Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you have probably heard about the Call Her Daddy podcast.
Call Her Daddy is a female-oriented podcast hosted by Sofia Franklyn and Alexandra Cooper. They discuss everything from taking charge of your sex-life to navigating hook-up culture and everything raunchy that falls in between. Their ideas while radical, have a dash of comical truth, but when is too far, too far?
The episode that really caught my attention is where they discuss college reputation, which is very relevant and applicable.
University is definitely a time of self-discovery, which I think pretty much everyone can agree with. It is the time of heartbreak and hook-ups, it is full of firsts and definite lasts. The Call Her Daddy podcast highlights the narrative of two 20-somethings and all of their crazy experiences through this time in their lives.
Alex and Sofia essentially create a guidebook with a set of rules for their listeners to take note of. One of the guidelines that they suggest is that your first semester of college sets your reputation for the rest of your college career. In their eyes, what you do in this critical time period establishes how you are perceived by men for the next four years.
They take it a step further to say that if you’re a seven or above (on a scale of 1-10), aka a “hot” girl, you should avoid sleeping around the first semester because otherwise you’ll be “hot and slutty”. If you’re below a seven you can afford to “sleep around a little” because “more guys will invite you to parties because they know you will “probably sleep with them” at the end of the night.
So I guess you could see why this may be a little controversial.
I sought out both the opinions of my friends who love the podcast and those are not so fond of it to give their honest opinions of Alex and Sofia’s advice.
When these comments are taken to heart, it can be destructive, without a doubt. The Call Her Daddy podcast has a female audience, yet is owned by Barstool Sports, which is targeted towards males. Is that not slightly contradictory? Throughout many of their podcast episodes, the advice they give is centred around pleasing the male and giving him what he wants. Sex is a two-way street, and both parties obviously have to give something, but to be a female-oriented podcast and be consistently pushing the importance of male pleasure is misconstrued and anything but empowering. It gives the wrong impression to their viewers, especially since Barstool is oriented towards males. A friend of mine summed it up nicely:
“It’s as if a man is teaching a sex-ed class for women.”
Interestingly from a guy’s perspective, he pinned it as “trashy” and that it seemed to amplify even more the stigmas that objectify women. The hosts of the podcast also discuss how girls who don’t let their boyfriends go to strip clubs or watch porn are insecure and “motherly”. In relationships, each person makes sacrifices. This gives off the impression that men don’t have to make any sacrifices for their partner in the relationship and he can essentially do whatever he wants. He often questioned the so-called “feminism” in their ideologies.
The idea that you have to be putting out in college creates a really toxic mindset. Everyone comes into university with varying levels of sexual experience. If someone with little to no sexual experience were to listen to this podcast, it would set the wrong narrative for the sexual relationships they encounter throughout the years.
Alex and Sofia’s ideas tend to enforce the ideas of toxic masculinity rather than feminism. It creates this “cool girl” stereotype; where she is hot, but not slutty, putting out, but never too much. It’s an ongoing list that seems so unattainable, and unhealthy.
However, I received a lot of input that was also positive.
The girls explained how their ideas no matter how controversial they are, need to be taken with a grain of salt. They take characteristics that most people would shame and turn them into empowering attitudes. Although some of their ideas are controversial, Alex and Sofia take what it means to be a feminist into their own hands and to them, that means embracing your sexuality in a way that makes you the author of your own novel. It’s comical and relatable to lots of girls. It may not appeal to lots of people, but maybe that’s the point. Sure, it’s extreme, but we need to be able to exploit the fact that women can be raunchy and dirty just like men can. Women must be able to openly talk about sex and do so without any shame. That is collectively what these ladies are trying to get across after all. They want men to call them daddy symbolizing that they wear the pants and hold the power.
To be honest, I’m not so sure which side I fall on. Sometimes people get too sensitive towards their views. Yet, this podcast is oriented towards 20-year-old impressionable women who are still figuring it all out and there has to be an ounce of responsibility somewhere. There is a way that we can empower women without needing to call them slutty or judge them based on a number. There is a way we can healthily talk about sex and relationships without putting male pleasure in the center of it all.
That’s the beauty of feminism, it’s not a one size fits all formula. So no matter where you lie on the daddy spectrum, stay true to yourself and know what you want and what you deserve.