This week, Emily and I had the juiciest conversation with Emily Adrian, author of The Seduction Theory, which Emily and I both obsessively read in tandem. It's a delicious novel about the stories we tell ourselves and each other, the nature of infidelity, and how desirable women are both embodied and objectivized.

Other Topics Covered:

• Sara's questionable notion of aspirational womanhood

• The novel concept of married people who are still in love

• The duality of hot moms and sad moms

• The luxury of time when you're an academic without kids

• Physical cheating vs. emotional cheating

• "Can straight men revere their partners?"

• The balance between power and vulnerability

• Is seduction simply another form of challenge?

• Sometimes Sara doesn't want to read about motherhood!

• Are kids insurance against a cheating partner (lol lol lol)?

• Emily's hilarious "good thing" for the week. Tween-approved.

In which Emily and I discuss an article from The Cut about 44 as a milestone age and whether or not our journey over the alleged bridge of 44 has changed us.

ALSO!

• Emily and I sort of disagree about Pluribus but get equally enraged about one particular scene

• Plantar fasciitis

• The disappearance of "mom" clothes

• Tracking our cycles

• Aspirational healthcare

• Not wanting MORE DATA jfc

• Age as the "great equalizer"

• Age as a "problem" to solve

• "Leading with anger"

EEEEE! I'm so beyond excited to share the first episode of Clean Countertops!

Topics covered:

• My past tradwife aspirations

• Emily's past girlboss aspirations

• Behind-the-scenes podcast LEARNING MOMENTS

• Elizabeth Holmes' hair, lipstick, and black turtleneck

• Men wanting to fuck themselves?

• Youth as integral to both tradwife and girlboss branding

• Emily's shocking lack of countertop agita

• Our meet-cute at a writing conference

• Tradwife fatigue

• AYN RAND YIKES STRIPES

• The girls' girl vs. the guys' girl

• Family influence

Thank you all so much for listening, and PLEASE let us know what sort of topics you'd like us to cover in future eps! We're very very very open to your feedback (for example: are transcripts something you'd like in the future?) so please be in touch!

I'm so excited to share a little taste of my podcast, Clean Countertops, the first episode of which comes out NEXT WEEK! Here's a bit about the pod.

Clean Countertops examines the endless examples of ideal womanhood pulsing through every aspect of our culture. Hosted by me (obv) and feminist writer Emily J. Smith, each episode examines a different cultural touchpoint that pushes on expectations of the “ideal” woman. I'm a married mom of 3 in rural NH, and Emily is a child-free, unmarried Brooklynite. We come from very different backgrounds, but we've spent the past decade bonding over the ways our pursuit of particular feminine ideals–and the subsequent dismantling of that pursuit–has shaped the core of our identities. Whether we're talking about tradwives, girl bosses, or pronatalist goddesses, we're always talking about why Good Woman™ ideals are bad. 

Join me, Emily, and the occasional guest to untangle, dissect, and most importantly laugh at the inescapable expectations of womanhood today.