Latest / Stuff Mom Never Told You / SMNTY Classics: Women And Happiness, Part 1

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SMNTY Classics: Women And Happiness, Part 1 · Stuff Mom Never Told You

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Anny, and welcome to stuff I've never
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: told your production of Iuyheart Ideo and yes I am
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: by myself today. Samantha's family stuff she's doing. So for
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: this classic I wanted to bring up. This is the
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: first in the series that we did of Monday minis
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: about women and happiness. We'll probably bring all of them
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: back soon, but this is part one. It was on
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: my mind because you probably heard, but in the twenty
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: twenty four World Happiness Report, the US fell out of
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: the top twenty on this list for the first time
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: in twelve years. So we're now at number twenty three.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: The year previously, we were at number fifteen, and one
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: of the major reasons cited for that was the election
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: and just general political unrest. But I thought it was
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: interesting and we did talk about this index and some
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: of the happiest countries when we did this this four
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: part mini series, so I thought we could bring this
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: back and reflect on some of it. So please enjoy
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: this classic episode. Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: welcome to Stefan never told you a protection of iHeartRadio.
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: And welcome to another edition of the Monday Mini series.
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: Yes, Happy Monday.
• 1:58
  Speaker 4: Happy Monday, and today surprisingly is not a TikTok talk.
• 2:03
  Speaker 4: You're welcome, man, No, Samantha's TikTok talk. Know Samantha's TikTok talk. Today,
• 2:09
  Speaker 4: it's April and it's very rainy. It's coming in like
• 2:13
  Speaker 4: a lion right in the hut goes yeah.
• 2:16
  Speaker 5: I don't know the saying is coming in.
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: Like a lion, leaves like a lamb something.
• 2:21
  Speaker 5: Yeah or something like that. And this is April? Is
• 2:24
  Speaker 5: it March?
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: March? March comes in.
• 2:30
  Speaker 4: May flowers, April showers, bring May flowers. There. It is
• 2:36
  Speaker 4: April and it's very stormy. That was what I was
• 2:39
  Speaker 4: trying to say, in my very inarticulate, typical manner where
• 2:44
  Speaker 4: I get all of my sayings and phrases wrong and
• 2:47
  Speaker 4: typically say.
• 2:48
  Speaker 5: The wrong word.
• 2:50
  Speaker 4: I like that, man, Why am I a podcaster anyway?
• 2:53
  Speaker 4: But yes, it's April, except for today. The weather has
• 2:57
  Speaker 4: been nice and then today is now all thundery and stormy.
• 3:01
  Speaker 4: But because it has been nice and beautiful, and because
• 3:05
  Speaker 4: we've been through some tough things, things that are happening.
• 3:09
  Speaker 4: The US is not very stable right now, whether it's
• 3:14
  Speaker 4: due to the policies that people are enacting, the racism
• 3:19
  Speaker 4: that is happening, and the anti blackness that's happening with
• 3:22
  Speaker 4: our Supreme Court justice nominee going through her questioning, it's
• 3:27
  Speaker 4: the whole thing, y'all.
• 3:29
  Speaker 5: But you know, I was really going.
• 3:30
  Speaker 4: To try to do a cheery, happier subject for the
• 3:35
  Speaker 4: start of this week or whenever you're listening, for the
• 3:38
  Speaker 4: start of the beginning of this podcast episode, because I'm
• 3:43
  Speaker 4: also known as the negative one that kind of goes
• 3:46
  Speaker 4: a pessimistic turn. I'm like, you know what, I'm really
• 3:48
  Speaker 4: I'm really gonna do a good I'm gonna do a
• 3:50
  Speaker 4: cheery one.
• 3:51
  Speaker 5: We're going to be happy.
• 3:52
  Speaker 4: And as I was trying to research good things that
• 3:54
  Speaker 4: are happening, good news for women around the world, I
• 3:58
  Speaker 4: didn't find much any and I don't know if it's
• 4:02
  Speaker 4: because again my Google such as like you're from the US,
• 4:04
  Speaker 4: you only want the US news. There is a problem
• 4:08
  Speaker 4: when it comes to savoroutism in Western culture where we
• 4:14
  Speaker 4: kind of fetish size trauma and also saving people. So
• 4:20
  Speaker 4: we take these good d's and make it something that
• 4:23
  Speaker 4: people just want to watch. I know they call it.
• 4:25
  Speaker 4: I think some people call it trauma porn all that
• 4:27
  Speaker 4: where they thrive and see people suffer and then having
• 4:30
  Speaker 4: someone film them being filmed saving them. And I'm not
• 4:34
  Speaker 4: gonna lie. That is something I hate with a passion
• 4:36
  Speaker 4: and I will not ever ever praise that in any way.
• 4:40
  Speaker 4: So outside of those things, I really couldn't fight much.
• 4:44
  Speaker 4: But it did take me down a rabbit hole of things.
• 4:50
  Speaker 4: And it's specifically about women in happiness and contentment. So
• 4:54
  Speaker 4: it's like, you know what, let's let's google just google
• 4:57
  Speaker 4: women in happiness and we got some interesting results.
• 5:02
  Speaker 5: Annie didn't way.
• 5:03
  Speaker 4: And because I did, I did find a few articles,
• 5:07
  Speaker 4: some very outdated, some a little bit newer, very different
• 5:11
  Speaker 4: points of perspective. We decided that we were going to
• 5:14
  Speaker 4: read a couple of articles for specifically, So we're going
• 5:17
  Speaker 4: to take this in two parts because I think it's
• 5:19
  Speaker 4: it's a little bit themed. Two parts to what we
• 5:23
  Speaker 4: have found in a few of the articles that we
• 5:25
  Speaker 4: found interesting and wanted to talk about and discuss. So
• 5:28
  Speaker 4: pretty much the entirety of these articles were themed around
• 5:32
  Speaker 4: happiness and women.
• 5:34
  Speaker 5: Just remember this.
• 5:36
  Speaker 4: So Part one Monday Mini happiness women and this has
• 5:40
  Speaker 4: a little more to do with like women and their
• 5:42
  Speaker 4: bodies and or having children and what their what the
• 5:46
  Speaker 4: meaning of life is right right, right, So yeah, let's
• 5:51
  Speaker 4: read some of these articles and then dissect, shall we.
• 5:54
  Speaker 4: And of course, even though it's just Annie and I
• 5:56
  Speaker 4: on the mic right now, we love your opinions and
• 5:59
  Speaker 4: your thoughts. And if you have thoughts outside of what
• 6:01
  Speaker 4: we are going to say, please send it so we
• 6:04
  Speaker 4: can have that.
• 6:04
  Speaker 5: As a part of the discussion in a different episode.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: Yes, also if you have any good news, because clearly
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: we're struggling to find some struggling.
• 6:15
  Speaker 4: We are hoping to get some good news soon, I
• 6:18
  Speaker 4: will say. But also we would love it to be
• 6:21
  Speaker 4: outside of the US. And by the way, apparently we
• 6:23
  Speaker 4: have a big group of listeners in Australia, I believe.
• 6:29
  Speaker 4: I think we said Brazil and Chile before, So I
• 6:32
  Speaker 4: would love to hear this y'all give it to us.
• 6:35
  Speaker 4: And if you're from Finland, apparently Finland is the most
• 6:37
  Speaker 4: happy country to live in. Please y'all send us some
• 6:42
  Speaker 4: good news because I didn't know.
• 6:44
  Speaker 3: Okay, yes, all right, let's go all right.
• 6:48
  Speaker 4: So here's one of the articles I found, and I
• 6:51
  Speaker 4: have a feeling y'all are going to know what type
• 6:53
  Speaker 4: of news article this is. But the title of it
• 6:58
  Speaker 4: is why don't we tell women making them miserable. And
• 7:02
  Speaker 4: it is written by Carrie Gress. It was written in
• 7:05
  Speaker 4: August twenty ninth to twenty twenty one. And by the way,
• 7:07
  Speaker 4: the other part to this title is feminism and its Failures.
• 7:12
  Speaker 5: Ah, I feel like that's a big heads up.
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, I think so okay.
• 7:15
  Speaker 4: So with so many feminist advances, women should be getting
• 7:20
  Speaker 4: happier instead of just more medicated. Over the last five decades,
• 7:24
  Speaker 4: feminism has made a long march through American culture, culminating
• 7:28
  Speaker 4: in the first female vice president of the United States.
• 7:31
  Speaker 4: But it isn't clear that feminism's fruits are helping everyone happy.
• 7:36
  Speaker 4: These metrics confirm that women are struggling. Suicides, depression, substance abuse,
• 7:40
  Speaker 4: and sexually transmitted infections have all increased dramatically over the
• 7:45
  Speaker 4: last five decades. Women aren't becoming happier, just more medicated.
• 7:50
  Speaker 4: A twenty twenty p report showed that over fifty percent
• 7:53
  Speaker 4: of liberal white women under thirty have some sort of
• 7:57
  Speaker 4: mental health issue. That statistic alone is stunning enough to
• 8:01
  Speaker 4: indicate that something is going very wrong for the modern woman.
• 8:06
  Speaker 4: Despite the study uptick of feminist advances, I recently had
• 8:11
  Speaker 4: dinner with two friends who work at a crisis pregnancy center.
• 8:14
  Speaker 3: Aha.
• 8:15
  Speaker 4: They told me some far from unusual stories about the
• 8:19
  Speaker 4: challenges their residents face and the rough living must have
• 8:23
  Speaker 4: experienced being trafficked, pimped, addicted, incarcerated, abuse, and on and on.
• 8:29
  Speaker 4: Crisis pregnancy centers, despite their recent mischaracterization in The Handmaid's Tale,
• 8:35
  Speaker 4: do amazing work to protect and help rebuild the lives
• 8:38
  Speaker 4: of new mothers. But it is striking to consider that
• 8:42
  Speaker 4: we as a culture do precious little to help women
• 8:45
  Speaker 4: avoid those troublesome situations from the beginning. It is only
• 8:50
  Speaker 4: when women get this far down the road and in
• 8:52
  Speaker 4: this much trouble that mentoring women can step in and say, quote,
• 8:56
  Speaker 4: something has to change, and those in crisis are willing
• 9:00
  Speaker 4: to listen because they have tried everything else. As lives
• 9:04
  Speaker 4: were rebuilt, basic changes to behavior are taught, albeit as
• 9:09
  Speaker 4: an uphill battle because of the absence of cultural support.
• 9:13
  Speaker 4: But most American women with money, degrees or connections will
• 9:16
  Speaker 4: never hear that our culturally prescribed feminist lifestyle is the
• 9:19
  Speaker 4: source of their unhappiness, struggles, and feeling of emptiness. It
• 9:24
  Speaker 4: seems that we just allow women to freefall into truly
• 9:27
  Speaker 4: awful states without even so much as the quickly spoken
• 9:30
  Speaker 4: warnings of side effects required for pharmaceutical commercials. Imagine what
• 9:36
  Speaker 4: that might sound like. Side effects may include sexually transmitted diseases,
• 9:40
  Speaker 4: debilitating depression, lonliness, despair, substance abuse, and suicide. The regular
• 9:46
  Speaker 4: belief is that human nature is plastic enough that we
• 9:49
  Speaker 4: can do whatever we want consequence free, But so many
• 9:53
  Speaker 4: devastated lives paint a different picture. The progressive solution, which
• 9:57
  Speaker 4: has been cycling around for decades, has been to fix
• 10:00
  Speaker 4: or shore up problems with more governmental assistance and programs.
• 10:04
  Speaker 4: Remember Julia, the imaginary woman who never needed a man.
• 10:09
  Speaker 4: This unintentionally dystopian portrait, thought up during the Obama administration,
• 10:13
  Speaker 4: was meant to let us know that government is here
• 10:15
  Speaker 4: to supply every need from birth to death without placing
• 10:19
  Speaker 4: any kind of demands on our behavior. Rarely is the
• 10:22
  Speaker 4: suggestion made that women have been sold a poisonous lifestyle
• 10:25
  Speaker 4: and the behaviors implied and that lifestyle are what actually
• 10:29
  Speaker 4: need to be changed. Instead, we have a steady diet
• 10:32
  Speaker 4: of articles such as anal sex safety how to s
• 10:35
  Speaker 4: tips and more.
• 10:36
  Speaker 5: Or how Summer Camp gave me.
• 10:38
  Speaker 4: The freedom to explore my queerness at teen Vogue, which
• 10:42
  Speaker 4: is marketed as the young Person's Guide to Saving the World.
• 10:45
  Speaker 4: College freshmen, now being oriented to their new life away
• 10:48
  Speaker 4: from home as the school year begins, are particularly targeted
• 10:52
  Speaker 4: in their new savage world, where anything goes as long
• 10:55
  Speaker 4: as therere consent, and maybe a mask heavy dose is
• 10:59
  Speaker 4: a gender exploration is safe. Sex practices and heaps of
• 11:02
  Speaker 4: contraceptives are all part of the welcome at most US
• 11:05
  Speaker 4: college campuses. But what if there's another way of living,
• 11:09
  Speaker 4: one that doesn't lead to the predictable road of confusion
• 11:11
  Speaker 4: and despair. Efforts are individuals that shed light on the
• 11:14
  Speaker 4: things that actually help women are met with leftist cries
• 11:17
  Speaker 4: and victimization, or by bullying or blaming the patriarchy. Hardly
• 11:22
  Speaker 4: the reason based argumentation radical feminism was supposed to provide, what, then,
• 11:27
  Speaker 4: should we be conveyed to women of every economic and
• 11:29
  Speaker 4: ethnic stripe to help us having fulfilling lives their basics
• 11:34
  Speaker 4: such as, don't sleep around, don't do drugs, don't have abortions,
• 11:38
  Speaker 4: Stop blaming them the patriarchy, Find a purpose outside of yourself,
• 11:42
  Speaker 4: cover up some of that skin, don't overspend, and figure
• 11:45
  Speaker 4: out what is truly good and not just what celebrities say.
• 11:48
  Speaker 4: None of these suggestions is revolutionary, especially if one looks
• 11:51
  Speaker 4: honestly at history, or human nature or psychology. These elements,
• 11:56
  Speaker 4: which were obvious throughout most of human history, are the
• 11:59
  Speaker 4: real for so much that afflicts all of us. But
• 12:02
  Speaker 4: they are things radical feminists don't want to be spoken
• 12:05
  Speaker 4: out loud. Over the last five decades, a carefully constructed
• 12:09
  Speaker 4: closed system has been created, so anything outside its boundaries
• 12:13
  Speaker 4: is almost unthinkable. Hollywood, universities, politics, the fashion industry, magazines,
• 12:19
  Speaker 4: daytime television, and book publishing generate enough ideology tell Weaving
• 12:24
  Speaker 4: that to make sure that there's only one narrative in town.
• 12:28
  Speaker 4: Faith and family are about the only outliers that might
• 12:31
  Speaker 4: let the slip show. Is in any wonder that these
• 12:34
  Speaker 4: two are under attack. But more satisfying ways to live
• 12:37
  Speaker 4: do exist. Ways there where dignity is honored, health is
• 12:41
  Speaker 4: truly valued, body parts aren't ignored or rendered useless, and relationships,
• 12:46
  Speaker 4: which are at the true heart of most women aren't
• 12:49
  Speaker 4: fleeting or shallow, useful or convenient, but deep, abiding, and
• 12:53
  Speaker 4: life giving. If only we could find a way to
• 12:56
  Speaker 4: tell this to every woman.
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: Well, I think there are a lot of interesting things
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: going on in here. One of my main takeaways is
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: that I think that it's not necessarily the case that
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: rates have gone up in all of these things, but
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: perhaps that they are being more recorded or we're seeing
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: them more, maybe they have gone up. But I don't
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: think like that is you can't draw that parallel necessarily.
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: I also think like and this is more of a
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: philosophical question that I don't think we have time to
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: get into, but I do think.
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: There is.
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: It's hard to live in a society when you do
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: know you do see these injustices or that you're valued
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: bless or that you know you see like all these
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: restrictions around your body and just various levels where we
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: mentioned this recently, like where you don't have control and
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: you don't have control over yourself, over your body, you're
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: witnessing this, you're hearing conversations like this that can be
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: difficult and that can lead to substance abuse when you're
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: dealing with it every day, or like some unhealthy coping mechanism.
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: We've talked about that with trauma. People have these unhealthy
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: coping mechanisms, including me, where like basically you've got to
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: find a way to get through the day, and I
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: think feminism. I'm not saying that's good at all, but
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: I think we've become more aware of these injustices and
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: inequalities and inequities, and that is hard to deal with.
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: But it's not feminism's fault. It's more like we're becoming
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: more aware of these things. Right.
• 14:59
  Speaker 4: Here's the thing that I was going to say about
• 15:00
  Speaker 4: this article. I brought this article out because it was
• 15:02
  Speaker 4: one of the first things that popped up when I
• 15:04
  Speaker 4: was like women in Happiness, and I found that interesting
• 15:06
  Speaker 4: because we know when search engines have control. This writer
• 15:12
  Speaker 4: who doesn't like universities and education apparently, which by the way,
• 15:16
  Speaker 4: is a thing of her through my family that once
• 15:18
  Speaker 4: we become educated, we become more sinful. But she is
• 15:24
  Speaker 4: an actual scholar at the Institute of Human Ecology at
• 15:27
  Speaker 4: the Catholic University of America, So there's a lot to
• 15:32
  Speaker 4: be said to that be absolutely so this Pew report
• 15:36
  Speaker 4: or that she tried to cite, we're saying that women
• 15:39
  Speaker 4: of liberal women under the age of thirty have more
• 15:41
  Speaker 4: help diagnosis mental health diagnosis goes to another conservative blog
• 15:47
  Speaker 4: that quotes and pulls things out.
• 15:48
  Speaker 5: Talking also about postpartum depression.
• 15:52
  Speaker 4: Let's talk about the fact that this data also taught
• 15:55
  Speaker 4: leaves out a lot of the conversation of the fact, yes,
• 15:58
  Speaker 4: more women are actually being diagnosed today than ever because
• 16:02
  Speaker 4: they're actually seeking help right, So that's a whole different
• 16:05
  Speaker 4: level of conversation. Let's also talk about when she talks
• 16:08
  Speaker 4: about medication being about happiness. We are coming to a
• 16:12
  Speaker 4: point that sure medication has gone up.
• 16:14
  Speaker 5: I have talked about it as well.
• 16:15
  Speaker 4: In our system that we're giving I feel like we're
• 16:17
  Speaker 4: giving our children way too much because it's an overhaul.
• 16:20
  Speaker 4: But that's because we also are not funding or actually
• 16:23
  Speaker 4: giving right therapeutic options, which is very limited and often
• 16:29
  Speaker 4: condemned by conservatives. This article, I'm not gonna lie, obviously,
• 16:34
  Speaker 4: I read it in a way. I'm a little bit
• 16:36
  Speaker 4: biased and people we've already been raped over the coles
• 16:39
  Speaker 4: who are like y'all are biased.
• 16:41
  Speaker 5: Yes we are.
• 16:42
  Speaker 4: We are leftists, if that's what you want to call us.
• 16:44
  Speaker 4: We believe in the rights of women, we believe in
• 16:47
  Speaker 4: the rights of chance, we believe in the rights of queers.
• 16:49
  Speaker 4: We believe in working against anti black peoples and anybody
• 16:53
  Speaker 4: who is racist, as we're going to come at you
• 16:56
  Speaker 4: that's what we do. If you really thought Kristen and
• 16:59
  Speaker 4: Caroline weren't about life, y'all should go listen to their
• 17:02
  Speaker 4: stuff now and try to reassessed, because they were. They
• 17:06
  Speaker 4: just were a lot polier than we are in the story.
• 17:10
  Speaker 4: But all of this to say, this article definitely talks
• 17:14
  Speaker 4: and blames. Even the fact that she says to you
• 17:17
  Speaker 4: like we are rendering our body parts useless.
• 17:21
  Speaker 5: I'm infuriated that line. I was ready to throw hands.
• 17:25
  Speaker 5: I'm not gonna lie.
• 17:26
  Speaker 4: Because it's like, Wow, you have just demeaned us to
• 17:31
  Speaker 4: our universon whether or not we are of worth if
• 17:34
  Speaker 4: we have.
• 17:34
  Speaker 5: Not given birth.
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, how insulting. Find it very hilarious.
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: That's very depressing, slash very on point with a lot
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: of our rhetoric that it's like, why aren't we you
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: telling women what's making them miserable? It's being women and
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: being loud of like, right, you should go back to
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: faith and family and stop trying to get your equal
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: rights because it's just depressing you.
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 18:03
  Speaker 4: And by the way, if you're wondering why I hesitated
• 18:06
  Speaker 4: and did a cough at the mention of a crisis
• 18:09
  Speaker 4: pregnancy center, we do have an amazing, amazing episode which
• 18:16
  Speaker 4: we talked to a scholar who researched and went traveling
• 18:19
  Speaker 4: to go and find out about these crisis pregnancy centers
• 18:23
  Speaker 4: and how they are harmful to women's seeking treatment, which
• 18:26
  Speaker 4: is also why she doesn't say what they do.
• 18:29
  Speaker 5: I found that interesting in the article.
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: Yes, also worth pointing out this is pretty recent twenty
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: twenty one. We recently did our episode of the pandemic
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: health Effects.
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: So also, that's.
• 18:41
  Speaker 6: It, like everyone's feeling a little more depressed than your
• 18:46
  Speaker 6: suol right now, unless you're a billionaire and you're making
• 18:49
  Speaker 6: more money than ever. But I mean, she hadn't even
• 18:52
  Speaker 6: mentioned like, oh, you know, it's a worldwide paddam all right.
• 18:57
  Speaker 4: And I find it interesting that she absolutely only pointed
• 19:01
  Speaker 4: out that statistic. Because it was only pointed out, I think,
• 19:05
  Speaker 4: like that was one of the numbers for liberal white
• 19:08
  Speaker 4: women under fifty. She gave no cares about women of color.
• 19:13
  Speaker 4: M M.
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that is a very specific, very specific subset focused
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: in on.
• 19:21
  Speaker 5: And here's the thing.
• 19:22
  Speaker 4: I know this may be hating on the article because
• 19:26
  Speaker 4: I hate the article, but this is also the rhetoric
• 19:29
  Speaker 4: that I heard growing up as well. All of this
• 19:32
  Speaker 4: is what was fed to me, and it's fed to
• 19:35
  Speaker 4: a lot of women saying this is why you shouldn't
• 19:36
  Speaker 4: be feminist. This is why feminism is a bad word.
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that whole like angry feminist. This is that like
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: you're not gonna be happy, You're gonna be angry feminist.
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: That's the thing.
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: Is Like, I really hate that characterization. But again, going
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: back to what I said earlier, it's kind of true
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: because once you were like, oh, injustice is everywhere, it's
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: right to be mad, right.
• 19:58
  Speaker 4: Also, I do love that she also puts in a
• 20:01
  Speaker 4: mask as something of contention, and I'm pretty sure she's
• 20:04
  Speaker 4: talking about literal masks here, y'all if that doesn't tell
• 20:08
  Speaker 4: you something. But I think it's quite funny that she
• 20:11
  Speaker 4: says heavy doses of gender exploration and safe sex practices
• 20:15
  Speaker 4: and heaps of contraceptives are all part of the welcome
• 20:18
  Speaker 4: at most US college campuses, as.
• 20:20
  Speaker 5: If that's a bad thing. Yeah, safe sex practices is
• 20:25
  Speaker 5: a bad thing.
• 20:26
  Speaker 4: M h.
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: Absolutely shameful.
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: But going back to what you said is that I
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: also heard that. I mean, it's a running joke with
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: me and one of my parents, no not parents, one
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: of my best friend's parents.
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: Very very conservative, and they kind of joke with.
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: Me all the time because they know I'm liberal, and
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: they'll be like, you went after your your college and
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: you got your liberal education. Now, like it's a joke,
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: but it's true. They use this argument all the time, right.
• 20:56
  Speaker 4: And that's kind of like I joke about my niece
• 20:59
  Speaker 4: who has come to Atlanta and has grown into herself,
• 21:03
  Speaker 4: and I purposely, I'm sad that I did this because
• 21:06
  Speaker 4: I missed out on some things that I feel like
• 21:08
  Speaker 4: I could have helped her. But I purposely stayed away
• 21:12
  Speaker 4: from her because I did not want to be that
• 21:14
  Speaker 4: influence quote unquote.
• 21:16
  Speaker 5: And yeah, she learned it for herself.
• 21:18
  Speaker 4: I knew she would, as well as the fact that
• 21:20
  Speaker 4: she is very intelligent and empathetic, so she she could
• 21:23
  Speaker 4: not ignore some of these issues that we've talked about.
• 21:27
  Speaker 4: She went home, and that's one of the first things. Oh,
• 21:30
  Speaker 4: you went to Atlanta and now you're this And she
• 21:33
  Speaker 4: had to give an excuse as to why she wanted
• 21:35
  Speaker 4: to remain in Atlanta instead of going back to the
• 21:37
  Speaker 4: small hometown, because that means an absolute betrayal of You've
• 21:41
  Speaker 4: turned away from.
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: Us, right right, right, right?
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, but a lot of negative stuff is managed.
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: I guess you've got to give the author points as
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: much as I didn't want to manage to like accomplish
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: a lot because you're right, like the body parts is
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: saying something about like who is a woman and what
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: constitutous woman? Like all these messages of we should go
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: back to the traditional nineteen fifties housewife, it seems, and
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: then you'll be happier because you're more accurence.
• 22:13
  Speaker 5: Yeah, and this is a little last fifty years.
• 22:15
  Speaker 4: So ever since second wave women as came in through
• 22:17
  Speaker 4: came in, it's been awful, Like we just wanted to vote,
• 22:20
  Speaker 4: that's it.
• 22:23
  Speaker 5: Stop blaming the patriarchy.
• 22:25
  Speaker 4: But yeah, I thought this was interesting as one take
• 22:28
  Speaker 4: on why we're unhappy. And again this is more of
• 22:30
  Speaker 4: a recent one. We know that's a whole conversation, but
• 22:33
  Speaker 4: we wanted to take a look at another thing about
• 22:37
  Speaker 4: maybe this does make us happy.
• 22:39
  Speaker 5: And we've talked about this before.
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: Right, Adie, Yes we have.
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: So this is an article from The Guardian from twenty
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: nineteen by She and Kan and I hope I'm pronouncing
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: the name correctly, but I remember when this came out
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: because it.
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: Cost a lot of waves, but it was about.
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: How single women might be like the happiest group of people.
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: All right, so here's some quotes. We may have suspected
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: it already, but now science backs it up. Unmarried and
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: childless women are the happiest subgroup in the population, and
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: they are more likely to live longer, and they are
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: more likely to live longer than they're married and child
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: rearing peers. According to a leading expert in happiness sounds
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: like a fun job. Speaking at the Hay Festival on Saturday,
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: Paul Deulin, professor of behavioral science at the London School
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: of Economics, said the latest evidence showed that the traditional
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: markers used to measure success did not correlate with happiness,
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: particularly marriage and raising children. We do have some good
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: longitudinal data following the same people over time, but I'm
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: going to do a massive disservice to that science and
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: just say, if you're a man, you should probably get married.
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: If you're a woman, don't bother.
• 23:45
  Speaker 4: I do.
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: Remember this goes on.
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: Men benefited from marriage because they calmed down. He said,
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: you take less risk, you earn more money at work,
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: and you live a little longer. She, on the other hand,
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: has to put up with that and dies sooner than
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: if she had never married. The healthiest and happiest population
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: subgroup are women who never married or had children, he said.
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: Other studies have measured some financial and health benefits in
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: being married for both men and women on average, which
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: Doolan said could be attributed to higher incomes and emotional
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: support allowing married people to take risk and seek medical help. However,
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: Dolan said men showed more health benefits from tying than
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: not as they took fewer risk. Women's health was mostly
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: unaffected by marriage, with middle aged women even being at
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: higher risk of physical and mental conditions than their single counterparts.
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: Despite the benefits of a single, childless lifestyle for women,
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: Dolan said that the existing narrative that marriage and children
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: were signs of success meant that the stigma could lead
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: some single women to feel unhappy. You see a single
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: woman of forty who's never had children, blessed. That's a shame,
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: isn't it. Maybe one day you'll meet the right guy
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: and that'll change. No, maybe she'll meet the wrong guy
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: and that'll change. Maybe she'll meet a guy who makes
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: her less happy and healthy and die sooner.
• 25:09
  Speaker 4: So it's a little bit vastly different than the previous article.
• 25:13
  Speaker 4: And yes, of course we've talked about this previously. Again,
• 25:16
  Speaker 4: this does not mean that that is the way to
• 25:19
  Speaker 4: happiness for everyone. My mother, I think, truly, is one
• 25:22
  Speaker 4: of the happiest women, being a mother, loving her husband,
• 25:27
  Speaker 4: being the support for our husband, and literally being told
• 25:30
  Speaker 4: that as a Christian woman she's the backbone of the home,
• 25:34
  Speaker 4: and she is, and she loves that.
• 25:36
  Speaker 5: She loves that aspect of her life.
• 25:39
  Speaker 4: So I would never want to take that away from her,
• 25:42
  Speaker 4: and the fact, even if we don't agree on anything else,
• 25:46
  Speaker 4: I know she has been happy. I know she feels
• 25:48
  Speaker 4: like she's missed out on some things, but that doesn't
• 25:51
  Speaker 4: mean she's not happy.
• 25:53
  Speaker 5: So go ahead and put that caveat in there.
• 25:55
  Speaker 4: But I do love this conversation because we talked about
• 25:57
  Speaker 4: it because this was pre pandemic about how much got
• 26:00
  Speaker 4: after the fact for the women who did not have
• 26:03
  Speaker 4: supportive husbands and or supportive partners, and why that was
• 26:08
  Speaker 4: so detrimental. Again, while we've gotten another giant gap about
• 26:12
  Speaker 4: women raising up in jobs, most likely leaving the jobs altogether,
• 26:17
  Speaker 4: the higher number of resignations, all of those things because
• 26:21
  Speaker 4: of the pandemic, and who the household life fell upon, which,
• 26:26
  Speaker 4: by the way, we are going to talk a little
• 26:27
  Speaker 4: more in part two.
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's an interesting contradiction to our juxtaposition maybe
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: both Yeah to the last article we read, because the
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: last article was essentially saying you're unhappy because you're single,
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: you don't have family, you don't have faith, and this
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: one's like, actually, for women, it seems that they're happier
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: without those things. And again, yeah, we're not saying that
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: those are bad having a marriage or having children and
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: that people can't be happy with it. But I think
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: it goes back to a conversation we have a lot
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: that we kind of just had with that article. There
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: are just these inequalities that are baked into our society
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: and it's how we're raised. And so yeah, like I've
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: literally had fears and relationships because I knew I would
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: become I would do the extra work, I would pick
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: up that slack, and then that recentment would grow and
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: it would be kind of just me being raised that
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: way and the dude in this hetero normative sense being
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: raised that way, but knowing like it felt inevitable.
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: And we talk about.
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: Communication all the time, and I do think it's important,
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: but there are some things that are just hard to
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: communicate because you've been raised differently, Right, And I do.
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: I like the point of you know, because we've also
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: talked about that sort of societal judgment of like because
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: look how sad she is, and that can impact how
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: you view yourself. But I feel like that is also changing.
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: It's becoming more maybe not normalized, but we see it
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: more often, we talk about it more often of like, yeah, right,
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: women are single and they're doing all right, they're doing
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: anything right.
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And I do.
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: I like that point that because we like to paint
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: these relationships and kind of the like nuclear family situation
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: in such a golden like this is your success, this
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: is the goal.
• 28:21
  Speaker 3: But yeah, you could meet their arm dude, could make
• 28:23
  Speaker 3: you more miserable. Right.
• 28:25
  Speaker 4: That was the other part to me was like if
• 28:27
  Speaker 4: I don't like them, so if they're worth the compromise,
• 28:31
  Speaker 4: then great.
• 28:31
  Speaker 5: If not, I'm like, that's that conversation.
• 28:33
  Speaker 4: As in fact, I had this conversation over this weekend
• 28:37
  Speaker 4: when I was explaining that I was trying to buy
• 28:38
  Speaker 4: a house and they're like, oh, ye'all buying it together.
• 28:40
  Speaker 4: I was like, no, it's my house, Like I'm very adamant,
• 28:43
  Speaker 4: and like we are separate. We're together, but we're separate,
• 28:46
  Speaker 4: and I like that. For the longest time I thought
• 28:48
  Speaker 4: I needed a relationship, but then after I got financially
• 28:50
  Speaker 4: stable enough to take care of myself, as in, like,
• 28:52
  Speaker 4: I don't need a roommate, and like, then what's the
• 28:54
  Speaker 4: point And there's nothing in me that really wants to
• 28:57
  Speaker 4: be married.
• 28:57
  Speaker 5: As much as I love my partner, I'm good. I
• 29:01
  Speaker 5: like where we're at. But yeah, that's that.
• 29:03
  Speaker 4: Other part of this conversation is, yes, this is a
• 29:05
  Speaker 4: big generalization. He hummits that at the top is just
• 29:09
  Speaker 4: going to be a big generalization.
• 29:10
  Speaker 5: All people were pissed in this conversation, except for the
• 29:14
  Speaker 5: single women. They're like, oh, yeah, that's right, let them know.
• 29:18
  Speaker 5: But and it is.
• 29:20
  Speaker 4: It's a big generalization. We have to come back to conversation.
• 29:23
  Speaker 4: But if you want to be a single mother, then
• 29:25
  Speaker 4: that's fine too. Like the fact that that's the joy
• 29:27
  Speaker 4: that brings you, that's the delight that we see. But
• 29:32
  Speaker 4: her worth, even though she may love being a mother,
• 29:35
  Speaker 4: should not be based on just being a mother.
• 29:38
  Speaker 3: Unless that's the.
• 29:39
  Speaker 4: Way they want to center it, then great, you do you,
• 29:41
  Speaker 4: but you can't force that on others either.
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: Right, And I think just to mention because we don't
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: have time to get into it right now, but I
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: do think another piece of this is we don't provide
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: support to mothers, and we also write, as you said,
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: as we've seen through the pandemic, we expect them to
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: give up their financial livelihood in their jobs first, or
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: do it all at once, which means you get no
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: sleep and your health suffers and all this stuff. So
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: I think like, if maybe if we lived in a
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: society that valued women and women's work and raising children,
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: whether it's anybody whoever's raising children, it's work, if we
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: valued that, maybe these numbers in this narrative would be different.
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: But I it totally makes sense to.
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: Me that a pandemic hits, you're getting no support, you
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: have no money, you have to take care of the kids,
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: Like of course you're that's going to affect your happiness.
• 30:35
  Speaker 4: Right, And just to go back, because you just reminded
• 30:37
  Speaker 4: me from that first article where she talks about women
• 30:40
  Speaker 4: expecting help from birth to death that this whole idea
• 30:44
  Speaker 4: that liberal depends on government and telling government like, oh,
• 30:48
  Speaker 4: you you really generalize that one, you're saying that we're
• 30:51
  Speaker 4: not of wourth unless we have children, put our bodies
• 30:55
  Speaker 4: to use, but at the same time that we are
• 30:57
  Speaker 4: not worth giving assist us too, are helping.
• 31:01
  Speaker 5: That's interesting, that's interesting that.
• 31:03
  Speaker 4: You give no solutions but tell us how to find
• 31:07
  Speaker 4: a way of being of value to society.
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: Right, yeah, And that's that also, that whole the perfect
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: mother and that kind of Disney disneyification of as a mother,
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: you can never feel depression or sadness or retired like
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: because you're a mother and it's the best thing ever, right,
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: which again, can.
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: Be very lovely, can be great, what can be very hard.
• 31:30
  Speaker 5: It is very hard.
• 31:31
  Speaker 4: And they should get their flowers, and they should get assistance,
• 31:34
  Speaker 4: and they should get help at the very least for
• 31:37
  Speaker 4: the rest of their lives. Their bodies should be cared
• 31:40
  Speaker 4: for by the government, because you're saying that's what our
• 31:43
  Speaker 4: bodies are worth.
• 31:44
  Speaker 5: So which is it?
• 31:47
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, anyway, okay, y'all, that's a lot, I know.
• 31:53
  Speaker 5: But we have a part two, damn it, we do.
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: We do. We do have a part two. But in
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: the meantime, again, if you have any happy things for
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: as to talk about, clearly we need them. We would
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: love to hear them. You can email us at Stuff Media,
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: mom Stuff at iHeartMedia dot com. You can find us
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: on Instagram at stuff I Never Told You or on
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: Twitter at mom Stuff Podcast. Thanks as always to our
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: super producer Christina, Thank you, and thanks to you for
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: listening Stuff Will Never Told You the protection from iHeartRadio.
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.