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SMNTY Classics: Lady Truckers · Stuff Mom Never Told You

0:05
Speaker 1: Hey, this is Andy and Samantha and welcome to staff.
0:07
Speaker 1: I never told you, but actually I heart radio. Samantha.
0:20
Speaker 1: What's the biggest vehicle you have ever driven? I've driven
0:25
Speaker 1: a fifteen passenger van. Who what was that? Like? Really
0:29
Speaker 1: annoying because I'm short, so that means I have to
0:32
Speaker 1: be right under the wheel to get to the brakes
0:35
Speaker 1: and the little nerve wracking because I was also responsible
0:38
Speaker 1: for kids, so they were in the band. I'm like,
0:40
Speaker 1: oh my god. It was okay, I'm okay riding of it.
0:44
Speaker 1: It was not too bad. Okay. Follow up question, what's
0:48
Speaker 1: the longest car trip you've ever taken? I actually so,
0:52
Speaker 1: I'm guessing this is it from Atlanta from Athens, Georgia
0:56
Speaker 1: all the way through Texas to Oklahoma. Yeah. Yeah, that's
1:01
Speaker 1: pretty long when Texas is huge Texas. Yes, And it
1:05
Speaker 1: was probably the longest, right I had and the most
1:09
Speaker 1: racist interaction with the cop that I've had. Second, No,
1:13
Speaker 1: it was top two. No, Actually it was the most racist.
1:15
Speaker 1: I had other racist interactions, but this was the most racist.
1:19
Speaker 1: That's unfortunately does not surprise me. Thing against Texas because
1:24
Speaker 1: they can't have it anywhere right. They do not like
1:28
Speaker 1: brown people. Driving through small towns at eleven pm. It
1:35
Speaker 1: seeks later maybe two am. Mm hmm. Yeah, So I
1:42
Speaker 1: for someone who hates driving, hilariously, I learned. I learned
1:47
Speaker 1: to do most of my driving in a suburban and
1:50
Speaker 1: not like you know, like the nine seater suburban. It
1:56
Speaker 1: was pretty surprisingly smooth though. Uh but I did drive
2:02
Speaker 1: a U haul on and I hated it. I hated it.
2:06
Speaker 1: It was a traffic during Atlanta and I am so
2:10
Speaker 1: cheap this rush hour. I only rented it for one hour,
2:14
Speaker 1: so I had like a time limit in rush hour
2:17
Speaker 1: and I was picking up this couch and it was awful. Oh,
2:24
Speaker 1: just thinking, it's a lot, very stressful. For the longest
2:32
Speaker 1: trip I've taken, I did a friend and I she
2:35
Speaker 1: did all the driving, but we went all the way
2:38
Speaker 1: over to California, up to Colorado, over to Chicago, back
2:43
Speaker 1: down through to get to Georgia. It was actually a
2:46
Speaker 1: really nice trip. I thought by the end we might
2:48
Speaker 1: like hate each other for a little bit or something.
2:49
Speaker 1: It's a lot of time to spend with somebody and
2:51
Speaker 1: close scanters, but it was fine, right. Yeah, I had
2:55
Speaker 1: a friend with me, and I'm really glad it did.
2:57
Speaker 1: We when we went through Oklahoma, but when we left,
3:00
Speaker 1: we came through Arkansas back to Georgia. Yeah, I don't
3:05
Speaker 1: recommend Arkansas. Sorry if you all are from Arkansas. There's
3:15
Speaker 1: some like as a brown person when driving anywhere, I
3:19
Speaker 1: am very overly cautious. And there are two states that
3:22
Speaker 1: made me really nervous. A lot of states obviously, because
3:25
Speaker 1: like I said, I had really racist encounter in Texas. Um,
3:29
Speaker 1: I was speeding. Don't get me wrong, I did wrong.
3:31
Speaker 1: I wasn't even arguing that. But the way he's I
3:34
Speaker 1: don't know if it was a true sundown city and
3:35
Speaker 1: I didn't know what those were at that point in time,
3:37
Speaker 1: but he screamed at me about coming through, to never
3:40
Speaker 1: come through again, and to remember my He didn't say
3:43
Speaker 1: remember my place, but he just asked me why I
3:45
Speaker 1: was there and why would why would I be there?
3:47
Speaker 1: And I was thinking, what I don't understand, like and
3:50
Speaker 1: I would explained, I'm driving to see friends in Oklahoma,
3:53
Speaker 1: and his response was so out of left field. Because
3:56
Speaker 1: I wasn't arguing with him, I accepted it. It wasn't awful,
4:01
Speaker 1: like it wasn't a huge speeding taking, but I was
4:02
Speaker 1: definitely speeding a little bit and I was just kind
4:05
Speaker 1: of like, this reaction is over the top, and I
4:07
Speaker 1: am not confrontational, especially when I don't even know it's coming.
4:11
Speaker 1: It's one of those that I am one of those
4:14
Speaker 1: that just freezes it stirs, like I don't know what's happening.
4:17
Speaker 1: So when that happened, and I was like, Okay, and
4:20
Speaker 1: Texas not as bad as that was. It's not on
4:22
Speaker 1: my list of the two of the states that I'm
4:25
Speaker 1: more scared of. The arkansass on one of them. Yeah,
4:31
Speaker 1: if you have a bad experience a kid, and it
4:34
Speaker 1: can really stick with you. Well, the reason I wanted
4:36
Speaker 1: to bring all of this up is because, as you
4:41
Speaker 1: all know, I'm sure lately there's been all of these
4:44
Speaker 1: news stories about the supply chain and shortages and why
4:49
Speaker 1: it's so bad. And we're gonna return to talk about
4:52
Speaker 1: that in a future episode and kind of expand out
4:55
Speaker 1: how that impacts women. But one of the reasons is, uh,
5:00
Speaker 1: here in the US, not enough truckers or truck drivers.
5:02
Speaker 1: There's a shortage in that. And I just remember when
5:05
Speaker 1: this episode came out, the numbers the gap between male
5:08
Speaker 1: and female drivers was so significant. Um, and it's not
5:12
Speaker 1: an easy job and I'm not easy on your body,
5:15
Speaker 1: like it takes a lot of time. I have a
5:18
Speaker 1: friend who works in trekking, so it's just I feel
5:22
Speaker 1: like there's a lot of things we have to talk about.
5:24
Speaker 1: What we're talking about these shortages of you know, there's
5:28
Speaker 1: there's more than one thing happening here. But we did
5:31
Speaker 1: want to bring back this episode about women who who
5:34
Speaker 1: are trekkers and the trekking industry as this conversation is
5:38
Speaker 1: going on, So please enjoy. Welcome to Stuff Mom Never
5:45
Speaker 1: told you from how Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and
5:53
Speaker 1: welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen and I'm Caroline and
5:56
Speaker 1: today's episode on women in rucking has been requested by
6:02
Speaker 1: a number of listeners. It has, Yeah, we we I
6:05
Speaker 1: don't know if you guys are in cahoots. We've gotten
6:08
Speaker 1: a couple of emails from guys Trucker Guys Trucker, requesting
6:13
Speaker 1: that we tackle this issue of basically like where where
6:17
Speaker 1: are the ladies in trucking? So, for instance, we wanted
6:21
Speaker 1: to share a letter from listener Greg who wrote to us,
6:25
Speaker 1: I'm an old, broke down, worn out trucker. I wanted
6:29
Speaker 1: to use my time behind the wheel more productively and
6:32
Speaker 1: I found your podcast. I've really appreciated your feminist viewpoint,
6:36
Speaker 1: as I don't really get the chance to see things
6:38
Speaker 1: from a female perspective very often. I work in an
6:41
Speaker 1: industry that, as I'm sure you are aware, is dominated
6:44
Speaker 1: by men. And as I was listening to your podcast
6:47
Speaker 1: on women and visual effects, it made me curious to
6:50
Speaker 1: hear your take on women and trucking. The trucking industry
6:54
Speaker 1: is essential to the country, yet women are severely underrepresented
6:58
Speaker 1: among the ranks of professional driver. Of course, women are
7:01
Speaker 1: certainly capable of performing the job, but it's extremely difficult
7:05
Speaker 1: for women to enter the industry, and the ones that
7:08
Speaker 1: do often face sexism that could be compared to the
7:12
Speaker 1: construction industry. So before we go on Greg and all
7:18
Speaker 1: of the other truckers listening to this podcast, this episode
7:22
Speaker 1: is for you and Greg, by the way, you're spot
7:25
Speaker 1: on across the board. And also, I'm just so excited
7:27
Speaker 1: to imagine Greg finding stuff I've never told you and
7:31
Speaker 1: like listening to us like wax feminism as he's driving
7:35
Speaker 1: down the road. This was really fun to think about. Yeah,
7:38
Speaker 1: and we we love the idea and we love the suggestion.
7:41
Speaker 1: And I don't think though that we quite expected the
7:47
Speaker 1: picture to be so grim when we first dive into research. Yeah,
7:51
Speaker 1: and it's and it's not grim in the way that
7:54
Speaker 1: you might expect. But we'll get into that. Hang fasten
8:00
Speaker 1: your seatbelt, folks, because we will get into that um
8:04
Speaker 1: later on. But first we want to just give you
8:07
Speaker 1: an overview of the trucking industry because I mean, again, Greg,
8:10
Speaker 1: you're so right across the board. I mean, it's true
8:13
Speaker 1: that the trucking industry is so essential to the country,
8:18
Speaker 1: but there are very few women, not surprisingly so there
8:22
Speaker 1: are around two or thousand female truckers on the road
8:25
Speaker 1: and that sounds like a lot, sure, but that makes
8:28
Speaker 1: up just six percent of all truck drivers, whereas there
8:32
Speaker 1: are three million fellas behind the wheel. Yeah, and that
8:37
Speaker 1: six percent figure for women is actually up slightly from
8:40
Speaker 1: four point six percent according to the group Women in Trucking,
8:45
Speaker 1: and it's lower in the UK, Hey, UK listeners, women
8:49
Speaker 1: make up just one point two percent of truckers over
8:54
Speaker 1: in the UK, and we didn't find that much solid
8:57
Speaker 1: demographic information on women and trucking. But over at the
9:02
Speaker 1: site Real Women Trucking, which is run by trucker named Desiree,
9:07
Speaker 1: she says that most women who get into it are
9:09
Speaker 1: between thirty nine and fifty nine years old, which I
9:11
Speaker 1: thought was really interesting. But it's not necessarily a dream job.
9:17
Speaker 1: Um Erica are Vizoo, who's an admission supervisor at the
9:22
Speaker 1: dudes In School of Trucking, told NPR quote, a lot
9:26
Speaker 1: of them are single women trying to support their families,
9:29
Speaker 1: are just trying to help their partner because of the
9:31
Speaker 1: economy and everything, just to survive. Yeah, I mean, we
9:35
Speaker 1: read a lot too, and this is in comments, and
9:37
Speaker 1: I know, you know the refrain like never read the comments,
9:40
Speaker 1: but the comments on articles about women and trucking are
9:42
Speaker 1: actually pretty enlightening for the most part um because and
9:46
Speaker 1: I say that because I'm so far removed from this
9:49
Speaker 1: industry and so it's fascinating to get first person accounts.
9:52
Speaker 1: But a lot of the comments talk about how women
9:55
Speaker 1: who not all women, but a lot of the women
9:59
Speaker 1: who come to trucking is specially those who come later
10:01
Speaker 1: in life, are coming out of really bad circumstances. Because
10:05
Speaker 1: it's a relatively well paying job for a lot of
10:07
Speaker 1: women who have either maybe just gotten out of prison,
10:10
Speaker 1: maybe women who have experienced homelessness, and not that that's
10:13
Speaker 1: not true for some of the guys too, But trucking
10:16
Speaker 1: presents sort of a unique and positive opportunity for a
10:21
Speaker 1: lot of people. Yeah, I mean it's a lifeline, especially
10:24
Speaker 1: for g I s who have just come home. Um.
10:27
Speaker 1: And again, it is a crucial industry to all of
10:33
Speaker 1: our day to day lives that we probably do not
10:35
Speaker 1: think about very often because imagine, truckers move nine point
10:40
Speaker 1: two billion tons of freight or se of all US
10:44
Speaker 1: freight every year, and there still aren't enough truck drivers.
10:51
Speaker 1: The American Trucking Association estimates that we're about thirty thousand
10:55
Speaker 1: drivers short already, and by think it's that number will
11:02
Speaker 1: probably be up to two hundred thousand if recruitment doesn't
11:06
Speaker 1: pick up. Yeah. And so, as we've seen in many
11:10
Speaker 1: an industry over our national history, people turned to women
11:15
Speaker 1: to fill these traditionally male dominated roles, and anecdotally it's working. Um.
11:20
Speaker 1: There are a lot of people in the industry who
11:22
Speaker 1: say that more women are getting their trucking licenses and
11:25
Speaker 1: that the work environment is female friendlier than ever before.
11:29
Speaker 1: Although as we will continue to discuss, everything's relative, that's
11:33
Speaker 1: not saying all that much. Yeah. Ell Envoy who heads up.
11:36
Speaker 1: The Women in Trucking Association that we've cited said that
11:40
Speaker 1: if we could double the percentage of women working in
11:42
Speaker 1: the trucking industry, we could solve the immediate qualified driver shortage,
11:47
Speaker 1: which saying quite a lot. Yeah, I mean, but keep
11:51
Speaker 1: in mind, listeners, as we're talking about this inciting sources
11:54
Speaker 1: that there is um a little bit of conflict between
11:59
Speaker 1: women and trucking and Real Women Trucking because Real Women
12:03
Speaker 1: Trucking was started to, you know, give firsthand insight into
12:08
Speaker 1: what it's like being a woman in the trucking industry,
12:11
Speaker 1: and the woman who started it often talks about how
12:15
Speaker 1: women in trucking, which is more organized, Um, it's a
12:18
Speaker 1: bigger organization, it's more geared toward recruitment, right, yeah, and
12:21
Speaker 1: it has more industry connections. And so Real Women Trucking
12:25
Speaker 1: often claims that Women in Trucking is a little bit
12:29
Speaker 1: misleading and glosses over some of the details about, um,
12:32
Speaker 1: what life is like on the road. Um, but women
12:37
Speaker 1: are also a safer bet for trucking companies. Um. Derek Leathers,
12:42
Speaker 1: who's the CEO of Werner Enterprises, told Bloomberg that women
12:47
Speaker 1: drivers performed better than men across the board. They tend
12:50
Speaker 1: to have fewer accidents, they have better inspections and fewer
12:53
Speaker 1: compliance issues. Yeah, and VOI, who we decided, also told
12:57
Speaker 1: the BBC that women are so much better with the
13:00
Speaker 1: customers and the paperwork in the equipment with what with
13:03
Speaker 1: our tiny hands. Well, there's the equipment in there too.
13:06
Speaker 1: I know she had just stopped at paperwork, I would
13:07
Speaker 1: have been like, Ellen, Yeah, But why is there this
13:13
Speaker 1: scarcity of women in trucking. Well, I mean if from
13:17
Speaker 1: the get go it's major job requirements like life on
13:21
Speaker 1: the open road, hauling freight, even just driving are all
13:26
Speaker 1: masculine gendered activities, though of course some women have gotten
13:30
Speaker 1: behind the wheel anyway. Yeah, and this is the part
13:33
Speaker 1: of the podcast where we have to talk about trailblazers. Yes,
13:35
Speaker 1: let's do it, and and almost literally trailblazers. They were
13:39
Speaker 1: the first people on these trails, sometimes blazing them, blazing
13:43
Speaker 1: blazing them. So before there was truck driving, you had
13:47
Speaker 1: to have wagon driving. And so during the Western expansion
13:52
Speaker 1: in this country, wives would typically take the reins so
13:56
Speaker 1: that their husbands could sit on the back or in
13:58
Speaker 1: the passenger seat with a done. This is where we
14:00
Speaker 1: get the term writing shotgun. You're welcome. I know, I
14:03
Speaker 1: didn't know that before we was searching for this episode. Yeah,
14:06
Speaker 1: I never I yelled shotgun a lot in high school.
14:09
Speaker 1: I never do, still do. Yeah. I never understood where
14:12
Speaker 1: it came from, never even really thought about it. And
14:14
Speaker 1: it's because of this, because women were holding the reins
14:18
Speaker 1: while husband carried a shotgun literally writing shotgun. Um. And
14:23
Speaker 1: at this point we have to talk about Mary Fields,
14:26
Speaker 1: who was a freed slave who is better known by
14:29
Speaker 1: her nickname Stagecoach Mary. She drove six horses and a
14:34
Speaker 1: mule as a U. S. Postal Services second female hire
14:38
Speaker 1: and the first African American postal worker in the US.
14:43
Speaker 1: And that happened in when PS. She was sixty. Yeah,
14:47
Speaker 1: she worked through her seventies in this job and was frequent.
14:51
Speaker 1: She even worked. She was like worked as as protection
14:55
Speaker 1: for nuns. Like. She's a fascinating, fascinating figure. Um. But
15:00
Speaker 1: you can consider her an early truck driver uh. During
15:05
Speaker 1: World War One though big old leap uh. In nineteen nineteen,
15:09
Speaker 1: Luella Bates became one of the first female commercial truck
15:13
Speaker 1: drivers and certainly it's most well known. So if you
15:16
Speaker 1: look at histories of commercial truck driving. Louella Bates is
15:19
Speaker 1: usually cited as the very first lady, and she was
15:23
Speaker 1: hired by Wisconsin's four wheel drive factory along with other women,
15:28
Speaker 1: to fill positions left by men at war. So again
15:31
Speaker 1: a similar theme that we've heard before on the podcast,
15:34
Speaker 1: and I love I love her story because Bates took
15:37
Speaker 1: a shine to test driving and demonstrating the trucks and
15:42
Speaker 1: four wheel drive was like, hmmm, we could make her
15:46
Speaker 1: the face of our company. So they sent her on
15:49
Speaker 1: this cross country marketing tour, and of course the press
15:53
Speaker 1: described her as quote a pretty and petite woman pilot. Well, yeah,
15:58
Speaker 1: because as you know, the more things change, the more
16:01
Speaker 1: they stay the same. And you apparently cannot have an
16:04
Speaker 1: article about a woman in a male dominated job that
16:08
Speaker 1: doesn't discuss her appearance. And like there's always this effort
16:12
Speaker 1: on the part of writers, it seems to assure readers
16:16
Speaker 1: that someone is still feminine, like, don't worry, she's still pretty.
16:21
Speaker 1: And we see that in coverage through today, which is
16:26
Speaker 1: a little bit mind boggling up, Like relax, okay, Like
16:30
Speaker 1: it's fine, I don't care what she looks like. I
16:32
Speaker 1: don't care if she paints her nails. It's cool. Yeah,
16:35
Speaker 1: I don't care, but I mean, and it's something you
16:37
Speaker 1: hear echoed though in um, the actual industry, there was
16:41
Speaker 1: an article we read there was interviewing women truckers in
16:44
Speaker 1: the UK, and one woman was saying that she always
16:46
Speaker 1: gets comments from other guys being like, oh, I can't
16:49
Speaker 1: believe you're straight. Like there's all of these preconceived notions
16:53
Speaker 1: about what a trucker is supposed to look like a
16:56
Speaker 1: but then what a lady trucker is supposed to be.
16:58
Speaker 1: And so I just I want to tell everybody, like relax.
17:02
Speaker 1: I want to borrow um, Holly from stuff you missed
17:04
Speaker 1: in history colasts like be cool, wand like everybody be cool.
17:08
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter what a human looks like if they
17:10
Speaker 1: are doing the job that they want to do. Like,
17:12
Speaker 1: just relax, everybody, Caroline says, relax, you need to make
17:17
Speaker 1: those shirts. Yeah, exactly that. Um. But if we hop
17:21
Speaker 1: back to the nineteen forties, Rusty Dow became the first
17:25
Speaker 1: woman to drive the Alaska Highway and she was one
17:29
Speaker 1: tough gal. Dal had worked as a truck driver in
17:32
Speaker 1: California and then ended up operating her own trucking and
17:35
Speaker 1: transfer service, and apparently she's a big deal. She has
17:38
Speaker 1: like her own page on like Alaska's history website. Well,
17:41
Speaker 1: I mean she drove a ten wheel student baker with
17:44
Speaker 1: bald tires down what is a only a quote unquote highway,
17:48
Speaker 1: like whatever highway you're on going to work. It wasn't that,
17:51
Speaker 1: like it was the wilderness. And she talked about how
17:56
Speaker 1: she overheard some dude truckers saying, oh, yeah, you know,
18:00
Speaker 1: if they ever make this trail easy enough for women
18:04
Speaker 1: to travel, like, we know, it'll be time to to
18:06
Speaker 1: find another job to move on. Oh so patronizing. Um.
18:13
Speaker 1: But today though, the industry is on the hunt for
18:17
Speaker 1: more women like Luella Bates. And here's the big industry
18:21
Speaker 1: pitch to women. The big thing that they often advertise
18:26
Speaker 1: is how women you can make money, money, money, So
18:30
Speaker 1: in pretty much any trucking story you read, it will
18:33
Speaker 1: mention how thirty eight thousand is the media and pay.
18:36
Speaker 1: And there are long haul truckers who can pull in
18:39
Speaker 1: up to seventy five dollars a year, and many spokespeople
18:43
Speaker 1: insist that truckers can start ranking in that cash and
18:47
Speaker 1: only a few weeks, which sounds great, sounds amazing, yeah,
18:50
Speaker 1: why are we podcasting? I have no idea. Can we
18:52
Speaker 1: podcasts from a truck? I think so. And of course
18:55
Speaker 1: they also tell the fact that you are paid by
18:57
Speaker 1: the mile or by the load, so that there there's
19:00
Speaker 1: no gender specific wage gap. If there's a gap, it's
19:04
Speaker 1: because you're not driving as much as others, which of
19:07
Speaker 1: course will come into play when we talk about retaliation
19:11
Speaker 1: by companies. But anyway, I don't want to give too
19:12
Speaker 1: many spoilers away. Of course, a lot of companies also
19:15
Speaker 1: tell that the job is physically easier than ever before.
19:18
Speaker 1: You've got uh, technological innovations, power steering, automatic transmissions. You've
19:24
Speaker 1: got people trying to make sleeper cabs more comfortable and
19:27
Speaker 1: ergonomic so it can accommodate all types of body sizes. UM.
19:31
Speaker 1: And that includes making driver's seats even women friendly to
19:35
Speaker 1: accommodate smaller frames. And one aspect of a job that's
19:38
Speaker 1: often advertised specifically to women is how you can haul
19:42
Speaker 1: what's called no touch cargo that doesn't demand any heavy
19:46
Speaker 1: lifting whatsoever. And as far as I'm concerned, these are
19:49
Speaker 1: improvements for everyone. Oh absolutely yeah, UM, and trucking companies
19:54
Speaker 1: are making intentional changes to attract women, not just the
19:59
Speaker 1: technological and ovations for the trucks themselves. They're trying to
20:03
Speaker 1: clean up truck stops. They're actually putting showers in the
20:06
Speaker 1: women's bathrooms at truck stops because for a long time
20:09
Speaker 1: there were only showers in the men's bathrooms. So I'm
20:12
Speaker 1: sure that was very welcoming. Uh, offering guaranteed hometime because
20:16
Speaker 1: you were on the road a lot, not surprisingly, and
20:21
Speaker 1: also just directly marketing to potential women with messages of
20:26
Speaker 1: freedom seeing the country. Your truck is your home and
20:30
Speaker 1: your office. You can be the mistress of your own
20:33
Speaker 1: mobile domain. All of this sounds fantastic. It does what
20:37
Speaker 1: could possibly go wrong. So the thing is regardless of
20:42
Speaker 1: who you are, man, woman, young, old, driving a truck,
20:47
Speaker 1: especially long haul, is tiring, it's dangerous. It's often cited
20:52
Speaker 1: as one of the top ten miss dangerous occupations in
20:55
Speaker 1: the world. And it's lonely and underpaid. Yeah, I mean,
21:00
Speaker 1: I think fourteen hour days and the fact that trucking
21:04
Speaker 1: accidents account for twelve percent of all work related deaths
21:09
Speaker 1: in the US, and there's been a huge issue of
21:12
Speaker 1: that underpaid aspect. And I mean, you are working on
21:17
Speaker 1: a strict schedule, so you might be driving for these
21:22
Speaker 1: long stretches at a time. I mean, there are regulations
21:25
Speaker 1: as to I think fourteen hours is the max. Truckers listening,
21:29
Speaker 1: correct me if I'm wrong. Um, But there's also no unionization,
21:35
Speaker 1: and so these truckers have little power to fight for
21:40
Speaker 1: better compensation because they're doing such important work that's like
21:45
Speaker 1: the you know, the foundation of a lot of our economy. Yeah, exactly.
21:50
Speaker 1: And Desiree would, who excited earlier as the founder of
21:54
Speaker 1: Real Women Trucking, does work to highlight these issues because
21:59
Speaker 1: you know, if you definitely want to be a trucker
22:01
Speaker 1: or you're just thinking about it, she believes, and I
22:04
Speaker 1: agree with that, you should know the risks and rewards.
22:07
Speaker 1: And she points out with that whole underpaid thing, that
22:10
Speaker 1: there is a lot of unpaid labor that goes into
22:13
Speaker 1: being a trucker. Since you're only paid per mile or
22:17
Speaker 1: per load when you're driving, so you've got time spent
22:20
Speaker 1: standing on the dock to count freight. You might end
22:23
Speaker 1: up being detained at a shipper receiver for hours pastor appointment,
22:27
Speaker 1: and you've got to spend time climbing up inside that
22:29
Speaker 1: trailer to clean them out. Before you load them up.
22:32
Speaker 1: And there's also the issue with local jobs, which are
22:35
Speaker 1: the ones that are often guaranteed involving a lot more
22:39
Speaker 1: unpaid work, according to desire Wood, at least than long haul.
22:45
Speaker 1: And then beyond that, there's the issue of no industry
22:49
Speaker 1: wide training standards, which means some trucking schools will exploit
22:54
Speaker 1: students with excessive team driving and try to lock them
22:57
Speaker 1: into least purchase deals for a truck, landing them in debt.
23:01
Speaker 1: So you have to pay your tuition to even get
23:05
Speaker 1: into this school so you can get a trucking license,
23:07
Speaker 1: and some of these schools will try to get you
23:10
Speaker 1: to you know, lock you into this lease. And if
23:13
Speaker 1: you even make it out of the school, as we'll
23:15
Speaker 1: talk about in just a second, um, so before you're
23:19
Speaker 1: even making any money, you're spending a lot of money sometimes.
23:22
Speaker 1: I mean, this is just would is putting this information
23:25
Speaker 1: out there just as a buyer beware, like study your
23:28
Speaker 1: school before you sign up for it. And she also
23:31
Speaker 1: points out that you're generally not going to be making
23:33
Speaker 1: that forty k right out of the gate. You're probably
23:37
Speaker 1: more likely to earn about eighteen to thirty seven thousand
23:40
Speaker 1: when you first become a trucker, and many women behind
23:43
Speaker 1: the wheel often confront gender stereotypes and ridicule and even
23:49
Speaker 1: harassment as a part of the job as well. Yeah.
23:52
Speaker 1: I mean, we've already talked about how it seems like
23:54
Speaker 1: every article has to mention the appearance and like, oh
23:56
Speaker 1: my god, you can't be a driver because you're wearing
23:58
Speaker 1: a scart. But there's also all of these gender assumptions
24:02
Speaker 1: that krist and I have talked about in previous STEM
24:04
Speaker 1: episodes about like oh, well, you're a woman, so you
24:08
Speaker 1: probably didn't play with legos enough, so you have no
24:10
Speaker 1: spatial reasoning skills, you can't drive, and you're probably not
24:14
Speaker 1: strong enough to do any of this work. And of
24:17
Speaker 1: course that's all a bunch of WHOEI Yeah, I mean
24:19
Speaker 1: it was to the point that um in an article
24:22
Speaker 1: over the BBC Shamim Aktar, whose Pakistan's only female professional
24:27
Speaker 1: truck driver, she said that she basically has to divorce
24:31
Speaker 1: herself from her womanhood in order to do this job. Yeah.
24:36
Speaker 1: My eyes got so wide when I read that, because
24:38
Speaker 1: she was essentially saying, Um, you know, I pray that
24:42
Speaker 1: women who want to stay home can afford to stay home,
24:47
Speaker 1: because I know that when I'm on the road, I
24:49
Speaker 1: have to kill the woman inside of me, and you're like,
24:53
Speaker 1: oh my god. Like that goes against kind of everything
24:56
Speaker 1: that we preach in terms of like be there you are,
24:58
Speaker 1: like be a proud lady if that's who you are,
25:01
Speaker 1: even if you're a trucker, or because you're a trucker,
25:04
Speaker 1: like you know, be authentically yourself. And um Shamim Aktar
25:08
Speaker 1: definitely has a different coping mechanism for facing the type
25:11
Speaker 1: of harassment that comes along with being a lady trucker
25:13
Speaker 1: in Pakistan. Yeah, I mean, and of course a lot
25:16
Speaker 1: of women truckers just I mean, the stereotyping, they just
25:21
Speaker 1: kind of have to let it roll off their backs,
25:23
Speaker 1: but understandably it can wear you down a bit, and
25:28
Speaker 1: men and women are like. Turnover in the industry is huge.
25:32
Speaker 1: The American Trucking Association in celebrated a record low of
25:38
Speaker 1: eight percent annual turnout. Yeah, mind blown. And the more
25:42
Speaker 1: frequent statu you see is a hundred percent, which, in
25:47
Speaker 1: case you're not sure what a hundred percent turnover means,
25:50
Speaker 1: it means that everyone is leaving. Responding to this discussion,
25:54
Speaker 1: one NPR commenter said, well, consider the pay and the
25:58
Speaker 1: fact that you're on the road, away home and family
26:00
Speaker 1: for weeks and months at a time, living out of
26:03
Speaker 1: the truck, eating on the road, not working a set schedule,
26:06
Speaker 1: but available for work at any hour of the day
26:08
Speaker 1: or night, in any weather. And should I add sleep deprived.
26:11
Speaker 1: And he goes on to say, it's not just a job,
26:13
Speaker 1: but a lifestyle, and it's not suitable for most people.
26:16
Speaker 1: Like and he's not talking gender, He's like talking whoever
26:19
Speaker 1: you are, it might not be your kind of work. Yeah.
26:23
Speaker 1: I forget the exact source, but I was reading an
26:26
Speaker 1: article about both the psychological and physical toll than truck driving,
26:31
Speaker 1: especially long haul truck driving takes, because I mean, think
26:34
Speaker 1: about if you have a desk job, how often we're told,
26:37
Speaker 1: you know, you make sure you stand up. Sitting is killing,
26:39
Speaker 1: and sitting is killing you stand up every hour. If
26:42
Speaker 1: you're a trucker, you can't do that. You are sitting
26:46
Speaker 1: in that fixed position for hours on end, and sometimes
26:51
Speaker 1: by yourself. Although I am hartened to know that we
26:54
Speaker 1: are offering at least some podcast company two truckers out there. Yeah,
26:59
Speaker 1: and there are people who drive in teams. There are
27:02
Speaker 1: lots of husband and wife teams out there, which I
27:04
Speaker 1: didn't realize, but so that could at least let you
27:08
Speaker 1: switch off and keep driving. But more often than not,
27:11
Speaker 1: you're still driving that twelve hour shift, let's say so,
27:14
Speaker 1: and your spouse or your partner, whoever's in the cab
27:17
Speaker 1: with you, will then take the next twelve hour shifts,
27:19
Speaker 1: so it's not like you're switching off every hour necessarily. Yeah.
27:22
Speaker 1: But then on top of that, too, let's say you
27:25
Speaker 1: get hungry, it's time for dinner. Uh, if you've noticed,
27:30
Speaker 1: the immediate food options that are closest to the road
27:34
Speaker 1: are usually not all that good for you. I mean,
27:36
Speaker 1: you have gas station food you have. I mean even
27:39
Speaker 1: if you get like a nice roast chicken and some
27:42
Speaker 1: potatoes and carrots, Like, how are you going to eat? Yeah?
27:46
Speaker 1: When you know when you've got to be somewhere in
27:48
Speaker 1: a certain set amount of time. Yeah. So Um. But
27:52
Speaker 1: on top of all of these issues, which I personally
27:56
Speaker 1: think the industry needs to take a closer look at
27:59
Speaker 1: or at least compensate their employees better. For um, we
28:03
Speaker 1: next seed to talk about the biggest road hazard for
28:07
Speaker 1: women behind the wheel, and we're going to dive into that.
28:09
Speaker 1: When we get right back from a quick break now
28:22
Speaker 1: going into this research, Caroline, I mean I was prepared
28:27
Speaker 1: to read about safety and sexual assault issues for women
28:32
Speaker 1: on the road, assuming that you're alone, if you have
28:36
Speaker 1: to stay at a truck stop, stranger danger, that it's
28:39
Speaker 1: it's all happening there after you've gotten the job, once
28:43
Speaker 1: you're in the industry. But it turns out that the
28:48
Speaker 1: major sexual harassment problem within the trucking industry takes place
28:55
Speaker 1: most often during training. Yeah. Yeah, uh, so horrified to
29:02
Speaker 1: read about this and so glad to be reading about
29:05
Speaker 1: it because it seems like nobody wants to talk about it,
29:09
Speaker 1: especially I mean especially recruiters. I mean, as you can imagine,
29:12
Speaker 1: why would they want to highlight anything like that. Um,
29:14
Speaker 1: But we we tend to focus so much on sexism
29:19
Speaker 1: in the workplace, on issues of promotion and gender wage gaps,
29:24
Speaker 1: and we of course sexual harassment and sexual assault. But this,
29:29
Speaker 1: it's the issue is so concentrated. It seems like in
29:32
Speaker 1: the trucking industry, um, and sexual harassment and we're not
29:37
Speaker 1: just talking like a slap on the butt or like hey,
29:40
Speaker 1: hot thing, you want to have sex. It's like violent,
29:44
Speaker 1: there's violent sexual harassment going on and it's one of
29:48
Speaker 1: the major complaints that desiree would who started real women
29:52
Speaker 1: trucking hears from people. Yeah, because what typically happens steering
29:57
Speaker 1: driver training. When you're training to get your sucking license,
30:01
Speaker 1: you have to drive in teams for a set amount
30:04
Speaker 1: of time, so you'll be driving, you know, with someone
30:07
Speaker 1: who's your trainer. But a lot of times those trainers
30:10
Speaker 1: are not in official positions of authority. So this often
30:15
Speaker 1: leads to sketchy situations that deter some women from completing
30:19
Speaker 1: training school, which landsome in debt um. And we've got
30:25
Speaker 1: to talk about these cases that have now, I mean
30:28
Speaker 1: that are already like in court. So in three lead
30:32
Speaker 1: plaintiffs filed a federal class action suit against c r
30:36
Speaker 1: ST Expedited Trucking, alleging sexual harassment, assault, and rape during training.
30:42
Speaker 1: And according to the lawsuit, this issue is so well
30:45
Speaker 1: known and brushed aside in the industry that cr ST
30:49
Speaker 1: is jokingly referred to as constantly raping student truckers. Yeah,
30:55
Speaker 1: I mean, we read its stories about women having to
30:58
Speaker 1: carry knives, tasers, even screw drivers as weapons to fend
31:03
Speaker 1: off abusive trainers. Women talking about waking up in their
31:07
Speaker 1: bunk in the middle of the nine and having a
31:09
Speaker 1: naked man on top of them, all sorts of insane scenarios,
31:14
Speaker 1: And like Kristen was just saying, you're sort of locked
31:17
Speaker 1: in because if you leave the CRST training, for instance, early,
31:22
Speaker 1: because of sexual assault or sexual harassment, you wind up
31:26
Speaker 1: with tuition debt because so they'll front you some tuition money,
31:29
Speaker 1: but they will only forgive that debt if you pass
31:33
Speaker 1: your training and then sign an eight month commitment after graduating.
31:37
Speaker 1: And so, you know, we read about all of these
31:39
Speaker 1: women who were saying that, you know, I held on
31:42
Speaker 1: by the skin of my teeth dealing with all of
31:43
Speaker 1: this horrifying stuff and still couldn't make it. I still
31:47
Speaker 1: had to be dropped off at a at a terminal
31:49
Speaker 1: or a truck stop and ask for help. Yeah, because this,
31:52
Speaker 1: I mean the training environment with the code driving for
31:56
Speaker 1: weeks at a time sometimes so the stage for coercion,
32:01
Speaker 1: because trainers might threaten not to pass them as a
32:06
Speaker 1: way to, you know, try to lure them into unwanted
32:10
Speaker 1: sexual activity. And lawyers told Fast Company magazine that when
32:14
Speaker 1: women to CRST due to sexual harassment, the company is
32:18
Speaker 1: known to counterclaim to recover the cost of training, and
32:22
Speaker 1: then there seems to be a particular issue with this
32:25
Speaker 1: trucking company. Um. And also I want to give a
32:28
Speaker 1: shout out to and really in depth piece over at
32:31
Speaker 1: Jezebel um where a lot of this information is coming
32:34
Speaker 1: from as well. Yeah, and coming from that Jezebel article,
32:37
Speaker 1: there was actually a case in when CRST lost a
32:41
Speaker 1: lawsuit they had to pay a driver one point five
32:46
Speaker 1: million dollars because she alleged that her trainer, this guy
32:50
Speaker 1: named John Wilson, subjected her to constant sexual comments in
32:54
Speaker 1: touching and that her reports to the corporate office were ignored.
32:57
Speaker 1: And we hear this over and over again, all the
32:59
Speaker 1: stuff we read that it doesn't matter what you've experienced
33:03
Speaker 1: and who you tell it tends to get laughed off
33:05
Speaker 1: and just brushed under the rug. And again, it does
33:09
Speaker 1: seem to be an issue with this particular company, and
33:12
Speaker 1: how it has gone on for so long boggles my mind.
33:15
Speaker 1: Because if we go back to two thousand seven, there
33:18
Speaker 1: was a case brought to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
33:22
Speaker 1: alleging seventy two women seventy two at CRST complained of
33:27
Speaker 1: sexual harassment and two thousand five alone just in one year,
33:32
Speaker 1: and that case was eventually dissolved because of they were
33:36
Speaker 1: like bureaucratic steps that weren't taken um. But the thing
33:40
Speaker 1: about it is, as Jezebel and Fast Company reported, what
33:43
Speaker 1: typically happens to the trainers in these situations is not much.
33:48
Speaker 1: They may have their pay doct and they're typically shuffled
33:52
Speaker 1: around two different students, like training students labeled as just
33:58
Speaker 1: having quote personality problem. Yeah, but you, as the person
34:01
Speaker 1: being trained, you don't know who has personality problems, and
34:05
Speaker 1: you don't know if it's just like, oh, they don't
34:07
Speaker 1: brush their teeth so they're kind of smelly, or if
34:10
Speaker 1: it's because they tried to rape someone. And then the
34:13
Speaker 1: company is saying, Okay, get in the car, get in
34:17
Speaker 1: a truck with this person that you're gonna have to
34:19
Speaker 1: sleep on the road with these tiny sleeper cabs and
34:22
Speaker 1: a truck stops and out in the middle of nowhere.
34:25
Speaker 1: Go ahead, just go on the open road for a
34:27
Speaker 1: few weeks. Yeah. And a lot of women in these
34:30
Speaker 1: articles brought up the point that many of the trainers
34:34
Speaker 1: that they worked with were recently out of prison and no,
34:37
Speaker 1: there's nothing wrong with that. In a vacuum. However, just
34:41
Speaker 1: like we don't know what these personality problems on these
34:44
Speaker 1: charts indicate. If a man went to prison for rape
34:48
Speaker 1: or sexual assault and then he becomes a trainer and
34:51
Speaker 1: he's locked in a cab with this woman for three
34:52
Speaker 1: weeks at a time, that's a dangerous situation. It seems
34:56
Speaker 1: like pertinent information you would you would want to know
34:59
Speaker 1: ye as a student. UM. And one thing that a
35:04
Speaker 1: Fast Company and Jezebel pointed out about this is how
35:08
Speaker 1: this issue of sexual assault within our sexual harassment within
35:12
Speaker 1: the trucking industry is just it's so stunning to the
35:18
Speaker 1: to a greater degree than the issue of sexual harassment
35:21
Speaker 1: and Silicon Valley. Yet we hear about Silicon Valley and
35:25
Speaker 1: issues UM within the tech industry so much more often.
35:29
Speaker 1: And I think it was a writer in in Fast
35:31
Speaker 1: Company saying that this is a clear issue of class discrimination. Yeah,
35:39
Speaker 1: you know exactly, UM. Reflecting on the Fast Company stats,
35:44
Speaker 1: the Jezebel writer said, it's hard to miss the class
35:46
Speaker 1: element that's likely at work a greater interest in the
35:49
Speaker 1: suffering of women in a money flush, very public, buzz
35:52
Speaker 1: heavy industry. And although trucking is a core part of
35:55
Speaker 1: how the American economy functions. There's a general ignorance about
36:00
Speaker 1: how it works, a lack of visibility that's benefited some
36:03
Speaker 1: in the trucking industry and hurt many others. And of
36:06
Speaker 1: course this isn't to create some kind of hierarchy of
36:09
Speaker 1: like which sexual harasment should we care about more, But
36:12
Speaker 1: the fact that we aren't more informed about this is troubling.
36:17
Speaker 1: And it's even more troubling when you think about proposed
36:21
Speaker 1: safety solutions, because a lot of times it's left up
36:24
Speaker 1: to the women themselves. Carry weapons, install a camera in
36:28
Speaker 1: your truck, don't park in the back of a parking
36:30
Speaker 1: lot at a truck stop, or walk between trucks. That
36:34
Speaker 1: is one piece of advice. Don't walk between trucks. And
36:37
Speaker 1: it's also troubling in the context of these super strong
36:41
Speaker 1: recruiting efforts that are going on now. It's like, yeah,
36:44
Speaker 1: it's I'm always an advocate for getting more women into
36:49
Speaker 1: positions where they can make a study living, support themselves
36:52
Speaker 1: and or their families, feel empowered do what they want
36:55
Speaker 1: to do. However, I think it's a little shady. We
37:00
Speaker 1: and you're recruiting strongly a group of people who are
37:04
Speaker 1: at an incredible statistical risk of sexual violence, like we
37:10
Speaker 1: should probably be following Desiree Woods lead would of real
37:14
Speaker 1: women trucking and trying to inform ourselves and women at
37:19
Speaker 1: large about these issues, especially when the question of sexual
37:24
Speaker 1: harassment comes up. If you're talking to someone with closer
37:28
Speaker 1: industry ties, they're usually like, oh, yeah, I mean, we
37:32
Speaker 1: definitely need to fix that problem now, now that more
37:35
Speaker 1: women are coming into the job, we should absolutely look
37:38
Speaker 1: into it. It's like, so it was fine, you know, five, ten,
37:42
Speaker 1: twenty years ago, Like yeah, and and you know, we
37:47
Speaker 1: we read a lot. There were again a lot of
37:49
Speaker 1: comments on these articles from from women who've been in
37:51
Speaker 1: trucking for a while who've said, you know, I experienced
37:56
Speaker 1: nothing but politeness. I was treated with respect. You know.
38:00
Speaker 1: The worst I ever had to deal with was surprised
38:03
Speaker 1: that a woman was doing this job. And to them,
38:05
Speaker 1: I say, congratulations, Like that's great. I think it's fabulous
38:09
Speaker 1: that you're getting to do this job and make this
38:11
Speaker 1: money and not have to deal with this. But that
38:14
Speaker 1: positive experience doesn't discount the horrifically negative experience that so
38:18
Speaker 1: many women have had. Yeah, I mean, and this is
38:20
Speaker 1: one reason why you do see a lot of husband
38:22
Speaker 1: wife duo's a because then you get to like hang
38:25
Speaker 1: out together, but also for safety's sake, I mean, it
38:28
Speaker 1: helps to have a guy that you know and trust
38:31
Speaker 1: in the truck with you. But I mean it seems
38:35
Speaker 1: like if you are a female trucker, you often take
38:39
Speaker 1: the good with the bad. Um. This was something reflected
38:42
Speaker 1: in a number of comments on a BBC article we read.
38:48
Speaker 1: Um Rebecca horsefull Uh said, I was a lorry driver
38:52
Speaker 1: twenty five years ago, and it was really abnormal for
38:55
Speaker 1: women to drive trucks. The porn photos all over the
38:59
Speaker 1: walls of Deep Post where I picked up or dropped
39:01
Speaker 1: off machine parts and cables were incredible because no women
39:04
Speaker 1: ever went there. And of course the men were sexist.
39:07
Speaker 1: They were always trying to take overloading my wagon or
39:11
Speaker 1: roping it for me because they didn't believe I could manage.
39:13
Speaker 1: But it added fun sides too, And it's funny because
39:17
Speaker 1: that just reminded me of when we talked about pin
39:19
Speaker 1: up girls and men having in any industry, not just
39:23
Speaker 1: trucking men having all of these sexy pin up calendars
39:27
Speaker 1: all over the place, and how in so many other
39:31
Speaker 1: episodes where we've discussed men being so reluctant to welcome
39:35
Speaker 1: women into a previously or currently male dominated field because
39:40
Speaker 1: it's like, oh wait, you expect me to act like
39:42
Speaker 1: a person Like that's crazy. I have to act like
39:45
Speaker 1: a normal human being. But I do want to end
39:49
Speaker 1: the episode on a positive note because there were women
39:53
Speaker 1: reread about, including Desiree Would, who enjoy trucking. It's just
39:58
Speaker 1: clear that it's it regardless of who you are. It
40:00
Speaker 1: is a particular, very particular kind of lifestyle that not
40:04
Speaker 1: a lot of people are cut out for. Um. But
40:07
Speaker 1: Lindsay Williams commented over the BBC. I've had a Class
40:12
Speaker 1: one license for about twenty four years. My childhood was
40:15
Speaker 1: spent on the family farm, and I was driving a
40:17
Speaker 1: tractor at eleven years old, so I guess that's how
40:20
Speaker 1: I started. I drive a big rig and it's given
40:23
Speaker 1: me confidence and self esteem, and it gives me a
40:25
Speaker 1: chance to see the country and appreciate nature. I've earned
40:29
Speaker 1: the respect of my driving colleagues, and it's a wonderful
40:32
Speaker 1: feeling to know that I've earned their respect. But the
40:35
Speaker 1: bad pits are I hate being in big queues of
40:38
Speaker 1: stationary traffic. Yeah, I hear you, like I driving in Atlanta.
40:44
Speaker 1: I lose my mind every time I'm in traffic. But
40:47
Speaker 1: also I watch how the idiots and jerks in Atlanta
40:51
Speaker 1: drive around truckers and I can't imagine it, Like, Hello,
40:56
Speaker 1: they are driving a massive vehicle that weighs a lot.
41:00
Speaker 1: You can't just cut them off in Atlanta traffic on
41:04
Speaker 1: I seventy five in the middle of rush hour and
41:08
Speaker 1: expect your car to be in one piece when you
41:10
Speaker 1: do it, Like I feel like I just want a
41:12
Speaker 1: bumper sticker. That's like I love truckers because I will
41:16
Speaker 1: always let them in the lane. If they have a
41:18
Speaker 1: blinker on, I will let them over. Because so many
41:20
Speaker 1: people in Atlanta are so awful to truckers. H And
41:23
Speaker 1: yet again, Caroline, we need we need to make those,
41:26
Speaker 1: Caroline says, relaxed t shirts so you can you know,
41:28
Speaker 1: throw it, throwing those passenger seats as you're driving by them. Yes,
41:32
Speaker 1: I know, everybody, just relax. It doesn't matter what you
41:35
Speaker 1: look like in general. Period set the takeaway. UM. So
41:42
Speaker 1: clearly this is an industry looking for a lot of women. UM.
41:46
Speaker 1: But it needs to make some major reforms in order
41:50
Speaker 1: for that to be sustainable. And and I don't I
41:53
Speaker 1: appreciate people like our listener Greg, who wrote in wanting
41:56
Speaker 1: us to talk about this issue, because people like Ellen
42:00
Speaker 1: Boy have pointed out that so many people still just
42:04
Speaker 1: like flat out don't want women in the industry and
42:06
Speaker 1: don't think they should be there, which I think is
42:08
Speaker 1: so it's so ridiculous when there are so many open
42:14
Speaker 1: jobs in trucking. Women who get into the industry are
42:19
Speaker 1: literally taking nothing away from men. They're literally taking nothing
42:22
Speaker 1: away because the job is open. There are tens of
42:24
Speaker 1: thousands of unfilled trucking jobs. So I I would frankly
42:30
Speaker 1: love to hear from our trucker audience. I need, I
42:33
Speaker 1: need to know some more firsthand stuff well, and also
42:36
Speaker 1: I want to hear from men and women too, because,
42:40
Speaker 1: as listener Greg demonstrates, I mean, there are obviously men
42:44
Speaker 1: in this industry who are you know, perfectly great people
42:51
Speaker 1: who realize that there's a problem and are invested in
42:55
Speaker 1: in helping solve it too. So I'm just so curious
42:59
Speaker 1: to know because there are so many issues. There's the
43:00
Speaker 1: pay issue, there's health, there's you know, um employee organization, um.
43:06
Speaker 1: So I just I'm just curious to hear from from
43:08
Speaker 1: folks on the road, what it's really like, what it's
43:10
Speaker 1: been your experience. Mom Stuff at house stuff works dot
43:14
Speaker 1: com is our email address. You can also tweet us
43:17
Speaker 1: at mom Stuff podcast or message us on Facebook, and
43:20
Speaker 1: we've got a couple of messages to share with you
43:22
Speaker 1: when we come right back from a quick break. I
43:31
Speaker 1: have a letter here from Sarah in response to our
43:33
Speaker 1: miscarriage episode. Sarah writes, I've wanted to write you for
43:36
Speaker 1: a while, but when I saw your new podcast pop up,
43:39
Speaker 1: I figured now was the time. Last year and my
43:42
Speaker 1: baby was still born at thirty eight weeks. Doctors told
43:45
Speaker 1: us pretty early on that there were some problems with
43:47
Speaker 1: my placenta. I learned that when they tell you you
43:50
Speaker 1: have a thick placenta, it's not meant as a compliment. Oops.
43:53
Speaker 1: But we ran every test possible and everything always looked fine.
43:57
Speaker 1: So we planned for the best and never assumed that
43:59
Speaker 1: the worst would have been Well. It was and still
44:02
Speaker 1: can be a deeply sad time. Something that helped me
44:04
Speaker 1: to avoid a lot of the guilt and shame you
44:07
Speaker 1: described was asking my doctor a lot of questions about
44:10
Speaker 1: why it happened. I found that understanding at least some
44:13
Speaker 1: of the science steered me away from the magical thinking
44:16
Speaker 1: that Doctor Zucker described and gave me a concrete reason
44:19
Speaker 1: for why it happened. It also helps offen the blow
44:22
Speaker 1: when people inevitably told me everything happens for a reason,
44:25
Speaker 1: I could respond in my head with yes, and the
44:28
Speaker 1: reason is that sometimes cells don't divide normally, creating a
44:31
Speaker 1: challenging environment in which to sustain a healthy baby. It
44:34
Speaker 1: didn't make the loss of my daughter any less devastating,
44:37
Speaker 1: but it at least gave me an answer to the
44:39
Speaker 1: big question of why something so horrible could happen. Science happens.
44:45
Speaker 1: What really resonated with me is when Dr Zucker talked
44:47
Speaker 1: about people not knowing how to approach you after such
44:50
Speaker 1: a loss. After the initial I'm sorry for your loss,
44:53
Speaker 1: people would tell me that they didn't want to bring
44:54
Speaker 1: it up because they didn't want to remind me, which
44:57
Speaker 1: basically meant that it almost never came up again. I
45:00
Speaker 1: knew in my head that I wasn't forgotten and she
45:02
Speaker 1: wasn't forgotten, but it sure felt like that and made
45:05
Speaker 1: me feel very alone. One thing that I would like
45:07
Speaker 1: to tell people who want to be there for someone
45:09
Speaker 1: going through a loss is this. I'm thinking about it
45:12
Speaker 1: whether you bring it up or not, so you might
45:14
Speaker 1: as well show your support and bring it up. I'm
45:16
Speaker 1: sure that's not true for everyone, but it was and
45:19
Speaker 1: still is very true for me. Also, just because I'm
45:21
Speaker 1: the one going through it doesn't mean I necessarily know
45:25
Speaker 1: how to approach the subject or have the language to
45:27
Speaker 1: talk about it either. The kindest thing you could do
45:30
Speaker 1: is talk with me, even if it's uncomfortable for you,
45:33
Speaker 1: because it is way more uncomfortable for me, and it's
45:36
Speaker 1: hard to get comfortable with something you can't talk about anyway.
45:40
Speaker 1: When I was on quote unquote maternity leave afterward, I
45:43
Speaker 1: was looking for things to read and listen to to
45:45
Speaker 1: occupy my brain, and that's how I found you, guys.
45:47
Speaker 1: Thank you for being there for me and getting me
45:49
Speaker 1: re engage with the world. I'm a teacher and your
45:52
Speaker 1: podcast always gives me ideas for topics to introduce to kids,
45:55
Speaker 1: to broaden their beliefs and challenge their expectations. Well, thank
45:59
Speaker 1: you so much, Sarah. We really appreciate your story. And
46:02
Speaker 1: I've got a let her here from an anonymous listener
46:05
Speaker 1: about our infertility episode, and she writes that episode stood
46:10
Speaker 1: out to me personally for a number of reasons. Though
46:12
Speaker 1: I'm only sixteen, the reality that I will never be
46:15
Speaker 1: able to bear children is something I was recently faced with.
46:18
Speaker 1: I developed an eating disorder at thirteen, which persisted in
46:21
Speaker 1: phases throughout my adolescence. The effects of malnutrition on a
46:25
Speaker 1: developing body vary, but for me, with my naturally small
46:28
Speaker 1: size and severe state of anorexia, it caused chronic amenorrhea
46:33
Speaker 1: and damage to my ovaries and uterus. As I recently
46:36
Speaker 1: learned from my kind of colleges, the reality of this
46:39
Speaker 1: is heavy, and I have yet to fully comprehend it.
46:41
Speaker 1: As an absentent teenager, I've never given much serious thought
46:44
Speaker 1: to my possible future as a mother. I guess now
46:47
Speaker 1: the decision is made for me that if I ever
46:49
Speaker 1: choose to have children, I'll have to go through alternate methods.
46:52
Speaker 1: Your episode on this topic was somewhat of a stress
46:55
Speaker 1: reliever for me on the matter, and gave me lots
46:57
Speaker 1: of great information about infertility across the globe and different cultures.
47:01
Speaker 1: I know that if or when the right time comes,
47:04
Speaker 1: my inability to conceive does not define who I am
47:07
Speaker 1: as a woman or as a person, and that there
47:09
Speaker 1: are many other paths to take toward parenthood. Thank you
47:12
Speaker 1: so much for your time and dedication to talking about
47:14
Speaker 1: these topics and how they pertain to women in all
47:16
Speaker 1: walks of life. The show has certainly educated, entertained, and
47:20
Speaker 1: encouraged me to be a more inclusive and aware of
47:22
Speaker 1: feminist as well as more accepting of myself and others,
47:25
Speaker 1: and I hope this has done the same for many
47:27
Speaker 1: other fans of the show. Well, thank you so much,
47:30
Speaker 1: Anonymous that is um so so kind to hear and
47:36
Speaker 1: listeners again. Our email address is mom stuff at houself
47:39
Speaker 1: works dot com. And for links to all of our
47:41
Speaker 1: social media as well as all of our blogs, videos
47:44
Speaker 1: and podcasts with our sources so you can learn more
47:48
Speaker 1: about women in the trucking industry, head on over to
47:50
Speaker 1: stuff Mom Never Told You dot com for moralness and
47:59
Speaker 1: thousands of other top picks. Is it how staff works
48:01
Speaker 1: dot com