Are Women Being Lied To By Modern Culture? - Bridget Phetasy

Bridget Phetasy 0:00 I don't think these people who are speaking on behalf of women and saying like, "Oh, the, the women's experience is being co-opted by trans women." Like, they don't give a shit about women. Like, they're not fighting for women's rights. They're using this because it's something that is effective in the culture wars. (wind blows)

Chris Williamson 0:19 Bridget Phetasy, welcome to the show.

Bridget Phetasy 0:22 Thank you for having me.

Chris Williamson 0:23 We were just talking about California-

Bridget Phetasy 0:26 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 0:26 ... and their, the state of everything at the moment. Aren't they just about to increase the taxes again?

Bridget Phetasy 0:33 Uh, yes, I believe there is some kind of proposal on the board to double the taxes, because they're trying to do the first, um, like single payer healthcare system on a statewide level for everyone, no matter your immigration status, no matter, uh, I mean everyone basically. (laughs) Anyone. "You get healthcare, and you get healthcare." And, look, I think our healthcare system in America is, it is, uh, a disaster of epic proportions in many ways, and if you don't have help navigating it or you're not rich, it, it's challenging. And it's bankrupted people, and there's no transparency. You just, uh, you just, you don't, you know, something costs s- there's no, like, clear-cut cost. It's like if you have insurance it costs this, if you have cash maybe you can get it for this. And it feels very crazy to me. So, um, in terms of, like ... And then, like, mental health care, you know, just you can't get ... If you move states you can't see the therapist that you're seeing in the other state if they're not licensed, and all this occupational licensing which is insane, and it just, um, it seems very overly complicated.

Chris Williamson 1:55 One of the things that I noticed while I was out in Austin was the, the homeless people that were there. Like, American homeless people have another level of crazy to them. 'Cause we have homeless here in the UK, you know, but ... I've been around a lot of homeless people. I work in nightlife, so I've been ... The only people out at 2:00 AM are club promoters, people in parties, and the homeless.

Bridget Phetasy 2:17 Right.

Chris Williamson 2:18 I've been around them an awful lot. Unsupervised on the street, maybe when they've had a bit to drink or whatever else. But walking just down the street in Austin near an underpass, and these guys will be talking to themselves-

Bridget Phetasy 2:32 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 2:32 ... they're pushing something along. They're really sort of jittery and forthcoming and aggressive.

Bridget Phetasy 2:37 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 2:37 It made me ... I don't get nervous around people very much, but-

Bridget Phetasy 2:40 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 2:41 ... there's another, like, level of crazy for the homeless there.

Bridget Phetasy 2:45 Now imagine being a pregnant woman walking around a city like that. Um, and it's everywhere. Yeah, there's another, it certainly seems to me like that's been aggravated as well. I don't know if it's the drugs. I don't know if it's, um, the society. Uh, a combination of all those factors. But the number ... I, there is not a single day that goes by that I don't walk my dog and, or go out and do errands and have to kind of w- you know.

Chris Williamson 3:18 Evade someone.

Bridget Phetasy 3:19 Evade or, or cross the street, or completely reroute from someone who's clearly talking to themself. You're like, "I don't know." I don't-

Chris Williamson 3:29 Fuck.

Bridget Phetasy 3:30 I just, I don't, I don't know.

Chris Williamson 3:31 And does this, does it matter where you go? Is This pretty much across most neighborhoods now in LA?

Bridget Phetasy 3:36 Uh, yeah, it's pre- it's everywhere. I mean, some better than others obviously. I'm not, I'm not living in a gated community. And even those communities are being affected by, like, armed robberies and things that were kind of unheard of. So they're getting more, I think, um, like robberies, car break-ins, and, uh, violent crime that's happening.

Chris Williamson 3:58 Perfect time for double taxes. Yes.

Bridget Phetasy 4:00 I know.

Chris Williamson 4:01 Yes.

Bridget Phetasy 4:01 I know. So yeah, it, it seems kind of crazy to me. We were talking about this on Dumpster Fire, my dumb little, like, whatever it is, show. And we were saying, like, is this just a way to punish the people who are staying in California? (laughs)

Chris Williamson 4:18 (laughs) You didn't heed the signs, idiots.

Bridget Phetasy 4:20 (laughs) Hey idiots, if you need another reason. I know, and it's so hard, as, you know, I'm a small business owner now, technically. And it's hard. I don't, I just, with payroll taxes, and the actual taxes, and then yesterday we got a, a letter from LADWP which is our water and power, and these, these companies operate like, um, mafias because they have no accountability and no competition. So they get to just do whatever they want, and they're like, "Oh, you, your water was in, like, this category for one month out of 12 months, and we're just letting you know that it, it, water is going up if you're in this category." And they don't, they don't have any resources devoted to collecting water. Like, this is the gov- they've caused this problem, and they, they pass it off to their, the people who are using water, and they should be-

Chris Williamson 5:16 Fuck me.

Bridget Phetasy 5:17 It's craziness, yeah. And, and there's nothing, y- again, no transparency. You don't know, like, w- what, where that water is coming from, or w- what ... It's just n- it's craziness. It's, and the-

Chris Williamson 5:31 Well ...

Bridget Phetasy 5:32 Yeah, I mean don't even get me started on, like, the grids burning all the, the forest down, and literally nobody is accountable for that ever.

Chris Williamson 5:41 We were saying about how crazy it is that certain people leave, and you realize there's people that have been in certain cities for their entire life. Malice leaving New York, for me, that was the biggest red flag that anyone could've waved, 'cause that guy was in love with that city.

Bridget Phetasy 5:54 Oh, that's like, um-

Chris Williamson 5:55 Absolutely in love with it.

Bridget Phetasy 5:55 ... Carol Markowitz as well.

Chris Williamson 5:57 I don't know that person.

Bridget Phetasy 5:58 She's another person, she's a writer, and, uh, um, she was at The New York Post, and she w- she was like the die-hard New Yorker. I mean, she really-... again, like, r- comes from a Russian family, very much like Malice, I think they know each other, and she was just in love with Brooklyn and New York, and when I would see her there, she would take me to all these cool spots, and she just absolutely loved that city, and they left for Florida. And I was like, "I'm s- you know, if you have stock in New York, (laughs) you should be selling it right now."

Chris Williamson 6:30 Shit son.

Bridget Phetasy 6:30 Yeah. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 6:30 So bad.

Bridget Phetasy 6:31 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 6:32 Yeah, I mean, th- like for Michael to leave, that said pretty much everything that I needed to know.

Bridget Phetasy 6:36 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 6:36 But it's ... Everything that I see, I'm not in these cities, right? I haven't been to LA in a couple of years, I haven't been to New York in a couple of years, although I'm gonna be there in a couple of weeks actually, so I guess I'll get to see a little bit of it on the ground. I think why, why would you let the city get to this stage? Like if it, if it's people that like podcasters and normal people tweeting on the streets, if they have a problem with it, let alone the public policy people that are supposed to actually have aspirations for these cities, uh, wh- why? Why, why is it they don't care? Do they not know what they're doing? Is it negligent? Is it malignant? Is it malicious?

Bridget Phetasy 7:11 I, I don't actually know because I would have an answer and then a lot of other people would have a different answer. They would say, um ... I would say I think it's a combination of incompetence, o- overcompensation, um ... In California and New York these are single rule, you know, single party ruled states where there dominantly is no balance or competition, so there's very little ... It's all just progressive policies and, you know, Michael, Michael Shellenberger does a really great job, I think, of recently looking at how these progressive policies, however well intentioned they might be, um, are destroying these cities. And I prefer to try and give people the benefit of the doubt and, and say these come from good intentions, although if you're on the right wing and in certain factions of it, you'll say this is part of it. They, th- like in, in an attempt to achieve some kind of utopia, you've gotta let some cities burn and some people die, and that's just part of the process. So it's, it's like this, from, from a right wing kind of perhaps hyperbolic, perhaps not perspective, this is what communism does.

Chris Williamson 8:41 God damn globalists, man.

Bridget Phetasy 8:43 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 8:43 God damn fucking globalists.

Bridget Phetasy 8:44 Like, "It's Commies! It's those Commies!"

Chris Williamson 8:47 (laughs)

Bridget Phetasy 8:47 And, you know, we joke and call it Commiefornia, and it's, it's, it's, uh, funny because it's kinda true. So ... And I don't know enough about these things, I just don't. I can only observe it from like a working class perspective, man on the street, and you know that the idea that people can just move is also one that I bristle at sometimes when people are like, "Just move, just move." I'm like, "It's not that easy for everyone to just up and move." If you have family in, in this town, if you're not wealthy, it costs a lot of money to move. These other places where you might move to are now ... Like Austin's not cheap anymore. It's certainly not as cheap as it was many years ago, and do you wanna pay, um, exorbitant amounts to move and be away from your family? And you're moving to a place usually that has, you know, not as great weather. I mean, there's always a cost benefit analysis you're making, but I also think that's kind of like an upper class solution, and the working class doesn't always have that mobility or ability, or just disposable income. So when people are like, "Oh, you're in California? Just move." I'm like, "Well, okay, I'm not a millionaire." You know? I'm not, I'm not in that ... We- we're about to have a child, my mother-in-law lives here. If I move somewhere, do I dis- dislodge myself from like my whole system of support? Which is invaluable. There's some-

Chris Williamson 10:31 Would you be able to take your staff with you as well?

Bridget Phetasy 10:34 Um, they would come, yeah. I mean-

Chris Williamson 10:36 Okay.

Bridget Phetasy 10:36 ... it's really just my cousin. It's not like, um, I have this ginormous staff either.

Chris Williamson 10:41 Yeah.

Bridget Phetasy 10:41 Like some of these other companies that have left LA. Um, and so yeah, I think that would, that's not really a problem. We're still pretty like lean and mo- and mean, but-

Chris Williamson 10:58 (laughs)

Bridget Phetasy 10:58 ... it's more just the things that you can't really put money on, you know? Uh, if I move to like Texas for instance, which we are thinking about, I now have no family support, no ... I'm now needing to pay for healthcare, I'm paying for a move, I'm l- like not a huge fan of the weather down there. I know people are like, "Oh, it's fine." I just always jo- I'm like, "Don't ever take advice from rich people about this stuff." When they're like, "It's fine! You won't even notice!" I'm like, "You have a pool." (laughs)

Chris Williamson 11:29 (laughs)

Bridget Phetasy 11:30 "You have like a central air conditioned pool house, like with boats." And you know, I'm not, I'm not in that same league. I'm gonna be in just like some fricking house on the flatlands, on the outskirts. Uh, I don't have the same resources available to me to make ... I, like my, my neighborhood would probably be the neighborhood where the, the grid goes down in an ice storm. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 11:55 Yep. Yeah. Fuck, people had some mad stories about that while I was out

Chris Williamson 11:59 there. Talk to me about, talk to me about being pregnant. Are you super duper pregnant now? Is this like bl-

Bridget Phetasy 12:04 Um, I'm 27 weeks, so we're approaching the third trimester.

Chris Williamson 12:10 Pretty big pregnant then?

Bridget Phetasy 12:11 Yeah, we're in it. We're, uh, we're deep in the, deep in the woods, but not quite in the third trimester. It's, it's a trip, man. As, like, somebody who's a drug addict, I was joking the other day that it's a good thing I didn't do this when I was younger because I probably would have gotten addicted to it. Just 'cause it's such a trip.

Chris Williamson 12:30 (laughs)

Bridget Phetasy 12:30 Like, especially now that I can feel her and she's like... I- it's just so wild. I'm like the... And the thing that I've been tripping out about a lot, probably 'cause I've been listening to so much Alan Watts, is how effortless it is. Like, I'm not doing anything. I'm not doing anything. There are things I'm not doing to, you know, like not drinking, not smoking, trying to drink enough water, making sure that I take my multivitamins, but aside from that, this child-

Chris Williamson 13:01 You're just along for the ride as much as she is.

Bridget Phetasy 13:03 And you read about what's going on, and it's like, "What the fuck?"

Chris Williamson 13:07 (laughs)

Bridget Phetasy 13:07 Like how she's down there just like learning, her s- motor skills, and her eyes are starting to blink, and her hair is turning a color, and I mean, it's, it's really wild. The whole process every week where it's like, "This is the week that blah, blah, blah happens." And at first my husband was just like, (laughs) "I don't wanna hear it. I don't wanna hear about how she's, like, got a tail." (laughs) Um, in the early days. And now it's wild. You know, I feel her like tickling me from the inside, and kicking, and punching, and it feels very... It's just wild. It's really a crazy... It does all, it does... And then it reminds me like we all started out this way, and we were these helpless little babies (laughs) and, and just seeing how dangerous pregnancy is. And you know, I've been thinking a lot too just about how I was never really that interested in... Like I wasn't the kind of woman that fawned over babies, that got (sighs) was, um, like all, uh, would see a pregnant woman and be like, "Oh my God," and feel so longing, and I would be like, "That looks uncomfortable as, as heck." And, um, wouldn't really listen when, like, my siblings and sister-in-laws and friends would talk about their pregnancies, and they'd all get together and they'd have this shared experience, and I'd be like, "Ugh." (laughs) Like tune out. Even now, last night the, the girls in my, like, virtual mommy, mommy support group that just kind of happened organically from my Phetasy community actually, which was a- amazing, um, they were talking about diapers. And I was like, "I really can't express to you how much I hate shopping." Like I just, I hate it so much. Thank God my husband is the consumer in the family. But I hate it. I have hated it for myself. I hate it for... It's not something I can... So when people are like, "What do you think about Huggies versus Pampers? Well, we like this, but..." I'm like, I'm, I, my eyes just-

Chris Williamson 15:11 Checking out.

Bridget Phetasy 15:11 And then I regret not listening 'cause I know that that information is gonna be available. Yeah. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 15:15 Fucking need that. Yeah, you're gonna be asking for it in six months' time.

Bridget Phetasy 15:17 Exactly.

Chris Williamson 15:17 Guys, I've got these Huggies and this Pampers discussion going on here. Yeah, I mean, of all of the drugs that you've taken, estrogen and oxytocin are fucking up there.

Bridget Phetasy 15:26 (laughs) And progesterone. Yeah. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 15:28 And progesterone. (laughs) Swimming in it. Swim- lines of progesterone in the morning.

Bridget Phetasy 15:31 Yeah, it's wild. It's so wild. It's definitely... And it was such a surprise. And I think I'm still a little bit in shock. And a lot of stuff comes up just emotionally, um, because you're hormonal, but also just fears and, um, wanting... I, I really v- also have been just focusing on like how scary it is to allow yourself to want something. I just don't generally, I'm so superstitious of like joy and good things and-

Chris Williamson 16:05 That's the hippie in you.

Bridget Phetasy 16:07 It's also just my upbringing was kind of dysfunctional. So I'm like the... You don't get too comfortable because the rug is always getting pulled out from underneath you. And I think this is a very common experience of people who grew up in like fight or flight constantly and, um, a lot of uncertainty and stability and dysfunction. And you just are, like people who grow up with an alcoholic parent, you're always kind of waiting for the other shoe to drop because inevitably it always would. And in some ways that has prepared me exceptionally for being on platforms like YouTube, for example (laughs) and s- and saying things that might be beyond the veil.

Chris Williamson 16:50 Rugpull.com. Yeah.

Bridget Phetasy 16:51 Yeah. (laughs) I'm like, this is like my upbringing. Any minute now somebody might kick me out. Um, and in other ways it, it kind of robs me of allowing myself to experience joy and the present moment because I'm so worried that, you know, this bad thing's gonna happen or like I don't deserve it or I don't... Um, yeah, that's, that's been like a constant struggle is trying to be like... 'Cause there's all this also talk where like you need to like do a meditation and just like envision the baby in your arms. Uh, and that seems kind of, uh, like magical thinking to me a bit where it's like, so if something happens then somehow because I just didn't like think hard enough-

Chris Williamson 17:37 Can meditate the medical problem away.

Bridget Phetasy 17:40 Yeah. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 17:40 Yeah, yeah.

Bridget Phetasy 17:41 And-

Chris Williamson 17:41 That's the, um, that's the brutal thing about, one of my friends calls it, uh, negative personal development, that you often put problems that you have at the feet of you not trying hard enough.

Bridget Phetasy 17:54 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 17:54 It's like the r- it's the other side of agency. So we, we don't want people to have a victim mentality, right? We want them to believe that they can do things that are going to impact their life. Look, you have control over some of the outcomes, but also if the people who succeed are worthy of their successes, what does that mean about the people who didn't succeed? Are they worthy of their losses?

Bridget Phetasy 18:14 Right.

Chris Williamson 18:14 Is some- is somebody that gets into a car accident when someone else hits them, and they're disabled for the rest of... Was that, was that, like, their fault?

Bridget Phetasy 18:21 Yeah, yeah.

Chris Williamson 18:21 So there is this brutal sort of double-sided thing to a meritocracy.

Bridget Phetasy 18:25 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 18:26 Talking about fears as well, Aubrey Marcus, I spent a good bit of time with him while I was in Austin. He's got this awesome video. It's a clip from when he released his first book. And he's stood up there, talking in front of a big crowd, and he's saying, "People ask me if I could go back, what would I change? And the only thing that I would change, I would do nothing different, but I would fear less." He said, "I spent so much of my time when I should've been eating a sandwich or playing foosball or kissing a girl, worried that I wasn't going to get here, the place that I was coming anyway."

Bridget Phetasy 18:58 Right.

Chris Williamson 18:58 "How many hours and days and months did I waste worrying that I wasn't going to get right here, right now, the place I was going to arrive at in any case?" And that's-

Bridget Phetasy 19:08 Right.

Chris Williamson 19:08 ... the weird thing. You, the neuroses and your fears, they take you out of the present moment, but I don't think they really contribute to where you're going. Like, look, I'm probably gonna get the outcomes that I get in life no matter how I think about them.

Bridget Phetasy 19:21 Right.

Chris Williamson 19:21 My programming and talent or lack thereof is going to probably get me to the place that I end up at. And all that I get, the only difference about me fearing is that I make myself miserable in the interim between now and then.

Bridget Phetasy 19:34 Yeah, and I think too, there's so much kind of magical thinking in this, in, uh, in the new age, like law of attraction, um, because to a certain extent, your thoughts do create the world. You, it is a m- there is a balance of making sure, you know, there's that, that idea of, like, what you focus on, what you feed lives and what you starve dies. Um, I, I'm a big believer in, like, not invoking things, you know... It's just funny how you'll be cruising along, and then have, uh, um... It's just funny how you can kind of invoke these things from your past that you might have put behind you just by, like, speaking about them, and then suddenly that person appears. And you're like, "Ah, I may, never should've, like, had-"

Chris Williamson 20:25 (laughs)

Bridget Phetasy 20:25 "... a conversation with my sister about you, 'cause now here you are."

Chris Williamson 20:28 Fuck off.

Bridget Phetasy 20:29 (laughs) Yeah. I just, I put, back in the box. I'm always like, "Put it in a box and smother it." (laughs) Um, need to kill that, those things that aren't necessarily healthy or are toxic and... But then there's this whole concept of like, again, this magical thinking, as if this thing that's happening so effortlessly inside of me, with effort obviously, but truly kind of just in the way, uh, uh, in the way a flower would bloom. Like, it's just this, you, you can't, I can't force it. I can't rush it. There's very little I have to do with the process. Much of it is genetic. It's like, when I first was pregnant and I was so nervous, I, I was five weeks, and it was like basically a non-viable sac. And I said to the OB, like, "How do I make it stick?" (laughs) And she was like, "Honey, if I knew that, I'd be a billionaire on a private island." It's like, "Yeah, no shit. Of course you would be. That's a dumb question." (laughs) Um, because so m- it's completely random and out of control. And to think that me... It's, it's like my therapist says, that that fear, that negative fear or that fear of like, um, I need to think positively about this, or if I'm too excited about this, I'm somehow gonna jinx it, is s- a way of me trying to control something I have no control over. And she's like, "It's magical thinking." You know? There's, there's, and there's a lot of it in, in the kind of, like, w- laws of positivity and as if, as if you could just, like, think your way out of cancer or think (laughs) , you know, po- And there, but again, there's a lot to be said for the power of positive thinking, but it's a very, it's a very tricky balance, I think. And it's, uh, and it's trying to be in control of something that I'm not in control of at all. And that's unsettling to me. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 22:25 Well, on

Chris Williamson 22:26 top of that, celebrating motherhood is a weird thing right now.

Bridget Phetasy 22:30 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 22:30 It's quite rare.

Bridget Phetasy 22:31 You can't even say mother. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 22:33 Oh yeah, shit.

Bridget Phetasy 22:34 You can't even say mother. Like, that's the kind of weird time we're living in, where mother is, like, a word that is surging-

Chris Williamson 22:40 Hang on. Have they... No. Mo- mother's g- I haven't seen mother get canceled.

Bridget Phetasy 22:44 Oh, no. That's, they're trying to get rid of that word too.

Chris Williamson 22:48 What do you say instead?

Bridget Phetasy 22:50 Um, like, uh, a person... I don't even know. Mother is seen as, like, a, you know, cis hetero way of viewing-

Chris Williamson 22:59 Interesting.

Bridget Phetasy 23:00 ... um, the world.

Chris Williamson 23:01 Okay.

Bridget Phetasy 23:01 But yeah, they're-

Chris Williamson 23:01 But yeah, it's not, it's not celebrated. Motherhood doesn't seem to be, like, an admirable thing that girls are pushed to go and do. I mean, do you, looking back on your 20s and 30s now, you know, on the cusp of being a mum, do you see that-

Bridget Phetasy 23:14 At 43, by the way.

Chris Williamson 23:15 Yeah.

Bridget Phetasy 23:15 Geriatric mom.

Chris Williamson 23:17 Technically, yeah. Uh, do you see it as different? Do you see your 20s and 30s, like, in a different way at all?

Bridget Phetasy 23:23 Um, yes. I, I, although I was making choices that I was pretty aware of in my 20s and 30s. So I had a, I'm the oldest of five, and my siblings were all, um, they're in kind of smaller towns. They have families. They have kids. They're blue-collar, kind of working class, um, and very rewarding, fulfilling lives. And I, I came to the city. I was very ambitious. I was, you know, had a lot of goals and dreams and aspirations. And, um, I think I knew (sighs) I was... I had to make these choices kind of along the way, where I really believed I had to choose between family or success. Like, this was some... I, I don't think it was, I don't think, look, I think looking back, if you're, to answer your question, in my 20s and 30s, I...... that was a false belief, that I couldn't have a family and also be a successful creative artist. I dated a guy in my early 20s, and he was like 20 years older than me, but I always called him my Picasso. He was a brilliant artist, and he was so self-disciplined, and kind of would constantly re- reiterate to me that, like, family would get in the way of being a successful artist. And I think I really internalized that, because he was so successful, but so solitary and alone. And I don't know if he internalized that from his father, who wanted to be an artist and had a family, and could ... You know, it's like some... I'm sure it was passed down. And really just looking at a lot of the writers and artists that I admired, they seemed like they were insanely self-absorbed. It seemed like that's what it took, and I didn't want to be a mother, or even a wife to ... and be taken a... I would end up resenting the kid and my husband, so I thought. Um, I didn't think ... I thought it would take away from all of that. So, looking back, I don't think I, there was any kind of like illusion, even in my 20s and 30s. I, I just knew I was making that choice. But it's a false choice. (laughs) That's what, that's what I've come to learn.

Chris Williamson 25:51 How do you mean?

Bridget Phetasy 25:52 Like, I, I have a loving husband, who's so supportive of what I do, and in fact enables me to feel even braver going out into the world, and helps me around the house in ways that make it possible for me to thrive. And is a, is a co-, um, creator with me, and not just like my cr- our creativity, my creativity, but also in our world, you know, like just in our house. And, um, and now we have a child, and I thought that would overwhelm me and take away, but I think it's, again, like when I was waiting tables all those years, I would have like two hours here and there to write, and there's a sense of urgency that I have been, not devoid, devoid of the past three years, because I'm still very busy. But I certainly don't have that pressure of like, "You only have two hours today to write." So I've just found myself already writing more, and I s- I think that having that, um ... And like she inspires me to want to do more, to, to work harder. So I think it ... I, I was looking at it as just like an all negative, and it's really actually something that's added so much to my whole experience, as an artist and create- creative.

Chris Williamson 27:19 Well, it's rare to think that a woman would have chosen her career ... You know, it'd have to have been for almost all of human history, a very particular type of woman to have elected to go after a career, as opposed to a family.

Bridget Phetasy 27:31 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 27:31 And I wonder now, we've been talking about this a lot on the show. I wonder now how many women are kind of sold a lie by-

Bridget Phetasy 27:39 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 27:39 ... whatever culture, dominant culture it is at the moment. That, "No, you can be a boss bitch and clap back. You don't need to settle for less. You can, you know, fulfill your life with money and status and education and cats and, uh, fucking three houses."

Bridget Phetasy 27:54 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 27:55 And so then find out that they've missed out on getting a family, or finding a partner, or doing whatever.

Bridget Phetasy 28:03 Yeah. That, that conversation is so vast. You know, there's so many ... And I've been ... I've thought so much about these things. And now being 43 and being ... Because I would bristle against this idea that, like, you're worthless without a child as a woman. And on the right wing, this is like a pervasive kind of mentality that seeps into a lot of the stuff that I started reading when I fell into the culture wars. And I was writing at Playboy, so, you know, when people are like, "Oh, you don't ... Why aren't you like fully on the right if you've left the left?" And it's like, I saw the way they talked to me when I was at Playboy. Like I, I don't, I don't think these people who are speaking out against, or speaking on behalf of women and saying like, "Oh, the, the women's experience is being co-opted by trans women." Like, they don't give a shit about women. Like, they're not fighting for women's rights. They're using this because it's something that they can, that is effective in the culture wars. But, like, these are people who would happily say that women belong in the kitchen and having babies. And jokingly will say, "Some of us don't even, shouldn't even be voting." So I'm not exactly buying that, like, this is out of some concern for women. Um, and so it's ... I think it's complicated, because I don't want women to feel like that should ... Because for all of human history, women didn't have a choice. They just did not have a choice. When you read and learn and ... (laughs) Like, historically, being a woman was shit. And it was, it just was, forever. You had no choice. You couldn't get an education. You were property. You had no right in the public space. You were gen- ... You couldn't fight back if you were raped by your husband, or anyone really, um, with, with obvious circumstances that are generally racist in tone. (laughs) Like then, then there's, then there's that whole aspect. Like there's ... It's just been an absolute crap show for women. And only ... Which is why I do push back so hard against this idea that, like, trans women are women, and can swim against us in swim meets, 'cause I'm like, "We just got these rights." (laughs)

Chris Williamson 30:23 No, they swim against each other. They don't swim against women. (laughs)

Bridget Phetasy 30:25 We just got them like 50 years ago. (laughs) It's not even like we've had them that long. And by the way, only not, not only...... like, the whole world hasn't experienced this. I've been to India and Egypt and cultures where it's still very actually patriarchal. And so, um, you're hiding under veils, and you're, you're not allowed to dance in the streets with a man. I... Just, like, bananas. You're still getting stoned if you, if you are guilty of adultery. (laughs) Like, this stuff is still happening. And that's what it was actually like for most women. So I have a lot... I mean, the name that we're giving my daughter is Matilda. And we've been researching. People are like, "Oh, you have to read about this Queen Matilda in England." And apparently she's, like, the first woman who ever challenged the patriarchal lineage of the throne in England. And I've been reading her story, and it's crazy. And she was, she was erased from history, basically. And she sacrificed-

Chris Williamson 31:28 I've never heard of Queen Matilda.

Bridget Phetasy 31:29 Exactly. (laughs) And she's, um... And she had a son that she essentially, like, sacrificed herself. She fought these, like, war... I mean, it's a crazy story. And was erased, basically. And her son sh-... In order to save h- the throne for her son so that he was able to maintain it and instead of fighting for it for herself. And she was, she was just a badass. And there have been these women. And so I think that then motherhood, you know, took on... We had this kind of idyllic, very brief time where, um, women had rights. There was, like, first wave feminism. And then they were also having children, and they were starting to go to work, but they had just more choice and more options. And during World War II, you saw so many of them parta- participating in, like, helping the country and working in factories and coming together, and they really started seeing what they were capable of, go- getting more of an education. And then you have kind of second wave feminism where suddenly we're shaking off all of the shackles of shame that come with generally being treated like a baby-making piece of property for thousands of years. And, and there's an overcorrec- correction, I think. You know, the third wave of feminism is basically, like, throw out womanhood entirely. (laughs) Being a m-... I remember I interviewed these three women when I was writing for Playboy, and I never got to do anything with this interview, and I always loved it. It was three generations of feminists. And the grandmother, the youngest one was, like, a woman who was all about free the nipple. She was, like, 19, and she was ve- third genera- you know, third, third wave feminist, intersectional feminist. And her mother was talking, and she was talking about how she chose to be a mom. And this was during the whole, like, you know, '80s, like, girlboss, shoulder pads, working girl. And all of the women were going to careers, and they all got together with her favorite English professor, who they all loved and looked up to. And when they were in a circle talking about what they were doing with their lives and she said she had chosen to be a mother, they basically, like, skipped over her completely, like her role was just not relevant or important. And the pain in her voice when she was talking about this, for making this choice, was palpable. And the grandmother then was talking too, and she said something. She was like, "I just think there's something to be said for a little modesty." You know? (laughs) In regards to her granddaughter, who she supported, but she comes from a very modest, like, greatest generation culture. And it was so interesting speaking to these women and seeing how quickly feminism evolved in the West, and really, like, women are doing well. We have more educat- more... It seems like we're, more of us are educated than ever before, higher earnings. We're doing all right. And in that, you know, I have a sister who's a stay-at-home mom, and, and she's talked to me a lot about the struggle of not feeling like it's a valued role in society anymore. And I think it's, like, the most selfless role, and it's so hard. It's so hard to run a house and, like, raise children. It is just so... The day in, day out monotony of being a parent is, is so hardcore (laughs) and terrifying, and it's such a long... It is a marathon. It's not like a sprint at all. And so I think, like, that it's... I understand why there's this kind of reaction to never having a choice (laughs) like, ever.

Chris Williamson 35:36 Well, I think that one of the problems

Chris Williamson 35:38 that a lot of women and feminists have is that we only just got the opportunity to be in the workplace and to be on a par with men. If we allow motherhood to become too celebrated, maybe that's gonna be taken away from us.

Bridget Phetasy 35:54 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 35:54 Maybe the opportunity for us to be seen on an- on a level playing field with men, almost as if, uh, y- you know how you said put it in the box and forget about it?

Bridget Phetasy 36:01 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 36:01 That's kind of a little bit what... Yeah, well, motherhood is like, it's just a thing. It's that- that's a thing. It's kind of there, but that's, like, the, that's the fallback option. Let's see if you can go out. Let's see if we can make a career of it. And then if you can't, you can go and... Yeah. It, it's trying to find a balance between women haven't had the number of rights that they should have done for quite a long time, and they've just got them. But has the baby and the bathwater and the motherhood all been thrown out together?

Bridget Phetasy 36:29 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 36:29 So that that's no longer celebrated. Because there's... You know, if, if we're gonna keep the population going, we need to have mothers. And there's-

Bridget Phetasy 36:36 Yeah. Sorry, go on.

Chris Williamson 36:38 Just this huge concerns about population collapse at the moment, that's what Elon tweeted about not long ago. And if you look at the numbers, it's not that unlikely. This is a fucking mad stat that one of my friends told me the other day. We could be close to being on the planet with the largest number of humans that are ever going to exist. Ever.

Bridget Phetasy 36:57 But, but that's that whole... Have you ever heard of like the 12 billionth person or whatever? There's this video that some pi- I don't remember. I feel like it might be associated with some Bill Gates Foundation. But, it was some kind of study they did where it's like the 12 billionth person will never be born. Because if you keep pulling people up out of poverty, generally they stop having as many kids.

Chris Williamson 37:21 Yep.

Bridget Phetasy 37:21 So the more you raise people up and lift them up, the smaller their families get because there's lower infant mortality, there's more opportunity, people start caring about things like population control because they're worried about resources. They're, they have more, um, investment in sending two kids to college instead of, you know, four that need to work on the farm, et cetera. So, there is this idea, and you see this trend pretty much everywhere across the world, and then yes, there is rapidly declining populations in places like Japan and the West. And it is, um, you know, I think in, I think in California like the only reason the population is expanding is because of our immigrant population. Generally that's the case in most of the Western cultures. The, and so it's, um, obviously something that isn't problematic across the whole world yet. Um, it seems like a particularly Western problem that people discuss at the moment. And I do think the idea that... What worries me and what I've really been thinking a lot about obviously lately, is the ways in which I felt I was lied to by the culture, by the West- my Western culture, because I, I want to be clear, I think this is a particularly Western, um, like ideal, and particularly Western feminist ideal where, um, like I could sleep my way to kind of empowerment, which has not necessarily been my experience as someone coming from trauma, low self-esteem, and addiction. (laughs) I don't think that that was the right pathway. Promiscuity was not the path to peace, (laughs) although I should write that book. And the idea that it seems reactive now to me, this ideal, because I've felt that reaction when someone's saying like, "You aren't..." You know, like they're the Gavin McGuinnesses of the world who are basically like, "Your ovaries are gonna dry up and you're gonna be an angry 40-year-old and you're gonna be worthless and then you're gonna be mad and you're gonna go insane." And one time I was talking to Gavin and he's like, "Women who are 40 are gonna go insane." I'm like, "Well you've never met my mother then. Like, she has five kids and she's fricking crazy." Like, crazy isn't limited to A, women, B, women without children, and C, like 40-year-old women who have dried up ovaries or whatever the hell you're talking about. It's just, it's so reductive to say that this is, this is the case. And I understand like people who I vehemently disagree with about a lot of things, I guess like Jill Filipovic would be a great example, who's this kind of feminist writer on the left, and she pushes back against this idea that like you need to have kids to be considered a woman, and you're somehow less of a woman if you don't have kids and you don't experience motherhood and you're not, um, you're not participating in this biological kind of imperative. And so I understand the reaction to it, but then I worry that you're robbing yourself of something because you're reacting. In my case, I think I was reacting to feeling like I had to choose between a career and a family, feeling like, um, feeling like I was reacting to some of the more religious and right wing rhetoric that I heard growing up around about women and motherhood that was very, that felt very antiquated to me-

Chris Williamson 41:17 So was-

Bridget Phetasy 41:17 ... and backwater.

Chris Williamson 41:18 ... was sort of sleeping around and promiscuity your rebellion against that?

Bridget Phetasy 41:23 Um, in, in many ways. I mean, I was also, I think a reaction to being sexually assaulted, so it was like a way to take power back and, um, uh, like a shame spiral that went on for decades (laughs) . And, um, I also have written about just how empowering it did feel to weaponize, like weaponize my sexuality, which is why I've always had weird issues with Me Too because I'm like, "Uh." (laughs) Like, "I've definitely used my sexuality to manipulate men. This doesn't seem like powerful men." (laughs) And like men whose lives I could ruin. This doesn't seem like a one-way street. (laughs) Like, I'm not sure that maybe everyone is viewing this, like I, I had some agency in these, in these moments. So that was always... Yeah, it's complicated. Like, I feel like I fall in the cracks of like a lot of these issues, and given my experiences, I'm able to view them from multiple perspectives, which is sometimes not to my benefit. I wish I could just be like, "Yeah, those feminists were wrong." But I'm like, "They're not wrong." You know? The, e- and I'm seeing this even in the way that kind of women are being erased now with this new, like...I, I don't know, dare I ... Is, I think the kind, word, like, radical feminists use is transmisogyny, you know, where you're seeing this kind of ... And I joke about this all the time, like the patriarchy is so crafty, they'll turn themselves into women (laughs) so that they can stay on top. (laughs) Like, women got to the top, and then men were like, "Yeah, no, that's not happening. We're, we're gonna, we're gonna ascend again."

Chris Williamson 43:10 (laughs)

Bridget Phetasy 43:10 And so, they're ... And then seeing how much, like, women fought for, and also just, like, the right to have some agency in, like, their reproductive health and their health at all. And still, just the areas where, like, Black infant mortality rates are still disturbing, maternal mortality rates, there's still huge discrepancies in, in that kind of care all over the world. Um, so it's not like women are s- just killing it (laughs) like, all over the world. They're being sold into sex slavery. COVID has exacerbated a lot of these problems. Domestic abuse. We know there's how many women get killed every year by, like, a partner or somebody that they were with? It's, it's all tragic. I know the UK is having a big problem with a lot of, like, violence against women. And I just am like, women have, like, borne this, the, like, humanity on their backs and in their wombs for the entire span of our whole entire history. And I have a lot of compassion for people who ha- fight for rights for women. And I worry that that baby will be thrown out with the bathwater as we react to the, like, feminiz- you know, feminists, 'cause now I see the backlash swinging the other way where it's like, "Oh, all these feminists," and this is, "This is the end of the world." And I, you know, I loved what Ayaan Hirsi Ali said when she was on my podcast, "You can tell how well a society is doing by how well their women are doing." And, like, the quality of a woman, whe- th- do they have access to education, healthcare? Are they ... How free are the women in your culture? That is generally representative of how well your culture is doing.

Bridget Phetasy 45:05 And-

Chris Williamson 45:05 Is there such a thing as too much freedom?

Bridget Phetasy 45:08 Hmm. I mean ... W- i- in, in what w- in what respect?

Chris Williamson 45:14 I'm just thinking about freedom from norms, freedom from, not expectation, but from predispo-

Bridget Phetasy 45:22 I don't know, like-

Chris Williamson 45:22 ... predisposition, I'm s-

Bridget Phetasy 45:23 ... have men ever had to answer that question? (laughs)

Chris Williamson 45:25 Well, I'm just thinking, like, you know-

Bridget Phetasy 45:27 Like-

Chris Williamson 45:27 ... what one of the, we've got-

Bridget Phetasy 45:28 ... it's such a question that I'm like, "Would you ask that of, like, a w- a white dude?" Like ... (laughs)

Chris Williamson 45:32 Well, yeah, I think so. Like, if you were to say-

Bridget Phetasy 45:34 Have you ever been too free, bro? (laughs)

Chris Williamson 45:36 I think so.

Bridget Phetasy 45:37 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 45:37 I think if you say, if you- you're not expected to go out and get a job, you're now the guy that smokes weed and plays Xbox on the couch. W-

Bridget Phetasy 45:44 But I ... Is that true?

Chris Williamson 45:47 Well, I think that one of the things that you would say about the modern world is that masculinity doesn't really have a very firm place to stand at the moment. I think that there is a little bit of a crisis amongst men, not knowing what elements of their, like, typical heroic masculine traits they're i- allowed to cling onto, and which ones of them have kind of been thrown out righteously, and which ones perhaps were baby in bathwater that went out with it as well. Okay, so hang on, what's ... Like, what, what have we got left here between fucking incels and MGTOW and red pill and black pill and simps and cooks and OnlyFans and soy boys. Like ...

Bridget Phetasy 46:22 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 46:23 You know, there's a lot of fucking moving parts for men as well. And it's not ... Uh, the question wasn't like, is there a limit that should be placed on the freedom that women have? It's trying to work out, can you, can you push it to the point where women no longer see traditional roles as aspirational anymore, because they're constantly looking to progress past them? And this is that, you know, motherhood not necessarily being, um, held in high esteem very much anymore, because what's new, what's more progressive, what's more recent is the thing that just inherently gets held as, "Oh, well, this, this must be the thing that all of the women are supposed to do."

Bridget Phetasy 47:02 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 47:02 I think that, I honestly, honestly think that between sort of, like, incel culture, MGTOW, um, and NoFap, you've kind of got the men's area of the world with that as well. Like, "Look, we were, we were promised a future that we're not going to get."

Bridget Phetasy 47:18 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 47:18 "So we're going to do something that is so different to typically what we would have done, s- starting a business, having a job nine-to-five, finding, finding a wife, starting a family," that sort of stuff. You get these sort of culture counterculture, and that's the dynamic that you're talking about, right? Swinging between left and right. Um ...

Bridget Phetasy 47:36 Yeah, it seems more like a cop-out to me, having experience with all of those groups though. It's like, oh, so things aren't going your way? Like, that, the way I feel about that whole group that you just described, and I have a lot of compassion for them, because I really try to, even as cruel and horrific as they've been to me in the past, is that, um, welcome to the Thunderdome, bitch. Like, a lot of us have been fighting for scraps and having to compete in an, in a meritocracy, but still not having the same access. I've been around plenty of boys clubs in my life. They do exist. It helps when you can go golf (laughs) and, and talk about business. Like, there are things that just get done, and people want to deny that and act like that's not true. And I'm not really one to, like, throw s- Again, I think words like racism and sexism in this kind of world get thrown out, and now it's like, they still exist. (laughs) These things, these concepts do exist. They're overused, and I think we, we have destroyed the meaning of those words. But it's not to say that people haven't been fighting against these things, and rightfully had to fight against...... um, you know, the, the, uh, fallout from that years and decades and generations later. And so, suddenly, this, like, crew of men who's like, "We don't... We're..." Like, okay, you can still go start a job. I didn't get everything I wanted, and I still had to, like, pick myself up and figure it out (laughs) you know? I, I didn't start, like, murdering men. (laughs) Like, I just don't... It feels like a little bit of an excuse to me. Like, "Oh, these feminists, they aren't sleeping with us, so we're gonna go shoot some women or, like, go whatever." Like, I, it just feels like, uh, that feels hyper, hyper reactive to me, you know? (laughs) I don't see, like, feminists... Um, there's a lot of issues I have with modern feminism that I could, that I have taken them to task for. But I (laughs) still don't see women being like, "Well, I guess we're gonna give up and just-"

Chris Williamson 49:49 Sit on the couch and finger myself for the rest of the day.

Bridget Phetasy 49:52 "... sit on the couch and smoke weed."

Chris Williamson 49:52 Yeah, yeah.

Bridget Phetasy 49:52 Because we don't have that option. I don't have that. And I also disagree that that's necessarily the case, and I've only had to learn this because I, I rage so hard against, like, trust fund babies, for example. And I'm always like, "I fucking hate trust fund babies." (laughs) 'Cause I grew up around them, and I find them intolerable often. (laughs) But I've learned, because I've had to, um, have a lot of compassion. They didn't ask to be born into those circumstances any more than somebody who is born into poverty, being born into immense wealth, and it comes with a lot of its own problems and dysfunction and craziness. And now, a lot of those kids are messed up, obviously, but so are a lot of poor kids, and so are a lot of middle-class kids. A, a lot of them take that opportunity, and they grow, and they do stuff with it, and they don't have to work a day in their life. And they still do. I know so many people who have taken the opportunities of their inherited wealth and family names, and they've built upon them for no reason.

Chris Williamson 50:55 So, I think that's a really interesting point to make that the,

Chris Williamson 50:59 uh... How unpopular of a viewpoint is it to say, "Trust fund babies, they're the ones that need our compassion"?

Bridget Phetasy 51:05 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 51:05 That those are the, the ones that we really, really need to think about how hard it is-

Bridget Phetasy 51:10 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 51:10 ... to be born in the Hamptons, and, you know, to have-

Bridget Phetasy 51:12 Trust me, I have a lot of issues with trust fund babies. I come from Newport, Rhode Island.

Chris Williamson 51:17 (laughs)

Bridget Phetasy 51:17 Like, this is the old, this is the original playground of the rich.

Chris Williamson 51:22 Yeah.

Bridget Phetasy 51:22 And those people still exist. And-

Chris Williamson 51:25 So that, but that group of people, having a conversation where you can go, "Look, maybe they do face some challenges. Maybe this does suck for them." Being able to sit with that discomfort and not just have a reactionary response that appears on your Twitter feed or in a YouTube comment.

Bridget Phetasy 51:40 Oh, no, that does happen on my Twitter feed. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 51:42 Oh, no, but m- yeah. (laughs) I, I, I know. But being able to get past that, right? And to sit with that bit of discomfort is the same thing as the guys that are adamant that, um, society's going to accept women and give them, um, encouragement because their emotions matter and mine don't. Or the women-

Bridget Phetasy 52:01 Right.

Chris Williamson 52:02 ... that say, "Men still have access to the workplace, and fundamentally, we are being held down. There is a glass ceiling above us. It just appears in a more subversive and invisible way now." You know, that all of this, there's obvious low-resolution ways to look at an argument and say, "Here is a, here, here is the most extreme version of this situation that means that this conversation isn't going to happen."

Bridget Phetasy 52:23 Right.

Chris Williamson 52:23 But the, like, the interesting stuff is when you go, "Okay, so let's play both sides here. Let's think about what the difficulties are of somebody that gets born into incredible wealth." Like, do, do they get str- drawn into drugs and, like, over-partying and stuff-

Bridget Phetasy 52:39 A lot.

Chris Williamson 52:39 ... as, as much as somebody in poverty? I would probably guess almost exactly the same.

Bridget Phetasy 52:44 Probably the same.

Chris Williamson 52:45 Yep.

Bridget Phetasy 52:45 Well, they, you know, they've done these studies on depression, and they've found that the highest rates of depression are generally in, in, um, are in the lower class and in poverty, essentially. And it's usually undiagnosed, because how do you even know you're depressed if your life is just shit? (laughs) You know? So, it's like they, they just think, like, "Well, b- why wouldn't I be depressed?"

Chris Williamson 53:08 This is life. Yeah.

Bridget Phetasy 53:09 But the second-highest rate is in the highest echelons because they feel like, "I have everything, and I'm still depressed." And that's interesting to me because I think one of the things I've found from experiencing billionaires' kids is, um, that they'll never really have the opportunity to know struggle, which sounds weird. But it's, it's like, even if they fight and they'll have their own kind of struggles, but they're not gonna know what it, it feels like ever to p- like, build something from the ground up out of nothing, or from very little. And we all have help, and I always think about this behavioral economics Monopoly study that I'm so obsessed with and talk about all the time, where they gave people, um, they gave people lots of money and extra turns, and other people less money and not as many turns, and then they observed them playing Monopoly. And the pe- and they put, like, bowls of pretzels in the middle of the table, and the people who had less turns and less access and, and just were... Started off at a disadvantage, they, their body language was reflecting it. And the people who had more were eating the pretzels, they were just more entitled. They were really cocky. They were kinda talking smack, even though they started with extra turns and more money. And at the end of the game, when they would interview people, the people who had extra turns and money always attributed their win to decisions that they made. (laughs) Not, not, like, any of the extra things that they got. And-That really got me thinking about this idea of a meritocracy, and how, yes, I do think in our culture, like in America, I was j- I was married to an immigrant, my first marriage, from Belarus. And seeing how much acc- I was like, "If this guy who speaks no English can, like, pick himself up and come here with nothing at 19 years old and figure it out, I've gotta be able to freaking figure this system out too. Come on." Uh, it's like sheer entitlement for me to think that I can't, and laziness. And so observing that from his perspective and seeing how much he's built in the time that he's been here, um, and so many of the, like, immigrants that I know, the restaurant I just worked at these guys came, and they were literally dishwashers, and they started a juice bar, and now they have, like, a amazing restaurant chain that's fantastic. And these, they are the American dream. They're just incredible, and came with nothing, with nothing. And that isn't... You can't do that everywhere. That is, that is something that is, when people are like, "It's not a meritocracy," I'm like, "You really can't do what you can do in America in a lot of the places in the world, and people still would kill to come here." Um, but that being said (laughs) , there does seem to be like a general lack of awareness about, uh, where, where people started (laughs) . And, and having, you know, even, even with my background being fraught with difficulties and, um, a lot of dysfunction, I still had, I, I still had access. I, I wasn't starving. You know, I, I'm, I'm aware that I had a roof over my head. There are certain things I didn't have to really think about. There were other things I did. But you just kind of are... Y- you deal with the hand you're dealt, I guess. And that seems to be something... And then, you know, I love Sam Harris always talking about, like, moral luck and this, um, concept that you were kind of talking about in the beginning. Well, does somebody who works super hard and gets in a freak accident on their way home and now they're in a wheelchair, and it totally changes your life forever, um, that had nothing to do with how hard they worked or didn't work. You know (laughs) , just sheer luck. There's so much of it that's random and out of our control. And the problem I think I have with the culture right now is that everything feels like a zero sum game. Like it's, it's... We... It's not like free markets or social safety nets, you know? (laughs) We need balance. We need... People need help. People aren't born into the same circumstances, and we shouldn't punish them for that. That being said, I don't know that everyone deserves just handouts (laughs) for-

Chris Williamson 57:58 But this is it. This is a-

Bridget Phetasy 57:59 ... for no, for nothing.

Chris Williamson 58:01 Well, you see this-

Bridget Phetasy 58:02 It's, it's complicated.

Chris Williamson 58:03 You see this dialogue play out in conversations-

Bridget Phetasy 58:06 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 58:06 ... like victim mentality and victor mentality and trying to find a balance between the two. Like, some people have had a rough ride of it, and they-

Bridget Phetasy 58:14 Right.

Chris Williamson 58:14 ... you need to pat them on the back, and they deserve compassion, and the compassion will help them be more effective, and it's the right thing to do in a society that has more than it needs.

Bridget Phetasy 58:23 Right.

Chris Williamson 58:24 And on the flip side of that, you don't want to... There was this future of fitness article that was just put out by SELF Magazine that I had some things to say about-

Bridget Phetasy 58:32 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 58:32 ... that was basically providing, like, high calorie chicken soup for the soul for people that didn't want to go to the gym and telling them that the gym was this scary place-

Bridget Phetasy 58:40 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 58:40 ... that they didn't ever want to go. The p- the reason that fat people aren't going to the gym is not, um, their weight. It's internal. It's fat phobia. The problem is with everybody else.

Bridget Phetasy 58:49 Right.

Chris Williamson 58:49 And you think, "Fuck, right, okay." So between total free market and mollycoddle everybody from cradle to grave-

Bridget Phetasy 58:57 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 58:57 ... like, the, there has to be something that's in the middle, and-

Bridget Phetasy 59:00 Right.

Chris Williamson 59:01 ... uh, I wonder... I know that you've been t- talking on your Substack recently about, like, social media and, and, uh, as a communication tool, as a domain, what it does to the way that we think. I think that a big part of it is that it's such a low resolution tool to be able to have a conversation. You know, Twitter's, what, 280 fucking characters or something? And y- y- you can't get across nuance on there. You can't get across detail. You can't even get across caveats. You can get across-

Bridget Phetasy 59:27 But-

Chris Williamson 59:27 ... the headline, and that's it.

Bridget Phetasy 59:29 Yeah, it's true. And I'd... But I also see, like, the, the explosive world of podcasts as a balance to that. You know, they're, they're... I always joke podcasts are gonna save the world, because we're having this conversation right now and trying to wrestle with these things. Like, feminism is important. And I was the girl in high school who was like, "I... W- you..." My, my English teacher used to say, "You are gonna set us back, like, 50 years (laughs) -"

Chris Williamson 1:00:02 (laughs)

Bridget Phetasy 1:00:02 "... women back, like, 50 years." 'Cause she was, she was the first, you know, you always have that, like, English teacher that exposes you to feminism when you're a young girl in the West and... Or someone. And she exposed us to it and was really feminist and kind of t- taught us all about it. And I was like, "I don't see what the problem is. Like, why do I want to be in the rat race? I don't wanna... Like, why can't a guy hold the door open for me? I like it. I like a little chivalry, and I don't... I, I'm fine with just... I love cooking. Like, wha- I'm fine with him going out there and making money and me being in the kitchen," and she would just, like, roll her eyes, because I just thought... (laughs) I was just like, "Why do we want (laughs) to do this? Like, why do we want to work? Why are we fighting to work?" Um, and I understand why, because there's autonomy. You have... F- financial freedom is huge. I see, you know, a lot of my female friends who are...... perhaps dependent on, I mean, I have like, a deep fear of being dependent on anyone, um, particularly financially. So, there's just a lot of reasons that you would wanna be able to go out (laughs) and make your own way, that I don't think I fully understood. Even as a like, hustler, little 16-year-old. And, and also just learning more about first-wave feminism, getting older. Seeing, like even just in this like mommy group chat, just hearing and, and hearing the struggles of women now who are working and are breadwinners often. Trying to balance that and raising kids, and the actual just craziness of childbirth and the danger. And raising kids in this society that's so unstable and crazy right now, and with, uh, in a pandemic. You know, we're all... Like, I was thinking about this the other day, and it's so sad to me what's happened with this pandemic in terms of the way it's absolutely got all of us at each other's throats. And I've seen so many of my friends be just completely radicalized by this thing, which I understand the reasons for it. But I think about like, they were doing this whole thing about global literacy and how it's... We, in the wet- it's so Western-focused, like the, the conversation is so, so focused on the West. And I feel like so much of the big picture gets left out. And they were talking about just globally how w- take away, like how this affected inner city kids in America or in the UK, globally, the poorest countries, these kids lost years and they're never getting them back. Some of them lost opportunities to get education at a time when it meant get an education or be sold into sex slavery (laughs) , you know, or start working and... They're just dealing with different challenges. We went to South Africa for our honeymoon in February, and seeing how, like if you're already on the brink (laughs) and you're gonna get, you're gonna get-

Chris Williamson 1:03:10 Pandemic will push you over the edge.

Bridget Phetasy 1:03:11 ... it'll push you over the edge. And these countries don't have their government printing money and handing it out to all their citizens. It's just not, that's not happening. So you're, you're already on the rails of poverty, and now tourism is done, and you rely on tourism and you... I saw this when I was in Egypt, right after the revolution. And this is, w- I don't know, this is an area where I try to be so mindful of just how... And it drives me crazy about the conversation a lot of the time, that we are all having, is that it feels very, um, still feels very privileged, for lack of a better word. You know, we're still, we're not even considering how this has affected like a, a large, enormous population of the globe. And everybody's been affected by this. Everybody, every single one of us, everyone has suffered. Somebody, some people didn't get to see their loved ones die. People in other countries haven't been able to see their family in other countries. People, uh, I, the ways in which this has affected every single person on the globe is endless, and will have reverberations for decades to come. And yet we still feel like it's just happening to us (laughs) , you know? Like that's why the, being everyone's-

Chris Williamson 1:04:32 Which, that's the mad thing-

Bridget Phetasy 1:04:33 ... road (laughs) .

Chris Williamson 1:04:34 ... we're so fucking connected, right? We can-

Bridget Phetasy 1:04:36 Yeah (laughs) .

Chris Williamson 1:04:36 ... we're connected basically to everyone on the planet, and yet still so myopic about what it is-

Bridget Phetasy 1:04:40 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 1:04:40 ... that we look at. It's only the thing that's directly in front of us. So I'm big into existential risk, right? The ways, the different ways that humanity could go extinct and permanently curtail its genetic lineage.

Bridget Phetasy 1:04:50 I mean, it's a miracle we haven't already (laughs) .

Chris Williamson 1:04:51 I w- well, if I give, give, give us about 50 years, I'm pretty sure it's gonna happen. But, I was sure, I, I... sure, I hoped that a global pandemic would be... it would remind us of our common humanity, right?

Bridget Phetasy 1:05:05 Yeah (laughs) .

Chris Williamson 1:05:05 There's this, I can't remember who it was, it's one of you, your presidents that said, "Imagine if there was an alien race that was gonna come and destroy us all, imagine how quickly boundaries would be forgotten and all of humanity would pull together." Like that sort of one world thing that astronauts that have gone out into space apparently have, they look back and they realize that it is so fragile, it's all one. Um, and I thought there was a brief period, whatever, in March, April 2020, where I honestly thought that that might be the case. That this, bizarrely, this pandemic could be one of the best things that had ever happened to us. Because I knew what it was like to be in Austin, Texas, or to be in Ghana, or to be in Wuhan, China, or to be in New Zealand or whatever, right? Everybody didn't know what was going on, everyone was fearing for their life. Everyone's scared of this invisible virus that you can't see, that you don't know where it's come from, that you don't know what it's gonna do. That's the most... There's never been a situation ever, ever in human history, where every human on the planet has been impacted by something and had such a relatable experience. And then within fucking 60 days, it's Tiger King and f- fucking like, arguments about whether it's a virus leak from Wuhan, and e- completely forgotten. And maybe-

Bridget Phetasy 1:06:26 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:06:26 ... maybe it's just, maybe it's not possible. Maybe it isn't possible to have seven billion people with nation-states and tribalism and individual identities and my own agenda. Maybe it's impossible to have that. But briefly and foolishly, I thought that maybe we were gonna be brought together by it.

Bridget Phetasy 1:06:45 In, in what respect, um, what would that have looked like if we were brought together?

Chris Williamson 1:06:51 Less-

Bridget Phetasy 1:06:51 And, and maintained it?

Chris Williamson 1:06:53 So, less tribalism, more of an understanding, l- like you said, less of a myopic view of just us.

Bridget Phetasy 1:07:00 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:07:00 You know, more empathy for the person that is suffering that isn't directly in front of us.

Bridget Phetasy 1:07:04 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:07:05 Fuck, this was hard. Well, hang on, if it's hard for me...... then the person that's already in a shitty situation that's in poverty, fuck, it must be really hard for them. And the person that I think has it all sorted out, well, actually, maybe it's hard for them as well, and maybe it's hard for the person that is my racial opposition or my ideological opposition or my fucking commercial competitor, whatever. Like, all of these things. Um, but it wasn't a big enough dose. You know, if you could see the virus like a vaccine, the dose of the vaccine was nowhere near high enough. It was nowhere near a big enough catastrophe to bring us together.

Bridget Phetasy 1:07:44 Right.

Chris Williamson 1:07:44 Nowhere near big enough.

Bridget Phetasy 1:07:45 I know, I always joke, I always joke, I'm like, "It was just enough to, like, shut down the economy, but not so much that it united us." I'm like, it's almost like it was created in a lab. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 1:07:56 Just to piss everybody off.

Bridget Phetasy 1:07:57 Just to, like, de-stabilize shit. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 1:07:59 Fuck, fuck life for a little bit. Yeah, exactly.

Bridget Phetasy 1:08:02 I'm like, between the Wu flu and (laughs) and, like, TikTok and (laughs) like, China's messing us up.

Chris Williamson 1:08:10 Fucking ruining

Chris Williamson 1:08:11 us. Does-

Bridget Phetasy 1:08:11 Um, they don't even need to go to war. They just-

Chris Williamson 1:08:12 There's this thing that you put on your Substack that I thought was really interesting. You said, "We've been tricked into thinking we need to care about everything. Every birthday, every life event, every social movement. Social media has trained us to believe that we should not only care, we should have an opinion. It doesn't matter how far from our lane we drift. Suddenly we are experts in shipping, nuclear power, Iran, or epidemiology, even if we had to Google what that word meant just 15 months ago, because we read a Wikipedia article and watched a few YouTube videos. The truth is, most of us know a lot about a couple of things, and we... and next to nothing about everything else." It's so unpopular to not have an opinion on everything now.

Bridget Phetasy 1:08:48 I know. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 1:08:49 Fuck.

Bridget Phetasy 1:08:50 I don't know. I, I'm very comfortable not knowing anything, and I feel like that's... People joke to... I, I always joke, I'm like, "I don't know anything." And people are like, "You sell yourself short." I'm like, "No, I don't..." I'm not an expert in anything. There are people who are actually experts. They devote their life to learning one thing. They know a lot about that thing. They have, they've, you know, focused intently on developing a skill or a practice or something like... I'm, I'm not one of those people. I know, I was joking just yesterday, I'm like, "Well, I guess I'm gonna start my mommy blog because the only thing I'm really good at is, like, navel gazing interior monologues." (laughs) And, and I know me, I know myself. But I was talking to my husband and I, we were, we were talking about this, just how, um... And I've talked about this before, being an addict. I was like, "I wonder if it's because I'm an addict and I just fundamentally don't trust myself." Like, I'm hyper aware, when you recover from addiction, you are hyper aware of your capacity to lie to yourself and others, others in, in pursuit of your addictive behavior, and myself, and just delusion. And he was talking about this quote that he was like, I'm gonna butcher, but it was something about how, um, are we really learning anything new or are we just rearranging our prejudices to, like, better suit us? And, and it's from some famous ther- by, you know, psychiatrist or something. And I was thinking a lot about that, you know, are we just kind of rearranging our biases to be, just to confirm what we're already kind of believing? And a lot of these... I, there's, there's always these little, like, things that pop up, and I think I'm also just very contrarian by nature. So I was very, like, I made my T-shirt, "You're not woke, you're annoying," back in like 2018, and now I wanna take it down because woke is, I'm, like, annoyed that w- I feel like woke is being overused. You know, I was like, "Oh, this was funny, like, when nobody knew what woke was." But now it feels like a right wing talking point. And, um, I've, I'm always aware of how I'm being reactive, just being, like an, an addict. And I was thinking a lot about I've been really just on, on it about, like, how a lot of these pandemic policies have affected the people that ostensibly, particularly the left clar- claims to ca- care about. Like poor kids who are losing years of their education and can't go to the playgrounds. And, like, all the rich kids I know had tutors in their backyards and wifi and iPads, you know, th- not everybody has this access, and generally these things hurt the poorest always, disproportionately. They're always gonna suffer the most from anything. And so I've been raging against that for months and months and months, and I was... I definitely... My, like, left wing idealism in the beginning of the pandemic, and I think just fear, like, nobody knew what this was. I was definitely like, "Yeah, maybe we should shut it down for two weeks." And on the right, there were people who were like, "This is insane. They're never gonna take..." I was like, "Calm down, you guys." (laughs) And now I've written about it. I'm like, "I was so wrong. I take it back." I did not realize that if you give control to these people, they don't ever give it back, and I will never make that mistake again. It was tr- traumatizing.

Chris Williamson 1:12:35 I think that's the lesson.

Bridget Phetasy 1:12:36 Stake to learn.

Chris Williamson 1:12:36 Fuck, that is the biggest lesson that so many people have taken. So I've said this a lot. I don't, I don't have, like, a conspiratorial bone in my body usually.

Bridget Phetasy 1:12:44 No. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 1:12:44 I think that's very much a British thing, but I don't think about the globalist elite and their grand plan to take the NSA. Well, they did this with Project Mockingbird and blah, blah. I'm like, "Right, okay, okay, cool."

Bridget Phetasy 1:12:57 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 1:12:57 But I just don't... I'm not usually there.

Bridget Phetasy 1:12:59 Right.

Chris Williamson 1:12:59 I'm not usually in that mode of thinking, but holy shit, if the last two years hasn't eroded every last bit of trust that I have, not only that the people in power and the press are acting in good faith, because they're not. Not only that they're not acting competently, because they're not, but also that they don't care about being either malicious or neg- uh, negligent. Like-

Bridget Phetasy 1:13:23 Right.

Chris Williamson 1:13:23 ... it's this perfect, perfect fucking blend of idiocy...... and self-serving malice, and just not- not a fuck given. It's that-

Bridget Phetasy 1:13:36 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:13:36 ... all put together. Did you watch... I put, pulled this quote out the other day. Did you watch, uh, Don't Look Up, the Netflix thing?

Bridget Phetasy 1:13:43 No, I haven't seen it yet.

Chris Williamson 1:13:44 Okay, so there's this quote in that, uh, Kate Dibiasky, one of the scientists, and she says, "The truth is way more depressing." So this is, someone's talking about conspiratorial thinking-

Bridget Phetasy 1:13:54 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:13:54 "There's this asteroid coming. Oh, it's actually a plan for blah, blah, blah, and people are gonna use it to take over control." "The truth is way more depressing than not even smart enough to be as evil as you're giving them credit for."

Bridget Phetasy 1:14:06 Right. Yeah, I mean, that- that has been something I've really been thinking a lot about. And then this recent conversation about, like, this kind of idea, like, "Oh, I'm over the pa- pandemic," you know, that language that was popping off lately. And- and, I don't know, I have- I have in-laws who are nurses and stuff like that, and it- it just depends on where you're sitting. Like, that to me, like, "I'm over it," is like a p- I got mad when I was hearing that, not because I don't have similar feelings. Like, in some respects, I'm like, "Well, I've always been over this on behalf of the working class," because you're saying this as someone who had a choice about whether or not you could work during the pandemic. Like, you do know many people worked and never stopped working, and just, like, kept on working through the whole thing, and didn't have a choice about that.

Chris Williamson 1:15:02 Imagine how over it you'd be if you were a frontline nurse.

Bridget Phetasy 1:15:04 Yeah, exactly. And imagine... And- and I- and two years in, and the numbers of people who are, you know, pre- it's just like, I don't know what that's like. And you're watching people die, and there are people who might not have to die. Like, how frustrating... I might be a radicalized, TikTok nurse, you know, t- calling for Joe Rogan's banning if I was on the front lines of an- of- of, like, place that was experiencing this over and over, and I had s- had to personally witness, like, hundreds and thousands of people die. I don't- I don't- I just don't... And I have, as much as, like, the disdain I have for teachers' unions and their decisions, particularly like LAUSD, which is one of the most ridiculous mafias in the world, I have a lot of compassion for teachers, that their job isn't easy. They're dealing with parents, administration, kids. They're generally underpaid. There's administrative bloat that's destroying public schools. They are on fricking GoFundMe raising money for supplies every year. Like, it doesn't seem... It seems like a thankless job that you do because you're called to it. And- and, yeah, I- I mean, it's easy for me- it's easy for me to just sit in judgment, and I- I've been really, like, hyper-aware of that lately, I feel like. Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:16:33 And I also feel like, after years of getting caught in the crossfire of the culture wars, being somewhat radicalized, um, by being rejected by what I thought were my friends. You know, it's hard when your real-life friends are rejecting you, unfollowing you, and you're feeling consequences of maybe having wrongthink. And I was always aware of being kind of weaponized on the right as like, "Oh, see this, like, liberal who woke up from the commie spell she was under."

Bridget Phetasy 1:17:14 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 1:17:14 Why I Left the Left, yeah.

Bridget Phetasy 1:17:15 Yeah, that. It's very... I get it. It's so common. And- and I hear this story every day. Like, we- Our last episode of Dumpster Fire, we asked people to tell us, like, "W- was there a moment you were red-pilled or purple- purple-pilled, or black-pilled? And, um, why? When was it, or was it a process?" And the emails I'm getting are fascinating. Like, they're whole entire stories from people, and this does seem to be something l- like, Malice talks a lot about, where it's just he sees it as a positive that there's an overall just distrust in the institutions from top to bottom. And I worry though, because if there's nothing that people can grab onto, they grab onto conspiracy theories. You know, they're- they're gonna reach for things that aren't necessarily serving them that are there to weaponize and manipulate them. And is it even a conspiracy? Like, every... 2021 is the year everyone became a conspiracy theorist in the whole world. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 1:18:18 There's a... So, I- I gotta tell you about this. I- I learned this last year. Um, it's called compensatory control. So this is a psychological, uh, effect. Where are we? Matthew Syed came up with this, and he put it in The Times. So I read this last year. "Uh, psychologists have conducted experiments to shed light on why people lose or at least suspend rationality. One experiment asked people to imagine going to a doctor to hear an uncertain medical diagnosis. Such people were significantly more likely to express the belief that God was in control of their lives. Another asked participants to imagine a time of deep uncertainty when they feared for their jobs or the health of their children. They were far more likely to see a pattern in meaningless static or to infer that two random events were connected. This is such a common finding that the psychologists have given it a name: compensatory control. When we feel uncertain, when randomness intrudes into our lives, we respond by reintroducing order in some other way. Superstitions and conspiracy theories speak to this need."

Bridget Phetasy 1:19:14 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:19:14 "It is not easy to accept that important events are shaped by random forces. This is why, for some, it makes more sense to believe that we are threatened by the grand plans of malign scientists than the chance mutation of some silly little microbe."

Bridget Phetasy 1:19:28 Hmm.I love that. I love this whole convers- I mean, that's another rabbit hole. I, Brené Brown talks a lot about this actually, about conspiracy theory and the role it plays in storytelling. Essentially, we as humans have this need to make sense of the world and tell ourself a story, and in the absence of something that makes sense or uncertainty, we will, we will turn to conspiracy because it helps us to-

Chris Williamson 1:19:54 Make sense.

Bridget Phetasy 1:19:54 ... complete the story. Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:19:55 To fill the vacuum. Yep. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Bridget Phetasy 1:19:57 And just the, the human need for a story that makes sense to them, even if, as crazy as it might be. And it's often just stupidity, incompetence. You know, this is where I love Michael Shermer's perspective is he's such a skeptic. It's like, yeah, (laughs) just straight and narrow, um, you know, his, the... And my husband's very much like this too, where, 'cause I lean, I think I'm, I think I indulge in conspiracy theories 'cause I think they're fun. That's always been my relationship with conspiracy theories. Like I've said before, I, I believe in past lives because it think more interesting for me to believe. It's just a more int- You can't prove to me that it isn't real, and it's more interesting for me to believe that it is. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 1:20:43 I'm gonna choose the more entertaining-

Bridget Phetasy 1:20:44 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:20:44 ... of the two options.

Bridget Phetasy 1:20:45 It's just-

Chris Williamson 1:20:45 Yeah.

Bridget Phetasy 1:20:46 I'm a writer. I'm gonna choose what's more interesting to me. Um, but my husband, when it comes to, like, conspiracies, he's that, like, "How many people would have to be in on this and keep this a secret for it to be true?" Just h- how, what are the... He's like, "How many people do you know can keep a secret? Like, maybe one?" (laughs) You know, there's, it's not, (laughs) not many people are great at that. They'll go to a bar and-

Chris Williamson 1:21:10 This globalist cabal of people wearing those fucking long nose-

Bridget Phetasy 1:21:14 (laughs) The beaks?

Chris Williamson 1:21:15 ... things, yeah, from the-

Bridget Phetasy 1:21:16 Why o- why always the beaks?

Chris Williamson 1:21:17 Well, I don't know, because they-

Bridget Phetasy 1:21:18 Where did that come from?

Chris Williamson 1:21:19 Because they're fucking Slipknot fans, maybe. I don't know.

Bridget Phetasy 1:21:22 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 1:21:22 Okay? I don't fucking know. Look, Bridget, let's

Chris Williamson 1:21:25 bring this home. I really appreciate you coming on.

Bridget Phetasy 1:21:27 This was so fun.

Chris Williamson 1:21:27 Where should people go? Where should people go if they wanna check out what you do?

Bridget Phetasy 1:21:31 Um, you can go to my Substack, which is Beyond Parity with Bridget Phetasy on, it's bridgetphetasy.substack or whatever. You can go to my Locals community, which is where we have a tribe (laughs) of tribeless people. It is very tribeless. It's a very, um, wacky group, and we have workouts for the women, and we do live streams, and that's at phetasy.com. And I put a lot of stuff behind the paywall that's more personal, um, and also just more my own, like, life, and, um, we also do the unedited Dumpster Fires there. You can find me on YouTube. We have a show, Dumpster Fire, now a podcast as well. I have a podcast, Walk-Ins Welcome, um, which you should come on for sure. And you can find me at Bridget Phetasy on all social media.

Chris Williamson 1:22:29 Amazing. Thanks, Bridget.

Bridget Phetasy 1:22:31 Thank you.

Chris Williamson 1:22:32 What's happening, people? Thank you very much for tuning in. If you enjoyed that episode, then press here for a selection of the best clips from the podcast over the last few weeks. And don't forget to subscribe. Peace.