Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and this is Samantha, and welcome
Speaker 1: to stuff. I've never told your protection of I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio's house stuff work. So for this episode, which is
Speaker 1: kind of your your first official episode as a full
Speaker 1: post my debut, right yeah, official debut, your official now, y'all, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm not, We're going to do kind of a check
Speaker 1: in on feminism. Feminism, Yeah, what it means to be
Speaker 1: a feminist today, the F word, the dreaded word. And
Speaker 1: this was your suggestion, Samantha. Um, you kind of wanted
Speaker 1: to when I first came on, I did bad feminist
Speaker 1: because that's something I struggled with a lot, right, Um,
Speaker 1: And we're going to talk about that a little bit.
Speaker 1: But just feeling like I wasn't a good enough feminist,
Speaker 1: right Um, So yeah, we'll check Yeah, I think it
Speaker 1: was important. Um almost like let's just kind of start
Speaker 1: the ball rolling again. Because a the definition changes, the
Speaker 1: not necessarily the main definition, but the outlook of it
Speaker 1: changes by generation by generation essentially. Um. And it's kind
Speaker 1: of baffling how even in this day and age, I
Speaker 1: have younger people, younger generations of my life in my
Speaker 1: family who refused to be called feminists, even though they're
Speaker 1: trying to work in fields that are pretty uh sexist
Speaker 1: in general, and you're kind of like, wait, how do
Speaker 1: you not want to be known as a feminist in
Speaker 1: a culture that is going to use your sex against you?
Speaker 1: And I think I was like, we need to come
Speaker 1: back and have another revamping, another conversation again not necessarily
Speaker 1: for our listeners. Most likely our listeners already understand and
Speaker 1: they're on top of it, but there has become a
Speaker 1: whole new label of like what is a wife feminist?
Speaker 1: You know? And what is a feminist who is an ally? Like,
Speaker 1: it's just a whole different labels now, and especially with
Speaker 1: the fact that we have to be very very specific. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and doing their research for this episode, I've found that
Speaker 1: a lot of people are kind of confused about, um,
Speaker 1: where we are where we are with feminism. So let's
Speaker 1: get into it. And first, you know, I love dictionary definence.
Speaker 1: Give me that dictionary definition, all right. Feminism is one
Speaker 1: the advocacy of women's rights on the basis of the
Speaker 1: equality of the sexes to the theory of the political, economic,
Speaker 1: and social quality of the sexes. What I call it
Speaker 1: Beyonce three the belief that men and women should have
Speaker 1: equal rights and opportunities, and for the doctrine advocating social, political,
Speaker 1: and all other rights of women equal to those of men.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to figure out how any of those are
Speaker 1: really offensive. I I don't think they are. I think
Speaker 1: that and we're we're going to talk about this for sure,
Speaker 1: But I think that a lot of people and data
Speaker 1: bears this out say they want equality, but they don't
Speaker 1: want to be called a feminist. It's such a bad word.
Speaker 1: I mean, come on, But I will say I'm really
Speaker 1: excited to note that. I had really hard conversation with
Speaker 1: my parents. But my dad was like, feminism, you just
Speaker 1: won't equal rights, right, And I was like, yeah, he goes, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm on board with that. And my parents are very conservative.
Speaker 1: And when my said dad said that, I felt such triumph.
Speaker 1: I was like, all right, dad, Yeah, he's an ally
Speaker 1: whether he wants admitted or not. But he seemed to
Speaker 1: understand pretty clearly this is a simplicity of it all. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I similarly recently witnessed, um, my dad he's he's very liberal. Um,
Speaker 1: but he got and I wouldn't say a fight, but
Speaker 1: kind of a heated discussion with his Oh, I don't
Speaker 1: even know how they related, but they related somehow about
Speaker 1: because this I call him my my uncle. He was like,
Speaker 1: you'll make any man lucky any when you just gotta
Speaker 1: settle down. And my dad like, well, maybe she doesn't
Speaker 1: want to settle I got to witness this whole thing,
Speaker 1: like fight unfold about she doesn't need no man. Love that.
Speaker 1: I love that. You're just an audience and all right,
Speaker 1: there's my good and there's the bad. They're just order,
Speaker 1: you know, Hagon is attagonists for me. Wonderful the tennis match.
Speaker 1: It was funny because I've said before on the show
Speaker 1: that for a long time my family was trying to
Speaker 1: get me to settle down. And now they've sort of
Speaker 1: you know, right, but anybody I think eventually this day
Speaker 1: and age, and we'll talk about this later on in
Speaker 1: our episodes because I'll be around now. Um, it's that
Speaker 1: they've understood that relationships and the definition of relationships and
Speaker 1: partnerships have changed. And even though it's not it doesn't
Speaker 1: make my parents happy. I'll say it that way because
Speaker 1: I am also single and late late thirties and don't
Speaker 1: have children and don't desire to have children. But my
Speaker 1: parents are like, but you're not in a relationship where
Speaker 1: you have to deal with a back and forth with
Speaker 1: a divorce or you know what I mean. And so
Speaker 1: they're like, we're good. I'm gonna let you be now.
Speaker 1: As we're five ten years ago, as we talked about
Speaker 1: the first episode, how We Fail Yours, my mom was
Speaker 1: scared that I was gonna die alone. She's now backed
Speaker 1: off as well. Wonderful feminism. That's what I call femin
Speaker 1: That's what progress allowed to be single in our families
Speaker 1: without judgment. Progress. Um. And one thing I found an
Speaker 1: article that I enjoyed from Forbes, but it was just
Speaker 1: kind of like, ask yourself these questions if you're if
Speaker 1: you don't want to call yourself a feminist. But um
Speaker 1: the author of it, Um, she emphasized that it's equality,
Speaker 1: not sameness, which is different. And going back to bad feminism,
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people listening to this can
Speaker 1: connect with that because we all have those things that
Speaker 1: we like write that are misogynistic. Um. We listen to
Speaker 1: music that we know is problematic. That's one of my
Speaker 1: favorite examples from Roxane Gay wrote the book Bad Feminism. Um,
Speaker 1: we use language and phrases we know we shouldn't. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm very very to you of that. I will
Speaker 1: say sometimes I do feel like I'm owning those links,
Speaker 1: like words or terms by using it. But I've had
Speaker 1: that debate with people as well because I have a
Speaker 1: potty mill. It's just an automatic kind of my rebellion
Speaker 1: from like middle school. I didn't do anything else. I
Speaker 1: didn't do drugs or anything, but I curse a lot
Speaker 1: and I still do. Um. But yeah, it's a problem
Speaker 1: back when you start thinking about it and you have
Speaker 1: to watch yourself because you and I are, like being
Speaker 1: in this podcast, hyper aware the fact that you need
Speaker 1: to watch what you say and it's important and it
Speaker 1: should it should hold you accountable. But to be under
Speaker 1: that kind of microscope, I'm like, yeah, I mean a
Speaker 1: bad feminist. Yeah, it might be. Yeah. That was one
Speaker 1: of the first things when I was entering talks about
Speaker 1: what you host. This was No, I don't know. I
Speaker 1: was obviously scary. It can be quick aside. Um Lauren
Speaker 1: over Savor, who's my co host over there, she was
Speaker 1: telling me about this comic book where it's like a
Speaker 1: matriarchal society and they say father figures instead of Oh,
Speaker 1: I like that I think we should keep that, um,
Speaker 1: and our our motto on this show is that we're
Speaker 1: always learning and growing together. But one thing, there are
Speaker 1: cases of like legit right bad feminism for example turfs
Speaker 1: or trans exclusionary radical feminists. And that's a back and
Speaker 1: forth that we've had to talk about because I know,
Speaker 1: a prominent author made a statement and was very very
Speaker 1: exclusionary and and you got why, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: We're all in this together at some point. Something else
Speaker 1: I think we all struggle with is having a lot
Speaker 1: of us have memories of not being a feminist or
Speaker 1: not being a good feminist. Yeah, oh yeah, absolutely. I
Speaker 1: was raised to think that feminism was, well, to put
Speaker 1: it us bluntly, a sin, you know. And even a
Speaker 1: small conversation that I've had recently that was a conversation
Speaker 1: that feminism was the end of humanity and all the
Speaker 1: goodness like yeah, and then it was a tool of
Speaker 1: satan that was actually quoted to me recently. Um. And
Speaker 1: it took me a bit of time to realize my
Speaker 1: own personality alone was in conflict with the misogynistic idea
Speaker 1: that men are the leaders. Um. My independence and my
Speaker 1: ability to raise myself essentially and survive made me think,
Speaker 1: why am I following you? Who are making decisions based
Speaker 1: on emotions? And I had so many especially like in
Speaker 1: UM college, I had so many guys who are being
Speaker 1: put as leaders, and come on, we're in college. None
Speaker 1: of us are really great leaders. We may be allowed
Speaker 1: and have some good plans, but it came down to, wait,
Speaker 1: you're basing yours on your emotion more so than my
Speaker 1: I am, which I'm a little more rational in that
Speaker 1: back and forth of the empathy and trying to be
Speaker 1: and everybody's shoes, as well as the fact that I've
Speaker 1: had more world experience and understanding, you know, different things
Speaker 1: like that that I'm like, why do I Why am
Speaker 1: I following you? I'm like, I don't trust you, and
Speaker 1: not that I want people to follow me, but I
Speaker 1: don't choose to follow you, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: And I think that's when it really hit him, like, oh,
Speaker 1: you went away to a liberal and it wasn't actually
Speaker 1: that liberal. The University of Georgia literal, well just college
Speaker 1: and general college and general. Now my my actual major
Speaker 1: social work is very liable for the most part, UM
Speaker 1: but you know, yeah, literally the defining moments in college
Speaker 1: was like, yeah, I'm a feminist. I'm sorry, all this
Speaker 1: is what's going down too, because I don't need to
Speaker 1: come here and try to find a mate, right um,
Speaker 1: and define myself and all the other normal standards that
Speaker 1: I was supposed to go through. In the early late
Speaker 1: nineties or or the eighties, it was changing for me.
Speaker 1: So yeah, that's when I was like, oh, but I
Speaker 1: really was not originally a feminist. No, yeah, I wasn't either,
Speaker 1: And I think I mean, I didn't really know. I
Speaker 1: had the same associations that a lot of people have,
Speaker 1: which is why they don't want to call themselves feminist,
Speaker 1: is that it meant like you didn't shave and write
Speaker 1: all those kinds of a ridiculous thing, right um. And
Speaker 1: for a long time, feminism hasn't been intersectional. It's been
Speaker 1: classist and ablest and white. Yeah, and I know it's
Speaker 1: been previously discussed. When we look at the history of
Speaker 1: feminist activism, we have to continue to credit many women
Speaker 1: of color as being the pioneers of the fight. And
Speaker 1: I think for a little while they were kind of
Speaker 1: just erased, um as people who were making history and
Speaker 1: making changes, and women like Short Gurner Truth OUTA. B. Wells,
Speaker 1: Shirley Chisholm, the Lorias SUERGTA, and organizations like the Mississippi
Speaker 1: Labor Union, which was created in eighteen sixty six by
Speaker 1: black women, who was the first labor union in that state.
Speaker 1: I mean they, yeah, they should be celebrated even more
Speaker 1: and and be recognized for what they've done for feminism
Speaker 1: in itself. I mean, at this time, I think slavery
Speaker 1: was had finally ended and they came together and it
Speaker 1: was all black women that they were um. Country women
Speaker 1: would laundresses, said a thing. No, I don't think. I
Speaker 1: don't think that's a thing you did laundry. But it
Speaker 1: was a union together because they were not being paid well.
Speaker 1: It worked and it was the beginning of other unions.
Speaker 1: That was one in Atlanta as well, UM, and that
Speaker 1: created some change. And it was made up of black women.
Speaker 1: Let's just be very clear. They was made up of
Speaker 1: black women who pioneered these things even before. And then
Speaker 1: we have to talk about the whole back and forth
Speaker 1: with a suffragette movement and how exclusive they were, um
Speaker 1: even to the point that they were taking down black
Speaker 1: men for having those before them, you know, and some
Speaker 1: of the things that was said. It was just really
Speaker 1: horrifying and exclusionary. Yeah. Yeah, And I have to say
Speaker 1: something also horrifying is when I was researching this well,
Speaker 1: I got really disheartened with all the top results because
Speaker 1: I mean, like the first two were you know, feminism yea.
Speaker 1: The rest of them are all like anti feminist, um
Speaker 1: women against feminism, minimist what uh minimists. I still can't.
Speaker 1: I'm like even make say it, like yeah, why y'all.
Speaker 1: I love the parks and Ruck though episode I don't
Speaker 1: know did you watch parts yeah, and the last like
Speaker 1: couple of I think it's the last season and which
Speaker 1: the menimist come and fight for um Ben because he's like,
Speaker 1: let Ben speak and she's like I just let him
Speaker 1: speak and he was like, okay, we just wrote our
Speaker 1: bikes here. And it was just like a whole like
Speaker 1: comical of like calm down, like you want to talk
Speaker 1: about being enraged. This is one of those moments about
Speaker 1: being a like a snowflake, as you can say, oh no, um,
Speaker 1: we have some more for you listeners, but first we're
Speaker 1: gonna pause for a quick break for a word from
Speaker 1: our sponsor, and we're back. Thank you sponsor. So one
Speaker 1: of the things, um, when I mentioned at the top,
Speaker 1: there's seems to be some confusion, right. One of the
Speaker 1: areas of confusion around feminism right now has to do
Speaker 1: with what wave are in right, and just really quickly,
Speaker 1: the use of waves to describe feminism is a little
Speaker 1: misleading because it suggests that feminism is a monolith and
Speaker 1: that these monolithts crust and fall at clear points, which
Speaker 1: is not the case. It's also confusing because waves took
Speaker 1: place at different times around the world, so sometimes in
Speaker 1: different orders, like second wave feminism in America is equivalent
Speaker 1: to third wave in Europe, things like that. Um, So,
Speaker 1: according to a lot of folks, modern feminism is not
Speaker 1: in the fourth wave, like there's no wave, it's just
Speaker 1: intersectional feminism right now. Maybe it's a continuation of the
Speaker 1: third wave. There are a couple of things that are
Speaker 1: cornerstones of intersectional this third slash fourth wave of feminism, um, queerness,
Speaker 1: body and sex, positivity and trans inclusivity. Right. And another
Speaker 1: important aspect of it is that a lot of it
Speaker 1: takes place on wine like hashtag me two, or or
Speaker 1: it's conceived online like the Women's March. It's also largely
Speaker 1: concerned with justice for women and other marginalized groups, and
Speaker 1: some internet rolls tried to launch a fourth wave of
Speaker 1: feminism that was pro sexualization, pro skinny, and anti fats. Really, yeah,
Speaker 1: were they men these roles or was it assume? But yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I'm sure probably. I mean the big back
Speaker 1: and forth about the pro skinny anti fat has been
Speaker 1: a thing back and forth for a little while. Um,
Speaker 1: the whole gap challenge and all of that. I know
Speaker 1: that happened like three years ago, that right, Yeah, And
Speaker 1: it was just a whole like back and forth and
Speaker 1: it's really sad more than anything else. But uh, and
Speaker 1: I know it was a lot of young teenage girls
Speaker 1: that was coming on to that, So I just wondered
Speaker 1: if it was actually created by men or not. Well,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I think we did an episode on
Speaker 1: that forever ago, and I said I would have totally
Speaker 1: done that. I was not again bad, right, And it's
Speaker 1: that has everything to do with once again self esteem
Speaker 1: and self worth and as trickles down to so many things.
Speaker 1: And I will say, like, as a bad feminist, I
Speaker 1: remember being in middle school and saying to my family
Speaker 1: that I would follow my husband or follow my father,
Speaker 1: because I trust you. Why wouldn't I that's what women do,
Speaker 1: and thinking about that that's so embarrassing. Yeah, it kind
Speaker 1: of makes me choke a little bit, like I'm like, oh, um,
Speaker 1: because that's what we I think it's loyalty and not
Speaker 1: trusting ourselves in our own opinions. And don't get me wrong,
Speaker 1: I have a really great relationship with my father. He's
Speaker 1: a good man and I do trust him. But there's
Speaker 1: a difference between talking things through and trusting and just
Speaker 1: being like blindly following right. So Yeah. Another thing we
Speaker 1: wanted to put in here is feminism around the world
Speaker 1: because it does happen at different times, different places in
Speaker 1: different ways. Um and like Western feminism largely forgets that
Speaker 1: there are feminism. Wait, there's things outside of the US
Speaker 1: that happened. What are you talking about? What? Um so?
Speaker 1: For instance, after me too in the US, similar hashtags
Speaker 1: went viral around the world in India, China, Spain, Italy, France, Canada, Pakistan, Philippines.
Speaker 1: Um And then we wanted to briefly touch on femicide
Speaker 1: and um. I think it's something important that we don't
Speaker 1: talk about enough and people don't understand enough and when
Speaker 1: I've brought this term ut people don't actually know what
Speaker 1: I am talking about. So, according to the Stop Violence
Speaker 1: dot Org, femicide the term originating in the nineteen seventies,
Speaker 1: emerging in feminist scholarship to distinguish that gender motivated killings
Speaker 1: of women rooted in discrimination and systematic violence from homicide generally,
Speaker 1: and in about the early nineteen nineties kind of shifted
Speaker 1: to the killing of women by men motivated by hate, contempt, pleasure,
Speaker 1: or the assumption of ownership of women UM and then
Speaker 1: it continued to expand to the misogynistic killing of women
Speaker 1: by men, So it kind of gotten simplified into this
Speaker 1: is what this is UM and the definition of femicide
Speaker 1: has changed throughout the last fifty years since it was
Speaker 1: first originated. UM and it's just demonstrate an attempt to
Speaker 1: find a term to cover all gender related killings women.
Speaker 1: And it's motivated by systematic discrimination against and devaluing of
Speaker 1: women and girls. So that's the whole idea is they're
Speaker 1: killing because you are female or identify as female, and
Speaker 1: therefore you don't deserve a PC and d UM and
Speaker 1: it recently it's been talked about in relations to deaths
Speaker 1: due to partner violence. And and that's something that I'm
Speaker 1: you know, you're not talked about. I'm very passionate about
Speaker 1: and discussing about partner violence, domestic violence. And according to
Speaker 1: the CDC in two thousand seventeen, more than fifty of
Speaker 1: the female related deaths were related to partner violence, right,
Speaker 1: and you hear about it more and more every day. UM.
Speaker 1: And while these include the killing of women and girls
Speaker 1: as a result of domestic violence, the holistic conception of
Speaker 1: femicide UM includes crimes such as dowry related killings so
Speaker 1: called honor killings which is still happening, female and fanticide
Speaker 1: and increased maternal mortality resulting from HOSFORLD practices. And we
Speaker 1: could link that to today's discussion about abortion laws and
Speaker 1: abortion fans, because obviously this is a big concern of
Speaker 1: what these laws are indicating and what could result is
Speaker 1: more maternal deaths UM. And we already know people of color,
Speaker 1: black women are more likely to die from the lack
Speaker 1: of health care, from the lack of medical attention, So
Speaker 1: this is really really problematic. And so the discussion of femicides,
Speaker 1: are we enabling them more and more? And this is
Speaker 1: again I think why I get really passionate when we
Speaker 1: talk about feminism as a need and it should be
Speaker 1: called feminism. It needs a label. It needs a title
Speaker 1: because it's too big to just generalize all the feminism
Speaker 1: because could be generalized in whatever. But the fact that
Speaker 1: it it causes enough of a UM reaction, Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: what we need. That's what we needs to happen. This
Speaker 1: whatever waver intersectional feminism time period that we're in has
Speaker 1: had some like cornerstone. Cornerstone is not the right word,
Speaker 1: like key events, key events, everyday Sexism project, um, the
Speaker 1: slut Walk Me two times up, Yes all women, um,
Speaker 1: Emma Watson's Heat for She You in Campaign one Billion
Speaker 1: Rising and the Woman's March. But it does have some problems. UM.
Speaker 1: Call out culture is one thing, just because it can
Speaker 1: make movement appear hostile, and it sometimes it is hostile,
Speaker 1: and it can keep potential allies away or silent. And
Speaker 1: this isn't to say something shouldn't be called out if
Speaker 1: it's wrong, but it is something that I think. I mean,
Speaker 1: I hardly ever tweet because I'm like people could read
Speaker 1: this and it's such such a like I've head the
Speaker 1: cat today, like oh, god right, I mean the whope
Speaker 1: I mean and I know that was a conversation about
Speaker 1: social media warrior is okay, um, and it's good that
Speaker 1: we do call each other out, but it becomes so
Speaker 1: hostile that it becomes uh feminist versus feminist or even
Speaker 1: to the point that when people are called out and
Speaker 1: hopefully they're done it in the correct manner, let's say, um,
Speaker 1: that they get defensive and it becomes a whole well,
Speaker 1: this is your fault, this is your fault, um, And
Speaker 1: then you kind of look at these same fact as
Speaker 1: it's writing. So writing seems impersonal anyway. So like if
Speaker 1: I don't have ten happy face emojis or wink something,
Speaker 1: it feels hostile, you know what I mean. But it's
Speaker 1: that's the problem. It's like you don't doing a text
Speaker 1: back and forth. There's so much leeway from miscommunication and misunderstanding.
Speaker 1: One misquote is just can take you down completely and
Speaker 1: again it should be something that is corrected. But there's
Speaker 1: such like a pitchfork and fire type of I'm coming
Speaker 1: after you mentality sometimes that it gets really problematic, um
Speaker 1: and almost disheartening and dangerous to a certain extent. And
Speaker 1: it's it's kind of a complex he wants thing actually,
Speaker 1: but you know, there's just been examples of people the
Speaker 1: wrong people getting called out and having your lives, so
Speaker 1: it's just something to be I mean, actually that just
Speaker 1: happened recently where an author who is a person of
Speaker 1: color I believe, um called out a trans Transit employee
Speaker 1: for eating and almost got her fired. So people went
Speaker 1: after her and she lost a book deal. Like it
Speaker 1: was I think over this weekend that happened, and it
Speaker 1: gets intense. You got to be careful. Yeah. Um. Something
Speaker 1: kind of related, it's slacktivism, since a lot of this
Speaker 1: does take place online. Um, you know, slacktivists taking pictures
Speaker 1: and like look at me volunteering right during this feminist thing. Um.
Speaker 1: And that also kind of relates to the whole what
Speaker 1: is that called commercialization of feminism, so companies being like, ah,
Speaker 1: we can make money off of this, which is kind
Speaker 1: of antithetical through feminism right there, right um. And also
Speaker 1: technology that because it's dependent it's dependent on technology, it
Speaker 1: impacts who can participate and exacerbates the classism and able
Speaker 1: is m because who can afford the technology you can
Speaker 1: who at the time who can use it? So that
Speaker 1: that's a concern. And another criticism I have seen is
Speaker 1: celebrities being at the forefront of a lot of the
Speaker 1: public perception or understanding of feminism, which means mainstream feminism
Speaker 1: is a fluent in white together. You and I talked
Speaker 1: about this earlier about Alissa Milano that this weekend when
Speaker 1: it was a sub strike, and I was like, what's happening.
Speaker 1: And there's been a lot of controversy back and forth
Speaker 1: on her and how it is ablest and it is
Speaker 1: very much heteronormative ideas um with white people. It's like
Speaker 1: white feminism, this is what we were talking about, and
Speaker 1: how it's problematic and exclusion tory for many others. And
Speaker 1: don't get me wrong, I mean you should definitely try.
Speaker 1: For me, I'm a little confused, you should definitely try
Speaker 1: to not have sex. I mean, like, if that's something
Speaker 1: you're passionate about, I let's go for it. But I mean, huh,
Speaker 1: but that's just me. That's just me. I'm gonna get
Speaker 1: some conversations on that one. And this. I don't think
Speaker 1: this will surprise anyone listening, but this whatever wave of
Speaker 1: intersectional feminism that we're in, has inspired a lot of
Speaker 1: back right, A lot and a lot of it online
Speaker 1: again yes, um, so like gamer Gate is a greed
Speaker 1: example in cells, we're gonna be talking about in cells,
Speaker 1: um the m r A. They're fantastic things, things like that.
Speaker 1: And this kind of brings us to a question, is
Speaker 1: why our people afraid of feminism? Right? UK you Gove
Speaker 1: survey found that thirty of women said yes when asked
Speaker 1: if they were feminists, which is up slightly compared to
Speaker 1: recent years. Five other countries pulled in Europe fared similarly.
Speaker 1: Among men and women. Only eight percent identified as feminist
Speaker 1: in Germany. Um. But the same study found that a
Speaker 1: much higher number agreed that women and men weren't equal
Speaker 1: and that they should be um, and that sexism is
Speaker 1: still an issue one. I think that's harder to to deny,
Speaker 1: like I think, and on a survey, if you see
Speaker 1: men and women deserved to be equal, I think it's
Speaker 1: easier to say yes, right right than just the one
Speaker 1: term of feminism right um. And it does suggest that
Speaker 1: it is the word itself that people are rejecting. In
Speaker 1: the US, and two thirds of the twenty seven thousand
Speaker 1: people surveyed said that they believed in gender equality Women
Speaker 1: in the working class are less likely to identify as feminist,
Speaker 1: and of women, surveys said it hasn't done much for
Speaker 1: women of color, pointing to that class, this white thing
Speaker 1: that we've been talking about. And honestly, I think the
Speaker 1: rejection of the word feminism, the fear of it is
Speaker 1: just been very successful marketing has Yeah, and we've all
Speaker 1: heard it before. A feminist is an angry man hating
Speaker 1: rab burning and that never even happened. Um ugly lesbian
Speaker 1: so o hey, homophobia too, who doesn't wear makeup and
Speaker 1: doesn't shave her legs? Again? How are these things bad?
Speaker 1: I mean, like the man hating, I get, um, but anger,
Speaker 1: conservaive purpose and you know what, I can go without
Speaker 1: a braw Oh hell yeah, oh hell yeah. I'm taking
Speaker 1: that thing off immediately, thrown across the way and just
Speaker 1: letting loose. And you know what, I don't shave my legs.
Speaker 1: I don't have to though I don't really grow out
Speaker 1: of here, but like, nope, not gonna do it. Why,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's up to you, that's the thing. Like
Speaker 1: if you don't want to shave your legs, right, Like
Speaker 1: I'm just like I don't want did about these are
Speaker 1: bad things, especially for women. Yeah. Yeah, when it interviewed
Speaker 1: many people and the survey said that they didn't believe
Speaker 1: this stereotype, but they didn't want to be associated with
Speaker 1: the stereotype, and they often also do a Seinfeld. I
Speaker 1: do not think there's anything wrong with that when it
Speaker 1: comes to the association with lesbianism. And we've talked about
Speaker 1: this before, but another part of this fear around the
Speaker 1: word feminism, um is our societal fear and punishment of
Speaker 1: ambitious women, which is kind of in general, the whole
Speaker 1: misogynistic talk in tone, within offices, within corporations, um, the
Speaker 1: whole idea of a woman being threatening if she's successful
Speaker 1: or if she's a sort of UM. Again, I don't
Speaker 1: understand why that's a bad thing either. Yeah, Um, I
Speaker 1: think it's a bad thing for certain people. Are they
Speaker 1: perceive it to be because they see it as a
Speaker 1: fear of changing the status quo, men losing power, changing traditions,
Speaker 1: destroying the nuclear family in the very fabric of our society.
Speaker 1: I read that multiple so successful, um, and then I
Speaker 1: I also think for for a lot of people, there
Speaker 1: is that fear that I talked about, the fear of
Speaker 1: not being good enough right to be to call yourself
Speaker 1: a feminist, or um guilt about things that you you
Speaker 1: like and you know you shouldn't and you feel you
Speaker 1: feel like if you say you're a feminist, that means
Speaker 1: you have to get rid of those things, or maybe
Speaker 1: even this whole wave monolith narrative. People who don't agree
Speaker 1: with the feminists they know on certain points may think
Speaker 1: that means they aren't feminists, right, but yeah, we were not.
Speaker 1: We don't all agree on like every single issue so
Speaker 1: hard and cut. Nothing else in life is like that.
Speaker 1: But yet this has to be like you better be
Speaker 1: one way or the other. You're just not. You're excluded completely.
Speaker 1: Like I know, we've definitely had some um of our
Speaker 1: listeners right in talking about how they enjoy this or
Speaker 1: they enjoy um tradition like this and you know, the wedding,
Speaker 1: wedding and performances and changing your last name and all
Speaker 1: that has been a big like back and forth and
Speaker 1: big conversation of what it represents to being tradition to
Speaker 1: you know, all of those things, and no one's really wrong.
Speaker 1: And I think that's part of the thing that we
Speaker 1: also need to talk about as feminism in itself. If
Speaker 1: a woman enjoys something and just thinking it's a part
Speaker 1: of her right as long as it's not like and
Speaker 1: I guess it's maybe too generic to say, but it's not.
Speaker 1: It does not, um prohibit anyone else's rights and happiness.
Speaker 1: Why is that wrong? That makes sense? I mean, And
Speaker 1: again this is a very generalized statement, and I know
Speaker 1: people are gonna be like, what, But for those who
Speaker 1: enjoy being at home with their children, is there right?
Speaker 1: You know what I mean? For those who want to
Speaker 1: be at work and allow their children to be at
Speaker 1: a preschool, is there right? Um? For those who don't
Speaker 1: want children, is there right? And for those who are
Speaker 1: trying to have children and are doing different avenues of it,
Speaker 1: why isn't that okay? Now, there's also the back back
Speaker 1: and forth conversation about and I'm just obviously picking in
Speaker 1: on the women and children and the lifestyles as of
Speaker 1: you know this this time and age. But that's the
Speaker 1: problem is that there there's people who are so cutting
Speaker 1: vizes like if you're doing this, then you're doing it wrong,
Speaker 1: and that's that's problematic in itself. Yeah, yeah, there's we
Speaker 1: have a lot of conversations to be had yes, but
Speaker 1: for now we have a little bit more for you.
Speaker 1: But first we're gonna pause for one more quick break
Speaker 1: for word from our sponsor, and we're back. Thank you sponsor.
Speaker 1: So we wanted to end with the question of why
Speaker 1: we still need feminism because I've seen, and I'm sure
Speaker 1: a lot of people have seen, well, men and women
Speaker 1: are equal now, So I don't know why we will
Speaker 1: do this. Well it's not true. But yeah, if we
Speaker 1: still aren't equal, we don't make the same pay the
Speaker 1: same work. We still tell girls that their value is
Speaker 1: in their looks and their sexual desirability two men. Um,
Speaker 1: and we do that all kinds of ways through our media,
Speaker 1: through our clothes, the toys we market to girls that
Speaker 1: for a long time have evolved around motherhood and domestic life. Um,
Speaker 1: we can't walk around the streets expecting the same level
Speaker 1: of safety or comfort or even just yeah, just being
Speaker 1: left alone, right, I every time I leave the same
Speaker 1: damn standards of the fact that what you wear m
Speaker 1: it causes whatever reactions from men, and it's your fault.
Speaker 1: I mean, we talked about in the schools and the
Speaker 1: dress codes is absurd and it goes after girls in
Speaker 1: general because they're distracting to boys. Sexism hurts everybody. I
Speaker 1: just I just doesn't make sense. But then yeah, and
Speaker 1: that goes back to the fact that it also prohibits
Speaker 1: the men metal gender to not be able to show emotion,
Speaker 1: to not be able to like dolls, to not be
Speaker 1: able to stay at home, you know, like things like that.
Speaker 1: It does hurt everyone, It does. Yeah, absolutely, we don't
Speaker 1: have the same opportunities. And despite being fifty of the population,
Speaker 1: we don't see that reflected in our top positions are
Speaker 1: in our media entertainment. We can't find out this to
Speaker 1: go to space weird strange. Um, the fact that me
Speaker 1: too exists at all. Um, the fact that we still
Speaker 1: have to justify why it has to exist, right, Both
Speaker 1: of those things right. Um. We don't have control over
Speaker 1: our own body when it comes to law and policies,
Speaker 1: still having to fight for it. Yep. Um. We don't
Speaker 1: have accessible child care, our maternity leave in this country,
Speaker 1: and we're still expected to do the care and the
Speaker 1: cleaning even though we have jobs. I mean, we could
Speaker 1: go on and on. There's still a lot to tackle.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's a lot to tackle, but there's a
Speaker 1: lot to um. Again, kind of how we talked about
Speaker 1: in the trauma. We have to change people's way of thinking. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, because there's enough of us
Speaker 1: who Even for myself, some of the way I think,
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh what am I? What am I doing?
Speaker 1: You know? Because in mind, in my own nature once again, um,
Speaker 1: I'm a caretaker and whether it's me being a social
Speaker 1: worker and caring for others or again, I'll talk about
Speaker 1: my apartment complex with my small group of neighbors. I'm
Speaker 1: the mom in that group and I have to make
Speaker 1: sure everybody's okay, everybody's fed. Um. I also struggle with
Speaker 1: the fact that I sacrificed my own self for that
Speaker 1: because I feel like that's what I'm supposed to do
Speaker 1: as a caretaker as a woman. You know, those things,
Speaker 1: And that's the weird mindset to come through. But that's
Speaker 1: what I was raised as as well. Like my mother
Speaker 1: would not eat until my dad had all his stuff
Speaker 1: and she was stopped in the middle of her mills.
Speaker 1: If he needed a second plate, then she would go
Speaker 1: get it for him. My favorite Christmas. Yeah, it's so weird,
Speaker 1: and I remember getting really angry now, but it wasn't
Speaker 1: necessarily that he expected it. It was just done right
Speaker 1: because it was just yeah, yeah, that was were the
Speaker 1: nuclear family. Yeah. In my episode on bad feminism, my well,
Speaker 1: it's kind of my episode episode, it wasn't mine. I
Speaker 1: sat in there that I used to make cookies for
Speaker 1: the office, and then I started working on the show,
Speaker 1: and I was questioning me everything, like what does this
Speaker 1: mean about me? I just like baking became this thing
Speaker 1: that I was examining, say about me? What do people
Speaker 1: think when I bring? It's hard? I mean and even
Speaker 1: to the point now, Um, when I'm with people, my
Speaker 1: friends and such, I like paying for people. I want
Speaker 1: them to come out with me. So I bribed them
Speaker 1: to come out with me. Um. And I know I've
Speaker 1: had some issues with men who are like, no, you
Speaker 1: don't pay that I do that, and I'm like, no,
Speaker 1: it's not a big deal. I want to pay because
Speaker 1: I invited you, you know, stuff like that, and then
Speaker 1: that goes back and forth the whole day. Who pays
Speaker 1: who doesn't. But it is a whole different mindset. You
Speaker 1: really start rethinking everything. And I love some hip hop
Speaker 1: you and I know this, but like a lot of
Speaker 1: the hip hop is very obviously, very very misogynistic and
Speaker 1: girl against girl, like like I love them to give
Speaker 1: an love her, but she really does compete with other
Speaker 1: women a lot of the times. And you're kind of like,
Speaker 1: what why You're are all awesome? You and cardiab are
Speaker 1: great be friends. I can't we all be friends? Why
Speaker 1: can't we all be friends? And yeah, and just once
Speaker 1: again trying to unpack the fact that feminism it's not
Speaker 1: a dirty word, you know what I mean? Like it
Speaker 1: just just seeing people's reaction to that word alone is
Speaker 1: still shocking to me. And you would think you would hope,
Speaker 1: but you're right, like, Um, the conservative radio people who
Speaker 1: like people who are afraid of women essentially have done
Speaker 1: a good job and trashing this word as much as possible. UM.
Speaker 1: And I for myself, I have a I come from
Speaker 1: a small conservative town, and a lot of my friends, UM,
Speaker 1: who have very conservative parents but have become liberal as
Speaker 1: they've kind of gotten older. Um, and they still hesitate
Speaker 1: to call themselves feminists, even though I'm like, no, you are.
Speaker 1: But they're like afraid of the word. They're afraid of
Speaker 1: how people will view them when they themselves. Still remember
Speaker 1: in college having to discussion with a friend of mine
Speaker 1: and she was like, I just don't want your thought.
Speaker 1: I don't want to I don't want people any think.
Speaker 1: I'm like that, you know whatever. And I was like,
Speaker 1: what are you talking about? You know, you can't come
Speaker 1: you couldn't have come to college without feminism. You couldn't
Speaker 1: be here alone, you know. Like I was trying to
Speaker 1: explain all the minute things. I'm like, you understand you're
Speaker 1: able to wear whatever you want because of feminism, Like
Speaker 1: do you understand you really vote because of feminism? And
Speaker 1: it's just kind of they were just like, well, I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, you know what I mean. I'm like, no,
Speaker 1: I really, I really don't explain it to me. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So that's about where we are with our checking. A
Speaker 1: lot of generalizations in there with added subjects and such. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's that's the thing is, it's not a
Speaker 1: monolist um. So we would love to hear from from
Speaker 1: you listeners what what your brand of feminism is and
Speaker 1: what it means to you, And if you'd like to
Speaker 1: email us you can. We have a new email, but
Speaker 1: if you send it to the old email, it will
Speaker 1: still still come to us. One of our listeners on
Speaker 1: instagrams this is not as catchy as you think. I
Speaker 1: never said it was catchy. It is stuff Media, mom
Speaker 1: Stuff at i heeart media dot com. You know what
Speaker 1: we can make it catchy, dude, there's some kind of
Speaker 1: two never mind, move on. That was That was some
Speaker 1: cold rejection right there. Um. You can also find us
Speaker 1: on Instagram at Stuff I've Never Told You and on
Speaker 1: Twitter at mom Stuff Podcast. Thanks as always to our
Speaker 1: super producer Andrew Howard, and thanks to you for listening.
Speaker 1: Stephone Never Told You is a production of I Heart Radios.
Speaker 1: How Stuff Works. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.