Spring Books 2018
4/13/18 - We take a deep dive into some of the new books we're most excited about, with a focus on nonfiction: Brotopia by Emily Chang, Just the Funny Parts by Nell Scovell and Your Art Will Save Your Life by Beth Pickens.
Transcript below.
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CREDITS
Producer: Gina Delvac
Hosts: Aminatou Sow & Ann Friedman
Theme song: Call Your Girlfriend by Robyn
Composer: Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs
Visual Creative Director: Kenesha Sneed
Merch Director: Caroline Knowles
Editorial Assistant: Laura Bertocci
Ad sales: Midroll
LINKS
Brotopia: Breaking Up the Boys Club of Silicon Valley by Emily Chang
Just the Funny Parts: And a Few Hard Truths About Sneaking Into the Hollywood Boys’ Club by Nell Scovell
Your Art Will Save Your Life by Beth Pickens
Emergency Contact by Mary HK Choi
The Female Persuasion by Meg Wolitzer
Back Talk by Danielle Lazarin
The Book of Joan by Lidia Yuknavitch
TRANSCRIPT: SPRING BOOKS 2018
[Ads]
(1:00)
Aminatou: Welcome to Call Your Girlfriend.
Ann: A podcast for long-distance besties everywhere.
Aminatou: I'm Aminatou Sow.
Ann: And I'm Ann Friedman.
Aminatou: And we're in the studio together!
Ann: Same room, oh my god.
Aminatou: Same room. It is snowing hard.
Ann: Storms are raging because this is what happens when I come to the east coast in spring, it's not spring anymore.
Aminatou: I know, Hurricane Ann.
Ann: Hurricane Ann.
Aminatou: Northeastern Ann. It's a lot. Okay, what are we talking about today Ann?
Ann: Ugh, it's actually kind of a perfect bad weather topic which is books!
Aminatou: Books. [Laughs] You know how I feel about reading. Reading and writing is over, two years tops.
Ann: Oh my god, don't even lie to me. You read lots. You read a lot.
Aminatou: It's over in two years max.
Ann: Okay, the dying gasp of reading is something we are celebrating today with books we're excited about this spring.
[Theme Song]
(2:15)
Aminatou: First up I talked to Emily Chang who is a journalist in Silicon Valley and she's amazing. She's written this book called Brotopia: Breaking Up the Boys Club of Silicon Valley. And our conversation was really great. I can't wait for you to hear it. I always feel like I know everything that is messed up in tech and everything that is messed up in SV and it turns out that there's actually so much more of it.
Ann: There's layers.
Aminatou: There's levels to this shit. [Laughter] In the words of French Montana, levels. But yeah, Emily's book is a really comprehensive survey. It's like it has research; it has all of the history. And, you know, some solutions and what can change. But it's definitely very of the moment. It's like she could not have picked a better time to write this book. But I guess if you're writing a book about the boys club any time is a good time.
Ann: Literally any date, any season, and any century. Okay, so hit me with the truth if I don't work in tech, I am merely a lowly end consumer of technology. What is in this book for me?
Aminatou: So the reason that like -- you know, it's hard for women in every industry. There's nowhere that's just like "Oh my god, let's all find refuge here." The reason that tech specifically is so insidiously bad is that we've built up this myth of the meritocracy. All of the nerds think that they had to work so hard and fight all these jocks . . .
Ann: Earn their spot.
Aminatou: Yes, to earn their spot. And it's like hmm, I don't know how to tell you this now: nerds run the world now. And when you think about an industry that is literally building the future, that women are not represented there. And when I say women, I say like white women. Let's not even get into people of color. That's a book somebody will write in a thousand years.
(4:05)
Ann: Different level.
Aminatou: Yeah, different level. You know, when it's hard for white women it's like that's when you know shit is real.
Ann: Sure.
Aminatou: Yeah, so this book I think really puts that in perspective and in a historical perspective too because for those who know like computer science was a very female-oriented profession for a very long time. And it wasn't until it started being a thing where you could make a lot of money and was a thing that was very prestigious -- I don't know how you say that name, that word.
Ann: You got it.
Aminatou: That the tide kind of changed. And a lot of women have been written out of computer science history. And so it's really interesting to see the repercussions that that has had both at the VC level and at the daily soldier level too. I think you'll really enjoy this. You know how I love a non-fiction read that's grounded in facts and truth.
Ann: We're heavy on the non-fiction always.
Aminatou: That's right. So here's Emily Chang.
[Interview Starts]
Aminatou: Hi Emily. Thanks so much for joining us on Call Your Girlfriend today.
Emily: Thanks Amina so much for having me and for shining a light on this topic.
Aminatou: I am really excited. I read your book in one sitting, Brotopia: Breaking Up the Boys Club of Silicon Valley.
Emily: Wow, that is fast. I'm impressed.
Aminatou: It's fast, but it's because everything was true. It was like having a religious experience and being like mm-hmm, mm-hmm at every turn of the page. And as somebody who fled Silicon Valley mostly because of the same, you know, the toxic male domination issues that you talk about, it was really, really enlightening.
(5:45)
Emily: Well that means so much to me because obviously I know people like you have lived it. I honestly can't think of a higher compliment so thank you.
Aminatou: Yeah, well I mean let's get into it. You know, the thing about the book that I think is remarkable is that so many of the Silicon Valley books or surveys when it comes to women, they're all about shining light on the exceptions. So it's the Sheryl Sandbergs and the Marissa Mayers. And this was actually like a very complete examination using history, scientific studies, and so many interviews. I really appreciated that you let the subjects speak in their own voice about the male kind of culture in Silicon Valley. When you set out to do the book did you have a clear idea of the stories that you wanted to tell? Or did that unfold later?
Emily: I had no idea what this book would look like. But as I was doing my research I learned so much and realized there was so much that we all don't know about how and why we got here that I felt it was really important to talk about that. You know, I don't think that we can change things unless we really understand what the problem is. And so it really came together along the way.
Aminatou: Yeah. So one of the things that you challenge over and over again is the false assumptions and the excuses that a lot of people in power in tech make about the gender imbalance. Can you tell us a little bit more about what you found?
Emily: So first of all Silicon Valley styles itself as a meritocracy when in fact a true meritocracy is impossible to achieve and is used as an excuse to justify the success of the winners but completely ignores the discrimination and larger systemic factors working against everybody else. You know, the truth is we all come to the plate with different privileges. The escalator of life really is moving far faster for some than it is for others. And so I do think that actually believing that Silicon Valley is a meritocracy can actually make people behave more anti-meritocratically because you simply believe that everybody is in their right place and things are working as they should when in fact they're not.
(8:00)
Aminatou: I was really blown away by something that hadn't even occurred to me when we talk about the tech pipeline was how the requirements that male and female candidates really are subjected to are very different. And so you point out the Forbes Midus list of the standout venture capitalists and it just so happens that the women that are on there have to have deep STEM backgrounds but for the men it's a little more lax.
Emily: You're absolutely right. You know, I think there is a double standard when it comes to hiring women in this industry and there are so many incredible male investors who've succeeded with a background coming from journalism or a background in philosophy. And it was interesting when I was interviewing one of these venture capitalists who was a journalist earlier in his career and has made some of the best investment decisions in Silicon Valley history, he talked about how they're looking hard for women but not enough women are studying STEM. But what they're not prepared to do is to lower their standards. And, you know, let's talk about who's creating these standards and are they inclusive and are they different for men than they are for women? And I think to be frank the industry needs to raise its standards because it's been making a lot of bad decisions.
Aminatou: Whew, you can say that again. Who is going to option Brotopia to be an award-winning documentary? Because that's really -- reading it that's all I could think of. It's like the tech industry really prides itself in being evidence-based and having researched, straightforward facts. And I was like well, this book does that. And unfortunately the tech companies don't do that themselves.
(9:50)
Emily: Well I can't say too much but I have had some interest from Hollywood which is super exciting.
Aminatou: Yes, that's perfect.
Emily: And it's fascinating because when I started this book the Me Too movement hadn't really taken off and Trump hadn't been elected and so there was so much about this cultural moment that I just did not expect but I really benefited from the collective courage that women have really summoned over the last year to tell their stories and speak up, whether that is in Silicon Valley or in Hollywood or in Washington. I walked into the book without an agenda, and I'm a journalist. I've been trained my entire career to be objective and so it sort of goes against every bone in my body to express my opinion when I knew that ultimately writing a book wouldn't be worth it unless I take a stand. And I take a stand, I mean my book is called Brotopia which is a pretty strong statement.
Aminatou: [Laughs] Yep.
Emily: But it's because this is what I truly believe. You know, Silicon Valley is a modern utopia where anyone can change the world if you're a man. And if you're a woman it's incomparably harder and there are women in so many industries that are running up against these walls. And I'm so excited to see more women everywhere banding together to help break those walls.
Aminatou: You know another thing that you touch on so much is just the history of software and of computing and the role that women really played in developing that software. So I'm wondering really what else did you find that was really surprising to you when you were writing this?
Emily: The history was actually to me the smoking gun. And you're right that a lot of people don't understand how it all unfolded. They think Silicon Valley and tech was always this way and therefore always will be this way. But in fact what I found is that women played vital roles in the computing industry in the early days. The were programming computers for NASA and programming computers for the military. It was really like Hidden Figures but industry-wide. And then in the '60s and '70s as the tech industry was exploding they were desperate for new talent and so they started doing these aptitude tests and personality tests to identify good programmers.
(12:10)
And two psychologists who were working on these tests decided that good programmers "don't like people." Well if you look for people who don't like people the research tells us you'll hire far more men than woman.
Aminatou: [Laughs] Wow.
Emily: I'm glad you're laughing. And there's no research to support this idea that men are better at this job than women or that people who don't like people are better at this job than people who do. In fact there's a great argument to be made that we need people with empathy to be building these products. But these tests were widely influential and used by tech companies -- I'm talking companies as big as IBM -- for decades and really perpetuated this stereotype of the anti-social, mostly white male nerd that many people think of when they think of computer programmers.
And what's interesting is so many people said to me "Oh, TV and movies, they created this idea." When in fact the tech industry really did and it was repeated in TV and movies and unfortunately it's a stereotype that shuts out more than half the population.
Aminatou: Yeah, that is shocking to me. Can we talk a little more about where your book and then the Me Too movement intersects?
Emily: Absolutely. So many women have been speaking up but I think it's still really hard. What I think is interesting about the Silicon Valley part of this movement is that while women have come forward it hasn't had the same amount of momentum that we've seen in Hollywood where you've got the Times Up movement and donating millions of dollars to the legal defense fund. And I think that's part and parcel because you have women like Reese Witherspoon and Selma Hayek and people that we all know who can come forward and speak about this in award ceremonies whereas in tech women work at companies. They're often signing non-disclosure agreements agreeing never to speak about anything that happens at the company to the public. And so a lot of this stuff has really lived in the shadows, and so I had 12 women engineers over to my home for dinner and they all have been living this day after day being the only woman in a room over and over again and they're tired. They're exhausted. You know, tired of doing all this emotional labor which they feel like is an entire second job.
(14:30)
But they're so excited about doing their part to change the world and so the industry just really needs to do a lot of hard work not just to attract more women but to keep and progress the women that we have because we need their perspectives and the products that we're developing. I mean we don't want all of the discrimination and bias that already exists to be rewritten into new algorithms if AI and machine learning are going to become only more powerful. Like facial recognition technology for example is already sexist and racist. It doesn't recognize women and people of color as easily as it does white men and that is because of who has been creating these products for so many years.
Aminatou: Man. You know, one thing that was really instructive for me was seeing how your -- the roll-out of your book happened initially because there was an excerpt in Vanity Fair that talked about, you know, the salacious kind of sex parties that were happening. And seeing so much of the coverage and the media glom onto that when really it's just a couple of pages in the book, you know, it wasn't surprising but it made me a little disappointed also in how tech media reports on its environment. What did you think about that?
(15:52)
Emily: Right. So the book is 95% about not sex parties so I don't know if that's going to encourage or discourage some readers. [Laughs]
Aminatou: Encourage them. Please read the book. I mean the salacious stuff is great but it's also, you know, it really was such a small part of the book. Really I'm like well the sex parties are the least of some of these people's problems. It is wild out there.
Emily: Right, there is so much more. You know, ultimately I think so much business in Silicon Valley happens outside of the office. So whether that is in the hot tub or the hotel lobby or the sidelines of a conference or at the sex party business deals are getting done and relationships are getting made in these social situations where women have been put in uncomfortable situations.
And, you know, the Bay area has long been a place of sexual exploration and sexual liberation and that is great. But for women to participate in some of these activities, unfortunately they're being held to a double standard. And for men to go it's cool and for women to go it's not, you know? They're discredited and they're disrespected in work. And so for many women who as the book discusses can't catch a break in Silicon Valley, you know, they're sort of damned if they do and damned if they don't.
Aminatou: Yeah. Another thing that was really discouraging to me was in the chapter where you talk about the two VC firms who are competing over basically one same female venture capitalist. And it never occurs to them to expand the application pool because all they care about is this one person and thinking about how VCs recruit and the power that they hold to change this dynamic.
(17:40)
Emily: Absolutely. And these venture capitalists are kind of the king and queen makers if you will of Silicon Valley. They have billions of dollars to invest in the next Facebook, in the next Google. And unfortunately most of the people making the decisions at these venture capital firms are men and most of them are white men who have already made a lot of money. And I can't tell you how many of them have said to me "Well, we're looking so hard and we just can't find the women." And, you know, you can't tell me that in four decades some of these firms couldn't find a single woman to hire.
Aminatou: The women are not there, Emily. The women are in hiding. [Laughs]
Emily: Right. I'm like I know so many. I can list 20 women right now off the top of my head. What's really exciting to me is seeing some women leave these firms and start their own firms. And it's going to take time but they are gradually building new funds and new brands and I hope that means that more women get a chance to start the next Facebook or the next Google or the next Apple because it's so easy to say well look at all the wealth these companies have created. Look at all the wonderful things they have built. But I think about what could've been if women had been at the table at these companies from the very beginning. Like I interviewed Ev Williams who is the co-founder of Twitter and he told me that he thinks online harassment and trolling wouldn't be as big a problem as it is today if women had been on the early Twitter team.
Aminatou: Wow.
Emily: He said "We weren't thinking about that when we were building Twitter. We were thinking about wonderful and amazing things that could be done with it, not how it could be used to send death threats or how it could be used to send rape threats." I mean just imagine if the Internet was a friendlier place because women had been there from the beginning. And it's impossible to prove a hypothetical I know but let's not wait another 30 years to answer this question.
Aminatou: Whew. Who are some of the women you think in Silicon Valley that we should be paying attention to right now?
(19:44)
Emily: So many women. So many women. There's a woman named Janica Alvarez and someday I think I might have to write the story of the amazing women because there were just so many that I couldn't fit in the book. But Janica Alvarez is running a smart breast pump company. She has three sons and when they were running out of money she packed her family into a minivan and they gave up their house and they went on a road trip for a month to save money and bank some extra runway.
Aminatou: Wow.
Emily: So if there are venture capitalists out there who think women don't have what it takes to make the sacrifices necessary to run a company they just need to look at women like Janica Alvarez. There are so many incredibly talented and driven women out there and we need to give them a chance to do their part to change the world.
Aminatou: Man, you sound optimistic about the future.
Emily: I am optimistic. You know, I don't think I could do this if I didn't believe that things could change. And the reality is the "smartest people" in the world, they can hire women and pay them fairly. The pay gap in Silicon Valley is five times the national average. So for an industry that loves data we just need to look at the data to see what we're doing wrong. And so at this point I think that ignorance can only be willful. We can't say anymore that we didn't understand because I've written 300 pages about it. We know this is a problem.
Aminatou: [Laughs] Yep.
Emily: But let's have a meaningful conversation about how we move forward.
Aminatou: Emily, you are a bad-ass. Thank you so much for writing this book and for talking about this issue because you're right, it -- you know, the future is being built in Silicon Valley and it's a huge shame that so many of us don't get to participate in it. So I hope this will change that tide but thank you so much for coming on the show.
Emily: Thank you so much for having me and for all of the great talks you do about books. I have such a greater appreciation for what a good book is now having gone through the process of writing one and the work that you guys are doing to share these books with the world is so important. So thank you.
[Interview Ends]
[Music and Ads]
(24:45)
Aminatou: And next up I spoke to a very funny lady, Nell Scovell, who wrote Just the Funny Parts: And a Few Hard Truths About Sneaking Into the Hollywood Boys' Club. So if you don't know now you should. She wrote Lean In with Sheryl Sandberg. That's probably a way that a lot of people who are not into television know her.
Ann: Who's not into television?
Aminatou: You know.
Ann: Me. [Laughs]
Aminatou: People who don't like television history. She's a big deal show runner. She was the only woman in David Letterman's writers room for a long time. She's been speaking the truth about how atrocious TV is. We've spoken about how atrocious tech is but at least you get paid well. TV is not the same and is like very -- yeah, it's like 1950s bad.
Ann: Mm-hmm.
Aminatou: Then you have to listen to dumb men tell you jokes the whole time. So Nell is a legit hilarious lady. She's been around the block and she's also just very generous with her insight. Like the stories -- there's a way this story could've been written in her memoir where it's just like a horror buffet. [Laughs]
Ann: Right, just complaints. Complaints.
Aminatou: Yes, complain, complain, complain. But she is funny and she is generous and she wants a solution too. She wants more women in TV. And it is really incredible though that by her sticking it out for so long and being the one -- the squeaky wheel for so long -- it's the reason that so many more women get a shot at running their own shows. So if you like Sabrina the Teenage Witch like I did you can thank Nell for that. Season one of Charmed, you can thank her for that too, and so many -- so much more. This is a great book if you like pop culture.
[Interview Starts]
(26:30)
Aminatou: Nell, thank you so much for coming on Call Your Girlfriend. I'm so excited about this.
Nell: Oh me too.
Aminatou: You were the creator and the show runner. for Sabrina the Teenage Witch, a show that I love. You wrote Lean In with Sheryl Sandberg, have done so much in TV. You wrote for Late Night. You are hilarious on your Twitter account.
Nell: Oh, thanks.
Aminatou: You know, and I think it's possible to be a funny woman but also talk about very serious things. And probably to some extent the humor is what makes it a little bit harder to swallow because some of the scenes in your book are very raw.
Nell: Well I didn't want to write about my three favorite things which are comedy, writing, and equality. And . . .
Aminatou: [Laughs]
Nell: And they all sort of weave in together. You know, you can't really separate any of them from my life.
Aminatou: You also talk about how you think women of this new generation are starting out a little less naïve. Every generation thinks we've figured it out. Not even generation; every decade.
Nell: Yeah.
Aminatou: Women think they're the first to go through toxic work environments.
Nell: [Laughs]
Aminatou: Or to have to deal with all the garbage that we have to deal with. And I don't know, I thought that your exploration of it was a reminder that 1) we stand on the shoulders of two many giants and that 2) the conversation really hasn't moved all that much.
(27:50)
Nell: No, I sat in the audience for the Emmy's in 1990 and of the five series that were nominated for best comedies three and a half were created by women. So this is 1990. I'm sitting there thinking this is solved. Everyone knows that women are as funny as men.
Aminatou: [Laughs]
Nell: And these shows weren't just cult favorites; they were also among the top ten most popular series. And it's just shocking how we moved backwards from that time.
Aminatou: Another thing that you talked about about being a show runner. was the line -- it's stuck with me so much -- where you quote your friend saying that being a show runner. is like being beaten to death with your own dream. [Laughs]
Nell: It's my friend Liz Friedman, she's so funny. The other quote I love is running a show is like piloting an airplane while the passengers throw rocks at your head. And you just want to turn around and say if I go down we all go down.
Aminatou: [Laughs]
Nell: And it is truly one of the frustrations in Hollywood that there's not more emphasis on building consensus. It's this very hierarchical industry which by the way we know from studies leads to more harassment because you have this absolute power at the top. Because it really should be a mission-based pursuit, right?
Aminatou: Yeah.
Nell: And the mission is to make the best, most popular show possible. And that's what everybody wants. Too often it's just it becomes this battle of the ego.
Aminatou: I mean I find that fascinating that you say that that's the outcome that everybody wants is to make the most popular, best show. That's really hard to stomach when you see the shows that are on TV right now, when you see who gets green-lit for projects.
Nell: Yeah.
(29:50)
Aminatou: Who gets opportunities. It's like we see this all the time whenever a woman's movie does well or a woman's TV show does well. They're like "Oh my god, can you believe it?" And we're like yes, we can actually believe it because we are the ones that consume this media.
Nell: Right. I was once talking to a Late Night writer who was trying to make an excuse for why there were no women in the writer's room and he said "Well we're writing for a white male boss." And I said "No you're not." And he said "What?" And I said "You're writing for the audience." Right?
Aminatou: What a novel idea.
Nell: And he was like "Oh my god, I've never thought of that." And it's like how can you not think -- like that's the whole gig of being a writer. One of the points I tried to make in my book is I actually don't think men and women write differently but I do think they bring different experiences to the creative process. I once was writing an episode for Warehouse 13 which was this really fun sci-fi show and in this episode one of the agents became magically pregnant. And I'd written the outline and I did this funny runner where she has an acute sense of smell which is something that happened to me when I was pregnant. And one of the executives says to me "So this heightened smell, is that really a thing?"
Aminatou: [Laughs]
Nell: And I said yes and they were like "So you didn't make it up?" And one of them goes "Oh, I told you she didn't make it up." It occurred to me of the seven people on this phone call I was the only one who had been pregnant.
Aminatou: Oh wow.
Nell: So that's why the women do bring different storylines and different experiences and different attitudes. And it's not that they write differently; it's that they live differently.
(31:45)
Aminatou: The thing is this, that you are a supremely funny person. That is not up for debate. And there's something about that that's probably very intimidating to a lot of the men that you worked with.
Nell: One of the big struggles is even once you get to the table at a high level, you know, how do you make people listen to you? And there was one show that I was on recently where I used to take breaks from the room and go ask the other women on the show "Am I corporeal? Can you see and hear me?"
Aminatou: [Laughs]
Nell: Because I just felt so invisible. The listening is something I think the men have to work on.
Aminatou: Some of the things that you talk about I'm just like okay, HR violation, HR violation.
Nell: Yeah.
Aminatou: They're not cutesy stories. I was like this is literally the horror show of being the only woman at work. Do you think that some of that has changed in Hollywood? Or is it still the same?
Nell: I don't know. I mean cultural bias is just so deeply woven into our society and women are as susceptible to it as men. I tell a story about backing away from my own success even on the work I did with Sheryl Sandberg on Lean In and just not wanting to take credit because we know when women take credit for things we pay a price. So I think we're in the awareness and I hope moving into the action part of the equation right now but I don't think we're at the change part yet. Do you?
Aminatou: I mean I don't think so. It certainly doesn't feel like it yet.
Nell: I know. And I always feel so badly because it sounds like I'm not being hopeful. I do think it's important for me to think we can change things.
Aminatou: I mean I guess I'm hopeful for some other woman out there in the future. Hope is not even the way I would couch that. It's that in some ways all women want to do is go to work and be taken seriously as professionals.
Nell: Right.
(33:50)
Aminatou: It's 2018 and that's still not possible in so many industries? Like that still blows my mind.
Nell: Right. And it isn't just about Hollywood. This is about where we all work. I've had people from very different industries say "Oh, I recognize that behavior." You know, women getting ditched for lunch by the guys who go off.
Aminatou: Yeah!
Nell: Except we wouldn't care about except you talk about business when you go to lunch.
Aminatou: Right.
Nell: And that makes it harder for us to do our jobs.
Aminatou: They'll go to lunch together. They have experiences together. They empathize for each other more than they do for you. It's just . . . I'm still wrapping my brain around that. I was like wow, everything is changing but nothing is changing.
Nell: Well I tell that story about the two guys who start every day talking about their fantasy football league and how when a woman in the room told a story about her honeymoon, which was relevant to the story-creating process, and then one of them turned to her at the end and said "Thanks for telling that story in real-time." And I just wanted to leap over the table and throttle him, you know?
Aminatou: [Laughs] Yeah.
Nell: Because it's like I wanted to just say I have listened to all of your stupid fantasy sports talk.
Aminatou: Right.
Nell: And never made you feel bad about it, and now you're making her feel like she wasted your time? It's crazy.
Aminatou: I mean it is crazy-making. Another point that I love that you make, right, is that it really is about having a healthy gender dynamic instead of a dynamic that completely marginalizes women. I'm thinking back to the Friends case where there were all types of crass jokes being said on the set and the California Supreme Court judge said it was okay to make some of those jokes, right? That it doesn't always automatically qualify as sexual harassment. But the thing that I really took from that is in this moment, like a lot of men I talk to are like "Well does this mean we can't talk to women? We can't work with them?" And they're backing away because they don't know how to engage. And I was like no, that's not the point that we're making. We're saying that we want to work with you in a healthy way and not be marginalized from the thing that we love doing.
(36:20)
Nell: Right. Like there's all this talk about men saying "Can we even hug women at work?" and my response to that is always you can hug women if you also hug men.
Aminatou: Yes. [Laughs]
Nell: And for the same amount of time and the same amount of closeness.
Aminatou: Nobody's getting hugged.
Nell: No. And by the way I've thought back on things I've said in the room and sure I've crossed lines. You know, in the book I say if no one's ever told you you've gone too far and you're a comedy writer then you haven't gone far enough. But if people are constantly saying you've gone too far then you're an asshole.
Aminatou: [Laughs] I mean that's true. That's your job.
Nell: Right? So that's the Friends case. It is part of your job to go too far and some of them went into asshole territory. But I do think you need to feel safe in the room to say anything but I actually would add an amendment that's as long as it doesn't make other people feel unsafe. That's where I think people trip up is these white men feel very confident and comfortable all the time and don't necessarily understand that not everyone feels as comfortable. So I feel like we need to spread the discomfort.
Aminatou: One of the pieces of advice that you give is very harsh but I love it and I think everybody should get it tattooed on their body is don't follow your dreams; follow your talent. What do you mean by that?
(38:00)
Nell: So I entered college wanting to be premed. My grandmother had wanted to be a doctor and that wasn't available to her so I sort of had this dream that I would not just live this great life for myself but also for her. And I promptly get a C+ in biology my first semester freshmen year.
Aminatou: [Laughs] That'll do it.
Nell: At which point I thought okay, maybe I need to look at something else. And the truth is what I was really good at was writing and it's actually what I love more than science. So I think we can have these very childish notions of what our dreams should be. You've got to try a lot of things because you don't know what you're actually good at until you try it. And by the way taking a risk should be the easiest thing in the world, right? Because if you try something you've never done before and you succeed that's amazing. But if you also try it and you failed you have the best excuse which is I've never done this before.
Aminatou: Yes! But so many women need -- they feel like they need permission to try new things.
Nell: Yeah, so I hereby give you all blanket permission to try something and fail.
Aminatou: Yes! I can't wait to send you my terrible screenplay now. [Laughs]
Nell: [Laughs] I will read the first ten pages.
Aminatou: Thank you, that's all it takes. You've famously written about the super toxic atmosphere on the Letterman show. I won't even get into that, but do you know if David Letterman has read your book?
Nell: I sent him a copy which I signed to him and he sent me a lovely thank you note wishing me continued success which was -- he is a very polite man.
(39:50)
Aminatou: Wow, okay. I'll take that. What has been the reaction from other dudes that you've worked with or just men that have read the book?
Nell: So the reaction of men has really made me happy. I think the book in some ways is more eye-opening for them than for other women and because the shows I worked on like The Simpsons and Letterman and Monk were these traditionally very male-appealing shows I think they can relate to my life and my sense of humor in a way that allows them to see how my gender affected me.
Aminatou: Male comedians, I'm telling you, I don't know if they're funny. Somebody should look into it. [Laughter]
Nell: No, they're funny. I love the Chris Rock special. I just watched that the other night.
Aminatou: Listen, some of them -- listen, Chris Rock I think works for some stuff. I've always liked his commentary about personal things.
Nell: Yeah.
Aminatou: But he's notoriously been very bad when he talks about gender and everybody gives him a pass. I'm going to have all the comedy bros come after me because now I'm like eh, Chris Rock is fine. Dave Chappelle is fine. They also had their moment in the sun. I was like the reason some of it is not funny to me anymore is because our culture has shifted so watching Dave Chappelle turn really offensive trans jokes to me mostly is just sad.
Nell: Yeah.
Aminatou: You have not kept up with the culture in the way you think you have.
Nell: Yeah. You know what I'm loving so much these days is Another Period.
Aminatou: Oh my god, love. So good.
Nell: And Riki Lindhome and Natasha Leggero are just working at a level of cultural intelligence that is so delicious. It's everything I love too about Monty Python. It's so absurdist but grounded in that cultural knowledge. So smart.
Aminatou: Right. The real aristocrats of Bellacourt Manor. [Laughter]
Nell: They're going over Niagara Falls in a barrel and they think they're going to die and I think it's Lillian turns to Beatrice and says "I just want you to know that I really loved being rich."
(42:10)
Aminatou: [Laughs] Oh my gosh. Listen, anything about the Edwardian era fame does it for me.
Nell: Oh, and Mister Peepers and Lady Dodo, that is a love for the ages.
Aminatou: Oh man, all I want to do is go watch TV. You've like -- I'm going to hang up and go watch TV. But no, I really wanted to say thank you because you have been writing about these issues and fighting these battles for a long time when you were the only one in the room and you don't get a lot of credit for that. Like I know that my life has been made better because of a lot of the work that you've done and a lot of young women's lives have changed. And so I hope that you know that. Like we get to go to Hollywood and we're not the only women in the room because you said and you did everything that you did so thank you.
Nell: Oh, thank you. That's so nice.
Aminatou: It's true! It's not nice, it's true.
Nell: Okay, it's true.
Aminatou: It's true. It's true.
Nell: And it is one of the things where I try to tell men it's not enough to just encourage women who want careers in comedy. Like you've got to help them and you've got to advocate them and you've got to hire them.
Aminatou: Yep, just hire them. I'm like if they don't work out fire them but hire -- my god hire them.
Nell: Give them a chance, yeah.
[Interview Ends]
Ann: I love that Nell's sneaking in and Emily Chang is breaking up in the boys club.
Aminatou: [Laughs] Boys club book club.
Ann: I mean, yeah, unfortunately most book clubs right? Okay, next up I spoke with friend of the podcast and long friend of mime, the woman who made me a feminist, Beth Pickens.
Aminatou: Babe town.
(43:52)
Ann: I mean the best. I've known her since college, before she was the big author of a book called Your Art Will Save Your Life which grew out of a . . . I guess it was kind of like a zine pamphlet that she did in the wake of the 2016 election for the artists that she works with and artists out in the world. So Beth kind of does this hybrid consulting in terms of where do artists get money and how are they funded and how are they organizing their lives? And also therapy. And she has a full roster of artists and she wanted to write this book because she has a lot to say to people she does not have room for in her client roster. And I would argue she has a lot to say to all of us even if you do not self-identify as an artist which we will also talk about with her about how do you balance the things that bring you joy and the things that you enjoy doing in this world with your desire to change this world and be a person of activism and politics and resistance?
[Interview Starts]
Ann: Hi Beth.
Beth: Hi Ahh.
Ann: Welcome back to the podcast.
Beth: I am so glad to be here.
Ann: So this book, you say it's a love letter to artists. Tell me what that means.
Beth: I love artists so much, they're so important to me. And I'm not one but I work in the arts. I've built a whole career supporting artists through fundraising and career consultation through my background in counseling and psychology and I want them to know how important they are to my life and that I know how important they are in really challenging political times.
Ann: So I'm someone who's had difficulty identifying myself as an artist even though I make things creatively. Maybe you can talk a little bit about how you define, like for the purposes of this book, who is an artist?
Beth: Right, totally. My understanding of an artist is a person who is compelled to make things, to be creatively engaged, in order to be alive. That they actually need to make the stuff that they make in order to understand the world, to communicate their ideas and feelings and thoughts, and to connect with people. And that's actually different from people who don't need that. And sometimes I think artists, because they are themselves and they know a lot of other artists, they don't realize that's not a universal experience. Not everybody does that; it's distinct and special. And I for instance do not need to make things in order to process being alive but I really need to take in other people's art.
(46:10)
Ann: Is the advice that you give to artists about just generally navigating and running their lives the same sorts of things that you would tell someone that doesn't identify as an artist? How is it different?
Beth: A lot of the advice I have for my artist clients is relevant to people who are creatively engaged but not artists or do lots of other things and aren't artists as well. Because, you know, it's sort of like basic adult financial information, how to live a life. For some reason I know a lot about it. I don't know why. It's a confluence of different circumstances. I have a lot of advice to give and people from many different sectors seem to relate to it.
Ann: About money and self-care and organization?
Beth: Yeah. How to attend to all the different parts of a modern life. It's very clogged. And now not to neglect -- how to keep attuned to all the different parts of your life so you can have a whole life and enjoy it while it's happening.
Ann: So then there's like the just get through your life stuff but then there's also this component of what we were talking about earlier in this political moment where this is something that I saw not just of artists but of a lot of people in my world who were like oh my god, my job is not overtly political. Maybe you can talk a little bit about the parts of the book that address that and how art and life and activism or living your beliefs all can live harmoniously.
Beth: I think it was a really common experience regardless of a person's sort of career trajectory or orientation after the election to feel like whatever I'm doing is not enough. Wherever I am is not enough, because it was such an extraordinary moment and it's really normal I think in shock and grief to have that kind of response that I've got to change everything about me and how I live in order to do extra or more somehow.
(47:55)
And the reality is no matter what else an artist does, whether they run for public office or go to law school or all the other things that their brain tells them to do when there's some sort of a political upheaval or something else, they're also going to need to make art. And also all other people too. No matter what's happening you're also still in your only life. So even if we make big changes that are in service of our beliefs there's still all the other parts of our life that come back to the surface too. And I think it's highly typical and normal that when something shocking happens like our current president situation, when something abysmal happens politically, when there's another person murdered by the police, when there's another gun -- just an onslaught of things that we experience in contemporary life -- that we think I need to change something in order to address it. But we don't usually need to change anything because where we are is fine. Wherever a person is, whatever they're doing, anything can be shifted slightly from exactly where they are. I think it can be a distraction to think that I can't be helpful or of use or good enough until XYZ has happened, then I'll be enough, or then I'm doing my fair share of something. And I think that belief is just not accurate and that wherever everybody is okay. Wherever you are, you're exactly where you're supposed to be. And you can be of service to the kind of world you want to create exactly where you are with what you have available.
Ann: One of the themes in your book is kind of like coming back to what works for you or tailoring things that work for you and your life and your art practice, and thank you for citing Shine Theory. But I do think that that's an area where people tend towards if not jealousy then sort of idealizing other artists or other people around them and sort of saying "Look, I see this person over there who seems to be doing activism better." Or "I see someone who seems to be making all the right strategic choices in their career." And how do you bring your clients, or how do you hope people who read this book come back to themselves and their own path?
(50:00)
Beth: I use the phrase compare and despair. When we look at somebody's outsides and compare them to our insides we will always come up short because we're making a lot of assumptions about another person's life based on what we think is happening or what we're seeing on their Instagram account or what they're even just telling us through a smile. We don't actually know. You don't know what it's life to be in somebody else's life, and it's none of your business. It's not your life, right? So the first thing is comparing leads to despair. Admiring and sort of seeing aspirational goals, that's great because that tells you more of what you want then you can start on a path towards it. But comparing our insides to somebody else's outsides will leave us feeling hollow.
And so -- and I do it too because I'm just a person and all people do this. We sort of look at other people and think oh, they have it figured out or they're doing better than me. They're at a better place in life. Just compare, compare, compare, then I feel full of despair that I'm not enough. My life's not enough. I should be somewhere something else. And I think something the flips that line of thinking very quickly is a really easy cognitive tool which is just making a gratitude list about your life right now as it is. And rather than looking at everything that's wrong sort of get grounded in everything that's fine and having gratitude for that. And then from that emotional and cognitive space think about what do I want more of and what is the next step in that direction?
Ann: I want to talk about some of the FAQs in this book. It's an FAQ for oppressive political climates and I think regardless of our relationship to the word artist most people listening to this probably experience that.
Beth: They find this climate unfavorable.
Ann: Yes, exactly. So I have this idea where I want to do an FAQ lightning round with a few of these.
Beth: Oh, I love it.
Ann: And have you answer in one sentence.
Beth: Perfect. I love a constraint.
Ann: I know, right? Me too. Same. Okay. Should I stop making art and go to law school or run for public office?
Beth: No, you must continue making art no matter what else you do if you are an artist.
(51:58)
Ann: Is making art trite or self-involved right now?
Beth: No, it's excellent because first you need to do it so that you're well and second I need you to do it so that I can be well.
Ann: Given the amount of collective work needed to make change how will I make time for my own practice?
Beth: Your practice can be reformed as one of the forms of self-care you have in your life and it can't be neglected the way your body, your mind, your emotions, and your finances can't be neglected.
Ann: Ugh, okay. And I think that this is perhaps for me the crux of a lot of these questions about politics and where to start. How and where do I enter? There is overwhelming need and urgency which is a very -- can make us all feel scattered and insignificant and, yeah, overwhelmed. Where do we start?
Beth: Start locally where you live picking two priority areas, one that affects you directly and your life quality directly, and one that affects you less directly or indirectly but maybe more directly affects somebody who is more vulnerable than you in this climate. I prefer -- my recommendation is tell people to go narrow and deep rather than really broad and shallow in terms of justice-seeking action because you can have more of an impact and it's more sustainable for a long term for you.
Ann: Yeah. Thanks Beth.
Beth: Thanks Ann.
[Interview Ends]
Aminatou: That was amazing.
Ann: Ugh, I want a Beth hologram to pep talk me every day to just appear in my room.
Aminatou: Every day. She's the best.
Ann: Okay, that was a lot of non-fiction. What else are you reading?
Aminatou: Ugh, you know I love non-fiction. Fiction is hard. You've got to use your imagination.
Ann: You've got to use someone else's imagination when you read fiction.
Aminatou: I know! But I'm like too many feelings. I'm like oh, this is literature that transforms people. I can't handle that.
Ann: You're not ready.
(53:48)
Aminatou: So since we last did a books episode I have not read any . . .
Ann: [Laughs]
Aminatou: . . . non . . . I have not read any fiction.
Ann: I feel like this is like you coming to class without your homework, like "I have not read any fiction."
Aminatou: I know! I'm like seriously I didn't do my homework but I'm not ashamed of it so I'm going to tell you. But here are the two books that are on my nightstand right now.
Ann: That's a start.
Aminatou: I know. First up -- you know, we get a lot of books. Sometimes you don't want to read them.
Ann: It's true, my reading ambitions far outpace my reading time.
Aminatou: I have a pile for ugh, not going to read this and then I have a definitely going to read this pile.
Ann: It's true.
Aminatou: And these two are at the top of the definitely going to read this and we'll check back in. First is Emergency Contact by incredible human being Mary HK Choi. She is one of the funniest writers and talkers and everything on the Internet. So apparently if you're into teenagers who are good at texting and all of that stuff this is the book for you. I will report back. And the next book that I'm reading is The Female Persuasion by Meg Wolitzer. This is her twelfth novel.
Ann: Prolific.
Aminatou: Twelve.
Ann: She's Joyce Carol Oatesing at this point.
Aminatou: Like twelve novels. That's insane. This one is about female mentorship and inter-generational feminism so I'm very excited about it.
Ann: Ugh. I feel like this is one of those books that has been pre-buzzed so hard, like I'm going to have to read it in order to stay relevant.
Aminatou: Yeah. The cover is so good too. I'm not going to lie, it's like even if I didn't know her and I didn't care about the topics on the strength of the cover alone I would've picked it up.
Ann: Have you -- I know your stance on fiction but I have to ask anyway, have you read any of her previous eleven novels?
Aminatou: Yes.
Ann: Okay. Do you have a fav?
Aminatou: The Interesting. A great book.
Ann: I have also done a particularly poor job of reading fiction lately mostly because I've been reading a lot of memoir.
Aminatou: The other fiction.
Ann: It is true, right? The narrative about your own life, fiction you tell yourself. I read a great short story collection called Back Talk by a writer named Danielle Lazarin, a super-compelling -- often short stories are hard for me because I don't really get into a flow with a book, like I finish one or I finish two or three then I set it down and it's hard to get motivated to pick it up again because I'm not like in the narrative. But these were great. Strong recommend. That was out earlier this year. And then I also recently read The Book of Joan by Lidia Yuknavitch.
Aminatou: Ooh.
(56:15)
Ann: Which is a genre of fiction I almost never read which is like dystopian future.
Aminatou: So this is not Joan of Arc?
Ann: Well it is kind of a modern -- futurist Joan of Arc story. And yeah, I mean already living in a dystopian present it's hard to get into dystopian future fiction.
Aminatou: Yeah, yeah.
Ann: But a lot of her takes on what's going to happen to the earth and the horrible people who run it and everyone else who lives on it, you know, it's a lot to handle but it's incredibly well done. And you know how sometimes you're in a book and you're just like this is an entirely created world? Like this is good not because of feeling seen or because I love this character but because it is a complete immersion into something else? That is what this book is like. And yes, if you're interested in Joan of Arc I feel you should pick up this book.
Aminatou: I want to rewind to two things. That thing that you said about a world that's created, you just the case for Game of Thrones. And then I want to rewind even further back [Laughter] to where you talk about short stories. I didn't know that about you. I -- so short stories for a long time were the only attention span I had for fiction. I was like oh, this is why I love Allison Monroe. She's just like five pages, let's get out of here.
Ann: The bite-sized Snickers of fiction. Yeah.
Aminatou: Yeah. And I was like I can handle this. And so literally my whole life was just buying Allison Monroe books. [Laughter]
Ann: I mean there are worse ways to live.
Aminatou: Right. But I was like oh, short stories? More people should get into this.
Ann: I really need to Scrooge McDuck deep into a narrative, you know? Like I high-dive in and then stay in there a while and yeah.
Aminatou: It's too many feelings. It's too many feelings.
Ann: We also have to tell you about a book that the two of us co-wrote an essay for. It's called Period: 12 Voices Tell the Bloody Truth and we have an essay in it about periods and friendship written as a back-and-forth. Bonus is that McMillian, the publisher, has agreed to donate two dollars to period.org for each preorder they receive before May 8th up to $2,000. So period.org, their whole thing is they give these period packs to people who are in need of menstrual hygiene products. So it is a great idea if you're interested in this book to preorder it so that you can also help out someone who needs menstrual stuff. And check it out. We'll put a link to it in the show notes so you can preorder and buy it at your favorite indie bookseller.
Aminatou: Readers are leaders. [Laughter]
Ann: We're going to link to all of these titles in the show notes and thanks to Beth and Emily and Nell for coming on the show and talking about their books.
Aminatou: You can find us many places on the Internet, on our website callyourgirlfriend.com, you can download it anywhere you listen to your favorite podcasts, or on Apple Podcasts where we would love it if you left us a review. You can email us at callyrgf@gmail.com. We're on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook at @callyrgf. You can subscribe to our monthly newsletter The Bleed on the Call Your Girlfriend website. You can even leave us a short and sweet voicemail at 714-681-2943. That's 714-681-CYGF. Our theme song is by Robyn, all original music is composed by Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs, our logos are by Kenesha Sneed, and this podcast is produced by Gina Delvac.
Ann: Special thanks to Destry Maria Sibley and Shanica Powell for production assistance on this episode. See you at the bedside table with the giant stack of books.
Aminatou: See you -- see you at home.
Ann: See you on the Internet.