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Expectations of Third-Culture Daughters · To All the Men I've Tolerated Before

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Speaker 1: Hey, tolerators, listens to all the men I've tolerated before
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Speaker 1: with Nantley Katona, your weekly look at everyday misogyny. Today,
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Speaker 1: our guest is Ermie, and holy cow, what a talented
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Speaker 1: guest we have today. Ermie is a self published author, speaker, blogger,
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Speaker 1: polygott I don't even think I know what that word means, mentor,
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Speaker 1: and is doing a lot of work in empowering women
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Speaker 1: through learning and self development. Her first book, Discovering Your Identity,
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Speaker 1: A Rebirth from interracial Struggle, reflects her journey as a
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Speaker 1: third culture kid, which is what will mostly be talking
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Speaker 1: about today. So welcome to the show. Ermie.
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Speaker 2: Hi, how are you?
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Speaker 1: I'm great? Give the listeners a little bit of background
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Speaker 1: information on you since you're first timer.
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Speaker 2: Yes, so my name is or Me. I'm actually based
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Speaker 2: in Moncheal, Canada. I like to consider myself a woman
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Speaker 2: who wears many hats. I work in the financial sector,
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Speaker 2: but I do have a lot of passions and hobbies.
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Speaker 2: So I am a se publish, arter, speaker, mentor, blogger,
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Speaker 2: female mentor and a big advocate of women's empowerment. I
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Speaker 2: am currented the social media lead at the Woman and
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Speaker 2: Leadership Women and Leadership organization which is based in Canada,
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Speaker 2: and I am the social media lead for the victory chapter.
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Speaker 1: My God, and I like to think that I'm busy,
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Speaker 1: and then I hear actually other people work through everything
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Speaker 1: that they're involved in, and I'm like, I could be
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Speaker 1: doing more with my day.
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Speaker 2: Probably I am busy, and people always ask me how
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Speaker 2: you do all of these things. I also do not
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Speaker 2: know how I do all of these things.
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Speaker 1: It's amazing. My brain will not recognize that I'm probably
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Speaker 1: busy and overwhelmed until I miss mess something up, and
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Speaker 1: then I'm like, oh, that's right, because my life is
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Speaker 1: chaos and I've overscheduled myself.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, but it's fun. I'm productive, and we do a
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Speaker 2: lot of break things exactly.
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Speaker 1: So give me some background on publishing your first book. Congratulations.
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Speaker 1: That is such a beat. I am in a writing
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Speaker 1: program currently where a lot of people are writing either
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Speaker 1: collections of essays or memoirs or things like that. I'm
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Speaker 1: on the screenwriting track, but hearing people actually like sit
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Speaker 1: down and write their real world experiences and then going
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Speaker 1: through the process of self publishing. I'm always in awe
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Speaker 1: because the formaty and alone would drive me bananas. So congratulations.
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Speaker 1: Tell us a little bit more about your book.
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Speaker 2: Yes. So my book is called The Discovering Your Identity,
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Speaker 2: Every Birth from International Struggle. I sat published it three
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Speaker 2: years ago, so we're talking about twenty twenty two. And
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Speaker 2: in this book basically talk about my life as a
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Speaker 2: tour culture kid. So basically, for those who do not
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Speaker 2: know what it means, visit a their culture kid as
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Speaker 2: someone who is who spent most of their life or
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Speaker 2: their childhood or teenagehood in a country different than where
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Speaker 2: their parents are from. So I am basically born and
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Speaker 2: nearly raisting Italy. However, both of my parents are from
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Speaker 2: Bangladesh and so in my book and so this is
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Speaker 2: what makes metro culture kid. And in my book, I
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Speaker 2: talk about what it was for me, you know, to
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Speaker 2: be someone who had multiple background culture background, and how
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Speaker 2: these two cultures, Italian culture and the Bengolic culture we're
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Speaker 2: always like clashing with each other, and how I was
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Speaker 2: trying to you know, navigate those challenges. So I talk
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Speaker 2: about that in my book, and it's from the perspective
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Speaker 2: of the Salt Asian women.
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Speaker 1: Yeah. One of the assumptions that I or impressions that
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Speaker 1: I always take away when I'm reading or watching stories
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Speaker 1: like Rami about third culture children or first generation children
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Speaker 1: of immigrants, is there seems to be a lot of
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Speaker 1: responsibility on those children to make their parents comfortable in
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Speaker 1: the new culture, but also maintaining like some sort of
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Speaker 1: belonging for themselves in that culture and their famili's culture.
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Speaker 1: It just really seems like that is a prevalent theme
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Speaker 1: in all of the stories that I've at least taken in.
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Speaker 2: Yes, and I agree with you, that's exactly what it
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Speaker 2: is like. There is a lot of expectation and pressure
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Speaker 2: from the kids to basically keep up with their parents' culture, religion,
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Speaker 2: you know, believe tradition and so forth. But then you
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Speaker 2: as a person sometimes you feel like you're in a
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Speaker 2: limbo because then you are also exposed to other cultures
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Speaker 2: around you, especially if you're born in a country where
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Speaker 2: you know there are there's a lot of different cultures,
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Speaker 2: and if you're born in a country where the culture
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Speaker 2: that is predominant is completely different from the one that
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Speaker 2: is in your house, sometimes you go through a lot
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Speaker 2: of like conflicts, and here you are trying to you know,
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Speaker 2: make your parents out, to keep up with a reputation,
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Speaker 2: you know, look for validation, but then internally we go
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Speaker 2: through a lot of struggles because we feel like it's
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Speaker 2: it's never enough and we're not sure how to even
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Speaker 2: achieve those you expectations.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think the way that I connect to
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Speaker 1: it the most being a not third culture kid, Like
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Speaker 1: my family is very white. It was my great grandparents
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Speaker 1: who immigrated to America, so by the time I was born,
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Speaker 1: you know, no one in my family was learning Croatian
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Speaker 1: or Polish or anything from the cultures we were from.
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Speaker 1: But I think it mirrors a lot of the pressures
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Speaker 1: I feel as like an eldest daughter, where it's like
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Speaker 1: you become kind of like, are you also an eldest daughter?
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Speaker 1: Do we share that I am?
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Speaker 2: I am the oldest daughter, so I get how you feel.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, It's like we're the spokesperson of our family and
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Speaker 1: we take on a lot of the reputation of our family.
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Speaker 1: I've likened it to being a secret keeper or a
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Speaker 1: story keeper of our family, Like our stories live through
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Speaker 1: us because we've either heard them the most or we've
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Speaker 1: experienced them firsthand. And there's just like a lot of
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Speaker 1: pressure to be a I could at thirty six years
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Speaker 1: old whenever my parents wild and want to give me
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Speaker 1: a new responsibility based on their anxiety and or feelings.
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Speaker 1: I still very much have the urge to scream, I'm
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Speaker 1: a baby, I am your child. I am an eleven
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Speaker 1: year old, like leave me alone.
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Speaker 2: Yes, does this still happen to you though, this whole
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Speaker 2: pressure that you have, because I I still have. You know,
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Speaker 2: I have both of my parents coming to me, and
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Speaker 2: every time there is an issue, and I'm thinking, I'm
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Speaker 2: not the one who's supposed to be solving this.
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Speaker 1: Yeah. So I am in this very fun phase of
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Speaker 1: my life where I had lived away from both of
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Speaker 1: my parents, like four ish hours away from either of
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Speaker 1: my parents. My parents are divorced, and I was able
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Speaker 1: to create this like whole solo life. This like I
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Speaker 1: was setting boundaries. My schedule was my own. I could
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Speaker 1: ignore phone calls or text messages if it if I
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Speaker 1: could come up with a reason I was too busy
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Speaker 1: or whatever, and I could kind of disappear. And for
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Speaker 1: those ten years, I would say that my younger sister there,
8:17
Speaker 1: it's only the two of us and we're seventeen months apart.
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Speaker 1: She took on a lot of probably that pressure of
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Speaker 1: hearing their feelings and their thoughts and their anxieties all
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Speaker 1: of the time. But I've recently moved back. My sister
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Speaker 1: now has two children. Due to the fun economy that
8:36
Speaker 1: is currently happening in America, it just got harder and
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Speaker 1: harder and harder to be a woman who lived far
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Speaker 1: away from her family, especially a post pandemic and post
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Speaker 1: my layoff. So I'm back, and it's really been a
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Speaker 1: huge culture shift for me because I'm so used to
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Speaker 1: not considering other peace people, and now it's like I
9:03
Speaker 1: only get attention from one of my parents that I
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Speaker 1: share a roof with, if in fact they need something
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Speaker 1: from me. Like it's never a hey, what do you've
9:19
Speaker 1: got coming up for the summer because it's hot girl summer.
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Speaker 1: It's hey, at twelve o'clock, this is happening, and I
9:25
Speaker 1: need you to do this, and it's a period. It's
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Speaker 1: never a question, it's never a are you able, it's
9:32
Speaker 1: never a pleasing thank you scenario. A couple of weeks ago,
9:36
Speaker 1: I was cleaning up dog diarrhea from a dog that
9:39
Speaker 1: did not belong to me because the dog got sad
9:42
Speaker 1: that their parents were gone and tried to poison herself,
9:45
Speaker 1: and I did not get a hey, Nelly, thanks for
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Speaker 1: shampooing the carpet every day. Nothing, It's just expected, and
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Speaker 1: I'm so not used to that.
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Speaker 2: So I we share a lot of things because we
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Speaker 2: are also two sisters. It's me and my younger sister.
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Speaker 2: We are five years apart, and well, my parents do
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Speaker 2: not live with me. They live in a completely different country.
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Speaker 2: And even though there were they are far away, they
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Speaker 2: still managed to get into my business. And in South
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Speaker 2: Asian culture, no one ever teaches you about boundaries and
10:27
Speaker 2: saying no and putting yourself first. And so the moment
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Speaker 2: I started to learn about boundaries and protecting yourself, protecting
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Speaker 2: your mental health, you know, protecting your energy, I could see,
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Speaker 2: you know, the reactions like they they don't like it.
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Speaker 2: And I could see how some of it also fell
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Speaker 2: on my sister too, because of course she's with them,
10:46
Speaker 2: so of course if one of us is not here,
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Speaker 2: they're going to go to the other one. And I
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Speaker 2: could see how a lot of this stuff like just
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Speaker 2: went to her. And I think she's still trying to
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Speaker 2: understand a little bit about the whole constable boundaries and
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Speaker 2: protect things like that, but it always falls back on
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Speaker 2: someone and it's almost like it's expected, you know, like
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Speaker 2: this whole thing that my time is your time. You know,
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Speaker 2: my things are your things. You know, there's no such
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Speaker 2: thing as separation. And I feel like the moment you talk,
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Speaker 2: you talk about these things, so you do something that
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Speaker 2: is like against their beliefs. This is where you know,
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Speaker 2: the whole koes happens and they start saying, oh, what
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Speaker 2: happened to you? You change? You were never like that.
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Speaker 2: But it's not even any of it, you know, like
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Speaker 2: it's just that you as a person, you grow, you
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Speaker 2: grow to be independent, you grow to understand different things,
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Speaker 2: and I think boundaries it's important, Like I learned how
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Speaker 2: to put boundaries with family members.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think also one of the things that
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Speaker 1: is currently most jarring in my current life situation is
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Speaker 1: for the last half of that twelve years that I
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Speaker 1: loved away for my family, I had also honestly not
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Speaker 1: even the last half. That's giving me a lot of credit.
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Speaker 1: Probably since we went under for the quarantine for COVID
12:09
Speaker 1: nineteen and all of that, I started to decenter men
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Speaker 1: and I really started just to not spend time with men.
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Speaker 1: And I realized like my queerness and things like that,
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Speaker 1: and I was hanging out a lot with the queer
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Speaker 1: community and mostly other women and women presenting people and friends,
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Speaker 1: and so now spending time face to face with men
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Speaker 1: and misogyny and the expectations that men naturally impose on
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Speaker 1: the women in their life is such a shock to
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Speaker 1: my system that, like a couple of weeks ago, I
12:44
Speaker 1: was like having panic systems symptoms. I was like, oh,
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Speaker 1: that's right, I created myself a bubble. But women are
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Speaker 1: not safe in our communities, Like we're not emotionally safe,
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Speaker 1: we're not mentally safe, we're very rarely physically safe, and
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Speaker 1: it's all at the whim of the nearest volatile man.
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Speaker 1: So that's adorable, and it's so fun to put.
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Speaker 2: Up yes, because you're talking about things that I also
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Speaker 2: talk about. When it comes to you know, misogyny and
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Speaker 2: how you know women are not safe and how we're
13:23
Speaker 2: always you know, not disrespect. I want to say, we're segregated.
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Speaker 2: There you go, like we're so segregated, and you know,
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Speaker 2: there's always so much expectation from just being a woman,
13:35
Speaker 2: you know, from just being a woman, there's so much expectation,
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Speaker 2: whereas if you're a man, there's no such thing ever,
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Speaker 2: And actually I was watching something yesterday, so there is
13:45
Speaker 2: there's this documentary on Netflix where which is basically it's
13:48
Speaker 2: called Miss Italia, which basically it's the Italian version of
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Speaker 2: Miss Universe. And I was watching it and I was
13:56
Speaker 2: so irritated by it because, first of all, like the women,
14:03
Speaker 2: so basically you have a bunch of young girls between
14:06
Speaker 2: eighteen to twenty four, I think, who are going to
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Speaker 2: give their candidacy to participate in this program? But what
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Speaker 2: you ritated me the most was that the people who
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Speaker 2: were selecting them were just a bunch of men, just men,
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Speaker 2: strictly men, and they were all asked to be in
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Speaker 2: the beginning. And this is what irritated me the most.
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Speaker 2: I feel like it's always about you know, it's always
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Speaker 2: about the men. You know, why like why are we
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Speaker 2: not doing the same thing where we have men walking
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Speaker 2: in their boxes and there are women choosing, you know,
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Speaker 2: selecting selecting the men like it was the other way around.
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Speaker 2: And one of the guys even made the comments saying,
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Speaker 2: oh you have to you should remove your the bruises
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Speaker 2: that you have in your butt, and her butt was
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Speaker 2: completely like out For me. As I was watching this,
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Speaker 2: I was like, what was there to celebrate about this show?
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Speaker 2: It was irritating.
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Speaker 1: I feel the exact same way whenever I watch a
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Speaker 1: dating reality TV show, especially like Married at First Sight.
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Speaker 1: You start to when they group the men together and
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Speaker 1: the men are given because men don't just ask one
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Speaker 1: another questions, so the producers give them a list of
15:18
Speaker 1: questions to ask one another, like they're all friends. The
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Speaker 1: way that men talk about women that they supposedly care
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Speaker 1: about when those women are not in the room was
15:31
Speaker 1: so eye opening. I was like, I don't think I
15:34
Speaker 1: can go back.
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Speaker 2: Yes, I think, yeah, I feel like I can have
15:40
Speaker 2: a whole conversation about this. You're so right about it.
15:43
Speaker 2: I think when men are put in a situation and
15:47
Speaker 2: they are having a conversation about women, it's like, it's
15:53
Speaker 2: like none cares about our feelings. We're almost objectified, you know.
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Speaker 2: It's it's just it's insane. It's insane that it's like that,
16:05
Speaker 2: but the society thinks it's okay to be like that,
16:08
Speaker 2: whereas I'm like, no, that's not okay. That's really not okay.
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Speaker 2: You know. Even the show that I was watching yesterday,
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Speaker 2: one of their organizers was like was like, oh, you guys.
16:18
Speaker 2: This was a man of fifty years old. He was like, oh,
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Speaker 2: you guys can call me like like you guys can
16:24
Speaker 2: call me your dad. And I was like, that sounds
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Speaker 2: pretty frong in my mind.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, no ew. I saw just a blip of an
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Speaker 1: interview today on the Jennifer Hudson Show and she had
16:35
Speaker 1: Mikey Madison on, who recently just won an Oscar for
16:40
Speaker 1: a Nora, which was a film that I did not enjoy,
16:43
Speaker 1: but I love Mikey. I believe that she is a
16:45
Speaker 1: very talented young actress. And they were talking about auditioning
16:48
Speaker 1: because she's been a child actress for most of her
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Speaker 1: career and she's like, well, I've gone on hundreds of auditions,
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Speaker 1: and Jennifer asked her like, what was the weirdest one?
16:58
Speaker 1: And she does at one time, I went through the
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Speaker 1: whole scene, and the guy leading the audition was like,
17:05
Speaker 1: that was really great. Now can you do it like
17:07
Speaker 1: you're a little baby, just like you're just like, oh,
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Speaker 1: the littlest the babies, And she went, what do you mean?
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Speaker 1: Like this woman is infantalized, like she's emotionally immature, Like
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Speaker 1: what do you mean? He goes, no, I just want
17:20
Speaker 1: you to like talk like you're a little baby, and
17:23
Speaker 1: immediately like my thirty six year old brain is like
17:26
Speaker 1: red flag abuse of power. Just some guy who needs
17:30
Speaker 1: a fantasy today and to get off on his lunch break.
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Speaker 1: But she's young, she is still very young, And I'm like,
17:38
Speaker 1: who is protecting these women during auditions? Like who is
17:42
Speaker 1: teaching these women? You get to say no to requests
17:45
Speaker 1: like that, you get to ask them, how is this
17:47
Speaker 1: pertinent to the role? How are we changing cultures? So
17:51
Speaker 1: women at work, when confronted with a weird question have
17:56
Speaker 1: tools in their back pocket to be like, actually, no, no,
18:01
Speaker 1: I'm not talking like a baby for you.
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Speaker 2: So what you just said just is making me about
18:08
Speaker 2: is making me think about what's happening right now with
18:11
Speaker 2: the whole case with Pidd and prior and prior to that,
18:16
Speaker 2: I also follow the case with R. Kelly and the
18:20
Speaker 2: whole case with the what's his name? RB Weinstein, with
18:26
Speaker 2: the whole meat to me to movement, And right now
18:29
Speaker 2: I'm following as much as I can the whole case
18:32
Speaker 2: about Pidd, and I'm like, I'm like, how was this
18:37
Speaker 2: even possible? Like the things that they're saying about, how
18:42
Speaker 2: the things that he did to Cassie. And also there
18:46
Speaker 2: is someone else that they're talking about. There is this
18:49
Speaker 2: girl that they're talking about who is basically his employee.
18:51
Speaker 2: Her name is me I don't think that's her real name,
18:54
Speaker 2: and they talked about this how he you know, he
18:58
Speaker 2: would rape her, and the other things that they used
19:02
Speaker 2: to do, you know, and those freakouts or however they
19:05
Speaker 2: call them. I'm just like, how was this even possible?
19:09
Speaker 2: And I also think that a lot of the times,
19:11
Speaker 2: a lot of these people really have hard time talking
19:16
Speaker 2: about it because no one believes them. You know, that
19:18
Speaker 2: was the whole thing. Also when they need to move
19:20
Speaker 2: and no one believes because they think they made it up.
19:23
Speaker 2: And there was also the commentary again, I just watched
19:25
Speaker 2: a bunch of the commentary on Netflix called She Said,
19:30
Speaker 2: where they talk about the whole issue with the Harvey
19:33
Speaker 2: of winestand and how you know a lot of these women,
19:36
Speaker 2: you know, they were going through these assaults and you
19:39
Speaker 2: know this this thing that you know happened during additions,
19:43
Speaker 2: but they were really afraid of speaking about it because
19:46
Speaker 2: they were just so worried about their career and their
19:48
Speaker 2: reputation and what their parents would think about it. And
19:51
Speaker 2: it's just like, why does it take so long for
19:54
Speaker 2: this to come out?
19:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think to connect it back to the
19:58
Speaker 1: eldest daughter thing or the third culture is that the
20:03
Speaker 1: onus is always on us. Like I always knew in
20:08
Speaker 1: the back of my brain that my parents would be
20:12
Speaker 1: sad if something happened to me, like that's devastating. No
20:15
Speaker 1: one wants their child to be assaulted or hurt or anything.
20:18
Speaker 1: But I also knew that the second question they would
20:21
Speaker 1: ask me after was I okay, was would be some
20:26
Speaker 1: iteration of now, what did you do to make to
20:30
Speaker 1: get yourself into an unsafe situation? Were you walking by yourself?
20:35
Speaker 1: What were you wearing? Were you at least with friends?
20:38
Speaker 1: Were you drinking? And it's that whole prevalent culture of
20:43
Speaker 1: you're supposed to be smarter than this, and how prevalent
20:48
Speaker 1: rape culture is in our families and our television and
20:52
Speaker 1: our like it's always like you're in charge, You're in
20:56
Speaker 1: charge of your safety, and you failed at keeping yourself safe.
21:01
Speaker 2: Yes, So I don't want to add something about it
21:03
Speaker 2: because I grew up in a culture like I'm talking about,
21:08
Speaker 2: that's this aut Asian culture where women are often seeing
21:12
Speaker 2: like a financial burden, and the biggest worry is like, Okay,
21:16
Speaker 2: we have a family, Like we have a daughter in
21:18
Speaker 2: our family, who's going to take care of her, Who's
21:20
Speaker 2: going to get married to her? That's the biggest worry ever,
21:23
Speaker 2: that's the biggest worry. And then if you do something
21:27
Speaker 2: such as let's say you start dating people, you know,
21:32
Speaker 2: you hang out with guys that's seen. That's a big problem.
21:35
Speaker 2: If something happens and it's your fault. If you are
21:40
Speaker 2: dressed in a certain way, then it's your fault. You know,
21:44
Speaker 2: if you speak to let's say a guy or something,
21:47
Speaker 2: that it's your fault. If people start talking and perceive
21:51
Speaker 2: that she in a relationship, like it always goes back
21:55
Speaker 2: that it's always our fault. But then if you are
21:58
Speaker 2: also the own daughters at home, there's an expectation that
22:02
Speaker 2: she do everything at the same time. So I think
22:04
Speaker 2: everyone wants everything from you, But then it's also your fault.
22:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's a And you know, I grew up
22:13
Speaker 1: Roman Catholic and Christian and whatnot, and we have you know, Eve,
22:18
Speaker 1: the woman who let us all down and introduced sin
22:24
Speaker 1: and pain and whatnot into Adam's life. In Paradise. And
22:28
Speaker 1: then we have the virgin Mary, who did everything right
22:31
Speaker 1: because she was impregnated by an angel and did a
22:36
Speaker 1: virgin birth and just stayed a virgin. And then you
22:39
Speaker 1: have Mary Magdalene, the whore, who was Jesus's really good friend,
22:44
Speaker 1: but we hate her because she was a prostitute trying
22:48
Speaker 1: to make sure that you know, she could eat, and
22:54
Speaker 1: you don't think about it when they're just like Bible
22:57
Speaker 1: stories that you're listening to at a Sunday mask or
23:00
Speaker 1: like or when you're sitting in a culture and you've
23:04
Speaker 1: watched every woman go through this, like, well, women are burden,
23:08
Speaker 1: women are financial burden. Who's going to take care of
23:10
Speaker 1: the daughters? My cousin got an arranged marriage. It seemed
23:14
Speaker 1: to work out for her. Things like that Again, when
23:18
Speaker 1: you finally separate yourself from it and you get that
23:21
Speaker 1: like whide to picture, you're like, oh, they took away
23:26
Speaker 1: my agency in the name of religion and culture and
23:34
Speaker 1: tradition and their own fears and anxieties about a changing world.
23:40
Speaker 1: And I don't think we talk enough about how unfair
23:45
Speaker 1: that is to women who are currently trying to have
23:49
Speaker 1: took careers or run households, or get married or my god,
23:54
Speaker 1: tried to date in this awful, awful dating climate that
23:57
Speaker 1: we find ourselves in, Like we just don't talk about
24:01
Speaker 1: all of that unspoken, all those rules we were given
24:07
Speaker 1: before we were just pushed out into the world and
24:09
Speaker 1: also told and now make it work, be a breadwinner,
24:13
Speaker 1: take care of yourself, get your own insurance, do everything right,
24:17
Speaker 1: because we're also living in a very unforgiving capitalistic world
24:22
Speaker 1: on top of all of that.
24:25
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, I agree with you. I agree with you
24:29
Speaker 2: on this topic because there is not one thing that
24:33
Speaker 2: I was like, no, it's not true. It's all true
24:35
Speaker 2: anything that you just mentioned. And this is the problem,
24:37
Speaker 2: like even in the South Asian culture, but I think
24:40
Speaker 2: this is like a problem in every culture. Like it's
24:43
Speaker 2: because we use religion, we use traditions, we use cultures
24:47
Speaker 2: to make a point. But it's not written anywhere. Like
24:51
Speaker 2: I remember when I was growing up, like I was
24:53
Speaker 2: always told, you know, do not go out at a
24:56
Speaker 2: certain time. The women are not allowed to go out.
25:01
Speaker 2: Women are not supposed to be dressed a certain way,
25:05
Speaker 2: you know, the women are not supposed to go to
25:07
Speaker 2: the movies, to clubbing and things like that, because they
25:10
Speaker 2: would tell me it's the religion says so they used
25:13
Speaker 2: to tell me that, and I was thinking, but where
25:16
Speaker 2: is this written?
25:17
Speaker 1: Really?
25:17
Speaker 2: Sometimes I would question it. I was like, it's just
25:19
Speaker 2: really written somewhere, or some other times I would say, no,
25:23
Speaker 2: our culture is telling you this way. This is not good.
25:26
Speaker 2: You know, we don't do these things. And I remember
25:29
Speaker 2: always questioning, questioning it, and now that I'm much older,
25:33
Speaker 2: I think about it. I'm like, okay, here you are
25:37
Speaker 2: telling me all of these things, but then you want
25:40
Speaker 2: me to have everything figure out, and you want me
25:43
Speaker 2: to do everything in the best possible way. And it
25:47
Speaker 2: goes back to this whole thing about it's never going
25:49
Speaker 2: to be enough, no matter what you do. It's never
25:53
Speaker 2: never enough.
25:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, because it's always like good girls get married, and
25:59
Speaker 1: it's like, okay that a lot of the times, whether
26:02
Speaker 1: or not I'm a married woman is out of my hand,
26:05
Speaker 1: Like I have to go on a million bad first
26:09
Speaker 1: dates and then find someone who's going to be interested
26:13
Speaker 1: in me enough in a world that objectifies women at
26:17
Speaker 1: the base level, and then men date selfishly. I'll just
26:21
Speaker 1: say it the moment I make a mistake or I'm
26:24
Speaker 1: not hot or whatever, I am no longer marriage material.
26:27
Speaker 1: I'm too mauthy to be marriage material honestly in a
26:30
Speaker 1: heteronormative society. So it's like, well, good girls get married.
26:35
Speaker 1: And I've just been like having all of these spirals
26:40
Speaker 1: about how I'm supposed to be upholding all of these
26:43
Speaker 1: unspoken rules, and yet none of it is really up
26:47
Speaker 1: to me. Men control our economy. So when I find
26:52
Speaker 1: myself in laxidasal employment or not great employment, or today
26:58
Speaker 1: I read that in Indiana, Indiana is the state of corn.
27:03
Speaker 1: We have literally nothing here. But today they did a
27:06
Speaker 1: money study and put it on my phone in to
27:10
Speaker 1: live comfortably as a single person in Indiana, you have
27:15
Speaker 1: to make eighty six thousand dollars a year, And I
27:20
Speaker 1: was like, I have yet to see one job that
27:22
Speaker 1: pays sixty thousand dollars a year in this fucking state.
27:29
Speaker 1: And so it's one of those things where it's like,
27:34
Speaker 1: I there's so much that's out of my control in
27:39
Speaker 1: everyday existence, relationships, money, jobs, things like my own safety
27:47
Speaker 1: that for you to just tell me that it's all
27:51
Speaker 1: on me to make sure that I am a good
27:54
Speaker 1: daughter and a good girl and a wife and a
27:57
Speaker 1: mother and things like that, I never got to the
28:00
Speaker 1: point we're juggling. It all actually mattered and it all
28:04
Speaker 1: worked out.
28:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, Actually I don't say something about it, especially because
28:11
Speaker 2: it touched upon the topic of marriage. So here's the thing.
28:15
Speaker 2: In the South Asian society, your biggest accomplishment and probably
28:20
Speaker 2: the only accomplishment in life, is to get married. And
28:24
Speaker 2: basically they don't want you to date this whole like
28:27
Speaker 2: until you get married, but then they somehow want you
28:29
Speaker 2: to have someone to get married. So they will desperately
28:32
Speaker 2: look for someone and they want you to say yes
28:34
Speaker 2: the first guy that passes, and they expect you to
28:39
Speaker 2: make this marriage works work with the stranger that you
28:42
Speaker 2: barely met. So that's one thing. Second, if the marriage
28:45
Speaker 2: doesn't work out, then it's your fault, meaning the fault
28:48
Speaker 2: of the wife. If you cannot have kids, or if
28:52
Speaker 2: you don't want to have kids, it's the fault of
28:54
Speaker 2: the wife. And it just keeps being on the wife
28:59
Speaker 2: and the daughter. Like I've seen it. I'm actually seen
29:03
Speaker 2: it and witnessed it myself, and it just sucks because
29:08
Speaker 2: there are two people who should be making this work,
29:10
Speaker 2: but then only one person gets default for it. All
29:14
Speaker 2: the time. It never never changed and One thing that
29:16
Speaker 2: I learned also is that as soon as you get married,
29:20
Speaker 2: they basically the whole thing is that when you are married,
29:24
Speaker 2: your only job is to sexually satisfy your husband. This
29:28
Speaker 2: is what I heard. But my job is only that?
29:30
Speaker 2: What about the other way? I want?
29:32
Speaker 1: No? Never, what female pleasure? It's a myth well, and
29:38
Speaker 1: also part of the reason why it's ridiculous to tell
29:45
Speaker 1: us that one of our huge responsibilities is to be
29:47
Speaker 1: sexually satisfying men. Is to be good at anything, you
29:51
Speaker 1: have to practice, and you're telling us that we can't
29:54
Speaker 1: do that before we're married. So how am I practicing?
29:58
Speaker 1: Am I just watching how to? Like what's going on? Yes?
30:06
Speaker 1: And one time in a I went to a Catholic
30:11
Speaker 1: college and part of our curriculum were these core humanity
30:16
Speaker 1: philosophy classes, and for some reason, my professor got us
30:21
Speaker 1: into a debate about trans people. And this is like
30:25
Speaker 1: I graduated college in like twenty eleven, So to even
30:29
Speaker 1: be talking about trans people in twenty and ten, two
30:32
Speaker 1: thousand and eight, that feels wild that someone would get
30:37
Speaker 1: even that worked up about it because it was such
30:40
Speaker 1: It was something that none of us had working knowledge on,
30:44
Speaker 1: but I had working knowledge about the trans existence through
30:48
Speaker 1: a fictional show called Nip Tuck. So I was like, well,
30:51
Speaker 1: I view trans people as people, so I'm going to
30:54
Speaker 1: fight people. And a man, a young man in my class,
31:03
Speaker 1: during this discussion, he said that trans women could not
31:08
Speaker 1: in any way be part of the Christian God's design
31:13
Speaker 1: because they could not bear children naturally. Now, mind you,
31:18
Speaker 1: I could have taken this debate a million ways, and
31:21
Speaker 1: I threw out talking about women with endometriosis or fertility
31:26
Speaker 1: issues or barren or anything. And instead I looked him
31:30
Speaker 1: dead in the eye and said, well, if that's what
31:33
Speaker 1: makes me perfect in God's design, whether or not I
31:37
Speaker 1: can bear children, he might as well have made me cattle.
31:42
Speaker 1: And then my professor went, okay, we're calling class there,
31:46
Speaker 1: and he just ended it because because there's no coming
31:52
Speaker 1: back from them that. I was like, you just talked
31:55
Speaker 1: about women, let alone trans women, as if they were
32:00
Speaker 1: horses or cows or dogs, and we're only good for breeding.
32:05
Speaker 1: And I refuse to allow that to be ignored. And
32:13
Speaker 1: it's it's that whole dichotomy of like we're supposed to
32:17
Speaker 1: be a lady in the street, but a freak in
32:20
Speaker 1: the bed. And I what song is that when a
32:27
Speaker 1: lady in the street but a freak in the bed. Oh,
32:30
Speaker 1: I think it's to the window, to the wall. But yeah, yeah,
32:35
Speaker 1: it's get low now the chorus is playing in my head.
32:38
Speaker 1: But but how many cultures will tell you first you
32:43
Speaker 1: become a wife, and then you become a mother, and
32:46
Speaker 1: then you're whole, and you should and that's it. You
32:49
Speaker 1: should be happy.
32:51
Speaker 2: Yes, but there's so many things that you did. You did,
32:58
Speaker 2: you said that right there. So first of all, I
33:03
Speaker 2: shall ask, did you ever meet this this guy again
33:07
Speaker 2: or not? Like twenty eleven?
33:10
Speaker 1: I so I went to a very small college, so
33:13
Speaker 1: I'm sure we had other classes together. When I picture him,
33:18
Speaker 1: he is your like basic white man, like dark hair white.
33:23
Speaker 1: They all look the same because his name is probably
33:25
Speaker 1: John or James or Jake or Chad or Brad or something.
33:29
Speaker 1: I cannot. I tell this story so often in the
33:32
Speaker 1: fact that I keiky Palmer brain it every time where
33:36
Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm sorry to this man. I do not
33:38
Speaker 1: even remember his name.
33:40
Speaker 2: He's not important.
33:41
Speaker 1: It's not important. So now I never had another conversation
33:44
Speaker 1: with this guy, because he told me all he needed
33:47
Speaker 1: to tell me about how he viewed women and other
33:50
Speaker 1: people in that statement alone. And I was smart enough
33:55
Speaker 1: to be like, oh, not a friend for me.
33:57
Speaker 2: Okay, you know you're tough, but this is really it's
34:01
Speaker 2: making me think about the show that I watched, which
34:03
Speaker 2: is an Italian show. It's sort of like the Bachelorette.
34:07
Speaker 2: I don't know if you're feel with the Bachelorette, but
34:09
Speaker 2: you have these different people in per love and this
34:12
Speaker 2: was the Italian version of it, and it is very conservative. Okay,
34:17
Speaker 2: it's a very conservative culture. And for the first time
34:21
Speaker 2: they had a trans woman and you look at her
34:24
Speaker 2: and she's beautiful, like so beautiful, and like I listened
34:31
Speaker 2: to her story and then she had like a bunch
34:33
Speaker 2: of guys coming for her. But what happen is as
34:36
Speaker 2: soon as they found out that she was a trans woman,
34:39
Speaker 2: they all decided that, Okay, we don't want to get
34:42
Speaker 2: to know her, we don't want to date her. And
34:44
Speaker 2: she has been she went to the show for this
34:46
Speaker 2: reason that she has really hard time when it comes
34:50
Speaker 2: to dating because as soon as people know that, you know,
34:55
Speaker 2: she used to be a man and now she's a woman,
35:01
Speaker 2: are petrified by it. But she went through a complete
35:05
Speaker 2: full like change, you know, she went to a complete transformation,
35:10
Speaker 2: and you really fit for her. And I watched some
35:12
Speaker 2: of her stories even nowadays, and she talks about her
35:15
Speaker 2: dating life, but she's like you look at her, You're like,
35:18
Speaker 2: you're so pretty, though, like how is it possible? You know, it's.
35:23
Speaker 1: Just the prejudice that runs so deep, even within the
35:26
Speaker 1: queer community about our trans brothers and sisters, where it's like,
35:33
Speaker 1: I mean, we're seeing it in America right now with
35:35
Speaker 1: all of this bathroom legislation and gender affirming care not
35:38
Speaker 1: being covered by healthcare. Unless you're a straight CIS person
35:42
Speaker 1: and you're getting viagra or hair plugs or you know,
35:46
Speaker 1: breast implants or anything like that, then your gender affirming
35:50
Speaker 1: care is valid because you did it the right way.
35:53
Speaker 1: But if you are a trans person who is literally
35:56
Speaker 1: just trying to live in your truth and in a
35:58
Speaker 1: body that reflects how your soul and your mind feel,
36:02
Speaker 1: I guess forget you. That's how America has chosen to
36:06
Speaker 1: vote and feel. It's amazing how deep that prejudice runs
36:13
Speaker 1: when it comes to our trans brothers and sisters, and
36:16
Speaker 1: I truly I feel so much for them. I can't
36:21
Speaker 1: imagine the mind loops that you have to go through
36:24
Speaker 1: as a person in the age of online dating, where
36:28
Speaker 1: it's like people on Love Island and Love is Blind
36:32
Speaker 1: are always like when do I reveal that I'm a
36:34
Speaker 1: single mom before he dumps me or whatever? And I
36:40
Speaker 1: feel like that scenario, in a very small way, is
36:44
Speaker 1: like would have to be what trans dating is like,
36:47
Speaker 1: Like when do I reveal this? Will I feel safe
36:50
Speaker 1: when I revealed this? Is it really anyone's business about
36:55
Speaker 1: whether or not I'm revealing this or whatever? And I
37:00
Speaker 1: really feel that misogyny in our society has just stripped
37:05
Speaker 1: away our ability to love one another because there's such
37:12
Speaker 1: a perfection expectation to it.
37:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree with you. I agree with you, And
37:19
Speaker 2: I think it's because we're so used to it, to
37:21
Speaker 2: this idea right that it's only men and women, and
37:27
Speaker 2: you know, it's hard to change people's mentality. But I
37:30
Speaker 2: also feel like a lot of things you can learn
37:33
Speaker 2: about them and educate yourself if you have someone close
37:37
Speaker 2: to you who's going through that. And that's how I
37:39
Speaker 2: feel like, you start to think differently, and you start
37:42
Speaker 2: to think about people as people, not as X, Y
37:47
Speaker 2: and Z, and you being this and you're being that.
37:50
Speaker 2: You know, it's I think it's very hard for a
37:52
Speaker 2: lot of people to change that. It's just, you know,
37:57
Speaker 2: it's a little bit like love. You know, there are
37:59
Speaker 2: so many names, you know, but I feel like at
38:01
Speaker 2: the end of the day should be like I love
38:03
Speaker 2: it for the person that you are, you know, not
38:05
Speaker 2: because of these dings and that.
38:07
Speaker 1: Well, and I think the way that misogyny weaponizes us
38:11
Speaker 1: or makes us fearful of people who are othered, and
38:17
Speaker 1: that means like people have different races too, Like this
38:19
Speaker 1: plays into white people's racism, like inherent racism and things
38:24
Speaker 1: like that. Is we refuse to allow representation in our
38:28
Speaker 1: books and our media and our news coverage and things
38:32
Speaker 1: like that. And so then because you know, our bodies
38:37
Speaker 1: have like all of these chemicals and all of these
38:39
Speaker 1: fight or flight things that happen, and it's a natural occurrence.
38:44
Speaker 1: So then we're confronted with something that we've never experienced before,
38:48
Speaker 1: and our body goes, we're afraid. And if we were
38:52
Speaker 1: just educated, like education is the best tool against fear,
38:59
Speaker 1: So if we just reading books and seeing trans people
39:05
Speaker 1: on TV, how we're still hard pressed to get people
39:09
Speaker 1: of color on TV and things like that. But that's purposeful.
39:14
Speaker 1: Like I've started to tell people, I'm like, hey, it's
39:18
Speaker 1: not like just like hot and cool to be white
39:21
Speaker 1: and straight. They're only putting hot and white straight people
39:24
Speaker 1: on the Bachelorette because they want you to fear other people.
39:30
Speaker 1: Like it's all, it's all the game.
39:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know what's so interesting because you're talking about
39:36
Speaker 2: Divery City representation. I do have to say the truth.
39:40
Speaker 2: I do see some slight changes. So in some things
39:43
Speaker 2: that I watched, like I'm talking more about that, say
39:46
Speaker 2: like Bollywood, you know, like there's so much content on Netflix,
39:51
Speaker 2: and like now you do see movies where you have
39:57
Speaker 2: the well you don't have people, but you have character
40:02
Speaker 2: playing a trans person, you know, like before that would
40:05
Speaker 2: not be accepted. Even on squid Game. I don't know
40:07
Speaker 2: if you watch squid Game, I think season two or
40:11
Speaker 2: season three, there is a character who's who's the trans
40:16
Speaker 2: and I mean he's not trans realized, but he's playing that.
40:19
Speaker 2: And that's because I think people were really afraid of
40:23
Speaker 2: choosing someone who was actually trends and so he's a
40:27
Speaker 2: man who's playing the trans character. And it's very interesting
40:30
Speaker 2: to see that. It's very interesting.
40:33
Speaker 1: I will have to admit to everyone that I continuously
40:36
Speaker 1: try to watch Squid Game, and the problem is, in
40:42
Speaker 1: season one, they don't dedicate the whole show to just
40:44
Speaker 1: the squid Game part. So like in episode two or
40:47
Speaker 1: three of season one, all of a sudden, we're all
40:50
Speaker 1: kicked out of the games, and I can't get past
40:52
Speaker 1: that point. I'm like, wait, hold on, I was so
40:55
Speaker 1: bought into the games and then and then all of
40:58
Speaker 1: a sudden, we're back and we're just like living life,
41:02
Speaker 1: and I was like, this isn't what the show is about. Oh,
41:05
Speaker 1: I wanted to talk because we're both older sisters. One
41:10
Speaker 1: of the things that I've noticed living in a culture
41:13
Speaker 1: that perpetuates patriarchy and centering men and misogyny is it
41:19
Speaker 1: took my and I. I don't know if I'm brave
41:22
Speaker 1: enough to like have this conversation with my sister yet,
41:25
Speaker 1: because it's still so new that I feel like we're
41:28
Speaker 1: such a strong team. But I feel like for my
41:31
Speaker 1: entire life, I was just craving for my sister and
41:35
Speaker 1: I to be like a duo that you couldn't like,
41:38
Speaker 1: you couldn't push one of us down because the other
41:40
Speaker 1: one had each other's back, and we were a menace
41:42
Speaker 1: to every man in our life or any parent that
41:45
Speaker 1: was going to put a feeling on us that was
41:47
Speaker 1: not ours. But it never. It just never happened when
41:51
Speaker 1: we were teenagers or in our twenties, because I think
41:55
Speaker 1: another thing that misogyny does is it makes sure that
41:59
Speaker 1: women actually feel like they're on the same team.
42:03
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, yes, she don't listen to this podcast or not.
42:08
Speaker 1: No, my sister does not listen to this podcast. Her
42:10
Speaker 1: stance is, why would I listen to the show. I
42:14
Speaker 1: get to listen to you talk every day.
42:18
Speaker 2: I think she's like my sister good. Yeah, I actually
42:24
Speaker 2: feel the same way to meaning that I always wished
42:30
Speaker 2: we were a team, and sometimes I felt like we
42:34
Speaker 2: were with team, but some other times I felt like
42:36
Speaker 2: we were not, because I always felt like she was
42:41
Speaker 2: very much influenced by the external voices because she lives
42:46
Speaker 2: with my parents, and so I think sometimes she gets
42:49
Speaker 2: so much influenced by what it's being said at home
42:52
Speaker 2: and brainwashed. I would say, even though they're not brainwashing her,
42:56
Speaker 2: but they are indirectly brainwashing her that I feel sometimes
43:01
Speaker 2: she really struggles to be completely on my side, and
43:07
Speaker 2: I know deep down she knows I'm right I know
43:10
Speaker 2: she knows that, but she just she's very uncertain, and
43:13
Speaker 2: I don't think she wants to disappoint anyone, and she
43:18
Speaker 2: doesn't want to upset anyone, And so sometimes I feel
43:22
Speaker 2: like I'm doing this on my own. This is how
43:24
Speaker 2: I feel.
43:26
Speaker 1: I have talked a lot on this show about how
43:30
Speaker 1: lonely it is to be women like us, women who
43:34
Speaker 1: are outspoken, women who desperately want change and are also
43:38
Speaker 1: going to take that second step and demand it and
43:42
Speaker 1: do things to help other women achieve it. And it's
43:46
Speaker 1: lonely because we're so demonized in our cultures and our societies.
43:52
Speaker 2: That's the word demonized.
43:54
Speaker 1: Yes, when before I was a woman who was decentering
43:57
Speaker 1: men and I was just trying to survive patriarchy. I
44:01
Speaker 1: remember I would be at work and there would be
44:03
Speaker 1: a woman who would demand better, and the way that
44:08
Speaker 1: my brain would immediately go, why can't she just shut up?
44:12
Speaker 1: Can we just get through the day? Can we just
44:14
Speaker 1: get our work done? Can we? And again, you think
44:18
Speaker 1: that that's what's going to make things easier for you,
44:22
Speaker 1: And it's why tradwives are on the rise again, or
44:25
Speaker 1: why our mothers and our aunts don't always stick up
44:28
Speaker 1: to their husbands, even though they're raging inside because you think,
44:32
Speaker 1: if I comply and if I toe the line, and
44:35
Speaker 1: if I just keep my head down, I'm going to
44:38
Speaker 1: get to tomorrow and then I'm going to get to
44:41
Speaker 1: the next day, and then one day he'll let me
44:43
Speaker 1: be happy. And it's so hard convincing women. No, he's
44:50
Speaker 1: never going to let you be happy. That's a direct
44:53
Speaker 1: threat against him. And it happens in our bosses and
44:56
Speaker 1: our homes and all of it.
45:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's also the fact that it's it's what
45:06
Speaker 2: we were always taught to do. It's easy if you
45:10
Speaker 2: do speak out, speak out about it, or speak up
45:14
Speaker 2: about it. It's uncomfortable, you're not sure, but the consequences
45:18
Speaker 2: you are suddenly seeing as a rebel. And I have
45:25
Speaker 2: seen also in the cutation community that you know, woman's
45:29
Speaker 2: job is ready to serve twenty four hours their husbands,
45:34
Speaker 2: and often it feels like slavery. To me when I
45:37
Speaker 2: see it, it does feel like slavery.
45:39
Speaker 1: I have also made that distinction with I call it
45:45
Speaker 1: like indentured servitude. When I'm like he that like when
45:50
Speaker 1: my brain immediately looks at a marriage that is not
45:53
Speaker 1: anything near the marriage that I would want, and I go,
45:57
Speaker 1: he just loves you because you do laundry, Like if
46:01
Speaker 1: you were unable to do laundry for two days. Your
46:05
Speaker 1: value to him as a human, as a person that
46:09
Speaker 1: he's sharing a life with, as someone who had his
46:13
Speaker 1: children and raised his children, zero, it's white. You provide
46:18
Speaker 1: a service to him. He believes that even though a
46:22
Speaker 1: majority of women work now. Because that's also really fun
46:25
Speaker 1: about our current society is we don't even get to
46:29
Speaker 1: be quote unquote what they used to try to convince
46:33
Speaker 1: us taking care of housewives. We have to work, but
46:36
Speaker 1: we have to work and continue to take on this,
46:40
Speaker 1: all of these in service to our home and our
46:44
Speaker 1: fathers and our uncles and things like that. It's exhausting.
46:48
Speaker 1: And I look at women and I'm like, he loves
46:50
Speaker 1: you because you can cook pancakes, and that's it. He
46:54
Speaker 1: can't tell me your favorite color, what things you did
46:59
Speaker 1: in school for fun. He won't take you to the
47:03
Speaker 1: movies that you like to see because they're for girls
47:06
Speaker 1: and therefore they're itchy, all of it.
47:11
Speaker 2: Yes, I definitely I agree with you. I definitely agree
47:17
Speaker 2: with everything you said. And what annoys me the most
47:22
Speaker 2: about it is that the moment you don't do one
47:25
Speaker 2: thing at home, then you're criticized, you know, like, oh,
47:28
Speaker 2: you didn't cook today, you know, you didn't bring the
47:32
Speaker 2: freaking garbage out or things like that. If you're asked
47:35
Speaker 2: to help, then it's an issue. Like it's like, again,
47:39
Speaker 2: the expectation is that we do everything. We take on
47:42
Speaker 2: all the jobs, all the roles, all the tasks, and
47:46
Speaker 2: we need to have it. I'll figure it out somehow.
47:49
Speaker 1: And and all. And I say this all the time,
47:55
Speaker 1: like I'm like, we're not even guaranteed orgasms out of it,
47:58
Speaker 1: let alone like the pizza topping that we like. Like
48:03
Speaker 1: it's like, I don't know if you've ever seen the
48:05
Speaker 1: movie like a Runaway Bride, where she went her entire
48:09
Speaker 1: life not knowing the way that she liked her eggs
48:12
Speaker 1: because she just cooked eggs the way her current partner
48:15
Speaker 1: liked his eggs. And then finally someone went, well, how
48:19
Speaker 1: do you like your eggs? And she'd go, I have
48:22
Speaker 1: no idea.
48:24
Speaker 2: I did not watch the movie.
48:27
Speaker 1: It's probably streaming SI where if you're interested in American
48:31
Speaker 1: rom coms. But and even and also like Runaway Bride
48:37
Speaker 1: released when I was a teenager, if not younger. It's
48:40
Speaker 1: not even like a revolutionary movie. It is a Julia
48:43
Speaker 1: Roberts basic rom com. But I think about that all
48:46
Speaker 1: the time, where I'm like, women will allow themselves to
48:50
Speaker 1: not have the type of pizza that they want because
48:53
Speaker 1: it's easier than picking the fight.
48:57
Speaker 2: So it's so I have a pull question about that.
49:02
Speaker 2: Was this movie made to bring awareness about what you
49:07
Speaker 2: have said or it was just, you know, a comedy movie.
49:11
Speaker 1: You know, it was just a comedy movie. And I
49:14
Speaker 1: would say, I haven't watched Runaway Bright in a while,
49:16
Speaker 1: and maybe I should because part of the podcast that
49:20
Speaker 1: we do is that we do like to pick a
49:22
Speaker 1: movie and talk about, like what did they get right?
49:26
Speaker 1: What did they get wrong? What wrong things did they
49:28
Speaker 1: perpetuate and make and put into young girls' brains. I
49:33
Speaker 1: will say that it's a realm. It's a rom com.
49:36
Speaker 1: So she ends up with a new man by the
49:39
Speaker 1: end of it, But it was revolutionary in the way
49:43
Speaker 1: that it did actually present her putting herself second as
49:48
Speaker 1: the problem. They're like, you don't know yourself, and if
49:52
Speaker 1: you knew yourself, you would stop running away on your
49:55
Speaker 1: wedding day because your body wouldn't be in panic anymore
49:59
Speaker 1: because you would have picked a partner that knew you,
50:04
Speaker 1: but you don't know you yet, so it's it's fickle.
50:08
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have to rewatch that movie.
50:11
Speaker 2: So talking about movies, one thing I started to do
50:16
Speaker 2: is rewatch some old Bollywood movies. And when you watch
50:22
Speaker 2: them now, they two are much older. They hit you differently,
50:26
Speaker 2: and some of them they have different kinds of topics
50:28
Speaker 2: and you're like, how was this was this right back
50:32
Speaker 2: in the days. You start thinking about that, You're like,
50:36
Speaker 2: this if it could be if it gets released now,
50:39
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, but it will not do well.
50:41
Speaker 1: No, no, okay, because we're running up to our end time,
50:47
Speaker 1: I'm gonna move us to our ending ceremony and I
50:52
Speaker 1: can already tell that you have to come back. We're
50:54
Speaker 1: friends now. I didn't know if you knew that this
50:56
Speaker 1: was the consequence of being on the podcast. You have
51:00
Speaker 1: to be friends. I will if we become social media friends,
51:05
Speaker 1: I will DM you things that make me think about
51:07
Speaker 1: you throughout the day. Or you're welcome. But we always
51:12
Speaker 1: close out the show with a lesson about our experience
51:17
Speaker 1: living under misogyny. So if you had to pass on
51:22
Speaker 1: to the next generation or the next woman you met,
51:25
Speaker 1: or the women listening to the podcast, what they should
51:28
Speaker 1: learn from your experience as a Third culture kid and
51:33
Speaker 1: someone who had to live in misogyny. What would be
51:38
Speaker 1: the lesson that you would want to pass on.
51:40
Speaker 2: Oh, I would probably say, based on the conversation that
51:45
Speaker 2: we had, I'm trying to firm relate a sentence in
51:49
Speaker 2: a proper way, but I would say, definitely be the
51:55
Speaker 2: man that your parents always wanted.
51:58
Speaker 1: Oh that's so deep, and also kind of like that's
52:04
Speaker 1: like a dark statement on our society. It's like, hey,
52:07
Speaker 1: be the sun. I dare you. I dare you to
52:11
Speaker 1: take on what the expectations that they would have handed
52:15
Speaker 1: their son if you had been a son. Oh. Yes,
52:18
Speaker 1: that's chilling. We also like to hand out some good
52:22
Speaker 1: energy back into our collective universe. So what's something positive
52:28
Speaker 1: that you would like to manifest for society, for other
52:33
Speaker 1: Third culture kids? It could be anything, just a positive
52:37
Speaker 1: thing that helps us combat misogyny and the things that
52:42
Speaker 1: we are currently enduring.
52:45
Speaker 2: I would say, which was also very recurring in our conversation,
52:50
Speaker 2: is definitely education. I think reading books, talking to people,
52:57
Speaker 2: watching good movies. Also, you know, like listening to the
53:03
Speaker 2: right podcast, I think will really help you to open
53:06
Speaker 2: up your mind and think differently about different things. I
53:11
Speaker 2: think we're very very narrow minded in some certain ways.
53:15
Speaker 2: I think education is key.
53:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think we need to remember that they
53:20
Speaker 1: want us to be uneducated. As much as they pretend
53:25
Speaker 1: that education is so important and you have to go
53:28
Speaker 1: to college and you have to get good grades and
53:30
Speaker 1: all of it, they very much under educate us on purpose, like, yes,
53:36
Speaker 1: you have to go seek out the knowledge behind racism
53:42
Speaker 1: and misogyny and what happened in the past and what's
53:46
Speaker 1: currently happening now, Like it's on us to educate ourselves fully.
53:51
Speaker 2: Yes, definitely.
53:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, Ermie, this was wonderful, one of the best
53:57
Speaker 1: hours of my week. And I can't wait until you're
54:00
Speaker 1: back because I feel like there's still so much We
54:04
Speaker 1: could do an entire part two to this episode, and
54:06
Speaker 1: just I could keep the same outline and we could
54:09
Speaker 1: just talk for another hour. But make sure that the
54:12
Speaker 1: tolerators know where they can follow you and keep in
54:15
Speaker 1: touch with you and buy your book.
54:18
Speaker 2: Yes, so they can basically connect with me on LinkedIn.
54:21
Speaker 2: It's called Omeho sign. I also have an Instagram account.
54:24
Speaker 2: It's called I have a YouTube channel it's called sign
54:28
Speaker 2: and my book is available on Amazon. It's called Discovering
54:31
Speaker 2: Your Identity, Every Birth from Tuition, Struggle and Don't Worry.
54:35
Speaker 1: Everything is linked in the show notes because I want
54:38
Speaker 1: to make it so easy for you all to be
54:41
Speaker 1: friends with my new friends. Thank you so much again
54:46
Speaker 1: for being here. I really appreciate it.
54:49
Speaker 2: Thank you, thank you for having me.
54:52
Speaker 1: And then, tolerators, you know where to find us. It's
54:55
Speaker 1: on Instagram at men I've Tolerated, podok and my personal
55:01
Speaker 1: Instagram at Natalie K one two four. All of this
55:05
Speaker 1: is also linked in the show notes of case you
55:07
Speaker 1: want to email us your stories of everyday misogyny or
55:10
Speaker 1: pitch yourself as a guest on the podcast. And we
55:13
Speaker 1: are also on Patreon at two all of the men
55:15
Speaker 1: I've tolerated before. And remember, tolerators, you don't have to
55:19
Speaker 1: smile through anything you're tolerating, including all of these traditions
55:24
Speaker 1: that don't really fit in our modern capitalistic society. And
55:29
Speaker 1: yet all your mom and all your aunts are still
55:32
Speaker 1: asking you why you're not performing them smiles As the
55:36
Speaker 1: door