Backlash and Bravery: The Attack on Feminism

Welcome to the 5th season of Woman Uncaged! In episode one, we dive into the erasure of older women and why that loss matters for everyone. When women who know their minds disappear from view, men lose models for growth, relationships flatten, and a market built on insecurity thrives. We challenge the claim that women are naturally more conformist and look at how submission is enforced by systems (military, corporate, and cultural) that prize obedience. We also take a hard look at beauty standards and the cult of youth, asking the hard question: who are we doing this for? The answers expose how profit, patriarchy, and fear make us smaller. We share our thoughts on the antidotes that make us free.

We reference and highly recommend this podcast episode: https://open.spotify.com/episode/3te00qCIZAE6vCrWIKsCO5?si=iNgRU0gBToG1q7IkqYJZOw

Transcript

Reunion And Season Five Return

Laura 0:02

Hello and welcome everyone to Woman Uncaged. This is season five. We're so excited. Episode one. We are back after a little winter break for the holidays. And as it turned out for me for illness. Let's just speak two days. Not the kind of holiday one wants necessarily. No, not really, but oh well. But yeah, we're so happy to be back together. Linda and I have not spent much time together over the last few weeks, which is unusual for us because of busyness and sickness. So we're very happy to be reunited. My beautiful, wonderful co-conspirator over there on the other side of the screen. Yeah, and you all know Linda at this point, right? But I'll just say that she's like one of the nearest and dearest to me. And I just love her and enjoy her. And I'm so grateful for her wisdom and for everything that she shares with me, whether it's, you know, really interesting podcasts or things that she's reading. Um, she's recommended a book to me while I was sick that literally saved me while I was sick. It was so engrossing and interesting. Um, if you're wondering what it is, it's called Romantic Outlaws. I highly recommend it. Um, but you know, we just share so much. And I'm just so grateful for that, Linda. And I'm so excited to be back here with you.

Linda 1:20

Oh, yay! Oh, and I'm here with my beloved bestie and co-conspirator in all things women women's liberation, Ms. Laura Gates Lepton. And yeah, it is such a joy to be back. I've really looked forward to um starting up again. And that's such a joy to have this time in my week to get to spend with you. And I'm so grateful to have someone like Laura that can share the books that she's reading with me, that I can share the books that I'm reading. And there's such a resonance, I think, between so much of what makes us come alive and that we find interesting. And there's just such an such an ease and joy and depth to you as a human being. And I'm so grateful to have you as a friend, Laura. And if you are looking for somebody to, if you want more Laura in your life, you can also pay for her. Um if you go to the good with money substack that did not quite come out right. I am for sale. She offers amazing coaching services and offers just her depth of wisdom, her insight, her kind and beautiful heart. And I just cannot, cannot recommend her enough. It's so wonderful to be here with you today, Laura.

Laura 2:39

It's so wonderful to be with you. What are we talking about today? OMG.

Media Frames And Misplaced Blame

Linda 2:44

Okay, so this might be, we were saying at the beginning, I was like, there has been so much, because again, we've been on break that has been going on in the world, and particularly around this topic that we're talking about today, which is really um, I guess you could call it like this backlash to feminism that is rising up in the kind of the culture at large. And I would say the the hidden undertone of that, which is not even very hidden, the backlash against women and the backlash against women taking up space, using our voices, advocating for the things that we believe in and that really matter to us. And there's just a lot that has been coming up in terms of it's time to put women back in their place. And I'll name two of the things. There, there have been many. Um, one was the recent, I think it was an interview that the New York The Times did, if I'm not mistaken. Um that was called, it was an interview with two, I don't know if it was cons, it was conservative women. I don't know if they would consider themselves quote unquote conservative feminists. I'm not sure exactly what that means. Uh full, I have not listened to the entire interview, but it was called um Has Liberal Feminism Ruined the Workplace? Which was actually the second title because the initial headline was Have Women Ruined the Workplace? But there was so much backlash against that that they actually went back and changed it. But I think it was an it was an incidence of saying the quiet part out loud. And then they were like, oh no, we can't say that quiet part yet. So we're just gonna kind of couch it in this different language of has liberal feminism ruined the workplace. And then recently, in I think it was in December, heard that CBS and with Barry Weiss now kind of at the helm, um, is teaming up with Bank of America to do this panel series. And one of the topics that is coming up is has feminism failed women? And the fact that we are even seeing these kinds of topics, because to me, I'm like, well, what is the other, what is what other option are you trying to give us here? Like, what are you trying to say? You know, it's like, oh, have women ruined the workplace? It's like, okay, so then the the subtext again is that women shouldn't be in the workplace, women should know their place, they should stay in the home, they should tend to the family, and they shouldn't have a voice in um the political or the public sphere, which really just chaps my hide. And then I'm gonna pass it to you. It just chaps my hide, especially when the mouthpieces to these things are women who are telling other women that they should not be there taking up space, that they should be somewhere else. Meanwhile, feminism is what has allowed them to rise to these positions to begin with. Absolutely. It's like, oh, I'm gonna, I'm gonna use this system to rise to the top, and then I'm gonna cut the women down who are coming after me off at the knees. Um so what do you what what comes up for you around this, Laura? Oh, nothing.

Laura 6:10

Nothing at all. No feelings. Next question. No, so I did not read the piece about women in the workplace. I heard a lot about it. I did not read it. Um, but my initial thoughts when I heard it were, oh, I bet we have. I bet we have ruined the workplace. If what you want is a place where there's no no feelings, no equity, where it's just the good old boys' club. Um, you can do whatever the heck you want and be as a sexist as you want because there are no women there to protest. It's like, yeah, I bet we have ruined all that. I bet we've ruined the party. Um, you know, if that's how you define party. Yes, exactly. Exactly. You know, I for me, like I worked in nonprofits my whole life, you know, as a therapist and as a social worker. And so it's hard to imagine a workplace without women in it because we are the majority in those fields, you know. There are a few men, sure, and I've always been glad to work with them. But I I can't imagine the nonprofit world working without women.

Speaker 4 7:16

Yeah.

What “Ruined The Workplace” Really Means

Laura 7:16

For one thing, it pays so poorly. Who else is going to take that crap? You know? It's very sad. But you know, so it's also a very limited view on what the workplace means. Like, are they talking about a corporate workplace? Is that how they're talking about it? Because there are plenty of workplaces. Hospitals, for example. Can you imagine a hospital without women?

Linda 7:40

No, no, that's such a good point. That it's a very specific type of workplace, clearly, and one that has been historically dominated by men.

Laura 7:52

Yeah, and I think Can you imagine a school without women? There would be none.

Linda 7:57

What schools? I know that would just be left to women in the home.

Laura 8:01

This isn't I'm not talking about like post-50s either. I'm talking about as far back as any of us can remember. Can you imagine a hospital or a school or a nonprofit agency without women? So yeah, so that pisses me off too, because it's, you know, without even reading the article. Yeah. Because it's such a limited view of what, quote, the workplace unquote is.

Linda 8:24

It's yeah, and it's just um, I was reading, uh, I didn't read the article either or listen to the interview. I was reading something. I got so upset by the uh triggered by the just the title itself that I was like, yeah, not how I want to spend my time. Maybe one day, we'll see, when I'm in a more grounded place, just not today. Um, but I was reading someone else's kind of breakdown of it. And, you know, some of the things like this writer was saying that she actually agreed with some of the things they said, but it was like the mislabeling of what had caused these things to be the case. You know, that's the other piece. It was like that part of the issue, like this. It was a the the guy who was doing the interview, I think, is a conservative man, and he was saying that, you know, one of the jobs that he had, there was when he had a when his wife had a child, had a very like generous, I guess, for US standards, paternity leave policy. And he was like, Yeah, but if I took that, I wouldn't, I wouldn't be seen as being a good employee. Like, I wouldn't be able to rise to the next, you know, and again, he said the quiet part out loud without realizing that it's like, but this is what women have been doing. This is what women deal with all the time is trying to balance having a career or a work life, uh, whether it's from necessity or from passion, desire, wanting that, and balancing with family, domestic duties, etc. Um, and it's like some, it's, it's, I feel like there's a lot of this that's going around where it's like, oh, we can kind of we're diagnosing some of the problems correctly, but we're completely missing the causes of the problems.

Laura 10:09

Yeah.

Linda 10:09

It's like the fact that people are treated inhumanely, like these that a lot of corporate workplaces are not fundamentally human. They're based on this idea that humans should function as machines, which is something that we've talked about so many times. It's like, but that doesn't have to do anything with feminism. Like that's the you know what I mean? It's like, yeah.

Misdiagnosing Causes Versus Real Problems

Laura 10:31

Yeah. Now, my my dad and I got into an argument, and I wish I could remember specifically what it was about. I'm sure it was related to women in the military. And I can't remember if it was about the prevalence of sexual assault or what it was about. But my dad said to me, My dad's a military man, my whole family's in the military. Um, not me, but my brothers, my dad, my former husband, all military. Um, and my dad said to me, Well, that's what feminism gets you. And I was so livid. And I was, I said, that is not what feminism gets you, it's what misogyny gets you. His argument was, you know, if the women weren't there in the first place, this wouldn't happen. Um, like that that makes no sense to me. Like, I I I get what you're saying, but no, it's a culture that supports and encourages rape that's the problem. It's leaving the victim. Yes, it's not feminism is not the problem. No. And I feel like it's the same thing happening here in these pieces that you're pointing to.

Linda 11:36

I think that's such uh an astute observation, and I'm so glad that you said that to your dad, because I think that there's multiple spaces, like you were saying, where that logic is used. That it's like, oh, well, if women weren't here, like this wouldn't be an issue. Rather than again, it's like, well, why do women have to constantly make ourselves smaller in order to be safe? Like, why can men and the culture that is male dominated not shift? Like, I don't think that there's anything inherently that needs to be violent in men. Like, that's not like a foregone conclusion that oh, if you have a woman in the military, what can you what do you expect, honey?

Speaker 3 12:18

You know, it's like why why would that be what I expect?

Laura 12:23

I would expect respect and mutual camaraderie and well, you're talking about the military where control and discipline are like key components. So why wouldn't you expect them to be able to control themselves around women and have discipline around women? Like, why is that any different?

Military, Misogyny, And Faulty Logic

Linda 12:41

It's these old patriarchal stories that I hate that shit. It's just, oh my gosh. And it feels so I was telling Laura I was listening to a podcast yesterday, and I'm not gonna name the podcast because I know one of the people who who runs it, and he wasn't the person that said this comment. Um, but it's a podcast about dogs, as many of the podcasts that I listen to tend to be about. Um and it was it was a really interesting episode at the beginning. Like there were so many things that I really agreed with, and it was about how uh private equity firms and these kind of large corporations are buying up small veterinary practices and what happens when you are no longer running a medical practice, but you're running a business and you're running them as a business, uh, which is again something that we've talked about in terms of many other, many other areas where this is happening on women uncaged in the past. But then somehow it transitioned into well, the reason that this is happening or somehow related to it, is that there are more and more female veterinarians. And because women, by some kind of like biological propensity, are more likely to conform to these rules of the you know, corporations. Yeah, that this is what the problem is is that like women by their biology are just more likely to conform. And I was just like, wait, what? Because all of a sudden I was like, did I just hear what I am I hearing what I think I'm hearing? And it's it's again this thing, it was like, oh, here comes this, it's like the maha mindset, you know, like where I'm like, oh, there's parts of it that I am in full agreement with. But then again, it's this misdiagnosis of the root cause, which is like, what does this have to do with the fact that more women are going into veterinary medicine? Because women love, like many women love animals and want have wanted to be in that field. And now we have taken the ability for them to that they haven't been able to do that. We've taken those away, we've taken those hurdles away. But it's just uh, I was I was shocked. And it was one of these things again where it was said with such um just like, well, yeah, of course, you know, like this is why. And then we have all these fear-free veterinarians, and the the only reason we have that is so that they can prescribe more drugs. And I was like, we can take a new it's like a taking a nuanced conversation about so many different things and placing all the blame again at the feet of women. That's convenient, isn't it? Fucking convenient. It's just it's just mind-boggling, and it felt so directly to related to this again. It's like all of these conversations that seem to be now happening more again in the open, that oh, things are changing, and so everybody's looking for someone to blame. We have this administration that's like, oh, we blame immigrants, we're gonna blame everybody who wasn't born in this country. And then we have this other group who's like, well, we're gonna blame women because you know, now that women are in the workplace, it's ruined, it's ruined everything because now women have choice and they can get a credit card and a house and a car without a man. Good God, what does the world come to? Yeah.

Laura 16:28

Yeah, I feel like a lot of this is just the very desperate attempt to put us in our places, get back in those cages, you know. It's because so many women are realizing that with the depth of female friendship that we don't necessarily need men. Yeah, we can make our own money, we can create our own lives, we have our friends to meet our emotional needs. And you know what? You don't necessarily, I mean, a lot of women are totally happy with a vibrator and a cat. That's like they don't necessarily need men for sex, even. And the truth is too, a lot of men aren't that interested in being good at having sex with women. So it's what I hear. Thankfully, I haven't run into this myself, but I hear from a lot of people that a lot of guys just aren't really interested in understanding how female biology works when it comes to sexuality. And so that's not helping the matter either. But that's not anything against women.

Linda 17:28

No. No, it's like it's again this idea that well, can't no pun intended, men rise to the occasion. You know what I mean? It's like that there is if if it is no longer a relationship based upon dependency, right, then it can be a relationship based upon choice. And that can be so much more fulfilling, I think, yeah, for both parties in the long run. Yes. But if one party is just kind of, you know, being dragged down by the other or expecting that they can just not grow, which I think was something that was said in the podcast. Uh one of the ones I sent to Laura was um I wrote it down.

Speaker 3 18:16

We knew this one was gonna come up.

Autonomy, Friendship, And Changing Needs

Linda 18:18

Linda sent me this incredible podcast. We'll link it in the show notes. The podcast is called The T. Um, and the host is Miriam Francois, and the guest was Jamila Jamal Jamil.

Speaker 3 18:30

Jamila Jamil, yeah. That's what's yeah, yeah.

Linda 18:32

And they were talking about all kinds of things. It's a very, it's a long podcast, but it's so good. So good. But one of the things that they talked about was how the erasure, it's what they said was the erasure of older women contributes to men not growing and never stepping up. That's what they were talking about. And they were saying that, you know, one of the reasons older women are so dangerous is because we know ourselves, because we understand, we know our wisdom. We know what we like, we know what we don't like, we know what we can contribute, we don't, we're not worried about other things. We don't necessarily get on the beauty train, you know, it's like we're not trying to meet those beauty standards anymore. You know, we've grown, we have incredible friendships with other women, we have social needs being met with these, you know, the web, basically. We have this web of friendship and connection. And then when men aren't willing to grow and change themselves and also create relationships outside of the primary relationship, they're not that appealing. And so that's why it's it's dangerous to allow women to be their full selves in the latter third of life.

unknown 19:47

Yeah.

Linda 19:48

Probably the latter half, actually.

Speaker 4 19:50

Yeah.

Linda 19:50

Um because it it it means that they have standards and they want men to grow to those standards. And if the men don't, then they're not interested in them. Yeah. Yeah, I know. It's like, but isn't it fascinating though that there are a group of people out there who see that and their thought isn't, well, how do we become worthy of these women? No, the thought is how can we keep them down? Yeah. Because then we that's what they've taught. We these are the uppity women, right? Like, who do they think they are? Like these bitches, you know, that kind of, you know, that that's the patriarchy. That's like that's their uh entitlement coming out, just completely based upon nothing, but just I'm entitled to this because I was born in a male body. And so therefore, like this is what I deserve.

unknown 20:45

Yeah.

The Erasure Of Older Women

Linda 20:45

And it's and when you think about it, it's really sad, not just for the women, but also for the men. Yes, especially for the men, that they are missing out on some of the beauty and depth of life in terms of relationships. And what is the point of life if it's not to grow and to change and to evolve and to deepen? I'm like, but that's I think that's why you see men with their midlife crises, they tend to go back. There, it's not like this, like into the future. It's I want to capture something from when I was 17. Yes. It's like my heyday is behind me. So rather than grow and evolve and deepen as a human, the stories that we've been told are that that's not possible. Or if it is possible, those men are ridiculed by other men.

Speaker 4 21:32

Yeah.

Linda 21:33

And they're feminized, quote unquote.

Speaker 4 21:36

Yeah.

Linda 21:37

Which is really sad. It is, it's a very sad situation, um, in which there are no winners. No. No. And I I get it from an intellectual standpoint, like just looking at the way we've been talking about it, I can see why it exists, but it's part of me also just does not get it at all on a deeper level. It's like, because you know, like even one of my brothers, you know, I'm the only person in my family went to college. I I'm very different from most of my family. I'm I'm very liberal. They are not. But even one of my brothers was talking about a friend of his who's only interested in very young women, and he's like, I don't just don't get it. They're just not mature. Like, I want someone who's mature and who, you know, knows who she is, and just, you know, I want a real person. Like, I don't, and I'm like, yeah, exactly. Like, thank you. Thank you for that. Yes, yes. Well, it reminds me, I think, oh, I'm gonna misremember her name potentially. I think her name is Hilary McBride. She's a writer and uh somatic therapist. Um, and we'll link it, I'll link her website in the show notes as well. Uh, but she's doing a new series, like her doctoral studies are on menopause and a topic that again we've talked about before, but interviewing women who are who are in menopause or post-menopausal, and really shifting the story around it. Because I think that there is so much, the cultural story is just one of loss of what we're what we're losing. But from the stories of women who are actually have gone through it and are on the other side of it, what she's discovering, like Laura, is that she's like, this is fucking awesome. It is fucking awesome. It's like women are they are coming, they know who they are, they're coming into themselves, they're no longer as worried what other people think, they're not wasting a lot of time trying to impress men. Like, there is so much power there because it is, you know, it's like outside of that cultural story that I of course patriarchy is terrified of that, like you were saying, because it's just it's uncontrolled. Like, yeah, which is one of the things that I thought was so like when I was listening to this podcast with Jamila Jamil, that I was like, yeah, which would go so much against the other podcasts with the dog people, who was one of the things they would say, like that, like, oh, women are just made to conform.

Laura 24:09

Right.

Linda 24:09

And her argument was like, actually, I think she used the word submissive. You listened to it more recently, right?

Speaker 3 24:15

Okay, tell me, Laura, because you've listened to it more recently, and I can see you looking at your notes.

Submission, Hierarchy, And Systems

Linda 24:20

I have two pages of notes. I hardly ever take notes when I listen to podcasts. I need to go back and relisten. Excuse me. Um yeah, she talked about the submissiveness of men, and she said that, you know, women and and females, not women, but females, are hard to control and tend not to submit, especially in the animal kingdom. She was talking about trying to train female dogs and how hard it is. And Linda's been having fun on that with that herself. Um, so yeah, but also she one of the examples she gave, which I thought was really interesting, was she said, you know, watching the P. Diddy documentary, and I now I might actually want to see it. I hadn't wanted to before, but she said it was really demonstrated there. There were so many men who did not agree with what was happening, who were horrified by it, but A, didn't say anything to anybody. They understood exactly what was happening and they didn't speak up, and B went along with it. And she said, because men love to take orders from other men. And you know, I've never heard anybody say that before, but I I couldn't help but think about my family, you know. I because I grew up in a military family, and it's so true. It's men are very quick to comply when men are other men are giving the orders. And I love what you even said, because when I told you about this before you had listened to the whole podcast, Laura had this like amazing observation. Because I was I said something along the lines of, you know, like, yeah, unless you're the top dog, no pun intended again, you're gonna be, you know, you're gonna be the submissive one taking orders. And you said, even the ones at the top are submissive to a system, like they are just taking orders from a system. And I was like, my jaw dropped because it was so true. You're like, it's true, I'm very smart. I just mean now the military is structured.

Speaker 3 26:11

It's like it was so good.

Linda 26:12

I was like, it was so good. Um, because it's like, yeah, even when you're at the top, so often it's like especially in something like the military, which has been so predominantly male, and apparently we're trying to go back to that. Um, that there is this, like in hierarchy, like there is just a trail of submission. And I think that for women, for many of the females that I know are not as interested in hierarchies, our relationships don't necessarily form hierarchies. Like we the the a women's circle is a circle for a reason because it's meant to have equal voice and everybody's on equal footing, and it's a it's like a different structure and feeling than a hierarchy. And it's like, of course, submission is built into a hierarchy. If that's how you see the world is through domination and higher like submission, then yes, but there's that's not the only option. Yeah, even when women are put in positions where they have to appear to be submissive, they often aren't. Um, you know, my parents have a very unequal relationship, but my mom has always figured out ways to get her own way, you know. I I don't agree with her methods necessarily. I personally prefer a direct approach. Um, but she's certainly, you know, she my dad might think that she's following everything he ever says, but she certainly isn't. Oh yeah. That's like my mom. She'll agree to your face and then she'll do whatever the fuck she wants. Yes.

Speaker 3 27:52

She's like, I'm not gonna cause a kerfuffle, but I'm just gonna do my own thing.

Linda 27:57

Yeah, I'm I'll be conflict avoidant. I'm not gonna, yeah, but but I'll just gonna quietly do whatever the heck I want over here.

Speaker 3 28:04

Exactly. It also reminds me of the babushkas of Chernobyl, yes, of these women who went.

Beauty Standards And The Cult Of Youth

Linda 28:10

I love it so much. It went back into the um like the fallout zone or whatever it was called, right? And it was who lived there and had been living there for years and years. And because that was their deep-seated need and their own wisdom was to go back to their homeland. Yeah, and they ended up on average outliving the people who left and went to the the cities because they were severed from that. And so it's but I mean, these were women who fucking like they were like, you'll have to shoot me. Like they will have to shoot me before they take me out of here. Like they're older women, they're like, yeah, they're like in their 80s, they climbed, like they walked like many, many, many miles, like crossing weird terrain and then like going under barbed wire fences. You know, like that to me is like, oh now that's the part of women that it's like men just they either don't get or they don't want to get or they're afraid of, at least all of the above, yeah. As was evidenced by that podcast of this, these kind of ideas that, like, oh, but women are actually born to be submissive and conformist, and yeah, that's just part of the biology. And I'm like, oh, it's fucking not. The reason that women have had to conform is because men have been violent. We've had to survive that doesn't make it part of our biology. Yeah, I mean, there's the whole argument about like, well, if you get rid of men, you have nobody to protect you, and then like protect us from what? Yeah, like what are you protecting us from? Other men. Literally, yes, every time. That's why there was the whole man versus the bear thing on TikTok.

Laura 29:52

And men were like mystified. They're like, wait, what? I'm a good guy. And I was like, but there's no guarantee the guy in the woods is gonna be a good guy.

Speaker 3 29:59

No, we'll take our chances with the bear. Yes.

Linda 30:04

Yeah, yeah. It's just uh it's so um it's so interesting. And I think it's so important that we keep having these conversations because I want to believe, you know, that kind of quote that uh what is it, time arcs towards justice or history arcs toward justice, or I can't, I'm bastardizing the quote. I think it was by Martin Luther King. Um I don't know. Yeah. Um, I'll look that one up too and put it in the show notes. Um, and I want to believe that, but I I think that also it can easily be that we abdicate our own power in that when we believe that it's like these are this is just how things are going to unfold. And what we've seen is I think this backlash to feminism, to greater equality for women, for people of color, for different sexuality, gender identities. And we're seeing such this very intense and hateful backlash to that. And I think it's so important that we continue to call this out in ways like big and small. That again, it's like I was telling my husband, it's like these things are like a sliding spectrum, you know, where you have the complete, like, you know, I think of somewhere like Afghanistan, where women are not allowed to speak or sing or dance or laugh, you know, and it's like, but obviously, like this guy is like, oh, women are the reason why corporations are dominating veterinary practice, not the same, but they are on this like sliding spectrum of belief that I think we need to call out and say, no, no, no, no, no. I want to define who I am for myself, and I want to be the one to speak for my experience, and I want to hear from other women. We've had women's experiences dominated and narrated by men for far too long. Oh, yeah. I'm not interested in it anymore.

unknown 32:09

Yeah.

Linda 32:09

Well, and I personally think the reason it's become such an issue is because we're getting somewhere.

unknown 32:15

Yeah.

Who Are We Doing This For

Linda 32:16

So they're like pulling out all the stops to put us back in the bottle, you know? It's like get back in the cages. What else can we do? We it's wow, look at what's happening. We gave them a little bit of space and now they're doing this. They're blossoming. They're going to college, they're working more than we are. Women are going to college more than men. Like, you know, that's why women are becoming veterinarians and all the other things. It's like it's it probably feels to them like it's out of control because it is out of their control. And so they're doing what they can to try to get it back in their control. Which is just so crazy to me. To like, whatever, like it's such a narrow world view that like, oh, but if this happens, like what do I stand to lose? You know, it's it's again, it's this it's a power grab. Yeah. But I mean, I think it's I mean, it's what's happening right here where I live in the twin cities right now, is it's the same thing, it's just on a different scale. You know, it's like these people have to be shown what their place is because we white guys don't like what's happening. And so we're literally gonna bring in more white guys and put them in masks and give them guns and have them terrorize a population of people because we want them to know that they are in a weakened position and we're the strong ones. It's not how it's going right now. And I'm very proud of my fellow Minnesotans uh for standing up. But yeah, I think it's it's the same thing. Yep. It's just playing out in a different way, but it's the same. But you know, like my power is being threatened, and so this is what I'm gonna do. I need to put everyone else back in their back in their place, and that's what has worked. Like violence is the thing that is oftentimes invoked to put people back where they quote unquote belong. Yeah, I don't think it's gonna work in the feminism realm. I don't think we're gonna go the handmaid's tale. I don't, I honestly don't. I think that when people have made these kinds of predictions, they've kind of forgotten that we are uncontrollable in a lot of ways and we're a wily and smart group. And you know, it's like just watching what's happening here, even though it's been so stressful and scary, it's also been incredibly heartening because people are being really smart and they're not, they're just not caving in.

unknown 34:50

Yeah.

Linda 34:51

They just aren't. They're not complying and conforming, they're not gonna make it easy. They're not making it easy, they're making it so hard. And I don't know what these guys were told when they were recruited, but I'm sure they weren't told, oh, this is gonna be really, really hard. You know, you're gonna have all these people in your face all the time. You're gonna be reported the whole time. You're gonna have people chanting and calling you names, you know, blowing whistles, banging cowbells and all the things. I I actually have had in my dreams at night now, I'm hearing cowbells and wrist whistles. Oh wow. It's so common now. But you know, it's like, and I'm not they're not against me. So yeah, I can't even imagine what it's like for them.

unknown 35:31

Yeah.

Defiance, Agency, And What Comes Next

Linda 35:31

I'm sure they weren't told any of that. Yeah. I love that. I love that vision. Like one, I love hearing that and seeing that in Minneapolis currently. And I love that vision for um, because I think it can be really easy to fall into the dystopian worldview that, like, yep, it's gonna be the handmaid's tale. And it's like, but then we end up robbing ourselves of so much agency and power and like fuck that shit. No, it's not, you know, not if we have anything to say about it. Like, there's um good luck trying to put the genie back in the bottle. Yeah, I mean, our rights are being whittled away, no doubt about it. I mean, just look at reproductive rights. It's terrible, terrible, terrible situation. So I'm not minimizing any of that. I'm just saying that they're not gonna be able to take it as far as they want to. Yeah. May that be the case. And may we continue to desist, right? Like we're like, no, I will not just I will dissent. I will not, I will not go quietly into being controlled. No, absolutely not. And I think that, you know, we the everyone loves to talk about women as the weaker sex, and I've never ever believed it. We may be physically smaller, yeah, for the most part, but we are not the weaker sex. I mean, I can't imagine a man giving birth. Have you ever seen a man with a cold? Like, I can't imagine them not only giving birth, but then sustaining the life of a child. It takes so much energy. Yeah, it takes so much. And most men aren't up to the task. I just I don't see us as the weaker sex at all. I think we're incredibly strong. And but we're being fed that over and over again as another form of trying to get us to comply. Like you we're being told over and over again, like you aren't strong, you need our support, you need our protection, and we've bought it to some degree. Yeah, yeah, I completely agree. And I think that most, I think most women in their heart of hearts also would agree, you know, like that we are far stronger than what most people give us credit for. And I think somewhere in there, most of us know that also. I think so too. Yeah, I think so too. But I think there's so many, like listening to that podcast, it was so eye-opening because they covered so much territory in an hour and 20 minutes about women. And, you know, I of course I think about beauty standards all the time because it's so prevalent. But some of the things that they talked about, I hadn't really thought about in quite the way that they did when they were talking about older women and they were talking about plastic surgery and all of those pieces. And I really I loved their point of view because the question of who are we doing it for was also part of that podcast. And they were talking too about a lot of the beauty standards that are to promote youth. Like one of the women said, like, I really think this is to normalize paedophilia. So, because if if it's normal for people to be attracted to younger looking women, then it's normal for an older guy to go out with a barely out of her teenager's woman. Yeah, you know, teenage years woman. And and I'd never really thought about it that way before. I sometimes I would think about it in terms of like when waxing became so popular and it was like all body hair. Brazilians, yeah, the Brazilians, all body hair needed to be removed. And I was like, why are we trying to look like pre-pubescent girls? Like when I finally got the language around it, I was like, why is that? It's gross. I've never done it because I never wanted to look like a prepubescent girl.

Speaker 3 39:22

I did. I when I was in LA, I was like, woohoo, take it all off.

Linda 39:28

Well, LA, LA, California in general has, you know, at least Southern California has really interesting beauty standards. I noticed that when I was there recently. Yes, yes. And this was back, you know, back in the day before I had, you know, uh, there was a time before a lot of these things I started to question them critically. You know, you I was spoon fed them just like everyone else. I wanted to be like everyone else. I was tired of being different. So I was like, oh, and it's only now looking back on it that I'm like, man, that's really fucking weird. Yeah. It is. I totally agree. I just never thought of it with regard to like Botox and plastic surgery and all the other ways in which we're encouraged not to look like we're aging.

Speaker 4 40:13

Yeah.

Linda 40:13

Um, I never really thought about that as contributing to the normalization of pedophilia, which makes all of that even less attractive than it was before.

Speaker 4 40:22

Yeah. Yeah.

Linda 40:24

Yep. I think it's such a I think these are the questions, again, that are so valuable. Like, who are we doing this for when it comes to the beauty standards? When it comes to the like, have women ruined the workplace? Oh, but for whom have they ruined the workplace? Because it's not like we've ruined the workplace for everyone. So it's a very select group of people that are like women ruin the workplace. And which in the workplace makes it sound like all workplaces are the same.

Speaker 3 40:51

Exactly. Like, um, excuse me. Yeah, you're like, every workplace I've worked at has been primarily women. Yeah.

Laura 40:59

Yeah.

Clarity, Community, And Invitations

Linda 41:00

I mean, even I like thinking about when I was a kid and I would go play, you know, because I'm almost 59 years old. So, you know, go to the doctor's office, go to the grocery store. Like, I remember going to the grocery store with my mom, and my favorite person there was Mr. Bishop behind the deli counter because he always remembered my name and he'd always talk to me. Um, so there were definitely men working there, but mostly what I saw were women.

Speaker 4 41:21

Yeah.

Linda 41:22

Like, yeah. Yeah. So that's to me, I just don't get it's just kind of bizarre. It's like what and we were in the workplace since when? Like what what what is the model we're looking at for the what's it's supposed to be? Like what what what time period are we talking about? I know. I now I kind of feel like I have to go back and read it. I think it's behind a paywall, so I'm not sure if I can get it, but I'll try.

Speaker 3 41:47

I have a subscription. I'm gonna have a subscription to the New York Times. I'm gonna report, we can report back and see once we've actually sat through it. We can we'll have to do that together with like a glass of wine.

Linda 41:58

We can just because I think it's an actual audio. So you could just share your audio, Laura, and then we'll we can stop and pause and comment, and then we'll come back and we'll we'll never get through it.

Speaker 3 42:08

Probably not. We're like, ah, fuck this shit. Let's just drink wine and chat. This sucks.

Linda 42:14

Yeah, it does. But I I really I I know I personally want to think more about some of these questions around the erasure of older women and men in submissiveness and you know, normalizing pedophilia and just that question of like A, what kind of world are we creating right now? Like and and what kind of world do we want? What kind of world would we like to create? And what does it take to get there? Yeah. I think those are such valuable questions. I feel like for me and my work for a long time, like for the last decade, was really rooted in, you know, kind of masculine and feminine energies. And I have stopped using that language because I find it has become increasingly problematic. And it's always been kind of hijacked by a certain facet of people who are using it. But just trying to explain it from a different perspective, I'm like, okay, I need to find a different for me. That framework made sense because it was just a way of talking about how actually I was perpetuating the patriarchal narrative by discounting my own emotional reality, my own body, my own body's needs, kind of the earthy element. But though it's so often wielded, I think, as this like men have to be some kind of weird alpha, masculine and femininity, quote unquote, rather than an energy of which is an aspect of who we are that is being denigrated, is instead become this prescriptive behavior.

Laura 43:54

Right.

Linda 43:54

And I think it's um that's what I'm seeing so much of in that space is just the prescriptive behavior of like what it is to be masculine and what it is to be feminine, and that this is how women should look and behave and speak, and this is how men should look and behave and think and speak. Yes. And one dominates the other. Of course, because that's just natural, Laura. Yeah, it's just nature. Oh golly gee whiz. Oh, we must submit to our husband. Yeah. Yeah, well, yeah, that's not happening. And I feel like, I mean, this is a what why we said this could be broken up into several topics is I think that there's so many different aspects of this. I think religion can play a part. Um also. Um, and yeah, it's yeah, there's there's so much more here that we could talk about, and we're just about out of time. I know, I know, but we'd love to hear from you, dear listeners. One, just send us a note, let us know how the heck you're doing. Yeah, in these crazy times right now. It's it's a lot. I've definitely uh had some moments of struggling, and it feels really good to be back here and having these conversations and just continuing to, like Laura said, like, what is the world that we want to create and how do we move closer to that? Um how do we not replicate in any way, shape, or form the things that we don't want? Yeah, I think part of that too, and one of the things I really appreciate about listening to that podcast that you sent me was just um being able to see things more clearly. Like I really appreciate hearing perspectives I hadn't thought of before, but and it opening my eyes literally to being able to see some of these systems and some of these um things that have been rammed down our throats around submissiveness and patriarchy and all the things, beauty standards, um, in a different way. It's so helpful. And so I I hope that we here in this podcast are also providing that to some degree. Yeah. Just because especially, you know, it's it's the proverbial fish in the gold in the water, the goldfish in the water. It's like you don't see the water because you're just swimming in it all the time. Sometimes we just don't even see what's right in front of us, even if we're thinking about it, reading about it, considering it. We just don't, you know, it's like it's not quite so clear until somebody else says something that sparks some clarity. And I I would love to have more women in on this conversation. So please do reach out to us. Please do let us know what you're thinking and and what your questions are, what you want us to explore, what you want to hear us talk about. Yeah, we would love to hear from you. Yeah. I think it's such it is it is important. I think it taps into this just because something is normalized does not mean it's necessarily like a natural thing. No, and it doesn't mean it's okay either. No. There's a lot that's been normalized that sometimes it takes time to peel back and be like, oh. Wait, it doesn't have to be that way.

unknown 47:03

Yeah. Yeah.

Linda 47:05

Yeah. Oh, well, this was such a joy, Laura. Thank you to our dear listeners. We're excited to be back for season five, baby. We are. Let's bring it.

unknown 47:15

Woohoo!

Linda 47:16

Do it. All right. Until next time.