Welcome to the Stay or Go podcast, where we're changing the dialogue around divorce so that no woman ever stays in her marriage out of fear. Get ready to dispel myths, learn life-changing tools, and build a solid foundation in yourself from which to make your decision. And now your host, me, Britta Joe. Hello, everybody. Quinn and I have just been walking through this uh whole outline. And then as soon as we turn on the mic, my little glitter bomb self comes out because I know what fun and like incredible material we are about. And by fun, I just mean like holy shit, have our eyes been opened in massive ways around the topic we're gonna be discussing this week. We had to also shockers split it into two parts. This is the new format for the podcast. It's this beautiful get a part one and then wait a week and have to get a part two. But as you guys can tell, Quinn is on the podcast with me today, and we are going to be discussing a book that you I had to ask. I was curious about this. Where do you remember where you found the book?
SPEAKER_00I found it through my Apple news feed. And that's where I first mentioned it to you, and then I had to order it. I had to get it on Audible, I had to get it physically, I had to get it on Kindle because it makes sense of why marriage is the way it is. I thought it was me. I thought I was bad at marriage. It turns out heterosexual marriage, it was meant to be this way, especially for women. It's working as design. So it answered a lot of questions and it simultaneously gave me hope for the future. So I'm excited to talk about it.
SPEAKER_02And if you guys are just dying in suspense about like, okay, what is this book that Quinn had to literally get in three different formats? It is the book called The Tragedy of Heterosexuality by Jane Ward. And I remember when you mentioned it to me, and I was like, oh, this is what? This idea of heterosexuality being a tragedy, it definitely piqued my interest. But it took me a little while. I just was able to finally, you shipped it to me. You were like, Brita, I'm sending it to you. She knows if she sends it to me in the mail, I will break down and read. Eventually.
SPEAKER_00Eventually.
SPEAKER_02Could not put it down. Poor, not poor Joe. Joe was loving it, but we stayed up one night till like three in the morning with him sitting next to me and me just being like, oh my God, let me read this part to you. Oh my God, let me read this part to you. Because it was just so many, like you said, so many questions about why are things the way they are were answered in this book. Y'all, we are gonna dive so fucking beautifully deep in this episode and even more contextually in the episode kind of following this one next week. But before we just get off to the races, we wanted to take a second at the beginning of this episode to acknowledge both of us were very disappointed to watch the bill pass this uh last week. And then, I mean, genuinely horrified to find out about the concentration camp that has been built in the Florida Everglades. And it shook, I know I could hear it. Quinn had sent me a boxer, I could hear it shook you. It really shook me. I had to process a lot. There was an evening with Joe where I was just crying. Like, how are we here? How are there people in the world that like want to treat people in this way? It was, it was another moment of like another layer of illusion about where we're at, what's actually happening in the world falling away from me. And why we wanted to bring it up at the beginning of this episode is because if you as well have been feeling like, what is going on? Where are we headed? The history that we are gonna break down in this episode, right, Quinn? I think is gonna provide so much context for why we are here. And like you said, give us hope for where do we look for the world that those of us that are like, hell no, this is not the America or the world I want to live in.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_02Where do we look? Who are the people and the groups that we look to that are already doing this work, that are already building worlds where we don't need to suppress people, power over, hurt others?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. A lot of the things that we're going to be talking about in the history of heterosexuality are the same things that are coming to the fore that allow some people to think that concentration camps is a good idea, having a domestic supply of white babies is a good idea, the state controlling who gets to be born, that that's a good idea, all of these things. This is just history repeating itself. And that's why it's so important that we look at the history, because as difficult as heterosexual marriage is now, it is so much better now than it has ever been. Women have far more rights than we've ever had. And the same forces that want to put people in concentration camps, want to take away our right to vote, want to make no fault divorce go away, you know, all of these same forces. So we've got to look at history. We've got to look at why we are where we are. And it's actually a pretty awesome story.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it is it is wild. And as you said that, this is why, like, I really hope these episodes, like, these are not just for considering divorce. Like, share these episodes fucking far and wide to everyone you know who is like, why is it this way? What are the issues that we are facing? Because this book, the way we're gonna break it down, I think this is what we all have to start understanding to see through the mess and the illusions that are being presented in front of us, and the people stepping forward to say, Oh, it's so messy. We should go back to doing it this way. And women, many of us believing that we have had these freedoms and they will always be there, and the reckoning of realizing, oh my God, holy shit, this is so recent. Yes, I had a huge wake-up call for like, oh, my freedoms, the freedoms of my sisters, the daughters that will come is not guaranteed. Yeah. And I want, as you do, Quinn, to be part of the voices and the forces waking up those of us that do not want to go back. We're not going back. We're not going back. Nope, we're not going back. Okay, so with that gorgeous intro to the episode, we are now gonna dive into getting to really dissect for you guys the history and the hidden design behind straight marriage and hopefully take you through a journey of gently dismantling the illusion that I know I had, still have, you and I are still dismantling, that is out in the world of heterosexual romance and marriage and what it is, and and that being held up as a path to fulfillment by showing you guys some key pieces of its roots being in everything from white supremacy to eugenicist movements to capitalism to patriarchy and ultimately performance, not necessarily real love between two humans, seeing each other as individuals. So this is about exposing a system. I also want to acknowledge it may be triggering for some of us and realize that as a part of that system, waking up and seeing what it is can be a bit of a jarring experience. So remember, if you feel jarred as part of that system, that's normal and healthy. I know I had a chapter in the book where I really felt like, oh no.
SPEAKER_00Yes. And I want to acknowledge we're going to be painting with a broad brush. Like we're talking about America. So part of it is specific to American history, and it may not necessarily translate one-to-one to our listeners in other countries. But I think that in most Western countries, you're going to be able to see this in the broad strokes. But yes, we're going to be making generalizations, we're going to be speaking very broadly, and just understand we see that. And that's the way this story is going to be told. And also through our own perspectives of being heavily indoctrinated into heterosexual marriage is the way. And specifically for women, like this is our domain. From a very young age, we were groomed into this system.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And so allowing it to land in that greater context and also allowing it to permeate as much as you can your microcosm of a marriage. Yeah. If it's a little too much to see it fully in your marriage, that's okay. I feel like it's this process of waking up that we all are going through and we do it at the speed that our nervous systems can handle. Yeah. So I want to start off by giving just a brief topic outline of what the tragedy of heterosexuality is about, what Jane Ward is trying to do with the book. And in the beginning of the book, which is what we're going to kind of focus on in this episode, she breaks down the history of straight culture and specifically the institution of it as practiced in modern day America within really the last what 1900s? So early 1900s.
SPEAKER_00So like a century and a quarter.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00125 years.
SPEAKER_02Um, and ultimately she's arguing that the straight culture that was built perpetuates deep satisfaction. And especially for women. And who she is, just to give you guys some context, I'm learning to do this more when we discuss books to kind of give you the credentials. She is a professor of gender and sexuality studies at UC Riverside. Did you not also feel like I was like, I want to go take her class?
SPEAKER_00I do. I do. And if she wasn't married, I'd probably want to date her.
SPEAKER_02She's brilliant. Brilliant. That was the other thing. Um, she's known for queer theory, feminist scholarship, and social justice activism. Like brilliant, brilliant human. Um so to drop us right in, Quinn has this banger of a quote that I want us to start with. So take us there.
SPEAKER_00Okay. We want to start at this place called the misogyny paradox that she defines in the book. And the misogyny paradox is wherein boys' and men's desires for girls and women is expressed within a broader culture that encourages them to also hate girls and women. And I think that if you just pause right there and understand that we're in this system where men are taught to want to partner with women, have sex with women, and also taught to hate women, be violent towards women, not truly take care of women or see women.
SPEAKER_02Or associate with any. It's like that ad. Do you remember that ad that was like, run like a girl? They ask all these people, what does running like a girl look like? And the older people, the boys, even the older women kind of do these stupid, it looks stupid.
SPEAKER_00Weak, flailing, not running. Like that's the worst way to run in the world. Even the girls who can run like a girl. The older women. Yes, the older women. So like my age, yes. You're like, oh, we know what run like a girl means. It means that you're weak.
SPEAKER_02Yes, we know. And then they have those younger girls. They cut to the like under 10 girls who run hard. Like you see, they haven't bought in yet. But I think that shows so powerfully the like tell men to love women. And then we as a culture disparage and look down on those that exhibit what are considered more feminine traits and behaviors.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah. And so I think we need to talk about what misogyny is, because in my mind, I thought, well, misogyny is that you hate women. And I love women. How can I, you know, reckon this within my mind of the ways that I see misogyny within myself? So this definition really helped me. That misogyny is a systemic hatred, yes, but also a distrust or devaluation of women and femininity. And it goes beyond individual attitudes. It's more structural and cultural force that upholds male dominance by punishing, belittling, or policing women or anyone that embodies femininity. And I know I've done it myself. Looking down on the women that I went to church with that were too sexual or too loud, like there was this way that you needed to be feminine that is acceptable. Yeah. So it's not just hating, like, oh, I hate that woman. Because I think most men, especially heterosexual men, yes, would say they don't hate women. They don't hate women. They they love fucking them. Yeah. It's like the the carnivores that say, I love animals. They're delicious. Like in that sort of vein.
SPEAKER_02Aaron Ross Powell And not understanding. So that's like the a little bit further down on this end of the misogyny level. Say that last part of the quote, like the repressing or the like devaluing.
SPEAKER_00Punishing, belittling, or policing women and anyone who embodies femininity. So yes, there's the distrust, devaluation of women and femininity.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And this there are plenty of husbands in marriages that would say they love their wives that are doing this: the belittling, the devaluing of what she does in the home, how she speaks, how she thinks about the world, and often not even understanding or realizing the extent that they do it because it's just in the water in the culture here in America. Yeah. Yeah. So really important to understand misogyny because it's the weather of all of this. Like it is the climate of what's happening throughout the entire discussion of the historical context we're going to take you into. Um, but one of the things that like blew my mind when I started reading the book and where she takes us is back into the 19th century where she's like, heterosexuality was invented. The term was not. Yeah, I was like, wait, what? I thought it was always this way. The way it is talked about, especially in our Mormon culture, you know, a man with a woman, the two genders, like heterosexual is the standard. It is the normal. This is what humans have always been. It is like canon for the human. That's how I was raised, like human species, like this just is the norm. And to find out it is not, that the term emerged in the late 19th century. And going back to that space when she took us there, realizing that actually men and women being together was not necessarily a loving thing that they entered into out of want.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it wasn't I fall in love and so I'm gonna marry this person and we're gonna have this beautiful marriage. It was an economic partnership. And in that economic partnership, the woman was the property that was being exchanged from the father's house to the husband's house. You were property. You didn't necessarily have any choice in the matter. When nations were conquered, women were taken as prize, given as gifts. They were taken out of the channel.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, just pause. Pause there. Like this is not that long ago, y'all. Like I mean, it still happens in places in the world. So exactly. And that is the other thing of like, oh my God, exactly. It's still a huge part of the economy in the world. The buying and selling of women. Yeah. But just understanding too. So what was also crazy was learning that in certain cultures, when heterosexuality, the idea that, like, oh, men should love women and women should love men, and they should like want to be together. That people were like, what the fuck are you talking about? Like, because men had viewed women as property. So there was that one quote where it was like, men were like, Why would I love something that is beneath me?
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Like property.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. It was a very colonial idea. It was the English that brought that idea to the Middle East. And these men in the Middle East were like, no, like I love other men in like I respect other men. I care what they have to say. They honor me. I honor them. And then I go fuck this woman to have children. But yeah, I don't love it.
SPEAKER_02And she takes care of the babies and she runs the house. She is part of the system, but she is not my equal. Yeah. She is not my peer. She is not someone I look to to discuss my innermost thoughts and to philosophize. And yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that in the absence of that, men had a lot of love and what would now be considered homosexual, you know, definitely categorized under like, that would be considered gay connections with other men.
SPEAKER_00Yes. This whole concept of homosocial relationships was very normal for both men and women, that women would generally go to other women to have a lot of their love and intimacy needs met. And I'm not, I'm saying intimacy, not necessarily sexual. It could be sexual, but not necessarily. But like deep intimacy that so many of us long for and we're being told, oh, you should get that from your husband.
SPEAKER_02It's just gonna magically happen with this dude you married. Yeah. When when we look at the historical context, that is so wildly recent in the grand scope of humanity. It was because we now live in a world where anti-pride, it's and she does such a gorgeous job in the book being like this is an illusion. This is a construct that we have created that homosexual love is the weird abnormal. So definitely read the book if you're like, what, what, what, take me there. Um but you mentioned this thing that you discovered called the Boston marriage. Tell me that. Because I think this is just such a gorgeous historical snippet of like this was normal.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So a Boston marriage was when two women would move in together, and the assumption was that they were married in all of the ways. So Assuming it was a sexual marriage as well. But nobody really had a problem with it because it was just kind of like their thing. And it didn't involve a dude. And so it's like it was fine. Like it wasn't a big deal.
SPEAKER_02And as you're going to get into, I won't like dip too much into the history, but it makes me think of when we talk about the Victorian era. But it's just like so, like women felt safe and connected in their relationships with women. And your marriage was this like kind of foreign entity that you did because economically you had to and socially you had to, but it was not the place of fulfillment and connection. So before we go there though, oh my God, I'm so excited to get to that. Take us into the beginning of the history. Because in the book, and by the way, this is gonna be something that Quinn is just bringing from her gorgeous research. Although Jane Ward touches on it a little bit, where she really drops in is with the 1900s and the eugenics movement. And we were gonna start there. And Quinn was like, we need more context. And I'm so glad she did, because this is really gonna drive home why the eugenics plays. So take me to the start of where you want to begin with that history.
SPEAKER_00We need to start back thousands of years because the foundation of all of this is patriarchy. Now, I know that some people flip off their minds when they hear that word. So let's just define it as a system where the men are in control and women are property. The economic system is controlled by the men, the government is controlled by the men. And so even if you don't think patriarchy is a problem now, I think most of us can buy into the idea that, yeah, thousands of years ago, everything was run by men and it was might is right. You know, there were the occasional blips like Cleopatra, but in general, we've got women did not exist historically.
SPEAKER_02Yes. Like a whole 50% of the world's experiences are being completely not talked about, honored, discussed, and suppressed from the narrative of humanity.
SPEAKER_01That's what we're talking about.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Because they're property. So it's like, do we keep the history books full of this person's pets? No. Why would we talk about his wife? Like what he is doing is important. So we have a lot of history of men and very little history of women. So that's where it begins. And then we build upon that, the misogyny, where women, as we come up through the ages, and there are certain periods of enlightenment where women are given access to additional power, or they may just have a husband that gives a damn. Like we have the letters of Abigail Adams to her husband, John Adams, during the constitutional convention in America, and her begging him, don't forget the ladies, which he promptly does. Like the women get no vote.
SPEAKER_02Because even if you had affection for your wife, your loyalty was to the system.
SPEAKER_00Yes. Yes. This is the system of power. And so that's kind of where we begin. And it isn't until like 1870s where remember, America just had their civil war, 1860 to 65. So this is where America passes the 14th Amendment, which gives citizenship to all of the slaves that are here in America. Anyone that is born in America. So this is birthright citizenship that the Supreme Court is allowing people to question and maybe reverse. This is where it starts. Because we had all of these people who had not been considered citizens after the Civil War, but now they're free and we're going to consider them citizens. Women are considered citizens, but they're still not given access to the right to property, to their children, to credit, any of that. And during slavery in general, the African Americans were not given access to the traditional white family structure. Men and women could be sold and purchased, their children were not their own. So imagine having married or had a family as a slave, and it can just be torn apart or sold off.
SPEAKER_01Oh, similar to what we're in America.
SPEAKER_00So they come out the other side of slavery. And, you know, we still have the Jim Crow laws. So even though they're citizens, the men have a right to vote, but there's still all of these structural barriers in order to be able to do that. But one of the places that they can experience quote unquote freedom is the creation of a family where their wife, husband, children, they can't be bought and sold and destroyed. And this was something very valuable to them because it had been denied. Like this was the gold standard of family. And this is where the eugenics comes to play. Because now that we see that blacks are creating families and that they are having children, then the eugenicists are getting worried. Because what the eugenicists want, at least the ones in America, they tend to want white babies.
SPEAKER_02And so in their can you pause and tell me more about I've heard it thrown around, but tell me more about eugenics. Like what is that?
SPEAKER_00It is a sort of biblical idea, scriptural idea that the races should not mix, that there should be pure races.
SPEAKER_02That word pure is so triggering. Yeah. It's like this is some real dark shit. I I think I just want when we put the word eugenics out there, like many of the listeners may not know what eugenics is. And, you know, we will talk about how eugenics is we're talking Hitler. We're talking the ideas that there is a super race of humans that is the ideal best race. And we need to use government and control to try and make sure that this race stays in power and stays on the top. And we need to suppress and through very dark means. I mean, this makes me think of the violence. She mentions that in the book, against black women for their reproductive rights. Like, we're not going to go into every little, but that's why we recommend reading the book, because it will take you into all the facets of understanding that prior to this, this massive heterosexual marriage is the way. It doesn't get introduced until the eugenics writers come in.
SPEAKER_00And with eugenics, the bottom line is some people don't deserve to live. Right? Yes. And we need more white babies.
SPEAKER_02Which is so crazy that we have literally heard that said in the US today. Like, y'all, in case any of your family members have been wondering, like, what's going on? Which side am I on? This is the episode to send them.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Talking about more women in the US having babies, there's a whole history behind it. And we're hopefully educating you around it right now. So tell me why eugenics was so interested in the heterosexual piece.
SPEAKER_00Because men and women didn't really like each other. And it was just kind of accepted at the time that women found men's bodies disgusting, particularly their genitals, that men did not respect women, didn't really want to spend time with them, and that women were on the regular being raped and traumatized and wanted to kill themselves after their honeymoon.
SPEAKER_02And so these This section of the book blew my mind. Right? I yeah, because I'm this removed enough from the history to not understand that there used to be a world that humans lived in where everybody agreed like male and female marriages were rough. Yeah. Where it was assumed that men and women did not like each other.
SPEAKER_00Mm-hmm. That was kind of the foundation. Like, let's build from here. They find each other disgusting.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And I think of, you know, she discusses so many times in the book, right? The the propaganda machines that start getting built. And the first one that we hit in the historical history of the heterosexual tragedy unfolding is these individuals who see black families, the structure that they are building, and they go, shit, how are we going to get the white people to have more babies? We need to create a bunch of materials to somehow help men and women want to be with each other more, white men and women. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So within eugenics as a whole, you've got the sexologists, you've got the psychiatrists, you've got the speakers that are going around trying to sell this idea. And so initially, they kind of accepted that men are not particularly attracted to women as people. And women are not really excited about having sex with men. And so they created propaganda and books and things to educate both sexes.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and I guess I wouldn't even call it in at that moment, it doesn't feel necessary, but it is ultimately it propaganda is the right word, y'all. Because it is all ultimately propaganda for this idea of heterosexuality. Like I was chafing a little against that word of propaganda because it it's what we've come to get used to. Well, but they're trying to help. They're trying to teach men how to be not so nasty and to actually like wash their bodies and not be covered in syphilis. And they're trying to teach women how to communicate. A lot of a lot of sex ed.
SPEAKER_00Because we're coming out of Victorian era where it's you know a very pure sexual education. Yes, and we have the Puritans who founded America. I mean, so you may have gone your whole life, and unless you changed a baby's diaper, you may have never seen male genitalia, and then suddenly on your wedding night, stick that in you. Like it's a good thing.
SPEAKER_02And the accounts in the book, yes. It was there was like no prep. Yeah. And and literally, yes, rape and women killing themselves in the weeks post marriage from the horrific shock of how much their worlds changed. And that is to me like a big wake-up call for like, oh, we are in a totally different world than we were just 125 years ago. Yes. Like in our understanding of what happens, even on a marriage night.
SPEAKER_00Yes. And a lot of things had changed culturally with the Industrial Revolution, people going from agrarian communities to coming to the city, the creation of all of these individual homes being these individual consumer units for capitalism. And it kind of begs the question: why then would women marry? And number one, they're still considered property. So they don't have a lot of people.
SPEAKER_02It's like the only option. Yeah. Why do it? Because you have no other option besides be an old maid and live at your parents' house as a spinster.
SPEAKER_00Yes. And that's, I'm so glad you used that word. Do you know where the word spinster came from? Tell me. It's so good. So women that became good enough at spinning, they wouldn't have to get married. And so it became a derogatory term. The woman that had enough money that she would not have to marry a man. She was a spinster. And so the men made it this. Had to come up with a term to make her something awful.
SPEAKER_02Right? There's misogyny. Ew. A woman who can make enough money to not have to marry someone she doesn't want to. That's disgusting. Gross. Oh my God. That is a I love that that just unfolded on the podcast right there. That is a perfect example of the propaganda machine of ew. Women who can make enough money and don't have to get married are gross spinsters. Yeah. What you and I would call today, like free.
unknownYes.
SPEAKER_02Yes, yes. She's she's living my dream life. She's living my life. I don't have to marry a man to survive. Right.
SPEAKER_00And there's this idea that for men, you wanted to get enough money that you could attract more women. And for women, you wanted to get money so that you wouldn't have to marry a man. So very opposite kinds of goals as to why you wanted economic security. Yes. So here we are. They're trying to work through the challenges that men and women have with each other, but really selling it hard. It's important that we also recognize that right here, I think it was 1921, women finally get the right to vote for the first time in the history of our country.
SPEAKER_02This is so landmark. Right? I'm like finally realizing because I've grown up with women voting my whole life. So I don't think, but I'm like, holy shit, this was huge. Yes.
SPEAKER_00Yes. And there's a huge movement right now to take away women's right to vote, that it should be the man, that all the votes for the family should be dictated by the man, that the woman shouldn't have a right to vote. So back here, I mean, and women had been fighting for this right, the whole uh representation that we wanted as people the right to be considered full citizens. People. Yes, we still didn't have the right to property. We still didn't have the right to credit and cash and capital, but we had the right to vote. So changes could maybe be made. So this was a huge moment in women becoming people. But at the same time, marital rape is a medical norm. It's just kind of accepted. And it's legal. Like you cannot at this time legally rape your wife. Like it's not a thing. Which and that has only very, very recently changed. It was in the 1990s that it finally became illegal for men to rape their wives. And in some states, I'm thinking it's South Carolina, the the burden of proof is still very high. Like there has to be a high level of violence for it to be considered rape rape. No matter what you're saying to your husband. So it's not perfect, but this is kind of where we first get, you know, the suffragettes, and we're we're getting some power as becoming people.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And the reason, you know, marital rape was this is this is what we were discussing earlier. That this is why the eugenicists came in with all their materials of trying to teach men to go slower and trying to convince women to like sex with men. Because that was the other thing. Their materials were like, but you, it's like you like it. Like it's good. Um, so there were initially what we considered like, okay, if we're coming from like barbaric, like you treat me like property, okay, these are some initial like positive moves of educating the sexes, trying to educate the sexes for it not to be just so horrifically awful between each other. But I also want to acknowledge that at the same time, so this we're talking about this for white people. Meanwhile, at this period of time, marginalized groups like black and brown and disabled and poor and queer people are being persecuted, discouraged, sterilized or criminalized. So even though there's notice the education that is helping people is for a very specific group, and so that that group will have very specific babies. So the state didn't just promote heterosexuality, that's the other thing. It's uh it's understanding it like engineered a system to reproduce and ease the gears on the system of white babies and capitalism.
SPEAKER_00Yes. On your note of capitalism, when Adam Smith came up with this concept of, you know, we've got to have all property privately owned, and we were here to maximize profits. And he was very interested in people being productive. But he did not consider women in this equation at all. And here's this man, he he was married briefly, um, his wife died, his mother took care of him his whole life. But at no point did he consider all of the work that had to be done around him to maintain a home, to cook his meals, to take care of him so that he could do the work in the world that he's doing. And so you take this system that doesn't consider the work that women do, that has been traditionally woman's work, the unpaid labor of capitalism that props up the very system of capitalism. Like capitalism doesn't work otherwise.
SPEAKER_02Without this piece that is just completely taken for granted. Yeah. It's just there, it's just magically there. All these women doing all this shit.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_02That makes so much sense that his mother raised him and took care of him the rest of his life. That just that like lands for me. Yeah. As that being the dude that that built the ideas of capitalism. Yeah. Like he was the original bro podcaster. Uh-huh. Exactly.
SPEAKER_00Exactly.
SPEAKER_02Like, I know all the stuff. Hey, mom, you get a pizza? Let me teach y'all how we're gonna run this this world.
SPEAKER_00Right?
SPEAKER_02Yes. Okay, so take us into World War II. Because this was like yours and my big moment where we were like, when did women fucking get it? When did they start going? No, no, no, no, no. I don't want to be in the box. And I don't even think it was with, I think it was growing with the votes. But that's still, women are still confined to the spaces at home in those roles.
SPEAKER_00Yes. Then comes World War II. Then comes World War II, and a couple of things happen. Men go off to war in human. Huge numbers, hundreds of thousands, or maybe it was millions, because we know hundreds of thousands passed away. So women go into the workplace and they're doing quote unquote male jobs, like male labor, heavy. This is the rosy derivator.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_00Yes. And they're being cur being encouraged to do so. And so they are in the workforce, and simultaneously, we have this man in Hitler who has taken eugenics to a whole new level, who is like master race, the German master race. And even within the German master race, there is hierarchy because we want the blonde, we want the blue-eyed, which he was neither. But you know, we want to get rid of the Jew. We want to get rid of the immigrant. And so the disabled.
SPEAKER_02Yes, all the people that might benefit from Medicaid.
SPEAKER_00Yes. Well, not even let them die. Let's help them die. Yes. And we got to see the horror of eugenics followed to the end. Because it's one thing to say, we want to have more babies, we want to create more babies and keep your eye on the ball there. But what Hitler gave us was, and then let's look what we're doing to the Jews and the black and the brown and the queer and the disabled. Let's look what we are forced to do in order to live our eugenic dream. So at this point, eugenics kind of falls out of favor. And people are like, maybe that's not a good idea.
SPEAKER_02But it was so popular before Hitler. It was growing in the US, y'all. The leading thought leaders were preaching eugenics. Yes. Yes. Like, let that sink in. That that is where we were before World War II happened. That is where we were before concentration camps got built.
SPEAKER_00But Brita, that's where we are now.
SPEAKER_02I know, Gwyn, for those of you listening that are like just not understanding the context. I just keep thinking of that woman who texted me and was like, Trump's never gonna get rid of no fault divorce. I'm like, oh MG, we are watching it unfold and we are watching people who like Hitler believe this mission and believe in it so powerfully that they will talk about feeding human beings to alligators.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And when I say that we're there now, I also mean you and I were in a church that opposed marriage between the races. Yep. And there are people now, the Proud Boys, there are lots of religions who preach men and women should not cross races, people who still, still to this day have a problem of men and women. Like it has to be a specific race.
SPEAKER_02I love you saying that and exposing that as much as my brain is like, oh my God, it's here now, it's always these, like you said, this has been in humanity. If you look back at history, you're gonna find it again. And that's why it's so important to know the history so that we don't repeat it again. Yeah. So coming back to women are entering the workforce. I swear if you and I had lived at this time, we would have been banging. We would have been on that line, just like, this is so much better than being a mom stuck at home making bread. Like, do not bring the men home. Like, please. I hope he dies at war and I keep my job. For real. There were definitely, there were definitely women that were feeling that way, y'all. Yep. Oh, honey, please don't go. No, don't do it. So men leave. Women realize, I think there was this like psychological shift where women realized, wait a second, we can do men's jobs, and not only can we do them, we can do them better.
SPEAKER_00And they're doing it within a homosocial network.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00So all of a sudden, the women are the ones that are taking care of each other.
SPEAKER_02Getting to enjoy the benefits of capitalism. Oh, we get to build something together out in the world that matters and makes a difference.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02This feels really awesome.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02I kind of like this.
SPEAKER_00Yes, right?
SPEAKER_02Yes, yes. And so, as happens, as you'll see in history, yeah, there is this swing, there's always this pendulum. It's like, and and the more that I've read now, more around as I'm finding people like Jane Ward and queer scholars, this seems to be the way it goes. There is like progress and opening and expansion. And then it is like the rubber band snaps back. Snaps back.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So that snap is when World War II is over, all these men are coming home. And guess who's got their jobs? And so these women had to be sent packing back home. So if you look at the propaganda of the 50s post-World War II, there's this hyperfeminization. Oh, yeah. And this is where women for the first time. So remember back in the early 1900s, it was men, you have some work to do as well as women. Well, in the 50s.
SPEAKER_02With the eugenics. They were like, both of you, here's manuals for both of you. Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_00Let us walk you through. But in the 50s, the new women's work was definitely stay in your place. You needed to be douching with Lysol. Could you believe that? Oh my god. There was some really crazy shit in the 50s around women. And this is where they start to normalize violence towards women within marriage.
SPEAKER_02It's seen as funny. It's seen as what was that? You gave that example of like women being spanked on the butt.
SPEAKER_00Yes. So I love Lucy. Lucille Ball is spanked to the point of crying a couple of times by her husband, Desi Arnez. There's the honeymooners, where the husband is always telling his wife, I'm gonna punch you to the moon. And then, you know, and it continues on. So if you were part of the 80s, married with children, it was just kind of accepted that the man, yeah, he loves his wife, but he hates his wife. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And understand that this is where those roots start. The like cultural normalization that men are annoyed by women. Yes. And that women, it is the woman's role to be less annoying to her husband who is working so hard out in the big bad world.
SPEAKER_00Yes. And so that's when your personality for the first time as a woman becomes the problem. Before it was just your body, and now it's your personality. So that's where you get the 1950s uh manual saying, don't nag your husband. Ask him how he's doing. You need to keep yourself fresh. Don't bother him with your little problems. And so imagine you're this woman in this, in this very isolated world of your tiny little home.
SPEAKER_02Yes. Everybody's all ever all the connection that was happening in World War II of working or the men being gone and everybody depending on each other is stripped away to enforce, get back into, and this is the other crazy thing. The nuclear family. Like, this is when it goes big, guys. Like this is the picture perfect. What's that image of the Turkey with all the family? Norman Rockwell. Like this is the symbol of national stability. Straight marriage gets sold as patriotic and wholesome. Like, here's how we come out of the horrors of concentration camps and somehow whitewash literally our own issues. And how do we do that? We put the burden on women.
SPEAKER_00Yes. And so this is the birth of the heterosexual repair industry, where women, you need to find a man. And, you know, this is also the time when men are being encouraged to continue to have homosocial relationships like through the Elks Lodge or the VA bar or Playboy.
SPEAKER_02So fascinating to me. This moment where it becomes okay, women, you need to sit at home and make it nice for your husbands and work on your marriages. And men, you need to get away from your nagging wife. You need to go to the men's club. You need to go golfing. You need to Playboy. Y'all, this is where the double standard hits hard. Stay beautiful and cheery for your husband. And meanwhile, husbands are checking out. And this is the other thing that you and I discussed: male fragility. Like this building up of the male ego and him believing he has a right to a wife that will respect him, that will trust him, that will defer to him. Like the country depends on it.
SPEAKER_00Yes. Yes.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So really in the 1950s is where she shows us that the entire self-help industry, which y'all, like this also made me step back and go, like, am I part of this industry that is like feeding to women how to mold and shape and think differently so that your husband will be okay and your marriage will actually be great. Um, she really exposes that this industry existed because at its heart, heterosexuality from the beginning was a broken, flawed idea. Everybody knew it way back in the 1900s. But instead of fixing that system, we built a support network that thrived and was built on convincing women to endure it.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_02That it was them, that if there's an issue in your marriage, it's on you to figure it out and fix it.
SPEAKER_00Yes. Especially when you have it couched in terms of the man is the provider, the man is the protector. So he's like out there somewhere. And you, I mean, within Mormonism at least, we are primarily responsible for the nurture of our home, our children, our husband, our community, our church. Like it's all on us. He just has to bring in a paycheck. And so all of that.
SPEAKER_02And yet we thought that was so like I remember being back in that illusion and just like, oh my God, you know, the protector, the provider.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_02Like such a devaluation of my own role as the, and you're right, the only word we were given as women in Mormonism was the nurturers.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_02Like, just go nurture the whole fucking world. Like it's gonna be great. Um basically, basically.
SPEAKER_00So my mom, she was really big into self-help. And I think this is where she got it. She got married in the late 1950s, and all of this worked really well because we know because of the baby boom. You know, the men come home. All right, there's a lot of sex happening, a lot of marriage happening. Then we get the boomers. Thanks for the boomers.
SPEAKER_02And which were a really mentally health-wise, fucked up generation that then spawned. Yes. Which is her point, right? That we want to drive home, that the system was broken. And the way of fixing it was let's have more babies, with no real understanding of like the core issue that we're gonna land at, which is that women are still not being seen as humans.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And now you're making women have to, through this self-help industry, figure out how do I get loved? How do I get him to be happy? How do I make my marriage work? So she went into this. Oh my God, I'm so glad you have this example of your own mother from this generation.
SPEAKER_00Oh, yes. And she introduced me to it. So I took it into my marriage. I saw her go to therapy and we did family counseling, and she read the five love languages and tried to, you know, become more human for her husband, to have him see her as more human. I don't know that he ever did. It was painful to watch, even though they had, you know, over 60 years of marriage. It was really painful to watch. It it was kind of typical, I think, of a lot of the messaging at the time. Like, marriage ball and chain. And he would, she was the butt of the jokes, and he would roll her eyes. He he would have to slow down and explain things to her about money, you know, that kind of bullshit that just really devalued her. And this is a man who has eight daughters, and she had gotten married at 19, and he was, you know, a professional, blah, blah, blah. But it was her job. Like he was fine. He was happy. This was good for him. He got and he was thriving in his religious career, in his yes. Yes. He got to thrive in ways that felt good to him. Not to say that he had no challenges, but the work of the marriage, the family, that was on her. That was on her. And it was never done. Never.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. That takes us. So she was married in the 50s. I want you to kind of follow her thread throughout these next three decades. We'll keep coming back to her, and you can kind of update us on like what you noticed in her experiences. But we're coming out of the 50s and we hit the sexual revolution of the 1960s and 70s. And just reading this book like opened my eyes in so many ways, where I definitely had romanticized this time as like kind of like with the women getting the vote, thinking that like this created like a big change in what what maybe we call like women actually being seen as humans. Um and there was a lot of freedom, and putting that maybe in air quotes, right? Being promised and big ideas. And here's the thing: there were some really big things that came through. Like you said, this is when no fault divorce came through. Yes, in our discussion.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So yeah, we get birth control, we can control when we have babies. Though some women you would have to have your husband's permission to get on birth control for a long time. And then, yes, in the 70s, we get no fault divorce for the first time. So female suicide goes way down, and divorce.
SPEAKER_02Oh my God. Can we just that no-fault divorce happening and we see rates of women's suicide go down? Yeah. If that just does not continue to show here in the 60s and 70s, y'all, that the issues that were in heterosexual marriage from the start, although we have tried to make them look pretty with a bunch of self-help books and douching with Lysol, are still really nailing the female part of the population is not doing well. So no vault divorce comes in, divorces spike. Yes. Because people can finally escape the hell that those of us who have been in hellish divorces understand.
SPEAKER_00I cannot imagine living in a world where you 1974, you can finally get credit in your own name without a man cosigning. So for the first time, I was already born. So all of my child all of my mom's children children. So she has 10 kids and she can finally, she'll she's finally responsible enough. No, the laws change so that she can actually get credit in her own name. She can open a bank account. That's crazy.
SPEAKER_02When you say get credit, you just mean a bank account.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, like stuff in her own name, finances in her own name. Oh my god, y'all, this is 1974.
SPEAKER_02Quinn was already born. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so some big, some, some big key things. Those are big. That's massive. Birth control, no fault, divorce. Um, and with the sexual revolution, right? This idea that women are definitely waking up and moving differently in the world.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02While still, though, being asked to manage men emotionally and sexually. And for the women that aren't out there in, let's say, more of the sexual revolution piece, let's say the women like your mother that are at home, this is where the feminine mystique comes in. Of like these women like having these weird psychological, like, what is happening to the women? Yeah. Why are why is their mental health fucking tanking?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah. Feminine Mystique was so this is by Betty Ferdan, and this book just exploded onto the scene because she was saying the quiet part out loud. That women within these very specific roles, being controlled in this very specific way, supposedly needing to manage the men in a very specific way as well, that we weren't doing well. And I saw this 100% with my mom, who eventually, when I was a teenager, she became suicidal. She was hospitalized. She deals with depression. Several of my sisters also stay-at-home moms, also struggle with depression. And it was it was kind of sold to us as no, marriage will make you happy. And the mental illnesses coming from women being treated as subhuman.
SPEAKER_02While expected to do fucking everything. Yes. All of this emotional, physical, sexual labor and processing for the world, the nation, and being treated like we are stupid, the butt of the jokes, the nagging wife, like no appreciation or compassionate, like respect at all.
SPEAKER_00So, but at the same time, within religion, at least, we're being told women are on a pedestal. Like if you get to stay home, if you get to play the trad wife, like that is such a prize. Not everybody gets to do that. You're on a pedestal. We we adore you, we honor women, and that's why we have to protect you. You wouldn't want to go into the big bad world and have to compete against men. And so is it any wonder that women still I mean, we're still not at the core, like you said, of women being seen as people. And not objects, not just a means to the end for the white male to thrive. And I want to circle back for a minute to the black woman. I know this is we're talking about blacks and we're talking about whites, and they're all of these other nationalities in America, but this is this is all the information I have. The black women were put under tremendous pressure to shut the fuck up and support the black man because he's being oppressed by the white man. And so she needs to be extra tender. And so if her man is not thriving, it's her. It's not the racism as much as it is her. So what's really key about this is that the women were the organizers behind the March on Washington, where Martin Luther King spoke, the I Have a Dream, yet not one woman was allowed to speak. Yeah. But so it's still, we're still in this like race war kind of thing. And women on both sides are being given specific roles. Yes. It's kind of about gender, but it's mostly about race. But both races wanting their women to be a certain propogeny, the men. The distrust, the dislike of women. Like, do the work, but don't be seen, don't be heard. Yeah. You're still property in a lot of ways.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And the other thing I loved her making the point of, so we're we're seeing that like there's these movements happening, but like still in the microcosm of individual women's lives.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02I can't say things are getting terribly better. And even though there was this revolution around sex, many straight men simply absorbed that revolution as more access to women without rising to meet them in emotional maturity. Right. Right. Like that's a huge piece to understand in the decades that were going to come after this of, yay, yes, now women's sexuality is a little bit more liberated. But men did not actually in that sexual liberation move into seeing women as humans. And I would say straight male emotional development really doesn't evolve here. Yeah. In in the dynamic with women.
SPEAKER_00So then we go into the 80s, we've got more of the self-help industry coming to the fore because relationships are still not doing well.
SPEAKER_02This is just like this is like the the athlete's foot that will not go away. Like it just keeps coming back around. The wheel.
SPEAKER_00Yes. And so the 80s and 90s. So I was with my parents living in their home during the 80s. And then I got married in the late 90s. And so all of this heterosexual repair system was in, you know, overdrive in my family. I remember my parents talking about men are from Mars, women are from Venus, which really doubles down on how different men and women are, even in our capacities to see each other as fully human. And that we just need to accept how different we are.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. While perpetuating the idea that like this just is what it is. And we're just going to have to build these systems around it. So what was that one where it was like feed him, fuck him?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that would be Dr. Loris Lessinger. She wrote a book called The Care and Feeding of a Husband. And it's basically feed him good food, don't talk to him, and fuck him, and you'll have a great marriage. Like men are so simple. That's that was her thing again and again. And I have talked to men that I've dated about this, and they love this narrative. We're just so simple. So simple. We're so simple. Just feed us and fuck us and we're happy. Like, yeah, but I'm not. And I'm the other part of this relationship.
SPEAKER_02Eg exactly. So that is like, I feel like the theme of when we move through the 80s and the 90s self-help. It becomes this like, well, let's normalize that like men and women don't really like each other, but that's just how it is. Yes. Which once again puts the burden on who the women, because we do not have a place to escape from the marriage. Yeah. Like that is still built into the structures that were existing for the most part. And then, you know, you see books coming out that are like men who hate women and the women who love them.
SPEAKER_00Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Like the romanticizing. This was the thing that like really hooked me and blew my mind in the book was her being like part of the heterosexual repair and like the benefits women get from this narrative is the getting to play in this game of he's just so awful. It's just so hard. The beauty in the beast, I'm married to this beast, but one day, if I love him enough, one day he will change.
SPEAKER_00My love can transform him. Yeah, he's he's gruff and he's violent, but to me, he shows me this other side. I just love him so much. Women taking on the challenge of challenge.
SPEAKER_02There it is.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yes. It was seen as like a and not seen because so much of it is subconscious, I've realized. Right, right. But definitely this challenge.
SPEAKER_00Yes, and we're sold it in in media, in movies from a very, very young age. So so much of this is subconscious.
SPEAKER_02Oh, yeah. When we this is the water that you are the fish just swimming in. Um, you know, we also talked about how at this time this was like a big moment for us. We were like, okay, so like where what are the big areas that are like propping this up the most? And we realized religion is a heterosexual support group. Yes. Yes. This is such a great moment because it was like, oh my God. Religion requires leadership of men, men to be in power. And then women within that system are getting proximity to that power by aligning with those men. And you and I know we were absolutely a hundred percent we know this system because we were part of it. Yeah. And in that hierarchy and that needing to have some kind of power within this system, you end up becoming part of the force, as Quinn was saying at the very start of the episode, that shames the other women and the girls coming up in that system, that educates them around how to behave in this world, that teaches them subconsciously the misogyny, the hatred of their own bodies. Yes.
SPEAKER_00Get it internalized, make sure everybody's drinking the Kool-Aid.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And you even brought up when we're talking about like religion as a heterosexual support group, your story of a you said it was like a fifth Sunday.
SPEAKER_00Yes. So within Mormonism, we would have instead of separate men's and women's meetings, which was typical, on the fifth Sunday, we would all meet together as men and women. And on this particular Sunday, the head of our congregation got up with his counselors and tried to convince everyone we should be having more sex, that fewer people would be coming to him with marital problems if y'all would just shut up and have more sex. And you could see the men looked very uncomfortable but hopeful, and the women there with their arms crossed, like you're not addressing the issue. You're not asking why don't you guys want to have sex? Is this the kind of sex you want to be having? Do you feel respected? Do you feel seen? Like none of that was addressed. Nope.
SPEAKER_02Just once again, we have an issue, and who needs to fix it? The women need to fix it. The women need to have more sex. And I love that you point out not addressing why the women are not having sex with them. Because if they asked that question, they wouldn't want to get the answer, which is I don't want to have sex with someone who treats me like an object. Like property. Yeah. Yeah. Which is the heart we've been coming back to over and over. Um, and this is a huge piece that's going to tie in big into the second part of this breakdown next week, which is understanding when you say why don't the women want to have sex? Because heterosexual sex is not female-centered sex, y'all. Do we have bells going off?
SPEAKER_00Because the whole purpose. The whole purpose was to have babies. It was penis into vagina as efficiently as possible, ejaculate, get ready to go out and slay the dragon the next day. Like that was the purpose. That's what it was created for.
SPEAKER_02Yes. And do we all now, like, that was the moment too when she kept saying that, you know, it is phallic-centered sex.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02That women's pleasure is not a part of the typical heterosexual sex. And even now, I think this is where we can take them down into like the 2000s to now. Cause I think people would be like, no, men totally care about women's pleasure now. I'm going to just drop into this one coming out with the like, I cannot tell you how many dudes I had sex with who were like, I care so much about your pleasure. I definitely like, I love oral. I love making sure I want you to come before I ever do. And not a one of those motherfuckers delivered on that promise. Like looking back, it was all talk and no delivery of the package. Yeah, because they don't know how.
SPEAKER_00They and they don't care to learn how. No. No. And it's like their education their pornography, everything they consume is their pleasure, and a woman faking like she's enjoying it.
SPEAKER_02Yes. And this is where we move into the 2000s to now, which is where we see like the rise of this performative man and woman. And what leads us into today's world where we are like literally seeing this whole, you've got to be more feminine, he's got to be more masculine. Like the wheel just comes back around. So once we get into the 2000s, this is where just to like bring everybody back into like women are still marrying young.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And like I married at 19, you know, there are women today still in this system marrying at super, super young ages because they are part of the heteronormative machine that that equals safety and security. And how many of us thought that and got into marriages and realized, oh, this is none of that. This is this is not even about me at all. I am just a cog in my husband's life and my children's lives.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And I loved you made this point a couple of times in our conversations before we started recording, where you were like, and that's how the machine was built.
SPEAKER_00It was always always gonna be like this.
SPEAKER_02As much as we as women yeah, through the self-help industry, think we're we're coming. It's like we keep coming forward with this psychosis of like, I'm not doing well, something is not working, I want to kill myself. This is really bad. And the system just keeps feeding back to us. I don't know what's wrong with you. Maybe you should try harder. Maybe you should try to talk to him a different way. Now, when we get into the 2000s, right? Now we are back into all of the, especially with social media influencers. Maybe if I just have the right house, if I just have the right nails, if I have the right this. All of that for women. And then men are still, as much as they may say, I care about your pleasure, as much as they have learned the lip service, they still deep down are in the misogyny mix. I see it right now in my teenage sons, even the like broness, the girls are this foreign, scary thing. I don't know what those are, but don't go near them because they'll bite. And ultimately, the hypersexualization of women and them being seen as like this thing that you're gonna get, and men being entitled to the sexual and reproductive labor ultimately of their wives. Yes. Yes. And this is this is the chapter, and I want you to dig into this piece where this chapter blew my mind, where men are being taught, they're learning these scripts for how to appear emotionally intelligent to women, but really ultimately just to get laid, to get what they need.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And I think it's important to note at this point, women have enough economic power where we're seeing women opt out of heterosexual relationships altogether, or choosing to be child-free and single. And so I remember speaking with a past lover where he's like, women only want to date the best men. I'm like, women have always only wanted to date the best men.
SPEAKER_02And saying it like it's so sad and like rude of women. Their standards are just so unreachable.
SPEAKER_00It's just that you used to have to date a man in order to gain access to housing and food and survival. And now that we don't, but there's still this heterosexual machine where it's like we've still got to have these white babies. We need more white babies.
SPEAKER_02And men still see being partnered with a woman as a like rite of passage and a thing that like that does move men up in privilege in their worlds, is if you are with a woman, you move up in their world. And so there is this motivation to get the woman. Meanwhile, women though don't need to marry anymore just because they have to. So the game has changed, right? But men, instead of actually doing the real work, the work to truly love women, in the those of y'all that have seen the like Pedro Pascal thing that's going on right now, this is the movement we're seeing of women wanting men who actually really love women. Not just the what are you gonna, you know, the idea of a woman.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And so instead of doing the work, these men have learned the terms, like how to look emotionally available, how to look like they are supporting feminism. It makes me think of a video I once saw on TikTok where there was a woman interviewing, it was like a dating show. She's interviewing this guy, and she fine, she's like, My final question is who did you vote for in the 2018 election, right? And the whole fucking room goes silent because it was like a it was like a TikTok thing, right? With a whole bunch of young. And he's like, um, like, uh and he ends up admitting he voted for Trump, and the room, the men are like, yeah, and the women are booing. And the woman goes, that's all I needed to know. And like the date was going great until that moment. And then she's like, That's all I needed to know. I don't need to go on another date with you. Yeah. That is a perfect example of how men are still aligned deep down politically with the stuff that keeps them on top, and giving lip service that they love women and they support women getting to be free, but when you really dig down in, you are still voting for, propping up, and ultimately treating me for those of us in our marriages, right? Like I am not a full, equal human.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Now, this kind of echoes back to the time when the sexologists and the psychologists were trying to teach men about women's bodies, like maybe kiss her, maybe touch her vulva, you know, consider. Before just sticking your dick in her aggressively. Yeah. I don't want to get crazy here, but consider. And so now we come to these like dating coaches and pickup artists who are giving some good advice where they're like, dude, you need skincare. You need to dress in a way that's attractive. As she observes these people's teachings in general, there are some men who are just so socially awkward. And this really is helpful for them to build up their confidence and give them some skills so that they're not creepy. Because so much, and it surprised me how much of the discussion was around how to not be creepy. And let's look at it from her point of view. And they don't necessarily call out rape culture, but they're talking about it. You know, consider people are putting drugs in her drinks. Consider she's out with her girlfriends and just wants to be with them, and you're interrupting her. Yeah. Consider things from her point of view and how it's a revelation to these men. It is what she's a person, but the goal for them is the same, which is what can she do for me? And yet, I've got to say, I mean, I was raised partly the way my mom spoke, through her consumption of all of this information, watching my sisters. I have six older sisters, all seven of my sisters were married before I got married. And so I would hear them talking about how to manipulate their husbands, how to say something and then act like it's his idea. So to just say, oh, men are performing in order to get what they want. I don't want to be dismissive of how women are also performing to get what they want.
SPEAKER_02Yes. It's now become, it's become the game. This is this is the this is the game. And I love that you're bringing us back around. I think I have some like repressed rage, y'all, around the amount of dudes that I'm like, you are not fucking doing the real work. But yes, what Quinn is bringing us back to. And what she's discussing, I realize we didn't like preface that section, but you are talking about this amazing chapter in the book where Jane Ward takes us into this really wild, deep view of this industry that was in the early 2000s of these point it was pickup artists. Pick-up artists.
SPEAKER_00Um transition to dating coaching or date coaching or yes.
SPEAKER_02And I felt the same mood swings during that whole chapter of like, oh, I feel so bad for these guys that like, oh, and I'm glad they're trying to like not be creepy anymore. And I simultaneously hate so much that they're like learning all these skills, and at the end they're like, What do you want most? And they're like, I want to have more sex with young blonde women.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I want high quality pussy.
SPEAKER_02I want high quality pussy, you know. But yes, that on the opposite side of this ultimately humans trying to get what they want, yeah, is the machines we are building of not actually doing the work to meet each other as real humans. And instead, how can I figure out all the ways to manipulate or convince or corral or pretend or reflect what this other person may want so that I can get what I want, which for a lot of men is so that I can get pussy, and for women is so that I can be picked.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02I want to be picked because absolutely in our world still, if I get picked by a guy in a heteronormative world, that is a win.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah. You get the proximity to power, you get power from other women from that status. Yeah. And I've noticed that as a single mom, that coming out of my marriage, I knew that I would lose a certain amount of privilege. And so I really wanted to double down on the privilege I did have access to. So I lose weight, I get stronger, I show up in a conventionally attractive way. I've talked about wanting to shave my head for at least a year now. I probably won't because I still have children at home and I worry about the privilege that I need in order to move through the world, to get the appointments that I need, to be listened to as a conventionally attractive woman in this machine. Yeah. But now I'm seeing the internalized misogyny that is creating that within myself. And yeah, if nothing else, that's what this book did for me. Like I'm seeing myself and how I am a product of this, and that I have work to do. I don't get to control whether or not the men in the world do any of the work. But I want to see myself. I want to be more of myself and unpack those parts of myself that were installed before I even knew it.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And really question it and look at it. What parts do I want to play? I'm keeping my hair for now. That's the part I want to play. Long term, I'm going to probably shave it. I totally think you will at some point. Okay.
SPEAKER_02I was like, I know this will happen eventually. Yes. And understanding that the work is not what the self-help heterosexual machine has taught you, which is you as a woman need to change yourself and you are broken. And if your marriage isn't working, or when you said your sisters, with their like, you just need to learn the techniques. Like I think of this woman marriage coach that sometimes comes across my feed in Instagram. And you know, Quinn, I've always been like, what is it about her? Like her messaging. I've always just felt like, what is it? And then finally a reel came across where she was like, I finally figured out how to get what I want in my marriage hint. It's B it's BJ, BJ.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And that was the moment when I was like, like the blinders came off, and I was like, oh, and then reading this book was when I realized like she's part of the heteronormative machine. And that's why when I see her material, I'm like, why does this irk me so? Because in it is this alternate reality for women that somehow, if you play these roles well enough and you become deeply enough in your feminine receiving, he will then rise into his masculine. Oh my God. And I don't buy it. Now that I've seen the background, I'm like, it is performative. It is, this isn't intimacy, y'all. This is branding.
SPEAKER_00And it's transactional. It's so transactional. Yes. And it allows the burden to be on the woman. This was my marriage 100%. My husband wanted to be respected without being a respectable man. He wanted to be trusted without being trustworthy. I believed that I was just bad at marriage. I would try so hard to be more, like more feminine, more submissive, more supportive. I would tell him, I'm so proud of you when I was just dying inside with shame, with how ashamed I was of him and what he was doing in his life. All of that, like all of his failures, and he tells my children to this day that he's thriving now. Like he's making money after our divorce because I never really didn't do the work to love him the way he needed to be loved.
SPEAKER_02You needed to be loved. Yes. Yes. That is the heart of this piece. Really appreciate you sharing the impact of like in your own personal life, what that looks like when it gets scaled all the way down into our experiences. And just, you know, it for me, it was not being seen, the the lack of the intimacy, the true being seen because we had both been raised in this machine that taught us not to see me. And that's why when you say, you know, what is my work? I love that I don't see myself as part of this machine. Yes, we are ultimately in what would be considered the self-help industry. But I hope, at least that's what I hope we are, is that we are on the team that is like, the system is very broken. We are not going to keep investing people's lives, whole fucking lives, in propping this up. We are going to look it in the face. We are going to not go back to this game that's being played right now of thinking, oh, we can just put women back in their feminine and men will rise into their masculine and marriages will magically get really Instagram pretty.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02No, y'all, if you're listening to Mine and Quin's podcast, that is not, and this is the other piece why this is coming on the heels of the stay episodes, is you have to understand the history now to see how deeply are these internalized ideas in you and your partner, and how much is your partner willing to open his eyes to you actually being this sounds so bad, a human being. Right? But but that is that is the core. That is, and that is the core. That as much as we have women that are like playing the game on the opposite, there is a deep, and this goes back to the very thing we started the episode with, which is that this has only been in the last 125 years. Yeah. And and I want to drive home here because where I kind of want to close out the episode is your point that you made at the end, where I was like, well, wait, Quinn, if we've only done this in the last 125 years, where like women get to have rights, I could see people being like, well, we need to go back then. Like the answer is the handmaidens tell. The answer is women need to get back in the boxes. And you made the point.
SPEAKER_00You said something about how women have the world has prospered like never before. Every step we've taken towards women as human and human rights being pushed forward on a global scale. The world is prospering. New inventions are coming forward. Yes, we have our challenges for sure, but with women's voices in the mix, it's getting better. So much better. As brutal as the world is, it's far less brutal than when it was just the men running things. It is so much less brutal. People are living longer, poverty rates have gone down. Like life is getting better the more educated women are, the more educated men are about women. Like, like we're having conversations, even if it's dating coaches and performative kinds of things. At least people are learning. They're learning new ways of communicating. We're not there yet, but it is so much better. The best companies have women on their boards. Like, yes, we've got a long way to go, but God, we have come a long way.
SPEAKER_02And we have strong voices at this moment in time that we want to really expose to all of you as like, been there, done that. This is not new, y'all. What is being taught, what is being said, has happened before. And the more of us that wake up to this process, and I agree, I think this shift, you know, even though historically women have been seen as property and this shift out of this is bumpy and messy, like human evolution is, I am so all in on us not giving up on that.
SPEAKER_00Can I can I tell you the way I see your work and the way I see my work is that the like the skills that we're trying to teach women, it's ultimately for women to see themselves more as human. And whether they stay or they go, or they decide to get divorced and they come to me and we work on building other dreams, if they can see themselves as fully human and have the confidence of a mediocre white man, there's nothing that can stop them.
SPEAKER_02Hell, yes, exactly, exactly. Then this comes back. I'm so glad you grounded me back into like whether the men do the work or not, that's on that's on them.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_02Where you and I land so solidly is being in the corner of women who are like, what is happening to me? And waking you up to the system that has made you think there is something horribly wrong with you, that you are in such an awful marriage and you must do something about yourself to change it. And when you said the work, I was like, the work in our world is not how can I become this? It's how can I fucking shed and and become who I really am, who I was born as, the essence that is me, the untamed story of Glenn and Doyle, right? Come back to my center and then bravely move into the world from that space because each and every woman that does that, we've seen it, Quinn. Our lives have become massive ripples out into the lives of everybody who touches our work, our children, yeah, our partners, our friends. And this takes me, so finishing out this episode, y'all. Oh my God, I love that this is like an almost two-hour-long episode. We just, I knew, I just knew when we ran this outline, we were like, this is just this is gonna be a huge gift to the collective. So please share this episode. Send it to your sisters, your girlfriends, like this is the stuff we all need to be understanding. But to take us into a little preview of episode two and kind of catching that like gorgeous wave you had of like, this is what we're here for, is this quote from Jane Ward, where she says, if men were socialized to love women as strongly as they are socialized to fuck women, the world would change dramatically. And this is the second half of the book where she starts to really show us some of the other ways, the uh, the communities, the queer communities, the black communities that have been doing this work already. For those of us like, oh no, the world is collapsing. There are communities amongst us that have been building this for decades.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And we get to look to the things that they are doing there. That's some of the really fun stuff we're gonna dive into in the next episode, where we are going to dive into, okay, here's all the history that got us here. What is this looking like for y'all in your lives? What does this look like on the ground? How does continuing to perpetuate these ideas of this is just how men are? You know, instead of like in our own lives, like you and I have done, choosing the path of I'm going to see myself as a full human being. And I am going to expect that the people in my life see me as that as well.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And how that ripples out. We're gonna have examples, personal stuff. We're gonna be talking about one of my favorites. We're gonna discuss how my exit ramp from phallic-centric sexuality was like difficult for me, right?
SPEAKER_00A lot of grieving, yeah.
SPEAKER_02That there are these roles and identities that we get a sense of normalcy from, from this machine. That's the work. The work of coming into an untamed reality.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. And what surprised me about this last part of the book is what she calls this deep heterosexuality. And I just want to read the little blurb at the top toward a future in which straight men like women so much that they actually like women.
SPEAKER_02Yes. Yes, and this for us to come to like ourselves too. Yes. So, what that concept Quinn just brought up, the deep heterosexuality, that is Jane Ward's answer to all of this that we are going to dive into more deeply. When we talk about men like really loving women, that's what we're gonna get to explore in next week's episode. Quinn, uh I don't want to discuss history with anybody else but you.
SPEAKER_00Thank you.
SPEAKER_02I don't, just so you all know, like you can see, the historical episodes, I don't do them by myself. Oh, because Quinn's brain has all the details. Thank you for giving this gift with me to the collective. Yeah. To breaking this down, thank you to Jane Ward for writing an incredible book. That's the other like gift hidden in this being a two-part episode. Is you can go get the book. Go get here's the other thing: go get the book, vibe about it, read it this week so that by the time you pop into part two next week, it's like a book club. You'll get to be in the book club with us. You won't be just getting information from us, you'll be vibing and excited to hear about the things that we're talking about because you'll know all the ins and outs.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah. And if there's stuff that we've missed, um, I'm sure we we messed up in places and there are other threads that we don't know about and didn't pull on. Let us know. I I am fascinated about how this stew was made. So tell us the other ingredients. I'd love to know.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And to send those emails, you can send them to decide at stayorgocoaching.com.
SPEAKER_00And mine is Quinn, Q U I N N at postdivorceglowup.com.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_02Put both of us in the, oh my God, let's get some, let's get some mail. Even if you don't have a point that you're missing, even if you're just like, holy shit, this episode blew my mind. We love hearing from you. Um, and I do collect those of you that have emailed in that are like, this is what I'm really interested in. It goes in my list of like potential podcast episodes for the future. So Gwen, till next episode. I love you.
SPEAKER_00I love you too, babe.
SPEAKER_02Bye, y'all. Bye-bye. For those of you still listening, I just want to pop on and remind you all that if you're coming off of this episode feeling like, oh my God, I am obsessed. This is amazing. I want to be around women that are talking about this, women that are thinking in these ways. Um, I just really want to plug the community here and say, that is our jam. That is our space. One of the things that I've loved the most this last year is not only am I getting to speak about this in the podcast, but in creating an online community where those of you listening can actually come and be with each other. I am getting to see and experience the impacts of what that looks like when it's not just this kind of one-way experience in the podcast realm, but it's actually something where you are on calls with women that are trying to live and breathe and do this work. So if you've been considering the community for a while, go make it happen. I've recently had women get in that were like, oh my God, I wish I would have gotten here sooner. To do that, you can text Stay Orgo community, all one word to 33777. Remember that if you're looking for more of a dropped-in one-on-one approach, that is where my 90-minute sessions, all about getting unstuck and empowered, are amazing. Or even considering doing my deep dive coaching, where I get to take you through so much of that work that Quinn was mentioning, where we are shedding this programming where you are coming back to yourself while figuring out whether you want to stay or go. Also, as always, please remember to go subscribe to the podcast here wherever you are listening, so that you get each new episode as it comes out each week. Also over on YouTube. And remember to rate us. Remember to drop a little love note if you are really enjoying it. Helps make sure that other women are able to find this work and have their lives changed as well.