Ron Burgundy Tries to Pronounce ‘Misogyny’ While Talking to Gloria Steinem

On the final episode of the second season of The Ron Burgundy Podcast, Ron Burgundy and his co-host, Carolina Barlow, interview the legendary feminist activist, journalist, and author Gloria Steinem. “You have seen her picture. She wears a nice pair of aviator glasses, a cashmere turtleneck, and a tiny little cowboy hat perched on the top of her head,” Ron says. “I think she got it from a dog.” They talk to Gloria about her time riding the trains in India, why some people think she’s a secret agent with the CIA, her days at the Playboy Mansion, why she helped found the “Take Our Daughters To Work Day,” and more.

For some reason, Carolina is nervous about Ron talking to Gloria, which Ron doesn’t understand: “My voice isn’t annoying,” he points out. “It’s smooth like a Coltrane solo. Your voice is like if someone handed a bunch of eight-year-olds some clarinets and told them to blow as hard as they can.” This is exactly the kind of comment Carolina is worried about; “Gloria Steinem is a woman who has worked her whole life for the feminist movement, and you can be a little misogynistic,” she says, reminding him about a time he bought tutus for all the girls who worked for him. Ron is offended, but doesn’t actually know what it means, or “patriarchy,” either: he makes a note “with a question mark next to it” so he can remember to look it up later. 

Ron asks Gloria if she experienced a lot of “misogoly” when she posed as Playboy Bunny for an expose. She responds dryly that she didn’t, because “they weren’t smart enough to know that word...it was just wall-to-wall exploitation.” She had gone into her Bunny interview pretending to be a secretary who wanted this “glamorous, wonderful job, but the Bunny Mother who interviewed me said, ‘Honey, if you can type, you don’t want to work here.’ That should have been a warning.” Ron can relate: he once spent three weeks in the Playboy mansion because the valet lost his car, he tells Gloria, even getting into a fistfight with Hugh Hefner. “Worst three weeks of my life. Because of all the misology.” 

Gloria helped institute the Take Our Daughters To Work Day, Ron says; “Do you think gambling bookies should be taking their daughters to work? Or drug lords? Why did you start such a dangerous holiday?” Gloria tells him it might be beneficial for kids to know some of the terrible things their parents get into, so they can help reform them, but that the idea was to get girls “comfortable with the workplace.” Eventually, it became Take Our Daughters And Sons To Work Day. “I had a son later in life, Walter Burgundy, and I should have brought him to work more often,” Ron sighs. “But I left him in the car.” 

They also talk a little about Gloria’s famous quote, “The truth will set you free, but first it’ll piss you off.” Gloria loves quotes, telling Ron, “I think quotes are kind of populist poetry. They’re short enough to remember, but smart enough to be memorable.” Ron agrees, sharing that “One of my favorite quotes, and I believe it was a Sophocles who said... ‘If this van's a rockin', don't come a knockin'.’” Gloria, laughing, says, “God, I hope Sophocles said that.” 

Listen to the episode to learn if Gloria was ever an agent of the CIA (“If you can't answer, you could just make the sound of a bird of prey,” Ron suggests), the book about Marilyn Manson that she and Ron are going to write together, and if Ron ever figures out how to say “misogyny,” on The Ron Burgundy Podcast.

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