In this episode of Thick & Thin, I sit down with writer, activist, and feminist author, Caitlin Durante, to discuss her new book, "Girl, Logic: The Genius and the Absurdity." We talk about feminism, gender roles, and why it's so hard to be a woman in a male-dominated world. Plus, we talk about CRISPR-edited babies, and whether or not we should be worried about the future of human cloning. (CRISPR is the gene editing tool of choice for gene editing, and it's been around for a long time, but it's still pretty revolutionary in many areas of science and medicine. We also talk about what it means to be female in the 21st century, and what it's like to grow up in a world where women are expected to be more than just a little bit different than their male counterparts, and how to deal with that. Caitlyn Durante's book is out now, and is available for purchase on Amazon, Audible, and Barnes & Noble. If you're interested in buying a copy of her book, you can do so here: bit.ly/Girl-Logic-The-Away-Book. Caitlin's Book: Girl, Logic, the Ir absurdity: How To Be a Woman in a Male-Driven World Where They Can't Get It All Together, by Caitlyn's Book is available here. Book Recommendation: "Girl- Logic: How to Be a Feminist in 21st Century America." Book recommendation: "I Got the Rights to It" by Taylor Swift's "She's a Badass, Not a Good One" Books: The Good Girl, Not A Bad One by Taylor & Other People's Guide to Feminism, by Taylor, Inc. (Harper Collins, $19.99, $24.95, Booked, $16.99 We'll See You Next Week, $25,000, $99.00, I Got a Chair, $20,00, $29.00 I'm a Girl, I Got The Rights to it? The Good Thing to It? I'll Be Good at it, Too Bad at It, I'll See It's Good At It, $5,000? , I Can't Say That? by Taylor and I'll Have It, Too Good at It's That's a Good Thing?
00:00:22.000I can't tell you exactly the way men think.
00:00:24.000Because I think if I did that, I'd be like, slow your roll.
00:00:27.000This book is about me sort of noticing that women are always called crazy, psycho, psychopath, psycho bitch, you know, like, oh, she's insane.
00:00:38.000And women are expected to be so many things to so many people at once.
00:00:42.000And it's these expectations that sort of...
00:00:46.000We have to take into account all of this, and we try to be so many things at once, and we have to take in so much stimuli to process all this.
00:00:54.000So our logic is sort of this circumlocutious way of thinking that seems insane.
00:02:41.000I've often wondered, like, if you could, like, I believe that one day they're going to be able to, you know, today we have transgender people, right?
00:02:50.000We have people who decide to have operations, decide to take hormones.
00:02:54.000But I think one day they're going to be able to literally turn a person into a woman.
00:03:02.000Yeah, well, not with some sort of treatment.
00:03:04.000I just feel like it sounds crazy to say today, people say, no, you can't change your chromosomes.
00:03:10.000Well, today, you can't change your chromosomes, but 200 years ago, the idea of sending a video to someone in Australia would be ridiculous, right?
00:03:17.000So, like, what we've been able to do just over a short period of time, relatively, is pretty staggering.
00:03:21.000And if you look at, like, what they're doing with CRISPR, do you know what CRISPR is?
00:03:26.000It's gene editing tools that they keep evolving.
00:03:30.000They've gotten them to the point where they're starting to work on human embryos, non-viable human embryos, and they're changing the expressions of certain genes, stopping genes for certain diseases.
00:04:51.000You know, this whole, you know, and you and I have talked about or someone else, but still the sort of women excluding other women.
00:04:58.000So this goes back to when we were hunters and gatherers.
00:05:01.000If you didn't want someone to live, you'd turn your back on them and you wouldn't share information and then you and your offspring will die.
00:06:38.000So I was talking to someone who has a woman boss.
00:06:42.000And we were saying that there's an interesting thing that happens where a woman can do the exact same thing and she's a bitch, whereas if a guy does it, he's stern or he's a hard ass.
00:06:54.000Or it's all this, as women age, they're gross and men are austere or they're regal or they're sexy.
00:08:35.000And you were obviously doing stand-up.
00:08:36.000I was doing stand-up at night and I would like spend the days sort of like soliciting people if I could get a spot on their show making flyers like I just use it as my own office and I didn't have to also the environment like I could wear pajamas to work like no one ever came to our office Right,
00:08:53.000Yeah, there's definitely, I was like, I'm in the workforce now.
00:08:55.000I think that regular jobs, there's obviously a huge problem with the dynamic that men and women have in regular jobs, but there's a problem with men and men in regular jobs.
00:09:05.000I don't think that it's normal for people to be working on top of each other, doing something they don't want to do for long stretches of time.
00:09:12.000I think It's very difficult to be yourself.
00:09:15.000You have all these restrictions on your language and the way you're allowed to communicate with each other.
00:09:20.000And then you're obviously doing something all day that you would rather not be doing.
00:09:40.000But it's interesting, I open a lot of my snaps on Snapchat, and you'll always get ones that are like, oh, 449, can't wait for this day to be over.
00:09:48.000Hate work, don't want to go into work.
00:09:50.000It's all about hating your job, which I don't understand because I love my job and I work very hard to have a job that I enjoy.
00:09:56.000But I don't know if everybody, I talk in my book about, you know, your passion and finding it and whenever you can find it.
00:11:47.000I want to say it was in The Atlantic, but it was about sort of the language surrounding and propaganda surrounding clean eating and how that term shames people who are poor because you're suggesting that their food is dirty, which it is to an extent.
00:12:03.000But how clean eating is just for rich people.
00:12:52.000I mean, there's a lot of science behind it.
00:12:54.000There's a podcast that I did pretty recently with a guy named Dom D'Agostino, who's a scientist and does a lot of clinical research on the ketogenic diet.
00:13:02.000And he can give you real raw, hard data.
00:13:05.000But there's a big issue with your body burning off carbohydrates, especially in particular refined carbohydrates, and then spikes of insulin, and then the dips.
00:13:15.000You just feel terrible, and you need a nap in the middle of the day.
00:13:18.000I had been operating that way for so long.
00:13:20.000I'm not saying I'm in light now and this will be it forever.
00:13:23.000But I was like, yeah, you just take a nap.
00:14:05.000And if you think about every time you reach for a snack, which is so easy, or a piece of candy in a green room, you're doing that to your body, the spikes.
00:15:19.000But exogenous ketones are the way to kill that.
00:15:22.000So I was taking those two, but it's also, you're kind of like, you're reading stuff and you're kind of sussing out what works for you and trying to find the right balance.
00:15:30.000Anyways, but I was not feeling well, but I was talking to everyone about this diet.
00:15:33.000I was like, this could not be more LA. I'm like, hi, I'm on a diet.
00:16:53.000I was at Starbucks the other day, and I just was running in to grab an espresso shot, because I have one every time I work out.
00:16:59.000And I go in, and there's a girl there.
00:17:01.000And, like, we're comics, so a big part of our job is sort of scanning people, identifying what they are, making assumptions, because we're usually right.
00:17:08.000So this girl in front of me, and she's standing there holding a snack.
00:18:07.000I'm walking through the courtyard and I hear this, excuse me, and it's the girl from inside and she goes, did you know dyeing your hair causes cancer?
00:19:11.000But the point is, and I asked everyone, I was like, was I wrong in saying the sugar thing?
00:19:15.000Well, sometimes you just catch someone, like, I've always described it this way, like, most people all day long, if you're lucky, people are at like a two or a three out of ten on the outrage scale.
00:19:25.000But you might run into someone who's at a nine.
00:19:28.000They might have just got dumped, their car might be getting repossessed, they might have just got fired, they might have just got yelled at by their mom, there might be like a whole series of things, and then you were behind her with the fucking banana Banana sugar!
00:19:41.000If you're listening, which I doubt it, because you don't seem like the kind of person that wants to be enlightened, but if you're listening, this is not a good apology.
00:19:48.000Maybe she knows about cancer and hair dye, and that's what she wanted to tell you.
00:30:04.000When Aubrey Davidson, age 85, met a special guy at the Hebrew home in Riverdale in the Bronx, New York, they did more than sit next to each other in the dining room.
00:31:12.000Relationships make people happier and the happiness reduces stress and irritability and improves mood, appetite, sleep, sociability, and immune function.
00:33:01.000I don't know if the threat of communism was perceived as real, because I think if you look at the rest of the world, we were obviously in conflict with the Soviet Union, they were worried about China, Marxism and Mao and all the various issues that people had overcome.
00:33:17.000I think they were worried that communism was going to spread.
00:33:20.000I think it's just one of those things where once a witch hunt starts, like the McCarthyism era, That's really fucking scary.
00:33:28.000That shit where they were going after people and ruining their lives if they went to a meeting.
00:33:39.000You know, and it's a fine line because it's like, well, you're an American, so you have these rights.
00:33:43.000And then, like, who's deciding that line?
00:33:45.000I wonder if we're kind of getting into that now.
00:33:48.000With what we're able to say online, with the whole sexual predator thing, which, if you want to talk about draining a swamp, it's great what's happening now, but then you're going to get guys who are like, I never did anything, and it's like, well, sorry, now no one wants to work with you.
00:34:02.000Well, there's people that are absolutely guilty that are getting caught, and then there's people, for sure, that are going to get accused by people who really just want attention.
00:34:11.000You're going to have that, too, but I think you're going to have way less of that.
00:34:14.000I think you're going to have less of that, because I think the stakes are so high that For you to do that, for you to be the type of person that accuses someone just for your own personal gain, I feel like it's not going to happen as much just because it's such a serious thing right now.
00:34:26.000It is such a serious thing, but there's so much weirdness to it.
00:34:29.000Like, George Sakai, a guy who says he grabbed his dick in 1981. Hey, dude.
00:34:44.000I've been saying this on stage, and I have a bit I don't want to reveal it here, but there's a big difference between being threatened for your life.
00:34:54.000If you're dealing with a situation like...
00:34:58.000Alright, this is not to throw Louis C.K. into the bus, but someone was saying, what's the big deal if someone's masturbating in front of you?
00:35:45.000Like I was thinking, okay, if this guy decided he was going to kill me, he was going to smash me, there's almost nothing I could do about it.
00:36:03.000It's at length how it all goes back to the fact, all of the suppression, all of your nervousness as a woman, all of it goes back to the fact that men are physically stronger than women.
00:44:33.000He's doing it because he's a big dog walking into a room.
00:44:38.000And sometimes, you know, for shows, like I have security thereafter.
00:44:41.000And it's not, you know, I'm not Beyonce.
00:44:44.000It's not like people are throwing themselves at me.
00:44:45.000But I've found just having a large man, even if it's a friend of mine, standing next to me, deters even the beginnings, even the inklings of, let me step to her and see what's going to happen.
00:46:55.000So he called the FBI. And they gave him with just the grainy photo and what we thought his name was.
00:47:01.000And they found who he was, just some nut who, of course, has guns and has a record and lives off his family money somewhere in rural whatever.
00:47:11.000And I was at South by Southwest and I had given and I felt bad.
00:47:15.000And this goes to women feeling bad for taking up space.
00:47:17.000There were way more famous people there than me.
00:47:42.000And so it was the last show, and I thought I was in the clear, and I go and I do my set, and one of the cops comes over.
00:47:47.000They were like, he showed up, and we caught him.
00:47:50.000But had they not been there, and they talked to him, and I guess they put the fear of God in him, because they were like, she doesn't want to talk to you.
00:47:56.000And he goes, oh, I don't want to hurt her.
00:47:58.000And I'm thinking, yeah, but your version of hurt and mine are very different.
00:49:35.000Ancient Hebrew is such a weird language.
00:49:37.000I would love to go, it's like, I love looking at old languages because you're looking at like some weird art form in a way.
00:49:45.000It was the first forms of communication.
00:49:47.000Like if you look at it, you know, ancient Hebrew or ancient Arabic or Aramaic or something like that, like just the way those things are structured, the way the sentences are written out, I have this, um, It's several hundred years old, but it's a Thai Bible.
00:50:45.000Did they have, I mean, obviously they didn't have the same advancements, but like ancient Greece, like, did they have, like, what were young people doing?
00:50:52.000Like, was it, what was your fun besides vomiting in a vomitorium and wrestling?
00:50:57.000Well, I would just love to be a fly on the wall back then.
00:51:00.000I mean, when you're talking about people that had very little understanding of how the universe worked or their rudimentary understanding of science, just to hear the wisest of the wise amongst them, try to figure out What makes everything tick?
00:51:55.000It's like when Black Lives Matter really came to the forefront, you know, and all these white people are like, oh my god, I didn't realize America was racist.
00:52:16.000Comedy is art and people feel ownership over it.
00:52:19.000So you get these like boys clubs, you know, I'm very lucky in that I have clubs, you know, like you get like it's a group of dudes that run the show and they don't like girls, whatever it is, or the way a lot of guys make women feel.
00:53:48.000I'm not going to say names, but there are people who go out of their way to be horrific, and I never see the guys around us, and these are all, you know, contemporaries, say anything.
00:53:57.000Because it's like, nah, he's a good guy.
00:54:42.000And just as if the guy owns the art form when what breaks my heart is like real comics like you or like Sebastian or like people that I or Marc Maron, like guys that I look up to that I think are so brilliant.
00:54:54.000They don't have time to sit there and get in the head of some girl who's just trying to make 15 bucks.
00:54:59.000You know, it's not your M.O. It's only losers.
00:55:03.000Well, I always feel that we're all in the same boat together and that if you have a vagina and I have a penis, it doesn't...
00:56:13.000And I really do believe that insecurity, whether you're a woman hating another woman, whether you're a dude trying to step to another guy, it all comes from insecurity.
00:56:21.000So when you're, oh, I run this show with my buddies, or I've been doing it three years, I'm owed the world.
00:56:27.000You're told that you're owed more, right?
00:56:29.000Oh, Concord show, but I should have more.
00:56:31.000It comes from this insecurity of, if she gets something that I deserve, and it comes from this place of you think you deserve something.
00:56:37.000And that was a big thing for me after I did the show.
00:56:40.000The men that I had to tour with were horrific.
00:56:44.000Like mental scars, indelible marks on my brain horrific.
00:56:48.000Because there was this entitlement like how dare she take that, you know?
00:56:56.000So I see that, and I don't have to deal with it as much, but my heart breaks because I wish that these girls five years later could realize from a bird's eye view when it's happening, I'm like, but that guy's got nothing.
00:57:08.000If you really are going to be that mean to a fellow comic, you obviously hate yourself so much.
00:58:07.000So you enter into this art form and into this city with the best of intentions, trying to keep your soul as clean as possible, and you have no control over the crazy that's going to be in your path.
00:58:17.000You only have control over how you heal from it, I guess.
00:58:35.000So you get women and my whole thing is like you should be fired from your job for not being funny, not because you didn't like fuck someone.
00:59:20.000There's a lot of competition and there's a lot of support.
00:59:23.000Like, one of the things that bothers me the most about any sort of weird shit that goes on with comedians, whether it's boy-girl shit or anything else, is that there's a camaraderie that we share that is very unusual in a fairly competitive art form.
00:59:41.000I don't think it's as competitive anymore and what I mean by this is that I don't think that the idea of like getting a sitcom or being the host of The Tonight Show or you know these these limited number of gigs that are available I don't think that's where it's at anymore I think there's more people like you that are doing Netflix specials and me and we both do podcasts like that kind of thing I think is way more open to people and It's way easier for us all to be supportive of each other and supportive of each other in the art form of stand-up.
01:00:11.000Like, what's important in our world is don't steal, don't be an asshole to your fellow comedian, support each other, and I'm gonna be there for you if you're there for me.
01:00:23.000I think it's also easier to be supportive when someone's undeniable.
01:00:26.000I think when you're first starting out and when you're kind of in the clubs and you're all kind of fighting to figure out what you have, when someone's genuinely funny, man or woman, I'm the first one to be like, yes, love that.
01:00:36.000I visibly fell over Sebastian when I bring him on stage.
01:00:40.000And I'm sure he doesn't love it, but I'm like, he's the best.
01:02:56.000And when sexual harassment and sexual assault and stuff like this, what's coming out in the news with Harvey Weinstein and others, and even the Kevin Spacey stuff, what we're starting to see, the Kevin Spacey stuff is not very applicable to what I'm talking about because it's men doing it to men, but the Harvey Weinstein thing is,
01:03:14.000it's like here's someone who's not even trying to think about how women think.
01:03:17.000Not only that, he was trying to think, how can I do this the most?
01:03:21.000He had like a network of people helping him exact that plan.
01:03:24.000This wasn't like, I'm drunk, touch my dick.
01:03:26.000This was my assistant's going to escort you in.
01:03:28.000I'm going to send spies to try to cover this up later.
01:03:48.000I got a better version of it where it's not cut off.
01:03:50.000Hollywood is probably like, yeah, goodbye.
01:03:52.000Yeah, this is 1945. She was complaining that people were trying to fuck her all the time and she couldn't get any work because they said she was cold.
01:04:00.000She was like, in order to get work, I have to, like, leave my husband, get rid of my kids, and be just fuckable.
01:04:23.000I'm so upset with it that I'm ready to quit Hollywood, Maureen says.
01:04:28.000It's gotten so bad I hate to come to work in the morning.
01:04:30.000I'm a helpless victim of a Hollywood whispering campaign because I don't let the producer and director kiss me every morning or tell them or let them paw me and have them spread words around town that I'm not a woman, that I'm a cold piece of marble statuary.
01:05:02.000But this is what I've always said about Hollywood, and this is one of the real problems with the people that are involved in the business, not just in terms of the way it's set up, but the problems for the person that's doing it, that's trying to be an actor or an actress.
01:13:32.000But when you're dealing with these high-level deals and you're at a certain dollar amount and you're flying high above everyone else, you genuinely might not know what's going on, but you almost have a responsibility when you are that powerful and someone tells you something about your client to, like, maybe take it seriously.
01:13:47.000If I go on a Twitter rant, my manager calls, she's like, you're acting like a maniac.
01:13:50.000Right, okay, but let's follow that up then.
01:13:54.000So if someone is a Dave Becky, and you think that this woman might be telling the truth, and I don't know what Louie said to Dave Becky, but we know that Louie told Marc Maron a lie.
01:14:05.000Because Marc Maron talked about it on his podcast.
01:14:08.000And he said that he asked him, hey man, are you jerking off for girls?
01:17:31.000His wife died in an explosion, but the way he describes it, he's like, we were shooting a show, I think it was for A&E, and the last day, they were walking through smoke, and one of the smoke canisters turned into a rocket.
01:19:38.000I grew up shooting, not all the time, but we would go.
01:19:40.000My best friend's parents would do these, um...
01:19:43.000Sort of not reenactment shootings, but they would dress up in period costumes, like late 19th century, and we would go out to the country, and they would have these little fake towns set up, and it was timed event shootings.
01:19:57.000And they all had names like Boy Named Sue, and they had their cowboy names.
01:20:00.000And you'd shoot, and you'd win an antique coin or something, but they would go, and Mr. Hewitt had all the rifles and the guns.
01:20:32.000I feel like you are so masculine that you see an elk, you're like, tie me, and you just run alongside it, tackle it by the neck, and you just punch it into submission.
01:24:34.000So, and then now there's story, what I've been reading, and I shouldn't really comment on it until I see if you can find out how much it's fallen apart.
01:24:43.000Because I was reading something about how it continues to fall apart.
01:25:49.000Since they had like an emergency beacon that if they would have activated it, it would have alerted this Coast Guard and it would have been found really fast.
01:32:05.000Like, hanging out with your own kids, it's...
01:32:08.000It's very odd, because the love that you feel for them is so intense and so weird.
01:32:14.000It's like this warm, cuddly love, but it's also like while you're doing it, you're cuddling with your kid, talking with them, and while you're talking with them, for me at least, I'm like, I can't even believe you're real.
01:32:42.000So I don't know, but I'm open to, I think a big problem in our society is that we expect women, like, you've got to have this career, have this body, have this family.
01:34:26.000Like, if Joey Diaz did something fucked up and people wanted me to comment, first of all, I would never say anything bad, no matter what Joey Diaz did.
01:35:39.000But you get these emails from, like, the New York Times or, like, hey, if you have anything you want to say or if you know any other things.
01:36:21.000Because he seems so tough and he loves saying cocksucker, but he is just so kind and he's got these eyes like a whale, like they're just ancient and big, like camel eyelashes.
01:36:32.000He's got these lovely eyes and he smiles at you like a toddler.
01:37:39.000I mean, there's going to be some weird pettiness and bullshit, and there's going to be some prejudices, and there's going to be some individuals that are not supportive.
01:37:46.000But overall, amongst the good eggs, amongst the ones that you and I associate with, we all consider each other the same thing.
01:37:56.000We understand each other's hearts and we know how hard it is and what it's like and we all know that it's us, even though the audience is our friends, it's us versus them.
01:38:04.000It's the club versus, you know, you're trying to do a job and we know exactly what this very weird job entails and we know the way the other person thinks.
01:38:12.000Like we have fucked up thoughts and it's okay to admit these thoughts to each other and it's a very special bond.
01:38:18.000And you can't just be like, I'm a comic, I get it.
01:39:13.000Like, lost in the throes of the addiction of power and sex and this chase of getting all these superstars to suck his dick, which is apparently what a lot of them did.
01:39:23.000I mean, I've talked to women that know people in the business, and it was like negotiating tactic.
01:39:29.000Like, he would give them roles if they did, and he always followed up.
01:40:48.000I just take it a little bit more seriously because I know I have to work a little bit harder.
01:40:52.000Whether being a girl helps or not, at times, it just depends on the day.
01:40:57.000I do think that there's a lack of awareness about other people, and I do think at a certain level, there is a mindset of like, because I've seen this in lower tiered comics.
01:41:23.000Other women will confide in me that men say to them, I remember starting at the store, things that were said to me by men who probably don't remember they said it.
01:41:33.000Because there's like a cavalier just, I'll just say it, fucking whatever.
01:46:04.000I always tell guys to not, well, I should never say don't fuck other comedians because like Tom Segura and Christina Pazitzky, they're great.
01:48:41.000I just kind of scrape together what you have.
01:48:43.000Even on the tour, I don't know if I was always the best one of the night, but people are still there to see you or their favorite ones.
01:48:49.000So you're just coming from this sort of scared, but also you have confidence, but also humble place of like, I hope that I can stretch this.
01:51:35.000I was talking to, like, Steve Simone about this.
01:51:37.000Like, there are people you know your whole career, but you may not start talking to them until recently, and then it's as if you were always friends.
01:54:30.000Whatever space I've carved out there, and I don't take it for granted, and I try to respect the shows and respect the audience, and, you know, I'm so proud to be a store comic.
01:54:39.000It's not the kindest of lovers all the time.
01:54:41.000It's not always the most supportive, but I'm very proud of that upbringing, because that store made me the comic that I am, that OR, you know?
01:54:50.000The main room where it's all Swedish tourists, and you're like, you guys don't want me to talk?
01:54:54.000And it just makes you—so you can go anywhere and comic shit on it, and I'm like, you just sound jealous.
01:56:51.000Where can people get your tour dates and all that jazz?
01:56:54.000I'm on tour nonstop, so go to Eliza.com, and we just announced my fourth Netflix special is going to be on the USS Hornet off the coast of San Francisco in the Bay, February 23rd.
01:57:03.000You're going to do a stand-up special on a boat?