Wondermine
Wondermine
Season 2, Episode 6: Ambition
On this episode, Elizabeth & Larissa talk about ambition--why we don't talk about it, and why maybe we should. Please note: This episode was recorded prior to the Supreme Court's decision to strike down Roe v. Wade, so if it sounds out of date, it is!
Show notes:
The Swimmers Julie Otsuka
The Buddha in the AtticJulie Otsuka
Ann-Marie Slaughter “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All”
Larissa’s 2012 response to the Slaughter piece: https://mixed-metaphor.blogspot.com/2012/07/having-it-all.html
Alexandria Ocasio Cortez - House website
Music by ZakharValaha from Pixabay
Music by ZakharValaha from Pixabay
Follow us on Instagram @wonderminepodcast
Welcome to Wondermine. I'm Larissa Parson. I'm a joy coach, a movement teacher, a writer and podcaster a bit of a hippie, a mom of twins, and I have big ambitious goals.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:And I'm Elizabeth M Johnson. I'm a parent, a partner, our writer and researcher, and I talk and write about trauma and relationships. And I am very ambitious.
Larissa Parson:And if you're new here, Hello. We are the duo behind this feminist podcast that looks at the Wow and the how of living a life rooted in curiosity, community and liberation. If you've ever felt like something was missing, or you were missing something, Wondermin is the podcast for you.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Shout out and thank you to our patrons. We're so grateful you're here. Being a patron starts at $5, $10 or $15 per month. Patrons get monthly bonus episodes and can participate in virtual events like our upcoming book club, which happens on a monthly basis. If you too, would like to support the show--thank you!--you can do that by visiting patreon.com/wondermine.And if you don't want to, that's okay, too. We're just glad you're here.
Larissa Parson:So our theme this season is things we don't talk about and why. And today, we're talking about ambition. But before we get started, let's talk about what we're reading. So Elizabeth, I've just started Julie Otsuka's 'The Swimmers', which happens to be our Patreon book club selection for June. It don't want to say anything about it right now, because honestly, I really have just started it and I'm holding off on finishing
Elizabeth M. Johnson:It is watery actually, in the best it until we have our book club meeting, because I want it to be possible sense. Yes, I loved The Swimmers and have finished it. fresh in my mind. But what I can say is that the language is just And so we'll see how fresh I am for book club in a few weeks. I so lyrical, and gorgeous. It's watery. It feels like you're did not know Julie Otsuka before this book. I went back to the swimming, when you're reading this book. library and reserved her other two books. And I just finished one of them which is called the Buddha In The Attic. And it is a short story, very similar, I think, in length and in style to The Swimmers. And it tells the story of mailorder brides coming from Japan in the early 1900s. It is heartbreaking and lovely and hilarious, and all of the mixed emotions that you might expect. They start out on a boat, and then they end up..where they end up! And it's kind of a lifetime of experiences in between. And I loved it just as much as I've loved The Swimmers. And now I have one more book of hers to read. But I'm excited for that too. So hopefully other people might pick up this view these two beautiful books from Julie Otsuka, The Swimmers, and one of her older ones, Buddha in The Attic.
Larissa Parson:Cool. I'm so excited to talk about 'The Swimmers' with you.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:YES!
Larissa Parson:And that's going to be very, very fun.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Me too.
Larissa Parson:So we decided that we wanted to talk about ambition today because there are a few details we don't talk about when we talk about ambition. And often, in our culture, on the internet, there's a lot of talk about the consequences of being ambitious in a capitalist culture - things like burnout. Or there are conversations about being too ambitious, or being too much of a capitalist like Elon Musk, or Jeff Bezos or something like that. And what we don't talk about though, is the nature of ambition itself. And who gets to have it.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:And who gets to have it. That's always what we come back to here. Who gets to have it? Who gets to ask for it? Who gets to show that they want something? And so when I was thinking about this episode, I wanted to start with a definition. And so I went to Merriam Webster and Merriam Webster says, ambition is "an ardent desire for rank, fame or power. The root of ambition came from ambire, a verb meaning “to go around.” When candidates for public office in ancient Rome wanted to be elected, they had to do just what modern candidates must do. They had to spend most of their time going around the city urging the citizens to vote for them. Since this activity was caused by a desire for honor or power, the word ambition eventually came to mean “the desire for honor or power.” This word came into French and English as ambition in the late Middle Ages. Later its meaning broadened to include “an admirable desire for advancement or improvement” and still later“the object of this desire.” With that kind of definition “an ardent desire for rank, fame or power,” it’s no wonder that we don’t talk about ambition! Here’s the thing, I wonder how that definition resonates with us (women, mainly). What do you think, Larissa?
Larissa Parson:Okay, so I love that you dug into the etymology of that. And while you were reading the etymology on it, I was reminded that ardent is literally burning - burning desire. And I feel like that definition doesn't really resonate with me. I think there's something in here, that maybe I'm just gonna pull this out quickly, that our culture is not a culture that is founded. And it's so weird, like, it's this weird sort of dichotomy, paradox, maybe in our culture, where we have this kind of origin story that's about humility, and virtue, and you know, all these puritan values, right. But then we also have this hyper individualistic capitalistic culture that wants us to have fame, power, rank, etc. Anyway, putting that aside, I think that when we're talking about women and ambition in particular, I think there's a lot of lip service to the idea done in our culture that women can and should have rank, fame and power. But the reality is that those things are mostly limited to specific kinds of women, doing specific kinds of things, and it's completely excluding anybody who's gender non conforming in any way. Right. That's, that's not even part of the picture here. So I think within progressive circles, there's certainly an appreciation for politicians like Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, who is clearly quite ambitious, or for someone like Lizzo. Again though, I think Lizzo is fitting into that kind of badass, boss babe, sexy lady category of ambition. And either one of those categories is fine. It's fine to be a politician. It's fine to be a badass. But any other ambitions are kind of, you know, different. And also these two examples that had just popped into my mind of people that we think of as ambitious and are okay with being ambitious, these people don't have kids. So worth mentioning.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:It is worth mentioning--because I think that's sometimes where sort of the rubber hits the road for me-- I'm like, "Oh, well, yeah, no wonder *you* can go after all these things. No wonder you have this time or this energy, you're not actually caring for any other, like, living being that cannot live independently."
Larissa Parson:SO! Can I interrupt you for a second?
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Please.
Larissa Parson:I do want to acknowledge that there is certainly care work often being done for relatives, for other family members that we may not know about. So like, there's a yes, and in there.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Yeah.
Larissa Parson:Just a little bit.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Sure. I want to look at another definition.
Larissa Parson:Cool.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Oxford says: “a strong desire to do or to achieve something, typically requiring determination and hard work.” I identify with that much more. Not necessarily “rank”. That feels like political ambitions to me or a title like CEO. That doesn’t resonate but I do want things HARD. What about“fame” or “power” or “rank” to you? And it's not necessarily associated with one of these sort of glorified, glorified very egoistic or hyper individualistic traits, like power or rank. Those things tend to feel really political to me, they tend to feel really corporate to me. So I think that kind of goes back to this idea of who gets to be ambitious.
Larissa Parson:Yeah.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:If you want to become president one day, okay, then you get to be ambitious, right? Do you want to become like the, the social worker in your agency that everyone goes to for? For advice or for mentorship? Maybe it's not so okay for you to be super ambitious. Especially maybe in caring professions like that. So I really like, not lobe, but resonate with that Oxford definition, "strong desire to do or achieve something," because I do want things and I want them really hard. There is something after "fame, power, rank" doesn't mean anything to me really.
Larissa Parson:Right.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Yeah,"resonate" really. Not that it doesn't mean anything. It just that it doesn't resonate with my ideas around ambition.
Larissa Parson:Right, and it doesn't resonate, I would say, with my image of myself as an ambitious person. Those are not the things I'm chasing with my ambitions. But hard work and determination? 100% Absolutely. I mean, I've always been ambitious. When I was six, it was wanting to swim in the Olympics. That didn't happen. Not quite hard enough, working for that. But now I have ambitions about making body liberation and joy our norms. I have ambitions to raise kids who also embrace those as norms. And that is just a really different kind of ambition. And I'll also say, I don't think anyone starts a podcast without some kind of ambition.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Right? Even if you're just yourself out there, wanting to hear your voice or tell your story. There's got to be some ambition rooted in that desire to put yourself out to the world on some level. So we did ask some listeners, did a little crowdsourcing via our Instagram@WonderminePodcast, what their thoughts were on ambition. And
here's what came up:“Power dynamic, competition and hierarchy” “Having a goal that’s uniquely mine and pursuing it” .
Larissa Parson:Mm hmm. I think it's so interesting that those responses taken together, encapsulate both the positive and negative connotations of ambition. Oh, yeah, having a goal that's mine and pursuing it, positive associations. Competition and hierarchy, not so much.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Not so much.
Larissa Parson:So Elizabeth, how did you come to your understanding of ambition? And why does this other definition resonate more with you?
Elizabeth M. Johnson:What's informed my understanding of ambition is - no surprise - one of those pieces of The Lasagna: community, specifically my family. I'm the daughter of a second wave feminist who was often told "you can be anything you want to be,". And I think from her perspective that seemed to be true. SHE could not be the lawyer that she wanted to be. Her old Italian Catholic father would only pay for college at a Catholic college in order for her to become a teacher. But I could. But really I was no more a place to be whatever I wanted to be than she was. The idea of being whatever we want to be is a myth unless you are a white male, someone who our society is designed to work for.
Larissa Parson:Yeah
Elizabeth M. Johnson:But somehow she had the idea that I could be anything that I wanted to be. And I, at this point, I realized, you know, as we were talking about this episode, that I am not in any better of a place or stronger in a place to be whatever I want it to be than she was, right. The idea I think"being whatever we want to be" is a little bit of a myth, unless you are a white male, someone who our society is really designed to work for.
Larissa Parson:Yes.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:...just not designed to work for all of us. And even though we have things like the equal rights amendment, and these real progressive sort of benchmarks, and that would have been very fresh and, and I think, in some ways, super exhilarating, and feeling really positive for women like my mom growing up in 50s, and 60s and then having children and didn't have some of these things when they were growing up. We still have limitations. They are just different limitations than the ones that she had.
Larissa Parson:Yeah, I think you're absolutely right about that. Somewhere in a scrapbook at my mom's house, is a piece of paper where the young Larissa wrote 'girls can do anything boys can do, better'.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Aww...
Larissa Parson:I think I was mad at my brother.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:That sounds like a safe bet.
Larissa Parson:But this was absolutely the idea that I grew up with just like you, Elizabeth, that possibilities are wide open. But what wasn't in there, or what wasn't something that we talked about when it comes to gender disparities, I will say. Because we talked about racism a lot in the house I grew up in. So, but we didn't talk about the how to get all the things you want to do, or who actually gets to do what they want.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Yeah, and I just don't think --like for me--I just don't think we had any of that language. We just didn't have any of this basic language. I mean, this, of course, is not clear. Like we clearly not a white family growing up in the 80s, we clearly did not talk about racism whatsoever. Like that was completely off my radar. But we were never talking about sexism. Only in a backwards sort of way like, "Look at this. Look at the advances women have made! This woman can be a lawyer at this point."
Larissa Parson:Yeah.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:But here I am 49 and have only recently, like, really recently began to sort of untangle white supremacy versus racism, right? That's all still pretty fresh for someone like me, let alone how a white supremacist capitalist patriarchy will not allow all of us to thrive. Because again, it's (the system) is not designed for us to be able to live and succeed and be ambitious in the way that we want to. So while I think I'm really ambitious, I was really ambitious. And I'm still pretty ambitious. Like, I was never a"success" because how could I be in some ways? If it's only certain people who can probably who can get to that benchmark of what a successful woman would look like?
Larissa Parson:Right. Yeah, I mean, we both have kids. Care work is a huge part of our lives. It's a choice that both of us have made to prioritize that care work, I would say. But, and like both of us have made the choice to spend more time on kids and other stuff. Is that fair?
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I am definitely the primary parent in my family. And that was a conscious choice and conversation with me and my husband.
Larissa Parson:For sure. Yeah, and that, even though that's a conscious choice, it's something that gets in the way of our ambitions at the same time. So I think we need to talk about how quality care work, whether it's the care work that you and I choose to do, or paid care work that other people are paid to do on our behalf, or you know what I mean, like in different situations, how this is the kind of labor that maybe we can and should be able to be ambitious about. So to go back to, like, what I said is one of my ambitions is to raise kids who want a more just world, too. It's an ambitious thing to say,"I'm gonna raise kids who are amazing". And not amazing, because they're lawyers or doctors, but amazing, because they are good people. And I only have so much control over that, to be fair, anyway. Do you remember Ann-Marie Slaughter's essay from back in 2012 - 'Why Women Can't Have it All'?
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Yes, yes, I do, because my kid was only like a month old when that article came out. And it was a huge shock to me reading this article from someone like Slaughter who was successful. She had a family. She did have it all. I had left my soul sucking nonprofit job about a month before I had my daughter because even though it was touted to be like a woman centered organization, it was distinctly unfriendly to the one of the two pregnant women at the agency and that was me at the time. This article made a huge impact on me. I was shocked and kind of like, "Oh, if this is what she's saying, for her, then there's pretty much no help for me." Oh, yes, it's not good.(laughter) In the heat of July
Larissa Parson:Yeah. and this is what I'm reading. Yeah, no thanks. So I was also profoundly affected when I read it. My kids were about 18 months old when it came out. And so I actually been actively juggling my ambitious teaching career and twins. And a heck of a commute from Oakland into San Francisco every day. So I was totally overwhelmed. I wanted to be an amazing innovative English teacher. I wanted to be an amazing calm and collected and sweet parents. Yeah, challenging. And I actually because I was blogging at the time, I wrote a long blog post in response to it. And you can find that linked in the show notes as well. That's 2012 Larissa. It's a long time ago - galaxy far, far away.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Great thoughts. And definitely look that check that out in the show notes.
Larissa Parson:Thanks, Elizabeth.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Yeah.
Larissa Parson:So I went back and reread Slaughter's piece for the first time in 10 years and two things really stood out for me as I reread it with some perspective, with some big life changes that have come about in my life since then. One of them is that not much has actually changed in terms of the dichotomy between care work and ambition.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:And let me just say that this just in case anyone like zoned out as I do during podcasts sometimes, this is literally 10 years ago, 10 years ago that Slaughter sai these words in the why women can't have it all. Anyway, go ahead, but I want to say like 10 years, nothing's changed.
Larissa Parson:10 years, nothing's changed. Now, we have some books about care work that we can read, but systemically, nothing has changed. And the second thought that occurred to me, she so you know, when I read something like this, that is like, the world is terrible, basically. You can't have it all, actually. I'm always like, is there a solution in this piece? How do we get out of this? How do we fix this problem? And some of the ideas she has... First of all, it was really quaint to read it because she said, "telecommuting might be an option for some people". And I was like, "ah, that's before the pandemic". But anyway, so another solution she offers, if you leave, work early to do dinner, and then keep working after 8pm. That is unsustainable. That is not actually good for anybody. So what if one of the ambitions we could all hold is to leave work at 5:30, full stop?
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Imagine that.
Larissa Parson:Imagine that. Maybe our ambition shouldn't have to cost us mental and physical health, shouldn't have to cost us time with our people. I'm going to keep going.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Yeah.
Larissa Parson:So also in that essay, she writes about going to the diplomat Richard Holbrooks memorial service, and how his kids reflected on missing out on his presence in their lives. And this is a guy, right, this, we're talking about a nice, white guy. Big, super powerful, that they missed out on those casual everyday interactions that make your personal history, that make your story about yourself. And that in there in that memorial service, they reflected on how well actually they were okay with it, because, and here's a quote "Holbrooks absence was the price of saving people around the world a price worth paying", from their perspective. Yeah. But then she goes on, thank goodness, to point out this next bit. "It is not clear to me that this ethical framework makes sense for society. Why should we want leaders who fall short on personal responsibilities? Perhaps leaders who invested time in their own families would be more keenly aware of the toll their public choices, on issues from war to welfare take on private lives?" I just love that. I love, "Hey, what if being ambitious, didn't have to conflict with being a private citizen, with being a person with caregiving responsibilities, with a family life with a community life with with friendships that matter?" And that still leaves me with a question though, because she's kind of like, what if? And what do we do if we're ambitious, and have caregiving roles? How do we make that work?
Elizabeth M. Johnson:I don't want to get us sidetracked here, but I do really want to just pull that out just just that little bit here. Like why should we? I'm paraphrasing but why should we allow our political leaders or people in charge to shirk personal responsibility? And I just wonder, what if we had more politicians, people in charge diplomats, any of these people who are sort of operating on role high levels of like international relations or govern governance, you know, what if those people were involved more in their in the personal life? Upset their families? Like what might change there, when you saw your daughter come in from a long night out with her friend who's clearly having a hard time like a fight, you become more empathetic to someone who you don't know well.
Larissa Parson:Yeah.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:This is reminding me of a post that Robert Jones Jr. did where he's talking about white supremacy, white supremacist capitalist patriarchy. And he's like, they are indifferent to sympathy and empathy. And I'm paraphrasing him greatly here. But they just literally don't have access to, they don't see these things. Piracy and terrorism are the languages that they speak, which I completely agree with. But what happens if we were involved in our own families more? What might change? what emotions might come up for us? And from there, maybe we would have more sympathy for that person over there. And maybe we would have start to get ideas around if "I'm not free, nobody's free".
Larissa Parson:Uh, huh. Oh yeah.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:There could be so much change that happens, because we know that, you know, public shaming of people is not necessarily a good thing or affected. But if we in our own circles, can be influenced and within our own families, you know, where it's safe to make these mistakes and be vulnerable, one would imagine. But if we're not part of that work-- if we're only an observer of our family--then those things will never happen.
Larissa Parson:Right. Yeah. Oh, can I just jump in with really quickly?
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Yeah!
Larissa Parson:I think that it would change so much if the norms and government in terms of like just the kind of position that Slaughter held were that everybody stops at five, period, the end?
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Yeah.
Larissa Parson:And if the if it were the norm and corporations, it is to have the end of the day happen, and people are gone. That it doesn't it just doesn't keep going all the time.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Yeah, yeah. But back to your question, like, what do we do if we are ambitious and I have caregiving roles. Because clearly, 10 years later, I almost wish Slaughter would write a follow-up and maybe she will. Yeah, for my daughter was a month old, it probably was July or August when it was published. You know, maybe she'll come up with some sort of follow up 10 years later, but I feel like we still don't have any good answers here. And I think that's really frustrating. You know, when I went back to look at the article, I was struck by this idea of like, you know, her saying, "I still strongly believe that women can have it all and that men can do. And I believe we can have it all at the same time. But not today with the way that America's economy and society are currently structured."
Larissa Parson:And there it is.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:And there it is.
Larissa Parson:The question of can caregiving and ambition coexist is answered by our very narrowly defined ideas of what ambition and success should look like. The answer is no. I do really appreciate how Slaughter points out the systemic problem here.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Yes, absolutely!
Larissa Parson:Because, right, because so often the solution that gets offered kind of like in 'Lean In', which came out, you know, not too much longer after this. The solution offered two years, okay, the solution offered is an individual solution.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Uh huh.
Larissa Parson:Just do more. What we really need is a radical shift in what work even means. Back when I was doing training and consulting work, I was asked
Elizabeth M. Johnson:I kind of want to bring up a personal"is what you're doing a hobby, or is it a business? Because if thing that came up for me, probably six, seven years ago, it's a business, you work at it full time. If it's a hobby, you which has stuck with me ever since. It has absolutely influenced how I think about myself when it comes to ambition dabble, and you do it when you can." And I remember thinking, and sort of untangling what my ambitions vs. what's okay to share vs. what really counts?"Oh, no, I'm screwed here," There's something wrong with me, because I am not doing my business full time. I am not doing it five days a week, you know, nine to five. I did have some conflicting emotions around that one because I, as we talked about before, because I, in my family, we had chosen to prioritize me as the primary parent for a number of reasons. So I was needing to go still do pickup and drop off work and be involved in my child's school in some way. But I felt like that was clearly not enough. And so I guess what I was doing was a hobby. And if I was doing it as a hobby, then clearly I wasn't serious. And maybe I was just sort of wishy washy, and you know, I guess I shouldn't maybe I shouldn't even be bothering. And it's a really hard thing to kind of get out of, because anyone who's followed any of my writing over the past four years at least will know that this is one of my Achilles heels. Am I going to be seen as not serious? Am I going to be seen as someone who waffles, and feeling like I constantly then need to go double down and prove myself as someone who knows their shit? As someone who is serious? Because I was called out? Not even directly, but like, as part of a group? Probably what you're doing is a hobby.
Larissa Parson:Okay. Um, I got thoughts about that. But I have another thought that came up as you were talking. Go ahead.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:I was goning to say --circling us back to, you know, this idea of--ambition not being visible enough.
Larissa Parson:Right.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:So it's not like I'm not doing it enough. So that means it's not visible enough. So it probably doesn't exist, or it doesn't deserve to exist.
Larissa Parson:And that's, you know, effed up, this idea. So, while you were speaking, I was flipping this around in my mind and noting the tension that can be present for people who have chosen to prioritize their work outside of caregiving. There's almost this idea that your caregiving is a hobby, because you're not doing it full time.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:How serious are you as a parent?
Larissa Parson:Right? Yeah. Like, How involved are you? And we know, that's bullshit. Yeah, we know that that is bullshit. Not everybody has a choice, first of all. Not everybody can choose to not work - or to not get paid for their work, because everybody is working. And you're gonna talk about that. But yeah, I feel that gets very problematic that we're forced into this kind of binary thinking. Either it's a business or it's a hobby. You're either a working parent or you're not working. You're ambitious or your ambition gets put aside for some time. Women have to be both ambitious and not all that ambitious. Yeah, be really good at school. We want you to do that. You do that hard work, but not too much. Don't be too loud. Don't be too assertive. Don't be too sexy. Don't be too unsexy. Don't be too big. Don't be too small. It gets us all the way into this, this cultural patriarchal diet culture problem. And it's that classic double bind. We want women to be powerful, but not too much, and only in particular ways. And this goes right back to our desire and power episode. Lean in. Instead of arguing everyone needs to lean out a little more.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Oh, wow. Well, I am probably one of the biggest
Larissa Parson:I know there's a lot. *laughs* haters of "Lean In" that is out there. I don't know. I could fight you for this one. I think that book so much. This book
Elizabeth M. Johnson:This book gets me going. And it's coming up on 10 years, and it still makes me full of fire and rage. You know, and it came out in 2014. Sheryl Sandberg writing this book about leaning in and what that basically means and then it's become a catchphrase for let's do. I'm leaning into this. I'm leaning into that. I'm never leaning out. I'm always leaning in. In 2016 I wrote an article called Why Leaning In Doesn’t Work, in response to SS 2014 book Lean In. In it I said this:“Advising women to “lean in” isn’t the solution. Continuing to see conversations about women“leaning in” as the answer to greater gender equity in the workplace is ignorant and unhealthy. Ladies, the fault is not ours. And, by the way,
Larissa Parson:Not these days. No.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:And it still feels important to say that ambition is not the problem. Women are ambitious. Yeah. And not everyone. I mean, we don't want to. But it's not that women are not necessarily ambitious. I think we all want different things. And maybe we don't necessarily want to own that that label. And that's okay. Problem is, we live in a patriarchal society that doesn't value the work that we do, it doesn't pay us as much. And it doesn't provide things like the social government or corporate structures, that we need to actualize these ambitions. Yes, back to what we've been saying, kind of from the beginning of this episode that we don't have what we need, because this society is not designed for us. This is basically what we mean by that.
Larissa Parson:Yeah, we have a society that doesn't adequately value any of the labor that makes the society possible.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Yeah.
Larissa Parson:And that devalues our bodies, that tells us there's only one white right way to be in a body. We live in a society that promotes the idea of DIY wealth. Hmm. So if you're ambitious, you're going to do it yourself, use your bootstraps and pull yourself up and get what you want. Which is always apparently money.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Rank, power, fame.
Larissa Parson:Rank, power, fame, right? But the only way we can actually get enough of anything is to work together.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Yeah. I want to just add back in Slaughter here, just really briefly, because I do feel like it's important to say as we close here that she does own this piece about her being responsible for this message.“Which means I’d been part, albeit unwittingly, of making millions of women feel that they are to blame if they cannot manage to rise up the ladder as fast as men and also have a family and an active home life(and be thin and beautiful to boot).” I do appreciate that she circles back and owns where she has gone wrong here.
Larissa Parson:Right. Yeah, that that is nice. I feel like the pandemic has made a lot of this even worse.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Yeah
Larissa Parson:The problem is systemic. We're expected to solve it as individuals. And that's not just about ambition, or care work, or any of that. It's about just literally not getting this virus.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:We need to go and find out like the pharmacy thing. I can't tell you how many people I've told--and some of them have been non native English speakers --about things like requesting tests from USPS. But you have to know these things. Why everyone's everyone's paying taxes, or many of us are paying taxes, why not just send all of these tests to each address that pays taxes? I mean, we are constantly made to do all of the individual work to try to the manage systemic problems that we are in right now.
Larissa Parson:Yeah. So, with the caveat that our individual solutions will never solve the systemic problems as a whole.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Yeah.
Larissa Parson:Do we want to talk about tools?
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Yeah, I think we want to talk about tools. Where should we start with to think about tools?
Larissa Parson:So, I think being aware of that, yes, and that I just mentioned. That, yes, the problem is systemic. And as much as we can make change on a systemic level, we should absolutely advocate for it, we should push for it when we have the spoons to do it. And at the same time, the system is made up of people, ultimately. The system runs over us all the time. But we also are in it, you know. The frustrating thing is that it takes so much time when we focus on our individual efforts. But if enough of us do it, things change. It can be the slow gradual process that results from individuals making changes. And free thinking. Noticing that these are systemic problems, and that some of it is not yours to hold on to or fix
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Yes.
Larissa Parson:And changing how you orient your life to circumvent some of those things, if possible. So for example, let me be concrete here because I feel like I'm getting up into too abstract land. My kids get to see me working all the time. I'm editing this podcast episode. Sometimes I have to be really conscious to say, this is what I'm doing. Because I'm just sitting at my computer. My kids are sitting at their computers playing video games. I am not playing video games, you know. So making clear, this is the work I'm doing right now. Talking about cooking and grocery shopping and putting things on the list and highlighting some of that invisible labor in the household. Especially because so far, my kids are cis boys. Making that invisible labor visible to them is super important to me. It goes a long way towards changing how they're going to treat people. And that is going to ripple out into the rest of their lives. And then there's also I think, you know, chosen family - the other kinds of support that we create for ourselves, even when the system tells us we have to do it all on our own.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Yeah, yeah. I think when I think about tools, here, I go back to the tools that we recommend kind of on a pretty regular basis when it comes to pretty much answering anything. And I think that we have to go back to our right people and our right relationships. And I think we really need to talk about some of the things that we are seeing and talk about some of the feelings that we're having. Because we know when we do this, we will have our right people mirror back to me mirror back to you "I totally get it, I've been there before, or I totally get that that feels really hard." For someone just told me the exact same thing. And this is what they're doing, you know, but we need to bring some of these things out into a broader light than we have. Just in our own worlds, we really need to shine that broader light. And one of the ways that we can have the gumption really to do that--because these are really hard topics -- is to do that with our right people. When I think about going back to the ambition of starting a podcast, I never in a million years would have done this by myself.
Larissa Parson:Nope.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:I would never have felt comfortable broaching any of these topics or feeling like I could talk about any of them without you, Larissa being right there and saying,"Yeah, I get this or Yeah, me too. Or, yeah, and here's how it impacts me. Or here's how I think about it. " Because things always get better, even if it's"just" here and how we feel about the thing, when we talk with other people about the thing.
Larissa Parson:Yes, so important. And I think that's why I mean, why we have this whole season of the podcast focused on surfacing what we don't talk about is exactly that to like, oh, well, let's start having conversations with each other. And yes, with everyone who listens, and they can have conversations, everyone they know. And, like, let's pay attention to this, like, where's our ambition thwarted? And where can we support ourselves each other? And yes, being less supported? I want to mention another one of our tools is noticing. And I think that's also really important. So you can validate what you notice with your right people. But noticing what you really want. What do you want? Your ambitions do not have to be grandios. Your ambitions can be very small. Your ambition could be I just want to drink my coffee hot every day. My favorite example. But asking questions like, What do I want? Where is this desire coming from? Like, is this a thing I want or is this the thing I've been told I need to want, like wanting to be thinner, for example? Is that something that I actually want? Or is that something that people are telling me is important because of reasons that aren't really true? And where do I get support for the things that I want? How do I make that happen? What are some small steps? And maybe this is a little sprinkle of titration. What are some small things I can do to move towards what I want? And how can I get there? What do I need to do? And how does it feel when I take those small steps?
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Yeah, I think that something I want to just circle back to what you just said is noticing, "where that's coming from? Is it something I really want? Or is this something I'm being told that I want?" And that can be really hard to detangle from each other. Like, what is the thing, especially when we think about something that's invalid? Like, "I want to be thin?" Where's that coming from? Because it's something that's pretty deeply in there because diet culture is pretty deeply entrenched in us and it's something we've grown up with.(Most of us have grown up with I would imagine) so it can be really hard to parse this out. And so maybe we do some journaling around it or maybe it's we ask ourself a question, listen to our intuition, or maybe we have someone ask us a question. I want to acknowledge the trickiness of that, too, of figuring this out, but it's very hard.
Larissa Parson:Yeah. Completely worth exploring. And I'm just gonna throw this in here right now, Elizabeth. This is the work I do is help you figure that out. That's what I do. So if you want someone to explore it with who's gonna hold space for you, hit me up. That's what I do.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:And also you do it in community with other people.
Larissa Parson:Yes.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Do you think we can close with what we're eating. Let's talk about what we're eating.
Larissa Parson:Yeah, I think I'm feeling done with ambition today.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Done here. That's enough ambition for today, y'all.
Larissa Parson:I reached my peak. Right, my limit. Okay, so I forgot to order food this week. Regular listeners know that I am on a cooking strike right now. And so I had to cook this week. And on tap for tonight, is a cheeseburger pie. Which sounds like something from the 50s.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:It does. Excellent. Yes, it does.
Larissa Parson:But there are going to be fresh jalapenos on it. So hopefully it will not be awful. I think it will have more flavor than the 50s version, basically, but it'll probably be very comforting and warm, and protein rich and all of that good stuff. I'm excited, because it looks like it's gonna take me 15 minutes to throw it together and stick it in the oven. And that is also a good thing, sometimes. Sometimes what we're eating isn't about it being the most delicious thing. Sometimes it's about ease, rest, simplicity,
Elizabeth M. Johnson:This is actually an off week of both my CSA and something else so I am not sure exactly what I'm eating. I've got some really beautiful some local veggies in the crisper and I saw this article in The New York Times about like this baked ricotta with spring veggies. And so I was gonna make that it looks pretty simple. It's like ricotta cheese and some egg and some parm. And then you've got some asparagus and some other things and it goes in this cast iron pan. So that is actually something that I might tackle tonight. So that's what I think I'm working on. Not eating, yet.
Larissa Parson:I love that both of us are just like, I don't know... Huh, what happened there? So odd. What's going on this week? It'ss that summer energy just like takes all of the all of it ambition around food out of the room.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Heat. It just deflates the room the energy and clearly when it comes to food!
Larissa Parson:You know us we love to eat and so it's just going to be simple. Okay. If you would like to support our work here on the podcast, head over to patreon.com/wondermine where you'll have access to our bonus episodes and whatever other awesomeness Elizabeth and I come up with on our walks.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:We are so grateful every time you share Wondermine with friends, give us five stars or write us a review. Thanks y'all who've done that really means a lot. It helps others find their wow and how of a life rooted in curiosity, community and liberation. Thanks for being here.
Larissa Parson:In the interim, you can follow us at wonderinepodcast on Instagram. Thanks so much. We're delighted that you've been listening.
