Latest / QUESTION EVERYTHING / VIVA: The Erotic Magazine That Helped Shape Feminism: with Jennifer Romolini

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VIVA: The Erotic Magazine That Helped Shape Feminism: with Jennifer Romolini · QUESTION EVERYTHING

0:04
Speaker 1: Big things happen when you're pretty, pretty bold, pretty clever,
0:08
Speaker 1: pretty strong. I'm Danielle Robe, and each week my guests
0:12
Speaker 1: and I have conversations that put a new spin on pretty.
0:17
Speaker 2: This is pretty smart.
0:19
Speaker 1: Today's episode is about the story of a magazine, but
0:23
Speaker 1: really it's about so much more. It's a story of feminism,
0:28
Speaker 1: the sexual revolution, and a reminder that so often, if
0:32
Speaker 1: we want to find out where we're going, we need
0:35
Speaker 1: to look back at where we've been. My guest today
0:41
Speaker 1: is Jennifer Romalini. She's an award winning writer and the
0:45
Speaker 1: host of Crooked Media's podcast Stiffed, about the rise and
0:48
Speaker 1: fall of the erotic women's magazine Viva in the nineteen seventies.
0:53
Speaker 2: Have you ever heard of Viva? I hadn't, and it
0:57
Speaker 2: is fascinating.
0:58
Speaker 1: I find the story of va but particularly fascinating because.
1:02
Speaker 2: Of its origins.
1:04
Speaker 1: The curator of Penthouse, a porn magazine that catered to men,
1:08
Speaker 1: was a man named Bob Guccioni. He wanted to publish
1:11
Speaker 1: a companion title for women, so in October of nineteen
1:14
Speaker 1: seventy three, Viva was born. And if you go google
1:18
Speaker 1: the covers, they are stunning, so chic, so seventies, so
1:25
Speaker 1: ahead of their time. It was essentially an erotic magazine
1:29
Speaker 1: for women. It had some articles and fiction delving into
1:33
Speaker 1: women's fantasies and exploring their sexuality, but it also had
1:38
Speaker 1: reviews of the arts, interviews with well known personalities, and
1:42
Speaker 1: fashion and beauty.
1:43
Speaker 2: Women wrote it, women edited it, women made it happen.
1:48
Speaker 1: There were profiles written by famed writers like Maya Angelo
1:52
Speaker 1: and get this, Anna Wintour's first position as a fashion
1:55
Speaker 1: editor was at Viva. A former employee, interviewed about her
1:59
Speaker 1: time at the magazine said, in nineteen seventy five, the
2:03
Speaker 1: magazine put out a survey for readers who were victims
2:05
Speaker 1: of rape. It was a secret magazine within the magazine.
2:10
Speaker 2: It was groundbreaking.
2:12
Speaker 3: Actually working in this porn empire wound up being the
2:17
Speaker 3: most professionally liberating work many of these women had ever had.
2:22
Speaker 3: And some of them, whatever.
2:24
Speaker 2: Happen, there was just one problem.
2:26
Speaker 1: But Jennifer says, you could sense it just by flipping
2:29
Speaker 1: through the pages of the magazine.
2:31
Speaker 3: It's like a profile of Maya Angelou and then like
2:34
Speaker 3: the next page is like an overtan like man's ass.
2:38
Speaker 1: Viva didn't make it out of the seventies. It exploded
2:42
Speaker 1: today is the story.
2:43
Speaker 2: Of why, and it's juicy, but.
2:45
Speaker 1: It's also the story of the evolution of feminism through
2:49
Speaker 1: the story of Viva. Jennifer, who looks like she walked
2:53
Speaker 1: out of the pages of a nineteen seventies magazine, rocking
2:56
Speaker 1: tinted lenses, a red turtleneck and blonde hair with a
3:00
Speaker 1: curtain bang, explains the evolution of feminism. For instance, she
3:05
Speaker 1: explains why the sexual revolution wasn't actually revolutionary for women
3:10
Speaker 1: at all, and why today's setbacks sound irrely familiar. Let's
3:15
Speaker 1: take a look back so we can really figure out
3:18
Speaker 1: where we're going, shall we. Jennifer, your bio says that
3:26
Speaker 1: you like talking and thinking about women and work. Yes,
3:30
Speaker 1: And I was laughing as I was reading that, because
3:33
Speaker 1: one of my best friends, Jillian, and I talk about
3:36
Speaker 1: work all the time. And we looked at each other
3:40
Speaker 1: one day and we said, what do people do if
3:42
Speaker 1: they don't talk about.
3:43
Speaker 3: Work, what do they talk about? I don't know, Like,
3:47
Speaker 3: I love talking about work. I think that it is
3:50
Speaker 3: such a big part of all of our lives. I
3:52
Speaker 3: think it is the biggest struggle in terms of like
3:56
Speaker 3: you can get right in your relationship with partners, with
3:59
Speaker 3: your friends. Your relationship with work is not one you
4:02
Speaker 3: can really control, and it's really really complicated, and it
4:06
Speaker 3: makes up so much of your identity as well, even
4:09
Speaker 3: though maybe it shouldn't, it does in our society. So
4:13
Speaker 3: I've just been fascinated with thinking about work, talking about work,
4:17
Speaker 3: mentoring people, you know. And this particular project is actually
4:21
Speaker 3: people think it's a project about sex, but it's really
4:24
Speaker 3: a project about work.
4:26
Speaker 1: That's interesting. You actually like work so much. You wrote
4:29
Speaker 1: a book called Weird in a World That's not a
4:32
Speaker 1: career guide for misfits, fuck ups, and failures. Yes, I
4:35
Speaker 1: really love I think every woman, at least that I
4:39
Speaker 1: know in their early twenties, feels like a misfit at work.
4:43
Speaker 1: No matter what industry they're in. Nobody prepares you for
4:48
Speaker 1: the world.
4:49
Speaker 3: That's really what I felt. I when I wrote that book,
4:53
Speaker 3: I was sort of I was a big manager. I
4:55
Speaker 3: was managing big tapes, and I was mostly managing women
4:58
Speaker 3: who were round twenty five, right, so let's say, somewhere
5:02
Speaker 3: in their twenties. And I could really see that they
5:05
Speaker 3: felt that way, and I had always felt that way,
5:09
Speaker 3: and what I was seeing in this sort of landscape
5:11
Speaker 3: of career guides at that moment was these women who
5:15
Speaker 3: looked perfectly polished and had everything figured out and gave
5:19
Speaker 3: you advice of like how to like spruce up your resume,
5:22
Speaker 3: but didn't really tell you, you know, how it felt, how
5:25
Speaker 3: awkward it felt to be in these environments, how vulnerable
5:29
Speaker 3: you felt, how you wanted to cry in the bathroom.
5:31
Speaker 3: I didn't feel like people were talking about that also,
5:34
Speaker 3: like how do you just figure out basics? Like I
5:36
Speaker 3: would freeze up when writing an email at the beginning,
5:39
Speaker 3: you know, I didn't know how to do that, and
5:41
Speaker 3: nobody really taught me how to do that. It was
5:43
Speaker 3: just like expected that you would know. So I wanted
5:46
Speaker 3: to talk about the more vulnerable aspects of work. And
5:49
Speaker 3: it's funny because people picked up that book and they're like,
5:52
Speaker 3: you're not that weird, Like I would get some reviews
5:54
Speaker 3: like you're not the weird, and it's like, no, that's
5:56
Speaker 3: not the point. It's not like I need to be
5:57
Speaker 3: like the ultimate freak. Is that we all feel this way.
6:01
Speaker 3: We all feel like a fuck up and a failure
6:03
Speaker 3: and weird at work and a misfit.
6:06
Speaker 1: If I could deduce my issues at work in my twenties.
6:12
Speaker 1: To one thing, I would say communication. I did not
6:14
Speaker 1: know how to deal with conflict, any little thing like
6:18
Speaker 1: a disagreement with a coworker, let alone a boss. I
6:24
Speaker 1: had no idea how to approach it. And weirdly enough,
6:27
Speaker 1: therapy is what helped me feel better at work. What
6:31
Speaker 1: was the thing for you that helped you feel better?
6:33
Speaker 3: I think helping other people helped me feel better eventually,
6:37
Speaker 3: once I became a manager and I could see what
6:41
Speaker 3: was happening to other people and really sort of key
6:44
Speaker 3: into what their issues were, and also realized that I
6:48
Speaker 3: was doing it, that I was there, that in some
6:50
Speaker 3: ways I was their role model, and I was there,
6:52
Speaker 3: you know, I was some young women's like idole at
6:55
Speaker 3: the time. You know, it was a really strange thing,
6:57
Speaker 3: and I still felt like such a freak. And that
7:00
Speaker 3: was what made me get over it, because I was like, oh,
7:02
Speaker 3: I'm just doing this anyway. We've been sold a hard
7:05
Speaker 3: line on confidence, like how much you need confidence? There's
7:08
Speaker 3: a confidence code, you should strut around, you should, you know,
7:11
Speaker 3: take a seat at the table. I still don't feel confident,
7:15
Speaker 3: you know. I mean sometimes I do, but I think
7:17
Speaker 3: it's a fleeting thing, you know. So I realized I
7:21
Speaker 3: didn't need the confidence, and then I could be all
7:24
Speaker 3: of those awkward, vulnerable pieces at work, and that actually
7:29
Speaker 3: it made me better at work because I was more human.
7:32
Speaker 1: The human part is interesting because I think we're all
7:34
Speaker 1: taught and gen Z is maybe fixing this a bit,
7:37
Speaker 1: but I think as a millennial, I was taught to
7:40
Speaker 1: be very professional, kind of leave yourself at the door,
7:43
Speaker 1: and that's actually not helpful because people like humans.
7:47
Speaker 3: No, people like humans. And the reason we were taught
7:49
Speaker 3: that is because we were taught to behave like Cis
7:53
Speaker 3: had white men. We were taught to be the whole
7:56
Speaker 3: girl boss movement is about you know, sort of taking
8:00
Speaker 3: the male way of doing business and you know, co
8:04
Speaker 3: opting it and being you know, really tough and really strong,
8:08
Speaker 3: but in stilettos. And it's like that just spelt like
8:11
Speaker 3: bullshit to me.
8:12
Speaker 1: I mean it's almost you can see it down to
8:14
Speaker 1: the esthetic, right like this. Everyone was in suits. Yes
8:17
Speaker 1: it's not that you can't wear a suit as a woman,
8:19
Speaker 1: but it was a traditionally male piece of clothing.
8:24
Speaker 3: We took all their ways of gaining power. We didn't
8:27
Speaker 3: fix the system at all. And you know, I was
8:30
Speaker 3: really in that mix a lot because I had written
8:33
Speaker 3: a career guide sort of at the height of the
8:35
Speaker 3: girl boss movement, right, and it was done a lot
8:38
Speaker 3: of panels. I was in like a lot of like
8:41
Speaker 3: green rooms with women who were doing this, and I
8:43
Speaker 3: would see them come out on stage and offer all
8:46
Speaker 3: of this advice you know in this like you know, oh,
8:49
Speaker 3: we're being so thoughtful and whatever, and then I would
8:51
Speaker 3: see them treat interns like shit in the green room,
8:54
Speaker 3: and I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, Like
8:57
Speaker 3: we have a disconnect here. This is a real problem
9:00
Speaker 3: because we can't be treating younger women like this. We
9:02
Speaker 3: can't be abusing our power like this. This doesn't work,
9:06
Speaker 3: This isn't progress. This is just the same thing in
9:09
Speaker 3: a skirt.
9:10
Speaker 1: So where do you think we stand now? Because as
9:12
Speaker 1: I was reading and researching for our interview, I was
9:16
Speaker 1: struck by the fact that my grandmother couldn't have a
9:19
Speaker 1: credit card in her name. My grandmother's still alive, So
9:23
Speaker 1: in just two generations, so much has changed, and yet
9:27
Speaker 1: all of us are still so frustrated.
9:31
Speaker 3: I mean, I think we did get rid of that
9:33
Speaker 3: whole girl like I think we did wash out a lot.
9:35
Speaker 3: I think that during the pandemic and during you know,
9:38
Speaker 3: when we've sort of shook out a lot of those
9:42
Speaker 3: you know, power monsters. Yeah, I think we're thinking about
9:46
Speaker 3: more equitable workplaces. I think that we're making progress toward that,
9:52
Speaker 3: but you know, we're all still under the patriarchy. The
9:56
Speaker 3: patriarchy white straight men fundev everything, and so they still
10:02
Speaker 3: control everything. So I think that's what our frustration is,
10:07
Speaker 3: that we make progress, but it feels like it goes backward,
10:10
Speaker 3: and we make progress and it feels like we go backward.
10:13
Speaker 3: So I think that things are better, like even you know,
10:17
Speaker 3: a lot of the reasons that people like the podcast
10:20
Speaker 3: I made, Stiffed Was is because it's a lot about nostalgia, right,
10:24
Speaker 3: and it's nostalgia for monoculture, and it's nostalgia for you know,
10:28
Speaker 3: a different a different time when things were a little
10:30
Speaker 3: more simple, when you could, when you could work for
10:32
Speaker 3: a magazine, and it really meant something right to the culture.
10:36
Speaker 3: But at the same time, those were terrible times. Even
10:39
Speaker 3: the two thousands was a terrible time to be in magazines.
10:42
Speaker 3: I mean, we women's magazines, we were promoting you know,
10:46
Speaker 3: body hating and diet culture and you know, so much
10:49
Speaker 3: toxicity and taking other women down. So there's definitely been progress,
10:56
Speaker 3: it just doesn't feel like enough. And it feels like
10:58
Speaker 3: we take five steps four and then you know, three
11:01
Speaker 3: steps back. So I think maybe we need to get
11:04
Speaker 3: used to that. That's just the way the progress happens.
11:07
Speaker 1: You mentioned Stiff, which is your podcast all about the
11:10
Speaker 1: story of Viva magazine, and it was one of the
11:13
Speaker 1: world's first sex positive women's magazines, and I had never
11:16
Speaker 1: heard of it. How did you hear about it?
11:19
Speaker 3: Another reason I really liked talking about work is because
11:21
Speaker 3: I have major class issues because all of the white
11:24
Speaker 3: collar positions I've been in and all the white collar
11:27
Speaker 3: environments I've been in. I'm a very working class kid.
11:29
Speaker 3: My parents were teenagers. I'm a you know, third generation
11:32
Speaker 3: Italian American immigrant. Like my parents were teenagers when they
11:35
Speaker 3: had me. My dad had a small business. I had
11:38
Speaker 3: never come into anything like I had come into in
11:42
Speaker 3: the white collar world when I came up into it,
11:45
Speaker 3: and so.
11:46
Speaker 1: Well, people say that editorial in particular is just a
11:51
Speaker 1: very sort of classist place.
11:55
Speaker 3: It was so rarefied and a feat and you know,
11:59
Speaker 3: white in a way way that I could not like
12:02
Speaker 3: so white that like I was not white enough for it,
12:05
Speaker 3: you know, like it was the whitest shit, because it
12:07
Speaker 3: was like mayflower white. It was just people who had
12:10
Speaker 3: really serious pedigrees. The reason I came across Viva to
12:13
Speaker 3: answer your question was I had been I had I
12:15
Speaker 3: have no generational wealth, and I was in magazines and
12:18
Speaker 3: you really were expected in that time to dress a
12:21
Speaker 3: certain way. And I didn't make a lot of money.
12:23
Speaker 3: I was just coming up and everybody was wearing like Chanel,
12:27
Speaker 3: and you know, everybody's wearing all this designer shit that
12:30
Speaker 3: they're like Dad's bought them and stuff like whatever. Maybe
12:32
Speaker 3: they bought themselves, but mostly it's dad's buying men, right,
12:34
Speaker 3: and also paying the rent. So I did a ton
12:38
Speaker 3: of vintage shopping, and that was how I sort of
12:41
Speaker 3: looked good all the time. So I did a lot
12:44
Speaker 3: of vintage shopping, and I did a lot of eBay shopping,
12:46
Speaker 3: in particular, just as eBay had started, and that was
12:48
Speaker 3: where I got on my clothes. And so some of
12:51
Speaker 3: the editors at the magazine noticed that I shopped at
12:53
Speaker 3: eBay and I had vintage clothes, and they liked it,
12:55
Speaker 3: and so they gave me a column about eBay shopping,
12:57
Speaker 3: which was super cool, Like, so I got to use
12:59
Speaker 3: the thing I loved and I got to do it
13:02
Speaker 3: every day, and it wound up going online and so
13:04
Speaker 3: it was a blog and whatever. And I found Viva
13:08
Speaker 3: that way. The seventies prairie dresses were really in at
13:11
Speaker 3: the time, and I was looking for them and I
13:15
Speaker 3: came across an issue of Viva and it looked amazing,
13:22
Speaker 3: Like look at it.
13:24
Speaker 4: You're just like, what the hell is this? Right, it's gorgeous.
13:28
Speaker 4: It's gorgeous, very artistic, it's so arty, right, it's so beautiful,
13:33
Speaker 4: it's so high design. And I had been so disillusioned
13:36
Speaker 4: because all I had wanted was to work in women's magazines,
13:39
Speaker 4: and now I was, and you know, they were not
13:41
Speaker 4: what I thought they were.
13:42
Speaker 1: Going to be.
13:43
Speaker 3: I wound up collecting some issues of Viva and over
13:47
Speaker 3: those years and then I became more and more obsessed
13:50
Speaker 3: with it. And so it's really a project I've been
13:52
Speaker 3: working on in my mind for more than a decade,
13:55
Speaker 3: like fifteen years. Like that's fucking crazy to me, Like,
13:59
Speaker 3: you never know, I mean, this is another obsession about work, right,
14:02
Speaker 3: you never know where anything's going to lead you, right,
14:05
Speaker 3: So that column led me to a seed of an
14:09
Speaker 3: idea that I wound up, you know, planting and growing
14:13
Speaker 3: fifteen years later. You can't ever guess where things are
14:17
Speaker 3: going to take you.
14:18
Speaker 1: Can You set the stage for me culturally at the time,
14:22
Speaker 1: Like in my mind this felt like a women's response
14:25
Speaker 1: to Playboy. Is that at all correct?
14:28
Speaker 3: So just to give you a little like porn, let's
14:31
Speaker 3: give a little porn landscape at the time. The first
14:34
Speaker 3: something I've never heard on this podcast, little porn landscape. No, No,
14:39
Speaker 3: it's also it is that thing that I talk about
14:41
Speaker 3: in like my.
14:42
Speaker 1: Regular life, Like it's crazy how.
14:44
Speaker 3: Much I porn. So Viva starts in nineteen seventy three.
14:49
Speaker 3: At that time, there are two major players in porn.
14:52
Speaker 3: Porn is not video yet. I mean it's about to be,
14:55
Speaker 3: but it's it's still mostly print. This is coming in
14:58
Speaker 3: a second, but at this time it's basically Bob Guccioni
15:02
Speaker 3: and Hugh Hefner. Hugh Hefner owns Playboy, Bob Guccioni owns Penthouse.
15:06
Speaker 3: They are the main competitors in this space of male porn.
15:10
Speaker 3: Hugh Hefner in nineteen seventy three launches Playgirl, and then
15:14
Speaker 3: Bob Guccioni launches Viva. The difference between Playgirl and Viva
15:19
Speaker 3: are the Playgirl is not trying to be feminist. It's
15:21
Speaker 3: not even really trying to be a magazine. It's kind
15:23
Speaker 3: of a joke of a magazine. It's pretty clearly for
15:26
Speaker 3: gay men. It's showing male nudes, but it's not aspiring
15:30
Speaker 3: to be something greater than that.
15:32
Speaker 4: Right.
15:33
Speaker 3: Viva is staffed by feminist writers, feminist editors, and also
15:40
Speaker 3: kind of run by Bob Guccioni's partner Kathy Keaton, who,
15:44
Speaker 3: fun fact, was the highest paid exotic dancer in the
15:48
Speaker 3: world at some point. She worked in Europe and she
15:51
Speaker 3: was a stripper and she had like this amazing life
15:54
Speaker 3: before she met Bob, and then she's really into having
15:58
Speaker 3: this sex positive magazine for women. So Viva has these high,
16:02
Speaker 3: fullutint aspirations that it wants to reflect the time that
16:06
Speaker 3: it's in, which the time that it's in is the
16:08
Speaker 3: sexual revolution.
16:10
Speaker 1: So in one episode you talk about Lucky, Glamour, Cosmo
16:14
Speaker 1: all of your time in women's magazines, and you say
16:18
Speaker 1: women's magazines were then and had always been messy, A
16:21
Speaker 1: lot of putting lipstick on the internalized misogyny pig, a
16:24
Speaker 1: lot of exclusionary self esteem, eroding word salads that were
16:28
Speaker 1: beneath all of us. Was Viva different from this.
16:33
Speaker 3: This is why I was obsessed with it.
16:35
Speaker 2: Right.
16:36
Speaker 3: It was so hopeful, and it was so much about sisterhood,
16:43
Speaker 3: and it was about celebrating female writers and artists and
16:51
Speaker 3: women in the roller derby and you know, women who
16:55
Speaker 3: drove cars for a living. But it was also about
16:58
Speaker 3: you know, these women sorting out. You know, maybe I
17:01
Speaker 3: don't want kids. This is nineteen seventy three, seventy four.
17:05
Speaker 3: This is revolutionary. Like you said, they can't even get
17:08
Speaker 3: credit cards yet, right, So they're talking about I want
17:13
Speaker 3: to live without a man, I want my work to
17:15
Speaker 3: come first. I might not want children, I might be
17:19
Speaker 3: by maybe I want an open marriage. This was so progressive,
17:26
Speaker 3: and it's kind of the utopia, right that all women want.
17:31
Speaker 3: I mean, at some point, I remember, I'm talking to
17:33
Speaker 3: this woman, Gabryant, who went on to be like a powerhouse.
17:38
Speaker 3: She's the one who popularized the term glass ceiling. So
17:41
Speaker 3: I'm talking to her and I'm saying, well, you know,
17:43
Speaker 3: what was your interest in this Sex magazine, and she said,
17:46
Speaker 3: you know, it wasn't really about sexual freedom for me.
17:49
Speaker 3: It was about the freedom to make my own life.
17:53
Speaker 3: That was what my desire was.
17:56
Speaker 1: Which is fascinating to me because I've always thought of
17:59
Speaker 1: feminism his choice. Yes, it's just the ability to choose,
18:03
Speaker 1: and that's all she was looking.
18:05
Speaker 3: For, That's all she wanted.
18:07
Speaker 1: So you got to interview a few women that were
18:10
Speaker 1: actually in Viva for the podcast. Yes, And I'm dying
18:14
Speaker 1: to know what the takeaways were because in hindsight, did
18:18
Speaker 1: they feel exploited, did they feel empowered? Was it both?
18:22
Speaker 3: They did not feel exploited. They felt like this was
18:26
Speaker 3: the wild West and that few people were offering them
18:30
Speaker 3: the kind of opportunities they could get at Viva. If
18:33
Speaker 3: they went to Cosmo, they were going to have to
18:35
Speaker 3: write about lipstick. Like they knew what they were doing, right.
18:40
Speaker 3: Bob Guccioni was a pain in the ass for sure,
18:43
Speaker 3: And he was definitely that kind of boss who like
18:45
Speaker 3: sort of you know, parachutes in and is like I
18:48
Speaker 3: know best and like fucks everything up and then like
18:51
Speaker 3: is out. He just thinks that he knows everything and
18:53
Speaker 3: he doesn't know anything. And so they had to work
18:54
Speaker 3: around that, for sure, but they recognized even in the time,
18:58
Speaker 3: their creative freedom. One of them had come from Newsweek.
19:02
Speaker 3: She was a major reporter. She was really good at
19:05
Speaker 3: what she did, and she couldn't get a byline at Newsweek.
19:09
Speaker 3: She was doing the reporting and the writing for the
19:11
Speaker 3: male writers and they were taking the byline. And she
19:15
Speaker 3: was part of this like landmark case where these women
19:18
Speaker 3: sued Newsweek because they weren't getting credit for their work,
19:21
Speaker 3: they weren't getting paid enough, and they weren't getting titles
19:24
Speaker 3: that reflected what they were doing. So this woman, Pat Linden,
19:29
Speaker 3: Viva was her favorite job. Like she comes from Newsweek,
19:32
Speaker 3: which you know you think would be great, it sucked
19:35
Speaker 3: actually working in this porn empire wound up being the
19:40
Speaker 3: most professionally liberating work many of these women had ever.
19:44
Speaker 1: Had, and some of them would ever have You paint
19:48
Speaker 1: a lot of these women as very ambitious, Yeah, which
19:54
Speaker 1: I think people would be shocked to hear because for
19:56
Speaker 1: some reason it's not tied to the sex d in
20:01
Speaker 1: many ways.
20:03
Speaker 3: No, but these women had aspirations like most women in
20:08
Speaker 3: publishing that I knew, And I think this is different
20:11
Speaker 3: now because I don't think magazines have the same kind
20:13
Speaker 3: of meaning that they had when I was coming up.
20:16
Speaker 3: We all wanted to make an esquire for women, like
20:20
Speaker 3: that was what we wanted. We want our GQ. We
20:22
Speaker 3: wanted a smart magazine that wasn't about fluff, that was
20:28
Speaker 3: for us. And when I interviewed this woman, Val Monroe,
20:34
Speaker 3: she was like, yeah, we were trying to make an
20:36
Speaker 3: esquire for women, and I was like, holy shit, fifty
20:39
Speaker 3: years ago you were trying to do that, Like.
20:40
Speaker 1: We still haven't cracked that code, you know, curiously.
20:44
Speaker 3: Yeah, so yes, you don't think about that. But so
20:47
Speaker 3: there was sex that there was porn in this magazine,
20:49
Speaker 3: but it was a bunch of like flaccid penises and
20:51
Speaker 3: like they just worked around them. They were like building
20:54
Speaker 3: out feminist symposiums with like Betty free Dan and like
20:58
Speaker 3: you turn the page and there would be like a
21:00
Speaker 3: flacid penis with glitter on it, and they were like,
21:01
Speaker 3: we don't care.
21:03
Speaker 1: It's so funny. I have not been able to flip
21:06
Speaker 1: through Aviva and I'm dying too. Oh my god, I
21:09
Speaker 1: feel like you must. It's like an experience to flip
21:13
Speaker 1: through those pages.
21:14
Speaker 3: Well, it's incredible because it's like a profile of Maya
21:18
Speaker 3: Angelou and then like the next page is like an
21:20
Speaker 3: overtan like man's ass. None of it makes sense and
21:25
Speaker 3: they knew that, but they didn't care because imagine you're
21:28
Speaker 3: getting to do the thing you want to do.
21:30
Speaker 1: So sadly, Viva ultimately goes under. And without giving too
21:34
Speaker 1: much away, because I want everyone to tune into the pod,
21:37
Speaker 1: what was your biggest takeaway in terms of why the
21:41
Speaker 1: magazine did ultimately fail? And I use that word in
21:44
Speaker 1: quotes because I don't really believe it was a failure
21:47
Speaker 1: at all.
21:48
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, I think there are a couple of things.
21:50
Speaker 3: I think it was ahead of its time. I don't
21:53
Speaker 3: think that people really, advertisers in particular, could really embrace
21:58
Speaker 3: this kind of full womanhood yet. And advertisers that traditionally
22:02
Speaker 3: advertising women's magazines, you know, Miss Scerra, you know unfortunately
22:07
Speaker 3: cleaning products, et cetera, did not want to be next
22:10
Speaker 3: to any kind of full frontal male nudity. So that
22:14
Speaker 3: makes sense. So I think that it was it was
22:16
Speaker 3: really ahead of its time and people couldn't wrap their
22:18
Speaker 3: heads around it.
22:18
Speaker 1: I don't want to accept to you, but I just
22:20
Speaker 1: want to say that in the last two years, I've
22:23
Speaker 1: finally seen male nudity on television on Streep, that's right,
22:27
Speaker 1: And growing up I had never seen that. And I've
22:29
Speaker 1: also never seen a man give a woman oral sex.
22:34
Speaker 1: I'd only in any TV show or it was like
22:38
Speaker 1: intimato that that was happening, and that has finally changed
22:41
Speaker 1: in two thousand, I'd say probably twenty one.
22:43
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, I mean Euphoria did a lot for people.
22:46
Speaker 3: But yeah, I just I mean euphoria and many other
22:49
Speaker 3: many other things. Yeah, I think that's really true. Right,
22:52
Speaker 3: this was like the Dirt Weirdly, even though these are
22:55
Speaker 3: not it's it's not any kind of like hard core porn.
22:57
Speaker 3: It's really soft core porn. This was like the dirty
23:00
Speaker 3: as shit just because it involved full frontal male nudity,
23:04
Speaker 3: which is just absurd. But the second reason it failed Viva.
23:09
Speaker 3: One of the reasons I wanted to do this show
23:11
Speaker 3: because I knew that Viva perfectly reflected the seventies. Nobody
23:15
Speaker 3: really understands the seventies. Everybody's like confused with like disco
23:20
Speaker 3: and like, you know, what is going on in the seventies, No,
23:23
Speaker 3: like chest hair, nobody knows, right, But the seventies has
23:26
Speaker 3: this really beautiful arc, and it is. There's so much
23:30
Speaker 3: progression in the beginning of the seventies and so much hope.
23:32
Speaker 3: It's coming out of the sixties and it becomes the
23:35
Speaker 3: sexual Revolution. There's porno chic in the middle, and then
23:38
Speaker 3: by the end of the seventies, the moral majority and
23:42
Speaker 3: Reaganism is coming in and that's when everything changes. So
23:46
Speaker 3: by nineteen seventy nine, when Viva ends all of this
23:51
Speaker 3: sort of sexual openness and progression, it's over. And Viva
23:57
Speaker 3: really reflects that that arc, and I really wanted to
24:01
Speaker 3: show that because I wanted to also educate myself about it.
24:04
Speaker 3: I felt like I didn't understand it, and I think
24:08
Speaker 3: that a lot of the things that happened fifty years
24:11
Speaker 3: ago are a reflection of things that are still happening today.
24:15
Speaker 3: So I felt like it would help me to understand that.
24:21
Speaker 1: I don't know if you've been feeling this way, but
24:23
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24:27
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24:30
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24:34
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24:38
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24:42
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24:54
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Speaker 1: the reason and I wanted to talk to you is
27:01
Speaker 1: because I feel like you are a women's historian in
27:04
Speaker 1: many ways, and in line with what you just said,
27:08
Speaker 1: I don't think we can all fully understand where we're
27:11
Speaker 1: at without understanding where we've been. And I took some
27:15
Speaker 1: gender studies classes in college. They were some of my favorites,
27:17
Speaker 1: and I still to this day don't totally understand first, second,
27:21
Speaker 1: and third wave feminism. So will you. I'm going to
27:24
Speaker 1: like work through it with you, but will you kind
27:27
Speaker 1: of go through?
27:28
Speaker 3: Yeah, third wave I'm sort of the shakiest on but
27:31
Speaker 3: I think everybody is. We're in it right now, right, Yeah,
27:35
Speaker 3: we're in it ish now. Maybe we're in fourth wave,
27:37
Speaker 3: who knows. I mean, so first wave, first wave, second
27:40
Speaker 3: feminism is like suffragettes, Okay, Like we don't like that's.
27:44
Speaker 1: Like nineteen twenty women get the right to vote. Yes,
27:46
Speaker 1: Like that's like, you know, women deserve rights. That's like
27:50
Speaker 1: when we get foundational rights as human beings on the planet. Right, Okay,
27:54
Speaker 1: Like that's sort of that's the easiest.
27:57
Speaker 3: One to understand. I feel like, you know, you picture
28:00
Speaker 3: those women in your mind, you know what they were
28:02
Speaker 3: fighting against.
28:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, you see like images of Elizabeth, Katie Stanton and
28:07
Speaker 1: Susan B. Anthony and exactly.
28:09
Speaker 3: Exactly, that's that one's pretty I mean, you know, that's
28:12
Speaker 3: that's simplifying it to some degree, but that one's pretty simple. Okay.
28:17
Speaker 3: Second wave feminism is where things get really tricky, because
28:22
Speaker 3: second wave feminism starts in the sixties, and it starts
28:27
Speaker 3: in these kind of consciousness raising groups. Consciousness and raisin
28:31
Speaker 3: groups are literally women sitting together in groups like and
28:34
Speaker 3: just talking and hashing things out and scheming and planning,
28:37
Speaker 3: but really having conversations for the first time in an
28:41
Speaker 3: organized way that they had not really had before about
28:44
Speaker 3: like motherhood and sex and their marriages and what they
28:47
Speaker 3: wanted out of their jobs, et cetera.
28:50
Speaker 1: And is this Gloria Steinem time.
28:52
Speaker 3: Yes, this is Gloria Yes, exactly. This is the beginning
28:55
Speaker 3: of Gloria Steinem time. Though Glorious Steinem comes a little
28:58
Speaker 3: bit like a couple of years after this. So we're
29:00
Speaker 3: talking like nineteen sixty seven, nineteen sixty eight, there's women
29:04
Speaker 3: talking about their desires, they're talking about pleasure and for
29:08
Speaker 3: our purposes of what we're going to talk about right now,
29:10
Speaker 3: which is sex, because this is really important to second
29:13
Speaker 3: wave feminism. There's an essay that comes out at this
29:17
Speaker 3: time which is called the Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm,
29:20
Speaker 3: which is by this woman and Coat, and it is
29:23
Speaker 3: really this time, from about sixty seven to about seventy two,
29:27
Speaker 3: seventy three, seventy two, I'd say women are really this
29:31
Speaker 3: is a sex positive feminist movement, and women are really
29:35
Speaker 3: asserting their desires right and their pro sex. They're pro pleasure,
29:40
Speaker 3: and this is where feminism is right. So out of
29:45
Speaker 3: this comes the sexual revolution, and the sexual revolution, which
29:51
Speaker 3: is supposed to be revolutionary for women, turns out to
29:55
Speaker 3: be not at all.
29:56
Speaker 1: Well cause, yes, sexual revolution, because in my mind, I
30:00
Speaker 1: remember when Hugh Hefner passed and everyone was like he
30:02
Speaker 1: was a complicated man, but he was so important to
30:05
Speaker 1: the sexual revolution.
30:07
Speaker 3: He was not, So I mean, I think he was
30:11
Speaker 3: not at all. I think Guccioni is a much more
30:13
Speaker 3: interesting character in terms of the sexual revolution. And because
30:16
Speaker 3: Guccioni is out there saying, you know, sex is not dirty,
30:20
Speaker 3: we have too many hang ups about sex. Sex should
30:22
Speaker 3: be about pleasure. GUCCIONI was a problematic man in a
30:26
Speaker 3: lot of ways, but he was not a scumbag like
30:28
Speaker 3: Hugh Hefner. So who's leading the sexual revolution? Are these
30:32
Speaker 3: pro sex feminists? To begin with, women like Erica Jong
30:36
Speaker 3: who writes Fear of Flying in seventy two, which introduces
30:39
Speaker 3: the world to to something called the zipless fuck, which
30:41
Speaker 3: is sex without ties, sex without feeling. It's like, I
30:48
Speaker 3: just want to have sex for pleasure and I want
30:50
Speaker 3: it to not mean anything, right, So Erica Johng comes
30:54
Speaker 3: out and she becomes like a feminist icon and a
30:56
Speaker 3: pro sex icon. By seventy two two seventy three, this
31:01
Speaker 3: sexual revolution begins to be co opted by men, white men.
31:05
Speaker 3: And what happens is something called pornoschic happens. And there
31:09
Speaker 3: starts to be porn movies, including the most important one
31:14
Speaker 3: at this time, and they're playing in mainstream theaters right,
31:16
Speaker 3: Like people you would not like, Angela Lansberry is going
31:20
Speaker 3: to going to see Deep Throat, Johnny Carson is going
31:23
Speaker 3: to see Deep Throat, Like people are lining up publicly
31:25
Speaker 3: because it's okay to see porn, because porn is cool, Okay,
31:29
Speaker 3: So what happens in this moment. Is all this work
31:33
Speaker 3: that these these pro sex feminists have done to say, hey,
31:37
Speaker 3: the myth of the vaginal orgasm, Like, we have sexual desires,
31:42
Speaker 3: we would like those to be centered men. Straight men
31:46
Speaker 3: come in and say, actually, let's recenter the penis. So
31:50
Speaker 3: Deep Throat is really really important to the entire sexual
31:55
Speaker 3: revolution because Deep Throat is a movie. If listeners don't know,
31:59
Speaker 3: it's a huge movie. It's like winds up being in
32:01
Speaker 3: like the top movies of the year, like on the
32:03
Speaker 3: same list with Godfather.
32:05
Speaker 1: And is this at all a play on words with
32:08
Speaker 1: deep Throat? Who was the Nixon informant?
32:12
Speaker 3: Possibly, But this is really about literally deep throating because
32:16
Speaker 3: the premise of this movie is that this woman who
32:19
Speaker 3: doesn't enjoy sex, Linda Lovelace, this woman who doesn't enjoy sex.
32:24
Speaker 3: The only way she can enjoy sex, she is a clitterist,
32:26
Speaker 3: a doctor finds on the back of her throat, and
32:28
Speaker 3: the only way she can enjoy sex is by having
32:31
Speaker 3: a large penis penetrate her throat. So this becomes almost
32:37
Speaker 3: a mockery of female pleasure. Right, this is just the
32:42
Speaker 3: patriarchy just taking all of this.
32:46
Speaker 1: Progress back, right, made it a cartoon.
32:49
Speaker 3: It made it a cartoon. So what happens now in
32:53
Speaker 3: the sexual revolution is women are expected to be hip
33:00
Speaker 3: and with it and have sex. And this was not
33:03
Speaker 3: something that had been part of their lives before because
33:06
Speaker 3: before it was like, oh, a nice girl doesn't have
33:08
Speaker 3: sex and men knew that and you know whatever. So
33:10
Speaker 3: they had some protections but not Casual sex is everywhere,
33:14
Speaker 3: but there's no protection, so there's no education about consent
33:18
Speaker 3: or anything else. So there's a lot more sexual assault.
33:21
Speaker 3: So from this, so now this feminism, this is feminism
33:25
Speaker 3: at this point, right, and MISS has just come out
33:28
Speaker 3: and we're fighting for you know, the right to work
33:32
Speaker 3: and you know, the Equal Rights Amendment. This is happening
33:35
Speaker 3: now at the same time.
33:36
Speaker 1: And MISS is Glorious Steinem's.
33:38
Speaker 3: Magan MS is Glorious Stinem's magazine exactly. So around the
33:42
Speaker 3: mid to late seventies, second wave of feminism becomes co
33:46
Speaker 3: opted because of everything I just explained about the sexual
33:48
Speaker 3: revolution by anti porn feminists, because anti porn feminists equate
33:56
Speaker 3: all porn with violence, and this is led by women
34:00
Speaker 3: like Andrea Dwarkin and Catherine McKinnon, and they sort of
34:07
Speaker 3: take over like there's feminist porn wars where the pro
34:10
Speaker 3: sex feminists are fighting the anti porn feminists because they're like, hey,
34:15
Speaker 3: this doesn't all have to be bad. There's a space here.
34:18
Speaker 3: There's a space here. And Viva, i think, was trying
34:20
Speaker 3: to bridge this gap, right, So they're doing special issues
34:24
Speaker 3: on rape, but also talking about fantasies and sexual fantasies
34:28
Speaker 3: and interviewing Nancy Friday, who was like, who wrote The
34:31
Speaker 3: Secret Garden that was all about women's sexual pleasure. But
34:35
Speaker 3: the anti porn movement overtakes the pro sex part of
34:40
Speaker 3: the feminist movement, and it weakens the movement because conservatives
34:48
Speaker 3: really like the anti porn feminists. They align with them,
34:53
Speaker 3: and sort of everything starts to fall apart, and also
34:56
Speaker 3: feminism falls apart because this part of the movement is
35:01
Speaker 3: so anti man and is so so just there was
35:07
Speaker 3: angry extream, so angry, and this is the end of
35:11
Speaker 3: the seventies, and this is the end of the seventies
35:14
Speaker 3: into the eighties.
35:15
Speaker 1: Which is interesting because that's when Viva closes, Yes, exactly
35:19
Speaker 1: do you think that these two things are connected.
35:22
Speaker 3: I think that all of this is connected. I think
35:25
Speaker 3: that our openness around sex starts to close. At this point,
35:29
Speaker 3: I think the women's movement moves several steps backward in
35:34
Speaker 3: all ways, and I think that it hinges on sex
35:39
Speaker 3: because it becomes the loudest issue, even though it's not
35:43
Speaker 3: the most important issue, it becomes the loudest one. Just
35:47
Speaker 3: like anti trans legislation, which is not in any way
35:52
Speaker 3: the biggest issue, but it's the one everyone is attached
35:55
Speaker 3: to right now, is fracturing all kinds of movements.
35:59
Speaker 1: I want to touch on that later because that's a
36:02
Speaker 1: huge component of this. But I think what I'm hearing
36:06
Speaker 1: from you is that we have so much to learn
36:09
Speaker 1: about where we're at right now by this time period.
36:13
Speaker 3: Absolutely, because what happens after this is that straight women
36:16
Speaker 3: who are married to men, they don't want to be
36:19
Speaker 3: aligned with this extreme feminism. They feel like left out
36:26
Speaker 3: of the sisterhood because imagine, if you're a pro sex,
36:30
Speaker 3: if you support sex workers, if you are you support
36:35
Speaker 3: porn actors, you're not a part of this movement, right
36:40
Speaker 3: So it's very exclusionary. Actually, and you see then for
36:46
Speaker 3: years after this, you see women afraid to call themselves feminists.
36:50
Speaker 3: I mean you saw that up until recently, right I.
36:53
Speaker 1: Hated that time. I actually just did an episode on
36:56
Speaker 1: pop stars and feminism because I, yeah, anyways, see where
37:00
Speaker 1: we're at reflected in our pop stars yes, And everybody
37:05
Speaker 1: was like asking. Every journalist was like, Taylor Swift, are
37:08
Speaker 1: you a feminist? Jennifer Lopez, are you a feminist? Beyondes?
37:11
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't want to go on a tangent,
37:12
Speaker 1: but we've also commodified feminism in some ways too. Oh.
37:15
Speaker 3: I mean, look, I remember being asked when like the
37:19
Speaker 3: in the whole girl bossy girl bossyist of girl Boss Times.
37:22
Speaker 3: I remember being asked to be on a panel which
37:24
Speaker 3: I refused to be on and caused a big problem
37:26
Speaker 3: at my job that was selling feminism. It's not just
37:30
Speaker 3: Harry Armpits anymore. And I was like, fuck you, I'm
37:33
Speaker 3: not talking about the ways that we can make money
37:36
Speaker 3: off of feminism, which was, you know, everything just millennial
37:39
Speaker 3: pink was just like a whole time of just like selling.
37:43
Speaker 3: And it was also combining feminism with this toxic girl
37:47
Speaker 3: boss culture which is just like Winner Takes All, which
37:51
Speaker 3: was not which was leaving so many people behind, which
37:56
Speaker 3: was not even intersectional, you know, because these movements have
37:59
Speaker 3: to be intersectional to work. They can't leave people behind.
38:03
Speaker 3: And so yes, we get to the.
38:05
Speaker 1: Early nineteen nineties, Yeah, we hit third wave. Is that correct?
38:10
Speaker 3: Yes, I think that's sort of the riot girl movement.
38:13
Speaker 3: I think that we would say that that is third
38:15
Speaker 3: wave feminism.
38:16
Speaker 1: And what's the riot girl movement?
38:18
Speaker 3: I've never heard the riot girl movement is you know,
38:23
Speaker 3: it's women like Kathleen Hannah, It's Courtney Love. It's them saying,
38:27
Speaker 3: you know, we can do anything as a whole. It's
38:30
Speaker 3: we can do anything that men can do. It's trying
38:33
Speaker 3: again to take back some of the power from men.
38:37
Speaker 1: Right, tell me if this is wild. But in my mind,
38:40
Speaker 1: I'm thinking, do you remember the Viva glam ads that
38:43
Speaker 1: Mac used to do.
38:44
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, it.
38:45
Speaker 1: Feels a very esthetically riot girl to me.
38:48
Speaker 3: You know maybe, but then but then we're in commodification,
38:50
Speaker 3: like who knows, right, But these women were saying, I
38:53
Speaker 3: just I want to be able to have a job
38:55
Speaker 3: like a man can have a job. I want to
38:57
Speaker 3: be free of the confines of these like prescribed you know,
39:01
Speaker 3: feminine roles of motherhood and housewife. Again. I mean, we're
39:06
Speaker 3: doing the whole thing's happening again. But I would say
39:10
Speaker 3: that third wave feminism was really even worse than Second
39:14
Speaker 3: wave feminism, was really centered on white women, and I
39:17
Speaker 3: think that that is always problematic, you know, so.
39:22
Speaker 1: Not real progress.
39:23
Speaker 3: No, no, it wound up becoming a kind of Olympics
39:28
Speaker 3: of like, you know, who was being marginalized the most.
39:31
Speaker 3: Because then when you get into pink pussy hat feminism,
39:34
Speaker 3: like now we have a whole nother fucking problem, this
39:36
Speaker 3: pantsuit nation feminism. So I think that we combine all
39:40
Speaker 3: of those in a third wave. Though they might be
39:43
Speaker 3: a third and fourth wave, you know, but none of
39:46
Speaker 3: these are including everyone and really thinking about affecting real
39:51
Speaker 3: social change.
39:53
Speaker 1: So I want to touch on the including everyone. In
39:55
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen, Amanda Hes wrote a New York Times article,
39:59
Speaker 1: and she says the has never been one women's movement.
40:02
Speaker 1: It's difficult, for example, to say that the American Feminist
40:05
Speaker 1: Project started in Seneca Falls, New York in eighteen forty eight,
40:08
Speaker 1: because black women were not invited to that convention. It's
40:11
Speaker 1: hard to say that electing a woman as president would
40:13
Speaker 1: have been feminism's crowning achievement because the success of one
40:16
Speaker 1: woman does not naturally trickle down to all. How have
40:20
Speaker 1: the fractures in feminism changed recently, or have they.
40:25
Speaker 3: There's so much to think about at this moment, and
40:29
Speaker 3: VIVA is so important because Viva. Think about nineteen seventy three.
40:34
Speaker 3: Roe v Wade has just been passed. Okay, these women
40:38
Speaker 3: thought that at least that was over. Okay, Roe v
40:42
Speaker 3: Wade has now been taken away. People are coming for
40:47
Speaker 3: our body autonomy, and the biggest fraction and the thing
40:50
Speaker 3: that we are focused on most are trans people, who
40:54
Speaker 3: make up such a small part of our population, and
40:59
Speaker 3: trans women are not included in the feminist movement by
41:02
Speaker 3: many feminists.
41:03
Speaker 1: And very famous feminists too, like.
41:06
Speaker 3: Yeah, oh, one hundred percent. I mean I was going
41:08
Speaker 3: to say there were many women who were involved, like
41:11
Speaker 3: who had written for Viva, not involved, but who had
41:14
Speaker 3: written for Viva, famous feminists including Jermaine Greer, who I
41:18
Speaker 3: had to research every one of these women before I
41:20
Speaker 3: decided to interview them, because I was not going to
41:22
Speaker 3: interview turfs.
41:24
Speaker 1: So terf, because that's a new term I'd actually not
41:27
Speaker 1: heard of until a few weeks ago. What is a turf?
41:29
Speaker 3: Turf is a trans exclusionary radical feminist, and I understand
41:35
Speaker 3: that part of second wave feminists was feeling very untrusting
41:42
Speaker 3: toward men, right, And I understand that a lot of
41:48
Speaker 3: the progress these women felt like they made was because
41:53
Speaker 3: they were against men and they banded together. And I
41:56
Speaker 3: understand that they feel like a person who was born
42:00
Speaker 3: born with male anatomy should not be included in the
42:03
Speaker 3: movement because of their own trauma. But you can see
42:07
Speaker 3: that the people who do not have our best interests
42:10
Speaker 3: in mind are using this fracture in the movement to
42:17
Speaker 3: keep us apart from each other, to weaken us. We're
42:21
Speaker 3: so focused on bathroom laws. I hear people talking about
42:25
Speaker 3: trans issues much more than I hear people talking about abortion.
42:29
Speaker 3: And it's not that they're going to stop with these
42:32
Speaker 3: trans issues, it's just their entry in. And if any
42:37
Speaker 3: feminist doesn't see that, this is how we begin. I mean, Starbucks,
42:43
Speaker 3: they're not even celebrating pride in twenty one States. Then
42:47
Speaker 3: it goes to all of the LGBTQ community, and then.
42:53
Speaker 1: It goes to women.
42:54
Speaker 3: It goes to women.
42:56
Speaker 1: So what is their argument, because I don't quite understand
43:00
Speaker 1: their perspective. Is it that one thing I have read
43:04
Speaker 1: is that some second wave feminists that our turfs feel
43:08
Speaker 1: like trans people don't actually understand the women's experience.
43:14
Speaker 3: That's right.
43:14
Speaker 1: They're not people who period, they're not having children, and
43:19
Speaker 1: so they feel like they don't fully understand the experience.
43:24
Speaker 1: Just so that we can dispel that what's there.
43:28
Speaker 3: Well, I don't understand this ignorance, and I don't understand
43:31
Speaker 3: who turfs think that this sort of ideology benefits because
43:37
Speaker 3: it's exclusionary and it's bigoted, And what the argument is
43:43
Speaker 3: is that trans women are not women fundamentally, That's what
43:46
Speaker 3: it says. Instead of being expansive and saying.
43:48
Speaker 1: Oh, well, actually, yeah, what does it mean to be
43:52
Speaker 1: a woman?
43:52
Speaker 3: What does it mean to be a woman? But not
43:54
Speaker 3: even that that this person is having an experience that
43:57
Speaker 3: I'm not having, and I'm going to be open and
43:59
Speaker 3: expansive to that, that they have faced a discrimination that
44:03
Speaker 3: I have not faced. I'm going to include that in
44:07
Speaker 3: this movement because I don't want anyone. I don't want
44:11
Speaker 3: anyone's identity to be infringed upon. Yeah, because my value
44:15
Speaker 3: system says that we should all get to be who
44:20
Speaker 3: we are and live authentically as ourselves. And that's my
44:26
Speaker 3: foundational value system, and we all deserve basic human rights
44:31
Speaker 3: in equal.
44:32
Speaker 1: Rights and also to your point earlier, trans women are
44:37
Speaker 1: on the front lines of feminism. They receive so much
44:42
Speaker 1: more hate and trauma than the average woman walking down
44:47
Speaker 1: the street, and so you're right, it is such a
44:50
Speaker 1: slippery slope as well.
44:52
Speaker 3: It's unimaginable to me to think that not supporting trans women, yeah,
45:01
Speaker 3: helps any woman. I can't fathom that that sensibility. And
45:07
Speaker 3: what we're doing is we're fear mongering, we're othering, We're
45:11
Speaker 3: doing the thing is you can just see it. We're
45:14
Speaker 3: doing the things we've always done.
45:16
Speaker 1: And it's it's not exclusive to feminism, Like so much
45:19
Speaker 1: of our conversation, I'm thinking, Oh, this is so applicable
45:23
Speaker 1: to race, this is so applicable to religious persecution. I mean,
45:28
Speaker 1: I always think of that poem from right after the
45:30
Speaker 1: Holocaust that says they came for people.
45:33
Speaker 3: First, they came for and then and then they came
45:35
Speaker 3: from it.
45:36
Speaker 1: Yes, it exaccinated. It feels like, oh, first they came
45:38
Speaker 1: for trans women and then they came Like, what do
45:40
Speaker 1: we think is going to happen? Right?
45:42
Speaker 3: And what is actually happening while we're distracted over here?
45:47
Speaker 1: Oh?
45:48
Speaker 3: Yes, right?
45:49
Speaker 1: But what is happening while we're distracted by this point,
45:53
Speaker 1: zero one percent of the population.
45:56
Speaker 3: Our reproductive rights are being narrowed and narrowed. There's all
46:03
Speaker 3: sorts of legislation that is pushing one kind of family
46:08
Speaker 3: and one kind of life. Yeah, that I don't think
46:12
Speaker 3: any of us, if we really think about it, most
46:15
Speaker 3: of us do not want to go back to We
46:17
Speaker 3: started this conversation talking about work. If my role as
46:21
Speaker 3: a mother is the most important value I have, If
46:25
Speaker 3: I don't have the support I need to be a
46:28
Speaker 3: working mother, my life becomes smaller and smaller and smaller.
46:34
Speaker 1: And that is linked to depression in so many ways,
46:37
Speaker 1: when your worldview becomes small.
46:39
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, so I think we're just thinking. We're focusing
46:44
Speaker 3: on all the wrong things. And who cares? Why do
46:46
Speaker 3: we care so much? Who gives a shit?
46:48
Speaker 1: Who gives it? That's it, that's the best question. Who
46:51
Speaker 1: gives a shit?
46:52
Speaker 3: I agree it, Who gives a shit?
46:55
Speaker 1: Who gives a shit? About drag queens? Drag queens have
46:58
Speaker 1: been a big part of my life. My parents took
47:01
Speaker 1: my brother and I to San Francisco when I was
47:03
Speaker 1: I think probably ten and he was eight, and they
47:06
Speaker 1: took us to a drag show and the drag queens
47:09
Speaker 1: were so excited that my parents brought two young kids
47:13
Speaker 1: to their show. They came out and gave us jewelry,
47:16
Speaker 1: like they were so excited. So I've only had the
47:19
Speaker 1: most beautiful experiences. My whole life has been like so
47:23
Speaker 1: much about celebrating drag queens.
47:25
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean not who gives a shit like, but
47:27
Speaker 3: who gives a shit like? Let's let them exist. They're fun.
47:30
Speaker 1: That's the best. Totally, it's the best.
47:32
Speaker 3: And also people are like, it's just so crazy to me,
47:35
Speaker 3: like people have been dressing in drag forever and the
47:39
Speaker 3: only reason we're doing this because also the other things
47:41
Speaker 3: we're getting distracted from is that our social safety nets
47:44
Speaker 3: are shrinking and shrinking and shrinking. Our healthcare system is
47:48
Speaker 3: a disaster. We've made all medicine corporates, so now doctors
47:52
Speaker 3: have to worry about profits. Like, there's so many social
47:55
Speaker 3: issues going on in this country right now. It's so
47:59
Speaker 3: hard to survive in this country right now for so
48:04
Speaker 3: many people. And we are worried about something that is
48:10
Speaker 3: so intimate and so private and so none of our
48:13
Speaker 3: business and also affects such a small part of the population.
48:18
Speaker 3: And we have made this huge and I am sure
48:22
Speaker 3: that that is by design by the people who are
48:25
Speaker 3: working behind the scenes to take away all kinds of
48:28
Speaker 3: rights for women and all people.
48:31
Speaker 1: It's always been about fear, right, yeah, when all this
48:34
Speaker 1: stuff comes out. So are we technically in fourth wave now?
48:38
Speaker 3: Maybe? Maybe maybe we're still sitting in third wave? I mean,
48:42
Speaker 3: who knows where it's going to come down to next.
48:44
Speaker 3: I mean, I want to see us working together. I
48:47
Speaker 3: want to see us, you know, being radically accountable and
48:52
Speaker 3: to each other and you know, listening, really listening, and
48:55
Speaker 3: being angry collectively.
48:58
Speaker 1: What do you think are some of the ways that
48:59
Speaker 1: we've made strops? It's actually and when you look at
49:02
Speaker 1: gen Z, what do you see because actually, one of
49:06
Speaker 1: the things that I thought of recently was there was
49:08
Speaker 1: this gallon TikTok that is an attorney and poses in
49:13
Speaker 1: bikinis all the time. And my initial reaction.
49:16
Speaker 3: Was ooh right, right, right, right, right, oh suit right. Yeah.
49:22
Speaker 1: I had to check. I realized that was my own
49:25
Speaker 1: internalized misogyny and I had to check myself. And she
49:28
Speaker 1: can be both a sexy girl in a bikini and
49:33
Speaker 1: a brilliant attorney.
49:35
Speaker 3: I think it's just what you said, because you just
49:36
Speaker 3: said it so beautifully. It's that we have language for
49:40
Speaker 3: these things now, right, and we're talking about them. So
49:42
Speaker 3: that's one. That's one progress.
49:44
Speaker 1: Two.
49:45
Speaker 3: I do think that gen Z is starting to sort
49:48
Speaker 3: of break out of the binary, which is really where
49:50
Speaker 3: I think that we need to go. I mean, my
49:53
Speaker 3: great people have asked me, Oka Viva, would you like
49:55
Speaker 3: to see a viva today? And I said, yes, I
49:56
Speaker 3: would like to see a viva of today, but I
49:58
Speaker 3: would like to see it not focus on gender in
50:00
Speaker 3: any way, right, Like it's sort of genderless, not genderless,
50:04
Speaker 3: but you know that is not outside of the box.
50:06
Speaker 1: How cool would that be?
50:09
Speaker 3: Oh my god?
50:10
Speaker 1: Maybe that should be one of your next things.
50:13
Speaker 3: Well maybe, actually maybe it will be. Honestly, I've been
50:16
Speaker 3: I've been really considering that because I do think I
50:20
Speaker 3: do think that like we have further to go in
50:23
Speaker 3: you know, I mean we're all talking all over the
50:25
Speaker 3: place about political issues and everything, but just focusing back
50:28
Speaker 3: on sexual desire and focusing back on sex and porn
50:32
Speaker 3: and erotica and fantasy and all of that. I think
50:36
Speaker 3: there's an opportunity to be both educational and really expansive
50:40
Speaker 3: right now. But I think we've made a lot of
50:43
Speaker 3: progress in terms of giving language to consent and having
50:47
Speaker 3: more people thinking about consent. I do not think the
50:49
Speaker 3: women in the seventies had any sort of language for
50:52
Speaker 3: that right, So I do think that that we've made
50:54
Speaker 3: a lot of progress in that way.
50:56
Speaker 1: Great point. You know, it's interesting to hear you say that,
51:00
Speaker 1: because I was reading a Pew Research Center study and
51:03
Speaker 1: they said, well, women are more likely to associate feminism
51:06
Speaker 1: with positive attributes like empowering and inclusive. Men are more
51:10
Speaker 1: likely to see feminism as polarizing and outdated. And I
51:13
Speaker 1: was shocked to hear that that was still the case.
51:16
Speaker 3: That is shocking, but it's sort of trying to take
51:19
Speaker 3: some of their power. So of course, I mean they're
51:21
Speaker 3: always going to have a negative association with it because
51:23
Speaker 3: we're just like, we just want to be treated like
51:25
Speaker 3: you are.
51:26
Speaker 1: Like now, I'm not looking for a matriarchal society, No,
51:31
Speaker 1: I'm looking for an equal society.
51:33
Speaker 3: Same. I'm looking for an equal society with maybe some
51:38
Speaker 3: matriarchal elements with maybe leading, you know, leading more with
51:42
Speaker 3: love and empathy, leading more with you know, equity and
51:47
Speaker 3: intention rather than greed. I mean, I'd like to see
51:51
Speaker 3: some of those things happen, and I maybe this is
51:54
Speaker 3: too gendered, but I do consider those to be a
51:56
Speaker 3: little more female than at least what I've seen from
51:58
Speaker 3: straight men. But again, they've been taught how to be
52:01
Speaker 3: toxically masculine too, Like this is the problem. These gender
52:05
Speaker 3: roles are the biggest problem. And I do think the
52:07
Speaker 3: gen Z sees that they're like, I want out of
52:09
Speaker 3: this whole fucking thing.
52:10
Speaker 1: They want to opt out. I totally they want out
52:13
Speaker 1: of the whole thing. So I do a quick rapid
52:16
Speaker 1: fire at the end. What is the best unconventional career
52:20
Speaker 1: advice you've ever been given.
52:22
Speaker 3: It's gonna work out somehow. It's always gonna work out somehow,
52:25
Speaker 3: unless you die, and that's another way of it working.
52:27
Speaker 1: Out to you, that's amazing.
52:31
Speaker 3: I had a boss and I were talking. I was like,
52:34
Speaker 3: I don't think this is gonna work out, and she
52:35
Speaker 3: was like, it's gonna work out somehow.
52:38
Speaker 1: And unless you die, and that's another way of it
52:41
Speaker 1: working out. That's amazing. I'm Jewish and so we love
52:45
Speaker 1: a good morbid joke. I don't know why, but we
52:49
Speaker 1: always think like death is something to.
52:53
Speaker 3: Hey man, death, that's that's the reason you know, and
52:55
Speaker 3: that's the really you have to accept the death. It
52:57
Speaker 3: makes you happier of being alive, you know, like it's common.
53:00
Speaker 3: We better appreciate it while we're here. You know.
53:03
Speaker 1: What's the best tip to stop overthinking?
53:07
Speaker 3: Think about someone else.
53:10
Speaker 1: That's a really good one. What was your first job?
53:13
Speaker 3: I worked for my dad when I was thirteen, doing
53:16
Speaker 3: what I sold flowers outside of his fruit and vegetable market.
53:20
Speaker 1: When you think about that time, what stays with you?
53:23
Speaker 1: What did you learn?
53:25
Speaker 3: I loved watching my dad. My dad was such an ethical,
53:28
Speaker 3: wonderful boss, and I loved watching him. And I also
53:31
Speaker 3: loved watching, you know, at home my mom was cleaning
53:34
Speaker 3: and cooking and nagging. And I loved watching a person
53:37
Speaker 3: who was the boss of everything. I loved. I loved it.
53:40
Speaker 3: It taught me everything about work. I'm so glad I
53:41
Speaker 3: started working for him when I did.
53:43
Speaker 1: And you wanted to be a boss?
53:44
Speaker 3: Oh? I wanted to be him. Yeah.
53:48
Speaker 1: What is a book that you've read that changed your life?
53:51
Speaker 1: Something you think everybody should read? You know, I'm going
53:54
Speaker 1: to say The Edible Woman by Margaret Atwood. I followed
53:58
Speaker 1: my parents' path, and I got into a young marriage
54:00
Speaker 1: and way, way too young. When I was twenty one
54:02
Speaker 1: and I read The Edible Woman, which was all about
54:05
Speaker 1: freedom and all about you know, feeling like you were
54:09
Speaker 1: drowning in in conventional roles of femininity. And it really
54:14
Speaker 1: changed my life and I wounded up leaving that marriage,
54:16
Speaker 1: getting the courage to leave that marriage at like twenty four.
54:18
Speaker 1: How did your dad feel when you got married young?
54:21
Speaker 3: You know, Italian American Catholic, Like everyone kind of expected it.
54:25
Speaker 3: It was it was me who's like was the wild card.
54:28
Speaker 3: I was like, wait a second, I don't want to
54:30
Speaker 3: just start pumping out babies, and like I wanted something
54:33
Speaker 3: different from my life. And I was the first person
54:36
Speaker 3: in my family, first generation, to you know, have a career,
54:40
Speaker 3: not just a job.
54:41
Speaker 1: I do a question from my card deck called question Everything.
54:45
Speaker 1: So we're virtual. People always get the one they're supposed to.
54:49
Speaker 1: So you tell me when to stop.
54:51
Speaker 3: Okay, stop.
54:53
Speaker 1: This is a great one for you, a mistake you've
54:55
Speaker 1: made along the way that you'd like to save other
54:57
Speaker 1: people from.
54:59
Speaker 3: Don't take a job because it looks good to the
55:00
Speaker 3: outside world, or because you think you should only take
55:03
Speaker 3: jobs that really just light you up, like really feel it.
55:07
Speaker 3: Because if you take something because it looks good to
55:09
Speaker 3: other people, or you think you just you don't have
55:12
Speaker 3: it for it, you don't have the energy and the
55:14
Speaker 3: passion for it. And I've made that mistake a couple
55:16
Speaker 3: of times, and I will never do it again.
55:18
Speaker 1: What is the smartest decision you've ever made?
55:21
Speaker 3: Investing in my creative work in midlife? I had been
55:25
Speaker 3: a corporate executive for a long time who was sort
55:27
Speaker 3: of dying to write books and make things. And I've
55:30
Speaker 3: only made things in the last five years, and it's
55:32
Speaker 3: been fantastic.
55:34
Speaker 1: You're kidding, You've done all this in the last five years.
55:37
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, I just wrote my second book. It's called
55:42
Speaker 3: Ambition Monster.
55:44
Speaker 1: I say this without hyperbole. Women like you are the
55:47
Speaker 1: reason I started this podcast, and I am so grateful
55:51
Speaker 1: that you exist and that your voice is out there,
55:54
Speaker 1: and really grateful for your time. I learned so much
55:57
Speaker 1: from you today, and I know everybody listening, well.
56:00
Speaker 3: Oh, thank you so much. This conversation was such a pleasure,
56:03
Speaker 3: Like really, it's so fun to like talk about this
56:06
Speaker 3: stuff with another really smart woman who's curious, Like, just
56:09
Speaker 3: keep going, this is amazing.
56:16
Speaker 1: I want to thank the people that make the show possible,
56:19
Speaker 1: Colleen O'Neill, Jill Salama, Karrie o'keef and Phils feed Tech.
56:23
Speaker 2: Okay, you know what time it is. Today's a good day.
56:26
Speaker 2: To have a good day. I'll see you next week