(00:00:00):
My boyfriend was abusive.

(00:00:02):
I dated him from ages 13 to 16.

(00:00:06):
He was three years older and my brother's best friend.

(00:00:09):
One day we were walking down a major road in my town and he punched me in the back.

(00:00:14):
A car pulled over and a man and a woman got out.

(00:00:16):
It was a tiny car and the people looked normal, the man wearing a Blockbuster t-shirt.

(00:00:21):
They informed us that they were undercover DEA and had seen what happened.

(00:00:26):
They separated us, the woman talked to me and the man talking to him.

(00:00:30):
I don't remember exactly what the woman said to me,

(00:00:33):
but she was very mean,

(00:00:34):
blaming me and telling me that I needed to stand up for myself and leave him.

(00:00:38):
I looked over at my boyfriend and he and the mail officer were laughing.

(00:00:43):
I was 14 at the time and my boyfriend was 17.

(00:00:46):
I should have been protected, but I was blamed and shamed.

(00:00:50):
Fast forward to when I am 16 and I finally have the courage to leave.

(00:00:55):
This is so embarrassing to this day because it doesn't make any sense.

(00:00:59):
I was 16.

(00:01:01):
working my first job at Denny's and my parents had separated.

(00:01:03):
My mom and I were living in an apartment by ourselves,

(00:01:07):
but she was dating a man who lived three hours away and was gone a lot.

(00:01:11):
One night I was alone and my now ex-boyfriend knocked on the door.

(00:01:15):
He told me he had been beat up and was homeless and just wanted to sleep on my

(00:01:19):
couch for the night.

(00:01:20):
I said, fine, went back to sleep.

(00:01:23):
In the morning, he left without incident.

(00:01:26):
In retrospect, I think what happened was he stole a key from my apartment that night.

(00:01:31):
Things around my house disappeared and we had a yelling match with the upstairs

(00:01:34):
neighbor one night.

(00:01:36):
Finally,

(00:01:37):
one day I came home with my brother this time and found my ex's backpack at my

(00:01:41):
computer with the computer logged into my accounts.

(00:01:45):
We also found in my mother's closet,

(00:01:47):
there had been an attic access and the door was now missing.

(00:01:51):
Not knowing what to do,

(00:01:52):
we called our mother who said she would come home and we needed to call the police.

(00:01:56):
My brother left and it was my mom and I home when the police came.

(00:02:00):
It turns out my ex had been living in my attic without my consent or knowledge.

(00:02:05):
I felt so dumb, but why would that be the first thing I think is going on?

(00:02:10):
Anyway, this cop also blamed me.

(00:02:12):
He told my mother I was probably lying and hadn't broke up with him,

(00:02:16):
but instead had allowed my boyfriend to sleep in our attic and was now covering my

(00:02:20):
tracks.

(00:02:21):
I was 16 and he was 19.

(00:02:23):
They did not care one bit about protecting me.

(00:02:26):
Everything was my fault.

(00:02:28):
My ex-boyfriend was stalking me from my own apartment,

(00:02:31):
and it was somehow my fault,

(00:02:32):
and I was unworthy of protection.

(00:02:36):
Hi, I'm Zahn Valines, and this is the Liberating Motherhood podcast.

(00:02:40):
Today we are going to be talking about male supremacy,

(00:02:44):
but before we get started,

(00:02:45):
I would like to ask you to help support this podcast by sharing it on social media.

(00:02:50):
by leaving a positive review on your favorite podcast platform,

(00:02:53):
by heart-reacting it,

(00:02:54):
by doing all of the things that you can do to engage.

(00:02:57):
And I know it's annoying to hear and I know it's annoying to get the reminder,

(00:03:01):
but social media algorithms thrive on engagement,

(00:03:05):
which means podcasts thrive on engagement because we have to give these algorithms

(00:03:09):
what they want.

(00:03:10):
So the most effective way to push back against these social media algorithms that

(00:03:15):
so often punish feminist and leftist creators is

(00:03:18):
is to give them that engagement they want.

(00:03:21):
If you really love the podcast, you can also sign up to become a paid subscriber.

(00:03:26):
If you do,

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you'll get at least one bonus episode a month,

(00:03:29):
as well as eight bonus essays on top of the usual stuff that free subscribers get.

(00:03:35):
These actions to promote the podcast and to promote my work really do help.

(00:03:40):
Subscribers are the sole reason I am able to do this work,

(00:03:43):
and your support and promotion helps me keep doing it.

(00:03:47):
I will never accept advertiser money or allow this work to be censored or sell it

(00:03:51):
to someone else.

(00:03:52):
So I'm dependent solely on you, my listeners, and I'm really grateful that you are here.

(00:03:59):
My guest today is the wonderful Soraya Chevalier.

(00:04:03):
Soraya is an award-winning author and activist who writes on topics related to

(00:04:08):
gender norms,

(00:04:08):
inclusivity,

(00:04:10):
social justice,

(00:04:11):
free speech,

(00:04:12):
sexualized violence,

(00:04:13):
and technology.

(00:04:14):
She is the director and co-founder of Women's Media Center Speech Project.

(00:04:19):
She is also the author of Rage Becomes Her,

(00:04:21):
The Power of Women's Anger,

(00:04:22):
The Resilience Myth,

(00:04:24):
and the newly released All We Want Is Everything.

(00:04:27):
You can find her articles in numerous publications and anthologies,

(00:04:31):
in talks and media appearances,

(00:04:33):
and just about everywhere anyone is discussing gender.

(00:04:37):
And today we are going to be talking about Soraya's new book, All We Want Is Everything.

(00:04:42):
Soraya, thank you so much for coming back to the podcast.

(00:04:44):
I know that listeners are so excited to have you here.

(00:04:46):
Well, thank you so much for having me again, Zahn.

(00:04:49):
It's delightful to be here with you.

(00:04:51):
Well,

(00:04:51):
I know we talked about this a bit before we started recording,

(00:04:54):
but I just want to emphasize this book is really,

(00:04:58):
really good.

(00:05:00):
It has a lot of substance, but it's pretty short and it's very to the point.

(00:05:06):
And I feel like it would be a wonderful introduction to feminism.

(00:05:11):
It's a great

(00:05:13):
book to convince people of why we need feminism,

(00:05:16):
but it's also really educational to oldies like me who feel like we've read and

(00:05:21):
seen everything.

(00:05:22):
So it's, it's just great.

(00:05:24):
I love it.

(00:05:25):
Thank you.

(00:05:28):
So tell me this,

(00:05:29):
this book is a little bit different from your other books because your other books

(00:05:32):
were more theory oriented.

(00:05:34):
This is really like punchy and to the point and heavy on statistics and

(00:05:40):
Tell me how you decided to write this book and what you hope it accomplishes.

(00:05:44):
Well, first of all, thank you so much for inviting me on again and for reading the book.

(00:05:49):
That means a lot to me.

(00:05:51):
As you said, my prior books tend to be big, thick, lots of citations, heavy on theory.

(00:06:01):
And this one,

(00:06:01):
I really wanted to be as succinct as possible about one particular issue that we,

(00:06:09):
I think,

(00:06:10):
culturally,

(00:06:11):
socially,

(00:06:11):
politically are very resistant to thinking about,

(00:06:14):
which is male supremacy.

(00:06:15):
Um,

(00:06:17):
part of the problem,

(00:06:18):
at least in the United States,

(00:06:19):
I think is this American exceptionalism that women here are just better off than

(00:06:24):
women anywhere else in the world,

(00:06:25):
which is objectively not true,

(00:06:28):
right?

(00:06:28):
Certainly there are places in the world where women are, um, terribly violently oppressed, um,

(00:06:36):
in more extreme ways,

(00:06:39):
but that doesn't mean that women in the United States are automatically not,

(00:06:45):
right?

(00:06:45):
And so in the wake of,

(00:06:48):
not even in the wake of,

(00:06:49):
I conceived of the book in the months before the 2024 election,

(00:06:52):
because

(00:06:54):
It was really just striking to me that no matter who won that election,

(00:06:58):
there was going to be a backlash and that would be very anti-feminist.

(00:07:05):
And if Kamala Harris had won, it would, of course, have been more pointedly

(00:07:11):
white supremacist and anti-feminist.

(00:07:14):
So lots of misogynoir.

(00:07:16):
And so I wanted to write about that and say,

(00:07:18):
hey,

(00:07:19):
this is just something we cannot look aside from.

(00:07:21):
We can't afford it anymore,

(00:07:22):
particularly since this militant masculinity of the right is a pivotal foundational

(00:07:32):
element of authoritarianism,

(00:07:33):
fascism,

(00:07:34):
and we need to name it.

(00:07:37):
So I'm struck by this use of the term male supremacy.

(00:07:40):
I find when I'm writing about misogyny,

(00:07:44):
patriarchy,

(00:07:45):
whatever you want to call it,

(00:07:47):
I'm sometimes not very thoughtful in my language.

(00:07:49):
And I'll use sexism, misogyny, patriarchy interchangeably.

(00:07:53):
It's clear to me that you're really careful in your use of this term.

(00:07:58):
And I wonder if you would talk to me about what this term means to you and how you use it.

(00:08:04):
So, you know, I think all of us grapple with this.

(00:08:07):
All of us every day are trying to capture nuanced,

(00:08:12):
complicated ideas with insufficient language often,

(00:08:16):
right?

(00:08:16):
And the thing about...

(00:08:19):
words like sexism and racism is that they maintain the barriers between different

(00:08:24):
types of oppression to the detriment most,

(00:08:27):
you know,

(00:08:28):
mostly of the people who live in those intersections,

(00:08:31):
who,

(00:08:31):
who embody those intersections.

(00:08:33):
And so male supremacy,

(00:08:37):
I'm going to actually just going to read the definition because it's a good

(00:08:41):
definition.

(00:08:41):
It was from the Institute on the study of male supremacism.

(00:08:44):
The, the definition is,

(00:08:47):
helps with that.

(00:08:48):
The definition allows us to capture a much broader spectrum of ideas so that we can

(00:08:54):
connect ideas like white supremacy and male supremacy more effectively.

(00:08:57):
So their definition is the belief in cisgender men's superiority and right to

(00:09:02):
dominate,

(00:09:02):
control,

(00:09:03):
or erase others.

(00:09:05):
And others can mean in that context,

(00:09:07):
women,

(00:09:08):
trans and non-binary people,

(00:09:10):
and those with indigenous gender social roles.

(00:09:13):
I would add to that,

(00:09:14):
as I do in the book,

(00:09:15):
people who are feminized in the process as a way to oppress them in a society.

(00:09:22):
Black men suffer from male supremacism in that they are feminized by white supremacy.

(00:09:28):
All of the attributes of

(00:09:31):
masculinity that give white men power and leverage in the society are denied to

(00:09:36):
black men systemically.

(00:09:38):
Right.

(00:09:39):
And so that's how I would expand it.

(00:09:42):
And,

(00:09:42):
and I try and explain in the beginning that I'm not talking about gender equality

(00:09:47):
per se,

(00:09:48):
which I think is ultimately male supremacist in the way that it has been

(00:09:53):
interpreted or patriarchy,

(00:09:55):
patriarchy being a set of institutions and gender equality,

(00:09:59):
equality or inequality being a set of outcomes.

(00:10:05):
Okay.

(00:10:05):
I really appreciate you clarifying that because I often struggle.

(00:10:10):
I have one of my good friends is the racial justice educator,

(00:10:14):
Desiree Stevens,

(00:10:15):
and she term supremacy culture.

(00:10:18):
I've sort of stolen that from her.

(00:10:20):
Yeah, that's exactly right.

(00:10:22):
That's a really great term.

(00:10:24):
And started using that

(00:10:26):
But I also appreciate the idea that male supremacy is about more than just oppressing women.

(00:10:31):
And when we say women, of course, we often picture like white middle class women.

(00:10:35):
So that's helpful.

(00:10:37):
Yeah.

(00:10:37):
And when,

(00:10:37):
and,

(00:10:37):
and,

(00:10:38):
you know,

(00:10:38):
actually in my book,

(00:10:39):
The Resilience Myth,

(00:10:40):
I write a lot about supremacy culture from the perspective of having,

(00:10:44):
we have these Western European epistemologies that are really structured around the

(00:10:53):
success and power of cisgendered white men in society.

(00:10:56):
And we see that over and over and over again in our philosophy and our medical

(00:10:59):
practices and our laws.

(00:11:01):
You know, it's just once you start looking at it, you can't unsee it.

(00:11:06):
And so there is a superstructure of supremacy culture.

(00:11:10):
And really all I'm trying to do in this book is say,

(00:11:13):
don't look away from this aspect of it,

(00:11:16):
right?

(00:11:16):
Like you will never understand white supremacy if you don't understand male

(00:11:19):
supremacy and vice versa.

(00:11:22):
Yeah, yeah, that makes perfect sense.

(00:11:24):
So I want to, I want to talk about some of the aspects of male supremacy that you talk about.

(00:11:30):
But before we get to that,

(00:11:32):
I want to talk to you about something that you talk about quite a bit in the book.

(00:11:36):
And you don't really like have a chapter on it, but I see this theme sprinkled within.

(00:11:40):
And it's this idea that

(00:11:43):
We pretend that male supremacy doesn't exist.

(00:11:45):
And the way that we do that is by pretending that acts of oppression are just

(00:11:50):
individual feelings.

(00:11:51):
So it's not,

(00:11:52):
for example,

(00:11:52):
that husbands systematically exploit their wives labor so they can get ahead and

(00:11:56):
get more leisure time.

(00:11:57):
It's that she just needs to communicate better.

(00:11:59):
You know,

(00:12:00):
it's not that male violence is normal and normalized with few options to support

(00:12:05):
survivors,

(00:12:06):
as we saw in that opening vignette.

(00:12:08):
It's that she's too dumb to know she needs to leave.

(00:12:11):
It's not that sexual violence is just a completely normal part of girlhood.

(00:12:16):
It's that, you know, teenage girls make bad decisions and girls are too promiscuous.

(00:12:21):
It's not that patriarchy creates this impossible double bind where women must be

(00:12:26):
beautiful while pretending not to want to be beautiful and must be thin without

(00:12:30):
appearing to work for thinness.

(00:12:32):
it's that women are shallow narcissists who just love having eating disorders.

(00:12:36):
And manipulate.

(00:12:37):
And manipulative and entitled.

(00:12:40):
So why do you think that male supremacy is so good at convincing us that these

(00:12:46):
clearly political problems are just personal failings?

(00:12:49):
I mean, if you can create systems that normalize the inequality, then you use them, right?

(00:12:58):
So if you think about it,

(00:13:00):
religious systems, educational systems.

(00:13:02):
And I know people think that schools are dominated by women, which...

(00:13:06):
honestly, I don't even want to get into that, but I disagree for a variety of reasons, right?

(00:13:12):
They might be numerically dominated in terms of the number of teachers in like K

(00:13:17):
through 12 education.

(00:13:19):
But once you go beyond that,

(00:13:20):
I think we can say that our education system is deeply patriarchal in its outcomes,

(00:13:26):
right?

(00:13:27):
And so we have education, we have religion, we have the legal system.

(00:13:31):
And so if you can shape

(00:13:34):
people's understanding of justice or what is right or what is normal, what is divine.

(00:13:41):
You have so much power, right?

(00:13:43):
And so I think the fight of feminism is always to confront that power,

(00:13:47):
to name that power,

(00:13:48):
and then to show what mis- and disinformation looks like.

(00:13:54):
Yeah.

(00:13:55):
All right.

(00:13:55):
So you mentioned schools.

(00:13:56):
So I actually have a number of questions for you.

(00:13:58):
I'm going to read a short quote from page 43, which is the chapter where you talk about schools.

(00:14:06):
You say, boys feel silenced, displaced, or erased in schools and culture.

(00:14:11):
But it's important to distinguish between this perception and the structural

(00:14:15):
imbalances that continue to center boys and favor men,

(00:14:18):
particularly if they're white.

(00:14:20):
It's important to say out loud that the way they

(00:14:23):
Yes.

(00:14:23):
Like, yeah.

(00:14:23):
I...

(00:14:40):
I think,

(00:14:41):
you know,

(00:14:42):
you go on to talk about how we treat male supremacy and male-centered cultures as

(00:14:47):
neutral.

(00:14:48):
And so then if we move away from that, it seems like male oppression.

(00:14:51):
Can you talk a little bit about that?

(00:14:54):
Sure.

(00:14:54):
I mean,

(00:14:54):
I think I've written a lot,

(00:14:56):
you know,

(00:14:57):
I think I've written a lot about the boy crisis in education,

(00:15:01):
which is a cyclical one.

(00:15:03):
It comes up every 20, 25 years.

(00:15:05):
It has for over a hundred years.

(00:15:07):
During that hundred year period,

(00:15:08):
girls and women have outperformed men academically the whole time,

(00:15:13):
right?

(00:15:13):
It isn't like a new issue.

(00:15:15):
The problem we have right now though,

(00:15:16):
is that fewer and fewer men are opting into higher education.

(00:15:22):
And I described that as male flight that mirrors men leaving teaching because there

(00:15:29):
are too many women in teaching,

(00:15:31):
men fleeing to economics because there are too many women succeeding in the social

(00:15:35):
sciences.

(00:15:37):
um men fleeing to stem because it's high status and um you know arts and humanities

(00:15:43):
uh cause a lot of discomfort for them like there are lots of male flight dynamics

(00:15:48):
in the society and i would categorize the education crisis for boys as one of those

(00:15:54):
but even within that context when you look at schools

(00:15:59):
you basically have a two-tiered system for boys and girls.

(00:16:02):
For the girls, it's still merit-based.

(00:16:05):
The girls,

(00:16:07):
they're evaluated and their lives are often shaped by the grades they get,

(00:16:12):
the performance of academic prowess or goodness.

(00:16:15):
Whereas the boys,

(00:16:16):
even if they don't do that,

(00:16:18):
they still exist in a status-based system where even if they aren't academically

(00:16:23):
succeeding,

(00:16:24):
they can achieve high status through athletic

(00:16:30):
pursuits, for example, right?

(00:16:31):
Like being really fine athletes,

(00:16:33):
or they can self-segregate into STEM areas where they will ultimately be far better

(00:16:40):
compensated and just have higher status in general in education and life.

(00:16:48):
And so that's just one kind of way in which the idea of a boy crisis is

(00:16:55):
insufficient to explain what's going on because it

(00:16:59):
It repeatedly ignores the status-based cultural capital that boys and men have.

(00:17:06):
The other thing,

(00:17:07):
too,

(00:17:07):
is we know that colleges in their admissions have been artificially gender

(00:17:15):
balancing for 20 years at least.

(00:17:18):
Right.

(00:17:18):
And so that we never talk about it in that way.

(00:17:21):
As a matter of fact,

(00:17:23):
a lot of advocates right now,

(00:17:24):
like Scott Galloway,

(00:17:25):
are saying maybe we should have,

(00:17:26):
you know,

(00:17:26):
the equivalent of affirmative action for men in colleges.

(00:17:29):
We've had it.

(00:17:30):
We've had it for 20 years.

(00:17:31):
Schools have been artificially balancing numbers, particularly elite schools.

(00:17:35):
And I think that's actually even more corrosive to social life and political life

(00:17:42):
and gender polarization,

(00:17:44):
that that artificial balance.

(00:17:46):
you know, balancing the privileges boys.

(00:17:48):
So I think that we mask all of those privileges.

(00:17:52):
We pretend they don't exist.

(00:17:54):
We act like it's all normal.

(00:17:56):
But kids know.

(00:17:58):
They understand what's going on.

(00:17:59):
They intuit what's going on.

(00:18:00):
They have psychological responses to what's going on.

(00:18:03):
And I don't think we can hide it as easily anymore because there are a lot of

(00:18:06):
people talking about it before there weren't as many.

(00:18:10):
Yeah.

(00:18:11):
Yeah.

(00:18:11):
And I mean, I would I would add to your affirmative action for the past 20 years.

(00:18:16):
I mean, we've always had affirmative action for white guys in school.

(00:18:20):
Yeah.

(00:18:21):
But while we're talking about schools,

(00:18:23):
I I have a particular axe to grind with schooling because it is something I am

(00:18:28):
dealing with.

(00:18:30):
Every single day.

(00:18:31):
It's something that had me up at 530 this morning on a school project.

(00:18:35):
So, you know, my husband and I have a truly equitable relationship.

(00:18:40):
And as you know, it's a lot of work to get there.

(00:18:42):
It's lots of conversations and lots of pushing back on like social norms.

(00:18:46):
I have been shocked at how aggressively our children's schools impose this

(00:18:52):
misogynistic stuff on us.

(00:18:54):
So I'll give you an example.

(00:18:56):
So my kids go to a progressive, ostensibly feminist school.

(00:19:02):
And one of the things that they talk about is that parents have to be involved.

(00:19:08):
So the expectation is that parents are going to volunteer at the school.

(00:19:11):
They're going to participate in the classroom.

(00:19:13):
A lot of parents will come in and teach classes.

(00:19:15):
It's wonderful when you describe it like that.

(00:19:18):
But if I describe it honestly, the expectation is that mothers will do that.

(00:19:24):
And if dads never do it, it's fine.

(00:19:27):
So it's like every parent has to participate.

(00:19:29):
But if only the mom does it, whatever.

(00:19:32):
They don't care.

(00:19:33):
So really what's going on is that this wonderfully progressive school is

(00:19:38):
has imposed an additional burden on mothers.

(00:19:41):
And,

(00:19:41):
you know,

(00:19:42):
I see it,

(00:19:42):
the emails come to me,

(00:19:44):
the request to chair this committee come to me,

(00:19:47):
you know,

(00:19:47):
the request to teach this or that class come to me.

(00:19:50):
And so I'm constantly like having to forward stuff to my husband and then he's having to,

(00:19:56):
you know, be like, well, I can teach this thing.

(00:19:58):
And then, of course, they say, what a great dad you are.

(00:20:01):
You know, I'm just a normal mom and God forbid I don't show up for something.

(00:20:06):
Can you talk a little bit about,

(00:20:07):
you know,

(00:20:08):
I think schools are a very significant driver of inequality,

(00:20:12):
but just more broadly how our social institutions impose inequality even on people

(00:20:18):
who are actively fighting it.

(00:20:20):
I mean, I think all of us that are in this world of

(00:20:26):
naming to try and change things have had this experience as parents.

(00:20:31):
I've written about it in every single book that I've written or contributed to.

(00:20:36):
One of the first things I ever wrote was for a book called The Good Mother Myth,

(00:20:42):
and it was about school volunteering and why I refused to do it.

(00:20:50):
which doesn't make you any friends either, right?

(00:20:52):
Because your friends are doing it.

(00:20:55):
And it's hard to swim against that tide and say,

(00:20:59):
listen,

(00:21:00):
if we don't disrupt this,

(00:21:02):
then we're going to continue to subsidize the wage gap.

(00:21:06):
And

(00:21:08):
the frictions that you're having if you're a working woman in a hetero marriage

(00:21:13):
with your spouse because you are bearing the disproportional burden of having

(00:21:17):
children in school,

(00:21:18):
which is what you're describing,

(00:21:19):
right?

(00:21:20):
I mean,

(00:21:20):
I think that this is one of the invisible subsidies that schools deliver to boys

(00:21:27):
and men,

(00:21:27):
which is to socialize children to expect women's free labor and to prioritize men's

(00:21:33):
paid labor.

(00:21:35):
You know, I think the

(00:21:37):
the example that I write about,

(00:21:38):
I read about a couple of examples in this book,

(00:21:40):
but I just remember sitting there at one of these events and there were lots of

(00:21:45):
dads at the event,

(00:21:46):
unlike often,

(00:21:49):
but this was a sporting event.

(00:21:51):
And so the dads were there and lunch was being served after,

(00:21:55):
and there were only moms serving the food and the dads were sitting at the tables

(00:22:03):
waiting to go to the line and get their food after the kids.

(00:22:06):
And one dad, I did not go serve food and was sitting at the table with the dads.

(00:22:12):
And he got very kind of huffy and stood up and was going to go over to get his food.

(00:22:18):
And he said, some of us have to work.

(00:22:20):
very loudly oh my god and I just thought well first of all yeah we're all working

(00:22:28):
like all of us and those women are also working and you are literally just an

(00:22:33):
asshole like I you know but but it that's common right like he he felt that he had

(00:22:40):
to get back to his office and you know he had to be there and even the system of

(00:22:45):
volunteering preferences families with women who are

(00:22:51):
don't work for pay in their own homes, right?

(00:22:53):
So that the women who are working,

(00:22:55):
particularly if they're working jobs like being a FedEx driver,

(00:22:59):
right?

(00:22:59):
There was a mom in our, a single mom, FedEx driver, she couldn't come to any events.

(00:23:04):
Right.

(00:23:05):
She couldn't come to any of the parent meetings in the day,

(00:23:07):
in the morning,

(00:23:08):
mid morning,

(00:23:09):
like it was impossible for her because there was literally no attempt to be made.

(00:23:14):
There was no attempt made to alter the life of the school to reflect much more

(00:23:20):
contemporary realities,

(00:23:21):
particularly for working women and single parents,

(00:23:24):
not just single mothers,

(00:23:25):
but single parents.

(00:23:27):
You know, and so I think I think that's just a good example.

(00:23:30):
And it's persistent.

(00:23:32):
Yes.

(00:23:32):
Yes.

(00:23:33):
Well,

(00:23:33):
and,

(00:23:34):
you know,

(00:23:34):
the thing I was thinking about while you were saying this is we have this idea

(00:23:37):
that,

(00:23:37):
you know,

(00:23:38):
whatever women do is not work.

(00:23:39):
Even when women are working for pay, we conceive of it as like, well, it's pin money.

(00:23:44):
It's extra.

(00:23:45):
It's extra.

(00:23:46):
Yeah.

(00:23:46):
Like people ask me what I do for a living and I'll be like, I'm a writer.

(00:23:49):
And they're like, oh, that's so sweet.

(00:23:50):
I'm like, no, it's literally how we pay our bills.

(00:23:54):
um but then anything men do even leisure is perceived as vital so we've built this

(00:24:01):
like whole space where if a man wants to watch a football game and neglect his

(00:24:06):
family all weekend yeah fine if a man wants to go on a five-day fishing trip like

(00:24:11):
that's that's work he has to do that what is that about i mean i think you

(00:24:17):
described it i just think that there's this

(00:24:20):
I mean, there's the default parent expectation, right?

(00:24:25):
And it mainly falls to women still.

(00:24:28):
But it's an entitlement to time that women don't get as a baseline in society,

(00:24:33):
an entitlement to more sleep,

(00:24:34):
to more leisure,

(00:24:36):
to more prioritization of work.

(00:24:39):
uh it doesn't really matter you can look you can look at any of those areas and you

(00:24:42):
can see these gross imbalances and i don't i'm wondering if i have it here what was

(00:24:47):
really startling to me when you look at i might not see if i can find out what

(00:24:52):
we're talking um it was about sleep when you talk about how much sleep people get

(00:24:57):
uh certainly in heterosexual marriages

(00:25:01):
men get more sleep overall, uh, which matters, right?

(00:25:06):
It matters to your health.

(00:25:07):
It matters to your wellbeing, to your nervous system.

(00:25:10):
But when you step back and you look at the difference in sleep between in the

(00:25:19):
society,

(00:25:19):
for example,

(00:25:20):
between a white man who's working and a black woman who's working,

(00:25:26):
um,

(00:25:27):
there's a massive gap in their sleep annually.

(00:25:30):
Massive.

(00:25:31):
And it's debilitating, right?

(00:25:32):
Because there's just this constant chronic fatigue that women experience.

(00:25:37):
But particularly if you are lower down on the status rungs of the society,

(00:25:44):
if you have less money,

(00:25:46):
you're going to have less time.

(00:25:47):
You're going to have less sleep,

(00:25:48):
which is why Tricia Hersey's sleep ministry resonated so much with people when she

(00:25:55):
launched it.

(00:25:57):
Yeah.

(00:25:58):
Have you seen.

(00:26:00):
So there's some research that's starting to come out that's actually suggesting

(00:26:04):
that women may need more sleep than men just to maintain health.

(00:26:08):
And I'm kind of I'm always skeptical of that kind of like gender essentialist stuff.

(00:26:12):
Mm hmm.

(00:26:13):
Um,

(00:26:13):
so like,

(00:26:13):
I don't,

(00:26:14):
I don't know how good the science is behind it,

(00:26:16):
but you know,

(00:26:17):
we do know that women have a lot of times in their life where they definitely need

(00:26:20):
more sleep.

(00:26:20):
Like when they're recovering from giving birth, for example.

(00:26:23):
Right.

(00:26:24):
And,

(00:26:24):
and so it's just like,

(00:26:26):
there's no amount of fatigue that we think is too much for women to endure for men

(00:26:32):
to get rest.

(00:26:33):
And then when we look at,

(00:26:34):
we expand it out as,

(00:26:36):
as you noted with like black working class women and sleep deprivation,

(00:26:39):
um,

(00:26:40):
It's like the more suffering a person endures,

(00:26:44):
the less we think they are entitled to the very sleep that can make that suffering

(00:26:47):
manageable.

(00:26:48):
Yeah, I mean, I think that, again, there's a transfer.

(00:26:58):
We're talking about sleep, but really you see it in the GDP, right?

(00:27:02):
You see the way women's domestic and care work

(00:27:08):
just doesn't count as productive labor, right?

(00:27:10):
So it doesn't, it doesn't merit counting literally in the economic system.

(00:27:17):
But when you do that, what you're basically doing is transferring that labor into

(00:27:26):
evident signs of male productivity.

(00:27:29):
Men are able to do what they're doing,

(00:27:32):
which is measured and which is valued and which is considered productive in a

(00:27:36):
capitalist society because women are doing what they're doing at home,

(00:27:40):
right?

(00:27:42):
And yet there's no metric that really captures that.

(00:27:46):
And so it's literally just

(00:27:48):
a theft, right?

(00:27:50):
It's taking this property that women provide,

(00:27:54):
that women have of their time and labor and attention and care and converting it on

(00:28:00):
paper into men's work.

(00:28:03):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

(00:28:05):
And I see that dynamic

(00:28:09):
even in relationships that are fair, it kind of goes to show that it's not an individual thing.

(00:28:15):
It's a political thing.

(00:28:17):
I've seen it in my own marriage.

(00:28:19):
My husband is a civil rights attorney who does a ton of activism.

(00:28:23):
And he's also like a 50-50 dad.

(00:28:26):
But also there will be times when he is doing jail support or he's got a big brief

(00:28:33):
coming up or he has to argue something in federal court.

(00:28:36):
And so then what happens is

(00:28:39):
You know, I'm doing extra childcare.

(00:28:41):
I'm cooking the meals that he would normally cook so that he can do this work.

(00:28:45):
And like, that's fine.

(00:28:46):
You know, that's what equity is about.

(00:28:47):
I don't have any complaints about that.

(00:28:48):
But what I have noticed is when we come out of these times where he's done all of

(00:28:53):
this really valuable activism,

(00:28:55):
I end up feeling bad about myself because I'm like,

(00:28:58):
he's doing so much to improve the world.

(00:29:01):
And I'm not doing as much when in reality, I'm the one enabling him to do that.

(00:29:07):
Right,

(00:29:07):
because you're trying to be a good spouse and a good mom,

(00:29:12):
and you're just doing the things that have to get done.

(00:29:14):
Yeah, but we don't see that as valuable.

(00:29:17):
We don't see that as like a contribution.

(00:29:19):
So I want to talk to you a little bit about sort of the trivialization of women's

(00:29:24):
issues,

(00:29:26):
particularly reproductive rights.

(00:29:28):
So on page 115 of your book,

(00:29:29):
you say,

(00:29:31):
when a man says he's worried about the economy,

(00:29:33):
he's treated as a neutral,

(00:29:35):
pragmatic person.

(00:29:37):
When a woman voices concern of her reproductive rights, she's labeled unsophisticated or niche.

(00:29:42):
His gender remains invisible, unmarked, and hers is all that is seen.

(00:29:46):
I mean,

(00:29:47):
I can't tell you how much this resonates with me because in the lead up to the 2016

(00:29:52):
and 2020 elections,

(00:29:54):
my main work was journalism about reproductive rights.

(00:29:58):
Mm-hmm.

(00:29:58):
Mm-hmm.

(00:29:59):
And I cannot tell you how many men I have gotten into fights with who told me that

(00:30:06):
I was out of control and harming leftist politics by calling out men who were not

(00:30:12):
sufficiently invested in preserving abortion rights.

(00:30:15):
There's always those Democratic politicians who are anti-choice.

(00:30:20):
And these men would get so mad at me.

(00:30:22):
And,

(00:30:23):
you know,

(00:30:23):
you're you're crazy and we're never going to lose abortion and you need to focus on

(00:30:27):
things that actually matter.

(00:30:28):
I'm sure you can guess how many of them apologize to me when we when we lost abortion.

(00:30:33):
And but we see this not just with abortion.

(00:30:37):
We see this with anything that is a woman's issue.

(00:30:39):
It's depicted as like niche and unimportant.

(00:30:42):
I get emails constantly from people who are like,

(00:30:45):
you know,

(00:30:45):
why don't you write about politics in this moment?

(00:30:48):
I know.

(00:30:49):
I know.

(00:30:50):
Everything I write about is politics.

(00:30:52):
Like what?

(00:30:53):
Yes, I totally that all of that.

(00:30:55):
I wrote, I wrote almost exclusively about reproductive rights for years as well.

(00:31:01):
And also I'm so familiar with what you're talking about.

(00:31:04):
I, you know, it's funny.

(00:31:07):
You can't really win because sometimes you get the response that you just described and

(00:31:15):
And then you get the other response,

(00:31:16):
which I've also gotten since writing this book,

(00:31:18):
which is why,

(00:31:20):
why it's you're too broad.

(00:31:22):
You're being too broad.

(00:31:24):
You know, I think you should, you should focus on women's issues.

(00:31:30):
And that's just, all you're doing is telling on yourself there.

(00:31:33):
Right.

(00:31:33):
And I mean, I think the point is that for a serious class of political actors who,

(00:31:42):
including progressive men,

(00:31:45):
liberal men in politics,

(00:31:49):
it's only really politically legible if it centers men.

(00:31:57):
If it centers women, it's negotiable.

(00:32:01):
If it centers Black people, it's negotiable, right?

(00:32:05):
And so there's never a point at which the fundamental rights of

(00:32:12):
that they would defend are put at risk for themselves.

(00:32:17):
Yeah.

(00:32:18):
So I had a reader and someone I like who's left like insightful comments,

(00:32:24):
like I don't want to denigrate this person.

(00:32:26):
But she emailed me and she was like,

(00:32:29):
you know,

(00:32:30):
the left has focused too much on identity politics and that I hope we can move

(00:32:35):
beyond that.

(00:32:35):
And I wrote her back and I said,

(00:32:37):
well,

(00:32:37):
that's you may not know this,

(00:32:38):
but that's actually a racist dog whistle.

(00:32:41):
Because,

(00:32:42):
you know,

(00:32:42):
what you're really saying is that we focus too much on the issues that affect,

(00:32:45):
you know,

(00:32:45):
black people.

(00:32:46):
Trans people.

(00:32:49):
And she, you know, she quickly responded.

(00:32:51):
I was like, no, no, no, I don't mean it that way.

(00:32:52):
I just mean, you know, only focusing on those issues and focusing on this politics of grievance.

(00:32:57):
And I finally just kind of stopped responding because I found myself getting so

(00:33:03):
angry and I couldn't really articulate why.

(00:33:06):
But I think you've just articulated it for me, which is we're treating people.

(00:33:10):
these human rights issues that affect real living human beings as negotiable and

(00:33:16):
trivial and the stuff that affects white people,

(00:33:18):
we are never framing as identity politics.

(00:33:21):
Well, and also I think that that woman is a perfect example and you see this everywhere.

(00:33:26):
You see this in the pages of the new Republic, you see it, you know, weekend editorials.

(00:33:32):
There's never the acknowledgement that the pivotal identity of

(00:33:37):
that is assumed to be neutral is white and male and straight and cis right that

(00:33:42):
that is not an identity and it's only when you point out that identity and that

(00:33:47):
gets so uncomfortable that you have now named an identity that there's this

(00:33:52):
backlash this whiplash right because

(00:33:55):
You know,

(00:33:55):
I grew up in a political environment and been writing for decades now where you

(00:34:00):
could say black women vote this way.

(00:34:04):
Gay men vote that way.

(00:34:06):
But no one said straight cis white men vote this way.

(00:34:12):
It was just the baseline for what voters do.

(00:34:15):
you know?

(00:34:17):
And so I think that it's just important to say the only really important identity

(00:34:23):
to be talking about if you're worried about identity politics is the one that is

(00:34:27):
erased repeatedly,

(00:34:28):
repeatedly,

(00:34:28):
repeatedly.

(00:34:30):
Yeah.

(00:34:30):
Yeah.

(00:34:31):
I really like,

(00:34:33):
I just want to emphasize that because yeah,

(00:34:36):
what we don't see as identity are the identities that are the most relevant,

(00:34:42):
Yeah.

(00:34:43):
I mean,

(00:34:43):
people are going to engage in their,

(00:34:47):
again,

(00:34:47):
identity protective cognition,

(00:34:50):
which is what happens,

(00:34:51):
that defensiveness and that aggression being made uncomfortable.

(00:34:57):
Yeah.

(00:34:59):
So I'm wondering if you can talk a little more about

(00:35:03):
the gendered backlash and sort of the general political backlash that we're experiencing.

(00:35:07):
I want to tell you my perspective and you can tell me if you agree or if you think I'm wrong.

(00:35:12):
You know,

(00:35:13):
my perspective is we've seen a lot of really positive,

(00:35:16):
rapid progress over the last some number of years.

(00:35:21):
And so now we're in a backlash where the people who have power are trying to grab

(00:35:25):
as much of it as they can.

(00:35:28):
And I think that it can be helpful to recognize backlash as like part of what

(00:35:32):
happens when we're making change rather than like the end of change.

(00:35:37):
How do you feel about that?

(00:35:38):
What do you think?

(00:35:40):
I mean, I think backlash always levels up, right?

(00:35:43):
Every...

(00:35:46):
The most conservative people,

(00:35:50):
spokespeople for the administration,

(00:35:51):
for example,

(00:35:52):
they're all leading profoundly feminist lives.

(00:35:55):
All the women are,

(00:35:56):
you know,

(00:35:57):
they've gone to school,

(00:35:57):
they have their own bank accounts,

(00:35:59):
they've probably rented or owned their own houses.

(00:36:02):
They're very happy to enjoy the fruits of other people's labor that way.

(00:36:07):
So I think we should acknowledge that for sure.

(00:36:11):
And as you said,

(00:36:14):
the backlash is happening because we've been effective,

(00:36:16):
not because we've been ineffective.

(00:36:19):
And I just think that things keep adapting, movements adapt, ideas adapt, people adapt.

(00:36:26):
So we're just in the middle of this very tumultuous transition stage.

(00:36:31):
And I mean, I'm probably not as optimistic as some people because-

(00:36:38):
I think we're at a really scary inflection point.

(00:36:42):
But I do think that there are just inexorable things happening.

(00:36:48):
And it's not even so much that we have to do or say extraordinary revolutionary

(00:36:53):
things,

(00:36:54):
but that we just live our lives as the people that we are.

(00:36:58):
Because that's how you make change.

(00:37:04):
I like that advice.

(00:37:07):
I know you said you're probably not as hopeful as some people.

(00:37:10):
And I think I think a lot of people feel that way.

(00:37:13):
But I I mean, you're still writing.

(00:37:15):
You're still speaking.

(00:37:16):
And so that to me suggests quite a lot of hope.

(00:37:20):
And I guess sort of my my final question for you.

(00:37:23):
And I want to frame this a little bit because.

(00:37:26):
Like most of us, I spend a lot of time on social media because my job requires it.

(00:37:30):
And what I'm seeing a lot is I'm seeing a lot of very certain,

(00:37:35):
very authoritative statements from people who have done activism for like six

(00:37:40):
months.

(00:37:41):
Yeah.

(00:37:42):
who I don't think really know what they're talking about,

(00:37:47):
but they're very confident that like their pronouncements about what's going to

(00:37:50):
happen and what we do and all that are true.

(00:37:52):
So I really like to ask people who have been doing this and writing about this for a long time,

(00:37:59):
What do they want people to know in this moment?

(00:38:02):
And how do we be effective?

(00:38:04):
If you could transmit something to all the activists who want to do well.

(00:38:08):
Oh my gosh, it's such a hard question.

(00:38:10):
But no pressure.

(00:38:12):
Well,

(00:38:12):
first of all,

(00:38:14):
I want people to know that as individuals,

(00:38:17):
there are real limits to what any of us can do.

(00:38:20):
The strength we have is in knowing when to pass the batons.

(00:38:27):
and step back and rest and recalibrate and then get back in and take the baton from

(00:38:31):
someone who has to do the same thing.

(00:38:33):
This is a very, very, very long fight we're engaged in.

(00:38:36):
And I know the feeling of wanting to do as much as you can all the time, right?

(00:38:44):
Because you feel so deeply about what you're witnessing or experiencing,

(00:38:50):
but that's not really sustainable.

(00:38:51):
And so one of the reasons I wrote the resilience myth

(00:38:56):
was to really encourage people to step back and away from the hyper-individualism

(00:39:04):
of the heroic narratives of making change or revolution or resilience and to

(00:39:10):
consider that the real roots of the resilience of our movements,

(00:39:15):
which,

(00:39:16):
you know,

(00:39:16):
is...

(00:39:18):
Centuries,

(00:39:19):
it's intergenerational,

(00:39:20):
it's finding solidarity and community with people,

(00:39:24):
because none of us can do it alone.

(00:39:26):
It's just not possible,

(00:39:27):
you know,

(00:39:28):
and there's,

(00:39:28):
there's great love and joy and,

(00:39:30):
and wonder in all of that,

(00:39:32):
even when things are horrible and hard,

(00:39:35):
you know,

(00:39:35):
you have to be able to,

(00:39:37):
to

(00:39:39):
find other people that you can be with and relax with who just understand what

(00:39:46):
you're experiencing and what,

(00:39:48):
why you do the work you do without friction and without pushback,

(00:39:53):
because that's what sustains you.

(00:39:57):
I, I think that's great advice.

(00:39:59):
I like to reflect on all the good things that trying to improve the world,

(00:40:03):
even just a little bit have brought into my life.

(00:40:06):
Um,

(00:40:06):
I'm talking to you right now.

(00:40:08):
I know, we met.

(00:40:10):
I know.

(00:40:10):
Yeah.

(00:40:12):
So,

(00:40:12):
you know,

(00:40:12):
I think there's hope if we make it and there's change if we come together to demand

(00:40:17):
it.

(00:40:19):
It's hard, but we all do it, you know.

(00:40:21):
And honestly,

(00:40:22):
I have never,

(00:40:24):
there's no,

(00:40:25):
like in my,

(00:40:26):
like literally now decades,

(00:40:28):
there's really,

(00:40:29):
really kind of one memory I have in the many,

(00:40:33):
many,

(00:40:33):
many memories that isn't

(00:40:37):
one in which people doing this work have maintained their sense of humor,

(00:40:42):
have carried each other through dark times,

(00:40:45):
or,

(00:40:46):
you know,

(00:40:46):
we know we all have friends doing activist work and

(00:40:52):
it can get overwhelming and exhausting and frankly depressing.

(00:40:57):
But when that happens, I know who to call to say, Hey, I'm feeling this way.

(00:41:01):
And they're like, I totally get it.

(00:41:04):
And then they'll make me laugh and remind me of something.

(00:41:07):
And, and then I'll course correct, you know?

(00:41:13):
Yeah.

(00:41:14):
Yeah.

(00:41:14):
I think that's true.

(00:41:15):
And I think that's a good place for us to end this.

(00:41:18):
Soraya, thank you so much for coming on the podcast.

(00:41:20):
Oh, thank you.

(00:41:21):
Thank you for talking to me and for reading the book.

(00:41:24):
I really appreciate it.

(00:41:25):
You know, we're so lucky to have you out there in the world writing and teaching us all.

(00:41:30):
You too.

(00:41:30):
I was so happy when I got to Substack, which I had delayed for a very long time and found you.

(00:41:36):
So.

(00:41:36):
Yeah,

(00:41:37):
well,

(00:41:37):
and so I'm going to put all of Soraya's information in the show notes,

(00:41:40):
including her sub stack,

(00:41:41):
which is really spectacular.

(00:41:43):
It's like a semi-regular injection of new thoughts and philosophy, which I love.

(00:41:49):
And of course, the book is amazing.

(00:41:50):
You should go out and buy it and read it right now and get it for everyone.

(00:41:54):
You know, whether you're new to feminism or you're an old pro, it's great.

(00:41:58):
And I also think it might be the book to give to your Republican friends because it

(00:42:04):
really does make a very compelling argument.

(00:42:07):
So listeners, thank you for listening.

(00:42:10):
And I will be back with you next week.

(00:42:11):
And Soraya, just thank you again.

(00:42:12):
Oh, thank you.

(00:42:14):
And I hope you have like warm weather soon.