00:01:04.920hello and ladies trads chads i am kristen conger and i do have some quick housekeeping not to be
00:01:30.420two on the nose uh skip ahead one minute if you've ever left a one-star podcast review along
00:01:36.460the lines of the house spent the first minute promoting herself and i hate her voice and i
00:01:41.580could care less yeah just pop ahead i'm gonna take a minute and catch up with y'all this is
00:01:49.420a bonus episode i'm so excited to bring it to you all um but also thank you to everyone who
00:01:56.120listened to this spring's gender war games mini series i hope you all enjoyed that as much as i
00:02:04.420did getting to talk to all of our genius guests on that one now if you have not listened in a long
00:02:12.060time you might not know i stopped making unladylike as a weekly free feed podcast at the end of last
00:02:19.740year. I'm a one person production team. I just had to create space for myself and also for
00:02:30.200trying new feminist approaches to things like Conspiracy She Wrote podcast out now available1.00
00:02:38.320to listen everywhere. And also a limited podcast series that will be coming to the Unladylike feed0.98
00:02:45.000that I'm going to be announcing soon so I am still making podcasts and any readers listening
00:02:51.400I've also been writing more and occasionally infographing in the newsletter unladylike.substack.com
00:02:58.900I've been posting more videos over at unladylike media on instagram and tiktok
00:03:04.840so here I am algorithms dear god monetize me
00:03:09.500and speaking of which i you know i could probably learn a thing or three in that regard
00:03:16.700from trad wives the reason for the season our dazzling guest joe piazza is as hilarious as
00:03:26.660she is insightful and only she could bring us the trad wife murder thriller slash book of the summer
00:03:33.280everyone is lying to you. And I am not exaggerating when I tell you it hooked me on page one.
00:03:41.260Jo is the best-selling author of The Sicilian Inheritance, We Are Not Like Them, and six
00:03:46.340other titles. She also hosts the podcast Under the Influence with Jo Piazza. And really,
00:03:53.060she just might be the world's leading expert on Trout Wives.
00:03:57.200It's been about two years that I've been interviewing tradwives and former tradwives and really immersing myself in this world.
00:04:06.100And honestly, I got to tell you that when I started writing this novel, it did start as a satire.
00:04:11.160And I did not think nor and I absolutely did not hope I hoped against it that this would be our reality come summer 25 when it came out.0.88
00:04:21.980But I think that Trad Wives and what they represent are influencing politics in a more dangerous way than ever.0.97
00:04:29.760So I'm very excited for Everyone is Lying to you to just dismantle that and break open people's brains.1.00
00:04:36.580Joe, I'm so excited that you mentioned the political influence because I definitely have questions on that.
00:04:43.520But before we go further, your new novel, Everyone is Lying to You, it is Trad Wives meets Gone Girl.
00:04:51.260it is a perfect summer read why though this story now yeah i mean i i feel like i'm just giving
00:04:59.240america what it wants and needs uh right now um i mean everyone is lying to you you describe it
00:05:04.600perfectly it's gone girl meets trad wives it's a delicious addicting murder mystery but about
00:05:12.220all of the lies that were being told on social media about all of these picture perfect women0.99
00:05:17.900that we look at them. And I feel like normies like me feel so much shame and guilt because I'm
00:05:22.660like, why can't I grow a beautiful garden and homestead and run barefoot through a field with
00:05:29.820my 19 children and look so perfect and incredible and amazing all the time? And the fact is they're
00:05:35.100not. They're lying to you. Everyone is lying to you. This lifestyle is a massive fantasy that
00:05:42.120they're selling to you on social media so they can sell you crap, to be honest. They're like,0.99
00:05:46.660I'm going to sell you $120 egg carrying bucket for your chickens. And they don't show the work
00:05:55.740or the labor of the chickens either, which drives me so crazy because having chickens is not easy
00:06:00.340and having chickens is not clean. It is messy. You do not want to run barefoot through those
00:06:04.240chicken coops like they do on their Instagram reels. That's gross. And so, yeah, so that's why
00:06:10.080I felt like this really hits right now because I have so many friends who are progressive,
00:06:17.220like just like liberal moms, right? Who are like, I can't stop watching conservative homesteading
00:06:22.480content. And I'm like, I get it. I mean, the fantasy looks great. And I wanted to puncture
00:06:28.740that fantasy. And I do like to be clear about one thing though. I'm not skewering trad wives
00:06:36.180themselves. And I would never judge or skewer any choice that a woman made willingly. What gets
00:06:44.260skewered in this book are the lies, the deception, the showing people picture perfect worlds when
00:06:52.020the reality behind the facade is clearly not perfect. And also shitty men. I mean, a lot of1.00
00:06:58.380shitty men get murdered in this book. And I think that that is also what we want and need this0.98
00:07:02.540summer while we're on the beach or ignoring our children at the public pool. I will say nothing
00:07:07.240like scrolling through the ballerina farm feed and seeing cameos of the husband makes me want to0.65
00:07:13.340murder. Yeah, well, it's like the husband's in all of these feeds. And I mean, I've, like I said,
00:07:21.260I've interviewed so many trad wives and former trad wives and aspiring trad wives because, you
00:07:27.240know, there's absolutely an aspirational pipeline there right now. But the husbands are always kind
00:07:32.860of a cipher. Like you only, and I write this in the book, I'm like, you only ever see them like
00:07:36.400far off in a field, in profile. They're never really doing anything. They're never really
00:07:42.280doing any work. And a lot of these tradwives are preaching the idea of women submitting to their1.00
00:07:47.860husbands. And they say things like, I'm just a housewife. I'm just a mom. When in reality,
00:07:53.220They're making hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars off these accounts.
00:08:21.300it's not just a clever title for a fun book. Well, and I was going to ask how you did approach
00:08:26.880writing the men, because like you said, the trad husbands are often, you know, they're not nearly
00:08:35.120as present in the feeds. Yeah, yeah. In reality, they're not. And so the men were actually the
00:08:42.140hardest to write, which is shocking, because they're often the least complex characters in
00:08:47.720books. But because I really had to create them from scratch, I had to think about, I'm like,
00:08:54.300what is feeding this very conservative, quote unquote, traditional idea of masculinity these
00:09:02.020days? Where is that coming from? What are their values? And then ultimately, how do they feel
00:09:08.500when their wives do become the breadwinners in the family, which I think is like the best pun
00:09:13.340when I think about how much sourdough content I get served. I'm like, I just love making that0.80
00:09:19.580correlation. But how do they feel? Are they jealous? Is there an undercurrent of hatred
00:09:27.160for their wives? And so all of these tensions come to a head to create this thriller. And when
00:09:33.500I started really thinking about the world, I was like, of course, there's going to be dead bodies.
00:09:37.560like this is this is just the natural progression of this
00:09:41.820how did you go about though even approaching trad wives to interview it's really interesting
00:09:51.600for me because I've been covering the internet and social media for five years now which is
00:09:56.680shocking to me but it's true because I know that I started doing it when I had my first daughter
00:10:02.600and she didn't sleep. She was a terrible, colicky baby. She was the worst. And all I could do all
00:10:08.020night, every night was just rock her with one appendage free, which was my thumb. And I would
00:10:13.440scroll Instagram and I'd be served influencers. And I became obsessed with this world and this
00:10:20.220business. And I started under the influence to report on it and try to dissect it and figure it
00:10:24.340out. I'd been a celebrity reporter for a long time and also a political reporter. So this is
00:10:30.020actually probably my Venn intersection right now of what I'm doing. And I realized that influencers
00:10:36.000were the new celebrities, right? I mean, more people are paying attention to them, to these
00:10:40.460strangers on screens in the palms of our hands that are watching most Netflix shows. And they
00:10:47.160have a lot more power over how they influence culture. And so because I did a deep dive that
00:10:54.300was very, I would say, objective reporting into the world of influencers, Trad Wives have been
00:10:59.780very excited to talk to me, to open up their world. Again, I don't judge women. I want to0.97
00:11:07.120understand them better. And I'm trying to put all of that out there, warts and all. We have
00:11:14.380many trad wife influencers in this book. Our main character, Rebecca, is one. And we show0.59
00:11:21.480just how hard she works. We do show the truth behind creating this kind of media,
00:11:26.840but she is never taken down she is she's actually she's really like shown for who she truly is
00:11:33.780and i think in the interviews that these women have given me that's what they want they want
00:11:38.880to be seen they want to be seen for their labor because they don't show it in their feeds
00:11:43.880but at the same time this is where it starts to feel so contradictory though of like
00:11:49.720they want to be seen and yet they also want to say not all of hashtag not all trad wives but
00:11:58.060you know hashtag not all trad wives but the ethos like you mentioned earlier is that they are living
00:12:05.120a lifestyle that is free of what they might call careerism girl boss feminism paid labor
00:12:13.480but I think it's that the fact that two things can be true at a time right that you can want
00:12:19.880your brand to present as one way and still your ego can be hungry for some kind of recognition
00:12:25.800you're saying trad wives are human too I'm I am I am telling you trad wives they're just like us
00:12:35.140this just in that's just in Bonnie Fuller and Us Weekly circa 2005 would totally agree with us
00:12:42.160Is there a taxonomy of trad wives? Because one thing I loved is all of the different iterations of not just trad wives, but the mom fluencing world. And I was wondering if there was almost like a taxonomy of it all.
00:12:58.660Oh, my God, girl, I could create you a whole taxonomy of the influencer world. I really could
00:13:04.680at this point. You know, our main character, Rebecca, is really complicated. And, you know,
00:13:11.540while I drew on a lot of real life inspiration, she's completely fictional. And I've just spent
00:13:17.700so much time with different kinds of influencers that she kind of came together as, you know,
00:13:24.260a combination of a lot of different women. But there's different subgroups of child-wife0.99
00:13:28.960influencers. You have the kind of domestic goddesses ones who are often a little bit more1.00
00:13:35.720suburban, who are giving definitely more Martha Stewart vibes, which I think is crazy to say,1.00
00:13:41.660because Martha Stewart is like the biggest, bossiest babe out there, right? Like the biggest1.00
00:13:46.520boss babe there is. But at the same time, it's more like domestic goddess. Look at me in my
00:13:50.620beautiful, suburban, all-white marble kitchen, right? And then you have the homesteading
00:13:58.560like kind of hobby farm influencers who, I mean, they definitely have to come from generational
00:14:04.640wealth because it is hard to succeed at either homesteading or hobby farming unless you come
00:14:11.540from money. There's a reason that farmers are typically subsidized by the American government,
00:14:14.920even though, you know, that is not a thing we talk about nearly enough. And so they're out there
00:14:20.000doing kind of prairie core, like Laura Ingalls Wilder, fantasy homesteading, even though we all
00:14:26.400know very well that life was incredibly hard and miserable for women on the prairie. I did a whole
00:14:33.900podcast called Wilder on Laura Ingalls Wilder and her legacy. And Ma Ingalls was unhappy.
00:14:40.360Yeah. Okay. Ma Ingalls worked her ass off and her life was miserable. So anyone aspiring to
00:14:45.740Ma Ingalls lifestyle right now needs to re-read those books. And then you have the ones that
00:14:50.720are somewhere in between that they, you know, they probably do live in like suburban or ex-urban
00:14:57.900America. And yet they're like, I'm going to be a hen fluencer. I'm going to have some chickens
00:15:02.420and I'm going to get real big on the internet with these chickens. But like the biggest thing
00:15:08.620that links them together is this idea that a woman's place and that her purpose is inside the
00:15:16.220home and women should not be in the traditional workforce or that women will be unhappy in the
00:15:21.640traditional workforce. And I think that that is what is so appealing to so many of us and to so
00:15:26.820many young women because the workforce and America failed us as women and mothers. We were told to
00:15:33.500lean in. We were told to be girl bosses. And then trying to be a grown ass woman, raising children,
00:15:39.880having it all in corporate America was impossible and sucked balls for us. Okay. And so looking at1.00
00:15:46.300like these women who have quote unquote checked out, we're like, that is a fantasy I could get0.99
00:15:50.000behind. That seems nice and lovely, even though again, everyone is lying to you because you can't
00:15:54.900have that without generational wealth, without a government safety net, you know, without the
00:16:00.300support of a massive village. And yet, and yet, and yet, it looks really pretty on Instagram.
00:16:18.280Do tradwives ever talk about money? No, no, they don't. They don't. Tradwives act as though money
00:16:26.200just appears that it's something that just or not even that it just appears that it's something0.77
00:16:31.700almost dirty to talk about because it's so much about self-reliance and pulling yourself up by
00:16:38.960the bootstraps they act as though all of this is just happening by their sheer virtue of hard
00:16:46.320work um and no I mean one of the things I've always found fascinating about you know the
00:16:52.420Ballerina Farm account and the brand. And I'm always very careful to like, I'm like, it's not
00:16:56.380her as Ballerina Farm. Like this is a media brand. The whole Ballerina Farm umbrella is that for a
00:17:02.780long time, and even now they're not open about it. They didn't talk about how the husband behind
00:17:08.980the brand is a jet blue heir, how they come from so much generational wealth to make this kind of
00:17:14.340lifestyle available to them when it's not available to the majority of people. I've also, I break down
00:17:20.080the economics of Tradwifery, I talk to young women all the time who are like, yeah, I would love just1.00
00:17:25.920to raise chickens and my heirloom tomatoes and take care of kids and not have to go to a job.0.98
00:17:31.860And I'm like, okay, the average man in America makes about $65,000 a year. The average household
00:17:36.500spends about $74,000 a year. How do you think you're going to do this? Do you think you're
00:17:41.620just the magic 1% that's going to go find a rich man who is going to finance this lifestyle for
00:17:46.120you because you're not um again it's all a fantasy everyone is lying to you everyone like you know0.93
00:17:51.540most households need two people in them to be self-sufficient and the trad wives are working
00:17:57.160they're making money oftentimes more than their husbands the economics of it all is so fascinating
00:18:01.400to me too because i found myself the other week um i was on tiktok and i think it was the first
00:18:10.300time i watched some trad wife content and i was like no i get what you're saying and you are not
00:18:17.420i don't entirely disagree we just have a totally opposite framing on the issue she was talking
00:18:23.600about uh like she was essentially saying what you were saying like it is unaffordable to
00:18:29.200live a single breadwinner multiple children kind of family today and fuck that and i think1.00
00:18:38.580And fuck that. And fuck that. And I think that that is what is most dangerous about a lot of these accounts, because there's a nugget of truth in all of them. Yeah. Right. Like, there is a nugget of truth in the fact that feminism in a lot of ways did fail us.1.00
00:18:52.920I do when I when I say that, I want to add that feminism did so much good as well and that the world didn't catch up with us that, you know, corporate America did not fulfill its promises that that there's no government safety net for women.
00:19:09.800And there were a lot of things feminism wasn't able to do. We did indeed figure out ways to raise our daughters the way we raised our sons. But as Gloria Steinem has said so often, we did not figure out enough ways to raise our sons like our daughters. Men didn't catch up. Men are indeed a big part of this problem. And I think that has to be called out on a regular basis.0.99
00:19:30.860i also do not think that feminism expanded the tent enough um you know it did feel like for a1.00
00:19:38.600long time there was one way to be a feminist it's like you work outside the home you like1.00
00:19:43.620you're earning the money like you're you're the only ambition for a feminist is to have a job1.00
00:19:50.020outside of the home and i don't think that is fair either because stay-at-home moms are like1.00
00:19:53.800some of the biggest boss babes i fucking know they're the ceos of their household okay and yet1.00
00:19:57.760I do think that a lot of traditional feminists looked down on them for a long time. And that1.00
00:20:01.640has caused them to check out of the movement and be like, feminism failed me. You didn't include me1.00
00:20:06.080in that. We didn't make enough room for people who make choices other than corporate America.
00:20:11.320That sucks. And so there's this nugget of truth in everything that they say. And so like,
00:20:16.700because of that nugget, you're drawn in and you're like, okay, okay, I'll hear out the rest
00:20:21.560of your argument. And then all of a sudden you're down the slippery slope and you own a fucking1.00
00:20:26.140hen house. The homeschooling is like my favorite part of all of this because like there's some0.99
00:20:33.760people who love homeschooling. I think those people are women who were probably meant to be
00:20:37.780teachers, right? But like that is a small percentage. And like so many of these homesteading
00:20:42.260accounts don't show the labor and the nitty gritty of how hard this actually is. And especially the
00:20:46.620ones that have money, they're all just hiring tutors anyway. And then the most of the homeschool
00:20:49.940accounts, this is the problem, are trying to sell me their homeschooling materials. And the other
00:20:54.340thing that doesn't get brought up a lot is a lot of these families that are homeschooling their
00:20:58.280kids are living in rural areas where there just aren't enough schools or very very poorly funded
00:21:05.600schools right because the government is not public funding enough public education so they actually1.00
00:21:10.460can't send their kids to school like this isn't a choice what are trad wives selling in terms of0.99
00:21:16.840both like the product categories and also philosophically also the dream yeah you mean
00:21:22.980the dream that they're selling yeah both the things both the things well i mean those and
00:21:25.740those are two different things right like they are gap like they're capturing our attention
00:21:30.280and because we do currently live in an attention economy attention is absolutely currency they're
00:21:36.320capturing our attention with this fantasy they're selling the dream of an easier softer existence
00:21:44.840again and anyone that's ever spent any time home with kids that's not soft that's not easy like
00:21:49.380that is such hard work and the fact that they're like making this appear so beautiful and appealing
00:21:54.060and aspirational that's the first lie right there I like spending time with my kids for a very set
00:21:59.260prescribed amount of time they are not here right now and that is a very nice thing for me uh they're
00:22:04.700also selling that it's just like it's a better life to live outside of the city in the countryside
00:22:10.700in a farming community wouldn't you be so much happier and they're capitalizing on the fact that
00:22:16.580the grass is always greener for everybody, right? If you're unhappy with your morning subway commute,
00:22:21.100you're going to be like, God damn it. I wish that I just like lived in the country in this small0.96
00:22:25.940town, like in Gilmore Girls, where I could just like walk to the inn that I own and the diner and
00:22:30.700have all these people pop up. If you live in a small town, you're like, God damn it. I just0.99
00:22:34.920wish I could live in a city and live the life of Carrie Bradshaw and also not have to drive my car
00:22:40.240an hour to get groceries. And so like, they're really, they're selling the idea that the grass
00:22:44.480is always greener. But then the things they're selling you are also highly specific. They're
00:22:49.140selling you courses on how to homestead when most of them are probably not actually successful
00:22:53.220homesteaders. They're selling you so many supplements. Like the Maha Trad Wife continuum
00:22:59.100is really intense. And they've also used a lot of Trad Wife content to suck in former country0.98
00:23:06.760liberals and to bring them over to the Maha camp. So lots and lots of supplements. And then
00:23:13.900stuff just like stuff all day long like an egg apron a basket a hat dresses linen pajamas
00:23:23.060really ugly patchwork jeans like they're just like they are like they're selling you products
00:23:29.960galore through trying to sell you a false nostalgia for a lifestyle that never really
00:23:34.600existed for any woman and apparently we're buying and we're buying we're a hundred percent buying i
00:23:40.960get sucked in. I have bought things from influencers before. I have ordered high protein
00:23:45.520flour. I'm telling you, it's not bad, but it's not any better than the high protein flour that
00:23:53.600I have got at Costco. Okay. I think that's the Bob's Red Mill or whatever. But like, yes, we do
00:24:00.000get easily sucked in. Also, the ones that are like the real grifters that get me are the ones
00:24:05.560who are selling you the pyramid scheme of how to make money online they're essentially trying to
00:24:11.800teach you how to be an influencer and they're an influencer who sells courses on being an
00:24:16.780influencer so I mean it's just a massive MLM pyramid scheme at this point what you're describing
00:24:22.520reminds me of like uh sort of the feminized parallel to the manosphere grift because like
00:24:33.240Andrew Tate like the way that a lot of the ways that he makes his money a lot of these influence
00:24:37.540manosphere influencers make their money is through selling bullshit courses on like becoming a
00:24:44.500crypto king or whatever it is how to become an influencer and it's fascinating that we are seeing0.94
00:24:52.360just these two at either end of a hyper gender binary pole totally opposite but similar lies
00:25:00.320being sold but but the same but the same that's the thing I mean I Emily Amick and I talk about
00:25:05.100this all the time we call it being pink pilled it's the same thing as the manosphere it's just
00:25:10.140they're using influential outreach to reach women in their pain points in the same way that Andrew
00:25:16.240Tate and this like toxic brosphere reached men with their pain points you know but the male pain
00:25:21.240points are like do not feel like you are you know like that you're confident enough like you know
00:25:28.200Are you lonely? Do you not have a community of other men? Do you not feel masculine enough?
00:25:33.060Let us show you how to be a man in the world. I love my Andrew Tate voice, by the way. I think
00:25:38.160it should probably be a little bit more British and a little bit more like slangy. But in the
00:25:43.780same exact way, the trad wife accounts and the traditional influencers and the mahas are like,
00:25:49.800aren't you so unhappy with work and burnout? And aren't you so tired? And we can just sell you a
00:25:56.940better way to live and a better kind of community they're the exact same thing just from opposite
00:26:02.280sides of the gender spectrum i know that's the only thing that's the only thing you can say you1.00
00:26:12.400could just sigh going back to sort of the feminist failure of it all do you think that all of the1.00
00:26:21.120sort of feminist discourse and hot takes, has that kind of inadvertently just made them more1.00
00:26:30.320mainstream? Does that make sense? Fuel, yeah, fuel the fire. I mean, one of the things we know
00:26:36.440is that social media algorithms love controversy, you know, so the second that those algorithms
00:26:42.680sniff out controversy, they're going to elevate the accounts that are causing it. So, you know,
00:26:48.100by creating those rifts online, they're only making more people see those accounts and we
00:26:53.240know that they can be very aspirational. So yes, there's that. And then yes, also it's going back
00:26:58.800to what we talked about before of not widening the tent. And that's why I'm so careful to say
00:27:04.420that a trad wife is not a stay at home mom. Okay. Because I do think a lot of stay at home moms
00:27:08.640felt attacked by feminists attacking trad wives. I know people have said it to me and I'm like,
00:27:12.640no, no, no, no, no, that's not what I believed. You know, I am very concerned about women preaching1.00
00:27:20.640the idea of submission to a man, that a man is a plan, that women should be checking out of the1.00
00:27:26.340workforce, that women, you know, should aspire only to an MRS degree and give up birth control0.95
00:27:32.600and have as many babies as possible. What we need to talk about is choice, like how women can have
00:27:39.200the options and the choices in order to be ambitious in all parts of their life if you know
00:27:45.560you want to be ambitious as a mother you should be able to do that if you want to be ambitious
00:27:50.500as a career woman you should be able to do that if you want a hybrid of the two you should be able1.00
00:27:55.060to do that you know my issue with trad wives is their political leanings that are trying to strip1.00
00:28:00.620agency and rights away from women that's my biggest issue but I do think feminists you know1.00
00:28:06.240have gone about this in the wrong way um and in attacking trad wives have attacked stay-at-home
00:28:11.880moms as well if that makes sense it does and i also think that there's an opportunity to
00:28:17.720address the inherent like contradiction hypocrisy whatever you want to call it of
00:28:26.240the right also getting so spun out about crises of masculinity and you know men are not okay
00:28:35.160and at the same time they are uplifting an idea that says um hey women if you want to be
00:28:42.040economically secure you just find a rich man and it's like well aren't you just like further0.93
00:28:46.740fucking with like the pressure that men already feel and like the i don't know oh yeah like it
00:28:53.420oh yeah absolutely absolutely i mean there is a crisis of men and i i also think that0.98
00:28:58.200in many ways the left and progressives have ignored that you know they've made it hard to
00:29:02.380talk about because they're like, oh, we're not going to feel sorry for men. And I'm like, look,
00:29:06.380I get it. Like we've had it harder. You can always have, you know, a trauma tragedy Olympics to be
00:29:12.820like, it's been fucking worse for us. We get it. Okay. But like a lot of men are fucked. Okay.0.95
00:29:18.940They do feel left behind. They're worse at making friends and building community than we are. So
00:29:23.260they don't have anyone to talk to about this. Like I look at my own husband who was like a,
00:29:27.560like a wonderful feminist supportive man. And he's like all fucked up in the head over like,0.99
00:29:32.380the world right now and the fact that he's not currently the breadwinner and how does he reconcile0.98
00:29:36.620that fact even though he's super supportive of me and my career right like like we don't live in a
00:29:42.200culture that has supported men we don't live in a culture that supports anyone okay and so again
00:29:48.440you know one of the things that I hear from a lot of young women who are telling me they've leaned
00:29:53.140into this kind of traditional lifestyle because they've been pink-pilled on Instagram is that0.89
00:29:58.800they're like you feminists seem so angry all the time and like these trad wives they just seem so1.00
00:30:04.420happy and that's when I pull out the like phrase everyone is lying to you like nothing that you see1.00
00:30:10.280on the internet is the truth or reality but their branding is better okay like yes feminists are
00:30:16.780angry because there's a lot to be angry about this is deserved anger but at the same time I don't0.83
00:30:22.480think we show nearly enough that the ability to have choices and options has made us really happy
00:30:28.240And I mean, that's why I try to say things like as often as I can. I'm like, my happiness is
00:30:32.380probably a nine out of 10 right now. Like I'm like, and I would like, I'm deducting a point
00:30:36.620because I hate marketing my book so much. And like, that is just like consuming my life right
00:30:41.220now. But I have all of the things I ever wanted in life. I'm a bestselling author. I have a
00:30:47.000husband who's great. I have three gorgeous kids, all of whom I had after the age of 37, because
00:30:52.940of like essentially I had access to corporate health care for my entire life, access to birth
00:30:58.880control to decide when I would have a child and the ability to have an abortion when I got pregnant
00:31:04.300at 16. I have my life because I had all of these things that make women's choices and options
00:31:11.660better. And I don't think that the left emphasizes that enough. It's like you can live what the life
00:31:16.360you want. You can have the things, but we're the ones fighting for those values for you girls.
00:31:21.160right well and and it's like when the left has done some messaging around choice it's also though1.00
00:31:30.000so easy for that to quickly just spin into this choice feminism of like well anything a woman1.00
00:31:36.840chooses is feminism right so therefore right and that's like a word that's like a word salad right1.00
00:31:43.440it's always a word salad and i don't think they walk that walk is the thing because they do like0.95
00:31:48.500many, many women often look down. They're like, oh, you're just going to raise babies. It's the1.00
00:31:54.820just that is almost always there. And they look down on women who choose anything except for this
00:32:01.280one very rigid path, which is so hard. I mean, my God, I don't work in an office. Thank the Lord
00:32:07.520anymore. Okay. I get to work for myself. But when I was working in magazines and for tech companies,
00:32:43.200still isn't corporate america and also even just american homes too well american homes too i mean
00:32:50.440when we were living in san francisco um the public school district your schools were assigned by
00:32:58.060lottery and they could you could be assigned anywhere in the city so like literally miles
00:33:03.560from your house and there was no bus system so a parent or you'd have to pay someone very very well
00:33:11.500to be getting your kid to school if you were a person who had to get to a job at nine o'clock.
00:33:16.420Like nothing was like set up to accommodate the two things unless you were outsourcing a lot of
00:33:22.180this care. I mean, we moved back to Philadelphia mostly, probably for a lot of reasons because I
00:33:28.160had help. It's so much more affordable. They can go to a public school that is literally four
00:33:32.400blocks from our house and like all of our kids can go there until eighth grade. But like that
00:33:38.160is not the way in most of america the world is not set up for for parents or really just set up
00:33:43.140to like take care of anyone at this point and now like enter trad wives and it's like well the answer
00:33:48.900is just give up and revert back the answer is give up the answer is give like the answer is make i
00:33:56.460mean it's it's very mega coded it's make america great again but again they're like when is the
00:34:02.580again? Is the again back in the prairie days? Is the again back in the 1950s when every woman was
00:34:09.920fucking miserable? I love cosplay of 1950s America because I would like everyone to watch1.00
00:34:19.480Betty Draper on Madman. Betty Draper is the saddest character that's ever been on television.
00:34:25.540uh my grandmother was a very tratty trad wife in the 50s mostly because she was fucking rich0.97
00:34:33.200okay like again like you could only live that life if you were already very wealthy and so like0.98
00:34:39.680they were pretty rich and she was a child wife and she was miserable until my grandfather died
00:34:45.000okay like hated her life uh and so like that's the reality that we're not seeing but again the
00:34:51.820pictures look pretty and the reels look pretty and when you're like a mom juggling all of the
00:34:56.700things and like trying to make it work and also working 19 jobs like so many of us do right now
00:35:01.520you look at someone just sitting in a field with their kids and you're like that does look nice
00:35:07.520although we're up here in the mountains right now and I've been sitting in a field with my kids
00:35:12.220a lot and it's so itchy I'm so itchy right now that like I love outdoors and I love the mountains
00:35:20.680But like my whole body is a mosquito bite.1.00
00:35:32.280What kind of, we touched on this earlier, what kind of political influence do you think that trad wives possess?1.00
00:35:41.640Oh, I mean, it's very right and MAGA coded.0.97
00:35:45.040I mean, honestly, and also very evangelical Christian, very Mormon.
00:35:48.780And we do know that the early mom influencers and still a very large majority of mom influencers
00:35:55.620come from the Mormon faith because, you know, Mormonism has been, you know, very big on
00:36:01.440first it was journaling, then early blogging.
00:36:04.020It's like spread the word through sharing your life through this content.
00:36:07.820And so that's why most of the early mom influencers were young Mormon women.
00:36:13.360And so there is a hard right political influence. We also know that Turning Point USA, Charlie Kirk's organization, has funded a lot of trad wife influencers, has funded a lot of trad wife messaging. Peter Thiel is currently funding or did fund. I'm not sure if he's still doing it. I want to make sure I get it right.
00:36:33.960evie magazine the the right-leaning cosmo which is now pushing ditch the pill and pronatalism0.94
00:36:40.680um and also that women's sole purpose is to be in the home uh we know that a lot of this is right0.70
00:36:48.740coded and maga coded but they're very good at they're often very good at hiding their politics0.99
00:36:53.920um and that and that's the thing i mean the left again is wearing our politics like
00:36:58.360on our sleeves and on our t-shirts all of the time uh whereas they're hiding theirs and it's
00:37:03.940a lot more subversive. You know, it's you're going to dive into an article about why these
00:37:08.840celebrities are choosing to go off birth control, which was a legit headline that Evie magazine just1.00
00:37:14.380ran and be like, oh, my gosh, like all these other women are doing it. Maybe I should think about0.99
00:37:19.240this. And then, you know, the slippery slope from there is a lot of women start thinking birth0.99
00:37:24.740control doesn't matter. And then it makes it a lot easier for our government to ban birth control0.66
00:37:29.060because no one's fighting for it anymore. I mean, that's the path here. That's the goal.
00:37:32.900charlie kirk said it uh you know you change the culture you win the war and they've been working
00:37:39.300for 10 years to change the culture and especially through influencers because they knew they didn't
00:37:44.520have hollywood for a long time so like we have to build our own celebrities and they did it and
00:37:48.960it's working and we've seen it we saw it with the men with the joe rogan bro sphere and now we're
00:37:54.820seeing it with the women with the trad wives with the maha influencers with women like alex clark
00:38:00.580like you know these are huge influencers their content gets millions of views a day
00:38:05.880and I don't think we're paying nearly enough attention to it why aren't we paying enough
00:38:10.320attention to it hubris I really think it is hubris I think you know it gets dismissed as
00:38:18.060fringe or fluffy and again because it's women who are moms and who are wives who are showing
00:38:26.160these beautiful pictures who are doing it and we're like oh my god no one's paying and by we0.84
00:38:29.960I mean, feminism at large, the left at large, no one's paying attention to any of that.