Speaker 1: Welcome to stuff mom never told you. From how Supports
Speaker 1: dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen
Speaker 1: and I'm Caroline. And Caroline, I have a story about
Speaker 1: my mother to share to kick off this episode about tinkles,
Speaker 1: the portmanteau of cath and ankle. So when a listener
Speaker 1: wrote us about doing an episode on kinkles, I wanted
Speaker 1: to immediately because I remembered this moment in my childhood,
Speaker 1: crystallized in my brain for some reason of my dear mother,
Speaker 1: well meaning, I'm sure telling me apropos of nothing. Kristen,
Speaker 1: be glad you've got slender ankles like me. Oh. I
Speaker 1: went to school with a girl I think her name
Speaker 1: was Mary, and she had the fattest ankles, and I
Speaker 1: just remember thinking I had no idea, like for the
Speaker 1: first time I looked down and actually saw my ankles,
Speaker 1: And ever since then, I've kind of never stopped looking
Speaker 1: at them, terrified of the day that what if I
Speaker 1: go home and Mom looks down and I've got Mary's ankles.
Speaker 1: Oh No, I never knew that that was the thing
Speaker 1: until my mother told me, huh yeah. I feel like
Speaker 1: while the whole word cankle is sort of a new
Speaker 1: invention relatively, I feel like that attitude about slender ankles
Speaker 1: versus stocky ankles and what that means supposedly and how
Speaker 1: it affects your attractiveness. I feel like that's been around
Speaker 1: for quite a while. Yeah, and so we're gonna dig
Speaker 1: into cankles and where this idea came from that in
Speaker 1: order to have a fully attractive feminine figure, it involves
Speaker 1: the slender ankle. So arbitrary, right, it does seem so arbitrary,
Speaker 1: and yet women are getting plastic surgery in order to
Speaker 1: achieve that slender ankle. Look. This was a story reported
Speaker 1: on in fall two thousand fourteen from ABC News on
Speaker 1: what they termed the boot bulge of women going under
Speaker 1: the knife so they can fit into their fall boots.
Speaker 1: I yeah. They talked to Matthew Shulman, who's a plastic
Speaker 1: surgeon in New York City, and he said, Oh, it's
Speaker 1: definitely a thing, he said, especially this time of year
Speaker 1: when some women aren't able to wear the boots they want.
Speaker 1: And I mean, I know that some women's calves are
Speaker 1: shaped in such a way that they need a boot
Speaker 1: with a bigger leg opening, But I had not heard
Speaker 1: of this apparent epidemic of humans who uh don't like
Speaker 1: their ankles enough that they're going to pursue plastic surgery. Yeah,
Speaker 1: nor was this the first time that ABC News had
Speaker 1: reported on this plastic surgery trend. In quotes, Um, I mean,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't say that it's an epidemic proportions, because when
Speaker 1: you talk to these plastic surgeons, they'll usually say, oh,
Speaker 1: I get around fifty women in a year coming in
Speaker 1: for it. But it's reported on as if it's an epidemic,
Speaker 1: which only further leads to this question of like, but wow,
Speaker 1: why why are we even talking about it? So the
Speaker 1: first thing we wanted to uncover was how and when
Speaker 1: slender ankles became a feminine beauty standard, because again, so
Speaker 1: it's so far far. It's like at the opposite end
Speaker 1: of of our bodies. Why why worry about them? Well,
Speaker 1: I guess we worry about them now because we wear clothes,
Speaker 1: or we wear a lack of clothes that showcase our
Speaker 1: legs and ankles as opposed to back in the day
Speaker 1: of I mean forever Victorian era, particularly when you're wearing
Speaker 1: these huge dresses with bustles and everything, and so your
Speaker 1: your legs and definitely your ankles are covered. So there
Speaker 1: was almost no there's almost no social etiquette fashion rule
Speaker 1: for what your legs, little on your ankles should look like,
Speaker 1: right because no one saw them, right, So no big deal. Um.
Speaker 1: But it's around the nineteen tins and moving into the
Speaker 1: World War One era when hemlines inched above the ankle,
Speaker 1: and so, like you said, Caroline, they're on display for
Speaker 1: the very first time. And um, these hemlines were referred
Speaker 1: to as the new crinoline or war crinoline, and this
Speaker 1: above the ankle hemline was referred to as the new
Speaker 1: crinoline or war crinoline um. And it was brought about
Speaker 1: largely because more women were working due to World War One.
Speaker 1: And of course the hemlines continue to rise through the
Speaker 1: late nineteen twenties with a flapper air, although they would
Speaker 1: then drop down again in the nineteen thirties, but still
Speaker 1: by then the ankle was fully on display. Scandalous. So
Speaker 1: you know, we still haven't hit on exactly why a
Speaker 1: slender ankle is the ideal versus you know, why don't
Speaker 1: we value uh stock your ankle or just like every
Speaker 1: ankle is fine the way it is yeah, exactly, Um,
Speaker 1: every ankle is sacred. Well, we looked at this book
Speaker 1: called Ideal Images and Kinsey's Women by June mock Over
Speaker 1: rhin Issh and she talks about the Gibson Girl who
Speaker 1: came to us courtesy of illustrator Charles Dana Gibson. And
Speaker 1: this particular woman had slender ankles wind shown, so she
Speaker 1: when she as she lifted up her dress, she uh
Speaker 1: displayed curvaceous calves that tapered down to a slender ankle.
Speaker 1: And so this was one of the first pop culture
Speaker 1: if you will, uh references to what an ankle maybe
Speaker 1: should look like, right, because the Gibson girl was the
Speaker 1: embodiment of idealized Edwardian beauty that then leading into the
Speaker 1: early twentieth century, and so there every now and then
Speaker 1: she would be shown in her bathing suit. And I
Speaker 1: thought it was interesting to how that shape of the
Speaker 1: shape lee calf leading into the more tapered ankles, sort
Speaker 1: of the inverse of that idealized our glass figure up top.
Speaker 1: And it also is significant that in the nineties as
Speaker 1: legs became far more of a beauty focus because for
Speaker 1: the first time we're really seeing them outside of the house.
Speaker 1: This was also when the more curvaceous matron lee figure
Speaker 1: that was hailed during the Edwardian era was replaced by
Speaker 1: the stick straight, thin ideal of the Flapper era. So
Speaker 1: we were priding ourselves in thinness more than before, and
Speaker 1: that just trickled on down to our ankle. Sure did
Speaker 1: trickle down. But even before the nineties, if you looked
Speaker 1: to nineteen fifteen in the Gazette Times, there was an
Speaker 1: article pinned by a ballerina prima donna Lucrezia Bori, titled
Speaker 1: how to make your ankles really slender and shapely, And
Speaker 1: she writes, or maybe she writes, I don't know, she
Speaker 1: put her name to it, A heavy, shapeless ankle is
Speaker 1: almost a deformity, and no exertion should be spared to
Speaker 1: reduce its size. You can never associate dainty with a
Speaker 1: woman who has large ankles. What so, immediately right out
Speaker 1: of the gate, we have this perception. Well sure, because
Speaker 1: I think it's the same kind of thing that we
Speaker 1: hear about with women's slender wrists. There is this idea
Speaker 1: of slender risks and slender ankles in particular, being associated
Speaker 1: with feminine grace, daintiness, and that word dainty jumps out
Speaker 1: because it does seem like we have this rather bizarre
Speaker 1: association between not only slender ankles but also slender rists
Speaker 1: and this idea of the dainty, graceful woman, particularly at
Speaker 1: this time, which I mean she's kind of becoming more
Speaker 1: of the new woman. But still it's uh, that's those
Speaker 1: are the hallmarks of a woman and apparent isn't it
Speaker 1: too kind of symbolic? And the fact that it's not
Speaker 1: we want more of the the slender um foundation rather
Speaker 1: than like a sturdy, solid foundation. Does it, perhaps, Caroline,
Speaker 1: reflect the changing gender roles of the time. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: wanting women to take up less space both physically and
Speaker 1: in the political social spheres. Yes, it could be. I
Speaker 1: mean we might be getting a little too deep on it.
Speaker 1: I like where we're going. Yes, well, there are also,
Speaker 1: in addition to these recommended exercises for women to keep
Speaker 1: their ankles slender, which in fact, you can't spot reduce
Speaker 1: the size of your ankles. Ankle exercises, no matter what
Speaker 1: Lucrezia Bori says, will not change the shape of your ankles.
Speaker 1: There were also products to help women achieve this slender
Speaker 1: ankle ideal, including things like ankle course's and that's spelled
Speaker 1: with a K in Kardashian style. And there are also
Speaker 1: shoes designed, such as the foot Saver, which were specifically
Speaker 1: designed to uh supposedly keep women's ankles at least appearing
Speaker 1: more slender. But I mean, this is to me, this,
Speaker 1: this is insane to go back and uncover this history
Speaker 1: of ankle slenderizing products because you think of things like
Speaker 1: this as more of a modern you know, panic fueled
Speaker 1: by women's magazines who were out to make everyone feel
Speaker 1: bad about their bodies, you know, indirectly. But but no,
Speaker 1: I mean there are these great but terrible old advertisements
Speaker 1: featuring illustrations of these ankle courses that I'm sure by
Speaker 1: the end of the day your foot would be completely
Speaker 1: black and blue from wearing it. Well, And I mean
Speaker 1: and also too, this was still being these ideas were
Speaker 1: still being perpetuated in in women's magazines, you know, like
Speaker 1: it's uh, It's just what's more astounding is that we're
Speaker 1: getting these same messages today, right, So that leads us
Speaker 1: up to the sword cankle, which when we talk about
Speaker 1: cankles today, it is an insulting portmanteau referring to the
Speaker 1: cankle ankle combo, implying that there is no definition between
Speaker 1: the two, essentially from your knee to your foot. It's
Speaker 1: it's relatively shapeless, right, But it actually got to start
Speaker 1: as a different portmanteau that blended the words canker an
Speaker 1: ankle to mean a foot store in a essay by
Speaker 1: sci fi writer Don Webb. Yeah, and we got that
Speaker 1: tidbit from a post by Autumn Whitefield Madronto over at
Speaker 1: her fantastic blog The Beheld, in which she also wanted
Speaker 1: to know where did this cankle thing come from? And
Speaker 1: I was so surprised to learn that the source of
Speaker 1: cankle ladies and gentlemen is none other than a two
Speaker 1: thousand one cinematic masterpiece called Shallow How, Shallow How, starring
Speaker 1: Gwyneth Paltrow, n Fat Suit, Jack Black, and Jason Alexander,
Speaker 1: whose character is a jerk and always fat shaming one
Speaker 1: of Paltrow's character, and he uses cankle to describe quote.
Speaker 1: It's like the calf merged with the foot and cut
Speaker 1: out the middleman, just continuing Jason Alexander's trend of playing
Speaker 1: gross characters. But we can't blame Jason Alexander the person. Well, sure,
Speaker 1: but my mother will because like she cannot watch a
Speaker 1: Jason Alexander movie, TV show, anything after he played the
Speaker 1: Griss character and pretty Woman. So Sally would absolutely blame
Speaker 1: Jason Alexander the person. Yeah, he's definitely has been typecast
Speaker 1: because when I learned that, I immediately thought I cannot
Speaker 1: continue to use a word coined by George Castanza. That's
Speaker 1: how on earth is that possible man who takes his
Speaker 1: shirt off to go to the bathroom? Um? Well, in
Speaker 1: two thousand three, so just two years after Shallow how
Speaker 1: comes out, the word pops up in Glamour magazine, And
Speaker 1: of course if it's in Glamour, it's probably another lady
Speaker 1: magazines by then. Um, but Glamour rights that it's a
Speaker 1: genetic fact. Some women have cankles, thick calflic ankles. And
Speaker 1: so I feel like the sentiment there is a little
Speaker 1: bit better because they're explaining that, hey, this is a
Speaker 1: genetic thing, Like don't you know, this is not like
Speaker 1: you need to do crunches for your feet or whatever
Speaker 1: to get rid of it. It's just something that you
Speaker 1: will deal with. But it's just unfortunate that in the process,
Speaker 1: they really kind of went gung ho, adopting the word cankle. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and automn at the Beheld goes on to describe how
Speaker 1: quote by two thousand six, kinkles had made it into
Speaker 1: Men's Health, Women's Health Newsweek, Skinny Bitch, a small library
Speaker 1: of novels and un noteworthy books, and the weekly World News,
Speaker 1: which wreck amended a magic spell to get rid of them,
Speaker 1: which involved the new moon African violet and visualizing your
Speaker 1: cankles going to a person of your choosing. It doesn't work.
Speaker 1: It doesn't work. It doesn't work, trust me. And you
Speaker 1: can't get rid of your belly fat that way either,
Speaker 1: ladies and gentlemen. So clearly it didn't take too long
Speaker 1: for cankle to enter its way into our almost everyday vernacular,
Speaker 1: to the point now that this has gone from just
Speaker 1: being considered a genetic fact of like, Okay, some women
Speaker 1: have thicker ankles than others, No big deal, right, not
Speaker 1: so much anymore, because the cankle has been completely pathologized.
Speaker 1: And we're going to talk more about that when we
Speaker 1: come right back from a quick break. All right, So
Speaker 1: before the break, we were talking about kind of the
Speaker 1: history of where a word cankle came from and where
Speaker 1: we got this concept that the daintier ankle is the
Speaker 1: better ankle. But we should definitely talk about how all
Speaker 1: of those trends and all of those perceptions have led
Speaker 1: us to where we are now, which is a state
Speaker 1: of affairs in which many people, not a ton, but
Speaker 1: many people have started to seek out plastic surgery for
Speaker 1: what they consider to be stocky ankles. And regardless of
Speaker 1: how many women are actually undergoing this plastic surgery, this
Speaker 1: micro liposuction, it's still something that is brought up and
Speaker 1: mentioned in every single news story about it. It says,
Speaker 1: oh God, women are freaking out about their cankles and
Speaker 1: so like bo suction um. And a lot of this
Speaker 1: really started in terms of the broader media coverage in
Speaker 1: two thousand nine when Gold's Gym launched its ankle awareness campaign.
Speaker 1: So funny, right, And that led to all of these
Speaker 1: media outlets being like, oh, cankles, what's going on? Oh
Speaker 1: should you go to the gym? Oh? And ABC Health again, ABC?
Speaker 1: What's does the C in ABC stand for cankle or something?
Speaker 1: Because they're really into this. ABC Health covers this cankle
Speaker 1: awareness campaign from Gold's gym. This ad campaign they had
Speaker 1: and asked whether you know ladies or cankles the new
Speaker 1: muffintop and even to the point that there article their
Speaker 1: report on cankles. The lead was, while you were busy
Speaker 1: worrying about muffin topping over the waistband of your jeans
Speaker 1: or cottage cheese on your thighs, you should have been
Speaker 1: fretting over the shapeliness of your ankles. Cankles or less
Speaker 1: than smelt ankles are the thunder thighs of the new millennium.
Speaker 1: What is wrong with them? What is wrong with them
Speaker 1: that they are not only talking about cankles, fine, talk
Speaker 1: about cankles. We're talking about cankles, but they're literally saying
Speaker 1: you should have been fretting over the shapeliness of your ankles. Well,
Speaker 1: and they also just went pretty much down the female
Speaker 1: body like muffin top, oh, cellulite, oh, cankles, thunder thighs too,
Speaker 1: just pulling the thunder thighs out of nowhere. I mean,
Speaker 1: ABC Health is doing. We talked on the podcast a
Speaker 1: lot about the policing of women's bodies. This is like
Speaker 1: a insanely crystal clear version example of policing women's this
Speaker 1: is the swat team. They let out the swat team
Speaker 1: on that um. And then in two thousand eleven, Marie
Speaker 1: Claire published an article on the cankle surgery trend trend
Speaker 1: in quotes because it does lead to the question of
Speaker 1: how many people does it take to form a trend
Speaker 1: um because there aren't hard numbers on precisely how many
Speaker 1: people are getting this LiPo section. Um. But this Maria
Speaker 1: Claire article was really a first person report of this
Speaker 1: woman who was dissatisfied with her ankles her whole life
Speaker 1: and it really bothered her. And apparently a side note
Speaker 1: she I hope this was made up, talked about how
Speaker 1: her boyfriend would always make doodles of her with ugly
Speaker 1: ankles um, which, honey, I don't think you need lipos section,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. But it's really just her
Speaker 1: journey to getting this surgery. Yeah. And so the whole
Speaker 1: deal with the surgery that she went through is that
Speaker 1: if you're the best candidate for it, you can't have
Speaker 1: ankles that are too muscly or bones that are too
Speaker 1: big to get in the way. And it's all about
Speaker 1: getting to the fat pads in that region of the leg.
Speaker 1: The thing is it's gonna run you four to six
Speaker 1: thousand dollars plus an extra seven hundred fifty bucks for
Speaker 1: an anesthesiologist. And okay, so let's see you have the money,
Speaker 1: you have the will. Now, as far as recovering from it,
Speaker 1: it's sort of insane. Uh. Two months post surgery, this
Speaker 1: woman still had a lot of swelling and numbness, but
Speaker 1: it can take up to ten months to fully recover
Speaker 1: from this, and she felt like it was worth it.
Speaker 1: She lost an inch off both ankles and she was thrilled.
Speaker 1: Apparently her boyfriend stopped with his rude doodles and that
Speaker 1: was then the happy ending to her story. And what's
Speaker 1: really interesting though, is the fact that with this procedure,
Speaker 1: it's referred to as a micro liposuction because the plastic
Speaker 1: surgeon will use a candida or tube that's roughly the
Speaker 1: diameter of a ballpoint pin. And I want to emphasize
Speaker 1: that just to get across how how how specific this
Speaker 1: spot reduction is. Paying six thousand plus dollar lars to
Speaker 1: have someone with that tiny of tube just suck out
Speaker 1: some fat. And I don't want to delegitimize people's feelings
Speaker 1: and insecurities about their angles, because we've clearly established that
Speaker 1: we have been pointing at these things for a very
Speaker 1: long time and saying, hey, if you don't have the
Speaker 1: specific if you don't have the genetics to give you
Speaker 1: the specific kind of ankle, then you should really feel unladylike.
Speaker 1: But going to surgery is quite extreme. Yeah, And like
Speaker 1: Kristen said, we we don't have exact stats on this
Speaker 1: particular micro LiPo section. LiPo in general is the most
Speaker 1: common plastic surgery in the US. UM, but plastic surgeons
Speaker 1: definitely aren't in a rush to sort of woo women
Speaker 1: away from getting their ankles done. Um. There was a
Speaker 1: two thousand fourteen study called Laser Assisted Like Policis for
Speaker 1: Cankle Remodeling It perspective study in thirty patients that looked
Speaker 1: at the procedure, different ways of doing the procedure and
Speaker 1: its success and everything like that. And uh, they used
Speaker 1: a certain language choice, a word choice that I myself
Speaker 1: would not have used and was sort of horrified to
Speaker 1: see it used in this abstract. Well, and it's one
Speaker 1: that noted Prima Donna Lucrezia also used. She did so
Speaker 1: this is this is what this is study. Lucrezia wrote
Speaker 1: her essay in nineteen fifteen, so we're approaching the hundred
Speaker 1: year anniversary of people being jerks about ankles. So in
Speaker 1: this study they write, unesthetic fat cankles where definition between
Speaker 1: the caffeine ankle is impossible, are a frustrating aesthetic deformity deformity. Huh,
Speaker 1: we're still referring to it as a deformity almost one
Speaker 1: years later. Yeah, something that is completely normal and genetic
Speaker 1: is being called a deformity. Yeah, and it And it
Speaker 1: goes on to say that deformity which are exacerbated by
Speaker 1: genetic conditioning and special resistance to diet, and this kind
Speaker 1: of cankle remodeling is a safe and reproducible technique that's
Speaker 1: particularly appreciated by the patient because again this is a
Speaker 1: matter of genetics. You can't diet or exercise the shape
Speaker 1: of your ankles away. Granted, ankle size can fluctuate with obesity. However,
Speaker 1: a lot of times the shape of your ankles are
Speaker 1: just the shape of your ankles that they look how
Speaker 1: they look. And um, really quickly, going back to the
Speaker 1: point of not knowing how many procedures are actually happening
Speaker 1: every year, A lot of times doctors will report that
Speaker 1: they get you know, a few dozen up to you know, say,
Speaker 1: sixty year eighty patients a year. The fact though, that
Speaker 1: it's getting so much news coverage and it's being reported
Speaker 1: on as a trend is only going to send those
Speaker 1: numbers up even more because it pathologizes it even more
Speaker 1: and probably leads more women like me when I was
Speaker 1: probably ten years old, to like look at my ankles
Speaker 1: for the first time and think, oh, are they the
Speaker 1: right shape? What if they are the right shape? Okay, Well,
Speaker 1: so we've talked a lot about the trends in body shaming,
Speaker 1: uh that have led to a lot of women seeking surgery,
Speaker 1: seeking spot exercises for this. But let's let's throw out
Speaker 1: some actual calf ankle region facts, shall we. Yes, First
Speaker 1: and most important is it's not a medical condition. The
Speaker 1: cankle is not a medical condition. Everyone has differently sized ankles,
Speaker 1: largely due to genetics, and so if you do feel
Speaker 1: that you have cankles, it's typically because of the gas
Speaker 1: strock nemeius muscle, which is quote, you know, the belly
Speaker 1: of the calf attaching lower on the leg to the
Speaker 1: soleiest hustle above the achilles tendon, so the calf and
Speaker 1: ankle don't look as differentiated. So it's all about how
Speaker 1: the inside of your body is put together, which relies
Speaker 1: on genetics. For the most part. There are some situations
Speaker 1: in which ankles will swell, such as abnormal water retention, tendonitis, pregnancy,
Speaker 1: achilles tendon injuries. There's also something called uh lepidema, which
Speaker 1: is a rare disorder where you have fat deposits on
Speaker 1: the lower extremities, and again with obesity. However, for the
Speaker 1: most part, it's just how your body is built. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and they talk about so one thing. I know. I
Speaker 1: remember having this conversation in college with a woman who
Speaker 1: longed for the very perky uh calf muscles of a
Speaker 1: woman who was at the bus. She saw this woman
Speaker 1: wearing heels and was like, God, I wish my calves
Speaker 1: look like that is actually addressed in one of these
Speaker 1: things that we read that in the same way that
Speaker 1: you can have these muscles attached very low on your
Speaker 1: legs so it looks like you have stocked your ankles,
Speaker 1: you can also have it situated very high so that Okay, yes,
Speaker 1: if you're a runner or you do exercise or whatever,
Speaker 1: you're bound to have a more taught calf muscle that
Speaker 1: is maybe more apparent when you're walking around in heels.
Speaker 1: But part of that is genetic also, and just in
Speaker 1: terms of how your muscles attached to your bones and
Speaker 1: fat deposits, and yeah, imagine that. It's just it's the
Speaker 1: way that you're made well. And that was something that
Speaker 1: that Marie Claire writer Samantha marshall Um mentioned too, Like
Speaker 1: at the beginning of her column about going to get
Speaker 1: this LiPo section, she says, my mother has them, her
Speaker 1: mother had them, and I too, was born with the
Speaker 1: lower legs of a plow horse. So there's this acknowledgement of, well,
Speaker 1: this is how my body is built, but it not
Speaker 1: conforming to this very very specific and rather arbitrary beauty standard.
Speaker 1: And again, like any exercise physiologists you talk to will say,
Speaker 1: you cannot spot reduce them. Because there are still plenty
Speaker 1: of columns and plenty of women's magazines and dubious websites
Speaker 1: about ankle exercises, how to get those slender ankles for
Speaker 1: the summertime to where your gladiator sandals with pride, but
Speaker 1: you can't really do it. And again, it's not a
Speaker 1: medical condition. Although if water retention is a problem, if
Speaker 1: suddenly you have swollen ankles like you haven't had before,
Speaker 1: you probably want to go see your doctor, but you
Speaker 1: probably don't want to go see your plastic surgeon, right,
Speaker 1: And And the way that I personally put things in
Speaker 1: perspective sometimes just about stuff like this, not necessarily just
Speaker 1: about cankles. But I imagine old advertisements from the turn
Speaker 1: of the twentieth century and how we laugh those and
Speaker 1: we say, this is so ridiculous. They're saying these terrible
Speaker 1: things to women, and they're they're marketing these awful contraptions
Speaker 1: that are just they're just treating something that doesn't need
Speaker 1: treating with something that looks like a torture device. And
Speaker 1: and I think about that, and then I think about
Speaker 1: women's magazines and other websites and advertisements that we look
Speaker 1: at today and how we just buy them. We we
Speaker 1: fall for them hook line and sinker. And so for
Speaker 1: me personally, that helps keep a lot of the rigamarole
Speaker 1: that comes acrossing women's magazines in perspective. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: because this going back to the you know, the era
Speaker 1: of the Gibson girl, and when we first started seeing
Speaker 1: the ankle peek out from underneath hemlines. This really was
Speaker 1: a made up beauty standard in the sense of, oh, well,
Speaker 1: what do we think about it? What should it look like?
Speaker 1: Because there are other things in terms of feminine beauty
Speaker 1: standards and common markers of attractions, such as symmetry and
Speaker 1: bright red ups and bright white eyes and all of
Speaker 1: those kinds of things that you can, you know, get
Speaker 1: into evolutionary biology of signals of fertility and health and
Speaker 1: all of that to where it can make a little
Speaker 1: bit more sense that we emphasize it so much, but
Speaker 1: not with the ankles. The slender ankles are not a
Speaker 1: sign of fertility or anything like that. So I wonder
Speaker 1: that Caroline, if one thing that would help with all
Speaker 1: of this, um, because I have a feeling that for
Speaker 1: some people listening, they're gonna say ankles, who cares? But
Speaker 1: for the people who feel this this is probably resonating
Speaker 1: big time. Um, do we need to retire cankle? Is that?
Speaker 1: I mean? Would that help? I think there were a
Speaker 1: couple of sources that we looked at, UM, and I
Speaker 1: think Autumn Whitfield Madrona was one of them who called
Speaker 1: for or just called out the fact that we name
Speaker 1: body parts imaginary body parts that we're unhappy with, things
Speaker 1: like muffin top, basic be creating language for something that
Speaker 1: we're unhappy with, which in turn makes us even unhappier
Speaker 1: with it. And so, yeah, I think let's cankle is
Speaker 1: such a mean, ugly word. Whether we're using it about
Speaker 1: another woman or whether we're using it about ourselves, it's mean.
Speaker 1: And so you know, I will I will take the
Speaker 1: pledge to just call it an ankle. Yeah, it's just
Speaker 1: an ankle. Also, to just not talk about other women's
Speaker 1: body parts. Yeah, yeah, that would be helpful. Although for
Speaker 1: one one last fun fact for our listeners before we
Speaker 1: sign off, Caroline, can we mention our favorite nickname for
Speaker 1: a body part that we found I believe from the
Speaker 1: eighteenth century in reference to a large belly that I
Speaker 1: totally want to bring back. The corporation. Wasn't that an
Speaker 1: eighteenth century term? Yeah? It was either eighteenth or nine.
Speaker 1: It was both known as a corporation and alternately a
Speaker 1: bay window. Front of those are glorious down with big corporations.
Speaker 1: I just I'm going to refer to my tummy as
Speaker 1: either a corporation or a bay window. From now on. Well,
Speaker 1: and according to the U. S. Supreme Court, corporations are
Speaker 1: people too. So wat watch watch how you talk about
Speaker 1: about it? Um. So now we want to hear from
Speaker 1: our listeners about this ankle issue. Is this something that
Speaker 1: resonates with you and guys, is this something that you
Speaker 1: pay attention to it all? I feel like anecdotally, I
Speaker 1: have heard guys talk about their calves, like the size
Speaker 1: of calves, Guys who can't build up um much muscle
Speaker 1: mass in their calves because like you talked about Caroline,
Speaker 1: how the muscle attaches um. But I wonder if I
Speaker 1: don't know, do guys do guys have cankles? Let us
Speaker 1: know your thoughts Mom Stuff at how stuffworks dot com.
Speaker 1: And you can also tweet us at Mom's Stuff podcast
Speaker 1: or messages on Facebook. And we've got a couple of
Speaker 1: messages to share with you when we come right back
Speaker 1: from a quick break and now back to the show. Well,
Speaker 1: I've got a Facebook message here from Rita and she writes,
Speaker 1: I just listened to your podcast Curly Hair Conundrums, and
Speaker 1: I was really pleased to learn the history behind all
Speaker 1: of the effort I put into my hair. I'm originally
Speaker 1: from Central America, and I suffered from straight discrimination and
Speaker 1: harassment because of my tight, curly hair. As my hair
Speaker 1: texture isn't common there. I never understood why, but all
Speaker 1: of my classmates, friends, and even relatives looked down on
Speaker 1: me because their hair was smooth and mine was not.
Speaker 1: Even my dear grandma felt that way. She was the
Speaker 1: first one to take me to get my first relax
Speaker 1: or so I could look like her. Since that first time,
Speaker 1: I've been spending a small fortune and countless hours making
Speaker 1: my hair straight and smooth. I feel as I've accomplished
Speaker 1: that and currently received compliments on how pretty and well
Speaker 1: groomed my hair is all the time. After listening to
Speaker 1: your podcast, I feel empowered to have curly hair. However,
Speaker 1: societal x difectations worry me because I'm fresh out of
Speaker 1: college looking for a job and having a transition period
Speaker 1: is not a wise idea, but a part of me
Speaker 1: that was the aim of ridicule is now a source
Speaker 1: of empowerment. So thanks Rita, and love your hair and
Speaker 1: all of its cruels. I have a letter here from
Speaker 1: Mackenzie in regards to our entire weird Parental Psychology Week,
Speaker 1: where we talked about Mama's boys and Daddy's girls. She said,
Speaker 1: when you started talking about LGBT parents, I knew I
Speaker 1: had to write in. I grew up at the intersection
Speaker 1: of Daddy's Little Girl and Mackenzie has Two. Mommy's long
Speaker 1: story short, My married Mormon parents got a divorce after
Speaker 1: my mom came out as a lesbian and moved in
Speaker 1: with her long time love. My dad remained in my
Speaker 1: life and I always had a close relationship with him.
Speaker 1: As many of your sources theorized, having a close relationship
Speaker 1: with my dad taught me about how I wanted to
Speaker 1: be treated by men. My dad thought I hung the
Speaker 1: moon and my future husband would too. However, I learned
Speaker 1: what a beautiful relationship looks like from my mom's. They
Speaker 1: have always been crazy for each other and it shows.
Speaker 1: Although they rarely so much as kiss in front of
Speaker 1: their kids, their relationship is obviously so deep. They're equal
Speaker 1: partners in all things. I knew that was the relationship
Speaker 1: I wanted. Cut to today, and I'm engaged to a wonderful,
Speaker 1: fiercely feminist man. He loves me the way my dad
Speaker 1: taught me I should be loved, and we have a
Speaker 1: relationship that mirrors the equality in my mom's relationship. Sorry
Speaker 1: for the long note, I just had to share this
Speaker 1: unique experience. Thanks for all the awesome podcasting. You ladies
Speaker 1: help me make sense of the crazy world around me.
Speaker 1: So thank you for your great letter, Mackenzie, and thanks
Speaker 1: to everybody who's written into us. Mom Stuff at how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com is our email address, and again,
Speaker 1: you can tweet us at mom stuff, podcasts or messages
Speaker 1: on Facebook and for links to all of our social
Speaker 1: media as well as all of our blogs, videos and podcasts,
Speaker 1: including this one with our sources. In case you want
Speaker 1: to learn more about the history of Trinkle's head on
Speaker 1: over to stuff I'm Never Told You dot com for
Speaker 1: more on this and thousands of other topics. Isn't how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com