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Monday Mini: Women and Guilt · Stuff Mom Never Told You

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  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Anny and Samantha. I'm welcome to Stuff
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  Speaker 1: Will Never Told You projection of iHeartRadio and today for
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  Speaker 1: the Monday Mini, we were tackling a subject that is
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  Speaker 1: a much larger subject, so we're just going to focus
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  Speaker 1: in on some basics. We have talked about guilt before,
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  Speaker 1: women in guilt in a lot of different ways. So
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  Speaker 1: I was trying to come up with We've had busy,
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  Speaker 1: a busy week here at Stuff One Never Told You,
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  Speaker 1: So I was trying to come up with something that
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  Speaker 1: wouldn't be too complicated. Usually we make a mistake and
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  Speaker 1: it is incredibly complicated anyway, but that might be the
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  Speaker 1: case for this one as well. But I was thinking
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  Speaker 1: about I had just come back from Dragon Con, which
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  Speaker 1: is something I love doing every year. It is a
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  Speaker 1: source of stress every year, however, and I realize, like
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  Speaker 1: every year after I do it, I feel guilty, Like
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  Speaker 1: I go over everything that I did. Did I impact
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  Speaker 1: this person's time? Did I make it better? Did I
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  Speaker 1: make it worse? Like all of these decisions and questions
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  Speaker 1: and everything, and I just feel guilty. And I've noticed
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  Speaker 1: that that happens a lot when I hang out with people.
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  Speaker 1: In general, I'm just always questioning if I made the
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  Speaker 1: right or wrong decision, and it's something I've grown to expect.
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  Speaker 1: I think I've joked before when we go back and
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  Speaker 1: pick out classics, I can always tell what time of
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  Speaker 1: the year it is, because we kind of do similar
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  Speaker 1: episodes around the same time of the year. Like Sabatha
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  Speaker 1: usually have one about holiday stress and burn my places. Yes,
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  Speaker 1: I have one about dragon con and boundaries and stress
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  Speaker 1: around that, and so I've just because it's something that
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  Speaker 1: I've come to expect. And we have talked about guilt
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  Speaker 1: several times, and I think we should come back and
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  Speaker 1: revisit it on a larger scale because the media has
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  Speaker 1: given women's guilts as compared to men's, a fancy, flashy
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  Speaker 1: new name, which is the guilt gap. Cool. You know,
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  Speaker 1: they love to do it. So we're mostly focusing on
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  Speaker 1: there's a lot of different types of guilt, and we're
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  Speaker 1: going to get into some of them. We're mostly focusing
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  Speaker 1: on ones that impact women more than men. Okay. Multiple
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  Speaker 1: studies have found that women of all ages experience more
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  Speaker 1: guilt than men. In one study, women had a lot
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  Speaker 1: more reasons they listed for feeling guilty as compared to men.
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  Speaker 1: Both in professional and personal terms. So it was like,
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  Speaker 1: no matter what it is, women feel more guilty in
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  Speaker 1: this very heteronormative way. But I did find a study
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  Speaker 1: that had a non binary also and they feel even
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  Speaker 1: more guilt than women did in that study. There has
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  Speaker 1: been a lot of research into why this might be.
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  Speaker 1: I don't think any of it is really surprising. One
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  Speaker 1: of the main theories has to do with how women
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  Speaker 1: are socialized. So women are often socialized to put themselves
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  Speaker 1: second and make everyone else happy. If someone or something
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  Speaker 1: isn't right, women often believe it's their faults and they
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  Speaker 1: are the ones who have to fix it. We are
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  Speaker 1: also socialized to be more empathetic, and when we can't
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  Speaker 1: act on that empathy, we feel guilty. Some speculate in
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  Speaker 1: a strange way, it is also an attempt to control
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  Speaker 1: our circumstances, so if we're guilty of breaking something, we
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  Speaker 1: have the power to fix it. Admitting that things aren't
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  Speaker 1: our fault also is an admission that we can't control things.
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  Speaker 1: For some it's a way of not addressing how to
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  Speaker 1: move forward. So, I mean, there's a lot of a
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  Speaker 1: lot to unpack there, but I do think it's interesting
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  Speaker 1: that if you are laying the blame on yourself. Then
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  Speaker 1: you feel like you can fix it, like you have
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  Speaker 1: some kind of power, it's in your control. A lot
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  Speaker 1: of times it isn't. And there's so many I was
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  Speaker 1: thinking about this. There's so many stories I've read where
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  Speaker 1: the like powerful moment is you know, someone telling you
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  Speaker 1: it's not your fault you have yeah, and you're like,
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  Speaker 1: it is though.
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  Speaker 2: That with men? Well, like, I've never seen that as a
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  Speaker 2: scene with women that I think about it. I've seen
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  Speaker 2: like three or four times.
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  Speaker 1: Couple of those.
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  Speaker 2: Times it's a joke, but few of those times. A
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  Speaker 2: lot of the times i've seen that. Maybe it was
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  Speaker 2: because it was so highlighted in the stupid Matt Damon
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  Speaker 2: movie Oh Goodwill Hunting.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, Okay, well, yeah, I think you have a point
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  Speaker 1: there because most of the things I'm thinking of, I
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  Speaker 1: can think of some instances of women, but all of
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  Speaker 1: this is fan fiction, so i'd have to really I.
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  Speaker 2: Feel like the scenarios that I've seen that are all
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  Speaker 2: dramatized are men.
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  Speaker 1: Interesting? Okay, well, listeners, let us know, let us know
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  Speaker 1: if we're missing a good example. I would love to
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  Speaker 1: hear about it. So there, as I said, there have
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  Speaker 1: been a lot of studies about this, and they have
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  Speaker 1: broken down the types of guilt that affect women. There's
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  Speaker 1: so many. I think one of the studies I was
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  Speaker 1: reading at forty nine different specific things. So I'm just
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  Speaker 1: going to go over some of the basic ones. One
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  Speaker 1: is sexual guilt and virginity guilt, which I thought was interesting.
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  Speaker 1: Basically feeling guilty for not being sexual enough or still
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  Speaker 1: being a virgin or not being a virgin. So many
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  Speaker 1: of these things are like damned if you do, damned
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  Speaker 1: if you don't. Yeah, type of conversation. You feel bad
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  Speaker 1: either way. And we've talked about this a lot before
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  Speaker 1: when we talked about actual violence and self blame. What
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  Speaker 1: was I wearing, should I have gone out, etc. All
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  Speaker 1: these factors that society tells us and then some of
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  Speaker 1: us internalize of like I could have controlled it, and
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  Speaker 1: I could have prevented what happened based on these things.
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  Speaker 1: Survivor's guilt was a big one, both with kind of
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  Speaker 1: sexual assault, but also outside of that, and then guilt
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  Speaker 1: for your own trauma, guilt for being traumatized and bringing
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  Speaker 1: it up. That was a big one. Not reaching milestones,
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  Speaker 1: which is something you and I have talked about a lot,
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  Speaker 1: not having the house, not having the family, whatever it is.
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  Speaker 1: Women reported a lot more guilt about that than died
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  Speaker 1: for having a better life than others and or not
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  Speaker 1: doing enough. Body slash health guilt slash falls. So having
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  Speaker 1: guilt around not taking care of your yourself, not looking
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  Speaker 1: a certain way, and having any sort of flaw. That
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  Speaker 1: was a big one. Religious guilt. Now, as you know, listeners,
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  Speaker 1: we did a whole bitty series thirteen plus episode Don't
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  Speaker 1: Worry about Us that looked into this, but it was
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  Speaker 1: it was a big one. It came up for a
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  Speaker 1: lot of women not feeling like they were meeting the standards,
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  Speaker 1: and they even went out of their way to say
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  Speaker 1: it wasn't the kind of original sin of Eve. It
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  Speaker 1: was just I'm not meeting the standards of the religion
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  Speaker 1: that I follow in my mind. Feeling guilty for not
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  Speaker 1: having at all or competing at work. I think there
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  Speaker 1: was a lot. There were a lot of work ones
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  Speaker 1: that were interesting because it was essentially feeling guilty for
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  Speaker 1: not doing enough, but also for like I don't know,
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  Speaker 1: bragging or doing too much. Damned if you do, damn
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  Speaker 1: if you don't. Again, feeling like you can't make mistakes
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  Speaker 1: and guilty if you do. As a symptom of depressive
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  Speaker 1: disorder also came up. There were a lot, a lot,
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  Speaker 1: a lot of them were around family and relationships, so
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  Speaker 1: not being there for family enough, feeling guilty for saying no.
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  Speaker 1: Here is a quote from the Glasshammer. Researchers found that
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  Speaker 1: nineteen percent of single women feel selfish for setting aside
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  Speaker 1: time for their self care. The same research concluded that
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  Speaker 1: eighty six percent of married women feel the same way.
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  Speaker 1: Selfish feelings can come with extra guilt because you don't
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  Speaker 1: want to let anyone down by spending time on yourself.
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  Speaker 1: That's a huge eighty six percent. And we've talked about
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  Speaker 1: that too before, about that feeling as a mother, and
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  Speaker 1: neither of us are mothers, but that feeling of you
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  Speaker 1: have to put yourself seck in. Yeah, everyone else's first,
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  Speaker 1: and you can't take time for self care apparently, right,
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  Speaker 1: are you.
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  Speaker 2: Feeling suffish, you know, taking care of your children, which,
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  Speaker 2: by the way, also I feel like I don't see
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  Speaker 2: it in here. You're selfish for not having children. I've
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  Speaker 2: seen them lot to women specifically.
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  Speaker 1: Mm hmmm, I think that was on there. I didn't
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  Speaker 1: include it in my outline, but because it had forty
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  Speaker 1: nine reasons that right, But yeah, there was one that
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  Speaker 1: was you know, essentially because I've talked about that too.
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  Speaker 1: I felt guilty for not having kids in my family,
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  Speaker 1: even though I never wanted them. And I actually told
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  Speaker 1: my mom recently. She came to visit me on my
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  Speaker 1: birthday and she was like, you know, I would have
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  Speaker 1: liked grandkids. I was like, well, you're not getting them
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  Speaker 1: for me, right, And she was like, I know, it's fine,
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  Speaker 1: but there was a time I was considering, I guess
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  Speaker 1: I'll get married and have kids, even though it's not
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  Speaker 1: what I want.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. I think that's in this level of like, you're
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  Speaker 2: not giving me guilt grandchildren, which has never been accused
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  Speaker 2: of me. My parents have said we wanted a cute
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  Speaker 2: Asian child, and only what a grand child, and like
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  Speaker 2: that's weird because who knows there could be problems. I
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  Speaker 2: could have problems, and that's a whole different trauma if
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  Speaker 2: I feel guilty that I couldn't produce. But like, yeah,
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  Speaker 2: there's I've seen a lot of people talk about you
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  Speaker 2: should feel guilty. Yeah I'm not having children, and people
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  Speaker 2: are like, yeah, we do, like I'm like, what, I
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  Speaker 2: don't I.
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  Speaker 1: Don't know, but I know I do know that people
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  Speaker 1: will try to make a lot of people feel guilty
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  Speaker 1: for that, and I know that it's a thing, so uh,
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  Speaker 1: not dismissing it at all. Feeling guilty for existing was
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  Speaker 1: a big one.
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  Speaker 2: Uh.
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  Speaker 1: Feeling guilty for breaking up slash divorce like failure of relationship.
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  Speaker 1: This was an interesting one because they the study I'm referencing,
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  Speaker 1: they had the percentage of men versus percentage of women
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  Speaker 1: that felt guilty for it, and uh, women were much
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  Speaker 1: more likely to feel guilty for this. They were guilty,
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  Speaker 1: I mean in every one they felt more guilty, but
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  Speaker 1: the percentage was higher in that one. Not loving your partner,
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  Speaker 1: So I thought this was interesting. It's basically like if
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  Speaker 1: you start dating somebody and you think, you know what,
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  Speaker 1: I don't really love them, but I like them a lot,
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  Speaker 1: and maybe I'll start to love them, and then it
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  Speaker 1: just never happens, and then you want to break up
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  Speaker 1: and feeling very guilty for that. Here's a quote from
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  Speaker 1: a study called the Wide Variety of Reasons for Feeling
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  Speaker 1: Guilty and Adults, Findings from a large cross sectional web
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  Speaker 1: based survey by Tobias Luck and Claudia Luck Sikorskime. Female participants, however,
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  Speaker 1: more frequently stated reasons for feeling guilty assigned to categories
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  Speaker 1: like subjectively perceived responsibilities for life situations, events, circumstances and death,
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  Speaker 1: circumstances of others slash for not being able to help
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  Speaker 1: slash support neglecting someone, not taking enough care of someone,
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  Speaker 1: not being there for someone, faults in education, or misbehavior
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  Speaker 1: towards children, not spending enough time with children, not taking
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  Speaker 1: enough care of children, not being there for children more
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  Speaker 1: than male participants. Male participants, by contrast, more frequently stated
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  Speaker 1: reasons for feeling guilty related to partners slash spouse problems
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  Speaker 1: slash issues in relationship slash marriage, cheating slash having affairs
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  Speaker 1: and divor slash breakup. So they were more worried about
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  Speaker 1: that whole part. And it seems women were more worried
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  Speaker 1: about like everybody else in their life, like children, taking
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  Speaker 1: care of family, community.
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  Speaker 2: Like it's also cheating. They should feel guilty rightly, So
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  Speaker 2: if you don't, you're a sociopath.
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  Speaker 1: It was pretty telling, you know, like with any study
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  Speaker 1: like this, this is self reported. It was an internet study,
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  Speaker 1: but I do think it was pretty telling because some
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  Speaker 1: of the percentages were very stark and like men didn't
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  Speaker 1: seem to care about that at all, and women were
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  Speaker 1: really worried about it, but especially children. Like that, it
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  Speaker 1: didn't seem that children came up too much with the men.
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  Speaker 2: In the low birth rate.
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  Speaker 1: I wonder why, Yeah, exactly exactly. Something else I wanted
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  Speaker 1: to note is that in this study they found that
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  Speaker 1: older folks report less feelings of guilt, and they had Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: they had a couple of reasons for why they thought
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  Speaker 1: that was.
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  Speaker 2: One is.
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  Speaker 1: Kind of this idea of like looking back with regret
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  Speaker 1: versus just kind of accepting where your life went, and
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  Speaker 1: something called what they call the fading effects, which is
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  Speaker 1: just like once you get further away from something, you
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  Speaker 1: don't really regret it as much because this is your
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  Speaker 1: life now, this is you're not going to change it.
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  Speaker 1: So I did think that was really interesting though, because
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  Speaker 1: a lot of times you see stories of the media
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  Speaker 1: where the older folks are like, I regret everything in
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  Speaker 1: my life, and you know, they look back, But this,
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  Speaker 1: this study seemed to indicate.
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  Speaker 3: Like, na, Yeah, so if you're someone like me who
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  Speaker 3: does struggle with a lot of just guilt for random things.
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  Speaker 1: There are a lot of tips out there, some that
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  Speaker 1: I wanted to include. Recognize instances when you start to
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  Speaker 1: feel guilty. So I've clearly already said one, when I
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  Speaker 1: hang out with you for some reason, I'm worrying that
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  Speaker 1: I've made I did something wrong, So I should look
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  Speaker 1: at that and examine why that is. Try to remove
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  Speaker 1: yourself from the cause of guilt. So, like, what would
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  Speaker 1: I think about this situation if I wasn't at fault.
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  Speaker 1: So if you kind of take away the idea that
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  Speaker 1: it's your fault, then what just look at that situation.
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  Speaker 1: Once you take that away, focus on the present. I
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  Speaker 1: think this is a big problem for me where I'm
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  Speaker 1: always thinking about the next thing. Oh are they bored?
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  Speaker 1: Or they have I ruined this? Have I ruined that?
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  Speaker 1: But if you stay in the present, and I find
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  Speaker 1: a lot of times, if I'm being objective, everybody was fine.
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  Speaker 1: They didn't need me to be mother hitting over, Like,
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  Speaker 1: are you having the best time of your life? Find
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  Speaker 1: activities that calm you down and make time for them.
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  Speaker 1: We recently talked about this self suthing, yes, And I
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  Speaker 1: also want to mention the intersection of all of this
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  Speaker 1: in communication, because that did come up a lot in
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  Speaker 1: the research I was doing, of just being able to
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  Speaker 1: communicate your feelings of guilt and hopefully having someone who
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  Speaker 1: will listen to you and be able to tell you,
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  Speaker 1: be able to legitimize that you feel that way, but
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  Speaker 1: tell you why that's not what's going on here or
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  Speaker 1: whatever it is, or just talk it out. Just talk
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  Speaker 1: it out. So that's a very, very very condensed version
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  Speaker 1: of a topic I think we're going to have to
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  Speaker 1: come back to because that research paper was quite long.
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  Speaker 1: But yeah, it was very they said at the top,
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  Speaker 1: in every instance, in every category, women feel more guilty
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  Speaker 1: than me. I said it flat out. So clearly it's
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  Speaker 1: a thing and we should talk about it. But in
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  Speaker 1: the meantime, listeners, if you have any thoughts about this,
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  Speaker 1: we would love to hear from you. You can email
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: us at Hello at Stuffwenever Told You dot com. You
• 17:14
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• 17:26
  Speaker 1: our super producer Christine our executive produce and your contributor
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: Joey Yes, thank you and thanks to you for listening
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