AI Is Not Neutral and Women Need a Plan

Artificial intelligence and political power are colliding in ways that could push women out of economic security and back into narrower roles. AI is getting sold as “the future of work,” but what if it’s also being used as a future of control? We follow a thread that starts with a chilling public claim from a major tech CEO about shifting economic power and ends with a bigger, more personal question: who do we need to be to create a different future than the one these powerful patriarchal people would have us inhabit? We move from the scary headlines to practical resistance, then land on the hope found in community care and women building systems that can’t be easily taken away.

Resources: 

Book: Taking Charge of Your Fertility by Toni Weschler

GoFundMe started by Isaiah Garza of Miracles for Humanity: https://gofund.me/8e2107a33

Transcript

Welcome And Why This Matters

Linda 0:02

Hi everyone, and welcome to Woman Uncaged. This is episode nine of season five. I am Laura Gates Lepton, and I am here with my wonderful, amazing bestie, Linda Katz, who is a dream whisperer, an amazing painter and artist, a writer extraordinaire, and one of the best friends a person could have. She's also very fun and she laughs a lot, and that's good too. But I highly recommend that you check out her work, her fabulous book, which is called Homecoming, which is on Amazon. It's such a beautifully written book about her experiences and a lot of the things that are relevant to the show. So if you like the show, you're gonna love her book. It's also just a very, what do I want to say? It's a it's a soft place to land. It's a great read. It's short, it's not short, it's not short at all, but it's something you want to read in short pieces, is what I was gonna say, just to really savor it and enjoy it. And and seriously, if there's anything Linda has said on the show that you've appreciated, you would really love her book. So I highly recommend you get your hands on it. She tells me she's not opening her coaching doors anytime soon, but if she does, flock to her because she's amazing. But maybe she'll do a workshop or something else that you could join. Maybe the two of us will do something. Maybe maybe, maybe. But if you can be in her proximity, I highly recommend it. She's so wise and thoughtful and fun and just an all-round amazing human being who is a joy to spend time with. And it's so great to be with you, Linda. Aw, thank you, Laura. And it's so wonderful to be here with my beloved co-conspirator, dear friend, wonderful human, Miss Laura Gates-Lupton, who, as I've said before, was the most beloved of editors on my book. So, apart from also being a very wise and loving and thoughtful coach to uh midlife women, she's also an amazing editor. So if you're a writer who could use some editing in a both very detailed way, but also holding the holding the writer, holding the the space for the heart so that you're not going to be stomped by criticism, I cannot recommend working with Laura enough. And I also have to say, you know, based upon what our topic is going to be today, I just feel like your work in the world, Laura, is just so valuable and so needed and so important. It always has been, but I think that it continues to be more so. Um, Laura works with mainly midlife women on many things on uncaging themselves and also growing their own financial identities. And in this world that we live in, where uh money and power oftentimes go hand in hand or are intimately intertwined, um, I think it's so important that as we step into our own power and find our own voices, um, that we don't neglect, that we don't neglect the money piece either. It's not the only thing, but it's definitely one of the things. So if you are looking for a life and money coach, I highly recommend checking out Laura. You can find her on Good With Money. As I told her in a boxer message a few days ago, I'm not huge into a lot of money coaching, to be honest, but I find that Laura, the way that you do it is just so impactful because there's a depth to it, there's a heart to it, there's a there's a practical element to it that I I rarely find that level of of groundedness, but also potential. Um and so yeah, it's just a pleasure to be here with you today, as it always is. Thank you, Linda. And I that means a lot to me. And also, um, I mean, this is sort of a sort of a pre-announcement, but I'm gonna be opening a school, um, you know, the school community related to women and money very soon. So in in part because I feel like I can't serve enough people doing the one-to-one work that I'm doing. And I I agree with you. I think this is so desperately needed right now. So just want to be able to serve more people. Yay! I'm so excited. Um, so we are just a barrel of laughs, ladies, or barrel of laughs lately, guys. Um last week we talked about how a third of Gen Z men uh want their women to basically obey them or think that a wife's role is to obey her husband. Be submissive. Uh-huh. Um more good news, really great news. Really great news in terms of the impacts of AI and how those impacts are not um going to be distributed equally among the sexes or genders. Yeah. It's basically a combination of our episode on AI and our last week's episode. Is it like the two forces are coming together to restrict women? Is this basically what we want to say? Exactly. This is a new, and so the reason that we want to talk about this again is that I think that we need to be aware of where this is woman uncaged, right? And so I think we need to be aware of external forces that are also at play that are pushing us in the other direction, that really want to recage us, you women. So uh I am so I always feel bad when I send Laura these things because I find them and then I'm like just very gently forward her links and screenshots from Instagram. So this was uh inspired by the Palantir CEO. So Palantir, most people probably know, you know, is uh they don't solely do AI, but they're Peter Thiel's organization or company that does a whole bunch of like surveillance technology. And the this their CEO, Alex Carp, had gone on CNBC and um was basically saying that their AI, he says, will quote, disrupt humanities-trained, largely democratic voters and make their economic power less while boosting the power of quote, working class, often male voters. Pair this with the fact that there was a study that came out um recently that showed that women will be three times more likely to be displaced by AI than men, uh, especially in the more wealthy economies like you know, the United States and these kinds of places, uh, because of the types of jobs that women often hold, which tend to be so many, so many can be administrative or clerical, or you know, even writing positions, marketing, those kinds, editing. Yeah, those are the things that oftentimes women who have had a liberal arts education uh will go into those types of fields. And they said that I think this study that was uh came out by the UN said there was like a nine over a nine percent chance of of those jobs being displaced by AI versus for men, it was I think 3%. And so I think that it's one of those things of like, how is how how is this um how do all these things intersect? And I see Laura wants to say something, and I'm like, take, take her away. Well, first I want to say Linda and I don't like to be doom and gloom. We I want to say that up front. Like we really don't, but we do feel like it's important to illuminate these things because these are literal forces that are happening right now, right here in this country and around the world. And so it's I just don't think we should turn a blind eye to it. The other thing is just to consider too that that study by the UN is not an accident. That it's not an accident that women are gonna be impacted because they're literally designing it that way. And I assume most people know this, but in case you don't, I'm just gonna say it anyway. Peter Thiel is the force behind JD Vance. So the only reason we have J.D. Vance as vice president is because of Peter Thiel. So that's also important too. He's got a he's got a very extreme agenda. Project 2025. Extreme agenda. And I think a lot of us honestly didn't pay much attention to it, Project 2025. And I I saw a thing the other day and I don't remember what the stat was, but it was like a huge percentage of Project 2025 has already been realized or is in motion. So that's the thing that I think is really important about this. This isn't a theory, this isn't somebody's extreme idea. It's something that's actually being orchestrated right now. And I guess the biggest question for me is what are we going to do about it? What do what can we do about it? So it's a multiple question.

SPEAKER_03 9:00

Yeah.

Linda 9:02

And who who do we need to be as women to not go into those gauges that they want to put us back in?

unknown 9:09

Yeah.

Linda 9:10

A, not go in at all, but B, not go in lightly.

unknown 9:13

Yeah.

Linda 9:14

I guess these are all the thoughts I'm having right now. What do you think, Linda? Yeah, because I think it's, you know, the that term, like they want us barefoot and pregnant. Like that's kind of that's that's what they see as as what women's use is is for reproduction solely and for probably, you know, support roles like making dinner and keeping the house clean and you know, all of those things, like putting us back into those cages. And I think they're such an important, there are two important pieces that uh that you just shared is that I think that sometimes, at least for myself, it's these ideas seem so radical that they're almost laughable and it's really easy to kind of just put them out of mind. I think like with the project 2025, is that it seems like it's like a conservative wet dream, but yes, it doesn't really need to be taken too seriously until you realize that they've spent years and years and years putting in the foundations in place um to enact these radical ideologies, right? And and knowing that they're not going to be popular. And so what do we need? Yeah, they don't care. And that's the bigger piece is that like if if we're still planning on having a functioning democracy where women have an equal say, they would need to care that these things are not going to be popular. But to me, I also see the more that we hear the quiet part said out loud, the more confident it makes them seem that it doesn't matter if we get mad or because their sense is that we just can't do anything about it anyway. Um, and I think that so that's like the the first piece. And I remember I um kind of related to the the one that we did last week. I heard Esther Perel talking about this, and you know, she's the relationship therapist, very well known. And one of the things she said too is like, when we I, you know, we're we've been naive in a certain way. She's like, people of my generation, we thought this was like in the past. Oh yeah, you know, we thought we'd left that behind. It was like we had crossed a threshold towards greater equality. And I I think, yeah, I did not foresee the backlash being so great or so organized or such a force to be reckoned with. Um and I think recognizing that it is is important because exactly I think we need to have these conversations about like, okay, now what? And I wish I had the answer to that. I really do. I think for me, one of the things that I've been kind of toying with in my own life is also like, how do I build more of a life that is outside of these systems of control? Yes. And it's not easy because I think that especially with modern society, we've become uh very dependent upon a lot of these systems. And uh they're also convenient, and so even if we're not dependent upon them, we kind of feel like we are, at least for me, I can say that. Um, but whether that is like I am not going to be purchasing things from Amazon or from these large conglomerations, or I'm not going to be using Chat GPT or OpenAI and basically like giving my money, energy, brain power to these organizations. Um and then I think there's this other piece, like which I I would love to get your take on, Laura, as somebody who's really steeped in women and money and power, is like, how do we almost build something outside of the current system? Like, how do we take um take back our power in a way that it can then not be snatched away from us? Because I think what we've done, of course, is like there was a system, a work of the system of work and money, which was created by men and foremen. And we've wrestled our way in there and elbowed and tried to like squeeze in a seat at the table. And now what I'm believing is like, okay, we can see that that worked, and at the end of the day, we're gonna be the first ones to get the fucking boot off the table anyway. So, how do we build our own tables? Like, that's what I want to know. Like, I don't want to squeeze into that table anymore. Like, I'm not interested. I want to build a table that's by us, that's for us, that is pro, like truly pro-life, pro the world, pro the children, pro-humanity, that is founded in the kind of world that we actually want to live in, not this dark dystopian handmade tale, tech oligarchy, whatever the fuck is going on in this other imagination. Yeah. Just to clarify, when you say pro-life, what do you mean? Like, not I am not meaning at all, like anti-abortion. I mean actually pro-life, like pro-having and being able to live and have full expressive lives. I mean being pro-animals, pro-the environment, pro the earth, pro-humans, like not utilizing human labor as a substitute for machine labor and measuring productivity in all these ways that the people who claim to be quote unquote pro-life in the way that they use it, I think are actually the exact opposite. I do too. But it's just a really great marketing ploy. Um, but I mean like actually being pro-life, like pro in having a system that actually is supportive of so many various forms of life, including human, animal, plant, the world, all of it. Yeah. I knew that, but I wanted our listeners to know.

SPEAKER_01 15:24

Thank you. That's always good. Just so you know.

Linda 15:36

No, I'm not.

SPEAKER_01 15:36

I'm not anti that at all. I mean pro-life in the way that it was like if you're actually pro-it, like not in that way.

Linda 15:46

Yeah. I totally agree with you. First, I love what you said about how do we build our own tables. I think that's so smart. I want to go back and respond to something you said a while ago, though, when you were talking about if we have a shot at a functioning democracy with women have equal say, we've never had equal say. I think we'll be lucky to have any say, and that's what's actually at jeopardy right now is whether or not we have any say. We've never had equal say. And if you look around, you can see evidence of that. You know, we don't have get paid the same as men, for example. The equal rights amendment never passed in this country. There's so many ways in which we do not have equal rights, equal say. That's always been true. I think what we all thought, though, is that we're slowly making progress. And now we're de-evolving, we're moving in the backwards. And so that's what you know she's talking about. And her name just flew out of my head, the incredible therapist. Esther Perel. Thank you. I listen to her all the time. And I think that happens to me all the time, specifically with her, and it drives me insane. I was thinking Rebecca, and we're like, no, that's not right. Esther Perel, yeah. I think that's what she's saying. Is it like, oh my God, we thought we'd we'd cross that bridge and we're gonna keep going, but no, we're back on the other side of the bridge again. Um, but I do love this question of how do we build our own tables? And I also think, too, that as these people, mostly men, but not all, are orchestrating what they're orchestrating in terms of trying to take things away from us and succeeding, they're completely underestimating us, much like ICE and Trump and GOP did when they sent ICE into Minnesota. And so for me, just keeping that in mind, the really the clear vision of the so many people who showed up, it it's really helpful because I don't think these guys recognize what we actually have in terms of power.

unknown 17:39

Yeah.

Sisterhood And Where Women Are Indispensable

Linda 17:40

We do have power in so many ways. Yeah, and so part of it is us recognizing it and not being afraid to wield it. Which I think is where part of the issue can be. Tell me more. Well, I think one of the antidotes really is sisterhood and building a strong web of connection. Because when you it feels like it's you as an individual who's being threatened, if you're the one who's having a miscarriage on your bathroom floor and thinking, oh my God, I might get arrested for murder based on what's happening in some states right now, it feels very much like this is a me problem, even though it's not, right? It's a systemic problem, but it feels very much like it's a me problem. And if there are no other people you can call, if you have nobody to stand with you, it very it feels horrible. It feels like you have no power whatsoever.

unknown 18:30

Yeah.

Linda 18:31

We need to stand together, we need to be strategic, and we need to support each other. We need to say absolutely no, this isn't happening, and we're not going down without a fight.

unknown 18:43

Yeah.

Linda 18:44

And we need to use whatever we have at our disposal. And that doesn't mean the male version of war either. It doesn't mean necessarily like bloodshed. Yeah. I think I think it means really assessing where do we have power? Where are we indispensable? I love that question. Where are we indispensable? Yeah. Well, babies don't get born without us for one thing. So that is one thing right there. The hospitals don't run without us. You know, schools don't run without us. There's so many things. So I think it's both. I think it's how do we build our own table and create our own economy? I think about that a lot. And you know, Linda Stats Right, she's laughing over there. And you know, how do how do we do those things, those things that are more proactive and somewhat more within our control, right? And the other is how do we resist? How do we recognize where we're indispensable, the places where this country just does not run without us, and say, we're not playing.

SPEAKER_01 19:52

Yeah.

Concrete Resistance Ideas

Linda 19:54

Yeah. We're not. I love that. I also find it this is something that I just popped up into my head because we've been talking about how um, you know, like women are going to college now at higher levels than men. And I just find it very interesting that just at that moment where we have the tibbing of the scales, in comes this technology that's going to be that's been created mainly by men, that is going to wipe out those gains in favor again of um yeah, dudes. Yeah. Um, and so I think, yeah, but I love what you said too, just about having the web of connection, this question of how do we create our own economy and how do we resist. Okay, let's dive into that. Because I'm I would love to, you know, that these are such big things, right? Like both of them. And even for me, I'm like, well, what the hell? How do I do that? Like, well, where do we begin? Um I think the other piece too, and I just want to throw this in before we dive into it, is because I think it's important, is that web of connection doesn't have to just be women. Yeah, it can be matriarchal, it can be a sisterhood, but it can include other people, and that's also important too, because you know that not every man in this country agrees with this stuff. I mean, we're both in relationships with men who are horrified, you know, when we know we are friends with others, you know. And and there are other genders too. So it's it's I I think it would be uh silly to not think of those people as well because the resistance is much bigger than just the women in this country. Yeah. I love that. Okay, let's start. Which one do you want to start with? Do you want to start with the proactive or the uh resistance? Which one feels more intriguing to you? I think the proactive is a little harder. It is in some ways. Let's start with the resistance and then so what are what are some of the ways that we can resist in terms of this, in terms of um Not going down without a fight in terms of being, you know, having 9% of women's jobs where, like you said, we were already, you know, not making the same amount, but having those jobs displaced and basically not having other ones to go into, because this is the big thing with AI is that in in previous technological advancements, usually it's like there's something else that comes along. And this is the first time, at least for the next little bit. Um that's not the case. So, how how do we, what are some of the concrete ways? I guess we could just spitball of how do we resist this? I think the obvious one is a women's strike.

SPEAKER_03 22:41

Yeah.

Linda 22:41

Like they, you know, had an can't remember, was it Norway? Uh Iceland. Iceland, thank you. Um, and it was literally one day and it had such a huge impact. Now, admittedly, I think their people are a little more enlightened than ours. So it might be a good thing. And it's a smaller country, so it's a little easier to coordinate. Yeah. Also, it was a a time when it really impacted dads because they had no one to take care of their kids. And maybe if all the childcare workers also, you know, were willing to do it, all the because they're mostly female too, if they participate, then yeah, then maybe there would be no child care for the kids in this country. But I think actually a really serious women's strike would have impact. Um so there's that's the top thing that comes to mind. What do you think of? I can't think of anything.

SPEAKER_01 23:29

So women's strike it is.

Boycotts And Using Purchasing Power

Linda 23:35

I think one of the I think one of the things is kind of what I was saying actually earlier, even in terms of smaller, like smaller, less a women's strike, I think, across the country is still it's a big, it would be a big thing to to accomplish. But I do even think that polling, while we still have purchase power, using it. Yes, I agree. Um, using it to take away, you know, like when um anthropic basically refused to cave to the Trump administration's demands uh to be able to use AI like kind of autonomously for targets and in weapons. And I think there was one other thing, oh, a mass surveillance of uh your own citizens, when they were like, nope, we have to have those safety parameters in place in order to sign this deal with the Pentagon. Um and OpenAI was like swooped right in there and was like, we'll do it. Uh and and as a result, multiple, multiple people have been boycotting Chat GPT and OpenAI. And I think that those are things that we can do also is taking away our purchase power, taking or using our purchase power, um, taking away our attention, you know, in this attention economy from the things that we really don't want to be giving our attention to. So, I mean, meta and all of these social media platforms, they lose their potency and their power when they lose users, when they lose our eyeballs, when they lose our attention. And so those are things that we can practice even right now where we are as a form of resistance, is to say who who are the people who are envisioning the future I want to live into and who are the ones that are not? And how do I give less to the ones who are not and more to the ones who are? That might be where we're where we're buying things from. Um, I've tried to make a real reading, who we're reading, yes. Um, all of those things matter. No, please do. It's like like for me, I've really made a concerted effort to not buy shit on Amazon, like unless I cannot find it anywhere else. Like, I do not want to give my money to Jeff Bezos. I just don't like so. If there is another way, then I would rather do that. I love to see, I think it was like the last I saw. Rutger Bregman has been talking a lot about that boycott of open AI. And I think it was like they've lost like four million users or something. Awesome. Um, yeah. So look what happened with Jimmy Kimmel. Jimmy Kimmel, like people stopped subscribing to Disney and something else. I forget what. And it was literally overnight, but he was like, Oh, Jimmy's back. While we still have purchase power, let's use it. I totally agree. I totally agree. And and I think another thing that that looks like is supporting women-owned businesses. Um, so like I was telling Linda the other day we joined a CSA for the summer, and I specifically wanted a women-owned business. And so that's what we joined. Because it's just, you know, it's a chunk of money. And so if my dollars are going somewhere, I wanted to support women and immigrant-owned businesses. Those are the two places I've been focusing around here.

SPEAKER_03 26:44

Yeah.

Linda 26:44

Um, because I think that's super important. And our dollars do matter. Yeah. It still runs on all this, all these people make their money from us using their products and from large swaths of people using their products. So and our putting money into the companies who they own stock of. So a lot of these people own stock in these major companies. So if you're not supporting Amazon, Target, some of the major companies, then automatically you're not helping their bottom line, you're not helping their profits. And when you support local businesses who aren't in the stock market, that's an automatic way of doing that. So it's not that you have to look up and see who the stockholders are. You don't have to. You can just, you know, patronize businesses that are small, that you know, haven't gone public.

unknown 27:35

Yeah.

Linda 27:36

Yeah. The old-fashioned way. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it doesn't cost a little more. Yeah, it absolutely does. But I think it's worth it if you can do it. I mean we can't all all the time. And there are some times when you have to compromise. If you're talking about like you can't, you're not gonna be able to feed your kids, then you know, feed your kids. You know, shop at Target or Walmart if that's the place where you can get groceries that you can afford. But you know, use it where you can.

SPEAKER_01 28:01

Yeah.

Disrupting Expectations Around Reproduction

Linda 28:02

I love that. Okay, let's talk about building a table. I love the way you said this. And I love it. I want to say one other thing though, first. Okay, please do. Okay. This is this is on the line on the line of display.

SPEAKER_01 28:13

You look very full of mischief right now. I'm very intrigued to see what Laura's about to say.

Linda 28:17

This is on the line of disruption. Yeah. I mean, one of the ways we really can be disruptive is not to have babies. And obviously, I'm past that part of my life. But for those of you who are listening who are not, or and for women in general who are not, I think it's a really important point. I mean, one of the things they're very up in arms about is that birth rates have gone down. They want more babies and they want more uneducated women so that they can raise the babies the way they think they should go and the direction they should go. And they're trying they're doing their best to get rid of the means for you not to have babies. So I would strongly recommend people learn how to measure their cycles and take their temperatures and all of those things. The the natural form of contraception. Is it 100% foolproof? No, but I used it for years and it worked for me.

unknown 29:01

Yeah.

Linda 29:02

You know, I think that that's people don't talk about it very often, but it is available and it's low cost and they can't take it away.

SPEAKER_03 29:09

Right.

Linda 29:09

Like, what are they gonna do? Stand in your bedroom and not let you take your temperature every morning? I mean, I don't think so. Yeah.

unknown 29:15

Yeah.

Linda 29:16

And if they've done that, then we've already lost the battle anyway. But yes, knowing our own bodies, knowing your own rhythms, knowing when you're fertile, not having sex during that time. This is also this. I mean, this sounds a little tinfoil hatty, but I won't put that out there right away. But I have feelings about the period tracker apps for this reason that people are using because we're sending that very personal private information to these very large corporations to then use that data however they see fit. So I would fucking put that in a journal. Yes. Well, I used to do a graph. I used to just keep a graph of my temperature and because you need to see when it spikes, then you know you're ovulating, you know, and like when you can predict it over time, it makes it a lot easier. Um, and it, you know, I did that for years because I didn't want to be taking hormones and I didn't want to be doing other things. I didn't want to use a barrier and and I was married, you know, and it worked for me. I was willing to assume the risk. You may not be in a situation where you can assume the risk. Use that in conjunction with another form of birth control. But I mean, if you're talking about what do we have at our disposal, that's one thing we have at our disposal.

unknown 30:26

Yeah.

Linda 30:27

And not to say that if you want to have children, like please, by all means, like have children. Yeah. But ordering people not to say I know that. Um, but you know, it's one of these, you know, I I got so Timothy Chalamet. I used to love that kid, and now I'm like so annoyed with him. First, he had this comment about um, you know, ballet and opera and how it's like a dying art form. And then I had heard recently that he had said about somebody who was saying bragging about him and his wife's choice not to have kids. Everyone thinks he was talking about Seth Rogan. Um, and he was like, What did he say? Oh, that's bleak. That like, and that the point of being here is procreation. And I was like, Okay, yeah, wow. When you even have like, and this again, he's in his late 20s, parroting basically the same belief system as Elon Musk. And I was like, Yep, yeah, no problematic. And you know, easy for you to say, dude, when the creatures don't come through your body. If they don't come through your body, you are wealthy. Are you giving up your career to raise your children? If if that was the only point, why are you making art? Right. Go fuck yourself, dude. Okay, next. Okay, okay, build our own. I'm fiery, I'm fiery. How do we know where we're going?

SPEAKER_01 31:42

Stay noted, babies. Go on strike.

Building A Web Of Women’s Economy

Linda 31:46

Don't give those mofos your money. Okay. So, how do we start building our own economy? What the heck does that look like? I love Laura because who thinks about these things, right? This is this is the this is why I love you. One of the one of the many reasons is that Laura's like, I think about that a lot, actually. How do we build our own economy? Like, let's talk about it. Because the economy we have is not built for women. So I do think about this a lot. And I I think part of it is creating ways to have create your own income, finding ways to charge appropriately, which is what's something women really struggle with. And so that you're, you know, you're you have more control over your personal economy as part of it. And then creating a web of women's economy where you're supporting other people and doing the same thing, and we're buying from each other and using each other's services and supporting each other and charging appropriately.

unknown 32:40

Yeah.

Linda 32:41

Like it's not just about being in business, it's about having sustainable businesses, you know, so that we're we're not undercutting each other, we're supporting each other and you know, sort of that the tide rises all you know, raises all boats. Like that's that's what happens when you have that kind of structure. And and I I think right now it feels like to me that when a woman is in business, she's like a silo. She's like her own, she's her own little economy. But there's it's you know so much better if there's that kind of support where you feel like other people are there. And and that takes all kinds of forms. It's not only buying from each other and hiring each other, it's also just being a literal support, like masterminding with each other, spending time together, you know, um problem solving with each other, having that be top of mind when you're thinking of something that you need or want is what woman offers it. Who can I who can I purchase this from? Who can I, who can I partner with when you need something, when you have a something that you need in your own business that you're not able to do? Who can I partner with?

SPEAKER_03 33:48

Yeah.

Linda 33:50

I love that. I love the way you worded it to a web of women's economy. That that uh and it also feels new but very ancient. And something that I think was kind of I think it is ancient, taken over and paved over by this more industrial, completely abstract, uh whatever extractive version of economy that we have now imagining and participating in building something that is generative and um enhancing. I think I think one of the things that we have at our dis well, two things actually that we have at our disposal that we're so underutilized and so underappreciated are our intuition as women and our creativity. I I believe all humans are inherently creative and all humans are inherently intuitive, but for women have that kicked out of them less, you know. It's like for men, it's kind of beaten out of them as they're growing up. So they tend not to be as much in touch with their intuition or with their creativity. Not everybody, of course, but you know, it's like being a mom is a creative thing. Being a woman in this world is a creative thing. It's we often, you know, we're very it's not, um, what do I want to say? It's not seen as less feminine to be creative. It's actually okay, right? Whereas it kind of is for men, it's not considered masculine. And I don't, I don't think we use them strategically enough. So that's another thing is that building our own table, I think, really means learning how to be intuitive and how to work with that more ancient wisdom that that we all have. Yeah, that resourcefulness, that inherent resourcefulness that I think we've forgotten. And I think that like it just what we were saying in this conversation, it's remembering the power that we already have so that we don't buckle under the you know pressure or in the face of these things that can seem insurmountable. It's like, oh no. I mean, if women weren't this powerful, they wouldn't have tried so hard to oppress us for this long. We're also more than half the population. Yeah. It's like in sheer numbers. Yeah, it's and and the other thing too is that they're using uh somewhat primitive means against us, it's my way of thinking. It's you know, this like brute and brawn and you know, laws and things like you know, heavy, heavy, heavy stuff. And I just think that if we really were to band together and tap into our intuition and be creative in the ways that we resist, not in ways that they would necessarily predict. Yeah, that we have a lot at our disposal.

unknown 36:42

Yeah.

Linda 36:43

And if we use all of that too in creating our own economy, like just being willing to think outside the box, even though I'm tired of that phrase. But you know, in what ways? I mean, this the consumerist lifestyle that has been sold to us is completely unsustainable. So it's a good in every way, shape, and form. Every way, shape, and form. And it's a good opportunity to also kick that to the curb and think about how do we want to live doing that together in mass, you know, and and not not putting up with this bullshit, not rolling over, paying attention.

unknown 37:21

Yeah.

Linda 37:23

I love that. I'm also it was um two things that come to mind for me too are you know, in addition to buying from one another, providing the supports, is like sometimes we can also gift what we have. Yes. Like for example, I've started seed starting. So I have 36 very large-ish, like foot-high tomato plants. I don't live near you. I have room for maybe five or six that I can plant without overcrowding them. And so I'm going to plant them in little planter pots and probably just give them away to people in the neighborhood that want to grow their own tomatoes. Um, and I think we need to normalize those kinds of things, normalizing, you know, even something like the free little libraries that have popped up everywhere where there are these very just natural gift economies or the buy nothing groups. Yeah, that's a way to utilize social media and utilize these things in a way that is a bit counter-culture to give what we have. And one of the things I had um, there's someone I follow on um on Instagram, I think his name is Isaiah Garza. And he'll find oftentimes it's like families who have children who have been diagnosed with cancer and they're just, you know, really struggling. And there was one story yesterday, I just happened to like pop up on my feed, and it was a woman, like her a woman and her daughter who was nine, who had been diagnosed with a brain tumor. And you know, they had lost their house recently in the Eaton fire in LA, outside of LA. So they lost their house, they had to sell their car, their child was diagnosed with cancer, and like they were three or four months late on rent. He posted that video yesterday. This is gonna bring me tears to my eyes. Last I checked, they had raised on a GoFundMe$345,000 for this family. Wow. And I was watching it last night just sitting there, and I could see every minute donations coming in. Some were like$1,000, some were$5, but constantly. And I think that there, even that to me feels like the antithesis of what we're talking about. Well, it's like the web of support. It's the web of support, and it made me just have such renewed faith in humanity because the group of people who are orchestrating this, the Alex Carps of the world, the Palantirs, the Elon Musks, there's so few, actually. And the sheer number of people who are actually really good people, men, women, who care, who want to help, who see something like this, it touches their heart, they have something to give and they will gladly give it. We so outnumber these like stingy little mofos who are sitting on their piles of billions of dollars. Like I think are lonely and underdeveloped. It's so true. You know, it's like this is all you can think of to do with your creativity. Oh my gosh. I started reading this book on neurodiversity, and one of the things that she said that I was like, oh my God, this is so true. She wrote about how like hoarding disorder, and she was like, Why do we call it a hoarding disorder if you like store, you know, a bunch of canned food or a bunch of toilet paper? But if you store billions of dollars while the rest of the world is like going hungry, that's completely normal. Like we don't say that you have a mental illness.

SPEAKER_01 41:05

And I was like, fuck, that's so true. Good point. So I think it's exactly that.

Linda 41:10

It's like there's an underdevelopment that's happened here. It's just that we've we have this society that rewards that like kind of underdevelopment. And it's like, screw that. Like, there's so much, there's so many other better ways of doing it. Yeah. And I I think part of what you're speaking to, too, is this distinction between the power that these folks are wielding, which is power over. They want to have power over us, they want to have control. And we're talking about power too. And so, you know, the power to lift up that family, for example, you know, and not one person did it, right? A whole bunch of people did it from all over. People they'll never meet, like they'll never know who these all these people were, have just incredibly touched their lives, right? And you know, can't make up for an ill child, but certainly it will make it easier.

SPEAKER_03 41:59

Yeah.

Staying Hopeful And Listener Check-In

Linda 41:59

And yeah, I think that that's a beautiful example of what we're talking about because it's power too. Yeah. I just I love that. I want to move more in that direction. Me too. Oh, this was such a juicy conversation. Is there anything else that comes up for you, Laura, as we as we close? Only only as we were starting, you were saying, like, uh, I mean, we were talking before, right before we got on about how, oh, it's like such a heavy topic. And what do we really want to talk about another heavy topic and all that? And you said right before we hit record, you're like, well, we usually find a way to make it joyful. And I think we did. I think like just ending on that story about that family and about thinking about the power to yeah, it's like there's there is some joy in there, right? It's like that just remembering that we can use our creativity and our love for the world and for each other and our sensibilities in this incredibly beautiful way. And I mean, can it be taken away from us? Sure. They can build concentration camps and all that stuff. We've seen that before, but not without a major effort on our part to not succumb to their dastardly plans. Yes. Yeah. And I think it's yeah, I think just remembering, you know, from from an astrological perspective too, coming into this kind of more Aquarian age, it's like people power, like remembering that, yeah, exactly what you said earlier. When we when we think that we're alone, it can feel we can feel really helpless or powerless.

SPEAKER_03 43:38

Yes.

Linda 43:38

But when we remember that we're not at all, like that's what I just felt watching all of those, like just take, take like every second a new donation was coming in. Just seeing how these webs of care and connections with all these amazing humans who were touched by this one story and are willing to. take the time and the effort and their resources to be able to help. Um that's where the real power is. Yes. That's where the real it's it's just more of that. And we'll put that link. I'll I'll include the the link in the show notes or send it to you Laura too for uh if anyone wants to to donate to that sweet family. Yeah I think taking your caring and making sure that you're putting it into action you know it's like love is a verb and it it's a feeling but it's also a verb. And I think that sometimes in our very busy lives it can be harder to think in those terms. But something right now that I think is really important, especially as we're feeling this heaviness is to make sure that we're supporting the people and the causes around us that need it in a way that feels good to us and making that visible you know making it visible because that makes a huge difference. It makes it makes other people wake up more you know and rise to the occasion and that's part of what we need right now. Yes please oh well thank you for this wonderful conversation as always Laura um we'd love to hear from you dear listeners absolutely how are you doing out there? Yeah and what thoughts and ideas do you have? We're just spitballing here live and you know yeah we'd love to hear I mean I had I had not none when we started I was like this is but now I feel like they're I'm to not use that word armed but I feel like I have more concrete actions to be able to equipped to I feel more equipped and um with more concrete actions too that I can start to make small changes in in my life that move me and hopefully those will ripple out as we all continue to touch each other in the web and yeah I'm gonna keep thinking about how do we build our own tables. I love that question. I do too I feel like that could be a round table or something at some point. Yep we need more ideas. Yeah I I think we we're gonna be continuing this conversation in in more forums and more episodes. Yeah so well until next time