July 15, 2013 • 47 mins
How has Photoshop, social media and modern advertising altered the meaning of beauty? Cristen interviews beauty scholar Autumn Whitefield-Madrono of The Beheld about 21st-century beauty and how it intersects with technology and feminism.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to stuff Mom never told you. From how Stuff
Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Kristen and I'm Caroline. And Caroline, how often would you
say you think about the concept of beauty the concept
of beauty. Probably only when I'm in the studio. Yeah,
(00:27):
but I think about my foundation and my concealer and
my hair products and body image and how my pants
are fitting. Probably all the time. Yeah, I definitely have
these certain moments, and I want to know if if
you experience this as well. When I'm I'm getting dressed
and it turns into this massive tailspin because I'm trying
(00:48):
to put something on and nothing is looking good, and
then something with my hair is not working, and then
I'm slathering my face in all this makeup and I
stopped and I think, why why am I doing all
of this? I'm I'm spending all of this time and
energy and anxiety. You could be sleeping so much later.
(01:08):
I could be sleeping, I could be reading, I could
be ruling the world, I could be writing, I could
be running for president. But instead I'm looking for, you know,
the right button down. And we talked so much about
um body image and how women are regarded in the
(01:29):
world and feminism and all this stuff, and every now
and then I wonder if it's all just at odds
with each other, you know what I mean, Because it's like, well, well,
we shouldn't care about these things, right. A lot of
people do have the argument that if you are a
true feminist Christian, you would not worry about that stuff,
but would instead worry about your impact on the world.
(01:50):
But then it's like, no, it's it's good to have,
you know, ownership in in what we look like and
how we present ourselves, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.
In then, on top of all this, I think about
the idea of growing up now if I were a
tween or a young teen today, having grown up with
(02:11):
social media and the constant public presentation and having to
manage all of that while going through that whole who
am I face and you know, kind of trying on
different outfits both literally and figuratively, and how different the
idea of beauty might be for for girls of the
(02:32):
next generation of the selfie generation. He might say, yeah, um,
so I felt very lucky that we were able to
have a conversation with Autumn Whitefield Madrono who is the
author of the blog The Beheld, which is cross posted
over at The New Inquiry. Because she is a fantastic writer,
(02:54):
first of all, but she has so much insight into beauty.
She's been blogging about beauty, and not just in the
sense of hey girl, this new makeups, you should try it,
but beauty from a more scholarly since and I ran
across her blog I don't know, maybe a year or
two ago, and I can't get enough of it because
it's so insightful and I feel like all of these
(03:14):
questions that I've had about beauty as a woman, she's
already thought about and written something very wise about. Well, yeah,
she she admits right off that, you know, her friends
basically said, you've either got to cut all this out
completely or you've got to start writing about it more.
And she has really thought long and hard about a
lot of these concepts that a lot of us women
(03:38):
kind of have to wrestle with. You know. She talks
about the issues of beauty versus feminism, or beauty within feminism,
or feminism within beauty, and how you know, our beauty
products don't necessarily enhance our our fight for equality in
the workplace for instance, but they don't work against it, right,
And uh, it was funny because as I a few
(04:02):
months ago or a little while ago, I tweeted something
of hers and she tweeted me back, and lo and
behold we were mutual fans of each other's work because
her work resonated so much with me, because I felt
like she sort of took the same kind of rigorous
research approach that we try to take with all the
stuff that we do with the podcast into the work
(04:23):
that she does, focusing uh more closely on beauty. And
so I invited her out of the show and we
had a wonderful conversation. And um, she has a book
coming out. It won't be out for until I believe, um,
but you should definitely follow her. She's at the Beheld
that's the underscore Beheld on Twitter, and you can read
(04:46):
her work at the Beheld, which is the dash beheld
dot com. And also, like I said, she's cross posted
over at the New Inquiry. But UM, I don't know, Carolin,
you think we should just go ahead and roll this conversation,
roll it. Let's roll it. So without further ado, here
is a chat about beauty with beauty expert and I'm
(05:07):
going to call her a scholar Autumn Whitefield, Madrono. Hope
you enjoy well to get started. For listeners who are
not familiar with The Beheld, it's a beauty blog, but
it's so much more than a beauty blog. How do
you describe the Beheld to people? The ways I usually
(05:32):
describe my work as a Beheld is I say, well,
I write a beauty blog, but it's not a blog
about products or reviews. It's sort of a sociological take
on beauty. And depending on where the person goes tomeral,
you know, if they well, you know, it's a feminist
perspective that I'm not necessarily one sort of strict, you know,
school of feminism. UM. It incorporates my personal experience of
(05:55):
the beauty, interviews with women who have sort of unusual
experience as this beauty. UM. The goal of my goal
of the Behold, it's just to kind of being a
part of the conversation that we're sort of happening nationally
about women, and you know that I feel like this
is sort of one way that I can contribute to
the sort of myriad conversations have been happening in the
past few years. About sort of where are we now
(06:17):
with the really women's place in the world. Um. Now.
On your blog you say that one of the inspirations
for starting the Beheld was that a friend told you
to either think less about beauty or write more about it, which,
first of all, props to a very straightforward friend. We
all need them. Um But what about be fed your
(06:39):
interests so much? Like why were you why were you
thinking and talking about it so much? Aside from kind
of the inherent fact of you know, being a woman,
and we tend to maybe think about those things a
little bit more. Well, I think part of it is,
you know, just the function of beauty itself, not just
being a woman instead of having these social expectations. But
I've heard one mention of duty as being you know,
(07:02):
I know that something is beautiful when I wanted to
continue to look at it, and so, you know, fascination
and duty go hand in hand, so on one, you know,
on one time, I'm sort of just like anyone else's
beauty is fascinating to me, but as far as but
it really sort of thinking critically about beauty. The first
time I can remember was I was fourteen years old
(07:22):
and I was doing a school report about eating disorders,
and as a part of my um study, you guess
you could call it, I decided to survey the girls
in my class and see how they thought about their bodies.
And sure enough, most of the girls said that they
thought they were too fat and needed to loose weight
within nineteen ninety or so. And I noticed two things.
(07:43):
The first thing was that most of the women, most
of the girls who said that they actually felt fine
about their bodies, were athletes. And I thought that was interesting.
I wasn't athletic myself, so I was like, that's that's interesting.
I sort of got me thinking about, Okay, so maybe
there's something women girls can actually do to sort of
feel better about themselves. But the thing it really got
(08:03):
me going was I approached one of the girls in
her class and she was probably one of the bigger
girls in our class. She wasn't opious or anything, but
you know, see what you might call big boned. And
I asked her and she said, oh, I feel fine,
you know, my body's fine, as it did, just like
you know, i'd asked her about the weather or something,
And that just blew my mind. I was so intrigued
(08:25):
by hearing this girl who, by sort of the social
expectations quote unquote, should feel like she had to how
to lose weight to say now, whatever's fine. And that
was the first I really listened to someone else's experience,
in her experience about an appearance, and I started maybe
consider what other sort of messages I was getting and
what messages I wasn't hearing. And I guess that sort
(08:48):
of launched a life long cause. Actually even though I've
only been blogging for a couple of years. Okay, um, well,
kind of speaking of you know girls, the fact that
this initial thought process was you know, sparked when you
were younger. Um, you did mention in one of the
beauty roundups that you do every week on the beheld
(09:09):
that one of the things you'll be looking into for
a book that you are now working on is how
the Internet has changed how we take in imagery. And
so I wondered if you could kind of expound on
that a little bit on how how you think it's changed,
and especially for you know, for younger girls who are
(09:29):
growing up with the Internet and constant self presentation on
social media, all of these different forces that are maybe
affecting our thoughts about beauty and our you know, like
what we consider beautiful. Well, one of the biggest things
that I think the Internet has changed about the way
we pursue beauty is not even so much about beauty,
(09:50):
but the way that we perceive images, because we're creating
so many of our own images Now, I mean, we
see we kind of see images as interactive. They're sort
of starting points. You though. There was a funny episode
moment in an episode of mad Men on Sunday night,
and by Monday morning, they're all all these gifts or
g I s I don't know how you're supposed to
say it of of that moment and people sort of
(10:10):
making it their own little memes. So we we transform
images interesting for purposes. We're always recontacted rising images, which
I think is really something that before you have to
work a lot harder at. Now, anyone with you know,
the most basic computer knowledge can create their own images.
And something that goes hand in hand with that is
that I think we are better understanding what goes into
(10:33):
creating the images. Um. I don't necessarily think that just
knowing the images are retouched is enough for most women
or girls or anyone to to sort of be able
to dismiss it as oh, well, nobody really looks like that.
I think the images, you know, have a pretty particular
hold in our minds, even if we know that it's
been manipulated. But I think that we're better understanding the
(10:54):
role of fantasy that comes into these images now, in
part because you know, we've seen a lot of the
clime of scenes work going on with images. And I
think you know, another aspects as um the Internet and
how it's changing how we're looking at beauty and images
is social media. Um. I mean, I'm thinking of the selfie,
(11:15):
which is sort of you know, these self portraits that
so many people have on their Facebook pages or whatever.
You hold the camera up and you make a little
face when you take a picture. I mean, anyone who's
ever tried to take a self portrait knows that the
one that wants up going on your Facebook page is
one is on the images in that in that sense
of sort of selecting. So I think you were very
(11:35):
aware of how many faces each of us really has.
And I wonder how that affects girls, and I wondering
specifically if they're sort of putting it together that Okay, wait,
it takes me twenty times and the sort of unnatural
face posts to come up with the portraits that I
like that must be true of everyone else. And I
haven't talked to enough young women to really say how
(11:55):
much the Internet has sort of change them on the whole,
paired to my generation. I'm dirty fixed now, um I was,
and I really should be talking to young women, and
I intend to for the book, because they have this
really sophisticated knowledge of photo manipulation and the you know,
the sort of background of you know, portrait sharing and
(12:16):
that sort of thing. But I don't know which way
it's gonna turn. I mean, it could be that they
begin to see images as you know, just being in
a realm of fantasy without it being amazing more. Or
maybe they'll see it as being aspirational, that as sort
of I grew up thinking of images as being. But
maybe they'll see it being something that's more doable through
their own means, like, Okay, there's this heritatorial that I
(12:38):
can click on on YouTube, and now I can make
my hair look just like that. And they really can
in a way that we couldn't, you know. Struggling to
the pages of seventeen trying to create this elaborate hair
style that didn't really work. Um, so I'm really I'm
curious to see how it's gonna go with young women.
Something that I'm really curious about is I'm wondering, how,
know how this sort of targeted internet mark think it's
(13:00):
going to influence teen girls and they're sending habits. I
mean when I was growing up, it was like, well,
whatever seventeen magazine said might be cool or whatever with
the kmart, that was kind of it. So I'm picturing
this eleven year old girl doing this photo search for
I don't know, you know, how how do you shave
your under arms? And then she's having like twelve products
advertised to her directly to her, directly to what she
(13:21):
was rooting for for weeks on end. And I'm wondering
how that's gonna if they're gonna, you know, become more
cynical to advertising, or if they're going to be more
vulnerable to it, because it really is targeted just to
day that exactly what they're looking for, So, um, that
could go out a way as well. Yeah, it seems
like it's such a double edged sword because on the
(13:43):
one hand, you know, like you were talking about, young
girls growing up today are so savvy in terms of
the tools they can use for self presentation and like,
I mean, a twelve year old can probably get along
better on Photoshop than I can at this point. And um,
there's that and also the greater awareness of knowing, like
you said, like the manipulation that goes into a lot
(14:06):
of the you know, modeling images that we see. But
then at the same time, you know, it's the negative
side of things, like the proliferation of thinspo and how
all of that is just like feeding into the same cycles.
But then you also have you know, all of these
quirkier beauty blogs that are popping up that you know,
(14:28):
offer girls in appreciation, you know, outside of marms. I
don't know, it's such a it's such a fascinating mixed
bag that it seems like, I don't know. Unfortunately, it
might take some time as they this first generation to
really age with the Internet from cradle to grave, I guess, um,
to see how it's going to shake out. Because I
(14:49):
hadn't thought about that aspect of the On top of
all of that, the targeted advertising. Yeah, I only started
thinking about that recently, I wish I was looking for
a braw and all of a sudden I was on
near and webs through dot com and all these brawns
were popping up, and I was like, well, and I'm
pretty naive about this stuff, so I was like, how
(15:10):
did they know? You know? And then I was like, oh, wait, cookies.
That cookie they're all about. Um it's I feel like,
just in the past year, it's been happening more and
more like now all my websites still have brawls all
over them. I don't feel like I look for balls
that oft, but apparently I do well. Speaking of advertising,
um let's talk about Dove's Real Beauty campaign because with
(15:31):
the composite sketch series that they put out recently went viral,
and at first it was it was so fascinating to
watch the internet feedback from it, because at first it was, oh,
look at this really clever, you know, poignant portrayal of
how women see themselves and perceive their own own beauty,
(15:52):
and then it's the dust settled a little bit. It
was like, wait a minute, there's some deeper stuff going
on here that might not be um so wonderful for women,
um so I kind of wanted to to get your
thoughts on whether or not companies or businesses, advertisers have
(16:14):
kind of busted the beauty myth in a way, if
you know, they're kind of like in on it and
are now using it against us, if that makes sense. Absolutely,
like they sort of cracked this code that that that
the sentiment that has been out there because women have
been this satisfied for quite some time with the way
that we've been portrayed, you know, specifically through advertising, but
(16:34):
in all aspects of the media. Um, there's been a
long tradition of vocal sort of resistance and pointing out, hey,
that's not cool. I don't like that women you know,
common all shapes from sizes and colors, et cetera. And yeah,
it was kind of like Dove hack hacked about this
satisfaction and they did. They did a large studies. Um,
(16:56):
I think, I guess in two thousand four, which is
when the campaign begin I there was a good study
was really m It was actually really fascinating to look
at the numbers of it. But what I think that
they've done by sort of leveraging the ideas of the
beauty myths for their own purposes is I mean, they're
really using the duty myth against women, just like traditional
advertising is. You know, the message might be better, the
(17:17):
message might leave you feeling smiling and happy and proud
or you know, emotional interior, but you know, there's a
there's a somewhat more positive response that we get to
the Dove ads. Then we get to something like, oh,
don't hate me because I'm beautiful. But the same idea
of women not liking how they look is being used
against women, and I guess I did find that sort
(17:38):
of inherently problematic. But that said, you know, I heard
from a lot of readers who really responded positively to
that campaign. They were saying, yeah, yeah, I see your
point on this intellectual level that come on, this is
so much better than what we're getting in. But my
mom actually sort of wrote me a schooling email like
wooden girl up. But because I grew up with you,
you don't know how easy you have it. And I
(17:59):
am so things that this campaign is out there. So
you know, I personally am cynical about it, but I'm
sort of cynical about all advertising because it you know,
it has this very you know, the goal is to
sell us stuff and nothing more. Um, but I guess
I mean, in some ways there are assign of progress.
Not so much that the content of the ads as progressive,
(18:19):
because I don't really think it is, but there was
so to their consumers. There was some uni crypts, and
I think that's that's important. I mean, I think it's just,
like you pointed out, just as intriguing of the fact
that this video went viral is the fact that that
the resistance to it went virals. You know, someone on
Tumbler wrote a really eloquent response about you know, the
cybers them and sort of you know, the domination of
(18:41):
white women and it, you know, just a pretty pretty
good points and that went viral too, And I think
that that's so encouraging that just as quick as the
beating industry sort of turning the beating this around on
us in a totally different way, people are saying wait,
you know, hold on a second, and people are paying
attention to that. I think that's the really important. Yeah.
I mean, it's interesting that it seems like and maybe
(19:03):
it's maybe it's the byproduct of the Internet and just
being connected on you know, social media, but it does
seem like we're having conversations about beauty in ways, in
deeper ways, maybe than we ever have before. It's kind of, um,
it's interesting just how much I thought we are, you know,
(19:25):
really collectively having towards representations of beauty that we you know,
these kinds of things can go viral. So kind of
along the lines too of the Dove Real Beauty campaign
that reminded me of the recent backlash against the CEO
of Abercrombie and Fitch talking about how, you know, saying
very nasty things about the kinds of customers that he
(19:46):
didn't want um in in his clothes and uh so
kind of on the upside, I guess for um, just
like the reaction against that, and then also things like
Dove Real Beauty, where you know, you see women of
more shapes and sizes. At least do you think that
possibly we're at least broadening our representation of beauty. I
(20:11):
think what we are beginning to see is people sort
of putting it together that oh wait a second, the
people that I find attractive in real life aren't just
this one mold. I think there's I tatiously reality kind
of televisions and anything positive for our society. But maybe
maybe there is something to be said to that. I
don't know, and that that's sort of an interesting case anyway. Um,
(20:36):
I think what we're seeing is maybe it's the connection
between the Internet and you know, other forms of media. Yeah,
that people are sort of recognizing that they're not weird
for finding something other than the mainstream beauty of healing. Um. Well,
as the you know, the beauty industry continues expanding its
reach into the mail market, do you think that we
(20:57):
would ever see a dub real beauty esque campaign for
male targeted cosmetics? Say, I mean, do you think it
will ever kind of get to that point with the
expansion of male beauty sort of? Yeah? Yeah, So I
(22:15):
don't think that it does like campaign would work on
them because they would go against the very idea of
these methods out there. I don't think that we see
men as being passive enough as consumers to sort of
make that tactic work. Um. I don't think that we
would ever any time soon certainly be at the point
where we would sort of grant men the tenderness that
(22:36):
we grant women as far as their vulnerability surrounding their books.
And I don't think that's a positive thing. But that
maybe you know, men are still maybe one step ahead
of the game. I don't know. I really don't know.
So talking more broadly about um, women and beauty and feminism,
because I feel like the intersection of beauty and feminism
(22:58):
can be so times a little bit confounding. Um uh.
In one of your thoughts on a word post that
you did, you brought up something that has has irked
me as well, and it's how The New York Times
always shoves its women focused articles in a style section.
And um, I mean do you think that it does
(23:18):
at the service to women and gender equity at large too,
always cluster women so closely to beauty. I mean, it
just it's it's the New York Times, but it's so
many other places as well, where if you want to
find something the content the articles reports about women, it's
always in a beauty or style section exactly. And I
(23:42):
think that's a problematic word here is always um. And
of course it's not always their stories about women in
general interessections as well, but the balance is way off
in some ways. I really actually like the sort of
real news about women in the file section. I almost
feel like it's sort of a cover way of reaching
out to women, because then and do make it the
(24:02):
majority of readers of the sort of soft news sections.
And so I sort of like the idea of sort
of communicating to women about important issues in a sort
of almost backhanded or the subtle, a subtler way and
saying you know this new we're trying to reach you.
And I sort of actually really appreciate that. I mean,
I worked in women's magazines for ten years and that
(24:24):
was sort of one of my reading I was very
conflicted about my work during my time there, but that
was one reason that I stayed, is that I liked
the idea of women who otherwise wouldn't be getting this
sort of information getting it, even if it was sort
of coded with a lot of stuff that I do
know I couldn't care less about UM. But that said, yeah,
it happens so often. Like actually one of my blog
(24:45):
it is indicated through I less I called The New Inquiry,
which is a journal of criticism and it's not a
quote unquote woman sight, but it happens to be largely
run by women. Is founded by three women, about half
the staff for women UM and The New York Times
profiles the men put them into in the final section.
And then a year later, UM magazine has somewhat similar
(25:07):
contents called Jacket and which is a great magazine. And
it wasn't their fault, but they were probably into the
book section there they're the right up and when in
the book section it was like, wait a second, we're
the same kind of magazine. We're putting these ideas out
there were political or critical, and yet the guys got
their legitimate section and that was sort of a well
what are you gonna do sort of thing. Um, we
(25:28):
were thrilled to be getting the publicity, and it's sort
of wish that it hadn't come at I don't want
to see at the expense of being taken seriously because
we were taking more seriously after that that it was
just sort of a shame I guess overall. Um, Well, then,
kind of more directly than talking about the issue of feminism,
(25:49):
I mean, do you think that beauty culture is sort
of at a directly at odds with it? Like how
how do how do the two get along? Well, I
think that if he goes like the idea that feminism
is I think it was Rebecca west Is said that
feminism is a radical notion that women are people. Then
feminism is not at odds of beautic culture because you know,
(26:13):
it's sort of this, there's this long human history of
self adornment and wanting to look better, and that's you know,
been true across you know, basically as long as humans
have been around. So you know, on sort of a
base level is beauty culture and at also feminism. No,
but that said, the beauty industry has a long history
of taking an anti feminist attack, sort of getting women
(26:33):
against against each other again, you know, don't hate me
because I'm beautiful, or encouraging women to sort of treat
their looks as you know, their personal capital. And certainly
beauty culture can be used for anti feminist means. And
you know, most importantly, as was written about in The Duty,
this beauty can sort of turn into this enormous siphon
of women's energies and that kind of keeps us in
(26:55):
this you know, varying degree of oppression. Um, I guess
all that said, I mean clearly I am a feminist
and I write almost exclusively about beauty on The Beheld,
and so I can't see that too it being completely
at odds, and I sort of had a hard time
really reconciling this in my mind, even though I was
doing this work and writing about it and believing about it.
(27:17):
And then I read something that one of my colleagues wrote,
Sally McGraw, who who writes them Already Pretty, and she said,
I want to arm you with confidence in your body
and your styles, so you can stop worrying about your
outward presentation and focus on what's important. And I love
that because I think that our looks can become a
distraction to us. They can be a source of celebration,
(27:39):
of course too, but they can also be a distraction.
And we we've all had that moment when we're in
an interview or something and we're like, oh my gosh,
my lipstick spirit mids looks six spird or you know,
my hair looks weird, or any of those sort of things,
and that kind of takes away from our ability to
be in the moment and to do the most effective
works that we can for things that are ultimately more
important than beauty. Um. Yeah, it's almost like I wonder
(28:03):
if there's a self check that we can do of
of some line of like okay, well, now you know
a line between this is an okay amount of time
to consider my outward appearance, and this is when it's
becoming too much. Yeah, I don't know if there's sort
of a you know, quick litmus test that we can
(28:24):
do and find out sort of what falls in line
with our ideals and what doesn't, because it's easy to
take anything and be like, well, I'm doing it for me.
I mean, I've heard a lot of women, my self included,
say well, I'm doing you know, this particular beauty work.
It is a very pleasant or whatever. I'm doing this
for me, and that sort of makes it okay. And
I guess what I would challenge women to do is
to take it away from themselves for a while, working
(28:47):
firstly to add it on. I mean I did. Um.
This has been written about it way too much in
the media from by my opinion, but um, I did
a mirror fast where I didn't look in the mirror
for a month. And the point wasn't to feel better
about my looks or something at this point, was to
see what investment I was actually making in the mirror.
And I learned a lot about that by not letting
(29:07):
myself look at myself in the mirror for a month,
and it sort of changed the way that I conceive
of the mirror and the way that I understand my reflection.
So I would say, you know what, if you're sort
of on the edge about something like, gosh, I'm spending
a lot of time or money or energy on this thing,
sort of taken away from yourself. And conversely, there's a
(29:27):
blogger called a Courtney who writes a blog called Those Graces,
and she sort of added all in beauty work for herself.
She did something called the Red List Project, where every
day for a month, you are Red listick, which for
someone who wears a Red listick all the time doesn't
sound like definite of a deal that like her, whenever
I wear LISTI specifically red lipstick, I'm really aware of
(29:49):
how I look. I'm really aware that I'm sort of saying,
look at me, pay attention to me, and that can
be sort of intimidating. And she sort of jumped outside
of her comfort zone by doing that, So I mean
it can really work either way, and that I would
classify that experiment as something that could be something its
depending on her motivation. So you know, that's the closest
thing I could think of was for its for sort
(30:10):
of a you know, a guide to women. When you
did the marafest, did you afterwards see yourself differently, noticed
different things about your face or kind of how you
felt when you looked in the mirror. I, you know,
the thing that I noticed was that I had not
(30:30):
really been seeing the way that I looked. I had
been either seeing the way that I felt, or been
seeing some sort of projection of what I wanted to see,
what I feared seeing. Um. In fact, during the experiment,
at one point I was on an elevator and elevator
doors opened up and right in front of me with
a mirror, and I, you know, so I saw myself
and I looked away immediately. The first thing in that
(30:52):
foot second before I looked away, I was like, Wow,
I'm the older than I thought, and not in a
bad way, not like, oh my gosh, I'm so wrinkly
sort of thing. But I saw a woman who looks
thirty five years old, and I sort of hadn't seen
a thirtyfial moment. And I'm here before because I generally
knew when there was going to be a mirror, and
so I would sort of like, there's agree that would
(31:13):
tell myself to expect something a little softer, you know,
something without the wrinkles that I had acquired, or the
you know, the few gray hairs I have or whatever.
And so I think after the mirror fest, I sort
of had to realize that, you know, what, what I'm
seeing isn't necessarily what's there, and that's not you know,
I still look in the mirror and probably see something
(31:34):
different than what the rest of the world sees. But
it was sort of a big clue to me that
that the two are not necessarily the same thing. Um.
Something that I've seen some bloggers write about UM is
sort of rendering beauty is something that is a place
of true joy and maybe experimentation or fantasy or play.
(31:56):
And I've never really worn make up in that way.
I tend to just sort of wear my little blossom
and concealer or whatever. But I have some friends who
do these wild things with eyeliner or eyeshadow, and I
just I look at that and like that just seems
so literalating. Really, I mean, just just talk about, you know,
sort of forming your own identity, a very distinct identity.
I think that there's a lot of room in there
(32:17):
for sort of exploration and exploration and awareness. Is it
can be a part of sort of a feminist ethos.
I think sometimes that we want to tip beauty culture
and feminism and get speak against each other because it
sort of goes against the idea of what non feminists
thinks feminism is about. I know plenty of theeminists are
conflicted about their own beauty work, myself included, but I
(32:39):
hear it more from people who wouldn't use the efford
to describe themselves. And it sort of further to the
idea that there's this perfect feminist out there where, like
you know, makes menstrual art only shopped a well but
known grocery stores or whatever. Um Like. I don't think
it's the end of the world if you do some
movie work that isn't feminists. I mean, I recently just
might be t m I that I recently discovered the
(33:00):
really a Bikini Acts and I wouldn't call it, and
I'll be writing about this soon, I wouldn't call it
anti feminists. For me to sort of be like, well,
this is a feminist back would you know, I'd have
to do some crazy, you know, backbends to make that work.
So Yeah, it's not feminist by any means, But does
that make me somehow less committed to my politics? Like
I wouldn't say that it does, so yeah, and that's
(33:24):
such a good point. I mean, the whole concept of
or dismantling, at least the concept of a perfect feminist,
because like you said, it really doesn't exist. And if
I don't know, I feel like there would be something
massively wrong with the entire philosophy if how my face
looked in the amount of cosmetics on it determined my
(33:46):
level of commitment to gender equality. Um. So yeah, I'm
really I'm glad that you brought that up well in
a compelling post about Wait think over at the blog
what would Phoebe do? That you too? In a post um,
Phoebe wrote, quote, the goal shouldn't be for all women
to look in the mirror and see beautiful. It's for
(34:08):
beautiful not to be the main important quality in most
women's lives, not even most young women. And that that
quote really struck me, and I kind of want to
get your thoughts on whether or not you agreed with
that and sort of the thinking of beauty and this
larger sense. Yeah, I think Phoebe was absolutely spot on
(34:30):
with that. Um, Beauty absolutely shouldn't be the most important
quality for anyone, not even people who were beautiful for
a living. I mean, like I make my living through words,
but I don't consider, you know, my word smithing ability
is to be my most important quality as a human being. Um.
But that said, I think you know, I would make
the distinction, and I think Phobe would agree, But I
don't want to speak for her that to pretend that
(34:53):
beauty doesn't have a place in the realm of big
important things in our life isn't necessarily helpful either, because
I mean, most of us do want to be considered
beautiful in some way, so and there's something about physical
beauty that it does drive us. And I don't want
to ever dismiss that. I don't think Phoebe is doing that.
He is trying to dismiss it. Um that you know,
I worry some times about saying, well, beauty, beauty shouldn't
(35:14):
be considered, you know, important, It should not be considered
the most important quality. But if they it shouldn't be
considered important either. Is part of dismissive of human history,
specifically of women's history. I mean, try telling a third
new year old girl that beauty isn't important, like she knows,
she knows better, and you'd be you'd be essentially lying
to her if you said that it wasn't important. Yeah. Sorry,
(35:37):
I got started thinking about that very fact of the
idea of someone when I was thirteen telling me that
that being pretty didn't matter at all, and I would
laugh in their face. Even in adulthood. There are so
many studies that demonstrate that, you know, whether or not
we agree with all of the messages, perhaps that the
(36:01):
beauty industry might direct our way in order to sell
products from time to time. Beauty in and of itself
does make a difference in terms of just our basic
self presentation and all of the messages that are attached
to that, in terms of how we present ourselves to
the world, levels of confidence, competence. Um. So, I feel
like it's you know, it's not something that we should
(36:23):
necessarily have to escape as women. But maybe maybe the
goal is for women to uh learn how to live
with it more amicably and just always fighting against it
somehow exactly Right now, it's a really it can be
a really falt relationship right now. And I would say,
if if there was a goal that I would have
(36:45):
in mind if for that relationship to not be full
of tent instead be either sort of a neutral place
of self maintenance. You know, I don't think most of
the things things twice about, you know, showering or whatever,
so you know, it could go more more in that direction,
or to see it at the place of beauty and
joy and pleasure in our lives, you know, And that's
going to vary from person to person, speaking though of
(37:07):
you know, telling a thirteen year old girl that the
beauty doesn't matter. Um, if you could go back and
tell your younger self anything about beauty, all of the
wisdom that you have now gleaned, what would you what
would you tell a young girl in terms of sort
of how to how to live in the world and
deal with this, you know, the issue of beauty and
(37:30):
all of that. You know. There's actually two sort of
aside to that point. Um. On one hand, I think
I would just like to tell her nobody is paying
nearly as much attention to the way that you look
as you are. You know, I sort of went through
I mean, you know, I'm it's still a very self
conscious person. And I think I sort of went through
life thinking that everyone thought every little flaw on me
(37:52):
and you know, disgusted by it or whatever, not realizing
how I've been really self involved. That was, um so
like to sort of tell the thirteen year old me that.
But in some ways, I'd also sort of like my
throuteen parts of my thirteen year old self to sort
of have stayed a live within me throughout the rest
(38:13):
of my teams in my twenties. Um Like, I'm thinking
of this wat I read it thost of my blogs
that some time ago, when I was twelve years old,
I wanted to enter the seventeen modeling contest. It's like,
you know, and enter and you could win, you know,
you could have your picture on the cover of seventeen.
And I was like, you know, most twelve year olds
were awkward looking, and I was certainly no exception. Um
(38:35):
So I really thought I would win this thing. And
then I really was just like, well, of course I'm
gonna win. I didn't I wouldn't dare tell anyone that.
But then it was just part of me that really
just listen to the air and thought what I was there.
It was sensational, you know, and it's funny looking at
pictures on myself as self like I was. I was
really funny poaching. But there was a part there was
(38:55):
a sort of pride in myself that was vibrant and
a lie is that lived alongside that explicit self consciousness
and alongside you know, the hours I would spend in
front of the mirror sort of trying to fix everything
that I thought was wrong. I mean, those those sides
of my self code assisted pretty strongly at that age,
and I think I learned to sort of pamp down
(39:17):
that sort of prideful, enthusiastic part of myself. And I
guess I kind of wish that I had kept that
part of myself a little more a live because a
comparty perhaps I certainly you wouldn't want to try to
make it as a model or anything, and talk to
me to that would not gone well. Um, But there
was something sort of I looked back in that with
sort of like sad fondness for that girl who saw
(39:40):
that in herself, and I wish it had sort of
stayed alive so longer. Well, I can only imagine hearing
that about that self confidence that you had at such
a young age, that it must have been influenced in
some part perhaps by you know, older women and your life,
such as your mom um. And you know, your mom
(40:03):
did a guest post for the beheld on Mother's Day.
And also since this is stuff mom never told you, um,
in the reverse of that, what did what did your
mom teach you about about beauty as you were growing up?
This sounds like it's main spirit, but it's not. She's
taught me absolutely nothing. And that was sort of deliberate
(40:24):
on her part. Um. I think she was really resisted.
She didn't want any part of my self esteemed to
be invested in my looks, and that was a really strong,
you know, wise choice for her to make. And so
so her sort of tactic was to not when we
talk about it, I mean she talked about you know,
she pointed out on realistic images to me, like I remember,
(40:45):
we came up with a term trick photography to talk
about photo retouching, you know, So she'd see, you know,
I'd see a billboard and say, oh, that's me, and
she'd say, well, you know what that is, and I'd
say trick photography. So you know, I was five years
old and talking about this. So that was that was me.
But that said, beauty was important. It was a part
of my life, it was a part of everyone's life,
(41:06):
and I sort of never addressing it directly. I was
sort of left to come of my own up with
my own sort of weird perspective, which is probably why
I thought I could enter and win the seventeen modeling contest,
for example. Um And so I don't want to fault
my mother for that, certainly, because you know, she she
had a pretty strong She was a very consistent perspective
throughout my life, and that's you know, I appreciate that enormously.
(41:30):
But there weren't really a lot of direct messages about beauty.
The message I got was that it doesn't matter, and
it shouldn't matter. But you know, I sort of knew
better as well. It sounds like she definitely did a
did a great job with all of them. Um. Well,
just to wrap up this conversation, Um, the Beheld is
(41:50):
now on its way into book form? Is that the
right way to to pose it? Somewhat? Yeah, I'll be definitely, Um,
I yes, I'm probably I'm writing a book. It will
be published by Feminist Schuster in the spring of and
it will deal with many of the themes that I
write about all my blog. But my blog is sort
of excwed a little academics sometimes, and it's definitely explicitly feminist,
(42:13):
and the book will be a little bit more general.
I mean, it'll still appeal to analytic types, and I
mean I'm a feminist, so it's going to be from
a feminist perspective. But I'm really writing it for the
reader who might not identify herself for himself as a feminist,
but it's sort of looking to develop their own nuanced
thinking in the way that beauty played that in their
(42:34):
own lives. So yeah, that's that's what I'm working on
right now. That's sort of the big projects going on.
I'm really tryed for it. Well. I for one, was
completely blown away and full of warm and fuzzy feelings
after listening to that interview, because I think Autumn is fantastic.
I think your conversation with her was great. Kristen and I,
(42:57):
for one, you know, she talks about re examining be
d and and and beauty in our culture. I'm grateful
that she is one of the people who is leading
that discussion and that re examination. Absolutely, I hadn't realized
that the beauty myth came out, and think about how
much has changed in our beauty culture, how we consume it,
(43:21):
how it's constantly there with the Internet, with advertising, um,
and even just the tactics of beauty advertising like we
talked about. So I am fully confident that Autumn will
maybe offer us a really good sort of update perhaps
on the beauty myth. So I can't wait to see
what she does with that. But again, you should definitely
(43:45):
check out her website, The Beheld It's the dash beheld
dot com, follow her on Twitter at the underscore Beheld UM.
And yeah, thanks to Autumn for taking the time to
talk with us. I really appreciated her her insights and
knowledge and for just being a really cool woman. Yeah,
(44:06):
we love cool women. We have you love cool women.
And for anyone who has any feedback, any thoughts on
beauty anything that we were talking about. UM, I'll also
be curious to here if anyone has any response about
the especially about the Dove Real beauty campaign and sort
of that idea of whether marketers have sort of taken
(44:27):
the beauty myth and turned it against us a little bit. Uh,
let us know your thoughts. Mom, stuff a Discovery dot
com is our email address. You can tweet us as
well at Mom's Stuff podcast or send us a message
on Facebook. And we've got a couple of messages this year.
When we get right back from a quick break and
(44:47):
now back to our letters, We've got a couple of
notes here about our episode on Blarbara Walters, who was
retiring soon, and I've you know what I've got. Barbara
Walters would have a lot to say about beauty. I
bet you would, because is what we talked about in
that episode about how she was surprised when she got
tapped for the desk job on the Today Show because
(45:09):
before that it only been models, right, and she wasn't
a model? What do you know? Uh? So Wayne wrote
in saying ladies, I appreciate the topics that you discuss.
Thank you Wayne. As a person in business, I have
found value in both episodes on Martha Stewart and Barbara
Walters that transcend gender. It provides a clear precedent on
(45:31):
making the most of your career. They become characters of
themselves and their real contributions are less frequently heard of.
Now that I'm informed, I respect their contribution and say
He offers a side note question, are those Jack Threads
ads because you have that many fellas listening? Wayne, We
do have a number of guys listening. We do, I
say about what a quarter of our audience. Third of
(45:53):
our audience are fellows, just like you, Wayne. But you
know why we have those Jackgreads ads because like Jack Dreads,
we agree that payingful price is for suckers. Okay, I
have one here from Marianna. She says that I just
finished the Barbara Walters podcast. Good job, ladies, thank you, thanks.
She says, I really liked it. I haven't seen the
(46:15):
view since Lisa Lang and marredth Viera left the show.
I tried watching it not too long ago, and I
found Barbara was still informative, very good and entertaining, but
not enough to compensate for irrational ramblings of Elizabeth Hasselbeck
and the tragically unfunny comedy of Whoopee and enjoy Bahar. Sorry,
she says, I have no idea who might replace Barbara,
(46:37):
but other than Anne Curry or Terry Gross, I'm not
giving the show a second chance. In a perfect world,
Barbara's seat would be filled by Mindy Kaling with co host,
Danika mckeller, Kristen and Caroline Hey, and most importantly Julie
Douglas from Stuff to Blow Your Mind because we need
women capable of discussing science on TV. I would watch
(46:58):
that show. I'm just to say you'd be on it
because Mindy Kaling would be my boss and I'd love
on my co host. Right, So, Mindy, if you're listening,
girl'll make it happen. I know you can. Thanks to
everybody though who has written in mom Stuff at Discovery
dot com is where you can email us. You can
also tweet us at mom Stuff podcast or send us
(47:18):
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kind and subscribe for more on this and thousands of
(47:43):
other topics. Doesn't have stuff works dot com
Welcome to stuff Mom never told you. From how Stuff
Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Kristen and I'm Caroline. And Caroline, how often would you
say you think about the concept of beauty the concept
of beauty. Probably only when I'm in the studio. Yeah,
(00:27):
but I think about my foundation and my concealer and
my hair products and body image and how my pants
are fitting. Probably all the time. Yeah, I definitely have
these certain moments, and I want to know if if
you experience this as well. When I'm I'm getting dressed
and it turns into this massive tailspin because I'm trying
(00:48):
to put something on and nothing is looking good, and
then something with my hair is not working, and then
I'm slathering my face in all this makeup and I
stopped and I think, why why am I doing all
of this? I'm I'm spending all of this time and
energy and anxiety. You could be sleeping so much later.
(01:08):
I could be sleeping, I could be reading, I could
be ruling the world, I could be writing, I could
be running for president. But instead I'm looking for, you know,
the right button down. And we talked so much about
um body image and how women are regarded in the
(01:29):
world and feminism and all this stuff, and every now
and then I wonder if it's all just at odds
with each other, you know what I mean, Because it's like, well, well,
we shouldn't care about these things, right. A lot of
people do have the argument that if you are a
true feminist Christian, you would not worry about that stuff,
but would instead worry about your impact on the world.
(01:50):
But then it's like, no, it's it's good to have,
you know, ownership in in what we look like and
how we present ourselves, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.
In then, on top of all this, I think about
the idea of growing up now if I were a
tween or a young teen today, having grown up with
(02:11):
social media and the constant public presentation and having to
manage all of that while going through that whole who
am I face and you know, kind of trying on
different outfits both literally and figuratively, and how different the
idea of beauty might be for for girls of the
(02:32):
next generation of the selfie generation. He might say, yeah, um,
so I felt very lucky that we were able to
have a conversation with Autumn Whitefield Madrono who is the
author of the blog The Beheld, which is cross posted
over at The New Inquiry. Because she is a fantastic writer,
(02:54):
first of all, but she has so much insight into beauty.
She's been blogging about beauty, and not just in the
sense of hey girl, this new makeups, you should try it,
but beauty from a more scholarly since and I ran
across her blog I don't know, maybe a year or
two ago, and I can't get enough of it because
it's so insightful and I feel like all of these
(03:14):
questions that I've had about beauty as a woman, she's
already thought about and written something very wise about. Well, yeah,
she she admits right off that, you know, her friends
basically said, you've either got to cut all this out
completely or you've got to start writing about it more.
And she has really thought long and hard about a
lot of these concepts that a lot of us women
(03:38):
kind of have to wrestle with. You know. She talks
about the issues of beauty versus feminism, or beauty within feminism,
or feminism within beauty, and how you know, our beauty
products don't necessarily enhance our our fight for equality in
the workplace for instance, but they don't work against it, right,
And uh, it was funny because as I a few
(04:02):
months ago or a little while ago, I tweeted something
of hers and she tweeted me back, and lo and
behold we were mutual fans of each other's work because
her work resonated so much with me, because I felt
like she sort of took the same kind of rigorous
research approach that we try to take with all the
stuff that we do with the podcast into the work
(04:23):
that she does, focusing uh more closely on beauty. And
so I invited her out of the show and we
had a wonderful conversation. And um, she has a book
coming out. It won't be out for until I believe, um,
but you should definitely follow her. She's at the Beheld
that's the underscore Beheld on Twitter, and you can read
(04:46):
her work at the Beheld, which is the dash beheld
dot com. And also, like I said, she's cross posted
over at the New Inquiry. But UM, I don't know, Carolin,
you think we should just go ahead and roll this conversation,
roll it. Let's roll it. So without further ado, here
is a chat about beauty with beauty expert and I'm
(05:07):
going to call her a scholar Autumn Whitefield, Madrono. Hope
you enjoy well to get started. For listeners who are
not familiar with The Beheld, it's a beauty blog, but
it's so much more than a beauty blog. How do
you describe the Beheld to people? The ways I usually
(05:32):
describe my work as a Beheld is I say, well,
I write a beauty blog, but it's not a blog
about products or reviews. It's sort of a sociological take
on beauty. And depending on where the person goes tomeral,
you know, if they well, you know, it's a feminist
perspective that I'm not necessarily one sort of strict, you know,
school of feminism. UM. It incorporates my personal experience of
(05:55):
the beauty, interviews with women who have sort of unusual
experience as this beauty. UM. The goal of my goal
of the Behold, it's just to kind of being a
part of the conversation that we're sort of happening nationally
about women, and you know that I feel like this
is sort of one way that I can contribute to
the sort of myriad conversations have been happening in the
past few years. About sort of where are we now
(06:17):
with the really women's place in the world. Um. Now.
On your blog you say that one of the inspirations
for starting the Beheld was that a friend told you
to either think less about beauty or write more about it, which,
first of all, props to a very straightforward friend. We
all need them. Um But what about be fed your
(06:39):
interests so much? Like why were you why were you
thinking and talking about it so much? Aside from kind
of the inherent fact of you know, being a woman,
and we tend to maybe think about those things a
little bit more. Well, I think part of it is,
you know, just the function of beauty itself, not just
being a woman instead of having these social expectations. But
I've heard one mention of duty as being you know,
(07:02):
I know that something is beautiful when I wanted to
continue to look at it, and so, you know, fascination
and duty go hand in hand, so on one, you know,
on one time, I'm sort of just like anyone else's
beauty is fascinating to me, but as far as but
it really sort of thinking critically about beauty. The first
time I can remember was I was fourteen years old
(07:22):
and I was doing a school report about eating disorders,
and as a part of my um study, you guess
you could call it, I decided to survey the girls
in my class and see how they thought about their bodies.
And sure enough, most of the girls said that they
thought they were too fat and needed to loose weight
within nineteen ninety or so. And I noticed two things.
(07:43):
The first thing was that most of the women, most
of the girls who said that they actually felt fine
about their bodies, were athletes. And I thought that was interesting.
I wasn't athletic myself, so I was like, that's that's interesting.
I sort of got me thinking about, Okay, so maybe
there's something women girls can actually do to sort of
feel better about themselves. But the thing it really got
(08:03):
me going was I approached one of the girls in
her class and she was probably one of the bigger
girls in our class. She wasn't opious or anything, but
you know, see what you might call big boned. And
I asked her and she said, oh, I feel fine,
you know, my body's fine, as it did, just like
you know, i'd asked her about the weather or something,
And that just blew my mind. I was so intrigued
(08:25):
by hearing this girl who, by sort of the social
expectations quote unquote, should feel like she had to how
to lose weight to say now, whatever's fine. And that
was the first I really listened to someone else's experience,
in her experience about an appearance, and I started maybe
consider what other sort of messages I was getting and
what messages I wasn't hearing. And I guess that sort
(08:48):
of launched a life long cause. Actually even though I've
only been blogging for a couple of years. Okay, um, well,
kind of speaking of you know girls, the fact that
this initial thought process was you know, sparked when you
were younger. Um, you did mention in one of the
beauty roundups that you do every week on the beheld
(09:09):
that one of the things you'll be looking into for
a book that you are now working on is how
the Internet has changed how we take in imagery. And
so I wondered if you could kind of expound on
that a little bit on how how you think it's changed,
and especially for you know, for younger girls who are
(09:29):
growing up with the Internet and constant self presentation on
social media, all of these different forces that are maybe
affecting our thoughts about beauty and our you know, like
what we consider beautiful. Well, one of the biggest things
that I think the Internet has changed about the way
we pursue beauty is not even so much about beauty,
(09:50):
but the way that we perceive images, because we're creating
so many of our own images Now, I mean, we
see we kind of see images as interactive. They're sort
of starting points. You though. There was a funny episode
moment in an episode of mad Men on Sunday night,
and by Monday morning, they're all all these gifts or
g I s I don't know how you're supposed to
say it of of that moment and people sort of
(10:10):
making it their own little memes. So we we transform
images interesting for purposes. We're always recontacted rising images, which
I think is really something that before you have to
work a lot harder at. Now, anyone with you know,
the most basic computer knowledge can create their own images.
And something that goes hand in hand with that is
that I think we are better understanding what goes into
(10:33):
creating the images. Um. I don't necessarily think that just
knowing the images are retouched is enough for most women
or girls or anyone to to sort of be able
to dismiss it as oh, well, nobody really looks like that.
I think the images, you know, have a pretty particular
hold in our minds, even if we know that it's
been manipulated. But I think that we're better understanding the
(10:54):
role of fantasy that comes into these images now, in
part because you know, we've seen a lot of the
clime of scenes work going on with images. And I
think you know, another aspects as um the Internet and
how it's changing how we're looking at beauty and images
is social media. Um. I mean, I'm thinking of the selfie,
(11:15):
which is sort of you know, these self portraits that
so many people have on their Facebook pages or whatever.
You hold the camera up and you make a little
face when you take a picture. I mean, anyone who's
ever tried to take a self portrait knows that the
one that wants up going on your Facebook page is
one is on the images in that in that sense
of sort of selecting. So I think you were very
(11:35):
aware of how many faces each of us really has.
And I wonder how that affects girls, and I wondering
specifically if they're sort of putting it together that Okay, wait,
it takes me twenty times and the sort of unnatural
face posts to come up with the portraits that I
like that must be true of everyone else. And I
haven't talked to enough young women to really say how
(11:55):
much the Internet has sort of change them on the whole,
paired to my generation. I'm dirty fixed now, um I was,
and I really should be talking to young women, and
I intend to for the book, because they have this
really sophisticated knowledge of photo manipulation and the you know,
the sort of background of you know, portrait sharing and
(12:16):
that sort of thing. But I don't know which way
it's gonna turn. I mean, it could be that they
begin to see images as you know, just being in
a realm of fantasy without it being amazing more. Or
maybe they'll see it as being aspirational, that as sort
of I grew up thinking of images as being. But
maybe they'll see it being something that's more doable through
their own means, like, Okay, there's this heritatorial that I
(12:38):
can click on on YouTube, and now I can make
my hair look just like that. And they really can
in a way that we couldn't, you know. Struggling to
the pages of seventeen trying to create this elaborate hair
style that didn't really work. Um, so I'm really I'm
curious to see how it's gonna go with young women.
Something that I'm really curious about is I'm wondering, how,
know how this sort of targeted internet mark think it's
(13:00):
going to influence teen girls and they're sending habits. I
mean when I was growing up, it was like, well,
whatever seventeen magazine said might be cool or whatever with
the kmart, that was kind of it. So I'm picturing
this eleven year old girl doing this photo search for
I don't know, you know, how how do you shave
your under arms? And then she's having like twelve products
advertised to her directly to her, directly to what she
(13:21):
was rooting for for weeks on end. And I'm wondering
how that's gonna if they're gonna, you know, become more
cynical to advertising, or if they're going to be more
vulnerable to it, because it really is targeted just to
day that exactly what they're looking for, So, um, that
could go out a way as well. Yeah, it seems
like it's such a double edged sword because on the
(13:43):
one hand, you know, like you were talking about, young
girls growing up today are so savvy in terms of
the tools they can use for self presentation and like,
I mean, a twelve year old can probably get along
better on Photoshop than I can at this point. And um,
there's that and also the greater awareness of knowing, like
you said, like the manipulation that goes into a lot
(14:06):
of the you know, modeling images that we see. But
then at the same time, you know, it's the negative
side of things, like the proliferation of thinspo and how
all of that is just like feeding into the same cycles.
But then you also have you know, all of these
quirkier beauty blogs that are popping up that you know,
(14:28):
offer girls in appreciation, you know, outside of marms. I
don't know, it's such a it's such a fascinating mixed
bag that it seems like, I don't know. Unfortunately, it
might take some time as they this first generation to
really age with the Internet from cradle to grave, I guess, um,
to see how it's going to shake out. Because I
(14:49):
hadn't thought about that aspect of the On top of
all of that, the targeted advertising. Yeah, I only started
thinking about that recently, I wish I was looking for
a braw and all of a sudden I was on
near and webs through dot com and all these brawns
were popping up, and I was like, well, and I'm
pretty naive about this stuff, so I was like, how
(15:10):
did they know? You know? And then I was like, oh, wait, cookies.
That cookie they're all about. Um it's I feel like,
just in the past year, it's been happening more and
more like now all my websites still have brawls all
over them. I don't feel like I look for balls
that oft, but apparently I do well. Speaking of advertising,
um let's talk about Dove's Real Beauty campaign because with
(15:31):
the composite sketch series that they put out recently went viral,
and at first it was it was so fascinating to
watch the internet feedback from it, because at first it was, oh,
look at this really clever, you know, poignant portrayal of
how women see themselves and perceive their own own beauty,
(15:52):
and then it's the dust settled a little bit. It
was like, wait a minute, there's some deeper stuff going
on here that might not be um so wonderful for women,
um so I kind of wanted to to get your
thoughts on whether or not companies or businesses, advertisers have
(16:14):
kind of busted the beauty myth in a way, if
you know, they're kind of like in on it and
are now using it against us, if that makes sense. Absolutely,
like they sort of cracked this code that that that
the sentiment that has been out there because women have
been this satisfied for quite some time with the way
that we've been portrayed, you know, specifically through advertising, but
(16:34):
in all aspects of the media. Um, there's been a
long tradition of vocal sort of resistance and pointing out, hey,
that's not cool. I don't like that women you know,
common all shapes from sizes and colors, et cetera. And yeah,
it was kind of like Dove hack hacked about this
satisfaction and they did. They did a large studies. Um,
(16:56):
I think, I guess in two thousand four, which is
when the campaign begin I there was a good study
was really m It was actually really fascinating to look
at the numbers of it. But what I think that
they've done by sort of leveraging the ideas of the
beauty myths for their own purposes is I mean, they're
really using the duty myth against women, just like traditional
advertising is. You know, the message might be better, the
(17:17):
message might leave you feeling smiling and happy and proud
or you know, emotional interior, but you know, there's a
there's a somewhat more positive response that we get to
the Dove ads. Then we get to something like, oh,
don't hate me because I'm beautiful. But the same idea
of women not liking how they look is being used
against women, and I guess I did find that sort
(17:38):
of inherently problematic. But that said, you know, I heard
from a lot of readers who really responded positively to
that campaign. They were saying, yeah, yeah, I see your
point on this intellectual level that come on, this is
so much better than what we're getting in. But my
mom actually sort of wrote me a schooling email like
wooden girl up. But because I grew up with you,
you don't know how easy you have it. And I
(17:59):
am so things that this campaign is out there. So
you know, I personally am cynical about it, but I'm
sort of cynical about all advertising because it you know,
it has this very you know, the goal is to
sell us stuff and nothing more. Um, but I guess
I mean, in some ways there are assign of progress.
Not so much that the content of the ads as progressive,
(18:19):
because I don't really think it is, but there was
so to their consumers. There was some uni crypts, and
I think that's that's important. I mean, I think it's just,
like you pointed out, just as intriguing of the fact
that this video went viral is the fact that that
the resistance to it went virals. You know, someone on
Tumbler wrote a really eloquent response about you know, the
cybers them and sort of you know, the domination of
(18:41):
white women and it, you know, just a pretty pretty
good points and that went viral too, And I think
that that's so encouraging that just as quick as the
beating industry sort of turning the beating this around on
us in a totally different way, people are saying wait,
you know, hold on a second, and people are paying
attention to that. I think that's the really important. Yeah.
I mean, it's interesting that it seems like and maybe
(19:03):
it's maybe it's the byproduct of the Internet and just
being connected on you know, social media, but it does
seem like we're having conversations about beauty in ways, in
deeper ways, maybe than we ever have before. It's kind of, um,
it's interesting just how much I thought we are, you know,
(19:25):
really collectively having towards representations of beauty that we you know,
these kinds of things can go viral. So kind of
along the lines too of the Dove Real Beauty campaign
that reminded me of the recent backlash against the CEO
of Abercrombie and Fitch talking about how, you know, saying
very nasty things about the kinds of customers that he
(19:46):
didn't want um in in his clothes and uh so
kind of on the upside, I guess for um, just
like the reaction against that, and then also things like
Dove Real Beauty, where you know, you see women of
more shapes and sizes. At least do you think that
possibly we're at least broadening our representation of beauty. I
(20:11):
think what we are beginning to see is people sort
of putting it together that oh wait a second, the
people that I find attractive in real life aren't just
this one mold. I think there's I tatiously reality kind
of televisions and anything positive for our society. But maybe
maybe there is something to be said to that. I
don't know, and that that's sort of an interesting case anyway. Um,
(20:36):
I think what we're seeing is maybe it's the connection
between the Internet and you know, other forms of media. Yeah,
that people are sort of recognizing that they're not weird
for finding something other than the mainstream beauty of healing. Um. Well,
as the you know, the beauty industry continues expanding its
reach into the mail market, do you think that we
(20:57):
would ever see a dub real beauty esque campaign for
male targeted cosmetics? Say, I mean, do you think it
will ever kind of get to that point with the
expansion of male beauty sort of? Yeah? Yeah, So I
(22:15):
don't think that it does like campaign would work on
them because they would go against the very idea of
these methods out there. I don't think that we see
men as being passive enough as consumers to sort of
make that tactic work. Um. I don't think that we
would ever any time soon certainly be at the point
where we would sort of grant men the tenderness that
(22:36):
we grant women as far as their vulnerability surrounding their books.
And I don't think that's a positive thing. But that
maybe you know, men are still maybe one step ahead
of the game. I don't know. I really don't know.
So talking more broadly about um, women and beauty and feminism,
because I feel like the intersection of beauty and feminism
(22:58):
can be so times a little bit confounding. Um uh.
In one of your thoughts on a word post that
you did, you brought up something that has has irked
me as well, and it's how The New York Times
always shoves its women focused articles in a style section.
And um, I mean do you think that it does
(23:18):
at the service to women and gender equity at large too,
always cluster women so closely to beauty. I mean, it
just it's it's the New York Times, but it's so
many other places as well, where if you want to
find something the content the articles reports about women, it's
always in a beauty or style section exactly. And I
(23:42):
think that's a problematic word here is always um. And
of course it's not always their stories about women in
general interessections as well, but the balance is way off
in some ways. I really actually like the sort of
real news about women in the file section. I almost
feel like it's sort of a cover way of reaching
out to women, because then and do make it the
(24:02):
majority of readers of the sort of soft news sections.
And so I sort of like the idea of sort
of communicating to women about important issues in a sort
of almost backhanded or the subtle, a subtler way and
saying you know this new we're trying to reach you.
And I sort of actually really appreciate that. I mean,
I worked in women's magazines for ten years and that
(24:24):
was sort of one of my reading I was very
conflicted about my work during my time there, but that
was one reason that I stayed, is that I liked
the idea of women who otherwise wouldn't be getting this
sort of information getting it, even if it was sort
of coded with a lot of stuff that I do
know I couldn't care less about UM. But that said, yeah,
it happens so often. Like actually one of my blog
(24:45):
it is indicated through I less I called The New Inquiry,
which is a journal of criticism and it's not a
quote unquote woman sight, but it happens to be largely
run by women. Is founded by three women, about half
the staff for women UM and The New York Times
profiles the men put them into in the final section.
And then a year later, UM magazine has somewhat similar
(25:07):
contents called Jacket and which is a great magazine. And
it wasn't their fault, but they were probably into the
book section there they're the right up and when in
the book section it was like, wait a second, we're
the same kind of magazine. We're putting these ideas out
there were political or critical, and yet the guys got
their legitimate section and that was sort of a well
what are you gonna do sort of thing. Um, we
(25:28):
were thrilled to be getting the publicity, and it's sort
of wish that it hadn't come at I don't want
to see at the expense of being taken seriously because
we were taking more seriously after that that it was
just sort of a shame I guess overall. Um, Well, then,
kind of more directly than talking about the issue of feminism,
(25:49):
I mean, do you think that beauty culture is sort
of at a directly at odds with it? Like how
how do how do the two get along? Well, I
think that if he goes like the idea that feminism
is I think it was Rebecca west Is said that
feminism is a radical notion that women are people. Then
feminism is not at odds of beautic culture because you know,
(26:13):
it's sort of this, there's this long human history of
self adornment and wanting to look better, and that's you know,
been true across you know, basically as long as humans
have been around. So you know, on sort of a
base level is beauty culture and at also feminism. No,
but that said, the beauty industry has a long history
of taking an anti feminist attack, sort of getting women
(26:33):
against against each other again, you know, don't hate me
because I'm beautiful, or encouraging women to sort of treat
their looks as you know, their personal capital. And certainly
beauty culture can be used for anti feminist means. And
you know, most importantly, as was written about in The Duty,
this beauty can sort of turn into this enormous siphon
of women's energies and that kind of keeps us in
(26:55):
this you know, varying degree of oppression. Um, I guess
all that said, I mean clearly I am a feminist
and I write almost exclusively about beauty on The Beheld,
and so I can't see that too it being completely
at odds, and I sort of had a hard time
really reconciling this in my mind, even though I was
doing this work and writing about it and believing about it.
(27:17):
And then I read something that one of my colleagues wrote,
Sally McGraw, who who writes them Already Pretty, and she said,
I want to arm you with confidence in your body
and your styles, so you can stop worrying about your
outward presentation and focus on what's important. And I love
that because I think that our looks can become a
distraction to us. They can be a source of celebration,
(27:39):
of course too, but they can also be a distraction.
And we we've all had that moment when we're in
an interview or something and we're like, oh my gosh,
my lipstick spirit mids looks six spird or you know,
my hair looks weird, or any of those sort of things,
and that kind of takes away from our ability to
be in the moment and to do the most effective
works that we can for things that are ultimately more
important than beauty. Um. Yeah, it's almost like I wonder
(28:03):
if there's a self check that we can do of
of some line of like okay, well, now you know
a line between this is an okay amount of time
to consider my outward appearance, and this is when it's
becoming too much. Yeah, I don't know if there's sort
of a you know, quick litmus test that we can
(28:24):
do and find out sort of what falls in line
with our ideals and what doesn't, because it's easy to
take anything and be like, well, I'm doing it for me.
I mean, I've heard a lot of women, my self included,
say well, I'm doing you know, this particular beauty work.
It is a very pleasant or whatever. I'm doing this
for me, and that sort of makes it okay. And
I guess what I would challenge women to do is
to take it away from themselves for a while, working
(28:47):
firstly to add it on. I mean I did. Um.
This has been written about it way too much in
the media from by my opinion, but um, I did
a mirror fast where I didn't look in the mirror
for a month. And the point wasn't to feel better
about my looks or something at this point, was to
see what investment I was actually making in the mirror.
And I learned a lot about that by not letting
(29:07):
myself look at myself in the mirror for a month,
and it sort of changed the way that I conceive
of the mirror and the way that I understand my reflection.
So I would say, you know what, if you're sort
of on the edge about something like, gosh, I'm spending
a lot of time or money or energy on this thing,
sort of taken away from yourself. And conversely, there's a
(29:27):
blogger called a Courtney who writes a blog called Those Graces,
and she sort of added all in beauty work for herself.
She did something called the Red List Project, where every
day for a month, you are Red listick, which for
someone who wears a Red listick all the time doesn't
sound like definite of a deal that like her, whenever
I wear LISTI specifically red lipstick, I'm really aware of
(29:49):
how I look. I'm really aware that I'm sort of saying,
look at me, pay attention to me, and that can
be sort of intimidating. And she sort of jumped outside
of her comfort zone by doing that, So I mean
it can really work either way, and that I would
classify that experiment as something that could be something its
depending on her motivation. So you know, that's the closest
thing I could think of was for its for sort
(30:10):
of a you know, a guide to women. When you
did the marafest, did you afterwards see yourself differently, noticed
different things about your face or kind of how you
felt when you looked in the mirror. I, you know,
the thing that I noticed was that I had not
(30:30):
really been seeing the way that I looked. I had
been either seeing the way that I felt, or been
seeing some sort of projection of what I wanted to see,
what I feared seeing. Um. In fact, during the experiment,
at one point I was on an elevator and elevator
doors opened up and right in front of me with
a mirror, and I, you know, so I saw myself
and I looked away immediately. The first thing in that
(30:52):
foot second before I looked away, I was like, Wow,
I'm the older than I thought, and not in a
bad way, not like, oh my gosh, I'm so wrinkly
sort of thing. But I saw a woman who looks
thirty five years old, and I sort of hadn't seen
a thirtyfial moment. And I'm here before because I generally
knew when there was going to be a mirror, and
so I would sort of like, there's agree that would
(31:13):
tell myself to expect something a little softer, you know,
something without the wrinkles that I had acquired, or the
you know, the few gray hairs I have or whatever.
And so I think after the mirror fest, I sort
of had to realize that, you know, what, what I'm
seeing isn't necessarily what's there, and that's not you know,
I still look in the mirror and probably see something
(31:34):
different than what the rest of the world sees. But
it was sort of a big clue to me that
that the two are not necessarily the same thing. Um.
Something that I've seen some bloggers write about UM is
sort of rendering beauty is something that is a place
of true joy and maybe experimentation or fantasy or play.
(31:56):
And I've never really worn make up in that way.
I tend to just sort of wear my little blossom
and concealer or whatever. But I have some friends who
do these wild things with eyeliner or eyeshadow, and I
just I look at that and like that just seems
so literalating. Really, I mean, just just talk about, you know,
sort of forming your own identity, a very distinct identity.
I think that there's a lot of room in there
(32:17):
for sort of exploration and exploration and awareness. Is it
can be a part of sort of a feminist ethos.
I think sometimes that we want to tip beauty culture
and feminism and get speak against each other because it
sort of goes against the idea of what non feminists
thinks feminism is about. I know plenty of theeminists are
conflicted about their own beauty work, myself included, but I
(32:39):
hear it more from people who wouldn't use the efford
to describe themselves. And it sort of further to the
idea that there's this perfect feminist out there where, like
you know, makes menstrual art only shopped a well but
known grocery stores or whatever. Um Like. I don't think
it's the end of the world if you do some
movie work that isn't feminists. I mean, I recently just
might be t m I that I recently discovered the
(33:00):
really a Bikini Acts and I wouldn't call it, and
I'll be writing about this soon, I wouldn't call it
anti feminists. For me to sort of be like, well,
this is a feminist back would you know, I'd have
to do some crazy, you know, backbends to make that work.
So Yeah, it's not feminist by any means, But does
that make me somehow less committed to my politics? Like
I wouldn't say that it does, so yeah, and that's
(33:24):
such a good point. I mean, the whole concept of
or dismantling, at least the concept of a perfect feminist,
because like you said, it really doesn't exist. And if
I don't know, I feel like there would be something
massively wrong with the entire philosophy if how my face
looked in the amount of cosmetics on it determined my
(33:46):
level of commitment to gender equality. Um. So yeah, I'm
really I'm glad that you brought that up well in
a compelling post about Wait think over at the blog
what would Phoebe do? That you too? In a post um,
Phoebe wrote, quote, the goal shouldn't be for all women
to look in the mirror and see beautiful. It's for
(34:08):
beautiful not to be the main important quality in most
women's lives, not even most young women. And that that
quote really struck me, and I kind of want to
get your thoughts on whether or not you agreed with
that and sort of the thinking of beauty and this
larger sense. Yeah, I think Phoebe was absolutely spot on
(34:30):
with that. Um, Beauty absolutely shouldn't be the most important
quality for anyone, not even people who were beautiful for
a living. I mean, like I make my living through words,
but I don't consider, you know, my word smithing ability
is to be my most important quality as a human being. Um.
But that said, I think you know, I would make
the distinction, and I think Phobe would agree, But I
don't want to speak for her that to pretend that
(34:53):
beauty doesn't have a place in the realm of big
important things in our life isn't necessarily helpful either, because
I mean, most of us do want to be considered
beautiful in some way, so and there's something about physical
beauty that it does drive us. And I don't want
to ever dismiss that. I don't think Phoebe is doing that.
He is trying to dismiss it. Um that you know,
I worry some times about saying, well, beauty, beauty shouldn't
(35:14):
be considered, you know, important, It should not be considered
the most important quality. But if they it shouldn't be
considered important either. Is part of dismissive of human history,
specifically of women's history. I mean, try telling a third
new year old girl that beauty isn't important, like she knows,
she knows better, and you'd be you'd be essentially lying
to her if you said that it wasn't important. Yeah. Sorry,
(35:37):
I got started thinking about that very fact of the
idea of someone when I was thirteen telling me that
that being pretty didn't matter at all, and I would
laugh in their face. Even in adulthood. There are so
many studies that demonstrate that, you know, whether or not
we agree with all of the messages, perhaps that the
(36:01):
beauty industry might direct our way in order to sell
products from time to time. Beauty in and of itself
does make a difference in terms of just our basic
self presentation and all of the messages that are attached
to that, in terms of how we present ourselves to
the world, levels of confidence, competence. Um. So, I feel
like it's you know, it's not something that we should
(36:23):
necessarily have to escape as women. But maybe maybe the
goal is for women to uh learn how to live
with it more amicably and just always fighting against it
somehow exactly Right now, it's a really it can be
a really falt relationship right now. And I would say,
if if there was a goal that I would have
(36:45):
in mind if for that relationship to not be full
of tent instead be either sort of a neutral place
of self maintenance. You know, I don't think most of
the things things twice about, you know, showering or whatever,
so you know, it could go more more in that direction,
or to see it at the place of beauty and
joy and pleasure in our lives, you know, And that's
going to vary from person to person, speaking though of
(37:07):
you know, telling a thirteen year old girl that the
beauty doesn't matter. Um, if you could go back and
tell your younger self anything about beauty, all of the
wisdom that you have now gleaned, what would you what
would you tell a young girl in terms of sort
of how to how to live in the world and
deal with this, you know, the issue of beauty and
(37:30):
all of that. You know. There's actually two sort of
aside to that point. Um. On one hand, I think
I would just like to tell her nobody is paying
nearly as much attention to the way that you look
as you are. You know, I sort of went through
I mean, you know, I'm it's still a very self
conscious person. And I think I sort of went through
life thinking that everyone thought every little flaw on me
(37:52):
and you know, disgusted by it or whatever, not realizing
how I've been really self involved. That was, um so
like to sort of tell the thirteen year old me that.
But in some ways, I'd also sort of like my
throuteen parts of my thirteen year old self to sort
of have stayed a live within me throughout the rest
(38:13):
of my teams in my twenties. Um Like, I'm thinking
of this wat I read it thost of my blogs
that some time ago, when I was twelve years old,
I wanted to enter the seventeen modeling contest. It's like,
you know, and enter and you could win, you know,
you could have your picture on the cover of seventeen.
And I was like, you know, most twelve year olds
were awkward looking, and I was certainly no exception. Um
(38:35):
So I really thought I would win this thing. And
then I really was just like, well, of course I'm
gonna win. I didn't I wouldn't dare tell anyone that.
But then it was just part of me that really
just listen to the air and thought what I was there.
It was sensational, you know, and it's funny looking at
pictures on myself as self like I was. I was
really funny poaching. But there was a part there was
(38:55):
a sort of pride in myself that was vibrant and
a lie is that lived alongside that explicit self consciousness
and alongside you know, the hours I would spend in
front of the mirror sort of trying to fix everything
that I thought was wrong. I mean, those those sides
of my self code assisted pretty strongly at that age,
and I think I learned to sort of pamp down
(39:17):
that sort of prideful, enthusiastic part of myself. And I
guess I kind of wish that I had kept that
part of myself a little more a live because a
comparty perhaps I certainly you wouldn't want to try to
make it as a model or anything, and talk to
me to that would not gone well. Um, But there
was something sort of I looked back in that with
sort of like sad fondness for that girl who saw
(39:40):
that in herself, and I wish it had sort of
stayed alive so longer. Well, I can only imagine hearing
that about that self confidence that you had at such
a young age, that it must have been influenced in
some part perhaps by you know, older women and your life,
such as your mom um. And you know, your mom
(40:03):
did a guest post for the beheld on Mother's Day.
And also since this is stuff mom never told you, um,
in the reverse of that, what did what did your
mom teach you about about beauty as you were growing up?
This sounds like it's main spirit, but it's not. She's
taught me absolutely nothing. And that was sort of deliberate
(40:24):
on her part. Um. I think she was really resisted.
She didn't want any part of my self esteemed to
be invested in my looks, and that was a really strong,
you know, wise choice for her to make. And so
so her sort of tactic was to not when we
talk about it, I mean she talked about you know,
she pointed out on realistic images to me, like I remember,
(40:45):
we came up with a term trick photography to talk
about photo retouching, you know, So she'd see, you know,
I'd see a billboard and say, oh, that's me, and
she'd say, well, you know what that is, and I'd
say trick photography. So you know, I was five years
old and talking about this. So that was that was me.
But that said, beauty was important. It was a part
of my life, it was a part of everyone's life,
(41:06):
and I sort of never addressing it directly. I was
sort of left to come of my own up with
my own sort of weird perspective, which is probably why
I thought I could enter and win the seventeen modeling contest,
for example. Um And so I don't want to fault
my mother for that, certainly, because you know, she she
had a pretty strong She was a very consistent perspective
throughout my life, and that's you know, I appreciate that enormously.
(41:30):
But there weren't really a lot of direct messages about beauty.
The message I got was that it doesn't matter, and
it shouldn't matter. But you know, I sort of knew
better as well. It sounds like she definitely did a
did a great job with all of them. Um. Well,
just to wrap up this conversation, Um, the Beheld is
(41:50):
now on its way into book form? Is that the
right way to to pose it? Somewhat? Yeah, I'll be definitely, Um,
I yes, I'm probably I'm writing a book. It will
be published by Feminist Schuster in the spring of and
it will deal with many of the themes that I
write about all my blog. But my blog is sort
of excwed a little academics sometimes, and it's definitely explicitly feminist,
(42:13):
and the book will be a little bit more general.
I mean, it'll still appeal to analytic types, and I
mean I'm a feminist, so it's going to be from
a feminist perspective. But I'm really writing it for the
reader who might not identify herself for himself as a feminist,
but it's sort of looking to develop their own nuanced
thinking in the way that beauty played that in their
(42:34):
own lives. So yeah, that's that's what I'm working on
right now. That's sort of the big projects going on.
I'm really tryed for it. Well. I for one, was
completely blown away and full of warm and fuzzy feelings
after listening to that interview, because I think Autumn is fantastic.
I think your conversation with her was great. Kristen and I,
(42:57):
for one, you know, she talks about re examining be
d and and and beauty in our culture. I'm grateful
that she is one of the people who is leading
that discussion and that re examination. Absolutely, I hadn't realized
that the beauty myth came out, and think about how
much has changed in our beauty culture, how we consume it,
(43:21):
how it's constantly there with the Internet, with advertising, um,
and even just the tactics of beauty advertising like we
talked about. So I am fully confident that Autumn will
maybe offer us a really good sort of update perhaps
on the beauty myth. So I can't wait to see
what she does with that. But again, you should definitely
(43:45):
check out her website, The Beheld It's the dash beheld
dot com, follow her on Twitter at the underscore Beheld UM.
And yeah, thanks to Autumn for taking the time to
talk with us. I really appreciated her her insights and
knowledge and for just being a really cool woman. Yeah,
(44:06):
we love cool women. We have you love cool women.
And for anyone who has any feedback, any thoughts on
beauty anything that we were talking about. UM, I'll also
be curious to here if anyone has any response about
the especially about the Dove Real beauty campaign and sort
of that idea of whether marketers have sort of taken
(44:27):
the beauty myth and turned it against us a little bit. Uh,
let us know your thoughts. Mom, stuff a Discovery dot
com is our email address. You can tweet us as
well at Mom's Stuff podcast or send us a message
on Facebook. And we've got a couple of messages this year.
When we get right back from a quick break and
(44:47):
now back to our letters, We've got a couple of
notes here about our episode on Blarbara Walters, who was
retiring soon, and I've you know what I've got. Barbara
Walters would have a lot to say about beauty. I
bet you would, because is what we talked about in
that episode about how she was surprised when she got
tapped for the desk job on the Today Show because
(45:09):
before that it only been models, right, and she wasn't
a model? What do you know? Uh? So Wayne wrote
in saying ladies, I appreciate the topics that you discuss.
Thank you Wayne. As a person in business, I have
found value in both episodes on Martha Stewart and Barbara
Walters that transcend gender. It provides a clear precedent on
(45:31):
making the most of your career. They become characters of
themselves and their real contributions are less frequently heard of.
Now that I'm informed, I respect their contribution and say
He offers a side note question, are those Jack Threads
ads because you have that many fellas listening? Wayne, We
do have a number of guys listening. We do, I
say about what a quarter of our audience. Third of
(45:53):
our audience are fellows, just like you, Wayne. But you
know why we have those Jackgreads ads because like Jack Dreads,
we agree that payingful price is for suckers. Okay, I
have one here from Marianna. She says that I just
finished the Barbara Walters podcast. Good job, ladies, thank you, thanks.
She says, I really liked it. I haven't seen the
(46:15):
view since Lisa Lang and marredth Viera left the show.
I tried watching it not too long ago, and I
found Barbara was still informative, very good and entertaining, but
not enough to compensate for irrational ramblings of Elizabeth Hasselbeck
and the tragically unfunny comedy of Whoopee and enjoy Bahar. Sorry,
she says, I have no idea who might replace Barbara,
(46:37):
but other than Anne Curry or Terry Gross, I'm not
giving the show a second chance. In a perfect world,
Barbara's seat would be filled by Mindy Kaling with co host,
Danika mckeller, Kristen and Caroline Hey, and most importantly Julie
Douglas from Stuff to Blow Your Mind because we need
women capable of discussing science on TV. I would watch
(46:58):
that show. I'm just to say you'd be on it
because Mindy Kaling would be my boss and I'd love
on my co host. Right, So, Mindy, if you're listening,
girl'll make it happen. I know you can. Thanks to
everybody though who has written in mom Stuff at Discovery
dot com is where you can email us. You can
also tweet us at mom Stuff podcast or send us
(47:18):
a Facebook message. You can also follow us on Tumbler
at stuff Mom Never Told You dot tumbler dot com,
and of course you can also watch us now. We
are on YouTube, coming at you four times a week,
so you can find us at YouTube dot com, slash
stuff Mom Never Told You, and don't forget to be
kind and subscribe for more on this and thousands of
(47:43):
other topics. Doesn't have stuff works dot com
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