Latest / We Are More: Sisters Talk Faith & Feminism / Ep. 17: Can I Be a Feminist Yet?

Transcript

Ep. 17: Can I Be a Feminist Yet? · We Are More: Sisters Talk Faith & Feminism

0:00
Welcome to the We Are More podcast.
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My name is Alyssa.
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And my name is Bri.
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We are two sisters passionate about all things faith and feminism.
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We believe that Jesus trusted, respected, and encouraged women to teach and preach His
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word.
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And apparently that's controversial.
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But comfy.
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Can I be a feminist yet?
0:38
Hey everybody.
0:39
So that was my daughter.
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She's so excited that she got to be on the podcast.
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She's like, I'm famous.
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She has been begging to be on the podcast since we started.
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And just for privacy concerns, it's not my favorite thing in the world.
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But you don't know her name, so it's fine.
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So haha.
1:00
So today we're going to be talking about imposter syndrome.
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I think we're talking about several different things.
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We're talking about the idea of becoming a feminist or deciding that you're a feminist
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and kind of the journey to get there.
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And some of, yeah, imposter syndrome and some other things we'll learn about with us.
1:26
I think for me, I really struggled with the term feminist.
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I know when I was younger, I mean still an adult, but younger than the elderly age I
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am now.
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You are very decrepit and ancient.
1:42
Thank you.
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I'm not saying that I'm not.
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It's just the group of us.
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I mean, I'm 98, which makes you 110.
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Shut up.
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I remember telling mom that if I had grown up differently, I would be such a big feminist.
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And I remember her laughing and saying, oh, I know you would be.
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And at the time, it was still like, oh, feminist is such a dirty word.
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I would never define myself that way.
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I know.
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Because people don't realize that when you're in that really conservative Christian world,
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that is kind of a dirty word.
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The whole idea of equality is taboo because they think the stereotypical raging feminist,
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like burn your bra, all men deserve to die, kind of.
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Can I say that on the podcast?
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We've said many other things.
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That's the tamest of the things we've said.
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Which in my view is not true feminism.
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Because feminism at its core is everybody is equal.
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I don't think that men are terrible.
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We made a whole podcast about that.
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We did.
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If you want to listen to it later, it's called Why We Don't Hate Men.
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That's a good one.
3:05
You know what?
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I don't remember it.
3:07
It was a lot of episodes ago.
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Guys, as a review, this is why we don't say what episode number it is.
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We have no idea.
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We are always confused.
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And I never, like you edit the podcast, so you do listen back to them, but I never ever
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listen back.
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I don't want to remember my stupidity.
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I have fun.
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I said you're like cracking up and Nathan will come upstairs and be like, are you okay?
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Yeah, I'm just laughing at myself.
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It's totally fine.
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It's normal and natural and I'm vain.
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Yeah, we're hilarious.
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It's great.
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But I think the reason that we wanted to talk about imposter syndrome and why it boils down
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to that concept is just because of this idea that as we jumped into the feminist world
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and out of the more conservative side of Christianity, we still obviously have faith and consider
4:06
ourselves Christians.
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But as we deconstruct and move into a different phase, it's almost like we don't have a place
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anywhere.
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Because the feminist community is like, why are you still in church?
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But the church people are like, why are you a feminist?
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Yeah, it's very difficult to find a home anywhere.
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And that's really discouraging and I think that's a big part of why a lot of Christians
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struggle with considering themselves feminists or a lot of people of faith in general and
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why a lot of feminists stay away from faith.
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Because it seems like these two things cannot go together.
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Like oil and water.
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Yes.
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But is it that or is it that somebody along the line created that narrative to stop Christians
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from seeking this out, from seeking out equality, from finding this?
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Because when you look back, like the first feminists were Christians, I would think that
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Jesus would be a feminist.
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He trusted and respected all kinds of women throughout the Bible.
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He treated them different from how the rest of the world were treating women.
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And that should say something that should open people's eyes.
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Yeah, if we're truly following Jesus, we forget so often who Jesus was.
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We quoted a really terrible megachurch pastor a couple episodes ago, I think, who basically
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said that Jesus needs to be a tough man for him to respect him or whatever.
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But the reality of Jesus was that he was kind and loving and gentle for the most part.
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Now there were moments where that, you know, where he flipped the tables.
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But that wasn't necessarily who he was on a normal basis.
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We all flip a table eventually.
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I saw a sticker, I think I told you about this, but I saw a sticker on Facebook, it
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was advertised to me and it said, stop trying to sit at the tables Jesus flipped.
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I love that so much.
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Like let that sink in.
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Let's have a moment of silence.
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We don't know how to do that.
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Did you experience that?
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Think about that quote.
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I need you to know that was less than a second of silence.
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That's enough silence.
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Nobody wants to listen to silence.
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That's not why you tune in here.
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We're only six minutes in and we are so on track.
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I'm really proud of us.
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I'm so proud.
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Is it because it's really hot in this room?
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It's hot.
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Everybody's probably sitting there like, okay, what is wrong with them?
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And then it's gonna hit winter and we'll be like, it's so cold, it's terrible.
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I'm miserable.
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Although at least we can close the windows in the winter and maybe keep in some warmth.
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Perhaps.
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Sarah Bessie.
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We love her.
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I don't know that we've talked about Sarah Bessie a ton.
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Not a ton.
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Not like Beth Ellison Barr, our best friend.
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We do talk about her a lot.
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Sarah Bessie is the author of Jesus Feminist.
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I still need to read that.
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It's just one of my all time favorite books.
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I'm looking at it right now on the floor.
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Jesus Feminist, if you haven't read it, was my introduction into calling myself a feminist
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and being comfortable with that because she takes, instead of taking an extreme stance
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of saying every Christian should be a feminist and blah blah blah, she takes this very loving
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approach that comes from a place of understanding conservative Christianity, but also saying
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I love you, but this is wrong.
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This isn't what Jesus would have wanted.
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It's beautiful.
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Go buy it immediately.
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Wonderful book.
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She's really living out what would Jesus do, I would say.
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But I read a blog that they interviewed her and she said that she is a feminist because
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she follows Jesus, not in spite of, which I think is so, so powerful.
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Not a lot of people would say that.
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Feminists or church people.
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Well, and I think we think feminism in the church is a new concept and it's definitely
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gaining popularity in a huge way, but it's not new at the same time because you look
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back and there's all kinds of, I actually just bought a book.
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We've been really working on our Instagram lately and so we've been following quite a
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few people.
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All of the people.
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All of the people.
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And somebody posted about this book and it's called All Were Meant to Be, A Biblical Approach
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to Women's Liberation.
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And this book was published in 1975.
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A good year.
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But I think that just goes to show, and this is not the only example of that, and I haven't
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read it yet.
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I just ordered it.
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So we'll see how it is.
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But it's an example of the fact that women, Christian women, have been fighting for equality
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for a long time.
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This is not a new concept.
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And here we are, furthering the cause.
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In 2024.
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An election year.
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So unfortunate.
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So many signs out.
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I'm so tired of the signs.
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Oh my gosh.
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It's like there's a billion signs as you drive down the road.
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I'm scared.
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Well, in our area too, there's, I don't know.
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These people must all be running as a group for something.
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But every time you see this sign, it's a set of three signs and they're like four signs
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high and they've got 12 different names on them.
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And I don't know how that's effective because I'm not going to remember 12 names.
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Nope.
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I barely remember your name.
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I don't know my own name.
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Who am I?
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Where are we?
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Stop!
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I really liked this other quote in this blog that I read.
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The blog is called Girls Got Face.
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Faith.
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Uh oh.
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But the title of the blog was like, can you be a Christian and a feminist?
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And one of the lines from there is that this girl believes that there's a sliding scale
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of people's approach to feminism.
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And it often leads to people thinking they're not feminist enough or not recognizing that
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they're a feminist, even though they believe the things that feminists believe because
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they've just been taught their whole life that being a feminist is wrong.
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And I think that's kind of how I eased into it.
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I would say fairly recently.
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Just saying out loud, yes, I think I'm a feminist.
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One would hope we do have a podcast called We Are More Sisters Talk Faith and Feminism.
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But that's so ingrained in you that there's something wrong with that idea of feminism
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that women and men are just so different and you just have to accept that they're different
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and God made them different.
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The reality after we've been learning more about this stuff, there's not a lot of differences
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that are God given.
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They're mostly physical, human given.
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Galatians 3.28.
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You want me to read it and stumble over it?
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I would love that.
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Okay.
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There's neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for
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you are all one in Christ Jesus.
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That's it, ladies and gentlemen.
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People use the Bible to say what they want it to say, right?
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And we've talked about some translation bias before and how that affects the way that women
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get treated.
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But I've been reading this book and it's so if you grew up in the very conservative Christian
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church, you probably heard of the author Grace Livingston Hill.
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Oh, Grace.
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She was the Christian romance author like early 1900s.
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Sounds a little dirty.
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It was not.
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Let me just tell you.
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But it was one of the few of that type of books that I was allowed to read as a kid.
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So I read all kinds of her stuff and so I picked one up not too long ago and read it.
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And what was really interesting to me and now this was written a very long time ago,
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the time period was set where Texas was trying to break away from the rest of the United
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States.
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This ain't Texas.
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I know.
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Oh, down.
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That's Beyonce.
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I know.
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But they are trying to break away from the rest of the states over the issue primarily
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of slavery.
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And in the book, all of the people that are arguing for it are using the Bible.
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They're using the Bible to say slavery is okay.
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And that's not fictional.
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That's real life.
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That really happened.
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Absolutely.
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Yeah.
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She's just quoting arguments that happened back at that time.
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And just to preface this, she's very against it.
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It's not like she's for any of this, but I look at it in very much the same way.
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It's the modern day similar vibe, I guess.
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There was a podcast that I listened to.
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I forget the name of it, but her name is Blessing.
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And she spoke a lot about that because she's an African American woman and her mother's
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from Africa.
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Both her parents are from Africa.
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But she dives deep into that how people would use the Bible to justify slavery.
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Yeah.
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And I think when you have the benefit of looking back into history and seeing all those things,
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seeing that the Bible has been manipulated to say what benefited the people of the time,
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the people who were in power at the time, it's pretty hard not to draw a correlation
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between the two and to say women are being put down still.
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Certainly not to the level of slavery.
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But we as a people have decided that's no longer okay.
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But why is it okay to use the Bible still to justify women's subjugation?
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That's a big word.
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Thank you.
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I love the big words.
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I get confused.
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So Brie looked up something really interesting, just bouncing back to imposter syndrome that
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women deal with because we're told we're not good enough, particularly in the church.
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But this is a non church example.
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I was watching a TikTok.
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I know everybody's shocked.
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If you're doing some kind of drinking game, now's your chance to take a drink because
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I'm mentioning a TikTok.
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But it was in response to actually the Harrison Butker speech.
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They were like, this is what a commencement speech should sound like.
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And forgive me, I don't know who she was or what college this is for.
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But I think I did share it on our TikTok.
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I think I reposted it.
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But she was talking about this thing called bicycle face, which was like a coined term
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back in like the 1890s.
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And she said, think back when the bicycle was first invented, do they have that big
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wheel on the front and then a smaller wheel on the back?
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And eventually they realized that's not the best way to ride a bike.
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Maybe two wheels of equal size.
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Equality.
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That was the best way to do it.
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So bicycles got really popular with women because it was kind of a new sense of independence.
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They could get places, they could do their own thing.
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And the men didn't like that.
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They didn't like that they were gaining independence.
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In fact, some men feared that them riding the bikes kind of blurred the lines between
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femininity and masculinity.
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I know that sounds stupid now.
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That was true.
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So this doctor named Dr. A. Shadwell coined the term bike face and the symptoms were flushed
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or pale skin, drawn lips, dark shadows under your eyes, weary expression, clenched jaw,
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bulging eyes, contorted face.
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Basically just exercising.
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What I look like after I am forced to go to the gym.
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Or when we're walking around Disney.
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They're another drinking game.
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They mentioned Disney again.
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Which I'm sure men who were riding the bikes for the first time or just on a long journey,
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they probably had the same symptoms but they were just using them to freak out women.
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They also said that they were concerned about their sexuality while riding the bikes.
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That was a concern for them.
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Who knows what could happen.
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So actually the doctor that disproved this whole theory was Dr. Sarah Hackett Stevenson
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out of Chicago.
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She put the whole idea to rest.
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But anyways, this TikTok that I was watching, she related this to bike face is now just
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rebranded as imposter syndrome.
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Imposter syndrome is a hot button buzzword topic right now.
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Everybody being utilized to keep women down.
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Yeah.
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Well think about what a bike meant for a woman or what it would mean now, today, for anyone
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who doesn't have the freedom to do what they want to do.
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Who feels stuck.
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Right.
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It meant that they could go far away and make friends and visit them on a regular basis.
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It meant that if there wasn't a job available to them in their tiny little town where they
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could walk, that they had access to that job and could go to it.
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That maybe their entire life didn't have to be spent in their sitting room.
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And that's what it would mean for someone now.
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That it opens up all of these possibilities, all of these options.
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It opens up control of one's own life.
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And I think when women get bogged down by imposter syndrome, we lose control of our
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own lives.
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We can't say, I want to do this.
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I am going to be this.
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I'm going to make something of myself because we're constantly told, well you're not good
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enough to do that.
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You finally get that promotion at work that you are well deserving of.
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And someone whispers in your ear, hey, imposter syndrome, you're not completely qualified
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for this.
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And it's just a way of making women feel smaller.
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Making them feel underqualified.
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Even though maybe you are underqualified.
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Don't say this.
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But you have a brain.
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You will get there.
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You'll figure it out.
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It's just a way to knock down your confidence.
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Knock you down a peg.
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Bekkah They say that men are significantly more likely
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to apply for a job that they're not qualified for.
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And still get it and do well.
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Nobody's saying they're not going to do well.
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Whereas women will wait until they know every facet of that position to apply for it.
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So that's a huge part of the wage gap.
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Because women will wait until they already know how to do the job.
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Because we have imposter syndrome.
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Overqualified for it.
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And then they tell you're overqualified.
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So I read an article by a woman named Katherine Spearing.
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And this is on CBE International if anybody wants to look that up.
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I feel like you're always reading articles and I'm always watching TikToks.
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That's okay.
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We compliment one another.
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You are of the times.
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I've always said that.
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It's your youthfulness.
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Yes, my youthfulness.
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At the young age of 98.
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So this article is called Battling Imposter Syndrome in the Aftermath of Vocational Ministry.
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Oh my gosh, I haven't heard that word vocation in so long.
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That's like a college term.
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I feel like I'm back at Calvin College.
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Are you supposed to say where you went to college?
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I feel like I'm back at college.
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There you go.
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She starts this with a quote.
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It says, imposter syndrome is the result of structural in...
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She's going to have to read it again.
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Imposter syndrome is the result of structural inequality, not individual inadequacy.
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So basically it's because things are not made to make us equal.
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It's not about you.
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It's about everybody else.
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Well, like when you walk into those spaces that you feel like you're under qualified
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for, people should come around you and say, no, you're absolutely worthy of being here.
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Stop thinking that.
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You're great.
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But instead, if we do get a lot of, maybe it's not the people that you're around, but
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the media or what have you making you feel smaller.
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Right.
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But the author here says, so she's talking about, she was in ministry for like a decade.
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This woman was in ministry forever.
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And if you've ever been in ministry, I've worked in ministry before, not for a decade,
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but for a while.
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And it is rough.
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They say pastors are, they only last a few years at this point because it's just such
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a tough, tough space because so much is expected of you.
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It's not just while you're in the office.
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You are always in ministry.
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Yes.
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100% of the time.
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And I wasn't in a pastoral position and I even felt that.
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So she says that she was a youth director because we can never call women pastors.
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So is director of this.
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Director of the youth.
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It's the worst.
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And really she was a pastor and she goes into that, but she was called a youth director
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and she chose to leave because she was treated like crap.
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All of these other people basically told her she wasn't worth their time.
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And so in 2020, right before everything shut down, poor thing, she quit her position.
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And she says that she endured a decade in the Complementarian church that said things
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like we value women and want them to use their gifts, but then at the same time told them
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they couldn't be pastors.
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There's always a but.
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We love and I hate that but.
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Do you think Jesus ever was like, I love you, but you're a woman.
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No, he was like, I love you.
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End of sentence.
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Yep.
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Period.
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We have a rule about that and I try to do my best with it with our kids where we say,
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you can't say I love you, but it's I love you.
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And then if there's something else that you're going to say, like if they're in trouble or
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whatever it's like, I love you.
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This thing you did was not acceptable.
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There's no but in the middle because what that but does is it says everything I said
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before isn't true.
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That but.
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So when you say we value women and want them to use their gifts, but you don't actually
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value women and want them to use their gifts.
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It negates everything before it.
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What you want is for women to do the grunt work that you don't feel like doing and we're
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going to call that their gifts, but conveniently their gifts can only be in youth ministry
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and for elementary children and serving the coffee.
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Oh my gosh.
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I saw this TikTok yesterday.
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More drinking guys.
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This girl was responding to this guy's TikTok and he was like, so I'm back in church and
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I've decided it's about time for me to find a wife, but I'm just really confused.
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Like what happened to all the women?
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Like back in the 1800s and early 1900s when women loved to cook and clean and this girl's
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response was like, yes, because all women love to cook and clean.
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If I could just stop being a feminist immediately, I would love to cook and clean.
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I'm like, do you really think that is my greatest endeavor is to cook and clean?
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No, my greatest endeavor is to lay in my bed and watch Netflix.
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Maybe.
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Order some door to Ash.
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Gosh dang it.
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But I think that people really think that you romanticize the past to be whatever you
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wanted it to be or whatever and men in particular have this rosy view of the 1950s housewife
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and she wore her pearls and she wore her pretty dress.
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She changed before dinner and dinner was on the table before I came home from work.
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This Leave It to Beaver style life.
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You really pulled that.
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I did.
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I don't know where that came from.
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We watched a lot of TV land when we were kids.
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We did.
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It was like the one appropriate channel for us little Christian kids.
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Grady Bunch, Bewitched.
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We were watching all those.
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Not to say they were all appropriate.
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They were not.
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I've gone back and seen some of those episodes and I'm like, dirty.
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But I think that stereotype of women get held up as like, oh things were so much better
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back then when women didn't know their rights.
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I don't know.
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I don't know what the argument there is before women figured out that they could stand up
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for themselves.
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Right.
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They unlocked the chains around their legs and left the house.
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So back to this article.
25:57
Circling back.
25:58
Circling back around.
25:59
She talks a lot about imposter syndrome.
26:02
So she talks about how she went to a youth camp with her students and they asked the
26:10
youth pastors to get up on stage so that they could pray for them.
26:16
The camp people and the students, whatever, could pray for them.
26:18
And so she got up on stage with mostly men.
26:22
And her title was not...
26:24
Youth Pastor.
26:25
No, Youth Director.
26:26
No, Youth Director.
26:28
So she got up there and they prayed for her, whatever.
26:32
And she said that it was very clear that she was not supposed to be up there.
26:37
And she got off the stage and felt that.
26:40
Felt like I shouldn't have gone up there.
26:41
I shouldn't have gone up there to be prayed for because I'm not a pastor and that was
26:45
a space for men.
26:48
So eventually she gets out of that, right?
26:51
So she leaves.
26:52
Why is it okay for youth pastors to be majority men?
26:59
Majority of teachers are women.
27:02
That's a great point.
27:03
I think even in Christian schools, the majority of teachers are women.
27:08
It's okay for women to teach teenage boys about math but not about Jesus?
27:14
Yeah.
27:15
You can have authority over men but just not about Jesus, apparently.
27:19
That's weird.
27:21
So she leaves full-time ministry and she goes into kind of like the corporate world, right?
27:29
And she goes...
27:30
This woman, she starts off running, okay?
27:34
So she starts a nonprofit.
27:36
She's leading this nonprofit in addition to working full-time.
27:39
In addition to...
27:40
I think she writes two books, okay?
27:42
In a span of two years.
27:44
She needs to rest, take a melatonin.
27:47
That's what she says.
27:48
So she says that because throughout her time in ministry, she felt like, possibly told
27:56
people, I'm not 100% clear whether this was vocalized, but she felt like if people would
28:01
just stop holding me back, imagine what I could do.
28:05
And suddenly people weren't holding her back.
28:07
And that's not to say that imposter syndrome doesn't happen in corporate America and things
28:10
like that, but in this particular instance, people weren't holding her back anymore.
28:15
And so she ran full speed ahead to see what she could do.
28:20
She did all of these things because she believed that she had to not only do as much as the
28:26
men were doing, but do 20 times more than the men were doing.
28:31
And she needed to do it all in heels.
28:33
She had to run circles around because that's what she had to do in ministry to prove herself.
28:39
She couldn't be as good as them because if she was as good as them, she was failing.
28:45
She had to be a million times better.
28:47
She had to bring so much more to the table, idea after idea, and it still wasn't enough
28:54
for her to get anybody's time of day.
28:56
She talks about wanting to have more teaching time.
29:00
And she was essentially told, well, even the men aren't getting the teaching time.
29:04
So you tiny little sad woman that you are certainly are not about to get that.
29:10
I wonder if she liked being called tiny.
29:12
I don't think I'm paraphrasing.
29:15
I don't know if you guys have noticed this, but I elaborate.
29:19
Wow.
29:21
I've never known that about you.
29:24
Breeze astounded.
29:25
So she says that this frenzy to achieve was because she was held down for so long and
29:33
she felt like she was working at 50% capacity, even though she was still running circles
29:37
around them.
29:38
She still wasn't allowed to do everything she knew she could do.
29:41
And so when she was allowed to, she burned herself out to the point that she had like
29:45
physical issues because she was so burned out.
29:51
Has that ever happened to you?
29:53
Like experienced burnout because I get like tummy troubles.
29:56
I can't sleep through the night.
29:57
It's horrible.
29:59
Your mind just raises and raises.
30:01
You grow 75 gray hairs.
30:03
It's a big issue for Bree.
30:06
Oh, and then if you're Bree, you buy really expensive skincare to avoid the wrinkles.
30:12
I'm trying to maintain my youthfulness.
30:14
At 98?
30:15
Yeah.
30:16
I look great for 98.
30:18
You do look great for 98.
30:20
Shut up.
30:23
So she goes into some of the messages that she felt she was hearing in ministry.
30:30
And I think these are universal.
30:31
I don't want to specifically be like, oh, well, these are only for women in ministry.
30:35
This is for women in the church that want to do anything.
30:41
Women that want to teach, preach and lead.
30:46
Women that want equality.
30:48
And outside of the church as well, who want these things in their jobs, who want these
30:54
things in their marriages.
30:55
This is not Christian exclusive.
30:57
So she says these were what she was hearing.
31:00
How dare you want to teach and lead when that's a job suited for men?
31:05
How dare you want a career when women were meant to be wives and moms?
31:09
How dare you have opinions and ambition when you're supposed to be quiet and small?
31:14
How dare you step outside of your box?
31:17
How dare you suggest the world could be better?
31:21
I love that.
31:22
How dare you?
31:23
Like how very dare you?
31:27
Where's that from?
31:28
How very dare you?
31:29
It's Catherine Tate's variety show.
31:31
That's it.
31:32
You quote that all the- no one's gonna get that one.
31:34
How very dare you?
31:37
Brandon will.
31:38
Brandon will.
31:39
You're absolutely right.
31:42
It's such a powerful phrase.
31:43
And she's- she does say these weren't explicitly said to her, but these were the messages she
31:51
was receiving.
31:52
People say so much more through their actions than through their mouth.
31:57
That's a good quote.
31:58
We should quote that from me.
31:59
Brianna.
32:01
I think that's really clear in the churches that we have been in recently.
32:07
The one that we most recently left.
32:10
Now they were a little more explicit in their hatred of women, I will say that.
32:15
But there were a lot of times where things were said that you kind of just nodded along
32:22
to.
32:23
Okay, well I don't like that they said this about submission.
32:27
I don't like this about them saying women in leadership or whatever, but you kind of
32:31
breeze by it because-
32:33
That's been our entire existence in church.
32:37
Yep.
32:38
I remember in- when I was working in ministry, I had a situation with someone at the church
32:45
and just the misogyny that came out during that situation.
32:55
That again, there weren't necessarily things that were explicitly said, but it was the
33:00
words that were said were, well how does your husband feel about this situation?
33:06
But what that means is how you feel isn't important.
33:12
Is he doing okay?
33:13
Because he's your keeper.
33:15
His manhood must be hurt by this.
33:19
And what was said was, well it would be best if he sat down with this other person and
33:25
talked to them to deal with the situation.
33:28
But the message is, you tiny sad little woman can't handle things yourself.
33:35
And I don't believe you until it comes out of a man's mouth.
33:39
Yes, absolutely.
33:40
So it's what's being said versus the message.
33:44
You can say you respect someone until you're blue in the face, but if you constantly go
33:49
around disrespecting them, not listening to their words, not believing them, not treating
33:56
them in a loving manner, you do not respect them.
33:59
Right.
34:00
Well that's why I have so much trouble and this is what we've already mentioned Harrison
34:05
Butker once in this episode.
34:07
Butker.
34:08
But the issue that I had with other people's responses, like other football players' responses
34:16
to his speech, Travis Kelsey said essentially, well these are his beliefs.
34:22
He's a good guy.
34:24
These are just his beliefs.
34:25
And I can't change that.
34:26
I don't have anything to say about his beliefs.
34:28
He's not a good guy.
34:30
I just, any kind of female only submission is disrespectful to women.
34:39
And I recognize that's a bold statement.
34:42
But anytime you say women exclusively should submit, husbands have no need to submit to
34:50
their wives or to be a partnership or any of this stuff, that is automatically disrespectful
34:58
to women, disrespectful to your partner, disrespectful to Jesus himself.
35:04
Yeah!
35:05
Alyssa's going off today.
35:08
Alyssa!
35:09
It's too hot in here for this.
35:14
It's so...
35:16
I want to get all riled up but I can't.
35:21
So I want to read a couple of quotes from her, from this article.
35:25
I'm just going to keep bouncing back to the article because we keep getting off track.
35:29
Honestly, that's what we do.
35:30
We bounce.
35:31
We do.
35:32
So she says, as these messages dripped down over a lifetime and the erosion of my confidence
35:36
resulted in crippling fear every time I dared to pursue a dream, often the shame and fear
35:41
accompanied even the dream itself before I put any action behind it.
35:47
If I fail, it'll confirm what they believe, that women can't, that women shouldn't.
35:53
And how often, as women, does that happen to us?
35:57
Yeah.
35:58
You crush your dream before you even attempt it.
36:01
Don't even start.
36:04
I can say that for this podcast.
36:08
Brie and I have been talking faith and feminism for years.
36:12
For a long time.
36:14
And I remember sitting in the parking lot at my daughter's school one time, we were
36:19
just talking about this stuff.
36:20
We talked about it all the time.
36:21
And I have no idea what I said, but you looked at me and you said, so when are you going
36:26
to start your blog again?
36:27
And clue, this is not a blog.
36:29
I don't know if you guys noticed.
36:30
It's a lot easier.
36:31
It's a lot easier than blog.
36:33
Although the editing and all of the technology would maybe be a little easier.
36:40
I read articles all day for work.
36:42
I'm not writing a blog.
36:45
But my first thought when you said that was, I can't do that.
36:50
I can't do that because I'm not going to do a good job at it.
36:53
And if I can't commit my whole self to it, then that's a failure.
36:57
We talked about it at work this past week.
37:00
It's called self-limiting beliefs.
37:03
So anything that could possibly hold you down from moving the needle forward, learning to
37:11
identify those in your dreams and proving them wrong.
37:16
Like for us, we're like, how are we going to start our podcast?
37:19
We had all of the technology to do it.
37:21
We had all the wherewithal to do it.
37:23
We had the computer.
37:24
We had to buy microphones.
37:27
And essentially that's it.
37:30
And now we're here.
37:31
Well, I think that's really what it boils down to is, oh, and that's a great lead into
37:36
our next story.
37:38
If God has asked something of you, men, women, children, whoever you are, if God has asked
37:45
something of you, he will provide you with everything you need to get it done.
37:53
You don't have to go out and strive so hard to complete this task and whatever.
37:59
Like he's prepared you already to do it.
38:01
All you have to do is stand out of the way.
38:03
Yeah.
38:04
God prepared us for years.
38:07
I picked up Sarah Bessey's Jesus Feminist years ago and started reading and exploring
38:16
and just starting conversations with people, just starting to research.
38:22
And when it came down to, should we start a podcast?
38:26
Should we spread this message?
38:28
We had the knowledge.
38:30
I think something that's interesting too that's come out of this is people want to talk to
38:34
us about this because I on purpose don't talk about it if we're in a big groups of people
38:41
or whatever.
38:42
Now, sometimes I do.
38:43
I'm not going to say all the time, but I do try to not bring it up, but people bring it
38:46
up to us.
38:47
They do.
38:48
And I think that that shows this is a topic worth talking about.
38:53
It's interesting.
38:54
I think it's what we're supposed to do.
38:57
That's why we can't stop blabbing.
38:59
We're, yeah, we talk a lot.
39:01
So I think that leads great into it.
39:03
Now there's a lot more to this article.
39:04
Highly recommend it.
39:05
I think I said where it's from so you guys can go look it up.
39:07
So a really great example in the Bible of imposter syndrome.
39:13
The Bible.
39:14
The Bible.
39:15
Now there's, this happens a lot in the Bible because God asks a lot of the people in the
39:20
Bible, take Jonah, for example, he got swallowed up by a whip.
39:24
Yeah.
39:25
And then he disappeared.
39:26
Like we don't know what happened to Jonah.
39:28
What a crazy, like, have you?
39:32
The entire book is like two pages.
39:34
It's not short.
39:35
The dude got swallowed by a whale.
39:36
I know.
39:37
That should be a bigger story.
39:39
He lived in a fish.
39:42
He lived in a fish.
39:45
We're really spinning off topic here.
39:48
I'm hot!
39:49
But also we don't know what happens to Jonah.
39:53
He sits under a tree, the tree wilts and dies, and that's the end of the story.
39:57
I think secretly like reincarnation might be real.
40:00
He came back as a fish and swallowed himself back in time.
40:05
No, that's not where it's going.
40:10
So anyway, so a specific example of imposter syndrome for a woman in the Bible is Esther.
40:18
Now, if you don't know the story of Esther, she's a leak.
40:23
If you've seen Veggie Tales, I don't think she's a leak.
40:26
Actually, I have no idea what she is.
40:28
She might be, I've spent a long time since, there's an Esther movie for Veggie Tales.
40:33
She's a green vegetable.
40:34
Again, if you were a Christian youth in the 90s and 2000s, you watched Veggie Tales is
40:40
what you did.
40:41
So Esther has a very stressful story, frankly.
40:46
It's really stressful.
40:47
Yeah.
40:48
I, again, am looking off of the Jewish Women's Archive because they're really cool guys.
40:54
Highly recommend them as a resource.
40:56
So Esther is collected amongst a bunch of other young women to be presented to the king
41:06
because the king is tired of his queen.
41:09
Her story is tragic.
41:10
Okay, it's tragic.
41:12
She didn't really get a choice.
41:14
So Esther is kind of collected and presented to the king and we don't know a whole lot
41:21
about her.
41:22
Which this is, I just want to mention, this is not abnormal.
41:26
Think back King George, like crazy King George.
41:30
He didn't find Queen Charlotte.
41:33
You only know that from Bridgerton.
41:35
Listen.
41:36
They scooped her up.
41:39
They did scoop her up.
41:41
So we don't know a whole lot about her.
41:44
We just know that she wasn't Israelite.
41:47
She had a cousin named Mordecai who I think was a pea in the Veggie Tales.
41:51
Was he a pea or an olive?
41:53
I don't think there were olives in Veggie Tales.
41:56
I'm fairly certain he was paw grape.
41:58
Maybe.
41:59
Yeah, he wasn't a pea.
42:00
He was paw grape.
42:01
He was a grape.
42:02
That's it.
42:03
Okay.
42:04
Wow.
42:05
On a journey guys.
42:06
A really exciting journey.
42:08
Mordecai.
42:09
So she is presented to the king.
42:12
She goes to him.
42:14
He falls in love with her, decides that she's his queen, blah, blah, blah.
42:19
What I like about that part of the story is it's not presented as like she's super thrilled
42:24
that she's the queen.
42:25
Hooray.
42:26
No, she's a kid.
42:27
She's scared.
42:29
And she gotten?
42:30
She had gotten all her choices taken away.
42:32
Gosh dang it.
42:33
Not that she had a lot back then.
42:35
No, she didn't have really any choices.
42:37
So her cousin, Mordecai, he is kind of battling it out with the Grand Vizier.
42:48
Now he may have been a leak.
42:51
People are, if you haven't seen Veggie Tales guys.
42:57
I think he was a green onion.
42:59
It's a wild time.
43:02
So Mordecai and the Grand Vizier, whose name is Haman are at odds.
43:08
So Mordecai refuses to bow to Haman and is going to be put to death.
43:13
It's a bad time for the Israelite people under this rule, right?
43:17
And so Mordecai goes to Esther and he basically says, I need you to go to the king and fix
43:24
this because Haman, the Grand Vizier over here, is making life terrible for all of us,
43:30
not just me.
43:31
It's all of your people, the Israelite people, were being persecuted.
43:35
I need you to fix this.
43:36
You have power.
43:38
You can do this.
43:39
God put you in the position to do this.
43:42
Now go do it.
43:44
And she's like, what the crap?
43:45
No, I don't want to die.
43:46
He will kill me.
43:49
He will.
43:50
So that's how the story goes is that if the king didn't call you into his court and you
43:56
came anyway, he could kill you.
43:59
And she tells Mordecai, she's like, he hasn't called me for like a month.
44:03
I'm not doing this.
44:04
Get out.
44:05
No, thank you.
44:06
I'm just going to stay here in my own little corner in my own little chair.
44:11
And based on the time period, she's probably a child.
44:15
She's probably an actual child.
44:17
So going to talk to the king, even if he's your husband, forget it.
44:24
And we're not talking a loving, wonderful marriage here, okay?
44:26
And she hasn't seen the man in a month.
44:30
Initially, she says, no, I don't want to do this.
44:34
I'm not prepared for this.
44:37
I am not the kind of person you want to put in this position.
44:41
That's a self-limiting belief.
44:43
It is.
44:45
But Mordecai keeps telling her, no, God wants you here.
44:49
God put you here for a reason.
44:52
And this is it.
44:53
So Mordecai tells her, Mordecai, Mordecai, you said Mordecai.
45:00
Maybe that's his name when he's poggry.
45:03
Hey, guy.
45:04
So Mordecai tells her, look, God is going to do what God is going to do with or without
45:10
you.
45:11
You can get on the bus or you can stay here if you want.
45:16
And God will still deliver us.
45:18
God will still save his people.
45:19
But you won't have been part of it.
45:21
You won't have been part of the story.
45:24
And then he actually goes on to say, like, your family will die.
45:27
But you don't get to be part of the big mission that God is pushing forward.
45:34
And you want to be in that.
45:35
Yeah.
45:36
And you can because God knew you could.
45:39
And so finally, she says, all right, fine, I'll go.
45:44
Now it doesn't say a lot about does she believe that God is going to keep her safe or does
45:50
she believe she's walking to her death?
45:53
I've got to believe in that situation.
45:57
Even with faith, prepare for the worst.
46:00
Yeah, absolutely.
46:01
I would be preparing for death.
46:03
And so that's what she's walking into.
46:06
But God did what God does.
46:08
And he knew who he was putting in the right place at the right time.
46:14
I used to have a sticker on my computer.
46:16
It said, perhaps you were created for such a time as this.
46:19
And that's a verse from it's a paraphrase of a verse from Esther.
46:25
Women in whatever position you find yourselves, you were created for such a time as this.
46:32
You were created for today in the current political climate, in the current church climate,
46:39
in the current relational climate.
46:43
You're here because God knew you could do it.
46:46
And that doesn't mean that you have to do something enormous.
46:49
No.
46:50
Just because you're a woman or whatever, you don't have to be the president of your company.
46:56
You don't have to do all these major things.
46:58
You can just be.
47:00
And that is enough.
47:02
But if you do have those bigger dreams or smaller dreams, whatever dreams you have,
47:06
do them.
47:07
Well, the thing in having faith, it's so easy to have imposter syndrome.
47:15
It literally is everywhere in the Bible.
47:17
Every single person is dealing with it.
47:20
But at the end of the day, God told you who you were.
47:26
He said, you are my child.
47:28
I love you.
47:30
I created you exactly how I wanted you to be.
47:33
So any flaws that you see are there for a purpose.
47:39
It's like that song, I am who you say I am, not who social media says that you are, not
47:44
who your family says that you are.
47:48
You're who God says you are.
47:51
So when you feel that, when you feel like I'm not good enough to preach, I'm not good
47:58
enough to lead, I'm not good enough to be an equal partner in my marriage, I'm not good
48:02
enough to start a podcast.
48:05
When you feel that, step back and say, I feel this way, but what's the truth?
48:13
And stop listening.
48:14
Yeah, stop listening to the pastors that are telling you're not good enough.
48:19
Just because they're a pastor doesn't mean that everything that comes out of their mouth
48:22
is gold.
48:23
Heaven knows that's not true.
48:25
I've listened to some pretty crappy pastors.
48:28
We really have.
48:29
Some really bad ones.
48:30
Some really good ones.
48:32
And some truly terrible ones.
48:36
Well that's why when I presented doing a podcast to Brie, I was talking to my therapist about
48:42
it because I was like, what if nobody listens?
48:46
What if nobody wants to hear what we have to say?
48:49
I'm not some massively educated in feminism person.
48:53
That's not my degree.
48:54
I don't-
48:55
I have an art degree, okay?
48:56
What the crap am I supposed to do with that?
49:00
And she said, if it's for no one else, let it be for your daughter.
49:06
Let your voice be the voice she hears instead of the pastors that have crushed you throughout
49:12
your life.
49:13
I love that this is coming full circle right now.
49:16
It's just one of those things that- and I don't even want it to be my voice, I want
49:20
it to be God's voice.
49:21
But I hope that the things that I'm saying are what God would say to her.
49:27
And I hope they're what God would say to you.
49:30
You are strong.
49:32
You are worthy.
49:33
You are enough.
49:34
And there are verses to back every single one of those statements.
49:38
And you don't have to be a man for those verses to apply to you.
49:41
Absolutely not.
49:43
God made you equal.
49:45
And he loves you very much.
49:47
Do you see how we're weaving all- do you see the fabric of our lives?
49:57
Okay, if you have not watched my videos, really, you're a little lost at this moment.
50:04
That's how they end all the episodes, it's not my fault.
50:06
God made you special.
50:07
And he loves you very much.
50:08
I think we ended another episode like that one time.
50:11
I think we did.
50:12
Sorry if you were confused by that one too.
50:15
So to wrap this all up, we're gonna do little challenges for ourselves, I think.
50:22
If we remember to do them, that's really the question here.
50:25
Maybe just on this one singular episode, we'll have one challenge.
50:30
But we wanted to see if we could expand our reach a little bit.
50:35
And so our challenge this week is to have someone listen in Canada.
50:43
The whole country.
50:44
Anywhere in the country of Canada.
50:46
So if you know anybody in Canada, please do share with us with them.
50:48
If you know anybody anywhere that would like this, please share it with them.
50:52
We appreciate you guys so much.
50:54
We hit 900 downloads today, and that was just super cool that like 900 times someone wanted
51:02
to hear our stupid voices.
51:03
That's like 900 hours.
51:04
That's a lot of our time.
51:06
That actually, I'm concerned.
51:08
We said that last episode, hydrate.
51:11
Hydrate.
51:12
That's it.
51:13
That's it.
51:14
But thank you guys so much for listening.
51:16
Follow us over on social media.
51:17
We are on TikTok.
51:19
We are on Instagram.
51:20
Technically, we're on Facebook.
51:22
I don't post there.
51:23
I think Facebook is a dying art.
51:25
Thank you for that information.
51:26
You're welcome.
51:27
You can also find these episodes on YouTube if that's easier for you.
51:33
And we will see you next week where we talk about something to be determined that we haven't
51:37
decided yet.
51:38
I'll be honest with you.
51:39
I can't see you.
51:40
We will speak at you next week.
51:44
You will hear us.
51:45
Yes.
51:46
All right.
51:47
We'll talk to you later.
51:48
Bye.
51:49
Love you.
51:50
Bye.