This is the waves. This is the waves. This is the waves. This is the waves. This is the waves.

Welcome to the waves Slates podcast about gender, feminism, and untangling the snakeling weeny.

Every episode you get a new pair of women to talk about the thing we can't get off our minds.

And today you've got me, Lily Lucphurrow, a staff writer for Slate.

And me, Emily Peck. I'm a longtime business journalist. I co-host Slate Money and this is

key Slate Money's weekly succession recap podcast. And also the producers of the waves. They usually

call me when it's time to talk about rich white ladies. So here I am.

All right, so this week we're talking about the men versus the women of succession.

The much loved HBO drama about a Rupert Murdoch style patriarch whose children are vying for

control of the family company, even though he's not at all ready to let go. Succession is kind of

a broy show created by Jesse Armstrong whose former work includes Peep Show, the best and funniest

show about modern masculinity and TV history, in my opinion. Succession takes on masculine eco and

narcissism with Brio. The dialogue is terrific, the satire is sharp, and the approach to

abuses of power is unapologetic. So whenever one of the Roy boys fails to be anything short of a

dick in their treatment of an adversary or confesses to a sentiment like love, their father Logan Roy

calls them gay or women or both. And so this puts the one female sibling Shavan, nicknamed Shiv,

in a weird position. She has to be able to roll with the boys, but she's not quite expected to

operate like they do. And that's not an advantage. Shiv might be Logan's favorite, pinky he calls her,

but her femaleness is always salient and strategic. She's never just being judged on her merits,

so she's constantly on guard against becoming merely a token woman in a company culture that needs

a makeover because of the rapes and murders. The two place under its male leadership. Mine are things.

There's no way to win in this world, but this week we're talking about how the men are doing

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