Episode 302: For the Love of Women feat. Dorothy Greco

Ever been told you're complaining too much about how women are treated because "things are so much better now"? Yeah, me too. In this episode, I sit down with journalist and author Dorothy Greco to talk about her new book For the Love of Women, and we dig into why sexism is absolutely still alive and well—and how it's affecting all of us in ways we might not even realize. This conversation is going to help you connect the dots, give you language to talk about it, and remind you that no, you're not crazy.

THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSOR

Order Dorothy Greco's book For the Love of Women which just launched this week!

TO SUPPORT US: 

• Join our Patreon for as little as $5 a month to support our work
• And check out our Merch, or any of our courses!
• Give to the Good Fruit Faith Initiative of the Bosko Foundation
• Join our email list!

LINKS MENTIONED:

• Dorothy Greco's website
• Dorothy's Substack: "What's Faith Got to Do With It" 
• The song Not All Men by Morgan St. Jean

Chapters

• 0:02 You're Not Complaining About Nothing
• 1:41 Meet Dorothy Greco & For the Love of Women
• 3:06 Why Write This Book? Dorothy's Personal Story
• 13:36 How Society AND the Church Groom Men to Feel Entitled To Women’s Bodies, Respect, And Love
• 22:44 How Men’s Sense of Entitlement Steals Women’s Sexuality and Destroy Marriages
• 30:02 How Misogyny Impacts Healthcare
• 32:52 Misogyny in the Workplace
• 40:06 Why Is It So Hard For Movies To Pass The Bechdel Test?
• 43:45 The Church's Role in Perpetuating Misogyny
• 55:40 Should We Even Be Debating This?
• 58:38 What Gives Us Hope Right Now
• 1:02:03 Where to Find Dorothy & Final Thoughts

Transcript

Sheila
Hey there, I'm Sheila Wray Gregoire. We're from BareMarriage.com where we like to talk about healthy, evidence based biblical advice for your sex life and your marriage. And today we're going to talk about something really important. Have you ever heard people say to you, oh, you're complaining too much about how women are treated in the church? Because don't you understand that women and men are equal now, like in all areas of society?
We're equal. And you're still complaining like it's the same as it was a hundred years ago. And it's not. It's so much better. So you have nothing to complain about. I've heard that a lot. And you know what? Sexism is still alive and well, and it still really affects us. And sometimes we're not able to connect those dots and draw those dots.
And so we think, yeah, I am complaining about nothing, but no, there's real stuff going on that explains so much of the trauma that a lot of women feel, and we got to do something about it.
And so today we have an amazing interview with Dorothy Greco, author of For the Love of Women, to talk about that.
Before we do that, let me just say, hey people, if you are a Patreon, I love you. I so appreciate you. We have so many hundreds of patrons now. We have an amazing Facebook group for them, and you can join for as little as $5 a month. You can get access to our patron Facebook group. They're the ones who helped us plan our 30th, our 300th episode party.
And they're just always there for us. It's just a great sounding board. So. So do check that out. It's a great way to support us, but you can support us right now by sharing this podcast and rating it five stars. It's just a simple way to get the word out there, because if we're going to change society, if we're going to change the church, people need to hear about us.
So remember, when you see me on social media, share. It really does help the algorithm.
And now, let's get to our interview.
 
Sheila
Well, I am so happy to bring on the Bare Marriage Podcast, someone that I have followed on social media for a long time, and I feel like I already know her. Dorothy Littell Greco.
 Hello, Dorothy.
 
Dorothy
Hello. It's great to be with you, Sheila.
 
Sheila
And I am so excited about your new book, For the Love of Women. I totally forget your subtitle, but I forget my own subtitle, so you can forgive me for that. What is the subtitle?
 
Dorothy
It's uprooting and healing misogyny in America.
 
Sheila
Lovely. Yes. And, Dorothy, you've been a journalist for 40 years, and you can tell in reading your book your it's it's it's very fact based. Lots of stories. It's very well documented. I really appreciated it. And but before we jump into it, I just want to say that I know a lot of people who, when they complain about sexism, they get pushback saying, oh, that's how it was.
It's all fine now. And I think what your book does is it gives people.
Way to talk about this again, you know, and it's that it's so valuable for that because it shows. No, it's not gone away. This is systemic. This is a problem. And I really, really appreciate that. So thank you for doing that.
 
Dorothy
Yeah I mean don't we all wish that it was gone that we didn't have to continue to talk about that. But it is very much still a factor in the lives of American women and women across the globe.
 
Sheila
Absolutely. So what made you decide to do this.
Big. Project in all the different areas of misogyny in our culture?
 
Dorothy
I think that as I talk about it, both in the introduction and in chapter one, this has been my life. So from the time that I was a child, I didn't stay in my lane, which, I was very much criticized for, meaning that I preferred to play with Matchbox cars and be athletic rather than play with Barbies and wear pink.
 
So from a very early age, I feel like I didn't quite fit into the cultural stereotype of what it meant to be a girl. And that has continued my entire life. You know, as in my work as a photojournalist, I did a lot of sports photography, and it was often the case that I'd be sitting courtside for the Celtics games.
It would be me, maybe 1 or 2 other women and about 40 men. So there's just been lots of trying to figure out what does it look like to be a woman, because I'm very much at home with being a woman in a man's world. So there's that very personal component. And then there's the reality of what we as women in the United States and in the world have to face on a daily basis.
And it just feels like it's not going away. In fact, it's ramping up. It's getting more and more difficult. It's getting more and more painful, and it's getting more and more obvious how damaging and how pervasive misogyny is.
 
Sheila
Yeah, I would agree with that. I mean, I'm going to jump into this later, but but let me let me ask you this now. This is my impression. And I'm curious to see if you agree. But I often tell younger women that in the late 80s and early 90s, it felt like there was more hope and that there was more progress being made, especially within the church, on women's issues, than there is today.
Like, I feel like the next generation millennials have lost something that we had.
 
Dorothy
Interesting, interesting. Can you say more about that? Like how do you, how did you see that?
 
Sheila
Well, I mean, in the, in the early 90s and maybe this was a Canadian thing, I don't know. But so many books were being written about egalitarianism. And I know on our university campus, it was just accepted that women, that egalitarianism was true. There was never any question about whether women could, could teach or speak or anything.
And in the churches, egalitarianism was even really coming through the churches like, more and more were becoming egalitarian, etc.. And now some of those same denominations have really rolled things back.
 
Dorothy
Yes. That's true. And I think sorry. Go ahead..
 
Sheila
No, And I just I find that fascinating because we get this impression that things are always getting better, that we're always making progress, but we're actually not.
 
Dorothy
Yeah. And I think, again, you know, what's happening in our country, in the United States, right? I can't assume that it's all the same for you in Canada. Like you're lucky to be living in Canada right now, in my personal opinion. But there is so much misogyny that's showing up. And as you referenced in the church, like, there's just this movement of I think it was 3 or 4 months ago when there was that article written by, Doug Wilson.
And then there was the, I think it was CNN interview, and it came out that, in fact, many of these people believed that the 19th amendment should be repealed. And, you know, there's a part of me just thinks, oh my gosh, how is that even a thing that people are now saying? Women, wives, in particular, should not have the right to vote.
So I do think there is a rolling back. I see that with race as well. And is it new, or is it just that people now feel empowered to speak what they've always felt, because the people at the top are doing the same? I don't know. Yeah.
 
Sheila
Yeah. I know it is scary. Okay. So let's let's jump in. Your book is really to counter misogyny and the title of your book ‘For the Love of Women’, is the opposite of misogyny. And misogyny is just the hatred of women, right?
 
Dorothy
Yes Yeah.
 
Sheila
So I loved your definition. Can you give us your definition of misogyny?
 
Dorothy
Yeah, I'll have to read it because I'm not very good at memorizing things anymore,
 
Sheila
well it was very succinct. I like that.
 
Dorothy
A persistent, insidious belief that men's ideas wants needs an experiences are more important than women's, and that legal, religious, and social systems, as well as intimate relationships should uphold this principle. This belief system subsequently influences the laws, policies, practices, and ethos of a given culture.
So having I think that most people would be familiar with the definition of misogyny being the hatred of women, but in some ways that's like too narrow, because people could say, well, I don't hate women. I'm married to a woman. My best friend is a woman. But if we expand it out so that we, it has more, it's a little bit more embodied about everyday existence, then I think it gets much more difficult for people to say that's not a factor, because in fact, it is.
 
Sheila
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And, you know, you opened your book by by talking about some of those instances growing up when you experienced misogyny. So as I was reading those, I was like, okay, well, what would I say? Like, when was the first time I realized that, you know, it's bad to be a girl in this society? And I think, I was about 11 years old and I was home by myself, and the phone rang and I answered it, and this guy just started saying, like, really crude things, like really, really, really crude sexual things.
It was a prank call, I guess, but it's like I had never heard some of those things before, but I knew that it was, you know, bad. Yeah. And just how I felt, like how violated I felt. And I was only, you know, it was 11. It wasn't even that bad. But it's like, wow, you just feel so objectified and so gross.
And and then, you know, just times where I was groped, especially when I was on the mission field for a bit. Really groped and not protected by the people that I was with. It was like, this was just something I was supposed to put up with.
 
Dorothy
yes.
 
Sheila
You know, that sexual harassment and actual assault. I think because when someone gropes you, that is assault like that, I was just supposed to put up with that. You know, to minister to people or something. And.
 
Dorothy
Yeah. I'm so sorry that those things happened.
 
Sheila
Yeah. Like just, you know, and it's just everywhere. I mean, everybody has these stories. All women do, right? It's like, I love that phrase. It's not all men, but it's all women.
 
Dorothy
Yes. Right. And interestingly, there's a song that's titled that and
 
Sheila
Yes, the song. It’s so Good, it that's the song.
 
Dorothy
 That is the song, So I'll be having somebody sing at the launch party, so.
 
Sheila
Oh, wow. She has such a good voice too. I'll have to put a link to it in the, in the podcast notes. There's one verse about, have they did they ever, just about how you blame yourself because you drank too much. But if you say something, you ruined his life and it just hit me. I don't know how much in America they were following it, but there was this Hockey Canada trial where five guys were on.
Five NHL players were on trial for something they did when they were in the, Canada Juniors. And, they got off and it was just, it just listening to that verse was just everything that that poor woman went through. But anyway, so let's, let's jump in here because what you do in your book is you look at all these different areas of misogyny in our culture.
So, you know, you don't just focus on the church. I usually just focus on the church, but you're like, no, it is everywhere. And you make a very good case for it. And so I want to read a few things that you wrote. I really like this paragraph.
In the spiritual framework, misogyny accomplishes several objectives. First and foremost, it seeks to prevent women and girls from flourishing. Second, it denies women the opportunity to have influence or authority. And third, it impedes women and men from partnering together as equals. This final objective is significant because when women and men forge collaborative partnerships as two equal but distinct image bearers, they reveal God more fully. The enemy of humanity does not want God to be fully or accurately revealed, and therefore uses misogyny to thwart this goal.
 
Dorothy
Yeah.
 
Sheila
Like that's just a mic drop right there.
 
Dorothy
Yeah, exactly. I think the ways that, oh, it's it does thwart the partnership. Right. So that if, if God is both masculine and feminine because if women and men emerge from God are created in God's image, then it can't God can't just be all masculine, right? So it does take that partnership and that could be seen in a marriage like a wife and a husband, or it could be seen as two people working together in church and the business world that when they work together as two equals, who mutually respect and trust each other, there's something about that that is greater than simply a man or a woman working alone.
 
Sheila
And yeah, that's where we just see such beautiful stories of, of partnership and healing and all kinds of stuff. And yet that isn't what we have often experienced in church, which I feel so sad about. Right.
Okay people, every so often a book comes along that I just know will heal you guys and will connect a bunch of dots for you. And I've got one to tell you about today. And thank you to Zondervan for sponsoring this podcast. Dorothy Greco's For the Love of Women launches next Tuesday, October 28th. She is looking at misogyny, which is a word that we sometimes recoil from because it sounds so woke.
But misogyny is about how the systems that run our society are basically made to serve men and hold women back. They stop women from flourishing and they drive a wedge between men and women. So men don't flourish either. And I loved this book. I devoured it in one day. It does such a great job of encapsulating all the different areas of our society where women are really affected and hurt.
You know, we can think that men and women are equal now, and there's nothing else to fight. But Dorothy shows how in medicine, in media and government, in the church, in business, and especially with sex, our society bakes male entitlement into the cake and makes the male experience the standard. So if people have ever challenged you saying stop complaining, men and women are equal now please read this book.
It explains so much and it points us to where work still needs to be done. So pick up ‘For the Love of Women’ today.
You do talk about domestic violence and violence towards women. I don't want to go into all of of that chapter because we've just talked about that a lot lately.
But I do want to talk about entitlement. Because you say that really at the heart of, of rape and domestic violence, etc., is this feeling of entitlement that men have that they are entitled to? Well, I'll read I'll read what you said.
Entitlement includes holding expectations for unconditional respect, unwavering deference, humble submission, and sex on demand from whomever they want. The belief that men deserve these benefits simply because they have both X and Y chromosomes ends up infantilizing them.
 
Dorothy
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it sounds very harsh to say that, but I do think that that's true. Like when a man thinks that because he's married or because he's dating or simply because he's a man and he has more power, that a woman's body is his for the taking. It's both horrifying for the woman, but it also does make the man less mature.
It makes him less capable of seeing the woman, and of understanding his own responsibility to steward his body and his sexuality. And I think that's one of the places that the church has so failed, because it it so often promotes the fact that when you get married as a man, you have whatever, you know, whatever, right? Whatever you say you want for your wife's body.
And that is just so misguided and it's so harmful. And you talk about that a lot. So, you know, your listeners would certainly be familiar with all of that.
 
Sheila
Yeah.
And I just wanted to say especially like, thank you for including unconditional respect under entitlement because it is it it it drives me nuts that people didn't see that.
Yes.  You know that you have this. You have love and respect you have for women only. You have multiple books, but especially love and respect. And for women only, since they, they actually argue for unconditional respect over and over again.
How did they not see that? That's entitlement. Like nobody is owed unconditional respect. That it it doesn't work like that.
 
Dorothy
Right. Yeah. I mean, I think that we are we owe each other unconditional grace and unconditional love to some extent. But the notion that simply because a man is a man, we're supposed to respect him. I think, you know, you need to earn that respect.
 
Sheila
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And that's the thing about unconditional love, too, is unconditional love can have boundaries, right? Like, we all know that love exists. So, you know, if your sister is a drug addict and she comes to you for money, the loving thing to do is to say no. So we know that, you know, love has boundaries. Respect doesn't.
That's the whole point, is that with respect, you're putting someone over you. Yeah. And so respect can't have boundaries. So unconditional respect just means I don't have any boundaries.
 
Dorothy
Wow. That's a really profound way to look at it. And I think you're right.
 
Sheila
Yeah.
 
Dorothy
And and it's dangerous, right. That it's dangerous for women. And I talk about that in the church chapter how if we are existing in a micro system, in a system that says you're supposed to respect men, that really leaves us vulnerable to abuse. And I think that that's part of what has contributed to the abuse, sexual abuse and otherwise of women in church settings.
 
Sheila
Absolutely. You told this great story of, a couple, Nick, and I forget what his wife's name was.
 
Dorothy
Amy
 
Sheila
I copied. Yes. Okay. And and they're just very, very typical story, right? Married 20 years. He's watching porn the whole time. He's really pressured her, abused her. Like, you know, he thought marriage would cure the porn use.
It didn't. So he had so much sexual entitlement. And as they're trying to put their marriage back together after this, you you, you tell a bit of their story, and I'm just going to read some of it.
Nick believes that the combination of being raised by a narcissistic, sex addicted father, coupled with his own addictions and the church's teachings about male headship, led him to conclude that not only was he entitled to sex, but that entitlement was God ordained.
Part of why it took him so long to figure this out is that he was immersed in a patriarchal Christian culture that empowered misogyny. When Nick shared his struggles with someone from church, they suggested reading the book, Every Man's Battle, which, according to Nick, fueled my misogynistic view of entitlement by suggesting that my wife's ability would resolve my issues.
It also places more responsibility on the woman to be modest and available than it puts on the man to get help and develop self-control. It did not speak of mutuality. I can now see how toxic that book was to a young, addicted man seeking help.
 
Dorothy
Yeah. You know, their story is so powerful and I so appreciate their willingness to share vulnerably because, as you said, I do think that other couples will, resonate with that.
 
Sheila
Yeah. And I want I want to point out one special thing that you said there. Is it not, that teach us about male headship led him to conclude that not only was he entitled sex, but that entitlement was God ordained?
 
Dorothy
Yes.
 
Sheila
I have talked to so many men, and I've heard from so many men who really felt that God created her, the wife, to be his sexual outlet so that he wouldn't lust so that he wouldn't watch porn, so that he wouldn't, stray, so that he could manage his emotions so that he wouldn't get grumpy at people. And so by pressuring her to have sex, even if she was upset about it, he was actually doing a good thing because you you could talk because this is what God made her for.
 
Dorothy
Right.
 
Sheila
And God wants me to do this to her so that I don't do all these other bad things.
 
Dorothy
Right. I mean, it's such a dodge from maturity, right? Yeah. And it's so I think, points back to the ways that culture sexualized men's emotional needs, like, rather than them being able to say, I'm lonely, I'm scared. Everything is sexualized. And so the only way they can meet their emotional needs is through sex, right? Rather than being able to simply be vulnerable with a woman and be held or communicate verbally what's going on.
It's all sexualized and it's that's just so damaging for women, but even for the men, because again, then they don't ever gain that level of maturity and understanding the self-awareness and the knowledge about who they are and what their real needs are.
 
Sheila
Yeah. Yeah. And you, you did a great job of that in your book, ‘For the Love of, of Women’. Talking about how patriarchy hurts men, too.
 
Dorothy
Yes. Yeah.
 
Sheila
Because it really does keep them stunted.
 
Dorothy
Yeah. And it's easy for us to discount that and to think like it's only an issue that affects us as women. But I think it does affect men. You know, my husband, weighs in a couple times throughout the book. And one of the things he talked about was in his work as a pastor, you know, he's often invited men in small groups to say, what did you feel today?
What have you been feeling this week? And in a way, to draw them out and help them to find language. But he also talks about that if those kind of conversations happen in other settings that aren't safe, and men, the men who are willing to be honest and willing to be vulnerable can often be punished and shamed, because that's not in our culture.
That's not what men are supposed to be.
 
Sheila
Yep. And it's that by by painting women as the emotional ones, and women who have feelings and men as the rational ones, then you know, our feelings are the most intimate part of us. They're the most real part of us. Like that's who we are in many ways. And and if we're not allowed to have feelings, then we can't ever truly be known.
 
Dorothy
Right. Exactly.
 
Sheila
Yeah. Right. Like. Because if we can't even express how we feel, then how can we share who we are with someone else? Which is often why, you know, men's emotional needs get sexualized because they literally have no other way. And it's just it's such a a cutting off of a huge part of their personhood. But it all in this, all in this desire to not ever be seen as a woman.
Right.
 
Dorothy
Right. Right. Because that's such an awful thing. And the other part of that is that the culture, again, you know, I speak as an American, but it's sanctioned for men to be angry. It's okay for men to be angry. Like, that's the one emotion that they're allowed to have. Where for women, women are not allowed to be angry.
That when we're angry, that is problematic. And it's particularly problematic in the church. Yeah.
 
Sheila
I remember, on our Christian radio show. They used to. They used to er. James McDonald. I sure hope they don't anymore. But anyway, before he, before the fall and my husband, whenever he was on, my husband was just like, that guy just sounds angry all the time. Like his normal way of talking. Like he could be saying the Sky is blue.
Like he didn't matter what he was saying. The man sounded angry all the time and and yet he was such a popular preacher. Mark Driscoll does the same thing I have. Yes, I think they have very similar preaching styles where they just sound angry all the time. It's wild.
 
Dorothy
Yes. And imagine, just imagine or call call to mind any women preachers who get away with that. Yeah. Maybe for a couple seconds. But I think if women displayed that kind of anger from the pulpit, they'd be out.
 
Sheila
Yeah, absolutely. Okay. Coming back to to Nick and his marriage, I want to read, something that his wife said to you. She said,
Both of us came to marriage with some harmfully shaped sexual expectations. The Christian books I had read communicated to me that as a wife, when my husband wants sex, I ought to say yes.
I wanted so badly to honor God by being a good wife. And I had been taught by mentors whom I admired. That good meant submitting, saying yes to my husband, unless what he was asking me to do was sinful. It didn't register that his selfish pursuit of an orgasm was indeed sinful, and the worst moments of exhaustion. It felt like I was being emotionally raped as I lay there waiting for it to be over.
Sex in that kind of emotional space eroded my self-worth and broke down the trust in our relationship.
 
Dorothy
So sad. Right? That's so sad that this is it's not just Amy's experience. I'm sure that there are many thousands, tens of thousands of women for whom that is true.
 
Sheila
Yeah, and it steals our sexuality.
 
Dorothy
Yes.
 
Sheila
Like, it's like we are supposed to be able to enjoy sex. We are. It's supposed to be this wonderful thing that women get to right. And yet it's taken from us and so many women that I've talked to, like, like Amy, even if their husband has a 180 and realizes that what he was doing was abusive and doesn't want to do that anymore, and really wants to serve her and really wants things to be mutual and really wants to make it up to her.
She's now gone through 20 years of feeling raped, and at that point she's like, I just don't even. I can't even picture sex being a good thing.
 
Dorothy
Yeah. And I think that there is hope for that couple. But it's going to be a long journey. It's not like three visits to the counselor and you're done. You know, there's got to be trust has to be regained. There has to be the husband's willingness to confess and repent. And, you know, forgiveness is such a long and difficult journey, and it's one that can't be rushed.
So often in the church, I think women are rushed to forgive. We're the ones who are supposed to forgive. Like men can stay angry, but women need to forgive. And in these situations, you know, I can imagine that there might be years of abstinence that would need to happen before there is enough trust between a couple in that situation for them to engage sexually again.
 
Sheila
Yeah. Before she even gets an even inkling that she might even want to. It's just it's sad. Like, I get those messages all the time. Like, I want to want sex, but I just don't. It's just that in me, it's like, oh.
 
Dorothy
And they kind of work, you know, the, the, the misogyny that is so much a part of the bedroom. Right? The man elevating his orgasm over her pleasure, where if he really was interested in, a long term, mutually satisfying sexual life, he would prioritize her pleasure as well and understand the women's process tends to be less linear, less, easy to figure out, you know, and as I'm aging, I think that's definitely true.
Yes. But if they're so focused on what their sexual needs are that they don't even consider their wives or consider or prioritize pleasing her, then in the end, that's going to hurt them, too.
 
Sheila
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So, I mean, I gave this this example of this couple that you mentioned, but the book isn't only about Christians, and you talk about sexual violence in general. And you said, in societies that uphold or celebrate unrestrained male sexuality and sexualized violence, women will never feel safe because they know at any moment they could be overpowered and harmed.
That potential robs women of their peace and makes it difficult to believe, and live in the inherent goodness of their bodies and their sexuality.
 
Dorothy
Yeah. Yeah. And that's tragic, right?
 
Sheila
I mean, every 11, 12 year old girl learns that there's certain ways you can't walk that, you know, we're all trained to look in the backseat of the car before you get in, to park under lights to to sit near the bus driver, like. All these things that you drummed into your daughters’ heads and that we learned when we were so young. I mean, every woman has, like, a rape prevention strategy, right?
 
Dorothy
Yes. Yes.
 
Sheila
And men just don't know. You just don't know what that's like.
 
Dorothy
Yeah. A friend of mine was telling me a story recently. How she was walking from her. She'd been working late and was walking to her car and heard somebody walking behind her and looked over her shoulder and saw it was a man. And immediately she was just, you know, flooded with panic. And thank God, he said, I am a safe person, and if you want me to stop walking, I will stop walking.
If you want to wait and let me go ahead of you, I will go ahead of you. And I just think, you know, if men carried more of an awareness of how they make our spaces unsafe, that would be that in and of itself would be so healing for us as women.
 
Sheila
Yeah. My my son in law, whenever he when when he lived in Ottawa, he'd be walking home late at night, often from his job. And if there was ever a woman in front of him, he would cross the road. You know.
 
Dorothy
Very thoughtful
 
Sheila
He would. He would you know, he would nod at her and then cross the road so that he wasn't on the same side of her. And he always took down his hoodie, even when it was cold, because, you know, hoodies up. You look scary. He would take down his hoodie, get out his phone and talk to his wife.
Hi, honey. I love you with it.
 
Dorothy
You know, that's great. Yeah.
 
Sheila
But it does make a difference. You know, it's funny, I was I was reading, rereading some of your book yesterday. At the same time as I was reading an article in The Guardian of an excerpt of a book that will be out by the time this podcast airs. And I probably will have.
 
Dorothy
Already.
 
Sheila
Devoured it in one night. But ‘Nobody's Girl’ by Virginia Roberts Giuffre?
 
Dorothy
No. And.
 
Sheila
You do, you do, the the woman who came forward about Jeffrey Epstein and who sued Prince Andrew. Oh, and who committed suicide last April, unfortunately. But the book is still being published. And has been published by the time this is out. But I was reading her story, this excerpt where she talked about her, the sexual assaults by Prince Andrew that Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, broker orchestrated.
Yeah, brokered. And she said she had this to say, back at the house, Maxwell and Epstein said good night and headed upstairs, signaling it was time that I take care of the prince. In the years since, I've thought a lot about how he behaved. He was friendly enough, but still entitled, as if he believed having sex with me was his birthright.
 
Dorothy
Yeah.
 
Sheila
And that's what it all comes down to. Right? Is like when we live in a culture which tells men that they're do unconditional respect, that they are over us, that we don't matter as much. It isn't a far leap.
 
Dorothy
No,
 
Sheila
To feel like, yeah, that, that young girls having sex with you is your birthright.
 
Dorothy
And again, the tragedy of the fact that the church does not counter that narrative. I mean, some churches do and some church leaders do, but in general, the churches reinforce that narrative rather than countered. It is just so tragic.
 
Sheila
Yeah. And there are churches doing this well. But I mean, the SBC believing that women pastors pose more of a problem than those who cover up abuse is, is just it's unconscionable to me.
 
Dorothy
Yes.
 
Sheila
So then you have you have a really interesting chapter on health care and how women have been so neglected. You go into all kinds of areas where, you know, drugs are only ever were only ever tested on men for so long. It's only been recently that they've even had to say no, you know, test them on women, too.
Even though our bodies metabolize things differently to hormones. And so there's some drugs where women should be taking half the dose.
 
Dorothy
Right.
 
Sheila
Dose, like it's it really impacts us or how our pain has been discounted. I think one of the biggest things to me is how they don't give pain for IUD insertions. You know, they don't give pain. I mean, they do have pain, but they don't give pain medication or blocking or anesthesia or anything for IUD insertions. And that's really painful, I mean, I've never had one, but from what I've heard, you.
 
Dorothy
Know, you know.
 
Sheila
That's really painful.
 
Dorothy
Yeah. There's so many ways and so many studies that have shown that women do not they're not believed when they come in talking about their pain levels, the pain that they're experiencing. And therefore they don't get the kind of pain medication that they need in the moment that they need it, whether that's during birth, whether it's you're talking about that when they're getting birth control, when there's been an accident, it's just a fact that when doctors tend not to believe women.
 
Sheila
Yeah. And I know we've talked to the podcast before, but some of the things that my daughter, my oldest daughter went through, where she was just absolutely certain there was something wrong because she had she was she would faint, she would throw up during periods, like her whole teenage years. And we just couldn't get anyone to take it seriously.
And then finally, in her early 20s, they found an ovarian cyst, you know, but that she'd had it forever, and and it just hadn't been diagnosed. Because people just don't take pain seriously. It's like, well, you're a girl, you're having a period. You got to get used to it. Now, this is just what women go through, right?
 
Dorothy
Right Right. There's an assumption that we as women are supposed to endure pain. And, Wow, that is just really it's so toxic for us in terms of what it means to exist on a day to day level, but also in terms of getting, well, finding people who will believe us. You know, I've had chronic health issues for 25 years now, and they're all autoimmune.
So the first 5 to 6 years that I was trying to figure out what was going on, I was just passed from person to person. Nobody really believed me. One doctor, just after literally five minutes, said, well, I think you're depressed from postpartum. But then he didn't ask me any questions that could have validated like, yeah, actually I am depressed.
So those sort of things happen all the time, and it's not something that happened just 30 or 40 years ago. It's continuing to happen and it's continuing to harm women.
 
Sheila
Yeah, yeah. And your discussion of endometriosis was fascinating. So hey, yeah, check it out, ‘For the Love of  Women’. Great talk about endometriosis. 
Okay I want, I want I have some funny things about misogyny in the workplace. Misogyny in the workplace is not funny. But I have some examples. So you said how when the male is the standard throughout and corporations do this all the time when they're trying to figure out products, when they're, trying to figure out what to sell, etc., like the male body is the standard.
So we see this in crash test dummies in cars, how they didn't test it with female bodies, let alone female pregnant bodies, let alone women when they were driving. So they would only test at the passenger seat, not the steering wheel. Like all this, all this stuff. Right. But I didn't know this. This is just a quick thing, but personal protective equipment, often referred to as PPE, like all the stuff that they wore during Covid 19, is similarly engineered to fit the average American and European male, even though more than 70% of frontline health care workers are female.
 
Dorothy
Incredible isn't it? Like didn't. Why didn't somebody consider the fact that more women than men are serving in the health care field? It just doesn’t make any sense.
 
Sheila
Yeah. Like, and I guess they figure, well, if it's too big, you can still wear it. If it's too small, you can't, but you can also just make different sizes. Or you could. Yeah.
 
Dorothy
Like reevaluate what is standard like.
 
Sheila
But you know, the one that bugs me the most is public bathrooms. So they have the same number of stalls for men and women. And everywhere you go there's like especially in airports, there's always a huge line for the women's bathroom, and there's never a line for the men's.
 
Dorothy
Yes. Although I have been in several public places recently where there is now just one big bathroom. So it's whether you're male or female, you can go and use it. And given that it's open and it's bright, I don't mind that and I know it. Also, I think of two theaters in Boston. The line moves much quicker.
 
Sheila
Yeah. Well, and that's the norm in Europe. But and in Asia, I believe. But what they have is in the stalls, it's, it's floor to ceiling. So you can't like, look under or crawl under it's floor to ceiling. And it makes a lot more sense I think. But yeah, like they're like, well, we're treating men and women equally because they have the same number of stalls, but women have to use a stall for everything and women menstruate.
So like we take longer in the bathrooms, you know. Yeah.
 
Dorothy
I would also add that the stalls are not big enough for most women, let alone for a woman who's coming in with a bag. There's rarely a place to hang the bag. So there are all these little things that if somebody took a little bit more time and imagine themselves to be a woman, or heaven forbid, if they hired more women as designers, those kind of things could change.
 
Sheila
Yeah, yeah. Okay. Then you talked about how companies actually do better with women, in management. And there's been so many studies that have shown this. Like, I think people have the idea that, well, if companies truly did better with women in management than companies, then companies would would get women in there, like, because capitalism would win out.
But that that's not true, though. I mean, a great example of this is Hollywood. They, I remember when my Big Fat Greek Wedding came out.
When was that like late 90s maybe. But I think the thing cost 5 million to make and did 200 million of the box office in just a couple of weeks. And the big discussion in the news was, why don't they make more movies aimed at women? Because the movies aimed at women do incredibly well in the theaters.
They often cost very little to make because you don't have to wreck any cars. You don't have to have sex.
 
Dorothy
There's no action.
 
Sheila
Hi. Yes. It mostly takes place indoor like, it's. They're often very easy and cheap to make, but they tend to do well. And yet if if we were just operating by profit motive, you would see more movies for women made. The fact that we don't show that it isn't just profit motive, because when they make good movies for women, they do well.
 
Dorothy
Like Barbie, right?
 
Sheila
Yeah. Barbie. Best. But Barbie, I think, cost a lot. But even little things like Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, you know, didn't didn't cost a lot and did great. Like, there's so many examples of that, Room with a View cost like nothing did huge. You know, that was in the mid 80s, all the Pride and Prejudice movies like, like, they don't cost very much, but they do really well because women want to see movies that are about us and that aren't about men blowing stuff up, big things up.
Or hitting each other. Right. So it isn't only about, yeah, profit motive. A lot of it is just misogyny. It just is.
 
Dorothy
People, the people at the top are making the decisions tend to be men. Like if you look at the proportion of women who are directors, who are those at the top of agencies in Hollywood, it is just so male dominated. And again, they're, you know, playing to their biases.
 
Sheila
Yep. Anyway, there are so many studies that show this, but you just quote a few here. Statistics show that companies with more women in their leadership tend to be more successful across many metrics, including innovation, creativity, lower turnover and higher productivity. A 2016 study found that increased gender diversity in the highest corporate offices led to a 15% increase in profits, and when the International Monetary Fund conducted a study of more than 2 million private and public companies, they found that on average, replacing just one man with one woman in management or on the board led to a 3 to 8% increase in profitability.
 
Dorothy
Hard to counter that, right? Yeah. Part of the reason I think that there aren't more women in key leadership positions is because of the misogyny that's baked into corporations, namely child care, namely maternity leave, like those things that women need if we, in fact, are going to be moms, aren't in place and there doesn't seem to be any real groundswell, any real prioritization of that within corporations.
Certainly there are some that are seeing it. There are some that are changing. But overall, you know, the fact that the United States has no paid maternity leave, like it's unconscionable, unconscionable
 
Sheila
That's crazy. I'm sorry. 30 years ago, I had a year maternity leave with Rebecca.
 
Dorothy
30 years ago in Canada. Wow.
 
Sheila
In Canada. Wow. Yeah. That isn't. I had. A year. Long. Yeah. Paid3
Yeah, yeah. Which shows you right how capitalistic like that is. What drives our country. It's profit over everything. But if you really look at if you drill down into the statistics, we can see as you the things that you just quoted that it does make a difference and it can help profit to have women at the top.
 
Dorothy
So why is it that they aren't making these kind of changes, systemic changes? I think it's it points back to misogyny. Yeah.
 
Sheila
And I know that countries that had female leaders did better under Covid too, they had lower death rates. I think that was shown.
 
Dorothy
Less violence.
 
Sheila
Yeah. And I think about that in churches too. Right. Like if, if, if companies do better with women in leadership. Well, how much could churches do better.
 
Dorothy
Yeah. And I bet that there probably hasn't been a whole lot of studies that have looked at that yet. But I'm sure that you're right.
 
Sheila
That they're that they're coming. Okay, tell me about the Bechdel test. Is that how you say it? The Bechdel.
 
Dorothy
Yeah. Tell me. Yeah. So it was, devised by someone, I think, in the 90s. I don't have that stat in front of me, but a woman who was looking at. She was a, I think a comic illustrator and was looking at movies and, and just paying attention to the fact that there were so few women and there were so few women who had major roles.
So it's a test that says, like, if you in order to pass the test, you have to have two women who are named who have a conversation about something other than a man. That's a really low that's such a low bar.
 
Sheila
Yeah. That is such a low bar
 
Dorothy
But statistically, in the number of movies that pass, the test is quite low, and the number of movies like that have won the Academy Award for Best Film is quite low.
 
Sheila
Yeah. Like I remember when the summer Barbie was out. Did did Oppenheimer pass it? I can't remember if Oppenheimer passed it, but I don't I don't know, I remember that there was a talk about that. So I'll have to go back and check if it did or not. If you know, if it did, you can leave a comment and tell me as you, as you're watching this.
But yeah, like this is something that happens right now, like whenever, the Best Picture nominations come out, you'll often see a news report about how many actually passed the Bechdel test. And it's usually quite low.
 
Dorothy
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
 
Sheila
And it's such a look. Yeah. Two people, two women who are named who have a conversation because, about something other than a man, because even movies like you think about, I don't know, something like The Italian Job or whatever, like, there is a female character in it, and she does play a big role, but there's only one.
 
Dorothy
Right?
 
Sheila
And then there's all these men around her.
 
Dorothy
Yes. Yeah. There's just not enough women writers. There's not enough women directors. There's not enough women creators who have been elevated in the Hollywood system. And I would say that that's true in publishing as well. Yeah.
 
Sheila
You know, what I've started doing recently is, I almost exclusively watched British TV because British TV, I just think is so much better. Interesting. And the, the women, especially crime TV, it's just awesome. British crime TV is awesome, but the women look like regular people. They don't. They're not. They're often not bombshells. Occasionally they're be a bombshell, but they're not super pretty or anything.
And often they don't even wear makeup. Like I'm watching this one right now. Karen Pirie, I'm eagerly awaiting for the next episode. But I don't. I mean, she must have makeup on because every person under the camera has makeup on, but you can't tell. Like, she's. Maybe she's made up to look like she doesn't have a stitch of makeup on.
Right? Like no eyeliner, no anything. And you just never see that on American TV?
It's so different. And you often get very, very strong characters. Female characters on British TV. Do you think is the difference between, like, an Olivia Colman and a Jennifer Aniston? They're not that difference in age, but Olivia Colman is had like is you know what, like Jennifer Aniston and I actually think she's a good actress that's been beat up unnecessarily for a lot of things.
But she has had to maintain this huge standard of beauty for 30 years in order to stay where she is. And I'm not saying Olivia Colman isn't pretty, but she just looks normal, right?
 
Dorothy
Right. Yeah. No. Yeah. No, I give it to you. Yeah. And I look, my husband and I, I've been watching All Creatures Great and Small. We're probably like a year or two behind everybody else, but the female characters in there are so amazing. They're so strong and they're so beautiful and they're so smart. And, you know, regardless of what happens with the men, I think I'm in it for the women.
Yeah, I know.
 
Sheila
So, one of the things you say to or one of the big thoughts that I had after digesting the book and you do talk a lot about sexism in the church, too, and, how that affects us. But I think we have an issue in Christianity where we aren't willing to look at systemic problems, we only look at individual sin.
So we'll say that, oh, well, everything is just because of the heart, right? Like the heart is deceitful. And we all, you know, we have to stop looking for reasons that the world is bad and we have to start realizing the reason is just sin. And we need to confront own sin and I know people mean well when they say that, but that attitude is not going to solve the problem.
 
Dorothy
No, no. Similar again to racism. You know, when something is so deeply systemic, when it's so woven into the fabric of the country, you know, look back at the Constitution, right? People of color, indigenous people, women were not given the right to vote. So you see, from the very conception of our country, we were not seeing women as equal. Yeah.
 
Sheila
Yeah. And you know, the Bible talks about systems.
The Bible does not only talk about individual sin, you know, throughout the Old Testament, the nation of Israel was was being judged by God because the nation was not treating its immigrants well or its, you know, the poor. Well, like the nation was, was it wasn't it wasn't that God pointed to each individual person. It was like the nation needed to repent.It needed to change the systems.
You know, and and in the New Testament, we see, Paul talking about the principalities and powers, like it isn't only individual sin. We have created systems which hurt women, and they also hurt, other minorities. Right? It's not only women, it's just your particular book is talking about women, but we acknowledge that there are many other, disadvantaged groups.
And of course, a lot of that intersects, too.
 
Dorothy
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I wish that I had had that conversation with you before I wrote the book, because that would have been a lovely, powerful thing to include. So I think that you're. That's very insightful.
 
Sheila
Yeah. And and I don't know how to have that. Like, I don't know how to get people to see that because whenever you say, well, but but we need to address the systems like the systems, like the fact that, you know, yeah, corporations just aren't looking after women. Like the fact that that our medical system doesn't care about women's pain, like all of these things go.
They are they are corporate sins in a way. Like. Yeah. So like it's it sends on a, on a bigger level and, and just simply saying that, well, I'm not sexist. So this isn't a problem anymore. Isn't going to do it because we have to dismantle.
 
Dorothy
The the.
 
Sheila
Systems that have made it possible to discriminate against women. And especially and we can't solve all society with these problems. But I think that as Christians we can look at our churches. Yeah, at least.
 
Dorothy
Yeah, absolutely. And we should be looking at our churches. We should be reforming our churches. We should be looking at the ways that the church, demeans women, harms women, doesn't advantage, give it opportunities to women. And oftentimes I mean, you look again, you mentioned the Southern Baptist earlier. You know, they could have responded to what happened to the revelation of all of this abuse in a very different way.
They could have gotten down on their knees and covered themselves with ashes and said, we are so grieved that we have sinned against women, and they  didn't they? Went in the absolute opposite direction by maligning the women who came forward. And honestly, that feels even that just compounds the original sin.
 
Sheila
Yeah, Yeah. It just, it hurts. And I want to read something you said about complementary in this. You said we have to be willing to acknowledge that complementary theology provides and sometimes fosters an environment for abuse. And this is something that we've talked about a lot, like in our research, we've seen that in complementary in marriages where they act out the husband being in authority, abuse rates go up, divorce rates go up, sexual satisfaction goes down for women like it is harmful.
Again, that doesn't mean all churches or all individuals ascribing to complementarian practices and theology will be blind to or tolerate abuse. However, Complementarism seems to deny the reality that we live in a broken world. The belief that all men will faithfully protect women and consistently create spaces, whether familial or institutional, for women to be safe and flourish is noble, but it's not ideal.
That doesn't consistently work as intended because misogyny is so endemic and the pull to worldly power is so strong. Author and theologian Hannah Anderson believes complementarians who minimize the dangers that women actually face, whether in the church, in a marriage or in the world, will find themselves unable to protect women against these dangers. You can't protect against a threat that you don't see is real.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, just sit with that for a couple minutes, right, and realize the enormity of what's ahead of us as we try to diminish and eradicate misogyny in. Wow. It's just it's deep and, it's hard to imagine in some ways like it being gone, it having less power. But, I think that it's possible I do.
 
Dorothy
Yeah.
 
Sheila
I hope so, I hope so. What you said to there about, you know, how how so many complementarians believe that oh being complementarian is really noble because I am called to lay down my life and protect my wife and protect the women around me. It's like. Protect them from what?
 
Dorothy
Yes, exactly the irony of that, right? Yeah. That Protection that we need is from predatory men.
 
Sheila
Yeah. And if we just simply got rid of entitlement, we would solve a lot of that, a lot of those problems because we see sexual assault, sexual abuse, domestic violence, we see those things going up in places where there's a lot of male entitlement.
Right.  And so if we dealt with the root, then we would be eradicating a lot of these problems.
But instead, you know, we're told that, yeah, abuse isn't really a problem, that complementarian marriages are the safest marriages. You know, Josh Howerton a couple of years ago totally distorted a bunch of statistics, and then Matt Chandler made it go viral, and it's like it wasn't even true. But they like to pat themselves on the back and say, see, we are the best because we protect women.
It's like, no, but you don't. This they didn't
 
Dorothy
Even if even if they are protecting their own lives of their own daughters or their own mothers, like, awesome. That's wonderful. But what are you doing to protect other women? What are you doing to say to the men who you know are being abusive? Who you know we're not respecting women. This is unacceptable. And you have to stop.
And I am going to hold you accountable. Like, yeah, that's what we need.
 
Sheila
Yeah. And speaking of saying this is unacceptable and we need to hold you accountable. So at the at the time that we are recording this, I don't know if it was yesterday or the day before, but that trove of text messages from the Young Republicans was, was released by Politico. And I normally don't talk about Partisan things, but this one really got me, because it relates so much to what we're talking about.
Because in those text messages and these were 30 and 40 year old men, primarily some men in their late 20s, but mostly, you know, 34 year old men, some of whom are sitting politicians, their staffers for sitting politicians, like, and they were making rape jokes saying how people deserved rape. And they were also making a lot of extremely racist anti-Semitic jokes about loving Hitler and gas chambers and etc. it was it was truly horrific and a lot of very, very, very racist things.
But the reaction to it, I mean, this stuff was so awful. It was just vile. And, you know, the vice president was basically, well, boys will be boys and they're just boys and, you know, and you know I'm just not willing to.
 
Dorothy
Like at what point do Boys become men. Like, at what point can we hold them accountable? At what point can we say, sorry, guys, that's not okay. Apparently in this administration, never.
 
Sheila
Yeah. So so a 30 and 40 year old man who has a job is just a boy, but 17 year old Virginia Guiffre was a woman, right? Is that right? And she was fully able to consent when she was being sexually trafficked. Like, is that the line that we're taking now? And, and, and the 13, 14 year old girls that Epstein.
 
Dorothy
Right, abused.
 
Sheila
They were women. So it's like, yeah. So the the boys are these adult men, but but literal girls, we're told, no, they should have been able to say no. They should have. It was their fault. Yeah. Like it's just it's just crazy. And I mean, when I see the the juxtaposition of those two things, I just get so angry.
And the last part of your book is about dealing with the anger and I'm just I'm not I, I find that very difficult. I find it very difficult to deal with the anger.
 
Dorothy
Say, say more, What what feels difficult?
 
Sheila
Well, I think every. You know, it's funny because the young Republicans think that that's not about the church. It's not about. But when I hear about that, I actually get angry at pastors, like, I'm not actually angry at the Young Republicans. I mean, I am, but I'm Canada doesn't I mean, it's not my country, but but I get angry at the pastors because the pastors should be the ones calling this out.
And they're not. They're just being silenced.
 
Dorothy
Yes.
 
Sheila
And that's what makes me angry is because, like, all of this terrible stuff is happening to women and, and, and the church isn't doing anything, you know, and, and so, like, I'm actually more angry at the church than I am at, you know, the five Canada hockey players, because the church should have been the first to say, that's not okay.
We're going to tell our we're going to tell the people in our congregation not to watch hockey anymore, at least not those teams. If they're let back on the teams, like, like, let's have the church standing up for women, but they're not. And that the church as a whole, I know many, many churches that are yeah, but but that does that's where I see the anger, you know.
 
Dorothy
And I would say that's righteous anger. Right. And then we, you, me, all the other women who feel that same way have to figure out, well, what do we do with that anger? How does that anger lead us into a place of action? How does it lead us into a place of more wholeness for ourselves? Right, because the anger can consume us like there are times.
Honestly, Sheila, when I was writing that book and my husband will attest to this, I was so angry. You know, I'm reading these stories and I'm reading these books and I'm just a day after day, after day, just hearing these, just horrific accounts of men abusing women. And my anger level was just, like, through the roof at times when I was writing this. And I had to figure out, well, what does it mean for me to acknowledge this, but to process it so that it doesn't eat me up?
 
Sheila
Yeah, yeah. You have a lot of really good. You talk about that at the end of the book, and you have some very healing work that we can do at the end, which I appreciated it on a strategic level. One of the, one of the things that I struggle with online is that I'll often get into these debates, about, you know, whether, about Complementarism, like whether women should be able to hold certain roles in the church or whether women should be deferring to men or whatever.
And there are times when I think to myself, by debating this, I'm actually giving the other side credence.
Because like I would never debate slavery. Right. Like if, if someone thought slavery was okay, I would just say you are evil and disgusting and you are not worth my time.
Right. And racism too. If someone said something super racist like that, whatever, whatever you might imagine, I would say that is evil, disgusting and you are not worth my time. But somebody can say to me something completely sexist and I will feel like, well, I need to debate it because it's a legitimate debate within Christianity. And that hurts me.
 
Dorothy
And how does it go when you have those debates? Do you feel like you actually are listened to? Do people hear what you have to say?
 
Sheila
Yeah. But I realize that my audience isn't what most people think my audience is like. If I'm having a debate with someone online, I'm not trying to convince the person I'm debating. I'm trying to show everyone listening that there's a valid answer to these things
 
Dorothy
I see, yep yeah
 
Sheila
That this person is saying, and that. And that's why I get into these debates.
It's usually not about that person, it's about everybody listening. But, but, I do feel like even by talking about these things are we giving the other side credence? Like. You know.
 
Dorothy
Yeah. I mean, that's a hard issue, right? Because I think that part of our healing comes from being able to tell our stories. So one of the things that I've been doing over the past couple weeks is recording women telling these very specific stories that they, times that they have experienced misogyny. And as I've been doing this tool, one women have said, I've never talked about this before or I feel really embarrassed talking about this.
And I think it's it's necessary for us to be able to to drill down into the experiences that we've had. But then again, we make ourselves vulnerable by telling our stories because we can't control how other people are going to respond to us, and that can be terrifying. So I think it is both. I think we do need to be talking about it.
We do need to be telling our stories. But the reality is, as you well know, you can't convict someone like you can present evidence, you can be honest, you can love them as you're telling their story, but you can't make a husband agree with you that if he's abusive to his wife, it's going to hurt him in the long run.
Like there's a way that the Holy Spirit that time, whatever mysterious factors are involved that will bring deep conviction. And so we pray for that. We hope for that. But there is a way that, you know, we have to be letting go of control of that all the time. Yeah.
 
Sheila
And that's hard. So what gives you hope right now? Do you have hope?
 
Dorothy
I do have hope. You know, we just. And my husband I just came back from Italy. Our youngest son got married in Tuscany, and there was one church that we went in and, we went in, so many churches, I'm not going to remember which one, but there was a particular, mosaic on the floor, and it was about hope.
And this young woman, was looking up and I don't even remember exactly what she was holding. But the the explanation of it talked about the importance of our having hope in something that we deeply believe in and we deeply want and longed for. And it brought me to tears because I thought, yeah, that is part of the struggle, right now of seeing the evidence contrary to what we hope for and yet believing that change is possible.
Right. So for me, being a person who has followed Jesus, I don't like the term evangelical anymore because I feel like it's just been co-opted. But as someone who cares, who loves Jesus deeply, I think of when I look at Scripture, when I look at the arc of our story, it's about redemption. It is right. It's about God bringing wholeness, God bringing health, God bringing healing.
And I think all of that is true if that's what I've been basing my life on, then we will see an end to misogyny. We will see an end to racism. It might not be in my lifetime. That probably won't be in my lifetime given my age, but I do believe that things can change, that people can change, that systems can change.
And so that does, the hope of glory, the hope of Jesus is part of what keeps me going.
 
Sheila
Yeah, yeah No, I like that. Now that's what I hold on to too, is,
And there was a time where I was in a darker place when we were first writing in Great Sex Rescue. And, just the vitriol that we were facing where I could only read the Gospels, you know, I just I because it felt like so much the rest of Scripture had been weaponized against women so often.
But, you know, I read in the Gospels and just looking at how Jesus treated women.
 
Dorothy
Yes, yes.
 
Sheila
It's like, oh, this is healing. This is good. Jesus says. And I think that's that's my favourite verse in Scripture is, you know, when the woman is come in to anoint Jesus feet with oil and, the religious leaders who are sitting around him are thinking all these terrible things about her. And Jesus speaks up and says, do you see this woman?
And it just invites them to actually see her. And I think that's what Jesus does, is he's inviting the men today to actually see women and what we are experiencing and to care and to enter into that. And that is the voice of our Savior. And so that's nice what I come back to too.
 
Dorothy
Yeah, yeah. When I was writing the book, there was a, there was, a time early on when I thought, do I want this to be a Christian book, or do I want it to be a book that's, less religious? And I had a conversation with my agent and she said, it's your conviction in Jesus that gives you the moral authority to write this book.
And then as, as I was writing, it just going back to exactly what you said is seeing again and again, how does Jesus treat women? How does Jesus love women? How does Jesus elevate women? How does he turn the, the, the practices of that time upside down so that women could have life and could flourish? And I think, yeah, that is the point.
 
Sheila
Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Well, the book again is ‘For the Love of Women’ by Dorothy Greco. It is available now. So it just it just hit the it just hit the stands and, you can order anywhere. I'll put a pic. I will put a link in the podcast notes. And it's just it's such a great overview of all the different areas of our society and how women have been treated.
And it. And yet at the end, you do give such practical tips on how to form alliances with other people that are doing the work, even with men who are doing the work to invite us into community, as we as we fight this together and to process our anger and get to a good place. So it's it's a wonderful book.
Do pick it up. It's easy to read lots and lots of stories. And just really, really well done. You can tell Dorothy is a journalist, so thank you, Dorothy. And where can we find you?
 
Dorothy
DorothyGreco.com is my website, and you can preorder the book there. You can find my Substack link. And I'm also on Substack at What's Faith Got to Do with it?  So I'm not spending a ton of time on social media these days, but. So, you can contact me through Substack or through my website.
 
Sheila
Okay. We'll put those links there too. Thank you so much for being with us.
 
Dorothy
Thank you for having me. This was a great conversation. I feel like we could keep going for hours.
 
Sheila
I really enjoyed Dorothy Greco's book ‘For the Love of Women’. Please pick it up. Please check out that link in the podcast notes. It just, it helps you answer a lot of questions. It helps you feel better about yourself because you realize, yeah, I'm not crazy. But it also gives you something to say when people challenge you and saying there really isn't any sexism now, or it's really men who are struggling, not women.
Yes, men are struggling, but they're struggling because of patriarchy too. So we've got to dismantle that. That's what God wants for us, and that's what we try to do here at Bare. Marriage is show what flourishing looks like when men and women are partners together. So check out For the Love of Women. And hey, if you want to support us, check out the merch in our store too!
 
I've got a link in the podcast notes to all our amazing merch, and it's another way that you can celebrate. Who we are as women together. We'll see you again next week on the Bare Marriage podcast. Bye bye.