Becoming Self-Governed: Resist Coercion and Control to Claim Your Authority

Welcome to episode 6, season 5 of the Woman Uncaged podcast! In this latest episode, we dive into self-governance as a daily practice that blends inner sovereignty with community power, and we track how that intersects with money, autonomy, and the right to be heard. From miscarriage criminalization becoming more common to the slow creep of voting barriers, we name where control is showing up and how not to “obey in advance” when systems attempt to usurp our agency.

We also pull apart narratives designed to send women back into dependence, from tradwife aesthetics to head-of-household voting fantasies. Together we map small, consistent actions to claim our own authority. Along the way, we contrast extractive systems with regenerative ones—because a culture that honors biodiversity, reciprocity, and awe doesn’t just protect rights, it makes life worth living.

If you’re craving clarity, courage, and concrete steps to reclaim your time, body, voice, and money, we hope this conversation is a spark. Subscribe, share with a friend who needs it, and leave a review with one way you’re choosing self-governance this week.

Resources Mentioned:

They're Coming for Our Daughters by Jessica Valenti: https://jessica.substack.com/p/theyre-coming-for-our-daughters

How to Survive the Broligarchy by Carole Cadwalladr: https://broligarchy.substack.com/

Vandana Shiva on Earth Democracy: https://open.spotify.com/episode/6M3eCwfjRi2tXDvgVtqUni?si=95b5a1861bdc4acc

Transcript

Punchy Catch-Up And Warm-Up

Linda 0:02

Hello everyone and welcome to Woman Uncaged. We are on season five and this is episode six. Woohoo! Correct Amundo. And this is take two. You will never hear take one. Um it wasn't that bad. Just me tripping. Not in that way. Oh my god. You guys are in for a wild ride today. I just have to tell you, because Linda and I are in a mood.

SPEAKER_01 0:30

We're punchy today.

Linda 0:32

We're punchy. And we showered. We're cleaned. I know.

SPEAKER_01 0:35

This is very unusual for us when we're on recording day. There's a reason why we never released the video.

Defining Self-Governance

Linda 0:42

It's true. It's true. But regardless, I am very happy here to be with my delightful, wonderful, beautiful bestie, Ms. Linda Katz, who looks very exceptionally lovely today since she did shower. Such an exception. She's not her usual hobo self. But no, we have so much fun together. Not even not just when we're recording, but whether we're in person or on Boxer or on the phone or on Zoom, we just have a delightful time together. And it's such a joy to have her in my life. She's so smart and funny and sweet and insightful and brilliant and wise and all those wonderful things. And that's all wrapped up in this delightful package of this sort of wackiness and weirdness that I absolutely adore. I can't imagine my life without her. And I'm so happy to be here with you, Linda. Aw, thank you, Laura. And I'm so happy to be here with you today, as always. It's such a wonderful end to the week to get to come on here with you and laugh and sometimes cry and sometimes rage, and oftentimes all three in the course of one 45-minute episode and the parts before and after. But for those of you who don't know Laura, you should. Laura is an amazing human being. She's also happens to be a life and money coach that you can hire for her amazing human being qualities so that she can be a stand for your feminine liberation to help you see where you might not be owning your own power, where you might be, if you're a service provider or if you work a regular job, might be undercharging or have a difficult time really standing up for what your work is worth in the world, um, uncovering some of those patterns that might lie underneath why that is. And Laura has such a great way of being with both the practical pieces and the deep undercurrent of what's going on. So you're not gonna get like an all or nothing or a super woo or all practical, but none of the emotional meaningful stuff. You have an amazing way of being able to wrap all of this up into one meaningful, gifted, potent package. And so thank you. It is such it's so great to be here with you today, Laura. And if you are looking for more of that in your life, check out the Good With Money Substack, um, which is where you'll find Laura in the online world. So today, dear listeners, we are talking about becoming more self-governed. Now, you see, Laura and I are cooking up something here, and we had a meeting a few weeks ago where we furiously scrolled, like started scrolling down a few notes about what this thing that we're cooking up might include. And among other topics, we wrote down self-governance. And we were both like, well, what the fuck does that mean? That's how we were this morning. We're like, oh, what do we mean by that? And that sounds really intriguing. And so we're gonna try a different experiment today, which is that we're gonna dive into what would that mean potentially? What would it mean to become more self-governed? And as someone who has dear, dear friends who either do currently work in government or have worked in government in the past, I can sense uh I can sense their eye rolls from thousands of miles away with this one. And this is not to say that there is not a role of actual government in our lives. I very much appreciate having sewage and running water and roads that are paved and snow plows and all of those pieces. But when I look up uh looked up the term, what does it mean to be governed? These were some of the things that it talks about. To be governed means to be controlled, directed, and regulated like by an authority like government laws or rules, that makes decisions, sets policies, and manages public affairs for a group of people, involving both the exercise of power and the submission to it, essentially guiding actions and behaviors. And I think that's the piece that is intriguing to me about becoming more self-governed is not to be controlled, directed, and regulated to a greater degree on any kind of external authority that is dictating my actions and behaviors, but really tuning into uh what is that authority within? And how can we begin to put more of that energy into our lives? What comes up for you hearing that definition, Laura? Because I just read it for the first time. Oh yeah, I had not heard it before. Um well, I just want to tag onto what you said. That that's what's intriguing to me too, is to think about how we can be our own authority, um, but also in the context of relationships. So that's part of what you came up for me as you were reading that or saying that last part now, when you were reading the definition. Um, because I think that's where it gets really tricky, is in the context of relationships. Um, but when you're reading the definition, I was getting all squirmy.

Bodily Autonomy And Miscarriage Criminalization

SPEAKER_02 6:13

Like, I don't want to be, I don't want to be directed, I don't want to be regulated.

Linda 6:18

Um, I certainly right now, when I hear regulated with regard to women, I think about all the horrible things that are happening to women who've miscarried who are being charged with crimes. I mean, they're being regulated over something they can't control. It's, I mean, so many of us have had miscarriages. I can't even wrap my head around just adding to the grief and the upset and the distrust of your own body and all the feelings that come with having a miscarriage and you know, the fear that you'll never be able to have a healthy pregnancy or all those kinds of things, to then have this authoritarian body step in and say that you've committed a crime. It's just horrible. It's horrible. So, as you were talking about that, that's what popped up in my head. I think it's the worst example of being governed by an outside body that has no understanding of how women's bodies work and doesn't care to. Yes. Just doesn't care to at all. Yes. And I think that that is um that authority piece really resonates for me too, around where do we not want to, but where are is our authority relinquished where we might be able to take some of that back. And obviously there are many, many women who are fighting against these laws because I think that as we've seen over the last year and are continuing to see, is that there are groups of people that really want to, for especially for women, for minorities, um, for LGBTQ folks, to not be self-governed at all, but to be entirely governed by either um the state or their husbands, depending on what the status of the relationship is. And it's an interesting, like finding this place of like what is the role of the actual government? Like, what do we see as the role of the actual government is something that I can think can be very much up for debate. But when it comes to really restricting our authority to make decisions in our own lives that are really impactful to us only, that are not, you know, it's like, yeah, don't go steal from your neighbor, you know, like these kinds of things. Like the basics, yes, of course. Like, don't do those things. But when it comes to the most personal and private decisions that we make in our lives to have these external bodies start to meddle in that, that's where it really starts, like my my hackles start to go up. Oh, mine too. Because they start to feel how it's how that coercion and how that control is really being exerted more strongly. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, I personally get very pissed off that such people, so and some of this stuff we're talking about call themselves pro-life when they're not pro-life at all. They're pro-life, they care about women's bodies, they care about women's health, they care about what happens to babies once they're born. Um, they're not pro-life, they're pro-a forced pregnancy, they're pro you know, birth. Yeah. And if and if you even if you're forced to carry a pregnancy, then you can't carry it to terms and you're criminalized for it. Like, what the hell? Um, and I say this as a person who terminated a pregnancy. It wasn't viable and it was still a horrible decision to have to make. I wouldn't wish it on anybody.

SPEAKER_04 9:58

Yeah.

External Control Versus Inner Authority

Linda 9:58

Um, but at least I had the choice to do it, the right to do it. Nobody interfered. You know, it was still hard. It was still hard. I can't imagine fearing that I'd be criminalized, jailed, charged with murder. It's yeah, it's insane. It's really insane. Um yeah, and I feel like these are the places where, you know, we really need to fight back. And I don't think we were planning on talking about this today. I sent Laura, I sent Laura a really like painful uh article. Um, but I think her name is Jessica Valenti. We'll post it in the uh in the show notes. I'm actually on her list. I don't think I told you this. I'm on her list. I purposely hadn't read that one yet because it just the the subject line alone, I was like, okay, I have to be in a good place to read this. And then I sent it and I was like, it was a Sunday night. And I was like, this is not a Sunday night read, like you will not be able to sleep. But it was about, you know, so the Heritage Foundation was behind Project 2025, which, you know, when it came out, there was all this hub hub, and then it was like, oh, but this isn't, this isn't actually going to be policy. This is, you know, kind of a neo like arch conservatives wet dream, basically, except for the fact that it is and has become policy in a lot of different cases. And they recently released what they call their 250-year plan to save America, I think it was. Um, but really what it hinges on is taking away women's right to be self-governed in any way, shape, or form. And basically they see the problems that we have in our c in our country as the result of basically women being educated and having the decisions, like having the agency to be make, be able to make decisions in our own lives. And to be able to make enough money to support ourselves. Yes. So we're not dependent upon somebody else. So we're not dependent upon a husband or on the system, like to actually be able to, in the the world that we live in and in the country and the economy that we live in, money and freedom are tied together, which I know, you know, that is like a key part of your work, is that it's it's hard to make choices when we don't have the the financial means.

unknown 12:23

Yeah.

Linda 12:23

If you're worried about putting food on the table, paying rent, making sure your kids are clothed, if you can't get health insurance, you know, that's hard to feel feel like you're living a free life. It's hard to live creatively, it's hard to do a lot of things, to feel like you have choices because you know, those needs must get met. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 12:42

Yeah.

Linda 12:43

And so I think that as we talk about this idea of being more self-governed, of being your own authority, also not bearing our heads in the sand as to there are uh groups of people gaining steam, I would say, and the audacity to say these things out loud without fear of any repercussion, um, that want to take that away.

unknown 13:09

Yeah.

Money As A Path To Freedom

Project 2025 And Rolling Back Rights

Linda 13:10

The gains that we have made. And we haven't even like we've gotten further, right? We've had women who have fought for the right to vote, who have fought for the right to contraception, to be able to go get jobs if we want to, to be able to have a credit in our names, to be able to buy a home and do things without being co-signed by a man. Like all of those things, the gains that we have made in terms of being more self-governed, self-sufficient, autonomous, complete human beings, that there are actually large groups of the population that want to take that back, to who say that this is actually a problem, that women being more self-governed and having autonomy and agency in their lives is not a good thing. It's actually, it's actually endangering the country. Right. And the reason they're saying that is because women are holding off on getting married, they're not having as many children. There are men who would prefer things be the way they were in the 1950s or before. And so, and they instead of rising to the occasion and making themselves into the kind of men educated women want to be with, they're saying, no, we're not going to do that. We want to take away your education, we want to take away any possibility that you can support yourself. We want you to be pregnant at an early age and be stuck in the home, and we'll go back to being providers and you won't be able to demand anything else out of us. Not that that isn't true for a lot of men right now. But it's just astonishing to me that we're even having this discussion as like just as somebody who grew up in the 70s and saw a lot of the changes. You know, that's when in the 70s is when women were allowed to have their own lines of credit. And it's, you know, it felt like such progress. And now it's just being pulled back in so many different directions. And it also just sort of kills me that these people feel like that's the only thing that they have is to tear us down instead of working actively to build themselves up. Yeah. Like, you know, I just don't get it. I feel like I mean we've talked about this before, but I feel like it we must be so terrifying, like legitimately, is I think that women are just pro much more powerful than we are than than what people want to let on, which is why I think there have been all of these patriarchal policies to keep women artificially down. Because as we've seen over the last, you know, 50 years, that when we begin to dismantle those hurdles that have been put into place, that women excel, that we excel in school, that we are going to university and higher education at a higher level or more frequently than men. And I think that it's kind of like the genie's been let out of the bottle. And I think that's what freaks these douchebags for lack of a more eloquent way of saying it. That's what freaks them out, is because I think deep down they they know that they need to have they need to have those artificial barriers in place because again, they don't have the chutzpah within themselves to be able to step up and create those opportunities for themselves. Yeah. And it's not that they can't, because we both know men quite well who have. So it's not that individual men aren't capable of it. It's just as a collective, this particular group of people who have a lot of power have decided that that isn't a worthy effort and that women should be stomped on. Yeah. And I think that um, you know, I've heard multiple people say this, and I think it was referenced in that article, that you know, there's so many ways to begin to strip women of our self-governance. And I think the easiest way is for us to take it from ourselves. That's like the path of least resistance. And we've talked about, you know, the idea of trad wives in one of our previous seasons, and we can link to that episode as well, or you can go find it. Um, but I would say, even, you know, so much of my work that was in the past steeped in this idea of kind of the masculine-feminine polarity within each person, um, just using that as a framework. And I stopped because it's just too laden with a lot of bullshit, you know, like it's just these ideas around um who women are and aren't allowed to be and who men are and aren't allowed to be. Like this idea of see that women are always soft and pleasing and smiling and feminine, and that men always have to be like hard and alpha male and all this stuff. Um, and I was like, whoa, whoa, that is not that is not my work like at all. But it's so there's so much of that, and how those influencers are really kind of helping to seed these ideas by telling women in in different ways that, like, yes, feminism has failed you, it's made your life harder. Don't you just want to be like this beautiful woman who's wearing these lovely dresses and taking care of her perfect little angel children and making homemade bread and tending her garden, you know. And and of course, there's a part of us because we're tired oftentimes, because of the fucking patriarchal system in which we live, that you were like, oh, that does look kind of nice. And I think that's how it starts to it starts to creep in and it makes it easier because then women start recruiting other women. Yes. And eventually we don't even realize that it's like, oh, now it's we're voting by head of household. I mean, look at this freaking SAVE Act that's going through the Senate right now that makes it harder for women who have been married and have a name change to vote. Yeah, they're trying to strip us of our rights to vote, which is insane. But like, let's call it what it is. And they're like, oh no, that's not what it is. And it's like, of course it is. Like we yeah, yeah. Yeah, it is what it is. It's and even if they you can argue, oh, we didn't know that's what it would do, then stop pushing it through. Like, if you if you if it's an unintended consequence, then you say, Oh, wait a minute, hold up. We didn't see that. We didn't think about that consequence. That's not what we're looking for. How stupid do they think we are?

unknown 19:55

Right.

Tradwife Narratives And Soft Coercion

Voting Barriers And Not Obeying In Advance

Global Parallels And Public Space For Women

Linda 19:56

They should have learned by now that we're not. I I know so many people who are worried about this right now on both sides of the aisle, too. So, which I'm grateful for. I think what I I think, and I've been saying this over and over again, but they're just gonna take it too far. And this may be one of the things that that does that, because women are not gonna put up with this. We fought too hard to get the right to vote. It's too important. They're not gonna disenfranchise us, not without a gigantic fight. No. This idea that, like, oh, it should be head of household, but and even the audacity of people to go out and say it now. You know, it's like we've come, and in some ways, I'm like, well, at least we can see what people actually believe now. Oh, yeah, they're not because this these mofos aren't hiding any of their, you know, misogyny and their racism and you know, xenophobia, like all of that has just been invited to come to the fore. And you're like, well, at least I know you've shown your true colors. Now I can see the conversations that you were having behind closed doors before that you're now having on podcasts and interviews that are going on major news networks. Yeah, which is just insane. But also just the idea that every household has a man that's ahead of the household. How many households are headed by women? Not necessarily by choice. Often it's because the male person has taken off and left her with a bunch of kids she has to support. You know, well, he goes off with the younger model or whatever, plays, you know, Peter Pan. Uh, you know, so many households are headed by women. Not like I said, not necessarily by choice, but sometimes by choice. I mean, it's just ridiculous. Like they think that that's gonna somehow beset us right back to the 50s. We'll be home with our little aprons on, getting the cocktail ready for when the man comes home, trying to look really good. Yeah. No way. No, no. And it's yeah, it's it's wild, and you begin to see how related. I was just reading an article um today about how the in Afghanistan, the Taliban are cracking down uh in certain Areas like there's like a town that's has been more liberal about all of the um dress laws for women, and they're basically saying that they don't want women to go out in public, like they're making it so difficult for women to even exist in public space. And I feel like there's this direct line correlation between this same idea that if when you read some of these words from the Heritage Foundation, it's like, no, women are not meant to take up space and have voice and have it in public life, like that's not supposed to be our quote unquote arena, and how similar these beliefs are. And you know, that like, yeah, let's not let's not just surrender to this. Like, we need to stand up and fight and um know that none of these things either were are taken for granted. I think that's one of the things that I've realized recently, and I had this conversation with Eric a lot, is that I guess call me naive. I thought there were certain thresholds that had just been crossed that like me too, wouldn't like wouldn't go back. You know what I mean? Like I thought that, like, oh, this is kind of how progress happens. Yes, there might be a little backslide here or there, but it's really towards this, like, you know, was that the Martin Luther King, like the arc of um justice, justice bends towards freedom? I can't quite remember it, but that that idea that this is what's that we always are moving in this direction. Right. And I'm like, but that's not a foregone conclusion. We move. Apparently not. We move that direction by continuing to stand for it, to fight for it, and to claim in more and more areas of our lives this idea of being more self-governed, of being our own inner author authority, of being sovereign onto ourselves, of being able to make choices in our lives uh that work for us. Yes, and uniting with each other in that process. It's not a you do it on your own, and then I'm over here doing it on my own, and we never talk about it. It's it's more that too. It's more about community and collaboration while being true to yourself. It's like it's both. It's not, you know, it's not the rugged individualism that gets thrown at us too. You know, they you're supposed to pull yourself up by your bootstraps, do everything by yourself, and you know, all that crap that also gets handed to us. Well, I just I love that you brought that in because all of a sudden I had this vision of this, you know, the the word that comes up for me is organic, like this this organic collaboration and connection and interconnectivity versus this very industrial model. Um, and I wonder too, as time goes on, how models of actual governance are going to change from this very kind of centralized top-down mode that we've been in, that I don't think where we are technologically and where we're at in the world. I think they're kind of relics of a bygone era, and we might be in this kind of middle phase of like, what the fuck comes after this? Um, but I love what you said there because that feels important. Go ahead. Yeah, I was just gonna say, I mean, it's it's all kinds of things happening at the same time, right? We have this huge move to take away women's rights, to turn us into breeders, you know, who are stuck at home, basically. Um, which I can't tell, whatever. Um, but and then at the same time, you've got this AI revolution, right? So, like today I was reading a piece that was somebody, I forget who he is, but somebody who's big in the AI world was predicting that in 12 to 18 months, all the white-collar jobs will just be gone. So if you have a job where you sit and work at a computer, it's gonna be gone. Linda raises her hand. She's kind of excited about for it in her case, but somewhat, yeah. But you know, what does that look like, right? And I can't help but think the people who are just grabbing power left and right and not thinking about consequences at all, that they just aren't. All they see the power, they see the dollar signs. The only consequences they're thinking about is them rising to the top and everybody else seeking lower. But they don't seem to understand that we do have autonomy, we do have agency, we do have independent thought, we also have collaboration and community, and those things always win out in the end over dictatorships. Always. And even sometimes when it takes a really long time, we've seen that over and over again. But authority can only push people down for so long. I love that. It's true. It is that, and it takes so much energy to try to keep that at bay. And for anyone who follows astrology, from all that I keep hearing about all from all my astrology friends, is that you know, that this is the the people rising. That's like the time that we are coming into. Like a lot of the astrology mimics what was happening during the American Revolution, during the French Revolution, um, of which, of course, they were extremely bloody and not that we want to replicate those things, but you can see some of those same energies that are coming to the fore. And yeah, to think that you're gonna have, you know, I read an article that was related to the one that I think you read that was in the Atlantic, talking about how the stratification of just like the 0.01% to the 0.1% to the 1%, how vastly different the wealth in just that upper bracket is going to be, much less everybody else.

SPEAKER_04 28:05

Yeah.

Linda 28:06

And it's just, you know, it's um, it's just God. I don't want to use the word fascinating because that's too tame, and the word horrifying, it's just like enraging, I guess. Yeah, it's all of that though, right? It is fascinating in the sense because we're living through this period of history that's just incredible right now. Yeah, it's not fun, you know, but it is incredible the pace at which these things are happening, and these people who've really stepped in to try to mastermind these audaciously outrageous and horrifying things, and just watching to see what's gonna happen. There's that side of it for sure, but then there's also the at least within me, the part of me that's just like, hell no. Like, like I don't know what it's gonna take. And, you know, I'm not a violent person, I'm not interested in violence. Um, but if I have to put my body on the line for something like this, I would. I you know, it's like I've always thought I would do that for my kids or you know, people I'm really close to that I love, but this is super important to me, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. Yeah, but you know, it's like women have so much untapped power. So much untapped power. We don't even have even have a sense of how powerful we are. And I really believe that if we band together, tap into some of that, get more strategic ourselves about what we can and can't do, these guys we're not gonna go down easy. These guys are not gonna just walk in. It's kind of like here in the twin cities, they sent ice in, they thought we would all just collapse in a heap and be scared and stay in our houses. And did that happen?

SPEAKER_01 29:45

No, that is not what happened. That is not what happened.

Resistance, Community, And Collective Power

Linda 29:50

I mean, I still can't believe what I saw here in terms of the uprising, the sustained uprising, too. You know, it was like just normal people, just normal people, just regular people, yes, yes, yeah, people who said they never protested before, but just like I or in the streets, and it was like what 25 below zero wind chill. Yeah, and they're in the streets anyway. Yeah. I mean, what we saw here was astonishing, and I think it's the perfect example of what happens when you push people too far. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And it reminds me what you just said too. I was reading a piece by Carol Cad Cod Wallet Cod Wallader, who she um she has a Substack, I think, called Surviving the Brolocarchy. Yeah, you sent me one piece of hers. It was great. She was um, so she she was one of the people who's originally the investigative journalist who uncovered all that stuff with Cambridge Analytica and how they were harvesting uh Facebook users' data. But one of the things that she keeps saying as she's you know studied authoritarianism, which is related to to what you just said and related to what we're talking about today, is don't obey in advance. And what we're seeing, I think, is this kind of push and pull. You know, we're seeing it with some of the larger media corporations, um, around, you know, taking like not allowing James Tallerico to come on um with uh I'm forgetting his Stephen Colbert, thank you. Uh and basically, like we're seeing that, like, oh, Stephen Colbert, who is not continuing, was like, well, screw this, I'm still gonna have him on. And he was his most popular interview by far over the last several months. Um, and that's a great example too of like not obeying in advance. And what is happening and has happened in the Twin Cities is a wonderful example of that as well, is that don't make it easy, right? Like we can't we can't make it easy, but and we do have to band together and we do have to, I think, have those sources, those sustaining sources of joy and love and connection in our lives, because that to me feels like the wellspring from which all of this can come from. Yes. Um, and I yeah, and I don't think it's I don't think we're gonna go down easy. I mean, as uh as Jamila Jamil has said, history has proven that patriarchy has spent years trying to subdue women and they're like, these bitches ain't listening. I think was basically her terminology. Like, oh shit, it's not working.

SPEAKER_01 32:27

We're still not subdued, we're still not, we're still here, we're still we're we're not going away.

Linda 32:33

This isn't the wild woman archetype, is not just gonna be like squashed into some kind of domesticated Stepford wife pretzel. Like it's not happening. No, no. And if you think about those of us who aren't gonna be squashed, you know, I mean, there'll be some people, sure, who'll be too scared or whatever. Um, that maybe, you know, be in situations where they can't afford to stand up. I totally get that. Um, but those of us who can and who will and who are, and the men who also don't want to see us be squashed. If if that that group alone decides to opt out to stop participating in the system, it'll fail.

SPEAKER_02 33:16

Yes. It'll fail. And there's so it wouldn't take much.

Linda 33:19

No, and there's so many ways to stop participating in the system. Yeah. You know, I was thinking, it was reminded of how uh in Iceland, all like 90% of women did no work for a day. Like they did nothing, they didn't go to work if they had a job, they didn't do any domestic labor, they didn't do any like caring of the children, picking up from daycare, any of that stuff. And I think they said within a few weeks, like they Iceland had passed an Equal Rights Act because they realized that how like society cannot function without women's participation. That's right. And and they don't get to delegate to us what that participation is. Yes, that's what they want to do. They want to say where we can participate and where we can't, and they want us to participate in ways that serve them. Yep. Yep. You can work inside the home unless you become a puppet for the patriarchy, which is what we see women doing. Yes, some women, nothing, of course. But you see, behind there's a it's much easier to sell a misogynistic uh program or line of belief if you have a woman saying it. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:29

I mean, because you're like, but see, she does she's she thinks it's fine. So we're clearly I'm not misogynistic.

AI, Inequality, And Power Grabs

Linda 34:35

Right. We see it all the time in sex trafficking, you know. The women are pimps, it's it happens all the time. They're co-opted into these roles where they they feel like they have some power. It's it's all very psychologically complicated. We didn't have enough time to get into it, but I mean it is fascinating, but it's also really disturbing because then the people point to it as well, it's not just the men. That's you know, it's not patriarchy. Look at look who's who's doing this. Drives me insane. As if women can't be just as patriarchal as men. Well, we're all in this freaking system, so of course we can. Yep. I mean, that's what they want, really. They want us to all be part of their lovely broligarchy. How do you say that broligarchy? Broligarchy. Yeah, exactly. That's what they want. Yes. And I feel like it comes into this, like this again, belief around. I always forget exactly how it's worded because I'm not a gamer. Um, but this like the this like non-important player something. Like it's basically just like that, and I think you're talking about Elon Musk has used that terminology to basically describe the majority of people, is that we're just we're just like pawns, is another way of saying it. That we're the pawns and like they're the masters, aka the brogarchs, who are like moving the pawns around on the chessboard. And it's interesting. I was listening recently to an interview or a talk by Vandana Shiva, where she talks about how from her perspective, she sees so much of this coming, this split from the earth, from uh, you know, into patriarchy, also coinciding with the mind-body split, and how there are then a small number of people who think that they operate at the level of mind only, which is really interesting given what's happening now with AI, the digital revolution. It's basically that. It's like everything is the world of the mind, but then they exploit other people's bodies, whether it's people of color, whether it's women for becoming breeders, and and those people don't have a mind in their in their view. We are just bodies. We are just these pawns to be used in some kind of game for them, and it's like, no, like that is not what's happening. We are rising up, we are remembering our complete wholeness and vitality, vivacity, power, and having greater say in our lives, not freaking less. No. No. Yeah, this world that they're envisioning. It's shocking to me that anybody wants to be a part of it. I you know, even for men, they lose out on so much. And all the ways that we've been talking about in several podcast episodes of, you know, being sent off to war and having the worst, messiest jobs and just being, you know, cut off from their emotions. And I mean, that's a sucky existence too.

unknown 37:39

Yeah.

Linda 37:39

So it's shocking to me that e that men would even look at it and think that, yeah, that's cool. Like, what? Talk about brainwashing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. A friend of mine was telling me the other day, and I'll have to see if I can find this. She's she's a credible source, but um, there was a hearing in the chat, I think this was some years ago. I I assumed it was in the US, but it may have been elsewhere. And what the hearing was about was whether women and animals have souls. And the way she said what the person she was reading said something like, the women squeaked by with a yes, but the animals did not. But it just fits so much what you were just saying, Linda, about like they think they have minds and they have this higher level of thinking, and they think we are just pawns. We and minorities, and you know, not just not just us, but and animals for sure, too. It's like they they see it's such an extractive way of looking at the world. Like, how can I use these commodities, whether it's women's bodies, animals, nature, labor, a labor of labor poor people.

SPEAKER_01 38:47

Yes, yeah.

Linda 38:49

Sending men into really dangerous situations, whether it be war or dangerous jobs. Yeah, that's that's viewing them as commodities.

SPEAKER_04 38:57

Yep.

Linda 38:57

Um, something to be used, something to from which I extract wealth and value that's then I keep it.

unknown 39:04

Yeah.

Extractive Systems Versus Reciprocity

Linda 39:05

It doesn't really take it distributed. I do not want to be extracted, right? Like that, I think is one of the I don't like living in an extractive world. I really bothers me. Yes, because it's I think it goes against so much of what we know to be true and the type of world that we envision and want to live into, which is not that. It's a world of of reciprocity and giftedness and care and just you know, the things that make difference. Yes, just those little things. I want a vibrant natural world. I don't I mean, if you've spent any time in any kind of mining country and you see what that looks like, it's like you look around and you think, wow, this could be beautiful, but it's so destroyed, it's just so yeah, I don't even know what word to use. Decimated, I guess. Um, I just I don't want to live in that kind of world. I want to live in the kind of world where it's regenerative. Yes. Oh, yes, please. Where there's uh the natural, you know, biodiversity and just oh, I had the most, this is a total aside, and I know we're coming at the end, but I haven't told Laura this dream. But I had a very intriguing, these were just two images in the dream, but it feels related to just this piece that what we were talking about. And one was trying to connect with friends on Zoom, but I couldn't see them. But all I could see was like a scrolling carousel of videos of animals, basically like farm animals inside pens, like inside cages. And then there was this other totally random piece of the dream where it just cut into a random, it was like a closet, and the music got really intense. It was like done, done, and all of these animals just started like birthing. They were tiny versions of like elephants and rhinoceri, and like or rhinoceroses, I don't know how to say that, whichever that plural is rhinoceros, um, and hippos and like all of these tiny, but they were you know small enough to fit inside the palm of my hand. And then some soil was on the ground and some plant like debris, and all of it was like going out into the world, and there was this directive that they were like marching out into the world to basically like repopulate it. Like it was just, and it feels like what you just said about creating and wanting to live in this world that is regenerative, that has this natural biodiversity in human cultures and in the greater natural world, like that and reverence for all of that, reverence for all of that, yes, awe, joy, like before the great mystery of what it is to be alive in this beautiful planet, yes, and and gratitude for what this beautiful earth provides for us instead of somehow thinking we can tear it apart and it'll still be here. I just don't get it. I don't get it either, man. There's been uh there were, I think it was a couple years ago I went to with my mom to a plot. Um, it's an old cemetery and there's an old church from like the 19 early 1900s, maybe late 1800s. And because there's a cemetery on the grounds, it's one of the only ground that's never been tilled here. And so they realized when they kind of mowed the grass that underneath was the original Blackland Prairie, like in its untarnished form. And so in this, it is so gorgeous when you go there in the springtime to see the flowers and the grasses that are just coming up from the ground. And I had that same kind of belief that I'm like, oh my, how beautiful this place must have been before we literally covered everything with concrete.

SPEAKER_01 43:06

It just freeway overpasses and like and the grief of that, the grief of that.

Regeneration, Biodiversity, And Hope

Linda 43:14

Yeah, absolutely. Well, we don't want to let them cover the rest of us over with concrete or or pin us in in some way where we're like, you know, we have our very little movement at those animals and cages and crates. Um just being extracted. Yeah, we can give birth and and then they'll raise children to be minions.

unknown 43:37

Yep.

Linda 43:38

No, we say no. We say no. We say no. Let's create something far more, far more life sustaining and nourishing and beautiful. Yes. Okay. Oh, that, my friends, to come and bring it full circle. That I think is what we mean when. we're talking about being self-governed. I think so too, even though we didn't know when we started this conversation. That's the joy, that's the joy of a truly juicy conversation is where you don't know where it's going and you don't know where it's gonna end. And we have the right to say anything. Yes. We have the right to say anything. Yes. They're trying to take it away. Well for now we still have it. Let's use it. Let's use it. Absolutely. All right.

SPEAKER_01 44:29

Well until next time