Kate Mason (00:00):

Just before we get started today, I really want to thank Rome Generation for posting a five star rating on Apple. She called my podcast a rare gem, incredible, personable, warm, and instantly likable. Thank you very much. Rome generation. Have you ever noticed subtle gender biases in your own life on the lives of those around you? And how do you think they've shaped your perspective on gender roles as parents or caregivers? What steps have you taken to ensure that your children, regardless of gender, grow up feeling empowered and equal? And how do you approach conversations about sexism and gender inequality with your kids, especially if they're older? There are so many challenges of raising daughters and granddaughters in a world with subtle gender biases. What conversations have you had with your children about navigating these biases and are they even aware of them? I'm Kate Mason, and welcome to Parenting and Personalities. This is the podcast that connects you to the ones you care about the most.

(01:14):

Now, I didn't think that I actually had many sexist views. I thought I was pretty good gender wise and always making sure that I saw things equally until I spoke to today's guest. Now, this conversation really challenged some of my own assumptions about things, and I have seriously made some changes, and I think that today's episode might do the same for you. So stick with us. It's absolutely worth the listen. Today we're joined by the wonderful Jo-Ann Finkelstein, who's a clinical psychologist in private practice and author of sexism and sensibility raising empowered, resilient girls in the modern world. She speaks widely on gender parenting and women's issues and holds degrees from Harvard and Northwestern. Dr. Finkelstein has worked extensively with adolescents, developed programs for at-risk youth, and served in women's shelters. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, the Atlantic, Oprah Daley, and CNN, and published in the Washington Post and Psychology. Today, she's an advisor for Stop Sexual Assault in Schools and has also been involved in groups such as the National Organization for Women Planned Parenthood and the Chicago Women's March. She lives in Chicago with her family and two dogs. Welcome Joan to the podcast. It's such a pleasure to have you with us on parenting and personalities, and I know that our listener is going to be in for a treat today, whether or not they have any opinions or ideas about what we're going to talk about.

Jo-Ann Finkelstein (02:47):

Well, I'm very excited to be here and to be talking to you.

Kate Mason (02:50):

Thank you. Now your works in exploring the roots of sexism and how we can change that narrative for future generations, and it's a really timely space in the world to be rethinking everything that we do. So what I'd love to hear from you is the stuff you've written in your book. Can you just share some of the pivotal moments from your childhood that you questioned gender related things and how these incidences and passion for understanding this brought you to the role you have today as a psychologist, a parent and an author?

Jo-Ann Finkelstein (03:26):

Yeah, absolutely. In fact, one of my favorite stories is not actually in the book, but it's a story that I now tell a lot because after the book came out, my family was like, how is this not in the book? And it is. I grew up in Canada like we were discussing before we got on air. I live in the United States now, but I grew up in Canada where hockey is practically a religion, and I have three brothers who love to play hockey and I wanted to play two. So I asked my parents for a hockey stick for my birthday, and to my delight, they bought me one. But to my utter horror, it was bright pink and looked like a toy version of my brothers. So I think I was sort of shocked and insulted, and it was very disconcerting to me, and we can get into this later.

(04:27):

There's nothing wrong with pink, but this really sent a strong message to me about who I was and what my place in the world was, and that I couldn't be a serious hockey player, any of the hockey players that I was seeing on television or even my brothers. And fast forward and I become a psychologist and I start to see how these messages, what I like to call these tiny psychological paper cuts, accumulate, becoming these festering wounds of self-doubt. And so I started to see the harm that they caused to my patients, but when I was growing up, I didn't understand them. I didn't have the language for them. And so if I would push back or get upset, my parents would say, it's not happening. We don't treat you differently, because they really couldn't see it. They were just sort of doing what everybody else did. And it wasn't until I was in graduate school so way too old to be learning these lessons in my opinion, which is why I wrote the book that a professor scribbled in the margins of a paper that I wrote. I had said that I was often accused of overreacting when I felt demeaned. And she said, that's what people say to talk girls out of their feelings. They tell them they're too sensitive, they tell them they're too emotional. And that just blew my mind.

(05:58):

And so I wrote this book to open parents' eyes to all of the very subtle gender biases that are still out there and to help girls feel seen and heard and to give them the language that they need to fight back against these ways that they're not taken seriously and worse.

Kate Mason (06:20):

And so who do you usually see in your clinical practice? Is it people who have been wounded? Do you find that it's really frequently the wounding of sexism that has brought them to you?

Jo-Ann Finkelstein (06:34):

No, most times not since I've written the book more, but mostly I see anyone who walks in my door

(06:44):

Or walks through the screen or comes onto the screen. At this point since the pandemic, I see people in person and not, and I see men and women, I see girls, boys, I see a lot of adolescent girls, which is sort of what got me really interested in writing this book because I wanted a way to communicate in a more sort of educational and a different way than you communicate in therapy. But so often I see teenage girls in my practice who blame themselves when they're slut shamed, even though they are, some of them are like these professed feminists or really progressive kids, or they buy into their own fragility even as they tout that women are bad asses. And so there's just all of these ways that I see the messages are seeping in. And then of course, over and over again, I hear stories of girls are harassed or assaulted, girls who are called names girls who blame themselves for not being smart enough because they get interrupted a lot. And so there's all of these ways that sexism is just sort of ubiquitous in girls' lives in a way that we tend to dismiss because we have made so much progress

Kate Mason (08:13):

And we see them as similarities of perhaps what we've been through as well. We can push them away and say, well, that's all right. I've been through that myself in a sense.

Jo-Ann Finkelstein (08:23):

I lived, I survived, and right. But as parents, we're not really aware of how this gender bias and sexism has eaten away at our sense of self and our sense of potential and our mental health really. So it does take a toll. There are reasons why girls are more anxious and more depressed than boys. And if you dig into the research, a lot of it has to do with these really subtle ways that they're treated as inferior.

Kate Mason (08:58):

And I would love to talk to you about the adolescent years of girls and the sexism that's there on another podcast. Because when I read that, I actually had a conversation with my daughter about her years and growing up and the influence that I had on her, not necessarily in a positive way either, that I thought I was doing the right job and being there and there's so much in it, and we had a huge discussion. It was really productive, but it was also very stressful for me as a mom going, wow, is that how you saw the world? So it opens up great stuff, and you have to be strong as a parent too. And I don't sit in looking backwards and going, I shouldn't have done it. I just look and go, well, how can I improve this moving forward?

Jo-Ann Finkelstein (09:54):

And honestly, the way I write the book is hopefully not parent shaming at all, because even the most progressive of us, even those of us who write books about sexism and gender bias, have implicit biases that we are unwittingly passing along to our kids and to our girls in particular. And they're very, very unconscious. They could be as subtle as the fact that we use emotion focused words with girls, but we use achievement belated words with boys. So for girls, we're using love and sad and all of these words that help them understand their feelings. And we don't do that with boys, which robs boys of something very important. And for boys, we use words like proud, win best, and we're teaching them that competition and agency and ambition are okay, but we're not teaching that to girls. And of course, we all have both parts, and both of those need to be developed in kids of all genders.

Kate Mason (11:05):

And so just briefly, your book title to me, I really love it because what was it supposed to mean for you that title? Because for me it meant, let's look at this sensibly. Let's not go over the top. Let's just take it easy. And so it made me want to pick it up because it wasn't an outright title. Was there a reason around that

Jo-Ann Finkelstein (11:32):

Sense? Well, I loved that it could mean so many things. It could mean sensible like you were thinking, which is how I tried to approach the book. Let's think about this in really logical ways. It doesn't make sense that we think these things about girls. I liked that it was sensibility, like what it does to girls' sensibilities, how they're experiencing sexism. Yeah, I thought, and I love the reference to Jane Austen, and so there was a bunch of

Kate Mason (12:03):

Yeah, no, it's a great title I think, and for our listener, it is so well worth purchasing. It is a fabulous book, and I think it'll open up your eyes to so many different things that you are not aware of that are happening in your life, and particularly if you have daughters, but also as you talk through sons are really important to, in all of the impact of how their behavior affects women as well. So it's a whole narrative that's really different that we need to be aware of. Now, when we were talking earlier and we talk about gender being the same for girls and boys, can you give us all, not all of it, but the research around when they're born, they're kind of gender neutral to all of the things that we put into them. And how long does that go for and what's our input? How does that input change everything?

Jo-Ann Finkelstein (13:04):

Well, I would say big question.

(13:06):

I would say that it starts in utero, the gender differences and what we're putting on them, what we're projecting onto them. So for instance, before girls are born or before, we really start to think in utero that girls are more delicate than boys. So moms expecting boys are more likely to describe their baby's movements as strong or vigorous while those who don't know the sex describe no such differences. And there's other studies that back this up, when babies were dressed in neutral clothing and randomly labeled as boys or girls, the so-called boys were described as stronger and adults offered them stereotypical toys like building sets and trucks and things that move right, things that teach important things that we don't actually hand to girls to learn. Perceptions ruled in these studies in the face of objective data. So these gendered perceptions also shaped how we interpret behavior. So crying means a girl is sad, but a boy is angry. And so all of these little ways that we're subtly doing things differently lay the groundwork for sexism.

Kate Mason (14:47):

And even as I was discussing it with my daughter, and we went out with her grandmother who's 91,

(14:54):

Interesting. And she was discussing how it's a pity that it'll be a little girl. My daughter's pregnant with my first grandchild, so it's a pity it would be a little girl because they need a brother, big brother to look after them. Oh, gosh. And the narrative of needing a husband and those types of things often comes in her conversation of how much Cass needs someone to look after her. And the best part about my daughter is she's a strong woman despite her mother and despite what is, and there was never any input from me for her to say, I don't need a man. I am quite capable of looking after myself and doing so. When we talk about genetics as well, there are for me, she is not me. She is herself, and she is a strong woman. She was strong from the minute she was born in the sense of knowing herself and knowing what she wanted and not going with these biases to a degree, when I'm saying to her, oh, I think you need to be kinder and just ignore that or whatever, she'd say, no, no. Why should I haven't done the right thing? So when I'm reading your book, I'm thinking, well, I'm the one sitting there doing all the things that, oh, no, just let that one go. And she is the one that's saying, no, why should I? So I'm very fortunate when I think about the girl situation and what actually happens to a lot of those young women and children,

Jo-Ann Finkelstein (16:34):

Because I think more often what happens is that we can be talked out of our own natural strength and sense of self. And like I said, there's so many parents these days that say like, wait a minute, my daughter's more feminist than I am. Or My daughter knows more about this because of social media or her progressive education or whatever. But it's a really different story when something happens to them when they're harassed or they're assaulted. The narrative in the culture is so much about blaming girls that if we don't get in ahead of it to talk about what these narratives are and what they're going to face in the real world, they are going to internalize these messages and blame themselves. And so my hope with sexism and sensibility was to give parents the tools to get ahead of this so that kids would really be able to talk back to it, or at the very least, be able to go to the parents and talk about it because the conversation had been opened up already.

Kate Mason (17:43):

So how do you think parents can open up the conversation with their children if they're sitting and their daughters are older rather than younger, and they're already in a sexist, quite a sexist environment, once they've read the book, they think, wow, what can I do to change that? And what kind of actionable steps can I take as a parent of a girl and even of a boy? Which is really interesting too, because my son is a very non-sexist person as well in the sense that the role, my husband and I have very sexist roles in our household, and I love them. He does the gardening, I do that cleaning, the cooking, and it suits both of us. We're quite happy. And I always used to say to my daughter, this doesn't have to be your role in life. This is mine. And I chose it because I actually like it.

(18:37):

See, we did intervene, I guess I did. And so my son doesn't cook and nor does his partner. And he says, who cares? We'll get takeout. No. Or she should be. Whereas when he talks to my husband's mother, she says, oh, doesn't she get stuff for you? So it's really interesting how we have come a long way in those conversations. So what kind of actions can we take that are simple and not going to cause too much reaction? Because pushback is huge. Even me just having some casual conversations with people, the pushback's massive, but that's why we do it. And I'm thinking, I'm only mentioning small stuff.

Jo-Ann Finkelstein (19:19):

You mean when you mention things about being anti-sexist or doing things differently in the house or something like that?

Kate Mason (19:28):

Yes, yes.

Jo-Ann Finkelstein (19:29):

Yeah. Well, I mean, so when it comes to kids, my overall parenting strategy is twofold, right? One, it's instilling a thorough understanding of boundaries and consent so that the likelihood of something undesirable happening goes down. The second one is cultivating the critical thinking skills needed to detect gender bias and sexism

(19:55):

So that what girls choose everything from their interests to the clothing to whom they trust rests on this profound understanding of their culture. But the cornerstone of this approach is pleasure. So if girls feel good in and about their bodies, believe in and believe that their own pleasure is important, they'll be able to identify when something feels bad, wrong, or inappropriate, and trust that their concerns, their complaints, whatever are worthwhile. Ultimately, we want our daughters to know what it feels like to trust themselves and to make sure that they don't feel less than even if they're sometimes going to be treated that way. So when it comes to addressing sexism, our goal is not to give our children too much information too soon, but also not to give them too little, too late. So how do we do that? Well, this you read the book, but I encourage parents to capitalize on the endless teachable moments to help kids make sense of the subtle, chronic cumulative indignities that girls experience and come to believe are normal and to put language around what they're seeing and experiencing. Right. So sorry, go ahead.

Kate Mason (21:22):

Yeah, I was going to say, can you give us some examples around that?

Jo-Ann Finkelstein (21:26):

Yeah, for sure. So a direct example would be, I didn't like how that man refused to look at me in the eye and only spoke to daddy. That happens to women too often, and it's disrespectful. Thankfully, lots of women are fighting against it when they're younger, though you want to be probably when you're introducing it, a lot of parents worried, I worried about robbing my children of their innocence of the sense that they lived in a fair world. So I introduced it in very small, indirect ways. And using the media is a great way to point out bias. Many, many cartoons use magic, sorry. Many, many cartoons portray girls using magic to solve problems, but they show boys using stem and their physicality and research shows that this is a significant difference. And so you might say with your little girl that you're co watching a movie with like, huh, they always seem to use magic to solve problems, which makes it seem like girls in real life can't solve problems. But we know that's not true because we know girls are clever, fast on their feet, good at math, whatever it is. And so slowly but surely, you are helping them develop a critical eye for being on screens, which now is more important than ever. And there's ways, there's just endless ways that you'll see if you look for it, that girls are treated differently than boys. And so those are ways you can just point it out as it's happening. And of course, like I said, there's examples everywhere. So you don't want to point out too many or you will get lots of eye rolling or tuning out,

Kate Mason (23:30):

Particularly as they get older, a lot of eye rolling. So when they're young and in the boundaries. I also had a discussion with my daughter about this too, with kissing everybody in the family and the protection of, if you don't want to, that's okay. Maybe a high five, maybe a, so teaching them from young without treading on people's toes, who are the relatives or the friends, because people get very offended when if they want to kiss or hug a child. And if the child says no, bringing that boundary in really early, because I know that my mother must have, my mom's 93 now, and she told me when I was about seven or eight, if anyone ever touches you or you don't like the way they've touched, you, come and see me and you never see them again. And we were in a country and we used to drive the tractor of the farm and next door used to on his orchards, we'd go up and hide three brothers as well, and we'd jump on the tractor and ride with him. And one particular day when I was about 10, he said, you can have a ride if you give me a kiss.

(24:46):

And because mom had said that to me early, I just froze. And I thought, this is not right, and I knew it wasn't right. So I went home, told my mother, and she said, you'll never ever to go out there again. So I immediately felt protected, but I knew about that boundary quite early. I don't think people really tell children stuff like that. They do more. We don't need to say it is obviously. But yes,

Jo-Ann Finkelstein (25:13):

I think they do more and more now. And I'm in the us so at least here, I think that has become more common to teach parents to say that to kids. I think your mom was really progressive. She was. But I think you're right. Building safe sexual relationships begins long before kids even know about sex. So all kids need to hear from us that their body is theirs alone and no one else is entitled to it. They need the vocabulary to describe uncomfortable experiences and practice setting boundaries. They need to know how to use their voices to defend themselves and where to go and whom to call to make themselves safe when they're out in the world. So a generation that grows up learning and practicing these things will stop accepting and perpetrating mistreatment and regrettable sexual encounters that are considered ordinary behavior today.

Kate Mason (26:10):

Absolutely.

Jo-Ann Finkelstein (26:10):

And so we can teach kids that they have a choice about their bodies from the day they're born by modeling informed consent, right before they even have language, we can let them know that we're going to pick them up. I'm going to pick you up, I'm going to put you in a nice warm bath and so on. And as they get older, we can ask for example, are you ready for me to wipe your bottom now? Right. All kids need to know that they have a right to what happens to their bodies. And like you said, if they don't feel like hugging grandpa, ask if they'd be more comfortable giving a high five or a fist bump or not being touched at all. And then as kids get older, we can introduce them to the importance of tone of voice and body language. We can role play what it means when someone says yes, only because they're too uncomfortable to say no, or because they're not sure what they want. You might, for example, get them to ask if they can hold your hand. And once they ask, you can say, put your hand behind. Your parent can put their hand behind their back and say, I guess so.

(27:21):

So this is the beginning of teaching them to attend a body language and learn that consent has to be enthusiastic. And like you said, I think the quid pro quo stuff is so ubiquitous with girls. Like we say, come on, just one smile. Sure, I'll help you, but I need a hug first. I'm not letting go until I get a kiss. These are all examples that I witnessed with my daughter. Oh, you're breaking my heart when she says no. And so this needling sends that message of quid pro quo, a favor for your affection, or it tells girls that withholding affection is mean and the next thing you know they're 13 and they're being asked for nude pics and hearing, if you liked me, you'd send one.

Kate Mason (28:12):

Exactly. And when I read that, it kind of gave me shivers down my spine. I dunno whether I'd actually experienced that in my childhood, but that conversation of not letting you go until you do that just really sat. And I thought, oh my goodness. These are the things when I have a granddaughter. I said to my daughter, there are so many things sitting here that you and I are going to have to talk about and discuss and bring into conversations with other people that aren't in that zone or won't have read the book or won't even have any interest in that is going to be the hardest thing as an adult to a degree. Do you get what I mean? There are cultural things sitting out there too, and they're hard. I gather you're about to say, but you can make it easy. But do you find it's hard

Jo-Ann Finkelstein (29:10):

For parents to intervene or to talk about it with their children?

Kate Mason (29:13):

Well, no. More with the adults in their lives that their lives that they want to.

Jo-Ann Finkelstein (29:17):

Oh, yes. Oh yes. You mean setting boundaries with the other adults in their lives? Yes, yes. Oh yes. It's very hard. But there are ways that you can do it. And that I go over in the book, what I was going to say, and then I'll get to that part, is that I can almost guarantee that somebody did do that to you when you were little, because most of the time it is benign. It's not somebody who's trying to abuse you,

(29:43):

Right? It's just playful. And it's just what we expect from girls. We sexualize them a little bit when they're little. Come on, just give Uncle Larry a kiss. And uncle Larry's not a bad guy, but he's also not respecting her boundaries and he's not teaching her that it's okay to say no. So this is where you'd want to intervene and say like, Hey, I'm really trying to teach her that it's okay to say no, and I know that you mean well, but it's really important for us that she understands that no means no and yes means yes. And that is your also sort of secret way of saying to him, no is a full sentence. There's a whole story in the book of the tickler who was tickling my son. And at some point my son stopped liking it over the years he had really liked it, and he changed his mind.

(30:39):

So we know that consent is supposed to be enthusiastic, ongoing, and specific. Well, this was not ongoing. He had withdrawn his consent and this big teddy bear of a dad just couldn't understand it. He wanted to do what he wanted to do. That was his way of being fun with the kids. But it was no longer fun for my son. And so I had to intervene. I saw my son skulking and sort of hanging out by me, which was not his personality, and I sort of said, Hey, what's going on? And I kind of had to guess that there was something. Is it so-and-so? Who keeps tickling you? I had noticed his discomfort. And so we made a plan. We went up to him. And so there are ways to do it. But yeah, I say in the book, I tried to be really nonchalant. I knew he meant well, but he still pushed. And I couldn't tell that I shame him. I didn't want to shame him. But I think as these conversations become more part of everyday life, they'll get easier and easier to have. And so that's why I am hoping every parent on the planet will read the book.

Kate Mason (31:49):

And so am I. Look, we've got to wrap up now, but as we do so, what message would you like to leave our listener with? Especially those who are parents and caregivers? In fact, which most of us are in some form, even if our child is older, we will be caregivers and grandparents one day as well about the role that they can play in create a world where particularly their daughters can grow up free from the limitations. That's a huge message to give. What's one thing that you might suggest that people look at after today's discussion?

Jo-Ann Finkelstein (32:27):

I think as parents, we find it easier to focus on telling our daughters how strong, equal and powerful they are. And girl power is great for instilling a respect for the female gender, but it's not enough to prepare girls for the unfair and unsavory behavior. And it doesn't address the hurt and confusion that girls face when they do encounter poor treatment just for being a girl. And so that's where sexism and sensibility comes in, right? Sort of how you translate that. And so I guess where I want parents to start is to start recognizing, learn about what the implicit biases are that they may be bringing into their children's lives and being willing to question them and being willing to sometimes even say, wow, I don't know why I keep asking Johnny to take the garbage out. I mean, you're perfectly capable of lifting something heavy and putting it outside.

(33:40):

So that's me with these gender biases that aren't real, but it's what I grew up with and I'm trying to change. I have a quick story of a mother of a teenage girl or a young, maybe a tween age. She said, I am reading your book. And I suddenly started to realize, even though I consider myself really progressive and really careful about gender biases, that I was shutting my daughter down every time she had a strong opinion, even though my son is the more opinionated and outspoken one. And so she went to her daughter and she said, I think I'm doing this. And the daughter started to cry from the recognition. So I call this r and r parenting, and I know we all wish it could be rest and relaxation because all parents need that. But by that I mean recognize the gender biases you're bringing into your relationship and replace them with less bias, more equal treatment. And so the more we can do that, the more we will get girls to realize when they're out in the world that the culture is broken, they are not broken.

Kate Mason (35:00):

Fabulous. And I so totally agree with that. And that's the thing that your book has brought to me. There are so many day-to-day conversations that I'm changing already. So it is a fabulous read. Where can we find you and your book and your website?

Jo-Ann Finkelstein (35:19):

Sure. Well, you can find sexism, sensibility, wherever books are sold. And my website is Jo-Ann finkelstein.com. And there's a lot of information on there about the book, but also about just feminist parenting in general. And I'm on TikTok and Instagram at Jo-Ann finkelstein dot PhD. Cool. And I've watched some of those clips and they're great too. I'm also on Substack. I have a big substack called the Feminist Parent.

Kate Mason (35:49):

Excellent. Now I heard someone on another book podcast with you, recognize that and talk about that. And I'm 63. I dunno what a substack is. So I was sitting there thinking, I must ask Doug about that. However, Doug is into those forms. This is my producer, and we will make sure that all of those notes are in our show notes so that people can find all of those areas. And I promise I will learn what a substack is by the time

Jo-Ann Finkelstein (36:17):

It's just a newsletter, but it it's a platform where you can, I was going to say it sounds made up your newsletters and have them on there and send them

Kate Mason (36:26):

Out. Cool. Alright, sounds great. Thank you so much. Oh, excellent. Thank you so much for being with us today and sharing your research and your passion and your knowledge because it's really enlightening. And I'm looking forward to continuing our discussion next week as we explore practical steps that mothers, fathers, grandparents and caregivers can make to change help with the gender differences. So that doesn't limit our children's potential. Your insights are really helping us to pave the way for great change. Thank you. Well, thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure. Thanks for joining us today. I hope this conversation with Jo-Ann's given you a moment to pause and reflect on the everyday ways that gender bias can show up in our conversations and interactions and sometimes without us even noticing. Now, change begins with awareness and it grows when we start talking about it.

(37:27):

If this episode has sparked something for you, please share it with a friend, a partner, or a fellow parent. Let's keep this conversation going because small shifts in how we think and act can create lasting change for our next generation. And now's the time to question those narratives that we've inherited and rethink the messages that we pass on to young girls in our lives. Whether it's speaking up in everyday moments or encouraging more critical thinking about gender, every action, big or small makes a difference. Together we can help empower the next generation to build a world where gender equality isn't just a goal, it's a reality. Thank you for listening to Parenting and Personalities. If you enjoyed this episode, we'd love it if you could leave a rating and a review that would help others learn about this podcast. If you are interested in discovering more about you and your family's personality types, you'll find my book, who is this Monster, treasure My House on Booktopia or Amazon. And if you have an episode idea, please send a note to the personality coach@gmail.com. Many thanks to our producers at Stories and Strategies, and we'll see you next time.