Speaker 1: Hey, this is any Smith. I welcome to stuff I've
Speaker 1: never told your protection if I heart radios has stuf First,
Speaker 1: today we are talking about labels, labels, and not like
Speaker 1: the clothes labels, yeah, or food labels, no labels like that. No,
Speaker 1: we're talking about labels we attached to people, and in
Speaker 1: this case particularly women. Why are we quick to label women?
Speaker 1: And we're not really going to be talking about the
Speaker 1: rise of no label dating, but yes, that is a
Speaker 1: thing that is all the rise. Well, you know, I
Speaker 1: also learned the term situation ships. What. Yeah, so that's
Speaker 1: a new term when which is not necessarily a hook
Speaker 1: up and not quite a relationship, but you're in between.
Speaker 1: So it's before that DTR or defining the relationship. You
Speaker 1: guys are obviously committed to each other. Right, So, because
Speaker 1: I was randomly looking at BuzzFeed and it was a
Speaker 1: quiz like are you in a situation ship? And I
Speaker 1: was like, what is that? I've never heard of that.
Speaker 1: It's the brand new term. I definitely have been in
Speaker 1: a no label relationship, but it wasn't Anyone else would
Speaker 1: have said your boyfriend girlfriend, you're dating? Um, we just
Speaker 1: because I was so, I'm not really sure what I want, um,
Speaker 1: and I'm still not sure what I want. We never
Speaker 1: officially label anything, but it wasn't. I read all these
Speaker 1: articles about and tips about how to how to be
Speaker 1: in a no label relationship, and it sounds very like
Speaker 1: you've got to have a lot of self confidence and
Speaker 1: not be friends on social media. Really. Yes, that's interesting. Yes,
Speaker 1: well go look of situationships because that's a majority of people.
Speaker 1: I think that kind of unsure you're in a situation.
Speaker 1: All right, Yeah, there a new one. I like this,
Speaker 1: but we'll tell listeners. You go tell us if you're one. Yes, exactly?
Speaker 1: Is it working? Yeah? Oh boy? Um. So I did
Speaker 1: find a lot of recent surveys that said millennials in
Speaker 1: general really resist labels. Um. And thinking about this, I
Speaker 1: feel like in the US we're pretty binary on a
Speaker 1: lot of things or man or woman, gay or straight,
Speaker 1: Republican or Democrat, and that erases so much stuff. And
Speaker 1: this is starting to change. People outside these binaries make
Speaker 1: themselves heard. We still have a long way to go.
Speaker 1: But I was also thinking our political system that it
Speaker 1: seems to me that we're more or at least younger
Speaker 1: people are more like this thing that is not necessarily
Speaker 1: Democrat Republicans like this way or this way, this way,
Speaker 1: so things are a change in slowly slowly. But we
Speaker 1: wanted to talk about um labeling of people, and we
Speaker 1: all we like to start with definitions. Miriam Webster defines
Speaker 1: labels as quote a descriptive or identifying word or phrase,
Speaker 1: and it is something that people love to do. We
Speaker 1: love to label people. And anyone listening to this can
Speaker 1: probably think of a couple of labels that are attached
Speaker 1: to themselves, some that they might proudly own, and others
Speaker 1: that are imposed on you. Um nerd Christian Democrats, let
Speaker 1: prude email all kinds of things. And then we have
Speaker 1: you know, if you perhaps choose not to have children,
Speaker 1: you might be labeled selfish, um choose to live alone, weird,
Speaker 1: not super ambitious, lazy, don't like dogs, untrustworthy. I do
Speaker 1: question you a little bit. That's fair, That okay, Because
Speaker 1: you've gotten really good with Peaches. You did a lot
Speaker 1: of fun activities with her. I did do a lot
Speaker 1: of fun activities. I was very happy watching into the
Speaker 1: Spider Verse, and so the entire time she played with Peaches,
Speaker 1: she has he just has a special duck called Mr.
Speaker 1: Quackers and yes, you you two bonded, feel like you bonded.
Speaker 1: We did, and you know she's important to you, so
Speaker 1: she's important to me. So why do we label people?
Speaker 1: Basically is to make sense of things, to organize things
Speaker 1: in our brains. It's easier than being specific. Yes, it
Speaker 1: makes us feel safer because we can classify things, we
Speaker 1: feel that we know how to handle those things, and
Speaker 1: then we can rate the level of danger involved with
Speaker 1: that particular. Label is a way to combat the uncertainty
Speaker 1: of something news. Yeah, and to not label might threaten
Speaker 1: our belief systems, which we see. I think in politics
Speaker 1: we've seen an older generation it's a big pushback on
Speaker 1: this is how I knew you. Why are we changing
Speaker 1: to this thing? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, yeah for sure. Um
Speaker 1: And going off of that, perhaps obviously, labels can divide us.
Speaker 1: We see it all the time in high school movies
Speaker 1: about clicks. When you're in the lunch room and you're
Speaker 1: looking around at the different lunch tables. It's still a
Speaker 1: big trup that they like to play on movies. It is.
Speaker 1: I was in my high school. I was in the
Speaker 1: click that was like acceptably weird and everyone liked us,
Speaker 1: but we weren't popular. We were just well liked but
Speaker 1: kind of weird, right and smart um, depending on your value.
Speaker 1: Some labels are quoped better than others, and this can
Speaker 1: make us discriminate. It makes it easier to discriminate and
Speaker 1: salt or even enact violence on others. And this doesn't
Speaker 1: mean we aren't different, obviously, but we can be different
Speaker 1: and unified by the fact that we are all people
Speaker 1: deserving of equality and our differences do not make us
Speaker 1: less than anyone else um And labels can be really
Speaker 1: limiting and restricting. Most people don't fit neatly into labels.
Speaker 1: Being labeled as something hurtful can hold people back by
Speaker 1: impacting their self esteem confidence. Things like that right and
Speaker 1: what that label and can be dangerous. While that d
Speaker 1: s M can be and is super helpful, there is
Speaker 1: a dark side of labeling things maybe not yet totally
Speaker 1: understood as abnormal and we can see that with the
Speaker 1: overchanging ideas of what crazy is versus normal um. And
Speaker 1: if we look at homosexuality, the d s M or
Speaker 1: the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, labeled it
Speaker 1: as a disease until nineteen seven, and at the same
Speaker 1: time finally having a diagnosis of things like bipolar might
Speaker 1: make people feel less alone. However, misdiagnosis or a diagnosis
Speaker 1: that is closed but doesn't entirely fit, can be damaging,
Speaker 1: which is also one of the reasons we talk about
Speaker 1: autism and what the spectrum is and why it's important
Speaker 1: to talk about that versus what the old titles were.
Speaker 1: Yeah and um. I was reading an article UM written
Speaker 1: by a psychologist about the d s M in particular
Speaker 1: and how they have like a meeting every year to
Speaker 1: discuss what new things should we add or update or
Speaker 1: something be changed, And she was saying one of her
Speaker 1: colleagues had jokingly suggested overly active labeling disorder or something
Speaker 1: because because I guess that just I have no idea
Speaker 1: what goes on in these meetings, but it sounds like
Speaker 1: a lot of of things get suggested. If any listeners
Speaker 1: have insight on that being a part of that, I
Speaker 1: would love to hear that too, I would too. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then something else. Um. When it comes to labels,
Speaker 1: we can talk about the labels people refers to wear
Speaker 1: during Nazi Germany, like on their clothes. Um. Labels like
Speaker 1: that not only impacts soft forth but are literally dangerous. Um.
Speaker 1: And if we step back even further thinking about this,
Speaker 1: the power of the witch label during the Salem witch Trials,
Speaker 1: which I didn't really fully appreciate because you read it
Speaker 1: and it sounds so like almost like a fairy tale
Speaker 1: or something. How could this possibly happen? But when then
Speaker 1: I saw The Witch and that movie was so good
Speaker 1: at it putting me in that time and thinking what
Speaker 1: could I say that could combat someone who thought I
Speaker 1: was a witch? Accusation exactly, very very scary UM. And
Speaker 1: I further thinking about this, I remembered in my hometown
Speaker 1: paper a couple of years ago, a man accused a
Speaker 1: woman of being a witch for making bad things happen
Speaker 1: to him, which I mean, it's really funny and in
Speaker 1: some sense because I remember one was like my doctor
Speaker 1: Pepper on top of my car exploded or something. It
Speaker 1: was like, a really, dude, you just forgot your Dr
Speaker 1: Pepper up there. The fact that this is still a thing,
Speaker 1: like she's a witch, like's been the cars on me right. Um.
Speaker 1: Studies into labeling and the impact that they have go
Speaker 1: back to at least the nineteen thirties, when a linguist
Speaker 1: by the name of Benjamin Wharf theorized that labels are
Speaker 1: not just descriptive, but they actually determine what we see,
Speaker 1: and he called this the linguistic relativity hypothesis, And in
Speaker 1: this way, labels alter how we perceived the world around us.
Speaker 1: Studies have shown that the labels of poor and middle
Speaker 1: class affect how participants in those studies viewed academic ability,
Speaker 1: even when shown the same video. So if they saw
Speaker 1: a video of someone suggested that they came from a
Speaker 1: poor background, Uh, it was assumed by the particitants in
Speaker 1: the study that they wouldn't do as well academically. Um,
Speaker 1: even though it's the same other than like the little
Speaker 1: hints in the background, the academic portion was completely the same. Um.
Speaker 1: Another study found that simply calling a randomized group of
Speaker 1: kids bloomers, implying that they were going to bloom academically soon,
Speaker 1: had a significant positive impact on the test scores of
Speaker 1: those kids a year later, even though they were not
Speaker 1: academically different from anyone else in that study. But the
Speaker 1: ones they told you're a bloomer in a year, you're
Speaker 1: going to be You're going to do such a good
Speaker 1: job on test they did. Um. So labels are powerful,
Speaker 1: and we have a lot of labels when it comes
Speaker 1: to women, and we'll get into that, but first were
Speaker 1: gonna pause for a quick break for words for re
Speaker 1: sponsor and we're back, Thank you sponsor. So when it
Speaker 1: comes to women, we are very quick to label, especially
Speaker 1: women who don't fit into traditional gender norms or how
Speaker 1: we think women should behave. So there are things like bus, bitch, sweat, easy, loose,
Speaker 1: tease withholding, needy, nag, drama, queen ice, queen basic, high maintenance,
Speaker 1: Old Maid, spinster, emotional, hysterical, hormonal. I went on a
Speaker 1: little deep dive about the I forgot about the card
Speaker 1: game Old Maid, Yeah, because I was like, wait, so
Speaker 1: there's a whole game based on I don't want to
Speaker 1: It turns out it's the history is not was um
Speaker 1: not perhaps a whole episode, Maybe it's pretty much. There's
Speaker 1: actually a game called Bachelor as well, but for some
Speaker 1: reason that one didn't take off. I wonder what it is. Also,
Speaker 1: Bachelor comes from day Laurel Leaves, and it was assumed
Speaker 1: you got those when you um studied, right, And it
Speaker 1: was assumed because men were the only people who would
Speaker 1: do that study academics, and they wouldn't have time to
Speaker 1: date anyone because they're studying too much. And also old
Speaker 1: bachelor doesn't roll off the tongue like it's true. You
Speaker 1: and I should play a game of old Babe. Let's
Speaker 1: do this. We didn't get the updated version because in
Speaker 1: the updated version, the old maid is really hot. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: maybe there is. Actually they updated where she didn't look
Speaker 1: like a fronty old woman to being like a skinnier
Speaker 1: or whatever kind of connotation of it. We should come
Speaker 1: back to this then. I don't you have to have
Speaker 1: three people to play all made otherwise we would know
Speaker 1: I would know, I don't know, I will will will
Speaker 1: refresh the rules like if I have the card, I
Speaker 1: would want you to have it. So I mean I
Speaker 1: could win by checking you to taking mine, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess that goes. Yes, Oh my god, it's been
Speaker 1: a long time it has We're gonna make this happen.
Speaker 1: Um and I. When I was thinking about this, I
Speaker 1: think one of the not old Maid, but the labels.
Speaker 1: I think that one of the reasons I like traveling
Speaker 1: solo is that you can sort of start with a
Speaker 1: clean slate, no labels attached, No one has any expectations
Speaker 1: except with a new girl it's true, but there's some
Speaker 1: power in being the new girl, because then, no matter
Speaker 1: what I feel like, if I'm introduced to a new
Speaker 1: person and I'm with someone who knows me, I feel
Speaker 1: like I have to act a certain way, and that
Speaker 1: way is generally who I am. But there's something about
Speaker 1: traveling where you can sort of shake all of that
Speaker 1: off and just see, well, maybe I don't maybe I'm
Speaker 1: not really that way, or you know, try something new.
Speaker 1: Um yeah, And I feel those those labels that you
Speaker 1: have really impact or influence how you It's almost like
Speaker 1: a performance, right because and if you actually think about it,
Speaker 1: there's also a label for those who are in the
Speaker 1: gender norms. If you think about women who are staying
Speaker 1: home moms are like housewives or they are um susie homemakers,
Speaker 1: and that's not necessarily yeah, in soccer moms, that's not
Speaker 1: necessarily a good label either. Yeah, but it's kind of
Speaker 1: a good people here. House dad's yeah, house husband's yeah.
Speaker 1: I was trying to think about, you know, labels for dudes,
Speaker 1: and they certainly exists, but they are not necessarily as
Speaker 1: negative as the ones that we hear for UM. Females
Speaker 1: are those who identify as female for sure, So we
Speaker 1: have a lot of behaviors we label as for single
Speaker 1: women only partying on the dance floor, wearing a sexy
Speaker 1: dressed eating ice cream, out binging Netflix at three am.
Speaker 1: But Mary, women can totally do all those things and
Speaker 1: they should. They should do It's amazing. Um. And there's
Speaker 1: a flip side too that single women have something wrong
Speaker 1: with them, that they're damaged and complete sad, and of
Speaker 1: course none of these things are necessarily true. We also
Speaker 1: put a lot of labels, like we were just saying
Speaker 1: on moms, bad moms, helicopter moms, soccer moms, wine moms, moms.
Speaker 1: I was trying to think of those specific terms. There's
Speaker 1: a term I know it's it's encompass, is what it is.
Speaker 1: But there is a term for women who drink a
Speaker 1: lot of wine, for moms who drink wine, saying wine os.
Speaker 1: Maybe I know that's the term. That's soft news, that's
Speaker 1: not necessarily gender specific. Um. And we also have ray
Speaker 1: specific labels, angry black women, spicy latinas Asian dolls, and
Speaker 1: and way worse ones that we won't repeat but classify
Speaker 1: as hate speech, which we've been seeing more and more
Speaker 1: videos of unfortunately. Yeah. Um, labels around feminists, for sure
Speaker 1: hinders feminism as a whole. I know we've talked about
Speaker 1: these on the show before, but you know, ugly feminists,
Speaker 1: angry feminists, those kind of things, man, raw burning feminists.
Speaker 1: To be fair, man, I would burn all my braws.
Speaker 1: I could. We should. Well, I do need something to find,
Speaker 1: like one that you're ready to get rid of. Will
Speaker 1: burn it and it will smell terrible, but we'll feel good.
Speaker 1: Broke mine last night, he really go on the dance floor.
Speaker 1: We were actually were dancing. We were dancing. We were
Speaker 1: doing all those singles a little, a little like a
Speaker 1: party or a little holiday party, a little holiday somehow
Speaker 1: that's amazing. That means a damn good time. Isn't amazing dancing? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't think it's that's really amazing. I disagree strong um,
Speaker 1: But yeah, the labels around feminism, a lot of them
Speaker 1: have kept women away. I have a lot of friends
Speaker 1: actually that I've had this conversation with repeatedly. Yeah, we're
Speaker 1: there like, I'm I'm a I believe in equality. I'm
Speaker 1: not a feminist because of I think it means this,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, well, it doesn't really mean that, um
Speaker 1: and this is yeah. I led to the misconception that
Speaker 1: feminism is a monolith, which, as we've said before, it
Speaker 1: is not. And I was also thinking about some of
Speaker 1: the so called nice labels that we have for women
Speaker 1: are kind of backhanded compliments. A lot of them are
Speaker 1: perhaps outright objectification, especially if acid do with your look
Speaker 1: um so like sexy just the way people say it,
Speaker 1: like you can hear it in their inflection um. And
Speaker 1: these labels absolutely can hold women back. A women might
Speaker 1: not speak up for the fear of being labeled bossy bitchy?
Speaker 1: Are feminist? Girls observe these labeling practices and internalize them,
Speaker 1: and they internalize that it's normal for boys to be bossy,
Speaker 1: but not for girls, and that influences their worldview on
Speaker 1: what is acceptable behavior and what doors are open for them. So,
Speaker 1: for boys, being bossy is just assumed, so they're never
Speaker 1: going to be called bossy, but girls are, and so
Speaker 1: it must be abnormal or that's what we're teaching when
Speaker 1: we do things like this. From collegiest professor and author
Speaker 1: doctor Art Markman, the term boss he is almost exclusively
Speaker 1: used with girls, and almost exclusively used to tell them
Speaker 1: they shouldn't be. Taking on certain leadership behaviors is almost
Speaker 1: never used with boys, and that's a problem. And then
Speaker 1: there are things like adding female or woman before a
Speaker 1: job title that that's not great either. It suggests that
Speaker 1: the expectations and qualifications are different. Seeing female entrepreneur implies
Speaker 1: entrepreneurs or masculine, and a female entrepreneur that's not normal.
Speaker 1: Plus it draws attention to their gender before anything else,
Speaker 1: which minimizes traits like competence. While visibility is definitely needed,
Speaker 1: there are better ways to do it. Study from nine
Speaker 1: called Girl Woman, Guy Man, The Effects of Sexist Labeling,
Speaker 1: found that after showing participants pieces of art with these
Speaker 1: labels around the artists, for the female artists, the low
Speaker 1: and high status labels had an equally negative effect on
Speaker 1: subject judgments. For the male artists, the low and high
Speaker 1: status labels had an equally positive effect on subjects judgments.
Speaker 1: Many psychologists have suggested that instead of bossy to describe girls,
Speaker 1: we use more positive words like strong, persevering, and persistent
Speaker 1: yes um and in general, people perceive labels as permanent,
Speaker 1: so children might feel boxed into whatever labels attached to
Speaker 1: them from a young age who among us hasn't changed
Speaker 1: since we were four years old. Even positive labels like
Speaker 1: pretty can be harmful if over employed. It can emphasize
Speaker 1: to a young girl that her looks are more valuable
Speaker 1: than any other trait. And I have two brothers, and
Speaker 1: I just I really specifically remember when a relative hasn't
Speaker 1: seen you forever. Tell my brothers like, wow, you're really
Speaker 1: good at this thing, You're good at soccer, you're smart,
Speaker 1: and then me beautiful, Yeah, I got your exotic. Oh
Speaker 1: that's a yeah. Um. And I think it also we
Speaker 1: can talk about the fact we we have um different
Speaker 1: I guess cultures that box children and by saying this
Speaker 1: is your specialty and then teach them that one specialty,
Speaker 1: how damaging that could be as well. I mean there's
Speaker 1: some questions about whether that makes them, you know, better
Speaker 1: at that. And we're qualified at things, but do we
Speaker 1: already box them in um socially as well as what
Speaker 1: is it professionally? So that's a big question about that.
Speaker 1: So wanting to avoid certain labels play a role. To
Speaker 1: a girl not wanted to be thought of as nerdy
Speaker 1: might avoid extracurricular academic activities, or worse, won't try her
Speaker 1: best at school, which really sucks, especially if you're enjoying something. Right,
Speaker 1: So like we have a trope of I think I
Speaker 1: had a couple of people drop out of drama because
Speaker 1: they felt it was too nerdy. Man. I I've told
Speaker 1: this story before on the podcast. I think that I
Speaker 1: chopped out of calculus, which was my favorite class, because
Speaker 1: I was told girls don't do that. Girls don't do
Speaker 1: that because it will threaten essentially, it will threaten men,
Speaker 1: and they won't want to date you. Right, if you're
Speaker 1: smarter than them, why would they want to be to
Speaker 1: math money management instead? And I learned how to do
Speaker 1: my taxes, which I guess is the thing we should people. Yes, yes, uh.
Speaker 1: And I went back into calculus when I went to college.
Speaker 1: So there whatever. Um and yeah, I was thinking about this. Um.
Speaker 1: Then I wanted to ask you, Samantha, why do you
Speaker 1: think we're so quick to label women? I mean, I
Speaker 1: think it's just the same idea at the very beginning,
Speaker 1: and we need to know where everybody stands. And a
Speaker 1: part of understanding what everybody stands is by labeling them
Speaker 1: and having them in a category. It's easy if we
Speaker 1: can put them in a category, and therefore we think
Speaker 1: we've got to figure it out, and then we move
Speaker 1: on without understanding the underlying problems and putting people in
Speaker 1: specific categories. Right, Um, I think it has to do
Speaker 1: with maintaining the status quo because any woman who dares
Speaker 1: to stray from this very small, rigid space the patriarchy
Speaker 1: permits her to existence, who voices a desire to change
Speaker 1: that stas quote, gets some kind of ugly label slapped
Speaker 1: on or even maybe ugly. Um. It is a way
Speaker 1: to keep women in line and shut them up, essentially,
Speaker 1: I think. And a lot of those labels that are
Speaker 1: specifically lobbed at women are used to gaslight women as well.
Speaker 1: And the just long long list of sexual labels imply
Speaker 1: that women are objects and their conquests for men, and
Speaker 1: that if they're doing something for their own sexual agencies,
Speaker 1: something they enjoy, then that's immediately something is wrong with you.
Speaker 1: Here's a label for that, right yeah, But if I
Speaker 1: get to have sex with you, then I, as a man, bachelor,
Speaker 1: extremely successful conquest. That's my impression. Thank you, Thank you,
Speaker 1: a good one. Thank you. We do have a little
Speaker 1: bit more for you listeners, but first we have one
Speaker 1: more quick break for a word from our sponsor and
Speaker 1: we're back, Thank you, sponsor. And we did want to
Speaker 1: touch on before we close this episode out labels around
Speaker 1: sexual orientation and the gender binary. Um. As we've been
Speaker 1: having more and more conversations about gender and how restricting
Speaker 1: and even damaging the binary is, we're hearing more and
Speaker 1: more about things like gender fluidity and and for so
Speaker 1: long we've had these rigid boxes, I mean a lot
Speaker 1: of cases, literal check boxes for either woman or a man,
Speaker 1: and we have found a way to classify pretty much
Speaker 1: everything in one of those boxes. And we're slowly dismantling
Speaker 1: some of this narrow worldview and acknowledging the experiences of others.
Speaker 1: But again, yeah, we have a really, really, really long
Speaker 1: way to go. Um And I yeah, I saw Billy
Speaker 1: de Williams of Lando how Is in Fame just opened
Speaker 1: up about being gender fluid as we record this, and
Speaker 1: fear of having our sexuality mislabeled by other limits gender
Speaker 1: expression as well. Um, And what matters here are the
Speaker 1: labels we identify with, not the label imposed on us
Speaker 1: by others. And that's something that we need to remember
Speaker 1: that we know imposing labels can reinforce stereotypes and lead
Speaker 1: to things like by rature, which directly impacts mental health
Speaker 1: and program funding. And we can't ignore all of that
Speaker 1: and why that is. And it's also just remember it's
Speaker 1: important to hear people yes. And I think that's something
Speaker 1: that gets let go of a lot because we're so
Speaker 1: scared or change is difficult, or we're just freaking stubborn. Yeah,
Speaker 1: easy for our silves and it make if it makes
Speaker 1: so uncomfortable, then we're gonna ignore it. But that's not
Speaker 1: healthy for anyone, and that's only for anyone's relationship, and
Speaker 1: that we should start listening and everyone should start listening
Speaker 1: when they say I am this. Yeah, And of course
Speaker 1: you don't have to choose a LAEL if you don't
Speaker 1: want to, and it's totally fine to take time to
Speaker 1: figure things out. And potentially none of the existing labels
Speaker 1: we have UM even fit for you. Ah. And I
Speaker 1: read a lot of pieces about this on discussion on
Speaker 1: whether or not. Uh, I guess some people were saying
Speaker 1: we don't need labels and other people were saying we
Speaker 1: definitely do when it comes to this. So there's definitely
Speaker 1: some conversations happening around it, and that's good, right, good, Um,
Speaker 1: so it's it's it's we're moving slowly forward. Yes. So
Speaker 1: in conclusion, naming things can be extremely useful by acknowledging
Speaker 1: things exist that previously went unnamed or unlabeled. It can
Speaker 1: make people feel less alone. Um I've told. I've told
Speaker 1: my story of not even knowing that bisexuality was a
Speaker 1: thing and feelings so confused when I was watching the
Speaker 1: X Files, like well, what's happening here? But they're both
Speaker 1: so hot. The labels can help us find community. Um,
Speaker 1: I definitely have found you know, my Harry Potter nerds
Speaker 1: or whatever. You So they can be helpful in that way.
Speaker 1: They can allow us to have discussions about systems of
Speaker 1: oppression and how and why some labels maintain those systems.
Speaker 1: But it's always keeping in mind the who and wild labels.
Speaker 1: That is a good idea, right, and then it changes
Speaker 1: things change permanent they I know when I read that, uh,
Speaker 1: most people perceive labels as permanent, I was like, oh really,
Speaker 1: and then I thought of it. I I was like, yeah, sure,
Speaker 1: I guess I was a nerd from a young age
Speaker 1: and that's just how it's going to be, you know.
Speaker 1: But they don't have to be permanent and Um, it's
Speaker 1: how you label yourself that's the most important thing. You
Speaker 1: shouldn't be imposing labels on other right. Yes, as a whole,
Speaker 1: we're in a time of expanding our lexicon of labels,
Speaker 1: questioning them, or appropriating them, shedding them. So you know,
Speaker 1: I guess it's an exciting time for labels. Are not
Speaker 1: labels because apparently millennials hate them. Um, but we would
Speaker 1: love to your your thoughts on labels listeners, and you
Speaker 1: can email us those thoughts at Stuff Media, mom Stuff
Speaker 1: at iHeart media dot com. You can find us on
Speaker 1: Twitter at mom Stuff podcast or on Instagram at Stuff
Speaker 1: I've Never Told You. Thanks as always to our superproducer
Speaker 1: who is mysteriously gone, Andrew Howard, and thanks to you
Speaker 1: for listening Stuff I Ever Told you. His protection of
Speaker 1: Iheartradias has Stuff works for more podcasts. For my heart
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