There Are No Girls on the Internet - What the wheelie suitcase tells us about misogyny and innovation

Episode Date: July 19, 2022

We have had the wheel for some 5,000 years. And we’ve had suitcases since the 19th century. But we didnt get wheels on suitcases until the 1970s.    Swedish journalist Katrine Marçal explains what this tells us about gender, misogyny and how it's hurting all of us.   Check out Katrine's book Mother of Invention: How Good Ideas Get Ignored in an Economy Built for Men: https://www.katrinemarcal.com/books Follow Katrine on Twitter:https://twitter.com/katrinemarcal   Join our newsletter: Tangoti.com/newsletter Want to support the show? (thank you!) Subscribe, tell a friend, leave a review, or buy some merch at There Are No Girls on the Internet’s store: TANGOTI.COM/STORE Say hello at [e-mail] omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Hey, it's a Shanti Plummer from Fudderound and Find out. This week, Azee Fud and I sat down with Step and Curry. Step talks pressure, confidence, and what it really? takes to stay great. There's different categories, I guess, on like conditioning, shooting drills where you try to simulate kind of games. Look at her face. We have a love-hate relationship with those because you know you're getting something out of it. You don't look forward to those days. Listen to Futter Around and Find out on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. We are so invested in this idea of gender and, you know, that it really is more important to

us to uphold rigid ideas around gender and what it is, then even to make money, right? We are willing to lose money in order to uphold this system. There are No Girls on the Internet as a production of IHeart Radio and UnBossed Creative. I'm Bridget Todd, and this is There Are No Girls on the Internet. Something I have long been stunned by are all the different ways that things like misogyny and really rigid assumptions around things like gender hurt everyone, not just women. Now, some ways are super obvious, but others are a little more subtle, like the ways misogyny

has held back innovation when it comes to technology. In her fantastic book called Mother of Invention, how good ideas get ignored in a world built for men, Swedish journalist and author Katrina Marsal uncovers how massagony has stalled innovation. And she starts by looking at the history of the Wheely suitcase. So we've had the wheel for some 5,000 years, and we've had suitcases since the 19th century, but we didn't get technology to put wheels on suitcases until the 70s. Why? Frustratingly, the answer lies in gender.

Katrina explains what it tells us about all the different ways that gender assumptions have held us all back. It's this classic mystery of innovation that many economists have talked about. which is that we invented the wheel 5,000 years ago and we apply this technology of the wheel to a lot of things throughout the ages with, you know, at least one very famous exception, which was the suitcase. Actually, suitcases didn't get wheels until 1972, which was after we put two men on the moon. So this has been this mystery of innovation. How was this possible? We think we're so clever. We maybe we tend to focus too much. on the technically difficult problems, like putting two guys on the moon and these obvious

solutions, you know, let's combine this 5,000 year old technology of the wheel with this problem of the suitcase being quite heavy and awkward to carry and you have a great product. You know, why didn't anybody sort of see that earlier? And there's been a lot of theories around this. But what everybody has missed is actually the real explanation. And it didn't take me very long to find, actually. because, not because I'm terribly clever or anything, but because I was thinking in terms of, of gender actually. And I looked in, started looking in newspaper archives and pretty soon found

women rolling suitcases well before 1972. And then the whole story kind of became very clear just with some additional research, which is that, you know, there were products supplying the technology of the wheel to, to the suitcase well before 1972. Most of them were niche products for women and as such not taken seriously by the luggage industry who thought they were making luggage for businessmen who were all men. And there was this idea that it was absolutely ridiculous for any man to ever roll a suitcase because masculinity is something that always needs to be proven. And one way that men have to prove that they were men were by carrying heavy luggage around.

the other gendered assumption that prevented people from saying, you know, the potential of this product was that, yes, women might buy this suitcase with wheels, but they're not a big enough market because women don't travel alone anyway. And that's actually the main explanation to why we didn't get wheels on suitcases earlier. And even when it was invented in the 70s, people, you know, at first no American department store wanted to sell this product because of this reason. No man will ever buy it. You have all of these very interesting examples of the ways that sexism and misogyny and all of these assumptions about gender and masculinity have really stalled innovation. You talk about, you know,

how electric cars were, when they were first invented, they were sort of seen as girly because they were safe and a little bit slower. You know, how have you seen sexism and misogyny and assumptions about masculinity and men hold back innovation? Yeah, I think it happens all the time. And, you know, the electric car example that you mentioned from my book was something that obviously really fascinated me because that is, okay, you know, fine, we didn't get wheels on suitcases earlier. We can live with this. But this decision that we made collectively, you know, let's build a whole world for gasoline-driven cars. You know, let's not go with the electric car because electric cars were around already at the dawn of the automobile era in the 1800s. And, you know,

as you say, one of the reasons was, you know, they were marketed to women and then many male consumers didn't want it. And many people are not aware of this, that even in that sort of massive decision, you know, collectively made, you know, let's go with gasoline or petrol instead of, instead of electricity for cars, there were gendered assumptions in play. And I just think it's not intuitive to us, you know, because I don't think we think of gender bias as something, we think of gender bias as something a bit sort of soft and maybe not that important, at least not when it comes to like big hard things like technology and innovation. And what I want to show with Mother Invention, my book was that they have everything

to do with technology and innovation and they hold us back and in very, very concrete ways. And that's why I try to use these very concrete and hopefully enlighten examples from history. Yeah, you do that so beautifully. And I think it's one of those things that is for me at once kind of hopeful, because I'm like, oh, if we can get to a place where these highly gendered assumptions, where we're less tethered to them, we will all benefit. But then I'm like, but are we actually ever really going to do that? Probably not. I'm so happy that you said the book made you hopeful because a lot of people, so it's been translated to quite a few languages. It was originally written in Sweden.

I am Swedish, but it's, and so many people have written to me saying that the book made them really, really depressed, which was not my, my sort of idea when writing it at all, because I wanted to make it into this sort of hopeful story of, you know, look, we're actually just innovating with at least one hand tied behind our backs and look at all the potential we could unleash if we did things differently. But I think because I do go quite deep into history and I talk about, you know, how the definition of technology is. always followed our definition of masculinity and how whenever women have created technology, we don't see it as technology.

And I go quite deep in the book. And I think many people have taken that as, oh, my gosh, these problems, they go so far and so deep, the thousands of years of history, the whole way we look at technology and innovation. And that has made them depressed. And I apologize for that. Bumbing out a whole, like people across the globe. Yeah, Cassina, I'm quite cheerful person, I think, personally. So it's just getting all these emails about, oh, you made me so depressed.

Yeah, I'll think about that for the next book. So it's difficult to not get a little depressed when you look at the numbers around venture capital. Who has it to give out and who gets it? Spoiler alert, it's not a lot of women and even less women of color and black women. Katrina says that this, too, keeps us from having a future where more people are actually served. I do think these things do go very deep, and I think it's necessary to know it. I mean, we are losing out on innovations all the time now. I mean, I'm sure listeners of this podcast are very aware of things like, you know,

the venture capital gender gap and just how little venture capital goes to women and how the, you know, the absolute majority of that venture capital goes to white women. And I mean, here in Britain, it's 0.02% of all venture capital that goes to black British women, for example. I mean, that is such a, I mean, the numbers are just so brutal. And, you know, in the book, I go into, you know, what I believe are the problems with the venture capital system and, you know, and why this discrimination keeps happening. And again, how that goes to the heart of the whole sort of financial construction of it and, you know, and why that, therefore, that needs to change. But these are very, very big and tricky problems. I guess you can't sort of run away from that.

Yeah, you know, you talk about how this is connected to venture capital and how few women and even fewer women of color and black women get venture capital. Yet, and then it's male, white male decision makers who are, you know, doling it out. And yet you point out that 80% of consumer decisions are made by women. So I guess, like, what does that mean for innovation? and how do we solve that? Yeah, I mean, 80% of consumer decisions in the global economy are influenced by women, so yeah, which is enormous.

So there is a huge market here, and as you say, there should be somebody who wants to make money who wants to tap into that, but it's not happening enough. I think the way to solve it, and again, I guess this is my problem as an author, is to just redo the whole financial system. No, I mean, I do think that a lot can be done within venture capital to sort of address these biases, but I do think the way it's set up and the type of ideas and the incentive structures that are built into this system. I mean, in the book I talk about how, you know, it comes from the whaling industry and, you know,

it's set up in a way that the ideas that, the business ideas that, that, for example, women have, do they do not fit. So I do think we need, and that's why it's such a problem that venture capital has become so dominant because I think inherently discriminates against women, which is why we need other types of models. And they are out there, but, you know, they're not at scale yet. Yeah, I think it's one of those things where the system is so fundamentally broken and flawed and is not just flawed and broken for people who are marginalized, but also,

everybody loses out when we lose out on these innovation. Like so many things I'm thinking, why hasn't somebody invented this? And it's like, oh, well, because it's probably a product that solves an issue for women or people of color. And, you know, I think that it's, it's, we're missing out on opportunities to live in a, fundamentally better society because of things like misogyny and assumptions around gender. It's just holding us back in these huge ways. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.

And I think that's why, I mean, I hope that these historical. examples can be inspiring instead of depressing, which is, you know, just think of that gender bias hadn't existed around electric cars 120 years ago. You know, just imagine how different the world could have actually looked. I mean, you can hear that story and get depressed that, you know, why did we go in this direction and not that direction? But it can also hopefully sort of show you the possibility in this. Yeah, that's the exact thing that I found hopeful that I connected with, but it is a bit depressing to think like, oh, do you all want to live in a world with like a better climate ecosystem? No, we don't want that. We'll take the sexism instead.

Yeah, we take the real man needs a noisy car. Yeah, exactly. And I mean, that is also what's, and I try to make it funny, you know, in the book even because some of these things you do have to laugh at. And in retrospect, it's very easy to do, you know, why can't a man roll a suitcase with wheels, you know, why, you know. But, um, but, um, But it is, it is interesting how we are so invested in this idea of gender and, you know, that it really is more important to us to sort of uphold rigid ideas around gender and what it is than even to make money, right? We are willing to lose money in order to uphold this system, which I find interesting. It is wild, like, oh, I completely agree with you. Like our blind allegiance to these arcane systems and rigid arcane systems that are not serving us, it will never cease to surprise me.

Yeah. And I think we're all, I mean, in many ways, we're all guilty to it. I think we all have these biases. And that's why it's important to look at them. And I do think it's, it's well worth one's time to connect them to things like technology and innovation. Because I think that is just not done enough. And this is the whole way we look at the history of it. You know, like historians have pointed out, feminist historians have pointed out.

You know, we talk about the Stone Age and the Bronze Age and the Iron Age. But they are based on technologies invented by men. There were technologies in these areas invented by women, but we don't see them as technologies. You know, why don't we talk about the rope age or the string age instead of the Stone Age? You know, you could argue that string or. rope, which is a technology, you know, they think women invented, is actually more important than some kind of weapon made from stone because, you know, you have rope, you have string, you can tie things together, you can make fishing, nets, you can carry things in bundles. But, you know,

we don't think of that as technology because, you know, for different reasons. And, you know, the same with cloth or weaving or ceramics, which are technologies and innovations largely developed by by women throughout history, but we don't see them as technology. And this creates this whole history of innovation where it looks like everything important ever was invented by a white man. And it looks like that because the definition of technology has always followed our definition of masculinity. I mean, when women were basically inventing software, that wasn't thought of us as technology. And there was not that many decades ago. And then when men started doing it, it became, you know, terribly important and very technical and paid much more and viewed in a different way.

And that's what happens all the time. Yeah, that's one of my favorite points that you make in the book that we have, you know, the Bronze Age, the Iron Age, but no ceramic age or the Flax age. And it's just this association with femininity. Like this, you know, our first episode of this podcast, we talked to Claire Evans, this amazing technological historian who talks about. about how women were the first computers, like flesh and blood women, and that yet we didn't think of it as technical work. We almost thought of it as like secretarial work. And it wasn't until it became associated with men through, you know, pushing women out through the same kinds of hostile policies that we see today and through like marketing. That's when we started to associate women,

are men with technology and computing. Yeah, I know. I mean, my mother was a computer program. I mean, she's retired now, but I mean, she trained, you know, she studied computer science in the early 1980s in Sweden when it was still female dominated. So, I mean, I'm not even 40. And I remember from my childhood when, you know, tech before it was called tech was, I mean, at least in Sweden in those days, was quite dominated by, you know, these women. I mean, my mom's, most of my mother's managers, the way I remember it back then were women. And then obviously I saw how it all changed. And now this completely sort of different view of it. And we kind of erase the history, I think.

Many people even within the industry don't even know about that. Or the first computer programmers being women here in Britain during the war. And yeah, it's just, I think it's very depressing, particularly that story. And I'm really glad you had had that on the podcast because it's just we need to, we need to tell her story because it's actually very, very recent, and we've already forgotten about it. Let's take a quick break. Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guy,

not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes.

Those people are starving for best. answer. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and friends on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Run a business and not thinking about podcasting, think again. More Americans listen to podcasts than ad-supported streaming music from Spotify and Pandora. And as the number one podcaster, IHeart's twice as large as the next two combined. So whatever your customers listen to, they'll hear your message. Plus, only IHeart can extend your message to audiences across broadcast radio. Think podcasting can help your business. Think IHeart. streaming, radio, and podcasting. Call 844-844-I-heart to get started. That's 844-8-4-8-4-I-heart.

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And finding ways to win no matter what. He's the smartest player to ever play the game. His IQ is at a level that we've never seen before. And he knows without Luca and Austin Reeves, I got to manipulate the game. We get a player's perspective on the challenges of the playoffs. I think Joker's going to be exhausted this series because when they don't have Rudy in the lineup,

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He running up the court, licking his fingers why he got the ball. You go through a training camp with that, Isaiah. You figure it out real quick. Get your ass up and down the court, and you're going to get the ball. So listen to Point Game on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

At our back. When I saw you speak in D.C., the story that you told about your mother as someone who worked in tech, it really stuck with me. You described sort of, you know, these women and with big hair and sweaters, like people that you don't associate with being computer programmers or engineers. Like, what was that like for you to grow up seeing? And how did it shape your own understanding of technology?

Yeah, but I think when you, I mean, I think it made me, I mean, you know, you're a child. You take everything, you think your universe is the whole universe, right? You take everything for granted. So that was just how it was. but I think maybe it made me less scared of it than other people. It was just quite natural. And also I didn't, because my mother was somebody, I mean, she used to work at an art gallery

and did some sort of administration of library catalogs. And then she was also, you know, then she became a computer programmer. So for me, I think in the way it shaped my understanding of tech was that it was actually, you know, a much broader thing accessible to a broader type of personality. then this white man in a hoodie that was then, obviously, in the 90s, very, very influential later on. So I guess that shaped me less than other people. And also, I guess it ended with me writing this book, Mother Invention. I guess I wouldn't have done that without that experience and just growing up in the tech industry without realizing what it was.

Yeah, I love that. I mean, it's kind of like a legacy that, your mom has set up. I mean, even the title of the book, Mothers of Invention. I love that. Yeah, I know. And obviously, I mean, I did do coding and all of that. I wasn't that good at it, but it was, it was something that we just did. It's so funny. I've talked to so many women who are coders or work with technology. Like, I'm a terrible coder. I have to look up. And any time I code, I have to look it up every single time. But how many of them got started because of something that we code as sort of feminine, right? Like a lot of women and girls got involved in programming through things like Myspace or Neopets, these little girly games that you could learn simple code to customize

and make your own that we solidly think of as like, oh, just girls playing around. But here in 2022, a generation of girls say that those kinds of experiences are what gave them the launch pad to dive into these like harder tech skills. And so it's just so fascinating, the things that we, feminize and masculinize and how when you break out of those rigid binaries, so much more as possible, a whole world of possibility really opens up. Yeah. And you know how computer programming used to be compared with, you know, cooking from a recipe, you know, when it was seen as feminine and not high status, you know, are you good at following instructions? Are you good at cooking from a recipe? You know, come become a programmer when they were trying to recruit women. And, you know,

And it kind of makes sense. It is a bit like cooking from a recipe. But, you know, you can see how it was, that metaphor was used, but just like this, you know, but it's the metaphor you use or the context you put these skills in or how you, what you even see as a skill is very gendered. And I do go into sort of the economic consequences of that in the book, you know, and how historically when men are good at something, it's immediately seen as a technical skill. and when women are good at something, you know, for different, you know, for any reason, just because

they're allowed to do it, we tend to see as a much more of a natural feminine ability. So it's not allowed to become like a technical skill. So even when women were in computing, it was seen like, oh, that's like an extension of their feminine nature of, you know, being meticulous and following instructions. It's not allowed to be seen as a skill. And then when the men come in, it's suddenly, oh, it's a skill. this requires a particular type of brain, particular type of personality. And then the, and it's very technical. And then the economic logic comes in. And of course, if something is a natural ability,

you know, that's just, you know, why should we pay you well for it? Well, if something is a skill, yeah, of course we should pay you well. So there's like an economic logic on top of that, that ends up having huge consequences on the labor market because, you know, we know that the main reason and why women are in less than men is because of their gender segregated nature of all labor markets where you have, you know, men in some professions and women in some professions and the female-dominated professions

always tend to be paid less. And that actually has to do with a lot of it, of that structure of the labor market, has to do with what we historically saw as a technical skill and not, and how that connects with gender. I'm curious. This is kind of a curveball question.

Is that the case in places like Sweden as well as an American? I have this perhaps incorrect idea of like Sweden as this gender utopia where everything is great. Is it also the case there? Yes. I mean, so Sweden is, I mean, certainly we have stuff like paid maternity leave. I mean, most of the world has that apart from the US. But, you know, we have a lot of great things and important. invest a lot in affordable child care and the gender pay gap is smaller, but it's, you know,

it's not gender utopia. And, you know, it's one of the most gender segregated labor markets in the world, which also has to do with a very high female, you know, participation. But it's very, very gender segregated. And, you know, something like venture capital, I think we're doing worse than the US. It's sort of 1% I think to women. So it's, I mean, I think, Sweden is doing a lot of things right. I would say it's probably a, you know, better, better social model in many ways, you know, if you allow me to be nationalist like that, than many others, but it's certainly not perfect. More after a quick break. Another podcast from some SNL late-night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel

and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, S&L's Mikey Day and headwriter, Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and friends on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Run a business and not thinking about podcasting, think again. More Americans listen to podcasts than ad-supported streaming music from Spotify and Pandora. And as the number one podcaster, IHearts twice as long. large is the next two combined. So whatever your customers listen to, they'll hear your message. Plus, only IHeart can extend your message to audiences across broadcast radio. Think podcasting can help your business. Think IHeart. Streaming, radio, and podcasting. Call 844-Ehart to get started. That's 844-844-I-Hart. What's up, fam? It's Isaiah Thomas. And I'm CJ Toledano, and our podcast point game is about defying the odds. Like LeBron heading into the playoffs without Luca and Austin

and finding ways to win no matter what. He's the smartest player to ever play the game. His IQ is at a level that we've never seen before. And he knows without Luca and Austin Reeves, I got to manipulate the game. We get a player's perspective on the challenges of the playoffs. I think

Joker's going to be exhausted this series because when they don't have Rudy in the lineup, he has to really guard guys like Nas Reid. He has to guard Julius Randall. And then he has to give us everything he gives us on the night to night basis on offense. And when I T's friends stopped by like Quentin Richardson.

We dive into some playoff history too. Steve Nash will get that thing. That man, hell get the flying. He running up the court, licking his fingers, why he got the ball. Like, you go through a training camp with that Isaiah, you figure it out real quick. Get your ass up and down the court,

and you're going to get the ball. So listen to Point Game on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, everyone. I'm Cheryl Stray. Author of Wild and Tiny Beautiful Things. I'm excited to share that I have a new podcast called Mind Over Mountain. In each episode, I interview athletes, adventurers, and adrenaline seekers to discuss the inner landscapes and life experiences that informed and inspired their extraordinary feats.

I also bring a bit of advice into the mix so we too can better understand how to face our own seemingly insurmountable challenges. Do you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to pull out what you already have inside. We're coming into this world fighting for our lives. All I'm going to do is pull out what you already got inside. We're there to support and celebrate each other. And that's not like your story versus my story. You're going to walk up and over that dang mountain.

You're not just going to put your mind over it. Yep, yep, exactly. And if I can't walk up and over it, I'm going to go through it. Listen to Mind Over Mountain every Thursday on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Let's get right back into it. It's difficult for me in the United States to not yearn for the these alternative models, even while I can say, you know, they're not perfect, but it's difficult for me to not journey.

I'm being honest. Yeah, no. And I think you shouldn't. I mean, but I think you shouldn't. I think we should all look at, you know, different systems and different models and different nations because nobody has really solved this sort of gender equality puzzle. But there are, you know, good things in many different places. And so is worth looking at best practice, basically.

Definitely. That's actually a great segue into one of the last questions I have for you, which is, you know, you end your book talking about climate and how we have this, I don't know, and I see it all the time and I don't even really know how to talk about it, but we have this idea that the people, the person who is going to help us tackle this mess that we've gotten ourselves into with regard to climate are going to be wizards, right? Like some tech wizard is going to swoop in and have a technological answer, whether it's going to Mars, going to space, whatever it is. And how do you see that as another way that we're allowing for misogyny and assumptions about gender and masculinity to really perhaps lead us astray? Yeah. I mean, I think, I mean, so some people talk about it as this, you know, duel between the wizards, like the tech wizards who, you know, just like you say let's invent some big technology that fixes everything or let's move to another planet. Technology and innovation will sort this mess out. And then on the other hand, you have the kind of the profits to say that technology and innovation is the problem. You know, we need to,

you know, we need to live simpler. We need to change our behavior. And that's the only way to save the planet. And I think both of those, both those archetypes, the wizard and the profit, are based on kind of this patriarchal model of technology being separate from nature, right? And I think fundamentally that is the problem here. It's, you know, because they're not separate. And this idea that technology is this force that we use to sort of control nature or extract things from nature where the Earth basically becomes this giant container of energy, that we can just take and take from is very problematic.

And so I don't think technology and innovation is the problem because I do think it can and should have a different relationship to and with nature and contextualize itself as part of that. And I think, and this, you know, one of the, I mean, the whole book is about things that we view as feminine and therefore look down upon. And one of the biggest thing is obviously, you know, nature, right? Mother Earth, that's the feminine,

that should be kind of controlled by, you know, masculine forces of technology. And I think we need to rethink that. And we need to really rethink the relationship between nature and technology. Because I think neither the wizard or the profit is right. I think technology and innovation is certainly part of this solution. But that type of technology innovation needs to work with nature and see itself as part of nature in a community. completely different way. And that is a big paradigm shift. And I do think it has a lot to do with

gender and how we, how we sort of, you know, insist on gendering the world in, in ways that are not very constructive. When you look down at the horizon, do you see things getting better or worse? Like, are you hopeful for the future when it comes to these things? I mean, with the climate change right now, it's, I mean, it is tricky to be, to be, you know, I'm in Europe, it's, you know, a big war in the Ukraine and it's, you know, it's led to, you know, Germany firing up all this cold, not all its cold plant, but burning a lot of coal and, you know, you can see, you know, lots of investments going into fossil fuel because of, you know, energy security issues that have arisen, you know, around the war and, you know, certainly, you know, President Biden in the U.S.

is, you know, going to Saudi Arabia and telling them to drill more and, you know, backtracking on the green agenda partly. And, you know, that's, you know, that's sort of, you know, in the last couple of months, certainly it's hard to be hopeful when it comes to climate change. But I do think, like, the bigger trend is, you know, is in renewables and it is in doing things differently. And, but I do think, you know, it's, yeah, there's a big shift that needs to happen. A lot of it has to do with financial markets and what gets financed. And it's a very, very, very, very, very thorny and difficult problems. I mean, but we have to be hopeful because there is, there is no alternative. Yeah, that's exactly how I feel that like it feels like we're up against

so much, but the only choice we have is to be hopeful and to move forward. Like, what other option is there? No, I mean, I mean, yeah, I mean, the option is going to Mars, but I don't think that's very pleasant. And so I don't think that should be an option. We should, you know, we should stay here and we should, you know, do things differently. And I think in order, to do that, just to sort of tie back to where we started the conversation, I do really think that, you know, innovation really, really, really desperately needs to become much more inclusive than it is because we need all the good ideas that we can get. And right now, that's, that is not happening. So if you listen to last week's podcast, you know that I've been a little bit bummed with everything

in the news lately. It's just been a lot here in the United States. And so I am looking for things, actively looking for things on the internet that bring me joy or a laugh or honestly just a little bit of distraction. I don't care how small they are. I don't care how petty they are. I don't care how silly they are. I want to hear about them. I put out a call in last week's episode asking for any little thing that you had that was bringing you joy on the internet. And you all responded. And I wanted to share one with you today. This comes from listener Ruth Amato. I actually had to do a little bit of a double take because a motto is our producer Mike's last name as well. Ruth writes, I want to talk about the thing on the internet that brings me joy.

It's Jorts the cat. I know you are hip enough to know who Jorts might be, but just in case you don't know the saga, it starts here. And then Ruth links to a frankly incredible, amazing, hilarious, Am I the Asshole Thread on Reddit? About this kind of not so smart orange tabby cat named Jorts, who lives in an office building with his cat companion, Gene. Get it, Gene Jorts? Basically, Jorts is not so smart,

which I think is common of Orange Tabby Cats, or at least the assumption around Orange Tabby Cats, and causes all kinds of problems for Gene. Ruth writes, naturally, the internet went wild for sweet, simple Jorts and his ever-helpful, long-suffering coworker Gene. Now, this is where most people might cash in on their newfound fame,

but the humans who work with Jorts and Gene have decided to go in a different way. and use their celebrity for good. The Jorts Twitter account, which boasts over 200K followers, advocates for unionism and other social justice issues while also being adorable. Whenever I've had a hard day, I check out Jorts Twitter,

and it hits the sweet spot between Class War and Cute Cats, which is definitely the sweet spot where I like to exist as well. Ruth, thank you so much for sharing this little piece of internet joy with me. And listeners, I want you to keep them coming. What on the internet is bringing you joy, I want to know about it. I want to hear about it. Please share it with me. Thanks so much, Ruth. Got a story about an interesting thing in tech or just want to say hi? You can reach us at hello at tangoody.com. You can also find transcripts for today's episode at tangoity.com.

There are no girls on the internet was created by me, Bridget Todd. It's a production of IHeart Radio and Unbossed Creative. Jonathan Strickland is our executive producer. Tari Harrison is our producer and sound engineer. Michael Amato is our contributing producer. I'm your host, Bridget Todd. If you want to help us grow, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts. For more podcasts from IHeartRadio, check out the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Another podcast from some SNL, late-night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier.

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