Financial Feminist - 292. How American Patriarchy Keeps Women From Their Money, Power, and History with Anna Malaika Tubbs

Episode Date: July 14, 2026

To work to change a system, you have to understand it first. But as today’s guest will show you, it turns out our understanding of American patriarchy is completely different than what we thought it was. Today I sat down with Anna Malaika Tubbs –– two-time New York Times bestselling author, sociologist, and storyteller with a PhD in sociology and a master's in gender studies from the University of Cambridge, plus a BA from Stanford (whew!) — and we're talking about American patriarchy. We get into why the Founding Fathers and the Constitution are inherently patriarchal, what history actually teaches us about how change happens, and why Anna wasn't surprised by Trump's reelection. I threw out almost every prepared question because this conversation was that good. This episode will make you furious and hopeful in the same breath. Anna’s links: Website: http://annamalaikatubbs.com   Erased by Anna Malaike Tubbs:  https://bookshop.org/a/90037/9781250876690  The Three Mothers by Anna Malaika Tubbs: https://bookshop.org/a/90037/9781250756138  Also mentioned in this episode: Steve Phillips, How We Win the Civil War: https://bookshop.org/a/90037/9781620978481 Sarah McBride on Why the Left Lost on Trans Rights | The Ezra Klein Show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlbNFsAGFRc  Bookshop.org website:  http://Bookshop.org  Not sure what to do with your money? Visit ⁠https://herfirst100k.com/ffpod⁠ and take our FREE Money Plan Quiz to get your personalized money plan, and find any resources mentioned on our show   00:00 Intro 01:40 What "American patriarchy" actually means 06:37 The Founding Fathers' blueprint  15:21 The tug-of-war at the center of all American history 19:19 Why Trump's re-election wasn't a surprise 25:10 How slow progressive change actually works 31:55 Do all roads lead back to patriarchy? 36:04 "We haven't arrived anywhere new" 45:28 Moving rights to the states: a repeating tactic 52:48 Can you get rich in a system that wasn't built for you? 58:51 The power you already have Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

To work to change a system, you have to understand it first. But it turns out our understanding of the American patriarchy is completely different than what we thought it was. On today's episode of Financial Feminist, I threw out almost every prepared question because today's guest is just that good. We talked today about everything patriarchy, but specifically American patriarchy, which I've never heard discussed in this way, including why the founding fathers in the Constitution are inherently patriarchal, but specifically what that might mean for us. as an American society. What history teaches us about the nature of change and justice and how we reckon with wanting change now,

but the reality of how long change actually takes, why our guest today was not surprised about Trump getting reelected and how we misunderstand American history. Anna Malika Tubbs is a two-time New York Times best-selling author, sociologist, and storyteller who maps how American patriarchy

her term for the interlocking systems of sexism, racism, and capitalism baked into the country since 1776, 250 years, ago has a raced woman, especially black woman from history. She holds a PhD in sociology and a master's in multidisciplinary gender studies from the University of Cambridge, plus a BA and medical anthropology from Stanford. Raised nomatically across Albuquerque, Dubai, Estonia, Sweden, Mexico, and more. She now lives in Los Angeles with her husband and her three

kids. Her TED Talk has been viewed over two million times. This episode will both make you furious and hopeful. This is one of those conversations that felt like I was back in college. I was notes. I was asking follow-up questions. I was learning things that genuinely changed the way I think about the moment we're living in and what we're doing to actually fix it. Let's get into it. But first, a word from our sponsors. This podcast is brought to you by Squarespace. One of the things that so many business owners believe they need is a custom bespoke website that they have hired somebody to code for them. And I'm here to tell you that, yeah, you need a website that's functional and beautiful, but you don't need to pay somebody to code.

This is where Squarespace comes in. When I first started her first 100K, I turned to Squarespace. They were the first investment I ever made in our business to start and grow, and they had so many incredible tools baked in. You can buy domains on Squarespace. They have SEO tools that you can use to get seen. And they have cutting edge design tools that don't require you to know anything about code. Head on over to Squarespace.com for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use offer code FFPod to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. So, Anna, when we talk about patriarchy, there is so many beliefs that we already have about what this is. But you're specifically talking about American patriarchy.

How does this show up in ways we might not even realize it? Yeah, I would say in the U.S., we do not pay that much attention to patriarchy. Actually, we love to talk about how patriarchy shows up in a lot of other places around the world. We're purposely distracted when we hear messages like, look over there. It's so bad for women. there and we should really advocate for women over there. And that's not to minimize the pain of patriarchy across the world. It definitely exists. But in the U.S., we don't pay enough attention to how it affects us on a daily basis. So that's what I wanted to do with my work and with this

most recent book is make sure we define it so that we can finally actually do something about it. When we look at all of the research about girls and the narratives that we're told, they're happening shockingly early. Like, I think for me, in my work, you know, we've discovered that money habits and money beliefs are cemented by age seven, right? And you found something, I think, even crazier, which is this narrative that starts for girls at age six. Can you tell me more about what you discovered? Yeah, I discovered that by age six, girls stop calling themselves brilliant and that they start to think that these are words, and words like brilliant are words that are for boys, and that this proves something that as a sociologist we talk about a lot, which is that

the family is the very first society, really. So even before kids start kindergarten and go out and are educated in other spaces, that the identities that they form around how they see themselves, how they see their confidence, how they see their potential begins much sooner than that. So girls will think, I'm no longer smart. I'm no longer supposed to be a leader. Those are things that the boys and the men in my life we're supposed to do. And they come across through these subtle moments and messages where we're already training our kids in how to fit into the current status quo. Even when we don't mean to, we're reproducing American patriarchy. And our parenting coaches are doing it. Extended family members are doing it. And we don't realize the danger of putting them into these categories so early

that really limit their ability to see themselves beyond those categories. Why do you think it's happening so early? Is it just because we live in a patriarchal society? Like, age six is first grades? Like, that's early. Yeah, I think in the U.S., we do categorize people from the moment that they were born in ways that I didn't see in a lot of the places that I grew up.

And so I should give some context. So much of my analysis of the United States, is a result of the fact that I didn't grow up in the United States. I lived nomatically abroad. I was in places like Dubai, Estonia, Sweden, Mexico, Azerbaijan. And they all have their own issues as well. I'm not saying that any of these places are perfect. But in the U.S., we are really teaching our children how to fit in to what we see as the way to sort of survive. And we've been taught that the way you survive is through this binary, this notion that we have. have to fit into a category of man or woman, boy, or girl. So I think having been raised abroad,

I was able to see the U.S. from this outside of the fishbowl perspective where things that are very normalized here, I was able to say, hey, that's not how they go always in all of these other places. So I think it starts early in the U.S. because of how we define what it means to be human in the U.S., what we have to do to fit in and to belong. And so we teach our kids these identities really early. You know, we're saying things like, boys don't cry very early. We're saying things like, hey, girls, pay attention to what you look like very, very early. We are a culture that is obsessed with celebrity and we're obsessed with beauty and we're obsessed with anti-aging and all of these things that,

really do get passed on to our kids, I think, much earlier than in other places. And just one way that you can look at it is if you were to travel somewhere and see what children, you know, look like at maybe six years old or even if we fast forward to teenage years, you're going to notice that American kids quite often seem much older. They have understandings of things that are beyond their age. And it just happens much sooner here, most likely because of capitalism. and the combination of how patriarchy uses capitalism to categorize all of us from as early as possible. So when you say American patriarchy,

you're defining this very specifically as not just men have power over women or these systems exist that are patriarchal, but there is a designed system with a blueprint. So walk us through what that blueprint actually looks like because a lot of people we talk to seem to not understand the nuance of that or even how to maybe communicate it. Yes. And first and foremost, I should say,

I'm never in the business of ranking patriarchies because patriarchies across the world are bad. I'm not by highlighting American patriarchy saying that it is better or worse than any other patriarchy, but simply that it deserves to be studied because it exists differently in each of the places where we find patriarchy. Patriarchy in the U.S. is going to be very different

than a patriarchal system in India. it's going to operate differently than a patriarchal system in France, right? And the thing that makes it different is the leaders who chose patriarchy for their nation or for their society. Patriarchy is not the beginning. It wasn't around from the beginning of time. It's not divine. It's not the natural order. It's a system that is built by people. And so you can always go back and track when that system began in any given place. And so for the U.S., it's very helpful for us to think about the founding fathers of the United States.

And of course, yes, they're building on a patriarchy that the monarchy introduced to them. But when they win the Revolutionary War, they have a choice. They get to decide what's this new nation going to look like. So that's the moment we can really pinpoint and say, okay, what did the founding fathers choose to do? And our founding fathers said they were really scared. that the revolutionary spirit was spreading to other groups. Not that the revolutionary spirit started with them,

but that it was spreading and continuing to grow. Women were demanding to be treated more fairly in their new nation. People who were enslaved were saying we, again, are continuing to fight for our freedom. Poor people wanted to be treated better in this new nation. Immigrant people from that point forward wanted to have more inclusion. Indigenous people. So the founding fathers are very afraid because there's all of these rebellions that are breaking out across the new nation. And it's not a coincidence that Shay's rebellion is this inciting moment for them to say,

we need to write a stronger constitution. They go into the constitutional convention with a lot of fear and a lot of insecurity and a desire to keep power within their hands. So they use the constitution to define who's going to be human, who's going to get to. to be treated as human in the United States. And they define it as men like them. So they say men like them are going to get to vote. Men like them are going to get to own land. Men like them can represent themselves and speak for themselves.

It is not an accident that they leave women out of the Constitution. They write letters to their wives, to their daughters. Famously, Abigail Adams, saying, do better by us, you know, than the monarchy did. the ladies in this new nation. And her husband making fun of her for that suggestion, saying, we know better than the French, actually. So they very specifically call out France, not because women in France could vote at the time, but because they could at least voice their political opinions. So they didn't even want women in the United States to say they cared about politics or had anything to add to that discussion. Instead, they say, the only role women are

supposed to play is to reproduce the power of men through children. And so they set up this binary where men like them are what matter most. And the women who are attached to them only matter so much so that they can reproduce that power of men. And they erase any indigenous belief systems that acknowledge people beyond this gender binary. But then there's another layer to it in the United States because it also, the Constitution, it also protects the institution of slavery. So they're not including black people in their definition of man and women. They also exclude indigenous people saying that they're a part of some other nations. They have no protections here. So they're not included in the definition of man or women. They also decide to leave it up to each state to say

if people who don't have land are even going to have the right to vote. So they're purposefully excluding poor people. And the list goes on and on. So these are not honest controversial opinions. These are historic fact that the founding fathers defined themselves as the only ones who would have full rights in this nation and that the women in their lives would be oppressed, but they wouldn't be quite as oppressed as those who don't even fall into the category of man or woman. And that is American patriarchy. And that is the system we've been living in for the last 250 years. Any system that came out of that founding document, any law that came out of that founding document was in service of protecting and maintaining American patriarchy. Well, and we're talking about the founding fathers

here too. Like, even that inherently, there's no women in the room making decisions. There's no black people in the room making decisions. Like, just the, you know, the people actually setting the rules and laws are not inclusively having conversations about what this looks like, right? The people who are in power are white men who also, they were under a monarchy already. And so they were feeling like, okay, we've just gotten our freedom from the monarchy. So how do we keep that freedom while denying everybody else their freedom as well. Exactly. Exactly. And they reproduce this different status quo.

But it's still a status quo. It's still a hierarchy. It still actually does set them up to be more in parallel with the monarchy than they realize because they're deciding who gets to be king, who gets to rule, who gets to make decisions about considering what other people feel or need or want. And it's always been through the right to vote. So we've said we live in a democracy, but the reality is a democracy means that power is vested in the people of a nation, all of the people of a nation. And we've never actually experienced that in the United States. It's why the right to vote has always had so many barriers in place around it.

But what I talk a lot about in the book is that our American history can really be summarized. Everything falls under one of these two things, either a group of people who really love. this original social order and wanted to protect this original social order, even if it didn't benefit them, right? There's a lot of people who have been tricked into protecting it because they think someday they too will get to ascend this made-up ladder. And so if they just do their part, then maybe they will get to be treated as human beings. If they assimilate closely enough to it, then maybe they someday will be treated the way they deserve to be treated. And so that's how you have a bunch of people on this side of protecting that social hierarchy, even if it doesn't benefit them at all. And then on the other side are those who have always seen beyond it, who have said,

that's made up. It's not good enough. That's not actually democracy. But we can get closer to an actual democracy, the more we include people in their ability to be heard and to be treated with respect and with dignity and that we want to achieve the ideal that is democracy, but we're not there yet. And so everything can be seen

as a tug of war between these two groups and these two ideals. So it's not Democrat or Republican. It's not man or woman. It's do you really want to protect this original social order because you think someday

you'll benefit from it or you'll find some strength in this? Or is it It's just not enough. And we want to fight for all of us to have power, which is what an actual democracy would look like. These are my favorite kind of episodes where I already have like a list of questions for you in addition to our prepared questions. You've heard me talk about Built as the loyalty program that lets you earn points on rent wherever you live. And they just leveled up even more.

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Now available in Canada too. That's QI, nCE.com slash ff pod for free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com slash ff pod. So this is more like a psychological question for you. But when I'm looking at, like, the founding fathers is the perfect example of this. We have so many conversations in 2026 about how to create actual lasting change in a society and in a system that is all, it almost feels impossible to make any sort of change. It just feels so slow moving. When we look at founding fathers for the United States, like what you just said is, of course, so correct is they basically copy and pasted the UK monarch.

with some slight tweaks, like maybe one degree better. Is that because that's all they know? Does that question make sense? Is it like, this is what I know, this is what is comfortable? Like, let's give them the absolute benefit of doubt, which of course is not real, that they wanted to be completely inclusive. Is it the fact that we don't know how to actually build that or we don't know what that actually looks like?

Of course, my response then is talk to the indigenous people. Yeah, exactly. But like, you know where I'm going already. Totally. But like I think about psychologically, it's so hard for us as human beings to create something that we haven't seen before. Yeah. Because that unknown is scary, even if that unknown would be so much better. So are we also fighting at the individual level and almost the psychological level of going, change is just hard? Mm-hmm. That's okay. I have so much to say in response to that. First and foremost, I will say, that the founding fathers were very aware there were many other ways to organize themselves. So it's definitely not. I'm being too nice. to Thomas Jefferson as out of a, you know, like double-advocate thing here. But yes, absolutely. And it does bring to the forefront of the conversation how different all the founding fathers also were from each other. They disagreed on a lot of things. They were going back and forth with each other.

We've all seen Hamilton. We've seen Hamilton. You know, it's a fair representation. And Thomas Jefferson, actually, he was, he was not in attendance at the Constitutional Convention. He was abroad. But he was very worried that the other founding fathers were actually. in fear. So he says, you all are being too fearful. Rebellion is a good thing, actually. He thinks that the Constitution should be rewritten every several years so that it's reflective of the time. So in a lot of ways, Thomas Jefferson is progressive, yet he also really dislikes women and people of color, right? So there's layers in terms of just the fact that they had a wide array of understanding. I'll say that first and foremost. So they're not living in some bubble. They actually are aware that other places are organizing themselves differently. And we see that in the France example where they say, we know that in France, women get to have these salons where they talk openly

about their political beliefs. And we will not make the same mistake as the French. So they intentionally choose this despite their awareness that there's so many other ways to organize themselves. Of course, they know that indigenous people do not organize themselves this way. And we know they know that because they go into different tribes and try to impose patriarchy. So they take away titles from female chiefs and they give medals to men and they try their best to impose these ways of living. So that's also another level of exposure that they have. So I would say on that front, this is just what. they felt after all their debate and all their thought was the best path forward. The addition that

Thomas Jefferson gives is the Bill of Rights. So that's when he says, you're being too fearful. So at the very least, let's protect the Bill of Rights, which is an important addition. He just doesn't see everybody else as being human enough to be included in that. And then in terms of change and how it can sometimes feel like it's so slow moving and how can things happen. I actually have an opposite opinion on that. I believe the United States is a very young nation. 250 years is actually not very old at all. I say that personally when I went to the University of Cambridge for my graduate degrees, I always tell this story just because I think it really encompasses the youth of the United States. I was given my first sweatshirt, hoodie, and it said Cambridge founded in 1209.

The university was founded in 12.09. Oh, there's buildings on that campus that are older than the United States. Right. So then you look at that and you think, oh, wow, okay, no, of course I kind of knew that logically, but to really think about how young the United States is, 250 years. And in addition to that, you then see that we're actually having a lot of conversations that are in many ways more advanced than a lot of other nations, specifically around social justice,

the rights of people of color. When you think of a group of people who were enslaved in this nation, and then not too far later, there is a president of the United States who is black. That's actually really, it's not fast enough.

I'm not saying I'm content with it, but I am very proud of the work that has been done on this, you know, this group that I was describing earlier who have said, hey, that's not enough and we need to fight for more. We have to really celebrate the gains that have been made despite indescribable barriers. And I think for me, it's also because I'm a historian. And my first book was about these three incredible women who were all born in the early 1900s, the mothers of MLK Jr., Malcolm X, and James Baldwin. Their names are Alberti King, Luis Little, and Bertus Baldwin.

But they're all born in the early 1900s. They experienced Jim Crow. They see lynchings. They are rampant at the time. They experienced two world wars. They have their children during the Great Depression. And they are activists in their own right. All three of them did what their sons later became famous for before their sons were even born.

and they are resisting, constantly resisting. Their children follow in their footsteps and lead alongside their peers one of the most famous, if not the most famous civil rights movement in world history. So the mothers experienced voting for the first time. They live long enough to see

the first episodes of the Oprah Winfrey show. They live long enough to overlap with Barack Obama when he's in Illinois State Senator. And I say this often, but it is so important to really consider that Bertus Baldwin, on one end of her life, she overlapped with Harriet Tubman. And on the other end of her life, she overlapped with me. This is very recent history. And it's not been because those who were in power and those who loved the original social order

just woke up one day and decided that they were going to share rights with people. It wasn't that they were like, oh, I just had a really cute idea, or now I've been exposed. Now I know better. It's because those who were left out of the protections of that original social order pushed for this, fought for this, led for this, fought every single day of their lives to make sure that I could be here, you know, sitting on a podcast, talking about taking my kid to a swim lesson. So for me, it's really difficult to sit in the space of, oh, change is so hard and change takes too long because I'm a black woman. And the law in this country said that my children were not my children, but were somebody else's property.

And the reason that black women have had so much power is because when a law is so insane and it treats you in such an insane way, you don't sit there and say, well, if the law says so, it must be true. Instead, you exist in the realm of that's entirely made up. So I'm always aware that what these men created is made up, meaning we all are capable of making something else up every single day of our lives. And that's for me really hopeful and really empowering. And it doesn't minimize the pain of what they cause. But at the the same time, we all really do have power, despite this desire to make us think that we don't. You know, I said her first 100K. Yes, we talk about money, but we mostly talk about feminist issues and how patriarchy shapes the way we think feel and move throughout society. And one of the things that we've always talked about here at her first 100K is how having money means having options and how getting money, even just a little bit of money, allows you flexibility to make your own decisions about your life and put your own oxygen mask on first so that you can actually show up

and fight for the change that's so necessary. If you go to Her First100K.com slash FFFod, you can take our six step six question quiz. We're going to ask you some questions about your financial life, whether you have debt or not, whether you have savings. We're getting engaged to determine where you're at so we can deliver you a free customized financial plan for your next financial step. Go to Herfirsthundredk.com POD to get your free customized plan. All right, back to the episode. I'm realizing you're the perfect person to talk about something that I've been talking about in private spaces for about a year.

Okay, so from your perspective as a historian, I listened to an incredible interview that Sarah McBride gave on the Ezra Klein show probably about a year ago. Sarah McBride is the first openly trans congressperson, and she just gave this such thoughtful interview, and I'm going to butcher it. please go listen to it, everybody listening, because basically what she says is all of the things we want, especially in the LGBTQ community,

around, you know, not just safety for trans people, but, you know, trans identity and trans celebration and support of trans people in sports and all of the things that encompass what we need to do to make the queer community feel safe. She likened it back to the civil rights movement. And she's like,

It took multiple years of bus boycotts to just get a little bit of change, yet alone to have a black man be president and all of the rest of it. And of course, still more change to come. But she goes, well, we of course believe that everything should happen at once, that we should be able to have all of these things happen at once. That is not how progressive change happens. And I think it's something that anybody in a liberal space needs to hear because we end up kitchen sinking everything.

We're like, but everything matters. And we shouldn't have, of course, anybody in the queer community or the black community or the indigenous community or women that feel unsafe. So we need all of it right now, not realizing that throughout history, change didn't work like that. It worked over decades, if not centuries,

if not multi-centuries. So can you shed a light on that as a historian, especially in this moment in 2026, where we're all fighting for these different things and we're actively feeling them getting clawed back and demanding that these things happen immediately. But also, history does not prove that that's how it works, even if that is unfair. Yeah. Oh, these are such good questions. I have so much to say about this as well. Because part of me, first, I want to acknowledge that too often we have left people behind, in order to achieve something, and I don't think that's the path forward either.

No, the women's suffragette movement. The suffragist movement is the perfect example of this. We fight for the white women to vote and the black women come later. Exactly. Exactly. So I don't want to endorse that notion of like an order for us to gain a little bit, we're going to have to sacrifice some people along the way by any means. I think it's really important that we not do that actually. And I think black women, again, are a perfect example of this. The civil rights movement is a perfect example of this because the civil rights movement wasn't only about black people. It opens the door to so many more freedoms for so many groups. And that actually is where we do need to, as activists and as change makers and people who care,

we do have to be more of the mindset of we don't have to cut out any parts of our identity, but that we need to think of ourselves more in this large group that I keep describing, which is we're pushing for actual democracy. democracy. We're pushing for all of us to be treated as human beings. But by saying that, it also reminds us, not one person can change all these things by any means. So it's less about the order, I think, that we need to go in, and more so we all need to get on the same team and do our individual parts to create this larger system where we actually get to experience what it is for each of us to be treated with dignity and with respect.

So that means that my fight as a black woman who tells the stories of black women who have been erased and who keeps these histories alive so that we all remember how to resist, because we've had to do it always, right? And none of this is new. And we can't find ourselves exhausted and so comfortable in this system that we've now forgotten how to fight, right? That is the role that I play on this larger team. But that also, for me, it's really critical that I understand how the gender binary has been used as a tool of oppression.

So I'm not going to be somebody who says, I can't really talk about trans issues right now because I'm really focused on black women because that actually would not be in alignment with black feminist history. Black feminist history has always been all of us deserve to be treated as human beings, period. And as much as we can bring those fights together, the further we will go and the faster we will go, actually. It's just that sometimes people don't realize how all of our strategies are a part of the exact same fight. And what I was trying to really convey and erased is that we're all coming up against American patriarchy. It's not actually, oh, this is a fight against this and this is a fight against that. we are all coming up against the system that the founding fathers decided was going to rule all of our lives. And all of these other symptoms that are coming out of it are related to the exact same thing.

So we can actually really focus and we can finally do something to dismantle it. And we can think even more radically about, for example, well, how do you make sure everybody has the right to vote? Maybe it's mandatory voting in the United States. What if every single group decided we want to know what everybody in this United States would vote for without any barriers? And my belief, because I'm a hopeful, optimistic person, is actually the majority of people in this country would vote for more inclusivity, would vote for resources to be shared. It's the reason that our votes are being targeted, right? So how do we as a team decide on our strategy while also making sure we're each individually bringing the expertise we have to this larger team? And that's a question I wanted to ask you that you just kind of answered for me.

But in my work, I say patriarchy to cover a myriad of things. Yes. Any system that promotes inequality. So we're talking right supremacy, racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, like all of these things. Is the word patriarchy, does that sum it all up? Obviously, there's nuances of each of these is handling a different issue. But like, do all roads lead back to patriarchy? All drains lead to this ocean? I personally think so. And I think that based off of my studies on this, so personally, professionally, I do believe it all comes back to patriarchy because what I say and erased is that

we were tricked into fighting for our right to be gendered in the United States. But in order to be gendered here, it also means you have to be white. It also means you have to be elite. It also means you have to be all these other things, right? So, body, yeah. Exactly. So gender is not in the way that we think of it in terms of sex, right? This is when the socialization of gender and the creation of gender becomes really important in any given patriarchy. And that's the thing really that distinguishes patriarchies across the world. And the reason that patriarchy is so eminent across the world is because the distinction that most human beings make from each other is around the survival of humanity. It's around reproduction.

And so that's why you'll see so many systems come back to, okay, who has the sperm and who has the eggs? This is like the question that we're asking. And there's a lot of different studies that try to pinpoint exactly when, you know, the very first. patriarchy started. But most indigenous communities still saw this as an importance around balance, that every person in a given community had some role to play, that there wasn't a hierarchy, there wasn't somebody who was more important, there was balance. And it didn't mean that everybody had to reproduce and have children. There was a lot of respect for those who were the elders who were just leading in ways that didn't include them having kids. Right. So there was just an

acknowledgement of the unique roles we all played in community. So one of the things I later want to do is study all these moments on the kind of timeline of human history and then when patriarchy showed up. And it's no coincidence that that is an alignment with colonialism and conquering and how you then create a hierarchy out of something that used to have balance, how you then decide. oh, okay, if this female body is the one that carries the life, well, we're now going to tell them that a divine man came before them. You know, like, that is strategic. And also that you were birthed in sin. Exactly. And then you came from someone's rib, you know? It's like, this is all, it's all a part of the propaganda. And it's traceable. It's very traceable because

then you can go back and say, oh, wait, okay. So this colonial, mentality actually doesn't serve us and we can do something about that. Yeah. I believe it's in the afterward for this new book, but you wrote it three days after Trump won his reelection in 2024. And you said, quote, we have not arrived anywhere new. We just haven't moved very far from where we began. Yes. First of all, bars. Second of all, I think that there is this feeling that there is this feeling I know there's this feeling because I have this, you know, even in my own life, just this like ongoing level of dread. And, you know, the five, six million women in our community, every time I talk to them, they're like, this is the end of the world. This is unprecedented.

This has never happened before. And I want to honor that while also being like, no, like this has happened a million times before. We just haven't lived it. how can we think about both this moment potentially having unique aspects, while also knowing that like we're not progressing very far. Like all of these, history keeps repeating itself. Like talk to me about that juxtaposition. Yes, great question.

I wanted to put that afterward in there because I worried that people were going to read it thinking that I had been written the book solely as a response to, President Donald Trump. And the reality was I've been writing this book for, you know, three years. And so I was predicting, actually, that he was going to win re-election. I was kind of the, sadly, sort of the negative one in the house, even though I'm, I am the opposite. I knew it as well. Candidly, I knew it as well, because I was listening to so much and reading so much political content for like a year and a half leading up. And like, I worked with the DNC. I did everything. I could, but like, it was very obvious. to me that he was winning. It felt very clear to me as well, and I think that it was a part of this tug of war that I described, you know, that there was, we had made so many gains

that there was going to be this response. And so that's for me why I was not surprised by President Trump's reelection. And also, though, this notion of everyone now saying, this is the worst it's ever been. We've never been here before, like you said. For me, even in the first,

describing what I described already with the three mothers that I studied in my first book. That's a really ridiculous statement. Like, it's actually a crazy statement for people in 2026 to say, this is the worst it's ever been. And we are so hopeless and we don't know what to do and should we all run away. And it just feels so, so full of privilege, to be honest, so full of like, an ego. And ego and that we have. And I'm not at all. all trying to minimize the pain of it. I agree. These moments are terrifying. It's horrific to see what's happening with ice. It's horrific to see the attacks. It's horrific to constantly have to live. Overton of OV Wade. Yeah. All of these things. Yeah. All of those things are true. That is true.

And at the same time, they are not new at all. So that's actually what my next book is about. That's what I'm writing. It's supposed to come out next year. But I'm getting deep into this question of this is new and what do we do? Because the reality is if somebody feels that way, it's, you know, congratulations. You just have like a really lovely life so far. And like, you maybe don't have ancestors or grandparents who could tell you differently. And if that's the case, wow, like you've been doing well for like generations of your family. They have had privileges and protections. Because the first step I would always say is ask your grandparent. Like to say that exact same sentence to your grandparent.

this is the worst it's ever been. And I'm just really curious what the grandparent is going to respond to you with because, again, our nation is very young and this is very recent history. There are people alive who remember the assassination of MLK Jr. and Malcolm X and et cetera. This is, it's just not new. But the reason people feel that way, I'll come around to it. There's a book that I always recommend. It's by Steve Phillips, and it's called How to Win the Civil War. And so those who felt that they did win the Civil War were like, yay, we're done. We did it. And those who lost are like, we lost the battle, but we're still fighting the war.

And so those strategies have continued, right? The strategies were it's a long-term game. And one of those strategies was to attack our understanding of American history. So a part of that is to say, oh, we've always. been a land of the free. We've always included everybody because in doing that, you erase the people who had to fight for it. You erase how hard it was to get here, to get to a place where I can walk my three black children into school with kids who are from various different backgrounds. If I walk around the world thinking, wow, so great that in the United States, I've always been able to do this,

well then if I see something happen on the news I'm like oh goodness it's just never been this bad before and that would come directly as a result of book bands changing the stories in history books to say black people love to serve their slave masters so they were fine thanksgiving was so fun we loved it thanksgiving was great you know and that's when the storytellers become extremely important right because this is what we're fighting because then And it's all strategic so that people don't know what to do when they have to fight. And then they're just scrambling and they're so confused and they're so uneducated on this history of what we've been living in. So when I say we haven't progressed that far, it's not to deny all of the games we've made. It's to say we are still in the same tug of war because progress in the United States has never been linear. This is also a misunderstanding of American history. We've never had it be the case that we get something, right?

Right is there and that it's going to be secured forever. And now we can move on to the next thing. That's never been how American history has operated. It has always, always, always been a tug of war. And we are still in it. And it can't be that those who are on this side of progress suddenly are like, I just don't know. I just don't know anymore. I don't remember. I don't remember how to pull. I'm scared and I need to give up and I need to go somewhere else. It's actually great. We have many people

who have been pulling on this rope for a very long time. And now we're being called to do the same thing and thankful to those who worked on our behalf for us to have lived in so much more comfort than ever before, but how lucky are we that we've become so comfortable that we've forgotten what it is to be courageous. Do you mention earlier

that there was a tactic of moving land rights to the states as opposed to at a federal level? We are seeing very similar things in the Supreme Court, abortion being the perfect example where, oh, we're not going to protect it

at the federal level, we're going to move it to the states. Is this a patriarchal tactic? Definitely. It is, if we go back to everything comes back to patriarchy in my book. Always. All drains lead to the ocean. Yeah. If we go back to the founding fathers and particularly this was their attack against poor people. So we have to remember they're trying to find ways to exclude as many people as possible. This is their tactic. It's again not hidden. They write it in letters. They debate it. They're like, actually, yeah, let's remove them to. It was to say that poor people might not have the right to vote if they didn't own the land. So land ownership becomes the signal for money, for wealth, right, and elitism.

And so they leave it up to the states initially to decide state by state. If someone doesn't own land in your state, can they have a voice in your state? And so if we trace that back and we now move forward with it and see any time, even the Supreme Court might be saying, oh, maybe that should just be left. up to the states. It's because they believe. And it's such a good thing. Yeah. They believe they would be, they'll have more success with that strategy if they leave it up to conservative state leaders to make this decision rather than them having to do so. But I will also say that the Supreme Court has always been patriarchal. We've actually never seen an anti-patriarchal Supreme Court in the history

of the United States. And by that, we're moving into our, right? except in the party movie, we're moving towards our more nuanced definition of patriarchy, right? So when I say that, I'm not just saying attacks against women. I'm saying protecting the original social order. And these Supreme Court justices, the majority of them, call themselves what? Originalists. So they believe that they're supposed to protect the vision that the founding fathers had of how the United States should be organized. So again, they're not hiding it everybody.

They're literally calling themselves originalists. And what do they mean by that? They're protecting the original social order. So we have to stop being surprised by any decision that they make that mirrors the original social order. We can be surprised when they make decisions that go against that social order. Those are the moments where I have a little bit of a pause and I'm thinking, oh, you know, why did this? they sighed differently on this. Usually there's some other strategy going on there, but we have to stop wasting our energy, thinking that the Supreme Court is neutral, thinking that the Supreme Court

cares about each of us equally. They do not. The majority of them want to protect what the original founding fathers believed was necessary for our nation. There's a lot of stressful things about being a business owner right now. It's not easy on any day, but it's especially not easy right now. There are so many things changing rapidly in the way I think about growing our business and the way things cost. And the truth is, things are only moving faster and crazier every single day. You probably know that NetSuite, which is a business management suite, it securely connects all of your data. It's a unified suite that brings your financials, inventory, commerce, HR, and CRM into one single source of truth, trusted by over 43,000 customers. But NetSuite,

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built for every industry, ready for every boardroom, net suite. dot a.i slash ff pod. The big question for me and my work constantly. I think about it every day. I think about it in the way that I lead our company

and our vision for the work that we do, is that, of course, I'm trying to get women rich. because I think that solves a lot of these problems. A frequent criticism from certain women and other activists, I think, to my work is, well, we cannot get rich in a system that doesn't benefit everybody. And I totally hear that.

And I reckon with this all the time, because I am of the belief that we cannot change the system, if we're too tired and broke and depleted to actually do it. So while we work to change the system for everybody else, we have to focus on how do we become, like how do we put our own oxygen masks on first? And I know that everyone in our community, everyone listening to this right now,

feels a similar level of individual consciousness, of what they might need, but also a collective consciousness of, I'm still existing in the system that not only does not work for me, but doesn't work for other people either. Yet we still have to pay rent and like we still have to exist. How do you think about both of those knowing that there is no perfect answer under capitalism and under patriarchy?

Yeah. First I'll say, I get this question, the part about capitalism quite a lot, that is it actually that we live in an oligarchy? Is that the problem? Like maybe patriarchy isn't the problem. It's the money. That's the problem. To that I say capitalism is a result of patriarchy.

100%. You know, it's how, again, another strategy for maintaining the social order is to make it so that women can't have credit cards and can't pay for things themselves. And so all of that. You can't leave abusive relationships because they don't have money. Exactly. It's all built into how do we maintain something that's made up. We make up something else. Money.

Money is entirely made up. It's not like a real thing, right? But it becomes the thing that dictates our lives, and that's as a result of how do we really maintain this social order. So that's the first thing I will say. The second thing is we always have had to use various different strategies to create change. So if we look throughout movement history, you have those who say, we're going to burn this all down because this is not serving us. And they are very important. They are very important people. We need them. And you also have had people who have said, okay, I'm going to learn how this system kind of works so that I can shift it. And I am going to be a part of this in a way so that I understand how it operates so that we can create something different. And so long as the people who are doing that remember what it is they're there to do, then it can be a very effective strategy. where we lose our way is folks thinking, okay, I am going to ascend this ladder that's made up.

And actually, this is pretty nice for me. This is pretty comfortable. And I'm going to kick over the ladder so nobody can follow me. Yeah. And I don't really remember what I was fighting. I don't even, I don't know why we're even here. So actually everything's fine. And I also agree that I shouldn't be taxed.

Right. Like that's where, that's when we start to get a little bit like, wait a second, we've lost you completely. And I say that. from the perspective of somebody who I've been in a lot of you know primarily white institutions a lot of these you know the ones that give you the credibility in this system you know i at Stanford Cambridge like that all those things but when i was in those spaces i remembered the entire time and even now when i get to speak you know on tv or certain stages i am not there

to assimilate to them i am not there to just reproduce their way of thinking and being. I'm there so that certain barriers can be removed from people hearing my message. I'm there so that I can make sure I'm paving away for other black women coming after me. I am there to affect change within that system. And sometimes it's in really subtle ways. But for example, for a black woman to get her PhD at Cambridge and to say, I will not be quoting Durkheim or Weber, but I instead will be quoting Bell Hooks and Audrey Lord. And this will now be in your database of dissertations. That is actually something that then shifts the Department of Sociology at Cambridge. It shifts what students they're now looking for and why. Like now if you go to

King's College at Cambridge, there's a banner of my face there as one of their most celebrated alumni. And I'm not saying that to be like, oh, look at what Anna's done. It's because I never forgot what I was there to do. I never thought, oh, actually, Anna, now that you're here, maybe just do what they do, right? So that strategy is only effective if you remember why you're there. and if you don't try to then separate yourself out or think that you are somehow better than the people who say, F it all, burn it all down, right? And it is about how do we survive while we're fighting this system? Because while it is entirely made up, it is the thing that decides whether or not we're eating or our children are eating. And so simultaneously, we can always start to create this. new systems. And that's the last thing I want to say and what I want us to kind of take with us. We don't have to wait for these things to shift on a national level. And this is where, again, we can learn from the traditions of black women, right? When all of these attacks are in place,

black women find strategies to push back and to still live with joy, to still live with the freedom they create for themselves, coming together, supporting each other, caring for each other, caring for each other's children pooling resources together, having community solutions, the black church being a space where black people could be educated and could speak freely. We can always create those spaces. And so even if you're somebody who's saying, I'm burning it all down and I'm doing that work, or you're somebody who's saying, I am learning the way of this system so that I can completely take it apart and I can leave my stamp on this dismantling. At the same time, you can always say, and I'm not reproducing this in how I choose to live and how I choose to see myself

or my neighbors or my community or how I'm going to vote. So all of those things are strategies that have to happen at the exact same time, actually, and that's what we've seen historically. That's how we've achieved anything. My last question for you. There's a woman listening right now who, of course, knows that the system she's been trying to succeed and was never designed for her. While also, of course, she's trying to figure out how do you, does she do the best she can in that system? So what would you tell her about the power she already has that maybe nobody has told her before?

Beautiful question. Because we are also powerful. That is the conclusion of the book is don't let them erase your power. What they want most is for you to forget that you are full of power, no matter how hard they try to deny that in you. And it's a question that resonates deeply with me, too. How much can we even shift? And while we're trying to just survive and do our best for our children and thrive. I want to be able to live a good life. And I deserve that. You know, I really believe that what Alberta and Burtas and Louise were fighting for was not necessarily for all of us to have to keep struggling, but so that we could live freely and our children have access to the same opportunities as everybody else. And so it's a constant for me

daily reflection of how I, while opening doors for my children, make sure that it's not just only for me. That is the biggest thing. So I think about it a lot, actually, particularly around. It's going to seem a little random, but I'll come back to it. around birth in the United States. So I was very, you know, because I studied what I've studied, I was so aware of the history of trying to control birth in the United States and the attacks against midwifery and doulas and how actually my best chance of having a beautiful experience was to have a midwife of color. And I knew this because of the research around it. And so, but I could afford having a midwife.

And so it's not that I just go then and have midwife and then I have a great experience. It's actually okay. So now my responsibility and role is to open the access to this to everybody. So it's not saying that if you care about making this world a better place, you can't enjoy anything until that happens. It's saying this is testament to why everybody deserves these opportunities, to why everybody deserves these things that are privileges when they shouldn't be. Surviving childbirth shouldn't be a privilege.

It should be something that everybody has access and a right to. So I would just say in those moments to not feel like you've done something wrong by making sure you have access to the opportunities that you have access to. But to remember so long as you're doing what you need to do to make this country something that allows all people to have the same things you do, then that's where the balance lies. And I think it's something that we all deserve. And we don't have to feel guilty about that

so long as we're remembering to not just ascend the ladder for ourselves, but instead to be really taking it apart with every resource we have access to. Anna, this was so lovely. I feel like my favorite episodes are when I feel like I'm back in college. And I mean that in like the best possible way where I'm like taking notes and I'm asking questions and I'm learning so much. I would love to have you back for the next book you write. But tell us about this one and where people can find it. Thank you. Erase what American patriarchy has hidden from us. It just came out in paperback this week. So you can find it wherever books are sold. I of course want to always support the independent bookstores. So Bookshop is a good place to go. But I am so grateful. Thank you so much, Tori. These were such good questions. Like such an amazing and you. Thank you. Oh, good. Literally, we have a whole other interview that we could have done prepped,

and I, my poor team, I threw them all out the window, but those are the best questions. I'll be back. Amazing. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for your work. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you for listening to Financial Feminist, produced by her first 100K. If you love this show and want to keep supporting feminist media, please subscribe or follow us on your preferred podcasting platform or on YouTube. Your support helps us continue to bring this content to you for free. If you're looking for resources, tools and education, including all of the resources mentioned in this episode, head to herfirst00k.com slash sspod.