266: The Sexy Lie: How Self Objectification Damages Womens Lives with Dr. Caroline Heldman

What is power? Power is the ability to get other people to follow you and do things. That's one aspect of power. Power is influence amassing, the ability to amass resources and to bring about change that you want to see in the world. So what is being confused here is attention for power. Hello, everyone.

This is Kathy Caprino, and welcome to my podcast, Finding Brave. I've created this show for everyone who longs to create something bold and brave in to rise up, speak up, and stand up for who they are and to reach their highest and biggest visions. Each week, I'll be speaking with inspiring guests from all walks of business, leadership, entertainment, the creative arts, and the entrepreneurial world. And they'll be sharing their intimate stories of Finding Brave and offer their best strategies for building your most rewarding, joyful, and meaningful life, business, and career. Here we go. Hello, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Finding Brave. You know, I was just saying to one other guest, in some ways, I think Finding Brave is a little bit like a master's class in life, and this episode with the amazing Caroline Heldman is no different. We are digging into such an important topic and, and I, I frankly think it's an underrepresented topic. I don't think we're hearing about it in the way you talk about it, in the way you have studied and learned about it and have, you know, dedicated a lot of your work life to it. So with, without further ado here, first of all, thank you again for taking the time. I know you have two shows that you're commentating on today. Thank you for being here, Caroline.

It is a joy to be with you. Kathy, thank you so much.

Oh, my pleasure. All right, now I'm going to read Caroline's bio. You know, hold on to your hat here. It's. It's so inspiring. Here we go. And then I'm going to tell you how I met Caroline, which I love to share on the show. All right. Dr. Caroline Heldman is a professor of critical theory and social justice at Occidental College in Los Angeles, executive director of the Representation Project, and a political commentator of Spectrum, Spectrum4Spectrum, and CNN. Dr. Heldman has published seven books on gender, justice and politics, and her work has been featured in numerous documentaries, including Misrepresentation and the mask you live in. She co founded the New Orleans Women's Shelter, the Lower Ninth Ward Living Museum, and Rape on Campus. And you can read all this in the show notes as well because it's a lot and I want you to know all about these organizations Facult against rape. And she led the end rape statute of limitations and that successfully abolished the time limit on prosecuting rape in California. What a monumentous body of work and so important. Wow. And she's also the board president of the TEP center, the first civil rights movement in New Orleans, and the chair of the board of Al Alur. Am I pronouncing that correctly? Institute, a nonprofit fighting for stronger democracy. You know, sometimes I read my guest bios and I think, what am I doing over here? What am I doing with my life? And you are one of them. Thank you. Thank you again for all you do. And I want to tell you folks where I learned of Caroline. And it's through our mutual wonderful friend Octavia Gordima, who was on the show, who's written a book, beautiful book. And you can find that we will post that podcast episode in the show notes as well. She's wonderful. Good people know good people, Caroline, don't they?

Oh, I couldn't agree more. She's a connector and an amazing human being and has written some important work for women in the workplace.

It is so true. All right, my dear, now we are talking about today's topic is the Sexy Lie, how self objectification damages women's lives. You know, I have so many questions even with that. And I want to tell you, after I learned of you, I went and watched your TED Talk, which net TEDx talk, which now has, I think, 1.5 million views. I was riveted by every word. And the first question is here, what is the sexy lie? What is going on? What do you want women to understand and mention what's going on here?

Well, and I think, I think women probably know and I'm just going to give them language to talk about experiences. This is what's so fascinating that I've discovered in the two decades of working on this. The sexy lie is the lie that being a sex object is empowering. And in my TED Talk, I unpack it in pretty general terms. The book presents hundreds of studies looking at the effects of living and an objectification culture, a culture that values women primarily. It sexually objectifies us, values us for the way that we look. Little girls from a very early age learn that our primary value is our appearance. And I present evidence, both theoretical and empirical, that that's simply not the case. So the sexy lie, again is, is the lie that this is empowering when it's not. This isn't empowering because the way in which we approach the world is to simplify it and we simplify it often using binaries, binary thinking. So we sort people into, into racial categories, age categories, we simplify the world in, in this regard in terms of the subject object binary and sexual subjects act and sexual objects are acted upon. So in our culture, and I'm simplifying this, it's more, a little more complex than this. But men get to be sexual subjects, they get to be the choosers, the pickers, the, they're supposed to be in fact. And, and this isn't blaming men, I'm critiquing a cultural system that gives them a specific role and women are acted upon. Right. And so we are constantly giving away our power because we, we place our core values, we are taught to place our core values on something that A, we don't really control and B, always puts us in a subordinate position because the thing about being a sex object, if you're in the subject object binary, if you're in the sexual sub, a sexual subject and you get to choose and you're a sexual object and you're acted upon, it doesn't matter how valuable a sex object you are, you're still always in a subordinate position. So it's just basic, you know, just thinking, thinking this through. We are giving our power away constantly by viewing ourselves, by buying into this system. But then, you know, if that argument isn't convincing because for a lot of folks are like, yeah, but sometimes it makes me feel good. Sure it does. In a culture that values that you can, can get some short term gain. But the real kind of evidence that this is harmful to us is that the more women buy into this idea that we should be sexy, that we should be sex objects who exist for others, the more likely we are to have a host of problems. So we're more likely to be depressed, hate our bodies, have sexual dysfunction, engage in habitual body monitoring, which takes a lot of time, where we're constantly thinking about our bodies, we're more likely to have eating disorders, we have lower confidence confidence, we have lower political efficacy, which is a belief that your voice matters in politics and you have power there. I've even found a correlation with gpa. So we know that the more likely you and the more you internalize this idea that you're supposed to be sexy for the outside world and that your appearance is your primary form of value, the less happy you are that the more you have mental health issues, the more you have issues moving through the world in terms of politics and activism and professionalism and confidence. So this is a book that Takes again, literally hundreds of studies that have looked at some aspect of this and presents it in a way that's digestible. You know, it's not going to put you to sleep.

Holy cow.

I have so many questions.

So, you know, I just wrote the most powerful you and, and I, I want to ask you this question. You're going to give me an answer that no one else can give me. How do I want to put this? Quickly. What I've seen in working with thousands of women around the world, and we're talking mid to high level women, women with supposed leadership, power and impact. What they were missing were of are seven aspects of power. They're power gaps. But labeling the book the most powerful you has done a disservice to it being a bestseller. I'm going to be honest, because women shun the word, they shun the concept and they shun the as. They shun what, they shun having power. And when I asked, I did a poll, something like 1600 people answered. Women said, I don't want power. I said, what do you want? They said, influence, impact, making a difference. I said, I hate to break it to you, and I don't mean to sound snarky, but you can't have those things without power. Now I understand why women shun power, don't want to have it because they think of it as harsh, abusive, aggressive, cruel. So even on one of my courses, a very senior woman said, you know, I'm afraid to be powerful. I don't want to put anyone off. And I said, hang on, hang on. So I think our whole culture defines power in a negative way, but particularly women who've been under the thumb of power. That was a long diatribe, but I'm really interested to know what you think about what I've just said. And do you see it that women in some way shun grabbing control of power? And, and I do want to define it. You can be spiritual, you can be compassionate, you can be loving, you can be gentle, and you can be powerful at the same time. But what do you think about all of that that I just said? What do you see?

You know, Kathy, the first thing that jumps to mind is some of the work I've done on presidential leadership. And we define the presidency in very masculine terms. And I think it's very similar to defining power in very masculine terms. And it's not just how it's exercised or how we define it, it's who's supposed to hold it. And so it doesn't surprise me at all that, that women are, are sh. Because. And the response you got from, from the one woman you mentioned was I don't want to offend people. What I, if you take that, you know, peel back a layer. I think what she's saying is that power is defined as masculine. And when women assume masculine things that are defined for men and are masculine, then it is held against them. And we saw this so clearly. I'll go across the political aisle here. I, I Love this. The 2008 election, looking at Sarah Palin and Hillary, Clint, both of them tried to do this very delicate dance where because we think of the presidency, the most powerful office, you know, in, in the, in the world, we view it in such hyper masculine terms. And that has everything to do with the way in which we think about power and masculinity. Because of that they were, they had to be both properly masculine in order to be respected and competitive in that realm. But then the moment they did that they were, it was held against them that they weren't being properly feminine and it was offensive. So Sarah PA does this, you know, if you imagine this like masculine feminine line down, down the middle, she does this kind of, she really, really straddles it wide. She goes hyper masculine shooting moose, you know, acting tough, using tough rhetoric and language. And then she does hyper feminine with her hair and her lipstick and her self presentation and then Hillary Clinton hugs the line more closely.

Right.

She's wearing pantsuits and pearls and she's, you know, tough on, on in terms of foreign policy and crime and. But it didn't matter. Both of them got beaten up in hyper gendered obviously gender terms for anyone who studies this. And again, I think it's because we define power as being a male domain and it doesn't matter what the male domain is when it will be held against women when they enter it, which of course discourages girls and women from entering these realms, whether it's stem tech, politics, you name it, power. And then when they get there, they're held to a different standard and so they leave at higher rates. Yeah, you're right. It's in our culture, it's in our water.

It makes me cry, it makes me enraged. It makes me cry. It's, it's a system we're born into. And you know, I'm 63 years old and I have a 28 year old daughter and 25 year old son. Not much has changed. I mean in certain areas like you couldn't get a credit card in your name if you were married 1972 if you were a woman without your husband co signing. So yes, things have changed, but, but not really.

Well, things have changed in terms of access, but things haven't changed in terms of, of our, our lack of value. I would argue it's actually gotten worse in some ways. And I, and I'm not a pessimist and I would agree with you, we can go through socially, women have made great strides politically. You know, we're, we're celebrating and cheering that we're now 25% of Congress, you know, up significantly from a few decades ago. Even though we're 51% of the population and it'll take us a couple hundred years to achieve parity, we're still, we've made progress. We are now moving, you know, into CEO positions like never before in Fortune 500 companies just in the last five years. Not to say we'll, we'll be achieving parity anytime soon. What is it, 18 out of the Fortune 500. But it's still a massive improvement. We can agree on that. But at the end of the day, women are still treated as second class citizens in fundamental ways and especially marginalized women, especially you know, women of color, disabled women, queer women, fat women. I'm not using that as an insult. I'm using reclaiming that term as a descriptive term. I do a lot of work around pushing back against fat phobia. Older women experience it, poor women. So it, we are, we are still devalued. And how do we know this? Because one in six women will experience sexual violence over the course of her lifetime and only 1% of rapist ever sees a day, day inside a jail cell. Our value in our, in our culture, you can look to see how, you know, basic things like bodily protection come into play. So, and I would argue that, that in terms of our, our value and sexual objectification, we now openly embrace it. We don't even see it. And so in that sense it's gotten much worse.

And do you think social media has a lot to do with it? Because we're bombarded with pictures of, you know, what do you want to call it? A lot of body scantily clad. There it is. And you know, some friends of my family, you know, I'm seeing what they, men and women actually, but they're, it's such an objectification and somehow they're proud of it. So can we talk about. When you say some women say no, it is empowering and I'm guessing I know what they mean. Let me, let me take A stab. They feel like they're grabbing control of how they are presenting themselves and they are understanding they're being objectified, but they feel powerful in that there's some degree of control about what they are eliciting that they know they're eliciting. Is that on the mark at all?

Absolutely. But I think the confusion gets back to this word.

Power. Right.

What is power? Power is the ability to get other people to follow you and, and do things. That's, you know, one aspect of power. Power is influence amassing the ability to amass resources and to bring about change that you want to see in the world. So what, what is being confused here is attention for power. Attention is not power, especially flee unless you can monetize it. And are people increasingly able to monetize it? Yes. Is it still an incredibly small percentage of the population? Yes. The only people who really get power from sexual objectification are celebrities, and that's 0.00003% of the population, meaning that they are taking attention and they are translating it into some sort of social, political or economic power. But at the end of the day, it doesn't matter if you do benefit from it, which I would. Nobody does. Even though they feel like they do. And at some point it's going to hit them that the system is stacked against them and the thing they thought was benefiting them was actually harming other women. And now it's harming them. Because in a, in a rigged game where your body is your value, everybody ages out. It is an absolutely rigged game. It's capitalist, it's patriarchal. The bigger the gap, right, between where you think you need to be and where you think you are, the more products you will buy. This is, this is by design. It's not by accident. At the end of the day, it's not about. It's not empowering even. And I'm not going to name specific celebrities because even though I do, in the book, my critique is, is about, you know, not. Not about criticizing the women who are benefiting from. The very few who are benefiting from the system, I would argue at great personal expense if you look at their personal stories. But it's about critiquing the system. It really is. It's about saying, hey, as you pointed out, Kathy were born into this culture and it does not serve us. It does not serve girls and women to place their primary value on their body. When bodies age and you age out of being a sex object, maybe you, you never were one. It also upholds A really insidious. The flip side of this, an insidious system of fatphobia which is dominant in our culture where we, you know, I will just take a step back and say everything we know about fatness is wrong. You cannot tell a person's health based upon their size. It's absurd if you actually do any amount of research on this. And yet the medical establishment, but more specifically the 60 billion dollar a year health, fitness and diet industry, have convinced us that somehow we are morally superior if we are straight size, that it's. That it is our job to be critical of people who are fat. It creates a horrible world, one I don't want to live in. And that's the flip side of the sexy lie, right? Which is that, that if you, you can be totally left out of being considered a sex object. And I will complicate that by saying a lot of people are, are attracted to fat folks. They just have to be on the down low about it, which speaks to the fact that they're not allowed to be valuable. And you know, fat folks are not allowed to be valuable in our culture, and especially women. But I could talk all, all day about how these systems are harming folks on a date, on an everyday basis.

Wow. This is going to be hard for me not to talk to you for four hours. I'm going to rail questions at you. And I know you're used to this as a political analyst. It's really what I want to understand. It's the nuances. Can we go back to when you said a very small percentage of women are earning money monetizing their sexual objectification? I have even a problem. I'm not judging. This is not about judging. This is about understanding and seeing what is healthy and happy. And obviously there are a million definitions of that. But I have a problem with, okay, she made a million dollars on Instagram showing her breasts and her butt. Do you consider that power, having made a lot of money monetizing that?

So, yes and no. I think it's complicated.

Yeah, I'd love to hear the complications.

So the power would be amassing resources so that you can do things that you want to do and have influence. So it's resources that facilitate power. At the same time, you are re. If you're a woman who's doing this or a person who's doing this, you're reinforcing the idea that that is how women should be valued. And this isn't something that's natural. I just really want to bust the myth that it's like, oh, sex sells it. I break this down on the book. It's. That's not what's being sold here. What's being sold here is actually a sense of entitlement and power. But let me get to that. If it was simply sex selling, right? And now that, that about 7% of. Of women are gay and the remainder identify as heterosexual. So we know that nine in ten women are heterosexual. But, and, and we know that we're sexual beings. We know that while there's a difference in sex drives, both men and women think about sex a lot. And that, and the difference is very, very slim. So if it was just about selling sex and sex selling, then we would see scantily clad images of men all over the place trying to sell things to heterosexual women. And the fact that that isn't the case, we have to ask ourselves, what's the difference here? And I would argue it's because men are. Men are surrounded by images of scantily clad women because they are, they constantly remind them that they are sexual subjects. They are in a position of power. And for women, where do you see women in women's content? You open up a women's magazine, there she is. What are women learning from that? They're learning how to be ideal sex objects for the heterosexual male gaze. And so it's all about power. I don't. So when I, when I break this down and I, I think about a woman who has made a lot of money with her body in that way, she is, she is making money. That one human being making money for herself, capitulating to the male gaze in a way that is reinforcing male power. That comes at tremendous expense to her and her everyday life in other ways and perhaps even in terms of eating disorders and things that are directly related to it, but ultimately, sure. Is there, is there a moment of power? Is there a moment of making a million bucks? Yes. At the expense of what our sec. Our, our standing in society. It's, it's not a minor thing.

You are right on in every possible way. And in your TED Talk, you say that very thing which made me think, what. Wait a minute. Did I get this right? Caroline, you said if it were just sex cells, then Magus magazines for men would have scantily clad women, but magazines for women would have scantily clad men and everything.

Signs of buses, you name it.

You know, we're not having that, are we?

We are not.

I, that was really a revelation.

That's.

I interviewed an amazing therapist, Terry Real, who talked about Patriarchy. And oh, and he said, just what you said. Patriarchy is the water we swim in and we're the fish and fish don't see water. And you know, here I am working in somewhat in this area of empowering women as much as I know how to do. And that one statement really blew my socks off. So I think people, you're getting the sense of the scope of the problem and I have a feeling we're going to hear a lot like, you know, this is coming out, I think in the fall. But just recently on LinkedIn and I saw on TikTok, a two minute. It was from a series. It's a video from the series Inside Man, Netflix. And it was in the UK and it was a depiction. It was a, you know, fictionalized story, I believe. And it was a young guy sexually harassing a young woman of color in the subway. And, you know, it was harassment and close to assault. And not one person helped, helped. And then one woman recorded him on FaceTime Live and said, police, if you're watching, please come. And they were at the station. Well, it went viral on my LinkedIn, you know, 150,000 views and a lot of comments. And here are two guys saying things like, I think this is outrageous, that they're taking a show and trying to create the image that this is real, meaning it's not real. And, and one guy said, look, this, this would not happen. And I said, I'm, I'm sorry to, you know, respectfully speaking, here's the statistics in America about how many women are raped him. And I was chased and I felt close to being raped in Central Park. And I talk about the terror of that. And he writes back angry at me. Who cares about the US I live in the uk. Wow. And what was clear is, and I wasn't going to take him on, but other people took him on. What's clear is, yes, it was a small percentage, but there are men and potentially women who are reacting with anger and needing to believe that what you are talking about is not true, that what I shared is not true, that women aren't getting treated like that. But all you have to be is a woman and talk to a woman for one second and know that it's happening at a catastrophically huge level. Right.

Why? Something that might feel a kind of surface or frivolous, like sexual objectification is actually an incredibly difficult, deep, influential and intractable problem. Right. The reason this is so important is if you look at the history of violence against groups, dehumanization is the first step in violence against that group. So what does sexual objectification do? Sexual objectification. Sexual objectification is the process of turning a human being into an object, one who exists for your sexual pleasure, whether visually or otherwise. And so. So sexual objectification that turns a human being into an object for your sexual pleasure is inherently dehumanizing. It moves them from the category of human to the category of object. And dehumanization is the first step in violence toward a group. And so it does not surprise me that we have an epidemic of sexual violence against women globally. One in three women globally will face some form of violence, sexual or otherwise, over the course of her lifetime time. And I had mentioned in the US it's 1 in 6 will face sexual violence. And it's important, important to note that native and black women in particular face much higher rates than women of other races. So while it might seem like a fluffy topic talking about celebrities, the impact of this is really deep and it's really awful in ways that I actually think that girls and women have an inkling of. I do think that we feel that the pressures, we certainly feel it in terms of eating disorder and depression and the habitual body monitoring.

Right.

This idea that you're constantly thinking about how your body looks to the outside world. I mean, we spend so much time worried about how we look to complete strangers that researchers at the University of Michigan found that the amount of time we spend thinking about our bodies over the course of the, the of our lifetime as women, we could earn three PhDs. And I think while that, that stat is shocking, I don't actually think it's news to women. No, I think it's news to men. I think men don't understand how the culture they've been born into causes us to constantly self surveil our bodies, but it also harms our relationships. It causes us to distance ourselves intergenerationally. So when we're younger, you know, there's, there's a distance between young women and old women I think wouldn't exist if body wasn't the way we measured our value. It also causes us to be competitive with other women. You know, I mentioned in the TED talk, we go into a party and we know where we are in the pretty girl pecking order. And this is news to no woman. This is the thing. And I, I published on this for two decades. I know it's controversial in some sense, and I can talk about that controversy. But at the end of the day, I don't know a woman with whom this doesn't reson. And it doesn't matter what your sexuality is. I mean, you're living in this culture. You're experiencing this. The big pushback is, wait a minute, isn't this happening? You know, isn't. Aren't women controlling their sexuality? Didn't we have the sexual revolution? And isn't this what the sexual revolution gave us? And I push back, and in two ways. This is not what the sexual revolution gave us. This is what marketers and capitalists gave us in response to the sexual revolution. This is not about women's sexual pleasure. This is about feeling bad about our bodies and buying more stuff because of it. And that's the bottom line of what this is about. Whether we're spending money on services, we're spending money on goods, that's what this is about. Because if it was about our sexual pleasure, then one basic thing, the more women internalize objectification, the less they are satisfied with their sex lives, the more sexual dysfunction they have. So if this was really about our sexual pleasure, we would see the two combined, but we don't. And I would take it a step further and say there's a big difference between being sexy, which means your sexuality exists for other people, and being sexual, which means it exists for you. So what we have done, one is girls and women have learned, and especially with the rise of porn and social media, and we can talk a bit more about that if you want, but especially with the rise of porn and social media, girls and women have. Have learned to confuse being sexy, which is their pleasure, their sexuality existing for others, and being sexual, which means it exists for them. So when you talk to young women, as I do frequently in my classes on sex, I teach classes on, on sex, what we end up unpacking is that they very much center. If they're heterosexual, they're very much centering male, heterosexual. They're. What I find is that these young women are prioritizing male sexual pleasure in sex acts. And the way that they view their own sexuality is through this lens of whether or not he liked it and it. And of course, I'm talking about heterosexual hookups here, but it is. Is shocking to me how much women have deprioritized their sexual pleasure. And I think it has everything to do with the idea that we've been asked to make our sex about other people and for other people. But maybe it's not shocking because we live in a culture that deprioritizes women's sexual pleasure from porn, you know, as the. The primary sex Educator. Now, the money shot and the amount of, of, you know, just what passes as sexual pleasure in porn for women is not actually fun for most women in real life. And so we actually have a big epidemic on our hands. I hear more and more from young women in my classes that they're, they're afraid of sex. And I think something has happened, and I know now I'm going down a rabbit hole, Kathy, but something that has happened that the adults have not picked up on, and by adults, I mean, like folks over 30 that we're unaware of, is that that porn has actually redefined what sex is for young people, to the point that the sex that you and I think of when we're thinking of, you know, having sex, that, that is now not called sex. It's called vanilla sex. So what does that tell you about what the norm is? If you have to label the sex that you and I think of as vanilla sex, that means that violence in sexual acts, choking, spanking, slapping, has been normalized. Now, with that said, I'm not, I'm not critiquing bdsm, which is more consensual than other people. Think of it as being this thing over here, this kink. It's actually way more consensual than everyday sex that folks have that aren't engaged in that community. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the fact that it's become so normal that a lot of the young women I'm hearing from them in focus groups and in my classes are simply afraid to have hookups because they don't know if they're going to be choked without consent. They don't know if they're going to be hit or slapped. And that is. That is the world that we have bequeathed to Gen Z and Gen Alpha coming up behind them, because we haven't done a good job of regulating both the content and access to porn.

A question about this one thing. What are the statistics about the percentage of men under 30 watching porn and the percentage of women are women watching? It is.

I know they surely are, Kathy. That is a great question. So about 80% are watching in that age group, about 8 in 10 men are watching porn on a regular basis, and about three in 10 women are watching porn on a regular basis.

Are they watching the same kind of porn?

There is a lot of overlap. So there the, you know, the. I'm not going to mention the names of these companies because I don't want to, to promote them in any way. And I Will say, I'm not somebody who is anti porn. I'm anti mainstream corporate porn. I do think this can be done right. I don't think it's being done right. But gonzo porn, the fastest, most growing, most popular type of porn is consumed by both men and women. And in gonzo porn, about two thirds has some form of verbal or physical violence aimed at women. And about 48% has ATM, which is ass to mouth. So you'll see a penis coming out of someone's rectum and going into a mouth. So she's literally eating. I don't know if we can curse on this. Go ahead, cut that out. But. But about half is showing that in the gonzo porn. Yeah, it's pretty popular. And it's important to note that there's a physical toll here too, which is at about half of overhead. Half porn performers in. In these most. The most popular videos. She has to go and seek medical treatment after the fact so we could get into what's important. If you haven't seen porn lately, it is not your parents porn. Great question about whether men and women are watching the same thing. There's definitely some overlap, but men are much more likely to be consuming violent porn.

I want to cry because my world has been how women are dehumanized in the corporate world or in the world of work. And, you know, it's my life's passion to help women thrive and advance. And when you're talking about this world, while it's. It's astounding in its specificity, it's remarkable in its universe. What's the word in how universal it is?

Is.

It's the same story. It's the same story.

So it's the story of patriarchy.

It's the story of patriarchy. So I want to ask you because I think anyone listening, and I believe any man with a heart and a soul and a mind will have a reaction, a negative reaction. I mean, not, not to resist it, but hopefully to hear it and start to understand. You know, I just want to give one example quickly. Then I want to ask you, what do we do about this? But I remember when I was pregnant with my first child, Julia, and I gained 40 pounds. And I walked into a party, like you said, you know, where you are in the pretty girl pecking order. And I would get looks. Typically, the weird thing was I was literally invisible. I'd never, never known what that feels like. I mean, literally, I wasn't in the room. People looked right through me. Being £40 huge, it's a small thing but you know, it's like, you know when actors put on a, they call it a fat suit. I don't know if they call it that any longer. But how different it is when people perceive them. It's so remarkable because you haven't changed, it's still you. You with £40 more and the world isn't even noticing you. It's just horrific. It's horrific. Now in my world. And I want to ask you if this relates when I say to women, they're being punished when they speak up, yes. Assertive, confident women, the research upon research shows they're viewed as less valuable, less competent, less desirable in the workforce, less effective. But I say to them, we can't let that stand. You can't back off and say, well I'm not going to speak up assertively. We have to become different. We can't flow with this tide. What do you say? What can every woman who hears this and thinks yes, yes, yes, yes, this is what's happening. How do we deal with this? How do we navigate this?

I think a really important first step is to recognize how much you've internalized the sexy lie and how it is affecting you on a day to day basis. And I put together in the book the seven day Cleanse, right. Of, of how we might, what you might do to kind of a palate cleanser if you will. It'll help you spot how the sexy lie is showing up. So I put together things like journaling about the habitual body monitoring tape. So anytime the negative self talk, anytime you're, you're talking about, you know, in your head about other women, the competition, all of that. So journaling that another thing is part of this cleanse and I hope it's something that people just do, women just do in general, which is anytime you see a woman who's a really valuable sex objects, she has faced a lot of scrutiny and competition from other women and probably doesn't trust them and probably has had bad experiences. And so wherever you are in the pretty girl pecking order, can we just say reach out, out. Don't be competitive, be collaborative. Fine. You know, have that moment, do the same thing intergenerationally, very explicitly if you're a younger woman, reach out as you know, strangers in public, develop a connection with them. Don't view them.

Right.

Don't other, don't view them as competition and don't erase them. And the erasure comes when you're an old woman and when you're a fat woman. Right. And so you talked about putting on weight and having that experience of erasure. And it's very real. Real. And for every young woman who thinks this isn't going to happen to her, I have news for you. Time marches on it absolutely will. We all think that we're gonna, you know, get this little, this little valuable pot of attention from strangers we've never met and that's going to sustain us. Just recognizing it doesn't mean anything either. Right. And also it's not going to be around forever. And so it does really especially harm the women. It's weird to say that the system harms women who are in it and the system harms women who, who are not in it, who are not valuable sex objects. I also have ideas for appearance, like limiting your mirror time to 10 minutes a day. Doing the bare minimum with clothing, makeup, accessories, making. You're just going for seven days. And don't purchase any beauty products or clothing, beauty services, accessories, and see how much that's been a part of your life and defining who you are. And then physicality. Write a basic thing thing, eat when you're hungry. So many of us, 2/3 of women have disordered eating where we're constantly in limiting our caloric intake, exercising and being active and taking up space. So it's this idea Sarah Mernan had that, you know, little girls view their bodies as these projects to work on and constantly be improved. And little boys view their bodies as these tools to master their environment. We want to get there. So doing parkour, impeller public feeling your body as this vehicle, as this tool to get you from point A to point B or to help you accomplish what you want in life. And then what do you do with all this time and energy that you're not burning on, you know, beauty culture, identifying your core values, crafting a personal mission statement, setting one year and five year goals, spending your time learning things that matter. Write a book on feminism, watching a film directed by a woman, signing up for a feminist newsletter, creating content. So it breaking away from this again, all this kind of first step, right is, is vital because it actually drains us constantly, emotionally and sometimes even physically. If we're not eating, for example, or we're over exercising because we, we have disordered ideas about our bodies, it will give you so much more energy, it'll free up a lot of mental space. And then on a structural level, there are all sorts of things we can do, right? We can do everyday activities. Acts of resistance. One of my favorite everyday acts of resistance is to Stop yourself from passing this baton of beauty culture to the next generation. And we do it constantly. Stop yourself from saying perhaps the most damaging thing you can say to a little girl. Oh, you're so pretty. That is one generation passing that baton to the next generation and telling her that her body is her most valuable asset. It's the number one thing we say to little girls, right? And what do we say to little boys? You're so strong, you're so capable. What do we want to say to her? Compliment a choice she's made about what an activity, or ask her questions about herself rather than these kind of, you know, these really destructive, seeming, seemingly innocuous, but very destructive passage of beauty culture from one generation to the next. You can also, you know, occupy spaces, take up space. We talk a lot about man spreading. I think women also physically are very, in public, often are very, very contained. Don't be contained. Your body is your vehicle. It's your tool. Like, just live in it. In terms of other structural things we can do consumer activism. So boycotting, boycotting, socially conscious investing, letting content creators know when they have an issue, when their content is sexist, just like you would let them know if it was racist. Media activism. So creating your own content, commenting on problematic content on social media, that's something, you know, it's pretty simple to do. And then, of course, policy activism, which is. Is really trying to hold media content creators accountable on a wider scale by passing legislation, joining a nonprofit. I. I run a nonprofit called the Representation Project that was founded by Jennifer Siebel Newsom, the first partner of California. And we do media critique. We hold media content creators accountable. And then, of course, you could become a journalist or an editor and news producer who puts out content that actively, you know, rejects the sexy lie.

Wow. All right, people, I am speechless. But here's what I want to say. Don't get overwhelmed by all that you can do. Choose. I love that you said choose with yourself. Can I offer one thing which is probably even in your book? Years ago, when I was in therapy over my unhappy career, my therapist, spiritual psychotherapist, said, you know, know, I sense that you're a very judgmental person. I don't mean mean. I don't mean negative, but everything is judging. This is good, this is bad. She's pretty. She's not. Not around looks per se, but judging, judging, judging. And he had a Buddhist bent. And, you know, judging can be the death of peace. So he said, for the next week, I want you to go back. No, I want you to watch your thoughts and every time you have a judging thought thought, I want you to make a mental check mark and then say there goes one of those judging thoughts and then let it go. I don't want you to do anything about it. The point is to separate you from your thoughts to become aware. Well I, I was just thinking about how my ex husband dear, we're dear amicable friends now but years ago he said wow, you spend a lot of time thinking about, about how you look. He was floored in the same way.

How do we find out?

I think I must have been talking about, you know, it's weight, it's whatever. So while you were talking about all of those amazing tips and strategies, I'd also ask everybody to do this exercise and we'll put a name to it. Those self objectifying thoughts. There goes one of those self judging, self objectifying, self hating thoughts. Don't do anything about it, just mark it. And every time you look in the mirror and I know while you were talking I think I, I look in the mirror a lot and it's not a happy, you know, assessment I'm making. Typically it's something's not as good as I want it to be. There goes one of those thoughts. I think if we can start heart to stop being the fish in the water that we can't see, start seeing the water, I think it will help. What do you think?

Start seeing the water. There it is. Absolutely releasing. Like releasing, recognizing and releasing. I guess that's what it is. Catch and release as you're in the water, to use that metaphor. Oh I love it. And you know, something springs to mind. Kathy, I know a lot of your content is around professionalism and the workplace workplace. And there is a big portion of the book dedicated to how the sexy lie affects women in the workplace. And what we know is that from experimental studies and from surveys that both men and women take women less seriously in professional settings if they are wearing clothing that that is objectifying or presents, you know, revealing clothing. We also know that the moment at which you see the image of an objectified woman, both men and women viewer as being less intelligent, as less likable, as less competent. And this especially comes into play with political women. The moment at which Solinda Lake has done research on this and the moment at which you in experimental settings you comment or present an appearance aspect of a candidate, a woman candidate, immediately her competency, her perceived competency, her perceived worth and intelligence goes down. And what's really startling are a couple of Studies, neuroscience studies, one that finds that when men look at objectified images of women in calendars, that the same part of their brain goes off as when they're about to use a tool. Right? So it literally is an object for use. Right. So that's the part of their brain that activates. And that for men and women, we see sexually objectified women as a collection of body parts rather than as a whole person. And one more thing about all of this, Heflick and Goldberg find that we collectively, men and women, care less about the pain and suffering of objectified women than other women. We care less about their pain and suffering. And that says it all. And that that's not just men engaging in this. And of course, men are born into this culture and they're in the water too. So all of this hopefully is inform for their own actions and behaviors. And I bet a lot of men are probably like, oh, right, I'm constantly looking around and being reminded that I'm in a position of power in this culture because women physically exist for me. I'm guessing men are going to probably have that click moment. But here's the thing about power. I find that a lot of people don't want to talk about this aspect of power. That when, when you reveal that someone has unearned privilege or power, power, that does not mean they're going to give it up.

Right?

That might actually mean that they'll maintain their position of power with greater skill because they have that knowledge. I don't think that power gives itself up. So I don't think it's enough for women to simply raise awareness about this, because, let's be honest, we've been raising awareness since the 70s. This is. This is a new incarnation, new spin on, you know, data and arguments that have been around that radical feminists put together in the, in the late 60s, early 70s. I think of Gene Kilbourne's Killing Us Softly, 1978, where she was calling out sexism and advertising. So how is it that it's 2023, the problem has gotten worse and we're still, still talking about it, still haven't really addressed it.

Oh, Caroline, we could go on forever. I hope you will come back. Part two, part three, part four. Where can people. Where would we send them to soak up what, what you're teaching, what you're offering? Where do we send them?

My website, Dr. Caroline helbin.com is the best place to go for the book, for other books, for TED Talks, and, and it's just such A gift to talk with you, Kathy, with your empathy and your insight. I mean it's just, it's these sorts of conversations that we need to be having so much right in our lives in order to navigate systems like the Sexy Lie.

I'm so grateful to you for your work, for letting me dig in and prod around. And here I am, you know, again, a 63 year old woman living it every day. And I have learned so much from this conversation. I am so grateful to you for all that you're doing. Thank you again. All right everyone, we, you know, Caroline is crashingly busy, but wherever you see this, will you post a question? Will you post a comment? I'm assuming there'll be challenges. I just ask that they be respectful. They don't dehumanize, they don't see us as non humans. Be respectful so that there can be an engagement, engaged conversation. We would love to hear your thoughts and we would be very grateful if you would share this with at least one person who you know would would find this valuable. We would so appreciate that. All right everyone. Thank you again Caroline and have a wonderful finding Brave two weeks. That's what we're asking of you and we will see you next time. Hi friends.

Kathy here.

I'm excited to share info on something I've never done before, but I hope it's really helpful. I've developed and taught two different courses over the past my 16 week amazing career project course and my 8 week the most Powerful you course. Both offer video training, a transformative career growth curriculum, tons of great resources, plus weekly live coaching calls with me this fall I've decided to promote them both at the same time time. So you can choose which course is best for you now or you can take them both at the same time. The Most Powerful youl teaches women how to dramatically build their confidence, impact, self esteem and strength so that they can reach their highest potential in any career direction. The Amazing Career Project walks Women through the 16 most essential steps to building a happier and more rewarding career. They love you.

Love.

Click the links below in the show notes for a description of both and choose the one that's best for you. This is information that every professional needs to know if they want to reach their highest success and happiness. Both courses start the week of September 25th and I can't wait to see you then. Thank you. Thanks so much for joining us today. And please don't forget to check out findingbrave.org for more programs, resources and tips and tune in next time for your weekly dose of finding Brave.