November 15, 2010 • 22 mins
Little girls and women seem to have an affinity for horses. But why? In this episode, Molly and Cristen discuss a variety of theories about why girls love horses, from the bizarre to the believable.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stump Mom never told you?
From house top works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Kristen and I'm Molly. Molly I have
(00:21):
belonged here. It's true, we book we both do. Here's
as much long as mine. Yeah, mine's getting a little
control at this point. And uh, I don't know about you,
but when my long hair really gets to be a
little too much, I like to put it up in
a ponytail. You know, I did too, And uh then
I then I learned what ponytails meant in the course
(00:43):
of doing research for this podcast courtesy of a book
called Girlhood in America in Encyclopedia, and I talked about
how the ponytail came into style in the late forties
early fifties. It was very popular with teens and uh,
the their Miriam Foreman ber Now writes the ponytail's name
herrikened back to horses animals considered to be erotic fixations
(01:07):
among young girls. In this style, the hair is pulled
back to reveal a maturing face. At the same time,
the hair is playfully cult like in the back, wiggling
and bouncing as a girl walked, revealing yet sprightly, innocent,
yet erotic. This look reflected the cultural position of the
teenage girl in the post war United States. And I
gotta tell you, every time I put my hair up
(01:29):
in a ponytail before I go on a run, look
at myself mirror, say christ, and my god, you look
so innocent and yet so erotic. And then I just
trot away cult like galloping down the road. And then
do sexual disconnotations of what you look like as a
bouncing horse fill your mind? Yeah, I mean people stopping
(01:50):
watch jogging is so so what rotic? Oh Molly, I
don't jog. I gallop galloph and try bridled and the
streets of Atlanta. Oh well, our topic today is horses,
and that just kind of throws some of them. I
think it throws all the issues just into the melting
pot all at once. And that's just girl's hair, yeah,
(02:12):
like that kind of even horses. Yeah, we haven't even
got the horses. We're just talking about ponytails. And it
is already getting salty up in here because you throw
you put the word pony in there. And people are
going to bring all these conceptions as to why girls
like ponies to the table, the stuff about sex, the
stuff about being innocent in fact, but also being free
(02:33):
and unbridled. Yeah, it's it's all of these are going
to come into play in our investigation of why girls
love horses so much, because it does seem to be
a rite of passage that girls love horses. Girls love horses,
And when I think about my own girlhood experience with horses,
it was kind of strange because I sort of stole
(02:54):
my sister's horse obsession. She got really into horses. She
was She's a little bit older than I am, so
she hit the horse phase and she saw started drawing
horses all the time. She's not listening to this, sorry
if I'm sharing too much, but she would she would
draw horses all the time, and I was kind of
(03:14):
jealous of how great she could draw these horses. So
I jumped on the drawing bandwagon, and so I would
try to draw horses as well, and they just always
kind of looked like misshapen brooms. It's really the only
way I can describe it. And I really wanted, I
really wanted to love horses I felt like I should
love horses, but my neighbors had horses, and I remember
(03:37):
when I was little, one of them kicked my dad,
And they also just smelled awful to me. And like
when I was a little christened, I didn't even go
into the fresh market because I thought that store smelled awful.
It was the coffee. So you throw a horse in
there with horse poo, and I'm not gonna not gonna
be gone for that. But I'll tell you what I
did love my little ponies. And also a fun fact
(03:57):
about these we came across and researching the podcast is that, um,
it's not like Hasbro set out to have a pony toy.
They were just doing some crazy like pie in the
Sky research and they kept saying, the little girls, what
do you think of when you close your eyes? I
think they expected to get these really detailed descriptions of
like princesses. It was when they when they closed their
(04:17):
eyes to go to sleep, like when we were trying,
you know, drift off into dreamland. What makes you happy
to think about it is you do that? And by
and large all of them said horses, yes, And so
they just threw like a brown horse on the market
and the early eighties it's sold like gangbusters. They're like, oh,
well that's that's girly it up and they put it
in colors, and now My Little Ponies have entered I
(04:38):
think the Toy Hall of not the official toy Hall
of Fame, but but the toy Hall of Fame in
my heart. Yeah, they sold a hundred and fifty million
of them, and I like that. They call the colors
that My Little Ponies come out in as fantasy colors,
kind of going back at that dreaming because girls weren't
just thinking about brown horses in the stables there, they
were thinking about fluorescent moll high colored, magical hor horses
(05:03):
pencing around and Hasbro makes a point of not making
My Little Ponies and stereotypically boy colors like the primary colors.
They're all in sort of this girly palette. And this
author Ellen Cider makes kind of a good point that
in contrast to like our doll podcast, Kristen, where you know,
you can get into we're just teaching girls how to
(05:23):
be mothers and to caretaking whatever, there's really not that
element with playing with My Little Ponies. These are, you know,
horses you make gallop and you don't have to. You know,
there's no boyfriend like Barbie, and it's it's your entring,
more of a magical playland than maybe a baby doll
would allow you to do. And at the same time,
you have a Maine entail to brush and braid and
(05:47):
decorate with with hairclips. But you know, and that's that's
what I've said, that's what I got on my little
pony too. But let's get back to big ponies. And
some authors that we've looked at say that that's part
of what girls like about real horses too. Is this
something that they can take care of, something that they
can watch over and have responsibility for. And you know,
(06:09):
if you authors say that that's one of the main
things that girls are really into about horses, yeah, because
we should note that when it comes to riding, like
actually riding horses, equestrian clubs, um different associations, women make
up a majority of horse riders and horse owners. It's
just it's it's astronomical. In fact, there are a few
(06:31):
articles we read about how in college scenarios, if if
college is put in an equestrian team, it solves all
their title nine problems immediately. Because so many women want
to continue riding, and uh, it's just sort of an
interesting thing to throw out, is that girls are trying
to find ways to stick with it, even though we
tend to think of, you know, it's little girls have
this pony mania like Santa, bring me a pony sort
(06:53):
of thing. And I think that boys might not have
as natural of a draw to horses because when men
had this you know, historical association with horses in terms
of workhorses and war horses, so they were always being
used for some kind of purpose. But when it came
to girls being able to ride horses, there was more
of that that human animal connection connecting with with the
(07:17):
empathy and then also of course the sexual aspect, which
we'll have to talk about. She wanted to go ahead
and talk about sex. Now. I think it's the thing
where let's just get it out of the way. Let's
talk about sex. Yeah, because that's what most people think.
There's some kind of Freudian connection to girls liking horses.
It's because we all want to secretly have sex with them. Well,
(07:37):
it's just yeah, like a big you know, and the
words you can't really even talk about the words without
like a double, you know, without some menu weender like
mounting a steed, like mounting a stallion. Yeah, I mean,
it's just it's all in there. And uh. This association
of horses in Freud comes from this nine case study
of little Hans, and poor little Hans was scared of horses,
(08:01):
and his dad, who was pretty familiar with Freud's edible
complex idea, writes in and says, hey, I think that
my son would be a good case study for you
because he's scared of horses. And I'm pretty sure it's
because of me. Yes, Because at the same time, while
he was scared of horses, he also had a little
bit of an obsession with his penis. Yes, and he was,
(08:25):
as you know, a young three year old boy discovering
his body might. So basically, the father's theory was that
the son who was had a some kind of romantic
attachment to the mother and wanted to come sleep in
the bed with He wanted to sleep in the bed
with them. He had dreams about having children with the mother,
and the dad would be like, oh, whose kids are these?
(08:46):
And he was like, oh, well with the mummy, said
you're the granddaddy. Yeah, and uh, and he kept referring
to his father's having like horse like characteristics. He'd say, Daddy,
don't trod away from me, or your skin so white
like that horse. And uh, and this is where it
gets kind of crazy because people think that, you know,
since this dad knew about what Freud was all about,
(09:06):
he kind of fed Freud some lines. Because Freud never
met the child, this was all sort of facilitated by
the father. And uh, the father alleged that little Hans
saw some horses fall and just couldn't leave the house
because he was so destroyed by these horses. And uh.
Through you know, Freud would feed questions to the father.
(09:27):
The father would report back on what Hans said and
sense what they worked out was that the horse was
was the father for a little Hans, and um, obviously
horses have big penises, and so there was that was
where the penis like obsession was coming from, as he
wanted to be the manly man like his father and
sleep with his mother. And uh, the fact that the
(09:50):
horses were falling over was his fear of castration. So
there you go. So you I mean, and I would say,
in terms of our our cultural idea of this, you know,
sexual connect with between horses and girls. It probably goes
back to Freud at least in recent history. Yeah, and
you know, I found a few articles where they're like, oh,
the Freudian, the Freudian horse. But you go back to
(10:10):
the study and it's it's all about this boy, I
mean boy and not a girl. But never the leck
As you can make the argument that girls can be
in love with their fathers and thus they're in love
with horses. But you know, as we got more and
more into the research, I think it's gonna be really
hard to get anyone to say, yes, girls want girls
want horses because they associate them with sex. Because what's
so weird is, on the other hand, they keep talking
(10:31):
about how horses have this innocence that girls like, and
that this is a reason why women, especially after they're
not girls anymore, but after they've gotten world weary of
of all the things going on, that's why they want
to return to the horses, to return to this simpler time.
May May May I quote a theory from Melissa Holbrook Pearson,
(10:52):
who was the author of Dark Horses and Black Beauties.
I wish you would Okay, she thinks, and she's this
author is a long time horse lover Loves the Horses,
wrote this book of essays about women and horses. So
she says, we are attracted to horses in particular because
they echo our own tentative whispers, but do so in
a bold, ringing call. They speak with certainty of exactly
(11:15):
those things we are most unsure of in ourselves. For
the qualities that most to find the equine species are
the ones suppressed currently in the human raw sexuality, fear,
open vulnerability, and need uncomplicated drive. I mean, my god,
it's quite a horse. That was the last part. Know
(11:35):
that that That last part was just my comment on
the quote. Sorry, that's quite a horse. I'm gonna throw
that out in conversation whenever I can, now Christ okay, um, so, yes,
sex is always going to come up, like it came
up in that quote. But people bring it up and
then they drop it, So I don't think that's very
helpful at all. Well, and then there's also the aspect
of caring for a horse. I mean, for anyone who
(11:57):
has taken a horse in and out of distable, like
saddled it up and then taking the saddle off. What's
that called tacking the horse. Uh, it is a lot
of work. I mean you can't just It's not just
like walking a dog. You don't just toss the saddle
on and go out. I mean you have to dogs. Yeah,
don't just settle up old Fido. You have to groom
the horse. You have to get rid of the the
(12:21):
the dirt and it's in its hoof, in the in
the horse shoe. I mean there's a lot to do. Obviously,
I'm no horse expert because I tried actually to volunteer
at a horse farm for a while. Quickly realize somebody's
afraid of horses. That's me. But Kristen, apparently women have
the special skill to get along with horses according to
(12:41):
our research. Yeah, that's a lot of these these sources
that are coming from horse magazines that are talking about
horses and girls that have this you know, close connection
with uh, with horses. It goes back to the empathy thing,
like we have some kind of horse whisperer, secret sort
of communication with horses. Well, I mean they it goes
(13:02):
to some sort of gender stereotypes and that girls are communicators.
They understand body language, they understand unspoken connections. Uh, they're
sensitive and they'll look you in the eye, and that
these are the skills that horses gonna respond to. A
horse isn't going to respond to this aggressive male coming
in to dominate it. And that's why some people say
that girls do better treating stallions because they're not a
(13:25):
threat the way a man might be. Um. You know,
this empathy card comes up over and over again, and
one study I found those really interesting was about how
they asked girls handboys what pets they wanted, what pets
they had, and uh, they weren't even going to study horses.
It was supposed to really be like a dog's cat thing.
(13:46):
The girls kept bringing up horses the boys didn't. But
the girls were also just far more empathetic than the
boys were. And you just see that repeated over and
over again, that girls have this empathy, that horses are
a creature that require empathy, and that that's also a
reason why things like horse therapy can be so effective,
(14:06):
is because it takes kids who are angry or um
misbehaving and teach them how to have empathy for another creature,
the horse, which hopefully they can take those skills and
uh put them to use in their real life when
they get angry or upset with someone, and they bring
up this empathy connection as well. When it comes to
(14:27):
riding a horse. I mean, you have to be in
touch with a horse's body and its movements and anticipate
how it's going to to counter or trot or jump
over things. And they think that women are especially good
equestrians because they because of that kind of connection that
you're talking about, and speaking of equestrians to uh it
(14:47):
also riding a horse puts men and women on pretty
equal playing grounds. Yeah. They talked about how this is
one of the few sports where where when men and
women really can compete one against another because the great
equalizer is the horse that you get up there, and
it's it's not how fast you are, it's not how
strong you are, it's how you can work with your horse.
(15:08):
And so I think that's an interesting, interesting theory. I
also think that there's something to self esteem if you're
good at riding horses, UM as a girl and you
can get up and sort of master this powerful creature.
That's something that I don't think girls get um a
chance to do as often as boys do. I think
it's a very empowering creature because it is big because
(15:31):
it does respond to not your strength or your force,
but to you as a person. A lot of a
lot of the uh the horsewomen who were interviewed made
mention of that factor that it's freeing. You can ride
away from all your troubles and feel good about your
ability to get along with this horse. Yea, yeah, absolutely.
Just from my pretty limited experience with horses, the thought
(15:54):
of sort of mastering and building a relationship with a
two thousand pound animal, you know, who could kick me
in the head or whatever run me over. I mean,
that's that would be a pretty powerful type of thing
to to experience. I for one, it is a little
scary for me. But but I bet that if you
(16:14):
did commit at from someone who is scared, I mean
it's natural to be scared of something that's bigger than you,
I think, and then you did master it, sure I
would feel such a sense of accomplishment. Of course, you'd
be on top of the world, Christ and conger and
on top of a horse. Maybe it's time for me
to start riding you. You'd be like the old spice guy. Yes,
I'm on a horse. There we go. I wonder if
(16:35):
that's why women all like horses now. I bet in
twenty years there'll be some study about the impact of
that commercial Oldman on a Horse, and how girls who
watched that commercial when they were ten learned that sexuality
of the old Spice Maan was linked to this horse.
And I'll go back to sex again in Yeah, we're
gonna have to write that down and uh and come
back to it. But I would make a bet too, though, Molly,
(16:57):
that in twenty years, horses aren't gonna go out of style.
I don't think that this connection between younger girls and
horses is ever going to just fade away. I mean,
think about brought Off, Ride Off into the sunset, because
think about say, Black Beauty. It came out in eighteen
seventy eight and it's still so popular, and it's just
(17:20):
one of you know, a thousand horse books that you
can get from a library if you're if you're a
young girl. I just remember those horse books sections and
since I found horses really smelly, I didn't intend to
read those, but I think I likeed empathy as a kid. Well,
maybe it's time for both of us to uh head
over to the stables. Maybe that would be quite the
(17:40):
stuff I remember told you field trip. That would be something.
If anyone in the Atlanta area wants to give me
in Molly some free horse lessons, send us anymore. But anyway,
I think I think now is the time. Since neither
of us are obviously horse experts, neither of us are equestrians,
I would like to hear from some folks in our
audience about out this whole horse thing. If you are
(18:03):
a rider, what draws you to the horse? What is
it like to look into the eyes of a horse?
Will it change my life? Let me know, mom. Stuff
at hell stuff Works dot Com is the email, and
let's read a couple of those. Okay, I'm gonna read
two really quick ones about the Shaving Legs podcast and
(18:26):
a really quick one from Andrew, who writes so according
to the timeline of when women started shaming their legs,
which we talked about in the podcast in ve when
the movie Titanic is said, when Rose takes her dress
off to have Jack draw her aboard the ship, she
should have been sporting a healthy amount of body hair.
We earned how that wouldn't have translated. Well, it's the
audiences and therefore the facts shifted a little. Yes, Andrew
(18:49):
and all our listeners out there. When you are watching
a movie that takes place before the twenties and the
girls all have smooth skin, something is a miss. To
follow up, I want to read a real quick one
from someone who wants to be anonymous. And we talked
about how shaving legs is a cultural thing, she writes,
I agree. I'm South Asian and was born in North America,
(19:10):
but my mother is from India. All the time I
was growing up, I had never seen my mother shave
her legs, and she never suggested that I needed to either.
So it was with some surprise that when I was
around eleven, I think, and I was at a swimming class,
I started noticing that the other girl's legs were bare,
and later on that same summer, some other kid asked
me why I didn't shave my legs. I was shocked
because I figured it was an adult thing based on
(19:31):
all the commercials I saw, and even then I figured
it was only if you were showing your legs. I
started shaving afterwards, but even now I really only shaved
depending on what I wear and sometimes if I just
feel like it. But I'm definitely not a regular shaver.
I guess depending on what a regular shaver is. I think,
based on my mom's example, it never really occurred to
me as a necessary thing for routine maintenance. So very interesting.
(19:52):
Thanks for Brian. Well, I've got an email here from
Tom and he is a hand bag owner. That's right,
he is a handbag owner. He wanted to share his
recent experience with handbags. He says, for the longest time,
I took a backpack to work with my lunch and
beverages for the day, as well as any mail that
I needed to send, our bills I needed to pay,
(20:14):
all checked into the big main section. Unfortunately, the one
I've been using was a cheap backpack with all plastic
inside that kept cracking and falling apart, leaving a life
black dust on almost all the stuff I toss in there.
I've had that same experience with a bag that's breaking down.
It's terrible anyway, he says. Finally I broke down and
went shopping for a new one, and I found a
(20:35):
fabric messenger style bag that wasn't overly feminine. After figuring
out how to wear it properly, which proved to be
a bit difficult for a lifelong backpack wearer, I quickly
found out how useful this oversized purse can be. Soon
I was checking everything in it, my lunch, my soda pop,
my asthma and hailer, my bills and my mails, a book,
even my cell phones and keys. I've also discovered how
(20:58):
perfect all the little pockets and chambers in the bag
guard for organizing everything so I can get to it quickly.
I wish my bag were that organized. Uh. This thing
is perfect for lightning the load on my pockets and
finally bringing to an end to what my mother so
charmingly refers to as the elephant balls look. Fill up
your pockets to the brim with everything you might need
for the day, and you'll see what she means by that.
(21:19):
I like this thing so much, I'm thinking about getting
a second one for evenings and weekends to carry all
the stuff I usually chuck in my pockets during my
free time. Toss the wallet, cell phone, keys, multitool, pocket knife,
ball opener, corkscrew and a digital camera in the front
pockets of your jeans and you'll really have the elephant
balls look. After a couple of months with my handbag,
I'm happy to say that I'm a hetero averagely masculine
(21:42):
man who loves his man bag. All right, Tom, thanks
so much for writing in, and if you would like
to write to us, our email is mom Stuff at
how stuff works dot com. You can also leave a
note over on off Facebook wall, or you can tweet
us at mom Stuff podcast Us. Then, finally, you can
check out our blog during the week, It's stuff Mom
(22:04):
Never told You at how stuff works dot com. For
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(22:27):
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thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stump Mom never told you?
From house top works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Kristen and I'm Molly. Molly I have
(00:21):
belonged here. It's true, we book we both do. Here's
as much long as mine. Yeah, mine's getting a little
control at this point. And uh, I don't know about you,
but when my long hair really gets to be a
little too much, I like to put it up in
a ponytail. You know, I did too, And uh then
I then I learned what ponytails meant in the course
(00:43):
of doing research for this podcast courtesy of a book
called Girlhood in America in Encyclopedia, and I talked about
how the ponytail came into style in the late forties
early fifties. It was very popular with teens and uh,
the their Miriam Foreman ber Now writes the ponytail's name
herrikened back to horses animals considered to be erotic fixations
(01:07):
among young girls. In this style, the hair is pulled
back to reveal a maturing face. At the same time,
the hair is playfully cult like in the back, wiggling
and bouncing as a girl walked, revealing yet sprightly, innocent,
yet erotic. This look reflected the cultural position of the
teenage girl in the post war United States. And I
gotta tell you, every time I put my hair up
(01:29):
in a ponytail before I go on a run, look
at myself mirror, say christ, and my god, you look
so innocent and yet so erotic. And then I just
trot away cult like galloping down the road. And then
do sexual disconnotations of what you look like as a
bouncing horse fill your mind? Yeah, I mean people stopping
(01:50):
watch jogging is so so what rotic? Oh Molly, I
don't jog. I gallop galloph and try bridled and the
streets of Atlanta. Oh well, our topic today is horses,
and that just kind of throws some of them. I
think it throws all the issues just into the melting
pot all at once. And that's just girl's hair, yeah,
(02:12):
like that kind of even horses. Yeah, we haven't even
got the horses. We're just talking about ponytails. And it
is already getting salty up in here because you throw
you put the word pony in there. And people are
going to bring all these conceptions as to why girls
like ponies to the table, the stuff about sex, the
stuff about being innocent in fact, but also being free
(02:33):
and unbridled. Yeah, it's it's all of these are going
to come into play in our investigation of why girls
love horses so much, because it does seem to be
a rite of passage that girls love horses. Girls love horses,
And when I think about my own girlhood experience with horses,
it was kind of strange because I sort of stole
(02:54):
my sister's horse obsession. She got really into horses. She
was She's a little bit older than I am, so
she hit the horse phase and she saw started drawing
horses all the time. She's not listening to this, sorry
if I'm sharing too much, but she would she would
draw horses all the time, and I was kind of
(03:14):
jealous of how great she could draw these horses. So
I jumped on the drawing bandwagon, and so I would
try to draw horses as well, and they just always
kind of looked like misshapen brooms. It's really the only
way I can describe it. And I really wanted, I
really wanted to love horses I felt like I should
love horses, but my neighbors had horses, and I remember
(03:37):
when I was little, one of them kicked my dad,
And they also just smelled awful to me. And like
when I was a little christened, I didn't even go
into the fresh market because I thought that store smelled awful.
It was the coffee. So you throw a horse in
there with horse poo, and I'm not gonna not gonna
be gone for that. But I'll tell you what I
did love my little ponies. And also a fun fact
(03:57):
about these we came across and researching the podcast is that, um,
it's not like Hasbro set out to have a pony toy.
They were just doing some crazy like pie in the
Sky research and they kept saying, the little girls, what
do you think of when you close your eyes? I
think they expected to get these really detailed descriptions of
like princesses. It was when they when they closed their
(04:17):
eyes to go to sleep, like when we were trying,
you know, drift off into dreamland. What makes you happy
to think about it is you do that? And by
and large all of them said horses, yes, And so
they just threw like a brown horse on the market
and the early eighties it's sold like gangbusters. They're like, oh,
well that's that's girly it up and they put it
in colors, and now My Little Ponies have entered I
(04:38):
think the Toy Hall of not the official toy Hall
of Fame, but but the toy Hall of Fame in
my heart. Yeah, they sold a hundred and fifty million
of them, and I like that. They call the colors
that My Little Ponies come out in as fantasy colors,
kind of going back at that dreaming because girls weren't
just thinking about brown horses in the stables there, they
were thinking about fluorescent moll high colored, magical hor horses
(05:03):
pencing around and Hasbro makes a point of not making
My Little Ponies and stereotypically boy colors like the primary colors.
They're all in sort of this girly palette. And this
author Ellen Cider makes kind of a good point that
in contrast to like our doll podcast, Kristen, where you know,
you can get into we're just teaching girls how to
(05:23):
be mothers and to caretaking whatever, there's really not that
element with playing with My Little Ponies. These are, you know,
horses you make gallop and you don't have to. You know,
there's no boyfriend like Barbie, and it's it's your entring,
more of a magical playland than maybe a baby doll
would allow you to do. And at the same time,
you have a Maine entail to brush and braid and
(05:47):
decorate with with hairclips. But you know, and that's that's
what I've said, that's what I got on my little
pony too. But let's get back to big ponies. And
some authors that we've looked at say that that's part
of what girls like about real horses too. Is this
something that they can take care of, something that they
can watch over and have responsibility for. And you know,
(06:09):
if you authors say that that's one of the main
things that girls are really into about horses, yeah, because
we should note that when it comes to riding, like
actually riding horses, equestrian clubs, um different associations, women make
up a majority of horse riders and horse owners. It's
just it's it's astronomical. In fact, there are a few
(06:31):
articles we read about how in college scenarios, if if
college is put in an equestrian team, it solves all
their title nine problems immediately. Because so many women want
to continue riding, and uh, it's just sort of an
interesting thing to throw out, is that girls are trying
to find ways to stick with it, even though we
tend to think of, you know, it's little girls have
this pony mania like Santa, bring me a pony sort
(06:53):
of thing. And I think that boys might not have
as natural of a draw to horses because when men
had this you know, historical association with horses in terms
of workhorses and war horses, so they were always being
used for some kind of purpose. But when it came
to girls being able to ride horses, there was more
of that that human animal connection connecting with with the
(07:17):
empathy and then also of course the sexual aspect, which
we'll have to talk about. She wanted to go ahead
and talk about sex. Now. I think it's the thing
where let's just get it out of the way. Let's
talk about sex. Yeah, because that's what most people think.
There's some kind of Freudian connection to girls liking horses.
It's because we all want to secretly have sex with them. Well,
(07:37):
it's just yeah, like a big you know, and the
words you can't really even talk about the words without
like a double, you know, without some menu weender like
mounting a steed, like mounting a stallion. Yeah, I mean,
it's just it's all in there. And uh. This association
of horses in Freud comes from this nine case study
of little Hans, and poor little Hans was scared of horses,
(08:01):
and his dad, who was pretty familiar with Freud's edible
complex idea, writes in and says, hey, I think that
my son would be a good case study for you
because he's scared of horses. And I'm pretty sure it's
because of me. Yes, Because at the same time, while
he was scared of horses, he also had a little
bit of an obsession with his penis. Yes, and he was,
(08:25):
as you know, a young three year old boy discovering
his body might. So basically, the father's theory was that
the son who was had a some kind of romantic
attachment to the mother and wanted to come sleep in
the bed with He wanted to sleep in the bed
with them. He had dreams about having children with the mother,
and the dad would be like, oh, whose kids are these?
(08:46):
And he was like, oh, well with the mummy, said
you're the granddaddy. Yeah, and uh, and he kept referring
to his father's having like horse like characteristics. He'd say, Daddy,
don't trod away from me, or your skin so white
like that horse. And uh, and this is where it
gets kind of crazy because people think that, you know,
since this dad knew about what Freud was all about,
(09:06):
he kind of fed Freud some lines. Because Freud never
met the child, this was all sort of facilitated by
the father. And uh, the father alleged that little Hans
saw some horses fall and just couldn't leave the house
because he was so destroyed by these horses. And uh.
Through you know, Freud would feed questions to the father.
(09:27):
The father would report back on what Hans said and
sense what they worked out was that the horse was
was the father for a little Hans, and um, obviously
horses have big penises, and so there was that was
where the penis like obsession was coming from, as he
wanted to be the manly man like his father and
sleep with his mother. And uh, the fact that the
(09:50):
horses were falling over was his fear of castration. So
there you go. So you I mean, and I would say,
in terms of our our cultural idea of this, you know,
sexual connect with between horses and girls. It probably goes
back to Freud at least in recent history. Yeah, and
you know, I found a few articles where they're like, oh,
the Freudian, the Freudian horse. But you go back to
(10:10):
the study and it's it's all about this boy, I
mean boy and not a girl. But never the leck
As you can make the argument that girls can be
in love with their fathers and thus they're in love
with horses. But you know, as we got more and
more into the research, I think it's gonna be really
hard to get anyone to say, yes, girls want girls
want horses because they associate them with sex. Because what's
so weird is, on the other hand, they keep talking
(10:31):
about how horses have this innocence that girls like, and
that this is a reason why women, especially after they're
not girls anymore, but after they've gotten world weary of
of all the things going on, that's why they want
to return to the horses, to return to this simpler time.
May May May I quote a theory from Melissa Holbrook Pearson,
(10:52):
who was the author of Dark Horses and Black Beauties.
I wish you would Okay, she thinks, and she's this
author is a long time horse lover Loves the Horses,
wrote this book of essays about women and horses. So
she says, we are attracted to horses in particular because
they echo our own tentative whispers, but do so in
a bold, ringing call. They speak with certainty of exactly
(11:15):
those things we are most unsure of in ourselves. For
the qualities that most to find the equine species are
the ones suppressed currently in the human raw sexuality, fear,
open vulnerability, and need uncomplicated drive. I mean, my god,
it's quite a horse. That was the last part. Know
(11:35):
that that That last part was just my comment on
the quote. Sorry, that's quite a horse. I'm gonna throw
that out in conversation whenever I can, now Christ okay, um, so, yes,
sex is always going to come up, like it came
up in that quote. But people bring it up and
then they drop it, So I don't think that's very
helpful at all. Well, and then there's also the aspect
of caring for a horse. I mean, for anyone who
(11:57):
has taken a horse in and out of distable, like
saddled it up and then taking the saddle off. What's
that called tacking the horse. Uh, it is a lot
of work. I mean you can't just It's not just
like walking a dog. You don't just toss the saddle
on and go out. I mean you have to dogs. Yeah,
don't just settle up old Fido. You have to groom
the horse. You have to get rid of the the
(12:21):
the dirt and it's in its hoof, in the in
the horse shoe. I mean there's a lot to do. Obviously,
I'm no horse expert because I tried actually to volunteer
at a horse farm for a while. Quickly realize somebody's
afraid of horses. That's me. But Kristen, apparently women have
the special skill to get along with horses according to
(12:41):
our research. Yeah, that's a lot of these these sources
that are coming from horse magazines that are talking about
horses and girls that have this you know, close connection
with uh, with horses. It goes back to the empathy thing,
like we have some kind of horse whisperer, secret sort
of communication with horses. Well, I mean they it goes
(13:02):
to some sort of gender stereotypes and that girls are communicators.
They understand body language, they understand unspoken connections. Uh, they're
sensitive and they'll look you in the eye, and that
these are the skills that horses gonna respond to. A
horse isn't going to respond to this aggressive male coming
in to dominate it. And that's why some people say
that girls do better treating stallions because they're not a
(13:25):
threat the way a man might be. Um. You know,
this empathy card comes up over and over again, and
one study I found those really interesting was about how
they asked girls handboys what pets they wanted, what pets
they had, and uh, they weren't even going to study horses.
It was supposed to really be like a dog's cat thing.
(13:46):
The girls kept bringing up horses the boys didn't. But
the girls were also just far more empathetic than the
boys were. And you just see that repeated over and
over again, that girls have this empathy, that horses are
a creature that require empathy, and that that's also a
reason why things like horse therapy can be so effective,
(14:06):
is because it takes kids who are angry or um
misbehaving and teach them how to have empathy for another creature,
the horse, which hopefully they can take those skills and
uh put them to use in their real life when
they get angry or upset with someone, and they bring
up this empathy connection as well. When it comes to
(14:27):
riding a horse. I mean, you have to be in
touch with a horse's body and its movements and anticipate
how it's going to to counter or trot or jump
over things. And they think that women are especially good
equestrians because they because of that kind of connection that
you're talking about, and speaking of equestrians to uh it
(14:47):
also riding a horse puts men and women on pretty
equal playing grounds. Yeah. They talked about how this is
one of the few sports where where when men and
women really can compete one against another because the great
equalizer is the horse that you get up there, and
it's it's not how fast you are, it's not how
strong you are, it's how you can work with your horse.
(15:08):
And so I think that's an interesting, interesting theory. I
also think that there's something to self esteem if you're
good at riding horses, UM as a girl and you
can get up and sort of master this powerful creature.
That's something that I don't think girls get um a
chance to do as often as boys do. I think
it's a very empowering creature because it is big because
(15:31):
it does respond to not your strength or your force,
but to you as a person. A lot of a
lot of the uh the horsewomen who were interviewed made
mention of that factor that it's freeing. You can ride
away from all your troubles and feel good about your
ability to get along with this horse. Yea, yeah, absolutely.
Just from my pretty limited experience with horses, the thought
(15:54):
of sort of mastering and building a relationship with a
two thousand pound animal, you know, who could kick me
in the head or whatever run me over. I mean,
that's that would be a pretty powerful type of thing
to to experience. I for one, it is a little
scary for me. But but I bet that if you
(16:14):
did commit at from someone who is scared, I mean
it's natural to be scared of something that's bigger than you,
I think, and then you did master it, sure I
would feel such a sense of accomplishment. Of course, you'd
be on top of the world, Christ and conger and
on top of a horse. Maybe it's time for me
to start riding you. You'd be like the old spice guy. Yes,
I'm on a horse. There we go. I wonder if
(16:35):
that's why women all like horses now. I bet in
twenty years there'll be some study about the impact of
that commercial Oldman on a Horse, and how girls who
watched that commercial when they were ten learned that sexuality
of the old Spice Maan was linked to this horse.
And I'll go back to sex again in Yeah, we're
gonna have to write that down and uh and come
back to it. But I would make a bet too, though, Molly,
(16:57):
that in twenty years, horses aren't gonna go out of style.
I don't think that this connection between younger girls and
horses is ever going to just fade away. I mean,
think about brought Off, Ride Off into the sunset, because
think about say, Black Beauty. It came out in eighteen
seventy eight and it's still so popular, and it's just
(17:20):
one of you know, a thousand horse books that you
can get from a library if you're if you're a
young girl. I just remember those horse books sections and
since I found horses really smelly, I didn't intend to
read those, but I think I likeed empathy as a kid. Well,
maybe it's time for both of us to uh head
over to the stables. Maybe that would be quite the
(17:40):
stuff I remember told you field trip. That would be something.
If anyone in the Atlanta area wants to give me
in Molly some free horse lessons, send us anymore. But anyway,
I think I think now is the time. Since neither
of us are obviously horse experts, neither of us are equestrians,
I would like to hear from some folks in our
audience about out this whole horse thing. If you are
(18:03):
a rider, what draws you to the horse? What is
it like to look into the eyes of a horse?
Will it change my life? Let me know, mom. Stuff
at hell stuff Works dot Com is the email, and
let's read a couple of those. Okay, I'm gonna read
two really quick ones about the Shaving Legs podcast and
(18:26):
a really quick one from Andrew, who writes so according
to the timeline of when women started shaming their legs,
which we talked about in the podcast in ve when
the movie Titanic is said, when Rose takes her dress
off to have Jack draw her aboard the ship, she
should have been sporting a healthy amount of body hair.
We earned how that wouldn't have translated. Well, it's the
audiences and therefore the facts shifted a little. Yes, Andrew
(18:49):
and all our listeners out there. When you are watching
a movie that takes place before the twenties and the
girls all have smooth skin, something is a miss. To
follow up, I want to read a real quick one
from someone who wants to be anonymous. And we talked
about how shaving legs is a cultural thing, she writes,
I agree. I'm South Asian and was born in North America,
(19:10):
but my mother is from India. All the time I
was growing up, I had never seen my mother shave
her legs, and she never suggested that I needed to either.
So it was with some surprise that when I was
around eleven, I think, and I was at a swimming class,
I started noticing that the other girl's legs were bare,
and later on that same summer, some other kid asked
me why I didn't shave my legs. I was shocked
because I figured it was an adult thing based on
(19:31):
all the commercials I saw, and even then I figured
it was only if you were showing your legs. I
started shaving afterwards, but even now I really only shaved
depending on what I wear and sometimes if I just
feel like it. But I'm definitely not a regular shaver.
I guess depending on what a regular shaver is. I think,
based on my mom's example, it never really occurred to
me as a necessary thing for routine maintenance. So very interesting.
(19:52):
Thanks for Brian. Well, I've got an email here from
Tom and he is a hand bag owner. That's right,
he is a handbag owner. He wanted to share his
recent experience with handbags. He says, for the longest time,
I took a backpack to work with my lunch and
beverages for the day, as well as any mail that
I needed to send, our bills I needed to pay,
(20:14):
all checked into the big main section. Unfortunately, the one
I've been using was a cheap backpack with all plastic
inside that kept cracking and falling apart, leaving a life
black dust on almost all the stuff I toss in there.
I've had that same experience with a bag that's breaking down.
It's terrible anyway, he says. Finally I broke down and
went shopping for a new one, and I found a
(20:35):
fabric messenger style bag that wasn't overly feminine. After figuring
out how to wear it properly, which proved to be
a bit difficult for a lifelong backpack wearer, I quickly
found out how useful this oversized purse can be. Soon
I was checking everything in it, my lunch, my soda pop,
my asthma and hailer, my bills and my mails, a book,
even my cell phones and keys. I've also discovered how
(20:58):
perfect all the little pockets and chambers in the bag
guard for organizing everything so I can get to it quickly.
I wish my bag were that organized. Uh. This thing
is perfect for lightning the load on my pockets and
finally bringing to an end to what my mother so
charmingly refers to as the elephant balls look. Fill up
your pockets to the brim with everything you might need
for the day, and you'll see what she means by that.
(21:19):
I like this thing so much, I'm thinking about getting
a second one for evenings and weekends to carry all
the stuff I usually chuck in my pockets during my
free time. Toss the wallet, cell phone, keys, multitool, pocket knife,
ball opener, corkscrew and a digital camera in the front
pockets of your jeans and you'll really have the elephant
balls look. After a couple of months with my handbag,
I'm happy to say that I'm a hetero averagely masculine
(21:42):
man who loves his man bag. All right, Tom, thanks
so much for writing in, and if you would like
to write to us, our email is mom Stuff at
how stuff works dot com. You can also leave a
note over on off Facebook wall, or you can tweet
us at mom Stuff podcast Us. Then, finally, you can
check out our blog during the week, It's stuff Mom
(22:04):
Never told You at how stuff works dot com. For
more on this and thousands of other topics, visit how
stuff works dot com. The how stuff Works dot Com
I phone app is coming soon. Get access to our
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on the go. Check out the latest podcasts and blog posts,
(22:27):
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