Financial Feminist - 109. Can Feminism Exist in Capitalism? with Rebecca Walker

Episode Date: August 22, 2023

What does it mean to embrace feminist principles in a capitalist society? How can we stand in solidarity with each other when rugged individualism is so deeply ingrained in how we make money? In this episode, host Tori Dunlap sits down with Rebecca Walker, the founder of Third Wave Feminism and author of several books, including Women Talk Money: Breaking the Taboo, to talk about the rise of the Third Wave movement, how we can be more intentional with our finances in support for causes we care about, and how to get more comfortable discussing our finances as women. Support Hawaii: https://hawaiipeoplesfund.networkforgood.com/projects/200566-maui-aloha-the-people-s-response-fund  https://www.hawaiicommunityfoundation.org/maui-strong  Read transcripts, learn more about our guests and sponsors, and get more resources at https://herfirst100k.com/start-here-financial-feminist-podcast  Not sure where to start on your financial journey? Take our FREE money personality quiz! https://herfirst100k.com/quiz Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

continuing to really try to shed a light and amplify voices and perspectives that are often silenced, marginalized, but which have great wisdom and are incredibly important for our survival. Because I think consciousness fundamentally is critically important for our survival, and we can't have consciousness if we don't know the stories and experiences of other people. Hello, financial feminists. Hello, welcome back to the show. If you're an oldie but a goodie, welcome back. If you're new here, welcome for the first time, maybe.

My name is Tori. I obviously host the show. I am also a money expert. I help you save money, pay off debt, start investing, and a bunch of other things. And I fight the patriarchy by making you rich. A reminder, if you're listening on Spotify, there's a way to engage with us. You can answer polls. You can write questions.

You can let us know what you like from these episodes. And as a reminder, if you find value in the show, one of the easiest ways to support us is literally just hitting a subscribe button, either hitting the plus or hitting the follow button on Spotify. It allows us to continue bringing you incredible guests and just producing the show. So we thank you so much for listening and sharing and subscribing. We are recording this during some pretty crazy devastation in Hawaii. And I would love, Kristen, if you wouldn't mind putting some links down below in the show notes. I'm going to say this as a white person. I have visited

Hawaii. I love Hawaii very much. And I'm going to call on all of our listeners. If you have been to Hawaii, you have a responsibility to do something. If you have taken a beautiful vacation on native land in Hawaii and you are currently seeing it's burning and you haven't done anything, whether that's donating a little bit of money or just sharing some posts about it or having a conversation with somebody about it, please do something. I know that for me, especially I have taken, oh gosh, what is it at this point? Probably four trips to Hawaii over the course of my life and have really just loved meeting people and loved learning more about the culture and seeing the devastation there is just,

it's pretty dramatic and really hard. And we have a responsibility, again, especially as white people to step up in moments like these. So I would encourage you to do what you can in some way. And I don't know how to transition out of wildfire suck, but also climate change is real. And that shouldn't be, it shouldn't be controversial to say, but climate change is real. So just support each other right now and anything you can do. I know that the people who really appreciate it. Today's episode is honestly a prerequisite for engaging with any of our episodes. It is an incredible conversation on feminism, capitalism, patriarchy, and the way all of these systems intersect. And we were so honored to get this guest today, who, side note,

has one of the most soothing voices I think you'll ever hear in your entire life. This woman could read me the phone book and I would be super happy about it. Before I get into all of her official accomplishments in her bio, our guest is also literally the creator of the concept of third wave feminism. She coined the term third wave feminist, which just is absolutely incredible. And again, we're so honored to have her. Rebecca Walker is a writer and producer who has contributed to the global conversation about gender, race, culture, and power for three decades. She is the author of several bestselling books, most recently Women Talk Money, Breaking the Taboo. She is the author of several bestselling books, most recently Women Talk Money, Breaking the Taboo.

Rebecca has appeared at over 400 universities, literary conferences, and corporate campuses, and serves as a DEI consultant for several Fortune 100 companies. She is the co-founder of the Third Wave Fund, an organization that supports women and transgender youth working for social justice, and the producer of the documentary This Is Personal about the historic Women's March. Walker was named by Time Magazine as one of the most influential leaders of her generation. She is also the daughter of the celebrated author and activist Alice Walker. We spend some time talking about Rebecca's new book, Women Talk Money, but also dive into hard questions like, is it really possible to be a feminist fully within a capitalist system? And how we can make a more conscious choice around engaging with the society and the system we live in. We also got into the WGA

strikes, which as of this recording are still going on and will likely still be going on by the time this podcast is released, which is crazy. We recorded this, I think, at the beginning of the strike, so that should tell you how long it's been going on. And we also talked about the importance of unions and collective bargaining. This was truly such a special episode. I will also say a little behind the scenes. Before we started recording, Kristen, I don't know if we even got it on recording, but she, I don't even know how to say it. It was almost like a prayer that wasn't religious. When we started recording, she like, again, I wish I could quote her. She said this like beautiful passage basically about how we were going to embark on this conversation of vulnerability

and beauty together. And it was just this really grounding moment by someone who just has this like most calm presence that even I felt through the internet, through a computer screen. And so I'm not even going to try to give you something similar because I will not succeed. But I really do encourage you to, I mean, every time you listen to the show, but especially this episode, just take a deep breath, absorb a lot of her wisdom and her knowledge. And she truly is such this like feminist beacon of hope and late and also anger and rage and all of these beautiful things together. So I'm just really, really excited for you to hear this one. Let's go ahead and get into it. But first, a word from the companies that allow us to bring you all of

this good free content. Crypto is like finance, but different. It doesn't care when you invest, trade, or save. Do it on weekends, or at 5 a.m., or on Christmas Day, at 5 a.m. Crypto is finance for everyone, everywhere, all the time. Kraken, see what crypto can be. Not investment advice. Crypto trading involves risk of loss. Kraken's registration details at kraken.com slash legal slash ca-pru-disclaimer. I went to an orchid shop in Hawaii when I was there and they said that the ice cube's a myth because it can shock the roots and I had no idea. Well, that is surprising because people have been

telling me to do that for like three decades. I know. I mean, I know. It's the same thing, I guess, with like coffee grounds is that like the science is out on whether that's actually helpful for your garden or not. Oh, well, who knows? Let's wait for the science. Let's see what they say. Your orchid looks great. So I, I, whatever you're doing, you're doing ice cubes. That's right. Great. So, you know, and it's been around quite a while. So yeah, it's not broke. Don't fix it. I am so honored to have you on the show. You have done a little bit of everything. You were the person who even coined the term third wave feminism, which was incredible to discover in our research about you. You've written several books on topics like motherhood

and money. You've consulted fortune 100 companies and DEI. When we talk to people who exist in this activism space, there's usually this like inciting moment or a realization that they have from lived experience or this cultural moment. What was that for you that brought you into the work that you do? Oh my goodness. What a great question. And you would think I would have something just right away ready for that after all these years. Let me pull one out. I guess there were a lot of different moments. I grew up as the child of the civil rights movement. My parents were married when it was illegal for them to be married. My mom was African American. My dad is a sweet young, or was a sweet young

Jewish lawyer from Brooklyn. And they were real rebels. So I feel in some ways like my activism and my work grounded in kind of changing the narrative and changing our culture was born into me. It was a part of my identity from birth. But I would say that one of the early inciting moments in my story was in 10th grade. I was walking home from school and I saw a man beating a woman on a street corner with a telephone handle. There used to be telephone booths. And I tried to get in between them and I tried to stop what was happening. And it became clear after a few minutes that if I kept being involved that he would hit me as well. So I stayed back and I sat on the curb and I, I just waited to see if I could find a moment where I could get, get in there and do something helpful. And I waited and

waited. And then finally, when, you know, it all kind of settled down, I went up to the woman and I said to her, can I help you? Can I do anything to help you? Can I drive you somewhere? Actually, I couldn't drive at that time. I was in 10th grade. I said, can I take you anywhere? Can I walk you anywhere? Can I call anyone? And she said, no, he loves me and he will be back for me. He loves me and he will be back for me. And I will never forget the shock that I felt in that moment of, you know, having to shift my understanding of domestic violence, of relationships, of the dynamics at play, and to see things in a more complex way. And so at that moment, I had so many feelings and thoughts and I went home and I wrote a piece right away. I wrote this sort of stream of consciousness essay about the experience and I ended up sharing it with my high school and the school paper.

And it started a conversation about domestic violence in relationships on campus. And we ended up having a kind of conference in school about it. And it was my first taste of bringing my own experience to bear on a situation and amplifying the stories of other human beings to benefit our collective understanding and evolution. And I was hooked right away. I mean, I was, you know, the idea that I could actually make change, that people could broaden their view, that we could bring a discussion to a deeper level. It was very exciting for me.

And then I just kept going like that, you know. And then I just kept going like that, you know. And in college, third wave, you bring up third wave, we were really radicalized by the Anita Hill testimony at the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings. And at that time, it was post the Rodney King verdict. The assault on reproductive freedoms was, you know, chapter one of where we are now was heating up then or being written, or maybe not even chapter one, I'd say chapter 10. And so there was a real sense that, again,

I could use some of my own experience. I grew up in a very feminist household community, and it didn't occur to me that so many of my cohorts, so many of the young women in my generation, in my college experience, didn't identify with feminism, thought it was, you know, a terrible word, a movement that they didn't understand, that they didn't relate to. And when I started to get that, I became very concerned that we would lose a whole generation of activists and feminists. And so one of the things that I felt, again, was that I could use my own experience to shift that a little bit.

And so Third Wave came into being with the idea that younger women needed a way to, and men and everybody in between and on the spectrum, needed a way to redefine feminism for themselves. And that would be necessary to maintain any kind of continuity in the movement. So that was the beginning of Third Wave and the beginning of my first book, To Be Real, Telling the Truth and Changing the Face of Feminism. And it just went on and on. Here I am 11 books later, continuing to really try to shed a light and amplify voices and perspectives that are often silenced, marginalized, but which have great wisdom and are incredibly

important for our survival. Because I think consciousness fundamentally is critically important for our survival. And we can't have consciousness if we don't know the stories and experiences of other people. And so most of my work has been based on that. My own books like Black, White, and Jewish about growing up mixed race, trying to move from being a tragic mulatto, which is what the story was and still is sometimes to a magic mulatto, like somebody who is able to put their fluidity to good use. And Baby Love, my second book about deciding to be a mom, you know, after growing up in this community where motherhood was considered really problematic and a kind of like

enslavement. And all the other books, Black Cool, one of my favorites about reclaiming cool and understanding that it's a cultural product of Africa and West African traditions. Like yoga is a cultural product of India. Did a great book on that. I'm doing another one on that right now. I mean, you know,

lots of books a day. My last book right there, we're making it into a movie about traveling to a small island off the coast of Kenya and falling in love with this beautiful Muslim person and almost marrying him and not being able to. different stories, you know, and this new book, Women Talk Money, which is about really trying to address the ways in which women have been encouraged to be silent about money and, and how we really need to understand our personal stories about money in order to figure out how we want to deal with money. You know, a lot of people have said, I'm so surprised by this book. It's not a make your budget, you know, invest this way. It's a different kind of book. And I say, it's the book that you read before you do that. It's the book that helps you understand what you learned about money so that you can assess whether that teaching is valuable and

whether or not you have to learn something different. And then you can know how to align your investments or your priorities with money with, with, you know, who, who you really are and what your values are. So that's my, you know, that's the beginning of all that. I love it. As someone who coined the term third wave feminism, you're on a show called Financial Feminist. My book is called Financial Feminist. I like to consider myself as one of the leaders of the financial feminist movement. How would you define financial feminism? Wow, that's a great question. How would I define financial feminism? I would define financial feminism as an understanding of the power that money has to transform the world in a way that creates a more equitable place for all of humanity. I would define it as a perspective and practice that centers

a balanced, healthy, holistic lifestyle and vision that supports everybody. That really is all about how can we make more people healthy? How can we make more people feel safe? How can we use money to make the world a better place? Does that jive with what you're doing? It aligns very much with my definition. Yep. Yep. I start and end my book with the quote, when you have all you need, build a longer table, not a higher fence. And that for me is how I define financial feminism is if I can help you, and then you can help yourself become financially stable, financially whole, financially confident. If your table is built, then you can start building and helping build a world where everybody gets their own table and everybody gets their own their own beauty and abundance but we can't do that until we we have you know put our oxygen

masks on first we can't help somebody else if we are gasping for air and so i think for any member of a marginalized group the issue for so long has been give of yourself so much, right? We have like this altruism built in us and I can speak as a woman, right? Like I have been told since I was a child, okay, your value to society is in how much you give. And then the irony is that when I have the audacity to demand more, that weaponization of altruism then happens where it's like, you're being greedy. You should just be grateful for what you have why are you demanding more and so it's like it's the the you know the way that i think the patriarchy keeps people controllable and if there's anything i'm trying to do it's create a society in a world where you are able to

unapologetically ask for what you're worth, get it, and then create a society where everybody has that as well. Fantastic. That's the goal. Yes, that's the goal. We're trying. We're trying. We're trying. We're trying. And really, to really help people understand that it's in their own best interest to allow that to happen, to support that happening, that continuing to support the kind of inequities that our culture is fundamentally based on at this point is not going to work out well for anyone, you know. So helping people really understand that it's actually good for them to do the right thing and to support people in the way that they deserve to be supported

and not based on, you know, what, what work they do or what, you know, just based on the fact that they're a human being, you know, here on the planet. I think helping people to understand that and, and how connected that is to, to peace and to stability for all of us is really, really important. You know, I think that people still are really holding on to this idea that if they just have enough, that's, that's, you know, that's what's going to save them. They're going to be safe, but it really doesn't, it doesn't work that way. It seems like it's working that way, but it's not going to work that way. You know, Putin's going to be down his $1 billion palace thing that he's got going on.

And, you know, fundamentally, you know, he may physically survive whatever happens, but psycho-spiritually, I don't think there's much survival happening there. And I'm just using him as an example of all the people who believe that they can just be siloed in their own buffeted universes and that that's going to actually work out for them. But emotionally, it's not a plan. It's not a plan for health and happiness. Well, and you have this great quote in your intro of your book of women talking money, quote, the women's bodies, labor, and very existence have always been interchangeable with money itself. Their lived experiences of this reality are often unspoken, silenced, or forced into incoherence. Beautiful. And I think it's a great

setup to the book. I know. Who wrote it? Great line. Talk to me more about how that idea was explored throughout your book because I see so many similarities. I kind of did the happy medium, it sounds like. I wrote part of the book on the before of like how do you invest and how to budget I did the emotions of money and the how the patriarchy involves our money and then I'm also trying to give the like how to invest how to pay off debt so I tried to find the happy medium and I love that you spent the time working on just the emotions the social element of money so talk to me about how those themes were explored for you. Okay, but I love the sound of your book. And I should have read it before we had a conversation

because give you a copy. I'll send you a copy. Yeah, give me a copy because I'm going to read it and I'm going to love it. I'm sure. Sounds great. So let's see. I started actually thinking about this book in the first recession that I lived through, which was in 2008. And I started to think about it because for the first time in my life, my friends and I started to speak way more openly about money because we were all thinking about money all the time because people were freaked out about money, losing houses, losing jobs, not being able to pay basic bills, trying to figure out how to get a second job, a third job. I mean, it was a really interesting moment where the financial world just cracked open in a way for me and my friends. And what I realized after having some deep conversations about what was going on in people's lives around money, that the openness and the sense of, you know, failure or confusion or,

or pain kind of lift when friends would tell me something about their financial history. And I would say, oh, well, you know, I relate to that, or I was just talking to someone else about that. And, and, you know, that is not your fault. You know, whatever it is, you know, we always think this is our fault. I made this mistake. I made that mistake. I should have this much money. I should have this high, all that stuff. We're told that too. We're told it's our fault. We're told that. Yes, it's our fault. But you know what? And I just kept saying to people, honey, this is not your fault. We are living in like late stage capitalism here. Like it is completely designed for you to

have this experience. You know, you did not participate in this predatory loan situation that took down our economy that you did not make that decision. And you would not have made that decision had you had the power. And so really having those conversations where it was, you know, and each person had a different story. And so I started to think, you know what, I want to hear all of these stories. I'm that person, you know, when I talk to people, it's like, okay, tell me your deepest truth. I'm really only interested in people's deepest truth. I'm not good at parties. I'm like, okay, tell me your deepest story. You're the best kind of party guest. That's the kind of parties that make life worth living. Okay, well, thank you. Okay, I'm going to take that. Yes. Yes.

Yes. But sometimes people are like, oh my gosh, I just told you something and it's making me nervous. So I started to feel like, you know, let me do another collection. This was my fourth or fifth collection, you know, creating space for women to tell me their stories and to create a community around these stories. And so I started to ask people to write. And of course, the stories that came out were incredible and really speak to

everything I'm saying, the way in which money has been used to control our bodies, our minds, our psyches, our creativity, some of my favorite pieces just off the top of my head, Sonali's piece just came to mind. Sonali is first generation Indian immigrant who writes about her experience of coming from a family who used money to try to control her body. So she's a large woman, a woman of size, and they withhold money from her and sort of tell her that she can only have certain things if she has a surgery to make herself smaller. And she goes through this incredible process of kind of deciding that she's not going to be controlled by this financial threat, you know, the sort of, you know, you only get money if you do this, if your body changes in this way. But first she has to realize that those two things are connected to her, you know, that she's, she's thinking about money in a way that, you know, that it's only good as a weapon,

you know, that it's only good as a weapon, that it's only being used as a weapon and that she's got to turn that around so that it's not being used as a weapon against her. It has to be used as a tool for her to feel good about herself as opposed to the other way around. You know, Latham Thomas writes an incredible piece about being a young Black woman, young girl, and watching her mom, who was a real estate agent

in Oakland, go into a bank with her real estate commission check. And the teller did not believe that a Black woman should have a check so big or could have and called the police. And so one of Latham's earliest memories of money and Black womanhood is that if you have money as a Black woman, you are criminalized. You are thought of as someone who should be arrested. A threat. A threat. Exactly. Exactly.

A threat that has to be neutralized. And so she grew up with the story of money as a Black woman. How do I have money and safety? So maybe I shouldn't have money, you know, if I'm going to be, you know, arrested for having money, let me not. So she had to work through some of those feelings and that story and just, you know, so many different stories. There's an incredible story by a young trans woman writing about how her identity is based upon her ability to buy her medication, her hormones, her treatment, and how that is so charged and problematic in so many ways and has created a sense of desperation and sort of longing for a different way,

you know, a different way so that our very identities are not based upon our ability to pay for things to get them. And just, you know, many different pieces, pieces by very wealthy women. One of my favorite pieces by Leah Hunt, who's the daughter of Helen Hunt, who's an extremely wealthy woman, amazing activist. And Leah writes about growing up as the daughter of a multi, multi-millionaire and trying to figure out how to hold that reality. And she decides that she wants to use her money or the people around her who have money. She wants to engage them and leverage those relationships on behalf of social change movements. And for her, it's about shifting her narrative from money is this sort of personal thing and this abstract thing that my family has, but I don't really deal with, to something, a story that is money is powerful and I can use

my access to it to support BLM, to support Occupy Wall Street, to support all of these movements that are radical transformation engines. So it's really a book about what's your story with money and how does it make you feel? And if it doesn't make you feel good, how can you change it? And how can you reconcile some of the ambivalence you have, some of the shame you may have, some of the confusion you may have? How can you reconcile that with a fundamental belief in your own goodness and your own right to prosperity and abundance and liberty. There are so many common threads in what you write about in this book and what we do,

which makes me so happy. One of the things you just said and one of the things that my work explores and I also struggle with is money can mean freedom and joy and abundance and ease and change. It can also mean control and this element of force. We know from statistics that 99% of abusive relationships have some sort of financial abuse tied to them. You think about, obviously, the gap between the 99% and the 1% and the woman's or person's right to choose, right? That is a financial issue in addition to a social issue and everything else and a feminist issue. So how do you find that juxtaposition? How did you explore it? I find it really difficult to navigate as someone who's trying to do this work and say, we need to get women more money, but having a lot of women rightfully so believe, oh, money, it's this capitalist thing. It's this controlling thing. Do you find that it's like this hard juxtaposition for women to get past?

And it sounds like you do. And I know from my work, like, with all of the negative emotions that swirl around money, and especially for women, especially myself who identify as liberal, it feels sometimes like if I pursue money, I am stamp of approval on capitalism. Of course, that is not it for me. But that's the dichotomy I feel sometimes is it's like, this is the current system we have, this is the current game we have to play. And in order for the game to change, I have to participate or I am not taking care of myself. Does that make sense? That makes total sense. And I completely agree with that. And it's been really interesting. At one of the readings that I did with this book, there was fantastic woman who was talking about, I live in LA. how difficult it is to be in an environment where there are so many privileged white,

mostly men, who are from her perspective, and this is not all privileged white men, obviously, but there are many in her immediate environment, who she feels just have a kind of disregard and a way of being in the world that she finds so distasteful and so problematic and so everything that you're saying you know just corrosive to to a value system that she believes in that she herself got completely turned off for money she was like you know if money means that she was saying like like, I'm going to go and like knit gloves, you know, and live on a, you know, whatever, you know, and just opt out of capitalism altogether. And I said, I hear you, you know, and I support you. I, you know, and I

think you could do that, like, part time. But I really think that, you know, you there is no extricating ourselves at this point from capitalism. You cannot like wake up in the morning. You cannot walk out. You know, you can't live anywhere and not be embedded in capitalism. There's no opting out. So in that way, then we've got to understand how to transform it. You know, every day, one of Adrienne Marie Brown's great pieces in the book is called Composting Capitalism. She writes about not paying her taxes as a political resistance and how she had to change that approach to political resistance. But this idea of how can we compost

capitalism, I love, you know, how can we transform it, you know, all of the detritus of it, how, what do we have to do to, to turn it into gold, to turn it into something that can make a tree grow, that can make a healthy child, that can make good air? You know, how do we do that? And, and that's more the project than, you know, how do I opt out of it? You know, that like, how do I save myself from it? You can't save yourself from it by leaving it. And then I think everyone's got to figure out for themselves what that means. You know, every single person has to figure out, okay, so I'm making this amount of money. I'm going to, I need to, I want to make this amount of money. And then, you know, you really have to figure out where you want to put that. And what do you

believe? You know, what do you believe in? in? What do you want to leave behind as your money legacy? Is it a big house that hasn't been good for the environment, that hasn't sheltered other people that were in need, that hasn't really taken care of the earth that it's sitting on? Is it stuff that's going to fill land later and has no real value past a few moments of temporary? What is it? What do you care about? How are you going to do? What are you going to do with it? And so that's where I think every single person has to really focus. And it's a day-to-day struggle. I mean, I have two Amazon boxes right outside my door right now. I was just talking with Kristen, our producer about this. I hate Amazon. Do I still shop there? Yes, because it's so convenient. And it's just like, it's so,

it's so difficult to opt out. I hate Amazon. It's so difficult, you know, and, and yet, you know, just in this last week, I keep deciding I'm going to buy this book from the publisher. You know, it's small press. I'm going to buy this book from bookshop. I'm going to buy this book. I'm so used to wanting to read a book right away or needing a book right away. And, you know, some people will say, well, why don't you go to the library? Why don't you get it? And I say, well, I'm a writer. And so I believe in supporting the publishing industry. I believe in supporting writers. So I actually buy books. That's one of the ways that I use my money to support what I believe in, you know, but I've got to slow it down a little bit. My life is not a healthy life. I need that book the next day. You know what I mean?

Something is not right. The machine is driving me. I'm not in control of the machine. So it's changing our habits. It's being aware of our habits. And that's, you know, Amazon is a glaring example, but there are a million examples, you know, or thousands that we all deal with every day. And I'm trying to really be gentle with myself as I make changes, and I have been making changes for many years. These small changes that resist this hyper-consumerist world in which we live. I'm always wondering if democracy can survive technocracy. You know, technology is just, makes democracy impossible. And it's another place where I push back against, it's like, can hyper-capitalism and humanity survive?

Can my own humanity, can my own sense of being in touch with the realities of all the human beings and where we are all at, you know, can that, and caring about it, can that survive the manufactured craving for objects, for consumption, you know, how to do that and how to be conscious of the ways in which we're all being triggered all of the time to act and behave and make these choices that are not good for us, you know. So I'm not a guru, but I try to really be conscious, you know, and I am actually looking at this beautiful Buddha that I love that I got in

Cambodia. It's just reminding me of my practice. And so, you know, how are we going to spend our money basically? And just, you know, realizing that we have choices really all the time. Every time we're about to part with a dollar or hit pay, you know, just stop for a second and think about it. My son had his prom recently. Fun times, fun times. It was very intense and he had a great time. I'm really happy, but he's really against fast fashion, which is wonderful. And I was like, honey, you're going to go to the prom. I said, so what are you going to wear? And all this, he said, well, I'm going to thrift my whole outfit. It is great. It's fantastic. And at the end of the day, I said, you know, and he thrifted the outfit and it was great.

But his girlfriend had this very beautiful, different dress, not a thrifted dress. And I said, you know, I think we might have to get you a suit or something. And he said, you know, I think you might have to, we might have to get you a suit, you know, something. And he said, you know, he said the cotton is grown and picked by slaves, people who are enslaved in China. The clothes are sewn by women in Vietnam who are making, you know, no money and working in unsafe conditions. And I mean, you know, he just gave me every beat of it. And I said, honey, I know, I know. And I'm so proud of you for thinking about that. And we all should be thinking about that. And how can we balance this moment so that you are in the moment in the way that you're expected to be in the moment and in a way that could feel good if you engage it, maybe. So then we ended up, you

know, getting a suit and he said, well, I can always give this to someone who needs it to go for a job interview. You know, I can always repurpose this in a way. And I said, yes. And you, you know, you will need a suit in your life. You know, maybe you just have one suit, you know, that that's a good decision, you know, but, you know, I think the younger people, anyone who is thinking at that level is really on the right path to think about all the different beats of production at this point and all the different human beings who are contributing to the little thing that you are purchasing and really weighing whether it's worth it. Um, and, and really weighing whether it's worth it. Yeah. I talk in the last chapter of my book of this, this feeling of like, just overwhelm where you're like, again, I can't, I can't do everything. And that's really frustrating, right?

Like I can't, I can't save the whales and also, and child poverty and also, and sexism and racism and homophobia and and you know all of those things and so you have to kind of you especially at first you have to just decide on one thing right like what's the one thing you're going to do and i love that it's like yeah it's like okay i'm not going to buy that fast fashion or i'm going to think more intentionally about how i purchased this thing because you either do something or you end up doing nothing because you're too overwhelmed. So exactly. And when you do nothing, you're actually doing something. Yeah, exactly. And you're, and you don't even realize it,

you know, it's like our attention in this, in this attention grabbing world, you know, you, you think you're doing nothing, but you're being led to do many things you know what i mean you're sitting there and and you think oh i'm i'm not i'm black whatever it is and then all of a sudden you're way over here you know and so you know getting our focus back getting our own kind of mental our own minds back is really important. And it's so hard. It's not, it's overwhelmed, but it's also, again, will our intelligence, our deep human intelligence survive technology? Unclear to me. The level of self-awareness and self-reflection and the ability to think deeply in a complex way, in a humanistic way, in a philosophical way, to have extended thoughts. You know, this all seems to be on the wane, you know, and I think we really have to worry

about that. And I think locating this question in the realm of money is pretty radical. It's like, how can we be more conscious about money? Because it is really behind everything. I was talking about AI the other day, about how eventually, maybe tomorrow, maybe right now, we will be embedded within an AI experience and not even realize it if we don't push ourselves to become more aware of it. And I was saying, right now, if we look around this room, so much of it was facilitated by the internet. So much of it was facilitated by the kind of the technology that has developed that has allowed fly chains and manufacturing lines and distribution networks and you know in ways that

we don't even think about anymore you know like this table you know parts of it came from you know this place and that place and somebody made you know it's like if if we didn't have the interwebs and this advanced technology that allows all this stuff to be manipulated this world around me would look very different and so the internet that mechanism we're we're living in it we don't even realize that we can't just reject it there's no rejecting that's over so ai is a space where i think eventually it will be like that and i was talking to like a chat bot the other day and i said you know are you a human being you know chat bot because i i really want to be awake in these moments you know and then i was reading a piece

the other day and i thought to myself this prose is so clean it's very specific i still hear the voice of the person but there's something about the way the grammar and the it's very specific. I still hear the voice of the person, but there's something about the way the grammar and the, it's very hard. It's very subtle, but it was, it was just, it was just crisp in a way that, that felt, it didn't feel human. It felt, it felt different. And I think we've got to be able to recognize the difference between being human and not. And we have to understand what is shaping this world. And so money is like that. It's everywhere, shaping everything. And so waking up to that can be very shocking. I mean, we all know it in a visceral way, but to really see that and decide that you're going to make different decisions based on your awareness is a step that we all really need to invest in. So I've been really thinking about AI a lot and how it's very concerning in some ways.

but I have this hope that it will, it will push us to think more about what it means to be human and, and what, what the difference is between human and not human that instead of just feeling like we're being replaced and made obsolete, that actually will, will become more aware in every moment of like, this is a real human experience that can't be replicated like this conversation.

And just, even if AI can, we can tell them, okay, Tori, we're going to have a conversation about women and money. Even if it can come up with some thing, it cannot come up with the experience of the two of us sharing this kind of space and thinking about the impact of our conversation on whoever's listening, it is a consciousness situation here. And so, but my life in the last, I don't know, few weeks, maybe months since I've started thinking about AI, since everybody started thinking about it, I guess, has been full of moments like that of like, okay, this is really human, the sun on my face, this is

really human, this, you know, these moments, and I'm really wanting to use it as a model for stopping to think about many things. Like, okay, this is a great model for thinking about what kind of different decision can I make about X today? You know, what is not participating in deep, profound depression right now? What can I do that's not doing that? What is not participating in deep, profound depression right now? What can I do that's not doing that? Well, and as you were talking, I was going to ask you a kind of ridiculous question. You answered it a little bit. I was like, what does humanity have that technology doesn't? We have lived experience. I mean, you know, we have embodied lived experience. Like, you know what I'm saying? Like, I, I'm not ready to give that up and say that, you know,

just because they can rehash or this, this, this mechanism can, can rehash a kind of iteration, ideation of my lived experience. I'm not, I'm that, that is, that is not my, that is not a lived experience. You know, that is not a human being that we're talking to. And I think that's very important to make that distinction. Well, and the amount of times I have read, I've read advice online, you know, like you can Google like how to get over a breakup, right. And it'll tell you, it'll tell you like, you know, take care of yourself, go on walks, cry if you need to, call a friend and like, all of those things are true. But until you've gone through some kind of heartbreak, you don't actually maybe take that advice. Exactly. There's been plenty of times

where I have, you know, received advice from somebody, and either not taken it, or it did not hit me at the moment I needed it. And then I only I understand how to do that, or how to deal with that thing. Because I've gone through it. Exactly. You've experienced it. And also, it is about the future in a lot of ways, because AI really, I mean, apparently, who knows, I mean, in a lot of ways because AI really, I mean, apparently, who knows? I mean, it's really only based on the past, the past slash present, because it's drawing from everything that's already. It's just predicting. It's predicting exactly based on, you know, and so we have the potential as human beings to actually, as we always have, create the future. You know what I mean? I mean, now we will be

co-creating the future with AI, which is very interesting, but I think it's really important for us to remember that we are able to imagine and cogitate and ideate and activate new ideas and things that, I mean, sure, you know, AI is going to be able to synthesize and project what we have, this body, this human thing. I have a lot of faith in it. And I believe that it can, when fed the right things and supported in the right ways, it can envision and it can manifest remarkable things for itself, for us and for everyone. So, and I don't think that AI can really do that. AI can tell you what maybe you should do, but we are the ones who at the end of the day are going to have to do it. So, yeah, I have to actually experience it the day are going to have to do it. So yeah, I have to actually experience it and figure out how to make it actually happen.

It can tell me how to wax my legs. I'm the one who actually has to go through the pain of waxing. Exactly, exactly. And like, how are we going to get out of this nightmare, you know, all of these situations that we're in and the way AI is designed because it's based on the limited knowledge and wisdom of what has been put into it. And we know it's limited. It's up to us at the end of the day. I mean, it always is. I think that the idea that it's not is a fallacy and it's part of what is wrong with the whole setup. This idea that we are not in control anymore. I think it's a cop out that makes people think they no longer have to engage in a certain way. And I worry about that, you know, people feeling unmotivated based on what they're hearing about AI feeling like, well, you know, there's no

point in writing this, saying this, thinking this when it's, you know, and I think that's designed to do that, to take away our sense of agency, to take away our sense of purpose and individuality and, you know, original thought. And I will always believe in those things. I really believe in people. I believe in people a lot more than I believe in technology. We've been around a lot longer. Well, and it was the perfect transition to my last question for you. In our research, we found that you were a member of the WGA, which is currently on strike around equitable wages in the age of streaming for film and TV writers and also concerns about AI. Unions are incredibly important when it comes to discussions about money and creating a more equitable structure for these industries. What has the strike been like for you? What is it continuing to show you in your work in the financial space? The strike has been really amazing for me. I mean, in some ways,

obviously, it's been a little tough. It's shut down a lot of projects that I'm working on. I have a couple of shows in development. I'm working on a couple of films. So as a writer and producer, things kind of ground to a halt. But as a human, as a worker, I'm feeling the incredible power of standing up against this sort of corporate scheme that really wants us to labor endlessly and benefit obscenely on our labor without any meaningful compensation. And that's been incredible, you know, just being with friends and relatives even who are also in the business and feeling the sense of we can do this if we stand together. Our strike is a model for this country. We have an incredible labor movement, history of labor movement in America. You know, unions have been the bedrock of this country for many, many, many, many, many years. And the dissolution of unions has created the gig economy. It's created all of these

different vulnerabilities in the country. And people, I'm happy that people are seeing this union in full effect. We are fighting, you know, to be paid well, we are fighting for our health benefits, we are fighting against being completely replaced, you know, the studios want to be able to just input different scripts and input books and have the AI generate all of the work that we would ordinarily do as if we are unimportant. And it's just unjust. And that is true for all of us in this country. It's back to what you talked about in the beginning. We need to understand our value and our worth, and we need to stick up to the people who say that we are replaceable. And so I'm learning a lot and feeling a lot about unity, about how hard it is to stand up. Sometimes it just feels like they've

got so much more power than we do. It's tough to think about how one's creativity can be stopped on a dime in a certain way. I'm not allowed to meet with producers to talk about projects. It's like I'm not allowed to meet with other writers. And I'm all about it. But the way in which art and commerce are linked there is tough, but it's real. Again, it's like you cannot opt out of it. So from a place of exhaustion, just saying, you know, we need more unions. Unions are what, you know, protect us as workers and citizens in this country. And the idea that we don't is another, you know, story that has been propagated by people basically who don't want to have to be responsible to the people who are laboring on their behalf. And that is fundamentally unjust. We appreciate your work so very much.

Thank you for being here. Thank you for your work. Thank you for your book. Where can people find out more about you and discover more of your work? Oh, well, you can always go to my website, I guess. Are people still buying websites? RebeccaWalker.com. I try to do a little bit of Insta, but I have a social media. It's tough for me, but I have a nice team, brilliant team, and they try to keep things going for me. I am Rebecca Walker on Insta. My books are everywhere. Go to bookshop to get them. Independent bookstores, wherever you are, whatever city you're in, ask them to order my books if you'd like. I've been around a long time. So if you do a little Google,

you'll find something that speaks to you, I'm sure. Thank you for your time. We appreciate it. You're welcome. Thank you so much. This is super fun. Thank you for your time. We appreciate it. You're welcome. Thank you so much. This is super fun. If you love the show, as always, please feel free to share with friends and family. We also have the ability for you to share voicemails with us, to ask your questions, to leave your thoughts in your own voice. So go to the show notes for that as well. Thank you so much for being here, Financial Feminists.

I hope you have a great day and I'll talk to you soon. Thank you for listening to Financial Feminist, a Her First 100K podcast. Financial Feminist is hosted by me, Tori Dunlap, produced by Kristen Fields, marketing and administration by Karina Patel, Sophia Cohen, Khalil Dumas, Elizabeth McCumber, Beth Bowen, Amanda LeFue, Masha Bakhmutyeva, Kaylin Sprinkle, Samaya Mullakario, and Harvey Carlson. Research by Arielle Johnson, audio engineering by Austin Fields, promotional graphics by Mary Stratton, photography by Sarah Wolf, and theme music by Jonah Cohen Sound. A huge thanks to the entire Her First 100K team and community for supporting the show.

For more information about Financial Feminist, Her First 100K, our guests, and episode show notes, visit financialfeministpodcast.com.