Listen up, grindset alpha males and hard hustling girl bosses, have we got an episode for you! This week, Sarah and Garrett woke up at 4:00 AM, did 1000 crunches, closed some deals in the Tokyo office, plowed a field, and split a cord of wood, all to bring you the definitive podcast about ambition and gender.

Ok, that isn’t quite true. We only did 950 crunches. We did, however, have a real blast talking about men and women’s relationship to ambition at work. Does ambition look differently across gender lines? Is the provider myth killing men slowly? What can a vintage 1989 Outburst Jr. game teach us about gender socialization (and also types of cookies)? And oh my god, does the subject of VENOMOUS ANIMAL CONTACT enter the chat?! All this, and more, answered this week by America’s favorite breeders.

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Links:

* Sarah is correct: Women get lice more often because they’re emotionally intelligent (THE Ohio State University)

* Nit Pixies (the Bay Area’s premier choice for lice removal)

* Garrett is sorry that he couldn’t stop making “Did Women Ruin The Workplace?” jokes. (link to the world’s most cursed New York Times piece).

* A beautiful tribute to the city of Philadelphia (damp men yelling anti-Italian slurs at each other while complaining about how they’re in a bad mood).

* Shout out “It’s Your Move Games” in Oakland (for the record, Garrett’s favorite game store is Board Game Barrister, with excellent locations throughout the Milwaukee metro area).

* “Navigating the Gender Gap in Workplace Ambition” (InPower Coaching)

* The AskMen subreddit has some thoughts on masculine struggle and also raptors

* Gender Inequality, Work Hours, and the Future of Work (Institute for Women’s Policy Work)

* “Pressure to prove your manhood may shorten your life” (Greater Good Magazine)

* “The Pressure to provide is Making Men miserable”(Maria Cassano)

More:

* This Week In Breeders is a podcast! And you can listen to it wherever you like to listen to podcasts (Apple; Spotify; inside your tractor, so you can listen while you joylessly circle your fields for hours on end, the raptors circling overhead).

* But if you really want to stay updated, you should go to thisweekinbreeders.org and subscribe, so that you get episodes delivered directly to your inbox.

* And then, after you do so, you should be like “but now I really want to support this podcast, and I’d also love to listen to their bonus episodes, like the really incredible one they just did about how they used to spend recesses in elementary school” and opt for a paid subscription.

* Or maybe you want another way to help us out, which is very kind of you. Would you consider dropping us one of those five star reviews on your preferred podcast app? Or telling your friends? Thank you!

* In every case, thanks for being here, pals!

We’re back! And we’re still talking friendship dynamics. You have probably heard the trope about how, when out with their friends, ladies love to talk about their feelings and fellas just want to name baseball players they remember from when they were twelve. Is it essentialist? Sure, but also…it sure feels like there’s some truth there.

This week, we hold the trope up and look at it from as many angles as possible, like a gorgeous gendered diamond. Does Garrett host a makeshift version of the Newlywed game for Sarah and her husband? Does Sarah reveal some surprisingly nuanced thoughts about “Waterfalls” by TLC? And somehow, by the end of the episode, do we discover a new lasagna-based benchmark by which to judge the quality of male friendship? Yes, yes and yes.

It’s fun, you all. And we probably don’t talk too much about Tony Shalhoub’s mustache, though that’s debatable.

Links:

* All the cool liberal families are getting landlines (Vox)

* We didn’t actually talk about the legendary “BBQ dad” Craigslist ad but Garrett always wants an excuse to repost it so here it is (Reddit)

* “Against Hating Men”— includes the screenshots of the tweets we discuss (Mindy Isser’s newsletter)

* Theorizing Mankeeping: The Male Friendship Recession and Women’s Associated Labor as a Structural Component of Gender Inequality by Angelica Ferrara and Dylan Vergara (Psychology of Men and Masculinities)

* “Why Women Are Weary of the Emotional Labor of Mankeeping” (New York Times gift link)

* Were you curious as to Boomer humor columnist Dave Barry’s take on Mankeeping? Well, he’s got one!

* Sarah Wheeler’s favorite TLC songs (Spotify) (Publisher’s note: Sarah DOES have a fifth favorite TLC song, and it is “Case of the Fake People.” Glad we set the record straight!)

* “She wants to talk, you just want to watch Youtube” (Make Men Emotional Again)

* Read Boymom by Ruth Whippman (a perennial This Week in Breeders recommendation)

* Men calling their friends to tell them good night

More:

* This Week In Breeders is a podcast! And you can listen to it wherever you like to listen to podcasts (Apple; Spotify; everywhere that groups of men get together and wordlessly grunt their non-feelings at each other).

* But if you really want to stay updated, you should go to thisweekinbreeders.org and subscribe, so that you get episodes delivered directly to your inbox.

* And then, after you do so, you should be like “but now I really want to support this podcast, and I’d also love to listen to their bonus episodes, like the really incredible one they just did about how they used to spend recesses in elementary school” and opt for a paid subscription.

* Or maybe you want another way to help us out, which is very kind of you. Would you consider dropping us one of those five star reviews on your preferred podcast app? Or telling your friends? Thank you!

* In every case, thanks for being here, pals!

Lots of firsts in this episode! It’s the first bonus episode where free subscribers can hear a sample to help decide if they want to make the jump. But more importantly, it’s the first bonus episode where we ask each other the same question. This week, we talk recess. Namely, our own recess memories. What we did, with whom, and whether it was gender-cod…

Oh, you just knew that we were going to do a “can men and women be friends?” episode. But we’re not quite doing it in the classic romantic comedy way (meaning, we’re not asking “will the innate sexual tension between straight men and women get in the way of friendship?”). No, we’re far too middle-aged for that. This is more of a “can man and women be friends? In this economy?” conversation. Like, how have each of us done at keeping up friendships as we’ve aged? When has that been easier and harder (both intra and inter gender)? And who, in our life, does the emotional and physical work of friendship?

You probably have a guess as to the answer to that last one, but this was a super layered and vulnerable conversation (lots of friendship guilt from both of us, and also some actual READING OF THE COMMENTS, INCLUDING THE RUDE ONES, in response to Sarah’s essay on this topic). Oh, and we also imagined a premium tier where Sarah comes to your house and ruins your dinner. Fun!

Links:

* Garrett caught on national television just going to town on some frozen custard (link to Garrett’s Instagram).

* Chaos Muppets vs. order Muppets (Slate)

* Robin Dunbar says we can only have 150 relationships (BBC)

* The friendship dip ( Culture Study )

* “Where have all my guy friends gone?” (Sarah in The Cut)

More:

* This Week In Breeders is a podcast! And you can listen to it wherever you like to listen to podcasts (Apple; Spotify; in homeroom, whilst passing “do you like me? check yes or no” notes to your would-be best friend)

* But if you really want to stay updated, you should go to thisweekinbreeders.org and subscribe, so that you get episodes delivered directly to your inbox.

* And then, after you do so, you should be like “but now I really want to support this podcast, and I’d also love to listen to their bonus episodes, like the one they just did about Berkeley moms vs. Oakland moms” and opt for a paid subscription.

* Or maybe you want another way to help us out, which is very kind of you. Would you consider dropping us one of those five star reviews on your preferred podcast app? Or telling your friends? Thank you!

* In every case, thanks for being here, pals!

Friends, this will likely come as a surprise, but we crunched the numbers and it appears as if some of our political choices are… influenced by gender. “Wait, what?” you’re no doubt saying, but yes, it’s true, and we’re on the case.

In this episode, your stalwart TWIB team tackles the dark arts of American electoral politics. Our question: What does it take for a candidate (of any gender) to be considered “authentic” and “relatable?” Also: why is it that even many of us who have purchased multiple Little Feminist books for our households still default to “tough talking dudes” when it comes time to punch our ballots? Plus: how do you get all the text messages to stop (just kidding, we didn’t discuss that; everybody knows that they’ll never stop, that long after this planet implodes you’ll still get a text saying “[INSERT NAME], WE’RE IN TROUBLE.”). But still, there’s lots of fun stuff here: we watch some ads, we yell at Gavin Newsom (of course) and Sarah does an admirable job of trying to steer the conversation towards 90s R & B.

Links:

* The platonic ideal of a Midwestern rec room (link to Garrett’s Instagram— swipe to the second picture in the carousel).

* When “authenticity” means “dudes” by Danielle Kurtzleben

* Katie Porter Ad

* Mallory Macmorrow Ad

* Monica Macdermot and Dan Cassino’s Masculinity in American Politics

* Nadia Brown and Danielle Casarez Lemi’s Sister Style: The Politics of Appearance for Black Women Political Elites

* Patriarchal Bargains (Moira Donegan on Andrea Dworkin)

* Is it Brandy or Monica Quiz clearly made by a bot

More:

* This Week In Breeders is a podcast! And you can listen to it wherever you like to listen to podcasts (Apple; Spotify; at the very end of a political convention, long after the crowds have left and the janitors are sweeping up the balloons and the AV intern mercifully turns off the playlist just as the last notes of “Fight Song” filter through the empty hall).

* But if you really want to stay updated, you should go to thisweekinbreeders.org and subscribe, so that you get episodes delivered directly to your inbox.

* And then, after you do so, you should be like “but now I really want to support this podcast, and I’d also love to listen to their bonus episodes, like the one they just did about Field of Dreams and pastel razors and trad wives and Hungry Man dinners” and opt for a paid subscription.

* Or maybe you want another way to help us out, which is very kind of you. Would you consider dropping us one of those five star reviews on your preferred podcast app? Or telling your friends? Thank you!

* In every case, thanks for being here, pals!

This Episode:

This week’s episode is a particular barnburner. For our inaugural deep dive into this moment in heterosexual marriage/parenting/ephemara, we’re going to camp! We’re talking gender socialization (always), but also personality taxonomies, and whether they’re forces for good or evil; Fair Play cards, and where they do and don’t get us; and of course, what we mean by all this Rock and Rocket business (in case you’re wondering, a lady rocket is a Rockette, because we have decreed it to be so). Also, don’t worry, we definitely wrap things up by objectifying at least one cartoon character (that’s the This Week In Breeders promise!).

Links:

* Marriage and the 4 Personality Types

* On Elizabeth Gilbert (Jia Tolentino)

* On Moms Gone Wild (Sarah)

* On KC Davis and mess (Sarah)

* On Ethan Coen and Tricia Cooke’s marriage

* On cartoon abs so good it’ll make your eyes pop like popcorn

More About TWIB:

What’s this? A podcast? Thank God somebody finally thought of having one of those. But wait, this one is different. We’ve got two hosts, a fella AND a lady. That’s the kind of innovation you can expect from us over at This Week In Breeders HQ.

What else can you expect? The best darn conversations about gender that we’re capable of offering, at a time when jeez louise there is so much Gender To Discuss.

Please listen! And spread the word! But before you go and do so, some business!

* Where can you listen? Anywhere you find podcasts. Apple. Spotify. Deep in the darkest woods, underneath a mossy rock, where you whisper your secrets. And also right here.

* Subscribe! We’re not always going to announce every episode on our individual newsletters, so becoming a subscriber to this one specifically will ensure that you don’t miss an episode.

* How frequently will episodes come out? Initially, we’re aiming for once every other week, but we’ll see. It won’t be overwhelming. We’re going to do these for a while (how long, we’ll see?) and then take a break when it feels reasonable. Doesn’t that sound relaxed and

* Speaking of subscribing, we highly recommend becoming a PAID SUBSCRIBER, because (a). we literally are paying for this out of pocket and we may or may not have talked to our spouses about that impact on our respective familial budgets (b). while this first episode is completely free, future episodes will frequently be either fully or partially paywalled. Another subscription? In this economy? Yes, we know, but the good news is that Sarah and Garrett both have a hefty discount code that we’ll be offering to existing subscribers of our newsletters:Sarah Wheeler’s Momspreading or The White Pages. Stay tuned for those links (though we also appreciate all of you who want to subscribe to the podcast alone).

* But, and if you subscribe to all three (Sarah’s newsletter, Garrett’s newsletter and the podcast), Garrett will send you not one but two pieces of cool merch that he made (this design on a shirt or a tote and/or a very hip hat that says POTLUCKS! on it). Just toss him an email (garrett at barnraisersproject.org).