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Monday Mini: Do Women Make Up a Majority of Anti-Vaxxers? · Stuff Mom Never Told You

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha. I don't good of stuff.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: I've never told your production of I Heart Radio. I
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: think we talked about this, Samantha. I know we've talked
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: about it personally. I can't remember if we talked about
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: it on the show. Are you afraid of needles? I am?
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: Indeed I am. When I actually got my vaccine, the
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: woman when the first woman I talked to, was like,
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: just look the other way, it'll be okay. And the
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: second woman when I talked to when I looked up,
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: just started laughing and jabbed me a little quick. But
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: when I was younger, I would get shots when I
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: was sick, and I hated shot so much. I remember
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: at one point I jumped so hard when she poached me,
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: I almost broke off the needle and the woman almost
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: had and the nurse almost had a heart attack, so
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: like she said, She's like, oh my god, and just
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: so we both just sat there and my mom was
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: like what because that was my reaction and I didn't
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: mean to. Obviously she was like she kind of she
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: didn't yell at me, but she told me very sternly,
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: you almost broke the needle. That was going to be
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: a whole different thing, and I was like, wow, sorry,
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: I'm not a fan of needles. Yeah, I'm not either.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: I find when I was young I hated them, and
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: I remember once the nurse was like, just think of
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: Disney World, and I was like, my parents would never
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: take me Disney World, and at all off at what
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: to say. And then I used to cry when my
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: little brother would give them because I would feel so
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: empathetic for him. And now I still don't like them,
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: but I think it's more like I just don't look.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: It's over so quickly and almost never hurts when you're
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: getting it. When I'm getting it, I'll safe for myself
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: later it might stick, but but I still am like
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: waiting and tacking my foot anxiously, like this over with.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: I mean, at this point, I think it is the
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: anticipation than anything else, for sure. But I've definitely had
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: them when they different drugs within it does get that
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: cold and it has a little more than I anticipated.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: Also had a spinal tab when I was eighteen, and
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: those leadles are huge and I had a really adverse
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: reaction to it. So yeah, all these bad memories, all
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: these bad memories that we're very pro vaccine. We are
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: no matter what do it? Yeah, I it really really
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: I agree with you Smith. I feel like it's become
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: more about the anticipation and remembering how much they scared
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: me when I was a kid at this point, UM,
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: and it does feel kind of silly because I'm an
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: adult and I'm like nervous and this nurse is having
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: to talk me down almost right, But we did want
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: to talk about women anti vaccine today, and we're just
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: going put a date on this. I will say we
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: did the research for this one a couple of weeks ago,
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: and stuff has already changed, but today's date is obvious
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: twenty four one. And here in the US, we are
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: seeing a terrifying surge of the delta variant of COVID
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: nineteen and school is going back in session UM, and
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: so we're seeing a lot of fights over mask mandates
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: as kids return. And it got me wondering about anti vaccers,
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: in particularly women anti vactors, because also there's been a
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: lot of viral clips about UM kind of these open
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: hearings the public where people most of it that goes
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: viral are anti vactors saying things that are are very
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: over the top and getting very angry and like yelling
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: and shouting and all this stuff. And a few listeners
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: you have written in about growing up with moms specifically
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: who were anti vactors and how you felt that it
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: puts you at risk, or how you had to give
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: vaccines in secret, or having arguments that end in both
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: parties furious with each other. So it's just something we
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: wanted to look into. This could really be a much
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: bigger episode, but like kind of base level what are
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: we talking about here, right? And for the most part,
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: I've seen when it comes to like public arguments, especially
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: like celebrities, it has been women more so than men.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: Even the husbands who are famous typically don't have an
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: opinion from what we gather. And I will tell this
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: one story. I got a story. So my partner is
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: really into three D printing and he loves trying to
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: do some new things, and he saw a thing where
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: from the the fifth element they have the multi pass right,
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: and he was like, oh my god, we can make
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: multi pass thwee D prints and have the vaccine cards
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: into it so you can protect it with the multi pass.
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: I'm really excited offered to make it for other people.
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: I think he gave you one against your will as
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: well as gave a friend one because you know, it
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: was really exciting while he was showing them up on
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: his size and just letting people know he was doing it.
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: And then at one point he got a random Instagram
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: message saying, hey, my daughter told me you're a photographer.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: It was actually his text that you're a photographer and
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: you do some great work. Would love to see if
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: I can get something set up with you, and he
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: was like cool, cool, cool, Yeah, what are you who?
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: I don't know? First of all, who is this because
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: it was a number he didn't know. Do you mind
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: telling me who? Ferred you? Would definitely work with you?
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: What were you're thinking? What were you asking for? And
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: then she's like, well, can I just talk to you
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: on the phone And he was like what And he
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: was like okay, cool, And we're both very suspicious and
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: trying to figure out who's contacting him because he's not huge.
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: He's got a few followings and he does great photography,
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: but like you know, he's not famous. So he ends
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: up calling this woman. It turns out that she thought,
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: because of the multi pass that he was selling fake
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: vaccine cards and was trying to get a fake vaccine card.
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: Of course had to do it on phone because she
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: didn't want to leave it in text. He was trying
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: to get one, and she's like, I have to do
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: a conference here and they won't let me in without
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: a vaccine card. And I was like, ma'am, ma'am, get
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: your vaccine. And at that point, I'm like, you should
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: have told her, yeah, it can meet me at and
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: then take out to CBS or a wall to get
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: a vaccine, because that would have been hilarious. But yeah,
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: people are actually trying to do this. And it ended
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: up that she talked to her daughter and saying, I
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: think the stude is trying to sell vaccine cars, which
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: by the way, he's pro vaccine, Get stupid vaccine. And
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: the FBIS had to look into that because there's been
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: so many fake vaccines printed that's so sorted. I've seen
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: the one that had like Jesus is my vaccine, which
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: is even better. So back to some facts, I just
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: had to share that story. There have been several recent
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: studies about the unvaccinated population in the US and why
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: they are unvaccinated and how the demographic is shake out,
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: and we've had discussions on the show about issues of
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: access or racial trauma that can't be ignored UM, and
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: a few of these studies have ran with headlines like
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: what women make up the majority of anti vactors online?
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: A couple of things before we dig into why that
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: might be. Firstly, while a recent study of a thousand
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: demographically representative folks found that about twenty two eight percent
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: always identified this way and fourties sometimes do of Americans
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: identify as anti vaxer's, most experts point out that they
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: really are the primary segment of unvaccinated people in the US. Yes,
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: And actually I have a story about this because I
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: was telling you the big conference, Dragon Con, of which
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: I usually attend, recently announced to get in. I mean,
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: there there's a bunch of health policies they're instituting, but
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: one of them is you have to have a vaccine
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: or a negative health tests a negative COVID test within
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: the last seventy two hours. And I was just going
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: through after they announced this, I was just going through
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: the comments UM to see what the how angry people were,
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: and a lot of people are really happy. A lot
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: of people were like, oh my gosh, thank goodness. A
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: lot of people were really angry and like, well, now
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: I see you, and I'll never attend again and you'll
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: never get my money again. But then there were a
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: plenty of people who are like, well, I guess I'll
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: go get one now. And I was like, really right,
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: this is the thing. Okay, okay, gott you gotta get
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: that vaccine if you want to dress up a party.
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: According to that study that you just mentioned, Samantha, a
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: lot of people were adapting kind of a wait and
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: see and so they were like, I'm going to see
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: what happens to people who get it early, and then
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: I'll get it. So I just thought that was really interesting,
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: and I know we've talked about that before. Is I'm
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: just curious about people who are getting it now, Like,
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: what is the thing that you were like, Okay, I'll
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: get it. Apparently for some people it is going can't
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: hear the conference A NERD coverence looking specifically at anti
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: vaxtors and Facebook, A recent study did find that the
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: vast majority in quotes of people commenting on, sharing and
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: liking anti vax posts are women. This conclusion was reached
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: by analyzing two years of data from six of the
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: largest anti acts or Facebook pages, and that equated to
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: over two million shares. The researchers behind this find point
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: out that spreading misinformation and disinformation is a huge part
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: of holding people back from getting vaccinated and possibly overall
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: leading to them to get sick. People on these pages
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: often report feeling repressed, and there are so many comparisons
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: to the Holocaust on them. A fourteen study found conspiracy
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: like thinking was more common among anti vactors as compared
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: to the general public. Right, because you know, we're all
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: magnetic now, so that's cool. So A twenty nineteen study
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: found that France displayed the highest level of anti VACS sentiments,
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: in Bangladesh had the lowest, and the US was overall
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: pretty positive towards vaccines. Which, yeah, I guess the loudest,
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: sweakiest will gets the most attentional work next up sayings
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: right there, But I got you, I understand. I found
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: that really interesting. And of course this is from twenty nineteen,
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: so I wonder if that's changed. Is like, there's been
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: some bombastic rhetoric um in the US and and in
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: other countries as well, but here I wonder if that shifted.
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: But I was kind of surprised that France was the
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: highest in the US. Was pretty overall was pretty positive,
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: pretty pro vaccine, like even even when the scientists in
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: it were like, you know, we wish this was higher.
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: I think it was still like nine out of ten,
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: and even kids like, yeah, I get my kids a vaccine.
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: So that was interesting. But a part of the problem,
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: experts say of this anti vaccine mentality isn't an identity piece.
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: It's it's this idea that it is a piece of
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: social identity, that it is a marker that people see
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: as a part of themselves, like a core value that
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: they are proud of, and when you approach them about it,
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: they may feel attacked. Um, and that is difficult to change.
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: That was saying because obviously we're we being mostly scientists
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: and researchers, but I'm invested to were all invested looking
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: into why people aren' getting vaccinated, so they are trying
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: to find and like, well, what is it. How can
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: we approach this to change people's minds or to get
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: them to do it, And they were saying that it's
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: going to be really tough if people see it as
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: a piece of themselves. But what about women anti vaccer
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: specifically well, like we talked about in several past episodes,
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: including the one on Q and on, it has a
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: lot to do with myths around pregnancy and children. March.
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: He found that sixty six percent of women said they
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: planned to get the vaccine or had gotten their first dose,
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: compared to men. It also found that Republican men are
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: the most vaccine averse group, followed by Republican women and
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: then Democratic women. Experts believe this has to do with
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: myths and disinformation around vaccines causing infertility in women are
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: triggering in adverse effect in children. Group of people published
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: a petition to a German website suggesting with zero evidence
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: that the COVID vaccine might cause infertility, and one of
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: the authors was a former president of FISER, which gave
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: it a lot more credibility than it would have had
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: in anti vac circles. This could be part of a
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: population control plan. That's one of the theories Many misinterpret
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: or misrepresent scientific findings to gain support for their theory,
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: which is what happened with the study around autism and
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: children and vaccines, which I believe we talked about before
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: in the past. In times of uncertainty and fear, people
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: are more susceptible to think things like this makes sense,
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: so you're always kind of looking for this step. And
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: that's been a topic of conversation as well during all this. Yeah,
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: others have pointed out the arity of anti vac stort
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: of women using the phrase my body, my choice to
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: protest masks and vaccines when they are so gives reproductive
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: rights and abortion. Yeah, they really think they're flipping the
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: coin on that one. Some Republican officials have been introduced
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: and gotten pasted laws prohibiting mass mandates, although the Supreme
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: Court did actually decide not to rule on one of
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: the mass mandate laws. And at a school which pistol
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: lot of Republicans of because now they're like, oh no,
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: we can't afforce this. It's interesting at a Republican conventions,
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: people have cheered low vaccine numbers as in fact, though
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: apparently Donald Trump himself try to recommend and encourage it
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: and got booed by his own people. Yeah, and then
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: he backed up and he was like, well, you know,
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: only if they want it, but I you don't have
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: to get it, I have said. But yeah, there's just
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: a lot of interesting things that play, and I find
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: it fascinating how often we do go back to this
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: idea of children in pregnancy when it comes to conspiracies
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: and women. It's just a theme that we're seeing over
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: and over again and really praying on and building up
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: that idea of almost like kind of this ultra women
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: are the protectors of children and this is your role
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: is to have children, and just really playing that up right.
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: There's definitely a whole level of converse station that's interesting
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: to me, where the majority of people that I've seen,
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: once again not necessarily all, and I haven't done the research,
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: but what I've witnessed is pretty much predominantly white says
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: female who are the ones that are the loudest about
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: being anti vaxers, and typically when it comes to eugenics,
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: that doesn't target them when it comes to the fact
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: that this type of thing does happen and they're trying
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: to cause infertility on purpose so that people, you know,
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: population control has never been geared towards white women typically,
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: So it's kind of ironic to me the best what
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: they want to harp on because the true incidents of
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: this happening have been typically towards ablest and or racial ideas.
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: So so like, hey, buddy, you're jumping into anything that
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: you don't even really understand, right, I mean, you're absolutely
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: correct because that brings up like multiple other issues that
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: horror conversation that we're not giving as much air time
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: or we're not even including like some like we separate
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: them out, and we shouldn't separate them out because it
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: is part of this whole thing, right. But yeah, obviously
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: there's a lot we could unpacked here, but we just
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: wanted to do a quick overview. As always, listeners, we
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: would love to hear from you. We would love to
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: hear what's going on and your neck of the woods
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: and you're part of the world if it's different than
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: what we're talking about. You can email us at Stuff Media,
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