Speaker 1: When the world is a disaster, people want nostalgia, even
Speaker 1: if it's a false nostalgia. And this nostalgia for a
Speaker 1: quote unquote better time when women were quote unquote traditional
Speaker 1: is really obscenely misplaced.
Speaker 2: There are no girls on the internet.
Speaker 3: As a production of iHeartRadio and unbost creative, I'm bridge
Speaker 3: tat and this is there are no girls on the internet.
Speaker 3: If you are a woman, listen out, because I need
Speaker 3: to tell you something kind of important. It turns out
Speaker 3: we have all been tricked.
Speaker 4: Oh.
Speaker 3: Yes, feminism was alive, and it was just a scam
Speaker 3: to get us working outside of the home so we
Speaker 3: could provide more taxable income to the government.
Speaker 2: It turns out that we were much.
Speaker 3: Better off back in the fifties as traditional housewives. Think
Speaker 3: about it, we didn't have to work outside of the
Speaker 3: home and becau it's been all of our time raising
Speaker 3: our kids and running a household. And we were so
Speaker 3: much happier back then too. You know, back when we
Speaker 3: as women couldn't own property, couldn't vote, couldn't take out
Speaker 3: a credit card.
Speaker 2: Oh, and it was also legal for our spouses.
Speaker 3: To rape us. So if you spend any time at
Speaker 3: all on TikTok. You're probably seeing an influx of this
Speaker 3: kind of content, which is commonly called trad wife content
Speaker 3: short for traditional wife, deposits that women weren't just happier,
Speaker 3: but also we were more empowered when we stayed at
Speaker 3: home and embraced more traditional gendered roles in the household.
Speaker 2: And I believe that this.
Speaker 3: Is not a coincidence against the backdrop of some pretty
Speaker 3: scary and heavy political and social happenings, things like economic instability,
Speaker 3: impending climate crisis, which always disproportionately harms women more, the
Speaker 3: gutting of Roe versus Wade, and the loss of the
Speaker 3: right to control our own bodies. I think content like
Speaker 3: this does two things. One, it responds to and exploits
Speaker 3: the understandable fear and anxiety that a lot of women
Speaker 3: are feeling, particularly in the absence of any kind of
Speaker 3: a meaningful institutional support. And I also think it's kind
Speaker 3: of meant to sue us in a way. You know,
Speaker 3: don't be too angry, ladies, you were much better off
Speaker 3: without rights anyway. But all of this content is just
Speaker 3: the depiction of a fantasy life that never even really existed,
Speaker 3: And it's yet another way that social media is trying
Speaker 3: to sell women on a dangerous lie.
Speaker 1: I'm Joe Piazza, and I'm an author, journalist, and podcaster,
Speaker 1: most recently the host of the podcast called Under the Influence.
Speaker 3: On Joe's great podcast Under the Influence, she chronicles how
Speaker 3: the business and culture of influencing social media and the
Speaker 3: Internet has impacted women and right now, a lot of
Speaker 3: what she's seeing includes trad wife content. So your podcast
Speaker 3: is amazing, and that was one of the reasons why
Speaker 3: I was so excited to talk to you today, because
Speaker 3: you know, I've been scrolling social media a lot lately
Speaker 3: and I can't seem to get away from this, like
Speaker 3: I guess, trad wife content. That's content made by women
Speaker 3: that is sort of giving us this idea that being
Speaker 3: a traditional, stay at home wife and mother is the
Speaker 3: path to power.
Speaker 2: And happiness for women. Have you seen this content on
Speaker 2: your feed?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Not only have I seen this content on my feed,
Speaker 1: but it has been dominating my feed for some reason.
Speaker 1: I don't Maybe sometimes I'm like Instagram knows I'm pregnant
Speaker 1: and wants to force me to stay home in the kitchen,
Speaker 1: barefoot and pregnant forever.
Speaker 3: And it's you'd be happier if that's how you lived
Speaker 3: your life, and.
Speaker 1: They think I'd be happier, and you know, so my
Speaker 1: gut reaction to this is and it's the same as
Speaker 1: it is with most things. If you want to stay
Speaker 1: home and be a quote unquote traditional wife and you know,
Speaker 1: take on all of the trappings of domesticity that were
Speaker 1: popularized by mass media in the nineteen fifties, and this
Speaker 1: is what you really want, fucking awesome, You do it,
Speaker 1: you do you. And my feminism is mostly centered on
Speaker 1: women choosing what makes them happy. I do not necessarily
Speaker 1: think that this is the path to empowerment for the
Speaker 1: majority of women, but I do think that this is
Speaker 1: becoming so popular. And we know that Instagram surfaces things
Speaker 1: that they think will soothe people's aduled brains as they
Speaker 1: make them more aduled, because the world is kind of
Speaker 1: a disaster right now, and when the world is a disaster,
Speaker 1: people want nostalgia, even if it's a false nostalgia. And
Speaker 1: this nostalgia for a quote unquote better time when women
Speaker 1: work quote unquote traditional is really obscenely misplaced.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it almost seems like it is painting a fantasy
Speaker 3: portrait of a time that did not exist because it
Speaker 3: you know, even for white women back in the day,
Speaker 3: I'm not necessarily quick to say that they were so happy.
Speaker 2: You know, it was like legal for your spouse to
Speaker 2: rape you.
Speaker 3: You couldn't own property, you couldn't you know, take like
Speaker 3: have your own money, like I don't.
Speaker 1: You couldn't have a credit, you couldn't have a credit, right,
Speaker 1: And yeah, so I mean it's most let's be honest,
Speaker 1: it's mostly can't having a credit. It's mostly not having
Speaker 1: a credit card. And rape, marital rape, right.
Speaker 3: And so I think it like it harkens back in
Speaker 3: a way that that paints these times as like really
Speaker 3: rosy and yeah, it's it's like a fantasy world that
Speaker 3: never even existed even during that time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly exactly, and not to mention the fact that
Speaker 1: it absolutely, one hundred percent never even existed in media
Speaker 1: for black women and women of lower economic statuses and
Speaker 1: immigrant women. So yeah, it's a completely completely false nostalgia.
Speaker 3: And I think you hit on something interesting, which is
Speaker 3: that these tiktoks, especially that I see that really seemed
Speaker 3: to be trying to convince women that we've been lied
Speaker 3: to into thinking that having a job and you know,
Speaker 3: working outside of the home is empowering. It really, for
Speaker 3: that narrative to work, you basically have to ignore non
Speaker 3: white women. You have to basically say, like, I'm a
Speaker 3: white woman talking to other white women in a world
Speaker 3: where people who are not white, if they exist, we're
Speaker 3: not speaking to them, We're not thinking about their experiences,
Speaker 3: We're not interrogating.
Speaker 2: That at all.
Speaker 3: No, No, exactly, the whole idea of a happy woman
Speaker 3: who enjoyed an idyllic life in the home, tending to
Speaker 3: her family while her husband did the wage earning labor
Speaker 3: is just kind of a fantasy. Obviously, it certainly did
Speaker 3: not exist for non white women, and it kind of
Speaker 3: didn't even really ever exist for white women either or
Speaker 3: not the way.
Speaker 2: We've been led to believe anyway.
Speaker 3: In fact, Joe says, the entire happy house white thing
Speaker 3: was a creation presented by a few specific pieces of
Speaker 3: mass media that made its way into the culture and
Speaker 3: just kind of stuck.
Speaker 1: I mean, the whole trad wife aesthetic really does come
Speaker 1: from a very narrow sliver of nineteen fifty sitcoms.
Speaker 2: And we are.
Speaker 1: Talking June Cleaver talking daddy father knows best, Daddy knows best.
Speaker 1: I mean the shows we saw on Nick at Night
Speaker 1: as kids, really, and it was mass media telling us
Speaker 1: that this is what the world looked like when it
Speaker 1: didn't look like that for the majority of white women.
Speaker 1: It never looked like that for black women, women of
Speaker 1: a lower economic status, immigrant women, And I think, look,
Speaker 1: we're desperate, we are desperate to cling to something because
Speaker 1: the world isn't working right now. I don't think that
Speaker 1: the concept of women working outside the home. I think
Speaker 1: work has failed all of us, not just women. Work
Speaker 1: has failed to empower us as a human race right now.
Speaker 1: And so there is this small set of people saying, well,
Speaker 1: what if you didn't have to work? Look at these
Speaker 1: women who didn't have to work, These like three women
Speaker 1: who didn't have to work in nineteen fifty four. Don't
Speaker 1: they look so happy in their Gangham dresses with their
Speaker 1: beach gas that they never could have really gotten in
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty four? They do that shit with the Dyson
Speaker 1: hand one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I love your point that we're even if you're
Speaker 3: thinking about math media from the fifties, the trad wife
Speaker 3: stuff from that was shown there. It's only a small
Speaker 3: like subsection of shows like Lucy Olle Ball even she
Speaker 3: wanted to be on the show in it or be
Speaker 3: in Ricky in Deasy's show back in the day, So
Speaker 3: like they're not even demonstrating that, like it was a dominant,
Speaker 3: you know, a dominant culture.
Speaker 1: Never Lucy wanted to work. Lucy was messy, Lucy was
Speaker 1: I mean, I love Lucy, and I just said I
Speaker 1: love Lucy because she was delightfully fucked up in so
Speaker 1: many ways, and she kind of bucked the trend of
Speaker 1: the trad wife that was on TV in so many ways.
Speaker 1: You don't see that if you just, like, you know,
Speaker 1: glance at one episode of the show, but she really did.
Speaker 1: And Lucille Ball in real life was a goddamn baller.
Speaker 1: She owned her brand, she owned her shit, she owned
Speaker 1: her show, so that she was not a trad wife
Speaker 1: in any way, shape or form. But just the fact
Speaker 1: that we keep getting served this on Instagram and this
Speaker 1: is not what I want to be seeing right now.
Speaker 1: I want to be seeing more nap dresses and kaftans
Speaker 1: and frankly, I'm just in the mid for some fucking
Speaker 1: CAF memes. I don't want to see a trad.
Speaker 4: Wof Let's take a quick break at our back.
Speaker 3: To be clear, there is absolutely nothing wrong with not
Speaker 3: working outside of the home or finding enjoyment and the domestic.
Speaker 2: But what can be scary are the ways.
Speaker 3: That trad wife content can present a palatable pipeline for
Speaker 3: women to be led into extremist ideology.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think that you make a.
Speaker 3: Good point about the way that it's definitely being like
Speaker 3: surfaced right now for whatever reason. And I think that's
Speaker 3: what I think can be kind of almost harmful, right,
Speaker 3: Like tread life stuff for me is like a little annoying,
Speaker 3: a little I thought it a little bit smug, But
Speaker 3: I know that a lot of that content can really
Speaker 3: be a pipeline into like more extremist thinking. You know,
Speaker 3: you are saying like, oh, well, the world was much
Speaker 3: better in the fifties and the forties, when you know
Speaker 3: people of color quote knew their place and women knew
Speaker 3: their place. It's like a hop, skip and a jump
Speaker 3: away from some pretty nasty extremist you know, ideology.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't even say it's a hop, skip and a jump.
Speaker 1: That's giving it too much credit. That's saying that it
Speaker 1: would take us three steps to get there. And I
Speaker 1: think we're kind of just teetering on the edge of
Speaker 1: this dangerous territory. It also it's also for me, very
Speaker 1: dangerous because it pits two groups of women against each other.
Speaker 1: It pits the woman who does stay at home for
Speaker 1: whatever reason, to take care of her children, to take
Speaker 1: care of her home because she fucking has to, because
Speaker 1: there's no goddamn child care in this country, against the
Speaker 1: woman who either chooses to work because she wants to,
Speaker 1: works because she has to. And it's setting up this
Speaker 1: dichotomy that says, oh, like this life is better than
Speaker 1: this life, or this woman is so different from you
Speaker 1: that you are at odds with her, when at the
Speaker 1: end of the day, we're all doing labor, raising children
Speaker 1: as labor, making meals, cleaning the house, it's labor. Like
Speaker 1: neither of these things is necessarily better than the other one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's actually my biggest other than the extremist ideology,
Speaker 3: that's one of my biggest problems with this kind of
Speaker 3: tread wife content is that it really, I think a
Speaker 3: lot of times hinges on this aspect of comparison, and
Speaker 3: that's part of it that I don't like. I think
Speaker 3: there's like a smugness to it that's like I figured
Speaker 3: something out that other women are too stupid or too
Speaker 3: shallow to see. And I just feel like if people
Speaker 3: like I think people should do whatever makes them happy, whatever.
Speaker 2: They can afford to do, you know.
Speaker 3: I also think there's a kind of in some of
Speaker 3: the content, there's a kind of persecution complex, like, oh,
Speaker 3: I don't want to be on Tinder or in the
Speaker 3: office or away from my child or having my children
Speaker 3: in public school, and I'm demonized for it. And I
Speaker 3: think in twenty twenty two, I don't this is my opinion.
Speaker 3: I don't necessarily see a lot of people demonizing women
Speaker 3: who stay, who aren't working outside of the home.
Speaker 2: I think that like, frankly, if in my opinion.
Speaker 3: If you can, if you figured it out, how to
Speaker 3: make that work for you, Like I'm jealous, if anything, like,
Speaker 3: I think that's great.
Speaker 1: God bless, Yeah, yeah, godless.
Speaker 2: And I think, yeah, I think you're right.
Speaker 3: It sets up this dichotomy of two different groups of women,
Speaker 3: where one is better than the other, or one's choices
Speaker 3: are better than the other or more real than the other.
Speaker 3: And I just think it's not really a binary. Plenty
Speaker 3: of people, especially parents, will work, will leave the workforce,
Speaker 3: come back to the workforce. It's not this binary thing
Speaker 3: where if you are able and enjoy not working outside
Speaker 3: of the home, that is like a that innately makes
Speaker 3: you better. I just think it like it. It negates
Speaker 3: the reality of just like being a person who has
Speaker 3: to make choices that are right for their lives.
Speaker 1: Totally, totally, absolutely and also a lot of the chadwife content,
Speaker 1: much like most of the content on Instagram, is a
Speaker 1: glossified version of reality. And it's also a lie. You know,
Speaker 1: a lot of these traditional wives claim that this childwife
Speaker 1: lifestyle is about paying homage to a slower, more intentional lifestyle.
Speaker 1: There's nothing slow about being at home with two toddlers,
Speaker 1: are you kidding? Like, give me my work day any
Speaker 1: day where I'm like sitting at my computer and drinking
Speaker 1: coffee rather than getting up every two minutes to be like,
Speaker 1: I need's jawberrys. This water doesn't have enough ice. There's
Speaker 1: something weird being between my toes. What the fuck? That
Speaker 1: is not slow and intentional? That is being I say
Speaker 1: this all the time. I love my kids, like I
Speaker 1: really really like them. I like being a mom, and
Speaker 1: I also don't really want to be alone one on
Speaker 1: one with them for longer than three hours at a time.
Speaker 1: I don't.
Speaker 4: I'm not.
Speaker 1: I think I'm exhausted. I need a break, and I
Speaker 1: just for me striking a balance between doing meaningful work
Speaker 1: and caring for I also don't want to come home
Speaker 1: at night and have them already in bed, right, So
Speaker 1: meaningful work with caregiving, I mean that's the goddamn sweet
Speaker 1: spot for me. And I think everyone has to find
Speaker 1: their own sweet spot.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think you're right, And I think you know
Speaker 3: that's for at least for me, Like that's what feminism
Speaker 3: is about, like people like women being able to make
Speaker 3: the best choices for them and that being okay. And
Speaker 3: I think, you know, every time I see one of
Speaker 3: those tiktoks, it's like I live a slow life. Part
Speaker 3: of me wants to be like, what part of a
Speaker 3: slow life involves setting up a tripod?
Speaker 2: You know what I mean?
Speaker 3: Like, if I'm living a slow life, I'm not like
Speaker 3: a lot of the tiktoks that I see on that
Speaker 3: are like probably involve an incredible amount of like work
Speaker 3: to put together. And I'm like, oh, it doesn't look
Speaker 3: so slow and soft to me. It actually looks like
Speaker 3: a lot of work went into this. On top of
Speaker 3: being around your kids, which we know is exhausting and draining.
Speaker 1: Awful. I mean, it's just, let's be honest, a lot
Speaker 1: of it is awful. Yeah, those beach waves, that wasn't slow.
Speaker 1: It took a lot of work. Those eyelashes, you'll work.
Speaker 1: You've all get fake eyelashes on. There's nothing slow and
Speaker 1: intentional utterly, it's intentional. There's nothing slow about putting on
Speaker 1: fake eyelash.
Speaker 3: Oh no, it's incredibly time consuming and like, yeah, and
Speaker 3: I think like that's I don't know. Part of me
Speaker 3: wonders if like there's just something about this content that
Speaker 3: is tailor made for social media and that it invites comparison,
Speaker 3: and it can it is an easy way to sort
Speaker 3: of polish up a lie. You know that, like you're
Speaker 3: living a slow life, you're so centered and in touch
Speaker 3: with your kids and YadA, YadA, YadA, But in fact
Speaker 3: it can be none of that. But you're presenting this
Speaker 3: very pretty package to women and moms, a lot of
Speaker 3: whom are frankly at their limit. They've been doing remote learning,
Speaker 3: they've been through this pandemic. We've gone through like tampon
Speaker 3: shortages and baby formula shortages.
Speaker 4: And no.
Speaker 3: Meaningful institutional support or help selling continuing to sell moms
Speaker 3: this polished up lie is almost kind of cruel to me.
Speaker 1: It is cruel. It's absolutely cruel because and I think
Speaker 1: it's just it's a very patriarchal view of the work
Speaker 1: of motherhood, of saying, oh, look at these beautiful pictures,
Speaker 1: of these beautiful houses. This is so easy. This is
Speaker 1: a slower life. No, that is work. That is so
Speaker 1: much labor. And you know, I've I've dabbled in the
Speaker 1: domestic arts at times, and frankly, that's harder work for
Speaker 1: me than having a dozen meetings in a day trying
Speaker 1: to make a zucchini bread. Okay, Like it's just like
Speaker 1: I'm not good at that. It's not innate to me.
Speaker 1: That's not to say someone else doesn't wildly enjoy it.
Speaker 1: And I do think that we have sidelined we've sidelined
Speaker 1: work in the home right And the big, big, my
Speaker 1: biggest issue is always that we just don't call things
Speaker 1: done in the home work, but neither do the treadwives.
Speaker 1: They're blowing off that work. They're saying this is a
Speaker 1: slower and easier lifestyle and not recognizing that everything that
Speaker 1: a woman does in the home is actual work.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's a good point that like, if
Speaker 3: you are a mom or a parent who is engaging
Speaker 3: in the pretty exhausting work of raising little humans, to
Speaker 3: have someone go on social media and be like, actually,
Speaker 3: this isn't labor, this isn't work. This is just something
Speaker 3: that you know, you shouldn't that you should always enjoy,
Speaker 3: that should come naturally to you as a woman. That
Speaker 3: should just be really pleasing and nice and happy and
Speaker 3: gentle and slow. I think a lot of parents the
Speaker 3: work of raising a child does not feel happy or slow.
Speaker 2: Or any of that.
Speaker 4: And I don't.
Speaker 3: Know, it's just another way to lie to women about
Speaker 3: the work that we're all doing, that we are doing
Speaker 3: in a sort of this burden that we all have,
Speaker 3: this that we're all shouldering, and telling us that we
Speaker 3: should enjoy it all the time. This is like another
Speaker 3: added way that we're just not supported.
Speaker 1: No, it's really it really is. It's another way of
Speaker 1: putting it down and putting down the labor that we
Speaker 1: put into a life to make a life, to raise
Speaker 1: human I think I think that raising human beings is
Speaker 1: one of the hardest things that I do in this
Speaker 1: portfolio of many things that I do in our economically
Speaker 1: precarious society. But it also it's just it remains undervalued
Speaker 1: in the traditional wives movement. While they claim that they're
Speaker 1: elevating it, are continuing to undervalue it by saying this
Speaker 1: is an easier way of life.
Speaker 2: Oh that's so true.
Speaker 3: I really want to see like the seventies eighties era
Speaker 3: completely checked out mom who has not seen her kids
Speaker 3: all day, and when they come home, she's like, Oh,
Speaker 3: I hope you've been bed because.
Speaker 2: I'm not making dinner. I want that mom to come
Speaker 2: back and de vogue.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean, I the parenting book that I
Speaker 1: want to write, and then no one i'll let me
Speaker 1: write because cancel culture is a parent like it's nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty four. Man, put them in the way back of
Speaker 1: the car. Let's find some candy, cigarettes, right and jazz
Speaker 1: and PLoP them in front of the TV and give
Speaker 1: them all the sugary cereals because you know it, and smoke,
Speaker 1: I guess smoke and drink in front of them too,
Speaker 1: because that was my life even though I had a cigarette.
Speaker 1: Now i'd probably die. But sometimes I still think about
Speaker 1: it about how like wonderful would be. And I feel
Speaker 1: like I turned out fucking green. And I was a
Speaker 1: latchkey kid whose parents chain smoke tupacs of cools a
Speaker 1: day in front of me. I don't have an asthma.
Speaker 3: It's honestly so funny to see the different like I
Speaker 3: don't want to say trends, but waves of parenting, because yeah,
Speaker 3: I was parented like that. I was. I feel like
Speaker 3: I was the last generation of kids whose parents were like,
Speaker 3: go outside, I don't want to see you for several hours,
Speaker 3: and like, if you did that today, you'd be arrested.
Speaker 1: Well, it was funny. I have a story which will
Speaker 1: probably get me arrested, and I'm I don't care anymore.
Speaker 1: Just don't take my kids away, okay, Like I'm a
Speaker 1: good mom. But it's pouring fucking rain yesterday at school pickup,
Speaker 1: and my husband hates using a car because we live
Speaker 1: in the city, until like, obviously they could drop my
Speaker 1: chiddler off at our first day of preschool pick her
Speaker 1: up again in the pouring rain. I'm seven months pregnant,
Speaker 1: by the way, I'm huge, And I asked another parent
Speaker 1: and had a car there if they could drive me
Speaker 1: the four blocks home to drop me off and like, oh,
Speaker 1: I don't know if I have enough seats, and it
Speaker 1: was like a massive super room, Like what is pile
Speaker 1: onto the way back? It's four blocks. They wouldn't do it.
Speaker 1: They're like, there's no seatbelts back there, and I was like,
Speaker 1: but it's the way back, It's okay.
Speaker 2: I'm like we you know.
Speaker 1: I mean, like again, like I'm not going to do
Speaker 1: it for like a three hour road trip with my kid,
Speaker 1: but like we're just so afraid of everything anymore. And
Speaker 1: I think it's it's creative and this is a whole
Speaker 1: other episode. It's creating fucked up kids. It's creating kids
Speaker 1: who don't know how to live in the goddamn world
Speaker 1: as the world bringing it around us. But that's another
Speaker 1: podcast that no one will let me do.
Speaker 3: I had that same experience on a family trip recently
Speaker 3: where my sister in law we were piled into a
Speaker 3: car and she was like, I'll just hold her on
Speaker 3: my lap car.
Speaker 2: See, we're going to blots. It's fine.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I don't know. Again, Like I think so
Speaker 1: many corners of the Internet are dark and terrible for women,
Speaker 1: and the ones that are dark and the most dark
Speaker 1: and terrible are the ones that look the prettiest.
Speaker 3: That's such a I mean, I think you're right, because
Speaker 3: you know, I'm not a parent, but I can imagine
Speaker 3: if you're a new mom, it's scary. And then you
Speaker 3: go to these social media places or spaces that are
Speaker 3: sensibly supposed to be about support and helping you, and
Speaker 3: they just make you feel that much more inadequate and
Speaker 3: alone and terrified.
Speaker 1: Terrible. I would never want to be a new mom
Speaker 1: again and be scrolling the internet and looking at Instagram.
Speaker 1: I'm just happy that I'm an old mom at this point,
Speaker 1: who just going to let a third child fall out
Speaker 1: of my body and probably sleep in the cardboard box
Speaker 1: and I start up, but I just yeah, I don't
Speaker 1: have time for it. But like thinking if like I
Speaker 1: was so terrified about new motherhood, which all new moms are,
Speaker 1: and then they see these kinds of pictures and they're like,
Speaker 1: I'm failing. Well, women, we think we're failing. Every day
Speaker 1: I wake up and feel like a failure, even though
Speaker 1: like rationally I know that I shouldn't. I write good books,
Speaker 1: I make good podcasts, but like I still feel like
Speaker 1: I'm failing every day. We don't need another person to
Speaker 1: tell us that we're failing.
Speaker 3: Especially not doing so under the guise of I'm telling
Speaker 3: you this to help you. This is this is just
Speaker 3: your own good that you need to know this information
Speaker 3: about how much you're failing at the mom exactly exactly.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So I don't again like women working in the home,
Speaker 1: raising children, doing domestic labor. Good thing. Women that say
Speaker 1: that we women have failed by being in the workforce. Workforce,
Speaker 1: fuck you, fuck you real hard.
Speaker 4: More. After a quick break, let's get right back into it.
Speaker 3: I do have one last quick question for you. So,
Speaker 3: speaking of all things throwbacky and traditional, especially for women,
Speaker 3: I happen to know that you have a particular.
Speaker 2: Interest in a one Miss Laura Ingles.
Speaker 3: Wilder, if you don't know who that is. She was
Speaker 3: the writer of the series Little House on the Prairie,
Speaker 3: which became a TV show and was massively influential. Can
Speaker 3: you tell us about that interest and where it might
Speaker 3: take you next.
Speaker 1: What a badass bitch she was? Yes, I love me
Speaker 1: some Laur Engelswelder. I read all the books growing up,
Speaker 1: but I'm not as much of an obsessive as my
Speaker 1: dear friend Clinas McNichol, who co hosted under the influence
Speaker 1: with me and who also married my husband and I
Speaker 1: in front of us think seven years ago. She's like
Speaker 1: a freak about Laura Ingleswilder, but we're both obsessed with
Speaker 1: how this woman's real life stories of growing up on
Speaker 1: the prairie have become the most read books, probably among
Speaker 1: the most read books in the entire world, and also
Speaker 1: have shaped how we view the American West. And we
Speaker 1: are doing a new podcast called Wilder, which comes out
Speaker 1: in March, where we spent a good chunk of this
Speaker 1: summer traveling around the United States, going to the Laura
Speaker 1: Ingelswilder homesteads and revisiting what her legacy means to America.
Speaker 1: What she got wrong. You shouldn't everything right. She fucked
Speaker 1: up a lot of stuff, like she really there's a
Speaker 1: lot more that she could have included in those books
Speaker 1: about what was happening in Black America at the time,
Speaker 1: what was happening with the indigenous people whose land that
Speaker 1: her family was constantly moving on to. She was so
Speaker 1: ahead of her time in terms of being a wild
Speaker 1: child who just wanted to explore the world, and those
Speaker 1: the things we've reported out while doing this podcast have
Speaker 1: been so fascinating. My favorite is that Laura is really
Speaker 1: huge with Japanese tourists. Huge. She's huge in Japan. Who knew?
Speaker 1: And it's for a couple of reasons. One, Japanese schools
Speaker 1: often used the Little House Books to teach English. The
Speaker 1: darker side of that, many of the internment camps forced
Speaker 1: people to read the lore Engo's Wilder books here in America.
Speaker 1: And then the television show was wildly popular. So these
Speaker 1: little towns, these little very white rural towns where Laura's from,
Speaker 1: get bust loads of Japanese tourists visiting them every year.
Speaker 1: But to their like, the towns love it, and it
Speaker 1: has actually opened the town's eyes to different cultures that
Speaker 1: they ever would have experienced were it not for Laura.
Speaker 1: And so and this is like one of the little
Speaker 1: tidbits that that we loved while we were doing this.
Speaker 1: And yeah, that podcast is coming out in March. I'm
Speaker 1: also hoping to work on a podcast about Judy Bloom
Speaker 1: and her her enduring legacy on our lives.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, please, I am obsessed with Judy Blue.
Speaker 3: When I was a kid, the book are you there, God,
Speaker 3: It's me Margaret. It was we like trade. I mean
Speaker 3: this is we used to trade it, like when I
Speaker 3: was in like the fourth or fifth grade. It was
Speaker 3: we thought it was like the most grown up, like
Speaker 3: you know book about our bodies and our art the
Speaker 3: way you know, we would like like trade it to
Speaker 3: each other, like who have you read this?
Speaker 1: I don't know, and now that one and then also
Speaker 1: Denie and Forever. I'm like, this is the dirtiest sex
Speaker 1: I've ever read about. Yeah, great, you're gonna come on
Speaker 1: that shell. I'm trying to get that green lit right now,
Speaker 1: so you're coming on, and I'm going to tell everyone
Speaker 1: that you're I'm in.
Speaker 4: I'm in.
Speaker 3: I cannot wait, right, Joe, thank you, thank you so
Speaker 3: much for being here. Where can folks keep up with
Speaker 3: all the cool work that you're doing.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately, the fucking Instagram at Joe Piazza at Joe Piazza Author,
Speaker 1: Like I spend all of my day's trashing Instagram and
Speaker 1: saying how much I hate it, and then I'm like,
Speaker 1: this is the really the easiest place to sign me,
Speaker 1: So thank you Instagram at Joe Piazza author. It is
Speaker 1: the easiest place. I'm gonna have this baby in like
Speaker 1: two months, so I'm gonna I'm either gonna go dark
Speaker 1: or I'm gonna become a traditional one.
Speaker 3: Well, everyone will have to check in on your Instagram
Speaker 3: to see which way it goes, which way it goes awesome.
Speaker 3: If you're looking for ways to support the show, check
Speaker 3: out our mark store at tegodi dot com, slash Store.
Speaker 3: Got a story about an interesting thing in tech, or
Speaker 3: just want to say hi, you can be Just said
Speaker 3: Hello at tegodi dot com. You can also find transcripts
Speaker 3: for today's episode at tengodi dot com. There Are No
Speaker 3: Girls on the Internet was created by me forge d.
Speaker 3: It's a production of iHeartRadio and Unboss Creative, edited by
Speaker 3: Joey pat Jonathan Strickland is our executive producer. Terry Harrison
Speaker 3: is our producer and sound engineer. Michael Almada is our
Speaker 3: contributing producer. I'm your host, bridget Todd. If you want
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