WEBVTT - The Working Family Has Changed. Why Hasn't the Workplace? 0:00:00.120 --> 0:00:03.120 In nineteen seventy, a majority of households only had one 0:00:03.160 --> 0:00:05.840 working parent, so the nine five work day made a 0:00:05.840 --> 0:00:08.320 lot of sense. One parent was always at home with 0:00:08.360 --> 0:00:11.320 the kids. That's not the case anymore, and yet the 0:00:11.360 --> 0:00:27.360 workplace hasn't changed. This is game Plan. Hi, I'm Rebecca 0:00:27.400 --> 0:00:31.160 Greenfield and I'm Francesco Weevie. This week we're talking about 0:00:31.240 --> 0:00:33.520 how much the working family has changed in the last 0:00:33.560 --> 0:00:36.360 few decades and how little the workplace has adapted to 0:00:36.360 --> 0:00:39.600 those changes. So those statistics I quoted at the top 0:00:39.640 --> 0:00:42.440 of the show are from an interesting Pew report that 0:00:42.560 --> 0:00:46.680 talked all about the changing family in America, and the 0:00:46.720 --> 0:00:50.680 exact statistic is that of all families have two working parents, 0:00:51.080 --> 0:00:53.840 and that's up from thirty in nineteen seventy. And then 0:00:53.880 --> 0:00:56.800 at the same time, the share of families with a 0:00:56.840 --> 0:00:59.360 stay at home mom and a working dad is on 0:00:59.400 --> 0:01:02.080 the decline. So it used to be that most of 0:01:02.080 --> 0:01:05.560 the workforce was men who worked with wives at home 0:01:05.640 --> 0:01:07.400 to take care of the kids, and that is not 0:01:07.440 --> 0:01:10.000 the case anymore. I'm actually kind of surprised that it's 0:01:10.160 --> 0:01:13.560 only around a fifty split, and popular culture you see 0:01:13.560 --> 0:01:16.640 a lot of representations of two working parents well, interestingly, 0:01:16.760 --> 0:01:21.000 also on the increase is single parents. I mean, divorce 0:01:21.040 --> 0:01:24.760 became more prominent and socially acceptable, so that's also on 0:01:24.800 --> 0:01:26.679 the increase. So there are all these different ways that 0:01:26.720 --> 0:01:30.200 the family looks. And also in that report, the parents 0:01:30.200 --> 0:01:32.039 all talked about how stressed out they were all the 0:01:32.040 --> 0:01:33.960 time and how they didn't feel like they had enough 0:01:33.959 --> 0:01:37.200 time for their kids or their careers. So clearly there 0:01:37.319 --> 0:01:40.800 is some disconnect with the way that our society is 0:01:40.800 --> 0:01:44.560 set up, specifically the workplace, that is leading to these 0:01:44.880 --> 0:01:47.920 unhappy people in the new family structure. Yeah, let's talk 0:01:47.920 --> 0:01:51.400 a little bit about why the modern workplace isn't set 0:01:51.480 --> 0:01:55.760 up for anything but that super traditional family structure. So 0:01:55.800 --> 0:01:58.200 I think one big thing is just the schedule of 0:01:58.200 --> 0:02:01.320 like nine to five, And I mean, I think you 0:02:01.360 --> 0:02:04.280 can speak to this specifically, but that, like I said, 0:02:04.360 --> 0:02:06.120 made a lot of sense when someone was at home 0:02:06.200 --> 0:02:09.240 to deal with anything child related or I don't have 0:02:09.280 --> 0:02:12.239 a family, but doing anything that needs to happen during 0:02:12.240 --> 0:02:14.440 business hours is impossible. I've been trying to go to 0:02:14.440 --> 0:02:16.920 the post office all week and I just can't write. 0:02:16.960 --> 0:02:20.240 Some might argue that if you have two working parents, 0:02:20.280 --> 0:02:22.959 you've got more income that you can use to cover childcare. 0:02:23.080 --> 0:02:26.560 But as you said, like childcare doesn't exactly solve all 0:02:26.560 --> 0:02:29.000 of those problems. You know, my husband and I both 0:02:29.080 --> 0:02:32.880 have to get up and get to work and negotiate 0:02:33.240 --> 0:02:35.799 dropping our son off at daycare and picking him up, 0:02:35.880 --> 0:02:39.799 and it kind of recks our mornings and afternoons. I mean, 0:02:39.800 --> 0:02:42.359 we've we've we figured it out, but it would be 0:02:42.800 --> 0:02:46.519 much easier and yes, much less stressful if I knew 0:02:46.560 --> 0:02:48.799 that I could stay a half hour later at work 0:02:48.840 --> 0:02:51.639 and it wouldn't blow up my whole family schedule. Yeah, 0:02:51.639 --> 0:02:54.240 and you and you believe at five pm exactly or 0:02:54.240 --> 0:02:56.399 try to and are lucky enough to work a job 0:02:56.400 --> 0:02:59.680 where you can do that, and not everyone is that lucky. 0:03:00.200 --> 0:03:04.800 And yeah, these schedules are particularly hard on women basically because, 0:03:04.960 --> 0:03:07.919 as the Pews Right also found, they tend to still 0:03:07.960 --> 0:03:10.720 take on more of the childcare duties even if they're 0:03:10.760 --> 0:03:13.720 the ones working. I will plead the fifth on discussing 0:03:13.720 --> 0:03:16.959 that at length, but I definitely identify. And another thing 0:03:17.080 --> 0:03:19.840 besides the schedule is something that we've talked about on 0:03:19.840 --> 0:03:23.639 the show before, but the non existence of parental leave. 0:03:23.919 --> 0:03:27.440 Since there's so many more working women now, the reality 0:03:27.560 --> 0:03:29.480 is is that a lot of them are probably going 0:03:29.560 --> 0:03:32.120 to have children and need to work that into their 0:03:32.160 --> 0:03:36.680 working lives, but most companies still don't offer it. And 0:03:36.720 --> 0:03:39.680 I wrote this story recently about how the rise of 0:03:39.760 --> 0:03:43.520 parental leave policies is limited to a few high profile companies. 0:03:43.880 --> 0:03:47.840 So you saw places like Netflix and Amazon offering really 0:03:47.880 --> 0:03:51.560 generous paid leave packages, but some research showed that this 0:03:51.720 --> 0:03:54.920 wasn't a national trend and that most parental leave policies 0:03:54.960 --> 0:03:57.960 are actually getting worse. I believe that I've heard about 0:03:58.000 --> 0:04:00.440 a lot of people I know who are at well known, 0:04:00.720 --> 0:04:03.720 high profile companies that have kind of shockingly bad maternity 0:04:03.800 --> 0:04:07.119 leave policies, And but we've also talked about how it's 0:04:07.160 --> 0:04:10.160 not just about even for the companies that do offer 0:04:10.880 --> 0:04:14.040 a significant amount of paid time off, that's almost not enough, 0:04:14.200 --> 0:04:17.400 Like there are ways in which your career can be 0:04:17.440 --> 0:04:21.679 stalled just by taking that time. And reintegrating back into 0:04:21.680 --> 0:04:24.320 the workforce is something everyone sort of expects you to 0:04:24.360 --> 0:04:26.839 be able to just do without any help or not 0:04:26.960 --> 0:04:29.640 even that when you do reintegrate back into the workforce, 0:04:29.640 --> 0:04:32.960 there's all this judgment even though it's it's the norm. 0:04:33.080 --> 0:04:36.000 So many people are doing it and still there's this 0:04:36.279 --> 0:04:40.000 motherhood penalty that women have for having children because they're 0:04:40.080 --> 0:04:42.640 judged as just not as competent workers. Yeah. I don't 0:04:42.640 --> 0:04:44.560 remember if I told you this anecdote when we did 0:04:44.560 --> 0:04:47.280 our episode on parental leave a while back, but a 0:04:47.400 --> 0:04:51.200 colleague once talking to me about another colleague who had 0:04:51.240 --> 0:04:56.120 taken maternity leave said, sort of conspiratorially, like, can you 0:04:56.200 --> 0:04:58.560 believe that she didn't call once to check in with 0:04:58.600 --> 0:05:02.440 her team? Is like, yeah, I can't believe it. She 0:05:02.800 --> 0:05:06.839 was really busy. Yeah, it's just the workplace still assumes 0:05:07.000 --> 0:05:11.359 that people don't have families at home to deal with, yeah, 0:05:11.400 --> 0:05:14.880 and that that's not its own huge responsibility and job 0:05:15.080 --> 0:05:18.840 rivaling paid work in scope. And so since there are 0:05:18.880 --> 0:05:21.799 these two working parent families, a lot of the child 0:05:21.839 --> 0:05:24.240 care might also fall on men now, which is something 0:05:24.240 --> 0:05:27.520 the workplace also isn't set up for. So hopefully, if 0:05:27.520 --> 0:05:30.600 two people are both working, then they're also both shouldering 0:05:30.600 --> 0:05:33.520 the same child care responsibilities. But obviously that doesn't happen. 0:05:33.560 --> 0:05:36.640 And one reason also is because fraternity leave is not 0:05:37.120 --> 0:05:40.000 offered or acceptable. So I was writing a story about 0:05:40.320 --> 0:05:43.880 women at Adobe who took maternity leave, and multiple women 0:05:43.960 --> 0:05:47.320 told me that their husbands had the option to have 0:05:47.400 --> 0:05:50.480 paternity leave and just didn't take it because it's culturally 0:05:50.640 --> 0:05:55.200 unacceptable because of decades of that just not being the case. Yeah, 0:05:55.200 --> 0:05:57.720 so even and I know we have male colleagues here 0:05:57.720 --> 0:06:00.760 who didn't take their full paternity leave. And I've also 0:06:00.800 --> 0:06:03.720 heard men say to me, now, there's not that much 0:06:03.760 --> 0:06:05.440 for the dad to do in the very beginning, and 0:06:05.480 --> 0:06:08.800 I'm just thinking, uh, yeah, there's plenty there, there's plenty 0:06:08.800 --> 0:06:12.040 you can do. Yeah, Okay, So if our work culture 0:06:12.200 --> 0:06:15.839 is still basically organized around the idea of working dad's 0:06:15.920 --> 0:06:19.480 and stay at home moms, is the solution then for 0:06:19.600 --> 0:06:21.680 us to return to that era for moms to just 0:06:21.720 --> 0:06:23.480 be staying home, I know, you know what I mean that. 0:06:24.400 --> 0:06:28.880 But also and that Pew study there was the note 0:06:29.080 --> 0:06:33.279 that families with two working parents make a lot more money, obviously, 0:06:33.680 --> 0:06:35.960 and it's money that they need because life is expensive. 0:06:36.360 --> 0:06:39.880 And that also as more moms have entered the labor force, 0:06:40.200 --> 0:06:43.480 more of them have become the primary breadwinners and their families, 0:06:43.760 --> 0:06:45.839 so they're actually bringing in more of the money, so 0:06:46.000 --> 0:06:48.000 it would make more sense for them to stay in 0:06:48.000 --> 0:06:51.159 the workplace. So we're not going back, We're not turning 0:06:51.560 --> 0:06:56.040 this back. No, okay, So the working woman is obviously 0:06:56.080 --> 0:06:57.800 here to stay, and as you say, in a lot 0:06:57.800 --> 0:07:01.800 of cases, women are out earning their male partners. Yeah, 0:07:01.839 --> 0:07:04.360 and our guest today is going to talk more about 0:07:04.440 --> 0:07:06.640 how the world is not set up for that phenomenon. 0:07:10.320 --> 0:07:13.800 Ashley Ford is a senior features writer at Refinery twenty nine, 0:07:13.840 --> 0:07:16.840 where she wrote an article about being a female breadwinner. 0:07:17.080 --> 0:07:19.480 She interviewed one hundred and thirty women about how they 0:07:19.560 --> 0:07:27.040 feel about making more than their partners. Thanks for coming on, Ashley, 0:07:27.120 --> 0:07:29.040 Thank you for having me. I'm really excited about this. 0:07:29.160 --> 0:07:32.920 You guys look fun. Thanks. So you wrote this great 0:07:33.120 --> 0:07:37.640 article about female breadwinners and for a Refinery twenty nine, 0:07:37.680 --> 0:07:39.280 and I want to know what made you decide to 0:07:39.320 --> 0:07:43.680 take an anthropological dive into that phenomenon. Um. I mean 0:07:44.880 --> 0:07:47.200 the same thing that makes me want to write about 0:07:47.200 --> 0:07:53.280 anything myself. I am of the breadwinner in my relationship. 0:07:53.440 --> 0:07:57.400 I am a female breadwinner, and I knew my personal 0:07:57.440 --> 0:08:00.840 feelings about it. But I also knew that I kept 0:08:00.880 --> 0:08:04.960 having these interactions with women, even women who like talking 0:08:04.960 --> 0:08:08.200 about money, that once we got to the part where 0:08:08.240 --> 0:08:11.480 I talked about being the breadwinner, they would start asking 0:08:11.480 --> 0:08:15.600 me these questions like, well, how does that make you feel? 0:08:16.440 --> 0:08:19.280 Or you know, does it bother you to be with 0:08:19.320 --> 0:08:21.720 someone who's less ambitious than you are? You know, like 0:08:22.000 --> 0:08:25.560 these questions that felt sort of like they were trying 0:08:25.600 --> 0:08:29.520 to figure out, um, what to ask to make me 0:08:29.600 --> 0:08:32.200 admit that I wasn't okay with it. So then I 0:08:32.240 --> 0:08:35.040 started thinking, man, like, maybe there's something to this, Maybe 0:08:35.080 --> 0:08:37.480 there are more women who are in this position who 0:08:37.559 --> 0:08:40.520 aren't okay with it, you know, But I didn't know, 0:08:40.679 --> 0:08:42.640 because all I know is my experience, and so I 0:08:42.920 --> 0:08:44.960 really just wanted to find out. I was shocked by 0:08:44.960 --> 0:08:47.120 the results. I thought there would be a lot more 0:08:47.160 --> 0:08:50.160 women who were just like no, why who cares? Um? 0:08:50.200 --> 0:08:53.400 And that wasn't the case. So you you ended up 0:08:53.760 --> 0:08:55.960 serving a lot of your peers. But before we get 0:08:56.000 --> 0:08:58.440 into that, can you just talk about how you how 0:08:58.440 --> 0:09:01.080 you did feel about being the redwinner? Oh? Yeah, I've 0:09:01.200 --> 0:09:03.800 I mean I felt pretty fine with it. It was 0:09:03.880 --> 0:09:07.240 I mean, it was my decision in a lot of ways, UM, 0:09:07.280 --> 0:09:10.400 to not just be the breadwinner, but also to combine 0:09:10.400 --> 0:09:15.040 our finances in such a way that, um, I was 0:09:15.320 --> 0:09:19.640 the obvious breadwinner and we shared all of the money, 0:09:19.640 --> 0:09:23.400 all of the to me, all the money is our money, UM. 0:09:23.480 --> 0:09:26.280 And I think part of that is because when we 0:09:26.400 --> 0:09:29.040 started doing this, noight, we were both broken ship, Like 0:09:29.080 --> 0:09:32.640 neither of us had anything when we got together. And 0:09:32.840 --> 0:09:37.880 I feel like so much of the success that I've had, um, 0:09:37.920 --> 0:09:40.640 you know my definition of success, but so much of 0:09:40.679 --> 0:09:45.240 what I've had, I see this direct line to my 0:09:45.360 --> 0:09:49.840 relationship with Kelly, with my partner. I I feel like 0:09:50.000 --> 0:09:52.920 so much of what I do I am able to do, 0:09:53.720 --> 0:09:57.839 and I feel empowered to do because I have this 0:09:57.920 --> 0:10:01.040 like safety net in a person, you know, and also 0:10:01.120 --> 0:10:04.200 because I know that if today I hated my job 0:10:04.240 --> 0:10:06.880 and wanted to quit, Kelly would say, all right, let's 0:10:06.920 --> 0:10:09.240 figure out how I can bring in more money so 0:10:09.280 --> 0:10:11.440 that you can do what you want to do. So 0:10:11.520 --> 0:10:13.480 you mentioned that you were both broke and then there 0:10:13.520 --> 0:10:16.959 was this moment where you became the breadwinner. What was 0:10:17.000 --> 0:10:20.320 that conversation? Like, UM, I don't know that we really 0:10:20.320 --> 0:10:23.240 had a conversation about me being a breadwinner. I have 0:10:23.920 --> 0:10:26.880 always made at least a little more money than Kelly. 0:10:26.920 --> 0:10:29.679 That has been true, like I've I've we've never like 0:10:30.160 --> 0:10:32.960 been in a situation where he out earned me. UM. 0:10:33.160 --> 0:10:34.959 Part of that is I'm a little older than him, 0:10:35.040 --> 0:10:37.800 I'm three years older than him. Part of that is 0:10:38.240 --> 0:10:41.480 the sort of work that I do. When you get 0:10:41.520 --> 0:10:44.360 to a certain point, you can make good money from it, 0:10:44.559 --> 0:10:47.480 and the kind of work that he does that's pretty 0:10:47.600 --> 0:10:50.440 much not the case. Like he works at a bookstore. 0:10:50.520 --> 0:10:53.760 He's a bookseller, he's a shift leader. He is also 0:10:53.880 --> 0:10:56.920 a poet. You know, we're both writers. But I don't 0:10:56.920 --> 0:10:59.600 know if you know this. There's no money in poetry. 0:11:00.360 --> 0:11:04.040 Nobody's getting like, nobody's getting paid a ton of money 0:11:04.240 --> 0:11:07.800 to come be the resident poet at refinery to at night. 0:11:07.880 --> 0:11:11.080 Like I'm sorry, Like that's not gonna happen. Um. So 0:11:11.440 --> 0:11:14.199 I always knew that there was a lot of stuff 0:11:14.200 --> 0:11:17.440 he was still figuring out, and also that I just 0:11:17.520 --> 0:11:19.800 wanted him to be happy as much as he has 0:11:19.920 --> 0:11:22.720 always wanted me to be happy. And I also feel 0:11:22.720 --> 0:11:28.160 like my breadwinner status is sort of this, Like, yes, 0:11:28.280 --> 0:11:31.160 I wanted to make more money. I wanted you know, 0:11:31.240 --> 0:11:34.920 I want to have certain things available to me by 0:11:35.000 --> 0:11:37.880 way of making more money. But I also don't have 0:11:37.960 --> 0:11:40.760 to do anything I don't want to do to be 0:11:40.920 --> 0:11:44.040 able to make more money. Like I don't I'm not 0:11:44.360 --> 0:11:47.600 at a job I hate I'm not you know, trying 0:11:47.600 --> 0:11:50.080 to get a promotion so that we can you know, 0:11:50.280 --> 0:11:53.200 pay off a house or so, you know what I mean. Like, 0:11:53.280 --> 0:11:56.000 it's that's not what our lives are like. It's like 0:11:56.040 --> 0:11:58.000 it's really almost like I just happen to make more 0:11:58.040 --> 0:12:00.880 money and I'm proud of that, you know, and negotiate it. 0:12:01.160 --> 0:12:03.520 I did my due diligence to get what I thought 0:12:03.559 --> 0:12:07.480 i'd deserved. But at the same time, it's just I 0:12:07.520 --> 0:12:09.800 guess it's just not super important to me that I 0:12:09.880 --> 0:12:13.240 make more money than him. So you're touching on a 0:12:13.240 --> 0:12:16.120 lot of the feelings that people mentioned in the survey, 0:12:16.880 --> 0:12:20.400 and some people had that attitude, but some people didn't. 0:12:20.520 --> 0:12:22.760 So yeah, to back up, can you tell us about 0:12:22.760 --> 0:12:24.800 some of the results of talking to all these women. 0:12:24.960 --> 0:12:31.000 The results were basically, um, came down to most of 0:12:31.000 --> 0:12:34.680 the women felt complicated about their bread winter status, and 0:12:34.720 --> 0:12:39.280 the complication came from not necessarily feeling like it was 0:12:39.360 --> 0:12:43.080 the man's job to have the job and like provide 0:12:43.200 --> 0:12:46.120 for everybody. Like they didn't feel that, like it didn't 0:12:46.160 --> 0:12:50.280 go back to like that traditional Um, that's that's what 0:12:50.320 --> 0:12:53.440 I got married for, was for someone to take care 0:12:53.480 --> 0:12:57.040 of me. You know, it wasn't that. The complication that 0:12:57.080 --> 0:13:00.559 they felt really came from things like, you know, they 0:13:00.559 --> 0:13:03.280 feel like they're walking a fine line between being a 0:13:03.280 --> 0:13:08.080 breadwinner and also trying to make sure, you know, manage 0:13:08.120 --> 0:13:10.440 the emotions of the men in their lives so that 0:13:10.440 --> 0:13:14.440 they didn't feel emasculated. Um, they were also in a 0:13:14.480 --> 0:13:17.760 lot of cases still coming home and doing the majority 0:13:18.080 --> 0:13:23.199 of housework and anything that had to do with children. Uh. 0:13:23.240 --> 0:13:26.120 And there's also the fact that you know, there's this 0:13:26.760 --> 0:13:30.800 societal expectation like it just it still means something for 0:13:30.840 --> 0:13:33.720 a man to say, my wife doesn't have to work, 0:13:34.760 --> 0:13:37.640 and that says something about his ability to provide, and 0:13:37.679 --> 0:13:39.439 it is a It could be a point of pride 0:13:39.480 --> 0:13:41.720 for a man, even if it's not a big deal 0:13:41.760 --> 0:13:44.559 to him, it can still be a point of pride, 0:13:44.800 --> 0:13:48.480 and society is not going to punish him in any 0:13:48.520 --> 0:13:52.120 way for that being the case. However, when you're a woman, 0:13:52.640 --> 0:13:55.480 if you walk into that, you know, my husband doesn't 0:13:55.520 --> 0:13:57.840 have to work. He doesn't work because he doesn't have to. 0:13:58.000 --> 0:14:00.400 I make enough for both of us. I'm make enough 0:14:00.440 --> 0:14:02.600 to support our whole family, So why should he work? 0:14:03.160 --> 0:14:06.160 Like people look at you like you're being duped and 0:14:06.200 --> 0:14:11.240 you're being taken advantage of. And so these women don't 0:14:11.320 --> 0:14:16.319 necessarily have the societal perk. They don't have the point 0:14:16.320 --> 0:14:20.040 of pride that comes usually from society's reaction to being 0:14:20.080 --> 0:14:24.400 a breadwinner, because that perk is reserved for men. It's 0:14:24.440 --> 0:14:28.160 not accessible to them. You make kind of a subtle 0:14:28.160 --> 0:14:32.520 distinction between the feelings that some women have about making 0:14:32.720 --> 0:14:36.160 more money than their partners and the feelings that they 0:14:36.160 --> 0:14:38.720 have about talking about it. Can you talk a little 0:14:38.720 --> 0:14:43.080 bit about that? Yeah, Um, I think well, from the 0:14:43.200 --> 0:14:45.760 data that I got, from the comments that I saw 0:14:45.880 --> 0:14:51.120 from these women, um, none of them really inherently felt 0:14:51.160 --> 0:14:56.280 bad about making more money. None of them inherently felt 0:14:56.360 --> 0:14:58.840 like there was something wrong with the fact that they 0:14:58.880 --> 0:15:01.840 were making more money. Even if that was their initial reaction, 0:15:02.280 --> 0:15:04.880 they would stop and sort of reflect on it and 0:15:04.880 --> 0:15:06.880 be like, wait a minute, I guess this. You know, 0:15:07.000 --> 0:15:09.760 it's okay, it's not such a big deal. When it 0:15:09.800 --> 0:15:13.880 started to feel like a big deal. Is sort of 0:15:13.920 --> 0:15:18.120 like the reactions like, the world does not adjust for 0:15:18.200 --> 0:15:22.920 women who are breadwinners. It just doesn't. It also doesn't 0:15:22.960 --> 0:15:26.840 adjust for men who become like stay at home. Um, 0:15:26.960 --> 0:15:29.480 husbands or you know, like or work with the kids 0:15:29.480 --> 0:15:33.480 all day. It's like, we still have all these systems 0:15:33.560 --> 0:15:38.240 in place where these women um feel even though they 0:15:38.280 --> 0:15:42.560 might feel pride and being a breadwinner, to express it 0:15:42.680 --> 0:15:48.400 is to invite other people's perceptions of your relationship into 0:15:48.440 --> 0:15:51.640 your life. And so when you do express it and 0:15:51.720 --> 0:15:56.400 people give you those perceptions, they throw them at you. Um, 0:15:56.560 --> 0:15:59.880 you absolutely end up taking some of that on and 0:16:00.120 --> 0:16:02.720 you end up it ends up becoming a thing that 0:16:03.240 --> 0:16:04.920 you know, if you don't want to talk about it, 0:16:04.920 --> 0:16:08.440 it's not necessarily because you're embarrassed or ashamed. Sometimes it's 0:16:08.480 --> 0:16:10.080 you don't want to talk about it for a lot 0:16:10.120 --> 0:16:11.600 of these women because you just don't want to have 0:16:11.640 --> 0:16:14.120 to defend it all the time. You don't want to 0:16:14.120 --> 0:16:17.479 have to constantly be telling people that is not my experience, 0:16:17.760 --> 0:16:20.680 That is not our experience of being in a relationship 0:16:20.720 --> 0:16:23.840 where I'm a breadwinner for us, it is working. I 0:16:23.840 --> 0:16:27.240 mean it's exhausting. It is exhausting to do something non 0:16:27.320 --> 0:16:30.680 traditional and have to explain to people all the time 0:16:30.720 --> 0:16:34.760 that you're not failing because of it. It's interesting because 0:16:34.920 --> 0:16:38.320 I think of earning money as liberation. Well, I mean 0:16:38.320 --> 0:16:40.120 a lot of women think of it that way. But 0:16:40.280 --> 0:16:44.120 reading your story, a lot of these women felt caged 0:16:44.120 --> 0:16:46.560 in and away. But can you talk about that a 0:16:46.640 --> 0:16:51.000 little bit. Yeah, it's the responsibility factor, to be perfectly honest, 0:16:51.040 --> 0:16:55.440 it's the feeling caged in. Is not so much about 0:16:55.480 --> 0:17:01.960 the actual um money. It's about the idea, uh that, oh, 0:17:02.120 --> 0:17:06.680 I am responsible for supporting another person. In some cases, 0:17:06.920 --> 0:17:10.520 if you're a sole earner and also the breadwinner, absolutely 0:17:10.920 --> 0:17:13.399 I am not. I am My salary is no longer 0:17:13.440 --> 0:17:16.240 responsible for just taking care of me. It is also 0:17:16.359 --> 0:17:19.159 responsible for taking care of another person. So shouldn't I 0:17:19.160 --> 0:17:21.480 be going for that promotion that I don't even want 0:17:21.560 --> 0:17:24.960 because it means more money, or shouldn't I be arguing 0:17:25.119 --> 0:17:28.440 for a raise that, you know whatever? Like, it's this 0:17:28.720 --> 0:17:33.920 idea for these women that um that they are stuck 0:17:34.400 --> 0:17:39.280 in the position of breadwinner. And I imagine anybody who 0:17:39.400 --> 0:17:42.360 is the breadwinner would would have those feelings. It's just that, 0:17:42.560 --> 0:17:44.960 you know, male or female, if you're the person supporting 0:17:45.000 --> 0:17:48.320 your family, you're gonna maybe feel trapped by that. But 0:17:48.359 --> 0:17:50.840 are there different ways that women like process that feeling 0:17:50.840 --> 0:17:54.680 of responsibility or given different messages about it? I think 0:17:54.880 --> 0:17:59.040 part of it is that we don't really have a 0:17:59.080 --> 0:18:03.840 template for the conversation. Now what this piece went up, 0:18:04.800 --> 0:18:09.119 a lot of men tweeted me or emailed me or 0:18:09.200 --> 0:18:12.119 messaged me, and there were a lot of men saying 0:18:12.720 --> 0:18:16.679 they had been talking with their friends about the fact 0:18:16.720 --> 0:18:21.800 that they totally expected to have to support a family someday, 0:18:22.280 --> 0:18:24.480 like off and on, you know, in different ways, Like 0:18:24.520 --> 0:18:27.320 maybe they weren't talking about expectably, they were always under 0:18:27.359 --> 0:18:30.600 the impression that at some point in their lives they 0:18:30.600 --> 0:18:32.639 were going to have to support a family. They started 0:18:32.680 --> 0:18:36.960 talking about these things that like eighteen seventeen, sixteen, you 0:18:37.000 --> 0:18:39.080 know what I mean, Like, yeah, well one day when 0:18:39.119 --> 0:18:41.560 I you know, I'm gonna get married and you know, 0:18:41.600 --> 0:18:43.359 my wife, and I want to make sure my wife 0:18:43.359 --> 0:18:45.320 could stay home with the kids if she wants to. 0:18:45.680 --> 0:18:48.200 It's like they start thinking about those things and having 0:18:48.240 --> 0:18:51.959 those conversations so early, and that expectation is put on 0:18:52.000 --> 0:18:54.600 them so early that it's just sort of like in 0:18:54.640 --> 0:18:58.920 their minds, this natural thing of being a man right 0:18:59.720 --> 0:19:06.199 now out Women are basically raised with the expectation, the 0:19:06.280 --> 0:19:11.119 expectation that they will never make more than their husbands 0:19:11.840 --> 0:19:15.399 or that it'll be equitable. But not that they would 0:19:15.400 --> 0:19:20.600 make significantly more than their husbands, So there's no set 0:19:20.680 --> 0:19:23.239 up for like, how do we talk about that? How 0:19:23.280 --> 0:19:25.000 do we talk about the fact that I make more? 0:19:25.280 --> 0:19:27.240 If I make more, does that mean that I need 0:19:27.280 --> 0:19:30.520 to make more of the financial decisions? If I make more, 0:19:30.600 --> 0:19:33.480 does that mean I'm in charge of the money completely? 0:19:33.840 --> 0:19:37.240 You know, like a lot of women just don't know 0:19:37.840 --> 0:19:40.800 how to have those conversations with their partners. They don't 0:19:40.800 --> 0:19:43.200 know how to have those conversations with their friends, they 0:19:43.200 --> 0:19:46.520 don't know how to have those conversations with family members, 0:19:46.720 --> 0:19:51.199 because nothing in the media, nothing you know, in the 0:19:51.200 --> 0:19:54.679 conversations we have as young women, set us up to 0:19:54.760 --> 0:19:59.200 believe that that could even be a possibility. So I 0:19:59.240 --> 0:20:03.280 think it's just this lack of resources and this lack 0:20:03.520 --> 0:20:08.280 of you know, conversation that really contribute for these women 0:20:08.640 --> 0:20:12.920 to the idea that there is something off or wrong 0:20:13.200 --> 0:20:16.760 or shameful or embarrassing, or something that should be hidden 0:20:16.880 --> 0:20:19.199 or at least you shouldn't talk about it when you 0:20:19.280 --> 0:20:22.520 earn more than a male partner or spouse. I'm wondering 0:20:22.560 --> 0:20:25.240 if hearing from all these women and then men afterwards, 0:20:26.040 --> 0:20:29.000 did that change your perspective on being a breadwinner at all. 0:20:29.800 --> 0:20:33.760 It definitely made me stop and really think, like because 0:20:33.800 --> 0:20:35.600 in my mind, like I kept thinking about why I 0:20:35.600 --> 0:20:37.560 didn't feel the same way, and the thing that I 0:20:37.640 --> 0:20:41.080 kept coming to is I must not feel as complicated 0:20:41.080 --> 0:20:45.560 about it, because I know my partner, if I didn't 0:20:45.600 --> 0:20:47.480 want to be doing what I was doing that made 0:20:47.480 --> 0:20:50.040 more money, that he would step up and he would 0:20:50.160 --> 0:20:53.480 help me figure out how we were gonna either downsize 0:20:53.480 --> 0:20:55.720 our lifestyle so that I could do what I wanted 0:20:55.720 --> 0:21:00.640 to do, or he would help me figure out how 0:21:00.680 --> 0:21:03.159 he was going to make more money so that we could, 0:21:03.359 --> 0:21:05.600 you know, keep our lives up, you know, like whatever. 0:21:06.040 --> 0:21:08.679 Like I knew that he was not more committed to 0:21:08.720 --> 0:21:11.639 the lifestyle than he was to me. We would figure 0:21:11.640 --> 0:21:13.919 this out, and that might mean that he would be 0:21:13.960 --> 0:21:16.879 the breadwinner at some point or it might not, you know, 0:21:17.160 --> 0:21:18.919 But I just knew that we would figure it out together. 0:21:19.600 --> 0:21:22.119 But when I really stopped and thought about it, I 0:21:22.240 --> 0:21:25.560 was like, wait, how do I know that, Like we 0:21:25.600 --> 0:21:29.720 haven't really had that conversation, Like that's not something we've 0:21:29.960 --> 0:21:34.240 actually ever talked about. That's my assumption, Like I'm just assuming, 0:21:34.680 --> 0:21:37.920 like a lot of these women are assuming that their 0:21:37.960 --> 0:21:40.399 partners would not be helpful or would not want that 0:21:40.440 --> 0:21:42.960 to happen, or you know, or that they would be stuck. 0:21:43.320 --> 0:21:47.639 I'm just assuming I wouldn't be stuck. So it definitely 0:21:47.720 --> 0:21:50.600 made me go home and have that conversation with my 0:21:50.640 --> 0:21:54.040 boyfriend where I was like, hey, so, say I really 0:21:54.040 --> 0:21:56.440 hated my job, and or maybe I wanted to take 0:21:56.440 --> 0:21:57.960 some time off, or maybe I wanted to take a 0:21:58.040 --> 0:22:00.680 job that you know, made less money because that would 0:22:00.680 --> 0:22:03.560 make me happier. You know, how would you feel about that? 0:22:03.640 --> 0:22:05.119 And he was like, well, we couldn't stay in this 0:22:05.160 --> 0:22:08.880 apartment probably, you know. He was like, but I mean 0:22:09.320 --> 0:22:11.800 I can do jobs that make more money. I could 0:22:11.840 --> 0:22:14.880 have two jobs, like, I could do a lot of things, 0:22:14.920 --> 0:22:17.360 you know. Like he was like, like, I don't want 0:22:17.359 --> 0:22:19.760 you to be unhappy, you know, because my thing has 0:22:19.800 --> 0:22:21.560 always been I don't want to come home to a 0:22:21.600 --> 0:22:24.280 miserable man. I don't care how much money he makes 0:22:24.640 --> 0:22:27.280