Send Help
And we’re recording. I did it.
We did it.
I'm getting so good at this.
Yeah. At pressing buttons.
At pressing buttons.
Good morning. Good morning.
How are you doing?
I'm good.
I'm so glad that you woke me up
this morning so that we could talk
About a movie
that I dismissed
when I first saw the trailer for it.
Did you really?
I mean I didn't dismiss it but.
I wasn't yearning to go see it.
Oh I was yearning to go see it
immediately. Yeah.
But then I found out that it was a movie
directed by Sam Raimi. Yes.
Sam Raimi.
And - Queen.
- you were like, let's go see this movie.
I was like, okay.
And this is actually,
I think this the second time
that you have said, let's go see a movie
where I was like, this seems interesting,
but it could be kind of trite.
And they both dealt with women
in survival situations.
What was the other one?
Dangerous animals.
Oh yeah. That was fun. Yeah. Yeah.
That was fun.
We could have done an episode
about that too.
We should do an episode
involving sharks sometime.
Yeah. Yeah.
But today.
Today, there are no sharks.
No, there's wild boars.
Yes. Very
really intense wild boars.
Yeah.
So, Sam
Raimi, has done so many lovely movies.
He's done Drag Me to Hell,
which is like a horror movie
that is, like, very dear to my heart
because, it was the first horror movie
that made me start
to fall in love with the genre.
Because it, like, incorporates, humor
in a way that makes terrifying situations
pretty accessible.
But it doesn't it doesn't get old.
Like, it's not that as I have
upped my level of tolerance for horror.
I have stopped wanting the campy
and comedic horror movies.
Yeah.
And then what else has he done?
He did the original Evil Dead.
which shout out to my sister,
is like one of her
favorite movie series, and she absolutely
loves Sam Raimi as well.
So much fun.
And then he's done
some more commercial stuff.
Yeah.
I mean, I think he was a big part
of any millennial's childhood,
especially if you were a boy,
but probably if you were a girl, too.
Which the Spider-Man movies
and Tobey Maguire.
Oh, yeah. Yeah.
I think Sam Raimi.
Has a sort of,
I don't want to say passive, but,
Has a feminist ideology that is woven
into his films
by virtue of the fact that he writes
female characters as characters.
Which, like, doesn't
it sounds like a non statement,
but it's actually like pretty rare to find
his main
agenda is to make an entertaining movie.
Yeah.
Not to, push forward a feminist message.
Right.
But he writes
these nuanced and fleshed out
female characters who are likable
or unlikable or sympathetic or not
sympathetic, just like the the very same
way that he writes his male characters.
And I think that's something he's
actually evolved into.
I think so too.
I don't think the original Evil Dead
had very, rounded out female characters.
I don't think very many people
in the original Evil Dead were
very rounded out characters.
I also
find his movies can often be, like,
cynical and mean.
Yeah. Send Help was definitely like that.
But it's it's just so wildly entertaining
that, I was fine with it.
Yeah.
I saw those. Yeah,
I don't I think that's the first time
we actually said that we're today.
We're,
we're we're going to be talking about-
We're going to be talking about the movie
Send Help, with Rachel McAdams
and Dillan O'Brien and a CGI boar.
Yeah.
And obviously spoiler
warning for the movie
if you want to go into the movie,
as certainly I did
like with pretty much
only the basic premise
then you should go watch the movie
and then come back and listen.
Yeah, and I kind of recommend doing that,
honestly.
Yeah, it's a fun one to go in blind.
And yeah, I think part of the it's
one of those movies where part of the fun
is the evolving nature of the story.
Yeah, not just the story, but the genre
that you see seem like you're watching.
You can't, like, pin down what genre
that you're watching at any given time
i feel like. Yeah. Yeah.
the trailer for this movie.
Definitely marketed it as mousy
corporate overachiever.
Becomes badass
survivor, in a survival situation.
Like, very much of the “good
for her” subgenre of horror.
A la Midsommar.
A la Carrie. And.
Jennifer's body.
Jennifer's body. Oh, yeah.
I love that one.
Yeah.
And, you know, you you you go in
expecting to see this,
douchey boss get his comeuppance
because, his much more
competent and, strong,
subordinate when,
when placed in a more primal situation
with him,
automatically outranks him in every way.
And that does happen.
But if that was
all that happened in the movie,
if that was the only expectation
that Send Help subverted,
then it would,
you know, be kind of boring.
Yeah.
Which is why I think watching the trailer,
I was like,
okay, like,
this seems like it's going to be pretty
standard, like 2026
women rule the world, Yeah.
But in 2026, women
certainly do not rule the world.
And I think, what
we're going to get at today
is that the, the ending of this movie
and the treatment of Rachel
McAdams character, Linda Little,
what a great name I know.
But the treatment of that character sheds
light on,
how women feel about the corporate ladder.
And the liberation or faux-liberation
offered to us, by capitalism
and achievement
within systems
that, bill themselves as a meritocracies.
Which was maybe best epitomized by
the phrase gaslight, gatekeeper, girlboss.
So that's what we'll get to.
But first, let's do like
a quick synopsis of the movie.
And it's been months since we saw this,
so I think we might actually be able
to keep our plot summary short this time.
okay, so we open.
We're getting to know Linda Little.
She is a financial analyst.
Yeah.
She works for this big company
as a financial analyst
and is hoping that she will get promoted
because she's been with the company
for a long time, and she does good work.
And it was all but promised to her. Right.
she would be unconventional for someone
in this role of financial analyst.
What do you mean?
Like, she, she is not your typical.
Okay, yeah, I understand.
Yeah, Lisa Little would be..
is an, an unconventional financial analyst
in that she's not very polished.
She's really passionate about her job
and competent at it, but because her,
soft skills and social skills
leave something to be desired,
she's kind of always on the margins of,
the social interactions at her office.
I remember we were watching this movie
at the beginning part
where they're establishing all of this.
I'm like full body
clenched, covering up my eyes.
I hate second hand embarrassment.
And there's a lot of,
like, awkward interactions
where, there are unspoken social mores
that she is unwittingly ignoring,
and it's really, really cringey to watch.
But you like her so much.
Oh, yeah, she's very endearing.
She's very genuine.
And we see, immediately
a man taking credit for her work.
and we see
one of the first things that happens
is that she asks for a meeting
with the new president of the company,
the son of the former
president of the company, Dylan O'Brien.
Dylan O'Brien playing Brad MC Peterson.
No, I don't think that was it.
He wouldn't be a an Irish name.
Bradley Preston. Bradley Preston.
Anglo all the way.
So, she gets pulled into his office
and he just gives her
the most painful dressing down
you could possibly imagine.
He tells her that she doesn't have
what it takes to succeed.
Because she lacks,
I don't know, ruthlessness or something.
He is clearly planning
on getting rid of her.
He tells someone else that he's
he's planning on firing her,
but he needs her for this
big overseas meeting first.
So he sells her this bill of goods
that this is like her big last chance
to advance in the company.
But in doing so,
he very much crushes her spirit.
at the end of that meeting,
he complains to her about,
foul odors coming from her cube
because he has this
intense distaste
for a chicken salad sandwich.
Is it chicken salad or tuna salad?
Tuna salad?
I don't know, it's some kind of
just like a basic sandwich
It's just this normal sandwich.
But, you know, rich people would hate that
kind of food and,
you know,
and then get really mad at The people
that they don't pay enough money
to afford anything better.
And so she boards this plane
with all of these young white men,
who look straight out of a Calvin
Klein ad.
and she's trying to keep her head down
and focus on her work.
But one of the men, has dug up
a survivor audition video
that she made years ago,
and they're all watching it
and laughing at her.
And she is just heartbroken,
being very mocked and very embarrassed.
And it's so sad.
And then the plane crashes in like
a very Sam Raimi, sequence.
Yeah.
Lots of body parts flying everywhere,
blood splashing onto mouths
dragging,
One of the guys like grabs her leg.
she like is basically at risk
of being dragged out with him.
And she sees an a fork I think.
Oh yeah.
And she stabs his hand.
Yeah I think so. Yes.
So a little hint of things to come.
So she wakes up on an island,
she finds Bradley passed out
his leg is injured.
And she immediately sets to work doing
everything that she knows to do:
build shelter, catch rainwater.
Yeah I feel like over the course
of their time there she basically kind of
really just comes into her own.
And like you even see her like
let her hair down
and like she goes from kind of this grungy
mousy office esthetic to an island
goddess.
Yeah. To an island goddess. She.
There's this great sequence
where she hunts a boar.
At that moment, she's coming into her own
as a as a predator.
And she's discovering this fierceness
that he said
at the beginning that she lacked. Right?
and then by the same token,
you see her get tan, you see her,
the waves in her hair come out,
and she's like, bathing under a waterfall.
And eating these tropical fruits
and dressing in palm
fronds and,
just completely coming into her own.
at this point, the movie is coming across
like an Enemies to Lovers rom com. Yes.
And then things take a turn. Yeah.
at some point she, she has a knife
that she says just washed up on the shore.
I completely accepted it.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
I think the big point that we see
at this point revealed is she sees a boat.
And she's like oh she's like freaking out
like oh finally we're saved.
And then she but before she says anything
she's like you can see it in her eyes.
She's like
but then what's going to happen to me?
Yeah.
And she's clearly
like thriving in this environment.
So she's like, not yet. That
that's what she says out loud.
Not yet, not yet, not yet.
She's like, okay, you know, we can,
we can, we can continue our fun here
a little bit longer.
And you get it, you know, you empathize
with her while this is happening.
this is like her moment.
And so she, she wants to live in it
a little bit longer.
So she goes back.
Bradley is starting to kind of heal up.
He's able to move around a little bit
more. He's able to help out more.
She begins teaching him
some stuff about survival.
Oh and at some point
they get drunk together.
Yes. She makes them wine.
They get drunk together.
They confide a lot of things
in, in each other.
So she confides in him
that she had an abusive husband.
Who was an alcoholic.
and that she used to like
keep his keys from him when he was drunk.
His car keys.
And one night, she just didn't stop him
and she let him go.
And he died in a car crash.
So in that moment,
we learn that it,
depending on your point of view,
what I took from
that was we have now learned that
this is not Linda's
first time in a survival situation,
and we can understand why she is,
as a person would become interested
in survival skills
and survival situations.
But another aspect of it is
she did stand by and let somebody die.
Although I would certainly argue
in that type of a situation.
Yeah. What are you gonna do? Yeah.
And then,
I think in that conversation, he confides
that his father was very withholding
and cold or whatever.
I don't know,
I don't really care about him.
So, Yeah.
And then he he poisons her with this fish
or conch or whatever
it is, has built a raft and tries
to get away.
Yeah.
so at this point,
we've shifted away from enemies to lovers
rom com, and we are, like, very much
in psychological thriller territory now.
Yeah.
They reach an uneasy peace.
And then.
Then the second boat comes. Right.
The second boat comes containing,
Bradley's fiancee.
Yeah.
Who has continued searching
after the search parties have given up.
Right. She just seems sweet as pie.
Yeah.
She's also the only character
who's just been nothing but nice to Linda.
Like, from the moment they met.
And so the second book comes,
and this time.
they basically see her first and like,
oh my God, Linda.
Yeah. And it's the fiancé with a guide.
And we see Linda lead them on this path
that she knows is an unstable path.
Yeah. It.
You see the part where the fiancée falls.
And then the guide is trying to help her
and then Linda's
kind of
just standing there frozen in fear.
And we cut away. Yeah.
And she's acting weird on the beach.
She feels guilty. Yeah.
Then Bradley finds his fiance's arm
sticking out of the sand with the ring
still on it. And all hell breaks loose.
in the course of this scuffle,
he discovers
this huge mansion that is like,
well supplied
with anything that you would need.
And it turns out that that's
where she got the knife,
and she's been, like, getting resources
from this thing this whole time.
Which again, like, in my reading,
doesn't entirely undercut her competence.
And it becomes clear
in the course of this confrontation
that he now understands
that what she wants is for them
to just live on the island together
and be happy.
She has this affection for him.
But he's not smarter than her.
She outsmarts him.
she pulls a gun on him.
And then he starts pleading for his life
and he says, I'll remain here with you.
I love you.
But then she realizes
he's has a weapon behind his back.
So, they get into another kerfuffle,
he gets the shotgun,
he goes to shoot her, realizes
the shotgun isn't loaded.
And then she,
which I feel like is like full circle.
Comes around and ends up overpowering him
and then kills him with a golf club.
Right.
Which like in the beginning
you know he's finance bro.
He's obsessed with golf like.
Oh yeah. Full circle.
and then we cut away to her happy ending.
Yeah. She's radiant.
She clearly has a stylist
and a nutritionist and a med spa.
She's released this bestselling, memoir
about her.
Her ordeal and her fight for survival
that has cast him
as, like, the predator and the villain.
And she's playing golf.
She's got a convertible.
she just has this happy ending
as the ultimate girlboss.
And so we walked out of this movie
and you said, like, I was surprised
that she came across
not as a good person by the end.
Yeah.
And and I said, you know, if
if she were to just come out
as the most competent and also
the most moral, that would be boring.
Yeah.
But another big part of our,
our conversation
about this movie, after we saw
it was like, it's so 2026, because if
something that has
happened in the past,
I would say ten years,
is the the fall of the girlboss.
girlboss is a term
that was popularized by Sophia
Amorosa in her 2014 book Girlboss.
And she was the founder of Nasty Gal
which is a clothing brand.
That, like most clothing brands,
is actually up to a bunch of shady shit.
But she
she helped to popularize this image of,
like, the powerful, successful and still
very feminine, corporate baddy.
female CEO.
And other examples of this trend, include,
Sheryl Sandberg, the “lean in” philosophy.
When I think of this
era, the early 2010s, I'm also
thinking of Hillary Clinton
as secretary of state.
And the expectation that we were about
to have our first female president
that was kind of seen
at least in the circles that I ran in
where the girlboss was,
I would say not entirely valorized, but
maybe kind of seen as like
a little cheesy, but mostly charming.
Like it was a given that we were about
to have our first female president
and that that would be Hillary Clinton.
And there was that image of her that was,
like, widely memed sitting on her plane,
with the pair of sunglasses on
and a blazer over her shoulder,
and she's texting on her BlackBerry.
And we would, like,
overlay it with text when I say we,
I mean, like, young millennial women
at the time would overlay it
with text about like, the,
the totally badass things
that she was texting.
Or I think of, like, the cover of Tina
Fey's memoir, Bossy Pants.
There was this idea that, like,
women could be in charge and powerful,
in a way that mostly involved
succeeding in, private ventures.
But also politics, just like any,
any realm
that was has historically been
dominated by men.
But you know that
that these women successors were like
while maintaining their femininity.
the girlboss was always criticized
by some.
The figure of the girlboss was always
criticized by some as being like,
we are replacing the promise
of collective liberation
with the promise of individual success.
And by doing that, we're scaffolding
the idea of, meritocracy.
That, of course, does not exist.
What if Capitalism but women?
Yeah, exactly.
Like there'd be jokes about,
you know, what's really important to me
is that the military operator.
Who's controlling the drone
that bombs a women's
hospital in the Middle
East is a woman like Yass Queen, you know?
So I'm actually interested.
Because I did not
run in these circles at the time.
Were you aware of the girlboss?
Have you heard, had
you heard the good news of the girl boss?
No. And I hadn't really heard,
like, the gatekeep..
Gas..
Gaslight, gatekeep.
Girlboss saying.
Well, that didn't come up till later..
Right.
I didn't really know of the rise of the
girlboss, nor the fall of the girlboss.
This all came much later
in my, progressive awakening.
I don't think it was that I missed out on
this just because I was not a
You weren't a gender studies major
at a tiny liberal arts school in Florida.
Right. So I'm interested.
Like what?
So were what were your feelings at
the time about this rise of the girlboss?
My feelings at the time were because I,
I am a bit further left
and was at the time
a bit further left
than a lot of mainstream feminism was.
And so I would kind of look askance at it
because I would look askance at anything
that, valorizes corporate success
as a symbol of female liberation
because my,
my feminism was always anti-capitalist.
even then I was like,
gosh, how old was I in like 2013?
I was like 22, 23.
My feminism was based in this in the idea
of, collective action
to uplift large groups of people
and meet their basic needs.
So individual symbols of success
were, to my mind at the
even at the time,
a distraction and possibly harmful.
But that was not like the quotidian view.
that was a little bit more fringe.
And I will also add that, like,
even I at that time, with that awareness,
like, took some pleasure in it because it,
it is just fun to see women succeed.
It was like when, when Biden won in 2020.
You know,
there was this awareness that this guy is,
not staunchly pro-choice
and, funded by APEC And you know,
he was, a mainstream Democrat
who, would continue to enact
policies that, I and people
who I
share a lot of core beliefs and values
with would continue to, actively,
work against, but
it was such a relief.
And it was it
was, characterized like that win
was characterized
by an appeal to decency and kindness.
it felt like the democratic process,
working and actually reducing harm.
And it was just like a moment of like,
I am going to indulge in some patriotism
today as a treat.
I'm going to toast to this.
And then tomorrow I'm going to go back
and continue doing the hard work.
Right.
And I think like that was the
that was kind of my attitude
toward girlboss as a trend like
this is not the way
to collective liberation
for women and gender minorities.
And it's fun to see women succeed.
And it's fun to see women,
like, clap back and seem powerful,
and indulging in a little bit of that
should be fine, right?
So that was my attitude toward it.
But it was definitely like a moment,
you know, a la girl power
and the Spice Girls
coming after, the riot girls where,
A lot of, like, superficial markings
of, feminism became trendy.
It became cool to have, like, lightly
feminist beliefs.
Which is always a double edged sword.
I would say it was a combination
of the 2016 election,
and the economic
downturn that came with Covid, that
fueled the collective disenchantment
with and disdain for the girlboss
as a figure.
People were over it.
We had done our best.
We we had graduated into a recession.
We had taken our unpaid internships.
We had worked our asses off, and
we were still living paycheck to paycheck.
We were still doing the majority
of the housework in double income homes.
And then this.
Raging misogynist got elected president.
This person who has bragged on tape
about sexually assaulting women.
You know that I've heard him described
as like the
the personified id of American
misogyny has now been elected
to the highest office in the land,
and we know that they're going to revoke
Roe v Wade and, then Covid hits
and the burden on women to carry,
all of the domestic
labor is just compounded.
And many of us lose our jobs.
And there is just
an absolute disenchantment and cynicism
with the figure of the girlboss
as anything that could possibly lead us
collectively into genuine gender, equity.
thus comes about the term
gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss.
Yeah. What's.. what was your..
you're the one who brought up that meme.
Can you tell me about it?
I think it was before Covid,
and I heard someone say it,
and I had no clue what it meant.
I think over.
The years since then,
I kind of understood it to mean..
to. Yeah.
To mean kind of this, disenchantment
with the idea that
a feminine version of capitalism
would be what would save us.
Save like women in particular. Right.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Or maybe save everybody actually
because there was also this idea
that, like,
the more women we could get into
boardrooms, the more humane
the corporations would act.
Yeah.
If only we could suppress this Violent
male desire to win and subdue the other.
If we could make it more humane, Our,
collecting of wealth.
Then we could really enact
some change in the world.
Yeah.
It's really kind of like a, Disney
movie mentality, right?
Like, the problem isn't the monarchy.
The problem is that you just need someone
who's kind and good in the seat of power.
But we don't need to disassemble
the system.
We just need someone pure of heart
to pull the sword out of the stone.
likewise, that the problem is not large
corporations doing
everything that they can only to increase
shareholder value,
at the expense of consumer well-being.
and the top
0.05 percent or whatever of the population
hoarding wealth, that's not the problem.
The problem is that we just need
more women pulling the reins.
Because women are naturally nurturing.
yeah.
It's this a essentialized version
of feminine..
feminine feminininity.
that sees women as caregivers.
Yes. Yeah.
And I think that the movie
is reflecting back on viewers
the cynicism of having realized
that that was always bullshit,
getting more women in
the seats of power was not going to mean,
success and equality for all women.
And getting more women in
the seats of power was not going to mean
that the institutions of power
were going to, organize society
in any more humane way.
Because here
we see this woman who, at the beginning of
this story, has bought into this idea
hook, line and sinker.
In a way that makes her seem
likeably naive, and we see not only that
the system doesn't work for her,
but when she is given the opportunity
to be the one in power,
that she starts enacting the same
self-interest and cruelty,
that she's been victimized by.
And there's something in there about
survival.
Yeah.
As being an aspect in all of that
that I would love to tease out with you.
Yeah,
I think I think a big realization moment
for her was when she sees the first boat.
And she says not yet.
Yeah.
that's when she begins to realize like.
I've worked so hard
to make it to this position.
I deserve to
have fun and enjoy the fruits of my labor,
even if it means harming somebody else
a little bit.
Even in this situation where..
And I think the harm is rationalized,
as you know, he's doing okay.
he'll be okay.
I'll take care of him. Yeah.
And how like in institutions
and organizations
that are built in a way
where some people have authority over
other people,
even that little bit of, of self-interest.
It's like a foot in the door
to like much bigger cruelty,
especially once you can be alienated
from the people that you're harming.
yeah.
And I think that was, that
was the social commentary of send help.
Although I will add
you don't have
to watch
it for the social commentary. You,
you can watch it for the humor
and the effects
and the fantastic performances
from both of the leads.
Yeah.
And the over the top
Sam Raimi, action sequences
and the splatters of various
bodily fluids into places
where you don't want them to go.
Yeah.
Yeah,
there's that great scene where she rescues
Bradley from oh, from the raft
after he tries to drug her.
And but she's in the midst of,
like, being poisoned.
Oh right.
So she's like doing mouth on mouth
resuscitation
and just vomiting into his mouth.
Oh it's so bad. It's great.
It's great.
Yeah.
Do you have any more thoughts on Send
Help?
I feel like we have built the argument
that I wanted to build.
Yeah.
I brought up Dangerous Animals
at the beginning of this movie.
Or at the beginning of our discussion.
And yeah I feel like that's an interesting
kind of companion piece there
because it's also a a feminist survival
horror story.
Yeah.
Except we don't see in dangerous animals,
we do not see
the main character
become corrupted at all.
Yeah.
I think Dangerous Animals
is more optimistic.
Well, it is
because Dangerous Animals is about nature
and Send Help, while a lot of it
takes place in nature.
Is about capitalism, I think. Yeah.
Yeah, Dangerous animals deals more
so with the with patriarchy.
Whereas Send Help.
It's about the intersection
of capitalism and gender, I think.
And so it, it it would need to be cynical.
Yeah. Especially in 2026.
We know when we're being sold
a bill of goods.
And another interesting
aspect of the downfall of the girlboss
is the now memeification of,
living a soft life.
Right?
My darling, I don't dream of labor.
Trad wives.
Yeah.
So I feel like the gently
anti-capitalist,
quiet quitting,
living a soft life, self-care.
I don't dream of labor, etc.
has given way
to the popularization of the trad wife,
which I would argue is,
not great for women either.
It's this return to conservative
gender relations
that tries to see the salvation
of inequality between the genders
as women being subordinate to men.
And just embracing that role
as sacred and positive.
Right.
it's an idealization of
what was what came before.
where women lived
this unburdened life as house maker
and just got to spend all their time
in frivolity and lounging.
Yeah. Or, spent all their time doing work.
That is,
I think, rightfully by many, Right?
Considered sacred and beautiful
and some of the most important work
that, contributes
to a functioning society.
Yeah.
nourishing your family
bringing up the next generation.
those things are not, to my mind,
subordinate or submissive.
Or less valuable.
Than going out
and creating shareholder value.
But to place them
within this essentialist idea
that there is, something about womanhood
that makes you uniquely built
for those tasks.
And also or I should say, therefore,
uniquely built to be subordinate
to men and submissive to men.
I think the girlboss
and the trad wife are two figures
that represent a broken promise,
two different broken promises.
The girlboss represents the broken
promise that,
if you lean in and devote yourself
to highly contributive
and highly visible work, in your job,
your corporate job,
the meritocracy will reward you
with wealth and power.
And that that's what women need
is to work
harder, accrue wealth and power.
And that making those individual choices,
will circumvent or, overpower sexism.
Likewise, the trad wife
represents the broken promise that,
if you embrace your essential feminine
nature, and,
devote yourself to keeping a safe
and happy and functional domestic sphere,
and bringing up the next generation,
and submit yourself to your husband
that again, the powers that be will reward
you with a fulfilling and happy life.
Youll never have to worry
about domestic violence.
Or not having enough money to get out
of a bad situation independently.
these two figures
that represent these two broken
promises, Yeah, they're,
they're lies that the patriarchy tells us
two different sets of lies
that the patriarchy tells us.
it's it's a whole different conversation,
really, that we should have.
And I think we should
have it with Crystal Cosmic.
About, the
fundamental wrongness of a system
that, considers the most valuable
work to be increasing shareholder value
and the least valuable work
to be caretaking the next generation
of humans and the most vulnerable people
in our society.
Right.
that's a conversation for another day.
Yeah.
there was a moment in our conversation.
I love talking to you for this reason.
There was a moment in our conversation
where you brought the discussion
of the girlboss back to like,
not the effect that success within
the system would have on women,
but the effect
that women's success within the system
would have on the system itself.
The I wouldn't normally think about
because I'm kind of locked
into my own vantage point.
As someone who had this idea marketed
to me of, the boss babe and leaning in.
Well.
And I think the point there
is that so many of these struggles that
the left
fights for are not separate,
but very much intertwined.
Yeah.
And so many of the insidious myths
that we have to deconstruct
are like peddling different promises
to different groups of people.
Right.
It's like the myth of the girlboss is,
you know, selling the idea of recognition
and success to women.
And maybe it's selling the idea
of a non exploitative employer to men.
and I guess in terms
of acting more loving in society, I'm
I love my job and the people that I work
with, I work as a writer and communicator
at an education nonprofit, in a department
with a bunch of mostly women.
Within a large institution
that is more male dominated,
I would say, something
that I get to do that I'm really happy
that I get to do is like counsel
younger women,
who are more entry level in my department.
on Ways that they can get better
opportunities for themselves, ways
that they can negotiate
for more money for themselves. Yeah.
And make really visible
the great work that they do.
Yeah.
And make sure that their work is,
to the best of my ability.
At a caliber
that it will impress the higher ups.
Because sometimes
what the higher ups don't notice is,
how well an article is written.
They might instead notice, how
well it fits our own institutional voice
based on norms that you just learned
from being there for years. Right?
So, like, getting my my newer colleagues
work ready to impress the powers that be,
and making sure that the powers
that be knows who produce that great work.
it's easier to remember to do
that when I'm not overwhelmed
and when I'm
not like, you know, struggling
to meet deadlines and working my ass off.
And so, just reminding myself today
to continue to find those moments
and to do my level best to make sure
that I never fail
to give credit where credit is due.
Especially when credit is due to somebody
who is younger, quieter, less confident.
Or just less familiar with the hierarchy
that we're existing in.
Yeah. Yeah.
Because I think on the opposite side
of this conversation, we're having or
not on the opposite side, but,
a opposing viewpoints
to maybe what we have said,
not from a conservative take,
but maybe even from an even further left
take would be that all of this
talk of like Appeasing the upper authority
within an institution
that is predominantly
run by men is all pointless
and instead we should all be fighting
for the inevitable
rise of full communism.
Communism.
And, you know, it's hard
sometimes for me to suss out
what the right thing to do is.
we talked about today
how if you lean into this girlboss idea
that like women
should be able to enjoy the same
but the girlboss idea is like, women
should succeed by acting more like men.
Which is to say, grabbing credit
wherever they can
and stepping on other people on their way
up. Right.
and you see that in, like, smaller
and sillier, insidious ways too,
like, women ought to speak
more declaratively and not use up talk.
Right. Like, I just did.
or women should apologize less
and it's never “maybe
men should communicate more like women.”
Maybe men should stop and do “And I think
it's dadadada, right?” to make sure
that their listener is there with them.
Maybe men should apologize more
because maybe they are harming people
in small ways and they could better repair
their relationships that way.
Yeah.
So the other insidious part of
the girlboss is “women should succeed
in corporate structures
by acting more like men.” Which is to say,
by acting more competitively
and more in their own self-interest.
Right?
Which is where the promise gets broken.
Right.
but I feel like there's
this backlash to girlboss.
That sees it as naive in the same way
that, like.
Any talk of like, Taylor Swift.
As like a leading female voice,
or a leading female figure.
Would get downplayed as “oh
she's just a corporate
shill for, you know the music industry.”
Where it's like.
Yes. And. Yeah. And
if you
consider the conversation
maybe from a larger perspective,
there seems to be so much more hate
thrown at Taylor Swift than Bono.
Yeah.
Yeah. And so it's like okay. Yes.
And let's maybe
make sure that we're first and foremost
criticizing the white men who are reaping
the rewards of this system
that has pretty much been built for them.
At least to the same amount, if not more
than we are criticizing the women.
And that's kind of where I feel like
there's this other, you know
kind of what I was thinking
about a little bit was,
Sheryl Sandberg is so much more maligned
than Bill gates.
Yeah. Yeah. Totally.
and I think what I was trying
to bring into it, we're talking about,
like how I'm able to support my younger
colleagues is like, acting in solidarity
as workers.
Yeah.
that can be gendered and not.
But, how do we as workers
lift each other up?
Right?
Because we're the ones
who actually keep the
the wheels turning in the great machine.
Yeah.
Because I think there's a disingenuous
reading of this movie that is
that goes something along the lines
of, Feminist ideals were never going to be
what were going to save us
from capitalism. And.
what I would argue the, the,
the more appropriate interpretation
is that, “No actually feminist ideals
as well as Working class solidarity,
working class solidarity as well as a lot
of the ideals of marginalized groups.
Can actually come together and voice
much of the same, opinions and thoughts
and ideas about how we can move society
to a better, more egalitarian one.” Yeah.
And that our, our vision
of female liberation must be grounded
in working class solidarity.
Rather than a vision of,
an individual, token,
you know, succeeding in the system
while the system remains unchanged.
Yeah.
And with that, I'm
going to go to my Girlboss workout class.
Okay.
Is it a girlboss workout class?
I don't know,
it's in the financial district.
It's kind of bougie.
Well, listeners,
your homework is to let us know
if Orange Theory in the Financial District
is girlboss coded.
I feel like it's totally girlboss coded.
Okay.
But yeah, listeners
tell me if I'm wrong. Yes.
I love you, Sam.
I love you, too.
Okay, bye. Okay, bye. Okay, bye.
