August 23, 2019 • 39 mins
According to Shine Theory, powerful women make the best friends. But does success in life and career get in the way of healthy female friendships? Learn more in this classic episode.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Annie and Welcome to Stuff I Never
Told You, a production of I Heart Radio's How Stuff Work.
And yes it is just me today, listeners, because Samantha,
our lovely co host, Samantha was in an accident on
(00:27):
they here to record. She is fine, She's totally fine.
But it means that we are doing I am doing
another in show for a classic solo and I thought
we could bring back an episode that Kristen and Caroline
did on Shine Theory, because Shine theory came up in
our episode on women supporting women, and shine theory is
(00:52):
this idea that powerful women are your go too, is
they're the best type of friends to have. But that
kind of clashes with the other narrative that we frequently
here that powerful women are cutthroat or that there's all
this cattiness involved. So we thought that we would bring
this one back, get to the bottom of it, and
(01:14):
so I hope you enjoy Welcome to Stuff, Mom Never
Told You from how stup Works dot com. Hello, and
welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen and I'm Caroline, and
this week on the show, we're going to talk about friendship,
(01:35):
and today we're talking about something called the shine theory,
which has to do with women and success and friendship,
which is going to lead us into conversations about jealousy
and competition within female friendships in particular. Um, and the
thing is, Caroline on stuff, Mom never told you we
root for sisters doing it for themselves and succeeding all
(01:58):
the time. We're all out that we're all about uplift
and empowerment. But what happens when your friend becomes really successful,
or if you're someone who meets someone else who might
feel out of your league success wise? How do we
deal with those feelings of maybe unworthiness friendship wise, or
(02:21):
competition or envy that might naturally arise in these relationships. Well,
first of all, envy is, as we'll get into, totally natural,
totally normal, might even have its roots in some sort
of evolutionary psychology purpose. Um. So, you know when we
were all hunter gatherers on the planes and I was
envious of your spear, you know that would encourage me
(02:42):
to get a better spear myself. But it can sure
create kind of a sticky situation when it is in
your friend group. Yeah, and uh, there's even a song
about this, by the way, for Morrissey fans out there,
we hate it when our friends become successful. If you
want to just listen to that while we're talking about
this the per fickt Um. But first off, we thought
(03:02):
we should kick off with some wise words from a
couple of the most successful women out there, because they
have some pretty insightful things to say about how you
should treat successful women or successful people in general. So
Amy Poehler, godmother of Stuff, Mom never told you in spirit,
she doesn't know this, but she is um. She was
(03:24):
talking in her book, Yes please about success. I mean,
obviously she's best friends with the even more successful Tina Fey,
and she said, quote, rooting for other people's failure does
get in the way of your success. So it's that
whole warning against kind of watch out for your own schadenfreud. Yeah, exactly,
And I mean I think that's a great attitude. There's
(03:46):
there's sort of an ugliness and I don't mean physical ugliness,
I mean an internal ugliness obviously to rooting against someone,
especially if they are your friend. And Taylor Swift, who
we've talked about recently and who we did mention quite
a bit about her very high profile lady friendships. She
talked too about how she surrounds herself with smart, beautiful, passionate, driven,
(04:09):
ambitious women, and she says other women who were killing
it should motivate you, thrill you, challenge you, and inspire you,
rather than threaten you and make you feel like you're
immediately being compared to them. Now, some might hear that
and say, well, t Swizzle, it's so easy for you
to say that because you're so singularly successful. She's in
(04:30):
her own league, like no one can really compete with
her except maybe Katie Perry. But we're not going to
get into that. Um So what about in our more?
What about for for folks like you and me? Caroline, Well,
I think we can transition pretty well off of Taylor
Swift because Marcy bianco over at Mike was sort of
looking into Taylor's comments about not only friendship and lady friends,
(04:54):
but also feminism and saying that the message is quote
that gain power, we have to champion women who have
access to it, and this is sort of the basis
for what Ann Friedman calls the shine theory. Yeah, we've
sited in Freedman so many times on the podcast. She
(05:15):
is a freelance writer. You've probably seen her work in
York Magazine. She writes regularly elsewhere as well, and she
also hosts a podcast called Call Your Girlfriend with one
of her very successful lady friends. And she wrote this
piece in York Magazine in two thousand thirteen, I believe
about shine theory, and it went viral. I mean, it
(05:36):
might partially be because it was headlined why powerful women
make the best friends, um, but it it definitely started
a lot of conversations. And one thing that she says
in this piece is quote, when you meet a woman
who is intimidatingly witty, stylish, beautiful and professionally accomplished, befriend her.
In other words, you know what I had to do
(05:57):
with Caroline, you know. So surrounding yourself with the best
people doesn't make you look worse by comparison, It makes
you look better. And again, why am I sitting so
close to Caroline? Answer? She's shining upon me. This is
literally we're sitting in a long dining room table and
Kristen is literally sitting next to me. I don't understand
(06:17):
side by side, but honestly, it's cold in here, so
it's keeping me warm, right, and so she uses the
example of Kelly Rowland and Beyonce because you know, they
were all in the same group together along with Michelle
Let's not forget poor Michelle UM. But Beyonce, of course
blew up and became the social phenomenon, and Kelly Rowland
herself has an incredibly successful career. I mean, like, I'd
(06:40):
like to put out records and be a judge on
The X Factor if that's in fact the show that
she's on. UM. But basically, Kelly Rowland had to work
through her own envy issues with Beyonce and even wrote
a song about it, about seeing your friend blow up
and becomes so successful and having to deal with those
kind of feelings of being left behind. But yeah, so
(07:01):
Friedman talks about how Kelly Rowland great example because she's
positioning herself next to Beyonce and she's all the better
for it, not worse for it. And when she published
this song that was autobiographical about her jealousy of Beyonce
and coming to terms with that, Beyonce then listen to
it and then sent Kelly an email or maybe a
(07:21):
text message. I don't know how they communicate, and he's like, hey,
that was really amazing and honest and thank you for
being you, And I wish I could get a text
like that from Beyonce. Maybe it was a singing telegram,
but oh cool, alright, cool as if it happened. Um. So,
the basic idea is that the people we surround ourselves
(07:43):
with not not only reflect who we are, but they
should reflect who we want to be. And so by
befriending and bonding with powerful, awesome women, you're helping build
your own personal network, whether that's for your personal life
for your professional life, and that your friends should really
(08:03):
encourage you to be better, not drag you down. Yeah,
and this does remind me of stuff my mom told
me when I was a kid, in terms of you
are the company that you keep, so be careful of
the friends that you make. And it seems like a
grown up version of that in a way, because it's
not only sort of holding yourself to a higher standard
(08:24):
by virtue of these powerful, successful people holding you more accountable,
but also allowing maybe outspoken friends in your life to
kind of call you out when you need to be
called out a little bit for maybe going on dates
with questionable people or maybe not being as ambitious as
as you possibly could be those kinds of things as well. Yeah,
(08:47):
and she cites Joe Freeman's nineteen seventy six essay on
feminists not necessarily doing this, not necessarily being supportive of
one another. So it's not like minister some magical unicorn
group of women who are immune from some of the
less desirable personality traits when it comes to friendship. And
(09:08):
in that essay, Freeman's sights and Selma Delolo who said,
quote achieving our accomplishment of any kind, which seem to
be the worst crime, you're immediately labeled a thrill seeking opportunist,
a ruthless mercenary out to make her fame and fortune
over the dead bodies of selfless sisters who have buried
their abilities and sacrifice their ambitions for the greater glory
(09:31):
of feminism. Wow. And I mean and that rings true
today as well, not just within feminism but in our
friendships in general. And it doesn't help that and we'll
talk about this more in define later in the podcast,
that a lot of times of female friendships that have
been modeled for us in pop culture have always had
(09:51):
those undercurrents of competition. And I hate to use this
word but cattiness. Yeah, exactly, And I mean one important
feminist figure who's always argued for women supporting one another
is Gloria Steinhum and Kristen and I heard firsthand Gloria
Steinham talking about the importance of even if you disagree
with someone, supporting them in their efforts to do better. Yeah,
(10:16):
And going back to Amy Poehler, she has a great
one liner about that, which is simply good for you,
not for me. And that's fine, and that's all it
has to be. Um. But the thing is, especially when
we're talking about this within the context of feminism, the
more we get distracted by fighting mongst ourselves and competing
and fuming with jealousy, it does give away ground to
(10:39):
the status quo and a patriarchy because it is a
distraction away from doing the work right exactly. Some people, though,
did not like this shine theory uh Slates. Hanna Rosen
was not a huge fan of this idea because she
saw it as too calculating. She basically called it forming
a strategic alliance and stead of forming an actual genuine friendship.
(11:02):
And she wonders whether, according to this theory, that you know,
if you've surrounded yourself purposely with all of these powerful,
really super ambitious women. If one of them loses a job,
goes through a hard time, you know, finds herself in
a funk for three weeks and doesn't get out of
her pajamas, do you have to kick her out of
your of your high powered social group all of a sudden,
(11:23):
or if or if she shows any type of jealousy
or weakness. Yeah. Funnily enough, she thinks that the advice
is quote old fashioned, a relic from the days when
women didn't see themselves as worthy competition for men, so
they fought one another for scraps, which is a pretty
damning assessment. Yeah. She suggests instead that if you're going
(11:45):
to try to have a strategy for your friendships, that
you should try compartmentalizing between your professional acquaintances and your
actual really close lady friends and then just recognize and
ride out the waves of envy as they come and go. So, basically,
you have these different friend groups for different purposes, one
of which is your true genuine group of friends. One
(12:07):
is the kind of friends that you have to help
you get ahead, um, and that you can use them
to sort of kind of let off steam about the
other group when you need to. While overall I by
the shine theory, but there is it seems like there
needs to be this distinction between what the shine theory is,
which seems like it's more along the lines of friendly
(12:29):
networking rather than cultivating best friendships. Right, Because the feeling
that I got having read that and then reading Rosen's
column about it, was that, Yeah, the shine theory is
great in that, yes, you should always encourage your lady friends,
and you should always strive to be the most genuine
supportive friend that you can and hope that you receive
(12:51):
that same treatment um in response. But yeah, I almost
feel like that might be a recipe for not so
genuine friendships and even the development of like a friend
of me relationship, which you and I have also talked about. Yeah. Well,
I was actually bene listening to call your girlfriend over
the weekend in Freedman's podcast and they mentioned the shine
(13:14):
theory and her co host said, oh, well, and you know,
I don't shine if you don't shine, And that kind
of hammered at home a little bit more to me
of like, Okay, that makes more sense than a day
to day with your friends of like you we want
to help each other be the best ladies that we
can be through our friendship. I get that, but yeah,
(13:36):
there's also the factor to where, especially if you're a
career oriented woman who spends a lot of time and
invest a lot of mental and emotional energy into her job,
I should just make this first person because I'm talking
about myself. I've found that that it's really important for
me to have friends where career is not a topic
(13:59):
that we even really go to, you know, like, I
feel like we need a break from it at some point.
It is nice to talk to people with other passions
and with their energy being directed in different areas instead
of just, you know, people exactly like yourself all the time. Yeah,
and I think you have to it goes both ways
to like to the point of what Hanter Rosen was
saying about, Well, what if you have a friend who
(14:21):
lost a job. What if you have a friend who's
not so successful, do you kick her out of the club? No?
And I think that it's you have to keep that
in mind too, when if you are the more successful friend,
how you treat and talk to your friends who are
maybe taking different paths than you are, and accepting that
as well. So it's a I mean, I like the
shine theory. I like the concept of the shine theory,
(14:42):
but as always, there's clearly more nuance to it than
just make friends with powerful women, right exactly. Um And
of course, if you are the more successful woman, then
chances are some people in your social group might be
envious of the things that you've a pomplished. Yeah. And
there has been a lot of research on jealousy and
(15:05):
envy in general. So first we want to share a
few facts about the purpose of jealousy why it exists,
because it seems like this, well, it is a negative emotion,
but it does have a purpose in the natural world.
And we're citing a paper by Sarah E. Hill and
(15:25):
David M. Bus called the Evolutionary Psychology of Envy. Right,
super interesting stuff that if you read it, and I
encourage you to do so, it makes you feel like
way less of a crazy person. Oh yeah, envy is
Envy is supernatural. It is I mean super natural to words,
not supernatural as in a deity. Um. Right, it is
(15:50):
innate and it likely played a role in like I
talked about earlier, getting the better spear, resource acquisition and
human survival because it motivates certain things like submission, ambition,
or destruction. Basically, you choose between like I'm super envious.
That means I'm getting ambition, I might acquire something better
or find a way to do it myself, or you
(16:11):
know something terrible, like ah, you've got the better spear,
so I'll destroy yours so that I feel better about myself.
But let's move away from spears and actually talk about
(16:33):
social groups, which is what we're here to actually talk about.
And envy has really been shown to lead to basically
talking smack about a person to your peer group because
that helps lower or it can help lower an opinion
of someone. So that's that's another like peer group focused
(16:55):
way of using envy as a destruction tool. But it's
a seek it of emotion because we know it's negative
and we don't want to admit that we're being outperformed
because what does that mean. Envy is like, Okay, you
have something that I really want, so I'm feeling envious
of you, and that might spark a whole slough of
negative emotions like hostility and insecurity and all this stuff.
(17:17):
But I don't want to tell this other person over
here Kristen has something that I want, because that just
makes me seem like, oh, well, I don't have enough
for I don't have what I need or should have exactly,
which is where shine theory would come in to say,
rather than giving into your insecurity, take advantage of it,
befriend make a you know, build the bridge between you
(17:40):
and that thing that you want. And shine theory jumped
out in this paper when they noted that quote. Researchers
have long noted that people reserve their feelings of enviousness
for those who are similar to themselves and for advantages
that are in self relevant domains. In other words, it's
understandable that we might have feelings of envy for the
(18:03):
women who are surrounding us, especially if they're in similar
kinds of careers or industries, because it tends to crop
up the most around the people who are the most
like us, because that would lead us to think, well,
you have everything that I had, but except for that
one thing. Why does your hair look amazing every single day?
That's right, Chris, I'm not talking about me. Yeah, And
(18:25):
that hair thing is not just a joke. I mean
it plays into an evolutionary psychology theory on women's envy
in particular, we tend to have greater envy and response
to our same sex peers being more attractive, whereas guys
are more envious of richer or guys with better resources.
(18:47):
And that you know, goes back to Okay, well what
do men and women want? Traditionally, and women are seeking
to be provided for and men are seeking a hot, fertile,
young mate. Basically, I know, yeah, that's there's always there's
always that factory and evolutionary psychology seems like. But I
(19:09):
did find it interesting that the researcher has mentioned that
envy should peak during our peak reproductive years. So because
it's all about ultimately, according to evolutionary psychology, it ultimately
as is everything about babies, Yeah, fighting for resources and
those resources are sperm. Yes, but there's There's also been
(19:31):
a lot of non evolutionary psychology research conducted on jealousy
and competition within female friendships, and it starts long before
our careers get off the ground. And one of the
most fascinating things to me about gender differences in friendships
(19:52):
that you see come up a lot in studies is
that girls tend to hold their girl friends, and I
mean girl, like young girl tend to hold their girlfriends
to hire standards. We think about friendships more often. We
expect more things like kindness, loyalty, and commitment from our friends.
We self disclose more to our girl friends. I mean
(20:14):
think about I mean just the excitement of telling or
hearing a secret from a friend when you were a girl.
I mean, that was that was so much of what
it was. And while that establishes this foundation for girl
friendships being so incredible, it also sets us up though,
for chelsea and disappointment and competition too, because we're so invested, right,
(20:38):
And then that leads us to what this study, which
is in the journal Developmental Psychology in two thousand five,
was saying about, how you know girls are there's so
much more of an intimacy level and female friendship than
in the friendships of young boys, to the point where
the interference of a third party tends to be a
significant source of tension between friends and the primary basis
(21:02):
for the breakup of friendships. Yeah, and researchers usually anticipate
jealousy interfering in girl friendships just because we have quote deeper,
more intimate friendships. And they also went on to say,
in this study quote, girls in general reported higher levels
of jealousy surrounding friends. So this is something that we're
(21:23):
dealing with in our formative years. Um. But interestingly too,
that gender difference might also be due to a gendered
stigma of jealousy being thought of as more of a
feminine emotion, probably because, like we were talking about with
the evolutionary psychology of envy, if you express envy or jealousy,
(21:44):
you're sort of tipping your hand a little bit right,
signaling weakness. So, for instance, if boys are feeling jealous
within the confines of these friendships, they have a tendency
to just say that they're upset versus they're jealous of something.
But Caroline, this is dealing with young her girls. What
then happens when puberty hits and sexiness walks in the room.
(22:07):
Oh my god, I feel like everybody could probably guess
the answer to this. Uh, nothing good, nothing good, nothing
good happens. Um. I mean, it's so interesting. The studies
that we read that basically threw a sexy lady into
the mix of two female friends showed over and over
again that if a if a sexy lady walks in
(22:29):
the room and encounters two female friends. The minute she
walks back out, the two female friends are going to
be like, am I God, did you see her? I
bet she's just here to bang the professor. Whereas if
a woman with like her hair and a nod on
the top of her head, wearing a T shirt and pants,
you know, if I walk into the room, if I
walk into the room, they don't think anything of it
(22:49):
at all. Yeah, yeah, there's no we're not We're not
bringing sexy back. But this The fascinating thing, though, too,
was that only until recently, really recently, scientists didn't even
really understand the entire concept of female competition. It was
assumed to be more of a male thing, obviously relating
(23:10):
to uh, gendered patterns of aggression and violence and adding
a little more complexity to this as well. Uh. The
New York Times was reporting on how female competition used
to be sort of a giant question mark because past
evolutionary analysis thought that our ancient poligionist societies just eliminated
(23:33):
any compulsion for female mate competition because hey, the hottest
dudes just have multiple wives, no big deal. But more
recent analysis has opened up that scenario a little bit
for female competition because they now think, well, women probably
would have still competed for the best resourced sperm contributor.
(23:53):
So it's it's all very romantic, it's very egalitarian, it's
very progressive. Um, but not jokinging female competition is only
recently been studied, and it is once you throw that
sexiness into the equation that it does come out, unfortunately,
at least according to the limited researches out there in
the form of female to female So what shaming. Yeah,
(24:17):
So researcher Sarah B. Hurdie has is researching female competition,
and she points out that it's only since the nineteen eighties,
which is really when more and more women started getting
into stem fields that people turn their attention to studying
women's competition and and uh, female on female competition and aggression. Um.
Of course, as we've talked about before, female on female
(24:40):
aggression does tend to be a little more passive aggressive,
a little less actually aggressive aggressive or especially physical. I mean,
we have to protect our delicate selves, right, Yeah, we're
less likelier to to punch each other. Yeah, don't punch
me in the baby maker, because we've got to be
making all those babies, all lot sperm I acquired with
my new spear, and not in the face, because how
(25:00):
will I find the best sperm contributor. Instead, I'm just
gonna say horrible things about you behind your back, right,
because that goes back to the whole envy discussion of
talking about someone behind her back to basically take her
down brick by brick, behind the scenes, instead of just
doing it to her face. Yeah, which is really no
less damaging, arguably even more damaging than punching someone in
(25:23):
the in the ute. And this is our way, according
to Dr Hurdie, that women limit access by maintaining advantage
in the negotiation of the resource, the resource being our
ability to find a decent person to procreate with um.
(25:44):
But moving on from that, Joyce Benison at Emmanuel College
has also studied female jealousy and competition, and she identified
to Psychology Today three unique characteristics of jealousy and women.
One ailed aggression rather than physical confrontation. We've already covered
that too high status women are less motivated to invest
(26:07):
in other women, and women who try to distinguish or
promote themselves threaten other women, and will encounter hostility and
enter shine theory needing to come into play, and the
three social exclusion to protect against potential competitors. So I
mean we we play dirty. Yeah, but I mean this
(26:29):
this supposedly like natural drive to be doing all of
this definitely follows us into our careers and jealousy reflecting
gender dynamics in the workplace, because when you think about it,
there are so few women as CEOs in the boardroom
in high power positions. So hopefully we're not fighting for
(26:51):
sperm in the office, but we're fighting for very limited
positions of power, and so that still will involve those
more the more veiled aggression, maybe the feelings of envy
and trying to take someone down behind the scenes so
that you're still being perceived as like, oh, I'm a
team player at work. Yeah, but I do think one
(27:12):
of the most damaging ways if you are a woman
vying for that limited seat, I mean stepping on the
backs of other women in order to get there is
I mean, I guess if you're out for yourself, okay,
but you're not helping other women in the process. And
and the fact of the matter is there are some
people for which they don't care. They don't care about
(27:33):
that at all every woman on a reality show. I
love those montages on YouTube of of women going I'm
not here to make friends. Yeah, because I mean there
is I think still this assumption that women are going
to naturally be competitive with each other and be jealous
of each other, and shine theory does tip it on
its head a bit of saying, hey, you know, we
can be successful, we can also be friendly, and we
(27:55):
can also maybe buck these perceptions that women in positions
of lead ship and power are aggressive and angry and unfriendly. Yeah,
because that doesn't help at all either now, and neither
does the loneliness that comes when you're looking at social
media for hours on end and some woman on social
media's posting pictures of her trip to Bali. I'm not
(28:18):
speaking from person or just a dinner parties you weren't
invited to, not speaking from personal experience eide of the Caroline. Yeah,
social media, I mean we're gonna we're going to mention
social media because women spend a lot of time on
social media. And as probably every every listener has seen
a trend piece on this, there have been so many
(28:38):
studies now linking Facebook and Instagram in particular to feelings
of loneliness, lower self worth, and jealousy because we're seeing
we're seeing things that we don't have. I mean, yes,
these are images that are curated and filtered and cleverly captioned.
We hope to, you know, make your life look as
(28:59):
great as possible. But still, but it's weird. It's almost
like it's almost like the way that fake sugar like
will never satisfy your brain because your brain wants real sugar,
and so it keeps searching. It's it's almost like you're
you're in a fake competition with other women on social
media when you look at their amazing pictures of their
trip or their dinner or their vacation or husband or
(29:19):
whoever whatever. Because so envy is supposed to spark ambition, right,
you see something you want and you're like, I've got
to figure out a way to get that for myself
and do do well for myself. But the image that
people present of themselves on social media, it's not anywhere
close to being reel. Yeah, you might post pictures of
(29:40):
an amazing trip you took, but that doesn't cover up
like maybe you had a bad day, maybe you're not
feeling good about yourself, maybe you yourself or insecure, and
so it's almost like people are envious of something that
they don't fully grasp and so that like breeds this
whole feeling of insecurity and instability and envy when really
you should just be congratulating on your friend on a
good trip and saying, hey, how you doing. Yeah? I mean.
(30:03):
And when it comes to that realness factor on social
media and our curated images, I would like to highlight
that my Twitter avatar that is fake blood on my face,
not real ladies. You don't need to be envious. Um.
And also I think that you just came up with
something that we should call the splendid theory. So yeah, hello,
(30:25):
shine theory, me splendid theory, and together, what would that
make fool's gold? But before we close out this conversation,
we did want to take a look at television because
we mentioned earlier about how media representations of female friendships,
particularly in movies and television, often, you know, follow the
(30:49):
assumption that we all secretly hate each other and they're
all fre enemies. And there is still a lot of
that on TV. Just look at the Real Housewives franchise
and the Batch aller but I think in some ways
it has gotten better. We do have some examples of uh,
female friendships on TV. And I'm only focusing on TV
(31:10):
just because there's not even time to get into film,
but there are examples of friendships where shine theory is
at work, not just in a sense of a career,
but supporting people through life decisions too. And I think
that that's something especially for me as an adult woman
with my friends who have now had for years and
years and years too. It's it's not just the career
(31:32):
success that can stoke envy, but it's also the life success.
We're all starting to hit the milestones you're starting to get,
like engagements and marriages and pregnancies and divorce and that,
and that plays a role in things as well. Yeah,
it is refreshing to see depictions of female friendship that
seemed very genuine. I mean, take a show like Girls,
(31:52):
which wait, don't turn off the podcast. I know not
everybody is a fan, but when you have a show
like Girls, I feel like that's still depict doing genuine
female friendships and all of the messiness that can come
along with it. These women are being pitted against each other.
There's not cattiness per se, but there's genuine love and
support just on the same token as there is insecurity
(32:14):
and sort of measuring up against one another. Yeah, and
Broad City. Hello. Is there a more dedicated duo of
female friends on prime Time? I don't think so, because
I think that Alanna would would murder for Abby and
she would also marry her if she could, if Abby
would have her um and then even to a Sex
(32:37):
in the City. You know, those friendships showed time and
again lots of support through milestones and successes and even
through failures too, And I feel like in that way,
Sex in the City was a healthy model Parks and recreation,
Leslie Nopes, undying love of Anne right. And I think
(32:57):
one of my favorites, even though I hate this show
now out is Grey's Anatomy, the friendship between Meredith and Christina,
because I remember so clearly the episode where Christina said
that Meredith was her person, because I was like, oh,
there it is. That's my friendship reflected in these two
fictional characters. Because I feel that way about a couple
(33:18):
of ladies too, and it's like they're they're my my people,
my tribe, my my people who will tell me when
I'm full of crap, but who will also support me unconditionally.
And an older sitcom as well that depicts strong female
friendships through life events is Girl Friends. As well as
Awkward Black Girl. You have the Gilmore Girls. Arguably, I
(33:40):
feel like that's a little bit of a stretch. And
also Buffy the Vampire Slayer. We've got some strong female
friendships in there as well, So there's some good modeling
going on. And I do think though that for the
TV shows we just mentioned that are on the air
right now, it's interesting that most of them are created
by women. Yeah. I mean that's the importance of representation.
(34:04):
When people talk about why is it important to get
women in X Y Z Field, this is a great example.
You get more women's perspectives in the TV writer's room,
and then you get more realistic depictions of actual women. Yeah,
And I think that those depictions are important. I think
it is important, especially for girls to see I mean,
(34:27):
not that girls are sitting down and watching Gray's Anatomy.
To girls watch Gray's Anatomy, I don't know. I don't know,
but I think just generally it's so important for younger
girls to see healthy models of female friendship because from
the get go, least according to studies and according to
my experience when I was a girl, we invest so
(34:47):
much in our friends, and our friends means so much
to us, and when they break our hearts, it's like
no other heartbreak. And I feel like this follows us
in morphson evolves as we get older. And I really
love most of all Amy Poehler's advice of just don't
root for other people's failure. You know something's not for you,
(35:10):
that's fine, good for her, not for me exactly. So
let's hear from some listeners. What do you think about
the shine theory? How how has success and competition influenced
your closer friendships? And do you think that you should
make friends with powerful people or is that just kind
(35:30):
of networking? And guys, we want to hear from you two.
I know this was a lady focused conversation, but we
always want to hear your thoughts as well. Mom Stuff
at how stuff works dot Com is our email address.
You can also tweet us and mom stuff podcast and
messages on Facebook, and we've got a couple of messages
this year with you. Right now, Well, I have a
(35:58):
letter here from Samantha about depends episode. She says, I'm
a costume designer out in Seattle, and when it comes
to historical plays, the right undergarments are essential. While I
was interesting to hear about the political and social feelings
on underwear, I was saddened that you barely touched on
the function of these garments. If it weren't for coursets,
(36:18):
many Victorian and Edwardian dresses would look awful since the
dresses themselves were never made of fabric that could hold
structure or form. You mentioned that once World War Two
was over, we go back to constraining undergarments like bullet braws, girdles,
and petticoats, but the shape and design of those dresses
wouldn't be fully realized because without those bases, it would
(36:39):
look like a totally different dress. Even now, we used
banks to get the garments we wear to look like
they are intended to look. I love the podcast and
thanks for helping me become a better informed feminist. Keep
up the good work well. Thank you, Samantha. Thank you
for filling us in on some historical details. And Samantha
and some Mother listeners have also filled us in on
(37:01):
mispronunciation of the word shamis, which I woefully misled Caroline
into thinking it was pronounced camis. So my since serious apologies.
I don't know why that was thought was Camise always
said it that way in my head. It was just
like that serious c Anderson comic. Well, I now have
a letter from Sarah about our Glitteracy podcast and Columbo,
(37:26):
and it made me laugh. So here it is. She said,
love your podcast. I listened to it all the time
at work. Thank you for all your hard work. I
was just listening to the Cliteracy podcast, and I know
you were thinking that Columbo discovering the Clitterest reminded you
of Columbus, but I humorously started thinking of Detective Columbo
played by Peter Falk in the nineteen six eight TV
(37:48):
show Columbo, which side note, I totally watched that all
the time with my parents. I kept inwardly laughing every
time I thought of his catchphrase, it's just one thing
I don't understand, and applying it to the glitter is nothing.
He usually groundbreaking To actually tell you about the episode
other than that I enjoyed it and the thought of
Columbo the detective was super funny to me. I hope
(38:11):
it made you laugh too, and it did, Sarah, so
thank you and thanks everybody else who's written into us.
Moms Stuff at how stuff Works dot com is our
email address and for links to all of our social
media as well as all of our blogs, videos, and podcasts,
including this one with links to and Freedman's Peace About
Shine theory so you can read along. Head on over
(38:32):
to stuff Mom Never Told You dot com and that
brings us to the end of this classic episode. We
would love to hear from you if you'd like to
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(38:52):
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or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. H
Hey, this is Annie and Welcome to Stuff I Never
Told You, a production of I Heart Radio's How Stuff Work.
And yes it is just me today, listeners, because Samantha,
our lovely co host, Samantha was in an accident on
(00:27):
they here to record. She is fine, She's totally fine.
But it means that we are doing I am doing
another in show for a classic solo and I thought
we could bring back an episode that Kristen and Caroline
did on Shine Theory, because Shine theory came up in
our episode on women supporting women, and shine theory is
(00:52):
this idea that powerful women are your go too, is
they're the best type of friends to have. But that
kind of clashes with the other narrative that we frequently
here that powerful women are cutthroat or that there's all
this cattiness involved. So we thought that we would bring
this one back, get to the bottom of it, and
(01:14):
so I hope you enjoy Welcome to Stuff, Mom Never
Told You from how stup Works dot com. Hello, and
welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen and I'm Caroline, and
this week on the show, we're going to talk about friendship,
(01:35):
and today we're talking about something called the shine theory,
which has to do with women and success and friendship,
which is going to lead us into conversations about jealousy
and competition within female friendships in particular. Um, and the
thing is, Caroline on stuff, Mom never told you we
root for sisters doing it for themselves and succeeding all
(01:58):
the time. We're all out that we're all about uplift
and empowerment. But what happens when your friend becomes really successful,
or if you're someone who meets someone else who might
feel out of your league success wise? How do we
deal with those feelings of maybe unworthiness friendship wise, or
(02:21):
competition or envy that might naturally arise in these relationships. Well,
first of all, envy is, as we'll get into, totally natural,
totally normal, might even have its roots in some sort
of evolutionary psychology purpose. Um. So, you know when we
were all hunter gatherers on the planes and I was
envious of your spear, you know that would encourage me
(02:42):
to get a better spear myself. But it can sure
create kind of a sticky situation when it is in
your friend group. Yeah, and uh, there's even a song
about this, by the way, for Morrissey fans out there,
we hate it when our friends become successful. If you
want to just listen to that while we're talking about
this the per fickt Um. But first off, we thought
(03:02):
we should kick off with some wise words from a
couple of the most successful women out there, because they
have some pretty insightful things to say about how you
should treat successful women or successful people in general. So
Amy Poehler, godmother of Stuff, Mom never told you in spirit,
she doesn't know this, but she is um. She was
(03:24):
talking in her book, Yes please about success. I mean,
obviously she's best friends with the even more successful Tina Fey,
and she said, quote, rooting for other people's failure does
get in the way of your success. So it's that
whole warning against kind of watch out for your own schadenfreud. Yeah, exactly,
And I mean I think that's a great attitude. There's
(03:46):
there's sort of an ugliness and I don't mean physical ugliness,
I mean an internal ugliness obviously to rooting against someone,
especially if they are your friend. And Taylor Swift, who
we've talked about recently and who we did mention quite
a bit about her very high profile lady friendships. She
talked too about how she surrounds herself with smart, beautiful, passionate, driven,
(04:09):
ambitious women, and she says other women who were killing
it should motivate you, thrill you, challenge you, and inspire you,
rather than threaten you and make you feel like you're
immediately being compared to them. Now, some might hear that
and say, well, t Swizzle, it's so easy for you
to say that because you're so singularly successful. She's in
(04:30):
her own league, like no one can really compete with
her except maybe Katie Perry. But we're not going to
get into that. Um So what about in our more?
What about for for folks like you and me? Caroline, Well,
I think we can transition pretty well off of Taylor
Swift because Marcy bianco over at Mike was sort of
looking into Taylor's comments about not only friendship and lady friends,
(04:54):
but also feminism and saying that the message is quote
that gain power, we have to champion women who have
access to it, and this is sort of the basis
for what Ann Friedman calls the shine theory. Yeah, we've
sited in Freedman so many times on the podcast. She
(05:15):
is a freelance writer. You've probably seen her work in
York Magazine. She writes regularly elsewhere as well, and she
also hosts a podcast called Call Your Girlfriend with one
of her very successful lady friends. And she wrote this
piece in York Magazine in two thousand thirteen, I believe
about shine theory, and it went viral. I mean, it
(05:36):
might partially be because it was headlined why powerful women
make the best friends, um, but it it definitely started
a lot of conversations. And one thing that she says
in this piece is quote, when you meet a woman
who is intimidatingly witty, stylish, beautiful and professionally accomplished, befriend her.
In other words, you know what I had to do
(05:57):
with Caroline, you know. So surrounding yourself with the best
people doesn't make you look worse by comparison, It makes
you look better. And again, why am I sitting so
close to Caroline? Answer? She's shining upon me. This is
literally we're sitting in a long dining room table and
Kristen is literally sitting next to me. I don't understand
(06:17):
side by side, but honestly, it's cold in here, so
it's keeping me warm, right, and so she uses the
example of Kelly Rowland and Beyonce because you know, they
were all in the same group together along with Michelle
Let's not forget poor Michelle UM. But Beyonce, of course
blew up and became the social phenomenon, and Kelly Rowland
herself has an incredibly successful career. I mean, like, I'd
(06:40):
like to put out records and be a judge on
The X Factor if that's in fact the show that
she's on. UM. But basically, Kelly Rowland had to work
through her own envy issues with Beyonce and even wrote
a song about it, about seeing your friend blow up
and becomes so successful and having to deal with those
kind of feelings of being left behind. But yeah, so
(07:01):
Friedman talks about how Kelly Rowland great example because she's
positioning herself next to Beyonce and she's all the better
for it, not worse for it. And when she published
this song that was autobiographical about her jealousy of Beyonce
and coming to terms with that, Beyonce then listen to
it and then sent Kelly an email or maybe a
(07:21):
text message. I don't know how they communicate, and he's like, hey,
that was really amazing and honest and thank you for
being you, And I wish I could get a text
like that from Beyonce. Maybe it was a singing telegram,
but oh cool, alright, cool as if it happened. Um. So,
the basic idea is that the people we surround ourselves
(07:43):
with not not only reflect who we are, but they
should reflect who we want to be. And so by
befriending and bonding with powerful, awesome women, you're helping build
your own personal network, whether that's for your personal life
for your professional life, and that your friends should really
(08:03):
encourage you to be better, not drag you down. Yeah,
and this does remind me of stuff my mom told
me when I was a kid, in terms of you
are the company that you keep, so be careful of
the friends that you make. And it seems like a
grown up version of that in a way, because it's
not only sort of holding yourself to a higher standard
(08:24):
by virtue of these powerful, successful people holding you more accountable,
but also allowing maybe outspoken friends in your life to
kind of call you out when you need to be
called out a little bit for maybe going on dates
with questionable people or maybe not being as ambitious as
as you possibly could be those kinds of things as well. Yeah,
(08:47):
and she cites Joe Freeman's nineteen seventy six essay on
feminists not necessarily doing this, not necessarily being supportive of
one another. So it's not like minister some magical unicorn
group of women who are immune from some of the
less desirable personality traits when it comes to friendship. And
(09:08):
in that essay, Freeman's sights and Selma Delolo who said,
quote achieving our accomplishment of any kind, which seem to
be the worst crime, you're immediately labeled a thrill seeking opportunist,
a ruthless mercenary out to make her fame and fortune
over the dead bodies of selfless sisters who have buried
their abilities and sacrifice their ambitions for the greater glory
(09:31):
of feminism. Wow. And I mean and that rings true
today as well, not just within feminism but in our
friendships in general. And it doesn't help that and we'll
talk about this more in define later in the podcast,
that a lot of times of female friendships that have
been modeled for us in pop culture have always had
(09:51):
those undercurrents of competition. And I hate to use this
word but cattiness. Yeah, exactly, And I mean one important
feminist figure who's always argued for women supporting one another
is Gloria Steinhum and Kristen and I heard firsthand Gloria
Steinham talking about the importance of even if you disagree
with someone, supporting them in their efforts to do better. Yeah,
(10:16):
And going back to Amy Poehler, she has a great
one liner about that, which is simply good for you,
not for me. And that's fine, and that's all it
has to be. Um. But the thing is, especially when
we're talking about this within the context of feminism, the
more we get distracted by fighting mongst ourselves and competing
and fuming with jealousy, it does give away ground to
(10:39):
the status quo and a patriarchy because it is a
distraction away from doing the work right exactly. Some people, though,
did not like this shine theory uh Slates. Hanna Rosen
was not a huge fan of this idea because she
saw it as too calculating. She basically called it forming
a strategic alliance and stead of forming an actual genuine friendship.
(11:02):
And she wonders whether, according to this theory, that you know,
if you've surrounded yourself purposely with all of these powerful,
really super ambitious women. If one of them loses a job,
goes through a hard time, you know, finds herself in
a funk for three weeks and doesn't get out of
her pajamas, do you have to kick her out of
your of your high powered social group all of a sudden,
(11:23):
or if or if she shows any type of jealousy
or weakness. Yeah. Funnily enough, she thinks that the advice
is quote old fashioned, a relic from the days when
women didn't see themselves as worthy competition for men, so
they fought one another for scraps, which is a pretty
damning assessment. Yeah. She suggests instead that if you're going
(11:45):
to try to have a strategy for your friendships, that
you should try compartmentalizing between your professional acquaintances and your
actual really close lady friends and then just recognize and
ride out the waves of envy as they come and go. So, basically,
you have these different friend groups for different purposes, one
of which is your true genuine group of friends. One
(12:07):
is the kind of friends that you have to help
you get ahead, um, and that you can use them
to sort of kind of let off steam about the
other group when you need to. While overall I by
the shine theory, but there is it seems like there
needs to be this distinction between what the shine theory is,
which seems like it's more along the lines of friendly
(12:29):
networking rather than cultivating best friendships. Right, Because the feeling
that I got having read that and then reading Rosen's
column about it, was that, Yeah, the shine theory is
great in that, yes, you should always encourage your lady friends,
and you should always strive to be the most genuine
supportive friend that you can and hope that you receive
(12:51):
that same treatment um in response. But yeah, I almost
feel like that might be a recipe for not so
genuine friendships and even the development of like a friend
of me relationship, which you and I have also talked about. Yeah. Well,
I was actually bene listening to call your girlfriend over
the weekend in Freedman's podcast and they mentioned the shine
(13:14):
theory and her co host said, oh, well, and you know,
I don't shine if you don't shine, And that kind
of hammered at home a little bit more to me
of like, Okay, that makes more sense than a day
to day with your friends of like you we want
to help each other be the best ladies that we
can be through our friendship. I get that, but yeah,
(13:36):
there's also the factor to where, especially if you're a
career oriented woman who spends a lot of time and
invest a lot of mental and emotional energy into her job,
I should just make this first person because I'm talking
about myself. I've found that that it's really important for
me to have friends where career is not a topic
(13:59):
that we even really go to, you know, like, I
feel like we need a break from it at some point.
It is nice to talk to people with other passions
and with their energy being directed in different areas instead
of just, you know, people exactly like yourself all the time. Yeah,
and I think you have to it goes both ways
to like to the point of what Hanter Rosen was
saying about, Well, what if you have a friend who
(14:21):
lost a job. What if you have a friend who's
not so successful, do you kick her out of the club? No?
And I think that it's you have to keep that
in mind too, when if you are the more successful friend,
how you treat and talk to your friends who are
maybe taking different paths than you are, and accepting that
as well. So it's a I mean, I like the
shine theory. I like the concept of the shine theory,
(14:42):
but as always, there's clearly more nuance to it than
just make friends with powerful women, right exactly. Um And
of course, if you are the more successful woman, then
chances are some people in your social group might be
envious of the things that you've a pomplished. Yeah. And
there has been a lot of research on jealousy and
(15:05):
envy in general. So first we want to share a
few facts about the purpose of jealousy why it exists,
because it seems like this, well, it is a negative emotion,
but it does have a purpose in the natural world.
And we're citing a paper by Sarah E. Hill and
(15:25):
David M. Bus called the Evolutionary Psychology of Envy. Right,
super interesting stuff that if you read it, and I
encourage you to do so, it makes you feel like
way less of a crazy person. Oh yeah, envy is
Envy is supernatural. It is I mean super natural to words,
not supernatural as in a deity. Um. Right, it is
(15:50):
innate and it likely played a role in like I
talked about earlier, getting the better spear, resource acquisition and
human survival because it motivates certain things like submission, ambition,
or destruction. Basically, you choose between like I'm super envious.
That means I'm getting ambition, I might acquire something better
or find a way to do it myself, or you
(16:11):
know something terrible, like ah, you've got the better spear,
so I'll destroy yours so that I feel better about myself.
But let's move away from spears and actually talk about
(16:33):
social groups, which is what we're here to actually talk about.
And envy has really been shown to lead to basically
talking smack about a person to your peer group because
that helps lower or it can help lower an opinion
of someone. So that's that's another like peer group focused
(16:55):
way of using envy as a destruction tool. But it's
a seek it of emotion because we know it's negative
and we don't want to admit that we're being outperformed
because what does that mean. Envy is like, Okay, you
have something that I really want, so I'm feeling envious
of you, and that might spark a whole slough of
negative emotions like hostility and insecurity and all this stuff.
(17:17):
But I don't want to tell this other person over
here Kristen has something that I want, because that just
makes me seem like, oh, well, I don't have enough
for I don't have what I need or should have exactly,
which is where shine theory would come in to say,
rather than giving into your insecurity, take advantage of it,
befriend make a you know, build the bridge between you
(17:40):
and that thing that you want. And shine theory jumped
out in this paper when they noted that quote. Researchers
have long noted that people reserve their feelings of enviousness
for those who are similar to themselves and for advantages
that are in self relevant domains. In other words, it's
understandable that we might have feelings of envy for the
(18:03):
women who are surrounding us, especially if they're in similar
kinds of careers or industries, because it tends to crop
up the most around the people who are the most
like us, because that would lead us to think, well,
you have everything that I had, but except for that
one thing. Why does your hair look amazing every single day?
That's right, Chris, I'm not talking about me. Yeah, And
(18:25):
that hair thing is not just a joke. I mean
it plays into an evolutionary psychology theory on women's envy
in particular, we tend to have greater envy and response
to our same sex peers being more attractive, whereas guys
are more envious of richer or guys with better resources.
(18:47):
And that you know, goes back to Okay, well what
do men and women want? Traditionally, and women are seeking
to be provided for and men are seeking a hot, fertile,
young mate. Basically, I know, yeah, that's there's always there's
always that factory and evolutionary psychology seems like. But I
(19:09):
did find it interesting that the researcher has mentioned that
envy should peak during our peak reproductive years. So because
it's all about ultimately, according to evolutionary psychology, it ultimately
as is everything about babies, Yeah, fighting for resources and
those resources are sperm. Yes, but there's There's also been
(19:31):
a lot of non evolutionary psychology research conducted on jealousy
and competition within female friendships, and it starts long before
our careers get off the ground. And one of the
most fascinating things to me about gender differences in friendships
(19:52):
that you see come up a lot in studies is
that girls tend to hold their girl friends, and I
mean girl, like young girl tend to hold their girlfriends
to hire standards. We think about friendships more often. We
expect more things like kindness, loyalty, and commitment from our friends.
We self disclose more to our girl friends. I mean
(20:14):
think about I mean just the excitement of telling or
hearing a secret from a friend when you were a girl.
I mean, that was that was so much of what
it was. And while that establishes this foundation for girl
friendships being so incredible, it also sets us up though,
for chelsea and disappointment and competition too, because we're so invested, right,
(20:38):
And then that leads us to what this study, which
is in the journal Developmental Psychology in two thousand five,
was saying about, how you know girls are there's so
much more of an intimacy level and female friendship than
in the friendships of young boys, to the point where
the interference of a third party tends to be a
significant source of tension between friends and the primary basis
(21:02):
for the breakup of friendships. Yeah, and researchers usually anticipate
jealousy interfering in girl friendships just because we have quote deeper,
more intimate friendships. And they also went on to say,
in this study quote, girls in general reported higher levels
of jealousy surrounding friends. So this is something that we're
(21:23):
dealing with in our formative years. Um. But interestingly too,
that gender difference might also be due to a gendered
stigma of jealousy being thought of as more of a
feminine emotion, probably because, like we were talking about with
the evolutionary psychology of envy, if you express envy or jealousy,
(21:44):
you're sort of tipping your hand a little bit right,
signaling weakness. So, for instance, if boys are feeling jealous
within the confines of these friendships, they have a tendency
to just say that they're upset versus they're jealous of something.
But Caroline, this is dealing with young her girls. What
then happens when puberty hits and sexiness walks in the room.
(22:07):
Oh my god, I feel like everybody could probably guess
the answer to this. Uh, nothing good, nothing good, nothing
good happens. Um. I mean, it's so interesting. The studies
that we read that basically threw a sexy lady into
the mix of two female friends showed over and over
again that if a if a sexy lady walks in
(22:29):
the room and encounters two female friends. The minute she
walks back out, the two female friends are going to
be like, am I God, did you see her? I
bet she's just here to bang the professor. Whereas if
a woman with like her hair and a nod on
the top of her head, wearing a T shirt and pants,
you know, if I walk into the room, if I
walk into the room, they don't think anything of it
(22:49):
at all. Yeah, yeah, there's no we're not We're not
bringing sexy back. But this The fascinating thing, though, too,
was that only until recently, really recently, scientists didn't even
really understand the entire concept of female competition. It was
assumed to be more of a male thing, obviously relating
(23:10):
to uh, gendered patterns of aggression and violence and adding
a little more complexity to this as well. Uh. The
New York Times was reporting on how female competition used
to be sort of a giant question mark because past
evolutionary analysis thought that our ancient poligionist societies just eliminated
(23:33):
any compulsion for female mate competition because hey, the hottest
dudes just have multiple wives, no big deal. But more
recent analysis has opened up that scenario a little bit
for female competition because they now think, well, women probably
would have still competed for the best resourced sperm contributor.
(23:53):
So it's it's all very romantic, it's very egalitarian, it's
very progressive. Um, but not jokinging female competition is only
recently been studied, and it is once you throw that
sexiness into the equation that it does come out, unfortunately,
at least according to the limited researches out there in
the form of female to female So what shaming. Yeah,
(24:17):
So researcher Sarah B. Hurdie has is researching female competition,
and she points out that it's only since the nineteen eighties,
which is really when more and more women started getting
into stem fields that people turn their attention to studying
women's competition and and uh, female on female competition and aggression. Um.
Of course, as we've talked about before, female on female
(24:40):
aggression does tend to be a little more passive aggressive,
a little less actually aggressive aggressive or especially physical. I mean,
we have to protect our delicate selves, right, Yeah, we're
less likelier to to punch each other. Yeah, don't punch
me in the baby maker, because we've got to be
making all those babies, all lot sperm I acquired with
my new spear, and not in the face, because how
(25:00):
will I find the best sperm contributor. Instead, I'm just
gonna say horrible things about you behind your back, right,
because that goes back to the whole envy discussion of
talking about someone behind her back to basically take her
down brick by brick, behind the scenes, instead of just
doing it to her face. Yeah, which is really no
less damaging, arguably even more damaging than punching someone in
(25:23):
the in the ute. And this is our way, according
to Dr Hurdie, that women limit access by maintaining advantage
in the negotiation of the resource, the resource being our
ability to find a decent person to procreate with um.
(25:44):
But moving on from that, Joyce Benison at Emmanuel College
has also studied female jealousy and competition, and she identified
to Psychology Today three unique characteristics of jealousy and women.
One ailed aggression rather than physical confrontation. We've already covered
that too high status women are less motivated to invest
(26:07):
in other women, and women who try to distinguish or
promote themselves threaten other women, and will encounter hostility and
enter shine theory needing to come into play, and the
three social exclusion to protect against potential competitors. So I
mean we we play dirty. Yeah, but I mean this
(26:29):
this supposedly like natural drive to be doing all of
this definitely follows us into our careers and jealousy reflecting
gender dynamics in the workplace, because when you think about it,
there are so few women as CEOs in the boardroom
in high power positions. So hopefully we're not fighting for
(26:51):
sperm in the office, but we're fighting for very limited
positions of power, and so that still will involve those
more the more veiled aggression, maybe the feelings of envy
and trying to take someone down behind the scenes so
that you're still being perceived as like, oh, I'm a
team player at work. Yeah, but I do think one
(27:12):
of the most damaging ways if you are a woman
vying for that limited seat, I mean stepping on the
backs of other women in order to get there is
I mean, I guess if you're out for yourself, okay,
but you're not helping other women in the process. And
and the fact of the matter is there are some
people for which they don't care. They don't care about
(27:33):
that at all every woman on a reality show. I
love those montages on YouTube of of women going I'm
not here to make friends. Yeah, because I mean there
is I think still this assumption that women are going
to naturally be competitive with each other and be jealous
of each other, and shine theory does tip it on
its head a bit of saying, hey, you know, we
can be successful, we can also be friendly, and we
(27:55):
can also maybe buck these perceptions that women in positions
of lead ship and power are aggressive and angry and unfriendly. Yeah,
because that doesn't help at all either now, and neither
does the loneliness that comes when you're looking at social
media for hours on end and some woman on social
media's posting pictures of her trip to Bali. I'm not
(28:18):
speaking from person or just a dinner parties you weren't
invited to, not speaking from personal experience eide of the Caroline. Yeah,
social media, I mean we're gonna we're going to mention
social media because women spend a lot of time on
social media. And as probably every every listener has seen
a trend piece on this, there have been so many
(28:38):
studies now linking Facebook and Instagram in particular to feelings
of loneliness, lower self worth, and jealousy because we're seeing
we're seeing things that we don't have. I mean, yes,
these are images that are curated and filtered and cleverly captioned.
We hope to, you know, make your life look as
(28:59):
great as possible. But still, but it's weird. It's almost
like it's almost like the way that fake sugar like
will never satisfy your brain because your brain wants real sugar,
and so it keeps searching. It's it's almost like you're
you're in a fake competition with other women on social
media when you look at their amazing pictures of their
trip or their dinner or their vacation or husband or
(29:19):
whoever whatever. Because so envy is supposed to spark ambition, right,
you see something you want and you're like, I've got
to figure out a way to get that for myself
and do do well for myself. But the image that
people present of themselves on social media, it's not anywhere
close to being reel. Yeah, you might post pictures of
(29:40):
an amazing trip you took, but that doesn't cover up
like maybe you had a bad day, maybe you're not
feeling good about yourself, maybe you yourself or insecure, and
so it's almost like people are envious of something that
they don't fully grasp and so that like breeds this
whole feeling of insecurity and instability and envy when really
you should just be congratulating on your friend on a
good trip and saying, hey, how you doing. Yeah? I mean.
(30:03):
And when it comes to that realness factor on social
media and our curated images, I would like to highlight
that my Twitter avatar that is fake blood on my face,
not real ladies. You don't need to be envious. Um.
And also I think that you just came up with
something that we should call the splendid theory. So yeah, hello,
(30:25):
shine theory, me splendid theory, and together, what would that
make fool's gold? But before we close out this conversation,
we did want to take a look at television because
we mentioned earlier about how media representations of female friendships,
particularly in movies and television, often, you know, follow the
(30:49):
assumption that we all secretly hate each other and they're
all fre enemies. And there is still a lot of
that on TV. Just look at the Real Housewives franchise
and the Batch aller but I think in some ways
it has gotten better. We do have some examples of uh,
female friendships on TV. And I'm only focusing on TV
(31:10):
just because there's not even time to get into film,
but there are examples of friendships where shine theory is
at work, not just in a sense of a career,
but supporting people through life decisions too. And I think
that that's something especially for me as an adult woman
with my friends who have now had for years and
years and years too. It's it's not just the career
(31:32):
success that can stoke envy, but it's also the life success.
We're all starting to hit the milestones you're starting to get,
like engagements and marriages and pregnancies and divorce and that,
and that plays a role in things as well. Yeah,
it is refreshing to see depictions of female friendship that
seemed very genuine. I mean, take a show like Girls,
(31:52):
which wait, don't turn off the podcast. I know not
everybody is a fan, but when you have a show
like Girls, I feel like that's still depict doing genuine
female friendships and all of the messiness that can come
along with it. These women are being pitted against each other.
There's not cattiness per se, but there's genuine love and
support just on the same token as there is insecurity
(32:14):
and sort of measuring up against one another. Yeah, and
Broad City. Hello. Is there a more dedicated duo of
female friends on prime Time? I don't think so, because
I think that Alanna would would murder for Abby and
she would also marry her if she could, if Abby
would have her um and then even to a Sex
(32:37):
in the City. You know, those friendships showed time and
again lots of support through milestones and successes and even
through failures too, And I feel like in that way,
Sex in the City was a healthy model Parks and recreation,
Leslie Nopes, undying love of Anne right. And I think
(32:57):
one of my favorites, even though I hate this show
now out is Grey's Anatomy, the friendship between Meredith and Christina,
because I remember so clearly the episode where Christina said
that Meredith was her person, because I was like, oh,
there it is. That's my friendship reflected in these two
fictional characters. Because I feel that way about a couple
(33:18):
of ladies too, and it's like they're they're my my people,
my tribe, my my people who will tell me when
I'm full of crap, but who will also support me unconditionally.
And an older sitcom as well that depicts strong female
friendships through life events is Girl Friends. As well as
Awkward Black Girl. You have the Gilmore Girls. Arguably, I
(33:40):
feel like that's a little bit of a stretch. And
also Buffy the Vampire Slayer. We've got some strong female
friendships in there as well, So there's some good modeling
going on. And I do think though that for the
TV shows we just mentioned that are on the air
right now, it's interesting that most of them are created
by women. Yeah. I mean that's the importance of representation.
(34:04):
When people talk about why is it important to get
women in X Y Z Field, this is a great example.
You get more women's perspectives in the TV writer's room,
and then you get more realistic depictions of actual women. Yeah,
And I think that those depictions are important. I think
it is important, especially for girls to see I mean,
(34:27):
not that girls are sitting down and watching Gray's Anatomy.
To girls watch Gray's Anatomy, I don't know. I don't know,
but I think just generally it's so important for younger
girls to see healthy models of female friendship because from
the get go, least according to studies and according to
my experience when I was a girl, we invest so
(34:47):
much in our friends, and our friends means so much
to us, and when they break our hearts, it's like
no other heartbreak. And I feel like this follows us
in morphson evolves as we get older. And I really
love most of all Amy Poehler's advice of just don't
root for other people's failure. You know something's not for you,
(35:10):
that's fine, good for her, not for me exactly. So
let's hear from some listeners. What do you think about
the shine theory? How how has success and competition influenced
your closer friendships? And do you think that you should
make friends with powerful people or is that just kind
(35:30):
of networking? And guys, we want to hear from you two.
I know this was a lady focused conversation, but we
always want to hear your thoughts as well. Mom Stuff
at how stuff works dot Com is our email address.
You can also tweet us and mom stuff podcast and
messages on Facebook, and we've got a couple of messages
this year with you. Right now, Well, I have a
(35:58):
letter here from Samantha about depends episode. She says, I'm
a costume designer out in Seattle, and when it comes
to historical plays, the right undergarments are essential. While I
was interesting to hear about the political and social feelings
on underwear, I was saddened that you barely touched on
the function of these garments. If it weren't for coursets,
(36:18):
many Victorian and Edwardian dresses would look awful since the
dresses themselves were never made of fabric that could hold
structure or form. You mentioned that once World War Two
was over, we go back to constraining undergarments like bullet braws, girdles,
and petticoats, but the shape and design of those dresses
wouldn't be fully realized because without those bases, it would
(36:39):
look like a totally different dress. Even now, we used
banks to get the garments we wear to look like
they are intended to look. I love the podcast and
thanks for helping me become a better informed feminist. Keep
up the good work well. Thank you, Samantha. Thank you
for filling us in on some historical details. And Samantha
and some Mother listeners have also filled us in on
(37:01):
mispronunciation of the word shamis, which I woefully misled Caroline
into thinking it was pronounced camis. So my since serious apologies.
I don't know why that was thought was Camise always
said it that way in my head. It was just
like that serious c Anderson comic. Well, I now have
a letter from Sarah about our Glitteracy podcast and Columbo,
(37:26):
and it made me laugh. So here it is. She said,
love your podcast. I listened to it all the time
at work. Thank you for all your hard work. I
was just listening to the Cliteracy podcast, and I know
you were thinking that Columbo discovering the Clitterest reminded you
of Columbus, but I humorously started thinking of Detective Columbo
played by Peter Falk in the nineteen six eight TV
(37:48):
show Columbo, which side note, I totally watched that all
the time with my parents. I kept inwardly laughing every
time I thought of his catchphrase, it's just one thing
I don't understand, and applying it to the glitter is nothing.
He usually groundbreaking To actually tell you about the episode
other than that I enjoyed it and the thought of
Columbo the detective was super funny to me. I hope
(38:11):
it made you laugh too, and it did, Sarah, so
thank you and thanks everybody else who's written into us.
Moms Stuff at how stuff Works dot com is our
email address and for links to all of our social
media as well as all of our blogs, videos, and podcasts,
including this one with links to and Freedman's Peace About
Shine theory so you can read along. Head on over
(38:32):
to stuff Mom Never Told You dot com and that
brings us to the end of this classic episode. We
would love to hear from you if you'd like to
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(38:52):
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