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SMNTY Classics: The Radical Extremist Ideology of Evie Magazine · Stuff Mom Never Told You

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Anny and Samantha all Frome stuff, never
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: told your prediction by Her Radio.
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: And I'm back picking my favorite BRIDGID episode. As we
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: have said, there's so many to choose from, but I
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: feel like sometimes our episodes in Bridget's episode just sync
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: up so perfectly that I get really overly excited when
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: she brings her topics. And this one was specifically about
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: the publication EV Magazine, So the title is the Radical
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: Extremist Ideology of EV Magazine. And if you've listened to
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: our spiritual Trauma episodes or religious trauma episodes, you know
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: why because unfortunately they really missed up my algorithm. So
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: I had to bring that back as a classic as
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: one of my favorite BRIDGID episodes of twenty twenty five.
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: So again, please enjoy this wonderful classic.
• 1:06
  Speaker 4: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and welcome stuff.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: I never told your production by Heart Radio, and today
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: we are once again so happy to be joined by
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: the wonderful, the outstanding Bridget Todd.
• 1:27
  Speaker 5: Welcome Bridget, thank you for having me so excited to
• 1:30
  Speaker 5: be back. Before we started recording, we were reminiscing about
• 1:33
  Speaker 5: our local malls, and now I have like Mall or
• 1:37
  Speaker 5: Mall Madness.
• 1:38
  Speaker 6: It's like nostalgia overload.
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: Looks.
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: We actually Annie bought me that game because it was
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: one of my childhood games, Mall Madness, and we've talked
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: about we have to play this game. I realized I
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: do not remember a play. When we opened it, I
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: was like, wait, what we have to buy things? I
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: know that, but how do you buy things? Sometimes you
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: can use cash and sometimes you get declined. I don't remember, Bridget.
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: You should come down. We'll have a game night.
• 2:07
  Speaker 6: Yes, I'll bring dream Phone. That was my game, so
• 2:10
  Speaker 6: you have dream Home.
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: I have a blind date because any purchase that we
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: need to do that the mom. Okay, come down, sweep.
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: I have a Sweet Balley High game and a Babysitters game.
• 2:20
  Speaker 6: Come on, I'm very much the evening of my dreams.
• 2:25
  Speaker 4: Listen. I just have to brag, Bridget. I won our
• 2:29
  Speaker 4: dated game twice.
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we played a blind date together and I was like,
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: I don't know what's happening, but she ended up winning.
• 2:37
  Speaker 5: Is it a game of strategy or like skill or
• 2:40
  Speaker 5: sort of like luck?
• 2:41
  Speaker 4: Wait, Samantha, no strategy.
• 2:46
  Speaker 7: No.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: I realized that this guy didn't like football, so maybe
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: he would be into this character.
• 2:56
  Speaker 4: I think they should update it so you can have
• 2:57
  Speaker 4: queer characters.
• 2:58
  Speaker 6: That's my I bet they.
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: Have an update, have we I don't know if we'd
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: locked by that. We talked about all of the old
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: games that were very gendered and the ones that we remembered,
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: but like us, things like mal Madness really popped up.
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: My brother actually really enjoyed that game too, but he
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: wouldn't admit it. But every time he see me pull
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: it out and I would play by myself, Yes I
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: was that kid, uh, he would ask to join me.
• 3:18
  Speaker 7: Sometimes.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: There's something to be said about the games that were
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: coming out at that time that had like the very
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: specific technology that could be used for nothing else.
• 3:28
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 3:29
  Speaker 5: Yeah, like dream phone, like the I'm going far back
• 3:32
  Speaker 5: into the recesses of my memory here so might not
• 3:34
  Speaker 5: be totally right, but it came with like a clunky
• 3:37
  Speaker 5: plastic phone, yes, that you would put to your ear
• 3:39
  Speaker 5: and it would be like he's not wearing a hat
• 3:42
  Speaker 5: and he would figure out like, whoo, who had a
• 3:45
  Speaker 5: crush on you?
• 3:46
  Speaker 6: Based on like what this phone would tell you. I
• 3:49
  Speaker 6: think so the brand.
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: Girls talk who did that?
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: The date one, as well as truth or Dare like
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: that was their brand. They also had like magus I believe,
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: but yeah, they they made sure to capitalize on only
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: their games. Oh many a.
• 4:10
  Speaker 6: Real like gendered media empire.
• 4:12
  Speaker 7: Was it was.
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: But so you know that is that conversation we've had repeatedly,
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: like all the industries that if they specifically go after
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: women most of the times or young girls, they know
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: as a moneymaker. If we talked about that as like
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: with games, and we actually talked about that with magazines too.
• 4:30
  Speaker 5: Yeah, so that's actually a perfect segue into what I
• 4:33
  Speaker 5: want to talk about. And by the way, like I
• 4:35
  Speaker 5: didn't even connect this, but I was a voracious reader
• 4:39
  Speaker 5: of magazine, any kind of girl magazine in the nineties
• 4:43
  Speaker 5: I was getting. I got all of them. I also
• 4:46
  Speaker 5: loved a good catalog. I still have Delia's catalogs and
• 4:50
  Speaker 5: I thumbed through like it was a real like time
• 4:54
  Speaker 5: to be a girl who liked to consume media. And
• 4:59
  Speaker 5: something that I find really interesting is the way that
• 5:01
  Speaker 5: today those same like media spaces can really be used
• 5:06
  Speaker 5: to expose women to ideology that you might not even
• 5:10
  Speaker 5: like on the face, really recognize. We talked a little
• 5:13
  Speaker 5: bit about this in the episode that you and I
• 5:15
  Speaker 5: all did with about Candice on how she is so
• 5:17
  Speaker 5: good at using like a political conversations about celebrity to
• 5:23
  Speaker 5: really radicalize women. And in that same vein we have
• 5:28
  Speaker 5: to talk about this magazine called EV Magazine. I think
• 5:33
  Speaker 5: you have you all what's what's your familiarity with EV?
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: Right? So when I saw this was coming to our conversations,
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: at first I was like, wait, why does this look familiar?
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: And then I realized in our ten to twenty part
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: episode of Religious Trauma and Women that we actually used
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: some of their publication and it was one of those
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: as I was like, because I was not familiar when
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: I first pulled up into this article. We were talking
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: about you know, purity culture and sexuality and women and
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: all of these things within Christianity, especially Western Christianity, and
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: it was this whole like bed. It was twisting the
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: narrative a little bit about like, you know, people being
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: too sexualized has really really gone away from us and
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: made it so over the top that is no longer
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: enjoyable or da da da, And at first You're like, yeah,
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: this could make sense, and then as I read more
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: and more, like wait, who is this publication?
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: And it's EVY and I went through it was like,
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: oh oh, this is oh wow.
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: They really have dug deep in this whole like relevance
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: culture within Christianity to bring out something that doesn't feel
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: like like it's preaching on you, but it has an agenda.
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: And I was like, wow, So we were familiar because
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: in that same like of course, we wanted to talk
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: about that conversation. So I had to give a caveat
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: to our listeners be like, hey, so this publication is
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: specifically very Christian oriented and it's published by very conservative
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: people and they don't you don't know that until much
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: later into reading things in here. So that's how I
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: was like, okay, so we used them before. They're an
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: interesting publication.
• 7:11
  Speaker 5: Yeah, and what you just described is really part and
• 7:15
  Speaker 5: parcel of the experience of reading ev online.
• 7:19
  Speaker 6: You know, you might be like, oh, well this is
• 7:21
  Speaker 6: this is a reasonable take, like oh, I agree with that,
• 7:24
  Speaker 6: and then.
• 7:24
  Speaker 5: You're like, wait a minute, this is actually I'm not
• 7:27
  Speaker 5: so sure. Let's take a look at like who is
• 7:29
  Speaker 5: behind this publication and they're what they're about. So this
• 7:33
  Speaker 5: whole conversation comes off the heels of a really media
• 7:36
  Speaker 5: profile with the founder of ev magazine in the New
• 7:38
  Speaker 5: York Times. So a lot of what I'm going to
• 7:41
  Speaker 5: be talking about comes from that piece by Katie j
• 7:43
  Speaker 5: and Baker. If you've not seen ev Evie is a
• 7:47
  Speaker 5: I guess a women's media outlet. If you have seen
• 7:51
  Speaker 5: their content on the internet, you probably think of it
• 7:54
  Speaker 5: as a publication that focuses on pop culture wellness and
• 7:57
  Speaker 5: relationships for a female audience. But it has a distinct
• 8:02
  Speaker 5: conservative perspective that Samantha, as you rightly clocked, might not
• 8:06
  Speaker 5: be so obvious at first glance.
• 8:08
  Speaker 6: And this is a problem.
• 8:10
  Speaker 5: I'll get sort of more into why, I'm sure in
• 8:12
  Speaker 5: this conversation.
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: Yes, and this was something we were Smith and I
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: were just discussing about how there's all these like back
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: doors into getting radicalized, like content that you think, oh,
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: cyoga content, and then it's got this other thing it's
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: like lures you in.
• 8:32
  Speaker 4: So it's important.
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: To look into, Okay, what what is the agenda?
• 8:37
  Speaker 4: Who is behind it?
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: So can you tell us bridget a little bit more
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: about those things.
• 8:43
  Speaker 6: Yes.
• 8:44
  Speaker 5: So Evie was founded by a husband wife duo, thirty
• 8:47
  Speaker 5: three year old Brittany Hugo Boom with her husband Gabriel.
• 8:51
  Speaker 5: They describe it as a kind of anti Cosmo magazine.
• 8:55
  Speaker 5: They said they want to be the one stop shop
• 8:57
  Speaker 5: for femininity. That's from Hugo Boom, who is the public
• 9:02
  Speaker 5: face of the business. How the story of how EV
• 9:05
  Speaker 5: came to be in the world as a kind of
• 9:06
  Speaker 5: a familiar one for anybody who has ever shouted a
• 9:09
  Speaker 5: magazine or wanted to, you know, publish something. Brittany said
• 9:13
  Speaker 5: that she was a model for brands like Adidas, and
• 9:15
  Speaker 5: during that time she loved fashion and she loved pop
• 9:18
  Speaker 5: culture magazines like ll.
• 9:20
  Speaker 6: This was in the twenty tens, and that was, you.
• 9:23
  Speaker 5: Know, as somebody who was a voracious reader of women's media,
• 9:26
  Speaker 5: Like it was just a particular time for women's media,
• 9:29
  Speaker 5: especially online. You had sites like Jess Bell and The
• 9:32
  Speaker 5: Cut that were these explicitly feminist spaces that also did
• 9:37
  Speaker 5: a lot of coverage on like pop culture, women's health,
• 9:40
  Speaker 5: and politics. So like the women's media ecosystem at that
• 9:44
  Speaker 5: time really did a good job of blending feminism with
• 9:47
  Speaker 5: pop culture and politics. But Britney really felt overlooked by
• 9:51
  Speaker 5: this kind of coverage. She said that she had a
• 9:53
  Speaker 5: hard time finding positive coverage in this in this media
• 9:58
  Speaker 5: climate about things like traditional marriage and motherhood. I will
• 10:02
  Speaker 5: pause there and say, like, I don't want to discount
• 10:06
  Speaker 5: Britney's experience. I feel like in the twenty tens, I
• 10:09
  Speaker 5: read a lot of content about motherhood and marriage.
• 10:12
  Speaker 6: Like I don't know if.
• 10:14
  Speaker 5: We were coming up in the same media ecosystem, I
• 10:17
  Speaker 5: will just say, like my personal experiences that I do
• 10:19
  Speaker 5: think there's a lot of coverage about marriage out there.
• 10:22
  Speaker 5: I don't think that that's like a third rail topic
• 10:26
  Speaker 5: that is not being discussed in the culture. But that's
• 10:29
  Speaker 5: what Brittany says anyway. So thus the idea for ev
• 10:33
  Speaker 5: magazine was born. A stylish publication rooted in celebrating quote femininity.
• 10:39
  Speaker 6: This is from the New York Times quote.
• 10:41
  Speaker 5: It would be as escapist and aspirational as any other
• 10:44
  Speaker 5: mainstream women's magazine except Evie covers girls who would not
• 10:48
  Speaker 5: be politicians in power suits, but the type of women
• 10:50
  Speaker 5: who might compete in beauty pageants two weeks after giving
• 10:53
  Speaker 5: birth to their eighth child, which their most recent cover girl,
• 10:56
  Speaker 5: Utah influencer Hannah Nielman aka Ballerina Farm actually did.
• 11:03
  Speaker 6: The magazine's name is a riff.
• 11:04
  Speaker 5: I'm a first woman in the Bible quote Eve screwed
• 11:07
  Speaker 5: the world, Hugo Boom said, and this is a new
• 11:10
  Speaker 5: Eve who will save the world. So if you're talking
• 11:13
  Speaker 5: some like pretty deep religious vibes on that one, that
• 11:18
  Speaker 5: you would be right.
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: I I am not, okay. So I figured out finally
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: where that where we used it, and it was actually
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: for our women in magazine. We were talking about that earlier,
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: about how how how I'd mentioned like gender things such
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: as women's magazines really made a lot of money and
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: realizing after they started like the Housewife magazine, they jumped
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: into young girl magazines and teaching them how to be
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: wives and partners and such. But even magazine was in
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: that conversation because they do they talk about the whole
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: level of like have we over sexualized girls so much
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: that we are causing young girls to have complexes in
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: not being sexual enough like all of these things, which
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: is like, you know, sometimes we do need that conversation about.
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: Having balance in this. And then again, like I said,
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: I was like, wait, this sounds like a great idea, and.
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: Then you start looking at the ads and then you
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: start reading more into it, and the ads were like
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: return to femininity, and I was like, oh, oh, okay,
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: which sounds like the whole level of like, we're going
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: to correct the evils of women by making you real feminine.
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: But when we say feminine we mean submissive.
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: But it is something that we have to credit them
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: that they're making they understand what makes money.
• 12:32
  Speaker 5: Oh yeah, when I read that New York Times profile,
• 12:35
  Speaker 5: I was really struck by how savvy they were, how
• 12:39
  Speaker 5: media savvy they were, how smart they were, like in
• 12:41
  Speaker 5: terms of business decisions, fair right on the money. I
• 12:45
  Speaker 5: don't happen to like or agree with the ideology they push,
• 12:48
  Speaker 5: but in terms of like do they have the potential
• 12:50
  Speaker 5: to make a lot.
• 12:51
  Speaker 6: Of money, I think the answer is yes.
• 12:52
  Speaker 5: And Sam, you really cock something that it's even difficult
• 12:56
  Speaker 5: to really parse. But I think that one of the
• 13:00
  Speaker 5: reasons why they found some success is that they do
• 13:04
  Speaker 5: speak to issues that are like they like they kind
• 13:08
  Speaker 5: of have a point in some ways, right, Like it
• 13:10
  Speaker 5: is a totally valid conversation to say, like, oh, well,
• 13:14
  Speaker 5: you know, in a climate where women are told that
• 13:18
  Speaker 5: it's good to be sex positive and like it's good
• 13:20
  Speaker 5: to like, you know, embrace your sexuality, which is all great,
• 13:23
  Speaker 5: What does that what does that do to like younger
• 13:26
  Speaker 5: women and girls is it impacting them in a negative way.
• 13:29
  Speaker 5: These are great questions to ask, and I'm happy that
• 13:32
  Speaker 5: people are asking them, and like the kind of work
• 13:34
  Speaker 5: that you all do here on Sminty's is a great
• 13:36
  Speaker 5: example of that. But the way that EV takes this
• 13:40
  Speaker 5: like reasonable conversation and then like completely goes to the
• 13:44
  Speaker 5: extreme with it. And that's why you should really be
• 13:47
  Speaker 5: getting involved in like purity culture, and that's why your
• 13:50
  Speaker 5: real value as a woman is about like you know,
• 13:54
  Speaker 5: who you give yourself to. Like, like it almost kind
• 13:57
  Speaker 5: of swings back around this incredibly rigid understanding of women
• 14:02
  Speaker 5: and girls, and so the way that they're able to
• 14:05
  Speaker 5: really occupy that space of like, well, this is a
• 14:07
  Speaker 5: reasonable question, but then take it so far afield that
• 14:10
  Speaker 5: you're like, well, that is not a reasonable conclusion.
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: I think it's savvy that they did hone in on Hey,
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: I know, I know we can be like feminism is
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: bad and here's why, Like they also did that where
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: they're like, okay, by being feminists, what you're saying is
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: you're anti woman. Then it's just like a whole mind honestly.
• 14:43
  Speaker 5: Yeah, some of the positions that are advocated for in
• 14:47
  Speaker 5: EV are just like very extreme when it comes to
• 14:51
  Speaker 5: women and girls, right, like, you know, things.
• 14:54
  Speaker 6: Like women shouldn't it's not it's not.
• 14:56
  Speaker 5: Good for women to be working things like that, things
• 14:58
  Speaker 5: that are like anybody would look at that and be like, well,
• 15:01
  Speaker 5: that is a very extreme perspective. This is what dislikes
• 15:04
  Speaker 5: Glossy Poppy magazine is advocating for right and it's just
• 15:09
  Speaker 5: like a very very conservative and traditional perspective on gender
• 15:14
  Speaker 5: to the point of being, in my opinion extreme. Hears
• 15:17
  Speaker 5: a little bit from the piece, they say, Evie sees
• 15:21
  Speaker 5: themselves as an opposition to what they've called modern feminism.
• 15:24
  Speaker 5: Femininity does not mean feminism, which Hugo Boom doesn't define
• 15:28
  Speaker 5: as equal rights, but as a self hating movement that
• 15:31
  Speaker 5: is anti family and anti male, one that shames women
• 15:34
  Speaker 5: who choose conventional roles. Despite running two companies, she's particularly
• 15:39
  Speaker 5: critical of what she calls girl boss feminism.
• 15:41
  Speaker 6: Her interpretation of that.
• 15:42
  Speaker 5: Term, which went from broadly celebrated to roundly dismissed in
• 15:45
  Speaker 5: the twenty tens, is that it encourages women to be
• 15:48
  Speaker 5: just like men to succeed in corporate fields. Such messaging,
• 15:51
  Speaker 5: she says, has made women anxious, lonely, and unfulfilled.
• 15:55
  Speaker 6: Instead, she believes faith's.
• 15:56
  Speaker 5: Family and love, not casual sex, careerism ideological activism supply
• 16:02
  Speaker 5: the greatest satisfaction.
• 16:04
  Speaker 6: So exactly what you just said, Annie, Like.
• 16:07
  Speaker 5: It's these attitudes that say that they are meant to
• 16:10
  Speaker 5: celebrate women, but then what they're actually the actual conclusion
• 16:15
  Speaker 5: is incredibly anti women, right Like, And notice how they
• 16:18
  Speaker 5: put that, you know, ideological activism. No, no, no, that's not
• 16:22
  Speaker 5: gonna make women happy, Like okay, so I shouldn't advocate
• 16:25
  Speaker 5: for things I believe and got it.
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: I mean, you can just see how quickly this turns
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: into anti Trians narrative that fear of being erasing women,
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: which is a whole kind of laughable thing is like
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: feminism is in itself is like embracing women, like being
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: acknowledged as women as a person as well as trans
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: women are women, so they're being women.
• 17:00
  Speaker 7: So how is that a rasure?
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: Like there's so many like this level of like almost irony,
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: but that it works. And I don't know because the
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: few pieces, like I said, I read, they're very like
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: subtle about it. They don't want to come out full
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: force of showing that they are very very conservative because
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: they are trying to bring in all those leaders kind
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: of that same level of like when we talk about
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: yoga and crunching life turning into being conservative as well
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: as like the chadlife, because the initial idea is the aesthetic,
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: which this magazine has that esthetic totally.
• 17:34
  Speaker 5: And I mean this is a little bit of a
• 17:36
  Speaker 5: non sequitur, but I personally have to be real careful
• 17:40
  Speaker 5: because like I am someone who cares a lot about nutrition, right,
• 17:44
  Speaker 5: Like I am right now trying to you know, up
• 17:48
  Speaker 5: my physical health through nutrition and exercise. I when you
• 17:54
  Speaker 5: are like searching Instagram or TikTok for that kind of content,
• 17:58
  Speaker 5: the way algorithms are like, oh, oh you like nutrition, huh, well,
• 18:03
  Speaker 5: how would you like some? And then it's just extremist rhetoric,
• 18:07
  Speaker 5: extremist rhetoric, extremist rhetoric. So like I have to be
• 18:10
  Speaker 5: really careful because like I do care about nutrition, and
• 18:13
  Speaker 5: it definitely these algorithms clocked it. If like that is
• 18:16
  Speaker 5: an interest of yours. We need to be surfacing you
• 18:19
  Speaker 5: up ever increasing extreme content and like next thing, you know,
• 18:24
  Speaker 5: it's like and then certainly you're anti vacts and then
• 18:27
  Speaker 5: certainly you're anti trans It's like whoa I'm just trying to,
• 18:30
  Speaker 5: you know, get more protein in my diet.
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: And relax, right, I just want to like be healthy.
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: I don't, I don't know what would just happened.
• 18:37
  Speaker 6: I don't.
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: I don't need you to tell me that all these chemicals,
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: which are just nutrients are killing me.
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: What's happening exactly. I think they really landed.
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: On something with these pages, though, that they are able
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: to use what we kind of always have seen, Like
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: the magazines in general have always been about teaching girls
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: to be better some or that you're not good enough.
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: You're not if you want to hit these goals, this
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: is what you need to do. And EV's like that
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: perfect layout for that.
• 19:08
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 19:08
  Speaker 5: And I think that especially, you know, it doesn't surprise
• 19:12
  Speaker 5: me that the founder of EV really sees herself as
• 19:15
  Speaker 5: in opposition to like the girl boss era of the
• 19:19
  Speaker 5: twenty tens, and I think was really serving women, women
• 19:24
  Speaker 5: like myself, who were looking for something and they and
• 19:29
  Speaker 5: I think this kind of girl boss feminism filled that
• 19:33
  Speaker 5: gap and tried to be like, well, is what you're
• 19:34
  Speaker 5: looking for? A corner office and lots of money, because
• 19:37
  Speaker 5: like here's you could have that, and I this is
• 19:39
  Speaker 5: where I have to say, like, I kind of agree
• 19:41
  Speaker 5: with what's hugo Woman a little bit. I think that
• 19:44
  Speaker 5: like in the twenty tens, feminism and the conversation around women,
• 19:49
  Speaker 5: and like our liberation really got co opted by this
• 19:53
  Speaker 5: kind of lean in Girl Boss Vibe, where wealthy white
• 19:56
  Speaker 5: women were really given the mic and they used that
• 19:59
  Speaker 5: Mica tell that like, liberation was having a corner office,
• 20:03
  Speaker 5: kicking butt at work, having the money to pay someone
• 20:07
  Speaker 5: else to watch.
• 20:07
  Speaker 6: Your kids while you slay in the boardroom.
• 20:09
  Speaker 5: Blah blah blah blah blah, and that was really empty.
• 20:12
  Speaker 6: And I think ten.
• 20:13
  Speaker 5: Years later, I would argue that we are still reeling
• 20:16
  Speaker 5: and feeling the fallout from how empty of a promise
• 20:21
  Speaker 5: of liberation that ended up being. But I think nothing
• 20:24
  Speaker 5: has really stepped in to fill that gap. And so
• 20:26
  Speaker 5: then you have media outlets like Evie responding to this
• 20:30
  Speaker 5: actual need in a marginalized community, a community of women,
• 20:34
  Speaker 5: saying like, Okay, well, kicking butt at work did not
• 20:36
  Speaker 5: really lead to liberation, so what will you know. There
• 20:39
  Speaker 5: is a truism about extremist content that, like they are
• 20:43
  Speaker 5: so good at identifying existing actual gaps that people need
• 20:48
  Speaker 5: filled and then filling those gaps with their ideological content.
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: It's so funny that when you read and see this
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: level of cyclical actions, like the way you've been told
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: so hard, it kind of is that layer of like
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: us not looking at what society has done to us
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: in general, and telling us the only way you can
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: succeed is you have to give one hundred and fifty
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: percent of yourself to this, and if you don't, you fail.
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: Your failure is on you because you didn't try hard enough.
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: But you can't be called successful until you get these markers.
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: And these markers are the standard by society and capitalism.
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: So this is what it is. And if you are successful,
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: either you're going to be penalized in one way or another,
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: being told that you are greedy or over the top
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: or two ambitious, or you're going to be penalized because
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: we're you're going to fail in this moment and saying
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: that you doing these things has made you obnoxious and
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: impossible be around. Like it's such a context, but it's
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: the setup of society in that level. But at the
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: same time, as you were saying, like grifters and those alike,
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: social media have realized, hmm, we need to come back
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: around because people are starting to really get frustrated because
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: they can't hit that mark and they're exhausted.
• 22:02
  Speaker 5: Yeah, and I in that I completely agree with everything
• 22:06
  Speaker 5: that you've just said. And in that climate, I can
• 22:09
  Speaker 5: understand why a publication like EV telling women like, listen,
• 22:13
  Speaker 5: aren't you exhausted? Just check out of this whole thing altogether,
• 22:17
  Speaker 5: Like just get married, leave your job, have kids, let
• 22:20
  Speaker 5: him work, let him figure it all out, and you
• 22:23
  Speaker 5: just rich reak from public life like that is ultimately,
• 22:26
  Speaker 5: what I think that EVE is telling an entire generation
• 22:30
  Speaker 5: of women is that you should only exist in the domestic.
• 22:35
  Speaker 5: And I don't want to discount the fact that there's
• 22:37
  Speaker 5: real power in the domestic for women like that, that
• 22:40
  Speaker 5: there is power in that, no shame in that at all.
• 22:43
  Speaker 5: But I think that what they're saying is like, women
• 22:45
  Speaker 5: don't belong in workplaces, women don't belong in boardrooms, women
• 22:48
  Speaker 5: don't belong in civic and public life.
• 22:50
  Speaker 6: And that's simply not true.
• 22:51
  Speaker 5: And so I think that EVE is setting up this
• 22:54
  Speaker 5: alternative of like, instead of all of those things that
• 22:58
  Speaker 5: exhaust us as women, why not embrace these soft things,
• 23:02
  Speaker 5: have a soft life, Like I'm sure you've seen that
• 23:04
  Speaker 5: kind of content all over your TikTok, right, And I
• 23:07
  Speaker 5: think google Boom says this pretty much explicitly in this piece.
• 23:10
  Speaker 5: She says, I think more women want to soft life,
• 23:13
  Speaker 5: a beautiful life than feeling all this pressure to do
• 23:16
  Speaker 5: all these things.
• 23:17
  Speaker 6: And I can't help but really see that as.
• 23:21
  Speaker 5: In opposition to the reality that you just laid out,
• 23:24
  Speaker 5: Sam that like, yeah, it does. It is hard to
• 23:26
  Speaker 5: deal with all of these pressures to you know, be
• 23:29
  Speaker 5: ambitious but not too ambitious, make money but not too
• 23:31
  Speaker 5: much money.
• 23:32
  Speaker 6: Work.
• 23:32
  Speaker 5: But then it's a lot I like, I'm I really
• 23:36
  Speaker 5: deeply do understand why this kind of attitude and message
• 23:41
  Speaker 5: is very enticing, especially right now in a time of
• 23:44
  Speaker 5: like uncertainty and chaos and rising costs and things like that.
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: Oh and you actually pulled out something that I was
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: trying to look into for a Monday many I don't
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: have enough information, but the whole like the soft life
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: transitioning into red pill and content and what that looks like.
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: And I was like, oh, there it is, but I like,
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: there's not. We're still on the cusp of understanding it.
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: Like people are recognizing that as a sign like this
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: is that same like trail that happened again with the
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: crunchy lifestyle slash natural lifestyle slash yoga lifestyle into red
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: pill content. That soft life is that same level. If
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: you start watching who is to pulling it out and
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: who's talking about the most, you're like, oh, but it's
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: such an interesting level because it does offer you something
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: like is it the dream for me to not have
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: to work at all and worry about things and sit
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: and watch k dramas all day and maybe go out
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: to do some zumba and yoga. Yeah, have maybe someone
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: cooked for me instead of me cooking myself all the
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: nasty foods that I'm like, I'm just gonna snack today,
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: Like that level of like comfort of like this ideal
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: that used to be the way, but which is not
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: true at all. Because again, when we have a conversation
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: about like the good old days when the men weren't
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: and the women got to stay at home, and women
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: being like, yeah, I'd rather be at home too if
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: everything was equal, But that's not the case. And as
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: you said before, like people who are in the domestic life,
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: who are stay at home moms, it's a hard job.
• 25:15
  Speaker 6: It's hard. That's not a soft life. That's like, have
• 25:18
  Speaker 6: you ever been.
• 25:19
  Speaker 5: Around toddlers people who are raising toddlers and not getting
• 25:23
  Speaker 5: a break from it because they don't do any wage
• 25:25
  Speaker 5: earning work outside of the house.
• 25:26
  Speaker 6: They're not living a soft life.
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: No, in God forbid they have any kind of medical
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: needs or if they have like school needs. You have
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: to be at all these activities constantly, and you have
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: to show up to do like at volunteering there what
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: dear God.
• 25:42
  Speaker 5: So this is that is exactly that is exactly my
• 25:45
  Speaker 5: main beef with Evy, Right, they are selling women a lie,
• 25:50
  Speaker 5: a fantasy where we're in retreating from public life and
• 25:54
  Speaker 5: just like existing in the domestic, is this soft, easy
• 25:58
  Speaker 5: moneyed fantasy the kind of life that women should be after.
• 26:02
  Speaker 5: But as you said, one staying at home as a
• 26:05
  Speaker 5: companion sometimes and it's not soft and glamorous at all,
• 26:09
  Speaker 5: even like the people who perform treadwife on Instagram probably
• 26:14
  Speaker 5: like like you never see those women cleaning toilets or
• 26:16
  Speaker 5: cleaning baby puke off of their shirt, which is sometimes
• 26:19
  Speaker 5: the reality of staying at home. But in addition to that,
• 26:22
  Speaker 5: not working, not making or managing your own money, not
• 26:26
  Speaker 5: participating in civic and public life is not a recipe
• 26:30
  Speaker 5: for safety and security. It is incredibly risky to the
• 26:33
  Speaker 5: people that do this. The data is incredibly clear that
• 26:36
  Speaker 5: when women stop working, whether they have a kid or
• 26:39
  Speaker 5: they're a caretaker for somebody and they leave the workforce,
• 26:42
  Speaker 5: when they re enter the workforce, they are.
• 26:44
  Speaker 6: Going to make a lot less.
• 26:46
  Speaker 5: So if and when they do go back to work,
• 26:48
  Speaker 5: the data is super clear they're going to be making
• 26:50
  Speaker 5: less right. And so if you don't work or never work,
• 26:53
  Speaker 5: and you just depend on your partner for everything, what
• 26:56
  Speaker 5: happens if your partner passes away, what happens if the
• 27:00
  Speaker 5: partner becomes disabled or sick and they can't work. There
• 27:02
  Speaker 5: are so many ways that this life is incredibly risky
• 27:06
  Speaker 5: and insecure, And the content would have you believe like, Oh,
• 27:10
  Speaker 5: this is going to be soft and glamorous and lovely.
• 27:12
  Speaker 5: I wouldn't even have a problem with this kind of content.
• 27:15
  Speaker 6: So much if it told women the truth.
• 27:17
  Speaker 5: If it was like, hey, don't work, but also put
• 27:20
  Speaker 5: away a little money for yourself, or don't work, but
• 27:23
  Speaker 5: make sure that you keep an eye on your finances
• 27:24
  Speaker 5: and understand them in case something happens. Like if they
• 27:27
  Speaker 5: were more realistic and honest about the life that they
• 27:30
  Speaker 5: are selling. I wouldn't even have a big problem with them.
• 27:32
  Speaker 5: But they are not doing that. They're selling a very
• 27:35
  Speaker 5: enticing but dangerous lie.
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: Yes, and as we've been mentioning throughout, they're doing it
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: in a way that at first you don't realize where
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: you're like, oh, yeah, I can relate to this. Yeah,
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: But then you start to think about it, like, okay, wait,
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: what what did I just read?
• 27:57
  Speaker 6: Yeah? This is from that New York Times piece.
• 28:00
  Speaker 5: At first glance, EV seems nonpartisan, publishing content about daily
• 28:03
  Speaker 5: topics such as award winning red carpets.
• 28:05
  Speaker 6: And styling skinny genes.
• 28:07
  Speaker 5: But readers who click past hot girl health trends and
• 28:10
  Speaker 5: Adam Brody appreciation posts we'll find articles that promote positions
• 28:14
  Speaker 5: that are fringed even within conservative circles, criticisms of no
• 28:18
  Speaker 5: falt divorce and in vitro fertilization, for example, package and
• 28:22
  Speaker 5: a fun and approachable format. A typical EV headline amy
• 28:25
  Speaker 5: from Love is Blind is right to be hesitant about
• 28:28
  Speaker 5: birth control. Also, they're like super they're super suss about
• 28:32
  Speaker 5: birth control. We'll talk more about that in a minute.
• 28:34
  Speaker 5: But yeah, and so this is actually part of a
• 28:36
  Speaker 5: pretty concerning trend media spaces that at first glance seem
• 28:42
  Speaker 5: a political are actually very political. That is becoming much
• 28:46
  Speaker 5: more common online media matters That an analysis that really
• 28:49
  Speaker 5: showed how right leaning spaces dominate the online ecosystem with
• 28:54
  Speaker 5: content that appears a political at first. The analysis was
• 28:57
  Speaker 5: based on three hundred and twenty online shows with a
• 28:59
  Speaker 5: right leaning or left leading ideological bent. They found that
• 29:02
  Speaker 5: right leaning shows dominate the online ecosystem with substantially larger
• 29:06
  Speaker 5: audiences on both politics and new shows, and supposedly non
• 29:10
  Speaker 5: political shows that they determined often platformed ideological content or guests.
• 29:16
  Speaker 6: And here's the kicker.
• 29:17
  Speaker 5: The analysis, which looked entirely at shows with an ideological bent,
• 29:21
  Speaker 5: found over a third self identify as non political, even
• 29:24
  Speaker 5: though seventy two percent of those shows were determined to
• 29:27
  Speaker 5: be right leaning. Instead, these shows describe themselves as comedy, entertainment, sports,
• 29:32
  Speaker 5: or put themselves in supposedly other non political categories. So basically,
• 29:38
  Speaker 5: these online spaces that are incredibly influential get to be like, oh,
• 29:42
  Speaker 5: we're not political, we're not political, we're just talking about celebrity,
• 29:45
  Speaker 5: gossip and entertainment.
• 29:46
  Speaker 6: But actually they're incredibly political.
• 29:49
  Speaker 5: In specifically seventy two percent of these cases right leaning
• 29:53
  Speaker 5: ideological bents.
• 29:55
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: And one of those things that really scares me about
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: that in this whole compversation is like evy going back
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: to the name being like women were wrong and are
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: the source of all evil. Like when I was a kid,
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: I heard that like Bible story and I believed it,
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: and so like I feel like it's it's leaning into
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: a lot of stuff many of us internalized growing up
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: of this is the natural way of things, right, this
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: is women stay home, and they're they're they're kind of
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: selling like the let's get back to the natural way
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: and it'll be easier, it'll be nicer for you. When
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: all this stuff was like built, it was societally made.
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: But they're selling it as like no, we're going against
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: the natural order and they're doing it through look at
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: the celebrity pop culture story.
• 30:56
  Speaker 5: Yeah, and they're also that also makes sense as to
• 31:00
  Speaker 5: why they also sell milkmade style dresses. They also were like,
• 31:04
  Speaker 5: you know what traditional women might want to do, spend
• 31:08
  Speaker 5: two hundred dollars on a like frilly dairy dress that
• 31:12
  Speaker 5: The Cut describes as designed in the French countryside. It's
• 31:16
  Speaker 5: said to be inspired by the quote hard working dairy
• 31:19
  Speaker 5: maids of the seventeenth century Europe and as henmade with
• 31:23
  Speaker 5: quote luxurious organic cotton and one hundred percent feminine energy.
• 31:28
  Speaker 5: So it's like, yeah, it's very much like tied up
• 31:31
  Speaker 5: in this kind of quote natural feminine.
• 31:34
  Speaker 6: Honestly, the second that I hear in any.
• 31:36
  Speaker 5: Person or online place say something like oh this has
• 31:39
  Speaker 5: like the divigne feminine, I'm like, okay, bullshit. Like as
• 31:43
  Speaker 5: soon as I hear that, I'm like, oh really okay.
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: From the back of my head, I'm like, so child
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: labor is what you're talking about. That's the little energy
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: where they get SI paid two cents an hour.
• 31:57
  Speaker 7: Sweet.
• 31:57
  Speaker 5: Nothing says luxurious feminine energy like unsavory labor practices.
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: That's what I've always wanted to get that from us anyway,
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: So stay at home moms who don't get paid this
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: is like the same life.
• 32:09
  Speaker 7: I guess that's the feminine energy.
• 32:21
  Speaker 5: So in addition to all of this, more problematically, they
• 32:25
  Speaker 5: also have a fertility app. So you're always telling you
• 32:28
  Speaker 5: how they're really not cool with birth control.
• 32:31
  Speaker 6: They have a fertility app called twenty eight.
• 32:33
  Speaker 5: The app is backed by tech billionaire and like Mega
• 32:37
  Speaker 5: Trump thunder.
• 32:38
  Speaker 6: Peter til I gotta say, like, I simply do.
• 32:41
  Speaker 5: Not advocate for anyone using apps like this, just in general,
• 32:44
  Speaker 5: but especially not won backed by somebody like Teal. I
• 32:48
  Speaker 5: could do a whole episode. This is where I will
• 32:50
  Speaker 5: talk all day. I'll just say google him. Uh he
• 32:55
  Speaker 5: is like us, Like he's like if mister Burns was
• 32:59
  Speaker 5: a real person and also gay.
• 33:01
  Speaker 6: Like that's how I would describe him. And see there's
• 33:04
  Speaker 6: so much to stay there.
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: But yeah, less he was still better and like he
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: had morals. Les Luthor had morals compared to him.
• 33:14
  Speaker 5: Yeah, he is not He's a not only is he
• 33:17
  Speaker 5: a bad dude, he's also bad in some like ways
• 33:20
  Speaker 5: that if I talked about them here you would be
• 33:22
  Speaker 5: like that sounds like something out of a comic book,
• 33:24
  Speaker 5: but it's real. Yeah. So he's one of the fund
• 33:27
  Speaker 5: the one of the funders of their fertility app. They
• 33:30
  Speaker 5: grew interested in the women's fertility app space because many women.
• 33:35
  Speaker 5: Hugo Boom said, uh, or that she knew we're having
• 33:38
  Speaker 5: trouble getting pregnant, and she said that she wanted to
• 33:41
  Speaker 5: develop a product that would quote empower women to understand
• 33:44
  Speaker 5: our bodies through some fortuitous networking. They ended up having
• 33:48
  Speaker 5: a meeting with Peter Teal and they asked him to
• 33:50
  Speaker 5: invest in a wellness app based on the typical twenty
• 33:53
  Speaker 5: eighth day menstruation cycle. And Teal was like, is no
• 33:57
  Speaker 5: one else doing this? And it was like, no, no
• 34:00
  Speaker 5: one else and he was like, Okay, well sounds like
• 34:02
  Speaker 5: a good idea. A spokesperson for tel confirmed that he
• 34:05
  Speaker 5: invested two million dollars in the app and they raised
• 34:07
  Speaker 5: three point two million dollars in total. The app pushes
• 34:11
  Speaker 5: a message that hormonal birth control is bad for you,
• 34:14
  Speaker 5: Goodbye toxicity. One advertisement read for the birth control detoc
• 34:18
  Speaker 5: supplements it sells through the app. I'm gonna say on
• 34:21
  Speaker 5: my tech podcast.
• 34:23
  Speaker 6: There are no girls on the Internet.
• 34:25
  Speaker 5: I work with the producer who has a lot of
• 34:26
  Speaker 5: experience directly writing and reviewing privacy policies for digital health app.
• 34:31
  Speaker 5: So I asked him to take a look at twenty
• 34:33
  Speaker 5: eight's privacy policy.
• 34:34
  Speaker 6: And it wasn't great. Here's a go a rundown of
• 34:37
  Speaker 6: what he told me.
• 34:38
  Speaker 5: He said the privacy policy doesn't emphasize going out of
• 34:42
  Speaker 5: their way to protect users at privacy. Their section on
• 34:45
  Speaker 5: third party tracking basically says that third parties will have
• 34:49
  Speaker 5: access to your personal data, but disavows any responsibility for
• 34:52
  Speaker 5: what those third parties do.
• 34:53
  Speaker 6: With that personal data, so doesn't fill them with confidence.
• 34:56
  Speaker 5: They put a lot of responsibility on the end user,
• 34:58
  Speaker 5: for example, set your browser to refuse all or some
• 35:01
  Speaker 5: browser cookies, or alert you and cookies are being sent.
• 35:05
  Speaker 5: He says, if they sincerely wanted to respect users right
• 35:07
  Speaker 5: to privacy rather than capture the value of their data
• 35:10
  Speaker 5: while disavowing any risk, twenty eight would describe strong, proactive
• 35:14
  Speaker 5: steps that they're taking to protect users personal data. Instead,
• 35:19
  Speaker 5: this privacy policy is all about mitigating their risk by
• 35:22
  Speaker 5: shifting it on to unspecified third parties and by shifting
• 35:26
  Speaker 5: it on to the user themselves. So, especially in a
• 35:30
  Speaker 5: climate where people are being criminalized for information like this,
• 35:33
  Speaker 5: I would not recommend anybody trust any of their sensitive
• 35:38
  Speaker 5: intimate data to an app without a very robust privacy
• 35:42
  Speaker 5: policy in place. I especially would not recommend that anybody
• 35:46
  Speaker 5: give that data to somebody that's connected to Peter Teel,
• 35:49
  Speaker 5: who is connected to Donald Trump Like that is just
• 35:52
  Speaker 5: not something I would recommend.
• 35:54
  Speaker 4: No signs off on that.
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: So that's concerning We've got a lot of concerning things
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: we've gone over. But just to bring the point home,
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: Bridget is, what is the big deal with ev and
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: why is it so problematic?
• 36:21
  Speaker 6: Yeah?
• 36:21
  Speaker 5: I mean I think it's very problematic because listen, there
• 36:25
  Speaker 5: is nothing wrong with like online content that speaks to
• 36:28
  Speaker 5: all different kinds of women, all different kinds of women's
• 36:30
  Speaker 5: experiences and perspectives. To me, the whole point of being
• 36:34
  Speaker 5: a feminist is that it allows for women to choose
• 36:37
  Speaker 5: paths and perspectives that.
• 36:38
  Speaker 6: Work for them. Right.
• 36:39
  Speaker 5: However, EV I find problematic because it is designed to
• 36:45
  Speaker 5: sell that lie I was talking about earlier, that lie
• 36:48
  Speaker 5: that makes women not being in the public and civic
• 36:51
  Speaker 5: sphere look glossy and glamorous, which isn't just wrong.
• 36:55
  Speaker 6: It can be dangerous. It can be hurtful.
• 36:57
  Speaker 5: And even though that is dangerous, it's also very enticing.
• 37:02
  Speaker 5: Very I can understand why that's appealing, especially in a
• 37:06
  Speaker 5: climate right now where everything.
• 37:08
  Speaker 6: Is confusing, everything is chaotic.
• 37:09
  Speaker 5: I can understand the desire for women to be like,
• 37:12
  Speaker 5: I just want my soft life at home. From that
• 37:15
  Speaker 5: piece quote. Even critics of evy acknowledged the appeal of
• 37:18
  Speaker 5: its messaging. It's a perfectly pretty gateway drug to ideologies
• 37:22
  Speaker 5: which exist to protect the privilege and further disenfranchise the marginalized.
• 37:26
  Speaker 6: That's from Sarah Peterson, the author.
• 37:28
  Speaker 5: Of the book Influenced, And I would say something that
• 37:31
  Speaker 5: makes it even more concerning to me is that when
• 37:34
  Speaker 5: something is happening, and it's happening in a space that
• 37:36
  Speaker 5: has sort of been relegated to women people, there's not
• 37:40
  Speaker 5: really a lot of.
• 37:40
  Speaker 6: Eyes on it.
• 37:41
  Speaker 5: There's an automatic assumption that it's like just a fluffy,
• 37:44
  Speaker 5: poppy space and what happens there doesn't really matter to
• 37:47
  Speaker 5: anybody or is not of any consequence to anybody.
• 37:50
  Speaker 6: It's And so I think that.
• 37:52
  Speaker 5: Because the kind of people who care about extremism and
• 37:56
  Speaker 5: media and all of that might not be looking at
• 37:59
  Speaker 5: a space like ev online too hard, precisely because it
• 38:02
  Speaker 5: speaks to women. That means that EV can advocate for
• 38:06
  Speaker 5: positions that even even conservatives would say are extreme and
• 38:11
  Speaker 5: not really have a lot of people pushing back, right,
• 38:13
  Speaker 5: and so I think it's a really really effective way
• 38:16
  Speaker 5: of potentially radicalizing women into a pretty extreme ideology. So
• 38:21
  Speaker 5: we absolutely need to be paying attention to what is
• 38:23
  Speaker 5: happening in these online spaces. And probably my biggest personal
• 38:28
  Speaker 5: beef is that.
• 38:30
  Speaker 6: She's lying to us, She is lying to women.
• 38:32
  Speaker 5: She has a very a very belittling attitude about women,
• 38:37
  Speaker 5: and that comes through so clearly in this piece.
• 38:40
  Speaker 6: So the founder that I've been talking.
• 38:42
  Speaker 5: About, Brittany Hugo Boom, she runs a media and tech
• 38:45
  Speaker 5: company that she says gets half a million eyeballs across
• 38:49
  Speaker 5: social media, while also saying, well, also telling you other
• 38:53
  Speaker 5: women that oh, you don't have we don't have the
• 38:56
  Speaker 5: aptitude to do exactly what it is that she is
• 38:58
  Speaker 5: doing successful and making money from. When asked about women
• 39:02
  Speaker 5: running businesses and the piece, she said quote, I think
• 39:05
  Speaker 5: when most women try to do that, they fail, then
• 39:08
  Speaker 5: they feel upset about it when it's not really in
• 39:10
  Speaker 5: their nature. This is how she feels about women. And like,
• 39:15
  Speaker 5: I know that to be a lie. The reason why
• 39:17
  Speaker 5: I know it to be a lie is because she's
• 39:18
  Speaker 5: doing it so like she knows it's a lie too.
• 39:21
  Speaker 5: She is lying to you to make a buck, and
• 39:24
  Speaker 5: that is ultimately my big beef with this publication.
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: I think the conversation is always kind of funny. It's
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: that whole level of when marginalized communities have to compete
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: with each other, and so they're gonna do everything they
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: can to get out their competition instead of realizing that
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: the supremacy of men and white men are the actual competition.
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: And she's like, yeah, don't do this because you're not
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: gonna be as good as I am.
• 39:49
  Speaker 3: Obviously, because I'm.
• 39:51
  Speaker 6: White, I can't run a business.
• 39:53
  Speaker 3: I'm white, I'm Christian, and I got a Christian husband.
• 39:55
  Speaker 6: He knows well.
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: Like, it's really fascinating because the again, when we had
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: that conversation about women in magazines, the influence of magazines
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: is deep, is deep, and it runs for years and
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: years and years and years.
• 40:10
  Speaker 3: When we talk about a.
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: Good housewife, we talked about Southern living like that those
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: are core memories for me, specifically about my mother and
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: then from my mother's generation that to them was the
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: perfect life. So kind again that cyclical point of being like,
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: we need to go back to the Southern living standard
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: of housekeeping, which means that women stay home and that
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: is their full achievement is how they maintain their home.
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: And it's interesting because Evie is kind of bringing that
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: back and understanding how to indoctrinate young women, just like
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: we've talked about young men and podcasts. This is one
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: of those forms of understanding that, Okay, in order to
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: radicalize young women, we're going to do this, and we're
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: going to do this in the way of like reminding
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: them of the good old days that they don't know
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: anything about. They have a fantasy of, whether it's watching
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: Little House on the Prairie or hearing about Little House
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: on the Prairie, whatever what not, and we're going to
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: use that to tell them they're going to fail, so
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: why not try it this way?
• 41:09
  Speaker 5: And you could see why that would be a really
• 41:12
  Speaker 5: compelling story. Like again, like I have to be at
• 41:16
  Speaker 5: somebody who a lot of my I mean, I'm not
• 41:19
  Speaker 5: a tradwife, but I have a lot of tradwife interests
• 41:21
  Speaker 5: and hobbies. Like I like preserving things, I like cooking
• 41:25
  Speaker 5: from scratch, I like gardening, I like all of that.
• 41:28
  Speaker 6: Like I can understand.
• 41:30
  Speaker 5: I just really see the ways that, especially right now,
• 41:33
  Speaker 5: we are selling women this very enticing lie that if
• 41:38
  Speaker 5: they actually by like by that, it is incredibly dangerous.
• 41:42
  Speaker 5: Like there was a whole trend of like real treadwives,
• 41:46
  Speaker 5: women who really like left their left the working world
• 41:50
  Speaker 5: and got married and had kids and then like you know,
• 41:53
  Speaker 5: really relied on their their spouse for everything, talking about
• 41:56
  Speaker 5: how damaging it was for them and their children, Like
• 41:59
  Speaker 5: there are real stakes when women do this, And so
• 42:02
  Speaker 5: I don't think there's nothing wrong with being a stay
• 42:05
  Speaker 5: at home mom, a stay at home parent. Absolutely nothing
• 42:08
  Speaker 5: wrong with that, But we should not be glamorizing that
• 42:12
  Speaker 5: without also telling the truth about the reality of what
• 42:14
  Speaker 5: that looks like and the ways that that can put
• 42:16
  Speaker 5: you at risk and what you should be doing to
• 42:18
  Speaker 5: mitigate those risks.
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: Right especially when we know right now lawmakers are really
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: trying to turn back that clock in that level of
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: taking rights away from women, making sure they can't vote,
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: taking their financial abilities as well, Like we're seeing that
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: is happening right now as they're trying to introduce this
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: intossentate to in order to go back to that in
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: order to take away rights from women.
• 42:44
  Speaker 3: And when we were like okay, cool, some women obvious
• 42:48
  Speaker 3: like well, like they're like.
• 42:49
  Speaker 6: This this could be a self life. Yeah, I mean
• 42:51
  Speaker 6: we have to talk about it.
• 42:52
  Speaker 5: I have seen this, like threads of this attitude picking
• 42:57
  Speaker 5: up steam online with like younger and younger women. There's
• 43:00
  Speaker 5: that whole trend of like young girls wearing shirts that
• 43:04
  Speaker 5: are like oh too pretty to work and things like that,
• 43:06
  Speaker 5: Like that might seem cute, but really, like really take
• 43:10
  Speaker 5: a step back and think, like, what is it that
• 43:11
  Speaker 5: we're advocating for. Are we advocating for systems that are
• 43:15
  Speaker 5: actually going to protect like like put us at risk
• 43:19
  Speaker 5: or protect us? Like I think that we you know,
• 43:23
  Speaker 5: we we rightly talk a lot about the radicalization of
• 43:26
  Speaker 5: men and boys, we should also be talking about the
• 43:28
  Speaker 5: radicalization of women and girls through online content, because yeah,
• 43:32
  Speaker 5: I just think that we're setting up women, a generation
• 43:35
  Speaker 5: of women and girls to really put themselves at risk
• 43:38
  Speaker 5: and maybe not even realize the ways in which they're
• 43:40
  Speaker 5: doing that.
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: Yes, absolutely, and that's something Samantha and I have been
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: talking about a lot lately.
• 43:47
  Speaker 4: So as always, Richie, every time you come on, we're like,
• 43:51
  Speaker 4: we have a million other things where you have to
• 43:53
  Speaker 4: talk about.
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: So thank you so much for taking the time and
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: bringing these topics to us.
• 44:01
  Speaker 4: We really appreciate it. Where can the good listeners find you?
• 44:04
  Speaker 6: You can listen to my podcast There are Our Girls
• 44:06
  Speaker 6: on the Internet.
• 44:07
  Speaker 5: New season is dropping on May fourteenth, so please check
• 44:11
  Speaker 5: it out.
• 44:11
  Speaker 6: Yeah, they can follow me on Instagram at bridget Marie
• 44:13
  Speaker 6: and DC.
• 44:14
  Speaker 4: Yes, and can't wait to can't wait to do this again?
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: Listeners, go check bridget out on the podcast Excited for
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: the New Season, on social media or on other episodes
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: of Stuff We Never Told You And Yes, if you
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: would like to contact us you can. You can email
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: us Hello a Stuffnever Told You dot com. You can
• 44:32
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• 44:34
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• 44:36
  Speaker 1: also on YouTube. We have tepipoot store and we have
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: a book you can get wherever you get your books.
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: Thanks as always start a super producer Christina and executive
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: producer My and a contributor Joey. Thank you and thanks
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: to you for listening. Stuff on Over Told You is
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: production of by Heart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio,
• 44:48
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