The Hand That Holds the Purse: When Feminism Forgets Women

On this episode of Politically Basic, Kyle is joined by Arwen Becker—a financial powerhouse and unapologetic advocate for women—to talk about the cultural moment we’re living in and why women can’t afford to stay silent. From the battlefield of women’s sports to the boardrooms where money decisions are made, Arwen unpacks what it really means to lead with conviction.
We’re talking biology, boundaries, and the uncomfortable truth that too many are afraid to say out loud: women are walking away from the very spaces they fought to enter because the line has gotten blurry—and no one wants to draw it. At the same time, women are on track to control 60% of America’s wealth. So why do we still shy away from claiming power?
This episode isn’t just about economics—it’s about courage, calling, and what happens when women stop apologizing for using their voice.

Transcript

Welcome to Politically Basic. I'm your host, Kyle Campbell. As we always do, we're
breaking down all political issues and current political events so that you get to
decide. Today on the show with me, I have Arwen Becker. After spending 22 years as
co -owner of Becker Retirement Group with her husband, Andy, and many of those as a
financial advisor. The Becker sold their retirement planning firm in 2022, and Arwen
now focuses full -time on keynote speaking and training elite financial professionals
across the nation. She's an author and contributed to her multiple books, the host
of the She Handled It podcast, creator of the U -Version Women and Money Devotional,
and is often featured as a guest expert on many national news programs and podcasts.
She's a proud mom of three boys. Woo, she's tough. And the daughter -in -law
endurance athlete, affiliate for XXXY Athletics. Five time,
29029 Everesting Finisher. That's impressive. And loves traveling the globe with her
husband. Arwen, thank you so much for being on Politically Basic with me. - Thank
you for having me. And I'm impressed that you actually pronounced 29029 the correct
way. 'Cause a lot of people have no idea what it is, so they would say 2 -9 -0 -2
-9, but we actually call it 2 -9 -0 -2 -9, so good job with that. I'm thrilled. I
took a crack at it. I wasn't exactly sure, but I do know what that is. And you're
a super, super impressive woman.
Moms of boys, especially three boys, tend to be a special breed of tough. Yes,
that is sure. I love that. So how many times Have you done that with Mount
Everest? So the event itself, just to really quickly give any listeners wondering
what the heck it is, 29029 is an endurance race where you have to hike the
vertical equivalent of Mount Everest, which is 29 ,029 vertical feet in less than 36
hours. So I've now done it five times. I've scheduled to do it twice this year in
Utah and a a new one, Aspen, so it's gonna be a real challenge 'cause we started
about 8 ,500 feet. So altitude's gonna be a much bigger issue, but it definitely
teaches you a lot about being present where your feet are planted, because it might
take you 112 ,000 steps to get there up a mountain, but it's definitely teaches you
about perseverance and suffering with patients, which truly is what endurance is,
is just being able to be patient in the process of suffering. Well, we could all
use a lot more of that, so congratulations on doing that, and we are wishing you
the best of luck and praying for you for these upcoming hikes that is incredible.
And I'm really glad to have you on Politically Basic, because I always say all
issues are political issues. But Just right now, as we are in a Trump 2 .0
presidency and this administration, we're focusing a lot nationally and individually on
the economy, money, and finances. So we've got a lot to talk about in the time
that I have you today. So I'm really glad to have the opportunity. You are an
expert in this world of advising on finances, planning for retirement.
And you do it specifically geared toward women, if I have that correct. - Correct,
correct. - Yeah, so tell us just a little bit about the work that you're doing.
- Well, as you had said in your intro, my husband and I owned Becker Retirement
Group for 23 years, our company, and specifically focused on retirement planning. And
in the last 10 years, I became a financial advisor just like him as well, but
really saw a massive need to serve women. And it's still,
I mean, I hate to say 10 years ago, it was still very underserved and under
marketed to, and it still is. And the truth of the matter is that women right now
are the largest segments of the US population, the greatest holders of wealth in our
country. And in the next 10 years, they made that two thirds of the 30 trillion
being transferred via inheritance from baby boomers are going to go to women.
So that means that women are going to hold north of 60 % of US wealth. And so
it's a great focus for any company to really make sure they know how to best speak
to and serve women When it comes to talking about money,
yet most companies because the financial planning industry is predominantly men about
80 % doesn't make it bad. It just makes it what it is. It just means that it
speaks a very masculine language that is just disconnects with a lot of women.
And I was in that same boat. I was bored listening to financial speak.
It didn't connect with me. I kind of would mentally put my fingers in my ears ago.
I was just like, this is so ridiculously boring and I don't connect with it and I
don't understand it. And so that's what a lot of women across the United States and
I would say even more globally really feel like they don't understand that component.
And so we just took a shift And then we saw it so significantly that we shifted
80 % of our marketing and focus to women specifically, even though the majority of
our company was male advisors and half 14 more men, didn't matter. We just saw that
there was a massive need to really serve women, and that's what we began to focus
on. And that's what both of my books are specifically written towards women as well.
- Yeah, that's incredible. I mean, women are gonna run the country and they're gonna
have the money to do it. That's pretty... It's something I don't think a lot of
people understand. And you just need the education to do it successfully. That's the
thing. Well, let's talk about that. I mean, you've written two books. She handled it
books. You've got a She Handled It podcast. You're out there educating people on
this, but who else is? I mean, are we offering the financial training that we
should be in our educational system in this country? - Absolutely not. It's not
happening in schools, that's for sure. You know, having graduated now, my third son
is graduating this year from high school. And you know, the financial class is an
elective class. It's not even a required class. And I asked to buy by his teacher
to come in and speak to his economics class and also the financial planning class.
And most of them were boys. And that's where it all starts.
I mean, we have to have a good understanding of just the basics of financial
management, which my mom was really good. I basically was raised by a single mother,
even though my mom did get remarried when I was very, very young, but he was an
alcoholic. He was, he'd never paid his taxes.
He stole from people that I knew, including me. So financially, he made it even
harder on my mom, okay? But my mom was very diligent about making sure that I
understood how to balance my checkbook. This is back in the day when you had to do
it on the statement that was sent to you from the bank. And then the piece of
financial advice that I had was that I had to leave a-- I had to have $100 that
was unaccounted for in my bank account in hopes that it would keep me from ever
bouncing a check or over drawing my account. So by $100, obviously,
it wasn't having to do a lot. And That was the extent of it. I didn't know how
to save. I didn't know how to automate my savings and investments.
I certainly didn't know what to invest in. And so a lot of these pieces are just
the basics. And the sad part is we spend more time learning about history,
which now as I get older, I understand more importantly why history is important, so
we don't repeat it. But we spend more time learning about history than we do about
learning how to deal with our financial future. When our financial future is going
to follow us every step of this journey that we have. I mean, the Bible says, you
know, where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Well, where is our
treasure? And what do we do with it? And how do we make the most of it? And how
do we make sure? And this is what I'm so focused on in helping women is take
responsibility for ourselves, whether we are married or not, that we understand where
our money is, that we understand how it's gonna keep us safe, how it's going to
take care of us for the future. And if we are married,
is the money gonna still be there on the very real chance that my spouse might
need care and drains the assets because 80 % of men die married whereas 80 % of
women die single. So how are we gonna make sure that the assets actually make it
through to where she's not destitute by the time her spouse passes away?
So I always say your financial plan, it doesn't matter if your spouse understands it
and you don't, what really matters is that you understand it because the likelihood
of them seeing if your plan worked or not is very slim. Yeah, we're not talking
about this enough. We're focused on our national debt, expenses are high,
things are expensive for the average American family. That statistic that you just
quoted, and I've seen you on video talk about this, I think bears repeating, 80 %
of women will die married, which means 80 % of women will be widowed and have to
handle the financial costs of whatever happens to their spouse.
And then that life, and women live longer than men do, and here we are in this
chunk of time they have left. And I'm so glad you're doing this because I don't
think that we're certainly not talking about enough and we're not really educating
our kids as they come up into their own financial accountability, which is so
different. I mean you're talking about writing your balance on an old statement.
Yeah, we used to have the checkbook and you'd balance it that way and now it's a
little bit, it's better with technology but it's also more complicated and I think
that one of the challenges you know better than I do, but it seems like one of
the challenges for these kids trying to build credit, understand personal finances and
protect themselves in that way right now in this digital age is that we just have
all of these options and they are all digital. You've got PayPal and Zelle and
these cards they can get and it's not as tangible. They're not out there with 20
bucks in their pocket and when it's gone, it's gone. So, do you think that our
Kids have additional challenges even with these options and it kind of living out in
the cloud in the ether, their wealth, their available funds.
We have a real challenge on our hands in that respect in educating them. Well,
you know, my husband and I have taken an active role in helping our kids have the
knowledge and the information and how to help them put it into practice. And one of
the biggest things that I have done personally, well, I can first go back to one
of the Valentine's gifts that I asked for my then -boyfriend, not -husband, and he
was like, "I'm not giving you that." I'm like, "Please, I want, I need it. "I need
it. "Will you please buy it for me?" And it was Quicken Software, and - I am not
kidding you. I have run Quicken software since before we were married.
And we've been married now two decades. And that to me was,
it was really the heart of understanding at least what I had and being able to see
it all in one place. And so for my oldest son, who's now married,
I have a wonderful daughter -in -law. They both happen to have the same first name.
That's always a fun one. They're both Morgan spelled exactly the same. Yeah. But for
both Morgan and Morgan is my husband and I have taken the time and continue to sit
down and talk through their finances and get really raw about it.
Because if they're in their 20s and they can have a better understanding of how
student debt needs to be paid off and how you can really maximize the money that
you have and paying off debt in certain sequence and it's not always the one that's
the highest card. Sometimes it's the one that's just the biggest cash outflow. It
really depends on what's going on. So there's multiple things, but getting back to
even what my mom did, she taught me just some basic knowledge that helped me well
into those early years. Now, where I fell short, personally,
was I actually married my high school sweetheart. It ended up ended very quickly
within three years. And so I was divorced at 24. And I had a zoology degree.
So, so let's just say financial security isn't screaming, right? And so I didn't,
I didn't know how to manage my own money because I really did rely on him to do
it. This is very much the part of my evolution of why I became so outspoken to
women and like really trying to shake them and go stop making somebody else your
your financial plan. A man is not a financial plan. Somebody else is not your
financial plan. The government is not your financial plan. Social security should only
account for maybe 40 percent of the income we need in retirement. But a lot of
people think It's going to be more than that. Of course, a lot of younger people
think it's not even going to be there. Sure. And with the issues happening, yeah,
we'll get to that. I think we need to crack into that at a point. But I love
what you're saying, that this is the education that we need right now. Because
politically, which is a cultural issue, politically, we have identified a married
couple in a financial respect, You know, filing jointly and joint bank accounts.
And I think that we're having a major cultural shift right now as we see more
divorce happen, two income households, men and women operating financially in different
ways and at different levels than they have previously. Our legal system has not
caught up here. Our family law system has not caught up here. that the people that
are vulnerable here are women. So I love that you're saying that. Spouse is not
your financial plan and the government is not your financial plan. I think that's
important. - And the other component of that is, 50 years ago, the woman was
managing the home and the kids most typically, right? And then as this time period
shifted, and as you had said, we've got dual And a lot of times, I want to say
the statistics is over 40 % where the woman is the major breadwinner with inside the
household. But what is still happening consistently, and I think this is part of
just women's natural tendencies, is they still handle the house.
They handle if kids are in the picture now, they're making sure that kids are
organized, and they're going where they're supposed to be going and making sure that
they're showered up at night and that the laundry's done and a lot of the home
aspects are being handled and so that financial component is still on the man to do
but the problem is she's handling all of these other pieces but she still doesn't
understand the one that is going to be the most important for her in the future.
And so it's it's not that you have to be in intricately involved in every detail
and understand all the inner workings and specifics of indices and where it's
invested and how it's invested, but the why of it is really important. Why do I
have this investment? What is it going to do for us, me, long term? And that's the
piece that I had to really grapple with myself because I'm still to be completely
blunt. I still don't get that interested in looking at my investment accounts.
My husband still loves pulling money up, seeing how things are going. I honestly
don't, but I do the downloads every single month. I know what our net worth is
doing. I know the trajectory of our investments. I know if maybe we have a little
too much in cash and that should be reallocated into something or maybe we want to
hold for a little bit, whatever that might be. So I still have a hand in what's
going on and a deep understanding of how it's good for both of us, but I don't
have to necessarily be involved in all of the intricate details of it because that's
something that is more of interest to him. But it's still being able to use this
balance and not just bearing your head in the sand because you talked about divorce,
gray divorce. That's people who've been married longer than 25 years, the fastest
growing divorce in the nation. And so 25 years, you have a lot of women who are
finding themselves 45, 50 divorced. They have no idea what to do with their money.
And then women do one of the most detrimental things and they keep the house 'cause
it's the emotional piece. I wanna keep the house, you take the investments. And it's
the investments. You can't spend your house. I know you want to keep it and I know
the emotional tie. I know because I know what it's like to go through the great
recession. My husband and I nearly lost everything at that point. We're almost a
million dollars in debt. It was horrendous and we lost our home. It was one of the
most devastating and humiliating things for me. And my youngest son was born in that
home. in that home by design. It was overlooking where we got married. Yes,
there was emotional tie to it. But when that time came and I was like, this thing
is toxic. This is not working anymore. This is not serving us long term. I'm done
with this. It just had to be willing to just separate and say for our long term
success and solvency, we need to let this thing go. And it was devastating at the
time, but now I can look back and see how God restored everything, and then some
in the years to follow. But sometimes we just have to be obedient to what's right
and not what feels good. Yeah, yeah. Do you think that anyone at this point can
rely on social security, Medicare, Medicaid, with what's being exposed
and how it's being managed? What's your take on what we can depend on in that
regard for future, for retirement. - Well, I love me some Elon Musk. I am not going
to deny that. I mean, there are definitely pieces about him that I could do
without, but I actually really liked Elon. I had read Walter Isaacson's book about
him about a year or so ago, so before he got into this space and really do admire
the brilliance of Elon, but most importantly the fact that he has built these
worldwide world changing companies and he has done it always with this this idea in
mind of delete, delete, delete. And if you don't need to bring back about 10 % of
the things you've deleted, you haven't deleted enough. And this man has created
incredible companies. I mean, it's laughable that the Democrats hate him now because
they loved him not that long ago and his company and his car, right? But he is
really, I don't know somebody on this planet who could be more prepared to take the
largest economy, the largest company in the world, the U .S. federal government, and
to be able to figure out ways to make it more efficient and effective. I mean, I'm
sure you've probably seen this side -by -side of the Raptor 1 engine that he had for
SpaceX, and then a few evolutions later, and it's cleaner, it's tighter, and it's
more effective. And So, I still have faith that Social Security and Medicare will be
there to the degree in which it was in the past, maybe not so, but it would be
massive, massive, massive calamity. I always spoke at my women's events about this
when I was talking to them about financial work and effort and things like that, is
I I do believe it will be there. It will just slowly over time change in order to
still meet some of the need. 'Cause you can't just like one day have it there and
then it falls off a cliff. - Sure, yeah. - You know, our elderly population, you
just, there are so many other things that would go before that. So I am very
hopeful and optimistic that the work that Doge is doing in keeping it really
starting to just look at just the waste just plain and simple looking at how many
people collecting Social Security. I mean we've seen it's just like a person on
there that's listed as 350 years old. It's like this is so ridiculous but yet
here's a man who's so brilliant and the archaic -ness, if that's even a word, of
the federal government system to track data, the fact that we find out retirement
documents are in a freaking mine. You're like, "What?" - That one was a real,
and apparently we have known about this for a while,
but I don't think the general public knew about it. - Yeah, no idea. - So that was
interesting. It also seems to be a good time now that, you know,
Doge and the Trump administration, they are getting their hands wrapped around what
has been happening with these agencies and what's really going on, and where the
money is flooding out. They're saving taxpayers money. I love the Doge count.
I love seeing how much that is calculated out to be savings per taxpayer,
But it just seems like a really good opportunity for Americans to assess their
finances. And I would encourage people, I know you do this all the time,
but I just think we have this kind of pocket of time right now. These four years,
we don't know what's going to happen. You know, hopefully, hopefully good things
continue. But there is the possibility of a next presidential administration coming in
and unwinding a lot of things that will affect us in our personal finances. So I
think it's a good time to be to be looking at things. I want to ask you about
your hat. Ah, yes indeed. XXXY. Yeah, what's going on there?
Oh, goodness gracious. Well, so I'm an affiliate with XXXY Athletics and for any of
your listeners who don't know, that company is owned by Jens Se.
She was the chief marketing officer in line to be president or CEO. I kind of
forget which one of Levi's. And after 23 years,
they basically cut her loose because she started talking out publicly against the
COVID lockdowns. And there was so much blowback from the public against her that
they eventually said, "We don't think you have a place here." And so instead of
taking the severance, which would have caused her to sign an NDA. She said, "I'm
not going to take it. I want to be able to publicly talk about what has happened
and what I've seen." And so she wrote a great book, Levi's Unbuttoned. I highly
recommend it. But she started a new company, and her company has built off all the
things that she learned, being the CMO of a massive organization like Levi's,
and marketing and understanding how to market to people. But then that coupled with
the fact that she was a longtime athlete, a gymnast as a kid, national athlete, and
exposed all of the abuse, the sexual abuse that was going on through athlete A,
which many people have seen on Netflix. And so she saw what was continuing to
happen with boys playing in girls sports, with trans identifying males that were
participating in women's sports and starting to take over trophies and spots and
locker rooms and all these things. And she decided to take all of these components
that she has and create a company that is solely and completely focused on one
thing. And that is fairness in women's sports, which means getting men out of them,
no matter what space that is, whether that's in the private space or the public
space. And I'm helping to just further that mission and bring awareness that there
is an issue. There is a problem. And even with Trump's executive order,
he recently signed saying that there are two sexes and that men can't play in
women's sports. And the NCAA, quote unquote, said that they were going to abide by
it. No, no, we have a huge fight still on our hands. And I'm just one of the
people out there trying to help other people understand that it's real, that it
exists, and that we all have to, as the silent majority, as I have been in the
past, really really until this last year and half or so that we have to be willing
to speak up and speak out for these young girls and not rely or not push that on
them to do for themselves. Well that's great and you're right it is a majority you
know this issue is the data is showing us that a strong majority.
Yeah it's actually we We usually see those kind of numbers with that much
discrepancy on one side or the other, but a strong majority of Americans do believe
that men should not be allowed to compete in women's sports. And we're not giving
this issue up, you know, you and I were talking about this earlier, that a lot of
the issues that we saw come up and really be talked about a lot and discussed a
lot in the 2024 presidential election, they have calmed. We're not talking about them
as much or the executive order came through and people are accepting that. This
issue about transgender athletes, the debate over Title IX and what the NCAA has
done, it continues. And the briefings that we're getting right now in DC,
I just think this is going to be an issue that we're going to hear about going
into the next election cycle. And so, your perspective on this is really interesting
and what we're seeing it's coming down to really is the determination as a nation
of can a person choose their gender.
So the NCAA came out, you know, right after Trump signed the executive order,
which I kind of have to laugh at how he did this. It's the most Trump thing ever,
right? So We have the Protection of Women in Girls in Sports Act that was signed,
and they're also very lopsided, by the way, if anybody wants to look into how that
vote came out. And then Trump's executive order is something like, "Keep men out of
women's sports." He just cuts through all of the junk. And then the next day it
was reported, "Hey, this is great. The NCAA is coming alongside the Trump
administration and this executive order and saying they will not allow this to go
forward in these athletics, but Riley Gaines had to speak out just recently saying,
you know what, they're not doing what they said they were gonna do. This is--
- Exactly, well, 'cause it says-- - Their policy is-- - Yeah, go ahead, yeah, I mean,
it says that it's what's on your birth certificate. And in 44 states, you can
change your birth. I mean our our our governor just posted how proud he was that
he has just pushed through 500 backlog applications to change gender on a birth
certificate and not only that was was also so proud that they took the time period
from 10 months of that being able to happen to now three days.
So the NCAA says whatever you're in Washington Washington state yeah so whatever is
on your birth certificate is grounds for what team you can play on and and even
before that was really clarified the NCAA said yeah that you have to compete against
the gender you were assigned And yet the next line says,
but those who, you know, whatever gender identity they associate with can practice
and still be in that space with women. So it's like they can still be part of the
team, they just can't compete against them. So that means they can still go into
their locker rooms. And it's just, this is the thing that is, that for me
personally is the driving factor of why I speak out and why I partner with XXXY
Athletics. Mine isn't that I have a daughter, and I have three boys, as you
mentioned, eventually I might have a granddaughter, but I don't have a current dog
in the fight, so to speak. But it was so visceral for me when this started to
come about, especially back in '22 when Riley Gaines had this thing with Leah Thomas
and I was just like it all it did was just bring back my memories of being a
competitive swimmer as a kid that was the first sport that I started in and then
for a athletics I was most athletic and in a playing division one volleyball at the
University of Washington which my alma mater offered a scholarship to a man to play
on the women's volleyball team so again these things are it's like for me I it's
just like I just think of my younger self imagining being in a locker room in
junior high having to undress just that alone after some practice is bad enough a
girl saying but then imagine having a man whether they're the same age or whether
there are some dude who says he's 45 and he identifies as a woman and he gets to
go into my locker room and shower with me in this big open space and This is very
visceral for me, but the part that has been so frustrating as I've seen a lot of
the comments online from people who are in that 78 % who very much say this is not
okay, they say two things, they say one, rightly gains,
they need to get in contact with rightly gains as if she's the savior of the world
and it's going to be somehow be able to make all this go away if she doesn't have
enough already on her plate being the in the voice. But the the main thing that
people say is when these girls, when these girls, when that team, when these girls,
and it's always abdicating to teen girls, my god,
can you put more pressure on an age range that already has the worst amount of
pressure they will probably have in their life on them, just to grow up just to go
through puberty, just to be able to deal with social media and what that's like
being a teenager. Thank God you and I didn't have that as teenagers. But so then
to also expect them to be the ones that have to put their neck out on the line
and potentially lose friends, potentially lose their standing at school,
potentially have lawsuits. As I've seen just recently, I've got in contact with a
girl who's in Olympia in Washington who she was just she just sat out just said if
I ever am in that situation I'm not going to play and she did she sat on the
bench didn't make this big scene about it. And then when she was leaving she walked
by that that male player and just said you're a man. And the teachers union is
looking at filing a lawsuit or bringing some sort of,
yeah, something against her for bullying.
- Oh, wow. - Or looking at an individual who openly identifies and says,
I know I'm a man, I know I have different, you know, there's two great YouTube
videos, interviews by Brandi Cruz here locally, one with the girl,
Francis Stout, and then one with the transgender athlete as well. And they're
actually just fascinating listening to both sides of it, but the point that so
bothers me is that if all the silent majority just continues to sit back and wait
for other people to talk, it's going to take so much longer for us to just get
this thing eliminated. 'Cause there is no gray, Kyle. There is no gray to this
situation. And the reason being is, there's an NIH study, there's multiple,
but if you go to the NIH website about auto gonophilia, so there is gender
dysphoria and they
you know, these studies that have been done, about 8 % of men who outwardly identify
as a woman suffer from gender dysphoria. The other 92 % are autogynophiles.
They are men who receive some sort of physical excitement from dressing up as a
woman. and then many of those get even more aroused by going into spaces that are
specific to women. So if we are allowing the less than 10%,
because we don't want to hurt their feelings and they're dealing with something
significant and we allow the 90 % who have a sinister ulterior motive,
whether they can identify identified or not, doesn't matter.
There's no in between. You can't let one in and not let in the other. Then it
becomes subjective. And we can't do that. And so that it's just like,
that's why it takes many more of us to speak up and say, no, this is unacceptable.
I know we want to be nice and we've been trying to not hurt feelings, but that's
what's led us here. And And women are being put in prisons now having, you know,
men who identify as women being put in there and they're getting raped and
impregnated. And I mean, it's just a much bigger issue and it's not going away
because it's not only visceral for me. It's visceral for a lot of people when they
really stop for a moment and they think about it. Yeah. I think a lot of us are
hopeful that now that we're entering in this time of, you know, welcoming common
sense back, and This is a pretty logical one to fix, and not only are we
protecting women, but we are not putting that responsibility onto them to fix a
problem that has been put on them that isn't fair. They're the ones who've had to
sacrifice, and it's wrong all the way around. But on top of that,
you know, we've got real confusion in this country about what being a feminist
means. You know, How are we supporting women? How are we protecting them?
And we've been hollered at for so many years about promoting women, giving them a
seat at the table, breaking glass ceilings, respecting them, giving them opportunity,
and here we are stripping them of every single one of those things. And gaslit to
believe that, you know, that's the right thing to do. It's absolutely, you know,
through the looking glass, we are really turned upside down on this. So I'm glad to
hear about what you're doing and also hearing from you that we just need to be
speaking up. We need to not be quiet about this. It's a significant majority and
the more people who do take a stand, who speak up against it, the better chance we
have of getting this issue solved. So I appreciate you speaking to that. - Yeah,
absolutely and for any of your listeners who are in that space that I was a couple
of years ago. And they're like, I just don't, you know, I don't want to welcome
the negativity.
I went through that, kind of wrestled with it. And I just knew that God was
calling me into this space. I just knew it. I mean, the tagline on my Instagram
was very clear up at that point, only positive motivational content here. - Yeah,
right. So I had to, I wrestled with it for a while, and I kept coming back to
the same thing. I kept being drawn into this conversation because I knew my 10 -year
-old self deserved it, that I wasn't gonna be that woman who sat by and got to
have the best parts of athletics and experienced that whole thing, and then turn
around and pull the ladder up on my 10 -year -old herself and not give her the same
opportunity. And it's not just, you know, elite athletes. This is just even
participating in a junior high sport. A girl will choose to not do it if she's no,
she's going to be, you know, changing next to a man in a restroom. And it's just,
I can't sit by and allow that. And so, yeah, for me, I just had to be willing to
willing to start. And for a lot of people, it just means liking and commenting on
posts that are specifically talking about this subject. Sometimes that is the first
step that people need to take, is just to put their voice out there and willing to
just have their name attached to it and say, this isn't right, because maybe
somebody else that they know is following that same post, and they're going to see
their friends liked it, and then maybe even commented on it. And then you can look
at, well, then what are other ways? Well, then of course, you can repost, and you
can share. And if it's not on social media, buy athletic gear from XXXY Athletics,
because you know that it's going towards supporting that cause, that specific cause.
I modeled for Nike. I did a lot of athletic modeling in my 20s and into my 30s.
And Nike was the pinnacle for me. It was everything that represented my childhood.
And for me to have to start looking at the things in my closet that just make me
go, you, you are not standing up for women. You have not been that voice of reason
and hope and you know, having Dylan Mulvaney sell women's sports bras is just And
then, not even just that, just watching him bounce around because he has no athletic
ability and he has no idea what it's like to be an athlete. It is offensive,
right? It is offensive. Are we allowed to say that this is so offensive?
It's a mockery, really, of femininity and womanhood. And I like what you're saying
because this will have a domino effect. Even if someone is not feeling that they
are able to speak out as publicly as you are. Every bit of support in the ways
that are comfortable to each individual will have a domino effect here and I'm glad
you're bringing up Dylan Mulvaney because I just read an article about how makeup
companies are now starting to incorporate more male models and that everything that
has traditionally been special about women, about beautiful about women, unique and
that should be celebrated and that we hold sacred the sovereignty of womanhood is
being attacked and taken from us and really we no one is speaking out enough we
appreciate the executive orders we appreciate you know these commercials calling out
Nike and and people like you speaking up but really I'm waiting for the wave of
outrage Truly because we're gonna get to some point. There's gonna be something this
is my prediction that I'm gonna make that is so bad That is so offensive because
right now. They're just chipping away but but we're gonna hit a point as a country
culturally where where There's nothing left that is sacred to women and and I would
hate to see us really have to get to that point to get Right on this issue. Well,
and I have So I think like 12 states that are openly defying the executive orders
and mind Washington state being one of them. And so just being able to tell my
local community, hey, just letting you know, OK, if you thought that this was going
away, our state is one that won't even comply, who's willing to go to court over
this to protect these a handful of athletes to be able to participate in lieu of
protecting the women behind them. And I think that that's going to be part of it,
because people thought, oh, great, the executive order, this is wonderful, and it's
just going to solve this, and now we can move on and we can talk about how it's
expensive in the groceries again, and I want gas prices to go down. And we will,
I mean, those things still matter to people. That's what matters more to them unless
they specifically have a dog in the fight and they have a daughter who's affected
by this. But I think that that's going to continue as long as we have other people
in government who are unwilling and are actively defying the presidential orders to
not allow men into women's sports and spaces and you know,
I mean and like we mentioned the prisons I mean that is so disgusting to me that
an incarcerated woman who has no Place to go except for the place that she is
assigned Could have somebody assigned a man as her cellmate
And it's just wild to me because It's not like we're checking body parts and then
saying like, okay, you don't have the part that can be weaponized, right? So okay,
you're okay to go in here. I mean, there are a million other issues with that, but
it is so mind -blowing that we are putting biological males in a prison cell with a
biological woman. We know what's happening, there is physical evidence,
there are pregnancies, as you mentioned, and that this, again, that this is not a
national outrage over what we're doing, and prisoner rights and basic levels of
respect, we're not that barbaric country that does this, and those barbaric countries
would never let a man who's a woman into a woman's prison, which is highly ironic,
but now we're really backwards on this issue. So, Does XXXY Athletics have a website
that my audience can go to and check out that apparel? Yeah, so they can go to XX
-XYathletics .com and then also thetruthfits .com.
Yeah, and if you're going to buy any apparel, definitely use promo code RWIN20,
A -R -W -E -N -20, and you'll get 20 % off as well. But that would be the final
thing that I would say is buy some gear. There's a lot of, I mean, if you can
see this, I've got a very subdued white on white hat. My jogger that I have on
just has a little teeny logo at the bottom. There's stuff that you can wear that's
not, you know, that doesn't say save women's sports on back, but that's what I wear
now. When I go out running, when I go to church, when I go to places where people
are going to be staring at my back, I wear the save women's sports. It is as
clear as day as to what it is that I'm supporting. And so there is a whole range
of, the gear is well made, it's made in Peru, it's not in some sweatshop. It's
absolutely just as good as what you can get through Nike and Lululemon, running
gear, performance wear, socks, hats, everything, and continuing to bring out more and
more because the company is only a year old. So we're still in our infancy, but
thanks to J .K. Rawlings, she retweeted one of our recent ads and it just got
millions and millions of views right before the Super Bowl. And, you know,
people are, they are waking up, people are feeling more confident in speaking out,
and the more people who speak out, the more confident other people become. It's just
that lighthouse that we become for other people. So there's all sorts of ways that
you can do it. I love it. Well, your hat looks great. I'm excited to go shop
because the gear is really cute. But, you know, it's perfectly socially acceptable
now to wear a red bogey hat out. We're seeing that a lot in Southern California
and that's a real powerful cultural marker and sort of line that we've crossed now
that that it's okay to to have your political beliefs and in a place where you
know four or five years ago you you would Be a great risk of physical assault
essentially if you did that but so wearing the cute xx - xy gear I think is is
certainly safe and good and it's cute and I'm glad you mentioned JK Rowling because
as we wrap up on issues like this that are very complex,
right? We're dealing with science, we're dealing with biology, but we're also dealing
with, you know, agencies and organizations, and it's a cultural /political issue.
And a lot of emotion is injected into that. But following people who make reasoned
and logical arguments is a great way, I think, to continue to get informed. So
following people like you, following people like J .K. Rowling, I mean, of course we
have our most, you know, one of the world's best writers.
Writing frequently about this issue, and I think that the more that we can educate
ourselves on the language and the understanding to make that argument with success,
I think is a really good thing to do. So thank you for bringing it up. Absolutely.
- And I know you're on all socials. If people want to check you out in the work
that you're doing, where can they find you? - Yeah, so I spend most of my time on
Instagram, @arwenbecker is my account, A -R -W -E -N, Becker. And then certainly my
website, arwenbecker .com, that's more about my speaking, training. It has podcasts,
all the media that I've done, access to both of my books. They can both be found
on Amazon as well. And I'd say that's kind of long and short of it.
Outside of my, a lot of my endurance races, I do kind of mini documentary style
and I put those up on my YouTube. So those are probably the most commonly watched
things on my YouTube and that's life with Arwin at YouTube. That's great.
You're doing so many things. I loved this conversation with you and we covered a
lot of ground but I find it all fascinating and thank you for your perspective,
your intelligence and your heart for these issues. I really appreciate you coming on
the show with me today. I appreciate that very much. Thank you for having me. The
conversation is fantastic. I loved it. Yeah, yeah. Thank you so much and thank you
all for joining us on this episode of Politically Basic. We're committed to breaking
down the basics so that you get to decide. Be sure to check us out at
politicallybasic .com and follow us at PoliticallyBasic so you don't miss an episode.
And we'll see you next time.