Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - May 16, 2024


Harrison Butker and the TradWives with Emily in Your Phone

Topics
Women and Pleasure with Glynnis MacNicol (PLUS All the thoughts on The Idea of You) Sunday Nice Things: Magical Overthinkers with Amanda Montell

Episode Stats


Length

40 minutes

Words per minute

166.12

Word count

6,685

Sentence count

363

Harmful content

Misogyny

33

sentences flagged

Toxicity

39

sentences flagged

Hate speech

21

sentences flagged


Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
00:00:00.000 I didn't like what you said, Odin pauses, about the future.
00:00:05.900 This is the love story of real hinge couple Odin and Edward, written and read by me, Curtis Garner.
00:00:12.640 Listen to the free audiobook now.
00:00:20.700 Hello, hello, hello.
00:00:22.760 So I was actually going to take a break today. 0.92
00:00:25.220 I've got some crazy-ass gross virus that my kids gave me because they're disgusting. 0.99
00:00:30.140 I mean, they really are filthy little beasts. 0.99
00:00:32.840 They are. 0.98
00:00:33.520 But the internet always has other plans for me.
00:00:36.260 It does.
00:00:37.240 I mean, when something goes viral on the social medias, I gotta be here to talk to you about it.
00:00:41.960 And something has truly gone viral on the social medias this week.
00:00:45.920 It is college commencement season, my friends.
00:00:48.800 Yes, that is a thing.
00:00:50.400 and I know a little bit about these college commencement speeches because I actually got to
00:00:54.520 give one a couple of years ago. Yep, at my alma mater, the Annenberg School of Communications
00:01:00.460 at the University of Pennsylvania, I wore a banging white suit and I looked just like Tom
00:01:05.980 Wolf. And I think I gave those graduates some good life advice. I don't actually remember
00:01:10.680 because I was pregnant at the time and I've blacked out that whole part of my life.
00:01:14.620 I'll put the tape in the show notes.
00:01:17.480 I have seen some great college commencement speeches.
00:01:21.380 I really have.
00:01:22.300 My favorite college commencement speech story that I don't get a chance to tell enough 0.99
00:01:26.820 is that my friend Rebecca wanted to lure us to her college graduation at Fordham.
00:01:32.200 So she told us that Steve Guttenberg was going to be the graduation speaker,
00:01:35.940 but it wasn't Steve Guttenberg.
00:01:37.680 I think it was another Steve who worked in tech, like Steve Case, maybe.
00:01:42.960 Not Gutenberg. Not the Gutenberg.
00:01:45.220 And I will tell you, we went, but we were very disappointed.
00:01:50.900 Never tell someone that Steve Gutenberg is going to speak at your college graduation
00:01:54.760 because they will remember it for 25 years, my friends.
00:01:59.260 Twenty-five years.
00:02:01.320 Anyway, today's episode has nothing to do with Steve Gutenberg.
00:02:04.360 Who, by the way, the man has never made a movie that didn't have a sequel.
00:02:08.480 Right? Right? What is up with that, Gutenberg?
00:02:12.120 Also, his au revoir is good.
00:02:14.700 I've been revisiting it lately.
00:02:16.980 Again, I'm easily distracted because I am on a shit ton of Dayquil right now. 0.92
00:02:22.000 A shit ton. 0.62
00:02:23.040 So prior to this week, I don't know if that many people outside of Kansas City 0.97
00:02:27.020 knew who Harrison Butker was.
00:02:30.340 Harrison Butker, Harrison Butker.
00:02:32.300 See, I'm so sick.
00:02:32.980 I don't even know how to pronounce his last name.
00:02:34.900 Anyway, a lot of us know who he is now, even if we can't pronounce his name,
00:02:39.360 because he gave a graduation speech this week
00:02:42.580 that encouraged the male graduates of Benedictine College
00:02:46.840 to be unapologetic in their masculinity,
00:02:50.360 to fight against the cultural emasculation of men,
00:02:54.380 and he told women that their highest and probably most important calling
00:02:57.940 was their vocation as a wife and a mother.
00:03:02.040 If this gives you hints of trad wife, you're not the only one.
00:03:06.420 I got about a hundred messages about it yesterday while I was essentially laying on my deathbed.
00:03:13.320 Yes. Yes. And I want to get into it. I want to get into this for a lot of reasons.
00:03:19.440 Number one, today's episode is not saying that there is anything wrong with choosing to be a homemaker,
00:03:28.280 with choosing to be a woman who works inside the home.
00:03:33.500 Nothing wrong with that.
00:03:34.900 And I would never say there is anything wrong with that 1.00
00:03:36.940 because a woman who is the chief household officer of her family is fucking working. 1.00
00:03:42.940 Okay? 1.00
00:03:44.200 What I don't love, what I do not love at all,
00:03:47.980 is a man saying that a woman's highest calling is to be a wife and mother.
00:03:56.380 Maybe it is. Maybe it isn't.
00:03:58.120 You know what? It's not up to him.
00:04:00.000 And who are you to be giving this life advice to women, human being with a penis? 0.99
00:04:08.740 I just don't think it's your place, guy. 0.99
00:04:12.220 I also don't love the phrase unapologetic in your masculinity.
00:04:17.700 We got a lot of talk these days around the idea of quote-unquote masculinity and what it means to be masculine. 0.70
00:04:24.520 And it's something I want to unpack because I think it's toxic and it's not just toxic for women.
00:04:30.000 But it's toxic for men out there who think they have to conform to be this one idea of
00:04:37.020 masculine that is being perpetuated by a minority, that really only benefits a small sliver of
00:04:45.440 people.
00:04:46.700 Here to talk to me about all of this today is my friend, Emily Amick.
00:04:50.980 You may know her as Emily in your phone.
00:04:54.340 She is actually programmed into my phone as Emily in my phone.
00:04:58.140 And she delivers incredibly insightful daily political analysis on social media, on Instagram and on TikTok.
00:05:05.320 And her video about this now has 2.5 million views.
00:05:09.920 Emily is a very smart human and she knows a lot of things that I do not know.
00:05:13.700 And right now, I just want to try to have an open and honest dialogue about what this speech made us feel like as women. 0.91
00:05:22.800 And maybe it made you feel different.
00:05:24.720 And maybe we'll have more conversations about this.
00:05:26.880 As always, I want to hear from all of you. So, with no further ado, let's get Emily on this microphone.
00:05:40.300 Now, for our audience members who haven't seen this, because I do want to recognize the fact that things happen, things go viral, and we miss them because there's too many things in the world right now.
00:05:52.180 uh also things go viral and it's uh all encompassing for a 24-hour news cycle and then it the news
00:05:59.960 cycle moves on and the news cycle i'm talking about is like tiktok slash maybe instagram
00:06:04.420 it's always remarkable so yeah so this what happened is harrison butker who is that is his
00:06:10.780 name okay i didn't i didn't even know how to pronounce his name but it's harrison butker
00:06:13.740 um who is a kicker on the chiefs which is a football team i don't know what a kicker does
00:06:19.340 but there's been a lot of jokes about it and i've been laughing um and the chiefs is the team at
00:06:25.060 travis kelsey is on taylor swift's boyfriend which is the salience of the chiefs um and so
00:06:30.840 harrison is a this is apparently well known his political ideology is very well known amongst
00:06:37.280 circles who care about these people um and he gave a graduation speech at a catholic college
00:06:43.440 and this 20-minute graduation speech is just rife with little things that you can pick off
00:06:50.660 for the internet and the thing that has gone super viral is he talks about this lie that has
00:06:56.500 been told to women that having a career and getting promotions will make them happy and that
00:07:01.120 true happiness can be found in their real vocation which is being a wife and mother. Now there's a lot
00:07:07.600 that I take issue with with this and you know I just I said this in the intro too because my goal
00:07:14.880 is also never to attack or divide women here on this show or on my social media so I do like to
00:07:21.400 say if you choose to be a woman who works in the home cool good for you that has nothing to do with
00:07:30.240 this my i mean chief among my many issues with this speech one is a man telling women what their
00:07:40.160 vocation what any vocation should be um and two saying your highest and quite possibly only
00:07:46.600 vocation should be wife and mother and i think people found it exceptionally rich that he was
00:07:53.280 saying this at a graduation ceremony where there are women sitting in the audience graduating from
00:07:57.700 college literally graduating from college I mean these are women who just accomplished something
00:08:06.740 awesome right like you know especially let's think about time right now the breadth of like time and
00:08:14.420 women and I think about this a lot you know because when I was writing Sicilian Inheritance
00:08:18.500 the past timeline is not set that long ago it's a hundred years ago and girls didn't go to school
00:08:25.580 much less college so the fact that these women got to go to college graduate from college
00:08:31.520 that's amazing and then he is essentially saying but do not use anything you've learned
00:08:37.700 you don't this this is this is it this is it for you yeah and i think what he's saying is i'm
00:08:43.860 telling you what your true vocation is like real women this is what they care about and it's also
00:08:51.540 I think from the lens of as a man with exceptional power, as a man who's idealized in our society as
00:08:58.480 a big time football player, this is what men like me are thinking. And it's a message that he's
00:09:03.760 sending. Yes. Men like me, men, men. Well, here, here's another thing. And then I want to dive
00:09:09.620 into all of the through lines that this connects to. The word masculine is getting used a lot
00:09:15.420 lately. A lot, a lot. And in this context, in that, you know, masculine men are these
00:09:25.500 providers. Masculine men make sure that their wives stay home and take care of their kids. 0.78
00:09:32.820 Masculine men are one specific thing. I don't just think his speech was toxic for the women
00:09:38.060 in the audience. I think this concept of masculinity is increasingly toxic for young
00:09:43.800 men who maybe that's not the world they want to live in. Maybe that's not the kind of man they
00:09:49.400 want to be like what this idea of what a quote unquote masculine man is, is being co-opted in
00:09:56.740 a very specific way right now. I mean, I think the bigger picture for all of this is that people
00:10:03.340 like Harrison Bucker think there's one way to live. There's one right way. And there's a certain
00:10:09.900 If you're a man, you should be like this. And if you're a woman, you should be like this. There's no one in the middle. There's no one who can move. And that our legal and political structures should incentivize and restrict people who want to live outside of those boundaries. And that's the problem, right? 0.99
00:10:25.160 Like, if people want to live trad femme lives, like, go for it, have fun, whatever. 0.96
00:10:30.760 I literally don't care. 1.00
00:10:32.500 Tell me where you got your skirt.
00:10:34.960 But, you know, I think that he definitely talks about men in his speech a lot.
00:10:40.900 And one of the things he says about men is, you know, there's a lie that men aren't necessary in our communities.
00:10:47.240 And it's like, no one's saying that, Harrison.
00:10:49.440 Like, literally no one's saying that.
00:10:51.020 Maybe you're saying that.
00:10:53.520 Literally no one's saying that.
00:10:54.660 Or, I mean, and he brought up a lot of lies, right?
00:10:57.200 He's like, also, all of you women have been lied to.
00:11:01.220 Well, I was thinking about this today as I was seeing in some other context.
00:11:06.340 Everything is rigged.
00:11:07.400 Everything is a lie.
00:11:08.400 And it's like, if everything is a lie, why aren't you guys working on getting, just like focusing on the truth out?
00:11:15.640 Everything is always rigged.
00:11:18.580 Everything is always blah.
00:11:19.920 Everyone is out to get you.
00:11:21.160 It's a very victimized, special snowflake way of living. And it's intentional, right? Like this isn't some unintentional comms strategy. It's very much about making sure that people who are his audience view themselves as victims, view themselves as under attack. And so it justifies going after the majority.
00:11:41.580 Yes, yes, and yes, absolutely. So I want to draw a through line here. I want to talk about how this speech isn't just one speech in a vacuum. What is the bigger picture here that is happening in our country?
00:11:58.160 So there is a right wing movement and it's it has many names, right? We can call it the manga movement. We can call it Christian nationalism. I prefer the term biblical conservatism.
00:12:11.160 conservatism. But there is this very, very strong Christian evangelical religious tinged political
00:12:20.220 movement to reestablish political hegemony, I think is the word. But I always I always have
00:12:26.700 to Google hegemony to make sure I'm using it correctly. I've never known if it's hegemony or
00:12:31.340 hegemony or hegemony. That's a great question. Well, you know, people who read a lot are the
00:12:36.820 people who mispronounce words. So I always like to pat myself on the back if I don't know what
00:12:41.760 how to actually pronounce a word, because it means I've only just been reading it all these years.
00:12:45.880 And, you know, they are this isn't a movement that's like isolated in churches. Right. This
00:12:51.540 is a movement that has a profound and significant political and legal structure to enact massive
00:12:59.360 change. And they have been working on this for 50 years. So when you think about the overturning of
00:13:04.460 Roe v. Wade. Like Roe v. Wade wasn't just suddenly overturned. There was a significant
00:13:10.240 cultural movement. There was a organization called Alliance Defending Freedom and an organization
00:13:17.020 called ALEC, which worked to write model laws that then got passed in states. So a state like
00:13:23.460 Mississippi could pass a model law infringing on the right to abortion. And then there's legal 0.99
00:13:28.180 Advocacy groups like the Federalist Society, which has received literally billions of dollars to stack the judiciary with judges and justices who would make these choices to change our laws, you know, and people who bring about this type of litigation.
00:13:44.540 It's this massive, massive project to reshape America through this vision of biblical conservatism, a world in which our laws and policies are ones based on a very specific interpretation of the Bible.
00:13:58.520 And I mean, when men were men and women were women and women don't have access to reproductive rights, women are meant to be in the home. 0.82
00:14:08.980 Women are meant to be having an unlimited amount of babies until we essentially die. 0.94
00:14:14.540 Yeah. And because we will eventually we will eventually die in childbirth. 1.00
00:14:19.580 We will eventually until we get replaced by a newer, younger model, because there's also people going after child marriage laws. 0.94
00:14:26.920 You know, we there's no no fault divorce anymore.
00:14:30.200 We can't get out of abusive relationships. 1.00
00:14:32.620 There is no equal protections for women in the workplace.
00:14:35.720 You know, all of these things are connected and they feel very abstract, but they're all connected to this very, very specific vision of what America should be.
00:14:46.460 And when we're talking about MAGA, what they're talking about is this like Pleasantville, idealized, completely manufactured vision of America as a Christian nation where white people will write men get to go to work and make all the jokes that they want and have a wife who doesn't complain, doesn't talk back, cook some food.
00:15:05.720 takes care of the kids and that's the life these men are all working toward um and again if you
00:15:12.540 want to live that life like go have fun but the thing is they want all of us to live that life
00:15:16.840 they want all of us to live that life they do want to take away choice and that is a big issue here
00:15:21.220 we are going to take a very quick break uh before we do i want to recognize that my very masculine
00:15:27.020 husband just brought me a fresh coffee and a lovely and a lovely buttered cinnamon toast
00:15:32.580 because for me, that is what masculinity is.
00:15:36.420 It looks lovely. 1.00
00:15:37.520 Taking care of your fucking wife. 1.00
00:15:39.360 All right, we're going to take a break and we'll be right back. 1.00
00:15:45.460 You matched on Hinge.
00:15:47.100 You're vibing.
00:15:48.260 Then her energy completely changes.
00:15:51.020 What do you do?
00:15:52.400 I'm Raven Smith, and I wrote and read a real love story about this exact sitch.
00:15:57.220 Listen to the free audiobook now.
00:15:59.180 Chew on this bold question from Dantine Gum.
00:16:02.580 Is it ever okay to compliment a millennial on their skinny jeans in 2026?
00:16:12.000 Dentine, too bold.
00:16:17.920 And we are back.
00:16:21.020 We are back.
00:16:22.340 And here's my big question.
00:16:24.360 We touched on this.
00:16:26.380 But what does Harrison Butker, it's Harrison Butker, right?
00:16:30.680 I mean, we were asking the wrong person.
00:16:32.580 but i think so that's what i've heard on tiktok you've heard on tiktok and you know if tiktok
00:16:37.420 says it it's gospel um harrison butker who's a punter for the kansas city chiefs um kicker
00:16:43.160 are kickers and punters the same thing i believe kickers and punters are the same thing they kick
00:16:47.160 they kick the ball they kick they all sure sure they kick the ball through the goal post
00:16:50.460 i you know it's a very important position on a team you can occasionally get three points for
00:16:57.140 your team. This is what I know. Also, I hate the Kansas City Chiefs, despite the fact that I love
00:17:03.880 Kelsey brothers, because the Eagles' old coach, Andy Reid, is their coach, and they beat us in
00:17:10.780 the Super Bowl. So fuck you, Kansas City. Fuck you for a lot of reasons. But now Harrison Butker 1.00
00:17:14.520 makes me hate them even more. Okay, Harrison Butker's speech. I want to connect that to the
00:17:21.040 popularity of trad wives on social media go you know i think that one of the things that we see
00:17:32.420 with trad wives and there was a really interesting article in the times yesterday by jessica gross
00:17:37.020 about how like trad wives are really for the male gaze they're not for the female gaze and i'm not
00:17:42.880 sure that totally captures what trad wives are because yeah i mean there's like the craziest of
00:17:49.520 Tradwives, but then there's also sort of the cultural conversations that all this Tradwife
00:17:54.820 stuff starts. And people like Alex Clark from Turning Point USA, who is not a Tradwife,
00:18:00.760 but is going on about how Harrison Bucker was right. And, you know, this is this is the true 0.99
00:18:06.520 path of womanhood. And she's not she's not even married. She's a woman in her 30s who's single,
00:18:10.740 but she is articulating these political views. And I think a lot of what Tradwives ideology is 0.56
00:18:17.820 about and that strategy is about is talking women talking to other women about how this is the true
00:18:25.820 path to happiness and especially at a time when so many people are struggling and we are looking
00:18:33.460 you know we are overwhelmed with uh the economy we're overwhelmed with putting the kids to bed
00:18:38.880 we're overwhelmed with jobs that are like unbearable in the world of 24 7 workplaces um
00:18:46.160 You know, people are working multiple jobs to put food on the table and they're saying, look, there is a solution to all of your problems and it's just to live this trad life lifestyle.
00:18:55.800 And if you move to the country and homeschool your kids and leave all of your decisions up to your husband, you'll suddenly be happy.
00:19:03.500 And that is the fallacy that is being sold by TradWive.
00:19:08.720 And, you know, it's it's starting a homestead, having chickens.
00:19:14.320 I've known a lot of people who have had chickens and they do not make you happy is what I'll say.
00:19:17.840 Maybe a couple of people.
00:19:18.700 But most people I know who have gotten chickens have had headache after headache.
00:19:22.920 95% I'm going to throw out a completely unscientific statistic. 0.97
00:19:28.220 95% of people who get chickens fucking regret getting chickens. 0.97
00:19:33.220 Pretty sure that's true. 0.97
00:19:34.320 Going to the store and buying eggs is a lot easier. 1.00
00:19:39.180 Also, chickens are assholes. 1.00
00:19:41.120 like I think people don't realize what assholes chickens can be they're often predators and then 1.00
00:19:48.560 your kids have to see these dead chickens in the yard like there's a lot we actually have an 0.98
00:19:52.440 episode coming up uh with a woman who is a hen fluencer um well yeah yeah it's a thing it's a
00:19:59.020 thing because chickens on instagram are real big real big so we do have a hen fluencer coming on
00:20:04.760 but yes home setting is is not going to make you happy and i i love just gross and i think that
00:20:12.420 article was really interesting i do feel like trad wife content is mostly created for the female 1.00
00:20:20.280 gate um except for that one woman on tiktok who's like blonde and has like the stacked rack 0.98
00:20:25.880 that one i could say that one i think is also for only fan people um but i but i think the ones
00:20:33.100 especially the instagram ones the ones of you know just like beautifully filtered images of a
00:20:42.360 super clean house and cooking sourdough and cereal from scratch very slowly these are definitely for
00:20:50.060 women men are not watching these yeah and i i honestly i think that the problem with the trad
00:20:54.840 wife discourse is that it's hard to pin down like nara smith and ballerina farms are not really
00:21:01.360 like the trad wife problem right it it's and it's not even jasmine dennis right who or these sort of
00:21:08.920 crunchy wellness mamas um it is it is like the alex clarks of the world it is these random hen
00:21:16.520 fluencers who are not necessarily full-time trad wives but who are spouting this content 0.79
00:21:23.880 amidst their other stuff yes yes yes and yes amidst their other stuff which often includes
00:21:30.740 anti-vax content um and anti-choice content is what i will say media matters also recently did
00:21:37.040 a study and they found that when you start consuming trad wife content and that you
00:21:42.380 immediately get sent into the rabbit hole of anti-vac joe rogan podcaster bro authoritarianism
00:21:50.880 light type of stuff and i think that that is the other thing about you know the tradwifery content
00:21:59.160 which is it is taking the authoritarianism political strain of MAGA and making it appealing 1.00
00:22:08.460 to women. And we see this right throughout history. Experts on academics who specialize
00:22:15.660 in authoritarianism often talk about veneration of motherhood as a key propaganda tool that goes
00:22:22.480 along with authoritarian regime. And there is a lot of reasons why that I'm sure you have
00:22:27.880 discussed ad nauseum here on this podcast but you know i i think that i often think about sort of
00:22:32.820 ussr motherhood propaganda um nazi motherhood propaganda and we're seeing it now coming out
00:22:38.840 of hungary right and there's talk to me about that talk to me about this about the stuff we're
00:22:43.940 seeing coming out of hungary it's very much all just you know a woman's true place is as a mother
00:22:50.280 and the way they pitch that in not like the way pitch women on subjugating themselves
00:22:57.840 isn't to tell them we will force you into the home it's to say we will venerate you for choosing
00:23:04.980 to be a mother you know we will venerate you for choosing to give up all your other options and all
00:23:10.220 your rights and it's very much when we talk in america about trad wives and moms for liberty
00:23:16.860 and all these other movements. Right. It's a tip of the spear political strategy.
00:23:21.820 The goal is to get these women to vote into office enough right wing politicians who will 1.00
00:23:28.540 then change the laws for everyone. So the people who are really behind this movement, 0.94
00:23:32.400 the massive corporations who want a pliable and, you know, move of undemocratic electorate 0.95
00:23:41.500 so they can just make fuck tons of money and not care about the environment or labor issues 0.89
00:23:46.700 They are the ones who are behind all of this, of course. You know, they they will get what they want. And we are merely like we, the recipients of the trad wife ideology, are merely a tool in this larger agenda. 0.98
00:23:59.680 And it's a larger agenda. That's the thing. You know, I do genuinely believe that this is just soft proselytizing to try to convince women to give up their power and to give up their agency. And wouldn't it be nice if you just didn't have to worry? It's easy. It's beautiful. You get to run around on this farm. 0.73
00:24:22.860 very similar to what we saw after world war ii when the government wanted women back out of the 0.99
00:24:30.540 workforce because men needed their jobs and they're like we have these prefab bungalows that 0.97
00:24:35.720 are super fancy and washing machines so your life is so much easier than it was before why do you 0.86
00:24:43.760 want to work in a factory and look you know when you are in that situation when you have given up
00:24:50.180 all financial decisions to your husband when you are not when you don't have access to a career 0.87
00:24:55.700 when you are legally bound to the situation it's very very hard to get out um and you know women
00:25:03.980 could only get credit cards starting in 1974 right like that we were only legally allowed to always
00:25:10.520 get a credit card after 1974 that's 50 years ago that's after Roe um it is very the history is very
00:25:18.060 short. And I think that, you know, I started my career working in a domestic violence organization.
00:25:24.260 It's very, very hard to get out of a situation like that, whether it's physical abuse or financial
00:25:29.820 abuse or psychological abuse. And I think that it's very, very dangerous to tell women that
00:25:36.460 everything will certainly be OK if you get into these situations, because that's that's just not 1.00
00:25:41.800 how life works. It might, but it might not. It might, but it might not. And, you know, we've
00:25:47.680 talked to so many former trad wives on this show and again trad wife not the same as say as stay
00:25:53.980 at home mother um it's really not the trad wife has this connotation of submission of giving over
00:26:01.260 your agency to your husband of having them make all of the decisions in your life and i think
00:26:05.920 that's very important because what i see on my instagram when i talk about my issues with trad
00:26:13.200 wives is stay-at-home moms. Again, a word I hate, too, because no one is staying. A man made up the
00:26:19.240 term stay-at-home mom. No one is staying when they're working in the home. I don't know where
00:26:23.540 they think they're staying, but they're definitely moving all the time. They're not staying. But I
00:26:29.900 hear from a lot of stay-at-home moms who are mad. They're like, you're condescending. You're 1.00
00:26:33.760 attacking my choice. And I'm like, this is yet another example of how social media and also
00:26:40.960 certain political forces want to pit us against each other. And so I do want to say Tradwife is
00:26:47.220 different than a woman who is working inside the home. Yeah, I mean, look, I am excited for people 1.00
00:26:53.160 to have the choice to be able to be a stay-at-home mom and take a pause from work and do whatever
00:26:58.100 they want. The thing that Tradwives and the Associated Political Movement want is for you 1.00
00:27:02.240 not to be able to make that choice. They want the choice gone. And that is what I think is
00:27:05.960 very important. They want to take away your choice. They don't want you to be able to make
00:27:09.700 that choice and then once you choose to go back to the hump they don't want to let you back out
00:27:14.700 you're not getting back out and i also you know one of the things that i see a lot is that you
00:27:20.880 know women don't want to offend other women right and so we a lot of women don't want to talk about
00:27:28.340 the problems of the trad wife movement because they don't want to offend stay-at-home moms
00:27:32.320 and this is you know effectively pushing people into silence and i see this on a lot of political
00:27:37.820 issues and you know i uh am the author of a forthcoming book called democracy and retrograde
00:27:41.880 and which we should talk about but one of the big thing that we talk about in the book is that like
00:27:49.480 silence is a political choice and um we can't let people bully us into silence and i'm not saying
00:27:59.760 that like the the stay-at-home moms and your dms are necessarily doing that but they are part of
00:28:03.320 this broader movement of people saying, like, those angry feminists, they're always mad. They 1.00
00:28:09.640 hate men. I have, like, in my TikTok, all these people are like, all feminists hate men. I was 1.00
00:28:14.540 like, certainly not. I know some massive sluts who are feminists. They love men. I am a feminist, 1.00
00:28:21.220 and I love men. And look, until I married my wonderful masculine husband, Nick Astor,
00:28:26.060 massive slut over here. Massive slut, okay? Here's the thing. I love good men. I love men 1.00
00:28:31.620 who love women uh yeah the truth um i want to yes i want to i want to close out this episode
00:28:38.000 talking about that about how we're being bullied into silence a lot of times we're going to take
00:28:44.940 one more quick break and when we get back we are going to talk about your book democracy in
00:28:48.980 retrograde and i want my audience knows they know the drill now guys the book will be out in july
00:28:56.020 but you can pre-order it now. Like, it's a gift to your future self. Democracy in retrograde,
00:29:01.640 and that's what we're going to talk about when we get back.
00:29:26.020 Nicola Dynan, Curtis Garner, Raven Smith, and Rufy Thorpe.
00:29:29.980 I, Hunter Harris, wrote and read the foreword.
00:29:33.240 The audiobook's out now.
00:29:34.760 Give it a listen.
00:29:41.100 And now we're back.
00:29:42.720 All right, I want to hear a little bit about being bullied into silence.
00:29:47.080 And I will tell you, when I get attacked on the Instagram,
00:29:51.780 even though I have a very thick skin, still stings.
00:29:55.160 Still stings. 1.00
00:29:55.820 still makes me be like, am I being an asshole? What am I not considering? So I think it's really 1.00
00:30:03.420 easy to be bullied in the silence. It's really easy to be like, I'm just not posting. I'm not
00:30:07.460 talking about this anymore. I don't want to talk about this anymore. Yeah. And look, I think it's
00:30:11.560 because you're a good person, right? I also, I don't like offending people. I want everyone to
00:30:17.080 be happy and excited about what I'm talking about and be friends. But the reality is there's this
00:30:22.400 overarching you know we grew up in a society in which we were taught good girls don't talk about
00:30:26.920 politics good girls you know you smile you make sure everyone in the room is happy you make sure
00:30:31.760 they're fed and you don't rock the boat and the reality is any form of change takes friction and
00:30:39.840 that is just how it goes in part of you know this is part of a broader conversation about how we
00:30:47.240 talk about politics in america but i think there's a huge amount of people in this country
00:30:51.720 who are very exhausted by the current tenor of the way we talk about politics.
00:30:58.260 There's a political science term for it, literally called the exhausted majority.
00:31:01.780 It's 67 percent of America.
00:31:03.860 And because of because of the current tenor of political conversations, they tap out.
00:31:11.060 And by tapping out, they are essentially handing over more power to extremists who want to scream and yell and bully people.
00:31:18.060 And the only way we can retake the conversation is for more people to talk about it. Right. And I think you can't always agree with everyone. There's you know, there's a difference between saying like hateful derogatory things. Like if we were coming on here and being like a day at home mom sucks. Right. That would be we would deserve to get bullies for that.
00:31:40.860 We're not. I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, yeah, well, we're not. We're making like a rather nuanced political argument about pseudo Christian nationalists, pseudo Christian nationalists who hate women, who just fucking hate women.
00:31:54.500 That's all I'm saying. And, you know, I think that, like, it's OK for us to have differences of political opinions on issues. 0.99
00:32:03.700 Right. And to have conversations about that and be able to move forward.
00:32:07.820 So I think political burnout is a real thing. A lot of women I know are burnt out on politics. I'm burnt out on politics. And this is very interesting for me, right? Because I was a political reporter for a long time. I wrote a whole novel about politics. 1.00
00:32:27.200 I used to live in this world. I used to create news in this world. And I mean, sometimes I go
00:32:34.340 weeks tuning out now, which I don't usually admit, but I'm admitting it to thousands of
00:32:39.120 people now because I think a lot of people feel the same way. Your book helps us get through that
00:32:44.120 burnout. What are you telling people? Well, the first thing is this is it's totally valid. And
00:32:51.780 i hear this all the time from people and i myself even need to tap out and this is like my love my
00:32:57.960 obsession and i think that it's you know we are all dealing with so much every day like between
00:33:04.220 putting food on the table getting kids to bed workplaces that are non-stop communicating maybe
00:33:10.380 you've done multiple jobs like life is hard and politics is so extreme these days um there is
00:33:18.060 actually like political science have coined the term the exhausted majority it is a thing that 0.55
00:33:23.480 67 of america is just like really fucking exhausted and doesn't want to deal with this 0.96
00:33:28.940 shit anymore and part of the problem is that the people who are the loudest who are not exhausted 1.00
00:33:34.780 are the extremists so the more they talk the more they scream the worse it seems and the more the 0.99
00:33:40.340 rest of us tap out and like there's a lot of conversations to be had about how algorithms
00:33:44.500 really incentivize that type of extremist conversation and outrage bait and all of that
00:33:49.100 stuff. But at the end of the day, what it means is that our silence is actually a political
00:33:57.620 statement, right? Like our not participating in the process is a political statement in and of
00:34:01.940 itself. And the only way to really combat that is to figure out sustainable ways for all of us in
00:34:08.680 the exhausted majority to somehow try to get more civically engaged, be a little bit louder,
00:34:15.140 take on one small piece to not feel like the responsibility that every single one of us has
00:34:19.780 to solve climate change. But like all of us can do a little bit in our community, in our state,
00:34:25.820 you know, whatever it is, whatever we can do and want to do. And that's really this broader
00:34:30.620 solution to reimagining civic life in America. I like that. I like the idea of thinking small
00:34:37.580 and small habits and locally because it just seems doable these days, right?
00:34:44.020 National politics, I think, are what just smacks me in the face and punches me in the gut and makes me want to die.
00:34:50.420 And one of the things like we talk a lot about in the book is how national politics is slow.
00:34:56.100 Like it is inherently infrastructurally created to move very slowly.
00:35:00.480 And I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing.
00:35:02.760 That that has been co-opted by, you know, corporations and super rich people who want to use it for their own personal gain.
00:35:10.320 That is bad. But like, you know, news has so much been nationalized and there's a whole other conversation about like the death of local media.
00:35:19.920 But for someone like me, I am incentivized to talk about national news because the bucket of people who could be interested in that is larger.
00:35:28.020 And I'm trying to get as many views as many people interested as possible.
00:35:31.620 but there's so much going on in your local communities i know we both are really obsessed
00:35:36.360 with speed bumps um i love a speed bump i love i'm a speed bump queen and like look you could
00:35:44.100 get involved for the first time in one year and have like an outcome and have a speed bump getting
00:35:50.600 put on your street like that could be a very tangible result of something that happens because
00:35:55.520 of your work. You could join a library board and try to combat the Moms for Liberty of it all. 0.95
00:36:02.100 People who are really, you know, Moms for Liberty doesn't actually have that many members,
00:36:05.580 but it has a few really hardworking members who are willing to go sit on library boards,
00:36:12.000 a thing that no one else has been had the time to do or the will or the care. Right.
00:36:16.480 But the reality is, even us normal people just sitting in those seats and making sure those 1.00
00:36:21.180 crazy moms for liberty people can't sit in there and like destroy public libraries that is an 1.00
00:36:26.640 amazing political action to do a hundred percent and your book democracy and retrograde democracy
00:36:34.200 and retrograde we have to say it 20 times has worksheets i love a worksheet that can just and
00:36:40.180 quizzes and quizzes that can help you figure out what you can do i mean i just think it's very
00:36:44.440 actionable. It's something that I have ordered about 10 of them to gift to friends. My friends
00:36:54.080 who are burnt out with a little note that says, I know you're burnt out. So tell everyone where
00:36:58.340 they can order it and where they can find you. Yes. So Democracy in Retrograde is available
00:37:02.620 for pre-order wherever you get your books. It comes out July 9th, but I know all of you know
00:37:08.100 from Joe, the pre-order game. So would love you to click that link. I am at Emily in your phone.
00:37:14.440 I'm on Instagram. It's my favorite platform. I'm also growing my sub stack. Please subscribe to my
00:37:19.180 sub stack. And I am on TikTok now because I got to keep up with the youth. Yeah, I fucking suck
00:37:25.080 at TikTok. I mean, I'm there, but I fucking suck. You're good. You're better than I am. You are. 1.00
00:37:29.780 You are. I'm going to put up a Harrison Butker one and see what happens. You know, you got to
00:37:33.440 ride. The thing about TikTok is all they want is rage and takedowns and outrage and trends.
00:37:39.300 fine i'll do it all right i love having you on my screen i know i know i know i've got no makeup
00:37:48.620 routine look at this massive zit on my chin uh all right i love having you on my screen in my
00:37:52.940 phone and in all the places and i know that everyone else will too so thank you so much
00:37:56.460 for being here today thank you for having me and that is all we have for today
00:38:02.080 i do want to talk more about what masculinity means how masculinity is defined i would actually
00:38:12.740 like to ask nick astor what masculinity means to him so maybe we'll get him back on this show 0.54
00:38:18.760 as we mentioned in the episode emily has a new book coming out democracy and retrograde
00:38:24.000 you can order it now people you know you can you know you can always order early this book is great
00:38:29.280 especially right now when a lot of us are discouraged, we feel isolated, we're doom-scrolling
00:38:34.060 all the time. And I think a lot of us also lack a sense of purpose and community. And this book,
00:38:40.340 Democracy in Retrogrid, is kind of the kick in the ass that we need to figure out what we could 0.97
00:38:45.160 possibly do, big or small, to make a difference in our own communities. I love it. I love Emily. 0.96
00:38:52.600 And I love all you. Go do something nice for yourselves. I'm going to take some NyQuil.
00:38:59.280 Thank you.
00:39:29.280 Transcription by CastingWords
00:39:59.280 stories about five couples that met on Hinge. The stories are written and read by Tembi Dinton
00:40:04.620 Hurst, Nicola Dinan, Curtis Garner, Raven Smith, and Rufy Thorpe. I, Hunter Harris,
00:40:10.260 wrote and read the foreword. The audiobook's out now. Give it a listen.