April 6, 2016 • 47 mins
Ann Friedman is one of the most important feminist and millennial voices you should know, listen to and read. Tune in to hear Cristen and Caroline chat with this New York magazine columnist, Call Your Girlfriend podcast host, newsletter publisher extraordinaire and mistress of ladyswagger.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told You from how stupp
Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Kristen and I'm Caroline, and today we're talking to a
lady whom we hugely admire and have sided so many
times on stuff Mom Never Told You. Yes, I'm super
(00:26):
excited for you guys to hear our conversation with rad
lady journalist and podcaster and friedman Um. Kristen reached out
to Anne when we were on our way out to
California earlier this year on the off chance that we
might be able to chat, and she said yes, And
it was one of those things where you kind of
like do a little happy dance, even if it's just
(00:48):
in your brain. Uh, we're in the gifts that you
send each other in excitement, right exactly. Uh, you know,
usually involving like champagne or Oprah or something. Um to
really illustrate the true depth of our excitement. Um. But
we're such a fan of Ants because she is such
a fantastic writer, and that would be enough in and
(01:10):
of itself, but she really tackles a lot of fascinating
and fantastic issues around women and gender and feminism and
she's really sort of a critical voice in today's media. Yeah.
I mean, and we've got to talk about Call your Girlfriend,
her fantastic podcast that she co hosts with Amnatu. So, um,
(01:31):
they talk about pop culture, politics, feminism, this weekend, menstruation stuff.
I ever told you fans, if you're not already fans
of Call your Girlfriend, you will be and you should be. Yeah,
And when you hear the conversation, I hope it feels
like you're in the room with us having some lady chat,
(01:52):
because I know when I really listened to the interview,
that's how it felt to me. And I was there
the first time. Um, but we sort of in our
in our talk with and we sort of give a
glimpse into what it's like to be women whose voices
are public, whether that means fielding uh, responses from listeners
(02:13):
that are on the positive or the negative end of
the spectrum, or just grappling with that whole lady voice issue,
you know, don't apologize, don't say sorry, also stay away
from vocal fry and like, oh, just talking about the
whole rule book for women's voices. And since she's full
time freelance, we also wanted to talk to her about
her as a business and a brand and the issue
(02:34):
of self promotion, because this is something that also gets
really gendered really quickly, and something that women might not
feel as comfortable doing. Um but it's so crucial to
the way a lot of our digital media businesses work
these days. Um And. Speaking of which, for people who
(02:57):
aren't familiar with an Freedman, let's talk a little bit
about who she is, because she doesn't give like a
full bio she is and Caroline, I felt like such
a creeper the other night when I was putting together
you know, this bio that we were about to share,
and was googling her and ended up on her Wikipedia page.
(03:20):
Um and and felt like a huge stalker. Also because
reading the Wikipedia page, I was a little flummix that
it left out certain things that I particularly enjoy about
her work, like lady swagger that she talks about, like
shine theory. All of these like cornerstones to me of
(03:41):
a Freedman's work. I was like, who who wrote this
Wikipedia page? Also, in its description um of her as
a feminist, it says that like n. Freeman has publicly
identified in speeches as a feminist, is very stilted. I'm
very suspicious of whoever wrote her Wikipedia page. But let's
give a better or introduction than than that Wikipedia page
(04:02):
of who who Anne is? In not her words. Well, uh,
she is a fellow j school grad yeah, and is
an Iowa native. She studied journalism at the University of
Missouri Columbia before becoming an editor at Feminist NG, which
is another resource that you and I have sided quite
(04:23):
a bit on the podcast. Yeah. Then she was in
d C working as a deputy editor at The American
Prospect and then hopped over to become the executive editor
of Good Magazine, which, Uh, that whole thing went down
in flames, not because of Anne, but because of some
shoddy leadership. And I highly recommend that you listen to
(04:45):
her interview on the She Does podcast because she talks
more about that experience and how it fired her up.
And she used that really negative experience for her and
the other editorial staffers who were laid off as something
really amazing. Um, And ever since then, she's been building
her freelance lady empire. And let's talk about what what
(05:08):
this empire consists of. We've got her pie chart. She's
the mistress of gifts. She's a podcast or extraordinaire. Can
we explain her pie charts briefly for those who haven't
seen our tumbler, Yes, please do so. I love her
pie charts. They're hilarious. I have frequently posted them to
our sminty tumbler Kristen Um. Basically, she takes like a
(05:31):
current event or just something she's thinking about and breaks
it down. For instance, she has one what are we
doing on this airplane? Trying to open a third bag
of pretzels in the least noisy and humiliating way possible,
crying at a Pixar movie. Just things like that. And
she's so funny and so smart, and I have such
(05:52):
a lady crush on her. And honestly, the day we
met her, she was wearing the most fantastic lipstick and
I just so badly wanted to ask her what kind
of lipstick it was, but we had just met. I
didn't know if it would be weird. We were talking
about feminism, which of course you can talk about lipstick
and a conversation about feminism, but Caroline, I was right
there with you. It was this incredible bold shade of
(06:14):
not read yeah instead of just asking her about it directly,
we're now talking about it on a podcast. Well here,
let me do it and make a non creepy transition
from the pie charts. We can just hop right over
cool our our lipstick admiration and mentioned that if you
want to see her pie charts every week, become a
(06:37):
premium subscriber to her newsletter, The Ann Friedman Weekly, which
I also highly recommend. I mean seriously, ants, ants got
at all? And that's why we were both excited, also
a little nervous slash naushs to talk to her in
this airbnb that we had rented in Silver Lake, which
(06:57):
was smaller than we thought it was going to be
and also under construction. So thank you for being a
good sport and and taking the time to talk to us,
because obviously she's a busy woman and it was just
a delight to pick her brain. So is it time
for us to share our convo with Anne? Yeah, I'm
like steel clapping with excitement. Let's roll it and the
(07:20):
two thinks that we started with a question that we
have shamelessly borrowed from another fabulous podcast you should listen to,
called Another round Um host Heaven and Tracy always asked
their guests what do you do and why? So we
asked and and this is what she had to say.
(07:42):
Both of those things have changed a lot over the years.
So right at this second, what do I do? So?
I write things and I report things. So I asked
questions and I try to answer questions, UM. And I
also have this podcast, not this particular podcast, a different
podcast UM where I think I usually UM, A lot
(08:05):
of the things I work on come from some point
of conflict or confusion within myself. It's like kind of
selfish where I'm like, I don't know if I feel
about that, or I don't know what we should do
about that, UM, or things that friends expressed to me.
They start from a pretty personal place. UM. But I
also think I have some broader goals and what I do,
which is UM. One of them is just kind of saying, like,
(08:27):
you're not crazy. The system is really rigged UM. Maybe
not totally against you, but like set up in a
certain way and trying to illuminate some of our inherited
But yeah, so I tried to I ask questions and
I answer questions, and I talk about questions. That's kind
of how I think about it. Right now, I have
to ask and I know you've answered this in your
(08:47):
fa ques on your website, but I have to ask
you about lady swagger and where it came from, and
what is behind the lady swagger ethos and how can
how can other ladies get some lady swagger? I think
it's an inherent trait and in most people have identified ladies.
I'll just say that, UM, I don't know, it's not
a real thing. It's kind of a made up thing,
(09:08):
I guess I UM. I wrote several years ago, like
probably a little more than five years ago, there were
a series of articles that were about men doing cool
stuff in media. There was there was there were some
about like dudes who had started out as bloggers growing
up and getting cool jobs. And then there were some
about prestigious magazines that all had young male editors they
(09:29):
referred to douditors. Um. And it just it just seemed
like at the time this was this was two thousand ten,
two thousand eleven, that there was just this like spate
of trend coverage of like men are doing things. Men
they got it going on like in media. It was
really annoying. So I wrote, I wrote some parody articles
(09:49):
that were sort of, you know, mocking that micro trend,
but also highlighting work that women were doing. And one
of the um one of the articles about men who
contained line where they described one of these duditors as
having a kind of low maintenance swagger and or something
like that. And so and I when I flipped, when
I reversed the genders to write the parody. I wrote
(10:10):
it as low maintenance lady swagger to describe a woman.
I can't remember if it was me or another woman
I was writing about. UM, I don't really know how
it like how it sort of became. And then I
used it as the tagline on my tumbler for a
long time and then UM, I don't know. And then
and then when it became and I incorporated last year, um,
(10:31):
and there was this question of like, you know, am
I just an Friedman Ink or whatever? And or do
I want a different name? It's like I kind of
would like a credit card this says lady swagger, So
I have that. I did that. UM. I consulted a
lawyer friend and I was like, is there any reason
why I shouldn't have this as my escort name? She goes, well,
(10:53):
you'll probably only use it in tax dealings with the U. S. Government.
So if you could stand up in court and have
the US government address he was Lady Swagger, Inc. And
I was like in I was going out with the
paperwork before she was done, like just after her advice
had filled the g chat windows, like typing it on her.
So yeah, that's a very long answer to say that.
I kind of, Um, it was not born of like
me inventing a term. It was a response to something.
(11:14):
But the the term to me just kind of means that, like,
you are confident, but you're not, like, guess what, I'm
so confident, Like you know, you don't have to talk
about it, and you don't have to like make other
women feel like they're less put together than you to
sort of be aware that you have it going on.
I guess because of how I see it now, you said,
um at the beginning of your answer, like people who
(11:35):
identify as ladies, Like, how would you define a lady?
Especially these days? I think it's like if you if
you identify with that term, it's great. I mean I
know plenty of women who, like some of whom identify
on the more butsch end of the spectrum who would
be like, I'm definitely a woman, but I don't call
myself a lady. Um. I think it sort of has
like a fami identity connotation. Um, I also use that
(11:58):
identify us, so it's clear that I'm talking about any
person who might identify that way. Um. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah,
if there's like a lady, I don't know a lady
ETOs because we've talked. We did a whole podcast Hey ladies,
like kind of the reclamation of the term and how
um for second way feminists, they were like yeah, yeah,
(12:20):
and then it just made something different because a lot
of people woman sounds like their moms, and girl is
too young? Is clinical? Yeah, females clinical or you're talking
about like horses or dogs or something, and yeah, ladies
seems to be not not quite ironic because people really
do embrace it, but almost like yeah, it's just it's
(12:41):
a it's a like almost a term of endearment for
my my lady friends. Yeah, I mean I use it.
It's it Actually I like to use it as a
modifier instead of females, so instead of like female swag
or whatever. But I my grandma always has gals she's like,
how those gals are running around with? And I'm like,
which girls have run around with a lot of girls? Um?
I like gals a lot too, as as sort of
something that doesn't feel quite so formal as to say woman.
(13:04):
I also like women. I don't know, I don't really,
I don't just remain My mom is you know, she
doesn't want me to say, but she's in her late
sixties and she calls herself and all of her friends girls.
You know, why doesn't she want you to say? I
think it's like, I don't know, she's obviously like your
she's she's she's I don't know. It's hard to deny
you've been around a certain number of decades and you
(13:24):
have a children, right, Like why why does it matter
if you're like fifty nine or sixty four or like, yeah,
I don't know. It could be the South Georgia thing,
you know. Yeah, I didn't know how old my mom
was until um I was a teenager because I finally
like snuck into her purse and looked at her. She
(13:44):
wouldn't tell you so much. She wouldn't tell me at
least even still, and even still, she's really weird now
it's passed along to grandkids. Where she turned seventy last
year and she was like, do not tell your nieces
and nephew is it's like what you looked great for
seventy should be pumped. That's crazy. I would say that, oh,
(14:07):
you know, kids are san notorious for judging you. But
my niece actually put me through the ring or questioning
me as to why I did not have children? How
old are you? What job do you have? And why
don't you have children? I was like, you are seven?
Do were you? Like, let's have a conversation. Why are
you interested in I have children? Do you have children?
Did she ask him about the job? First? She asked
(14:28):
if I was in school? She asked him I had
a job, and then she's just like going through the
life stages. You know, Yeah, she knew I wasn't married,
although I think she finds it problematic that I'm at
this stage and I do have a job, but I'm
not married yet. She's identity. That's basically the cover of
dozens of like Newsweek millennial trend stories. You know, she's
(14:51):
just really summed it up there with the confusion. Yeah, well,
you're a real model for her. She's gonna get to
she's gonna get to an age where she has a
job and doesn't have kids and be like, oh, yeah,
it's so weird. It's weird for other reasons, but not
that sure. Yeah, apparently my my nephews were worried about
me for a really long time before I got engaged.
(15:14):
Just my sister informed me. It was like, cool, how
are they? They were like ten, But yeah, this is
treasure wow from children. But back to you, and I've
never had a child questioned my empty womb. It's like
it makes you want to like, who where are they
(15:35):
absorbing like these messages? I mean everywhere, that's true. But yeah,
so away from away from our empty wounds. We didn't
want to ask you about the aspect of self promotion
as like, you know, Lady swagger ink um kind of
how how you approach that and your feelings around it.
(15:57):
You know, you wrote the piece in New Republic about
self branding and how kind of like awkward and bizarre
that is. Yeah, I don't really know. I mean, I
guess part of it is, um that if I write
something that I'm proud of, I want people to read it.
It's on a basic level of like I worked hard
for this in the same way, UM, in the same
(16:17):
way I am interested in like hearing about my friend's
work and supporting it when I can. UM, I don't
really have I swear to God honestly, like a negative
flip side of that, where I'm like, oh, Caroline is
my friend, but she hasn't shared any of the last
five articles that you know. I don't really keep tabs
on it that way, but I guess I tend to
(16:38):
think that people who I know will want to know
when I'm proud of something that I've done. So that's
like on a basic level. UM. I also think that
as a freelancer, if you are not talking about the
work that you're doing, it makes it harder to get
more work. So you know, there is I guess you
can call it self promotion, but part of it is
(16:59):
also because my work is scattered across so many different outlets,
I'm sort of the one place you can get at all.
It's like, you know that if I want an editor
to know what I'm all about and to assign me
great work, I want them to be able to come
to a website where I've cataloged all of it or
come to my Twitter feed and see what I'm thinking
about lately, and um, and that's that's different than just
(17:21):
me fire hosing what I've made out into the world.
It's also me you know, tweeting about things I'm thinking about,
or or using using my website to high highlight other
work that I'm doing. And so I don't know. I
guess I think of it as like just being a
part of public spaces on the Internet. And some of
that is sharing what I've made, and some of that's
(17:42):
sharing what other people have made, and some of that
is a lot of that is consuming what other people
have made. It's not I don't know, and and um,
some of the more concrete questions about that that I
wrote about in the article for The New Republic, which
um are which sort of get into details of how
you talk about yourself. You know, it's stuff that is like, oh, okay,
if I incorporate as Lady Swagger, am I going to
(18:04):
make it an email address and make it a public
thing or is it just in the documents in hidden way?
And you know the answer to that is like, I
think it's fun. So it's you know, semi public. I
guess it's like I I bought the domain for sure,
because like, don't ever create a corporation and don't buy
the domain name. There's anything. My friend a Mina has
taught me, always buy the domain always. UM, So yeah,
(18:24):
I don't know. It gets a little thornier when you
start to think about questions of like what what am
Who am I as a brand versus who am I
as a human? You're sitting in the room with um,
and frankly I don't usually go that far down that path.
It's but but on questions of pure promotion, I think
usually people are overthinking it or being super weird if
they think it's only promotion. It's like usually just being
(18:46):
on social media and in a holistic way. So it
sounds like there's not much conflict for you between the
line of authenticity and the fakeer of just being like, oh,
I'm just like almost like a used car sales and
just like throwing my work out there. I don't ever
feel like that. And if I write things that I'm
not that excited about, I don't push them very hard
or I don't share them. You know, they're sort of
(19:07):
the easy, like whatever publication I write it for, we'll
tweet it and then I can just retweet it and
go about my day. I don't really make an extra
effort to put it out into the world. I mean,
I there are definitely things that I mean, I'm not like, Okay,
time to get back on the self promotion treadmill, like
every more you know it's it doesn't it doesn't feel
it doesn't feel like that. And also I like, you know,
(19:28):
I my my column this week, for example, UM is
something I've been thinking about writing for a long time,
and so when I finally wrote it, I'm interested in
hearing what other people are saying about it. And there
there have been a couple of points where I'm just like, oh,
I wish I could go back and revise and include
these like three great things that people said about it.
And you know, I wouldn't have that feedback if I
were not, you know, pushing it up into the world.
(19:51):
I mean, yes, like the New York magazine does some
of that, but if I were not interacting with the
people who were talking about it, I would miss out
on this whole dimension of the topic. So it's the
topic I wrote about, this idea of UM finding yourself
in a in a role at work, whether it's because
it's part of your explicit job description, or whether it's
because that's just kind of like where you end up
(20:11):
falling in the office ecosystem of being the person who
always says no to everything. So like you're in a
meeting and someone's like, yeah, it wouldn't it be great
if we just like set up a carnival outside and
started selling tickets to that, and that's how we plugged
our budget deficit. And you know, you're the one who's like, well,
I don't know if you're owned for that, and like
you know, like you find yourself, you know, because of
(20:31):
kind of yeah, but I don't, I don't know. It's
sort of about how like, um, how that role is
sort of invisible administrative work that often gets assigned to
women in part because of, um, the actual roles they
tend to occupy, but also sometimes because like you know,
you could be sitting That definitely happened to me where
I've been the only woman in a room with a
(20:52):
lot of men who are presumably coequal to me in
terms of the office or chart, but I'm the one
taking notes from the meeting. And then when when you're
the one taking notes a friend of mine pointing this out.
You know, you're the one who's like, oh, this doesn't
head up or or whatever. And so you're the one
who's sort of like, hey, hey, guys, actually this is
brilliant idea that you're all really excited about. Right now,
(21:13):
it's not gonna work for this reason. And then it's
just want want anyway. So um and that can be
kind of exhausting saying saying no a lot. There Historically
a lot of ways women are forced or have been
expected to say no in like the sexual realm, or
like moderating what they're supposed to be eating, or like,
you know, like just think about everything a woman's magazine
has ever told you about anything like classically. Um and
(21:35):
and I was just talking about how that happens at work,
and so yeah, and so there there have been comments
for women who are you know, have found themselves in
that role. Someone said, yeah, it's like Wendy and the
Lost Boys, you know, all over again. I was like,
I don't even think to mention Peter Pan and the
Lost Boys. You're so right, like Peter Pan is like
obviously a trope of young male Brooklyn Nights. But I
(21:56):
hadn't really thought about, Like yeah, it's like totally Wendy
and the Lost Boys. So just like little gems like
that where I'm like, okay, well, I mean I might
not revisit this topic next week, but if I ever
do revisit it, that's just like the perfect little metaphor
so that, yeah, I mean, how can how or should
(22:16):
like how can women escape those sort of office expectations
like can they? Should they? Okay, well, here's something else
someone said to me, which I did not even think
to include in the article. Is like numbers, you know,
if there are if there are more than, um, you know,
one woman in that meeting, chances are that there's not
one person always expected to take notes, and that the
(22:37):
person is always you because you're the woman. You know.
Diversity is something that can can help with us a
little bit. Um. I also think that like the way
um right now, a lot of roles are assigned in
the office um due to just like ingrain sexism, men
have a lot more freedom to be like, you know,
I have the year of the CEO, like let me
(22:58):
hit you with this crazy idea or whatever. You know.
I mean, like a lot of the way networks work
right now, disadvantage women, um, and so having stronger networks
of women first of all, like women truly supporting each
other at work, um, but also just having in sheer numbers,
more women in leadership roles. I mean, the one of
the points that I made here is like, yeah, yeah,
(23:19):
we know that like of you know, secretarial and administrative
assistant positions them or women that's like Department of Women,
that's Department of Labor Statistics. That's not like feminist, like
you know, whatever perception. But but one of the things
about this being the no woman is that they're frequently
higher on in sort of a leadership role, which is
(23:41):
something that I experienced. I was like, oh, yeah, I'm
not the secretary, but I'm still the one. And so
I don't even remember what the question was and why
I was talking about the distinction, but I do think
that there's something about diversity and strengthen numbers and just
general women's advancement helping to make this less of a phenomenon. Yeah,
I was a question of like women resisting that role
(24:03):
doing it, but it's an important role. I mean, that's
what I couldn't decide either. You know, it's obviously a
valuable role, like we don't want to set up a
card val outside like that would be a waste of
our budget, like we couldn't get the permits whatever. You
know what I mean, It's like someone has to be
the one to say it, and ultimately those rules are
really valuable. It's just a question of do you feel
like you know it always false to you to be
(24:24):
the one to call that out. I mean, it's tough.
I don't I don't have the answer. Do you feel
comfortable saying guys, this is not gonna work? And do
other people respect you for it? And if they don't,
is it because of your gender or is it just
because they just want to put up a freaking card vrole?
Or do you say, guys, this is not going to
work because you know you're going to be stuck like
cleaning up after it when it doesn't. You know what
(24:44):
I mean? I think that that was something that I
ran up against um in my last job, is that
I had I had bosses who would be like, yeah,
it wouldn't it be awesome? And then yeah, go make
it happen, and I was my my choices were tell
them in the moment, no, it can't happen. For these
really you know, not fun reasons, or you know, try
(25:05):
to make it happen on air, quoting you can't see
me on the podcast, try to make it happen and
then fail through action and then be like, well, you know,
either way, I'm wasting my time and it's annoying and
I don't know. I mean, I think that the fundamental
problem is probably just the male ego, and like we're
all working to solve that every day. So women are
working very hard to solve some that are also working.
Some men are also working absolutely Like I think we
(25:26):
just send up the podcast. But speaking of women in
the office and also at large, UM, we wanted to
talk to you about this whole concept of the female
voice because you have been interviewed a lot and talked
a lot about this whole trend of women being policed
for their speech of um, you know, stop saying sorry,
(25:47):
stop saying just you know, the whole um. Google extension
that will empower your email and curious to know your
thoughts on that because that's also something that you've talked
about on the podcast too. Yeah, we get a lot
of mail from people who say, you know, I take
you so much more seriously, if you didn't say like
every third word. Do you guys get that mail too?
(26:10):
Not as much, but um we'll we'll get it with
what you used to get. She used to get letters
like right when I came on the podcast using the
word like of course um uh. Used to get letters
from people saying you've got to stop saying if you will.
Oh yeah. It was the weirdest thing because that's not
even a traditional but we do. We do get dinged
(26:30):
for like minus um as I went through like um
just like an exercise and almost masochism, and went to
some a bunch of iTunes comments and I don't do that.
Don't do that. It's for the purpose of an essay
I was writing, and so I was looking at them
from like I wanted the very worst, and a lot
(26:53):
of them were complaining about these these accents, fake accents
that I will slip into okay for the records. Great voices,
and I as her cred as love then and her
friend in life. I love her voices. Yeah, so that
but that's like that's my um my life. But it's
long anyway, short answer, real long. Yes, we get our
(27:15):
voices right, So my view on all kinds of verbal ticks,
whether they're used by men or women, is that it's
great to pay attention to how you talk and why.
And I think sometimes when I'm nervous, I use more
of them. I mean, I'm a human being. We all
tend to do that, and so it can be nice
to be aware of that is a thing. Oh I'm
saying like a lot. Maybe it means I'm nervous right
(27:35):
now or you know, and just self on a level
of self awareness. I don't think it's bad to think
about the filler words you use and the way to speak. UM.
What I do have a problem with is the implication
that if women just strip certain phrases or certain constructions
or certain words from their emails, that they will magically
be taken more seriously um for the content of what
(27:58):
they're saying, And that I think is really misguided. It's
like it's sort of like saying every woman has done
the thing where you're like, I would not wear that
to the office, or I would not wear that to
a professional event. You know, everybody judges, um, but you know,
and where when would you argue that, Like if you
were dressed in a certain way, you shouldn't be heard
or you shouldn't be taken to you know what I mean,
(28:18):
there's sort of and so I think that the same
thing kind of applies, Like think about you know, how
you are perceived for how you're talking, Like consider it.
Maybe you don't want to use the same um little
verbal crutch that you that you tend to fall into
just for clarity of communication. But you know what, like
you get nervous, you also want to express yourself authentically
the way you talk to your friends. And I think
(28:39):
that a lot of the advice on this front is
sort of adding to a long list of women that
if things women are already asked to consider when they
present themselves to the world. And it would probably be
a lot better if we were all just a little
calmer about that, and people who are on the listening
end of it mediated their own biases about what it
(28:59):
says about the intelligence of women who are speaking. So
the speaker maybe focus on confidence and feeling comfortable, yeah,
or just take a breath in a pause. I mean,
I think, um, I definitely say like quite a bit.
I say it more often when I'm trying to figure
out exactly how I feel about something. Or what I
want to say about it, um, And so for me, it's, oh, yeah,
(29:22):
maybe I should just slow down a little. I'm a
fairly fast talker. Maybe I should just pause right now
instead of trying to like ramble through it um. Which
doesn't mean that I don't think you should take me seriously.
If if I decided to say like a bunch of
times instead, I don't know. That's yeah. So if you're
if you're if you're the speaker, maybe just notice when
you're doing it and decide if it really is a
(29:42):
problem or if it's someone else's problem. Chances are it
someone else's problem. And if you're a listener, um, get
over it. Yeah I was. I was fist pumping in
my bathroom when I was listening to Call Your Girlfriend episode.
When you all read the letter from the Australian Femine,
it's basically saying like, I love you guys even more
if or you're undercutting your authority with all of the
(30:06):
verbal um ad libs and Amina like having none of it.
And I was like, she's saying everything that I wish
to care like could say sometimes because and it was
great to hear because yeah, well it's really it's actually
really difficult because you know, for example, I don't think
that that one listener, I mean she's a stand in
(30:27):
for a lot of mail that we get, And so
I do feel bad sometimes. Or people will tweet things
at us that will just make us. I rate, like
you know where where where you don't really want to
lay into one person because I understand that you are
one person you don't deserve. We have a bigger platform
than you do, like in this situation, her sending us
a letter and us calling it out on the air
(30:48):
like we're the big fish, right. But um, when it
becomes a pattern, or when you know, when it's sort
of a perfect distillation of a lot of the mail
you get or a lot of the things people imply
about would make your podcast better, Um, that's when it
just it does hit a little bit of a tipping
point sometimes. So I would also encourage people to just
(31:09):
think about how you must sound, whoever you are, male
or female, old or young, how you must sound talking
to your friends. And you shouldn't necessarily expect like NPR
style PBS delivery just because it's a podcast. Well, and
I think that people I mean to be totally honest
(31:29):
The thing that has made our podcast well received is
the fact that it is conversational in a real way.
It's not like, hey, sister, how is it going? Like
you know what I mean, there's not it's obviously we
just talked to each other the way we talked to
each other, and so you know, um, and this is
what I'm sort of getting at. Yeah, it makes sense
to think about how we're using words, because we do
(31:51):
want to express ourselves clearly on the podcast, but not
at the expense of the conversational tone that makes it great,
an authenticity and how you actually would want to each other. Yeah. Absolutely.
And the truth is, I don't think women sound stupid
when they say like, so I don't feel bad about
saying it. Yeah, And I mean truth is, I've heard
plenty of guys say it. This is not completely It's
(32:14):
not as if like is the sole providence of women.
Women just exist in the world of like. Yeah. And
I interviewed a bunch of linguists for the article that
I wrote about this, and they were saying that, yeah,
men have just as many like ticks, used just as
many filler words as women tend to. It is honestly
only advice levied at women that that is, it's like
(32:35):
this false hope for being taken more seriously, if you
can only stop saying like if you could only like,
you know, wear a shirt that was slightly higher cut
or whatever, if you could only like, you know, drink
with the dudes that you know, whatever. I don't know
what it is like whatever dumb thing that people say
is not sexism that is keeping women down there, you know,
it's just like another one on the laundry list. Yeah, well,
(32:56):
speaking of calling your girlfriend to take it back a
couple of steps. Um, we had read that it sort
of started a little bit on a lark at the
suggestion of your producer and you and I mean it
also wanting to like experiment with audio formats, and so
I was kind of wondering why why you even wanted
to experiment to begin with. Um, I don't know, we're
(33:16):
both we both just I mean, this is gonna sound
this is so, this is so cheesy. We're both like
trying new things. But for real though, so our our producer,
Gina is is really brilliant, and at a certain point,
when a smart person who is really skilled in a
certain area says, I think you guys would be good
at this, and I want to work with you. You
have to be a fool to just keep saying no um.
(33:38):
And so I think once we decided what we wanted
to call it, then it was over. We kind of
we kind of sort of talked about it for a while,
and she she poked us about it and suggested suggested
it for a while. But when we decided that we
wanted to call it that, and we were like, oh yeah,
and then it could just be a call between us.
We wouldn't even have to like, you know, set it up,
set up a format. We could just call each other.
That's when we're like, okay, we can actually do this. Well,
(34:00):
what have you guys? I'm really interested to know what
you guys have learned about each other, maybe that you
wouldn't have figured out if you guys were just having
a drink somewhere or a cup of coffee somewhere, Like
you specifically uncovered something about your friend because you have
to have these conversations in this particular format. Yeah, it's weird.
It's it's actually it's not that it's deepened our friendship
(34:22):
because if you listen, we don't really get personal I mean,
we are, we are personable, but you know, we don't
really talk about you don't really know who each of
us is sleeping with or like whether what's going on
in terms of like are we happy, are we sad?
Is it a tough time? Is it a fun time
for us? You know that that stuff is like only
really the surface level personal details make it out. So
(34:42):
I wouldn't say that, like, um, the content of what
we talk about has led us to know each other better.
I do think that the thing is, and I'm sure
you guys have experienced this too, is we're business partners now,
you know, I mean we definitely it is. It is.
It is you know, financially speaking, not really business yet,
but in terms of you know, we we have a
(35:04):
regular thing that we're committed to doing together, and they're
like increasing amounts of responsibility to have to to do
with that. And so I think that I'm learning about
both Amina and Gina as like coworkers, and you know what,
they're great coworkers. If everyone I've ever worked with was
as great a coworker as they are, we are like
you know, our Google Dot game is like so tight
(35:26):
and and you know, and we are all really on
top of it. I think that I've done a lot
of passion side projects where it can be hard to
wrangle everyone involved, and um, and we're just like, we're there.
If we make a meeting, we're there. If someone says
that they're going to follow up on something, of the time,
they follow up on it and make it happen. And
so I think that a lot of what I've learned
(35:47):
is just this this not so much as a friend,
but like this whole other dimension of people who I
already really liked and respected, and that's been cool. I'm wondering, um,
since you all here from so many air quotes, baby feminists,
if there are um certain themes to the questions and
quandaries that they ask you all, or just like topics
(36:10):
that especially resume, A lot of them are based on
things that we've already talked about on the show, So
you know, it'll be someone has a workplace dilemma or um,
you know, we get questions about friendship a lot. I
had a falling out with a friend of mine, or
we're not as close as we used to be, or
I just moved somewhere. How do I make new friends?
A lot of a lot of them kind of deal
(36:31):
with friendship as a topic. But there's there's a strain.
There's sort of a strain of the questions we get
that are just like Ann and Amina fix my life,
like like a'm very like like own network show, Time
of Time situation um where no, we get a lot
and and um that are like I can sort of
give you the outlines, like, hey Anna, Amina, I've been
(36:53):
listening to the show for a while. It seems weird
to write you this email, but you know, like there's
always a bunch of caveats and then it's like I'm
nice tew three definitely in that age range. Um, what
am I supposed to do with my life? Like, you know,
I don't know who I'm supposed to be dating? Men
kind of suck. Am I even supposed to be dating? Then?
What should my major b? I don't feel passionate about anything,
(37:13):
but I have so much to give the world. But
I am passionate, you know. I mean they're kind of
like this everything question um, and we we try. You know,
I'm trying to remember right now we answered one of
them and I can't remember if if it was like
a microphone malfunction and we lost the answer or if
it was too long and it ended up getting cut
and we'll end up appearing in a future episode, but
(37:35):
we took one of them. Um. And you know, interestingly,
that's like a lot of the mail from young women
that I get to my personal account as well. It's
just kind of this general everything seems to suck? What
do I do? And I'm just like, yeah, everything just
sucks when you're at age, Like I always just right, like,
it just sucks to be to be that age. It's
really hard. It's like everything is up in the air
(37:56):
and you have no money and you know, it's it's
really hard to like, there's the older you get, the
more the more the steps behind you start to look
like they were a dedicated path, you know. And and
you know, when when you haven't had that many steps
to put behind you yet, it can be hard to
sort of look back and be like, okay, like maybe
now I can look forward based on where I've been. UM.
So I just tried to sort of send that um
(38:20):
and uh. And I also try to describe, like, you know,
let me tell you about the disaster show that was
my life when I was twenty two. You know what
I mean just like which is which is not to
say which is which is only a reminder that um
it's yeah, it's it's easy to see this stuff in
in retrospect, not so much at the time. Yeah, so
(38:42):
I don't know that's that's like a theme that is real. Yeah.
We get a lot of really great feedback from listeners
whenever we share our screw up the things that we
struggled with now or when we were younger, because a
lot of people just love to hear like, oh, it's
so important. People that like I listened to my ear
earbuds that I think are like so important because I
(39:04):
have a podcast, Like oh, they struggled with that too.
They have pimples too, or they like didn't know what
they wanted to major. I have this weird patch of
dry skin from my eyebrows right now that I'm just like,
am I molting? Like what is going on? I shouldn't
have winter skin. It's it doesn't even get cold. Yeah, exactly.
Not perfect. We can be back from people because I
think that people are so refreshed and pleasantly surprised when
(39:26):
they are presented with authenticity, and I think that our
feedback shows that and I mean that makes me curious, like, what,
what do you guys get super responses too? Is there
something that you talk about in particular or a tone
or a theme or overarching topic that people just super
respond to. Yeah, I think that, Well, we get we
get lots of mail from people that basically thanks us
(39:48):
for talking about electoral politics and the Kardashians or like,
you know, essentially recognizing that, um that women slash people
can be interested in all these variety of things at once. UM,
So that that's sort of one thing. UM. Personal stories
definitely get get emails. UM when we when we talk
(40:09):
about we were talking about anything medical, people totally want
to tell us well, here's what I'm putting in my
vagama or that's not what my doctor told me or whatever.
You know, like there's the medical stuff. And in part
because we are openly and SENDI deliberately kind of ignorant,
we're like, let me ask Google m D what this
problem is or whatever. You know, doctors write us and
(40:29):
they're like, UM, but and then and then sometimes like um,
you know, there will be there will be a segment
that UM that speaks to something that's happening in the
news in a slightly more nuanced way, or because we
can approach it conversationally. We had the journalist Rebecca Traster
(40:50):
on who's a friend and whose personal friend of both
of ours, and it's awesome. Um. She talked a little
bit about like Hillary and Bernie and like her conflicting
feelings about both of those, like camps and um. And
we got mail from a lot of people who were like, oh, yeah,
like that I support insert Bernie or insert Hillary or whoever,
(41:11):
and that put it in a new light for me.
We got an email from a friend of ours who
works in politics and is like a hardcore Hillary hater
who was like, you really made me rethink not how
I feel about her, but how I respond to her publicly,
and like how what the narrative is and like that
was really cool. Um. So sometimes it is like about
the more sort of substantive serious stuff, not so much
(41:32):
the personal anecdotes. Um. But yeah, there's really a range
and and mostly it's like, you know, we'll mention something
like a weird aside and someone will be like, I'm
also from that part of iowan have a mole on
the right blood sheet or whatever, you know what I mean.
Like people, people are really looking to identify with like
whatever you know, which is cool, which is really cool.
It's like you know when when you when you stack
(41:53):
up all of like my life experience in demographic details
and all of Amina's like that. We actually probably overlap
with a lot of women, so you can imagine the
mail we get like that. Well, Caroline, that seems like
the perfect transition point back into the stuff I never
(42:15):
told you studio for our listener mail. But of course
first we want to thank An again so much for
talking to us and even though she wasn't there, Amina,
thank you too. Thank you for making call your girlfriend
with and Friedman. Um. Y'all need to go right now
to call your girlfriend dot com and or and Friedman
(42:37):
dot com and get on these ladies radars or get
these ladies on your radar, or I mean if you
can get on their radar, then that's amazing too. Call everyone,
all of your girlfriend on all the radars, listen to
the podcasts. And I know that there are a lot
of call your girlfriend and and fans listening, So send
(42:58):
us yell fan mail on step at house Stuffworks dot
com is our email address. You can also tweet us
at mom stub podcasts or messages on Facebook. And we've
got a couple of messages to share with you when
we come right back from a quick right, Hey, Caroline,
you know what time it is? What time? Is that
time for me to brag about my personal website that
(43:20):
I built with square Space? Oh good, I hear it
was really easy. It was so easy, Caroline, not even kidding.
I don't know how to code beyond very basic HTML skills,
and that was totally fine because square space offers so
many intuitive tools and beautiful designs for you to choose
(43:41):
from that my personal website, Christ and Conqueror dot com
looks like maybe I hired someone or maybe I'm just
really good at building websites. Nice. I love a good
illusion me too. So to get in on the square
space action listeners, because really, who doesn't need a website
these days? Head on over to squarespace dot com and
us a code mom stuff for ten percent off your
(44:03):
first purchase, and if you sign up for a year,
you get a free domain. That's perfect. What more can
I want? Nothing, Caroline, except maybe ten percent off your
first order at squarespace by using the code mom stuff.
And now back to the show. Well, I have a
letter here from Myra. It is a bit of a
(44:25):
correction from our disability and Sexuality episode. Myras says, just
a quick note. I also tweeted as I was listening
to your disability podcast about a common but potentially serious error.
Learning disabilities and mental disabilities are conflated in your podcast.
That's not a fair thing to do, and those who
have learning disabilities may well catch it and WinCE. Learning
(44:47):
disabilities never involve lower or slower intelligence or brain damage.
People with learning disabilities can be geniuses and can often
be expected to work to the same standards as non
disabled people in much more complicated tasks than people with
many mental disabilities. I have great respect for people with
Down syndrome, for instance, and accommodating these people matters to me,
(45:07):
but they are not in the same category of disability
as someone with a d D or dyslexia or Asperger syndrome,
or my own learning disability, and to imply so demeans
the potential and flexibility of what I or anyone else
with a learning disability can, with proper accommodation, be expected
to do. Many people and even scholars, make these errors,
so it's understandable, but please take note that the wrong
(45:29):
language and causes problems for people in the same way
that conflating physical and mental disabilities does. Thanks and I
love that you're dealing with this topic. And thank you Myra.
We appreciate it well. I've got a letter here from
Maya about our episode on Anita Hill, and she writes,
thank you so much for your episodes on the llegal
history of sexual harassment and the legal battle of Anita Hill.
(45:51):
Her usual. I enjoyed learning all the information you brought
to the podcast. This week, However, I reached a new
level of shocked at how much I know about what
I didn't know As a black female graduate student at
the University of Oklahoma. I was flabbergasted to find out
I had never heard the name Anita Hill. It appears
as legal war was great wage at the perfect place
(46:13):
and time to get left out of the majority of
the national conversation on equality in the workplace. It was
long enough ago for many to stop talking about it,
but still too recent to be in our history books.
That being said, I don't think any textbook publishing company
has the brass to include such a controversial conversation about
a current Supreme Court judge. Though I can't wait to
(46:35):
see Carrie Washington take on this powerful role, I can't
help but wonder who else have we forgotten? I can't
wait to call others into this conversation because now that
I know better, I need to do better. Well, thank
you so much, Maya, and we are really excited to
watch Gary Washington's confirmation as well, hitting HBO very soon.
(46:56):
And with that, dear listeners, you know where to email
us Mom Stuff at House of works dot com. Is
he addressed? And for links all of our social media
as well as all of our blogs, videos and podcasts
with our sources so you can learn more about the
fabulous and freedman. Head on over to stuff Mom Never
Told You dot com for more on this and thousands
(47:18):
of other topics. Is it how stuff Works dot com
Welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told You from how stupp
Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Kristen and I'm Caroline, and today we're talking to a
lady whom we hugely admire and have sided so many
times on stuff Mom Never Told You. Yes, I'm super
(00:26):
excited for you guys to hear our conversation with rad
lady journalist and podcaster and friedman Um. Kristen reached out
to Anne when we were on our way out to
California earlier this year on the off chance that we
might be able to chat, and she said yes, And
it was one of those things where you kind of
like do a little happy dance, even if it's just
(00:48):
in your brain. Uh, we're in the gifts that you
send each other in excitement, right exactly. Uh, you know,
usually involving like champagne or Oprah or something. Um to
really illustrate the true depth of our excitement. Um. But
we're such a fan of Ants because she is such
a fantastic writer, and that would be enough in and
(01:10):
of itself, but she really tackles a lot of fascinating
and fantastic issues around women and gender and feminism and
she's really sort of a critical voice in today's media. Yeah.
I mean, and we've got to talk about Call your Girlfriend,
her fantastic podcast that she co hosts with Amnatu. So, um,
(01:31):
they talk about pop culture, politics, feminism, this weekend, menstruation stuff.
I ever told you fans, if you're not already fans
of Call your Girlfriend, you will be and you should be. Yeah,
And when you hear the conversation, I hope it feels
like you're in the room with us having some lady chat,
(01:52):
because I know when I really listened to the interview,
that's how it felt to me. And I was there
the first time. Um, but we sort of in our
in our talk with and we sort of give a
glimpse into what it's like to be women whose voices
are public, whether that means fielding uh, responses from listeners
(02:13):
that are on the positive or the negative end of
the spectrum, or just grappling with that whole lady voice issue,
you know, don't apologize, don't say sorry, also stay away
from vocal fry and like, oh, just talking about the
whole rule book for women's voices. And since she's full
time freelance, we also wanted to talk to her about
her as a business and a brand and the issue
(02:34):
of self promotion, because this is something that also gets
really gendered really quickly, and something that women might not
feel as comfortable doing. Um but it's so crucial to
the way a lot of our digital media businesses work
these days. Um And. Speaking of which, for people who
(02:57):
aren't familiar with an Freedman, let's talk a little bit
about who she is, because she doesn't give like a
full bio she is and Caroline, I felt like such
a creeper the other night when I was putting together
you know, this bio that we were about to share,
and was googling her and ended up on her Wikipedia page.
(03:20):
Um and and felt like a huge stalker. Also because
reading the Wikipedia page, I was a little flummix that
it left out certain things that I particularly enjoy about
her work, like lady swagger that she talks about, like
shine theory. All of these like cornerstones to me of
(03:41):
a Freedman's work. I was like, who who wrote this
Wikipedia page? Also, in its description um of her as
a feminist, it says that like n. Freeman has publicly
identified in speeches as a feminist, is very stilted. I'm
very suspicious of whoever wrote her Wikipedia page. But let's
give a better or introduction than than that Wikipedia page
(04:02):
of who who Anne is? In not her words. Well, uh,
she is a fellow j school grad yeah, and is
an Iowa native. She studied journalism at the University of
Missouri Columbia before becoming an editor at Feminist NG, which
is another resource that you and I have sided quite
(04:23):
a bit on the podcast. Yeah. Then she was in
d C working as a deputy editor at The American
Prospect and then hopped over to become the executive editor
of Good Magazine, which, Uh, that whole thing went down
in flames, not because of Anne, but because of some
shoddy leadership. And I highly recommend that you listen to
(04:45):
her interview on the She Does podcast because she talks
more about that experience and how it fired her up.
And she used that really negative experience for her and
the other editorial staffers who were laid off as something
really amazing. Um, And ever since then, she's been building
her freelance lady empire. And let's talk about what what
(05:08):
this empire consists of. We've got her pie chart. She's
the mistress of gifts. She's a podcast or extraordinaire. Can
we explain her pie charts briefly for those who haven't
seen our tumbler, Yes, please do so. I love her
pie charts. They're hilarious. I have frequently posted them to
our sminty tumbler Kristen Um. Basically, she takes like a
(05:31):
current event or just something she's thinking about and breaks
it down. For instance, she has one what are we
doing on this airplane? Trying to open a third bag
of pretzels in the least noisy and humiliating way possible,
crying at a Pixar movie. Just things like that. And
she's so funny and so smart, and I have such
(05:52):
a lady crush on her. And honestly, the day we
met her, she was wearing the most fantastic lipstick and
I just so badly wanted to ask her what kind
of lipstick it was, but we had just met. I
didn't know if it would be weird. We were talking
about feminism, which of course you can talk about lipstick
and a conversation about feminism, but Caroline, I was right
there with you. It was this incredible bold shade of
(06:14):
not read yeah instead of just asking her about it directly,
we're now talking about it on a podcast. Well here,
let me do it and make a non creepy transition
from the pie charts. We can just hop right over
cool our our lipstick admiration and mentioned that if you
want to see her pie charts every week, become a
(06:37):
premium subscriber to her newsletter, The Ann Friedman Weekly, which
I also highly recommend. I mean seriously, ants, ants got
at all? And that's why we were both excited, also
a little nervous slash naushs to talk to her in
this airbnb that we had rented in Silver Lake, which
(06:57):
was smaller than we thought it was going to be
and also under construction. So thank you for being a
good sport and and taking the time to talk to us,
because obviously she's a busy woman and it was just
a delight to pick her brain. So is it time
for us to share our convo with Anne? Yeah, I'm
like steel clapping with excitement. Let's roll it and the
(07:20):
two thinks that we started with a question that we
have shamelessly borrowed from another fabulous podcast you should listen to,
called Another round Um host Heaven and Tracy always asked
their guests what do you do and why? So we
asked and and this is what she had to say.
(07:42):
Both of those things have changed a lot over the years.
So right at this second, what do I do? So?
I write things and I report things. So I asked
questions and I try to answer questions, UM. And I
also have this podcast, not this particular podcast, a different
podcast UM where I think I usually UM, A lot
(08:05):
of the things I work on come from some point
of conflict or confusion within myself. It's like kind of
selfish where I'm like, I don't know if I feel
about that, or I don't know what we should do
about that, UM, or things that friends expressed to me.
They start from a pretty personal place. UM. But I
also think I have some broader goals and what I do,
which is UM. One of them is just kind of saying, like,
(08:27):
you're not crazy. The system is really rigged UM. Maybe
not totally against you, but like set up in a
certain way and trying to illuminate some of our inherited
But yeah, so I tried to I ask questions and
I answer questions, and I talk about questions. That's kind
of how I think about it. Right now, I have
to ask and I know you've answered this in your
(08:47):
fa ques on your website, but I have to ask
you about lady swagger and where it came from, and
what is behind the lady swagger ethos and how can
how can other ladies get some lady swagger? I think
it's an inherent trait and in most people have identified ladies.
I'll just say that, UM, I don't know, it's not
a real thing. It's kind of a made up thing,
(09:08):
I guess I UM. I wrote several years ago, like
probably a little more than five years ago, there were
a series of articles that were about men doing cool
stuff in media. There was there was there were some
about like dudes who had started out as bloggers growing
up and getting cool jobs. And then there were some
about prestigious magazines that all had young male editors they
(09:29):
referred to douditors. Um. And it just it just seemed
like at the time this was this was two thousand ten,
two thousand eleven, that there was just this like spate
of trend coverage of like men are doing things. Men
they got it going on like in media. It was
really annoying. So I wrote, I wrote some parody articles
(09:49):
that were sort of, you know, mocking that micro trend,
but also highlighting work that women were doing. And one
of the um one of the articles about men who
contained line where they described one of these duditors as
having a kind of low maintenance swagger and or something
like that. And so and I when I flipped, when
I reversed the genders to write the parody. I wrote
(10:10):
it as low maintenance lady swagger to describe a woman.
I can't remember if it was me or another woman
I was writing about. UM, I don't really know how
it like how it sort of became. And then I
used it as the tagline on my tumbler for a
long time and then UM, I don't know. And then
and then when it became and I incorporated last year, um,
(10:31):
and there was this question of like, you know, am
I just an Friedman Ink or whatever? And or do
I want a different name? It's like I kind of
would like a credit card this says lady swagger, So
I have that. I did that. UM. I consulted a
lawyer friend and I was like, is there any reason
why I shouldn't have this as my escort name? She goes, well,
(10:53):
you'll probably only use it in tax dealings with the U. S. Government.
So if you could stand up in court and have
the US government address he was Lady Swagger, Inc. And
I was like in I was going out with the
paperwork before she was done, like just after her advice
had filled the g chat windows, like typing it on her.
So yeah, that's a very long answer to say that.
I kind of, Um, it was not born of like
me inventing a term. It was a response to something.
(11:14):
But the the term to me just kind of means that, like,
you are confident, but you're not, like, guess what, I'm
so confident, Like you know, you don't have to talk
about it, and you don't have to like make other
women feel like they're less put together than you to
sort of be aware that you have it going on.
I guess because of how I see it now, you said,
um at the beginning of your answer, like people who
(11:35):
identify as ladies, Like, how would you define a lady?
Especially these days? I think it's like if you if
you identify with that term, it's great. I mean I
know plenty of women who, like some of whom identify
on the more butsch end of the spectrum who would
be like, I'm definitely a woman, but I don't call
myself a lady. Um. I think it sort of has
like a fami identity connotation. Um, I also use that
(11:58):
identify us, so it's clear that I'm talking about any
person who might identify that way. Um. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah,
if there's like a lady, I don't know a lady
ETOs because we've talked. We did a whole podcast Hey ladies,
like kind of the reclamation of the term and how
um for second way feminists, they were like yeah, yeah,
(12:20):
and then it just made something different because a lot
of people woman sounds like their moms, and girl is
too young? Is clinical? Yeah, females clinical or you're talking
about like horses or dogs or something, and yeah, ladies
seems to be not not quite ironic because people really
do embrace it, but almost like yeah, it's just it's
(12:41):
a it's a like almost a term of endearment for
my my lady friends. Yeah, I mean I use it.
It's it Actually I like to use it as a
modifier instead of females, so instead of like female swag
or whatever. But I my grandma always has gals she's like,
how those gals are running around with? And I'm like,
which girls have run around with a lot of girls? Um?
I like gals a lot too, as as sort of
something that doesn't feel quite so formal as to say woman.
(13:04):
I also like women. I don't know, I don't really,
I don't just remain My mom is you know, she
doesn't want me to say, but she's in her late
sixties and she calls herself and all of her friends girls.
You know, why doesn't she want you to say? I
think it's like, I don't know, she's obviously like your
she's she's she's I don't know. It's hard to deny
you've been around a certain number of decades and you
(13:24):
have a children, right, Like why why does it matter
if you're like fifty nine or sixty four or like, yeah,
I don't know. It could be the South Georgia thing,
you know. Yeah, I didn't know how old my mom
was until um I was a teenager because I finally
like snuck into her purse and looked at her. She
(13:44):
wouldn't tell you so much. She wouldn't tell me at
least even still, and even still, she's really weird now
it's passed along to grandkids. Where she turned seventy last
year and she was like, do not tell your nieces
and nephew is it's like what you looked great for
seventy should be pumped. That's crazy. I would say that, oh,
(14:07):
you know, kids are san notorious for judging you. But
my niece actually put me through the ring or questioning
me as to why I did not have children? How
old are you? What job do you have? And why
don't you have children? I was like, you are seven?
Do were you? Like, let's have a conversation. Why are
you interested in I have children? Do you have children?
Did she ask him about the job? First? She asked
(14:28):
if I was in school? She asked him I had
a job, and then she's just like going through the
life stages. You know, Yeah, she knew I wasn't married,
although I think she finds it problematic that I'm at
this stage and I do have a job, but I'm
not married yet. She's identity. That's basically the cover of
dozens of like Newsweek millennial trend stories. You know, she's
(14:51):
just really summed it up there with the confusion. Yeah, well,
you're a real model for her. She's gonna get to
she's gonna get to an age where she has a
job and doesn't have kids and be like, oh, yeah,
it's so weird. It's weird for other reasons, but not
that sure. Yeah, apparently my my nephews were worried about
me for a really long time before I got engaged.
(15:14):
Just my sister informed me. It was like, cool, how
are they? They were like ten, But yeah, this is
treasure wow from children. But back to you, and I've
never had a child questioned my empty womb. It's like
it makes you want to like, who where are they
(15:35):
absorbing like these messages? I mean everywhere, that's true. But yeah,
so away from away from our empty wounds. We didn't
want to ask you about the aspect of self promotion
as like, you know, Lady swagger ink um kind of
how how you approach that and your feelings around it.
(15:57):
You know, you wrote the piece in New Republic about
self branding and how kind of like awkward and bizarre
that is. Yeah, I don't really know. I mean, I
guess part of it is, um that if I write
something that I'm proud of, I want people to read it.
It's on a basic level of like I worked hard
for this in the same way, UM, in the same
(16:17):
way I am interested in like hearing about my friend's
work and supporting it when I can. UM, I don't
really have I swear to God honestly, like a negative
flip side of that, where I'm like, oh, Caroline is
my friend, but she hasn't shared any of the last
five articles that you know. I don't really keep tabs
on it that way, but I guess I tend to
(16:38):
think that people who I know will want to know
when I'm proud of something that I've done. So that's
like on a basic level. UM. I also think that
as a freelancer, if you are not talking about the
work that you're doing, it makes it harder to get
more work. So you know, there is I guess you
can call it self promotion, but part of it is
(16:59):
also because my work is scattered across so many different outlets,
I'm sort of the one place you can get at all.
It's like, you know that if I want an editor
to know what I'm all about and to assign me
great work, I want them to be able to come
to a website where I've cataloged all of it or
come to my Twitter feed and see what I'm thinking
about lately, and um, and that's that's different than just
(17:21):
me fire hosing what I've made out into the world.
It's also me you know, tweeting about things I'm thinking about,
or or using using my website to high highlight other
work that I'm doing. And so I don't know. I
guess I think of it as like just being a
part of public spaces on the Internet. And some of
that is sharing what I've made, and some of that's
(17:42):
sharing what other people have made, and some of that
is a lot of that is consuming what other people
have made. It's not I don't know, and and um,
some of the more concrete questions about that that I
wrote about in the article for The New Republic, which
um are which sort of get into details of how
you talk about yourself. You know, it's stuff that is like, oh, okay,
if I incorporate as Lady Swagger, am I going to
(18:04):
make it an email address and make it a public
thing or is it just in the documents in hidden way?
And you know the answer to that is like, I
think it's fun. So it's you know, semi public. I
guess it's like I I bought the domain for sure,
because like, don't ever create a corporation and don't buy
the domain name. There's anything. My friend a Mina has
taught me, always buy the domain always. UM, So yeah,
(18:24):
I don't know. It gets a little thornier when you
start to think about questions of like what what am
Who am I as a brand versus who am I
as a human? You're sitting in the room with um,
and frankly I don't usually go that far down that path.
It's but but on questions of pure promotion, I think
usually people are overthinking it or being super weird if
they think it's only promotion. It's like usually just being
(18:46):
on social media and in a holistic way. So it
sounds like there's not much conflict for you between the
line of authenticity and the fakeer of just being like, oh,
I'm just like almost like a used car sales and
just like throwing my work out there. I don't ever
feel like that. And if I write things that I'm
not that excited about, I don't push them very hard
or I don't share them. You know, they're sort of
(19:07):
the easy, like whatever publication I write it for, we'll
tweet it and then I can just retweet it and
go about my day. I don't really make an extra
effort to put it out into the world. I mean,
I there are definitely things that I mean, I'm not like, Okay,
time to get back on the self promotion treadmill, like
every more you know it's it doesn't it doesn't feel
it doesn't feel like that. And also I like, you know,
(19:28):
I my my column this week, for example, UM is
something I've been thinking about writing for a long time,
and so when I finally wrote it, I'm interested in
hearing what other people are saying about it. And there
there have been a couple of points where I'm just like, oh,
I wish I could go back and revise and include
these like three great things that people said about it.
And you know, I wouldn't have that feedback if I
were not, you know, pushing it up into the world.
(19:51):
I mean, yes, like the New York magazine does some
of that, but if I were not interacting with the
people who were talking about it, I would miss out
on this whole dimension of the topic. So it's the
topic I wrote about, this idea of UM finding yourself
in a in a role at work, whether it's because
it's part of your explicit job description, or whether it's
because that's just kind of like where you end up
(20:11):
falling in the office ecosystem of being the person who
always says no to everything. So like you're in a
meeting and someone's like, yeah, it wouldn't it be great
if we just like set up a carnival outside and
started selling tickets to that, and that's how we plugged
our budget deficit. And you know, you're the one who's like, well,
I don't know if you're owned for that, and like
you know, like you find yourself, you know, because of
(20:31):
kind of yeah, but I don't, I don't know. It's
sort of about how like, um, how that role is
sort of invisible administrative work that often gets assigned to
women in part because of, um, the actual roles they
tend to occupy, but also sometimes because like you know,
you could be sitting That definitely happened to me where
I've been the only woman in a room with a
(20:52):
lot of men who are presumably coequal to me in
terms of the office or chart, but I'm the one
taking notes from the meeting. And then when when you're
the one taking notes a friend of mine pointing this out.
You know, you're the one who's like, oh, this doesn't
head up or or whatever. And so you're the one
who's sort of like, hey, hey, guys, actually this is
brilliant idea that you're all really excited about. Right now,
(21:13):
it's not gonna work for this reason. And then it's
just want want anyway. So um and that can be
kind of exhausting saying saying no a lot. There Historically
a lot of ways women are forced or have been
expected to say no in like the sexual realm, or
like moderating what they're supposed to be eating, or like,
you know, like just think about everything a woman's magazine
has ever told you about anything like classically. Um and
(21:35):
and I was just talking about how that happens at work,
and so yeah, and so there there have been comments
for women who are you know, have found themselves in
that role. Someone said, yeah, it's like Wendy and the
Lost Boys, you know, all over again. I was like,
I don't even think to mention Peter Pan and the
Lost Boys. You're so right, like Peter Pan is like
obviously a trope of young male Brooklyn Nights. But I
(21:56):
hadn't really thought about, Like yeah, it's like totally Wendy
and the Lost Boys. So just like little gems like
that where I'm like, okay, well, I mean I might
not revisit this topic next week, but if I ever
do revisit it, that's just like the perfect little metaphor
so that, yeah, I mean, how can how or should
(22:16):
like how can women escape those sort of office expectations
like can they? Should they? Okay, well, here's something else
someone said to me, which I did not even think
to include in the article. Is like numbers, you know,
if there are if there are more than, um, you know,
one woman in that meeting, chances are that there's not
one person always expected to take notes, and that the
(22:37):
person is always you because you're the woman. You know.
Diversity is something that can can help with us a
little bit. Um. I also think that like the way
um right now, a lot of roles are assigned in
the office um due to just like ingrain sexism, men
have a lot more freedom to be like, you know,
I have the year of the CEO, like let me
(22:58):
hit you with this crazy idea or whatever. You know.
I mean, like a lot of the way networks work
right now, disadvantage women, um, and so having stronger networks
of women first of all, like women truly supporting each
other at work, um, but also just having in sheer numbers,
more women in leadership roles. I mean, the one of
the points that I made here is like, yeah, yeah,
(23:19):
we know that like of you know, secretarial and administrative
assistant positions them or women that's like Department of Women,
that's Department of Labor Statistics. That's not like feminist, like
you know, whatever perception. But but one of the things
about this being the no woman is that they're frequently
higher on in sort of a leadership role, which is
(23:41):
something that I experienced. I was like, oh, yeah, I'm
not the secretary, but I'm still the one. And so
I don't even remember what the question was and why
I was talking about the distinction, but I do think
that there's something about diversity and strengthen numbers and just
general women's advancement helping to make this less of a phenomenon. Yeah,
I was a question of like women resisting that role
(24:03):
doing it, but it's an important role. I mean, that's
what I couldn't decide either. You know, it's obviously a
valuable role, like we don't want to set up a
card val outside like that would be a waste of
our budget, like we couldn't get the permits whatever. You
know what I mean, It's like someone has to be
the one to say it, and ultimately those rules are
really valuable. It's just a question of do you feel
like you know it always false to you to be
(24:24):
the one to call that out. I mean, it's tough.
I don't I don't have the answer. Do you feel
comfortable saying guys, this is not gonna work? And do
other people respect you for it? And if they don't,
is it because of your gender or is it just
because they just want to put up a freaking card vrole?
Or do you say, guys, this is not going to
work because you know you're going to be stuck like
cleaning up after it when it doesn't. You know what
(24:44):
I mean? I think that that was something that I
ran up against um in my last job, is that
I had I had bosses who would be like, yeah,
it wouldn't it be awesome? And then yeah, go make
it happen, and I was my my choices were tell
them in the moment, no, it can't happen. For these
really you know, not fun reasons, or you know, try
(25:05):
to make it happen on air, quoting you can't see
me on the podcast, try to make it happen and
then fail through action and then be like, well, you know,
either way, I'm wasting my time and it's annoying and
I don't know. I mean, I think that the fundamental
problem is probably just the male ego, and like we're
all working to solve that every day. So women are
working very hard to solve some that are also working.
Some men are also working absolutely Like I think we
(25:26):
just send up the podcast. But speaking of women in
the office and also at large, UM, we wanted to
talk to you about this whole concept of the female
voice because you have been interviewed a lot and talked
a lot about this whole trend of women being policed
for their speech of um, you know, stop saying sorry,
(25:47):
stop saying just you know, the whole um. Google extension
that will empower your email and curious to know your
thoughts on that because that's also something that you've talked
about on the podcast too. Yeah, we get a lot
of mail from people who say, you know, I take
you so much more seriously, if you didn't say like
every third word. Do you guys get that mail too?
(26:10):
Not as much, but um we'll we'll get it with
what you used to get. She used to get letters
like right when I came on the podcast using the
word like of course um uh. Used to get letters
from people saying you've got to stop saying if you will.
Oh yeah. It was the weirdest thing because that's not
even a traditional but we do. We do get dinged
(26:30):
for like minus um as I went through like um
just like an exercise and almost masochism, and went to
some a bunch of iTunes comments and I don't do that.
Don't do that. It's for the purpose of an essay
I was writing, and so I was looking at them
from like I wanted the very worst, and a lot
(26:53):
of them were complaining about these these accents, fake accents
that I will slip into okay for the records. Great voices,
and I as her cred as love then and her
friend in life. I love her voices. Yeah, so that
but that's like that's my um my life. But it's
long anyway, short answer, real long. Yes, we get our
(27:15):
voices right, So my view on all kinds of verbal ticks,
whether they're used by men or women, is that it's
great to pay attention to how you talk and why.
And I think sometimes when I'm nervous, I use more
of them. I mean, I'm a human being. We all
tend to do that, and so it can be nice
to be aware of that is a thing. Oh I'm
saying like a lot. Maybe it means I'm nervous right
(27:35):
now or you know, and just self on a level
of self awareness. I don't think it's bad to think
about the filler words you use and the way to speak. UM.
What I do have a problem with is the implication
that if women just strip certain phrases or certain constructions
or certain words from their emails, that they will magically
be taken more seriously um for the content of what
(27:58):
they're saying, And that I think is really misguided. It's
like it's sort of like saying every woman has done
the thing where you're like, I would not wear that
to the office, or I would not wear that to
a professional event. You know, everybody judges, um, but you know,
and where when would you argue that, Like if you
were dressed in a certain way, you shouldn't be heard
or you shouldn't be taken to you know what I mean,
(28:18):
there's sort of and so I think that the same
thing kind of applies, Like think about you know, how
you are perceived for how you're talking, Like consider it.
Maybe you don't want to use the same um little
verbal crutch that you that you tend to fall into
just for clarity of communication. But you know what, like
you get nervous, you also want to express yourself authentically
the way you talk to your friends. And I think
(28:39):
that a lot of the advice on this front is
sort of adding to a long list of women that
if things women are already asked to consider when they
present themselves to the world. And it would probably be
a lot better if we were all just a little
calmer about that, and people who are on the listening
end of it mediated their own biases about what it
(28:59):
says about the intelligence of women who are speaking. So
the speaker maybe focus on confidence and feeling comfortable, yeah,
or just take a breath in a pause. I mean,
I think, um, I definitely say like quite a bit.
I say it more often when I'm trying to figure
out exactly how I feel about something. Or what I
want to say about it, um, And so for me, it's, oh, yeah,
(29:22):
maybe I should just slow down a little. I'm a
fairly fast talker. Maybe I should just pause right now
instead of trying to like ramble through it um. Which
doesn't mean that I don't think you should take me seriously.
If if I decided to say like a bunch of
times instead, I don't know. That's yeah. So if you're
if you're if you're the speaker, maybe just notice when
you're doing it and decide if it really is a
(29:42):
problem or if it's someone else's problem. Chances are it
someone else's problem. And if you're a listener, um, get
over it. Yeah I was. I was fist pumping in
my bathroom when I was listening to Call Your Girlfriend episode.
When you all read the letter from the Australian Femine,
it's basically saying like, I love you guys even more
if or you're undercutting your authority with all of the
(30:06):
verbal um ad libs and Amina like having none of it.
And I was like, she's saying everything that I wish
to care like could say sometimes because and it was
great to hear because yeah, well it's really it's actually
really difficult because you know, for example, I don't think
that that one listener, I mean she's a stand in
(30:27):
for a lot of mail that we get, And so
I do feel bad sometimes. Or people will tweet things
at us that will just make us. I rate, like
you know where where where you don't really want to
lay into one person because I understand that you are
one person you don't deserve. We have a bigger platform
than you do, like in this situation, her sending us
a letter and us calling it out on the air
(30:48):
like we're the big fish, right. But um, when it
becomes a pattern, or when you know, when it's sort
of a perfect distillation of a lot of the mail
you get or a lot of the things people imply
about would make your podcast better, Um, that's when it
just it does hit a little bit of a tipping
point sometimes. So I would also encourage people to just
(31:09):
think about how you must sound, whoever you are, male
or female, old or young, how you must sound talking
to your friends. And you shouldn't necessarily expect like NPR
style PBS delivery just because it's a podcast. Well, and
I think that people I mean to be totally honest
(31:29):
The thing that has made our podcast well received is
the fact that it is conversational in a real way.
It's not like, hey, sister, how is it going? Like
you know what I mean, there's not it's obviously we
just talked to each other the way we talked to
each other, and so you know, um, and this is
what I'm sort of getting at. Yeah, it makes sense
to think about how we're using words, because we do
(31:51):
want to express ourselves clearly on the podcast, but not
at the expense of the conversational tone that makes it great,
an authenticity and how you actually would want to each other. Yeah. Absolutely.
And the truth is, I don't think women sound stupid
when they say like, so I don't feel bad about
saying it. Yeah, And I mean truth is, I've heard
plenty of guys say it. This is not completely It's
(32:14):
not as if like is the sole providence of women.
Women just exist in the world of like. Yeah. And
I interviewed a bunch of linguists for the article that
I wrote about this, and they were saying that, yeah,
men have just as many like ticks, used just as
many filler words as women tend to. It is honestly
only advice levied at women that that is, it's like
(32:35):
this false hope for being taken more seriously, if you
can only stop saying like if you could only like,
you know, wear a shirt that was slightly higher cut
or whatever, if you could only like, you know, drink
with the dudes that you know, whatever. I don't know
what it is like whatever dumb thing that people say
is not sexism that is keeping women down there, you know,
it's just like another one on the laundry list. Yeah, well,
(32:56):
speaking of calling your girlfriend to take it back a
couple of steps. Um, we had read that it sort
of started a little bit on a lark at the
suggestion of your producer and you and I mean it
also wanting to like experiment with audio formats, and so
I was kind of wondering why why you even wanted
to experiment to begin with. Um, I don't know, we're
(33:16):
both we both just I mean, this is gonna sound
this is so, this is so cheesy. We're both like
trying new things. But for real though, so our our producer,
Gina is is really brilliant, and at a certain point,
when a smart person who is really skilled in a
certain area says, I think you guys would be good
at this, and I want to work with you. You
have to be a fool to just keep saying no um.
(33:38):
And so I think once we decided what we wanted
to call it, then it was over. We kind of
we kind of sort of talked about it for a while,
and she she poked us about it and suggested suggested
it for a while. But when we decided that we
wanted to call it that, and we were like, oh yeah,
and then it could just be a call between us.
We wouldn't even have to like, you know, set it up,
set up a format. We could just call each other.
That's when we're like, okay, we can actually do this. Well,
(34:00):
what have you guys? I'm really interested to know what
you guys have learned about each other, maybe that you
wouldn't have figured out if you guys were just having
a drink somewhere or a cup of coffee somewhere, Like
you specifically uncovered something about your friend because you have
to have these conversations in this particular format. Yeah, it's weird.
It's it's actually it's not that it's deepened our friendship
(34:22):
because if you listen, we don't really get personal I mean,
we are, we are personable, but you know, we don't
really talk about you don't really know who each of
us is sleeping with or like whether what's going on
in terms of like are we happy, are we sad?
Is it a tough time? Is it a fun time
for us? You know that that stuff is like only
really the surface level personal details make it out. So
(34:42):
I wouldn't say that, like, um, the content of what
we talk about has led us to know each other better.
I do think that the thing is, and I'm sure
you guys have experienced this too, is we're business partners now,
you know, I mean we definitely it is. It is.
It is you know, financially speaking, not really business yet,
but in terms of you know, we we have a
(35:04):
regular thing that we're committed to doing together, and they're
like increasing amounts of responsibility to have to to do
with that. And so I think that I'm learning about
both Amina and Gina as like coworkers, and you know what,
they're great coworkers. If everyone I've ever worked with was
as great a coworker as they are, we are like
you know, our Google Dot game is like so tight
(35:26):
and and you know, and we are all really on
top of it. I think that I've done a lot
of passion side projects where it can be hard to
wrangle everyone involved, and um, and we're just like, we're there.
If we make a meeting, we're there. If someone says
that they're going to follow up on something, of the time,
they follow up on it and make it happen. And
so I think that a lot of what I've learned
(35:47):
is just this this not so much as a friend,
but like this whole other dimension of people who I
already really liked and respected, and that's been cool. I'm wondering, um,
since you all here from so many air quotes, baby feminists,
if there are um certain themes to the questions and
quandaries that they ask you all, or just like topics
(36:10):
that especially resume, A lot of them are based on
things that we've already talked about on the show, So
you know, it'll be someone has a workplace dilemma or um,
you know, we get questions about friendship a lot. I
had a falling out with a friend of mine, or
we're not as close as we used to be, or
I just moved somewhere. How do I make new friends?
A lot of a lot of them kind of deal
(36:31):
with friendship as a topic. But there's there's a strain.
There's sort of a strain of the questions we get
that are just like Ann and Amina fix my life,
like like a'm very like like own network show, Time
of Time situation um where no, we get a lot
and and um that are like I can sort of
give you the outlines, like, hey Anna, Amina, I've been
(36:53):
listening to the show for a while. It seems weird
to write you this email, but you know, like there's
always a bunch of caveats and then it's like I'm
nice tew three definitely in that age range. Um, what
am I supposed to do with my life? Like, you know,
I don't know who I'm supposed to be dating? Men
kind of suck. Am I even supposed to be dating? Then?
What should my major b? I don't feel passionate about anything,
(37:13):
but I have so much to give the world. But
I am passionate, you know. I mean they're kind of
like this everything question um, and we we try. You know,
I'm trying to remember right now we answered one of
them and I can't remember if if it was like
a microphone malfunction and we lost the answer or if
it was too long and it ended up getting cut
and we'll end up appearing in a future episode, but
(37:35):
we took one of them. Um. And you know, interestingly,
that's like a lot of the mail from young women
that I get to my personal account as well. It's
just kind of this general everything seems to suck? What
do I do? And I'm just like, yeah, everything just
sucks when you're at age, Like I always just right, like,
it just sucks to be to be that age. It's
really hard. It's like everything is up in the air
(37:56):
and you have no money and you know, it's it's
really hard to like, there's the older you get, the
more the more the steps behind you start to look
like they were a dedicated path, you know. And and
you know, when when you haven't had that many steps
to put behind you yet, it can be hard to
sort of look back and be like, okay, like maybe
now I can look forward based on where I've been. UM.
So I just tried to sort of send that um
(38:20):
and uh. And I also try to describe, like, you know,
let me tell you about the disaster show that was
my life when I was twenty two. You know what
I mean just like which is which is not to
say which is which is only a reminder that um
it's yeah, it's it's easy to see this stuff in
in retrospect, not so much at the time. Yeah, so
(38:42):
I don't know that's that's like a theme that is real. Yeah.
We get a lot of really great feedback from listeners
whenever we share our screw up the things that we
struggled with now or when we were younger, because a
lot of people just love to hear like, oh, it's
so important. People that like I listened to my ear
earbuds that I think are like so important because I
(39:04):
have a podcast, Like oh, they struggled with that too.
They have pimples too, or they like didn't know what
they wanted to major. I have this weird patch of
dry skin from my eyebrows right now that I'm just like,
am I molting? Like what is going on? I shouldn't
have winter skin. It's it doesn't even get cold. Yeah, exactly.
Not perfect. We can be back from people because I
think that people are so refreshed and pleasantly surprised when
(39:26):
they are presented with authenticity, and I think that our
feedback shows that and I mean that makes me curious, like, what,
what do you guys get super responses too? Is there
something that you talk about in particular or a tone
or a theme or overarching topic that people just super
respond to. Yeah, I think that, Well, we get we
get lots of mail from people that basically thanks us
(39:48):
for talking about electoral politics and the Kardashians or like,
you know, essentially recognizing that, um that women slash people
can be interested in all these variety of things at once. UM,
So that that's sort of one thing. UM. Personal stories
definitely get get emails. UM when we when we talk
(40:09):
about we were talking about anything medical, people totally want
to tell us well, here's what I'm putting in my
vagama or that's not what my doctor told me or whatever.
You know, like there's the medical stuff. And in part
because we are openly and SENDI deliberately kind of ignorant,
we're like, let me ask Google m D what this
problem is or whatever. You know, doctors write us and
(40:29):
they're like, UM, but and then and then sometimes like um,
you know, there will be there will be a segment
that UM that speaks to something that's happening in the
news in a slightly more nuanced way, or because we
can approach it conversationally. We had the journalist Rebecca Traster
(40:50):
on who's a friend and whose personal friend of both
of ours, and it's awesome. Um. She talked a little
bit about like Hillary and Bernie and like her conflicting
feelings about both of those, like camps and um. And
we got mail from a lot of people who were like, oh, yeah,
like that I support insert Bernie or insert Hillary or whoever,
(41:11):
and that put it in a new light for me.
We got an email from a friend of ours who
works in politics and is like a hardcore Hillary hater
who was like, you really made me rethink not how
I feel about her, but how I respond to her publicly,
and like how what the narrative is and like that
was really cool. Um. So sometimes it is like about
the more sort of substantive serious stuff, not so much
(41:32):
the personal anecdotes. Um. But yeah, there's really a range
and and mostly it's like, you know, we'll mention something
like a weird aside and someone will be like, I'm
also from that part of iowan have a mole on
the right blood sheet or whatever, you know what I mean.
Like people, people are really looking to identify with like
whatever you know, which is cool, which is really cool.
It's like you know when when you when you stack
(41:53):
up all of like my life experience in demographic details
and all of Amina's like that. We actually probably overlap
with a lot of women, so you can imagine the
mail we get like that. Well, Caroline, that seems like
the perfect transition point back into the stuff I never
(42:15):
told you studio for our listener mail. But of course
first we want to thank An again so much for
talking to us and even though she wasn't there, Amina,
thank you too. Thank you for making call your girlfriend
with and Friedman. Um. Y'all need to go right now
to call your girlfriend dot com and or and Friedman
(42:37):
dot com and get on these ladies radars or get
these ladies on your radar, or I mean if you
can get on their radar, then that's amazing too. Call everyone,
all of your girlfriend on all the radars, listen to
the podcasts. And I know that there are a lot
of call your girlfriend and and fans listening, So send
(42:58):
us yell fan mail on step at house Stuffworks dot
com is our email address. You can also tweet us
at mom stub podcasts or messages on Facebook. And we've
got a couple of messages to share with you when
we come right back from a quick right, Hey, Caroline,
you know what time it is? What time? Is that
time for me to brag about my personal website that
(43:20):
I built with square Space? Oh good, I hear it
was really easy. It was so easy, Caroline, not even kidding.
I don't know how to code beyond very basic HTML skills,
and that was totally fine because square space offers so
many intuitive tools and beautiful designs for you to choose
(43:41):
from that my personal website, Christ and Conqueror dot com
looks like maybe I hired someone or maybe I'm just
really good at building websites. Nice. I love a good
illusion me too. So to get in on the square
space action listeners, because really, who doesn't need a website
these days? Head on over to squarespace dot com and
us a code mom stuff for ten percent off your
(44:03):
first purchase, and if you sign up for a year,
you get a free domain. That's perfect. What more can
I want? Nothing, Caroline, except maybe ten percent off your
first order at squarespace by using the code mom stuff.
And now back to the show. Well, I have a
letter here from Myra. It is a bit of a
(44:25):
correction from our disability and Sexuality episode. Myras says, just
a quick note. I also tweeted as I was listening
to your disability podcast about a common but potentially serious error.
Learning disabilities and mental disabilities are conflated in your podcast.
That's not a fair thing to do, and those who
have learning disabilities may well catch it and WinCE. Learning
(44:47):
disabilities never involve lower or slower intelligence or brain damage.
People with learning disabilities can be geniuses and can often
be expected to work to the same standards as non
disabled people in much more complicated tasks than people with
many mental disabilities. I have great respect for people with
Down syndrome, for instance, and accommodating these people matters to me,
(45:07):
but they are not in the same category of disability
as someone with a d D or dyslexia or Asperger syndrome,
or my own learning disability, and to imply so demeans
the potential and flexibility of what I or anyone else
with a learning disability can, with proper accommodation, be expected
to do. Many people and even scholars, make these errors,
so it's understandable, but please take note that the wrong
(45:29):
language and causes problems for people in the same way
that conflating physical and mental disabilities does. Thanks and I
love that you're dealing with this topic. And thank you Myra.
We appreciate it well. I've got a letter here from
Maya about our episode on Anita Hill, and she writes,
thank you so much for your episodes on the llegal
history of sexual harassment and the legal battle of Anita Hill.
(45:51):
Her usual. I enjoyed learning all the information you brought
to the podcast. This week, However, I reached a new
level of shocked at how much I know about what
I didn't know As a black female graduate student at
the University of Oklahoma. I was flabbergasted to find out
I had never heard the name Anita Hill. It appears
as legal war was great wage at the perfect place
(46:13):
and time to get left out of the majority of
the national conversation on equality in the workplace. It was
long enough ago for many to stop talking about it,
but still too recent to be in our history books.
That being said, I don't think any textbook publishing company
has the brass to include such a controversial conversation about
a current Supreme Court judge. Though I can't wait to
(46:35):
see Carrie Washington take on this powerful role, I can't
help but wonder who else have we forgotten? I can't
wait to call others into this conversation because now that
I know better, I need to do better. Well, thank
you so much, Maya, and we are really excited to
watch Gary Washington's confirmation as well, hitting HBO very soon.
(46:56):
And with that, dear listeners, you know where to email
us Mom Stuff at House of works dot com. Is
he addressed? And for links all of our social media
as well as all of our blogs, videos and podcasts
with our sources so you can learn more about the
fabulous and freedman. Head on over to stuff Mom Never
Told You dot com for more on this and thousands
(47:18):
of other topics. Is it how stuff Works dot com
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