This Glass Shovel Brigade
5/25/18 - We let our aggressive word nerd selves out to play. Why the Glass Cliff is an imperfect metaphor for women who get promoted after men fail (glass shovel, anyone?). Al Franken and what's next for #metoo men. Plus, your questions: is it okay to call a group of women "hey guys"? And how to deal with a fragile male ego at work.
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
Laura McGann on Al Franken + letters she’s gotten from men who miss him
Kate Manne on what misogyny is really about
Leeann Tweeden’s statement
#MeToo doesn't lack nuance. Its critics do
The writings of Andrea Dworkin
TRANSCRIPT: THE GLASS SHOVEL BRIGADE
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. On this week's agenda, why the glass cliff is an imperfect metaphor; Al Franken and what's next for Me Too men; plus listener letters about using the phrase "hey guys" and what to do about managing a bruised male ego in the workplace.
[Theme Song]
(0:50)
Aminatou: Heller Ann Friedman!
Ann: Hey boo. Hey. How're you doing?
Aminatou: [Laughs] You know, I'm doing pretty good actually. You kind of helped me recalibrate when you were like maybe don't live a gross freelance life and consider taking a shower today so I'm back. [Laughs]
Ann: Are you kidding? You are the one who changed my life with the checklist of okay, if you are feeling kind of emotionally miserable ask yourself have you showered? Have you eaten? Have you left your house in the last 24 hours? Like that minor checklist has honestly -- I think that's something you posted post-election but it has honestly changed my freelance life.
Aminatou: Always. It's like that shower, man, that get your life back together shower, I'm back. Okay.
Ann: Ugh, the mid-day shower.
Aminatou: Talk to me. What's going on on this podcast today?
Ann: Okay, well I realized somewhat belatedly that because we're so excited to be at the end of our month of blood drives we failed to ever give a final update on this podcast for the number of donations that we clocked in our many cities. I believe there were seven overall. And then plus the individual donations which were as many if not slightly more than the people who gave at actual drives for a total of 580 pints of blood.
Aminatou: Whoa! That's what? 580 times three, do the math somebody.
Ann: And that's how many potential life-saving donations.
Aminatou: I know, that's pretty cool. All of this blood is not going to fit in my freezer. What are we going to do with it? [Laughs]
(2:30)
Ann: Stop it. This joke would be funnier if people hadn't straight up asked me if you were actually using all the blood. Like that is a question that people asked me.
Aminatou: I know. This is a question I've gotten also is they're like "Well I'm AB negative. Can you use that?" And I'm like girl, please, first of all I don't want any of y'alls raggedy blood. I need your . . . [Laughs] I was like I need your blood to replenish the blood banks around the world that I have stolen blood from. So it was so fascinating. You know the other thing that was really funny about the blood drive is that I know so much about all of our friends' medical conditions now and the medicine they take because when people couldn't donate they were embarrassed. And let me tell you this: if you cannot give blood please don't be embarrassed. Giving blood is a scam and it is a very discriminatory scam. There are obvious reasons that we don't let people with, I don't know, tropical kinds of diseases that you can use anti-malarial for or whatever not give blood. But there is also a well-documented discrimination against queer and trans people. And so if you can't give blood please don't feel bad. If you can give blood please give more than once because it's such an easy way to save a lot of people's lives.
(3:45)
Ann: Yeah. And a lot of the local blood banks that we partnered with if you gave will send you an email when your blood is used so you can see roughly the way it was used and the people you helped which I think is a cool upside of momentarily sidestepping your beliefs to participate in this fucked-up system.
Aminatou: Totally! I am so here for blood drives. I am somebody who has benefited greatly from the kindness of strangers and I'm just so happy that as a community we could give back.
Ann: Yeah. So this is sort of like putting a bow on that effort. Thanks to everyone who organized and volunteered and gave on your own and with groups. Thanks to everyone who couldn't give or didn't give but supported us in other ways. We love you all. 580 pints, baby, that is a great number.
Aminatou: Hang on, I'm doing this math. Holy moly! 1,740 human beings can be helped with that much blood. That's a lot of people.
Ann: I love it. A heavy flow indeed.
Aminatou: Good job team CYG. Oh man. Another thing that we've gotten a lot of mail about recently is our admission last week that we didn't know what it was called when a woman is brought in to replace a man that has fucked up something very serious in the workplace. Thank you to the one million people that reminded us that it's called the glass cliff. We have a lot of feelings about why that metaphor does not work and probably why we don't remember it.
Ann: Yeah. So I mean this is just striking me at the heart of my word nerdiness because . . .
Aminatou: Capricorn word nerdiness.
Ann: Listen, when you're an editor and a Capricorn, an imprecise term for sexism in the world, it's just like I can't even handle it. So I understand that glass cliff is referential to the glass ceiling. It was coined in 2004 by Michelle Ryan who is a professor at the University of Exeter. I get why we want a term for this. But also okay, let's just walk through this metaphor. If it's a glass cliff that means you feel -- like you can't see anything beneath you, so you don't feel supported. You're like am I just walking on air?
Aminatou: [Laughs]
(6:05)
Ann: Then guess what? There's something glass beneath you holding you up. Like that metaphor, that does not hold up. The glass ceiling is you think you can rise indefinitely but actually there's an invisible barrier. The metaphor makes sense. The glass cliff makes no sense. I'm like it needs to be something about how you think you're brought in to lead but really you're just there to clean up a mess so I was like maybe it should be like the glass broom or something like that where you can't see that you're actually holding a clean-up tool. Or something that has to do with that aspect of it because I'm like the glass cliff just does not make any sense.
Aminatou: I'm just still laughing at you saying like walking on air. [Laughs]
Ann: Yeah, like you're Wile E. Coyote in Roadrunner strutting out and you're like yeah, I'm just great. Nothing is supporting me at all. And oh shit, actually I'm super-supported. There's a glass cliff down there. That makes no sense at all. I'm getting enraged just thinking about it on a word level so sorry, not sorry. I won't be using that term.
Aminatou: I don't feel sorry. Tune in next week for when we explain the glass guillotine. [Laughs]
Ann: Oh my god. I'm going with glass broom. That's where I'm doubling down.
Aminatou: No, glass broom is great. Very impractical. I'm just seeing the Cinderellaness of it all right now.
Ann: Oh, maybe it's a glass shovel.
Aminatou: Ooh.
Ann: Where you have to get rid of all the shit the men have left there.
Aminatou: Right, then you like dig your own grave at the same time. Glass shovel. That's what it is. Look at us.
Ann: Wow. Wow.
Aminatou: Look at us.
Ann: I'm so glad we workshopped this.
Aminatou: I know.
Ann: Cinderella's glass shovel.
Aminatou: The glass shovel. That's what it's . . .
Ann: Oh, you know she was shoveling some prince shit after her happily ever after.
Aminatou: [Laughs] You are killing me. Okay, we've also gotten a lot of mail this week so let's read some listener mail.
[Music]
(88:00)
Aminatou: "Hi ladies! I'm a big fan. I wanted to respond to the latest CYG episode. I was a staffer for Al Franken. Thank you for mentioning the staff and loss to their work careers in terms of Schneiderman. I do think that gets lost. However it breaks my heart every time I hear Al's name get lumped in with bad men. The stories about him have been disputed and there was a sort of hysteria around it at the time. Many of the other senators have done many worse things and are still in office including some female senators who were very abusive to their staff. Al was the opposite and even reporters digging for dirt quoted female staffers as saying it was the best experience of our lives. I think these conversations deserve some nuance and if not in Al's case specifically I'd be interested to hear convo about 'believe women' versus 'hear women.' I am a feminist and I want women's voices to be heard but I think a blanket believe women no matter what is unwarranted. Thanks for reading." This mail is the kind of mail that makes me want to flip a table. Let me tell you why.
Ann: Is it the word hysteria? That was a hard one for me.
Aminatou: If you're a woman who calls other women hysterical you need to look in the mirror and literally write on your own, like on the caption of the mirror, "I am the problem." Okay, let's start. "I was a staffer for Al Franken." Great. You know Al Franken personally. I don't know why people think that this should be something we should listen to. You know, that because they have proximity to someone they know. I was not a staffer for Al Franken but I will tell you this without betraying the confidence of the groups that I'm in that months before the Al Franken story came out somebody shared a story about how Al Franken had done something to a friend of theirs that definitely falls in the realm of Bad Man (TM) and definitely Should Be Fired (TM). I heard that story and thought hmm, that's odd, and then kind of moved on because it does not concern me.
(10:10)
The barrage of stories that came out months later about this was striking to me because it corroborated that first incident that I'd heard about but did not include this one woman in particular. And that woman is also a liberal woman in a very liberal kind of profession. So don't take my word for it but certainly don't take the word of somebody who feels proximity to Al Franken for it. It doesn't matter how close you are to them. Literal wives of rapists claim that they don't know their husbands are raping people. Hello?
Ann: And they don't. And they don't know.
Aminatou: Camille Cosby. Yes. And they don't. It's so manipulative when the people who are close to men who are accused, especially when they're women, use their proximity to protect them. I have never seen when a woman is accused of a bad thing and there are 20 men behind a podium going "So-and-so is a good woman. She would never do that." Maybe if I live a million more years I will see that but if you've heard of such a thing please let me know.
Ann: I want to address this point about the fact that this person is clearly in pain. I mean she says "it breaks my heart every time I hear his name." And I think one thing is yeah, it is painful to find out that someone who you very much respect has been doing things that you don't respect, right? Like the cognitive dissonance . . .
Aminatou: I know, Ann, but that's literally the point we were making on the last episode. The reason I'm upset about this is because sure that person is hurt but are they more hurt than the women who have been actually hurt by Al Franken? I don't think so!
(11:45)
Ann: That is precisely where I was going. [Laughs]
Aminatou: I am just so tired of coddling people who are "hurt" in quotes. Like what harm has been done to you? Let's lay it out on the table here.
Ann: Yeah.
Aminatou: Is the harm that your boss from SNL that you loved a jerk? I'm sorry for you.
Ann: Yeah. I mean the other thing that I want to say, and this is something that I wrote a whole column about after the Aziz Ansari thing that I feel strongly I just have to keep returning to is to this point about a conversation about "believe women" versus "hear women." I think that one thing that's going on here is -- and I think that . . .
Aminatou: Yeah, believe . . . ugh, sorry. I'm like -- I'm hysterical now. My blood is boiling. I don't understand how calm you can be about this. I'm so upset.
Ann: I'm breathing through my nose and exhaling words through my mouth. That's what -- I have some kind of meditative breathing going on. Okay. So here's what I'm going to say about the here versus believe versus listen to women. I think that if you are listening to what women who are coming forward about their experiences have to say in many cases they are not saying fire him. He's a monster. Like I can't believe anyone ever worked with him. You know, in most cases they're just saying like "I feel gaslit by the world that no one has acknowledged, or that my experience with this person that does not line up with their public persona has not been recognized." Right? And people who have a tendency to use Al Franken as this example of overreach are not listening to the people who are coming forward with those experiences in terms of what they actually want to see happen. They are responding to a straw woman or they're responding to a bunch of questions actually in the coverage of the event or questions posed by people defending him about what should happen next.
You know, I mean there definitely are people who come forward with a story like this who say "Look, this man needs to go to jail." And there are plenty of situations in which people have testified against these men to send them to jail.
(13:50)
Aminatou: Right. But in the Al Franken thing did people say that or did people literally say "Hey, here's a picture of Al Franken pretend groping me while I'm asleep on a plane." You know what I mean?
Ann: Right. She said "I've decided it's time to tell my story." She didn't say "I've decided it's time to fire Al Franken." Leeann Tweeden who is the woman who is in that photo being groped by Al Franken, if you actually read her statement she says "Look, I'm telling my story because I felt like I had to hold this inside. I'm not afraid of the impact on my career to tell this story. I want to empower other women to talk about what had happened to them at the hands of other men and I'm angry about what he did to me." She said "I had locked up these memories of helplessness and violation for a long time." So she's doing that to unlock something for herself. She is not saying fire this man. She is not saying lock him up, send him to jail. She's basically saying I want the public record to reflect this behavior as well as all of these other positive things. That is what this statement says. And I think that's a very different thing than a bunch of people who are covering that story pressuring Franken's colleagues to make a determination about whether or not he should stay in office. Those are two different things.
Aminatou: Okay.
Ann: And so to the question framing this as a believe women or don't believe women is a really artful sidestep. It's like one thread of . . .
Aminatou: Also believe women when we have photo evidence. Like are you kidding me also? Do you know what I'm saying? This is literally not a he said/she said. It is a here is the photo she shared about the thing he did and then we can all decide what that means to us. And also we're only talking -- in this specific incident we're only talking about that one woman that you mentioned. Sorry, what was her name?
Ann: Her name is Leeann Tweeden I believe.
Aminatou: Leeann Tweeden. And to back up a lot of people have pointed out that her politics are not Democrat left politics so they feel like it is a rat fuck, right? That he was totally setup by this person who has been on Fox News. And here's what I will say to that: it's quite possible that it's a rat fuck. 100%. But I have also seen with my own eyes that he did the thing that she accused him of doing. So maybe the thing here is if you can't do the time don't do the goddamn crime. Because here's the other thing too about Al Franken that is true is his comedy is incredibly misogynist. I did not grow up watching SNL. And everything that I have seen recently that he has done, it's shocking. It's like I get it that the culture has moved on but I'm like come on, that shit would not be on TV today so please look inside your heart. Here is a grown man doing really very childish misogynist things to women and they're supposed to be gaslit. Yes, even conservative women who are planted to topple leftist men deserve not to be harassed or groped. That's also true.
(16:50)
And another thing in this letter truly that I want to point out is this argument that many senators have done many worse things and are still in office. That's the goddamn point. [Laughter] You can't ask people to clean house if you can't clean your own house. And it's really painful for Democrats right now that we are losing people left and right to all sorts of allegations, but I'm going to tell you what. If we don't get rid of these people it's very hard to look at the country that we live in with the president that we have and say he must go. It's really easy to call for other people to change but can you ask for change in your own house? That's how you know how serious you are about it. The thing that concerns me about a letter like this or even the sentiment is who is going to pay the price for it? It's going to Kirsten Gillibrand. It's going to be Kamala Harris. It's going to be whichever one of these women run in 2020 or beyond.
Ann: The glass shovel brigade of Congress.
Aminatou: Yes. Our good friend of the podcast Laura McGann wrote a really great piece about Al Franken and how people -- by people I mean mostly men -- still write about how hurt they are about how we feel about this, and we'll link to it in the show notes. But the piece is like very deft. She points out that Gillibrand is who we look at as to who has ousted Franken, and here's the truth: Did Kirsten Gillibrand start a firing squad to fire Al Franken or was it true that she was just trying to do the job that she does every single day day in, day out, representing her constituents? You know I'm a very proud constituent of hers. And that everywhere she went people in the media would ask her about it. It's like if Al Franken didn't want to be a distraction he should've left. They could've investigated him. There were many mechanisms and tools they could've used. If he felt really strongly about it he shouldn't have gone anywhere. But the truth is so far all of the things he has been accused of he didn't say that he didn't do. Like you can say that they're disputed but tell me one case of harassment or anything in the Me Too movement that we all collectively looked around and said "Yeah, that sounds about right" and didn't dispute anything.
(19:00)
Ann: I mean the worst of the worse cases. Like the answer to that question is the worst of the worst.
Aminatou: Yes. Like Harvey Weinstein is disputing what he's done, you know what I mean?
Ann: Yes. Oh yeah, yeah.
Aminatou: And if you call yourself a feminist and you say you believe women or you hear women, whatever terminology you want to use, when a woman tells you that she has been hurt your first thought shouldn't be "Well, if she hasn't been violently sexually assaulted how bad can it be?" You know, that is something -- like an instinct we all need to examine. If you are listening or believing or hearing or whatever it is that you claim to do with women, listen to them when they tell you they're upset and they're hurt. That is true and it adds up over time.
(19:40)
Ann: Yeah. Laura has a great section in her piece about Franken about this where she writes "Most of the emails I receive about Franken are written earnestly but they've got a sort of creepy quality nonetheless. The premise is basically that Franken's behavior wasn't that bad. Let me make this clear: it is that bad. The same impulse that drives the men ousted in the Me Two era drives the kind of behavior women described in their Franken accounts." Yeah, plural because there's more than one. We did not even get into the others. "These stories are about a man using his power to belittle, humiliate, or take advantage of a woman who can't do much about it. It's cruel and it's damaging."
(20:15)
Aminatou: Ugh. Anyway, good luck to this listener in whatever your next endeavors are. This doesn't come from a personal place. It's just very dangerous to me when there are more than one woman who feels this way and then voices it because all it does is protect these dudes more. If you actually want to see men change and become -- fulfill their full potential in the era of Me Too, let them clean up their own messes and let them defend themselves. It's not going to kill any woman to just take a deep breath and instead of saying out loud "He didn't do anything to me" to just sit with that and let it all play out. Because so far all these guys are doing fine and I guarantee you that the way this is going Al Franken, Bill O'Reilly, that boring one Charlie Rose, they're all going to have a TV show together by the end of the year. Like don't worry about it and you would be . . .
Ann: I know. Also just on a level of logic the "He didn't do anything to me" argument basically is like he was able to refrain from harassing or abusing literally every woman he came into contact with which is like -- which is like the lowest bar one can . . .
Aminatou: [Laughs] Yes!
Ann: Basically that's saying look, he clears the bar required for existing in humanity. Or he cleared that bar.
Aminatou: Right.
Ann: Every single man in question -- every single man on the planet, every single person on the planet has cleared that bar, right? It is not a noteworthy thing to say that hello, here I am, one non-harassed woman.
[Music and Ads]
(25:12)
Aminatou: I'm giving everybody in my life that Kate Manne book. Is that how you say her name? Man? M-A-N-N-E?
Ann: I don't know actually.
Aminatou: She's this bad-ass philosopher. You know, a daughter of Australia. She teaches at Cornell though I believe.
Ann: The Dworkin of our generation.
Aminatou: [Laughs] But the book is called Down Girl. You know, it's all about -- and I think we've talked about this on CYG before, himpathy. This impulse that we all have to find some sort of humanity in men who do bad things whether they're the guys like the white domestic terrorists or the bad. You know, the bad bosses you have. However you quality if. Yeah, there's always himpathy in droves for those guys. There's always like oh, maybe he did this because his wife wasn't sleeping with him or he was sad or he did this when he was young and stupid and now he's done so much for the movement. But nobody is looking at the women who were hurt by this and saying "Wow, I wonder all of the ways a lifetime of this has damaged her or how she's not working or how this has cut to the core of her self-esteem." Nobody does that for women and I'm like I wonder why that is. The fact that there are so many women in Al Franken's office who banded together to write a letter.
There are women in media who I'm so disappointed by this like Rachel Maddow, like Andrea Mitchell, like all these women who banded together to write a letter about how Tom Brokaw didn't harass them and they've only seen him be a stand-up person. I'm like yeah, Rachel Maddow, you're a lesbian. Andrea Mitchell you're literally married to one of the most powerful men in the world. Of course you're not going to see this kind of bad behavior from your colleague. You know, it's just like why . . . the day I see a man write a letter about this for a woman I will be shook. But in the meantime I will just keep looking at it and be like yes, this is par for the course. If a man hasn't done anything bad to you and somebody else is saying they're hurt just sit with that feeling. You don't have to say anything about it publicly. Sit with it, challenge your friend in private, but do not use your influence and your power to make somebody who already feels powerless feel like more has been taken from them.
Ann: Yeah. I mean I also think that the formulation of not one of the bad ones is really damaging as we think about the long-term here because the truth is there really aren't -- like there is no high-level like yes, you are a bad one. Oh no, you're a good one who made a mistake. There is no feminist tribunal that is declaring this from on high as much as aggrieved commenters would like to believe that there is. And I've been thinking about this. Katie JM Baker wrote a New York Times opinion essay about What Do We Do With These Men is the headline.
Aminatou: Yeah.
(27:54)
Ann: My feeling about it is basically we can't start to answer that question until we acknowledge that it's not like these men are not this clear category of bad guys whose offenses are all proven in court. We're talking about behavior that could've been exhibited once by someone who is otherwise an air-quote "gold star" feminist or it could be someone with a pattern of really terrible . . .
Aminatou: Right. It's literally why we say it's a systemic issue. Like I don't give a shit about your individual monsters.
Ann: Right.
Aminatou: Those guys aren't the guys who do that. But the truth is this: every man in your life can be a monster to somebody. Like that is true. That is like actually true and that's a thing that we all have to contend with.
Ann: Yeah. And I think this is at the heart of why Franken in particular is such a touchstone. Laura again has been tweeting some of the responses to that piece she wrote about Franken and she got a letter that says "A big reason that the Al Franken episode left a bitter taste in the mouth of a liberal, middle-aged white male like me is probably most of us have done something stupid regarding women in the past that if paraded against current standards would look bad. For instance I can pretty much guarantee you that a large portion of American men -- I would guess a majority -- committed what would be considered rape under many explicit consent rules now in effect on many campuses."
Aminatou: Thank you for making our point, sir!
Ann: Right.
Aminatou: Oh my god.
Ann: And okay, so that is a thing that most -- that is knowledge that a lot of us walk around holding already that many, many young women walk around with that knowledge already. That does not mean it's all chill and fine. You know what I mean? We all recognize this to be the truth and that's why this is so hard. That doesn't mean we all recognize this to be the truth so no big deal, they all get a pass. You know what I mean? [Sighs]
(29:40)
Aminatou: It's true. It's true. You know one thing that I've been thinking about and struggling a lot with with the Me Too movement also is that for all of this trust women and believe women or whatever there is still a category of woman that we, no matter how liberal you are, everybody has a woman that you kind of look up to and you're like "I don't know that I would trust this lady" for whatever reasons you have. Like I will say personally that if Rose McGowan had come out even a day before the Harvey Weinstein story and said that Harvey Weinstein had -- like he had sent Mossad agents after he I would've institutionalized her myself probably. And it turned out that it was true. It was actually true.
And so the thing from a personal place that I have been struggling with a lot is rethinking whenever there is something about a woman that I don't -- like trust isn't even the right word because these people don't owe me trust. Any time I'm skeptical about a woman's claim about anything instead of thinking like what are all the ways they could be deceitful I think about what all of the biases are that I have that make me not want to believe that person. It has been proven so many times since this tidal wave has started that everybody is very methodical about how they pick their targets and who it is that they're harassing and how it is that they're doing it. And there's a reason.
Some people are more vulnerable than others. There's a reason the patriarchy also pits women against each other and this is one way it displays itself. And so I have been confronted with that, you know? And I'm not proud of it. I'm saying it out loud because I hope that a lot of other women will be confronted by that same instinct that they have instead of just saying that lady does not sound trustworthy. Really think to yourself why do I think that and what is every force at work here that would make me not want to hear this person out?
Ann: Right. And think about the forces that are encouraging you to publicly disavow her story as well, right? Because that is the flip side of this coin. Like not only what is happening inside you but what are your own biases or the lessons you've absorbed in this world to not believe her story? Even if you are listening to it. But also then why do you feel compelled to say that publicly?
(31:55)
Aminatou: One place I agree with this letter writer, or a sentiment I agree with, is these actually should be investigated to the full extent. Because what happens when people just get fired or they get dismissed and then we don't hear all the details? People are allowed to say things like "Oh, that didn't seem that bad" or "We don't know the full story" or whatever. If you've been paying attention to the Washington Post there's been more reporting from Irin Carmon and Amy Brittain about Charlie Rose specifically and, you know, the larger forces at CBS that kind of kept it all under wraps. Really going to the heart of what the institutional forces are that can keep men like this in place and I wish that the Senate and the House would do the same thing because unless people know all of the details there is always room for speculation.
To go back to everybody's favorite monster Harvey Weinstein one reason that Harvey Weinstein is gone is because there was a thorough forensic analysis about what he did. And the other reason that Harvey Weinstein is gone is because I will submit to you that his power was dwindling and he was no longer an untouchable person. So therefore, you know, fell very hard. It's not enough to just -- for reporters and media to just write up about a specific allegation or an accusation. We need to know the details and we need to get to the bottom of these things because otherwise the public will just keep saying "Oh, this doesn't seem as bad as X or as bad as Y." It's like look at R Kelly still out here prospering. And we know a lot of the shit that R Kelly did. All of this to say that we are not fair about how we treat all of these allegations and that as a society as a whole we still chafe a lot at watching men just be taken to task for very bad things that they do.
(33:50)
Ann: Yeah. I mean I've been thinking a lot about like I believe it was Irin Carmon and Amy Brittain who coined the phrase the not-so-fast phase of the Me Too movement to describe things like defense of the not-so-bad men that we're talking about here. There's a lot of air quotes in that sentence. I hope that you can hear them. But I've been thinking about as well at this point how Me Too or this collective reckoning has been -- is welcome and is very important but also just the huge extent to which it has created more work for women in particular. I don't know. I've also been thinking about it in light of a lot of conversations about emotional labor recently but women whose bosses are like "Oh, what are the best practices? What should we be doing?" Like who are basically just going to their employees who happen to be women to be like how do we fix this? Or women who have heard stories from their colleagues privately and then have to decide what to do with that. Or women wrestling with what they've been told in confidence by maybe even other men that they work with or not wanting to out other stories and having to decide about that. Men wanting reassurance that they're not that bad.
And then also explaining to men that no, the Al Frankens and the Harvey Weinsteins are not the same but also yes, here are some fundamental ways they are. All of that kind of lifting and labor as a result of this, it's made me think a lot about you know when you go to clean your room and it just turns into the most disgusting mess before you can put things back? Like you know you need to do it, it was disgusting in there.
Aminatou: Yeah.
Ann: But the labor required once you get dug in. I don't know. I've just been thinking of that a lot lately. And as a result of emails I've gotten from women and colleagues of mine, just being like hey, I've been wrestling with this information that's come to light or these requests that have been made of me in this era. And so I just want to acknowledge to everyone listening that we all know how much work we're doing behind the scenes and among each other and I don't believe that it is less than or easier than the kind of, you know, panic that men may or may not be feeling about having their behavior outed.
(36:00)
Aminatou: I know, you know? But one of the things that's so striking to me is all of the parallels of this stuff with -- you know, like I'm a black person so it's hard for me not to see it through the lens of race.
Ann: Yeah, totally.
Aminatou: And I'm just like wow, white woman fragility. Here's how weaponized and dangerous it gets, you know? Where it's like okay, with my conversations with a lot of people of color all we're doing is just watching and waiting. We're like where's the Me Too for race? Because is it going to happen? Is it even possible? Personally the way the world is going in my lifetime I don't believe that we'll ever have a reckoning of the racists one day. But it's really fascinating to watch all of this then to watch white men get accused, white women run to the mat to go protect them, and then I'm like oh yeah, this is exactly how fucked up our politics are. And it's why it's hard to trust white feminists. It's why it is so goddamn hard to just even think that you have the same destination as people that you believe you are in political movements with. Because at the end of the day you're just like oh, you're just white women who want to marry white men and have white children and make more white people.
Ann: Whoa.
Aminatou: And some of us -- it's true! And then some of us are just like, you know, we're just here along for the ride and we get to watch. And so it's a place where, you know, we talk about this a lot here where I'm like you need to be a little more brave and you need to have a bigger backbone because some of us are doing really hard work and the conditions don't stack up and some of you get to benefit from that. And white women benefit from the labor of black women all the time when it comes to how we deal with this kind of shit.
(37:45)
Ann: Right. And I do think 100% that Me Too is an invitation to think about what lines are you drawing around acceptability when it comes to all of your beliefs, like not just those about gender and harassment. 100%.
Aminatou: Whew. It's all of the Andrea Dworkin I'm reading, my favorite white lady terrorist. I am so fired up right now.
Ann: Let's do a speed round of some other listener questions as long as we're in mail bag mode. I'm going to read the first one. "I'm a woman who works in tech and recently attended an all-women tech recruiting event. My role was to schmooze with potential applicants in the hopes of recruiting women to join our all-male tech team. I approached . . ." Sorry, not to laugh in the middle of this letter. "I approached a group of women and addressed them as 'guys' as in 'hey guys' and one woman said 'I prefer not to be referred to as a guy.' I was very taken aback and apologized and then immediately asked 'So where do you guys work?' to my great embarrassment. What are your thoughts on this?"
Aminatou: [Laughs] Sorry, not to laugh but this is classic.
Ann: We've all been there, right, though, of knowing we're not -- like saying the wrong thing inadvertently.
Aminatou: Not me. Not I.
Ann: You have never said the wrong thing? Yeah.
Aminatou: I was born woke. Of course I've done it every single time. That's why I'm laughing. I'm like classic. [Laughs]
Ann: Let me just read the last little bit of this letter. She says "What are your thoughts on this? In my own life I use guys as a gender-neutral term often addressing a group of women as guys but I understand that it is a gendered word and can see why it would make some people working in an extreme minority uncomfortable. At the same time I feel like the word is so commonly used in gender-neutral context it's a bit overkill to harp on it."
(39:50)
Aminatou: This is kind of one of these things too where I'm like this is a little bit intellectually dishonest, you know what I mean? Like not that it comes from a place of wanting to be dishonest but it's like come on, 2018. Guys, there is no dictionary in the world in which guys is not a male term. And if you are reclaiming it to be some sort of gender-neutral term it's interesting that you would use a male term to make things gender-neutral when they are the majority. Like that's weird.
Ann: For me this is just easy and the answer is don't make assumption. There are words that are better than this so train yourself to default to them. Like personally I am not offended by being referred to in a group of people, no matter their gender, in a "hey guys" way. But I also understand that that is me personally and that is a highly specific point-of-view on this. And so training yourself with the "Hey you all. Hey everyone. Hey pals. Hey people."
Aminatou: Yeah, or "Hey everybody."
Ann: Yeah.
Aminatou: This is the thing about, you know -- this is where my Ares word nerd comes in.
Ann: I love how word nerdy this episode is.
Aminatou: Yes, like aggressive word nerd. Like the Ares aggressive word nerd is refer to people as they would like to be referred to. I have personally called people the wrong pronoun. I have used you guys before. You know, all of these things. But I always say it costs you nothing. Apologize because you did do the wrong thing, and something that is seemingly small to you like calling this person you guys at the conference and she says "I do not want to be referred to as you guys," for some people at least it is a polite way of telling you "Actually this causes me a lot of pain and I'm not going to get into it because you are a stranger." But especially if you're somebody who's in a recruiting position it's like well, if you're trying to get people to come to your workplace or to your side you should probably be more accommodating of other people. But also the aggressive Ares word nerd in me just says there are better words to use.
Ann: Yeah.
Aminatou: Like there are truly better words to use than you guys. You can do what I do which is my Texas cop-out y'all and all y'all.
Ann: Y'all is the best.
Aminatou: If it's just two people you can keep saying you both. When I am really unclear about somebody's gender pronoun and I am too sheepish or cowardly to ask them I just keep referring to them as their name. There are so many things that you can do to sidestep this. And truly it costs you nothing to call somebody what they want to be called. As cool ladies or whatever I would not be happy if somebody called me a bitch or a cunt or whatever even if in their vernacular that was a totally gender-neutral way of referring to people.
(42:28)
Ann: If I was like "Hey cunt, hey."
Aminatou: Yeah, hey cunt, hey. How's it going bitch?
Ann: [Laughs] Oh god, I can't even imagine. Yeah.
Aminatou: It's true. Just think about -- and there is somebody for who that's the thing that they do. But I'm like if that person called me that I would get upset. And so it costs you nothing. And it's not personal. Apologize and move on. And especially if you're doing it in a work context you are not going to have more women come work for you if you can't call them the pronoun that they like. That's the simmering, lowest level of hostile work environment, you know? Those are the flags.
Ann: Yeah. Or I think of it too as just like the default should be the most inclusive. It's not about whether someone is sensitive or too sensitive. It's not about like the woke Olympics. It's just like default to the most inclusive thing unless you have more info. Like easy. Done.
Aminatou: Exactly. And when somebody calls you in, because it's not a call out, it is a call in, it's not personal. They are giving you better tools and language to address them and you should -- if you claim that you want to work with them you should hop onboard. Also let's all learn new things.
Ann: Yeah, great. Let's do it.
(43:44)
Aminatou: Let's do it. Let's do it. Ooh, Amina Dworkin just out here.
Ann: Ugh.
Aminatou: These are all small questions and truly to the people who write them in you are fabulous. There is nothing wrong with you. You're not the only one wondering them. This is actually why we respond to them. So if we read your question today it's not because -- it's not because we're trying to make an example of you but it's rather because actually a lot of people think what we do and we get a lot of this kind of rubric of question a lot.
Ann: Oh my god, I just did a search in my Gmail inbox for "hey guys" and got the 1 to 50 of many results so . . .
Aminatou: [Laughs] Yes, like we all do it. We all do it.
Ann: Yes. Yeah.
Aminatou: But the anxiety over it should not be warranted because there are other ways to combat this.
Ann: There's a better way.
Aminatou: Exactly. Okay, to another listener question. "I have been listening to your show for years." Thank you. We hope you will keep listening. [Laughter] "Having your oh-so-relevant conversations in my ear have been a saving grace in a workplace with a heavy majority of men. I recently got promoted leapfrogging over my supervisor to become the facility manager. It is an amazing opportunity for my career advancement and I love the job. That being said my former supervisor has been super salty recently. Within the same breath he claims to be proud of me that I'm doing better than any of my predecessors and that he feels like he's been demoted, ignored, and is tempted to start looking for work elsewhere. He is an extremely valuable member of the team and I can't afford to lose him but I do not want to have to coddle his fragile masculinity. How do I even begin to navigate this question?" Good for you for not wanting to have himpathy here or at least checking your himpathy.
Ann: And also congrats on your promotion.
Aminatou: Yeah! Look at you. Look at you. Look at you. I'm into this. Man, this is super tricky right? Because let's be real, you didn't promote yourself. Like a system promoted you over this person. To me when people cannot be happy for your promotion it says more about them than it says about you. And if you are this person's direct manager, ugh, that's definitely a sticking point. But it's something that you need to talk. You need to be like put it all on the table and say hey, this makes me uncomfortable. How can we keep working together? Because there's a reason that you got promoted over him. There is. And I'm not going to get into it because I don't pick the winners at your job but it doesn't have to be a death sentence for him. And maybe it is true that he has to start looking for work elsewhere. That might be a way that they're signaling to him to do that. I don't know that for sure but that's a pretty good signal.
(46:22)
Ann: Also being a manager is -- I mean look, I'm not going to say being a manager involves coddling fragile masculinity but being a manager involves coddling a lot of different personality problems, right? And shortcomings. That is part of what managing people is. And so I think that I don't see it as necessarily like . . . there's a way to do this that is not coddling but directly addressing the things that you've mentioned here like he feels like he is being ignored. You need to ask for specificity there, like what are the ways in which you do not feel like you're being seen by this team? Hey, you're looking for work elsewhere? Or you're tempted to start looking? Why is that? You know, there are certainly concrete things that are prompting you to describe his behavior this way and I feel like you should use those things as opportunities to initiate a really specific conversation. That's not "Hey, why do you feel sad that I was promoted over you?" But it's like "Why did you mention you're tempted to start looking for work?" I mean you yourself said you can't afford to lose this person as your employee and so I actually don't think it's coddling to make that clear. Whatever is going on with his masculinity and however fragile it is is kind of his problem. Your job is how can I make sure this person stays in the job and does their best work? Yeah.
(47:40)
Aminatou: Right. And also you can go above the chain over your head to whoever is managing you now and say "Hey, this is a challenge I have. You were part of making this decision. What do you think the solution is?" Because clearly when they promoted you over him they had an inkling this was going to happen. So I think it's truly okay to say I don't quite know how to navigate this and I need help navigating this because it's going to take -- you know, it's going to take him being open to working for someone who he used to manage which I'm not going to lie is challenging and painful in its own right. It's going to take you admitting to the fact that it is challenging for you and for whoever manages up your chain to also say okay, this is a problem that I helped create and I should help fix. So figure out what the thinking was behind getting you the job that you have and how they can help to do that for you.
Ann: Right. I love this. And I'm going to say it again, congrats.
Aminatou: Congratulations!
Ann: Because I hope you were celebrating this also as a great achievement for yourself and not just a mess that you're cleaning up with your glass shovel.
Aminatou: That's right. And I hope that they 100% also are giving you more money in addition to a nice title.
Ann: Yes. Title, money, all of the things.
Aminatou: Oh my god, congratulations! I love it when ladies get jobs.
Ann: Also what a posi note to end on.
Aminatou: I love it. I love it. I love it. I'm going to go back to reading more Andrea Dworkin and getting more enraged and I will see you on the other side boo-boo.
Ann: See you on the Internet.
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: I almost said see you on the Internet my cunt and I did not. [Laughter]