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

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