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The Damaging Impact of Strategic Incompetence · Stuff Mom Never Told You

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha. I'm looking to step
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: unto our Toildy production of but I High Radio. Annie,
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: you and I've been talking about doing this episode. I
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: think we've teased it a little bit in our previous
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: episodes about Weaponize Incompetence, and I know I think we've
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: talked about something similar to this. We had episodes that
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: were kind of similar at least talking around it previously before. Right, Yes,
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: so we have done past episodes on emotional labor, which
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: is related. Um surprisingly, Women in Survival Horror has this
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: section that is related that I'm going to talk about
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: a bit later, because of course I'm talking about a
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: lot of fictional stuff that we see. Also, our episode
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: on the widowhood effect and widowers has some stuff that's
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: related to what we're talking about, and also episodes on
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: divorce have some of this stuff that we're going to
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: be discussing in this episode. I think we've talked about
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: that as well as with like older being the responsible
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: sibling or are like even like I believe your episode
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: Daddy Issues had all of those as well. Like it's
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: a constant theme and one of the reasons I was like,
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: we need to do this, let's talk about this, and
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: you and I started like going back and forth, like
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: we can talk about this, and we can talk about this.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: Was because there was this whole section in TikTok. Yes, y'all,
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: apparently I'm just TikTok talk all the time, so I
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: apologize to talk talk mean essentially, I should just have
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: that corner right because it would never end. But part
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: of that was talking about weaponizing competence to the fact
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: that this one dude, uh, he did a whole little
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: gimmicky song about it, about what it is, and he
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: got attacked by men because he just called it out.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: There was another TikTok or who actually showed a grocery
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: list that she stands with her husband, but instead of
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: just being like get eggs, get butter, good milk, it
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: was get these types of eggs and put the picture
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: next to it to show them exactly what brands to buy.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: And it just kind of started this huge conversation about
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: what it was, and weaponized incompetence has actually been kind
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: of a newer ish term. It is also known as
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: strategic incompetence. And just in case that you don't know,
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: it's the act of fading incompetence that any one task
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: usually and an unpleasant one to get out of doing it.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: And that's from a Huffington's post, and it is that's
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: exactly what that is, kind of like pretending like you
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: don't know, I did this as a kid, But also
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: it wasn't on purpose. It literally was when I was
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: trying to put dishes up and put it in the
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: dishwash dirty sink. It got to the point that my
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: mother would come behind me and rearrange everything and they're like,
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: what was the point of me doing this? And I
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: would get mad because it felt like it was a
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: flight onto me, but at the same time, like you
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: don't like the way I don't want you, just do
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: it the way you want to. So that's kind of
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: the flip side of course. Yeah, that came into when
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: that would be asked the next time around and be like, no,
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: you do it, you do it in a way. I
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: didn't say it that way. My mother would smacked me,
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: but it was kind of that implication and I was like, ah, yeah,
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: that's a whole thing. It is a whole thing. And
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: now that you mentioned that, because we're going to discuss
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: sort of the generalizations and stereotypes about what this looks like,
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: and in general, it is usually a man trying to
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: get out of something by saying, oh, I you do
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: it better. I can't do it. You do it, yeah,
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: something that's they don't want to do. But now that
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: you mentioned that, there's an interesting flip two of that
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: in the dating world, where usually women pretend they can't
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: do something so that the men will do it and
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: you can get closer in that way. So that's interesting.
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: I hadn't thought about that. But but that's still like
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: building up the ego of the dude in this situation, right, well,
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: I mean think about it too. When we have in
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: the same Uffington Post article, it talks about the webinized
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: in competence when it comes to female orgasm, and I
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: was like, oh, yeah, saying like that literal excuse that
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: we've heard many men and minimists say that women are
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: incapable of having an orgasm, so we're not even going
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: to try. And you're like, oh my, oh that makes
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: me sad for you and for everyone that you've ever
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: been with. Please don't women you know, stuff like that.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: It's like that's a whole either another level of webinized
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  Speaker 1: slash strategic incompetence and it's been used in the workplace
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: and that's kind of like that bigger arching, like this
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: is how damaging this is. This is how women continue
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: to not be able to move forward because people take
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: credit of other people's work and through using strategic incompetence.
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: As in fact, Oh, y'all, while we were researching this
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: and old Wall Street Journal article popped up and I say, oh,
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: because it was in two thousand seven that this was written.
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: So this has been over fifteen years and I had
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: to be like, I had to read it. And when
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: I read through it, I was like, there's one thing
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: and we're going to talk about it. So this article
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: was written, like I said, in two thousand and seven
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: in the Wall Street Journal, written by Jared at Sandberg,
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: and the title of the article is the art of
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: showing pure incompetence at an unwanted task. Uh So, yeah,
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: bear with me while I read this to you and
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: let's discuss. So he starts to learn something at the
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: office can be difficult, but to refrain from learning something
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: requires years of practice and refinement. It's an office skill
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: that Stephen Crawley finds indispensable. Quote The inability to grasp
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: selective things can be very helpful in keeping your desk
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: clear of unwanted clutter, says the executive in HR or
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: what he calls quote the dumping ground of all unwanted
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: office tasks. He says, I have developed a very agile
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: selective memory across a wide range of non value added activities.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: The most memorable time he brandished his non skill was
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: when the president at an automotive parts manufacturer asked Mr
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: Cawley to organize the company picnic with a sensibility more
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: dry than bubbly. He wasn't crazy about party planning, so
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: he began to milk his lack of picnic knowledge for
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: all it wasn't worth. He responded to any inquiries or
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: suggestions with questions and comments such as, how do you
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: do that? Or what did you guys do in the past,
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: or even help me remember while we're talking about this. Ultimately,
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: responsibility for the picnic was reassigned mission unaccomplished, says Mr Crawley.
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: You'd be amazed about how much I don't know about picnics.
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: Strategic incompetence isn't about having a strategy that fails, but
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: a failure that succeeds. It almost always works to deflect
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: work one doesn't want to do without ever having to
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  Speaker 1: admit it. For junior staffers, it's just a way of
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: attaining power through powerlessness. For managers, it can use their
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: status by pretending to be incapable of lowly tasks. In
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: all cases, it's a ritualistic sharade. The only thing the
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: person claiming not to understand really doesn't understand that the victim,
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: ultimately stuck with the work, sees through the false incompetence.
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: This tactic starts in early youth with chores how do
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: you open the dishwasher? It's puppy eyed helplessness gets refined
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: through homework with math, word problems and book reports on Beowulf.
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: In college, it gets reinforced by enablers who take better
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: notes in class, and in a marriage it works but
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: not as well by raising the spectrum of disaster from
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: the task mishandled. If I do the wash, I might
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: shrink your sweater, And how do you change diapers so
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: they don't leak? At work, it can be institutionalized at
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: customer call centers, for example, whose operators will transfer you
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: to another department before the last department transfer you back
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: to them, and for shady corporations, incompetence is the best
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: legal defense strategy for any employee. The soul still in
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: complexity of office machinery such as fax machines, copiers, pecs, voicemail,
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: and even coffeemakers, gives everyone ample cover to studiously never
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: learn how to use them. But the same blank stare
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: accompanies non mechanical tasks. To Clara Westler, an accountant who
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: used to work at a law firm, says, lawyers pretend
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: to be completely flum mixed by all of these machines,
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: as well as everything related to accounting except for billing.
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  Speaker 1: Their message. I have so many lofty matters on my mind.
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  Speaker 1: I can't be bothered with mastering these small tasks, she says.
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  Speaker 1: Rescuing the pseudo incompetent from an office task can mean
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: doing it for life. Failing to rescue risks this thing
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: of being a non team player. There's nothing worse than
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  Speaker 1: doing too good a job on something that you don't
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: want to keep doing, says Carol Kimbler Meager. She once
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: worked with another manager of different departments who played up
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: the fact that he quote couldn't find his billy button
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: with both hands, a map and a flashlight. Each month
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: he started complaining that he couldn't close his books. Uh,
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: their boss would beg her to help him, she said.
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: The following month, we could go through the whole thing again.
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: Sometimes being a team player means getting your own stuff
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: done so that other people can get their own work done.
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: Laziness and status issues aside. Tom Colbert, president of a
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: logistics provider, observes that found incompetence sometimes comes from a
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: genuine fear not of looking stupid, but of proving it.
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: There's no reason to demonstrate it, he says, for someone
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  Speaker 1: for whom no task is too small, suggest Mr Colbert himself.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: The fax machine and its laborate menu of options are
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: more troubled than their worth. It's a jungle. I'll coerce
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: someone else into performing the task of by feigning ignorance
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: or frustration. That person is Mary Powell. She reports that
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: Mr Colbert engages in a lot of shrugging, sighing, and
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: throwing up of the hands. He usually can figure out
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: most things without too much trouble. She says, this one
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: particular thing he doesn't want to take the time to do.
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: Strategic incompetence involves a lot of unnecessary posturing, knows Robert Sutton,
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: a professor of management science at Stanford University, but it's
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: not all bad. One way which lower status people feel
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: more esteem in the presence of higher status people is
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: to show that they have a skill that's valued and needed.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: He says. It can signify a mutual respect found in
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: other hierarchies. He adds, I think of ape grooming. That's
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: how the article is. One of the big things behind
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: this is that is the men who say how to
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: do this, how to use this, and it's the women
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: coming behind going yeah, I have to fix this. Yeah, yeah,
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: One being I think it's really interesting, especially when you
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: talk about like men failing up a lot of times
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: it's men failing upwards and sort of this idea that
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: the non value added tasks as I think he referred
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: to it, and a lot of those tasks being things
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: that are traditionally viewed as women's work, whether it is
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: like copies are cleaning, and you're going to talk about
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: in our fiction portion, more like these things that people
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: don't get notice for, rewarded for, or if you do
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: as it said, if you do too good a job
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: at this thing because your team player and you want
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: to be seen as really efficient and good at your job,
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: then it becomes your job and you're not getting paid
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: anymore for it. It just sort of we're able to
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: successfully pass it off to you. And it's a weird
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: way of trying to compliment you, I guess, but really
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: they're just manipulating you into doing a thing. When I
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: first started working at this job, and at the time
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: it was like it was owned by a different company,
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: our colleague been Bowling, told me, in all seriousness, never
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: be too good at something or they're going to ask
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: you to do it forever. And I remember sitting there
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: thanking you, like, but I've been taught to do well,
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: and I want to do well well. This kind of
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: comes back into the alignment of women have to be
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: sure that they are experts and be the qualified beyond
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: uh what is actually being asked, and men literally qualified
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: like yeah, we'll do this, um. But that's the whole
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: rhetoric is like the men are gonna be like, don't
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: do too good of a job, because if you do,
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: they're always going to ask you. And then women are like,
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: but we have to prove myself or I'll never move
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: up in the world. And even if I do, I
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: still won't move up in the world. And the kind
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: of like this article, I absolutely read read it as sarcastic.
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: I believe that's what the writer was intending, because he
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: definitely made a point to discuss the unequal leveling in
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: the workplace. Um. Even the ending was so condescending, grooming
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: of monkeys grooming each other. Okay, okay, coo cool cool.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: And then it literally was like, huh huh, you're calling
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: this out. You're leaving it without any opinion. I mean,
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: his his language is absolutely an opinion. But you know,
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: like you we're not saying anything outright and then moving on.
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: But if you really truly look at what's happening, it
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: does feel like and we're gonna talk about this in
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: our section and a minute about fiction, but this feels
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: like at the beginning of a fiction of sitcom. This
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: is the office as you as we were going to
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: talk about, like literally the setup of an office, um,
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: and Michael being the most incompetent boss and Pam having
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: to fix everything for him, like the phone calls. But
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: yet he kind of proves himself over and over and
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: over again, and she's trying to fix that. And then
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: also as of late Pam being the bad guy. Yeah,
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: oh yeah, I mean maybe we should go ahead and
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: move into this fiction partum, we can weave weave this
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: article in. But one more thing I did like that
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: they made sure to discuss about the parenting and the family.
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: This whole bit about the fact I don't know how
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: to change a diaper, which I have actually heard I've
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: actually heard that being used and not just by men,
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: I will say teenagers, and that's rightly. So they also
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: were like, oh, this is goes. I don't want on
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: it right, You're like, it's not that hard, it's yeah, yeah.
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: My dad, um, my dad had many of fine probably,
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: but he he did a lot of stuff like if
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: he was left in charge of us. I remember one
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: time he tried to cook eggs, eggs, burnt them, burnt them,
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: and then he said to my mom like, listen, we're
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: gonna have to just get take out any time you're
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: not here because I can't do it. But I mean
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: he could grill, which is the masculine area, right, but
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: nothing else outside of that. And then like if I
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: was sick. If I was throwing up, he would freak
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: out and be like, it's a crisis, where's your mom?
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: And he would like run literally run away. And then
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: if my mom went out, he would forget to put
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: us to bed, so she'd come home at like ten
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: pm and we were still awake, and she'd be why
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: didn't you I was just watching this. I don't know,
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: but he would often say those kinds of things like
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: I don't know how to do it, I can't do it,
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: I can't learn. I was just kind of like a
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: panic mode of like no, no no, no, no, no no, I
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: can't do that right, And so she would do it.
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: It was she had to do it, and she she
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: told me recently like she had to stop going out
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: as much because she take care of you, Like I
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: can only think of a handful of times that my
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: dad stayed with us as well, and not because he
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: didn't want to necessarily. I don't know if that was
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: the case, but my mother, I think absolutely felt guilty
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: for being a way, which is as different conversation in itself,
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: but yeah, I absolutely have seen that as well. And
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: that's the same thing with work for me. I absolutely
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: was terrified of missing work even till this day. Of course,
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: what we do is a little different, and we have
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: each other and our whole our whole team as women,
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: thank god, and they would pick up that slack and
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: I love that. And I've never really dealt with in
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: my heart yet of that type of inability to help someone.
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: We have a pretty good crew of people in our
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: immediate group, but like, I've definitely dealt with that in government,
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: I've definitely seen that as the higher ups. Who was
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: doing what and who's asking what? When we look at
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: legal teams. I have friend who was paralegal who, oh,
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: get the brunt of the load of things that that's
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: not even her job, but being asked to do that,
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: I'm like, what in a very mal driven feel where
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: she was like it was made up of a lot
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: of people, but you kind of like, hmmm, And there's
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of classism in this as well that
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: we can come back to. Yeah, let's go ahead jump
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: into that whole office conversation. Yeah, So one of the
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: first things I think of when we were talking about this,
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: which of course I have a lot of fiction examples
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: and Samantha's got some too, but is the office because
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: it's kind of a prime example of what we're talking about,
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: where you do have this like ultimate incompetent boss who
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: should not be in that position. So many times you
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: should get fired and pan as sort of at least
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: in the beginning of the sort of secretary position that
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: it's cleaning up after him constantly. But there's one episode
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: in particular where Pam gets frustrated because the microwave is
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: like constantly dirty and she's always having to clean the microwave,
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: so she like leaves a note and then everyone's talking
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: about her. She's being passive aggressive and like why can't
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: she just do it? And then she tries to explain
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: to Andy. She talks to Andy about it, I believe
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: it's Andy, and he's like, oh, no, I can't. I
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: would just make it worse. I would just mess it up.
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: And she's like, how would you make it worse? It's clean,
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: you just clean it. And he's like oh, and he's
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: like walking away quickly. I would just make it worse.
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: And that's kind of like what my dad would be like,
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: that's the exact idea of like, oh, you do it,
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: you're really good at it. I would just mess it up.
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: Basically saying I don't want to do this right, and
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: then her being seen as like nagging, sort of nagging
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: why can't she just do it? And that's one of
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: the things that she says is if I do it
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: now right, then I'm going to hold up the standard
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: and I'll be expected to do this from now on.
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: And that's that conversation again, like, oh, well you did
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: it before, Why why wouldn't you just go ahead and
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: do it. We're talking about that, this is you know this,
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: It just it makes no sense. It makes sen sense. Again,
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: as of late, I've seen a lot of rhetoric that
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: Pam was the bad guy. Also that Jim was a
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: bad guy. That's a whole different conversation, and it's something
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: that Pam was a bad guy and that she was
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: too nagging again, that she was condescending or rude and
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: all these things, and I'm like, was she so was?
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: It's just because you don't like women who were just
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: present and maybe calling you out a little bit. And
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: she did have like she had an arc for sure
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: where she kind of went from meeker to not his
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: meek right, but certainly like she was I wouldn't say
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: she was snagging even when she was trying to get
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: people to do basically take care of their own nonsense,
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: Right she was. I mean, that's another part we're not
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: really discussing. If she was managing Michael like she was,
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: it was a whole extra task she was, you, and
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: that she wasn't getting paid for or like noticed in
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: right where she was cleaning up after all of his
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: messes and expected to do that because if she didn't,
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: then the cold company would go under or are either
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: somehow someone Aliost would get in trouble, because that's the
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: world we live in. But yeah, I don't. I mean
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: it's been a minute since I've watched it, but I
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: don't recall thinking she was in any way like the villain, right.
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: I mean also in this conversation again, this is kind
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: of maybe a little more classes than anything else. Like
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: she and the new receptionist Aaron are both treated as
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: really dumb, don't get me wrong, and his character is
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: supposed to be a little more dizzy trying to figure
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: things out. I get that art, But both of them,
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: being the secretaries or p s, were treated that way immediately,
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: and so therefore they should be the ones that doing
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: the menial tasks and doing like ridiculous things and be
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: expected to like take some of the abuse. And of
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: course the sexual harassment the office has not aged. Well,
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: we'll go with that for sure, But I don't think
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: much has changed in that type of conversation and rhetoric
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: and in every day rhetoric in that we see a
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: lot of PA's being women. It's gotten different. We actually
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: and I was working on DJJ. I had a p
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: A and we had one dude that was it and
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: he was awful, awful, like he would just not show
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: up and we were like what the hell. And we
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: had a pretty easy like hey, we understand this work
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: is really just menial. Like you're taking nose, you're doing emails,
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: and you're doing like shredding papers because we had a
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: lot of sensitive information on paper, like this has to
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: be shredded, This has to be properly destroyed. Can you
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: do these things for us? And it's really menial tests
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: I get that. I get that. However, if it's that menial,
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: it shouldn't be that hard. And for him it was
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: super hard. Showing up was super hard, And I was like, Okay,
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: I'm starting to know why it's mainly women who can
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: do this type of labor because they are organized and
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: consistent enough to do so, and I don't have to harp, right,
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: And also, like going back to what you said, which
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: I think is a good point that women feel, oh,
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: I'm going to get fired if I don't do above
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: and beyond or these expectations that we might have been
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: socialized to think is where we need to go, Like
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: the norm is actually higher than what is expected. But
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: like that pressure, because I definitely, looking back at my career,
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: I've had a few instances of what I would call
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: benign examples of this where people were like, you're so
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: good at doing this, can you help me? And I
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: really don't think it was a manipulation tactic. I think
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: they could have done it and they were like, she's
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: good at it, maybe I can get her to do it.
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: I don't know, but I I did, Like I was
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: thinking about this other day, and I remember just so
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: clearly feeling, like we've talked about this recently, like I
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: could be fired if I don't do perfect like that
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: I got to do so well, And so I think
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: that that is a really important part of this conversation.
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: And also that yeah, to the point of in the office,
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: I also feel like the receptionist characters often totally dismissed
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: or kind of seen as invisible and just somebody who
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: has to do the thing that you don't want to do.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: Just not treated very respectful, right, not being asked, not
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: being thanked, like all of those things. And I didn't
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: want to go back to because this is that same
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: article about Mrs Meeker who talked about her boss being ridiculous,
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: and she's saying, sometimes being a team player means getting
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: your own stuff done so that other people can get
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: their own work done, and I thought about, like, yeah,
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: you're literally holding back people. This is that whole like
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: also that team building or like group projects, when you
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: have that one person who doesn't want to hold up
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: the end of the deal. So therefore you're doing their
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: work for them because it affects everyone, but it doesn't
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: matter because they don't care. And they also again most
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: likely someone in their group, We'll do it for them
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: because this affects all of them, right, and they're confident
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: that they will not be the one that gets blamed
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: for it, or that they can talk their their way
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: out of it, right and just leave it alone, or
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: maybe no one will make a big deal and just
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: do it. You know how I am. I can't do
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: this and this and this and this, although I think
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: I've used that with you when I'm like, I don't
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: prioritize getting my money back. Can you do it so
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: one of us can get paid? Thanks? Um? Well, And
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: I also want to talk about this is something I
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: have mentioned in several podcasts that I wanted to talk about.
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: We're gonna get into it more in a minute, but
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: I think not only is this happening, but we're glorifying
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: it and men like it's funny and cute, like, oh,
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: silly him, he can't do it, so all like the
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: wife in this case, I'll take care of it. He
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: needs me, Like it's it's made. We've made it into
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: something that is, like you said, a plot of a
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: sitcom where it's funny and we like these male characters
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: that can't do anything and we like laughing at them.
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: I don't think there's anything necessarily wrong with that, but
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: it's that we're making them the hero and the woman
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: the nagging right, right, It's true. And going back to
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: that TikTok phenomenon, apparently like millions. There's millions of people
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: looking at the tag weaponized and competence. There's been so
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: many posts, and you know, this pandemic has shown the real, uh,
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: unequal bits of what is happening and who's taking on
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: a chunk of the responsibility. And you know, it's about trust,
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: like like just about being able to get support and
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: being able to lean on someone to get that support
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: to get things done and not breaking down. And yet,
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: like you said, it is often villainized in movies, and
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: I feel like both of these cinemas are seeing in
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: Mrs Doubtfire, which is why I was like, any you
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: have to go watch this before we start, So can
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: you please tell me you've watched this? Yeah, I did
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: watch it. It It was my first time. I've never seen it.
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: I heard of it, of its existence. So it was
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: made in I need to hear a synopsis from you
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: as well as a review. Oh, Lord of Gisignment, you
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: are okay. So it stars Robin Williams as the dad
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: in this case, the strategic incompetent person who is an
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: actor like a voice actor, child actor, and Sally Field
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: is his She she's business Jason, she's high up business
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: person and he is sort of the fun dad who
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: never does the stuff that they need to do to
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: take care of their two three children. Three children, and
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: so finally one day sally Field comes home and it's like,
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: I can't do this anymore. I want to divorce, and
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: he's all like, no, you can't do I need my
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: children in my life, and she says no, He's allowed
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: visitation like on weekends and stuff, but she also doesn't
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: like what he's doing there because his apartment is not great,
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: and then the food he provides isn't good. Um, so
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: she reveals she's gonna get a housekeeper and he asked
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: if it can be him, and uh, she says now.
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: So he of course stresses as an elderly British woman
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: named Mrs Doubtfire Yes, and gets the job, and part
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: because he knows the family, I think. But anyway, the
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: kids love Mrs doubt Fire after it a tense start,
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: and then sally Field's character goes to love Missus Doubtfire.
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: And also you see him really struggling with like he
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: has to learn how to cook and he has to
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: learn how to clean all this stuff he's been like
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: putting off forever. And then Pierce Broson enters the picture
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: and is trying to date Sally Field, and then why
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: does this Mrs Doubtfire, Robin Williams character, not Miss staff Fire,
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: gets an opportunity at a TV station for a children's show.
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: It all comes to a head. We find out the
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: whole everyone finds out Ms. His doubt Fire is in
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: fact not Mrs doubt Fire and Robin Williams, but he
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: gets this show as Mrs tout Fire. And then I
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: guess they decide that he can work and take care
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: of the children at the end and maybe they'll make commends.
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: Was that a good good? So? What do you think
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: about it? It was different than I thought because I
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: had heard a lot about it and I was just
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: kind of still shocked at it. I'm not sure how
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: well it's aged either, but you know, it was enjoyable.
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: I was annoyed at how since we are talking about
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: this and I was looking at it through that that lens.
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: I was annoyed at how much like Robin Williams's character
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: does the like you're taking my kids with me crag
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: and crag and she's the the bitch, the villain who's
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: like not giving in to his his scenes of emotion
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: um and the kids are against her for a long
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: time and he's against her, and so it did feel
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: very like he seemed to not be pulling his weight
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: at all. And then when she's like, well, you've gotta
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: do what you gotta help me, and he didn't, didn't
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: really and he was the fun dad and she was
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: the bad, evil mom and I didn't. Yeah, I didn't
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: like that. She gives that whole speech she's the way
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: because it Sally Phils who was icon, you know, and
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: she just delivers that speech in the heat way it is.
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: She's not wrong, just not wrong what she's saying, right,
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: it was. It was weird because to me when I
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: watched it, I was, I guess I was, you know,
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: on her side, or at least I saw her point
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: of it. I wasn't at mass at her, but it
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: was definitely painting it like she's the one breaking up
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: this family. She's the one that won't let them be
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: happy together even though that's what the kids want, what
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: he wants. She is the villain for sure. And now
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: she's dating Pierce Broson and she's putting her work like
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: in a high place. So definitely bad. She hires a housekeeper,
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: she's not with her kids, Like it was definitely pointing
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: the finger at her as the bad mom and villain
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: of this when really it seems like she's just trying
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: to be the good mom and take care of children
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: and also make right. And you know, thinking about it,
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: Santa Claus, did you ever see that the same thing
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: the grandmother as the emil mother who was trying to
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: keep her son away to be fair, the sons like,
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: I don't want to go over there because my dad's
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: lacking so many things, blah blah blah. I also want
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: to go ahead, because I was looking at IMDb, I
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: was like, I just want to make sure we got
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: all the character because you know, we had to get
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: all that right. But oh my god, these plots, somebodys
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: that the reviewers put in. Let me go ahead, just
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: read a line from each one. This one starts off
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: with eccentric actor Daniel Hillard is an amusing, caring father,
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: so that's how that goes, and he talks about how
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: he's trying to get himself together to see his children.
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: His wife Miranda, draws a line and files for divorce.
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: He can only see his children once a week and
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: doesn't sit well with him. He also holds a job
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: at a TV studio, like all these things that you're
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: like this obviously, yeah, you read into that. And then
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: the last line is and he must also deal with
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: Miranda's new boyfriend, stud Dunmeyer. Yeah, I'm like, that's an
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: interesting way and that and then this one says troubled
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: that he has little access to his children. Divorced, Daniel
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: Hillard hatches an elaborate plan and then they wanted to
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: explain what it is and just like, m that's an
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: interesting way to say that. And then this one, how
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: far would an ordinary father go to spend more time
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: with his children? Well, okay, okay uh. And then this
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: longer line also starts with Daniel Hillard is a voice
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: actor living in San Francisco, California. Though a devoted, loving,
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: and well meaning father to his three children, Daniel is
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: a poor disciplinarian and his wife considers him unreliable. Yeah,
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: well so that's what I wrote some like key things
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: Sam when I was watching it, and I think one
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: it's interesting to me, And I'm glad you bought up
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: the Santa Claus because i think every Christmas movie ever
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: has this plot, but like, it's interesting to me that
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: he's all, I want to spend more time with my kids,
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: but he wasn't really outside of like being goofy dad
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: every now and then, he wasn't really spending that much
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: time with him anyway. It's ironic to me that he
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: had to pretend to be a woman to take some
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: responsibility and that's when he's first just like oh cleaning
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: and cooking and yeah, like he has this whole like
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: tear full line I need to be with my children,
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: but he really wasn't taking responsibility for their raising. And yeah,
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: just because he is the hero of this story. Again,
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: it goes back to what I was saying, where we've
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: really painted this into I don't like again, Yeah, this's
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: goofy well meaning like you know, oh he tries his best,
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: but does he though, because clearly he did it did
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: so we know that. It begins with the disastrous birthday party,
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: which the neighbors call Miranda to come home and fix
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: because he wasn't listening to the neighbors, which there's one
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: thing to be like, yeah, yeah, yeah, neighbors are annoying. However,
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: in this instance of having live animals rolling up and
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: down your street and you don't know what's happening at
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: three pm. Some questions, there's some questions him putting a
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: job without talking to his wife and not even leading
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: up to something, and the fact that she is the
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: primary breadwinner in this scenario as well, And yeah, they
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: paint that as a bad thing when I'm like, yeah,
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: but he just quote his job like no one, No
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: one saw that. Who's going to be the one taking
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: care of So she's gonna do both. You are mad
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: that she's doing m okay, moving on. And then also
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: his redeeming arc because he's already sympathetic to begin with,
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: is that she finally has a moment to confide in
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: him and he's finally listening instead of being defensive an argumentative.
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: He could only do that dress as a woman. Yep,
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: I thought that too, And I was thinking, like, I
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: guess I could make an argument that this was a
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: commentary on gender on a gender dynamic in a heterostist
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: relationship we already know exists, but it's weird that it's
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: of like accepted that this is the way it is. Right.
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: Don't get me wrong, I really loved this comedy. This
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: is one of my dad's favorite movies, and he used
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: to do these lines and it was hilarious and I
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: still remember these iconic lines. Robin Williams. I loved him,
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: and I am so grateful that he was that good
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: of a human that I don't have to backtrack and
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: say he's not a great person. We know these things
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: about him, very grateful for that, and we know that
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: he was a kind person and this pretty much fell
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: into his kind of Chris Columbus is the one who
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: directed this, and we know him from Harry Potter. For
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: me anyway. Um, but like all of these things, it's like, yeah,
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: it's absolutely a stereotype. And it took a while before
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: really people had a moment of like, yeah, yeah, this
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: is not the best commentary on relationships and here's why.
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: Um and even still people would be like feminist are
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: being over the top. It's just a good hearted movie,
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: calmed the down type of commentator. But like, yeah, but
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: does needs to be a conversation about why this is
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: a problem, why we need to have several talks about
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: what this is and how women are portrayed in media.
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: You've got one of the best actresses in the world
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: playing this awful character with some of the cutest kids
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: Marrow Wilson in the movie. You know, all of those things,
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: but we need to unravel some of this conversation of
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: like why is this so accepted and why is this
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: the only way we can take any true commentary into
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: points and this we're We've already gone through, Kanye, so
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to bring it up too much more.
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: Except this is kind of that example of I'm a father,
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: they're keeping my children away from me and demonizing a
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: parent when they're like, no, you need to look around
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: at your own attitude, what you are doing in your
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: actions and how Yeah, this is not about keeping a
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: child away from the father. It's about having you get
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: yourself together so you can be a good father. Yes,
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: I was thinking about, like I said, all these Christmas
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: movies have this plot of like the dad's not that
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: he's always working for Christmas and then he doesn't get
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: the toy and he forgot even though his wife has
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: been telling him forever to get the toy. I'm talking
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: about you all the way, But yeah, it happens a
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: lot in all the movies, and she's seen as like
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: the nagging person. He's here at the end, just because
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: he finally realizes like, oh, I have a family and
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: I'm here on Christmas, um, And I can't help but
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: feel like this is like male writers writing these stories
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: either to redeem themselves or their own father's time cycle
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: analyzing email right, I'm sorry, UM, are women do which
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: maybe write some of this stuff to excuse all the
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: work they do versus what their husbands do. And we
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: haven't even gotten into the sitcom wife yet, which is
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: the big piece of this conversation, especially for me, who
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: I have watched a lot of these growing up, and
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: so many of those sitcoms, especially of like a certain
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: time when I was watching them in like the nineties
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: early two thousands, um, were the husband and wife, and
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: the wife was seen as the villain who was stopping
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: him from having fun. She us the nagging housewife who
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: was never happy, always yelling at him. And also like
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: this is a separate conversation, but she was like banging
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: and he was not really right. And I hate to
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: make things about looks and I actually have a whole
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: thought process that I want to come back in a
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: future episode about it, but just it's it may be
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: so mad, like every time I'm like, why is she
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: Why is the sitcom wife always like this and we're
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: always laughing at like the antics of the husband and
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: the main character in this who is like not helping
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: around the house or with the kids and is messing
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: up at work and forgets all this stuff, and then
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: we laugh and laugh and when she comes on like,
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: oh no, the fun is ruined. Yeah, literally, that's exactly right.
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: They're like, oh no, she took all the fun out
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: of the room. You're like, why could she ask you
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: to clean? Why because she told me to go to bed?
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: Why because she said dinner it's ready? Can you please
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: come on? I could ask some dinner come on. It's
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: hilarious and not just with like the really hot wise
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: but in the majority of the time they are half
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: the age of the men, and as the men are,
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: the comedians grow older and older, though your wife stay
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: the same age, and you're like, this is not realistic,
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: and apparently having that flip is kind of offensive according
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: to our society. Like it's just it's quite funny because
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: most of the things that we see with women centric
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: comedies is that they're either single, they're with other women,
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: or they're divorced or widowed, Like it's like they're trying
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: to find themselves as new you know, like those are
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: the again m hm m hmm. Yeah, perhaps that separate
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: episode we're kind of working on. But I have noticed
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: things like that too, and I actually am. I mean,
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: there's a very there's a dark side of that, right,
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: and very sad part. But I've been excited to see
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: a lot of movies lately that I've been watching at
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: least that are very much about the power of female
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: friendship and supporting each other. I that makes me happy,
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: but it is kind of like, well, did we have
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: to do this because the gender dynamic is so bad? Right?
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: So yeah, um, And you know, we're watching this stuff
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: as children, and that's informing how we think households work,
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: and perhaps we're seeing it in our real lives and
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: not informing how we think these relationships work and what's
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: acceptable and what's not acceptable. So we're really taking in
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: these messages at a young age. I mean, it has
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: everything to like we're being told as women that whence
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: you become a wife, a mother, you are a caretaker
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: to the entire family. And when we talk about matriarch
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: it's kind of bad. Is that women are taking care
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: of the household. And then when we say patriarch work,
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: talking about them being the disciplinarian or the lead or
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: the head, and it's like, even that seems sexist when
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: we put that in in terms. Yeah, yeah, for sure,
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: And it is always presented. I mean, we've talked about
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: this and so many, so many things, but it's again
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: another damned if you do, damned if you don't, because
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: you have to take care of the kids, and if
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: you don't, then you're like a cold bitch. And if
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: you don't, like, if you work too much, then what's
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: wrong with you? You should be home with the kids.
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: But it's also like a weird space where you have
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: to work too. It doesn't make sense. It's infuriating. Uh,
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: And it's just almost always like, well, we're blaming the
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: woman in this instance, and I find that interesting. They
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: make sure to have the women really dislikable, and it's
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: not the fact that there's any redeeming quality. You just
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: don't like them because they are all these things that
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: you see in your baby strict mother or a very
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: strict person in your life, and typically again our mother
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: in this in this type. But then if the dude
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: is a dick. It's just funny ha ha. Yes, yes,
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: and also like I want to come back to that
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: in a second. But also I promise you most women
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: don't want to quote right, we don't want to ask
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: you to do these things, like I dread it, yeah,
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: because I know that's how you're going to view me.
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: Like I'll ask you one exactly, I'll ask you twice
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: that I'm done. And that's again the same thing as
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: weaponized in competence exactly. Think I don't have to deal
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: with that as much, but I've seen it. I've seen
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: it in more places I've seen it and like all
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: of that. Yes, yeah, so that's that's a big part
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: of this too, Like we we really don't want to
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: I mean, who would want to do that? Right? A
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: certain number of people, yes, but most people don't want
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: to have to like take on this task. I don't
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: think so makes a lot of energy. It does, exactly.
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: It's another thing we're doing and we're not getting paid for,
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: recognized for other than you're being a bit stop out
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: it right right, Yes, So I'm not going to go
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: into this too much. I think we should come back
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: in the future episode. I've mentioned it a lot, and
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: I have a happy hour about it coming up. But
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: kind of related to this is what I was talking
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: about earlier, which is something I call the glorification of
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: the asp, which is the kind of a similar idea
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: where we're laughing at the the bumbling sitcom husband and
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: we're like, oh, yeah, well he's funny and putting them
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: in sort of the hero pedestal. And I think lately
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: we've seen kind of something related, which is the anti hero,
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: who's usually a jerk and sarcastic and rude, is the
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: hero and we're behind this person. So I've seen it
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: in Star Wars, I've seen it in Marvel. Like I
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: have a whole thing about Iron Man, who I think
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: is an interesting character. I just think exactly, perhaps we
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: should not be He's like a lot of people's favorites,
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: and I get I don't, but he's funny and he's interesting,
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: and but we should step back and be like, okay,
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: I mean, essentially, Pepper Potts had to take over the
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: company because he was getting like two sides. Act. Don't
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: get me wrong, I know he's inventing things and helping
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: the world, but he also claimed that for himself and
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: was very proud of it and took all the claim,
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: even that whole like the beginning of Avengers where he's
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: doing the whole clean energy stuff and he's like, give
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: yourself some credit and give yourself. I can't remember the line,
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: but it's very significantly less and she's like what what which? Yeah, which,
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: again I get is supposed to be funny, but it's
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: also like why is funny though, because he's kind of
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: a jerk and he has a He has a lot
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: of instances where I'm like, I don't know that he
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: brought her strawberries and she's allergic. The only that's the
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: one thing, really, dude, you're trying to kill. And again
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: they're just like it's painted as a quirk and he's
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: busy and is all this stuff sure you don't care about? Yeah,
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: it's there's a lot. I know, there's like complx and
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of stuff we ca're talking about. But
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: I do want to mention that, And I wanted to
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: mention when when I said Survival Horrors another episode you
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: could listen to that sort of related to this is
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: I think we're a lot more forgiving of men and
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: their flaws, especially white men and their flaws and their
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: trauma um as compared to anyone else. So like a
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: character like Kyler inferences, we're like so ready to explain
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: his backstory and we're so ready to be like, but
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: he's tragic and sad and oh, you can't be mad
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: at him because he has all this. We don't do
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: that for a lot of women, are people of color, Like,
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: we're just like, nope, I don't like her or whatever
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: it is, moving on exactly exactly. We don't give them
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: this side of fan work of but he's so let
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: me take care of him. He's so sad, And that's
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: sort of a different conversation, but it's related to this,
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: I think, where we're really ready to explain away men's flaws,
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: in particularly white men's flaws. And then there's the whole
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: conversation with like and the Mandalorian and the anti hero
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: and why we're like so ready to forgive and so like,
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: but they're still good at their job. And somebody posted
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: a listen was like are they though? And I was like,
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: this is what I'm talking about, And again, there's nothing
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: wrong with liking those characters. I think we should just
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: be clear on like the stories we've been told so
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: often about what a hero is and what is the
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: way we're celebrating and why and versus who were we
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: like condemning and why? Yes, and this is like we've
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: been talking a lot about fiction, but as you started
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: off this conversation, Samantha, this does have real world consequences
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: and like it's a way huger conversation than we're going
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: to get into right now. But I think things like
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump is part of this, like this is this
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: has real world impacts that are huge. I mean, we
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: could look at what's happening with Russia and Putin and
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: yes we've had issues. I'm not putting it sorely on
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump, but this huge rhetoric of all of a
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: sudden painting Russia as a hero, which did not happen
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: until Trump. Honestly, like Cold War still fresh and in
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: most people's minds, even if he didn't live through it,
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: you still kind of know about it because there's been
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: a lot of like end of times for the U.
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: S has had a lot to deal with, like Russia
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: when you know this, but like yeah, like stuff like
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: that where you have this like but he wasn't being
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: serious and having to backtrack, but he he was like
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: he was. There's a lot of confustion theories and maybe
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: not so conspiracy theories about like what did we promise? Hello,
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: look at what has happened with Ukraine? And hello, look
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: what he did during the election, just the recent elections
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: and trying to strong arm the Ukrainian government with trying
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: to win his own like, like, there's so many things
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: to that his all this excuse that we give to men. Kavanaugh,
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: there were boys, Like when my mother said that to
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: me and she was like he was young, I was
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: like he was thirties. No, No, he was an adult.
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: I don't understand that he was young. Let's stop. And
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: that's that same level of incompetence that he's like, do
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: you really think that he didn't know? Again, it says
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: it in that article about that it becomes a great
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: defense strategy, and it has, it's worked, and it's become absurd.
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: We're looking at some of the recent campaigning Marjorie Taylor Green,
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: which we haven't talked about because I'm like, I don't
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: want to give her much air in general. I know
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: we can't ignore her, but I don't want to acknowledge her.
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: Either her recent like, oh, I didn't know as a
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: white supremacist, I didn't realize that this was a whole
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: like thing. I just went to talk about my stuff,
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: like no, you can't, you can't. You can't blame that
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: on your ignorance. Let's let's really be honest. Same thing
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: with CRT, same thing with so many other things. I
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: think there was a huge conversation on TikTok once again
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: about Mount Rushmore and how really bad it is and
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: how they literally took over the land from Indigenous people
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: who've been white men on it that we idolized way
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: too much. It's just keep it to that point. But
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of that too to that point, and
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: like people will be like, well we they know, well why,
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah, this is what you should learn. The
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: same thing as plantation, when people are like, I didn't
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: know as a plantation, Well I thought they changed it
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: burn bitch, No you knew, or you could have looked
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: it up. It's not hard. It's not hard. And this
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: whole level of like how this goes and stretches over
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: all of society. It's not just men, it's not just
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: uh in marriages, it's not just that work place, but overall,
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: how harmful this rhetoric is, and why education is so
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: important that's a whole different thing, and taking on responsibility
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: and just being a good damn human. Let's just let's
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: just be there. I'm so I love it, and we've
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: we've touched on a lot. Like I know that there's
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: so much we touched on that is bigger than what
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: we discussed today, and I'm sure we'll come back and
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: talk about that. But yeah, clearly there's a lot going
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: on with this conversation and it's impacts and the damage
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: that it can do and has done. But yeah, you
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: know so much. I do like a lot of the
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: fixtion I mentioned. I'm just saying critical of the messages
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: you're receiving over and over, be willing to have the
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: conversation of yeah, this was problematic. We've talked about this
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: as we're trying to pick out books and movies. The
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: feature we wanted all to be highlighting and very happy
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: because oftentimes topics I picked specifically are really sad negative,
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: so we try to do that on the opposite end.
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: But at this point, you know, you just have to
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: acknowledge I love this. At once upon a time. But yes,
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: this is problematic and we need to talk about why
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: instead of ignoring it. Well that's part of the reason
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: we're here, but in a fun way, fun way, fun way.
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: Not you're to make anybody feel guilty generally not you
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: good listeners. Yeah, we love you well. Thank you so
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: much for going on this journey with us. Yes, yeah,
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: it's been a long time coming. And like I said,
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: we got some follow ups on this one. But in
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: the means, if you have any thoughts about this, if
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: you have any suggestions, please let us know. You can
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: email us that Stuff and your mom Stuff at I
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: heart media dot com. You can find us on Twitter
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: at mom Stuff Podcasts, or on Instagram and Stuff I've
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: Never Told You. Thanks. It's always to our producer Christina.
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: Thank you and thanks to you for listening Stuff I've
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: Never Told You. Suction of I Heeart Radio. For more
• 49:15
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