AgriCulture Wars

Okay. I'm so excited to be talking about this right now. Good evening. I'm so thrilled. I've like been anxious all day. I've been so excited to talk to you about this topic. Just to kind of set the scene here, this is Caro speaking and you are Katie. I am Katie.

You are Katie. And we basically have developed like a voice memo friendship over the last few months. And then we realized that we should start just recording our conversations about shit we care about. And so we are talking today about the one and only ballerina farm pregnant pause yeah i'm so excited because i have been just balls deep in this topic for six months now i saw today that the daily mail quoted me and they did a quote for me and then they went carol claire burke raged online

Okay. But I'm so excited because I know that you've addressed this before and we've actually talked about this on your official podcast. You haven't been like living and breathing this the way I have. So I'm so eager to hear your experience reading this profile and how your thoughts have changed around all of this. Well, Caroline.

You know, it's interesting because before I read the profile, I didn't actually know that much about her. I mean, I knew about the stove because everyone knows about the stove. And I knew that her father-in-law founded JetBlue. What I didn't know was that she is Charlie Kirk's favorite influencer. Shut up. I did not know that. oh wow am i revealing something to you that wow this is huge in the first one minute no less yeah i saw a screen grab that i want to say sarah peterson shared

She shared a screen grab from like a Turning Point USA Charlie Kirk newsletter that was like, look at this family living out their values. Give them a follow. And it was tagged agriculture.

culture wars and that really sums it up whenever we talk about trad wives i think there is a small but mighty contingent of ah who cares type folks that that kind of respond to the discourse and i i think that the fact that you have some of the most despicable alt-right commentators driving traffic to their page because it's basically a public relations campaign for like the nuclear white family that's why it matters

And that's why we're talking about it. 100%. So the reason why I was asking you about this is because we're not going to do, I should also say, we talked about this and we're not going to do, this isn't the 101. This is going to be the 505 on Ballerina Farm. So if anyone's listening to this.

and they want like the Deep Dive 101, we can link a few great explainers because a lot of people have talked about it. But we are going to be kind of doing like the higher level conversations here. But I will just reference that. part of the reason why the Ballerina Farm account exploded was because Fox News did a huge profile on them. And this was two years ago. This was like right after Roe v. Wade fell.

that they did a huge profile on this family and that was something that i was so obsessed with which is like i wonder if one of the reasons why conservatives and progressives alike love this account is because it's almost like a sedative or a narcotic

to make you feel more comfortable about the idea of not being able to get an abortion. Like you're literally being fed a commercial about being comfortable having this many children. It's not causal, but it's definitely correlative. And so that is one. of like the inextricable aspects of this like you're talking about that whether or not they talk about being conservative they are beloved by conservative factions and this belovedness is public like these people publicly support and endorse them

I also think that it's fascinating because one of the major themes that has come up around this article in the writing that I have seen...

The writing that I've written, the conversations that you and I have had is that of agency and choice. And I think when we talk about choice in the literal bodily autonomy sense, this profile is f***ing fascinating because you could read between the lines before right like they are mormons they have eight children it didn't take a lot of introspection to piece together how this family probably feels about

pro-choice policy but what I found fascinating is that this was the first time to my knowledge that their political beliefs around the quote-unquote sanctity of life became so conspicuous i actually thought it was really kind of delightful the feigning of confusion about how she keeps getting pregnant and i think the language that they use to describe the pregnancies and the process of having that many children was fascinating because

There's almost this sort of plausible deniability that like, well, obviously these pregnancies are someone else's will. They're coming from Sky Daddy, not to be confused with JetBlue Daddy, rather than their own. intention and i just think that that kind of language when we're talking about something as politically salient as like a woman's right to choose it is really really loaded

It's so loaded and I want to get into the choice and free will conversation later, but I just, I was pulling up the profile right now and. Everyone knows the person who very clearly has conservative values, but is very like, I don't even know what we're, what are we talking about? And quote, direct quote from Hannah Nealman, I don't even know what feminism means anymore.

Well, that's convenient. Would you like a definition? Number one, I didn't know we were still asking that. I thought we had moved on to the section of like... Are you a misogynist? Like, the fact that we're still asking people if they're feminists is incredible to me. I mean, like, what even is equality, really? What is it? I don't even know what it means anymore. And so that also gets into, like, what is the disillusionment you experienced, Hannah?

Like, what is the experience? You don't know what it means anymore. Did you ever know what it means? And what I really wish, I mean, I also want to talk about the fact that this journalist has since released a second article and released transcripts of the audio. And so I want to talk.

about that. But I just want to say, I really admire this journalist. I don't want to like shade her too much because I think that this was really brave to even share what she shared. But I wish that she had pushed her on this. And I wish that we had heard the response. It is such a clear follow-up. When someone says, I don't even know what feminism means anymore, you can so easily say, what is your definition right now? What are you confused about?

and where is your frustration? And just force her. We know what she's gonna say, but make her say it. Don't let her end there. We always let people end there being like, the world's so complicated. I just, we're all so fractured. And it's like,

What are you talking about, though, when you say you don't know what feminism means anymore? Well, it's interesting because I think when you call out the anymore and all the heavy lifting that that word is doing, you're right. It implies... an evolution of beliefs perhaps and it's interesting in the context of her story which is this woman is a hustler she got a scholarship to juilliard right this is like an elite

And I just want to add there, I looked it up. Their acceptance rate is less than 6%. So it's harder to get into than Harvard. Oh my God. This woman is serious. At some point in her life, she had ambitions outside of family. And that's not to say, again, it's not to say if you were ambitious.

are family that there's anything inherently wrong with that but that's we know by her own telling of what happened that that was not her original ambition for her her life but i think the other thing on the salience of like the sexual purity

abortion topic what I found fascinating about the conversation as it pertains to the profile specifically is that the topic of abortion got muddled very quickly with sexual purity. Like we're talking about sanctity of life and then we're immediately talking about sexual purity and it happens so fast and it's such a sleight of hand that I think it's easy to forget.

that these are completely unrelated things. Like married women get abortions too. Want to read that? Sure. Yeah. Give us the block quote. I have it right here. Okay. Does Neilman agree with the stance on abortion? First of all, she's asking Hannah this question. Daniel answers, the church is a lot more lenient than a lot of states in the US. The church, meaning the Mormon church, is, I'm going to get an abortion because I'm not happy I'm pregnant.

We see the joy of having kids. Here's where Hannah chimes in and the sanctity of life. Absolutely, Daniel continues. And that's probably why the church tells you. don't have sexual relations, get married. Because if not, you might have a kid that you regret having and all of a sudden you get an abortion and that's not good. That is a fascinating statement. You might have a kid you regret. And then you get an abortion. What?

It's like, it's completely illogical. And I think that that whole exchange just stuck out to me as so telling of like, just how half-baked and surface level these ideas are that immediately were jumping to con- conversations about sexual purity and wedlock it's like what are you talking about what are we doing here

I think that what was really interesting for me, just like a little context about me personally, I have been researching this for months now, and I am writing a novel about domestic labor, about extremist religion, and what was like chilling to the point of... giving me goosebumps is that they aren't...

giving their opinions, they are reiterating what the Mormon church tells children. These are talking points that children receive and they have the same level of depth, right? Like they're very circular and they're what you're... taught when you're taught to create a very specific, very narrow framework of the world. And so it's interesting because it would be more complicated if one of them was Mormon and one of them wasn't. They were both raised in deeply Mormon families. And it was this

profile that really nailed that for me, because I think up until now, yeah, of course they're Mormon. Like you see it there, they're reflecting Mormon values, but you don't always know what someone's thinking. You don't know what they're going to say. I think they took this profile.

Because they thought that they could get a Mormon message out. They say it. We're on God's errand a little bit. Like they both say that verbatim. And I think that that's why they walked into what was kind of a trap. And some of the women that I follow online who talk about deconstruction.

What they say is that even the smartest Mormons can be very naive because they're taught from such a young age that evangelism is one of the most important things you do with your life. And so you take opportunities to evangelize. when they're basically an opportunity to walk into a trap. Well, the Mormonism is central to this story. This reliance on God and God's will is especially fascinating here because in Mormonism specifically, women are not allowed to have a direct relationship with God.

It is your husband who is responsible for transmuting God's will to you and telling you what his plan for your life is. And then it's your responsibility to live that out. Right. It's up to him whether or not you get into heaven.

That's terrifying. That is patently terrifying. It's super terrifying. And I just want to pause and I want to hear, like, what was your experience reading this profile? You know, I want to say that it made me... profoundly sad but i think that that would be disingenuous i think it made me angrier than it made me sad because i just had this overwhelming kind of like righteous indignation of

It is 2024. Why are we still having this conversation? I think that my experience reading the profile was almost like... I kept looking around. I mean, I was reading it alone because I do everything alone. And I kept being like, what the fuck? How did we pull this off? And I thought it was going to be a moment of, oh, it's over. Like, oh, oh, it's over.

This journalist did it, right? She didn't necessarily get rid of their contingency of supporters, but she laid bare what was taking place here. And I think more than that...

she laid bare the system that was taking place there because, again, these people are acting out a Mormon agenda. Like, these people are so clearly cogs in a bigger machine. What is really interesting, I think, to pair with, and in some way... is they're inseparable the mormon of it all and like by the way the fact that the mormon church has like 200 billion dollars with a b like this isn't like a little shabby chic

you know chapel down the street and we should not concern ourselves with what this community is doing or what communities like it are doing because i don't think this is really it's about mormonism but it's it's about like Christianity as a means of legitimizing male authority more broadly, I think. But these organizations are extraordinarily powerful and tax exempt. So like there is a level of security and protection and resources that they already enjoy.

And I think this idea that like we can't talk about religion when religion is problematic because it's protected in some way is like really naive, particularly because we're seeing it infiltrate our politics.

so obviously right now but Mormonism of it aside what I also couldn't get over was like how much it reminded me of that show on TLC, 17 Kids and Counting, and the Duggar family. Oh, yeah. And how now... A decade later, we have that shiny happy people documentary where we learn, oh, there were actually some very, very dark.

things happening in that household as well as the broader movement that that household was emblematic of and oh actually this TLC show was like one giant commercial for the quiverful movement not like oopsie we made a mistake, but truly like from day one, Jim Bob Duggar had, you know, the American public in his crosshairs pre-Arkansas campaign for governor or whatever he ran for. And the entire ether.

of this belief system is it is our duty to populate the earth literally populate the earth via you know Via population. I don't even know how else to say it. Repeated childbirth with other believers. And I would just point to that and say that is the same succession strategy that white supremacists have.

who believe that white babies are the answer to our present woes. It is like... inseparable from these different belief systems and i'm sure that someone who has never read much about white supremacy or like doesn't know much about you know these really extremist fundamentalist religions would be like oh that's a reach, but it's not even subtext. It is just text.

It's just text, and it's not a Venn diagram. It's the one circle. It's a circle. It's just a circle. It's just white supremacy, and white supremacy is just extremist Christianity, and extremist Christianity is just patriarchal power. And I think...

Something that I also just like want to express my fury and my incredulity over is that We mentioned in the profile, and this is common knowledge now, that they're incredibly wealthy, right? Like they're not profiting off of their dairy and cattle farm. I looked up the margins today. For a deeply profitable cattle or dairy farm, your margins are like 5%.

By definition, you are not becoming wealthy if you are operating a dairy and a cattle farm. They call themselves a frontier family. He's from Connecticut. He's from... Connecticut. His father owns multiple airlines and we never see pushback on that in an article. Like, can we see one person be like, oh, but... this is your toy castle, right? The way that they have capitalized on that vision of America and just like the, the shocking John Wayne fraudulence of it all is like.

baffling to me it's so baffling to me she grew up in a suburban neighborhood he grew up in motherfucking connecticut and they are now frontier family ing and everyone's just like how cute they care about utah well it reminds me of you would recommend and did I read Fantasyland? So I've been reading that and a big feature in that book is that

This American pastoral fantasy of being out in the wilderness has been part of the DNA since like the colonial beginnings of this country. When like the English first sent. Those fools over the ocean. And said, there's gold and emeralds in Virginia. The first infomercial they sent them here. And from the very beginning, it has been like a living on the land pioneer fantasy. Like you said, I mean, in that.

book, they talk about how when Henry David Thoreau writing Walden Pond, he was like, 15 minutes away from his parents house it was like a mile walk back to town his mom did his laundry his mom did his laundry so it's just this very I don't even know what to call it I'm not even sure how I feel about it but I think it's this duality that you

see in american life that whole ballerina farm enterprise so perfectly encapsulates which is like you're living the quote-unquote more natural life but in a very

very highly controlled, curated, and comfortable way. And I think that the aspiration that they're tapping into is that people look at this and they perceive it to be a simpler... Because the audience of Ballerina Farm are not actual homesteaders or agricultural workers and farmers. Anyone that knows anything about farming, which, by the way, is not me. But as I've learned from reading everyone's takes on this whole. phenomenon.

is that it is hilarious if you think about how much work it takes to run a fully functioning farm and like make all of your food from scratch and how that is so much more labor intensive than living in an apartment and doing a fake email job.

shopping for your groceries at Safeway so this fantasy of my life would be so much better if my life would be so much easier if I just wore gingham dresses and milked cows all day it's like it is truly fantasy and that's what they're selling but I think that the fact that it's entrenched in this broader complicated religious and kind of like it has these religious and white supremacist undertones

is what makes it so deeply uncomfortable and kind of concerning in a way that you know legitimate homestead content is not did you were you ever enamored

with the ballerina farm account like did you ever follow it or did you only learn of it through controversy no i only the first time i heard about it was on sounds like a cult with amanda montell and i was like what a fascinating premise like this is just a really interesting concept and i remember looking it up and for whatever reason it didn't grab me i guess i don't share the like farm fantasy but after

profile i went back and i watched some of the videos and i was like this is strangely delightful like it's really weird that now that i know just how problematic this is i'm still finding a small part of myself being like well she's just drinking raw milk i mean who's who's it really hurting it's just a choice it's just a choice yeah it's really this is the weirdest part of my origin story of like the fact that trad wives have so thoroughly changed my life at this point I

was sent her account, I think in like early January, right before I started TikToking about it. And there was like a two week period where I was... taken by it like fully taken by it like i think she is genuinely she is genuinely the type of person that people want to make a profit like she's very calm she is a natural social media creator like she doesn't she speaks very carefully and as we've learned her husband kind of controls that but like there is an element of her behavior that

it's like when you meet a person and you were like, oh, you were going to become famous. Like who knows what it was going to be, but like you were going to be a successful entrepreneur or actor or whatever. She's deeply charismatic. Like she's so organic. about her delivery of this message, that it's impossible for me to believe that she is in her brain malevolent because there is something effortless about her. I think that she believes what she's selling and I don't know what to do with that.

what's so funny to me is that the way that you're describing this it's like reminiscent of when like stalkers snap and they go from like like the woman who shot selena who was like a man that like had that moment of i'm like she's gorgeous okay so she is i mean she is she's beautiful and i think that that is something that like okay did you see the barbie movie God, okay, can I just say really quickly before we talk about Barbie?

I shared a Barbie TikTok and that got me in trouble in some film rights conversations that I had. So you're like, all right, you can just sit there silently. When I, cause I am not in any film rights conversations. I watched Barbie. You can take what you will from my phone. Yes, I watched Barbie. She's got a gun to her head. It's a hostage situation. She's on a JetBlue flight in seat 5A. I watched Barbie.

there was a moment that i had obviously the the message that you're supposed to take away from barbie mattel's message is like oh you're perfect the way you are and haha we're in on the joke we're gonna break the fourth wall and make the the funny observation that we're all thinking it no one's saying it that like if you want to make this point margot robbie is not the person to cast in this film that

everyone's beautiful the way they are because margot robbie is conventionally beautiful she is perfectly symmetrical the woman is like objectively flawless and I remember watching Barbie and like hearing that message, but taking away something completely different, which was leaving the theater and being like. I feel bad about how I look. Like I just stared at Margot Robbie's face in 4K for two hours.

And like, I'm feeling a little insecure right now. And I was not expecting to walk away feeling that way. But I think that there is something about female beauty and particularly that.

brand of kind of quintessential white blonde female beauty someone who is so perfectly embodying the beauty standards that even if you hate everything that those standards stand for and even if intellectually you know that it is not something that you should idealize it is like so in the water we are swimming in that I cannot separate the sympathy and the fascination that I feel with Hannah Nealman from like the the just core knowing that I'm like

That is a beautiful woman. Like, she is so easy to look at and listen to. She so perfectly lives up to, like, the patriarchal standard of checking every single box that's a little bit like on the DC.

documentary where the one reporter is being interviewed and she says the power of the DCC amongst men and women alike and particularly the hook they have with women is you look at them and you go if I were that woman my life would be easier And it's impossible to watch Hannah Nealman so effortlessly gliding through what we know is not an effortless life as evidenced by this profile and go, but man.

Maybe if I was waking up and weightlifting and getting in that ditch, maybe I would be able to put up with the bullshit of patriarchy a little bit easier too. Because damn, she looks like she's having a really good time. And plot twist, you would be able to put up with the bullshit of patriarchy a little bit better because you would have slightly less...

friction i have a few notes in response to what you said number one let the record show that i only nodded in response to your barbie comments i did not verbally agree or disagree i am a neutral third party number two

I want to note here, Hannah Nealman is not a natural blonde. What? She's a brunette. And that feels very important because her brand of blonde is so perfect. It is so perfectly natural looking. that you look at her and you think she's naturally beautiful.

She gets her fucking hair done. And I really want to, I want to sit with that. Cause I think a lot of people would think that that's a silly point. And I really don't think it is. She gets her eyebrows done. She gets her hair done. She shares it on her Instagram stories. Sometimes she leans into a very specific.

type of like clean girl aesthetic that a lot of people talk about hitler youth hitler youth i just have to say like that i think clean girl aesthetic is like the most malevolent force to hit our nation in a very long time because you are just reinforcing this idea you're reinforcing in the most imperceptible way that you have to look a certain way and you're lying to other women about how you're doing it and it just is like deeply upsetting to me and I think

about it all the time because I love my Glossier Boy Brow, but it... genuinely bothers me. Like it's something that eats at me that I'm like, why do I like the type of makeup that barely looks like makeup and just makes me look naturally gorgeous? It's because I want to be perceived as the type of person who doesn't care about makeup and who is

just naturally gorgeous. I want all the benefits and none of the negatives. And that is Hannah Nealman. She is getting her hair done. She is putting makeup on and that's fine, but it is leaning into this idea that she is not the type of woman who cares about makeup. She is not the type of person who curls her hair, but she is. And that is part of like one of the many, many grifts that take place. The other thing I want to say...

You didn't read the second article, so you wouldn't know this. They shared in the second article that she goes to sleep at one or two in the morning after curating all of her videos, after doing all the farm work, and she wakes up at five to go to the gym before her kids wake up. So I just want to sit with that for a second.

Respond how you want. Well, I'm speechless because on one hand I thought, you know what? the lifestyle that is on display here and even if you wanna even if you want to zoom out a level and and not make it about her specifically but make it more about this general I'll say niche of content, trad wife, kind of soft life.

vibe stay-at-home girlfriend and all the concentric circles they're in of how all these they're all slightly different from one another on technicalities but the entire point of a lot of this i'd say of all content but particularly this type of lifestyle content that's very feminized is to make a specific lifestyle look and feel very aspirational and my cynic view of a lot of it is that most of it's fake and we've already called out some ways in which this is fake.

But in this case and in other cases like it where the kind of like the lifestyle that you're supposed to feel like you could have too if you just like bootstrapped it a little bit harder and like pulled him a little bit tighter is like if you just wake up earlier, if you just had a little more grind.

mindset if you just could make your kids meals from scratch every night if you could just throw it all away and move to a farm like basically that like the life you want is within your control you're just not working hard enough is the main underlying message i always thought okay well

That's not actually how any of these people are making this happen. They all have teams of people working for them. They're not actually working that hard. This is grift, right? And so on one hand, this little tidbit that you just... dropped in my lap that she actually does only sleep for four hours a night. I'm not sure what to do with that.

Because that does kind of fly in the face. It's like, oh, oh, OK, well, maybe that's actually that is a more honest take that like, yeah, you can be the perfect mother. You can have it all, but you're not going to sleep. You are literally not going to sleep. You're going to work for 20 hours a day.

And as the article mentioned, you're going to be so ill with exhaustion sometimes that you'll be in bed for a week. I thought about this too, because early on in my discussion of this account and of Trad Wives, I talked a lot about how like there has to be childcare behind the scenes.

And that's still true. I think what the article showed is that what's happening is what happens in a lot of Mormon families, which is that the children take care of one another. And the journalist pointed that out, that the children have become what she kind of describes as like a self-operating entity.

The only thing I would push up against in the idea of like, well, she's just working hard and like that's them's the rules. You know, some people have a bigger work ethic than others and like that's what's happening and she doesn't have to show it to us. The only thing I would push on that is like. Once again, we are mistaking a systemically designed characteristic for an individual trait. Like there is a reason why Mormon...

influencers run the world. Like there is a reason why so many Mormon women are influencers, are actresses, run MLMs. It's because they are designed from the youngest age to have certain characteristics. to basically force those characteristics into being because that is how they get to heaven. Like being productive, working until your hands bleed, obeying your husband, presenting an image of family. These aren't like...

opt-in or opt-out characteristics in the Mormon church. It's not like, hey, we'd love if you did this. It's like, you will do this. And if you don't do this, you will face consequences that you can't even fathom. You will be alienated from your community. You will not go to heaven. You will be abused by your husband and no one will say a word. And so it's like, yes, it's wonderful to know that she's staying up until 1am and it is gratifying in a certain way to see.

how the sausage gets made, how the ballerina farm sausage gets made. But the only thing that I prickle at is like, fine, they don't have nannies. That's not because... She's just a harder worker than someone. That's because she's Mormon. Like there are way too many of these women for us to view this as an individual trait who do exactly the same thing, who work themselves to death, present their families a certain way, deny all of their...

lifestyles as soon as they become mothers and then claim that they're just type a you know like that's just what they like and it's like it can't it's like the jessica defino thing where it's like if your beauty standard is the same as the beauty standard it might not be your beauty standard like if your standard

being a woman is exactly the same as the standard that the church you're in holds, then it might not be your fucking standard. Like you might be operating on the standard they gave you. I've been really obsessed recently with this idea of

benevolent patriarchy because I think it just the idea that like this whole conversation would be about us like slowly red pilling people into supporting the patriarchy soft patriarchy girl patriarchy i i think what's fascinating about that concept though is that oftentimes i wonder if the reason that the kind of hard charging

liberal feminist messaging around patriarchy doesn't land with a lot of women who have grown up in systems like this one is because it doesn't really reflect necessarily how they perceive their life experience. Particularly if If you've always been conventionally beautiful, you've always been pretty good at following the rules. Maybe you've never had any sexually explicit or sexual assaulty, you know, power dynamic weird things happen to you. So you don't, you've never really.

sat with that power dynamic very much you might have gotten lucky and like you ended up marrying a guy that's yeah like really nice and really respectful and and so I think that benevolent

Patriarchy is kind of the skeleton key that unlocks a lot of understanding around why some women aren't as quick to be like, there's no problem here. Things are great. Because when you do cozy up to that... power and you do fulfill its obligations for your life which are typically described in these spaces as god-given and natural and innate that this is your duty to be sublimated like usually

your life goes more or less okay, particularly if you end up with a really wealthy and I'll say well-intentioned guy. I wouldn't... put daniel in that category i mean i guess he's well-intentioned but i don't think that what's going on in that household is all on the up and up necessarily i think that that really speaks to why people feel so compelled to defend what they're seeing on her profile and to defend the lifestyle because it is in some ways the utmost manifestation of

benevolent patriarchy gone correctly even if they don't see it that way or recognize that that's why they feel so compelled to defend it it's like This is the most idealized version of the life that you could have if you were just as good of a woman as Hannah Nealman is. So if... all of that actually is a little bit dark, then what does it say about your life, which is nowhere near?

as on display like idealized i don't even know how to describe it it's like in some ways identity and worldview shattering for all of that to be called into question which is i think why there is such a strong response

So you're saying benevolent patriarchy is basically when someone like Hannah Nealman, like a beautiful white woman, benefits from it and doesn't necessarily, or at least in her own brain, experience any of the negatives? Or if some of her followers go through that, then they're...

experiencing the best possible version of the patriarchy, which is basically like receiving some financial or, you know, like emotional benefits without realizing the other drawbacks. And so they feel obliged to defend it. Yeah, I think... I guess I would say more the second one. That benevolent patriarchy is this idea that...

It's not that bad. It's not that bad to be subjugated. Look at how lovely your life can be. Look at the dresses you can wear and you can be protected and you can make beautiful food. And it is what it is. It is what it is, right? And it's much harder. and more challenging and more uncomfortable.

to go actually like i don't think that this is the way that it should be and this isn't the kind of quote-unquote equality that i'm interested in i mean look at look at like the enduring stereotype around liberal feminists they're ugly they're undesirable it's like you basically get all of the most hurtful tropes about

you know the way that you're indoctrinated from a little girl to you don't want to be annoying you don't want to be you know loud or outspoken you don't want to be ugly like all of the things that you are trained from birth to not want to embody the second you start questioning patriarchy

you get all of those labels and more. And some people can get away with it. I mean, if you are someone who looks like Hannah Neilman talking about it, you are not going to, you know, bear the same consequences that a black woman talking about patriarchy is going to bear. But you're also still not going to benefit.

But you're not really benefiting. That's the key. And I think that's you hit the nail on the head. It's that you don't perceive yourself to be hurt by this system. You just don't realize that you're being hurt by this system. But that does not mean that you are not. Okay, this is really interesting. So I was watching this TikTok by the author of Hood Feminism. Her name's Mickey Kendall, and she's great on TikTok. And what she was saying basically...

talks about what you're referencing here where she basically said, look at what's happening to this woman. This is a privileged white woman. Look at how she is being abused by this system. And if you see what they're doing to her.

who is basically their beloved, imagine what they're going to do to you. And I think that I was thinking about, I thought it was such a great way of giving empathy to this woman who is deeply privileged, but also was raised in this indoctrinated household, but also recognizing like... this is what's coming and you know this is what's happening with project 2025 like if you're looking at this woman and feeling a little alarmed by her situation get ready for what's coming for you

And what that makes me think about and what you were just saying makes me think about is that I've been thinking a lot about free will, talking about it on TikTok, thinking about it with you. And I think that a lot of people are... fucking terrified to acknowledge the extent to which they don't have control over their lives and the extent to which this is a system that is currently operating currently in place currently in control like I think that we would so much rather

argue that she is in control or argue that she is a deeply manipulative individual on either side of the equation, like argue that she's doing fine and she's in control or argue that she's a nightmare and she and Daniel Nealon are evil, then to recognize the third option.

which is that they are working inside of a massive system and we should be looking at the system. And I regret to inform you guys that you don't have as much control over your brain as you think. And like terrifying to imagine being born into this. cult, terrifying to imagine what's going to happen as they continue to gain power, terrifying to imagine what it means for anyone. And I just think that we can't collectively

bear that. Like, I don't think that we can bear it. And what's more, our media cannot talk about it because they are a part of the system. And I say this as someone who was working in media up until June. I worked in it for a decade. This is where the horseshoe starts coming. Seriously, I'm like, all right, everyone, buckle up and put your tinfoil on. Kara's like, I'll be on InfoWars next week talking about it. The day I deleted my LinkedIn was the day I became free.

I will say this confidently. There is no conspiracy. There is simply a system. And the system is that media needs dollars to operate and advertisements require the status quo. in order to send their ads. And so like this profile of Ballerina Farm is the perfect example. You have what was a pretty intense profile, but not as intense as it could have been, right? Like she didn't talk about the Mormon church. She didn't bring up that these people are doing their 10%.

tithing tax that every time you buy something, you're giving it to the Mormon church. She didn't talk about the rates of financial abuse in that community. She didn't go anywhere near as hard as she could have and still done correct journalism. It blew up.

And I guarantee that her manager or her manager's manager was like, hey, you got to do a follow-up piece that softens it. She did a follow-up piece that softens it. And then they released a podcast where they were like, it's so fascinating. And then they shared the quote audio. to basically back themselves up from any legal repercussions.

And so it's like oldest story in the fucking book with media. You take an inch, you take an inch in terms of exposing something. And then the whiplash is so intense and the fear of your struggling newspaper. So intense of losing advertisers that immediately. Everything gets softened. And it's a bummer because that's why people don't understand what's happening or like feel a correct sense of alarm at.

the amount of control, like at the fact that this is not something that's on the horizon. People who have these beliefs are already in Congress. They're already in control. They're already running this stuff. I think that's the story.

what you just laid out anyone that feels even a little bit of skepticism that there is too much we're making too much of it can pay attention to what the newspaper did afterward they issued another article that downplayed everything basically said that nothing to see here and then they released the audio to the public for legal protection because

you're exactly right the full weight of that machine of the system that hannah and daniel nealman represent is now focused squarely on that publication and You want to send a message. If you are a nine-figure operation, ten-figure... No, wait. How many figures are in a billion? Twelve? I've never even counted that high. Oh, I know. Let me tell you. If you're, I just sold a book, a 12 figure operation, you are going to squash any bug that comes even remotely close to sniffing around.

what you are doing and you want to send the message to all the other bugs don't come anywhere near me right i think that that is incredibly astute i think that's exactly what's happening here and i think it's exactly why this kind of laissez-faire who cares is so disingenuous here i think it is so disingenuous to ask who cares about a woman with a follower base larger than the population of Arizona. Obviously, a lot of people care, and their caring about her is why this is noteworthy.

we're trying to unpack is why so many people care about her and why she is hitting the zeitgeist in such a specific way and what she is tapping into if she had 1500 followers watching her turn butter there would be no think pieces and we would not be talking about this. But this woman's lifestyle has made her a celebrity. And it is totally insincere to feign confusion as to why this is worthy of analysis. I totally agree. And I also want to add just like to, to further clarify.

The power of the Mormon church, as you mentioned, they are untaxed. As I mentioned, any Mormon has to pay a tithing tax. And just to clarify for anyone who doesn't understand that, you have to pay 10% of your income. 10%.

Yep. You don't report it. You don't have to show receipts, but a good Mormon pays 10% and you better believe that these good Mormons over at Ballerina Farm are paying their 10%. And I just want to note too, In the research that I've done for these Mormon and evangelical intensely Christian communities, Try to find information on financial abuse, on physical abuse, on verbal abuse. You are going to come up woefully short. Where you go to find this is in...

Reddit chats is on TikTok because the Mormon church is not going to allow people to collect that information. This is... my forever Roman Empire is that I think that we think we're in this age of information. And to a certain extent, we are. People have access to the internet. But the idea that everything is on the internet is just like not...

True. The purpose of a system is what it does. The internet is controlled by people. It's not just like a self-operating entity. It has owners and it has people who program it. Like the work of collecting information is painstaking. It requires...

boots on the ground, and women don't want to come out and share their experience of being in these communities. So you are up against it from every angle. You don't want to piss off these churches. You have a hard time collecting these information from women who are very rightly afraid of getting alien.

alienated by their communities, of getting hurt by their husbands. You also have people who have been indoctrinated and so don't even necessarily have words for what they've experienced. And so all of a sudden you have this triple threat where it's like, well, everyone's fine. What are you talking about?

There's no information about this. And then thank God for TikTok. Thank God for fucking Reddit and Instagram because all of these women are sharing these stories and it's hugely inspiring and hugely educating. So if anyone is ever curious, like get an account and go on TikTok. So many.

women are talking about their experience of deconstructing their religions of leaving their communities and before social media that was not shareable like that was not accessible and so I think that that's when you talk about what's the point

I feel that way all the time too, where people are like more important things are happening. And it's like, well, first of all, yeah, you can make that argument all day long that, you know, no humanitarian issue is greater than another. But this is not like an easy breezy Instagram account. This is like the underbelly of so much nefarious shit. And by talking about it online, I cannot tell you how many Mormon women have reached out to me over the last six months. Just being like, yep.

Present. Present. That was me. I was ballerina farm. I was ballerina farm. Like so many women being like, yep, this was my whole life. Like that was me. And it really throws a dent into this idea of this woman having free will when so many women are like.

That was exactly me. Yeah, I mean, I think the bottom line for me on that is that this woman and these women are propped up by a system. They have gained influence at a time when... christian fundamentalist ideals are obviously influencing policymakers they are codified in 900 page policy intention documents they are having very real repercussions for people who fall outside the bounds of what they deem acceptable it is we have senators delivering videos from their kitchens so

go on senator women sorry let me clarify we have those they let they let women be senators now oh my god we should just tackle it head on this question of agency and choice and to what extent she is a participant i think at this point i still fall down on the side of this woman is choosing to to do this at this point it has gone

so far that like i mean i would love to read a memoir in 20 years i think that it could be fascinating to find out her side of the story i don't know if we're ever gonna get it i think that something pretty extreme would have to happen in order for her to do an about face on all of this but as of right now she seems like a willing participant and i think that that might be the crux of the question is how willing can you really be in a coercive system

Yeah, I mean, so here's my question before I give my response. When you say she's choosing, what does choice mean to you in this context? To me, I look at the women who have chosen to leave the Mormon church, and I go, that's choice.

that's free will i mean burning down your whole life to escape it's incredibly difficult but it's not impossible and there are many women who have left that church and are talking about it and rebuilding I think she is someone, as Mormon women go, she's in a pretty good position.

to do that kind of redemption arc. I mean, she does have millions of followers. Certainly some of them would support her through that transition. She may be a victim of financial abuse. I honestly couldn't tell you. I don't know the details of what's going on in that house. So I don't want to speculate too far because I know that that's probably inappropriate, but it's really hard to talk about this without making it about her.

But I think that when I say she's choosing to stay, that's kind of what I mean. But again, that's where the question of like, she's choosing it with an asterisk. She's sitting there talking about the sanctity of life. I mean, on some level, I'm like, well, I got to take this at face value, I think. Because... I know women like her who full-throatedly are anti-choice and have fully bought in to the logic of, like, life begins at conception and therefore this is murder and, like...

I look at that and I go, you do have every opportunity to get more information and change this perspective and you're not. I think I struggle with it. I think if it's a spectrum, I'm coming down on the side of she's choosing it. But like... With the heavy caveat that I do think indoctrination and coercion is like so present here that it's almost impossible to know for sure. Yeah, I totally get that. I think a few things. I mean, I think first of all, the game of free will is like...

A conversation we should have at another point because I'm not convinced any of us have free will. I like love reading. deep rabbit holes of arguments where people argue for and against free will. Like I think in general, especially in America, we sure love the idea that we are in control of our thoughts, in control of our choices. And I think we associate choices with responsibility.

Like the idea that, well, she has to choose things in order for us to hold her accountable. And so I wanted to start my argument with like... I don't think that you have to be in control of something to be held accountable. Like on just like a basic level, like basic physics, you are responsible for the movement that you make. Like you did it. Does it have to be connected to choice? Like the idea that even if you push a ball without meaning to, you still push.

the ball. You know what I mean? So I would say that to start. I think that where I fall with this is that... The more I learn about this and the more that I have spent time thinking about it, the more I just feel like free will is such a secular idea. Like that is something that you are taught. In certain environments, like all people are not taught that their choices matter or that they can make decisions for themselves or that they're even capable of making choices for themselves.

I think that we see in the profile, like they say they're on God's errand a little bit. And specifically, Daniel says it and Hannah repeats it, which I think is like a perfect echo of God, husband, wife, you know? And I think that I have trouble with the idea that...

she that we can assume that she is capable of choosing because everything that we have seen is that she is like deeply indoctrinated in Mormon faith like we saw that visually we saw that with her lifestyle choices again quotations choices And then they doubled down on that in the profile. Like she doesn't know what feminism is, you know, the sanctity of life, like letting her husband speak for them, like they're co-CEOs. And yet, and yet, you know, like it's, it's all such circular.

bullshit. Like it's so inch deep, but it is its messaging. Like it is their messaging and it is the messaging that you hear the Mormon church say. I don't think that you can take like you and I, we were both raised Catholic as I understand it, but we also are deeply secular. Like we were raised in secular families. We went to secular educations. Like you had access to the outside world. Not me.

But you were in a community. You weren't like... Sure, right. But I did not have a secular education. I did have Catholic school my entire life. So I did have an hour of Catholic... This is why I didn't know that Spain wasn't in South America until I was like 14.

Because instead of learning geography, I have so many weird blind spots, dude. Because I... That is so funny. Got an hour of religious... information in lieu of when I should have probably been learning about like I don't know geography or other things I couldn't tell you what they are because never was in a public school but Yeah, I mean, I think that, like, I have, like, 5% of what that family is.

working with right so well catholicism is like its own bag of cats that we can unpack at another point but mormonism produces a certain kind of woman and i think going back to what i said earlier it's really hard for me to believe that this woman is in any

way conscious in the way that you and I view consciousness like yes she makes a choice she chooses she wanted that dairy farm and so they made it but like I think that the the thing that I'm always trying to bring up is like right but our idea of agency Our idea of consciousness is just, it can't be hers by virtue of...

her life by virtue of her siblings. All of her siblings have multiple children. Like every indicator that we need to show that she was raised in the type of community that makes a certain kind of woman and makes it well. Like this is an assembly line. Like there is a... That is really good shit in terms of cult behavior if you have like a hundred percent success rate. Medical grade. Yeah, that is like medical grade bullshit for you to be churning out that many women who do that.

And the real reason I feel this way is because every Mormon woman who is talking about this online talks about it and is like, yeah, no, she doesn't have free will. Like, it's just... It's not something. And the question, of course, is like, well, how did they leave? And I think that that is the forever thing of like environment versus circumstances. Like, did you bump into a person? Did a friend of yours leave? But how do you get to that magical moment is unclear. clear to me.

If the binary we're setting up is like, well, she has a choice because she could burn her life down, like that's her option. I've presented extremely compelling evidence for my side of the equation, haven't I? It's like, well, why doesn't she just completely set everything on?

fire and walk away and and like just also she's walking away and entering eternal damnation like like that's crazy that's crazy stakes when we think about it I think the only piece that I would push back on is that I do think...

It's not 100% nurture. Indoctrination is real, but I do think that there are probably people who grow up in extremely restrictive religious contexts that Just for whatever reason, their nature is to just be a little bit more rebellious, a little bit more questioning. But, crucially, that is not your choice. That is not something you can control.

That is just genetically, is your brain wired to work that way or not? That can be emphasized and cultivated with the type of education you receive and the way that you were brought up as a kid. But you can't control... kind of your natural level of inquisition of of the systems around you so i'm not sure that that really furthers the free will point of the conversation just that i'm sure if we had a system for ranking that

women who have left the mormon church probably rank pretty damn high on that personality trait of like but actually i'm gonna i'm i'm yeah, fuck this shit, I'm out. You know what's so funny that I'm thinking about now that you're bringing that up is when you were talking about benevolent patriarchy, something that a lot of women who leave the church talk about is the feeling of never being good enough.

But if you're capable of being good enough, why would you ever question anything? Like, think about the extracurriculars this woman does. She's in pageants and she did ballet. These are the most rigid, disciplined, challenging... eating disorder rampant, gender-reinforcing activities that a person can do. And she was the best at them. And she was the best at it. She was number one.

She was number one. So it's like, yeah, of course she's not going to be the Mormon woman who's like, hey, this is kind of weird. Because that's very often reserved, as far as I understand, that's very often reserved for the woman who's like...

God, I'm always running late or like my husband doesn't have as much money. And so it's harder work for me to take care of the household. It's like women who start to break and start to look for outs versus someone who has the resources, the skill, the natural beauty. And the predisposition for like

doing the hardest shit possible. She's like a border collie. Like, I think that she naturally likes really intense activities. She naturally likes this type of stuff. And so she thrives. She, and again, if we're just getting into like the speculation, because whatever. they put their lives out for us to see. She is the 1% of the 1% who thrives in the conditions that create a person like her. And she still suffers from them, but...

Of course she's not going to be the person who leaves. Like, she looks like a fucking perfect farmer ballerina. Like, in a way, she's designed for it. It was either Meg Conley or Sarah Peterson. I can't remember which one.

But they pointed out a very fascinating element of that origin story, the leaving Juilliard to become Ballerina Farm. And they said, think about just how symbolically... on point that story is she got a taste of the literal big apple and then returned to the garden it all serves to further this idea

That this is a woman who could have had it all as defined by liberal feminism. I don't know that any feminist would look at, like... the life of a professional anyone who's seen black swan does not look at the life of a ballerina and go god that is aspirational justice justice for black swan but yeah like she could have had a real quote-unquote real secular you know outside the home yeah career and

chose not to and that's why she's in charlie kirk's little fascist newspaper being like look at this family living out their values give them a follow folks they're really doing big things out there in in camas utah or however you say that i just thought that was such a fascinating observation to add to that origin story another thing that i'm just thinking about right now is that the

Only time they use the word modern is when she talks about being the first pregnant Juilliard undergrad in modern history. That's the only time that they reference modernity is in referencing her decision to like eschew it. Good point. You know?

It's like, it's really, I see the argument for this being intentional. Like I see the argument for it being like, wow, this is a pretty perfect design. This is a pretty perfect marketing campaign. Created in a lab. It's created in a lab, but then it's like, yeah, it was created. Like, yeah, there are, there are so many successful Mormon influencers.

who say exactly that, she's just the best. She's just the best at it. And you can give her props for being the best at it, but when you look at how just verbatim the messaging is between all these women she's not the best at it because she designed the plan she's the best at it because she knows how to commute because she's because she's beautiful because it's effortless because she can be naturally beautiful she doesn't have to wear mascara like

It's just that she was the baby who was born into this environment. It's like, I was just about to be like, she was the Jesus. And then I was like, I don't want to do that. You know what I mean? It's like she was made for it. the mormon church is like all right we're gonna see her we have to see her stop right short of there and joseph smith's great great great grandson is like and that's what we needed thanks folks

Last night when I was really down the rabbit hole and I found that Vimeo video from five years ago made by the guy that does the Nike commercials and I sent it to you and I was like, have you seen this? So imagine the most stunning... And like invigorating hype video for agriculture that you can imagine. And that's what this is. And there is this like soft Hannah voiceover describing the decision.

to move to the farm and I found it fascinating in light of how the origin story is told in the profile to the journalist of no it wasn't my dream Daniel always wanted this, so now we have a farm? In the video, the voiceover says something to the effect of, For whatever reason, we had both always dreamed of raising our children on a farm. And I thought how fascinating that the narrativizing was happening even then. And I think that that is something that happens.

in those types of dynamics where you kind of start to tell yourself that that's what you wanted to because you know that you don't have a choice. And so what's easier? maintaining the fact that this isn't really what I'm shocked. She said it in the profile, to be honest, that five years ago they had already decided, no, this is both of our fantasies.

Anyone who is listening to this and hasn't seen the video, we should link it and they should watch it because it's like astounding quality. It's like Oscar worthy. Again, most farmers don't pay for that Oscar worthy hype. Nike commercial producers. Baffling, but it's gorgeous. I remember watching it again during my early honeymoon phase with Ballerina Farm and being like, yeah, I'm like, this account fucks.

I for sure want a video like that about my life. Are you joking me? Like, she's so gorgeous. She's on her little point. Then she's like in the field. And you know what? is also happening she is in control she's talking because it's pre-recorded and so i think that that's another thing is like when she's in control of the content like when she's making it or working with someone or sharing it online you don't get to see daniel's involvement

You don't get to hear him interrupting. And that is the most uncomfortable thing. Like that's where you see. the benevolent patriarchy feeling fall apart. And so that's where they went wrong with the profile is letting him be around. Like we shouldn't have been around because she's very good. Like when you listen to the audio, she sounds lovely. She sounds like a reason.

reasonable, calm, kind person. She has all these comments where she's like, people should do what they want. Raising children is tough. She knows how to do this in a way that makes her likable. I just think that I watched that video after you sent it to me again and I was like, wow, it makes such a difference when she's in control of the messaging.

And again, get into that choice or free will, but like that is where they thrive. And I wonder moving forward, if they're either going to cling to that even harder and have her be even more in control, or if we're going to see a Donald Trump moment where it's like, oh, we're all going to remember the moment.

ballerina farm decided to start saying the quiet part out loud like seriously like now that they've had this profile there's no way they're not having conversations over their little farmhouse dinner table of like well time to save the unborn children more directly we do slurs now

We do slurs now on God's errand a little bit. Like, let's go. I have two final thoughts. Okay. But both pertain to what do we do about this? Okay. One is the road trip. Well, fascinating and... Selena stalker style. I can be on a flight to Park City in 15 minutes. One is kind of the like rubber meets the road. answer which is like women are integral to this message making sense and being compelling when you don't have a woman at the forefront what you get is jd vance at a podium oh jd

With negative charisma doubling down on his obvious disdain for women who have never had children. He can't hide it. And that is not a... come to my side messenger. You have to send a woman to convince all the other women to stay in their place, right? That's why we had Katie Britt at the State of the Union. And wasn't that charismatic? Doing... doing her fundy voice, fundy baby girl voice, in...

Yeah, that didn't pan out for them. But, like, you know, the effort was made. The intent was there. Swing and a miss. But, like, that's the strategy. That is the playbook. You send the woman to get the women on your side. So at some point, we need the women to fucking knock it off. Yeah. And so then it becomes, how do we break through that fog?

And I think that is really honestly a conversation about de-radicalization. Mass de-radicalization. So maybe we need to just get... it's a ray to go around and do the little barbie speech in the van and we can drive the little van around to all the little like red cities in the in the midwest and in the south and just like i love barbie one by Let the record reflect. All I said about Barbie was, I love Barbie. But I don't know. Yeah.

how the process of de-radicalization starts but i do think that that's what this has to be and maybe maybe i'm even showing my ass a little bit by making it all about the participation of women when like in reality yeah there are a lot of men that need to be de-radicalized too but it's like in order to kneecap that movement you have to get the women out of the forefront of it and if there is anything that

i have learned in my deep dives on white supremacy it's that women are very much at the forefront of that movement they are very much the key agents of persuasion that are out in those streets yeah knocking on metaphorical doors and convincing people that their lives would be easier if you accept it and submit right a hundred percent and here's where i think we get to like it's just these two boulders up against each other which is that we're at this time period in in zeit

Geist history, where very fairly, people are very tired of prioritizing the pains of privileged white women. And so when you talk about this, you have people who, again, very fairly are like, can we stop?

talking about the white women like many women have this much worse off people of color women of color are not afforded the same sympathy the same empathy the same attention and that is true And simultaneously, we're at this time period where we are starting for the first time to actually discuss the absolute stranglehold that the patriarchy has on a big enough chunk of women to impact.

voter turnout. And so it's like, okay, yeah, we unfortunately, it sounds like, need to talk about the white women, regrettably. And I think that As I understand it, like the way to do it intersectionally is for white women to do the heavy lifting and to not demand women of color to like hold space and take a lot of time to be thinking and worrying about.

Hannah fucking Neilman when there are like mass tragedies taking place and people don't want to put their, like, I think that's totally fair. If you don't want to put your time towards it, I get it. If you're a privileged white woman and you are interested or concerned about project 2025, then maybe. your time towards it let's go again steps up to plate privileged white woman reporting for duty

The FBI agent tapping this laptop for the last like six months is like, yeah, that's what I needed. So now I'm good. So now we have two lawsuits. Genuinely, at some point we have to reconcile these two things, which is acknowledging indoctrination is not calling someone a victim. It's not letting them off the hook, but it is clarifying that you have to be addressing education. Why do we think that all these politicians...

are arguing about what's on a public school educational curriculum. It's because education does shape your mind. Like free will isn't so profound that you are not immune to what you're taught. And so I think amplifying the information. that women who have been in these communities have been in is so helpful because genuinely.

I don't think I fathomed the extent to which the human brain is malleable until I watched that NXIVM documentary and until I became obsessed with Trad Wives. And now I am such a proponent of, oh. You can convince yourself of anything if you have enough people telling you it. That doesn't get them out of it. But I think that if you don't start with that fundamental assumption that like, oh, people can justify themselves of anything, then you're starting from like, well, fuck these women.

And it's like, well, we really can't. Like, there's too many of them. Like, unfortunately, we can't just be like, whatever. Unfortunately, we need them. Unfortunately, we need to at least siphon off 30% of them. Otherwise, like, does anyone remember the silent majority? This is a deeply psychotic Christian country. And like, we have to start untangling that because it's so embedded, like fantasy land, read fantasy land. It's so embedded in our history. It's not.

It's not one weed. You really have to treat it as a problem with insane roots. And I do think that in this case, that cheesy quote about sunshine being the best disinfectant is really poignant. If you don't believe data, if you don't believe... really well-reasoned arguments from people that study this stuff, just go fucking talk to some of these people.

They will tell you what it's like. Do you have any recommended reading from some of these women that have left the Mormon church who are now talking openly about their perspective on Ballerina Farm? Because I found a couple that I think we should.

link wherever this... goes yeah i'll link a bunch one person that i want to highlight because she's been so helped for me is celeste davis she has a substack account and she helps not only did she leave the mormon church with her husband but she helps women leave you know fundamentalist religion and she is so brilliant

And she has helped me a lot. I've had a conversation with her. I interviewed her and she is so smart. So I would definitely read her stuff. And the other thing that we have to do is keep fucking fighting to make modern life a little bit more enjoyable. Some women have to stay in the workforce.

and gut it out for two to three generations and demand that things get better. And that is through organizing and it's through hard fucking work and it's unpleasant, but you have to give people a reason. You have to give them like...

the type of support that makes them feel like they won't be alienated when they leave their community. Like don't make them feel like total fucking assholes for being born where they were born. And then you have to make it seem like not horrific to work and be a mother. Like we have to create a world where it's not horrific. to be a mother because otherwise extremist Christianity looks too good. Like we have to make another option look good. And I think that that is...

Super important. Women talk like women who currently have good jobs. Talk about it. Share how you do stuff. Like talk about all that shit because I think that it's so easy for. benevolent patriarchy as you like so correctly described it's so easy for that to look appealing when there's no other option like there has to be another option 100 100 i think um a hopeful note i guess to land on

is I often will look at the 1960s and 1970s and the amount of progress and solidarity and unity that was able to happen in that period pre-internet. The amount of organizing that happened, the amount of progress that in like 20 years took place. And so I think that oftentimes we think about these things, you know, and perhaps rightfully so to kind of adjust expectations that.

it might never be better in your lifetime but you need to do the works that it's better for who comes after you like that is what you owe humanity that is what you owe the women that come after you right But I think that what's really incredible about the period we live in is that because of how quickly ideas can spread and how much easier it is to organize, you see evolution happening a lot faster. And I think what...

has sucked about the last like 10 or 15 years is that the dark side realized that first. So we have just been dealing with the ramifications of basically very... internet savvy red pilled odious fucks but i think and i really feel it right now that we are at a bit of a turning point yeah not Turning Point USA, but at a bit of a turning point where there is kind of this collective realization that, oh, we actually can affect things. And not to be all kind of Pollyanna about it.

But I do think that the access to information that people have now, if they want it, and this is where your point about making the other option look good, you have to create desire and appeal. You have to use the Ballerina Farm playbook, but for good and not evil. it could happen in our like this shit could get fixed why and we could live to see it it's not a foregone conclusion to me yet that we will not live to see

This stuff get rooted out. Yeah, it's I mean, it helps to not have like fully geriatric people at the helm. So like, you know, that's pretty exciting that that's shifting slightly.

Quick story. I think I've told you this, but I want to share it here. When I was on submission for my novel, which means that you're like talking to a bunch of editors, I was talking to an editor who the TLDR is that my book is politically dystopic and there's a lot of shit that happens that's like a little bit larger than life.

And the one thing this editor couldn't believe was an idea that I posit in the novel that at one point in the next 20 years in America, there is a world in which women do not have to breastfeed in broom closets. And she could not get over that. She was like, there's no way that that's possible. That's just not realistic. She was like, I buy the time travel, but you lost me at not breastfeeding in broom closet. Seriously.

Cannot suspend that disbelief. 100%. And I left that call and I got in a call with my agent and I was like... I have never seen a greater argument for there to be more utopian works of fiction and more utopian thinkers than the idea that we have lost the ability to fathom that things can improve incrementally. Like I was not even saying women are... It was just that there was basic...

basic parental leave and basic parental benefits that other countries have right now and had 20 years ago. And so I think that it's so important, like you're talking about, to be like, not only is this change fucking possible, it's already We're not asking someone to invent a spaceship or a new mechanism for travel and do what we've never done before. We're asking our country to do what people did 20 years ago. And I think that when we phrase it that way and we're like, oh guys, no, no, no, no.

No, this isn't that big of a deal. Like a lot of other countries have figured this out. I feel like that would go a long way as opposed to letting people run the conversation by being like, well, America has 400 million people. You can't give women rights.

when America is 400 million people. And it's like, why do we let them run that? Like, just be like, no, no, no, no. This is solvable. It's just that there will be, like, a billionaire will get, like, 1% less on his annual income. That's what's going to happen, and that's... fine and we can all be fine with that let's all be fine stop stop associating with billionaires they're not your friends every conversation that we have ends with a discussion about bunkers

Every single one. And now I know that you have prepper tendencies. So, okay. Do we leave it there? Yeah, I think I got it. I feel like it's nice to feel like we're contributing to the conversation. I think we are, and I think that's maybe a little bit hoity-toity, but if you don't believe in yourself, no one else will. You've got to give yourself the shivers first before someone else does. And that song...

Two white women with opinions about a third white woman. Two white women ready to do the heavy lifting of talking in their bedroom. Literally. The white women need to do the heavy lifting. I'm like, headphones on? Mike booted up. Ready to talk. A full-time novelist who's like, and some women have to stay in the workforce and that's going to be... I get paid to make videos. Let me lecture you about. Now go do it. Yeehaw, hands in. One, two, three, D, C, C. All right.