0:03

Don't hold anything too tightly. Just

0:06

wish for it, want it,

0:09

let it come from the intention of

0:11

real truth for you, and then let it go.

0:14

For me, our soul is like

0:16

it's unbound. It's limitless. But we

0:18

will use words to limit ourselves.

0:21

When people stop believing that

0:24

somebody's got your back or Superman's

0:26

coming, we turn to ourselves. And

0:28

that's where you become empowered. Courageous

0:32

participation attracts

0:34

positive things. I'm

0:37

Gwyneth Paltrow, and this is

0:40

the Goop Podcast, where we

0:42

bring together visionaries, scientists, healers,

0:44

artists, and seekers. I'm

0:47

so grateful that I get to interview these

0:49

extraordinary thought leaders and share their wisdom with

0:51

you. And I love listening

0:53

to the conversations that are led by my

0:55

co-host and dear friend, Cleo Wade. Cleo

0:58

is a beautiful poet and author. I

1:01

deeply admire her and the way she keeps her

1:03

heart open to the world. Together,

1:05

we believe that engaging in

1:07

open-minded, honest, and sometimes difficult

1:09

conversations has the power to change

1:11

our lives. All right,

1:13

over to Cleo. Samita

1:17

Mukhopadhyay is the former executive editor

1:19

of Teen Vogue. It

1:22

is one of the experiences she writes about

1:24

in her new book called The Myth of

1:26

Making It, a workplace reckoning,

1:29

which explores feminism in the workplace, what

1:31

it means to be ambitious right now,

1:34

and the true cost of success in

1:36

a capitalistic society. I sat

1:38

down with Samita today to chat about the rise

1:40

and fall of girl boss culture and the

1:43

complex relationship between feminism

1:45

and capitalism, and what

1:47

we can learn from other generations

1:50

about turning workplace disillusionment into positive

1:52

change. Okay, let's get

1:54

to Samita. I've

1:58

talked about this a lot of the other... authors that

2:01

I've liked on this podcast where you

2:03

feel like you're visiting with someone you'd

2:05

really like to know. And when

2:07

I sat down with your book and especially

2:09

because it's written in this kind of string

2:11

of essays and you know you really feel

2:13

that you're able to kind of visit with

2:15

this personality and this person. And

2:18

I don't even know how

2:20

you're able to do this and it's

2:22

your genius that you can have this

2:24

really warm and at

2:26

times really funny tone. In tackling

2:29

these things that are really hard to talk about

2:31

and you know it's really hard to kind of

2:34

dissect things about ripping them apart and

2:36

you do that dance so beautifully. I

2:39

love that your essay I'm

2:41

called Girl Boss Interrupted is also

2:43

just so funny. But you know

2:45

it's really tough but you know

2:48

and that's the thing about examining

2:50

oneself and then examining one's collective

2:52

you know group and identity. It's like how

2:54

do we look at ourselves and

2:57

not decimate each other or

2:59

decimate ourselves but also point to

3:01

where we can be better at being with

3:04

ourselves and one another in a

3:06

non-rat-racy way too. Because sometimes it's like

3:08

I've got to do better and it

3:10

is infusing yourself with hustle rather than

3:12

saying I want to be better and

3:14

these kind of more soulful ideals outside

3:16

of capitalism and in that that being

3:18

the kind of ways in which we're

3:20

better with each other. So yeah yeah

3:23

thank you. And so I love I just loved

3:25

it because it was so because you know these

3:27

topics can be preachy and it's hard. And

3:29

honestly I was so happy to say that Rebecca

3:32

Tracer blared your book because I don't think there's

3:34

anyone besides her that I feel I read in

3:36

this space where you know it

3:38

is just the right balance to me of you

3:40

know I enjoy sitting with this for a long

3:43

period of time. Some you're

3:45

kind of like okay you're kind of warming out. So

3:49

I want to open by talking about

3:51

your you know your

3:54

pathway into journalism because

3:57

something that we have also talked

3:59

about that you in on this pot

4:01

a lot is just kind of, they're

4:03

never, they're always being time for this

4:05

kind of new dream or new thing

4:08

to try. And I guess

4:10

I wanna start with you as a little

4:12

girl growing up with your mom and how

4:14

that leads you to be somebody who identifies

4:16

as a feminist and

4:18

wants to be a part of this,

4:20

you know, kind of feminist movement that

4:22

was happening around, you know, 10 years

4:24

ago with this like boom of me

4:27

too and the way Teen Vogue was transforming

4:29

things and you know, there was

4:31

Hillary Clinton and all of these kind of female led

4:33

companies being on the cover of things and in the

4:36

rise of girl boss culture and all these things. But

4:38

I kind of wanna take it

4:41

back to your childhood and

4:44

how you began

4:46

and then ended up saying,

4:48

I'm a feminist writer or a feminist

4:50

thinker as my kind of leading identity.

4:54

I think that, you know, my earliest

4:56

memories of growing up in upstate New

4:58

York was, you know, experiences with discrimination.

5:00

We were one of a handful of

5:03

families, South Asian families in my entire

5:05

area and like actually not even South

5:07

Asian, just people of color where

5:09

I was growing up and I

5:11

experienced quite a bit of othering from a really

5:13

young age, but I didn't have a language for

5:16

it, but it did, I understood

5:18

something was off. Like I knew something was off,

5:20

but I really internalized the idea that it was

5:22

my fault and there was something wrong with me

5:24

and I was different and not

5:27

a particularly atypical story, but

5:29

I was always very sensitive

5:31

about injustice. Like I was like an animal

5:33

rights activist really young and I, you know,

5:35

was just always like, I had a really

5:37

strong sense of what was right and what

5:39

was wrong, including the way that my parents

5:41

were raising us and how my brother was

5:44

treated differently than I was treated, you know,

5:46

in our like fairly traditional South Asian household.

5:48

And so I carried that with me for

5:50

a long time and in high school, I

5:52

really, you know, I went to high school

5:54

at a kind of exciting time for pop

5:56

culture and for underground music, right? Like riot

5:58

girl was really popular then and, you know.

6:00

Ani DeFranco, and I had all these older

6:02

kind of cool riot girlfriends in my high

6:04

school who exposed me to this

6:07

language of feminism, and I was really compelled

6:09

by it. I also felt other than it

6:11

because it was predominantly white women, but I

6:14

was really drawn to it. And later, when

6:16

I went to college in upstate New York

6:18

as well, I was, I then kind of

6:20

fell in with the city kids, you know,

6:22

kids that were in hip hop and B

6:24

girls. And you know, that really started to

6:27

help me form an identity that, you know,

6:29

it was us against the world a little

6:31

bit, that that riot girl slash hip hop

6:33

aesthetic of the time. And so I decided

6:35

to take a women's studies class. And that

6:37

really gave me the language for everything that

6:39

I had been experiencing, had a root cause

6:41

that it wasn't something that I did myself.

6:43

It wasn't my fault that we, you know,

6:45

live in a sexist and racist society. And

6:47

I really took that language. And

6:50

I mean, it's like this marked turnaround in my life

6:52

where I was like a middling student, you know, I

6:54

write about this in the book, I wasn't a great

6:56

student. And my first women's studies class

6:58

was this eye opening moment. And then my entire

7:00

career and trajectory changed. And it just takes that

7:02

one teacher, right? That one teacher that's like, you

7:04

actually have really smart things to say, let's, you

7:07

know, here's how we can kind of support and

7:09

facilitate your growth. And so I

7:11

literally turned my GPA around and I

7:14

didn't actually become a writer until, you

7:16

know, a couple of years after I graduated

7:19

undergrad. But it just so happened that I

7:21

went to undergrad with Jessica Valenti, who's a

7:23

fairly prominent feminist today who writes quite a

7:25

bit. She has a fantastic newsletter called Abortion

7:27

Every Day, where she's literally tracking abortion laws

7:30

every day. And she and her sister had

7:32

founded a website called Feministing. And

7:34

she was like, you know, I always thought you had interesting things

7:36

to say in class. I'd love for you to join. And I

7:38

was like, blog? Like, I was like, I have a live journal,

7:40

you know, where I like literally would like blog

7:42

about raving. And

7:44

she's like, it's a little different than that. Like it's a

7:47

little bit more, you know, polished. And I was like, oh,

7:49

sure. And so that's how I started and really found my

7:51

voice. And then really like,

7:53

you know, and I was probably like 27 or 28. And

7:56

that's what I always say, because I feel like so many,

7:58

especially working at Teen Vote Gang, people are like, how do

8:00

I become a writer? And I'm like, it is an old

8:02

woman's game. Let me tell you, you don't have to figure

8:04

it out right now. You know? And so that's when I

8:06

really, after that, I sold my first book, I think in

8:08

2008. And I started to

8:10

say, even though my work was not a

8:13

writer, my identity was that I was a feminist

8:15

writer. Hmm. It's

8:18

really cool how the different communities

8:20

informed so much of how you

8:23

write and who you are and,

8:25

you know, what part of

8:27

your household kind of maybe informed, your

8:30

activism, were these conversations you were having

8:32

at your kitchen table? Because,

8:34

you know, I think one of the questions too is, you know,

8:37

for so many people out there

8:39

raising sons and daughters and, you

8:41

know, non-binary folks and kids, it's

8:43

like, we're always wondering how we

8:45

raise people who think like you. And it's interesting

8:48

because, you know, when

8:51

you're saying, you know, there's that one teacher and

8:53

I, you know, as someone who's not,

8:55

does, did not, you know, experience a lot

8:57

of traditional education, I was like, it's there,

8:59

that one writer. And I thought about when

9:02

I got your book, I thought, I

9:04

thought more about my friends, kids, I wanted to have it than

9:06

even my friends. I wanted to have it though. I wanted my

9:08

friends to have it too. Yeah.

9:11

Yeah. I appreciate that. Yeah.

9:13

I think it was a, it was a combination

9:15

of things. So I am Bengali, which is, you

9:17

know, my, my family is from Calcutta, which

9:20

is a, in the state of West Bengal

9:22

and historically an extremely progressive place

9:24

politically. Activism and protest is just a fundamental part

9:26

of growing up in West Bengal. And it was

9:28

very much about the arts. And, you know, many

9:31

of my uncles were journalists or writers who talked

9:33

regularly about socialism. And

9:35

so those were like vibrant conversations I would have with

9:37

them from a really young age

9:39

when we would go to India. So I had

9:41

a really strong sense of difference and

9:44

sociological difference because we would have these

9:46

really vibrant conversations because my brother and

9:49

I would go to India and people's lived conditions

9:51

were so different. Different than what we

9:53

were experiencing. And you know, they were trying to help

9:55

us understand why it was so different. And I had

9:57

a really, really. hard

10:00

time growing up in the United States. I really

10:02

wanted my parents to move back to India. I

10:04

felt a tremendous amount of kinship with the

10:08

people of my race. And I had

10:10

a very, I

10:12

had a really early understanding that I

10:14

was treated differently in the United States

10:16

than when I was treated in India.

10:18

And so that was a piece of

10:21

it. And then yeah, my father was

10:23

just a big reader. He read a

10:25

lot and he always had material sitting

10:27

around and I happened to find on

10:29

his bookshelf Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, which

10:31

is this well-known socialist text from the

10:33

early 1900s.

10:36

And I always regret not asking him or

10:38

I can't remember, he passed away and I

10:40

can't remember why he had the book. I

10:42

think I had asked him, but I can't

10:44

remember his response. But just things like that,

10:46

he was always having really political conversations, global

10:49

political conversations at the dinner table. And so

10:51

I learned a lot from that. And then

10:53

my mom is just one of those fiery

10:55

feminists and she doesn't even identify as a

10:57

feminist, but she's very like, she's like, I'm

11:00

not putting up with that bullshit. She was very like

11:02

that from a young age. And I think the combination

11:04

of the two of them really did spark in me

11:07

that all of these things were possible. And all of

11:09

these things that I was thinking were legitimate things to

11:11

think. So

11:14

you moved to New

11:16

York City after college,

11:19

right? I moved to Oakland,

11:21

California actually. Okay,

11:23

so what were you doing in Oakland? So I

11:25

went to Oakland, this is the best conversation I'm

11:27

having. I went to Oakland because I was really

11:29

into raves at the turn of the century. And

11:33

I had like a brief foray into the world

11:35

of Burning Man. And Oakland, I had a deal.

11:38

I went to Burning Man once. Oh, you did?

11:40

When did you go? I went

11:42

for 24 hours and I'll never go again. You

11:45

either love it or you don't. That is the true.

11:48

I had the privilege of going in 2008 and it

11:50

was a very raw and intense experience. Like we didn't have

11:52

cell phones at that point. Really, we didn't have smartphones. So

11:55

it was totally different. Yeah, you guys were in

11:57

the wild. Yeah, we were truly in the wild.

14:00

working for Obama

14:02

administration, right? I was like, did

14:04

I know? I was like, oh my God.

14:08

Yeah. And so, and

14:10

you know, I really love when you spoke

14:13

about that experience in your book,

14:15

because you know, in,

14:18

you know, there's, there's this really high key way

14:20

that, and I, I experienced this a lot too

14:22

with, you know, there's this like kind of like

14:24

high key key really like pop

14:27

centered way of talking about

14:29

women. And it's

14:31

like buzzword after buzzword after buzzword, starting

14:33

with girl boss. And then

14:35

when you are with women who have

14:37

just lived their entire lives doing that

14:39

work and aren't necessarily online and aren't

14:41

necessarily all these things. And they're like,

14:44

I love that. Like it's amazing to,

14:46

and usually they're your elders and they

14:48

live completely outside of algorithms. And

14:51

I loved hearing you talk about

14:54

feeling the rise of this culture and feeling

14:57

a little bit like, oh my God, it's

14:59

kind of embarrassing because you're kind of straddling.

15:01

It's like high key nature. And

15:04

then also feeling this sense of pride that it

15:06

gives, gave so much of the women that you

15:08

were kind of working with who were teaching you

15:10

and mentoring you, they were like, I love

15:13

that. And it, and it does kind

15:15

of remind you of that type of, you know, like

15:17

1970s kind of feminism

15:21

where people were like, yeah,

15:23

like go, whatever, whatever works. Like, you

15:25

know, I, obviously there's this like part

15:27

where it is completely split and there's

15:29

a lot of snobbery in it, but

15:31

there's also something really cool. I think

15:33

about the kind of elders in any

15:35

movement who are like, however it rolls,

15:37

as long as it's rolling, that is

15:40

also a part of movement making in,

15:42

in building. Does that

15:44

make sense? Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

15:46

Yeah. I mean, I love, I had,

15:48

I never even thought about it that way. I,

15:51

it's true, right? Like when, you know,

15:53

the person I talk about in the book is

15:55

Carla Harris, who is the head of the

15:57

National Women's Business Council. And she's an incredible

15:59

business. I'm

22:00

just interested by what happens when feminism

22:02

and capitalism entangle, right? You know, both

22:06

in pop culture, you know, like everything

22:08

from like loving Beyonce, right? And like

22:10

Beyonce standing on a stage saying feminist

22:12

to these products that are marketed to

22:14

women and the kind of millennial women's

22:16

market. And so I was, I was

22:18

really interested in that. And then also,

22:20

yeah, I just felt like we were

22:22

lumping everything together. It was like, there's

22:24

toxic bosses. That's one thing. There's

22:26

toxic work environments. And then there's just like the

22:28

ethos of the girl boss. And you know, Sophia

22:30

Amorosa and what she's doing who like she's moved

22:32

on, you know, I mean, she's now trains, you

22:34

know, young entrepreneurs and she teaches people how to

22:36

get investment. And you know, she's still doing the

22:38

work. She's still doing what she kind of believes

22:41

is, you know, her bigger mission. And so I

22:43

just found all of that really fascinating. And I

22:45

also, I guess I felt, might

22:49

be controversial to say, but I felt excited.

22:53

I don't know empathy, but like as a

22:55

manager, I could also understand how easily things

22:57

can go wrong. And I don't think that

23:00

it's always because you're just some like racist,

23:03

you know what I mean? Like

23:05

I just, it felt like it was more

23:07

complicated than that. And that's not to say

23:09

that there weren't like most of the kind

23:11

of cancellations happened with people that come from

23:13

a really specific cultural background, right? Like fairly

23:15

affluent white women who had access to capital,

23:17

who had the networks to raise money, but

23:19

also as a manager, like there are a

23:22

lot of things that happen in the workplace

23:24

that are really challenging to manage because we're

23:26

not trained in how to manage those environments.

23:28

I write a lot in the book about

23:30

management and us being more reflective about management.

23:32

And I really wanted that

23:34

to be an opportunity to really rethink like, what

23:36

does the feminist business actually mean? Like, what does

23:38

it actually mean to have something that

23:40

not just like has women at the top,

23:42

but like is truly in the

23:44

way that it's structured in the way that it's worker

23:47

centric that is like truly for the people. What does

23:49

that look like? And so to me, that was really

23:51

a jumping off point also to investigate that. One

23:54

thing I thought was so cool is the way that

23:56

you kind of went into

23:59

talking about about hustle culture also. And

24:03

what it really left me with was, when

24:06

you mentioned in the book something about how

24:09

we're, you know, left to, how

24:11

to be on our devices all day long in

24:14

the name of our personal branding. And

24:16

I really wondered how that affects management

24:18

also, like this idea that, you

24:20

know, even when you think about, you

24:22

know, 15 years ago or

24:24

10 years ago before social media was something that

24:27

a CEO would think they needed to do for

24:29

themselves, whether they're personally branding for, you

24:31

know, their personal life or whatever, or their

24:33

CEO life or all these things where they

24:36

are feeling this constant need to also be

24:38

in this place that creates like burnout and

24:40

disillusionment. I mean, I remember I had a

24:42

friend, a CEO friend of mine where they

24:45

were going through something with their company and

24:47

she called me and it's a fairly large

24:49

company. And I was like, the

24:52

first thing you need to do is get offline. Like

24:54

your algorithm is not the world. Like

24:58

at best, it is like a

25:00

very, very niche feedback loop. And

25:02

like, if you don't get

25:04

off, you can't manage this situation or these

25:06

people. But I was

25:08

thinking about how much kind of

25:10

mental fatigue and frustration and overwhelm

25:13

that was causing this person because

25:15

instead of, I think back in

25:17

the day, people would maybe be

25:19

a CEO and then maybe once

25:21

a year, if their

25:23

publicists worked really hard, they'd be like

25:25

have a feature in Forbes or Time

25:27

or whatever, but now that even all

25:30

of these weeklies are daylies in minute

25:32

to minute, kind of clickbaity

25:34

things, at the end of the day,

25:36

even the ways in which capitalism structured

25:38

these work environments, these are like private

25:40

sector jobs. And there's kind of no

25:42

private sector people anymore because

25:45

of social media. And I thought, and I really thought

25:48

about that for a long time after reading, because I

25:50

think your chapter about hustle is right after your chapter

25:52

about girl boss. And I was like,

25:54

God, it's just so crazy because does

25:57

the hustle of the personal

25:59

hustle. with

40:00

them around feminism and

40:02

capitalism and redesigning

40:05

workplace structures. Yeah.

40:08

Yeah. So, you know, I do think that there's

40:10

a, I think there's lessons to learn from every

40:12

generation. And so obviously, I've had a lot of

40:14

exposure to Gen Z and like young millennials as

40:16

a manager, especially at Teen Vogue where I was,

40:19

you know, managing much younger people. And, you know,

40:21

I think one of the things that was so

40:23

valuable for me that I write about in the

40:25

book is just the fact that these employees are

40:27

not actually willing to go above and beyond unless

40:29

they have a really clear idea of why they're

40:32

doing it. Whereas for my generation, I, we just

40:34

felt like you work hard and then later in

40:36

life you can play hard. Like it's, you know,

40:38

you sacrifice everything and that's what it means to,

40:40

that's the cost of success. And,

40:42

you know, and that's really the premise of the book is

40:45

like me finding out that that cost of success actually wasn't

40:47

what I thought it was going to be. And it didn't

40:49

get me the success that I would have had hoped it

40:51

would get me to. They feel very

40:53

clear on that. They feel like we know, we've

40:55

seen what your generation has been through. And I

40:57

don't mean boomers. I mean like older millennials and

40:59

Gen Xers. They're like, we've seen what you've been

41:01

through and it's not the success. That's not the

41:03

life we want. We want a softer life. We

41:05

want a different life. But I wouldn't say that

41:07

they necessarily work less, right? I think that that

41:09

is just the media's oldest habit of like trashing

41:11

young people. Like we just like love to trash

41:14

young people. I wouldn't say that they work any

41:16

less because they still have to work. They still

41:18

have to hustle, but they are a little bit

41:20

more values driven in my experience. And that's statistically

41:22

true that they are interested in the impact that

41:24

their work is making. They want more meaning. They

41:26

take more ownership of their work. They need a

41:28

little bit more space to feel empowered and to

41:30

feel included. Like the traditional kind of top-down model

41:32

of management and leadership does not work. I

41:35

would say what I think that I

41:37

think the other side of that is that it's

41:39

really easy to complain a lot right now. It's

41:41

really easy to complain about work and to be

41:43

miserable about it. And I think, you know, post

41:47

your little like Twitter Marxism memes and be like, I'm

41:49

a lazy girl or I'm a tradwiper, you know. And

41:51

you know, I wouldn't say that's the majority of people.

41:53

I think that's again, something that the media loves to

41:56

focus on. And it's like, come on, there's like four

41:58

tradwives out there. They just have like a lot of

42:00

fun. followers, like how many of us can really be

42:02

tradwives. But you know, what I'm really interested in is

42:04

like this, this disgruntledness that I

42:07

think a lot of young employees may feel

42:09

about the workplace. Like where can that energy

42:11

go to? Right? Because just complaining about your

42:13

workplace and just being complacent or resigning yourself

42:15

to doing a job or quiet quitting, that

42:17

is actually not the stuff of a meaningful

42:19

life that is not going to make impact

42:21

socially, right? That's not going to actually move

42:23

you to a place where you're going to

42:25

find happiness. And I'm not saying that you

42:27

necessarily will always find happiness at work, but

42:29

you know, there are moments like we all

42:31

know that if you're miserable at work, you're

42:33

miserable. And so where can we

42:35

put some of that energy? And that's what

42:37

I'm really, and that's where I think like

42:39

elders do have a lot to teach us

42:42

in terms of workplace organizing, in terms of

42:44

work-life balance, in terms of you know, what

42:46

people like Dolores Huerta have done to like,

42:48

you know, redistribute wealth and to create better

42:50

working conditions for people. And so, and you're

42:52

starting to see that right? Like many of,

42:54

you know, I use the example of Jaz

42:56

Brezak, who's a Rhodes Scholar, you know, Ivy

42:58

League graduate, had all of the opportunity, you

43:00

know, and literally was sold the like, you're

43:02

doing all this, so you don't have to

43:04

work at a Starbucks and then ended up

43:06

working at a Starbucks, but they had become

43:08

radicalized and, you know, by socialist teaching. And

43:11

so they helped organize that Starbucks. And to

43:13

me, that is like, exactly where

43:15

this generation is at. And what is possible

43:17

with this energy, this frustrated energy that so

43:19

many people I think are feeling right now

43:21

about the workplace, which is how do we

43:23

collectively, a union is not realistic

43:25

in all of these environments. That's just true, you

43:27

know, it's just true. And but what are the

43:29

different things we can do to make our workplaces

43:31

better? How do you

43:33

think that this relates to our

43:36

current political landscape? Something I'm so

43:38

interested in is the absence

43:40

of, you know, young people in government. I feel

43:43

like the last time there was a lot of

43:45

really centered energy around this was, you know,

43:48

maybe AOC or someone like that, where you're

43:50

like, wow, someone who looks unlike the others,

43:52

who feels that they're kind of ushering in

43:54

this kind of new generation into the Hill.

43:56

Because I do think that the ways in

43:59

which we're feeling

44:02

disillusioned in the workplace and

44:05

this blend of workplace and personal life always

44:07

being the same thing now in a way,

44:09

which you also write about because you're always

44:11

online and it doesn't end and it does

44:13

melt into the next thing. How

44:15

do you think that relates to the ways in which

44:17

we're engaging with politics at every

44:20

level? Yeah, that

44:22

is a very good question. So

44:24

I think, well, I think it's, there's a

44:26

lot of different ways. So I think first of all, like

44:29

what we're seeing with this kind

44:32

of anti-women's ambition I think is

44:34

fully locks into the

44:36

attack on women's bodily autonomy, right? Like

44:38

one of the greatest legal milestones for

44:40

women was

44:44

the Roe v. Wade, the decision on Roe

44:47

v. Wade and the flexibility that gave women

44:49

to enter the workforce and to have, be

44:51

able to make decisions over their own bodies.

44:53

And now we're kind of seeing like a

44:55

full feminist backlash and that's reflected in government

44:57

as much as it's reflected in society, culture

44:59

and in the workplace. I think the other

45:01

piece of it, I think it's

45:03

really interesting and I hadn't really made this connection until you

45:05

asked the question is like, why is

45:07

it just 80 year olds running against 80 year olds?

45:10

And I do think that that is a

45:12

metaphor for the way that power

45:14

has been collected by a few and

45:16

just the most basic stuff, lack of mentorship,

45:19

lack of distribution of resources, lack of building

45:21

a real ground game, right? For some of

45:23

these incredible voices. I mean, you look at

45:25

the state level and you're talking about AOC,

45:28

you're talking about Jasmine Crockett, you're talking about

45:30

Jamel Bowen, what is his first name? You

45:32

know what I'm talking about. You're talking about

45:34

these incredible, this incredible new crop of young

45:36

legislators that just do not have

45:39

the resources to build a ground game the

45:41

way that bigger players

45:43

in more kind of story politicians are able

45:45

to. And to me, that is a type

45:48

of redistribution of resources, why is it literally,

45:50

why is it the same people that get

45:52

the same fundraising that get, and

45:55

why haven't they been able to successfully mentor? How

45:57

is there not another person other than Joe Biden?

45:59

to run. Like, how is that even possible? Like,

46:01

you have all of this incredible group of people.

46:05

And three generations below at this point,

46:07

it's a huge gap. And I think

46:09

that I think is really one of

46:12

the more shocking things to

46:14

me recently, because I'm like, gosh, where

46:16

is that? And then, and in a world where

46:18

there were, there are girl bosses, right? Like, and

46:21

I mean that even in the sense of identifying

46:23

that there, there, we would, you know, call ourselves

46:25

girls at that point in time, because there was,

46:27

it was because a lot of them were young,

46:30

right? You know, we even opened this conversation by

46:32

saying writing is like, well, Prune's game, but you

46:34

know, this, this idea of, you know,

46:36

Forbes is 30 under 30, and it

46:38

was filled with women and, and all

46:40

of these companies run by guys who

46:43

have, you know, made a billion dollars before 40

46:45

or all these different things. So it's rising in

46:47

certain ways, and then women are not, you know,

46:49

being taken down in certain ways. And there's this

46:52

like wave, and it's just really kind of,

46:54

of that you're saying of

46:56

just this attack on women's rights and,

46:58

and that kind of whole idea of

47:01

feminism, which is really interesting, I think, too,

47:03

or that, you know, and so it's

47:06

a really interesting time, I think, to notice

47:08

where there's no political leadership

47:10

by younger people

47:12

and or, you know,

47:14

women in that national rights.

47:17

Yeah, absolutely. I mean,

47:19

and you even look at, I mean, to me, I was like

47:21

the most excited about Stacey Abrams, right? And,

47:23

you know, and the ways also that

47:25

like, I mean, Bernie lost so many times,

47:28

and he just ran over and over and over. And

47:30

for whatever reason, it's been determined that her career is

47:32

over, she's not a serious contender, when, you know, to

47:34

me, she was one of the most promising candidates of

47:36

the last couple of years as like a possible next

47:39

generation of democratic leadership. So yeah, it's true.

47:41

I mean, I do, I really do think

47:43

it's like, you know, and I do think

47:45

this is part of the backlash, but it is also, you know,

47:49

the left not having their shit together. You

47:52

know, do you think some of that

47:54

is just this fatigue of us

47:57

feeling, you know, I

48:00

feel that there is a kind of political fatigue

48:02

that most of us have. And I think a

48:04

lot of that is from this exhaustion in the

48:07

workplace, met with this exhaustion, the personal life, and

48:09

then the personal branding, whether you have a personal

48:11

brand or not, I think people think they just

48:13

need to make sure that they showed their dog

48:16

and kids by the end of the day too.

48:18

I mean, all these things, of

48:21

thinking that you have to constantly be concerned

48:23

with how other people are looking at you

48:25

or observing your life. Don't

48:27

you think at some point that was just gonna

48:29

run into, oh, and I have no energy left

48:32

for this. So whatever happens to me happens to

48:34

me. Oh, a hundred percent.

48:36

And I think the disaster, the

48:39

disasters that are constantly being forecast

48:42

around us, right? Climate disaster, famines around

48:44

the world, civil wars. I mean, things

48:47

do not feel hopeful at the moment.

48:49

It's crushing student debt, inflation, like things

48:51

do not feel stable right now. And

48:54

so if you're walking into the job

48:56

market right now, yeah, you're

48:58

already coming in with a certain amount

49:00

of anxiety, you're feeling exhausted. You're trying

49:02

to navigate all of these different questions

49:04

and then you're not sure, like

49:08

the political representatives do not actually

49:10

represent the reality of your life.

49:12

And so, yes, absolutely. I think

49:14

that has caused a real disassociation.

49:17

I think it's to be seen how much statistically

49:19

that's actually true. We often

49:22

assume that people are feeling a way that they

49:24

may not be feeling. I think right now everyone's

49:26

like, oh, the Democrats are definitely gonna lose. And

49:28

I'm like, it's like too early. Yeah, I certainly

49:30

know that. I know that's what I think too.

49:33

And again, that's what I'm also like, your group

49:35

chat's not the world and your algorithm isn't the

49:37

world and your worst day is not

49:39

the world. But it

49:41

is interesting that in a time where there was

49:44

such a rise of like a boss culture

49:46

that it didn't translate to people wanting

49:48

political power post that because there are

49:50

a lot of young people, girl boss

49:53

or boy boss or them

49:55

boss, whomever boss, who if you

49:57

still sold your company, It

50:00

is interesting to me that there weren't more

50:02

people kind of running for office after that.

50:04

But maybe there's also just the burnout fatigue

50:06

or you're getting to enjoy those

50:08

years like you thought you would, but you're going to do

50:10

it at 35 instead of at 65. Yeah.

50:15

And people don't necessarily know. I mean, we did

50:17

see a big upswing of

50:20

young people running for office post Trump,

50:22

right? But it's true. A lot of

50:24

people got exhausted and those young people are now like,

50:26

you know, they're in their 30s. So,

50:28

you know, I do think that there, you know, there

50:31

are moments, but I think those on roads are hard.

50:33

I mean, you need money, you need access, you need

50:35

relationships. It's really hard to run for

50:37

office. And so, you know, I think that,

50:39

you know, there's obviously incredible organizations that are

50:41

trying to change that, but it's also not

50:43

sexy. Like people are like, who are these

50:45

people? They're not doing good. I'm selling it.

50:47

Civic engagement is not sexy. It's a much

50:49

sexier to be an Instagram influencer. It's

50:51

true. Well,

50:57

I want to thank you so

50:59

much for this conversation. Thank you.

51:01

I loved your book and I hope everyone will

51:03

read it because it's really

51:06

funny too. And it

51:08

teaches you so much and it gives you so

51:10

many things to really sit back and kind of

51:13

think about your own life and your friend's lives.

51:15

And it is very hopeful. So

51:17

I want to thank you for writing a

51:19

hopeful book at a time that doesn't feel

51:21

so hopeful because while you're

51:23

able to point out these kinds of issues

51:26

and problems or ways in which we've, you

51:28

know, been, you know, women who have been

51:30

victim of being ripped apart at such an

51:32

unfair level for trying to run these businesses

51:34

and at the end of the day, it,

51:37

you know, but I, I

51:41

think that when you are

51:44

able to really alchemize those kinds

51:46

of experiences and help

51:49

us contextualize them in such a beautiful way,

51:51

it does kind of, you know, give

51:54

us hope and it makes us want to think about how we

51:57

can make all of our environments better. So I

51:59

want to thank you so much. much. I love

52:01

this book. Thank you. I really appreciate you

52:03

engaging with it and yeah, all your support.

52:05

Thank you. That's

52:11

it for today's episode. I really hope you'll pick

52:13

up a copy of The Myth of Making It.

52:16

We'll see you next week. This

52:19

has been a presentation of Cadence

52:21

13 Studios. I hope

52:23

you'll listen, follow, rate, and review

52:25

all of our episodes, which are

52:28

available for free on Apple Podcasts,

52:30

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52:32

wherever you get your podcasts. Thank

52:35

you for listening to the Goop Podcast.