Episode 350: The Scamminess and Scumminess of Growing Up in the 90s with Sophie Gilbert

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Written By Forever 35 Podcast

Doree and Elise speak with journalist and cultural critic Sophie Gilbert about the prescient and important themes of her book Girl on Girl (out 4/29). They discuss her cultural history of the 90s through the 2010s, and what effect this period had on the women's movement and the momentum of feminism, the lasting influence of porn in shaping early aughts culture, and why the girl boss era was a scam. 

Transcript

 

The transcript for this episode Ai generated.

Doree (00:10):

Hello and welcome to Forever 35, a podcast about the things we do to take care of ourselves. I am Doree Shafrir.

Elise (00:19):

And I'm Elise Hu. And we are two friends who like to talk a lot about serums.

Doree (00:24):

How's it going, Elise?

Elise (00:27):

Well, we just recently got our listener survey results back, so it's going great. I loved getting to see a lot of your feedback. Thank you for responding to the survey. There were great suggestions. I especially loved, and I can't believe we hadn't done this before or thought of it on our own, but I love there was an idea about putting in timestamps in our captions or our show notes so that you can jump to the timestamp for the topic that you want to hear about. If you are here just to hear our Monday interviews, we could timestamp it so that you could jump to the interview or just want to know where things are. Right. I have been jumping around on one of my TV podcasts that I like a lot. The watch from The Ringer, they do the timestamps for the shows that they talk about, which is really helpful because when you don't want to be spoiled, you can just jump around. I don't think we have any topics where we would be spoiling anything. I think that if we're talking about various care topics, whether it's friendship or relationships or serums, those things are pretty tried and true unless they've been discontinued.

Doree (01:39):

And in that case it wouldn't be really a spoiler. People would probably want to know if something had been discontinued

Elise (01:45):

Or FDA recalled, which might not happen anymore because I don't know. Does the FDA even do those anymore? I have no idea.

Doree (01:55):

What is the

Elise (01:56):

FDA? What's going on with you?

Doree (01:59):

So my tennis team, which is a weekend team, is now, we also have a week day version. So we just played our first weekday match. I did not play, but I went to cheer on the team and we won in a very tense thrill. Oh, how fun. Three individual matches make up the whole match. And we had won one of the lines very quickly. The second one went to a match tie break that we lost. So now each team had won one line and it came down to the last team playing and they went to a match tie break match tie tiebreak in USTA is first to 10, win by two. So it was really close and we ended up winning the match, TIEBREAK ten eight. So we won the match, we won that match and we won the whole match. And I was sitting there like, oh my gosh. But yeah, it was really fun.

Elise (03:12):

That's so fun to

Doree (03:13):

Watch. Yeah, it was really fun to watch. People were just playing good tennis and everyone was really into it, so it was good. It was fun.

Elise (03:21):

Sweet. So you're still playing on the weekends and you're adding week daytime?

Doree (03:26):

Yeah, I'm adding, most of the matches are on during the week in the morning, so one morning a week. So it's not too, and it was a time when I mostly had set aside. I often would practice during this time, so it's not really a time that I was using for other things. Writing. Yeah, writing. What's writing? I don't know.

Elise (03:55):

Yeah, I had this interview this morning. I'm in a weird mood because I had this interview this morning with one of those people who he was rather arrogant and it came off even before the interview started, it was pretty clear.

Doree (04:13):

Oh wow. Okay.

Elise (04:15):

Yeah. And even in the joking around before we got the interview started and then answered questions with such fervor as if we were against each other rather than just having a conversation. And there are very few people with whom I've had interviews like this, and the ones that I have stand out to me because they were Fred Thompson, former senator Fred Thompson, who was also a presidential candidate and also on law and order. He was very mean and pompous in interviews, and I think this is before it was really well known that he was this way. And then the other one was Lance Armstrong pre getting busted for all of the doping. And I remember interviewing Lance Armstrong and me walking away from it and thinking like, that guy's such a prick. He's so mean. He was clearly one of those people who's like, I'm so selfless, but really everything was all about him.

Doree (05:23):

Yes.

Elise (05:24):

And something just like my spidey sense was off with that guy, and it wasn't for many, many years, he was in the height of his live strong yellow bracelet. Everybody loves lance arms, right? Maybe early Sheryl Crow dating dates. I say,

Doree (05:41):

Where in the Sheryl Crow?

Elise (05:44):

Yeah. Early. And everybody loved him and I walked away from it and I had the worst taste in my mouth and I'm vindicated, I'm vindicated. So anyway, I mean this wasn't bad, but it gave me that kind of vibe where I was like, a lot of people like this person, but I dunno, because we put so much emotional energy into our conversations, and I certainly do when I'm interviewing somebody because I'm listening hard and I'm like being curious. It kind of throws me off when the energy of something like that is off. And then the rest of my day I just feel a little bit demoralized, but I'll pick myself back up. I'm just kind of in that.

Doree (06:28):

You know what though? I feel like with people like that, they get off on how much of a rise they can get out of you. They need to feel intellectually and morally superior and they suck. In actuality, they just suck. So whatever you're, you're smarter dirt off my shoulder and better than he is and he knows that off my shoulder. That's why he had to neg you.

Elise (07:01):

Probably. Probably. Yeah. Let's go with that. Let's go with that.

Doree (07:04):

I mean, I'm right. I know I'm right. All right. Well, before we get to our guest

Elise (07:15):

Who was absolutely the opposite of this, by the way, we are not talking about today's guest.

Doree (07:20):

No, no, no.

Elise (07:20):

Not at all. Our guest today is one of my favorite cultural critics of all time. I read everything she writes. Her name's Sophie Gilbert, she's from The Atlantic. You'll hear from our interview how brilliant she is. But before we get to that,

Doree (07:34):

Before we get to that on our website, which is forever 35 podcast.com, we have links to everything we mentioned on the show. We are also on Instagram at Forever 35 podcast. Our Patreon is at patreon.com/forever 35. We have shelves with our favorite products at shop my US slash forever three five, as well as our quarterly guest celebrity makeup artist Rachel Goodwin. She also has a shelf on her shop. My, yeah, she does the newsletter at Forever 35 podcast.com/newsletter. And if you would like to call or text us, please do. It's at 5 9 1 0 3 9 0 and our email is Forever 35 podcast@gmail.com. Elise, would you like to introduce Sophie?

Elise (08:26):

It is my pleasure to introduce Sophie Gilbert, a staff writer at The Atlantic. She won the 2024 National Magazine award for reviews and criticism and was a finalist for the 2022 Pulitzer Prize in criticism. She's the author of On Womanhood Bodies Literature Choice and Girl On Girl, which I think is out this week. It's an analysis of 21st century pop culture and its influence on us on women. Before joining the Atlantic in 2014, she was the arts editor at Washingtonian Magazine. Like I have said, I am a huge fan girl of Sophie Gilbert's. This conversation only cemented it further, and we can't wait for you to hear this conversation.

Doree (09:14):

All right, we'll be right back. Sophie. Welcome to Forever 35. We are both so excited to have you on the show. Welcome, welcome.

Sophie Gilbert (09:31):

Thank you. I'm so excited to be here. I've loved listening to Forever 35 so much, and I'm such a fan of both of you. It's amazing to be here.

Doree (09:39):

So kind. Thank you. Well, as you probably know, we start off our conversations by asking our guests about any self-care practice that they have. So is there something that you are doing right now that you would consider self-care?

Sophie Gilbert (09:54):

Yeah, I live in England and I take a lot of baths to get through the winter, and you would wonder how many baths can someone take in a day? And often it's more, it's more than you would think really without

Elise (10:08):

Drying out your skin. And

Sophie Gilbert (10:09):

Well, it's so cold. It's not that cold here, I should say, but it is damp. It's very, very damp. And for some reason I have poor circulation. I just suffer in the winters. I mean, I don't really suffer. That sounds extreme, but I don't like it. So being in the bath is often just a nice change from the weather.

Doree (10:30):

What do you do in the bath? What's your bath? What's your bath ritual?

Sophie Gilbert (10:35):

Oh God, I look at my phone. Isn't that awful? No, I sometimes I listen to guided meditation. Sometimes I'll do a mask, but often it's just about being warm for 15 minutes, half an hour.

Doree (10:51):

Are you a super, sorry, I have a lot of bath questions. No, please, please, please. Are you a super hot water bath person? Do you want it to be really hot or more of

Sophie Gilbert (11:00):

A warmish hot? I do like hot. It was hard when I was pregnant because you're supposed to really measure the temperature and not have

Doree (11:08):

That hot.

Sophie Gilbert (11:09):

Yes,

Doree (11:09):

Yes, yes. Thank you for satisfying my bath. Curiosity. Anytime.

Elise (11:18):

Well, since you are abroad, Sophie, I wanted to ask you, how are you holding up these days and what is it like watching what's happening in your former home of America from

Sophie Gilbert (11:31):

Abroad? No, I mean, I'm a US citizen now too, and I feel so attached to America. My kids were born there. My husband's from there. We have so much family there. My work is obviously there and in so many ways my attention, I want to say my heart, but that sounds really sappy, but I do, I've been listening to you guys, and when you Trader Joe's and Costco, I have that feeling of like, oh, there's nothing here like that. I dunno. I mean, it's awful, right? The nice thing about having a book come out is you're very busy and you're very distracted. And I have 4-year-old twins too, so they don't really follow the news. So that part is nice, but the not so nice thing about having a book come out is you want to be like, Hey, everybody have a book coming out. And they're like, the economy's tanking. How are you guys doing?

Elise (12:25):

Ooh, how are we doing? I was actually just saying that the best way that I can describe how I'm doing is just maintaining. I feel like this actually connects with Girl On Girl, your new book and culture generally, because one of the themes is just how much the culture that we cook in and our cooked in up ends up shaping society and shaping the major narratives for how we grew up and how we live. I would love to start with unchecked misogyny because that is the backdrop of so much that's happening now and the manosphere and how ascendant it feels and how dominant it is in our politics. Could you connect the moment that we're in today with the misogyny of the aughts that you really looked at and researched for this book?

Sophie Gilbert (13:20):

Yeah, I mean, so much of it echoes and I think the thing I really found researching the book was just all these, nothing really repeats itself, but you do get these echoes over and over and over again of the same kinds of behavior, the same kinds of influences. I saw someone post the other day about how one thing we don't talk about enough is how porn brained a lot of the people in the Trump administration are because they came of age on these four chan sites and these places where people were just sort of trading filth, and it's not polite discourse, shall we say. And that's kind of like an understudied angle of why women are so disdained.

Elise (14:05):

What does it mean to be porn brained?

Sophie Gilbert (14:07):

Just I guess having really been exposed to a lot of extreme content on the internet. And that was something I hadn't really thought about myself, but when you think about it, it does make sense. And similarly, when I was researching the book, I stupidly hadn't anticipated that porn would be this through line, that it would've been such a massive influence on the culture, on really every aspect of the culture, every form of media. But then you think about it and you're like, of course. I mean, this was something that increased in usage tenfold in the United States between 86 and 96, suddenly this massive explosion. And that was before the internet. That was just people watching porn on VHS. So then you get the internet and you get, I mean, how can it not shape and change how people think about women, how people understand women in the cultural imagination at large? Of course it's going to bleed out. So that was something when you start to put the pieces together, it connects. Let's say,

Doree (15:10):

Could we just back up a moment and have you talk a little bit about the book and how you came to write a book like this and what the main thesis of the book is about? Just to give our readers a baseline.

Sophie Gilbert (15:29):

So the book is called Girl on Girl, which originally was supposed to be a joke. It came to me in the middle of the night when you can't Sleep and you're like, oh, I'm a cultural critic at The Atlantic. And it's a book about cultural criticism kind of history, looking at what the culture of the nineties, the two thousands, the 2000 tens did to women, did to the women's movement, did to the momentum of feminism. And just to poke around a little bit about what happened, and then obviously I did, and then it all opened up.

Doree (15:59):

You said you were sort of surprised to see porn as one of the main through lines. You had a basis of knowledge going into this, but what was one of, or some of the other through lines or aspects of culture from this period that really surprised you?

Sophie Gilbert (16:17):

That's such a good question. Really, the question I had when I was going into it was why were we women so easily persuaded to sort of go along with everything? Why was pushing back so hard? Why was feminism so inner during this moment? And I think what I came to realize was that it was just like messaging was so total. I mean, if you picked up a magazine, if you watched a movie, if you went to an art house movie, if you watched American Pie, if you watch reality television, every form of media, fashion, everything was reiterating the same messaging. And a lot of that messaging was coming from porn. And it was basically like, women, your power is sexual. That's the power that you have in this world. That's the realm where you can really excel and be strong and have control over. And I think at the time when you were young, that's quite an intoxicating message because any kind of power is like, great, lovely. I've been a kid all my life. Fantastic. But it sort of makes you not think about any other kinds of power that might exist for you as women in the world. And that was the part that I myself have always wrangled with in the years since.

Elise (17:37):

Yeah, you write about post feminism and this idea of choice and empowerment or choice feminism, and a question that the book returns to again and again, and I return to a lot in my thinking and in my own work, is how we separate our desires, our actual desires, our soul level desires from the desires that we are expected to have or expected to perform. So whether it's the influence of porn as you talk about, or the influence of beauty standards, which I write about, how do any of us really sort that out and find fulfillment, sexual or otherwise on our own terms?

Sophie Gilbert (18:19):

Yeah, I should say I loved your book so much. I have it right here in my desk in front of me. It's like your hip. Yeah, it's in

Elise (18:25):

Conversation. So I actually thought, oh man, I wish I would've written this book when I read yours.

Sophie Gilbert (18:31):

No, yours was brilliant. No, I read it before I was writing the beauty chapter, so very much it was in conversation with the same kinds of ideas and questions. I mean, I think so much of it in terms of shaping women's desires, you start to get conspiratorial when you think about it because it does feel so much like a project of distraction. We're told by corporations, by advertising, by media to find fault with ourselves constantly like, oh, we need to lose weight. I need to get rid of my eye bags, or constantly find things to pick at. Sometimes it feels like people just invent things, like new things for us to obsess over.

(19:18):

And it does make you wonder, is this a project of distraction? So we're not really thinking about and fighting for what we actually need, the things that we actually need to improve our lives, to make our lives as parents, as people in the workforce, as artists, as anything to make those things easier, to make us more productive. I mean, I really started working on the book after Roe v. Wade was overturned, and it was so hard to me, it was so hard to believe that women making up a majority of the population can't fight, not fight more, but can't achieve more. And obviously we're not a monolith, we don't all agree, we don't all want the same things, but it's just hard sometimes to sort of think, why are we so disconnected from power? Why is that? And where did that come from? And for me, I'm convinced that a lot of it is cultural. We've given a certain idea of ourselves and what we should aspire to and what we should want and what we should think of ourselves as capable of doing. And often it's not real. It's very manufactured, and it's very much in service of someone else having the power that otherwise we could claim. Sorry, I feel like I'm starting to sound like a woman who runs with wolves or goddesses in everyone. No,

Doree (20:30):

I mean, I think this is such a relevant conversation. There's so much internalized misogyny, and right now, I think with the trad wife discourse, we're seeing all these women who are sort of proudly flaunting their very anachronistic lifestyles in the name of, well, I chose this. What are you choosing?

Sophie Gilbert (20:59):

But also the crazy thing is a lot of those women, I mean Sarah Peterson always makes this point really well that they have jobs, they're content creators, like their influences. They very much, but they're izing

Doree (21:10):

This retrograde,

Elise (21:10):

Domestic, domestic

Sophie Gilbert (21:12):

Life life. And also they're sort of telling other women that this is the ideal lifestyle, but they also don't fully live it because as I said, they have jobs and they have the brand partnerships and their agents and all kinds of

Doree (21:29):

Business

Sophie Gilbert (21:30):

Deals going on. So it's not like they're just at home churning butter. I think that's the part I find hard to square. But yeah,

Elise (21:35):

They're working. They are laboring with their bodies by being in front of a camera all the time and performing. This ties a little bit to your reappraisal of the whole Girl Boss era, which so many of us were kind of coming into our thirties during, and you wrote that there was a real kind of stemminess or a stemminess to that era from the very beginning. So we'd love for you just to say more and talk us through that.

Sophie Gilbert (22:06):

Yeah, I think when I was thinking about scammers, I was just thinking about the proliferation of MLMs and how much platforms like Instagram and social media made it easier for women to, I mean, just as we were saying, the Travel Ives to really perform a certain kind of life that is not authentic or not real often because they're trying to get their friends to buy into a pyramid scheme that will end up enriching a very, very few people at the top. But it was very much. But if you look at the language of some of the women, I think it really makes it clear how much we were all kind of inculcated in the 2010s with that work, hard hustle, harder ethic. If you are not making it, it's on you. You can have 10 jobs and self-promote and be on every platform and go to the networking party.

(22:55):

And it was very much this, just work harder. Just work harder. And I think a lot of us coming of age after the being in the workforce after the great recession, that was what we had to do. So it felt natural that people would give us that message. I think. Yeah, the hardest thing about Lean In for me now is you mentioned post feminism E Lisa a while back, but the post feminism was, it was kind of a loosey goosey movement. There was no real ideology or there was no one post-feminist prophet. It sort of emerged out of third wave feminism as a sort of freedom to do whatever you want as women. And it was very individualistic and it was very like Spice Girls Girl power. There was no activism involved. There was no asking for equal pay or parental leave or anything like that.

(23:46):

It was very much, and a lot of it was about shopping. Go out, use your economic power, be sexy. This is what women can do in the new millennium. And I think a lot of the Girl boss ethos came from that. Especially if you look at something like Lean In, it's very much, we don't need to make things better for all women. If we make things better for a few women, good things will trickle down to the women below them. And that just didn't really happen. And I think that when you think about scamming us and things being a sham, that's sort of come to reveal itself a bit more in the year sense.

Elise (24:22):

Well, it occurs to me, there's a real echo in that today too with the collab houses and the creators, because I was actually just watching with great fascination. There's a new collab house called Glow House, and it's women, mostly white women who are 17 or 18 who are all independently huge content creators. And I was watching one of their videos yesterday and one of these girls was saying, I know it probably looks like we have great lives and we only just get together and make a bunch of content, but I also want to help people and make the world a better place. And so I'm like, so just tune in because I'm going to be talking more about that. I'm like, how are you going to make the world a better place? What is your platform at the Glow House? Does the Glow House have a platform? Are they going to come out for paid parental leave? If they

Sophie Gilbert (25:15):

Did, would it matter? I dunno. I mean, so much of my thinking about feminism lately has been like maybe we need to get back to really old school consciousness raising in our living rooms. No public facing, no performance aspect to it, no makeup, just sort of more intimate gatherings because I feel like this performance of feminism is not really working and maybe nothing is working in this moment because everything is terrible. But I just feel like there was more of a sense of communitarianism in that moment that maybe would behoove us to get back to feminist Clubhouse. Maybe there's something here. Should we all

Doree (26:00):

Create a collab house? A 40 something? Yes. Yeah, 40 something. It's like feminist real housewives slash

Sophie Gilbert (26:09):

Collab house. Yeah, we could get a track wife to make the

Doree (26:13):

Bread. Yeah,

Elise (26:14):

You get it. Okay, let's take a break and we will be right back. I want to switch over to a different topic, which was your chapter on girls and just like women auteurs and women writers generally, and how much vitriol a lot of women who dared to write about their lives or write about their breakups or write about themselves or expose themselves at all on their own terms, how much flack they got and how much backlash they got for doing it. Thinking Lena Dunham in particular, where did you land on women writing about our own lives, the confessional aspect of it, and all of the claims that we're oversharing? Should we just keep putting it all out there?

Sophie Gilbert (27:06):

It's so interesting, right? Because one of the reasons why I wanted to structure the book chronologically was because you can see how every mini era sort of influences the next one. And to me, it was really striking that you had this, I think peak gossip blog was like 2007, the year when Britney shaved her head and Anna Nicole overdosed and Paris went to jail, Lindsay went to jail. Nicole was pregnant, Jamie Lee Lynn Spears. It was just this year of gossip insanity, 24 7 rolling, ticker women falling apart in the public eye, being surrounded by photographers really being ripped to shreds often without ever having bought into any of that. And so it was then less surprising to me around the 2000 tens that you had other women sort of come to terms with the idea that if they were going to be this exposed in this torn apart online, why not do it themselves?

(28:00):

Why not change the terms or change the angle of the camera? Why not give themselves a modicum of control in the way in which they expose themselves? And so that's why the nudity in Girls I think is so interesting to me because she's really like, you want nudity? I'm going to give you nudity. It's not going to be the kind you expect and it's going to make you think about why you want it. And I have thoughts so differently about the show. I think just coming to it from a place of distance, because you can see so much how she's really challenging porn in so many ways, not just porn, obviously she's doing a very good satire of a certain milieu of a in a certain city in a certain time. But you can really see Hannah, I think for one, as a character, very much being aware of what porn expects her as a woman to do in sexual senses, even out in the world, even in work.

(28:49):

And she kind of mimics those things in a way that makes them seem so absurd. And that's what I've really come to appreciate by the show about the sense. But in terms of putting ourselves out there, I dunno. I mean, I think there's always a bargain, right? Because you have to understand what it would take from you. And I think this was the thing that was maybe not communicated to women writers always, like if you put something online, it really will be out there forever and you might not get to change that. I mean, I look back at not confessional writing, but even looking back at some of my writing from the early 2010 is really mortifying, but it's there. Please don't go find it. But at the same time, I mean my UK editor made a really good point, which is that when the Me Too era rolled around, in part we were sort of prepared to take at their word because we had had this proliferation of first person pieces about trauma and about horrible things that had happened. We had been prepared, I think, for a moment in which more women would come forward and women themselves were more prepared for what to expect and how to present yourself as a subject.

Elise (30:02):

I didn't even, yeah, good point.

Sophie Gilbert (30:04):

I know I didn't think of it too. That's why she said it. I was like, thank you stealing that

Doree (30:09):

Love, love a great editor.

(30:11):

I remember because I was editing at buzzfeed in the teens, and for a while I was editing the personal essays, kind of the personal essays section. And there was a whole period, and I don't remember why, what kicked this off, but there was a whole Believe Women movement before Me Too must have been 20 14, 20 15. And we ran a bunch of essays. I think we ran one by Lena Dunham about being believed as a victim. And so it's interesting to hear you sort of connect the precursors to me too, to this sort of nascent bubbling up movement before that. I do think there were little things that were kind of trying to do it, and then until the Me Too movement sort of coalesced everything, it hadn't really taken off.

Sophie Gilbert (31:19):

Yeah, that's

Doree (31:20):

Such a good point. Sorry, I'm just doing my own reflection now. No,

Sophie Gilbert (31:24):

I love it. These are the best moments when you're like, of course, it's all connected. It is all connected in so many ways, and finding those connections has been the part of this project that has been so thrilling and gratifying because I do think it helps us not predict what's coming, but anticipate things a little bit better when you can see that everything repeats itself. Everything is cyclical. It's sort of easier to think about what to do next.

Elise (31:49):

Well, how helpful that you just mentioned that and that there are patterns and things are cyclical because before we let you go, I wanted to ask about your prognosis for the future. Given what you have seen that there is this backlash every time women make gains towards more gender equality or more power, will the current backlash to Me Too and feminism and the misogyny of this moment, take us back to the time of the aughts that you write about the hyper misogynistic aughts, or is there a glimmer of maybe progress that is on the horizon based on what you've seen cyclically?

Sophie Gilbert (32:35):

I mean, in some ways things are so much worse now. I don't think in the two thousands you had a movement that was intent on pushing women out of the workforce in the way that Project 2025 seems to be really this organized, quite scarily efficient, very focused movement to have men do the jobs and women be at home. I think that's the thing that really scares me because that feels unfamiliar in my lifetime. I think I've always grown up thinking that women can work if they want to, and it just feels strange. But having said that, I mean, I rewrote the last chapter of this so many times during 2024, because everything kept changing, as you guys remember. And when I finally finished it, it was after the election, and I really didn't want to end on a really bum note, but I do think this is true.

(33:29):

This isn't just me trying to happy under find myself. But when you look at the cycles of progress and backlash, they always are cycles. There will always be two steps forward, one step back, two steps forward, massive organized campaign of game of gate hatred and vitriol against women, but then more steps forward. And I think the thing is, we're not going to stop persisting and we're not going to quit our jobs. And I think it's inevitable that there will be another rebound that this, I mean, this particular horrific moment will have its reaction and its counter reaction. And I think we just have to keep thinking about the future and thinking about not what we can do, but what we really, really want. Not sort of survival necessarily. Not incremental gains, although those are important too. But really big picture ideas. And as we've seen, you can get away with making sweeping changes in American culture if you are shitty enough about it. So I don't know, maybe in some ways this real, real moment of backlash and breakdown will inspire a way to rebuild things differently. That is my most hopeful interpretation. I hope it's true. We hope you will guide us through

Elise (34:49):

It.

Sophie Gilbert (34:51):

No pressure. No pressure, guys. I read about tv. I think you need someone a little bit more, little

Elise (34:58):

Bit

Sophie Gilbert (34:58):

More serious, politically

Elise (34:59):

Minded. Don't undermine your thesis. The pop culture is so valuable and important. I know. Well,

Sophie Gilbert (35:06):

The thing is, I keep doing this because it's like who wants to think about women and culture now in this moment when we might not have an economy tomorrow. But at the same time, the whole point of the book is that people have always written off women and culture. People have written off subjects like reality television as trash and porn as something that people do in the privacy of their own rooms. And if you don't pay attention to these things, you don't see what they're doing to us. So yes, I should stop doing that. Thank you.

Elise (35:34):

Well, Sophie Gilbert, thanks so much.

Sophie Gilbert (35:37):

Oh, it was such a pleasure. I have really, really, really loved so much listening to you both and I've, like I said, been a fan of you both for so long, so this is really a delight. Thank you for having me.

Doree (35:47):

Likewise. Thank you so much for coming on, and I'm glad we could make the time difference work.

Sophie Gilbert (35:52):

Me too. Thank you very much.

Doree (35:54):

Sophie, where can our listeners find you?

Sophie Gilbert (35:58):

I'm at The Atlantic, so my work is always there. My book, girl and Girl should be, it goes on sale I think on April 29th and should be hopefully anywhere books are sold. And I'm on Blue Sky and which I think no one is on still at this point. But I'm also on Instagram. I'm Sophie Gilbert writes, so that's where I'll be.

Doree (36:19):

Fantastic. Amazing. Thank you so much. Thank you. Alright, well Sophie Gilbert, just so much brilliance coming out of that woman.

Elise (36:35):

Get the book folks, girl on girl.

Doree (36:39):

It's really good. It's really good. Elise, last week you wrote Attention is the Intention. I think that was in reference to your vacation with your family.

Elise (36:51):

Yeah, and I talked about it on last week's mini app.

Doree (36:54):

Yes.

Elise (36:54):

But I did it. I did it. I spent so much time with my kids. That's awesome. We spent that time without our phones and they spent time with our grandparents. We had so many shared meals together, and I feel really nourished by all of that. Maybe I should do it again sometime.

Doree (37:17):

Hey,

Elise (37:21):

Whatcha

Doree (37:22):

Thinking for this week?

Elise (37:23):

The intention for this week is to return to exercise because I've been on a break for the last week, maybe week and a half. But it is really important because I do get a little creaky. My joints in my advanced age, I've got to keep moving. So I'm just going to intend to return to movement.

Doree (37:45):

Return to movement. I love that. Okay. Well, we just had a conversation off air about my needing to go to Costco, and I feel like that's kind of where I'm at right now. My week has just been busy and I don't have time to do all the things I need to do. I have to go to the airport today to pick up my dad. Someone asked me to teach Mahjong super last minute last night, which was great. I love teaching Mahjong, but it just meant a few things that I was going to do last night I didn't get to do. I feel like I'm just a little discombobulated. I'm stressed about Henry's party and I'm just like, let me get through this week. So my intention is just to get through this week and Yeah, one

Elise (38:32):

Day at a time.

Doree (38:33):

One day at a time. One day at a time. Okay. Well, this is also the episode where we thank our Patreon supporters. We are so grateful to you. I think I read them last time.

Elise (38:49):

Yeah, sure. I will jump in.

Doree (38:50):

Would you mind reading them?

Elise (38:52):

Sure. Our Patreon members to thank this month are Caitlin, h Katie, Ashley Taylor, Teresa Anderson, Michelle Maya, Barbara Chio, Amy, Sarah Fitz, Amy Schnitzer, Heather Hale, Megan Donald Brew, Jr. Helen De Moy, Shelley Lee, Kim Beagler, Sarah, Sarah, boozy, Alison, Susan Eth, Melissa McClain, Fran, Kelsey Wolf, Dene, Laura Dy, jet Apte, Valerie, Bruno, Jane, Theo, Julie, Daniel E, Jackson, Amy, Mako, Liz, rain. J. DK. Jennifer Smith, Hannah M Julia, putt, Maddie, oday, Marissa, Lauren, Gitlin, Bel, Maria, Diana, Coco Bean, Laura Hadden, Josie H, Nikki, Boer, Juliana Duff, Chelsea Torres, Tiffany G, Emily McIntyre, Stephanie Ana, Elizabeth A. Kelly Dearborn, Christine Bassis, Alison Markle, Jessica Gale, Zulema Lundy, Carolyn Rodriguez, Carrie Gold's, auntie T Nikki, Catherine Ellingson, Kara Broman, Sarah H Sarah Egan, Jess Coman. Jennifer Olson, Jennifer, HS, Eliza Gibson, Jillian Bowman, Brianon, Macy, Karen, Perelman, Katie, Jordan, Sarah, M Kate, M, Emily, Bruer, Josie, Alquist, Tara, Todd, Elizabeth, Cleary, and Monica. Thank you to our longtime Patreon supporters. Thank you to our new ones. And you can, yes, thank you so much. Join us. Yes, you can join us on our Patreon at patreon.com/forever three

Doree (40:29):

Five. And just a reminder that Forever 35 is hosted and produced by me, Doree Shafrir and Elise Hu. It produced and edited by Sam Junio. Sami Reed is our project manager, and our network partner is Acast. Thanks everybody.

Elise (40:44):

Thank y'all. Bye.

Doree (40:45):

Bye.

 
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