Call Her Daddy - Fuck the Male Gaze

Episode Date: October 9, 2022

How do you feel about your body? Have you ever stayed home from a social activity or other opportunity because of concern about how you looked? Have you ever passed judgment on someone because of how they looked or dressed? Have you ever had difficulty concentrating on a task because you were self-conscious about your appearance? This is self-objectification and it is the result of our beauty-obsessed world perpetuating the idea that happiness, health, and ability to be loved are dependent on how we look. Drs. Lindsay and Lexie Kite teach that positive body image isn’t believing your body looks good, it’s knowing your body is good, regardless of how it looks. They provide the tools to build resilience in a culture that objectifies and commodifies women’s bodies.

What is up, Daddy Gang? It is your founding father, Alex Cooper with Call Her Daddy. Hello, hello, hello. Welcome back to another mini episode of Call Her Daddy. It's Alex, your host. Today I'm going to have a really interesting conversation that I think is so, so, so important for everyone to listen to. And I hope you guys enjoy it because all I can say is fuck the male gaze. Doctors Lindsay and Lexi Kite, welcome to Call Her Daddy. Hi. You are identical twins and co-authors of the book More Than a Body.

Your body is an instrument, not an ornament. Co-directors of the nonprofit Beauty Redefined and both received PhDs in the study of female body image. I am so excited to have this conversation today with both of you. We are too. Yep. We're pumped. Thank you. So how did you both get into researching and working in the field of female body image? We started at a really young age, actually, having the experience of being identical twins and growing up being just constantly scanned and kind of ogled by people to try to figure out our differences. I think that kind of led into this larger diet culture world where we were really fixated on how we looked, not only

how other people saw us in terms of being identical twins, but also just like feeling too fat and feeling too ugly and not worthy of love. And it turns out almost everyone else, regardless of how they looked, all the other girls in our age group felt similar ways. So when we got to college, we started learning about women's studies and media literacy, like really figuring out how media represents women's bodies and how that has so strongly shaped the way we see ourselves. And that got us on a path of like, you know, 10 years of higher education research and earning PhDs and really focusing on the solutions, like not just trying to piss people off about what media and our cultural ideals about women's bodies are doing to us, but really how we can push back and become better. Anytime I think people see twins, it's like, and I, it's nice to hear

from you guys of how, especially as women, you're like, stop staring at us awkwardly and being like, wait, like, is your nose different? Is your like, and I can't imagine because already as a woman, especially when you're, we're young girls, there's such a fixation on our body. And then it's almost exacerbated being twins of people feeling comfortable to just stare at the two of you and look at your bodies and quite literally dissect. It's like, that is so inappropriate. And yet somehow nobody has thought it's strange or inappropriate until recently, which is really sad, but also good that you guys are highlighting this. So a huge component of your work centers

around the concept of self-objectification. So a huge component of your work centers around the concept of self-objectification. Can you explain what that is to my listeners? Absolutely. So self-objectification is a process that when we explain it, most of your listeners are going to nod their heads and say, I now have a word for this thing I do that I didn't even know I did. So self-objectification is what happens when we live in a world that from the time we are tiny objectifies us. It convinces us that our bodies are like parts in need of fixing from, you know, the roots of our hair to the bottoms of our feet.

It, it literally turns us into objects and self-objectification is the internalization of that objectifying culture where we start to split our identities in two. You're the one living your best life. And the other part of your identity is watching you and judging you and evaluating you. It's as if you are an outsider looking in at yourself, judging all of your worst flaws. Self-objectification splits our identities in two in such a way that girls stop raising their hands in class. We stop going to the gym or working out or running outside because we don't want to be looked at or get, you know, red faced or jiggly or sweaty.

We, in so many ways, we don't, we stay in unhealthy relationships because we feel like, I mean, at least they're attracted to me. You know, what else, what else is even out there for me? I'm, I'm disgusting. It literally halts our progress, our happiness, our potential, our health in every conceivable way because a part of our mental energy is zapped by thinking about how we look instead of just living inside our bodies. Well, you started that by saying everyone was going to be like, oh, I now get it.

I just had that moment literally right here with you guys being like, oh my God. Yes. Finally. Okay. Self-objectification. That's what we have as young women been doing since quite literally we were aware of people's perception of us or even what they're saying to us at a young age. It is so sad. But it's also nice to like have something to recognize what it is because then obviously when you have that, then it is easier to begin to repair and to try to adjust the way we're living. How does the patriarchal society we live in impact our own self-objectification? It's huge. We honestly feel like self-objectification is

like the missing piece of the puzzle in all of these body image conversations. It's this idea that we are all raised in this environment. We grow up being totally saturated in this male perspective, a straight male perspective on women's bodies. So much so that we then internalize that and our own perspective of ourselves becomes this sexualized perspective. And it takes this toll on us because these images and these ideals are reflected in every aspect of our culture. And so it becomes so normalized that we don't even know to question it.

So many of us have just completely grown up that way. And the patriarchal side of it is that's where the power comes in. That's who's making the decisions for, you know, 90% of casting decisions and who is allocating the money to certain films, who's behind all of the advertising messages. That was men, especially for us, like millennials growing up. These were shaped by people's sexualized perspectives on women's bodies. And so then we turn that gaze, the male gaze, upon ourselves and we judge ourselves for the rest of our lives according to what we think other people might be thinking when they look at us, especially in terms of sexual desirability, what will bring us happiness and empowerment and all of the other things that most people are seeking in this world.

We end up blaming our bodies for when we don't achieve. It's so profound hearing you say that because it really is down to like, this is not the best example, but I just started thinking of it of like how comfortable women are when they're just going to be with like other, you know, friends of theirs that are women. And then immediately, if you know, there are going to be men there I have to put on makeup I need to look better and it's like you think and then and then you look at them and not trying to be an asshole but like oh he doesn't have a six-pack and somehow I'm feeling like I need to impress this guy for what like he's not feeling the need to do that in front of women because men are so comfortable in their own skin because no one has objectified them. When we, yeah, we write about in our book, a bunch about

this. And when we do speaking events, like we do speaking events for all genders. And when we're talking about self-objectification, the women in the room, anybody who identifies as female gets it. And the men look around like, what, what are you talking about? Like Lindsay and I talk all the time about the fact that the real problem with self-objectification with like living with part of your identity focused on how you appear at all times is that it sucks the joy out of your life, intimacy, dating, sex, vacations, swimming, summer, like a whole season sucked from us. And men, they don't feel that. Men do not get that sinking feeling of shame when they think about it's time for summer.

It's time to hit the beach, go on that vacation, have sex, start dating, get on the apps. It doesn't work like that for most men. You're so right for most men. And I think obviously it's like cis white men obviously have live in this just like complete utopia and all of us then are, are considered second-class citizens to them. Um, you are redefining the meaning of positive body image. What does positive body image mean to you both? So I think we should kind of start with where it has and how it has been defined in mainstream pop culture. Like a lot of people think that body positivity has

completely solved this problem. And that has been the approach for the last like 20 years. Honestly, since people started figuring out that girls and women's self-esteem was suffering so much, and it's because we're defined by how we look, then all of the interventions and the campaigns around it have sounded the same way. It's always, girls, you are so beautiful just the way you are. And if only you could see yourself how this man outside of you sees you, then you'd know that you're actually really hot and you're prettier than you thought. And all these things are like kind of nice for a moment, like, oh, well, you know, maybe my perception of myself really is so distorted. And to some extent, that's definitely true. But really, these interventions have not fixed the problem because women today are just as fixated, if not more so, definition of beauty to include more shapes and sizes. Thank goodness. More colors and hair textures and skin types and everything

else under the sun. There's a lot more room to improve and work to go there. But ultimately, the problem still comes down to people don't understand self-objectification. Because when you are putting this focus on all bodies are beautiful, all bodies are bikini bodies, you're perfect just the way you are, then there's still this emphasis on women's value is to be looked at. And if we don't feel beautiful, then we can't be confident and we don't have the power that we need in this world to succeed. So we're putting objectification back in the conversation.

If we are objects and we exist primarily to be looked at and observed and admired by other people, we are set up for failure. We're never going to feel good enough in this environment that is reminding us every single day of new flaws that we have and new procedures that can fix it. Like we're suffering. So interesting. You say that because you're right. I've heard, we've heard the rise of everybody is a bikini body

and it's like, well, why are we, so you're still objectifying women. Like it's a bikini, a woman is wearing a bikini. Right. Oh, wow. That's really interesting. So why is body positive? I guess you just answered that body positivity sure is a step in the right direction, but it still is not completely solving the issue. And I love how you're saying, so let's just, let's just call it what it is. Put objectification back in the conversation because we're trying to act like we've resolved all of this. We haven't at all. If anything, it's just been masked and we're trying to make it sound a little better, but we haven't progressed enough as a society to say that we are there because we know

as women, we are far from there. One of the skills you teach is media literacy and learning to recognize all of the instances, women's bodies are represented as a commodity, something to be desired and viewed. I think people have, like I just said, begun to wake up in this regard slightly about that, but we know when we're scrolling through social media that, you know, we can't believe what we see that's helpful. There's Photoshop, there's FaceTune, there's angles, there's lighting, all of it, but this messaging is everywhere. It's not just on social media. So beyond social media, where else may we be receiving the message that women are just bodies? I mean, it has seeped so far into our culture that objectification comes

from the people we love the most. It, it has the idea that we are primarily parts in need of fixing and that the only way that we can achieve happiness, love, and success is from fixing our parts. It comes from our moms and dads, comes from our extended family, our community, our favorite feminist friend. It is something that we are all complicit in, that we are all subjecting each other to. It happens every time you talk badly about your body out loud because you're comparing yourself to these ideals you've swallowed since you were little. It happens every time we talk about celebrities' bodies. We push away the food and say, I can't eat that. You have to punish yourself.

Go on this cleanse. Go on this extreme exercise plan. Objectification is it happens when we see fat characters on screen, but the entire plot line revolves around how fat they are or that they need to lose weight or that they're the funny, chunky friend. It's all objectification. Like we'll see progress in this world when we see girls and women and all people represented fully without having to couch it in. She's the fat, funny friend. She's the black sidekick, but can't be the main you know, main character.

And what do you think, Linz? Do you have anything to add? Yeah. Yeah. This objectification comes from more aspects than I think more angles of our culture than people are willing to recognize. It comes from dress codes, like the institutions that purport to care the most about girls and women are often the worst offenders of this. Like it comes under the guise of protecting girls and women and keeping professional standards. Dress codes often reinforce this idea where women have a very long list of things they can and can't wear and parts of their bodies they can and cannot show. Whereas boys and men are just like, you know, keep your pants pulled up and look professional. And that's literally it. Girls and women are penalized for this perspective that it's again, this heteronormative, heterosexual, cis male perspective on women's bodies, even little girls and little kids that keeps us in these boxes. Like churches do it like

crazy all under the guise of, you know, women's bodies need to be protected from these men who are animals. But shouldn't we coming up, be coming at this from the perspective that all of us have a responsibility to figure out how we are viewing not only ourselves, but other people as less than human, less than us as objects, and instead reframe our perspectives on those people instead of making girls bear the full burden. It's so brilliant what you guys are talking about because it really is getting underneath and, and looking in subcategories. Like even you talking about a dress code. Like I remember when I was in eighth grade, I, we weren't allowed to show our shoulders, but the boys would be like out playing. And some guys would like take their

shirts off and be running around. And like the girls could not show their shoulders. I went to a Catholic school and I just, I remember I saw this, saw this young girl on Tik TOK and I was like, yes. And her friend filmed her in school and she had a dress code. And this girl essentially spoke up to the principal being like, I need to address something because it is a fact that on dress down days, the girls that have bigger boobs are somehow getting in trouble, but a girl with smaller boobs could be wearing the same exact shirt. And somehow our male principal is telling her she needs to cover up with the one with the bigger boobs. And it's like, the men are the ones that have objectified our body parts. And again, if it was just a room

of females, all of a sudden it's like, oh, no one's talking about it. But the minute that men are entered into the conversation, we now are objectified. And so we are unable to now, unfortunately be still in a room of women and not think that way because it's so ingrained in us. Yes. Well, and we police ourselves on behalf of men who may or may not even be in the room or watching or aware of us.

Women internalize all of this. And then we think we're doing it to protect other women or to take care of other women. Like that's why people's moms and grandmas and like caretakers will pass on ideas. Like, you know, if you just did your hair a little different, or if maybe we just touched you up with a little Botox or a breast augmentation, or if you lost a little bit of weight, then, you know, your life would be easier. You'd have more options for people to date. Have you considered doing these things? Like we think we're being well-meaning and telling people to cover up or wear different clothes when what we're really doing is just further objectifying the girls and women in our lives and keeping them in their place as objects to be looked at. We have

to push back on all of that, even when it's showing up in kind of like insidious ways that might be under the guise of caring and, you know, protecting. It's so true. I also love how you guys wrote about, you know, the concept of like, get your body back post-pregnancy. Like women are so freaking incredible that we are able to carry a life inside of us and give birth to it. And yet I'll immediately, it's like, get your body back. And it's so, it's so problematic. Or even you guys have written about the concept of, you know, you look amazing. Did you lose weight? And it's like, who says that to a man? No one. So I really appreciate you guys kind of honing in on those specific ideas and issues. What are some personal boundaries you've each created around what type of content you will

and will not consume? Oh yeah. We, I mean, we are considered body image experts and yet we are still living in female bodies trying to navigate this world. And so of course we are all doing our best Lindsay and I included. And for me, when it comes to social media use, I, especially in like the last year have really limited it. I don't follow a bunch of influencers that I used to, because I see that, that they are complicit in the same system. We all are that is focusing on body-centered content because the algorithm created by white men and people who have internalized that heterosexual male gaze have created an algorithm that really supports

a beauty and sex appeal that looks one specific way. And so that's what we get in our feeds and you can't fight the algorithm, you know? So for me, I realized that I got to cut my time on social media. I have to cut who I follow, including people I know and love. But if it is triggering to me, if anything I'm viewing on TV, anywhere podcasts I'm listening to is triggering me to self-objectify to now I feel it. The second it happens, I feel that split happen where I, I, I look at myself instead of sit inside my body. And the second it happens, that's progress. You call out that uncomfortable feeling instead of calling out yourself for being in the wrong, you call out the message, the culture that you have internalized.

And then you sit with it for a second and I say, okay, no, like I can unfollow. I can mute. I can make a new choice instead of making a plan for how I'm going to change myself. Thanks. I need to give you a clap because I just got chills when you said that of like, instead of internalizing and objectifying yourself and being upset and sitting there after you watched a TV show or you were listening to something or you were looking on social media, don't be upset with yourself immediately. When you become more aware of the self-objectification, that is not your fault. It's something that we've been trained to do. You immediately can pause and be like, oh my gosh, this is making me feel shitty about myself. I'm going to remove myself from the situation because this is not my problem. This is completely an outward situation that

has many, many, many years to go, unfortunately, for us to hopefully deconstruct and fix. But I love that because social media is so detrimental if you are using it the normal way. How crazy is that? If you just use it, it is detrimental. And so you have to be the one to put guidelines on it. And it's really hard to do that because it sounds, I think sometimes corny to people of like, oh no, I can handle it. You can't. It's designed to harm you. It is designed to keep you on the app, to purchase more products, to stay on in this like cycle of shame that we all stay in. And our work, the, like the real crux of our work and how we feel like our work is so different and, and doing something different than other interventions out there is that we built this

model. It's called body image resilience. And it's based on the fact that every single one of us will be triggered all the time in our body image. There's not a world where all of a sudden you love yourself and forever you're on this body love journey. No, you can be as far down this journey as you want and still feel triggered by things that come journey. No, you can be as far down this journey as you want and still feel triggered by things that come up. But the point of body image resilience is that when that uncomfortable feeling comes up that you used to not even be able to recognize or call,

you just immediately tried to fix yourself. Instead, that is a spark that gives you pause. And for a second, you realize you can't blame yourself. You blame the message that you're hearing or whatever. And you make a new choice, a choice that doesn't keep you in this cycle of objectification and self-objectification, fixing your body that doesn't ever fix the inside. Body image resilience is this lifelong process that will change you. And over time, those disruptions to your body image, those triggers, they don't hurt so bad. They don't immediately cause you to have to fix yourself in the ways you used to. Instead, you feel it.

You feel the pain of it that you do not deserve to feel and you make a better choice for yourself. I love this so much because this is going to help so many women listening to my podcast and it's even helping me in the moment. Um, I, I think it's so incredible what you guys are doing because it, it really is. I think there's this daunting feeling sometimes, especially for women when it's like, yes, I feel like shit, but like what we're going to just change society. We're going to change. We're going to flip it on its head. And now, Oh, women are the ones in power and all of the white men are like, no. And so it does sometimes feel like it's a, there is no solution, but what you're providing is, well, there is, and you are the solution. The more that you fight in yourself to allow yourself to recognize that it is not you, it is the society that we have been trained to follow.

And the more that we can be cognizant of that and start to break that down within ourselves, then we're going to be able to handle the outside world of like, Oh no, that's objectification. And I'm not going to allow that to affect me today. I understand it's a process, but I'm interested to know, like going back to social media, most of us have it. And most of us post photos of ourselves. What if someone said to you both, I have a super supportive community of followers. And whenever I post that bikini selfie, I receive so many comments, boosting me up and making me feel great about my body and the way I look. What would you say to this person? I would say, um, I want to know how ultimately satisfying

that really is because you get acclimated to the engagement, the likes, whatever. And what is it really contributing to your life? For a lot of people, if they're being honest with themselves, it contributes to this greater sense of being evaluated and observed purely for how you look. If you're getting the most validation and attention in your whole life, when you're posting the most of your body as you possibly can on the internet, then you recognize that you are just being seen as like slightly less than human, an object to be used and consumed by other people. And of course that

is rewarding for some people that does feel like empowerment to people because you can get, you know, recognition from people. You can get the money that comes along with sponsorships and high engagement and all of that. But ultimately, I want people to really be critical of that sense of fulfillment and empowerment that is very fleeting in these situations. You get a little bit of a high, but then next time when you have slightly less engagement and interaction, when you're doing something that you are serious about, or even when you think you look ultra hot and you don't get the same level of engagement, there's the hit to your self-esteem. There's the disruption to your body image, your peace, your sense of confidence. And so ultimately it is this failing cycle that we're involving ourselves in. It's like this dopamine rush that will fade over time and doesn't yield any real rewards in our lives.

It actually yields, um, a lot of risks. We have to continue to live up to these ideals when that's what we're being valued for. Like sometimes we talk about women who are the closest to the ideals, like thin, you know, white women with like all the perfect figures that are in style today. And with the, you know, perfect flawless skin. A lot of times it's women like that who are closest to the ideal that feel the furthest away because they're being held most closely to that ideal. Their whole self-worth and confidence can revolve around it. And a lot of people's relationships with them revolve around those attributes and prizing them for that. That is soul sucking. And we want people to come back home to their bodies instead of watching them. It's so interesting what you're talking about to back that concept of posting on

social media, because when I'm hearing you talk about it, it really just re does reiterate the concept of if you post something and you get validation, God forbid, you post something similar a couple of days later and you get less likes all of a sudden your self-worth and the way that you feel about yourself and your confidence is going to go down because of how others are viewing you. Like if your self-worth is predicated on the view of others and the validation that you receive and the amount, and unfortunately it's quite literally become how many likes, how many comments. I mean, I know women and I've done it myself that you delete a photo because you didn't get as much likes and comments and you, and you question yourself of,

did I not look good? And it's like, it's so detrimental because if we can actually get to a place where how much better would it feel instead of getting hundreds of comments from randoms, if you put it on an outfit that day and you feel great about yourself and you are like, oh my God, I love myself today. I'm feeling good. And it has nothing to do with your looks, but I get it's going to be a slow burn. So maybe like start with how do I feel? Oh, I feel great today. So I'm not going to let anyone fuck that up. I think that's really helpful because it's such a fleeting concept for anyone to give us validation. They can be gone tomorrow. And so how do you feel

in your alone moments? Are you good with yourself? If not, then the validation is actually just a bandaid for you not being able to value your own self-worth. Amen. Oh, okay. So social media also enforces comparison, obviously, and mostly with other women. Is she hotter than me? Is she skinnier than me? Does she have a better life than me? Why is comparison another form of self-objectification? In More Than a Body, we write like a chapter probably about this. Self-comparison, I mean, it's something that is so innate and natural to us that there's probably not a world in which you're going to be able to stop comparing yourself to other people. It's just, it's hardwired in our brains to do that. But when you compare yourself, when you find yourself comparing yourself to people, you

know, in real life or people you're seeing on screen, and now we're seeing billions of images of women on screen more than 30 years ago, we could have ever fathomed seeing, you know, so there's so many opportunities to compare yourself and that self-comparison, it leads you to see the other person as a body and then reflect that back to you. It's a mirror. You then see yourself as only a body. So in more than a body, we're writing about this concept that when you're comparing yourself, there are so many negative consequences to that. One of them is that you feel less unity with women in real life. They become our competition instead of our allies. And now more than ever, we need allies.

We need to be together. We are all navigating this world that is so complicated. The last thing we want to be doing is shaming or blaming anybody for what they do in the name of beauty, for what they do in the name of feeling good about themselves. We are all up against the most sexist capitalist system built on making sure we feel shame about our flaws. We can't do that to each other. But the other thing that self-comparison does, it causes us to feel less compassion for other people by dehumanizing them and objectifying them. It causes us to feel less compassion for ourselves. So the antidote to that self-comparison is self-compassion. When I find myself comparing myself to somebody, whether it's my identical twin sister,

my sister-in-law, that influencer on my feed, I say to myself, she's more than a body. And so am I, we are in this together. I love her. I love me. Like you need to, whatever that little mantra is that gets you to humanize yourself again and humanize that person you're looking at can help you focus on the fact that your default is objectification. And that's a dehumanizing, horrible soul sucking way to live. You don't want that for you. You don't want that for anyone. And I think you go ahead and go ahead. When you look beyond the surface of people, like self-comparison keeps us just on the surface. We are just evaluating how our bodies measure up to other people's bodies. But when you get past that, then you're able to see someone as

a bit more nuanced, more complicated, fully human. And that helps us to break this myth that looking better means feeling better. Then looking better leads to confidence. That having a body that looks a certain way leads to a better life in all of these ways that we're all chasing our entire lives. Because none of that is true. When you're comparing yourself to someone who looks absolutely amazing on the internet or in real life or whatever, when you get to know her a little bit better or you think a little bit harder about that person, you figure out that she has relationship problems too. She got cheated on too. She also has health

issues and mental health issues and, you know, job issues, all of the things that we all deal with. And ultimately her looking super hot all the time has not made her life ultimately better and easier than any of the rest of us. And that's not to say that beauty doesn't come with its own inherent privileges. And Lexi and I can speak from a personal place on that as well, being white and straight and able-bodied and all of that. But we do need to recognize that beauty is not this key to success and desirability and happiness in the way we have been taught it is. It's so true. I remember some, or whenever anyone that is recognized in media as like a beautiful woman and whenever she gets cheated on, it's so problematic how we always see people

being like, I mean, if Beyonce gets cheated on, there's no hope for all of us. And it's like, wait, so we're saying that if you are a beautiful woman, it's crazy for you to get cheated on. And what, so people that are considered less attractive socially, like that they then deserve to get cheated on. Like, what are we saying here? Just cause she's considered beautiful in the eyes of whoever, like, you know what I mean? It's so convoluted. Yeah. It's like, we're saying that, and our whole culture does this, that you are deserving of good things if you are working to change your appearance. And that's, you know, that's why we feel guilty when we've eaten something bad and we moralize food or when we haven't worked out as hard, we punish ourselves. We've internalized

this. And so every time you compare yourself to somebody or you eat something that you've been told you shouldn't, or somebody says something to you, all of a sudden, when that disruption comes up, that spark in us says, I'm bad, I'm wrong. I need to fix this thing. And we want to reinforce, there's nothing wrong with you. Like we want all of your listeners to understand that they can sit in their bodies as they are right now and learn to be okay. And that doesn't mean you're going to love your body or love how you look. It means that you can be okay. Like our definition of positive body image is positive body image.

Isn't believing your body looks good. It's knowing your body is good, regardless of how it looks, regardless of how it works. None of us have perfect bodies working wise or by how they appear, but we can all learn to come home to ourselves. Every time we feel that split from self-objectification happen, we can practice strategies to get back inside our bodies. The only one we're ever going to have, nobody else gets to feel how we feel, do what we do. Like as cheesy as it sounds, every one of us are so important and we're not important for how we appear.

We have stuff to do. And if you're stuck thinking about how you look instead of getting out there and living your life, the world is missing out. It's so true. And I love how, because sometimes we have to say that, like, I get it too. There are some things that it sounds cheesy, but it's sad that it's sounding cheesy because it's, it's probably the most powerful message. A lot of women need to hear. Another point I love, love, love that you guys just brought up earlier is this comparison and it's keeping us apart as women. This, this system is designed to have us all up against a wall and looking at each other and feeling as if we are

not able to connect, but rather we need to try to be better than the person to our left and right. If it's another woman, like, well, how does my hair look compared to her? And what, and it's so defeating because if anything, we can all relate the most. And yet somehow we felt that we're all in this competition. That's never ending. And why? Because of men. Yeah. Yeah. It's this scarcity mindset when live in this patriarchal culture where our bodies are the most important thing about us. And we're being evaluated that way. It makes us feel like women are our competition for really scarce resources like love and attention and validation and desirability. And none of that is true. Like all of those things are infinite. And when we recognize that,

I think that helps us to take some of our power back to say, like, I'm actually, it feels pretty shitty to be on your own, self-objectifying, isolated, comparing yourself and hating on other women. When what's much better is to look at another woman as fully human, have some compassion for her and extend it to yourself as well. And then ask her like what's going on in her life. Tell her some of your, the things that you feel shame about and that you're struggling with. That takes the power out of it. And you'll figure out somebody else has had the exact same experience as you. And then you can see her as more fully human instead of just looking at what she's wearing and what her body looks like. I think it's, I think it's helpful having this conversation too, because I don't know

a woman in my life that wouldn't be nodding and agreeing with this conversation. Right. And so if we can also hold the fact that every single woman, even if she doesn't want to feels this in the world in some capacity or has felt it. And it's something to keep in mind of everyone listening of like, we really are all going through it, of course, in different ways. But why don't we actually build each other up and lift each other up? Because you can say, oh, that person looks confident. They're probably not. They may be faking it or it took them a really long time to get to that place. So instead of feeling like it's you against all of the other women in the room, it's like,

oh my God, hi guys. Like, let's all talk about how shitty the world we live in is and let's build each other up because why are we ever going to wait for men to be the ones to make us feel fulfilled? That's just problematic. Do it with ourselves. And if anything, if we're going to look for external validation, let's go to the women first instead of looking to the men. Okay. Because we know how it feels to be objectified. And hopefully we can change the rhetoric of like, you know what, I'm not going to, I've worked on it of not complimenting someone when I'm in an interview, my natural reaction is like, oh my God, you look so good today. And it's like, why am I saying that? Just compliment them on what

they're about to say. What are they about to speak about? That's the point of a podcast to focus on that. Obviously it's hard though, because one of the ways we compensate is by fixing, fixing our makeup, dying our hair, waxing our eyebrows, waxing our body, eyelash extensions, Botox injection, nails, all the things. There's so many. How do you draw the line with deciding what is self objectification? This is the most popular question we get. Where do you draw the line? And it is such an important question early on. Like when we were doing, we just did 18 months of press for our book. And that question came up every time. And early on, we would answer it by talking about our own line, where we draw the

line for our beauty work. And then we started realizing and talking to each other that people asking us that question, aren't asking us, I mean, maybe they think they're asking us personally for advice on that, but what they're really asking, they're asking themselves, where should I draw the line? And we want you to ask yourself, why am I asking this question? Because what happens is people are asking that question because they're grappling with the ethics of beauty work. They're realizing that they are complicit in this system that says that you can't

walk out of your house or get on screen without lashes, you know, without work that just makes you feel more like you or being the size you used to be. Cause that's what feels like the most you, you know, and we're all complicit in this. And so when you're asking that question, you are on your body image resilience journey because you are starting to critically engage with, do I want to stay on this train of constant beauty work? Is there a world in which I'm maybe in part responsible for how like my kids or the women around me feel about their bodies because of the bar that I continuously raise or how I talk about myself.

And so I love that question because it is your opportunity to ask yourself a few questions in return. What do I want? Where could I push back on some of these ideals and prove to myself that I'm still me? What can I do to be a little less complicit in this sexist system that I don't love being a part of? And for each and every one of us, that line is going to be different. Like where you choose to draw the line when it comes to beauty work is up to you, but I guarantee you, and our research makes this clear when we write a lot about this and more than a body, as you push back on some of these oppressive beauty ideals that you thought you just had to play in because you're female. It's the price of being female. You know, you got to do the work, put in the work. Beauty is pain. When you push back on that, you prove to yourself and to everybody else that you are still you, that you are valuable as you

are, that you don't need to spend the money, the time, the pain, and the energy on the beauty work that you used to think it took to feel good. You can feel good intrinsically internally without those things. It's so beautiful hearing it too. It made me think of when, how many times, and I absolutely admit that I've done this. I remember back in college, if I woke up next to a guy, I would always care, carry some makeup in my purse and run to the bathroom before he woke up and put makeup on. And I'm like, imagine a man doing that. Imagine a man being stressed, waking up to a woman and being like, I need to go to the bathroom and fix myself. And it's like, no, they would never because men there, there is no makeup. There is no, like, they're just, of course there's makeup,

but like the majority of men are not doing anything to their physical appearance other what they were given at birth. And so we are enhancing certain features. Like I am so for women doing whatever they want with their bodies. But if you actually go to the back to the beginning of time, I'm realizing like, well, wait, why, why would you get a boob job? Because society has deemed boobs to be this like sexual, good looking part of a woman's body. And if you don't have them, then you're not like, it's so convoluted. And again, ladies, if you have a boob job, I love you thrive. But it really does. If you, if we dissect it, because we've been trained of which body parts are made to be sexual or to make us feel feminine,

to make us feel pretty. You have to have a certain body shape. And so it's so problematic that men have never thought that way of like, Oh my God, I need to run to the bathroom to put on makeup. And when I look back at that version of myself, I'm like, why was I doing that? Because I wanted him to think I looked a certain way at all times. It's like, sweetie, if you're going to be with this person, he's got to see what you look like without makeup and allow yourself to be comfortable. That was exhausting trying to pretend I looked a certain way. And it's like, no, I don't look that way. Okay. When I wake up, this is what I look like. Yeah. What you're explaining is like men have this freedom to be able to prioritize their experience in any given moment. Whereas for women, we are prioritizing how other people experience us. We are so worried about what he thinks of our faces and our hair and our smell and everything else in the morning. And what to turn the table on that we have got to actively prioritize how we experience the world, not how the world experiences

our bodies. So when you're tempted to self-objectify and sit out of a party, a date, you know, any going to the gym, anything you want to do, what you need to do is very actively say, I'm going to choose right now, even when it's difficult to go anyway, you know, get as done up as you need to do to be comfortable or just walk out the door and prioritize how you feel. Are you talking to people? Are you having a good time? Like when you are sparked to self-objectify, stop in that moment, turn your focus back into your physical senses, what you're seeing, hearing, doing, smelling, all that stuff, and make sure that this is for you. It's not for anyone else. And we got to do that all day, every day. It gets so much easier over time too. Can you explain why it's problematic to judge

our health based on our looks? Yeah, that's big. That was a huge part of my PhD research. When you ask women to describe health and fitness and whether or not they're healthy and fit, they will overwhelmingly describe a certain weight, a certain look, a dress size, whatever. And what we're doing there is again, keyword objectifying our health. We're taking something that exists within our bodies and we're making it into something that can be viewed or is visible from the outside or something that can be measured from the outside. This is a huge disadvantage to us because it's overwhelmingly women who do this, who learn to do this. When we set health and fitness goals from the time we're really little,

we're setting weight goals and like size resolutions, as opposed to how we feel and what we can do. Your health is really about what's going on internally. So like when you think of easy things to measure that can give you a much better indicator of your health and fitness, it's like your blood pressure, your blood sugar, your cholesterol, um, your resting heart rate, your cardiovascular health. These are things that any doctor can help you measure that will give you so much more information than that stupid BMI or stepping on the scale, even though they still make you do that every single time because insurance companies require it and they are ridiculous. So it's just taking something that is so much more complicated and boiling it down to something that has been so co-opted by the beauty industry to make it into something that is unachievable and not only unachievable, but like

not fun, like something that people hate when in reality, building up your stamina and your endurance and, um, getting all of your levels in check so that you feel your best, your most optimum that improves your life. What doesn't necessarily improve your life is an all out compulsive obsession with what's going in your mouth, every calorie, every carb, every macro, whatever, and the exercise that it takes to keep your weight at a certain size. That is just self-objectification. It's, I remember seeing someone that is just, again, reiterating this point and they made a video and it was someone being like, I don't know what clicked for me, but my entire life, the woman was like, I have focused on my weight every single day. I have not, not had the thought about my weight, how I'm unhappy with it. And the woman was like,

I'm now 30 something. And I realized almost 20 plus years of my life. I have been focused on what my weight is. And I realized I'm going to look back right before I die and be like, I spent my whole life caring solely about my weight. And it deterred me from enjoying events and parties and gatherings and family and friends and love and joy. And it literally, it was the catalyst towards my self-hatred and me not being able to be present in my own life. How crazy is that? And then if you look at it and you're like, why was I focusing on my weight? She was like, because of what other people think about me. So then I'm also adding on, I lived my entire life scrutinizing myself and hating myself and thinking about something obsessively because of what society is telling me is wrong with me.

When millions and millions and millions of people are going through the same thing, why don't we all just be like, we're done? We are done. We're not letting it happen anymore because why are we going to let it control our lives? I know it's easier said than done. And that's why you guys are so incredible that you're doing the research and you're providing people an outlet of like, this actually can get better. I think my, my last kind of closing question would be to a woman listening today that maybe has a long, feels like they have a long way to feel like they are more than just a body. What would you leave

someone with that's listening to this? And it's like, oh my God, I want to get there, but I definitely am struggling to ever not think about myself and objectify myself. Like what can we leave the listeners with today? I would say, number one, we want you to know that you can, that it is totally possible, especially if it feels overwhelming

because that's telling me it's something very important for you. So if you feel in this moment, like, Oh, this is too hard. Like I hope eventually it clicks and I can put in some work, but right now I need to focus on my weight or whatever. I guarantee you some listeners are thinking that what I want you to know is that it is possible. And you can start right now because we just planted some seeds, whether you like it or not, that are going to help you remember when you see women being objectified and valued only for their body. And when you do it to yourself, you're going to notice it. And now you have a name for it, self-objectification or objectifying other people. I mean, even in 50 minutes, I truly believe like we hopefully are going to allow someone to reassess the way that they have been talking to themselves and feeling about

themselves. And I, I really encourage everyone listening. Like when you, maybe if you get on this journey and you feel like you're having a slip up, like get this book, obviously, I think that having more than a body is like so important to like reflect back on, come back to this episode, listen to this, hype yourself up. Like it's okay to sometimes slip up and it's okay because it would be crazy if we didn't like, this is what we have has been ingrained in us. So I can't thank you guys enough because hopefully this is really going to help so many women. And I really appreciate having conversations like this because we need to have them. Thank you so much for using your platform to advocate for our message and our book. It means the world to them. Thank you so much for using your platform to advocate for our

message and our book. It means the world to us. Thank you for helping us get this message out there. Thank you so much for coming on. Call her daddy. Oh, we are so honored. Honestly. Thank you. I have goosebumps. You are so sweet. Thank you for being such a great interviewer. Like you really know your stuff. Nice meeting you guys