5 Years Since #MeToo Went Viral

TOPICS DISCUSSED

  • Reflecting on Five Years of #MeToo

  • Outside of Politics: Halloween Candy

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TRANSCRIPT

Sarah [00:00:07] This is Sarah Stewart Holland.  

Beth [00:00:08] And this is Beth Silvers.  

Sarah [00:00:10] Thank you for joining us for Pantsuit Politics.  

Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of Pantsuit Politics. We are here today talking about the five year anniversary of the MeToo movement. We're going to spend some time on the silence breakers, the women who came forward and shared their stories. We're going to spend some time on the perpetrators. The powerful men who fell from their lofty, lofty, positions over the course of this movement. We're going to talk about what has happened, both concrete consequences and more amorphous cultural changes. And at the end of the show, as always, we'll talk about what's on our mind, Outside Politics and as Halloween rapidly approaches. It is Candy. Candy is on my mind.  

Beth [00:01:16] Before we get started, we want to continue to thank you profusely for being part of this big, extensive birthday party we're having. We are now three episodes out from our seventh birthday here at Pantsuit Politics. So many of you are participating in our challenges and we are thrilled about it. And this should be an easy one. Today, the challenge is just to talk to three humans with your face and voice about Pantsuit Politics. And we know that many of you do this all the time. We get your emails where you say, "People think Sarah and Beth are my real life friends because I mention them so often." And we appreciate that. We really do. And we want to reward you with some party favors for that activity. So talk with three people in real life. Go to our website. Fill out the form to say, yes, I did this and we will give you another entry into the drawing for that Pantsuit Politics time capsule, along with our eternal gratitude.  

Sarah [00:02:13] Because what we're trying to do with this birthday celebration is grow the show and y'all know that nothing works as well as an in-person recommendation. There are so many podcast out there, guys, and one of the best ways to sort through them is to go, "Oh, you know what, my friend was telling me about this Pantsuit Politics podcast. I'm go listen to it." So we appreciate all your recommendations. Up next, we're going to talk about the MeToo movement. As we think about the five year anniversary of MeToo, let's talk about where it all started. Many traced the birth of the MeToo movement to October 15th, 2017, when actress Alyssa Milano tweeted the hashtag activist Tarana Burke had created almost a decade earlier. The post went viral, in the true sense of the word, with 12 million responses on social media in 24 hours, largely of women sharing their own experiences with sexual assault and sexual harassment and tagging the post hashtag MeToo.  

Beth [00:03:25] Ten days earlier, actress Ashley Judd had publicly accused Harvey Weinstein of sexual harassment in The New York Times.  

Broadcast Audio [00:03:32] If I could go back retrospectively with a magic wand and say,  I wish I could prevent it for anyone always. I don't know that I would have been believed. And who was I to tell? I knew it was disgusting.  

Beth [00:03:47] And that storm had been brewing for a while. We had had Taylor Swift successful suit against a radio DJ who groped her.  

Broadcast Audio [00:03:55] Swift was called to the stand by the attorney for former radio DJ David Mueller, the man she says groped her backside backstage at her 2013 concert.  

Beth [00:04:04] Just a couple of months before in August 2017, we had had the earth shattering ouster of Roger Ailes at Fox News during the summer of 2016 because Gretchen Carlson had come forward with allegations against him.  

Broadcast Audio [00:04:18] Roger Ailes, the architect of the Fox News Channel, just now resigning as chairman and CEO of Fox News Channel and Fox Business Network and also as chairman of...  

Beth [00:04:29] And so all of this had been in the works and Alyssa Milano really met the moment with that tweet.  

Broadcast Audio [00:04:36] That movement took off last weekend when Alyssa Milano highlighted it on Twitter posting. "If you've been sexually harassed or assaulted, write MeToo as a reply to this tweet."  

Sarah [00:04:46] At the end of 2017, Time magazine named Silence Breakers as the persons of the year, really elevating the movement even further. They put Judd and Swift, activist Adoma Iwu, strawberry picker Isabel Pasqual and former Uber engineer Susan Fowler on the cover of the magazine. And so, to me, that's the image that sort of encompasses this moment. But I'll tell you as I was looking back on that time, it's such a swarm. There was so much happening before, at the time, after that, it all sort of merges in my head in sort of this one moment. And I think that's reflective of what happened with MeToo. Is it just started to balloon and balloon and balloon and hold everything. It just holds so much. It holds sexual assault. It so holds sexual harassment. It holds all of these particular developments inside the media industry, but also affecting even low income wage workers at McDonald's. So it felt so huge and amorphous. And even as I look back five years later at that time, it still feels that way. It still feels that way.  

Beth [00:06:11] We think about what's come of that amorphous movement that I agree with you, sarah, feels like it encompasses everything from some of the most shocking and pervasive episodes of sexual violence in the workplace to garden-variety misogyny. We see some fruit of that movement. President Biden signed this year the ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act. Gretchen Carlson has been championing this legislation for years now because employees, she says, "Should have the choice to go to court to pursue sexual misconduct claims instead of being required to arbitrate in these private settings that are very favorable to employers." Gretchen Carlson isn't done, though, and she and her nonprofit that she founded are taking on nondisclosure agreements with the Speak Out Act that has been introduced with bipartisan support in the House and Senate because she has never been able to fully tell her story due to a nondisclosure agreement that she is bound to. And she would like other women and other victims of workplace harassment and violence to be able to tell their complete stories. And we've had her on the show to talk about that before. So we'll link that episode here in the notes.  

Sarah [00:07:34] The amorphous nature of the movement, I think, is reflective of the fact that it really wasn't a political movement in any traditional sense. It wasn't organized. It didn't have defined goals. I think Gretchen Carlson and her group have been so successful because they did have very defined goals. I think you see sort of the implosion of Time's Up. Time's Up was the group started by many Hollywood actresses to continue to fuel and continue the work of MeToo. But, again, what I just described is amorphous. I think Time's Up goal was amorphous and it has really imploded in sort of spectacular fashion, while at the same time the legal defense fund set up has been really successful and has funded lots and lots of sexual harassment cases from McDonald's cashiers to NFL cheerleaders. And the financial resources are still there and still being used. Again, but that's like a defined goal. And so I think that's what's hard. I think that some of the in some ways siloed work of the MeToo movement has been successful. But the MeToo movement was cultural almost more than it was political. And when you're trying to talk about or measure cultural impact, cultural success, well, that's a lot harder to do. And I think you see that. I mean, you had push back almost immediately culturally. When I was looking back through MeToo timelines, I was struck that there was a letter pushing back against MeToo from likes of Catherine Deneuve and many French celebrities, unlike January of 2018 really soon after everything started. So you saw that immediately and I think that's to be expected when something is largely cultural, hugely viral and amorphous in sort of definition and goals. I think that is inevitable. And so that, to me, as we're looking back over these five years, that's not a sign of failure in any way, shape or form. It's just a reflection of the nature of what MeToo was from the beginning.  

Beth [00:09:48] I remember about Time's Up when Oprah talked about Time's Up at an award show.  

Sarah [00:09:54] The Golden Globes, when she got the Cecil B DeMille Award.  

Broadcast Audio [00:09:57] For too long, women have not been heard or believed if they dared to speak their truth to the power of those men, but their time is up. Their time is up. So I want all the girls watching here now to know that a new day is on the horizon. And when that new day finally dawns, it will be because of a lot of magnificent women, many of whom are right here in this room tonight, and some pretty phenomenon man fighting hard to make sure that they become the leaders who take us to the time when nobody ever has to say MeToo again. Thank you.  

Beth [00:11:08] I can almost remember in my body what I felt like when when Oprah said that and recognizing that we were in a new era and that that era would have a real gravitational pull, that it would open up some of the worst of our society, even as it was advocating for us to do better. That's always the case, and it's certainly been the case with this movement. So it's encouraging to step back and look at some of the legislative wins that have been accomplished. And it makes me appreciate the work that Gretchen Carlson's group has done, even more to see how critically important it has been to to focus on what can we do on a societal level. Because all the backlash to the MeToo movement individualizes what the movement was trying to call out as a communal problem. And so where you see that legislation moving forward and why I think that legislation is popular on a bipartisan basis is because it really does get to those structural forces. Instead of trying to ask all of us situation by situation to be judge and jury of how someone felt or what someone did and how someone else interpreted those actions.  

Sarah [00:12:30] And also some of this can't be solved structurally, and I think that's what we bump up against and battle through when we talk about MeToo. As a woman, everything feels different and also the same. And I think that's what's hard and heartbreaking about both the movement and where we sit five years later. It's hard to sit and talk about the MeToo movement and its successes when we're living in a post-Roe America.  I think that's just really, really, difficult. And in some ways, I think about that moment in time and all the stories that have broken and that that feeling of, oh, my God, there's going to be some justice-- real justice. And that that can't be taken away. That feeling of things are being said that haven't been said and people are being held to account that have never been held to account before. Like that moment you felt the realness of that cannot be taken away. It just can't. Once that is available to you, it's something you can't unknow. No matter how many of the accused go on to careers-- we're going to talk about that. We're going to talk about the perpetrator side of MeToo in a moment. But you just can't undo that. And at the same time, the reason that moment is so powerful is because our culture is so infiltrated with patriarchy and sexism and misogyny and racism as an accelerant or companion, as the case may be to all of those things. And I just don't want to get stuck in this binary, especially around the anniversary of a movement like this, where it's like it's either thumbs up or thumbs down. It was a success or it was a failure. The reason I think it's so important to emphasize how big it was and how much it contained is to emphasize, like, that's not available here. To do this sort of it was a smashing success or it was a complete failure, you can't do that with something like MeToo that was so intensely cultural, continues to be an ongoing cultural conversation, societal conversation. We're just going to have to learn to hold that. I think that's part of what MeToo taught us to do, is to hold the complexity of these moments in these interactions at all ends of the scale. We're not going to get there in five years. We're not going to get there in 10 years or 15 years or 20 years at which point I think we will still absolutely be talking about the MeToo movement and its impact.  

Beth [00:15:29] Yeah. It's an unrealistic expectation for a society that probably can't yet agree on where there is that we would accomplish everything that one might hope from the MeToo movement, because it involves undoing all of human history in the way that we thought about each other and about relationships. I'm taking this class at my church about the theology around the LGBTQ community. And we are really dissecting the pieces of scripture that people use to classify specifically gay and lesbian relationships as sinful and seeing them in the broader context of that era of humanity. And it really drives home how far we have come that women are no longer property, that sex has any expectation of being consensual or for any purpose other than procreation. And so in some ways, I try to hold a sense of celebration that here I am in a class where a woman pastor is talking to me and our church members, many of whom are gay and lesbian, about this historic context. And I still feel the frustration of I cannot believe we still have to talk about this, and I can't believe that we are still seeing Internet conversation about whether there is some right to sex in America. I mean, a lot of the dialog post MeToo has felt especially off the tracks to me. And I just have to remember that that is part of that pendulum swinging where we have a tendency to overcorrect in every direction, and finding some kind of equilibrium is the central challenge of being a person living in community with other people.  

Sarah [00:17:30] I will say this five years later. We started this conversation really centering the women who came forward and told their stories. Consciousness raising in the purest sense of the word. It was consciousness raising for me as a woman who has not had direct experience with sexual harassment in a workplace or sexual assault. I was shocked and heartbroken by how many stories I heard by how many experiences, just the breadth and depth of what we heard from many of you emailing us at the time. And I have absolutely no doubt that if it was impacting someone like me, it was impacting and continues to impact so many others. And I have absolutely no doubt that as we sit here in a post-Roe America where women are pouring out their hearts and their stories surrounding reproductive justice, that we have MeToo to thank for that. That level of consciousness raising doesn't stay contained. It doesn't stay just on the subject we started sharing about. And so as heartbreaking as it is to feel like, well, we took this step forward with MeToo and now we're taking a step back with Dobbs, they're connected. This idea that, no, you will not silence me. You will not silence me. I will tell what happened to me and you will listen. The power of that cannot be understated. It cannot be understated no matter what happens next.  

[00:19:19] We consciously centered the experiences of the victims and the silence breakers and the activists. But, unfortunately, much of the conversation surrounding MeToo has centered the experience of the perpetrators. And I don't think they're Irrelevant. And it was in those same ways that the stories being told were impactful. Watching the powerful be called to account was also hugely impactful. And it's like, again, reviewing the history of that moment in time is intense. You're talking about the same month that Alyssa Milano sent that tweet, you get the first public accusation against Kevin Spacey. Roy Moore was running for Senate at that time in Alabama and The Washington Post publishes this huge story about him preying on underage girls. Louis C.K. comes out, confirms reports of sexual misconduct against him. The next month in November, Matt Lauer is fired from the Today show after being accused of sexual assault. Charlie Rose is dropped from CBS, PBS and Bloomberg. Garrison Keillor is fired from Minnesota Public Radio. Russell Simmons steps down from his company the same day their accusations against Danny Masterson, Jeremy Piven, Director Brett Ratner. This is all in November. By December, you have Senator Franken resigning. Mario Batali leaves his show and restaurant. Then, of course, by the next fall, we have Christine Blasey Ford going public with her accusations of rape against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.  

Broadcast Audio [00:21:01] I believed he was going to rape me. I tried to yell for help. When I did, Brett put his hand over my mouth to stop me from yelling. This is what terrified me the most and has had the most lasting impact on my life. It was hard for me to breathe, and I thought that Brett was accidentally going to kill me.  

Sarah [00:21:24] Now by most counts, over that period of time, you had 200 high profile men accused of sexual harassment or sexual assault. Two hundred. So many that I missed some when I was looking at this. I did not know that Morgan Spurlock came out and took responsibility for some of his behavior. Did you know that Morgan Freeman was accused of inappropriate touching and contact during this time?  

Beth [00:21:50] I did not.  

Sarah [00:21:51] I missed that completely. But, again, that's the volume that we're dealing with. People who seemed untouchable. I mean, you're talking about two of the three Morning show host gone. I mean, you look back on and you're like it felt like drinking from a firehose for a reason.  

Beth [00:22:08] I think it's interesting to bring up Morgan Freeman and how he didn't know that because there's someone who weathered it. At the time, I remember acutely this sense that no one would be able to weather even the slightest accusation because the floodgates had so opened and the facts no longer mattered. Everyone was caught up in this storm. And so coming back around to look at this and to see where those accusations led to some consequence and where they were able to be weathered and dealt with-- and I don't know the facts. I'm not passing any judgment on that situation. I know nothing about it. But I think it's good to remember that we didn't completely eradicate the ability of someone to continue on with life after an accusation. The movement was powerful, but it wasn't all powerful, and it certainly still isn't. I mean, Brett Kavanaugh is on the Supreme Court today. 

Sarah [00:23:05] Right. And Donald Trump was president the whole time.  

Beth [00:23:07] Donald Trump was president the whole time. I mean, we overstate in every direction the effects that we have on each other in times of change like this.  

Sarah [00:23:16] Because I also resent the coverage. It's like everybody went back to work. No, they didn't. No, they didn't. Harvey Weinstein is in state prison. That was inconceivable. Not only is he in state prison in New York, he's on trial in California. They're going to bring charges in the United Kingdom. What the heck? R.Kelly who got away with it, one time was acquitted is now serving time in New York and awaiting sentencing in Illinois. Bill Cosby went to prison for three years and he got out on a technicality. And it sucks, but he went to jail. He went to jail. Danny Masterson is on trial right now for rape in Los Angeles. Others have faced civil lawsuits. Those less successfully, as we see Kevin Spacey, he was found not liable. And, of course, we all know what happened with Johnny Depp. But it bothers me when there's this throwaway line I see a lot of journalists and writers take with MeToo that's like, well, you know people went back. Matt Lauer is gone. Les Moonves is gone. Mario Batali is gone. Like, they do not have careers. No one hears from them. Others, I think you're right, with I would say less intense accusations surrounding them like Louis C.K and of course, Aziz Ansari, which I feel like was the zenith of this entire situation, are working again. They have re-emerged. They have re-emerged slowly. There are so many factors at play that when people say like, well, they're back working and that's all that matters, I'm like, that's not fair. That's disempowering and discouraging and also not accurate.  

Beth [00:24:51] Because justice is multidimensional. Justice is forward looking and backward looking and side to side looking. And you do have to have some sense of proportionality. The goal of MeToo in my mind was never that every person who ever made any poor judgment or abuse their power could no longer function as a happy, productive member of society. That is unjust. Figuring out what the backward looking component of justice is, that's a tough exercise that we're not good at for anything. We're just not good at that in general. It's hard. It is situation specific. And so I don't think you rack up a conviction count as a measure of this movement. And I don't know how you assess the forward looking pieces, the prevention side, because all of these victims and survivors did not come forward to share their stories only to have the perpetrators suffer. They shared so that future generations of women don't endure this stuff. And it's hard to measure that when we've had a pandemic that kept many of us from physically being in workplaces together for a long time.  

Sarah [00:26:12] I did read that the reports of sexual harassment to the Equal Opportunity Commission are way up, so people feel more comfortable reporting. Now, some people are going to argue they feel more comfortable false reporting. And, look, I'm not going to say that every single claim is accurate. I can't do that, nor do I want to. But I think the idea that people feel less alone and they feel this sense of this is a thing that happens to other people and not just me. That's success. That success. And that's a success we have to take. It can't be that the only success is this never happens again, that every single person it happens to goes to prison for the rest of their life. And I don't think the justice system is always the best vehicle to pursue change. I don't think the corporate structure is always the best vehicle to pursue change. I think the idea that we're going to have sexual assault and sexual harassment trainings on corporate campuses or college campuses, for that matter, and all will be fine and dandy is also a pipe dream. We're dealing with some really complicated stuff. And honestly I think that moment with Aziz Ansari was good and reflective of that. In some ways, I think that moment was an important zenith because we were scratching and scratching and scratching at some really, really, hard stuff when it comes to sexual relationships and consent. And you see we broke apart the the hardest layer. We got to the Harvey Weinstein's and the R Kelly's, the people we all knew were predators of the highest order. And now we're getting to the harder stuff. The people like even the Morgan Freeman or the Bill Murray or the Dustin Hoffman's, the people who were making inappropriate comments. Everybody knows they're an asshole. Maybe not a predator, but an asshole.  And that's hard. That's harder stuff to tackle. These moments where there's confusion or miscommunication and it's built on decades of misogyny and sexist attitudes about women and cultural puritanism around sex. We're not going to get it that easily. It's going to take a long time. And we're not going to get all of it with one civil suit or one criminal suit or one corporate training.  

Beth [00:28:43] Because it's generational.  

Sarah [00:28:45] Yep.  

Beth [00:28:45] I can't in my own parenting sort out all of the factors that make up the way that I teach my daughters to speak up for themselves. Just as one example, I let my daughters say no to me a lot more than most people who raised my generation think is acceptable because of this. I want them to be very certain of and confident in their own power to choose for themselves. And you can't start practicing that around sex. You have to practice that in a lot of arenas to be able to do it when you get to sex. Now, as I say that am I contributing to a sense of victim blaming, like, the idea that if we could all just be stronger and more vocal about our preferences this goes away? I don't know. I can tie myself in knots asking questions about what I'm teaching them and why I'm teaching them those things, and what it says about me and how I was raised that this is what occurs to me coming through this moment. And that just has to be okay. I think the best I can do is say how do I give them the tools to the best that I understand them, to set them up for a life where they are respected and respectful and holding everyone's highest good at all times? But they're going to know a lot more about that when they're 42 than I do. And I hope their children know a lot more about it. And, to me, I just feel really profoundly grateful to the women who have accelerated that process by sharing so much and so courageously through this movement.  

Sarah [00:30:42] Now, we talk about the pandemic accelerating things because that's what crisises do. They create chaos and they accelerate change. And that's absolutely what MeToo did. I think forward looking from here generationally, it is hard. As I was doing research for this episode, one of the leaders of Time's Up resigned because her son was accused of sexual assault. And I thought, oh, man, that is so heartbreaking. And I see all these reports and stories about how men under 30 are having less sex and teenagers are having less sex. So I think as a mother of boys, I think, well, maybe that's okay. Maybe the generational fallout here is less pressure on men to be these sexual powerhouses to be under conquest all the time. Here's a controversial take for this Halloween adjacent episode. I think Hocus Pocus is a weird movie. Why are we talking about this child's virginity? Why are we so consumed with this boy's virginity? And it's like but it's reflective of the time. It's reflective of a generational approach to all this. And I hope that in the same way we are shifting and growing our understanding of women inside these relationships, as a mother of boys generationally looking forward, I am absolutely hoping and do my part to contribute to a shifting understanding of men inside these relationships. And not just guardrails to keep us all safe from again that sort of sexist power understanding that we impart to men, but to allow more fluidity in their understanding of themselves and their roles inside these relationships because I think we all benefit. And, look, we're talking about this in a very heteronormative way, even though there are lots of different stories within the MeToo movement. And I think as this new generation pushes so hard against that sort of heteronormative understanding of the world, I think, again MeToo is a part of this accelerated conversation around gender and identity and sexuality. I mean, you can all feel it sort of breaking apart and sometimes reforming and sometimes just disintegrating. And I think that when the history is written, MeToo will be a part of that as well.  

Beth [00:33:31] It is easy to want to get to the end of a trend, and it's especially easy because of how our news cycles and more than that, just what captures the zeitgeist of any moment changes so rapidly. It's easy to feel like we have ended this movement. And I don't think that's true. I think that if you look at the past few years and you look at the issues that animate some of our most aggressive political activity, you see MeToo building on a long line of activism and cultural evolution towards greater equal rights. You see the racial protests of 2020. You see our current activism around trans rights and the backlash to that. And it all is this lineage of trying to find a way for people to truly be free and respected and cared for in their spaces. And none of that happens without a pretty big percentage of the population feeling left behind in the conversation and feeling confused about where the conversation is going and their own role as things change. And as I sense that I am getting to the older part of society demographically, and sometimes I find myself a little bit lost in where some of the conversation is around gender and sexuality, I try to ground myself in that lineage that eventually all things work toward people being freer and more respected and more able to live and feel cared for in the lives that they create for themselves. And that is just a big ask of all of us to be patient through that and to believe that that's where things are headed when there's a lot of evidence to the contrary. And I especially think about Roe versus Wade and the fact that Justice Kavanaugh had a vote in that case. But I do believe it fundamentally, and it is what gives me hope, and it is what fills me with gratitude as I think about 2017 in particular and the people who continue this work.  

Sarah [00:36:12] Beth, Halloween is mere days away. It is a candy-centric holiday, and I thought we could talk about Outside Politics today our feelings-- strong feelings coming from me to be honest-- about Halloween candy.  

Beth [00:36:32] I'm interested in hearing your strong feelings. I want to acknowledge that since we last talked about Candy on the podcast, which has been years now, my feelings have softened dramatically. And I think that is partially because the candy that I most enjoy tasting, I do not enjoy having eaten at this point in my life.  

Sarah [00:36:57] My strongest feeling is that we should segregate the chocolate from other candy. This is my number one Halloween candy-centric philosophy. The people who just store all the Halloween candy together in one container, I believe you to be monsters. You are ruining primarily the Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, which soak up all the nasty fruit flavor from the Skittles and the other lollipops, especially the Dum Dums, because the wrappers don't stay on very good. They just make all the Reese's Peanut Butter cups taste wretched. And also Snickers sometimes. The M&Ms, they're a stronger contender, they can hold their own. That's why you sort your  candy. Get home, you sort the chocolate, you put it in its own very special container. So that is my strongest feeling. I will never shift from this. I will never shift from this. This just should be maybe like a law, maybe a legal requirement. I would be okay with that. I'm just being honest.  

Beth [00:37:54] I think that's excellent advice. And the non chocolate candy lasts a long time, so it's kind of nice to put that stuff away and pull it out. I don't know around Easter, that's what I do. I recycle a lot of the Halloween candy for Easter.  

Sarah [00:38:08] I do it. You best believe I've got candy from the Labor Day parade ready to hand out on Monday night, and I don't feel sorry about it either.  I stand by my statements around Easter candy many years ago on this podcast. I'm just going to eat the chocolate. That's the situation. Over the course of my life, I have shifted on a lot of sort of desserts. Like I don't want to store bought chocolate chip cookie, even though they are my favorite food. I don't want to spend my life on that, you know what I'm saying, my very finite life energy on store bought desserts. But I think candy is a place where you just can't make it yourself. You can't make a Snickers bar yourself. It is good. It is always good. Now, can I eat as much as I used to? No, I cannot. But will I eat Kit Kats and Twix and Peanut Eminem's until the day I die? Yes, I will. Yes, I will because they are delicious.  

Beth [00:39:10] Now I will saying I love a Snickers and I discovered a recipe for a vegan Snickers bar that is frozen. That is fantastic. It is so delicious. It's made with caramel. This is basically dates and it's so good. It's so good, Sarah. 

Sarah [00:39:28] No. No, you lost me on dates. I love you. I trust you about so many things-- absolutely not. Dates? You got to be kidding.  

Beth [00:39:37] It's so good. I'm going to link it in the show notes. You can try it if you like. But here's the thing, maybe my enjoyment of the vegan Snickers bar comes from the fact that I don't feel terrible after eating it. And I do feel terrible after eating even like two Snickers minis. I got to have like one bite of chocolate or I feel sick, sick, sickened out. 

Sarah [00:40:01]  That's why I like Halloween. I like the bite size. I can have like a little bite size Kit Kat I'm good to go. It doesn't make me feel totally crummy.  I can hang with some chocolate. I just love chocolate so much. Here's another Halloween candy philosophy I would like to discuss with you. Do you have people in your neighborhood who hand out full sized candy bars?  

Beth [00:40:24] Oh, yes, we do. And my children adore them.  

Sarah [00:40:27] I know. I want to be one of those high roller baller people and my husband won't let me. He's like, that is an absurd amount of money. We have so many trick or treaters and I'm, like, but we would be remembered forever. We would be legends.  

Beth [00:40:39] I know it's so funny when you have like the spectrum of those high rollers and then the people who are going non candy. And I see and respect the non candy people. I see what you're trying to do. I honor it. My children come home talking about the high rollers with the full sized [Crosstalk]. 

Sarah [00:40:55] And people are, like, now that Felix is diabetic, are you going to do non candy? And I'm like, no, he can have whatever he wants. He just has to have more insulin. Now it does make my life hard, just like the perpetuation of sugar at all times in all places to celebrate all things. But I'm not mad at Halloween. Listen, Smarties are a dying medical supply in my house. I will be segregating all the Smarties, and I will be taking them for our personal supply because that's how we treat low blood sugar in the Holland household. Instead of Smarties they call them rockets in the United Kingdom, which is an appropriate name because that is what they do to your blood sugar. But, yeah, it has got to be a strong showing. You got to spend as much or more than a full size candy bar to make a non candy Halloween treat. [Inaudible] You know what I mean? I'm not even sure I've encountered one. I believe there to be. I mean, nobody wants a toothbrush, obviously. Nobody wants stickers obviously. I don't mind like a popcorn ball.  

Beth [00:41:54] A temporary tattoo goes over well here. My kids love a temporary tattoo.  

Sarah [00:41:59] They're not going to love it more than a full sized candy bar.   

Beth [00:42:01]  No, you can't compete with a full size candy bar. I don't think.  

Sarah [00:42:05]  I'm going to put my head to it. I want to hear from our audience. Is there a thing that could turn a head the way a full sized candy bar does?  

Beth [00:42:15] I would like to discuss one more aspect of the candy situation. I recently had a blow pop for the first time in a very long time.  

Sarah [00:42:22] I thought you might say ever. And I was like, what?  

Beth [00:42:25] No, a long time. I love gum and I'd find that the non chocolate candies like me better than I have ever liked them. And so I had a blow pop with my children on the way to see The Descendants at the Children's Theater the other weekend. And I underestimated what it would feel like in my 40 something year old mouth to marinate my teeth in a bath of sugar. Do you know what I mean? I thought it tasted good and I loved the gum in the middle. But the process of having a sucker at this point in my life, it's over. It's just passed me by. I cannot do it anymore. It feels terrible.  

Sarah [00:43:03] Gross. No, I don't like suckers. I never did. I don't like gum. I move my jaws enough in my everyday life. I do not need to add jaw activity. Do you see what I'm saying?  

Beth [00:43:11] Yeah, I do.  

Sarah [00:43:11] I am, like, that's not a thing you need in my life now. Every once in a while, a single orange skittle will be like a fun treat. Or maybe maybe a Starburst.  My kids love gummy bears and all those... Ugh! 

Beth [00:43:28] Oh, I like a gummy bear.  

Sarah [00:43:30] I don't like a gummy bear. Now there's really super high end ones that aren't chewy to all ends of the grip.  

Beth [00:43:35] The Albanese one I was going to mention where the flavors have really been drilled down to a science.  

Sarah [00:43:42] Yeah, those are good.  

Beth [00:43:43] They're good.  

Sarah [00:43:43] But am I going to choose that over a Kit Kat? No, I'm not. I'm not going to do it. And while we're on the Kit Kat tip, I need another duo. The duos are getting a little stale. I love the mint chocolate followed second by the coffee chocolate. I do not like the strawberry, but I need another duo. They haven't come out with some new ones and I'm ready for another Kit Kat duo. I love those. I think they're so fun. I love a novelty. Like a novelty take on a candy bar. I'm here for that.  

Beth [00:44:10] See, I feel exactly the opposite. I'm a purist. I don't want you messing with an Oreo for anything. All of these different Oreo flavors [Crosstalk] not good.  

Sarah [00:44:17] Remember the pistachio Oreos? We both loved the pistachios Oreos. They were delicious and they've just disappeared. 

Beth [00:44:24] I don't want invention around the classic candies.  

Sarah [00:44:29] No, I do. I Mean, don't replace them, but I'm ready for an expansion of the universe. That's fine with me. 

Beth [00:44:35] Okay. All right. I don't want to inhibit anyone's creativity.  

Sarah [00:44:38] There you go. How could more creativity in the universe be bad? You know what I'm saying?    

Beth [00:44:43] Okay. Fair enough. I stand corrected. Listen, we can change our minds about things. It's fine.  

Sarah [00:44:47] That's right. Well, I'm excited. I really am excited to see if anybody's got a play for a non candy treat that would turn the heads of a child that's just come from a house that hands out full sized candy bars. I don't think is an impossible task. Children have notoriously short attention spans. You know what I'm saying? They're not loyalists. If you got something good, they will be excited. We'll see if y'all have any ideas. I'm excited about this. I want to see if anybody's got anything.  

Beth [00:45:15] Bonus points if you can complete this quest without spending a full thousand dollars for an evening of Halloween fun.  

Sarah [00:45:25] I don't know.  We'll see. We'll see how it goes. Friends, thank you for joining us for another episode of Pantsuit Politics. Again, we are three episodes out from our birthday, so we would love for you to tell three people in real life, perhaps while you're in the candy out at your local supermarket, about the podcast. And we will be in your ears next Tuesday. And until then, keep it nuanced y'all.  

Beth [00:46:06] Pantsuit Politics is produced by Studio D Podcast Production. Alise Napp is our managing director.  

Sarah [00:46:12] Maggie Penton is our community engagement manager. Dante Lima is the composer and performer of our theme music.  

Beth [00:46:17] Our show is listener-supported. Special thanks to our executive producers.  

Executive Producers (Read their own names) [00:46:22] Martha Bronitsky. Linda Daniel. Allie Edwards. Janice Elliott. Sarah Greenup. Julie Haller. Helen Handley. Tiffany Hasler. Emily Holliday. Katie Johnson. Katina Zugenalis Kasling. Barry Kaufman. Molly Kohrs. Laurie LaDow. Lilly McClure. Emily Neesley. The Pentons. Tawni Peterson. Tracy Puthoff. Sarah Ralph. Jeremy Sequoia. Katie Stiggers. Karen True. Onica Ulveling. Nick and Alysa Villeli. Katherine Vollmer. Amy Whited.  

Beth [00:46:56] Jeff Davis. Melinda Johnston. Michelle Wood. Joshua Allen. Morgan McCue. Nicole Berklas. Paula Bremer and Tim Miller.  

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