November 28, 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.
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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.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
I mean, I write about what interests me, and I
write about things where I don't know the answer to
the question.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
And you know, starting out with you know, irreversible damage.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
A reader wrote to me to tell me about this
sudden spike and transgender identification among 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
(07:02):
was really sort of getting getting to the answer.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
And I like that. I mean, I like getting to
the answer.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
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.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
Do scare me.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
So you know, 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. I think that that's, you know, the
way to be. I don't know necessarily that I have that.
Speaker 3 (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.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
And I, you know, I.
Speaker 3 (08:53):
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 3 (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.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
He was drastic.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
Yeah, it's drastic.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
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 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
(09:58):
the Washington Monthly that they would base do anything for
a nice meal.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
And that scared me. That scared me more than anything
she said. So after that I went to law school.
I thought, this is journalism my.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
Own dinner, actually exactly.
Speaker 3 (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, once 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.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
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.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
It's it's something that trips up a lot of journalists.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
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, 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
(11:33):
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 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 staying. You're You're You're You're
waiting it out. How how is it going? How is
how is it out there?
Speaker 3 (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.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
I mean, the governance is a disaster. But I write
about the culture.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
And there is really no better way to look at
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.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
And uh, for from.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
The perspective of our family, we're 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.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
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, Okay, sounds good.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
What do you worry about?
Speaker 3 (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.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
I mean, you know, for for any job, they will
put off finding a spouse.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
And it really should be the reverse.
Speaker 3 (14:03):
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 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
(14:26):
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.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
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 you're going to
(15:04):
get your heartbroken.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
These are really scary things.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
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 3 (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.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
But this is the amazing thing.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
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. And I do very much worry
(17:02):
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.
I can't. I can't say that I'm not guilty of
the same thing. Every every moment of awkwardness, I immediately
reach 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
(17:27):
toward those connections? Right?
Speaker 3 (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 it's 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
(18:37):
you 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 3 (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 3 (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.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
It's not all bad. It may be.
Speaker 3 (20:28):
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.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
Which I'm terribly good at.
Speaker 3 (20:45):
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 I tell the truth, because
(21:06):
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, white lies, it would
(21:30):
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.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
Like that is.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
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 funny all the time. And
that's what I was looking for totally.
Speaker 3 (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 say to him, do.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
I look fat in this? And I want to know
before I leave the house. I don't want to be
lied to.
Speaker 3 (22:25):
You definitely don't want to be Apparently that's a big
no no with most women.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
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?
Speaker 3 (22:36):
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 quirks would
(22:57):
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 3 (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.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
Tried to do the same for Bad Therapy.
Speaker 3 (24:27):
I wanted parents who went into 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.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
And that's what I try to do. I try to
be a resource in that way.
Speaker 3 (24:47):
The nice thing about a book is that you know
it's always there, so you know it's you know, an
episode will get more views, but then people rarely.
Speaker 2 (24:57):
Go back and listen to or read why old episodes.
Speaker 3 (25:00):
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 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 3 (25:30):
Guys, thank you, you know, I'm I'm I'm happy.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
I think that, you know, I'm not.
Speaker 3 (25:39):
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 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
(26:02):
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 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
(26:24):
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.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
I mean, I write about what interests me, and I
write about things where I don't know the answer to
the question.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
And you know, starting out with you know, irreversible damage.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
A reader wrote to me to tell me about this
sudden spike and transgender identification among 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
(07:02):
was really sort of getting getting to the answer.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
And I like that. I mean, I like getting to
the answer.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
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.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
Do scare me.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
So you know, 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. I think that that's, you know, the
way to be. I don't know necessarily that I have that.
Speaker 3 (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.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
And I, you know, I.
Speaker 3 (08:53):
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 3 (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.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
He was drastic.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
Yeah, it's drastic.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
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 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
(09:58):
the Washington Monthly that they would base do anything for
a nice meal.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
And that scared me. That scared me more than anything
she said. So after that I went to law school.
I thought, this is journalism my.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
Own dinner, actually exactly.
Speaker 3 (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, once 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.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
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.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
It's it's something that trips up a lot of journalists.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
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, 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
(11:33):
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 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 staying. You're You're You're You're
waiting it out. How how is it going? How is
how is it out there?
Speaker 3 (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.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
I mean, the governance is a disaster. But I write
about the culture.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
And there is really no better way to look at
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.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
And uh, for from.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
The perspective of our family, we're 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.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
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, Okay, sounds good.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
What do you worry about?
Speaker 3 (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.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
I mean, you know, for for any job, they will
put off finding a spouse.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
And it really should be the reverse.
Speaker 3 (14:03):
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 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
(14:26):
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.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
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 you're going to
(15:04):
get your heartbroken.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
These are really scary things.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
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 3 (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.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
But this is the amazing thing.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
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. And I do very much worry
(17:02):
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.
I can't. I can't say that I'm not guilty of
the same thing. Every every moment of awkwardness, I immediately
reach 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
(17:27):
toward those connections? Right?
Speaker 3 (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 it's 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
(18:37):
you 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 3 (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 3 (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.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
It's not all bad. It may be.
Speaker 3 (20:28):
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.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
Which I'm terribly good at.
Speaker 3 (20:45):
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 I tell the truth, because
(21:06):
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, white lies, it would
(21:30):
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.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
Like that is.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
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 funny all the time. And
that's what I was looking for totally.
Speaker 3 (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 say to him, do.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
I look fat in this? And I want to know
before I leave the house. I don't want to be
lied to.
Speaker 3 (22:25):
You definitely don't want to be Apparently that's a big
no no with most women.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
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?
Speaker 3 (22:36):
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 quirks would
(22:57):
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 3 (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.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
Tried to do the same for Bad Therapy.
Speaker 3 (24:27):
I wanted parents who went into 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.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
And that's what I try to do. I try to
be a resource in that way.
Speaker 3 (24:47):
The nice thing about a book is that you know
it's always there, so you know it's you know, an
episode will get more views, but then people rarely.
Speaker 2 (24:57):
Go back and listen to or read why old episodes.
Speaker 3 (25:00):
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 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 3 (25:30):
Guys, thank you, you know, I'm I'm I'm happy.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
I think that, you know, I'm not.
Speaker 3 (25:39):
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 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
(26:02):
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 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
(26:24):
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.
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If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.