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Book Club: Feminism Is for Everybody · Stuff Mom Never Told You

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  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samitha and welcome to Stephane
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  Speaker 1: Never Told your protection of I Heart Radio. For today's
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  Speaker 1: book Club, we wanted to talk about the legendary Bell
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  Speaker 1: Hooks and her work feminism is for everybody passionate politics,
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  Speaker 1: and we could do a whole episode on bell Hooks,
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  Speaker 1: and we probably definitely should. Yes, this episode is already
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  Speaker 1: quite long, because even though this book is a short,
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  Speaker 1: accessible primer on feminism and why it's so important in
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  Speaker 1: terms of ending sexism and oppression, there's a lot to
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  Speaker 1: talk about. She packs a lot in not too long
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  Speaker 1: of a book she has. She's one of those that
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  Speaker 1: just says a sentence and it's literal, three hour conversation
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  Speaker 1: and breaking down that sense it was. It was a wonderful,
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  Speaker 1: wonderful reading, and it was very like it did bring
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  Speaker 1: up a lot of questions and thoughts and I got
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  Speaker 1: wrestling up in my braining about things, um, which is good.
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  Speaker 1: I think that's an excellent sign of a great book.
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  Speaker 1: This book touches on history, intersectionality, accessibility, education, reproductive rights, beauty,
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  Speaker 1: class politics, globalism, women in the workplace, race, gender violence,
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  Speaker 1: feminist masculinity, feminist parenting, marriage, and partnership, sexual agency, love
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  Speaker 1: and spirituality. And again I think it's ages. So she does,
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  Speaker 1: she accomplishes a lot, so that of course this is
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  Speaker 1: one of her later books, so it is books, so
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  Speaker 1: one of her later published books. So I think she's
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  Speaker 1: trying to summarize it, but it's obvious as you and
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  Speaker 1: I've talked about. What she's talking about is people being
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  Speaker 1: afraid and has been villainizing the word feminism. Associate came
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  Speaker 1: back like, this is a structure, this is the originality,
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  Speaker 1: kind of reminding us what it is. Yes, And I
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  Speaker 1: think so many of us, you and I and our
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  Speaker 1: listeners can and do relate to the struggle she's describing
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  Speaker 1: of encountering people who are like but feminism means I
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  Speaker 1: hate man. Yes. And Bell Hooks is and has been
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  Speaker 1: doing the work in the world of feminism for over
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  Speaker 1: forty years. She is a cultural critic and a feminist
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  Speaker 1: author who has written books such as Ain't I A Woman?
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  Speaker 1: Black Women, and Feminism, All About Love, Bone, Black Rock,
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  Speaker 1: My Soul, We Real, Cool, Belonging Where We Stand, Teaching
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  Speaker 1: to Transgress, teaching community outlaw culture, and real Too Real
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  Speaker 1: and that being real R E E L Too Real,
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  Speaker 1: R e a l. Yeah, I've realized I have missed
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  Speaker 1: out and not reading all of her stuff previously, so
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  Speaker 1: let's jump in. So in the forward to the new
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  Speaker 1: edition of Feminism Is for Everybody, Hooks explained her reason
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  Speaker 1: for writing it. She writes, from the very onset of
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  Speaker 1: my engagement with feminist practice, I was most excited about
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  Speaker 1: building a mass feminist movement, believing at twenty years old
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  Speaker 1: that it was feminist movement for social justice that could
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  Speaker 1: change all our lives. I worked in visioned ways of
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  Speaker 1: bringing the meaning of feminist thinking and practice to a
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  Speaker 1: larger audience to the masses. And while much of my
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  Speaker 1: work did reach folks who had not yet thought about feminism,
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  Speaker 1: especially black folks, the fact that almost all my work
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  Speaker 1: was written while I was a student or a professor
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  Speaker 1: meant that I did not always reach the larger audience. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: which I thought was really interesting. She talked about that
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  Speaker 1: about how academia can be intimidating and not accessible. So
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  Speaker 1: she goes on describing her introduction to feminism. When I
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  Speaker 1: think that, yes, a lot of us can relate to
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  Speaker 1: I came to full feminist consciousness as an undergraduate. My
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  Speaker 1: mind changed and altered by women's studies classes, by the
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  Speaker 1: books we read. However, born into a family with six
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  Speaker 1: girls and one boy, I wanted my mama, my siblings,
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  Speaker 1: everyone I knew to be as intoxicated with feminist thinking
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  Speaker 1: as I was. The picture on the cover of this
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  Speaker 1: book is of me and my best friend from our
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  Speaker 1: first year of college. Race did not stand in the
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  Speaker 1: way of our bonding, as it was shared working class
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  Speaker 1: issues that brought us together. We are in our late teens,
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  Speaker 1: almost twenty in this photo. When I became excited about feminism,
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  Speaker 1: April came with me to feminist conferences to learn what
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  Speaker 1: it was all about. After more than forty years, we
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  Speaker 1: are still attending feminist lectures together. We learned the truism
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  Speaker 1: that sister is powerful by learning and experiencing life's journey together. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: you know, I was thinking when she was talking about
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  Speaker 1: wanting everybody to know and about the women's studies class.
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  Speaker 1: I remember my women's studies class. I loved it. I
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  Speaker 1: loved everything reading it, and I was really on point
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  Speaker 1: in uh what now? I would write essays. To be fair,
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  Speaker 1: I'm an Asian woman talking to her. She was a
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  Speaker 1: white woman, So I feel like my perspective helped in
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  Speaker 1: that because we were coming and talking about intersectionality. That
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  Speaker 1: was it was two early two thousand's when I was
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  Speaker 1: taking these classes. I don't know about you, but there
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  Speaker 1: is an episode in Parts and Wreck where Andy, it's
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  Speaker 1: trying to take a course and found himself really caught
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  Speaker 1: up in the women's studies class. Of course, it was
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  Speaker 1: very generic and what they were teaching at that point
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  Speaker 1: in time, but I love that it kind of talked
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  Speaker 1: about how, oh wow, this is something so new and
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  Speaker 1: new perspective that all of them weren't, like, really dumbfounded
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  Speaker 1: by it. And I feel like we've all had those
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  Speaker 1: moments when you see a different perspective and are truly learning.
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  Speaker 1: And I feel like Women's Studies is definitely but for
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  Speaker 1: some reason, when she was talking about her love that,
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  Speaker 1: that's what popped in my head, like all the awe struck.
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  Speaker 1: So Hooks also described another thing many of us can
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  Speaker 1: relate to, encountering confusion around what feminism is in their
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  Speaker 1: friends circles or sometimes outright hostility, and wanting the tools
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  Speaker 1: to combat that and any You and I've talked about
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  Speaker 1: this so often to the point that it was our
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  Speaker 1: first episode together. Yeah, it's trying to understand it. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: it's absolutely when she was talking about why she wrote
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  Speaker 1: this book or experience in college, and this whole sentiment
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  Speaker 1: of people just when she would tell them what she
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  Speaker 1: was interested in or what she was working in and
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  Speaker 1: kind of misunderstanding it. I relate so strongly to that,
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  Speaker 1: and I know you do too, and I think a
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  Speaker 1: lot of listeners do. And I had a very similar experience.
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  Speaker 1: I also, it was kind of wary of the word
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  Speaker 1: feminist until I went to college, and even then I
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  Speaker 1: was like, I felt like I was one, but I
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  Speaker 1: was a little nervous, like announcer. And I feel like
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  Speaker 1: she also, and I know we're going to talk about this,
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  Speaker 1: helped to redefine the terms of feminism with the intersectionality
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  Speaker 1: of it all um and her own experiences and being
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  Speaker 1: a black woman in academia when it wasn't accepted for
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  Speaker 1: black women to be in academia, especially when it comes
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  Speaker 1: to the writing world, which I just saw a recent
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  Speaker 1: article I haven't read it about people of color and
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  Speaker 1: journalism and how it's been affecting them. So I found
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  Speaker 1: this very fascinating because it's so on point, and she
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  Speaker 1: as being one of the faces of intersectional feminism as
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  Speaker 1: well as black civil rights activists. I feel like really
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  Speaker 1: helped redefine what this wave is and why it's so
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  Speaker 1: important that we are able to redefine what we thought
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  Speaker 1: of it originally, the origination of feminism and white feminism,
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  Speaker 1: and why so different that I think it's important, And
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  Speaker 1: she is definitely a forefront of this movement. But going
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  Speaker 1: on to what she writes, but feminist theories, that's the
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  Speaker 1: place where the questions stopped. Instead, I tend to hear
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  Speaker 1: all about the evil of feminism and the bad feminists,
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  Speaker 1: how they hate men, how they are all lesbians, how
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  Speaker 1: they are taking all the jobs and making the world
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  Speaker 1: hard for white men who do not stand a chance,
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  Speaker 1: which is hilarious in itself. That's my own side note
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  Speaker 1: again going back to what she says, they do not
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  Speaker 1: even think about feminism as being about rights, about women
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  Speaker 1: gaining equal rights. When I talk about the feminism I
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  Speaker 1: know up close and personal, they willingly listen. Although when
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  Speaker 1: our conversations and they're quick to tell me I'm different,
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  Speaker 1: not like the real feminists who hate men who are angry.
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  Speaker 1: I assure them I am as real and as radical
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  Speaker 1: as a feminist as one can be, and if they
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  Speaker 1: dare to come closer to feminism, they will see it
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  Speaker 1: not how they have imagined. It sound familiar and she
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  Speaker 1: kept waiting for books to appear that she could point
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  Speaker 1: to people. I think we've talked about this so many times,
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  Speaker 1: and when it didn't, she took matters into her own hands,
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  Speaker 1: which is what we talked about so many phenomenal women
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  Speaker 1: who are making changes, and so to answer these questions
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  Speaker 1: in a concise manner, she wrote this book and then, y'all,
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  Speaker 1: she does a great job with it and entreaty and
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  Speaker 1: an invitation to bring everyone closer to feminism. Um, and
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  Speaker 1: she is in her element, obviously, the years of experience
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  Speaker 1: and writing, teaching and feminism is evident throughout. She describes
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  Speaker 1: the influence coming from a family that was mostly girls
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  Speaker 1: and women and how jarring it was for her to
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  Speaker 1: go to Stanford University and receiving this messaging that women
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  Speaker 1: men were lesser. Just for her, Black women were even lesser,
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  Speaker 1: and she talks about that as well. Yeah, and one
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  Speaker 1: of the delights of reading this book was remembering past
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  Speaker 1: books we've read in in this sminthy book club where
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  Speaker 1: black women and specifically I've said, like, she was so
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  Speaker 1: important and influential to them, so it was cool to
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  Speaker 1: like see her influence kind of play out and other
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  Speaker 1: black women feminist thinkers specifically in this case. But just yeah,
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  Speaker 1: she's been involved in this world for so long, and
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  Speaker 1: she's been involved in education for so long, and she
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  Speaker 1: doesn't like I don't know, because we know her as
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  Speaker 1: such a strong individual who is not shaken, like she
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  Speaker 1: knows who she knows, and she has lived through what
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  Speaker 1: she has known, and I think she's worked out so
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  Speaker 1: much of the questions from again her teaching and being
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  Speaker 1: in school and learning and just delving into it at
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  Speaker 1: a young age, that she come to a point that
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  Speaker 1: she really has a great foundation of what feminism should
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  Speaker 1: be and why it's important, and she does a great
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  Speaker 1: way of explaining it. Like but then also for those
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  Speaker 1: of us who have been in this work thinking that
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  Speaker 1: we're feminists still like revamping and opening our eyes to
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  Speaker 1: a new perspective of it, she it's both of those things. Yeah, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: And she's she's great at laying out the foundation because
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  Speaker 1: just like us, she starts with some basics, including her
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  Speaker 1: favorite definition of feminism quote, feminism is a movement to
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  Speaker 1: end sexism, sexist exportation, and oppression. This is her definition
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  Speaker 1: that she first used in the book Feminist Theory from
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  Speaker 1: Margin to Center, and she favors it because it is clear,
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  Speaker 1: it is concise. Um, it makes it clear that feminism
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  Speaker 1: isn't about being anti male, which is yes, one of
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  Speaker 1: the biggest misconceptions and perhaps lies about feminism, but instead
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  Speaker 1: that it's about sexism. Hooks is adamant that education and
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  Speaker 1: access to feminist materials. It's a huge part of the
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  Speaker 1: issue here too, that it's not that everyone is rejecting
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  Speaker 1: the feminist message, but they just don't know what the messages.
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  Speaker 1: As she points out, a feminist isn't born, they are made.
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  Speaker 1: You know. It kind of reminds me again what you know.
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  Speaker 1: I had relayed about how I had let my parents
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  Speaker 1: know that I was on a feminist podcast, and my
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  Speaker 1: dad's reaction was literally, so you want equal rights as men, right,
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  Speaker 1: And he was like yeah, he goes, so like getting
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  Speaker 1: paid same for the same job. I was like yeah,
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  Speaker 1: he goes, yeah, I'm good with that, Like he got
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  Speaker 1: that understanding, was like, this is not about and where
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  Speaker 1: you know, my mother was all off, like you're becoming
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  Speaker 1: a liberal, and that means, and we're gonna talk about this,
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  Speaker 1: that makes your abortion, you're going to have ten abortions
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  Speaker 1: and living sin, which is what kind of translated to
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  Speaker 1: my mom said. And an abortion in a preproductive right
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  Speaker 1: is absolutely a part of it, but that's not the
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  Speaker 1: end all of it, as she talks about often, and
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  Speaker 1: I think that's important. But the actual fact is, if
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  Speaker 1: one group of people are being held to this lower
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  Speaker 1: quality of life early they're not afforded the same quality
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  Speaker 1: is going to affect so many others. And this is
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  Speaker 1: for the all. The equality is for all that. It
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  Speaker 1: is not about us stealing anything. It's about us all
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  Speaker 1: having room to have the same opportunities, which I think
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  Speaker 1: she does a great job in talking. Oh yeah, she's
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  Speaker 1: really good at that. Here's another quote. And that clarity
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  Speaker 1: helps us remember that all of us, female and male,
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  Speaker 1: have been socialized from birth on to accept sexist thought
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  Speaker 1: and action. As a consequence, females can be just as
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  Speaker 1: sexist as men, and while that does not excuse or
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  Speaker 1: justify male domination, it does mean that it would be
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  Speaker 1: naive and wrong minded for feminist thinkers to see the
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  Speaker 1: movement as simplistically being for women against men to end
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  Speaker 1: a patriarchy another way of naming the institutionalized sexism. We
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  Speaker 1: need to be clear that we are all participants in
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  Speaker 1: perpetuating sexism until we change our minds and arts, until
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  Speaker 1: we let go of sexist thought and action and replace
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  Speaker 1: it with feminist thought and action. M yeah, m hm.
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  Speaker 1: And here's another quote. Most men are disturbed by hatred
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  Speaker 1: and fear of women, by male violence against women, even
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  Speaker 1: the men who perpetuate this violence. But they fear letting
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  Speaker 1: go of the benefits. They are not certain what will
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  Speaker 1: happen to the world they know most intimately if patriarchy changes,
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  Speaker 1: so they find it easier to passively support male domination,
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  Speaker 1: even when they know in their minds and hearts that
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  Speaker 1: it is wrong. Again and again, men will tell me
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  Speaker 1: they have it, no idea what it is feminist want.
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  Speaker 1: I believe them. I believe in their capacity to change
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  Speaker 1: and grow, and I believe that if they knew more
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  Speaker 1: about feminism, they would no longer fear it, for they
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  Speaker 1: would find in the feminist movement the hope of their
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  Speaker 1: own release from the bondage of patriarchy. Right. Oh yeah,
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  Speaker 1: there's so much to they said about that um and
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  Speaker 1: she continues on saying their misunderstanding of feminist politics reflect
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  Speaker 1: the reality that most folks learn about feminism from patriarchal
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  Speaker 1: mass media. The feminism they hear about the most is
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  Speaker 1: portrayed by women who are primarily committed to gender equality,
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  Speaker 1: equal pay for equal work, and sometimes women and men
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  Speaker 1: sharing household chores and parenting. I like the sometimes they
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  Speaker 1: say that these women are usually white and materially privileged.
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  Speaker 1: They know from mass media that women's liberation focuses on
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  Speaker 1: the freedom to have abortions, to be lesbians, to challenge
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  Speaker 1: rape and domestic violence, um, And among these issues, masses
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  Speaker 1: of people agree with the idea of gender equity in
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  Speaker 1: the workplace, equal pay for equal work. Since our society
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  Speaker 1: continues to be primarily a Christian culture, masses of people
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  Speaker 1: continue to believe that God has ordained that women be
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  Speaker 1: subordinate to men in the domestic household. And I found
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  Speaker 1: that really interesting. She's talking about Christianity, man, that was
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: a whole different conversation In my head. I was like, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: I wanted to include that because that we have had
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  Speaker 1: conversations about that and how that specifically UM interpretations of
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  Speaker 1: religion specifically impacted us as girls and women and how
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: we might have how we internalized that. And I think
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  Speaker 1: that's very, very true. And I've heard that argument a lot.
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  Speaker 1: There's one person in particular I'm thinking of who almost
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  Speaker 1: gets angry that feminism or anything that's about like equality
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  Speaker 1: with women, achieving equality for women. She almost sees it
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  Speaker 1: as like a slight on God, like anti religious. She
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  Speaker 1: gets really angry. She recently I ran in turn. She
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: was complaining to me about how somebody had a sticker
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  Speaker 1: on the back of their truck that said this business
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  Speaker 1: is owned by women or something, and she was like,
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  Speaker 1: whys that met? Like that's not good? Why is she
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  Speaker 1: putting that out like it's a good thing. I was like,
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: oh yeah, I mean there's that conversation again, the same thing.
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  Speaker 1: Uh in that like it goes deeper like black women,
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  Speaker 1: Oh my god, why do you have to advertise that
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  Speaker 1: I don't not like? Is just labeling that they don't like,
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  Speaker 1: even though this is the labeling is what it's taking
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  Speaker 1: to recognize that there's something wrong and corrupting the system.
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  Speaker 1: But yeah, again, and we're gonna talk about it more.
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  Speaker 1: But she's the one that's really had me thinking about
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  Speaker 1: colonization and Christianity and how they go hand in hand,
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  Speaker 1: and that the reason why this is so detrimental to
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  Speaker 1: a culture who have been colonized in the name of God.
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  Speaker 1: And we don't think about I don't. I have never
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  Speaker 1: really thought about it. I've always thought of colonization as
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  Speaker 1: a political aspect. But looking and of course we can
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: go into the deeper theory that religion is political to
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  Speaker 1: a certain extent and has been used as an excuse
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  Speaker 1: the name of God has been used as a political exercise. Uh,
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: going down a rabbit hole. I'm gonna stop. But but
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  Speaker 1: like she really is talking about that, and Christianity in
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  Speaker 1: itself is a way of colonizing in that level. And
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  Speaker 1: if we look at the deeper parts of the patriarchal
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  Speaker 1: system that is beyond that. And of course this also
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  Speaker 1: goes into the whole narrative of feminist patriarch misogyny. Those
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  Speaker 1: are your word heateronormally, you know, are very feminist words,
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  Speaker 1: and they are, but they're important into what it means.
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  Speaker 1: Maybe it's too clinical and we shouldn't say it like that.
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  Speaker 1: To bring it down a little bit and to layman's terms,
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  Speaker 1: I guess in the if you're not in the feminist world.
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  Speaker 1: But if I find that interesting that there is such
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  Speaker 1: a correlation, that said, this decorrelation that all ties together,
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  Speaker 1: and how harmful it is. But we've been taught that
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  Speaker 1: that's the only way society can work for us to
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  Speaker 1: function as moral citizens. Anyway, Yes, she's got me thinking, y'all,
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  Speaker 1: she's got me thinking more. The book opens with some
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: history of modern American feminism to uh as she she
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  Speaker 1: writes early on, most feminist activists, a majority of whom
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  Speaker 1: are white or we're white, had their consciousness raised about
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  Speaker 1: the nature of male domination when they were working in
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: anti classist and anti racist settings with men who are
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: telling the world about the importance of freedom while subordinating
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  Speaker 1: the women in their ranks. Yes, whether it as white
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  Speaker 1: women working on behalf of socialism, black women working on
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  Speaker 1: behalf of civil rights and black liberation, or Native American
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  Speaker 1: women working for indigenous rights, it was clear that men
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  Speaker 1: wanted to lead and they wanted women to follow. Participating
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  Speaker 1: in these radical freedom struggles awakened the spirit of rebellion
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: and resistance and progressive females and lead them towards contemporary
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: women's liberation and I'm not gonna lie. This had to
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: be thinking about Deb Holland, Representative Deb Holland, who is
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: our first Native American Indigenous woman to be a Secretary
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: of Interior, secretary of anything essentially in the office, one
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: of the first women Native American women to be in office.
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: Such important thing that she just did recently, And how
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: that we talked about her in our Women around the
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: world and how they were all these little Native American
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: Indigenous committees that were ran by white men, Like, wait,
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: what is happening? No one sees how this this is
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: really problematic. Yeah, yeah, and this is I'm so glad
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: that Hooks touched on this because it is such an
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: important conversation. We've seen its hime and time again of
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: these like exclusionary movements and why that's hindering everybody, that's
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: holding everybody back. But uh, in this way, while early
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: feminists may have been anti male, uh, they progressed realizing
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: that women could be sexist too, and that systems like
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: class and race were also huge. In this conversation, Hooks
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: details how even from the start, the movement was polarized
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: in a lot of ways. Um. Quote, even though individual
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: black women were active in contemporary feminist movement from its inception.
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: They were not the individuals who became the stars of
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: the movement who attracted the attention of mass media. Often
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: individual black women active and feminist movement were revolutionary feminist.
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: Like many white lesbians, they were already at odds with
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: reformist feminists, who resolutely wanted to project a vision of
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: the movement as being solely about women gaining equality with
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: men in the existing system. Even before race became talked
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: about issue in feminist circles, it was clear to black
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: women and to the revolutionary allies and struggle that they
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: were never going to have equality within the existing white
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: supremacist capitalist patriarchy. Here's another quote. We can never forget
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: that white women began to assert their need for freedom
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: after Civil rights, just at the point when racial discrimination
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: was ending in black people, especially black males, might have
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: attained equality in the workforce with white men. Reformist feminist
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: thinking focused primarily on equality with men in the workforce
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: overshadowed the original radical foundations of contemporary feminism, which called
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: for reform as well as overall restructuring of society so
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: that our nation would be fundamentally anti sexist, right. I
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: love that she's just calling out the fact that it's
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: an intersectional thing and it should have been since the
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: beginning of voting rights, which we talked about before, but
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: the Suffragette movement which happened after the voting watch were
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: given to black men. To be fair, not really, but
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: kind of on itself, but it took that moment to
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: for white women be like wait what and then they're like,
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: but that not anybody else, just white women. White women
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: should have had these rights to begin with. Yeah. Sorry,
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: I'm not trying to mock white women in the Suffragette movement,
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: but you know, this is how it goes in my head.
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: But I found that interesting that she was like she was.
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: I mean again, Bell Hookson is known has been talking
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: about it has been part of this to talk about
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: being a black woman in that book and what she
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: was doing with it and why it was important to
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: her to have this book. But the fact that it
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: goes the anti sexist and anti racist movement has to
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: be hand in hand. But the only people who have
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: been fighting it since that point in time have been
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: black women. Point like, yes, yes, And I really really
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: appreciated how she laid out the history because it can
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: get as she said, like the academic level can be
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: really intimidating and confusing, and there is a lot like,
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: don't get me wrong, area is a lot. But I
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: like how she just kind of laid it out and
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: was like, we can't ignore this, like we can't ignore
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: or this happened because of this, and a lot of it,
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: like the suffragette movement, and then this after the Civil
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: rights was like white women being oh, wait, this is
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: not right, and then excluding people who have been doing
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: the work all along, and very much focusing on the
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: workplace aspects, which is a key. So Hooks touches on
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: something called lifestyle feminism and which well off, typically white feminists,
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: we're able to achieve workplace equality with men while depending
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: on the work of lower paid, marginalized folks, often women.
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: And in this way you could almost live a double life. Um,
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: here's one example of lifestyle feminism. Are essentially choosing when
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: and where you want to be a feminist. Quote. If
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: feminism is a movement to end sexy suppression, and depriving
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: females of reprotective rights is a form of sexy suppression,
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: then one cannot be anti choice and be feminist. A
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: woman can insist she would never choose to have an abortion,
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: affirming her support of the right of women to choose,
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: and still be an advocate of feminist policies. She cannot
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: be anti abortion and an advocate of feminism. Yeah. At
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: that point when she was saying that, I was like, oh, yes, absolutely,
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: Like when she was talking about being you can say
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: you would not have an abortion yourself, that's fine, Like,
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: if you chose not to have an abortion, that's on you.
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: But that right to have that choice is the conversation
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: and saying that you are anti choice because you are
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: quote unquote pro life slash pro birth, that means you're
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: not a feminist. You can't do this. And I thought
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: the same thing about like excluding trans women and so
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: many of the turfs who are like I'm feminist. No
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: you're not. No, you're not. No, you're not. No, you're
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: not And I'm going to say that outright. I don't care.
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: I don't care. You'll can argue with me all day.
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: If you're a turf, if you're against trans women, you
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: are not a feminist. Like when it comes down to it,
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: and if if we're laying it out as Bell hook says,
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: and it's absolutely true if you truly want to be
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: a feminist where we have equitable rights for all women,
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: all women of color, all of that, any woman in general,
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: and trans women are women. That's how we're leaving of that.
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: Then you cannot be against something that would be for
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: the equity of a woman and say you're a feminist,
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: like that's just it cannot be. And and her point
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: in that was so driven home to me, and that
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: in that moment of like, yes, and we've talked about
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: it so much, but she put it in such a
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: plain way and something that it is very, very controversial
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: within women, and that's I think this is one of
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: the biggest dividers now to trans women. And abortion are
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: two of the biggest dividers when it comes to within
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: the feminist circle as well. And that might be why
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: they don't want to call them filis, you know, like
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: all of these things, it's like you have to have
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: this conversation. And also we don't talk about enough about
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: being sterilized against their will and the fact that that
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: is also part of the pro choice movement, that we
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: can have that right to have children, you do not
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: have that right to take away from me stop it. Yes,
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: and Hooks touch touches on that. I think we have
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: a quote from an Abil later on, and i' I
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: love that point that reproductive rights is not just abortion,
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: it's all of these other things. Yes, And I also
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: really love this point if I think we could expand
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: on this ad nauseum. But of like these well off
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: white women typically being a feminist when it's easy to
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: be a feminist, but they're being supported by marginalized workers
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: who are probably women of color. But then when it
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: like push comes to shove, they're not helping all women. Yeah. Again,
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: and it's it's easy to be a feminist when your
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: movement and what you want specifically to define the movement
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: is at the highlight of it all like it it
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: defines it for everything else and ignores everything else underneath it. Yes, yeah,
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: so that I love that she made that point. Another
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: growing pain Hooks discusses is the fact that in the
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: seventies and eighties, many women didn't stop to examine their
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: own internalized sexism, but instead believed that fighting against male
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: domination was enough, that because they were women, that was enough,
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: without instead doing the consciousness raising that she talks about,
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: which is huge. I think that's so important. We just
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: you know, as she said, we were raising this system.
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: We have so many internalized sex I mean, you and
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: I have talked about when people come onto our show
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: and we give them a heads up, Hey, we are
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: a feminist show, so we need you to relay how
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: your show or what your conversation topic is about feminism.
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: We need we need to get into that. And we've
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: had the answer one more than once. What were women?
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: And that's the end of it. And we sit there like, sure,
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: your women creating content that doesn't make it feminist. Like
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: we really have to sit there and stay there, not
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: be trying not to be impolite in that. Yo, that's
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: that's not what feminism mean. Being a woman does not
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: automatically just because it's created by a woman. We know
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: we've seen toxic, toxic masculinity, toxic patriarchal misogyny from women's
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: so absolutely, yeah, like we're happy to support women who
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: are making content that we think is not harmful content always,
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: but it doesn't necessarily mean feminism automatically. Yeah, that doesn't
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: automatically like quote it, But I really I thought that
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: was interesting, was like just being a woman is enough. No,
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: just being someone who supports it is enough. No, Like
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: do we want to run ourselves into the ground. No.
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: But just because you don't do something or you are
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: passively doing something does not necessarily give you that title either.
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: Exactly exactly, and Hooks detailed how powerful it was being
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: at Stanford during the beginnings of our modern feminist movement,
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: and this was the university that she was encouraged to
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: attend by a female teacher um and how she took
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: her first women's saities courses there and how that really
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: did impact her. But also yes, just encountering all of
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: those like sexism and racism and kind of being like wait, yeah,
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: And then I love this phrase when she talked about
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: the power of sisterhood and how that sentiment was so
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: strong and the whole the enemy within, internalized sexism, the
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: enemy within. And I thought that was such a great point,
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: because yeah, she talked about how excited she was, and
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: I kind of think about the Women's March. I wasn't
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: a part of it, I had to work, but I
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: remember watching it and really feeling like, maybe there's hope
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: in the world. And then we find out that later
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: on that the women who were in charge of it
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: weren't really listening to other women, and we needed to
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: talk about that again, which is very familiar to the
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: seventies staighties movements as well, where we needed to have
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: a breakdown of what was happening. But yeah, the power
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: of sisterhood when we talk about sisterhood, because like I
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: will say, of above anything else, I always considered myself
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: a feminist, even though I have a lot of internalized misogyny,
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: and I definitely had a lot of racist even to myself.
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: I was racist against myself as an Asian person because
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: I was desperately wanted to be white because I thought
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: that was the only way to be, That's the best
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: way to be, which is the white supremast narrative that's
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: been fed into us for so long. But the one
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: thing I knew and the one thing I trusted, like
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: through years of being abused, through use of going through trauma,
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: is that I could trust my girls. Like whether so,
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: I always had one or two beyond my family, beyond
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: my parents, beyond anything else, beyond relationships like romantic relationships
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: with men. My my friends, my friends were my core,
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: and that made me always think I would always trust
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: women more even when we had you know, the drama
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: that you had growing up where someone might cheat on
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: someone who did you and I would always get so
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: angry when the girls would get mad at each other
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: if it was a cheating dude. I'm like, why are
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: you mad at each other? This is fault. Think it's
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: the main cold right here. I'm confused. And that's how
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: narrative knew. That made me feel like, oh, I would
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: definitely lean toward being feminist, even though I didn't want
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: to be called with femin it's in high school because
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: I know, as again were living in a white, very
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: like white supremacist, male dominated Christian Southern Baptist world that
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: was a bad thing. Um, I still knew a lean
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: towards that because those are the people that I trusted
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: and even to this day, my closest relationships are my girls,
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: are my friends in this world, You and Caroline and Dominique,
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: Like I was just naming all friends, Courtney, all of them.
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: Those that is my core of people that I trust
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: and I will always trust outside of anything else like that.
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: To me, that sentiment means so much to come together
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: and to be together as one, but also calling each
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: other out because like learning from you and Caroline and
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: from all this, like having people call each other's out
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: for our internalized racism, internalized misogynies is necessary, but it
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: is it's a huge enemy that you have to unpackag
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: that is that demon that you don't want to face
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: as a feminist. Yeah, absolutely, And it's something that unless
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: you do or have access to unfortunately hard acts as
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: often feminist materials are a good friend that will call
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: you out. You might not know you've got this demon
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: inside of you until someone is like, hy, no, that's
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: not right. Maybe you want to rethink this. Um. Going
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: back to rethinking this, Hooks goes on to right. As
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: long as women are using class or race power to
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: dominate other women, feminist sisterhood cannot be fully realized. Uh,
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: huge point cannot be fully realized as more women begin
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: to opportunistically lay claim to feminism in the eighties without
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: undergoing the feminist consciousness raising good term that would have
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: enabled them to divest up their sexism. The patriarchal assumption
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: that the powerful should rule over the week informed their
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: relations to other women. Y'all. That was a long sentence
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: for me, And it's such a deep sentence. She goes
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: on to say, as women, particularly previously disenfrantised privileged white women,
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: began to acquire class power without divesting of their internalized sexism.
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: Divisions between women intensified. When women of color critiqued the
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: racism within the society as a whole and called attention
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: to the ways that racism has shaped and informed feminist
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: theory and practice, many white women simply turned their backs
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: on the vision of sisterhood, closing their mind and their hearts.
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: And that was equally true when it came to the
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: classism among women. And yeah, I think that was a
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: narrative that we still obviously this was when she wrote this,
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: but that was a narrative we had to talk about
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: last year in as we were talking about this is
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: white feminism and this is white white feminism is dangerous.
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: And of course she was much nicer than we are
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: when it comes to calling ourselves out, because I said
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: the same thing when it comes to race, and when
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: we talk about Asian people versus Black people, not verses,
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: but in in the comparison and conversation of like, who
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: is truly being disenfranchised here? And then how are we
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: a petted against each other and the anti life movement
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: that has happened within Asian culture as well, and we
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: need to face that that there is that level. But
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: this conversation about white feminists, it could be safe for
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: Asian feminists, you know, when it comes to what we're
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: looking at and who is truly the one that has
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: been stripped of any power and of any voice and
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: man like she talks again, she's nicer than me. I
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: think in the way she frames it. It's so truthful though,
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: that the idea that they got what they wanted. Let
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: us go into the workplace if we want to, forgetting
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: that there are other women who have been forced into
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: the workplace without getting any pay or any like real
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: kind of justice or any kind of equality in in
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: the working field that already having to be a part
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: of and they're being pushed into. Why are we talking
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: about that doesn't affect the privileged, the pretty the pretty
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: face of feminism, right, And it's very like, yeah, I
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: like how she uses the line like in their hearts,
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: like closing their minds and their hearts, because it's very Oh,
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: this wasn't impacting me before, but now I was impacting me.
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: So I'm going to get involved and then kind of
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: take the credit and then you get what you want,
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: even though what you want is still very much like
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: a man's world. Alright, I'll that you have that, sweetheart,
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: and then like, okay, I'm good and forgetting like all
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: the people who have been working on it, all of
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: the women of color, and especially black women who have
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: been working on it is still don't have their rights
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: that you do. Right it is, And she continues to write,
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: Since masses of young females know little about feminism, and
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: many falsely assume that sexism is no longer the problem,
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: feminist education for critical consciousness must be continuous. Older feminist
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: thinkers cannot assume that young females will just acquire knowledge
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: of feminis is m along the way to adulthood. They
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: require guidance. Overall women in our society are forgetting the
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: value and power of sisterhood. Renewed feminist movement must once
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: again raise the banner high to proclaim a new sisterhood
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: is powerful. Um, I'm not gonna lie. This made me
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: think about my niece. Oh I love very dearly. If
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: you're listening to this, I love you, Gracie. I remember,
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: as she was graduating high school. She was talking about
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: all of these things, and she had very similar statements
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: like I did in a different manner about feminism, and
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: she definitely was like, I would never call myself a
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: feminist all of these things because this young group of
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: kids have become so jaded by what they think is feminism.
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: Once again, as well as just you know, I'm assuming
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: that she knows. Because she were the things that she
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: wants to do. I was like, you can't do that
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: without feminism. You couldn't have those without feminism, but surely
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: you know. And then seeing her like five or six
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: years later and seeing where she's come to understanding what
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: it is and having her consciousness rays as Hooks would say,
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: and seeing her come to this point, but it really
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: did like, Wow, I assumed you had so much access
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: to knowledge that you would know, but when it comes
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: to what you learned within your own culture, we have
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: and we still have this whole girl versus girl, the
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: I'm not like other girl's trope that has gotten so
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: heavy and so deep, especially in mainstream movies, all these
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: romance things that that really play and perpetuate the stereotype
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: forgetting that, yes, sisterhood is powerful. Yeah, and turning women
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: against women is not helping women this whole like, oh
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: she can't do what I can. I can survive in
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: this main world as if it's a competition and it's
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: just like but yes, demanding respect for women's academic work,
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: importance of this whole, support group, places to talk and education.
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: But again the danger of presenting only in an academic
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: setting like we talked about earlier, and it is this
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: is where I have a hard time where my family,
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: uh that education is ruining society, you know, right, yeah, yeah,
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: you go, you go to that college and you come
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: back all liberal and that's exactly what they think it.
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: But how about you take the other facts that we've
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: actually started critically thinking beyond just being told what to think,
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: and now we come to this and realize this doesn't
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: make sense, This does not the betterment, and instead they're
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: just like, that's the education you got, you bought into,
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: that you bought into the like, yeah, that's not okay, okay,
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: But the fact that we do need to put it
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: in the language that hooks is low doing it and
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: and unfortunately making it more palatable, um, which I know
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: black women are tired of having to do for so long. Um,
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: she still didn't, and she writes, if we do not
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: work to create a mass based movement which offers feminist
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: education to everyone, females and male, feminist theories and practice
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: will always be undermined by the negative information produced in
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: most Maine media. The citizens of this nation cannot know
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: the positive contributions of feminist movements has made to all
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: our lives if we do not highlight these gains. I'm
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: simply simply put. I mean, come on, that's exactly what
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: you were talking about. Um. And then, as we mentioned,
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: Hooks talks about the sexual revolution, free love, and reproductive rights,
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: and here's a quote I really loved about that. In retrospect,
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: it is evident that highlighting abortion rather than reproductive rights
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: as a whole, reflected the class biases of the women
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: who were at the forefront of the movement. While the
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: issue of abortion was and remains revalent to all women,
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: there were other reproductive issues that were just as vital
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: which needed attention and might have served to galvanize masses.
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: These issues ranged from basic sex education, prenatal care, preventive
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: healthcare that would help females understand how their bodies worked,
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: to force, sterilization, unnecessary ccerians, and to or his diextomies
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: and the medical complications they left in their wake. Of
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: all these issues, individual white women with class privilege identified
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: most intimately with the pain of unwanted pregnancy, and they
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: highlighted the abortion issue. They were not, by any means
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: the only group in need of access to safe legal abortions.
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: Has already stated, they were far more likely to have
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: the means to acquire an abortion than poor and working
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: class women. In those days, poor women, black women included,
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: often sought illegal abortions. The right to have an abortion
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: was not a white women only issue. It was simply
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: not the only or even the most important reproductive concern
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: for masses of American women. And again, I thought that
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: was such a that's such a good point, and it's
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: so important to remember. I mean, and we're not even
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: mentioning about the deaths of many of the black women
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: uh during pregnancy, during giving birth, and how that is
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: so impacted. If we are not given correct reproductive care,
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: then we are not able to save this. Women were
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: literally killing women who are trying to have children. You know,
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: all of these or those who we have talked about
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: and we have seen where medically induced abortions, late term abortions,
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: as people really wanted emphasize, which oftentimes are done because
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: of medical necessity, not because of want. That many of
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: these women are desperately to have children, but can't give
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: birth to a child because of whatever health issue, and
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: so therefore have to have an abortion to keep themselves
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: safe as well as maybe sometimes the fetus, and oftentimes
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: they have to do an abortion, but having to get
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: having a late term abortion to save their lives. But
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: it costs thousands of dollars and it is not covered
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: and is considered abortion, which we know under federal governments
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: do not always provide access or instant covered under insurance
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: and can be denied by a private insurance. Thank you
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: federal government. And can you imagine if you're one of
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: these people who can't afford that, and so you're forced
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: to give birth, and therefore it kills you because you
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: cannot afford that abortion, medically induced abortion, and then we'll
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: have to go into thousands of dollars of debt. Yeah
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: for tragedy, something that was traumatic. Yeah. Yeah, there's there's
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: so much to impact there. I feel like every quote
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: word we're reading it's like, oh, we could talk all
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: about this. Here's another quote. Looking back, after years of
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: feeling comfortable choosing whether or not to wear BRA, I
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: can remember what a momentous decision this was thirty years ago.
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: Women stripping their bodies and unhealthy and uncomfortable restrictive clothing.
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: BRA's girdles course at Scarter Belts, et cetera was a ritualistic,
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: radical reclaiming of the health and glory of the female body.
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: Females today who have never known such restrictions can only
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: trust us when we say this reclaiming was momentous. I
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: want to put that in there because I've seen a
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: lot of definitely about the death of Lebra, and I
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: know we've talked a lot about how for you, and
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: I like, I remember once I tried to leave the
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: house but in high school without a brown and my
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: parents were like no, no, And I was like what why,
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: And they didn't really want to talk to me about it,
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: but they refused to believe. I find that so funny
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: because I'm the same way. I still have this shame factor,
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: so I'll still wear BRA. As I'm getting older, they're
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: starting to be a lot more dangly uh, and not
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: in a good way. So like I get like wanting
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: to how to put myself together in a little bit,
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: I'm by the way, I'm actually doing this on on
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: the sky called Annie, but like, yeah, well, like people
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: know breasts exist. I don't understand why we are so
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: like there's so many things to this point that I'm like,
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: and if we're not showing them off naked, I mean
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: that's a whole different conversation. If I'm gonna not going shirtless,
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: it's still covered just because it is in a different
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: shape than you are comfortable with. That again holds to
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: a standard of like this is beauty to you. And
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: so if I make you uncomfortable because I've existed, I
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: have nipples, I guess I don't know why does this
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: right to the point, I'm like, there should be more
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: of a shame for me if I'm trying to look
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: put together, then for you. So I don't get it.
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: If I'm not, then why are you don't be getting wrong?
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: I did have a moment of like, I still if
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: I can go without a bra, I absolutely will, just
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: because it's itchy and I'm tired and I just want
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: everything to hang out. But every now I'm a good
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: because the way my boob folds and it gets yucky
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: and sweaty, and like maybe I need some piece of
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: color underneath that. That's a whole different conversation, the whole different.
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: But I didn't. I didn't think about that whole like
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: how uncomfortable clothing were, and we were We've talked about
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: the ridiculousness of clothes and sometimes how it was dangerous, man,
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: how liberating that was for that movement, the whole different conversation.
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: And then Hooks goes on to right the clothing and
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: body revelations created by feminist interventions. Let females know that
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: our flesh was worthy of love and adoration in its
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: natural state. Yes, nothing had to be added unless a
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: woman chose further adornment. Again, we've talked about this before. Initially,
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: she writes, capitalist investors in the cosmetic and fashion industry
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: feared that feminism would destroy their business. They put their
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: money behind mass media campaigns which trivialized women's liberation about
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: portraying images which suggested women were big, hyper masculine, and
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: just plain old ugly. In reality, women involved in feminist
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: movements came in all shapes and sizes, we were utterly diverse,
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: and how thrilling it is to be free to appreciate
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: our differences without judgment or competition. And I also thought
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: about that too, because for some, feminism is to where
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: something as sexy as they want and not to be
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: judged by it. But yet we're still judged by it. Yes,
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: and there's a quote about this. Girls today are often
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: just as self hating when it comes to their bodies
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: as their pre feminist count our parts were. While feminist
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: movement produced many types of pro female magazines, no feminist
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: oriented fashion magazine appeared to offer all females alternative visions
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: of beauty to critique sexist images without offering alternatives as
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: an incomplete intervention, critique in and of itself does not
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: lead to change. Indeed, much feminist critique of beauty has
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: merely left females confused about what a healthy choice is.
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: As a middle aged woman gaining more weight than ever
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: before in my life, I want to work at shedding
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: pounds without deploying sexist body self hatred to do so
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: I can relate it so hard to all of them, Yes, yep,
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: and we've talked about that a lot. Yeah, And then
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: also the issues of class um and this whole idea
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: of the issues of privileged women getting more attention. That's
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: something else that Hooks talked about a lot um. Here's
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: a quote, privileged class white women swiftly declare their quote
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: ownership of the movement, placing working class white women, poor
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: white women, and all women of color in the position
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: of followers. It did not matter how many working class
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: white women are. Individual black women spearheaded the women's movement
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: in radical directions. At the end of the day, white
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: women with class power declared that they owned the movement,
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: that they were the leaders and the rest as merely followers.
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: Parasitic class relations have overshadowed issues of race, nation, and gender,
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: and contemporary neo colonialism and feminism did not remain aloof
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: from that dynamic. Yeah, and then there's a whole section
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: that was really interesting about globalism and American women believing
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: that they know better as kind of part of that,
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: and kind of American largely white feminism being very almost paternalistic.
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: It's funny but being like, no, you're not doing it right. Yeah,
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: that they had this ownership as well, but it's kind
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: of it is it's isn't that the way that we
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: have this cyclical thing where they see a movement and
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: they take it on, created for their own and say
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: this is the only right way. And when things kind
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: of fall apart, they get very defensive and have this
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: whole conversation Betty Freed, and she brings up her a
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: feminine mystique and just kind of the point of it
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: all it iss she was a feminist icon, but then
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: she was also a white feminist and in that conversation
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: of like, who is she really perpetuating uh, this movement for?
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: And it was very conversate, like she and again Hooks
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: is a much nicer about it than I'm being, but
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: in that like this is this is how it's going about,
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: and who holds the standards and what we see the standards,
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: but they are also the ones that help these standards
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: and this is what we see as the bad fitness today.
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: And people say they don't want to be that feminist.
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: So like she does say that both those both things.
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: So I thought it was interesting and yeah, and she
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: writes on about the workplace, coming from a working class
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: African American background where most women I knew were in
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: the work force, I was among the harshest critics of
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: the vision of feminism put forth by reformist thinkers when
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: the movement began, suggested that work would liberate women from
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: male domination. More than ten years ago, I wrote in
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: Feminist Theory from Margin Dissenter to quote she such from
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: that book, the emphasis on work as a key to
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: women's liberations lad many white women activists to suggest women
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: who work were already liberated. They were, in effects saying
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: to the majority of working women, feminist movement is not
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: for you. Most importantly, I knew firsthand that working for
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: low wages did not liberate poor working class women from
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: male domination. And I feel like that is such a
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: huge Working for a low wages gives no one freedom
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: the we know it perpetuates this whole system of them
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: staying in a lower class, not being able to this
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: whole bootstrapping bullshit. It's not we know this, We've talked
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: about this, our listeners, y'all, y'all already know this. But
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: the fact of the matter is it wasn't acknowledged at
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: that point in time, and saying well, you go what
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: you wanted. You can make your own job and make
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: your own decisions. This is not making your own decisions.
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: This is doing what you have to do to make
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: ends meet, yeah, to survive. And we have. We've been
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: working on a project that we'll talk about eventually where
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: we discussed a lot of issues where it's like this
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: kind of fight comes up over and over again of
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: work being the end all be all in a capitalist system,
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: and how that's still a problem, Like you can make strides,
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: what we still have to keep in mind that system
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: is not really setting us up to succeed, not a
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: lot of us anyway. And I did find this interesting.
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: Hooks touches on the mistake of blaming feminism for forcing
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: women to work, which I thought was really interesting because
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: I think I've heard that argument as well, of like, well,
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: I just want to stay at Manory Children, and there's
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: nothing wrong with that, but I feel like there was
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: this judgment that that people have felt of well, if
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: I don't have a job, then I guess I'm don't
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: watched femininists, which is just another misconception, right. And then
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: Hooks also touches a lot on racing gender quote. No
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: intervention changed the face of American feminism more than the
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: demand that femini as thinkers acknowledge the reality of race
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: and racism. All white women in this nation know that
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: their status is different from that of black women women
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: of color. They know this from the time they are
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: little kids, watching television and seeing only their images, and
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: looking at magazines and seeing only their images. They know
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: that the only reason non whites are absent invisible is
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: because they're not white. All white women in this nation
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: know that whiteness is a privileged category. The fact that
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: many white females may choose to repress or deny this
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: knowledge does not mean they are ignorant. It means that
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: they are in denial. And we've been talking about those,
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: especially when it comes to television and who is being
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: represented and who isn't. You and I have talked about
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: this a lot. I've talked about my own UH conversations
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: and trying to find any person of color a b
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: As being the main character or not being seen as
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: a comic relief or the sexy sidekick in itself, and
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: me not having any representation until even recently, of any
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: type of real, actual Asian women in white culture. Of course,
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: if I was in Korea, it would be a whole
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: different story. But honestly, the thing I remember, there's very little.
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: I remember a lot about Korea. The things that I
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: remember watching TV was a Michael Jackson and Madonna. Those
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: were my two. I remember seeing concerts with them and
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: performing and I wanted to beat them. So even in Korea,
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: I was inundated with white culture, not Michael Jackson's not
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: white culture, but you know what I mean, like American
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: culture and being what that was and what was good
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: and what wasn't good, and so like that's such a
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: huge conversation because that's kind of the conversation that we
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: had with people who did represent these marginalized communities. And
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: they're like, oh, well, you know, they're not being ignored.
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: They asked me to and this is a great role.
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: So I took it like it's just it was so
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: insulting of being like, just admit it. You admit that
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: you did not think about your privilege and you really
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: liked this opportunity and you thought might get you an
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: oscar in the story, Yeah you know, Oh gosh, that's
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: the whole thing. Um, here's another quote. They being white
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: women entered the movement or racing and denying difference and
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: not playing race alongside gender, but eliminating race from the
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: picture for grounding gender meant that white women could take
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: center stage. It could claim the movement as there's even
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: as they called on all women to join. The utopian
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: vision of sisterhood evoked in a feminist movement that initially
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: did not take a racial difference or anti racist struggle
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: seriously did not capture the imagination of most black women
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: women of color. And that is throughout our book club,
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: we've heard that over and over again. That makes absolute sense.
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: And it's been a it's been a problem. It's been
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: a problem, and I'm glad we're discussing it because it
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: still is a problem. It's kind of that same narrative
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: of men trying to understand rape victims and sexual assault
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: victims by saying I have a daughter, I have a wife.
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: But it's the same troube. It's like, you don't consider
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: it until it's too it's personal to you. So when
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: it becomes a personal to use when you have a
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: black partner or a person of color, which I've heard
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: a lot, which I want to punch somebody if someone
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: used me as their token to say I understand because
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: I have I'm dating a person of color. That infuriates me.
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: I want you to understand it. I do, and I
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: know you have to have a have a starting point,
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: so I get that. But the token ism in that
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: and then it takes you that long to find empathy
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: MHM is really exhausting and heartbreaking for me. And I know,
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: good intentions, got it, got it, But this is also
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: what we talk about white feminism. Good intentions, but because
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: it doesn't affect their narrative their life, they exclude it.
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: And that's problematic, and that this is that conversation too,
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: in that very level, like you can't even you can't
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: even include that, you can't even hear that um, Which
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: is why it's important to have people of color at
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: the table once again, which, by the way, it's a
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: whole conversation you and I need to have because you
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: and I have been going back and forth about how
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: we are struggling with that phrase at the table, and
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: then I just actually recently see the TikTok video what
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: they talk about, but who made that table, and you're like,
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: oh god, there's a whole other port anyway, But this
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: is that same conversation of that, Like it takes that
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: much for people to realize why it's problematic and it
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: shouldn't have to be exactly. And then Hook's had a
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: really interesting bit on patriarchal violence and like how the patriarchy, Yeah,
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: it's like hurting, physically hurting people, but on top of that,
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: talking about women and do committing those violence and they
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: are following the patriarchal violence by being the ones that
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: commit the violence. And she talks a lot about child abuse,
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: and as as a former child abuse investigator, I was like, yo,
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: on point, on point, on point when we were talking
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: about why does it come through and then also how
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: it is perpetuated by the matriarch. Even though it's a
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: matriarch who was head of the family, they are still
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: perpetuating patriarchal violence misogynistic ideals into their children because that's
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: what they know, and thenternalized misogyny they have. It was
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: a whole breakdown, It was it was. There was also
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: a breakdown of how kind of the anti feminist movement
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: or the propaganda against feminism used a lot of homophobia,
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: the whole idea like all feminists are lesbians and that
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: equals bad. I guess it's also just incorrect, but in
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: that kind of context. Sure, I've always loved women. I
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: don't know young about So what way are we talking here?
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: And she talks about feminist masculinity, which she writes, as
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: often the case in revolutionary movements for social justice, we
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: are better at naming the problem than we are envisioning
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: the solution. We do know that patriarchal masculinity encourages men
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: to be pathological and narcissistic, infantile, and psychologically dependent on
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: the privileges, however relative that they receive simply from being
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: born male. Many men feel that their lives are being
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: threatened if these privileges are taken away, as they have structures,
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: no meaningful core identity. This is why the men's movement
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: positively attempted to teach men how to reconnect with their feelings,
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: to reclaim the lost boy within and nurture his soul,
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: his spiritual growth. No significant body of feminist literature has
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: appeared that addresses boys, that lets them know they can
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: construct an identity that is not rooted in sexism. Um,
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: I don't know if that's still the case. I think
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: there might be a book now about the young boys,
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: how to raise young boys. Yeah, I've seen a lot
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: lately of discussion about this. I know Glenn Doyle talked
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: about it in her book, but I I recently have
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: seen a lot of like, you should not just be
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: raising feminist girls, you should be raising like this just
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: isn't for girls. Um. So I believe you're correct. It's
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: definitely a hot topic of conversation right now, right um.
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: And it makes sense as we want to break down
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: like kind of teaching again talking about concern and talking
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: about sexual assault, that we don't need to put all
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: the on us on to women. This should be taught
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: to boys. Abortion is the same, right exactly? Yeah uh.
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: And then a couple of quotes about sexuality here quote
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: it evokes fear within me, just to imagine a world
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: where every time a female is sexual, she risk being impregnated.
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: To imagine a world where men want sex and women
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: fear it. In such a world, a desiring woman might
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: find the intersection of her desire and her fear. And
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: then here's another in the bedroom, many men want a
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: sexually desiring woman eager to give and share pleasure, but
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: ultimately they did not surrender the sexist assumption that her
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: sexual performance i e. Whether or not she wanted to
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: be sexual should be determined by their desire. While it
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: was fun to do it with willing, excited, liberated females,
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: it was not fun when those females declared that they
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: wanted a space not to be sexual. Often, when that happened,
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: heterosexual men made it clear that they would need to
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: look elsewhere for sexual release, an action which reinforced the
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: reality of continued allegiance to a sexist paradigm of ownership
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: and all female body as well as they're holding to
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: the notion that any female body would suffice. Yeah, and
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: we kind of talked about this with the Asexual book,
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: and I'm glad we did. But she yeah, she m yeah, yeah,
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: having the like agency and its face to be sexual
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: and not be sexual, that it be about the women,
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: the woman's body, and not just the man's pleasure. Yeah. Um,
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: here's another quote. What knowing powerful, caring lesbians taught me
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: as a girl, a lesson that has continued is that
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: women do not need to depend on men for our
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: well being and our happiness, not even our sexual bliss.
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: This knowledge opened up a world of possibility for women.
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: It offered choice and options. We will never know how
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: many millions of women staying relationships with dominating sex as
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: males simply because they cannot imagine a life where they
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: can be happy without men, whether they are satisfied sexually
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: and emotionally with the men in their life or not.
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: If any female feels she needs anything beyond herself to
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: legitimate and validate her existence, she is already giving away
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: her power to be self defining her agency well as
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: being women inspired me from childhood on to claim the
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: space of my own self definition. And we've talked that
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: even in our sex in the city. Don't you don't
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: need that? Like you if you want it, great, but
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: you just just yeah, just let it be. Why can't
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: it just be? And she continues writing Romantic love as
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: most people understand it in a patriarchal culture makes one unaware,
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: renders one powerless and out of control. Feminist thinkers called
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: attention to the way this notion of love served the
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: interests of patriarchal men and women. It supported the notion
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: that one could do anything in the name of love,
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: beat people, restrict their movements, even kill them, and call
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: it a crime of passion. Plead, I love her so much,
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: I had to kill her. What love and patriarchal culture
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: was linked to notions of possession, to paradigms of domination
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: and submission, wherein it was assumed one person would give
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: love and another person receive it. Yeah, that's such a
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: big sentence. That's just a big like, Yeah, it really
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: is it? Really? This as this ownership again, we've talked
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: about that one being one, being together in one finding
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: the one again as an ownership. Yeah, very possessive that whole,
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: Like she's mine. If she won't be mine, then she
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: can't kill her. Like. It's another example that patriarchal violence. Femicide,
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: which we haven't talked about much, which we should come
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: back to because we need to revisit. I don't know
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: it's been talked about before, has grown and gotten worse
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: in so many of the different countries, including the US
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: and the allowance of it. But again that's a whole
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: different conversation. And she does talk about spirituality and Annie,
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: you and I have talked about we're going to do
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: an episode about Christianity and how or just religion in
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: itself and how it affects women and the feminist the
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: misogynistic systems that weigh on women because of religion just
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: whatever and hooks rights. Early on feminist movement launched a
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: critique of patriarchal religion that has had a profound impact
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: changing the nature of religious worship throughout our nation, exposing
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: the Western metaphysical dualism, the assumption that the world can
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: always be understood by binary categories, that there is an
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: inferior and a superior, a good and a bad, was
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: the ideological foundation of all forms of group oppression, sexism, racism, etcetera,
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: and that such thinking formed the basis of Judeo Christian
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: belief systems. Yeah. She talks here about colonization with religion,
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: and again I'm just like, oh my god, this is
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: the intellectual bits and just understanding who we are because
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: of this type of oppression. Yeah. Yeah again, like this book,
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: I mean, this episode is one of our longer episodes.
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: This book is only pages. She just packed so much
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: in such a concise manner and everything. I was like,
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: oh my gosh, we gotta talk about this. We got
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: to talk about this, We gotta talk about this, and
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: we do. We do want to come back and talk
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: about it because that's something that both of us have
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: been thinking about. Um A lot of this stuff we've
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: been making. This kind of religious ben is something we've
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: been thinking about. And then the book ends on a
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: vision of the future and kind of you know, the
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: making more of this education around feminism more accessible and
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: and you know, raising these feminist children and all this stuff.
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: And clearly we we think so highly of this book.
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: If you have not read it, you should definitely check
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: it out. There's just so much going on, and it's
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: so thought provoking, and it's so just get you. Yeah,
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: it's a great book club read. And I hope you
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: all we'll pick it up and read it if you
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: haven't already, and then come back and listen again and
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: tell us what you have perspective is, because this is
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: definitely one that should be discussed more and more. And
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: I think she came back even though she had already
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: been talking about these things and she's already lectured about
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: these things to read format something that's coming back to question.
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: And again we're back into a cyclical moment of having
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: to uh justify why we say feminism is important and
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: again why it has to be defined again, not readefined,
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: but defined again with more inclusivity because of this and
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: I think she does a great job in highlighting that
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: I want to read it again. Maybe we need to
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: do this as a yearly visit Yeah, I don't know, yeah,
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: and bringing in more people to have discussions about it
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: because it's such an important conversation, especially it's spot on
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: obviously for our show, but it is a good introduction
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: and that whole consciousness raising in what is feminism and
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: why is it important? Exactly Totally agree, So go check
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: it out. If you haven't already, please let us know
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: your thoughts and your suggestions on what our next book
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: pick should be. You can email us the stuff in
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: your mom Stuff at iHeart me you dot com. You
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: can find us on Twitter at mom Stuff podcast or
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: on Instagram and stuff I've Never told you things. It's
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: always stirs up producer Christina. Thank you, Christina, Yes, and
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: thanks to you for listening. Stuff one ever told you
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: his protection of iHeart Radio for more podcast on my
• 1:04:07
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• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.