Transcript | Ep. 79: How to Crash a Quinceanera

[Stinger]

Zoey Luna: I love what people are doing with quinceañeras now and I love that, you know, we're starting to really separate from that whole child bride era and start to just be like, this is my birthday party and this is basically something better than a sweet 16 because it's your whole show, it's whatever you want. You get to dance. You get to be Beyoncé. It's amazing. And everyone acts like you're Beyoncé that day.

[Theme music]

Cristen: Hey y’all, and welcome to Unladylike, where we find out what happens when women break the rules … and get to be Beyoncé for a day. I’m Cristen.

Caroline: And I’m Caroline.

Cristen: Now, white-lady confession, y’all. Neither myself nor Caroline has ever been invited to a quinceañera.

Caroline: It’s true!

Cristen: I’m a little embarrassed to go ahead and just admit that, Caroline.

Caroline: We have not. But even if you’re like us and have never been to one, you’ve probably seen the giant prom-like dresses the girls wear and know that they’re a big deal in Latinx communities.

Cristen: Yeah, when a girl turns 15, her quinceañera officially marks her coming of age from a niña to a señorita. The event typically consists of a Catholic mass followed by a huge party -- and we’re talking anywhere from a backyard bash on a budget to lavish spectacles

Zoey: I would say that a quinceañera is basically just a family honoring a girl getting older. It's kind of like a child wedding. But for her own birthday.

Caroline: Zoey Luna is 18. She’s a trans, self-described girly girl and actress currently living in LA. In a lot of ways, Zoey had a quintessential quinceañera … a religious ceremony, a huge party, an almost-as-huge gown …

Cristen: But she also represents how this super ladylike tradition is being reinvented in super unladylike ways …

Caroline: That reinvention is what caught our attention … Like how some girls are celebrating their Afro-Latinx identities with “quincenegras” and others who have tailored it for their Muslim faith

Cristen: We’ve also seen girls break out their poofy quince gowns to protest anti-immigrant laws in Texas and how some quinceañeras are now doubling as voter-registration drives

Caroline: In today’s political climate, celebrating Latinx identity feels especially important, and we wanted to better understand why such a gender-traditional party continues to resonate and how it’s evolving with new generations …

Cristen: So this episode, we’re heading to the two quinceañera capitals of the US. First up, it’s off to California for Zoey’s 15th birthday. Then, we’re heading to Texas for a different take on who gets to throw down for this rite of passage.

Caroline: All to find out: How are today's quinceañeras coming of age?

[Stinger]

Zoey: Quinceañeras are a huge deal to our culture and you know, to just young girls. Like for me I would always grow up seeing my friends have their quinceañeras and I would be like damn like I want to wear a dress like that. I want to have like 600 people that I don't know but say they know me, come to my party, like this seems like legit.

Cristen: Zoey is first-generation Mexican-American and grew up with her mom in Southern California. And a few years ago, she was featured in an HBO documentary series called 15: A Quinceañera Story.

Zoey: Having a quinceañera is like the best representation of entering adulthood and being like, OK, this is your show from here on out, girl, start creating it. This is your chance.

Cristen: Why do you think that it's better than the Sweet 16?

Zoey: Because we have the flavor, we have the tacos. We have, you know, everything that they might get from like another culture, but we already have it, you know, like it's our blood. And I just feel like anything Latino or Latina is better. I'm sorry.

Cristen: No, don't apologize.

Zoey: But yeah, I just feel like it's a completely different scheme, you know, because like a sweet 16 is a birthday party. But like, when you're in our culture, you know, we're so passionate and dramatic. You know, it's not just about the party like, oh, she's 15. You know, let's get her a fuckin Maserati or something, you know. It's more like let's celebrate this woman stepping into her womanhood in like, you know, it's just it's so much more dramatic and has so much more flavor. So that's why I felt like, you know, a quinceañera if you are born Latina, is a better party to have than a sweet 16.

Cristen: Quinceañeras’ precise origins are unclear, but what we do know is that they began as a way to showcase class, rather than culture. We learned this in a book by Julia Alvarez called Once Upon a Quinceañera: Coming of Age in the USA. She traces modern quinces to 19th-century colonialism. In the 1860s, Austrian royal couple Maximillian and Carlotta were appointed the new Emperor and Empress of Mexico, and Carlotta brought courtly coming out customs for young ladies with her

Caroline: In more recent years, as American quince tradition has become more focused on celebrating Latinx identity, quinceañera history has been revised to link them more closely to Aztec and Mayan coming-of-age ceremonies instead. But a lot of quinces’ debutante-like formalities are actually artifacts of imperialism.

Cristen: By-the-book quinces start at the Catholic church, where birthday girls are usually given a commemorative Bible, get blessed by the priest and promise to stay virgin marys til they get married. Then it’s on to the party that comes with its own set of relics and rituals

Caroline: Yeah, quince rituals reeeeally stick to the whole official-transition-to-womanhood theme. There’s the gifting of an ultima muñeca, or final doll, symbolizing the end of childhood. Girls also ceremonially change from flats into what are supposed to be their first pair of high heels. Then it’s time for a father-daughter waltz.

Cristen: This might be a dumb question, but I was curious whether there are - I mean, obviously, like boys are very much involved in the quince tradition. But is there any quinceañera equivalent for boys at all or are they just like their - they just get birthday parties?

Zoey: I mean, OK, let me tell you, though, the first boy of every, like, family, like, will be sensationalized for the rest of their parent’s life. Like, I don't know what it is about first-born males in Mexican traditions, but they are just so glorified. Every day is their birthday.

Cristen: That said, quinceañeras are prett-ay glorified, too ... There’s hair, the makeup, the ballgown. … Like, this isn't some all-you-need-is-a-bouncey-house-and-pizza-rolls kind of party, y’all.

Caroline: Not that there’s anything wrong with that …

Cristen: No, no

Caroline: But either way, getting dolled up is a serious part of the deal. Back in the day, quinceañeras announced your entrance into the marriage market. Just like debutante balls, they were basically PSAs that you were officially wife material.

Zoey: In the like Mexican tradition there's very masculine and feminine roles. And I feel like a part of the whole culture is that, you know, you are supposed to get married at a certain age and like you are supposed to instill these traditions in young women. And so this is like their first marriage in a sense. And I feel like it's good and bad because it's like we can do more as women. We are not all going to get married to some cute Latino boy, you know, like we're going to - we're gonna get jobs, we're gonna do whatever.

Caroline: So tell us a little bit about what role family and community play in the quinceañera.

Zoey: All right. Well, the community usually like extended family, friends. They play a role in the money. The family also plays a role in the money part, but I feel like the family kind of gets to add in their own opinions of what should go into the process. But also, the family plays a very supportive role in you know embracing this young woman, becoming into her own. So the family plays a very personal, subjective role. And then the community usually just shows up, gets drunk and pays a little for something.

Cristen: Just like a wedding, there are lots of roles to play in the whole quince production. Besides the birthday girl, you’ve got the padrinos and madrinas, or godfathers and godmothers. They usually help pay for the event planning...

Caroline: You might need to hire cake bakers, caterers, hair stylists, makeup artists, D.J.s, a choreographer??!

[CLIP from HBO Doc]

Choreographer: Zoey, are you ready? You guys ready?

Zoey: Yeah, we’re ready

Choreographer: Okay. Here we go. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and then sit...

Cristen: That’s Zoey learning the moves for a quince group number called the “surprise dance.” And to pull that off, the birthday girl needs her “court of honor.”

Caroline: The court is sorta like bridesmaids and groomsmen, except they’re called damas and chambelanes. They basically serve as an entourage and the backup dancers for the surprise dance.

Cristen: If you wanna go old school, your court has seven girls and seven boys, including one main chambelan who escorts the birthday girl. That way, you plus your entourage adds up to 15, which is really cute. But really, there’s no set number for the court of honor

Caroline: But it was important to Zoey’s mom that the quince not skimp on any of the fanfare … And this was actually a common theme in research on American quinceaneras — that part of why all the glitz feels so meaningful for parents today is because it’s something their own families might not have had the money or opportunity to celebrate.

Zoey: She wanted the whole shebang. She wanted it to be very traditional because, you know, she comes from Mexico herself. So she wanted - and she never got to have a quinceañera. And actually, her mom kind of was very not accepting of her femininity while she was growing up. So I guess she just wanted it to be like, you know, trans girls can do the full shebang, have boys involved. It's not that weird

Cristen: But Zoey knew that getting boys involved as her chambelanes would be easier said than done.

Zoey: It was really difficult finding boys, because a lot of the boys in school, you know, were just embarrassed of, you know, having any type of association with me because I am trans, and that could lead them to possibly being questioned about being gay.

Caroline: By then, Zoey was well aware of how that combination of trans- and homophobia made a lot of cis boys her age uncomfortable. Understandably, Zoey even considered ditching the chambelanes and having a girls-only court of honor.

Cristen: But eventually, between her friends IRL and on Instagram, Zoey wrangled a group of chambelanes who were down to escort the trans queen that she is to her quince.

Zoey: And I'm glad I did have boys involved, because if any boys watched the documentary and saw other boys being, you know, around and able to be around a trans girl, maybe that loosens up some toxic masculinity, and maybe it makes them feel more comfortable.

Cristen: But there was one guy involved Zoey’s quinceañera who was enthusiastic from day one. Her padrino — remember, that's the ceremonial godfather — was her friend and ACLU lawyer, James Gilliam. Watching his relationship with Zoey honestly made me cry, Caroline!

Caroline: Yeah, Zoey and James have such a poignant backstory.... When Zoey came out as trans when she was around 10, her school threatened to expel her. Even though she was getting relentlessly bullied, the school claimed that her talking about transitioning to her classmates was a form of sexual harassment.

Cristen: The ACLU got involved, which is how Zoey got connected with James, and James got the school to back off. They have remained close ever since, so when she needed a quinceañera padrino, she knew exactly who to ask.

Zoey: He played a very emotional role because, you know, my dad is dead, and I didn't really get to see him as me. So he was a very emotional role and he was honestly the heart of the whole process. He would always remind everyone, you know, to chill, take things slowly. And he was always there for my mom when she needed someone to like vent to. He was kind of the mediator, I would say. And he was also just the heart and soul of the experience. And he was just so lovely to hang out with while we were going through all these stressful events and stuff. And yeah, he was just - he was the dad.

Cristen: And I want to, if I'm remembering correctly, like one of his like, duties in the quinceañera was to present you with your first pair of high heels. Is that the tradition?

Zoey: Yeah. I have extremely large feet, so it was kind of funny to record that on camera, but it was honestly so cute, and I knew exactly what type of shoes I wanted. Because in the original Wizard of Oz, Dorothy had silver shoes. So I needed silver shoes. And he was like, all right, we're getting silver shoes.

Cristen: Did you feel like Dorothy in Wizard of Oz?

Zoey: Oh, hell, yeah. Oh, yeah. I danced in those things. I was like, I am a woman. I am Dorothy. I'm not in Kansas anymore. It's over for you hoes.

Cristen: We’re gonna take a quick dance break. When we come back, we’ll meet the group of Good Witches Glenda who made our Dorothy’s quince truly magical —

Caroline: — including her gloriously poofy gown ... named Tiffany.

[Midroll ad 1]

Zoey: It meant so much because basically now people, like parents, would be able to see this and be like, you know, I can throw my transgender daughter a quinceañera and it's nothing taboo. It's a part of our tradition. If she is a woman. She is a woman. So she should have a quinceañera.

Caroline: We’re back, reminiscing with Zoey Luna about her monumental quinceañera.

Cristen: And it wasn’t just monumental for her. It also felt like a huge step to Zoey's madrinas, or quinceañera godmothers, who are all transgender too.

Zoey: And I think it just meant so much because they also didn't get to have that when they were younger. And so seeing my mom being able to, you know, stand up and be like, this is my daughter, I'm going to present her as such. Here's her quinceañera, it meant the world to them, and it meant the world to me because I was able to share that moment with them. And it was almost like it wasn't just my quinceañera. It was everyone who couldn't have one, got to have one that night.

Caroline: Zoey met three of her four madrinas — Bonnie, Stacie and Rikki — at a Transgender Day of Rememberance event when she was around 11.

Zoey: They were always just very like, you know, we're here to help. We're here to do anything. You need something. We'll do this. They were all just so dramatically fantastic people. And they were very eager to help.

Cristen: Then, there's Maria, the fourth and final madrina. Zoey is especially close with Maria, whom she first met at a transgender beauty pageant.

Zoey: I remember seeing her on the red carpet of the pageant. And I just was like, oh, my God. She was wearing like this beautiful long red dress with this gorgeous, flowing blond hair. And I was like, oh, my God, I need to know her. So I did. And I was like 11 years old at that point. And, yeah, she was just super nice, super welcoming. And she was so grateful that my mom let me transition at the age I did. And that's how we bonded. Maria and me, we always understood each other. Maria always wanted to have the life I had. And I, when I was younger, wanted to grow up and be like her because she's basically a tall Latina Barbie doll. So we really understood each other on when I came to like emotional stuff and on, you know, fashion stuff. And so that's why I went dress shopping with her. And she's always been like such a mom to me and always has been like, you know, you need someone to do your hair. I'll do your hair. You need someone to do this. I've got this. So, yeah, she's just amazing.

Cristen: Well, and I think it was Maria who says at one point in the HBO documentary, like, not everything has to be that you're trans ...

[HBO documentary clip]

Maria: You know what I’m saying? That’s a heavy load for anyone to carry. That everything that they do is trans, trans. She’s a little girl, and I want her to feel beautiful just like any other 14-year-old girl would feel. For me it adds a cherry on top that she’s trans, you know? Yeah.

Zoey: Yeah, she really made me feel like that. She totally understood me on that aspect too, because you know, I am a trans actor, I'm a trans activist. But at the end of the day, you know, trans is just another way to separate me from the world. And trans is just another way to, you know, kind of label me as something that is more than just a human. I'm a human at the end of the day. So I should be able to have a quinceañera and it be a fucking quinceañera, without calling it a transgender quinceañera, you know what I mean?

Caroline: When Maria took Zoey dress shopping, they visited designer Gloria Sanchez, also a trans woman, who designs pageant dresses.

Zoey: I found this beautiful like lilac lavender moment. She was so gorgeous. Her name's Tiffany. That's the dress. I gave her a name. I still have her in my closet. Tiffany was just so beautiful to me as, she stood out. And she was just like this glorious loofah that I had when I was younger. And I was like, I have to get it. So, yeah, I just fell in love. It was love at first sight.

Cristen: Now imagine Zoey glammed up, her brunette hair cascading down to her waist, and wearing this “glorious loofah” of lilac layers ... she and Tiffany were finally ready to make their grand quinceañera entrance

Zoey: I felt so much power and just so much like energy flowing through me because I was like, this is my moment. I have Lana Del Rey playing. I have all my friends and family waiting to see me and my big-ass dress. It's gonna be epic and it was awesome. It felt like Rupaul's Drag Race. I can't even lie like it felt like a drag show. It was just a lot of tall women and beautiful dresses and beautiful makeup. A lot of quirky little gay boys. A lot of older little gay boys. You know, it was just the whole LGBTQ experience in that - in that party, it really was, there was everyone you could possibly imagine there. There was all my friends. And it was just very like Zoey. So I kind of, you know, hid in the back and made out with some boy.

Caroline: She didn’t hide the entire time. Remember that surprise dance she and her court of honor had to learn? Zoey performed it to “You’re the One That I Want” from the musical Grease.

Cristen: And Caroline, when we asked Zoey why she wanted to dance to that song in particular, I wasn’t expecting how deeply she was thinking about Grease …

Zoey: So in Grease, like, you know, when Danny and Sandy meet in the beginning, they're just ultimately themselves there, you know who they are, soft little individual souls. So when you're growing up and you're going to high school, you're learning how to be a stereotypical man. You're learning how to be a stereotypical woman. So, you know, there's the pink ladies, there's the greasers. And the greasers are all very macho men. And they're like, oh, whatever, women are just, you know, things to get laid with. But basically they're performing gender through their clothes and through their traditions as, you know, boy and girl and what they do in high school. So for me, that kind of made sense because I'm performing my gender by being a woman who is a Latina and has, you know, such a party at 15 for being a woman.

Cristen: So. Do you feel like you became a woman that night at your quince?

Zoey: Hell. Yes. I became a woman that night for sure. I - oh my God, the things I did the - it was just incredible. And I felt like I wasn't just alone in this, you know? And I think that that's something that women should grow up knowing. And I think that in society, you know, you see all these movies and TV shows where it's women at each other's throats and women competing to get the better boyfriend or to steal their man. But that night, it wasn't about any of that. People put aside their own biases and just help me out or celebrate me. And I think that it was a very important first step for a lot of people. I think that's what I love about my life, is that, you know, I'm constantly opening doors for new people and new opportunities to take place. And I think that's also a part of, you know, when I really stepped into a woman that night, it's because I knew that this wasn't just for me. It was for so many more people out there who are like me that can, you know, come through and do this life that they want to do. And yeah, it was such a powerful event and I couldn’t be more grateful for it.

Cristen: Why do you think that Quinceañeras remain so popular and really meaningful, even though, like, they are so old school and a lot of ways?

Zoey: I would say Quinceñearas are still so poppin’ and still so alive and well, because it's our tradition, you know? Like white people have Thanksgiving and they make it seem like it's something great when really it was just, you know, taking over someone's land and taking their food. And, you know, there's so few traditions that we can have on this planet that aren't completely horrible. And Quinceañeras aren't completely horrible. I mean, they had a good, you know, start off meaning and we're taking it and still keeping it alive because we get to keep those traditions as Latinos and make it our own. And I don't think anyone should ever stop having them. And I don't think anyone should ever take them away from us, because that is our culture. That is what we made for our women. And it's something more than just a child bride. And like today we've seen it. It is more than that.

Caroline: But you don't have to be 15 to make the quinceañera your own. In fact, some women are holding off on their quinces until they feel like they’ve really come of age….

Cristen: Get ready to doble the pleasure, doble the fun! When we come back.

[Midroll ad 2]

Sandra Olarte Hayes: I was dying to have a quinceañera, like I wanted one so badly. I remember being like, when I'm 15, I'm going to have a big party and put on a big dress. But for what I wanted from it and what I valued and what made it so cool and special and exciting wasn't the like, Oh, I'm a woman now. It was more the, like, connection to my culture.

Caroline: We’re back with our second quince guest, Sandra Olarte Hayes. Sandra is a school therapist in Austin, Texas, who reflects another new trend in the quince evolution: DOBLE quinces.

Cristen: Yeah, so, whereas the quinceañera celebrates your 15th birthday … doble quinces are 30th birthday blowouts — get it? Cause it’s doble 15 - double the 15s?

Caroline: I do. For Sandra, a doble quince was also an opportunity to throw herself the party she always wanted, but never had.

Cristen: Sandra was raised by two moms, one from New Jersey and the other from Colombia...

Sandra: I had this like strong identity or this strong connection to like being Colombian. But I had never been to Colombia, right, because there's - at that point was so much violence going on that my mom was like, no, it's not safe. So I'd never been to Colombia. I didn't live in a place where there were any other Colombian people. And so that was the important piece of it for me.

Caroline: But a quince wasn’t in the cards for teenaged Sandra. For one, her moms were not about to spend the equivalent of a car on their 15-year-old’s birthday party

Sandra: But I think also they objected to the idea of like, oh, you wear a white dress and it's all about purity. And, you know, you go to mass, like we weren't - I wasn't raised religious. So the idea of like going to mass and there's like a whole religious and purity element to the quinceañera and the history that they were like, oh, no, you're not doing that. Absolutely not. That's not what we want for you.

Cristen: Whereas Zoey's mom saw quinces as the ultimate celebration of womanhood, to Sandra's moms quinces were little more than a patriarchal party pooper….

Sandra: One of them was a nurse who worked at Planned Parenthood, and they were just all about women having sex with whoever they wanted. And so, you know, I had lots of conversations about sex with my parents growing up, and it wasn't a shameful thing, it was more. It's kind of like the sex ed we - people still want for their kids. You know, it's talking about, like consent, and what do you like, and figure out what you like. And masturbation is awesome. And so the idea of like a woman's value being tied up in like the status of their hymen and that having sex sometime - somehow makes you like less worthy or less deserving or less wholesome or whole, that was just like so counter to what they believed.

Caroline: Once Sandra was in her late 20s, living in Austin, one of her friends — who hadn’t had a quince at 15, either — decided to throw herself a doble quince.

Sandra: Her doble quince involved I think putting on like a fancy prom dress and a crown and like partying the night and day away in New Orleans. So I had this like model in my head. I was like, man, that's cool. That sounds really fun. I have this, like, really incredible and supportive group of friends here in Austin. You know, all of them speak Spanish, like some of them are from like - like down in the bo- around the border. So, you know, when I started talking about this, people were like, yes, let's do this. Like, we will help you throw it.

Cristen: So, at an age when the big party a woman’s supposed to be throwing is like a wedding or whatever, Sandra was gearing up to celebrate a different milestone of womanhood … with maybe a little of the same teenaged excitement.

Caroline: So what was your vision for this event?

Sandra: I mean, really, the vision was, I just wanted to like put on a fancy dress and be poofy. You know, and like be around all the people that I - that I love and have like a day that's like all about me.

Caroline: Sandra’s friends knew she’d wanted a quince as a kid, and they made it happen. One friend drove down to the border to pick up the decorations. Another volunteered to be the party photographer. And a third friend stepped in to perform a special, like, earth-mother ritual in place of the traditional mass.

Cristen: Yeah, it’s so similar to the way Zoey’s community banded together to throw her quince.

Caroline: Yeah totally! And Sandra’s friend community made sure the party was also a family affair — like, her partner managed to get Sandra’s brother to Austin as a super special surprise. And while Sandra’s Colombian mom had died about 10 years before, her other mom made the trip.

Sandra: My mom flew down for it, and she gave a toast that was, like, really meaningful and loving and special.

Caroline: What was her take on the whole - the whole event, the whole shebang?

Sandra: Oh, she was all about it. She was like, oh, you're not spending thousands of dollars? Great. Yeah, I'm in this, isn't it?

Caroline: And it's not about purity.

Sandra: Yeah, exactly. This isn't about that. This is about like you spending your own money, doing your own thing the way you want it to be? Like. Yeah. That's. And we get to drink and dance all night? Great! I think she also liked the idea of like waltzing, waltzing with me, you know, being - recognizing that she had a special role in it and getting to dance, like, I think she really liked that too. It was actually one of the pieces that I was going to skip because I don't really know how to partner dance, but my mom was like, no, we're doing this. So she, like, insisted we practice. And it was actually very fun. It was super fun.

Cristen: Caroline, I love how Sandra’s party confounded her mom’s preconceived notions about quinces and what they represent. And it does say something to me that these parties are so special that not only do you have this new generation of Zoeys who are making quinceañeras their own, but also older generations of Latinas like Sandra who are reclaiming it, too, as, like, their coming of age party when once they’ve actually, like, you know, come of age

Caroline: Yeah, I think it’s easy to dismiss them as just frivolous wastes of money. But just like Zoey, Sandra turned tradition on its head as a celebration of self AND cultural identity.

Sandra: It ended up being like a huge self-love party. Like, I'm 30. I am gonna celebrate myself, like, completely shamelessly, right? And the bigger the better. It was like so over the top. Right. But all in the name of like, here I am, world. You know, I love myself, and I'm not ashamed of it. It essentially felt like - like throwing a wedding, but like to myself.

Caroline: Why is it important to celebrate yourself shamelessly?

Sandra: Well. I mean, I think we live in a world that tells women they're not allowed to do that. I also, like one of my mottos when I was in high school was like, fuck modesty. And so that's kind of been almost like a theme in my life, like something that I've always wanted to stand for, almost like as a protest of what the world tells women they're allowed to think and feel about themselves. And so, you know, being 30 and being like, now I like actually have a better idea of who I am and like than when I was 15.

Caroline: So what would - what would 15-year-old you have thought about 30-year-old you's doble quince?

Sandra: Oh, she would have been so into it. I was living the same dream that I had when I was 10, right? A big poofy dress and a party that's all about you. But like with alcohol and like being able to pass bottles of Mezcal around on the dance floor like that's and stay up until 4:00 in the morning. There's like an element of being able to do it in a much more free and fun way, I think, at 30 than at 15. So like 15-year-old self would have been like, yeah, that's bad ass. And I'm gonna do like - I'm gonna have another one when I turn 45. Just to be clear. Probably, probably like every 15 years for the rest of my life, because like I said, it was like the best day!

Cristen: OK, y’all, now we wanna hear from you! What was the best day of your life? Was it perhaps a birthday party? Some celebration of self? Was it a quinceañera? A DOBLE quinceañera? Let us know on social @unladylikemedia. Definitely if you have quinceañera photos you’d like to share, please tag us on @unladylike media!

Caroline: Oh my god, I want to see them so bad

Cristen: You can also email us at hello@unladylike.co or join our private facebook group and find the thread for this episode. Also, if you are a fan of the movie The Craft -

Caroline: Which I am.

Cristen: WITCH you are?

Caroline: Yes.

Cristen: Me too! Y’all, keep an eye out later this year because The Craft is being remade, and our very own Zoey Luna is starring in it.

Caroline: I can’t wait!

Cristen: I know!

Caroline: In the meantime, head over to our site, unladylike.co, to read this episode’s sources and transcript. And while you are there, people, grab your tickets for our upcoming East Coast tour! Starting in April, we’re hitting Chicago, New York, Philly, Boston, DC and Atlanta, so don’t miss it!

Cristen: Yeah, I gotta get my tickets.

Caroline: Same!

Cristen: And thank y’all SO much to the folks who’ve already signed up for our Extra Unladylike bonus feed over on Patreon. If YOU want brand new bonus episodes without a single advertisement in them, go to patreon.com/unladylikemedia and support us there.

Caroline: Sam Lee and Nora Ritchie are the producers of Unladylike. Abigail Keel is our senior producer. Gianna Palmer is our story editor. Shruti Marathe transcribes our tape. Our music is by Flamingo Shadow, Amit May Cohen and Sarah Tudzin. Mixing, sound design, and additional music is by Casey Holford. We had engineering help for the past couple of weeks from Luz Fleming. Our executive producers are Chris Bannon, Daisy Rosario and Unladylike Media. Unladylike was created by your hosts Caroline Ervin —

Cristen: And Cristen Conger of Unladylike Media. Special thanks to Julie Conquest and Brendan Byrnes at Stitcher’s Studios in LA.

Caroline: Next week…

Sara Horowitz: We know that when you look at like Gen Z, something like 53 percent of them will be freelancing. So let's start recognizing that for so many workers in America, they're going to be working from job to job and project to project. We need the benefits and the laws to be going with them from job to job.

Cristen: We got the founder of the Freelancers Union, Sara Horowitz, in the stud to answer all y’all’s questions about working outside a 9-to-5. Make sure you’re subscribed to Unladylike so you don’t miss this episode. Find us in Stitcher, Spotify, Apple Podcasts or wherever you like to listen to podcasts.

Caroline: And remember, got a problem?

Cristen: Get unladylike.

[Music]

Cristen: Get unlikey laid

Caroline: (in a funny voice) Unladylike. You guys.

Cristen: (in a funny voice) got a problem?

Producer Sam: Have you guys been drinking?

[laughter]

Cristen: I hope the mic picked that up.