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