Ask A Man
4/20/18 - We're taking 4/20 off to get stoned, but fear not, some of our favorite men are here to perform emotional labor in our stead. They answer questions from listeners and from us, including: Why aren't men funny? Why are men so emotional all the goddamn time? And, can men have it all?
Transcript below.
Listen on Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Overcast | Pocket Casts | Spotify.
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
TRANSCRIPT: ASK A MAN
[Ads]
(0:48)
Aminatou: Welcome to Call Your Girlfriend.
Ann: A podcast for long-distance besties everywhere.
Aminatou: I'm Ann Friedman.
Ann: And I'm Aminatou Sow!
Aminatou: Hey girl!
Ann: Happy 4/20.
Aminatou: Happy 4/20! I don't even know why we're here because this is a holiday.
Ann: Okay, we're not here. We are prerecording this because we're taking 4/20 off.
Aminatou: Right, because it's a national Call Your Girlfriend holiday.
Ann: It is true. When we run the world all people will given the chance to take this day off except for men.
Aminatou: Right. And, you know, some of you write into the show all the time and ask us why we don't talk about men on the show and why we don't talk about our men on the show or whatever. Well today's your day. We have only men on the show today. In fact they're going to do all of the labor that we do for you.
Ann: All the emotional labor.
Aminatou: For you, for free.
Ann: So yeah, we reached out to several men we love and we asked them to answer your questions. We asked them to answer some questions that we have about men in the world generally. And now we're just going to go hang out and get stoned in our sweatpants because we're not working today.
Aminatou: I know. I might could be stoned right now. [Laughs]
[Theme Song]
(2:35)
Cord: Hello, my name is Cord Jefferson. I'm a TV writer for shows like The Good Place and Master of None. I'm also an IRL friend of Ann and Amina's. I do not know what they are doing this week but if history proves anything they're probably somewhere stoned in elegant caftans. A listener writes -- bear with me because it's long -- "I have a question about a recurring situation that happens at work with male colleagues. I've observed that men tend to ask me questions like are you okay? You look upset. I've had the word upset used three times in the last two weeks. Women do not ask me these questions at work. Wanted to know if you have experienced this, if it's the new 'You look tired' and if you agree that it may be a subtle form of sexism, that we're supposed to perform mother/wife on some level even at work. What frustrates me more is that I find myself performing cheerfulness after this interaction in a pretty inauthentic way, plus the men that ask me aren't my closer work friends and are usually older/in positions of power. Sidebar, the most recent time this happened I just went ahead and said 'You know, men seem to ask me that question a lot at work.' And this male coworker's response was 'Oh no, I don't look at you that way. You're much too young for me,' which is a whole other issue. I w hasn't implying sexually in any way. Barf." [Laughs]
(3:55)
Okay, I would say that that's . . . I wouldn't even say that's a subtle form of sexism; I would say that's an overt form of sexism. To me this goes sort of hand-in-hand with the idea of when people say resting bitch face, this idea that women need to look cheerful and happy at all times otherwise they must be in some deep sadness or upset in some way. And so that performative cheerfulness that you're talking about, I worry that that -- that women do tend to do that sometimes in these kinds of work situations. I also think that what it suggests is that a lot of men besides sort of that overt sexism of women should be smiling also really sort of want to pat themselves on the back for being the guy who cares and wants to come over and sort of baby you and ask you if you're all right and offer you a shoulder to cry on because obviously you're a woman who's in pain.
I would say that it's totally within your right to tell those guys to fuck off. I mean maybe not those exact words because these are your colleagues but I think it's totally fine to say, you know, "Yeah, I'm fine. There's no reason to go around babying me because I don't have a smile plastered across my face." I also think there's something else to talk about which is that it's okay to look unhappy at work. Work -- jobs are not fun a lot of the times. It's okay to look upset. I think Americans are obsessed with this idea of cheerfulness and customer service and all this but hey, if you're having a bad day at your job it's okay to not plaster a smile on your face. That's emotional labor that isn't required of you. It's okay, man.
"Why are men such bad drivers?" Good question. I would say the studies show that men are actually much worse drivers than women. I think that I read -- I'm not going to look this up, this is off the top of my head so whatever, but I'm pretty sure that I remember this correctly -- men are responsible for over 90% of car accidents that result in a serious injury or fatality. Nearly 100% of those accidents are men. Our car insurance costs more, and there's a reason for that: it's because we are shittier drivers than women. We are more unsafe. We're angrier. We're more aggressive. We also tend to drive more aggressive cars so faster cars, cars with bigger engines, more powerful cars, so we tend to speed a lot more than women.
(6:18)
So the reason that we do all of that I would say is because we want to look cool and tough and we want to seem aggressive and we also don't like when somebody cuts us off because it seems like it's a slight to our masculinity. And so I think that men are such bad drivers for the same reason that men are bad at a lot of things which is toxic masculinity.
Thomas: "Can men have it all?" That's a tough one. Yes. Men can have it all. A lot less is expect of me to do the same amount of things. [Laughs] No one's asking me invasive questions about my family planning. None of that in my experience, especially having not always lived in the world as a man, I think men can have it all. I think men have had it all all along and now I know that for sure.
Hey CYG listeners, my name is Thomas Page McBee. I'm an author and culture writer and I have a book coming out called Amateur which is a big take on masculinity in America today. Okay, so one listener writes "Long-time listener, first-time emailer. I'm a senior leader, director of product design, at a fairly well-known tech company. We've been holding internal workshops around how to invest in junior women, how to support their growth, etc. We study the research and share tips and tricks amongst the leadership team but I found myself stuck on one particular topic. TL;DR, how can ladies effectively promote themselves and their achievements at work? There are all kinds of traps here, e.g. the likability trap. I want to model this behavior for the junior ladies who report to me. However I never learned this skill myself. Self-promotion makes me very uncomfortable and when pressed to do it I've suffered some spectacular, very public belly flops that made me run and hide in my cave of shame."
(8:10)
So that's really upsetting. And I was interested in answering this question because prior to my transition I was very visibly queer so I was in a female body but dealt with some different things than maybe this woman is speaking to. But I definitely had a very different work experience and wasn't take nseriously and struggled to sort of succeed and to get recognized for my achievements and all the things she speaks to. And after my transition literally when I would speak at work people would listen, like my voice would quiet a room of people. I think my salary changed much more rapidly. I was promoted faster, just all kinds of things. And I did a lot of research for my book around this and talked to this great woman Caroline Simard out of Stanford who did a great study on particularly the way performance reviews work and how women are given more vague performance feedback whereas men are given more concrete performance feedback. If you think about the implications of that, obviously if you know what you need to change you can change it and if you don't you can't. And so so much of this is true and I know that the writer knows that but I just want to say I feel like as a man I should say that and acknowledge it and sort of validate that experience because it's really real.
And I think the answer to the question is really -- I can't mansplain the answer so I'm not going to but I think it's a really hard thing to answer because the structural and cultural issues at play here are so deep and real that I don't think there's a quick fix for how can women suddenly change something themselves to fix a structural problem that is sexism at work? I don't think you can lean into that. [Laughs]
(10:00)
But I guess it sounds like she's doing everything right, you know? I think she's aware that this is an issue. She's researching it and thinking about it and trying to find a way within these problematic cultural landscapes to ask these questions and model it for her team and to bring that to her workplace. And hopefully she has a supportive work environment where people care about this question and want to engage her with answering it. And it sounds like I don't have a specific answer like "You should do this more" but I think asking the question and trying to change it and realizing it's not your specific failing, it's a cultural problem. But engaging with it and trying to solve that problem is really important and good and a great model not just for the women around you but for the men around you too. So, you know, I think you're doing everything right.
Female: Thank you I guess?
Chris: Hello Call Your Girlfriend listeners, my name is Chris Roan and I work in New York City where I work in advertising. And the question is "Why don't men wash their damn faces?" which is such a good question and this is 100% confirmed, not a myth. Men do not wash their faces and I'm here to tell you about it. Men are just not under really extreme pressure and scrutiny to look great all times and I think in general are less worried about the signs of aging especially before they set in in their 20s. It's just completely an afterthought. In general men have it way easier than women.
The second issue is I think a lot of men feel that skincare somehow threatens their masculinity and this is something I have looked at a lot in my job in advertising. But even just how the products are gendered in marketing. For women it's beauty and skincare and if you look at the products and the packaging they talk a lot about the ingredients and they talk about the effects and they talk about the science behind it. There's just a real straightforward acknowledgment of what the product is and its relationship to you and how you should use it.
(12:15)
For men it's really buried under this kind of turbo hyper masculinity. First of all we don't even call it skincare, we call it grooming, even though it has probably nothing to do with grooming in most cases. And the names themselves are absurd. There's things like Fresh Force and Swagger and Face Fuel, all these other kinds of nonsense. I think a lot of men really care about their skin but they feel a little locked into this framework and they don't quite know how to access the category of skincare and don't know how to access the products through all this bullshit. So men get hydrated, get moisturized, liberate yourselves. There are some really great products out there and I'll talk about a couple of the ones I am using lately that I really like.
I have to first give a huge shout-out to my wife Claire Mazur, founder of ofakind.com. She has played such a huge role in my own personal skincare awakening and has introduced me to a couple products that have become kind of the bedrock of my daily routine. For example Cremo moisturizer which I use every single day. This company is amazing. It was founded by a petroleum engineer and I dug into it a little bit on the Internet and it seems like this is the same person who popularized the whiteboard. So this is whiteboard money [Laughs] now being put to use to make my face look supple and young which is a great use of money.
(13:55)
And then lots of sleep. I'm at an age where my eyes are getting a little baggy and puffy kind of no matter what but if I don't get enough sleep the bags under my eyes have their own little bags, like little carry-on bags, and there's no amount of face wash or moisturizer that can help me at that point. So it's really important to get a lot of sleep for us old, older-washed gentlemen. That's why men don't wash their faces.
Ezra: Hello. I'm Ezra Klein, host of the Ezra Klein Show podcast and editor-at-large at vox.com and I'm happy to be here on Call Your Girlfriend. So I've got two questions here. First is "Why are men so shit at friendship?" That's an important question. If you search men and friendship you will get a series of articles about not just that men are bad at friendship because we literally are, it is literally the case that we have fewer friends than women do and particularly as we get older we have fewer and fewer and fewer friends. Tons of us have no friends at all and the resulting loneliness becomes a huge health risk. If you search this you'll find things like a Boston Globe article on how loneliness and not obesity or smoking are the single biggest threat to older men's health.
You often see that the patriarchy hurts men too and this is a huge way it does. When I was young I -- and I still do -- I was really lucky to have male friends who are still my closest friends today that were really emotionally into relationships. People I talk to on the phone all the time. But a lot of male friendships, and I saw this a lot as I got older, and I don't know, my context changed somehow, male friendships have a lot more to do with activities. I think there's a lot more discomfort, particularly among young men, about friendships that are based on talking about what's going on in your life, talking about how you're feeling.
(16:05)
But if your friendship is based on activities, if it's based on you hang out and you play video games or you go and you do sports together or whatever manly things we're supposed to be doing then as your life changes as you move away or you have children and you get married and you have a job and all the rest of it happens well how do you keep those friendships up? Because material that they were based on is no longer there, and so the friendships fall away whereas -- and I saw this again and again and again with the women in my life -- if you're able to have conversations on the phone and the material for the friendship is actually what's going on in your life and what that meant to you and the insight your friend can give you on that, well then distance and changes are not as threatening.
When I moved to college and then I went to D.C. I was really, really stunned to find I was the same person but all of my friendships or I should say maybe most of my friendships had lost the intimacy of those early friendships for me. It just didn't seem normal. It didn't seem natural. It didn't seem like it would be accepted. I had not had friends in a very long time who it would be normal for me to call on the phone and I can't really explain why that is. But it's a real problem and this is a place where men have a ton to learn from women. A ton to learn from how the women in their lives conduct friendships, a ton to learn from shows like Call Your Girlfriend. This isn't like just a stereotype about us; we really are bad at this and it hurts us. It hurts our happiness in life. It hurts our health. It changes our life prospects.
(17:40)
And it sucks. It sucks to not have people to tell about what's going on with you. We should not be so caught up in the stereotypes of what maleness is supposed to be that we can't actually have relationships with people about our own lives. It's weird.
Okay, my second question which is a little bit more on my normal lane is "Are you able to offer any book recommendations for somebody who has moved away from a conservative right upbringing but is becoming more and more liberal all the time? Talking about myself awkwardly in the third person. Very luckily I live in a country where our right appears to be generally more liberal than the American left but reading about how to deal with the identity crisis of shifting politically and how to navigate that and subsequent conversations with beloved family and friends would be really helpful at the moment."
So I do have some book recommendations for this. One of the things I think is great about this question is that it's about political opinions as an identity. And I think recognizing that our political opinions do over time come to form an identity, particularly if you feel strongly about them, is really important. So I'm not here to recommend a book on why liberals are right about everything or wrong about everything. I don't think that those books, of which there are plenty, are going to help with a particular life issue at issue here.
There are two really good books on politics as an identity that I've read in the past couple years and I recommend here. One just came out. It's by Liliana Mason who is a political scientist at the University of Maryland and the book is called Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity. And it's a book about how our identities -- because we all have lots of them at any given time -- they used to be cross-pressured with our politics. If you told me that you voted for a Democrat or a Republican in 1960 I wouldn't know that much about you. I wouldn't even really know if you were a liberal or conservative. Back then, Democrat or Republican, you had very liberal Republicans and you had very conservative Democrats and I wouldn't know with any serious accuracy what kind of TV shows you watched, what you thought about race, what you thought about religions, what parts of the country you lived in, were you urban or rural?
(19:50)
Now these things stack on top of each other and so the identity, it becomes a super identity and it's a huge weight and it becomes very, very hard to see ourselves in others because so many parts in our identities are stacked between us and them. This is a great book about how that happens and about what it does to the way we think, about what it does to the way we see other people, and if you want to think about what is happening to you as you make this change and in part why this change might've happened to you in the first place I think that book is a good place to begin.
Another book here that I think is worth reading is Jonathan Haidt's The Righteous Mind. That's H-A-I-D-T. And Haidt's book is cool because it's really about how people of different political persuasions think. And I'd say it has two halves to it. One half is serving the research in this field generally which is super interesting, all the stuff about motivated cognition and how we reason towards the attitudes we want to reach, but then a lot of it is the research that made Haidt well-known which is called moral foundations research which is about the ways people on the left and people on the right, they refer to different moral values when they look at the world. They refer to different moral foundations when they are trying to understand politics.
And recognizing that the literal brains of people on the left and right actually differ, or at the very least their fundamental personality traits differ in ways that help explain their political divides, I think can be helpful if one of the things you're feeling is either alienation from your new tribe or your old tribe or both tribes simultaneously because the way you think about things might still be a bit in the middle. So those would be my two books, Liliana Mason's Uncivil Agreement and Jon Haidt's The Righteous Mind. That said I hope Ann and Amina are extremely stoned right now and it's a great 4/20 and I appreciate them giving me an opportunity to talk to you all. So yeah, have a great 4/20.
[Music and Ads]
(25:25)
Bobby: Hi, I'm Bobby Finger and I'm a writer and co-host of the podcast Who Weekly so I'm going to begin with one listener question: "I recently came out as bisexual around three years ago. I'm currently dating a world. I came out in a very conservative place so I haven't hooked up with many women. I've kissed a few women but my current partner is the first woman I've had sex with. I feel like I'm struggling to embrace my bisexual ability and I don't really know what it means to me. I also think people wouldn't really believe that I'm part of the LGBTQ+ community because I've only been with one woman. Is it okay for me to claim that identity? I want to explore more but I've really only heard of people doing that in a sexual way through experimentation. I do love my girlfriend and I don't want to break up with her. What's a way I could explore that identity more for myself while in a relationship? Are there ways for us to explore it together? I'm also my partner's first girlfriend. What helped you embrace your identity? Speaking of sex we're both new to this whole thing and what are some places you get ideas on what to do in bed? I know you mentioned in one episode that communication is important but I don't know what I like in bed. Another source of anxiety. So how can I figure that out with my partner?"
I'm going to answer these one-by-one but I'll start by saying congratulations on making a new discovery about yourself. That is hard. It's amazing. You should be proud of yourself for not only figuring out but starting to embrace it, or based on the question, wanting to embrace it. You asked if it's okay to claim that identity. Yes. You can't let anyone else tell you that you are not who you think you are. It's okay to claim that identity. You have to be confident with that first of all. Yes, claim it. It's your identity. It's not anyone else's. If anyone tries to tell you otherwise which I think fewer people will than you expect them to don't let them.
But yeah, it sounds like you are a little hesitant and nervous about this new piece of yourself so the best thing I can say not as a bisexual person but a queer person is that if you're worried about not feeling quite right in this new and still developing identity you just got here. It's overwhelming and it's new and the best thing you can do is enjoy getting to know the area. You know, it's a new town. It's a new community. You know, go to queer-friendly spaces whether they're in real life or online and get to know the community. Get to know everyone who lives here. Meet people. You will soon come to learn, or maybe you already have, that by and large there is nothing the queer community loves more than a new member. So be open about that. Don't hide the fact that you are new to town and find out where in this place you feel most comfortable. You won't fit in everywhere but you will fit in somewhere, maybe even most places, and it's really all about exploring.
(28:00)
And what's great about this is that you have this partner who's also new so you can do this together. That's a great way to get to know each other and to get to know, like I said, this new place that you live. You asked what helped me embrace my identity. It was being friends with people who embraced their own. There's nothing more inspirational than someone who embraces every single bit of themselves and there are few better places to find people who embody that attitude than in the queer community. These are some of the most confident and inspiring and wonderful people you will ever meet. It is a fierce confidence and a comfort that just oozes out of people and it will spread onto you. So get to know your fellow bisexuals and queer people.
So when it comes to the second part of your question about being new to sex with women, something I -- spoiler alert -- have no experience with, it's really just a continuation of what I said before. First of all this is an annoying question but does your partner know that she's the first? You didn't make that clear. I don't want to assume she does, so start there. If she doesn't nothing is going to be comfortable with you. I don't want to recommend like oh, watch porn together. Oh, go to a sex shop together. Oh, do XYZ or any specific activity that could potentially help open things up for you in that department because honestly not everyone likes doing all of those things. So this is annoying but it truly all starts with communication and you're going to hear that a lot but get used to it.
Maybe during, maybe as foreplay, who knows where this conversation will be most comfortable for you? But first she has to know that she's your first. And it sounds like she does. You said she's new to all this too. And honestly it sounds like you're both getting to know the lay of the land so to speak at the same time, so that's good, so talk about it. Talk about your options. There's no easy way around it. There isn't.
(29:45)
So talking about sex will be uncomfortable with this person until you actually do it. And then the more you do it the easier it will get. This sounds like a dodge but it isn't. It's the only way to begin the question and it's the end of the question too. Not talking about it the frustration that you feel right now will only get worse the more you let things go unspoken so stumble through it all together and it will be messy and annoying but then it won't be and it will be worth it. Like I said you're new here. Get to know it all. Enjoy it.
Question two, "Why aren't men funny?" Honestly I'm trying to answer this simply and the best I can do is if you want to know why men aren't funny just look at Billy Bush. That's the -- just look at Billy Bush. That's why men aren't funny. They're not funny because by and large they never had to be X to be perceived as X. They -- we, I can't keep myself out of this narrative -- their legacy is too everything. Everything is a legacy. Everything is inherited. They never had to be good at their jobs to get a promotion. They never had to be good at parenthood to have children, to have more children. They never had to be funny to get laughs from their idiot friends. You know, they never had to do X to be seen by X and that's why men aren't funny because they've never had to be funny. Just look at Billy Bush. That's the best I can do. This is coming from an un-funny man.
[Ads]
(32:40)
Jason: I'm Jason Parham. I'm a senior culture writer for Wired Magazine. I'm also the founder of Spook, a literary journal by and for creators of color. Here's a listener question: "What would you say to someone, or hypothetically your long-distance bestie, who's working towards a professional or personal goal that feels sometimes unobtainable? I'm working towards going to law school but the cost of even applying and the LSAT and with the difficulty of law school it seems unobtainable. How do you stay motivated with such big goals?"
So I'm a big advocate of tapping into the village of people around you. Who can you lean on for support whether that's mental support, whether that's financial support, or just as an escape from the work itself? When I came to New York about eight years ago I just finished grad school and I was wanting to be a writer and make a name for myself in the city. I was wanting to work at a big magazine or a paper but I didn't have very many connections, I didn't know anybody, and the mountain in front of me seemed so insurmountable. It didn't seem like I could climb it.
But I began to slowly surround myself with people who were doing inspiring work, who inspired me to keep going, and a lot of that was very motivating for me. It kept me going, kept me moving forward. So I think the people around you can be a great source of light, a great fuel during difficult times. But there's also part of this that's troubling and I want to caution you against the idea of falling prey to the kind of thinking that makes things seem like they're unobtainable. There was a piece written in 2016 I believe by the writer Ayana Mathis. It was called On Impractical Urges and it was a piece on realizing ambition and feeling like we are worthy of our dreams no matter how audacious they are. And I want to quote from it real quick.
(34:20)
"We made our way without a road map, or even a road as is the case for those of us who were by virtue of race and class and gender barred from the paths to success. We have dreams aplenty, some realized and some not, but the manifestation of our ambitions is not a given and isn't even a given that we will recognize our right to have them." As she goes on to say and what I want to say to you is throw all of that out. You are worthy of your dreams. This is not unobtainable. Getting into law school is doable. But the thing is you have to do the work. You can't not do the work. So I think that's the most important part: surround yourself with people who inspire you, surround yourself with people who can offer support, and just do the work. And I think the road may be a little longer than expected but you'll get there eventually.
"So why are men so insecure about their bodies?" I definitely don't think men are more insecure about their bodies than women or gender non-conforming individuals on the whole. I do think that society forces women to be defined by their bodies more than men so maybe women are just more practiced or more experienced in discussing their bodies or they have a language for it that men don't. And so we're not capable or we're not proficient enough or attuned enough to being vulnerable our own bodies and so maybe we've just gotten better at masking it. I don't know if that comes off as insecurity, but I don't know if I'd say we're more insecure about our bodies.
(35:48)
I mean I do definitely think bodies have taken on a strange resonance within the last few years or maybe even the last decade with the rise of selfie culture, with platforms like Instagram and Snapchat, where we're just inundated and flooded with images of bodies on the daily. But then again that works both ways, right? So you might see images that make you feel insecure about your own body or you might see images that make you feel very confident and that are empowering, you know? So I definitely think it comes down to two women just having more of a language in being able to speak to their own bodies and their own experiences as opposed to men. But I think also society is just the way we're conditioned, the way patriarchy sort of conditions us to translate these experiences.
(37:00)
Chris: This is Chris Roan in New York City again. Question: "I've been pretty unlucky in love and sexual violence. I've had sex with six people both within relationships and one-off things. I often felt disconnected from my body and it took me ages to start liking sex. During university I was sexually assaulted which took me a while to work through. When I was 23 I met a seemingly great guy through online dating. He helped me work through lots of these issues and I eventually started liking sex but after some serious cervical issues and a breakdown in communication our sex lives became acrimonious. Unfortunately this ended in him raping me and me leaving him and I've suffered from delayed PTSD. It took me nine months to process it before this appeared and anxiety for the three years after. It sounds crazy but I was very much in love with him and I felt heartbreak as well as the fallout from the trauma. I'm now 27 and really want to be in a long-term relationship but I'm worried about the amount of baggage I feel I bring to a relationship, especially around sex, and I'm worried about trusting men. Do you have any advice for how to approach dating and discussing this with new partners?"
(38:08)
Well first of all I'm just so, so sorry about what happened to you while you were in university and in your relationship. I really am. It does not sound crazy at all that you loved this person and I can only imagine how hard it must've been to have someone that you trust and care about do something like that to you. I'm so sorry. I obviously don't know you at all but it seems like you've done a lot of really important processing and healing since then to even be in a place now where you're interested in opening yourself up to somebody. I'm really blown away by the resilience it must take to get to that place.
I think the fact that you've survived and worked on all of it over the past few years is actually an enormous gift and is really something you can bring into your future relationships. Of course I wish you hadn't had to go through this in the first place but the fact that you're here now I think says a lot about what you can bring into a relationship moving forward. In my experience the biggest threat to a relationship is when one or both people involved have some unacknowledged hardship or trauma in their past. You know, something lingering they haven't fully dealt with, something they haven't processed or come to terms with, so that they can move forward in a healthy way. And to also include their partners in that process of healing and tell them how to deal with it, how to navigate it.
I've been on both sides of this in past relationships and in my opinion being able to endure and process hardship and include your partner in that is one of the best things you can bring into a relationship. And it seems to me from your question you've done a lot of the processing, so in terms of approaching dating moving forward I think you should be really confident and comfortable being honest and candidate with anyone that you start seeing moving forward. You know, telling them what you've been through, help them understand where and how you've processed it, where you've sort of remained sensitive to certain issues like look, this is what I've been through; this is how I feel. I'm really sensitive about X, Y, and Z and if I react in this certain way I just want you to know it's because of this.
(40:24)
How many relationships don't work because people misunderstand one another? And I think the key to that is this kind of self-awareness that I detect in your question. So my hope for you is that you can find somebody with as much self-awareness and consideration as you have and I really think the person that you're with should see that as a really good thing and not baggage as you put it.
If anyone listening is asking similar questions or going through kind of a similar situation the RAINN Network seems like a great place to begin. They have this really simple site that helps to surface local counseling, legal criminal justice resources, all kinds of really helpful stuff. So if you are interested check it out at centers.rainn.org, RAINN spelled R-A-I-N-N, and take a look for yourself.
Spencer: Hi, I'm Spencer Ackerman. I'm a national security correspondent for The Daily Beast and thanks very much to Ann, Amina, and Gina for allowing me to fill in while they take a well-earned vacation. So I have no qualification for giving anyone any advice as a great deal of my life experience demonstrates but let's address some listener questions.
(42:10)
So this is a pretty intense one. I'm going to read it out. "I live in the San Francisco Bay area and recently started dating someone this year after being single for over a year and a half. We are totally falling in love and it's awesome. My guy is originally from Trinidad and moved to New York City at age seven. He overstayed his visa -- his parents' decision -- and has been living undocumented in the US ever since and has never left. He joined the DACA program six years ago which allowed him to work on the books and eventually fulfill his dream of moving to San Francisco three years ago. He's been in the city ever since. Now the predicament I'm writing you about is not solely about his unfortunate situation given Trump's recent news to end DACA. I'm a white woman from a fairly conservative family in Southern California. I've always been the black sheep and taken a liberal stance on politics but I've always made as much of an effort as possible to maintain a positive relationship with my family. However when I confided in my mother about how upset I was at the terrible situation my boyfriend is in currently with the repeal of the DACA program she sighed and shamelessly and literally compared herself to an ostrich saying it has always been easier for her to stick her head in the ground when it comes to politics. When I replied that that mindset would do more harm than help she snapped that crying about it wouldn't help either. We ended the conversation and I sent her a long typed message trying to explain the situation further so she could better understand why it is in fact upsetting and to let her know that I'd actually been contacting our California representatives rather than just crying about it. I told her that I loved her and I hoped she'd understand why I was so offended at her comments. She's not responded at all.
Though my parents have a history of steering clear talking politics I can gather enough info on their stance on immigration from the fact my dad used the term illegal aliens in conversation complaining about the lack of jobs in their small town earlier this year. I guess my question is how the hell do I navigate this? I want to get through to my parents and change their mind before ever having to involve my boyfriend in a conversation explaining their ignorance on immigration but I'm afraid this will never be the case. He spent the majority of his life steering clear of relationships due to fear of feeling like a burden to his significant other because of his status as an immigrant -- he's 30 years old -- and it would break his heart to hear that the parents of the first person he's fallen in love with are like this. I really have no idea how to navigate this situation."
(44:30)
Well I don't envy you. Your instinct to keep your boyfriend away from your parents' bullshit is good. I would work on them separately primarily because you can't put him in a position where he serves as a test or a catalyst for expanding the moral imagination of white people, nor should he have to experience your parents' apparent conviction that he's less human than they are. Really a caution here, changing their minds is not going to work probably. That's kind of going to be something they come to themselves or they don't. But if the goal is to get your parents to defend undocumented immigrants and they're already using terms like alien the result is likely to be increased acrimony on both of your parts. If on the other hand the goal is to keep your mother, your father, and your boyfriend in your lives working to what sounds like a point where they interact amicably with one another here's some approaches that might be worth trying for whatever they're worth.
Empty first. Whatever they feel about DACA as a political issue -- it sounds like they're not pretty hot on it -- might be best left to decide from an immediate approach. You can suggest that they consider what it's like for your boyfriend. He comes to this country as a child -- that's outside of his control -- his family chooses to overstay their visa -- that's outside his control as well. His legal status from DACA to this new post-DACA phase is out of his control. This is the only country he knows. That's out of his control. Maybe they've been in situations where they've had a loss of control. You mentioned the job market issue. Maybe it's dealing with a health insurance company, navigating a legal issue, interactions with the bank. What if that was everyday life for them? That tenuousness, the anxiety of uncertainty, and the consequences are potentially irrevocable, being at risk of the government forcing them to live somewhere unfamiliar, a process that will involve them being detained before being expelled.
(46:20)
Now what if they could help someone who has to live with that anxiety just by treating them like who he is? The person who he is, whom their daughter loves. They don't have to solve DACA; they just need to accept Steve or whatever your boyfriend's name is. They can do that then you have the germination of a healthy family relationship and it's up to them to absorb the broader policy lesson or not. If they can't then there really isn't anything to talk about and you have to make a hard choice, one that again can involve making Steve feel like the wedge between you and your parents. This isn't Steve's problem. It seems like you understand that and you accept it and you're working on it admirably.
Another approach which you can use in concert with this one is leverage. And I speak as a parent. Your parents are in all likelihood desperate for your love and you can use that to your advantage. If they can't accept Steve and afford him the dignity they would expect others to show them then you can't be around them and you should make that clear to them. This is their choice to make: what's more valuable to them? Your love and proximity or their desire to never have to think about the damage that the maligned neglect or active hostility of the over class has on millions of people who are at home on their own country? Good luck with this. I don't envy you again and it sounds like you have the right approach. Keep in mind again that they probably don't want to change and that's going to be a really impactful aspect of all of this.
(47:40)
Emmanuel: Hey CYG fans, I'm Emmanuel Hapsis, producer and host of The Cooler, a weekly pop culture podcast from San Francisco's NPR station.
Jorge: This is Jorge Rivas and I'm a reporter at Splinter where I cover race, politics, and immigration. And I'm a big fan of this podcast so we would probably be good friends so you should follow me at @thisisjorge.
Emmanuel: Let's get to this listener question. I don't have a name here so we're just going to call this listener Miss Mangie (?) and if you don't get that reference Google it. It will bring you joy. Miss Mangie writes "The guy I'm seeing right now I met through a friend and we started dating shortly after. He is incredibly sweet, attractive, and great at expressing his feelings to me. We also have the best time together. We can definitely make each other laugh and I don't think I've ever felt so comfortable around a man I have romantic feelings towards."
Jorge: But there's a big but. She says "Bae isn't woke. There's a part of me that's hoping I can change his views but he's a pretty stubborn guy. Whenever I debunk his arguments he can't accept it. For example we were discussing the Me Too movement and all of these stories about sexual harassment in the workplace. I can tell he falls in line with the camp who are ready to believe that a woman is lying about sexual assault rather than to believe them. He also pulled out the classic argument that men can get sexually harassed too."
Emmanuel: "He then had the audacity to frame being sexually harassed in the workplace as an opportunity for advancement." Girl. "Do I break up with him? XOXO Miss Mangie."
Jorge: All right, let me stop the car right there. 1) That is not a classic argument. Anyone who does not really acknowledge that . . . yes, I mean it's true that men get harassed too but if you consider the power dynamic of the number of women who are sexually harassed compared to men that is a completely separate conversation. So if this man is coming at you with that argument you really got to question where this man is coming from.
Emmanuel: Oh Miss Mangie. [Beeping] Do you hear that? Yeah, that's the sound of a garbage truck backing up into your driveway coming to collect this man of yours because I'm sorry to break it to you, he is trash. Like the trash that has a pungent juice associated with it. And I know breaking up sucks. No one wants to do it but sometimes it is necessary. And I feel like this is one of those times.
Jorge: I mean I cover politics every single day and so I'm sort of enveloped in people who have all kinds of views. And oftentimes you can really in your gut have a sense of whether they're on the fence of an issue where they really don't know where they stand or whether they're just misinformed or whether they're just fucking crazy. And you've really got to figure out if this man is just misinformed or if he's really just a troll.
Emmanuel: And judging from the tone of your letter it seems like deep down you already know what this answer was going to be and that it's time to cleanse yourself, [0:51:10] this man out of your life. I mean think about it this way: if this was the right guy for you you wouldn't have to write into your favorite podcast about what an insensitive, problematic fool he is. I'd like to revisit one of the first lines in your letter, quote "He is incredibly sweet, attractive, and great at expressing his feelings to me." Okay, let's go through this together: he is incredibly sweet. I'm sure he has his cute moments but I don't think you can consider someone who has such backwards opinions about harassment incredibly sweet. Incredibly misinformed? Yes. But incredibly sweet, hmm. I don't know.
(51:48)
The next adjective in this sentence is attractive and I believe you. He's probably smoking hot which makes his whack-ass opinions that much more unfortunate. And maybe you're dickmatized and that's why you've given him the benefit of the doubt up until this point. I've been there. It's okay. But in the immortal words of Cher . . .
Cher: Snap out of it!
Emmanuel: Come on, Cher said. Dumping this dude will be a way of thanking Cher actually for starring in the surprisingly delightful Burlesque with Christina Aguilera. Don't you want to do that? Yeah, you should.
Jorge: And I think that one of the things you want to look at is is he listening to you? If you're having the same conversation over and over and he's coming back with the same arguments then that man that you feel really comfortable with is not listening to you. And so you've got to decide whether that's something you want to put up with or not. If he's listening to you then maybe this is someone you do want to invest your time and energy with and you need to figure out if you want to burn more calories with this man.
I've also learned in my relationships that oftentimes when you think it's not going well it's not -- like you should just trust your gut. If you think that it's not working and you've had this feeling for a few months it's probably not working.
Emmanuel: And now the final piece.
Jorge: So this listener also asked if she should break up with this man. I don't tell people to break up with anyone because half the time they end up back together and you're the friend that told them to break up and now you have to hang out with them. I don't want to be that person. So I will leave you with a quote, allegedly one of Oprah's favorite quotes also so I love it twice as much because of that. Here it is. It's from Maya Angelou: "When someone shows you who they are believe them the first time."
Emmanuel: But it seems like he's brushing you off and belding (?) your experience as a woman and it sounds like there's some gas-lighting going on as well.
(53:54)
Jorge: I'm going to read that one one more time a little slower. "When someone shows you who they are believe them the first time."
Emmanuel: And I'm here to tell you you're not crazy. His worldview however is and that's something that's hard to dismantle especially when someone is entirely unwilling to be changed.
Jorge: And that's what I'll leave you with. You have to decide if this man is listening to you.
Emmanuel: A) Take on the emotional labor of continuing efforts in trying to educate and talk sense into this person.
Jorge: And whether you want to invest any more of your time in him.
Emmanuel: Or B) Find someone who already gets it and has respect not just for you but for all women. Do you really want to have to spend a bunch of time teaching your partner not to be an asshole when you could use that time to get to know yourself better or to spend more quality time with your family and friends or to meet a different bae who comes fully realized and already woke? Imagine that. That would be so nice and you deserve that. I want to give you props for listening to that nagging voice that was telling you these weird conversations that I was having with this guy that I otherwise like are not okay with me and that's the same voice that convinced you to write into Call Your Girlfriend in the first place. It's time to listen to that voice. Good luck Miss Mangie. You've got this and we've got your back. And now for a stereotypical question about men.
Jorge: "Why are men so emotional all the goddamn time?"
Emmanuel: Okay, I know pamplemousse is delicious and all but my favorite flavor of La Croix is male tears. Mmm. So salty.
(55:40)
Jorge: I think for starters men are kind of dumb when it comes to articulating how we're feeling. And what that means is that when we don't know how to express what we're feeling or we don't have the vocabulary to talk about our feelings we become these earthquakes, like we just become these awful people that you don't see coming.
Emmanuel: But for real no one mopes harder or feels sadder for themselves than straight white men, and that's because there's been a long patriarchal legacy of them being at the top because of who they are, not what they can do. And slowly but surely women and minorities are finally getting their rightful shine and this is putting some mediocre dudes and their feelings, in the immortal words of Pepper LaBeija of Paris is Burning . . .
Pepper: Ah, suffer.
Emmanuel: Joking aside, as much as I rag on straight dudes, in my daily life and in this recording, there is a small part of me that feels a little bit bad for them. I know, I know, cue the sound of the tiniest violin. But it's not entirely their fault that they're like this.
Jorge: And I think that we can also be impatient and when we don't get what we've been raised to believe we were entitled to I think we don't know what to do. We can't function. And so what happens is you get moody-ass men or man childs, men children. And it's true, we're moody. Objectively and subjectively. I'm a reporter so it's true. Men are moody.
Emmanuel: From a really early age society tells boys that it's a sign of weakness to express any kind of emotion unless it's anger. That one's allowed. So they learn to bury it all deep down so no one questions their masculinity or calls them gay or a sissy on the playground or whatever. Spoiler alert, that kind of disconnect between mind and heart is not healthy and usually leads to the festering feelings mutating into just plain old anger and rage. And this hurts men but it also hurts anyone who comes in contact with these men who process in this way. They don't end up having a firm grasp on empathy and feel they only have one avenue to express their emotion and that happens to be this explosive, angry, weird kind of dark energy. And it's just kind of sad. I'm beyond honored to have been able to pitch in a little this week so Amina and Ann can take a much-deserved week off to bliss out and treat themselves and get high and do whatever they want. I adore both of you until the end of time. Bye!
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 Sienna Fekette and Cassie Waggler for their production assistance on this episode.
Aminatou: See you on the Internet.
Ann: See you on the Internet. [Laughs]