00:02:27.180Amanda Matta, for whom I cannot come up with an adjective because there are so many to describe this queen, this queen of teas, of royalty, which we will get into.0.98
00:02:38.980We just had the most incredible conversation with our guest today, Jo Piazza, who is an author, a journalist, and she looks into all the Trad Wives stuff.
00:02:49.820There's tangents like Sneaky Jesus and King Triton, but it's very fun.
00:06:48.340these are just two people that happen to be married that have things going on in their lives
00:06:53.540again it's trying to make something out of nothing and connect two things it's like saying i wrote
00:06:58.800this in a in a sub stack it's like writing bradley cooper makes major relationship announcement after
00:07:04.300the eagles win the super bowl these things two things do not go together besides the fact that
00:07:08.980he's an he did two things yeah the fact that harry is going through this court case and the
00:07:15.220sent to Bali stuff has nothing to do with Meghan's launch of her brand.
00:07:20.480The two things are not related besides the fact that they are married.
00:07:23.620The fact that you want them to be related because you love in the British media to do
00:07:28.340this kind of juxtaposition and do anything to make them seem like a not cohesive unit
00:07:34.020and by extension, make all the other royals look more cohesive.
00:07:37.500Sidebar, this wasn't our burying the lead, but it could have been because it's Charles
00:07:41.640and Camilla's 20th anniversary coming up here.
00:07:43.900So there's also a push to make them seem like this very cohesive unit as they go on the state
00:07:49.220visit to Rome. And Rebecca English, it's a Daily Mail Plus exclusive. So it's behind a paywall.
00:07:55.700We got to talk about paywalling this stuff. It's gotten out of control.
00:07:58.660It's insane. But Rebecca English, above her byline, it says,
00:08:02.040by royal editor who was given unrivaled access to the king's inner circle. So they're really
00:08:06.860tooting their own horn here. But the headline is, revealed by Charles and Camilla's closest
00:08:11.020friends and family, what really keeps sparks flying between tactile couple? Don't want to know.
00:08:17.600And don't say tampons. Here's the thing, though. They don't live together most of the time,
00:08:22.860right? They keep separate residences. That is very well documented. In fact, I think it was
00:08:27.380Rebecca English a few years ago for the coronation or somebody's birthday writing about how they live
00:08:31.980separately. It's just funny to me. The maneuvering we have to make across the board to make certain
00:08:37.500couples look like they're divided and make certain couples look like they are cohesive anyway.
00:08:42.480Also, not not for nothing. This could be pertinent. Maybe not. But Rebecca English is the domestic
00:08:47.380royal rhoda captain. She's the royal editor with unrivaled access. And part of that is because,
00:08:52.400you know, allegedly, according to Omenskowi's book Endgame, she's kind of the lapdog that,0.98
00:08:57.040you know, Camilla likes to have in her corner. So I don't know. Maybe that's maybe that's why
00:09:01.120there's exclusive access. The only lapdog she didn't get from Battersea Animal Rescue.
00:09:05.440shizz for me because I would like keep calm and carry on to go away. I stop it. I don't think
00:09:12.800that's what's happening here. I don't want to see pillows. I don't want to see signs. I don't want
00:09:16.100to see any of it. Here's the last paragraph, and this is dedicated to you, Amanda. Perhaps the most
00:09:22.040successful keep calm and carry on of all will turn out to be the prince and princess of Wales who are
00:09:28.040ignoring each and every bit of it to spend the Easter holidays with their children. Are they?
00:09:35.440Do we know that? You can have a holiday with your children and still be glued to tabloid stories about the supposed downfall of your brother-in-law and sister-in-law. Just saying. Just saying.
00:09:47.460Yes. Kate and William are doing the very hard work of going on holiday for a month. Right.
00:10:01.540And not for nothing, the media isn't going to press them with questions anyway that might be uncomfortable because there is this unspoken arrangement.
00:10:09.540So I hope Prince Grillium is having a good time.
00:10:11.780Prince Grillium, I hope he fires up that charcoal grill.
00:11:27.100But then it's, well, if he doesn't have access to what the Met knows, his people don't have access to that. They cannot properly prepare. There's been credible threats against these people. So what this is, is Harry's ability to appeal, which was granted. So what we're going to see on Tuesday, April 8th and April 9th is we are going to see some of this appeal about the level of security and how Ravec came to its decision.
00:11:54.440Now, one of the reasons why there is going to be this public hearing is because of this open justice principle, which is this legal principle that requires judicial proceedings to be conducted in a transparent manner and with the oversight of the people.
00:12:09.200So to safeguard the rights of those subject to the power of the court, yada, yada, yada.
00:12:13.440Not all of it, though, because there is confidential security things that obviously will be held back for the protection of Prince Harry.
00:12:20.360But we are going to get more information into presumably what went into this decision.
00:12:27.100Prince Harry's reasoning for why he still deserves the level of royal protection.
00:12:31.900And it's hard not to think about this in terms of Prince Andrew, who up until I think a year ago, maybe, was receiving protection or at least King Charles was paying for it.
00:12:43.260So what are we doing here? Who's at the, you know, bigger risk of an attack or a security threat?
00:12:49.520Well, and here's my understanding of it is that Prince Harry can still get police protection, but he has to apply for it each time he's in the U.K.0.68
00:12:58.780And this the Ray Vet Committee has the ability to say, no, like across the board. Right. He gets them at police protection.
00:17:03.420So this was last week as we are recording this.
00:17:05.660I was on every hour because I was like, it's going to drop like on the hour at some point.
00:17:10.2007 a.m. here on the East Coast and then 8 a.m. and then 9 a.m. I think is what it was.
00:17:14.420Then all of a sudden things started to wake up.
00:17:16.340So I sent it to Meredith and we did both put the jam and the flower sprinkles in our cart.
00:17:20.440So we do plan to do some taste tests of that.
00:17:22.560on Patreon this week when all of our items arrive. But I did find it interesting when
00:17:28.040everything sold out after an hour, I was actually expecting it to go quicker based on, I've seen
00:17:35.100some influencer drops before or some celebrity brands selling things before. Sometimes it's
00:17:39.460within a matter of minutes. And regardless of like what your supply level is, I think she
00:17:45.240actually was very prepared for this launch, for things to last an hour with the level of demand
00:17:51.260that just based on my small little corner of the internet I was seeing I you know I host group
00:17:57.640chats every day through our Instagram subscriber community and everyone who was awake was trying
00:18:02.440to get their hands on things and I have no qualms about saying that's actually prepared that's a
00:18:08.020small sliver right of the actual number of people who are probably trying to get their hands on
00:18:12.140things both royal watchers and other so I think an hour is actually a great start for things to
00:18:18.860be available yeah it is it does show that she had some and we're talking about that jam that was
00:18:23.020gone in minutes and that was something that she had focused more on in the show and beforehand
00:18:27.460obviously there was a lot of actually the british media talking about all that jam even though it0.83
00:18:31.160was negative and stupid i mean you kind of want to get your hands on it and i almost want to do0.62
00:18:35.180like a weird fake photo shoot with the jam with like a big like a newborn baby yeah like the ann0.99
00:18:41.600gettys like dress it up like a little flower it comes out of a pack it'll be so good anyway we're
00:18:46.880excited for our jam to arrive. We are very excited. Actually, I got an update minutes during our break
00:18:52.220between the interview that my order is arriving today. Oh, I'm so excited for you. You should try
00:18:57.460it. Let us know how it is. But yes, we both ordered the jam and the flower sprinkles. I wanted to get
00:19:01.620the honey. It sold out the quickest and it was labeled limited edition, which it tracks. That
00:19:06.760was the first thing to sell out. So Megan did tell us there will be seasonal limited quantity items
00:19:12.340every time there's a drop. I just couldn't spend 28 on honey. And listen, I'm not judging anyone
00:19:16.200who could. I'm sure it's beautiful. It's probably amazing. But I have to say, I was actually,
00:19:21.740I think they did this really well. I think the prices were really, really good. I do want to say
00:19:26.000from last week, I talked about how we probably want to see PR packages sent out to other people,
00:19:31.420not just celebrity friends, celebrity friends or certain journalists. And we are starting to see
00:19:36.120some influencers. She sent a PR box to Akilah, who's a very big woman of color influencer all
00:19:42.160over the internet and she got a box. And I think that was smart from a PR standpoint to, to branch
00:19:48.680out who is getting these packages and making sure it's not just kind of the typical people.
00:19:55.040There was, there was one choice of a PR package send out that I was questioning, but we won't
00:20:00.320name names. But yeah, you have packages going out to everyone from Kris Jenner to these influencers.
00:20:06.140I'm still waiting on mine. Megan, my PO box is on my link tree.
00:20:09.240Girl, you got my number. Yeah. And I just think in general, but I also thought about this. When did she promise that she was going to do things differently than any brand?
00:20:19.160How much of that is just us assuming that she would do things differently? I'm not saying that she won't. And I'm not saying that there's any problem. The formula they're using is smart.
00:20:27.320Right. They're giving it to people who have big followings, big platforms to reach more people and larger audiences. It makes complete sense. And I think that the other influencers are maybe not as, you know, just to kind of diversify it a bit in terms of not just in terms of the kind of woman, but in terms of how big of a platform they have.
00:20:48.680And even with media branching, I really do hope that you see more branching out with independent media and smaller outlets, especially when a lot of the problem with being in the British royal family was the royal rota and having to give them access.
00:21:03.660I really do hope that we see that at some point.
00:21:06.540There is almost an uphill battle that she has to climb, too, because when you're a Meghan Markle or a Meghan Sussex starting a brand, the exceptionalism of that is what's going to bring people in and be curious for a while.
00:21:17.120But after a certain period of time, you almost want your drops to go under the radar and become
00:21:23.440so normal because that means your brand has been established and that means you're just part of
00:21:27.540the zeitgeist at that point. So it's interesting seeing these PR packages go out. To me, I'm
00:21:32.160thinking, okay, she is trying to normalize a little bit. She's trying to move away from,
00:21:35.860I'm the Duchess of Sussex and here's my bespoke jam. Bespoke is a key word today, I think.
00:23:07.800And someone made this whole argument that the reason that, like, I go hard against Megan, just follow me down this path, is because I'm a Capricorn like Kate.
00:24:00.060Really a beautiful, seamless drop where a lot of things could have gone wrong.
00:24:03.940user experience with website ready for them to go people were ready they had the shipping out the
00:24:08.820next day they are given updates they applause all around this was working very successful drop the
00:24:14.980pricing was smart the infrastructure was there you go girl you go girl okay speaking of you go girl
00:24:21.280um we are going to kick it over to our interview portion for the day um i invited i i want to say
00:24:28.240close personal friend i know her professionally author joe piazza onto the pod today because she
00:24:33.360is one of the nation's leading experts on tradwives. So we've heard a lot of tradwifery
00:24:39.580talk, you know, in relation to Megan Sussex and her brand. So we wanted to get the 411 on this
00:24:45.660narrative. Jo is the national and international bestselling author of books like The Sicilian
00:24:51.400Inheritance, We Are Not Like Them, You Were Always Mine, Charlotte Walsh Likes to Win,
00:24:56.420The Knockoff, and How to Be Married. Her work has been published in 10 languages in 12 countries,
00:25:01.560and four of her books have been optioned for film and television. I'm really excited for
00:25:05.360The Sicilian Inheritance. She's my hero. She's so cool. Jo's podcasts, including The Stellar,
00:25:11.580Under the Influence, have garnered more than 25 million downloads and regularly top podcast
00:25:16.460charts. As editor, columnist, and travel writer, her work has also appeared in The Wall Street
00:25:20.520Journal, The New York Times, New York Magazine, Marie Claire, Glamour, and many others. She lives
00:25:25.120in Philly with her husband, Nick, and three feral children. So she does have a book coming out soon,
00:25:30.640which we discuss. It is called Everyone is Lying to You. It is the first ever Tradwife murder
00:25:35.860mystery in which Jo's master storytelling and razor sharp insight into the world of social
00:25:40.780media brings a pulpy, juicy, and cleverly plotted read that will have you guessing all the way
00:25:45.520through and leave you gasping for more. So we did pick Jo's brain about the world of Tradwives,0.56
00:25:51.420where the royals fit in, and we talked about some sneaky Jesus along the way.0.81
00:25:56.280It is a must listen. It is such a good interview. We could have spoken to her for hours. She is so worth a listen. Definitely, definitely. Don't skip ahead. Check out this interview.
00:26:26.280stories about five couples that met on Hinge. The stories are written and read by Tembi Denton
00:26:31.640Hurst, Nicola Dinan, Curtis Garner, Raven Smith, and Rufy Thorpe. I, Hunter Harris,
00:26:37.500wrote and read the foreword. The audiobook's out now. Give it a listen.
00:26:42.860We are joined today by friend of the pod and acclaimed author, Joe Piazza, who has a forthcoming
00:26:50.380book, Everyone is Lying to You, which is not just touted as an explosive thriller. It is also
00:26:56.120possibly the very first trad wife murder mystery. Jo is a leading voice in the intersection of0.58
00:27:03.360internet culture and modern womanhood, and she is one of the first voices reporting on
00:27:08.420influencer culture as it intersects with tradwifery. So, Jo, we are so excited to have you here today.
00:27:14.100Thank you so much for having me. I love being here.
00:27:16.040Okay, Jo, I need to know, I'm sure this was in some email that Amanda sent me,
00:27:20.420when does the book come out? Because I need this book right now.
00:27:22.920I know. I need this book out right now. I mean, I just kind of want to push up the release date
00:27:27.380because it's not out until July 15th. You can order it now wherever you buy your book.
00:29:34.700I was being served all of these influencers. And this was really early days of mom influencers.
00:29:40.640it's evolved since then. And I was fascinated. I was fascinated by what they were doing,
00:29:46.620how much of it was performance, because remember, I had covered celebrities. And I started to see
00:29:50.420very early on that these influencers were our new version of celebrities. So I started the
00:29:55.840podcast Under the Influence, which became a deep dive into the world of mom influencers.
00:30:01.760And the first two seasons were really dissecting the business, this multi-billion dollar business
00:30:07.300that everyone was ignoring because it was created mostly by women, for women. And then, you know,
00:30:13.560looking behind the scenes, pulling back the curtain, and about two years into doing this1.00
00:30:20.140reporting, Trad Wives really started to come on the scene. I mean, I started to see more and more
00:30:26.520women elevating this, not just domestic bliss, okay? We're not talking just like Martha Stewart
00:30:32.260here. We're talking messaging that says women's highest calling is to be in the home. Women0.85
00:30:39.160shouldn't be in the workforce. You don't need an education or a job. Women shouldn't be making1.00
00:30:44.780their own money. And kind of folding all of that into the beautiful domestic goddess content of1.00
00:30:51.660making sourdough bread and baking beautiful pastries and just running around with gorgeous
00:30:57.940children who are never throwing themselves on the floor and screaming at you because they don't want
00:31:02.240to wear pants. And, you know, it's such a curated, aspirational looking thing. But the messaging,
00:31:09.960I think, is very politically dangerous because it's telling women to give up agency of their0.69
00:31:14.260own lives. Yeah, Jo, I was thinking about that in terms of when I first started to see these
00:31:19.920kind of domestic influencers before tradwifery, you know, came up. And like you, I was, you know,
00:31:27.220hampered down by children, just so many limbs on me and only that little thumb,
00:31:31.940That little thumb was the only thing I could do, kind of keeping the, you know, you keep the screen brightness down at night while your baby's kind of sleeping or you're hoping and you're scrolling.
00:31:40.660And I remember that I found a lot of motherhood bloggers and quickly realized that all of them were Mormon because apparently, you know, there is a big thing about journaling and keeping a blog and stuff in Mormon culture.
00:31:51.920And a lot of people like I think of Rachel Parcell, I think of Shannon Byrd, a lot of these people were these kind of aspirational influencers that you saw on these dresses.
00:32:00.280But it didn't feel politically charged or it didn't feel like they were trying to push a political agenda down your throat. It was like, I love this pink lipstick. And Shannon Bird, it was more like, what is she doing with her children this time?
00:32:14.620And that was something that was interesting, but it didn't feel as, I guess, nefarious as, I can't believe I'm yearning for the simple times of Mormon mommy culture blogs, but it feels like that might have been some of the genesis or kind of a starting point.
00:32:31.460It was a lot simpler. You're not wrong. That nostalgia is very real.0.85
00:32:34.380And you're also right in saying that this kind of movement of domestic influencer came out of Utah, essentially, and it came from Mormon women. The church has long told women to journal and also to broadcast the joy of their lives. And so they embraced blogging very early on. And then when the medium started changing, when it shifted to Instagram, they embraced that as well.
00:33:00.620So the early mom bloggers were a lot of Mormon women.
00:33:04.440And when Instagram came around, initially, the Instagram founders wanted it to be vogue, but make it social media.
00:33:12.200The algorithm favored a very particular kind of woman, a very particular kind of attractive.
00:33:19.700And if you think about the Mormon women, they tend to marry young.0.95
00:33:23.460They tend to have a lot of children after marrying young.
00:33:26.840So the aesthetics were pleasing to what Instagram wanted.
00:33:32.540They also, I say in the early episodes of the podcast, I'm like, they weren't smoking a pack of Marlboro Lights and partying at bungalow eight till four in the morning.
00:33:40.760They don't have this well-worn face that I have, which comes with love because I don't regret a single day of it.
00:33:48.620But, you know, they just they had this glowy, bouncy skin.
00:33:53.300And we're also working inside of the home and so showing off their crafts and their baking and their beautiful houses.
00:34:03.460Also, because we know that a lot of Mormons, especially in the area of Salt Lake City, where these women were from, were very wealthy.
00:34:11.280These were wealthy women who were being supported by their husbands.
00:34:15.080And so they could sell this kind of lifestyle, this aspirational lifestyle that looked very beautiful.0.61
00:34:19.580And then, of course, because the algorithm liked it, we have a gazillion copycats and it kept evolving and changing.
00:34:27.520The early Mormon mom influencers were not necessarily proselytizing, but I won't say they weren't either.
00:34:34.600Because one of the purposes of blogging, of journaling, and also of sending Mormons on missions around the world can be soft proselytization.0.53
00:34:44.240so we're building you wells in your third world impoverished country maybe you'll like us we're
00:34:52.900like I'm showing you these aspirational pictures of my life maybe you'll think about Jesus like
00:34:58.360it wasn't hitting you over the head but it also wasn't it was there it was there if you know what
00:35:03.640to your point there was subliminal messaging because every once in a while you would see like
00:35:07.480the big big framed picture of Jesus in the background so they just kind of like Jesus is
00:35:12.740kind of off screen saying like hey i am over here in case you're wondering where this all comes from
00:35:17.880it was it was sneaky sneaky jesus okay and sneak during this lenten season i'd like to introduce
00:35:24.240you all to sneaky jesus he also has a six-pack he's so hot actually can we talk about how hot
00:35:30.120jesus is because we have a lot of the signs of the cross are up on the church down the street
00:35:36.280from our house and we're we're an agnostic household but uh my kids see them and my son
00:35:41.620was like look at jesus's muscles he's ripped he's so he's like as ripped as king triton is in the
00:35:47.020little mermaid like oh my god king triton was so hot unnaturally hot and he had these like0.91
00:35:52.460pepperoni nipples i mean it was crazy it's so crazy it's so yeah i mean no now now now when i0.94
00:36:00.400look because i used to have a crush on prince eric who is such a dope so such a dope no offense okay0.79
00:36:05.580no and i like didn't understand why triton was so mean to ariel and now i look at ariel's little
00:36:09.940bikini shell outfit and i'm like put some clothes on mergirl come on first problem 16 you're 16
00:36:16.300you're making decisions about marrying someone you don't get to have legs and go marry a stranger
00:36:22.760no draw the line i was into the guy from mulan the captain he had a great jawline really chiseled
00:36:36.780of the morning circle. Sorry, sorry, sorry. With Sneaky Jesus. That's how we got there.
00:36:39.600Sneaky Jesus. Okay, back. So, but it did start to evolve and it started to evolve as our country's
00:36:46.320identity politics involved. And the right is very, very good and the Christian patriarchy generally0.87
00:36:53.260very, very good at influencer and digital messaging. And we saw groups like Turning Point0.89
00:36:58.680USA embracing influencers much early, much earlier than the left did. And the way they explained it
00:37:04.400a lot was the liberals in the left. They have Hollywood. They have celebrities. We have to
00:37:08.620make our own celebrities. And so they really started pushing this beautiful domestic goddess1.00
00:37:15.620trad wife idea as an alternative to the girl boss culture of aren't you burnt out? Like, aren't you
00:37:22.180tired? Aren't you sick of trying to have it all? You could just have this if you don't work. And
00:37:27.680if you give up all of your agency to your husband, if you let him control the silly money and the
00:37:34.060messaging became very politically infused. And now it's intensely political, though I don't think a
00:37:41.240lot of people necessarily realize it. When they're watching this beautiful content of a family on a
00:37:47.060farm, they're injecting so many values of self-determinism, homeschooling, homesteading,
00:37:53.540don't use birth control, things like that, which are politics.
00:37:58.580Yeah. And we've talked about, you know, the Evie magazine, their desire to always bring it back to why birth control is bad for you. But you touched on something there, how in general, I think it is possible for social media content to tap into a desire for this like soft life, this feminine revival and like the anti-girl boss.
00:38:19.440you can do that without having politically charged undercurrents. Absolutely. I think people,
00:38:25.000especially during COVID, probably woke up to the fact that girl bossing isn't necessarily going to
00:38:29.420save us, you know, if the system fails us. But the answer to that, it can go two different ways,
00:38:34.260right? It can be show up in your community or it can be returned to these quote unquote
00:38:38.580traditional values. So that's a phrase that gets thrown around a lot with trad wives. Do you think0.66
00:38:45.460it is meaning different things to different people who consume this content? You know,
00:38:50.000does it always have to be political? Is there a way to consume this content and not give in
00:38:54.880to that political messaging? It's really tricky, okay, because
00:38:58.980I think the political messaging is now injected into it in such a nefarious way
00:39:07.120that it gets to you. I'm not on the pill anymore. That chip has sailed for me.
00:39:12.000Third will break you. I will say that as a mother of three.
00:39:15.020She did. She did. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Totally. And so we're done with that phase of life.
00:39:19.160I was on the pill for 20 years. I didn't necessarily love it.
00:39:22.460That said, I love birth control. I do. I do love women having power over their own bodies.
00:39:28.640But I've spoken to so many young women in their early 20s who are like, oh, no, it's terrible.1.00
00:39:33.280It's terrible for your body. And this is all a conspiracy against us. And I'm like, where did0.56
00:39:36.420you hear that? And they're like, the internet, TikTok and Instagram. And I'm like, some of it
00:39:40.580is. But also, you should talk to your doctor about it and not take the advice of your favorite
00:39:45.560soft girl social media influencer, who's going to tell you to use the rhythm method, which doesn't
00:39:49.540work. So these things are being injected in there. We're also seeing so much anti-vax content in a
00:39:57.000lot of these trad accounts, which is framed as natural living, okay? So I do think it's hard
00:40:04.440to escape it. We can think we're just scrolling beautiful things. Even I talk a lot about the
00:40:08.980Ballerina Farm account. And I talk about Ballerina Farm as a media brand of which Hannah Nealman is
00:40:14.720the CEO of. She is a businesswoman making money. And that's the irony of all of this. The majority0.99
00:40:20.940of these trad wives are the breadwinners in their household. And yet they claim that they're living1.00
00:40:25.460quote unquote traditional gender roles where the man is in charge of their house. So that's the
00:40:30.500first lie that they're telling you. It's the reason I named my novel, Everyone is Lying to You,
00:40:34.940because these women are making money they are running businesses and pretending that they are1.00
00:40:39.320not and that's that's the key here but i look at the ballerina farm account and media empire it is
00:40:46.300truly a media empire and is only getting bigger and some of the content is totally innocuous right
00:40:51.080like i like bread i like chickens so does oprah so does oprah so does megan sussex so does megan
00:40:58.720sussex and yet and yet and yet there's also the promotion that the talk about you know their
00:41:07.360anti-birth control they're very anti-choice for women they're very anti-government's involvement0.88
00:41:14.040in your life which i think is very easy to be when you're the son of the jet blue founder
00:41:19.660because you're rich and that's another thing that i think a lot of these people are lying to us about
00:41:25.300they're claiming that you can easily have this kind of lifestyle. Like you're just going to
00:41:31.740homestead and live off the land and live on one salary, which is a massive lie. You can do that
00:41:39.280if you have generational wealth. The average American man, the average American white man
00:41:44.860makes around $63,000 a year. The average American, after taxes, that's about $52,000.
00:41:52.320You know, this math is fuzzy. I'm no longer a math person. But you get the point. So after taxes, you got like $52,000. The average American household spends $66,000. So the majority of households cannot have this single income, nor can they live the way that these people do who have generational money and who have their own safety net.
00:42:13.260I think that makes such that makes a lot of sense. And it's a lot of the things that people don't see. And like you said, it's really easy to watch this stuff and feel like, no, I just want some tips for natural living or how to make bread. And then suddenly you are not vaccinating your children and think the government is controlling you through whatever.
00:42:29.860And I think what's maybe been missed in culture is we've spent so much time worrying about the young white men and how they are being influenced by all right influencers and podcasters because conservatives jumped on that.
00:42:42.300And there's a lot of young white men that have a lot of power, you know, through podcasting.
00:42:48.900And I think we forgot about young, primarily white women.
00:42:51.940And I think one of the takeaways from the 2024 election was that the younger generation hasn't necessarily been radicalized by Donald Trump to, you know, to go after him and to reject him.
00:43:04.600In some ways, in some demographics, they've actually turned towards him and they are leaning more conservative than you typically see from a younger generation.
00:43:14.440And I just wonder, you know, what should we pay attention to with young women? And what are we missing when we're trying to tell them that actually, you know, having choices is a good thing in that, you know, like what, how do we reach them?
00:43:30.180Yeah. And I think about this literally every single day. Like, what does the new version of feminism look like? Because I think for a lot of young women, and my generation included, the traditional versions of feminism failed us.
00:43:45.080Okay. We were told to go, you know, grab the brass ring and climb the corporate ladder. And we were also told that we could get married and have kids and have it all. And two things did not catch up. The corporate world did not catch up. They did not provide the kind of structural support that mothers need. And men weren't trained to catch up. Okay.0.56
00:44:05.420Men were not trained to be equal caregivers, even when their wife was making the same amount of money as them.
00:44:13.520I'm working on Substack right now because my husband is currently the primary caregiver in our house.
00:44:18.300There's like a ray of light shining down on me.
00:45:37.320Not just go work in the office because it's progressive policies that allow you to get a divorce if you have a crappy husband.
00:45:42.840It's progressive policies that will give you and your children health care and a safety net if that husband leaves you and you haven't had a job for the past 10 years.0.91
00:45:51.380Or just allowing you to have a credit card in your name.
00:45:53.820Allowing you to get social security and a pension when that husband dies.
00:45:57.800All of these things are what actually give you freedom and allow you to live a life and make whatever choice.
00:46:05.320But we can't be condescending to women who choose to work in the home.1.00
00:46:09.620We can't say that working in an office is the only thing that makes you a good feminist.1.00
00:46:14.720And also, it's a class thing at this point, too.1.00
00:46:17.700And I think that that's what a lot of people didn't understand.
00:46:19.500It became very condescending about elite universities and ambition was only one kind of thing. And I think that we can be ambitious in lots and lots of different ways. And so, again, we have to widen the tent.
00:46:32.000I also think there is this maybe need to reteach some history because a lot of it is this hearkening back to the 1950s, which, lol, you mean when we taxed rich people more and we actually had social safety nets and a burgeoning middle class where you could live off of one salary and have a home and two cars and all of that stuff.
00:46:53.300But also, women weren't happier then.0.67
00:47:00.820My friends, they were trapped. They it was so difficult. And so these like you said, these policies gave those women a choice. Not every woman in the 90s was miserable. But you know what? No one had a choice. No one had a choice. And so it is about choice. Yeah, it's about autonomy. And that's what it is. And I just I do think we haven't embraced that enough. I think that feminism lost its way.
00:47:25.260And also with the condescension, this goes back to what we were going to talk about about Meghan Markle, right? All of a sudden she is being attacked. And I don't care what anyone thinks about her, okay? Like, strip that out of it. But being attacked and labeled a trad wife for choosing to build a media brand, the sort of which everyone wants right now.0.99
00:47:44.900It is a smart business decision is what she's doing. But you've got all of these, you know, women writing essays talking about how she's sold out and how she's just a trad wife just working in the home. I couldn't do all that. I don't cook. Okay, like I like that is hard work. I would much rather, much rather be working outside of the home because I can't do any of the other things. I'm incapable of it. I recognize how much labor goes into that. But I don't think the labor has been recognized.1.00
00:48:14.440And I don't think there's any recognition that she is working.
00:48:18.680Building a brand, even if you have a ton of money, is really hard, okay?
00:48:23.220And she's also trying to do it pretty much separate from this person that she married.
00:48:28.300Yeah, that was going to be my segue for you because we were talking about condescension.
00:48:32.140And there's almost this reverse condescension with Megan for whatever she does, you know, saying, well, I'm Megan Sussex now.
00:48:38.140We have to attack her for that, even though that's a very traditional choice to take your husband's name.
00:48:43.260so it's obviously and that it is his name right that is the thing it is just his name the man's
00:48:50.140name just the man's what else are we gonna call him yeah yeah so yeah it is this very like it's
00:48:56.520a hard issue to grapple with anything megan related but i wanted to touch on it a bit because
00:49:01.020yeah the first thing that the media came out with once she debuted her you know netflix series0.90
00:49:06.720trailer which once we knew that there were products coming was megan turns trad wife so
00:49:11.880is Megan Sussex a trad wife? And if not, because I, spoiler alert, the answer is no,
00:49:17.340would, why would the media be applying that label to her despite the fact that her actual
00:49:22.820life, what we think we know about her politics and her messaging, they all push against that label?1.00
00:49:28.680Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Well, I think the media loves to talk about trad wives because the media also0.99
00:49:33.180loves to pigeonhole women. Okay. And even female journalists love to be condescending. And that's0.99
00:49:39.380why I like to be very clear what I'm talking about when I'm talking about a trad wife. I'm
00:49:44.300talking about a very particular breed of influencer who is pushing the fact that a woman's highest
00:49:51.740calling is in the home, that a woman should be submissive to her husband, that what they believe
00:49:57.980are traditional gender roles, which have not actually been traditional for the majority of0.95
00:50:01.680human history, because women have always worked inside and outside of the home supporting the
00:50:05.520family. It's just, it's literally always been the case. There was a blip in America in like1.00
00:50:10.720the forties and late forties and fifties, but it was a blip. This is not history. So the women that
00:50:17.300are promoting those ideas of stripping away a woman's agency and who are really pretending1.00
00:50:24.120not to work, who are just pretending that they're broadcasting their lives, their beautiful lives to
00:50:30.160you without making money, without having actual agency over their business. They're pretending
00:50:34.560they're not running a business. Megan at no point is pretending that this isn't a business for her,
00:50:41.000that this is not an economic endeavor for her. I would say she's following in the footsteps
00:50:46.140of Martha Stewart, a very happily divorced woman, by the way. Someone tried to call Martha Stewart0.99
00:50:52.200a tried wife once and I'm like, who's her? I was like, who's her husband? And they're like,
00:50:56.040I don't know. And I'm like, because she hasn't had one since her 20s. She went through a terrible
00:51:01.120divorce. Famously divorced woman, okay, who has never needed a man, who has actually said she0.88
00:51:07.460has had no interest in being dependent on a man ever again, okay? So I think that the media loves
00:51:14.400to throw labels around. They love to label women without actually talking about the nuance of0.91
00:51:20.380anything. So Megan is very clear that she's building a brand. She's not lying about anything
00:51:24.180either. She came out and said, I'm not filming this in my actual house. Whereas one of my favorite
00:51:29.180things that i learned about influencers and i have a whole plot point about this in the novel
00:51:33.760is that a lot of them rent influencer houses to do their kitchen content to do their kitchen
00:51:39.980recipe stuff and also their morning routines you can tell because you'll never see a toilet
00:51:45.240you can rent entire influencer like bedrooms for your waking up routine and nurseries
00:51:49.700for your kid stuff so that you don't have to constantly clean your actual house this is so
00:51:54.180dark it's it's like we work for trad wife content it's we work for trad wife content and in in the
00:52:00.880book i have a whole shadow house that's attached to their regular house that makes so much sense
00:52:05.960because the kitchens never make sense the kitchens never make sense they don't actually have and
00:52:10.400megan said she's like this isn't my house i'm using like a set house okay like this is we're
00:52:15.340filming this this is this is something we're doing i'm not pretending this is my day-to-day
00:52:19.820routine. No. And also because it's television. So I would say that she's following in the
00:52:24.940footsteps of Martha Stewart, of, you know, the Magnolia brand in a lot of ways, who were never
00:52:31.440like, oh, my God, Joanna Gaines. Like, you're a you're a trad wife. You're letting Chip make all
00:52:36.040the decisions. She's just like really good at this. And she's just really good at this. And
00:52:40.740you know, a woman who loves a big vase and shiplap. OK, leave her be. Do you guys remember1.00
00:52:46.160shiplap do i remember it every sims house i built obviously i'm a little younger than both of you
00:52:51.440but every sims house i built for like five years had shiplap in the kitchen and the barn door the
00:52:55.760barn sliding door i think about it all the time so i think she's following in the footsteps of
00:53:01.840some great woman entrepreneurs and again embracing something everyone wants right now people want a
00:53:07.440soft place to land they want quiet comfort okay and she's giving them that i love the show i have0.95
00:53:13.400on in the background all the time. Like I said earlier, I'm really considering urban bees.
00:53:17.140Nick Astor doesn't know that. Urban bees, right? I'm like, I could definitely do honey. I can't
00:53:20.900do chickens, but I could do honey. I support that. Right? Yeah. That was one of the things that
00:53:26.860critics blasted her about. You know, she's trying to be quote unquote relatable, which she never
00:53:31.400necessarily said, but she talks about getting in touch with your local beekeeper and how pretentious
00:53:36.600is that? I was like, no, I'm pretty sure we all have local beekeepers. You just have to seek them
00:53:41.720out and get back in touch with your community. Groundbreaking. Yeah, especially out where she
00:53:47.180lives. She's probably got like nine local beekeepers. Oh my God, can you imagine? And when1.00
00:53:51.740I did my nascent research into my beekeeping adventure, there are a ton of urban beekeepers
00:53:57.760literally down the street from me. And if I wanted to do it up in the Catskills, actually,
00:54:04.120I think like six or seven houses on my road have bees. Really? They have hives. This is a thing
00:54:10.300that people do good because we need these i'm literally gonna go look this up afterwards because
00:54:15.720i'm like where are my beekeepers where are the beekeepers oh my god trust you're in colorado
00:54:19.900you've got a beekeeper probably next door i probably have a beekeeper next door that's fair
00:54:24.260so with megan you know this relatability which i think she never said with her own words
00:54:30.900some people read that as being disingenuous other people accuse her of still like putting on airs
00:54:37.420playing princess what do you think that tension kind of says about Meghan is that part of why she0.98
00:54:42.720confounds so many people has she become this like Rorschach test in the culture wars she just
00:54:48.100confuses people I think that's what we're landing at she confuses people and I have to say that I0.98
00:54:54.500think that whoever Prince Harry married was going to get shit on all over the world and I know this0.95
00:55:02.240as someone who used to cover Prince Harry's girlfriends, okay?0.98
00:55:06.260Like, they've never, never been treated kindly.
00:55:08.720It's always, always been talked about as a scandal.
00:55:12.100They were never good enough for him, right?
00:55:14.280I mean, remember all the party girls?1.00
00:55:15.600And it's so much worse now that Meghan is an American1.00
00:55:25.860who wanted the princess to be a very singular thing.
00:55:30.660And I think they wanted another Kate Middleton, for sure. And they did not get that. And so Meghan can do no right. And also, the media loves, loves, loves, like I said, to rip women down. So it's not even necessarily the Meghan-ness of it all. It's she stepped into an impossible situation. And like, maybe you don't like her. There's a lot of celebrities that I don't like. I can't stand Natalie Portman for no reason whatsoever.
00:55:56.680But you don't have a podcast devoted to hating Natalie Portman.0.96
00:57:09.260And maybe there's trouble in the water.
00:57:12.600And the other thing is there was always going to have to be a scapegoat because I think the British media has learned their lesson about going after the future king.
00:57:20.580Hi, Charles. And, you know, a popular monarch is important, actually, to people being invested and interested and wanting to see the continuation of the monarchy. So the protection of the media around Kate and Will means that there needs to be some fresh meat, which ends up being the spare and his wife, who made the crazy decision that they weren't cool living like that.
00:57:44.140But I also think it's interesting the way in which Meghan and Kate are framed, because on the one hand, Meghan now is a trad wife who has rejected her progressive ideals. How? I don't know. Like you said, big tent with feminism. But on the other hand, Kate is in many ways a kind of heroine to trad wives in the UK.
00:58:04.700there was a book that came out a couple of years ago by Dr. Laura Clancy about running the firm
00:58:09.900and the financials. And the role that Kate really plays is this traditional values. And she is seen
00:58:17.220as inspiration to trad wives, especially in the UK. Can you speak on that? And where does that
00:58:24.160come in with the fact that she also kind of works and they're trying to push the fact that she's a
00:58:29.620working woman even more so now. But how does that all add up? Well, I mean, it's so funny whenever
00:58:35.000we talk about working in the royals generally. Yeah. Right. Yeah. It's it's it gets so confusing.
00:58:40.880It's it's such a it's such a fine line. It's like, what is work? What is a hobby? What is
00:58:45.020showing up and cutting a ribbon? I don't know the answer to that. But yes, I mean, Kate for so long
00:58:50.520has been this kind of trad wife adjacent. Right. Because I also like at no point what has she been
00:58:58.660promoting that a woman's place is strictly in the home. She has been working as a stay-at-home mom,
00:59:04.720albeit with lots of help. And again, stay-at-home moms are the CEOs of their household. They are0.99
00:59:10.060working. Yet her role has seemed to be very deferential to her husband's and very, very
00:59:16.720deferential to her husband's family. It has, at least on the surface, seemed very quote-unquote
00:59:22.840traditional. And now I do think we're seeing more of a narrative being pushed that she
00:59:26.880is working within the family firm, also because her kids are older. And so, you know, it brings
00:59:33.180up all of these, you know, ideas about when and how a woman can work. Is it okay if a woman works1.00
00:59:41.920once her kids are already in school? So, I mean, but would it be a terrible thing if she had been1.00
00:59:48.880doing more work while she had very small children? And I mean, that is something that we see a lot
00:59:56.140of groups, I mean, even not necessarily terribly conservative groups saying, oh, well, a mom should
01:00:01.520be raising her children. That is what a mom should be doing. This is something I hear a lot from0.97
01:00:06.660people leaving just comments on videos. You know, at the end of the year, for example, we get all the
01:00:12.160numbers on the hardest working royals and Kate continually is at the bottom. She sometimes even
01:00:17.840comes behind octogenarians, you know, and people will say, well, her work is raising the future
01:00:23.340king. That's her job. And there have been indicators from royal reporters and people in
01:00:28.600the circle that she does plan to stay at home with the kids primarily until they are not just in
01:00:33.200school, like full time, but done with school. So we're talking 10 years down the line. So yeah,
01:00:38.420that is, I think, again, it's a necessary role to play, but the question becomes more fuzzy when
01:00:45.280you are part of this institution where your lifestyle did come with these expectations
01:00:50.060originally, and now you're pushing back against them. So it's a very interesting ecosystem for
01:00:54.960sure. It really is. And the royals, by their very nature, are very traditional, right? And that's
01:01:02.240not something that we're going to see change with the current king, obviously. And I don't think
01:01:07.520it's necessarily something that we'll see change with William and Kate. No, I don't think so at
01:01:11.240all. At all. And so, yeah, I think Meghan is going to continue to be a punching bag. And also good
01:01:18.420on her i think for landing in the place she is now after everything she went through to break free
01:01:24.480yes of what she was going through there because she she never could have continued to be a brand0.96
01:01:29.380i also i mean when we talk about the condescension too i love how she got shit on for being an0.95
01:01:34.780american actress really again that's the thing that like it's a job like i'm sorry she's working0.74
01:01:41.520at a job she was a working woman before this and i not to bring up the tig but like i'm gonna bring1.00
01:01:48.020up the TIG. She was an early lifestyle blogger. Yes. Like, she really was. Whether or not you1.00
01:01:53.560liked the TIG, it was one of the earliest celebrity lifestyle blogs around the time of early Goop,
01:02:00.280okay? So, like, this has a lineage. In fact, you could say in some ways that marrying into the
01:02:05.920royal family derailed her career because who knows where she could be right now if she had
01:02:12.920come up at the same time as Goop doing something a bit different.