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