Top Sheroes of 2018

12/28/19 - We look back at the podcast year that was, including interviews with many of our sheroes: Kamala Harris, Alicia Garza, Stacey Abrams, Cynthia Nixon, and Cecile Richards. We also tackled subjects like bisexuality, poop, and white fragility. We even had some men on the show this year! (Remember the dulcet tones of LeVar Burton?) Whether you're a weekly listener or you just heard about us, come bask in some of our favorite moments of the year.

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.

Associate Producer: Destry Maria Sibley

Visual Creative Director: Kenesha Sneed

Merch Director: Caroline Knowles

Editorial Assistant: Laura Bertocci

Ad sales: Midroll

LINKS

Kamala Harris, U.S. Senator (D-CA)

Alicia Garza, co-founder of Black Lives Matter

Stacey Abrams, Democratic nominee for Governor in Georgia

Cynthia Nixon, Democratic candidate for Governor in New York

Cecile Richards, former President of Planned Parenthood

Ai-jen Poo, MacArthur genius and Executive Director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance

Bi, Bi, Bi: the often-invisible letter B in the LGBTQ+ alphabet

Pooptacular: getting regular, period poops, bathrooms, gender, politics and more

White Fragility: a necessary exploration for white listeners trying to get more free and for everyone who is tired of explaining basic things to white people. Send them this episode instead!

A Taxonomy of Scammers: grifters, pyramid schemers, messy bitches who live for drama

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TRANSCRIPT: Top Sheroes of 2018

[Ads]

(0:55)

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. Today's episode is basically a stroll down 2018 memory lane, like the guests we loved, the LOLs we had, the things we screamed about.

[Theme Song]

Aminatou: Hey Ann Friedman!

Ann: Guess what? The year is over. Goodbye.

Aminatou: Wow. Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow. I'm still signing checks with 2016 as the date so the years truly are passing me by.

(1:58)

Ann: I've got to tell you, so speaking of like . . . it's not just signing checks but writing the date. I think we talked about this in 2017. I hate how one and seven are next to each other. It was the most annoying year. I love drawing eights and I also love writing nines so I'm like ready for 2019.

Aminatou: This is the most Capricorn shit in the world.

Ann: [Laughs]

Aminatou: Also I hate writing nines because the way that we write nine in French is very different from the way nine is in English.

Ann: I know, you write them with a little lizard tail.

Aminatou: I know! And I can't tell you how my first math class I took in my American school I got docked points for that so I'm still triggered and I hate writing nines.

Ann: Wow. I think you should reclaim the French nine for 2019.

Aminatou: Yeah, but people are always like what? They're always like 20-1g? What? [Laughs]

Ann: Well today's episode is basically a stroll down 2018 memory lane, like the guests we loved, the LOLs we had, the things we screamed about.

Aminatou: I mean you're right, lots of highlights this year. We had some big guests. You know, like some power ladies making power moves. We had Cynthia Nixon on the show. We had Kamala Harris on the show. Are you sensing a theme?

Ann: [Laughs]

Aminatou: Who else have we had on the show this year?

Ann: I mean who did we have? We had Cameron Esposito, Cecile Richards.

Aminatou: Yes!

Ann: We had a bunch of authors who we loved. But we definitely had candidate Stacey Abrams. I mean people who -- basically midterm sheroes. Ai-jen Poo.

Aminatou: We had like shero Alicia Garza on from tour. I mean we had all of our sheroes on the show this year.

Ann: We really checked a lot of boxes for favorite like top sheroes of the year who we actually got to talk to.

[Clip Starts]

(3:52)

Kamala: My name is Kamala Harris and I am a United States senator from California.

Aminatou: So does it drive you crazy that people say your name wrong?

C: Yeah, it does sometimes. You know what I actually think? I'm sure there's a study that's been done for those of us who have names that are frequently mispronounced. I'm sure there is something in character development about having an experience over and over again of this: do I correct that person or not? [Laughter] Right? And there are some times when I don't and some times when I do. And I think it's interesting how one's character might actually be influenced by having a lifelong experience with being in that situation where you're having potentially a very intimate conversation with someone who is continually mispronouncing your name. [Laughs]

Ann: Right. Or something that they might perceive as confrontational when you're really just like these are the facts.

Kamala: And that's the other point, and especially as a woman, right? Because we have that example in so many things. Do we correct? Is it going to be interpreted as challegning someone as opposed to just kind of expecting that we will be honest and not have somebody assume that that's an attack?

Ann: Right, right. The reason why I asked if it ever gets old to say that, and "I'm a United States senator," is in the grand scheme of the senate you are relatively new to the job.

Kamala: Yes, yeah. 18 months.

Ann: Yeah! And we're wondering maybe if you can talk about what at this point you consider your biggest win or the thing that when you're like wow, when I look back at those 18 months this is the thing that I want top of the resume.

Kamala: I'll tell you, one of the things I think for me is most important is the role that I serve on the various committees that I'm on which are oversight committees. Like let's be clear, those committees exist to watch and question what is going on with our government, with the United States government. So I'm on senate intelligence. I'm on homeland security. I'm on judiciary. And the accomplishment then for me is a function of what I think my role should be, and often especially in the last 18 months it has been to try and get at the truth.

(6:05)

And so the accomplishment and the goal is to always make sure that we are being -- and the system is being as transparent as possible, and frankly that the American public has the answers and that we're being told the truth. And when that happens I feel a sense of accomplishment and when it doesn't happen I feel a sense of frustration. [Laughs]

Ann: So how have you been feeling lately? [Laughs]

Kamala: Frustrated. [Laughter]

[Clip Ends]

[Clip Starts]

Aminatou: Okay, I'm very excited about our next segment. We are going to interview Alicia Garza. [Cheering]

Ann: We're really just thrilled to share space with her. Let's be honest.

Aminatou: Just wait until you see her outfit. Amazing. But first I'm going to read her bio. "Alicia Garza is a civil rights activist from Oakland, California. [Cheering] In 2013 she co-founded the Black Lives Matter movement," you might have heard of it. "She works in strategy and partnerships with the National Domestic Workers Alliance and she leads the Black Futures Lab which engages black voters year-round and uses political strength to stop corporate influences from creeping into progressive policies. It combines technology and traditional organizing methods to reach black people anywhere and everywhere. Her pronoun preferences are she, her, hers, diva." [Laughter]

Ann: Let's welcome her to the stage with us.

Aminatou: Wow, you really are a rock star around here huh?

Alicia: The hometown squad, you know what I mean?

Aminatou: Love it. I was wondering how . . . what is the calculus you make when you decide how you're going to spend your time and how you're going to spend your resources?

(8:03)

Alicia: Okay, this is a good one.

Ann: You have a spreadsheet or something? [Laughs]

Alicia: I don't have a spreadsheet but I thought about it.

Aminatou: Like 5% Black Lives Matter, 10% . . .

Alicia: Yeah. No, it's like I . . . I realize that I want to put my energy towards the things that make me passionate and I don't have to do everything. That's the whole point of building a movement is you get a lot of people to do a lot of things that they feel really passionate about, and hopefully we're all moving towards the same goal. And if we're not then we have to tinker with it. But I have had to learn you can't do everything and so there's things that I want to learn more about that I feel like taking the time to learn it is actually doing a thing. There's also things that I am super passionate about and I can't go to sleep at night unless I've done something and that's what I spend 85% of my energy doing. Then I weed out some of the kind of incoming requests that I get from people who there's something very important to them but it's not necessarily important to me. And by that I don't mean like your human rights or like your dignity. [Laughter]

Ann: That would be cold.

Alicia: Yeah, that would be coldblooded and wrong. But by that I mean a project that you're thinking about starting that you want to pick my brain about for 15 minutes that actually ends up being two hours. And then at the end of it it wasn't really an exchange; there was just an extraction that happened. And I can't do that anymore. I have finite time on this earth so I've become really good at being like I hear your request, I appreciate it, and let me move it right on over to this side.

Ann: Yeah, I have a filter for pick my brain.

Alicia: Yeah.

Aminatou: Same, trash.

Alicia: Exactly.

Ann: Trash.

Alicia: Junk. Spam.

Ann: Or sorry, pick your brain. Yeah. Yeah, like a whole oh, you didn't intend this to come to me, a real human? [Laughter]

Alicia: I need a hell nah folder.

(10:00)

Ann: Right, yeah. Get your Gmail setup. Yeah. So I'm curious about when you say, you know, that kind of 85% that you're like this is my core, did you have a moment where you were like actually very explicit? I've heard some people advise okay, I'm going to write down these are the issues where I'm really going to put my time and effort. Or is that something that's just kind of been baked in or intuitive?

Alicia: Well I've had to think about it a lot because there's a lot of incoming, and what I know is what I'm passionate about is making black people powerful in every aspect of our lives. [Cheering] That's what I care about. That's what just gets me all warm and fuzzy inside and so why not just live in that? That's what I do. And then other things I'm passionate about are movement building and sticking it to Donald Trump. You know, giving shade where it's got to be given. There's things you've got to replenish, right? But 85% of my time is spent figuring out how we make black people powerful in all aspects of our lives.

Aminatou: Oh man, I have a real question but now I want to ask you who are we shading? [Laughter]

Alicia: You want my list? Because I have a list. See, I was taught a trick because, you know, I can pop off sometimes. So instead of popping off, because now on social media it's like it lives forever, so instead of popping off the first thing I do is I put it in my notes section in my phone.

Aminatou: Wow.

Alicia: And I'll write whole, long things, you know? Like things that I'm not quite ready to put this out but try me, you know?

Ann: It's ready and waiting, yeah.

(11:48)

Alicia: Yeah, and if you try me, boom. You know what I mean? [Laughter] It's like missive sent. But if you know your lane, you know what I mean, then it'll just stay in the notes section. But ready for me to come back to at any point in time. So I have a list of shade too, so just let me know when you're ready to shade. We can shade, you know what I mean? [Laughter]

Aminatou: Stay ready, you won't have to get . . . earlier -- I'm just mentally thinking on my own list right now.

Ann: Isn't that what everyone is doing? Wait, so is it like first warning they get the notes app, second time they test you . . .

Aminatou: Gun shot.

Ann: Gun shot. [Laughter]

Alicia: Yeah. Like I often say like block hand strong, you know? But before I block I'm going to go in, you know what I mean?

Aminatou: Yeah.

Alicia: Like I'm just going . . .

Aminatou: I think about that, but then I'm like they're not going to see it.

Alicia: They'll see it.

Aminatou: They'll see it? Okay.

Alicia: They'll see it. They'll definitely see it. Trust. [Laughter]

[Clip Ends]

[Clip Starts]

Aminatou: Cynthia Nixon, thanks for coming on Call Your Girlfriend!

Cynthia: Thank you, Amina. Thank you.

Aminatou: [Laughs] I feel like we're old pals now.

Cynthia: I feel that too.

Aminatou: Just like are you sick and tired of seeing me everywhere?

Cynthia: Not even a little bit. Not even a little bit.

Aminatou: Are you encouraged by the wave of women that are running? Like what do you think we can do more with?

Cynthia: I'm encouraged by the wave of women. I'm certainly encouraged by Stacey Abrams' campaign, by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's campaign, and we have a whole host not just of women but of immigrants, people of color, queer people. It's a real sea change and I think a lot of it has to do with people who were inspired by Bernie Sanders and his progressive vision, a lot of people who were inspired by Hillary Clinton and the hope -- the prospect -- of the first female president, and a lot of them were inspired by the horror of Donald Trump and that this is a time not to sit on the sidelines. And in the case of New York we're so motivated now to fight against the Trump agenda and we have a governor who's doing it rhetorically and not with legislation and not with real change.

(14:00)

For example, you know, we need to protect our undocumented people. We need to fight back against this heinous attack on our immigrants, on our immigrants both documented and undocumented, and there's such a simple thing that the governor of New York State can and should do which is expand access to driver's licenses for undocumented New Yorkers. This is something that Andrew Cuomo could do by executive order. This is something I will do on my first day in office. If we really care about fighting back against the Trump agenda why wouldn't we offer this simple protection? And wouldn't it be better for all New Yorkers to make sure that everybody on the road had a driver's license and had insurance? For me it's like legalizing marijuana. Why wouldn't you do this in a state where you could do it and you could fight back against such a wrong, such an injustice, such a totally disparate way of treating different categories of people?

Aminatou: I can't thank you enough for coming. I hope that you'll come back and get very high with us. [Laughs]

Cynthia: Oh really? When we legalize marijuana?

Aminatou: When we legalize marijuana, and even if we don't. [Laughter] But you know it is embarrassing that New York State has not legalized marijuana. At this point I'm like don't let California win everything. It's ludicrous.

Cynthia: Everything. Everything.

[Clip Ends]

[Clip Starts]

Aminatou: Hello Stacey Abrams. Thank you for coming on Call Your Girlfriend.

Stacey: It is my honor. Thanks for having me.

Aminatou: I saw a couple of attack ads or whatever that were really hitting you on the fact you have student debt. And I thought about that where I was like oh, actually I wish more politicians would talk about the fact they are in debt. You are somebody who has a tremendous amount of education so it's not an accident that you have student debt.

(15:50)

Stacey: Absolutely not. I've been fortunate to attend some incredible schools. I went to Spelman College. I went to the University of Texas at Austin. I went to Yale Law School. Extraordinary schools and none of them were cheap. Texas was probably the least-expensive because I was on a fellowship but even then I had financial obligations that meant that I worked. I worked in college. I worked in grad school. I worked in law school. And I'd never seen that as an issue; it's just part of what you do. But student debt can be crippling. I've been able to manage it but there are so many who can't and I want to be the governor who understands that we need debt-free college so that people can actually not only take advantage of education but they're not afraid of it, they aren't scared away from it. Or they don't make bad choices about the kinds of education they get because they don't want to go into debt.

Aminatou: You talk a lot about this idea that, you know, being an outsider is not a permanent impediment to success and it's really -- like 1) it's fascinating to think about you as somebody who is seen as a political outsider but is, you know, you've actually infiltrated this world and you're doing really well. And I'm keeping every finger and toe crossed that, you know, we will get to the other side of this. But I'm curious about how you feel about that term outsider because I think that for so many of us that is the first barrier and it is the strongest barrier to entry.

Stacey: It is disingenuous for those of us who are not part of the normative understanding of American experience to say we're not outsiders. Essentially everything we see, everything we do pivots around the white male experience. For good or ill there's no value judgment, it just is. They get credit for creating the US. They get credit for lots of things and so everything begins there. It is the one community that is judged independently of each other, not always a collective experience.

(17:55)

That said I don't think it's good or bad and we often stop and start the conversation there and that's irrelevant to me. I believe in acknowledging what is and then figuring out what can be. And so this is what is, therefore the rest of us for conversations of power, conversations of access, we don't start there therefore we are on the outside of that thing. But that's okay because then the next conversation is how do we still get what they've got?

Aminatou: How do you not get completely beaten down every day by this though?

Stacey: [Laughs] Because you get beaten down when you are fighting -- shadow boxing is exhausting. I have found that when you acknowledge it, acknowledging means you know it's there. Accepting it means there's no way around it. I don't accept anything. I acknowledge everything. So I acknowledge that I am not seen as the person folks would pick out of a lineup for who would be the next governor of Georgia and in fact there are a lot of folks who did not see this as my opportunity.

I acknowledged that, and if I'd stopped there, if I'd accepted it, then I would still be the Democratic leader in the house hopeful that in the next 10 to 20 years something would change. But by acknowledging it it meant that I then knew I would have to cultivate different types of relationships and different types of support, that I couldn't go to the powers that be to get what I needed, which is why I built a cadre of folks, young people that I've worked with for the last decade. I did that work in a different way.

When I wasn't able to get capital for my small business when my business partner and I lost our business we acknowledged that one of the challenges we had was that men weren't going to loan us that money because they didn't understand women doing manufacturing so we created a new company, a FinTech company, so that we could get money to women and people of color who could not have it. We'd actually do it for everybody but we have an incredibly strong presence for women and people of color who need access to capital.

I acknowledged the barrier but then we went around it and we created our own entity that solved the problem that others wouldn't solve for us and we've now created a strong and thriving business that's helped create or retain thousands of jobs because of that. And we can do that in every facet of our lives: business, politics, personal lives. It's about acknowledging what is and then finding your way to get around it or get through it.

[Clip Ends]

[Clip Starts]

Aminatou: Hello Cecile Richards. Thank you for coming on Call Your Girlfriend, I'm so excited.

Ann: Yeah, it's so great to be here with you.

Cecile: Oh my gosh.

Aminatou: I'm like freaking out a little bit.

Ann: I'm sweating only slightly.

Aminatou: [Laughs] Thanks for writing Make Trouble.

Cecile: You're welcome.

Aminatou: We were saying earlier that Standing Up, Speaking Out, and Finding the Courage to Lead -- My Life Story -- is kind of an iconic title.

Ann: It's an aspirational subtitle for us.

Aminatou: I'm like this is a lot here.

Ann: Like these are all things I would like to be able to say I have done in my lifetime.

Cecile: There's still time. There's plenty of time.

Ann: I'm curious about take us back to when you decided to step into this role at Planned Parenthood because I mean so much of being a leader at any organization is being the human embodiment of that organization. And that comes with some very personal consequences when the organization is, you know, defending reproductive rights or working on issues that are so historically contentious. So were you aware of just how much you would be synonymous with the organization and were you comfortable with that decision at the beginning? And how did you feel about it as it kind of went through the years?

Cecile: Well it's so funny because I was concerned about going to the interview but for a completely different set of reasons. It would never occur to me oh, this might not be a job I'd want because it's contentious because pretty much everything I've ever done in my life is contentious or made somebody mad. I was more concerned about going to the job interview because I was just sure I didn't have the skills to do it. And again I find, you know, I've done this all my life and this is also something I see women do a lot which you go "Well I've never run anything that big. I've never taken on such a huge, important organization." And of course secretly, you know, what if I fail? How nervous I would be.

(22:13)

And so I remember I almost didn't go to the interview. The search room had called me so I was like oh my god. I called my husband and I said "Can you imagine having the chance to be the president of Planned Parenthood?" But then I almost didn't go and I called my mom from a coffee shop and she said "What are you saying?" She said you are . . . [Laughter] Because I think she spent her entire life trying to get women to just take the next step. She said "You know, the only things you'll regret in life are the things you don't try and just get out there." It felt like she was a stage mom pushing me out there. And thank goodness she did. And so I've tried to carry that out not only for myself but also for a lot of women that I run into who will say things like "I don't have the right degree or I don't have these certain skills." And I never -- I never have men say that to me. Never. So I just hope we can kind of get over that. But anyway it never occurred to me to not want the job because it would be a source of controversy. I didn't have any idea exactly all the controversy we'd get into but I feel like every single moment, as my friend Dawn Laguens who works with me at Planned Parenthood says, you know, if the idea is to make lemonade out of lemons we're a freaking lemonade factory at Planned Parenthood. [Laughter] That's what we do every day.

Aminatou: That's so wild to hear you say that about the interview because I think to a lot of us you're also synonymous with the person who brought Planned Parenthood into the 21st century and just that embracing of technology, embracing of the new vocabulary and realities that we have around gender, and how it felt seamless at points and it felt very modern. And what is different since you left Planned Parenthood?

(23:55)

Cecile: I mean I did have a lot -- I just want to say this to women who might be listening: there were so many things I didn't know how to do, right? So I just want to disabuse anyone of the idea that you come into these jobs and you've kind of got it all together. I do think that we have by luck or by intention done a few things that have been important for the organization. One is we invested in young people. I remember when I first started Planned Parenthood, when I would go to an event, women of a certain generation would come up to me and say "Where are the young people? We did all this, we won all these rights, and now they take it for granted." And you know 12 years later I never hear that anymore. Never. Because there are young people everywhere at Planned Parenthood and they have changed the organization in so many ways.

We did invest in technology. It just seems the whole idea of the Internet and Planned Parenthood is like a marriage made in heaven, because if the idea is to get information and care to people without barriers, the Interwebs, that's the best. We now have about 2.5 million patients every year but I write as we began to build the web presence we have 6 million plus visitors every month now. We're selling birth control online.

Aminatou: What?

Cecile: We're texting and chatting. I'm telling you! We just did this amazing research for a self-injectable birth control that you can take home. It lasts for three months. And we just got it through the FDA that you can go and basically get a year's worth of birth control, four shots, and take it home and not have to go to a clinic. I mean this to me is if you look at technology and reproductive technology and then you hook it up with Planned Parenthood, the healthcare provider to so many people, that's when I don't care, Congress can try to defund us. Congress can try to do a lot of things. They can't uninvent the Internet and that to me is a real opportunity for us and I hope we're exploiting it in every way we can.

Ann: Yes!

[Clip Ends]

[Music and Ads]

(28:12)

Aminatou: We had many men on the show for the first time. [Laughs] And they were great. They're our pals.

Ann: Yeah. I mean and also we got to do a few episodes that were really things we think about a lot. We had -- I don't know if you remember this because it was like a million years ago -- but Gina Delvac's Bi Bi Bi episode.

Aminatou: Oh yes, like true highlight of the year.

Ann: I know.

[Clip starts]

Gina: My next guest is writer Catie Disabato who was kind enough to come to my house and sit in my living room and answer my many questions about her identity, her sex life, and some of her favorite depictions and least favorite depictions of bisexuality in media. Check it out.

Catie: My name is Catie Disabato, and you mean how I want to be identified in terms of my sexuality? Okay.

Gina: Sure, but also in terms of what you do.

Catie: I'm a writer and I identify as bisexual or queer.

Gina: Okay.

Catie: And that's why we're chatting.

Gina: Yes, and we're both cis gender white women.

Catie: Yes.

Gina: I think we are kind of in, as you're hearing us stake out . . . [Laughs] We have a lot of demographic qualities in common.

Catie: Yes.

Gina: Where we live, what city, our age, our rough gender presentation although I'm a brunette. I love being a brunette.

Catie: Yeah, and I'm a blonde. [Laughs]

Gina: There's a funny thing about being a queer person or a bisexual person in particular in a closed relationship where you have the piece that is your -- and everyone has this to some extent. You have a piece that is your identity and you have a piece that is your partner.

(29:55)

Catie: Right.

Gina: And just being so marked by essentially who you fuck versus -- in that moment, versus who you are to yourself. How did you come to embrace the labels you do or don't choose and kind of what was your youthful journey towards picking the unpopular B on the rainbow of letters?

Catie: Well what's interesting is when I was coming out as bisexual I came out for the first time to anybody outside of my own head when I was 18. I was pretty well aware of it when I was younger and super consciously did not come out in high school because I didn't want to make high school harder for me. I came out when I was in college and at the time I was coming out I had, you know, just made new friends who at the time identified as bisexual. I don't know if they would now. I didn't feel like the only person that was taking on that label at the moment which it was very comfortable to sort of be . . . like I felt like I had a community of not just queer women around me but a community of bisexual women. Some of the people that I've remained closer to, their identity -- their sexuality -- has evolved either . . . has evolved away from bisexuality as a label. And I don't know, I never evolved away from it just due to my nature. I'd really thought through my sexuality before I first came out and it felt right and I can also be a little bit of a contrarian so I'm not the kind of person . . . I'm the kind of person who would dig in my heels a little bit when told -- like when given the cultural feedback that being bisexual is not cool or not real. I'm the kind of person that would dig in my heels, not reassess.

(31:48)

So I think that probably to a certain extent a lot of the kind of negative things that people say about bisexuality has helped me to reaffirm that word as the word that I use to describe my identity. The word itself, bi of course being a prefix that means two, that bisexuality meaning somebody that is sexually interested in two genders -- male and female -- that's not how I define it. To me bisexuality is about being sexually and romantically open to dating people of any and all genders. Gender is not a factor in the way that I develop sexual and romantic relationships. And so that encompasses the entire spectrum of gender rather than just two. So I just want to say that upfront, like it's a desire as old as time but as a word I think it has the flare of the '90s.

Gina: Totally.

Catie: It has the stink of the '90s all over it. Just because a word was born somewhere and was born out of a mentality does not mean the word stays that way.

Gina: Right.

Catie: As soon as a word is born it becomes flexible.

Gina: Yeah, totally.

Catie: Just like sexuality.

Gina: Hey!

[Clip Ends]

Aminatou: True, true, true, true highlight of the year.

Ann: Our pooptacular special?

[Clip Starts]

Aminatou: Here's the thing: I'm not embarrassed about pooping but I'm definitely -- you know me, I have a lot of OCD issues, like actually diagnosed OCD issues.

Ann: Right.

Aminatou: And one of them is around definitely cleanliness. And so I know that for me that fine line between okay, I would like to discuss my body function but also I don't want to be grossed out in the same way that . . . you know, I don't think that poop is uniquely gross. Like I'm not grossed out by poop, I'm not grossed out by blood, but I just don't like it when things are not clean. So that's the fine line that I thread. But the thing that was really fascinating is that it wasn't until I had that conversation with you and Gina that I was like wait, you people have been pooping every day? I have never been every single day regular in my life. And I had talked to my doctors about it at one point because people like you brag about it all the time and I was like well is there something wrong with me that I'm not going all the time? And the doctor was like no, it just has to be normal for . . . as long as you're not constipated or bloated or in pain regular is a very subjective kind of thing.

(34:15)

Ann: Yeah. Well and it's kind of like most things. It's like what is normal for your body? I did a little bit of research into this because I knew we were going to talk about it and totally by chance right around the time I was looking into it I get the Washington Post newsletter The Lily. There was a whole issue of The Lily written by Carol Shih about the fact that her book club was reading this book Gut by a woman named Giulia Enders. And the book club for the duration of the month they were reading it essentially turned into a poop club where they had a group thread talking about how regular they were, etc. And she was describing the fact that she was pooping less than the other women -- I believe they were all women -- in her book club and cited the statistic that women's large intestines are generally "slightly more lethargic than men's, possibly because of hormones."

Aminatou: [Laughs] Man, what a thing.

Ann: So yeah, and also further digging as it were leads to the fact that . . .

Aminatou: Okay, look at these statistics: how often Americans poop. White women, 7.2 times a week. White men, 9. Nine times a week? What?

Ann: Yeah.

Aminatou: Hispanic women 7.5 times a week, Hispanic men 8.6 times, black women 5.6. I identify with this strongly. And black men 6.9. Do you know why this is? Why are there racial disparities in poop?

Ann: So the statistics you're citing I saw in this article by Maggie Koerth-Baker at FiveThirtyEight which is about how prevalent constipation is and how people are always going to the doctor saying they're constipated and the doctors are like "What do you mean? You seem to be pooping at an okay rate/is it all in your head?" But when I look at those numbers they are exactly correlated with things like other types of discrimination in society. I'm like wow, what if a life relatively free of discrimination and full of privilege equals you're just pooping like crazy? That's what I read into those numbers. I don't know about you. Your bowels are just free to let it rip.

(36:24)

Aminatou: [Laughs] Your bowels are just loose and free. This is so fascinating. I'm so glad you found these stats for me. I just had never thought of this. And so my thing is because of my hysterectomy I am very aware of everything that neighbors that part of my body. Because you know how surgery is, right? Whenever they operate on any part of your body you definitely have to sign paperwork that any adjoining organs, they're like fair game for destruction because they're like medicine is not an exact science. So when you have a hysterectomy that's your bladder, it's your rectum. You know, very important things. Not that other parts of your body are not important. But there is -- I would say that 60% of the talk in definitely my online support group is all around pooping and peeing.

Ann: Amazing.

Aminatou: Because one, that's how you know if they've broken anything. You know what I mean? It's like they won't let you go home from the hospital unless you've peed a significant amount -- shout-out catheters everywhere -- and also you've got to pass gas, you know? And they're like okay, this seems like we didn't break anything. But the thing is everybody experiences some amount of constipation after surgery because of the painkillers and I guess your colon is just very gun-shy at this point and various other reasons. But Ann, no joke, the online support group, this is all people talk about. It's like how many days did you go -- how many days did you poop after surgery? People started getting really scared after three or four days. All it is is people giving each other recipes because they send you home with so much Colace. And somehow that doesn't work so it's like you have to walk a lot. This is like passing a baby honestly, no joke.

Ann: Aww.

Aminatou: It's like you have to walk a lot. You have to take stuff. That part of it made me really happy because I'm like okay, I am not alone in this. There's thousands of women in this Facebook group and all we talk about is the first time we pooped after a hysterectomy.

Ann: Right, the first poop after childbirth, the first poop after a major surgery. Didn't I make you a Rambo first poop graphic? Like private meme?

Aminatou: You did. You did. [Laughs]

Ann: It is a real marker of okay, some things that feel very fragile are on their way to functioning right?

(38:52)

Aminatou: Right. It's like nothing's broken to talk about. But it's like the same reason that we love to talk about periods on this show is it gives you life-saving information if you know what I'm saying.

Ann: Completely. I also think it is totally in that same spirit that we wanted to do this episode. I mean speaking of we never -- I don't think we have ever mentioned in This Week in Menstruation period shits. How is that not a thing that we've ever talked about?

Aminatou: I think we talked about it very early on.

Ann: Did we? Okay.

Aminatou: Yeah, I remember looking up . . . because I'm always fascinated by period poop. I believe somebody had asked us "Why do you poop more when you have your period?" and it was something about the cramping and water. There's like a science behind it. But anyway, yes, you're not imagining that your poop is different/weird when you're on your period. This is not medical advice. [Laughs]

Ann: No, I know. I'm just like I'm going to find a resource and we'll put it in the show notes. The other thing too is thinking about the ways -- obviously everybody poops as the children book says.

Aminatou: That's what I've heard.

(40:00)

Ann: But as we started talking about doing this episode it was one of those things that I started to see and hear everywhere. I mean I found out that a woman I've been friends with a long time has had so much trouble pooping that she's seeing a therapist for help with the psychological end of it, like she really . . .

Aminatou: Wow.

Ann: Yeah. And apparently this is the therapist specializes in female anxiety and its related effects on your bodily systems. And so she had very high hopes that this therapist is going to help her. I had another friend mention that whenever she travels with her mother and sister they don't poop for the duration of the trip which is why she doesn't travel with them.

Aminatou: Oh, that's such a thing. That's such a thing.

Ann: I know. She doesn't travel with them for more than a week because after that they're unbearable.

Aminatou: Yeah, vacation constipation is 100% a thing.

Ann: But she was sort of . . . well, the way she talked about it is like yes, there's obviously vacation constipation. You're eating things and you're out of your routine or whatever. But she described it as like they're sharing a hotel room with people and it's just as much a stigmatized we don't want to be gross people who do that in close quarters as . . .

Aminatou: In your own family?

Ann: Yes. And this is what she was saying, like traveling with her own family. She very much had the impression it wasn't purely diet and schedule related, that it was also about kind of a gendered chain.

Aminatou: Okay. I believe that because here's the thing: what I was talking about, vacation constipation is like real because you're straying from your normal routine. You sat on a plane that dried out your colon. That's like a thing.

Ann: Totally. Totally.

Aminatou: And also you're not eating your high bran cereal from home or whatever. [Laughs] And also you can't relax in strange bathrooms. I have that.

Ann: Totally.

Aminatou: But you know your friend's story reminds me of I had a lot of friends in college who would always talk about how they couldn't poop at their boyfriend's apartments or new dudes they were sleeping with or whatever. And on one hand I get it. If you go to somebody's new house should you give them an inaugural poop? [Laughs] You know, sure, I can see how you think this is an etiquette issue. But at the same time I find it so insane how much we try to change our natural body functions or we try to withhold . . . you know, it's like you've got to evacuate your bowels. The fact that you're holding that in is very problematic for the sake of dating, you know? Like that's weird.

Ann: Totally.

[Clip Ends]

(42:33)

Aminatou: This podcast is a lot. We beat cancer this year.

Ann: Listen, we had a blood drive. Do you remember that?

Aminatou: Oh yeah, I'm telling you we beat cancer. Of course we had a blood drive.

Ann: I mean we beat cancer and people who listen to this podcast gave almost a thousand pints of blood in 2018 which I can't even with how that makes me feel. It makes me feel so good.

Aminatou: This is wild. We talked about Internet outrage and privacy. We talked about money. We talked about money so much. LeVar Burton's buttery voice.

LeVar: Hi, I'm LeVar Burton and I'll see you on the Internet.

Aminatou: Samin Nosrat. That was literally last week and I'm still dying.

Ann: [Laughs]

Aminatou: We like rewrote history with Alexis Coe. Just truly, I don't know, also we read a lot. I love all of the reading episodes that we do. This family reads a lot and you know readers are leaders.

Ann: I know. And also let's be real this was a really hard year news-wise, world-wise, and being able to . . . I mean one of the things I'm continually grateful for that you and I and Gina get to make this podcast and that people are actually listening to it is that we get to talk about things like what happens when people who are like -- you know, identify as feminists or identify as women are confronted with their abuses of power and what does that look like in the context of the Me Too movement? Of our politics? Of trying to get free? Conversations about white fragility. Like I feel really lucky to be able to be a part of the show and kind of be like oh, this is a conversation we want to have? Great. We can book some smart people to come have it with us. I feel a lot of gratitude when I look back. I mean I also feel tired about the year we've had. [Laughs] But I mostly feel gratitude that we . . .

(44:30)

Aminatou: What kind of white fragility is tiredness, Ann? Come on.

Ann: Wow. Too real. [Laughter]

Aminatou: Oh my god, you know, and we laughed a lot. So many scammers. We talked about so many scammers and so many scams this year. The scammers are alive, but you know what? Race is a scam. Sexism is a scam. Not paying women enough money is a scam. We are out here.

Ann: Oh that's true. Our taxonomy of scammers episode will stand the test of time. Fake royals, political grifters, messy bitches who live for drama, self-declared saints, wellness icons, pyramid schemers, and Silicon Valley tech scammers.

Aminatou: I love that we got to go on tour and meet so many CYG fans.

Ann: It's true.

Aminatou: You know, because it gets pretty lonely sometimes doing this at home and I forget that we talk to hundreds of thousands of people so it's nice. It's nice to meet them IRL. And I will say CYG listeners are the most beautiful, generous humans in all of podcast listening.

Ann: Like truly great people, yeah. Y'all are the best.

Aminatou: I love our listeners. Y'all are the actual best and that's why we do it and it's just . . . I just love that we're all growing up together and we're all getting free together. So, you know, 2019. Come on. Show me your best and your worst. We've got this.

Ann: I mean just your best please, actually.

(45:55)

Aminatou: Listen, every year is the worst. And I will say that on a personal note I had what could've been the worst year of my life but truly it is one of the best years I've had in a long time and so . . .

Ann: Aww.

Aminatou: You know, even in trash years you can truly have -- you can have a wonderful time and that is the 2018 that I had. I would not trade it for the world.

Ann: I love you so much. I'm like I am so happy we're going into 2019 together.

Aminatou: I know. I love you. Please teach me how to write nines. That's all I need. [Laughs] That's all the love and support I need from you right now is how to write things. Please be there for me.

Ann: How to derive pleasure from writing an American nine, our first episode of 2019. [Laughs]

Aminatou: Ugh, we've got this. We've got this. I'm proud of the year you had boo-boo. Good job.

Ann: See you on the Internet.

Aminatou: You can find us many places on the Internet, on our website callyourgirlfriend.com, you can download the show anywhere you listen to your favs, 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 even leave us a short and sweet voicemail at 714-681-2943. That's 714-681-CYGF. Our theme song is by Robyn, original music is composed by Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs, our logos are by Kenesha Sneed, our associate producer is Destry Maria Sibley. This podcast is produced by Gina Delvac.