00:00:38.460and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them.
00:00:43.680I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are The Survivor Files.
00:00:47.300Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable,
00:00:51.020abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced.
00:00:54.640These are stories about what it takes to make it out alive.
00:00:58.720Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:01:10.460There Are No Girls on the Internet is a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative.
00:01:18.580I'm Bridget Todd, and this is There Are No Girls on the Internet.
00:01:21.320boy has it been a big week for men who like to control women kiki palmer's boyfriend took to
00:01:30.680twitter to shame the outfit that she wore at an usher concert and jonah hill's ex-girlfriend
00:01:36.040surfer sarah brady released some pretty troubling demands that he had for her online behavior
00:01:41.780now both of these situations illustrate what happens when social media overlaps with controlling
00:01:48.040behavior in romantic relationships, something that, frankly, I just don't think we talk enough
00:01:52.940about, and something that I think that many of us have dealt with or, unfortunately, are currently
00:01:58.000dealing with. So I did a whole episode on Patreon breaking all of this down. We get into all of it,
00:02:03.740the weaponization of therapy speak, and whether or not it's ever okay for a romantic partner to
00:02:08.300police what we post on social media. And I thought it was such an important conversation that I
00:02:13.700wanted to share a little bit of it here in the There Are No Girls on the Internet feed. Now,
00:02:17.520If you want to hear the entire conversation, join us over at Patreon at patreon.com slash tangody.
00:02:26.140I should preface this by saying I obviously don't know any of these people.
00:02:29.260And this is just my perspective from an outside person who knows a lot about the Internet and discourse online.
00:02:34.780I think that we have really got into a weird place when it comes to gender.
00:02:44.140I think that this is just my opinion. I think that we've had the last 10 years where like men's rights activists and incels and like pickup artists, guys like Fresh and Fit, their podcast, which is very popular, guys like Andrew Tate, who is currently being investigated for sex trafficking.
00:03:09.080Right. Like men who I think are dangerous because of their actions, but also because of the attitudes about gender and sex and sexuality and romantic relationships and the expectations that men should have, regular men should have around those things.
00:03:26.980I think that is also very dangerous. And I do believe that a lot of those attitudes are sort of, maybe they start in these, you know, kind of fringe or extreme pockets of discourse or the internet, right?
00:03:44.600So like, I don't, I'm not gonna, I don't think that like Jonah Hill is listening to the Fit and Fresh podcast or Andrew Tate's podcast Tate speech.
00:03:52.420But I think that these attitudes start in places that are kind of fringe.
00:03:56.140They then get really quickly mainstreamed by social media platforms.
00:04:01.780And you see these clips from the podcasts on Twitter, things like that.
00:04:05.060So you don't have to be like a follower or a listener of these influencers or personalities to get their messages.
00:04:11.280And I just think those messages have been filtered down to the general public, particularly to young people, particularly to men. And we are no longer treating them as fringe when they are really extreme, I would argue really dangerous and really regressive.
00:04:29.200And I think what's worse is that I think that they keep everybody, men, women, everybody, talking about like women who are dating men. I know this sounds very heteronormative, but that's the two examples that I'm talking about reflect that.
00:04:46.880But I think that they keep all parties from truly experiencing connection because regressive, rigid attitudes about gender and dating, they obviously harm women who are in the relationships with men like this.
00:05:05.740But I think that they harm the men as well, because they prevent those men from truly being able to see women as people, as humans, that they can have respectful connections with.
00:05:17.720I think that it's this attitude that women are something to be controlled. Women are something to be shut, like, knocked down and to make submit.
00:05:30.820And I think that all of these podcasts and, you know, influencers and all of that, I think that they all rely on this like underlying dynamic that you're as a man, your job on earth is to break women, have women submit to you so that you can fulfill your like, you know, societally recognized place in relationships, which is you at the top and women at the bottom.0.98
00:06:00.420And I have a really big problem with this. I know this sounds like I'm making a mountain out of a molehill, but I spend so much time researching and studying the kinds of attitudes that are coming out of these, you know, men's rights spaces.
00:06:16.920And it doesn't matter if you dress it up in therapy speak and bleach blonde hair and sleeve tattoos like Jonah Hill, or if you dress it up in the guise of like just being concerned for your family unit, like Kiki Palmer's partner was doing.
00:06:36.400it still really, really seems like the same kind of dangerous gendered rhetoric that comes from
00:06:43.860these pockets of the internet and our online discourse that are so dangerous.
00:06:50.900So that was just a little preview of our whole conversation. And I know this is not really a
00:06:56.060topic that I wade into often on the podcast. And listen, I am no relationship expert by any means.
00:07:02.900I actually don't even talk about my own romantic life or personal life on the podcast or even
00:07:32.900I survived nine months in captivity and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive
00:07:42.180what should have destroyed them. I'm Elizabeth Smart and these are the Survivor Files. Every
00:07:48.200week I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable, abducted, stalked, controlled,
00:07:53.600and nearly silenced. These are stories about what it takes to make it out alive.
00:07:58.780Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:08:07.160If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home.
00:08:12.940Pro Society is a weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse.
00:08:21.240Each week, we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and pop culture
00:08:24.720with your favorite writers, book talk creators, and plenty of overthought opinions.