Girls Gotta Eat - The Mating Gap and Why Women Freeze Their Eggs with Author/Professor Marcia Inhorn

Episode Date: June 5, 2023

We absolutely loved having author and professor Marcia Inhorn join us to discuss the "mating gap" between men and women and the real reasons women are freezing their eggs. We talk about misconceptions regarding egg freezing, the stories of women who have chosen to do so, the undersupply of men for educated women who want children, dating up vs. dating down, the empowerment of egg freezing, and more. Before Marcia joins us, we're chatting about Ashley's awkward hotel experience, Rayna's new car, girlfriends as life partners, and one year of Vibes Only! Enjoy! Visit Marcia Inhorn's website and check out her book Motherhood on Ice. Follow us @girlsgottaeatpodcast, Ashley @ashhess, and Rayna @rayna.greenberg. Visit our website for tour dates, merchandise, and more. Shop Vibes Only. Thank you to our partners this week: Hello Fresh: Get 16 free meals plus free shipping at hellofresh.com/gge16 and use code GGE16. Buffy: Get $20 off your order at buffy.co with promo code GGE. AG1: Get a free 1 year supply of immune-supporting Vitamin D + 5 free travel packs with your first purchase at athleticgreens.com/gge. Babbel: Get up to 55% off your subscription at babbel.com/gge. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is a completely different issue that really has not gotten the attention that it deserves, that women are really having problems finding committed reproductive partners to have children with them. Out of girls got to eat. Welcome back. It's Gemini season. Did you think I was going to forget? You thought I forgot. Yes, I thought you were going to forget.

You think I was going to forget. I like, you never said it. I like shot up in the middle of the night last week and I was like, I forgot to mention it on the episode. It is. It is. Happy Gemini season. You troll me all cancer season. So troll you.

I just celebrate myself. Word up to all my Gemini's out there and all your dual personalities. Oh, hi. Little Pisces boy. Okay. Just really just eating your feet. Licking your mouth. He doesn't like or do kisses.

So, okay, if people want to know, this is a hot tip from Lisa, Dr. Lisa. Okay. My celebrity vet. Some dogs don't lick or kiss. but that like sniffing and basically sneezing in your face is their same way of showing affection. I love language sneezing on your face. Because Matt always says Reggie is the same way, my brother's dog, a sniff and a sneeze. So if they give you a sniff and a sneeze as opposed to like, because I don't want a dog's tongue on my mouth.

I'll take it. You'll take a sneeze on your lips now. Ew. I would let him do it, but I don't like it. So let us know in the comments. Do you prefer to French kiss your dog or do you want him to sneeze on? your face. Animals can't get COVID, right? There was like one case.

There'd be like crazy if you got COVID from Azul. Well, every time he sneezes in my face, I'm kind of like, that's not, that doesn't feel healthy. No, it's probably not, but it's love. That's what love is. Also, I am on my first day of my first period since I got up birth control. I kicked in a little more than a month, so it wasn't exactly 28 days. It was like five weeks, I think, at this point.

And I will say, this kind of. of sucks today. Like, I just feel it in my stomach, you know, it's like I was saying it's not a cramp. It's just that like pressure pain, just like bleh. I got a little worried you, you know, our cycles have synced up, which is nice. I think they're absolutely going to now. Two like essentially naturally cycling bitches that are together all the time. We're going to be on the exact same cycle. We've been synced up and I was worried you weren't going to get it like at the same time as me and we got it the same week. But I will say. I sneezed and a ton of blood came out of me. Oh my God. You are so bloody. I just didn't. I felt a little sluggish.

this weekend, but I also drank. And I just didn't have this debilitating PMS, which I'm so excited about. Like, I PR'd yesterday on my Peloton class. Like, I am really excited because I was so worried about the ludial phase, the PMS, and that could still come. I'm only starting this journey. So anyway, I'm happy, you know, I'm not pregnant because, you know, this past month. It'd be really weird for your brand.

If you got pregnant, really been beating the no kids drum. Well, I wouldn't. That's not. Having a kid would be weird for my brand, but getting pregnant. That'd be pretty on brand. If I got pregnant two weeks after I got birth control for the first time and got pregnant, Oh my gosh. Also, your PR is so funny to me because I could double the amount of time I'm on a Peloton

and I still probably wouldn't hit your PR for 30 minutes. I mean, I have a lot more body to power. And I've been doing this for 10 years. Well, I was thinking about this because when I walk behind you, You do cover a lot more distance than me at the same velocity. So is that the same thing, you think? I just have, like, a lot more power coming from my body, like, with so much more height. And, again, I've just, I probably am stronger.

I've been doing this for 10 years. I've been in the game a while. So we have this brand new studio, and we love it so much. We're so proud of it. We'll do photos for you guys of it. If you're watching YouTube, you see it. My nails match. Oh, your nails look really great.

My nails match the wallpaper. Oh, my God! And your nails match the sign. Look at this. I was thinking our nails look really good for this episode, too. together. Oh my gosh. So we designed this. It was really fun for us. And the person who did our sign, the company's called Vintage Roots, and she did our last sign as well. So this one is just bigger than the last one. I just love how she did it. There's not like a big plate behind it. So it's just kind of sit against the wall.

If you guys want to check her out, she's underscore Vintage Roots on Instagram. She's fantastic. Well, and we found her through Andrew Schultz. Oh, right. Because when he moved his studio to Miami during COVID, We were like that sign looks so dope against the wallpaper. And so he's really the goat of like the studio space whole thing. So we found him through her, which I'm glad we did. Yeah. So check her out if you want. We love her stuff.

And we'll do more videos and stuff at the studio. But check us out on YouTube. On our YouTube channel. So I'm wearing my New York sweatshirt today. And we were just planning a New York trip for your birthday. I'm so excited. I'm so excited. We have a lot of plans for birthday is coming up.

I'm excited. So you and I for the past three years have done birthday boats and yours is always in New York. So I really like that you're keeping with your tradition even though we don't live there. We're randomly going to be in New York on your birthday. I'm going to do the boat. And then we're doing a boat for my birthday. But we're going to be in Cabo. But this is our thing.

We've done this for three years. Never not a boat. You do New York. I do not in New York. I know. And we do a trip for yours. I'm really excited. Yeah.

It's really like we have these good traditions. I might have this guy come. I'm going to fly about myself on my birthday. Like I made you doing your birthday last year. Yeah. You know what? I kind of felt bad. Then I was like, she abandoned me last year on the streets of Barcelona.

Barthona. I made you go to a bodega in Spain that you didn't like on your birthday. And then I made you fly by yourself. So who's a better friend? You had a bad birthday. You lost your luggage that day? Yeah. That was a bad day.

It was the worst birthday. Ever. It was. I mean, I was so, you know, blessed to be on that trip and stuff. But yeah, my actual birthday was a canceled flight and lost luggage. So sick, dude. We're going to have a redo this year. It started with Raina leaving me in the morning.

And then I got blisters on my feet walking around all day in sandals and then cancel if I lost luggage. So we're going to do a redo. Better day. It's a tough summer for luggage just across the board. It was a tough summer for luggage. I bought luggage tags last summer. But yeah, I'm really excited to be able to do this and plan this really fun trip. Yeah.

And also, we want to say that this week is our one year anniversary of our other company, Vibes Only. And we just want to thank you guys. I mean, it has been really successful. It's been an amazing ride. You know, we have this e-commerce business with all these. incredible sex toys and blow gels and lube and all kinds of fun stuff. And then we have an app that has remote and all this content. Ashley and I have worked so hard to just make this 360 experience for you guys. You can have all the sex and sexiness in one place. And we're so proud of this

company and thank you guys for supporting it because it is successful because of you and because you guys trust us to promote great products and great content for you. Yes. It's been a wild ride. It's been so fun and also challenging along the way. It's worth it when we get these incredible emails and DMs about helping people have their first orgasm or introducing toys in the bedroom or enjoying blowjobs more or just getting into erotic audio and what this girl said. She DMed and said she was listening to one of the erotic stories in the app, which was phone sex with your ex, which is a hot one. It's one of my top faves. And it's this sexy voice and it's like, yeah, you're having phone sex with your ex. And she's like, I'm about to call my ex.

Like I'm about to get back with my toxic ex. We're like, don't do it. I know. We're like, cut bangs instead. Stop. That's so funny. Yeah, you guys have really bought, especially the lube and the peanut collada blow gel and the different flavors and

send us crazy stories about how it's just like major sex lives better. And we love to hear it and your partners are buying it for you. And we're just so proud of these toys. They sell out over and over again and they're unique and different. We want to provide you guys with something really high end that's fun to shop and fun to use in the bedroom and we'll keep releasing new stuff. But if you get into the app, obviously the remote's free with everything. If you guys aren't familiar with the toys,

they're all Bluetooth connected to a remote. There's great erotic audio that Ashley is in charge of all that content. I do all the video content. There's a lot of really fun stuff in the app. And we are doing a sale right now. It will be tomorrow, if you're listening on Monday, it will be tomorrow June 6th. For 24 hours, for our one-year anniversary,

we're doing 20% off, absolutely everything on the site. It is our biggest sale that we have ever done. Yeah. So you can sign up for the newsletter, and you can go to our Instagram at Vives Only and vibes only.com on the website, sign it for the newsletter. Yes. So we love our newsletter. It's so much fun. And there's always just goodies in there and discounts here and there and stuff

that you're not going to get anywhere else. So sign up for the newsletter at vibesonly.com, follow Instagram vibes only. And I just love hearing how this is improved people's like solo pleasure and also with their partners. Like the amount of DMs that we get about the blow gel alone. Totally. And also the butt plug, people getting into butt stuff. And I just love it. There's really something for everyone and we have more coming. pun intended. So yeah, thanks for supporting the company. We appreciate it, guys. Yeah. This is the last week to get tickets for Ohio shows. Yes. So there might be a couple left in the Cincinnati and Columbus. Cleveland. There's definitely tickets. Okay. So we'll see you guys in Ohio

all over Ohio. Yes. We're coming all over Ohio. And you guys, this is the last time we're coming anywhere this summer, except for in our own beds and maybe boats. So we have no more shows until September until the fall. So if you want to come, come to these shows and you know the drill. If you are coming to the show, roast your friends, the people that you're bring with you, tell us funny things about them. You can email stories at girls got to eat.com. Yes, good call. So that means you, Ohio people. So you're coming to the show, send us funny emails about your group.

Yeah, and that's the subject line city you're coming to. Yeah. Great. Okay, so speaking of being on the road, I had this kind of funny story that I didn't share because we've done like a lot to talk about last week. And I just thought it would be funny to share. So when we went to D.C., so our May tour was Chicago first. This middle weekend was Philly and D.C.

and then last weekend was Boston. So basically I thought that I might meet up with this guy in D.C. I don't need to get into all the details, but I thought that we might have like a rendezvous in D.C. And we checked into the hotel. And my parents were coming to D.C. And I put them up in the same hotel as us. It was a great hotel.

It's called The Riggs. And it's like in an old bank. Like you check in like a bank lobby. Like the tellers is so cool. They were so nice. Everyone was so wonderful. There's a great bar downstairs. Like a speakeasy.

I'd brunch with my family for Mother's Day brunch the next morning. the next morning, it was great. So I check in. There was so amazing, this guy, Antonio at the desk, checked us in. They made us a reservation for the speakeasy that night. And I go up to my room, and I was like, what is that noise? It sounds so loud. And it was like, I think the housekeeping was in the room next door. Bottom line, I realized there was adjoining rooms. Like, you know, some hotels have like adjoining rooms. I'm like, I don't like it. There's a door and the other person. I'm triggered by that one time we had adorning rooms and we had that fight. It's St. Louis. Oh, my God. Yes. I was standing on the other

side of the door, like rocking back and forth. Like, don't knock. Don't knock. And then I can't have them anymore. I'm the trigger by it. It is amazing if you're with your friend. Yeah. Because then you have like an open, it's like almost like staying in a suite together if you

have a joady room. Otherwise, I don't want it. You're too close for comfort to the people next to you. I can't do it. And then I remember, oh shit. Antonio had said something about my parents coming in. He was like, we have another Heseltine coming in. I was like, oh, it's my family.

And they're coming in right behind us. And I'm like, I bet the way these hotel people are, because when you come together, they always want to put you close. They always want to run right right next to each other. And so I was like, I bet when my parents check in, he's going to want to put them in the next room. That is crazy to me. Listen,

I understand friends, kind of. We never want to stay next to each other. Because if one of us has sex, I can't ever hear it. But parents is crazy to put you next to. I just think it's like this family traveling together. So I go down to the front desk.

And I was like, Antonio, listen. I know you know my parents are coming in. and I booked this room for them. And I just want to make sure that they are not next door to me because I'm trying to get it in. All these other people are hearing this. Like they're very close proximity. They're like, that bitch is crazy.

And he starts laughing. He's like, oh my God, I got you. And I was like, were you going to put him on the fourth floor with me? And he was like, I absolutely was. Absolutely. And I was like, floor is fine, not ideal. But you guys are busy. Like, can we just not get him next door to me?

Especially in this adjoining fucking room. So he's like, I'll do my best. told you my best. And I'm in like room 4.11 or something. He's like, how about room like 4.30? I'm like, that sounds fine. Whatever. And then it was funny because I go back upstairs and I'm realizing that like those two rooms where I'm going to be and where they're going to be are pretty significantly far apart. But then I'm like, I don't want this adjoining room at all. I don't want some other person right on the other side of the door. So I pop out in the hallway randomly. This manager is walking the hall. And she's like, can I help you? And I kind of explain the situation

to her. She's like, let's get you out of this adjoining room. So then they put me in another room that is literally only two doors from my parents. So then I was like, I can't go. back. I've made too much of a scene. Can you imagine if your dad specifically saw a guy walk out of your room? That scene he would cause in the hallway. So I was like, I can't be this high maintenance. These people are being so wonderful. And at least I don't have an adjoining room because that's the nightmare. I don't like it. I could hear every sound in that adjoining room. I don't want it. Have you just to justify to me? I was really only like two doors down from them. But at least we weren't next door. And I never ended up seeing that guy. So it all worked out. But when I all worked out, but when I I was running up and down this hotel, and the guy at the front desk was like,

girl, I get it, and I got you. Let's figure this out for you. It was just so funny. I also had a funny experience with that staff there that I have not, like, told anybody. Because I, you know, I was so fucked up when we checked into that hotel. I was, like, hanging on by a thread. Yeah. Like, Ryan had to go give me pediolite.

And I was, like, the only thing I can do was, like, order a burger to, like, feel better. And so I ordered food. And, like, I had on stretch pants and a very small bra. And I, yeah. You're not going to do you this, I think. Yeah, I told you. I hear this knock at the door and I just like don't have it in me to put a shirt on. Like I just couldn't do it.

And I was just like, I don't care. Who cares? Whoever's on the other side of this door, they're not going to say anything. And so I opened the door and the guy brought the food in and I'm like, whatever, my devils are hard. He's like looking at me. And I'm like, he's not going to say anything. No way. And he on his way out the door, he stops and he leaves me with a final thought.

And he's like, can I just say something to you? He's a little unprofessional. And I was like, what's he going to do? And he was like, you look very hot. Oh my God. I was like, you lie. You lie. I look like I was on my deathbed.

But I was like, is he going to say something? And honestly, he was like kind of hot and I didn't hate it. And like, had I been in better spirits, I might have tried to fuck that guy. I feel sad about it. I feel like it's like such a fantasy. Miss opportunity. This guy. I could tell you, like, wrestled with it.

He, like, wasn't sure if he could say it. I feel like it was predatory in any way. He was halfway out the door. I couldn't care less. And also, it was very flattering. Well, then, like, when we checked into Chicago, the AC was not working. and they sent someone up and he, I mean, he looks like my canon. He was, he was okay.

It was like honor from the back. But like he came up and was he married or someone later told us he had a girlfriend. Remember we talked to the manager? Yes, the manager said he had a girlfriend. Yeah, he wasn't wearing a ring. I actually can't remember. I wasn't trying to hit on it. But in my head, I was like, oh, the manager at the rooftop at the Hawksden.

Yeah. Told us that that guy has a wife or a girlfriend. Yeah. And he was so wonderful. But like he came up and he's, you know, kind of waiting around for it to reset. And so we're just like chatting. And I'm like, this again is one of those moments. Like those things can happen.

And you feel how they could very easily. You just start chatting. I mean, I like went on a date with a task rabbit. Like it happens. I try to go on dates when I task grab it all the time. Can I keep employing him? Can I just say that I said task rabbit is a good way to date. And Raina said, hold my beer.

Like I was the original one to be like, hey, you should look into this. And you were like, you know what I'm going to do? They're going to be over here every day. Like you really were like hold my beer I do have like secret rendezvous You're like how'd you put the sign up in the studio I was like the task graphic came over last night Well you said you got to search for the hottest ones in the app

So I did do that Yeah we'll talk about this some more at the live shows But yeah I did go out with the guy that came over It was a task rabbit I recapped it in full on Francis and Giulio's podcast Oh you did? On oops yeah recently but I've just kind of been like saving some number for the live shows

Here I am just burning jokes I'm also flirting I'm in a flirt situation with the contractor of the house next door. That's your man. I love it. You guys have like a little tension. Flirty banter. You're kind of combative with each other.

You're going to fuck that guy. I'm going to tell you this thing you were making fun of me about so hard. I'm going to fuck all you guys up because you're going to be like, I hear it all the time. Now, I was on the phone with him and I said comfortability. Basically what happened was that I'm in touch with the contractor next door because there's been a lot of construction next door and I was very concerned about how loud it was going to be. So I got- Yes.

And your life. My life. But actually I was more concerned about the studio. We just built the studio and I was like, okay, they're demolishing the house next door. So I get in touch with the contractor. I'm on the phone of him and he mentions that this will probably last a year. And I spontaneously burst into sobs. I am hysterical on the phone crying.

Like, you can't get air into your laundry crying so hard. And then I like calmed down a little bit. Him and I were like talking. And I was like for like my own comfortability. Like for my own comfortability. I don't even know what to do. I'm crying so hard. And he just lets me kind of like get.

it all out and he's like, I hear you and I'm going to work with you, blah, blah, but comfortability isn't a word. This is what I'm saying. Like, you guys are like sparring. Like, and me, what is the word I'm looking for? You have like banter. No, but like, you're like fighting a little bit.

Like it's this. We already have tension. Tension, I guess. That's the word. I can't find the word. So he was like, comfortability isn't a word. And I was like, it's a word. And he was like, I studied grammar in college.

And I was like, well, I talk for a living. And comfortability is a word. And he was like, no, it's not. So then we got off the phone. and I looked up it is not a word. And then you let me know that I actually frequently. Raina loves to add a little extra to words. What did you say?

Intentionality. You've been roasted for this with the whole episode where we talked about dating with intention. And every time you could have just said intention, you said intentionality. And so you could just say comfort and you say comfort. And you say comfortability. Like you just love to add a little something.

Instead of familiar, I say familiarity. And you were like, you don't get to do that. We were talking about this thing. And Randy kept saying pretty people privilege, pretty people privilege. And I was like, it's just pretty privilege. Like, you love to add on. Yeah, I think it makes me. I don't care.

Like, let it fly. But it's just, I want to be succinct. And you're like, how can I make this longer? How can I say more? And I do think I've become a much better storyteller via this podcast. Like, you listen to old episodes. And I'm like, just land the plane, bitch. You would tell this whole story about what the weather was like that day.

But it's just so funny because I didn't know this is necessarily a thing in my life. And you're like, yeah, you do that all the time. Literally do it all the time. Intentionality is the most. I'm just like intention, intention. Just say intention. No, but it's like, it's cute. It's one of your quirks.

Thank you. But you guys are just going back and forth. You have this thing, this word I can't find. I guess I'm not that great at words. And I see it happening. Yeah. Well, you know, I don't use dating apps. So that's how I'm going to find.

Except to ask rabbit. Yeah, well, they're very hot here. Okay, so I wanted to mention this episode today. We already had the interview, which was so incredible. And Rain and I both read Marcia's book this weekend and just felt so affected by it. So we're talking about why women freeze their eggs and the disparity with women and men dating these days and all these things. And it speaks to us so much as women in our late 30s. We don't want children and I feel lucky that I know that. That's not weighing on me. every day and there's no one I feel for more than my girlfriends who are dealing with this and who want to be a mother so badly and, you know, are having trouble conceiving, but also just don't have a partner or a partner that's willing to commit to them and start a family. And so I can't work I'm in this book enough. I mean, you really need to be kind of ready for it. If you're really struggling with this, I don't know if it would, you know, think it would help no matter what because it's so

validating. But I think a lot about this and partnership, too, you know, for me, I don't want children. And so I love the conversation, but that's not applicable to me is this egg freezing discussion. So for me, I'm so interested in all the other stuff. Like the women having trouble finding men, you know, on their level, up to their standards, men that just want to commit that aren't Peter Pan's or fuckboys or all this stuff. And I do want to find somebody. I've made that very clear. But I also think a lot of times what people want in life is like a partner to share their life with. And I feel like I'm going to get emotional.

But I feel like we have that in each other. And like, it doesn't mean I don't want a man. You know, it doesn't mean that I don't want sex, the intimacy and all this stuff. But like, we really have like shared our lives together. We've traveled the world together. Our families are part of each other's lives. Like, we spend holidays together and we're like, I don't know what I'm trying to say, but it's like, I think people just want that a lot.

You know, and I make fun of people that say, I'm just looking for my best friend. I'm like, ew, why don't we have a best friend? But like, people want what we have. And they also want, you know, a partner to a lot of times have a child with, start a family with, have sex with. but when it comes to like a life partner, like I do feel like I've like found that. And I think about that a lot.

You want to hug? We've been hugging a lot. She's off birth control. This is my off birth control. But I don't feel that void at all of like a person who has my back. And it's like this perfect setup. We have these healthy boundaries. We don't live together.

You know, but we do all the things. Like you see Rain and I in the airport in a restaurant. We're the partnership you want to be. You know, we really. really do have that. And so, again, it's not that it's in place of a man that I have a sexual intimate relationship with, but it just makes it a lot easier to move through life. And I guess I say that. And when people don't have anything like that at all, I understand the yearning for it. I thought you were saying that. I didn't expect that. That was really nice.

It reminds me that video that went viral of the two girls that are just each other's like partners and their friends. And I do think that like this book resonated with me not because I want children, but because so many women are like, what is wrong with me? Where is he? I did all the things. I did the job and the career and the money and the, I'm funny and I'm hot and I work out

and I have all the things. Like, where is he? And it's just like, this book really resonated with me because it explains like why he isn't there necessarily. And like problems that men are facing and problems of women in this demographic are facing. And I like the encouragement that you can find partnership and friendship

because some people are never going to find somebody. And this is what we said since day one. you just have to, like, create a life you're excited about. You know, I have all these plans this summer. I would love to have a boyfriend on the boat with me for my birthday. It was so fun a couple years ago having came with me and, like, having a meet with my friends and, like, dance with everybody. And that was, like, really nice and special for me.

But, like, I can do those things with or without the partner. I can pay for it. I can build out the guest list. I can coordinate it. Tessa was very helpful. But I can do it without that. And I'm proud of that, you know? Yeah.

So thank you for what you said. That was really nice. I feel like I have a partner in life, too. Yeah, like, that's not. what I'm looking for. You know what I mean? I don't know. Like, it's not that. I'm not lacking that, really. You know, it's kind of like, there's other stuff that we can't provide for each other. I want somebody that has to hang out with me all the time. I love attention. You know, I love a phone call every single day. I just want so many phone calls. I want so much phone sex. I want so much

sex. I know. I was just talking about this guy that I've been talking to the phone. And you're like, have you talked to the phone yet? Like, you were so boned up to hear about, like, phone conversation. I love talking on the phone. No one loves it more than me. We'll talk in the No, we've just been texting a lot. And also, before we move on, we want to direct you to two other episodes that we've done. So we do mention John Berger quite a few times in the episode. He wrote a book called Datanomics. And we did an episode with him called Where Are All the Decent Men?

And that was January 11th, 2021, about sort of the dating disparity between men and women. And then his follow-up book. So Datanomics was his first book in 2015. I wonder how much the geographic landscape has changed post-COVID also. So just keep in mind that was written eight years ago at this point. and then make your move, I just love. That's his follow-up book. And I love that one.

And that's a really great, tangible advice. Here's actionable items you can do. Actionable. I didn't have to say actionable. I could have said action. Here's action items you can do. Actional things are action items that you can do rather than just move, you know. And that was kind of why he wrote it.

I love that. That he was like, I wrote this book about like how shitty it is to live in certain cities for women and then didn't really follow up with enough like, but here's what you can do if you're not wanting to move. And so the two books together I love is a little package deal. Again, John Berger, he comes up with this episode. So we just want to give all the backstory there. Yeah.

And if you guys want to listen to, we talk about freezing your eggs, but if you want to hear a firsthand experience, if somebody actually freezing them, Marcia talks a lot about it in her book, but we did an episode called Spilling the Fertility Tea on August 19th, 2019 with our friend Merrill and she talks about her experience, freezing her eggs. So if you want to hear that story,

I think it's the second part of that episode. Yeah, she's towards the end of that episode. She spoke about it so eloquently. and yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. So enjoy the episode, you guys. And then, yeah, so I finally have something in my life that's really important to me.

I want to talk about it. We've been together for a week and that is my new car. And I know that I mentioned it last week. So I got a Jeep Grand Cherokee Summit. I love it so much. I think about it so often and I'm so protective over it because I've never owned a car. I've never known anything. I finally understand what it's like to have a child or a pet.

Or I finally understand what it's like to love something more than I love myself. Raina. It's those massage seats. I cannot believe you, bitch, of all people, have massage chairs in your car. Your secret massage life has now transferred itself into the car. I didn't even know. So I went to pick up the car and the guy was just like,

do you want me to show you around the car? And I was like, let me just show you some things. And he's like, the seats have massagers. And I was like, come again? They feel amazing. I wrote it the other night. Kate was in the back seat so jealous. She's like, you bitches are both getting massages up there.

Waterfall massages, passenger seat and driver's seat. It's so nice. I am so excited about this. I really mulled over it for a long time. You knew exactly what you wanted, but like this is my first purchase. I went and drove everything from like a Bronco to a range rover. I did the whole range.

I did the BMW. I did everything. And I love this car so much. You should just like cut me at check because I'm going to hype them so hard. But I do love this so much. I like clean it constantly. There's a little poop near it. And I was like,

this can't be here. I think about where I park now. I just, I love it. I know. I'm almost like, it's wearing off. But I felt like kind of a psycho,

the first, month, you know, and it's just covered in like pollen and shit and I'm pissed off and I'm just out there. I bought a leaf blower to get up under the windshield. Of course, yeah. I just, I understand. And now I'm like relaxing a little bit. Okay, maybe I'll relax and like, you got to get your window bashed in and then it'll just make you not care about the other stuff as much. I'll do it for you. No, I'm so happy for you. Thank you. Well, it was really exciting for me. And you've had your car for a while and it just, it took me a while because you knew exactly what you wanted. But I'm going to be really anal retentive about it. I mean, you know how about my house.

So I can only imagine how anal I want to be at the interior of this car. Azul, you're not going to be allowed in there. Yeah. You can't be in there. Listen, but he comes in the house. I'm making strides. My anal retention. So yeah, that's what's up with me.

I got three new tattoos this week. Yes. I got one of my arm that I love and it's in Hebrew and it says, eat and drink for tomorrow, we shall die. Is that also Dave Matthews? Yes. Right, Tessa? It is.

It just came to me. When you said to me, when you said it, I was like, is that Dave Matthews? It's funny you said that. So I went back and forth with my friend Jackie about this. And she goes, that's Dave Matthews. And I was like, I'm pretty sure it's the Torah. And she goes, but Dave Matthews also. And I was like, the Torah said it first.

And she's like, Dave said it first. Raina, you have a Dave Matthews band tattoo. It's from the Torah. I am so dead. I'm telling everybody. It's so funny. That is so funny. You have Dave Matthews quote on your arm.

Oh, so dead. I can't. I don't think you were Dave Matthews. I'm not a Stan. We all listened to it back then. I feel like I still know the words of so many songs, and that just came to me. You said it the other day,

and I was like, where do I know that from? It actually was not going to volunteer that information to you because it's already been brought to my attention. I like it. It's a good quote. I'm pretty sure it was in the tour first. If it's not, don't tell me.

They took it from Dave. No. And what else? It means life is short. I got my second evil eye tattoo. Because I'm woo now. I live in California. And then I got a candy heart that says XOXO,

X, which I'm probably going to build that. out and add more. I was trying to remember where I saw a candy heart that said, bite me. And Kelsey Dara, who is our former guest, had one that said bite me. Oh, as a tattoo? Yes. Okay. But yeah, anyways, I'm covered in them. I love it. Makes me very happy. Yay. That's all. One thing I just wanted to say, because I hyped this so much, was the Bama Rush documentary on Max. Just kidding. I'm calling it HBO Max until the day I die. I'm with you. I'm not ready to accept that, like, that's over. HBO doesn't know what the fuck they're doing. It's been like 10 different things in the last year. It was like HBO now. It's,

HBO Go, HBO Max. Oh my God, that's right. And now it's just max. You have to download a new app every time. They are just... And I'm stealing someone's HBO and I have to like re-log in and my... Yeah. I can't do it. So I just, I put this on my Instagram story, but I just wanted to say, I mean, this Bama Rush doc, people thought this was happening back when Bama Rush was actually happening back in like the late summer, early fall. And I hated it. Did you watch it? I turned it off. I just couldn't through it. I mean, I watched the first like 40 minutes. I just feel like it was such a missed opportunity to interview people.

people that actually had more insight, more tea. The craziest thing to me was that this just, was that the director just, it was about her experience with having alopecia, which is, I'm not minimizing her struggle, but it felt really misaligned with a bam or rush. Like, I understand her correlation, but then it turned into it was a lot about that. I mean, this was all Twitter was saying, and I'm not making fun of it at all. It was just like, make a documentary about alopecia. It just was an odd choice.

I mean, I watch every documentary. You ask me if I've ever seen the documentary and flip it on themselves, documentary, The documentary maker? The director. Flip it on themselves. And I've only seen it in the jinks when Robert Durst admits on his mic to murdering people. That's the only time I've seen the director step in. Yeah.

You're like, is this like a weird vanity project? Like what happened here? Like there was one tweet. I mean, I was posting like a lot of the tweets, but I would have enjoyed more. And again, I turned it off, but you verified this was case. I would have liked more people that have come out of the system that were like adults that could give perspective on it. People who have quit. Jenny was like, why wouldn't you interview girls who would quit their sorority? You know, like, I would talk about sororities all day. I quit my sorority. I mean, I wasn't in the machine at Bama, but like it was really anticlimactic. Like, I really feel like we were Bama Bousled, would you say? Oh, girl. Someone else DMUZE that's not an original joke. Because I said bamboozled and someone wrote, don't you mean Bama Buzled? But this one tweet said, things I thought the Bama Rush documentary was going to be about Bama Rush. Things the Bama Rush documentary is actually about. Alapisha, the Bama Rush documentary, the Bama Rush documentary director.

So much of it is about just making the documentary. I felt like the trailer was way more thrilling than the actual documentary, and it was so much about this director's experience and her trauma dealing with girls growing up and not feeling accepted. And there's so much else that could have been done with that documentary. I understand they couldn't get in the houses during rush. We didn't need that. We still could have had so much more from like ex-members.

Like they chose a lot of girls that were rushing than I felt were pretty unstable. Like it was almost a little painful. There was one girl. I was like, I don't think this girl should be shooting a show, you know? Like, I felt her pain. And anyway, I hyped it so much during Bama Rush talk and all this. And we mentioned it last week. And I just got to say, like, ugh, not great.

I just, I would have appreciated the perspective of somebody who's really gone through it. Not that, like, women that are 19 can't be intelligent and open-minded and understand what's going on here. But you can't as well as the 30-year-old that went through it that looks back on their experiences and how it formed them or somebody that quit. Like, I would have loved to hear from those people more. Right. when they said that the girls were going in the houses, I was like, that's probably not happening, and that's probably a rumor.

So you're not getting a lot from the girls that are rushing. It should have been, yes, a mix, at least, of past members. Like, it just, it was a real bummer and a real missed opportunity for what could have been a great documentary. I'm sorry you were robbed of this. I'm really part of the Southern College sorority culture, and so I wanted more for you. Well, I'm back on All-American,

so Season 5 is now on Netflix, even though I bought it all on Apple TV a couple weeks, before, but season five of All-American, you guys know I'm obsessed with this show. It just dominated my life for months. Season five, I'm just not going to spoil it. Like, if you know, you probably already know, but something so awful happens that I was not prepared for. I was sobbing in the middle of the day. Just not okay. Soul-crushing. Can't stop talking about it to anyone who will listen, like didn't see it coming and it fucked me up. I'll leave it at that. You should enjoy it. Season five, All-American, get into it.

I mean, it is really tough when you like stick with a show for so long and then you just get like devastated by it. I mean, Succession was in my favorite shows really. I think it's one of the best shows of all time. I think it's so brilliantly written. I don't love the ending. So spoilers I had, but they do lose the company. The siblings is that they all just sort of like go to their own demise, I guess. But I don't know how else it could have ended. It just sort of ended. I thought Kendall would have a worse ending that just sort of like sitting on a bench staring at the water. I don't know if we're ever like so happy with how anything ends. I didn't like the ending the Sopranos. I didn't like the ending the Sopranos. I didn't like the ending. or madmen, but I don't know like what else I would have wanted. It's just a bummer when something ends. You just want more. Yeah, it was fine. And I'm excited to get into the ultimatum. It's all queer couples this season.

Season 2 and Tessa says it's great. So we're excited to get into that, the ultimatum. Okay. We are really excited to welcome our guests today. She is a professor of anthropology and international affairs at Yale University and the author of the new book,

Motherhood on Ice, The Mating Gap, and Why Women Freeze Their Eggs, which Ashley and I spent the whole day reading yesterday. It's just sitting heavy with me in a good way. We've spent our whole day yesterday reading this book. Yeah, we were in bed of this book. So please welcome to the show. Today is guest, Marcia Inhorn. I am so happy to be here with both of you. Thanks for inviting me. We're so happy. And you came to us through one of our favorite guests of all time, John Berger, who we had on the show as well. Yeah, John Berger has been so influential because his book, Datanomics, really provided a core of the argument for what I'm calling the mating

gap in my own book. So when did you start this research and start like writing this book, I guess? Right. So I'm an anthropologist. I'm a medical anthropologist and I've been working my whole career on assisted reproductive technologies, starting with IVF and then, you know, these evolving technologies. And really what happened is that in the year 2012, the American Society for Reproductive medicine lifted the experimental label on this new assisted reproductive technology called egg freezing. And so there had been sperm freezing since the 1960s. There had been embryo freezing since the 1980s with the beginning of IVF.

But it was really technically difficult to figure out how to freeze human eggs because they're the largest cell in the body and they're watery. And so finally, a new technique called oocyte vitrification came into being in. the aughts. And it allowed human eggs to be frozen. And so at the biological age, at which you are, if you're 30 years old and you fuse your eggs, they stay your 30-year-old eggs and you can use them 10 years on at age 40 and you're using your younger, presumably higher quality eggs. So it's a pretty revolutionary technology. It was actually really needed in the beginning for young women with reproductive problems, including cancer, you know, women who are going to be going through chemotherapy,

which has the potential to really damage one's fertility. And so there's a whole sort of subcategory of women who are doing medical egg freezing. But soon, healthy women without medical problems actually began requesting egg freezing, you know, when it came into being. And so a whole new sort of use for the technology was seen. It's called non-medical egg freezing. What I sometimes was called elective egg freezing. It took off by the year 2013, a year after the experimental label was lifted, there were already 5,000 cycles had been performed in the U.S. It's been doubling at a very rapid rate. Women are really, I'm going to say, clamoring to this technology. And during the COVID period, when women were having difficulties connecting with men,

there was a huge surge in demand for egg freezing. So it is a technology that's really taken off in the United States and increasingly all around the world. Wow. And you interviewed 150 people for this, so that makes it the largest study in the world ever done? Will you tell us? The largest anthropological study, you know, where I did interview 150 women who had completed egg freezing. They had done at least one cycle of egg freezing, sometimes more, you know, up to four cycles of egg freezing to get a good number of eggs. But yeah, 36 of those women were doing egg freezing for medical reasons, mostly young women with cancer. And then 114 of the women were, you know, healthy women. And their reasons were very, very different. And, you know, I did very in-depth interviews with

them. I asked a few sort of demographic questions to sort of see what the patterns were in age, education, and so on. And, you know, soon discovered the pattern, the repeating pattern about women, you know, freezing their eggs because of partnership problems, which really goes against the sort of assumptions about why women freeze their eggs. Okay. I was just curious when, because we mentioned John Berger and you came to us through him, his book came out in 2015 and were you already working on this? And was that book kind of like, oh, also this too moment?

Right. I started working. I wrote a grant proposal probably in the year 2013, you know, got funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation. So they were the funders of my study, started interviewing women in 2014. And so it was for me. a kind of a project going over this past decade. John's book came out in 2015, and I saw it, and I thought, oh my gosh, that is an issue that relates to my book, that there's a growing

educational disparity between men and women, and we can talk more about it. But I think it's one of the underlying problems creating a kind of mating gap for educated women in our country. So, yeah, so I met John, actually. He actually co-authored one paper with me. So he's been an inspiration. Let's put it that way. And his book is really an important book, I think, for America about what's going on, a difference between men and women going into higher education. Well, we'll get into sort of the mating issues. But let's talk about, you mentioned a few minutes ago, what the misconceptions are of who is freezing their eggs and what the actuality is of what the demographic of people that are freezing them.

I thought it was really interesting you talking about what people think the makeup of this group looks like. Yeah, so there's been this assumption from the get-go. When egg freezing came into existence and the media started. covering it and clinical articles started coming out about it, not based really on women's lives or their stories, but just as assumption that, oh, now women can freeze their eggs. And so they are going to purposefully delay, postpone, defer their fertility, their childbearing for the purposes of education and career planning. So you have all of this sort of discourse about career planning, that this is going to be women, young women in their 20s, putting their eggs on

ice so that they can climb the corporate ladder, you know, or women who are on the corporate ladder, you know, selfishly driven, ambitious career women who are going to freeze their eggs so that they can climb higher. You know, somehow that women are intentionally freezing their eggs now so that 10 years on they can have children. And that misconception I'm going to say is unfortunately been really reemphasized by the American Society for Reproductive Medicine. They prefer to call egg freezing planned oocyte cryopreservation, as if women doing this are very carefully planning their future fertility, you know, putting their fertility on hold. And that is not at all what I found in my study. My study shows that this is not about career planning for most women. This is a completely

different issue that really has not gotten the attention that it deserves, that women are really having problems finding committed reproductive partners to have children with them. And it's really, you know, there were very few women in my study who were intentionally freezing their eggs so that they could, you know, wait for 10 years because they had some career ambitions they were trying to fulfill. I have chills. And also, by the way, if that were the reason, it wouldn't matter. And that would be fine, too. But clearly it has a negative spin on it that women are like career hungry and like putting this off what they're supposed to do. Yeah, it's enraging that that's the spin that's been put on it because you talk to any woman, any woman we know, which is significant, tons. And it's, like you said in the

book, I folded so many pages because it was just so many different quotes and things I wanted to like remember and save. But these women can handle it with their career. They're ready to have children. They don't have the partner to have the children with. This is like, they're in the career. They know they can handle all of it. They want children. The partner's not there. That's why the egg freezing happens or we can get into breakups and divorces and things like that. Post romance or end of romance is what you called it. But yeah, the misconception is frustrating. Also, the cost is extremely high. So this is not people that have no money. These are people that have climbed the corporate ladder. Yeah, no, it's really important. So you're getting at the heart of the issue here. So yeah,

it's a very expensive. And I'm going to say a difficult technology. I mean, it's not for the faint of heart. Yeah. It costs in the U.S. I mean, the U.S. is the most expensive place in the world to do any kind of assisted reproduction. But egg freezing, I found minimally to do one cycle of egg freezing is minimally $10,000 US dollars. And for many women, because they have to buy hormonal medications to go along with it, and you have to self-inject those hormonal medications. If you don't have a partner, especially, you know, the medications are expensive. So many women spent up to $20,000 on a single cycle of egg freeze. It's very expensive. And then you have to pay annual storage fees for the eggs that you've frozen, and that can cost anywhere from

$500 to $500 annually. And then if you did go back to thaw or re-warm your frozen eggs and try to fertilize them, that is on average about $6,000. It is a very expensive proposition. And it also, it's logistically complicated. It involves self-injection, which is difficult for many women. Logistically, you have to have somebody to accompany you on the day of egg retrieval. And so it's disruptive of women, you know, who are professionals. And getting back to your point about, you know, the women doing this, these are not young women in their 20s doing this. The average age of the women that I interviewed who had frozen their eggs electively, at the time of egg freezing, they were already 36.6 years of age, almost 37 years of age. And so these were highly educated, you know, high earning women who could afford the egg freezing, almost, you know, 90% of them had paid for it completely by themselves.

But they said, you know, look, I've been looking for a partner ever since my early 20s. You know, I've been looking all along as I was getting educated and developing my career, looking for somebody to be in my journey with me, you know, toward partnership, pregnancy, and parenthood, you know, sort of the three peas. And the mystery to me is why I've ended up here at age 35 or 36 without a partner. You know, many women were, well, single, single, but also mystified. Like, why me? What happened to me?

This was not my plan. Yeah. You know, when I went, they told me it was 10,000, but when they started adding in all the things, my out cost was like 18,000. So it's just expensive. And, you know, it doing the egg freezing, we could just call it half of an IVF cycle. You're doing sort of the first half of the IVF cycle. And then to go back and to use eggs. And if you are going to use donor sperm, which is something we should talk about. But, you know, you've got sperm. You have to fertilize. You have to thaw the eggs, have them fertilized. Hopefully some of them will turn into embryos. And that part. And that part is expensive too. So this is a very costly proposition. I also want to clarify also, I didn't go through the process. I had an initial checkup, but I did not have sex. I'm reading the stories about these women and you interview them and you use their exact words, you know, as if you were talking to them in the book. So you really feel like you get to know them and their stories. And these women are not undaatable. You know, they're successful, attractive, cool women like so many women that can't really figure out, nor can any of their friends,

nor can conversely, they figure out where they have so many friends that are in the same boat. This is just an ongoing problem. We see it with our most brilliant, beautiful, interesting, cool, stable friends. And I feel emotional when you say this

why me problem, and I read it in the book as well, because I look at it and I think, like, these women are the most successful, intelligent, highly educated, killing it in all other aspects of their lives. They make money. And it's like, I hate that they would look

at themselves and say what's wrong with me because like there's so many things that are right about you that you've accomplished that are positive and amazing. You know, that was a sad part for me because, oh my gosh, I completely agree with you. I'm going to say overall, the women I interviewed, and they were from many different backgrounds, I have to say. It was a racially, ethnically, and religiously diverse group of women, but they were all educated. I mean, minimally, they had a BA, 20% stopped at the BA level, but most went on to master's degrees and MDs, PhDs, JDs. I mean, they were a very educated and successful group of women, beautiful, you know, in most cases, so eloquent, fun to talk to. And these stories just came pouring out. You know,

often after I asked a few basic demographic questions, I'd say, well, you know, tell me your egg freezing story and it would come pouring out. And it was about sort of the heartbreak, really, of, you know, not being able to find a partner, looking for a partner or being in a partnership that ended. And women saying, I don't know why. You know, I never imagined myself. in this situation, it must be something I did wrong. You know, I was too picky. I wasn't willing to settle for my college boyfriend, even though I didn't love him. Oh, I must be, you know, looking for the wrong kind of man, just all of this sort of self-reflection and self-blame. And in fact, when this isn't an issue that's really in women's individual control, I mean, there are some underlying

issues going on here that are putting a lot of amazing women in this kind of situation in what I call the egg freezing demographic. They're highly educated, successful professionals. They have money. They are mostly heterosexual. Three of them were bisexual, but these are heterosexual women who wanted, what I call these three peas. They wanted to be partnered. They wanted to have a pregnancy with their own biogenic eggs. They wanted to use their own eggs to have children. And they wanted to be moms. they wanted parenthood. And they were facing this thing that I ended up calling the mating gap, the lack of eligible, educated, equal partners who were eager to become fathers, you know, ready to be fathers

to their children. Just it was this inability to find men interested in the project of family building, you know, here in America. It was stunning to me because I'm a generation older. I can relate to this from when I was going to school and graduate school. And so many of my friends had difficulty finding partners or married and divorced. But we jump forward to your generation. It's like, wow, it hasn't changed that much what the heck is going on in our country

that's causing these gender problems, these sort of partnership problems. So I explore that. I kind of look at women's laments and I have some hypotheses about what's going on. I must say I did not interview men for this study. Somebody needs to be talking to men in America about why they, you know, feel lack of commitment and unreadiness for fatherhood. But I did get women's perspective on what's going on. Well, we know a few men that are trying their best. So there's some out there that are trying to do the work and talk to these guys. But clearly it's not enough. And it is an issue. And maybe you even quoted John Berger in this book. And this

was probably also your take too is this starts with the men. And like the education gap and let's start there, but because we can't go in and fix that, let's talk about what the other solutions are. So like ideally, we would just fix that. Yeah. So, you know, once women are educated and in, you know, many cases highly educated, they have, you know, four-year college degree and often they've gone on for master's and so forth, they're looking for gender equality. You know, women said, you know, I believe in equality at work and I believe in equality at home. I want somebody who sort of shares my values. is educated, wants to be a partner with me. The gender equality is important for women. But what

you have in America, and this is really what John pointed out in his prescient book, that is now getting a lot more attention, this problem, which is that men in the United States are slipping out of higher education. It's been a pretty dramatic fall. While women are just achieving and outperforming, you know, men across the board, it's been happening for decades, but it's really picking up the pace where women are doing really well in higher education in our country and men are not. And so the gap now is wide. In the United States, there are 27 percent more women in higher education than men. Next year in 2024, it's estimated that there will be 38 percent more women in higher education than men. And there was a massive sort of decline in college admission in our

country during COVID during 2021. But 71 percent of the decline was of men. And there was a massive sort of decline. not of women. And so it's estimated that in the near future, there will be two women college graduates for every one male college graduate, a two to one ratio. There are going to be millions more educated women in our country than men. And so it's in that reproductive age range from say 22 to 39. There are millions more college educated women than there are college educated men. So if women are looking for that equal partner in terms of wanting somebody who's educated, there just really aren't enough men around. And John Berger called this the massive under supply, the man deficit of college educated men in this country.

So there's a real demographic problem that got to be fixed over time. But until it's fixed, what are women going to do? And so women, they lamented the fact that they just really couldn't find equal, men, men who were like them, you know, sort of the same caliber of men. And they use this term like, I don't want to settle. I don't want to enter into a desperation marriage just because I want to have a baby. I've been holding out hope of finding somebody who's sort of equal to me, the sort of soulmate who's equal. But there simply aren't enough of those men out there. So you end up with this surplus, I mean, of millions of women who are educated but haven't been able to find that

equally educated partner. And that was something that women really talked about. They talked about men of, you know, sort of lesser education, you know, less successful than they were being very intimidated of them. The I-word was a huge word in my study, intimidation. You know, women would meet guys. Here's a great example. You know, a woman who is very educated and works in a major federal agency in Washington, D.C. She goes out on dates with men, never men who have as much education as she does. A lot of women with education take their educational degrees off their dating profiles so that men won't be intimidated right off the bat. But then you go out on a date with a guy, you tell them you work for some very impressive federal agency. And the guy says, are you kidding?

That means you're smarter than I am. There's no way we can date. You know, it was all of this kind of stuff going on. And women saying, I know there must be men out there who want a strong, educated woman. There must be those unicorns. I'm waiting to find my unicorn. But in the meantime, I'm going to put my eggs on ice. I'm going to freeze my eggs while sort of waiting for this imaginary partner to come along. I want to also jump in just because we went down this kind of education road. And it's kind of indicative of a bigger type of equality. I guess I don't care if someone went to college. I went out with a guy a couple weeks ago. He dropped out of high school at 16. He's impressive and successful and wonderful to talk to. And somebody that I absolutely consider on my level for lack of a better term. I even told the matchmaker that I met with. It's not on my list. I don't give a fuck, but I want somebody that has a similar life I can go back and forth with is on my level. It's less about the college and more about the equality and someone that really you feel

like matches you in certain ways and also isn't going to be intimidated by you and be like, oh, you're smarter than me. So it can kind of fall back on the guy as well because I get kind of wrapped up in this like, not everyone needs to go to college. I strongly believe that to have a successful life, to follow the your ambitions and their passions, I especially think today. So this is just me jumping in to make it clear. I feel it's kind of the bigger picture of like, not necessarily, I need to know for me personally that you went to college, that you have this, that you have that. It's like,

I just want someone that matches me in certain aspects of life. I agree with you so much. I myself did that. You know, I'm married now for 32 years. I just celebrated my 32nd anniversary. Oh, great. Thank you. And, you know, with a man, I had finished my PhD and my master's in public health. And I met a man who had not finished college, but I knew he was highly intelligent and kind, and we were attracted to each other. And we ended up getting married and have two children. And so I completely agree with you. It's really not about the college degree necessarily. It's about finding somebody you find is a match that loves you, supports you, is not intimidated by you, wants to be with you and shares your values. And if those values include having children,

and those need to be expressed, you know, to the person, and you need to know that that person is willing to do that with you. And that's exactly what I did. In John Berger's book, he calls this mixed-collar mating, you know, people who might be white-collar, having relationships with people who are traditionally in our society called blue-collar, men who are maybe not educated, but might be very good partners. And I do have some examples in my book of those kinds of successful relationships, you know, in a way, at the end of the book, I really argue to women, you need to open your eyes and expand your range of people to potentially be with because there simply are not going to be enough men with college degrees and especially men with

higher than college degrees. There simply aren't enough of them. So you may have to rethink who you're interested in. I totally agree. And I always just say I just want somebody who I'm inspired by how they live their life. With Ashley, I don't care if somebody graduated college. My last boyfriend did in the person I was engaged, you didn't go to college. I don't really care. To me, the problem is this extreme acceleration in the gap between women being so much more successful career-wise, making more money, having so much going on for themselves, that men don't build friendships as they get older. And women are doing all these things so that they're so interesting by the time that they reach these ages and it's hard to find a partner that can slide in there. And women,

our whole lives have been taught to find a man who's smarter than you, richer than you, more successful than you. That's what we've always sought out. Men have never been taught to seek that out. And there's this huge shift and men have to like catch up almost to so many years of breeding. Yeah, I completely agree with you too because, you know, in anthropology, we have these words, I like them. We have a term called hypergamy, which is marrying up, which is exactly what you've just defined. Women are supposed to engage in hypergamy, find somebody slightly older, with slightly more education, makes more money, more successful, and so on. And men have been sort of socialized to engage in hypogamy, marrying down, somebody's slightly younger, slightly less

educated, somebody younger because he wants a fertile person, right? And so these are traditional values. You find them in society. And I think, you know, they still hold to some degree. And now you have these women, like the women in my study, who are extremely highly educated. I mean, they're really, in a way, at the sort of top of any kind of hierarchy. I mean, high education, successful professionals, making a lot of money, and men would have to look up to them. Men would have to engage in hypergamy to be with these women. It reverses what they've been socialized to do. And similarly, women, they will have to reverse what they've been socialized to do, which is to marry up.

They might have to look down and engage in hypogamy. So these are gender norms. These are social norms that really have to be unseated, if you will, to sort of rethink gender relations in our society. And I should add, this is not just an American issue. This issue is now all over the world. In 60% of the world's nations, women are outperforming men educationally. You know, the same kind of disparities are found in the UK, in Canada, all over Western Europe, all over Scandinavia. And so, not surprisingly, egg freezing as a kind of stopgap solution is taking off all over the world. So what we're describing for the U.S. today in our conversation,

is an issue found really in many other countries. Wow. Well, I'm glad we also made that clear. One thing that really, like, hit me in the chest, and I folded this page as well, was a lot of the women you spoke to had really great parents. And I always joke that my daddy issue is my dad's just too perfect and nobody can live up to him.

But there was this one line and you said, this one woman's story, and I think a lot of the women's story, was this supportive father over here, this great man, you know, that shows up and you look up to him and then this mom that has also told you be independent, you know, and live a life you're proud of. And those two things together made it really difficult.

That really struck a chord with me because I do have this amazing father and then a mom who has her own independence and her own life and they're still married. They'll be married for 45 years this August. But they've both kind of created this independence and she's instilled that and me. And so those things together, I'm like, you're fucked. I know. I thought I was like Ashley and I are both fucked. I mean, I have this amazing father who's so kind and wonderful.

He thinks that the sun shines out of my ass. And I have a mom. Yeah, your mom. More than my mom. My mom doesn't like me, but like my dad does. But, you know, my mom was a single mother starting from the time I was four years old and told me growing up always have a career in education. So God forbid a man leaves you. You can support yourself.

You know, we were both raised by these amazing parents. So, yeah, I thought about you too. Your dad's too good. Yeah, you know, I think that. those messages, exactly what's your moms and the way you felt about your dads. Oh, so many women, you know, felt the same way. Many women, to talk about their dads is like, well, if I could find a man, 10% of my father. I think I'd be lucky. My father was remarkable. He supported me in so many different ways. And I found I have a whole chapter in my book about who supports women when they're going

through egg freezing. And I really wanted to make sure that it was known that men can be incredibly supportive of women. Mostly dads, right? Dads who supported their daughters going through this often offered them money to pay for the egg freezing, which most women didn't take from their parents, but their dads were there for them. The dads, you know, said, if this is what you need to do, you know, I'll support you. But that their dads have just been supportive through life, right? And then also sometimes brothers and sometimes male friends, ex-partners, actually helped women go through the egg freezing process. But women, you know, often upheld their own fathers as being great role models for them. They wanted to find men who were similar to their dads and supportive

in those ways. And then similarly, you know, moms, a lot of moms, I'm going to say, were raised during the period of kind of second way feminism to say to their daughters, look at, you can have a career. You can be equal in every way to men out there. You can have a good career. And yes, you need to have a career. You need to be able to support yourself. I think many women of your generation have imbibed those values from their moms. And so that was very important. to many women that their mothers had told them to follow their passions, have a good career, be a professional. And so women have done this. And so now, I mean, I don't want to say those women are fucked. But, you know, we really, I knew she was about it. I could like feel like coming up.

But, you know, yeah, so who are you going to find? You know, who's going to be as good as your dad? Who's going to be as successful as you? So, you know, it's really true. The women that I interviewed, they were in their mid to late 30s, their early 40s by the time they got around to egg freezing. And that's been shown in almost all the other studies around the world, that women are doing it sort of in this end of the reproductive lifespan because they've been looking, looking, looking for somebody all along to be a good, stable, committed reproductive partner to them. And they couldn't find that person. It's like, what am I going to do?

And so egg freezing has come along. And I think increasingly women are talking about. about it with their girlfriends. I found many women, in fact, had girlfriend groups that were sometimes doing it together. One friend would start, be the first one, and then her friends would follow. And so it's becoming a phenomenon for this particular demographic of women in their mid to late 30s who didn't find the partner. They're going ahead and freezing their eggs now. I also want to say my mom, like said when she met my dad, who was a real fuck boy, womanizer asshole. I was just going to say my grandmother did not think my dad was good to.

enough for my mom. And allegedly he went to college. I mean, I guess he did. I think he might have an undergrad degree. Our moms had to train them and then they became good fathers. It's just, you know, it's not all bad, ladies. You can't meet a little asshole and train them. That was in the 70s or what it is. It's a different time. But we've kind of talked about the mating gap and just the statistics of it all. But then there's this lack of men who even want to have children who want to be committed and not be terrible. I mean, yeah, so we kind of wanted to touch on that, but you have an amazing part in the book of the 10 types of men. And we could just kind of rattle them off and we don't need to define them all because I think we all know what they mean. But let's put education and salary aside and just talk

about what we're dealing with on the other side of the actual men that don't want to commit and have children. Yeah, so it was really interesting. Women were so wonderful in talking with me and they had so many interesting things to say. And one of the things that I found is that there are types of men. You know, you had used the term fuckboys, I believe, right? Right. But that was a womanizer. Well, I didn't get that one particularly from women, but I called it the types of men, women's lexicon. And so they had terms for these different kinds of men. There were alpha males, beta males, feminist men, foreign service men, Peter Panes. And I want to talk about the That was a California issue.

No, no, no, no. That's everywhere. We travel the world. We tour. It's literally everywhere. But hardcore, yes, California. Charleston. Yeah.

Yeah. So I'm going to talk about that. But startup men in California, tech men in California, unicorns and younger men. You know, so they wanted to tell me about the different kinds of men that they would meet out there. And when I started interviewing women, I had not heard the term Peter Pan's, but it was absolutely a term that was used over and over, especially by women in

California. And, you know, just this notion of men who never grow up. They're like Peter Pan, never want to grow up, would a play around. Often they're men who are educated and have money. And so they wine and dine you. And you could stay with them for a while. But if you're hoping to really nab that guy and have that person as a partner, forget about it. They really have no intention of doing that. And just in general, men's unreadiness, the unready men of the world, men who can sort of like think maybe hypothetically I do want to have children sometime down the road, but I am definitely not ready now. And so women who sometimes did egg freezing with these men, these men supported them through their egg freezing, but wanted to talk then about commitment or

using those eggs. No, no, I'm not ready for that discussion. So many men who were just not ready. 82% of the women in my study froze their eggs because they were single, single, single, either just single or they had been coming out of a relationship, a divorce, a broken engagement, a relationship that had ended. But singleness was the problem. And then even among the 18% of women who froze their eggs with a partner, the partnerships were so unstable. Either, you know, they were simply not sure it was going to work. The relationship was too new. They didn't know. or they were in what they thought was a stable relationship, but the man was unready. So men's unreadiness is an issue, you know?

What does that really mean? You know, I really appreciate there are people in the world, both men and women, who just don't want to have kids. And that is perfectly fine, you know. But if you don't want to have kids, but you're in a relationship with the woman who does want to have kids, in a way, it's not fair to that woman. And so there were these examples of women who are holding on to these men. They loved these men.

They were in a relationship. The man was unready. Sometimes there were a couple cases where they actually married. And the man said, oh, yeah, we'll eventually have kids. And then, you know, they marry. It's like, no, I really don't want to have kids. And it was such a betrayal, you know, if you're going to say you're going to do it and then you back out. But I think I had this really poignant, you know, story in my book.

It's sort of the beginning story in the second chapter on the end of romance about. about a couple I call Lily and Jack. They lived in New York City and they got together when she was 30 and she really loved this man, felt he was the soulmate of her life. You know, she hung in there with him about five years and it's like, you know, we need to talk about getting engaged, getting married. Like, oh, no, I'm, he was an academic. I'm trying to get tenure. I'm just not ready. You know, just not ready for that. She hung in and hung in for another five years. Basically, her entire 30s or with this man. And he kept saying, well, hypothetically,

I see myself with children down the road. Finally, it was apparent to her, this was just never going to happen, even though she was madly in love with this person. And so she ended it finally. She traveled off by herself, kissed another man, and just realized, I got to hang it up.

He's never going to be ready. And so she did. By that point, in her early 40s, she did freeze her eggs at great expense. And then she actually used them with donor sperm and was not successful because, frankly, biologically, she had waited too long. And so it was a very sad story.

And she still said, you know, I still love him. Like, what do you do when you're in love with a man who just is not ready? Ashley and I see this a lot with men that are of age to have children, that are financially stable, that should, quote, unquote, be ready, that have dated women that we really love. They're wonderful. Both in long-term partnerships. I'm talking men that are 35-plus that traditionally should be stable enough of age to have children, that do stay with women for long periods and say maybe, maybe, maybe in the future and they string you along.

We find us to be very prevalent. I mean, that story was like our friend's story to a tea. And then let's just not leave out that she went off birth control because she felt like it's time to go off birth control. And then he wouldn't have sex there for 14 months. And you want to scream like, leave, leave, but she's so in love with him. Like she thinks this is her life soulmate. And she still does. I'm like speaking about it.

Like I know her. My life. The story just really gave me chills because it's we know those women. We know those women. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's so sad that there are women like that. You know, hers was a very poignant story.

And also it was poignant because her father was a Holocaust survivor. She was the only child. That's the end of her lineage in some sense, you know. But this issue of men just feeling not ready and waiting into their late 30s, their 40s, and their 50s. I don't want to give the wrong statistic, but there's a huge percentage of American men in their 40s who are childless. I think it's something like 25% of them. It's a large number. look at Scandinavian parts of Western Europe, it's the same thing. And also men in their 50s who

are not together are childless, although a significant percentage of those men say they still are interested in having children, but they're waiting. They're just pushing back the time. And for men, it's easier because they don't have the ticking biological clock on their shoulders. But actually, we do now know that there are probably some health problems for men waiting, waiting. Sperm are not as good in the 40s and 50s. And actually, there may be what we call paternal effects with aging sperm, you know, so we should be concerned about that. But the notion that men just can sort of wait for a very long time, and women cannot. And then, you know, older men, men in their 40s who may eventually decide that they do in a partner with a woman and have children,

they're often not looking at women in their late 30s. Often, this notion of hypogamy, they'll go for a woman in the late 20s or their early 30s, you know. And so those women who have sort of been waiting, women like Lily who waited for a guy into her late 30s and early 40s, there's a lot of ageism. There were some really misogynistic sorts of ageism, the prologue to my book about, you know, men talking about like, oh, would you ever be with a woman who was 40, you know, oh, you know, talking about women's age and very unflattering and unfavorable kinds of ways that men do, when they decide that they finally want to do this, they're not looking for women in their late 30s. they're, it's like, oh, their fertility is going to be an issue. And even with egg freezing now,

you know, women can freeze their eggs. And so it sort of takes this pressure off the dating and having to look at every guy as the baby daddy or the potential baby daddy. But men, too, it's like, oh, you froze your eggs, you know, oh, you know, what does that mean? This notion of, oh, she's going to want to have kids quickly and maybe I'm not ready. So somebody really needs to do a big, big study on men, American men, about what is causing them to be so fearful of settling down? Women had their own hypotheses. And actually, one of them was, well, so many people of our age are the children of divorce. And men, when their parents had a very rugged, rocky marriage, and it was really hurtful,

hurtful to the mother, hurtful to the children, they feel very reluctant. You know, children of divorce are sort of less ready to partner. That was one thesis that women put out there. But also women said, you know, look at, in our dad's generation, it was just expected that men partnered and married. That was just a societal expectation. Men did it. It was a goal in their lives that they wanted to fulfill.

They wanted to have children. So you look at our fathers, that's what they did. They were expected to do it. They did it wonderfully in many cases. You know, women said, oh, I love my dad. But that men of your generation, this current generation of the generation of men in their 20s and 30s and maybe 40s and 50s, it's not an expectation. There's no longer that societal pressure in this country to be a partnered man, to be a married man and a man who wants

to have children. So maybe that's what's going on, but it is having detrimental effects on women who do want to be partnered, pregnant, and parents. I mean, I think it's a tough world out there. I think it's so much more expensive and more difficult to raise a kid. I don't want nothing to do with having children. So I'm a person that understands that it's not for everybody. And I think there's a lot of men who, I don't want to say they're floundering, but we're talking about them,

making less money, not being as educated. So they are supposed to be these providers, but they don't have their career quite figured out. And then they had a certain age where there's like, oh, I'm actually never going to make it like I thought I was 10 years ago. And I see this all the time.

You know, you have a man in his late 30s. Probably at this point, he knows what he's going to be when he grows up. you know, like if he's not now, he's not going to be the multimillionaire he dreamed of. And there's a definite sense of anxiety of like, and now I'm supposed to bring a kid to the world and provide for them and how am I going to support a family? And I'm not excusing it.

But I think a lot of it is that. I think uncertainty in their career as the man that's supposed to be a provider. And this real crisis of I'm not the man I had planned to be is really settling in. And, you know, it was interesting because this part in the book where you said there's all these men that like just want to have a great career and travel the world. and be with their friends and not have kids, but have nieces and nephews that they love and they see all the time. I was like, that's me, but I know it. And I say it date one if I need to. You know, like, the problem is them not telling and not knowing. And I'm like, where do we go here?

You know, if there is a guy that he's got his career figured out, he's going to be able to provide, he makes plenty of money, he's secure, and he's still waffling. How do we get them to figure it out so they don't waste these women's time? Because that's the most enraging thing. And if you are those men, just date women in their 20s, like, stop wasting women in their 30s, late 30s time when you don't know if or when you'll ever be ready. I mean, I'm smiling. It's terrible. But like everybody we know that's been in these situations are women that I will say have been extremely clear. This is what I want. This is the parameter. I want children. This is a non-negotiable. These are not women that were like waffling. I want to validate people that are like, I've been with people like this for a long time. We've seen the smartest, most open, honest women we know. be strung along by partners like this forever. And I do think that the divorce thing is really interesting. I will say I've seen it more and more on dates I've been on recently in the last couple years, men just saying out red, I don't want kids. I was on a date with somebody last week, actually,

that said my parents divorced. It was really fucking terrible for me. And I'm just not interested in doing that to somebody. It's not great that you know it. And yes, you told me date one. I do mention it to people date one now, just because I think you should date me as though I don't want to have children. I may change my mind. But I want to be honest, I am finding more and more on dates in the last years, that men are saying they don't want children. And yeah, somebody used that last week with me, that his life growing up was just sort of traumatic. And he just doesn't see it in his cards, essentially. Yeah, you know, so bringing up these topics of like men and problems and issues that they're facing, I think that's real. There's been a lot of recent media attention

and actually some books about men adrift in our society that men are adrift, a crisis of men and boys, you know, that boys are having a hard time, not only in education, but in labor, markets in this country. And so their aspirations for what they thought they were going to be and the kind of careers they thought they were going to have and the incomes they thought they were going to make, they're just not. So, you know, there are real problems facing men in our country and it is then playing out in these various ways. And yes, you know, so many Americans are now the children of divorce. You know, divorce has happened. You know, it's become something that's acceptable in our society, but it can have long-lasting trauma, depending on who you are. But, you know, this point about, like,

know thyself so that when you're going out with somebody, you are honest about your intentions. It's really, really important because you can waste a woman's valuable biological time. And I use this term, I came up with this term, reproductive weighthood. Women stuck in a kind of reproductive weighthood. They're waiting for this mate who may or may not ever materialize. And so they're in this period of like, well, I've frozen my eggs, you know, so that the thing I can do for myself, It's the one thing that is under my control to put my eggs on ice and hope that somebody's going to come along. And for some women, it does come along to sort of point out there are some positives.

I had these stories in my book of women who did find that unicorn or that maid in that period of weighthood while they froze their eggs. And there's a sort of great story in one of the later chapters in the book of a woman. She hadn't found anybody. She froze her egg. She went on this major bicycle trip. A hair story. It was with a group of people. She was educated, highly educated. She was an elite education, including from my university, right? And she met a guy who was a firefighter. And she said,

you really on this trip saw who people really were. And this was a wonderful man. He was so kind, so helpful, put himself out there for everybody. They fell in love on the bike trip. And they came back. He made a major move cross country. She had frozen her eggs. They weren't even playing. having a child at that moment, but they had a sort of natural conception for the first child. And then she was in her early 40s by the time they were contemplating having a second child. She used her frozen eggs and they were successful in having what she called a frozen egg baby. So it was a very good story. But that is an example of mixed collar mating. He did have college education, but not to the degrees and the level that she did. And still she found a wonderful,

loving man who loved her for who she was. Well, there was a part that I really loved in that book where she says, all my friends went to like Yale Law School, Harvard Business School. Like, what are my friends going to think? And then she was like, that's my shit. That's my own bias. And these are not her exact words. But kind of like, who cares?

And I need to work on that with myself of worrying and what my highly educated friends are going to think. Like, you're usually worried about it than anybody else. You know, and I think that was really inspiring. that she was like, who gives a fuck? This is a great guy. All of her friends loved him too. But she said, I really honestly, I had to work through that,

that he didn't come from the same sort of educational milieu that I was used to. So we did want to talk about some of the positives, more empowering things. I mean, there's a chapter in your book. This is chapter two, the chapter that starts with the story of Lily and Jack about freezing eggs post-breakup, post-divorce.

And it can provide a, sense of relief almost and is something that can have people feel empowered and like they're really doing something to further what they want their future to be. And we just wanted to kind of talk about the empowerment and the support and the positive impacts. Yeah. Yeah. So I asked all the women at the end of these long conversations, you know, do you have any recommendations? And also at the end of the day, you know, how do you feel about having done it? Because they had all undertaken at least one cycle of egg freezing. And more than 90% of women had something positive to say about the egg freezing. I ended up with a huge chart in one of the chapters of the book about empowerment.

You know, women often use the term. I felt so weirdly and wildly empowered by doing it. It's the one thing I could do to sort of control the timing. It gave me some sense of optimism. It gave me a little more reprieve in looking for a relationship. Huge psychic relief. I just felt like this huge burden on my shoulders had been, you know, this pressure release valve. So there were about 10 different categories of sort of positive attributes that women believe that egg freezing had done for them. And it's really important to say. And there were really women who regarded egg freezing in, frankly, a feminist light. They said, this is just a new technology that's giving women a lot more reproductive choice. It's helping with reproductive justice because women of different backgrounds are getting access.

to this technology, we should look at it as a new option that gives women more choices in this difficult backdrop that we've been talking about. And I also find it really interesting because you women are in California. I interviewed mostly women from the East Coast and the West Coast, and then about 25% of women in other cities all around the country. But women in tech actually were very powerful in saying, you know, there's been such a negative backlash for the big tech companies, they were the first to offer egg freezing as a fertility benefit. But I fought hard in my company to get egg freezing covered in our health insurance. And why? Because it's discrimination against single women. Married women who worked from my company, if you're married, a lot of Fortune

500 companies in the health insurance plan offer infertility diagnosis and IVF as a fertility benefit. Here I am a woman, you know, age 35. I am trying to prevent my own future. infertility, I want to have egg freezing covered because it is really important for my own reproductive future. And so women felt that the fact that egg freezing isn't covered by health insurance is really a form of discrimination against single women and including LGBTQ, you know, lesbian women who are not married, you know, so the fact that insurance requires you to be married in order to get access. So that was really interesting. So there were a lot of feminist arguments really about why freezing is important and why insurance coverage in the future would really be important for women.

So I thought that was an interesting part of this study. Absolutely. I will say the city that was the bleakest was D.C. throughout this book. That's what John talked about that a lot for women. Yeah. So I hate to say it. If you're from D.C. and you're going to read this book, just brace for impact because there's a lot of California. But my ex is single. He lives there. I know you've a great. We know a great guy in D.C. I actually thought about just letting him knock me up. I would love that. I mean, I'm sure that people have a lot of questions about egg freezing, of course. This wasn't like a technical, you know, interview with a fertility doctor, very obviously.

But you do cover some in the book of there's no guarantees. And you covered a lot of like, if you do this many cycles as you get this many eggs, this could be your percentage of, you know, them being viable and things like that. And I just obviously want to stress to our listeners, this is stuff to speak to your doctor about. And I was saying with Raina, my gynecologist in New York, I just, for so much. She asked me the first time I saw her. She, you know, saw my age. So I was in my mid-30s when I saw her with the first time and asked what I plan to do. And I was very like, I'm not having kids. And she was like, okay, conversation's over. Like, if you are 35 and your gynecologist

isn't asking you about this, it's really important that you have this person that is going to speak to you about this and give you your options and go to bat for you. Some of these women that you spoke to and we've heard too of like, this didn't come up. Why didn't I hear about this? It should be required, I guess, if you're a gynecologist and you have a patient that's a woman of a certain age. Yeah. And I went just to tag on to what Ashley said, I went and it was a really nice experience just to have my fertility checked, to talk about how many eggs I may have, to talk about what the cost was. I didn't move forward with it. Ultimately, it is really laborious. It's hard to give yourself the shots. I didn't necessarily know if I wanted to do it.

But I had a really positive experience just getting the information. And I think people just put that off. And I want to encourage people to do that. Yeah, I have to say there was a whole chapter about these very things. So, you know, the fact that we American women, no matter how educated, are not getting really good fertility education about, you know, when does fertility decline start? And it really starts at about age 32. Your fertility starts to decline at that point. And it really rapidly starts to decline at age 37. Most American women have no idea about that, even very highly educated ones, who felt that they were in the dark, partly because at their annual well-woman visit with their gynaecologist, there was no discussion about this. It was always about, oh, let's just re-up, you know, your

conversation. No gynaecologist ever told me this, by the way, I went because we did an episode about this and a clinic reached out. So my gynaecologist, I've had really lucky where I think even early 30s back in Atlanta, when I first moved to New York, they were asking me about this. It's, it's, I guess I've gotten lucky. You were lucky. You were lucky. You know, so many women had this experience of no one ever talking to them about it. And just assuming that you just want to reappear contraception, right? So everybody, I mean, it was vast majority of women were on hormonal contraception and had never gone off for years. I mean, even two decades. They get there to age 35 and they decide they might want to do egg freezing. It's really the first time they ever had

the conversation about whether they're fertile or not. And, you know, sadly, some women who thought they were being proactive going like you did, Raina, they found that actually they were experiencing something called premature ovarian aging, you know, that their fertility wasn't good. It was devastating to learn that when they felt that they had never been, you know, talked to about it by their gynecologists. But I have to say there were some wonderful, mostly female gynaecologists out there who, I don't want to say they're a lot of bad. I've only had great experiences. Yeah, you have. And so they were sort of initiators of this conversation. I think that there's a sensitivity about talking to single women, like, you know, assuming, well, it makes you feel bad because you don't.

don't have a partner. But women should be asked, do you want to have children? If so, we need to talk about this. And the other thing that egg freezing affords, if for those women who decide to do it, it does afford the conversation about having children without a partner. And so many women who had frozen their eggs were thinking about that. You know, do I have the economic wherewithal and the logistical support to be a so-called single mother by choice? I mean, that's the term that's being used, even though I'm going to say it really might be more like single mother by circumstance. You know, it wasn't the circumstance that you'd hope for. But there were some examples, some really lovely examples in my book of women who just decided, I didn't find the person,

so I'm going to do this on my own. And actually we're successful with their frozen eggs and having a baby. So it's another opportunity, I would say, that egg freezing has afforded women. A little more time to think about that as well. And I think all of this is taking that pressure off if you're a person that's just in your head spiraling about this constantly, can alleviate some of that. You see that all the time. You see people that freeze their eggs or freeze their embryos and then get pregnant naturally because you're a little more relaxed about the whole thing, not always, but you certainly see that happen. And I mean, we always want to empower our listeners to talk to your doctor. Yes, they should approach you first. I mean, I think that there's an

approach that's like, would you like to talk about your fertility? I'm here if you want, you know, it's not an attack because you're single. But I think if they're not, you should bring it up. can we talk about my fertility? Whenever you want, this is what they're there for. I don't think they automatically check either. No one gave me a fertility check. And I think it's, I mean, it would be nice to know at 32 that you may face some challenges. And these are the steps that I can take before it's too late. And again, even if you're not going to freeze your eggs, just to know that this is what you're working with, what your landscape looks like was really nice for me. You're absolutely right. Fertility testing is not done routinely in sort of normal

gynecological exams. And so, you know, something that maybe needs to, to change in our society. I do want to say, too, egg freezing is not a guarantee. The term insurance policy should never be applied to egg fluid. Right. It's not an insurance policy. And, you know, there really needs to be what I call patient-centered egg freezing. The clinics could be doing a much better job of helping women, single women, go through this in a way that doesn't make them feel so bad because it was very hard often for women to be the single woman going through the injection classes with married women. Women often said I was looking at all the rings on other women's fingers and there I was by myself. There has been this move to egg freezing only clinics, you know,

places sort of safe spaces for single women to do it by themselves because they don't feel safe in the sort of very married IVF clinic setting. So it's tough and it's so expensive. And so when I ask women, you know, what is your recommendation? The biggest recommendation that was just the overarching call of women was something needs to be done about the cost or making this covered by insurance because I have a sister or a really close friend. She's a teacher. She doesn't make the highest salary. She really could use egg freezing, but there's no way in the world she's going to ever be able to afford it. It's unaffordable for most American women. It's really expensive. And so it really limits the choice of women who might benefit from egg freezing simply because

it's too expensive and it creates some hierarchies between those women who can afford it and those women who can't. And that is what we would call a reproductive justice issue. Ugh. Yeah. It's just super frustrating.

I feel like I was on the verge of tears this whole time. I love what you've done for women to just validate how they feel about this and how they feel about egg freezing and dating and the landscape and it isn't all bad and there are wonderful people that love you,

but I know it does feel like what's wrong with me sometimes. So your book was, amazing. We really like to read it. Yes, we can't recommend enough. Please, everyone go go buy this book. Oh, thank you. I really feel if there's one thing. It's just, it is a humanizing book. It just, I think, would make women readers feel much less alone if they're in the situation. If you've frozen the eggs already, you've been there, done that and it's going to, you know, make you feel like you know the story. But for women who are contemplating doing it, and I really think it's a book that should be read by more American men.

I have a son and he said, yeah, really, mom, men should be reading this book too, you know, because men and women are in this together. And so, and I think families also, like moms and dads, we'll have a lot more appreciation perhaps of what their daughters are going through when contemplating egg freezing. So it's, I really have to thank all the incredible women who opened their hearts to me and just with a great deal of candor really shared their stories with me. I'm very grateful to those who participated in this particular study. We are too. I really loved reading all the stories. Well, Motherhood on Ice is available everywhere you buy books. And where else can people find you? Do a website or Instagram or anything else that we can direct people to? Yeah, I do have a website. It's www.marsha inhorn.com. And the book is available now in hardcover book for $30. And then it's available by Kindle. And there is going to soon be an audiobook as well. It will be read, you know, red, by somebody, not by me, but there'll be an audio book for those who don't want to actually hold the book and read it. But it's available on Amazon through NYU Press, New York University

Press as a publisher. And thank you so much. This has been a wonderful conversation. Thank you for inviting me to your great podcast. We loved having you tell your daughter. We said hi. You told us she's a fan. My daughter, Justine, is a big fan. I justine. Hi. We wish we would have seen you at the New Haven show, which is Brie Live and one of the craziest shows we've ever had in our lives. Next time. We'll be back. Don't worry. We loved it there. Well, thank you so much. And you know where to find us, Girls Gotta Eat.com.

You can find everything there. Check out the website Refresh that we recently got and get tickets. Last call for those Ohio tickets. We will see you this weekend and find episodes on there and merchandise and all the things. Follow us at Girls Got to Eat podcast. That's both on Instagram and on TikTok. My handle is Ash Hess. Raina is reina.greenberg.

and Vibes Only, like we mentioned, the one year anniversary, vibes only.com, vibes only on Instagram and sign up for that newsletter. And we'll see you next week. Have a good week, guys. Bye.