Modern WisdomAre Women Being Lied To By Modern Culture? - Bridget Phetasy
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
145 min read · 28,854 words- 0:00 – 0:23
Intro
- BPBridget Phetasy
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)
- CWChris Williamson
Bridget Phetasy, welcome to the show.
- BPBridget Phetasy
Thank you for having me.
- 0:23 – 11:59
The Current State of California
- BPBridget Phetasy
- CWChris Williamson
We were just talking about California-
- BPBridget Phetasy
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... and their, the state of everything at the moment. Aren't they just about to increase the taxes again?
- BPBridget Phetasy
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.
- CWChris Williamson
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.
- BPBridget Phetasy
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
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-
- BPBridget Phetasy
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... they're pushing something along. They're really sort of jittery and forthcoming and aggressive.
- BPBridget Phetasy
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
It made me ... I don't get nervous around people very much, but-
- BPBridget Phetasy
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... there's another, like, level of crazy for the homeless there.
- BPBridget Phetasy
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.
- CWChris Williamson
Evade someone.
- BPBridget Phetasy
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-
- CWChris Williamson
Fuck.
- BPBridget Phetasy
I just, I don't, I don't know.
- CWChris Williamson
And does this, does it matter where you go? Is This pretty much across most neighborhoods now in LA?
- BPBridget Phetasy
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.
- CWChris Williamson
Perfect time for double taxes. Yes.
- BPBridget Phetasy
I know.
- CWChris Williamson
Yes.
- BPBridget Phetasy
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)
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs) You didn't heed the signs, idiots.
- BPBridget Phetasy
(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-
- CWChris Williamson
Fuck me.
- BPBridget Phetasy
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-
- CWChris Williamson
Well ...
- 11:59 – 22:26
Life Lessons from Pregnancy
- CWChris Williamson
there. Talk to me about, talk to me about being pregnant. Are you super duper pregnant now? Is this like bl-
- BPBridget Phetasy
Um, I'm 27 weeks, so we're approaching the third trimester.
- CWChris Williamson
Pretty big pregnant then?
- BPBridget Phetasy
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.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- BPBridget Phetasy
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-
- CWChris Williamson
You're just along for the ride as much as she is.
- BPBridget Phetasy
And you read about what's going on, and it's like, "What the fuck?"
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- BPBridget Phetasy
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-
- CWChris Williamson
Checking out.
- BPBridget Phetasy
And then I regret not listening 'cause I know that that information is gonna be available. Yeah. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Fucking need that. Yeah, you're gonna be asking for it in six months' time.
- BPBridget Phetasy
Exactly.
- CWChris Williamson
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.
- BPBridget Phetasy
(laughs) And progesterone. Yeah. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
And progesterone. (laughs) Swimming in it. Swim- lines of progesterone in the morning.
- BPBridget Phetasy
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-
- CWChris Williamson
That's the hippie in you.
- BPBridget Phetasy
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.
- CWChris Williamson
Rugpull.com. Yeah.
- BPBridget Phetasy
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-
- CWChris Williamson
Can meditate the medical problem away.
- BPBridget Phetasy
Yeah. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, yeah.
- BPBridget Phetasy
And-
- CWChris Williamson
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.
- BPBridget Phetasy
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
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?
- BPBridget Phetasy
Right.
- 22:26 – 35:38
Bridget’s Views on Motherhood
- CWChris Williamson
top of that, celebrating motherhood is a weird thing right now.
- BPBridget Phetasy
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
It's quite rare.
- BPBridget Phetasy
You can't even say mother. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Oh yeah, shit.
- BPBridget Phetasy
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-
- CWChris Williamson
Hang on. Have they... No. Mo- mother's g- I haven't seen mother get canceled.
- BPBridget Phetasy
Oh, no. That's, they're trying to get rid of that word too.
- CWChris Williamson
What do you say instead?
- BPBridget Phetasy
Um, like, uh, a person... I don't even know. Mother is seen as, like, a, you know, cis hetero way of viewing-
- CWChris Williamson
Interesting.
- BPBridget Phetasy
... um, the world.
- CWChris Williamson
Okay.
- BPBridget Phetasy
But yeah, they're-
- CWChris Williamson
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-
- BPBridget Phetasy
At 43, by the way.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- BPBridget Phetasy
Geriatric mom.
- CWChris Williamson
Technically, yeah. Uh, do you see it as different? Do you see your 20s and 30s, like, in a different way at all?
- BPBridget Phetasy
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.
- CWChris Williamson
How do you mean?
- BPBridget Phetasy
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.
- CWChris Williamson
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.
- BPBridget Phetasy
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
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-
- BPBridget Phetasy
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... 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."
- BPBridget Phetasy
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
And so then find out that they've missed out on getting a family, or finding a partner, or doing whatever.
- BPBridget Phetasy
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)
- 35:38 – 45:05
How Modern Culture is Impacting Women
- CWChris Williamson
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.
- BPBridget Phetasy
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
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?
- BPBridget Phetasy
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
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?
- BPBridget Phetasy
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
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-
- BPBridget Phetasy
Yeah. Sorry, go on.
- CWChris Williamson
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.
- BPBridget Phetasy
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.
- CWChris Williamson
Yep.
- BPBridget Phetasy
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-
- CWChris Williamson
So was-
- BPBridget Phetasy
... and backwater.
- CWChris Williamson
... was sort of sleeping around and promiscuity your rebellion against that?
- BPBridget Phetasy
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."
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- BPBridget Phetasy
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.
- 45:05 – 50:59
Are Gender Norms Being Allowed Too Much Freedom?
- BPBridget Phetasy
And-
- CWChris Williamson
Is there such a thing as too much freedom?
- BPBridget Phetasy
Hmm. I mean ... W- i- in, in what w- in what respect?
- CWChris Williamson
I'm just thinking about freedom from norms, freedom from, not expectation, but from predispo-
- BPBridget Phetasy
I don't know, like-
- CWChris Williamson
... predisposition, I'm s-
- BPBridget Phetasy
... have men ever had to answer that question? (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Well, I'm just thinking, like, you know-
- BPBridget Phetasy
Like-
- CWChris Williamson
... what one of the, we've got-
- BPBridget Phetasy
... it's such a question that I'm like, "Would you ask that of, like, a w- a white dude?" Like ... (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Well, yeah, I think so. Like, if you were to say-
- BPBridget Phetasy
Have you ever been too free, bro? (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
I think so.
- BPBridget Phetasy
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
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-
- BPBridget Phetasy
But I ... Is that true?
- CWChris Williamson
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 ...
- BPBridget Phetasy
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
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."
- BPBridget Phetasy
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
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."
- BPBridget Phetasy
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
"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 ...
- BPBridget Phetasy
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-"
- CWChris Williamson
Sit on the couch and finger myself for the rest of the day.
- BPBridget Phetasy
"... sit on the couch and smoke weed."
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, yeah.
- BPBridget Phetasy
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.
- CWChris Williamson
So, I think that's a really interesting point to make that the,
- 50:59 – 1:08:11
How to Overcome Deep Societal Barriers
- CWChris Williamson
uh... How unpopular of a viewpoint is it to say, "Trust fund babies, they're the ones that need our compassion"?
- BPBridget Phetasy
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
That those are the, the ones that we really, really need to think about how hard it is-
- BPBridget Phetasy
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... to be born in the Hamptons, and, you know, to have-
- BPBridget Phetasy
Trust me, I have a lot of issues with trust fund babies. I come from Newport, Rhode Island.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- BPBridget Phetasy
Like, this is the old, this is the original playground of the rich.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- BPBridget Phetasy
And those people still exist. And-
- CWChris Williamson
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.
- BPBridget Phetasy
Oh, no, that does happen on my Twitter feed. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
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-
- BPBridget Phetasy
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
... 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."
- BPBridget Phetasy
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
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-
- BPBridget Phetasy
A lot.
- CWChris Williamson
... as, as much as somebody in poverty? I would probably guess almost exactly the same.
- BPBridget Phetasy
Probably the same.
- CWChris Williamson
Yep.
- BPBridget Phetasy
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?"
- CWChris Williamson
This is life. Yeah.
- BPBridget Phetasy
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-
- CWChris Williamson
But this is it. This is a-
- BPBridget Phetasy
... for no, for nothing.
- CWChris Williamson
Well, you see this-
- BPBridget Phetasy
It's, it's complicated.
- CWChris Williamson
You see this dialogue play out in conversations-
- BPBridget Phetasy
Mm-hmm.
- 1:08:11 – 1:21:25
The Unpopularity of Not Having an Opinion
- CWChris Williamson
us. Does-
- BPBridget Phetasy
Um, they don't even need to go to war. They just-
- CWChris Williamson
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.
- BPBridget Phetasy
I know. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Fuck.
- BPBridget Phetasy
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.
- CWChris Williamson
I think that's the lesson.
- BPBridget Phetasy
Stake to learn.
- CWChris Williamson
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.
- BPBridget Phetasy
No. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
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."
- BPBridget Phetasy
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
But I just don't... I'm not usually there.
- BPBridget Phetasy
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
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-
- BPBridget Phetasy
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
... it's this perfect, perfect fucking blend of idiocy...... and self-serving malice, and just not- not a fuck given. It's that-
- BPBridget Phetasy
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... 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?
- BPBridget Phetasy
No, I haven't seen it yet.
- CWChris Williamson
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-
- BPBridget Phetasy
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
"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."
- BPBridget Phetasy
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.
- CWChris Williamson
Imagine how over it you'd be if you were a frontline nurse.
- BPBridget Phetasy
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.
- CWChris Williamson
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."
- BPBridget Phetasy
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Why I Left the Left, yeah.
- BPBridget Phetasy
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)
- 1:21:25 – 1:22:50
Where to Find Bridget
- CWChris Williamson
bring this home. I really appreciate you coming on.
- BPBridget Phetasy
This was so fun.
- CWChris Williamson
Where should people go? Where should people go if they wanna check out what you do?
- BPBridget Phetasy
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.
- CWChris Williamson
Amazing. Thanks, Bridget.
- BPBridget Phetasy
Thank you.
- CWChris Williamson
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.
Episode duration: 1:22:51
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