The Money with Katie Show

Episode: The Leisure Gap, Princess Treatment, and Other Hard Truths About "Soft Life"
Date: November 5, 2025
Host: Katie Gatti Tassin
Guest: Stephanie O’Connell Rodriguez, journalist and author of The Ambition Penalty

Episode Overview

This episode dives deep into the intersections of personal finance, gender, burnout, and why the cultural embrace of “soft life,” “princess treatment,” and similar trends may be symptomatic of stubborn, systemic inequalities rather than markers of progress. Host Katie invites writer and researcher Stephanie O’Connell Rodriguez to unpack decades of data on women’s “empowerment,” the resilience mythology, and why individual self-optimization has failed to yield lasting gender equity. Their candid conversation links economic policy, workplace structures, household labor, and pop cultural narratives, connecting the dots between data-driven research and everyday experience.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Limits of Neoliberal Feminism and Empowerment Messaging

[03:07-10:21]

• Katie and Stephanie discuss research on “neoliberal feminism,” focusing on how promoting individual resilience and empowerment can distract from needed collective action.
• Stephanie references the gender pay gap’s stagnancy—despite 20 years of girl power rhetoric and more educated, ambitious women, we’ve plateaued or even regressed:

  “We're kind of no better off than where we started our careers 20 years ago, even as women are now more educated and more ambitious than ever. In fact, we're backsliding.” (Stephanie, 04:32)

• Individual self-optimization (“just be confident, ask for more”) is shown to rationalize systemic inequality. It makes women more likely to blame themselves and less likely to seek collective or policy solutions.

Notable Quote

“These papers show us how this belief that women can individually self-help or self-improve or self-optimize their way into getting more… can actually make this inequality even worse. First off, because the more committed we are to denying the ongoing pervasiveness of these gender biases, the easier it is to get women to blame themselves…” (Stephanie, 07:40)

Policy Solutions vs. “Hacks”

[10:21-12:26]

• Individual quick-fixes are inadequate; structural interventions are needed, such as:
  • Pay transparency
  • Unionization
  • Universal basic services (care infrastructure, healthcare, paid leave)
• Collective problems, Stephanie insists, require collective solutions.

Benevolent Sexism and the “Princess Treatment”

[12:26-24:09]

• Discussion of benevolent sexism—less overt but equally damaging forms of discrimination that “reward” women for fitting traditional, caretaking roles.
• Examples: Assuming women aren’t given challenging assignments to “protect” them; lauding women as “naturally” better at caregiving.
• Stephanie explains the “protection racket,” citing research that in societies high in hostile sexism, women are more likely to embrace benevolent sexism for promised protection.

  “It’s this combination of hostile and benevolent sexism that the researchers call the ‘protection racket.’ …Essentially, it’s this promise that, if you just do what men want, they won’t hurt you.” (Stephanie, 18:43)

• The rise of “princess treatment,” “trad wife,” “soft life,” and “feminine energy” trends is explored as iterations of the same old individualist, gendered expectations—just repackaged and glamorized.

Notable Quote

“At the end of the day, what both of these belief systems condition us into believing is that women can just self-help their way into getting more of what they want. And in the process, both of them ultimately distract us from and even enable those systems that are holding us back.” (Stephanie, 21:41)

Leisure Gap & Household Labor Inequality

[29:22-32:47]

• Despite increased paid labor participation, women carry a disproportionate load of unpaid labor at home.
• According to US time use data, women have on average 13% less leisure time than men; in ages 35-44, the gap rises to 23%.

• “For full time workers, it’s as if men get a month more a year of vacation compared to their women peers.” (Stephanie, 31:50)

Meritocracy, “Goalpost Moving,” and Persistent Workplace Bias

[32:47-37:12]

• Katie and Stephanie discuss studies revealing how “merit” is a flexible concept and is often manipulated to favor men in hiring/promotions.
• Even when candidates are equally qualified, evaluators exhibit significant bias against women, shifting standards to justify preferred (male) candidates:

  “Participants who exhibited the most pro male bias in their hiring criteria also proved the most confident in the objectivity of their decision. They perhaps felt they had chosen the right man for the job, when in fact they had chosen the right job criteria for the man.” (Stephanie, quoting study, 35:35)

Pushback and Myth of Progress

[40:54-43:03]

• Addressing common arguments: “Men’s participation in housework has never been higher.”
  • This rhetoric reframes improvement against the past, not present standards, and distracts from persistent inequalities.
• Statistically, only around 10% of US heterosexual couples have men doing even half of the household labor, despite widespread beliefs in partnership equity.

The Rationalizations: Myth of Mutuality & Shifting Excuses

[47:28-55:29]

• Women and couples invent “gender-neutral” explanations for inequality (“he works longer hours,” “I’m just better at housework”).
• Stephanie introduces the “myth of mutuality”—the stories people tell themselves to reconcile the cognitive dissonance of inequitable arrangements.
• Data undermines claims of “natural” gender preferences.

  “We do not value women’s labor, we do not value their time, and we are willing to exhaust them to support the power and privileges and leisure of men. I think that’s unacceptable.” (Stephanie, 52:25)

Patriarchy, Power, and Why the System Persists

[61:26-66:08]

• Katie defines patriarchy precisely: social organization privileging men’s identity/power and excluding women.
• Stephanie points out that women’s unpaid labor subsidizes men’s careers, leisure, and economic advancement.
• Both point to the American example as a particularly entrenched case, with institutional (last name conventions, custody, presidency, etc.) and interpersonal (household labor, career prioritization) dimensions mutually reinforcing each other.

Notable Quote

“Women’s time, their labor, their energy, is really just perceived as a resource for upholding men’s access to that power and access to that leisure and protecting their opportunity.” (Stephanie, 63:13)

The “Marriage Wage Premium” and Societal Stakes

[67:17-72:21]

• The “motherhood penalty” and “fatherhood bonus” are real: Women’s earnings decrease after children; men’s increase.
• A Dallas Fed paper found that, controlling for other factors, men’s work hours decline significantly if unmarried.

  “…If men cannot sustain their earnings advantages without marriage, I think it shows us how much access to women’s unpaid labor subsidizes men’s careers, incomes and opportunities.” (Stephanie, 69:24)

• Societal anxieties about birth rates and marriage serve to reinforce these structures because the economic model depends on this unpaid labor.

Why the System Shifts but Endures

[72:21-74:38]

• Systems are systemic, says Stephanie, not because they are static but because they are always shifting criteria to preserve privilege.
• Only the privileged benefit in absolute terms—most men just keep a relative advantage at their own expense, too.

Notable Quote

“The only way you can reproduce the system is to constantly change things and to shift things.” (Stephanie, 73:27)

Memorable Quotes

• “You don’t want a provider, you want a union.” (Katie, 26:30)
• “For full time workers, it’s as if men get a month more a year of vacation compared to their women peers.” (Stephanie, 32:01)
• “The more we talk about the fact that this is reality, it almost becomes kind of tiresome… Well, how many more studies do we need to tell us that this is happening before we actually do something about it?” (Katie, 40:10)
• “It’s not about data. It’s ultimately just about bias. It is about… a belief in that biological determinism of the argument of the role of women in the home.” (Katie, 51:57)
• “We do not value women’s labor, we do not value their time, and we are willing to exhaust them to support the power and privileges and leisure of men. I think that’s unacceptable.” (Stephanie, 52:25)

Final Highlights & Takeaways

• The idea that women can overcome systemic barriers solely through individual action is a myth that serves the status quo.
• Both hostile and benevolent sexism reinforce the same patriarchal outcomes; one with penalties (the stick), the other with false rewards (the carrot).
• The “leisure gap” and unpaid labor persist even as women earn more, get more education, and jump through every “empowerment” hoop.
• Social, political, and economic structures reinforce each other; incremental individual improvements cannot offset systemic disadvantages.
• Challenging these problems requires shifting our thinking toward collective action and demanding institutional change—not just “life hacks.”

For Further Exploration

• All research papers and studies referenced in this episode will be linked in the show notes.
• Stephanie O’Connell Rodriguez’s forthcoming book: The Ambition Penalty
• Dr. Corrine Lowe’s book: Having It All
• Recommended readings: Laura Cray et al., “Now Women Do Ask…,” NBER’s “Winning the Bread and Baking It Too,” Arlie Hochschild’s The Second Shift, Allison Daminger's research on household labor.

This summary encapsulates the key conversations, turning points, and referenced studies—delivering the main takeaways and evidence for listeners who want to understand why “soft life” and princess rhetoric may be more about managing symptoms than changing the rules.