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Hello out Louder friends, It's Holly and welcome to hot pod summer. As you listen to this, hopefully I am pottering around in my garden and avoiding my children and wearing lots of sunscreen down here in the regions. But wherever you are, I am excited to share a little treat with you the best out loud podcasts from twenty
twenty four. Whether I'm taking a stroll with Tuna, my dog, or having a bit of a rest in the shade, I'm going to be listening to this handpicked selection of Out Loud episodes because hey, we only get better by critiquing ourselves, and they're perfect for your someone listening. Think of this series as our holiday get together where we dive into the stories and laughs that made the year special. Grab a drink, settle in, let's explore the best Out Loud moments from twenty twenty four.
An article in The Cut went absolutely viral this week, and we've been desperate to talk about it, so much so that we keep having to say to each other, stop, save it, save it for the show favor. This is why I'm so excited to finally do brief. The piece is called the Case for Marrying an Older Man. It argues that a woman's life is all work and little rest. An age gap relationship can help. The author, Gracie Sophia Christie, married a man ten years older, and that wasn't an accident.
She actively pursued an older, wealthier, more established man, and she explains why.
When she was.
Twenty, she was at Harvard and she realized that while, of course she could spend the next few decades proving how exceptional she was like everyone else in her class, it would be more efficient and in fact, cleverer to use the one thing on her side that would soon fade, and that was her youth. She would go to Harvard Business School like the actual location and purposely sit among fifty of what she calls the world's most eligible bachelors.
She couldn't understand why her female classmates weren't joining her her youth, as she understood it.
Because they had some self respect.
Sorry, I just want to understand this a little bit more. I no, this is very nerdy. But so she was studying at Harvard. She was probably starting, I don't know, whatever, Bachelor of Arts, whatever you did, Harvard, right, But the business school is quite specific and there are people of school all ages at.
The How I understand it is I think the business school is a little bit more postgraduate. Yeah, and if you postgraduate, your older, right. So this is for the big dogs who maybe already are running their own business, okay, whereas all the other people are just silly undergrads Harvard yuck. Yeah, So she thought, why not take advantage of this? Well, I can this situation where I've got proximity to these
rich people. She met her husband at twenty when she snuck into a graduate school event, and she fell in love. Rather than get stuck in these discussions about fair and unfair, equal or unequal, she says she preferred instead a thing called ease. Christy rightly points out that every relationship is a transaction, but many read her deal the trade she made as a bad one. Her marriage, where she was younger, more beautiful, he was older, more wealthy, was something those
around her took very personally, for example Holly. Meanwhile, she says young women were bringing up young men, teaching them to floss and do their washing before passing them over to the person they'd marry.
In part of the essay, she talks about how when we see her fifty year old walking down the street with the twenty five year old, mentally make calculations like who got the better deal. Yes, she talks about she went very deliberately to this party. She snuck in. It was, you know, graduates were there, so they were all older than her. She said, I ate for free, I doubts for free, and then one of the organizers asked me
to leave. I called anew but I got into it, and then I got straight out when I saw this guy walk out of the revolving doors. He was thirty. Turns out he was French. She asked him for a cigarette. They went on a date, and she said a really interesting thing. She said, until then, I'd loved men in the way that men usually love women, which is not very well and kind of without a plan because she was twenty. Yeah, and she said, but not this time.
This time, I filled his fridge with his favorite foods. I spoke fondly of my family. I wrote a thank you note to his mum. And basically she played the game. She does say we did fall in love, so it's not like she had to force herself. He was frenchship. But she also said the way a decade year age gap reads is different, Like she said, twenty to thirty
is very different to thirty and forty. And she said that there was a lot of hostility from his friends, and she was once in the bathroom and she heard his female friends sort of saying, what does he see in her?
Yeah, so the transaction feels personal. And also people would look at it and be like, this is a terrible deal.
I know, it's like four yeah.
And ultimately, she writes, there is no brand of feminism which has achieved female rest but what she earned herself by marrying an older, richer man was that she got some time and it alleviated the rush other women feel to climb the corporate ladder while potentially planning a family Holly, she says, she gets to live the life of a writer. She has a lot of leisure time. Her life sounds so aspirational. She has to go on holiday.
Do you regret not marrying an older richer man.
I think Helle's jealous.
That's what it is. I think that's why this feels like a personal attack.
I don't know where to start with you, Stady a therapist about your reaction to this essay. Discuss because I entirely respect her choice to make her choices. But the whole she chooses her choice. The whole a case for marrying an older man. Yeah, the word that isn't in that sentence that needs been there is a rich older man. Is that very much needs to be in there, because you can marry older men, some of them. Any exactly what she's basically bought herself is like a five star
backpacking holiday right. Her twenties have been she says to herself, traveling around the world, living in a beautiful apartment. There's a bit in it where she talks about him showing her where they were going to live, and she said it was like she was introducing myself to me. This is the wine we're going to drink. This is where we live. This is like he is in control of everything they do. It's not their apartment, it's his apartment. She has to ask for the keys to get in
and out. It's his life and she's living in it. And that might work really well for her, But the way that she talks with the sort of disdain about the people she knows who are like messily building a life together or on their own or whatever, is really judgmental because it assumes that everybody wants what she's got, which is like she doesn't want to have a career. I mean, she wants to be a writer, and she's
a beautiful writer. The essay is gorgeous, as one of the reasons it's gone viral, I'm sure, but it's like, I didn't want to have to do the crappy jobs that most people have to do while they work their way to a career that they actually love. I didn't
want to have to do any of that stuff. Well, that's fine for her, but it kind of makes this assumption that we could all by ourselves some ease if we just agreed to hunt down a dude who is going to pay for everything, which I just find regressive and dangerous.
I was trying to summon feelings when I read this, because I was like, this is the piece that's gone viral and everyone's talking about it, and people seem to have really strong feelings about it, and I read it and I could not summon a strong feeling, and I don't know why. Am I broken. I feel like just what she says is kind of obvious, and I don't feel defensive about it. I don't feel incredulous or insulted. It just seems really obvious.
But she doesn't feel, to you, very old fashioned. This is what every movie's ever been about, like older rich man, young beautiful woman. You get to live this life for a while, then he'll probably pass you over for a new model. And she does say that the only time that she gets worried is when she realizes that if he betrayed her and she would have to take a stand, she would lose everything, right like she lose the beautiful
house and the holidays and all those things. She said, she realized that too much work had left my husband by thirty jaded and uninspired. He'd burnt out. But I could re enchant things. I danced at restaurants when they played a song I liked. I turned grocery shopping into an adventure, pleased by what I provided. He needed someone smart enough to sustain his interest, but flexible enough in her habits to build them around his hours. I could,
I do. I make my self free. I materialized beside him when he calls for me.
She is a puppy.
She is a cute puppy, and the puppy will grow into a dog, and then you want another cute puppy where she's not building anything of her own.
Where's the space for meaning in this life? And this is the thing?
Right.
I read this and I went, I know women.
I know.
If I asked them straight up, did you marry that person for money? They would say yes. And I have had a real issue with that and dealt with my own judgment because I've gone it's a transaction. I superficially would go, I know why he married you. You were able to give him more children?
Is in every relationship some kind of transaction.
But the reason why I thought about this, the reason why this transaction riles me is twofold. The first is she's offering advice, and this advice is dangerous. It's regressive, and it has made women miserable for a lot of excus Why is it dangerous because it is telling women You're the one who always.
Says tells a financial plan and everything plan.
And the second reason why this is not a good long term solution is that the issue with finding a man who loves a compliance submissive twenty something year old is when you become a thirty something year old, he probably still wants a compliance submissive twenty something year old.
And then what do you do?
And Taylor Swift's lyrics when she sang about Jillenhall, no I was never good.
It's hell joges, but the Punchland goes, I'll get Oh the butcher lovers staying my.
Age from when you're brother.
Yeah, I say, it's not about the age gap, right. This is what's interesting about this the case for marrying an older man, the age thing is almost irrelevant, except in as much in this is she deliberately wanted someone much more well established so they could look after her.
Right.
So that's the age piece. But as we said, not all older men are rich. And her specific financial thing.
Yeah, and her worldview, she sees it as this very obvious thing, and I don't think she realizes that that dynamic does not exist in every partnership, and in fact, a lot of people are marrying for reasons that are not financial or are not necessarily to do with power. So she's saying basically that within the institution of marriage, women's value is decreasing at the same time that men's
value is increasing, and that happens with eight. She describes it as like a funnel, like women are on this funnel where things are getting slimmer and slimmer and slimmer in terms of opportunities, and men's are getting broader and broader and broader.
But to agree with that, you have to completely discount all of the work that we've been doing in the last fifty years to make women's value a lot more.
Than just value of being a human being. We have thoughts and ideas, and you guys are idealistic. What I thought was interesting.
I commend you for that. It's not a criticism. What I found interesting apart from she just liked the holidays.
Which I mean I would like that.
Lack of friction and the lack of having to strive. To me, it was also about the attraction to someone who was already formed. That was interesting. It meant that the mental labor of having to work out who she was what she liked, having to kiss a lot of frogs, not just in romantic relationships, but like having the wrong jobs, living in the wrong places, like that struggle. He was just further down the road, and she wanted to just
fast track at a decade oudulthood. She wanted to skip the messy part.
But the thing is, and again this is why it might be a perfect choice for her, but the fun is in the figuring it out, like having a life just handed to you on a plate, like this is literally what he did, this is where we live, this is where we're going there. It's lovely for her, but like I can honestly say, with the age in hindsight and even all the difficult times in the skin times, and that that's where the fun is. Like I don't know, it doesn't appeal to me except for five minutes.
On the surface, it seems like she's happy and she's offering advice. If there are a few very very telling lines about there's only so many times you can say thank you to someone, and there was some line about almost being told that you're ungrateful or that you're not being thankful enough sup supportive enough, is code for you're indebted to me.
Because also, if she's writing a novel, unsurprisingly, she's probably going to get big money for it after this viral essay.
If her work does.
Become demanding and she cannot be constantly available to literally materialize beside him when he calls for me, as she says, he's not going to like that. That's not the way it works. No.
I once had a conversation. I was sitting next to this guy at a dinner and he was very wealthy, and he liked the idea of a partner who was kind of like me, like ambitious and feisty and all of that stuff. But when we spoke more, and he wasn't propositioning me or anything, but when we were talking about what he needed from his partner, it was exactly
what you said. It was a kavoodal. Essentially, it was someone a skeleton that they were just really malleable around his life because when he needed to go overseas and play polo or when he needed to he wanted someone who could just drop everything and be with him. But then he was also frustrated by that because he said, I would come home and I'll say to you know, the pretty model, Oh, I'm so stressed at work, and she would go, Babe, just quit, you know, We'll just
move to the South of France and just get high. Yeah, because her life could be that. So she wasn't his intellectual equal, but his intellectual equal was not going to logistically fit in his life.
It's very interesting. It's interesting as why this essay went viral, right, And as I've said, it's a beautifully written personal essay. But to me, it feels part of this whole thing that I'm seeing everywhere I look at the minute about trad wives, stay at home girlfriend's soft girls. I'm not saying that there isn't credence and credibility to what she saying about. When I think of same age, same stage relationships, what I tend to picture as a woman who's doing
too much for too little. That's really interesting, and her point about no view of feminism having ease in it, She's not wrong. I think that all of this sort of yearning for this kind of easy, soft life where someone looks after you is a very understandable reaction to what we're seeing all around us, which is the reality for women is that mostly they're doing everything all the time.
It's the opposite of ease. They've got the job, but they're also taking care of this boy child you know, who is supposed to be their partner, but really isn't doing his like looking after himself and looking after a home and looking after kids, and looking after their extended family and all of those things. It's very understandable that there's like this attractive pull, whether it's through lovely, hazy pictures on Instagram or beautiful essays like this about like
my life is there's time for me. I get to wander around and think thoughts and look.
At flowers and sounds great. But how much agent do you have?
Well? Agency is the most important thing for everybody, it's not and I think that we have to be careful of not projecting our values onto other people. But you know, you know, and mind independent.
It's one of my very highly value.
Yes, to be clear, I agree with you. But where these relationships come unstuck is when kids come along. Because she's able to supplicate her desires, her wants, her needs to him and make him the center of the universe. When a child comes along, suddenly he's not the center of the universe. He goes down on the leaderboard to number two, or at least he should when there's a baby in the house and newborn baby, and that tends to really mess with the dynamic or do they have.
The perfect dynamic for a baby to come along? And in fact, that's why this went viral because the dynamic, it's obvious the baby comes along, very obvious who's going to look after the baby? They have room in that relationship for a baby, whereas it's almost like what she.
Don't know what gives her babying of him?
Well, it is clear that he's the one with the career who gets to go and pursue this.
She's about to get a book deal.
Yeah, I know, but she's playing that down very much because she likes the holidays. But I thought that it was almost saying this approach to life where we just accept gender dynamics as they are. We accept the way that society values women and we play by those rules. Means that I can take my time and then before motherhood, I've had the holidays, I've had the rest, and I'm
ready to look after a baby. If you compare that to the relationship like lucronize relationship, where we're both on this treadmill to work, work, work, work, work, work, work, and then the baby comes, it's like divorce.
What time is it.
You've got two people who are heavily invested in their careers looking at each other going, wait, what was the plan?
Like?
So, I think that's almost what this is a reflection of as.
Well, is that the disillusionment feminism has set up isn't working either, and the fact that this is a reaction to that, to me, that's what's.
But it's not feminism that doesn't work, right, I agree, I know what I was just saying. I think it's a reaction to going hold on, I'm still doing everything. I thought this was going to be a fifty to fifty situation, and it's not. It's not feminism's fault. I love, there's a problem in that fifty to fifty time. The other part of it isn't doing everything.
There's a line in it where she says, when we decided we wanted to be equal to men, we got on men's time. Of course, the problem with that is that if you want to have babies, you turn around and then you've got the mental load of that at thirty. You never get sort of your room of one's own. That kind of women the feminists thought we might half a century ago. I can see how there's something aspirational
about that. But then there was a really good critique which basically said, this is the Republican plan from others, like, this is the conservative plan in the US, And this is my theory exactly. This is my theory about why we're seeing this tradwife, soft girl retreating to the home.
Thing is that one is like a counter cultural reaction to the feminism has got to, but the other is a pushed republican conservative agenda because women aren't having enough babies progressive like in western countries, we're not replacing the population enough, and you're seeing this very unsubtleed messaging which is like women go back home and have more babies, please.
One hundred percent. And it's also what comes from governments whenever they want women to get out of the workforce and make more room for the guys. Like, let's be honest, men are being pushed out of the workforce by smart women, and like, in another generation, women's value in society won't
be how young they look. It just won't be so Please if you want to keep that going, and you want your independence and you want your choices, don't be sucked into this bullshit, unless, of course, you can find a really lovely billionaire.
Actually fair.
Did you enjoy that Out louders, Of course you did. If you want more, there's more. Listen out for more out loud Hot Pod summer episodes wherever you listen to your favorite shows, including exclusive new subscribe episodes that you definitely won't want to miss. You'll find the link in the show notes. And a huge thank you to all our current subscribers.