[00:16] Meg: Welcome to Desperately Seeking the '80s. I am Meg.

[00:19] Jessica: And I am Jessica. And Meg and I have been friends since 1982. We got through middle school and high school together here in New York City where we still live.

[00:28] Meg: And where we podcast about New York City in the '80s. I do ripped from the headlines.

[00:34] Jessica: And I do pop culture.

[00:36] Meg: Jessica, we had so much engagement this week, I can't even address all of it. There's so much.

[00:43] Jessica: I'm very excited to hear it.

[00:45] Meg: Okay, first of all, the first thing actually isn't engagement. It's just something I discovered. Cathy Park Hong wrote this incredible book called Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning. And I recognized it from our bookshelf, because Joe has read it, and I saw it when I was just sort of googling Theresa Cha. Well, turns out Cathy Park Hong had a whole chapter on Theresa Cha, which, oh, I so wish I had read before I did my piece. Fortunately, she says all the things that I discovered, she just says it more eloquently, and it would have saved me a lot of time. But anyway. And she's got a lot of insight, but she did have a couple of things to say that I didn't know about that will help the story. First of all, the curator, Valerie Smith, actually says that Theresa left the artist's space at 04:00 which changes the timeline and makes it much more feasible.

[01:47] Jessica: Okay.

[01:47] Meg: Like, before, the timeline was so tight and weird, and now actually, that makes it all make sense. Also, Joey Sanza knew Theresa and Richard, and he killed her because she could identify him. Duh.

[02:03] Jessica: Wait, she could identify him him because. Oh, oh, he didn't kill the others.

[02:07] Meg: Exactly.

[02:09] Jessica: Oh, my God. Okay.

[02:13] Meg: And Cathy says one other thing that I think is really interesting. She is upset that scholars often say that Theresa was killed instead of murdered and raped because she says, as an Asian woman, she feels it's important to not sanitize what happened. That that's kind of an erasure that leads to forgetting.

[02:33] Jessica: Mm hmm.

[02:34] Meg: I'm paraphrasing what she said, but I agree.

[02:37] Jessica: Right?

[02:37] Meg: Interesting.

[02:38] Jessica: Okay, words count.

[02:40] Meg: Next. My friend Laura, she knows tons of fun facts about Brian Eno. Guess why?

[02:48] Jessica: Why?

[02:48] Meg: Because she creates crossword puzzles. In fact, she had one in The Washington Post last Wednesday. Eno is very useful in a crossword puzzle.

[02:59] Jessica: I love that.

[03:00] Meg: So guess what a fun fact about Brian Eno is. He wrote the Windows startup music.

[03:08] Jessica: Are you kidding me right now?

[03:09] Meg: No.

[03:10] Jessica: First off, of course he did. That makes total sense. And oh, my God, why doesnt everybody know that?

[03:17] Meg: Now they do.

[03:19] Jessica: Yay.

[03:20] Meg: Thank you, Laura. Thank you, Laura, my friend Kate, who you know very well indeed, she was interested in our discussion about pigeons because she actually has a pigeon maternity ward on her windowsill.

[03:36] Jessica: I need help right now. A pigeon maternity ward? Is that the same thing as a bunch of nests?

[03:44] Meg: Yes.

[03:45] Jessica: So, first off, who is the one who coined pigeon maternity ward, you or Kate?

[03:51] Meg: Kate, obviously.

[03:53] Jessica: Kudos to Kate.

[03:55] Meg: And sometimes they don't make it because of weather issues.

[04:00] Jessica: Because of Darwin. Yes. They were never gonna make it.

[04:04] Meg: And then she has to dispose of them. So she really is part of the birthing and the death of baby pigeons? Yes.

[04:13] Jessica: Is she interfering?

[04:14] Meg: She's a witness. No, no, no. She just takes care of it after it happens. And she's a witness to their lives, to their short lives. And we were even questioning if they even existed last week.

[04:24] Jessica: She is bearing witness to chick ten who didn't make it. Yes, well, but here's my question. If Kate were not getting involved with the maternity ward, if she were not hospital administration, what would happen to the dead chicks in the nest? Has she looked that up?

[04:48] Meg: Don't know, but it is because I want to know.

[04:50] Jessica: Like, would they get nibbled on by.

[04:54] Meg: I don't know, but it's a windowsill. So she has a vested interest in keeping her windowsill corpse free.

[05:04] Jessica: Well, she is doing good work. And I love that the answer to the baby pigeon question is so close to home.

[05:22] Meg: Jessica. Meg. Did you grow up going to New York City zoos?

[05:31] Jessica: Yes, but not really willingly.

[05:33] Meg: Okay.

[05:34] Jessica: I got very sad. They made me very sad.

[05:39] Meg: Wait till you hear this story.

[05:41] Jessica: Seriously? Aw, man. Is it monkeys?

[05:45] Meg: No.

[05:46] Jessica: Okay, then I'm fine.

[05:47] Meg: Right? And it's a roller coaster. There's sad, there's happy. There's a lot of stuff going on.

[05:51] Jessica: As long as it's not any kind of primate.

[05:54] Meg: Not a primate.

[05:55] Jessica: All right, it's not that I think primates are better than other animals, but for some reason, I'm just particularly obsessed with them.

[06:04] Meg: Okay, so I hear you.

[06:06] Jessica: I think I can handle. Not that I'm gonna be happy, let's be honest. But hit me with it. I'm excited. I'm ready for the rollercoaster.

[06:13] Meg: I mean, I will say I don't. I mean, obviously, we went to the Bronx Zoo. I think we went on school field trips.

[06:21] Jessica: Yes. We went. Bronx Zoo. There's the zoo in Central Park.

[06:25] Meg: Yes. Which will be the focus of my story today.

[06:27] Jessica: Oh, for God's sakes. Yay. There's also. My parents would schlep us out to a few petting zoos when I was really, really little. That were, if my faulty memory serves, mostly goats. But that's. Love goats. Goats, donkeys, you know, that kind of crowd.

[06:47] Meg: And having raising city kids as I did, gosh, Central Park Zoo, man, that was like, you do that at least once a week.

[06:56] Jessica: I can only imagine that.

[06:58] Meg: Engaged and busy, always a winner.

[07:01] Jessica: Excellent. Even the smell, especially.

[07:06] Meg: My sources are The New York Times, lots of articles and Reddit.

[07:11] Jessica: Interesting.

[07:11] Meg: Which is becoming my new source.

[07:13] Jessica: Off topic, but have I ever directed you to my favorite Reddit thread of all time?

[07:19] Meg: No.

[07:20] Jessica: It's known as The Poop Knife.

[07:24] Meg: Yes, you have.

[07:25] Jessica: It's everything. Oh, my God. It's everything.

[07:33] Meg: I think it's all in the name.

[07:36] Jessica: Truly. And you think? You know my friend Bronwyn, who I've spoken about on this website, on this podcast.

[07:43] Meg: You're not gonna do this right now?

[07:44] Jessica: No, no. I'm just saying she's the one who sent it to me. And if she never did another great thing in her life, which would be impossible, I would still hold her on the top ten humans of ever for having introduced me to The Poop Knife. So I don't question that Reddit is a great source.

[08:04] Meg: Oh, my God, it's the best. All right. In 1988, two year old Gus the Polar Bear made the Central Park Zoo his new home. His dad, Nanook, was from the Bronx Zoo and was sent to the Toledo Zoo to meet his mom, Snowball. The agreement was that if Nanook and Snowball got along, the Central Park Zoo would get the cub and the rest is history. Gus was incredibly popular. He became the iconic image for the Central Park Zoo. The gift shop was basically Gus themed. He reached the pinnacle of his fame in the '90s when people began to notice his self care routine.

[08:46] Jessica: I'm here. I'm listening.

[08:48] Meg: You know how his enclosure has a huge glass window so you can see underwater in his pool? Yes. People started noticing that he would roll into his pool and then swim figure eight laps, pressing his huge 700 pound butt up against the window glass and push off again to begin his next lap. So beautiful to watch, by the way. So elegant, so graceful. He did this 12 hours a day, every day, every week, every month. It was fascinating to watch and people loved it.

[09:24] Jessica: Wait, he swam laps 12 hours a day?

[09:27] Meg: Yes.

[09:28] Jessica: Interesting.

[09:29] Meg: And also a little concerning. There were lots of theories. Did he not like his polar bear friends? Lily was his companion for many years. And then later, Ida. Did he long for freedom? Was he depressed? The zoo hired an animal behaviorist for $25,000 who concluded that Gus was bored. "An enrichment program was put into effect to try to put him in a better frame of mind. He was given toys containing treats like salmon and peanut butter. He was subjected to positive reinforcement training sessions. His meal times were turned into challenges. He was compelled to forage for some of his food. Mackerel frozen in ice, chicken wrapped in rawhide. To keep his mind and body more active, his habitat was redesigned. A playroom was added with toys like rubber garbage cans and traffic cones."

[10:27] Jessica: Well, this sounds like the honest effort was made.

[10:29] Meg: Absolutely. In a few months, he started to cut down on the repetitive swimming. He never completely stopped, but it wasnt as incessant. Gus and his issues were a breath of fresh air compared to the previous New York City polar bears. This is when it takes a turn.

[10:47] Jessica: Yeah.

[10:49] Meg: On June 5, 1971, the Central Park Zoo polar bear Skandy was involved in a horrible tragedy. 29 year old Oliver Jones stuck his arm into Skandy's enclosure holding an ice cream cone, according to a witness, "I couldn't tell whether he was trying to feed the bear or just tease him. The animal came right toward him around the little pool there to the fence. It grabbed his hand fast." 200 people were at the zoo that afternoon screaming and yelling. A Patrolman, Charles Dlugokecki, shot his gun in the air, but Skandy pulled more of Oliver's arm into his mouth. Eddie Rodriguez, the lion keeper at the zoo, jumped in and tried pushing Skandy with a stick. Nothing worked. Patrolman Dlugokecki, aimed his gun at Skandy's shoulder, but the shot ricocheted into Skandy's spinal cord.

[11:49] Jessica: Oh, my God.

[11:50] Meg: Killing him. It was devastating. Charles Dlugokecki kept the Central Park Zoo beat until his retirement in the late '80s. But his friend Eddie the lion keeper never spoke to him again. Animal specialist Jack DeLease said, quote, "Skandy was quite docile, but you know how bored caged animals get. Put a toy before them, something to attract them, and they'll go for it, take it right in their mouths." Eddie the lion keeper said, quote, "this man was bothering the animals. I just chased him from another area. He was teasing them."

[12:27] Jessica: I got it. I'm just in. I wanna know if Oliver's arm left his body.

[12:31] Meg: It's, you know, it's interesting.

[12:32] Jessica: Like, nothing says whether or not it did.

[12:35] Meg: No one really gave a fuck about Oliver because he was such a dick. I mean, they say he went to the hospital, but then there's no follow up.

[12:41] Jessica: All right, good.

[12:42] Meg: A witness Joe Rivera said, quote, "I was standing right next to him. He asked for it. He put his hand through it. It says on the signs not to feed the animals."

[12:52] Jessica: You know, there's an incessant stream of people who like to fling themselves into enclosures, stick their faces, places where they shouldn't be, poke things with a finger. These are wild animals. People like how? Dumb. I don't know. Anyway, please.

[13:09] Meg: And Patrolman Charlie Dlugokecki, what happened to him? This is from him. Quote, "I gave him a summons for feeding the animals. It's illegal, you know. I feel kind of bad for him."

[13:19] Jessica: Dlugokecki did the best that he could.

[13:21] Meg: He did the best that he could. What are you gonna do?

[13:23] Jessica: What are you gonna do? There's a bear eating a guy.

[13:26] Meg: You gotta do something.

[13:27] Jessica: You gotta do something.

[13:29] Meg: But guess what?

[13:30] Jessica: But think about if he didn't and the guy had his arm removed, died, then what's on Dlugokecki's plate?

[13:40] Meg: It's all Oliver's fault.

[13:41] Jessica: Fuck Oliver.

[13:42] Meg: Five years later, the Central Park Zoo got another polar bear and named him Skandy Two.

[13:49] Jessica: Not inventive, not smart.

[13:52] Meg: All was peaceful for Skandy Two until 1982. A homeless man was found mauled to death in Skandy Two's enclosure at 07:00 a.m. on Sunday, September 26. The five foot eight inch man in his thirties had scaled a ten foot spiked fence to get into the zoo, and then a five foot fence surrounding the 600 square foot enclosure that included twelve foot bars that curve inward. Can you picture that?

[14:22] Jessica: Yes, I can.

[14:23] Meg: Skandy Two was 1200 pounds. The man didn't stand a chance. Earlier, he had been spotted several times trying to get close to the animals and was chased away. Saturday night at 11:30 p.m., four and a half hours after the zoo closed, he was caught roaming around the zoo and was escorted out by the night watchman. At 03:00 a.m. he was spotted again near the lions. As he was led out, he said, help me, but then walked off when the watchman said he'd take him to a shelter. Somehow he got in after that and his body was recovered after they were able to distract Skandy Two, the commissioner of the zoos security said that cage is designed as much to keep people out as to keep the bear in, and once inside, it would be impossible for a human to climb out. There is nothing to indicate the bear did anything other than what a normal bear would do to possibly defend itself. He is a friendly and gentle animal. He conjectured that Skandy Two, took a swipe at the man when he was abruptly awakened. By the way, they had improved zoo security in the late '70s since Skandy One's situation. At the time of Skandy Two's incident, there were four more watchmen on night duty, in addition to a park patrolman. There were no additional polar bear fatalities until May 19, 1987, right before we graduated. Eleven year old Juan Perez.

[15:55] Jessica: Oh, God.

[15:57] Meg: And his two friends scaled the fence at the Prospect Park Zoo in Brooklyn at about 07:00 p.m. they wanted to go wading in the polar bear moat, which was about 10ft wide and 2ft deep. The boys took off their pants and shoes and waded in. And then. How did they get in? I don't think it was really hard to get into the Prospect Park Zoo at the time.

[16:21] Jessica: Ugh.

[16:22] Meg: And then Teddy and Lucy, the two Prospect Park Zoo polar bears, woke up and we know now, don't wake up a polar bear. They descended from their 25 foot rock cliff above the moat, grabbed Juan and dragged him into their lair. The other two boys escaped. There was a very graphic description in The New York Times that I am not going to share.

[16:48] Jessica: I am so grateful to you for that.

[16:51] Meg: A woman on Flatbush Avenue heard the boys screaming and called 911. It took the police 20 minutes to find a groundskeeper to let them into the zoo, where they saw the bears pulling at Juan's body. The police shot and killed the two bears, but it was too late for Juan. Quote, "I think the kid was probably dead by then. All the officers saw when they got in was the polar bears mauling the remains." said officer Peter O'Donnell. Mayor Koch toured the bears den and said, quote, "it's just horrendous. A gruesome sight. Not describable." It's very sad. I know. But interesting, the boys figured out how to get in, but the policemen didn't figure out how to get in. They just waited for the groundskeeper to open the gate. Oh, yeah. Yoyo.

[17:39] Jessica: This is a story of human idiocy and incompetence. I see this less about the animals than about the idiots. Right?

[17:48] Meg: But these are children.

[17:49] Jessica: Well, no, the last three were children.

[17:52] Meg: You can't blame them. I mean, it's not that I blame them. They just wanted to put their feet in the water. It's just so, so, so unfortunate.

[18:01] Jessica: It's horrible. I don't mean, like, the children are idiots and they need to be upbraided for it. I don't think that at any point in my life I would have ever been like, you know what seems like a good idea? Bears.

[18:15] Meg: I can see how you and Juan and his friends might not hang out together.

[18:20] Jessica: I don't think we see eye to eye.

[18:21] Meg: Yeah.

[18:22] Jessica: Yeah. All right.

[18:23] Meg: Risk factor. But back to Gus. Gus lived a long and illustrious life. Polar bears have a 20 year life expectancy, and Gus lived to be 27. He passed away in 2013. The zoo estimates that more than 20 million people visited him during his lifetime. After Gus's death, Betty and Veronica, two grizzly bears rescued from Wyoming and Montana, respectively, moved into his enclosure, which was revamped with waterfalls, pools, streams, and small mountains for Betty and Veronica to climb. The zookeepers bury treats for the two friends to dig up. No more polar bears at the Central Park Zoo, but let's go visit Betty and Veronica. Grizzly bears.

[19:09] Jessica: Yay.

[19:10] Meg: But don't get too close.

[19:12] Jessica: Yay.

[19:14] Meg: Did you ever watch The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams growing up?

[19:16] Jessica: No. No Grizzly Adams.

[19:18] Meg: I loved that show.

[19:20] Jessica: It was not for me. There's a few reasons why. First of all, too much nature. I wasn't that interested. I got my fill with Mutual of Omaha Wild Kingdom, and I was usually bored halfway through. So, you know, Marlin Perkins, a good man. But, you know, that wasn't my bag. And I didn't like what the guy who played Grizzly Adams looked like.

[19:48] Meg: He was so kind and bearded.

[19:51] Jessica: He was also too natural. There was something about him.

[19:56] Meg: Maybe. Oh, my God, I cannot wait to post about Grizzly Adams.

[20:01] Jessica: Maybe it was the beard. You know, he was also smiling a lot. I didn't trust him.

[20:06] Meg: That's the friendly thing.

[20:08] Jessica: Yeah. I don't know. It's not for me. Not for me. Not for me. No.

[20:16] Meg: Oh we should put that on a t shirt.

[20:18] Jessica: Not for me, is there.

[20:19] Meg: Not for me.

[20:19] Jessica: Not for me. With two little hands.

[20:22] Meg: Fun little fact. You know the crazy floods that happened last week?

[20:27] Jessica: Yes.

[20:28] Meg: Did you hear that Sally the sea lion escaped her enclosure from Central Park Zoo?

[20:33] Jessica: She swan right out.

[20:34] Meg: She did.

[20:35] Jessica: Bye bye, I'm done.

[20:37] Meg: And they saw her do it, and they were like, ooh, should we go trap her? Should we do it? And they just, like, watched her play around, and eventually she just said, okay, I'm done. And she went home.

[20:47] Jessica: Wait, where was she playing around?

[20:50] Meg: Outside the enclosure.

[20:51] Jessica: Oh, but in the zoo.

[20:52] Meg: In the zoo. She didn't make it outside. She made it.

[20:55] Jessica: She flipped and flopped around.

[20:57] Meg: Yes, out of her enclosure, but not outside the zoo. And then when she had enough, she went back.

[21:04] Jessica: Well, as a woman would. Sensible, sensible Sally. Very nice.

[21:22] Meg: Bears.

[21:23] Jessica: I was going to say to you that I, I don't know if this makes me a terrible person more than anything else I've ever said on this podcast, but I know that the bears got shot, but they were mauling people. I was very worried that the thrust of this entire thing was going to be about animals being hurt. But when I found out it was about people being hurt, I had no problems at all. I was very relaxed.

[21:53] Meg: That's a true New Yorker response, I think.

[21:55] Jessica: Is it?

[21:55] Meg: Yeah.

[21:56] Jessica: Oh, the people are expendable, but don't touch my animal baby.

[22:00] Meg: Animals are innocent.

[22:02] Jessica: Yes, they are. They are.

[22:04] Meg: And they're pure joy.

[22:05] Jessica: You know who's not innocent? People. Let's talk about people in the '80s.

[22:10] Meg: Oh, no.

[22:10] Jessica: What do you, let's talk about perspectives. Let's talk about men. Let's talk about women.

[22:17] Meg: Okay.

[22:18] Jessica: All right. So when we were growing up and at Nightingale, we were taught things and we were given a perspective that was extremely rarefied. And I didn't realize that until I got to college. And even then, I didn't really understand it. But all girls school being told that we could be masters of the universe.

[22:42] Meg: Yes.

[22:43] Jessica: Right?

[22:43] Meg: Yep. That was a thing.

[22:45] Jessica: Yes, it was.

[22:46] Meg: And we bought it.

[22:47] Jessica: It was in the '80s. We bought it.

[22:49] Meg: It was bullshit.

[22:50] Jessica: It was nonsense. It was absolute nonsense. And I understand wanting girls, young women to push themselves. And how else were we going to get ahead in the world? And every generation had to do better than the one before. But it was never framed that way. It was just, you can be anything you want to be, and it's expected of you.

[23:14] Meg: And it's better for you now than it's ever been in history. Take advantage of that.

[23:19] Jessica: Exactly.

[23:20] Meg: Without really acknowledging that all this shit still existed.

[23:24] Jessica: Correct. So what I want to talk about today is You Can Have It All.

[23:31] Meg: Oh, interesting. Yeah. I can bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan, and never, never let you forget you're a man. Enjoli Perfume.

[23:42] Jessica: Yes, Enjoli. Shame on you, Enjoli. Actually, shame on Helen Gurley Brown, editor of Cosmopolitan magazine.

[23:51] Meg: Yeah.

[23:52] Jessica: Who is the one who coined this phrase and concept and I'm going to read a little something from The Guardian. To begin with, this is an article by a woman named Antoinette Lattouf. Great name. The title of this article is, "Having it all" is a myth still being used to punish working mothers. As a non mother, that was interesting to me. I learned that this concept that I really didn't know where it came from. You can have it all. But it was ubiquitous. And it was the '80s. It was foundational for women and teenage girls in the '80s, this was what was expected of you. It wasn't that it was an opportunity. Once it was out there, it was expected of you. And if you weren't doing it, you were failing. Did you ever feel that way?

[24:44] Meg: I've had an unconventional career. Did I feel like I had to be good in my career and be a perfect mother and yeah, sure, okay.

[24:51] Jessica: Yeah, I saw it as more of a competitive sport. That's how I internalized it. And that it was very much about women comparing themselves to each other.

[25:04] Meg: I hate that.

[25:05] Jessica: Yep. Not surprising, because Helen Gurley Brown was really a blight in many ways. In some ways really not, but in many ways

[25:12] Meg: Lots of people would disagree.

[25:14] Jessica: I do understand that and I'm happy.

[25:16] Meg: That she's a groundbreaker and.

[25:19] Jessica: Well, she was, but a lot of what she was pushing was nonsense. Everything else in women's magazines, even now, it was pushing nonsense for marketing because it would sell magazines and it would get advertisers. So Helen Gurley Brown wrote a book called Having It All and it became popular in the '80s. So I'm reading from The Guardian. She was then editor of American Cosmopolitan magazine, the self help book for women, made almost no mention of children and was largely about money, sex, diet, exercise and appearance. And that was Helen Gurley Brown's whole thing when she took over Cosmopolitan was that everything was about sex. Cosmopolitan became seen as a dirty magazine under her editorship.

[26:08] Meg: Didn't she write Sex and the Single Girl?

[26:10] Jessica: She did.

[26:11] Meg: In the '60s I think.

[26:12] Jessica: I believe that is correct. So Helen Gurley Brown, because of what she embodied, this hypersexualization and like, that's where women were going to find their independence and all of that. So I had this image of her as she was in the '60s. So in the '90s, I was having lunch with my dad at Blue Water Grill in Union Square. It used to be a bank, so it was this magnificent space

[26:39] Meg: Yeah, I know it.

[26:42] Jessica: And I was sitting on, it was sort of like a rectangular, huge space. And they had banquettes and seating on one long side. And I was sitting there with my dad and I saw a wraith walking towards us. It was like a swizzle stick had come to life. And it was red, like a swizzle stick. Red from head to toe. Oh no. A red turtleneck, little outfit. Red cape. Red little tiny spindly legs hanging out of the cape, like twizzlers. And they were tights. They were opaque red tights going into little red shoes. And I was so taken aback by this creature who was wobbling towards me, it took me a second to register that it was Helen Gurley Brown. And I said to my dad, oh, my God, that's Helen Gurley Brown. He turned around, took a look at her, turned back to me and said, aww, bless her. I'm quite sure he does not remember this, but I.

[27:53] Meg: That's great.

[27:54] Jessica: I pretty much died that day. I was like, that is everything. Thank you, dad. Anyway, Helen Gurley Brown, her thing was money, sex, prestige, beauty, all of this stuff. But then I was thinking, for us, for the rest of the world, who's not Helen Gurley Brown what did having it all really mean? What was the messaging? And the messaging was, you can be exactly like a man and have the things that a woman wants as well. Work, money, prestige at work, climbing the ladder to be like a man. Ruthless. All of the things. Everything that we imagine from the movie Wall Street, that, or even from Working Girl, the Sigourney Weaver character.

[28:47] Meg: Right.

[28:48] Jessica: But then add to that softness, beauty, motherhood, anything, romance, all of those things as well. Now, can you imagine now as an adult person, and also now that our culture is quite different, could you imagine who that person would be?

[29:06] Meg: There's not enough time in the day.

[29:08] Jessica: And if they thought that they were, they would be insufferable and they would have to be killed immediately, just.

[29:14] Meg: Or they'd be on coke in order to keep those kinds of hours.

[29:19] Jessica: Like most of the men on Wall Street were anyway. So there you go. But it was an absolute impossibility.

[29:25] Meg: What's the movie that Diane Keaton was in?

[29:28] Jessica: Get out of my head, because that's what I'm about to talk about.

[29:29] Meg: I'm so excited. I love that movie. And I remember when she meets Sam Shepherd.

[29:36] Jessica: Well, let us now adjourn to two things that I'm going to bring to the table to talk about. Can women have it all? And one of them is Baby Boom, the movie that you're talking about with Diane Keaton. And the other one is an article that I found in New York Magazine from 1983. And I will take you there in just a moment. And it is a cavalcade of bullshit. It is amazing. You will love it. So Baby Boom. Baby Boom was a sensation when it came out. It was charming, and I loved it when it came out. You know, we were teenagers when it came out. It was 1987. It was a fun, slapstick comedy. It was about the New York lawyer who has no time to be soft and womanly, and she's an insufferable yuppie and her insufferable yuppie boyfriend, they schedule sex and played by the adorable Harold Ramis. And she is the only living relative of an adorable baby girl from England. And she now has to be a working mother and her inability to do it all was the commentary. However.

[30:52] Meg: Absolutely..and the comedy.

[30:55] Jessica: Yes. It was also a condemnation. All of the characters in that film looked at her like she was a failure, including her. And when she leaves, her departure is not triumphant.

[31:11] Meg: She moves to the country.

[31:13] Jessica: She moves.

[31:14] Meg: Yes. In despair and desperation.

[31:17] Jessica: Well, actually, yes. It's not quite despair. If you recall, she then tries to have the next version of having it all. She does, which is to have a glamorous country house in Vermont. And she has this apple orchard that's filled with apples, she's feeding the baby, and decides to make the baby applesauce. She jars the applesauce because she sees, she's broke. She's not being a great businesswoman. She's fucked because trying to be a woman who has it all has ruined her. So she has this house that is leaking and a mess, and she sees the idiot yuppies who come into the general store and think that a tea towel is adorable and will pay $40 for it. So she packages because she uses her marketing experience, actually, she was in marketing, I think, she wasn't a lawyer, but she uses her experience and she packages it so she can sell the hell out of it. And then get this, she's about to become a success again financially with the baby because she's brilliant and can do things like this. And then to prove that she's really a good person, she eventually chooses to stay with the baby in Vermont and with cute Sam Shepard, who's the local veterinarian.

[32:38] Meg: Yes.

[32:39] Jessica: And everything about that.

[32:41] Meg: So she gives up her career or gives up advancement.

[32:44] Jessica: Gives up advancement, and she sells the company, remember? But.

[32:51] Meg: Right. And that's.

[32:52] Jessica: She had to choose who she was going to be.

[32:56] Meg: Be a woman, don't be a man.

[32:58] Jessica: Yes. And what I thought was so fascinating is that, like the John Hughes movies, this was a movie that I loved. And as I was looking at stuff on YouTube and I became incensed watching it as an adult now. And I was like, everything about this movie is about encouraging compromise. It's about encouraging letting go. And then I thought, but why am I incensed? Because we already know that you can't have it all. I was incensed because the quote "right solution" was motherhood and to be quiet and to be not in the public eye.

[33:38] Meg: I mean, it was a rom com.

[33:41] Jessica: It doesn't matter. I mean, our culture is built on rom coms. Think of. I mean, were we not shaped by John Hughes? Have we not gone into, like.

[33:50] Meg: I guess my only point is that a rom com will always choose romance, right?

[33:53] Jessica: But it's the romance. The romance was there, but it wasn't the romance that was really the killing piece. It was that she saw what she could have. There were more things than just the romance. It was walking away from all of the things that she had held dear and all of the things that she had put into making a life for herself. So for me. For me, it wasn't great. Interestingly, the review that I found from 1987 from Janet Maslin, not once was this concept of having it all mentioned in their review, didn't even exist. And that was what interested me, that it was like at the time, was it so wrapped up in a fun, pretty bow that these issues were not even acknowledged at all? But there they sat. I know I'm not a mom, but boy, oh, boy, is this a topic about moms. So I dug deeper, and I found an article from 1983 in New York Magazine about moms and working. 1983 by Patricia Morris Rowe, New York Magazine. Mommy Only: The Rise of the Middle Class Unwed Mother. If you were a woman who wanted to have it all, one avenue to go down was to have a child, but by yourself. So you were taking yourself out of this social construct that was going to create problems at home. I'm going to read from the opening of this. Not long ago, the East Hampton school board heard a motion to dismiss 41 year old Patricia Hope, a biology teacher who had been branded immoral by more than two dozen parents. Hope's, quote, "sin was that she was pregnant and unmarried."

[35:51] Meg: Oh, my. What year?

[35:53] Jessica: 1983. What? Even worse, she stubbornly refused to name the father and continued to teach, although her bulging stomach was a blatant reminder of non marital sex, as Hester Prynne's Scarlet A.

[36:10] Meg: Oh, my God.

[36:13] Jessica: I know I was building to this cause. This is outrageous.

[36:17] Meg: 1983. So not 1953. Just checking.

[36:20] Jessica: 1983. She successfully fought the ouster, but she's just one of many women who were branded with and some who are embracing the title of unwed mother. An unwed mother was not a scandal. It was a scandal if you were white and had money, because you should know better. In 1980, the last year for census figures prior to the writing of this article, out of wedlock births rose to a record 11.4%. Why? Because the rate of single white women having babies on their own rose almost 20%.

[37:08] Meg: Interesting.

[37:09] Jessica: Correct.

[37:10] Meg: Interestingly able to choose their life path a little bit of more easily.

[37:15] Jessica: Yes. At cocktail parties in Manhattan at the time, you would hear phrases like elective parent and single mother by choice.

[37:24] Meg: Ooh, I remember that. That rings a bell. Yeah.

[37:27] Jessica: These phrases were cropping up at cocktail parties. Everybody seemed to know someone who was doing it. There was even a support group for women who were deciding to do this. And why was this all possible? Because of technology. What was suddenly available? Fertility clinics. And they were becoming more and more affordable. According to Roxanne Feldschew, co director of Ident Laboratories on Madison Avenue, there had been such an increase in requests from unmarried women for artificial insemination that the organization has drawn up a form specially geared to a single person's needs. Quote, "our single recipients are bright, talented superwomen", remember that phrase, superwomen "who refused to settle for just any man in order to get married and have a baby."

[38:19] Meg: Well, that seems like progress.

[38:21] Jessica: Indeed. But can you imagine one of the reasons? What that made me realize is that one of the reasons that it was so horrible for women to have it all is because it unseated men. It was yet another way to say, hmm, are you superfluous? Do we need you? As we are experiencing now? I mean, there's a reason that the.

[38:47] Meg: Bad thing is that they don't like that very much, and then they respond in a bad way and they take it out on us. Yeah. That when they're segue to their ego takes a hit.

[38:59] Jessica: Yes. That's when murders happen.

[39:01] Meg: Sorry, murders and me too situations.

[39:06] Jessica: Indeed. I also thought this was really interesting. While the majority of these women are thoroughly smitten by mother love, they profess a keen awareness of the drawbacks. They worry about paying for their children's daycare centers and private schools. Will they have enough money for their college educations? Even if their salaries fall within the top 10% for working women, they will still have to struggle to pay bills.

[39:34] Meg: And is the assumption that top 10% of women's salaries is not anywhere close to the top 10% of men's salaries?

[39:42] Jessica: Absolutely not. So there's a profile of several women, and one of them is named Ruth, a 41 year old vice president at one of the largest Madison Avenue public relations agencies. She says, quote, "I always knew I wanted children, but marriage was never very appealing. It's not that I don't like men. It's just that I don't necessarily want them in my life."

[40:03] Meg: Or in my apartment.

[40:09] Jessica: I actually wrote in the margin. Haha. And what also I loved about this article, and we should really have a link to it, is that the writing of it by a woman is so biased, and you can tell she's not trying necessarily to slam these women, but she cannot help herself. And so here's a great little bit. Ruth, whose voice never seems to rise above a whisper, tells Hannah to stop repeating Amelia Bedelia. Amelia Bedelia. In the meantime, Lily, her other daughter, who is perched in a high chair, feeds her yogurt to the dog. Oh, she does it all the time, Ruth says, ignoring the fact that Lily is now licking the dog's saliva from the spoon. So what? I have no delusions about being a super mom. You can't do it all. And I don't even try.

[41:03] Meg: Good for her.

[41:04] Jessica: Yes, but I love that the writer of this article was like, yeah, but you're letting her dog saliva.

[41:12] Meg: So judgey. Can I ask you a quick question? Are these women reading Cosmopolitan magazine?

[41:17] Jessica: I'll tell you, I will be able to answer that in a moment.

[41:19] Meg: Okay.

[41:20] Jessica: Ruth claims that the mothering versus career dilemma was never an issue. But she admits her career has suffered since her schedule is so hectic and the children's expenses have eaten away at her, are you sitting down, $40,000 a year salary. She no longer has the money to dress in expensive suits and doesn't have the time or inclination to expend energy on her appearance. So Ruth, who had been one of the firm's superstars, has fallen off the fast track. Quote, "my boss expects people to devote their entire lives to the company", she says. Well, I work hard, but I can't stay at the office until nine or ten at night. My kids have to be picked up by six, and if I'm not there to get them, nobody else will. So no family support.

[42:15] Meg: Yeah.

[42:15] Jessica: Interesting. They profiled a group of women. I don't believe that these are Cosmopolitan readers. No, these women are not motivated by sex and appearance and all of that. They are motivated by, I want to have a career, I want to make money, I want to respect myself and I'm not going to wait for a man, because I also want to be a mother. And part of this article, which I will spare you the constant reading from it, is that there aren't that many men who are finding women of this ilk appealing. It's not what they're looking for.

[42:56] Meg: It hits at their ego.

[42:58] Jessica: Yes, exactly.

[43:02] Meg: Exhausting.

[43:03] Jessica: And here's what's great. So to that point, some experts detect a strong streak of narcissism undermining these prideful women.

[43:13] Meg: What?

[43:14] Jessica: Many of these women are real products of the me decade, says Dr. John Munder Ross, a clinical psychologist in New York who specializes in the relationship between fathers and children.

[43:28] Meg: Oh, he's a father expert.

[43:30] Jessica: They may be real super achievers who are used to getting everything they want, said no woman ever.

[43:37] Meg: Oh, my God. What a dick.

[43:37] Jessica: What are used to getting everything they want and now they want a baby. But they're focusing on personal fulfillment rather than thinking about what's best for a child. A woman alone has no real family life. How can she give a baby a sense of security and belonging, especially if he's left in a daycare center 40 hours a week?

[44:00] Meg: Oh, my God, I hate this man so deeply and strongly. Can we look for him and find out if he's still with us?

[44:08] Jessica: Yes, absolutely and

[44:09] Meg: I have a few words to share with him.

[44:13] Jessica: Yes, Ann M. 32, said, "I just did this the easy way. No muss, no fuss," she says, "I'd much rather have what I call a weekend husband. He could drop by on Saturday evenings and take me to dinner, and then on Sundays we could read the newspaper and have brunch. Of course, he'd have to clear out by Sunday evening because I'm a working mother and only have enough time for my job and Jenny". Implicit, he's just another child.

[44:45] Meg: Mmm. She can't take care of him.

[44:48] Jessica: Exactly.

[44:49] Meg: And she's also putting herself second. She's saying, I need to provide for this child. It's the opposite of what Dr. John what's his face said.

[44:57] Jessica: Exactly. And this is the last little bit I'll give you. But I just love Ann M. Who lights up a cigarette in the middle of this interview.

[45:05] Meg: I love it. Do we have a picture of her?

[45:07] Jessica: We do. Why would a woman then only 30 years old opt for artificial insemination? By the way, four rounds of artificial insemination, only $430. Surely she had years left to meet someone. And maybe they could even have had a baby together. Like who? Anne says, exhaling a cloud of smoke. Prince Charming, maybe. Let me tell you, time doesn't wait. You've got to examine your priorities. For me, I want to be rich, famous and beautiful, but that wasn't likely to happen. Neither was I probably going to meet Mr. Right. Okay, so what was left? The one thing that kept popping into my head was a baby. And let me tell you, when you're ready, the pull to motherhood, it's inescapable. The procedure itself is very simple, she says in the same tone of voice you might use to persuade someone to pierce her ears. I was injected through a process called live donor insemination. The sperm is fresh, not frozen. And I was like, are we in the seafood aisle right now, Ann? Like, what is.

[46:13] Meg: I don't even know what she's describing. So the guy made his deposit in the bathroom, and she was waiting, I guess, and they just ran it from the bathroom to the stirrups or whatever.

[46:25] Jessica: Yes. Jenny Sutcliffe is commented on in this article by a woman. Jenny Sutcliffe, 39, is telling me the kind of horror story no single woman wants to hear. Like many women, she wants to get married and raise a family. For seven years, she actively searched for a husband in singles bars, restaurants, at parties, on the beaches. She like, on the beaches, on the shores. It was D Day. She went on at least 100 blind dates and ate quiche at every brunch spot in the city. I love it. Still, she couldn't find anyone to marry. What makes this difficult to understand is that Jenny is extremely bright. She's attractive.

[47:10] Meg: Oh, wow.

[47:11] Jessica: With her lustrous hair and glowing complexity.

[47:14] Meg: So maybe it's not her problem.

[47:15] Jessica: She looks as fresh and marriageable as. Get ready.

[47:18] Meg: Oh, my God.

[47:19] Jessica: Get ready. Meredith Baxter Birney, who then comes out as the biggest lesbian on the planet. It was a nightmare she says. I would fall asleep and practically hear my life ticking away. 33, 34, 35. Finally, I confronted some of my friends and asked them, how am I going to have a family if I don't get married? They told me to wait a little longer. I waited till I was 37 and then said, this is it. If there's a man out there who wants to be the father of my baby, well, he'll just have to come looking for me, because I'm starting my family without him. And the pull quote in the middle of the page is, "after at least 100 blind dates, Jenny still couldn't find anyone to marry."

[48:09] Meg: Anyone who is worth marrying, I think is actually the way it should be phrased.

[48:14] Jessica: Precisely. You know, I wanted to talk about you can have it all, and what nonsense that is and how it was a burden, even for us as teenagers, because it was aspirational. It was something that we were supposed to have our eye on. As I dug, I found that the misogyny behind it was so startling and that the misogyny came from Helen Gurley Brown and from Cosmopolitan magazine. Not a surprise, because magazines have always been part of the problem and that women were so unsupported, even in their own communities. That in 1983 to try to make a choice like that, you could lose your job. You could lose your job at a normal job once you had your baby, because if you weren't pulling the hours, you're out. So there was no. It was an absolute myth, and I think it's a myth that exists still today.

[49:16] Meg: I agree.

[49:16] Jessica: And it just takes on different shapes. I think it started in the '80s, and now we know why.

[49:36] Meg: You look delighted. That means that you have an idea about our tie in.

[49:40] Jessica: I've got a joke.

[49:42] Meg: Okay.

[49:43] Jessica: What do polar bears and women in the '80s have in common?

[49:47] Meg: I don't know.

[49:48] Jessica: They don't breed well in captivity. Did you make that up? Yes.

[49:53] Meg: Oh, my God, you're so clever.

[49:55] Jessica: I'm smart. I ha.