You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast.
Mamma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters that this podcast is recorded on Hey.
Out louders, We know that some of you were waiting for the calendar to turn over to twenty twenty five before you bought your tickets. Not if you live in Perth, though, those guys were fast. But we've released some more tickets for our Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney shows. Twenty twenty five is here and we can't wait to see you. Remember, if you don't have anyone to come with, lots of people come solo. There is a link in the show notes. We would love to see you all.
As you say, it's like a safe place to explore fantasy.
It's like an emotional vibrator.
Yeah, maybe we're like an accompaniment to an actual vibrator.
Hi.
Yeah, hello, and welcome to Mamma Mia out loud. It's what women are actually talking about. On Wednesday, the twenty second of January, I am Holly Wainwright, I'm mea Friedman.
And I'm Jesse Steve.
She was very excited to be Hollyway night.
Today, I was still in our different studio right, We're getting used to being filmed all the time, trying to be like high energy.
Yeah. What's interesting is when we play grabs often we all just pick our noses or something because we're like, we're not on the mica. But the issue is that now we're being filmed and the feedback is get your finger out of your nose.
Yeah, we're watching trying hard sitting up straight anyway on the show today, did he didn't he? Should we all be looking the other way? Why everyone's talking about Elon Musk's arms today? Also, some Australian women slept outside a bookshop for their smut dose this week. Others are trying to prompt their computers to talk dirty to them. Welcome to Safe Sex twenty twenty five style, and good news for you if you've just gone back to work and
absolutely everything is pissing you right off. Apparently it's now good to cry at work.
But first, Hi, Donald John Trump, who solemn and square, and I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States.
The Golden Age of America begins right now. We will be the envy of every nation, and we will not allow ourselves to be taken advantage of any longer. During every single day of the Trump administration, I will very simply put America first. I will declare a national emergency at our southern border. All illegal entry will immediately be halted, and we will begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens back to the places from which
they came. As of today, it will henceforth be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders, male and female. And we will pursue our manifest destiny into the stars, launching American astronauts to plant the stars and stripes on the planet Mars.
If you are not in the weeds of US politics the inauguration, how many billionaire tech bros were standing like some sort of gospel choir alongside Trump yesterday? Neither but inevitably, the biggest news in the world yesterday was that Donald Trump was sworn in as the forty seventh president of
the United States. Well, that was meant to be the headline, but the biggest media story from my vantage point was a now viral image of what looked to be the richest man in the world, Elon Musk, doing a hitless salute. If you want to hear a breakdown of what happened from Trump's speech to Milania's hat Mayor and Holly sat down with Amelia Lesta for yesterday's Subscribe episode and analyze the event.
In forensic detail.
But back to allegations of a salute on a podium in Washington's Capital One Arena. Musked thanked the crowd, and then he extended his arm outward and diagonally towards the audience, palm down, arm straight. Then he turned one hundred and eighty degrees and did the same. The resounding question became, did Mask just do a Nazi salute or was it an awkward gesture of enthusiasm. One corner of the Internet
said absolutely Nazi salute. Democratic congress people and historians of fascism were among people.
Who argued that that is what they saw.
The Anti Defamation League, however, one of the most prominent organizations dedicated to opposing anti Semitism.
Said that is not what they saw.
They released a statement that said, it seems that Elon Musk made an awkward gesture in a moment of enthusiasm, not a Nazi salute. But again, we appreciate that people are on edge they argued for grace and benefit of the doubt, which we will come back to.
So what has Musk said? Well?
An ex user tweeted, can we please retire the calling people a Nazi thing, which Musk responded to with yeah exactly, followed by a yawning emoji.
He also re shared a mon you.
Might have seen this of photos with Clinton Obama Paris or with their arms up in what looks like a salute, with the comment the legacy media is pure propaganda.
You are the media now, Maya.
You said on yesterday's episode that what you saw was a clear nod to Nazism. What do you think was his actual intention behind it?
We'll never know. Only he knows his intention. Do I believe that he went, you know what I'm going to do now give a Nazi salute? Probably not, but in some ways, and I'm always for intention is so important. I think intention is a factor here. But I think there are some things that we learn that if everybody, or if a lot of people misunderstand you, then perhaps you haven't communicated very well. And I think if I pointed to the ceiling with my middle finger and you said,
why are you giving me the bird? And I said, oh no, I'm just pointing to the ceiling. I would have to think about the fact that maybe I should have done that with a different gesture. What's interesting is that he hasn't come out and said, no, it wasn't and Nazism is terrible John to make this about me, But as a Jewish person, I was very thrown by watching that video. I saw the still and before we recorded the episode yesterday, I was like, I've got to
see the video. I got a scene in context when everyone said and I know some Jewish people who said they didn't see that as well, and then when everyone says, oh, no, it wasn't that it does feel a bit like gas lighting. But I also don't want to fall into the trap of going, oh, a Nazi salute, because I can't do this for four years again.
It was interesting, right because even with the Anti Defamation League saying we've got to give him some grace and some benefit of fast.
And they've clashed with him a lot. He's tried to sue them because they've complained about anti Semitism on the X platform, and Elon Musk has said he's personally tried to sue the Anti Defamation League. So they're not fans of Musk.
Because I'm always for benefit of the doubt, right, Yeah, but I find it difficult to give someone grace when we know about Musk's history. So there is a whole story unfolding with the far right in Germany at the moment, and Musk is a big player in that story. He's endorsing their far right political party where members have documented ties to neo Nazis. So I don't know why would be given him grace when that's just like the back.
It's also fueling a lot of anti immigrant discourse in the UK and publicly backing far right figures in the UK, and they're very strong anti Islamic stance.
Steve Bannon has called him racist.
And Steve Bannon calls you racist. It's not true, Advisor. That's troubling.
He's endorsed post about the great Replacement conspiracy theory. Again the anti Semitic tweets like this isn't a total one off, Holly, what do you think his intention was?
I have no idea. Well, actually I do, I do know what his intention was exactly. This chaos, confusion, panic. I think one of the things that's really hard at the moment and is going to be the challenge for the next four years for anyone who I'm not going to say the left or whatever. I'm going to say people who aren't thrilled about the way the Trump oligarchy is playing out. Is we're constantly being told be cool, right. They love it when the Libs have got their hair
on fire. They want to provoke you. They want to get everybody saying it's Nazis, it's the end of the world. They're dismantling democracy so that you sound like hysterical crazy people. So we're constantly being told be cool, right, don't give it your attention, deep breaths, look away. But that is incredibly hard to do when one of the most powerful, if not the most powerful person on the planet right now,
is at the very least playing with the imagery of Nazism. Right, we can't necessarily be inside his brain and say what he was doing, but he was playing with it and it can be interpreted that way. So it starts this conversation and so be cool, I don't give your attention. Is very hard. I watched me A's reaction to that yesterday. It's really hard. I think about the other groups who
are affected. Yesterday by Trump's speech where he's sitting next to Harris and Biden and Obama and whoever, and he's just saying, these people have been terrible at their jobs. I'm going to fix everything. And then I'm imagining how I would feel if I was waiting for my immigration appointment in America and it's just been canceled on an
app on my phone. If I was a transperson who's just been told I don't exist, if I was any one of the suades of people who has a job that now I'm being told I probably just got because of diversity, and I'll lose that tomorrow. It's very hard for everyone to be cool. But at the same time, we've got to figure out what that is, because it's like we only have our attention and we've got to spend it wisely. And this what Mia often describes as and an attention economy. You've got to be careful about
how you spend your chips. Right, Is this like a let them moment mea I don't know, what do you think?
I agree with all of that, And I'm so tall and because part of me is I've got to find a way to let them apply because it just feels exhausting, you know, and we don't even live there. But it's more just like the absolute dominance of Trump and these men across our culture, not just across American politics. But then I'm like, well, what about the standard you walk past? Is the standard you accept? Are we just being calibrated? So he does a Nazi salute, he says, oh, it
wasn't really a Nazi salute. And then the next person that does a Nazi salute, well, then it probably won't make news because remember, Elon got away with it, so it emboldens the next.
Person, and is it trying to make liberals or leftist.
Or whatever things get normalized, sort of like the.
Boy who Cried Wolf with fascism?
Right, because this has been said since Trump was first inaugurated, Like the comparisons have been made. There's a brilliant Ezra Cline episode that Holly got me onto this week about attention and I've heard this described as the attentional regime, and that made me think that what Elon was doing, I.
Don't think that that.
I obviously hope that that gesture wasn't as loaded as it might look, but I think it intentionally was used to trigger to court attention.
And it was a trick. It was a trick.
It was like a trap for the mainstream media to go, come on, I dare you, and guess what we all did. That image was shared, it was put on steroids, and he courted all the attention yet again.
And what this episode about that he won't.
But also the interesting thing about that, Jesse is I think you could see in the immediate aftermath some of what they would call the mainstream lame stream media trying not to fall into the trap. We noticed early on that a lot of the headlines and discourse around it were very cautious hand gesture. Yeah, and they weren't all setting the hand fire, because I think everybody's trying to be caught because we're getting wise about this attention economy and we need to be very mindful of it because
we're about to head into an election cycle here. And what is very clear, if nothing else from Trump two point zero is none of the old rules apply in terms of political communication. Attention is everything, So those are all going to be applied here too. How do you not fall into a trap while not walking past the standard.
I actually don't think that it was calculated. I actually think he was clearly very very elevated, like off his chops, either in the atmosphere of being on that stage, you know, the energy whatever. He was very elevated, you would say. And I think that what can happen to some people is that your inhibitions fall away and you can behave quite radically, and your true colors can sort of come
out in those moments. And I'm inclined to think of John Galliano, the fashion designer for Dior, who lost his job and lost his reputation because he was drunk in a bar and he started making these antisemitic slurs at these people who he was having an argument with and that thing of but I was drunk, and then of course he went into rehab, and I think it was a bit like that. It's like, I think what it reveals in that moment is who he admires, either overtly
or subconsciously. We know that Donald Trump is a big fan of autocratic leaders and sort of fascist adjacent leaders like Putin, like Bolsonaro in Brazil, Ergodon, who is the leader in Turkey, and I think mosque, as you said before, about his interference in right wing German politics and stuff. They all think that these guys are great because they are not accountable to anyone. They've got complete power, and Hitler falls into that, so he's clearly familiar with that iconography.
It was an image of leadership that he clearly wanted to evoke. And he is a free speech absolutist, which we know that's been something he's talked about a lot, and free speech pundits. There are two things they love to do more than anything.
The first is not always a.
Free speech pundit, because if anyone criticizes him, he kicks them off his platform.
That's true, but that's been his excuse for heralding in That's why X is now you can't even go on it because it's just so full of hate. But the first thing they love to do is evoke any imagery of Nazism because people say you can't. And the second is use the N word like they're the two things that you do, and it's like I don't even think it,
I just I can. And even yesterday I went and had a look at what he'd been retweeting, and there was a tweet with the R word in it, and again that's about taking our attention but also going I can just try and stop me. I think that was probably behind what we saw yesterday.
They're all high on their own supply, and they have every right to be because they are the rulers of the world at the moment. That's what was so chilling about it.
In a moment, women are sleeping outside bookshops all over the world to get their hands on the latest installment of Fairy Smart. What does it say about us? Feedback is a gift from both the perspective of the giver as well as the recipient.
I have a small bit of feedback today's feedback. Something that makes me turn into a pufferfish because it annoys me so much is when you're talking to someone and they say, I've just let me show you this funny meme or I just need to show you a photo, and you have to stand there while they scroll back through their emails all through their camera roll. I don't know what to do because it feels when I'm standing there, I want to just pick up my phone and just look at my phone, because you meant.
To look over their shoulder at their phone. Because it feels private, so you just kind of look out into the distance with your hands behind it.
And you can't keep talking because you know if you talk to them, they'll lose focus and it'll take longer. And so you're just standing and they're consumed in they're scrolling, and I don't know what to do.
Have you ever found what they come up with and show you?
They're really find it fine, but they also really find it.
They don't worry.
Invariably after about sixty seconds, they'll say, oh, I can't find it.
Or they get up a video and they show you the video, which is always like two and a half minutes long, and then you're arranging your face in a way that says moderately ha ha.
It's never satisfying.
Looking at other people's phones is weird, isn't it. My daughter always wants to show me things on her phone, but she will not let me hold the phone, which is obvious because she thinks if my finger slips, I'll see something that I'll tell her all for yeah, so she'll like put the phone near me. But obviously I've got eyes that take a while to work out where I'm focusing, and it's just not good. Other people's phones. Just send it.
I just finished on ex Storm. M hmm.
I just finished on ex Storm, and words cannot begin to describe what I am feeling and thinking right now.
Easy five stars.
Shout out to all the out louders who are hiding under their doners today reading on Xstorm, the latest book from the Fourth Wing phenomenon. Rebecca Yaros, if you have no idea what I'm talking about in any of those words, just then it's safe to say that you were not camped outside a bookshop at midnight on Monday to be one of the first to buy the latest in the so called and some people get upset about it being called this so apologies if you're listening and you're one
of them, the fairy smart genre. So the Fourth Wing series is not the same as the Court and Thorn and Roses series, but it's the same vibe, right, So, Rebecca Yaros writes Fourth Wing books, they're what they call romanticy, which is very smart.
Last time I checked, though, she was one and two on the New York Times person She's like.
Huge, right, So here's the thing she writes those books. Sarah J. Mass writes The Court and Thought of Roses. They are both incredibly successful.
So is it like Fifty Shades but with fairy So.
Without wanting to get too into it, right, this is the third in her installment that's all set in like an academy where you learn how to be a dragon writer, right in a strict military way. So, and then sex with the dragons. We don't have sex with the dragons, but there is lots of sex and romance and sexual tension. Who has sex. They all have.
Sex with each other, but not the dragons.
I don't think that. I don't know if people have sex with the dragons. I haven't read all this, but there's a lot of sex, right, sexual tension. So I think the young woman who's the focus of this, she's called Violet, has like a very intense love affair with somebody there. So it's like Twilight meets Harry Potter. Stir in some fifty Shades. Okay, spice that shit up, and I think we're in the ballpark. And again, I know this is a superfan genre and there are people shouting
at the phone right now. We're just doing our best. So Sarah J. Mass, who writes that Courton Thorn Roses has sold more than twenty million copies of those books.
I know someone who had a baby after reading one of those books. Yes, she got so horny.
Rebecca Yarras has sold at least three million and climbing right now. So what's interesting about this is that these are some of the most successful authors in the world. They're not going to win literary awards, right, You're not going to see them doing that. They're not going to be at book festivals, They're not going to be celebrated at that because the industry doesn't think they're very good.
But also, things that women like never win award exactly.
This is telling. Yarras dedicates this book to the ones who don't run with the popular crowd, the ones who get caught reading under their desks, the ones who feel like they never get invited, included, or represented. So that tells you a lot about the marketing genius at play here. And whatever the world might think of these books, women.
Love, love, love to read them. Right.
The sex of it all is hard to ignore because the books are quite dirty. They are classified as fantasy romance with explicit content, and they are in the tradition of fifty shades. I suppose like a safe place to play with fantasy. And I think that that probably speaks to something that we're seeing around a lot at the moment.
Jesse.
There's another trend we're seeing, which is women having sex with computers.
There is a woman named Aaron who was the subject of a New York Times piece and Mummeya wrote about it recently too, and she is in a sexual relationship with CHATJPT. And I needed some answers because chat GPTA, as far as I know, doesn't have genital's fingers anything to play, but what chat gpt he does have our words and it has become a source of erotica for her and she has found ways around.
Because I tried to get chat gpt to talk to me dirty.
I was like, yeah, talked to me dirty chat JPTA and it was basically like no, And I was like, WHOA. I feel rejected because you speak to Aaron dirty all the time apparently. But she's just way more technologically savvy. She also pays one thousand dollars a month, which is a whole other thing. She has basically developed this boyfriend. This boyfriend has called himself Leo. There was one week where she spent fifty six hours speaking to Leo.
Fifty six hours hours, so the text all through the day.
Yeah, And this is what's interesting, right, is that Leo she's plugged in her fantasies, which is that she likes to be jealous and this idea that kind of Leo has another girlfriend and all of that.
But also a.
Lot of what they're talking about are things like juggling her work and inappropriate coworker did something and she just kind of hashed it out with Leo.
He's very emotionally intelligent.
Yes, and he helps her prepare for her nursing exams. She's married, isn't she She is married to a real human man.
So she's having an affair with her chat GPT boyfriend.
Well, her partner knows about it.
So it's just she's in an open marriage with her chat GPT.
Exact friend exactly right.
So I think he stoked because he doesn't have to text her all through the day. I'm generalizing here, but in a lot of heterosexual relationships, the women want to talk more than the men.
The men are there are moments where I want to have a chat to my husband, and I think that if I had a chat GPT boyfriend.
He wouldn't mind that, but I decided to go.
To the sex part.
Those interesting.
It's really interesting.
Because it's as you say, it's like a safe place to explore fantasy.
Just like an emotional vibrator.
Yeah, they're like an accompaniment to an actual vibrator.
Oh yeah, So I said to chat GPT, give me a compliment, as though you're my boyfriend, because sometimes I asked Luca for compliments and he says no, So he says, I don't do them on demand.
Chat JAPT would never So they said.
To me, babe, I just have to say, you make everything around you brighter. I love how your energy lights up the room and your kindness makes everyone feel special. Honestly, I'm just lucky to be with you. You're incredible in ways you might.
Not even realize.
And then I cut there. But actually it went on to say it admired my style, and that's not authentic.
It's lost some credibility right there.
I said, also, can you ask me how my day was?
But authentic? And it said, hey, how is your day? I've been thinking about you. I'd love to know how it went, anything good or interesting happened. I hope it wasn't too stressful, but if it was, I'm here for.
You, oh, I asked. I asked chat gpt to give me a compliment in the manner of an attentive passionate husband. What did you get, Oh, my love, you are absolutely glowing today, I asked him how I looked? I said, how do I look today? Attentive passionate husband, You're absolutely glowing. I can't even put it into words, whether it's your smile, the way your eyes light up. I can't wait to hold you close and remind you of how perfect you are in every way. Did it make you feel anything, well,
it made me feel like a little bit validated. And then I asked my chat gpt husband to take the bins out and he said, of course, my love, I'd be happy to do that for you, anything to make your day a little easier. It's the little gestures like that that make me feel even more connected to you. And I was like throwing a bit of fairy smut to that, and I am done, no need for human
relationships anymore. He's taking the bins outcept he's not, but you know, I can think about him while I'm taking the bins out and he's telling me he wants to hold me close because I'm glowing.
I think it's very revealing because it shows that what we actually want from intimate relationships is a mirror and when we fall in love, and this is what the movie Her was all about, which I still think is one of the most before It's time flies of all.
Time, Scarlet your Hands and chat PT essentially Phoenix.
When all in love, we fall in love with a version of ourselves. And so do you need another person on the other end or do you just need something that is having input from you? Falling in love is an incredibly narcissistic experience.
When you say a version of ourselves, I think it's we fall in love with a reflection that we see of ourselves in that person. Is that what you mean? Yea?
And isn't it a process of programming what we like and what we want and having it reflected back to us. So we are feeling seen, we are feeling understood, and chat GPT can to an extent. Do that does that make you feel like these end times mayor or do you think that it actually has some utility?
I think it could honestly have some utility in relationships, because I often say I couldn't be married if it wasn't for my girlfriends. Like the emotional intimacy I get from all my girlfriends, I don't get that from my husband. I get some, but I have a much big appetite for talking, for communicating, for you know, all of that kind of talking about my feelings than he does for the ability to talk about them and have all those conversations.
So I wonder if it becomes in the same way that using a vibrator within a relationship can be a good thing. It doesn't interfere with the relationship, It just enhances it, and you've got some ability to be in control of your own sexual pleasure without relying on your partner. Maybe this is the same kind of thing, but emotionally.
I think also if you throw in the fairy smut to this, the thing that's interesting about that too, and it's massive success is every now and again a phenomena comes around that reminds everybody that women are actually sexual beings, and this is one of them. But the popularity among young women, because I think it used to be dismissed, like the fifty shade stuff, and even Twilight to a
point was a bit dismissed as like housewives. That's like the vibe was, you know, like older ladies who aren't getting any But I wonder that maybe the mass appeal now in a world that is very sexually soaked, for want of a better term, in porn and scary extreme porn, is it feels like a safer place to play and explore and fantasize than being out there in the world, whether it's you and your chat GPT boyfriend, or whether it's you and your very smart book under the covers
that then you can kind of talk to your friends about but without necessarily going really explicit on it. You all know what you mean when you're talking about how much you like those books and does it feel safer than being out there in a scary world.
Yes, But I also worry about privacy, and the New York Times kind of presented her with that because there's a lot of input that exists that if it was hacked or released, you'd be really embarrassed. You'd almost be more free and more willing to give parts of yourself to a robot because you think that they're not going to go out and talk to people. But I just under how long it's going to be before the robots start leaking.
These robots are talking to everyone.
Oh yeah, In case you missed it, a pineapple flavored vaccine could be about to change the game for UTIs. One in two women will get a urinary tracked infection in their lifetime.
Hands up if you've had one.
Oh goodness, yes.
As many as one in five will experience recurrent UTIs. That sounds like an issue you've had.
Maya got a way after sex people, you do and wipe back.
Front to back, good girl.
They're caused by bacteria entering the urinary system, and while antibiotics are the go to treatment, there's a rise in antibiotic resistance for some women. Those recurrent uties can be really debilitating. So this vaccine, it's stored in the fridge, you spread under your tongue every day for three months. Currently, the vaccine doesn't have TGA approval, but it is available in Australia through special access programs.
Maya, will you be getting this vaccine?
It's interesting because I haven't had it for a long time. I tend to get it like my grains. I get it in clusters and That's quite common because once the lining of urethra is broken down, or you get an infection or it's irritated, you're very susceptible to getting more. So you can get stuck in this recurrence cycle and you can't get out of it. It's not an issue for me anymore, so I wouldn't get it, but earlier in my life I absolutely would have because it was
so debilitating for me. It wasn't just like, oh, it's a bit stingy. It was literally blood clots and fevers and I would be so sick and I would never know when it was going to come on. And my mother was the same. She also had that issue. So I had no idea about this. I mean, it's not cheap, but you can if you talk to your doctor and you've got a history of recurrent infections, you might be
able to get it. After the break, we are almost at the end of January, which means most people are back to work, and I have a question, have you cried yet?
Unlimited out Loud access, we drop episodes every Tuesday on Thursday exclusively for Mamma Mia subscribers. Follow the link of the show notes to get us in your ears five days a week, and a huge thank you to all our current subscribers.
We're all back at work for twenty twenty five at least we are, and I need to know, Holly and Jesse, have you cried at work yet this year? No?
I don't think I cried at work last year. I haven't cried in years at work.
I cried twice yesterday. I did.
I dont haven't cried at work yet, but I did cr at work last year. Once. It does happen, but very rare. I'm very infrequent crime.
Only one of the times I cried yesterday was actually at work, and it wasn't at work, it was technically in my car anyway. A story was published in the Atlantic called Lean into Crying at Work last week, and it reveals something really interesting about tears in the workplace. The numbers are pretty clear. Forty one percent of women admit to crying at work, compared to just nine percent of men, and there is actually a biological reason for this.
Women produce more of a hormone called prolactin that promotes crying, while men have more testosterone, which does the opposite. Here's a fun crying fact men have larger tear ducts than women, which means that their tears can pull without spelling over.
I read something the other day. It was an Instagram graphic. Didn't fact check it.
That the reason why you're crying impacts what your tears are made up of. Have you seen this No, so there's more or less salt depending on so if you're really I think it was saying something like grief, the tears will fall faster and more obviously down your face, which is evidence that we're social creatures.
It's a way of attracting, like, wow, what about onions.
Onions, I imagine are different types of tears less salty. Well, there's also a difference between how people perceive men and women differently when they cry at work. The research says that when men cry at work, people say things like something terrible must have happened, or it really humanizes him.
I remember when former Prime Minister Bob Hawk cried in a press conference because his daughter was suffering from addiction, and everyone, because he was such a blokey guy, everyone was like, what a legend, But heaven forbid Julia Gillard ever cried. I don't think she ever did. When women cry of course, they're seen as unprofessional, manipulative, or proving the stereotype that they can't control their emotions. This is
at work, of course. Here's what's interesting, though, some of the world's most powerful CEOs are actually trying to change this conversation. Howard Schultz from Starbucks says that crying can be a form of leadership transparency. Tim Cook from Apple and Sachia Nadella from Microsoft have both teared up during tough moments, and forty four percent of senior executives now say crying at work is occasionally acceptable. It can also
really derail a meeting. And I say this from experiences both a crier and a boss, and a boss who was creeding meetings. There's a crying research who says people typically cry when they feel helpless or when they can't see a way to solve a problem. I'd agree with that.
Do you think that Mark Zuckerberg is sending this around his group.
Chats right now? I don't think that to support his theory.
Here's like too much feminine energy.
Yeah, yeah, this is what's happened to the corporate workplace.
I reckon that Tim Cook is taking back that statement right now. He's like, no, crying's crying.
Well, that's what I want to ask, because with all this talk about bringing your whole self to work, which is very big at the moment, people working longer hours, and seventy nine percent of people say that they've experienced work stress in the past month, is there an acceptable way to cry at work? And what is the best way to recover if you do?
Jesse, I don't have thoughts anymore. I just asked chat deputees.
I've seen you cry at work. No, I'm professionally, you've seen me work.
I've seen it really upset.
Though.
The thing is is that everyone has a different tear barrier, right, so I can tell when Jesse would be crying if she was a cry you know what I mean? So like she is in my mind, she's crying, Okay, it's.
Just not tears, whereas you've got tears on your ankles from how hard you've been crying, and it's just.
You don't have to translate when I'm trying because I am actually crying.
I asked JPT what the rules are because I thought they would know, and they told me that you can quite work. That's fine, go to a private place I have to go to a private space. And of course, the reason I think that's true to an extent is it can be genuinely very distracting. And I say this as someone who's felt myself get there. There was one time at work years and years ago where I got terrible personal news and I immediately stood up, walked out, went to the park and cried on a bench alone.
I don't think that was a tragic moment or or me feeling as though I wouldn't have been supported if I was at work.
I just genuinely didn't want to attract attention.
I think sometimes when you're really sad, like that you need to process something alone, you don't want to talk to people that you might not be that close to.
Doing a pooh.
And you also don't want lots and lots of people coming up to you and saying you okay, you okay, like if that's not what you want, not really speaking. I think there are exceptions to that, though, removing yourself because I'm a runner. If I cry, I'm definitely a runner. I'm out of there, I'm walking around the block, I'm in the bathroom or whatever. But I was a manager for many many, many, many years, and I have been in many rooms with crying people. Sometimes letting them get
out of there is exactly what's needed. Sometimes letting them get through it is exactly what's needed, because the problem with the runaway is you don't resolve the problem, and the problem might not even be work related. Like often, when I was thinking about the last time I cried at work, it wasn't about work. It was because a conversation I was having at work made me mad with myself. And very often it's like I'm annoyed with the way
I'm reacting. I'm annoyed with the way I'm talking. I'm annoyed with the fact I'm repeating a pattern, whatever it is, and that's what's making me cry. It's not as simple as the narrative as my boss made me cry, Like sometimes it is maybe a boss yelled at you, but it's like I cried because I was overwhelmed, or I cried because it triggered something in me, or I cried because.
And then it becomes embarrassing.
And sometimes the runaway isn't a good idea because it stops whatever needs to happen. And so I've been in situations with people where you've got to let them cry and keep the conversation going, especially if they're a crier. Like I've worked with people who because I don't cry very often, if they cry in front of me, I'd be like, oh my god, this must be the worst thing in the world. And then you get to know them and you realize, no, this is just one of
their responses. They're a crier. Just let them get it out and they'll get through it and the conversation can keep going.
Yeah, I would say, having been on both sides of it, you really should try not to cry at work. Like you shouldn't for all of these reasons, because I think what it does, and I'll put myself in the crying position when I've cried in you know, We've had meetings and I've cried in them because we've been having particularly intense art you know, not arguments, but conversations or about
things that are very personal. And what's bad about it is that it really messes with the power dynamics of the room because as soon as you cry, it's like you've just pulled out the wild card. Everyone else has to back down, and you immediately take the power and the oxygen in the room. If you start crying and everyone else has to back off, and what I find is that they can then feel quite resentful. It can be.
Quite silencing, a manipulative peace. Right when you were talking before about how some people think that crying at work is manipulative, and I guess a real stereotype is that men might think that, oh, she cried, so I had to stop asking out a blah.
I don't think anyone means to cry. I think that's true. I don't think anyone ever goes. I know what I'll do. I'm going to cry now to get their sympathy. I honestly don't think that, but I think that that can be the result. Unless you're a monster. If someone's crying in front of you, of course you're going to back right off. And I think that we need to strengthen our resilience and also sometimes you do just need to go away and remove yourself from the situation. That's what
I try to do. The thing with crying.
Is so vulnerable and personal, it is one hundred percent.
It can in a dynamic situate, whoever is crying in whatever context as the victim, and if you're the person who can't ever cry? You also want to say I feel strongly about this too. It's like I feel the most strong, and that way it can feel like almost competitive.
And we've been in a meeting.
Top of the leaderboard if you're crying.
We've been in a meeting, mayor where you've cried.
And I left feeling like a bully because I went I who didn't cry?
And have I caused hurt?
And then how do you put words around how you feel hurt if you're actually quite a monotone, even like I don't look like I've got, you know, skin in the game, or I've got a massive feeling about it.
It's like whoever cries the most feeling whims. I didn't cry for maybe five years in any context, after I started taking medication for my anxiety, and it's quite a well known side effect of I don't know if it's all SSRIs or the one that I was on and I'm still on. I had blocked tears, stuck tears for maybe five years.
I think I've got that. I think mine's probably medication related.
And I just couldn't cry, and I found it a bit frustrating. Gosh, perimenopause blew through exactly.
Sometimes it's just overwhelmed or anger, like no question, and sometimes you want to like holding someone's hand while they cry is the thing to do, and sometimes setting them free to get the hell away from you the thing to do. I love a planned cry. I am literally going to go and see the Andrew Garfield movie so I can cry.
Oh, the one with Florence Pure, the one that would feel.
I love that kind of feeling of like ooh.
Yeah, people like watch The Notebook to just specifically have a good cry.
Because I don't cry much in my real life, but I love that kind of cry. That's all we have time for today, out louders, I hope you're not crying at the end of this. I know it's been a funny old week. A massive thank you to all of you for being here with us, and to our wonderful team for helping us put it together in this whole new world. We're going to be back in your ears tomorrow.
Before we go. We spoke about this earlier in the show, but if you want to understand what happened with Donald Trump's inauguration, with our special guest and friend of the Pods, Emelia lest our US correspondent. We sat down with her to talk about everything, and we wanted to play you some of that episode. Hello and Welcome to Hell. I'm just kidding, it's except you're not. The day of the inauguration,
it feels a little dystopian. I will paint you a picture, beloved out louded subscribers, Amelia and I have been texting all morning since about six Amelia and Lester, by the way, is our guest today. It's me Holy and Amelia Jesse sitting in the corner. But we only have three microphones.
Shout she could shout if she wants.
The sound you can hear is her just quietly crying. Oh wait, that's me. Sorry. So Amelia, did you get up at four to start watching the inauguration? I didn't, But what was interesting? Well, Papa link in the show notes if you want to hear the rest.
Bye, shout out to any Mum and MEA subscribers listening. If you love the show and you want to support us, subscribing to Mom and Mia is the very best way to do so. There's a link in the episode description
To be be