Speaker 1: Welcome to stuff mom never told you from House Top
Speaker 1: works not common. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Speaker 1: Kristen and I'm Caroline, and we are revisiting a listener
Speaker 1: favorite topic, which is the Manic Pixie dream Girl. Wait
Speaker 1: for it, do you hear that? That's an entire audience groaning? Oh,
Speaker 1: because we're no one likes the Manic Pixie dream Girl
Speaker 1: because the character. I feel like people are just exhausted
Speaker 1: by this woman, this this imaginary woman. Yeah, people are
Speaker 1: a little bit wary of the MPDG. But I thought
Speaker 1: that we could revisit it, or rather eulogize the Manic
Speaker 1: Pixie dream Girl, even though I will say Fault TV
Speaker 1: has started, which means that America's favorite Manic Pixie dream Girl,
Speaker 1: Zoe d back on for a new season of New
Speaker 1: girl Ie. One day, I might watch that. Oh, it's enjoyable, Okay,
Speaker 1: it's fine. I'm I I don't know, I just you know,
Speaker 1: I'm more watching other things. She has beautiful bangs, That's
Speaker 1: what I've heard. So what about the death of the
Speaker 1: Manic Pixie dream Girl. Well, yeah, she was declared dead.
Speaker 1: I know she was having such a moment in two
Speaker 1: thousand and twelve, her life was cut so short. And
Speaker 1: when we did that podcast, we got so many emails
Speaker 1: from people saying that they knew of the trope, they
Speaker 1: had seen it, they knew real people who were doing this,
Speaker 1: they knew Manic Pixie dream guys. And now April two
Speaker 1: thousand thirteen, Monica Bartsial at The Week says, you know what, MPDG,
Speaker 1: you need to retire. Yeah. She says that the whole
Speaker 1: trope has devolved into what she calls laziness and sexism.
Speaker 1: And she said, the first really negative bad sign about
Speaker 1: this whole thing, this trend of referring to female characters
Speaker 1: as Manic Pixie dream girls, is that Annie Hall was
Speaker 1: included in the group. And that's like you just hear
Speaker 1: glass shattering in your mind when you hear people referring
Speaker 1: to her as that, because it has adopted such a
Speaker 1: negative connotation, right, and people would take offense to a
Speaker 1: character as beloved as Annie Hall being called little more
Speaker 1: than just a vessel for Woody Allen's own personal development.
Speaker 1: And then July twenty, New York Magazine's Kate Stoefel says,
Speaker 1: you know what, not only is the MPDG retired, she
Speaker 1: just did. The term is lust all meaning she did
Speaker 1: so stow Feel points to the moment MPDG was over
Speaker 1: for her, and she says the manic mixie dream girl
Speaker 1: completed her life cycle when a male filmmaker, and that
Speaker 1: would be modern love essayist Madison Perry uh realized that
Speaker 1: his own real life IMPDG was more complicated than the
Speaker 1: girls in the movies that he watched and wrote movies,
Speaker 1: which in turn inspired women to think of themselves as
Speaker 1: mp d g s, although Lara Basella exo j encountered
Speaker 1: that you know what, they are not dead, although she
Speaker 1: only used old examples to cite that, but she said,
Speaker 1: no matter what, guys like Madison Perry are always going
Speaker 1: to need and want muses and love seeing pretty young things,
Speaker 1: so of course she will always exists. Although I will
Speaker 1: say that I did agree with Virginia Pasley who noted
Speaker 1: a while ago actually over at Slate that the MPDG
Speaker 1: has come to mean every female role that's comedic or
Speaker 1: even the slightest bit quirky. In fact, it's starting to
Speaker 1: feel like an undeserved insult. So yeah, I feel like
Speaker 1: the MPDG is dead because we have assigned too much
Speaker 1: to her. Right. Yeah, the this, this little sketch of
Speaker 1: a character is being crushed under the weight of all
Speaker 1: of the baggage that we're putting on her, because, as
Speaker 1: many people have brought up, it's being applied to almost
Speaker 1: any female character Willy nilly who is anything other than
Speaker 1: completely serious and in a drama. I mean, this term
Speaker 1: is being thrown around and nobody seems to even be
Speaker 1: able to agree on what it means anymore. Yeah, she
Speaker 1: made her debut originally in two thousand seven from the
Speaker 1: mind of a V Club film critic Nathan Raven, and
Speaker 1: then she hit peak exposure. And now I think she's
Speaker 1: so recognizable that writers probably wouldn't want to put her
Speaker 1: in screen on screen. And this came to mind when
Speaker 1: I was reading a New York Times article not too
Speaker 1: long ago about how on the small screen, at least,
Speaker 1: the new trope is the completely crazy go getter essentially,
Speaker 1: where all of these women are kind of borderline and
Speaker 1: saint and work too much. You know, you have the
Speaker 1: Liz Lemons, the Leslie Nopes, the Carrie Mathison's of Homeland,
Speaker 1: Mindy from The Mindy Project, Hannah horror Bath. Although she
Speaker 1: doesn't work all that hard. She is, you know, a
Speaker 1: little bit kookie. There'd be strong female protagonist who still
Speaker 1: have a touch of that mannekin whimsy, but they're just
Speaker 1: the center of things rather than just being a side show,
Speaker 1: right and what they The point that they bring up
Speaker 1: in that article is that if you the crazy defines them.
Speaker 1: You know, you have a character like Monk on that
Speaker 1: show who like, he's totally crazy with all of us
Speaker 1: c D. But it's the source of his power and
Speaker 1: he's beloved for it. Whereas you have a character like
Speaker 1: Carrie mathieson or you know, Mindy or even Leslie Nope,
Speaker 1: And if you take away they're crazy, they kind of
Speaker 1: ceased to be the type of woman who the show
Speaker 1: would revolve around. It's like that's their only good defining characteristic.
Speaker 1: Although I don't know, I love Leslie Nope. Well sure, yeah,
Speaker 1: I and I of Liz Lemon as well. Um, I
Speaker 1: also have an affinity for Cardigans and I dated a
Speaker 1: guy who wanted to start a food truck. It became
Speaker 1: scary for a while how closely my life paralleled Liz Lemon.
Speaker 1: But I will I'll say this though, for that reason,
Speaker 1: I'll totally take this over the ubiquitous Manic Pixie dream Girl,
Speaker 1: although her her meaning might be diluted. So I think,
Speaker 1: I think with this, we gotta we gotta replay the
Speaker 1: episode on Manic Pixie dream Girl and let listeners decide
Speaker 1: for themselves if she's totally played out and did shall
Speaker 1: we we shall? The arrival of the Manic Pixie dream
Speaker 1: Girl is usually preceded by some kind of close up
Speaker 1: of him in bed but yet with bags under his
Speaker 1: eyes indicating sleeplessness or substance abuse, or a montage of
Speaker 1: his life slowly falling apart, in his his clothing becoming
Speaker 1: more and more disheveled. Yeah, exactly, and then you know,
Speaker 1: a little burst of pixie dust arrives on the screen exactly,
Speaker 1: just like a muppet or something. Um. Yeah, Raven. His
Speaker 1: definition for this character is basically that she exists solely
Speaker 1: in the fevered imaginations of sensitive writer directors to teach brooding,
Speaker 1: lee soulful young men to embrace life and it's infinite
Speaker 1: mysteries and adventures. Or, as Anita sarkasan at feminist frequency
Speaker 1: puts it, she is a shining beacon of childlike joy
Speaker 1: that will rejuvenate our fallen hero and that sounds great. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but what about her? Yeah, well she'll just she'll flit
Speaker 1: her away on some wings that she's crafted out of
Speaker 1: tool and glitter and nice. Yeah, that's the thing. She
Speaker 1: she just falls by the wayside because she doesn't really
Speaker 1: matter at the end. It's really the transformation of the
Speaker 1: male hero who is almost always straight, almost always white.
Speaker 1: Same thing. And we'll talk about race in a minute. Uh,
Speaker 1: Manic Pixie dream Girl a very cookie cutter kind of
Speaker 1: white character too. Um. And in addition to Elizabethtown uh
Speaker 1: and Zoe d in The New Girl days of something Yeah, really,
Speaker 1: five hundred days of summer. I don't I don't know,
Speaker 1: I've I gotta say I have seen every episode of
Speaker 1: The New Girl. I am a closet now out of
Speaker 1: the closet, I just came out fan as a fan
Speaker 1: of this is quite that's quite a change for mere attitude.
Speaker 1: When we talked about the TV show back on our
Speaker 1: TV episode, Yeah, I mean partially it is my lust
Speaker 1: over her glasses, which was great, Um, but no, I
Speaker 1: find it enjoyable. And there's actually one episode where she's
Speaker 1: confronted by Lizzie Cappelan, who plays more serious female character
Speaker 1: about being so girly, and she's just like, what this
Speaker 1: is who I am. I've always liked being crafty and cute, see,
Speaker 1: and it doesn't mean that I'm stupid. And that's part
Speaker 1: of the argument that's a lot of the debate going
Speaker 1: on on on I feel like, is you have these
Speaker 1: people who are saying, you're grown up woman, You're talking
Speaker 1: about kiddies and cupcakes. I'm not going to listen to you.
Speaker 1: But then there's this other group of women saying, like,
Speaker 1: so what if I'm girly, that doesn't take away my power.
Speaker 1: But then there's that third little middle argument that says, Okay,
Speaker 1: you like cupcakes, but did you like cupcakes before this
Speaker 1: whole trend came along in pop culture? So yeah, um,
Speaker 1: and just quickly to name, I guess a couple more
Speaker 1: movies just pops up in Garden State Natalie Portman's character
Speaker 1: and that uh you have going back. The A B
Speaker 1: Club also did a post on I think it's fifteen
Speaker 1: or sixteen movies featuring this trope, and they even cite
Speaker 1: Annie Hall as a manic pixie dream girl bringing up
Speaker 1: baby with Katherine Hepper Yep, saying that it goes way
Speaker 1: way back. But um, in that Gloss article that you mentioned,
Speaker 1: why are MP d g's getting dumber? Um, they say
Speaker 1: that from Katherine Hepburn down to Zoe, she's been come,
Speaker 1: she's lost her agency. Yeah, it's just kind of become
Speaker 1: a caricature of a of a carefree, fun loving, independent,
Speaker 1: strong female down to somebody who sinks when she's nervous
Speaker 1: and makes cupcakes, which not that there's anything wrong with that. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I like cupcakes. I do too, shoot man, just because
Speaker 1: I don't bake them if I if I had more time. Yeah.
Speaker 1: As New York Magazine pointed out in September, um there's
Speaker 1: also grumbling about all here heroines of the past, people
Speaker 1: like went On a writer and Parker Posey, who were
Speaker 1: had the same quirk, um, but they had more of
Speaker 1: an edge to them. They might have left by the
Speaker 1: end of the movie because they just wanted to, not
Speaker 1: because they poofed into a glitter bomb left. That sounds
Speaker 1: like such a mess. Once you get glitter on you, you
Speaker 1: you can never get it off everywhere. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: it's possible that m Zoe Additional's character and other Manic
Speaker 1: Pixie dream Girls could just irritate the heck out of
Speaker 1: somebody with all their like sweetness and everything. But you know,
Speaker 1: I think that maybe the argument that they're very flat,
Speaker 1: two dimensional characters is not always warranted. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: and I think that is Zoe de Chanelle herself would
Speaker 1: agree with you, Caroline on that point. She said at
Speaker 1: one point quote that people equate being girly with being
Speaker 1: non threatening. I mean, I can't think of a more
Speaker 1: blatant example of playing into exactly the thing that we're
Speaker 1: trying to fight against. I can't be girly. I think
Speaker 1: the fact that people are associating being girly with weakness
Speaker 1: that needs to be examined. I don't think that it
Speaker 1: undermines my power at all. Right, But then part of
Speaker 1: the argument goes back to, Okay, well, what are we
Speaker 1: doing with this power? And what are we doing with
Speaker 1: this girlishness and cuteness? Um over at the gloss. Jamie
Speaker 1: Peck back in January said that she she actually hates
Speaker 1: the manic Pixie dream girl because while this character, this
Speaker 1: woman has some pretty amazing intense behind her, some pretty
Speaker 1: amazing characteristics. She those characteristics like living life to the fullest,
Speaker 1: are often made to seem trite and easily mocked. So uh,
Speaker 1: Peck was saying, basically, like, I share some of the
Speaker 1: characteristics of this stereotype, this trope, like I have some
Speaker 1: of the same freewheeling, care free, independent attitudes, but characters
Speaker 1: like this, the media portrayal of women like this is
Speaker 1: sort of ruining it for some of us. Basically, Yeah,
Speaker 1: And there's the whole concern too of like, well, are
Speaker 1: we creating this message that men what men need are
Speaker 1: our girls really, rather than more level headed women who
Speaker 1: might not have the time or the desire to frolic
Speaker 1: in a meadow, you know exactly, we might enjoy their
Speaker 1: blackberries and cubicles more, right, And the women versus girls
Speaker 1: debate and what men want was brought up by Willipashkin
Speaker 1: and The Vulture back in February, and she she said
Speaker 1: that this whole thing does kind of shed light on
Speaker 1: how women are choosing to portray themselves to men and
Speaker 1: what they think men want. And so if there's this
Speaker 1: whole cutesie like h manic pixie, yeah, let's run in
Speaker 1: the rain kind of thing, and they go for it
Speaker 1: and they end up just looking like little girls. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's also very heteronormative, a white heteronormative trope that
Speaker 1: I think gets to a lot of these feminist bloggers. Um.
Speaker 1: And especially when it comes to that issue of race.
Speaker 1: It's something that the blog Racial Isious has talked about.
Speaker 1: For instance, blogger Timmy Winfrey Harris rode a post called
Speaker 1: who is the Black Zoe de Chanal? And Um. She
Speaker 1: says that the persona of manic Pixie dream girl is
Speaker 1: bound by class and race and that it's just this
Speaker 1: perpetual childhood and whiteness. She says, whereas Black women might
Speaker 1: be portrayed like a boho Lisa Bonet or more of
Speaker 1: the earth mother Erica bad do there never care for
Speaker 1: and childish yeah. Harris points out that often in the media,
Speaker 1: African American women can be strong women, aggressive women, promiscuous women, um,
Speaker 1: but they're never They're never that same like ha Kitton's
Speaker 1: kind of portrayal. And she says even black girls are
Speaker 1: too often viewed as worldly women and not innocent. Well,
Speaker 1: and that's because a lot of times, uh, African American
Speaker 1: characters have tropes of their own that you're there. They're
Speaker 1: used within movies to teach other people a lesson they're
Speaker 1: their own, you know, manic pixie dream girls in their
Speaker 1: own ways, where you know you'll have a magical Morgan
Speaker 1: Freeman come in and teach the stuck up white lady
Speaker 1: a lesson about how she needs to loosen up a
Speaker 1: little bit, and then he'll go and you'll appreciate her
Speaker 1: transformation instead. So, since we've talked about race, um, you
Speaker 1: know how we don't see this trope reflected in the
Speaker 1: same way, um from people of different colors and ethnicities.
Speaker 1: What about gender? Where is the manic pixie dream guy?
Speaker 1: Would the manic pixie dream guy be the same? Would
Speaker 1: he come flitting in with his own color of glitter
Speaker 1: and throw it at you and then kind of flit
Speaker 1: her off and disappear after your transformation? Does it work
Speaker 1: the same? It will? It's funny that you asked it.
Speaker 1: There's a post on nerve about this. They argue that
Speaker 1: an audience would not want to see a woman left
Speaker 1: on her own. That would be more of a tragedy.
Speaker 1: That even if a manic pixie dream guy like the
Speaker 1: character in Under the Tuscan Sun who comes and revives
Speaker 1: Diane Lane from her from her woes and breathed life
Speaker 1: back into her body and soul. Even though he spoiler alert,
Speaker 1: ends up you know, not being with her the in
Speaker 1: the movie, we are still left satisfied because someone else
Speaker 1: comes along to take that place, right, just when you think, right,
Speaker 1: beautiful Italian Lane and her Tuscan villa, what a shame
Speaker 1: she had. It's the magic guy who comes in and
Speaker 1: you know, and takes care of her and gets her
Speaker 1: on her way to taking care of herself. And then
Speaker 1: once she is you know, her own person and she
Speaker 1: has someone else to enjoy being with for the rest
Speaker 1: of her life exactly well the rest of her life.
Speaker 1: But yeah, they a nerve. They say that male free
Speaker 1: spiritedness is often portrayed in a negative light and they say,
Speaker 1: I'm looking at you, Don Draper, Yeah, because it's just
Speaker 1: not the same. Well, it's the whole It goes to
Speaker 1: the whole dating logic of you know, women not wanting
Speaker 1: to come across as too needy, you know, the fastest
Speaker 1: way I mean, and I'm and I'm quoting uh stereotype. Now,
Speaker 1: the fastest way to to get a man to be
Speaker 1: attracted to you is to be unavailable, you know, whereas uh,
Speaker 1: men who are free spirited, they're just gonna be bad boys,
Speaker 1: and they're gonna leave you, and they're just gonna probably
Speaker 1: collect lots of STDs and up hurting you at the
Speaker 1: end of the day. So yeah, manic pixied him guy
Speaker 1: would be someone that you know, all of your friends
Speaker 1: would tell you to stay away from. Probably. Yeah, who
Speaker 1: are the manic Pixie dream guys out there? Did you? Yes?
Speaker 1: I did? How did it? Did he have glitter? Uh? No? Um,
Speaker 1: although I remember one night and he ran into him
Speaker 1: and his nails were painted. Uh. He was whimsical and
Speaker 1: he he left as quickly as he came. So but
Speaker 1: it was the thing, is it? A months down the
Speaker 1: line after the relationship, I realized that it did sort
Speaker 1: of forced me to a point to where, um, it
Speaker 1: did kind of make me and do some positive things
Speaker 1: with myself beyond my normal scope interest. I'm not saying
Speaker 1: he's necessarily the reason why, but it was a step
Speaker 1: along the way. Yeah. So there's been so much made
Speaker 1: of this Manic Pixie dream girl trope. Uh, and we
Speaker 1: want to talk about it because the listener had written
Speaker 1: in about it. But it's also been something that I
Speaker 1: had wanted to explore and I didn't realize that the
Speaker 1: term has only been around since two thousand seven. But
Speaker 1: my goodness, how much attention she has gotten. And I
Speaker 1: wonder why she's gotten so much attention. And so it's
Speaker 1: a cluster of contemporary films. Um, and yet she arouses
Speaker 1: so much debate she does well. I mean, yeah, you
Speaker 1: have to wonder what's going on in the writer's minds
Speaker 1: that this is happening so much all of a sudden.
Speaker 1: But I like the distinction that a lot of these
Speaker 1: writers have drawn between characters like Zoey Deschanel and Natalie
Speaker 1: Portman and um, Kate Winslet's character and uh internal sension
Speaker 1: of a spotless mine, Yes, ma'am, because she is that
Speaker 1: dream girl. She's kind of cookie and crazy and fun,
Speaker 1: but she's portrayed as having real, actual problems, and so
Speaker 1: that's what At Slate they pointed out that the difference
Speaker 1: between a man a pixie dream girl and a just
Speaker 1: you know, independent, cookie female character kind of like kristin Wigan.
Speaker 1: It's made right. It's the sense that something's actually wrong
Speaker 1: with the manic pixie dream girl. Yeah. Um, I'll be
Speaker 1: interested to hear from our listeners what what everyone thinks
Speaker 1: about it, Whether it's being you know, isn't too big
Speaker 1: of a deal. I mean, uh. Anita Sarkisian over feminist frequency,
Speaker 1: links all of this to the problem of the female muse.
Speaker 1: You know, you think of Warhol, Dylan, Picasso. What are
Speaker 1: you allen all of them of cited? You know, these
Speaker 1: female muses in their life who are the inspiration for
Speaker 1: their great art. And she says, you know, Manic Pixie
Speaker 1: dream Girls serves a similar thing with fictional characters too.
Speaker 1: You know, there are way too um they're a cipher
Speaker 1: to allow them to do great things with their lives.
Speaker 1: And she takes issue with that because she says, well,
Speaker 1: these women should be standing on their own. But at
Speaker 1: the same time, I don't know. I think sometimes we
Speaker 1: might be making too much of the um high waisted
Speaker 1: dresses and cupcakes. Yeah, and also I think people need
Speaker 1: to I need to tone it down as far as
Speaker 1: hating on other women. I mean, yes, would I choose
Speaker 1: to associate with some of these women in real life?
Speaker 1: Maybe not like seriously, take your kiddies and go elsewhere, lady.
Speaker 1: But I mean that doesn't mean that I think they're
Speaker 1: less of a valid persona or personality. No, I think
Speaker 1: that's a good point. I think in the in the argument,
Speaker 1: it's a slippery slow because in a lot of these
Speaker 1: arguments that are calling these tropes out for um, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe not portraying women as well, it does quickly crumble
Speaker 1: into women hating on women. So let's build each other up.
Speaker 1: Let's eat our cupcakes together, and you know, Manic Pixie
Speaker 1: Dream guys, so you can. You can come to craft
Speaker 1: Night as well well. So we hope you enjoyed reintroducing
Speaker 1: yourself to the Manic Pixie Dream girl. I don't know
Speaker 1: what do you what do you think Kristen? Is she
Speaker 1: dead or is she just transforming in getting reincarnated as
Speaker 1: something else. I think that elements will obviously still live on,
Speaker 1: but I don't think that we will see it to
Speaker 1: the extent of say a Natalie Portman in Garden State,
Speaker 1: because she was so overexposed. So I think this is
Speaker 1: us bidding a faun farewell well. I feel that the
Speaker 1: character will live on. She will be very strong. I
Speaker 1: think she will just take on a different name. I
Speaker 1: think MPDG is going into the Witness Protection program. And
Speaker 1: I will say this about Zoe de Chanelle. Wow, you
Speaker 1: might call her a manic pixie dream girl. Reading interviews
Speaker 1: with her, she's a smart, intelligent woman who says, oh, yeah, sure,
Speaker 1: you think I'm foolish for liking bows and vintage dresses. Well,
Speaker 1: what's her bleepity bleep quote from Glamour? You know, she
Speaker 1: says that I can be a blank feminist and were
Speaker 1: a blank Peter Collar. Why you know, just leave me alone. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So I think that's doesn't sound like a manic pixie
Speaker 1: dream real to me. That sounds like a woman who
Speaker 1: is very self actualized. Yeah, with just great big eyes
Speaker 1: and great bangs. Such good things. So send us your letters.
Speaker 1: Mom Stuff discovery dot com is where you can send them,
Speaker 1: or you can always send us a note on Facebook
Speaker 1: or tweet us at Mom's Stuff podcast. And we have
Speaker 1: a couple of notes to share with you right after
Speaker 1: we talk about audible dot com, which Caroline is the
Speaker 1: leading provider of downloadable digital audio books and spoken word entertainment.
Speaker 1: That's right. Audible has more than one hundred thousand titles
Speaker 1: to choose from to be downloaded to your ipotter, m
Speaker 1: P three player and play back anywhere anytime. You can
Speaker 1: choose from books in every genre, from science fiction to
Speaker 1: history and more so. Go to audible podcast dot com
Speaker 1: slash stuff Mom to get your free audio book download
Speaker 1: of your choice when you sign up today and listeners
Speaker 1: of stuff Mom never told you might like to use
Speaker 1: that free audio book download to listen to lean In
Speaker 1: Women Work in the Will to Lead by Cheryl Sandberg,
Speaker 1: because we are still doing that four part series on
Speaker 1: lean In, so you can listen to it for free.
Speaker 1: Go to audible podcast dot com slash stuff Mom and
Speaker 1: sign up today. And now back to our letters. Yeah,
Speaker 1: here's one from McKenna about our Instagram episode. She says,
Speaker 1: I've never used Instagram and don't post selfies, but I
Speaker 1: admit I've taken a few. My reason wasn't mentioned in
Speaker 1: your most recent podcast, but I feel like it might
Speaker 1: be common and relatable. I'm twenty two and looking better
Speaker 1: than I ever have or probably ever will again. I
Speaker 1: don't want this time of my life to pass pictureless.
Speaker 1: When I'm old and wrinkly but probably still suffering from acne.
Speaker 1: I want to pull out a picture and remember that
Speaker 1: I was once a twentysomething to die for. It might
Speaker 1: seem a little vain, but when I was in grade school,
Speaker 1: I was voted the ugliest kid in my class. I
Speaker 1: had a lessons wasn't much better, and it's only been
Speaker 1: the last couple of years that I've developed any social
Speaker 1: or fashion sense. I will gladly immortalize my twenties with
Speaker 1: the occasional selfie, but of course it's always better when
Speaker 1: someone else and that's a good picture. Thanks for everything
Speaker 1: you do. I love the podcast, so thank you McKenna.
Speaker 1: I totally get where you're coming from. Mckennas or says
Speaker 1: the girl who's crows sader already coming in. Uh, and
Speaker 1: by girl I mean woman. So I've got a Facebook
Speaker 1: message here from Natalie and she needs a little advice. Caroline,
Speaker 1: and I want to share us with you and also
Speaker 1: with our listeners if they have any advice as well.
Speaker 1: She says. First of all, we gotta give a shout
Speaker 1: out to her best friend, Kelly. Hey, Kelly, she writes,
Speaker 1: I work as a horticulturist at a country club. Everyone
Speaker 1: else on the grounds crew is a man, and sometimes
Speaker 1: this makes work difficult. My boss can be somewhat of
Speaker 1: an unintentional sexist, saying things like you're a woman, you
Speaker 1: know it looks good, or you're a woman, you pay
Speaker 1: tension to detail, thinking that he's giving me a compliment.
Speaker 1: These are things I'm good at, but I worked very
Speaker 1: hard at it. He has even asked me if I
Speaker 1: was on my period in the past when I was
Speaker 1: upset over the way one of the other men on
Speaker 1: the crew treated me. And I've also had the issue
Speaker 1: of pranks being pulled by some of the meaner coworkers.
Speaker 1: Just today, I found that they had filled my work
Speaker 1: gloves with mouse poop. I'd like to come up with
Speaker 1: a way to work these issues out without more conflict occurring,
Speaker 1: and so everyone can work together happily. I feel so
Speaker 1: lost and don't know what to do. You guys give
Speaker 1: such great advice. I was hoping you could help. So
Speaker 1: how do you get your coworkers to stop acting like
Speaker 1: nincome poops? Nincome mouse poops mouse pops. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean, um, it sounds like it's kind of more
Speaker 1: serious than I mean. It started out sounding like whatever,
Speaker 1: they're just insensitive or ignorant, but it's starting to sound
Speaker 1: like it'sigger than that. I don't know. Maybe start out
Speaker 1: when he says things like, well, you're a woman, you
Speaker 1: know what flowers are pretty? I mean can you Can
Speaker 1: you joke back, I mean, not joke, but like the
Speaker 1: snarky back and say things like, well, you're a man,
Speaker 1: what are you doing playing with flowers? Not that I
Speaker 1: encourage the divisive, you know, gender norms to perpetuate or anything,
Speaker 1: but you know what I'm saying. Yeah, I do know
Speaker 1: what you're saying, And uh, that would could be a
Speaker 1: great place to start, kind of a little bit fighting
Speaker 1: fire with fire. I don't recommend that you turn around
Speaker 1: and fill anyone's gloves up with poop. Can she just
Speaker 1: talk to him? Can she just talk to her boss
Speaker 1: and say, listen, I'm the only woman on the crew,
Speaker 1: and I worked really hard at this, and I'm tired
Speaker 1: of just being looked at as the only woman on
Speaker 1: the crew. I work hards. Yeah, I mean, if if
Speaker 1: that's possible to approach him confidently and in a concise,
Speaker 1: you know, stern manner, say that. I think that's absolutely
Speaker 1: a possibility, and maybe pair it with um, you know,
Speaker 1: when they fill your gloves with mouse poop without even
Speaker 1: cracking any sort of expression on your face, turned right
Speaker 1: around and dump that mouse poop into one of their
Speaker 1: lunch boxes. Yeah, I mean, if anything, I think in
Speaker 1: this case, humor is going to be your best friend
Speaker 1: because being too outwardly sensitive about it might only egg
Speaker 1: it on, but you might be able to diffuse the
Speaker 1: situation by being a little more humorous. Yeah, but really,
Speaker 1: I do want to hear from other listeners if they
Speaker 1: have advice on this, because I've never been the only
Speaker 1: woman working in a place, and I know we've heard
Speaker 1: from other listeners before who are in really male heavy
Speaker 1: in work environments who go along just fine. So any
Speaker 1: advice help Natalie out. Thanks Natalie and Kelly for listening,
Speaker 1: and thanks to everybody who's written in. Mom Stuff at
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