever chapter it was, I
think it was chapter nine, but or chapter six, and
they would say, here, it's all in this book. And
that's what I try to do. I try to be
a resource in that way. The nice thing about a
book is that you know it's always there, so you
(24:52):
know it's you know, an episode will get more views,
but then people rarely go back and listen to or
read why old episodes. The advantage, of course of the
episodes is you know, unfortunately reading is really declining. So
I think I think sort of the podcast world and
the book world work really well together because you sort
(25:13):
of need both to reach people.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
Absolutely, So do you when people do cite your work,
do they I mean, do you feel like you've gotten
the credit that you deserve for this? I feel like
maybe not enough. That's fair, and I think Abigail Schreier
deserves more.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
Guys, thank you, you know, I'm I'm I'm happy. I
think that, you know, I'm not. I think if I
were more strategic about my career in certain ways, I
would have stayed on each topic longer and kept promoting
it and promoting it and promoting it. So within the
(25:51):
year after Irreversible Damage was out, I was really onto
new topics and new investigations because just I'm just interested
in what the next is and I'm not someone who
has I'm not an activist. I don't have a burning
passion about one issue, and so you know, as a journalist,
I'm always looking at sort of what's ahead and what
(26:12):
the next issue is. I don't know if that's the
best always the best move for my career. It might
be to make sure that I'm the one person everyone
constantly goes to for this one issue. But for me,
I like being able to move on to the next
topic and reveal something else if I can.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
I love it. She is Abigail Schreier. Get her books,
read her anywhere you can. You're so fantastic. Thank you
so much for coming on. I've loved this conversation.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
Thank you, Carol, You're the best.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
Thanks so much for joining us on the Carol Marco
Which show. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
Host
Karol Markowicz
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