WEBVTT - Businessweek Extra- Candace Bushnell 0:00:02.520 --> 0:00:06.720 This is Bloomberg Business Week from Bloomberg Radio Jason Kelly 0:00:06.760 --> 0:00:09.760 and I'm Carol Masser. Welcome to the Bloomberg Business Week Extra. 0:00:09.920 --> 0:00:12.520 It's a weekly podcast bringing an in depth interview you 0:00:12.560 --> 0:00:15.000 will not hear anywhere else. And this week, I gotta 0:00:15.040 --> 0:00:19.439 say I love this conversation. Candice Bushnell stopped by. We're 0:00:19.440 --> 0:00:22.960 expecting you know, sort of a chat about sex and 0:00:23.200 --> 0:00:25.880 TV and all of that. It really took a turn, 0:00:25.960 --> 0:00:29.280 a much more serious turn, candidly, because she really brought 0:00:29.280 --> 0:00:33.519 her a game, talking about economics, women, sort of the 0:00:33.600 --> 0:00:36.760 changing nature of power and money here in New York 0:00:36.760 --> 0:00:38.800 City and elsewhere. Right, we went down memory lane, but 0:00:38.840 --> 0:00:41.360 it also took some interesting turns. Listen up. So every 0:00:41.400 --> 0:00:43.760 once in a while, something or someone or both comes 0:00:43.800 --> 0:00:45.640 along that becomes so much a part of our world, 0:00:45.640 --> 0:00:48.239 a reference that ties together people, marks an era in 0:00:48.280 --> 0:00:50.720 our society. And that was definitely the case with Sex 0:00:50.760 --> 0:00:53.880 in the City. We talked so much about the idea 0:00:53.960 --> 0:00:56.920 of Zeitgeist, and there are few people who were more 0:00:57.120 --> 0:00:59.840 Zeitgeist than Candice Bushnell. She's here with us in the 0:01:00.040 --> 0:01:02.160 York City. She's got a new book out. Is there 0:01:02.240 --> 0:01:05.520 still Sex in the City? It's a good looking cover. 0:01:05.680 --> 0:01:07.720 You look great on it, you know, I don't. I 0:01:07.760 --> 0:01:10.680 don't know. I mean your dogs. I have my dogs. 0:01:11.000 --> 0:01:14.720 And but I think I should have I should have 0:01:14.760 --> 0:01:17.440 been sort of coming out like at the reader, like 0:01:17.520 --> 0:01:23.040 it's there still. So what inspired you to write this book? Now? 0:01:24.240 --> 0:01:27.120 Really the same thing that inspired me to write Sex 0:01:27.160 --> 0:01:30.360 in the City, and that is that I felt like 0:01:30.680 --> 0:01:35.640 as a woman I was in uncharted territory. Um, you know, 0:01:35.800 --> 0:01:39.160 once again being in my fifties. And when I was 0:01:39.200 --> 0:01:41.720 in my thirties and I was writing Sex in the City, 0:01:42.080 --> 0:01:46.920 I was a single woman. And um uh, you know, 0:01:46.959 --> 0:01:50.120 there really weren't supposed to be any single women in 0:01:50.160 --> 0:01:54.320 their thirties. That was, you know, twenty years ago, being 0:01:54.880 --> 0:01:58.440 single in your thirties was considered what's wrong with you? 0:01:58.520 --> 0:02:02.240 What's wrong with you? You have baggage. Why haven't you 0:02:02.440 --> 0:02:06.160 been able to understand how society works and find, you know, 0:02:06.240 --> 0:02:09.799 find somebody. Um so that was really the rise of 0:02:09.840 --> 0:02:12.200 the Sex and the City woman. You know, a woman 0:02:12.240 --> 0:02:15.639 who said, I'm living by different rules for a variety 0:02:15.680 --> 0:02:18.840 of reasons, I haven't found the guy. I mean, the 0:02:18.880 --> 0:02:21.519 Sex of the City woman is really the woman who 0:02:21.560 --> 0:02:25.040 in the eighties, set out to have it all and 0:02:25.200 --> 0:02:27.800 do it all. How hard take us back there, Like, 0:02:27.840 --> 0:02:30.560 how hard was it to be a single woman in 0:02:30.600 --> 0:02:34.880 the city dating, trying to make her way, make her impact? 0:02:34.960 --> 0:02:38.560 How hard was it? It was pretty hard. I mean 0:02:38.600 --> 0:02:41.480 it was pretty hard. And I think one of the 0:02:41.639 --> 0:02:44.920 hardest things for me was really being somebody who I 0:02:45.040 --> 0:02:47.680 came to the city. I didn't go to an ivy 0:02:47.720 --> 0:02:52.200 league school, so I didn't have that protection. Um, I 0:02:52.280 --> 0:02:57.560 didn't really know anybody, and I had no relatives here. 0:02:57.680 --> 0:03:02.440 So this is a city that really really thrives on connections, 0:03:02.639 --> 0:03:08.679 and you are greatly protected by your connections and who 0:03:08.720 --> 0:03:11.640 you can get to and what circles you move in, 0:03:11.840 --> 0:03:17.200 and so being somebody without any of those cards makes it, 0:03:17.320 --> 0:03:21.840 I think difficult. You really really have to look out 0:03:22.000 --> 0:03:24.160 for yourself. And you were young. You were nine. I 0:03:24.280 --> 0:03:27.240 was nineteen when I first moved to the city, and 0:03:27.280 --> 0:03:30.360 it was pretty you know, the city was it was 0:03:30.639 --> 0:03:35.160 very dangerous. I was held up at gunpoint. Um, I 0:03:35.200 --> 0:03:38.120 think actually somebody I once I was in a punk 0:03:38.160 --> 0:03:42.000 fashion show. It was probably two or three in the morning. 0:03:42.000 --> 0:03:45.720 I was going home and I had a face full 0:03:45.760 --> 0:03:49.840 of pretty extreme makeup of course, it was two and 0:03:49.920 --> 0:03:51.520 three in the morning. I wasn't going home. I was 0:03:51.560 --> 0:03:54.520 going to visit a friend where you threw down the key. 0:03:54.600 --> 0:03:57.600 While I was waiting for this person to throw down 0:03:57.640 --> 0:04:03.680 the key, a car pulled up and there was you know, 0:04:03.800 --> 0:04:08.600 they were definitely looking for some of their prostitutes or 0:04:08.600 --> 0:04:13.480 whatever who had clearly run away, and they one guy 0:04:13.640 --> 0:04:16.640 got out of the car with a gun and ran 0:04:17.080 --> 0:04:18.680 towards me. And it was like, I got in the 0:04:18.680 --> 0:04:21.479 first door, but I couldn't get through this into the 0:04:21.560 --> 0:04:25.960 second door, and and I just turned around and I 0:04:26.960 --> 0:04:29.760 just screamed, and I knew at that point, I was like, 0:04:29.760 --> 0:04:31.760 there's no way I'm getting in that car. I was like, 0:04:31.760 --> 0:04:34.200 you're gonna have to shoot me before you put a 0:04:34.240 --> 0:04:37.080 hand on me. And I don't know if it was 0:04:37.120 --> 0:04:42.440 the extreme makeup, but he looked absolutely startled and shocked 0:04:42.640 --> 0:04:47.920 and frightened and ran away. That was like, so, I, yes, 0:04:48.000 --> 0:04:50.200 but that kind of thing happened all the time. But 0:04:50.360 --> 0:04:56.000 I was really fearless, and I really really was fearless. Well, 0:04:56.040 --> 0:04:59.080 and you were fearless professionally as well. And you know, 0:04:59.120 --> 0:05:02.360 in a pre social media age, it sounds like what 0:05:02.480 --> 0:05:06.000 you set out to do was to create the connections 0:05:06.160 --> 0:05:08.840 to your point that I think we take for granted 0:05:08.880 --> 0:05:11.720 now because everybody is a click or an instagram or 0:05:11.760 --> 0:05:14.440 a tweet away. You had to sort of do that 0:05:14.480 --> 0:05:16.400 the old fashioned way. But one of the things you 0:05:16.400 --> 0:05:19.240 did was you fell in with a group of incredibly 0:05:19.839 --> 0:05:22.279 well known writers at the time. You talk about sort 0:05:22.320 --> 0:05:25.040 of the site guysy writers at the time, Freddie Snellis, 0:05:25.080 --> 0:05:30.960 Jay McNerney, editors and others. What was that all about, Well, 0:05:31.000 --> 0:05:35.479 it was so much fun, it was. That was what 0:05:35.680 --> 0:05:39.200 happened in New York was when I first moved to 0:05:39.640 --> 0:05:44.000 in nineteen nine, the city was broke. Economics have so 0:05:44.520 --> 0:05:46.479 much to do with this, and that's something that we 0:05:46.560 --> 0:05:51.039 never want to talk about, but you know about it 0:05:51.080 --> 0:05:56.920 all the time. You know, the economy was bad. And 0:05:57.040 --> 0:05:59.320 one of the things that I've noticed is that when 0:05:59.320 --> 0:06:05.920 the economy these bad, feminism rises. Um and I could 0:06:05.920 --> 0:06:08.760 be wrong about this, but it's something that I've observed. 0:06:08.960 --> 0:06:12.159 And so there was seemed like there was a lot 0:06:12.200 --> 0:06:16.640 of feminism in New York in the early eighties. You 0:06:16.760 --> 0:06:20.720 probably don't remember this, but there were women on the 0:06:20.760 --> 0:06:25.520 streets with you know that we're against pornography, and the 0:06:25.560 --> 0:06:30.000 pornography was it was pretty brutal, dead um, New York pornography, 0:06:30.040 --> 0:06:36.760 New York pornography. It was pretty bad. And you know, 0:06:36.839 --> 0:06:40.360 then there was that big boom in the eighties, you know, 0:06:40.520 --> 0:06:43.480 and and so that seemed to start happening in the 0:06:43.480 --> 0:06:47.719 mid eighties, and and so it was New York was 0:06:47.800 --> 0:06:54.000 really a party city. And it was also the thing 0:06:54.000 --> 0:06:57.479 that everyone has to remember, it was very very small. 0:06:57.560 --> 0:07:01.800 I mean, this society of you know, the movers and 0:07:01.839 --> 0:07:09.600 shakers or boldfaced names was probably literally five thousand people max, 0:07:09.760 --> 0:07:14.600 but probably about two thou people. And it was really 0:07:14.840 --> 0:07:20.920 the time of the velvet rope and more and more exclusivity. 0:07:21.120 --> 0:07:26.160 So it was great to be on the inside of that. 0:07:26.480 --> 0:07:30.320 And life was incredibly exciting. And you know, there was 0:07:30.400 --> 0:07:34.640 no the gossip was it was page six, which of 0:07:34.640 --> 0:07:37.120 course everybody wanted to and didn't want to be on. 0:07:37.240 --> 0:07:41.520 I mean people were so afraid of you know, bad publicity. 0:07:42.680 --> 0:07:45.960 Now of course everybody gets it. I mean everybody gets 0:07:46.000 --> 0:07:52.600 it on Twitter sense, so um. But then you know, 0:07:52.680 --> 0:07:57.280 we had the big boom, and then we had that bust, 0:07:57.440 --> 0:08:00.880 and we had the trophy wife. In the these eight 0:08:01.000 --> 0:08:07.640 late eighties, you know, what was it Black Friday? But 0:08:07.720 --> 0:08:13.280 wasn't there another crash in? That was that? But like 0:08:14.240 --> 0:08:17.320 was essentially when Bush goes out of office, Clinton comes in. 0:08:17.400 --> 0:08:22.920 That was the economy that was fairly unsteady. And that economy, 0:08:23.200 --> 0:08:26.520 yes and so, and that was you know, that recession 0:08:26.560 --> 0:08:31.920 time was a time when well, first of all, there 0:08:31.960 --> 0:08:34.960 were a lot of perks because there were you know, 0:08:35.040 --> 0:08:38.760 the big, big companies. They didn't take care of their employees, 0:08:38.800 --> 0:08:41.240 but they would not pay you very much. That was 0:08:41.280 --> 0:08:44.040 the time of you know, everybody he was taking a 0:08:44.080 --> 0:08:47.960 town car and they had these little luxuries that they 0:08:48.000 --> 0:08:50.040 would give you in order to make up for the 0:08:50.080 --> 0:08:53.840 fact that you were not paid well paid very badly. 0:08:54.840 --> 0:08:59.560 And then that also seemed like a time of feminism, 0:08:59.679 --> 0:09:03.800 um really in the nineties. And it seemed like to me, 0:09:04.559 --> 0:09:06.480 all of those women in the eighties who come to 0:09:06.520 --> 0:09:10.040 New York to make it, who hadn't found somebody, they 0:09:10.080 --> 0:09:12.800 were now in their thirties and they had careers, and 0:09:12.880 --> 0:09:15.760 some of them were starting to be successful, and they 0:09:15.800 --> 0:09:21.840 had a very different view of men. They really didn't 0:09:21.880 --> 0:09:27.679 want to settle and they didn't want to accept, you know, 0:09:27.720 --> 0:09:30.240 the things that they supposedly would have accepted in the 0:09:30.320 --> 0:09:33.160 eighties when they were maybe more desperate. Ticket Mary, that's 0:09:33.200 --> 0:09:36.480 a very long winded conversation, but it's really fascinating. But 0:09:36.520 --> 0:09:38.360 your column in The New York Observer, from what we 0:09:38.440 --> 0:09:41.560 understand is that you were talking about your stories right 0:09:41.679 --> 0:09:44.719 dating in the office and a couple of editors were like, 0:09:45.160 --> 0:09:47.320 this would be a great column. Is that correct or 0:09:47.360 --> 0:09:50.000 how did it kind of come correct me? Because we 0:09:50.080 --> 0:09:52.199 want to know like kind of how that came to be, 0:09:52.200 --> 0:09:55.720 because that was really I was actually right. It's so 0:09:56.160 --> 0:10:00.600 it's so hard actually writing something about that time of 0:10:00.760 --> 0:10:03.280 when I was writing the column and how I got 0:10:03.360 --> 0:10:06.839 the column, and I do put the scene in where 0:10:07.360 --> 0:10:10.240 the character is, you know, talking about her dating life 0:10:10.320 --> 0:10:14.760 all of the editors and stuff like that. So, um, yes, 0:10:15.360 --> 0:10:20.120 I had a lot of stories and I was full 0:10:20.160 --> 0:10:26.840 of ideas for stories, um for them. And Susan Morrison 0:10:27.160 --> 0:10:29.360 was the editor when I was first there, and she 0:10:29.480 --> 0:10:32.480 sent me out to do a lot of She wanted 0:10:32.480 --> 0:10:34.440 me to write about a lot of these different kinds 0:10:34.440 --> 0:10:37.240 of guys like Richard Holbrook was one of them, who 0:10:37.240 --> 0:10:39.560 I hear is an absolutely fascinating man. There's a new 0:10:39.600 --> 0:10:44.080 biography of him. I couldn't even get him on the phone. 0:10:44.920 --> 0:10:48.240 And you know, and Jeffrey Epstein was also one of these, 0:10:48.400 --> 0:10:52.920 you know, kind of questionable what's going on? How did 0:10:52.960 --> 0:10:55.720 he get his money? And there were a few other 0:10:56.240 --> 0:11:00.800 of these types, And it was pretty normal when you 0:11:00.880 --> 0:11:07.840 interviewed these big business types that you would either get bribed, 0:11:08.559 --> 0:11:11.080 they would try to bribe you, or would threaten you. 0:11:12.240 --> 0:11:14.400 So they would kind of bribe you with I can 0:11:14.480 --> 0:11:17.920 make your career and threaten you with you're gonna end 0:11:18.000 --> 0:11:21.600 up in the East River, whether block around your ankle. Well, 0:11:21.960 --> 0:11:24.040 let's talk about that for a second, because I feel 0:11:24.080 --> 0:11:27.079 like those archetypes that you know, started in the boom 0:11:27.080 --> 0:11:30.600 of the eighties, they go through the nineties, they manifest 0:11:30.640 --> 0:11:35.320 differently here in the two thousands. This is the audience 0:11:35.360 --> 0:11:37.880 the characters that were so interested in from a Bloomberg 0:11:37.880 --> 0:11:41.760 in a Business Week perspective, how has that archetype changed? 0:11:41.840 --> 0:11:44.760 And maybe a different way of asking it is what 0:11:44.840 --> 0:11:51.360 does Mr Big look like in twenty nineteen? Oh gosh, Um, 0:11:51.800 --> 0:11:56.600 that's such a hard question for me to answer, partly 0:11:56.640 --> 0:12:01.560 because I just tell Chris Note and you know, literally 0:12:01.600 --> 0:12:04.080 what he looks like, literally what he looks like. I 0:12:04.160 --> 0:12:06.280 just saw him a couple of days ago. He's looking good. 0:12:06.360 --> 0:12:12.160 He's good. Um, does he still exists too? Like does 0:12:12.320 --> 0:12:17.880 Mr You know that's a very good question, and and um, 0:12:17.920 --> 0:12:24.880 you know Mr Big we're hoping is not a me tour. Um. 0:12:25.080 --> 0:12:32.400 I but does he exist? I think he looks maybe 0:12:32.440 --> 0:12:35.320 a little bit different. But I have to tell you, 0:12:35.520 --> 0:12:41.479 I you know, men with power, they given the opportunity 0:12:41.640 --> 0:12:46.280 to behave like men with power, they will. That's generally 0:12:46.760 --> 0:12:50.800 been my experience. So I don't I think that men 0:12:50.920 --> 0:12:56.400 are held more accountable. I think that men do things way, 0:12:57.040 --> 0:13:01.640 make too many decisions based on ego and ocean. Um, 0:13:01.679 --> 0:13:06.440 that's still my existence with men. Boy, they've got thin skins. 0:13:07.040 --> 0:13:11.520 I mean I have had a lot of problems in business, 0:13:11.640 --> 0:13:15.720 which just trying to talk to men like look, this 0:13:15.800 --> 0:13:22.160 is the way it is, you know. So uh, you 0:13:22.200 --> 0:13:27.040 know from I tend to have a lot of difficulty 0:13:27.640 --> 0:13:32.520 working with men in business. Um, it's an ego thing. 0:13:32.960 --> 0:13:37.160 I you know, I still see it. So much of 0:13:37.200 --> 0:13:41.080 business is really run on the egos of men. And 0:13:41.120 --> 0:13:45.120 we're in this mess because of you know, men are 0:13:45.240 --> 0:13:48.839 keeping score and counting up how many billions they have? 0:13:50.720 --> 0:13:52.840 Is that also that because I was thinking about how 0:13:52.880 --> 0:13:55.280 often we talk about, you know, equality, whether it's in 0:13:55.840 --> 0:13:58.400 you know, the c suite or on corporate boards, like 0:13:58.440 --> 0:14:03.320 it's still held back dramatically, it's hugely held back. I mean, 0:14:03.400 --> 0:14:09.120 women are there is no equality. And part of the 0:14:09.200 --> 0:14:14.280 reason is, I think socially, how are we brought up 0:14:14.360 --> 0:14:17.520 to look at men and women? And it's we've all 0:14:17.559 --> 0:14:24.840 internalized it so much. And I think, you know, it 0:14:24.840 --> 0:14:27.080 goes so deep because we really have to look at 0:14:27.280 --> 0:14:30.760 you know, we as human beings. We probably raised to 0:14:30.800 --> 0:14:36.600 live in tribes and and you know small groups, were 0:14:36.640 --> 0:14:43.320 also raised to be very cooperative and also to specialize. 0:14:44.520 --> 0:14:50.640 And people also want leaders. I mean, that's another thing 0:14:50.680 --> 0:14:54.040 that's really very interesting about people, is so many people 0:14:54.160 --> 0:14:58.520 want to give up power to somebody else and let 0:14:58.560 --> 0:15:01.120 somebody else make the decision. And I think we've seen 0:15:01.160 --> 0:15:03.240 that all across the board. I mean, it takes a 0:15:03.240 --> 0:15:07.520 lot of effort to go up against you know, power, 0:15:07.560 --> 0:15:11.960 and I do think you know, there are certain things, 0:15:12.240 --> 0:15:15.160 for instance, like all these grooming that women are encouraged 0:15:15.200 --> 0:15:18.320 to do, and I do a percentage of it. I do, 0:15:18.480 --> 0:15:24.720 I do as little as possible because I honestly, uh 0:15:25.200 --> 0:15:28.720 I feel that it's maybe not always the best use 0:15:28.880 --> 0:15:32.480 of one's time, but society tells us that it is. Well, 0:15:32.800 --> 0:15:35.800 when you're spending all that time grooming, guess what you're 0:15:35.840 --> 0:15:39.960 not spending time doing making money. And you know, women 0:15:40.000 --> 0:15:43.760 are still not raised to go out there and make money. 0:15:43.920 --> 0:15:47.400 And I am saying to women, now is the time, 0:15:48.080 --> 0:15:52.960 like forget relationships honestly, because that's you are not going 0:15:53.000 --> 0:15:56.440 to be relying on that in the future. Well, it's interesting, 0:15:56.440 --> 0:15:58.280 and I feel like, well, a couple of things when 0:15:58.280 --> 0:15:59.920 you talk about women in money, because I do feel 0:15:59.920 --> 0:16:02.360 like when women are aggressive about money, they get a 0:16:02.440 --> 0:16:05.080 label right away, whereas when men are aggressive about money. 0:16:05.080 --> 0:16:07.880 And I really do believe that that it's a different perception. 0:16:08.160 --> 0:16:10.160 He's taking care of his family, it's a good thing, 0:16:10.160 --> 0:16:12.000 he's ambitious, and I do feel like we still have 0:16:12.080 --> 0:16:14.240 that playing out. The other thing, I feel like when 0:16:14.240 --> 0:16:16.440 you say women should go out there and make money, 0:16:16.480 --> 0:16:18.480 you talk about kind of the role of technology in 0:16:18.520 --> 0:16:20.400 our world now, right, And I mean we're coming to 0:16:20.720 --> 0:16:23.600 an error where I don't necessarily I mean, I'm married, 0:16:23.640 --> 0:16:25.720 but I wouldn't have to get married to have children, right, 0:16:25.760 --> 0:16:28.440 There's other ways to do it. Exactly, and that I 0:16:28.480 --> 0:16:33.040 mean to me, one of the things that's so fascinating 0:16:33.280 --> 0:16:37.240 is what is the future going to look like with 0:16:37.840 --> 0:16:40.920 all of these dating apps, because people now feel like 0:16:40.960 --> 0:16:46.040 they really can't meet somebody unless they're swiping right, you know, 0:16:46.360 --> 0:16:48.320 on a dating app. And you played around with this, 0:16:48.480 --> 0:16:51.160 right I did. I went on Tinder. I was definitely 0:16:51.200 --> 0:16:53.360 not going to meet somebody on Tinder. I'm somebody who 0:16:53.440 --> 0:16:58.240 I am? I mean, I think I do think about 0:16:58.280 --> 0:17:02.120 it a bit, you know, the whole online kind of thing, 0:17:02.240 --> 0:17:04.920 and we're going to be using it more and more 0:17:04.920 --> 0:17:07.760 and more. And you know, my feeling is, are we 0:17:07.800 --> 0:17:10.320 going to be using it to vote like who gets 0:17:10.320 --> 0:17:13.399 to stay on the island? But in a macro sense 0:17:13.520 --> 0:17:18.480 like who gets to come into the United States? Who 0:17:18.520 --> 0:17:22.120 are we keeping out? I mean, are we? You know? 0:17:22.760 --> 0:17:27.200 I don't know. And everybody now has to have some 0:17:27.359 --> 0:17:31.679 kind of presence on social media, um, and that seems 0:17:31.680 --> 0:17:35.399 to be increasingly true. One of the things I've noticed 0:17:35.440 --> 0:17:39.400 about people is technology only tends to go in one direction. 0:17:40.200 --> 0:17:43.360 It doesn't tend to go backwards unless there is some 0:17:43.440 --> 0:17:46.800 kind of armageddon, which you know, we know with climate change, 0:17:46.800 --> 0:17:51.840 I mean forty years who knows, but well, let me 0:17:51.840 --> 0:17:54.879 ask you about that specific point, because we're experiencing it 0:17:54.920 --> 0:17:58.720 feels like, at least a little mini backlash toward our 0:17:58.720 --> 0:18:03.160 reliance on technology. It feels like, you know, parents, candidly, 0:18:03.440 --> 0:18:06.560 more affluent parents are starting to ask questions about how 0:18:06.640 --> 0:18:09.800 much time is my kids spending on social media on 0:18:09.880 --> 0:18:12.560 their device? How much time are we all spending on 0:18:12.640 --> 0:18:15.520 our devices. Is that just a moment that will pass 0:18:15.600 --> 0:18:19.439 in this sort of inexorable march towards us sort of 0:18:19.440 --> 0:18:27.440 shippifying ourselves. Probably? I mean, you know, it's interesting because 0:18:27.440 --> 0:18:31.160 people always look back in time and feel that somehow 0:18:31.200 --> 0:18:34.840 things were better, But we have to remember that, you know, 0:18:34.960 --> 0:18:38.119 fifty sixty years ago in this country, being rich or 0:18:38.200 --> 0:18:41.440 being well off meant like one and a half bathrooms 0:18:41.520 --> 0:18:48.159 for a family of five or six. And you know, 0:18:48.280 --> 0:18:50.560 you look at the cell phone. I mean, if it 0:18:50.600 --> 0:18:54.439 weren't for really the phones that we are all using, 0:18:54.840 --> 0:18:58.960 technology probably wouldn't have taken such a big leap, you know, 0:18:59.040 --> 0:19:01.040 with the social media. And now we've got it in 0:19:01.040 --> 0:19:05.400 our hands. So what's going to happen when it's and 0:19:05.800 --> 0:19:11.479 to your point, it's not just technology that social media 0:19:11.840 --> 0:19:14.400 and you know computers and that kind of thing. It's 0:19:14.480 --> 0:19:18.919 also freezing your eggs and we are going to be 0:19:20.160 --> 0:19:25.240 you know, probably the wealthy will be able to reproduce 0:19:25.480 --> 0:19:28.320 in a different way. And I think we see more 0:19:28.400 --> 0:19:36.240 and more people are using surrogates and you know, choosing 0:19:38.880 --> 0:19:42.520 you know, in some ways choosing the attributes of their children. 0:19:43.160 --> 0:19:48.800 And if people have money, they will and these things 0:19:48.840 --> 0:19:52.760 are available, people will avail themselves of them. I mean, 0:19:52.800 --> 0:19:57.960 plastic surgery is a perfect example. That's something that it's 0:19:58.040 --> 0:20:04.360 only in East and it's it's interesting to me can 0:20:04.400 --> 0:20:06.840 afford it for those who can afford it, but also 0:20:08.240 --> 0:20:12.280 it's something that's also you know, you can also put 0:20:12.320 --> 0:20:15.560 it on a credit card, so that has made it 0:20:15.600 --> 0:20:20.040 talk about much much more widely affordable to people. So 0:20:20.400 --> 0:20:23.160 if people can improve themselves in some way or get 0:20:23.200 --> 0:20:27.480 a leg up, they tend to do that. So let 0:20:27.520 --> 0:20:29.040 me ask you and take you back to something you 0:20:29.080 --> 0:20:31.040 said earlier, which I think is such a fascinating point 0:20:31.080 --> 0:20:36.520 that the economy and feminism are correlated. Look around the 0:20:36.840 --> 0:20:40.119 at the economy right now. By many accounts, it's booming 0:20:40.119 --> 0:20:43.080 from a consumer perspective, and yet we talk about it 0:20:43.160 --> 0:20:46.480 every day. There are sort of clouds looming on the horizon. 0:20:47.040 --> 0:20:52.280 Synthesize that with me too. Times up this moment that 0:20:52.440 --> 0:20:55.480 we seem to be having, questioning a lot of the 0:20:55.520 --> 0:21:00.119 existing power structure. How does the economy figure in to 0:21:00.200 --> 0:21:03.920 what happens next for women and for feminism. Well, one 0:21:03.960 --> 0:21:07.600 of the things that I noticed was in two thousand, 0:21:08.040 --> 0:21:14.560 you know, before two eight, that I felt like about 0:21:16.040 --> 0:21:19.640 a hundred steps back from feminism. And I just remember 0:21:19.680 --> 0:21:22.840 how shocked I felt. Now, of course, those young women 0:21:22.880 --> 0:21:28.280 are in their thirties, forties, maybe they're a little bit younger, 0:21:28.320 --> 0:21:33.840 but it was the time of bridezillas. It was a 0:21:34.040 --> 0:21:38.160 time where there was i mean consumers and really felt 0:21:38.160 --> 0:21:40.440 like it took off. Then it was also a time 0:21:40.480 --> 0:21:46.080 if we loosened to the debts debt requirements, So people 0:21:46.080 --> 0:21:51.600 are spending, spending money, and you know, they're thinking they're 0:21:51.600 --> 0:21:55.760 gonna have kids, and they're putting the kids in designer clothes, 0:21:55.920 --> 0:21:58.200 and it's we see all this with the celebrities, and 0:21:58.359 --> 0:22:05.159 how many women actresses stood up in those times and 0:22:05.200 --> 0:22:13.000 staid I'm not a feminist. Really shameful, right, and then 0:22:13.119 --> 0:22:18.719 the crash comes and there's a real change. Um, you know, 0:22:18.840 --> 0:22:24.440 I think there's so many industries that haven't recovered from 0:22:24.480 --> 0:22:28.399 that change. I mean, yes, people are working, but you know, 0:22:28.480 --> 0:22:35.760 if you are, it feels like they're more women in 0:22:36.200 --> 0:22:40.320 more powerful position. I think it was pivotal, pivotal, pivotal. 0:22:40.359 --> 0:22:43.879 Excuse me, because I think a lot of financial jobs 0:22:43.880 --> 0:22:47.520 were lost, which were predominantly men. And I saw personally 0:22:47.680 --> 0:22:49.680 a lot of women who kept their jobs and then 0:22:49.720 --> 0:22:52.560 became the sole supporter of their families. And I really 0:22:52.560 --> 0:22:55.960 saw role reversals happening at that era. Yes, I mean 0:22:56.240 --> 0:22:59.280 that is something that I tried to capture in my 0:22:59.359 --> 0:23:04.800 book Stick Jungle, this idea of the role reversal, where 0:23:04.880 --> 0:23:10.119 I see more and more women are the breadwinners in 0:23:10.160 --> 0:23:15.320 the family. And that's always been true for lower income women. 0:23:15.440 --> 0:23:20.280 For lower income women, it might be as high as thirty, 0:23:20.720 --> 0:23:25.080 might be as high as and you know, for upper 0:23:25.119 --> 0:23:31.720 income women it was. Now maybe it's but that's something 0:23:32.200 --> 0:23:39.760 that is inching up along with less marriage and more 0:23:39.760 --> 0:23:45.040 single people. And in a sense, that's that's it's going 0:23:45.080 --> 0:23:47.840 to be the future for a lot of people. I 0:23:47.880 --> 0:23:49.639 feel like we'd be remissed because I, first of all, 0:23:49.640 --> 0:23:52.080 I feel like you should have another column because of 0:23:52.080 --> 0:23:54.160 what you're talking about, but I want to talk about 0:23:54.200 --> 0:23:56.679 Sex in the City just before we go, because it 0:23:56.760 --> 0:23:58.840 was such a phenomenon. It really was. It became a 0:23:58.880 --> 0:24:00.679 part of I was talking about cold true literacy, and 0:24:00.680 --> 0:24:03.640 I feel like that kind of changed and marked an 0:24:03.640 --> 0:24:06.360 era for so many of us. It was the reason 0:24:06.440 --> 0:24:08.359 I first bought my first prayer of Jimmy choose to 0:24:08.359 --> 0:24:11.280 be quite honest, but talk to me about how surprised 0:24:11.320 --> 0:24:14.760 you were by what a hit it became and how 0:24:14.840 --> 0:24:17.360 much kind of it became a part of kind of 0:24:17.400 --> 0:24:20.560 our fabric of society, certainly for women, for many women. Well, 0:24:20.680 --> 0:24:24.080 The crazy thing is, ever since I was a kid, 0:24:24.200 --> 0:24:26.680 I always felt like I've got to do something big. 0:24:26.720 --> 0:24:29.040 I've got to do something big, Something's going to happen, 0:24:29.200 --> 0:24:33.320 and something big is going to happen, And that ridiculous 0:24:33.400 --> 0:24:37.240 belief is really what kept me going until I started 0:24:37.240 --> 0:24:39.399 writing the column Sex in the City, because I really 0:24:39.560 --> 0:24:43.640 I was making very very little money. I could support myself, 0:24:44.080 --> 0:24:49.119 I could pay my rent um, and then my big 0:24:49.160 --> 0:24:50.920 goal when I was writing Sex in the City was 0:24:50.960 --> 0:24:53.560 really just to get a column because I wanted to 0:24:53.600 --> 0:24:56.760 have some kind of regular income, and this was something 0:24:56.760 --> 0:25:01.240 I've been working towards for probably thought years and had 0:25:01.240 --> 0:25:05.040 had versions of early versions of Sex in the City. 0:25:05.720 --> 0:25:08.239 So when I got the column, I knew exactly what 0:25:08.280 --> 0:25:11.960 to do with it, and I didn't know that it 0:25:12.080 --> 0:25:15.960 was my big break. It was turned into a book, 0:25:16.000 --> 0:25:18.920 and that was absolutely fabulous because at that time all 0:25:18.960 --> 0:25:20.960 I wanted to do was publish a book. I knew 0:25:21.000 --> 0:25:24.480 that I couldn't. You know, journalism has a shelf life 0:25:25.400 --> 0:25:28.240 and at some point you really have to transition to 0:25:28.280 --> 0:25:32.679 writing books. So that was a huge break for me 0:25:32.960 --> 0:25:37.080 and then Darren's. But when I was writing it, there 0:25:37.160 --> 0:25:39.960 was a lot of interest from TV and movies, which 0:25:40.000 --> 0:25:44.199 I did not take seriously because at that time, you know, 0:25:44.320 --> 0:25:46.800 friends I had who had books turned into movies. It 0:25:46.880 --> 0:25:51.800 was it was just considered like not literary. Being the 0:25:51.800 --> 0:25:56.040 best seller list, believe it or not, was not a goal. Um, 0:25:56.080 --> 0:26:01.119 you know, that was considered a little crass. And and 0:26:01.119 --> 0:26:06.280 and the idea of Sex in the City being a 0:26:06.320 --> 0:26:12.119