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Fictional Women Around the World: Lauren Olamina · Stuff Mom Never Told You

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  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha, and welcome to Stephan
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Never Told You production of iHeartRadio, and welcome to our
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: sub sub sub sub sub segment fictional women around the World.
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  Speaker 1: Credit where credit is do with this? When I got
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  Speaker 1: this idea from our book club pic.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I was looking at this was like, this sounds familiar.
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  Speaker 3: Yes, it was such a good one. So I have
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  Speaker 3: read this book. It's been a while.
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  Speaker 1: It's actually a series, but it has been It was college,
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  Speaker 1: which for me has been a while.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, so just a note on that.
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  Speaker 1: But when I was reading it, I was like, oh, yes,
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  Speaker 1: I remember loving this so much, and I thought it
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  Speaker 1: was a really good example. It was given as an
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  Speaker 1: example of a woman with a disability, and since it
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  Speaker 1: is Disability Pride Month, I thought that was appropriate. But
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  Speaker 1: also our series on religion kind of related. I will say,
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  Speaker 1: as always it bums me out when we do these,
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  Speaker 1: but I had difficulty finding a character a woman, especially
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  Speaker 1: with a disability when I was researching this, other than
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  Speaker 1: like every hero ever has PTSD, which counts like I
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  Speaker 1: had some trouble. So that's not great. But this story
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  Speaker 1: does have a lot of fans, to the point that
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  Speaker 1: it is now a traveling opera, which is really cool.
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  Speaker 1: I was listening to the music. Yeah, it was really
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  Speaker 1: good when I was researching this, and I love Octavia Butler.
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  Speaker 1: It was one of my favorite because you know, you
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  Speaker 1: get assigned reading in school. It was one of my
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  Speaker 1: favorite assigned readings I ever got was Octavia Butler, and
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  Speaker 1: I actually recommended it. Lillis Breod too. I was on
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  Speaker 1: this podcast hosted by two young women. At the end
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  Speaker 1: they asked for a book recommendation, and I recommended that,
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  Speaker 1: and then I was like, huh, I don't know if that
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  Speaker 1: was age appropriate recommendation.
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  Speaker 3: Okay, well I'm thinking the same thing. I was like,
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  Speaker 3: you did what?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah? Sorry, to be fair, I read a lot. We've
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  Speaker 2: discussed this. We've read a lot of adult books as children.
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  Speaker 2: I was talking to my partner and he had read Tolstoy,
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  Speaker 2: I think, and I was like, yeah, I read Corinna
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  Speaker 2: in the seventh grade or the excelerat Point exactly.
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  Speaker 3: It is really dark. They were worth a lot of
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  Speaker 3: porns though, Yeah I remember it so fight yep, no,
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  Speaker 3: me too.
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  Speaker 1: All right, so all of that prelud decided. Today we
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  Speaker 1: are talking about Lauren Olamina, who is the fifteen year
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  Speaker 1: old black protagonist from Octavia Butler's nineteen ninety three speculative
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  Speaker 1: fiction Parable of the Sewer. For some reason, I've always
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  Speaker 1: said a parable of the sour, even though I know
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  Speaker 1: what you reap is what you so I don't.
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  Speaker 3: Know what why? Yes, please don't make fun of me.
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  Speaker 3: So I'm sorry. I'm learning all the time.
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  Speaker 2: This is one of those religious words that I know
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  Speaker 2: so clearly. That right, shocking, And then I forget that
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  Speaker 2: you're not you were like you grew up not as
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  Speaker 2: religious as I was, because we talked about that in Christianity.
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  Speaker 2: I'm like, yeah, that's this word and you have never
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  Speaker 2: said it, but I knew it really well, so that
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  Speaker 2: makes sense.
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  Speaker 3: Sorry, that was that was.
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  Speaker 1: Me.
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  Speaker 3: I do know what EU reap is what you saw, though,
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  Speaker 3: but whatever, now I know. I'm glad I looked it up.
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  Speaker 3: Even though you could have corrected me. That's good. I
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  Speaker 3: would have.
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  Speaker 2: I think there would have been a moment of like
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  Speaker 2: me just giving you a confused.
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  Speaker 3: Page, like, yeah, have I been saying it wrong?
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  Speaker 2: Because I want to believe that too. Well.
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  Speaker 1: The story takes place in twenty twenty four, which was
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  Speaker 1: kind of frightening. We'll talked about that more in a
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  Speaker 1: second and Lauren lives in a Waldorf community in the
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  Speaker 1: fictional Roblado, California, and due to issues like climate change,
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  Speaker 1: economic disparity, and racial divides, the US is an absolute
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  Speaker 1: violent chaos and a mess and pretty.
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  Speaker 3: Much a dystopia.
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  Speaker 1: Lauren is the daughter of a Baptist preacher and a
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  Speaker 1: woman who died in childbirth. Lauren comes up with her
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  Speaker 1: own idea of God, a god based on what she
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  Speaker 1: has seen and observed. She gives her belief system the
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  Speaker 1: name earth Seed. Basically, the core of the system has
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  Speaker 1: to do with the idea that God is changed and
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  Speaker 1: humanity's future is in the stars. Changes something that shouldn't
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  Speaker 1: be run away from but embraced in her mind. And
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  Speaker 1: we get a lot of insights into the character through
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  Speaker 1: her writings because she's an author too, and so there
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  Speaker 1: are excerpts from her work earth Seed the Books of
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  Speaker 1: the Living. If God has changed, then actively working to
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  Speaker 1: change things is spiritual godly work in her mind. So
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  Speaker 1: here's a quote. At least three years ago, my father's
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  Speaker 1: God stopped being my God. His church stopped being my church.
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  Speaker 1: As she shares her ideas, it becomes clear that her
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  Speaker 1: beliefs resonate with others and it makes her goal feel
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  Speaker 1: like it could be a reality. With the imminent destruction
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  Speaker 1: of her community hanging over her, takes measures to prepare
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  Speaker 1: for the coming evacuation. Her dad is also worried, but
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  Speaker 1: he's worried about a condition too that she was born
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  Speaker 1: with called hyper empathy, meaning she can feel the pain
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  Speaker 1: and pleasure of other people, and this was caused by
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  Speaker 1: her mother abusing drugs during pregnancy. It can be something
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  Speaker 1: that is debilitating, but also is something that gives her
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  Speaker 1: the ability to interact with others in a way that
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  Speaker 1: other people can't, particularly after the place she lived in
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  Speaker 1: is destroyed. It highlights and heightens her compassion as she
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  Speaker 1: encounters others who are lost in one way or another
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  Speaker 1: along the way, often accepting travelers into her fold after
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  Speaker 1: hearing their tragedies. Through her actions, she builds a reputation
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  Speaker 1: and people are drawn to her and her teachings in
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  Speaker 1: the promised Land of Northern California. She garners respect through
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  Speaker 1: her teachings and actions. For a long time, she tries
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  Speaker 1: to hide her disability, and on top of that, not everyone,
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  Speaker 1: including her best friend or on board with her beliefs,
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  Speaker 1: and I did find a lot of essays about this book,
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  Speaker 1: which is really cool.
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  Speaker 3: I love and one of them. Here's a quote from
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  Speaker 3: Tamisha A.
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  Speaker 1: Tyler. The person who would lead us to something better.
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  Speaker 1: A teenage androgedist looking black girl with a disability, who
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  Speaker 1: dresses like a man for her own survival, cares for
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  Speaker 1: those in her community through teaching and sharing her newly
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  Speaker 1: found religion, and who survives by any means necessary. Lauren
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  Speaker 1: shares her thoughts via journal entries, and in doing so,
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  Speaker 1: allows us to see through her eyes, offering shrewd insight
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  Speaker 1: into the world from her home in Robledo in twenty
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  Speaker 1: twenty four, the daughter of a Baptist preacher and professor,
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  Speaker 1: Lauren begins our journey by rejecting her father's Christian God
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  Speaker 1: in place of what she calls the God of change.
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  Speaker 1: All that you can touch you change, All that you
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  Speaker 1: change changes you. The only lasting truth is change. God
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  Speaker 1: is change, and she's literally aiming for the stars. Here's
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  Speaker 1: another quote Otavia. Butler's Parable novels, while ultimately a mechanism
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  Speaker 1: to provide commentary on race and gender in America, essentially
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  Speaker 1: serve as the coming of age story of Lauren Olamina.
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  Speaker 1: Lauren continuously discards elements of her identity in exchange for
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  Speaker 1: new characteristics that enable her to evolve and survive. She
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  Speaker 1: eventually becomes the shaper of a progressive, wealthy, successful, and
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  Speaker 1: wide reaching religion, Earth's Seed, acting as a quasi totalitarian demigod.
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  Speaker 1: Just prior to her death, Lauren sees her childhood vision
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  Speaker 1: come to fruition when Earth's Seed sends its followers into
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  Speaker 1: space to live aboard a starship and yees. She loses
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  Speaker 1: her family to a violent attack, along with most of
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  Speaker 1: her community, and she does spend time disguised as a
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  Speaker 1: man for her safety. There are things that are scarily
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  Speaker 1: reminiscent to today, like interracial marriage is stigmatize, women fear
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  Speaker 1: sexual assault, and a type of enslavement has returned through
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  Speaker 1: indebted labor. It is kind of eerily prophetic. In the sequel,
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  Speaker 1: there's an authoritarian dictator who uses the phrase make America
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  Speaker 1: great again, which Butler heard Reagan use when he was campaigning.
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  Speaker 3: Both still freaky.
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  Speaker 1: There is still ideas around race and racism being not
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  Speaker 1: easy to escape even after an apocalypse. There's stuff about
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  Speaker 1: the gender binary as outdated there's discussion around passing as
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  Speaker 1: a survival strategy, both racially and genderly.
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  Speaker 3: That's not a word I'm going to use it. Here's
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  Speaker 3: another quote.
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  Speaker 1: By creating characters that are able to pass as a
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  Speaker 1: member of a gender other than the one with which
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  Speaker 1: they biologically identify, Butler presents strong social commentary on the
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  Speaker 1: prescriptive nature of gender and contemporary society, suggesting that gender
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  Speaker 1: is merely a performance and has no basis in biology.
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  Speaker 1: And then another quote. If Lauren must pass his mail
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  Speaker 1: in order to survive, then what hope is there for
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  Speaker 1: black women? So there's a lot of talk about being
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  Speaker 1: a woman being life threatening. So here's another quote. Repression
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  Speaker 1: of women has become more and more extreme. A woman
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  Speaker 1: who expresses her opinions, nags, disobeys her husband, or otherwise
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  Speaker 1: tramples her womanhood and acts like a man might have
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  Speaker 1: her head shaved, her forehead branded, her tongue cut out,
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  Speaker 1: or worst case, she might be stoned to death or
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  Speaker 1: burned in her ability. This hyper empathy has been likened
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  Speaker 1: to several real world things. And I actually wrote a
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  Speaker 1: character like this too, And now I'm wondering if I
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  Speaker 1: was influenced by this.
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  Speaker 3: I didn't know because of her ability.
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  Speaker 1: She is very compassionate isability ability depending on how people
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  Speaker 1: frame it, and in it for everyone and not just herself.
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  Speaker 1: So she can even sense animals to a point. But
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  Speaker 1: there is some discussion from her too about the duality
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  Speaker 1: of disability. So here are two quotes. But if everyone
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  Speaker 1: could feel everyone else's pains, who would torture? Who would
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  Speaker 1: cause anyone unnecessary pain? I've never thought of my problem
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  Speaker 1: as something that might do some good before, but the
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  Speaker 1: way things are, I think it would help. I wish
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  Speaker 1: I could give it to people. And then, on the
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  Speaker 1: other hand, take my word for it bad bad idea
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  Speaker 1: self defense shouldn't have to be an agony or a
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  Speaker 1: killing or both. I could be crippled by the pain
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  Speaker 1: of a wounded person. I'm a very good shot because
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  Speaker 1: I've never felt that I could afford just to wound someone.
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  Speaker 1: And then there's also a lot of discussion from this
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  Speaker 1: around community as something necessary for survival, and Lauren goes
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  Speaker 1: from kind of a dogg eat dog mentality to a
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  Speaker 1: more community based mentality, and a part of that is
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  Speaker 1: pushed by her hyper empathy. And I'll also say, when
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  Speaker 1: I was researching this, a lot of nerds from the
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  Speaker 1: fondness of my hard fellow nerd connected to her because
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  Speaker 1: she was an avid reader and writer.
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  Speaker 3: So that's liked that.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I really recommend these books if you haven't read them.
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: They are frighteningly relevant right now. Like there's a lot
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: of stuff about climate change, racial unrest.
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: It's scary. It's scary, it's a lot. Maybe it's sill.
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: It is it is ahead of its time. It's not
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: often I hear that term and I kind of am like, yeah, sure,
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: but this one, I'm like, no, it's time do true. Yes,
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  Speaker 1: So go check it out if you haven't, I haven't
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: checked them out already. In the meantime, you can contact
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: us if with any suggestions, be they book or character
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: at our email, which is Stuffandia mom Stuff at iHeartMedia
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: dot com. You can also find us on Twitter at
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: mom Stuff podcast, or on Instagram and TikTok at Stuff
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: I've Never told you. We have a tea public store.
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: You can check us out there.
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: We have a book.
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: You can pre order it on stuff You Should Read
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: Books dot com and on Audible. Thanks as always to
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: our super producer Christina, our executive producer Maya, and our
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: contributor Joey, thank you and thanks to you for listening.
• 11:46
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