Speaker 1: Hello Sunshine, Hey fam Today, on the bright Side, author
Speaker 1: Glennis McNichol is here to tell us how to enjoy ourselves.
Speaker 1: We're talking pleasure, womanhood, and Paris Baby. It's Monday, July eighth.
Speaker 2: I'm Simone Boyce, I'm Danielle Robe and this is the
Speaker 2: bright Side from Hello Sunshine.
Speaker 3: Happy Monday, Danielle.
Speaker 1: It is on my mind Monday, the day of the
Speaker 1: week when we share something that motivates us, inspires curiosity,
Speaker 1: and provides a fresh perspective to the week ahead. So
Speaker 1: what's on your mind today, Danielle.
Speaker 2: Okay, what's on my mind is being a late bloomer.
Speaker 2: So many of us feel pressured by society to achieve
Speaker 2: success early. There's these lists like thirty under thirty, and
Speaker 2: we hear these stories of young achievers like Bill Gates
Speaker 2: and Taylor Swift. But there was a recent article in
Speaker 2: The Atlantic that I loved and it highlights the benefits
Speaker 2: of being a late bloomer. And as somebody who feels
Speaker 2: like a late bloomer in many ways, I just felt
Speaker 2: so kind of like this article gave me a big hug.
Speaker 4: In some ways, this feels very bright side.
Speaker 3: I want to hear more.
Speaker 4: Oh, I love that.
Speaker 2: Yes, it suggests that late bloomers have these unique traits
Speaker 2: that make them successful. So there's three main ones. The
Speaker 2: first is intrinsic motivation. They're driven by personal interests rather
Speaker 2: than external rewards.
Speaker 4: Do you identify with that?
Speaker 1: I think I was driven by external rewards for a while,
Speaker 1: like in my twenties, but now I'm driven by personal interests.
Speaker 4: Love that that's growth, right, definitely.
Speaker 2: The second is diversive curiosity, so it's gained from trying
Speaker 2: different jobs and interests, which leads to a broad range
Speaker 2: of knowledge. It's basically like trying on different hats to
Speaker 2: see if they fit and taking what you like and
Speaker 2: what you don't like from them. And then the third
Speaker 2: is wisdom, which is achieved after a lifetime of experimentation
Speaker 2: and learning. Do you consider yourself a late bloomer at all?
Speaker 1: I don't really know how to answer this question because
Speaker 1: I don't want to compare myself to other people's timelines.
Speaker 1: So to me, it's like, well, what is what is late?
Speaker 3: What is early? What is on time?
Speaker 1: Because everybody's on We're all on our own timelines, and
Speaker 1: I actually quite like my timeline.
Speaker 3: I like my timing. I like my journey.
Speaker 2: That's so beautiful. I think that's what we're all kind
Speaker 2: of working towards. Mika Brazinski started she I think she
Speaker 2: hated the Forbes thirty Under thirty list because she felt
Speaker 2: the same way, and so she started a whole new
Speaker 2: list with the fifty over fifty nominations, which I absolutely
Speaker 2: love seeing. But there's this fascinating statistic from the American
Speaker 2: Economic Review that the likelihood of a startup success increases
Speaker 2: significantly between ages twenty five and thirty five, and it
Speaker 2: continues to rise into the fifties. So the average age
Speaker 2: of a successful entrepreneur is forty five. And if you
Speaker 2: were reading the news, you would never think that, because
Speaker 2: we hear about these like kid geniuses who are eighteen
Speaker 2: and dropped out of college and walked into a boardroom
Speaker 2: with a backpack and became a billionaire.
Speaker 1: You know, well, we're far more generous with our societal
Speaker 1: timelines when it comes to men, like it's not surprising
Speaker 1: to picture a successful entrepreneur who's a man who's forty
Speaker 1: five years old. But for women, we have these expiration
Speaker 1: dates that are so punishing.
Speaker 2: So well said, I think our fertility probably has a
Speaker 2: lot to do with it, but when I read other
Speaker 2: women's stories, it gives me a lot of solace. So
Speaker 2: I just want to share a few women who quote
Speaker 2: unquote made it or lived out their moments and their
Speaker 2: dreams past their twenties. So Tony Morrison was thirty nine
Speaker 2: when she first published her novel The Bluest Eye, and
Speaker 2: she won the Pulitzer at fifty six. Julia Childs was
Speaker 2: in her late thirties when she even tasted French food
Speaker 2: for the first time, and she published her cookbook at
Speaker 2: forty nine.
Speaker 4: This one.
Speaker 2: I love pilot and flight instructor Wally Funk. She's a
Speaker 2: trailblazer for women in space and aviation. She went to
Speaker 2: space for the first time at eighty two. So I
Speaker 2: say all this to say that anybody who feels like
Speaker 2: they need to embrace the bright side of being a
Speaker 2: late bloomer, whatever that means for you, please embrace it.
Speaker 4: There are examples and stories all around us.
Speaker 1: You have plenty of time is an overlooked, under hyped
Speaker 1: affirmation that I think we can all be extending to
Speaker 1: ourselves a lot more often.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think it's fitting to lead into our
Speaker 2: next guests because She's a prime example of living life
Speaker 2: on her own timeline and defining success for herself as
Speaker 2: opposed to living our culture's just blanket definition. Glennis McNichol
Speaker 2: is an author, podcast host, and producer. Her latest book,
Speaker 2: I'm Mostly Here to enjoy Myself One Woman's Pursuit of
Speaker 2: Pleasure in Paris, has made cultural waves. She discusses how
Speaker 2: her Resian adventure reshaped her outlook as she approaches fifty.
Speaker 1: And how the book came to be as super interesting too.
Speaker 1: I mean, Glennis was living alone in New York City
Speaker 1: during the pandemic. During that time, she experienced what she
Speaker 1: calls quote extreme loneliness no one can prepare you for.
Speaker 1: So she actually went months without touch or face to
Speaker 1: face contact. So when she was offered the chance to
Speaker 1: sublet her friend's apartment in Paris, she immediately jumped on
Speaker 1: the opportunity and proceeded to live her best life for
Speaker 1: the next six weeks.
Speaker 2: And a big theme in all of her books is
Speaker 2: centering joyful single women, which has been her own personal experience.
Speaker 2: But here's what I find particularly interesting about her work.
Speaker 2: Whether she's podcasting or producing or writing, she focuses on
Speaker 2: the breath of womanhood, and many of the stories she
Speaker 2: explores are far outside.
Speaker 4: Of her own experiences.
Speaker 2: She did a critically acclaimed podcast called Under the Influence,
Speaker 2: which looks at mommy influencer culture. Or she did another
Speaker 2: podcast called which looked at the history of Laura Ingalls
Speaker 2: Wilder by actually traveling the US to some of her
Speaker 2: iconic places. And So, I think this particular book can
Speaker 2: be summed up by a quote from The New York
Speaker 2: Times about her memoir. It celebrates women who forge their
Speaker 2: own paths, ignoring the cultural scripts they've been handed.
Speaker 3: I love that.
Speaker 4: So I think we have to go off.
Speaker 2: Script today with Glennis McNicol. We'll be right back after
Speaker 2: the break.
Speaker 1: Don't go anywhere, y'all. Welcome to the bright Side, Glennis.
Speaker 1: Thank you guys so much for having me.
Speaker 4: We're so happy to have you here.
Speaker 2: We hear stories about single women, we hear stories about
Speaker 2: happy women, but we don't often hear stories about single
Speaker 2: happy women. And you've written several books that center joyful
Speaker 2: single women. It's a joyful single woman. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2: But there's a Vogue interview you did in twenty eighteen
Speaker 2: and you said this, I turned forty and promptly discovered
Speaker 2: it was nothing like what I'd been led to believe
Speaker 2: leading up to your forties.
Speaker 4: What did you believe it was going to be versus
Speaker 4: what it was?
Speaker 5: Oh goodness, I'm turning fifty in September, so taking me
Speaker 5: back to my thirties feels like.
Speaker 6: A stretch at this point.
Speaker 5: And I'm really grateful I wrote that book when I did,
Speaker 5: because ten years on, I look back and I think,
Speaker 5: was it really as hard as I wrote that it was?
Speaker 5: But I think it was less what I expected them
Speaker 5: to be and more that there was no blueprint for
Speaker 5: what they could look like outside of partnership or parenthood.
Speaker 5: It sort of felt like the whatever map we'd been
Speaker 5: given sort of disappeared, and it was like, oh, you
Speaker 5: have disappeared. There's no version of what life can look
Speaker 5: like for you if you're not parenting or if you're
Speaker 5: not partners. So I think the extreme anxiety over that
Speaker 5: and feeling like I'd failed in some way was overwhelming
Speaker 5: at that time.
Speaker 4: You mentioned anxiety.
Speaker 2: It's something that I feel when I tell people that
Speaker 2: I'm thirty three, I feel their anxiety for me. What
Speaker 2: did you want your life to look like? Why did
Speaker 2: you feel like it was a failure. What had you
Speaker 2: imagined for it?
Speaker 5: I think there we don't have rituals around women's lives
Speaker 5: outside of weddings and parenthood, and subsequently, there's no way
Speaker 5: to celebrate your life.
Speaker 6: And when you have.
Speaker 5: No ritual around being successful in the world, it is
Speaker 5: hard to feel successful. I suppose when no one understands
Speaker 5: the choices you're making or sees them as valid choices,
Speaker 5: or no.
Speaker 6: One really believes it.
Speaker 5: I remember doing a Times article at the time where
Speaker 5: it was like, no one believes I'm happy, because I
Speaker 5: would just and it puts you in a strange, like
Speaker 5: sort of defensive place of like, no, actually, I'm quite
Speaker 5: enjoying my life, but there's no narrative.
Speaker 6: To point to.
Speaker 5: You can't I like, here's my happy life. Photos that
Speaker 5: resonate quite the same way. And I think that that
Speaker 5: can undermine your sense of success in a way, constantly
Speaker 5: having it questioned, and then the resentment of sort of
Speaker 5: feeling like you have to defend yourself. I don't feel
Speaker 5: any of that anymore, but I think at the time
Speaker 5: I was like sensitive to it.
Speaker 1: Glennis, I want to talk about your latest book. I'm
Speaker 1: mostly here to enjoy myself. And I feel like I
Speaker 1: have to mention that I just got back from Paris
Speaker 1: myself so envious.
Speaker 3: The jet lag is still wearing enough.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I related to just about everything in this book
Speaker 1: and I can't wait to really digest it with you.
Speaker 1: But first I think we have to rewind and set
Speaker 1: the stage four. How you even got to Paris? So
Speaker 1: sixteen months earlier, before you move to Paris, you've used
Speaker 1: the term skin hunger to describe the feeling of being
Speaker 1: untouched for those sixteen months that you spent in pure
Speaker 1: isolation during the pandemic. Can you describe what that felt like.
Speaker 5: I live in New York City, and when we went
Speaker 5: into lockdown in March twenty twenty, it was a really
Speaker 5: strict lockdown, and I live in a very small Upper
Speaker 5: West Side studio and I was alone in this studio
Speaker 5: apartment for about fourteen or fifteen months, really alone. And
Speaker 5: after a while you're like, oh, no one has responded
Speaker 5: to my physical presence in any way, and I have
Speaker 5: not had physical contact in any way. And skin hunger
Speaker 5: is a real term that is used to describe what
Speaker 5: happens to people who go without touch for extended periods.
Speaker 5: Of time, and I read a study when I was
Speaker 5: running the book that scientists discovered that animals who had
Speaker 5: been restricted from touch for extended periods of time and
Speaker 5: had the choice between food and touch would go for touch.
Speaker 5: Is how essential touch is to our functioning in the world.
Speaker 5: So after those sixteen months, I was really feeling crazy
Speaker 5: to be embraced, to.
Speaker 6: Be seen, like be seen in the most literal way.
Speaker 5: I think we talked about women in age and invisibility,
Speaker 5: and I was like, literally, I just wanted to literally,
Speaker 5: you know, be seen by people. I like went into
Speaker 5: my closet and took out all my vintage fur coats
Speaker 5: and sort of laid them on the bed and lay
Speaker 5: on top of them as like a way to approximate
Speaker 5: some sort of tactile experience. Yeah, So it was. It
Speaker 5: got to a point where it felt like I was crazed.
Speaker 5: I mean, in hindsight, that's sort of how I exist
Speaker 5: in my own memory.
Speaker 2: Glennis, So you go to Paris and you sublet your
Speaker 2: friend's apartment, and you mentioned lacking physical touch, but you
Speaker 2: get there and you have so much physical touch. You
Speaker 2: have just an overwhelming amount of joy and pleasure. And
Speaker 2: I'm wondering if you can share a story that's top
Speaker 2: of mind where you either felt like you lived really
Speaker 2: outside of yourself or now that I'm hearing this story,
Speaker 2: a moment where you felt so inside of yourself.
Speaker 5: Well, I think I was living for like lockdown, and
Speaker 5: maybe this is true of everyone.
Speaker 6: I was so far outside of myself that getting.
Speaker 5: To Paris was sort of re entering my own body,
Speaker 5: because so much time alone had felt like it was
Speaker 5: separating me from my physical presence. And so those five
Speaker 5: weeks where I landed and just like hurled myself into
Speaker 5: everything pleasurable. I had a very close group of friends
Speaker 5: there who I missed very much, And after I was
Speaker 5: there for two weeks, we went dancing on the Seine
Speaker 5: one Saturday night, which is what it sounds, you know.
Speaker 5: I joke that there's sort of like the real Paris
Speaker 5: and the fantasy Paris, but everyonece in a while they overlap.
Speaker 6: And that was one of those nights where like all.
Speaker 5: The Parisians were had set up picnic blankings and a
Speaker 5: live band had formed out of the blue, and that
Speaker 5: turned into this impromptu dance party and I ended up
Speaker 5: dancing with this very handsome young man all night that
Speaker 5: then progressed to him coming home with me.
Speaker 6: And we had an even more enjoyable night.
Speaker 5: The thing that strikes me about that whole five weeks,
Speaker 5: and one of the reasons that I really wanted to
Speaker 5: write it down, was like everything went right.
Speaker 6: And I think that we rarely.
Speaker 5: Have stories about women where everything goes right, especially women alone.
Speaker 5: I think we attach fear to a woman alone for
Speaker 5: any number of reasons. But again and again, like every
Speaker 5: single little thing went right, until I got to the
Speaker 5: point where I was just like, just enjoy don't second
Speaker 5: guess it, don't wait for it to.
Speaker 3: Not go right.
Speaker 6: It's just going to keep going better and better. And
Speaker 6: it did.
Speaker 1: So glynnis when you were talking about the fear that
Speaker 1: exists around a woman being alone, and I'll take it
Speaker 1: a step further, a woman enjoying herself alone and experiencing
Speaker 1: pleasure alone.
Speaker 3: I mean, that is so real. I feel that so deeply.
Speaker 1: And I'm a married woman, been married for thirteen years,
Speaker 1: I have two kids, so you know, I I'm living
Speaker 1: a very different life than the one that you describe
Speaker 1: in the book. But I actually think that your story
Speaker 1: is so resonant beyond the identity of singledom because in
Speaker 1: the same way that living doesn't start whenever single theom ends.
Speaker 1: Living can't end whenever marriage or partnership begins, right like,
Speaker 1: we still have to keep living and having these experiences.
Speaker 1: And that's what brought me to Paris over the past week,
Speaker 1: and I experienced that fantasy Paris that you were talking about.
Speaker 1: But the reality is that that fear and that guilt
Speaker 1: and that shame around making those choices and choosing ourselves
Speaker 1: still exists. So how do you circumvent that? Are you
Speaker 1: vulnerable to the critics? Have you trained yourself to tune
Speaker 1: them out? At this point?
Speaker 5: I don't know if it's such a conscious decision. I
Speaker 5: think part of it is age. I think you start
Speaker 5: to age out of cultural storylines in a way that
Speaker 5: I think can be punishing but can also be a
Speaker 5: real source of strength because there are fewer expectations placed
Speaker 5: on you. And why there are fewer expectations is the
Speaker 5: problem in the sense of we don't value women over
Speaker 5: a certain age for like a wide variety of reasons.
Speaker 5: When the world is so disinterested in your well being.
Speaker 5: Generally speaking, it's very hard for me to attach myself
Speaker 5: to those expectations. And disappointments. So the idea that I
Speaker 5: would turn around and be worried, like, oh, I should
Speaker 5: apologize for this behavior or I should feel a shamed
Speaker 5: for doing this, I think, well, you know you're not
Speaker 5: doing really anything for me, so why should I take
Speaker 5: up this brain space thinking about how you feel about this?
Speaker 1: What are the conversations that you're having with your married
Speaker 1: friends about the kind of empowered living that you exemplify
Speaker 1: in this book.
Speaker 5: Most of my friendships are now decades long, dating back
Speaker 5: to high school or my early twenties, and so I
Speaker 5: receive nothing but encouragement around my life or support or love,
Speaker 5: and that's vice versus. So I think they're all really
Speaker 5: energized by it and sort of love the idea of it,
Speaker 5: And if they're not in a place where they can
Speaker 5: participate in it, or even in a place where they
Speaker 5: would ever want to participate in it, it's enjoyable to
Speaker 5: note that it's possible and that someone's doing it. A
Speaker 5: friend of mine said to me the other day that
Speaker 5: after she read the book, she felt empowered, a very
Speaker 5: strong word to apply to what's going to be a
Speaker 5: very small gesture. But she was joking that someone asked
Speaker 5: her if she wanted an ice coffee, and instead of
Speaker 5: saying no, no, I'm fine, she said, yes, I would
Speaker 5: like an ice coffee and I would like it with
Speaker 5: almond milk. And she was like, I should be enjoying this.
Speaker 5: I'm not going to be scared to ask for what
Speaker 5: I need. So that so far has been sort of
Speaker 5: a fun response. But most of my friends knew this
Speaker 5: was happening as it was happening, because I was updating,
Speaker 5: because I was going.
Speaker 4: So I think it was fun for them to.
Speaker 1: See it in the book form, the What's app texts
Speaker 1: and everything.
Speaker 6: Yeah, exactly, you say.
Speaker 4: The Paris group chat is lit.
Speaker 5: Yeah, my parents group chatter. None of those women are married.
Speaker 5: But when I came back, I sort of floated back
Speaker 5: into New York and I was like, guys, let me
Speaker 5: see what I've been doing.
Speaker 4: Well to that point.
Speaker 2: Do you think that French women approach aging, pleasure family
Speaker 2: relationships differently than we do in the US.
Speaker 5: When I'm in France, I feel like aging is more
Speaker 5: what's the word I'm looking for?
Speaker 6: They have a gentler relationship with aging.
Speaker 5: That women are considered attractive as they age in ways.
Speaker 6: That we aren't here.
Speaker 5: I think they have a far more I think more
Speaker 5: broadly speaking, they have a far more comfortable relationship with sex,
Speaker 5: and that's European and not necessarily French, but that we
Speaker 5: are still very puritan here in North America, and that
Speaker 5: when you're there is not so rare to find older
Speaker 5: women attractive, or that older women would consider themselves attractive.
Speaker 5: And there's I notice anyway less procedures happening on faces.
Speaker 5: But that's anecdotal and anecdotal from my New York experience
Speaker 5: as well.
Speaker 6: But I definitely think they have an easier time with it.
Speaker 1: I would say I also was really inspired by just
Speaker 1: how they live life. I mean, I would go to
Speaker 1: dinner at ten pm and it would be a three
Speaker 1: hour dinner, you know, And there's a slowness to life
Speaker 1: there and a leisurelyiness that I found very appealing and
Speaker 1: something that I hope I can bring back.
Speaker 6: I agree with you one hundred percent.
Speaker 5: And I also think France enjoyment is considered I would say,
Speaker 5: like a human right. It's built into the legislature, essentially,
Speaker 5: like how many days you can work, how many hours
Speaker 5: when you retire. I always think a good example of
Speaker 5: this is when you're unemployed. In France, you get free
Speaker 5: access to museums, Like there is this sense that this
Speaker 5: is like a part of life, and I think in
Speaker 5: America pleasure has to be earned, like you have to financially,
Speaker 5: but also through work, and that I think is what
Speaker 5: we feel that when we get there is just like, oh,
Speaker 5: this is just how the day goes.
Speaker 6: You don't have to justify it.
Speaker 4: We need to take a quick break, but we'll be
Speaker 4: right back. Stay with us and we're back.
Speaker 2: Glinnis, you have this theory that the female narrative is
Speaker 2: based on the male orgasm.
Speaker 4: Will you elaborate on that.
Speaker 5: I feel like the narrative structure as we understand it
Speaker 5: for everyone is based on the you know, the male orgasm,
Speaker 5: which makes sense when you think men were primarily and
Speaker 5: are still primarily the storytellers and that is the fundamental
Speaker 5: experience of life. It's sort of, you know, it's a
Speaker 5: three act structure. It's like set it up, tension, culmination,
Speaker 5: the end, and it just drops off after that.
Speaker 6: And I think that that happy ending.
Speaker 5: I mean, you can talk about the phrase happy ending
Speaker 5: if you want to, in terms of how it gets applied.
Speaker 6: In a massage situation. Sometimes.
Speaker 5: But I think because I've struggled so many times to
Speaker 5: convince people that the life I'm living is deserving of
Speaker 5: a narrative because it doesn't fill the classic narrative structure
Speaker 5: that we understand. It is always the question of, well,
Speaker 5: how do we know that you're happy? How do we
Speaker 5: know that you've been a success if we can't cap
Speaker 5: this off in ways that we're familiar with that I
Speaker 5: really started rethinking narrative structure and thinking, you know, what
Speaker 5: if it didn't resemble the male orgasm, and what if
Speaker 5: it resembled a female orgasm, which is more like waves,
Speaker 5: and some are bigger and some are smaller, and there's
Speaker 5: not necessarily like an end, you know, like it just
Speaker 5: maybe it keeps going in ways and maybe the high
Speaker 5: point is earlier and that at the very end.
Speaker 2: First of all, I love that analogy. I think you're right,
Speaker 2: and I love the imagery of waves. So much of
Speaker 2: our life looks like that. You've mentioned sort of like
Speaker 2: the the markers of success a few times, and I'm
Speaker 2: wondering how you measure it in yourself.
Speaker 5: Now, I would say I came out of that trip.
Speaker 5: That trip I sort of think, in hindsight, was like
Speaker 5: a doorway into middle age. I was forty six turning
Speaker 5: forty seven, and I hope this is middle age, you know,
Speaker 5: you hope that you have another forty years. But as like,
Speaker 5: I came through it, and I came out of it
Speaker 5: feeling so excited and powerful and just really feeling like
Speaker 5: all the warnings I'd been told about age were a lie,
Speaker 5: and until proven otherwise, I was going to assume it
Speaker 5: was all a lie. And so I think just maintaining
Speaker 5: the sense of agency and optimism and trying to align
Speaker 5: myself with my acts in a sense of like, how
Speaker 5: do I exist in the world. Is that aligned with
Speaker 5: the person I know I am to be because I'm
Speaker 5: fully within myself. I mean, I hope everyone by the
Speaker 5: time they get to fifty feels fully within themselves, and
Speaker 5: I do.
Speaker 6: And so to maintain.
Speaker 5: That sort of groundedness within myself and make sure that
Speaker 5: you know, you keep going with.
Speaker 6: That, which is not always easy.
Speaker 5: I think when you don't see any sense of yourself
Speaker 5: reflected in the culture, it can be hard to believe
Speaker 5: that you are enjoying yourself as much as you are
Speaker 5: because you're not seeing a reflection of it, and you
Speaker 5: really have to have full faith in your own experience
Speaker 5: because there's very little to back it up.
Speaker 6: And maintaining that I think is really important.
Speaker 1: It's hard to believe that you had any doubters before
Speaker 1: you published this book, because, oh God, I've been seeing
Speaker 1: this book everywhere. I mean, you were on CBS Mornings,
Speaker 1: you were on our friend Mary Jane Fahee's page. Everyone
Speaker 1: is loving this book, and so I'm so thrilled for
Speaker 1: you that you're getting this response. And there was this
Speaker 1: line that really stuck out to me that you've written
Speaker 1: that you said the thing women fantasize about the most
Speaker 1: is freedom. That line really stopped me in my tracks.
Speaker 1: What was on your mind when you wrote that? Was
Speaker 1: there a chapter of your life that you were thinking about.
Speaker 5: It was a friend of mine who was researching the
Speaker 5: history of pornography and saying, one of the reasons it's
Speaker 5: so difficult to make pornography that appeals to women is
Speaker 5: because women don't fantasize about sex necessarily as their greatest fantasy.
Speaker 5: They fantasize about freedom. A funny historical anecdote is when
Speaker 5: the two wheel bike was sort of first emerged on
Speaker 5: the scene at the turn of the last century.
Speaker 6: It was huge for women.
Speaker 5: It was the first time they were able to go
Speaker 5: places is at a chaperone. Prior to that, the only
Speaker 5: women who were able to sort of walk alone in
Speaker 5: the streets were sex workers who needed a license from
Speaker 5: the city, but otherwise you needed a chaperone. And so
Speaker 5: women were able to travel by themselves. But the men
Speaker 5: tried to push back on women on bikes by saying
Speaker 5: that young women might inadvertently experience an orgasm from the
Speaker 5: bicycle seat, and this was their argument for not allowing
Speaker 5: women on bikes. And I that is where that line
Speaker 5: comes from, because I thought, I always thought, like, oh,
Speaker 5: the orgasm that women are going to experience on these
Speaker 5: bikes has nothing to do with the physical experience. It
Speaker 5: has to do with like the absolute thrill of being
Speaker 5: able to go somewhere by yourself when you want and
Speaker 5: how you want, and that that was a possibility and
Speaker 5: how thrilling that is. And in these five weeks really
Speaker 5: for myself interrogating what that meant. And I think bigger
Speaker 5: picture is this sense of and going back to turning
Speaker 5: forty with this sense of, oh, you're not partners, you
Speaker 5: don't have children, you fit the sort of stereotype of
Speaker 5: what we believe to be sort of a failure or
Speaker 5: sad woman, and really understanding that I recognized all of
Speaker 5: the opportunity available to me, and that I was a
Speaker 5: person who was built for the life I was leading,
Speaker 5: and that I was so grateful to have the opportunities
Speaker 5: I had because I was a person who could take
Speaker 5: advantage of them in every way, not just you know
Speaker 5: where I was born, when I was born, the education
Speaker 5: I had access to, but that I was able to
Speaker 5: run with this in a way that felt completely true
Speaker 5: to myself and how fortunate I am that that's possible,
Speaker 5: because God knows, there's been play any of women who
Speaker 5: are built to live the life I'm leading and never
Speaker 5: had the opportunity to do so. So I think it
Speaker 5: was sort of a culmination after this trip or during
Speaker 5: the strip, of really recognizing that I in the exact
Speaker 5: life I'm supposed to be in, and thank God I
Speaker 5: had access to a life that so fits the person
Speaker 5: I am so completely.
Speaker 2: You've worked on some critically acclaimed shows. One that I
Speaker 2: loved was Under the Influence, which looks at mommy influencer culture.
Speaker 2: You worked on Wilder, which looked at the history of
Speaker 2: Laura Ingles Wilder by actually traveling the US to some
Speaker 2: of her iconic places. And what I noticed is that
Speaker 2: both shows, as well as your books, they all focus
Speaker 2: on women and the breath of womanhood.
Speaker 4: And so I have a very general question.
Speaker 2: For you, which is, where did your interest in womanhood
Speaker 2: come from?
Speaker 5: I'm a writer in the place I write from is
Speaker 5: like a place of observation, and there came a point
Speaker 5: where you just I wanted to see some version of
Speaker 5: my life reflected in the world. And in the case
Speaker 5: of Wilder, the Little housebooks were, you know, pivotal to me.
Speaker 5: There were early books I read. It's when I decided
Speaker 5: I wanted to be a writer. And when we say
Speaker 5: in the podcast we pull out my little Diary from
Speaker 5: when I was six and.
Speaker 6: Being like, I want to be a writer, like Loring,
Speaker 6: goes Wilder.
Speaker 5: And so I think it's more this sense of I
Speaker 5: crave at all times narratives that reflect not just how
Speaker 5: I'm existing, but like, my life is not that unusual.
Speaker 5: I can look to my left and right, and I
Speaker 5: know the dozens of women living similarly to me at
Speaker 5: my age and making similar choices, and it's just I
Speaker 5: just happened to be one of the people who put
Speaker 5: it to paper. But the fact it feels unusual is
Speaker 5: always so enraging to me, because I'm like, why aren't
Speaker 5: we seeing the movies and the television shows around this?
Speaker 6: And so I'm always just like.
Speaker 5: Digging around trying to throw some version of it up
Speaker 5: there because I'm not seeing it.
Speaker 6: It doesn't feel like I'm seeing it enough.
Speaker 1: Well, Glennis, You've clearly struck a nerve with this book,
Speaker 1: and I think that's because we all have this universal
Speaker 1: desire to live an empowered life, as you are clearly living,
Speaker 1: and I believe that it's never too late for women
Speaker 1: to start living unapologetically. So when you look back on
Speaker 1: all these rich life experiences that you've had, what is
Speaker 1: the secret to liberation?
Speaker 6: I'm not sure I conceive of my life in these terms.
Speaker 6: Is maybe the challenge here.
Speaker 5: I don't think that I'm not unusual, is the interesting thing.
Speaker 5: When I look around, I don't actually find myself to
Speaker 5: be that unique. I think it's a long process of
Speaker 5: just of wanting to do what makes me feel in
Speaker 5: charge and more powerful, and working relentlessly to align how
Speaker 5: I make a living with how I want to exist
Speaker 5: in the world, which is with as much agency and
Speaker 5: latitude is possible. And I don't know that you know
Speaker 5: that looks different for everyone, but it does feel to
Speaker 5: me that at some point I stopped feeling shame around
Speaker 5: any part of my existence. And that comes down to
Speaker 5: I think there was a point where I thought, who's
Speaker 5: benefiting from my feeling ashamed?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 5: I actually think that's a good question for everyone to
Speaker 5: ask themselves if you're feeling shame in a certain experience
Speaker 5: or in a certain decision, like who benefits from that shame?
Speaker 6: Do you benefit from it?
Speaker 5: If there's a general sense of like, oh goodness, she's
Speaker 5: doing what she wants, who benefits from you feeling bad
Speaker 5: about that? Because usually not anyone who's opinion you're interested in.
Speaker 2: I would argue, is there a word that does resonate
Speaker 2: for you? Like I've heard people use the word untamed?
Speaker 2: You said liberation doesn't totally hit like what feels right
Speaker 2: for you?
Speaker 5: I think agency is a word that I tend to
Speaker 5: come back to a lot. I'm able to make choices
Speaker 5: for myself and I'm not scared to make them, and.
Speaker 6: That feels good. That feels successful to me.
Speaker 4: I love that we'll go with agency.
Speaker 2: Then, yeah, Glennis, thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 6: Thank you both for having me.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Glennis.
Speaker 2: Glennis McNichol is a writer and the author of I'm
Speaker 2: Mostly Here to enjoy Myself.
Speaker 4: You can find it wherever you get your books.
Speaker 1: That's it for today's show. Tomorrow, we're headed to the
Speaker 1: Olympics with American breaker Sonny Choi. She's currently training to
Speaker 1: compete in break dancing at this summer's Paris Olympics.
Speaker 2: Listen and follow the bright Side on the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 3: I'm Simone Boye.
Speaker 1: You can find me at Simone Voice on Instagram and TikTok.
Speaker 2: I'm Danielle Robe on Instagram and TikTok.
Speaker 4: That's ro Ba.
Speaker 3: Y see you tomorrow, folks.
Speaker 1: Keep looking on the bright side.