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Michelle Ruiz, Journalist - Beyond the Byline · She’s Smart

0:02
Hey, everybody. Welcome to She's Smart. I'm your host, Maria Robotham.
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On today's episode, I have Michelle Ruiz, a contributing culture editor at Vogue
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and frequent cover story author at Vanity Fair.
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She has profiled Giselle Bad Bunny and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
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She is a freelance journalist for the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal,
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and more, covering emergent social trends, gender, politics,
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and the British royal family.
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We get into all of this and so much more in the episode.
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A quick disclaimer, toward the end of the episode, we discuss a book entitled
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Ejaculate Responsibly, which is about abortion.
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So get cozy as we connect, learn, and laugh together on She's Smart.
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Thank you for being on the podcast. Congratulations on the podcast.
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Oh, my God. Thank you. I'd just like to jump right in. Let's just jump right
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in. I have a million notes.
1:00
You have been a contributing editor for Vanity Fair.
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You've interviewed Giselle, Bad Bunny, Jenna Ortega, and the British royal family.
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I interviewed them, but you've covered them, right? And amongst other things
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that we're going to get to.
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But my first question is, how did you come into journalism?
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I came into it by, I think, just a love of writing, a love of reading,
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realizing I went to college for international business, but I really didn't know what that meant.
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I just thought it sounded like a job that I would like to have.
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I don't know, international business, you have to be a grownup and get a job.
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So I wasn't thinking about what am I good at? What do I enjoy?
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But then I went to college and couldn't even hack it in the prerequisites for that major.
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And then just really quickly realized, okay, I should obviously...
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Be an English major and a Spanish major. I should write. And what job can I
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get that would allow me to be writing?
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And it was just a very quick pivot to realizing that this is what I should do.
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And then I interned at ABC News Radio.
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And then I got hired there after
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I graduated. And I worked there for five years. So that was my first job.
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In the radio part of it? Yes. And it It was a 24-hour radio newsroom.
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So ABC News had all these affiliate radio stations, and then they would – we
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were basically like the nucleus blasting the news out to all of these stations.
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So we had correspondents everywhere or if something crazy happened,
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you know, I was kind of like an off-air reporter slash producer writer.
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So something would happen, and I would, like, get on the phone and start trying
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to get audio, you know, reporting.
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I remember, like, a bridge collapsed. And so it's like Google Maps,
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like, okay, what businesses are by this bridge? And, you know,
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calling them and being like, what do you see? What's happening?
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And then making clips out of that and writing copy for the radio and sending
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it out. Did you enjoy that part of it?
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I did. I did. You know, it wasn't the job I wanted.
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I think I wanted to be doing what I'm doing now. I wanted to be like an intern
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at Vanity Fair or Glamour or something. But that was 2004. And I think the intern
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at Vanity Fair was like Graydon Carter's niece and neighbor.
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And then that was it. I didn't go to one of these schools that I didn't major
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in journalism. I didn't have...
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That pipeline. So I took the job that I could get.
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And it was actually so, it was really exciting.
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It never slept literally. It was a 24-hour newsroom. So when you were young,
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I used to work sometimes a 2 a.m. to 9 a.m.
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Shift or a 4.30 to 12.30 in the morning shift.
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You're just doing it because that's the job. You're just doing it because someone
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has to be manning that news because if a tsunami happened like it did, if it happened at 6 a.m.
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And no one's there, I mean, that doesn't work. And then you miss it completely.
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Someone has to be there at all times. No, talk about a learning experience.
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You literally were doing all of it. You were thrown into writing, producing.
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It wasn't just like here, you sit here and do the copy.
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The deadline was just a constant, constant thing. And it was an amazing learning
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experience because it was learning to just write really quickly,
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but accurately and cleanly.
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You can't waste words when you're handing
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it to you know a veteran anchor who's
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been on the radio forever and and
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you know this now from doing this where when you're speaking words versus reading
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words you know the spoken word has to be pretty tight and concise and it was
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i mean there was it was the 2004 election it was the 2008 election so it was
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like being there on election night seeing how that unfolds a lot of times you're
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learning things before the rest of the world learns things.
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I think it was the deaths of Saddam Hussein's sons.
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The pictures are coming into our email, and we're learning about that,
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and they haven't put it out there yet.
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A lot of times it was being like you're really, really there on the razor's
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edge of what's going on in the world. It was cool.
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Okay. You covered the red carpet at one point. I was in this national newsroom,
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And there was an entertainment arm of the newsroom.
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And I would always beg to just go to stuff. So I was an intern there.
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And the Sex and the City, the final season, the Sex and the City premiere was happening.
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And I just waltzed into the entertainment producer's office.
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And I was like, can I please come with you? Please.
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Just begged. And he let me come.
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And so, yeah, I always have just loved pop culture so much, loved entertainment
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news. So I was sort of weaseling my way over there.
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And then when a job became available, I got that job.
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I left the – and it was a little bit less 24-hour news.
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We weren't there at 2 in the morning doing that. But we were out covering red
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carpets and we went to the Oscars.
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And it was amazing. So I was probably doing it from 2005 or 2006 to 2009 for them.
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And I continued covering red carpets and parties for a while.
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And it's its own form of reporting. You know, like when you're in the newsroom, it's its own thing.
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And then when you're out there, it's having to come up with questions that are
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not the same exact question as every single other person on this red carpet.
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TV takes precedence. And then it goes down the line to maybe print,
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I guess. And then probably at the very end, we were, I mean,
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radio, I mean, radio is towards the end at that point.
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So it was really coming up with pithy questions that they hadn't heard,
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good soundbites because them just saying what they're wearing or them just saying good, fine,
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one word answers that doesn't help us tell a story on the radio. So it was its own.
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It was fun, but it was also still work. Yeah.
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You know, instead of challenges, right? Yeah. But it was cool.
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It was cool to be young and interviewing Mr.
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Big before he was canceled or to be at like the Sopranos premiere.
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And I loved that show. My whole family loved it.
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And be, you know, interviewing Pauly Walnuts and seeing who was jolly and fun
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and a great interview and who maybe less so.
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And it was great. It was fun. Oh, their real personalities come out.
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Yeah. And you get to do that.
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Yeah. Their toleration for you. Yeah. And their toleration for that setting.
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Yeah. And the questions, like another one like this.
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But when people watch it and they're like, they're so bad, they suck so much.
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I'm always like, it is a lot harder than it looks, guys.
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It's harder than it looks. Yeah. I could only imagine. And the stress.
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And there's a lot of people coming down.
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So to have an interesting gem of a question for dozens of people,
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I mean, I think the award shows then would be the hardest, but we would go cover
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one movie premiere or one show premiere. So that's easier to prepare for. you know.
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Oh, that's so fun. Yeah, it was fun. Okay. So I have to ask you about choosing your stories.
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So when I was in college, I went to school thinking I was going to go into journalism.
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It is what I wanted to do. I was like, I am going to be on TV and report the
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news or something to that effect.
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And I had this amazing professor and it was my first class and it was mass communications
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because it's like the standard class you take when you start journalism.
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And he was a fascinating human being. He's an older guy. He's friends with the Ramseys.
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Remember Jean-Bernet Ramsey, the little girl? Okay. So I was in Boulder.
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So he knew them. He was a plethora of knowledge.
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And he said to us in the first day of class, if you think you're going to do
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journalism, that's great. I want you to know that you will never get to report what you want to.
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It will always be told to you what you're going to do.
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And when he said that, I immediately said, well, I'm done because no one's going to tell me what to say.
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I think that's true. And it isn't, though. I'm sad that it dissuaded you. It did.
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But I'm curious how it looked for you. I think if you're in a newsroom,
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you can't control the news, right?
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But you can also control working in the entertainment news section or working
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in the news, hard news, breaking news section or working in investigative reports.
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So I think you do have choice unless you're working in breaking news.
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But I think it's almost like that's the way that, you know, doctors choose a
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specialty. And some people just like to be in the ER with stuff being thrown at them.
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Not that I would ever compare journalism to medicine. But, you know,
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I'm sad to dissuade you because I think you can choose definitely more over
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time because back then, no, I could not really choose.
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But even by the time I became an entertainment news producer,
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I could say like, oh, look, OK, this is an up and coming person and we should cover this person.
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Or, like, I don't know why this is what's standing out, but Will Shorts,
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who does the New York Times crossword every single day, was like the icon of that section.
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There was a documentary about him, and we were like, we should do this.
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You know, that was completely our feeling like he would be such a fascinating interview subject.
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And so you do have more control. I think it depends on where you work,
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and it depends on the circumstances.
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And now it's like, it's both. I have control over what assignments I might accept, for sure.
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Or then I have control over what I'm pitching. So if I'm pitching a story,
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it doesn't mean they have to take it, but that's something that I want to dive into.
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Or for those stories like Jenna Ortega or something, that comes to me where
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my editor at the magazine is sort of like, we want to do a cover about her and
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will you write it. So it's both.
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It's kind of it's a little bit of both. And sometimes stories will come where
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I'm like, do I want to dive into that topic?
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Do I want to give my time to that? Honestly, no. Yeah.
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And I think over time, you may you gain a little bit more control over it.
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A little more seniority. Yeah, maybe a little more seniority.
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But I think it's also, it's probably also a skill to be like,
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okay, here's a topic, you know, nothing about it.
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A lot of times the essence of journalism, here's a topic, you know,
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nothing about it. You have to go learn about it, do the reporting,
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make the calls, do the research.
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And yeah, a lot of times it was stuff that I would not have necessarily chosen,
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but, but it's all part of learning the job.
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Were there, were there pitches that they said no to? Do you remember any?
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God, that's such a good question. Yeah, definitely. There were ones that they
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said no to. Oh, well, just recently, I wanted to do a JLo cover.
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And so I kind of went to one of my editors, and I was like, we should do this JLo cover.
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I put a lot of effort and energy into the pitch as I would make it,
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you know, like, she has been through all of these public disastrous breakups.
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And yet she also made this whole documentary about her romantic life and puts
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it out there. So she invites it in a certain sense, but then people do relish in her downfall in a way.
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And like, I think that there was just a lot of curiosity and my editor agreed.
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And I think maybe they were trying or have tried, but then I don't know that it's come to pass.
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Okay. So that's kind of one where it's like, will it ever happen?
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I don't know. Such a good one. Maybe not. We're also fascinated by her.
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Yeah, I'm fascinated by her. And I'm just, I want to know what's going through
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her mind. Well, I noticed that when I'm reading your articles,
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your voice is very clear.
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I've read The Bad Bunny, The Giselle, like most recently The General Ortega, your...
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You're a fantastic writer first. Thank you. And I enjoy reading it because they
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keep going deeper as you get further in.
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And I love that about your storytelling, about how you bring the story to life
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and the General Ortega piece, like how you're sitting there and you're describing
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where she's at and you're literally inside the banquette, like with you guys.
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So glad. You're in it. And I think that not everyone does that.
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Not everyone gets that in this kind of journalism. And I honestly,
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with magazines just not being published anymore, I think it's difficult.
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It's a rough time. Right?
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It is. I get magazines. I still get the Wall Street Journal. I like paper.
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I do too. I go and buy the books like that person. Same. I don't like reading
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on an electronic device.
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I hate reading on an electronic device. I want it in my hands.
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I want to be in a bookstore. I want to be surrounded by it. Me too.
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But I really love the way you tell a story.
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Thank you. How long did that take to find your voice in this?
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Because I could imagine like any other art form or any other creative outlet,
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it takes time to really get your groove into how you're going to put a piece together?
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Was there one piece that kind of, you're like, this is it.
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This is who I am. This is how I tell my stories.
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I think, first of all, thank you. That's so nice. I think it is a learning experience
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and it's like writing your way through it.
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And I think it's a push and pull between a few things where it's like,
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there's a story that's happening when you're sitting across from someone and
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the interaction you're having with them in real life.
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But then it's also the context and everything that has happened before that,
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right? So what do they have going on in their life?
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What is in their personal life, in their career?
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How have they been received? All of the kind of like voices outside just the two of you.
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And then trying to put them together. And I think probably Probably earlier
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on in my career, I was a little bit more like, this is what they said.
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And not just regurgitating it, never wanting to just regurgitate what they said.
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But I think as time goes on, wanting more context and kind of take what they're
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saying as one piece of this story and adding my observation as another part,
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you know, to kind of to give it more,
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hopefully, like richness and depth and not just like, I met this person and
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this is what they told me.
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And usually the people that I interview, I don't really question what they're
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saying. I don't question that it's the truth.
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It's not like doing a profile of a polarizing person who could be gaming you.
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But at the same time, I think you have to think about what the reader is going
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to be going through their mind.
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And it's like, it's not my job just to come and tell everyone what they told me.
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I think it has to be more than that. It has to be more of, you know,
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tying together all of those outside voices and them and my observation of them
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as the person sitting there.
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So, yeah, I think that's been the thing. That's been the thing that I've worked on doing more and more.
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And at the same time, I never want to put myself too much into the story and
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be like, we were talking about this and we bonded about this or me, me, me.
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Like, I find that really boring and I hate when people do it.
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I'm kind of like, I don't care about you.
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I really don't care about you. I care about the person you're interviewing and
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what kind of observations and thoughts you're going to share with me.
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AOC, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. AOC was the first cover story I did for Vanity
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Fair, but I feel like I interviewed a lot of people,
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not just her, to sort of like put her in context and also to sort of like show
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who these people are as human beings because everyone has an idea of a super
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famous person. You have your ideas and your notions.
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I feel like the point of a multi-thousand word
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feature story is not it's
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not like the CNN or the NBC or the Fox interview
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you're going to get with them it's like if someone were to spend it can I curse
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no a shitload of time with someone and thinking about someone it's going to
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be there's going to be a lot more that comes up and so I'm always like who are
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these people just as really as human beings and if you were to meet and know them in real life,
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what would you find? And I
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I think for both of those, I appreciated it when people were like,
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okay, you made me think differently about it.
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Even though that's not even my intent or I didn't know how they were thinking about it.
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But people were like, oh, I think I understand this person better.
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Yeah, but we only get a glimpse of what they're doing on TV or movies or politically.
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You don't know them as people. Yeah, you don't know how they were raised.
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You don't know what's in their mind.
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You don't know, I think like in the AOC case, it's like you don't know what
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her background was. Like being a really working class person,
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losing her dad to cancer in college for any human being, like how does that
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impact you and your goals?
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So all that kind of human stuff that you can take the time to dive into.
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I also, I love that. Yeah. I have a question about your process because I have
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noticed since we've known each other now for a while,
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when you go off social media, you're about to either do a story,
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write a story, get ready for a story, but you literally tell everyone,
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I'm out of here. Bye. I'll be back.
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And I'm fascinated by it. And I'm so curious. We all need a social media break, FYI.
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Everyone, go ahead and take a break. But why do you do it? Is it part of the process to get focused?
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What is it? I mean, sometimes that's just me being like, this is such a waste of my time.
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I'm wasting so much time on here. I can't help it.
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It's so addictive. And so I'll just be like, I have too much to do and I cannot be on here.
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At the same time, I often have to stalk that person. that I'm...
18:21
No, but it's true. But yeah, it's like with Bad Bunny, he was contemporaneously
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posting shirtless selfies of himself or being on vacation with Kendall Jenner.
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It's like, I can't miss that either.
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That is very important, relevant information. It's not necessarily strategic.
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It's sometimes it's just like, I have
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to get off of here and I have no self-control. And so I have to just...
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Sometimes writing that then holds me accountable to be like,
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bye, this is not working for me.
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And it's a time suck.
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Because otherwise, I just can't use it in a measured way.
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I can't just go on and then get off. I'll be like, wait, 40 minutes have just
19:00
passed that I should have been. Yeah, disappeared. Writing.
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Disappeared. Yeah, it's not great. It's not great for, I think, writers in general.
19:08
But about the royal family, I have also another account that I only follow royal
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things or like upper crusty British and London things.
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And that's where I'm like, OK, I'm not seeing any friends. I'm just seeing like
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British socialites, members of the British royal family, properties to which
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they visit, Highclere Castle and like all these estates that you can visit,
19:34
just all this ridiculous stuff.
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And so that is another way where it's like if instagram is
19:39
getting you down and you have a niche interest dogs cooking
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whatever just like that's mine just make a dogs account
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and that is one way of like still being on or or in that sense it's almost like
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pinterest was where you're like just show me stuff that might be inspirational
19:55
show me corgis that's all i want to see yeah a corgi instagram would be beautiful
20:01
what brought you to writing about the royal family.
20:05
I think it was kind of an inappropriate, lifelong, morbid interest.
20:14
Both my parents grew up in Queens in Astoria. And my grandma was the mom of seven kids.
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So she was at the grocery store every day. And then she was a voracious grocery
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store buyer of The Star, The Inquirer, all those things.
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I mean, she also had TV guides and other magazines around. And I I was always
20:33
just a voracious reader from the time I was a kid reading everything on her coffee table.
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But I was probably like eight reading about Fergie's sex scandals.
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And the weight loss. Yeah. And like being like, yeah, and then having an affairs
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and getting divorced and just all the melodrama of the early 90s.
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And so I think it really started with that where I just saw them as these like soap operatic figures.
20:58
And then when I worked at Cosmo, after I was at ABC, I did some freelancing,
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I bopped around, and then I landed at Cosmo magazine online first and then in print.
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And online, that was sort of the heyday of Kate and William,
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where they had just gotten married, and they were then having Prince George.
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And it was really an internet moment.
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And then even at my job just before that, that was their royal wedding.
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So we were covering that.
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And I think I was really fascinated by this entry of this woman who was my exact age.
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We actually had the exact same birthday, exact same year.
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I was also getting married at that time. And so it was sort of like people were
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giving me like replica rings and like having so much fun with it.
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And I think that's what happens with the royal family.
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Like that was what a lot of our moms, why they had this affinity for Princess
21:51
Diana, because you're kind of like going through life with these people at the same time.
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As ridiculous as it can be, when you're planning a wedding yourself and there's
21:58
a ginormous royal wedding on TV, like you can't help but draw some parallels
22:03
there. You have to watch it. Who was going to make her dress?
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Exactly. To this day, remember, waiting to hear, having guesses.
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Everyone was like, who do you think it's going to be? I'm like,
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it has to be an English designer. Yeah. She will not wear anything that's not an English designer.
22:16
Yeah. I'm like, it has to be da-da-da-da. And just like quaking.
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Yes. Being like, let me see this person. Yes, yes. Yeah.
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And I was so fascinated by just the common woman coming into that family.
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And how would she fit in? How would she belong or not?
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And then people obviously like, literally who cares about any of this,
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which I actually respect. I totally respect that. I'm like, I'm not going to
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press you into paying attention to this.
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But then I think there are really interesting kind of signs of the times that emerge with it where,
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like you said, the way that the media kind of shat on Meghan and tore her apart,
22:52
like racist, sexist, all this stuff.
22:55
And then I think specifically, too, and I've written about this,
22:58
the way that they pitted these two women against each other,
23:01
where it's kind of like, think about that from a societal, from a media standpoint.
23:06
That was what the press and like a very toxic press in Britain,
23:11
that's how they decided to approach this.
23:14
And does it really root to these women? I actually don't think so.
23:17
I think it really roots to the brothers and like a lifetime of tension there
23:21
and family dynamics there.
23:23
But the knee jerk was to say there's a cat fight
23:26
between these two women over bridesmaid's dresses or whatever and
23:29
it just goes to show that you know that kind of misogyny sells
23:33
and it's salacious and it comes up people's expensive
23:36
expensive they're like yeah it's so much easier to just do that than to be like
23:39
these two brothers did not get along yeah because why would you want to put
23:43
them against each other yeah no of course like they would not be you know it's
23:47
of course this is a women's problem of course it's yeah it's you know always
23:51
a woman's problem always I want to talk about the Anne Hathaway movie.
23:56
The Idea of You. So you reviewed The Idea of You and the book was older and
24:01
I honestly didn't know the book was as old as it was.
24:03
It wasn't that old. It was like 2020 or whatever. 2022? When was it?
24:06
No, even a little earlier, it had a big pandemic resurgence,
24:11
but I think it was even like a 2017 or 2018 book, but it had a big pandemic resurgence.
24:16
Surge. Yeah. So I read the book. Someone messaged me and said,
24:21
Maria, this is going to be a movie because I... Okay.
24:24
So side note, I love every romantic comedy ever made. Okay.
24:28
I will watch Nobody Wants This. Yes. Adam Brody. Oh my God. It's so good.
24:32
Obsessed. It's incredible. And then recently Dax just was talking about a fact
24:37
check and he was talking about the kiss that everyone talks about.
24:40
Oh, really? And he was like, I was so proud of her because it conveyed.
24:44
And then he looked at her and goes i think you ever kissed me
24:47
like i saw that headline i think that's so funny but it
24:50
wasn't so this is was taken out of context i'm sure yeah because really
24:53
the whole thing he said was i'm so proud of her it just
24:56
shows how great of an actress she is and how they made that it felt so real
25:01
i mean it was one of the greatest things the greatest kiss has ever seen oh
25:04
good like that and the notebook kissing in the rain and then the spider-man
25:08
upside down kiss like those are all now like love on the list so when this movie
25:12
was coming out the idea of you my friend was like,
25:15
you have to see this, but read the book. I'm like, okay. So I read the book first.
25:19
And then you posted, I'm almost like you're so mad.
25:25
You're like, I now reviewed and I have my own opinion.
25:30
So I loved the book. It's escapism.
25:34
I want to read and disappear everything that's happening in my life and just
25:38
be absorbed into these books.
25:40
Totally. And that's how I felt with the idea of you.
25:42
And I thought this woman, this Solon, right?
25:46
Solon was this badass mom who could do anything and there was not a need for
25:53
someone else to be fulfilling her life.
25:55
She was doing it. And then the movie came out.
25:58
And my friends who didn't read the book, like you said in your article, will like the movie.
26:03
But if you read the book and then watched the movie, my heart was just thrown
26:08
out of my chest because they'd,
26:10
just diminished her so massively.
26:13
And you wrote this in your article. So I'm reading a quote from the article.
26:18
It demeans viewers to assume we couldn't possibly see ourselves in a woman like that.
26:24
It ignores the fact that we already did when we read Lee's words.
26:29
Yeah, I was so, I mean, look, Hollywood's going to Hollywood.
26:33
But I think I kind of expected maybe more stupidly, naively,
26:39
I expected more in 2024, you know, than like the usual reductive stuff.
26:46
But the reason why the book went so viral and had this pandemic moment was that
26:52
the escapism you're talking about,
26:54
it's a 40 year old woman and 20 year old man, which I mean, I guess,
26:59
yeah, man, I guess, yeah, technically he's a man having this like global love affair.
27:05
She's sort of rediscovering herself in an amazing way after being divorced.
27:11
And I think exactly, we all love this badass woman.
27:16
We love that she was owning it. We loved, I think, I mean, I loved the kind
27:19
of tipping of the expectations where like we've seen that story so many times
27:23
in the reverse, in real life, in film, that it's like to see the woman in that position.
27:28
And now you're seeing it a ton in a lot of different movies and books.
27:33
But to see it, like that was a really striking portrayal love it.
27:36
And then for the movie to make that character so much to make her lame was just
27:43
like not an adaptation. It just defeated the entire purpose.
27:48
And the message it sent, I thought I was really depressed by where it was like,
27:52
we couldn't possibly have that character from the.
27:59
Because people wouldn't like her. They would have too many issues with her.
28:03
And it's like, no, we did. We do.
28:04
Yeah. And at what point did 40 become old? I'm sorry.
28:08
And we have, I see nothing wrong with anything that happened in the book.
28:12
So I don't understand why that, it's very counterintuitive to be like,
28:17
this book that people love for this reason, we're going to take and then just
28:20
like morph into something lamer and tamer. Yeah.
28:23
And it's almost like when you hit 40, it's like, you just don't have sex anymore.
28:26
No, that's not true. No. Also, why can't you rediscover that?
28:30
If she's divorced and maybe she hasn't had boyfriends or whatever and she meets
28:35
this super hot guy who turns her on, why diminish that for her?
28:40
Like why aren't women allowed to have sex for fun and be with someone who's hot?
28:47
And be also super badass and have your own career and your own money and not
28:53
have to follow some man around.
28:55
He's kind of following you around yeah and the
28:58
only reason why she was single in the
29:01
movie is because her husband cheated on her so
29:04
she did not have agency really in this
29:08
situation she's like another like scorned woman yeah like pathetic woman who
29:11
was cast aside by her husband when i think in the book it was no i know in the
29:15
book it was because i'm because i'm not the idea of you scholar maria you know
29:19
this is like my passion project but like in the book it was that they i I think
29:24
they kind of just like – she wanted to go back to work.
29:27
She wanted to have her own life. And he wanted her to be kind of like the law
29:30
partner's wife who just was really docile and really satisfied with that situation.
29:35
And she wasn't satisfied with that situation. Nope.
29:38
It was, I think it was just like a depressing, a really depressing adaptation
29:42
that diminished something that we all loved.
29:44
So I would just say like, we just got to treasure the book. Yeah.
29:47
Read the book. Okay. If you haven't read the book, I'm going to link it down
29:50
below in all of the little show notes.
29:52
I was at a party on Friday night and I think two, two friends of both of ours
29:56
were there and one of them was like, you're not going to believe this,
29:58
but this person didn't like the idea of you.
30:01
And I was like, that's okay. Like I, I actually, I handled it really well.
30:05
I was like, reading is so subjective and you don't have to like it.
30:09
You didn't have to like it.
30:10
Did I love it? And do I live for it? Yes. Yes, absolutely.
30:13
But my friends and I vary a lot. We started a book club.
30:16
We have mutual friends in the book club and they have pushed me to read books I don't normally read.
30:23
Like I don't, I like books that are escapism. I really do.
30:27
I don't want to know about children who are hurt, psychological thrillers.
30:31
I don't need it. I want to go to bed at night with fluff and happiness and not my heart.
30:36
So I completely agree. I do not want to be psychologically thrilled.
30:40
I don't. But I have friends who love them.
30:43
They're like, they get so deep into the scariness of it, the psychological craziness
30:47
of it. I'm like, no, I got enough going on.
30:50
Not for me. I don't need it. No, it's not for me. Okay. So I want to talk about these reviews.
30:55
What brought you to reviewing books in general? Is it just something because
30:58
you're a voracious reader and you enjoy it? How did you step on that?
31:02
The culture umbrella at Vogue is really broad. It can be theater.
31:06
It can be books. It can be politics. It can be news.
31:08
It can be like award season boyfriends, the things that you're talking about
31:11
with your friends at lunch or whatever.
31:13
So it's a pretty wide net and books is definitely part of it.
31:17
So I think it probably started there and interviewing authors there.
31:21
And then now I also review books for the New York Times, which is honestly so
31:25
such a joy and kind of like, should I be a book reviewer? but it would be a
31:30
hard job because it's a time investment just to write that
31:35
comparably short story. It's kind of, you know, to read 300 pages or more.
31:40
And that does hurt when I take every assignment they give me.
31:44
Whenever they're like, do you want to review a book? I always say yes.
31:48
And it's not always a book that I want to read. But I think it's a good exercise
31:53
to go in and be like, what is strong about this book? What is less strong?
31:57
Whether or not I wanted to read this or not and come at it impartially.
32:01
And I love doing it. I really love doing it. And it gets you reading.
32:05
It's fun. Yeah, it does get me reading things that I wouldn't read for sure.
32:09
I would be terrible at that job. For Vogue, I mostly, I feel like write about
32:12
books that I want to read or have read already.
32:16
You know, so I read The Idea of You recreationally and then was like,
32:20
oh, I'm going to do an entire manifesto on this.
32:23
You reviewed a book called Ejaculate Responsibly.
32:28
And it was written by this woman named Gabrielle Blair, who is a Mormon with
32:36
five or six children, I think. Six children.
32:39
And she wrote a book about abortions aren't just a woman's issue.
32:45
And they are a woman's issue. We can't diminish that because we're the ones
32:48
carrying the babies. Yeah.
32:49
But the key claim is that 99% of abortions are the result of unwanted pregnancies.
32:56
And men cause all unwanted pregnancies.
33:00
Yeah. And when I read that, my mind exploded. And I'm like, this is what I've
33:05
been trying to say and think about forever.
33:08
So when I'm reading through it and I'm like, this is so true because women are
33:13
for 24 hours able to have a baby, right? They ovulate for 24 hours.
33:19
That's it. It's over two days, they say, but it could be Tuesday to Wednesday,
33:23
24 hours. Men can deliver their sperm every single day of their life until they die.
33:30
Yeah. Yeah. The age span for this is insane.
33:34
Right. The fertile period for a woman over the course of any given month is
33:39
so brief compared to a man being fertile every single day of, you know, ostensibly.
33:45
And yeah, I loved this book, too. I love just the argument that abortions and
33:50
birth control in general is not solely a women's issue.
33:56
And I think it's a huge thing in caps that's like, it's the men.
34:00
It just really reframes this.
34:02
And in a way, this is hiding in plain sight. I mean, this is...
34:07
It's revolutionary, I think, but it should not be.
34:10
But it's like this men are very, very much culpable and responsible in these issues.
34:16
The fact that it came out as like Roe v. Wade was being overturned and like
34:20
all these rights were being were coming under attack, I think was coincidental, if I'm not mistaken.
34:26
She was sort of like she had it in the works just based on the way that like.
34:30
You know, abortion rights were being chipped away.
34:33
But it's like, of course, it's also the men. Of course, they're culpable for this.
34:37
And of course, they should vigilantly wear condoms and get vasectomies.
34:42
And like they should, the onus and the focus has to go not just solely on women,
34:48
but also to be shared by them. Of course.
34:50
Yeah, of course. But no one talks about it. But no one talks about it.
34:53
No one talks about it. I have two boys.
34:54
They're going to have to read this book. Yeah, they're going to have to read
34:56
this book. They're going to understand it.
34:57
I mean, they're so little now. But it's so important that they also take responsibility for it.
35:03
She goes through 27 reasons of, you know, what we have to think about when it
35:09
comes to men also being responsible for abortions and having sex and what happens. Yeah.
35:14
Number 23 is there are zero consequences for men who ejaculate irresponsibly.
35:21
I've been getting on this book so much because I just want more people to talk about it.
35:26
And I want our teens who are starting to be sexually active,
35:31
like understand that you have to wear a condom.
35:35
And as women, we are not allowed to buy condoms because then we look like sluts.
35:39
Right. Like, why can't women just have sex to have fun and enjoy it?
35:42
Why can men do it all the time? And I just found this book to really pinpoint all of those things.
35:49
Now, I don't, it doesn't diminish the fact that abortion is a woman's issue. Like, it is in our body.
35:54
They're gone. Yeah, man is gone. Whether he sticks around as a father or a figure
35:59
in the life of the child is something different.
36:01
Yeah. And I think, like, even though that's so true and...
36:06
Yeah, like at the end of the day or that, you know, that the actual like medical
36:12
and everything, the care, like that is very much a woman's issue.
36:17
But like, yeah, when it's being discussed, I like to say, but because people
36:23
refer to their daughters, right?
36:24
They're kind of like, oh, I don't want my daughter to have less rights than my mother or me.
36:30
And I'm kind of like, but it's actually all of our kids. And it's not just the
36:34
daughters. I always actually make a point to say, but I also want these rights
36:38
for my son because he will be a sexually active person who chances are this
36:42
is going to be affecting him, too.
36:44
And it's not just it's not even just about wanting this for our daughters.
36:48
It's about wanting this for all of our kids, like an equitable kind of world
36:52
where they can make these decisions and be free to make these decisions.
36:55
But I think that constant reframing has to be there that like it's not just
37:00
women. It's not just girls.
37:02
Men are affected by this. If your girlfriend gets pregnant, that doesn't affect your life.
37:05
I mean, technically, you could walk away, but I think it does affect your life.
37:09
Like your child is walking around in the world.
37:10
So it's so obvious. Like in some ways, the book is so obvious,
37:14
but it's so criminally unsaid that it needs to be said.
37:21
And I really do honestly think that it should be sex ed for all of our kids.
37:25
It's very to the point. And the author said this when I interviewed her.
37:28
She's like, it is very heterosexual.
37:30
And this is just the way that I'm framing it. because like this is the typical
37:33
and popular way that babies are conceived.
37:36
So this is when we're talking about birth control, like she does frame it in that way.
37:40
But I think it is like a really important data point. And I really do think
37:44
it should be sex ed for kids.
37:45
So that if you start becoming sexually active, which the majority of them will. Yeah. Like,
37:50
wrap it up, wear a condom, be responsible. Everything you do as a man has a
37:55
repercussion when you ejaculate.
37:57
Yeah. And framing it that way. Exactly.
38:00
Framing it as like, this is every single one of your issue to address.
38:04
It's not the girl's issue to address. It's all of your issue to address.
38:07
All of it. All this with boys are like, this is going to be required reading in my household.
38:12
Sorry, guys. Sorry, guys. It's happening. My mom slipped ejaculate responsibly under my door.
38:18
Except I took the cover, guys, just so you know, I took the cover off of the
38:22
book because I took it to the nail salon and didn't feel like it was appropriate
38:25
to be reading it with the book cover.
38:27
Okay, so now I want to know what's next for you.
38:31
As much as you can tell us. Next for me is that I
38:34
am laboriously working on
38:38
a novel inspired by the real-life royal
38:41
family saga so i'll leave here
38:44
today and keep keep at it i have like a
38:46
bad first draft of it and i'm trying to piece it together and clean
38:49
it up and and hopefully progress it's
38:53
hard oh i can only like a whole different other challenge and it's and it's
38:58
hard but it's also fun and it's and it's a mind trip but it's fun making up
39:04
stories oh i can't wait i can't wait i can't wait i hope it'll I'll give you
39:07
the glittering escapism that you speak, Maria.
39:10
Everything you write, if it's like what you read already, I'm going to be so escaped into it.
39:15
And then I'm going to fangirl. And then I'm going to have you back on the podcast.
39:19
Fingers crossed. Knock on wood. No jinxing, but I'll come back.
39:21
This was awesome. It was. I'm
39:23
so glad you were here. Thank you for having me. Thank you for having me.
39:27
This has been the best. It's fun. As we're freezing. By the way,
39:30
it's freezing inside the studio. It's okay, though. It keeps us alert.
39:33
Congrats on your podcast. Thanks.
39:36
Thank you so much for joining me today on she's smart you can find a new episode every thursday bye.