We Can Do Hard Things
Women at Work & The Episode That Wasn’t with Sarah Spain (Best Of)
Sat, 29 Mar 2025
Pioneering sports journalist – the brilliant, hilarious, badass Sarah Spain – joins us to reflect on: 1. One of our most popular episodes – Episode 147: The Episode That Wasn’t – when we ended an interview after the guest was disrespectful to our team member; 2. The constant indignities and inequities in male-dominated fields; 3. To report or not to report harassment – and what actually happens when you do report?; and 4. How to help ourselves – and come together to help each other – secure safer and more just work spaces. CW: sexual harassment About Sarah: Sarah Spain is an Emmy and Peabody Award-winning sports journalist. In her 12+ years at ESPN she has worked as a radio and podcast host, writer and TV analyst. She's a minority owner of the Chicago Red Stars of the NWSL, a co-founder of “Hear The Cheers,” which provides hearing aids and equipment to kids so they can continue participating in sports, and is on the board of Embarc, a program that provides community-driven experiences and learning opportunities to low-income Chicago high school students. TW: @SarahSpain IG:@spain2323 To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: What happened in 'The Episode That Wasn't'?
Welcome to We Can Do Hard Things. Today, we are doing something we've been waiting to do for a while, which is talk about one of the episodes from last year that caused the biggest splash, and that was the episode that wasn't. For those of you who don't remember the episode that wasn't, what happened in short...
is that we had this guest that was supposed to come on and we prepared for eons and we were so excited about the guest. And then what happened was that the guest's husband came on to do the tech check and was aggressive towards our producer. And our producer reported it to us in our other little Zoom room where we were waiting. And she was hurt and stressed. Activated. Yes.
And we spent a minute trying to figure out what to do and how to make it better. And then we remembered that we were the bosses of the podcast and that we didn't have to do shit that we didn't want to do. And so sister went over, canceled the podcast, said, Godspeed. go on your asshole way.
And I'll just say it was episode 147. So go back and get the background because it was also the guest herself was very undermining of the situation and passive aggressive. And also none of the people you guessed is who it is. And we're not talking about that. We're talking about how this happens all the time.
So let's just not do that. It's not about that. It's not shaming a certain person. It's about something bigger, which became clear after we launched that episode and we got almost a thousand voicemails in two days. Because so many people, especially women, resonated with being a part of a system that is male-dominated and being mistreated in a million different ways in those scenarios.
And so in our wish to continue that conversation, we were trying to figure out who do we want to bring to this conversation to discuss this further. Yep. And all of us decided... Sarah Spain. We've got to have Sarah Spain. And one of the reasons we just effing love Sarah Spain. She's like this Venn diagram of me and Abby. We can both love her. It's so true. Because she's like...
Totally sporty Spice, but also totally feminist Spice. She's just the right Spice. Both Spices. Sarah Spain is an Emmy and Peabody Award winning sports journalist. In her 12 plus years at ESPN, she has worked as a radio and podcast host. writer, and TV analyst.
She's a minority owner of the Chicago Red Stars of the NWSL, but we love her anyway, a co-founder of Hear the Cheers, which provides hearing aids and equipment to kids so they can continue participating in sports, and is on the board of Embark, a program that provides community-driven experiences and learning opportunities to low-income Chicago high school students. And Sarah, the reason why...
We wanted you here for this conversation is because of all of those things, but also because we were thinking, what's the most extreme version of this that we can imagine? And maybe one of the iterations of an extreme version of this, I would also suggest my feminist friends in the evangelical church, but would be a woman kicking ass in the sports world. So welcome, Sarah Spain.
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Chapter 2: Why did Sarah Spain join the conversation?
That's what keeps the world going.
Right, but the messaging from the beginning is these are inferior. The women's qualities are inferior. The men's qualities are- I think we should say masculine and feminine.
Masculine and feminine.
Sorry, masculine qualities are superior. feminine qualities are inferior. This has been the messaging from the beginning. This is not debatable. So when I am in the presence of just men, I get to be a hundred percent superior. I get to just use these characteristics. When you come in, you cannot be in my presence and me be a hundred percent this.
I have to bring some of your inferior qualities to myself or when you are in my presence. And therefore, I don't just hate you. I hate me.
Whoa.
Because in my relation to you, I need to assume some of your inferior qualities. And that makes me hate myself. And therefore, I project that hate on you because I need to be superior and not inferior.
So is this all encapsulated in Tiger Woods handing secretly... walking by his, what do you call golf mates? Is he a teammate? Handing him a tampon secretly. What do you make of that?
I've made a lot of it on the internet and I've received a lot of great feedback. Thoughtful, thoughtful feedback. First of all, let's tackle a couple of things. Secretly, during a professional golf tournament, live on television with hundreds of cameras. So everyone, let's just get rid of the, it was between two friends. It was not meant for you. It was private. No.
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