Bitchy History - 2.2 - Patriarchy, Paternalism, and the Civil War

00:00:00.080 Welcome back to Bitchy History, the irreverent history podcast that would like you to know that intersectionality should have been part of feminism from the very beginning. 1.00

00:00:07.600 Because the subjugation of women and the subjugation of every other oppressed minority has been part of the same system the whole damn time. 0.65

00:00:30.000 Welcome to episode 2 of the second season of Bitchy History. 0.91

00:00:33.100 As I explained in the opening episode of the season, the show is going through a little bit of a transition period

00:00:37.880 as it finds its space in the Field of History podcasts.

00:00:40.960 The American History 101 episodes that I did last season are giving way to a slightly more flexible way to cover history

00:00:47.220 from the angles that I most love, rather than having a simple chronological coverage of American history.

00:00:53.040 What that means is that the show is going to be jumping around a lot more on the timeline

00:00:56.940 and not focusing necessarily on the historical figures whose names you already recognize.

00:01:02.200 One of the things I want to focus on, which fits in rather nicely with the name of the podcast,

00:01:06.340 is the centering of women in the history of America and history generally.

00:01:10.580 When I was asked to teach my first women's history class at the university,

00:01:13.660 I was pretty excited to do it, but didn't realize that it would become my new obsession.

00:01:18.200 But it's an obsession well worth discussing.

00:01:20.660 And if you wonder what this has to do with today's episode, let me tell you.

00:01:23.880 If you caught the end of the last episode, I said that I was going to be talking about

00:01:27.400 the American Civil War today and your mind probably went to the Gettysburg Address or

00:01:32.380 the secession of the states or the caning of Charles Sumner if you're particularly well

00:01:36.480 versed in the details of the causes of the Civil War.

00:01:39.720 If that's what you showed up for, I'm really sorry.

00:01:42.520 We're going to be talking about the patriarchy and how that impacted the rhetoric of the

00:01:46.040 Civil War.

00:01:47.080 Today we'll be looking at the lives of women in the South and the very paternalistic social 0.93

00:01:51.040 order that ruled their lives, and how that was part and parcel of the system of chattel slavery

00:01:55.780 that the war was fought to preserve. But before we go into that, let's clarify one very important

00:02:01.980 thing. The war was about slavery, point blank. It wasn't about states' rights, except in as much as

00:02:08.740 it was about the confederate states believing that they had the right to own people. That's it. That's

00:02:14.040 the cause. There are other secondary issues, of course, but almost every single one of those

00:02:18.960 secondary causes traces back to one root. Slavery. This should sound obvious, but if you follow me on

00:02:24.960 TikTok, you'll know just how much drama this one seemingly common sense statement can cause.

00:02:30.460 The reaction from Southerners on TikTok when I say that the war was about slavery is something

00:02:36.080 along the lines of... So far I have avoided being burnt at the stake, but there's always next time,

00:02:46.180 I guess. Despite claims to the contrary, the slave system was not dying out on its own and it was not

00:02:52.560 incompatible with economic success in the 19th century. Slave prices had tripled from 1800 to

00:02:58.440 1860 and they were a very valuable commodity. In addition, the number needed by planters increased

00:03:04.400 by an average of about 27% every decade. If you want more information on that, I've got an entire

00:03:10.400 playlist on the Civil War and the Lost Cause myth on my TikTok account and I'm hoping to eventually

00:03:15.480 have on a couple of experts on the history of the Civil War and the Lost Cause here on the show to

00:03:21.280 discuss it in more depth. But for today, let's talk about the social order of the Antebellum South.

00:03:26.800 We'll start with the obvious question. What the hell is paternalism? Now, for those of you that

00:03:31.740 have studied Latin, I've forgotten around 99% of what I learned in high school, and I didn't learn

00:03:36.920 that much to begin with, to be honest. You'll probably have a basic idea. Potter is the Latin

00:03:42.100 word for father. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy defines paternalism as the interference

00:03:48.120 of a state or an individual with another person against their will and defended or motivated by

00:03:53.220 a claim that the person interfered with will be better off or protected from harm. Paternalism

00:03:58.980 is pretty much a necessity when raising a child. After all, a child doesn't really have logic that

00:04:04.280 you can appeal to and you have to make rules. Don't play in the street, don't touch the stove,

00:04:08.920 don't stick forks in light sockets. And when children don't follow those rules, even if they

00:04:13.980 don't get hurt doing the thing that the parent told them not to do, parents punish their children

00:04:18.500 for their own good. However, that style of parenting should give way to more appeals to

00:04:23.180 logic, discussions about what's right and wrong, and what's good for you and bad for you, ultimately

00:04:27.840 allowing children to make their own decisions as they grow older. A paternalistic approach to

00:04:32.360 parenting doesn't work the same way for a 16-year-old as it would for a 6-year-old, and you

00:04:37.200 definitely wouldn't want to try the same thing with a 26-year-old. But outside the parent-child

00:04:42.480 bond, paternalism does become a problem, especially if it's being enforced by the government or a

00:04:47.400 social order in a way that takes away a person's bodily autonomy. Because the government, your

00:04:52.340 father, your husband, or your social circle know better and have to keep you or society as a whole

00:04:58.100 from what those in charge deem is harmful behavior. Of course, some paternalistic laws, like requiring

00:05:04.220 seatbelts in cars, restrict a person's autonomy very lightly in exchange for increased safety for

00:05:09.940 them and everyone around them. Others, like the war on drugs or abortion bans, cause far more harm

00:05:15.620 than good on the individual and a societal level. But before we get too hung up in the philosophical

00:05:20.820 issues, which really isn't my area, let's shift back to talking about how this applied to the

00:05:25.860 social order of the southern states. So what was paternalism in the context of the south?

00:05:31.360 Paternalism was intrinsically a part of the social system of the South.

00:05:35.320 It was involved in establishing the entire social order,

00:05:38.180 from the hierarchy of class to the hierarchy of race, slavery, and gender.

00:05:42.780 The social hierarchy of the South was incredibly stratified.

00:05:46.240 It placed the plantation owner and his wife over the yeoman farmer and his wife. 0.85

00:05:51.220 Below them was the poor whites who owned no land and their landless wives. 0.92

00:05:55.080 All of these, no matter their economic status, were above freed blacks, slaves, and children. 0.88

00:06:00.740 And climbing this social hierarchy was the American dream for most Southerners. 1.00

00:06:05.920 Much like the idiots who think that maybe one day they too can be millionaires if they just 1.00

00:06:10.240 follow the advice of Dave Ramsey, the dream of poor whites and yeoman farmers was to rise to 1.00

00:06:15.620 the level of the plantation owner. Instead of dreaming about gold toilets and a membership 0.98

00:06:20.040 at Mar-a-Lago, they dreamed of possessing slaves. And when I say paternalism is related to the

00:06:25.780 practice of slavery in the South, I want to clarify what I mean. Because slavery was not

00:06:30.620 actually paternalistic. Paternalism involves seeing someone as a child and believing that

00:06:35.520 you're making these rules for their betterment or to protect them from harm, which is patently not

00:06:40.280 what was occurring with slavery. Slavery was for the benefit of the enslaver, not the enslaved.

00:06:45.660 So when it comes to the practice of slavery, paternalism is a social order that was used to

00:06:49.860 justify slavery. It's the way slave owners would justify it to others, how they would justify it

00:06:55.140 themselves, how people still justify it today. You've heard it. The people who say, well, of

00:07:00.240 course slavery was bad, but they learned useful skills. Or, of course slavery was wrong, but being

00:07:06.880 enslaved allowed them to become civilized Christians, so it's not all bad. The other 0.98

00:07:11.320 reason that paternalism was only an excuse for the slave owner is that for someone to be paternal

00:07:16.280 to someone, they have to see them as a sentient being, rather than a commodity or a tool to be

00:07:21.600 sold, traded, and used for the owner's benefit. And anyone who knows much of anything about the

00:07:26.400 practice of chattel slavery in the South knows that slave owners didn't really feel much compunction

00:07:31.380 to treat their property as human. During the antebellum period, white men kept the social

00:07:36.240 hierarchy in place. For the social hierarchy to work, white men needed their dependents to be 0.98

00:07:41.480 subordinate to them. Southern white men gained power through paternalism. White men in the South,

00:07:47.080 whether poor or rich, occupied a higher level of the social hierarchy in a paternalistic system. 0.80

00:07:52.840 Of course, a wealthy plantation owner was higher than a human farmer, but both held a higher 0.70

00:07:57.580 position than the women in their household, which is how paternalism benefited even the 0.95

00:08:01.680 non-slave owners in the South. It was a system which kept even the poorest white man at a better 0.99

00:08:06.800 position in society than women or the enslaved. It elevated them above every dependent, including 0.88

00:08:12.580 the fully grown adult women in their sphere of power. The family unit of the Antebellum South 0.99

00:08:17.560 functioned in a very similar way to what I described way back in episode six when I said

00:08:22.620 that Thomas Hobbes viewed the family unit as functioning as a little monarchy. Judge Glover

00:08:28.240 of South Carolina put it this way in 1858, the obligation imposed on the husband to provide for

00:08:33.980 their wants and protection makes it necessary that he should exercise a power of control over all

00:08:39.320 members of his household. For that reason, the law, looking to the peace and happiness of families

00:08:44.560 in the best interest of society, places the husband and father at the head of the household.

00:08:49.960 And in fact, it went further than that. In Stephanie McCurry's book, Masters of Small

00:08:53.960 Worlds, she further quotes this from Judge Glover when he states that a wife's legal existence is

00:08:59.500 suspended, and because of this, a man was considered to have possession or custody of his wife, and as

00:09:05.400 such, she could not even have legal custody over her own children, because that would cause, and I

00:09:10.800 quote, a divided empire in the government of the family. The father and husband was the monarch,

00:09:16.820 the wife, the matrimonial slave. In 1854, an anonymous submission to the Southern Quarterly

00:09:22.600 Review was titled Marriage and Divorce, and stated that marriage was a contract that was not entered

00:09:28.280 into with the terms of equality, that men were unquestionably in charge, and that a woman

00:09:33.080 carries into the union a feebleness that solicits protection, and in marriage rarely learns to stand

00:09:39.100 alone. But far more telling in the context of how paternalism directed towards women is part and

00:09:44.560 parcel of defending slavery, is this author's assertion that divorce was a supplication to the

00:09:50.240 pestilent ideas of natural rights and individual liberty. Stephanie McCurry rightly states that by

00:09:56.880 1854, the words in this letter would have immediately told the readers what was really

00:10:01.340 at stake if women were allowed to have some form of natural rights or individual liberty in marriage.

00:10:06.640 It would cause the, quote, whole framework of the social temple to fall to pieces, and it would call 0.97

00:10:12.860 everything else into question, the legitimacy of all domestic dependencies, which would have given

00:10:18.120 weight to the abolitionist causes all across America. This, my dear listeners, is why intersectionality

00:10:24.360 is so important. It's never been just about subjugating white women. For many, that was just 0.61

00:10:29.740 a means to an end. If marriage dictated a woman's subordination to a man, then a man's dominance 0.97

00:10:35.180 over a slave was also obviously a natural concept. The pro-slavery movement used gender to legitimize 0.99

00:10:41.680 slavery by emphasizing women's natural subordinate state. In an 1856 issue of DeBow's Review, 0.91

00:10:48.740 the Honorable Robert Toomes, who would later become the Secretary of State for the Confederacy,

00:10:53.620 wrote that,

00:10:54.120 We can see this same rhetoric used in the Southern Quarterly Review in 1852 in reference to the

00:11:15.100 enfranchisement of women. Women's conditions certainly admit of improvement. Here, as in all 0.86

00:11:20.660 other improvements, the good must be brought about by working with, not against, nature's laws. 1.00

00:11:26.720 Everything counter to nature is abhorrent to nature, and the mental aberrations of women, 1.00

00:11:31.140 which we are now discussing, excite at once pity and disgust, like those revolting physical 1.00

00:11:36.660 deformities which the eye turns from with involuntary loathing. We are not undervaluers

00:11:42.040 of women, rather we profess ourselves to be her advocate. Each can labor, each can strive,

00:11:47.800 lovingly and earnestly in her own sphere. Nature's signposts are within thee, and it were well for

00:11:53.860 thee to learn and read them. And then there comes my favorite part of this article, where it all

00:11:59.520 comes together and the author of this particular rant draws the connection for us between women's 0.50

00:12:05.520 emancipation and slavery, when he writes, but the poison is spreading, and truly accept that the

00:12:11.640 fashion of the thing is a little newer. It is but a piece with black emancipation. I love it when the 0.83

00:12:18.200 primary source just draws all of the conclusions for me, honestly. And then, like so many men's 0.63

00:12:23.760 rights activists since him, the author waxes poetic for a bit on how women are inferior because he's 0.98

00:12:29.780 bigger and stronger and he could definitely beat up a woman. If beings are created to different

00:12:35.000 ends, it is impossible to consider them in the point of equality or inequality, except insofar

00:12:40.080 as their differences are of a kind to still allow them to be cast in the same category.

00:12:44.920 As, for instance, the man as animal is superior to the beast, 0.62

00:12:48.800 the white man is, for the same reason, superior to the black. 0.96

00:12:52.740 The woman, classed as man, must also be inferior if only because she is inferior in corporeal strength. 0.96

00:12:59.000 A female must necessarily be inferior to a male so long as the latter has the power to knock her down. 0.99

00:13:06.160 I have to say, it's always so telling how obsessed they are with hitting women. 0.98

00:13:11.620 Now, I could go on at length quoting from this particular article.

00:13:15.040 It's about 20 pages long, single-spaced, but I think you get the picture.

00:13:19.460 The natural order of subservience was not just something that applied to women or to slaves.

00:13:24.840 It applied to both of them.

00:13:27.020 Pro-slavery advocates argued that slavery was natural.

00:13:30.280 To the pro-slavery South, abolitionism was intrinsically linked to the movement for

00:13:34.960 women's rights and suffrage as well. The slave-owning wealthy cast abolition as an attack

00:13:40.060 on the very social order that made all men, even the human farmer with no skin in the game of

00:13:45.280 slavery, the master of his own home. Even men who were lower class and not slave owners benefited

00:13:51.100 economically from the practice of slavery and socially from the practice of paternalism.

00:13:55.780 every white man in the south had inherent power due to his race and gender no matter how poor you

00:14:01.440 were you were always the social better of someone else if you were white and male so pull that

00:14:06.600 particular tidbit out the next time a dude says most people didn't even own slaves so clearly the

00:14:11.600 war couldn't have been about slavery the south social order relied on the idea that subordination

00:14:17.400 of certain genders and races was natural and correct that was the peculiar institution of

00:14:23.600 the South, the idea that it was normal and natural for some people to be owned and controlled by

00:14:28.700 others. However, it would be irresponsible of me to leave out how paternalism also benefited white 0.86

00:14:34.380 women in the Antebellum South, especially if they were wealthy. Wealthy white women were the mothers

00:14:39.500 and mistresses of their family. They oversaw the work of the slaves in the domestic household, 1.00

00:14:44.500 and while their husbands ultimately did have the final say in things, women did rule the domestic 1.00

00:14:49.260 sphere as something of a steward. Sure, the king could come in and take over, but while the king 1.00

00:14:54.240 is away, the steward is in charge. Paternalism and the practice of slavery benefited them in some

00:15:00.020 ways too, which meant that they had just as much interest in maintaining and defending the practice

00:15:05.000 as their husbands did in most cases, even if paternalism restricted their autonomy in exchange

00:15:10.220 for those benefits. To be an elite wealthy white woman in the south was to follow some very strict 0.81

00:15:15.600 gender roles. Female advice books like Letters on a Female Character by Virginia Randolph Carey, 1.00

00:15:21.240 published in 1828, praised the ideals of the domestic sphere. Women, according to Carey, 0.99

00:15:26.780 should depend on male protection. Citing scripture, Carey states that woman was formed from man and 0.97

00:15:32.700 therefore subservient to his authority. Similar to the anonymous 1854 letter I mentioned earlier,

00:15:38.740 Carey believed that women stepping outside the traditional gender roles would result in 1.00

00:15:42.680 national misery. Her proof? Apparently, independent women getting outside their proper place in 0.99

00:15:49.040 society caused the French Revolution and the desolation of their country, which is a fun 1.00

00:15:54.880 theory. No idea what fact she was basing it on, but it's a fun theory. Staying in your proper 0.64

00:16:01.080 place in society was also meant to protect women. A proper young woman was far, far, far too delicate 1.00

00:16:06.700 and pure to survive without a man to save them from all the horrible things in society. Think 1.00

00:16:11.800 of all those fainting young women in Victorian novels, so demure and dainty that even the slightest 1.00

00:16:17.080 upset could have them tumbling to the ground in a swoon. Were they actually fainting or pretending

00:16:22.460 to establish their daintiness and delicacy to men? That's anyone's guess, really. But this whole need

00:16:28.280 to protect women that was intrinsic to the paternalistic southern social order would come

00:16:32.840 to play a very large part in southern propaganda about the Civil War. The Confederacy found that 0.96

00:16:38.360 the perfect narrative in which to frame the war, and that was that it was an attack on the southern

00:16:43.600 way of life, not just slavery. Slavery was a major part of the southern way of life, but if slavery

00:16:49.720 ended, it might also bring destruction to the southern family. Confederate propaganda promoted

00:16:55.520 the war as a means to protect white women and the rights of men as the masters in their own homes.

00:17:01.380 Prior to the start of the war, even the propaganda for secession played on the fears of invasion of 0.74

00:17:06.880 a man's home and the violation of his rights and the pollution of white women. A Richmond soldier

00:17:12.560 stated his purpose for fighting was for the protection of the fair daughters of my own 0.63

00:17:17.420 native state from Yankee outrage and atrocity. Outrage being, of course, the term used to refer 0.82

00:17:23.340 to rape during this period. Captain William Fisher Plain, a Confederate soldier, wrote in one letter

00:17:28.900 to his wife in 1861 that he viewed the war as glorious to die for one's country and in defense

00:17:35.320 of innocent girls and women from the fangs of the lecherous northern hirelings who from accounts

00:17:41.100 here stated are indeed engaged in this for beauty and booty heart-rending are some of the stories

00:17:49.000 tis enough to arouse the feelings of southern manhood and call to arms every son of the south

00:17:54.340 yes i heard it i heard it too beauty and booty excuse me while i go laugh for a second

00:18:02.300 I shouldn't be laughing it's horrible but I gotta go laugh okay so now we're back yeah so the

00:18:09.700 Richmond Whig in 1863 urged every newspaper in the south to write about the violence of the Union

00:18:15.520 army the shrieks of violated women and the cries of orphaned children Union soldiers were accused

00:18:21.920 of ravishing women regularly the Augusta Register in 1864 wrote that we are informed that the

00:18:27.980 incarnate devils ravish some of the nicest ladies of the town. Now, of course, I'm not here to say

00:18:33.860 that no woman was ever raped during the Civil War. Unfortunately, one of the truths of war has

00:18:39.160 long been that women are victimized violently, often in the context of sexual assault. There is

00:18:45.400 more than enough evidence to show that sexual assault was pretty commonplace during the Civil

00:18:49.800 War. In fact, it was such an issue that the Libra Code of 1863 was codified, putting in place rules

00:18:55.860 for court-martial trials of soldiers accused of rape or sexual assault, regardless of the

00:19:00.600 victim's race. Not that this made it easy for the victims to press charges. However, throughout the

00:19:06.040 war, around 400 to 450 men were prosecuted for sexual violence on the Union side of the war.

00:19:12.240 Most Confederate records didn't survive the war, but given the propensity for rape of enslaved

00:19:16.820 women that existed when the South wasn't at war, it's ridiculous to think that they weren't getting

00:19:21.620 up to the exact kind of violence against women that seems to always come with war. However, as

00:19:27.340 one might expect, the number of victims who were black women seems to be much higher than the

00:19:32.100 number of white women victimized. But the sexual assault of black women in the South would not be 0.87

00:19:37.180 useful for recruitment or propaganda, so they focused on using the fear of the violation of 0.97

00:19:42.700 chastity of white women as a tool to recruit soldiers in the South. This rhetoric united both 0.54

00:19:48.360 rich and poor white men for the cause because all white men had the duty to protect under the 0.53

00:19:53.380 paternalistic system of the southern society. Historian Leanne Weitz in her book The Civil War

00:19:58.820 as a Crisis in Gender wrote that slaveholders and non-slaveholders alike in their defense of

00:20:04.340 the confederacy was their defense of a common social construction of manhood as largely autonomous 0.74

00:20:09.960 and self-directing household heads. The fight was framed as being about protecting the social order

00:20:16.640 Men as heads of household with women and slaves subordinate to them. 0.81

00:20:20.540 A neat trick to make even the men with no direct financial benefit from slavery

00:20:24.680 see the battle as one that would benefit them socially to fight.

00:20:28.800 And lest you think that this kind of rhetoric faded out after the war

00:20:32.020 and paternalism became a thing of the past, let me correct you. 1.00

00:20:35.460 This same rhetoric of women needing to be protected from the violent black man 0.93

00:20:40.000 became only more pronounced after the war. 0.73

00:20:42.500 But those of you that know even the most scant history of lynching in the South, or even just one case of lynching, that of Emmett Till, would already know that.

00:20:51.920 Crystal Feimster, a feminist scholar in the Department of African American Studies at Yale University, had this to say in an interview with the Women's Media Center in 2013.

00:21:00.860 In the post-war years, Southern white men articulated a political discourse that defined rape as a crime committed by black men against white women. 0.90

00:21:09.420 In constructing the image of the black rapist, Southern white men sought to challenge black men's rights as citizens, while simultaneously expanding their sexual power over black and white women. 0.95

00:21:21.400 A quick glance at Chapter 2 of Ida B. Wells' The Red Record would find that accusations of sexual assault were one of the most common crimes that African American men were lynched for in the Reconstruction era. 0.97

00:21:33.100 In Southern Horrors, Lynch Law in All Its Phases,

00:21:36.260 Wells quotes from a newspaper on May 21st, 1892,

00:21:39.880 where they write,

00:21:40.520 Eight Negroes lynched since last issue of the Free Speech, 0.79

00:21:44.300 five on the same old racket, 1.00

00:21:46.200 the new alarm about raping white women. 0.99

00:21:48.900 In the book, Wells details numerous accounts of false accusations 0.97

00:21:52.400 that were eventually recanted,

00:21:54.120 but usually not until the damage was done,

00:21:56.540 much like the case of Emmett Till. 0.94

00:21:58.680 The toxic paternalistic idea that women must be protected by men

00:22:02.560 had a half-life that caused continued racial violence throughout the Reconstruction era

00:22:07.160 well into the era of Jim Crow in the South.

00:22:10.280 And having grown up in the South, I can tell you that not much has changed in that regard, really.

00:22:15.920 And on to our final point for the show today. 0.96

00:22:18.320 Remember a bit earlier in the show when I read from that putrid bit of garbage 0.95

00:22:22.500 opposing women's enfranchisement in 1852? 0.95

00:22:25.240 the one that clearly linked abolitionism to the cause of women's suffrage.

00:22:29.660 Yeah, that little connection didn't go away after the war either.

00:22:33.460 Now, it's certain that many suffragists had some problematic issues with race, to say the least,

00:22:39.640 but unfortunately, that was a trait that they shared with the anti-suffrage movement as well.

00:22:45.040 For instance, one particular postcard put out by the Georgia Association Opposed to Women's Suffrage in 1915,

00:22:51.320 which, well, I'll just read the relevant part to you. 0.70

00:22:55.240 Vote against women's suffrage, it says across the top, because universal suffrage wipes out the disenfranchisement of the Negro by state law, because of the danger to farmers' families if Negro men vote in addition to 2 million Negro women, because white supremacy must be maintained.

00:23:17.360 Included with this postcard was an article entitled, The Places Assigned to Men and Women, 0.79

00:23:22.840 in which former President Grover Cleveland expounded on, you guessed it, the natural place of men and women,

00:23:30.340 where men make all the decisions and protect women from the outside world.

00:23:34.680 Oh, he tries to make it sound better than some of the antebellum rhetoric I shared with you earlier, 0.81

00:23:39.000 but he makes it very clear that the characteristics of women make them unsuitable to have the vote, 0.87

00:23:44.980 that women have too much sentiment to be trusted to make clear-headed decisions,

00:23:49.520 and that women's role in life is to give firm rooting and sure growth to man's best efforts.

00:23:56.240 Basically, according to Cleveland and other anti-suffragists,

00:23:59.480 giving women the right to vote would be a disaster of biblical proportions.

00:24:03.940 What do you mean, biblical? 0.99

00:24:05.520 What he means is Old Testament, Mr. Mayor.

00:24:07.980 Real wrath of God type stuff.

00:24:09.980 Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies.

00:24:12.500 Rivers and seas boiling.

00:24:13.780 40 years of darkness, earthquakes, volcanoes, the dead rising from the grave.

00:24:17.760 Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria.

00:24:21.940 Enough, I get the point.

00:24:23.540 So as I said during this episode's intro, 0.98

00:24:26.000 intersectionality should have been a part of the feminist movement from the very start. 0.93

00:24:29.880 Because it's never just one or the other. 1.00

00:24:32.200 The damn system is set up to oppress anyone who isn't a straight white male, 0.99

00:24:36.160 and somehow our ancestors kept missing the connection. 1.00

00:24:39.320 And some of us keep missing the connection even today,

00:24:41.920 even though we should be able to see it pretty clearly. 1.00

00:24:45.760 We all need to do better, especially white women, 1.00

00:24:48.520 because people who want to oppress others are hilariously a lot less discriminatory than we think. 1.00

00:24:54.640 They'll take the power from anyone.

00:25:04.900 Thank you all so much for tuning in to listen to me bitch about history today.

00:25:08.420 Today's episode was a hell of a project, even though it was based on part of a lecture that

00:25:12.160 I give in my women's history class.

00:25:14.300 We dealt with a lot of primary and secondary source material in this episode today, and

00:25:18.920 I'm working harder at being more transparent with my research materials and process because

00:25:23.920 that's what good historians do.

00:25:26.020 I'm not here to gatekeep, despite the name of the subscriber-only podcast being the Gaslight

00:25:31.040 Gatekeep Girlboss Sessions.

00:25:32.540 That's just an inside joke.

00:25:34.340 I'm not here to say, just trust me, bro, either.

00:25:37.520 So I'm instituting something new for the podcast and for my TikTok.

00:25:41.460 There's now a Substack newsletter that you can sign up to to receive in your inbox.

00:25:46.080 Whenever I put out a podcast or a research-heavy TikTok,

00:25:49.540 I'll endeavor to make a post including links to the sources I used in my research

00:25:54.160 and sometimes some additional recommended reading that I think is nice.

00:25:58.400 You can find the Substack at bitchyhistory.substack.com

00:26:02.100 and I'll also post a link on bitchyhistory.com as well. It's a completely free newsletter and

00:26:07.800 anytime I post something to it, pop! It hits your inbox. I mean, you guys probably know how

00:26:12.960 Substack works by this point, but I thought I'd remind you. Please feel free to subscribe and

00:26:17.560 remember if you want access to the subscriber-only podcast or any of the other perks available on my

00:26:22.540 Patreon, you can find a link to it on the Bitchy History website. Have a great week and I'll see 0.92

00:26:27.780 you back here next Monday.

00:26:32.100 Thank you.

Bitchy History - September 19, 2023

2.2 - Patriarchy, Paternalism, and the Civil War

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