Latest / We Are More: Sisters Talk Faith & Feminism / Ep. 13: Lord Help the Bros

Transcript

Ep. 13: Lord Help the Bros · We Are More: Sisters Talk Faith & Feminism

• 0:00
  Welcome to the We Are More podcast.
• 0:13
  My name is Alyssa.
• 0:15
  And my name's Bri.
• 0:16
  We're two sisters passionate about all things faith and feminism.
• 0:20
  We believe that Jesus trusted, respected, and encouraged women to teach and preach His
• 0:25
  word.
• 0:26
  And apparently that's controversial.
• 0:28
  Get comfy.
• 0:43
  Hello world.
• 0:44
  Welcome, welcome, one and all, to our graduation.
• 0:49
  I don't remember the rest, but I was dressed as a duck.
• 0:52
  No one but me and like mom and dad are going to get that.
• 0:56
  That was my speech from the kindergarten graduation.
• 0:59
  And it wasn't even my speech.
• 1:01
  You got, didn't you get like part of it?
• 1:02
  Like everybody got a line.
• 1:03
  I don't know, but I was dressed as a duck.
• 1:05
  Why?
• 1:06
  Cause I did the little duck part.
• 1:08
  I feel bad for these parents cause you think like they want their little kids to be dressed
• 1:15
  up in their cute little fancy clothes and they made you a duck.
• 1:18
  Well, I still had a dress.
• 1:19
  I took off the duck costume.
• 1:21
  For the ceremony or like after?
• 1:25
  No for the ceremony.
• 1:26
  I don't really fully remember it, but we did like, we need to move on.
• 1:34
  You don't think that this is a great hook for people?
• 1:37
  Feeling very overwhelmed.
• 1:38
  I don't, I was five.
• 1:41
  I was five and I was a duck.
• 1:44
  You were a duck.
• 1:45
  I don't remember it either.
• 1:46
  I can't do as good of a duck sound as I can a chicken.
• 1:49
  You want to do your chicken?
• 1:54
  Tell the people about your viral YouTube video.
• 1:57
  I made a video in college of myself clicking like a chicken and I think it has like 5,000
• 2:03
  views.
• 2:04
  So I'm pretty much famous.
• 2:05
  Pretty much.
• 2:06
  Really you don't need the podcast.
• 2:08
  You just needed to make more chicken sounds.
• 2:10
  That's it.
• 2:11
  That's all I needed.
• 2:12
  I think you should probably find a new life calling.
• 2:15
  When I was in high school, I worked the set crew of the plays when they did the student
• 2:21
  show.
• 2:22
  So it was less important.
• 2:23
  I was a duck or a gufnaf.
• 2:24
  I do remember.
• 2:25
  Backstage I was clicking like a chicken.
• 2:28
  So people in the auditorium were like, why is there a chicken back there?
• 2:32
  What's going on?
• 2:34
  I loved the student shows.
• 2:36
  Those were always so fun.
• 2:37
  I know.
• 2:38
  Mostly because we got out of class.
• 2:39
  Yeah.
• 2:40
  For like most of the day.
• 2:41
  Yeah.
• 2:42
  I snuck people with me who weren't even in the drama department.
• 2:44
  They didn't want to pay for tickets.
• 2:45
  I was like, come back with me.
• 2:48
  I remember, I think probably like half of them I was in and then half of them I went to see.
• 2:53
  And either way it was a good day.
• 2:55
  Yeah.
• 2:56
  It was a great day.
• 2:57
  It was like last hour I think you got out of class.
• 3:00
  Or maybe two.
• 3:01
  I don't know.
• 3:02
  For the play?
• 3:03
  It might have been two.
• 3:04
  Depends on how long it was.
• 3:05
  It's true.
• 3:06
  Anyway.
• 3:07
  Moving on.
• 3:08
  Two and a half minutes of nonsense.
• 3:11
  But frankly we're doing great if we're two and a half minutes of nonsense.
• 3:15
  Yeah.
• 3:16
  Actually we're very clear and concise and succinct.
• 3:20
  That's who people think we are.
• 3:23
  How can you describe Alissa and Brianna?
• 3:25
  Succinct.
• 3:26
  That's the word.
• 3:29
  Yeah.
• 3:30
  People tune in specifically for our succinctness.
• 3:35
  They just don't love to do it.
• 3:40
  They just like to talk so we started our own podcast.
• 3:43
  I mean frankly.
• 3:46
  No one else wanted to listen to us.
• 3:48
  So here we are.
• 3:49
  Here we are.
• 3:50
  Talking to the world.
• 3:51
  Hello world!
• 3:52
  I have a week off and I don't know what day, what time, who I am, what's my name, where
• 3:58
  I come from, where did I go.
• 4:00
  Is my name Cotton Eye Jo?
• 4:01
  I think it is.
• 4:03
  And you should probably do the dance.
• 4:04
  TikTok!
• 4:05
  That's not where my mind went.
• 4:10
  I was like, Jo!
• 4:13
  Transition!
• 4:16
  Jo is a man's name.
• 4:17
  We're talking about toxic masculinity.
• 4:19
  Obviously Jo is toxic.
• 4:21
  Wow.
• 4:22
  That was a journey.
• 4:26
  So later when I edit this...
• 4:29
  You're not gonna edit that out because that is perfect.
• 4:31
  That is pretty funny.
• 4:33
  So anyway today we're talking about...
• 4:34
  Jo.
• 4:35
  Any Jo's that are listening, I'm real sorry.
• 4:39
  She has a vendetta against you.
• 4:41
  So anyway!
• 4:42
  Today we're talking about toxic masculinity.
• 4:47
  Jo!
• 4:48
  No.
• 4:49
  No.
• 4:50
  What is toxic masculinity?
• 4:53
  Can you define it?
• 4:54
  Because WebMD can.
• 4:55
  Do you know that when I edit these things, it sounds like I'm splicing things together
• 5:00
  because we go from cracking up hysterically to one of us becoming really serious.
• 5:05
  It's not.
• 5:06
  It's just us being real stupid.
• 5:07
  That's alcohol free, ladies and gentlemen.
• 5:10
  Just for you.
• 5:11
  Mostly ladies.
• 5:12
  Except that guy on TikTok.
• 5:13
  Except that one guy on TikTok.
• 5:15
  He loves me.
• 5:16
  Yeah, someone basically proposed to Brie on TikTok, so you know, updates coming soon.
• 5:21
  Yes, I'm taking applications.
• 5:23
  So today, as we go through toxic masculinity, we're gonna have a special guest later.
• 5:29
  Yes, Jo!
• 5:32
  No!
• 5:33
  We wanted to talk about toxic masculinity and how it affects women because we are women
• 5:39
  and that is the perspective that we can speak from.
• 5:43
  We also wanted to talk about how toxic masculinity affects men.
• 5:49
  And while we can talk about that from an academic standpoint, we are not men.
• 5:52
  We are not men.
• 5:53
  I hate to surprise you guys.
• 5:56
  I know that sometimes I go by Brian.
• 5:59
  I am not a man.
• 6:02
  So later on, my husband Nathan is going to come on.
• 6:05
  We should ask my future husband, TikTok man.
• 6:07
  TikTok man!
• 6:08
  Would you like to be on the pod?
• 6:12
  So later on, Nathan will be here.
• 6:13
  We have some questions for him that hopefully he's looking over right now.
• 6:17
  Did you give them to him?
• 6:18
  I did.
• 6:19
  Okay, good.
• 6:20
  So hopefully he's preparing himself.
• 6:22
  I'm gonna guess he's napping.
• 6:24
  That's a solid possibility.
• 6:26
  I'd be napping if I weren't here.
• 6:27
  You might be napping now.
• 6:29
  I am.
• 6:30
  I'm sleep talking.
• 6:33
  So Brie has some definitions for us, yeah?
• 6:37
  WebMD has a definition of toxic masculinity.
• 6:42
  And I will tell you what it is now.
• 6:43
  I'm prepared.
• 6:44
  You spit on me just now.
• 6:45
  Good.
• 6:46
  It's a good thing we're close.
• 6:51
  What is toxic masculinity?
• 6:53
  I'll tell you.
• 6:54
  It is an attitude.
• 6:55
  I gotta stop.
• 7:01
  It's an attitude or set of social guidelines stereotypically associated with menliness
• 7:07
  that often have a negative impact on men, women, and society in general.
• 7:11
  I think toxic masculinity, obviously it's popping up worldwide.
• 7:18
  This is not a church specific thing.
• 7:19
  It's a very buzzword topic.
• 7:24
  Two weeks from now we're also going to talk about toxic femininity because I think that's
• 7:28
  super important as well.
• 7:30
  Less spoken about.
• 7:31
  Yeah.
• 7:32
  But for this week, toxic masculinity I think we see everywhere.
• 7:37
  I mean it's all over social media.
• 7:40
  I think yes, it's everywhere but it's such a deeper topic than we give it credit for.
• 7:45
  Right.
• 7:46
  Because like I said, it's a buzzword.
• 7:48
  So if you see a manly man with a fish the size of Mount Rushmore and he's like, ugh,
• 7:54
  I'm a man.
• 7:55
  Like, ugh, that's toxic.
• 7:57
  Right, but is that toxic or is that just being who he is?
• 8:01
  Yeah.
• 8:02
  And when does it become toxic?
• 8:04
  Because it certainly can.
• 8:06
  So I think in the church we're seeing this so much tied to religion.
• 8:12
  Toxic masculinity has woven its way into the fabric of church men or Christian men or whatever
• 8:19
  you want to call them, but men that find themselves in church.
• 8:23
  Our dad says this all the time.
• 8:25
  He says that of course that attracts a certain kind of man who is maybe not confident in
• 8:31
  himself who is maybe not sure of his place in the world because it tells him you have
• 8:37
  ultimate power.
• 8:39
  Yeah.
• 8:40
  Yeah.
• 8:41
  Go dad.
• 8:43
  And like you said when we were getting coffee for the 14th time in a row, it's all about
• 8:47
  power.
• 8:49
  Even deeper to define it a little bit.
• 8:51
  That's such a good basic definition.
• 8:53
  But to go further into it, we said if it's not the man holding the giant fish, what makes
• 8:59
  it toxic?
• 9:00
  Well I'll tell you because I read a whole article on WebMD about it.
• 9:05
  Okay, tell me.
• 9:07
  Okay.
• 9:08
  I'll quote it.
• 9:11
  WebMD.
• 9:12
  The author's name is Sarah Valley.
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  I just feel like I should give her credit.
• 9:15
  Yeah.
• 9:16
  I don't know.
• 9:17
  She says, it's not meant to imply that the idea of masculinity in itself is inherently
• 9:21
  bad.
• 9:22
  Instead, it's meant to point out that certain behaviors and ways of thinking often associated
• 9:26
  with masculinity, from mental and physical toughness to sexism and homophobia, have a
• 9:32
  negative and often dangerous impact on the world.
• 9:37
  And I think just to dive into that a little bit, we talked about this earlier.
• 9:42
  When you tell someone that they have power over one group of people, so in this case
• 9:47
  women, it usually doesn't stop there.
• 9:52
  Usually if you say, I'm stronger than women, you're also probably going to say, I'm stronger
• 10:00
  than this type of person.
• 10:02
  I'm stronger than this type of person, which lends itself to racism, which lends itself
• 10:06
  to homophobia.
• 10:07
  Like so many things.
• 10:10
  Because you've decided you're higher up on the mountain than everybody else.
• 10:14
  Yeah.
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  Because I'm physically stronger than this person.
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  I have more power over this person, but also this person and this person and this person.
• 10:22
  Exactly.
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  It gives you this heightened view of self, as opposed to looking out at the world and
• 10:28
  saying, how can I be a healthy, happy part of this community, this world, this relationship?
• 10:35
  Well think about Jesus.
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  Jesus is fully God and fully man.
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  He could have come down fully God and just been like, do what I want you to do, people.
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  But he didn't.
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  He lowered himself and he didn't look at himself as any better than anybody else.
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  And that kind of leadership is what the world needs.
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  You know, literally.
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  When men jump off this precipice into this toxic, I have to be a man.
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  I have to be a manly man who hunts and fishes and does taxidermy.
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  I think that's going to be our running joke throughout every podcast.
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  Men love taxidermy and women love embroidery.
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  Obviously.
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  Cats are women and dogs are men.
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  We know that.
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  Did other people think that or was that just us?
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  I think other people think that.
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  That was like a weird childhood thing.
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  It's like a Mandela effect or something.
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  But I think when you see men tying their personalities into this, it just becomes almost impossible
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  to be a healthy person.
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  Because we had talked about this earlier.
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  We've had many conversations about this today.
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  That masculinity has become a personality.
• 12:00
  Yeah.
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  The idea of being a manly man is not a personality.
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  Like if as an individual you like certain things that tend to be more masculine, great.
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  Same thing with women.
• 12:14
  If you tend to like things that are more feminine, great.
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  But that doesn't just because you're a man doesn't mean you have to like these things
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  or have to be obsessed with power.
• 12:27
  Right.
• 12:28
  Well, I went through a few different articles.
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  We did so much research for this one, guys.
• 12:33
  Are you proud?
• 12:34
  Yeah.
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  I have several pages.
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  I do too.
• 12:37
  So one of the articles that I went through focused on someone named Andrew Tate.
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  And I'm not sure if you guys are familiar with him.
• 12:47
  This is a little bit of an older story, but I think it's important to bring stories like
• 12:51
  this to light.
• 12:53
  So he was someone that he was on the show Big Brother, which I've never watched.
• 12:57
  Have you ever watched Big Brother?
• 12:58
  I think I've seen clips, but I haven't actually watched.
• 13:01
  I'm not super familiar with what it is.
• 13:03
  Isn't it on MTV?
• 13:04
  Yeah, it was an MTV show.
• 13:05
  But I think like all the people live in the same house.
• 13:09
  They do.
• 13:10
  Yeah.
• 13:11
  Anyway, so he was on there and got kicked off for a video that surfaced of him very
• 13:18
  extremely abusing a woman.
• 13:20
  The reason that he is of interest in this story here for us.
• 13:24
  Because just like Britney Spears said, he is toxic.
• 13:27
  He is toxic.
• 13:28
  Yes.
• 13:29
  But also he became someone of great influence.
• 13:33
  He at one point, I don't know if this is still true, but at one point had over 9 million
• 13:38
  followers over on Twitter, which is now X.
• 13:42
  I'm so confused.
• 13:43
  It's very strange.
• 13:44
  But at one point he did and he was very, very vocal about what men are supposed to be and
• 13:53
  what women are supposed to be.
• 13:55
  He called his followers the war room.
• 13:58
  Great.
• 13:59
  Yeah.
• 14:00
  He talked about how men need to fight to reorient the world around themselves.
• 14:05
  He also then talked about, I just, I just have to like quote this because it's, I just
• 14:10
  can't.
• 14:11
  He believes that women are barely sentient.
• 14:15
  Just pause there for a moment.
• 14:18
  How do you speak to any other human being on the planet?
• 14:22
  Any other human being at all?
• 14:25
  And say, you can barely turn your head to breathe.
• 14:29
  You literally can barely keep yourself alive purely because you're a woman.
• 14:35
  Like that makes no sense.
• 14:38
  I don't, I, I can't even really respond to it because it is so far from what I can even
• 14:45
  understand.
• 14:46
  Does he forget who birthed him?
• 14:47
  Or anything.
• 14:48
  Like look at women across the world, leading businesses, leading countries, leading their
• 14:56
  families.
• 14:57
  He wouldn't go to a female doctor and be like, Oh, you're barely, barely able to turn your
• 15:01
  head to breathe.
• 15:02
  Like, I know he wouldn't go to a female doctor.
• 15:04
  He's the worst.
• 15:05
  And if he did, she would kick him in the face.
• 15:07
  Or worse.
• 15:08
  Further along.
• 15:10
  So obviously this man has found himself with a lot of influence.
• 15:15
  Horrifying, but that has attracted people.
• 15:19
  That attitude has attracted 9 million people.
• 15:21
  And part of it, I think is just the love of controversy.
• 15:24
  We just love to watch the world burn a little bit, but at the same time, I think people
• 15:29
  like that power dynamic.
• 15:31
  It's going to attract people saying, yeah, I should have absolute power.
• 15:36
  And look, this guy says so too.
• 15:39
  And I think the danger is like social media.
• 15:42
  Yes, pretty much everybody uses it, but a lot of young people use it.
• 15:47
  They think, Oh, you know, it's, it's against the norm.
• 15:51
  It's interesting.
• 15:53
  So yes, you're going to attract a lot of young people and you're going to fill their heads
• 15:58
  with garbage.
• 15:59
  Yeah.
• 16:00
  If you give them a definitive, this is how the world is supposed to be, it makes a little
• 16:04
  bit more sense when you're younger.
• 16:06
  Yeah.
• 16:07
  It's easier when things are black and white.
• 16:09
  Right.
• 16:10
  And so he has found himself with all this influence.
• 16:13
  Now as he went along to just prove what a horrifying human being he is, in case I haven't
• 16:18
  made that clear yet, in I believe it was 2022, so end of 2022, a great year, not for him.
• 16:27
  He was arrested in Romania with his brother and two Romanian women on counts of human
• 16:36
  trafficking, creating a criminal gang to sexually exploit women and further charges that I won't
• 16:45
  say because then I have to mark this as explicit.
• 16:48
  So, he now is standing against charges on all of those things in Romania and the UK
• 16:55
  has additional warrants against him.
• 16:57
  They're just waiting to extradite him until he stands trial for all of this stuff.
• 17:02
  That's insane.
• 17:04
  So now are we saying that all people that subscribe to this toxic masculinity crap are
• 17:11
  going to go this far?
• 17:13
  No, but that's where the thought process leads.
• 17:17
  If you can't respect women, if your ideology says to you, I am superior to women, then
• 17:27
  they have no value.
• 17:29
  So yeah, I mean, human trafficking isn't that big of a deal if-
• 17:33
  That person has no value.
• 17:35
  Exactly.
• 17:36
  If they mean nothing, then who cares?
• 17:41
  You have to give other people value in order for harming them to have consequences.
• 17:48
  And they do not have to earn your respect or earn their place.
• 17:53
  You do not have the right to anybody else.
• 17:56
  I think that's a really good point that we should bring up.
• 17:59
  I think men who subscribe to this specifically, it's very much like respect, right?
• 18:07
  That's the big thing.
• 18:08
  I think we've mentioned this before in the podcast, but you'll hear this in churchy circles.
• 18:13
  Men want respect and women want love, which is utter garbage.
• 18:18
  I want to be respected.
• 18:20
  Men also want love.
• 18:22
  Women also want respect.
• 18:23
  We all want both of those things.
• 18:27
  As people, we want to be loved and also respected.
• 18:33
  And you should respect the people around you as people, as people deserving of the same
• 18:41
  rights as you.
• 18:44
  And if we're going to talk biblically, the Bible specifically says, God created men and
• 18:49
  women in his own image.
• 18:52
  Male and female, he created them.
• 18:53
  Did you know actually the English standard version of the Bible, that verse, I gotta
• 18:59
  look it up, it says he created men in his own image.
• 19:05
  I think we're obsessed with finding the differences as a culture, as a society.
• 19:11
  We're obsessed with finding the differences between men and women and defining them so
• 19:15
  differently.
• 19:18
  And we do not think about how similar we are as just people.
• 19:23
  People want respect.
• 19:24
  People want love.
• 19:25
  That was one of the things that was said to me when we first started this podcast was,
• 19:28
  well, you can't deny that men and women are different.
• 19:31
  They're different.
• 19:33
  We just love to hold on to that.
• 19:35
  There's like one thing that's different about us.
• 19:39
  Maybe two things.
• 19:41
  Maybe three.
• 19:43
  But we're desperate to hold on to that.
• 19:47
  Men and women are different.
• 19:48
  We're different.
• 19:49
  We're different.
• 19:50
  But why?
• 19:51
  Why?
• 19:52
  Why do you want that?
• 19:53
  I can like whatever I want to like, whether it's stereotypically masculine or stereotypically
• 19:58
  feminine.
• 19:59
  I can pursue whatever career I want, whether it's stereotypically masculine or feminine.
• 20:05
  Just in general.
• 20:06
  Because I like doing something traditionally masculine.
• 20:10
  Does not make me a man.
• 20:12
  I'm a woman and I'm allowed to like what I want to like.
• 20:15
  Well when you make such-
• 20:16
  And I don't have to like embroidery.
• 20:17
  Thank you very much.
• 20:18
  When you make such distinct boxes for people, it becomes very hard to feel comfortable in
• 20:25
  your own skin.
• 20:27
  Like I have a very assertive personality.
• 20:30
  And I've always said that.
• 20:33
  And I have struggled with that a lot of my life because I was told that's not what a
• 20:39
  Christian woman is.
• 20:41
  And I think we talked about this in our first episode, in our stories episode, where I said
• 20:48
  I felt out of place in the church because I was a strong vocal assertive woman.
• 20:55
  And that's not what I was told.
• 20:56
  That's not what I was supposed to be because we have these tiny, tiny boxes of what women
• 21:01
  look like and what men look like.
• 21:03
  And that leads to toxic masculinity.
• 21:07
  And think about an amazing God created men and women.
• 21:13
  Why are we trying to make him smaller?
• 21:16
  Think about all of creation, what he created.
• 21:20
  And yet he's going to think of men and women and put them in these little boxes?
• 21:23
  No, there's so much more to us that we just deny.
• 21:27
  I want to circle back to those translations that I was talking about.
• 21:32
  So it's Genesis 1.27.
• 21:36
  And we've talked in the past about the different versions of the Bible and how some of them
• 21:41
  were written with a lot of this toxic masculinity crap imbued in them.
• 21:48
  That was kind of the purpose of them.
• 21:49
  So that's the English Standard Version.
• 21:51
  So first I'm going to read to you from the New Living Translation, which has a lot less
• 21:55
  gender bias.
• 21:56
  It was kind of written in such a way that things were more gender neutral.
• 22:02
  And done because that was found in the original texts.
• 22:06
  So Genesis 1.27 in the New Living Translation says,
• 22:09
  So God created human beings in his own image.
• 22:12
  In the image of God, he created them male and female, he created them.
• 22:16
  Now let's look at that in the English Standard Version.
• 22:19
  I wish you would.
• 22:20
  I wish I didn't have to.
• 22:24
  So then the English Standard Version, same verse, says,
• 22:28
  So God created man in his own image.
• 22:30
  In the image of God, he created him.
• 22:33
  Male and female, he created them.
• 22:35
  Gotta love that.
• 22:41
  And that's confusing for people who haven't looked into multiple different versions or
• 22:48
  the historical aspect behind when those translations were written.
• 22:53
  Which one do you believe?
• 22:54
  But I think we can circle back to toxic masculinity traits, not just violence.
• 23:03
  There's other things tied to that.
• 23:06
  Like we said before, homophobia.
• 23:08
  I have more to say on that.
• 23:10
  But a need for control, we kind of touched on that.
• 23:13
  Promiscuity.
• 23:15
  Being a man means that you can sleep around however much you want, but as a woman, you're
• 23:18
  not allowed to because your virginity is your greatest gift.
• 23:23
  And your hair.
• 23:24
  And your hair.
• 23:25
  Sorry, mom.
• 23:26
  I thought of an idea for a TikTok.
• 23:31
  We clip together all the time so we say sorry, mom.
• 23:34
  Do you know how long that will take?
• 23:38
  And sorry, grandma.
• 23:39
  We say that a lot.
• 23:42
  Using to help with household duties because they think they're beneath them.
• 23:46
  Risk taking.
• 23:48
  So stupid.
• 23:50
  Sexual aggression towards women.
• 23:51
  We kind of spoke on that.
• 23:54
  Stoicism.
• 23:55
  So like a lack of emotions.
• 23:57
  Lack of emotion because they're always told that women are the emotional ones and women
• 24:01
  are weak, so therefore emotions are weak.
• 24:03
  Real quick, I saw something one time and it was like the biggest joke on humanity is that
• 24:09
  men have rebranded anger as not an emotion.
• 24:12
  Yes, I've seen that.
• 24:16
  In my experience, men are 100% more emotional than women.
• 24:22
  It's different emotions.
• 24:23
  And they don't know how to channel it and they don't know how to deal with it, whereas
• 24:27
  women have kind of learned how to deal with their emotions.
• 24:31
  Well because stereotypically we teach men to tamp down those emotions.
• 24:36
  As parents throughout the world, we're teaching our boys tamp down those emotions.
• 24:41
  Don't talk about it.
• 24:42
  Don't feel it.
• 24:43
  Don't whatever.
• 24:44
  So then when those emotions come out, they don't have a way to handle them.
• 24:49
  Whereas for women, we're hopefully, and again this is just generalizations, but hopefully
• 24:55
  we're teaching our daughters a little bit more of how to handle a wide range of emotions.
• 25:01
  Yeah, like you're feeling sad.
• 25:03
  I understand that.
• 25:05
  Let's sit down and talk about it.
• 25:07
  Let's breathe for a second.
• 25:08
  The world isn't ending.
• 25:09
  Whereas men get sad but then they get angry because they are sad.
• 25:14
  And they can't tell anyone they're sad.
• 25:15
  And they throw away all their stuff.
• 25:17
  Yeah, like access to mental health services, not as prevalent with men because they don't
• 25:23
  know how to deal with their emotions.
• 25:25
  And it's not socially acceptable to seek help.
• 25:30
  It took me a long time through our marriage for me to be able to talk Nathan into seeing
• 25:36
  a therapist.
• 25:37
  And he's really not like this at all, but even not like that.
• 25:40
  And that's why we want to bring him on later and have him talk about this.
• 25:44
  It's like men don't go to therapy.
• 25:46
  That's still running through his brain.
• 25:48
  They don't believe in therapy.
• 25:49
  I've heard that several times too.
• 25:52
  When honestly I'm telling you, I'm constantly in therapy.
• 25:55
  I love therapy.
• 25:58
  And I think it's so good for people.
• 26:00
  Even when you're not going through a crisis.
• 26:02
  I think that's the best time to be in therapy because then you can deal with your little
• 26:06
  day to day stuff.
• 26:08
  You're building a good foundation for when those bigger issues come up.
• 26:12
  You're able to handle them a little bit easier.
• 26:14
  Your house isn't gonna blow over.
• 26:16
  So another article that I went through.
• 26:20
  Look at us reading.
• 26:21
  I know, I'm so proud of us.
• 26:22
  Turns out we are illiterate.
• 26:25
  Well we knew I was.
• 26:26
  We were questioning you.
• 26:27
  And I've always said that.
• 26:29
  So then the question starts to become like, what is biblical masculinity?
• 26:35
  So I read another article and this was from 2020.
• 26:37
  So it's a little bit further back.
• 26:39
  But it was written by a former evangelical pastor.
• 26:43
  And he was talking about the toxic masculinity that he saw in the world around him.
• 26:49
  And he kind of was part of it and has now obviously moved past that.
• 26:55
  So in this article he talks about a conference that he went to.
• 27:00
  And the speaker was talking about how to grow your church.
• 27:04
  And I've worked at churches.
• 27:06
  The spaces that I have been in and the pastors that I have talked to, it just is so often
• 27:11
  about how big can I make my church.
• 27:14
  So that was what the conference was about, was growing your church.
• 27:18
  Or at least this was, this speaker was part of the conference.
• 27:21
  And the speaker said that in order to grow your church, you need to get more men involved.
• 27:29
  Because obviously.
• 27:31
  And he said that churches have too many women.
• 27:35
  Honestly there are just so, so many women.
• 27:40
  And I've had enough of the embroidery.
• 27:42
  They're not even focusing.
• 27:45
  So he said that about women attending and in key leadership positions.
• 27:52
  And I'm sure he tried to hedge it a little bit because you can't exactly say that beyond
• 27:56
  film.
• 27:57
  But he went on to argue for complementarianism, gender roles, men being elders, pastors, leaders,
• 28:04
  you know, as you do.
• 28:06
  If you haven't heard about these things, go ahead and listen to all the rest of our podcasts.
• 28:11
  And talked about how women can hold small roles, but that they're not designed to carry
• 28:17
  the weight of real leadership because we can barely turn our heads to breathe.
• 28:21
  What will we do?
• 28:25
  So this, and he referenced first Timothy 212.
• 28:29
  So this is from the NIV.
• 28:31
  So we've talked about this before, but it says, this is from Paul writing to Timothy
• 28:35
  in his church and he says, I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over
• 28:38
  a man she must be quiet.
• 28:41
  Now I'm not going to get super deep into this one right now because we have talked about
• 28:45
  this in the past and we will continue to talk about it.
• 28:48
  But if you are hearing that and you're confused why that's in the Bible, remember that Paul
• 28:54
  absolutely had women teach and preach and sent Phoebe off with his book of Romans to
• 29:01
  teach the Roman church and had Prisca teaching other men.
• 29:07
  So listen to our other podcasts as well on this, but if this is all you're hearing, please
• 29:12
  don't be confused.
• 29:14
  Sometimes translations suck.
• 29:17
  Translation suck.
• 29:18
  And also know that a lot of times Paul would quote the Roman rule and then he would refute
• 29:25
  it.
• 29:26
  And a lot of times also Paul was talking about a specific situation.
• 29:30
  So I think historically in certain contexts that like he would be talking to a church
• 29:35
  where I believe in this context he was talking to Timothy's church who had a lot of women
• 29:41
  who had not been allowed to learn up until this point.
• 29:44
  And so when they were coming to these house churches, they were very loud and boisterous
• 29:48
  and asking all kinds of questions and it was distracting everybody else.
• 29:53
  And so Paul was essentially saying like, learn, but learn quietly so other people can learn
• 29:58
  too.
• 29:59
  Right.
• 30:00
  Not all women throughout time, but this specific church at this specific time.
• 30:05
  Because remember Paul didn't write this to every church.
• 30:07
  He wrote it to Timothy's church.
• 30:08
  So if it was correct for every church, then he's leaving the rest of them in sin and only
• 30:12
  caring about Timothy's church apparently.
• 30:14
  Oh, Timothy.
• 30:15
  So anyway, the speaker from this article heading back there, he said that churches are too
• 30:21
  feminine for modern day men.
• 30:23
  Bri, we put up too many lace curtains.
• 30:25
  I told you.
• 30:26
  I knew it.
• 30:27
  I knew it all along.
• 30:29
  We painted it pink and we weren't supposed to.
• 30:31
  I thought it was supposed to look like Barbie's dream house.
• 30:34
  I'm confused.
• 30:37
  So essentially he said that churches need to offer tougher, more manly events to attract
• 30:43
  the men.
• 30:44
  Leather, cigars, taxidermy.
• 30:45
  No, no cigars.
• 30:46
  Just the smell of cigars.
• 30:51
  And hunting and fishing and you got to kill some stuff.
• 30:57
  Yeah.
• 31:00
  So in order to do that, he said you need to embrace a muscular Christianity model.
• 31:09
  Then going on to say if you get the men, you'll get the whole family.
• 31:13
  If you get the women, apparently the family just dies in a river.
• 31:16
  But if you get the men, you get the men, the whole family will follow.
• 31:21
  And this is something that Christian churches actually do still talk about.
• 31:25
  This is not an uncommon thing where they say there's a set of statistics that say that
• 31:32
  if a man comes to church, his whole family will come.
• 31:35
  And if a woman comes to church, and I don't have the exact statistics, but if a woman
• 31:40
  comes to church, the family is much less likely to come.
• 31:44
  Which at least in our experience is not true.
• 31:48
  Not at all true.
• 31:49
  And biblically it's not true.
• 31:50
  You can look at women in the Bible who created house churches.
• 31:54
  It doesn't talk about their husbands.
• 31:55
  It doesn't talk about anybody else.
• 31:57
  It talks about them bringing their family to church.
• 31:59
  They're being bossed.
• 32:01
  Bees.
• 32:02
  Yeah.
• 32:03
  And on top of that, this statistic that keeps getting quoted, it doesn't actually, like
• 32:07
  there's no basis for it.
• 32:09
  Nobody can find where it came from.
• 32:10
  It's just something that's been quoted so many times that people kind of think, oh well
• 32:14
  clearly it's true.
• 32:16
  So this speaker said start up rugged ministries that only appeal to men and their sons.
• 32:23
  They can appeal to women.
• 32:25
  Things like eating steaks and talking about men's issues and feelings, but not too much.
• 32:30
  Not too many feelings.
• 32:33
  And you should have retreats that only have male speakers that talk about male based things.
• 32:38
  And in order to attract these tougher men, you have to make ministries that are cool,
• 32:42
  tough, and rugged.
• 32:43
  And this will make men want to be part of the church and it'll get them saved.
• 32:48
  Now I just, I would like to back off of, I know we're like making fun of this a lot,
• 32:53
  which is what we do as people, but I want to back off of it for a second and ask the
• 32:59
  question where did Jesus say that?
• 33:03
  Like we say all the time, give me a verse.
• 33:06
  Give me a verse.
• 33:07
  Jesus never said in order to attract people to me, you've got to be manly.
• 33:14
  You've got to kill some stuff.
• 33:15
  You've got to eat a lot of steak.
• 33:16
  I think the point of Christianity is that God is the reason that people are attracted
• 33:22
  to you.
• 33:23
  That's what sets us apart.
• 33:25
  That's our little light that we have to let shine and God does the rest.
• 33:28
  Well, and who was Jesus?
• 33:31
  Was Jesus this rugged, intense man?
• 33:35
  Like I don't see any evidence of that in the Bible.
• 33:38
  No, but thousands and thousands of people followed him and think about even now people
• 33:42
  follow him.
• 33:43
  They say Jesus was the most impactful, even non-religious people will say Jesus was the
• 33:48
  most impactful figure in history.
• 33:50
  One of the things that I wanted to ask is, and this is a little bit like pointed, but
• 33:56
  I don't care.
• 33:57
  Have you ever?
• 33:58
  I know.
• 34:00
  If you think your church is not like this, if you're sitting there going, well, thank
• 34:04
  goodness my church is not like this, ask yourself if that's true.
• 34:10
  Now maybe from the pulpit, they're not saying, yeah, men are better, men are masculine and
• 34:16
  we need to have masculine stuff.
• 34:18
  But maybe they have ministries that only the masculine men are invited to journey on.
• 34:28
  Now I'm not saying that you can't have a men's or women's small group and separate people
• 34:34
  out like that because I do know that personally I'm more comfortable opening up and sharing
• 34:40
  in a group of women, it makes me feel safer.
• 34:42
  I'm not saying that there's not some place for a small group, just like you might cater
• 34:47
  to a specific age group.
• 34:50
  You might have a under 30 group.
• 34:52
  Or if you're me, a small group of divorcees that I somehow was a part of and was not a
• 34:59
  divorcee.
• 35:00
  I'm not saying that there's not a place for that, but what does that ministry look like?
• 35:06
  Does it look like men encouraging other men to be strong Christians who love Jesus and
• 35:13
  exemplify Jesus?
• 35:16
  Or does it look like men telling other men to be masculine?
• 35:21
  And we can only talk about X, Y, Z because that's what's on the masculine list.
• 35:25
  How to get more power.
• 35:26
  Right.
• 35:27
  What does it look like?
• 35:28
  How to be more dominant, assert your authority.
• 35:31
  Really analyze that in your churches.
• 35:32
  I think that's critically important if you're looking for a church, if you are asking yourself
• 35:38
  if your church is the right place anymore.
• 35:42
  Bree and I have been through a lot of churches and we've had to ask this question a lot.
• 35:48
  And it's difficult because sometimes you do get involved somewhere and then you realize,
• 35:55
  oh hey, I've fallen into the same trap.
• 35:58
  Yep.
• 35:59
  Yet again, I thought this was different.
• 36:01
  So I think it's important to ask that question.
• 36:05
  But then the article goes on to ask if the problem for this toxic Christian masculinity
• 36:13
  stuff is Christianity itself.
• 36:16
  Now I wasn't explaining this very well to Bree earlier so she got a little confused.
• 36:20
  So I'm going to try and be more clear.
• 36:22
  I am easily confused so it's fine.
• 36:27
  So according to people who believe in this toxic masculinity for Christian men, they
• 36:34
  don't think they would call it that.
• 36:35
  They wouldn't call it that.
• 36:36
  They would call it masculinity for Christian men.
• 36:39
  Yes.
• 36:40
  They would drop the toxic.
• 36:41
  You never know.
• 36:42
  Some of them are a little crazy.
• 36:45
  But in order to believe that Christianity becomes a little bit of an issue, Jesus becomes
• 36:51
  a little bit of a problem because Jesus didn't exemplify this.
• 36:55
  And so the author has a quote here from Mark Driscoll who is a pastor who I personally
• 37:01
  didn't know a whole lot about.
• 37:03
  I've heard the name.
• 37:04
  Yeah, I've heard the name but that's about it.
• 37:06
  He is a big mega church pastor though I do know that with a lot of influence and hopefully
• 37:13
  that disturbs you after I read this quote because it disturbed me.
• 37:17
  So this is a quote from him.
• 37:18
  He says, there is a strong drift toward the hard theological left.
• 37:22
  Some emergent types want to recast Jesus as a limp wrist hippie in a dress with a lot
• 37:27
  of product in his hair who drank decaf and made pithy zen statements about life while
• 37:33
  shopping for the perfect pair of shoes.
• 37:36
  In Revelation, Jesus is a pride fighter with a tattoo down his leg, a sword in his hand,
• 37:41
  and the commitment to make someone else bleed.
• 37:44
  That is a guy I can worship.
• 37:45
  I cannot worship the hippie diaper halo Christ because I cannot worship a guy I can beat
• 37:51
  up.
• 37:54
  I'm gonna let that sink in just for a second but also I feel like if that's not blasphemy
• 38:02
  I don't know what is.
• 38:04
  That's insane.
• 38:05
  It's insane.
• 38:06
  They only had dresses back then.
• 38:09
  They didn't have pants.
• 38:11
  And they didn't have hair product.
• 38:14
  They had oil.
• 38:15
  They also didn't have decaf coffee.
• 38:18
  But let's... there's a lot... I could do a whole podcast on this.
• 38:25
  But let's talk about first of all that he's pulled out Jesus in Revelations as opposed
• 38:32
  to Jesus when he was on the earth.
• 38:35
  So Jesus in the end times when really we don't have a lot of information on what that's gonna
• 38:41
  look like, you know, because it has not happened, because it has not happened, as opposed to
• 38:46
  Jesus when he was on the earth and said, hey look at me, follow me.
• 38:51
  The historical actual account of Jesus.
• 38:55
  When he was here.
• 38:56
  When he loved people.
• 38:57
  And all of this stuff that he's saying, he drank decaf.
• 39:01
  Is that an insult?
• 39:02
  Can I just... is that... to me it is.
• 39:05
  I mean we don't drink decaf.
• 39:07
  But like if you drink decaf are you less of a Christian?
• 39:11
  Are you less of a man?
• 39:12
  Are you less of a person?
• 39:14
  What in heaven's name?
• 39:15
  If you use hair product, I guarantee you this man, he's on TV.
• 39:19
  I guarantee you he's using hair product.
• 39:20
  In fact, I guarantee you he's got makeup on his face when he's on TV.
• 39:24
  Does that make you less of a Christian or of a man?
• 39:27
  I don't understand.
• 39:28
  It doesn't.
• 39:29
  I don't understand.
• 39:30
  There's a verse that says essentially you'll know who they are by their fruit.
• 39:33
  You'll know who they are by their goodness, not by their hate towards other people.
• 39:39
  I think this is actually super relevant to this in particular because he is a pastor
• 39:45
  and the label, the little header, which again is added by translators, but the little header
• 39:50
  for this section is true and false prophets.
• 39:52
  I'm proud of you.
• 40:01
  So this section is Matthew 7, 15 through 20 and it says watch out for false prophets.
• 40:07
  They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves.
• 40:13
  Sheep's clothing.
• 40:14
  By their fruit, you will recognize them.
• 40:17
  Do people pick grapes from thorn bushes or figs from thistles?
• 40:20
  Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit.
• 40:26
  A good tree cannot bear bad fruit and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit.
• 40:31
  I think that's perfect because it does talk about it's your attitude that people know
• 40:37
  Christ through you.
• 40:40
  And when your attitude is like Mark Driscoll's and it's, well I only have respect for people
• 40:47
  I can beat up.
• 40:49
  That's not Christ.
• 40:51
  That's alienating.
• 40:52
  Well, first of all, I don't know your workout routine.
• 40:55
  I don't know who you're beating up, but how many people are you alienating?
• 40:59
  How many people can you not respect?
• 41:01
  Well, that's what it boils down to is it boils down to you can't respect anyone that is not
• 41:06
  physically stronger than you.
• 41:08
  So then who else don't you respect?
• 41:11
  Because I'm going to guess most of the biblical characters weren't weightlifters.
• 41:16
  Are you not respecting Abraham, who did most of his work when he was old?
• 41:25
  Or Ruth, who it's unlikely was super physically strong or had the opportunity to be so?
• 41:33
  Jesus himself?
• 41:34
  Right.
• 41:35
  Like, if he isn't a super buff gym guy, you can't respect him?
• 41:41
  And then pull that into modern day.
• 41:44
  So now I assume that this man thinks all women are weaker than him.
• 41:49
  So just going based off that, not that all women actually are weaker than him.
• 41:52
  I feel like I could take him with a shiv.
• 41:55
  But going based off of that of his assumption, now he can't respect any women.
• 42:02
  He can't respect any differently abled people.
• 42:06
  He can't respect children.
• 42:08
  He can't respect anyone that isn't as physically strong as he is.
• 42:12
  And he's leading how many people?
• 42:15
  What about the elderly?
• 42:17
  You can't respect your elders because that's quite literally biblical.
• 42:20
  So then the rest of this article goes on to talk about in this perspective.
• 42:24
  Now this isn't what the author thinks, but from this perspective, he said, what do women
• 42:29
  even do in this view of the world?
• 42:32
  What is even the point of women other than to pop out babies?
• 42:37
  And he said that according to these people, women just need to submit sexually and socially
• 42:43
  to fulfill their role.
• 42:46
  This obviously would make them the happiest if they just did those little things.
• 42:50
  Obviously.
• 42:51
  It's so simple to not have any personality whatsoever.
• 42:56
  They also need to hold up their husband's ego.
• 42:59
  This is me being a little sassy, but just because he can't hold it up on his own, he
• 43:04
  might just fall right over.
• 43:05
  It's a big ego.
• 43:06
  It needs a lot of people to hold it up.
• 43:09
  Maybe multiple wives.
• 43:11
  Maybe.
• 43:12
  And also that wives need to be well-kept and pretty at all times because if they aren't,
• 43:20
  their husbands might be liable to just run off and find someone else who's prettier and
• 43:24
  lovelier and clearly that's their fault because they didn't put on enough makeup today.
• 43:28
  I'm looking at you and I right now.
• 43:30
  We're not looking great.
• 43:31
  We're not looking great.
• 43:34
  I did shower.
• 43:35
  Brought to you.
• 43:38
  It's just the whole concept of it.
• 43:40
  And is this taking it a little far?
• 43:43
  Maybe, but I don't think this is taking it out of the realm of what someone who subscribes
• 43:49
  to a toxic masculinity attitude would say.
• 43:54
  It makes it very hard if you're surrounded by that constantly to want to follow Christ.
• 44:02
  To want to be a Christian at all.
• 44:04
  You see women, and like I said, we've said this before, but women are leaving churches
• 44:08
  in droves.
• 44:09
  They are running from the church.
• 44:12
  Why?
• 44:14
  Because of this.
• 44:16
  Because that's the reputation of the church right now is hate.
• 44:19
  You look at our TikTok for example, and I love that we're getting interaction over there
• 44:25
  because it's showing me what people's attitude is towards things like this.
• 44:29
  My husband's there.
• 44:33
  But we've gotten a lot of comments when we post clips from the episodes of like, well
• 44:38
  the church just hates women.
• 44:39
  Well the church is a business and they're trying to bring families in because they want
• 44:43
  more money.
• 44:44
  Well, the church wants to tamp women down, so why would you be there?
• 44:48
  Why not just leave?
• 44:50
  And those are the kinds of comments that we're seeing and I'm so glad that people feel comfortable
• 44:54
  enough to say that to us.
• 44:57
  Coming from a church position because I want to hear that.
• 45:01
  I want to hear that you've had these kinds of problems.
• 45:04
  Because if we're stuck in our own bubble all the time, how are we supposed to further God's
• 45:10
  mission?
• 45:11
  How are we supposed to share the love that we know that is truly there?
• 45:16
  And I think that's what we're trying to do here is to pull back all of this, all of the
• 45:22
  submission and the masculinity and whatever, to say there is a loving book underneath all
• 45:29
  of this that we've lost.
• 45:32
  Because we've covered it in our social expectations and in power and in all of these things we've
• 45:38
  covered it and the book is in there, it's down there, Jesus is trying to shout as loud
• 45:44
  as he can and we're not listening.
• 45:47
  Nope.
• 45:48
  We're so obsessed with the rules and we're so obsessed with the definitions, trying to
• 45:54
  define men and women and making them separate as much as we can and you're right, we've
• 45:58
  lost the love.
• 46:00
  We've completely lost the love.
• 46:03
  Okay, so we are going to jump into our interview portion.
• 46:08
  I titled it Interview with a Man.
• 46:10
  I'm so proud.
• 46:13
  So we asked my husband Nathan if he would come up the stairs and record with us because
• 46:21
  we want to learn a little bit more about what toxic masculinity looks like from a man's perspective.
• 46:29
  If he even thinks it's toxic.
• 46:31
  We don't know yet, we have not interviewed him.
• 46:33
  That's true, I'm sorry for the influence, Nathan.
• 46:35
  Alright, so Bree's going to ask some questions because otherwise she's going to feel like
• 46:40
  a real third wheel.
• 46:41
  That's a direct quote.
• 46:43
  From myself.
• 46:44
  Okay, Nathan.
• 46:45
  Hi, I'm Nathan.
• 46:46
  I am Alyssa's husband and long time listener of the podcast.
• 46:52
  Thank you so much for having me here today and I am terrified of your questions.
• 46:59
  Oh no.
• 47:01
  Okay, I'm moving on.
• 47:05
  What are things you were taught as a child that would make you more manly or were you
• 47:11
  ever taught things that would make you more manly?
• 47:14
  Is that insulting?
• 47:17
  I don't think I was, I don't remember anything directly like, you know, like you gotta do
• 47:23
  this, be this way to be manly.
• 47:24
  I do remember like one instance where me and my one friend, we were outside riding our
• 47:29
  bikes after it rained and we both fell and got really bloody knees and I remember his
• 47:32
  dad would not let him put a bandaid on his knee because, you know, that's for women.
• 47:39
  What?
• 47:40
  Because women bleed.
• 47:43
  Yeah, he let him put a pad on his knee.
• 47:51
  That's insane.
• 47:52
  That's insane.
• 47:53
  I remember thinking though like, oh maybe I shouldn't have a bandaid on my bloody knee,
• 47:59
  but then I did.
• 48:00
  Because like health and wellbeing is only for women.
• 48:04
  Well I mean that's what your statistics said.
• 48:07
  Men are less likely to seek medical attention.
• 48:09
  That's very true.
• 48:11
  Do you have anything more to say on that?
• 48:13
  No.
• 48:14
  Okay, I'm moving on to question two.
• 48:16
  In your own words, not in anybody else's words, what does it mean to be a man?
• 48:23
  Well, I don't know, I think that's kind of a loaded question to some degree depending
• 48:30
  on who you're talking to just because I don't think being a man is really defined as doing
• 48:36
  certain things to be a man.
• 48:38
  All Jesus calls us to do is to love God and love others.
• 48:42
  God doesn't say like, do this to become a man.
• 48:46
  He just says, love me and love others.
• 48:49
  Love your neighbor as you love yourself.
• 48:52
  As a person in general?
• 48:53
  Okay.
• 48:55
  What do you think God wants for men today?
• 48:56
  I don't think he wants anything specifically for men.
• 48:59
  I think his commandment is to love him and love others.
• 49:03
  That's all he's asking.
• 49:06
  And so I think as humans, men and women, we complicate and make the Bible very difficult
• 49:14
  for ourselves.
• 49:17
  Question number four.
• 49:19
  What do you hope to teach your son as he becomes a man?
• 49:22
  I hope to teach Bibliobab as our son's name, just to be kind, to love people as they are
• 49:33
  and no matter what they might believe, no matter what they, however they choose to live,
• 49:39
  because that's how Jesus loved them.
• 49:41
  I don't care what they're doing or how they do it.
• 49:44
  As long as he's loving them as Jesus called to, then they see God through him by, I don't
• 49:52
  know what the word is, by telepath.
• 49:54
  Just by seeing him.
• 49:58
  Yeah.
• 49:59
  I think that's a really interesting statement though, because you do not think of kindness
• 50:04
  as traditionally masculine.
• 50:07
  People aren't taught that.
• 50:08
  That men should be kind.
• 50:09
  Yeah.
• 50:10
  Well, I think our church a couple weeks ago for Father's Day did a pretty good job at
• 50:13
  talking about that too, is like the pastor asked, what do you think of when you think
• 50:18
  of a man?
• 50:19
  And he showed a picture of Rambo with his shirt ripped off and his muscles being where
• 50:22
  they shouldn't be and all kinds of things.
• 50:26
  Then he's like, this is what maybe most of you think of.
• 50:29
  And then he showed another picture of Mr. Rogers, someone very kind, teaching kids,
• 50:34
  things like that.
• 50:36
  Those attributes of being a man might not be the stereotypical view of people.
• 50:43
  Just to circle back, I promise that we did not name our son Bibli Bob.
• 50:47
  However, to all the Bibli Bob's out there, I'm sorry, I don't mean to insult your name.
• 50:53
  If your name is Bibli Bob, change your name.
• 50:56
  Because that is stupid.
• 51:01
  That's my grandmother's name.
• 51:03
  Question five.
• 51:06
  If you could go back in time, what is one thing you wish your younger self could know?
• 51:11
  It was okay to wear that bandaid.
• 51:13
  I don't know if I have anything, honestly, specifically that I wish my younger self would
• 51:18
  know.
• 51:19
  Because I don't really feel like I grew up in a situation where women were less than
• 51:25
  other men in the church.
• 51:27
  I grew up with women speaking in the church.
• 51:30
  There was women pastors in the church.
• 51:31
  They all held those titles.
• 51:33
  I think that's a huge difference in the way that Nathan grew up versus the way that we
• 51:36
  grew up.
• 51:37
  Because we grew up primarily Baptist, sometimes non-denominational churches that are just
• 51:43
  secretly Baptist anyway.
• 51:45
  But Nathan grew up more like Assemblies of God churches.
• 51:50
  And community churches and things like that that didn't have the Baptist background at
• 51:55
  all, I would say.
• 51:57
  So that's a huge difference that we've been talking through a lot lately.
• 52:01
  Yeah, I didn't really know this was a thing.
• 52:05
  Not even until we got married, probably maybe five years into our marriage, did we really
• 52:09
  start discussing this being a divide in the Christian community for ourselves as we were
• 52:16
  trying to be adults and loving the Lord.
• 52:22
  Finding one of our millions of churches.
• 52:24
  Millions.
• 52:25
  Do you think traditionally Christian men are misunderstood?
• 52:29
  No.
• 52:30
  I think men, they tell you how they feel.
• 52:39
  Maybe not tell you how they feel, they tell you what they think.
• 52:41
  I think fairly easily.
• 52:43
  I just think that instead of listening to others or listening to women specifically,
• 52:50
  they get stuck in a rut because they're old grouchy men.
• 52:54
  Well, I think that ties into what we're talking about in this episode for toxic masculinity
• 52:58
  and saying that when you think you're right on everything, you don't have to listen to
• 53:04
  anybody else.
• 53:05
  You don't have to listen to people who are less than you or who you could beat up.
• 53:11
  You don't have to take those opinions into account.
• 53:14
  For the most recent church we had just left, something that I can take away from them was
• 53:19
  is if you put men and women in this box and they don't fit in this box, then they're not
• 53:26
  doing the right thing.
• 53:27
  They're not being a man.
• 53:28
  They're not being a woman.
• 53:29
  You really got to go to the Bible and read and see what is God's box.
• 53:36
  Again, for a million times, love God and love others.
• 53:40
  Those are his two greatest commandments.
• 53:42
  That's all he gave you.
• 53:45
  Do you really think that being the head of the household telling your wife what to do
• 53:52
  and how to do it, is that really loving?
• 53:56
  I would really challenge that.
• 53:58
  Well, in the most recent Bertrandt season, she says power is intoxicating and if all
• 54:06
  you're after is power, then yeah, you're going to be a little drunkard.
• 54:13
  What are your feelings on the bear analogy?
• 54:17
  I love bears.
• 54:18
  Give me the overview on the bear analogy again.
• 54:22
  Usually it's asking women if you were walking through a forest and you came upon something,
• 54:30
  would you rather come upon a bear or a man alone in the forest?
• 54:37
  It's hard to say most because I haven't surveyed all the women.
• 54:40
  I have asked every single woman and they have all agreed.
• 54:45
  I can tell you what TikTok says.
• 54:47
  But a lot of women, a surprising majority of women have said they would rather find
• 54:53
  a bear in the woods as opposed to a man.
• 54:55
  Yeah, I think that can be very true.
• 54:59
  I think as humans, we can hurt each other way more whether it's verbally, physically,
• 55:08
  mentally, whatever that might look like.
• 55:10
  We have a lot more options to hurt somebody.
• 55:12
  A bear can just, you know, dead.
• 55:18
  Yeah kills you and you're done.
• 55:19
  All right, I'm going to ask the next question.
• 55:22
  Were you ever taught to directly respect women?
• 55:26
  Like was that something that you were talked to about?
• 55:29
  Because as women on the other side of things taught, we were taught this is how you respect
• 55:36
  men.
• 55:37
  This is how you respect your husband.
• 55:39
  This is what they expect of you.
• 55:40
  Was that something that you were taught kind of on the flip side?
• 55:44
  And the way that I grew up, no.
• 55:47
  I would say that conversations I've had with other guys in my life, friends in my life,
• 55:52
  I would say for them, yes.
• 55:54
  And it's definitely was done by their church and what their church believes in this topic.
• 56:00
  But me specifically, no.
• 56:03
  What kinds of things would you say they were taught?
• 56:05
  I mean that they're supposed to be the ones that provide and take care of things and make
• 56:10
  sure everybody's good all the time.
• 56:12
  But I was never taught, oh, I'm the spiritual leader of my household.
• 56:15
  I never heard that before until last maybe six years of my life.
• 56:22
  The last five churches we were in.
• 56:24
  I think that it's interesting though that you say that they are taught not how to respect
• 56:31
  women, but how to provide for women.
• 56:34
  Like we need them in order to exist and survive as opposed to how to respect us as human beings.
• 56:41
  Okay.
• 56:42
  What are your thoughts on toxic masculinity if you have any at all?
• 56:46
  I mean I think it's so messed up to me it's hard to really put words into it honestly.
• 56:52
  Because I see so many people that I care about around me being hurt by people who are doing
• 57:02
  what they should be doing in the name of God.
• 57:05
  I really don't have any tolerance for it to where I'm going to stand there and be like,
• 57:10
  oh, that's okay.
• 57:11
  That's just the way they want to live their life.
• 57:14
  And I'm not going to go out there and attack them and be hateful.
• 57:16
  But the Bible says to confront your brothers on their wrong doings.
• 57:20
  So I'm not going to let them just, if they're doing it in the name of God and they consider
• 57:24
  something Christian, I'm not going to sit there and listen to them and respect them
• 57:30
  for that.
• 57:31
  Do you think black coffee is the most masculine way to drink your coffee?
• 57:36
  Considering that I know that you put this question in there for me to admit that I only
• 57:40
  drink cream and a little bit of coffee.
• 57:45
  Just like my grandmother.
• 57:46
  She says I'm very wise.
• 57:51
  We go to Starbucks and he gets like extra cream in his coffee and it comes out white.
• 57:57
  You don't have to look at the labels.
• 57:58
  You just know who's a Zeus.
• 57:59
  Yeah.
• 58:00
  I've heard that little jingle on the radio that's like, you're the cream in my coffee.
• 58:05
  That is kind of dirty.
• 58:09
  Thank you for that.
• 58:10
  All right.
• 58:11
  So we're going to say goodbye to Nathan because frankly, I have to edit out enough of this
• 58:18
  crap.
• 58:19
  If you listen to everything I said and believe me, you'll be in a good neighborhood in heaven.
• 58:23
  Shut up, Nathan.
• 58:24
  Say bye, Nathan.
• 58:25
  Thank you for your time.
• 58:26
  Get out.
• 58:27
  This is why it's a sister's only podcast.
• 58:32
  I'll tell you that much.
• 58:36
  On that note, thank you for being here today.
• 58:41
  We appreciate Nathan coming all the way upstairs and answering many a question.
• 58:48
  Many a question.
• 58:49
  With questionable answers.
• 58:51
  Yes.
• 58:52
  Anyway, so we hope you enjoyed our discussion on toxic masculinity.
• 58:58
  I don't know if enjoyed is, I keep saying enjoyed.
• 59:01
  I don't think enjoy is a good word here.
• 59:03
  We have a lot more to say.
• 59:05
  Does anybody want a part two?
• 59:06
  Cause we're still, we still have to talk about toxic femininity, but femininity, femininity.
• 59:11
  That's a hard word to say.
• 59:13
  Not in that song.
• 59:14
  That's a good song.
• 59:15
  That's a good movie.
• 59:16
  Yeah.
• 59:17
  Do you want a part two?
• 59:18
  Because I have more to say.
• 59:20
  I think we all have more to say.
• 59:21
  I would love to hear.
• 59:23
  We actually, we posted on TikTok for any men that happened to be listening to our feminist
• 59:29
  podcast.
• 59:30
  If you have any thoughts on toxic masculinity, we love to hear them.
• 59:34
  Head over there.
• 59:35
  It's we.r.more4 and you can let us know kind of what you think about it.
• 59:41
  Women, we'd love to hear your thoughts too.
• 59:43
  Women!
• 59:44
  So please let us know.
• 59:45
  And we'd love to incorporate those in future episodes.
• 59:47
  Yes.
• 59:48
  Feel free to message us.
• 59:50
  Feel free to comment.
• 59:51
  Feel free to send us a carrier pigeon.
• 59:53
  Any way you want to communicate with us is fine.
• 59:54
  I dislike birds.
• 59:56
  Please don't send us a pigeon.
• 59:58
  What if it's like enchanted and it talks?
• 1:00:00
  No, I don't want a talking pigeon.
• 1:00:02
  And no one wants that.
• 1:00:04
  I do.
• 1:00:05
  No, you don't.
• 1:00:06
  You don't like birds more than I don't like birds.
• 1:00:08
  A bird flew into our work window the other day and it scared me.
• 1:00:11
  Inside?
• 1:00:12
  No, just ran into the window.
• 1:00:13
  Oh, okay.
• 1:00:14
  All right, well, we'll see you guys next week for our mini episode.
• 1:00:18
  What are we talking about?
• 1:00:20
  Subliminal sexism.
• 1:00:22
  That's it.
• 1:00:23
  We walked through Target for research purposes.
• 1:00:25
  Research.
• 1:00:26
  Not for Starbucks or shopping.
• 1:00:28
  Just research.
• 1:00:29
  Just a casual like $100 later.
• 1:00:30
  Fine!
• 1:00:31
  Fine!
• 1:00:32
  Fine!
• 1:00:33
  All right, we'll talk to you guys next week.
• 1:00:34
  Have an awesome week.
• 1:00:35
  We love you!
• 1:00:36
  We love you!
• 1:00:37
  Bye!