Latest / We Are More: Sisters Talk Faith & Feminism / Ep. 98: The Olympics Are Still Mad at Women

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Ep. 98: The Olympics Are Still Mad at Women · We Are More: Sisters Talk Faith & Feminism

• 0:12
  Speaker 1: To the We Are More Pod cast. My name
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: is Alyssa. And my name is Bree. We're two sisters passionate about all things faith and feminism. We believe
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: that Jesus trusted, respected, and encouraged women to teach and preach his word. And apparently, that's controversial. Get comfy. Hello world. How do you feel
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: about dilly dallying? I'm a big fan.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: We have been using that phrase more in the last week than I think anyone has ever used it in
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: the history of the world. It's just the best thing to do. You leave the house. You don't have any particular set of plans, and you just wherever the wind might take you.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: My birthday was this last week, and we're not gonna discuss my agedness. 102. Yeah. 102. That's it.
• 1:05
  But Brie asked what I wanted to do on my birthday, and I was like, obviously, dilly dally. Obviously. And my son got really confused because he was like he's four. And he goes, well, what's what's dilly dallying? He asked my husband.
• 1:19
  And Nathan did something weird with his arms. I was like, this is dilly dallying. And what did he say? It was like hinky something? Hickey hack.
• 1:29
  Hickey hack. He kept calling it hickey hacking as we were going out. He was like, when are we gonna hickey hack? But we went and we got coffee. We went to bookstores.
• 1:40
  We went to Ulta and Sephora because obviously we did. Mhmm. Got birthday gifts. Yep. I recommend for your birthdays taking a tour of all the places that give you free things for your birthday.
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: Lots of people on TikTok have really good content about that. Here's absolutely everything you could ever possibly want to get for free
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: for your birthday. And you could probably
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: put it into chat GPT, and it'll work out a route for you.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: Make a note. Olive Garden gives you a free dessert Mhmm.
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: That you can take home if you want.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: And you get to pick it. I feel like a lot of places are like, here's a piece of cake or here's some ice cream. You can pick anything you want Mhmm.
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: Off the menu. Mhmm. And I think the most expensive thing on there is their chocolate lasagna right now, and you
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: can get that purpuri. Have you guys gotten that? You know how they have the cheese grater where they like, you know, over your soup or your salad or whatever they put cheese? For the chocolate lasagna, they have a white chocolate grater, which is so funny. It's just so cute, but you have to wonder how often they've mixed the two up, you know?
• 2:42
  Like, somebody's getting cheese on their chocolate lasagna.
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: I wouldn't be so much upset about cheese on my chocolate lasagna as much as I would be upset with white chocolate in my Zuppa Toscana. Yeah.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: That would be really unfortunate. It would be gross. But do you notice? Or does it just melt and then you no no one ever knows? I feel like you would notice.
• 3:03
  You'd be like, this is sweet. But yeah, all that to say, we had a great time. We did it again today.
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: Happy birthday. Thank you. You're welcome. We just like
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: to go out and do ridiculous things. And I think in this, the year of our Lord 2026, you really have to find little things in life to look forward to because life feels very, very heavy. And so just like day to day, be like, okay, I'm gonna go get a coffee and go to the bookstore. Or over the summer, we went to a downtown area and just, like, hung out for the day. And sometimes you just gotta do those things.
• 3:41
  Get yourself out of the house, get yourself off TV and your phone and touch grass. Touch grass, man. Except it's there's a lot of snow on the ground, frankly. I touch no grass today. I feel like touching grass is metaphorical.
• 3:55
  Touching grass could just mean leaving your house. What about the poor agoraphobes? Oh, that's why it's important to become your an agoraphobe. Frankly, in this the year
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: of our Lord 2026,
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: I could absolutely become an agoraphobe. Heck yeah. Because I don't do the best with strangers. And I can have my food delivered. I can have my groceries delivered.
• 4:16
  And they just leave them on my porch. Thank you to COVID for that. I don't have to interact with anybody.
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: Nope. I work from home.
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: We podcast from home. Like, I don't forget it. What's the point of leaving the house? I don't know. Except we do have a coffee best friend that we do have to see.
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: We have certain people. We do. And people in my life have noticed that I have certain people. And it's not like, oh, I know a guy. It's like, no, I
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: have a specific woman that I go to for cheese. Yeah. Oh, yeah.
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: And the man at the coffee shop knows us. And,
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: oh, we have a woman for chocolate. We do have a woman for chocolate. And those are important things. Coffee, cheese,
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: and chocolate. And those are your people.
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: Frankly, I need no one else. I could get rid of you.
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: That was really rude, the look that I got. I'm irreplaceable.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: Well, yeah. But if I had to pick between coffee, cheese, and chocolate, and you
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: I'm getting some really spectacular looks. What if I come with a basket as if I was little red riding hood, and I had cheese, chocolate, and coffee?
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: Alright. Then you can come.
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: Okay. Fine. I get that. You know? Sometimes you annoy me.
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: I know.
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: And I would much rather have cheese than you.
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: But only a good cheese. It's gotta be like a honeybee Gouda.
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: A honeybee Gouda. Obviously. The best of the cheese. The best.
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: I really don't know how we we go from cheese to the Olympics, which is what we're talking about today. They oh. Here's a bridge.
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: Cheese. Parmesan. Parmesan. Italy, Italy, Milan, Milan, Olympics. I loved it.
• 6:06
  It was a bridge.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: It was a chain. Everyone journeyed across it with us. Winter Olympics. Yes. So this week, we are talking about women in sports slash women in the Olympics.
• 6:18
  Which we know so much about. We love canonically, we love sports. It is a well known fact.
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: Yes. And sportage and sportsmanship and activities and balls and pucks and blades and skates. Wow. And snow and ice.
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: Are there more things?
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: This is all I know about sports.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: You know, some people are raised in households where like sports is just a big thing. I don't know if where you're from this is the case, but I feel like in The US, sports can be just a massive thing. Even in our broader family, football is such a thing. Fishing, I think, is a thing.
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: I just find it bizarre because, like, what's the point of sports? Right? Everybody's so serious about sports and so not serious about the arts, when really it's the same thing. Sports are just theater for people who can't act.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: Let's put that on a shirt. Prove me wrong. I think sports are entertainment. Right? Right.
• 7:29
  And the theater is entertainment. Brie and I went and saw a string quartet over the weekend, and that's entertainment. The movies are entertainment. It's just different forms of entertainment. It's just that this form injures a lot more people.
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Did you see the one guy from the men's hockey team who got hit in the face with a what are they called? A puck? No.
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: The thing
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: that they hockey stick?
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: It's not like it's a technical term.
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: Couldn't think of it.
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: Actually, I did, but you wanna know why I saw it? He's from Michigan, and one of the orthodontists posted about it and said, hey. Whatever his name is. I don't pay any attention. We will give you free orthodontic care to fix because his teeth are gone.
• 8:16
  They're just gone.
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: I don't know if they know this, but orthodontic care is not gonna fix what's going on. Girl, I don't know. My gosh. Yeah. He got hit in the face with a hockey stick, and he kept playing.
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: I just nope. Mm-mm. Where was your mouth guard? That's a good question. But, also, I have questions for parents in this scenario.
• 8:36
  I promise we'll get to the topic at some point today. But the parents that are, like, super into more high impact sports for their kids, how do you watch your kids go through these major injuries and stuff? Like, our dad was very into sports when he was in high school and went through major injuries that still impact him today. I just I don't get it. It's just not my thing.
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: I mean, sports have physical injuries. The other arts have emotional injuries. That is true.
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: So what's worse? Well, it depends. Therapy or surgery. Which do you prefer?
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah. It's just personal preference. So pick that for your kids.
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: There you go. And then keep going. That's what we're saying. We'll end the episode here. No.
• 9:25
  But today, we're talking about women in sports because, obviously, with the Olympics, it brings a lot of this to the forefront, and you start to see it more clearly. But there are issues when it comes to sexism in sports all the time.
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: Mhmm.
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: And this year, specifically, I think there were some issues with some of the female skaters, the ice skaters, and also the hockey team was another one. And I'm sure there were many others, but those are some of the ones that I looked up and wanted to highlight as well.
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I would say the most watched winter events specifically for women in sports in the Olympics. Does that make sense? Does that sentence make sense? I don't know.
• 10:10
  I don't know sportage.
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: The last episode, I think we said sports people and sports things. Yes. The most watched
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: is figure skating and hockey. Mhmm.
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And I think it's interesting because the flip side of that is the Summer Olympics where gymnastics is usually the most watched for women. And it's that artistic. It's like, and it's certainly athletic as well, but it's those artistic things that kind of lean more stereotypical feminine that are often more watched, I guess. They seem to be more popular.
• 10:47
  But in skating, there were two women in on the US team. Now if you're not from The US, your news might have highlighted other people, but these were who our news stations were really highlighting. And the first one was Alyssa Lu, who won gold in the women's open, I believe.
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: She has two gold medals.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: Did you know she actually had to return one of them because it was
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: damaged? I heard something along those lines on the TikTok. Mhmm.
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: And it was I don't know if she necessarily cared and wanted to return it or if they were just like, no. You got you gotta get it back. That's how this works. So hopefully, will return that to her without the chip or crack or whatever it
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: is that happened to it. It's hard to say because I don't know. What
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: a deep and insightful comment. Thank you for that.
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: No. She won two gold medals. She won one for the team event for The US and then won an individual women's singles gold.
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: Which ended the twenty four year gold medal drought for The United States, last being won by Sarah Hughes in 2002. Did you
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: wanna know that? The fact that 2002 is twenty four years ago is deeply horrifying.
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: Disgusting. And also when you go and buy alcohol and
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: they're like, you have to be older than Uh-huh.
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: This birth date. And it's like
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: 02/2005. Yeah. Why? That's not okay. Those are babies.
• 12:07
  They shouldn't
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: be buying alcohol. We need to get back on track.
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: We're a little distracted today. But you know what? We need a fun episode. We all need that in our lives. Mhmm.
• 12:16
  But yeah. So twenty four years between the last female Olympian from The US to win gold. And so her history a little bit is that after the last Winter Olympics, she was 16 years old. She said, I retire. Which my gosh.
• 12:35
  Wouldn't that be nice? Now I realize that she put in a ton of effort up till that point, But she was like, you know, I just don't love it anymore. It's not something that I want.
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: Well, it's been something such like a huge, huge part of her life that encompassed every ounce of free time for her.
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: The way she ate, the way she dressed, how she dyed her hair. Mhmm.
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: She was the youngest US women's national champion at age 13. So can you imagine accomplishing something like that when you just, like, barely know who you are? Mhmm.
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: I mean, yeah. Think about yourself at 13. I was a freak. Yeah. It was an uncomfortable time for us all.
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: Like, awkward phase.
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: Mhmm. You were wearing a lot of rainbows at that point.
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: I was wearing a lot of rainbows. I thought I wanted to be an emo kid when I had no business. No business in that world.
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: No. I think it was good for you. It made sense. But anyway, so she decided over the last four years, which is a relatively short amount of time when you think about this Olympic timeline. Mhmm.
• 13:40
  Because most of the Olympians are prepping for the next Olympics when the last ones end. Right. So she decided to retire, took some time off. And then I heard it was when she was skiing. She kind of got an adrenaline rush, and she was like, oh, hey.
• 13:54
  I miss skating. So she came back, but she came back with conditions. And they were that she got to pick her costume. She got to pick her music. She got to pick her entire look.
• 14:06
  No one could tell her what to eat, and her father could not
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: be involved. Did you know that? I did not.
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: Because I guess her father was like, basically a major stage dad and was very pushy with what the rules Yeah. Mhmm. And she was like, no. If I'm doing this, I'm doing this because I love it. I'm an adult.
• 14:25
  And so in that very short amount of time, she came back and her coach was like, I don't think you're gonna make it to the Olympics again. Like,
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: it's been a long time since you've been training in just like the muscles Mhmm. That you have to have and Yeah. I don't know about sports. Really? Because that wasn't clear up till now.
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: Your terms But your body forgotten that Mhmm.
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: In some ways. So to say, hey, body. Remember this move?
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: Mhmm. Ow.
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: Does that hurt? It's like when I did a cartwheel.
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: That was unfortunate. I felt that for, like, still now. And it's been probably a year since I've done a cartwheel now. I don't know why your brain said although, honestly, I tried to do a what's it called? A table?
• 15:08
  Tabletop or something? That stretch where you have your feet and A your hands a bridge. Thank you. I used to be able to do that. No problem.
• 15:16
  And then I tried it again, and I my whole back fell apart. I think some ribs fell out. Because, like, you think your body remembers those things from when you were very young.
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: And in gymnastics, like, my mind, I could still climb a rope up to a ceiling. I can't. In the world could I do that.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: Now, I will give you that she's still, like, 20 years old. Her body hasn't fallen apart yet. So it was probably a little bit easier for her. But I think that the talk around her is really interesting and telling in the way that we look at women's sports. Because all the discussions around her have been about her looks and her her piercings and the fact that she doesn't look and behave the same way as other people.
• 16:04
  She came off the ice cussing, like which I thought was hilarious. But she's not that very clean-cut image that we would expect from a female athlete.
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: Well, also, I think there's a huge discussion about mental health and mental well-being Mhmm. And taking a break. And same thing happened with Simone Biles, who was one of our US gymnasts. She took a break.
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: Mhmm.
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: She said, in I think in the middle of the Olympics. Right? She was like, I'm done.
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I believe she yeah. And people were really mad.
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: Mhmm. Because they thought that she was taking a spot of someone else who really wanted to be there. But I think it's really powerful to, in that moment, say, like, I am not well.
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: Mhmm.
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: I need a break mentally. Because your mental health is just as important as your physical health. Mhmm. And then she was able to come back and be even better than she was before. And same thing happened with Alyssa Lu, where she took a break Mhmm.
• 17:02
  Because she needed one. And now she's doing it because she loves it. And you can see it all over
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: her Mhmm. Aura. Well, and we treat sports this is what I don't like about, like, sports heavy people, like, people that are really focused on sports. We treat them like they are life or death. Like, you have such an investment in this individual person, often someone who's like a teenager or young twenties, and you have such a personal investment in them that you are offended when they step away, when they take a break, when they say something that you don't like, whatever.
• 17:40
  Like, it's as though they've hurt you as a person. And that's crazy.
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: These are mostly kids. Something interesting about her is she comes from an immigrant background Mhmm. Which I think is very timely with the way The US is treating immigrants right now. And she's out winning gold. She was born in California, but her father, whose name's Arthur, immigrated to The United States in the 1990s from Sichuan, China.
• 18:09
  And she was conceived via IVF and birthed by a surrogate mom. And her father chose to raise her by himself. Like, he's a single dad.
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: Oh, really?
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: You know that?
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: I didn't know he was a single dad. I know she has siblings as well that were also from IVF. And I believe I believe that she was eligible actually to compete for China instead of The United States. And she did choose to represent The US. There was another female Olympian that grew up in The United States, was Chinese, and chose to represent China.
• 18:43
  And she actually got flack from our vice president, Janie Vance. Janie underpants. Who very publicly said, I just can't believe that you would have the advantages that we have in The US, grow up with all those advantages, basically take advantage of The United States, and then go compete elsewhere. It's like the idea behind you have to be US over all else is very strange to me.
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: It's strange, and it's almost like, does The US have ownership over your skill and your ability to do this sport?
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: Mhmm.
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: No. It doesn't. You're an individual person, and you get to, I guess, represent who you want, but you're representing yourself.
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: Mhmm. Yeah. It's such a strange thing. I don't know. I'm not I don't understand sports, guys.
• 19:35
  I just don't get it. But it's the same thing when it comes to, say, football in The US, where these individuals are representing a state or city that often they're not from. Yeah. They don't always even live in. But that city is so invested in those individual people.
• 19:59
  And it's the same thing with the Olympics and these individuals. And you're right. They have put forth the effort. Their families have put forth the money that it takes to train for these things, whatever. We weren't sponsoring them the whole time.
• 20:12
  And yet we feel that we have ownership over them. Particularly the women. I see this particularly with the women in sports where it's like she's lucky to even be here. And so why wouldn't she represent us? You know?
• 20:27
  It's just it's a weird thing. I don't know. But I think Alyssa Lu is a very good example of what happens when women throw off some of those expectations and shackles and things like that to just be themselves. And I think it's funny that you see a lot of the conservative people just absolutely obsessed with her because, oh, she won for America when she is so anti that.
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: I think her and Amber Glenn, two of the more popular figure skaters right now, have spoken out against what's going on in The US and not been over the moon in favor of our government and the way we're treating immigrants right now. And they've received some flack Mhmm. For that. Specifically Amber Glenn, who I would say is more outspoken Mhmm.
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: Than Alyssa. I She's a little bit older too. Right?
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: She was born in, like, 1999.
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: Oh, that's hurtful.
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah. 1999. Okay. Well, I'm not okay with that. Whoops.
• 21:39
  Like we were talking about before, she's one of the she is the first openly queer woman to represent The United States in figure skating, women's figure skating. Mhmm. She identifies as bisexual and pansexual. And you'll see her pictured with the LGBTQ plus flag Mhmm.
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: Quite a bit. I believe I know at least Alyssa Lu protested against ICE as well. I don't know about Amber Glenn. She did. Okay.
• 22:06
  So you see the conservative party like, oh, yay. Athletes winning for America, blah blah blah. But then you've got them if they met these women on the streets, they would hate them.
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: Mhmm.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: If I did the same things Alyssa Lutt, like, if my hair was striped the way that she was, my conservative community would give me more crap than I could begin to describe. Yeah. Her smiley piercing that she has. Mhmm. Which I could not handle, but more power to you.
• 22:35
  Do what you want. And then, yeah, Amber Glenn is a member of the LGBTQ community, and the conservative community is actively trying to take their rights away. And so if you met her on the street as a hyper conservative person right now, as a MAGA person right now, she would be their enemy automatically. And yet they're cheering for her. They're it's just very self serving to me.
• 22:59
  I think the chatter around Amber specifically focused a lot on her being emotional and dramatic. And that was really bothersome to me.
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: How dare she have emotions?
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Like, she there was one event where she fell a little bit. And, you know, that of course, that's upsetting. This is like what your life has built to in a way. And so she was upset.
• 23:27
  And the media pictured her as this, like, dramatic emotional ugh. She's so annoying. How dare she have a feeling? Mhmm. And oh, such a woman.
• 23:39
  But on the flip side, you see male athletes that do something wrong and fling their stuff on the ground and stomp off and get super angry. And they are never shown the same way. It's never like, oh, he's so emotional. My gosh. What a man.
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: Amber Glenn was shown I think there was a member of one of the other country's teams crying. Mhmm. I'm assuming because lost her place for the medal or I'm not sure. Sports. Sports.
• 24:09
  Amber Glenn stood up and didn't necessarily, like, push the cameraman away, but said like, no, you don't have to get all up in her face right now. Give her a moment. Mhmm. Because she's having emotions. Leave her be.
• 24:23
  You don't need to film this right now. So that was all over social media. Mhmm. And also she said she spoke out and said that she was on her period
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: Mhmm.
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: While competing and how much harder it is to land all these things while your uterus is shedding its lining. You know?
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: Can you okay. Women out there, can you even imagine? No. I just can't. I I just can't even imagine.
• 24:49
  Because as it is, having a period is socially unacceptable and painful and emotional and difficult. It happens to us once a month, yes, but it is a difficult life experience every time. I mean, dad, turn this off or skip this part right now. I
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: don't wanna be graphic, but we were in a bookshop today. And I was just squatting down to look at one of the lower shelves and something got dislodged. I can't imagine trying to land a triple Axel. I just things would get dislodged.
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: Like, when they do that spin at the end, what's happening? Blood is hurricane ing inside of you. Oh my gosh. Or when you lift your leg up and touch your nostrils from behind. We know a lot about this.
• 25:44
  Ow. Uterus. Come on. But the thing is, she and I think it's amazing that she even said that. It literally takes bravery to even say the word period.
• 25:56
  Because
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: our periods are used against us
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: Mhmm.
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: All the time. So people are automatically going to say, she's more emotional. She's on her period.
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: Mhmm.
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: When half the time, you would never know. A man would never know Mhmm. Whether I was or was not on my period.
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: Well, they would because you in particular like to announce it.
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: Oh, I do. But that's because it's my choice. In the same way that they wanna announce that they need to blow their nose like a freaking trumpet half the time.
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: Angry men on the Internet really love us.
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: Blowing your nose is a private event, and I will stand behind that.
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: No. Not for men.
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: If women can't breastfeed in public, men shouldn't be able to blow their nose.
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: Another one for the t shirts. Okay. So another story from this particular Olympics was the women's hockey team.
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: Let's get into it. Okay. Well, I've seen many a TikTok on this.
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: We made many a TikTok on this. And let me tell you, I pissed off so many men. Good. The comment section on these videos was a wild ride. And it was just so sexist and overtly sexist.
• 27:14
  It wasn't like, oh, we're trying to hide it or, oh, I'm trying to make excuses, but not really saying sexist. It was just overtly sexist. So if you didn't hear about it, the US women's hockey team won gold. The US men's hockey team won gold. Both very impressive things.
• 27:32
  Right? So the women's hockey team actually won about four days prior to the men's hockey team. But after the men's team won, president Trump called them and said, hey. So I want you to come to the State of the Union address, which was happening a couple nights later, and we will fly you. The government apparently will pay to fly you out here and attend this event.
• 27:56
  And I guess they were all excited. I don't know why. But he said then, like, oh, well, I guess I gotta get off the phone now and call the women's team and invite them because otherwise they're gonna impeach me.
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: And when you look this up, it says many interpreted this as sexist. Mhmm. Or including a quote unquote joking remark.
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: Mhmm.
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: This isn't a joke. Mhmm. This is sexist. I wouldn't say it could be interpreted that way. I think it is sexist.
• 28:30
  Yeah.
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: Well, a ton of the comments on our TikTok were basically like, what? He can't make a joke? Or, well, women make fun of men all the time. Or, are you telling me you've never made a joke about men to your friends? Things like that.
• 28:42
  There were a lot of comments like that. And here's the simple reality. There is a big difference between you joking with your friends or a female comedian getting up and making fun of men. And I'm not saying that those things are necessarily right. But there's a big difference between that and the president of The United States who has international influence getting on a call that he knows is recorded, and making overtly sexist remarks.
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: A big difference. Because like we say with Christians, If you're the pastor and you're making jokes, people are going to look to you and say, you're a pastor, so this must be okay. Mhmm. Because you represent all of the Christians. Mhmm.
• 29:34
  Right? Because he's the president and he has so much power, people look to him and say his behavior is okay Mhmm. Because he's the president. So you have to be careful with what you say when you have that level of authority.
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: What's that concept of, like, political correctness? And I know people make fun of that a lot. It's, oh, we can't make any jokes now because we gotta be politically correct. The president of all the people in the universe does need to be politically correct because things that he say things that he says filter down. And actually so my husband and I have been watching Love is Blind, which is truly the worst show in the universe.
• 30:14
  Don't watch it. But we watched, like, the first season. And then we watched the two most recent seasons. And there is such a distinct difference between however many years ago. I don't know how many years ago it was for the first season.
• 30:31
  And now in the way that the men speak to the women, initially and you can say that they're lying, that they're being performative, whatever. But in those first few seasons, they were very respectful. They were very much like when they would talk about kids, it was like, it's your body so it's your choice. Or, of course, I want you to keep working if that's what you wanna do. Things like that.
• 30:51
  Whether it was performative or not, there was an expectation that they were going to give equality to their partner.
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: Mhmm.
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: Whereas the seasons now, when the men talk to the women, it's like, well, I'm looking for a submissive wife. Or this season in particular, all of the men are like, I want kids. And there were several there are women on there that are doctors. There are women on there that are very impressive professionals. And many of them have said, well, I don't really want kids.
• 31:18
  And the men will be like, well, you'll change your mind. Well, I think you'd be such a great mom. And they try and be emotional about, well, you've got such a good family. You'd be such a great mom. No.
• 31:27
  No. No. Told you she didn't want kids. If she changes her mind later, that's fine. But this is her decision.
• 31:35
  And it's that attitude. And I think it comes from top down of this lack of respect for women. And you can just see it filtering through culture. And it's sad and it's scary. I'd love to know with these men too.
• 31:50
  Is their desire to have children because they love children? They want to have a family with someone? They wanna have that experience?
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: Or is it just, I want to further my bloodline?
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: Mhmm.
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: A lot of these men, especially if they're looking for submissive traditional marriages, are not super involved in their children's lives.
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: No. I think that there is a status amongst older men of like, oh, well, I I made all of these children. Despite the fact that they had very little to do with making the children.
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: But I think that's I think that's where it comes from. Anyway, back on topic.
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: That was
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: a nice little offshoot. So the result of that conversation with the president was that the men, almost the whole team decided to go, I think except for four of the team members, three of whom were from Minnesota. And Minnesota is where they've been having a lot of protesting. Two individuals were killed by ICE. And so four of them decided not to go.
• 32:55
  The women's team, they were called and invited to the state of the union address, and they said, oh, scheduling conflicts. Darn. And a lot of media outlets have tried to frame it as like, no. They really did have scheduling conflicts. They weren't trying to diss him or anything.
• 33:12
  Like, they they still have respect for the president. And I don't think that's to protect them. I think that's to protect his ego. Mhmm. But they ended up they had dinner with Stanley Tucci.
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: Mhmm. In Milan at one of his favorite restaurants.
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: Mhmm.
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: Whereas there's a picture there's like a comparison picture of them doing that versus when the men's team went to the White House, they
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: fed them McDonald's. They fed them cold McDonald's. They each got one meal, and they got bottled mineral water. Yum.
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: When you call people heroes, that's what you wanna feed them. A McDonald's burger. Yep. That's what they love, I heard. Yeah.
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: You can't get that anywhere else. Zero places. I've never seen a McDonald's near here.
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: No. Not a one. But it's just a funny thing, like, where they decided to stand up for themselves and say, like, no.
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: We're not I doing really like hearing them speak. I think the captain of the hockey team and maybe a co captain. Girl, I don't know. I don't know. The women.
• 34:19
  They speak very clearly and understandably. They're just like, we're not interested in going to see president Trump. They're not super disrespectful. They're just saying, you know, we didn't appreciate the comments. And so no, we won't be doing this.
• 34:35
  Also Flavor Flav, the rapper with the big clock that he wears on his chest, spoke out and said, hey, how you're treating the women's hockey team is not fair. And I would like to throw a party honoring the women's hockey team and other women in the Olympic sports. And I'm gonna be hosting that in Las Vegas, July 2026. You're all invited. And he started a GoFundMe for other people to support this event as well.
• 35:05
  And fifty Cent donated, like, $5,000,000.
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: My gosh.
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: So there's gonna be a big event in July. One of
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: the quotes from Hillary Knight, is the hockey team captain. Hey. She said, I think this is just a really good learning point to focus on how we talk about women, not only in sport, but in industry. And then she went on to say women aren't less than. And actually, I have a comment on TikTok as well that I wanna read because I think it's important.
• 35:34
  A lot of men will say, like, well, if women's sports were important, then more people would watch them. And I think it's important to point out that it's not that women's sports are less interesting or less important. It's simply that they get less funding. They get less advertising. Hillary Knight speaks out about that.
• 35:57
  She says the way that the women's hockey team is treated versus the men's hockey team is completely different in their accommodations, in their flights to the Olympics. Mhmm.
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: The fact that the men, after they won gold, got to get flown out to DC and meet with the president. And many of the women's hockey team, they just went back to school, went back to work. Mhmm. The funding is different. But you can see they've come such a long way.
• 36:25
  Like, women's hockey has only been in Olympic sport since 1998. Mhmm. And men's hockey has been in Olympic sport since 1920. And since 1920, men's hockey has won, like, 11 medals or something like that. They've won gold, like, three times Mhmm.
• 36:41
  Including this 2026. Women, in only twenty eight years, have matched that. Mhmm. They've won three gold, four silvers, and a bronze.
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: And on top of that, women over the last six Olympic games in The United States have brought home more medals than men. Mhmm. Significantly more. And yet we're like, women's sports. Since women's hockey was added to
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: the Olympics, they've made it to the finals every time.
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: Mhmm.
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: And no one's commenting on that?
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: Right. That's a big deal. Yes. This is one of the comments that I got on a TikTok about this particular topic. It said, if women's sports weren't a joke, then why were a bunch of women only watching the men's game and not the women's game?
• 37:23
  5,000,000 viewers for the women, 20,000,000 for the men. Even women think women's sports are a joke.
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: So obviously, this is a pervasive thought. And frankly, the comments on these videos are all men being like this. So when you say things like, oh, not all men. And then you get comments like this on videos and on things on the internet. That's where we're coming from.
• 37:49
  But to refute that a little bit, yes, the women's hockey final averaged about 5,300,000 viewers, but it was only aired on USA Network in The United States. On USA Network and Peacock. The men's average or final average, 20,700,000, but it was aired on NBC and Peacock. Now NBC is a massive network, whereas USA Today is just a singular channel. So NBC is gonna be aired all over the country.
• 38:14
  USA Network is gonna be harder to access. Mhmm. So it's not, oh, women's sports are a joke and even women don't like to watch women's sports. It's we didn't have access to it in the same way. No one's rejecting them.
• 38:29
  They just don't they they don't have it. They can't see it in the same way that they could with the men.
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: Well, like men's hockey is seen as like powerful. Right? Or just men's sports in general. There's an emphasis behind power, being elite. It's a real competition.
• 38:46
  Whereas like, women's are often seen as underdogs. Mhmm. And being cute, and growing, and inspiring. And that's what they have to be because women are often they're told to be soft, they're told to smile more. So seeing them in that same light as you see men in sports
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: Mhmm. People don't like People don't like that. Yeah. Well, yeah. Because like I said earlier, the sports that are most watched, the women's sports that are most watched in the Olympics are figure skating and gymnastics.
• 39:19
  Both extremely impressive, but also seen as more feminine. Mhmm. Seen as more artistic and beautiful and soft. Yeah. Whereas things like women's hockey, it is strong and powerful.
• 39:33
  You're looking at these women now all of these female athletes are strong and powerful. Mhmm. But just stereotypically, it would be seen as more masculine than feminine because they're whacking into each
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: other and stuff. Well, also, you think men's hockey has been around since 1920. Mhmm. It's traditionally a men's sport, whereas figure skating is traditionally women's.
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: Mhmm. Another thing to talk about is uniforms and dress Yeah. For women. And I think a really big highlight of this, and this is not in the current Olympics, but in the summer Olympics for beach volleyball. And I think I might have mentioned this at the end of the episode last week, but I I watch no sports.
• 40:16
  This is all research based for music. We love curling. I'm sorry. Curling and underwater basket weaving. Those were our favorites.
• 40:26
  But I was thinking that the women in beach volleyball were like, wore little shorts and stuff. They don't. They have to wear bikinis. And not only do they have to wear bikinis, there are required size limitations on those bikinis. So you can't okay.
• 40:45
  Hold on. Let me get a full coverage high waist bottom. No. No. No.
• 40:49
  There's, like, limits on the type of bikini you can wear. Now I want you to think even just wearing a bikini on a normal day is a little rough. Things are falling out. Things are bouncing that shouldn't bounce. There's no support.
• 41:04
  And then I want you to imagine playing competitive beach volleyball where you are flinging your body all over the place in that same bikini. Nipples would be flying. Everywhere. They would be everywhere. Everywhere.
• 41:19
  And even if you tape it down, the tape can only do so much. Mhmm. And so quite a few of the women were like, this is not working. This doesn't enhance our sport. It's not helpful to us.
• 41:31
  The men get to wear shorts and a tank top. We would like to wear something else.
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah. If we're talking about equality and you really truly don't want us to change, I want the men in thong speedos. So other things can fly around.
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: Can you imagine? No. That is not sport one. Immediately change the rules. So apparently, the rules have shifted in different competitions.
• 41:54
  So there are absolutely still competitions where they are not allowed to change out of the bikinis, but there are some where they're allowed to wear shorts and a tank top now because women fought for that. But the big pushback, the big comment was if you're not in bikinis, who's going to watch? What does that say about how we view women? Women in sports, but women in general. We're not here to see you and the impressive athletic skills that you have.
• 42:24
  We're here to look at your body and objectify you. Mhmm. Even at the Olympic level, these women have been training for this most of their lives. And even at that level, all we care about is staring at your body. And we care about it so much that we're gonna make rules about it and tell the world that that's acceptable.
• 42:45
  Mhmm. Now if that's what you're comfortable in, wear what you're comfortable in. It is your body, and you get to decide that. But if it's not, you should have the choice to wear whatever clothes make you feel comfortable.
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: And again, we talked about this in the last episode, but that limits this sport for people with other body types that are uncomfortable wearing that, but are definitely still good at the sport. Mhmm. Or people of different religions who religiously are not allowed to show those parts of their bodies. You're excluding them from this sport because of your uniform. Right.
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: It may also exclude trans people as well because of the surgeries they've chosen to get or not get. Mhmm. It may exclude people who have had other surgeries. Like, I've had surgeries where I've got scars on my ribs and my stomach, and I would be uncomfortable. Hello, world.
• 43:38
  This is me in a bikini. And you have to allow for that. And that shouldn't inhibit someone who is so impressive at their sport that they are internationally ranked. This has also been an issue for female gymnasts. Brie talked about that a little bit last week.
• 43:53
  Female gymnasts are often expected to wear leotards. And a lot of them do cut very high. They're very tight, and that can make some women uncomfortable. And so you've seen a pushback from the gymnasts who are now wearing, like, full singlets, some of them. Because there's no reason
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: you can't tell me that I can't do my sport in anything other than a leotard when you look at the men's team doing the same sport, but they're wearing freaking socks.
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: I know. They're in, like, athletic shorts and a tank top or full pants. Mhmm. Yeah. So if one can do it, there's no reason that the other can't.
• 44:36
  The only reason is we value your body more than your athletic abilities. Mhmm. And women are told that all the time in a million different ways. We value your body more than we value you as a human being. That reminds me actually a lot of have you ever heard the concept of bouncing your eyes?
• 44:56
  That would hurt. It would if you took them out. Mhmm. No. But this is a thing for conservative men.
• 45:01
  It's something that they are taught in, like, the book Every Man's Battle, things like that. And basically, it's when you are looking at women, any women, bounce your eyes. So don't focus too much on any one woman at any one time. So, like, bounce from one person to the next person to the next person so that you don't ever focus on one person so that you're not tempted by them sexually.
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: Or right from the get go, you can say, this is a human being. Mhmm. We respect human beings.
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: People are more than just their body. Mhmm. You can control yourself. It's wild to me that the expectation for men who in this conservative world are expected to be the protectors, the providers, the leaders of the household. The expectation is that they are so unable to control their sexual urges that they can't even look at a singular woman without wanting to sleep with her.
• 45:57
  I just I that makes no logical sense to me. I could never respect a man that thought that way. And women are very, very aware. Mhmm.
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: We can see your eyes. Yep. Do you think that we can't when you do the up and down? Mhmm. Or when you're only looking at the chest or the butt.
• 46:18
  I also this is way off topic. But being a butt versus a boob guy. Mhmm. I had a guy ask me on a date, if you were a guy, would you be a butt or a boob guy?
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: What? Mhmm.
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: I said, well, I see women as a whole person. Mhmm. I don't like that idea of dissecting them into bits and pieces.
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: Mhmm. He's like, no. But really. No. But really.
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: And then
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: you never saw him again. Yeah. And that draws back, I feel like, to what I said before where it's like, the expectations for men are so low. And because from top down, there's disrespect for women, that that's an acceptable thing to say on a date. Mhmm.
• 47:04
  Like, what on earth? Mhmm. Well, what's
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: the equivalent for men? Like, are are you a personality or a a body type?
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: Now I'm not saying that there aren't some women out there that are very physically oriented that aren't gonna judge men for their physicality. That's certainly happening, but it's happening at a lot less of a rate. Right. And, again, like, we'll get comments all the time on TikTok. Like, will women do this too?
• 47:31
  Will women do this too? Bad behavior doesn't excuse bad behavior. Just because some women do it doesn't make it acceptable for you to treat women as though they're nothing.
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: We've seen that on TikTok too. And that's a common defense technique. Mhmm. When you are speaking out about the wrongs of Donald Trump, etcetera. And people spam the comments with, what about Clinton?
• 47:52
  What about Obama? What about Bush? What about XYZ? And what they've done. Okay.
• 47:59
  We're not talking about them right now. What they've done that may or may not have been wrong is may or may not have been wrong, but we're discussing this topic right now. Can you speak on this topic?
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: Right. It's been really disheartening for me over the last couple of weeks because I feel like we've been more inflammatory than normal on TikTok. And I didn't necessarily intend for that to happen because I felt like talking about the women's hockey team was not that inflammatory. Turns out it was. But it's been really disheartening because I would say 90% of the comments have been from angry white men who are just really pissed that women are asking for equality.
• 48:45
  They're really mad that women are asking for equality. And it says something to me about society. It says something to me about the world we're living in, and it feels very heavy. And that's hard. And it's hard to watch the reactions to the Olympics and watch the way that women are spoken about.
• 49:05
  And the way that will then filter into how we speak about women's sports for the next four years. No. No.
• 49:11
  Speaker 2: We can't change everything. But at least in this one circumstance with the women's hockey team, I really love that people are stepping up. Like fifty Cent. Like Flavor Flav. Like Stanley Tucci.
• 49:29
  And saying, hey, we don't approve of this sexist behavior. Which that's not the circle that I would have expected for that. Not at all. Not at all. I was watching a TikTok.
• 49:41
  She's an Anglican pastor, and she's talking about how, especially in this moment, standing up against sexism is holiness. Mhmm. And you can see that in the Bible, where they saw the wrongs going on in the world, and they didn't just stand by and say, well, it was just a joke. Mhmm. Well, let's make excuse after excuse.
• 50:07
  They stood up for those people who couldn't stand up for themselves. And that is holiness. That is what we're called to do as Christians, not excuse this bad behavior. And this is bad behavior. Mhmm.
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: This is not just bad behavior. This is actively dangerous behavior. And I think for the women out there, if you see men talking about women like this, please don't take it as a joke. If you go out on a date and a man asks you if you would be a boob or a butt man, or if you see that he's bullying women on the internet, or if you hear him talk to women in a disrespectful way, take that as his character. That's who he is.
• 50:54
  And you deserve better.
• 50:55
  Speaker 2: People will show you who they are time and time again. Believe them the first time. Mhmm. We say that all the time. Believe them the first time.
• 51:04
  Because otherwise you get yourself in these situations, and you'll find yourself making excuses for one bad action, and then the next bad action, and then the next bad action, and then you're in really deep.
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: And you're gonna hit a point where it gets harder to get out. Because I've had friends that have done this where you excuse it, you excuse it, you say, well, now we're already dating. It would be hard. We're already living together. It would be so hard to break up now.
• 51:31
  We're already engaged. It would be so hard to break up now. Even though red flag after red flag after red flag. Now we're married. Now we have kids.
• 51:38
  Don't do that to yourself. Believe people when they show you who they are, and walk away because you are worth more than that. Now next week, I think this particular moment leads into that. I think it would be really great to talk about the male loneliness epidemic. I don't know if this is an international topic, but here in The United States, there's a lot of talk about the male loneliness epidemic and how women are choosing not to get married.
• 52:08
  They're choosing not to have children. And men are lonely, apparently. And that is just really hard for them. Who will make them dinner?
• 52:18
  Speaker 2: I have a lot to say on this topic. I think it's very funny because they came out with all the conservative men. Oh, women need to be pure and clean. And we don't want them dating around. And we think all women are sluts.
• 52:35
  But then women were like, okay. Sure. The four b movement, which is like, no, I'm not gonna have any babies because you're trying to control my body. No. Thank you.
• 52:44
  Mhmm. And then they're like, wait. Wait. Wait. Wait.
• 52:46
  Wait. Now we're lonely. Yeah. But what about us now?
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: Hey. We just wanted to control you. That's all.
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: That's all. That's not that bad. I thought that was fun.
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: So we'll talk about that. I think that has a lot to do with the church because of exactly what you said. So much of this filtered down from the conservative church. Mhmm. So we'll talk about that.
• 53:05
  How to keep yourself safe from that because it's an epidemic. It could infect you, maybe. Maybe. Alright. Well, I hope you had more fun than sometimes when we talk about politics.
• 53:17
  Speaker 2: This could be a fun game for you all. Like, if you're going back and listening and noticing every time we say something wrong about sports,
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: let us know. Take a shot. Actually, did you see that people were doing a drinking game for the State of the Union address? I think people got trashed. Not surprising.
• 53:37
  The guy giving the dressing trashed. True. True. On that note, we will talk to you guys again next week. Next week, you're welcome.
• 53:45
  Love you. Bye. Love you. Bye.