Deconstructing Good Girl Expectations with Michelle Minnkin

Transcript

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I did not need anybody to help me to do anything, because I could do it all myself and I could have anything I wanted. And I could be anyone, anything I wanted. And we know that's absolute nonsense, though, because nobody can do anything all by themselves. And it was a point where in my life, I recall the thought of asking somebody for help, or admitting that I was absolutely struggling, or draw the tumor, you know? And that's the total question. So the more that we come together and talk about this stuff, and the more that we share each other's experiences and understand each other, the better.

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As your hand if you've been a good girl, if you've been reluctant to negotiate a pay rise, or you've chosen a career to please parents, or you say sorry, a lot, even when it's the other person's fault, where you do the sort of mental gymnastics to avoid conflict, or you find yourself always seeking approval. Well, welcome back.

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You're on the unset work podcast. I'm your host, Catherine Stagg Macy, an executive and team coach.

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Interesting, the conversations that we don't have at work, and I think good girl programming fits right in there. And I've done all those things. At some point. I mean, heck, I did a computer science degree because it was what my father wanted, might wanted to do psychology and he said, it wasn't a real degree and karate, he was quite prescient about the state of where computers were going. And that's what he encouraged me to do. So I did it because I was the good girl. So when we say Good girl, like what comes to mind, it's the quiet girl compliance, pretty girl to take care of others and don't cause trouble. I think that's a stereotype. But there's a lot of truth in that. And it's really rooted in our expectations, society's expectations of how women should be how should we show up what small lines should we be filling in between and the role that we should be playing so this is where I impact my guest this week. Michelle Milliken choose over the book, good girl deprogramming. And so we get into the performative aspect of International Woman's Day likability versus credibility. And that's such a tightrope that you have to walk, there's a woman at work, we get into systems of oppression or capitalism, patriarchy, misogyny, of created expectations of woman, we'll look at the implications of traditional dating practices as well. Because, you know, after all, we're just human beings.

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And there's the fragility of masculinity and how the dynamics of power seem to be shifting in the world that we live in today.

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So we even go so far as to what the which wound, which was a fairly new concept to me. So, stay with me, let's go listen into our conversation with Michelle Milliken.

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Michelle, welcome to unsettle work. Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited about our conversation, I can tell it's always going to be awesome.

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We can keep it under an hour so we can get to your next meeting.

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So you you actually literally wrote the book on good girl deprogramming. Let's start with your kind of journey to even knowing that you were a good girl. Well, interestingly, so my background, I'm an organizational psychologist, if I go, I should have known all of this stuff, but I didn't. So it wasn't until I had my ADHD diagnosis. And I got really cross. So I got some really good therapy and counseling. And I was able to figure out like, kind of the ADHD parts of me and the me parts of me. And there was something else. I was like, oh, for felucca more like, you know, understand the ADHD and how my brain works. But there's still all of these things where you put me in front of a medical professional, and I turned into, like, just Can I advocate for my own medical needs? No. Like, I'm much better before. But I just wanted my son's teachers to like me, just like so many weird reactions with like people in authority and not liking conflict and loads of bits and pieces like that. So I was like, What is this? At the same time it was having that what is this thing I was asked to do a Learning and Development Conference in America. It was like a day for about empowered women. And I was like, oh, I want to do something about this good girl conditioning. So it's just something I'd like Lynne to buy it. I was like, yes, we'll do that. And because it was almost like we can talk about this good girl conditioning. So it's all the ways that women girls are trained from birth, to be nice, to be kind, to share, to smile, to spend inordinate amounts of times not to try and look as pretty as you possibly can make up hair, shaving all of that stuff. And I was like, Well, how did this happen? How do we get this way? And I just so happened in my research of how did that happen to come across a chart of coercion by a chap called Albert vitamins American social scientist in the 1950s. The US military really concerned that so many prisoners of wars during the Korean War were defecting to China and this was All kinds of the time where the communism was the most scary thing in the whole wide world for the Americans and the Americans. Military top brass thought that the Chinese had some magical brainwashing machine that got all of these prisoners of war to defect to Communist China. And Albert and his team analyzed and had loads of conversations with loads of the prisoners of war to find out what actually happened in these concentrating on this concentration of these prisoners, the torture, prisoners, say your words, Michel, prisoners of war camp.

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And they figured out that there was all of these coercive control methods that we use, so not necessarily even violence, but just the threat of violence, isolation, making them completely dependent on their captors, etc, etc. And I was like, Oh, this is interesting.

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It's approaching it with a really curious mind, printed it off within half an hour. I had literally, oh, so this is this is what happens to women on every single one of the nine tools. And I was like, and this stuff is used in torture in domestic violence in really toxic relationships. But here we are. Oh, so yeah, did the talk. And then it wouldn't go away. Like, oh, I'm just gonna write the book then. So here I am, having written the book that really came out of personal exploration of I noticed that part of me but not other parts of me. What is this people pleasing part that can't advocate for herself? Yeah, then here we are. Wow. Yeah. And all of those cycles of burnout because it was pretty everybody in the whole wide world, in front of me.

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was paused. So you have people listening can cannot they're not their heads. How would you say the good girl manifest, you've touched on a bit of it. So some of it's about not making a fuss, being nice. Any sort of other telltale signs just to hook it in for our listeners.

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If you look at the site, it's really prevalent because I've just only just come back from a doing a good girl deprogramming workshop, and we talk about good girl at work. And at work is really prevalent. So you could be like a badass outside of work, but at work you there is that professionalism that you're expected to toe the line. And alongside that comes up people pleasing, comes that putting a little emoji in your emails, because God forbid, somebody might miss diagnose, your email has been like bitchy, and how we're like, completely perfectionistic. So this is why we do really well at school because we're good at preparing.

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And we're good at doing our homework. And we're good at adapting our own selves to the preferences of those people in authority. The good girl conditioning actually serves us in school in sort of universities, college environments, but as soon as you hit the workplace, then those same skills that we've learned in order to navigate the world really come back to bite us in the butt. So we're having to work extra just to make sure that everything is perfect, going out of our way to not have conflict, and just smiling and waving when nodding and cringing when you see people behaving badly, because it's not supposed to address it at all. It's just all of that stuff is good girl programming. A specific version of people pleasing, people pleasing is a part of it. So there's more it's bigger than people pleasing. If you think about it, there'll be reason boy babies, we have to be kept pretty psyched out. I hate seeing hairbands on bald babies.

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So as a ball baby ball baby in troubles too. And proud of it.

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You see them with little like clips their hair. And while they're in like headbands, to put headbands on babies cranky roses, that that stuff is literally like pliable. And how the girl children were like told to be careful. Whereas colleagues peers at school boys will be boys like rough and tumble that's but that's not appropriate for girls. So it's all of those messages that we get from the cradle to the grave about what is ladylike and what is appropriate for girls. So that's why we find it harder to take risks. And we find it harder to be brave, and wing it because it's not how we've been raised. Or there's costs to us of being brave or getting it wrong, that are different, what you're saying are different to those of men who've taken a risk and it didn't work out. Yep.

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This is that notion of the glass cliff. So we've all heard of the glass ceiling. But the glass cliff is where women are put into precarious leadership positions that are doomed to fail. And no way a man could ever, ever have that. The most recent example of that is Theresa May there was no way on earth she could succeed in that position. David Cameron came in and like, screwed the pooch. She had to come in try and pick the pieces up. She failed spectacularly. Oris came along and did worse, but he's somehow forgiven. Yeah, the history history rather different narrative. I mean, we were more obsessed with her shoes. Yeah.

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And what she was wearing than we ever were worried about his haircut, or his crumpled lack of brushing his hair. Yeah, crumpled clothes, and just the standards that we expect our women and our girls to uphold.

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So you look at Hillary Clinton, and once she was branded as a nasty woman that was it for it, wasn't it? It seems so tedious to have to talk about this, but it's still the truth, right? The bossy. Like the worst thing you could be labeled as, as a woman in the workplace is bossy. Yeah, we're a bitch. Yeah, we're a bit. Yeah. And they come fast.

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Those labels come very fast and quick, and then you can't, it's impossible to shake off in my experience. No. So that's the good girl Double Bind, where you expect it to be both likeable, and credible. But if you're too likable, your credibility suffers. And if you're not likeable enough, then your credibility suffers because you're a bitch. Nobody listens to us. So it's everybody's expectations of women are different as well. So what's what's acceptable for one person is not acceptable for the next person. So we spend so much time effort and energy trying to adapt ourselves to suit the other person. Well, we know this one doesn't like doesn't like me waffling on, so I have to be really quick. Or this one likes the context, or this one just likes figures. It's, it's exhausting. Men have to do this.

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Yeah, all that emotional background they ever have of presenting yourself so you're palatable to the person in front of you. I keep thinking of this conversation. It's a little left field, but there's a I think it must have been an Instagram.

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There's a 1000s of the similar one. It's a young girl in a bar.

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And some guy wants to buy a drink. She said, No, thanks. Oh, what's wrong with you? He says, Once you a little bitch. She's like, No, I just don't want to drink from you. I mean, it's a social context. But it is this expectation that we're living up to some standard of pliable amenable going along with what he wants, not what she wants.

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Yeah. And then that person will only back off if somebody announces that this this is my woman. This is my property.

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Yeah, I've got a boyfriend.

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That's the only thing that I get, isn't it? Yeah. So yes, I belong to somebody else. Because not that long ago, we were actual property. We didn't have our own rights. We belong to our dads until our husbands came along to take them off our hands of our dads hands and make money out of it. Oh, yeah, absolutely.

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So there's, I mean, they have a name for this patriarchy in in all of this, obviously, as well, which is a system of oppression, like, what strategies What hope do we have in navigating what we're born into? I think it's awareness. So many people go through the lies without any kind of awareness of this thing.

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And patriarchy harms everybody, not just not just the women, it harms everybody because there's expectations how what masculine looks like what male leadership looks like, god forbid a man cries and the whole world like literally will come to a stop because Oh, man showing emotion but it's perfectly fine for a man to show emotion at football match.

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So it's everybody is harmed by patriarchy, apart from the one or two. Your Elon Musk's?

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Pretty much.

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Harvard doesn't take billionaires. Yeah. Is is pretty nuts. But yeah, it's capitalism as well, yes. Because capitalism would not function without the unpaid labor of women across the globe. On average, I think it's three and a half hours per day extra work that women do, then their meals. And on top of that, I think the value of unpaid labor is three times the total cost of the tech industry. Wow, trillions. And this was a this wasn't this is not just something I'm making. It's an Oxfam thing. But if we were paid for the work that we did, both in actual work, and outside of work, even if you don't have a family, you're still expected to be a good daughter or sister caring responsibilities. Yeah, so yeah, all of that and then the non promotable tasks that we have to put up with at work, making sure that everybody's okay. And a friend of mine pointed out to me years ago about I think she did her master's and she talked about the emotional labor that we choose to take on often. Because I think often as women our self worth is tied up in being in that role. So making sure everyone's okay in the meeting, you're not I mean, I think we're past the point of making coffee but there's the emotional truth and care you know, in the world I hang up but I'm sure what happens out there somewhere. It's like the one trick for it is sit as far away from the coffee if you're the only going to be the only woman in the thing sit as far away from the coffee as you possibly can. So they don't look at you and look at the coffee and look and look expectantly at you, to Gabi to people to get away with that with me but but you know, there are younger people listening to this without necessarily our experience or gumption, I suppose, my age when I have to lose a lot. And I'm not in an organization where I'm trying to come across a moment in hierarchy that I'm trying to play with nice to so I get the promotion. So I'm seen as the main one, I just want acknowledge the privilege of being on the outside. And it's exhausting. Like every day, it's for tea, whose birthday sit next how we sent this who's got an appointment? Who needs to be where have World Book days, like the worst? Are our children, appropriately attired? Because if not, they will be judged. And it's like buyers a woman, there's a lot of our own judgments in terms of self judgments. So one of there's a really cool quote in the book because I can't remember what it is like exactly the words that you said, it's you'll have to read the book and find it. Good pitch for the book. They talk about the most successful part of coercive control is because you end up internalizing it and the control.

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It's so interesting to think of coercive control, in a quote, normal context, we have some awareness and nowadays of how because of corrosion can work in a in an intimate relationship.

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And then how, how easy it happens to people, you wouldn't have thought it happens to you.

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And here we are in the workplace doing the same thing to ourselves and each other.

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It's scary. Yeah, we didn't do us ourselves. So we were keeping ourselves small, and putting everybody else before ourselves.

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And then we are judging other women that aren't doing the same. So that internalized misogyny sort of playing the game. I've always had the bosses I've had the biggest issue where we're female, could probably sit for an hour and a therapy couch to unpack some of that. But I think some of this plays into into what this conversation is about. Like, in my early career, women in front of me were very much on the plane, the credibility card over the likability card, like no one like I didn't like them either.

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And they were mean nasty. And but I think the view was that's how the only way they could get ahead at that time. Yeah, so adopting those male leadership traits. Yes. Women if harshly judged for having the problem with the world is it's so out of balance. It needs that masculine and that feminine to balance itself out. You ask a roomful of people, what does leadership look like? And it's all sort of the masculine traits. It's like assertiveness and dominance and competitiveness, and all evaluating and Yang gender, and what what does what is feminine leadership? And how do we bring aspects of both into us that and have a leadership style that's actually authentically us, rather than what somebody has decided that what good leaders look like?

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What's the practical advice you have for people navigating this in the workplace? So we talked about awareness as the first step, right? I think, yeah. What comes after that? Gathering the women?

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At some point in our history, who would have thought or right when you say it that way?

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The Coven did that's the problem, isn't it? So there's so much I think, we forget that.

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Not that many generations to go.

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If a woman stepped out of place, everybody would point out and say she was a witch. We've been to nga been at the stake. So this sort of notion of the witch wound, that if we put our head above the parapet, somebody will point it at us, and we'll end up being burned on the stake. Is it still in our psyche? So yeah, gather the women because at one point, we weren't allowed to, and talk about this stuff.

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Because there's so much one of the one of the tools of coercion is all about isolation and making a super self sufficient.

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So I was raised to be like, independent, I did not need anybody to help me to do anything, because I could do it all myself and I could have anything I wanted. And I could be anyone, anything I wanted.

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And we know that's absolute nonsense. No, because nobody can do anything, all by themselves.

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And it was a point where in my life, I recall the thought of asking somebody for help, or admitting that I was absolutely struggling, I'd rather tumor your arm off. And that's that's a tough question. So the more that we come together and talk about this stuff, and the more that we share each other's experiences understand each other the better so it's it's awareness each other Yeah, we can see each other in each other's stories. Like I recognize that the pain of asking for help in a way how you say that I recognize that a lot.

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And I was rewarded for being independent, self sufficient.

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seem smart, gutsy, all that kind of stuff. So yeah, who was I would have failed to ask for help. I was failing in some way.

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Yeah. Don't show any weakness.

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Yeah, isolation, causes that isolation and that divide and conquer strategy of I describe a meme in the book, where it's, it's like a king with a with one of And then members of court or whatever. And he says something along the lines, it was like a cartoon, it's like, all you have to do to lead is persuade that the pitchfork people that the torch people want to take the pitchforks off them. And that's what we do with women, as well, we've put against each other, because historically, there might have been room for one female on the board. So it was a fight, fight almost to the death to get that, because to get that position to progress, the extra money and the power and all that stuff that goes along with it.

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And these women looked at what male masculine leadership looks like, and adopted those traits out men men, and became absolute horrible people to work for because they weren't when we could tell we're animals. We know when somebody's not being authentically themselves, as well. So you won't trust that person who were you with putting on such a front to be in that position? I think about the female bosses I'm thinking about if you fall in those categories, like they were like, Now, I didn't know that anger is high.

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But like shells of themselves, like the aliens have taken over.

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Like they would just this robotic on some sort of program.

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Robotic is a good word because like no harm, or compassion or empathy or kindness or anything.

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No, but they were doing what they needed to survive in the world they did themselves in Yeah, they did think there's some collective forgiveness of those horrible female bosses that we all had. needed. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, we need to understand what happened, or the context they were operating in, and the and the history that they were born out of. And it's 2024. And we can see those of us in different positions of power.

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Now I can do things differently, somewhat differently. choose our own path, gather the woman, which makes me think of the BBC program, the witches that I think we spoke about, we call it that in the show notes. Yeah, cuz there's lots of other, as you say, the psychic wound of what we did the witches. With, with the descendants of the people that pointed their fingers. Yes, true. Cold.

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On our hands lies about all the witches. Yeah, that's very true.

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Yeah. So no baronetage, gather the women and then call in everyone else. Because if you think about it in the world, men have more power than we do. We need to just stop trying to, again, this independence, we need to try and fix this problem on the room. It's like, no, no, no, we need men to understand what this looks like for us and how they can be good allies and how they can support us and how they can help us and how they can get rid of those masculine, toxic masculine traits. Because that's how we heal the planet.

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It makes me want to ask you what you think of International Women's Day, which happened last week.

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Don't hold back on my LinkedIn I just had, it was interesting, because I was very grateful.

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Because of using fat, I was able to sell to my good guilty programming workshops, which is really interesting. So there's like a mixture of gratitude. But it's on the other side, it was just like blowing raspberries like it's so performative. Like one day do, we will out some women and say, Look what good what good companies we are, because it feels like it's just been completely pink washed, performative, taken over by companies. And I was, I was a bit a bit devastated by the lack of the gender pay gap bought this year on Twitter, that like, in the last two years, when any company would say, oh, International Women's Day, we've got Sandra here. She's the only woman that has ever graced our board. Look how exciting what opportunities you could have in this country in this in this company. And then the gender pay gap would retweet it with this company has a gender pay gap of 17%. So that was like really a really good public service, shall we say? Yeah, it didn't happen this year. It didn't happen this year. I was like, Oh, is this like is this the day and I went and probably probably because Twitter's not a completely broken and Yeah, shut off. I'm banned or something like that. Yeah. And I'm I'm hoping I was relying on the unpaid labor of some woman Yes.

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Today as well. Yeah. Yeah, there we go again. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I find I got tagged a few few people in their posts of International Woman's Day like Charlottesville in my life and ungracious.

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It's very kind but like, What the actual fuck are we doing?

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Like 365 days a year we have one day I mean, it just speaks this whole imbalance that you're listing this year we got 66 So leave here we can even less. So when you say like the third step was call the others in It feels like this point is of generalizing here. But we were at the sort of the gathering.

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The woman having female empowerment conferences. I am in them per word and power makes me makes me want to mix my spine.

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do weird things. And it's something maybe you can help me get through. Like there's a there's a dilemma I have I understand the power of gathering people like you to talk about the struggles that you face. But then there's a way you do it in a way that that just wheel spins, and you don't get out of Yep, you have no way of getting out. Yeah. So so many of these we all go we gather the women we go to replace we do all of this happy, clappy, yay. And then nothing changes. It's one of the things we used to get into trouble with all the time at work is like, yeah, yeah, yeah, we've stopped talking about and what can we do?

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Like, we just do stuff. So if you think about work, the modern concept of, and there's lots of different types of work. So I'm going to massively generalize here that go to the office to do the thing. Work was invented by men for men. So men like George banks, he was able to skip off down the road to the bank in Mary Poppins investigation and get that reference.

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He was able to leave the house, go to work, concentrate on him self and his career, and then almost totally forget, he has a family, and then trips off home and expected like to see his children, give them a pat on the bit on the head and send them off to bed as the song goes.

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That's how work was set up. But then, when women started coming into the workplace, we were strangers there, because it wasn't set up for us. And we couldn't just simply leave our lives at the door. So we need to redesign work that works for everybody. This is probably BB like completely pie in the sky hopeful. So women are cyclical, we have monthly seasons. So part of the month that sits like winter for us part of them and spring, summer, autumn. And we cannot perform constantly, and we try to we literally we are cyclical animals and our energy changes on a weekly basis. Or worse, if you're going through menopause.

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Some days, sometimes the month you can work, you work 12 hours, you are energetic, then you go dancing. And other times women, like an hour is too much. We need to be able to and this isn't a completely utopian world, we need to be able to choose how to use our energy, because it's weird that it's like time based. Why is work time based, I have to give you 40 hours of my time every week, it doesn't make any sense. It's like would you just rather have like, a certain percentage of my energy to do this a certain number of tasks or it's, it's setup wrong, it doesn't make any sense. I was listening to Cal Newport, he wrote deep work being interviewed on another podcast. And he was talking about the productivity and how how out of date, the word productivity is for knowledge workers, because it has been defined by bushels from the field like and then how many bushels you were getting out of the field. And now we use presence as a proxy, how long you're on the email how long you're in the office is a proxy to productivity means it's completely false, which is what you're talking about from a different lens. When I was still menstruating, I was fully signed up to the male way of working, so completely overrode my cycles. But I now work with younger women who are more awake. And I'm more willing to talk about these things. And to the extent that they can, we'll choose different activities. And I mean, I can never remember which way it is, but you're choosing to start certain projects at certain times of the month, because you have more energy. That's just after Yeah, it's just after your period. So that's when your energy is rising. And that I mean, that concept for me was like mind blowing, and I can only I mean, God knows what I would have achieved had have had I been way aware of that and to manage that. And I mean, do we make it out to be the female cycle? I think as humans, we have cycles.

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I think Katherine Ray's book on wintering is a great reminder that we have periods of wintering that have nothing to do with the season outside the window. In their wintering, it's grieving, it's letting go with some sort of change or something like that. lost a loved one, how do you show up at work when you can put your face at work, but you're not showing up in the way that you fully count on how to be acknowledged in terms of redesigning work because I fully fully signed up for your your token to totally redesign the way work is right.

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Well, to be fair, it couldn't be any worse than how it is now. So no, I think you know, the bar is low. And the burnout that I see in USC as well like from from a system that's not set up for to honor the humaneness of us know that I can't remember the exact figures, but for every child Older women has their pay drops by a percentage. For every child a man has their pay increases by a percentage. Wow, Psych word.

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I've not heard that stat before.

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That's yeah, it's sobering. And I just get so annoyed and pissed off at 2024. We still have to have these sort of conversations. And the data is out there to prove it all. Yeah, I've got a friend who's created like the chair campaign. So I was talking to her yesterday, lady called Let's Miss Crutchley, who runs a company called Orange orchid, I think, and she's got this chair campaign. So it looked at all of the footsie 100 to see how many of those still call the chair, their chair, man. And she's going to be writing to them all to say to you, I want to change the job title just to chair just to make it gender neutral.

00:30:48.299 --> 00:30:55.680
Because how many how many women would go oh, well, this got man in the title. I might not apply.

00:30:52.049 --> 00:30:56.099
Did she have the number for that?

00:30:57.269 --> 00:31:09.150
30 something out of the top footsie still have Chairman, Chairman of the Board, chairman of the board, so yes, it's no longer Mr. Banks this time. And in Mary Poppins is 2024.

00:31:10.470 --> 00:31:12.630
Well, as we as we like to reclaim it.

00:31:14.759 --> 00:31:57.690
So what advice do you have for people in male dominated industries, what I think is a lot of my, my listeners and super tech sector, which is still surprisingly male dominated, about having a voice and speaking up and not falling into the teeth of bossy bitch, it is difficult. So there are ways that we do undermine ourselves some things, we try and minimize the language be really apologetic. Do you recall, during COVID, the emails, I can't remember the lady's calls. So she was trying to put forward to say that the protection equipment wasn't wasn't suitable and making hope you don't think I'm nagging you?

00:31:54.000 --> 00:32:10.710
Or you're working literally the top of your field, and you're still having to put these softeners sort of Yeah, it's exhausting. So it's all like, look for that. And stop it.

00:32:05.789 --> 00:32:10.710
Yeah, pack it in. Yeah.

00:32:12.930 --> 00:32:54.329
I do it. Somebody called me out the other day, my business coach, I was writing an email and is it put in, so the day to day and she's like, it just takes the power out of what you're saying, you're like, I use the word so as a perfect thing to sentences. And it's like, Oh, my God, I'm doing the thing. So just listeners can normalize this. It's, it's, it's so pervasive in how we speak and how we undermine ourselves. The other thing I heard the other day was, what I want to do is like, does that make sense? We did that stay the work, or whatever, do that? Because that will make sense. Am I making sense? Yes, it's my is my brain like, it's my brain working? You know, that's even worse. Like, am I making sense?

00:32:54.329 --> 00:32:59.309
Like, because there's assumptions I might not be was, yeah, count how many times you've seen a male counterpart?

00:32:59.309 --> 00:33:13.109
Ask if it makes sense. Yeah. And it's just sort of take just so I'm just getting in touch. Sorry to be a nag. You know, sorry. Is apologizing as well. Right.

00:33:08.759 --> 00:33:17.519
Apologizing? Sorry. Sorry, I'm late. Sorry to interrupt you.

00:33:13.109 --> 00:33:17.519
Sorry to bump this up. Yeah.

00:33:17.579 --> 00:33:19.140
Sorry. You just hit me with your car.

00:33:21.089 --> 00:33:24.359
We literally apologize. Way more than Monday. Yeah. I find Yes.

00:33:24.359 --> 00:33:35.279
That's yeah. I'm sorry. Oh, I was once actually on delivering a future leaders like workshop.

00:33:30.119 --> 00:34:16.079
And I was the sort of external person brought in to do the, to do the workshop. But there was a call, first of all, where we've talked like a little bit, tell me something interesting about yourself. And every single one of those young leaders. I'm a bit boring. I'm just a bit boring. There's nothing really special about me. I've got a cat. And I say, No, you are a miracle. There's like your 27 times great grandparents have to meet each other and survive the bubonic plague in order to procreate for you to be in this room, which is like, Absolutely, mathematically huge. So to find yourself interesting. My therapist said that he wants he said, Why do you keep cutting your hair? And like I don't know, he says, because you don't find yourself interesting.

00:34:17.130 --> 00:34:18.239
I'm going for the witchy look.

00:34:23.010 --> 00:34:43.860
It's still still like socially acceptable to have long hair and you've bought five. You know what I mean? Oh, I think it's I went through a dating hellhole that anyone's on my email list has been bored to death with but I was told by I mean, she got a matchmaker and she said to me, because the dating sites went waiting. She said, Well, I think you need to grow your hair. That was her advice.

00:34:44.909 --> 00:34:48.030
She needs to read my book. Can we send her a call? So great.

00:34:51.449 --> 00:35:23.969
Some guerilla marketing, and then she also said I was a bit what was it? I forget the phrasing, but I'll paraphrase it I was a bit bolshy. Essentially, I've collected The down little sitting in the beginning says not to scare the men off and I'm like, well, they can because we're afraid they can fuck off. If they find one interaction really scary then you should imagine spending six months dating the one that's gonna be like, it's like rages and this is from someone paid to them in her 60s And I think deeply sucked it down the hole of misogyny and determinism.

00:35:20.039 --> 00:35:48.780
Yeah, I better reading the book of rules, isn't it for dating, which is like, don't like from the 18 Wellness? It feels like it's from the 1800s like you have to let the man chase you like Jesus Christ who can be bothered with like game playing but that feels like it's written by Andrew taze us who's currently in facing court judges the dirt I mean, that's toxic mess and and you will over and over and over.

00:35:45.119 --> 00:35:51.420
Yeah, my son actually said to me that you had little dick energy.

00:35:48.780 --> 00:35:51.420
I love it.

00:35:54.150 --> 00:35:54.929
It's 14.

00:35:56.610 --> 00:36:01.920
Little Dick energy. So I was explaining what big dick energy was. He's like, Oh, well, little dick. Energy is under data.

00:36:05.159 --> 00:36:05.969
That's adorable.

00:36:07.170 --> 00:36:08.340
That'll take energy. Yeah.

00:36:11.550 --> 00:36:53.429
Pretty hassling me, it's almost like in sell stuff. And there's been loads of like, articles over the last couple of years complaining men complaining, that's in the olden days, pretty much you were guaranteed a wife, and didn't have to do very yesterday, very little, you just have to have a job. And you get a wife, so yay for you. But now, we don't necessarily need a man to support us. We get our own damn jobs. And we live longer actually, for single, which is hilarious as part of the unraveling of the Google programming, right, is that the power is changing. And I think there's a fragility in some men's sense of their masculinity. Because the yes, the ground is shifting underneath you. Yes, it is.

00:36:53.610 --> 00:37:08.429
Yeah, he's not gonna stick any effort and you have to do any development of yourself. And you don't have to open your eyes and understand what it's like to be a woman. But now you actually have to, because you're just gonna get left on the shelf.

00:37:08.460 --> 00:37:10.650
These men get left on the shelf.

00:37:08.460 --> 00:37:14.280
So they're just gonna have to have cats is what what do you say to us? I was this thing.

00:37:14.579 --> 00:37:15.960
Sounds really lovely and left handed.

00:37:17.699 --> 00:37:21.480
So a dog had a great time. Thank you.

00:37:22.829 --> 00:37:29.099
It's like, You're threatening me with being on my own and having my own piece? And animals? Yeah.

00:37:30.690 --> 00:37:52.349
Dating if one last thing on the dating thing. Somebody said to me, and I think it's completely sums it up at a certain age of which I am. If you're on the dating scene, the competition is not for my attention. It's not another man. It's my peace of mind. I don't think we see it that clearly until you're older.

00:37:52.710 --> 00:38:01.440
It's not how I would have seen it in my 20s. I think it's changed. I think thankfully, the women that are following us age wise not actually following Yes.

00:37:59.219 --> 00:38:01.440
That would be weird.

00:38:02.699 --> 00:38:05.460
Following your calling the woman ends so who knows?

00:38:06.929 --> 00:38:14.280
Like shit, that woman's follow me again. But yeah, the the the younger women, they have a lot more of this than we did said.

00:38:14.280 --> 00:38:22.619
You mean back to my point about about tracking their cycles and working with that, like that's what kind of blows my mind about more self awareness.

00:38:24.059 --> 00:38:43.139
standards. Standards. Yeah, we just wanted somebody to like us, but yes, yeah, we got it with you. Yeah, that's a problem. No, no, I want to fight back for the sake of woman but it can't. Yeah, standards. Yeah.

00:38:43.500 --> 00:39:13.050
So let's let's end with some it's like a shout out. And a rah rah for the book has been out since November last year. You've had some great stories. I mean, in my day, I mean, testimonies are one thing, but actually stories about how it's changed people's lives. Tell us some of those. So we've had two women who realized that they were in toxic environments or working for companies that just were completely against their values, and they both left their jobs.

00:39:09.150 --> 00:39:40.469
We've had one of my friends, former colleague, who always used to be immaculate. She's still immaculate, but she stopped she has let she's less than the immaculate nurse and she stopped having her nails done because she didn't like having the nails done. But she just thought she had to because of she was a senior professional in an organization. And she stopped caring what people thought about her as much and has bought the car of her dreams, but just so happens to be a bright red noisy Mustang.

00:39:40.980 --> 00:39:54.599
Which ghazals gaslight was no tomorrow because she doesn't care what people think, when she used to really care what people think. And another one who, who realized after reading the book that Christmas is hard.

00:39:54.630 --> 00:40:16.409
Christmas is hard for women anyway, because you know, we're expected to do extra labor in a time of the year that we're not So we're not the most productive this, this is like, quiet time, this should be why we have the biggest ramp up to Christmas, it just makes no sense. Anyway. So she was like, I want to go home, I don't get him Christmas, I'm gonna take myself off on my own on the cruise around the Caribbean.

00:40:19.079 --> 00:41:34.320
There's so many of these stories that they find their ways to me, which is lovely. But yes, I must be so inspiring to see the work and it hasn't been I mean, that isn't meaning that long than the books been out there that to hear those stories of, of the impact of the work. So what what next for this work or this body of work this line of thinking for you in this work? So I'm create like, Are you a good girl quiz, just so we're tired? We're busy. We don't have time to read a whole book. So I create the quiz to figure out what parts of the book history first should hear word but which you could if you choose to, to read first and that's on the website right there, which it is shown it's yes. And that was great. And then I've been starting to do some good girl deprogramming workshops and organizations. And I was thinking that quiz doesn't quite work for those good girl in organization. So I've created a new quiz because I've got, I like quizzes. I'm a psychologist, quizzes, a fun, new quiz. It's a good girl at work quiz, which I'm currently testing out. So watch this space on that one. What's the idea of the good girl at work? Quiz? So it looks at all the symptoms of Good girl, good girl at work. So it's all like perfectionism and people pleasing and boundaries and should help you identify which of those you're Yeah.

00:41:30.900 --> 00:41:34.320
Which ones are versions of that?

00:41:34.320 --> 00:41:38.880
Yeah. Okay. And so book number two, I'm doing these workshops.

00:41:38.880 --> 00:41:41.340
Now people are telling me stuff.

00:41:38.880 --> 00:42:06.360
But number two is literally writing itself. So I was going to work with my partner to do a different book about everybody through those good students and good employee things. But that's gonna have to wait because this good girl at work book is desperately needed. Man as having you on the podcast is demonstrating to you on another podcast have a mutual friend of ours, which is how I got to hear about your work to start with.

00:42:03.150 --> 00:42:25.739
Yeah, yeah. And that Gloria Steinem quote, like women are never going to be equal outside of the home until women are equal in the home so that the men do the helping, and their fair share, too. So it's, it's like how do we do that? It's an ambitious task. how things change worlds. Yes, my Christmas so fine.

00:42:27.690 --> 00:42:46.949
But one that I said you have a lot of energy and a lot of passion for Yeah, I appreciate you coming on the podcast and getting an inspiring us and waking some people up to what's going on for their colleagues if they're a man or themselves if they're women. And they can find out all about your quiz. And the book on the website, which is going to be in the show notes.

00:42:46.949 --> 00:42:52.409
So I'm creating a new podcast so so watch this space. I keep saying in the spring, I'm like, shit, it's really spring.

00:42:54.000 --> 00:42:56.309
Like the chips aren't up yet. So not technically spring.

00:43:00.269 --> 00:43:08.849
Well, I look forward to hearing that podcast and seeing what you what you get up through with his work. Yeah. Thanks for your time myself. Thanks for having me.

00:43:05.940 --> 00:43:13.440
It's been lovely to get to know you a bit and all of the books that you've recommended, like I was just written the other one down, like I need to be dealt with.

00:43:20.070 --> 00:44:02.789
What really shocked me about a conversation and this is in Michelle's work was this idea that the tactics of coercive control are how we keep women in check. And how us as women keep each other in check. Yeah, it's horrifying to see just even use that word in this context of Mattel was very generous in their solutions. The idea of awareness and gathering in the woman and then Kettering in everywhere else. It seems simple, but like most these things is pretty hard to act. I said it's just start with awareness. You know, a small bed radical act that sort of shifts the dynamics in the system of oppression and awareness. Like we're so much we can be at choice. So until next week, this is your wing woman signing off.