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The Karol Markowicz Show: Abigail Shrier on Friendship, Technology, and the Loneliness of a Generation
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- [00:00]
Carol Markowitz
This is an iHeart podcast.
- [00:05]
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- [00:57]
Abigail Shrier
$45 for a three month plan equivalent to $15 per month required new customer offer for first three months only speed slow after 35 gigabytes of networks busy taxes and fees extra mobile.com Ah come on. Why is this taking so long?
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Abigail Shrier
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- [02:44]
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- [03:15]
Podcast Host Intro/Outro
Hi, welcome back to the Carol Markowitz show on iheartradio. There's an article that seems to be written every few weeks now and the latest is titled American Women Are Giving up on Marriage and was in Saturday's Wall Street Journal. I'm not criticizing the genre. I obviously talk about this topic maybe more than any other, and I appreciate that these pieces are sounding the alarm. Just kind of think they're not quite getting it right. Here's a quote from the article. I'm financially self sufficient enough to do these things by myself, said a woman they interviewed, a Boston based accountant. I'm willing to accept being single versus settling for someone who isn't the right fit. She sees her plans for an independent future as making the best of a lousy situation. I don't want to sit here and say I'm 100% happy, but I feel happier just accepting my reality. I'm mentally and emotionally A sense of Peace she's only 29. She's 29 and she's given up on finding her person. It's just depressing. But here's the thing. At 29 I was in a six year relationship with someone who I did not marry. I was certain, I mean 1000% sure that I didn't want to get married and I didn't want to have kids. I started dating my husband the following year when I was 30 and we got married the year after that. It changes so quickly. Why does a 29 year old feel so despondent about her future? The problem is the dating culture. If you talk to anyone in it, well you feel extra grateful to not be in it. But they use this language that's just become ridiculous. Like I get what a situationship is, but giving it a name as opposed to just like someone you're hooking up with makes it sound so much more important than it is. As listeners have heard me say on this show before, the problem is a decline in marriage, yes, but it's a decline in all relationships, including friendships. The top message that I get to this show is from parents writing in about helping their kid, sometimes a teen, sometimes a twenty. Something have more of a social life. Something has definitely shifted for the worse. Listen to this stat from the article. The share of women age 18 to 40 who are single, that is neither married nor cohabitating with a partner was 51.4% in 2023, according to an analysis of census data by the Aspen Economic Strategy Group. That's up from 41.8% in 2000. I mean, a 10 point jump in, you know, 20 years or so. And that part about cohabitating is important. It's not just marriage that people aren't participating in. It's not this piece of paper. It's not the institution. It's everything. It's having relationships in general. There are a lot of reasons for it. And a lot of the articles and a lot of the research focuses on the financial more than anything else. Women are succeeding at previously unheard of levels. Men aren't. Women want to marry up, etc. But is that what you're hearing from real people in your life who are trying to find someone? It's not at all what I'm hearing. I'm hearing that women can't find a man who will be faithful and men say they can't find a woman who isn't into material things. Women say men don't ask any questions about themselves on dates. So a woman will ask him about his family, about his job, about his hobbies, and he won't say a word asking her in return. He'll just answer her questions. Men say that women expect them to carry conversations and interactions. I get that those things are diametrically opposed, but I hear both of these perspectives and these are all things that I've heard multiple times. We're missing the forest for the trees. It's not that women are focused on their jobs. It's that they are focused on their jobs because they can't find a man. I'd love to hear from listeners on this. Am I right? Is the whole she's just a career woman a red herring? Let me know what you think. Thanks for listening. Coming up, my interview with Abigail Shrier.
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Abigail Shrier
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- [11:15]
Carol Markowitz
Welcome back to the Carol Markowitz show on iheartradio. My guest today is Abigail Schreier. Abigail is contributing editor at the Free Press and the author of two best selling books, Irreversible the Transgender Seducing Our Daughters and Bad why the Kids Aren't Growing Up. Abigail is also one of my all time favorite people. Hi Abigail. So nice to have you on.
- [11:38]
Abigail Shrier
Oh, it's great to be here Carol. Great to talk to you.
- [11:41]
Carol Markowitz
So I feel like my first question to you has to be why do you do it? Why do you do this? Why do you write controversial books that are going to bring you nasty hate mail when. And here's the thing, I think you are amazing, brilliant, but you're also a fantastic writer. A lot of people in our world are smart, but they don't have a beautiful writing style. You could be writing about anything, but you're choosing to go into the lion's den. Why?
- [12:12]
Abigail Shrier
Well, thank you, that's very kind of you to say. I mean, I, I write about what interests me and I, I write about things where I don't know the answer to the question and you know, starting out with, you know, irreversible damage. A reader wrote to me to tell me about this sudden spike in transgender identification among teenage girls and no one was at the time willing to write about it. And I wanted to know if she was right and so it sort of took me on an investigative journey, but it wasn't, you know, provocation wasn't the point. It was really sort of getting, getting to the answer. And I like that. I mean, I like getting to the answer. I always feel that I feel personally much safer in a world where I feel like I have full information and I know what's going on. And the truth is more than sort of public opprobrium. Things that worry me is really not knowing or being fooled. And those things actually do scare me. So, you know, you sort of have to do go with who you are in life, I think, especially in your profession. And you know, this, the job sort of suits me. It just does.
- [13:24]
Carol Markowitz
It does. But you're so not like you're very mild mannered and just a calm, rational person. I mean, your books are very calm and rational too. But I think that the hate at you is not. And I don't know, I worry about you in that way just because, like, it's not like you don't need it, but you don't need it. You don't need that kind of response. And yet you're going out there and doing it anyway. I'm very proud of you. Obviously. I think that that's, you know, the way to be. I don't know necessarily that I have that.
- [13:58]
Abigail Shrier
So people get angry with me because I'm effective. That's what makes them so angry. So I think if I were more provocative or extreme or ungrounded or unfounded in things I had to say, I would get a lot less hate and I would be more ignored. And the reason that I get attention is because I try to craft things in a way that will be effective and well grounded and therefore hard to ignore. So, you know, that that makes some activists angry who are trying to, you know, keep the, the facts from getting to light. I really think that's sort of their problem. And I, you know, I leave the rest up to the public. But, you know, I'm going to keep doing my job.
- [14:40]
Carol Markowitz
What was your path here? How did you get your start?
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Abigail Shrier
Oh, so that's a great question. So I, you know, always did journalism high school. I was a stringer for the Wall Street Washington Jewish Week. And you know, through college I was working at the Washington Monthly and I got the advice from some of my editors. You know, journalists are so often dilettantes. They don't, you know, you have to know about everything, but you never know anything deeply. You should really try to get a PhD or learn something deeply and I thought, well, I wasn't sure I wanted to do a PhD. I did some graduate work.
- [15:16]
Carol Markowitz
That seems drastic.
- [15:17]
Abigail Shrier
Yeah, it seems drastic. But one thing they said that did scare me, it wasn't anything they said, actually, it was something they did. And that was that my editor, one of my editors, she was this beautiful, young, very talented editor and I think she was about 25 at the time. And she was going out to dinner with this 65 year old man who was rich, just so he would buy her dinner because the, the editors were so poor at the Washington Monthly that they would basically do anything for a nice meal. And that scared me. That scared me more than anything she said. So after that I went to law school. I thought, this is journalism, I'll buy.
- [15:54]
Carol Markowitz
My own dinner actually.
- [15:56]
Abigail Shrier
Exactly. I thought journal could be very bleak if that's what you have to do to get a meal. So I went to law school, but I never really enjoyed the practice of law. And so when my kids were born, I started writing these novels and they weren't going anywhere. And I thought, I have to get my novels out before I go back to journalism. Because once people find out, once people see my journalism, they'll never let me publish another novel. But my novels were not successful. I never sold one. So I decided, you know what, I have so many thoughts. I'm just going to go back to journalism. And from there I just started writing for the local press and my career sort of took off.
- [16:39]
Carol Markowitz
Would law have been the plan B?
- [16:43]
Abigail Shrier
I suppose. I mean, I like writing about law even now. It's certainly an advantage in journalism to be able to write accurately about law. It's something that trips up a lot of journalists. So, you know, certainly having that in my toolkit, as it were, as something I can write about, I have found very useful. You know, I'm not, I'm not scared by a statute in the way that very reasonably some journalists would be. Well, I mean, understandably, I mean. And I also, you know, you know, because I went to Yale Law School, I have a number of professors I can call up if I'm not sure about something and get a really, really smart take. So. So, you know, I like having, you know, personally I'm gl that I went to law school, but you know, the journalism just really suits my personality best.
- [17:33]
Carol Markowitz
You live in California and I've had a lot of people on the show who have left California in the last five years. And you're staying, you're waiting it out. How is it going? How is it out there?
- [17:48]
Abigail Shrier
Well, you know, obviously California is a disaster in so many ways. That's no secret. We're horribly governed all the way down from the state level through my local here in la. I mean, the governance is a disaster. But I write about the culture and there is really no better way to look at how the culture has gone drastically off course, how it has undermined families and children than to be in a, in the state where a lot of that, those bad ideas and bad policies get started. So, you know, from that perspective, it really is a candy store for a journalist and for, from the perspective of our family, we're in a, we happen to be in a very nice community. So the, you know, the kids are in a good school we're happy with. So from that perspective, it's, it's, we're doing all right.
- [18:40]
Carol Markowitz
So California gets to keep you for now.
- [18:44]
Abigail Shrier
Yes, absolutely.
- [18:45]
Carol Markowitz
We'll revisit.
- [18:46]
Abigail Shrier
Right, okay, sounds good.
- [18:49]
Carol Markowitz
What do you worry about?
- [18:50]
Abigail Shrier
Oh, so there's, there's so much to worry about. But I think the thing I worry about the most right now is why young people are not forming relationships, healthy relationships, sort of the retreat from the in person world and also the lack of meaningful romantic relationships that we're seeing young people less interested in having them. They, they, they're too young to know that they're giving up on the best things in life. And, and also they've been lied to. A lot of them believe that. No, I need to get my profession started first. I can't possibly date someone until I've pursued my career as a paralegal.
- [19:31]
Carol Markowitz
And it's paralegal. Don't go pursuing that career. Go ahead and find your spouse now.
- [19:38]
Abigail Shrier
Right? I mean, you know, for any job they will put off finding a spouse and it really should be the reverse. You know, I'm not saying, you know, don't take your career seriously, but God willing, we have many decades, productive decades ahead. But you know, the way we're designed, we have a short time with biology and in which to have children and to marry. And that's the thing that we actually should be putting at least this much energy into, if not more. And unfortunately it's really reversed. Young people are putting all their energy into their careers and none into finding a spouse. And I do think that's a real problem.
- [20:17]
Carol Markowitz
Do you think phones are related to it? That they're not living real lives or they're just on the Internet?
- [20:24]
Abigail Shrier
Absolutely, undeniably. But I also think that the fearfulness of the generation, they're so full of worry and look, interpersonal relationships are the scariest and most risky things you'll ever get involved in, and they're also the most rewarding. But not knowing if someone's going to like you back, much less love you back, not knowing if you're going to get your heart broken. These are really scary things and we've raised this generation to be the most fearful and so unfortunately, they're staying away from the ultimate rewards of a loving relationship.
- [21:01]
Carol Markowitz
We're going to take a quick break and be right back on the Carol Markowitz show.
- [21:06]
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- [22:37]
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- [23:07]
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- [23:39]
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- [24:42]
Carol Markowitz
I talk about this a lot on the show, about relationships and about all kinds of connections between people, family, friendships. Friendships are way down. It's not just they're not just not making romantic connections. They're not even making friends anymore. And I get emails all the time from people saying like how can I help my teenager? Or how could I help my 20 something make friends? It's become so like people see it as out of reach to connect with other people and it's. It's scary.
- [25:12]
Abigail Shrier
Yeah, you had a great column on that. I should have mentioned that. It was a terrific column. Everyone should go back and read it if they missed it. On the decline of friendship. It was something that I wasn't aware of Until I saw your column. And it's, it's exactly. What you just said is exactly right. I mean, we look back on our lives, friendships and romantic relationships. These are, you know, in your spouse and then your, these are at the top of what gives you meaning and satisfaction in life. And friendships are amazing things because you start out, you have these conflicts, right? You know, you get very close to someone, you then, then you fall out of touch or maybe you get angry with them or whatever happens. But this is the amazing thing. Years go by and for whatever reason, it has this amazing cementing effect of making your friendship so meaningful and so strong. And it doesn't even matter how mad you got at her over this or that in the sixth gr. You look back and all of a sudden you've known her for 30 years. And, and I do very much worry that kids are missing out on those close friendships.
- [26:23]
Carol Markowitz
Yeah, I definitely, like, it's something that I, I think about a lot that, you know, I'm on my phone a lot. I can't, I can't say that I, I'm not guilty of the same thing. Every, every moment of awkwardness, I immediately reach for my phone just like, whoa, this feels much more comfortable. I could just scroll and not focus on whatever is happening here. How do you kind of direct your kids toward those connections?
- [26:47]
Podcast Host Intro/Outro
Right.
- [26:48]
Abigail Shrier
So first of all, let me just acknowledge that it's near impossible to manage the phones and the computers. It's so hard. And the schools have made it harder than any, I think any institution. You try to keep these things away from your kids. And then every teacher assigns homework through some computer programs. So let me just start by saying I am not perfect by any means. How do I direct my kids to in person relationships? I do send them to a school with a no phone policy, which has been really wonderful. And my sons who are in high school, they have what's known as kosher phones. You can actually buy these things and they are Internet blocked.
- [27:29]
Carol Markowitz
That's great.
- [27:30]
Abigail Shrier
That doesn't. It's been wonderful for us. They have various apps like WhatsApp for communicating with teams, or chatting apps, but like Gmail, so they can see their schedules and whatnot, but it's not the open Internet. Okay, so that's somewhat better. But, but truthfully, and this goes to another question that I think is, is you let me know is on your mind is sort of what advice would I give? And that is that.
- [28:01]
Carol Markowitz
Let's just go right to it. What advice would you give your 16 year old self?
- [28:05]
Abigail Shrier
Well, you Know, what advice would I give my 16 year old self would be a little different. But I'll tell you what advice I would give in general on this issue of improving life, improving your life. Honestly, and I hate to say it, and people are going to get really upset that I said this or maybe tune out, but honestly, the easiest, quickest, most assured way to do this is to join a religious community, join a church, join a synagogue. There is no quicker way to get actual real community that is in person, that is meaningful, that is full of connections. And yes, it comes with plenty of annoyance too, of course, but, but I actually think that that is the most direct way to sort of immediately improve your life.
- [28:47]
Carol Markowitz
I love it. That's usually the last question. But that's okay, that's okay. We can.
- [28:51]
Abigail Shrier
Sorry. What advice would I give to my 16 year old self? You know, I spent a lot of years, I think this, this may resonate with, with a lot of women. So I spent a lot of years thinking my personality was just wrong. So by which I mean you, you hear from a lot of other girls. You can't say that. My God, you know, you, that, that seems to be a theme with girl groups of girls and you spend a lot of time sort of, especially if you're like me or, you know, you, I would imagine you sort of, if you're a straightforward person who just sort of calls things like you see them. You spend a lot of time with other girls being told that you're mean, you're saying all the wrong things and you don't even know what you said. And if I could go back, what I would, would, would do is sort of tell myself, you know, there's going to be a place for someone with your personality. It's not all bad. It may be hard to maintain large groups of friends, of girlfriends because they want you to flatter them. And the, the ticket for large groups of girlfriends tends to be small lies and flattery, neither of which I'm terribly good at. But it turns out there's, you know, there's really a place for you no matter your personality. And I'm not talking about sociopathy or anything like that.
- [30:11]
Carol Markowitz
Right.
- [30:12]
Abigail Shrier
But personality and in journalism, you know, I'm not running against, you know, I'm going with the current when it comes to my personality when I tell the truth because that's something that's always been very easy for me. It's covering up the truth or, or taking care of everyone's feelings. That's always been harder. So I sort of If I could go back, I wish I would have known that actually what was so difficult in some situations that required niceties and flattery and white lies would actually be to my advantage. In a career in journalism, did you.
- [30:52]
Carol Markowitz
Always have primarily male friends or.
- [30:54]
Abigail Shrier
Yes.
- [30:55]
Carol Markowitz
Yeah, same, same. Yeah. Do you know how that is? So not popular now like that. When I say that to my 15 year old daughter, she's like, that's, you know, people, they call girls like that like the pick me girl who like tries to cater to boys and like no, boys were just, they were funny and trying to be funny all the time. And that's what I was looking for in a friend.
- [31:15]
Abigail Shrier
Totally. And I was also, I was always close to my father and maybe that's my brother.
- [31:20]
Carol Markowitz
Yeah, yeah.
- [31:21]
Abigail Shrier
And I don't know if it's because I was close to him or we were close because we had such similar personalities but, but I always got along with men and boys much better. And you know, my husband says, he always jokes that I'm the only woman who wants to be told when she looks fat. Because I'll say to him, do I look fat in this? And I want to know before I leave the house. I don't want to be lied to.
- [31:42]
Carol Markowitz
Right, you definitely don't want to be lied to.
- [31:44]
Abigail Shrier
Apparently that's a big no. No with most women they want to be lied to.
- [31:48]
Carol Markowitz
And why would you ask unless you wanted to know the honest opinion? What am I doing here exactly?
- [31:53]
Abigail Shrier
If I don't look good, I want to change immediately before I leave office, house. So you know, that was always very hard with me with groups of girlfriends. I always had a female best friend, but the rest, I just couldn't maintain the group. I just could never, you know, keep the whole group happy. And I didn't know that those same sort of personality quirks would make some areas of my life much, much easier.
- [32:17]
Carol Markowitz
Do you feel like your books change the conversation enough to make those issues that you've written about better? Like I think that you writing about the trans contagion blew it all up to such an extent that I think that, I mean, maybe I just live in Florida now, but I'm seeing a change, a shift in the way that this is all going down. I don't see as many. And again, this might just be a New York to Florida move. Maybe they're still all transiting in New York, but it seems like fewer girls are going down that path. And similarly, if you're both book about, you know, over therapy for kids, I feel like the conversation around that has changed and that there's an improvement. Do you feel any of that?
- [33:02]
Abigail Shrier
I do think so, and I'm, I'm very happy about that. I mean, the advantage of writing a book is here's what I try to do. I, I, I don't write a book that's just my opinions or my take. There's nothing wrong with that, but that's, that's not what I do. I try to create a document that people can take, that's full of information and that can really add to the discourse. So in Bad Therapy, there were legislators who bought the book, who went, argued in court against, you know, people would argue in court against or in favor of puberty blocker bans or whatnot. And they would have all the evidence in my book. They would say, they would cite it in their briefs. And I tried to do the same for Bad Therapy, I wanted parents who went into school boards and were trying, who sensed in their guts there was something wrong with social, emotional learning to be able to say here, chapter, whatever chapter it was, I think it was chapter nine, but, or chapter six. And they would say here, it's all in this book. And, and that's what I try to do. I try to be a resource in that way. The nice thing about a book is that, you know, it's always there. So, you know, it's, you know, an episode will get more views, but then people rarely go back and listen to or re watch old episodes. The advantage, of course, of the episodes is, you know, unfortunately, reading is really declining. So I think sort of the podcast world and the book world work really well together because you sort of need both to reach people.
- [34:33]
Carol Markowitz
Absolutely. So do you, when you, when people do cite your work, do they, I mean, do you feel like you've gotten the credit that you deserve for this? I feel like maybe not enough.
- [34:44]
Abigail Shrier
That's very right.
- [34:45]
Carol Markowitz
I think Abigail Schreier deserves more.
- [34:47]
Abigail Shrier
Guys, thank you. You know, I'm happy, I think that, you know, I'm not, I think if I were more strategic about my career in certain ways, I would have stayed on each topic longer and kept promoting it and promoting it and promoting it. So within a year after irreversible damage was out, I was really onto new topics and new investigations because just, I'm just interested in what the next thing is. And I'm not, I'm not someone who has, I'm not an activist. I don't have a burning passion about one issue. And so, you know, as a journalist, I'm always looking at sort of what's ahead and what the next issue is. I don't know if that's the best, always the best move for my career. It might be to make sure that I'm the one person everyone constantly goes to for this one issue. But for me, I like being able to move on to the next topic and reveal something else if I can.
- [35:48]
Carol Markowitz
I love it. She is Abigail Shrier. Get her books, read her anywhere you can. You're so fantastic. Thank you so much for coming on. I've loved this conversation.
- [35:56]
Abigail Shrier
Thank you, Carol. You're the best.
- [35:58]
Podcast Host Intro/Outro
Thanks so much for joining us on the Carol Markowitz Show. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
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- [39:08]
Abigail Shrier
This is an iheart podcast.