The “Writhing in the Workplace” Edition
S1: This ad free podcast is part of your slate plus membership.
S2: Hello and welcome to the Waves for Thursday, January 30th, the Writhing in the Workplace edition. I’m Christine Accardo Ritchie, a staff writer at Slate and host of the Slate podcast Outward.
S3: I’m Marcia Chatillon, a professor of history at Georgetown University. And I’m June Thomas, senior managing producer of Slate Podcasts. Hi, guys. Hello.
S4: Unfortunately, Nicole is out this week, so we’re going to have to bring the conversation and the discourse extra hard. Speaking of great discourse, I want to thank a bunch of our listeners who wrote in with comments about our segment on Megan and Harry’s semi departure from the royal family to listeners actually wrote in with kind of. Is it sexist? Questions about it. One person wrote Living in Los Angeles and knowing people who know people. One thing that flavors this whole Meghan Markle conversation for me is knowing that her career goal from the beginning was to get just famous enough to get access to attend the right parties, to meet and marry a royal so that she would never have to work again. Of course, I can’t give sources, so that’s all just rumor. But maybe it’s also a fun little game. Is it sexist? So there are sexist rumors on this side of the pond, too. I had no idea. I have to say that also, just for the record. Was my career plan.
S5: And how’s it going for you? Work it out. Exactly.
S4: Somebody else wrote in to say, I wanted to raise the idea that saying megas it which is what a term that we use for most of the show is sexist. And using that term is similar to the biased treatment Meghan Markle received from the press. There are reports that Harry has often brought up leaving, and it was Harry who posted in fall 20 19 about the legal action against the press, calling this Meg’s. It puts the blame on Megan for her family’s unified response to the racist treatment she’s received from the press. I hope the next time this comes up in your discussion, you choose another way to talk about it. Some have suggested Sussex it, Sussex it.
S6: I kind of like that. Actually, it’s funny. I had some of the same feelings when I tweeted about our show and I called it Melgar.
S5: Exit is not as elegant, but I thought, ah! Oh! Ha! Harry. Yeah. Mager. Ah. Yeah. Yeah.
S7: No, this point is well taken. And I’m glad that. I’m glad to. I hadn’t thought about it that way. And now I totally agree.
S5: Jim, you had something. Oh, thank you. Thank you.
S8: So I just wanted to thank listeners for entering the giveaway for Marcia’s amazing new book franchise. We have no pick the winners, but it was just really nice that many people, as I mentioned, there was no requirement to say anything. You just had to kind of send in an email. But many of the people who entered the giveaway just kind of made a nice comment. And that was really pleasant because I have to say, you like I don’t have a problem with getting contentious emails. That’s kind of the point of, you know, when you throw things out, you should expect to get something back. But it’s still nice to hear pleasant things. So I appreciate that. Thank you, listeners. Me, too. Listeners.
S4: Yeah. So many of you wrote in which now I’m like, oh, now I know you’re all out there. Like, where are you when we ask for. Is it sexist? You’re gonna have to write in more now. OK, now it’s time for our episode. We have a couple really good topics this week. I’m very excited. We’re gonna start off with a review of Gwyneth Paltrow’s new Goop series on Netflix, all about wellness. Then we’re gonna talk about this year’s March for Life. I reported from the march. Last week, Donald Trump was the first president in history to attend. So I got to see the president. You guys. And finally this week, we’re gonna discuss a viral job description, a job posting for a household manager, slash cook, slash nanny. Posted by a CEO in Menlo Park, California, who’s also a single mother. And then for our slate plus, is it sexist segment, we are going to ask, was it sexist that The Washington Post suspended a reporter for tweeting out a link about the rape allegation against Kobe Bryant in the hours after his death? Here’s a little snippet of that conversation.
S6: This one’s a really layered one because I’m a little surprised by the reaction of The Washington Post. I’m not surprised by the reaction on Twitter, because I think that’s a space in which a lot of people have been openly in conflict about how to report about Kobe Bryant, how to talk about him.
S4: If you’re not a slate plus member yet, you should start your free two week trial by visiting Slate.com, slash the waves. Plus, it’s only $35 for your first year. No excuses.
S9: OK, onto the show.
S10: Goup, it’s Gwyneth Paltrow’s lifestyle empire, and now it’s a new Netflix series. Marcia, what’s the deal here?
S6: What is the deal here? Actress turned lifestyle mogul Gwyneth Paltrow has brought the Goop sensibility to the small screen in a series about how they determine the recommendations that they make for the Goop brand. So the Goop lab looks at not only Gwyneth Paltrow’s relationship with her staff, but the staff. Go together on journeys from psychedelic mushrooms to spending time with the expert on female orgasm. Betty Dodson. The show is as much about how Gwyneth Paltrow determines what gets the goop stamp of approval as it also is about this idea of self-improvement. And I think that there’s a way that goop, as it has existed over a decade now, is supposed to represent both this deeply frivolous and deeply privileged way of people seeking out external remedies for anything from the way that they look to the way that they feel to managing their emotions. And I think it’s an easy target for so many reasons. But what I think is fascinating about all of this is that Gwyneth Paltrow’s brand is, I think, the high end version of what is made available to everyday people in the form of skin care that’s accessible to folks. So you either are buying it at the $4000 level or the $4 level at CBS. But there’s idea that there they’re all of these ways to make better. The human person is incredibly fascinating. I watched a few episodes of this. I’m clearly not the target audience. It’s it’s because I don’t have access to the types of things that one of Paltrow’s presenting. But any time I see women in this particular position in which women have been able to monetize the deep insecurities that the culture implants in them, I’m always fascinated how they do it in a way that suggests that we are stronger than the negative messages of the culture and that we can strategize ourselves out of self-hatred.
S4: Yet the so the phrase that Gwyneth Paltrow uses in sort of like the trailer to the series is optimisation of self. And I found that aspect of the series putting aside the question of like scientific reliability, which those questions are large and important. I found it stressful just because every episode seemed to tell me like a thing that I should be doing because something was wrong with me similar to like advertising for women, targeted products for generations. You know, like this thing is wrong with you, like here’s how you fix it.
S7: But these things that Gwyneth Paltrow and her staff are talking about and Marcia, I’m kind of surprised you didn’t bring up the workplace aspect, which I think we should definitely like. But it’s it was like they’re talking about mental health in a lot of the episodes and like self-fulfillment. It’s not just about making your body better or making yourself look younger. It’s about it’s sort of like the embodiment of mental anguish and emotional trauma. And they throw around the trauma for just about anything that happened to you that made you feel bad. And I felt like there was something very sexist and very gendered about the way they turned bad things that happened to them and any sort of like mental health issues into something that was wrong with their bodies like it. If I’m hot, if I have a panic disorder or I have stress around this terrible thing that happened to me when I was a kid. It must be like hidden in my sacrum somewhere or I have to train my body to breathe better about it. If and I don’t think that men experience the same kind of like, oh, a bad thing happened to me. It must be something wrong with my body that I now need to fix in my body. It felt like in some ways a response to sexism and in other ways just another way of reflecting sexist ideas about what’s wrong with women’s bodies back onto themselves like oh, there’s something wrong with me, which then helps me understand why they sort of rapid in with all these facials and diets and stuff like that. And I do believe that there are physical components to trauma in that way as to, you know, that deep breathing exercises and stuff can help people get over anxiety or at least deal with stress. But it’s very strange to me that then these same people who are really invested in the notion of trauma living in the body are so A.I. psychiatric medication, let’s say, you know, these sort of like physical and medical responses to, you know, mental health issues or mental illness or trauma that do exist and to work for a lot of people and are kind of demonized, especially in the first couple episodes of the show.
S11: Well, that really helps me figure out a response that I have, which was so along with the groupers experiencing firsthand some of these things, we also in the episodes hear from real people, I guess is the only thing only way that you can describe.
S12: Now, as opposed to the. Exactly. Is that’s people at that group? Yeah. I mean, it’s an odd presentation because they are they are in fact presented without comment. We hear who they are, how old they are, and then they kind of give a testimonial about why this thing, which might be psychedelics or it might be, you know, energy work, how it’s helped them.
S8: And they tend to be people who look like, again, this word real doesn’t feel appropriate, but it’s the one that’s closest to hand. It’s like they have real problems. You know, they have post-traumatic stress from being in a war zone. And, you know, one thing that made me feel extremely uncomfortable. A couple of them repeatedly, you know, talked about suicidal ideation, which I understand this was a real thing that they had. And it’s not for me to get on top of that. But like, I didn’t really feel like that belonged in in a show that as the the card at the beginning says is, you know, they don’t exactly say that. Well, they say it’s designed to entertain and inform.
S13: And like these people check with your doctor, whatever you doesn’t do anything.
S8: Just clever disclaimer. Yeah. So that that made me feel just uncomfortable but also that felt slightly dangerous. Like not actually dangerous. I don’t feel like I need to go pick it Netflix about the way that those quote unquote real people were used. But it felt like that used was really what was being done to them because they were kind of they were again, making a testimonial about the efficacy of these treatments, how they genuinely helped them in their in their particular type of pain. And I was like, well, what’s that got to do with these? You know, apparently these skinny young people out there tripping in Jamaica. You know, like that there was this disconnect that felt just weird and creeped me out a little bit.
S6: Yeah. Well, one of the kind of conceits of the show and I think of Gwyneth Paltrow launching this company was, you know, I was acting and I wanted more. And it was this idea that. Her life as an actor was superficial, but this is deep. I just want to present that question because I think this a desire of her brand is a form of evolution and a kind of maturity both spiritually and emotionally, while also not aging and also not allowing the body to kind of go through processes that all bodies go through. And so I think the contradiction of her and the way that this show so polarizing is a good way of thinking about the tensions that exist in this wellness space and how we’ve substituted this idea of good health for wellness, which is supposed to not put so much pressure on you. But strangely puts even more pressure on you. Because wellness in its broad definition gives us more opportunities to fail in achieving it. I don’t know or that I don’t know. It’s it’s not just going to your doctor’s for checkups, right? It’s experimental treatments. And it’s not just getting eight hours of sleep. It’s using apps to like monitor the quality of your sleep. And I don’t know if I’m necessarily opposed to all of these things, but I do wonder how taking care of the self becomes an activity rather than a means to kind of enjoy other parts of your life.
S14: Yeah. And I think this show was an experiment on whether those, you know, wellness treatments and and wellness, you know, self optimizations make good TV. And I think it doesn’t.
S4: Yes, I found it interesting, probably boring in part because Gwyneth Paltrow, her chief content officer, Elise lunine, who is, you know, sort of sitting beside her in all the interviews with all the experts and practitioners who are mostly men, by the way, I feel like they they have no like charisma or magnetism or anything that you would expect from people in a like cult of personality business. They have it. I think it must just be like their taste and their style and their marketing that appeals to people because I. In part because the people who they send on all these experimental missions to, you know, get their energy healing and do yoga in the snow and whatever, they’re not really given the freedom. It seems to have different reactions to the things. It’s all like, oh, my God. How did it feel to jump into a cold lake? It was an incredible experience. I’m like that. They filmed, you know, six people jumping into a lake with all the suspense of a psychological thriller.
S13: But you’re really just watching people jump into a lake. Like, I can’t feel how cold the lake is or, you know, oh, somebody is doing a video diary about what it’s like to live on a pescatarian diet, which, by the way, is my everyday diet. And she’s like, oh, here I am. It’s 8:00 p.m.. I really wish I could have meat now.
S5: Like what? This is like not creating drama out of nothing.
S13: Yeah. And like, there’s nothing more boring than being the sober person watching people on MUSHAHID having an experience completely within their own heads. And like I am not experiencing any of this, I’m just watching people like lay on a yoga mat with their earbuds in. Yeah.
S1: Or just wish that one of the staffers will just look into the camera and just blink a few times like you know, like they have so much student loan debt. I had to do this show. There are moments where Gwyneth Paltrow is so not charismatic to me now to me. And these staffers are supposed to be like on board with her stuff. And I’m like, no, I can’t tell if everyone is faking. If it was just so put on, if they’re so bored in, it is the most bizarre dynamic.
S6: And any workplace, again, that requires you to talk about your sexual. Oh, my God. Yes, you’re you’re you’re sexual like challenges. Makes you jump into icy water in your bathing suit, in your bathing suit. Like it’s it’s just so wildly inappropriate. I would have preferred if it was just people who wanted to have these experiences on the show. But once it became clear there were people who work for her. I was like, you know, H.R. needs to be corrected of me.
S13: Definitely. Like I imagined the experience of working at goup is like you’re expected to have a life changing cathartic experience every single day. Like how many times are you expected to get over your panic disorder, like when you jump into the lake? It got you over your panic disorder when you get your energy. You know, you’re the tip of your spine touched by a man like that. It helps you get over your deep seated trauma and then maybe when you do a year, your fasting diet. Wow. Like Gwyneth Paltrow felt so she felt so weak. But then at the end, she felt so strong. Like, how many different transformations can you go through in a week at working at BU? Like how literally when do when is your self optimized? Like.
S12: Many of these things do you have to do well, and I’m not an I agree completely. And the other part that that worried me was not only like how do I have to kind of present my journey for the camera and or from my co-workers edification. But some of the particular experiences I felt were also manipulated for the cameras watching the episode about energy manipulation together, my partner and I came as close as we’ve come in nearly 23 years to having an argument. And it wasn’t. Oh, our humblebrag. Yeah, I know. Right. Thank you. And it wasn’t over that style of healing because both of us have been clients of that particular kind of healing, an absolute believer. I’ve had that kind of feeling much more frequently than I’ve gone to the regular old doctor. It was about how he effectively was making people spaza like that is not good healing, making people rich, making people spasm like that’s for the cameras. That is not for for like that is not necessary to do that form of energy work. And the argument was over whether it was porny whether the kind of the arching of the back was supposed to look like they were, you know, having having sexual feelings. I did not think it was porny. I think it’s just like you have a lot of young, skinny people. SPASMING on a coach. It kind of looks that way. What an endorsement of the show. Now, I’m I’m with your partner, Julia. It was I thought it was trying to make it look sexual, too. That’s interesting. But that was not necessary. I’ve not been healed by John Amaral, but any kind of of energy work that I’ve had does not lead to that kind of response. And I don’t think that’s a productive part of that work. And I think that was done for the cameras subconsciously or otherwise. And that feels like. Don’t do that. Like, first of all, you’re also giving a bad impression of this particular kind of work because you want to because you need to show something. Just having somebody lie and, you know, experience it internally, which is kind of how healing works, like that’s not very good television. That’s why we don’t have the people getting massaged. Channel, you know what I mean?
S15: So just so there were just so many issues that just felt like I just didn’t feel like I learned anything.
S8: As we’ve all said, like they think a lot of us are curious about psychedelics in a healing modality, as they put it. But I didn’t learn anything from just seeing a bunch of people tripping into make that just didn’t teach me anything. It didn’t reveal anything. So I really wanted to come into this segment like it’s so easy to bag on Gwyneth and, you know, blub and I didn’t want but I can’t not because that’s just the show is a disappointment.
S4: I do want to say, because I don’t want to only talk about the things I didn’t like about the show. There was one segment in the female orgasm episode which talk about a workplace nightmare. I did like this one part, which had it not been with coworkers. I think it would have been really touching where they had to massage each other’s hands and feet and tell each other what they liked and didn’t like and say like, oh, could you please, you know, massage the back of my hand or like, that feels good. But can you not do that so much as practice for talking to their partners about what they like and didn’t like in bed? Again, completely problematic, something that you should definitely not be doing with people you work with.
S7: But it felt like this is something that I have seen, you know, versions of repeated in other, you know, groups that I’ve been a part of. And I think it is very valuable. And I would hope that because Gwenyth is a really easy on tray for some people into talking about, you know, sexual health and stuff like she’s very not intimidating. She didn’t even know allegedly the difference between a vagina and a Volvo.
S13: Marsha’s kind of rolling her eyes and likes I don’t know if I believe that either.
S4: But, you know, for for people who really are like you, I’m supposed to talk about a vagina or, you know, like I’m supposed to look at myself down there. Perhaps they can watch the show and think, OK. Like, here’s a way that I can experience something that not only is actually possibly valuable to me, but also doesn’t cost anything.
S7: I can I can practice talking to my partner about things that I like and don’t like. And I don’t have to spend, you know, thousands of dollars to travel to Lake Tahoe and have a, you know, man who looks like a life aquatic dude. He told me to jump in a lake.
S4: Well, on that note, listeners, I would love to know if you guys have watched this show or if you’ve tried any of these healing modality is and I’d love to hear about how you thought they were. Trade on the Goop lab. Our email address is the waves at Slate.com.
S16: All right.
S4: The March for Life. It’s an annual rally and protest that has been held every year since Roe v Wade was decided in the 70s. It’s a gathering of anti-choice people, including many, many religious schools and church groups who come and lobby Congress and listen to some speeches from clergy and activists and usually a few members of the House and Senate.
S7: I’ve been to report on it a couple times. The last time was, I think three years ago, just after Trump’s inauguration and the women’s march at that rally, Mike Pence came in at the time. He was the highest ranking person in the U.S. government to ever show his face and speak at the rally. Definitely the first sitting vice president to attend this year.
S4: Trump did them one better not to be shown up by Mike Pence. And he showed up himself to give a speech. So I went to see, you know, what the vibe would be like. I went and talked to a bunch of people. I thought, you know, this will probably be a different event because it’s the president and especially in an election year and it’s in the middle of his impeachment trial, which for me, it really seemed like Donald Trump got just as much out of in as the people who attended did, in part because it was, you know, in the middle of his impeachment trial. And he loves a rally. You know, this is it feels like he loves being in front of a crowd of people who love him more than he loves being president. That’s probably a really non-controversial opinion. I think it’s pretty obvious. And, you know, I think it felt really good for him to just pop down a couple blocks from his house and see thousands of people who were all chanting his name and holding posters with his face on them, which when I went three years ago, there were people with Trump hats and, you know, people who were pleased about Trump. I talked to a bunch of people there, too.
S14: But there was a lot more of the vibe of, oh, you know, I’m I don’t like everything he’s stands for or I don’t like, you know, the person he is. He’s not my favorite. But I think he’s gonna be really good on abortion issues. And, you know, I’m really optimistic. Maybe this is the last March we’re going to have. People were really concerned about the Supreme Court.
S7: And, you know, because at the time there was a vacancy on the Supreme Court that Republicans had stolen from the Obama administration. And this time the vibe was a lot more. One note. Trump is the best president on this issue we’ve ever had.
S11: That was really striking to me in your great dispatch, which everybody should check out. Follow the links in our show notes, because I know, of course, it was clear that the president showing up is going to engender positive feelings toward that person from that particular group. But this kind of repetition of most pro-life president in history, most pro-life president ever. You know, your description of the posters of what people were saying and chanting, that surprised me just because.
S8: He’s not, you know, like. Clearly, yes. This is a strategic decision that’s honestly a smart one on his part to really focus on this. I mean, he just isn’t sure he’s doing things, you know, he’s doing things. And, you know, I think that we’re seeing real clear threats. But he’s like, he’s not a good ally for them. Like, not not really.
S6: Well, I’m not entirely sure that’s right, because I think the the number of federal judges that he’s been able to appoint who are incredibly staunchly anti-choice. Yeah. And I think this is a really good example of what happens when you can organize voters on a single issue and you can provide them an opportunity to vote a single issue without having to be accountable for the kind of periphery issues. And this is why I think it’s really fascinating when I see Catholic organizations, including the university I work with, you know, align with March for Life and have just kind of different activities with it, because I think that there is a segment of Catholic values voters who will say, OK, now do the death penalty and then you start to see the kind of collapse of the kind of pro-life, broadly defined tent. And so I don’t know if he is the most pro-life person to ever exist, but in terms of being able to capture the White House through federal judges, through the Supreme Court and through his his alignment with evangelicals, I guess they’re right. It the tone of it the most ever is just how he’s the most winning US president and he’s the most intellectually stable genius president. Right. Like, it’s it’s part of the rhetoric. And though I feel like you can kind of make a case that it’s true.
S4: Yeah. He has expanded anti-choice policies beyond what other Republican presidents have done. I mean, his first I think it was his first day in office, he reinstated the Mexico City policy, which removes family planning, funding U.S. family planning aid from groups that provide abortion care. But he also expanded it. Instead of applying that rule just to family planning funding, he applied it to all U.S. foreign aid. So that includes money that goes to groups that around the world that do other work. But maybe, you know, support groups that, you know, provide abortion care or support groups who support groups who provide abortion care. So, you know, that is just one example of something he did on his first day in office that no other Republican president had done before. He also had the, quote unquote, benefit of having two Supreme Court vacancies. So he was able to have a disproportionate impact on the landscape for abortion rights in the Supreme Court. That said, I mean, I I do think that a lot of it has to do with just everyone wanting to flatter his ego and maybe also wanting to justify to themselves their support for Trump.
S17: Yeah. I mean, that’s that’s the thing. That’s what I think. I mean, I don’t disagree with anything either of you just said. Those are points very well made. And I do think that reproductive rights are under more threat. No. Than at any time that I can remember. So, sure, he’s pretty effective. I’m kind of holding on to too like a personality thing. You know, this is a guy who is opposing himself to be pro-choice until. Yeah, super recently who’s had open conversations about pushing for some of the children that he has actually brought into the world to have been aborted. You know, like just creepy personal shit that that contradicts, you know, his stated position. But yeah, this isn’t about what’s in his heart. I guess I’m falling for his non-sense. You know, his all he talks both at his rallies, which weirdly, I’ve fallen into a strange habit of going home and like turning on YouTube and like watching Trump rallies. It’s a cottage. Some very tears. I need to get out of the habit. But it is like it’s oh God, it’s so disturbing. But it’s so much personality. It’s all about his.
S15: You know, I’m just like the things that he said he made repeated that claim in the speech that he gave at the March for Life about, you know, that just I don’t even know what he’s talking about of Democrats being open to aborting fetuses. Right. Took till the day after they’re born or something. Like what? Yeah. I was even talking about. And he’d just say stuff like that. And you just think, I don’t even know. Are we on the same planet?
S6: Well, it appears to me that some elements of this movement are not concerned with the granular details of how you deliver the mail on this issue. Right. And so in some ways, it’s. Kind of fascinating to see how well organized. The kind of anti-choice movement is. But it’s a movement that doesn’t require diligence. Yeah. And so just in the ways that people who were pro Medicare for all have to explain how it’s going to work, how you pay for it, other places that have single payer. Well, you know, you have you have to come with this incredibly well prepared speech because the scrutiny is so deep. If you’re on the pro-choice, if you’re on the pro side, but if you are part of this broad pro-life coalition, you don’t have to have medical knowledge. You don’t have to have clarity in how state policy affects access. You don’t really have to know much about pregnancy or abortion in order to leverage yourself as an expert. And some of it is because it has this intersection of an issue that operates on religious moral conviction and politics together. And so when you put those two forces together, facts trumps dossier on the issue. His thoughts about it are all collapse. But I think that this is emblematic of the entire movement, because if the goal is ending abortion at all costs, then the then the mechanism doesn’t have to be strong. And I don’t know if we have a lot of political issues that are able to rest in that space.
S4: I think what you said, Marcia, about, you know, the ending abortion at all costs really came through for me when I was there, in part because there are so many clergy members and, you know, people in religious garments at the march coming from a Catholic family, going to a Jesuit university where Marcia works. I felt like I had witnessed what I felt was kind of like an uncomfortable marriage between anti-abortion rhetoric and the rhetoric of justice. You know, especially at a school like Georgetown, where priests are taking students down to protest, you know, a training camp for militias and also protesting the death penalty and coming out in support of Dacca and immigrant rights to go to this rally and see priests and nuns or people I perceived to be priests and nuns based on what they were wearing, wearing monga hats, cheering for Trump, pumping their fists, screaming for more years was incredibly disturbing to me. And I don’t know why I expect, you know, clergy members and and other people of faith to have a little bit more like, I guess, moral clarity or moral consistency on issues of politics. But I think I did expect that because it did disturb me when I was there. The other thing that I found really interesting was the co-optation of the rhetoric of progressive movements. So in that, I think you can see what really scares these people. So you see a lot of signs that are like riffs on Black Lives Matter, unborn lives matter, black babies matter. By the way, it’s all white people holding these signs. There’s also a lot of talk this year. The theme was women’s empowerment because it’s about to be the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote. It’s a common myth among the anti-choice set that the, you know, suffragists were all vehemently anti-abortion, which there was a very good piece in The Washington Post this year that sort of disproved those myths or, you know, explain them and called them into question. And and also, I kind of don’t care what the suffragists thought about a person, to be perfectly honest. But besides that, there was a lot more talk about feminism this year, where in the past, you know, there’s always been a group called Feminists for Life and other people who say, you know, like, I’m a feminist and I support women and I support fetuses or like I’m with her pointing to a picture of a fetus. But this year, the term feminism was all over the place.
S7: I think we’re reaching a point not with everybody, but with a significant portion of the anti-choice movement where the term feminism has become diluted so much that they’re ready to claim it and use it in, you know, support of the idea that the anti-choice movement is supporting women’s empowerment.
S12: Well, if you had to describe your impression of the rally in one objective, what would it be?
S9: I would say.
S4: Hopeful in what way? It was a very joyous event. And there were a lot of I mean, it didn’t provide me with hope, but I think it provided a lot of people there with hope. I think it functions as a validation of culture as much as it’s rallying point on a single issue. So, you know, in in past years, there’s been like a little bit of a mournful element to it, especially when Obama was president. And, you know, there’s always the very solemn like all these babies have died, but blah, blah. But I think this year it was a lot more, you know, thinking about. There were like big cheers for Kavanaugh, even more so than Neil Gorsuch. People are are thinking that the movement is about to reach like the height of its power. Wow. Wow. That is sobering. All right. That’s about all the time we have for the March for Life listeners. Do you think Donald Trump is the most pro-life president of all time? Send us an email. The waves at Slate.com. All right, our last topic for this week, a job description that went viral. That’s a sentence I don’t say too often. June, tell us about this job posting.
S11: Indeed. Well, in 2020, the way you know that something is really juicy, not necessarily big or important, but a story that people are really interested in is when it’s being eagerly discussed in multiple slate slack channels. Late last week, a job posting for a household manager slash cook slash nanny in Silicon Valley earned that distinction. Now, usually media enterprises, the job ads that get most scorn are the ones that basically want someone to do every job at a small local newspaper for an annual salary of like $10000 and no benefits. But this wasn’t one of those. In fact, it was a pretty sweet gig. This family has other staffers. They also have a housekeeper, an au pair, a property manager and a gardener slash handyman in addition to this new hire. It seemed like the reason that people were obsessing about this job listing was the specificity. It was more than a thousand words. And the job description involved things like assist 10 year olds with light homework in long division subtraction and writing, play math games with them, such as how much fish should we buy today? Five of us. And how long will it take us to drive in the snow if it’s 150 miles and we go 50 miles an hour? She’d say that the the job is to kind of work with two 10 year old twins. There was information about allergies. No, come on. Goat, dairy, chicken eggs, green beans or watermelon. And a lot of discussion of various kinds of vacation activities that need to be coordinated. And the job listing mentioned that the applicant can bike around town with 10 year olds, can throw balls and do calisthenics and generally play and roughhouse with kids.
S8: And the thing that actually kind of broke my heart, quote, has room in their hearts to love the kids and the mom has a high capacity to be loved by them. So I think there was both. I mean, it was again, the specificity there, just the the kind of slightly deranged variety of tasks. But I I love specificity. I think there’s nothing more soothing than clarity. And I think there was also an element of like this job doesn’t seem exploitative. It’s there’s an element of sadness, perhaps, that the mom, who’s a single mom, like, really seems to be looking for a friend. When Slate’s Ruth Graham found this poster and interviewed her, that really, you know, she was very open. You know that. Yeah. What she needed was a wife. She didn’t mean in a romantic sense, but just like to to do that job that just isn’t done much anymore, especially in a single parent family of just like helping setting things up. Getting on the phone or making decisions. And just like being the being another mom to the kids. What did you guys think? Cause I think my response was not necessarily the typical one.
S13: I’m firmly on team. Fuck this. I also think I’m one of the few people, judging by social media responses, who became less sympathetic to her after I read Ruth Graham’s interview with her. No.
S14: Yeah, because I don’t think what she was asking of this person was too much. I think like you said, Jane, I think it was mostly specificity when you really think about what she was asking. You know, it’s not like a job that would take necessarily more than 40 hours a week. It’s just she really described every single thing that the person would be doing. And I think, you know, if she gave the person normal hours and paid them well and, you know, the one big flashing neon red flag was the I want somebody who can be loved by me, which I think is an unfair thing to ask of an employee. But the thing that I did think was weird and really annoyed me was when she talked to Ruth Graham and she was complaining about how hard it was. And she said, our society is broken. Here it is January. And I’m having to spend hours of my time late at night trying to figure out summer camp and get them signed up for sports and all that. That is not an example of our society being broken. Like, do not try to lump in your frustration with finding the perfect flag football team or your need to like plan the best possible Europe trip with the inability of other single parents to afford child care and have paid family leave. Because I think that’s what she was referring to when she said our society is broken. Like there are ways you can make this easier for yourself. Other single parents successfully single parent without a staff of four people. I understand it might be hard if you want your two twins to be on different soccer teams at the same time 20 minutes apart. But you don’t have to do that. Kids are fine without doing that. And I think the fact that she was like. Trying to justify it instead of just saying, like, I have the money and I can afford this help. She was saying it’s so hard to be a single mom. Most families, when they take their kids on ski trips, the dad can tag in and take the kid for one run and then I can take it.
S5: It’s so hard, right? It’s exhausting, right? No, actually, that’s not most families, I don’t think. Yeah, that’s some families. But like families who can afford to go on ski trips, you could also hire like send your kids on a ski lesson or something.
S4: There’s just a lot of ways around it without saying this is an unavoidable spot of suffering that I’m trying to relieve. Mm hmm.
S18: So I read this at 6 o’clock this morning because I did get out early to do some, you know, like paperwork for our family stuff and send some checks out. Do you email and think about life, the waves? Oh, my God. And then later today, I have to like make sure the, like, handyman can come in to the house to fix a heater.
S1: As I’m reading this description, I’m so deeply jealous of him. I wish I could use to do these things for me, because I think, like my husband and I will spend years trying to figure out a vacation. There’s a there’s a part of the job where it says figure out if points or cash are better for vacation. This takes like six months out of our relationship every year. What are we going to go? How many points do we have? So as she’s reading this description, I was like, gosh, I could do all of these things. Where are you going to fight for? Where are you going to do this job? All of this is to say that, you know, for people of a certain class.
S6: Overwhelmed is the kind of dominant mode in which we communicate with each other. I’m guilty of it. Everyone I know is guilty of it. And I think that this is actually an interesting companion piece to our group conversation. It’s how do we make the experiences we have with ourselves and each other? How do we turn it all into a series of activities that we can judge, whether we’re doing them well or doing them poorly? And so parenting is an incredibly complicated and stressful task, but there’s some elements of these requests that aren’t just about the kids allergies or even some of engaging their interests. It’s about assessing whether they’re having good enough childhoods. And if this is going well. And I think whether it’s, you know, spending all Saturday cooking something because you need to eat. But cooking has become this kind of leisure activity for people of a certain class because you are overwhelmed or whether or not you’re breathing deeply enough because breathing is necessary for life. But are you doing it in the best possible way? There’s some of that energy in this job description. And so I felt very mixed because on one hand, I can only imagine how ambitious and driven this woman is and how overwhelmed she must be. But back to Christina’s point. This is not the every woman who we’re supposed to use as a prism to understand the failures of child care and health care and education. It’s a person who’s making a series of choices in a culture that tells us when you have as many choices as possible. Everything has to be optimal, including the level of interest that your kids can take in life. You know, like they don’t need to practice math all the time. They could do some math homework. You know, it’s it’s a lot.
S4: Yeah. And Marcia, it also reminded me of something you’ve said about your book franchise where you said you felt a little. I do want to put words in your mouth, but like ambivalent about writing about the concerns of aggrieved millionaires and what you know. I think what you were talking about is the fact that some, like black McDonald’s franchise owners are still discriminated with in McDonald’s. And you know what? Many I think the book rate points of the book yet. But what this woman wanted to say she was showing us is that money can’t buy you out of sexism or the, you know, failures of our capitalist society. I think she was showing us one small segment of that, which is that money can’t buy your way out of the anxieties of modern parenthood in certain classes. So there are a lot of qualifiers there. She also said, you know, this is sexist. People wouldn’t have been outraged by this post if a man had posted it. I’m not sure I believe that. I think they would have also said, like, oh, this person, like, is looking for a wife, which I really think that I need a wife formulation needs to die because I think we should be in the business of divorcing these kinds of expectations from wife to him.
S7: She also makes clear that she wouldn’t really consider a man for the role, like, first of all, calling it a wife. And then she also talks about like, oh, I don’t want like a nice grandmotherly baby, baby nanny.
S1: You know, I need someone who can, like, snowboard also. Really? I mean, it’s already physically. Demanding dealing with two 10 year olds. She wants this person to be able to like river swim, which I guess is important for safety reasons.
S14: No, she wants them to like River’s swimming. Not only do you have to go on vacation with her family, you have to have fun doing well.
S19: I mean, this also that this is tethered to a very long history of like domestic help being perceived as a member of the family. From one angle and then the domestic helper having all sorts of hot takes on the family that they can’t share. And so there’s something about this.
S6: It is deeply intimate for a person take care of another person’s child or an elder. You know, I get that. But there’s something about this, like the capacity to love me.
S11: I’m going to mount a slight defense of this woman because on this job and because one thing that Ruths interview pointed out, that this was not intended to be a public posting. She was using a search firm. And she you know, and this was something that she had written to help them because she wasn’t getting the right kind of candidate and it was accidentally shared. And I do think there’s an element of sexism in the kind of the with the glee that people took in and the breaking down of of the tests.
S15: And also in part, I suspect, because people like you. There really is a lot.
S17: You look at this, this this person who’s done this work to break down this excruciatingly detailed job description of an extraordinarily privileged woman’s family. Like there was a there was a glee that was taken in that, I do think, to that. Sure. This woman is so privileged. This is so atypical there. You know, that we weren’t all descending on it on slike channels to talk about the terrible situation for the vast majority of people and their childcare options and lack thereof stipulated.
S8: But I think there is also like even a bloody gazillionaire can’t get this taken care of. Like how fucked R-WY.
S13: And I think too, that just can’t get it taken care of. It can be done in the most perfect possible way.
S12: But you know what? What? Would it be better if she had put a job description that was like, you know, if you can look after them, okay. That would be swell.
S17: I mean, that’s just the nature of a you know, the performance of being a high performing person. I feel like there’s so much in the world to to criticize. I just think, like this woman’s particular extreme specificity just didn’t get me going. And I think it’s funny because before this came along, we had been talking about another topic which is related, which is the sort of disappearance of the better paid women’s jobs. Women now hold more payroll jobs in the U.S., the men, that’s a milestone. And that’s because the occupations associate with men. Things like manufacturing are shrinking while service jobs are increasing. And while things like nursing can seem like a decently paid job, things like home health aide or nursing assistance, child care workers, which are also booming, are extremely low paid. It’s not surprising that men don’t want to move into those particular fields. But we also read about the vanishing executive assistant. No. 1.6 million secretarial or executive assistant jobs have disappeared since 2000. We are we’re all whether we’re in white collar jobs. I actually probably only in white collar jobs. We’re all kind of taking care of more stuff ourselves. That in more in relatively recent years would have been handled by someone else. And that does feel significant. I think that probably we all can handle things. We don’t need someone to be car travel, perhaps even that would be nice. But it does all feel like there’s there is something going on here. Let’s not just pile on this woman, although it is kind of fun.
S18: I’ll just say this. I think that this is also reflective of changing job markets and changing opportunities. But I do think it’s interesting that in a previous iteration, a person who did not attend college could be a nanny for a wealthy family and be considered sufficient in their knowledge of taking care of children and their ability to do a number of things. In this example, it’s really interesting because I think there was a preference for a college graduate, college, college graduate or equivalent experience was pleasant experience.
S6: How does one get an experience that allows them to be sufficient for this type of job if they don’t have it right? So there’s a way that even within those sectors of domestic help that there’s a professionalized domestic help class that couldn’t make more money and have more access than everyone else. So I think that inequalities abound.
S1: I would love for someone to help me as much. What’s in it? And I stand by that statement.
S4: Yet this is a rich text, listeners, that we would love to hear what you. Yeah. Rich in multiple dimensions, listeners, let us know what you thought of it. Was it sexist for people to rag on this woman? You can e-mail us at the waves at Slate.com. And if you’re good at river swimming. Apply for this job.
S14: All right. recomendation time, what did you guys bring?
S11: I think I may have recommended the show before. In fact, I’m pretty certain I have, but it’s the time of year when the TV show Viera ARA’s its episodes in the U.S. They’re airing right now on Brit Books. I believe we’re on season 10. I don’t think there are going to be all that many episodes. But it’s such a good show. It’s Barbara Blethyn as the titular detective. And, you know, it’s in some ways there are elements that are typical. She’s the kind of older woman who’s who appears to be slightly rude and scatterbrain and inconsiderate. She’s actually, of course, incredibly considerate, incredibly empathetic, incredibly smart. She solves these mysteries in a way that is very satisfying. Not to spoil anything, but it’s never the first person. It’s rarely the second person is usually the third very significant suspects that’s presented to. It even makes Jodi land look attractive. It’s just it’s a really good show. And season 10. There’ve been two episodes airing so far. It’s just a really good show. I really recommend Viera. I’m going to watch that. Actually, it sounds great. Marcia, what do you have?
S18: Our conversations stay about the march for life. Reminded me of one of my favorite articles from Rewire News from Cynthia Greenly called A Short History of Abortion Related Boycotts. It was published in May. And it’s it reminds us the context of how we got here. And it talks about reactions to the episode of Maude, where she seeks an abortion and the different boycotts of companies that seem even adjacent to feminists who may support a poor. And how these boycotts work. And I think it’s a it’s a good way to kind of think about not only March for life, but some of the things that we might see as 20/20 draws near.
S4: Yeah, that’s really interesting. I’m going to recommend a column in The New York Times by Michelle Goldberg, a former Slate columnist. It’s called The Darkness Where the Future Should Be.
S7: It is a really beautiful and thoughtful piece about the way people in 2020, particularly progressives, have an increasingly dark vision of the future, which could possibly hamper motivation for creating the better world that we used to believe could still come to pass. So Michelle Goldberg talks to William Gibson, who’s a science fiction writer, creates sort of near future dystopias and and thinks about the way that technology and and capitalism will sort of influence society in the future. And he says, you know it in every period of history, people have been able to imagine a brighter future for themselves. You know, in in the mid 20th century, the future of technology looked really bright and people were excited by all the ways that technology could improve the human condition. Today, thinking about technology in the future makes people feel a sense of doom because we’re thinking about A.I. and surveillance and the ways that social networks which had, you know, great promise for democratic engagement and connection across geography and and class have turned into mechanisms for disinformation and supporting genocides. And she also talks about, you know, the the movement of far-Right and nativist and sort of fascist governments taking over across the world and what it means for us at this point to not be able to imagine a a better future with as much ease. Anyway, I’m not doing the peace. Justice. It’s really fantastic. Again, it’s called The Darkness Where the Future Should Be, by Michelle Goldberg.
S3: All right. That’s our show for today.
S2: Thank you to Lindsey kratochvil, who produced this episode. To Rachel Allen, our production assistant, and to Rosemary Bellson, who recorded us here in D.C. for Marcia Chatillon and June Thomas. I’m Christina Carter G. Thanks for listening.
S10: Now it’s time for our slate plus, is it sexist segment we are talking about? Washington Post reporter Felicia Sonmez, who this week in the hours after Kobe Bryant was reported dead, tweeted out with no commentary, a link to a Daily Beast article from 2016 that gave a very detailed explanation of the rape allegation against Kobe Bryant from 2003 and the subsequent investigation. She then received, according to her, thousands of comments on Twitter. Thousands of e-mails threatening violence and other abuse, calling for her to be fired. She tweeted a screenshot of her email inbox, which included the display name, the full display name of at least one person who e-mailed her. The Washington Post then suspended her, saying that she had displayed poor judgment. In response, hundreds of her co-workers signed a letter of support. She then shared with The New York Times an email that executive editor of The Washington Post, Marty Baron, had sent her that said a real lack of judgment to tweet this. Please stop. You’re hurting the institution by doing this. And that was attached to a screenshot of her tweet of The Daily Beast link. So The Washington Post has since reinstated her and said, oh, you know, she didn’t violate our social media policies, but her tweet was still ill timed. The question here is, was it sexist for the post to do that, given that many other journalists were, you know, tweeting out reminders of this very important part of Kobe Bryant’s life and legacy?
S6: This one’s a really layered one, because I’m a little surprised by the reaction of The Washington Post. I’m not surprised by the reaction on Twitter, because I think that’s a space in which a lot of people have been openly in conflict about how to report about Kobe Bryant, how to talk about him. But I do think that there is an element of sexism in. The Washington Post’s decision, to the extent that I think this behavior from a woman is perceived as irresponsible, unprofessional, you know, dare I say I. No one said it, but I could imagine someone saying, like, hysterical rape, like, oh, my gosh, this response. And I wonder if a man did it, particularly if it was a male sports reporter, it would be considered brave or challenging or, you know, disruptive to the narrative. So I assume that there was some sexism in the perception of this. This has been a really interesting thing to watch in terms of how stories of Kobe Bryant are curated. And then I think there’s also a deep desire on the part of some of his fans to say, well, it’s complicated. We can have we can have two feelings. At the same time, we can appreciate what’s perceived as his growth and we can still reference it. I am a little surprised how few people mentioned it actually in the stories about him. I did not expect that.
S11: Mm hmm. Yeah, it’s tricky like the specifics of this story with The Washington Post reporter, the Washington Post response, which seemed excessive. Unclear. You know, there were there was discussion of how it contravened the the paper’s social media policy, which was disputed by other people who were supposed to follow that policy, which then led the post to say, yeah, this policy clearly isn’t clear. We need to work on that. This is a response that genuinely is complicated. I think complicated, as you said, Marcia, is also the word that was often used to talk about Bryant himself and how he dealt with the accusations, how he kind of behaved in the wake of the accusations once they were in the sense once they were kind of closed and you could say they were behind him, how he slightly remade himself. But I come back to. There was a really good segment on this week’s Hang Up and Listen Slate’s sports podcast about this. The three hosts talked with Lindsey Gibbs, who is an author of a power players newsletter about women’s sports. And Joel Anderson said a big part of the glue that holds rape culture together is the idea that what happens to women matters less than the perogative of men. Right. And ultimately, I do think it comes down to that, that for so many people, not just in this particular circumstance, but just generally, that they give more credence or more they pay more concern to, well, what’s going to happen to the guy?
S17: Is this guy going to get through this? This is going to ruin his life. Is this going to dominate his life? And I feel that that was a version of that was happening with Kobe Bryant, that that it it was relevant when you’re doing an obit, when you’re looking back on a person’s life. This was a really significant event in his life and it belonged in obits. The particular way that it was the you that we would share that view obviously needed to be done with sensitivity, mostly because of the way that the response would come along, because people are sensitive in a way that I’m I’m kind of not really saying the words that I I think are the right words. But like, you’re going to get a backlash. So, you know, it’s one thing to put it in an obit that’s in paragraph five and another to do a tweet that that focuses on it, you’re going to get a different response, but it belongs there. Yeah.
S20: And the reason why I think this is sexist is because Felicia’s son, Mez.
S14: Has accused a another journalist who was the Los Angeles Times Beijing bureau chief, Jonathan came in of sexually assaulting her. And he you know, there were a couple other accusations. He eventually lost his job. There were pieces in the media.
S4: You know, Emily Yoffe, you wrote a piece at reasons.. saying he was given a short shrift and calling into question Felicia Sanchez’s accusations and some as to her credit, has been extremely vocal on social media about what, you know, she has said are the failings of these reports that have come out, you know, advocating for herself, being a very vocal proponent of the metoo movement and just a very staunch advocate for other women who are alleging sexual assault. So I think it’s possible that the people at The Washington Post aren’t happy with the fact that she is so active on social media in and talking about these issues and were hypersensitive to a tweet that was literally just a link. I think if it had come from somebody else who didn’t have her history of, you know, allegedly surviving a sexual assault and then tweeting a lot about it and being well-known in the media for that allegation and her response to it, they, you know, would have just maybe said like, oh, you know, wait a couple minutes, but probably not suspended that person. Again, that’s a hypothetical, but that’s what I suspect was behind some of this. And she implied in her interview with The New York Times that she had sort of been told to tone it down a little bit on social media as far as the way news outlets have been handling this goes. I wrote a piece sort of rounding up a lot of the different responses and they really brand the gamut. But I will say Kobe Bryant’s nickname or alter ego that he created for himself, Black Mamba, was very explicitly a response to the sexual assault allegation. He said, you know, I created this alter ego because Kobe off the court was dealing with this really dark time in my life. I wanted Kobe on the court to be just like taking no prisoners and just focus on winning. And that, you know, now that’s the name of the Youth Sports League that he created. And and everyone was saying, like R.I.P Black Mamba. So if you’re talking about Kobe Bryant and this nickname that he had, it really doesn’t make sense not to talk about the sexual assault allegation that he framed as sort of like the obstacle he needed to overcome to achieve his own personal growth. And that was the narrative that I saw in a lot of the obituaries that did mention it, that, you know, he he overcame this adversity and that really like propelled him to become this this leader on the court. You know, I think there’s an impulse when a beloved public figure dies, especially when it’s in such a tragic way and when one of his daughters has died along. Exactly. And yes. And, you know, seven other people, in addition to them, that there’s an impulse to not only have a sort of coherent narrative of their entire life, but also make it seem like their life ended better than it started, or that there was like an arc that we can sort of trace that that demonstrated a positive change of character. And it’s hard to tell in this case. You know, it’s it’s there are a lot of things about Kobe Bryant in this case that no one will ever know besides Kobe Bryant and the woman who accused him of sexual assault. So I think what I saw in a lot of the obituaries, the writers who did mention it were struggling with how to put that into an obituary in a way that made it make sense. Then there was a like the Associated Press who just sort of plopped it a paragraph about it with absolutely no connection to the paragraphs around it, which is another way to handle it.
S11: One thing that struck me kind of as it was happening was that as people were starting to mention the the the charges and just kind of effectively just making the case that this needed also to be part of the record. When that was happening on social media, I saw a response that said, think about Vanessa. Vanessa has been with it, been with Kobe since 16. She’s just lost her husband. She’s just lost her daughter. And I get that that of urge like that is a kind of a human urge. It’s also a kind of condescending. It’s also be like that’s social media has media in it. But you don’t stop the media from doing things because because of some bonds, potential pain. She’s in pain anyway. She’s in pain. She just lost her husband and a daughter like that. That’s just a given. We don’t not say things. That are a relevant part of a person’s life to protect someone else in that in that particular way. And like so it it all felt a part of this whole just kind of squashing of everything.
S10: All right. So was it sexist for The Washington Post to suspend Felicia Sonmez for tweeting that link?
S12: I think it was wrong. I mean, obviously, as we said, the suspension was later lifted. I do think that sexism was behind that urge.
S11: Other things were involved, too, a sort of a view of the institution in need of protection that I don’t see journalistic institutions in the same way. I don’t. I’m really at a loss for a number for this one, because there are so many unknowns, but there are always unknowns in this. So I’m gonna go with a 6.6 reportand. I’ll go as far as my calculator will let me go with that reportand. Marcia, what do you think?
S18: I’ll give it I’ll give two benefits of the doubt that if a man did it, the same thing would happen. And that I also give the benefit of the doubt that The Washington Post was actually within its authority, even though it’s a bad rule and give it an eight. Mm hmm.
S5: Wow. Even with those two, those two disclaimers were only worth one point each.
S4: Knowing what I know about Felicia Sanchez’s other Twitter presence and her very public discussion of sexual assault, which I find very admirable. I’m going to suspect that that had something to do with the suspension, though I don’t know it for sure. And I’m going to give it a nine. So our sexist rating is seven point eight reportand. Pretty sex, pretty Texas. Thank you for your slate plus membership. Our beloved listeners and keep sending us here is sexist questions. I think we just got a really good one today at the waves at Slate.com.
