Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark - “Conservative Christians Need To Stop Idolizing The 1950s.” - With Author Bekah Merkle

Episode Date: May 12, 2023

Dare we say an obsession with the concept of a 1950s Housewife was recently resurged amongst Conservative women. But in a society that glorifies girl-bossing over homemaking – is this glorification problematic? Was the 1950s *actually* the ideal time to be a woman? Perhaps even spicier: Is the #tradwife movement, which perpetuates a legalistic view of what wifely duties and motherhood “should” look like, completely warping God’s commands for women?This episode of The Spillover covers all of t...

Oh my gosh, I just ordered my first batch of outfits for YWLS. That's our Young Women's Leadership Summit that Turning Point puts on every year. It's all 70s theme because just like in this episode, we will be busting the lies that were created by the 70s feminist movement at this event. And a little birdie told me some of the names of speakers that have yet to be announced, yeah, you're going to flip. We know that people like Haley McEnany, Riley Gaines, Laura Trump and Candace Owens will be speaking. but that is just the tip of the iceberg for the biggest conference for conservative women in the country. All ages can go, by the way. I'm always telling like, well, I'm not a student anymore.

I'm too old to go. No, you're not. Absolutely anyone can go. The first time that I ever went to this freaking conference, I was like 27 years old or something. I mean, I was not a student. First of all, I've never been a college student, but anybody can go. You can go. You can go.

You can bring your daughter. Anyone should go and can go. There are people to help you every step. the way with the lodging. If you have questions, I don't know about anything. Security, what to wear, what to pack. All of that you can find on TPSA.com slash YWLS. The Young Women's Leadership Summit is June 9th through 11th in Dallas, Texas.

And this is your last chance, okay, to get these tickets. We are a few weeks out. You are going to get inspired and encouraged alongside thousands of other conservative women from across the country. And at the conference, there is shopping and meet and greets and so many friendships to be made. Go to T-P-P-U-S-A-K-L-S with Code Paupletics for a discount. That's T-P-P-U-SA.com slash Y-W-L-S with Code Pau-L-Tics or just check the show notes. Welcome to episode two in our May is for the Mom series. Every episode this month,

if you didn't know, is geared towards women, but May is for the moms just rhymes nicely, so I like the alliteration, and that's what I'm saying. But, you know, speaking of women, Let me ask you something. Okay, what are women told? Climb the ladder. Put a family on hold. Take a pill. Work like a man. Okay. We did that. Are we happier? The feminist left believes that women are only free and fulfilling their potential if they're working nine to five outside the home. Then you have the traditional wife or trad wife movement that has really been gaining popularity amongst conservatives saying that a woman's place should only be in the home and raising children. Who is right? Are either of them? A lot of Christian conservatives believe that biblically, allegedly, women should not work outside of the home. But is that really what the Bible says?

Are you sure? Is it possible that both sides have completely warped and misinterpreted what God's actual design and purpose was for women when it pertains to our role? My guest today lives with her husband and five children in Moscow, Idaho. She is the author of even exile and the restoration of femininity that has completely changed my life. I have lent this book to several girls in the office and been like, you've got to read this. She has also made a documentary based on the same book, and I highly recommend that. It is perfect, by the way, to watch with girlfriends or even in your women's small group at church. If you despise work inside the home, this episode is for you. If you despise women who choose to work outside the home, this is also for you.

Let's find out together what women were really made for and the important lessons to be learned on how we got the feminist movement in the first place with author Rebecca Merkel on the spillover. A lot of Christians tend to identify with certain aspects of first wave feminism. They say, well, that was a necessary movement for women because, you know, we got the right to vote and all these. different things that we really agree with, but you fully disagree that there were any positive points to come out of that, correct? Yeah, I think that some of the first-way feminists identify genuine problems, but I think that they went about fixing those problems the completely wrong way. And actually correctly identifying problems. I mean, imagine if you had a doctor who did that, who could tell you what you had, but then they gave you some ridiculous

cure for it. It doesn't help you that they correctly identified the problem. So I think that's what happened with feminism is that they might have, you know, seen some things that were genuine issues and then they went about fixing it in a really self-destructive way. So yeah. There were so many aha moments that I had. I actually first watched the documentary Even Exile. Then I went and read the book. And my best friend and I, we had like a little adult sleepover. I was staying with her. Her kids all went to bed. She has three kids.

And then we stayed up. We watched your documentary. And then we waited for the Taylor Swift album to come out. And it was so funny because the stuff that you're saying in this documentary is so anti everything that Taylor Swift says, you know, in her music lately. Oh, it was so funny that we were like Taylor would hate that we watch this documentary. But there were a lot of nuggets that you dropped in the Even Exile documentary. in your book that I thought, oh, even conservatives would have a lot to disagree with you on

because conservatives tend to idolize the 1950s in this trad wife culture. And you actually think that is getting it wrong too. This is all problematic. Absolutely. I do. I think that, I mean, in some ways, you know, the 50s was probably a welcome reprieve because I think first wave feminism had us barreling down the road the wrong direction. And then you got this kind of moment you know, the sort of world wars called a halt to some of that. So it was almost like there was sort of a pause. And then we just kind of picked up where we left off. And I don't think that the 1950s were mailing it.

I mean, granted, if you're going to compare the 1950s to now, sure, there's a lot that we've lost between then. And now I think our culture is definitely further down the road and much worse off than we were at that time. But I think it's, it's a direct result of what we were doing wrong then. It's kind of like watching, you know, a story play out. If you don't like the ending, you can't just, you know, rewind the movie 30 minutes and think, right, let's try it again from here. Like, that was baked in. So I don't think that the 50s were giving us, you know, the perfect model for what women should be like. Why is that? What was wrong with it? You know, I think it's really interesting if you

look at the kind of just the sort of historical moments that sort of exploded into feminist reactions. I think the sort of Victorian period gave us first wave feminism. And if you look at the parallels between the Victorian era and then the 1950s, which launched second way of feminism, it's the moments where you have women basically be reduced to the merely decorative, right? It's like your job is to look pretty, stand still, have everything perfect, you're like this nice little backdrop, and women were made to work. I mean, that's one of the things I think the feminist got right and then, you know, screwed up as they tried to fix it. But I think that the 50s were trying to keep women contained in this small, you know, kind of like a little veneer on something. You know, you have

this culture that it was reeling, honestly, from the wars and everything. And then it's like, we just put this nice little sticker over it. And I think that's kind of what the women's roles were like in the 50s. And so then there was this huge, like, it's being a housewife that's the problem. So now we're going to go out and sit in a cubicle and that will make all of our dreams come true. You know, like, I think the feminists might. have correctly identified a problem, but really misidentified what would fix it. And so I think they definitely made the problem worse. You know, you can imagine a doctor could do that and you could correctly identify the problem and then compound it with his approach. And I think that's what

the feminist did. But I do think the 1950s, although better than what we have now, you know, like they still had some remnant of, you know, well, they knew what a man was, right? And a woman. That was one thing they could do. Can you imagine? Can you believe it? They were getting some stuff right. But I do think that they were basically reducing the women's role to something that women will eventually blow if you treat them like that. And I think this is really hard to process for conservatives because you're saying like, well, women were designed to work.

And right there, everybody's got their foot on the brakes. They're going, stop right there. Rebecca, what are you talking about? It was women going to work that has created all of our cultural problems. We needed to stay home and we didn't. And now look what we had. So how could you possibly say that the right thing was for women to go to work? Because I know what you mean, but for those who aren't familiar with even exile, explain what you mean. Yeah. Okay. Well, I think the first problem is that we have allowed ourselves to define work as something that comes to the paycheck, right? And so if you're at home, you are by definition not working. And I think that's the first weird, weird premise.

Like, I don't know how we managed to buy into that, that a woman who is killing herself at home, all day, long hours, you know, and we say, oh, you know, it's a pity she doesn't work. That is such a goofy way of looking at it and defining work in the weirdest, most narrow, superficial way possible, right? did you get a paycheck for what you did? And so I think if you only define work as that, that's our first problem, right? So you bought into this narrative that like if you're at home, you're doing nothing important, nothing meaningful, you're not really working, you're kind of wasting your life.

You could go out and work. And I think that it's not enough to just reverse us back out of the, you know, corporate world and say, no, no, no, stay in the house. We have to reject that idea of what work is in the first, place. And I think a lot of, um, a lot of conservatives weirdly, um, like they think they disagree with the feminist, but they have actually bought the central lie of feminism, which is what? That the work of a wife and mother in the home is worthless, demeaning, kind of embarrassing, um, you know, you've really wasted your education. Like, why did you bother going to college if all you're

going to do is that? Like, it's this very demeaning. view of basically this sphere that was like women owned this sphere for thousands of years literally you know like this was what women were doing and teaching each other and getting good at and then we decided yeah that's all dumb um and then weirdly you've got these conservatives that have still kind of bought that dichotomy you know like out there is meaningful work that's where you get a paycheck in the home that's the silly work and then the conservative think, okay, but I guess I just have to do the silly work. You know, like, I guess that's what we'll do. And it's, it's so funny because it's like, no, you've got to, you've got to reject it all

the way to the ground. You have to say, like, no, I actually think this is incredible work. This is important work. This is culture building work. This is what we'll put our nation back together is if women start doing this. Like, this is vital. And so I think having, um, rejecting the feminist narrative about what exactly it is that women do well and think that's the that's the fundamental problem well the feminists got it wrong first then the conservatives got it wrong the bible doesn't say that a woman's place is in the home they say that her priority should be the home right right absolutely i mean i think um yeah i would know i've had multiple things with paychecks attached over the years and um i have no problem with that i would think a woman's work

should be an overflow from what she's doing at home, not like an escape from. And it should always be pointed towards her people, right? Like, this is all about owning this space and blessing this space and these people in my home. And it's not like, like, the feminist idea is that, like, you go, you go fulfill yourself, you go pursue your dreams, you leave those people behind, they're dragging you down,

go out here and do something else. And I think that's a, well, Well, not just, I mean, it's just selfish. Right. And selfish has become now a virtue in this new weird upside down world that we live in. Like selflessness or self-denial or any kind of courage or nobility, we demean those things. It's all about you and you do you and you pursue your dreams and you put yourself first and you cut those toxic people out. I do think we're living in a very weird, it's like opposite day, you know.

We don't admire. Every day. Every day is opposite day. Now you're right. Exactly. It's like we don't admire things which really are what made this nation. I mean, you know, like courage and self-denial and a willingness to sacrifice for something else that you believe in. Like, what's that about? We think that that's a really embarrassing thing to do these days. You're supposed to be having your own dreams fulfilled and your own, you know, private. priorities at all times. So I do think that it's just really trying to strip away this kind of leftist, feminist agenda. I think sometimes we have bought into a lot more of it than we realize we have as conservatives because it's just the air you breathe. I mean, you seriously can't

even watch like probably a toothpaste commercial with having this reinforced. You know, it's not like you have to go out looking for this philosophy. It is absolutely everywhere. And it cracks me up that women still feel oppressed in this country because have you not ever read any history? Do you have like any idea of what life is like in another century or in another country? Many places in the world now, it's just a really funny, it's a really funny, very provincial view, I think. You do such a good job of kind of talking about what conservatives tend to ignore. in how we got the second wave of feminism in the first place. And that is, it wasn't shocking that women got bored in the 1950s.

And so they thought, well, I'm not contributing anything to this family because all I have to do is walk across the street to get clothes for my family at a big fancy department store now. I don't have to sew anything. I don't have to make any clothes. I'm not contributing to keeping my family warm. When it comes to making dinner, I can pop a ready-made oven dinner in. And, you know, I don't have to really work at cooking.

Basically, women just felt like I'm not even doing it. anything important to contribute to this family. And so they thought, well, then I guess I have to go to work. I have to go to work like the men so that I feel like I'm contributing something. That's how we got the 60s. And how you talk about that is a huge mistake for conservatives to ignore that tenet of what culture was like for women in the 50s. Yeah. And I do think it's funny because I think I use this example in the book, I think. It's like we had this massive, like with a sort of post-World War II explosion of suburbia. And just honestly, baseline standard of living for your average American, just, I mean, crazy high compared to the previous generation and just the sort of things that

are taken for granted, right? Just household appliances, you know, your fridge, your vacuum cleaner, your toaster, your oven, whatever, just little things. And rather than taking this huge gift and then raising the bar on what we expect of ourselves now, having been given this massive gift, it's like women kept the bar at the same place, but now we can just get it done so much easier. And it's weird how that kind of takes away the satisfaction of the work in some ways. And so I was saying it's like if you can imagine some guy who really killed it in the business world and decided to retire, you know, at 28 or something. and then spent the rest of his life play video games,

you know, it would be really a hollow and empty existence. I mean, you know, it's just kind of like, okay, so you made it, but rather than taking that and turning a profit on it, you just decided to sit down and, you know, unshockingly, it gets boring really fast. And I do think that that happened with the 50s, because you just have this explosion of convenience and then not a corresponding raising of the bar

and so it's just like life got more convenient. And then I bet right at the beginning it was probably phenomenal and it was so exciting. And then it got boring. And I don't think the women have anyone to blame but themselves for that. I mean, it's like, you know, you could have decided to do more with it, but you didn't. And I think that would have been the appropriate response. You know, like if they looked around and thought, actually, okay, this is kind of seeming a little bit boring.

rather than rejecting their home, being ungrateful for what they've been given, blaming their families, blaming their houses, and then going out to get a job in the business world thinking that will solve the problem. If they had just decided to raise the bar themselves and think, okay, it seems like I'm kind of coasting now, what could I do better? I think we would have seen a very different cultural outcome. because there's no denying that women walking away from the home has utterly gutted this nation. I mean, gutted it.

And again, you're saying women can still work, but it's making sure that your home is always the priority. And also, maybe work, and I'm saying that in quotes, maybe work is you're super involved in your community. Maybe you're very involved in politics or some philanthropy or whatever. you're involved a woman biblically is called to be involved and do things out of her home correct? Yeah yeah yeah exactly and I do think too we have a pretty low bar of what we expect out of the home also like I think

if we decided to try and exert our creativity a little bit it might turn out that there is more scope in the domestic sphere than we think that there is right And part of that is just being willing to throw yourself into it, despite all the cultural shaming that goes along with it. Because I do think we, we tend to think of like, Hull is super boring. You've got your, you know, your beige carpet, and you've got your beige sofa, and you've got your little minivan, and you've got your beige dinner that you're going to eat. You know, like, everything is boring. Everything is not very fun. It's, you know, like, we have this weird view

that like the home has almost become like it's like a docking station for your you know fellow or something it's like it's just where you go and you splat at the end of the day you sleep and then you go back out and we do all the big stuff out there and i just think that there's a lot of um i think a lot of more um creative thinking about the home it might turn out that there's more to it than that. But yes, of course, outside the home as well. You know, your kids, I taught high school for years because at a private school where my kids were. And, you know, there's loads of things that you're going to do outside the home and they can all be pointed back as a blessing to your home. But I think that sometimes that requires thinking of your home maybe differently than we're used to thinking of it. It's not just the place where you keep the lazy boys and the Netflix. I have a, there's a Facebook group for fans of the show. And it's called cute servatives, cute, you know, women that like pop culture and beauty and makeup and fashion, whatever, but we're all conservative. And the cute servitist Facebook group, I was like, oh, I saw this comment and I thought, man, she needs this Becca Merkel interview like today,

but I knew that this interview wasn't coming out yet, but she had talked about how she just had a baby a few weeks ago, and she is just counting down the days for her, she's counting down the days to be able to go back to work because she is so bored and just can't stand. She feels like she's going crazy within the four walls of her home. What do you usually tell women that feel that way? Right. Well, it would obviously be quite tailored to who the person was and what their background was. And are we starting really ground zero trying to build this up? Or do you just need to remind them to not have a bad attitude? Because sometimes women do know better and you just need to say, come on now, you know, suck it up. I bet you're tough enough to handle being in a house with a baby.

but I do think that it is it's almost like expected that women are going to feel like that and so they it's like they don't even consider maybe not feeling like that right it's like we've been so trained to think oh stuck at home poor thing you know what is she ever going to do with her education if all she is doing and it cracks me out because you're like okay you've got these little immortal souls, right, that you're supposed to be raising. And that somehow seen as unimported. Right. He's like, oh, boring job. I should be out there, you know, like filing insurance claims. Rather, it's just such a funny thing. And even, I mean, you think about these little people who are immortal souls, but they're also future citizens, right? Future businessmen, future entrepreneurs,

future whatever and you are the mother that is raising them and we've somehow decided to trick ourselves into thinking well how embarrassing unimportant boring and you know demeaning to have to do that job and I think that that really just trying to change your paradigm um but I do I just think a lot of women are they it is relentless from the media it is relentless in all of our movies in all of our TV shows, we all know that the mom who stayed at home and raised her kids were supposed to kind of feel like that was, you know, that's a little embarrassing. Then you put her next to the one who went off to the city and became a lawyer and, you know, slept around for her whole life and never got married and whatever, like, we're supposed to see that as like fulfillment. Like that is living

the dream right there. And so I think for some people, it just comes down to like just having to unlearn things, you know, like really having to detox from our cultural onslaught of propaganda. And I do think that women buying into this has had a massive, really detrimental effect on our whole nation. I mean, it's like you just look around at the lost, rootless generations, the last few that we have had. that it's like they grew up without a home without a mom. They might have had a house, but, you know, not the kind of home where there's fellowship, where there's community. It's like everybody grew up, I don't know, you let yourself in after daycare or moms at work.

You make your own food. You go to your own bedroom. You watch your own shows. You know, like, what was? I mean, that was Gen X. That was the latchkey kids of the 80s. Those people grew up and had my generation. So, like, my parents are Gen X.

I'm millennial. So they had me. Now, my parents are the exception. They're still married. But a majority of my friends, their parents are also divorced. They're the ones that grew up the latchkey kids with separate parents and working parents, too.

Yeah. Yeah. It's like, it's surprising we don't know what a woman is. I mean, you know, like, it's like we've really plummeted,

um, culturally. And I do think that it's, you know, it cannot be overstated what a massive, um, component, the feminist movement had in that

in just removing women from their people, from their homes, and getting them to chase something out there, which it turns out hasn't made the women happier. I mean, it hasn't. There were so many things that I learned from you that I don't know if I had never really looked into it or didn't know or never heard before or what.

But number one, I tend to forget that abortion did not just become a thing when Roe v. Wade was passed in the 70s. Abortion was a key tenet of feminism from the absolute very beginning. And so was birth control roped into that? And then you had, you know, post-World War II, you had people creating formula. They wanted women to go back to work. Daycare became front and center. That wasn't a last-ditch effort for people that were in need. You know what I mean? That had lost a husband or whatever. All of this stuff was very intrinsically designed. Explain.

the mastermind effect of feminism. Oh, it's ridiculous how many pieces all fed into this. And I think the selling point for women was their discontent. Like, if you can just get a woman to think she deserves more, aren't you so sad like this? Aren't you so unhappy? Aren't you? Nobody thinks that you're doing anything neat.

Don't you want to come over here? I mean, it's like offering kid candy to get him into the creepy van. you know and our whole nation of women went and got in the creepy van you know because it's like we um we talked them into thinking that this is embarrassing that they deserve more you know like all this is like with eve eve getting the apple being told this is just take a bite yeah yeah yeah and then you'll you'll be like god you know you'll be able to do all these amazing things and and i do think that the women all bought into it and it's a very little bit of bait on that hook, but it's a really big hook. And it cracks me out too when you think about

like how, I mean, just birth control what a sacrament that is, right, for most modern Americans. And everyone links abortion to Margaret Sanger. They do not realize that birth control is tied to Margaret Sanger too, who had a very specific idea of what society should look like, what color skin people should have. Hint, it was white. And how to eradicate anyone who didn't fit that mold. Yeah, absolutely. And the birth control piece

was, that primarily was her fight, was the legalization of birth control. But it is funny to me when you think about it, like, how many women would never eat a chicken that had a hormone in it anywhere? And yeah, just

pump the hormones. It's a really funny thing. Like, we're supposed to all into like natural and organically raised, whatever, except for when it comes to that. And it's like the most, like it's so weird how women are actively at war with their own biology. And think of that as like the normal thing. And I think that that's really, really noticeable. And the thing that made it appealing to women is discontent. So when things like birth control were invented, they were pushing. things like abortion. They said, we're going to, we're going to invent formula so you don't have to worry about breastfeeding. You can put your kids in daycare. What you're saying, Becca, is that all of this wasn't just created out of the goodness of their heart because they really cared about women being equal. No. And I do think if you think about, I think the left has been willing to play the long game. And I think that they are decidedly winning the long game because they have been

willing to do it. And I think, like, if you think about a war, right, you're not going to have one side invest masses of time and money and effort in some ridiculous target that means nothing, right? They're only going to be throwing all their resources at it if in some way it's strategic to them, right? Maybe it's geographically strategic or it's strategic for morale or whatever it is, but it matters to them that they take this, you know, whatever, this city or this ass or I don't know. And if you think about how relentless for over a century it has been on getting women out of the home, you think, okay, they're not doing that for no reason. they see how significant it is, like how fundamental it is to a nation, to a culture, where the women are.

And so the fact that they have been just, again, relentlessly attacking this target, should at least tell us maybe it's worth defending. I mean, if you think about it, they think it's worth taking. Maybe we ought to put some effort into defending it. So I do think that they have been willing to play the long game, but it has been in one direction. And that direction is getting women to believe that they are mistreated if they're in the home and then get them out. Live advice, the price of your skin care does not always determine how well it's going to work.

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At first, they're saying things like, you know, women are more than just sex objects. Then they're also saying prostitution should be legal. Porn is great. Make your own only fans. You know, be in control of your own. own body to what you want with it, sexualize yourself and all this. Explain that cognitive dissonance to me. You know, I think, I think some of this just comes down to the fact that sin never makes sense. If it did make sense, it wouldn't be sin. So some of that is just like, it just, it doesn't.

It's like, really when you see like, you see a kid throwing a tantrum, right, for something. And we all know the sort of Walmart child, you know. Which and he was like. angry, he wants whatever it is. Like he wants his mom to buy him the candy. And let's say she gives in and buys him the candy. Well, that's not going to make him happy. He's going to freak out and throw the candy and he's mad and he wants something else. And you can't reason with a tantrum, right?

You couldn't sit the kid down in the middle of the tantrum and try to say, but do you see this is contradictory? Contradicting what you were just screaming about. It's like, no, because the point, is the fit. The point is the scream. The point is the emotional catastrophe that's going on. And that really has been the feminist movement. It's like they've gotten everything they wanted. Like seriously everything. And it hasn't stopped them from screaming. So it's just been like this from one thing to the next. And that's I think this whatever wave we're on now of feminism,

third or fourth. Now we don't even know what a woman is, which makes it kind of hard to fight for the rights of a woman. You know. But I just, I just, I do. I think it's just been this tantrum power move is what it is. And that's what a tantrum always is, is the power grab. And that's certainly what we have seen. There are many women who would say, I'm a Christian, I'm also conservative, but I just don't feel called to motherhood or even desire it. What do you think about that? Yeah. Well, I certainly don't think that every single woman has to be a mother, because there are many, you know, women whose circumstances are, you know, whatever. And so I would never say, like, you know, in order to be a real woman, you have to have had kids.

You know, not anything but I certainly think that when a culture prioritizes it and admires it and thinks it is a good thing, then we're dealing with a very different sort of situation. And then the women who can't have kids, whatever, it's seen as, like, like it's a hardship, right? I mean, like, that's, that's sad that they can't have kids or something. Then you have what we've got in our culture, which is barrenness is basically what everyone's striving for. And then occasionally you might choose to add a child on as like the little bit of kale on the side of your plate, you know, it's kind of like this main thing is my career. And then I drew a little kid on the side. It's an accessory to your life.

Yeah. It's a little accessory. And so I certainly don't think that it has to be every single woman in every single circumstance, you know, or anything like that. But I do think that if you're in the place where you think that like what a drag that would be to have kids, I think you really need to run some self-assessment and just figure out, okay, where's this coming from? and you know like what is this just a bunch of cultural baggage or is it just again that that um right now it's all about prioritizing the self right it's and actually it's funny how much they hate seeing someone else not prioritizing themselves you know it's like if you don't put yourself first

you're almost betraying all women right like if you aren't chasing your dreams and chasing your career and everything else. If you set that aside in order to take care of these kids, you're betraying women. And I just think that it is a very, it's hard to escape that narrative. And I think if, you know, if you're a Christian woman who has like kind of a visceral reaction to the idea of kid, it's just worth just asking yourself, where's that coming from? You know, is that, is this a good thing or is this kind of a leak in the boat that we need to plug? Because there's a lot of cultural assumptions coming in that may be really problematic. You brought up cultural assumptions.

I think a lot of non-Christian young women are very hesitant to even give Christianity the time of day because they believe that the Bible says that women are inferior to men. When the Bible talks about things like submission to your husband and things like that, what are people getting so wrong about these scriptures? Oh, man. well, I would think 99 times out of 100, they don't know what they're talking about. They're just repeating what they've heard, right? And if it's somebody who's honestly invested in, they really want to know what does the Bible teach about this, then there are a lot of really good answers. But we have been trained, again, cultural assumptions to think,

oh, yes, the Bible is very misogynistic. and Paul hates women and all that kind of thing. And it's just such a like a transparent lie if you're honest with the text. But being honest with the text isn't something that our moment is very good at. You know, we're not honest with the text in scripture. We're not honest with the text of the Constitution. We just like to take anything and any text and treat it like silly putty. And we can make us say whatever we want to say.

And we do a kind of like, you know, like those ransom notes. We like to snip things out and put them together. So you like, see, fall vates women. I think that if you're willing to actually read the text, to be honest with it, there's an awful lot there. The scriptures aren't silent on the question. But you have to be willing to let them say what they say and be willing to go with it instead of getting mad right at the first.

step, right? So I think that when people kind of lock their knees and they get mad, and it's like the word submission, are you kidding? I'm out without waiting to hear what it's actually saying. What is it actually saying? Yeah. So I think, I absolutely believe that a wife should submit to her husband. And I don't think that that means that he's a little dictator and he gets to do what every wants and, you know, everything. There's a lot of commands to husbands too. It's not just a one-way street. So I do think a wife is supposed to submit to her husband. I do not think that women submit to men. I mean, thank goodness, right? The fact that you are submitting to one man is a protection against having to submit to the rest of them, right? So it's definitely not a Muslim,

you know, sort of first-class citizen, second-class citizens thing. And it's quite clear in scripture that men and women are equal. And yet at the same time, the wife is called to submit to her husband as Jesus submitted to God the Father. And yet we believe that Christ is equal to the father. We don't think that that means inferiority. So I think that, you know, if you're willing to actually read the whole thing, it's not nearly as insulting as we like to make it. But if you are sort of a modern, egalitarian, you know, individualist, then you don't like the idea of having to submit to anybody ever for any reason, except strangely when you go to work and you have a boss.

And I guess that's okay. Right. But you know what's ironic is that when we talk about like women going into the workforce and how it's so much better to get out of the home and blah, blah, blah, your life matters more, your purpose matters more. It's like women prioritize a career above their home because they don't want to submit to their husband, a man, to only then submit to another man, their boss.

who then says all this money that you're making work working for me is going to pay another woman to take care of your children. I know. It's so funny. And not to mention it, it's just going to be some random guy who doesn't care about you, who didn't stand up in front of God in these witnesses and promise to be faithful to you until he died, right? I mean, that's the man that you, God has actually commanded you to submit to. And it's like, no, I could never do that. I'm going to go submit to this other guy who doesn't even know my name or you know it's a jerk to me whatever and I do think that it wasn't Chesterton said something like all the women like at once said we will not be dictated to and then they left their homes and went to become stenographers exactly exactly

you know exactly the point I'm trying to make yeah I think it's really hard because for conservative women in 2023 we look at the state of culture and we're just so hard. heartbroken and so devastated and we think how could it possibly get worse than this? And you actually argue in your book that conservative women and Christian women in particular should be elated to be where we are compared to past generations that the fact that culture has been completely destroyed is actually amazing news. What do you mean? Yeah. I think that it's really, it's actually funny because it is true. It can be so depressing when you look at the wreckage of this country and you think what on earth are our daughter is going to do you know like they're

going to step out into like such a worse situation than we did and and I think though that if you if you stop and think about it for a minute I like to think about it like a home remodel because we're in a perpetual perpetual home remodel um if you had a complete housefire and everything got destroyed there'd be a lot of tragedy that came with that but when it comes time to to rebuild it, you actually can think about every single decision that you're making, right? It's like you're not necessarily stuck with that weird hall that never made any sense. And, you know, you actually can rethink it. And there are a lot of women throughout history or today in various parts of the world that really are stuck in very difficult situation. You know, like culturally,

what people thought of women, you know, I don't know, think about being an ancient history. And or something. They probably had it bad. But today, I mean, we have the freedom to do whatever, like really whatever we want. And the worst thing people can think to cry about is like this perceived wage gap or something. That's a pretty small level complaint when you think about, you know, how many women have been made war concubines in the history of this world, right? Okay, our problems are smaller. And we get to actually think about, like we have the freedom to rebuild and we have sort of a blank canvas. You know, like we can look at history. We can look at scripture. We can look at our own country. We can look at the generations that came before us that did it wrong. And then we

actually have the freedom to try to figure out where do we put the walls and how do we nail this? How do we do it right? We're not actually locked into the bad decisions. like, okay, the bad decisions of feminists for generations have destroyed the nation, but it's not like we're obligated to agree with them. Like, we have the freedom to do something else. And I think if enough women decided to apply themselves to that question, we actually could make a huge difference in turning this country around. I mean, I really think the women are the ones who tore this place down. And so surely, if we have the ability to tear it down, we have the ability to build it again. So step by step, if conservative Christian women were to say, now that everything

in culture has been destroyed, we have a chance to rebuild this the right way. Step by step, what would that look like? What should Christian, conservative women, say, we need to implement this now to start seeing radical change. That's amazing. Right. I think the very, very first step, honestly, is going to be get your own heart right. Get your heart in order. Because if you can't do that, then what good are you to anything? Right? You're not going to turn this country around if you can't even get your own attitude in check. So being willing to be countercultural, right? And for as much as conservatives like to talk about that, it's like, but not if it actually costs me something. Right. That's a human nature thing. It's not even a left versus right. Nobody wants to sacrifice something, especially something

that makes them comfortable. Exactly. And I think a lot of people want to be really value for truth in social media comments, but not when it actually comes to your, you know, I'd have to actually exert myself or I'd have to actually do something hard, right? We want to squabble about stuff online, but we don't want to actually invest in our people or whatever. And so I think the first thing, really the first thing, is your own heart and deciding that you're going to be faithful wherever you are, you're going to be faithful right there, and you're not going to care who sees it, because that's the sort of thing that God always uses. And it's like, it's so tempting to like try to, I don't know, do marches and rallies and get all into activism and everything. And I'm

not saying that those things are wrong, but that's not what's going to change the nation. The nation's going to change when individual people decide to be faithful where they're standing. And I think that that's going to be the thing that's trickier. Because when you can buy the t-shirt and you can go on the march or whatever, then you feel like you've done a thing or you've done it kind of publicly. But it's just you on a Tuesday with your toddlers deciding to own it and be like actually turn a profit on what you've been given. It's like, who's going to see that? You know, what difference is that going to make. And I think the first thing we have to do is realize, no, individual faithfulness matters and it matters a lot and a decision to not give in to the incessant, selfish, just wallowing

in victimhood, right? I mean, we like to look at the left and say, look at them doing that over there. But it's pretty omnipresent, right? And I can't even tell you. I can't even tell you. You're so right. And it is human nature. We always like to, you know, you know how, have you ever seen like a kid who's like looking in the mirror and kind of practicing their sad face? Just kind of like looking at themselves. I feel like everyone's doing that. Like everyone wants to see their own sad face and they want everyone else to see their sad face, which is the thing of like posting online. I'm so bored and it's so sad for me at home and I can't wait to get out. Because they want everybody to rally around and say, oh, no, you're wonderful, you're enough, you're amazing. It's like, just, just drop that.

Be willing to be faithful in your own space every day and don't care who sees it. And I think that that, man, that's a lot harder and it takes a lot more courage and a lot more strength. It's like, we like to think that strength is, I don't know, actually, again, with the opposite day when people are being big chickens publicly. You tell them how strong there. But I do think it takes a lot of strength. It takes a lot of courage. It takes a lot of backbone to be countercultural. It takes a lot of self-sacrifice to just think, I'm going to do it because it's right and because I believe in it and not because everybody's affirming me and not because everyone's clustering around to the comments to tell me how brave I am. I'm just going to do it. I think that's really the first thing. And so I

think it just means getting your, getting your heart right, but getting your priorities right, and just trying to just weed out all of the, just the static from, you know, the culture coming out is from every direction, being willing to have everything on the altar in terms of like, I want to do this right, which means I can't have some parts of my life that I say, but not that. I'm not willing to give that up, right? Just everything's on the alter, that takes a lot of strength, a lot of courage, a lot of, like a decision to be really brutally honest with yourself. And I think that if women were willing to do that, I think, honestly, I think you could change the country overnight if women would do that. And it wouldn't

take a single election. You work outside of the home, obviously, you also work in the home, being a wife and a mother. How do you know what good sacrifices would be versus damaging sacrifices? Yeah, yeah, sure. I think that, well, at least for us, there's been a constant reassessment all the time, you know, because what was really great in one season is not necessarily, you know, for all time. And so it's just like constantly, you know,

questioning it, is this still working? Is this still a good idea? Should I pull back? Should I take that opportunity? You know, just having to be a constant conversation, I think is really important. And I, when I say, willingness to sacrifice. I don't mean, and now you're going to never have any fun ever again.

Right? It's not that. It's actually, it's so funny how if you're willing to just let go of some of the things that you've been clenching onto so tight, it turns out that really the gospel logic is, you know, he who's trying to save his life will lose it. But if you're willing to lose your life, you'll save it. It's not like, you know, Christ always says, if you want to, about the front of the line, you go to the back, but it's not because you're not supposed to be at the front of the line. He's telling you how to get there, right? It's not the way you think that you're going to get there. So I think that if women are willing to be sacrificial, that's where all the joy is, right? If you're willing to lay yourself down, that's where all the fulfillment is,

that's where the contentment is, that's where you're going to actually have a fun light. And so it's certainly not a thing of like, and now you just get to drink lemon juice and be sour for the rest of your life. It's not that. So I think if your sacrifices are resulting in bitterness, envy, hatred, unkindness, those are all wrong. Something's wrong there. If you're doing it right, then the things you're laying down are, it's like you're putting that seed in the ground and it's blooming. That's how you know you do it. You did it right. Right. But it does require putting something down and letting go of it, taking your hands off of it. But, you know, if you very it and now it's starting to rot and get rancid and smell bad, okay, something's wrong here.

If you're sacrificing, you're laying things down and then it comes back to you as blooms, then you know you're sacrificing right. This is going to sound really silly, but one of my proudest achievements in my 20s was learning to track my cycle, understanding what different phases of it means and using that as a tool to become unbelievably in tune with my own body. Okay, I know. It's just, look, that is female empowerment. And I use Garnu tampons to help with that mission.

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Now, every box you buy also fights human trafficking for girls in Nepal. It doesn't get better than this. It really doesn't. Order your first box of Garnu tampons with the link in the show notes. One of my favorite parenting books is by this Christian Jefferson Bethke. And it's called take back your family. And he talks about when you're trying to decide what sacrifices are worth making in terms of your career when it comes to involving your family, he suggests having like a sit-down meeting with all the members of your family, kids included and being like, okay, mommy or daddy has these four opportunities this month. Let's vote as a family.

What are the things we like about these opportunities? What things do we not like? And then kind of involving everybody to be involved because you're taking these things on as a family. a family. And I really loved that suggestion. Yeah. We used to have neighbors who did something like that, but it was not effective because they only had one child. I think he was brought in as the tiebreaker. Yep. Yeah. That was the only time they ever let her have sugar was at their family meetings. And I was like, oh, that's just straight bribery right there. Yeah, she's got a huge lollip in her mouth. She's like, sure, I'll say yes to anything.

Exactly. No, especially, you know, as our kids have gotten older, yeah, of course, talking to them about it has always been, it's just always been a sort of ongoing conversation. But I think the thing that we, kind of the little metric we always used when it was sort of, I have various opportunities, what are I going to do? Or am I going to take it, not take it? It was really a question of, is this going to be giving to my family? Or is this going to be giving to my family? Or is that? this going to be taking away from my family. Yeah. And that's always been the kind of, that's just an easy one to answer for me. Because if it's like, oh, okay, I have this opportunity, but it's going to be my kids are the ones who are going to pay for it, then yeah, I'm not going to take it. It's like there will always be opportunities, you know? It's like I had a design business when my kids were younger.

And then it just was kind of hitting this one moment where it was like, I was going to have to really throw myself into it at a much higher level or um i could like go to my kids volleyball games and stuff and it was like my kids are not always going to be this age and there will always be things to be designed that's not going to go away but my kids are not going to be this age so this is an easy answer for me right now and so that's just always been kind of how we looked at it is like are they going to feel this as a blessing or are they going to feel this as and now we entered the dry spell where mom was never home or never paid attention or whatever. So it's usually how we tended to approach it.

And it's like we would get the kids input and stuff too. But ultimately it was always my husband and I who would make the call because the kids, you know, especially when they're younger, they're not going to know all the, all the fact. But they're certainly important. Why is it important to know and distinguish the difference between a high achieving admirable woman and a high achieving admirable man? Why is it important to know the difference? Yeah.

Like how does it, how does being high achieving and admirable look different for a woman versus a man? Yeah, I think, I think it just absolutely is. And of course, you're going to have differences between men and differences between women, right? But we as a culture talk a lot about diversity, but we don't like it very much, actually, when we see it. Right? It's like because we want a woman's, we want women for whatever reason to be measured by the exact same standards that a man is, you know, like corporately or whatever. And it's just like how weird and unfair actually is that to women, where you're expecting them to achieve at the same level when that's just that it's like they have a nannycap, right? at the beginning by not being a man. It's like we kind of want there to be zero difference between the two. And I think once you recognize actually young men and women are different. And of course, not every woman is the same and not every man is the same. But you can still generalize,

right? I mean, I'm tall. I'm like five, nine, which means I'm taller than lots of men, right? But I can still say men are taller than women. That is a true statement. Generally speaking, men are taller than women. And that's not negated just because I can point to multiple women. Right. I'm like, I'm taller. And then we act like that just totally, you know, upended that that statement. And so I do think that like, sure, there are things where, yeah, a woman can do it just as well as a man. That's true. But at what cost, right? I think that sometimes a woman can do it just as well as a man can, but only by denying a man. major part of her biology, for instance, like only if she decides, I will never have children or I will never, whatever. She has to, like, cut out this piece of her womanhood in order to achieve at the same level as a man. Not in everything. I mean, there's plenty of places where it would just be,

you know, your gender isn't going to really play into that. But we do have this weird need for everyone to be starting at exactly the same place and not have things that women are uniquely gifted for and men are uniquely gifted for. It's like we want that to be a totally level playing field. And then and then basically like is it any surprise that now we're denying that there's any difference at all between between them? Because it's like we just got mad at the idea that women were designed for certain things and men were designed for other things. And again, generalizations. But you can still speak in generalizations. and you can still have them be true.

How likely is it, you think, that we're going to see the complete and total demise of the feminist movement entirely in our lifetime? Well, one can only hope, you know? I mean, I'm just thinking, like, how is it sustainable now that they're making exceptions for allowing men in the movement and all these different things? I mean, are they going to?

Because now you have the turf feminist splitting from the other third wave feminists. They're saying it, like, you're not one of us or whatever, so is this whole thing just about to implode? Yeah, well, You would think, I mean, it feels very unsustainable, like, from where I'm standing. It's like, how do you, like, I don't even know how you make sense of your day, you know, like nothing about that movement seems like it makes sense.

They don't know what they're fighting for anymore. It's all very muddled. And sometimes you're like, do we just need a genuine tragedy to snap everybody out of it, you know? I don't know. But it's just, it does feel like it really is on a, its weird final fizzle. But the problem is, is without actually, you know, without actual repentance, whatever replaces it will be even more monstrous. You know, it's not like, I wouldn't rejoice in the death of feminism if what it meant was the men came back with a vengeance. I mean, like,

that would be kind of awful, you know, if we, if suddenly the men and said, like, enough is enough, we're putting you all on subjection again, that would be pretty terrible. Like whatever, nature of force a vacuum, right? And so, so when that goes out, whatever replaces it, if it's not repentance, it's going to be worse than what we've got now. So I do think that it does seem unsustainable. I mean, it really does feel like nobody knows what they're talking about. What are the next, what's the next thing that you're working on? Is it another book or, I'm actually, I have gone back to design a little bit. So I have a line of some kitchen linens I'm designing. I've got a bunch of other stuff I'm working on. Yes, there's another book that I keep saying I'm going to write sort of as maybe a follow-up to Even Exile. It's not, I need to snap into it. Get that done. But I do think Even Exile is kind of like the big picture like what went wrong. Why are we here? what needs to change,

but it didn't really get into the weeds on specifics. It kind of kept it big picture vision kinds of stuff. And so I think a lot of people have questions about like how, okay, I've bought it. I completely buy the vision, but now what? You know, like how do I take that vision and then actually implement the vision? And I think especially since, I mean, you think about the things that got handed down from mother to daughter, for centuries, you know. And then it just took like two generations.

And it's like we shook the et to sketch. Yeah. It's like people don't know. Like things that women knew for, yeah, millennia. It's just, it's gone. So there's a lot of women who want to try to figure this out. But really, like their moms didn't do it. They've never seen it.

They have no examples. It needs to be like an adult, it needs to be like an adult summer camp where we go and we learn how to do all of these skills. that we forgot. I know. Well, it is really funny. And I think it's interesting, too, how it's like the domestic arts. We used to think of it as art, you know, as like actually, it's like an artist. But then that got changed to the domestic sciences or home economics. You know, well, we're kind of like truncating it. We're turning it into a paint by numbers. That was a very kind of mid-century thing. You know, like now we're going to offer you a college degree in this thing that it's no longer

art. It's like become this little system that you check these boxes, you do this little, this little thing. And it's shrunk it. You know what I mean? Like, do you think about the field like art and creative expression and just what women could do in that whole? I mean, there's just so much potential in those fields. And we recognize that potential when we put it into the context of a career. Right. So it's like, we recognize that the world of, you know, like, culinary, the culinary world. It's huge. When it's a mom cooking for her family, it's kind of embarrassing. But if she's doing it as a chef, it's like a creative chef, well, see, that's cool, but that's because again, the paycheck. Like, that's sort of like the one thing that that validates

apparently is if you're doing it for a paycheck. But it's like home decorating or, you know, like if you're an interior designer, if you've got a billion followers on Instagram, then that's admirable. We like that. If you're doing it for your own people in your own house, it's kind of embarrassing for you. Yeah. So I do think that there are so many areas where we could actually dig in and achieve and achieve at a very high level because we see that in the career world. We recognize that you can achieve at a very high level.

But for some reason, we think it can't be done if it's you in your home. And so I just think it requires thinking outside the box. Whether you're watching the Even Exile documentary or you read Even Exile the book version on your own, which you can absolutely do. It is so impactful. But also what I love is hearing women using either your documentary or reading your book in their women's Bible study or small group. There's so much junk that we are asked to read in women's small groups. It's like unbelievable. It's so unbelievable.

This is like this is the next thing. If you are the leader of your small group or Bible study, you've got to tackle even exile. Have you heard that? That a lot of churches have been using your stuff? Yeah, I have, actually. And the one thing I think that is really encouraging is that I think that there are so many women who are really hungry for this. Because there's a lot, especially in the world of women's ministries, it's like, it's this horrible scene of women like petting each other's hair and telling them, you're so beautiful. and you're worthy and you're amazing and you're perfect and you're the best. And there are so many women who are

like, just stop. Tell me what to do because I know that that's not true. And this book does that. This book does that. You do not pull back any punches. You are going for it. You're like conservative leftist. I'm going to tell you exactly what you're screwing up. Yeah, exactly. But I think there's a lot of women that want that. Yes. Don't want to just sit here with everyone telling them that they're enough and that they're wonderful and that everything's the best because they're like, I would like to fix some things. And this endless affirmation isn't helping, right? And so it's not like you can never be encouraging, but we do live in this life. It's just like this terrible swamp of affirmation all the time, no matter what.

And there's just a lot of women who I think want something that actually tells them, like, look, stop doing that. Let's get our act together and do a better job. So, And you can find your book pretty much anywhere. I'm sure your website. I got it on Amazon. And then where do people go to watch the Even Exile documentary? Which is short. It's not like this huge long thing.

It's very quick, easy watch. Yeah. So that's Canon Press is the publisher of the book. And you can get it at Canon Press or you can get it on Amazon or whatever. But Canon Press also has an app that is just called Canon Plus. And that's where you can watch the documentary. can sign up just for, you know, like long enough to watch the documentary and cancel, or you can get, they have a ton of other content. So, um, there's a lot of things that if you want to get the app,

you can do that. Are you on Instagram? Yes. Actually, I am on Instagram. Rebecca Merkel. Great. Just it. I was just, um, I've been looking forward to having this conversation for so many months now, Becca. Like, uh, your book changed my life. I think, I think the way that I view, God's design for womanhood. It's just, it's not like I've never heard it before, but it's such a nice refresher. It's just nobody is really talking about like, okay, like conservatives want this whole trad wife thing. And that's good. It's not bad.

But it's also not the full picture. And, you know, the feminist, the leftist, they want us all to be in work and ignore our families or not have families at all. That's definitely wrong. That's not the full picture. But God wouldn't set us up as women to be miserable. So it's like we're missing. both of these pieces have left with unhappy women. What if we just go back to exactly what scripture says?

And it's like, hello, of course. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, imagine that, you know. Yeah, I think it's really encouraging seeing how many women actually are interested in that or actually ready to just say, okay, obviously the culture doesn't have any good answers for me. So I'm ready to do it.

So, yeah. Thank you so much. Absolutely. I have a podcast as well with my sister that is the most disorganized, hilarious thing ever, but it's called What Have You? And we talk about this kind of stuff a lot. Your sister's name is Rachel, right? Rachel Jankevick, yes.

Yeah. So many of my followers love your sister also. They have begged me to have her on too. Oh, yeah. Get her on there. Thank you so much for spending time with me on the spillover. Yes, thank you so much for having me. It's been delightful.

Next week, I am bringing back a believe. loved guest we've had on before to discuss a lot of things. But one of the main topics we dive into is how to make friends and create deep friendships as an adult. I have seen a lot of request to do an episode on making friends, especially for those that are stay-at-home moms. It is such a feel-good and encouraging episode. If you had any aha moments today while listening to Becca Merkel and I, tell me about it in a five-star review. This show is free to you, but leaving reviews, and sharing the episodes with friends and followers is the best way to support us so we can continue doing what we do. And that way, the team behind the scenes that works to edit and put these

episodes out and book these guests and get them flown out and whatever we're doing, they can read those reviews too and they feel encouraged and feel like, okay, my work is really meaning something and it has a purpose and it's changing hearts and minds. And I want them to read that stuff. So that's why your reviews are so important. New episodes of The Spillover drop every Thursday at 9 p.m. midnight Eastern on every podcasting platform, and you can watch the interviews by subscribing to Poplitics on YouTube. I'm Alex Clark, and this is The Spillover.

Love you, mean it. Bye.