December 28, 2015 • 43 mins
Cristen and Caroline look back at their favorite 2015 Stuff Mom Never Told You episodes and this year's important events and heroines we didn't cover on the podcast.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told You from House Supports
dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen
and I'm Caroline. And Caroline. What a it has been.
It's really been the fifteen eest of the fifteen. Yeah,
I mean, I think it's been kind of the biggest
(00:24):
fifteen we've ever had. Yeah, I would say so. The
most dramatic, the most hilarious, I know, the most heartwarming
and heartbreak. It's really like a Hallmark Channel movie, all
of the emotions, yeah, all smashed together in one glorious
and sometimes awful year. Yeah. Yeah, it was definitely lots
of both of those, glorious and heartbreaking and awful. And
(00:48):
last year we did a Stuff Mom Never Told You
Year in review because listeners, In case you didn't know,
we put out a lot of podcasts. It turns out
we do two a week. God, there's so many. So
we really enjoy taking this time during the holiday season
to look back at what we've talked about and sort
(01:09):
of see where some of those topics are sitting today
and things that have happened. And we also wanted to
take some time to look outside the podcast that the
big issues relevant to gender women and stuff. Mom never
told you going on outside our studio and some of
the women who shaped the year, Caroline and myself not included,
(01:32):
of course. So Caroline, is it just me or does
it feel like we talked about Taylor Swift five years ago?
Oh my god, I know, I can't believe that that
was just a year ago. And it was we recorded
it in our old studio space before we moved to
a different office in Atlanta, So it's super feels like
(01:54):
it was a long time ago. And Taylor Swift has
not stopped making news. I mean, I've like I shouldn't
have to tell people that, Like, of course you probably
know that unless you live under a rock. But Taylor
Swift has been pretty much consistently making headlines for better
for worse since we talked about her a year ago. Yeah,
and it's interesting to see how much patience or impatience
(02:16):
are Facebook fan base has whenever we post something about
Taylor Swift, because she's still a divisive figure for some people.
Well yeah, and I mean she continued her fight against
like Big Music, which is funny because she's part of
Big Music. But she did fight back against Apple's newly
(02:36):
released streaming service Apple Music. She pinned this open letter
in June, slamming them for their decision not to pay
artists during an initial three month free trial, which uh was,
you know, supposed to get everybody on board, and that's
great and that's wonderful. You can offer free music as
a park to your customers. However, why should that come
at the cost of not paying your artists? And Taylor
(03:00):
Swift was saying, like, I didn't really expect it to
go anywhere. And then it turns out that Apple was like, oh, okay,
you're right, Slash, We're scared of you ladies, So they
decided that they would pay artists. Yeah, I mean I
feel like Taylor Swift really one. I mean she brought
literally every celebrity you could ever think of up on
stage for concert. That would be some people's argument for
(03:22):
why she didn't win. What do tell kill? I know
not everyone agrees on things, can you believe it? Yeah,
there's a lot of talk of Taylor basically being the
poster child for hashtag white feminism and for appropriating squad
goals and things of that nature. How are you appropriate?
How are squad goals something that you can appropriate? Well,
(03:44):
a lot of people were saying that Taylor Swift tried
to appropriate black cool and in what way? Though? I mean,
I understand what the Shake It Off video that was
kind of a blatant uh moment of appropriation. And then
of course in the video that she shot that was
had the very out of Africa the movie looked to
(04:05):
it where it was like white Africa Safari and that
was an issue. But in terms of appropriating, I feel
like Taylor Swift as the bodiment of like White Girl.
Though well, basically a lot of people, in a whole
bunch of pop culture think pieces took issue with the
fact that Taylor and her basically like social media promotional
(04:26):
machine kept using squad to refer to all of the
you know, gorgeous, whispy models that she was bringing on
stage and going on trips with and taking pictures with
on Instagram and all that stuff, when actually and treating
it like she had invented it, when as when, as
jenn Nickmayard over at The Guardian points out, this is
(04:48):
something that had been used in rap and hip hop
for a long time, and they were just throwing up
their hands being like are you kidding? Like why are
we attributing all of this pop culture stuff to Taylor
Swift and saying that White was invented everything. So not
everybody was a fan of chee Swizzle this year or
any year. Tesel is never gonna win when everybody but
(05:08):
there was um a Taylor Swift moment that relates to
another interesting thing that happened outside the podcast studio in
when she was on the cover of Maxim's first revamped
issue where they kind of claimed to be going more feminist,
and the issue, for instance, included a foreword by Roxanne
(05:32):
Gay and they brought on a female editor who wanted
to sort of change shift away from the cheesecake hyper
objectifying of women angle that Maximus had for so long.
And then, of course, on the heels of it, a
number of months later, we have Playboy announcing that it's
shuttering it's nude centerfolds. Um, because nudity is so blase, now, boobs,
(06:00):
who I mean you? First of all, Internet porn is
mostly free. You can see whatever you want with uh
the internet, so it makes sense that playboys doing it.
But I love these arguments that, like, there were a
couple of things of oh, is Playboy going more feminist?
And I don't know that the absence of naked centerfolds
(06:22):
equals feminism. Thank you, thank you. Well, that's exactly what
I was thinking when you talked about when you just
mentioned maxim going like more feminist or like the perception
of it going quote unquote more feminist. And it's like, guys, guys,
just because women are involved with something doesn't make it
necessarily feminist. It just means, like you were saying, like
(06:45):
maybe there's not boobs in your face all the time,
necessarily naked boobs. And also, I did find it funny
to see a lot of reactions online to the Playboy
announcement of people being like thanks a lot like feminist
PC police, like you're just taking away all of our
fun times. And it's like, well, you know, but you
(07:06):
have like the whole internet, you know, this thing that's
the Internet where you can see boots anytime you want. Yeah,
I mean, and these are business decisions too. I mean,
people believing that the heads of these companies are so
convicted by you know, Simone de Beauvoir that they're like, oh, well,
we need to act this feature from our products is
(07:28):
I mean, it's just kind of laughable and it was
something that I was thinking of far more recently when
the Pirelli calendar came out and went viral, and of
course it contained all of these um talented and some
self identified feminist women like Tobby Gibnson and Amy Schumer
and you have fran Lebowitz and all of these um
(07:49):
other women rather than going the sexy or hyper sexy
route that Peirelli has traditionally gone and people, of course
we're hailing it as a feminist thing, but in reading
the New York Times style piece about it, they interviewed
um uh woman in the industry who was basically like,
I mean, feminism is so hot right now. Of course
(08:10):
we're not going to go with these, you know, half
naked women when that just doesn't look good for the brand.
I mean, smart women are very on brand right now,
which is great. I mean that's it's I'm not I'm
not upset about that. But I think conflating all of
this is a short sighted and waters down what feminism
(08:35):
is all about. It goes back to our Our Hope
Feminism episode where we talked about is that what we
call it? What do we call it? It was the
feminism in Fashion episode where we discussed people like Karl
Lagerfeld and so many others sort of trading on this
moment that, um, I don't want to say girl power
(08:55):
and make you think of like the weak water down
two thousands are us bice girls feminism, But like how
woman power is having a moment and it's like cool
to talk about negotiating a higher salary and everything. It's like,
so let's trade on this and make money off of
it and and use it as a way for us
to get our brand and our name and our image
into the popular conversation. And yes, do I think it's
(09:20):
kind of gross? Yeah, but does it also have the
upside of getting people talking about it? Like that's great?
You know. I I pick up Glamour magazine or Marie
Claire time and again and more and more. They're having
all of these great not only women's centric feature articles,
but powerful women's centric features. Even Cosmo, which it was
(09:43):
my favorite magazine to rag on forever, Like I could
not stand Cosmopolitan magazine. Even they are having like raw
ra go women features in their magazine. Oh, they're doing
so much incredible reporting these days. Seeing with l magazine,
I mean, the it's great at the audience is there
for it too, and women are age want it and
(10:04):
they want smarter media, and yeah, we still want the
beauty and style features as well, but the substance has
to be there too, and I think that the looking forward,
what will be interesting to see is how this female empowerment, feminism,
however you want to call it, how that becomes more
(10:25):
and more monetized and corporatized as it will be because
these kinds of media images and advertisements obviously resonate with
so many people and go viral and get so much
brand attention. It'll be interesting to see how that whether
that does have any real world impact on the actual
(10:48):
issues involved with feminism and equality and even self esteem
and body image. Well, hopefully it will at the very
least normal lies conversations about this stuff, so that maybe
a twelve year old girl reading Glamour will be able
to grow up thinking like now I I can't ask
(11:10):
for a higher salary, you know, like that that would
be amazing instead of just growing up worried about what
kind of lipstick or is it cream or or body
type she should have? Well, and how do you think
that it would impact boys perceptions of women? Because It's like,
we are the audience for all of these empowering articles
(11:30):
and inspirational always Naxipad commercials. But what is that teaching boys? Well,
I don't I mean, I don't know what is it
teaching boys? Is it? Is it showing them that like, oh,
the girls are talking amongst themselves about feminism and self esteem?
What I mean, I don't know, what do you think?
(11:51):
I just wonder if it is, you know, I just
I wonder how these these messages are are reaching boys
as well, because there's obviously so much conversation happening among
girls and women and guys need guys need those convosts too.
Not to be all binary about it his and hers, Well, no, absolutely,
(12:13):
I mean children in general would benefit from conversations about
self esteem, consent, um, about the fact that all the
people around you matter too, that this is not just
a world that's built for you, it's built for all
of us. Um. Would be great to teach kids empathy
and compassion. Uh, those are things that can benefit everybody well.
(12:38):
Speaking of advertising and media literacy, there is another company
that's been having a bit of fun slash kind of
a headache with their advertising, and that is period panti
company thinks. Uh. They had some subway and taxi ads
that were called too offensive because they featured just pictures
of women paired with picture of grapefruits or pictures of eggs.
(13:03):
And at first the transit authority was like, ah, I
don't know, this is it's too suggestive. It could it's
it's inappropriate. But there was such a backlash online that
they ended up relenting and letting the ads be published
on the subway. But the company that handles advertisements in taxis,
uh taxi cabs video screens, they shot it down. They
(13:26):
said it would be offensive to some of their writers.
Oh man, this has been such a year for women's
bodies being so offensive. We talked about free the nipple,
we talked about period pride, I mean speaking of thanks
and period panties, um, and it seems like ladies just
aren't having it no more. Yeah, there does seem to
(13:49):
be well, I don't know, maybe it's just me. There
just seems to be this exhaustion with like why are
you still so squeaked out about women's bodies? And I
would argue that that trickles down even to our conversation
about at leisure and how at leisure is clearly not
(14:09):
dressing for a male gaze. And I don't know if
you remember this night, Caroline, but a couple of months ago,
there was a feature on a Fox News morning show
where a panel of guys, including one of the Duck
Dynasty dudes f y I, were sat down and a
group of women in leggings were paraded in front of
them for the guys to evaluate whether or not these
women were appropriately dressed to be in public. And what
(14:33):
a train wreck it was? Astonishing. Yeah, I found myself
like watching with my hands on either side of my face,
very home alone, asked like this, this can't be happening.
It's and there is a news broadcaster that thinks it's
good news or good broadcasting practice to parade young, conventionally
(14:58):
attractive women in running gear essentially or yoga gear in
front of these men whose opinions don't matter. Are you okay?
Are you parading them around in front of like Michael
Cores for his fashion advice? Are you parading them around
in front of a personal trainer to give them fitness advice?
(15:20):
I could almost see those things, especially if the women
themselves were like I need fashion advice or I need
advice about to go on a job interview? Is appropriate outfit?
Help me please? But to parade them around in front
of like Rando's, including the Duck Dynasty guy, was horrifying
because they were like, oh my god, I can see
your whole leg or whatever. Well, I'm getting very for climped,
(15:44):
very for climped. Yes, I mean, because it was essentially
it was a contest to see, like how fast can
we sexualize these women. You know, let's let's look at
let's look straight their vice. Let's really break this down.
And I mean that that relates to as far as
younger girls, to all the conversations around dress codes. Oh,
I mean, I love how tweet indeed, age girls also
(16:04):
are not having it in terms of those double standards.
Oh my god, it's hilarious. It's not hilarious, but it's
crazy to me. And it's fascinating to watch how these
like sixteen year old girls are finding their voices to
protest sexist dress codes. I mean, do you go to
school that has a dress code? Okay, cool, a lot
of us did, or do um Having a dress code
(16:26):
in of itself is not a bad thing, however, so
many young girls are finding their voice in order to
be like, listen, you can't say that I need to
be kicked out or suspended or be sent to the
principle because I have shorts on or a bit of
a bra strap showing and use the excuse that it's
going to be distracting to boys, because that's fair. That
is fair to no one. And it was so great
(16:48):
to see how the letters and petitions that these girls
were writing, we're just catching fire on the internet well,
and we can see similar impatience to happening within certain
professional fields and women. I mean, the conversations around women
and stem jobs science, technology, engineering, and math had a
(17:09):
number of viral moments where you had the hashtag distract
distracting lee sexy scientists and also this is what an
engineer looks like. I mean, there were just a lot
of moments of really great and humorous visibility of women
in those fields saying, hey, we exist, this is what
I look like, this is what I'm doing, these are
(17:29):
the places that I'm working in, the cool instruments that
I'm using. And this year, throughout the podcast, we had
a lot of great episodes looking at typically male dominated
professions and sort of charting the history of that. Yeah,
and I loved There was this Wired article I read
(17:50):
I guess there's a couple of weeks back now that
sort of looked at the whole women in science thing,
but also discrimination against women in science and also how
they were finally fighting back all over. And it listed
a bunch of examples, not all of which we talked
about on the podcast. Yes, there was the distractingly Sexy,
(18:13):
which came about when Nobel laureate Tim Hunt, who I
specified no about laureate because that's my way of saying
should know better, uh, said that scientists and labs were
distracting and he ended up losing his honorary professorship. But
lest you think it stopped there, we also had the
Rosetta Space probe scientists who wore that awful shirt that
(18:37):
was covered in pictures of scantily clad women. He caught
a lot of flak. A lot of men on the
internet did not understand why that man should be criticized,
but the guy ended up ti rely apologizing. You also
had it was not a great year for dudes talking
about ladies and astronomy. Famous Berkeley astronomer Exo Planet hunter
(19:00):
Jeff Marcy has allegedly been sexually harassing students for years.
He ended up resigning in disgrace this year. And one
of the last points in this article about basically like
how things are kind of awful in science for women
in terms of harassment and discrimination, but how women are
(19:21):
basically talking back. Finally, virologist Alice Hwang, who's an advice
columnist for a career site run by the Journal Science,
was she's writing an advice column, right, and her answer
for a woman who was like, what do I do
with my advisor staring down my shirt all the time?
Her answer is just like, to put up with it.
(19:41):
She's no longer writing that advice column. But the point
being with so many of these things is like you've
always had women being discriminated against in the sciences, You've
always had women facing sexual harassment issues, but now there's
finally stuff like hashtag girls with toys, hashtag distractingly sexy
things that are finally drawing attention to the fact that, like,
(20:03):
you can't talk to us like this anymore. Come on, yeah,
I mean, And for podcast listeners who might want to
learn more and also hear about women who have been
paving the way for us today. We did two part
at the beginning of the year on astronomy, which was
so fascinating our stargazers too. Part was such an education
(20:26):
for me. To be honest, I did not know all
that much about astronomy history. We talked about Margaret Mead
and anthropology, um, the contrast between architecture and interior design
and the gendering of those two professions were some really
fascinating conversations that we had as well. Also, women in
construction talk about sexual harassment on the job site. Yeah.
(20:49):
We also talked to Nia McLaughlin about what it's like
being a lady carpenter carpent tricks. Carpent tricks. Yeah, that's her,
her tumbler carpent tricks. Yeah. Yeah, we She was one
of any fascinating people we had on the podcast this year.
We also talked to egyptologist Kara Cooney about hat cheps
It in our episode The Woman Pharaoh. She was a
(21:10):
fascinating interview and we got a lot of good response
to that. I was super pleased that people loved it
as much as we did. Yeah, who else we need
to shout out to uh for coming on the show
this year, Caroline. We also had Let's See In the
Single by Choice episode, I talked to sociologist Kinder at
lahad Uh. She's basically dedicated all of her research to
(21:31):
looking at the attitudes towards single women, particularly UH single
women in what are called pro natal society. So like
the US is definitely a pro natal society, like get married,
have kids, but Israel is even more so, and she
lives in Israel. And that was a big one that
we got a lot of listener response froms well, a
lot of people being like, thank you for at least
addressing that, like maybe marriage isn't the end. I'll be
(21:53):
all for everybody. We also talked to producer Sylvia Massey.
That was a fascinating in her review. She's worked with
a lot of big names in music, Let's see Kristin Ebling.
We chatted with her for our skate like a Girl Too. Parter. Yeah,
that was a good one and we had so many
podcast guests on. We talked to the host of Black
Girls talking of Throwing Shade Chicks who script Hilary Frank
(22:19):
of the Longest Shortest Time. That was a really fun
summer series and we just talked to Kevin and Demi
from The Gilmore Guys. I know, oh Man Gilmore Girls
one of our most hotly anticipated episodes. Those guys were
a delight. And the Gilmore Guys collectively are the second
ever dudes on the podcast. Yeah, I think the first
was Jonathan a couple of years ago, right, jand of
(22:41):
Text Stuff. Yeah. And we also have to give a
shout out to our co workers Holly and Raquel. Holly
from History Stuff and Riquel who's a producer here at
How Stuff Works. Uh and a publisher I mean uh.
And of course Emily Hunt and Brooke Aaron Duffy. They
were on our Fashion Blogger episode two. Yeah, lots of
great feedback on that one. We have some Ashton Bloggos
and our audience who were definitely uh nodding their heads
(23:05):
in agreement about all of the invisible work that goes
behind that effortless perfection that you see all of our
instagram Absolutely. Well, did you have I mean, we covered
so much this year, Kristen, did you have any episodes
that you were most excited to research or prepare for. Well,
I don't know that I would call it excitement necessarily,
(23:28):
but the anxiety episode was one that I definitely anticipated
learning more about because, as we talked about in great
detail in that episode, um, that was a personal subject.
So it was it was an opportunity to really dive
into my own issues, and it resonated so much with
(23:48):
our audience. I mean, it's it came out, you know,
not that long ago, and we still get We're still
getting letters, you know, every week from from folks saying like,
this is what happens with me, Thank you so much.
We're talking about it. Um. So it was a really
I don't know, it was educational, but it's also been
kind of a bonding experience. Yeah, it for sure has.
It's really it's really struck me the letters we've been
(24:10):
getting in response to both the anxiety and the perfectionism
episodes that people are like. I just didn't anticipate so
many people saying thank you for helping me feel like
I'm not alone and that I'm normal in my weirdness.
I'm normal just like you are. So I was also
really excited to look into anxiety and perfectionism, but also
borderline personality disorder, which is not my own personal struggle.
(24:35):
But I was just so curious about it, because that's
another one of those health conditions that I feel like
people just tend to throw around or dismiss and just
call people crazy. So I was really looking forward to
sort of busting some myths and stereotypes about that one
pop culturally. Um. An early episode from that was so
much fun, so fun. In fact, we made it a
(24:56):
two parter. I was women in Comics. Oh yeah, yeah again.
I forgot that we did that this year and it
was a two parter. I know what it feels so
long ago. I know it was so long ago. But
that was another one where our fan base was really
excited about that. Well, everybody had so many great recommendations
to which I was so excited about because I don't
necessarily know the first thing about how to recommend comics
(25:19):
to anyone, but that's where our listeners stepped in and
had a great bunch of ideas. Yeah, and we have
a list of fifty uh comics by women over at
stuff I've never told you dot com that you can
check out if you are interested. Another big conversation that
struck a chord with our audience as well was maternity leave,
baby weight. All the scrutinizing of pregnant women's bodies in
(25:43):
the United States. Yeah, and we talked a lot about
Princess Kate and also Kim Kardashian. And those are two
women who just had their each of them just had
their second child. So they are back in the news
cycle in terms of babyweight and bodies and oh when
are they going to fit back into their clothes? Was
and I just find myself shaking my head, like, come
(26:03):
on us weekly, here we go again, There we go again, Caroline.
Three women that we did not talk about on the
podcast this year that I would argue shaped at least
in the United States more than anyone else, and they
should have been the Trio co like Time Women of
(26:23):
the Year No Offense. Angela Merkel, Alicia Garza opal To
Mattie and Patrice Colors started Black Lives Matter, And I mean,
I just I cannot think of any woman or women
who did more to start just like important conversations in
(26:46):
the United States. Well, the fact that they started it
two years ago and that the the conversation has only
picked up steam and that it is I mean, they
are three black women who started this to draw attention
to the killing of Trayvon Martin and how now their
movement has become like a true feet on the ground,
(27:09):
marching for rights movement out in the streets. Yeah, I
mean it's like the civil rights movement of our time.
Well yeah, but I mean not and I really do
not mean this in a dismissive way, but it's like
the millennials version of the civil rights movement in terms
of they're not being necessarily a huge, top down structure,
but it's more about just amplifying voices through social media,
(27:31):
getting the word out about whether it's protests or injustice
happening in this country. It's been an incredible unifying movement
to watch happen in this country. Well, and it's not
only of course, opened up so many conversations about race
in the United States, but also about gender within the
(27:52):
black community too. I mean, it's very notable that these
are women who started this movement because civil rights was
not that the movement itself and its leadership structure wasn't
always the friendlies and most open toward women. I mean,
of course you have women like uh Daisy Bates and
(28:12):
other organizers doing things, but the overall structure was um
sometimes lady exclusive. Yeah. Yeah, I also wanted to mention.
Another name that jumped out to me this year was
Maria Geiss, who basically led the charge for women directors
(28:33):
in Hollywood. UM. I had read in October about how
the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission had started interviewing all of
these lady directors in order to see what type of action,
if any, they should take to combat discrimination against female
film and TV directors. I didn't really know what was
behind it, and so I read this great article over
(28:54):
at the Hollywood Reporter about Maria Guys, who had effectively
been locked out of directing after ninety nine five UM,
and her reasoning behind it. She said, there were many triggers,
but the strongest was my realization that the virtual absence
of women directors in Hollywood was tantamount to the censoring
and silencing of female voices in US media, America's most
(29:17):
global export. And so she's essentially rallied a lot of
people to her cause to the point where now the
e o C is investigating. But this comes after the
Director's Guild of America president told her like, basically, can
you just sit down. I mean, women will get more
of a voice once minority men start to see more
of a voice as directors in Hollywood. It'll happen for
(29:39):
women to just just chill out. Oh wait our turn, Okay, yeah,
so just wait your turn. And she's somebody and uh,
you know, I'm sipping my hand, but I would love
to see if we could get her on the podcast in.
I mean, she has a lot of fascinating perspectives and
and the whole thing though about silencing and providing perspective
is something that we've all so heard from other female
(30:01):
directors and screenwriters, people like Ava du Verney, who has
been a huge voice in Hollywood this year for not
only black women's representation behind the camera, but just diversifying perspectives.
I mean, that woman got her own Barbie doll, I know,
and the Barbie doll is sold out in like seventeen seconds.
It was originally going to be just a special edition,
(30:21):
and then response was so massive across the internet. Mattel
was like, okay, well, well just you know, of course,
we want to sell more dolls. So they made it
into a regular run of a Barbie doll and sold out,
which is so notable too, because if you know much
about the history of dolls in the United States, they
have mostly been white. If you know anything about barbies,
(30:43):
you know so um that that she was a black
barbie who also has braids. I mean, there was people
were very excited that this was happening. Mean, even even
the doll, um, even the doll was excited. But yeah,
I mean even the doll was a milestone in our culture. Yes,
absolutely as well it should be and I really want one.
I mean, now that I have Amy and Tina action figures,
(31:06):
I think the Eva Diverney barbie is my next purchase.
They need a friend, they need a friend who can
direct them. Well. Another artist slash student who also started
a huge conversation and controversy along with that was Emma
Sulkowitz who's carry that Weight performance piece where she carried
(31:31):
her mattress around Columbia University in protest of the university
not kicking out uh, the guy that she alleged sexually
assaulted her. I mean, I feel like that was kind
of a visualization of this massive conversation and movement and
even White House initiative that really picked up steam in
(31:56):
around the issue of campus sexual assault. And we'll see
what happens. There was a recent report that pointed out
that legislators and at least twenty states this year introduced
bills to change how college administrators prevent and address sexual
violence on campus. That's not that's only a little over
(32:16):
half of our states. So we'll see how that progresses
in well. And I want to know to how the
California Bill of the Act of Consent Law that Jerry
Brown signed into law, how that has an impact as
well too, because that was a landmark piece of legislation,
basically saying no, this is what consent is, this is
(32:37):
what yes means. Yes you have to um. It added
much needed nuance to what consent means in legal forms
as well. And then because of the stuff I've never
told you, can we close out our year in review
on a period shout out? Okay, So Kieran Gandhi I
think was the face or or the men's fees of
(33:01):
a period pride in her marathon run sands tampon or
pad went viral and started a whole conversation about women's bodies,
free blading, free bleeding. Yeah, I got it started some
you know men's rights trolls, uh a hashtag in and
(33:22):
I just thought it was fantastic yeah, I thought it
was fantastic too, because it's just another woman saying like,
our bodies are not gross, are are bodily functions are
not disgusting? This is part of uh, this is just
part of my biology, So deal with it well. And
of course we've got to give a shout out to
our listeners. We have such fantastic and engage listeners, and
(33:47):
Caroline and I care about you all so deeply, and
we wanted to share some of the messages that you
all have been sending us about a variety of episodes,
because I mean, it's just so fun to hear the
diversity of experiences and opinions that you all always have
and share with us about all of the random topics
(34:09):
that we end up talking about on stuff I've never
told you. So let's share a few before we say
au revoir to at least part one of this year interview,
because spoiler alert, we do have a part two and
we're going to talk about even more women that we
didn't talk about in this episode, so you gotta stay
tuned for that. But in the meantime, let's hear from
(34:32):
some listeners. I have a note here from Emma. She says,
I got introduced to your show from my best friend
to Leaky. She's finished and I am Swedish and we
both live in Norway. When I listened to your Free
the Nipple podcast, you kept saying normalizing the female body,
and it really made me realize how important that is.
(34:54):
I grew up in a culture where the sauna is
a regular family and friends activity. Here in Scandinavia, it's naked.
None of this Bayther's non Since I keep encountering elsewhere,
I never knew how much this exposure to being naked
in a non sexual way has shaped me and my thoughts.
I saw my mom breastfeed in public, saw all my
female relatives naked, and my closest mail ones too. It
was never anything but normal. It gives you a view
(35:16):
of normal bodies, different ages, different shapes, and more acceptance.
Being naked shouldn't be a state of shame. We're all
naked under our clothes. I planned to expose my kids
to the same, given I can convince my French partner
to be more Scandinavian. I love your show. I hear
views and thoughts and issues that I haven't been exposed
to here in Scandinavia. And plenty that we have in common.
(35:37):
Thank you, Emma Well. One episode that we heard a
lot from listeners about as well was our Girls who
Lift podcasts on women and weightlifting, and Emily wrote us
on Facebook to say, I was really excited to hear
your episodes on Ronda Rousey and weightlifting in general. I
actually listened to the Ladder while deadlifting. I started lifting
(35:57):
about two years ago, and reading a searching I heard
a lot about how for many women it's hard to
step into the weight room and take up space in
a male dominated environment. I count myself fortunate for the
experiences I've had previously as a preteen at a camp
surrounded by guys, as well as through hiking the Appalachian Trail.
Both of these experiences made it way easier for me
(36:19):
to get into the weight room without regard for it
being a male dominated space. And she goes on to say,
I love the way my body looks when lifting regularly.
In addition, as a person with an eating disorder, lifting
has really helped me recover and reconnect with a positive
body image. Being able to deadlift my own body weight
really helps give me a sense of power and control
(36:40):
that I was struggling with in my eating disorder. Anyway,
thanks for doing the episode on weightlifting, especially on the
history of women lifting, and thanks for the great podcast.
Well if we're gonna keep going because I love our listeners.
I have a letter here from Katie. She says, I'm
a freshman in high school. I've lived in the same
small town in Tech. This my whole life. It's pretty
(37:01):
stereotypical and the conservative Christian. It's heritage, not hate. Way.
Not to say I don't love it. Our football boys
made State and I couldn't be prouder, but I digress.
I'm so thankful for your show. I have had almost
no opportunities to learn from unbiased sources about controversial topics.
Everything I've been taught on that subject has been quite slanted.
(37:22):
In our sex ed class, the girls were told that
every time we have sex will get STDs, that abortion
would most likely kill us, and shame the man involved
for his whole life. I have been told I can't
play football or baseball, and often get babied in my
agg class when we work in the shop, all because
I'm a girl, even though I am the go to
(37:42):
when somebody needs help. I feel bad for complaining to y'all,
but I want to let you both know that you've
changed my look on life. Listening to the show introduced
me to a different way of treating people. Your show
makes me feel a little less alone that I'm not
the only person who believes that sexuality, color, and gender
have no effect on the rights a person should get.
(38:04):
I have found out how I want to live my life,
and y'all were a big part of that process. I
can't thank you enough. Feel free to write back. Well, Katie,
we're not writing back, but we are reading your letter
on the air, and thank you so much for your
kind words. Well, I've got a letter here from Katie
that I did share on our social media, but I'm
going to share it again because it was one of
my favorites of the year. She wrote, I just want
(38:26):
to thank you guys for all the podcast you do.
I decided to look back to where I started listening
in the earliest state is November two, two thousand nine,
which was on why women have more migraines than men.
So if I started listening in February of oh nine,
I've been listening from the age of eleven. I've listened
to most of your podcasts, and they've given me a
lot of knowledge I wouldn't have had otherwise. Your podcast
(38:49):
also helped shape me into the strong feminist I am
today at seventeen. Tumbler has helped with that a lot
in more recent years, but your podcast kicked it all off.
So thank you so much for all of your effort
with the podcast and videos each week. They're truly enjoyable. Okatie,
thank you so much for growing up with us. Love
(39:09):
it well. I have a letter here from Roxanne our
episode on adult acne in which Kristen I basically just
complained and looked for solutions about our own acne for
forty five minutes. Uh. That episode really resonated with listener Roxanne.
She says, I discovered this s Minty podcast a couple
of months ago. When I love the show, I don't
like a lot of podcast print is my native habitat,
(39:32):
and I have a hard time concentrating on audio only information.
But you both keep the show engaging and fascinating. So
Roxon says. When I started grad school last year at
twenty nine, I began experiencing breakouts at an astonishing rate.
I don't think of myself as a vain person. I
really wear makeup, but I was mortified through adolescence. I
never had a problem. I would have to do something
(39:53):
actively horrible to my skin to get a breakout, like
not washing it for six days, and even then I
get maybe a pimple. You're both at really right, though
no one tells us about this. At first, I tried
treating it like with traditional acne products, only to have
it get much, much worse. That was when I finally
looked up you know, actual medical information and learned how
(40:13):
different the two types of acne are, and one source
even likened late onset acne to rosasia. I can't recall
if they said the two conditions are related or comorbid,
but both are worse than if by overly harsh drying
or a brace of treatment regimens. I still don't have
mind completely under control, but it's improved with gentler treatment.
And here's a big factor. Sunscreen. While sunlight can help
(40:36):
teen acne, it can make adult acne and rosasha worse.
I use a zinc based physical sunscreen that never seems
to trigger breakout no matter how often I reapply. My
biggest triggering factor seems to be stressed well, I do
notice a fluctuation and frequency along my cycle. For the
most part, I'll only have a problem with whiteheads until
I experienced a major stress anxiety episode, and within a
(40:57):
day or two I'll have two to three big gangry
sistic pimples. It's a great time to be in grad school.
I'm sure I'll never get a handle on it fully
until I learned to manage my stress better. But I'm
hoping one day I can go back to not constantly
wondering what people are thinking when they look at my face.
I love the show, Love your Topics, Take Care and
you take care to Roxane. And finally, I've got a
(41:19):
letter here from Ellie, and she writes, I wanted to
say thank you for your piece on significant others, and
more specifically for raising the issue of what to call
your significant other who identifies as non binary or gender queer.
I go to a small liberal arts college where almost
half of my immediate friend group identifies as gender queer
or non binary and uses the gender neutral pronouns they them.
(41:40):
And there's so needless to say this issue has come
up for some of us. Most people I know who
have non binary significant others just refer to them as
their ESSO short for you guessed it significant other, but
it varies from person to person. For instance, I went
from identifying as a CIS woman to a non binary
in the middle of my last relation and ship, so
(42:00):
I had no problem with my girlfriend continuing to refer
to me as her girlfriend since that was what we
were both used to. However, now I'm feeling more comfortable
in my identity, I don't think I would want to
date someone who called me their girlfriend anymore. That no
longer aligns with my identity, and I would probably ask
them to call me their s oh. I know s
O seems like it would sound awkward in everyday conversation,
(42:22):
but it really isn't at all. Also, the issue of
gendered language comes up in space as other than romantic ones.
I played for the women's soccer team at my school,
and my teammates have had to adjust away from saying
things like what's up girl and hey pretty lady to me.
To rectify this, I joke around with my teammates that
I'm actually a gender blob and instead of saying what's up, girl,
(42:43):
they can say what's up, blob. It's silly and lighthearted,
but I choose to joke about it because there really
is no gender neutral option for a lot of the
manners in which we speak to each other. I just
wanted to give you my two cents as someone who
has had to think about this quite a bit recent.
On a different note, blah blah blah, I think you
too are absolutely brilliant blah blah blah. I'm in love
(43:04):
with you blah blah blah. I love the podcast whatever.
So thank you so much, Ellie, and thanks to everybody
who's written in to us this year, and we'd love
to hear your favorite stuff mom Never Told You moments
from if you'd be willing to share mom stuff at
how stuff works dot com is our email address, and
for links to all of our podcast, videos, social media
(43:28):
and blog, head on over to stuff Mom Never Told
You dot com and Happy Holidays for moral this and
thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff works dot
com
Welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told You from House Supports
dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen
and I'm Caroline. And Caroline. What a it has been.
It's really been the fifteen eest of the fifteen. Yeah,
I mean, I think it's been kind of the biggest
(00:24):
fifteen we've ever had. Yeah, I would say so. The
most dramatic, the most hilarious, I know, the most heartwarming
and heartbreak. It's really like a Hallmark Channel movie, all
of the emotions, yeah, all smashed together in one glorious
and sometimes awful year. Yeah. Yeah, it was definitely lots
of both of those, glorious and heartbreaking and awful. And
(00:48):
last year we did a Stuff Mom Never Told You
Year in review because listeners, In case you didn't know,
we put out a lot of podcasts. It turns out
we do two a week. God, there's so many. So
we really enjoy taking this time during the holiday season
to look back at what we've talked about and sort
(01:09):
of see where some of those topics are sitting today
and things that have happened. And we also wanted to
take some time to look outside the podcast that the
big issues relevant to gender women and stuff. Mom never
told you going on outside our studio and some of
the women who shaped the year, Caroline and myself not included,
(01:32):
of course. So Caroline, is it just me or does
it feel like we talked about Taylor Swift five years ago?
Oh my god, I know, I can't believe that that
was just a year ago. And it was we recorded
it in our old studio space before we moved to
a different office in Atlanta, So it's super feels like
(01:54):
it was a long time ago. And Taylor Swift has
not stopped making news. I mean, I've like I shouldn't
have to tell people that, Like, of course you probably
know that unless you live under a rock. But Taylor
Swift has been pretty much consistently making headlines for better
for worse since we talked about her a year ago. Yeah,
and it's interesting to see how much patience or impatience
(02:16):
are Facebook fan base has whenever we post something about
Taylor Swift, because she's still a divisive figure for some people.
Well yeah, and I mean she continued her fight against
like Big Music, which is funny because she's part of
Big Music. But she did fight back against Apple's newly
(02:36):
released streaming service Apple Music. She pinned this open letter
in June, slamming them for their decision not to pay
artists during an initial three month free trial, which uh was,
you know, supposed to get everybody on board, and that's
great and that's wonderful. You can offer free music as
a park to your customers. However, why should that come
at the cost of not paying your artists? And Taylor
(03:00):
Swift was saying, like, I didn't really expect it to
go anywhere. And then it turns out that Apple was like, oh, okay,
you're right, Slash, We're scared of you ladies, So they
decided that they would pay artists. Yeah, I mean I
feel like Taylor Swift really one. I mean she brought
literally every celebrity you could ever think of up on
stage for concert. That would be some people's argument for
(03:22):
why she didn't win. What do tell kill? I know
not everyone agrees on things, can you believe it? Yeah,
there's a lot of talk of Taylor basically being the
poster child for hashtag white feminism and for appropriating squad
goals and things of that nature. How are you appropriate?
How are squad goals something that you can appropriate? Well,
(03:44):
a lot of people were saying that Taylor Swift tried
to appropriate black cool and in what way? Though? I mean,
I understand what the Shake It Off video that was
kind of a blatant uh moment of appropriation. And then
of course in the video that she shot that was
had the very out of Africa the movie looked to
(04:05):
it where it was like white Africa Safari and that
was an issue. But in terms of appropriating, I feel
like Taylor Swift as the bodiment of like White Girl.
Though well, basically a lot of people, in a whole
bunch of pop culture think pieces took issue with the
fact that Taylor and her basically like social media promotional
(04:26):
machine kept using squad to refer to all of the
you know, gorgeous, whispy models that she was bringing on
stage and going on trips with and taking pictures with
on Instagram and all that stuff, when actually and treating
it like she had invented it, when as when, as
jenn Nickmayard over at The Guardian points out, this is
(04:48):
something that had been used in rap and hip hop
for a long time, and they were just throwing up
their hands being like are you kidding? Like why are
we attributing all of this pop culture stuff to Taylor
Swift and saying that White was invented everything. So not
everybody was a fan of chee Swizzle this year or
any year. Tesel is never gonna win when everybody but
(05:08):
there was um a Taylor Swift moment that relates to
another interesting thing that happened outside the podcast studio in
when she was on the cover of Maxim's first revamped
issue where they kind of claimed to be going more feminist,
and the issue, for instance, included a foreword by Roxanne
(05:32):
Gay and they brought on a female editor who wanted
to sort of change shift away from the cheesecake hyper
objectifying of women angle that Maximus had for so long.
And then, of course, on the heels of it, a
number of months later, we have Playboy announcing that it's
shuttering it's nude centerfolds. Um, because nudity is so blase, now, boobs,
(06:00):
who I mean you? First of all, Internet porn is
mostly free. You can see whatever you want with uh
the internet, so it makes sense that playboys doing it.
But I love these arguments that, like, there were a
couple of things of oh, is Playboy going more feminist?
And I don't know that the absence of naked centerfolds
(06:22):
equals feminism. Thank you, thank you. Well, that's exactly what
I was thinking when you talked about when you just
mentioned maxim going like more feminist or like the perception
of it going quote unquote more feminist. And it's like, guys, guys,
just because women are involved with something doesn't make it
necessarily feminist. It just means, like you were saying, like
(06:45):
maybe there's not boobs in your face all the time,
necessarily naked boobs. And also, I did find it funny
to see a lot of reactions online to the Playboy
announcement of people being like thanks a lot like feminist
PC police, like you're just taking away all of our
fun times. And it's like, well, you know, but you
(07:06):
have like the whole internet, you know, this thing that's
the Internet where you can see boots anytime you want. Yeah,
I mean, and these are business decisions too. I mean,
people believing that the heads of these companies are so
convicted by you know, Simone de Beauvoir that they're like, oh, well,
we need to act this feature from our products is
(07:28):
I mean, it's just kind of laughable and it was
something that I was thinking of far more recently when
the Pirelli calendar came out and went viral, and of
course it contained all of these um talented and some
self identified feminist women like Tobby Gibnson and Amy Schumer
and you have fran Lebowitz and all of these um
(07:49):
other women rather than going the sexy or hyper sexy
route that Peirelli has traditionally gone and people, of course
we're hailing it as a feminist thing, but in reading
the New York Times style piece about it, they interviewed
um uh woman in the industry who was basically like,
I mean, feminism is so hot right now. Of course
(08:10):
we're not going to go with these, you know, half
naked women when that just doesn't look good for the brand.
I mean, smart women are very on brand right now,
which is great. I mean that's it's I'm not I'm
not upset about that. But I think conflating all of
this is a short sighted and waters down what feminism
(08:35):
is all about. It goes back to our Our Hope
Feminism episode where we talked about is that what we
call it? What do we call it? It was the
feminism in Fashion episode where we discussed people like Karl
Lagerfeld and so many others sort of trading on this
moment that, um, I don't want to say girl power
(08:55):
and make you think of like the weak water down
two thousands are us bice girls feminism, But like how
woman power is having a moment and it's like cool
to talk about negotiating a higher salary and everything. It's like,
so let's trade on this and make money off of
it and and use it as a way for us
to get our brand and our name and our image
into the popular conversation. And yes, do I think it's
(09:20):
kind of gross? Yeah, but does it also have the
upside of getting people talking about it? Like that's great?
You know. I I pick up Glamour magazine or Marie
Claire time and again and more and more. They're having
all of these great not only women's centric feature articles,
but powerful women's centric features. Even Cosmo, which it was
(09:43):
my favorite magazine to rag on forever, Like I could
not stand Cosmopolitan magazine. Even they are having like raw
ra go women features in their magazine. Oh, they're doing
so much incredible reporting these days. Seeing with l magazine,
I mean, the it's great at the audience is there
for it too, and women are age want it and
(10:04):
they want smarter media, and yeah, we still want the
beauty and style features as well, but the substance has
to be there too, and I think that the looking forward,
what will be interesting to see is how this female empowerment, feminism,
however you want to call it, how that becomes more
(10:25):
and more monetized and corporatized as it will be because
these kinds of media images and advertisements obviously resonate with
so many people and go viral and get so much
brand attention. It'll be interesting to see how that whether
that does have any real world impact on the actual
(10:48):
issues involved with feminism and equality and even self esteem
and body image. Well, hopefully it will at the very
least normal lies conversations about this stuff, so that maybe
a twelve year old girl reading Glamour will be able
to grow up thinking like now I I can't ask
(11:10):
for a higher salary, you know, like that that would
be amazing instead of just growing up worried about what
kind of lipstick or is it cream or or body
type she should have? Well, and how do you think
that it would impact boys perceptions of women? Because It's like,
we are the audience for all of these empowering articles
(11:30):
and inspirational always Naxipad commercials. But what is that teaching boys? Well,
I don't I mean, I don't know what is it
teaching boys? Is it? Is it showing them that like, oh,
the girls are talking amongst themselves about feminism and self esteem?
What I mean, I don't know, what do you think?
(11:51):
I just wonder if it is, you know, I just
I wonder how these these messages are are reaching boys
as well, because there's obviously so much conversation happening among
girls and women and guys need guys need those convosts too.
Not to be all binary about it his and hers, Well, no, absolutely,
(12:13):
I mean children in general would benefit from conversations about
self esteem, consent, um, about the fact that all the
people around you matter too, that this is not just
a world that's built for you, it's built for all
of us. Um. Would be great to teach kids empathy
and compassion. Uh, those are things that can benefit everybody well.
(12:38):
Speaking of advertising and media literacy, there is another company
that's been having a bit of fun slash kind of
a headache with their advertising, and that is period panti
company thinks. Uh. They had some subway and taxi ads
that were called too offensive because they featured just pictures
of women paired with picture of grapefruits or pictures of eggs.
(13:03):
And at first the transit authority was like, ah, I
don't know, this is it's too suggestive. It could it's
it's inappropriate. But there was such a backlash online that
they ended up relenting and letting the ads be published
on the subway. But the company that handles advertisements in taxis,
uh taxi cabs video screens, they shot it down. They
(13:26):
said it would be offensive to some of their writers.
Oh man, this has been such a year for women's
bodies being so offensive. We talked about free the nipple,
we talked about period pride, I mean speaking of thanks
and period panties, um, and it seems like ladies just
aren't having it no more. Yeah, there does seem to
(13:49):
be well, I don't know, maybe it's just me. There
just seems to be this exhaustion with like why are
you still so squeaked out about women's bodies? And I
would argue that that trickles down even to our conversation
about at leisure and how at leisure is clearly not
(14:09):
dressing for a male gaze. And I don't know if
you remember this night, Caroline, but a couple of months ago,
there was a feature on a Fox News morning show
where a panel of guys, including one of the Duck
Dynasty dudes f y I, were sat down and a
group of women in leggings were paraded in front of
them for the guys to evaluate whether or not these
women were appropriately dressed to be in public. And what
(14:33):
a train wreck it was? Astonishing. Yeah, I found myself
like watching with my hands on either side of my face,
very home alone, asked like this, this can't be happening.
It's and there is a news broadcaster that thinks it's
good news or good broadcasting practice to parade young, conventionally
(14:58):
attractive women in running gear essentially or yoga gear in
front of these men whose opinions don't matter. Are you okay?
Are you parading them around in front of like Michael
Cores for his fashion advice? Are you parading them around
in front of a personal trainer to give them fitness advice?
(15:20):
I could almost see those things, especially if the women
themselves were like I need fashion advice or I need
advice about to go on a job interview? Is appropriate outfit?
Help me please? But to parade them around in front
of like Rando's, including the Duck Dynasty guy, was horrifying
because they were like, oh my god, I can see
your whole leg or whatever. Well, I'm getting very for climped,
(15:44):
very for climped. Yes, I mean, because it was essentially
it was a contest to see, like how fast can
we sexualize these women. You know, let's let's look at
let's look straight their vice. Let's really break this down.
And I mean that that relates to as far as
younger girls, to all the conversations around dress codes. Oh,
I mean, I love how tweet indeed, age girls also
(16:04):
are not having it in terms of those double standards.
Oh my god, it's hilarious. It's not hilarious, but it's
crazy to me. And it's fascinating to watch how these
like sixteen year old girls are finding their voices to
protest sexist dress codes. I mean, do you go to
school that has a dress code? Okay, cool, a lot
of us did, or do um Having a dress code
(16:26):
in of itself is not a bad thing, however, so
many young girls are finding their voice in order to
be like, listen, you can't say that I need to
be kicked out or suspended or be sent to the
principle because I have shorts on or a bit of
a bra strap showing and use the excuse that it's
going to be distracting to boys, because that's fair. That
is fair to no one. And it was so great
(16:48):
to see how the letters and petitions that these girls
were writing, we're just catching fire on the internet well,
and we can see similar impatience to happening within certain
professional fields and women. I mean, the conversations around women
and stem jobs science, technology, engineering, and math had a
(17:09):
number of viral moments where you had the hashtag distract
distracting lee sexy scientists and also this is what an
engineer looks like. I mean, there were just a lot
of moments of really great and humorous visibility of women
in those fields saying, hey, we exist, this is what
I look like, this is what I'm doing, these are
(17:29):
the places that I'm working in, the cool instruments that
I'm using. And this year, throughout the podcast, we had
a lot of great episodes looking at typically male dominated
professions and sort of charting the history of that. Yeah,
and I loved There was this Wired article I read
(17:50):
I guess there's a couple of weeks back now that
sort of looked at the whole women in science thing,
but also discrimination against women in science and also how
they were finally fighting back all over. And it listed
a bunch of examples, not all of which we talked
about on the podcast. Yes, there was the distractingly Sexy,
(18:13):
which came about when Nobel laureate Tim Hunt, who I
specified no about laureate because that's my way of saying
should know better, uh, said that scientists and labs were
distracting and he ended up losing his honorary professorship. But
lest you think it stopped there, we also had the
Rosetta Space probe scientists who wore that awful shirt that
(18:37):
was covered in pictures of scantily clad women. He caught
a lot of flak. A lot of men on the
internet did not understand why that man should be criticized,
but the guy ended up ti rely apologizing. You also
had it was not a great year for dudes talking
about ladies and astronomy. Famous Berkeley astronomer Exo Planet hunter
(19:00):
Jeff Marcy has allegedly been sexually harassing students for years.
He ended up resigning in disgrace this year. And one
of the last points in this article about basically like
how things are kind of awful in science for women
in terms of harassment and discrimination, but how women are
(19:21):
basically talking back. Finally, virologist Alice Hwang, who's an advice
columnist for a career site run by the Journal Science,
was she's writing an advice column, right, and her answer
for a woman who was like, what do I do
with my advisor staring down my shirt all the time?
Her answer is just like, to put up with it.
(19:41):
She's no longer writing that advice column. But the point
being with so many of these things is like you've
always had women being discriminated against in the sciences, You've
always had women facing sexual harassment issues, but now there's
finally stuff like hashtag girls with toys, hashtag distractingly sexy
things that are finally drawing attention to the fact that, like,
(20:03):
you can't talk to us like this anymore. Come on, yeah,
I mean, And for podcast listeners who might want to
learn more and also hear about women who have been
paving the way for us today. We did two part
at the beginning of the year on astronomy, which was
so fascinating our stargazers too. Part was such an education
(20:26):
for me. To be honest, I did not know all
that much about astronomy history. We talked about Margaret Mead
and anthropology, um, the contrast between architecture and interior design
and the gendering of those two professions were some really
fascinating conversations that we had as well. Also, women in
construction talk about sexual harassment on the job site. Yeah.
(20:49):
We also talked to Nia McLaughlin about what it's like
being a lady carpenter carpent tricks. Carpent tricks. Yeah, that's her,
her tumbler carpent tricks. Yeah. Yeah, we She was one
of any fascinating people we had on the podcast this year.
We also talked to egyptologist Kara Cooney about hat cheps
It in our episode The Woman Pharaoh. She was a
(21:10):
fascinating interview and we got a lot of good response
to that. I was super pleased that people loved it
as much as we did. Yeah, who else we need
to shout out to uh for coming on the show
this year, Caroline. We also had Let's See In the
Single by Choice episode, I talked to sociologist Kinder at
lahad Uh. She's basically dedicated all of her research to
(21:31):
looking at the attitudes towards single women, particularly UH single
women in what are called pro natal society. So like
the US is definitely a pro natal society, like get married,
have kids, but Israel is even more so, and she
lives in Israel. And that was a big one that
we got a lot of listener response froms well, a
lot of people being like, thank you for at least
addressing that, like maybe marriage isn't the end. I'll be
(21:53):
all for everybody. We also talked to producer Sylvia Massey.
That was a fascinating in her review. She's worked with
a lot of big names in music, Let's see Kristin Ebling.
We chatted with her for our skate like a Girl Too. Parter. Yeah,
that was a good one and we had so many
podcast guests on. We talked to the host of Black
Girls talking of Throwing Shade Chicks who script Hilary Frank
(22:19):
of the Longest Shortest Time. That was a really fun
summer series and we just talked to Kevin and Demi
from The Gilmore Guys. I know, oh Man Gilmore Girls
one of our most hotly anticipated episodes. Those guys were
a delight. And the Gilmore Guys collectively are the second
ever dudes on the podcast. Yeah, I think the first
was Jonathan a couple of years ago, right, jand of
(22:41):
Text Stuff. Yeah. And we also have to give a
shout out to our co workers Holly and Raquel. Holly
from History Stuff and Riquel who's a producer here at
How Stuff Works. Uh and a publisher I mean uh.
And of course Emily Hunt and Brooke Aaron Duffy. They
were on our Fashion Blogger episode two. Yeah, lots of
great feedback on that one. We have some Ashton Bloggos
and our audience who were definitely uh nodding their heads
(23:05):
in agreement about all of the invisible work that goes
behind that effortless perfection that you see all of our
instagram Absolutely. Well, did you have I mean, we covered
so much this year, Kristen, did you have any episodes
that you were most excited to research or prepare for. Well,
I don't know that I would call it excitement necessarily,
(23:28):
but the anxiety episode was one that I definitely anticipated
learning more about because, as we talked about in great
detail in that episode, um, that was a personal subject.
So it was it was an opportunity to really dive
into my own issues, and it resonated so much with
(23:48):
our audience. I mean, it's it came out, you know,
not that long ago, and we still get We're still
getting letters, you know, every week from from folks saying like,
this is what happens with me, Thank you so much.
We're talking about it. Um. So it was a really
I don't know, it was educational, but it's also been
kind of a bonding experience. Yeah, it for sure has.
It's really it's really struck me the letters we've been
(24:10):
getting in response to both the anxiety and the perfectionism
episodes that people are like. I just didn't anticipate so
many people saying thank you for helping me feel like
I'm not alone and that I'm normal in my weirdness.
I'm normal just like you are. So I was also
really excited to look into anxiety and perfectionism, but also
borderline personality disorder, which is not my own personal struggle.
(24:35):
But I was just so curious about it, because that's
another one of those health conditions that I feel like
people just tend to throw around or dismiss and just
call people crazy. So I was really looking forward to
sort of busting some myths and stereotypes about that one
pop culturally. Um. An early episode from that was so
much fun, so fun. In fact, we made it a
(24:56):
two parter. I was women in Comics. Oh yeah, yeah again.
I forgot that we did that this year and it
was a two parter. I know what it feels so
long ago. I know it was so long ago. But
that was another one where our fan base was really
excited about that. Well, everybody had so many great recommendations
to which I was so excited about because I don't
necessarily know the first thing about how to recommend comics
(25:19):
to anyone, but that's where our listeners stepped in and
had a great bunch of ideas. Yeah, and we have
a list of fifty uh comics by women over at
stuff I've never told you dot com that you can
check out if you are interested. Another big conversation that
struck a chord with our audience as well was maternity leave,
baby weight. All the scrutinizing of pregnant women's bodies in
(25:43):
the United States. Yeah, and we talked a lot about
Princess Kate and also Kim Kardashian. And those are two
women who just had their each of them just had
their second child. So they are back in the news
cycle in terms of babyweight and bodies and oh when
are they going to fit back into their clothes? Was
and I just find myself shaking my head, like, come
(26:03):
on us weekly, here we go again, There we go again, Caroline.
Three women that we did not talk about on the
podcast this year that I would argue shaped at least
in the United States more than anyone else, and they
should have been the Trio co like Time Women of
(26:23):
the Year No Offense. Angela Merkel, Alicia Garza opal To
Mattie and Patrice Colors started Black Lives Matter, And I mean,
I just I cannot think of any woman or women
who did more to start just like important conversations in
(26:46):
the United States. Well, the fact that they started it
two years ago and that the the conversation has only
picked up steam and that it is I mean, they
are three black women who started this to draw attention
to the killing of Trayvon Martin and how now their
movement has become like a true feet on the ground,
(27:09):
marching for rights movement out in the streets. Yeah, I
mean it's like the civil rights movement of our time.
Well yeah, but I mean not and I really do
not mean this in a dismissive way, but it's like
the millennials version of the civil rights movement in terms
of they're not being necessarily a huge, top down structure,
but it's more about just amplifying voices through social media,
(27:31):
getting the word out about whether it's protests or injustice
happening in this country. It's been an incredible unifying movement
to watch happen in this country. Well, and it's not
only of course, opened up so many conversations about race
in the United States, but also about gender within the
(27:52):
black community too. I mean, it's very notable that these
are women who started this movement because civil rights was
not that the movement itself and its leadership structure wasn't
always the friendlies and most open toward women. I mean,
of course you have women like uh Daisy Bates and
(28:12):
other organizers doing things, but the overall structure was um
sometimes lady exclusive. Yeah. Yeah, I also wanted to mention.
Another name that jumped out to me this year was
Maria Geiss, who basically led the charge for women directors
(28:33):
in Hollywood. UM. I had read in October about how
the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission had started interviewing all of
these lady directors in order to see what type of action,
if any, they should take to combat discrimination against female
film and TV directors. I didn't really know what was
behind it, and so I read this great article over
(28:54):
at the Hollywood Reporter about Maria Guys, who had effectively
been locked out of directing after ninety nine five UM,
and her reasoning behind it. She said, there were many triggers,
but the strongest was my realization that the virtual absence
of women directors in Hollywood was tantamount to the censoring
and silencing of female voices in US media, America's most
(29:17):
global export. And so she's essentially rallied a lot of
people to her cause to the point where now the
e o C is investigating. But this comes after the
Director's Guild of America president told her like, basically, can
you just sit down. I mean, women will get more
of a voice once minority men start to see more
of a voice as directors in Hollywood. It'll happen for
(29:39):
women to just just chill out. Oh wait our turn, Okay, yeah,
so just wait your turn. And she's somebody and uh,
you know, I'm sipping my hand, but I would love
to see if we could get her on the podcast in.
I mean, she has a lot of fascinating perspectives and
and the whole thing though about silencing and providing perspective
is something that we've all so heard from other female
(30:01):
directors and screenwriters, people like Ava du Verney, who has
been a huge voice in Hollywood this year for not
only black women's representation behind the camera, but just diversifying perspectives.
I mean, that woman got her own Barbie doll, I know,
and the Barbie doll is sold out in like seventeen seconds.
It was originally going to be just a special edition,
(30:21):
and then response was so massive across the internet. Mattel
was like, okay, well, well just you know, of course,
we want to sell more dolls. So they made it
into a regular run of a Barbie doll and sold out,
which is so notable too, because if you know much
about the history of dolls in the United States, they
have mostly been white. If you know anything about barbies,
(30:43):
you know so um that that she was a black
barbie who also has braids. I mean, there was people
were very excited that this was happening. Mean, even even
the doll, um, even the doll was excited. But yeah,
I mean even the doll was a milestone in our culture. Yes,
absolutely as well it should be and I really want one.
I mean, now that I have Amy and Tina action figures,
(31:06):
I think the Eva Diverney barbie is my next purchase.
They need a friend, they need a friend who can
direct them. Well. Another artist slash student who also started
a huge conversation and controversy along with that was Emma
Sulkowitz who's carry that Weight performance piece where she carried
(31:31):
her mattress around Columbia University in protest of the university
not kicking out uh, the guy that she alleged sexually
assaulted her. I mean, I feel like that was kind
of a visualization of this massive conversation and movement and
even White House initiative that really picked up steam in
(31:56):
around the issue of campus sexual assault. And we'll see
what happens. There was a recent report that pointed out
that legislators and at least twenty states this year introduced
bills to change how college administrators prevent and address sexual
violence on campus. That's not that's only a little over
(32:16):
half of our states. So we'll see how that progresses
in well. And I want to know to how the
California Bill of the Act of Consent Law that Jerry
Brown signed into law, how that has an impact as
well too, because that was a landmark piece of legislation,
basically saying no, this is what consent is, this is
(32:37):
what yes means. Yes you have to um. It added
much needed nuance to what consent means in legal forms
as well. And then because of the stuff I've never
told you, can we close out our year in review
on a period shout out? Okay, So Kieran Gandhi I
think was the face or or the men's fees of
(33:01):
a period pride in her marathon run sands tampon or
pad went viral and started a whole conversation about women's bodies,
free blading, free bleeding. Yeah, I got it started some
you know men's rights trolls, uh a hashtag in and
(33:22):
I just thought it was fantastic yeah, I thought it
was fantastic too, because it's just another woman saying like,
our bodies are not gross, are are bodily functions are
not disgusting? This is part of uh, this is just
part of my biology, So deal with it well. And
of course we've got to give a shout out to
our listeners. We have such fantastic and engage listeners, and
(33:47):
Caroline and I care about you all so deeply, and
we wanted to share some of the messages that you
all have been sending us about a variety of episodes,
because I mean, it's just so fun to hear the
diversity of experiences and opinions that you all always have
and share with us about all of the random topics
(34:09):
that we end up talking about on stuff I've never
told you. So let's share a few before we say
au revoir to at least part one of this year interview,
because spoiler alert, we do have a part two and
we're going to talk about even more women that we
didn't talk about in this episode, so you gotta stay
tuned for that. But in the meantime, let's hear from
(34:32):
some listeners. I have a note here from Emma. She says,
I got introduced to your show from my best friend
to Leaky. She's finished and I am Swedish and we
both live in Norway. When I listened to your Free
the Nipple podcast, you kept saying normalizing the female body,
and it really made me realize how important that is.
(34:54):
I grew up in a culture where the sauna is
a regular family and friends activity. Here in Scandinavia, it's naked.
None of this Bayther's non Since I keep encountering elsewhere,
I never knew how much this exposure to being naked
in a non sexual way has shaped me and my thoughts.
I saw my mom breastfeed in public, saw all my
female relatives naked, and my closest mail ones too. It
was never anything but normal. It gives you a view
(35:16):
of normal bodies, different ages, different shapes, and more acceptance.
Being naked shouldn't be a state of shame. We're all
naked under our clothes. I planned to expose my kids
to the same, given I can convince my French partner
to be more Scandinavian. I love your show. I hear
views and thoughts and issues that I haven't been exposed
to here in Scandinavia. And plenty that we have in common.
(35:37):
Thank you, Emma Well. One episode that we heard a
lot from listeners about as well was our Girls who
Lift podcasts on women and weightlifting, and Emily wrote us
on Facebook to say, I was really excited to hear
your episodes on Ronda Rousey and weightlifting in general. I
actually listened to the Ladder while deadlifting. I started lifting
(35:57):
about two years ago, and reading a searching I heard
a lot about how for many women it's hard to
step into the weight room and take up space in
a male dominated environment. I count myself fortunate for the
experiences I've had previously as a preteen at a camp
surrounded by guys, as well as through hiking the Appalachian Trail.
Both of these experiences made it way easier for me
(36:19):
to get into the weight room without regard for it
being a male dominated space. And she goes on to say,
I love the way my body looks when lifting regularly.
In addition, as a person with an eating disorder, lifting
has really helped me recover and reconnect with a positive
body image. Being able to deadlift my own body weight
really helps give me a sense of power and control
(36:40):
that I was struggling with in my eating disorder. Anyway,
thanks for doing the episode on weightlifting, especially on the
history of women lifting, and thanks for the great podcast.
Well if we're gonna keep going because I love our listeners.
I have a letter here from Katie. She says, I'm
a freshman in high school. I've lived in the same
small town in Tech. This my whole life. It's pretty
(37:01):
stereotypical and the conservative Christian. It's heritage, not hate. Way.
Not to say I don't love it. Our football boys
made State and I couldn't be prouder, but I digress.
I'm so thankful for your show. I have had almost
no opportunities to learn from unbiased sources about controversial topics.
Everything I've been taught on that subject has been quite slanted.
(37:22):
In our sex ed class, the girls were told that
every time we have sex will get STDs, that abortion
would most likely kill us, and shame the man involved
for his whole life. I have been told I can't
play football or baseball, and often get babied in my
agg class when we work in the shop, all because
I'm a girl, even though I am the go to
(37:42):
when somebody needs help. I feel bad for complaining to y'all,
but I want to let you both know that you've
changed my look on life. Listening to the show introduced
me to a different way of treating people. Your show
makes me feel a little less alone that I'm not
the only person who believes that sexuality, color, and gender
have no effect on the rights a person should get.
(38:04):
I have found out how I want to live my life,
and y'all were a big part of that process. I
can't thank you enough. Feel free to write back. Well, Katie,
we're not writing back, but we are reading your letter
on the air, and thank you so much for your
kind words. Well, I've got a letter here from Katie
that I did share on our social media, but I'm
going to share it again because it was one of
my favorites of the year. She wrote, I just want
(38:26):
to thank you guys for all the podcast you do.
I decided to look back to where I started listening
in the earliest state is November two, two thousand nine,
which was on why women have more migraines than men.
So if I started listening in February of oh nine,
I've been listening from the age of eleven. I've listened
to most of your podcasts, and they've given me a
lot of knowledge I wouldn't have had otherwise. Your podcast
(38:49):
also helped shape me into the strong feminist I am
today at seventeen. Tumbler has helped with that a lot
in more recent years, but your podcast kicked it all off.
So thank you so much for all of your effort
with the podcast and videos each week. They're truly enjoyable. Okatie,
thank you so much for growing up with us. Love
(39:09):
it well. I have a letter here from Roxanne our
episode on adult acne in which Kristen I basically just
complained and looked for solutions about our own acne for
forty five minutes. Uh. That episode really resonated with listener Roxanne.
She says, I discovered this s Minty podcast a couple
of months ago. When I love the show, I don't
like a lot of podcast print is my native habitat,
(39:32):
and I have a hard time concentrating on audio only information.
But you both keep the show engaging and fascinating. So
Roxon says. When I started grad school last year at
twenty nine, I began experiencing breakouts at an astonishing rate.
I don't think of myself as a vain person. I
really wear makeup, but I was mortified through adolescence. I
never had a problem. I would have to do something
(39:53):
actively horrible to my skin to get a breakout, like
not washing it for six days, and even then I
get maybe a pimple. You're both at really right, though
no one tells us about this. At first, I tried
treating it like with traditional acne products, only to have
it get much, much worse. That was when I finally
looked up you know, actual medical information and learned how
(40:13):
different the two types of acne are, and one source
even likened late onset acne to rosasia. I can't recall
if they said the two conditions are related or comorbid,
but both are worse than if by overly harsh drying
or a brace of treatment regimens. I still don't have
mind completely under control, but it's improved with gentler treatment.
And here's a big factor. Sunscreen. While sunlight can help
(40:36):
teen acne, it can make adult acne and rosasha worse.
I use a zinc based physical sunscreen that never seems
to trigger breakout no matter how often I reapply. My
biggest triggering factor seems to be stressed well, I do
notice a fluctuation and frequency along my cycle. For the
most part, I'll only have a problem with whiteheads until
I experienced a major stress anxiety episode, and within a
(40:57):
day or two I'll have two to three big gangry
sistic pimples. It's a great time to be in grad school.
I'm sure I'll never get a handle on it fully
until I learned to manage my stress better. But I'm
hoping one day I can go back to not constantly
wondering what people are thinking when they look at my face.
I love the show, Love your Topics, Take Care and
you take care to Roxane. And finally, I've got a
(41:19):
letter here from Ellie, and she writes, I wanted to
say thank you for your piece on significant others, and
more specifically for raising the issue of what to call
your significant other who identifies as non binary or gender queer.
I go to a small liberal arts college where almost
half of my immediate friend group identifies as gender queer
or non binary and uses the gender neutral pronouns they them.
(41:40):
And there's so needless to say this issue has come
up for some of us. Most people I know who
have non binary significant others just refer to them as
their ESSO short for you guessed it significant other, but
it varies from person to person. For instance, I went
from identifying as a CIS woman to a non binary
in the middle of my last relation and ship, so
(42:00):
I had no problem with my girlfriend continuing to refer
to me as her girlfriend since that was what we
were both used to. However, now I'm feeling more comfortable
in my identity, I don't think I would want to
date someone who called me their girlfriend anymore. That no
longer aligns with my identity, and I would probably ask
them to call me their s oh. I know s
O seems like it would sound awkward in everyday conversation,
(42:22):
but it really isn't at all. Also, the issue of
gendered language comes up in space as other than romantic ones.
I played for the women's soccer team at my school,
and my teammates have had to adjust away from saying
things like what's up girl and hey pretty lady to me.
To rectify this, I joke around with my teammates that
I'm actually a gender blob and instead of saying what's up, girl,
(42:43):
they can say what's up, blob. It's silly and lighthearted,
but I choose to joke about it because there really
is no gender neutral option for a lot of the
manners in which we speak to each other. I just
wanted to give you my two cents as someone who
has had to think about this quite a bit recent.
On a different note, blah blah blah, I think you
too are absolutely brilliant blah blah blah. I'm in love
(43:04):
with you blah blah blah. I love the podcast whatever.
So thank you so much, Ellie, and thanks to everybody
who's written in to us this year, and we'd love
to hear your favorite stuff mom Never Told You moments
from if you'd be willing to share mom stuff at
how stuff works dot com is our email address, and
for links to all of our podcast, videos, social media
(43:28):
and blog, head on over to stuff Mom Never Told
You dot com and Happy Holidays for moral this and
thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff works dot
com
Stuff Mom Never Told You News
Hosts And Creators
Anney Reese
Samantha McVey
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.