Maryjane Fahey - Glorious Broad | S9 E01

Two Old Bitches love a good reinvention story. By her count at 73, MaryJane Fahey is on “her 5th reinvention!” (But who’s counting?) She was a designer, published author, now an editor, writer, future playwright, future sculptor –and the list goes on. A few years ago, she started Glorious Broads, a media platform that encourages “women of all ages, younger ones especially, not to be scared of aging.” On Instagram, Tik Tok and Facebook, GB lifts up fabulous older women, “sages not saints,” living “imaginative, open, spectacular lives.” This year Glorious Broads is pitching a limited television series about the sex lives of women in the second half of life. Brimming with ideas, Maryjane is also working on a monologue about some of her icons navigating aging, and a possible theater piece. A decade or so ago –in her …fourth reinvention(?)– she co-authored Dumped, a post-breakup bible for women. Maryjane is a Two Old Bitches kindred spirit whose motto is “It is never too late. Period. End of story.” We think you’ll enjoy listening to our conversation with this exuberant, straight talking Glorious Broad as much as we did having it.

Check out (and follow) Glorious Broads’ amazing social media on Instagram (@gloriousbroads) and TikTok (https://www.tiktok.com/@gloriousbroads?lang=en). And watch GB’s interview with Old Bitch Joanne at https://www.tiktok.com/@gloriousbroads/video/7223376161638862123?lang=en

+ TRANSCRIPT

Idelisse & Joanne: Welcome to Two Old Bitches. I'm Idelisse Malavé. And I'm Joanne Sandler. And we're Two Old Bitches. We're interviewing our women friends and women who could be our friends. Listen as they share stories about how they reinvent themselves.

Idelisse Malavé, so wonderful to see you for Season 9 of Two Old Bitches. Season 9. Really. I, you know, I've been thinking about when we started and particularly with this episode it came to mind because when we started Joanne we were one of a very few people in social media who were focusing on older women. It was mostly the fabulous fashionistas and us, right?

They inspired us. They've been wonderful. Honor them all. But it went from almost none to now it's a movement.

Yeah, I know. It's like the gentrification of the old lady movement. Like, now all of a sudden everybody has media on women over 50, women over 60, women in their 70s. We knew it was coming. Well, anything that baby boomers start doing eventually blows up as we're at the front edge of baby boomers.

And one of our very favorite people, favorite platforms actually in this now crowded field and movement is Glorious Broads.

Joanne: So Glorious Broads was started by an amazing sister bitch named MaryJane Fahey. And we're going to tell you a little bit later about how we came to know them. So MaryJane is an ace communicator and she's going to tell you all about how she started.

Idelisse: But in a communication whiz. You know, did fabulous work for, you know, big corporations, big organizations in communications and marketing. And then a number of years ago with Glorious Broads, she kind of turned her skills and her thinking.

Joanne: Right. Into something that resonates so well with Two Old Bitches. That's the thing immediately we realized we had found, like minded soul because Glorious Broads, we asked MaryJane, how does she define a glorious broad?

Idelisse: And there are four, right? And we can identify with these, right? One, a glorious broad is funny. God knows we appreciate wit.

Joanne: We do.

Idelisse: Two, restarts are do overs. All about reinvention. She is such a kindred spirit.

Three, An independence and not caring what other people think and you know that we're all about not giving a fuck

Joanne: Except for other glorious broads.

Idelisse: Oh, exactly. Right. And then I think this last one which I love she captures something really important as older or old women however one identifies you don't want to be put in a box you don't want to be put in an ageist box. Oh, that's who you are, an old woman at the same time. You do want appreciation for the gifts of age and that you have experience and wisdom to share and skills that are an integral part of who you become.

Joanne: So let's start moving into our conversation with MaryJane.

Maryjane: Who am I? Well, I'm going to talk about who I am right now. And I am an unconventional broad. And my mission is to shout out about the old bitches out there and the imaginative, fierce lives that aging can be.

Idelisse: Yes. Well, obviously we're kindred spirits.

Maryjane: Yes, yes, yes, yes, that has been so my mission for the last like five years, and, and, you know ageism comes up all the time but I want to have a humor about it.

And I want to have imagination about it, and I want the young kids to know that it can be fierce.

Joanne: And MaryJane, how did you gravitate toward broads? Where did that come from?

Maryjane: Well, I love the feistiness of it, and I love the, you know, anti mame ism of it, and I love connecting it with Glorious, you know.

And it's interesting, when I talk to women on the streets and I, I mean, Elder to the elders. They have a problem with broads. They're just like, Oh, I don't like broads. I don't like the Frank Sinatra ism of broads. And I'm saying, well, I'm reclaiming it. And, and that's what you're doing.

Idelisse: Yes, exactly. No, we share that.

Joanne: And so did you just like, did Glorious Broads just come to you one day? Like, how did that tell us a little bit more about how it came and how you tested it? Because you're in communications, so you must have really thought of it.

Maryjane: I'm sorry, what did you say?

Idelisse: And in marketing, right?

Maryjane: Yeah, yes. Well I will I guess sum up my past really quickly, but I had been in publishing design and more than design. It was publishing marketing. So I know a lot about the world and media in that way. And I, I loved what I did, but it was the visual side. And I always thought that I could be a great writer. Long story short when, in my opinion, publication just went downhill, and I did not enjoy doing a digital magazine, doing a big, glorious, luxury magazine, which is what I was doing, I started to write.

And with it came this idea. I grew up in a matriarchal family, and my mother and grandmother led the ship, but as they aged, they lost their power, because they were mothers, mostly, and I even as a little kid I just thought. Why can't mother buy whatever the fuck she wants, and she has to ask permission and that bugged me even as a kid, and I would say about six years ago I saw this - not podcast.

I saw this obituary in the New York Times about this fabulous old broad, she had to be in her 80s on a motorcycle, and her obituary just taught me so much that she changed her interest in her genders as she aged, she became a lesbian, that she began to write, and she self produced this fabulous book about her sex life, that she moved to the country and became a motorcycle enthusiast in her 80s. I was like, okay, that's what I want to be. So it gave me something to look forward to. And I was only in my 60s now, now I'm in my 70s. And I thought about it. And I, I decided in time, as I started writing, I want to start this mission. So I have to say that since then there have been, as you know so many sites, and I'm glad that the focus now is about older women, but I think what I'm doing is, is doing these unapologetic and very, very uncompromising, unconventional broads.

That's what I want to highlight. Imaginative aging.

Joanne: That's brilliant. And do you do, you must, because I've been looking at your TikTok and your Instagram, you must get a lot of inspiration, hope and joy from the kinds of experiences you're gathering.

Maryjane: I am. I am. The street thing has been fun.

I mean, we just decided to do the TikTok I guess since I think I started in August of last year. And what I love about tiktok, I know it has a lot of problems. I'm aware of that. But what I love personally is that I was unable to reach the younger girls on Instagram. On instagram I get a lot of people our age or 40 and up and they're like, yeah, we rock.

But I wanted to reach the youngers. And I wanted to show them this is what sex is like. This is what this is like. This is what and the kids are loving it. And they're often saying, I don't get this from my mother. I don't hear this from my family. Thank you. I really getting almost all positive messages from these young women.

An occasional, look, did you see? Oh, they all want your glasses.

Idelisse & Joanne: So Ide, I think I should. Say, came to know glorious broads. Well, and And why your sun? Why everyone knows your sunglasses

Joanne: that right. So a couple months ago I was walking through Union Square on a beautiful day. And these two young women, like high school kids, right, came up to me and said, we're interns at what I thought they said glorious old broads, which just shows my bias.

Anyway, and we're interns with Glorious Broads, can we interview and, and I said, sure. But why me? And they said, like, in unison, because you're glorious. And so we step aside and they have a whole list of questions. They have a whole list of questions to ask.

Idelisse: And you were fabulously dressed that day. I've seen it. You're always fabulous.

Joanne: I had great tights, amazing tights. Anyway, so they were.

Idelisse: And apparently not just amazing tights.

Joanne: Exactly. So they asked really interesting questions. And they had like an interview schedule. They were going through everything we were giggling together.

It was so much fun. And I didn't really, that was fun. I didn't really think about it. You and I like Googled glorious broads to see what it was about. It was interesting, fun. And then. All of a sudden I started noticing that my Instagram account was like people were writing to me to start following me and

Idelisse: But they let us know that it was going up and we did see that.

Joanne: Then Loubna was the one who does our social media, who were like. You're on TikTok and come on TikTok. Anyway, long story short, on TikTok, they put two excerpts and one of the excerpts that they put was this question about. What was it like to not have children? And it got a lot of hits. MaryJane actually wrote me and said, you're blowing up on tikTok and I'm like,

Idelisse: well, you've got 47,000 likes. And God knows how many people actually saw it.

Joanne: It's so amazing. Exactly. And the thing that was so funny, as MaryJane said, is that if you look at the nearly a thousand comments, a lot of them are like. I really like her shades. Great shades. The shades, sunglasses. They're great. So, yes, I think, you know, Glorious broads and Mary, so MaryJane's going to tell us about how she got these young women to start doing interviews.

MaryJane, how do you find the young women who approached me in Union Square market was such a delight. I was telling Ide. I mean, I could have spent the whole day with them. How do you find them?

Maryjane: These young women? Oh, well I'll tell you, I was out on the streets, because I felt I had to do it, I thought that the women that I approach would be comfortable with me.

And then we found these two fabulous interns through a program in one of the New York City high schools where in their last year, they would get their credits by working with someone. And I love their very different personalities.

And the kids got what you were saying. I want to say something about that. You know, you talked about your sexuality and, and language. And the kids I'm going to call them kids, but the young women really related to that they either had a problem with a binary or they did not, or, or, but it was a real conversation.

And the other one we talked about, which was about Oh children, what a hot subject that is. Yes, I I talk about that all of the time and I think I send you both my my last newsletter. It's, it was like 6 million people had something to say about judgments. about people, about women not having babies.

Idelisse: It's choosing not to have babies. The choice that they make.

And when you think about glorious Broads with. What is it? I know you have a platform, but tell our listeners, what is Glorious Broads? How do you, how do you operate? What do you do? And what's the intent? I got a general sense, but.

Maryjane: Sure. Well, the intent is to teach more women, young and old, to not be scared of aging.

I don't want to be judgmental if you want to mess up with your face or change your face, it's okay. But wouldn't it be lovely to watch yourself age in a natural way. The people that I highlight are people that grow with age. And that's what I want to talk about. That's what I want to address. So what we're doing right now with Glorious Broads is we are developing a television show.

We shot it. We just did the B roll the other day and we're highlighting four very different kinds of women, ages that go from 50 to 80. And it's about their sex life. Now, when I was a kid, I didn't know that people in their 80s fuck. And they do! And, and I want, you know, the young people to, to learn about this. One of the women chooses not to have sex, and she is so interesting about that.

You know, in other words, Again, it's her choice. But I, I never got any education about that. So it's a very fun and interesting show about, about sex. And I'm also developing a monologue, a piece of theater about four, it might be five different kinds of women and their lives later in life and what they chose to do.

And all of those women are, to me, icons of age and how you navigate it.

Joanne: And are you, are you- so is this a monologue that you're going to perform?

Maryjane: No, I learned that because I gave a reading the other night and I am not horrible, but after it, it was just like, why am I putting myself through this when there are all these wonderful actors out there?

It was just like, this is, I'd rather be in the back room writing. Yay, the Writer's Guild. We ought to be on their side, but yes. So it was interesting. I really played with it just as I played, and this is an important part of my TV show, is I play with me being the host. And when I pitched it to a TV writer that I know, he said, why would you be the host?

Why not get a younger person so you get the cross generational? So, I had to let go with getting those young women on the streets and they're getting such good feedback from people like you. And I had to let go of me being the host. I'm a little bit of uh and we got this fabulous young host to host the show, the television show.

So that is the idea. Hire greater talent.

Idelisse: The TV show that MaryJane references is now a docuseries, which they're pitching out there, and we're excited and looking forward to seeing it on the screen. And not only is she working on this docuseries, along with all of her social media work on the platform itself, but MaryJane wrote a book that has a great name, doesn't it Joanne?

Joanne: She co wrote this book.

Idelisse: Another collaboration.

Joanne: Exactly, as really part of a healing process. She's going to talk about this and the book is called Dumped and it's about getting dumped.

Maryjane: I will say that the period of Dumped has everything to do with who I am now. Meaning I was a, you know, I'm gonna own my success. I was very much the big deal in terms of publication design and, you know, worked all over the world. It was great, but when I had a crisis in my career and my sister passed away, and I was deep menopause my man and I fell apart.

Now, when I look back at it, I think I kind of can see why it was just too much for him. He was 15 years younger than me, whatever, but it was a very, very hard parting of the ways. And a friend of mine, Karen Rosenthal, was going through a very tough time too. So I went, I went to the country to write the big juicy novel.

I wasn't ready to do that. Instead, my friend Karen Rosenthal visited me and I said, let's write what we're going through; dumped. So we wrote this Bible for getting over it. It's not easy, but at that time I was very connected to this man. And I threatened things like meditating. I threatened things like living in the country.

I threatened things like writing. I did none of it. But during that period, I shifted. It, it was a great time for me.

Joanne: And, and so I know it's, I know the point is by the book like find out but how do you know how do you get over being dumped quickly.

Maryjane: You don't get over it. No, I didn't. But I realized I was, I got attached to this person, maybe for all of the wrong reasons, for whatever reason I think women do this a lot but I don't like to talk about our weaknesses a lot but it's just a fact.

I was still successful, but he became my world. And I let go of friendships. It was very odd when I looked back at it. So when we broke up I realized who was that person? I let go of me. So in the next, that next year Karen and I had a ball and dubbed it pretty well. And we just had so much fun doing it that I became myself again.

I found new friends or I went back to the old ones and I became a fun loving fierce lady again, and believe me, that person went on hike for a while. It's funny how that happen.

Idelisse: You know, it's so interesting to me that you started by saying that you realized as you were in design, that you were really a writer. A storyteller. And the work that you're doing with glorious broads, the work that you did in writing your book, it was about stepping into that, but at a collective almost communal level. It's for the group. Right. It's not just about me I have, I have this art in me that I'm going to express and if anyone sees it who cares, I need to know.

This was about impact and connection in the world.

Maryjane: Yes. Yes. And, and wanting to, what's funny when you say that, because yeah, in that place I really wanted to connect with the women out here is here are ways you can, you might be able to get over your dumping, you know, not be as angry as I was. Although I think.

Idelisse: You went past getting over it. You went to transforming in it.

Joanne: So, in addition to writing Dumped.

Idelisse: About a very big transition in her life.

Joanne: Exactly. And, and realization. We asked MaryJane what were, for her, some of the really huge shifts. And she talked about the shifts that have to do with career.

Maryjane: I think that the biggest shift that I made was not necessarily that breakup. The biggest shift I made was accepting that my very, very powerful career was over and that I needed to really reinvent and that, you know, that required some sadness, a little grieving. I would walk into the room and I wasn't the person would who people would run over to anymore.

People weren't answering my calls, and I had to get brave about that. It took a while. So I would say that's the biggest shift.

I often have a problem with the word, you know, I'm invisible now. I don't want to, I don't want to think that, I don't subscribe to that because it comes from here. I walk into a room and I'm bringing something it's not just this, or you're screwed if that's your take in life. Another, another reason this it was finding that obituary, but it was also having a conversation with one of my most beautiful friends.

And she was turning 40 and her husband was starting to run around on her. I'm talking about the beginning of glorious broads and has to do with this conversation truly. And she's in the beauty business, a very dangerous business in my book, the worst. And she was saying, Oh, if he had done this when I was 30, I'd have had a chance in life.

I can't believe he's doing at 40. This spectacular looking woman is throwing all of this garbage at me. And I'm trying to get her to see the light, but she couldn't. And she still can't. And now she's 50 and really ready to put the, it's so sad. Anyway, that was one of the reasons why I got to start glorious broads and talking about all kinds of beauty and magic that there are out there. Did I just say magic? I did. Yeah, magic. It is magic. Fucking magic.

Idelisse: Joanne, there is no doubt that aging has its downsides and things that, that change, you know, but it also. Has its gifts and what MaryJane calls magic right on this other side in the sense of possibility so we were curious and asked her about the magic that she's pursuing that she alluded to earlier in our conversations about pursuing an active and adventurous sex life.

Maryjane: Well, at the moment I've been with this man for the last two years. But before that, you know, I've always had a kind of fun attitude about sex and about dating. So I was online and I had a lot of fun with it. I also tended at that time to date younger. Once again, I'm not saying everybody should do this, but I had my best sex with younger.

So I knew that I wasn't looking for a partner at that time. And this partner in my life came along in an unexpected way, but I feel now at this point I know I've written about this but at this point I was ready to change the arc of my story. Maybe, maybe, maybe I can go through life with someone maybe I can learn to care in a deeper way that's where I am now, but when I just two years ago I was out there having a ball for the just was fun for me, and I mostly- sorry?

Idelisse: I have to ask; is he younger?

Maryjane: No. In the end, he's five years older. This, this person who came into my life was a complete like, what? We started as friends. One of those. We started as friends and he was a widower. And so I was, and I just lost my sister. So we had that in common, you know, it was deeper. He had that in common. I just lost my sister and we became friends. Not that we go to music as a musician and it became something else.

I'm going to be obviously very honest, but I've had some falls in my seventies and I had to you know, I think of myself as invincible. And so it's like, okay, time to put some balance work into my work, just recognizing that I am getting older. I think the 70s was a different thing. So Also, you know, sexually now that I'm with a man who's older, the sex is a little different.

It's good, but it wasn't as hot as the old days. I don't know, frankly, I hope he doesn't watch this podcast, how long I'm going to stay with that. Or do I open up the relationship. So I'm thinking about my sex life in a different way, maybe in order. Maybe I have to open it up to get what I need.

And I need more alone time in my 70s. So I need think time and I was too busy running around to kind of respect my own intellect. Does that answer you?

Idelisse & Joanne: Oh, that's great. Right. Beautiful.

Maryjane: You know, I think it's a combination of glorious broads and life. I've opened up about the people I hang out with.

One of my besties is an 85 year old woman named Liz Freeman. I'm always going on on Instagram about her, but she is my inspiration. She's out all the time. She's alone in the world. What I mean is she doesn't have a partner. And she is my most vivacious friend that I have. She's always open. So I've opened, I no longer say my 100 year old friend, my black friend, my 85 year old now is this pal.

I find I protect, as I said, my aloneness. I don't want to be out all the time like I was when I was a kid. And I also am very particular. I'm particular about my lovers. I'm particular about my friends. So I have always been comfortable in my solitude. And so I've, the only time I felt a little lonely was through COVID.

And and, and that was because we were all going ape. Yeah. So I think it's because I'm an artist type. I have a book list that this high, you know, I'm lucky enough that that I am filled. So that, that's why I do love being alone, and I'm going to P-town all by myself, I'll get in trouble at night, but during the day it'll be full of my delicious aloneness.

Idelisse: I love, I love your thing "I am filled." tell me what you're filled with.

Maryjane: Ideas. You know, that's the thing of hitting, now I'm 73 and it's just, God, I just want to be astute and have a good mind till I hit 85. I would like to be beyond that, but you know, 10 more years of writing books and making things. And so it's, I'm feeling filled with ideas.

of what I might do next. Since, you know, now we're not afraid of creating. Yes,

Idelisse: Creative ideas, right? Yes, yes, yes. And brimming with creativity, is the sense I get of you, MaryJane. You're just overflowing.

Maryjane: But when I was younger and I had that career, and then I had a ball in that career, but it was all for the man, meaning my boss was the man and All, mostly the magazines I redesigned was for the men.

It was a, you know, a corporate world. And now I, you know, I don't want anything to do with it, except when I'm selling my TV series.

Idelisse & Joanne: Exactly, you need the men.

Maryjane: Yeah, now I need them.

Idelisse: Well, they need us, actually. They need us.

Maryjane: That's right.

Joanne: What are the ideas going forward that are really like feeding you and exciting you?

Maryjane: Well I've always loved theater. And after I do this monologue, I would like to have the guts to do something as powerful as how I learned to drive. You know, I would like to dig deeper and now this is great, but after that I would like to dig deeper.

Idelisse: And you do reveal yourself in, in the work that you do with Glorious Broads. Does that vulnerability... ever trouble you? Are you ever, you know, questioning, should I say this? Shouldn't I say this? Have I been too forthcoming? Do you ever question your outgoing forthrightness?

Maryjane: That's a good question.

I've gotten in trouble with my family. I have a lot of sisters. Well, I had a lot of sisters and I have three left. And one came to me about something I put out about our father and she asked me to take it off. And I agreed that I would take it off Facebook. Maybe that was the wrong place, but I was going to, I was going to have it on Instagram.

But when that happened I realized that I have to be ballsy and I hate that term, and the next time that happens, I'm going to say, no, no, I'm going to write about what I need to write about and I'm not asking permission. So yeah. I never, I don't have a problem with what I need to put out there, but I have to be okay about people in my family, mostly my family accepting it.

I mean every artist has to do deal with that. So that's where I am.

Idelisse: That's great. And there is power in being vulnerable.

Maryjane: Yes, there is.

Joanne: Ide, it has been such a joy to connect with MaryJane. To get to know about glorious Broads. To be inspired really by what she's doing, and especially to dip into her amazing social media, including TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and so much more.

Idelisse: And to look forward to her docuseries, which I really am, and to, to spend this kind of time with someone who is a kindred spirit.

And, and just being able to share our own experiences with her. And speaking of our own experience, this is

Joanne: Who better to speak of our own experience than us, right?

Idelisse: But we are in season nine and we are going strong and you know, we often say this to each other that the wonderful thing about doing a podcast at our age is there's no need to stop.

We're not going to retire from podcasting. We love what we're doing. We're going to keep doing it. I mean, we both still consult and do, you know, paid work, but this

Joanne: It hits a sweet spot. We are so appreciative that you, our listeners, are sticking with us. We're so looking forward to season nine and to continuing to revisit all the seasons that came before, and all the amazing women and a couple of men who we've interviewed.

And so

Idelisse: so if you have any ideas about people that you'd like to hear on the show or topics that you think are important, let us know.

We do want to hear from you.

Joanne: Thanks for listening. And thanks again to our amazing team. Katharine heller, Loubna Bouajaj, and Melissa Tobias, who are always there helping us to do what we do.

Idelisse: Thank you, Joanne.

Joanne: Bye, Ide.