1. Ooh I like Phoebe. You all have a lovely rapport. I sense that you really enjoyed this interview. I generally think you do a terrific job of coaxing a thread from your guests, but this felt more warm. More banter. I think you should have her back.
2. I really didn't understand the fixation on the mansphere's response to Gould. I see enough idiocy on twitter and NextDoor to know it's best just to dismiss it and not give it oxygen. I haven't read the Gould critiques but I just couldn't imagine it's something worth spending much time on....unless its somehow indicative of a trend that is interesting in itself (e.g. incells, male backlash, etc), but you all didn't explore this idea meaningfully. It all just sounded a bit gossipy and about folks that don't deserve much airtime.
We did have a good rapport! You're right. I'm working on relaxing more into the conversations as a fuller version of myself. It's kind of its own skill that I'm still developing.
Enjoyed this conversation. Personally I thought the Gould piece was interesting stylistically. It seemed most people were concerned with the events of the story (understandable, I guess), but to me it was just a good piece of writing. The mixing of her personal story with an overview of the literary divorce genre was really well done.
Agree that it was a good piece. It’s probably worth emphasizing more than we did (although I think both of us said we liked it, if I remember correctly). Too often these things get churned through the take factory without anyone commenting on their baseline quality as writing.
As a big fan of Phoebe and Kat’s podcast, this was a real treat.
During my own divorce, lo these many years ago, I could feel the pitiless judgment of the divorce literary industrial complex’s narrative on me, flattening a complex situation into a simple story that I was the villain of. To push back on the narrative too forcefully would just implicate me further, like B’rer Rabbit punching the Tar Baby. The whole situation codes male self respect as right wing, which should bother us for practical political reasons and is counter to our humanistic values.
I really resonated with your comment about the dangers of seeing your personal relationships through the lens of systemic oppressor/oppressed narratives. Seeing your relationship that way, or expecting that your partner will see your relationship that way is so corrosive to the trust needed for the intimacy we seek from those we love and hope love us in return.
One thing that’s interesting is that if you read the big relationship books (which I have) they’re almost all much more nuanced on this than the cultural narrative can be. If anything they’re maybe Insufficiently interested in how the culture or politics can affect marriage.
I think it’s surely true that feminist analyses of marriage were really important in reforming the institution and society, but I have my doubts that they’re much good these days in helping people heal themselves or their marriage. And yeah it’s sad that male self respect is often coded as conservative. What a disaster! We should all be seeking self respect.
100% I’m really looking forward to that relationship book you keep mentioning! “how to have a marriage in full awareness of the cultural and political context without ruminating yourself into misery” seems like rich vein to mine.
Yeah, I think the part of the discourse that bothers me is what I'm seeing as a pattern of dismissal of concerns as hurt feels from the manosphere/incels.
For me, the consequence of this divorce narrative was an every-other-weekend schedule with my daughters through their teenage years. A state of affairs that was painful for me, yes, but I think also harmful to them.
In this essay, Gould describes truly awful behavior, and the biggest consequence she fears is a 50/50 custody sharing arrangement. Yes, this was triggering to me. And that the conclusion she arrives it is that maybe her husband isn't the source of all her problems may represent an improvement over the previous narrative, but still seems well short of the truth.
In what sense short of the truth? I'm entirely with you that 50/50 should be the default arrangement, and my limited sense of the evidence is that this is better for the kids. That's certainly what I would expect if my wife and I got divorced. I didn't think she was saying anything to the contrary, though. I think she was just saying that the idea of being without her kids half the time was terrifying.
1. Ooh I like Phoebe. You all have a lovely rapport. I sense that you really enjoyed this interview. I generally think you do a terrific job of coaxing a thread from your guests, but this felt more warm. More banter. I think you should have her back.
2. I really didn't understand the fixation on the mansphere's response to Gould. I see enough idiocy on twitter and NextDoor to know it's best just to dismiss it and not give it oxygen. I haven't read the Gould critiques but I just couldn't imagine it's something worth spending much time on....unless its somehow indicative of a trend that is interesting in itself (e.g. incells, male backlash, etc), but you all didn't explore this idea meaningfully. It all just sounded a bit gossipy and about folks that don't deserve much airtime.
We did have a good rapport! You're right. I'm working on relaxing more into the conversations as a fuller version of myself. It's kind of its own skill that I'm still developing.
Enjoyed this conversation. Personally I thought the Gould piece was interesting stylistically. It seemed most people were concerned with the events of the story (understandable, I guess), but to me it was just a good piece of writing. The mixing of her personal story with an overview of the literary divorce genre was really well done.
Agree that it was a good piece. It’s probably worth emphasizing more than we did (although I think both of us said we liked it, if I remember correctly). Too often these things get churned through the take factory without anyone commenting on their baseline quality as writing.
Yes, you did mention you both liked it!
As a big fan of Phoebe and Kat’s podcast, this was a real treat.
During my own divorce, lo these many years ago, I could feel the pitiless judgment of the divorce literary industrial complex’s narrative on me, flattening a complex situation into a simple story that I was the villain of. To push back on the narrative too forcefully would just implicate me further, like B’rer Rabbit punching the Tar Baby. The whole situation codes male self respect as right wing, which should bother us for practical political reasons and is counter to our humanistic values.
I really resonated with your comment about the dangers of seeing your personal relationships through the lens of systemic oppressor/oppressed narratives. Seeing your relationship that way, or expecting that your partner will see your relationship that way is so corrosive to the trust needed for the intimacy we seek from those we love and hope love us in return.
One thing that’s interesting is that if you read the big relationship books (which I have) they’re almost all much more nuanced on this than the cultural narrative can be. If anything they’re maybe Insufficiently interested in how the culture or politics can affect marriage.
I think it’s surely true that feminist analyses of marriage were really important in reforming the institution and society, but I have my doubts that they’re much good these days in helping people heal themselves or their marriage. And yeah it’s sad that male self respect is often coded as conservative. What a disaster! We should all be seeking self respect.
100% I’m really looking forward to that relationship book you keep mentioning! “how to have a marriage in full awareness of the cultural and political context without ruminating yourself into misery” seems like rich vein to mine.
Yeah, I think the part of the discourse that bothers me is what I'm seeing as a pattern of dismissal of concerns as hurt feels from the manosphere/incels.
For me, the consequence of this divorce narrative was an every-other-weekend schedule with my daughters through their teenage years. A state of affairs that was painful for me, yes, but I think also harmful to them.
In this essay, Gould describes truly awful behavior, and the biggest consequence she fears is a 50/50 custody sharing arrangement. Yes, this was triggering to me. And that the conclusion she arrives it is that maybe her husband isn't the source of all her problems may represent an improvement over the previous narrative, but still seems well short of the truth.
In what sense short of the truth? I'm entirely with you that 50/50 should be the default arrangement, and my limited sense of the evidence is that this is better for the kids. That's certainly what I would expect if my wife and I got divorced. I didn't think she was saying anything to the contrary, though. I think she was just saying that the idea of being without her kids half the time was terrifying.