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0:52

Hi, Heather.

0:54

Hi, Willa. Heather Schwedel, you

0:57

are my colleague at Slate and you also regularly

0:59

cover celebrities. Yes, and

1:01

I especially enjoy following their love lives.

1:04

On that note, did you see the news about Joshua

1:06

Jackson from Dawson's Creek and Jodi Turner-Smith,

1:09

the model and actress? Jodi Turner-Smith

1:12

and Joshua Jackson are calling

1:14

it quits. Jodi has filed

1:16

for divorce from the actor after

1:19

four years of marriage. Yeah,

1:21

I always kind of liked them. I did too.

1:24

I noticed this one weird thing as I was reading

1:26

all the comments under posts about them. A

1:28

lot of people were saying that they knew their marriage was

1:30

doomed from the start. How did

1:32

they know that? Apparently, Jodi

1:35

Turner-Smith was the one who proposed to Joshua

1:37

Jackson. And according to all these commenters,

1:39

that broken unwritten rule of romance

1:42

that the man should be the one to do that.

1:44

So they were never going to last. Hmm,

1:46

I don't know. I don't know what I think about that. I

1:49

know, but it caught my attention because I've

1:51

been thinking about one of the places where rules

1:53

like this have been written down.

1:55

It's a best-selling dating manual from the mid-1990s.

1:58

And what is this dating manual? called The

2:01

Rules. Time-tested secrets for

2:03

capturing the heart of Mr. Right. And

2:05

what are some of the rules in The Rules?

2:08

Well, one is don't laugh or

2:10

talk too much. Another is never

2:13

accept a Saturday night date after Wednesday.

2:15

And of course, don't make

2:16

the first move. This is the

2:19

90s. Isn't it okay for women to speak to Manford?

2:21

Sure, but he won't love you. He won't chase

2:23

you down the bluff.

2:26

It's not the 90s anymore. But The

2:28

Rules haven't really gone away. You

2:30

can laugh on a date. You can talk. But

2:33

who still pays for the first date? And

2:35

who's supposed to propose?

2:37

Yeah, all of these ideas are still just very

2:39

in the water.

2:41

Right. And I wanted to figure out why they've

2:43

been so persistent. So this might

2:45

be a little forward of us, but

2:47

we have a proposal for

2:49

you, our listeners.

2:51

Could you drop everything and

2:53

join us, like, right now to dig

2:55

into the ongoing relevance of The Rules?

3:04

This is Dakota Ring. I'm Willa Paskin.

3:07

The dating manual of The Rules was controversial

3:09

from the day it was released. Some

3:11

people loved it and swore by it. Others thought

3:14

it was throwback hogwash that flew in the

3:16

face of decades of feminist

3:17

progress. The resulting brew-ha-ha

3:20

turned the book into a phenomenon. In

3:22

this episode, Heather Shwadel is going to dive into

3:25

The Rules. She's going to look at where they come from,

3:27

how they got so popular, and why they've

3:29

been so

3:30

sticky, whether we like it or

3:32

not. So today on Dakota

3:34

Ring, The Rules was retrograde.

3:36

But

3:37

what's a good advice?

4:02

This show is brought to you by Discover. You

4:04

know, in today's world, it seems the best treatment

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is reserved only

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for a few. Well, Discover wants

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to change that by making everyone feel special.

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no matter who you are or where you are in life,

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you'll feel special with Discover. Learn

4:28

more at discover.com slash

4:30

credit card. Limitations apply. Heather's

4:36

going to take the lead.

4:37

The story of the rules begins when the writer

4:39

Sherry Schneider was a young professional

4:41

dating in New York City.

4:43

I had been to a Jewish matzah ball

4:45

dance. It was like a thousand people. And

4:48

I thought, tonight is my night. How can

4:50

I go wrong with a thousand people? I didn't

4:52

need anybody that I liked. Dating

4:55

is always difficult, but in the early 90s,

4:57

ramifications of feminism, the sexual

5:00

revolution and

5:01

AIDS made it feel uniquely so. The

5:03

old ways were out, but the new ones weren't clear.

5:06

Men were no longer solely in charge, but

5:09

were women? What did that mean

5:11

for sex and marriage and even just who

5:13

was supposed to ask whom out? I was

5:15

at an event and no guy that I liked

5:17

was talking to me first. I might approach someone

5:20

and then it would never, it never worked out. Sherry

5:23

was floundering in this strange new world. As

5:26

she struggled with single life, she befriended a

5:28

woman around her age, an accountant who

5:30

was in the New York City dating scene too. Her

5:33

name was Ellen Fine. She

5:35

declined to speak with us for this episode.

5:37

But unlike Sherry, Ellen had a strategy.

5:40

She said, you know, there is a formula like never

5:42

speak to a guy first, play hard to get. This popular

5:45

girl in high school told her about it.

5:47

Apparently in high school, Ellen

5:49

had known a pretty prom queen type,

5:51

but she's not where the advice started.

5:53

Rather, Ellen said the prom queen had

5:56

gotten the info from her grandmother, who

5:58

around 1917, had more suitors

6:01

and marriage proposals than she knew what

6:03

to do with. Basically, there are just some

6:05

innate things that you must do when you're dating. That's

6:07

so and fine on a 1990s TV show. Initially,

6:11

Sherry was as skeptical of dating advice

6:13

from the

6:14

1910s as anyone might be. I

6:16

thought, like, no way. I thought, you

6:19

know, feminism, we're supposed to do whatever we

6:21

feel like. And that should apply to men

6:23

as well as careers and everything.

6:26

But what Sherry was doing wasn't working,

6:29

and it wasn't working for her friends either.

6:32

Ellen and I would meet girlfriends in

6:33

the city once or twice a week for dinner. And

6:35

everybody, no matter what they did for a living, and

6:37

be a lawyer, doctor, every single one

6:39

that chased a guy or was too available

6:42

got dumped. And we just said, you know what, we

6:44

have to write this down. Nobody can remember anything. And

6:46

we don't have time to be on the phone all day telling people

6:49

what to do. So we just said, let's put it in

6:51

book form. So she and

6:53

Ellen set out to codify this playing hard

6:55

to get approach, to turn it into a whole system

6:58

with, you know, rules. Ellen

7:00

and I lived near each other in the city and she came to

7:02

my apartment once a week. And

7:04

we just talked for a couple of hours

7:07

and we did like a chapter a week. They

7:09

ultimately came up with 35 different rules. They

7:12

include the rules you've already heard and a bunch

7:15

of others besides, like number 18. Don't

7:18

expect a man to change or try to change

7:20

him.

7:21

And number 31.

7:22

Don't discuss the rules with your therapist. The

7:25

overarching message was, don't chase

7:27

a man. Let him chase you.

7:30

These ideas were so out of fashion,

7:33

so at odds with the gender politics of the 90s,

7:36

that even when Sherry was deep into writing

7:37

the book, she found it difficult to take

7:39

her own advice. Especially after

7:42

she started seeing a man she really liked.

7:45

It was hard.

7:47

I was like, I can't believe I can't call him. You

7:50

see him once a week the first month, twice

7:52

a week the second month, and then never more than three

7:54

times a week for the whole relationship. Labor

7:56

Day weekend, I could only see him Saturday night. I couldn't

7:59

see him Sunday.

7:59

as well. And he asked me to see

8:02

him the next day and I said, I can. And he said, why?

8:04

And I said, well, I'm going to the gym and I have some errands

8:06

to do. And he said, that's why you can't see me. And

8:08

he just shook his head and said, okay.

8:10

But despite how unnatural

8:13

it felt, she actually seemed to be getting

8:15

somewhere. I mean, I could tell

8:17

it was working because on the second day he said,

8:18

that's where my brother proposed to his wife. On

8:21

the third day he mentioned nephews. He was always

8:23

bringing up marriage, family. I

8:25

was seeing the results every week.

8:27

Her doubts disappeared. Her

8:30

friends' romantic lives had improved. Her

8:32

co-writer Ellen Fenn had gotten married. And

8:34

Sherry did too, to the guys she had turned

8:37

down on Labor Day weekend. As

8:39

far as she was concerned, the rules

8:41

worked. And she and Ellen

8:43

wanted to take them out into the wild.

8:48

We had no interest in fame. We really just

8:50

wanted to tell the single girl that was suffering

8:53

that

8:54

she shouldn't speak to a guy first, you know,

8:56

that she shouldn't initiate a relation with her. She's just

8:58

not getting it because the guy has to make the first move. So

9:00

to understand the appeal of the rules, and

9:02

also the critique of it, I want

9:05

to look a little closer at the manuscript Sherry and

9:07

Ellen began

9:07

shopping around town, starting with

9:09

rule number one. Be a creature unlike

9:12

any other.

9:13

Now when you hear this rule, you might think,

9:16

okay, this book is beginning by encouraging

9:18

women to have confidence, to embrace and

9:20

celebrate who they are. That's

9:23

actually where Sherry says this rule comes from.

9:26

Sometimes women would talk to us and they had such

9:28

low self-esteem. They didn't feel like they were

9:30

good enough for a man or pretty enough for a man.

9:32

And I think one of us just said, you know

9:34

what, you know, like you're

9:36

a goddess, you're a creature unlike any other. But

9:39

it turns out being a creature unlike any

9:41

other does not mean you are good enough

9:43

or pretty enough as you are. You

9:45

have to look feminine.

9:48

You have to look, you know, desirable. So

9:50

long hair and hoop earrings and feminine,

9:53

you know, not short hair or glasses. No

9:55

glasses, thin, feminine. And

9:58

as a person with curly hair, I just want to say thank take particular

10:00

offense at their habit of recommending everyone

10:03

wear their hair long and straight, being

10:05

a creature unlike any other is really

10:08

being exactly the creature women have long been expected

10:10

to be with all the typical Eurocentric

10:13

white beauty standards that go with it. This

10:16

kind of thing is all over the rules,

10:18

an injunction that sounds pretty reasonable but

10:21

turns out to be very conservative, like

10:23

rule number two. Don't talk to

10:25

a man first and don't ask him

10:27

to dance. In

10:29

other words, let him come to you. Again,

10:32

I think there's a kernel of wisdom embedded here

10:35

and it's that you can't make

10:36

someone be interested in you.

10:38

I don't think you snuff out that interest by saying

10:40

hi first but I don't think you should

10:42

waste your time on someone who isn't showing interest

10:45

in you but Sherry and Ellen are

10:47

saying something more extreme.

10:49

To initiate with a man just goes against

10:52

biology. This is biological. Biologically,

10:54

the truth that

10:56

men love a challenge that they

10:58

are born to pursue,

11:00

that they

11:01

must pick you. Now in

11:04

my experience on dating apps, rather

11:06

than being born to pursue, men seem flummoxed

11:08

by anything more challenging than swiping right.

11:11

But my anecdotal skepticism aside,

11:14

what Sherry is using here is the language of

11:16

evolutionary psychology to express

11:18

a very old idea.

11:20

Men chase, women get chased, and

11:23

this is not because of social convention. It's

11:25

because of nature. This

11:26

kind of

11:28

biological just-so

11:30

story suggests we can't blame anyone

11:32

for how we date and mate and we certainly

11:34

can't change it. It's also the

11:36

kind of flawed logic that can easily lead to

11:38

claim about why women aren't

11:40

tempermentally fit to be leaders or

11:43

even have full rights.

11:45

But romantic advice like this aimed

11:47

at heterosexual women and predicated

11:49

on seeming certainty about how

11:52

men and women just are, is

11:54

grounded in something. It's just not biology.

11:58

It's history. For

12:00

centuries, courtship mostly took place in

12:02

young women's homes, where it was a given

12:04

that they would be passive participants in the process.

12:07

Men did the work and women's families were

12:09

present to chaperone and ensure everyone

12:12

stuck to the appropriate script. In

12:14

the early 20th century, that began to

12:16

change.

12:17

Women started working outside the home and

12:19

spending more time in school. Dating

12:21

moved into public spaces like movie theaters,

12:24

restaurants, and dance halls. At

12:26

this time, advice columnists warned women to

12:28

downplay this relative impediment.

12:30

They should behave as though men still had all

12:33

the control over courtship. The 1923

12:36

dating manual, The Philosophy of Love, gives

12:38

a woman a whole host of things not to

12:40

do, including,

12:41

quote,

12:42

show her eagerness or that she desires

12:44

to hold a man in any way. It was

12:46

only in the 60s and 70s that dating

12:49

advice for women started to change as

12:51

a reflection of larger shifts in society. Some

12:53

of it just became sex advice.

12:57

Hold it! That book! Of

13:01

course, Sex and the Single Girl,

13:03

that kiddo-lating bestseller by Helen

13:05

Gurley Brown.

13:07

And there were other books, too, The Joy of

13:09

Sex, Nice Girls Do, and How to Make

13:11

Love to a Man. And

13:13

then there were other books, like The Intelligent Woman's

13:15

Guide to Dating, that gave women permission

13:17

to approach and flirt with Mearns. And

13:20

in the me decade, books like Smart Women,

13:22

Foolish Choices,

13:23

and Women Who Love Too Much, both written

13:25

by psychologists, emphasized the importance

13:27

of staying true to yourself, being

13:29

transparent and authentic as you pursue

13:32

the right

13:32

kind of man. The rules

13:34

flew in the face of all of this, not by

13:36

dispensing something actually new,

13:38

but by going back to the past. In

13:41

the introduction, it explains that all the

13:43

rules come from that popular girl's grandmother

13:45

back in 1917, and her

13:47

advice would fit right into a dating guide

13:50

from the 1920s, or 30s, 40s, or 50s. Don't

13:54

meet him halfway, or go Dutch on a date.

13:57

Don't rush into sex. Stop

13:59

dating him. if he doesn't buy you a romantic

14:01

gift for your birthday or Valentine's Day.

14:04

There was one thing about the rules that was new.

14:07

It's tone. Sherry

14:10

and Ellen's tough, straight-shooting style

14:12

made all their advice seem campily modern and

14:14

feminist in swagger, if not in content.

14:17

They sure sound empowered whatever advice

14:19

they're doling out. This combination

14:22

of modern packaging and old-school advice

14:24

would prove to be irresistible, though

14:27

that wasn't immediately apparent. It

14:29

was impossible to get them any

14:31

media in the beginning. Tina Andriadis

14:33

was the rules publicist at Warner Books,

14:36

which published the book around Valentine's Day, 1995.

14:39

Despite the initial failure to make a splash,

14:42

neither she nor Sherry nor Ellen were quite ready

14:44

to give up on it. They started setting

14:46

up seminars. Sherry and Ellen

14:49

were just like, they were

14:50

a good two-woman show. I mean, they

14:53

were really like authentic

14:55

and they believed in this rule so much.

14:58

They would walk into a classroom full of women, grown

15:00

women, lawyers, and divorcees and career

15:03

women who had been having trouble dating, and

15:05

they would just start taking questions.

15:07

They would not like

15:09

sugarcoat anything. So

15:11

someone would raise their hand and, okay,

15:13

so I went out with this guy, second

15:16

date, you know, he slept over,

15:18

wait, he slept over, forget it, like move on.

15:21

Tina could see how their certainty appealed to

15:23

the women at these seminars, because it appealed

15:25

to her, too. I

15:26

remember once, like I had this guy and we went

15:29

out a couple times and seemed good

15:31

on paper, and then she said, well, how did the date end? Because

15:33

that's

15:33

very important to the rules. How did the date end? I'm

15:36

like, well, he didn't walk me home, forget it, he doesn't love

15:38

you. I never forget that Ellen's like, she doesn't love you.

15:40

I was just like this 25-year-old

15:42

publicist, and I was like, oh

15:43

my god, these guys are amazing. They're gonna find me a husband,

15:45

they're gonna find everybody a husband, and the world's gonna be great.

15:48

When Tina noticed how captivated women

15:50

were by the Shari and Ellen show, she

15:52

started inviting journalists to observe. That's

15:54

how NBC's Dateline ended up

15:56

stopping by in 1996 and capturing this exchange. between

16:00

the duo and one of the attendees.

16:02

I am living with a man. Um,

16:05

I pursued him. I love you, I love

16:07

you, I love you. You're my man. You

16:09

care about me, all this other stuff. Has he ever

16:11

brought up marriage? No. You wanted

16:13

to marry him, basically. Yeah. Then

16:16

you have

16:16

to move out. Move out. You have to move out. Listening

16:19

to this clip, I can understand Sherry

16:21

and Ellen's appeal. They are just so

16:23

certain. They make dating seem

16:26

simple. Of course, it's

16:28

not. But the allure of the rules

16:30

is that if you follow them, it could be. All

16:33

you have to do to land a husband,

16:35

or avoid a devastating breakup, is

16:37

check all the boxes.

16:39

As journalists and everyday women attended

16:41

the seminars and witnessed this kind of

16:43

frank assurance, words started getting

16:45

around. They were doing more

16:47

press, more people were coming to seminars,

16:50

and sales were picking up.

16:52

And then, in July of 1996, after

16:55

the book was released in mass market paperback, it

16:57

paid off spectacularly when

17:00

one of the most famous women in the world helped

17:02

send the rules into the stratosphere.

17:09

Hey, grownups, do

17:11

you

17:11

love the holidays? Because

17:14

if so, oh boy, we do

17:16

not have the perfect show for you. From Wandery

17:19

and Dr. Seuss comes a holiday podcast

17:21

for the whole family that's about as

17:23

enjoyable as icicles in

17:25

your hot cocoa. It's Tiz

17:27

the Grinch holiday talk show. We

17:29

all know the Grinch hates the Christmas season,

17:31

but can you listen along and find out the reason?

17:34

Each week, one of

17:35

your favorite celebrities will try to get the Grinch's heart

17:37

to grow three whole sizes. Good

17:39

luck with that. Listen for your favorite celebrity,

17:41

join the hilariously gross guessing

17:43

game, name that sound, and get ready for the holidays

17:46

with a bunch of big green belly laughs for the

17:48

whole family. Follow Tiz the Grinch

17:50

holiday talk show on the Wandery app,

17:52

or wherever you get your podcasts. You

17:55

can listen to Tiz the Grinch holiday talk show

17:57

early and ad-free right now by joining

17:59

Wandery.

18:11

In the summer of 1996, Princess

18:14

Diana was about to be officially divorced

18:16

from Prince Charles.

18:17

Her love life was one of the British press's

18:19

favorite topics and she was rumored to be

18:22

romantically involved with a rugby player.

18:24

This all came to a head in early July when the rugby player's

18:27

wife,

18:27

herself a TV presenter,

18:35

announced

18:41

that she was sending Princess Diana a copy

18:43

of a new dating book called The Rules, with

18:45

one section highlighted.

18:49

Sherry

18:52

and Ellen happened to be in the UK as all

18:54

of this was going on and they saw the press frenzy

18:56

first hand. We were leaving to go back

18:58

to New York and in the airport every tabloid

19:01

had the rules on its cover. They realized

19:04

their book could be all over the American press too.

19:06

We sent the article to page six.

19:09

It was just like the floodgates open and

19:11

everybody wanted to know what book Princess Diana

19:13

was sent and everybody wanted to know why we were

19:16

turning dating upside down.

19:18

The book started to really fail.

19:21

It hit number one on the New York Times bestseller

19:23

list in October of 1996. That

19:25

same month, the authors were parodied on

19:28

Saturday Night Live. Here's a rule

19:30

that always trips me up a little bit. It really did

19:32

screw me up. Rule number 14 never date a married

19:34

man. Oh never. Why? Because

19:37

married men are already married.

19:40

Sure, SNL was mocking how reductive

19:43

some of the rules were, but clearly a lot

19:45

of readers were eager for just that. All

19:48

support groups sprang up all over the country. Fans

19:50

began calling themselves rules girls.

19:53

Sherry and Ellen started charging $250 an hour for consultations.

19:55

They sold merch. You

19:59

could buy. a rule stating journal, a rule flip

20:02

stick, and an anklet that said

20:03

C-U-A-O, which is

20:05

short for creature unlike any other.

20:07

The rules was everywhere.

20:10

Watch out fellas, the dating

20:12

game just got a lot tougher. Women

20:14

out there are arming themselves with a bestseller,

20:17

tips on how to play hard to get, to

20:19

get you to the altar. It's called

20:21

the rules. The rules became a part

20:23

of the zeitgeist in a way few books do,

20:26

even popping up on Sex in the City when

20:28

Shatterlight defends its approach to Miranda. You

20:31

have to be. It's the only way to deal with it.

20:32

The rules

20:35

are not enough. Games are about secure

20:37

and honest communication. Games

20:39

are empowering. If you

20:41

know what you're doing, you can totally control

20:43

the situation. Ellen and Sherry

20:45

were proto influencers, brand creators,

20:48

before we used those words.

20:50

And their book became something that also didn't have

20:52

a name yet,

20:53

a hate read. So at

20:55

what point did it start

20:57

to feel like a backlash

20:58

had arrived? Oh,

21:01

immediately.

21:02

Karen Carmack-Thrudy was an editor who worked

21:04

on the rules and Warner books.

21:06

It's not even like a backlash

21:09

because a backlash would presume

21:11

that a book came out and everybody

21:13

was in favor of it. There was instant

21:16

controversy with this book. People were right

21:18

from the start,

21:20

either

21:21

in the camp of thinking it was great or in

21:23

the camp of thinking it was horrible. And

21:26

both camps were crowded. For every

21:28

person who bought the book and a journal to go along

21:30

with it, there was someone who disdained it as

21:33

trashy, inane, conservative, best-selling

21:35

crap. There

21:38

were op-eds about it and parody books and

21:40

a lot of censure from feminists. The

21:43

head of the National Organization for Women

21:45

disparaged it in an interview. You

21:47

can't speak to a man, she said,

21:50

and you should hide your personality? It

21:52

seems anti-feminist and manipulative.

21:54

Men themselves caught

21:57

wind that women were using the rules on men, and

21:59

many of them... didn't like it. Writing

22:01

in the New York Times, Douglas Martin

22:04

equipped that the book was written by two

22:06

predators who parlayed their tricks

22:07

into what they suggest may be heaven on

22:10

earth, marriage in the suburbs.

22:13

But as with any contemporary

22:14

hate read, all the ire just kept

22:16

the rules right where it wanted to be, in the

22:19

middle of the conversation. And

22:21

then, in October of 1996, that

22:24

conversation made it to the biggest stage

22:26

of all. The rules isn't just a book,

22:28

it is a movement, honey. Shari

22:30

and Ellen summited the Mount Everest of

22:33

the publishing industry, the Oprah

22:35

Winfrey show. And it was clear from

22:37

the start of Shari and Ellen's appearance on her daytime

22:39

talk show,

22:40

Oprah liked the book. If

22:43

you're looking for a man or you need a little help

22:45

with the one you got, this may be the best advice

22:48

I'll love you're going to get,

22:48

girl. For the first half of the episode,

22:51

Oprah did her Oprah thing, one of the most famous

22:53

women on the planet interviewing the guests as

22:55

a relatable audience stand-in, with plenty

22:57

of questions about dating. Don't talk

23:00

to a man first and don't ask him

23:02

to dance. Right, if you're at a party

23:04

or a restaurant and a man doesn't come up to you

23:06

that you think is cute, too

23:08

bad.

23:09

Because we- So the moment's just gone,

23:11

it's passed, it's over? It's over. If a man likes

23:13

your looks, he'll come over to you. And

23:15

if he doesn't like your looks, down the line,

23:17

it won't be very good for your relationship. Really?

23:20

Really. A woman can become

23:22

a CEO. But maybe he will like your charming

23:24

ways, your insight, your personality, your-

23:27

No, he has to like

23:28

your looks first. If

23:30

he doesn't like the way you look, you can have the most wonderful

23:32

insights and be the most wonderful person in the world.

23:35

He will move on eventually. Okay.

23:37

In the second part of the episode,

23:38

the show leaned into the controversy and

23:41

welcomed a guest who hated the rules,

23:43

a feminist writer and scholar named Regina

23:45

Baraka.

23:46

It says, don't talk so much. It also

23:48

says, don't be funny. It says, don't

23:50

laugh too much. You can laugh with your girlfriend, but

23:53

you cannot laugh with a man. You're not supposed to have

23:55

a sense of humor. Life is only possible

23:57

if you have a

23:58

sense of humor. They

24:00

were both from Long Island and I am originally

24:02

from Brooklyn and Long Island. And so if

24:04

you watch the program, we become increasingly

24:08

fishwives from Brooklyn and Long Island.

24:10

That's Regina today. She is now

24:13

a writer and English professor at the University

24:15

of Connecticut.

24:16

I was astonished

24:18

by the stuff that I

24:21

heard

24:22

on those pages. It tells women what

24:24

they're doing wrong,

24:26

as if it's somehow all our fault,

24:28

as opposed to 3,000 years of

24:30

misogyny. The

24:34

most telling moment of the appearance came when

24:36

Oprah asked Regina about an age-old warning

24:39

and the rules authors leapt into the fray too.

24:42

These women who jumped into bed on the first date,

24:44

I mean, it's what our mothers told

24:46

us. It doesn't work. In

24:48

the end, it doesn't. But neither does what our mothers did. I mean,

24:50

we have felt a way in 30 years from

24:53

what our mothers wanted. Let me ask you a question. I'm just

24:55

presenting the point. Do you feel like you want to jump into bed? Should she on the

24:57

first date? I feel that. A mature woman

24:59

should trust her. What is she not? Regina is saying,

25:01

I think a mature woman should trust her instincts.

25:05

This exchange is at the crux of the debate

25:07

around rules.

25:09

It was about what feminism had won for us

25:12

and what it hadn't, what it couldn't. Women

25:15

had made advancements in the preceding 30 years. And

25:18

yet this was still a society and culture

25:21

that dismissed Anita Hill, that objectified

25:23

and teased Monica Lewinsky, one

25:25

in which sexism was alive and well.

25:28

And what the rules were saying was, this is

25:31

reality. So deal with it. We

25:33

can have our careers by being bold. But

25:35

if we want husbands, we're going to have to fall

25:37

back on age-old guidance and the stuff

25:39

that supposedly worked for our grandma. So

25:42

accept that you will

25:43

be called easy if you have sex on a first date.

25:46

And don't do it. How it should

25:48

be and how it is is, you know,

25:51

we want to deal in reality.

25:52

But when feminists heard this, they were

25:54

a gasp. How could

25:56

the response to all the progress we've made

25:59

and to the fact of the world be

25:59

lingering sexism be to just

26:02

throw up our hands and then to speak go back

26:04

in time to make ourselves smaller,

26:06

to suppress our desires, to

26:08

hew to ancient rules.

26:10

The idea that you were supposed to be some

26:13

kind of mysterious

26:15

exotic invasive creature

26:18

seemed

26:18

to me to be not

26:21

only a dismissal of but a dismantling

26:24

of everything that women had been fighting

26:26

for.

26:27

But some women didn't want to fight and

26:29

they didn't have time to wait for things to change

26:32

and the rules in its way took that predicament

26:35

on. Inevitably

26:37

as the decade ended and the new millennia started

26:39

the rules would begin to lose steam. Ellen

26:42

Fine even got divorced, an event

26:44

that came accompanied with all the expected

26:47

tabloid schadenfreude and headlines

26:49

like rules writer didn't play it by

26:51

the book. In one interview Ellen

26:53

actually apologized.

26:55

She hadn't followed the rules.

26:57

I got lax she said. My biggest

26:59

mistake was that I was too tired for date

27:01

night.

27:02

But despite the hullabaloo one

27:05

author's divorce couldn't kill the rules. The

27:07

passage of time couldn't kill

27:08

the rules. New best-selling advice

27:11

books couldn't kill the rules

27:12

and the introduction of a whole new online

27:14

mode of dating couldn't kill the rules either because

27:17

it's possible that nothing

27:19

can kill the rules.

27:24

We'll be clocked.

27:27

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27:29

Apple. You earn 3% daily cash

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back up front when you use it to buy a new

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when you open a high-yield savings account.

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to credit approval. Savings

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is available to Apple Card owners subject

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to eligibility. Savings accounts

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by Goldman Sachs Bank USA

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member FDIC.

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apply.

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28:40

It's been almost 30 years since The Rules was published,

28:43

and it's still kicking around.

28:45

It got an update for the age of texting and

28:47

Facebook in 2013. In

28:50

September 2023, the authors

28:52

released The Rules Handbook, a guide for

28:54

creating lasting and loving relationships with

28:56

a small California publishing company.

28:59

The two authors are still teaching classes and

29:01

doing consultations, and Ellen is even

29:03

remarried. They remain as

29:05

committed to The Rules as ever.

29:07

Ellen and I believe in what we're doing, so

29:10

it's not a problem. I mean, you

29:12

can wake me up in the middle of the night and debate The Rules, and

29:14

I'm like, no. When

29:16

you really believe in something, you want to share

29:18

it with the world.

29:20

So they're still sharing The Rules,

29:22

and people are still responding to them.

29:25

A woman like Alicia Williams, a speech

29:28

pathologist in New Jersey. Alicia

29:30

comes from a religious background. She

29:32

didn't get a lot of relationship guidance and

29:34

ended up getting married young to the first man she

29:36

dated. That didn't work out. I

29:39

did get married, and we got divorced a few years

29:41

later, and I thought to myself, I have no

29:43

idea what I'm doing. I need

29:45

some rules. I literally need some rules. I

29:48

walked into the bookstore, and I said, I would love some

29:50

rules, and I walked over to like the dating

29:52

section, and lo and behold, there was a book

29:54

literally called The Rules, and I thought, well,

29:56

this is just fate.

29:59

considers herself a progressive person, but

30:02

the clarity of the rules resonated with her, especially

30:05

when she started dating a man she liked. They

30:08

got on really well, but they drove around

30:10

together a lot, and he had this one habit

30:12

that

30:12

made her feel awkward. He was really

30:15

quiet on car rides. But

30:16

Alicia knew the rules backwards and forwards,

30:19

and the book stated exactly what to do in

30:21

this situation. Sometimes

30:24

men just want to drive in silence without saying

30:26

a word.

30:27

Let them.

30:29

So she did, even though it was hard.

30:31

Sometimes I would sit there thinking, is

30:34

he in the knee? I guess he is, he has his hand

30:36

on my knee. So, you know,

30:38

he's into me, but he's just not saying much.

30:40

He was into her. They got married

30:42

in 2018.

30:45

Alicia appreciated the rules so much that

30:47

even before she got married, she became a certified

30:49

rules coach. This means she took

30:52

one of Sherry and Ellen's courses and is now

30:54

officially qualified, not to mention

30:56

financially incentivized to spread the

30:58

gospel of the rules far and wide.

31:01

Alicia is hardly the only woman out there

31:03

to have discovered the rules in the last decade.

31:06

If you go on Facebook, you can find groups with

31:08

hundreds of members following the rules together, and

31:10

the rules live on in other ways as well. Listen

31:13

to this video from Tinks, a popular TikTok

31:16

creator, who frequently doles out dating

31:18

advice to her 1.5 million followers.

31:21

She starts by telling them what not to do.

31:23

Or accept a same day date. The

31:26

guy wants to take you out. He should text you on

31:28

Monday. None of this when we hanging

31:30

bullshit. And if a guy asks you, hey,

31:32

what are you doing tonight? You're busy. Even

31:34

if your only plan was to sit home

31:36

and watch Bravo and eat popcorn

31:38

and ice cream.

31:39

And don't even think about accepting weekend plans

31:41

after Wednesday.

31:42

Sounds pretty familiar, right?

31:46

When they first published the rules,

31:47

Sherry and Ellen wrote down and codified

31:50

by their own admission, pre-existing advice

31:52

that they were savvy enough to revise at a rare

31:54

moment when it had fallen out of favor. And

31:57

it caught on again because specific advice

31:59

is found. it addressed a real conundrum.

32:02

Women had made all of these advances,

32:04

and yet dating still sucked. And

32:07

as much as things have changed in the 30 years since,

32:10

that has not. Dating still

32:12

sucks. Online dating may have

32:14

opened up a world of infinite possibility, but

32:16

nearly every woman I know feels like it hasn't

32:19

helped. Just like it did in the early

32:21

1990s, everything feels more confusing

32:23

than ever. Sherry agrees, and

32:26

will tell you that's why the rules are more necessary

32:28

than ever.

32:29

There's more technology, less

32:32

mystery. It used to be that you went

32:34

on

32:34

a date, you couldn't find out anything

32:37

about each other.

32:38

Having said that, if you do the rules

32:41

in every area, you can create

32:43

mystery.

32:44

I know when I first got on dating apps, I

32:46

wasn't sitting there flipping

32:47

through the rules. I only dimly knew

32:49

of the book's existence. But I also

32:51

totally knew this kind of advice existed,

32:54

in the way it's always existed.

32:56

And one of the things that quelled my anxiety was

32:58

knowing that I could let the guys take the lead. Let

33:01

him talk to me, like rule number two says,

33:03

or let him text me, like rule number five

33:05

would say, if texting had existed in 1995.

33:10

If I scrutinize this, I can't defend

33:13

it. It doesn't seem at all fair or sensible

33:15

that men should have

33:16

to take the lead. But also,

33:18

I

33:19

sure as hell don't wanna do it. It's

33:21

a relief to follow the age-old heterosexual

33:24

script, however lousy it is.

33:27

The comfort of flipping into these classic

33:29

hetero roles is the heart of the problem.

33:32

Our most intimate and personal relationships

33:35

and attractions can be the last things to

33:37

accept equality.

33:40

Think about another area where women are

33:42

sometimes advised to be assertive, to act

33:45

essentially like a man. Salary

33:47

negotiations. We're often

33:49

told that we aren't paid as much as men on

33:51

average because we don't ask for higher salaries.

33:55

But this ignores that women aren't treated

33:57

the same when

33:57

we do ask.

33:59

People may say that they have no problem with a woman

34:02

being forward or asking for what she wants,

34:04

but do they call her aggressive and dismiss

34:06

her in practice? The Rules has

34:09

advice on how to handle this double standard.

34:11

It says you can get around it by behaving

34:14

how women used to, not because

34:16

you're some passy but because you're the

34:18

one in

34:18

control.

34:19

The Rules says letting a man take the lead isn't

34:22

about being passive. It's about her

34:24

actively trying to find a man who will make an effort,

34:27

something that, in my experience on apps,

34:29

they so rarely do. And

34:32

it promises that if you follow the Rules, you

34:34

can get what you want, which in

34:36

the middle of the dating quagmire can take a

34:38

lot of optimism and fortitude to

34:40

believe.

34:42

So I don't begrudge anyone who follows

34:44

the Rules. They're not idealistic

34:46

or romantic or how I want to be dating,

34:49

but I see the kind of certitude they can bring

34:51

people. And so I find

34:54

myself thinking about them, seeing

34:56

them everywhere, noticing people still

34:58

using them, wondering if I should,

35:00

and hoping that one day I'll have

35:03

forgotten how hard dating was and how much

35:05

I once

35:05

cared about the formal or informal.

35:08

This

35:14

is Decoder Ring. I'm Heather Schwedel.

35:18

And I'm Willa Paskin. If you have any cultural

35:20

mysteries you want us to decode, please email

35:23

us at DecoderRing at Slate.com. This

35:26

episode was written and reported by Heather

35:28

Schwedel. Decoder Ring is produced by Willa

35:30

Paskin and Katie Shepard. Derek John

35:32

is executive producer. Joel Meyer is

35:34

senior editor-producer.

35:35

And Merrick Jacob is senior technical

35:37

director. We'd

35:39

like to thank Benjamin Frisch, Rachel O'Neill,

35:41

Penny Love, Heather Fain, Elif

35:43

Batuman, Laura Banks, Marlene Velazquez-Sedito,

35:47

Lee Anderson, and Caroline Smith.

35:49

We also want to mention two sources that were really

35:52

helpful in researching this piece, Labor

35:54

of Love by Moira Weigel and a paper

35:56

called Shrinking Violets and Casper

35:58

Milk Toast by Pickering.

35:59

If you haven't

36:02

yet, please subscribe and rate our feed on

36:04

Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your

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podcasts. And also, tell

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your friends. If you're

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and their support is really

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Plus to join Slate Plus today.

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See you next week.

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